[ March 3, 2004 ]

ANN

One time after I was interviewing a crime victim, I remember a veteran police detective telling me that in the midst of finding yourself face to face with a crime being committed against your person, there is no such thing as a fight or flight response.

No one reacts that swiftly, he told me. When I asked, he said that the most instantaneous response is really disbelief and a deep unwillingness to process what's happening. It's why so many victims kick themselves in the ass later, he told me. They always feel like there's something wrong with them that they didn't do or say something in that first moment when all their mind can do is try to make sense of something they have no preparation for.

This is how it feels.

I'm here to tell you, he's right.

I am numb right now and maybe it's the only reason that I even sound like I'm making some semblance of sense.

This is how I feel ... I could kick myself in the ass.

I wish I was capable of explaining it better because I think the numbness is not letting me feel everything I should be. I'm probably protecting myself but if this is true, then how much worse is it possible for me to hurt right now?

My cell phone is in my hands. Its dial face is dark because I turned it off when I got to the airport in London. I am huddled in the window seat of a hotel room on the coast of France, looking out at the English Channel. I have no one I want to hear from but I wish there was someone I could talk to.

Who can I call? Who would offer me comfort? If my cousin Reggie were alive, he would ... but I am glad he's dead because now I don't have to tell him that I've failed again. There's no one else in my family I can tell something like this to who won't make me feel like anything so much as the sum of my sins.

I catch my reflection in the windowpane and smooth my hair behind my ears. I notice the pearl earrings in my lobes ... from him ... first real gift from him ... I always told him they were my good luck charm and that I wore them whenever I needed to feel his strength with me. I remember Heather telling me how she loves the way I always finger them when I speak about him to her.

Heather. I could call her.

Fuck! I should tell her, I think with this sudden tidal wave of black anger. I should fucking tell her and it would serve him right. It would, the fucker. He'd die if she knew he wasn't the perfect White Knight.

The phone is ringing and I have it pressed against my ear, waiting for her to answer before I even realize I called her. I am so fucking angry in this moment but when I hear her voice ... I choke with it.

"It's me," I croak into the phone. Clear my throat. "Just had a few minutes. Thought I'd see what's up with you and Dino."

"Ann? Are you okay? You sound very strange," she asks me and I form the words but they don't come out. The silence drags on long enough that I won't be able to explain it away. "Tell me what's wrong."

I swallow hard and feel the bile of my anger burn in my throat. "Nothing. I just ... I'm coming down with something. You know how much I hate getting sick."

Oh, man. That's so lame. And Heather is too sharp. She'll know. But she's also kind enough to not push me.

"Where are you? Can you go see a local doctor?"

Brittle laugh from me. I look out at the sea. "It's not that kind of sick." I pause and wonder why I'm not crying. "It's just a 24-hour bug, I think."

"Maybe you should hunker down in a hotel room, order up some hot toddies and sleep it off," she tells me and I know she's clutching for something to say to see if I'll tell her what's really wrong.

"Maybe so," I whisper and just then this little hard stab of grief startles out of me as I feel myself so close to giving in that I can taste my tears. I know she's heard it and it makes me think I can tell her. My voice cracks as I say, "Heather?"

"I'm here."

"Things are not going so good for me."

"I'm so sorry. What can I do to help?"

It's the closest I come. Maybe the closest I'll ever come to reaching out for help during this time. But I can't do it to her, in the end. I can't. Some shred of decency or maybe shame holds me back. I close my eyes and crawl back into myself.

"You've done it. Really. I just needed to hear a friendly voice." And it dawns on me ... it was what I needed. I needed to not feel quite so alone. But now that I've done this, I realize it was a mistake. I don't need to contaminate anyone else's day with my misery. And I don't want her dragged into this. She was Terry's friend before she was mine; I won't test her allegiance this way. And I don't know if I've ever realized just how alone I really am in this world now.

So I sniffle and fake a chuckle. "Damn, Heather. I'm sorry. I was just having a down day ... with work and all ... guess I've let this story get to me and now I'm feeling all sick ... But I'm okay. Just having a bad moment, I suppose. I'm glad you were home. I just needed to hear a friend's voice."

"Well, I'm flattered ..." Now getting that sassy note in her voice. "And I presume Terry wasn't answering his phone because I know he would have been your first call."

Terry. The name cuts me to the quick.

"Yeah. Right. He must have been busy."

"You sure you're okay? Should I be worried about you? I just have this feeling that there's something you might want to get off your chest and I'll be here for you if so."

"I know that. But I'm fine. Really ... Look, I better get going. I think I will order up that hot toddy and just get some sleep. You take care. Give Dino and Andy a kiss for me."

The phone is in my hands. I have ended the call. I am staring at it and then it starts ringing. Terry's number comes up in the window and I turn the phone off as the memory of the last time I saw him washes over me.

MAX

How long I sat in that chair in a hotel room not far from where they had shared each other's love, I could not say. For a lot of that night, I let the spirits soothe me as well as they could. It did not quell the torture in my heart. My eyes did not see the blank wall before me as I slumped there. They saw only them.

My adored wife.

My trusted brother.

Over and over, it ran before me. Flash of burgundy clothing. Pity of grey rain.

And then I saw the other image from the day before. I groaned and my head dropped into my hands as I felt the misery of having harmed another only to inflict some measure of pain on these two who had betrayed me. I felt the bite of anguish over the pain she must have felt.

Time passed. I was still there. I did not know where else to go. No plan of action formed. I couldn't move or think or feel. I wondered how I still carried on breathing. Just one image stayed in my brain. Lily. How could I shelter her from all this?

I rose to my feet and made myself walk towards the road; I needed a cab. I needed to go to my child and protect her from the gathering storm. A taxi rolled up outside the hotel and I made to cross over and claim it as its passenger alighted. Then recognition pulled me up straight. Ann. Ann? Why was she there? She was visiting her husband. Unexpected visit? Surprise him in his suite? I must stop her. She would walk in on them. I imagined the scene and the horror she would face.

And then I paused. They deserved it. A just reward for their misdeeds. She needed to know what kind of man she had married. They needed to twist and turn with the guilt and shame of discovery; naked and exposed, no more to play the whore and whoremaster behind our backs.

I staggered away along the street and found a bar with a window seat that gave out onto the hotel front. There I drank until I saw Ann emerge, white faced, to jump another cab and disappear. I drank some more.

I forced myself back to the moment in which I must function. It was not right that I had used Ann to punish them. It must be my responsibility to look after her now. This gave me two reasons to keep on; two innocents to protect.

ANN

I haven't even been able to cry yet. Somehow it makes the memories sharper yet less real because I'm not processing them yet. In the moment they happened, I was a typical victim and simply couldn't believe. By the time my body crashed into its flight response, I'd seen too much.

In my hands, I no longer see the phone. I see the key card to his hotel room.

I had called Dino the day before and asked him to make it possible for me to get the key card. I was flying into London to surprise Terry. It had been over a week since I'd touched him and I had news that I wanted to share in person. Actually? I was about to crawl right out of my skin in my excitement and joy over this news.

So I had decided to take a few days from the story I'd been pursuing in Paris, fly to London, sneak into his hotel room and be waiting for him when he got back from a long day of meetings. Just wanted to tell him in person that I'd been offered the job at the daily in DC. Wanted to be sitting there watching his eyes as he got what this meant. Wanted to discuss it with him even though I already knew he'd say 'yes - take the job.'

The key card was waiting on me at the desk, compliments of TOL, the note read. I slid it in the door and pulled my suitcase in with me; set my carryon and laptop bags on the floor of the short hallway. I had assumed he'd still be working but then I grinned so hard when I saw his attaché open on the desk. His cell was on the floor just as the short entry hall emptied into the sitting area of the suite. He was there then. I felt my heart race in anticipation of seeing him.  He must have come back very early to get some work done in the peace of this suite. I tiptoed in, peaked around the corner ... but he wasn't in the outer room ...  I figured he must have been in the bedroom area or taking a shower. Either way, I couldn't wait to see his face when he realized I was there. I left my bags where they were, picked up his cell on my way into the sitting area, strode over to put it on his desk ...

And then took another look ... and I didn't want to see it ... and then my eyes slowly moved away, over in the direction of a closed door leading to what had to be the bedroom of the suite.

Shook my head, closed my eyes and then looked again. And somehow? This sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach seemed to say I'd been stupid and I'd been blind and I'd been wrong about everything my life was built upon.

A woman's purse on the desk next to Terry's attaché.

A woman's heels on the floor, one after the other, as if languidly walked out of on the way to the bedroom.

A woman's jeweled hairclip on the floor, as if dropped in haste just before the door.

I just stood there. Unwilling to believe.

And then I heard music and other noises from the bedroom and I had to become a witness to the crime.

There I stood. In the doorway of the bedroom. I had an unfettered view as I slowly widened the crack until I could see it all.

She was under him. He was pumping into her. This was the primary thing I saw. It was what I focused on. Only later did I see the details in my memory. How he dipped down to kiss her ... lingering ... in time to his thrusts. How her hands clutched at him. How her face shined. How the muscles of his back strained.

But it was the sound that really would always haunt me.

This wasn't just a rut. This was love between them.

I heard it in his voice, the sound of him when he is deep in sexual oblivion with a woman ... me ... whom he loves. The way he murmurs ... that deep, utterly masculine voice he has in this time of passion and love. I could have closed my eyes and would have thought it was me he was making love to ... but it was not.

It was Uma.

And she was sighing to him and there were tears in her eyes and ... of course she would love him.

Before my eyes, their passion swelled and they were almost there. I heard them. They were on the brink of coming.

I honestly know this. This was how it felt. I could kick myself in the ass for not turning around and leaving the moment I saw the first article of women's clothing. If I had, I might have been able to pretend that this wasn't as immense as it was.

But at least I left before they came. At least I don't have that memory.

It wasn't until I was stumbling into the hotel lobby that I realized in my flight I'd left my suitcase in the room. It flitted into my mind to go back up and grab it. But I was shaking so hard by then and all I knew was that I had to run.

I'll never run far enough.

At the airport, I traded my return flight ticket in so I could take the next flight back to Paris. In the air, I realized that Terry would come after me when he found my suitcase. He'd want to tell me face to face that he wanted a divorce. He'd want to tell me to my face that I wasn't woman enough to hold on to him.

In pure self-preservation mode, I arrived in Paris with a plan because I knew I couldn't take him telling me of all the ways I'd not been woman enough. I knew them all ... and I knew this, too: in Uma, he'd found the woman he really wanted. A woman who put her man first and had left her career behind because she knew her priorities. A woman who could give him children and would devote herself to the family they'd have. A real woman. Unlike me, who hadn't been woman enough for Cal and now wasn't woman enough for Terry.

Who had I been kidding? A man like Terry Thorne? I had never been good enough for him.

This was how it felt. I wanted to disappear from the face of the earth.

I hadn't lived with Terry so long not to have picked up on some skills. I wanted to hide; I knew how to cover my tracks. From the airport, I took a taxi to the hotel I'd been at. Went to my room and packed clothes in the suitcase I'd left there. Snuck down the service elevator and walked two blocks to another hotel where I used every bit of cash I had to rent a car, using fake identification papers I carried with me just in case I ever needed it. Sometimes I did. Sometimes, it was helpful for me to travel without anyone knowing I was a reporter. From there, I drove to a bank. Withdrew up to my limit in cash. And then just drove. I did not head to anyplace in particular but when I reached Cherbourg, I decided this was the end of the road and took a room, still using that fake ID.

And once inside that hotel room, the first thing I'd done was ... I tell you this honestly ... was strip and look at my body for evidence of my femininity. I even used a hand mirror to look at my sex.

Next thing I remember is the sound of the hand mirror smashing against the wall where I'd lobbed it. I spent the next hour trying to pick up every shard of glass from the rug. My fingers bled but I didn't feel them.

This is how love feels when it's dead.

Why hadn't I seen this coming? Why hadn't I known I had it coming?

Of all people for him to fucking fall in love with.

God but I hated her. Uma. She had it all, the bitch. Why did she have to take Terry, too? 

Why wasn't I good enough for him?

Why hadn't he just told me that he didn't love me anymore?

And I saw it all so clearly. Uma was perfect for him. She was smart, cultured, sophisticated, fertile, loving, soft, all woman. And you just had to take one look at Maximus to know that any woman who engendered that strong man to love her with the absolute way he did was a woman that any man would want.

And Terry. God. Such a man. Everything I'd ever sought in a man and so much more. So much. He deserved more than he had in me.

He just shouldn't have done it this way. He should have told me he wanted out before he started having an affair with Uma. I honestly would never have thought Terry would be so cruel. I would really have sworn on a stack of Bibles that Terry was the kind of man who would have found it important to spare me the knowledge that he was leaving me for another woman. I would have thought he would have been more likely to be sensitive to my insecurities and that he would have simply asked for a divorce and then made it appear that the affair began only after the divorce.

Maybe you never really know another person.

Then again, people change, don't they? And when love dies, who knows what people do?

For hours, these thoughts swirled in my head. Then I began veering sharply between self-loathing and hatred of Terry for doing this to us.

It's when the pain went into overload and my psyche responded by turning numb.

I started visualizing what Terry might have done when he found my suitcase. I could see him laughing at his cow of a wife. He and Uma giggling over this ... knowing I'd seen them, hoping I'd seen how much better she was than me. Or maybe he'd felt guilty? Maybe he'd realized that he should have handled the affair in a different way. Or maybe he'd been scared. Maybe he thought I'd tell her husband. But he'd know I'd never do that ... it's not my style. I wouldn't have wanted to hurt some other innocent victim.

Would he have cared about me? I tried to see if I could imagine that. Could I see his face, his eyes ... could I imagine him caring that he'd just killed me?

Would he realize that I now had no life left?

I'd given everything up to build a life with him and I'd done it with joy. I didn't regret it because it was the right way to do it. But now it left me adrift without a clue as to where I could go for support. My family? I couldn't picture myself crawling home to them for the second time to report that yet another husband was cheating on me. My friends? Imagine what they'd wonder I might do this time. It was too humiliating. His family? I was certainly not going to turn to them. They weren't much better than a cult at the best of times and for sure they'd take his side. They were probably all wondering why he stuck with me anyway.

This was when I reached out for Heather. Just to hear that, for now, someone who was both linked to me in friendship and linked to Terry by family would be willing to let me cry on her shoulder. But in the end, I couldn't do it to her.

And there was really no one else in the end. Just me. Out here all on my own.

A day later, I was bitter with rage.

Funny the progression of your emotional state in these times. I still hated myself for not being enough woman to keep the interest of men, but I also hated Terry for cheating on me.

And into this void of rage, I turned on my cell to call him. I was going to confront him ... tell him what he'd done to me ... let him hear what he'd caused.

But I just couldn't. My hands shook too hard and I knew my voice if it came out of me would be shaky with unshed tears. I wished I could cry because I knew something was really horribly wrong that I couldn't cry. I'd never reacted this way when Cal had done what he did. I'd cried then and found a way to heal.

Not this time. This time, maybe it was never going to heal.

The cell rang as I held it. I dropped it onto the bed and then picked it up. It wasn't Terry's number in the ID window. It was ... Maximus.

The very last person I would have expected to hear from. And I answered it mainly because it was contact with another human being.

His voice in my ear. Low. Deep. Dangerous. Asking me where I was. France, I offered.

In this strange juxtaposition of conflicting harsh emotions, I had an instant memory of that time with Max when I'd wondered if he was propositioning me. He had always intrigued me, from the moment I'd met this man that Terry made snide comments about while still not hiding his admiration for him. The elder brother, I called him.

I had loved the verbal jousting between us and the crackle of sexual tension that went safely unexplored because neither of us was interested in the other that way. Most of all, I loved the sense that he just had never in his life run up against a woman like me who obviously enjoyed him while she wouldn't take his shit. And, hell yes, I flirted with him. Who wouldn't? A man like that? Christ. Such a man. He could make me feel like he'd just fucked me when he'd give me this hard, long look.

So yeah. I thought he was an incredible specimen of man. If I'd never met Terry and if Max wasn't married with a child ... I am sure I would have taken him as a lover if he'd approached me. He was too much like Terry to me for me not to feel such a craving for him. That same inbred strength and undeniable honor. Virility defined in them both.

And here he was ... calling me. I wondered why. He never had before. His voice was markedly different to me. An edge there ... very hard, very chilling. And yet ... riveting.

He makes what I presume passes for small talk about how he's been trying to reach me and I realize I am speaking with the husband of the woman I took an instant dislike for and who has now stolen my husband. The fucking whore.

"What do you want, Max?" I ask him in this irritated voice. "I'm a little busy here."

He takes in this startled breath and then he asks me ... "I wish to see you."

In the breadth of that request, I think I see that he knows, as I do, that we are both being left behind by our partners.

There is something so revolting about this thought that he is calling me like this. How like a man. His woman moves on to screw another man and does he even stop to wonder why? No, he just figures he'll find another chick to use for his prick. God but men are such pigs.

"Well, I don't really have much of a desire to see you or any other brother in your clan," I bite out to him. And now he probably knows I know about Terry and Uma.

"So it is true then and you have known. How long has it been going on between your husband and my wife?" He says it with a serious growling threat of a voice.

I experience the realization that he hadn't really known, only suspected. But frankly? I don't much find myself caring how he feels. I just hate him as much as I hate Terry. He's just another fucking man. "Who the fuck cares, Max? It's over. They deserve each other. Let them have what they want. But if you think for one minute I am going to screw around with you because you want ..."

"I want you. You know I have. I have wanted you from the moment I met you."

God. His words pound into me. Someone like him wants my body. It's all men ever want, I suppose. A willing body. But it goes straight to a part of me that's been ripped to shreds ... a man like Max wants my body. Maybe I am not such a cow.

"You just want revenge."

He ignores my jibe and continues to seduce me. His voice has become liquid sex and I am breathing harder with each word he utters. "They have played house behind our backs ... with my daughter ... what do we owe them now? Why fight it. I want you. You want me. There is nothing to hold us back. Come to me."

It gets to me. So hard. His daughter. I feel my eyes slide shut, like it takes them an hour to close. I didn't know it could hurt worse than it already does. But I guess it makes sense, what he says. They must have played family ... it's what Terry wants, no matter what he says. He must have so loved playing daddy and family man. It is the final betrayal. This is the final lie, then.

"Tell me you don't want me, Ann. Why deny yourself?"

"I don't do things like that. I'm not that kind of person."

"He has left you. You owe him nothing."

"Fuck you, Max. I know what he's done. You men ... you're all alike."

But rather than react to my raging voice, his tone is unrelenting in its sexual allure. "I want you ... now. Come to me ... let me show you what kind of man I am."

There I sat. Certain no man would ever really want me again. Certain I no longer mattered. But here was this man who craved me and I knew it was for the wrong reasons but it was still my body he was reaching for in this moment.

And then it came to me ... was there any man I knew who Terry would most go wild at the thought of me being with? Was there a better way to wound him as he had wounded me? Why get mad when I could get even? He would see, he would just see what it feels like. And how much worse would it be for him to know that I'd done it deliberately and within only two days of finding out what he'd done? That I'd had the strength to simply fuck his elder brother and walk out on Terry's life would be the perfect way to show him that he will not destroy me.

Not all that many hours later, I was driving away from the London airport in a rental car and heading for a nearby hotel. Walking into the hotel's dark, woodsy bar, I stopped in the doorway, took off my coat and looked around.

Eyes my way. I had dressed for just this impact. Short leather skirt, heels, no hose, no panties, lacy bra under a clingy white sweater that loved my curves. I think I felt Max's eyes on my body long before I saw him sitting at a table off to one side. I watched him watch me and then I turned and looked into the eyes of every other man looking at me. When I turned back to look at Max, his nostrils were flared and his face was flushed as he narrowed his eyes at my challenge to his masculinity.

Only then did I approach him. He was standing when I reached him. Took one step toward me and then slid the chair out for me. I dropped into it slowly and his mouth was next to my ear as he positioned the chair for me. "I am glad you have come to me, Ann."

I waited until he re-took his seat. "What'll it be, Max? Shall we pretend we either of us have the slightest interest in anything other than sex? Or were you thinking I might actually be gullible anymore?"

The look he gave me. In this insanity I was in, I wasn't thinking. Only feeling. And no feeling I was having was anything like any feeling I was remotely familiar with. It's like my vision was clouded in black. But that look he gave me made me think of Terry and for this wild chaotic moment, I thought I might just haul off and hit him.

He rose to the bait. "I find this frankness arousing. It is something about you that has driven me to desire each time I am with you. We will be good together. You will see how good soon."

Gave him this harsh laugh and a biting reply. "Good? I don't fucking want good, Max, or I wouldn't be here. Let's make it bad tonight, shall we? I'm in the mood to have down and dirty, ugly sex with you. Let's leave the love talk to our cheating spouses. Let's you and me be clear with each other. I'm not your whore of a wife and you're not my bastard of a husband. You and I are after only one thing tonight ... to make them pay."

His eyes flared at me and I made note of this ... he would not stand for me to say rude things about Uma even though she had done something that was driving him to this night. Interesting.

He drank down the remnants of cognac in his snifter and then he was on his feet. His hand grabbed mine and he dragged me out of the bar. No pretense now.

Now, this was more like it.

We stood waiting for the elevators. Alone. And this was when he began to use his physicality to impose his mighty will. He crowded me and never would let my hand go. I found myself leaning against the wall and he was hovering in front of me. So close, so aggressive, just staring down at me as I glared up at him. When the elevator arrived, he pulled me in behind him, punched the button for the seventh floor and then backed me up hard against the railing on the far wall. His mouth took mine and it was rough. But I gave him back everything he gave me.

His hands charged down my body until he reached my skirt. I fought to keep it down but he was stronger than me. He shoved a knee between my thighs and I tried to shove him off me. Pulled my mouth from his to grunt out, "Jesus, Max. You're sure in a hurry. Has she been holding out on you while she's been fucking Terry?"

I knew it would enrage him. I saw him fight for control. His hands on my thighs dug in and I winced. And then the elevator stopped with a slight bounce, the doors opened and he dragged me down the hall to his room.

Inside the room, he flung me away from him and I felt how it felt to be totally out of control. To be insane with rage. To be another woman existing within my body.

"I want a drink," I told him. "Something hard. Scotch, if you've got it."

He didn't say a word. Just advanced on me. I put my hand on his chest.

We stared into each other. He scared the living daylights out of me. I should have run from the room but mixed in with my fear was my absolute hatred for everything he represented to me. I kept seeing Terry and I kept wanting to punish him. I kept seeing Terry and I kept wondering how he could have hated me so much.

But then I'd blink and it would be Max in front of me. His fury poured out of him. His eyes were cold. His face was like stone. He looked at me like I was his prey. Like he was deciding how he'd kill me now that he had me trapped. But first he'd torture me. I saw the ideas run through his head and it made me tremble.

Trembling with this insane combination of lust, fear, dread and desire. And hope. God. There was no room here for hope.

Maybe it was seeing me tremble. Maybe it was having the evidence that he'd frightened me. But he turned then and I saw him root through the mini-bar and pull out two small bottles of scotch. By the time he brought the glasses over, I was sitting on the couch. My legs were crossed in what I knew was a provocative and sexually aggressive stance.

He sat next to me and we both took long draws on the liquor. I felt it blaze into me. My eyes were on him. On his body language. The way his back was straight. The way his chest seemed too wide. The way his knuckles stood out in stark relief on the hand that gripped the glass. The way his jaw locked and his mouth was tense. The way his eyes flicked over my body and kept hovering over the juncture of my thighs and torso.

When he moved, I wasn't ready. Yet I was ready for it. I wanted it. I had this sudden reality of knowing that what I wanted most in that night was to abuse and be abused. I wanted to be violent. I wanted his violence. I wanted anything that approached passion. I wanted to experience the fullness of my hatred. I wanted to enjoy the hell out of my rage. I wanted to use my rage as a weapon against Terry by striking out at Max.

This was how it felt.

So he moved and all this stuff was chugging inside me.

He yanked my glass from my hand and put both our glasses down on the table before us with a sharp clank of glass on glass. He simply turned to me and dove into my body, using his weight to shove me back into the couch where I was almost prone but my head was propped up on the couch's back while my shoulders were on the cushions. I uncrossed my legs to gain stability to fight him off me but he simply drove his hand right between my legs while his mouth gripped hard and wet into the side of my neck.

"Fuck!" I yelled in his ear as his hand crashed against my tender sex. His fingers seeking entry and I was trying to beat him off me. "Stop!"

He never said a word. Just a grunt and he was lying on top of me with three fingers up me and rubbing his hardness against me as I struggled underneath this assault. I smacked him as hard as I could across his face but the position I was in made it hard to really get him more than a glancing blow. But it was enough. His free hand grabbed both my wrists above my head and he simply watched my face as his fingers pumped inside me and his thumb circled my clit.

I was speechless. His eyes scared me. His body scared me. His fingers excited me while they hurt me. I felt my body responding and realized this ... this was what I'd wanted. Raw. Nasty. Violent. Sex as a weapon.

I undulated under him and he chuckled, low and mean, into my ear, telling me he would show me what he could make me feel. That I was no different from any woman for all my seemingly exotic viewpoints on sexual freedom.

This was what I represented to him, then. Where he was a substitute for Terry to me, I was the antithesis of Uma for him? Like he would punish her by showing her that when he craved another woman, she would be distinctly different?

When he let my wrists go to begin shoving my sweater up so he could mouth my breasts through my bra, I found myself pulling him in closer to me.

This was when the real insanity began. He whispered something and I heard myself call him Terry in response. His head whipped up and his eyes were blind with cold fury. He sat up from me and dragged me by my hair to my knees before where he sat on the couch's edge.

"Undo me. Now!" he screamed at me, taking my hands to the snap of his jeans.

My right hand was bunched into a fist when I struck his jaw. I never saw his hand that hit me in retaliation but I tasted blood ... and I ... I ... I became another me. The me I never knew I had inside there. Where had she been hiding all this time?

I never even shook the cobwebs from my head before I was descending on him, unzipping him, freeing his cock and devouring him even as he struggled beneath my assault to slide his jeans down his hips to the floor. I never gave him a chance. I tasted the combination of my blood and his pre-cum and I ... I ... I came undone.

He tried to pull me off and I fought him. He roared in frustration ... locked to me in pleasure and yet wanting to make me pay with pain. Hating the loss of control. His hands in my hair pulled viciously. I gave way but I spat in his face as he pulled me up toward him, intent on kissing me.

He released me to slowly wipe the spittle off. I crawled away from him. Sitting there, shaking, on the carpet of this room. Unable to stop myself.

"You fucking bastard. You're not man enough to ..."

"Is this how you like it, mistress? I can make it worse."

"Then fucking do it," I screamed at him and watched as he pulled his sweater over his head. I realized I had him nude before me. I swallowed hard at the sight. I'd always wondered what he looked like. His body ... tense, coiled, angry ... I wanted it. But I also wanted to hurt it. I think he knew what the sight of him would do to any woman. It was his weapon of choice against me. My voice dropped to a harsh whisper as he advanced on me. "Fucking do it to me, Max."

It got worse. So much worse.

But I gave about as good as I got. Except Max was so much stronger than me. And, truthfully, Max was so much more of an expert at taking his rage out on another person. He taught me some lessons in that night about inflicting pain.

Long night.

But maybe not long enough.

I lost my fear of him long before I lost my desire. I couldn't actually believe it. I came so hard and I came without reserve each time. He fucked me raw. He fucked me every way he wanted and I loved it. I gave it up to him anyway he wanted. I didn't care because all I wanted was the abuse and the ability to strike out at him whenever my rage came bubbling back up. I wasn't thinking, I wasn't feeling ... I was just doing what was so wrong and loving it. This was me not ashamed to be a bad girl.

He fucked me into awareness of what a magnificent predator he was. He fucked me into realizing that all those denied feelings of lust for him had been based on some primal knowledge my body had that Max would set my libido on fire.

But he never really fucked away the rage.

And he never fucked away the pain. He only momentarily re-focused the pain for me. It actually helped in this really sick sort of way. It was like each time he inflicted physical pain, my psychic pain receded for a while.

And whenever we finished one round, I loved looking at the battle scene. And the destruction.

Anything to distract me from the future.