After sex, Rachel sleeps. Content. My semen her trophy. Stolen from me and locked secretly away inside. She has me. She will never let me go.
I learned long ago that to deny Rachel her trophy is to risk anything, everything. She will grow suspicious. Become moody. She will smoke incessant cigarettes. Her sleep, if it comes at all, will be broken and restless. I must consent to her rape or suffer the consequences. She will pick fights. Demean my manhood. She will cry, say that I do not love her, never have. Her fingers will seek out her hair, coiling clumps of it. Twirl. Twirl. Twirl. Strands will loosen. Twirl. Bald spots appear. Twirl. Scabs grow. Twirl. I give in. She has won.
After sex I lie awake in the darkness. A victim. I think of Albert. Would things be different if he were here for Rachel to love? As it is, all of Rachel’s energies are focused on me. I am Rachel’s world. Her work in progress. I wonder if Albert knows the dark. Where is his basement? Where is his dark place? But then I see that he was born to the darkness. He has never lived with the others in the top of the house. The basement, the dark, is all that he knows. He is satisfied, I think.