And you don’t, either.
You fall asleep, having put on his undershirt in the dark because you didn’t want to sleep naked.
In the morning, when the sun shines through the windows and burns your eyes, you put your arm over your face.
Your head is pounding. Your heart is hurting.
But you’re almost at the finish line.
You catch his eye. He smiles. He grabs you.
You push him off and say, “I don’t like to have sex in the morning.”
“What does that mean?” he says.
You shrug. “I’m sorry.”
He says, “C’mon, baby,” and lies on top of you. You’re not sure he’d listen if you said no one more time. And you’re not sure you want to find out the answer. You’re not sure you could bear it.
“OK, fine, if you have to,” you say. And when he lifts himself off you and looks you in the eye, you realize it has accomplished what you had hoped. You have taken all the fun out of it for him.
He shakes his head. He gets out of bed. He says, “You know, you’re nothing like I imagined.”
It doesn’t matter how gorgeous a woman is, to a man like Mick Riva, she’s always less attractive after he’s had sex with her. You know this. You allow it to happen. You do not fix your hair. You pick at the mascara flakes on your face.
You watch Mick step into the bathroom. You hear him turn on the shower.
When he comes out, he sits down next to you on the bed.
He is clean. You have not bathed.
He smells like soap. You smell like booze.
He is sitting up. You are lying down.
This, too, is a calculation.
He has to feel like the power is all his.
“Honey, I had a great time,” he says.
You nod.
“But we were so drunk.” He speaks as if he’s talking to a child. “Both of us. We had no idea what we were doing.”
“I know,” you say. “It was a crazy thing to do.”
“I’m not a good guy, baby,” he says. “You don’t deserve a guy like me. I don’t deserve a girl like you.”
It’s just so unoriginal and laughably transparent, feeding you the same line he fed the papers about his last wife.
“What are you saying?” you ask. You put a little spin into it. You make it sound like you might start crying. You have to do this because it is what most women would do. And you have to appear to him the way he sees most women. You have to appear to have been outsmarted.
“I think we should call our people, baby. I think we should get an annulment.”
“But, Mick—”
He cuts you off, and it makes you mad, because you really did have more to say. “It’s better this way, honey. I’m afraid I can’t take no for an answer.”