By the time the last truth surfaced, she was back inside the strange stone fortress with Daniel’s proxy, looking into the man’s cold eyes.
“You mean to tell me that this incident never crossed your mind long enough to consider as the source of all your suffering?”
“Never.”
“Fuck.” He shook his head. “You’d better get cleaned up.”
She’d spent five hours in the hands of the man on the cliff and she never knew his name. In her mind she’d called him Brother Savage because it seemed to fit, although she’d never share her secret name with anyone, not even Daniel.
After returning to their hotel, she confessed the story to Daniel, who didn’t say much though he seemed to understand that she’d carried the guilt of that awful day in her childhood into her adult life. That night, she slept in his arms and in the morning she was ready to go home.
Chapter Eleven
Madeleine stood at the entrance to her closet searching through her clothes for something to wear.
“Maddy?” Hearing Robbie’s voice, she jerked around and stared at him with her eyes wide open in shock. Hadn’t he just taken the elevator to the main floor? Obviously not. She grabbed her robe from the nearby chair to cover her naked body but she was too late. “Put the robe back, Maddy, and come here.”
She hesitated, quivering in fright, then finally tossed the robe aside and did as her husband asked. For the next few minutes, she turned around on his orders while he inspected the wounds still present on her ass and breasts and shoulders. It had been three days since her return from San Francisco but there were still visible signs of the rough punishment she endured from the unnamed stranger. As Robbie touched the roughed up flesh, she shivered from the bristling shockwaves that moved through her body. Although she finally disconnected from the incident in her childhood that caused her so much shame, she was only now putting the pieces of her psyche back together and adjusting to the sudden feeling of liberation from the past. But now this, and so abruptly, her martial infidelity exposed? This was a very different matter altogether, sending her abruptly back into feelings of shame.
For Robbie this was the last piece of a puzzle dropping into place. For months, he’d wondered. He’d expected this, he’d almost pushed it into happening—a love affair. A chance for his wife to have her sexual needs fulfilled, something he could never do. But to find her body bruised and marked with the signs of punishment obvious? This was not what he expected to see.
“You’re having an affair,” he said, as his fingers lightly moved along her wounded ass.
“Yes.”
“This is how you spend your Wednesday afternoons?”
“Yes.”
“And he punishes you?”
“I’ve needed it.”
“Have you?”
She wanted to turn around and continue the confession but he seemed strangely absorbed in the act of inspecting the marks on her soft flesh. “I’ve been unfaithful to you,” she could not stop herself from saying it out loud. “Shouldn’t I be punished for that?”
“I believe you wanted to be punished long before my injury. We both sensed that.”
She finally moved away and turned around to see his thoughtful expression. No rage, she noted with some interest.
“The need runs deep, Robbie. I’m sorry. I never, ever wanted to hurt you and now I’ve been careless enough to do that. I am so sorry.”
“Maybe you wanted to be found out?” he wondered. “Maybe it was time for the truth?”
“Maybe,” she conceded, though she hardly agreed.
They faced each other for a long while, until Madeleine finally said: “So, what do we do now?”
“I really don’t know.”
“I’ve never stopped loving you, Robbie,” she finally rushed in. “I swear I love you with my whole heart.” She hoped that he could feel that, but perhaps what had happened in the last few minutes was all he could handle. He merely nodded, then he wheeled his chair around and left the room.
***
They ate dinner in an icy silence. Eight long hours had gone by and nothing more had been mentioned about the morning’s revelations.
Finally, when Robbie did speak, his words were chilling. She’d seen this version of her husband before, but only on rare occasions in short bursts. Before his injury, there’d been a few more occasions when his dark side flared up—the punishment scenes at the house parties being the most notable times. But this day was clearly the most sustained example of the brooding darkness in his character she’d seen since his return from the war. This was surprising considering the bitterness that could have ruled his life but didn’t.
Though Madeleine knew she deserved every moment of icy silence, she was glad when he finally broke that awful quiet, even if what he said was almost equally disturbing.
“I think if you need punishment so badly, I ought to have my own crack at you, Madeleine. I’ve been thinking about it all day, wondering exactly how I could express my emotion in a way that’s faithful to the profound feelings this news has brought out in me.” He let her dwell on that thought for a moment, then said: “I’ll have things ready in the library after dinner. Say, eight o’clock?”
She was already trembling and her imagination running wild thinking about what he might do. “Sure, fine,” she finally managed to say as she watched him leave the room. She had not seen Robbie in this sort of role in so long it was difficult now. How he would pull off his plan was difficult to imagine. There were ways of course. He may have had little maneuverability, but he still had plenty of strength. His upper body was as hard as a rock from regular exercise in the gym—almost as if he and his physical therapist had been training him for this day for many months.
When Madeleine knocked on the library door at a minute to eight, she heard her husband answer and, trembling fiercely, she moved inside the snug space. The old house was drafty, and so a fire had been lit in the grate to keep the room warm. Robbie didn’t tolerate the cold—although by the look of his firm expression he had plenty of fire in him now.
“It always was your ass that was so much trouble for me when I wanted to screw you there. Do you get it fucked now?” he asked.
“Sometimes.”
“Sometimes?”
“Yes, sometimes. I’ve gotten used to it.”
“I see. Your lover doesn’t like to be told no?”
The scorn written in his expression was difficult to watch.
“I never did either—like to be told no,” he said. “I never liked your whining about it, giving me stupid excuses about how it was just soooooo tough on you…” he mocked.
“Yes, I remember.” She had a hard time holding back her threatening tears. But to unleash them would only be manipulative. For all her fear, for all the coldness she felt from her once loving husband, she really wanted to be punished by him and punished hard. Maybe she’d been through enough of the rough stuff with Daniel for a while, but this was Robbie, the one man who had every right to be bruised by her adulterous behavior. If only this one incident could make it right.
One could say that the punishment was free form. Madeleine stood before her husband naked while he wielded a short whip that lashed out in erratic bursts while she danced a painful tango before him. If she danced too far away, he curtly ordered her back and struck even harder the next time. There would be nothing methodical in this chastisement, and no way to make the hurt turn erotic. There was too much anger in the room, in him, in her, coming from a deep source of passion in them both, rising up now in cruel waves. While she wanted the damn thing over with, she wouldn’t dare leave the room, which would have been so easy to do. So simple to run from a man in a wheelchair, but what would that accomplish?
Instead, she let the punishment come down on her like acid rain. It tore at her skin, shredded her heart, made every nerve in her burn, her emotions revolt. Her skin was burnished with whip marks, bruised over bruises that had not yet healed and finally ende
d when Robbie threw down the whip and wheeled away.
She thought he might have left for good when he moved out into the foyer, but then she heard rummaging in a closet and she stayed to find out what he wanted next. On his return it was not quite clear what he would do, although when he held up the fat Billy club the horror of it came crystal clear.
“I’m going to fuck your ass,” he confirmed. “I think the coffee table should do. You can kneel there.”
Powerful feelings raged up inside her; including a strong lust for her husband she hadn’t experienced in two years. She wished they could go back to the way it was before his injury, but since that was impossible, she wanted this now.
When Robbie thrust the Billy club toward her saying: “Grease it up, Madeleine, unless you want me to fuck you dry,” she accepted the awful thing, knowing that he planned to extend her painful punishment.
There was lube in his lap, which made her wonder how long he’d planned this scene. Everything had been so conveniently close by.
After liberally coating the rounded end of the club with a thick layer of lubricant, she handed it back then took her place kneeling on the coffee table, her ass poised and ready for his assault.
Robbie maneuvered his wheelchair so he was parallel with her body and perfectly positioned to execute his plan. He aimed it at her anus, with the greased head momentarily teasing the taut circle, then he shoved hard, sending the Billy club into her body with a single bold thrust.
Inside her eyelids there were stars, flashing like fireworks and she felt like one huge ball of fire. No subsiding, no backing off, no getting any better—but those things didn’t matter now.
Robbie’s revenge against her, and his life, and everything else did matter. It was a terrible scene, she thought she’d be ripped apart when he was done fucking her with the huge thing. But for all the pain that rifled through her body and the anguish in her heart, a strange small trickle of desire emerged and expanded with every second he rammed the fat fucker in her behind.
“Oh, fuck yes!” she finally shouted, bearing down hard when the enormous climax came on her with a swiftness that would leave her dazed.
Robbie could see it clearly, “Come slut!” he spit out, sounding as aroused as he was angry.
She came as ordered, riding the hard wood like she would a cock, and getting off in the deepest part of her body, shuddering for a long while until she finally collapsed forward unable to move.
He left her on the table with the Billy club still wedged inside her ass. For a long while, she didn’t move a muscle, not until she heard the library door close and from the hallway the sound of the elevator door sliding open.
That night, she slept in one of the guest rooms. The nurse had stopped her at the bedroom door and said that her husband asked if she could sleep elsewhere, he was troubled and didn’t want to disturb her sleep. The poor woman looked distraught as she broached what for her was a sensitive subject and was much relieved when Madeleine agreed without an argument.
***
When Madeleine next saw her husband it was a new day. He was in his office busy at work, sounding as cheerful as ever. Was it possible to go on as if nothing happened? Maybe for him, but not for her.
She rapped lightly on the door to let him know she was there. “May I speak with you, Robbie?”
He wheeled around, smiling, though his face then dimmed as he gazed at her.
She rushed in. “Oh, Robbie, I’m so sorry…I really am.”
He looked a little bemused by the sentiment. “What? Why be sorry? I mean, let’s be honest. You think I didn’t want this? You think I didn’t hope you’d find a lover? Why else Wednesday afternoons?”
She looked at him a little stunned.
“I’m going break it off right away. I won’t go there again.”
“And what point would that serve?” he said plainly.
Did he actually mean that? “But Robbie, I don’t…” she wanted to explain.
“Stop. Right now!” he jumped in, then he sighed big as he collected his thoughts. “I thought it about it for some time yesterday, and last night after I had my revenge with you. You were amazing, by the way. If I’d only known. I actually thought about extending the punishment for a while since we both seemed to enjoy it so much. I had all kinds of deplorable scenes for making you suffer, all neatly laid out inside my mind. It made me happy just thinking about it. You have no idea what I’m actually capable of doing. But then I thought again, why? Why punish a woman who has stood by me on the very worst days of my life, who saw me through my injury and has lovingly stood by my side since? I got sad thinking about what I’d done to you. Maybe I should have been the one to get punished,” he laughed.
It was an amusing thought.
“Yeah, I know that was a stupid idea,” he laughed. His mood had lightened and so had hers to some degree. “I think last night I said all I needed to say. We both needed it. But I got my revenge—although I’m not actually sure it was revenge. I think we were playing out the natural order of things. But, as appealing as the idea of going down those kinky roads again might be, it’s not what I want. Life’s too short—my life’s too short. I have no idea how much time I have left. What I do have, I want to spend thinking lovely thoughts of you and working my damnedest to make the Endowment a shining example in this rough world. I want us to keep on going as we have been, if that’s what you want.”
Madeleine had no idea how to respond.
“Of course, you could divorce me. I’d understand if that’s what you need to do…”
“Oh, no! Robbie. That’s not what I want. Though maybe that would be better for you?”
“What? And become bitter because the love of my life is gone? I like my life and I love you. You are still my inspiration. You’re half my soul. And if it takes an affair to make you happy—I mean truly happy, truly satisfied—then have the affair. That’s what I want for you, Madeleine, to see you happy.”
She could hardly believe what she was hearing. “Why are you being so good to me?”
He thought about this a moment, his face rather grim. “I’m not sure I’m being good to you at all. I willfully raped you of your life. I made a pompous, inane choice without consulting you and then demanded you marry me. I knew you had your reservations, but I had to have it all, pompous prick that I was. The question really ought to be is why you’d bother to stay with me?”
She shook her head. “Oh, dammit it, Robbie. I love you. That’s why.”
He sighed. “Well then, I suppose we make this imperfect thing work. That’s what we’ll do.” He looked up at her and smiled.
Seconds later, she slumped to the floor at his feet and buried her head in his lap. He ran his hand through her hair and stroked her back until the phone rang and disturbed their moment of peace.
It occurred to her again how Robbie and Breslin were very much alike. Same brash, audacious, optimism. Same cocky charm. She couldn’t save Breslin from his own stupid behavior, and she couldn’t save Robbie from his. But she could pick up the pieces of Robbie’s life as much as she was able. It might not be much, but it was the right thing for her. She didn’t need to do it out of guilt anymore, love alone would be enough. After all, if she hadn’t known Robbie, she would have never met Daniel.
Chapter Twelve
Two years later…
Madeleine had spent three days in New York and was dead tired when she arrived home. She was tired when she went and she was exhausted when she came home, but she was pleased to know that Daniel was feeling the same. They made love…oh, did they make love, and there were the raunchy things he made her do in semi-public venues. They almost got caught by a cop in an alley, but made a quick recovery and walked out of the trashy place laughing under their breath. She went to a porn store dressed like a hooker and came out to the waiting Daniel with three propositions from customers, which she turned down of course, and a sack full of nasty sex toys they’d use later in the weekend. On Saturday night, they w
ent to a porn movie and had sex right in the theatre before a dozen pairs of eyes, then they moved on to one of the city’s kink clubs where she had a good beating to work out any tension that remained. In general, these were small things compared with the nasty scenes in San Francisco two years before, or even the rough stuff in his apartment that from time to time still took them down into wicked moments of sadomasochistic lust. But the weekend in New York did as it was intended, taking Madeleine’s mind off things at home.
Everything had been strained the last few weeks due to a serious change in Robbie’s physical condition. She hadn’t wanted to leave him, but as usual, he insisted that she needed the break.
However, when Madeleine got home on Sunday night, she found her husband worse than he was when she left on her trip. His lungs were bad, other organs were failing. The prognosis wasn’t good.
“I’m sorry, I really am. I guess I’m getting what I deserve,” he kept repeating as she sat at his bedside.
“Stop it, Robbie, you’re pissing me off talking that way,” she said. She wasn’t angry, if anything she was trying to lighten their mood. When she smiled, he smiled back. “I love you,” she said for the thousandth time, and he repeated the same words back to her with a smile on his lips.
His big soul slipped away in the night as she was sleeping beside him in a chair. She almost felt him tapping on her shoulder as he passed by.
***
They’d watched each other in furtive glances all through the services. Although when Daniel Prothero slipped his arm around her, no one seemed to think it was odd. He was just a family friend, as solid as a rock in times like these.
A few days later, Daniel received Madeleine’s letter in the mail. She explained to him that it would be best of they were apart for a while. She needed space and time to grieve. After the stress of the last two years, she needed some time alone to repair. She’d written the letter in a crisp bold longhand, sure at the time that this was the right thing to do.
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