Gerald's Game - Stephen King [81]
And there was that hard thing pressing into her bottom. That thing that wasn't the handle of a screwdriver or her mother's tackhammer.
Jessie tried to squeeze her legs together, a gesture that was ambivalent to her but apparently not to him. He gasped — a painful, scary sound — and pressed his fingers harder against the sensitive mound just beneath the crotch of her underpants. It hurt a little. She stiffened against him and moaned.
It occurred to her much later that her father very likely misinterpreted that sound as passion, and it was probably just as well that he did. Whatever his interpretation, it signalled the climax of this strange interlude. He arched suddenly beneath her, sending her smoothly upward. The movement was both terrifying and strangely pleasurable that he should be so strong, that she should be so moved. For one moment she almost understood the nature of the chemicals at work here, dangerous yet compelling, and that control of them might lie within her grasp — if she wanted to control them, that was.
I don't, she thought. I don't want anything to do with it. Whatever it is, it's nasty and horrible and scary.
Then the hard thing pressed against her buttock, the thing that wasn't the handle of a screwdriver or her mother's tackhammer, was spasming, and some liquid was spreading there, soaking a hot spot through her pants.
It's sweat, the voice which would one day belong to the Goodwife said promptly. That's what it is. He sensed you were afraid of him, afraid to be on his lap, and that made him nervous. You ought to be sorry.
Sweat, my eye! the other voice, the one which would one day belong to Ruth, returned. It spoke quietly, forcefully, fearfully. You know what it is, Jessie — it's the stuff you heard Maddy and those other girls talking about the night Maddy had her slumber party, after they thought you were finally asleep. Cindy Lessard called it spunk. She said it was white and that it squirts out of a guy's thing like toothpaste. That's the stuff that makes babies, not French kissing.
For a moment she balanced up there on the stiff lift of his wave, confused and afraid and somehow excited, listening to him snatch one harsh breath after another out of the humid air. Then his hips and thighs slowly relaxed and he lowered her back down.
Don t look at it any longer, Punkin, he said, and although he was still panting, his voice was almost normal again. That scary excitement had gone out of it, and there was no ambivalence about what she felt now: deep simple relief. Whatever had happened if anything really had — it was over.
Daddy —
Nope, don't argue. Your time is up.
He took the stack of smoked glass panes gently from her hand. At the same time he kissed her neck, even more gently. Jessie stared out at the weird darkness cloaking the lake as he did it. She was faintly aware that the owl was still calling, and that the crickets had been fooled into beginning their evensongs two or three hours early. An afterimage floated in front of her eyes like a round black tattoo surrounded by an irregular halo of green fire and she thought: If I looked at it too long, if I burned my retinas, I'll probably have to look at that for the rest of my life, like what you see after someone shoots off a flashbulb in your eyes.
Why don't you go inside and change into jeans, Punkin? I guess maybe the sundress wasn't such a good idea, after all.
He spoke in a dull, emotionless voice that seemed to suggest that wearing the sundress had been all her idea (Even if it wasn't, you should have known better, the Miss Petrie voice said instantly), and a new idea suddenly occurred to her. What if he decided he had to tell Mom about what had happened? The possibility was so horrifying that Jessie burst into tears.
I'm sorry, Daddy, she wept, throwing her arms around him and pressing her face into the hollow of his neck, smelling the vague and ghostly aroma of his aftershave or cologne or whatever it was. If I did something wrong, I'm really, really, really sorry.
God, no, he said, but he