EXORCISM

You are in her hotel room. After your disappointing conversation with Pam in the parking lot at work, you've gone to meet Karen at Coopers and have had more to drink than you should, considering that tomorrow you have to get up earlier than usual if you want to go home to shower and change clothes before you get to the office.

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You've been feeling strange all night. Someone going up and down a roller coaster of feelings. Your mind is going a mile a minute as it rises and falls between love and contempt for Pam. The internal glee you felt when you told her to her face that you were with someone else, looking for a reaction that wasn't what you got, was overlaid with guilt when you had your first beer, and right away you thought you'd have to smooth things over with her tomorrow. But by the third beer you thought she deserved your indifference. The same one she has shown for you all these months, and especially in the summer. You try to focus on what Karen is asking you and what Karen is telling you, but your thoughts of Pam fill everything, until she makes a comment about the girl at the front desk who seems nice enough. You make an overly explicit sneer, and chalk it up to your fourth beer. Because you don't want to give Pam more importance than she has. You don't want to highlight her in any way, or praise her. It just doesn't come out. You turn your head so Karen doesn't see you, and you whisper "fuck you, Pam" into the air, wanting to sound triumphant, but what comes out is a wince, as you think of the punishment she deserves for plunging you into misery. You feel a sick feeling in your stomach when you think of all this, but you have to get away from her, even though she's three steps away from your desk. Because she is three steps away from your table.

So you will no longer be available to her. For anything. Not even to be her friend, to share coffees or jokes. So a simple good morning greeting is all she'll get. And if she's lucky, a goodbye when you leaves the office in the evenings, holding Karen's hand. Let her see that you can survive her without consequences. That her indifference and incommunication over the summer, hasn't affected you at all. You don't even think about her anymore. You look at Karen and force yourself to see the splendid woman beside you. The one who has been able to change her life for you. You smile at her, and kiss her a little too much to be in a public place, but she seems delighted. You have a heavy feeling of being indebted to her. The uneasiness that she will make you pay at some point for moving into this shitty place with you.

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The alcohol high in your veins has subsided, and your thoughts are no longer so erratic and intermittent, but they're still all about Pam. You turn your head a little and look at Karen's sleeping body next to you. You think about what you're doing with her, and you're a little afraid of what might happen. It seemed like a foolproof plan when, with a little manipulation, you decided to return to Scranton, but with her by the hand. Over the course of the five days it took the entire Stamford office to sort through paperwork, talk to clients and vendors, make the move and close it for good, you went out with her four times. You had fun, you were charming, you flirted with her in a cheeky way, and you took her to bed - or she took you to bed - twice. Most important of all, you managed to forget Pam most of the time. It seemed like a hopeful sign, and you thought you were finally on the road to starting a new life. But today you're not so sure about that. Today, as your mind has spin, your body has felt and your heart has thundered, you fear that Karen is not enough. It's as if you haven't left, and you see yourself as an imposter when you've rejected her and ignored her all day long. That's not you. That's another Jim. The Jim you know, is dying to talk to her meet her, even if it's just to go take out the garbage. But the other Jim, the one you bet on while sitting in a chair in the Stamford office, has made himself lord and master of your brain and is now the one in charge. And you let him. But it's significant that, even though Karen has taken all the steps, one after the other, caresses, kisses, nudity, to sleep with you again today, something inside you has felt like a betrayal and she's asleep, and you're thinking about someone else. And your heart is still an idiot.

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She asked you to stay in her room tonight, so she wouldn't feel so lonely in a strange city. You didn't feel like it at all, especially tonight. You wanted to go to your new apartment and lick your wounds. Turn off the lights and think about her. Wallow in your situation with Pam. You haven't done this in months. Since that phone conversation where you put an end to you and her. So you want to think about her a little. Insult her in your head. Pull out all her flaws. Forge a shell that is indestructible to her few charms. Those that no longer attract you. No matter what she does to her hair or the clothes she wears. Or the hugs she gives you. Or the invitations she gives you. Tonight you wanted to think about her, forgive her and forget her. And yet you followed Karen to her hotel.

So you're lying in bed, leaning against the headboard. Watching the sports news without seeing it. You check again and again that although your brain wants to rule, your heart has a life of its own and betrays you - maybe because of the tiredness you feel, or so you tell yourself - and you wander between fantasies about Pam.

You still can't deal with Roy's shadow. That guy who used her to be his mother, his cook or his mistress, as it suited him. And you hates her for being so weak and letting him. So you imagine the conversation this afternoon in the parking lot, very different. One in which she tells you that she misses you and that she doesn't care if you're with someone else. That she'll wait for you for as long as it takes, because she loves you and wants you. One in which she apologizes for being stupid and cowardly. For not realizing that you're the man she should have been with forever. That Roy was an asshole and caveman and that she doesn't understand how she hadn't seen it before. And you have to forgive her because those are the words you've wanted to hear from her all these months. And forgiveness becomes you kissing her time after time, wanting to erase the echoes of the former fiancé and the damage that because of him, she did to you. Leaving your firm and lasting footprints that remove the other's from her memory. Pressing her against the wall of the office building making her see that you want her too.

All this has caused you to be so hard you could crack walnuts with your cock. Your breathing quickens, your nostrils flaring to let in all the air you need, as you shakily exhale and bring your hand to your shorts, and touch yourself, wanting and not wanting at the same time, to satisfy yourself. You've been refusing to do it for months. Ever since that damn phone call when you were in Stamford, that made you imagine her again that same night, sitting on your new couch in your new apartment.

You open your eyes, and with a blank, hazy stare you turn from watching the TV, to the woman asleep face down next to you. You know she is naked under the sheet, even though you can only see part of her back, because, earlier, she has taken off all her clothes and sat on top of you as you have turned to watch TV hoping that, watching the news, would be a direct enough hint to let her know that nothing was going to happen tonight between the two of you. You've asked her nicely to let you watch the results first, because you have a bet going on and you might win some money. You think the rejection hasn't bothered her, because she's asked you to let her know when you're done, and she's kissed you. And she's laid down next to you. And you've taken so long, and you're still taking so long, that Morpheus has visited her, and her face is buried in the pillow, where you can't see her, her hair almost covering her, as she breathes slowly and rhythmically.

You turn off the TV and turn off the lamp, and there is a darkness that sufficiently covers the shapes of the room, the shapes of her that, together with the alcohol that still runs through your veins, your palpable desire under your hand, and the fantasies about Pam that have returned with force, cause an almost dreamlike reality to be created in you in which you think that the one who is sharing the bed with you is the one who has condemned you to this constant unhappiness. Even though you know it's not so. Even though you know you shouldn't. Even though you know it's a sick thing. But it's not like you haven't done it before. It's been a constant in your life lately. Being with one person, but thinking about another. There are magazines that call that infidelity. You need to believe that this is not so.

You take off your underwear, lift up the sheets and get closer to her body. You stare, without looking, at her back, and you imagine that she is half covered by her curly hair in which you want to sink your face to impregnate yourself with her scent and never forget it. You move even closer and cling to her. Your cock fits into the cleft of her ass and your hips thrust a little without being able to help it. You kiss her shoulder, covering her almost completely with your body. She stirs, stirs a little, you wait for her to wake up. She calls out to you, "Jim," with desire. She exhales a pitiful air, and strokes your face with her hand, trailing her fingers across your skin. And you hiss at her to shut up. You think she tries to turn away but you spread her legs a little, tucking your knee between them. She can't look at you, can't show herself as the Karen she is, because it would ruin your fantasy. It would spoil the game you're playing, and you don't want to lose anymore. That's also why you force your mind to imagine that Karen's slender body, has more curves than it really does. That's why you don't try to touch her breast, which you like, but doesn't come close to the roundness and volume you imagine Pam's to have. You cling to her ass. You grope it hard, grabbing bits of her flesh with your hand, almost pinching. And she moans.

You can live with that. That moan could very well be Pam's, because you have nowhere to compare, because unfortunately you've never made her moan. So the deeper tone that comes out of the throat of the woman you're caressing, you put it down to desire and posture. And you want to hear it again. So you separate just enough to let your hand slip between her legs, stroking her from start to finish with all your fingers, eliciting those delicious sounds in her mouth and her opening even more to your caresses.

You close your eyes and your mind flies to another place. To an apartment you don't know. Decorated with many paintings on the walls, a green teapot in the kitchen. To a bedroom with a closet full of cardigans, striped shirts, straight skirts and ugly shoes; hair pins on top of the dresser, and a bed covered with a white bedspread and big pillows that you'll throw on the floor so it's just you and her. Your hand creeps in once again aided by the wetness she gives off, and you manage to get two fingers inside her, proving to yourself that she is as ready for you as you have always wanted.

You position yourself between her legs and penetrate her. Her moans envelop you, but you are in a dimension where only your thrusting body and your thoughts of her exist. The love you feel. The rage you feel.

"Do you like this, Pam?"

Your mind speaks to you.

She moans as you place your hand between her legs. And you thrust again.

"Do you like what I'm doing to you?"

"Do you like it like this?"

"You're going to cum like never before. Your ass is going to shake."

You put your own hand over hers, and guide her as if you know more about her own pleasure than she does. You squeeze hard, move your fingers, increase the speed, elicit new moans.

"I'd give you everything. Everything."

"You didn't call me."

"Just a fucking call."

"Yessssss, move. Like this."

"We're not friends, Pam."

"Does a friend do this to you?"

"A friend doesn't do this to you". You tilt your hips, thrust deeper, and increase the pace.

"I don't want to be your fucking friend."

"There will be no coffee with you if I can't fuck you."

"I want to fuck you."

"Every day."

"Please."

"Like this, like this, yes, yes"

You let yourself be carried away by how good you feel inside her, by that pleasure that builds up little by little until it explodes in your belly and you cum hard, intensely, as you try to get deeper inside her, searching for a full satisfaction that you keep not finding, and you are left again feeling that you are missing something. Her voice brings you back to reality.

"Keep going, please keep going," she moans to you.

She hasn't finished. You blink to remove the threads of your reverie and keep moving even though you are already sensitive, and your cock is about to slip out and you won't be able to get it back in. You feel its spasms around you. They are long and very intense, and very pleasurable because she screams.

"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!". And she gasps loudly into the pillow.

It brings a smile to your face.

You're a jerk.

You lift your body and she turns her face. She looks at you with narrowed eyes. She has a delicious smile on her face, like she's drunk. She looks beautiful.

"Fuck," she says quietly to you.

"I heard you." You kiss her forehead, and pull her hair back from her face and neck. You kiss her there too.

"That was the best orgasm I've ever had in my fucking life." She looks at you in awe and ravishment, with devotion, as if you were a god. She laughs.

"You're welcome," you say proudly and smugly.

You know you're good with your hands and your mouth. You've been told that more than once. You could make her cum whenever she wanted, however she wanted. But...

You lie in bed, and you don't bother to look for your clothes to put them on. You think about what you've done, how you've done it to her, and you should feel guilty but you don't. What you are used to is this. It's the normal thing for you since you've known her. You close your eyes, and your mind flies and you imagine her under you, on top of you. You close your eyes, and you kiss her, you smell her, you touch her. There has been no other way for you. You've tried. With Karen. In Stamford it was a little easier. You fucked her with your eyes wide open, avoiding closing them, learning again to fill yourself with stimulation with what you saw. But you realize it's been a mirage, and you're exhausted from trying one thing that doesn't work for you. Mentally and physically, but you can't go on like this. You are becoming unhinged. You have to let it go once and for all, turn the page, and try to forget her, or at least, not be so affected by seeing her. You really have to try.

Karen settles down next to you and hugs you. You don't like it very much, or at least you don't like to be hugged for a long time. Your arm falls asleep and you won't be comfortable. But you let her. And you kiss her again, this time on the mouth when she lifts her face to look at you. Surely she will help you get through it. You're convinced. She's got everything you're looking for in a woman. She's a complete package. She's even better and prettier than Pam, so the choice is clear. And if it doesn't work out, you'll have to get help. Like an exorcist to take her off your mind, even if you have to go through strange rituals and drink magic potions. What happened today cannot be repeated. Letting yourself be carried away by it, letting it possess your mind and invade you, making you behave like a desperate person. This is over. You will only think about Karen, only and exclusively about her. You just have to not think about her, not talk to her, not look at her, not touch her.

Not to embrace her.

No kissing her.

Oh, God.

You run your hand over your face, rubbing it, trying to shake those thoughts away, and you hug Karen tighter. She drapes her leg over yours.

Wonderful. Now your leg will fall asleep too.

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You've been in the office for an hour and you've managed not to look at her once. Being at this new desk helps. You mentally thank that jerk Ryan for not letting you sit at your old desk. It's easier this way. Now you just have to stop sitting still every time you hear her talk. To listen to what she says. How she says it. To know what mood she's in at any given moment. You convince yourself that the day when you don't notice every single thing she does will come sooner or later. Everything with her is a matter of time.

Behind your back you hear her get up. The creak of the chair, her footsteps on the carpet. The slight rustle of her skirt as she walks. She passes you, too close, but you don't look up. You pierce the paper in your hands with your gaze. Concentrating on reading the letters on it, but really looking through them. You hear noises next to you. It's the photocopier. She pulls out the paper tray and pushes it back in hard. She presses the print button once. And again. And again. It seems that the old photocopier will not let itself be touched again. You have your trick to make the machine finally work. You know it but you never told her. You always preferred to have her help you. You know that you have to open the back of the machine, pull the paper tray back out, then in, and close it all up again. She would turn the copier off and on again. It occurs to you that you can tell her. Show her. Come to her rescue. You turn your head, look up and you're lost. Her ass is right in front of your eyes, as she performs the trick only you thought you knew. Of course, what did you expect. She is amazing. You lick your lips and recall your thoughts from last night. Your hips on her. Her ass wiggling under your belly for you to thrust deeper. Delicious. You get hard. You blink and snort. You move to tug at the fabric of your pants to release some of the pressure and look away from her to try to calm yourself. You catch, with horror, Karen looking at you curiously.

And you have the worst possible reaction. You look down in embarrassment, instead of smiling at her and pretending nothing is happening.

You've just condemned yourself. And this office is your hell.

It might be a good idea to go looking for that exorcist.