Venus' Fly Trap

Venus' Fly Trap

Rachelle awoke to a late Saturday morning, and she lay in bed for the moment, studying the phone as if it might be the crucial clue in a crime scene. She wasn't attempting to make it to ring; she was trying to decide whether or not to make a call.

Her dilemma had begun back when she had served Andover Joust up for Jerry on a silver platter. OK, maybe before that, but until that day, she had expected the status quo to return with the certainty of death and taxes. To her recreational delight, Mark's attentions that night had struck a spark of interest she had never known existed. In fact, she had eluded consummation with Mark in his room, after she discovered that she sympathized too much with Jerry's stag status.

She tended to Mark's fires at other times or in other places, but she didn't rub Jerry's nose in it, if she could avoid it. Very quickly, she had also discovered that Mark alone didn't slake her sexual thirst like he always had before. She either wanted someone else, or she wanted to perform. Maybe it was just that he didn't engross her mind like he did her body.

It was hard to explain. She had let Jerry watch earlier, but that was not a reliable way to kindle any romance. Then she'd gone and fucked him; she'd fucked other guys before. But on that night, with Mark in HER arms, and Andover in JERRY'S embrace, the competition had engendered a connection she had never felt before. Any single one of these three events would have been ordinary; none of them alone would have fired the imagination in this way, but the three of them together had ignited her passions in a furnace of desire.

She felt like a marshmallow slowly being turned on a skewer: her first idea had been to repeat the process. Why not simply lead another enthusiastic fly into her trap? The answer was all too obvious. It was twofold:

1. Jerry might fall for the pawn, and never initiate a relationship with her, Rachelle.

2. Jerry could hardly infer personal interest on Rachelle's part, if she was evidently turning any interest he had in her, toward other girls.

She almost smiled at the thought. She had never dared admit it to herself: she was “interested.” However, her mind actually believed that earnest love was merely a temporary defect, sure to be consumed either by the abuse of the cynic, or the incompetence of the naive. “If you believe in love, you're stupid,” she told herself.

They say that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. To call it “incontrovertible” in Jerry's presence, was to invite a comparison of the thesis and the inverse. Then he would point out the converse, leading eventually to the contra-positive of the postulate. Only after formalizing the statement into a syllogism, would Jerry support the vernacular. It had amused her repeatedly to see him wrestle with such statements as “You get what you pay for,” “Never say Never,” and “Appearances can be deceiving.” Her mind was wandering! The point was, why leave Mark, if she couldn't be assured of Jerry? How could she get him to “bust a move?”

The beauty of the rhetorical question lies not in stating the obvious. It lies in exposing the obvious answer to the cold light of reason. She had supposed that nothing could be done. She had supposed that there was no way to incite a desirable reaction from Jerry. However, upon posing herself the question, her pride took a hand in the game. You say there is NO solution? I'm smarter than you, and I will discover an answer where you cannot, her pride might have said. It was yet another of her undisciplined experiments, but she had discovered a tantalizing avenue of advancement. Mark was on a road trip this weekend, playing “away games.” She reached for the phone almost as soon as she thought of it.

When Jerry's phone rang, he glanced over at the clock. He wasn't expecting a call. “Hello?” he said.

“I'm horny.”

“Huh? Hello?” Jerry wasn't quit sure what he had heard.

“Hello,” came the response. It was Rachelle.

“Hi Rachelle. What was that you said?”

Rachelle feigned ignorance. “Huh, what?”

“Never mind.” Jerry wasn't going to argue, if he had misheard. “What can I do for you?”

Rachelle responded readily. “I was wondering if I could come by and pick up Mark's laundry.”

“Sure thing... anytime.” Jerry couldn't help but notice that this hardly merited a phone call. Maybe she was only checking that he was home; can't pick up laundry from a locked dorm room, he thought, but she usually just came by, anyway. For the time being, he thought no more of it. They ended the call with nothing more remarkable to be observed.

That evening was another story entirely. As he lay in bed, trying to fall asleep, the faint sound of cooing doves wafted through the dorm. It must have been a quiet night, because he usually wouldn't have heard them, but it made Jerry's mind return to what he thought he had heard. What could she have been saying? It had sounded like “I'm Horny!” but from context that wasn't it. ...or was it? No. It couldn't be. Surely not? Why on earth would she say that to HIM? Hmm. If she WAS horny, she certainly wouldn't just come right out and SAY it! I mean, surely she would devise some segue, wouldn't she?

Nature's audio double entendre of doves was leading his ears down a different avenue. If she HAD been horny, she was probably STILL horny. He couldn't help being turned on. What if she had been trying to “pass messages?” What if she just expected him to figure it out. What if she was just hanging around, waiting to see if he showed up to answer the call?

He didn't get out of bed, dress, and prepare to go out, but he did get as far as wondering, “What if I show up, and she ISN'T expecting me? Where would that leave me?”

No answer presented itself, and as the doves continued their serenade, he succumbed to natures bidding. When he lay breathless and spent, sleep took him without further ado.

The moon rose and set.

On the next morning's run, solitude once more gave him time to contemplate Rachelle's little trick. He decided it was possible she had been firing for effect; simply launching a little mortar just to see how he would react. Someone should teach her a lesson, he thought, but how to do it? The rest of his run was spent in mulling over this task.

After his shower, he toweled himself dry, and cleared the old messages on the caller ID. His plan required anticipating Rachelle's call not by minute and hour, but at least that he should not make his comment to the wrong person. After that, all he had to do was wait for her to call back, as she ensured that he was in the room to receive Mark's laundry, now washed and folded.

The call came in soon enough, and, having verified the caller ID, he was ready with his greeting. “I want you,” He answered.

Rachelle was taken off guard. “Huh? What was that?” she asked naturally enough.

“Huh? Hello?” Jerry replied, very much as Rachelle had done before.

“Jerry? Is that you?” Rachelle asked again.

“Who is this?” Jerry responded, perhaps protesting too much.

“It's Rachelle!” she answered. Then continued, “This IS Jerry, right?”

“Hello Rochelle,” Jerry now replied.

“Can I bring Marks' stuff by?” She was slightly flustered, but not sure why.

“Sure, but not too early. Maybe 9:30 tomorrow night?” Jerry suggested craftily. If she pressed him, he was prepared to feign prior obligation.

“OK...?” Rachelle had lost her savoire faire. “Umm, Bye then.” She hung up.

Jerry was more satisfied with his “revenge” than Rachelle had been with her initial prank. He cleaned up the dorm room and threw himself into his studies. If things went as planned, he would be busy the next night.

For her part, Rachelle was initially flummoxed. Surely she hadn't heard what she thought she heard. How could Jerry have POSSIBLY done it back to her? He wasn't that kind of GUY! ...was he? Surely not. On the other hand, maybe he WAS capable of retaliating. Well, two could play at THAT game.

Normally, innate fairness would have led her to note that she had started these “hostilities.” However, humans as a whole do fail observation of things they do not wish to see, and she was not prepared to admit to herself that she was planning to leave Mark. That motive would be too low in some way.

The sun eventually set.

The next morning there was preparation to be made, and she employed Andover as her alibi. She caught her in her room mid-morning, and prepared her with the story she wanted Andover to back up. Then it was off to the mall, to rent a tripod for camera or telescope. To finish off, she rushed to do enough homework to “get by.”

She arrived at the appointed hour, laundry basket in hand, and balanced it on her hip as she knocked on the door. Jerry answered the door neatly dressed, and invited her in. However, he was NOT prepared for the camera balanced atop the laundry.

“Is that Mark's camera?” he asked.

“No. Actually, I was kind of wondering if I could ask you for a totally personal favor.” The lie didn't even cause a mental blush, as she prepared to taunt him in a new way. It would take more time than bedding him, but Jerry was going to remember her forever.

“OK. How can I help you?” Jerry asked. The camera might be a prop, but it wasn't shaping up like that.

“I want to take some pictures for Mark. You know, intimate pictures, but you've gotta SWEAR never to tell.” Rachelle was going to make Jerry suffer for his insolence. She had more or less forgotten that he had merely evened the score.

From Jerry's point of view this was NOT a good development. It meant that she was not here to betray Mark with a roll in the hay, but at the same time, there were tantalizing implications. However intimate these poses should become, he would be firsthand witness to them all. “Won't he recognize the room?” he asked.

“I've already thought of that!” she laughed. “We'll tell him Andover was here, and we got drunk and took them all together. I already asked her, and she promised she'd back me up, IF Mark bothers to ask at all. But he's not the kind to look a gift horse in the mouth.”

Jerry was mentally drooling. “Sounds good to me,” he agreed. Was that TOO easy? Should he have pretended some reluctance? Too late to do so now, he thought.

Rachelle began by putting Mark's laundry away, then asked Jerry to pour Cokes over ice, while she retrieved the rented tripod from her car.

Time stood still, as they took various poses. The first was memorable in its own right. Rachelle made Jerry set up over a study desk, and take a still life of her left hand, fingers relaxed, palm down. She explained to Jerry that Mark was to show this to his buddies in the dug-out, romantically explaining that he didn't want them to lust after her too much.

“He won't do it, of course, unless he thinks someone will be too much competition, but I can't let him think I want to be seen naked,” she explained.

“I understand completely,” Jerry lied. So was she horny? Did she want him to see her naked?

Her next selection was to strip to her underwear, and don one of Mark's tee shirts. Then she sat on his bed, on her knees, with her feet turned outward, leaning back on her haunches. She affected a charming smile, and put one finger between her teeth, while her right hand pulled downward on the shirt between her legs, lowering the neckline and accentuating her breasts.

After Jerry had several practice poses under his belt, she posed in the bathroom doorway, in nothing but lingerie. She had her back turned to the camera, and she contorted her hands to release her bra-strap. Then, she threw her head back, and let her hair fall away from her back alongside the free-falling bra-straps, and and smiled at the camera. Jerry duly snapped the shutter, and she straightened from a difficult position.

This, however, did not go off completely as planned. As she raised her head, her hair got caught in the bra fastener, and she pulled her own hair while at the same time, her bra fell completely away from her body. She went through several attempts to free herself, eventually ending up bent over forwards, with the brassier dangling from her loosely falling hair. “Help me please, Jerry,” she asked quietly.

He helped her turn around, and disentangled the hook from her hair, allowing her to stand upright again... bare chested. When he met her eyes again, she smiled knowingly, and laughed a little. She then directed him behind the camera again, and rewarded him with a spontaneous addition to the catalog. “OK, are you ready to click the shutter?” she inquired.

“Yes,” he assured her.

She had not replaced her bra, but now she faced into the bathroom again, and grasped her low-profile panties on either side, and bent over low, putting on a display like a mare waiting to be covered. Jerry hit the shutter too soon, and she had to make him do it again. This could not be arranged without doing it again herself, and when she stood erect again, he was more voyeur than photographer.

Since she was naked already, she proceeded to pose cross-legged on the bed, with her hands vainly covering her naughty bits. Jerry soon suggested a modification on this. She was now to bare her breasts, but cover her pubic area with both hands, cock her head and smile knowingly. This she did surprisingly well, considering how vague the instruction “knowingly” was.

Jerry surrendered to curiosity. “Can I have copies?” he asked. His voice unintentionally begged, and he was embarrassed.

“JERRY! How could you? Of COURSE not!” Rachelle triumphed inwardly. THAT would teach him, she thought. Outwardly, she continued to be offended. “That's IT! No more pictures,” she said gruffly. “Turn around.”

Jerry fumed at himself, glaring at the door the whole time she was dressing behind him. When she released him from his exile, he tried to apologize. “Rachelle, I'm sorry,” he explained, sincerely enough.

“It's understandable Jerry,” she responded. “You're a GUY. I know that, but really Jerry, you of all people. I guess I just didn't expect that from you.” Her injured tone was complete fabrication. “Don't beat yourself up about it. I'll email you one of my hand, OK?”

“OK,” was the only thing Jerry could say.

As she put the tripod back in the trunk, she felt jubilant. The new secret would refresh the intrigue they shared, and she looked forward to any time she and Mark shared with Jerry in the near future. The rush would be electric.

Meanwhile Jerry was left mentally quoting Shakespeare: Would that I were a glove upon that hand, that I might touch that...

It was going to be a long night.