========

				CHANTAL

She still doesn't know.

***

	Chantal sits cross-legged on my futon, leaning back against
the blue cushions.  She hugs my stuffed lion close.  Its golden fur
glows in the light of my single working lamp, blending into her
honey-brown skin.  Her skin is a legacy of her despised mother, the
fashion model.  She isn't as gorgeous as her mother had been, and she
isn't looking her best at the moment, tears running down her face,
dressed in rumpled clothing she's slept in for two days, but she's
still quite beautiful.  Not that I'm objective.

	I'm trying to listen to her telling me again just how much
she'd loved Jeff, but even the gallon of chocolate ice cream before us
is starting to lose its appeal as I listen to the story for the
hundredth time, in yet another variation.  She's done this before.
Fallen in love, had great sex, realized she had picked a jerk, dumped
him or been dumped.  Over and over, always with the wrong guy.  It was
only a month or so ago that I'd started to wonder if she were really a
lesbian.

	We'd discussed it before, since I'd come out to her years ago,
but she'd always denied the possibility and changed the topic.  She'd
started avoiding my touch then too, giving brief hugs on greeting and
parting and sitting much farther away than she had before.  Right now
I'm regretting having a full-size futon, large enough that she can
easily sit out of reach.  I'd have to lean way over before I could run
my fingers over those impossibly long brown legs, curving down her
calf to cup her foot in my small hands, gently rubbing her toes.  She
starts sniffling again, and I hand her another tissue.

	My heart is beating much too fast, and I can't stop looking at
her, hoping she won't notice it.  Time is achingingly slow.  I avoid
looking at my watch.  Not because she'd think I wanted her to go, oh
no.  If it were up to me, I would have her safe in my bed, in my arms
forever.

*****

	The doorbell rings.  She looks up helplessly.

	"Don't worry, Chantal.  I'll get rid of whoever it is.  Just
hang on a sec."  Her sniffle is quickly smothered in tissues.

	"Who is it?"

	"Domino's delivery."

	"We didn't order any."

	"Hey, I got your pizza right here."

	The voice is muffled by the intercom.  "I'd better go down."
I tell her.  Huddled there in her huge green flannel shirt, bleached
blond hair falling across her face, she is so much a child.

	Down the half flight of stairs, the man in the crisp white
shirt stands holding a pizza, having come through our broken security
doors.  He holds out the pizza box.  I reach out; he drops the box and
is suddenly up the stairs, shoving me up against the crumbling plaster
wall of the stairwell.  I am almost falling onto him.  I tense, then
feel the prick of a knife through my black t-shirt.  It is
uncomfortably cold against my rib.

	"Christ!" explodes unbidden from my throat, my voice rising
dangerously.  "What the fuck are you..."

	"Shut up, you stupid bitch." he says, deceptively calm, in a
voice pitched to carry through my open door.  I can tell he is
nervous.  The knife trembles against me, and I am terrified of what is
happening here in this now unfriendly building.  This scene has gone
out of control, and I no longer know what he, or I, will do.  We enter
my apartment, and he swings the door closed with his foot, not
bothering to turn the lock.

	Chantal has risen from the futon and stands framed in a halo
of flickering light.  That lamp has never been reliable, and in this
uncertain moment it sounds its death-knell, flicking in and out.

	"Not a sound, bitch." he warns, cutting off the scream that is
only now rising in her throat.  "If the neighbors hear anything
unpleasant, that's it for your girlfriend."

	Chantal sinks down onto rumpled blue blankets, a moan caught
in her butterfly mouth and frightened eyes locked on the glint of
bright steel against black silk.  I feel a sharp pain where the knife
point lies poised against me, but it is impossible to tell if I am
actually bleeding against the black.

	"Strip." he orders her, an unnerving thread of excitement
clear in the tremor of his voice. 

	She shakes her head mutely in protest, wrapping her arms tight
around her golden body.  She must not know how that motion pulls the
shirt taut against full breasts, how it pulls the fabric sliding up
her legs, baring even more tawny thigh.  I catch my breath in pleasure
at the sight, and am brought back to reality only by the lifting of
the knife point from my ribs.

	Just as I start to shift away he slides a tightly-muscled arm
across my throat, pulling me back.  He has lifted the knife only to
bring it to my throat, and I freeze.  He slowly slides the knife down
the front of my silk top, slicing it cleanly in half,  leaving the
fabric to flap aimlessly in the wind of the creaking fan.  I wear no
bra at one a.m.  Small dark breasts have fallen free, nipples hard
with fear, and the cold breeze, and excitement.  I am wearing only
black silk shorts now, and I cannot help but think how beautiful he
and I must look, black silk against his white shirt and pants, brown
curls so oddly similar.  He looks like my brother, I suddenly think,
and then must struggle down dangerous laughter.  My nerves are being
stretched far too taut.

	He lifts the blade up to a breast and I am truly frozen now as
he holds the knife point a fraction of an inch away from tender skin.
He looks at Chantal.

	"Strip."  If before his voice was nervous with excitement, it
is now implacable.  It would take someone far braver than my poor fawn
to resist.  She slowly begins to unbutton the oversized shirt. He is
not content with the flannel slowly slipping from her shoulders.

	"Stand and strip." he says, and she obeys almost silently,
muffling the whimpers deep in her throat.  Endless moments later she
has unbuttoned the last button and the shirt falls unheeded to the
floor.  My gaze slips back and forth between her, (never before has
she seemed so beautiful), and the possessive wanting in his eyes.
"Come here." he says.  At that I stiffen even more, wanting to slap
that look from his face, that purr from his voice.

	Her hands flutter up and down her body as she walks toward us,
futilely attempting to preserve some shred of modesty, of dignity.  It
is useless.  She is too fragile a flower to stand up against this, and
her welling tears provoke a growing rage within me.  She stops,
shivering in the direct wind from the ceiling fan.

	His knife hand suddenly drops away from my breast, although
his left arm is still rigid against my throat.  He is fumbling with
the zipper on his pants, finally dropping them to lie puddled on the
floor around his feet.  His legs are startlingly pale, almost blending
into the white cloth.  He wears no underwear, and his erection pokes
out from his shirttails, rising hungrily.  He smells of soap.

	"On your knees, bitch." he says to her, the hunger clear in
the hoarseness of his voice.  "Suck me off."

	And I can't take anymore.  I jerk sideways, pulling free.  His
knife hand comes up quickly though, and his other hand swings in a
wide grab for Chantal....only to be blocked as I step calmly in front
of it.

	"No." I say, the words dry in my throat as I strive to make my
voice as seductive as possible.  "Please" as I slide to my knees in
front of him, "let me."  My eyes are locked on his, and I fervently
hope that he can see in them that he has pushed me far enough, farther
than is safe for any of us.  I am all too aware of Chantal's gasp
behind me, the only sound she has let herself make, and of her skin
inches away from mine.  I wait for his response, unable to read past
desire in deep brown eyes.

	He stares in silence for long seconds, knife poised.  He looks
me over slowly, insolently, and I will myself not to stiffen against
his intrusive gaze.  Finally he nods, silently. I lean forward and run
my tongue down his stiff erection.  I trace small, lazy circles around
the shaft.  I feel the pulse beating in him, as the salty fluid rises.
I tease the head with flicking tongue until the growing fever in the
eyes I have not dared glance away from warns me that teasing will not
be permitted for long.  I suddenly realize that I find this man
beautiful after all, and if he hadn't had a knife to my throat I might
have wanted this as much as he did.  I realize that I do want him,
despite the knife.  I begin to tremble.

	It is quickly over, and I swallow carefully, not wanting to
rouse his dangerous unpredictability.  I wait, kneeling in front of
him, holding his eyes with mine once more, willing him not to look
away, not to glance at Chantal.  He seems to read my desire.  His next
words are addressed solely to me, "Strip.  Lie down."   He seems to
disregard Chantal, though his body is still tight.  I do not think I
can get the knife away.  I rise obediently, and quickly step out of
the black silk shorts, not wanting them to be torn as well.  Some part
of my mind must still believe that we will survive this.

	I lie down on the futon, pushing aside blue blankets to create
a clear space in the center, baring the dark green sheets.   I stretch
lazily, offering my body up for him to drink deep.  My eyes are
focused on his face, on the raw desire battling with some indefinable
thought.  I doubt I could look away if I wanted to.  Some tiny
detached part of me wants desperately to photograph his face.
Portrait of a rapist.  I am shattering into a hundred different
elements, held together only by the need to protect.

	His free hand is suddenly on Chantal's shoulder, twisting her
cruelly around, off-balance.  Then the hilt of the knife is shoved
into the small of her back, and she falls onto me.  I voice a wordless
protest, but she falls silent, curving so as not to hit too hard.
Even in this she is graceful.  Then he speaks.

	"Go on, bitch.  Fuck her.  I want to watch you sluts fucking
each other on your nice, clean sheets.  Eat her, you dirty slut!"  His
voice rises higher and higher, and I wonder if perhaps the neighbors
will hear.  Doubtful - the walls are not that thin.  Chantal is
shaking her head at the stream of invective, terror blossoming, a
flower in her face.  And suddenly I reach up and hold her face still
in my hands, my eyes promising her that it will be all right.  An
outright lie; I have no idea what will happen after this.  She reaches
a hand up to clasp one of mine, then buries her head in my shoulder.
For this moment, this man is giving me a perversion of my deepest
desires.  It would be unfair to ask me to refrain.

	I draw her down next to me on the green sheets, promising
myself that I will be ever so gentle with her, that she will find joy.
 Chantal has gone still.  Her eyes are closed, and she looks
terrifyingly defenseless.  I bend to drop butterfly kisses on her
cheek, her neck, her shoulder.  Carefully I avoid her lips, though I
ache to kiss.  Somehow I think that would be too much.  For her, and
for me.  Her nipples are soft pools of darkness in the golden expanse
of her torso.  I lick my way down to them, nipping gently until they
stand erect against my tongue. She has begun to move a little,
confused by her body's reactions.  But she voices no protest.  My
frail love has no way of understanding this night, her only hope to
trust in me to keep her safe. 

	His breathing is loud in the room, and as I kiss lower and
lower on her sweet body, the first moan comes from him.  It is a sound
of pure frustration, and I am surprised that he restrains himself.
Then I am lost in the scent of her rising up beneath me, the brush of
my breasts along her long legs, the caress of her curling hair against
my cheek.  And the greatest joy is that she is responding to my touch,
my tongue, my kiss.  She is arching underneath me, tangling long
fingers in my hair, running nails across the tender places of my neck.
The lamp flickers wildly in the room; as she comes moaning in my mouth
we arch together suddenly still.

	Chantal relaxes beneath me, her still-heavy breaths sounding.
I cannot hear him, I realize.  I half-raise, and twist my body up into
the wind from the fan.  There is enough light to see clearly that he
is not there.  The knife lies, discarded, well within arm's reach.  He
has closed the door behind him.  And suddenly I am battling the
impulse to reach out and take the knife and hold it to her sweet
flesh, gaining a night of unbearable pleasure as she fulfills my every
desire.

	And also gaining her hatred.  I shake my head, dismissing the
last foolish thoughts.  This will have to be enough.  Her trust, her
faith.  Her slick body molded to my own.  The memory of her arching
against me.  And the chance that this night has changed her mind about
what she wants....

	I lie down against her, realizing that she is somehow,
impossibly, asleep.  I am suddenly eager to join her.

***

	The phone rings.  I get up to answer, knowing who it will be.

	"Forgive me," he says. "I should have stayed with your plan.
Bringing the knife was a mistake.  You were both too beautiful, and I
got...carried away."  He pauses, embarrassed.  "I'll buy you a new
shirt."

	"Forgiven." I say, and hang up.

	How can I condemn him?  I asked him to come, after all.  I go
back to the bed and gather her into my arms.  She murmurs in her sleep
and cuddles closer.  I hold her tight in a protective embrace, so that
nobody will ever hurt her.

*****
Copyright 1994 M.A. Mohanraj
-- 
"When they took the 4th Amendment, I was quiet because I didn't deal
drugs. When they took the 6th Amendment, I was quiet because I am innocent.
When they took the 2nd Amendment, I was quiet because I don't own a gun.
Now they have taken the 1st Amendment, and I can only be quiet." -Rick Kelly
