Captured

oo- Prolog -oo

Samantha Henley balanced precariously on the kitchen chair, trying to clean the upper right most corner of the window. The large window, the one that looked out onto the front area of the house. It wasn’t a bad view, although a bit more cluttered than looking out the back, but Sam had always thought that with just a little work it could be transformed into a peaceful and serene view. But she was never allowed out there unescorted, he never had any interest in landscaping, and when he did escort her out there, it was for something very different than cleaning.

The brief thought of him renewed her efforts and determination. She almost regretted trying to wash the window; if she had just left it alone, he probably wouldn’t have noticed how dirty it was, but to have all but one corner clean made it stand out like a sore thumb.

The cable leash that was locked around her left ankle was just a tad too short, forcing her to stand on just her right leg while her left leg stretched out, straining against the impediment as the cable dug into the skin about her ankle. The chair creaked from the load, centered in one spot instead of spread out evenly. Soapy water from the washing rag seeped out and ran down her arm, which she tried to ignore. Grunting, she tried to stretch for that last extra inch.

“AARRRGGGH!” Sam grunted in frustration, stepping down off the chair before she fell through the window. She didn’t want to even think of what the consequences of that might be, the least of which would be the nasty cuts she might incur. As she stood upright, the trail of water that had been dribbling down her arm towards her armpit now changed course and was now dripping off her hand, making a small puddle on the floor. The last drops that had flowed down the length of her arm, then onto her chest, were just now dripping off her right breast onto the floor, which only added to her annoyance. She looked down at her nude body, realizing that she would need a bath before he got home. Add that to the list, she thought.

She looked back at the corner of the window, which was still smeared with soapy water where she had been able to fling the rag at it but not wipe properly. For the umpteenth time she pulled the strip of rag that had been tying her hair into a ponytail free, allowing her auburn hair to fall freely down to her shoulder blades. She wished that she could cut it, but she lacked scissors and the skill to do it properly. Going to a hair salon was out of the question. Going anywhere had been out of the question for nearly three years. Three years since he had kidnapped her and held her captive.

She looked back at the path of the cable leash as it made its way from the anchor point to where she now stood. If she went around the right side of the island that separated the kitchen from the great room, instead of the left, she might gain an extra inch or two. Or, better yet, over the island.

She retraced her path back to the kitchen, gathering the cable up as she went, then hopped up onto the island counter, ducking under the cupboards and off the other side. She tossed the cable over the couch and was pleased to find that she had two feet of slack when she reached the chair. Pleased with herself, she re-tied the strip of cloth, binding her hair tighter so that it would at least be out of the way, and remounted the chair, allowing her to wipe the window down, taking extra care to ensure that there were no streaks or spots.

At least not on the inside. The outside, well, he hadn’t allowed her off the cable for several weeks. The cable leash was long enough for her to step out onto the porch, where she normally greeted him when he returned each day. But it wasn’t long enough to allow her to move down the porch and reach the outside of the window. As he always insisted on supervising her carefully whenever he let her off the leash, chores such as window washing were often neglected. He would certainly let her off the leash tonight, but it wouldn’t be for cleaning, and he wouldn’t be more than an arm’s length away.

Just thinking about what was to come made her reflexively rub her buttocks. They didn’t hurt, not yet. But they sure would be hurting tonight! She knew that there was nothing that she could do about that and accepted it. What she could do is minimize the additional punishments. He wasn’t one to let small things slide, so she would get minor punishments fairly often, but they didn’t have a lot of heat behind them.

But this wasn’t a small thing, this was going to be a doozy. And when he was trying to make a point, he would look for any excuse to add enhancements to her punishment. While he never performed a ‘white glove inspection’, and he would normally tolerate a much greater amount of filth than she could accept, any deficiency could be used against her tonight.

Satisfied with the window, she continued to work furiously to make the rest of the house as spotless as she could. Some might have considered it a futile task, as the old Formica countertops had been stained years before she had arrived and would never come clean. Same story with the carpet, what little there was of it. But she would ensure that every speck of dust was removed, the dishes cleaned and put away, and all her chores completed.

She grabbed the basket and hurried out the back to fetch his laundry off the clothesline. It was just his laundry, as she didn’t have any. She never did, as she had no clothes at all. Not for the three years she had been here, and the one dress she had when she arrived had been destroyed and discarded long ago.

The fact that she was naked wasn’t unusual for her. In fact, it was unusual for her to wear any clothes, and the few times that she did, she wore his clothes, and only out of desperation when the weather turned cold, and he hadn’t lit the furnace. She never let him catch her doing that, however. It was fairly warm today, so she would be warm enough if she kept busy, even in the nude.

She looked longingly at her sunbathing spot, a rectangular area that she had meticulously manicured, replacing all the sharp stones with smooth ones, which gave her a place to lay out. The air had a crisp chill to it, but the sun was warm, and the dark stones would be heated nicely. It was tempting, but just thinking about it made her glance towards the shipping container that anchored the far end of the clothesline, and she shuddered. Any thought about that container was enough to convince her to work even harder. She was in enough trouble and didn’t dare risk angering him further.

She would not escape his wrath today, no matter how hard she worked. It had been her own fault, pure stupid carelessness that had resulted in the dish breaking. She had considered, for just a moment, attempting to hide the evidence. The cable that restricted her movements allowed her to move about anywhere in the house, except for his den and bedroom, which were at the end of the hall. It also allowed her access to the back of the house where the rubbish bin was kept. She could bury the shards of ceramic deep in the bin and he would be unlikely to see it.

Eventually, however, he would notice that instead of four plates they now had only three. The attempt at subterfuge would only add to her crime, and thus the punishment. Who knows what his mood would be like when that discovery was made, or how recently she had been punished last.

Today was a Wednesday: hump day. He wouldn’t likely have been drinking, like he did on ‘Monday Night Football’ or TGIF with his work buddies. Halfway through the work week he would be looking forward to going fishing on the weekend or just having a couple of days off. It had been over a month since her last real punishment, and just over a week since the last ‘maintenance’ spanking, so she wouldn’t be adding new bruises over old ones.

No, better to confess right away and be done with it. At least she could ensure that there wouldn’t be any other reason to have punishments added.

The house was only sparsely furnished, and there were very few knickknacks to deal with, so dusting hadn’t taken long. She emptied the bag on the vacuum, which only slightly improved its meager performance, before attempting to clean the section of carpet that led down the hall. By lifting the couch so that the cable could pass under, instead of having to pass over the top, she could gain an extra foot of reach into the den and his bedroom, and then by laying down to stretch out she could push the vacuum all the way to the desk or his bed.

When the sun started shining through the back windows, she knew it was late afternoon and turned the TV on. Ordinarily, she might take time to watch a show or two, but now it just served as her clock. She would normally wait until the end of Judge Judy, but today she started preparing the evening meal at the opening credits. She had decided on Taco Salad for tonight’s dinner, as it could be prepared early and ‘warm’ was preferable to ‘hot’. He actually liked Taco Salad, so there shouldn’t be any additional punishments related to the dinner.

She browned the hamburger meat in the skillet, then added the required amount of water and the seasoning pack, along with her own additional spices. With the heat on high she brought the mixture to a boil, and then turned the flame down until it was just barely simmering. She opened the bag of tortilla chips, broke three handfuls into bite size chunks and spread a layer onto a plate. She carefully sliced the romaine lettuce and piled it into a bowl. Cherry tomatoes were cut in half, avocados were cut into cubes, the cilantro prepped, and all were set aside. She double checked the refrigerator, making sure that the cheese, sour cream, and the dressing were readily available.

Judge Judy was making her usual admonishments when she decided that she had completed all that could be. After turning off the TV and giving the skillet a stir, she went to the bathroom to take a shower. Being clean, and freshly shaven, was important. She wouldn’t wash her hair, however, as she had no hair dryer, and it wouldn’t dry on its own before he was due home.

 

Peter Slovic steered his van to the side of the highway where the shoulder widened enough to permit him to pull completely off the roadway. There wasn’t much traffic on this rural section of highway, but he would be here for at least 30 minutes and didn’t want to create a traffic hazard, and certainly didn’t want to attract the attention of any law enforcement that might be patrolling the highway.

The first thing he removed from the van was a dirty, torn moving pad, which he spread out on the ground behind the vehicle. Next, he removed a carrying case that was sufficiently large that he strained to reach the handles at opposite ends. The case wasn’t heavy, fortunately, and he was able to wrestle it out the double rear doors easily.

Inside the case, safely tucked into the gray foam padding, rested his pride and joy: an industrial grade surveying drone. This was not your typical toy; this one was top of the line. The airframe was larger and sturdier than most hobbyist drones, allowing it to support several imaging systems. The multispectral video camera could detect minute differences in vegetation. The thermal/IR sensor could see through smoke or fog, and detect hot spots, such as power transformers and machinery. The LIDAR system could be employed to establish ranges accurate down to a fraction of an inch. The GPS module tagged every image with the drone’s precise location, direction, and elevation, allowing the reconstruction of 3D modeling.

Best of all, it had battery capacity that would keep it aloft for up to an hour, and the transceiver was powerful enough to fly well out of sight, for a distance of up to five miles. Guaranteed. He had personally verified that he could operate up to eight miles. It also had the feature that if it lost contact with the control transmitter it would return to the GPS location where it had been launched from.

The drone was carefully extracted from the carrying case and placed in the center of the moving pad, which provided a dust free launching pad. The drone wouldn’t likely be damaged from the dust and debris that would swirl about as it lifted off the ground, but previous experience had taught him that it would likely cause the camera lenses to be coated in dust. Which was bad: customers expected clear, crisp, high-quality pictures.

While aerial surveys were not his primary source of income, it was a business that he hoped he could expand upon. Until then, he had to rely on getting jobs that were a bit ‘under the table’. Nothing that he did was strictly illegal or immoral, however. He wasn’t a member of the paparazzi who would attempt to invade a celebrity’s private life. He had turned down an offer to fly over a prison yard and drop a package. He wouldn’t knowingly accept a job from any criminal organization. But there was a gray area that he was operating in.

There were people who had a legitimate need to see the bigger picture and couldn’t afford the time or money to use proper channels. Legally, a hobby drone had to be kept within visual range and not flown over 400 feet above ground. Hobby drones were supposed to be used for recreational use only.

A drone used for commercial purposes was supposed to be licensed and operated by a licensed pilot, and Peter met both of those requirements. Permits were required to fly over public lands, and permission to cross private land was also required, and this is where he cheated. The permit process was often mired in government inefficiency, and permissions were often hard to get, especially when the owner of a particular plot of land was unknown or buried in obscurity. When a farmer wanted to check to see who might be violating his water rights (or figure out how to violate someone else’s) they would call Peter.

With the drone prepped and ready to fly, Peter extracted a folding chair from the van and made himself comfortable. Setting the controller in his lap he carefully powered up the drone, had it hover for a few seconds, and then sent it off to the north.

 

Sam waited on the back steps, as that gave her the earliest warning as to his arrival. The sound of his truck was distinct, and she could pick it out while he was still a half mile away if she listened closely. She occasionally went back into the kitchen to stir the skillet, making sure it didn’t stick and burn. The sun was just starting to dip into the horizon as the last rays of light bathed the steps and warmed her body. If she looked beyond all the discarded junk littering the property near the house, off towards the creek in the distance, it was a very serene view. If it wasn’t for the sense of impending doom, she would have been enjoying the peaceful moments.

There was a mixture of fear and anticipation when she heard the throaty rumble in the distance, signaling that she had about 4 minutes before he would be at the door. It was always nice to have him home, to break the lonely vigil that she kept. Knowing that a punishment was imminent didn’t dampen the relief that he had returned. She often worried that one day he simply wouldn’t come home ever again, and then she would eventually starve.

She stepped back into the kitchen, quickly completing the dinner preparations. The meat sauce was dumped into the mixing bowl with the lettuce and the cilantro added. The dressing and cheese were added, and the mixture stirred, before being dumped onto the bed of tortilla chips. The tomatoes and avocado chunks were artfully arranged, and a dollop of sour cream added to the center.

Perfect!

She hastily rinsed the skillet and cooking utensils, making sure nothing was out of place. She heard the crunch of tires on the gravel as his truck coasted to a stop just outside the front door. She had wanted to meet him on the front porch, like she normally did, but the final preparations had taken too long. She opted for second best, and picked up the dustpan before kneeling, head down, just inside the front door.

 

Tony passed the non-descript van without consciously thinking too much about it. He had automatically established its exact make, year and model: 2013 Ford Econoline with a 4.6 liter engine. That required no thought at all. The man seated in a camping chair behind the van made no impression upon him, it was as if he wasn’t even there. If asked, he would have been able to comment on the wear pattern of the van’s front tires, but he wouldn’t have been able to describe the man or what he was doing.

He pulled across the road, parallel to the row of mailboxes that served a half dozen homes on this rural stretch of road. Leaning out the driver’s window, he opened the second box from the left, extracted the two pieces of mail within, then pulled back onto the road to proceed to his driveway another quarter mile down the road. He stopped just off the pavement, using the key he kept in the center console cup holder to release the lock and open the gate. After driving his truck another 20 feet forward, he closed and locked the gate before proceeding the tenth of a mile down his driveway to where his house was located.

He grew suspicious when Sam didn’t greet him on the porch. The cable that kept her confined to the house was long enough to allow her to step just outside the front door, which is where she normally would greet him. The throaty rumble of his truck’s engine and the crunch of gravel was hard to miss. He had never specifically required her to meet him thusly, but he liked that she did. Part of that was because he enjoyed having someone who appeared eager to see him, like having a loyal dog. Part was also that he still, even after three years, feared that she might be lying in wait for him. Not that killing him would do her any good, the key to the lock that secured the cable to her ankle was kept in the truck, along with the key to the gate. If she incapacitated him, she still wouldn’t be free, which would only lead to her eventual starvation.

The front door wasn’t locked; there was no need. She couldn’t leave, and anyone that walked the distance from the road wouldn’t likely be deterred by a simple lock. He turned the handle and pushed the door gently inward, cautious of the possibility that she was lurking just inside. She never had before, but there was always a first time.

He was only slightly surprised to see her kneeling on the floor just inside the door, head down, hands holding a dustpan out in front of her. The ceramic pieces in the dustpan looked familiar.

“What’s this?”

“I’m sorry, Sir,” Sam cried, a sniffle interrupting what she attempted to say next. “I didn’t mean to, honest I didn’t!”

“You broke it,” he said coldly, without emotion. Sam would have preferred emotion. Anger she understood and could deal with. The cold, emotionless statement of fact terrified her. She was always afraid that someday he would grow tired of her, and the ramifications of that terrified her more than anything else.

“Yes Sir,” she cried. Tears were starting to roll down her cheek. He could tell that these were true emotions she was conveying. “I’m sorry, Sir.”

“You need to be punished.” It was a rhetorical statement. She always needed to be punished, that was a given.

“Yes Sir,” she sniffled. It was exceedingly rare that she argued that point. “Please punish me for my carelessness.”

“I’ll do that. Out front, where I have more room to swing the belt.”

“Yes Sir, thank you Sir,” Sam said appreciatively. Out front meant the whipping rail instead of the storage container, which was out back. His reference to the belt was a relief, as she preferred that to the stick. Outside meant more room to swing, without risking hitting fragile objects, which would then add to her punishment. She knew that it would hurt a lot more when he really swung the belt hard, but it was always a treat to get out of the house. Even if it was to be punished.

She remained kneeling, waiting patiently as he returned to his truck to retrieve the key to the lock that hung at her left ankle. When he returned, she obediently rolled onto her back, extending her leg upwards so that he could easily release her from the cable. Without a word she got to her feet and led the way to the punishment spot.

Decades earlier the driveway had been lined with a decorative split rail fence, all the way from the highway and encircling the front courtyard. Most of it had long ago rotted and fallen down, but there was one section that he had specifically repaired, which is where she was headed now. She maintained a brisk pace, only faltering twice when her bare feet stepped onto a particularly sharp piece of gravel.

Without hesitation she leaned over the top rail, placing her hands on the lower rail. The top rail had been worn smooth, and when she spread her legs wide a good portion of her weight rested on her body between her hips and belly button. Her hair hung down, barely brushing the ground.

Tony took two small lengths of rope, which he had also taken from the truck, and used these to tie her wrists and knees to the lower rail. She had mixed feelings about being tied. Part of her was grateful, as she knew that the punishment would be severe, and if she wasn’t tied in place, she might break position, which would only add to her ordeal. But part of her was terrified at giving up that last little bit of control that she had.

He removed his belt, wrapped the buckle end around his right wrist two times and allowed the free end to dangle where she could see it as she peered between her legs.

“How many?”

She wanted to say one. She also wanted to say one hundred. “Fifty” is what she did say. Hopefully he would be satisfied with only fifty. Hopefully she would too.

“Fifty it is,” he replied. He rarely rejected her offer, and when he did it was often towards a lower number, unless she was just being obstinate and had offered up an unacceptable number just to goad him. She would do that occasionally, when she really wasn’t sorry for what she had done. Such was not the case today. Fifty was a good number, for a minor crime. And despite her fears to the contrary, he did consider this minor.

Rarely, the punishment was to quell some sort of rebellion. A little less rare was one of her bouts of temper. Sometimes the punishment would be about the money. The cost of the dinner plate was inconsequential, as he had paid only one dollar for a set of four at the local Goodwill store. She obviously wasn’t having a temper tantrum or rebelling, or she wouldn’t have apologized and submitted right off. No, this punishment was about guilt, and control. It was always about maintaining control, keeping her in her place. Fifty lashes of the belt would do that.

Sam looked at the belt, hanging upward in her inverted frame of reference. She decided that she was glad that he had tied her in place, for now there wouldn’t be any penalty lashes for her breaking position. The strapping was always easier to endure when she could struggle freely. Now she was anxious for him to get started as the anxiety was killing her! She had to take slow, calming breaths, but even so her body trembled in anticipation.

The belt disappeared from her view, and Sam closed her eyes and clenched her buttocks. There was a whoosh of air and then a sharp smack as leather impacted flesh.

“EIIIAAHHHAAA” Sam screamed loudly. The nearest neighbor was over two miles away, so they had no concern that someone might hear her. It felt good to scream, a deep, primal satisfaction. Contrary to what some might think, the first one always hurt the most. By the last lash, she might not be feeling them much at all. Sam raised up on tiptoe and convulsively flexed her buttocks as her knees and wrists pulled against her bonds.

“One!” she panted, forcing herself to relax. Forty-nine more to go, she thought to herself. You can do this, just don’t lose count!

 

Peter captured the last image that he needed for the survey and directed his drone to fly directly back to his location. The battery pack still had plenty of charge, there wasn’t any urgent need, but he preferred to be done and away as soon as possible. It would be unfortunate if a local law enforcement happened along and stopped to see what he was up to. He didn’t know what the penalty was for unauthorized drone flying and he didn’t want to find out.

Flying 1000 feet above the average terrain there was little concern of collision. The drone had an autopilot feature and was heading towards the GPS fix it had obtained before being piloted out on its mission. Peter had shut down the LIDAR unit, which was a power hog, and the thermal scanner for further power savings. He had left the visual camera on as he enjoyed getting the bird’s eye view as his drone traversed the countryside. Never knew what gem might be seen. Wildlife always gave him a thrill.

When the outskirts of a dwelling appeared on his little view screen, he silently cursed. While it wasn’t likely that the drone would be spotted, the rednecks in these back-wood areas would be likely to take a shot at his drone if they had a chance. Many folks considered it open season on drones passing over their property.

He grew more concerned when he spotted activity on the ground. Something about it caught his eye, however. Something wasn’t right. He took the drone off autopilot and directed it to double back, retracing its path but at a much slower pace and 500 feet lower.

“OOWWWWW, FORTY-NINE,” Sam cried out, screaming as she jerked violently against the ropes holding her in place. She jerked so hard against the ropes that there would certainly be marks around her wrists that would last for days. Perhaps as long as the marks on her ass would last. Not that either would be a problem, no one besides him would ever see them.

“IEEYYYAAA OWWWW” Sam screamed for all she was worth. That last lash had been the hardest of all. The last lash always was; it was his trademark.

But it was over now, or at least that phase of the punishment. There were usually at least two punishments in a situation like this. This strapping with the belt had been for her carelessness. The next one would be for the waste of money and would be one lash per dollar with the switch, as he called it, or ‘stick’ as Sam thought of it. He would assign the dollar value; she had no say in it. If she were lucky, it would be one quarter of whatever price he had paid for the set of four dishes at the secondhand store. But there had been plenty of examples where he charged the full new retail, and he could consider the entire set to be ruined. She had no idea how much a set of dishes cost, full retail or secondhand.

There might have been additional punishments if she had mouthed off or had broken position, but fortunately, she had kept her mouth shut and had been tied so she couldn’t break position. The money issue would be addressed tomorrow, he never gave her two significant punishments on the same day. For now, she was done.

Sam collapsed against the rail, allowing her body to go limp for the first time since the punishment had begun. Despite the relaxed position, her body still shook with tremors and there was a fine sheen of sweat that she had worked up, despite the chill in the air. Her final scream subsided into soft sobbing.

“Fifty,” Sam called out softly between her sobs. The punishment wasn’t officially over until she had called out the last stroke. One time he had started the punishment over because she failed to call out the last count within a reasonable amount of time.

Tony allowed her a couple of minutes to calm down before he fucked her. Just a simple fuck this time, he decided. After all, she hadn’t been that bad. If the crime had been more serious, he would have made her suck his cock and then she would have gotten it in the ass. He had often threatened that for an even greater crime the order would be reversed: first in the ass and then in the mouth. He hadn’t actually done that, however. He wasn’t that sadistic.

When her sobbing had reduced to just an occasional ‘hiccup’ sob, he unzipped, took his cock in hand and slid it home, sinking his length into the warm embrace of her sex. It was glorious. It always was. She rarely needed additional lubrication and never after a whipping. At least not one that she had submitted to.

It had been a long time since he had actually had to overpower her and force her into submission. He had to admit that a struggle had excited him a bit, at least in the beginning, but then the sex was cold and impersonal. About as much fun as fucking one of those blow-up dolls. Or so he imagined, as he had never had one of those blow-up dolls. This was a good compromise. He felt empowered by her submission, and now she would fuck him back.

Sam stifled a moan as his cock slid into her. Not a moan of pain, but one of pleasure. She stifled it because she wasn’t supposed to be enjoying this, and she didn’t want him to make sure she didn’t. She wanted to be good, she really did, and tried not to get any pleasure from it. Years ago, she would feel shame at how her body reacted to such a violent act, but now she accepted it. Despite her best intentions, she started humping back, adding her motion to his. This also rocked her vulva up against the fence rail, and when his thrust coincided with her hip rock it would put pressure on her clit in just that special way. She bit her lip as an orgasm washed over her, making her moan sound more like a sob.

If this hadn’t been a punishment, he would have gone slower, taken his time, and allowed her to enjoy it. But this was a punishment fuck, she wasn’t supposed to enjoy it, although he suspected that she actually did. He repeatedly slammed his cock deep within her until his climax washed over him. He stood there, his cock buried deep inside her, his face turned towards the sky until the sensation passed.

With two quick jerks the ropes that had secured her in place were released. Sam moaned softly as she stood up, steadying herself against the top rail as the blood rushed out of her head and repositioned throughout her body. When the dizzy spell had passed, she glanced up at her master, one quick glance before averting her eyes.

He was staring at her, his emotion unreadable.

“I am sorry, Sir. It won’t happen again.”

“It was an accident, wasn’t it?”

“Yes Sir.”

“Then I forgive you.”

“Thank you, Sir!” Sam said excitedly. He normally didn’t forgive her until after the final punishment, so that gave her hope that he would forgo the stick this time. She really didn’t like that stick. She looked up, meeting his gaze, looking for permission. When he spread his arms, she rushed in, hugging him tightly. Order had been restored, her lease on life renewed, and all was right in her world. “Thank you, thank you!”

Her gratitude was genuine; she hated that stick. He could have assigned any value he wanted to that plate, and then it would have been one lash per dollar. The stick would raise wheals that would be exceedingly sore for days, and the marks would last for a month or more. The belt hurt terribly at the moment of impact, but the pain had already reduced to a dull ache that just provided a firm reminder. And, if she was being honest with herself, made her more than a little aroused. She was also grateful for the forgiveness; they had so little that the loss of dinner plate was significant. If he hadn’t punished her, she would have continued to hate herself.

“Come on, let’s go inside before the mosquitoes eat you alive.”

 

Peter retrieved his drone and packed it hastily away, not taking the care that he normally would. The folding chair and moving pad were tossed in without regard to what damage might be done. Without wasting another second, he drove off down the road, knowing he was going the wrong direction but not willing to take the time to turn around.

Both of the people he had observed on the ground had looked straight up at the drone. Granted, at 500 feet of elevation above ground it would have been hard to spot, but not impossible. If it had been spotted, it wouldn’t take much to figure out where it was being controlled from, as he had foolishly sent it directly back instead of taking a detour. The last thing that he wanted was to get involved in a confrontation with someone who was already engaged in violent behavior.

Hours later he reviewed the footage that his drone had captured, using his 30-inch computer monitor instead of the tiny screen on his control module. He skipped over the first 25 minutes, focusing on the last five when he had inadvertently passed over a dwelling. There hadn’t been any doubt in his mind when he had seen the footage live, but now that he was watching it again, in freeze frame slow motion, he was even more convinced. There was a woman being restrained, beaten and raped.

What to do, what to do? He should go to the police, but if he did then he would have to explain how he came to have these images. That would lead to more questions and more trouble. Big trouble, for him. But he had to do something!

oo- Chapter 1 -oo

Detective Drew McDonnel sat at his desk, filing reports on the latest crime of his jurisdiction. Someone had stolen a truck load of nuts. Nuts! They had simply driven up with the big rig, pretended to be a legitimate trucker, had the nuts loaded up and drove off, never to be seen again. It was funny, until he realized that the nuts were valued at nearly two hundred thousand dollars. Pistachios sell at the market for about one dollar an ounce! Four dollars a pound wholesale. 40,000 pounds of pistachios makes for a good haul, especially since the contraband can’t be traced.

“Still working that nut case?” Lieutenant Paulson asked. The term ‘nut case’ had become the office joke.

“About to shelve it. Cold case.” Drew absent-mindedly picked up his coffee cup and brought it to his lips before realizing it was empty. That was no surprise, it had been empty for the last two hours. He silently cursed the doctor that insisted he cut back.

“Take a look at this ASAP,” the lieutenant said as he dropped a folder onto the detective’s desk.

“What you got?” he asked as he opened the folder. Inside were three pictures printed on 8-1/2 by 11 paper, and a single computer printed note.

“Anonymous tip. Might be nothing, but worth checking out.”

The grainy photos were an aerial shot, probably from a drone, showing a dwelling that could be anywhere within the county. The original images might have been a much higher quality, but they had been printed out on an inexpensive ink jet printer on standard copy paper, which rendered the quality rather poorly.

The first shot showed a couple in what he judged to be sadomasochistic behavior. There was what he guessed was a woman bent over what looked like a section of old fence. The man, and it was clearly a man, stood over her with his arm raised high. With a little imagination he could see what looked to be some sort of whip or strap.

The next picture showed the couple in what was apparently a sex act. She was still bent over, and he couldn’t tell if she was getting it in the ass or the pussy. The man’s face was turned towards the camera and the resolution was good enough to clearly see his facial features. It wasn’t anyone he recognized, however.

In the final shot the woman was standing, facing roughly in the direction of the camera with her head tilted slightly up. The angle wasn’t as good as for the man, but it was enough to get a general idea of her features. About thirty years of age, he’d guess. Caucasian, light brown, shoulder length hair. Not enough frame of reference to ascertain her height, but about four inches shorter than the man. With a little imagination he thought he could make out a trail of tears leaking from her eyes. Her overall countenance was of sadness, or perhaps terror.

The computer printed note was short and to the point. ‘Thought that you should see this.’ The exact time, date and GPS coordinates were provided. If the time stamp was accurate, the pictures would have been taken four days ago. So much for timely information. If the person who took the pictures was really concerned, then he should have emailed it instead of sending it US mail.

He typed the GPS coordinates into Google Maps, got the address and searched the database. The house belonged to one Tony Robertson, a Caucasian male, age 35. There were no wants or warrants out on him, but he did have a bit of a record. There was a bar fight a few years ago. Vandalism and destruction of property a decade ago. His juvenile record was sealed, which was never a good sign. Most disturbing was a charge of attempted rape that was never prosecuted. The mug shot photo bore a fair resemblance to the photo from the drone.

It was probably nothing. People do kinky shit all the time, doesn’t make it a crime. Still, wouldn’t hurt to check it out. Who knows, they might find a truck load of pistachios.

 

Sam obediently bent over the kitchen counter, waiting to see what his next move would be. Monday was her regular day for her ‘maintenance’ spanking, but they would often defer that when she still carried marks from the last punishment, which in this case had been just five days ago. The marks had faded considerably, but they were still evident enough that they would have justified waiting a bit longer. She certainly could have used the marks as an excuse to defer the maintenance spanking for another week, but she still felt guilty about breaking the dinner plate and felt that she deserved some additional punishment.

She had laid out both the rubber spatula and the wooden spoon, but she was hoping he would just use his hand. And then fuck her, and allow her to cum. She often did climax during a ‘punishment fuck’, as she had during that last one, but on those occasions, she had to hide her orgasm or risk additional punishment. It was so much better when she was allowed to cum, and she could scream out her orgasm. She really wanted to have an orgasm. Preferably one that she didn’t have to give herself, and then feel guilty about afterward.

He might allow her to cum. After all, she had sucked his cock four times a day since her punishment. Twice in the morning, twice in the evening. Complete with swallow. He had been gone on an overnight fishing trip both Saturday and Sunday, otherwise there would have been a lot more cock sucking going on. He had been known to have her suck his cock for the entire duration of two football games, only giving her a break when he sent her to the kitchen to get him a beer or snacks, or when he needed to use the bathroom. Once he had even pissed in her mouth and made her drink it, to save himself the trip to the bathroom.

Blowjobs were more than just punishment, however. She always had to suck his cock when she was on her period before he left the house in the morning. He wasn’t against fucking her while she was bleeding, but it would make a mess and then he would have to take time to clean himself up again. In the evening, he hated to waste a good hard-on on a blow job so he would fuck her and then make her clean him up if needed.

She had purposely turned her head away so that she wouldn’t see which, if any, implement he chose. It didn’t matter, as the sound of wood scraping across the countertop alerted her to what was to come. She was neither pleased nor disappointed. She wasn’t afraid, but there was always a bit of anxiety. She mewed softly when the spoon gently slid across the smooth skin of her buttocks, and then gasped as it slid between her legs and across the sensitive skin of her labia. It always hurt so much more to be hit there. She hated it. She wanted it. She needed it.

She yelped when the wooden spoon smacked hard against her buttocks, but she didn’t move out of position or try to cover herself. That would be a big mistake! Nine more times the spoon struck. Not a bad maintenance spanking, as far as they go. Twenty-five swats were more the norm, one for each year of her age. She was relieved that none of the swats were directed at her pussy. Or maybe it was disappointment that she felt. After all, the spoon didn’t hurt as bad as his belt. And sometimes he would kiss it to make it feel better.

He did fuck her, long and slow. She was able to grind against the corner of the countertop just enough to add that little extra stimulation that brought her own pleasure. If she couldn’t avoid it, she might as well enjoy it. Just one of the little lies she would tell herself. When she felt his hands upon her back, she pushed up off the counter, just enough to give him easy access to her breasts. Strong, calloused hands reached under her and clenched the flesh of her breasts tightly, painfully. Sam whimpered softly as he kneaded the flesh, and then yelped when his fingers closed on her nipples and pinched tightly. Muscles all over her body clenched in response to the pain, the most significant of which were in her nether regions.

The clenching of Sam’s vaginal muscles sent him over the edge. A few quick thrusts before his muscles spasmed, which in turn sent her over the edge, her scream of extasy permeating the room. He lay atop her, both of them collapsed onto the countertop, both panting. A minute later he pushed off, his now deflated penis sliding out of her. He glanced down at his cock, glistening with her juices and, fortunately, not a trace of blood. Then he glanced at his watch.

‘Damn,’ he thought. If he didn’t hurry, he was going to be late. Pity, if he’d had more time, he would have made her clean him up, with her mouth. Now he would have the smell of sex upon him when he arrived at work and had to change into his work uniform. Under different circumstances he might have enjoyed allowing the evidence of recent sexual activity to be obvious to his workmates. No one could know of this arrangement, however. He grabbed a dishtowel off the counter, wet it in the sink and hastily wiped himself off.

“Have a good day, Sir!” Sam called out as he left, trailing after him as far as the cable would allow. He didn’t respond, he never did. If she could have seen his face, she would have been pleased to see the smile. She waved goodbye as his truck rumbled down the gravel drive. He never waved back.

Sam started her chores the minute he had left for work. It always inspired her to work a little harder when her buttocks ached. Perhaps that’s why she always opted for the maintenance spanking on a Monday, when the backlog of chores was the greatest. When he stayed home for the weekend, which had been happening a lot recently, he generally kept her busy with things other than her chores.

Today, she decided, in addition to her usual cleaning and laundry, she would wash the walls in the main room. He had finally bought her the TSP cleaning powder she had asked for and now she needed to prepare for painting. Perhaps he would actually buy the paint once she had prepared the walls.

After she got a start on the laundry. He was a mechanic by trade, so she could understand why his clothes got dirty when he was tinkering with cars. What she didn’t understand is how dirty he got them out fishing! Fortunately, they had a washing machine now that, while it was old, it functioned well. There was no dryer, however, so she had to hang the clothes on a makeshift line he had strung between the back door and the storage container in order for them to dry. He didn’t have many changes of clothes, so if she didn’t wash at least twice weekly, he would run out. If he ran out, then he would have to wear something dirty. If he had to wear something dirty, Sam would get punished.

The whippings she could handle. What was critical was that she had to continue to prove her worth to him. If she didn’t, well, she didn’t want to think of what might happen. The last thing she wanted was to be put back into the storage container. She would have preferred to stay far, far away from that damn thing, but her laundry duties forced her to look at it and go near it. It had been almost three years since she had been locked in it last, but the thought still made her shudder with revulsion.

 

Sheriff’s Deputy Brad O’Riley pulled his cruiser to a stop at the gate. After getting out to inspect, he noted that it was locked and there was no easy way around it. The tire tracks in the gravel looked fresh, so the property wasn’t abandoned. Deciding that due diligence required further inspection, he hopped the gate and strode carefully down the driveway. The legality of entering was questionable, but there weren’t any no trespassing signs.

He walked quietly down the long driveway, looking for any signs that anyone was at home. There were no cars visible, or at least not any that looked like they could actually run. There was a detached garage/barn, but the door was askew in a way that suggested that it wouldn’t open easily. The yard was littered with junk, which wasn’t unusual for these parts. What he thought was unusual was the absence of any dogs.

He stepped up onto the porch and knocked solidly on the door. When there was no reply, he stepped to the side and peered in a window. Compared to the outside, the inside was neat and clean. Worn, for sure, but everything was tidy and free of the typical mess that accompanied the type of yard he had just walked through.

He knocked a second time, and when he didn’t get a response, he decided to check around back. He had to step through waist high weeds and over tangles of junk that were so old and rusty that their original use was not discernable to him. As he turned the back corner, however, he was again surprised. For an area that started at the steps of the back porch and extending out in a perfect semi-circle, the ground was neat and cleared of all weeds and debris.

A large, wheeled rubbish bin sat next to the backdoor. From the wall next to the door, a clothesline ran out, secured at the opposite end to a large shipping container. The arc of cleanliness ended just before it reached the container. A number of items of clothing, all masculine, hung from the line, swaying gently in the breeze. Most surprising was the nude woman hanging the clothes.

“Oh, excuse me!” Deputy O’Riley called out. “Uh, Sheriff’s office, Ma’am!”

The woman shrieked and turned to run back into the house. Somehow, her left ankle tangled in a wire or something that had wrapped around the steps leading out the back door and she tripped. She frantically yanked at the cable until she managed to work it free, then gathered it up and dashed into the house.

“Ma’am?” Deputy O’Riley said as he approached the door. “I am Deputy O’Riley from the Tulare County Sheriff's office. May I have a word with you?” There was no answer, but he thought that he heard rustling inside. “Please Ma’am, just a word. I want to verify that you are okay.” Again, no response.

He tried the door, but it was locked. Having no probable cause and no search warrant he couldn’t legally force his way into the house. He went back around to the front door, but she wouldn’t respond to his frequent knocks there either. After moving to the backyard again he tried to make sense of what he had seen. The lady had appeared to have been tangled in a steel cable, but now that he thought about it, he was thinking that she was attached to the cable. Perhaps that also explained the semi-circle of manicured dirt. He couldn’t call it a lawn.

Noticing that the door to the storage container was ajar he stepped over to that and peered in. The back of the container was stuffed full of boxes and the general junk that anyone might store. The front four feet, however, made his blood run cold. It was a space that was roughly four feet deep and eight feet wide. A chain was anchored in each corner of the space, and the free end terminated in a pair of metal semicircles that appeared to be chain link fence brackets. They looked the perfect size to encircle a woman’s wrist or ankle. The floor had a yellowish-brown stain and the entire container reeked of raw sewage.

 

Things moved quickly after that. A stakeout was immediately set up, watching the driveway to establish who might come and go. What the officer had seen was sufficient to get a search warrant. By the time the warrant was obtained, and a sufficient SWAT team assembled, the stakeout team had reported that a vehicle, registered to the homeowner on record, had reentered the property.

Under a different situation they would have continued to observe the property to gather evidence. Considering that the woman appeared to have been restrained with a cable, it was considered to be a hostage situation. Due to the record of the owner, especially the alleged rape charge, it was considered imperative to move quickly. If the suspect had been alerted that a Deputy had been poking around earlier, he might decide to flee, or worse.

The assault on the house was quick, clean, and textbook perfect. At four AM, two officers moved to positions to cover the rear while another team snuck up onto the front porch. A battering ram knocked the door in, although the wood of the door frame was in such poor condition just leaning on it could have broken it. If they had tried the door first, they would have found it unlocked. A flash-bang grenade was tossed inside, and among the smoke and confusion, the team moved in.

The suspect was found in a bedroom at the end of the hall, where he had immediately dropped to his knees and placed his hands on his head. It was as if he had expected them, or perhaps had experienced this before. When Sam had told him about the ‘cop’ that had come by earlier he figured that all hell was about to break loose, so he hadn’t undressed, just laid on his bed fully clothed.

The alleged victim, on the other hand, went crazy. She appeared to have been in the main room, and not far from where the flash bang grenade had detonated, which had been a miscalculation on their part. They had expected the occupants of the house to have been in a bedroom at that hour, not the main living room.

Dazed and disoriented, the victim had tried to flee out the back door but was literally tripped up by the cable that was locked around her ankle. After yanking in vain on the cable, she attempted to run back into the house before being tackled by the two officers covering the back, who covered her body with their own to provide her with the protection of their bullet proof vests.

Despite the officers’ attempts to calm her and assure her that she was safe, she continued to fight and struggle. She became so agitated, and her struggles occasionally landing a significant blow against one of the officers, that they eventually tased her.

oo- Chapter 2 -oo

“Any progress?” the lieutenant asked.

“Some,” Detective Drew McDonnel replied. “We have identified the vic: Samantha Henley, formally of Palos Verdes, California. 25 years old.”

“I would have guessed older, early thirties at least.”

“Yeah, drugs can do that to the body. Her drug tests came back clean, but there are old track scars up and down her arms. She used to be a user for sure. She also has a record: prostitution, petty theft, vagrancy, drug use, all the usual.”

“Palos Verdes you say?” the lieutenant queried. He knew of the area, although he had never actually been there. You had to be really well off to live there. “A rich kid then. Rich kid with a record and a drug problem.”

“Yep. She went missing about three years ago. She had been gone for a month before her parents filed the missing person report. By then the trail was cold, and no one was likely to put much of an effort into it. Junkies go missing all the time. Usually turn up as an overdose in a hospital or morgue.”

“So how did she end up in a backwater like this, 200 miles from her home?”

“Not a clue. The perp is lawyering up, and the vic just ain’t talking.”

“Do we know for sure that she IS a victim?”

“Pretty sure,” the detective said. “Lab results aren’t in yet, but I’ll bet my next paycheck that the urine and feces found in that shipping container came from her. Blood too. All sorts of DNA on those homemade shackles. We got his prints on the shackles and all over the container.”

“That’s no surprise, it is his container!”

“The hospital confirmed that the rape kit tested positive.”

“That proves she had sex; it doesn’t prove it was rape.”

“The ligature marks on her wrists and legs are pretty damning. It is clear that she was tied up and struggled fiercely while being beat, which fits with that picture we were sent. The doctor’s report said that there were marks and bruising from multiple incidents; some very recent, some weeks or even months old.”

“What does Miss Henley have to say about it?”

“That’s just it,” the detective said with a sigh. “She hasn’t said a word, at least not to us. We were only able to identify her from her fingerprints.”

“Is she unresponsive? Comatose? I understand the flash bang went off really close to her, is she in shock?”

“No, she fought like a banshee when we tried to restrain her. Once the paramedics took over, she calmed right down, and started to cooperate some once she got to the hospital. She’ll answer the doctor’s questions, as long as it is about her health. As soon as an officer steps into the room, she clams up.”

“Have you tried having a female officer interrogate her?” the lieutenant suggested.

“Tried it, no luck.”

“Did you offer her immunity? I bet there is something in her past that she is worried about. There always is with the druggies.”

“It’s been offered, she didn’t bite. I assured her that nothing she said would be used against her. Even offered a blanket immunity for anything that has happened prior to when she came to live at that house of horrors. But she won’t say anything!”

“There might have been other women that were held there,” the lieutenant said. “Rapists tend to go serial. Get tired of their victim, or simply wear them out and need a new one. She might have had something to do with a previous victim, and now she’s afraid she’ll be prosecuted.”

“We’ve had cadaver dogs sniffing around and teams digging up the property looking for other bodies, but they ain’t turned up squat! No signs of any other women. Hell, there wasn’t hardly any evidence that she had been there! No women’s clothes, no shoes, no handbags, no cosmetics, no jewelry.”

“Find any useful evidence?”

“The storage container is something out of a horror movie!” Detective Drew offered. “Beyond that, pretty much zilch! The suspect had a gun safe, for which he volunteered the combination. Two hunting rifles and a handgun. We haven’t run the serial numbers yet, but they didn’t look like they had been used in years. Fair amount of fishing gear, and the assorted knife and such. Nothing out of the ordinary there.”

“We found one paddle that looked like something you would find at a novelty joke store. There was one ping pong paddle, which is suspicious as there was no ping pong table. Other than the steel cable that we had to cut off the suspect’s ankle, there wasn’t anything that suggested any torture or abuse.”

“What I found a bit odd was the lack of any women’s clothing,” continued the detective. “No bras, no panties, no leggings, nothing! Not even any Tee shirts or pants in her size. There was a box of tampons under the sink in the bathroom, and there was a hairbrush, otherwise nothing that would indicate that a woman had been living there.”

“The storage container is circumstantial evidence at best. Without her testimony, we ain’t got shit,” the lieutenant groused. “We can hold the suspect for 72 hours before he has to be charged or released. And, it just so happens that a patient can be held on a 5150 psych hold for 72 hours. Let’s get a shrink to talk to her, maybe loosen her up some.”

oo- Chapter 3 -oo

Sam was escorted down the hall by an orderly; a very large, male orderly. One who had been warned by the Sheriff's department that she could be combative. As Sam walked, she repeatedly attempted to tie the hospital gown closed in the back, but despite her efforts, the gown frequently gaped open, exposing her buttocks. The orderly, walking behind her, glanced down but otherwise didn’t react. So far, she had been cooperative and docile during her stay here, but still he took caution, not turning his back on her.

They stopped before a door that read ‘Dr. Mary Martin, PhD’. The orderly knocked once, then opened the door when a soft voice bade ‘enter’.

“Samantha Henley,” he announced as he ushered her inside.

“Very well.”

Dr. Martin was an elderly lady, her hair a mix of black and gray. The wrinkles forming around her eyes and mouth suggested laugh lines rather than scowling. She stood five feet, four inches tall and was pencil thin. The firm handshake she exchanged suggested that she worked out.

“Have a seat, please,” she directed towards Sam, then towards the orderly said: “Thank you, you can go.”

“Are you sure?”

“We’ll be fine.” She waited until the door had closed, then turned her attention to her patient. “How are you feeling today?”

“How am I supposed to be feeling?” Sam snapped, her hands gesturing wildly. “A swat team raided my home, zapped me with a taser, paraded me naked past throngs of spectators, then shipped me off to a hospital where I haven’t been allowed to leave and I’m still forced to give peep shows by being made to stroll the halls wearing this stupid hospital gown that doesn’t close in the back! I think I am doing just fine, considering. How are you doing?”

“I understand that this is hard for you. Perhaps I can make things a bit more comfortable. Is there someone who could bring you some clothes?” Normally, a patient being held for psychiatric evaluation was allowed to wear the clothes they arrived in, except Samantha had arrived with none.

“Allowing me to go home would make me more comfortable,” Sam retorted, skipping over the part about a friend bringing clothes; she had neither friends nor clothes.

“Where is home for you?”

“Uh,” Sam started, then paused. Where was home? She didn’t know. If they let her go right now, she wouldn’t be able to find her way back to where she had just been. It had been dark, and she’d been hog tied in the back of a pickup when he had brought her to his place. The only time she had left was in the back of the paramedic ambulance, which hadn’t offered any view at all.

“You can call your parents, if you like.”

“Hell no!” Sam objected. “That place hasn’t been home since I was sixteen. It wasn’t much of a home before that! I’d rather that they weren’t called at all.”

“Unfortunately,” Dr. Martin said with a sigh. “They have already been alerted that you have been found. They had filed a missing person report three years ago, so when you were identified, it opened the file, and they were notified.”

“Fine!” Sam said indignantly. “Whatever.”

“I understand that your parents live in a very affluent neighborhood.”

“Yes, but money doesn’t make a home. Money will build walls and create gardens and pay for nannies, house cleaners and gardeners and someone to walk the dog. It pays for music lessons and dance lessons and private tutors. It buys clothes and gadgets and everything you need except for one essential item.”

Dr. Martin nodded as Sam slumped back into her chair. She didn’t need to be told what that one essential item was that had been missing.

“Although some clothes would be good right about now,” Sam admitted. “I’m getting tired of flashing my ass to everyone walking behind me.” Sam also considered the lack of clothes an impediment to leaving, even if leaving actually meant escaping. Like right now: if she were wearing clothes, she might be able to bolt out the door and make it to an exit and then blend in. It would be hard to hide in a crowd wearing only a hospital gown, however. Her options were definitely limited.

“I’ll arrange to get you something. Meanwhile, ask for a second gown and put it on backwards. That will at least keep you covered and keep you warmer.”

“Cold isn’t the problem, I’m used to going naked, just not with so many strangers around.”

“Tell me about that,” Dr. Martin said, seizing the opportunity. Sam immediately became sullen, visibly sinking back into the chair. After several moments of silence, she continued. “You need to talk about your recent experience.”

“My recent experience? Well, let’s see: I was sleeping comfortably, safe at home, when suddenly a grenade explodes almost on top of me! I’m afraid I reacted badly to that, and now the cops consider me crazy or something. Oh, and they might charge me with battery against the two cops that arrested me.”

“According to my records, you’re not under arrest. How about going back a little bit further? Allow me to help you.”

“You’re with the police, I don’t need your type of help!”

“No,” Dr. Martin said softly, shaking her head slowly. “I am not with the police. My job is to evaluate you and establish if you are a threat to yourself or anyone else. My duty is to you.”

“Tomato, tomahto. The police already offered me a plea deal, I ain’t buying it. I’m not saying anything without a lawyer.” That wasn’t an entirely accurate statement. She didn’t intend to say anything, even with a lawyer.

“I’m not part of any investigation. You are a patient, and I am your doctor. The doctor-patient confidentiality overrides the jurisdiction of the law. I assure you that nothing you tell me will be disclosed to the police. One exception: I am a mandated reporter; if there is a minor child that is endangered, I am required to report it. If there is another victim that needs rescuing, I would need to divulge that as well. Are there any more women being held, as you were?”

“Not to my knowledge,” Sam said, her brow furrowing as she thought about it. “He wouldn’t be cheating on me. He’s not like that.”

“Cheating,” Dr. Martin repeated softly. Not the response she was expecting. “Tell me about him.”

Cold silence followed.

“If you won’t tell me about him, then tell me why you mistrust the police so much.”

“Nothing good has ever come from talking to the police!” Sam snapped angrily. “They’re worse than the guys they are arresting!”

“When did you first start having issues with the police?” Anything to get her talking. She figured that Samantha’s troubles began long before her current situation developed. If she could get her talking about her past, she might run on into her present.

“Oh, I don’t know, 20 years ago?”

“You would have been five years old,” Dr. Martin pointed out.

“Six, actually,” Sam countered. “Maybe it was only 19 years ago.”

“What did the police do to you at only six years old?”

“They dragged me back home!” The exasperation was clear in her voice as she gestured wildly.

Good, she’s talking! Dr. Martin thought as she sat back into her chair. “Tell me about it.”

“Short version: I ran away. Many times. The police brought me back. Until one day a cop used me and then I was taken to juvie and then to foster care. I ran away from there too. Got caught and used a few more times. Then I turned 18, and what life I had went all to hell. And then I end up here, in the loony bin.”

“How about telling me the long version.”

“How much time you got,” Samantha laughed as she glanced over her shoulder at the clock mounted above the door. “I’m guessing this appointment was for an hour, and we’re ten minutes in.”

“We can start,” Dr. Martin agreed. “If you will tell me your story, I’ll schedule all the time you need.”

“Okay, if you insist,” Sam said in resignation. “You may want to get a fresh cup of coffee or whatever you use to stay awake, this isn’t A grade movie material.”

“I’ll manage.”

“Like I said, I was six years old the first time I ran away.”

As Dr. Martin was hoping, once started, the story just flowed.

oo- Chapter 4 -oo

“It was right at the beginning of first grade,” Sam began, settling back into her chair, draping one leg over the armrest. At least it was a comfortable chair. “We were having Show and Tell time.”

“Kindergarten should have been the wakeup call for me, but I guess I was still too young. First grade Show and Tell, however, smacked me right in the face. For the first round it was all about summer vacation. You have to understand that some of these kids were rich, so their vacations were a bit more than going camping or a trip to the beach! Paris, Hawaii, London! I didn’t know where any of these places were, but they sounded nice because they had gone with their parents. I hadn’t gone anywhere. But it was actually the camping trips that really had me jealous. It was a concept that I just couldn’t wrap my head around, a family being out in the woods, away from phones, the office, everything.”

“When it was my turn, I talked about my swimming and dance lessons. The teacher asked me if my mom or dad had gotten in the pool with me. I saw a class like that, it was right after mine. Kids with a parent that swam with them. I hadn’t had that experience, which made me sad and apprehensive to talk about it. I had a nanny that handed me off and then sat reading a book for an hour.”

“A few days later, Show and Tell was all about a favorite activity. Other kids talked about game night, or playing catch with their dad, or going to the park. I talked about music lessons, which was all I could think of. I hated music lessons, actually. After that it was what our parent’s job was. There were doctors, lawyers, and firemen. Those kids were proud of their parents! I couldn’t even pronounce what my nanny had written down on my paper: entrepreneur. Then I was even more embarrassed when I couldn’t explain what it was. The real kicker was when they asked what my mom did, and I didn’t have an answer. Hell, I still have no idea what she does all day, but she didn’t do it at home!”

“That is when it hit me. What I was really jealous about wasn’t that these kids had gone to exotic places or had fathers with hero jobs. It was that they did SOMETHING with their parents. I had a nanny who barely spoke English and treated me like nothing more than the job I was.”

“So, you ran away,” Dr. Martin said, only to fill the void of silence that followed. “Where did you go?”

“I have no idea, I was only six. It was just a sudden urge, a snap decision. Oh, the school assured my parents that I had accidentally gotten on the wrong bus and that they would make sure nothing like that ever happened again! But no, I had intentionally gotten on that bus.”

“You took the bus to school?”

“Yeah,” Sam sighed. “It was too far to walk, and the nanny didn’t drive. I suspect that she was an illegal, probably didn’t have a driver’s license. She would walk me to the bus stop and then would be there waiting when I got off. Which embarrassed the hell out of me.”

“What embarrassed you?”

“That my mom had to walk me each way.”

“You said it was your nanny,” Dr. Martin pointed out.

“I may have told the other kids that she was my mom. It is even worse if your nanny has to walk you, like you can’t be trusted. That kind of blew up in my face when I failed to get off the bus. The nanny called my mom, mom called dad, dad called the police. Everyone was questioned and the truth came out.”

“So, you got on a different bus,” Dr. Martin said, steering the conversation back. “What then?”

“I got off on the second or third stop. It was where a big group of kids were getting off. I remember a lot of small houses, and apartments, although I had no idea what an apartment was back then. But there were kids everywhere! Kids playing in the street, on lawns. Where I lived there were no kids at all, at least not out playing in the street. I joined in and was having the time of my life. But then kids started going inside, being called for dinner. Eventually I was all alone. Someone must have called the cops, seeing a six-year-old alone on the street as it was getting dark. Next thing I know I am back at my house. Big commotion, lots of people I didn’t know.”

“Police?” Dr. Martin prompted.

“Some probably were. Social services, I think. Apparently, I had stirred things up. Getting the police and social services involved and all that. Never saw that nanny again. Never rode the bus again either. For a few days, mom drove me to school and back, but then there was a new nanny. This one had a car and she drove me. Things only got worse after that: more activities, less freedom.”

“I would say it started a downward spiral, but you can’t fall off the floor. I have been told that I take after my mother in regard to stubbornness. I would resist, and they would respond with new tutors or coaches. When I failed to perform in the public school I was put into private school. I think I was nine when I ran away from there.”

“How did you leave that time?”

“Dropped off in the front of the school, walked straight through and out the back. Stole a kid’s bike and started riding. Didn’t get far. I guess a nine-year-old riding a bike when she should be in school kind of stands out. Mom had to pick me up at the police station this time. Seems that stealing the bike was a big issue. Now counselors get added to the mix.”

“Psychiatrists?” Dr. Martin attempted to clarify.

“Don’t think so, not at first. Hell, I don’t know, what does anyone know at nine years old? Mom only referred to it as counseling. I don’t think that she could accept the idea that I might need a psychiatrist! Counseling was okay. Schools have counselors. Counselors could advise you on what color you should paint your walls. Counselors could guide you down a career path. Going to see a counselor didn’t mean you were crazy!”

“A counselor then,” Dr. Martin agreed. “Did your parents attend as well?”

“Nope, just me, I am the one that had the problem you understand. My parents’ philosophy was: here, fix my kid, there can’t possibly be anything wrong with us! I just got dropped off there once a week. She tried hard, the counselor, I’ll grant her that. But I was too angry.”

“The shrink started a year later, after the counselor idea had officially failed. All hush hush, you understand. A quick visit, a new prescription. Adderall, Ritalin, Concerta, I tried them all. I got kind of used to being zoned out. Any escape was better than my reality. I started smoking weed when I was 11. Lost my virginity at 12. By the time I was 15 I was a total mess.”

“Any more attempts to run away?”

“Hmpf!” Sam scoffed. “Not so much running away as failing to come home. A night here, a night there. Then a couple nights. Then more nights away than at home.”

“Why did you eventually go home?”

“Money. My parents enabled me, for sure. They figured that as long as they provided a soft place for me to fall, I would be okay. I was supposedly being home schooled, but that was just to keep social services off their back. I bet they paid someone to do all the online work that I was supposed to do. I sure didn’t do it. And then one day I just quit going home altogether.”

“What did you do? How did you live?”

Sam sighed, pausing to reflect. After a few moments she went on.

“There are ways that a young woman can make enough money to pay for a drug habit. It’s easy, all you have to do is lie on your back!”

“Is that when you lost your virginity?”

“No, a cop took that from me a while before. He had ‘rescued’ me from a crack house and forced himself on me before he brought me home. I was too spaced out to object or care.”

“You said you lost your virginity at 12?”

“Yeah, that cop was a sick bastard, wasn’t he? After that, it was just a thing to do. I had a pimp who took care of everything for me. Arranged the johns, brought me my drugs. I was fine with it. Hell, I’d fuck anything that moved, and some things that didn’t. Threesomes, foursomes, full on orgies, you name it. I’d take in the ass or mouth, didn’t care. Three at once was my specialty.”

“Got busted a few times, spent some time in juvi. Then sent back to my parents. Busted again and sent to foster care, but they couldn’t hold me either. Then I turned 18.”

“What a difference a day makes,” Samantha quoted. “The next time I got rounded up they told me that I was facing some serious time. It was the day after I had turned 18, actually. I think that those bastards were just waiting for my birthday so they could take advantage of me. Told me that if I didn’t cooperate that I would face some serious prison time.”

“That’s awful!” Dr. Martin exclaimed.

“It wasn’t the idea of prison that scared me, it was being cut off from my supply of drugs. I would do anything to get that next fix. So, dummy that I was, I agreed.”

“I was told that it was a sting operation; that they were after the johns. I should have been suspicious when they wanted to ‘try me out’, make sure that I could perform well enough to properly entice the men. Yeah, right. I think I fucked every cop in the department. They didn’t say they were cops, but I could tell. Months went by, and I had been fucking the same guys over and over.”

“When I had finally had enough, I said that I was done and wanted out. I was told in no uncertain terms that I should keep my mouth shut. Got roughed up a bit. I fled, skipped town. Made it all the way to Bakersfield!” Sam laughed at that.

Bakersfield is a fair-sized city located about halfway between where she currently was and where she had started. Tiny compared to Los Angeles, huge compared to Visalia. Mostly agricultural, some oil fields. One hundred miles, not much of a run.

“Same shit, different city. Except now I am like the only white girl among mostly Hispanics. Occasionally, I would call home and mom would wire me some money. Never bring it to me, you understand. Two hours was way too far! Or way too scary to go to Bakersfield. If the streets weren’t lined in palm trees and the residents driving Lexus, it wasn’t a neighborhood they were comfortable in.”

“Then one day there was this guy looking to recruit a bunch of hoes for some big event a bit up north.”

“North of here?” Dr. Martin asked.

“I don’t know where here is,” Sam admitted. “I know we’re in Visalia, but I really don’t know where that is.”

“About 75 miles north of Bakersfield.”

As her patient became more comfortable with telling the story, Dr. Martin permitted her to do so in her own way, not interrupting as the monolog dragged on.

oo- Chapter 5 -oo

This guy, I wouldn’t call him a pimp exactly, but I suppose he was. Like I said, he’s trying to round up a selection of whores. I think he wanted diversity, and I was the only white chick he could find. Asians, a couple of Arabic looking women, you get the idea.

Before I know it, I find myself in a pretty dress in a van heading north. Freeway, then highway, then back roads. End up at some winery/farm something. Never did understand, other than it was some sort of wild shindig for a bunch of rich guys. I am guessing it was some corporate thing, as it was mostly guys, and their wives were not there.

A bunch of little RV trailers had been set up for us to operate out of. We were supposed to mingle, talk to the guests. Let them ‘get lucky’, take them back to the trailer. No money was to be exchanged, all complimentary, you understand. I think that was so that the guys had plausible deniability; they weren’t paying for sex! It was pretty clear that the guy in charge would be paying attention to how many guys I had fucked, however, so there was a lot of pressure to perform.

The guys don’t seem to mind being seen leaving the party with a much younger woman, but they don’t want to be seen returning to the party with one, so we hang back a bit. There was this guy there, not one of the hot shots at the party. Part of the help, I had figured, although he wasn’t doing anything at the time. We get to talking. He seems to want me, you know? I figure a little extra money would be good. Except I can’t bring this guy back to the trailer, the boss man will see. So, we sneak off to where it is nice and dark.

I don’t know what came over me, I really don’t. He was taking his pants off when his wallet fell out of his pocket. I could see bills sticking out. I grabbed it and ran. I figured that I could outrun him, seeing as he was barefoot and had his pants down around his knees. I figured that if I could get back into the party, he wouldn’t make a fuss. I figured wrong.

He caught me by the hair, clamped a hand over my mouth and dragged me into a back field. I was expecting to get raped and roughed up a bit, so I didn’t really fight back. It had happened a few times before, even when I hadn’t tried ripping the guy off. If you fight back, they can hurt you real bad, you know? Occupational hazard. So, I’m not fighting him or nothing. I figured that as long as he doesn’t mess me up too bad, I can just go back to work, and the boss man don’t need to find out.

Instead, he ties me up in the back of a pickup truck. God, I laid there for hours! Then the party was over, and he was finally leaving. It wasn’t a long drive, maybe thirty or forty minutes and we are bouncing down a gravel driveway. He throws me over his shoulder and carries me into this pigsty of a house!

Mind you, I had been living in some pretty disgusting places, but this was even worse! I would normally go with the flow in a situation like this, but now I am getting a little scared. Guys don’t normally take me to their home just to rough me up. I start begging for him to let me go but he tells me that he is going to take what I had offered him.

He tore that flimsy dress off me, leaving me naked. He can fuck pretty good, I’ll give him that! Under different circumstances it might have been fun. But I was being stubborn. I wasn’t fighting him, but I wasn’t helping either. He bent me over a counter and took me from behind, then stood me against the wall and entered me standing. I was just a limp rag doll, but he didn’t seem to care. An hour later he is doing me again, missionary style on the floor.

I spent the night tied up on the floor of the main room. The house only has three rooms: bedroom, his den, and the kitchen/main room. There was a couch and a TV in the main room. Some sort of desk in the den, and a safe. Bed and chest of drawers in the bedroom. Not much else. No dining table, no chairs, not even any dishes!

In the morning he made use of me again. It must have been a Saturday, I had kind of lost track of days. Anyway, he was home all day and would use me whenever the mood struck. He kept me tied up otherwise. Sometimes kept me tied up when he fucked me. He went away for a bit, and when he came back, he had four lengths of chain and some other hardware. I couldn’t see what he was doing with them, something out back. It was early Monday morning when I found out what.

“The storage container?” Dr. Martin interrupted, feeling the need to clarify. She had read the police report, and wanted to steer the conversation that way.

“Yeah,” Sam said with a shudder, shifting uneasily in her chair. “He had to go to work, he explained, and couldn’t leave me in the house.”

oo- Chapter 6 -oo

“That storage container was my home for the worst part of my life, ever!” Sam said, making eye contact with Dr. Martin, the first time in several minutes. “By Monday morning, I was pretty well along with the withdrawal symptoms, and he didn’t want me in his house. I suppose he had a point, quitting cold turkey can be messy. A lot of vomiting. Not that it would have really mattered in that pigsty he called a house. Probably more to keep me from running off.”

“Quitting a drug addiction cold turkey can be quite hazardous,” Dr. Martin said in alarm. “Without proper medical supervision and alternative drugs, you would have been in great danger.”

“Yeah, and it is a real bitch too!” Sam sighed, relaxed back into the chair, then stared up at the ceiling before continuing. 

Monday morning, he tells me that he’s got a spot for me to stay, and he takes me out to the container. I guess I was expecting a bed or a mattress or something. Nope, he had just cleared a spot on the floor. He had bolted chains at four spots and made me lie on the floor. He attaches the chains to my wrists and ankles using these metal brackets with nuts and bolts. I think that they were what you would use to fasten chain-link fence wire to the posts. He used wrenches to fasten them down tight. No way I could get the nuts loose with just fingers, even if I could have reached one hand from the other.

He fucked me again, laying there, chained spread eagle. By then I just didn’t care anymore. Or so I thought. Turns out I would care a lot, real soon. When he left, he closed the container door and locked it. It was completely dark in there, not the slightest hint of light coming in. He told me that if he ever heard a sound from me from the outside, he would hurt me real bad. I believed him.

It was early morning when he locked me in, and still cool. As the day wore on, the heat rose. A steel container sitting in the sun, no ventilation. Before long I had to pee and ended up laying in a puddle of my own making. By the time he came back, late in the afternoon, I was incoherent. Mostly from the withdrawal, but heat exhaustion might have been mixed in there as well. He unchained me, dragged me out, gave me some food and water. He hosed out the storage container a bit. Fucked me some more and let me sleep in the house. Not in a bed, mind you, on the floor, all tied up.

Next morning, I was back in the container, after he fucked me. That night he didn’t let me out or fuck me. Said I was too much of a mess. I had vomited, shit and peed myself. He just washed me and the container down with a hose.

As hot as it was during the day, it was damn cold at night. I think it was late October, maybe even early November. I lost track of how many days that repeated. Between the drug hallucinations and the horrid conditions, I couldn’t remember anything.

Must have been a week or more before I started thinking straight again, or as straight as I ever thought. I figured that I was going to die in that container if I couldn’t effect a change. Escape was out of the question; I was so weak that I couldn’t even stand without help. I figured that the only thing I could change was myself.

I held my piss and shit all day long. When he came to hose me down, I begged him to let me out to do my business. I was very polite, kept my voice low, called him Sir. I think he was impressed. I bet no one has ever called him Sir. I didn’t know his name, and didn’t have anything else to call him, at least not anything that wouldn’t just make matters worse for me.

“Please Sir,” I begged. “I haven’t peed all day, let me do it outside.”

“Alright,” he agreed, eyeing me suspiciously. I could tell that he was expecting me to try something. Not that I could have, I was way too weak. He unfastened my shackles, and then helped me crawl outside. Yes, I crawled. Kneeling there on the ground I peed and pooped. I didn’t care that it was running all over me, at least I wouldn’t have to lay in it.

“Let me wash you off a bit,” he offered. It was perhaps the first bit of compassion that he had shown me. The hose had been laying in the sun, so the water was actually a bit hot at first. It felt good. He came up with a rag and wiped me off. He fed me and let me sleep in the house that night, tied up on the floor. And he fucked me again, but it wasn’t as rough as the previous times.

“Oh, please!” I begged when he went to lock me in the container the next morning. “Do my feet have to be chained? I get such bad leg cramps!”

“Very well,” he said after he had considered it for a bit. It wasn’t like I could do anything with my feet free. I might have been able to kick the side of the container, but he had made it pretty clear about that! There had been a few times that I had heard someone walking around the container during the middle of the day, but I was pretty sure it was a test. Drawing attention to myself could be very dangerous.

That night, when he let me out, I was able to walk and go into the house to use the toilet. I let him take me doggie style. A small thing, I agree. He had taken me from behind before, but only bent over something as I would just slump to the floor. This time I knelt up and cooperated. He liked it better that way.

The next day he secured me by only one wrist. Glorious! You can’t believe how nice it was to be able to roll over! When he fucked me that night, I actually humped back.

The weekend came, and he kept me in the house, Friday night through Monday morning. If he wasn’t fucking me, I was tied up, but at least not hog tied, and he let me sleep on the couch. When he locked me in the container again, I was shackled by just one ankle, and he gave me a blanket. I could stand up, or sit, or lay down! I showed my appreciation by giving him the best blow job I could manage when he let me out that night.

“Going to try something different,” he said afterward.

“What?” I asked, hopefully. Any change would be appreciated.

He didn’t say what, but he got busy doing things. He had a tow chain that must have been 20 feet long. He took a large lag bolt, passed it through the last link of the chain and drove it right down into the floor, about halfway between the bathroom and the couch in the main room. Another set of brackets, just like he had used out in the container, bolted the other end to my ankle. I had a 20-foot radius to move in, enough to make it to the toilet and the couch.

It was wonderful! I slept so much better that night with my hands free, and he left me like that when he went to work the next morning. It would have been better if he had left the TV on, but I wasn’t going to complain! I was even able to take a shower. A cold shower, as the water heater didn’t work, but I felt clean for the first time in a long time!

When he came home that night, it was I who fucked him! Had him down on the couch and riding him like a cowgirl! I wanted to show how grateful I was, and I attempted to convince him not to put me back in that damn container again.

oo- Chapter 7 -oo

There were small progressions after that. I was starting to feel better, not so sick from the withdrawal. I felt that my survival depended on being of value to him, so, I cleaned the house, the best I could at any rate. At first it was just gathering up all the garbage, the piles of food wrappers and take-out boxes and piling them as close to the back door as I could reach. There were a LOT! He grumbled a bit, but he moved the piles to the rubbish bin, and then hauled it out to the road on garbage day. Based on the amount of trash in the house, I doubt that he set the bin out very often.

I had no cleaning supplies and nothing but a rag I found in the cabinet under the sink in the bathroom. Once upon a time I think it was a washcloth, or perhaps a small hand towel, but it was nothing but a matted clump of fiber when I found it. I soaked it in water and worked with it a bit, but eventually got it so that I could use it to transfer filth from one spot to another.

For two days I just wiped down the dirtiest parts that I could reach, rinsing the towel in the bathroom sink. Mind you, I only had the 20 feet of chain to move about in, and I couldn’t reach the top of the walls, but where I could reach there was a definite improvement. There were a lot of spills on the floor that took a number of wash cycles, and the toilet was beyond disgusting. Attempting to wash the windows was a failure, I could only smear the dirt around.

He was fucking me whenever the mood struck him, but otherwise he wasn’t touching me. Until I did something to piss him off. The first time he punished me was when I tried using his bar of soap for cleaning. On the plus side, you could actually see yourself in the mirror afterward. On the minus side, he got angry that I had wasted his soap. Turns out that he was very cost conscious.

He chained me back in the container that night, just one ankle. As a punishment, you understand. In the morning I resisted when he wanted to fuck me, so he chained me down, both ankles and both wrists and had his way with me. I just lay there, not responding. When he returned that night, I was laying in my own filth again. It was like going back to square one; I wasn’t doing anything for him, he wasn’t doing anything for me. He was raping me, but I could tell he wasn’t enjoying it as much. It gave me a sense of victory.

I don’t know how long it was; felt like forever, but probably just a few days. It had started off as a contest of wills, but before long I was incapable of doing anything besides just lay there, so I was winning by default. Finally, he dragged me out and hosed me down.

“You had it coming!” he barked. “You mess with me, I will mess you up, and good!”

“I wasn’t messing with you!” I argued. “You didn’t tell me that I couldn’t use your stupid soap!”

He locked me back in the container for two more days, for mouthing off to him. By now it was getting really cold at night, and I no longer had the strength or the will to resist him. But I didn’t make it good for him either.

“You want to go back in the container?” he asked angrily when I just laid still as he took me.

“No!” I said, quite truthfully. “I don’t ever want to go back in there.”

“When you break the rules, I will punish you!”

“There are other ways of punishing me!” I offered. “Especially when I didn’t mean to, or even knew what the rule was!”

“What, you would prefer that I rough you up?”

“Not with your fists, or your boot! Give me a spanking if you want! Use a paddle, or even a whip! Just not to the face.” I’d had johns that like that kind of shit, both giving and receiving, so I thought I would give it a try.

He thought about that for a minute.

“I’ll try that!” he responded. I could tell from the smile on his face and the bulge in his pants that he liked that idea. “Right away. You take the spanking, and make the sex a little more fun, and I won’t put you back in the container.”

“What am I being spanked for?”

“Talking back, having a smart mouth!”

“Okay,” I agreed. I didn’t dare argue the point. I figured that I could take a spanking. Anything would be better than that container.

He sat on the steps to the back porch and had me lay across his knees. Then he spanked me. It was just with his hand, but he can hit pretty hard. All that mechanic work he does must have made his hand real tough! It hurt something fierce, and I kicked and screamed and carried on, which I think turned him on even more. Must have been a couple hundred swats. He would swat me a few times, nice and slow, and then really let loose with a series of rapid-fire swats.

Then he had me kneel on the steps, and he took his belt off and used that on me. It hurt so bad! I don’t know how, but I took them. It got so bad that after a while I wasn’t feeling anything anymore, like my ass had gone numb or something.

When he finally stopped whipping me, he took me, right there on the steps. I really didn’t want to be put back in that container, so I fucked him back. I moaned, and gyrated my hips, and humped. I had to admit that it felt good. I felt good, other than my ass was on fire. I felt that I had won something, another tiny little victory.

We ate dinner together that night and let me watch TV with him. He fucked me again there on the couch, and I rode him. He actually held me in a cuddle afterward. It felt kind of nice.

“Are you going to behave yourself?” he asked me during one of the commercials.

“I’ll try,” I promised, although it was hard not to say something snarky. I thought I had been behaving myself, I didn’t know that his stupid soap was off limits!

“And you will submit to a whipping when you fail?”

“It isn’t fair that you can whip me for doing something that I didn’t know was wrong!” I objected. I figured that I was on thin ice here, but I saw an opening and I wanted to exploit it. “I will submit to a spanking, your bare hand against my bare skin, any time for any reason. Or no reason at all.”

I could see that he was thinking about that. He hadn’t objected right out, but I could tell that he wasn’t totally buying it, so I figured that I needed to sweeten the pot a bit.

“If I do something that I know is wrong, intentionally or otherwise, I’ll submit to the belt. And you can make rules and punish me if I break one. But you have to tell me what the rule is first!”

“And I can fuck you whenever I want?”

“Yes, you can fuck me whenever you want.”

oo- Chapter 8 -oo

It turned out that ‘whenever he wanted’ was several times a day. At first, I justified my submission, told myself that I had to. He would demand that I suck his cock and I would give him the best blow job I knew how. When he fucked me, I would moan and cry out my climax, because guys like that. Most of the time I didn’t even have to fake it. To be honest, I was actually starting to enjoy it. I had spent so many years numbed out with drugs and just letting johns use my body, never feeling anything. Now I was getting sober enough to actually feel something.

He would give me a spanking, ‘just because’, quite often in the beginning. He claimed that it made me wet. Or at least wetter than normal. They didn’t hurt much when they were just for fun. He liked to put me over his knees and spank me that way. If he sat on the edge of the couch then I would be draped over, which wasn’t very comfortable, especially if he wanted me to stay there a long time. When he sat back, I could lie on the couch and he might keep me there for hours, spanking my ass and fingering my pussy while he watched TV. I might climax two or three times during one of those sessions.

I was allowed to sleep on the couch, and he even provided me with a blanket. He let me use his soap. He started buying me things. Little things, like shampoo, and Tampax. I am sure that the Tampax was so that I wouldn’t make a mess during my period, but I will give any guy credit who will buy feminine hygiene products!

Eating was a bit of an issue. He NEVER cooked anything. His standard breakfast was cold cereal with milk. Dinner was takeout, or eating at the bar on Monday and Friday nights. On those nights I typically went hungry, or he would bring me his leftovers. One time he was gone fishing all weekend! There may have been food in the refrigerator, but I couldn’t reach it.

I offered to cook for him, part out of desperation, and part because I just wanted to have something to do. I wasn’t much of a cook, but when I was little, I had spent a lot of time with the nanny or cook or housekeeper, and they all had taught me a bit. I could see the kitchen area from across the room, but I had never been allowed in there. But I knew that there wasn’t much in the line of cooking utensils.

There was a gas stove, which I had never seen used. Turned out that the reason it and the water heater didn’t work was simply because the propane tank was empty. After a bit of cajoling, I convinced him to do something about it. There was a big tank, which would require a truck to come fill, but he didn’t want anyone coming up to the house. He came up with this tank that is about as tall as I am, and he took that and had it filled somewhere. He had to build a frame to allow him to hoist it out of his truck, and then alter the plumbing some, but he got the propane working! I mean, when he puts his mind to it, he can be quite the worker!

To give me access to the kitchen he had to move the anchor point for the chain, but it still wasn’t long enough to allow me to reach both the kitchen sink and the toilet, so he bolted another short length of chain to the first one. The full length of that chain weighed a lot. Moving just a step or two wasn’t bad, but it was a bitch moving from the kitchen to the bathroom. I had to move the chain with my hands, as it hurt too much to try and drag it with my ankle. I was starting to get cuts where that bracket cut into my ankle.

The first meal I fixed was something really simple, and only required one pan, which was good because that’s all he had. I had him buy a pound of hamburger and a box of Rice a Roni. The recipe is on the back of the Rice a Roni box, it was something that my nanny used to make occasionally and was fairly quick and easy. He had some salt and pepper packets left over from fast food takeout, which I used for seasoning. There weren’t any plates, so we ate it directly out of the pan, using plastic forks that were left over from take out. It wasn’t bad, even if I say so myself. Things progressed pretty quickly after that. I think that he liked the idea of a home cooked meal, and really liked that it cost less than fast food or takeout.

He noticed that the steel bracket was cutting into my ankle, so he replaced the chain with a steel cable, and anchored it by the back door, which is right off the kitchen. The other end of the cable had two loops in it, which wrapped twice around my ankle and was secured with a small padlock. It was a lot lighter than the chain and I could move about quite freely now that those metal brackets weren’t cutting into my skin. That was an act of kindness that I really appreciated. It was like the first time anyone had cared enough to do something for me.

Or, it might have been that with the extra length he could get more work out of me. Now I could reach the rubbish bin out the back door, all of the kitchen and the bathroom, and most of the main room. Not quite to the front door, and several feet from reaching the den or bedroom doors. I think he was concerned that I might attack him in his sleep.

The next day he bought a secondhand set of dishes and a few more cooking utensils. I would give him a shopping list and he would bring home groceries. It was a double-edged sword, however. Like I said, I wasn’t a good cook, and I got most of my recipes from the TV. Sometimes they turned out a complete disaster.

My first attempt at a meatloaf was far from perfect. In fact, it was awful, even I have to admit that. What was supposed to be moist and juicy turned out dry and crunchy. I got two punishments for that. The first was a strapping with the belt because dinner wasn’t ready when he got home. I argued that dinner was ready, which only earned me yet another punishment, for talking back. He claimed that since what I had prepared was not edible, dinner was not, in fact, ready.

He used his belt on me for that one, for not being ready. He bent me over the kitchen counter and made me count them out, fifty lashes. I would have thought that not being right after a hand spanking they wouldn’t have hurt as much, but I think they actually hurt more! I got a couple extra lashes because I lost count! I was very sorry, and very grateful when it ended. I had to make him a new dinner, and I was forced to eat the meatloaf.

The next day, when he arrived home, he came into the house carrying a stick. He called it a ‘switch’, but to me it was a stick. I had wasted money, he said, and now I was going to pay. He figured that I had wasted eight dollars’ worth of ingredients, so I was going to get 8 lashes of that stick.

“I was about yay distance” Sam said, holding two fingers barely separated, “from arguing that it hadn’t gone to waste, as he was making me eat it. In one of my rarer episodes of better sense, I kept that thought to myself.”

He had me bend over the back of the couch, my ass high in the air. There was a whoosh sound, then a thwick sound, and my ass just erupted in pain. I shot up from the couch and hopped around and rubbed my ass! He grabbed me by my hair and forced me back down and told me that if I got up again, he would start over!

I screamed so loud on the second lash that it hurt my own ears! I grabbed the couch cushion and hugged it tight, burying my face into it to muffle my screams.

It was on the fourth or fifth lash that he managed to hit the overhead light and break the bulb. Fortunately, there wasn’t a cover on the light, it was just a bare bulb, otherwise it might have been a lot worse. He claimed that the bulb was worth four dollars, what with his time and gas to go buy one, so he made the total lashes an even dozen.

I was crying and sobbing hysterically by the time he was done. It hurt when he fucked me afterward, his hips and thighs banging against my sore ass. I carried bruises from that for over a month!

The night after that he punished me for talking back. He washed my mouth out with soap and made me stand in the corner for an hour. I hated that almost as much as the whipping with the stick. That was the first real test of our agreement, that he could punish me when I did something wrong. I was a bit miffed about the stick, I had agreed upon the belt! But at least he didn’t put me back in the container.

At the end of it though, he said that he forgave me, that he understood that I hadn’t done it on purpose. He also told me that I needed to be more careful and pay attention to what I was doing. And then things went right back to how they were before, the meatloaf was never mentioned again.

That was something new to me. Whenever I had gotten a bad grade in school, my parents would carry on about it forever! My pimp would harp on me for weeks for anything that he thought I had done wrong. This was just over and done with. I had survived the punishment, and by the next day it didn’t seem so bad.

You might think that such an experience would deter me from attempting unknown recipes, but it didn’t. It was rare that the meal would be totally inedible, like the meatloaf, but there were some pretty awful ones. Plus, I discovered, the hard way, that he doesn’t like squash. You would think that he would have said something when I asked him to buy said squash, but NOOOOO! He let me try, and fail, and then punished me for it.

After the light bulb incident, he decided that whippings should be done outside. He repaired a section of an old split rail fence so he would have something for me to bend over. The first time we used that I ended up with splinters in my belly, so he smoothed the top rail down some. Another act of kindness and consideration that meant a lot to me.

After that, it wasn’t so bad, at least when it wasn’t freezing cold. It was the only time I was allowed out of the house, so it was actually a bit of a treat to be taken outside for a punishment. Once he had gone through the trouble of releasing me from that cable, he would usually leave me that way for the rest of the day. It was like a special treat to be able to move around without worrying about tripping over that cable.

Fall turned into winter, and it got cold. I had a blanket that I could wrap around myself on the coldest days while in the house, so I wasn’t too bad off. I really feared that storage container now, as I am sure that I would die of hypothermia if I was left out there, naked. I might survive the daytime, if the sun was shining, but it gets down to freezing at night. With no way to move, or even cover up to conserve body heat, I would be dead by morning.

The house does have a furnace, but he never lit the pilot, saying that it would take too much propane. If he would have that big giant tank filled it wouldn’t be a problem, except for the cost. But that smaller tank that he can transport in his truck would run out pretty quick, and then we are without any propane at all for a couple of days while he disconnects it and hauls it into town the next day to get it refilled.

Eventually, I learned a couple of recipes and kept the ingredients on hand for a meal that I could make without a stove, just for these occasions. The first time we ran out of propane, however, I wasn’t prepared. I was in the middle of cooking dinner when the fire went out. At first, I didn’t understand why. And then I just stood there, terrified, like a deer in the headlights.

“What were you afraid of?” Dr. Martin asked. The question took Sam by surprise, as the doctor had been listening silently for so long.

“I had failed,” Sam responded, as if that was obvious. “You have to understand: he expected dinner to be ready when he got home. It wasn’t going to be ready. I had no plans for something that didn’t require the stove. I was doomed.”

“Wouldn’t he consider running out of propane a reasonable excuse?”

“Not likely. He looked for excuses to punish me. He would punish me if I fixed something that he didn’t like, but he didn’t tell me what he didn’t like. He demanded that dinner be ready when he got home, but he wasn’t consistent as to when he got home. He wasn’t going to accept a flimsy excuse like running out of propane!”

He is a mechanic at the Ford dealership, and the service department is open from 7:00 AM until 6:00 PM. He works the early shift, so he arrives at work around 6:30 AM. He is technically off work at 4:00 PM, but he can’t just leave a customer’s car if it had been promised that day, and then he has to clean up. He told me that it is a 30-minute drive to work, but he might run errands on his way home.

Tuesday through Thursday he was most likely to be home at 6:30. There is no clock in the house, so I go by the TV shows for time, so when Judge Judy is making her final ruling, I start preparing dinner.

“You said Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday,” Dr. Martin queried. “Didn’t he work on Monday and Friday?”

“Well, Friday is TGIF, or guy’s night out, if they haven’t already left to go fishing. Then there is Monday Night Football, or whatever they watch when football is out of season.”

“He spends a lot of time at the bar,” Dr. Martin surmised. 

“I hadn’t really thought about it,” Sam said, contemplating. “I’ve read stories and seen TV shows where the husband is home every night like clockwork. It was never my experience though. When I was a kid, my dad was hardly ever home, and my mom wasn’t home in the evenings very often. I am grateful that he came home at all. Three nights a week and most weekends, I’ll take that.”

On Mondays I would turn the game on towards the end, just to see the score and get an idea of what kind of mood he would be in. He might be a bit drunk, but if his favorite team won then he would be a happy drunk. Friday nights were less predictable; he might stop for just a beer or two, or they might carry on all night, but he was more likely to be in a good mood.

Regardless, I would do all the prep and pre-cook as much as I dared so I could just reheat. His truck is kind of loud, it needs a new muffler. One of those ‘shoemakers children going without shoes’ situations. If I am paying attention, I can hear it when he stops at the mailboxes out on the highway. Then he has to open the gate, drive in, close the gate, and approach the house. It gives me a few minutes to do the final steps.

That first time that we ran out of propane I knew I was in for it. His dinner wasn’t ready, and I would have to toss what I had been working on, wasting money. Two punishments. When I heard his truck approaching it snapped me out of my stupor and I came up with a rather hasty plan.

I figured that if I confessed immediately and submitted to the punishment that he might show mercy and go a little easier on me. So, I grabbed that stick he likes to use, and I was waiting for him, on my knees, holding out that damn stick when he came in the door.

He made me stay there, kneeling on the floor while he ‘took care of business’, which amounted to changing his clothes, using the bathroom, and getting a beer. Fifty lashes from his belt had become the standard punishment for not having dinner ready, and I had to count them out.

Either my ass was getting tougher, or he wasn’t hitting as hard, as the whippings were getting a little easier to tolerate. Or at least they were when I was bent over something, like the counter or the couch. This was the first time he had whipped me kneeling on the floor, head down, ass up. The first thirty or so he stood to the side and lashed horizontally. The ass cheek on the far side usually got the worst of it, so he would trade sides occasionally. I would cry out, shake my ass and kick my feet. I think I bruised my toes from kicking the floor so hard.

Then he stood over me, straddling my back, and lashed downward. He always insisted that I keep my legs spread, so he could see my pussy. When the lash struck, the belt wrapped between my legs and the tip smacked hard against a very sensitive spot. I couldn’t take it; I fell to the side and writhed around in pain, my hands covering my crotch. I was crying and carrying on something fierce.

I was supposed to be calling out the count after each one: ‘that is one, that is two,’ etc. But I wasn’t saying anything intelligent after that lash. I had rolled to my back in a vain attempt to protect my ass, but when he got tired of waiting for me, he delivered two quick lashes to my breasts. That didn’t quiet me down any, but it did get me to turn over and I reluctantly raised my ass back up and gave the count.

He informed me that I had taken too long so that last one didn’t count, and if I wasn’t careful, we would start over from the beginning. He took pity on me though, and the remainder were targeted to the sides. Until the last one.

He toyed with me, teasing me. “Spread your legs wider,” he commanded. I whimpered pitifully but I obeyed. He dangled the belt between my legs, and let it bump against my sex. Just the light touch sent a shock through my body. I was already shaking and trembling from the whipping so far, and I was dreading the last lash. It was clear that he intended to hit me there again. The first one had hurt so bad, and the last lash of a set was always the hardest.

“Ask for it,” he said firmly.

“No, please!” I whimpered.

“Ask, or I’ll give you one that won’t count.”

“PLEASE SIR!” I begged.

“Please what?”

I had intended for it to be a plea for him to not hit me, but I managed to turn it into a plea for the last lash.

“Please may I have the fiftieth stroke?”

“Where?”

“On the pussy, Sir!” I panted. I figured that I wasn’t going to escape it, so I might as well cooperate. “Please Sir, whip my pussy!”

He tapped that belt against my sex for an interminable length of time, just taunting me. I had spread my legs wider, held my ass higher. I had closed my eyes, clenched my teeth and was holding my breath.

When it came, it was hardly nothing. Nowhere near as hard as the previous swat to my pussy, just a light slap. Oh, it still stung, and I cried out more from reflex than actual pain. “FIFTY” I called out.

He stepped to the side, and I knelt up and turned to face him. Without being asked, I tore at his pants and had his cock out and into my mouth in no time. I was so grateful that he had spared me on that last lash that it was I who was fucking him. We did the reverse cowgirl, the pretzel, legs over shoulder. You name it, we did it that night. He would go flaccid for a while, and then I would suck him until he got hard again, and we would go some more. I’ll admit that I enjoyed it. It was as if I had some power over him.

I still had another punishment coming with that cursed stick, though. For that he likes to be outdoors, which requires daylight, of which there wasn’t any during the week when he wasn’t at work that time of year. He had only whipped me a few times with that stick before that, and always the day after a whipping from his belt so that my ass was still a bit sore. We had to wait four days until the weekend, and he insisted that my butt had to remain sore until then, so he spanked me every morning and night until Saturday.

I would say that it was terrible, except it wasn’t. If the belt whippings were becoming tolerable, the hand spankings were becoming enjoyable. They hurt in the moment, you know? Each swat would sting something fierce. Afterwards, it didn’t really ache much at all. Enough to know it was there, but not so bad that it really bothered me.

The sex was pretty good then. He had been ‘fucking’ me whenever he wanted, generally shooting his load quickly and he didn’t care if I got any enjoyment out of it. Now we were trying new sex positions and he was taking his time. He said he liked it when I climaxed because I would clench down on his cock.

It was Friday when we broke new ground. We had started off in the ‘reverse cowgirl’ position, but then I laid down, with his cock still inside me. Sort of like the missionary position, with me on top, except head-to-toe instead of head-to-head. Then he started spanking me.

It was interesting. When he swatted my ass, I would clench down, which included the vaginal muscles. I think we both enjoyed it. The angle wasn’t good, and he complained that he couldn’t hit me hard enough like that. So, I went to the kitchen and got the wooden spoon.

My parents’ live-in nanny / cook had swatted me a few times with the spoon when I was a young child, so I knew it was a formidable weapon. A broad head a little narrower than my hand with a long handle. When I returned to him, I knelt, offering it up and made a confession:

“Sir,” I began. “I have a confession. I have been lazy and haven’t cleaned the bathroom in over a week.”

I am sure that he hadn’t noticed. Just a couple weeks before he had bought me some actual cleaning supplies and I had scrubbed that bathroom from top to bottom. I am sure it was still cleaner than he had ever seen it before I got there. But he accepted my offering.

Instead of going back into that exact same position we went into what is known as the ‘wheelbarrow’ position. He sat on the couch. I straddled him, sort of like the reverse cowgirl, except my hands are on the floor, my ass presented there right in his lap.

I had forgotten just how much that spoon could hurt! He would swat my ass, and I would jerk and squirm and clench and hump, and well, you get the idea. When I would stop clenching and squirming, he would swat me again. It hurt so much and felt so good, both at the same time.

I am not sure which of us climaxed first, but he kept going until I did, and a bit beyond.

“Wait,” Dr. Martin interrupted. “Why did you confess a questionable crime?”

“The position, the sex, was feeling good. I wanted a bit more.”

“Fine,” Dr. Martin agreed. “Why not just give him the spoon? Why a false confession?”

“I didn’t want to set a bad precedent,” Sam responded after thinking about it for a few seconds. She hadn’t really thought about it at the time, it had just been instinct. “We had agreed that he could spank me with his bare hand anytime he wanted, which he frequently took advantage of. If I had let him use the spoon, then he might have used it for other ‘just because’ spankings. I didn’t want that.”

“Okay, I see your point. Go on.”

He took me to his bedroom that night, the first time since he had captured me. He tied my wrists to the headboard, but I did get to sleep in a bed, and that was nice. It was almost Thanksgiving, and it had been very cold at night, so having a warm bed and another body to snuggle up to was much appreciated. My hands were together, not spread, so I could turn over, plus I had a pillow! It was quite comfortable. I couldn’t pull the blankets up, though. But he did a pretty good job of keeping them in place, pulled all the way up to my chin! Another act of kindness. For quite a while that night his hands gently roamed my body: thighs, crotch, belly, chest. It felt nice, sensual, quite unlike the groping that I had been accustomed to from the johns. Then he fell asleep holding one of my breasts in his hand.

“You know,” Sam said dreamily. “I don’t recall that I had ever slept with anyone before. All night that is.”

“I had been a prostitute for almost half my life, at that point,” Sam continued after a few moments of contemplation. “Most of the time, the sex was meaningless, it was just a job, something I was paid to do. Most of the time I didn’t have an orgasm. When the john was done, he was typically in a hurry to leave.”

“You may consider it a bit sick and twisted, but at the time, it felt, special, having just one man that I was having sex with. That may have been the only time I had ever had sex when I wasn’t drunk or high. I was having orgasms that I could actually feel. When you have been numb for a decade, feeling anything at all was a wonderful experience.”

“There was a song that was popular about the time I was captured, country singer, I forget her name. One of the lines rung true to me. Something like “I would rather hurt then feel nothing at all.” It wasn’t much, but it was more than I had before. I felt safer as a prisoner in that house than I ever did in a cheap motel room, not knowing who would come through the door next.”

In the twilight of early morning, I awoke and could feel his erection pushing up against me. We were spooning, and both of us were naked. It was a challenge, not having my hands available, but I managed to get his cock inside me without even waking him. Not a deep penetration, mind you, just enough to for it to feel real good. It was a delightful torture, laying still but wanting more.

I don’t know how long we lay there like that, perhaps an hour. He can stay hard forever! When he awoke it was like he slowly drifted from a dream into reality. A little bit of squirming, a deeper thrust. His arm was already over my side, but his hand sought out a breast and fondled it gently. More thrusting, increasing in intensity. Then it was full on fucking. He never mentioned anything about it. He may have thought that he had initiated the sex.

When we got up, he didn’t lock me up right away, allowing me to move about more freely, but he also never took his eyes off me. On workdays he will have a quick bowl of cereal before heading out, but this was a Saturday, and I had requested fixings for a bacon and egg breakfast. I discovered that frying up bacon while in the nude is a less than pleasant experience! But I prevailed and he seemed to really enjoy the breakfast.

Afterward, he allowed me to go clean up in the bathroom. When I got a chance to look in the bathroom mirror, I was surprised; I had dozens of oval shaped bruises on my ass! I didn’t think that it had hurt that bad during the spanking, and I hadn’t realized I was bruised until I spotted them in the mirror.”

“Have you ever had an injury that didn’t hurt until you realized you had it?” Sam asked, breaking away from her monologue. “Once I knew they were there, they suddenly hurt more than anything else he had done, except for that stick! Which was on the agenda for that morning. That was a mood killer right there.”

As it was nearly freezing outside, he waited until mid-afternoon. As my ass was still covered in bruises from the spoon, he skipped the usual morning spanking. When it was time, he surprised me with a question:

“How many swats should you get?” he asked.

I was taken aback; I hadn’t expected that. The last time he had used the stick he gave me a dozen. He had been leaving the receipt from the grocery store in the bag, so I was able to work out exactly what the cost of the ruined meal would be, and I was prepared to argue him down to only five lashes. Or try to. It might have also increased my punishment for talking back, so if he had said anything less than a dozen, I would have just accepted it. But now he asked me what the number should be. I should have just said five, like I was going to argue for, but I was so off kilter that I said the first thing that came to mind:

“One dozen, Sir.”

“I think six will do it,” he said softly. I felt so relieved. “And I will tie you down for them.”

Relief turned to panic; I had never been tied down for a whipping before. Well, other than the chain or cable around my ankle. It may seem silly, as he could obviously overpower me and do whatever he wanted, but there was always the possibility of escape, or that I could protect myself. Now I would be helpless.

He went outside for a bit; I presume to find something. When he came back, he was carrying two short lengths of rope. I had this horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach as he motioned me outside.

Even though it was midafternoon it was still bitter cold outside! I was covered in gooseflesh and was shivering before we reached the fence. He made me bend over the rail, spread my legs, and then tied each wrist and knee to the bottom rail. I was so cold that I just wanted him to hurry up!

“Please Sir,” I begged. I mean, I really begged! He would often just tease me, act like he was going to hit but then not, make me get all tense and worried. That day, the cold was really hurting. “Can I have the first?”

He obliged. I don’t know if he hit me harder, or if it was from the cold, or perhaps a combination of the two, but that lash was insanely painful! I screamed and tried to bolt upright, but I was tied down. He didn’t make me count these like he normally would, which was good as I wasn’t in any shape to make intelligent sounds. When the next lash hit, I was jerking and struggling against the bonds, trying to get free. Oh, God it was awful!

I don’t even remember the last few, only that I was crying and struggling. I didn’t realize it was over when he started untying me. I thought that I had somehow failed, or that I had I had upset him, as he normally fucks me right after, but this time he didn’t. He got me back into the house and wrapped me in a blanket and told me that he forgave me.

That’s when I really started crying. Not the shrieks of pain, but a full out bawling. Being forgiven for a failure meant a lot to me. He stood there, holding me for several minutes until I had cried myself out.

“Why was his forgiveness so important to you?” Dr. Martin asked. She had a pretty good idea why, but she wanted to hear it from Samantha.

“I’m not sure,” Sam said. She had to think about that for a minute, just sitting there, with a stupid look on her face. Finally, she offered up the best explanation that she could come up with. “I don’t recall my parents ever forgiving me, or even punishing me for that matter. And there was a lot that could have been punished and forgiven for. It was as if they didn’t care or couldn’t be bothered. Just the fact that he cared was important to me. I had done something wrong, and I had felt bad about it. Then he punished me, and forgave me, and all was right again.”

Afterward, like for days afterward, what I marveled at were the rope marks on my wrists. I wasn’t really aware of it at the time, but I must have pulled pretty hard on those ropes! I decided that it was better that I had been tied down, as I doubt that I could have stayed in place otherwise. So, there was only six lashes, and no penalty lashes. I figured that I had gotten off easy.

oo- Chapter 9 -oo

The next big change was when he brought home an old washing machine. Now that he was keeping propane, and decided that he liked having a hot shower, he figured that having his clothes washed at home would be a good thing. He wore a uniform at work which was provided by the Ford dealer, which he would change into at the dealership. A laundry service provided him with a clean uniform each day. Still, he would tinker with his own truck, or his drinking buddies, and manage to get filthy dirty.

He had been taking his clothes to the laundromat twice a week. I understand it was next to the bar he hung out in on Monday and Friday evenings, so he could drink and wash at the same time. But now that he had hot water at home, plus a live-in maid, he could save a few bucks. He got the washing machine for free, but he had to fix it, but that wasn’t a problem for a mechanic.

He wouldn’t get a dryer though. That would use too much propane! Instead, he strung a clothesline from the back door to the storage container. I had to plead with him to buy clothespins to go with it, and when he finally did, he took great delight in using them to torture me.

I had never realized how cold it got in the central valley. I had grown up in the Los Angeles area, and I could go year ‘round without ever wearing a coat. Now I was being kept naked in a house without heat. Come December, the temperatures dropped in the low 30’s, and the high might only be 50 degrees.

I didn’t have any clothes of my own; that dress I had been wearing at the party had been ripped off me and discarded. But now that I was doing laundry, I had access to his! Or at least the dirty ones. He is about twice my size, but I could put on several of his shirts, a pair of pants and socks and stay reasonably warm. Of course, the cable locked to my ankle was a pain. When I pulled the pants on, the cable came up out of the waist, which made it awkward and a couple feet shorter.

I didn’t let him see me wearing his clothes though. It was my little secret. It felt daring and naughty. Just a silly little thrill.

I scheduled doing the laundry carefully so that I always had sufficient dirty clothes that I could wear and still keep him supplied. He bought a basket that served as a dirty clothes hamper, which he kept near his bedroom door where I could reach it. When he left for work in the morning, I would layer up and stay warm. I would take them off before he got home. By then it was usually warm enough that I would be okay, as long as it hadn’t been raining. When I started cooking dinner the stove would warm the kitchen enough that I would be okay.

There were mistakes and punishments, however.

It was about mid-December when he was going away on a fishing trip with a buddy from work. They wanted to leave right after quitting time, so he was packing on Thursday night. He would be gone for two nights and wanted two of his flannel shirts. There was only one clean one. I could have washed the other one that night, but there was no way to dry it. Well, just like not having dinner ready, not having his laundry ready was a major crime.

There is an old barn that is apparently full of old junk, sort of like a detached garage. I haven’t ever seen inside it, but he occasionally goes out there when he is looking for something like an eye bolt, and usually finds it. It can be terrifying in that situation, when I know that he has some idea of a new way to punish me, but he just leaves me while he goes off searching or building something. This time he comes back pretty quick, with an eye bolt and a couple lengths of rope.

The eye bolt got screwed into the ceiling, right in the middle of the great room. A length of rope had my wrists secured up, over my head. Then he had this whip that he had made out of a length of heavy nylon rope. The last few feet had been unraveled into three branches, and each of those unraveled for the last foot into fine strands. A light lash didn’t hurt much at all on the back or buttocks but would sting quite a bit on the breasts or belly. Sometimes, though, he would really swing hard, and then it did hurt!

He had me tied up there for hours, and really worked out his aggression on my hide. I was covered, front to back, head to toe in lash marks, my skin bright red all over. Even my pussy got its fair share, as he would order me to spread my legs and he would direct a lash upwards. Wasn’t nearly as bad as the belt though. I couldn’t begin to tell you how many times he hit me. Hundreds, for sure. Maybe thousands.

Then he fucked me, standing there. I have been fucked standing up against a wall a number of times, but this was out in the open. When he impaled me on his cock I leaned back against my wrists and wrapped my legs around his waist. He thrust, bouncing me on his cock while I squirmed and rocked back against him. His cock was so hard and was buried so deep! His hands were clenching my ass and pulling me tighter against him. I wasn’t feeling any pain then, just his cock inside me! I came and came hard!

After that I made a point to have all his clothes ready to go by Thursday evening. I would leave a clean set in the ‘dirty’ pile so I would have something to wear on Friday, if he didn’t go away. If he started packing on Thursday, however, I would fold them real quick and get them to his bedroom. I couldn’t enter his bedroom with the cable on my ankle, but I could set them just outside the door.

On Christmas he surprised me with gifts. He had even attempted to wrap a couple, which was hilarious. Some cheap wrapping paper he must have bought at the dollar store wrapped around a box and secured with duct tape! Most women would not be impressed, and might even have been insulted by these gifts, but to me they were the best gifts ever.

My parents had always lavished me with gifts. Fashionable clothes, jewelry, the latest technology, gadgets and do-dads galore. I got really good prices for them at the pawn shop! But they didn’t compare to the things he had bought me from the thrift shop.

He bought me a waffle iron, because I had mentioned a memory of my nanny making me waffles. My parents would always buy me expensive gifts, but never what I wanted. They had no idea what I wanted. I cried over a waffle iron because, for once, someone had listened to what I had said!

He also bought a table and chairs for the kitchen, and a set of spoons, knives and forks so we could eat at a table like civilized folk. A broom and dustpan to make cleaning easier. A mop and bucket. And a second propane tank with an automatic cut over so that we wouldn’t run out of propane again!

I was so happy, and sad. I was happy because he showed that he cared about me. More than anyone else ever had. I was sad because I had nothing to give him in return. In an absolute moment of insanity, I suggested that, since we were celebrating the birthday of Christ, that he should give me a birthday spanking. Yeah, I probably should have put some bounds on that. Two thousand and fifteen swats is a LOT! Especially when he brought out his final ‘present’: a ping pong paddle that he had bought at the thrift store for fifty cents! The price tag was still on it.

He came up with the idea of spreading them out over the twelve days of Christmas, giving me 168 swats each day! He would give me twenty-two swats at a time, which was my age. So, seven sets of 22, and then one last one of 14. For twelve days in a row. It turned into an educational experience; I knew the song, of course, everyone does. But I never knew when the 12 days of Christmas were! According to him, they are the days between Christ’s birth and when the three wise men arrived, bearing gifts! It made sense, but I had to take his word for it as I had no way of verifying it.

On the days that he was home from work (Christmas, New Year’s Eve, New Year’s day and two weekends) the spankings would be spaced out throughout the day. He made good use of the new kitchen chairs, sitting in them as I lay across his lap. I got bent over the table a bunch. Oh, and fucked on the table! On my back, knees draped over his shoulder! Got spanked that way a couple of times too! Diaper position, he called it.

The days he had to go to work were a bit more condensed. First thing in the morning, right after breakfast, just before he left for work. As soon as he got home, right after dinner, once while watching TV, after he showered.

Most of the time he used his hand. A couple of times I offered up the wooden spoon. The last one of the day, the set of 14, was always with the ping-pong paddle.

It surprised me. I had expected the ping-pong paddle to hurt the most, but it didn’t. Unless he really hit hard, which he generally didn’t. I think that because it made such a loud smacking sound that he instinctively went easy with it. The swats stung terribly on the instant of impact, much worse than the spoon. Maybe even worse than the belt. But the area of impact was so much larger that it dissipated much easier and faster. It left my buttocks cherry red but not bruised. The wooden spoon is just the opposite: each swat isn’t that painful, but it will leave deep bruises and the ache lasts a lot longer.

I don’t know how to explain it, but those spankings weren’t a bad thing.

After the New Year he also relented and lit the pilot on the furnace. It was a small wall furnace, not a forced air system, but it was in the main room, which is where I always was. He set the thermostat to 66 degrees and threatened me with being put back into the storage container if I so much as touched it! That was fine, I could live with 66 degrees. Key word there was ‘live’. On the real cold days, I might spend most of the day huddled up next to the furnace with a blanket. If I was really cold, I could hook the blanket on the top of the furnace and make it like a tent, my own personal sauna.

There were small, incremental improvements as time went on. He bought me a longer cable and moved the anchor point so that I could reach almost to the end of the clothesline. Now I could also reach to just inside his bedroom door. Not to the bed, he didn’t trust me that much, but now I could put his clothes away. It also allowed me to take a few steps out the front door, so I made a point of meeting him on the front porch every night. A quid pro quo, you might say.

I also decided that it was better for me to confess to minor crimes, even if I had to make them up, rather than have him invent some reason to whip me. He could spank me whenever he wanted, without any reason, which he did often. There were many weekends where he was watching whatever the current sport was on TV and I would have to lay across his lap. It could be quite enjoyable if his team was doing well. It could be quite painful if his team was doing poorly.

But a bare hand spanking only went so far. I think that he felt the need to punish me properly, from time to time. We had established a number of crimes and their punishments. Not having dinner ready was a biggie, 50 lashes with the belt. Leaving a dirty dish about was not so bad, my age in swats with that ping pong paddle. Mouthing off would usually get me my age in swats from the wooden spoon and an hour standing in the corner, sometimes with a bar of soap in my mouth. A failure in the laundry department would get my entire body flogged with that rope.

One time I spilled his beer and ended up getting four punishments for it. The first was 23 swats with the paddle. Yeah, I’d had a birthday by then. Hmmm, the birthday spanking was actually kind of nice. It was early February, and his gift to me was to let me sleep in his bed that night. A nice, warm bed! Anyway, back to the beer; 23 paddle swats for being clumsy.

Then, because I had spilled it in his lap and caused him such discomfort in his crotch, he made my crotch very uncomfortable. With his belt. He tied me to the kitchen table. It is rectangular, with a leg at each corner. I was on my back, wrists tied to the legs at one end. Then my knees were brought up to my chest, and tied from one to the other with a rope passing under the table, forcing my legs spread wide. I was so vulnerable and helpless that just the anticipation was killing me! He stopped after only four swats, but that was probably because of how much I was wailing and carrying on. Damn that hurt!

Then there was the cost of the beer. Five dollars! Damn, this wasn’t at a bar, this was at home! I mean, a bottle of beer from the grocery store is under two dollars! When he took me out to the fence rail the next day and asked me ‘how many’ I said one! He said five, and when I argued that the beer was half empty he said I was being ‘mouthy’, which earned me an additional punishment!

After he lit my ass on fire with that damn stick, he took me out back, tied my hands behind my back, and positioned me under the clothesline, right in the middle. He stretched the clothesline down and used clothespins to clip it to my nipples! Then he put two clothespins on my tongue, a bunch on my labia, and one right on the clit! Yeow, that hurt, especially the ones on my tongue!

Then he left me there for half an hour. At least he claimed it was only half an hour, I thought it was a lot longer! It was cold and those clothespins hurt like hell! If I stood on tiptoe, I could ease the pain in my nipples some, but then my feet would start to ache. My jaw ached from holding my mouth open, I had drooled all over myself, and my mouth was dry despite the drooling. When he came to let me down, taking the clothespins off hurt worse than putting them on!

There was always the threat of that storage container. He told me that if I ever lied to him that I would spend a week in there. That if I ever tried to escape, I would live out there. And if I ever attacked him, I would die out there.

I believed him. I had spent a couple of weeks in that container when I had first arrived, and I sure didn’t want to spend another minute in there. So, I never lied other than an occasional lie of omission, I never tried to escape, and I certainly never attacked him. We had made a deal, back when he had first let me out of that damn thing. That if he didn’t put me back in the container, I would do my best to obey and let him spank me when I didn’t. He had kept his side of the bargain, so I was keeping mine.

Winter turned to spring, and the house wasn’t so cold anymore. I started doing a bit of landscaping, at least out the back as far as I could reach: I made myself a spot where I could lay out in the afternoon sun. There was a pile of those riverbed stones, you know, the little ones that are oval shaped and sort of flat? I paved a little section, kind of tailored to the contours of my body. The stones were dark and would heat up nicely, even on colder days. Kind of made me feel like a dog, stretching out in a warm spot in the sun! I got a nice tan, no lines!

He would occasionally buy me little things: a comb, or a hairbrush. Dollar store items, but I was glad to get them. It was such a delight to get something. He would give them to me and say nice things. I would thank him, both with words and with how we would fuck. If I played my cards right, he would let me sleep in his bed. Always tied to the headboard, of course.

When spring turned to summer, he took me down to the creek to go swimming. It wasn’t far from his house, and the opposite direction of the highway. Not likely to run into anyone out there. I was naked, and barefoot, so if I did try to run off, I probably wouldn’t have made it very far. Not with him having shoes and all.

The creek flowed pretty good in the spring and early summer, but it became just a trickle by late summer. There was a spot that was naturally about knee deep, and together we dammed it up a bit more to get it mid-thigh deep. He wouldn’t take me there on a weekend, said it was too risky, people might be about. But if it was a hot day in the middle of the week, we might pack up our dinner and take it out there to eat. It was kind of fun, floating and splashing in the water. I was really enjoying being outdoors.

And then we came full circle back to fall. One year of captivity.

oo- Chapter 10 -oo

“With all this sex you were having,” Doctor Martin asked, interrupting the monologue. “Was he using condoms?”

“No,” Sam said nonchalantly. 

“Has he had a vasectomy?” 

“I really have no idea if he had a vasectomy or not. We never discussed it.”

“After a year of having intercourse on a daily basis, it’s amazing that you didn’t get pregnant.”

“I suspect that’s because my plumbing is defective,” Sam said with a shrug. 

I had been having unprotected sex since I was 12. I didn’t start having my period until I was 14, which is late. Pretty sure that the drugs had something to do with that. Probably why my reproductive system is all screwed up as well. Nature’s way of keeping things under control. The last thing I needed, or wanted, was to have a child, so it was all for the best.

The anniversary of my confinement went by without notice or comment. I hadn’t even realized it until Halloween specials started coming on the TV. He didn’t have cable, just an antenna on the roof, so we could only get a few channels. One of the channels was a local CBS station, and when I started seeing advertisements for ‘It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown’ it registered with me that I had been there for a year.

“How did that make you feel?” Dr. Martin asked.

“Just nothing, really,” Sam replied. “It was just an arbitrary date. You have to understand that I was 23 years old and had spent more than half my life on the streets. I had lived in crack houses, had been pimped out, kept against my will in a cheap hotel room. I had slept under bridges or in drainage canals.” 

“Comparatively speaking, I was in pretty good shape. I had a roof over my head, had home cooked meals every day, and I was now one year clean and sober. I don’t think that I had been a year clean and sober since I was nine! It may not seem like much, but I have more control over my life now than I had ever had before. I was doing things, being productive, and there were times I was happy. I don’t recall ever being happy before.”

Getting beat on a regular basis wasn’t such a good thing, but he hadn’t seriously hurt me. Back when I was turning tricks, I was often roughed up a bit. I have had black eyes, bloody nose, fat lip, cracked ribs. There was always a chance of getting hurt and hurt bad! If not from the john, then from the pimp. Let me tell you, girls just disappear, never heard from again. Or they overdose, supposedly accidental, but you were never quite sure.

Despite being held captive, I felt safe. The worst thing that he did to me was with that stick, and then only on the ass. I still feared that container, but I didn’t fear him.

“You always refer to Mr. Robertson as ‘him’ or ‘sir’, why is that?” Dr. Martin asked. 

“He never told me his name!” Sam exclaimed. “And I didn’t want to know. It sounds strange, now that I am telling someone about it. At first, there was some hope that he might just let me go. I didn’t know who he was, or where I was. He could blindfold me, take me hours away and drop me off. He would be safe; I didn’t know who he was or where he lived. I was just a whore who had tried to steal his wallet; I wouldn’t be going to the police to report a kidnapping!”

 

When the days turned into weeks, and the weeks turned into months, it just became the way things were. He was ‘Sir’. I did figure out his name, about 6 months in. He had left some junk mail where I could get at it, and it had his name on it: Tony Robertson. There was an address too, but I never really paid attention to it. But, like I said, back then I was pretending that I didn’t know, in hopes that he would let me go.

By then it was habit; he was Sir, I was Sam. He never called me names, at least not vile ones. Sometimes I was ‘stupid wench’ or ‘silly girl’, but there was never any heat behind them. I had been called whore or slut or cunt so often that they mean nothing to me anymore, but having someone who didn’t call me those things was unique, and special. I think that he might be the only man in my life who hasn’t called me names, even when he was mad at me. I was never afraid of him when he got visibly angry. It was when he said little at all that I would be scared.

A second winter rolls around, fortunately a bit milder than the first. He actually bought a turkey for Thanksgiving! Course, they just about give turkeys away, just to get you into the store. With just the two of us, I ended up freezing most of it. Nothing went to waste, I even made turkey soup out of the carcass.

On Thanksgiving proper, he surprised me by asking about my family and my Thanksgiving tradition. I had always hated Thanksgiving as a kid. We would drive to Grandma’s house and all the adults would sit around drinking beer or wine and watching football or the parade on TV. I would be dressed up in some frilly outfit that I was expected to keep clean. There were some older cousins that wouldn’t play with me, so there was never anything to do. I was supposed to sit and be quiet. By the time I was nine, however, I was too much of an embarrassment and my parents quit going to family gatherings.

He persisted, asking about more recent times. I told him that I hadn’t seen or talked to my parents in years, which I hadn’t. I left out the part that they had a lot of money. I didn’t want him to get any ideas of attempting to ransom me or something.

“Why not?” Dr. Martin asked. “That seems like it would have been a way to escape.”

“By then, I didn’t want to escape!” Sam moaned. And then gasped, sitting up straighter in her chair. She had answered the question without thinking about it. She had never given serious thought to that idea before.

“I took the opportunity to try and learn a little about him,” she added hastily. She was uncomfortable with the revelation that had just been made and wanted to change the subject. “He hadn’t had a good childhood either. He said he grew up in the foster system, got into a lot of trouble as a kid. He didn’t elaborate as to what kind of trouble. He told me just enough to get the idea that he didn’t have any family traditions.”

His work gets busy just before the holidays, as people discover that their car heaters don’t work, or their battery won’t start a cold engine. In addition to Monday Night Football and Friday Night Out, he was working a lot of overtime. He seemed happy about it, at least happier than I remembered from the year before. He was being a little nicer to me, and even turned the heat up a bit.

In December he started what he called ‘attitude adjustments’. It was really just an excuse to use a paddle or whip on me. If he didn’t like my attitude, for any reason, he would spank me. I mean, he was allowed to spank me for any reason he wanted, so that was no change. If I needed another ‘adjustment’ in the same week he would use a paddle. He was reasonably fair about it, and I have to admit there was generally a valid cause, something I had done that warranted the paddle. He said that a third violation would get the stick. I didn’t like the stick, so I would be on my best behavior after the paddle.

I got the paddle a bunch though! If I agreed that my attitude had been poor, or that I had mouthed off or said something snarky, then I accepted the spanking without comment. But if HE had been the one who was bitchy, then spanking me would only make me bitchy. That was my stubbornness showing through. If he just said that he wanted to spank me for the fun of it then I would have taken it without any nasty comment, but when he falsely accused me of something, well, then I couldn’t hold my tongue.

It might start off with him making some comment about the meal I had cooked, and I would just smile and try to ignore it. If he was trying to get me to say something and I didn’t, then he would say that I was being obstinate, and made me bend over his knees. Normally, when he would spank me for a valid reason, or just for his amusement, I would squirm and kick and cry out. All things that turned him on. But when he had pissed me off, I would just lie there and not even flinch! That would make him mad! If I’d had an ounce of sense or self-preservation I would have reacted more and then apologized after. But that wasn’t my style. No, by then I would have an attitude problem, and I would say something.

The wooden spoon was in the kitchen, and the ping pong paddle was in the living room, so where this happened determined which one I got. The wooden spoon most often. Try as I might, I couldn’t lie still for that, he made sure of it. He might taunt me at the end, just to see if I would dig myself in deeper, but he generally had whipped the fight out of me by then.

One time though, he decided to paddle me until I apologized. I held out for a long time, but he was unrelenting. Finally, I blurted out ‘I’m sorry!’ I should have stopped there, but I was pissed! The stupid wench that I was, I had to add: ‘I’m sorry that you are such an ass!’

Have you ever felt a room go cold from emotion alone? He just pushed me off his lap. It was so unexpected that I fell heavily to the floor. He didn’t say a word, he just went into his den. I had never called him a name before that.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that!” I called to his retreating back. But he ignored me and continued on to his den.

I was terrified. In the brief moment I had thought about it before running my mouth, I had figured that I would get a thrashing with that stick. Now I feared worse. I was also genuinely sorry; I didn’t mean to call him an ass. He had never called me names, and here I had called him one. For a while, I didn’t know what to do. Then I came up with a plan.

There is a spot, in the kitchen, adjacent to the laundry area. The spot for the washer and dryer (if we had a dryer) is in a closet, with bi-fold doors. The closet makes a corner, part of the great room. This spot has a tiny view into his den. He has to be leaning back in his chair a bit, but he can see that corner. So, I put myself into that corner, and stayed there.

I stood there for hours. He had just gotten home from work when this had happened, so it was probably around 7:00 PM. It was after midnight when he came out of his den, I saw it on his wristwatch. Then he paddled my ass, must have been a hundred swats while I remained standing there. I cried, and kept repeating “I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”

Then he pulled me from the corner and turned me to face him.

“Don’t you ever call me an ass again!” he scolded.

“No Sir, I promise!”

It was over; he didn’t beat me with the stick or lock me in the container or anything else. And I never called him another name.

oo- Chapter 11 -oo

Christmas that year was my best one ever! I hadn’t been that excited for Christmas morning since I was six years old! This time I had been able to make him some things, just silly little crafts: a Paper-Mache angel, a drawing that I had made, and a little sculpture that I had made out of bottle caps.

He bought me an old upright vacuum cleaner, a brand-new nonstick skillet, a set of tumbler glasses, a rubber spatula and this really gaudy full-length coat. It was fake fur, supposed to look like mink or something, but we referred to it as roadkill. He said that I was only allowed to wear it when he wasn’t home to see it. The way he said it, I had the impression that he suspected that I had been wearing his dirty clothes. It turned out to be a very warm coat, and I didn’t need the furnace as much.

Then he gave me his final ‘gift’: a wicked paddle. It was made of wood, about as long as my arm, almost as wide as my hand. He called it a fraternity paddle, and it had ‘Board Of Education’ carved into it. I think it was supposed to be a joke, but let me tell you, getting swatted with that was no joke!

I offered up ‘Christ’s birthday spanking’ again, but with some limits. This time, each of the spanking ‘sets’ would be 23 swats, as I was a year older, and he would only use his hand. The remainder was only seven, for which he could use a paddle of his choice. Anything other than the stick.

Well, I wasn’t quite as smart as I thought I was. We had established that a ‘spanking’ was his bare hand against my bare skin, but we hadn’t specified where, exactly, other than not to the head or face. Dang, I had sore tits for two weeks! He spanked the pussy a lot as well, but he didn’t hit as hard there. And then he offered to kiss it and make it feel better. Which it did. Almost made it worth it. Okay, it more than made it worth it!

For the seven ‘remainder’ swats he rotated between the rubber spatula, wooden spoon, ping pong paddle and the fraternity paddle. The fraternity paddle is heavy, and causes a deeper pain, but it wasn’t too bad. Not for only seven light swats. I wasn’t looking forward to when it would be used for a real punishment though. The ping-pong paddle stung the most, wooden spoon left the best marks.

Having the coat was nice in January, which seems to be the coldest month. I wasn’t allowed to touch the temperature control on the furnace, but I could turn it off if I didn’t need it. As soon as he went to work, I would put that coat on, and it kept me warm enough that I could turn the furnace off. I could even tolerate going outside to hang the laundry. By late afternoon it was generally warm enough that I could take it off, and then I would clean house. I didn’t dare get it dirty!

I think he liked the way that the cold made my nipples hard as I waited for him on the front porch. Instead of greeting me with a hug or a kiss, he would give my nipples a tweak. Once he got into the house, he might turn the furnace back on.

On my birthday he bought me a razor! I thought that he was just disgusted by my hairy legs and underarms, but it turned out that he wanted ALL the hair below the neck removed. I did find it kind of erotic, and I loved how it felt when he rubbed me down there.

That is also when he started fucking me in the ass. I was no anal virgin, but I never cared for it, especially since it tended to make a mess. When you see porn videos of anal sex the actresses have been cleaned out beforehand. Having to clean up afterwards is disgusting!

He would usually take me in the ass when he wanted to do a ‘punishment fuck’, as he knew that I couldn’t climax and wouldn’t get satisfaction out of anal sex. When I knew I was going to be punished, I would clean myself out as best I could. I didn’t have a proper enema syringe, but I improvised with an old sports bottle. As disgusting as that was, it was far better than when I had to ‘clean him up’ afterward.

Summer that year was even more fun than the previous. He bought me a cheap pair of rubber flip-flops so I could walk to the creek a little easier. We had to rebuild the dam as the spring floods had washed it away, but we built it up even bigger and better than before. He had brought home some large sheets of plastic that the Ford factory used for wrapping new cars with, so they don’t get dirty during transport, and we used that to really seal the dam. Now we had it waist deep!

We had sex in the water a few times. Water is a lousy lubricant, but it was interesting to be floating and trying to have sex. A couple of times we even went on a weekend when it was especially hot. One time we heard some people coming so we scrambled out and dashed away, both of us buck naked. We were both giggling and laughing, acting like school children out being naughty. It was so much fun!

His birthday is in June, and he decided that I should get HIS birthday spanking! He is ten years older than I am, so it was 34 swats, and he insisted that it be with the fraternity paddle. He had used it on me a few times before that, for actual punishments, and it certainly wasn’t my favorite! For the birthday spanking, however, he took it really slow. He would rub the paddle against my ass for a while, and then swat me hard! Then he would finger my pussy for a while, getting me close to cumming, and then swat me again! He would fondle my breast and pinch a nipple and get me all distracted, and then WHAP!

The swats were all hard, but being spaced out so much they were easy to take. By the time he was done I just wanted him to fuck me already! Oh, gosh, just talking about it now is getting me turned on! What does that say about me?

Before I knew it, the Charlie Brown Halloween special is on TV again. I hadn’t thought about it much, how long I had been there, but there it was, two years. There wasn’t anyone or anything I was missing. It sure wasn’t a story book life, but it was living.

oo- Chapter 12 -oo

“Didn’t you want to go anywhere?” Dr. Martin asked. “Wasn’t it lonely being there all by yourself?”

“When I was little, it was lonely being at home. I might not even see my parents for days at a time, and the nanny wasn’t any company. I never had friends over. That was lonely.”

“I once spent months holed up in a motel room being fucked by a bunch of cops,” Sam said indignantly. “That was lonely; not one of them cared a bit about me. I spent who knows how long in a crack house, too stoned out of my mind to feel anything. I ‘traveled’ for years, walking from one homeless camp to another. There were times that I had a pimp, and he might have another girl or two, but they weren’t friends, it was still lonely.

No, I didn’t miss any of that. Now I got a man that is coming home to me every day. As I said before, I wasn’t afraid of him. I wanted him to come home, I enjoyed his company. I had spent so much of my life without any hope, with no joy at all, and now I would be getting excited when I heard his truck rumbling down the highway. 

 Something to look forward to, something to accomplish. I liked that.”

Things were starting to get a bit routine, but I was okay with the routine. One of the talk shows I would watch on TV occasionally referred to being stuck in rut. Then, one day, there was a guest who claimed that ruts weren’t a bad thing. A rut could be comfortable, once you got them all decorated the way you wanted.

I related to that concept. I knew what to expect, and what was expected of me. I still got punished here and there, but not many severe ones. When I felt daring, I might try a new recipe. It was such a thrill when it turned out to be something good! If it was only slightly bad, the punishment could be fun.

He had bought another turkey at Thanksgiving time, so I had a lot of leftovers, so when I tried something new, I had a backup meal ready. Not that it would save me from the wasting money punishment. When I thawed out turkey leftovers, he would get suspicious and ask. A couple of times I had been tempted to just throw out a failed recipe, but that would be lying, and I still feared the storage container. Funny, actually: I had always been a habitual liar. Most drug addicts are. But with him, I was honest.

Last Christmas we actually put up a tree! He got one for free just two days before Christmas. We didn’t have any lights to put on it, but I decorated it with strings of popcorn and little snowflakes I cut out of paper. There were actually some wrapped presents under the tree that we opened on Christmas morning. I had saved paper from the previous year; he did his usual Dollar Store purchases.

We did the twelve spanking days of Christmas again, but this time there was no ‘remainder’, just seven sets of 24, so he just used his hand for all of them. They were more love taps than swats.

On New Year’s Eve he bought a bottle of champagne and we rang in the New Year watching TV. In the morning we lay on the couch, drinking hot chocolate and watching the Rose Parade. I think that was the first time I had seen the entire Rose Parade. I had grown up just a short drive away from Pasadena, but had never seen the parade, in person or on TV. Later, we watched the Rose Bowl. It was so nice to just spend a lazy day together.

On the last day of Christmas, he made up his own version of the song, except with all swats to various body parts. The first verse was ‘a frat paddle to the derriere’. The next verse was ‘two pussy whacks and a frat paddle to the derriere’. You get the idea. I forget what they all were, but he took great gusto with ‘five slaps on tits’. It was a good thing that they were all light, as I counted them up afterward: that was 364 swats!

Afterward, when it got dark, he hauled the Christmas tree outside, and we had a bonfire. He added a bunch of scrap wood that he had laying around, and we spread a blanket on the ground and made love to the warmth of the bonfire. I had never sat around a fire before, it was mesmerizing, watching the flames and an occasional ember float up to the night sky.

“It felt, well, kind of normal,” Sam said, a pleasant smile spreading across her face. “I hadn’t thought about it before, but looking back now, it reminds me of Show and Tell time in first grade. I was sitting around a campfire with, well, the closest thing I have had to a family. Look, I know I am really fucked up, and that none of this is what you would consider normal. But enjoying a bonfire with someone you care about, that’s about as close to normal as I have ever been.”

“When I was younger, we would do a bonfire out in the desert over New Year’s where we burned our Christmas trees” Dr. Martin admitted. “We camped with the kids and had great time. Sounds normal to me.”

I turned 25 in February, the quarter century mark. Other than a ‘spanking’ being one swat longer it didn’t mean much to me. That’s when he started the ‘maintenance spanking’. He claimed that if I hadn’t been spanked real hard for a while that I would start being naughty on purpose. He may have been right. Anyway, the hand spanking wasn’t doing it, so it had to be a paddle, his belt or a whip. He would even let me choose when and with what, to a point. If I waited too long, he would choose when and with what, which was usually the fraternity paddle.

I usually went for Monday morning and the ping pong paddle. Weekends meant watching sports, and if his team had done badly, he might invent some reason to spank me, and then I wouldn’t need a maintenance spanking. So come Monday morning, if he hadn’t punished me recently, I would submit to maintenance. I would pick an implement, set it on the kitchen counter, and then bend over the counter myself and wait for him. His breakfast would be on the table, so he might eat first and then paddle me, or he might paddle first and then eat.

“So, you would get punished every week?” Dr. Martin queried. “It sounds like it is escalating, getting worse for you.”

“No, not every week,” Sam answered. “I might go two or three weeks without any punishment at all. I was probably getting the same amount of spankings, but they weren’t as severe as earlier on. More than anything, he was just coming up with new justifications for spanking me.”

“I wouldn’t call it an escalation either. In many respects, life was getting a lot easier. I knew what was expected of me, and I was managing. I was spending more nights in his bed than not, which was always a treat. The couch isn’t bad, but a bed is better! There were moments of great joy, and very little unhappiness. Despite being held captive I felt like I had some control of what happened to me. Not at all like when my pimp would beat me for no reason at all.”

“All right, I can see that,” Dr. Martin said. “So, now we are up to last spring. What happened next?”

I was allowed a little more freedom, a little more time off the leash. Supervised and naked, of course. But I was able to wash the outside of the windows, for once!

Another summer swimming in the creek. He got a little side job rebuilding the engine on this guy’s ATV, a small four wheeled thing you ride like a motorcycle. When he got it all done, he had to ‘test drive it’, so he took me ‘fourbying’. He had me put on a pair of his pants, a Tee shirt and some shoes and we rode double. We didn’t go far, just out into the woods a bit, but it was fun.

When fall came around, he gave me some clothes of my own. Nothing feminine, just blue jeans and flannel shirts, all a couple sizes too big. I suspect he was concerned that someone might ask questions if he bought something that clearly wasn’t his size, or God forbid, a dress! I was kind of used to going naked though, and I figured he liked me like that, so I stayed naked unless it was too cold. It has been an Indian summer this year, so I haven’t needed them.

I actually enjoyed being naked for him. For a decade, sex, my body, had been a form of currency. I traded it for what I needed, which was generally drugs. I would just tune everything out as the johns would grab my tits and fondle me. I only wanted them to hurry up and get on with it, be done and leave. With him, however, I was enjoying how he touched me, how he fondled me. I might lay in his lap for hours as he watched TV and absentmindedly played with my nipples. I welcomed it, I wanted it. I felt owned, in a good way. Wanted. I felt wanted, and it was nice.

Then the cops showed up and ruined everything! When that first cop showed up, I was so surprised that I didn’t know what to do. I ran into the house and hid, I just wanted him to go away. When he, I mean Tony, came home and I told him about the cop I expected him to get angry with me, punish me or something. But he didn’t do anything. I think he knew what was about to happen next.

“You know,” Sam said thoughtfully. “If the cops had just come and knocked on the door, I bet Tony would have invited them in and we could have explained everything. They didn’t need to go full on SWAT raid! That grenade thing they led with almost killed me!”

“There were clothes that I could have put on, but the cops wouldn’t let me get dressed when they grabbed me,” Sam complained. “I mean, I belong to him, I don’t mind him seeing me naked! But to have a full swat team storm the place, handcuff me, and parade me around buck naked? Really?”

“I can see where that might be traumatic,” Dr. Martin agreed.

“I was taken straight off to this here hospital. I don’t even know where here is. The cops are trying to ask me all sorts of questions, but I’m not going to tell them anything! I have watched enough crime shows on TV to know that I should just keep my mouth shut!”

“That is your right,” Dr. Martin agreed. “But cooperation might serve you better.”

“To accomplish what? Will talking to them get my man released sooner so we can go home?”

“That, I am afraid, is something I can’t advise you on.”

“Can I at least talk to him?”

“I’m afraid that, in a situation like this, the suspect is not allowed any contact with his alleged victim.”

“So, what happens to me? Am I going to jail? The mental hospital?”

“I am not aware of any charges being brought against you. I would like for you to stay here one more night, but I don’t see that there is any valid reason to hold you beyond that.”

“Where do I go? Can I go home, to Tony’s house? Can you at least tell me where that is, how to get there?”

“No, at least not yet. It is still considered to be a crime scene. After that, well, it might require a lawyer to establish if you have any tenancy rights. You were living there for three years, after all.”

Sam was about to ask why she would need a lawyer, but then realized that the doctor was implying that Tony wouldn’t be there. Which meant that he would be in jail.

“One more night? Okay, I guess. Don’t have anywhere else to go. The food here is worse than my cooking, but at least the TV has more channels.”

“Tell you what, I’ll get you something from a local restaurant. What do you like, Chinese? Mexican?”

“How about Kentucky Fried Chicken? I haven’t had that in ages!”

“I can do that. As far as where you can go, I will try to make arrangements at a women’s shelter.”

“And what about him, er, Tony?”

“That I have no clue whatsoever.” 

Sam sighed, flopping back into her chair. 

“There is one more thing I need to clarify,” Dr. Martin continued. She looked at Sam, then at the tablet in which she had been taking notes, considering her next question carefully. 

“It could come down to a matter of consent. I am pretty sure that any court would find your initial abduction to be clearly criminal. But your demeanor as you described the events that followed cast a shadow of doubt on the rest. What is your position? Were you held against your will?”

“No,” Sam said flatly. She sat in silence for two full minutes before speaking again. “I think that only another whore could understand. I gave up all rights to consent when I was like eleven! Hell, I don’t think I ever had it to start with! I watch a lot of TV, news and such. A child can’t consent to sex with an adult. The day I turned 18 the cops coerced my consent from me, and I never got it back.”

“There was always a drug dealer or a pimp that dictated what I could do. It’s all I have ever known. The drug dealers use the barter of drugs to keep their whores in line. The pimps use violence and threats along with the drugs. Tony used chains. I liked Tony’s way much better.”

“Yeah,” Sam admitted after a few seconds of pause. “He would beat me too, but only when I misbehaved. But he never made me do anything disgusting, or dangerous, or things I really didn’t want to do. And his whippings, even with that stick, were easier to take that the beatings my pimp would dish out. There were many times that I thought I was going to die at the hand of my pimp. A couple of times I wished I had. A pimp will mess you up pretty bad, just to make a point to the other girls. I always lived in fear of my pimp.”

“Other than the fear of that container, I was never afraid of him. I might be really dreading what he was about to do to me, but I never thought he might kill me. And for the first time in my life, I was actually enjoying the sex. The first time I had sex I was so drunk and high that I wasn’t feeling anything. After that, sex was something I did to get my next fix. I am not sure that I ever had sex when I wasn’t drunk, or high, or both. I would fake having an orgasm, cause the johns like that, but I would be too numb to feel one if I had one.”

“Then he got me clean and sober, and sex became something I enjoyed. I started having joy in my life, something that had been missing. It is so wonderful to look forward to your man’s arrival instead of dreading it. It may not be perfect, but it has been so much better than what I had before!”

“I finally got something decent going in my life and now the cops are going to screw me again!”

oo- Chapter 13 -oo

“What can you tell us?” Detective Drew McDonnel asked. “Did she at least talk to you?”

“She did talk with me, for several hours. I got her life story, and most of it isn’t pretty. I am not allowed to divulge any details of my discussion with my client,” Dr. Martin explained. “HIPAA rules won’t allow me to discuss her prognosis without a warrant.”

“Should we get a warrant?”

“I would rather you didn’t,” Dr. Martin said with a sigh, slumping back into her chair. “I will tell you that I see no reason to hold Miss Henley. She is not a danger to herself, or to anyone else.”

“Can you tell us what the chances are that she will testify against the guy?”

“None,” Dr. Martin said with a shake of her head. “In her eyes, you are the bad guys. She would be more likely to testify in his defense than against him.”

“Why are we the bad guys?”

“If what she said is true, and I have no reason to doubt her, then she was horribly abused by the police, on multiple occasions in her past. She sure isn’t going to trust you and she won’t have any reason to help you. As bad as her situation might have been, in her eyes it was better than what she had before she met up with the suspect.”

“Do we have it wrong? Was it all just some sadomasochistic sex act?” the lieutenant asked, leaning forward in his chair. He and the detective had come to interview the doctor together. Their 72 hours that they could hold a suspect without charges was going to expire in another 24 hours, and if they didn’t have a case, they would need to at least offer an explanation for why the swat team had been called out.

“There are definitely some gray areas here. She is likely to claim it was all consensual and you will need to prove otherwise, which you may find difficult, especially the more recent events. How she came to be with him would clearly be a criminal act, but she is likely to take the fifth as she was engaged in criminal activities herself. She isn’t going to help you, so unless you have some other form of evidence, you may be out of luck.”

“We have the photos of him beating her,” Detective Drew objected.

“We might be able to make a case if we had the guy who actually took the pictures and could get him to testify,” the lieutenant said. “Without him, they are just an anonymous tip. The defense could claim that the photos are fake, or that they were altered. Plus, they don’t really show that much. Yes, he is clearly screwing her, but if she consented to it then it isn’t a crime. The other picture suggests that she is being beat, but it isn’t clear. A video would have helped, but even then, if she had consented to it then it isn’t necessarily a crime.”

“It is clear that she was being confined, we found her locked by a steel cable,” Detective Drew argued. “There is very strong evidence that she had been locked in the storage container as well. We could nail him on that alone.”

“In her present state of mind,” Dr. Martin objected. “She would probably testify that he did that to help her detox.”

“Help her detox?” Detective Drew echoed. From the look on his face, it was clear that he couldn’t believe what he had just heard.

“Patients can become obsessive and violent during withdrawal. We frequently restrain patients at the hospital for that very reason. Of course, we do it in a bed with soft restraints and under close supervision. I would not approve of the methods used here, but the results were good. She is clean and sober. Tell me, is any of that DNA from the container less than 2 years old?”

“Almost three, based on the lab results,” Detective Drew replied. “Is that what she told you?”

“I will go on record as to say that I have no reason to believe that she is in an abusive relationship,” Dr. Martin said, ignoring the detective’s question.

“What about the bruises?”

“Deputy, I know you have a lot of experience with abuse cases, where do you normally see such bruises? On the buttocks? We get women coming in with cracked ribs all the time. Concussions are common. The bruising on her buttocks is more in line with BDSM behavior like you suggested before. There is no evidence of any bruising about the face, split lips, cracked teeth or other common indicators of abuse. I’m afraid that I can’t help you build a case against this guy.”

oo- Chapter 14 -oo

Samantha sat in her hospital bed, eating Kentucky Fried Chicken, and watching the Ellen DeGeneres show. The chicken was delicious, and she was also enjoying the wedge cut potatoes and coleslaw. The TV show was only of mild interest, but the TV that Tony had didn’t get many channels, including NBC, and she just wanted to see what she had been missing.

The bed had been adjusted into the full back-up position along with the knees bent up, which made for a fairly comfortable position for eating and television viewing. Not as comfortable as watching TV on the couch at home, or eating at the kitchen table, but her room didn’t have many options. Being incarcerated had its disadvantages.

The doctor had insisted that she was only being held for observation, but Sam considered it to be incarceration, as she wasn’t allowed to leave and the door to her room was kept locked. She didn’t understand why she had been admitted to the psych ward in the first place, she didn’t think that she was crazy. But, she admitted to herself, most psych patients wouldn’t think they were crazy. How does one judge their own sanity?

She was trying to do everything that she could to convince the doctors that she was okay and that she should be released. The discussion with Dr. Martin earlier had gone okay, or so she thought. The discussion had stretched on for over three hours. Calling it a discussion was a bit of a stretch, as it had been Sam doing all the talking. It had felt good to talk about it, and the doctor hadn’t criticized her at all. Nor had she tried to put her on any medications.

Except for when the police showed up, or ‘sheriff deputies’ as they would always correct her, she always cooperated and did what she was told. She had peed in a cup, allowed them to draw blood without resisting, and answered all the doctors’ questions as honestly as she could. The police could go to hell, she wasn’t going to talk to them at all, even if that meant she had to rot in this hospital forever!

The door to her room clicked open to admit a middle-aged man. He wasn’t in scrubs or wearing an employee badge, so he wasn’t a doctor or nurse. The suit and tie suggested that he was another detective, or perhaps the prosecutor. Sam glanced at him, then turned back to the TV as she reached for her third (and final) piece of chicken. She wasn’t hungry, and didn’t really want any more chicken, but she figured that being as rude might encourage the ‘suit’ to go away sooner and having her mouth full would give her an excuse for not talking. She had never liked talking to suits.

“Miss Samantha Henley?” the man asked.

“Yeah,” Sam replied, mumbling through a mouthful of chicken.

“I am Fred Bessinger, attorney at law.”

“Mummph” Sam grunted, not even trying to make an intelligent sound. She had been told that she couldn’t have a state provided lawyer as she hadn’t been charged with anything, at least not yet. Therefore, this guy was not on her side, he would be working for the police. Unless, she suddenly thought. She chewed quickly and swallowed with a big gulp.

“Are you Tony’s lawyer?” Sam asked hopefully. She still struggled with calling him by his name, which was something she had never done before today. She would be willing to talk with Tony’s lawyer, however.

“No,” Fred said hesitantly. He didn’t know who Tony was.

The hopeful look on Sam’s face instantly vanished and she looked away, taking another bite of chicken.

“I am the attorney for the estate of Mr. Clyde Henley.”

Sam stopped mid byte, spitting out what she had just pulled off the bone. She tossed the chicken back into the box and quickly swallowed while she wiped the grease off her hands.

“Grandpa Henley?” Sam cried. She hadn’t cried a tear when her grandmother died, but grandpa had always been dear to her. “His estate? You mean he died?”

“I’m sorry, I assumed that you knew. He passed about 18 months ago. You are included in his will.”

“Oh really?” Sam asked, interested now. Unlike her parents, grandpa had always been straight and strict with her. Qualities that she respected, even though she hadn’t necessarily appreciated them at the time. Grandpa was always trying to bribe her into doing things: $100 for every A on a report card, that sort of thing. Not that she was ever able to collect, she never got an A in her life. He would also offer her a bite of candy if she would sit and talk with him. Best of all, he would show interest in her responses. He had treated her like she had mattered.

There had to be a catch, she thought. It was never easy with grandpa. It had been many years since she had talked or seen her grandpa, and she wasn’t that sweet little girl that had promise any longer.

“I am very sorry to hear that,” Sam continued. “Grandpa was a good guy.”

“He established a trust fund for you,” Fred explained. “

There it is, Sam thought. There’s the catch. Trust funds had conditions.

“Half a million dollars, a fair amount, invested in long term accounts. Actually worth considerably more than half million now, the investments have been doing well. I have been looking for you since his death, and, well, this is the first opportunity I have had. I was advised that I should seize the opportunity.”

“Probably a wise decision. Circumstances out of my control have kept me out of communication for a while now, and I have no idea where I will be tomorrow.”

“Yes, I spoke with the county sheriff’s office about your case. I am so sorry that this has happened to you!”

“Don’t be,” Sam said flatly. “And don’t believe what the cops tell you about me. What do I have to do to get this money?”

“There are two stipulations: The first is that you must be drug free and reasonably sober. The trust fund will require regular drug testing, which will also require that you sign a HIPAA release.” Fred extracted a release form from his valet bag and handed it over to her. “Standard form, authorizes the trust to receive your medical records.”

Sam took the form, glancing at it before setting it on the tray table before her.

“As long as you are drug free, you will get $2000 a month. At the current rate of return on the investments, that will continue indefinitely.”

Sam really perked up at this. Two thousand a month is $24,000 a year, which was about twice the poverty level. And a lot more money than she had ever made in her life. Wheels started turning in her head.

“In addition, as long as you are drug free, the trust fund will match, dollar for dollar, any W-2 reported income you make.”

“Let me get this straight,” Sam said, sitting up fully in the bed. “I stay clean and sober, and I get $24K a year. If I get a job, and make, say, $20k of my own, I will get an additional $20K? So I could make like $64K a year working a minimum wage job?”

“That is essentially correct,” Fred said. “Although, if you are pulling a total $44K a year out of the trust, the current rate of return won’t cover it, and the principal will start to decline. A rough guess is that it would be sustainable for about 10 years.”

Sam scoffed; 10 years was way beyond any time period that she had ever planned ahead for.

“And all I have to do is sign this release form and take a drug test?”

“A monthly drug test,” Fred clarified.

“DEAL!” Sam exclaimed. “Uh, can I borrow a pen?”

Sam took the pen offered to her and hastily scribbled her signature on the form.

“When can I get some money?” Sam said eagerly. The words were no sooner out of her mouth before she gasped, putting her hand to her mouth and a sad look coming over her face.

“I’m sorry, that was terrible of me! I mean, gosh, Grandpa Henley was about the only person in my family who was kind to me, and acted like he really cared. I didn’t mean to sound like a gold digger. I just, I mean, well, this is like an answer to my prayers. I literally have nothing, not even any clothes to wear. Tomorrow, if they keep their promise and let me out of here, I’ll be going to a women’s shelter. Probably wearing this hospital gown, or naked. If I could get some money right away, it would help out a lot!”

“I understand,” Fred said sympathetically. He had talked with many of her family members during his search for her, and they had indicated that Samantha was a lost cause. He had been expecting a lot worse from her, so to have her show any amount of grief was a good sign. He had seen and interacted with a number of drug addicts, and the woman sitting before him didn’t look like an addict to him.

He had talked with Dr. Martin, and while she wouldn’t discuss any specific details with him, she did outline the basic facts that were now in her public record. He knew that there had been a drug test administered, and the implication was that all tests came back negative. The report from the Sheriff’s department indicated that she had been held captive for nearly three years, and the inference was that she hadn’t had any access to drugs in that time.

“With the HIPAA release form, I will be able to access the results of your recent drug test. I understand that they did a hair test, which is accurate for a three-month history. With that information, I am authorized to write you a check for $6000. Do you have a bank account?”

“No,” Samantha sighed, realizing that there would be a complication. “And no ID, no legal address, no phone number, hell, I don’t even remember my social security number.”

“I can help with the social security number, I have it right here. Tell you what: I will pick you up when you are released in the morning and take you straight away to a bank. We’ll get you set up with an account and debit card, and I’ll transfer the money in right away.”

“That would be wonderful!” Sam cried. After two days of despair, there now was hope.

“Now, I warn you, you have to stay off the drugs!”

“Yeah,” Sam sighed. Three years clean and sober was normally quite an accomplishment and a real good start. She couldn’t bank on continuing that streak, however, so the half million was but a dream. But six thousand dollars right now was nothing to sneeze at!

oo- Chapter 15 -oo

Sam sat on the edge of her bed, fidgeting anxiously. The sun had been up for over an hour, and no one had come to get her yet! Finally, the door lock clicked, and Sam leapt to her feet, ready to get moving.

The door swung open, admitting the nurse to take her vitals, which they had been doing every 6 hours since she had been admitted. Sam sighed and sat back on the bed.

“Pulse rate is a little high,” the nurse commented.

“Can’t imagine why!” Sam shot back. “When do I get to get out of here?”

“As soon as the paperwork is finished.”

Two more hours passed before the door clicked again.

“Breakfast!” the male orderly called out as the door swung open.

“Breakfast?” Sam questioned with a bitter tone in her voice. “I was told I was being released! I don’t want breakfast, I want out of here!”

“Sorry,” he called out. “Not my department.”

Sam’s definition of ‘in the morning’ turned out to be quite a bit different than the hospital’s. She had been starting her day at 5:00 AM for three years and was getting upset when 9:00 AM rolled around and her ‘paperwork’ still hadn’t been completed.

When Fred arrived at 10:00 AM, he was able to get things moving along, simply by mentioning that he was a lawyer and needed his client released. He left out the part that he was an estate attorney.

The hospital was able to provide her with a set of clothes, so she didn’t need to wear the hospital gown. They were clearly second hand, and wouldn’t win any fashion awards, but they were clean and fit reasonably well.

It was nearly noon before she was finally out of the hospital, two and a half days after she had been forced in. She knew plenty of women who treated a stay in the hospital as if it were a vacation, the only break they got from their bleak sex-trafficking life. Sam had always avoided hospitals whenever possible.

It required over two hours at the bank to establish an account, something that probably would never have occurred without the help of the lawyer. It was most unusual to open an account without having a valid driver’s license, and it was only from the insistence of the lawyer that had made the appropriate forms be provided.

Once finished at the bank, she had a debit card, $5,600 balance and $400 in her pocket. That balance was quickly reduced to $4,327.63 after she bought a phone and pre-paid for a year’s service, a process that required another hour of time and a bit of the lawyer’s influence.

“Are you sure that you will be okay from here?” Fred asked. “I can give you a lift back to Los Angeles, if you want.”

“No, I don’t want to go back there. Too many triggers. I am thinking that I will just stay around here.”

“As you wish. Best of luck. I’ll be reminding you about the drug tests in about 3 weeks.”

“Fine, not a problem,” Sam said. She hoped it wouldn’t be a problem. Never in her life had she had plans out that far. Usually, no plans beyond her immediate need, which generally was where her next fix would come from.

Her next objective was to find a thrift store, a task that her new smartphone proved quite handy at. Turned out that Visalia had twelve stores, several that were within walking distance. Within a few hours she had bought herself three changes of clothes, a warm coat, a dress that she could wear to a job interview, a handbag, and a backpack to carry it all in.

oo- Chapter 16 -oo

Tony Robertson sat in the Tulare County Jail holding cell, contemplating his fate, and cursing his poor choices. Why had he been so stupid? He should have just fucked that whore at the party and been done with her, why had he brought her home and kept her for three years?

He had known better than to say anything to the cops. They had kept him in an interrogation room for most of the first day, repeatedly asking him questions. He told them his name, age, where he worked, and other benign bits of information, which they probably knew already. Any question that came anywhere close to Sam, or his activities, he responded that he wanted a lawyer.

He had been through this process a couple times before, although the previous incidents weren’t anywhere near as serious as this. In his previous scrapes with the law he had been in court within a day or two, where charges were brought against him, and he had asked for a public defender. The official plea wouldn’t be entered until the following day, after he had talked with the lawyer. Normally, that happened within one or two ‘court’ days, days when the courts were open. There were no holidays, so that should have happened right away.

But now it had been three days since he was arrested, and nothing. It had been in the early hours of Tuesday morning when the SWAT team had raided his house. By law, they could only hold him for 72 hours without bringing charges, although it wasn’t clear exactly when that 72-hour period officially started. Now he was pretty sure it was after noon, and he was still being held.

When they finally came for him, he was expecting to be transported to the court, which would have been done in wrist, waist and ankle chains. Instead, he was led unfettered to the ‘outtake’ area, where he was handed a box containing his possessions, which amounted to a set of clothes and his cell phone. He was allowed to change, made to sign a form, and then was escorted to the door.

“What’s going on?” he asked in confusion. “Am I free to go?”

“We are not bringing charges at this time,” the watch officer informed him. The implication was that charges could be brought later.

Tony was confused. He had kidnapped a woman, raped her repeatedly and held her captive for three years. It should have been an open and shut case. He hadn’t even expected to make bail, let alone be set free.

His confusion turned to absolute bewilderment when he entered the lobby and found the one person that he least expected to see: Samantha Henley. He might have missed her if she hadn’t jumped to her feet the instant he passed through the door. It hadn’t helped his recognition that she was wearing a dress, as he was used to seeing her naked. It was all just so out of context that he was flabbergasted. He had expected that he would never see her again, outside of a courtroom.

“SIR!” Sam cried out. She took two steps towards him, her hand reaching out, but then stopped when he didn’t respond. He was just standing there, staring at her. He’s angry with me, she thought. He has a right to be angry, she reasoned. “I’m sorry, Sir!” she pleaded.

“What are you doing here?” he asked. They were still ten feet apart, unsure how to proceed.

“I have been waiting for you, Sir,” she cried, tears rolling down her cheek. “Dr. Martin said that they would be releasing you today. I arrived at 5:00 AM, as I was told that inmates could be released that early. But the lobby didn’t open until 7:00! I have been here since, except when I had to use the restroom! I was afraid that I might miss you, and then never see you again! Please Sir, take me back!”

“Who is Dr. Martin?” Tony asked, moving a step closer. His mind just couldn’t process everything that was happening, so he was taking things one bit of information at a time.”

“The shrink, at the hospital. She is okay, I liked her, even though she wouldn’t let me go for two days! Some ‘psych hold 5150’ nonsense. The detective is an asshole, I didn’t like him at all. He wanted to keep me locked up.”

“What did you tell them?”

“The cops? NOTHING! I don’t talk to cops. The shrink, well, I kind of spilled my guts to her. You know, childhood, mommy issues, all that crap.”

“I don’t understand. Why are they letting me go?”

“Because you're innocent!” Sam insisted. “It was just a mistake!”

“What do you want from me?” Tony said suspiciously. Nothing about this made sense to him.

“I want you to take me home!” Sam sobbed. This wasn’t going the way she had expected, the way she wanted. “I’m sorry Sir, it’s all my fault. Please give me another chance, please!”

Tony looked at the pathetic creature standing just a few steps away. He wanted her, but he was wary of her. Was this some sort of trap? Didn’t they have enough evidence already? Her tears looked genuine though. He had only seen her cry like this a few times. Not from the whipping he had just given her, but when he forgave her, and accepted her into his embrace. Remembering that, his heart melted, and he opened his arms, inviting her in.

“Thank you, Sir!” Sam gushed as she rushed to him. She collided heavily with him, forcing him to take a step back as she wrapped her arms around him tightly. “I missed you!” she cried, her words muffled by her face being buried in his shoulder.

“Perhaps we should step outside,” Tony said, noticing that everyone in the lobby was staring at them. He had wrapped his arms around her, completing the mutual embrace, and was rocking her gently on her feet.

“Anywhere, Sir, as long as it is with you.”

He had to literally pry her arms off his waist so they could walk. He was tempted to give her a swat on her ass, but wisely chose not to. She still clung to him, but at least now they were side by side so he could navigate to the exit.

“Oh, wait, I need my stuff!” Sam said suddenly. She ran back to where she had been sitting, scooped up a handbag and backpack, then hurried back to Tony’s side.

Tony looked at her skeptically: a dress, a purse, and a backpack. Where had she gotten all this? How? Maybe, he thought, he should check her for a wire.

 

Lieutenant Paulson and Detective McDonnel stood, watching the scene through the one-way mirror that separated the lobby from the interior office space. It was surprising how often a criminal would slip up and say something incriminating while they were still in the jail lobby. Paulson had been alerted that the alleged victim was waiting for the alleged perpetrators release, and they had arranged to delay his release until they could both be there. Recording equipment, both audio and video, had been set up to record the reunion.

It was not unusual for a victim of abuse to return to their abuser. It was, in fact, quite common, which was one of the most frustrating aspects of their job. Time and time again they would be called to a house where a woman was obviously being abused, but she would consistently refuse to press charges and would return to the house, only to have the cycle repeat, over and over. Too many times the abuse turned into murder. Somebody ended up dead, somebody in prison for life. Two lives ruined, and often left children without a parent. At least, in this case, there were no children involved.

“Well,” Detective McDonnel said dejectedly. “That isn’t any help.”

“If she isn’t going to help us, we can’t help her,” Lieutenant Paulson replied. “We’ve already wasted enough time on this, just file it away. There are more important cases you need to work on.”

“Such as?”

“Another nut job. Walnuts this time. A trailer containing $100K worth of walnuts went missing. Trailer turned up, abandoned and empty, but no sign of the nuts.”

“Nuts,” Detective McDonnel grumbled. It said something about his career that the highest profile case he was working on was a bunch of missing nuts. Nuts were enough to drive him nuts.

 

“Well, crap,” Tony cursed once they were outside.

“What’s wrong?” Sam queried.

“Cell phone is dead.”

“You can use mine!” Sam offered.

“Where did you get a cell phone?” Tony asked in alarm. His suspicion grew when Sam produced the latest model of iPhone; those were expensive!

“I bought it, yesterday. And some clothes. I hope you don’t mind, I couldn’t go around town naked!”

“How?”

“I came into some money,” Sam explained. “My grandpa died and left me some in his will. It’s yours, if you want it! There is about three thousand left.”

“Three thousand dollars?” Tony said in disbelief.

“A little bit more. I would have to check the balance to be sure. And there can be more!” Sam added eagerly. “There was a trust fund set up, and if I submit a clean drug test, I can get 2K a month!”

“2K a month,” Tony echoed. He was barely scraping by, so an extra two thousand a month would make a big difference.

“I don’t want to discuss it here,” Tony declared. He was still suspicious and wanted to be well away from the Sheriff’s office before discussing anything that might incriminate him. “I need to get home, but it will be a long walk. I’d call a friend for a ride, but I don’t know his number off the top of my head, it is in the phone.”

“Why don’t we go get something to eat?” Sam suggested. “I’ll buy! And then you can charge your phone while we eat. Plus, I am kinda hungry, I haven’t had anything to eat since last night.”

“Because you have been sitting at the jail all day?” Tony reasoned. Sam nodded. “I don’t have a charger with me.”

“You can use mine!” Sam said, smiling broadly. “It came with the phone, and it’s here in my backpack.”

“Alright,” Tony sighed. He looked about to get his bearings, then gestured to the west. “I know a good place, about six blocks this way.”

Tony turned and started walking, Sam hurried to catch up, moving up beside him, much closer than one would normally be. Tony looked at her, then reluctantly put an arm around her shoulder, pulling her in tight. Sam smiled and leaned in. Just two lovers, walking down the street.

His restaurant of choice was a sports bar, just one block off the main street. He walked in and headed straight to a large booth in the back.

“Hey Tony, you’re in early!” a waitress called out.

“Yeah, Clair, I had the day off,” Tony replied.

“Gimme just a minute, I’ll be right there!”

“Clair?” Sam asked suspiciously. It had never occurred to her that she might have competition.

“Yeah, the guys and I have been coming here for years. Wait, are you jealous?”

“No!” Sam said reflexively. “Maybe,” she amended a moment later. Lying was one of the offenses that could result in her being locked back in that damn container, and she sure didn’t want to risk that.

“Don’t worry, Clair’s married!”

“Okay,” Sam said sullenly. She wasn’t convinced.

“Oh, someone needs an attitude adjustment!” Tony teased.

“Yes, I do,” Sam agreed. Attitude adjustment generally meant a long, drawn out spanking, generally followed by fabulous sex. Both of which she needed right now. Probably not a good idea to do it in the bar, however.

Sam sat close to Tony, despite the fact that the booth had enough space for at least 6 people. His body reeked from not having had a shower in three days, but she didn’t care.

“Who’s this?” Clair asked as she bustled up to take their order. “I haven’t seen you in here with a girl before!” Sam’s mood improved considerably on that comment.

“Clair, this is Sam. Sam, Clair,” Tony made the introductions.

“You new around here? Haven’t seen you before.”

“I’ve been around for a few years,” Sam explained cautiously. “Just haven’t gotten into town much.”

“I’ll have the usual,” Tony said, cutting off any further inquiries.

“And for the lady?” Clair asked with a smirk. “Does she need a menu?”

“I’ll have what he’s having,” Sam said quickly.

“Sure: two corned beef sandwiches on a sourdough roll, and two Budweisers. Um, happy hour doesn’t start for another ten minutes. If you’re not in a hurry, I can wait until 5:00 to put the drink order in, save you a few bucks.”

“That would be fine,” Tony agreed. Saving money was always a good thing. “Can I get you to do one more thing? Can you plug my phone in someplace? It is dead and I need it. Sam has a charger.”

“No problem!” Clair said. “Don’t worry about the charger, we got an array of them back in the kitchen!”

Clair took the phone from Tony, then hurried off. Sam noted that she hadn’t made any notes from their order. The usual, he had said. So, this was where Tony spent Monday and Friday nights.

“We need to talk,” Tony said once they were alone. “But I don’t want to do it here.”

“Yes,” Sam agreed. There wasn’t anyone in any of the nearby booths, but voices sometimes carried, especially when one had to speak above the din of several different TVs tuned to different sports. “Will you take me home?” Sam asked hopefully.

“Absolutely,” Tony agreed. Get her home, get her naked, and search that backpack and purse to make sure there were no bugs or wires.

“Here you go,” Clair said, returning carrying a tray with two glasses of beer. “The manager said to go ahead and give you the happy hour price a few minutes early!”

“Thank you,” Tony replied. He picked up his glass, waited until Sam did the same, then clinked his against hers: “To getting out of jail free!” he joked.

The mention of jail rattled Sam’s demeanor and her grip faltered and she nearly dropped her glass, allowing it to slide between her fingers to bump against the table. A bubble of foam erupted out up and overflowed onto the table. Sam ignored it.

“I’m so sorry, Sir!” she cried. Her emotions were on a roller coaster.

“It wasn’t your fault!” Tony assured her.

“This never would have happened if it wasn’t for me!” Sam cried.

“I have made mistakes too,” Tony confessed. In fact, he knew that all the mistakes were his. “You should hate me.”

“Hate you?” Sam whimpered. “No! I love you!”

Tony stared at her, as if she had just sprouted a third eye or something. He had to admit that he had grown quite fond of her too. But why would she care for him? Stockholm Syndrome? He had heard of that, where hostages develop a psychological alliance with their captors during captivity. It was usually in a case where the assailant is fighting against some injustice and the captives sympathized with them. He didn’t think that it extended to love.

Sam sniffled, her eyes glistening with tears. Tony wrapped his arm around her and pulled her tight. Then he did something that surprised them both: he kissed her.

oo- Chapter 17 -oo

Samantha sat staring at her beer, a wild range of emotions coursing through her. She wasn’t quite sure what to make of that kiss, but it had excited her. In all the time that she had been with Tony, he had never kissed her before. Fucked, but not kissed.

Even the beer was unusual. While he drank beer often, he had never offered her one, and she had never dared take one on her own. She hesitantly took a sip, unsure of what to expect. She had never really cared for the taste of beer, or any alcohol for that matter. It had simply been a means to an end, a way of numbing out. Some people used alcohol to release their inhibitions, she had used it to shut her mind off to escape her reality.

But now she wasn’t interested in escaping her reality, she kind of liked this one. She took a second sip, then pushed the beer away.

Their sandwiches arrived quickly, as corned beef was the special on Friday nights and most of the prep was already done. Clair couldn’t hide her smirk as they broke off their kiss as she approached. She was glad that Tony was seeing someone. He was a good guy and needed someone in his life.

Tony had finished his sandwich, but Sam had eaten only half of hers. It was a big sandwich, and hungry as she was, it was more than she could eat. She would ask for a to-go box, couldn’t let it go to waste. That would earn her lashes from that stupid stick! She didn’t like the stick. She liked the hand spankings, didn’t mind the ping pong paddle, and could tolerate the belt, but she didn’t like the stick at all. Besides, the sandwich was good, she might enjoy finishing it later. Or maybe he would.

“You want a box for that?” Clair asked. “A couple more beers?”

“A box, yes,” Sam responded quickly.

“And the check,” Tony added. “No more beer.”

“Oh, a hot date?” Clair asked with a knowing smile and a lift of her eyebrows.

“It’s been a long day,” Tony explained. “Need to get her home.”

“Home,” Clair mused, nodding her head with a knowing smile. “Uh-hum.”

“Tony!” a voice called out. “Where the hell you been?”

“Ah, crap!” Tony cursed quietly. “I should have known.” In a louder voice he addressed the three men that were rapidly approaching their booth. “I had some personal issues that I had to work through.”

“Word on the street was that you were arrested,” another man said. “Cops were asking questions down at the dealership.”

“It was all a case of mistaken identity,” Tony lied. “I was detained a few days, they just let me go a couple of hours ago.”

“Well, the boss man is pretty pissed,” the third man added. “And we’ve all had to cover for you. Been working our asses off.”

“Sorry about that. Couldn’t have been working too hard, though. You’re here 30 minutes earlier than usual.”

“So, who’s this pretty little thing?”

“My girlfriend,” Tony replied. Sam perked up at that, smiling broadly at the title. She liked being ‘girlfriend’. She had never been a girlfriend before.

“No shit! Where’ve you been hiding her?”

“Guys, this is Sam, er, Samantha. Sam, meet Paul, Carlos and Mike.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Sam said. And she was pleased. Strong, calloused hands shook her slender dainty one.

“Clair!” Paul called out. “A round of brewskies here, and the usual.”

“Already pulling them!” Clair shouted back. “You too, Tony?”

“Of course for Tony, and his gal!” Paul exclaimed with a chuckle. “Gotta love that woman, Clair! That’s why we always sit here, at Clair’s table. She takes care of us!”

“Here, take mine, I really don’t want it,” Sam insisted, sliding her beer over in from of Tony.

“How long you two known each other?” Mike asked, looking between Tony and Sam.

“We met about three years ago,” Sam replied when Tony balked. “Didn’t start getting serious until very recently.” Like, a few seconds ago recently, when she was officially recognized as a girlfriend.

“Here ya go!” Clair exclaimed as she struggled to balance a tray containing three pints of beer. Sam noticed that they were three different colors, indicating that each guy had their favorite brew. Considering that they hadn’t specified anything other than ‘beer’, she acknowledged that the waitress must know them pretty well.

“Leave the tab open?” Clair asked, looking at Tony.

Tony looked sheepishly at his buddy Mike. “Um, I don’t have my wallet. Can you cover this?”

“I got this!” Sam assured him. A couple minutes earlier she had only wanted to go home. But this was feeling nice, sharing drinks with a few friends. She’d never had any real friends. The people she had shared drinks with before had been more interested in getting her drunk so they could take advantage of her. Not that getting her drunk was a requirement, but they hadn’t known that.

Tonight, she just enjoyed listening to the men talk. It was interesting to get a glimpse of what Tony was like outside his home.

“Hey, is it too early to start telling her embarrassing stories about you?” Paul joked two hours later. He had just drained the last of his third beer and was feeling pretty good. “Has he told you about the time we were at the quarry-”

“YES, it’s too early!” Tony interrupted. “It will always be too early!”

“Give them until at least the third date!” Carlos agreed. “Don’t want to drive her off like that last one.”

“Oh, please, don’t remind me about her!” Tony insisted. “I hate to break up the party, but I got to get my girl home.”

“It’s still early!” Paul complained.

“Yeah, but we will be walking. Got no wheels here.”

“Hey, no sweat, I can give you a ride.”

“That’s great, but one more beer and you’ll be over the legal limit.”

“That ain’t nuthin new!”

“Yeah, but I’m convinced that the cops are looking for any reason to bust me, so I gotta be careful. If they see me get into your car, they might just do a traffic stop, just to hassle. I sure don’t want you to get tangled up in my mess.”

“I should probably be getting home too, so I guess I’ll cut myself off now. Just to be on the safeside, they have one of those breathalyzer thingies here, so I can check before we leave. Hey, maybe next week we should all bring our gals with us, as designated drivers!”

“Oh, hell no!” Mike objected. “I come here to get away from her!”

“Clair!” Paul shouted. “Checks please!”

“Here you go,” Clair responded a few minutes later. Looking at Tony she said: “I assumed that you two were together?”

“Yes,” Sam said, and reaching for the check, said, “I’ll take that.” She glanced at the check, then dug three crisp twenty dollar bills out of her purse and handed it and the check back. “Keep the change.”

“Thank you!” Clair said appreciatively. She was an even bigger tipper than the guys were.

“Wow!” Paul remarked. “A good-looking gal and she pays to boot! Where do I find me a woman like that?” He sang that last part, quoting from a popular song.

“You already got a woman.” Mike scolded.

“Not like that!”

oo- Chapter 18 -oo

Tony and Sam rode together in the back seat of Paul’s SUV, leaving the shotgun seat empty. Paul thought it was cute. Sam just wanted to cuddle into her ‘boyfriend’. That term was sounding better every time it passed through her mind.

The gate was standing open when they arrived. The SWAT team had cut the lock off when they had raided the house, and now the gate swung open on its own. When they arrived at the house there was a big X of police tape across the front door, which had been nailed shut due to the strike plate having been torn out of the door jam.

“Sure you’re going to be alright?” Paul asked.

“Yeah, we’ll be fine. Thanks for the lift.”

“Any time,” Paul replied. “Hey, you hang on to this girl, she’s a keeper!”

“I intend to,” Tony replied.

“Yes, please do,” Sam whispered so that only Tony could hear.

Tony waited until Paul had left before addressing the issue of how to get into his own house. It was dark, and he couldn’t make out where the nails were.

“Damn!” Tony cursed suddenly.

“What?” Sam asked in alarm.

“I left my cell phone at the bar!”

“Oh. You can get it in the morning.”

“I need the flashlight app.”

“I can manage that!” Sam said cheerfully as she dug her phone out. A quick swipe and a tap and there was light.

Sam followed him out to the barn, where he rummaged around until he found a crowbar. He managed to remove a few of the nails holding the door shut, but then got impatient and just pried the door open. The kitchen and great room weren’t bad, only a small disarray of pots and utensils. Sam’s cleanliness had left very little that the Sheriffs had to look through. Sam immediately got to work putting everything away as Tony checked the back of the house.

The bedroom, on the other hand, was a mess. Drawers had been opened and the contents strewn about. The closet had been emptied onto the bed. The den was even worse, years’ worth of boxes of junk had been opened and sorted through.

Tony had noticed right off that the cable he had used to lock Sam in place was missing. Probably taken as evidence. Likewise, the rope he kept tied to the headboard was also missing. His first thought was that he would have to go get the tow chain out of his truck, but then laughed at himself. If Sam had wanted to leave, or to hurt him, she’d just had an excellent opportunity. But she hadn’t, and he wasn’t sure why.

When he returned to the kitchen, he almost didn’t notice that she was naked. That had been, after all, her natural state for the last three years. It was cold in the house, as the heat had been off for more than three days and the autumn nights were getting chilly, and Sam’s skin had already turned into gooseflesh. Tony moved to the thermostat, clicked it on and cranked the dial up to an uncharacteristic 72 degrees.

It was clear that she wasn’t currently wearing any wire or listening device. Nor had she been trying to engage him in any conversation that might lead him to incriminate himself. Perhaps she wasn’t involved in a plot against him.

The cops, on the other hand, might have planted a bug that she knew nothing about. The clothes she had been wearing were draped across the back of the couch. He searched them carefully. Spotting her backpack, he took it to the couch and emptied it, carefully feeling every garment for unexplained lumps. Nothing. Maybe no one was trying to entrap him after all.

“Leave that, come here,” he commanded, out of force of habit. He had always commanded her.

“Yes Sir!” she replied sharply, dropping what she had in her hands onto the counter with a clatter. She rushed over to him, then dropped to her knees, pressing her forehead to the floor.

“What are you doing,” Tony asked.

“I thought that you wanted to punish me, Sir,” Sam said honestly. “With your belt. One hundred. Two hundred. A thousand, I know I deserve it!”

“No,” Paul said softly. “I’m not going to punish you. Not ever again.”

“But why Sir?” Sam cried. She had expected to be punished. She had wanted to be punished. After a punishment came forgiveness. Forgiveness was closure. Without closure, this whole horrid episode would be like an open sore, continuing to fester.

She had knelt up and was now sitting on her heels, her face turned towards him. Tears were just starting to leak from her eyes. “You must be angry. Punish me! Whip me, use the stick, you can even lock me in the container. Just please, please PLEASE forgive me!”

“No, it isn’t right. I should never have punished you in the first place. I sure as hell shouldn’t have kept you captive. I’m sorry for that.”

“I’m not,” Sam sniffed. “That wouldn’t have been right for most people, but I’m not most people! When you met me, I was a druggie whore! I wasn’t worth the shit on the bottom of your boots! You took me in, you got me clean and sober, you housed me and fed me. I’m in a hell of a lot better shape than I was three years ago. I might have been dead by now if it wasn’t for you.”

“You saved me,” Sam continued after several moments of silence.

“Maybe so, but it still isn’t right.”

“Don’t you want me anymore?” The pitiful whine in her voice was to cut him to his very soul.

“I do want you!” Tony exclaimed. Damn, this discussion was difficult! “I really like you, in fact, I think I love you too!”

“Then keep me, I’m yours!”

“It can’t work that way!”

“Why not? It worked fine for three years!”

“Because it can’t! I don’t believe for a second that the cops are going to let this go! I wouldn’t be surprised if social services shows up, or if the sheriff makes a surprise ‘welfare check’. If they find you chained up again, they could arrest me, and make it stick!”

“Don’t need to lock me up,” Sam said assertively. “I was never going to run off. Besides, I could slip out of that cable. Did it once, just to see if I could. Getting it back on was even harder than getting it off. I was motivated though; thought you might lock me back in the container for trying to escape. Used half the bottle of cooking oil to get it to slip back on.”

“Wasting money!” Tony said in mock outrage.

“Yes Sir. Worth a dozen lashes at least. Maybe two dozen. You don’t have to tie me down, if that’s a problem. I’ll take them.”

Tony started to smile, before better sense prevailed. His knees buckled and he half sat, half fell onto the couch.

“No, no!” Tony moaned, shaking his head sadly.

It wasn’t helping that she looked so damn beautiful, and sexy, sitting there like that. She had slumped after his last refusal, her shoulders sagging and her head tilted forward, looking down. She had earlier been prostrated, head down with her ass up, with her feet spread wide so as to provide him with the best view of her sex. Now that she was sitting up, the inward angle of her knees was blocking his view. Her hair had fallen evenly on both sides of her head and was now hanging down and partially obscuring her breasts. That puzzled him; when had her hair gotten so long? Maybe it was just how she was holding her head, she normally didn’t slump so. She had never seemed so broken before.

The denial of his visual entertainment angered him. Seeing her so dejected sickened him. Tony took a deep breath, then let it out with a whoosh.

“Look, you can stay here for a few days while you figure out where you want to go,” Tony said, the sorrow evident in his voice.

“I have no place to go,” Sam whispered, her words just barely audible.

“You said you have some money, right?”

“I want you to have it. All of it.”

“What? Why?”

“I wouldn’t have had any of it if it wasn’t for you. It won’t do me any good, I’ll just waste it. If I have that much money available to me, I’ll probably overdose, or get mugged. Or both. Probably both.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I MAKE BAD CHOICES!” Sam shouted through tears and frustration. “I always have. Always will. After you took me in, I wasn’t able to make any choices. I was okay with that. I was more than okay, I was happy with that. Swimming in the creek, riding the quad, Christmas, Thanksgiving, just having my man come home to me. These were the happiest times of my life! Perhaps the only time in my life that I was clear headed enough to remember them.”

“I’m sorry, I can’t,” Tony stammered. “You have to go.”

Sam rocked back, agilely getting to her feet in one fluid motion. Without saying another word, she put the clothes back on that she had been wearing earlier. Then she grabbed the backpack off the couch and started cramming her belongings back into it.

“Here,” Sam said, dropping a wad of cash back onto the couch. “There’s about two hundred there. I’m keeping enough to get a motel room in town. Here’s the debit card, the pin is two-four-six-eight-ten-twelve. It’s been nice knowing you. Goodbye.”

“Wait!” Tony said in alarm as Sam headed towards the door. “You can’t leave now!”

“Oh? What are you going to do? Chain me to the floor? Lock me in the container? Beat me into submission?” God, she wanted him to do all those things. Any of those things. “No? Well, goodbye then.”

Tony watched in astonishment as she closed the door behind her.

oo- Chapter 19 -oo

“Lieutenant Paulson?” the officer asked as he leaned into the office. “Brad Schaffer, over in vice. Sorry to bother you, but I understand that you just worked on a kidnapping case involving a Samantha Henley?”

“Yeah, that’s right,” Lieutenant Paulson said. “Case was back-burnered the day before yesterday. Silly bitch went back to her abuser. Why do you ask?”

“It might interest you to know that we picked her up on a prostitution charge last night.”

“Oh really?”

“There might be some drug charges thrown in as well. She didn’t have any drugs on her, but she was trying to buy some, and she had to be high on something.”

“Well, shit!” Lieutenant Paulson cursed. “Her situation went from bad to worse real quick. Did you catch her pimp? We tried to nail that guy on a kidnapping charge, but we couldn’t make it stick. It would be a nice consolation prize to get him on soliciting.”

“No pimp, she was running solo. We even staked her out, watched her most of the night and even set up a sting hoping to flush out a pimp, but nada.”

“I didn’t realize that you were running a sting operation right now.”

“We weren’t supposed to be!” officer Schaffer laughed. “The only reason we got involved was because multiple citizens called in and complained! This crazy woman was walking Main Street, approaching every man she saw! She didn’t care if he was alone or with his wife and children! And she wasn’t dressed like a whore, she was wearing a very respectable dress, although she had it unbuttoned as far as it would go. It was like she wanted to be caught and arrested.”

“Yeah, maybe she did,” Lieutenant Paulson mused.

 

Samantha Henley sat, slumped in the most god-awfully uncomfortable chair. She was in the Tulare County Jail, in the area commonly referred to as the ‘drunk tank’. It was just a large room with banks of eight chairs, just like you would expect to see at an airport terminal. A TV was playing in one corner. There were restrooms, a drinking fountain, a row of pay phones (something Sam hadn’t seen in many years), and a counter that was always manned by at least one officer.

A few hours earlier the room had been fairly crowded with, well, drunks. When someone was being drunk and disorderly but hadn’t committed a crime serious enough to warrant charges, they would be brought to this room and made to stay for the rest of the night. Sam had been brought here because they thought that she had to be under the influence of something, although they could not detect what that something was. Everyone else had been released at first light, but when her name came up associated with a very recent felony case, they decided to hold on to her for a while.

Sam didn’t care. Just a day and a half ago her life had crested at what she considered to be perfection, with Tony labeling her as his girlfriend. Then, a couple hours later, it all crashed into oblivion. If they released her, she would hitchhike back to Bakersfield, she knew where to find a pimp there. Hell, in Los Angeles, a hooker going out solo would be accosted by a pimp pronto! They protected their territory. This silly hick town apparently didn’t have any.

“Samantha Henley,” the watch officer called out across the P.A. system.

“Here!” Sam called out, waving a hand over her head. This was silly, she was the only one in the room. Hours ago, the other ‘guests’ had been called up to the desk one at a time to be released. Back then the amplification made sense, as the buzz of many conversations, plus the TV, made it hard to hear.

“Please come this way,” the officer said directly, abandoning the amplification.

All the others had been called up to the desk, quick signature, and then they were buzzed through the security doors and were on their way. Not her, though. The officer was gesturing towards a door that led further into the jail instead of towards freedom. Fine with her.

The officer led her into an interrogation room and told her to wait. She didn’t have to try it to know that the door would be locked, she had been in such a room several times before. Someone would arrive soon, start giving her the 3rd degree, trying to pry incriminating statements from her. The room had one small table and three chairs. They always had three chairs, one for her, one for the ‘good’ cop, one for the ‘bad’ cop.

Fuck it. She normally would seal her lips and not say anything. Not this time, she decided. Tell them what they want to hear, refuse the public defender, and plead guilty. Three square meals and a cot sounded like her best option right now.

The door clicked open, and a familiar face entered. Paulson, she vaguely remembered. He had been the ‘good’ cop in the good cop/bad cop tactic before. She was surprised, and somewhat flattered that they were breaking out the big guns just for her! She was also surprised that he was alone, no ‘bad cop’.

“Miss Henley,” Lieutenant Paulson stated as he took the seat opposite her. “We meet again.”

“Hey, aren’t you supposed to start by reading me my rights? Right to remain silent and all that? Ah, doesn’t matter. Yep, I did it. I’m guilty.”

“Did what?”

“Whatever it is that you want to say I did. I don’t care, I’m done.”

“Tell me what happened.”

“What happened?” Sam scoffed. “I got picked up for prostitution. Hell, maybe defrauding an innkeeper too, as it’s almost checkout time and I haven’t. Checked out that is. Crap, I just got those clothes a few days ago, and now they’re going get tossed! I guess it doesn’t matter, my wardrobe is going to consist of an orange jumpsuit for a while.”

“You paid for the room in advance and we have retrieved your belongings from the motel, and let them know that you won’t be returning, so the motel is just fine. We know that you met up with Tony Robertson upon his release. Did he put you up to that?”

“Tony?” Sam laughed. “Oh, hell no! He wouldn’t let anyone else touch me! No, that was all my own doing.”

“I understand that you came into some money, enough to get you by for a few months. Why were you turning tricks just a day later?”

“I gave it all away.”

“Why?”

“Money is a curse to me. My parents used to give me money, and expensive gifts, I turned it all into drugs. Do you know how long it took me to burn through a $30,000 car? Heh, I guess I don’t either, I was stoned out of my mind. It wasn’t long though. I figured that money wasn’t going to make my life any better, so I might as well give it to someone who could benefit from it.”

“Who did you give it to?”

“Tony.”

Lieutenant Paulson paused to consider for a moment. A few days ago, he had questioned this woman and she had said almost nothing, not even her name. Now she was being a lot more verbose, but it wasn’t making any sense at all. Nor was it helping to build a case against Mr. Robertson.

“Did you leave him?”

“He dumped me,” Sam said sadly.

“Are you ready to press charges against him? It’s not too late.”

“Charges for what? Dumping me?”

“The kidnapping.”

“What kidnapping?” Sam scowled. Now she was getting angry.

“Three years ago.”

“He SAVED me three years ago!” Sam said loudly, banging her fists on the table. “Do you not understand what a bad place I was in before that? I was a drug addict, I was a whore, I tried to steal from him! He could press charges against ME!”

“Instead, he took me in, got me cleaned up, and took care of me for three years! I was doing fine until you guys showed up and ruined everything! Now he is afraid to raise his voice to me for fear that you are watching him and just waiting to catch him doing something wrong! Well, fuck you!”

“I just want to help you.”

“I don’t want your help! I’ve been nothing but screwed by the cops, both figuratively and literally. Do what you want with me, I don’t care, just leave him alone. Send me to prison, throw away the key, I’m fine with that. It’s better than the alternative.”

“You were brought in on misdemeanor charges, which we typically don’t prosecute.”

“Fine, I’ll go out and rob a bank or something.”

Lieutenant Paulson sighed and sat back in his chair. This wasn’t going anywhere. At least not anywhere he wanted it to go. Where it was going was decidedly downhill.

“Is there anything I can do for you?”

“Can you loan me a gun? It’s easier to rob a bank that way. It doesn’t even need to have bullets. Don’t worry, you’ll get it back real soon.”

“No, I can’t do that.”

 

Tony sat at the kitchen table, cursing himself and desperately trying to think of a course of action. When he had decided that they needed to split up, go their separate ways, he had expected it to be a process, take a few days. He wasn’t sure why she had left in the first place and had expected her to come back right away. After all, it was late on a Friday night when she had stormed off, and it was miles to anywhere. When she hadn’t returned after half an hour, he started up the truck and went looking for her.

She couldn’t have gotten far. Visalia, the largest town for a long distance, was three miles to the west. He had tried that direction first but hadn’t seen her. Then he tried all the way to Woodlake to the north. There just wasn’t any way to go south and heading east wouldn’t get you anywhere you wanted to be.

What he didn’t realize was that she didn’t want to be found and the loud muffler (or lack thereof) announced his approach early enough for her to find a hiding spot.

First thing in the morning he had called his drinking buddies, in a vain hope that they might have seen her. He had talked with Clair when he stopped at the bar to retrieve his phone. No one else even knew that she existed. Except the cops, and he wasn’t going to talk to them.

His phone rang with a number he didn’t recognize. He would normally have let it go to voicemail, but given the circumstances, he figured he should answer. Perhaps it was Sam.

“Hello?” Tony asked hopefully.

“Mr. Robertson, this is Lieutenant Paulson from the Sheriff’s department.”

“Oh,” Tony said dejectedly. That was the last person he wanted to talk to right now.

“Mr. Robertson, I didn’t know who else to call. We have Samantha Henley down here at the station.”

“Oh, has she decided to press charges?”

“No, still refusing. She didn’t come to us, we picked her up.”

“And you are telling me this why?” Tony asked suspiciously. “You made it pretty clear that you thought I was abusing her.”

“I am going to reserve judgment on that for right now.”

“Is she okay,” Tony asked suddenly. He further cursed himself; that should have been his first question.

“Physically, she is fine. She appears to be very upset, claims that you broke up with her. If you don’t mind, may I ask why?”

“Well, yeah!” Tony said mockingly. “I mean, you had just arrested me for kidnapping her, which I took as a clear sign that you didn’t approve of us being together. I thought it was for the best.”

“I’ll admit that I may have been wrong about you. She seems to care for you very much, even now,” Lieutenant Paulson explained. “What she really needs right now is a friend. I fear that if she is released, she might do something really stupid. Even more stupid than what she did last night.”

“Is she in trouble?” Tony asked in alarm.

“Nothing serious, there shouldn’t be any charges. She was picked up on a prostitution charge.”

“Prostitution?” Tony remarked loudly.

“Let me rephrase that: solicitation. We don’t believe that she actually turned any tricks, but she had approached a number of men, and has been acting very strangely. I believe that she wanted to be arrested. I wouldn’t call her suicidal, exactly, but she sure isn’t interested in doing what’s best for herself.”

“I see.”

“Look, Mr. Robertson: I really don’t understand the relationship the two of you had for the last three years, and I really don’t need to know. I will offer you an apology from myself and on behalf of the Tulare County Sheriff’s department for the misunderstanding. I will NOT apologize for the raid on your premises or for detaining you. We acted in good faith on a tip, and based on observations from a field officer, we had good cause to believe that a woman was in danger. I would rather overreact a hundred times rather than miss saving one poor woman in trouble.”

“I can appreciate that,” Tony admitted. He couldn’t argue the point. After all, he really had kidnapped her, and had been holding her captive.

“I am not convinced that there isn’t abuse going on, but it doesn’t appear that her life was ever in danger from you, and she is certainly indicating that she consents to it. I have certainly dealt with much worse, many cases that are still ongoing and there is nothing I can do about it. It’s frustrating, but I need to consider the lesser of two evils. Right now, I think that you are the best option that this woman has. Would you consider coming down so we can release her into your care?”

 

“HEY!” Sam called out, banging on the interrogation room door. “I have to go to the bathroom!”

There was a buzz, then the door clicked open. A stocky woman wearing a sheriff’s uniform stood in the doorway, glaring at Sam. After sufficient intimidation, she motioned for Sam to follow and led her to the restroom.

Sam was annoyed when the deputy stood right outside the stall door. It annoyed her even more that the bottom of the stall wall was at knee level. At least she wasn’t shackled, it’s really hard to wipe your ass that way. She knew; she had spent time in police custody on more than one occasion. That was a lifetime ago, or so she had thought. For a while, she had thought that was all behind her. Now it looked like she had just been taking a vacation from it.

She considered sitting there until the deputy made her get up. If it had been a porcelain toilet, she might have tried to break it, get the charges against her increased. Destruction of government property. But it was stainless steel. ‘Ah, to hell with it’, she exclaimed.

“Do I get to wash my hands?” Sam grumbled as she exited the stall.

The deputy said nothing, so Sam dutifully washed her hands in the sink. The mirror above the sink wasn’t glass, but polished stainless steel, nothing that could be broken. Sam only glanced at her reflection. The deputy led her back to the interrogation room, and the door closed behind her with a loud click. Sam sat on the floor in the corner, her knees up to her chest, and cried.

Twenty minutes later there was a buzz, then a click and the door opened. Sam didn’t look up; she wasn’t interested in whatever this new person might be. They might be taking her to a proper jail cell. At some point they would have to bring her before a judge, but she thought that it was Sunday, and she didn’t think that court was in session on Sunday.

“Is that any way to greet your master?” Tony said.

“Sir!” Sam cried out, snapping her head up. “What are you doing here?”

“I’ve come to get you out of here,” Tony said. “To take you home.”

“Home where? Palos Verdes?”

“Don’t even know where that is,” Tony said. “I am taking you to OUR home.”

“Your home, you mean.”

“No, ours. It was my house, ever since it was left to me in my grandfather’s will. But it was never a home, not until you came along.”

“What about the cops?”

“We have come to an understanding. And they tell me that you have been a very naughty girl.”

Sam felt an involuntary clenching in her buttocks, which spread to her nether region. It made her want. It made her need.

“Yes Sir, I have been. Are you going to do something about that?”

“Yes, I am, and you may not be able to sit down for a week.”

That clenching turned into an explosion of warmth and wetness.

“Will you make sure that I don’t do any more bad things?”

“Yes, I certainly intend to.” Tony opened his arms, inviting her in.

Sam jumped to her feet and rushed to him.

“Take me home, Sir, and never let me go again.”

Master, he had referred to himself as her master. She liked that, almost as much as her title of girlfriend.

 

Lieutenant Paulson watched the monitor connected to the camera in the interrogation room where Samantha was being held. He hadn’t entirely given up on the idea of bringing charges against Mr. Robertson, so he was intrigued when Tony had started the conversation with a domineering statement. Not the textbook example of an abuser, however. And then Samantha’s response was as far from the textbook victim as you could get. She had basically encouraged him to discipline her.

Maybe they were just a couple of kinky people in a consensual relationship.

oo- Epilog -oo

Sam awoke before the alarm, like she always did. She slid out of her master’s bed, careful not to wake him. It wouldn’t go well for her if she woke him before the alarm, but she really shouldn’t be there when the alarm went off. If she was still in the bed when he did awake, then he would probably want to fuck her, and that would put them both behind schedule.

It was bitterly cold in the house, as it was the dead of winter, so she donned the heavy robe that hung on the backside of the bedroom door. It was the only thing that she was wearing. It was all that she ever wore until she had to dress to leave the house. Her master liked her naked, and she liked being naked for him.

She hurried to the kitchen to start their morning ritual: Eggs, over easy. Some sort of breakfast meat, usually sausage or bacon. Coffee. The coffee was a lot easier now that they had that brand new coffee maker. The eggs were easier in the new non-stick skillet and the use of the spray oil.

She stepped over to where the washer and dryer sat, and started the dryer for a short duration, just to warm up the clothes that had been left in there from the night before. They would both have nice warm underwear to put on. One of the luxuries of having a dryer. She still preferred to use the clothesline for larger items, such as bath towels and bed sheets. Something about being dried in the fresh outdoor air left them smelling better.

Sam let one cup’s worth of coffee drip into the pot, and then stole the second cup, substituting her mug for the pot. She would have taken the first cup, but Master would punish her for doing so, saying that the most flavorful oils came out first, and stealing the first cup robbed everyone else. She might have still taken it, punishment be damned, but she had a doctor’s appointment today and didn’t want to risk having bruises. Nor could she afford the time such a punishment would consume.

With coffee in hand, she went into the great room and sat in the Lazy Boy recliner. It was technically Master’s chair, but he didn’t mind her sitting in it when he wasn’t. He often commanded her to sit in it when he was also sitting in it.

They both preferred the new couch for watching TV, not only because it was centered on the TV but because there were more opportunities to ‘play’ on the couch. It always gave Sam a smile when she thought of the time they went shopping for a couch. Part of ‘trying it out’ included having her bend over the back of it, which got a lot of puzzled looks from the salesperson.

But the Lazy Boy had a better view out the front windows. Someday they might buy a second easy chair, but for now she enjoyed the time that they sat in the chair together. There was often wildlife that would wander through the yard, especially at sundown. They had set a salt lick out to attract the deer, which wasn’t exactly legal, but she didn’t see any harm in it. Tony rarely hunted, and never on the property.

They had tried scattering bird seed for the wild turkeys, but that had only caused an explosion in the chipmunk population, which wasn’t a bad thing.

Sam enjoyed the view, especially now that the split rail fence had been totally rebuilt and all the junk removed. Well, almost all of it. At least all that could be seen out the front window. Tony’s old truck was still out behind the barn, he wasn’t willing to get rid of that. He said it was a ‘classic’, but she knew that he just had a sentimental attachment to it.

The time had changed last weekend, ending Daylight Saving time, so at 5:20 it was just starting to get light outside, the world waking up. The light from the kitchen spilled into the great room, illuminating well enough that Sam could enjoy fruits of their inside labor while she waited for the outside to become visible. The walls were all painted, new crown molding and baseboards installed. The original hardwood flooring had turned out spectacularly after it had been sanded down and refinished. The windows had been replaced with double paned versions, dramatically reducing the cold drafts. At least one room of the house was perfect! Remodeling the kitchen was next on the list, and they had already sketched out their plans.

Life had been good recently. Well, life had been good for the last six years, with the exception of that one week in the middle where everything had gone to hell. It had all worked out in the end, though. With Sam being drug free and employed, the trust fund was paying big time, and combined with her paycheck, Sam was bringing home more money than he was. Other than the payment on his truck, the first new vehicle Tony had ever owned, they were essentially debt free.

The management of her trust fund had been transferred from the estate lawyer to an accountant, whose primary job was to receive her monthly drug test and issue a check. She had a standing monthly appointment at the lab, first Tuesday of the month. It only took a minute, enough time to pee into the supplied container and she could be on her way, and the lab was only a few blocks out of her way to work. Results were sent to her accountant and to the Tulare County Sheriff’s office.

Technically, she was on probation. Despite Lieutenant Paulson’s initial assertion that she was not going to be charged for that stupid stunt she had pulled, it turned out that he wasn’t the one who could make that call. The vice department had wanted charges to be brought against her. Probation was the compromise: she was sentenced to a year in prison, but the sentence was suspended in lieu of probation. As long as she didn’t violate the terms of her probation for a period of five years, that whole mess would just go away. She was now more than halfway through.

Lieutenant Paulson, perhaps feeling bad for not being able to follow through on his earlier assertions, had helped her find a job. Although Sam thought that he had ulterior motives, as his wife was now her boss, an arrangement that gave the Lieutenant a daily update on her status. Mrs. Paulson was nice enough, and Sam didn’t mind the subtle prying into her private life. Tony never left any marks on her body that wouldn’t be covered by clothing appropriate for the season. They had bought a set of padded leather cuffs so that when she needed to be restrained there wouldn’t be any ligature marks on her wrists. Her job had her on her feet all day, so sore buttocks weren’t a problem.

When she heard the beeping of the 5:30 AM alarm clock, she dashed back into the kitchen. The sausage was done, and it would only take a minute to cook his eggs.

“Morning, Sir!” Sam called out as he strolled into the kitchen.

“Why didn’t you turn the heat up?” Tony groused. Since he had started having the propane delivery service fill the large tank, he no longer cared about how much propane they used. Their usual routine was that she would be up first, turn the heat up, and then turn it back down just before she left for work.

“We aren’t going to be here long, it would just be a waste!”

“Oh, right,” Tony said. He had forgotten about her appointment.

Normally, Sam would leave for work two hours after he did, as she didn’t need to be at work until 9:00 AM. Her work, stocking shelves at the Visalia Mall, was only four miles from home, and it took her less than 20 minutes to ride there on her bike. She got off work at 6:00 PM, and Tony would pick her up and give her (and her bike) a ride home. That was especially nice in the winter, as it got dark by 6:00 PM and it wasn’t safe to ride in the dark.

Sam had gotten her driver’s license over a year ago, but they still hadn’t bought her a car yet. Tony was literally working on that, but he was saving that as a surprise for their second anniversary, which was coming up in another month. One of the dealer’s best customers, who bought a LOT of trucks and vans, had purchased a Ford Fiesta for their nanny, only to have the engine fail after only two years. The repairs would have been covered under the factory warranty, but the customer was outraged that it would take weeks to complete the work. To mollify the customer, the dealership had arranged to buy the vehicle back at high Blue book value, and then sell the customer a new car at the best rate the dealer could manage.

The dealership, in turn, sold the car to Tony at less than low Blue Book, and still honored the warrantee, under the condition that work on the engine rebuild would be done on a time available basis. That way, the dealer could still give priority service to their regular customers, and then bill time to the factory for the warranty work when things got slow. It was a win for everybody. The only drawback was that Tony only got to work on it a couple of hours a week. But when he was done, it would have an essentially brand-new engine.

Meanwhile, Tony had been enjoying the benefits of having a ‘designated driver’. Given proper incentive, Sam was a rather light drinker. And Tony was happy to provide the appropriate incentive. Unlike the other guys, he enjoyed having his girl at the bar with them and she had become a regular. He had even brought Sam out fishing with him a few times, but five people in the boat was a bit crowded, and talk could get very raunchy, and Sam clearly didn’t enjoy it as much as he did.

Sam was just as happy to be left at home. Locked up. Tony allowed her the freedom of going to work, but if he was going to be gone on the weekend, she would be locked up. Tony had installed a new, even longer cable that gave Sam full range of the house and all of the front porch.

Weekends home alone were Sam’s opportunity to give the house a thorough cleaning. The cable she had to drag with her was a not-so-subtle reminder that she needed to behave herself. Which she often didn’t, but only in minor things. No one had ever asked why one rail of one section of the split rail fence had been sanded smooth. Or why the section adjacent to it had the rail rotated slightly, so that the sharp edge was on top.

Sam preferred to avoid that punishment, being made to straddle that rail, forced to either stand on tip toe or have the rail press into her crotch. Especially when he added the ‘enhancement’, applying nipple clamps that were tied down to the rail to force her to lean forward, but with her hands tied to the fencepost behind her, keeping her from leaning too far forward. An hour of that would be pure agony. Yet, as much as she hated it, she found herself doing that one thing that would put her back on that rail every few months or so. When the weather was nice.

When she was left home alone, she would be locked to the cable, similar to before. Instead of the cable wrapping around her ankle, now it attached to a leather cuff that wrapped snugly around her ankle, a D-ring passing through the leather such that a single lock secured both the cable and the cuff.

The anchor point for the cable was in the hall closet, so it could all be hidden away when they had guests over. Also in the closet was a spare key to the lock, secured to an eyebolt using a serialized plastic tag. If she needed out for some reason (like the sheriff’s deputy showing up for a welfare check, which they were doing as part of the probation) she could break the plastic zip tie or use the set of cutters kept in the kitchen and release herself.

Her ‘escape’ would be obvious, however, as the zip tie had a ‘flag’ that had a unique serial number embossed in it. Tony made a point of checking it on a regular basis. If it was tampered with, she had better have a good reason. There was also a simple sundress that hung in the closet, and several times Sam had dashed into the closet to release herself and make herself decent when an unexpected visitor had arrived.

Guests, who were once actively discouraged from coming to Tony’s property, were common now. The gate, which used to stay locked shut, was now kept open, which allowed delivery services to bring packages up to the front door. Clair, from the bar, had become a friend to Sam and might drop by on occasion.

Clair had been Sam’s ‘maid of honor’ at the wedding, which had been almost a year ago. She had also asked two of her workmates to be bride’s maids, to even out the three groomsmen that Tony had. The ceremony had been small and simple, held in their own home. Her parents had declined the invitation, which had been offered as an olive branch. Sam had only been mildly disappointed.

Once a month, one of Tony’s drinking/fishing buddies would host a barbecue. Mike lived in an apartment which had a pool, which was nice during the summer. Tony’s place had become the favorite during the spring and fall, as he had lots of land, and the other guys all had kids that could run amok on his property with little supervision. Paul had the largest house which was good during the cold or inclement weather.

Unless they had guests over, Sam would always be naked at home. The exception was the heavy bathrobe, which she rarely tied closed, allowing it to spread open, exposing her for Tony’s enjoyment. He would occasionally use the bathrobe’s fabric belt to tie her elbows together behind her back, and then torment her in various ways.

Today was different, however. Today, Sam had an appointment at the Fresno Fertility Clinic, which was an hour away. She would drop him at the dealership at 6:30, then continue on to Fresno for her 8:00 AM appointment. She would be an hour late for work, which she had arranged with her boss. Mrs. Paulson was very understanding that way. Tony would get a ride from the dealership to her work with one of his buddies at the end of the day. They had already done this routine a dozen times.

“Mmmm, love you honey!” Tony said as he stepped up behind her. She automatically craned her head back to accept his kiss, then stuck her butt out to accept the swat that always followed. When there was a soft ‘thump’ of hand hitting bathrobe instead of a sharp smack of hand hitting flesh, she lifted the robe to give him a better target, which he accepted.

“Hey, only one!” Sam complained when he started to swat her again. “You know I have a doctor’s appointment today!”

“I thought that today was just to get the results of the month's test?”

“It is, but sometimes they want to take another look and probe and poke around in there.”

“Hmmph!” Tony scoffed. That meant that he couldn’t fuck her, either, as she didn’t want to have his cum in there if they happened to do an inspection. “They’re just a bunch of perverts, if you ask me.”

“I didn’t ask you!” Sam snapped back. She knew that she would pay for such a retort later, but she was willing to pay that price.

“Ah, ah, ah!” Tony scolded. “Attitude!”

“Yes, I know, and you can spank me all you want tonight. For now, hands off!”

“Okay, okay, jeeze!” Tony often wondered just who was in charge here. Maybe it was time to make her ride that rail again. It was rather cold for that, though. His thoughts strayed momentarily, considering the possibility of rigging a sawhorse indoors for the pussy torture. She was more eager to take it in the ass when her pussy was sore!

They were out the door at 6:15, dropping Tony at the dealership at 6:45, and Sam arrived at the clinic at 7:45, where she had to wait 15 minutes for the doors to open.

“Someone will be with you momentarily,” the receptionist said.

It always annoyed Sam, as the first appointment of the day shouldn’t be late. She could understand the doctor running late in the afternoon. All sorts of unexpected delays could happen. But why was the first appointment always running late?

“Samantha Henley?” the physician’s assistant called out.

Which further annoyed Sam. She had been going to this clinic for a year, you would think they would recognize her by now. Especially since she was the only one in the waiting room! Going through the ritual of taking her weight, temperature and blood pressure also seemed excessive, it was always the same.

Sam had known for a long time that she must be barren. Otherwise, she would have conceived a long time ago. Until recently, that had been more of a blessing than a curse. Now, however, that biological clock was ticking louder than ever. The doctors had established that there was nothing seriously wrong and had started with a series of antibiotics in case there was some persistent infection in her fallopian tubes. When that hadn’t worked, they moved on to giving her hormone treatments to help adjust her body more naturally. If that didn’t produce results soon, they would try in vitro fertilization. There were risks involved with that, however. As the success rate for implanting a single egg was very low, they would typically do two or three at a time, hoping one of them would take. It often turned out that none of them did. Occasionally, multiple did. The story of ‘Octo Mom’ was still fresh in Sam’s mind. Sam wanted one child, not a baseball team!

 

When Sam left the clinic, she was emotionally drained. She always was. Time after time she had come with high hopes, only to have them dashed. Tony had gone with her for the first few appointments, but his job was not as forgiving as hers, and he would have to miss three hours of work, so she started coming alone. She insisted that she was okay, and she never told him that she would sit in the parking lot, crying for several minutes before she could manage to make the drive back to Visalia. Today was no different.

Her coworkers were used to her coming into work with puffy eyes. There had been rumors and gossip about Sam being in an abusive relationship, and while no one ever asked her about it directly, they all watched for signs. She had told her closest friend about the doctor visits, and she had told others, who told others, so everyone was aware. No one said anything, though.

Sam donned her work apron and started hauling merchandise from the stockroom out to the store front. It was going to be a long day. They always were after the doctor visit.

 

Tony was waiting at the truck when she got off work. Normally, that would be the other way around; that she would be waiting outside for him to arrive. But she worked an hour later than normal on the days she had her doctor appointment, and she had the truck.

“How’d it go?” he asked. The same question he always asked.

“Bad news,” Sam said as they started strolling to where the truck awaited in the parking lot.

Uh-oh, Tony thought. She normally said ‘okay’. Okay translated into what he considered to be bad news, that the treatments still hadn’t worked. Therefore, her saying ‘bad news’ meant something even worse. He could see that there were tears in her eyes.

“What’s wrong?”

“We’re going to have to put off the kitchen remodel for a year or two.”

Double uh-oh. This fertility clinic had been getting expensive, as the insurance only covered a maximum of six visits, which they were well past. Their insurance did not cover in vitro at all.

“What now?” Tony sighed. He stopped, giving his wife a warm embrace to comfort her. He was starting to wonder if it was worth it. Until a couple of years ago, he had never seriously considered having kids.

“We are going to have to remodel the den instead. Make it into a nursery.”

It took a moment for those words to register and make sense. He looked again, and yes, there were tears in her eyes. But there was also a smile.