Chapter 1
Bill Taylor stood naked in the spacious bedroom of the attractive high-rise luxury apartment he shared with his wife, Lori, in an exclusive section of Los Angeles. He had come home late that Friday night because his boss at Carey Associates, one of the biggest law firms in the city, had called him in on an emergency meeting. BUI was given an unexpected assignment: spending the weekend with Edy Randall, the movie star, to draw up contracts for her new television production company. He had protested.
"I promised my wife we'd spend the weekend together," he told his boss. "She's going to be awfully disappointed."
"Can't help it, Bill," Ed Carey had said sternly. "Edy Randall is one of our biggest clients and it's up to us to keep her happy. Now she wants these contracts drawn up by Sunday night and won't take no for an answer. You're the best man for the job and I want you at her Malibu hideout first thing Saturday morning. All right? I'm sure Lori will understand."
But gazing down now at his wife, sleeping like a child on the wide queen-size bed, Bill wasn't so sure. She had been growing more and more angry of late because of his unexpected conferences and long weekends away from her. She had even accused him of cheating on occasion, which was certainly untrue.
Christ! Bill thought as he looked at the sensually reclining form of his wife, Why the hell would I want to cheat?
Indeed, the bright moonlight that poured into the darkened room fell across the bed and richly illumined every ravishing curve of his wife's voluptuous body. Her long mahogany-colored hair framed her perfect face in thick, silky strands that fanned out on the white pillow; her almond-shaped eyes, closed in rapturous sleep, her slender aquiline nose and alabaster skin, her sensual, wetly parted lips, half-open now in her dream state, all were a warm invitation to pleasure and excitement. She lay across the bed clad only in her sheerest short nightie, and Bill guessed she must have fallen asleep waiting for him to come home.
God, she's gorgeous!
His long cock, which until now had hung limp and heavy between his powerfully muscled legs, stirred to life as his eyes roved down to watch Lori's ripely pointed breasts rise and fall like the waves of the ocean beneath the sheer pink material. He could see the tantalizing outline of her nipples surrounded by brownish haloes. Further down he looked with growing lust at her smooth stomach, her slim waist that gave way to the sensuous bloom of her hips. The material of the short nightie had been pulled up as she slept and revealed the sparse softly curling pubic hair that concealed the warm, sleepy vee of her pussy: her long legs were splayed apart lewdly.
She almost looks like something from an obscene movie, he thought happily to himself, the way her nightie is pulled up. Man, if she only knew how incredible she looks!
His cock now lurched achingly erect. His tall, well-muscled body became excited with tingles of erotic longing as he reached down and very carefully undid the tie of his wife's nightgown and let it fall open, revealing her entire body naked to the warm caress of the moonlight.
Oh Baby, Bill thought excitedly, don't you know there's no reason in the world I'd want to cheat on you! You're all I'll ever need!
He gazed openly and unashamedly at his radiant wife, who looked so peaceful in her slumber. His hand absently roved down to his pulsing, rock-hard penis that quivered with anticipation. The palm of his hand felt cool as he fondled his warmly muscled shaft of male flesh. His randy excitement increased as he slowly began to massage his hotly throbbing cock while he gazed over every inch of Lori's body. Her tawny, pinkish skin was almost translucent in the evening light, and the full orbs of her firm young breasts seemed to radiate little sparkles of light. Hypnotized by her half-opened mouth, he leaned down across the bed and kissed her.
The touch of his lips against hers was sweet and thrilling. His hand still worked lustily over his blood-gorged prick as he pressed his mouth harder against his wife's moistly open lips. Slowly his tongue moved inside the dark cavern, like a curious little snake, exploring every inch of the interior, running over her teeth and then further into the warm softness. Sensing his kiss, while she continued to sleep blissfully, Lori began to writhe erotically as if in a lewd dream. Feeling her response. Bill's mind exploded with happiness.
Christ, she's not resisting! Maybe she's broken through all that damn uptightness she's had these past few months!
As if in a movie montage. Bill's mind raced back over the past few months. They had been married nearly a year. At first, their marriage was a completely happy one, but after awhile Lori had begun to develop strange sexual fears which began to badly affect their love making. Raised since childhood by a spinster aunt who had taken her in when her parents died in a plane crash, the girl had been taught to fear men and reject physical love as gross animal carnality; thus she was withdrawn to the point of extreme introversion when she met Bill.
Now the young lawyer climbed onto the bed and let his body hover over the sleeping woman's, savoring the exciting warmth that vibrated from her sleeping form. His heatedly pulsating cock rested on her soft stomach, and he moved his hips back and forth slowly, as if fucking, teasing his long hard penis with easy, sensual movements across the nakedly smooth skin of his wife's voluptuous body. He remembered the first time he had seen her in a Los Angeles coffee shop near his office. She was a secretary then, on her lunch break. Seated at the counter in a tight sweater and hip-hugging short skirt and high heels, he had thought she must be a young movie hopeful. Indeed, her lustrous hair that fell like a silky mane halfway down her back and her beautiful face with piercing brown-gold eyes, were at least as desirable as any made-up, eager starlet he had seen in his travels through Hollywood. But there was something about her that was real and honest, something that set her apart from the other girls. His cock had sprung to life the instant he had set eyes on her that day, just as it was now, rubbing tantalizingly over the velvety planes of her stomach and grazing against the "vee" shaped triangle of her pubic mound.
Oh, honey, I love you so much, he thought, as he pressed his lips eagerly against her warm mouth once more.
He remembered how he had followed her that first day from the luncheonette and caught up with her on the street. She had been aloof and cold at first, but after awhile she had succumbed to Bill's easy, pleasant manner and had given him her phone number. He had even managed to charm the spinster aunt with whom she lived, and after a whirlwind courtship, they had been married. At first everything had been fine. Lori was the perfect wife and Bill had been complimented by his peers and superiors alike for having had the foresight to choose such a loving, companionable mate. Whenever they were at parties the other men fairly drooled with envy when they caught sight of his ravishing, yet demure bride. She had the body of a goddess, but the manner of a shy doe. Although she had been quite passive in her sexuality, it didn't seem to matter as Bill had only to look at her to find himself growing hot and excited. Often, he remembered, he would be in the middle of a long boring business meeting, and the thought of his wife would make his cock lurch instantly to life to the point that he thought he would cum right there in the office at the merest memory.
Then, after a few months, trouble developed. Lori's sexual disinterest grew to the point of cold frigidity; fear replaced the passivity, and Bill grew more and more frustrated as he felt his wife lying there night after night in cold, unresponsive inactivity.
"I just need time, Bill," she had said repeatedly. "It's because of Aunt Dorothy. She hates men. And she taught me to be afraid of sex. I'll get over it. I will! Just give me time."
But her coldness only grew worse, and finally began to manifest itself in an abnormal resentment of Bill's late hours at the office and a growing jealousy of his clients, who were often female. Indeed, when his boss had told him he would have to see Edy Randall that weekend he feared another angry scene with Lori. He had dreaded coming home, as she was already bitchy to him over the phone when he called to say he'd be late. But now, as she lay so peacefully on the bed and responded so lovingly to his kisses, he began to think perhaps he had been wrong. Perhaps there was new hope for their relationship for right now she was anything but cold and aloof. . . especially as he kissed her even more deeply and let his body lower slowly until he could feel her firmly pointed breasts graze against his chest. It was then that she began to squirm erotically against him.
"Mm mm mm...." she murmured in her sleep.
Bill was madly excited now, and began to cover her face with kisses. She was sweet as cream and absolutely desirable. He blew lightly into her ear and felt her stirring like some wonderfully awakening animal. Her legs began to slither against the silky coverlet of the wide bed. Bill's massively thick cock was rubbing now against her sleek inner thighs as his body twisted and writhed against hers.
Man, he thought. This is fantastic'
"Lori," he whispered softly in her ear, "Lori, I love you."
Smiling happily, Lori's eyes fluttered open. She gazed up lovingly at the face of her husband. Still half-groggy with sleep, she could see the Nordic blond hair that set off his bronzed, handsome face. She could almost see his clear, deep blue eyes in the hazy darkness, the eyes that seemed to her as blue as the Mediterranean. Her hands reached up lazily and began to caress the slim, muscular body of her husband.
"Oh Bill...Bill...." she murmured softly.
Carefully, he eased down next to her on the bed and, still kissing her hotly, he let his hand rove through the furry tangle between her legs until it found the warmly moist slit of her cunt. His fingers played with the softly petaled edges of her tight young pussy and finally found the erect little bud of her clitoris. Artfully he massaged the tender area until he felt the nerve-filled nub begin to stir to life like a miniature phallus. Then he began to suck lightly on her right nipple as he massaged her vaginal cleft, delighted that she was in no way resisting. It seemed as if she was no longer even angry about his lateness. He would break the news about the weekend after a long, sensuous fuck, he thought. Perhaps she might be more receptive after an ecstatic lovemaking session.
Lori lay back, her eyes still closed, allowing her husband free rein over her rapidly awakening body. She felt tingles of erotic delight wash over her as he teasingly massaged her clitoris and sucked artfully on her breasts, first one and then the other.
"Oh, Baby, let me fuck you..." Bill whispered. "Let me slip my cock into that hot little pussy of yours...."
Suddenly Lori felt a shock pass through her, as if someone had jolted her with electricity. Like a hallucination, the face of her spinster aunt flashed before her like a witch from a hideous childhood fairy tale.
"Animals! Animals!" her aunt's voice hissed at her from the dim recesses of memory. "All they want is to degrade a woman and make her filthy! Dirty! Like a gutter whore! It's a horrible sickness, Lori! Never forget that!"
Involuntarily Lori felt herself withdraw from Bill's loving seduction. Her body seemed to freeze up and her lips drew back in a straight line of bitter resentment. She tried to resist the power of her aunt's words that had been repeated over and over to her since childhood...but she was helpless against the old maid's warning.
"Bill. . no . . " she moaned in fear and terror, "please ... I can't..."
Hearing his wife's words and already sensing her withdrawal as her body lost all of the sensuous softness it had only moments ago, Bill felt himself growing angry.
Goddamn, he thought. Here we go again! Christ, we haven't had a good fuck in three months! Is this going to go on forever?
But he didn't want to be harsh with his wife, and so he kissed her tenderly, fighting back the growing sense of bitter resentment; perhaps, if he was very cautious and easy with her, she would relax. He tried caressing her skin with his hand, gently stroking her to ease her tension and massaging the warmly fleshed mounds of her breasts.
"It's all right baby," he whispered softly. "Don't be afraid. It's going to be all right. Just relax. Relax. I love you."
He let his hand slide down Lori's body and poised for a moment at the entrance to her pussy; then slowly he began to slide his outstretched middle finger into the wet channel, taking pains to be infinitely tender. His carefulness was to no avail and he felt the muscles of her tight little cunt tighten in refusal; he could almost feel her body withdraw in horror at his touch.
"Honey," he said, reminding himself to be gentle, "it's all right. Relax. Relax."
He inserted his finger further, but it was no use.
"Bill...please, you're hurting me...please...."
There were tears in her eyes, and her words had a tinge of hysteria in them. Bill suddenly withdrew his finger from her pussy and lay back on the bed, frustrated, trying to fight the growing anger that mushroomed in him with alarming intensity. It was the same thing night after night! Refusal! Withdrawal!
How fucking much am I supposed to take, he thought bitterly. I'm breaking my ass Irving to build a career so we can get a house outside of this goddamn crazy city, and she treats me like a teenager who's hot under the collar and wants to fuck her in the back seat of a car! I'm her husband, for chrissakes!
But he said nothing. He lay next to his wife and stared at the ceiling, trying to mask the deep unhappiness he felt.
Lori knew Bill was disturbed, but she was powerless to do anything. Her fears had been growing over the last few months and she was unable to deal with them. She sat up in bed and slipped the sheer nightie on again, to cover her body and ease the shame and loathing she felt. She didn't knew what to say to her husband. A cold silence fell over the room, a silence they both had come to know well. There seemed no way to break through it.
"Bill," she said finally, in timid, halting words, "I know it's been hard. I...I've been trying, please believe me. I've tried the best I know how. But...but you've...you've been away so much...."
"Honey," Bill said, a little sharply, "you know I have to be away because of the job. That house we both want in the San Fernando Valley costs money and the only way we're going to get it is if..."
"I know ... I know...." she said, trying to placate his growing anger, "but...well, I need you so much. I get so frightened ... . and when you're not around I don't know what to do...Maybe...." her eyes brightened. "Maybe we can make this weekend like a second honeymoon. If we're together the whole two days we can be like we were when we were courting...." She began to grow enthusiastic as the idea of a romantic weekend took hold. "Yes... oh Bill, we could even drive up the coast to Carmel...and maybe rent a room at one of those places by the sea. I know it would help!"
Bill closed his eyes and remained silent. How could he tell her now that he had to be away on business all weekend?
"Bill?"
Lori's voice sounded so small and vulnerable. He turned away from her on the bed.
"Bill, what's wrong?"
"Lori.. . it's about the weekend."
Lori froze, anticipating what he was going to say.
"Carey called me into the office tonight...that's what the conference was all about...and he...."
"He has an assignment for you ... for the weekend. Is that it?"
"Yes ... I tried to get out of it. Honey, you know I wanted this weekend as much as you do, but..."
Before she knew what was happening, Lori felt the tears cascading down her cheeks. She tried to hold them back but there was no stopping them. Her body shook with sobs, and she Drought her hands to her face to conceal the despair that washed through her like a tidal wave.
"Baby, don't cry," Bill said, trying to calm her down. "We'll do it another time. Next weekend."
He tried to embrace her but she drew back coldly.
'There won't be a next weekend," Lori spat through her tears. "Carey will call you into the office and take care of that somehow."
Bill resented the sharpness in her voice. It wasn't his fault only that all this had happened. She knew a lawyer's life was unpredictable when she married him.
Where the hell does she come off blaming me, he thought angrily. If she wasn't so goddamn uptight we might not be in this shape!
"Who is it this time?" she asked. "Some young starlet suing her producers?" Her voice had become cold and even. The tears stopped. She rose and moved away from the bed, gazing out the window to the teeming street ten stories below their apartment window.
"It's Edy Randall. She's making a comeback with a television series, and she's forming her own production company. Our firm is handling all the contracts. They have to be drawn up this weekend, and Carey says I'm the only man for the job. I'm sorry, but that's the way it is."
Lori stared down at the cars gliding along the wide streets, and at the late-night denizens of Los Angeles hurrying to and fro. Edy Randall! she thought bitterly. She remembered the tempestuous black-haired beauty from dozens of films. In her heyday she had been the sex symbol for an entire generation. Her films had made a fortune, and she was voted top box-office star for ten straight years. Lately, though, her career was foundering, and she was turning to television to revive her popularity. But Edy Randall was still in her late twenties, and had a body that drove men wild. She had even been married for awhile to some sort of Middle Eastern potentate. Lori felt herself suddenly become uncontrollably jealous of a woman she had never met. That Randall bitch was getting all the attention that was, by rights, hers. Edy would spend the time with her husband that she, herself, wanted so desperately. Lori's face became a mask of resentment.
"Honey?" Bill called from the bed, seeing his wife almost transfixed at the window. "Look, I'm sorry."
Suddenly his wife turned from the window, a strange smile slashed across her face, clearly visible in the bright moonlight.
"Sorry? Why be sorry?" she said. "You'll have a nice cozy weekend with Edy Randall. I'm sure she'll give you all the comfort and understanding you'll want."
"What?" Bill sat bolt upright in bed. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"You know what I'm talking about," Lori said angrily.
Bill was shocked seeing this sudden transformation of his wife from a gentle, withdrawn beauty to a bitterly resentful female. He had seen it before, but had tried to ignore it.
But now, seeing her cruel sneer and hearing her bitchy remarks, he felt anger welling up inside him again.
"Look," he said, trying to remain calm, "I've had about as much as I can take."
"Don't worry," Lori said flippantly, "what you can't get from me, I'm sure you can get from Edy Randall."
"You bitch! YOU BITCH!" Bill screamed, all the pent-up fury suddenly exploding unrestrainedly. "Who the fuck do you think you're talking to?"
Lori drew in her breath, as surprised as Bill at the cruelty of her own remarks. But she seemed unable to control it.
What's happening to me? she thought wildly.
Bill leapt from the bed and stood nakedly angry and trembling in rage before her.
"What the hell's the matter with you?"
"Oh, leave me alone," the bewildered young wife cried, unable to stand the horrible turn of events. "I'm confused ... I don't feel well. Oh, Bill!"
Her mind was a stormy torrent of conflicting thoughts. Fear and jealousy mixed like a bitter poisonous drug that flooded her mind with anxiety and hate.
"You think I'm cheating, is that it? YOU THINK I'M CHEATING WITH OTHER WOMEN, DONT YOU?" He screamed the words, hoping she'd say "yes" so he could slap some sense into her.
Bill was furious. Month after month of frustration and disappointment now welled up with the fury of a hurricane. His eyes bulged wildly, as he stared at his voluptuous wife she was his wife, she was ravishingly beautiful, and yet...HE COULDNT TOUCH HER! He hated her for her unreasonable frigidity, and now as he watched her beautiful face turn ugly with bitchy, unfounded accusation, he felt himself losing control.
"ANSWER ME!" he shouted.
"Don't shout at me," Lori retorted sharply.
"I'LL DO ANYTHING I FUCKING WELL WANT!" he screamed back, his vision clouding with turbulent anger.
"DON'T USE THAT KIND OF LANGUAGE WITH ME!" she snarled in return. "SAVE THAT FOR EDY RANDALL!"
"GODDAMN YOU!"
Lori tried to move away from Bill, seeing the twisted look of uncontrolled fury on his face, but he grabbed her roughly by the arm.
"Let go of me," she cried, twisting desperately to get free. "LET GO!"
"NOT UNTIL I'M FINISHED WITH YOU, YOU REFRIGERATED BITCH!"
As his anger boiled wildly, his massive cock sprang throbbingly erect, driven by the strange mixture of lust and power that flamed through his body like a forest fire. Suddenly he ripped away her little pink nightie with one savage stroke. Grabbing her by the arms, he pulled her to him; his hot mouth sought hers, found it, closed over it, and his tongue flashed searingly into the warm wet cavern of her mouth. She fought against him, trying to break his pinning grip, trying to free her bruised mouth from his - but she was too weak against his brutal masculinity. She felt his mammoth, madly pulsating penis grind against her naked loins, felt its lust-lubricated head leave a hot snail-like trail across her belly, and a sudden dread rose in her throat. She had never seen him like this!
No! No! her mind screamed. This can't be happening! Dear God, this is a nightmare, some evil, wicked figment of my imagination! What's happening? NO!
"I'm going to fuck you right now," he snarled lasciviously. "FUCK THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS OUT OF YOU!"
Before she could protest, his strong arms shoved her across the room onto the bed, and in an instant he was on top of her like a hungry, slavering animal. She tried to rake his bare back with her nails, but he had her arms pinned in such a way that she was defenseless against him. He kissed her furiously while his rigidly throbbing penis rubbed harshly over her softly resilient flesh.
Their nakedly writhing bodies were stretched out on the bed as Bill trailed moistly hot kisses down along her throat and over her chest to the rising globe of one perfectly nippled breast, where he took the bud between his teeth and bit harshly, cruelly.
"ANNNNNGGGGH! NO! NOOOOOO!" she screamed, feeling pain shoot through her, but Bill was deaf to her cries. Continuing to suck and bite hard first on one nipple, and then the other, his hand slipped roughly down between their naked young bodies, his fingers sliding through the moist, softly wet pubic triangle to force their way between her tightly closed thighs.
I'm going to pick up exactly where I left off he thought wildly. Damn her! DAMN HER!
The palm of his hand was resting flatly against the warmly wet pussy lips, fingers probing viciously at the region near her puckered little anus, as he began to slide his hand up and down with lewdly impatient strokes in her cringing cuntal slit. His fingers slid into the tight, elastic vaginal opening, harshly working to bring involuntary lubrication from the walls as she twisted helplessly in his grip.
"Noooo...." she moaned, resisting him still. "PLEASE!"
Ignoring her cries, he raised up and held her arms pinned at her sides, while he slipped one knee between her legs. She resisted his attempts to splay wide her thighs, causing him to pull his lips back over his teeth and snarl, "You bitch! Spread those goddamn legs so I can see all of that ice-cold pussy of yours! Now! Do it!"
A tremor of fear wound its way rapidly through Lori's flesh, for she had an instinctive feeling that he would hurt her somehow, injure her if she didn't give in.
Bill grinned obscenely down at the spectacle which his horrified young wife's spreading of her legs presented to his lusting gaze. He released one of her arms and grabbed his wildly pulsating cock as he lowered himself over her trembling young body. He placed the lust-bloated, purplish head at the entrance to her wetly cringing vagina, teasing along the rich cuntal valley, poised and ready...
Suddenly, without warning, he levered forward with a vicious, almost gleeful cry and drove his great hot length of hardened cockflesh into her tightly clasping pussy, reveling in the warm moist feel of her sensitive inner walls expanding around his invading cudgel an ecstatic delight swirled through his sperm-laden balls at the touch of her cervix on the blood-raged knob as he buried his thick fleshy sword to the hilt in the warm sheath of her helplessly cringing cunt.
"AAAGGGGGHHHHHUUUUUGGGGGGH!" Lori screamed in pain at his brutal entrance, her hips jerking up and her legs rising in involuntary protest at his forceful rape of her genitals. Bill's hotly eager lips found her mouth and, crushing down, he choked off her cries with his tongue.
Without mercy, the young lawyer began to saw in and out of her with long, lunging strokes, pulling his monstrously thickened shaft almost all the way out before ramming forward to bury it completely again. Each time he flexed forward, the hairy sac of his testicles slapped resoundingly against her twisting, upturned buttocks.
"Bill . . ." she screamed after he removed his mouth. "You're hurting mee! OOOOHHHH!!"
But her husband was mindless with a crazed lust now, with his desire for release, with his need to ravage this woman who, for months, had coldly denied him what any man had to have. His long heatedly throbbing cock rammed again and again relentlessly into the tight passage up between her widespread legs...and soon ... he could feel the heat in his balls growing hotter and hotter . ..
Lying helpless beneath his impalement, tears of pain and humiliation moistened Lori's cheeks as she felt torn asunder by the unmerciful rope by her husband. Tormenting visions of her tight-lipped aunt and the voluptuous Edy Randall flashed through her mind in vicious accompaniment to this brutal assault on her defenseless loins.
Oh please, her mind pleaded mutely, have your orgasm! Please have your orgasm AND LET THIS BE OVER! PLEASE!
Then, in order to achieve what she so desperately wanted, Lori endeavored to help her husband climax. She began to jerk and twist her hips in a circular motion, opening and closing her cuntal passage with a muscular action she had previously not thought possible. Bill was mewling into her mouth now, his heart hammering louder than her own, his hands sliding beneath her, his fingernails digging cruelly into the nakedly bearing flesh of her ass cheeks as he pounded into her mercilessly.
'That's it, that's it," he cried, feeling Lori begin to writhe her body beneath his. "Fuck me, baby, oh yeah, FFUUUUUCCCCCKKKKK...FUUUUUCCCCCKKK!"
The young wife tried to shut her ears to the foul words, striving even harder to obey his command, churning her hips wildly, madly now, squeezing his prick with her vaginal muscles harder and harder.
He's gone crazy, she thought as the pain rose horribly. Crazy! Oh God, oh God, maybe Aunt Dorothy is right! This is horrible! HORRIBLE!
The she felt Bill go rigid in midstroke.
"Oh God, oh Jesus, I'm there, I'm there! I'm going to cum. CUUUMMMMM! I'M CCCCUUUUMMMMIIIIINNNGGG!"
Bill felt the boiling fluid winding and gushing through his balls, and in a sudden explosion of unbearable excitement the first jet of hot, white sticky semen burst though the lust-bloated head of his wildly jerking cock to shoot heatedly into Lori's tight little cunt. He heaved himself into her as the first machinegun-like spurt was followed by another, then another. He moaned incoherently as his long thick penis jerked and twitched in her wetly clasping pussy, emptying his load of cum in what, to Lori, seemed to be a never-ending torrent of humiliation and degradation. She felt her body cringe in pain as her husband spewed the last of his gushing load into her exhausted vagina, the walls of which felt bruised and burning. She had shared none of his excitement and ecstasy, and waited only for the entire loathsome event to be over.
At last Bill collapsed with a grunt, pressing her soft body down against the bed. His cock began to deflate, and he finally slipped it from the semen-inundated hole of his wife's cunt. He slid off of her and lay back on the bed. Within minutes he was sound asleep, breathing heavily, completely exhausted by the brutal attack, yet somehow, completely satisfied.
Lori lay next to him in the room that was still flooded with moonlight. Outside she could still hear the cars and noises that characterized the exciting night life of Los Angeles. She felt lost and alone, confused and sickened by what had taken place.
"Oh please, God, please help me," she cried softly into the night.
Hours later, she fell into a tense, troubled sleep.