Nevertheless, he continued. I started to cry but at this point offered not even the suggestion of resistance, because I felt some pleasure building, too. It was like kissing someone wonderful in the middle of a raging storm. I lifted my arms and grasped his shoulders, digging my fingers deeply into him. If I was hurting him with my fingernails, he didn’t care. I remember thinking pleasure could overcome pain for us both.

The room was spinning again. I think I was clinging to him out of fear I would faint, but the harder I grasped him, the more encouraged he was. He said so many things, but I couldn’t hear him. There was thunder in my ears, his groans and grunts and cries of delight almost drowning it out.

When he throbbed inside me, matching my own throbbing, he cried out, “Yes, yes!” dropping his face against my breasts. A long moment passed, and then, to my surprise, he laughed. He turned over on his back. I didn’t move. There was so much warmth between my legs.

“Well, there goes a good rug,” he said. “But you’re definitely worth it.”

I had yet to speak. My whole body felt as though it was still vibrating. I had just done the most intimate thing a woman could do with a man, but it hadn’t been how I had imagined it would be. It was too quick and too rough. Where was the fantasy I had designed for myself in so many daydreams? Where were those magic chimes? Why didn’t I feel lifted and free, wanting more and more?

I heard the snap of a match and turned to see him light up a cigar. He crossed his legs. He was still wearing nothing below his waist. The strong odor of the cigar made my stomach churn. I groaned. Smoke streamed out of his mouth.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Does this bother you?”

“Yes!” I cried, swallowing back my urge to throw up. Didn’t he remember what I had said in the Wexler garden?

“It’s a pretty expensive one,” he declared, turning it in his fingers. “But . . . for someone so pretty, I’d burn and waste a dozen.”

He snuffed it out on the wooden floor, as if his massive home was simply a big ashtray.

I realized I was still naked and reached for my underthings.

“Oh, don’t do that,” he said, seizing my wrist. “The night is young.”

“I should be thinking of going back to my great-aunt’s home.”

“You said they wouldn’t know if you were there or not, and I saw what that house is like. Why rush back to that when you have all this to enjoy here?”

I reached down to feel the warmth between my legs and then looked at my fingers.

Blood!

“Oh my God,” I said. I saw there was some on his rug.