The Seducer by Claudia Moscovici

up in a sweat. She tapped him on the shoulder to make sure that he was also awake. Then she asked him, as she did during holidays and other special occasions, to make a bullet point list of the top ten qualities he liked about her. “Number one. You let me sleep,” Michael mumbled. But since that night Karen was particularly persistent, he quickly spewed off a list, hoping that she’d let him go back to sleep: “You have soft skin. You give to charity. You’re a good listener. You communicate well. You love me. You’re considerate to others. You’re solid as a rock.”
    â€œWhat do you mean ‘as a rock’?” she took offense.
    â€œI mean I can always count on you. Plus you’re a hard worker,” he went on. “And you smell nice.”
    â€œI smell like sweat right now,” she pointed out.
    â€œSo what? Maybe that turns me on. Is that ten yet?”
    She counted by her fingers. “You still have one left.”
    Michael thought for a moment. “You’re all mine.”
    â€œAnd you mine,” she replied adding, after a few seconds, “most of the time.”
    Now that he thought about it, Michael felt somewhat disingenuous about saying that he loved all of Karen’s qualities. Because some of them had an underside. For instance: sure, Karen was steadfast and solid. But that’s also because she was so damn cold. It occurred to him that even her displays of emotion were generally manifestations of self-pity or efforts to move him, not genuine other-regarding impulses. Come to think of it, Karen never radiated any real warmth. He suspected that she gave to charity mostly to feel better about herself. Goodness was an act for her, just as fidelity was for him. All of this would have been all right with him, since after all he was no Gandhi either, if only she were more sexually available to him. What did I ever see in her? Michael wondered with the ingratitude of a man who has fallen out of love. He had a visual flashback to when they first met. Karen had been thinner, tall and leggy: the kind of woman he usually went for. She had posted a note in the Department of French and Italian that she needed a tutor to practice her French. As soon as he saw a female name, Michael spotted a potential opportunity for an easy score. Boy was he wrong...
    Karen smiled a lot and acted friendly enough, but she remained all business during their meetings. There was something puritan yet enticingly corruptible about this woman that drew Michael to her. For two long, tantalizing months she flirted with him, even going so far as to pet and kiss. In spite of his relentless efforts, however, she refused to go all the way with him. Michael had never actually encountered such a specimen: the semi-virtuous woman. He had frequently run into loose women (his favorite kind, at least from a pragmatic perspective) and, less often, women who weren’t interested in him (which he conveniently categorized as “lesbians”). He had also encountered the kind of women he wasn’t interested in. Generally speaking, after a few drinks, that category became negligibly small. But nobody had tried to pull the “I don’t have sex before marriage” crap on him before. Wasn’t that over and done with since in the sixties? After all, what did all those chicks burn their bras for? This was the one triumph of women’s lib Michael wholeheartedly supported. The rest, he thought, were sexist against men.
    Used to getting his way with women, after two months of dating Michael dropped the pining lover routine. One evening when they were making out in the back seat of his car, he unzipped his pants and pulled up her skirt. Karen objected, but Michael was no longer disposed to heed her protestations. I’ve put more than enough time into this freaking relationship, he thought, ready to reap his rewards. He pushed Karen’s shoulders down and lay on top of her,