14 comments/ 25242 views/ 8 favorites Grappling with a Challenge By: edrider73 Many thanks to Kitty Pain for first editing and improving this story. Special thanks to winterhunny713 for the enormous effort put into fresh perspectives and challenges that resulted in major improvements. It's all the more remarkable because this writer/editor's own stories are suffused with emotion, sensuality and descriptive detail -- at the other end of the spectrum from mine. So if you want to bathe in steamy and passionate eroticism instead of taking a cold shower, check them out, and you might join the community of fans that winterhunny713 interacts with. * "Don't move," she said. "OK," I said. That's how the worst day of my life started. Or should I say ended, because it was close to midnight. I was lying on top of Sally like dead weight. She had her long legs wrapped around my waist. We were drenched with sweat after an extended session of athletic lovemaking. Minutes before we had finished the way she loved it most. She was on the bottom with her legs locked around my back, I was on my hands in a pushup position pounding away at her as hard as I could while listening to her saying "Harder!" in a whisper that gradually grew louder until she was screaming it as she came, all the while increasing my impact by pulling me toward her with her legs as hard as she could while I was slamming into her and then releasing me while I was making the upstroke. **************************** When this first started happening, I wondered if I was hurting her, and I asked her. "Yes," she admitted. "And I'm also feeling angry at you because you seem to enjoy humiliating me by turning me into an object that you're hammering into the mattress." She stopped and looked at me as if she was unsure about whether she should continue. Then she said, "Actually, it's more than that. While you are hammering into me, I am consumed with hatred for you and wishing I could demean you as horribly as you're demeaning me." Again she looked at me, this time expectantly. I was so shocked, I didn't know how to respond. Finally, a feeble voice escaped my tight throat, and I said, "I'm so sorry. I'll never do that again." "That's what I was expecting you to say," she said, and a smile crossed her face. "I don't ever want you to stop doing that to me. Yes, everything I just said was true, but I didn't tell you the whole story. When you do this to me -- and don't forget, I'm helping you by using my legs around you -- I get the best orgasms of my life. I'm sure the humiliation and pain and the anger at you and the desire for revenge by inflicting pain and degradation on you -- everything together is what gives me the powerful release. I don't want to give it up. If I ever change my mind, I'll tell you, but until then, promise me you'll never stop." It took her a while to convince me to make that promise to her, and I didn't feel good about it. The pile-driving of Sally was physically exhausting, and sometimes it lasted so long that I didn't have the strength to hold myself up any longer. When that happened, she would have me lower my upper body to my elbows and rest on her with my chest pressed against her beautiful breasts, until I gathered the strength to get into the pushup mode again and resume. When she came, she came loudly, and it almost always drove me over the edge, too. Then we both collapsed in exhaustion before I would roll off of her and lie next to her while we panted and laughed. ******************* Sally and I had been having great laughs and great times together since we were kids though not always in the beginning. She was my baby sister's best friend, and she was in our house almost as much as in her house down the street. The first thing I remember was Omie and Sally ganging up on me. Even though I was two years older than them and pretty strong, they were both athletic, and together they were more than a match for me. Sally was much meaner to me than Omie, and she loved to devise ways to torment me. When they drove me to tears, she couldn't stop laughing. Despite that, we had a lot of good times, too. Where we lived there weren't any boys my age around to play with, and I appreciated that the two of them were happy to participate in any sport I dictated, from running, to football, to basketball, to baseball, to wrestling. It all ended when I was turning 15 and they were almost 13. That's when they became boy crazy, and my role changed to protector. Sally thought of me as her big brother as much as Omie did, and even though she grew tall and curvy and cute as can be, she never looked at me like I looked at her. She dated lots of my friends, and some of them didn't like the warnings I gave them against trying anything that she wasn't ready for. Actually, Sally could take good care of herself without my help. She was the star of the women's wrestling team and won State Heavyweight in her senior year. She was lean, strong and aggressive, and when she wrapped her long arms and legs around opponents, they weren't going anywhere. She was also very popular. I didn't date a lot in high school, but once I entered college, that changed. Omie and Sally joined me as freshmen when I was a junior, and because we were all townies, I began seeing more of Sally again in our frequent car pools. It was like the three of us took an intermission from childhood and were kids all over again. On the way to school and home, nothing was sacred -- not professors, not clueless classmates and not our love lives. I could hold my own with Omie, but I could never match Sally in coming up with devastating things to say. I knew she didn't mean any of the cruel jokes at my expense, and all three of us laughed at each other's putdowns. I don't even know how it happened, but Sally and I started going out, and then came the best year of my life, which ended that night, a month from my graduation. Until that night, we were practically inseparable. We enjoyed doing everything together. We laughed together and occasionally even cried together. But most of all we made love together. It turned out that while Sally dated a lot in high school, her height and strength intimidated most guys, and she was at about the same sexual incompetence level as I was. We set off on a crash course together and tried almost everything we heard of in almost every odd corner of our town. Some of it was wild enough to be called kinky, but nothing too drastic. A good example was oral. She loved it when I ate her out, but she said she was scared to return the favor, because she knew she'd throw up if I came in her mouth. I told her I didn't blame her for feeling that way, because the thought disgusted me, too, and I would never do that to her. A couple of times, she tried to overcome her aversion, but each time she gave up. I didn't care, especially after she went on the pill and I didn't have to use protection anymore. We were too busy having sex and studying to do anything else -- like talk about our feelings for each other. I did think once or twice about whether we would ever move on to a more serious relationship, but I always decided there was plenty of time for talking about stuff like that later. Right now, we were having the time of our lives. Why let the future interfere? And that brings us to the night it all blew up into a million pieces. It started when I was ready to roll off of her. "Don't move," she said. "OK," I said. "I want to try something new tonight," she said. "I just wanted to roll over so I'm not crushing you," I said. "Not yet," she said. "I want to tell you what you're going to do." "OK," I said. "You're going to eat me," she said. "I already ate you," I said. "I mean now," she said. "But I didn't use a condom," I said. "I know," she said. "You're going to do it anyway." "I don't want to," I said, trying to figure out what kind of game she was playing. "I know you don't," she said, "but you're going to do it anyway." "No I won't," I said. "Yes you will," she said. "I'm going to make you." "OK, Sally, I give up," I said. "Am I supposed to think up things to say that are as silly as what you're saying?" "No," she said. "I want you to start eating me now." "I'm not doing anything of the sort," I said, "and if you don't tell me what this is all about, I'm getting up." "No, you're not," she said. "That's enough," I said, and I put my hands on either side of her shoulders and began to push my upper body up. I didn't get far because she loosened her legs from around my waist, stretched them out and then slammed them into my back and locked them around me, pulling me more tightly into her body than I had been a few seconds ago. At the same time she put both hands behind my head, grabbed my neck and pulled it down behind her left shoulder. I struggled against her for a while with my mouth pressed into pillow and then I decided to stop and just go limp. She let go of my neck but didn't do anything else. I raised my head. "What are you doing?" I asked. "Right now nothing except preventing you from getting off the bed before you eat me," she said. "Why are you doing this?" I said. "I thought you'd never ask," she said. "It's because of Valentine's Day, sort of. You know Sheridan and Sloane?" "Yes," I said. "What do they have to do with Valentine's Day." "Nothing," she said. Sheridan and Sloane were her grappling buddies. Sally could have had a wrestling scholarship, but she decided to give it up to focus on her studies. She ran into Sheridan and Sloane, who used to be opponents in high school tournaments, and they talked her into joining a Brazilian jiu jitsu club. They worked out together once a week with other former wrestlers and also saw each other socially. We had double and triple dated a few times, but I didn't care for Sheridan and Sloane's male friends. Both of them were muscular women, even more than Sally, and it seemed strange that their choice in men ran to puny, nondescript guys. Sally thought so, too, and told me that the men enjoyed being submissive and her friends enjoyed being dominant. I never asked for any details. "Should we start over?" I asked, talking at the pillow. "No, I'm sorry," she said. "I know it's confusing. But it started with Sheridan and Sloane telling me some of the things they did with their weird men friends. The guys like to be humiliated and degraded, and the girls love to give them what they want. "They told me they practice armbars, cross sides, knee mounts and even illegal moves like slamming and scissor takedowns on their boyfriends. And sometimes they do things like facesitting and reverse facesitting." "I don't even know what you're talking about," I said. "I know," she said. "You've never taken an interest in submission grappling -- or submission sex." "I didn't know that was important to you," I said. "It's not," she said. "Let me finish. All you need to know is that the girls force the men to eat them out, both the regular way and the, uh, back side." "You're kidding," I said. "No," she said, "although it's partly a game. The guys fight them as hard as they can, but they know they're going to lose, and they don't really mind." "But I mind," I said. "I know, and you're not going to do the back side. You're just going to do one thing they do, which is eat me out when I'm full." "Even if I agree, which I won't, why is this so important to you?" I asked. "I want to get back at you for Valentine's Day," she said. "What?" I asked. "You stood me up," she said. "You're crazy," I said. "We talked about it weeks in advance, and you agreed I could go to Ollie's bachelor weekend and I would make it up to you with a special dinner later. And I kept my word." "I know," she said, "but I didn't tell you how hurt I was that you chose Ollie over me." "I didn't choose Ollie over you," I said. "I got your permission." "But Valentine's Day is a special day for women, and we were going to be with your sister and her fiancé, and now both of them probably think you don't really care that much about me, and they are probably right." "And you probably sound more irrational now than you've ever sounded," I said. "So you want to punish me for not being with you on Valentine's Day. Don't you think that's sick?" "Yes, but I still want to do it," she said. "I admit that's only part of the reason. It's really more like the excuse. OK, the real reason is I've been hearing all this stuff from Sheridan and Sloane, and I wanted to try something just this once. I promise I'll never do it again. And I'm glad you're not going along like those boyfriends. I don't want you to be like them." "You're darn right I'm not going along," I said to the pillow. "Now let me go." "Not until you do it," she said. "You can hold me as tight as you want for the next few hours, but I still won't do it," I said. "Yes you will," she said, "because I'll force you. You're probably stronger than I am, but I can use BJJ just like women police officers use it against criminals twice their size. Now that I've explained what you're going to do, we can get started. I'm not going to injure you, but you might as well give in because until you do, you'll be extremely uncomfortable." I didn't say anything more. I decided she must have taken leave of her senses and there was no use talking to her while she was like this. She was right that I had no knowledge of grappling, but I did have my weight and it was all on top of her. So I just lay there limp. Then I felt her hands go toward my head again. Without thinking I raised myself up so she couldn't reach my neck. Then some things happened fast. She grabbed my left wrist tightly with both her hands and pulled it across her body. Then her right leg moved so quickly that I didn't even see it. But I felt it unhook from around my waist and fly up until her foot was against the left side of my face and pushing my head to the right. As soon as she did that, she grabbed my right wrist and pulled it under my body in the other direction, and just like before, her left leg moved up against my right cheek. Her legs crossed behind my head, and then I felt them pulling my head down towards where her hands were now reaching for my neck. My hands were now free, and I tried to pull her hands away. I finally succeeded, but not before I felt her lift her legs so that her thighs were now at my neck. And then she moved her legs so that they were like two hands choking my neck, but much more powerful than two hands. I let go of her hands and reached up to grab her legs and pull them apart so I could get my head out of those powerful thighs, but now she grabbed for my hands and pulled them down. I shook free of her and lifted my hands again, but she pulled them down again. Meanwhile, the tight thighs were like a vise that was closing around my neck. I was in tremendous pain, and it was starting to affect my breathing. I stopped trying to raise my head and lowered it slowly as she moved her legs up higher and pulled my head down with her hands. I felt weak and dizzy. My head was pushed into her large bush of pubic hair. I had been in this position often, but always willing and eager. I loved pleasuring her. It turned me on as much as when our bodies were slamming into each other. But this was no turn-on for me. I was in pain and feeling sick. As I smelled the strong odor of my sperm through her hair, I became even more nauseated. A thought came to my mind: How excited would she be if I threw up all over her crotch? She loosened the grip of her legs, but she kept them locked. I was able to breathe more easily, and my neck didn't hurt as much. I lay there thinking. I thought about us as children, as teenagers, as lovers. I thought about how my good feelings about her were being destroyed forever. I thought about never seeing this side of her before, the cold-blooded contempt and maybe even hatred that would make her attempt to humiliate me this way. I thought of what I would do when I finally got free of her. Then she interrupted my thoughts. "Are you ready to cooperate?" she asked. "No," I said. Now it was her sweaty pubic hair, reeking of my semen that I was speaking to, not the pillow. "I'm so excited that I'm sure I'll come really fast," she said, "and then I'll let you go." "I don't care how excited you are," I said. "You can lock my head up again so tight that I faint. Or you can pull my neck down until it breaks. I'm not going to stick my tongue into you." "Yes you are," she said. "Why can't you be reasonable? Just do it and let's get this over with." "No," I said. "OK," she said. "I didn't want to do this. Sloane says her boyfriend likes this, but I know you won't." I felt her legs tighten around my neck again and pull my head down. One hand was pulling on my head, too. I wanted to push it away and lift my body up, but I couldn't summon the strength. Holding me like this she wiggled her body and moved both of us close to the edge of the bed. Then she stopped, and I felt one of her long arms drop down on the side of the bed and move around as if she was reaching for something under the bed. Then she found it, because the hand came up to the bed again. I couldn't see what she had reached for. My eyes were closed because they were pressed into her slimy bush. Then I heard a sound like the wind, and boiling water poured over my body, and I was screaming in agony as it scalded me. It wasn't boiling water, but that's what it felt like. The searing pain started in my butt and moved out to envelop every inch of me. I drew my breath in and held it, trying to control the burning, but I couldn't. And then I started crying, and I hated myself for giving her that -- almost as much as I now hated her. "I'm sorry," she said. "That was a cane. I know what you just felt, because I had Sloane give me one hard stroke. I told her it wouldn't work on you, but once I felt it, I realized I was wrong. It's no shame to give in to that. I can't imagine anything hurting more. I'm going to let you collect yourself, and then you can start." I thought hard. Now I was in basic, Neanderthal fight or flight mode. I could probably resist a little longer, but all it would mean would be more boiling water. In the end, I'd have to do what she wanted. I might as well avoid the pain if I had to submit to the degradation anyway. I lay there shaking. Slowly my body grew quieter. The pain was still there, but not quite as strong. "OK," she said. "I'm loosening my legs a little. Move your head down slowly." And then she made my blood run cold, because she giggled. Maybe it was a nervous giggle. She was enjoying all of this, including the cane. She was totally delighted. I followed her instructions, and as I moved my head down, the smell grew stronger and I felt moisture against my cheeks. I held my breath to keep from gagging. How was I going to do this? She opened her legs a little as I reached her crotch. My eyes were tightly shut as I moved my head. I couldn't see where I was going. She must have realized this, because her hands went to my head again, but this time they didn't grab. They gently guided me to the spot and pulled me just enough so my lips were at her opening. Then she let go and waited. The smell was now overwhelming, and I couldn't help lifting my head and gagging. She didn't say or do anything. I shuddered and slowly lowered my head again and began licking. Usually, I play with her when I'm orally satisfying her. I do different things with my tongue and my lips and when she goes wild I sometimes lift my head up and look at her and get so excited that my penis feels like it's going to explode. But all I did now was just lick up and down. It didn't seem to matter. Almost immediately, she began squirming like she does just before she comes. As she did, her vagina spasmed open and shut and my sperm gushed out over my tongue. I pulled back quickly, but it was too late. It was all over my face and a lot of it went into my mouth, and I couldn't help swallowing some of it. Grappling with a Challenge I inhaled and exhaled slowly several times to keep from passing out. I wanted to wipe my face, but my hands were trapped beneath me. I couldn't believe what I had just experienced. I wanted to die of shame. I froze. "Keep going," I heard her say, but I couldn't move. She said it again a little louder and then a third time. I wanted to do what she said so she would release my head and I could kill her and then kill myself. But my body didn't listen to my head. It wouldn't budge. Then I screamed. This time it wasn't boiling water. It was worse. It was more like being burned at the stake. My whole body rose from the bed as the cane tore into my butt. That got me back to licking and gagging, licking and gagging. And then she went into an orgasm that seemed to last forever. When it finally subsided, I felt her legs loosen. I pulled my head up and got my arms between her legs and pulled them violently apart and jumped out of bed. I stood there panting and swaying from the nausea. I looked down at her. She was lying there quietly, not trying to move away from me. She looked at me, and her face had an angelic smile on it that enraged me. I saw the cane lying next to her. I grabbed it and raised it into the air. "Go ahead," she said in a soft voice. "What?" I said. "Go ahead," she said again, this time speaking clearly. "Do it! I won't stop you. Beat me bloody. Go ahead!" "You bitch!" I screamed as I broke the cane over my knee. "That's what you'd like, isn't it? When the police come, you can show them what I did to you, and they'll forget all about what you did to me. You're not getting off that easy." I didn't say another word as I dressed quickly and left. She sat on the bed watching me. A couple of times I heard a sound as if she was about to say something, but she never said a word. I didn't go to the police. As soon as I was calm enough to think about it, I realized that if I filed a report, I would also be damaging myself. She might plead guilty, but for her first offence she'd probably get probation or highway service in an orange jumpsuit for a week. In other words, she'd get off easy. And even if she admitted everything, nobody would believe that I was helpless. Everyone knew I'd been with her more than a year, and they'd all think that it was just some kinky game that got out of hand. So I did nothing. Sally kept calling me, but as soon as I heard her voice, I hung up. I didn't listen to her voice mails and deleted her emails and texts as soon as I saw who was sending them. After a while, the calls and messages stopped. Omie asked me why I dumped her, and I told her it was a long story. I saw Sally around campus occasionally, but the moment she came into view, I looked somewhere else or walked in a different direction. Thank goodness I never had a class with her. One strange thing I did notice a few times before I looked away. She was sometimes with one of my former friends. There were three friends who had tried to come on to her while we were dating, even though they had known we were a couple. She had told me about each one, and none of them had denied her accusations. That's when they had become ex-friends. She had told me how disgusting she had found all three, and now she was dating them. They deserved each other. One night at a party, her friend Sloane managed to corner me. "You know she's gone off the deep end because of you," she said. "Yeah," I said. "I saw who she's dating." "She thinks she's doing that for you," Sloane said. "What do you mean?" I asked. "I mean she's doing the same things to them as she did to you -- and a lot worse," Sloan said, "but this time she's using video cameras, so after she surprised them the first time, she blackmailed them and they can't get out of doing it unless they don't mind her showing the videos to all their friends, especially the girls. I told her if they went to the cops, she'd be behind bars for a few years, but she said she didn't care. She's lucky they're too embarrassed to report her. She's got them even more subservient than my boyfriends. "She's making the videos for you. She thought you were going to cane the living hell out of her when she did that to you and that would make you feel guilty enough to forgive her. Now she has this crazy idea that when you see what she's done to your enemies, you'll forgive her. I told you she's not thinking normally anymore." "You're right," I said. "I will never forgive her." "Even though it's my fault, and Sheridan's?" she said. "What do you mean it's your fault?" I asked. "We encouraged her to do it," she said. "She was reluctant, but we told her you loved her and would eventually get over it, even though it might mean she had to take a caning. She was hesitant, but we finally convinced her." "You had no right to make her believe I loved her," I said. "She knew exactly what she was doing, so I don't feel sorry for her at all." "Too bad it had to end this way," Sloane said. "Yeah," I said. "Too fucking bad." After I graduated, I only applied for jobs out of town, and I moved before the end of June. I had a great time meeting new people and had some nice relationships. That's all they were -- nice -- but at least none of them ended badly. I did think about Sally. Sometimes, I thought about her and Omie and myself as children and teenagers and the wonderful year we had together in college, but usually the memories skipped right to the night of hell. Sometimes it happened in dreams, too, and I'd wake up breathing hard with my fists clenched. The other thing that happened when I thought of her was that I started talking to myself. It wasn't actually talking to myself. It was talking to her, even though she wasn't there. I imagined myself screaming obscenities at her while I was caning her. That night of hell I couldn't do either one, and maybe I was ashamed for being such a wimp. Now I thought of all the things I should have yelled at her, and they came out, sometimes loudly. I talked to a friend who was a psychologist about it, and he said it sounded like Tourette's Syndrome, but if it only happened when I was alone, there was no reason to treat it. I kept thinking of more and more stuff, some if it so ugly and disgusting that I was shocked when it came out of my mouth. Sometimes I yelled at my apartment walls for nearly an hour, until I had no breath left. When my company transferred me to my home town, I first thought of trying to avoid it, but it was a major promotion. I realized that the only thing that made me hesitate was Sally, and a few sessions of yelling at her got me past that. Omie had never written me about her or talked about her when I visited because she knew things had ended badly. When I moved back, she mentioned that Sally had also moved away after graduating and that they didn't communicate very often. A year later, Omie told me Sally was coming back because her mother was sick. After the two of them got together, she told me Sally really wanted to see me. She said Sally looked as hot as ever and that she had been engaged once but called it off. She said Sally told her that she had treated me horribly and just wanted a chance to apologize. I told Omie to forget about getting Sally and me together. Omie said it was a shame because Sally had been sort of strange for the last two years of college -- after we had broken up -- but now she was the same old Sally, warm and funny, just like when we were kids. I said that was great, but I still didn't want to see her. I did see her, though. It was a small city, and it was inevitable that we would run into each other. Omie was right about Sally looking good. She was obviously still working out. Thinking about her working out made me think about her Brazilian jiu jitsu, and my mind grew dark. That evening at home, I think I broke the record, because I managed to cuss her out for more than an hour. Sally didn't see me each time I saw her, but when she did, she tried to approach me. I never let her get within five feet. One week I got to my Mom's for Sunday dinner late. In the winter, we usually all went to church together and then to her house for a big meal at 2 o'clock, but this weekend, one of my bosses was in town, and I had to take her to the airport for a 1 p.m. flight. When I got to my Mom's house, I went straight to the dining room and saw she and Dad were waiting for me. Omie's husband was sitting there with their baby, and Mom was in the kitchen. Then Omie and Sally walked in. They were laughing about something, but as soon as Sally saw me, she stopped laughing. I began to get up from the table, and Mom started to say something. Sally interrupted her. "Let him go, Mrs. Whitlow," she said. She was smiling at Mom. "He's leaving because of me, and when I tell you what I did to him, you'll understand why. Today is Valentine's Day, and it's just a few days before the anniversary of the biggest mistake I ever made in my life. That's why I came here tonight -- to apologize to all of you. You've never heard the reason why we broke up, because it was so horrible that neither of us wanted anyone else to know. "But you and Mr. Whitlow and Omie must have wondered what happened and maybe even thought Sonny was to blame. Tonight I'll tell you everything I did to your son, and then you'll be absolutely sure that you have the greatest son ever, because he never tried to repay me -- even though he had it in his power." Mom was staring at me. I had sunk back into my seat as I heard Sally talking. "Sally, stop," she said. "Sonny looks as pale as a ghost. Omie, get him some water." Sally looked at me and turned back to Mom. "Maybe I'm rushing this a little, Mrs. Whitlow," she said. "I haven't talked to your wonderful son since I got back to town. Maybe he'd rather go for a ride with me and discuss this before I say anything. I wouldn't want to go against his wishes." I couldn't speak, and I felt like I had strong weights attached to me pulling me down into a river where I was going to drown. Then I felt Sally quickly pulling me to my feet. I had forgotten how strong she was. Even though I was like dead weight, she had no trouble taking hold of me and escorting me quickly to the car. It was like she was the policewoman and I was the perp. She pushed my head down like a cop, too, as she shoved me into the passenger seat and slammed the door. It was less than a minute from the time she lifted me from my chair until she was spinning the wheels and shooting out of our driveway like a cannon. A mile down the road, she pulled over and fastened my seat belt. I was still drowning in the river and barely noticed. She drove about an hour. We were way out of town going through farm country when she turned the car onto a hilly gravel road with lots of trees on either side. After a few minutes, she pulled into an open space of grass off the road and turned off the engine. It was totally silent. There was no sound of birds or insects, nothing but our breathing. I sat looking straight ahead, and I felt her eyes on me. After about 10 minutes, she said, "Do you want to say anything?" I said nothing. We sat there for about 15 more minutes in silence, and then she got out of the car and began walking up the gravel road. In a few minutes, I didn't see her. I sat in the car for a while and then I got out and walked around a little. I didn't follow her. It was almost an hour before she came back. She walked up very close to me. She seemed to be trembling as she asked me again, "Do you want to say anything yet?" I began shaking. I tried to control my mouth enough to speak, but it was hard. Finally, I got a grip on myself, and I looked her in the eye and said, "Take me back, you b-b-b-b." I couldn't finish. "No," she said. "It's time to talk." "Where are the keys?" I asked. "I have them, and you know you can't take them from me," she said. "You can start walking, but I don't think you can reach the nearest farmhouse until dark, and I won't tell you what direction it is." "You b-b-b-b," I said. "Cat got your tongue?" said Sally. "Maybe this will help loosen it. She opened the trunk of her car. There was only one thing inside: a long cane. She picked it up and held it and swung it hard through the air a few times. The sound was an echo from my nightmares. She closed the trunk and lay the cane down on top of it to one side. She turned away from me and faced the trunk and took two steps back. She put two hands in front of her and bent over until her hands were on the trunk. She wiggled and spread her legs apart and then bent her knees and moved her legs closer to the car so her rear was pushed out. Then she removed her hands from the trunk and supported herself with her chest. Her hands moved behind her. They lifted her skirt up over her waist, and then they went back to the trunk. She stuck out her rear more, and I could see she was wearing yoga tights that were so thin you could see everything through them. Just then the afternoon sun came through the trees and shone on her. It looked like she wasn't wearing anything. I saw she still had a lot of hair between her legs. My heart was pounding. I knew what she wanted me to do, but I was frozen. After what seemed like hours, even though it was only a few minutes, I heard her sigh. She straightened up and smoothed her skirt down over her thighs again and turned to me. "Maybe I should talk first," she said. "I'm not asking you to forgive me. That's what I wanted at first. But I've thought about this for the last few years. I don't want you to ever forgive me. My minister told me Jesus forgives me, but I don't know if I believe that, or if I even want him to. "I would like you to take that cane and make my ass bloody. You can pull down my tights if you want to whip me on my bare skin. I want you to do it as hard as you can. I know it can't be the same because betrayal is the worst pain of all, but I want to try to feel a little like you felt. "That's all I have to say, except that no matter what you do, I will never stop loving you." That did it. "You filthy bitch, you have no idea what love is." That's how it started in a low monotone. What she said had released the floodgates, and all my hatred came pouring out. As I kept going, my words got increasingly vile and graphic. My voice grew loud and passionate as I began to tell her what I thought of her and what I'd like to do to her. As I went on, her facial expressions changed. First, she was almost smiling. She was enjoying the verbal abuse, soaking it up. At one point, I picked up the cane and began waving it around. When I did that, her facial expression changed. She wasn't afraid. She was eager and even hopeful that I would hurt her. When I didn't, she registered disappointment. Nothing got to me until about a half-hour along, during my description of how I would separate each organ from her body and what I'd do with it after it was removed. Instead of being horrified, she was looking at me with affection and sadness. She was feeling sorry for me. That made me doubly furious, and my diatribe became even more violent. She continued looking at me the same way and crying softly as I spewed out the bile inside of me. While I was talking, I heard myself saying new things that I hadn't thought of before. After I used up the new ideas, I went back to what I had already told her many times, only she hadn't been there to hear it. As I went on raving, I began getting scared. I looked at her, and then I looked away. I saw the cane lying there waiting for me to pick it up. I looked back at her. I realized I couldn't stop myself. I was completely out of control. As I kept talking, I got more and more scared, because I was coming to the end of my material. I began to realize what would happen then, and I began shaking. I had to stop myself before I got there, but I couldn't. I was like a runaway train. My voice got louder and higher at the same time as I realized what I was about to do. I was going to tell her that I loved her and wanted to spend the rest of my life with her. The way she looked at me, I thought she might already know. That gave me another idea. I accused her of being an evil witch with a heart of ice. It was like I had a second wind. I felt like I could go on for at least 15 more minutes. Maybe by then I could think of a way of stopping myself. But even as I was telling myself that, I already knew it was hopeless. I stared at her as I was yelling myself hoarse, trying to see what she was thinking. Did she know she had me in her power like she did on the worst day of my life? I had no chance against her. I never did.