I am wallowing in self-pity and rage. He sees my expression, and smiles his superior, arrogant smile.
“Why the sour face?” Flanagan asks me.
“I’ve just been thinking back,” I say. “On our time together. All the lies you’ve told. You’ve kept so much from me.”
“It was the only way.”
“We were meant to be working together. I was your leader.”
“Of course.”
I glare at him, angrily. “You’re a lying bastard manipulator. I was never your leader,” I tell him.
“No.”
“That was a sop. To keep me happy. I gave orders to the pirate crew. You gave the real orders when my back was turned.”
“Yup.”
“You’ve played me for a fool.”
“Pretty well.”
“And the sex?”
“What about the sex?”
“Was that another sop?”
“It would have been tactless to say no to you. But hey, I enjoyed it.”
“You ‘enjoyed’ it. Ah.”
“Yup. It was great.”
“It was ‘great’. Faint praise.”
“It was fabulous, Lena.” He smiles at me. In his roguish way.
I slip off my dress. I stand before him naked. I can see the gleam in his eyes. I do have some effect on him. He reaches out and tries to touch me, but I won’t let him. I gesture for him to undress and he does.
We stand, a few feet apart, both naked. He is erect. I am magnificent. But I see a faint trembling whisper on his lips. He is already thinking ahead to what he is going to do after he’s fucked me.
I hit him in the chest. His heart stops.
Flanagan gurgles and sinks to his knees. I stare into his eyes and see fear and longing and hate.
I strike him again and his heart restarts. Then I mount him.
We fuck. He is full of the crazed frenzy that is so typical of those who have died and been brought back to life. He is a man possessed, a man redeemed.
Afterwards, he trembles in my arms, but I keep my fingers on his manhood. Every time I squeeze he has another orgasm. He has no idea how I am doing this and it makes him fearful.
“How was it?” I ask.
“So so,” he tells me. But his voice is trembling.
“Flanagan, I think I love you.”
“I doubt that,” he says. He looks faintly shifty.
I touch him, he orgasms.
“Flanagan, I love you.”
“So you said,” he replies, coolly.
I touch him, he orgasms.
“Flanagan, I love you,” I tell him, in tones of honey mixed with bile.
“I fucking love you too!” he screams. And orgasms again, and again, and again.
I roll off him. He’s lying of course. But mission accomplished; I’ve bent him to my will.
I get up and dress.
“You can stay a while if you like,” he murmurs. His bare chest is ripped raw where I scratched him with my nails.
I leave.