[Cedar]

PART FOUR

As I finished dressing, the bedroom door opened and Susan shuffled out, eyes downcast, with a sheet wrapped around her. She didn’t say a word, but went to the chair and slowly got dressed, not looking at me.

“My panties are gone,” she said in a small voice halfway through.

“That guy must have kept them,” I said neutrally.

She nodded. She had no reason to think otherwise. She finished dressing and took a half step toward the door, then remembered her car was gone. Still not looking at me, she murmured, “Can.....can you call me a taxi?”

“Sure,” I said. “Do you have any money for it, or --“

“I always keep some in my inside jacket pocket. He didn’t look there.”

While I was calling the taxi she sat still on the chair, head bowed, staring silently at the floor. When I finished with the call, I stepped closer. “Susan, I’m really sorry about what happened. I just didn’t have any choice. We didn’t have any choice --“

She held up one hand to silence me. “I understand.....Look, just never say a word about this to anyone, OK? Not to anyone. I don’t even want us to ever talk about it. It never happened.”

“Uh, yeah, sure.” That suited me fine, actually.

The taxi came and she went home. I took a deep breath. I’d survived. No, better than survived. I’d had an experience I’d often dreamed of but never imagined might actually be mine. I felt good. I really did. The peace and relaxation of the afterglow still filled me. Somewhat to my surprise, while I felt a little sorry for Susan who had clearly been suffering, I didn’t actually feel unhappy about what had happened. Not one bit. I felt very happy indeed.

I went to the kitchen and got Susan’s white panties back out. Those panties were still clutched in my hand when at last I fell asleep in the bed where I had had her.


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I wondered whether she would show up for work the next day, but she did. Everyone noticed that she was rather subdued and distracted, but they figured she was just tired or had a touch of the mild flu that had been going around. She and I talked to each other as little as possible, just business stuff. I wondered if my sperm was still inside her.

I found out much later that she’d looked into whether she could fire me - I guess it was tough on her having to see me every day after that. It turned out she couldn’t, not without a proper documented reason.

It wasn’t until three months later that I noticed the pregnancy. She must have known about it before that, but she never said anything. Even after everyone in the office had noticed and the place was alive with whispered speculation -- everyone knew she was divorced and her well-known strait-laced religiousness made the thought of an affair bewildering -- she never said a word, neither admitting the truth nor making up a cover story.

I do know, of course, and deep in my heart I feel a profound satisfaction at having done this to her, having violated her in the most intimate and lasting way a man can violate a woman, changing the course of her whole life to come. But however much I feel tempted when I hear the office girls breathlessly chattering about the latest rumor swirling around the boss, I have never said a word. That much, at least, I owe her.