Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin

again, his hands hot and sharp-nailed, and then, when she was ready-ready-more-than-ready, he slipped a hand in under her buttocks, raised them, lodged his hardness against her, and pushed it powerfully in. Bigger he was than always; painfully, wonderfully big. He lay forward upon her, his other arm sliding under her back to hold her, his broad chest crushing her breasts. (He was wearing, because it was to be a costume party, a suit of coarse leathery armor.) Brutally, rhythmically, he drove his new hugeness. She opened her eyes and looked into yellow furnace-eyes, smelled sulphur and tannis root, felt wet breath on her mouth, heard lust-grunts and the breathing of onlookers.
    This is no dream , she thought. This is real, this is happening . Protest woke in her eyes and throat, but something covered her face, smothering her in a sweet stench.
    The hugeness kept driving in her, the leathery body banging itself against her again and again and again.
     
     
    The Pope came in with a suitcase in his hand and a coat over his arm. “Jackie tells me you’ve been bitten by a mouse,” he said.
    “Yes,” Rosemary said. “That’s why I didn’t come see you.” She spoke sadly, so he wouldn’t suspect she had just had an orgasm.
    “That’s all right,” he said. “We wouldn’t want you to jeopardize your health.”
    “Am I forgiven, Father?” she asked.
    “Absolutely,” he said. He held out his hand for her to kiss the ring. Its stone was a silver filigree ball less than an inch in diameter; inside it, very tiny, Anna Maria Alberghetti sat waiting.
    Rosemary kissed it and the Pope hurried out to catch his plane.

CHAPTER 9
     
    “H EY, IT’S AFTER NINE ,” Guy said, shaking her shoulder.
    She pushed his hand away and turned over onto her stomach. “Five minutes,” she said, deep in the pillow.
    “ No ,” he said, and yanked her hair. “I’ve got to be at Dominick’s at ten.”
    “Eat out.”
    “The hell I will.” He slapped her behind through the blanket.
    Everything came back: the dreams, the drinks, Minnie’s chocolate mousse, the Pope, that awful moment of not-dreaming. She turned back over and raised herself on her arms, looking at Guy. He was lighting a cigarette, sleep-rumpled, needing a shave. He had pajamas on. She was nude.
    “What time is it?” she asked.
    “Ten after nine.”
    “What time did I go to sleep?” She sat up.
    “About eight-thirty,” he said. “And you didn’t go to sleep, honey; you passed out. From now on you get cocktails or wine, not cocktails and wine.”
    “The dreams I had,” she said, rubbing her forehead and closing her eyes. “President Kennedy, the Pope, Minnie and Roman…” She opened her eyes and saw scratches on her left breast; two parallel hairlines of red running down into the nipple. Her thighs stung; she pushed the blanket from them and saw more scratches, seven or eight going this way and that.
    “Don’t yell,” Guy said. “I already filed them down.” He showed short smooth fingernails.
    Rosemary looked at him uncomprehendingly.
    “I didn’t want to miss Baby Night,” he said.
    “You mean you—”
    “And a couple of my nails were ragged.”
    “While I was—out?”
    He nodded and grinned. “It was kind of fun,” he said, “in a necrophile sort of way.”
    She looked away, her hands pulling the blanket back over her thighs. “I dreamed someone was—raping me,” she said. “I don’t know who. Someone—unhuman.”
    “Thanks a lot,” Guy said.
    “You were there, and Minnie and Roman, other people…It was some kind of ceremony.”
    “I tried to wake you,” he said, “but you were out like a light.”
    She turned further away and swung her legs out on the other side of the bed.
    “What’s the matter?” Guy asked.
    “Nothing,” she said, sitting there, not looking around at him. “I guess I feel funny about your doing it that way, with me unconscious.”
    “I didn’t want to miss the night,” he said.
    “We could have