Chapter 1
The August sun hung high in the mid-day Indiana sky, streaming through the window panes to splash opulent patches of light on Rita Henshaw's lithe, tanned legs as she sat pensively staring out the window onto her backyard. The rose garden was in full bloom, their delicate, pink heads lifted proudly to the blue sky, setting off the stucco house from the cul-de-sac behind. The vine-covered, two-bedroom cottage would appear, to the objective observer, to be the perfect setting for newlyweds.
But Rita was not objective, was incapable of such emotionally dry perceptions-at least until matters took a rosier turn.
Rita blinked back the moist hotness welling up in her limpid blue eyes as she gazed over the neighbors' pitched roofs to the awesome stone wall separating Jackson Rehabilitation Center from the outside world's innocence. The dreary looking building was housed by alcoholic abusers who had stumbled into trouble with the law. Not all trash-can winos these: A number of police officers who had got into the habit of accepting amber payola from after-hours nightclubs populated the institution. Wife beaters, convicted child abusers, too.
The young woman's eyes roved over the huge slabs of darkly sweating gray-brown stone, moss-covered and slimy as if the degeneracy of its inmates was seeping through the walls to stain the outside world. Her unblinking eyes lingered on the watch tower that sat like some judgmental God on a throne. From the distance, she could make out the form of a watchman smoking a cigarette in the tower's dim shadows.
The proximity of her husband's place of work and the overshadowing, omnipresent doom of the small Indiana town where pretty gossip of personal affairs was headline news had a dull, chilling effect on the young wife. Too great a reminder, was it, of her own walled-in prison, emotional though it was?
No. She couldn't go on feeding morbid self-pity forever. Rita rose from the chair to return to her task of unpacking the Mayflower mover's boxes stacked high in the hallway. Two weeks of marriage hardly provided ample justification for hating marriage as she did. Of course newlyweds had problems adjusting to each other's idiosyncrasies, tastes and dislikes, but these first few weeks were supposed to be filled with around the clock lovemaking and giggling in the night. None of that for the Henshaws, thought Rita heaving a sad sigh of resignation.
Were it not for the idiotic regulation that JRC employees could not live in the provided housing rent-free unless they were legally married, she and Max would have tested out their newfound affections for each other by living together. Too late for that now: Max was committed to his job of rehabilitation psychologist and Rita was committed to sharing his name.
She stood in the kitchen doorway contemplating the small mountain of cardboard cartons the movers had dumped there like the Great Wall of China. Unnerving, indeed, living in this disarray, she sighed again, feeling emotionally and physically exhausted from the strangely spent three day honeymoon. But work she must, or Max would be in a foul temper, being one of those individuals who can not tolerate disorder-especially in his own house. God knows he found fault with everything else she did; to have him attack her housekeeping talents would be the last straw. After all, she thought bitterly, housekeeper was her assigned role in this marriage-not lover, not friend even.
It was a strange and lonely feeling being in the house alone. Rita suddenly stared in shocked surprise as she saw a shadowy figure moving in the darkened back porch off the kitchen. Her wide blue eyes blinked and spontaneously her soft lips parted in a titter at her own nervousness. It was only her reflection in the glass-paned door. Long and hard, she stared at herself, running a soft hand over the swell of a high cheekbone.
This role of wife was new to her, an emotionally trying experience. Briefly, she stopped to study the effects of the past few weeks on her babyish, pixie features. Her expression was clear and untroubled, her face framed by blue eyes, round and innocent set in a small face, haloed by Medusa ringlets of corn silk hair. Her face had always imbued her with a child-like quality that was endearing and arcane at once. Her body was well proportioned and strong, though lithe and demure. In elementary school class pictures she had always been placed at the end of the front row.
Rita Henshaw was anything but a child now. Even in her working clothes, a snug T-shirt that had shrunken in the wash and a pair of faded Levi's, her figure was smooth in hour-glass form. Breasts, proud and full, jutted out bralessly from beneath her T-shirt, her nipples making nubs under the .softly clinging cotton. Rita was confident in her body's ability to give and receive joy and she had not abused its offerings.
To have saved herself for marriage was an old-fashioned notion, true, but Rita had done just that. Now she wondered why she had bothered. After the holocaust that was her wedding night, Rita was beginning to wonder what good was honor if it went unnoticed. Apparently Max placed no importance in his wife's virginity-had not cajoled her into lovemaking, had not been tender and gentle. Instead he had bullishly attacked her as if she were a slut off the street. In fact, he had called her that, his upper lip curdling in disdain as he threw her down on the bed: "Whore!" he'd bawled.
Why? Rita blinked back hot tears, her throat tight with agony.
Fatigue . . . could that have been the cause of his outburst? Of course, her mind assured. They were both tired after driving from the courthouse four hundred and some miles away to sleep the first night in their new home. He had appeared happy when they pulled into the drive and smiling and laughing, had played the husbandly role, carrying her across the threshold and all that traditional stuff.
She lay on the bed where he'd lain her, a frightened and nervous woman staring up into the dark eyes of her husband. So strong and domineering was he.. . .
Theirs had been a whirlwind romance of one month. Rita was secretary to several doctors in the Alcoholic Rehabilitation Center in Gary at the time when one of its young psychologists had instituted a new program whereby patients were allowed to leave on an honor system. The program was under attack by the board of directors because one of the patients, a convicted sex offender who had undergone extensive psychoanalysis had abused the privilege and molested a young girl. That psychologist was Max Henshaw. Disgruntled with the establishment and in need of camaraderie, Max had invited the new secretary out for an after work drink. Later when he was fired for being too lenient by the board of directors, he asked her to marry him, and in a snap-of-the-finger decision she agreed. His courage and manliness appealed to her feminine senses and that was reason enough for Rita. With a crusader like Max for a husband, what could go wrong?
Plenty . . . as she was to learn hours later, but in the interim their first night together was all roses.
With a tender, possessive smile, Max had taken her into his arms, kissing her long and passionately. The taste of his tongue sparring with hers was thrillingly beautiful and Rita had experienced a longing so monumental it threatened to explode within her demure frame. Years of fending off cheap passes from pimply faced boys and unhappily married men was about to reap its own reward. Joyfully, she had thrust her body warmly against him, responding to his possessive embrace with a hunger that both startled and thrilled her. Then it happened. . . .
She had slipped her delicate hand around to massage the nape of his neck when he pushed her away in a rough, brusque gesture; his hand shot down to tear at the belt of his trousers. That was part of the ritual, wasn't it?-undressing each other. Startled and confused, she had looked up into his face for some explanation as to this Dr. Jackyll and Mr. Hyde transformation happening before her eyes. The tender sparkle had hardened into a raw lust that blazed as his eyes savagely raked her trembling body. His response was abnormal and an unthinking terror had gripped Rita's mind. Abruptly she sprung from the bed, but Max's powerful hands descended on her shoulders, pulling her around to face him.
"Where do you think you're going?" he grumbled down at her, the lines of his face furrowing like a demented old man. "You wanted it bad enough a minute ago-humping and rubbing up against me, clawing at my pants!"
"But Max . . . " Her voice was small and scared. She had cringed away in stunned amazement at the unfairly cruel impact of his words. "H-how can you say that when-" She faltered, powerless to answer the anger that had smoldered in his voice. Afraid that she had unintentionally hurt his feelings, she went on in a loving whisper. "I'm sorry . . . I love you.. . . "
Max was all brute force. He grasped her arm and leaned over to stare accusatively into her awestruck eyes. "Yeah . . . I've heard that line before, baby," he spat.-"My mother gave my old man the same line . . . and God knows how many other men!"
His face had twisted into a hard, bitter smile as he continued his degrading insinuations. "You wanna fuck, baby . . . that's what we'll do!"
Where were these insane ideas coming from? Had the board of directors in Gary put him under such pressure that he was cracking mentally? She knew she shouldn't take his cruelty personally, but how could she help not? He leered sadistically down at her, as if trying to kill her with a menacing stare. As the golden flecks in his dark eyes swirled angrily, his had snatched at her blouse, ripping open the buttons in his fury.
His attack petrified Rita, but she forced her mind to remain rational. One of them had to maintain his senses. Her voice was trembling with terror, but she managed to speak, hoping she would be able to talk him out of this irrational rage leveled against her. "You don't have to rape me, darling. Let me help you. This is our wedding night, remember?"
The breath hissed from his heaving lungs, his cheeks flushing with blood that pounded in his ears and to Rita's relief, Max stepped back and stared at her with an unfathomable look in his cool dark eyes. Obviously he was not to be talked out of his foul humor; compliance was the only path open to her. Summoning up all her courage, she smiled up at him and began to undress methodically, her pink polished fingertips working at the few pearl buttons remaining on her polyester blouse. Never had she seen him in such a mental state; his stare froze her to the bone.
Moments later, her garments piled oh the chair beside the bed, Rita stood before him, naked and afraid in the strained silence broken now by his harsh, mirthless laughter.
"You really want a cock bad, don't you? I've never seen a chick shed her panties so quick!" His eyes flickered with a strange mixture of hatred and lust, his voice was cold and low. "Lay down on the bed and spread your legs . . . whore!"
Terrified by his anger but afraid to argue, Rita edged over to the bed and seated herself, her eyes never leaving her husband's hands that shed his clothes. As he removed his shirt, shoes and socks, she had enough time to talk herself into relaxing. . .that is until he dropped his trousers down over his buttocks to reveal his jutting penis poling from the forest of pubic curls. It startled her that he wore no underwear. Was that indicative of a sick mind? She wondered feebly, cringing into the mattress as his awesome girth wagged tauntingly before her eyes. Rita's breath caught in her throat: Earlier childish games of playing "Doctor" and the sight of the tiny flaccid member dangling between Joey Henderson's legs at age six had not prepared her for the shock of this moment. A moment later he kicked his pants away and turned to walk over to the bed, his face full of loathing and disgust.
Ceremonious preliminaries were not part of Max Henshaw's repertoire today. Ignoring his wife's low, moaning pleas, he pressed her shoulders back into the mattress, catching her body as her slim shapely legs flew out in a desperate attempt to escape. His loins had pressed down between her widespread thighs, pinioning her body to the bed.
His smooth, warm skin tickled against Rita's nudity in a titillating sort of way . . . until she felt the huge rock hard-shaft throbbing like a live animal against her soft inner thigh, straining and growing until the fat bulbous tip pushed against the silky golden bush of her own pubic hair. She clenched her eyes shut and steeled herself for the pain she knew would be her womanly fate when he forced his meaty cudgel into her small, untried womanhood. The tips of her pink fingernails clawed into the palm of her hand punishingly, preparing for the lightning bolt of pain when he forced himself inside of her.
She waited for it to happen. As the hot tears squeezed out of the corner of her saddened eyes, wetting the ringlets of golden hair framing her terror-struck face, Rita cursed her fate as a woman. Men didn't have to suffer the indignities of forced copulation and yet here she lay like a sacrificial lamb awaiting the knife about to plunge. When . . . ?
God, why didn't he just get it over with? Rita centered her mind on the sensations roiling about her pinned down body, nerve endings like prison searchlights seeking out the grim shadows of pain. None was to be felt. His first light touch had not hurt her at all, and as she focused on her womanly feelings, she was shocked to discover that something in her wanted this humiliation, wanted that massive stalk to plunge far up into her belly and rip her maidenhead to shreds. Almost violently, she wriggled her pelvis down toward it, fever chills running through her lithe body as she felt the soft rubbery head grazing the soft, velvety moist folds of her vagina.
Fears of the moment dissipated as a throbbing lurch of his penis sent waves of exquisite delight coursing out from the wildly sensitive nerve ends of her naked genitals. In an instinctive gesture of welcoming acceptance, she relaxed her slender inner thighs and thrust her buttocks upward to experience more of the intoxicatingly warm sensation of naked skin rubbing against naked skin.
Then, in savage response to her innocent, explorative movements, Max plunged into her womb with all the strength of the disgust and hatred he apparently felt for her femininity, tearing through the vainly resistant sheath of her hymen as if it were Christmas wrapping paper. Her eyes popped open wide and her lips parted in a silent scream with the shock of the excruciating pain. Her dilated pupils focused blurrily on the face contorted with rage as he battered down into her virginal womanhood with violent male disrespect. Her own brief sunshine of passion had clouded over and she screamed in agony as he pushed the huge blood-filled instrument into her, shoving the pulsing head in further inch by excruciating inch, further and further, until at last he filled her vagina to the hilt. Her tormented cries were nothing in his ears, deaf and blind he was to everything but his selfish, wild desire to humiliate and defile her.
like a savage best he had humped her, holding her thrashing hips firmly in his grasp as he pumped mercilessly into her pain-stretched body. Rita squirmed and wriggled, trying to escape his assault, but her pitiful attempts were interpreted as wanton joy, spurring her raping husband into greater frenzies of sadistic lust. Venting his angry passion in thundering strokes against her quivering, fear clenched buttocks, he had failed to recognize her lack of cooperation in bringing him to orgasm.
Without so much as an "I love you . . . " his hot, sticky sperm began to spurt into her tortured belly in quick, powerful gushes, hosing her wide-stretched young pussy to the bursting point with its hateful white rush.
And that was Rita Henshaw's wedding night, she thought gloomily. Hardly anything she could write about in her diary.
Since that gloomy beginning, they had spoken to each in monosyllables and only when necessary. Not a kiss, a gentle touch . . . nothing. Because of his hatred for her, he had annihilated the delights of falling in love. Now she wondered if they could bridge the chasm and learn to live with each other in harmony, as the ugly memory of that dark night hung like a lead curtain between them.
No, she thought as she ripped open the box marked "Kitchen." Not a lead curtain . . . a prison wall, like the gloomy one outside their home. Their marriage was a mirror of this cottage; potentially beautiful but darkened by the monstrous stone wall. At least that wall served a purpose, she thought as anger and hurt began to well up inside her. Why had Max raped her when she had offered herself willingly to him, would have done anything for him. It was cruel, unfair, selfish and ugly and a lot more adjectives she couldn't bring herself to repeat. Worse: he had refused her the joy of giving him pleasure.
Not far different from the decrepit alcoholics behind that wall, was she? Alone, set apart from the world, feeling begrudged and held captive, walled off by her own husband's mysterious silence.
If this was that marriage was all about, Rita Henshaw wanted no part of it, a sad realization for a wife of two weeks.