Chapter Two:
"What fantasies?" Jill's head spun around as if it were on ball-bearings.
"Rape fantasies." Sherry replied simply. "In class we learn that all women have them."
Claire tried to hide a snicker but ended up snorting anyway. "Sherry, when did colleges start using Cosmopolitan and Glamour for course studies?"
Sherry rolled her eyes with a coy smile. "Come on, I'm being serious. I think it's incredibly interesting. That something so terrifying-something that we're suppose to fear, is actually fantasized about."
Rebecca shook her head. "Really, Sherry, what kind of self-respecting woman would even think about such a thing?" she gave a shudder. "It's disgusting."
Sherry gave an awkward shrug and squeezed her knees with her palms. "O...kay. I guess I've found the three women who don't have them." She gave another uncomfortable glance around before holding up her hands. "Okay, alright. Maybe rape is too strong a word for today... but it's said that all women have a fantasy about being dominated by..." Sherry trailed off again and looked frustrated at the lack of understanding that was happening to women that she usually felt she could tell anything to. "Oh come on!" she burst out. "What's with the holier-than-thou attitude? Trust me, it isn't a big deal if you think about it once in awhile."
Sherry looked from Claire, Rebecca, and Jill in sequence.
"Claire?" she asked.
Claire pulled her legs up underneath her and leaned her elbow onto the couch. "Gee, Sherry, I don't know. Maybe later." she laughed softly and shook her head, unable to take the surreal-ness of it all. She glanced to Rebecca and Jill before quickly adding, "But for the record, no woman ever wants to be raped."
Sherry sighed and clicked her tongue before turning to Claire's left. "Rebecca?" she prompted.
Rebecca didn't look very severe, she might have even been amused by Sherry's openess but she pursed her lips together. "I don't really think this is an appropriate topic to be talking about right now."
Claire watched as Sherry exhaled heavily, looking wounded. "None of you are seeing the research value of it all!" she turned to Jill. "What about you, Jill. You're the oldest. Surely with all your experience , you're open-minded enough to have an intelligent conversation about this..."
Jill looked at Sherry skeptically. "Oh, so intelligent conversation is what you're after here?"
Sherry nodded. "Uh, sure. We can call it that. If you really wanted to I could add you in for my paper on the issue."
Jill gave a laugh, "Don't you dare! What I'm about to tell you three-" she pointed her finger at all three of them. "Is completely confidential."
Both Claire and Rebecca's heads turned to look at her with equal parts disbelief and amusement.
"No one outside this room is privy to it." Jill finished.
Sherry laughed and clapped her hands together. "I always knew you were the most fun, Jill." She pulled her legs underneath her and hugged a pillow to her chest.
Claire couldn't hold back her laughter. "I can't believe you're doing this."
"Claire, you may want to go outside for this." Jill told her.
"Why?"
"No reason. It's just the subject that we're about to discuss might have some material that may be a little hard for you to take."
Claire scoffed as she got up to go the fridge. "Oh, right. Like I'm not mature enough to handle it." she pulled out a bottle of water and looked back at Jill. In an almost mocking tone she said, "What is it, your fantasy is about Chris or something?"
Silence from Jill. Claire's eyes widened.
"Oh my God. It is, isn't it?" Claire had to hold back the desire to gag. "Well, like that's unexpected."
She had never been to Hawaii before. The beautiful white sands, the gorgeous sunsets and the awesome surf was more than Jill had ever dreamed of. Her first intention was to just spend the entire time on the beach, tanning her skin to perfection...but Chris Redfield had other plans.
"So, once we get to the top of this mountain, we're going to what?" Jill asked him as her hand grabbed above her head to pull her body up the rocky, almost completely vertical terrain.
"Paraglide." Chris replied cockily, a good five feet above her in his ascent. "Have you ever been?"
Jill gritted her teeth and strained to pull herself up. "No." she wanted to say something more scathing, but at the moment she was a couple of hundred feet in the air, hanging on to nothing but crumbling rock with a cable to protect her from a fall. She figured she need all her concentration and could save the witticisms for later.
Another fifteen minutes past of grunting and climbing when Chris looked down at her. "We're not that much farther from the top, Jill." he informed her.
Jill's response was something between a gasp for breath and a "great" but she couldn't repeat it when Chris asked her what she had said.
"I have to hand it to you, Valentine. You're doing pretty good for a first-timer."
"Uh-huh." Jill replied. "Chris, do you think we can hold off the conversation until we get to the top and unload the gear?"
"Oh, sure." Chris said.
It took some doing but finally, after a few more snagged toes and scraped hands, Jill and Chris had made it to the top.
"Where's my water?" Jill grumbled as she searched through her bag.
"Jill, come on, takea look at this view." Chris urged her.
"In a second." she told him.
"Come on, just look at it and tell me that this climb was better than just lying on your back all day and raising your risk for skin cancer."
Jill gave a laugh. "Chris, you have dragged me into a hell of a lot of things before this, but this one tops them all. I never thought I would spend my Hawaiian vacation straining my muscles and endangering my life just to climb and float off a stupid rock that-oh..." Through out her tirade, Jill had forced her buckling thighs up from her seat on the ground, bustled over to Chris-her eyes full of fire and indignation, which immediately died once she saw what he was talking about.
The view was extraordinary. They were so high up they could see halfway across the island. The verdant, rolling hills and sugarcane fields stretched out below them a hundred feet down. From a place where she could see the waves of the ocean crashing into the jagged rock formations Jill imagined that there was a thunderous sound in the area...but up here, up here one could hear nothing. There was only the silence. Only the silence that pressed against one's body like the high pressure and altitude pressed into one's ears.
"Oh God...this is gorgeous."
Chris grinned. "And?"
"And... totally worth the aching bones and muscles I'll have in the morning." Jill said, still looking at the view in awe.
"I told you." Chris replied smugly.
"How do you know about this, Redfield?" Jill asked him. "You don't strike me as the type of guy that goes mountain climbing all the time."
"A friend of mine that was in the Air Force now owns a paragliding tour. He told me about it." Chris replied.
"A tour?" Jill asked, puzzled. "Well, why aren't we going with them?"
Chris shrugged. "I don't know... I just wanted to be alone with you I guess."
Jill snorted and looked at him. "We're alone plenty of times."
"No, not like this." Chris told her. "This is different."
The way he said that, the intensity in his voice and in his eyes suddenly caused Jill's legs to give out and she crumpled to the ground.
"Jill! Are you okay?" Chris asked her.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. I guess the altitude's getting to me." Jill told him. "I'm a little light-headed."
Chris nodded, his hand rubbing her back. "I can understand how the altitude and pressure can cause people to do things..."
That damn tone that he had before was back; Jill looked at him, her brow in a creased frown.
Chris cleared his throat. "You know...things they wouldn't normally do."
"Oh really? Like what?" Jill asked him.
So quickly she almost didn't realize it was happening, Chris's lips were on her own. A surprised groan escaped from Jill's throat and when her mouth opened, Chris's tongue pressed into her. His hands were pressing into her shoulders but she managed to push him away.
"Chris! What are you doing?"
"Oh, Jill..." he pushed her down, immune to the protests and shoves that she dished out and was caressing her all over.
The heat from the sun made her head spin, or maybe it was only Chris-Jill didn't know what was happening but before she was aware of it, Chris had worked her tight-fitting top off and had insinuated his hands into her tights.
"God, Chris," Jill gasped, not sure whether she had started a prayer or a protest. "This isn't right."
"But it feels good, doesn't it?" Chris asked her, pulling her tights down around her ankles and pressing his sex against hers. With a spasm, he repeated, more forcefully, "Doesn't it?"
"Yes." Jill spat out, angry at how he had the power to do this to her. How she was somehow unable to think clearly, angry at how she didn't want him to stop.
And then he was inside her, moving in a strange rythym that was both painful and gentle to her.
"Oh, God, stop! Stop! Stop!"
Ironically, that last protestation wasn't part of the fantasy, but Claire Redfield's desperate scream as she covered her ears with her hands.
"Oh God, I can't take this anymore!" she whined. "I'm going to be sick."
Rebecca looked thoughtful. "He does look pretty hot in tight-fitting shorts."
"I wish I was an alcoholic." Claire said. "Then I would have been able to drinkaway what you just said."
Sherry nodded, "You know, I never thought about it before, but he does."
"And that, too." Claire said, blinking rapidly.
Jill laughed, "Sorry Claire, I did warn you."
"Yeah, yeah." Claire said, shivering slightly. She took a long gulp of her water.
Sherry straightened up. "So, who's going next?"
A light mist erupted from Claire's mouth as the water she drank had trouble deciding whether to continue down the wrong tube or go up her nose.
"Anyone as long as they don't fantasize about Chris again." Claire told Sherry.
Sherry nodded to Rebecca. "Okay, while Claire calms herself down...Rebecca, you're next."