Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 73013 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 365(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73013 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 365(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
Always,
Rick
For an instant I hesitated, the covers still pulled up over my chest, the note starting to fall from my slightly trembling fingers. Different pictures of me came to my mind’s eye, doing something—anything—that could change the shameful story that seemed to be unfolding with me as its wanton, submissive heroine… or rather its degraded, owned victim.
Me, pulling on clothes and slouching down the street to the edge of town, to some place where I could buy a bus ticket home. Me, caught by Mrs. Purdy on the road, returned to my husband for his terrible justice.
Me, reasoning with Rick that of course I would have sex with him, and do the cooking and the laundry, but not… not with no hair down there, no way, and not with the threat of the belt, and not with him talking that way to me, using those filthy words, and…
My bottom squirmed on the soft, satiny sheet. I let out a little sob at the soreness there, and the ambiguous tendrils of warmth it had sent to the soreness up front. At the need that had started to gather there. At the dark memories of my first whipping over the pillows, my bottom offered for the old-fashioned lesson I had earned… my pussy offered for the hard… the brutal…
Lovemaking, I told myself, at the same moment forcing myself to get out of bed.
I did everything I could not to notice my reflection, but how could I not see it, since I had to get to the bathroom to take a shower? I saw my naked body, the little breasts and the golden triangle of crinkly hair, the place Rick had claimed as his personal property. I would persuade him how ridiculous and shameful his idea of taking those intimate curls away was. I would tell April thank you, yes, I would love a mani-pedi at a day spa.
I opened the door and I kept my eyes straight ahead toward the shower. My tummy fluttered with alarm at the idea that I might catch sight of my rear end, of the welts I had touched in bed under the covers, before I had fully woken up and gotten possession of my wits. I found I could keep my eyes away from the mirror whenever it might show me my backside, and that gave me increasing confidence, as I showered and then got dressed, that I could make it all work out.
I winced a little as I put on a pair of my everyday pink bikini panties, but I had already begun thinking about the cute skirt I would wear—one I had bought for the honeymoon but hadn’t had a chance to put on in the Adirondacks.
By the time April’s car pulled up in front of the house, I felt ready to get this new life in Rocky Falls off to a solid start. I had shown Rick, even during the craziness that his masculine needs had clearly brought on, that I could fulfill the most extreme of conjugal duties. I didn’t intend to fulfill them that way again, but, sure, yes, I meant to be a good girl, in my own way.
Brat, the observer observed. I shook my head as I went out the door to clear that voice away.
“Hi, Mandy!” April called through the driver’s side window. “Hop in!”
CHAPTER 25
Rick
“How did last night go?” Scott asked as we he drove the cart up the beautifully manicured first fairway toward the green, where I had landed my second shot perfectly.
“Oh,” I said, trying to laugh off the slightly uncomfortable dimension of the question. “It’s great—the house they’re putting us up in is… well, it’s nicer than any place I’ve ever lived, anyway. Mandy loves it. I think we’re pretty much sold on the benefits of Rocky Falls—just need to see if—”
“Rick,” Scott interrupted, bringing the cart to a stop next to the sand trap where his own ball had ended up, “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, but I’m afraid I pretty much have to.”
He paused, looking over at me. I frowned back, suddenly very uncertain as to whether Scott had, as I had supposed, not actually meant to ask about the more intimate part of Mandy and my first night in Rocky Falls. For a second, also I assumed his last words must have to do with the initial question—how last night had gone. I thought that after the strangely penetrating look he had fixed on me, he would turn and get out of the cart to take his shot, so I broke the eye contact and I started to get out myself.
Scott stopped me with a golf-gloved hand on my forearm. I turned to him, my frown returning and growing deeper.
“I’m your sponsor here, Rick,” he said. “At least until you decide you want to choose another sponsor.”