I always thought that women's rape fantasies, which are more common than you'd think, imply subconscious sexual guilt and inhibition. The woman daydreams about a man forcing her into guilt-provoking sex acts she secretly relishes. She avoids guilt by projecting the blame on the man.
And yet my wife, Jan, has few sexual inhibitions and doesn't seem to suffer from sexual guilt. So why would she fantasize about rape? That is, if my theory is any good. If I forced myself on Jan, it could be terrific or disastrous.
Jan admitted to having rape fantasies but she was rather vague about them. She merely told me that she imagined a man chasing her down in the woods, tearing her clothes off and forcing her to have sex with him until he was finished with her. Not much to go on, so I had to fill in the details.
I suggested to her that we go on a picnic at her parents' country cabin. She agreed to that. We've done it plenty of times, sometimes ending up having some of the most enjoyable sex I've ever had. It's fun to be naked in the forest. It always makes me think of Adam and Eve. While Jan got ready for the picnic, I bought her a new sundress from a department store and a used skirt and blouse from the Salvation Army shop. I went to the hardware store for a length of smooth chain, two padlocks keyed alike, and some clothesline. I packed these and a pair of scissors into the bottom of a backpack underneath the blanket we usually use for picnics. She gave me a puzzled look when I asked her to wear the used blouse and skirt. Maybe she suspected something.
We walked up a trail to our favorite picnic spot under an ash tree and spread the blanket. I said, "See the porcupine?"
"Where?"
"In that pine tree. About twenty feet up. See it?"
I stepped behind her as she turned to look. Then, I slipped my right arm in front of hers and hastily gripped her left wrist. Before she could say anything, I threw the loop of a slip knot in the clothesline over both her wrists and tied her wrists together.
"What the fuck are you doing?" she demanded. I didn't answer. I tied another loop of the clothesline around her wrists, standing on the other end of the clothesline so she couldn't run away. "God damn it, why are you doing this?" I still didn't answer. I pulled the chain and padlocks out of the backpack and looped one end around her neck. When I closed the padlock I held it next to her ear so she could hear the hasp click shut. I couldn't tell whether the look on her face was fear, anger or astonishment.
I pulled Jan over to the tree, where I locked the other end of the chain around the trunk. I carefully stored the key in the backpack, which I placed far beyond her reach. I still hadn't said a word. I went back to her with the scissors in my back pocket.
Jan had said that the man in her fantasy tore her clothes off, so I wanted her to get the sound and feeling not only of being stripped but having her clothes torn to pieces. I reached into her neckline and tore it down to her waist, popping all the buttons off. I peeled it back off her shoulders and let it hang around her tied hands. She looked wonderful, with her anxious expression and her breasts thrust forward invitingly. I snapped the shoulder straps off her brassiere. Once her shoulders were bare, I pulled on the strap across her back until the hook and eye fasteners gave way. Her brassiere fell to her feet.
The button on the waistband of her skirt popped easily. I unzipped the zipper, then tore her skirt down the seam. The skirt slid down her legs until she stood in a puddle of torn cloth. One snip each with the scissors from each leg of her panties, and her panties fell onto the rags of her skirt.
Now she was naked from her hiking shoes to her neck chain. She repeated, "Why are you doing this?" I didn't know whether to answer. I untied her hands, which flew to the chain around her neck. She tugged at it and realized she was firmly trapped.
Part of the attraction of a rape fantasy is the sexiness of terror. If that was Jan's motive for having them, then the thing to do was scare the daylights out of her, like the first downhill run of a roller coaster.
I cut a branch from the ash tree with my pocketknife and let her watch me whittle it into a switch. I said, "There are some things you might not want to do, so when you get reluctant I'll use the switch to help you along." She didn't answer. I couldn't tell whether she took me seriously.
I walked over to the backpack and hastily undressed. As I walked toward her, naked and barefoot, she stared at my bobbing erection. I ran the business end of the switch lightly up the inside of her thigh and told her, "On your knees." She meekly obeyed. I set the switch down and told her, "Pretend you're sucking your father's penis. He's been fucking you ever since he found out you give better blow jobs than your mother does." Jan opened her mouth and covered the head of my penis. I gasped at the soft feel of her lips, the warmth of her mouth and how she ran her teeth lighly over my skin.
I immediately started a chant she's heard a hundred times. It consists of three words: God, Jan and love. "Oh, God, Jan, I love you, oh God, oh Jan, I love you..."
As I trembled in front of her I wondered, was she enjoying this? Or was she putting out to avoid a whipping? I looked down at her and saw that lovely face, eyes shut, with her red lips around the head of my penis and her hand around the base. Jan was sucking me the way she knows I like, teasingly, not with the numb resignation or terrified haste of a real rape victim. I reached down to touch her breasts and saw her other hand busy in her own lap.