Dark Secrets

by Doug Pountain

  DARK SECRETS

  DOUG POUNTAIN

  Copyright © 2020 DOUG POUNTAIN

  All rights reserved

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  ISBN-13: 9781234567890

  ISBN-10: 1477123456

  Cover design by: Art Painter

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2018675309

  Printed in the United States of America

  Copyright © 2020 DOUG POUNTAIN

  All rights reserved

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  ISBN-13: 9781234567890

  ISBN-10: 1477123456

  Cover design by: Art Painter

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2018675309

  Printed in the United States of America

  To Joyce and Howard.

  Introduction

  In her 29 years of life, Joyce had known for eight of those years what it was like to live with a husband who was not a real man in any sense of the word, all she had known was abuse. But with the help of her friend whose husband is possibly one of the best computer hackers in the world, she turns her life around in a very short space of time to become a totally different person and also part of a team who are allowed to break the law by governments and to get away with it. Her time working as an accountant before she married was now coming to the fore to serve her well. She always knew of the power that money can provide, but she now enters a very different world after being encouraged to leave her husband by her best friend Carol. But this work is very dark indeed and is the domain of real bastards in many countries who have very different ideas of democracy, and very soon her own life and that of her friends is at risk. These people will kill without a second thought to protect what they believe to be rightfully their's regardless of the lives of normal people, and that also includes the safety and freedom of the world.

  DARK SECRETS.

  CHAPTER 1.

  The time was 6.30 am on another cold and wet November morning as Joyce made her way back upstairs to wake her husband for his breakfast just as she had done so for the past eight years since their marriage. She often thought back to that day in the spring sunshine when she married, and which had been so full of promise. But all that had now paled into insignificance and turned into something very different for her, and now in the cold light of day in this dark, damp and miserable house she realised that in this life she was truly already dead.

  Joyce got up every day an hour before her husband to allow herself time to prepare not just his food, but also to clean out the log fire and dust the house and all without making too much noise, and also to check that all was in order before waking him. Her husband, John was a strange man in many ways, he was very controlling and could be quite brutal both physically and mentally to anyone who he thought had upset him or gone against his wishes in any way, which on most days turned out to be his wife.

  When they first met, John was 27 and Joyce 21. He always treated her fairly well at first, but as her own father had also been a little abusive towards her mother she accepted this type of treatment as par for the course of being married. For the first few years of their relationship, Joyce had carried on working, she was a trainee accountant and also a bit of a rising star who enjoyed her work very much and gained a great deal of satisfaction from it. One Christmas during her annual office party which John had also attended, a male colleague had asked Joyce to dance and she gladly accepted. She enjoyed dancing and also had some very good friends at her place of work, but this particular evening was to turn out so very different for Joyce. After only a few minutes on the dance floor John got up, walked onto the floor and accused Joyce of having an affair with the man she was dancing with.

  He knocked her colleague to the floor before dragging Joyce away by her hair. The police were called but no charges were pressed against John, he apologised to Joyce and swore it would never happen again, saying he was drunk and he didn’t realise what he was doing. But when they returned home that evening and away from the police and the prying eyes of her colleagues, he hit her again and threw her to the floor calling her a slut.

  “Why can’t you be more like my sister? She is a wonderful woman, and when I was living at home she always looked after me properly, not like you, you are a waste of fucking space, and let me tell you that if you ever call the police to me, I promise that I will make you pay, and don’t think you are going back to work there, you can stay at home, and you will do as I say, do you understand? You useless stupid bitch”.

  That was six years ago, six years of mental and sometimes physical abuse. John had wanted children, but Joyce had hidden her contraceptive pills and as such John blamed her for being “A barren woman”. But there was no way on this earth that she was going to have this man’s child, no way that she would allow him to Father a child that he would also abuse and control.

  Her only friend was a girl by the name of Carol, who Joyce used to work with at the accountants and who also came to visit her when she was alone at home when her husband had gone to work. She was much different to Joyce, Carol was a very outgoing and confident young woman who Joyce had known since her school days.

  “Why don’t you stand up to him Joyce? He really is just a control freak and also a cowardly bastard, just tell him to fuck off, I would”.

  “It’s not as easy as that Carol, I think that given the right circumstances that he wouldn’t think twice about killing me”.

  “Look Joyce, you are such a very pretty girl and you have lots of brains and so much to give, remember when we were working at the office, you were far better than some of the qualified accountants. It seems such a shame that all that energy and talent has now been allowed to decay and go to waste due to that piece of shit you call a husband, he’s the one that should be dead”.

  And Joyce looked at Carol with so much sadness and regret in her eyes thinking of what she had given up for this man as she thought of another person who had also wanted to marry her, but instead she had chosen a bastard, and a small tear fell from her eye.

  “I know exactly what you are saying is right, but don’t forget I also have his sister to contend with as well as him, she gives me as much abuse as he does, they just belittle me in any way they can and I hate them for it”.

  “Oh Carol, you are so fortunate, you have fun, you have friends and you have a life”.

  As Joyce spoke to her friend in this dingy room of this miserable house, the tears now rolled down Joyce’s face. Carol put her arms around her friend and tried as best she could to offer some kind of sympathy, but she knew there was no real relief or respite to her suffering. These were just superficial words, and even though they were said with love and affection they were no real consolation to Joyce’s suffering. They quietly finished their drinks before Joyce said.

  “You had better go now Carol before he comes home and finds you here and I get a smack or something, but you will come and see me next week won’t you”?

  “Of course I will”. Replied Carol, who was by now very upset herself at being unable to offer any real assistance.

  Jo
yce saw Carol to the door and waved goodbye to her only friend as she drove away. John worked at the fruit and veg market in Leicester, and Joyce never had any idea when her husband was coming home, and so getting a meal ready on time was always very difficult for her especially in her very small kitchen of this two up two down terraced house, and on this particular evening he eventually arrived home at 8pm.

  “I thought you would have been home earlier, and so your dinner may be a little overcooked”. Said Joyce as she placed it on the table in front of him.

  “What the fucking hell is that”? He said, shouting at the top of his voice as he kicked away a tatty old chair from the side of the table.

  “What a fucking piece of shit you are”. He said as he grabbed the plate from the table and laughed as he tipped it over her head, Joyce was so afraid that she just cowered on the floor for some protection in the corner of the room and cried as she peed herself a little through fear.

  “Now clean it up”. He said as he kicked her in the stomach where she lay.

  She cried out in pain as he walked away, but there was nothing she could do. Joyce once more overcame the pain and humiliation of the abuse and got the dustpan and brush and started to clean up as John walked over to a cupboard and took out a bottle of whiskey and sat in a chair. Joyce’s heart now sank even further as she knew that could only mean one thing, sex. She had endured this routine for years and she was also well aware of exactly what was expected of her and what was coming next. It was about 20 minutes later that John stood up, unfastened his belt and dropped his trousers and Joyce had to kneel in front of him as he forced his penis into her mouth and mauled her back and forth until he finally ejaculated, and with this action now over he went to bed.

  She went into the kitchen and quickly washed out her mouth and looked around at her surroundings. The walls were exactly the same shitty colour and had the same shitty marks that were present on the day they moved in, the house was really just a dump and no amount of cleaning by Joyce could ever make it anything else other than a shithole.

  “What am I doing here in this shit hole? It’s only fear that’s prevents me from leaving, I know I am better than this, I fucking hate that man”. She said to herself.

  She looked in the mirror and she finally realised that Carol was right, in her reflection she saw that she was indeed that same pretty girl who had never used what she had been given in the way of looks and brains to be better than this and her life up until this point had been wasted. Joyce had finally had enough, and this supressed and abused young woman was finally about to turn.

  She didn’t go to bed that night, but instead she sat at the table in this house that should have been pulled down years ago, pondering how to change her life for the better, but also her very existence and staying alive also came very strongly into the equation as she fully realised that the bastard she was married to would never let her leave willingly. Joyce had no money of her own, John kept hold of everything he earned and gave her just enough for her to buy food. He paid the rent and everything else and so it became very obvious that her only exit would be with Carol’s assistance.

  The following day was Saturday, but John still worked, and as usual Joyce carried on exactly as any other day. But as John finally left the house he verbally abused her exactly as normal, but for Joyce today would not be like any other. Even though it was still very early morning she telephoned her one and only friend and told her of her plan to leave her husband.

  “About time, you can’t live with that heap of shit any longer, pack a bag and I will call and collect you in about 30 minutes and then you can stay with us. You can have the old barn that’s down the drive, it’s not much admittedly, but trust me it’s a million times better than living with him, plus he doesn’t know where I live, and so you will be perfectly safe for as long as you want”.

  Joyce did exactly as Carol had told her, but then packing a bag doesn’t take long when you have nothing. So now with all her possession’s firmly packed into a carrier bag she eagerly, but also very nervously awaited the arrival of her friend. Carol arrived dead on time and Joyce threw the bag into the back seat of the car and climbed in.

  “I never believed that you would have had the nerve to go through with leaving that fuck pig, and so today will declare it the start of your new life, it’s not going to be easy for you and you know he will come looking for you, so if we need the police then so be it, but that’s not for today”.

  Joyce sat there very quietly as they drove along. “I hope I have the balls to go through with this”. She said to Carol.

  “What do you mean? “Go through with it”. No matter what it takes you are definitely not going back there, I am determined to help you start a new life as a totally independent young woman. You have so much to give and you deserve to be yourself and not a fucking doormat for anyone, and certainly not him”.

  “If my husband Graham were to treat me the way you have been treated I would poison him first and then chop him up and they would never find the bits”.

  “Now that sounds like a really good idea”. Replied Joyce with a wry smile on her face that disguised the real fear she felt deep inside.

  As Carol eventually pulled onto her drive, her husband Graham came out to greet them. Graham was a tall man, well built and 15 years older than his wife Carol.

  “Thank goodness you are in one piece, but look at that bruise on your face”. He said.

  “I have several more in various places, but they will soon heal as usual”. She replied.

  “Come on let’s take you to the barn, don’t expect anything fancy, it’s still very much work in progress”. He told her.

  As they walked along the drive Joyce realised how large the grounds of the house were, and as they eventually entered the barn Graham put the lights on and Joyce wept tears of joy as she surveyed her new, even if only temporary home, Carol held her hand as she took Joyce on a guided tour. The barn was lovely and warm, and upstairs it had a beautiful bathroom with a large walk in shower, and downstairs a small but well fitted kitchen, the lounge was at the other end of the house that also contained the dining table and a large corner sofa by the window.

  “You can stay for as long as you like and most importantly you will be safe”. Said Carol as she embraced her friend.

  “I am so grateful to you both, but I have no money to pay you Graham”.

  “Away with you, it’s only sitting here empty anyway, so whatever you do, don’t worry about money. It’s about time you had a life, so just live it, take this as a real opportunity to rebuild your life and just be who you want to be without the pressure of wondering when you will next be beaten or abused”.

  Graham now left the girls to talk alone about Joyce’s next move and for her to unpack her Tesco carrier bag containing all her worldly belongings.

  “Is that all you have to show for living so many years with that bastard”?

  “Yes, that’s everything I own in this world”. She said looking at her rather old and worn clothes.

  “Well let’s do something about that shall we? What size are you, I think about a 10”.

  “Why do you ask”?

  “Look Joyce, you put the kettle on while I pop across the road, and I will be back in a few minutes”.

  Joyce was in a world of her own now as she explored her new kitchen before finding everything to make the tea, and about 10 minutes later Carol reappeared with skirts, dresses and blouses.

  “These are for you until you get your own clothes”. Said Carol, who was by now over the moon that her friend of many years had finally made the momentous decision and left her abusive husband

  “Oh Carol I can’t just take and give nothing in return”.

  “Don’t be silly, you are my friend and the fact that you have left that fuck pig is payment enough for me, anyway it gives me an excuse to buy something new for myself”.

  The girls carried Joyce’s new clothes upstairs to her bedroom and it took her breath away as
she looked around. No tatty wall paper or shitty curtains hanging at rotten windows, to Joyce this was pure luxury, and on top of that she even had her own king size bed that she didn’t have to share with a man that was always snoring and farting, and for this young lady life just couldn’t get much better.

  “Let’s run you a nice hot bath so you can soak away any connection to your former life, well go on get your kit off”. This statement took Joyce completely by surprise.

  “I have never undressed in front of anyone before, I am quite embarrassed”. She said.

  “Good grief, well if it makes you feel any better I will have a shower while you have a soak, but before I do that. Let me say that I have already put a bottle of wine in the fridge for us”.

  “But it’s still early morning and I was making some tea”. Said Joyce.

  “So what, any time is wine time and no matter how you look at it, this is a celebration”. Replied Carol.

  Carol went downstairs and returned with the wine and two glasses, but Joyce still hadn’t found the courage to undress, and so Carol did no more and she stripped off herself and turned on the shower.

  “I will give that a minute to warm first, but look your bath is ready”.

  Now out of options Joyce finally dug deep into her very low reserve of courage and finally plucked up the nerve and took off her clothes.

  “Look at those marks on your body”. Said Carol. As she examined for the first time at close quarters what John had done to her, and Joyce had by now finally lost her inhibitions and stood naked.

  “He was such a bastard to me, but suddenly being here with you seems to be giving me so much more confidence”. And they shared a very loving cuddle, which Joyce found very strange, after all they were both naked.

  Joyce finally climbed into the hot bath which was full of beautiful scented bubbles while Carol had her shower, and when Carol had finished she poured the wine and pulled up a chair before putting her feet up on the side of the bath.