Slave Wife (10 page)

Delia gratefully looked around the empty space. The dojo was open on Saturday afternoons for anyone who cared to give up prime free time to practice. Surprisingly, a handful or two of students did so regularly, probably because they’d only just awakened after a very late Friday night and it gave them the opportunity to sweat out excess alcohol before Saturday night’s resumed consumption. This afternoon, though, a very small handful had come and gone and now it was only her. No one to watch, thank heavens!

She bowed to Sensei, who sat cross legged on a mat, and began the kata. She tried not to think, simply to let one movement flow into another as she’d done a thousand times. Punch, block, turn, kick. Methodical combinations, one after the other. Let training dictate which movement. Only concentrate on making each motion perfect.

After a few interminable minutes, with one final turn, her right foot stomped the floor and it was over. She brought her feet into alignment and stood still, head slightly bowed, fists clenched at her sides in the formal attention position, waiting for his verdict.

“Do it again.” Dismay, anxiety and also a streak of anger rushed through her. Was the bastard going to fail her? Silently she bowed and began again.

This time he deigned to nod endorsement. He stood, effortless as a cobra uncoiling. “Now kumite. I will attack.” He assumed the ready position before her and – she knew he moved at quarter speed – attacked, hands first then feet. She concentrated on blocking punches and kicks, simple but from all directions. After fifteen minutes his breathing remained slow and calm while she panted and sweated. But she knew he’d truly tested her, not abused her. She’d not been on her ass even once.

He paused and she thought it was over. But he smiled broadly into her eyes. She’d learned to distrust that smile. It portended something mean and a little too dangerously sexual for comfort – though she’d periodically contemplated seeing how far he’d go if she indicated willingness. He was hot as hell! The massive black dick lying, she was pretty certain, ever-ready underneath his gi was an image that leapt far too readily into her mind.

Again he began his attack. Now the punches and kicks were a little faster than she could handle. With harrowing concentration she strained to block him.

Was it her imagination? Were his attacks becoming faster, more purposeful? Though he was certainly pulling them (if he hadn’t, she’d be unconscious), more punches and kicks were connecting. She was losing the ability to keep up. Now any attempt to remember countermoves vanished and good form was routed by the need for speed.

Finally she took action she knew was a mistake. But there was no choice. Caustic breaths exploded inside her. She felt bruises rising on every body part. In a callow act of helplessness she covered her face with upraised arms and screamed “Stop! I surrender!”

Just below consciousness, she’d known how he’d respond. He strove relentlessly to teach them the “real” skills required to survive danger. He paused. The evaluation was infinitesimal but painfully acute. “There’s no surrender if you’re being raped.”

She’d expected the vicious smile. What she got was far more frightening. His expression flattened to total neutrality and his warm – hot – brown eyes became fixed and dead as, she imagined, a killer’s would. She had no idea what was going to happen and she was terrified.

She only felt his fingertips touch her wrists. Then she was on her back, his crushing weight forcing her against the mat. He expected his students to fight to unconsciousness … or death, and she marshalled her energy and tried to do so. In his grasp her arms were useless. Her mind and body worked frantically to think of options for her feet, knees, legs and to implement them. In a vivid instant, she remembered hearing – from him? – that because of a man’s greater size only speed or guile could protect a female black belt from a comparable male. She was not even close to a black belt and he had her pinned tight.

Brightness sparked in the flat eyes. Unwittingly she gulped hard and began to choke, desperately fighting her own body’s lack of control. She felt his hard pole against her pelvis and knew she’d been right. He was huge! And now she knew something else. He was going to rape her!

Though she struggled in earnest he somehow managed to hold her immobile with only one arm while he stripped off her loose pants and lowered his own. The next sensation was her vagina burning, bruising and tearing.

Thankfully his penetration was slow at first. He seemed to enjoy watching the panoply of expressions racing across her face as his dick forced its way into her, all the way to her cervix – no, far beyond – then withdrew, only to inexorably return. It hurt – not only the stretching. He pressed into her to unbearable depths, farther than he could possibly go. The giant ramrod hit nerves in her hip joints that sent pain shooting down her legs.

She fought silently, all her energy focused on defence, until those electric jolts. One tortured scream poured out of her into his face. Again he paused, for one second before his arm slid threateningly against her throat, restricting but not quite cutting off all oxygen. And his speed – not a rapist’s frenzy but dead, calculated calm – increased. Her vision swirled with multicoloured shapes and in their centre hung those flat brown eyes.

Her strength and will had slid away leaving dull lassitude when with a soft grunt – graceful, she was incongruously aware, like everything else he did – he pulled out of her and forced the massive mushroom cap between her lips. Suddenly she was choking on something that felt and tasted like library paste.

Following events happened so fast she wasn’t certain of them. Her next awareness was of him standing above her, fully clothed once again. “Congratulations. You passed.” With silent grace he moved to his desk, sat and began going through papers, ignoring her.

The beating and rape had not only stunned but confused her. She had no idea what to do so simply relied on habit. It took her several minutes to sit up. She crawled half naked to the small dressing room and toilet and used the single flat bench to pull herself standing. The toilet. She stared befuddledly at the half open door for an indeterminate time period. Hadn’t she heard something about peeing after sex?

The toilet seat was cold but comforting, kind of like sitting on an icepack. Better, she could relax her sore muscles onto it. She was a little surprised when pee flowed effortlessly. That felt good too. She reached between her legs to wipe herself and discovered the stretch was much more difficult. She didn’t do a great job but didn’t care. Without thinking, she glanced at the toilet paper. Traces of red spotted it.

Her black jeans and sweater were on their customary wall hook. Gingerly she sat on the bench and pulled her pants on, blearily wondering about her underpants but again not really caring. Her sweater was harder. Certain arm positions seemed impossible. At last, she stretched the garment low enough to accommodate the entrance of lowered arms.

Cautiously she rose to her feet and tottered into and across the dojo. Sensei still sat occupied at his desk. Her coat had fallen behind the bench by the entrance. She winced when she bent to pick it up. Slowly and methodically she wrapped a long scarf around her neck and slid her aching arms into the coat sleeves, her feet into her short, soft boots. No socks. Too much trouble. Before she left, as was the custom, she bowed to the altar and to Sensei.

Mid-winter’s early dark, overcast and starless, made the city depressingly gloomy and cold. She shivered and pulled her coat closer. Out on the street, passers-by looked oddly at her – or seemed to. Maybe they thought she was drunk or drugged or even mentally ill as she stumbled under the highway and back onto campus.

She was so tired, that was paramount. She had to make it down to her dorm, Middlebrook Hall, at the south end of the
West Bank
– a dozen blocks. Not that far, really. Doable, probably. Right foot, left foot, right foot, left foot, were her only focuses.

Underneath each footfall questions … and guilt murmured insistently. She’d wanted him. Had she teased him? Why hadn’t she told him to stop? Was this her fault? And what was she going to do about it?

She’d only just crossed
2
^nd
Street
to the big parking ramp across from the
Law
School
– barely started her long walk – when she had to sit, immediately. The door to a stairwell was to her left and she lurched toward it. She was bent almost double against the stair rail, trying to lower herself onto a stair, when the door opened and a girl with pale, shoulder length brown hair came into the stairwell. Delia stared, trying to make sense of the muddled vision. “Karen?” Hope and also love surged inside her. “Is it really you?”

She heard the girl’s urgency, “What’s wrong? Are you okay?” A slim arm circled her shoulder and everything went black.

Sensei was attacking, pushing her, jarring her aching body. Delia couldn’t stop him, couldn’t even cry, just had to take it. A sweet concerned voice penetrated her hopelessness. “You need to open your eyes.”

She realized she was being gently shaken. Her eyelids were leaden but she managed to lift them. Very close – so close – was the beautiful face that motivated every one of her activities – her life – Karen.

Her vision cleared and hope died. It wasn’t Karen. “You’re not Karen,” the syllables were awkward in her mouth. “Who are you?”

The girl was shorter and slimmer than Delia’s memory of her beloved friend. She leaned toward, almost over Delia, clearly worried. “My name is Anna. I think you fainted – well, almost, you kept drifting in and out. In the stairwell. I didn’t know where else to take you.” Delia slowly turned her pounding head to survey her surroundings. They were sitting in an unfamiliar car, the girl in the driver’s seat and Delia in the front passenger’s. “What happened to you?”

Delia thought about the question. How could she answer? Her silence was only from inner turmoil but Anna didn’t press. So Delia let the subject drift into her mind’s grey wasteland. “Where do you live?”

“In a dorm – Middlebrook Hall.”

Anna was thoughtful. “You can’t rest in a dorm. What if I take you to my house?” When Delia didn’t answer, Anna put the car in gear and drove out of the ramp. Delia laid her head back and drifted off.

Her eyes flew open at the touch on her arm. Then she remembered.

Anna helped her out of the car then up a few red brick stairs onto a porch and into a living room. Delia was not thinking or, for that matter, seeing too clearly so she didn’t really discern the house’s features – only had an idea it was warm and cosy. Anna held her up with one hand and pulled off her coat with the other.

To the left, in the wall’s midpoint, was the arched entrance to a hallway. Anna guided her through. The door to a bathroom, tiled in the small white and black hexagonal tile popular sixty years ago, stood ajar.

“Do you need to pee?”

Delia turned her attention to those damaged parts. Was that impulse there amid the other throbbing sensations? “Yes. I think so.”

Anna guided her into the small bath. “Can you stand?” When Delia nodded assent, Anna slowly released her to unzip and lower the jeans. Delia heard Anna’s rapid intake of breath and expected a comment. None came. Instead Anna helped Delia sit and then gently wiped her when she finished – a considerate gesture that Delia was too exhausted to reject. Delia was struck by the sweetness in Anna’s tone. “Since your jeans are down already I’ll take them off here.” So gently, her warm hands like caresses on Delia’s aching legs, Anna slipped off each boot and pulled the stiff fabric over one foot then the other.

In a small bedroom, Anna tried to help Delia out of her sweater. When Delia cried out and tears streaked her cheeks, Anna said, “Don’t worry. We’ll leave the sweater for now,” and eased her under a down comforter. She quickly stripped naked and slid in beside. Her warmth comforted Delia for her few remaining moments of consciousness.

Delia stared in desperation into those dark eyes. She was furious both at him and at her own helplessness. In blind rage she lashed out, not caring about the outcome … and the punch connected. She felt the give of soft flesh and heard his cry.

No. It wasn’t his cry. Suddenly she was awake. The girl – Karen? No, not Karen, she remembered – was clutching her abdomen, curled into a loose ball under the covers. Delia’s mind cleared for the first time in … how long? “I’m so sorry! Did I hurt you?”

What did she see in the girl’s, Anna’s, eyes? She endeavoured to define the strange emotions. A sort of yielding satisfaction or – Delia couldn’t make sense of it – pleasure?

The girl looked up at her out of wide, pale brown fawn’s eyes. “It’s all right.” Her rounded lips curved into a timid smile. “I like it.” She fell silent, her gaze searching Delia’s face. For approval? Or, Delia was dumbstruck, was she flirting?

Anna seemed to shift gears. “You were raped, weren’t you?” She reached out a soft hand and touched Delia’s pubic mound.

Delia restrained a flinch. This was all too strange and yet – her vagina tightened with simultaneous pain and pleasure – somehow compelling.

“Would it help if you raped me?”

The idea shocked and also bewildered Delia. “I can’t!” Lamely she added. “I’m a girl.”