She delicately unclipped first one faux pearl earring, then the other. They rested in her palms like small smooth pieces of candy. She rolled them together, a careful nightly ritual, before laying them to rest on the shiny wooden surface of her nightstand.
Marilyn let the waves of pleasure roll through her lithe body as she slowly moved through the motions of readying for bed. The weed she'd scored tonight was primo, just excellent, man, and besides this fact her mind could manage little else. As a cocktail waitress she'd had many opportunities to buy good green but the expertly-rolled joints the busboy had slipped her this evening simply outshined all the other strains she'd tried. She was flying, man, flying high.
She began to hum under her breath a song she'd heard on the radio on the way to work that afternoon, a seductive tune by Lesley Gore that just recently seemed to be everywhere at once. Marilyn didn't have all the words but the melody was intoxicating, the sound of her voice a solid pleasant hum in her skull as she set to work fishing for bobby pins in the tangle of her thick blonde hair.
Her eyes flitted towards her open window and she stopped, momentarily considering what this meant. The weed had fogged up her head (wonderfully) and it took several seconds before Marilyn giggled. She had nearly undressed right in view of her neighbor's living room; how embarrassing! How silly of her to forget!
Marilyn's neighbor was a young doctor – a handsome doctor – a fact her mother didn't seem to want her to overlook. The old woman desperately hoped her daughter would settle down and get married and "stop rubbing against male drunkards for money like a common prostitute", but Marilyn breezily ignored her protests. Those drunkards put bills in her purse; those bills bought her beautiful things and sweet stinky pot, it was all she needed in the prime of her life. She knew the babies could (and probably would) come later, but her late twenties she planned to live to the fullest.
Lost in these thorny thoughts about her mother's constant disappointment in her, Marilyn scarcely noticed the first slow movement behind her neighbor's glass windowpane. She brought herself back to the present by rubbing the palms of her hands along the back of her neck, then down her collarbone, and finally across the firm tops of her breasts. Her own touch set her senses ablaze and once again she marveled at the quality of the green that slow dopey busboy had pressed into her eager fingers.
And, quite suddenly, there he was.
Not the busboy – her neighbor. In her current state she couldn't recall his name but there he stood, tall and slender, framed like a pretty picture in the center of his living room window. He was staring straight at her through the lenses of thick black-rimmed glasses.
Marilyn, unsure of what to do, caught directly in his gaze like a deer in the headlights, simply stared at him for a moment. His crisp white shirt was rolled at the elbows, the buttons at his neck unfastened and the collar hanging loose. He held a glass tumbler of brown liquid (scotch?) so naturally in the palm of one hand it seemed permanently fixed there. The doctor almost seemed not to move for quite a long time before he lifted a lit cigarette to his perfect lips and inhaled deeply.
Her instincts told her to be a lady – tip her head towards him, demure, then draw the curtains closed – but she couldn't force her body into action. Instead Marilyn found herself raking his body over with her eyes, her gaze all over him like the small sticky hands of children. The pot had left her unbelievably aroused but she had assumed she'd take care of herself like any night she didn't give in to the advances of her sloppy male patrons at the bar. This man, he was different, she could tell. It was so apparent by his stance, his catlike grace, the somehow alluring way he kept stirring the ice cubes in his drink with a quick movement of his long-fingered hand.
Maybe it was the drug. Maybe it was the unwanted intrusion of her mother's expectations on her previously peaceful thoughts. Maybe it was how every time he pursed his lips to take a drag on his cigarette she could picture them on her most private of places. Whatever it was, Marilyn smiled, her hand still resting coquettishly on the swell of her breasts, and let her fingers trace a delicate path along her curves.
The young handsome doctor her mother so hoped would turn Marilyn into an honest women simply stared, expression unchanging, as she found the back of her dress and the tiny zipper at its crest. She grasped it and pulled, slowly. A smile split her lips and she wasn't sure if it looked seductive or insane but it was too late to turn back now.
He took a sip of his drink. She let go of the zipper then felt the silky flutter of her favorite dress as it slid down around her waist and hit the floor with hardly any sound at all.
The doctor took a final sip of his drink and set it down, empty, on a coffee table behind him. He faced her again. He took another drag of his cigarette. He waited.
Marilyn's heart was pounding, her body thrumming. She was undressing in her bedroom window for a stranger. A handsome stranger, yes, oh god was he handsome, but still, the audacity of it. The thrill and terror of being so naughty. What Mother would think!
She felt her head loll back as she brought her hands slowly down, circling her bra-bound breasts, trailing along her flat stomach. It felt wonderful but she wanted his hands, those long-fingered hands that no doubt knew just how to move in a woman's hot secret place.
Marilyn heard herself moan softly as she unhooked her bra, urged on by the sensations of the pot and her own sinful thoughts. It fell away from her like nothing, exposing her breasts to the cool October air. Her nipples hardened pleasurably and a shiver rolled through her very core. She opened her eyes to see him, to see what the doctor thought of the show, and felt a smack of shock.
He was gone.
The light in his living room was still on; she could even see the glass tumbler sweating condensation on his coffee table. But the young doctor was nowhere to be seen.
Her face burned immediately, furiously. Of course he hadn't been interested in her lewd display. Marilyn suddenly felt as cheap and foolish as her mother always tried to make her seem.
Moments passed. She waited, breath caught in her throat, staring dumbly into the empty living room across the way. Perhaps he had only stepped away. Perhaps he was coming back.
Marilyn could hear crickets singing sweetly somewhere in the backyard. Cars passed by her house, yellow headlamps throwing shadows across the siding of her neighbor's solid little bungalow. She stared at the melting ice in his glass until she could bear the embarrassment no longer.
She turned from her own window, desperately seeking something to cover her shame with, and there he was.
The doctor was in the doorway of her bedroom, his tall frame even more powerful close-up. He had abandoned his cigarette at some point and now stared hungrily at her, his long-fingered hands flexing and unflexing with no real purpose.
Before Marilyn could say a word he advanced on her, his hard lithe body moving her own back against the bed. She could not have struggled if she wanted to (and she did not want to).
He pressed his mouth forcefully against hers, his deft tongue parting her lips to explore inside. The doctor tasted faintly of smoke and whiskey, a combination that somehow caused the fire between her legs to burn even brighter. Marilyn spread her thighs for him as he bore persistently down on her.
She could feel his erection inside his neatly pressed black pants, insistent, almost desperate. Before she could set to work on the button of his fly the young doctor brought his mouth down to her breast, took hold of one pebbly nipple, and began rolling it back and forth between his lips.
Marilyn melted into his touch like ice cream in July, scarcely aware of the reality of the situation. This man was a stranger who had let himself into her house. There was a murderer of women on the loose - but no, that man had been caught, that bad man was Kit Walker and he was in Briarcliff and this man was doing things to her with his mouth that slowly shut out the protestations in her addled brain.
She raked her fingers through his thick black hair, reveling in the way it broke free from the confines of its carefully-sculpted style. The doctor made a sound of pleasure against her skin and moved his hips on hers.
He snaked one long-fingered hand slowly up her chest and closed it gently around her neck - not too hard, no, just enough to apply pressure and make Marilyn's head spin. Using it as leverage he drew back from her, positioning his tall frame above her small one on the bed, staring down at her through the glinting lenses of his black-rimmed glasses.
It was in this moment Marilyn felt something may be wrong. He gazed down at her, chest heaving, that one strong hand still wrapped around her neck. Something unnamable fluttered through her on dark wings, leaving a mild sense of panic in its wake. The doctor wet his lips. Marilyn took in a breath.
Then he moved forward and recaptured her mouth with his. She found herself intoxicated once again, pulling desperately at the buttons of his clean pressed shirt, aching to feel his skin against hers now, now, right now.
Marilyn could feel him squeezing her neck gently as though testing the muscles there to see what she could take. It felt good, but it also made her nervous, so she moved for the buckle on his pants to divert his attention.
The doctor watched intently as she released his straining erection from its prison. She wrapped her fingers around his pulsing length and guided him towards her hips, pulling aside her black silk panties with her free hand. He bucked against her touch, closed his eyes, and sucked air between his teeth in a loud hiss. Marilyn was watching her cool, collected neighbor slowly devolve into a ravenous beast and she was fascinated by it.
He slammed his hips against hers, entering her, filling her to the hilt. The suddenness of this caused Marilyn to gasp aloud and sink her nails into the smooth firm skin of his shoulders. Her head was swimming in a fog of drugs and lust. She was dimly aware of the soft mewling sounds escaping her as the doctor moved liquidly atop her, his thumb pressed firm on the base of her throat.
She was lost inside her own body, a prisoner to the sensations and the stranger in her bed.
Marilyn felt her release approaching and was ready to surrender when she saw him reach into the sagging pocket of his half-removed pants. Without missing a beat, the doctor continued to ride her towards his own orgasm even as he produced a small syringe full of clear liquid.
Lightheaded from his grip around her throat and consumed by the fire in her loins, Marilyn tumbled over the edge of ecstasy, utterly unable to stop him from injecting the long thin needle into a vein in her neck. As he pressed the plunger she heard him moan, felt his hips pump harder and a slow warmth spread between her legs.
She saw herself reflected in the lenses of his black-rimmed glasses and slowly drifted into darkness, still coming, still wrapped around him, still not entirely sure what had just taken place.
The doctor waited until she floated into full unconsciousness before pulling himself from her, weak-legged and spent, to sit at the edge of the bed. He took a moment to compose himself, then slid the empty syringe back into his pocket and set to work.