Excerpt:
Winifred Butler sat ramrod straight in the velvet-draped folding chair as Father Murphy conducted the graveside service. She went through the motions of prayer mechanically–the sign of the cross as false a ritual to her as the sentiment she was expected to express.
Nearly everyone in the tiny town of Legend , Tennessee , was accounted for, as was the custom when a resident passed, but she knew this time it was purely from obligation. No one had liked her husband. His loud, obnoxious behavior had offended most people immediately upon contact, and had embarrassed her to the extent that she'd spent the past year avoiding her neighbors, hoping they would forget what a terrible mistake she'd made. A mistake born of innocence.
Well, she wasn't innocent anymore.
The hundred and fifty acre farm Jack took her to following their whirlwind courtship and marriage had accommodated her need to hide the shame she'd consistently lived. Unfortunately it had also given Jack ample opportunity to enforce what he'd deemed his husbandly rights. The only escape she'd found was to attend Mass as often as he'd allowed, since he'd stopped going himself years before.
Though she wasn't Catholic, she'd found attending his previous-wife's church an acceptable way to escape him. It was literally the only time he'd allowed her out of his sight, outside of the electronically fenced-in perimeters of the farm. He'd complained about those brief periods of freedom constantly, but hadn't stopped her, though it had quickly become difficult to show her face there. She'd only kept going out of desperation for those blessed moments of sanctuary.
Shame heated her cheeks beneath the netting of her widow's hat; a hat she'd worn to cover her face in an attempt to avoid making eye contact with anyone attending the funeral. It wasn't in her to be rude, but there was nothing she had to say about the man she was burying, and there was nothing she wanted to hear about him either. She lifted a gloved hand and covered her mouth and nose with the soft scents of her fabric-softener-freshened handkerchief. The motion soothed. She'd learned to lose herself in the scent, to pretend the April freshness removed her from the degradation of being horribly used by a man who smelled of his pigs.
Following the horror of their wedding night she'd worked hard to disassociate herself mentally from the physical reality she was forced to endure. It took months, but she'd finally found a way, by fantasizing he was anyone else , and breathing through her mouth rather than her nose. The males of her fantasies were born from the hundreds of romance novels she'd read while taking care of her father all those years, though she'd had to fight hard to shut out the sight of Jack's flabby folds being held out of the way so his thick, short penis might reach her. Breathing through her mouth had been equally necessary, to minimize inhaling the nauseating odors that permeated his skin.
After months of failed attempts to either arouse her or satisfy himself he done the unthinkable, something she'd never confessed to anyone, nor would she. He'd turned her over and rammed her from behind. The pain had taken her breath away. Once she'd been able, she'd screamed, but he hadn't cared, having declared that was exactly what she deserved for making him feel inadequate.
She'd learned two very important lessons that night. No matter the consequences she had to escape him, even if it meant she was guilty of committing a mortal sin. And, as her face was pushed hard into her bedding while he'd repeatedly penetrated her anally, that romance novels were all a lie.
Men were pigs. Their dicks weapons to inflict pain.
And, if she ever escaped him, she'd never allow either to get near her again.
She'd barely been able to walk to the bathroom that night to clean herself up. Had sobbed through the process of scrubbing herself all over until her skin burned raw, then returned to cry out her sorrow and pain into the April fresh smell of her tear splattered, freshly laundered sheets. And even though he'd left her alone to do whatever it was that he went out to do each evening, she'd still felt cloaked by his horrible pigpen odor.
After that night she'd plotted and she'd planned, all the while forced to endure Jack's sexually deviant behavior with the various positions he demanded, and the variety of sex toys he'd purchased with deprivation and pain infliction being his primary goals. He'd even branded her with a hot metal ring on her inner thigh, awaking her from an exhausted sleep, returning her to the nightmare of reality.
She'd hated him. Everything about him.
Though she'd been so careful not to let her feelings show, Jack must have sensed something. Somehow he'd known that she was looking for a way out, because he did the one thing he thought would trap her forever.
The pictures were disgusting, and if publicized would humiliate her; ruin her. He'd taken them after chaining her to their bed post, setting a timer, and joining her there where he'd positioned and repositioned her repeatedly as snapshot after snapshot went off. He'd developed them immediately out in the barn, and had taken delight in showing her his work before releasing her from her chains.
That she'd found the guts to snatch them from him and tear them up hadn't mattered. He'd laughed at her and she'd known then that he had more, and that she was powerless unless she was willing to commit the unthinkable. The pictures were the last straw. Or so she'd thought.
“Mrs. Butler?”
Winifred blinked, startled to realize the service was over and everyone was waiting for her to rise, place the rose in her hand on his casket, and head back to the limo that would drop her back at church. She stood and stared at the extra-large pine box that would be lowered into the ground as soon as all those present departed, then glanced at the priest who knew more than any other how terribly unhappy she'd been--though even he never knew the full extent of her shame. With one nod to the priest, she relaxed her fingers and allowed the rose to fall to the ground as she turned to make her way to the awaiting car.
That pig of a man wouldn't get anything from her anymore. Not a flower. Not a widow's respect. In fact, she hoped he rotted in eternal Hell.
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