June 1997
"Rat."
In the foyer, Greg balanced on one leg as he reached for the laces of his sneaker. "Wow," he said. "Didn't expect name-calling this early in the evening. I haven't even got both of my shoes off."
"No, I saw a rat." From the corner of the couch, Stacy pointed with a stiff arm towards the kitchen. Her knees were pulled to her chest. "Under the sink."
Greg yanked his sneaker from his foot and let it join its fellow on the floor. A little grin pulled at his lips as he sat beside her. "It's just a rat. Besides, I'm sure your banshee-shriek sent it scurrying into the next county."
"I didn't shriek. And it's not just a rat. You might as well say 'it's just the plague'."
"Don't be dramatic." He spoke with infuriating nonchalance. His hands dove between the cushions in search of the television remote. "The plague's curable. Ah-ha!" He wagged the remote in triumph.
"Greg!" she hissed. Her hand shot out, striking like an angry cobra, and snatched the remote. "Just get rid of it."
"You know where the traps are."
She spoke in a venomous monotone. "Greg, I'm not kidding."
"You could always turn the poor fuzz-ball into stone. You have this great Gorgon look going on."
"Too bad it doesn't seem to work on you."
He sneered and lunged for the remote. Stacy jerked it out of his reach.
"Gimme," he said, flexing his hand.
"Not until you set a trap." Her mouth formed a tight line across her face. She raised one eyebrow, daring him to refuse. She wasn't above smashing the remote to pieces.
His eyes flickered from the remote to her face. Several seconds passed before he hauled himself off the couch and sighed. "You," he said, pointing at her, "are a mystery. You could kill spiders, snakes, God knows what else. Men, probably. But you can't handle one puny, little rat."
He tore open the hallway closet and rummaged through the top shelf, emerging with several traps, before he disappeared into the kitchen. Stacy heard drawers opening, closing. Then, the rattle of silverware, a lid twisting off a plastic jar.
His voice cut through the noise. "You're making me waste good peanut butter for this, you know!"
A grin appeared on her face before she could stop it. When she heard the slap of the trap's wooden base and the sound of the shutting cabinet door, she tossed the remote onto the middle cushion and fled from the room on her tiptoes.
As she reached their bedroom, Greg's voice called out, "Hey! Where'd you go?"
"Bedroom," she shouted. "I don't want to hear crunching bones or snapping necks, thank you very much."
Before she could close the bedroom door, his hand was bracing it open. "I thought you'd derive a twisted sense of pleasure from its death. I was going to make popcorn."
"Well, you can have all of it to yourself. I'd rather not watch its death like a scene out of some B-grade horror movie," she replied.
"But those are best kind," he whined.
Stacy ignored him, turned, and leaped onto the bed. She quickly pulled her feet off the floor before scuttling to the center of the mattress.
A smirk played at the corners of his mouth as he followed her. "I think our house guest is a little more interested in my food than your toes." He sat near her feet at the bottom of the mattress and trailed a finger along her instep. "Me, on the other hand—"
"Don't do that." She jerked her foot away from his hand. "It feels like—" She hesitated. Anxiety tunneled through her. It felt like rat feet. Tiny, creeping rat feet. "It feels like crawling."
Greg lowered his chin, but kept his eyes focused on her face. "Okay," he said. One hand glided down her arm and settled on her hip. "Something else, then."
As he leaned towards her, Stacy pressed both of her hands to his chest. "What are you doing?"
"Too subtle for you? Fine." He urged her down to the mattress, one knee parting her thighs, and fumbled with the clasp of her pants before pulling them down and off her legs. "Still too subtle?"
Stacy glared at him. "Rats aren't exactly aphrodisiacs, Greg.. Now give me back my pants," she huffed, extending her arm. "Come on. I'm not in the mood for this."
Greg sported a mischievous grin as he climbed over her. "I don't believe you." He laid one forearm across her chest to stop her from wriggling towards the headboard. His other arm reached between their bodies and his hand slipped past the elastic of her panties. When his finger dipped into her and his hum sounded in her ear, Stacy's breaths stalled in her lungs. His finger moved easily within her, and he whispered low in his throat, "You say you're not in the mood, but your body says that you are."
"Greg." Somehow, the acerbic tone she'd intended never made it to her mouth, and she sighed his name in a breathy whimper.
"And so does that." His mouth slipped over hers and his tongue hurried past her lips for a wet, rushed kiss. He tasted like peanut butter. Peanut butter on the trap. Bait for the rat under the sink.
She twisted her head to whisper, "This isn't going to work."
"It'll work." His mouth tried to find hers again.
"I keep thinking about—"
"Well, don't." He opened the front of her shirt, then wedged his hands beneath her to unhook her bra.
"But the rat—"
"Isn't interested in you." Her shirt joined her pants at the foot of the bed. Nylon straps slid down her arms and her bra lifted away from her breasts. Greg kissed patterns where the fabric had been and spoke against her skin. "Poor creature has no idea what it's missing."
Stacy struggled to preserve her feeble threads of resistance. "But—but if—" Her own shudder cut her off as his kisses dropped below her navel. "—if it sneaks in—"
"You'll be too preoccupied to notice."
Soon the last frayed thread broke away as Greg tossed her panties over his shoulder and pressed open-mouthed kisses at her entrance. Stacy felt the involuntary rise of her hips, the hiccup of her breath with each drag of his tongue, and her anxiety gave way to a new brand of tension. She twisted the sheets with her hands. Her head rolled on the pillow. When her legs began to quiver, he rose up to strip to his boxer briefs and push them to his knees. In his eyes, she caught flickers of unspoken, unguarded desire for her and she offered an affectionate grin as she reached for him. Her fingers wrapped around his shaft and she gently pulled him down to lie on top of her. His hands slid beneath her shoulders as his hips canted forward, his erection rubbing against her. She held him fast to her, allowing herself to take comfort in the full press of his weight, in his lines and contours.
During their first few weeks, she had mapped the terrain of his body—textures of skin, planes and curves of muscle, freckle patterns, scars. Each touch, each exploration, had yielded new discoveries until she knew his body better than her own, and she guarded that intimate knowledge of him more fiercely than her own secrets. Closing her eyes, she traced winding lines onto his shoulder blades. He shivered, tucking his face into her neck, and his breath flowed hot and even across her skin. When he moved above her to brace himself on his arms, a loud squeak sounded from below them, and anxiety made a strong comeback. Stacy nearly threw him off her.
"Where is it?" Her eyes scanned as much of the floor as she could see.
Greg stared at her, stunned. "It?"
"The rat!" She worked hard to keep from stammering. "Under the bed? Maybe it's in the closet." She tried to close her legs and draw them to her chest, but Greg held them open with his knees.
"Or maybe the rat's in your imagination."
"I heard—"
"You heard the bedsprings." He bounced on the bed and the squeak sounded again.
"No," she said. She felt her ears growing hot with embarrassment. "No, it was a rat. I heard it."
"I could understand being scared of rats, but bedsprings? Really?"
"Stop it." She closed her eyes, desperate to suffocate the images flashing in her head—ugly rat tails, clawed feet, beady black eyes, matted fur.
"That's just pathetic."
"I'm serious."
"Are you afraid of Slinkys, too?"
"God damn it, Greg," she growled. "Shut the hell up."
Stacy raked her nails over his back, hoping to shock him into silence. He drew a sharp breath as he arched, eyes shut tightly. Her legs closed around his waist, and she pressed her heels into the back of his thighs to force him closer. His hands started to roam over her, but as her teeth tugged at his earlobe, he answered with a firm grip on her shoulder, a squeeze of her breast. When she clutched his ass, Greg's gasp-groan exploded near her ear, and she suddenly wanted to fuck him so hard that she lost herself in a thick, fuzzy cloud of incoherency. No thoughts, no words, no damned rats.
With more force than she intended, she heaved him off of her in an effort to get him on his back. His eyes widened with surprise as his legs tangled in his boxer briefs, and he toppled off the bed, limbs flailing. He landed on the floor with a heavy grunt. Bewilderment wrinkled his brow, and she fought a giggle as she reached down and gave a hard yank on his arm.
"Jesus. Don't rip my arm off. I happen to like my limbs," he grumbled and kicked out of his underwear as she dragged him onto the bed and pushed him onto his back.
"Don't be a baby." She didn't give him a chance to retort and kissed him with hurried, savage energy. Her fingers curled around his head to hold him still as one leg swung over his body to straddle him. She gathered handfuls of hair and pulled roughly, pleased when his mouth opened to her and his moan tumbled down her throat. Her tongue pushed into his mouth as unmercifully as she ground against him, and he writhed under her, breaths leaving him in hot gusts through his nose. She felt him strain against her hands and broke away, rising up. He was fighting for breath as if she had tried to drown him.
"Fuck," he panted. "Slow down for a second."
She knew that she should. Greg was almost hyperventilating. A deep red flush had already started to creep into his face. She ran the back of her hand along his forehead, gathering sweat and giving them both a moment to breathe.
Except for the rasp of his breathing, the room fell silent. Stacy laid a hand on his chest and felt its rapid rise and fall. He tilted his head back and exposed the column of his throat, conjuring a snapshot memory that had nothing to do with rats, or traps, or Skippy peanut butter. Only the two of them, Greg pinned beneath her on his couch, surrounded by the scents of leather and abandoned coffee, her mouth closing over a stray fleck of blue paint—the first mark she had ever left on him—just to the left of his Adam's apple, his groan filling her ears for the first time. She wanted to kiss that spot, remember the smooth feel of dried paint on damp skin, but she reached down instead, laying her finger where her lips had first touched his body. She heard his breath stutter and spotted the hint of a grin on his face.
"Come 'ere," he breathed, lightly tugging on her hand to draw her against him.
"You'll overheat," she said, fighting against his pull.
He huffed. "For God's sake, I'm not a car engine."
She eyed him for a moment. The red, blotchy flush started to fade to a smooth shade of coral.
"Come on," he said. "You know I don't beg."
She must have hesitated a second too long, because his hand reached up to the nape of her neck and pulled her down, loosening when her tongue dipped into the salty hollow of his collarbone. A long, deep hum traveled through his body; it tickled her lips, and she smiled, rising up to find him watching her, his own smile gracing his mouth. As she trailed her index finger down the center of his body, his smile started to fade. It vanished entirely when she curled her fingers around his erection, holding him upright as she lowered herself onto him.
She never bothered with a slow build; she only paused to recover from the initial crash of their hips. Setting a frenzied, almost sloppy pace, she rocked hard, flattened her palms on his chest, and pressed him into the mattress with each downward motion.
Greg grunted quietly to her unsteady rhythm, words slipping out him between breaths. "Yeah. Stacy--oh, God, yeah. That's it. Come on, Stace." His hands gripped her thighs, fingertips digging into muscle, and he met her with heady, powerful strokes.
Her mouth fell open as she watched his chin tilt towards the ceiling and the muscles in his body tense beneath the skin. She imagined dragging her tongue across each muscle group—he had taught her most of them—but she didn't want to compromise the rhythm, not when delicious tingle-burns were already licking up the insides of her thighs. She felt heat spread from her cheeks to her chest. Sweat started to appear along her forehead, her temples. Each meeting of their bodies jolted her, delivering bolts of warm pleasure. Greg pushed himself into her deeply, and she welcomed the pressure of him. The sensation fought with the dull ache beginning in her legs, and she gasped toward the ceiling. "Oh, God. Greg. Yes. There, Greg. There."
The steady burn between her legs escalated into raging flames when she felt Greg's touch on her clit, his thumb rubbing tiny circles. Stacy closed her eyes, squeezed them tightly, as her head fell forward and her orgasm crashed over her, shots of spring-loaded pleasure surging through her. Her legs trembled, but her knees were still drawn tightly against Greg's body. She felt the rigid jerk of his hips as Greg arched beneath her with his orgasm. She heard his voice--her name, a loud, low groan--over her own breaths before she bent over him to bury her face into the side of his neck. His pulse beat hard and fast against the tip of her nose, and she shifted her face to kiss it.
When their breaths and heartbeats slowed to normal, Stacy felt his arm wrap around her, and he held her against him as he rolled with her. With one hand burrowed into her hair, he pulled out of her body, his penis dragging their combined wetness across the inside of her thigh. It wasn't until her eyelids fluttered closed that he dropped a kiss on her shoulder, then rolled away from her. The bed shifted, and his weight was gone. But his residual heat still warmed the sheets beside her and it lulled her to sleep before Greg ever left the bedroom.
Hours later, she awoke to a dark room. She shuffled out of bed, threw her terry cloth robe around herself, and peeked into the hall. In the living room, Greg lounged on the couch, his arm resting along the top of the cushions, his hand holding a bottle of beer. The room was dim; only the flickering glow of the television lit his face.
As she swayed sleepily towards him, her movements drew his attention. Glancing from her feet to her face, he smiled.
"You missed the execution," he said and nodded to a baseball bat propped against the bookcase.
"You killed it? With that? What about the trap?" She gently shoved his legs off the couch and sank down next to him.
"I thought about letting him live. If I got laid like that every time you saw a rat—"
She slapped his arm with the back of her hand and shot him a disapproving look.
"I saw him make a run for the front door." His free arm came around her to draw her against him.
"Brave." She let her head fall back against his shoulder, feeling sated, comfortable.
"But stupid."
She reached for his beer and took a swig before handing it back to him. "Thank you," she whispered and gently rubbed his leg.
"Told you it would work," he said, smugness heavy in his voice, and kissed the top of her head before turning his face back to the television.