Prologue

 

So filled with smoke and talk and drink and bodies, there's no more room in this bar for more. Hardly room to concentrate. But here I am, bent over, lining up the perfect shot, peering down at the shiny 10 ball with nothing in my mind but sinking it in the corner pocket. I aim, ready, certain, nothing can shatter the faultless precision, except that there's a sudden uneasy tingle along my spine.

At the door, casting a long shadow over the familiar surroundings of Grady's bar, Eric Trenton stands waiting. Tall, lean, muscled, overpowering. The low din, the clink of glasses, the laughter and voices seem to subside for just a minute. No one knows exactly why but me. No one sees the rift the way I do. How he aims his intention the way I flawlessly aim a pool cue. I see him from the corner of my eye while letting a brief shudder of fear pass, if nothing else, go deep inside me, waiting for later to reappear. The cue ball hits the 10, sending it sliding into the corner pocket like a hand into a glove.

Next thing I know, Eric has me by the nape of the neck, pulling me upright. The coiled rope in his hand throws me; although it's not coiled for long. The pool cue clatters to the floor as he captures my small hands in his large ones and binds them behind my back.

"Not in here!" Grady shouts from behind the bar.

"Your shed will do just fine," Eric calls back.

He pushes me through a crowd of our friends, my puffed up chest straining the buttons on my sleeveless shirt, breast flesh jingling in a show of titillating angst. It's hot; the bar swelters in the heat of activity. Beads of sweat run into the valley between my tits. I'm panting, hardly able to catch my breath. I falter in my three inch heels but Eric keeps pushing me forward.

I see snickering faces all around me until I close my eyes, but I can't stop the catcalls from infecting my pride.

"Ooo my, looks like Annabelle's going down tonight," some raspy voice I recognize calls out, sneeringly. Lucas Dort drunk on his ass.

Outside, I drink in a breath of fresh air. But the humiliation doesn't end as the bar door slams behind us. A small crowd of rough bearded faces turn our way with curiosity leaking from their leering eyes. They'll get malicious, just like the man who owns my body now. But he steers me through the dozen loitering men with their smokes and beer to the shed behind the bar. I've been here at least twice before that I remember-but everything, past and present, is a fuzzy haze right now. None of those previous trips were quite as public as this one.

"Don't we get to watch?" Kevin Darcy calls out as the shed door starts to close.

"Get your own slut to punish!" Eric calls back at him.

The air is close inside the shed, where now I'm part of the atmosphere, the tools, the stacked wood, the broken-down snow blower and decaying bikes-the kind of bikes with motors and lots of varoom when they were new. Grady's good one, the polished Harley, sits beside his backdoor - there for fast getaways, maybe, though it's never stored in this place of abandoned plans and forsaken dreams.

Eric pushes me down with his big firm hand, while the other hand draws the leather from around his waist. I stumble, trying to maintain my balance in my favorite heels. He handles that issue swiftly by shoving me against the prickly bark of Grady's firewood. My skirt's too short to hide much, especially when I'm bent at the waist. My hands stay firmly tied behind me, so I'll take the punishment awkwardly, bear it with nothing to cling to.

I hear catcalls from outside as the crowd collectively waits for the action to begin.

They don't wait long and neither do I. A sudden draft of air precedes the first smack on my naked derriere. Eric lets that burning shot linger-that is, after all, his trademark. A warning, I've always thought, because it just gets worse from there. Following the first strike are the hard, cruel waves upon waves of fiery smacks that blister my butt from top to bottom. I don't dare make a sound, as Eric's leather belt connects with my ass at the base and the tender sweet spot that hurts like hell at times like this. Don't think I don't want to howl like a banshee. But I won't; I never do. My pride is too important to me.

I feel the burn all way inside me where it churns up sex and rage simultaneously. I want more; I feed on this. This want - this raging, needy want pours through me; my soul's been begging for this for days. I come back to this moment of pain and rage again and again to expunge the tempestuous ache that never seems to completely leave me. A fix for my addiction, Eric tells me. It's no surprise I'm getting it now considering how badly behaved I've been in the last week. Despite the terrific pain that rises up all around me, through every pore and nerve and fibre of my being, that finally makes me gasp aloud - I don't cry out. I clench my fists inside the cutting rope, futilely fighting against it, until my wrists are scraped and bruised.

Eric stops the punishment to bark at me. "You're not gonna win this one, Annabelle!"

Dammit I will! My inner demon speaks, but no one hears but me.

I fight on and the strap continues its belligerent smacking. Eric's powerful arm comes down again and again; the pain almost makes me numb. One minute, there's nothing but pain, the next, from deep within me, my sexual fires explode. I wrench in spasms. Eric suddenly drops the belt and pulls me to his groin where, magically, his erection spears me to the heart. His hands reach up under my shirt and grasp my breasts, pinching nipples as he does, sending more pain through my beleaguered nerves. I gasp with sudden pleasure, feeling lifted from the damage, the terror, the well-deserved anguish to a place where nothing matters but my cumming body and the man hammering my cunt. I feel him hard and strong behind me, a force that seems to gobble me inside its dominant attitude. I feel small this way, insignificant, and won't come down from the adrenalin frenzy of my personal horror-at least for the next hour. The effect will last for days, if I'm lucky a week or two.

Our rasping voices cry in unison as Eric spews his seed in me, leaving it as a reminder of his ownership. When he's done with me, he pulls out and turns me around by grabbing my hair.

"Don't you dare lie to me again, Annabelle," he says. A warning.

"No, hon, promise. I'm so so sorry."

"Yeah, right." Why would he believe me now when I've lied to him before?

"Maybe I needed this, huh?" I say sorrowfully.

"Yeah, you needed this. And you need more than this, bitch. I should make you crawl to the truck, maybe tie you to the hood and let you stay there the night. Huh? What do you think of that?"

My body quivers as I whimper.

"I think maybe you're still mad at me."

"I think maybe you're right."

I pull up straight and my head falls on his warm chest. In that place of solitude I can feel his heart beating and what is tense in him starting to fall away. "I am sorry."

"Yeah, you're sorry," he says, now sounding a little kinder. He tousles my hair affectionately. He knows I'm not particularly sorry; it's just the way I am.

We move toward the shed door.

"You suppose you could untie me?" I implore him. My eyes beg for his sympathy.
"What?" he snickers unmercifully, "and let the bastards outside miss out on the thrill of seeing my punished girlfriend in all her glory?"

"They already saw me in my glory," I remind him.

He wants to laugh but he won't. In fact, I imagine he'll lord himself over me for at least the rest of the night. I might even pay for my crime again with something more inventive and equally as cruel; though nothing quite beats a good old-fashioned thrashing in the woodshed for curing me of my taunting ways. I baited him for days becoming sassy, even shrewish. I lied a little and spent his cash and then stood him up, forgetting the home cooked dinner I promised him in favor of brushing up on my pool game at Grady's. He knows I'm not going to split on him; he knows I love him. But he knows when there's one infraction piled atop another that I'm aching for it rough, for his rough hands and the terrifying rush and the wildness that makes my body explode. I'm aching for his hard cock to give me some relief. Though it's not a cure, it sure leaves me smiling.

With my hands mercifully untied, we exit the woodshed and head for his truck.

The guys are there, of course, snickering and chuckling to themselves while giving me leering sideways glances.

"You ought to let us have her for a night," one of them howls.

I turn slightly, saying, with an air of saucy abandon, "Don't you wish?" I smirk right back at their silly faces. Eric clutches me closer to his side, giving my arm a purposeful squeeze as if to say, I'd better behave myself. If I don't, I suppose I'll be over his lap right out in the open. I shape-up quickly realizing that I've had enough for one night.