This one is not pretty.

Protagonist says right at the start that she's "a dead woman." She will be thoroughly used, and finally discarded as less than trash.

The end is genuinely unpleasant – one reader commented: "That was intensely horrible! … I'm still shuddering" and "It's over the top. But, I felt like I was there. I don't care to go back. … It will take awhile before I get some of those images out of my head."

If you read further than this page I don't want to hear any complaints about the content.

You are warned.

It's absolutely pitch black. I don't know where I am. I think I'm in a metal cage, shackled to it spread eagle by both wrists and ankles, flat on my back. I'm certain I'm naked. I don't know how long I've been here. I sense movement, so I think someone's taking me somewhere. I don't know who they are or where they're taking me.

The only thing I know for sure is that I'm a dead woman.

I remember meeting Roddy five years ago. Roderick MacDougal. From a Scottish family, transplanted to the States a century ago. Red hair and everything. I was alone in the restaurant and he was a few tables over, alone too. He looked so sad. I picked up my plate and walked over to him.

“Do you mind if I join you?” I asked.

“I don't think I'd make good company, Miss….”

“Jennifer Bateman. Pleased to meet you.” He was wearing black. Very formal. It was the middle of the day. “You're wearing black – did someone die?”

“My wife. Funeral was today. I'd rather not talk about that right now.”

“I am so sorry.” I looked at him. He was so sad. “Would you like a hug?” He looked like he needed one.

He shook his head no, then fidgeted, and then looked at me. “Do you think she would mind … me being in the arms of another woman? So soon?”

The poor man. I set my plate down and beckoned him up, standing over him. “Come up here.” He rose unsteadily. I felt him sobbing in my bosom.

***

We were engaged six months later and married six months after that.

He carried me into his, I mean, our home, into our bedroom, and we made love in our bed nonstop for a week, it seemed.

He had servants to take care of the details of life. I never made a bed or swept a floor, or cooked a dinner.

I was bored, except when we traveled. We saw the Great Wall, Machu Picchu, the Eiffel Tower, the Pyramids. We surfed in Australia and skied in the Alps. But we always came home to nothing for me to do. Roddy had his work and his clubs to keep him occupied, but I only had the pool guy. I love my husband and I'm not proud of what I did, but Lorenzo was deliciously distracting and anything but boring, if you know what I mean.