Chapter One

 

As we lie in the autumn sunshine, my lover's thighs move warmly against mine. A hot sun beats through the bedroom window. The bed is damp from sweating bodies, the tan complexion of his, the fragile and unblemished pearl of mine. His dark chest hair glistens. I kiss the skin and taste its salty tang. I watch, peeking down at his crotch, seeing the affluent package of testicles and penis stir as my fingernails lightly tease the wrinkled balls. He shimmies and his erection grows more abundant. I think of its strength in me, butting against the end of my vagina where the cervix stops its penetration and the insides of me scream. How I ache!

He moans contentedly when my hand covers the shaft and holds it tightly, while slowly moving up and down. The head appears then disappears as the untrimmed foreskin glides with ease to hide its secret and then expose the rudeness of it before my eyes. My crotch snaps, the sensations abundant, enveloping me from cunt to chest. I'm tempted to circumvent more foreplay, to climb on this pulsing prick and ride it to my ends, but another desire supercedes, and I move to suck the head, to let my tongue dart about the rim, my lips to slide along the skin. His perfume fills me. One long whiff of it and I move faster, burrowing my face into his thick black hair as his cock bores my mouth until I threaten to gag. He's thinking little of my comfort now, but demanding his pleasure.

He pushes me around so my cunt lights on his face. As his mouth moves on my throbbing vulva, his hands squeeze the plump cheeks of my ass. His tongue reaches for the center while I'm going down on him faster as my arousal builds. This furious rhythm makes me think he'll soon splash his cum on my face. But I want more. I want his dick in me, the thrust, the jab, the to-the-hilt breach of me. I want it harder. Faster. Fuller.

Pulling off, I swing about to initiate the strike and he rolls me over. I'm tempest tossed across these sheets, erection stabbing me to my sexual heart, deep against my cervix, fucked soundly. Legs parting like a randy whore, I let his boldness turn me into little more than a grabbing orifice. I don't hold him because there is no need, he holds me while I clutch the sheets beside me, nails driving into the flesh of my hands through the silky bedsheets.

I gasp something ungodly in reply to his ghastly groans. Then we pant in unison until that final surge with him spewing as though he plans to impregnate me.

I am not yet finished, and thankfully, he moves in me while I writhe. He draws his wilting prick in and out while I grab for the spasm, that final jarring step to the end-before everything spills out and I can't hold back, and my body flees downward, cunt clenching. I'm out of breath, thrashing back and forth.

I finally draw my lover down to me, sweaty skin to sweaty skin, nakedness groveling softly as the final jolts of pleasure appear and then drift on, until there are no more. As we surface, reality hits with a less pleasurable jolt-one we didn't count on.

"Perhaps you should kiss your friend goodbye and send him on." The words don't immediately register. But when they do, I turn to see my husband, Heinrich, standing at the bedroom door.

 

***

 

"How long has it been, Anna?"

How cold he is.

"Six months," I answer almost proudly, though I'm a mix of confused thoughts-fear, defiance, and bedlam trying to take hold. I should cower in the corner, or fall down to my knees and beg his mercy.

Heinrich has no compassion for me. He clearly sees how I wither before him, hoping I'll find some emotion in him, some rage, perhaps. I imagine beneath his sheet of ice something burns. But not so I can see. Maybe that's what he did with his last hour-contain himself so he could now let me shiver before his cold blue eyes. Then too, perhaps he knows this mood in him tempts me, how the cold creates an erotic fire that will eventually drive me mad. In that madness, he'll leave me longing because he's just that kind of man. Then too, I am the adulteress here. I'm a selfish woman, wanting more than I've likely earned.

I swear I didn't set him up to find me-even if we were fucking in the bed he shares with me. Heinrich was out of town for two weeks, in the middle of his business trip. I spoke with him two nights ago, and he made no mention of returning early. Was he suspicious? He gives me no explanation, but now sits in his creaking leather chair before the fireplace, staring upwards critically. My heart beats fast in anticipation of his grilling me. It's been an hour since he surprised us in the doorway and I've had all that time to worry about this confrontation.

Ian's visit should have been a safe playground. We've done it before, when it feels good to mock my husband in his own bed without his knowledge. I used to wonder if Heinrich could smell my lover's fragrance in the room or on the sheets-I deliberately didn't wash them-and then wonder why the room seemed strange. Noting his responses, I suspect he had no clue of my infidelity.

His blonde hair is mussed, not a good sign. I watched for a time from the bedroom as he ran his hand through the groomed locks, looking unlike himself-troubled. Now, I stare at his crotch thinking I might see it pulse beneath his pressed blue jeans, but they fit tightly on his slim hips and show nothing of the bounty that hangs there-when it has a chance to hang. His jaw twitches-all the firmness of purpose enhancing a handsomeness that never ceases to make me tremble-even when I hate him, or he's angry. I first fell in love with Heinrich because he looks like he stepped from a movie, or the pages of a fashion magazine. I could see him holding Rita Hayworth in his arms, his full lips meeting hers. When he smiles-not the smirking one that accompanies his critical eye, but lets loose a charming one that flashes brilliantly when he's getting his way-I disappear inside that smile. My limbs begin to quake, and I grow soppy between my thighs. I haven't seen him smile at me like that for months. He offers it willingly to those he woos, but not me. It's a much different feeling than now as I witness this chill, a magnetic eroticism that has the power to hold me there when certainly other women would throw the bastard off. Obviously, we're not happily married and haven't been for some time.

"Heinrich, I'm sorry." I hope he can see that I've been crying. I sob making sure he'll notice and make an extra effort to look contrite. But of course my remorse is ignored.

"Take off your robe," he orders.

"Take off my robe?"

"Yes. Take it off."

"You want me now?" I wonder.

"Don't talk, Anna."

I shed the silk. Still sticky with Ian between my thighs, I wonder if Heinrich can tell. I certainly hope so. This will be the end of us-an end I often manufacture in my dreams. I want him to hurt like he's hurt me. To feel the blade of despair cut inside his heart, the way his has cut at mine. As much as I relish the thought, however, I can't think of hurt now, not when he stares at me the way he does. I didn't expect this response and it has my heart beating so fast, my stomach so on edge I'm nauseous.

"On your knees."

I obey, without thinking, a command I've obeyed a hundred times in a marriage that lives for desperate times. When we practice our dark sexual secrets, we seem to know each other best. These moments define who we've become, and suggest we have no other way to give, no greater gift to share than these sadomasochistic rituals.

I bend to the floor and clasp my hands behind me, below the small of my back. I wonder how I look. Once, he took a picture of me like this, so suppliantly posed. There are graceful lines, a trim kind of beauty Ian would say. I'm not sure what Heinrich thinks of me like this.

Then too, Ian would never see me so reposed-I don't play these games with him. Sex with my lover is relentless but not the dark feast of beauty it is with my husband. Ian wouldn't have me this way. He loves looking into my wide-open face, loves seeing how my smoky eyes spark. I think my face too flat and plain, my features too small. But he sees a gentle beauty there-I can tell by the touch of his tender hand. He runs his thumb on my pink skin as though he's trying to wipe away a smudge of rouge. I wonder if I could be more sultry if I grew out my brown hair. But I like it short, this inch or two of sass makes me feel young and kid-like, sometimes boyish. Ian never complains, and neither has Heinrich. Ian never would, but if Heinrich thought it stupid or unattractive, he'd be sure to tell me. I wish I were more voluptuous, but in the one scant compliment I recall from my indifferent husband, he says my body is simple, which makes it all the easier to adorn in whatever way he chooses.

Heinrich's on his feet at my side and I feel a lash tickling the skin at my hips. I keep my hands pressed tightly to the small of my back, my naked ass slightly raised. It took some time to learn this pose for punishment, but I know it well now.

Perhaps I've misjudged my husband. Perhaps he won't throw me out, but looks only for compensation, penance, retribution, vengeance. And if that is so, if all he wants is to punish me, I know we've set in motion a lengthy period of atonement. I'll feel this blessed pain for weeks, even months until he's satisfied. I'll give up Ian, and be a more dutiful wife. But what then? Start over again with another lover when Heinrich's finally pacified and I'm bored and lonely?

The lash darts about my skin, licking the side of my thighs, running along the crack of my ass, teasingly stroking my shoulders. I shudder as the feelings move toward my crotch where a beautiful pulse of energy begins.

Heinrich snaps the leather hard, and I shudder as a bright burst of pain settles in me like a shower of sparks inside my body. Another and the sensation deepens. Another and I moan.

"I rather you were silent, Anna," Heinrich's voice cuts as keenly as his lash. This is not an opinion, but an order.

Thwack!

It splats across my raised ass and I struggle to get away. Heinrich makes me settle before he begins again, and then he doesn't care whether I squirm or fight. He punishes me hard, letting his fury flow through his hand into the harsh leather. I fight this misery, and attempt to contain it, but it's all so erratic. There's little to delight in, though I know that when he's finished my cunt will be on fire, clenching for something to fill the void. It would astound me if he gave me any physical release in the aftermath. I clench in hopes that this lash alone might bring me off, but I am so far away, shrieking-much to Heinrich's dismay. He strikes harder.

And then I beg, "please no more, please." This is a heartfelt cry, my soul trying to grab at his.

Suddenly he stops. I flinch; sure he'll strike again. Sensing that he's finished at least for now, my body collapses to the thick carpet beneath me, as though I could snuggle into it for comfort.

When he lifts me from the floor, he has a rope in hand. Wrapped about my wrists that rope tells me much. This scene will take some time and my punishment is not over for the day. Moving on me with an intensity I treasure, Heinrich draws me into the bedroom and thrusts me over the end of the bed, tying the rope to the headboard above. His hand begins to fondle my crotch. His fingers play at my pussy and my ass. He works them beyond my sphincter, and that backdoor spasms. I imagine his cock replacing those fingers. His mastery of my physical responses has me dreaming of climactic ends. I can already feel an orgasm about to crash within. This comes quickly, and I think I might have tricked my husband into giving me more than he planned, but with the swiftness of a wildfire crashing through a dry canyon, he backs off.

Thwack!

A slicing bamboo peals away my thoughts of cumming, replacing it with a pain that bites hard. I shriek, just once.

I writhe on the hard metal bedrail getting nowhere in this awkward pose. The sensation of each crack roars through me and I beg. But he doesn't listen. What I say is only gibberish but it must communicate my agony. Pain supplants reason. Intense, sharp, burning pain. My ass is scorched, hotter each time the bamboo strikes my ass.

Suddenly the frenetic tempo changes as several cuts streak across my shoulders. I feel him subdue me. With these new rivers of sensation, another world of surrender opens. How can he manage to lay them precisely where he wants when I'm thrashing so violently? How does he know me this well, except that in these brief seconds we are so immersed in each other, we cannot help but think alike. The cuts to my shoulders tame my will to fight. I'm falling, growing smaller, tinier each second as another blow delivers me downward. On my ass, the cuts punish. On my shoulders, they make me humble. I could weep with this feeling of abdication. But it's at this moment Heinrich stops.

The silence in killing-like dead weight descending around us. The air seems hot so we can hardly breathe, and for a moment-just seconds I suppose-I think of us as two images from a still life on canvas. He's whipped the life from us both and we are nothing more than empty shells.

When my body begins to feel again, when a draft from the open window tickles the heat on my marred skin, I squirm ever so slightly on the bedrail and Heinrich speaks.

"I think this time your self-indulgence exceeds my own," he tells me coldly. "I want you gone by morning. I trust you won't take anything that doesn't belong to you. Bernard will draw up the divorce papers and I'll have them sent to the bookstore."

With a quick sleight of hand, he unknots the rope. Leaving me lying over the end of the bed, I wait to hear the front door click before I struggle to my feet.