The Lonely Young Wife and Her Wild Son-in-Law

That night, Harold climbed on top of me the way he always did. A few sloppy minutes of effort, and it was over. He was almost seventy. He hadn't been able to do this properly in years. He had never once given me anything close to satisfaction. I was twenty-two. Three months ago, my parents had cornered me into marrying this old tycoon to pay off their gambling debts. Since then, I had not known what it meant to feel like a woman. Every time he finished, I lay there in the dark, staring at the ceiling, swallowing the kind of emptiness no woman should have to live with. Tonight, I finally couldn't take it anymore. I slipped quietly into the bathroom. The woman in the mirror looked back at me, flushed, hungry. I lifted the hem of my nightgown and let my trembling hand find its way between my thighs. The moment my fingers brushed the place that had been ignored for months, a wave of suppressed need crashed through me. I closed my eyes. I let myself imagine something hot and hard pushing into me. My fingers moved harder, faster, my breath coming in short, ragged pulls. I was right on the edge of falling apart. Then the bathroom door was kicked open. "You filthy w***e! How dare you do this?" Harold stood in the doorway, his face purple with rage, his eyes bloodshot. He had supposedly gone back to his own room, but here he was, back again. I went rigid with terror. My hand was still frozen between my legs. I had never felt more exposed in my life. He came at me, grabbed a fistful of my hair, and dragged me out of the bathroom. "So I can't satisfy you, is that it? Fine. You finish yourself off. Right here. In front of me!" He was roaring. He yanked the belt off his waist and brought it down on my thighs, my back, my waist with full force. "Ah…!" The pain ripped a scream out of me. I curled up on the cold floor, sobbing, begging him to stop. He hit me harder. He was beating the insecurity of his own impotence into my skin. After what felt like forever, he finally stopped, breathing hard. "Damian!" he shouted toward the hallway. "Get in here! Come fix up your stepmother!" Then he kicked me one more time. "Get up. Quit lying there. It was a few hits, you're not dying." A few moments later, I heard footsteps. The door opened. Harold's son walked in. My stepson. Damian. I struggled to push myself up off the floor, fighting through the pain. Damian was in a crisp white shirt. His face had that handsome, refined composure I had come to associate with him. But the moment his eyes swept over me, over the state I was in, I saw something flicker through them. Shock. Pity. "Dad. You couldn't have just talked to her?" His brows pulled together. "Ask her. See if she's got the nerve to even say it." Harold let out a cold laugh. "Patch her up. Just don't let her die on me." Then he slammed the door behind him. The room went quiet. It was just me and Damian. I was terrified Damian would actually ask me. If he did, I would die of shame on the spot. But he didn't push. He didn't even say anything else. He just walked over, didn't bother announcing himself, and scooped me up into his arms. I let out a small gasp. His arms were strong. His chest was broad. There was a kind of warmth and life radiating off him that had nothing in common with Harold's withered, decaying body. Damian laid me down on the bed. Then, with careful hands, he lifted the hem of my nightgown. "This is going to sting a little. Try to hold still." His voice was low and gentle. He pulled on a pair of gloves and dipped his fingers in the cool ointment, spreading it over the welts on my skin. The moment his fingers touched the raw mark on the inside of my thigh, my whole body jerked. A strange sensation rose up through me. Pain. Numbness. And something else I didn't want to name. He worked slowly. From the tops of my thighs, to my waist, even the welts across my backside got the same careful attention. Every touch made me tremble before I could stop myself. And gradually, the trembling stopped being only about the pain. I realized, with horror, that my body was responding to him. Damian was only treating my wounds. But the feeling of being touched, really touched, by a real man, was sending pleasure through me I had no right to feel. I bit down on my lip, hard, and swallowed every moan back down. I was losing my mind. Damian's hand paused. I heard him draw in a slow, deep breath, "Sophia, You…" He had noticed. There was no way he hadn't. What was he going to think? Was he going to look at me with disgust? Was he going to decide I was some desperate, s*x-starved slut, the kind of woman who could get wet from her stepson's hands while her body was still covered in fresh welts?