Barbara's Plea (4 page)

P
eggy had called
me at the office the next day. When she commented about the delivery being scheduled for the day of my departure, I knew she had received my fax. I told her how sorry I was that I wouldn’t be there to help.

If Todd was listening to my conversations, he would think nothing of it. He already knew I was going out of town to this conference. He himself would be out of town on business. It was perfect timing.

When he was out of town, he rarely contacted me. He would leave the day before I did, and he was scheduled to be gone for three days. I doubted it was all for business, but at this point, I didn’t care.

I was more than happy to have him go elsewhere for his carnal desires. My attraction to his devastatingly-handsome face had died the day he tried to kill my daughter.

I had heard rumors of his infidelity, had even seen pictures online, but instead of upsetting me, they had just added fuel to my fire.

Peggy and I had worked out most of the details the last time we had seen each other. The thought of finally carrying out my escape set my nerves on edge, and I tried to contain them as I set the table for dinner. Allie was upstairs with the nighttime nanny. Todd had made it very clear that dinner time was for him, and not a family affair. He wanted my attention and nothing to disturb that.

After dinner, I would sneak upstairs and kiss Allie goodnight before Todd claimed my attention for the evening. Some nights, he locked himself in his office and worked late. I loved those times because I could snuggle with Allie before I showered and got ready for bed. If I was really lucky, I would fall asleep before he came to bed, and he would leave me alone.

I heard the front door close as I pulled the meatloaf from the oven. I had to force myself to relax. Only a few more days, only a few more days, I chanted the phrase over and over in my mind.

“Hi, Todd, how was your day?” I played the good wife.

“Same ole, how was yours?” He untied his tie and pulled it off.

“Fine, thank you. We got that new account I was telling you about the other day.”

“That’s good,” he murmured as he paged through the mail on the counter. “What’s for dinner?”

I peered over my shoulder, to anyone else, he was a devilishly good-looking man; to me, he was the devil himself. “I made meatloaf, the kind with the cheese in it, your favorite.”

“Yum,” he said softly. His shoes clicked on the hard Spanish tile as he approached me. “And I know what I want for dessert tonight,” he said as he pulled my hair off my neck and leaned in to nibble on it.

In any other marriage, this would be a good thing-but not in mine.

The urge to push him away was strong as he cupped my breast and squeezed the nipple through my bra. It was still sensitive from when he had bitten me the other day, and I flinched.

“What? You don’t want my touch now?” he growled in my ear.

“Of course I want your touch, I’m still sore there from the other night.” When you tried to rip my nipple off with your teeth, I finished in my head.

“I’ll make you feel better later.” He ground his hips against my backside. The fact that he had an erection so early in the night did not bode well for my getting any time with Allie later.

“Okay,” I said softly. He bit my earlobe so hard that I winced.

“Dinner is ready,” I announced, hoping to get his attention off sex and onto food.

“I don’t want meatloaf, I want you.”

I nearly groaned in frustration at his words.

“I thought you loved meatloaf,” I tried to sidetrack him. In response, he licked up my neck like a cat cleaning its coat. I fought not to shiver in revulsion.

“I do, but I want you to eat first. I want you to eat me.” He pushed his hips hard against my butt, crushing my hips against the cabinet.

I gagged inwardly at just the thought. Only a few more days, only a few more days, I reminded myself.

“Sure, honey, if that’s what you want,” I replied and waited for him to give me space to turn around. When I did, he was already unzipping his pants. I helped him push them over his hips and down to pool around his ankles.

I knew what needed to be done. If I could satisfy him quickly, and happily, he might leave me alone later tonight. I pulled his tight boxers down to his thighs and dropped to my knees. It would have been more comfortable if I had been able to kneel on a rug, but I knew better than to ask him to move. When he wanted me, he wanted me then and right there.

I’d been on my knees in every room in the house, including the hard cement floor of the garage and on the prickly cement of the back patio near the pool. Once he had made me blow him off while he stared down at our sleeping daughter, probably excited by the fact that he had my attention and she didn’t.

I learned early on what to do to make him come quickly. I used my tongue and lips to excite him and grasped his balls tightly to push him over the edge. He must have been really excited because it only took five minutes for him to release.

I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand as I stood up. “Go wash your face and brush your teeth, I’m not done with you,” he smirked as he turned away and pulled his pants up.

As I left the room, I heard him cutting into the meatloaf to serve himself.

Shit! I said under my breath as I headed for the stairs. He wants more. It was rare that he did, but it seemed a good reminder of why I was leaving.

I washed my face, reapplied a small amount of makeup, and brushed my teeth. He never wanted to kiss me after I gave him a blow job. He said there was no way in hell he was going to taste himself; that was my job, not his.

When I returned downstairs to the kitchen, he was at the sink dropping his empty plate into it. “What took you so long? I had to eat alone.”

So long? I was gone five minutes. “Sorry,” I apologized as I began to serve myself some dinner.

“No, you had your time to eat, this is my time.” He grabbed me by the wrist and pulled me into the family room over to the leather sofa. He yanked me in front of him so my back was to his chest and branded my neck with harsh kisses while his hands roamed forcefully over my body.

His right hand slid down my leg and under the skirt of my dress. I stared at the ceiling as he tilted my head back to get to my neck. “Spread your legs and bend over the couch,” he said huskily into my ear. God, I hated his voice.

Those words might have been seductive, a way to heighten an erotic moment, but to me they were just instructions. I did as I was told and he tore my panties from my body. I felt the elastic catch on the inside of my leg and knew I would have a mark there later, just another one of many.

Only a few more days. The leather was cold under my hands as I leaned over the arm of the couch.

Only a few more days. His hands were slick with sweat as he clawed at my hips.

Only a few more days. I was thankful for the soft material under my hips as he punched into me.

Only a few more days. I chanted the words as he worked himself in and out of my body.

He finished in record time, and I was again thankful. No words of love were spoken, no soft caresses, no lingering kisses. I stood and let my dress fall down over my thighs.

I peeked at him and his self-satisfied smile on his lips.

Only a few more days.

I excused myself and went off to the bathroom to get cleaned up. In the small powder room, I placed my hands on the granite counter and hung my head. Hot tears burned my eyes, and I contained a sob deep in my chest. I was worth so much more than this.

I deserve to be loved and protected, not used and abused! I shouted the words inside my head.

I shook my hair back from my face and checked the skin on my neck. At least he didn’t leave any marks there, or anywhere else on my body.

I should be grateful for that, at least.

F
inally
, the night before he was to go away on his trip arrived. My nerves were cranked to their tightest setting, and I kept waiting for him to tell me that he knew about my plan.

Could I possibly pull this off without his knowledge? I dared to pray.

I heard the door open and close with a bang. A sliver of dread tore down my spine. I spooned the enchiladas I had made onto a plate for him and set it on the table.

Todd dropped his jacket over the back of his chair and pulled it out without a word. Oh, this was not good. He never looked at me as he cut a piece and put it into his mouth.

I took my time plating my dinner and came around to the table as quietly as I could, making sure not to scrape the legs of the chair on the tile.

As I put my fork in my mouth I nearly chocked on the explosive level of tension in the room. With each tick of the second hand my apprehension mounted. Surreptitiously, I glanced at the large wooden clock in the dining room as I attempted to swallow my food around the lump in my throat. The sound of his fork on the china flayed every nerve ending in my body.

When he spoke, I startled and had to cough once to remove the food from my throat.

“What? My sweet loving wife isn’t going to ask me how my day was?” He dropped his fork to the plate.

I wiped my lips, “How was your day, honey?”

I saw his hand slash out toward me and tried not to flinch when he grabbed a handful of my hair and yanked it toward him over the table. “I shouldn’t have to remind you to ask that question.”

My eyes were closed tightly to control the pain. “I’m sorry, Todd. You seemed to have had a rough day. I was only giving you some peace. You know I would have asked you.” And if I had asked, you would have flipped out on me anyway, so what’s the difference, I thought to myself.

He shoved my head away, releasing my hair. I sat up straight in my chair. “Look at the mess you just made!” he yelled at me, he was in an even worse mood than I had anticipated.

I glanced down at my blouse. Enchilada sauce from when he had pulled me over the table covered my shirt in a Rorschach blot. I tried to wipe it off with my napkin, but the sauce had already done the damage to the silk.

“Jesus, you can’t do anything right, can you?” he shouted as he stood up. “You have to ruin everything!”

I kept my eyes on my plate, afraid to lift them to his face in case he thought I was going to defend myself.

“All I wanted to do,” he lifted his plate off the table and threw it across the room, shattering it when it struck the wall, “was come home for a nice quiet evening with my loving wife, and you have to go and ruin that.”

“I’m sorry,” I apologized as was expected of me. I stood to go clean up the mess he had just made, knowing that he expected me to do that, too. Before I could step away from the table, he was on me, his large strong hand wrapped around my throat. I reached both of mine up to try to pry away his fingers from my trachea.

My alarmed gaze landed on his heated stare, and I panicked. Did he find out I was leaving him? Did he know something? Was that why he was so mad?

His fingers tightened around my throat, cutting off the oxygen and blood to my brain. “You’re not sorry, are you?”

“Yes,” I squeaked out.

He came closer, his eyes looking almost feral with the sneer on his lips. “You have no clue,” he seethed. “You ruin everything, you know that? Ever since I met you, you have ruined everything. You are lucky I put up with you.” He shoved me away, and I sucked a lungful of air into my chest as I grabbed the countertop behind me to steady myself. Before I could get a second breath in, he was on me again.

He grasped my throat again as if he had enjoyed seeing me gasping for breath. I saw his other hand arch in and felt the sting as it connected with my face. Tears slid down my cheeks as the burn registered in my mind.

I’m not going to get a chance to get my freedom, I thought sickly. He’s going to kill me before I even get a chance to leave.

He smacked me again, blood dripped off my lip. The sight of the blood would either wake him up or excite him more. He got closer to me and glared at me. “I can’t believe I married you,” he spat out harshly. “You are nothing but a cheap whore.”

Spots danced in front of my face as my lungs fought for much-needed air. He pulled his head back and slammed it forward into mine. Sheer agony exploded in my head as my nose broke. My knees buckled, and I began to fall to the floor as darkness clouded around me.

I woke up—not in a hospital or inside a body bag, but on the cold kitchen floor. My face and head throbbed while my throat burned. I lay there wondering what the hell had happened. The room was silent, and I tried to open my eyes. One of them was swollen shut, and my hand went up to gingerly touch it. The whole side of my face was puffed up.

I scanned around the room with my good eye; there was no sign of Todd. Remnants of his dinner plate were scattered over the other side of the room, and one of the chairs was knocked over, but he didn’t seem to be around.

I slowly pushed myself up and leaned back against the cabinet to catch my breath. My head felt like it was going to explode.

It took a few minutes for me to get my bearings and remember what had happened. I didn’t have the energy to stand, so I crawled over the hard tile floor to the bathroom on the first floor. With the help of my arms, I was able to find the strength to pull myself up and look in the mirror.

Who was that looking back at me? I didn’t recognize the swollen face or the blood-matted hair. He had definitely broken my nose. I remembered him smacking me and then head-butting me, but from the looks of my face, he must have punched me a few times after I had passed out.

I pushed my hair back and saw the clear marks of his fingers on my throat. The bruises would not be easy to cover.

As I took in my entire image, I realized that he had almost killed me. My knees quaked, and I tried to hold myself upright, but the pain and the emotion of knowing he had been so close to killing me took me down to the wood floor where I curled up in a ball and cried.

Please, God, let me live one more day, I prayed. Let me live to get my freedom. Give me strength for one more day.