Page 73 of Start With A Slap

Cut to blue, a line of static, and a change of scenery.

The cameraman follows Roxie down a dark corridor. She’s slightly more dressed now, in a miniskirt to match the halter. She’s holding a bottle of vodka and a set of keys.

Stopping at a door marked HEADMASTER, she runs her finger across it and reads, “‘Cock-suck-er’. Yep, this is the place.” She finds the key. “Lemme give you the grand tour.”

Roxie walks to the center of the office and addresses the camera. “This is where Sever Mark profits off the genius and talent of others. He’s what we call ‘The Man’.”

With a grin, she teeters to a black futon and sits on it, then peels off her false lashes. “This is where ‘The Man’ fucked me for the first time.”

The camera pans in to her red lips, then out again.“He wanted Ollie out of the band,” she says, and sticks her lashes on the futon mattress, arranging them like eyes. “I came to tell him what a mistake that would be, Ollieisthe band. He called me a second rate Yoko so I slapped him. Next thing I know we’re wrestling on this couch and his dick is in my puss.” She drinks out of the vodka bottle. “Isn’t it romantic?” She flings it at the wall and it shatters.

Ivy sat back in her chair.I haven’t been slapped in over twenty years,he’d told her.Well, now she knew who delivered the last one.

Roxie picks up a framed photograph from Sever’s desk. “This is his wife Portia. She’s a poseur cunt, but her daddy’s filthy rich, and Sever has a hard-on for money.” She smashes the glass against the desk, then takes it to his desk chair.

“This is where we fucked the third time. Or was it the fourth?” She places Portia’s picture on the chair, pulls up her skirt, leans forward on the desk and sings a line from “Going Back to Texas” in a lovely country twang.

She’s peeing on the photo.

Roxie begins to search the desk drawers. She finds what she’s looking for. A book. With a victorious grin, she flashes it at the screen:Crime and Punishment.“This? This is Sever’s baby. He just loooves this book.

She crawls atop the desk toward the cameraman, the hardcover in one hand.

“See? First edition. Makes sense, one chauvinist prick to another, right?” She picks up a Sharpie. “This is a permanent marker. I’m just gonna write him a li’l goodbye note.”

As she scribbles, she says aloud, “Dear Motherfucker, I’m pregnant with your fuckin’ devil spawn. Don’t worry, I’ll get rid of it if the drugs don’t. I hope you die in hellfire with the rest of thevermine,”—she uses the French word— “you slimy... fuckin’... snake. Love, Roxie.”

The camera focuses on what she’s doing: drawing Xs over several pages and ripping a few out. She flings the book at the futon. “There. He’ll find that in the morning. Let’s get out of here.”

Ivy stared at the blue screen, stunned. None of what Roxie had claimed to be writing ended up in the book... And if she’d left that night, whendidSever find out about the pregnancy?

She forwarded to check if there was more, then rewound to watch the last scene again.

—so I slapped him. Next thing I know we’re wrestling on this couch and his dick

She forwarded to the desk part, raised the volume to hear everything clearly, and watched intently up to

—Dear Motherfucker, I’m pregnant with your fuckin’—

“What thehellare you doing?”

With a startled shout, Ivy fumbled to turn off the TV. Sever was in the room. How did he get in the room? How did she not hear him unlock the door?

He had that enraged bull look, too, only there was no trace of horniness in it; he was just plain enraged. “Answer me!”

“I...” Her mouth went dry. Her hands shook. She had no explanation. “I wasn’t— I just?—”

“You justwhat,” he said menacingly, closing the space between them.

“I just...” Avoiding his iced-over eyes, she focused on his exposed chest. There were little beads of water all over it. He’d just gotten out of the shower, obviously, walked by the room and overheard it somehow. “I didn’t mean to, to...”

Nostrils flaring, he shoved her face-first into the wall, twisting her wrist behind her and bracing his arm over the back of her neck. “You have been a very. bad. girl.”

Ivy couldn’t control it. This was not her usual M.O. and she was so not a bottom, but those words, and the way he said them, made her instantly wet.

He spoke through clenched teeth. “What do you want?”

“I don’t... Nothing!”

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