Lap of Luxury (Love Don't Cost a Thing)

“Fuck you.”

I reach for her, and she flinches away as if she’s afraid I’m going to batter her like some drunken suburban husband. I take hold of her wrist and haul her to her feet. “Come on. Let’s get changed.”

We put on sweats and T-shirts again, Bethany changing behind the closed bathroom door. That’s the last time I’m going to let her do that. Then I take her downstairs to the room below the bridge. It’s papered in maroon and there are maroon velvet couches in front of a twenty-foot screen. Gold sconces on the walls, like a movie theater of old.

“Wow, this place is cute,” she says, gazing around. Her hair is extra curly from the water and sun. I hand her a paper bag of sweets and collect the remote control, and we sit down on one of the couches.

I press a button, and the screen flares into life. “What do we feel like? Classic? Modern?”

I scroll through the Horror selection, until one of them catches Bethany’s eye.

“It Follows. I’ve been meaning to see that.”

From the description, it’s a psychological horror about a fatal curse that’s passed from victim to victim through sex. I start the film, watching the story unfold but also watching Bethany, too. She chews on candied snakes as the light from the screen plays across her face, biting down on a soft head, pulling on it until it snaps, and then taking the length slowly into her mouth with her tongue.

“Watch the film, Damir,” she says at one point when I’ve been staring at her too long.

I can’t help it. She’s fascinating.

As the film progresses, I feel her inching closer to me. Maybe she’s cold, or maybe she’s scared of the film, but from her rapt, unblinking stare, I doubt it. About halfway through I lay my arm along the back of the couch, and she doesn’t move away.

Finally, the screen goes black, and the credits roll.

I turn and look down at Bethany. “What did you think?”

Bethany chews another jelly snake, thinking. “It was clearly influenced by Halloween. Those suburban street shots. The synth music. The crisp fall season. But the sex-zombie thing…that was different. I loved it. They could have made it a stuffy morality tale or an excuse to put teen sex on the big screen, but it was just a good and clever horror film.”

“What do you think happened to the main girl after the movie? The sex zombie was still at large. Did it get her in the end?”

Bethany shakes her head confidently. “Oh, she’s totally going to live, no matter what. She’s the final girl.”

“The what?”

She looks into her paper bag, examining the sweets to see what’s left. “You know, the last one. The girl who survives. You must have noticed that in just about every good horror film, the heroine outlives the bad guy. Laurie from Halloween. Ripley from Alien. Sidney from Scream.”

I think back over the horror films I’ve seen, and many of them do seem to be dominated by female characters. Women who survive.

“That’s who I am. The final girl.”

“You are?”

“Yes. Or I was.” She looks up at me through her lashes, and viciously bites the head off another jelly snake. “I’m not a virgin anymore, so I’m probably doomed. Plus, I drank champagne with the bad guy. You’re not allowed to drink or have sex if you’re the final girl. The bad guy likes to get you while you’re having sex.”

Oh, how true that is. I slide my hand up her inner thigh, and to my surprise, her eyes flutter closed. I keep exploring her body through the soft clothes, and she moans and arches into my hand.

I lean down and put my lips against her ear. “Bethany, baby. Do horror films make you wet?”

She sucks slowly on the jelly snake, her eyes still closed, then pulls it from her mouth with a pop. Eyes still closed, she murmurs, “They just get me so hot. They always have.”

I ease down the waistband of her sweats. They’re so loose that they slip off easily. Her breath hitches, but she keeps talking. I get down between her legs and spread her open.

“Chainsaw murderers. Knife-wielding maniacs. Inhuman monsters. They want to kill me, but they really want to fuck me. First. They still want to kill me.”

My intake of breath is a hiss as I see how wet she is. I lean forward and kiss her pussy, and then slip my tongue between her folds. I groan, because my girl tastes like hot arousal and sweet sugar.

“It’s the only way that I can get off.”

I pull back a little and murmur, “Or if I scare the living daylights out of you.”