Afterward, he kisses me again. This kiss is gentle, grateful. He's not trying to get anything from me anymore, just trying to thank me.
Once Julian finished with what he had wanted to do to me, he asked me to touch him, and I did.
It all felt so good. I'm still high from everything, and I don't know if I will ever come back down.
Maybe now Julian will love me just like he loves Cathy.
Guilt stabs me in the gut. Cathy.
Abruptly, I rise from the couch, pulling up my underwear and straightening my purple dress with shaking hands.
"We shouldn't have done that," I bite out at him. "You're married to my sister."
He laughs bitterly. "No need to worry about hurting your dear sister's feelings. She doesn't love me. She won't care. And what just happened here… that wasn't anything, darling. It's nothing to work yourself up over."
"That was nothing?" I stare at him incredulously through my tears, and then I choke out, "That didn't mean anything to you?"
His face remains blank.
Revulsion swirls in the pit of my stomach. What did I do?
I storm away to the guest room I have been staying in, locking the door behind me. I don't want him coming in to try and talk to me.
"Carrie!" he calls out. I hear him run down the hall until he's right outside my room. "Carrie, of course it meant something, it was with you! You are so special, and I just wanted to show you how special you are to me. I don't see what's so wrong about that."
Special. To hear someone who isn't Cathy or Chris or Paul tell me I am special means more to me than I want it to. I shouldn't be letting Cathy's husband work his way so deeply into my heart.
"I don't want to talk now!"
He is silent for a moment before mumbling, "I'm sorry I upset you." And then he leaves.
After he's gone, I cry. I don't wail on and on like I used to as a child. I haven't had enough in me to cry quite like that in years. Instead, my tears fall quietly to the pillow on my bed, small whimpers escaping from me.
I know that what we did was not technically intercourse, but it still makes me feel unclean. During it all, I felt beautiful and almost whole for once, but now…
I am evil. I know I am. I should have known better not to go through with something like that. I should have known it had to be sinful.
And to think that I wanted, that I still want, Julian to love me like he loves his wife, my sister… perhaps that is what makes me evil most of all.