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The Gentle Man

By: MendonFishers



Copywrite©2010 Mendon Fishers

I was suddenly awake, and covered in a cold sweat. I guess I had "The Nightmare" again but couldn't remember it. I guess talking to the "doc" had helped.

I knew I couldn't go back to sleep yet. The nightmare would only return.

I looked over at the alarm clock. It was 4:30 am. Almost time to get up anyway, so I might as well get dressed. Running a ranch started early in the morning and lasted late into the night. But I loved it. 

I had 535,000 acres in the foot hills of the Rockies. My nearest neighbor was 50 miles in any direction. I'm sure of that fact because that is as far in any direction a person needs to travel to get to my property lines from the ranch house.

I went into my bathroom, shaved, showered and returned to my bedroom to dress. When I got all done, I looked like your typical cowboy. I was 40 years old, my hair had turned mostly grey, and my weight got down to 200 lbs from 260 lbs due to all the hard work on the ranch. My face had taken on a weathered look from the sun and the wind. Some of the women I had dated said I was really good looking in a rugged sort of way. I no longer resembled the man who arrived from back east 10 years ago. 

Hell I didn't even resemble my Italian roots anymore.

But I was still alone. I just couldn't bring myself to get close to any of the available women. 

Now that's not to say I didn't go into town to relive sexual tension. But I never found a woman I wanted to go farther with.

One of my ranch hands once told me, "If you wake up with the same hard-on you had a week ago, it's time to go to town." 

So I practiced what he preached. It served my needs. As I got older, the time between trips increased. 

But I guess that happens to every guy.

I made coffee and took a cup into my office. I was planning on starting my day a little early. I flipped on a TV and tuned to a national news network. 

I love my satellite dish. It allowed me to keep in touch with the world while still enjoying rural living, and besides my Dude Ranch Guests went into withdrawal without it.

This was a working ranch. We had herds of beef cattle; we bred horses, sheep and even a buffalo or two. After I had lived here about 5 years, one day a small family drove up my driveway pulling their travel trailer. 

They asked if they could camp out on my property. 

They scored a lot of points with me by just stopping to ask. Most people (inconsiderate bastards that they are) just set up camp without asking. I usually had to send one of my hands to tell them to leave.

I really don't know why I said "OK". Maybe it was the fact that they had stopped to ask, maybe it was the look of hope in their son's eyes, or maybe it was just the fact I had a good breakfast. 

Whatever it was, I sent one of the hands to help them pick out a good spot that was near the stream and under the trees, but close enough to the main part of the ranch that electric, water, and the bathrooms were close enough to be usable.

Early that evening there was a knock on my front door. There was the son standing there with a huge platter of cookies. 

He held them out to me and said," Thank you for letting us stay on your land. It's really nice here." 

I noticed his father standing in the shadows with a flashlight, for all intensive purposes, a proud father watching his son become a man.

The boy then went on to explain that his mother made the best cookies in the world and pointed out his favorites. I raised my voice so the father could hear me, thanked the boy, and invited both of them to join me for milk and cookies. 

We had a good time; the little boy got me thinking about my own children.

It had been a long time since I had run away, never even taking the time to say goodbye.

The next morning I was working some of the horses in a corral near the main barn when I looked up and spotted the father and son watching me. I was due for a break so I rode over to the fence where they were standing. The boy immediately reached for the horse's head to "Pet" him. The horse I was on was a mean stallion that would bite anyone who got near enough.

I yelled at the boy not to touch. He jumped back and started to tear up. I really didn't mean to yell so loud at the boy and scare him. 

I felt like a real jerk. 

I got down off the horse, knelt down and explained to the boy about the horse biting and me not wanting him to get hurt. When I got all done, I got a hug from him.

I was feeling so bad, that I took him into the barn, and showed him a newly born colt that we didn't let outside yet. The mare was a pussy cat. She was as gentle as they came, so I let the youngster into the stall with them to touch the baby. He proceeded to ask me a million questions about the foal and her mother. 

I guess I made a friend for life because every time for the next week, when I turned around the boy was right there next to me. The father apologized for his son's actions. 

I said, "No problem, I enjoy the company".

As the week went on, I bonded with the kid. He was about the same age as my son. (My son lived back East, and I had not seen him in years.) I guessed the boy was filling a need I didn't know I had.

The little family stayed for a week. During that short period of time the boy managed to win over all the ranch hands that met him. We were all sorry when they left.

That fall I decided to start a dude ranch with a family orientation. There wasn't a lot I had to do. My ranch had six cabins with electricity and running water. I set the boys to cleaning them up, adding water heaters and anything else they needed. 

My main house was huge. The dining room would seat 30 people; the living room was just as big. I also had a library filled with books on Western history.

So I guess I was all set. We'd just "wing" the rest.

I put a small ad in a vacation magazine back East that catered to families. I got a bunch of replies and a couple of deposits. 

Not exactly a great start, but it was something.

As the time for the first guests to arrive neared, I called a meeting with all my staff. We decided what the customers would do around the ranch, what horses were even tempered enough for them to ride. What chores the guests could and would be allowed to do, and what the menu would consist of. 

We had even cleaned up an old wagon and outfitted it as a "chuck wagon". Our plan was to take them on an overnight "trail drive" so they could get the real "Old west" feeling.

It slowly took off. After a couple of years we were booked solid all summer long. It was nice to have all the families running around. It made the ranch seemed lived in. 

One morning as I sat, sipping my coffee, I started thinking about how I ended up on the ranch. It was a long and twisted journey.

I was a bookkeeper for my Uncle Vito. I worked in a small office over one of his restaurants. You may not think a bookkeeper was major job, but my Uncle was the head of one of the largest crime families on the East coast. I was in charge of all his money, both legally earned and "other". 

I was well respected within the "family."

On that fateful day, we had a small kitchen fire and evacuated the building. Since I couldn't work, I went home. The garage was open, so I just pulled in and walked into the side door. 

The house was dead quiet. 

I heard a slight noise coming from upstairs. For some reason, I grabbed my son's baseball bat from near the door, where he had left it, and went to investigate the noise.

I quietly snuck upstairs and walked into my bedroom, that's where all the noise was coming from. There was a site I'll never forget. I saw my naked wife riding a hard cock, and it wasn't mine. She was lost in the throes of ecstasy, begging to get fucked harder and harder. 

Her eyes were closed and she was calling, "Tony make me cum again, I need it."

My name was Sam.

I started across the bedroom toward them, when her lover turned his head and saw me. He looked at me and smirked. It was my enemy, Tony D'Amico, from another crime family. The look on his face, said it all. He was fucking my wife to humiliate me. He was rubbing my nose in it.

I really don't remember what happened next, but when the clouds of anger cleared, there was Tony lying in the bed with his head beaten to a pulp. I guess a 260 lbs guy with a baseball bat could do some serious damage. 

He was dead. 

My wife was on the floor, it looked as if I took the bat to her also, but she was still breathing.

I didn't know what to do next, so I called my cousin. He told me to calm down, get in my car and drive over to one of his businesses. He'd take care of the cleanup. 

When I got to that business, I was put in a car and driven about 200-300 miles to the west where we changed cars and continued driving for the next two days. 

We stayed in a small motel outside of Reno, Nevada for a couple of days. 

I got my head straight there. 

My handler explained that a cleanup crew, sent by my cousin, had made Tony's body disappear, and had tossed my wife down the grand staircase into the foyer. The crew wanted it to look as if she fell down them. 

They then started the bedroom on fire to eliminate all sign of Tony's death. 

The fire department found my wife at the foot of the stairs and assumed she had fallen down them trying to avoid the fire. 

My wife's back had been broken when I had hit her with the baseball bat. The rough handling she received severed her spinal cord at the location of the break. She would not have any feeling from the waist down, she lost the use of both legs, and she lost all control of her bladder and bowels. 

I had no sympathy for her after what she did to our marriage.

One of her doctors felt that her injuries could not have been caused by a simple fall down a flight of stairs and wanted to investigate further. 

He lost interest in her and shortly after bought a new cabin cruiser. I guess some associates of my cousin talked to him.

My two children were with my elderly parents and doing ok. They were told that their mother had a boy friend and she was injured by him. They accepted that explanation because they had overheard phone calls between her and Tony. 

They never asked to see their mother in the hospital.

My handler then tore my heart out. It seems that Tony's distant cousin was the Don of another crime family and he had placed a reward on my head. I couldn't go home again and I'd never see my children again. 

On the last day there, my handler gave be a new briefcase. In it I found everything I needed to become Tom Martin. 

Sam Pulmeri no longer existed. My life, as I knew it, ceased to exist.

I was outfitted in western style clothes, just a simple ranch hand. My handler introduced me to another ranch hand, and we got in his pickup. 

We drove off to start my new life.

I snapped back to the present and started my day. This was a Monday and all the guests for the next two weeks were scheduled to arrive that morning. I walked into my office, turned the welcome sign on, fired up my PC, and started another Monday.

About noon, a limo drove up to the office. I was outside at the time. My first thought was these were going to some "difficult" guests, most of the ones that arrived by limo were. The back door opened on the limo and two teenage kids got out. 

My next thought was, "Shit, two very spoiled kids with no parents in sight. Theirs would be a short two weeks". I was thinking of starting a pool with the hands on how long they would last before wanting to return home.

They stood around waiting for their luggage to be unloaded; I thought that they looked a little familiar. But my thought train was interrupted by my current customer's questions. By the time I was done, one of my helpers had checked them in.

At dinner that night I gave my usual talk about the ranch and what we expected from our guests as well as what they could expect from us. I reminded them that this was a working ranch and not a vacation spot that catered to every customer's needs. If they wanted a "spa" treatment, they were going to be very disappointed. 

But then I assured them that we would bend over backwards to make their stay memorial.

I noticed that the two kids had found a couple of peers from another family and seemed to be getting along. 

I might need to revise my estimate for their length of stay. 

Because this was a working ranch, I spent most of my time actually running the ranch. Hands that were assigned to our dude ranch customers had to be people persons. They loved the customers and the customers enjoyed them. If they weren't explaining something, they were entertaining the customers with one tall tail or another.

About a week later, I noticed some noise coming from for one of the smaller barns where we stored hay and grain for the horses. When I investigated I found one of the teenage boys fooling around with one of the teenage girls. 

While I understood teenage hormones, I also needed to prevent this behavior. All I needed was a law suit from the parents for a pregnant daughter.

So I "not so discreetly" cleared my throat. There followed the scramble to pull down bras and shirts, and button jeans. They weren't actually having sex, but they were close.

I was a teenager once myself so I understood where they were coming from. But on the other hand, I guess I was going to play the part of her father. 

I gave the boy a really hard look and said, "Get boy!" 

I almost laughed as he ran for the door, bent over at the waist. I remembered how hard it was to stand up when you had an erection stuffed in tight jeans. (We'd have a good laugh when I told the hands about this that night.)

I turned my hard look on the girl and told her to finish getting dressed and meet me in the study in the main house because we were going to have a talk. I turned and walked out of the barn trying to decide exactly how I was going to handle this. 

I didn't have a clue how to begin. I never raised children let alone a teenage girl.

By time I reached the house, I decided that I'd use the "responsible adult" as a base for my talk with her. About 10 minutes later, she walked into the study. She was still crying. 

I pointed to a chair across from me and asked if she would like something to drink. I got myself a soft drink as she shook her head no.

Trying to keep my voice soft and even, I tried to imagine what I would want someone to say to my daughter if the situation was reversed. 

I talked to her for the next 35 minutes. 

I guess I was getting a little carried away. I felt like one of those country preachers. I was in the middle of my "save your virginity for someone you really love" speech when she looked up and started studying my face. 

Suddenly she said, "You've got my grandmother's eyes and grandpa's voice and mannerisms." The tears started flowing, "Are you my Dad, Sam Pulmeri?"

I looked at her young face and saw my ex-wife's eyes staring back at me. I remembered a little girl looking up at me with those same eyes, holding her little arms up to me to be picked up.

I looked at her and said, "I missed you Danni."

The next thing I knew, my daughter Danielle was sitting on my lap trying to hug the life out of me. We were both crying our eyes out with joy. This was the little girl; I never thought I'd see again. She had grown into a beautiful young woman. 

For the next hour we just sat and talked. We discussed all our feelings. She never left my lap. 

Eventually the conversation got around to my son. She said not to say anything to him until she had had a chance to talk to him first. She promised to talk to him in their cabin after dinner.

For the rest of the day, I wasn't worth a shit. I walked around the ranch with my head in a cloud and a silly grin on my face. My hands couldn't figure out what was going on with me, they knew that I hadn't "been to town" lately and wouldn't go near a guest. 

The hands hadn't seen me this happy since they had fixed me up with a woman they called "The Sword Swallower" for a long weekend last year.

After dinner, I was in my office trying to do some paper work, when the door burst open and a 15 year old whirlwind ran in shouting, "You're my Dad?" 

The next thing I knew we were standing in the middle of my office trying to hug each other to death. Sammy Jr. had grown into someone I would be proud of.

The next morning I grabbed the "special" cell phone, saddled a horse and started to ride out into the hills to have a private conversation with my Uncle Vito. 

Vito's son answered the phone. 

I said, "Hi Cuz."

He hesitated a minute and replied, "Hi Cubby," with a smile in his voice.

The next thing you knew we were both talking at the same time like a couple of excited kids. When we finally calmed down enough to talk, I told him about my kids and asked why we were put in danger by them being sent out to see me.

My cousin explained it was his father's idea, and he would put my Uncle Vito on the phone. My uncle came on. He sounded old and tired, but there was the sound of genuine happiness as he talked to me. 

It seemed that Don Angelo had died. He had left no one to run his empire, so the council had divided it up, the largest portion going to my uncle. My uncle had lifted the bounty on my head and it was safe to return home now.

I told him that I was established out here and just couldn't just leave everything. I promised to come home for Thanksgiving and would stay through the New Year.

I thanked my uncle for the gift of my children and explained that they would be staying with me until they needed to return for school if they wanted. 

On my way back to the main house, the cell phone rang again. It was my cousin. He explained that my uncle was failing and these were probably the last holidays he would be with us. He said my uncle had cancer and it was terminal. 

I promised I would be there for the holidays.

That night I had my housekeeper open up two of the extra bedrooms in the main house. I only used the master suite and had closed up the other six bedrooms. 

The next day while my kids were out playing rancher, I had all their things moved into their new rooms. 

They came running into my office yelling that someone had stolen their "stuff" later that day. 

I just smiled and pointed upstairs to the second floor. "You guys moved", I told them

They disappeared upstairs to inspect their new digs. After a lot of noise coming down from the second floor, so did they. They wanted to know why I had taken all the trouble to move their stuff when they were scheduled to go back east next weekend.

"That's what you think, "I said."

I explained my phone call with Uncle Vito and that if they wanted, they could stay until school started. There were two very happy teenagers in that room

They said the rooms were beautiful, but they wanted a few things from town to personalize their rooms. I tried to protest, but it was two against one, so I said they could take one of the pickup trucks into town tomorrow. 

As I watched them head to town, I started having misgivings about letting them take a truck to town. I could just see the back of that pickup piled full. When they returned, the truck wasn't exactly full, but it's not as if they didn't give it the "old scouts" try. 

I was told to keep out of "their" rooms until they had a chance to fix them up.

That was the last I saw of them for the next couple of days. They stayed very busy in their rooms. When the great unveiling finally arrived, I was marched upstairs, after promising not to peek, made to close my eyes, 

When I was allowed to open my eyes in each room, I saw the typical teenager stuff. 

My son's room had all the wall posters of his favorite sports figures and a couple of car posters. Somehow he even managed to sneak a Sports Illustrated Swim Suit Poster in the mix. 


The Gentle Man



His sister gave the poster a disapproving look, and muttered something that sounded like, "Sluts" under her breath. 

I kept my mouth shut; I really couldn't understand what she had to complain about. I kind of liked the poster.

When we reached her room, I could see the female touches. There was no doubt that this was a young woman's room.

As I looked around I could help but notice the large framed photo of me on her night stand just like the one on her brother's night table. My daughter's desk was also decorated with framed picture of me. As I looked at the photos, I realized they had all been taken of me here on the ranch. 

I was told that my son and daughter both wanted my face to be the first thing they saw in the morning and the last thing at night. 

I got one of those big lumps in my throat; I had missed so many years with my children.

Over the next couple of months, we talked. We discussed everything that had happened during the 10 years I was gone from their lives. 

One night we ran out of things to talk about, so I was asked about their mother and why I left.

I had dreaded this moment from the first time we were reunited, but I had to tell them the truth. I talked about leaving work early that day because of the fire, finding their mother and her lover in bed, going into a fit of rage, recovering and finding that I had beaten their mother's boyfriend to death with a baseball bat and injured her too. I told them that I have regretted that moment of violence since.

I explained calling my cousin and him taking over. I told them about being given the brief case with my new identity and told I could never return.

My son looked at me and said, "I'm glad she went nuts and is in a mental hospital. I never want to see her again after what she did."

My daughter just sat there and looked sad.

I made a mental note to ask my uncle about my "ex" when I visited and find out what was going on with her.

I guess I needed closure because deep down in my heart I still missed her. I had to ask her, "Why."

Summer ended before any of us wanted it to. The kids and I knew it would be almost three months before we could see each other again. We promised to call and email each other, but it's not the same as seeing their faces across the table or the room every day.

As much as I'd like to say it didn't, time just dragged. It felt like two or three years before those three month went by. My entire crew took me to the airport and started me on the trip home. They knew most of the story about my divorce and estrangement from my kids. 

What they didn't know was about the violence and my ties to organized crime. They just knew I wanted to get home and see my children again.

I arrived back east before I was scheduled. I had told them I was due on Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving. 

I was a week early.

My guys couldn't stand me moping around the ranch, so then moved everything up and just about carried me to the airport. 

So there I was pushing the button on the intercom next to the gate, where the cab had dropped me off. A very tough sounding voice said, "Yeah?"

I asked if my cousin was home, was told "maybe". 

"Tell him Chubb's here," I said.

Not two minutes latter my cousin was running out the front door, yelling to open the gate and let me in. The guards must have thought we were nuts standing in the middle of the driveway hugging and calling each other "four" letter words. 

The next thing I knew, my kids were joining in on the hugging. (My cousin and I had cleaned up our language by then.) I looked up and saw my uncle in the doorway. He was in a wheel chair being pushed by a nurse. 

He appeared to be a shadow of his former self.

I untangled myself from the mob of family members and went up to my uncle. I put my arms around him and said, "It's good to be home again. Thanks for making it all possible." I looked at his face and saw the tears forming in his eyes. 

I whispered in his ear, "Tough guys don't cry, so I was right, you always were a wimp."

His smile lit up his face, "Don't let my secret out." he said.

Later when we were alone, my cousin exclaimed that it was the best his father had looked in months. He didn't want to know what I whispered in his Dad's ear, but, "Thank you for making him a little happier." He told me.

We celebrated Thanksgiving with every relative and "family" member there. There must have been close to 400 people in that party house. My cousin thanked everybody for coming and talked about the upcoming year. 

My uncle was handed the microphone, and he said a few words about how important "family" was. All the men stood and toasted him while the rest of the people there applauded.

I knew my uncle was touched, but as a hard guy he couldn't show it. I got up and walked over to him. I took his hand to say something when he snatched it back and said into the microphone, "I don't hold hands! People might think I was gay." 

That comment brought the house down.

There was nothing left for me to do but follow tradition and kiss him on both cheeks. When I got done I looked into his face and he was smiling from ear to ear. 

I guess he had gotten the best of me. 

On Christmas we only celebrated with immediate family. My uncle was too weak for anything fancy. 

We spent New Year's Day in the hospital watching him slowly lose his battle with cancer. He died on January 5 in his sleep. 

He left us peacefully. I hoped he would meet up with his wife who had died 6 years earlier.

When we walked into the funeral home a few days later, I was impressed. The entire establishment was being used only for him. The floral arrangements that were sent fill the entire structure and the people standing in line to pay their respects formed a line that stretched around the block. 

Since it was January and cold outside, the people standing in line were given hot drinks and small warm sandwiches. I don't know who planned that consideration, but the mourners were thankful.

On the day of his burial, his funeral service was held at the largest church in the area. The Bishop himself conducted the funeral mass and the grave side service. The church overflowed with people as did the grave side service. I got a big lump in my throat as I watched his casket being lowered in the ground next to his bride. 

They were together again.

Both my children stood at my side through all of this. Their eyes were never dry. My uncle was their alternate father for most of their years growing up after their grandparents died. 

The children might have me back in their lives now, but they would miss their substitute father. 

After the funeral my daughter was in a funk for a few days. When I asked her what was wrong, all she did was ask me a question, "Can we visit Mom?"

I had hoped I would never need to see my ex again. The last time I saw her, she was having sex with my enemy. Here it was 14 years later and the vision of the moment was still fresh in my head.

I swallowed hard and I told my daughter I would make arrangements for the visit. I asked my son if he wanted to attend, 

"Hell no! I never want to see that slut again," was the reply I got. 

I made a mental note to try and get him some help with these issues.

A few weeks later my daughter and I were pulling in to a state institution. I found out from my cuz that my uncle refused to pay for her care. He blamed her for all my troubles and had her declared a ward of the state.

She was warehoused in a state hospital with no effect care. 

We were directed to a doctor's office in the facility. He was listed as her care provider. 

After a very long wait, my daughter and I were escorted into his office. I found us face to face with a Pakistani who spoke broken English. 

He had a patient folder in front of him that he explained was my wife's patient history. 

He had another pile of patient folders on his desk. It was about 18 inches high. I asked if they were all his patients, and he replied, "Yes, we are short handed."

At that point my daughter started asking questions about her mother. As I listened, I knew that he didn't have a clue as to who this patient was. 

I asked him a very direct question, "Does my wife still take her daily run?"

He answered in his heavily accented English, "Of course."

At that point I grabbed my daughter's hand and squeezed hard so she would not blow up. You see her mother was paralyzed from the waist down and had been that way for 14 years. Running was not on her menu.

I asked if we could go on the ward and visit her. He called an orderly and we were escorted to her ward. We identified ourselves to the head nurse on that ward and asked to see my ex. 

The nurse was very nice and knew all about my ex. She explained that she was completely withdrawn. She hadn't said a word in almost 12 years. She had paranoia and had closed off the world to protect herself. 

She then escorted us to the day room for this ward.

My wife was beautiful. She weighed about 110 lbs and stood 5' 6'. When she walked into a room, every head turned to look at her. But that was t least 10 years ago.

Today she weighed around 300 lbs, had stringy, unwashed hair and was confined to a wheel chair. Her face had that blank, faraway look that the mentally ill can only have. 

My daughter walked up to her and started talking. I could tell nothing was getting through. My heart went out to my daughter, she was trying so hard. She wanted her mother to recognize her.

I was walking over to my daughter to give her some support, when my ex's eyes turned to me. There was a momentary glint of recognition before my ex started screaming at the top of her lungs and thrashing her arms around. 

Two of the orderlies grabbed her and the duty nurse administered a needle to her. 

I don't know what was in that shot, but it knocked her right out. 

The duty nurse said that was the first time she had reacted in the 5 years she had been assigned to this ward. She took our information and promised to call me if there were any changes. 

We left that hell hole.

In the car on the way back to my uncle's compound, my daughter broke down and cried her heart out. I promised her I would look into having her mother moved to a private care facility near the ranch. Yeah I was a softie. 

That way my daughter could visit my ex and see that her mother received treatment.

After returning to the ranch, I started my search. I found a facility about 100 miles away. It was very well respected in the mental health community. I paid the place a visit.

I liked the place. The doctors and staff seemed very professional and caring over their charges. I sat with the head doctor, the doctor who had helped me limit my nightmares many years ago, and discussed my wife's condition right down to her first outbreak in at least 5 years upon seeing me. 

While he didn't like her violent reaction to me, it did prove that she was partly aware of what was going on around her. He liked that.

We made arrangements to have her transferred to his care. And I called my daughter with the good news. She cried.

A couple of months went by, when the doctor called me and asked if he could have a photograph of my face. When I asked why, he said, "I'll explain later." So I sent him an 8x10 I had made from one of the pictures my kids took.

Between visiting colleges for my daughter to attend and moving both kids out to the ranch, I forgot all about my ex-wife and the picture. So I was surprised when my ex-wife's doctor called and he asked if he could talk to me face to face at my ranch. 

I agreed and we made an appointment for him to visit.

It was a nice spring day when the doctor came out. Since he rode, we decided to visit one of my high meadows and just enjoy the view. On the way out there we made small talk. Once there we dismounted and sat in the grass. 

He told me that they were making progress with my wife. Her weight was down about 100 lbs and falling off her like crazy. She was starting to take notice of her appearance and was asking the nurses to brush her hair. Of course she still doesn't speak, but she will point to a brush if she wants her hair done.

He then dropped a bomb on me.

If my ex was shown a picture of me she started yelling, "He's going to kill me too" and would go wild. She usually had to be sedated to get her to stop screaming. He wanted to know if her fear of me was founded.

He then just sat there and looked at me, waiting for me to speak.

I thought about what to say and made my decision. I'd tell him everything. I asked if what I told him was covered by doctor patient privilege. 

He told me to give him a dollar and then I would be his patient. The money changed hands.

I began by telling him that I was raised in an organized crime family. The Don was my uncle, and I was his trusted bookkeeper. I knew everything about his "business". I knew where the money came from and where it went. I had lists of every cop, politian, judge and the general individuals taking bribes. 

My wife knew all about my "job".

I told him about arriving home earlier than expected one day and finding her in bed having sex with her lover. I wasn't really too upset with her. I could just divorce her. But her lover was a different animal. He was my enemy. And he looked at me from under her, and smiled as if to laugh at me. His expression told me that my wife meant nothing to him. She was just a way to mock me with his power.

I told the doctor that at that point I lost it. I started beating him on the face with a baseball bat that I suddenly found in my hand. When I came out of the rage and could think clearly again, I found my ex's lover dead in the bed. His head was destroyed. My wife was lying on the bedroom floor, unconscious but breathing. She showed marks on her body of having been hit with a bat. 

I did not remember having hit her.

I then explained that my cousin arranged for the cleanup. I was put in a car and driven away. Eventually, I ended up here. 

I told him that they made my wife's lover's body disappear, and tossed her down a flight of stairs to make it seem as if she had fallen. They then set the bedroom on fire to hide any signs of the murder. The house was almost completely destroyed by the fire.

He then sat there a long time, thinking, before he started talking again.

He said the blind rage was understandable. The loss of any memory of my beating the man to death was probably a defense mechanism used by my brain to protect me from the horror of what I'd done. 

He then asked me if that was the only time I used violence on another human being and if I had nightmares or blackouts since.

I explained that my uncle had made me their bookkeeper because I wasn't "wired" for the violent side of the business. My uncle always called me, "The Gentle Man." 

I never hurt another human being and I did not have nightmares about the killings that I remembered, but every once in a while I woke up screaming.

He explained that I had probably buried the whole thing deep enough in my sub-conscious that it wasn't affecting me. Normally he would attempt to bring up the hidden action so I could learn to deal with it, but in my case, it would best be left alone. 

He did outline a list of symptoms and make me promise to call him if any of them occurred.

I then discussed with him my son's damnation of his mother, and asked what to do. He asked me to bring my son into see him some time so they could talk. He'd handle the my son's anger.

We left the upper meadow, both lost in our own thoughts. When we got back to the main house, he asked me to stay away from my ex-wife until he told me otherwise. He wanted my daughter to visit her mother as often as possible. He said it would be good for both of them. 

We parted in silence, both of us in deep thought.

My daughter was in her junior year and my son was a freshman. He was studying agriculture with his eye on going in with me on the ranch; my daughter was a pre-med student. She said that she had plans to be a "shrink" eventually. But it took many years to of study to become one. She said that seeing the way a good doctor had helped her mother is what made up her mind. 

I started to notice that every time I talked to my daughter, I heard all about what she and "Bill" had done. Pretty soon that's all I was hearing was "Bill" this, and "Bill" that. I wasn't the dumbest father in the world, so I suggested that she invite him to have Thanksgiving dinner with us and meet the family. 

I wanted to check him out and make sure he was good enough for my "baby."

About an hour later I got the call to set an extra place for Thanks giving dinner, and could he stay in one of the spare rooms for the week as his parents were going to Europe for the holidays. 

I was no fool, I agreed.

When Bill and my daughter showed up I was pleasantly surprised. Bill was a very pleasant and polite young man. He was about 6' and 190 lbs. He had sandy hair and brown eyes. He was also a premed major, but he wanted to be a surgeon. 

My daughter said he was cute, but I for one never looked at another guy and thought, "He's cute." 

I'm just not wired that way.

Anyway, I liked him and though that he was a good catch for my daughter. I also noticed that their eyes never left each other for the next two weeks. 

They had "it" bad.

They followed each other around the ranch much to the enjoyment of my hired hands. I kept getting called, gramps, and asked if I need to borrow a couple of dollars for a reception. 

You get the idea.

On Valentine's Day they got engaged. A date was set for an August wedding. 

Soon I found myself standing in the foyer of a local church waiting for the bride to show up. As I got more and more nervous, the priest leaned over and whispered, "They're always late, don't worry, she'll show up."

She did.

As we were walking down the aisle, I noticed a wheel chair at the outside of the first row of pews on the bride's side. I also spotted my friend the shrink, sitting with a woman in the front row. I was so engaged with walking the bride to be down the aisle, that I gave them both a pass.

When I did the "hand off" of my daughter at the altar, I turned to take my seat. Imagine my surprise when I found myself looking into my ex's eyes. I felt my daughter's hand on my arm, and she whispered, "It's OK Daddy, I invited her." 

I took my seat next to her. I expected her to start screaming at any minute. My friend the shrink just gave me a knowing smile that said, "It's OK, she'll be good. Just don't get to close".

When the priest finally pronounced them husband and wife, my eyes were wet. I happened to glance at my ex and the tears were just running down her cheeks. When the newlyweds turned to walk down the aisle, I started to move across my ex so that I wouldn't block her view. 

Her doctor grabbed my arm, and shook his head "No". He then whispered in my ear, "Don't touch her, she's not that strong yet." 

The moment passed and I joined the procession out of the church. I didn't see my ex again that day.

At the reception as I was dancing with my daughter, she commented to me that her mom had come a long way. I thought about my feelings toward my ex, and I guess I had come a long way also. I too was proud of her for all the ground she gained. 

I guess some of the hate I had felt, mellowed over the years.

I made a note to call her doctor next week and make a golf date. We needed to talk.

Next week while playing golf, we talked about my wife's progress. I complemented him on the progress he had made with her. He said she was still very fragile and I could set her back years by me just touching her, but her being at the wedding and sitting next to me was a great advance. 




The Gentle Man



I asked how he had gotten her to accept me. He explained that it all started with the 8x10 picture of me that he had requested years ago. He said he started by having the picture framed and put into his office where he met with her every day. At first he put it on a shelf almost out of her sight. When she stopped her violent reactions to it, he moved it a little closer. After almost a year, he was able to put it on his desk and not freak her out. He then started discussing her feelings toward me and how my picture could not hurt her. 

One day at their meeting, she had a breakthrough and started talking about that day so many years ago.

She remembered having sex with Tony and being on top. As she was climaxing, she felt Tony pull her over his head as if he was trying to use her to protect his head. She then felt this terrible pain in her back, and knew something had hit her very hard. Tony then pushed her off him to the floor. The pain in her back was so great she must have blacked out. The next thing she remembered was her husband checking to see if she was still alive. He left her lying on the floor in terrible pain.

She remembered being thrown down the stairs .Her pain became so bad she blacked out again. The next thing she knew a fireman was carting her outside and she was coughing from the thick smoke. She noticed the terrible pain in her back had stopped, but she couldn't feel her legs anymore.

The doctor explained that it was probably at this point, her spinal cord was damaged resulting in her paralysis. He told her my side of the story. When he finished, he took her back to her room. She had a lot of information to digest.

The next time I heard about my wife was from my daughter. She asked if her mom could have Thanksgiving dinner with all of us. 

I agreed provided that it was ok with her doctor. I called the doctor the next day.

Her doctor was a bit hesitant at Ok'ing this visit. Since the doctor and I were friends, I asked if he and his wife could attend and bring my ex with them. He felt this was better, and agreed to the whole thing. 

On Thanksgiving Day, the three of them arrived about an hour before dinner was scheduled to be served. 

My ex was wheeled into the living room where everybody was. At first she seemed overwhelmed by all the people, but eventually she settled down and actually tried to join in a few of the conversations. 

Me? I just kept out of her sight and out of any conversation she was in. I did not want to add to her stress level.

At the dinner table, I was asked to give the blessing. I started by basically asking God to bless everyone there and help them to have a good year. I especially asked him to watch over the two newlyweds, and to help my ex with her problems. 

I glanced over at her while I was saying this little prayer, and found her shyly smiling at me. Her doctor gave me a very approving look, my daughter started crying, and my son just sat there in shock. 

No one else at the table knew the significance of my little prayer.

For the next couple of hours, we had a typical Thanksgiving dinner combined with an Italian feast. I swear there was enough food served to feed a third world nation. When we finally crawled away from the table, there was not an empty space in my body. 

We all assembled in the living room for coffee and after dinner drinks. I was sprawled in my lounge chair resting my eyes when I sensed someone by my side. I peeked under my eye lids and saw my ex sitting there just looking at my outstretched hand as if she wanted to touch it. 

I stayed completely still and suddenly felt a very soft touch on my hand. The touch was quickly withdrawn. I stayed still pretending nothing happened. A few moments passed when I felt the touch again. This time it was firmer and longer lasting before I heard the wheel chair move away. 

When I opened my eyes, I saw her doctor holding both her hands and talking to her. Later I found out that he was telling her that now she knew I wouldn't bite, exactly like he told her. He also told her that he felt there was a place for her in my heart.

I guess I agreed.

Later when they were leaving, she glanced over at me and mouthed, "Thank you."

Later in the week I had a conference call with her doctor and my daughter. We all felt she was strong enough to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day at my house. Doc couldn't make it as he and his wife had a cruse booked, but he put my daughter in charge of her mother.

I was told to be as "low key" as possible and basically stay away from my ex and let her initiate any contacts between us.

When Christmas Eve finally rolled around I was on pins and needles. I assumed that I would do something wrong and upset my ex and ruin Christmas for everyone. I decided to spend as much time as possible in one of the barns or out "inspecting" my holdings. 

I was walking between two of my buildings, when I heard my ex call my name, and she was beckoning me over to her, I walked over to her and sat on one of the porch chairs. I was trying to appear as non-threatening as possible. 

She wheeled her chair over to me and softly said, "Please don't be afraid of me. I know now that you never meant to hurt me all those years ago and I would like to see if maybe we could be friends. Doc Howie and I spent a lot of time talking about just this."

I started to stand up, when a scared look appeared in her eyes. I quickly sat back down, but my emotions took over and the tears started running down my cheeks. 

From somewhere only women know, a piece of tissue appeared and she reached over and started to dry my eyes. 

She whispered that it was "Ok, and could we be friends again?"

I nodded my head for yes. I also noticed my daughter and my son watching the whole exchange. They both looked very pleased.

Later that night I was somehow left alone with my wife. She needed to be carried upstairs and put on her bed. I told her that I'd find a couple of the women to help her. She shook her head "no", and asked if I'd do it instead because there was no reason to disturb everyone just for her. 

I walked over to her and bent over to pick her up when I felt her arms wrap around my neck, more like a hug than another person holding on for their safety. I slid my arms under her useless legs and slowly lifted her to my chest. As we were climbing the stairs I realized that she wasn't holding her head up to watch where we were going, but had it buried in my chest as if she was trying to trace my scent. 

When I sat her down on the bed in one of my guest rooms, I had the distinct feeling that she did not want to let go. So I just stood there until she was ready. When she finally removed her arms from around my neck, I went downstairs and got her wheelchair. 

When I returned with her chair, she asked me to put her back in it and wait in her room while she prepared herself for bed. 

About ten minutes passed before she was back. Her hair was up, her face was washed, and she was dressed in a simple cotton night gown that covered her completely. I had turned down her bed while she was in the bathroom, so I put her in it and tucked her in. I leaned over to kiss her goodnight, when she suddenly turned her head so I only got her cheek. 

"Woops", I thought, I had pushed her too hard and backed away. 

Little did I know the real reason for her turning her head.

When I woke up the next morning, I had the distinct feeling that at some point during the night, she had wheeled herself into my room and sat looking at me. But then I figured it must have been a dream brought on by all I had eaten. 

I got dressed and walked into the hallway. She was sitting at the top of the stairs waiting for someone to help her downstairs. When I came in sight she held her arms up to me and said,"Please?"

I carried her to the kitchen where everyone was gathering. It got very quiet in there when I was setting her down. I went back upstairs, got her wheelchair and arraigned her in it. Later that day we all gathered around the tree and exchanged presents. It was a typical family Christmas, our first in almost 17 years. 

At one point I looked up and saw my ex just sitting there surrounded by piles of gifts for her, Then I noticed she was just softly sitting there crying. 

I started to stand up, when my daughter walked over to her and said, "Mom, we've got 17 years of gifts to give you, so buck up and start opening them." 

My ex started smiling from ear to ear, and returned to opening her gifts.

At dinner that night, we were talking about our plans for New Year's Eve, when my ex interrupted and asked no one in particular, if she could spend that holiday her with us too. 

I opened my big mouth and told her that we had included her in our plans. I then added that she could spend the entire week with us unless she wanted to go back to the hospital and return here later in the week. 

She wheeled herself over to where I was sitting and gave me a great big hug. She also pulled me to her and whispered, "Thank You, "in my ear.

We had a great week and a super New Years. She stayed with me until everyone returned to their other lives and just the two of us remained in my ranch house. We decided that she was to return to the hospital after spending just one more night. 

Late that night I awoke in my room and found her sitting in her wheelchair. A storm was raging outside and the electric was off. She told me it was very cold in her room and could she sleep with me. I really don't remember giving her my permission but all of a sudden she was in my bed next to me. 

I started to put my arms around her when she said there were rules if she stayed in my bed.

Rule #1- No sex, she couldn't feel anything any way.

Rule# 2- No kissing or any other show of affection.

Rule #3-Holding her in my arms was allowed as well as cuddling, and greatly wanted.

So I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her to me. She placed her head on my chest and softly sighed. 

In a very soft voice, she said,"I love your smell. It's the smell of a real man. I've missed it all these years."

We cuddled and talked late into the night. 

The next morning it was still snowing too heavily to leave. I suddenly realized that her helpless routine was just that a routine. She hopped around between her wheelchair and various pieces of furniture as if she was never handicapped. 

When I challenged her about it, she admitted that all she really wanted to do was feel my arms around her. 

Later that afternoon her doctor called. They talked for about two hours. She told him everything she did for the last week. 

I heard parts of the call. In all the years we were married, I never heard her talk as openly as she did with him. 

She never shared like that with me.

After a while she called me to the phone, the doctor praised her and told me it was the very best he had seen her in all those years she had been his patient. But he also said she needed to return to the hospital. She still wasn't ready to return to normal yet. 

She had one more issue to face.

When I later called the doctor and asked about the issue, he just said, "She'll tell you all about it when she's ready." 

Damn doctors!

It was about two weeks before Easter when my caller ID indicated the hospital was calling. I answered expecting her doctor to be on the other end. Well you could have knocked me over with a feather when I heard my ex's voice on the other end. She asked if the family was going to celebrate Easter at my Ranch and could she attend. 

There was something she wanted to share with all of us. 

I agreed to pick her up at the hospital a few days before everyone was scheduled to arrive. She wanted to share her announcement with me first. 

I assumed that she had come to grips with whatever her issue was and had beaten it. She now had to share it with her family. 

Her voice sounded very weak and a little shaky, but I assumed it was from talking with me.

Later her doctor called me and we spoke privately. He said the last four months had been hell for her, and I would be shocked by her appearance. But what she went through just had to be done.

I picked her up three days before the kids were scheduled to arrive. Her face was tired and drawn. She looked as if she had the weight of the world on her shoulders. 

It was spring and all the wildflowers in the pastures were in bloom, and the trees were opening their leaves again. I loved this time of the year; it was a season of rebirth. 

I wheeled my ex's chair around the area pointing out all the beauty. We had a great afternoon. It was as if we'd never been apart all those years.

That night as I was carrying her up to bed, she asked if she could sleep with me because she really missed being held by me. Sometime in the night I was awakened by her holding my erection in her hands.

When I tried to stop her, she just said, "Please, I must do this for you." I noticed she was putting a condom on me. She had never used on me before, but I was too far gone to care why by then. 

After I finished, she removed the condom and wiggled back to so she could put her head on my chest. She was crying. When I tried to pull her up she resisted my effort, telling me to remember, 

"Rule #2-No Kissing." 

She then began to tell me her tail.

She told me how Tony first seduced her using drugs. And that after the first couple of times, he had completely controlled her. The doctors explained to her, that she had mental problems all her life and Tony just happened to use them to control her. She was as addicted to him as a heroin addict was to heroin.

She said that he shared her with his friends. He made her do terrible things with them while others watched. She hated it, but couldn't tell him, "No."

She then talked about the night I found her in bed with him. She said she never knew I was there until Tony used her as a shield to block my blows with the baseball bat. She talked about the terrible pain suddenly appearing in her back and Tony pushing her to the floor. She knew I was hitting him, but she was in too much pain to move. Mercifully she passed out only to awaken being carried out of the burning house by a fireman. 

She thought I had tried to burn her to death. When she came to in the hospital a few days later, she was informed that her back had been broken and her spinal cord damaged. She'd never have the use of her legs again. It was shortly thereafter, she began her decent into the madness that held her captive for the next fourteen years.

She said her doctor explained that my daughter and I had rescued her from the care she was receiving at that state institution and put her in his care. He managed to make her see that you were not trying to kill her, and still loved her after all she had done.

She then dropped the bad news on me, it seemed that Tony, or one of his friends, had left her with a gift, HIV. Because of her poor care and long period of madness, her HIV had progressed into full blown AIDS before being diagnosed. There was nothing the doctors could do for her, but make her comfortable. 

She wouldn't be here next Christmas.

Now it was my turn to cry, and cry I did all night long, the whole time holding her as tightly as I could.

We told the rest of the family after dinner on the Saturday before Easter. That Sunday morning all the family attended Mass; we needed Gods help that day. 

She left us in October. 

She wanted to be cremated and her ashes spread under a huge old oak tree at the hospital. She explained that under that tree, she and her doctor held the talks that brought her back out of the darkness. 

It was a special place for her. 

The next spring I had a marble bench installed with a plaque that had her name and dates on it along with the words, "The World was a little Better Place while she was here".

I came to the hospital about every month or so to play some golf with her doctor. It seemed that Harold and I had gotten to be pretty good friends over the years, and sometimes it just felt good to talk with him.

We spent quite a few hours at the 19th hole after our golf games. Harold's wife always scolded us and made me sleep over instead of trying to drive home. 

Before leaving on my way back home, I'd stop at the hospital, sit on the bench and bring my wife up to speed on everything the family was doing. 

I guess I missed her a lot. I had an empty spot in my heart for her. I found that I had always loved her.

The bench became a popular spot for other families to sit when they were visiting their loved ones, who were guests at the hospital. One day a landscaper showed up and made the area into a small stone patio with a walk way, so wheelchairs could navigate the area. Soon there were a couple of flower beds and later a small pond was put in. It even had goldfish. 

I knew my ex would have just loved it when everyone visited her spot.

While we were sitting here one day, my daughter and son told us, that is my ex and I that we were going to be grandparents next spring. I don't know about my ex, but I know I was smiling from ear to ear.

Sam Jr.

A few years later I got a call from my son, who was in his senior year at college. He asked if he could bring a friend home to the ranch for Thanksgiving. He said his buddy was studying to be a vet and would love to see our operation. This was the first time since he went away that he had ever made this kind of a request.

So I agreed.

The week before Thanksgiving, I saw my black H2 Hummer pull up the driveway. That Hummer was my pride and joy. 

Let me tell you that story, three months ago, I opened the side of the garage where I kept the monster, and found my son's sub compact there and my truck gone. 

In the sub compact was a note, 

"Needed extra cargo space. 

Took your truck, Love Sam." 

After walking around the ranch all day, making everybody's life miserable, I finally calmed down. I remembered what poor gas mileage the Hummer got and thought my son out smarted himself. 

Then I remembered I kept a gas credit card in the glove compartment. Oh well he was my only son.

"My Hummer" pulled up near where I was standing and my son hopped out. The passenger side door opened and his friend hopped out. I was stunned! 

There stood one of the most beautiful Red heads I had ever had the pleasure to see. She stood about 5'6" and had a body to kill for. She took my son's hand and they walked over to me. I found myself looking into Shawna's green eyes as my son introduced us. 

I thought to myself," Why doesn't the vet I use look this good?"

Over the next few days I learned her history. She was an only child who lived with her divorced mother one state east of us. He father had left her mother for a 22 year old stripper he met. They took every dime he and her mother had, and left for a small island in the South Pacific. 

Her father left her and her mother with nothing but debt. Her mother was forced to file bankruptcy, and moved the two of them into a small apartment in a so-so neighborhood. Her mother was able to find a job as a receptionist/billing clerk for a doctor. The job paid their expenses, but there wasn't much left over for other things. Her mother got a job as a waitress nights in a nice restaurant to help make ends meet so Shawna could attend college.

She was a straight A student and received a scholarship to my son's college, but had to work as a waitress in a local diner for spending money. She still managed to carry a 3.8 GPA. She was a sharp, hard working young woman. 

I was proud that she let my son into her life. 

I did notice that there was never very much space between the two of them. I figured someone had sewed Velcro on to their clothes. 

The two of them spent their Thanksgiving recess checking out all the livestock on my ranch. Since they were usually gone from sunrise to sunset, I figured that they were using the time to do what young people do, when Mom or Dad isn't around. 




The Gentle Man



Imagine my surprise when they started telling me which animals in which pastures needed a little TLC. 

By the time they left, Shawna had an invitation to spent Christmas recess with us. Heck it was cheaper to feed her than pay my regular vet for a visit. I felt she could visit anytime she wanted, I was saving money!

Actually, I figured out what my regular vet would have charged for his services, and sent her that amount in cash. "Cash you ask?" I figured she might tear up a check, but it's hard to destroy real money.

A couple of days after Shawna and my son left, I got a phone call from him. It seemed that Shawna wanted to spend the holidays with us, but that would mean her mother had to spend the holidays alone. 

It would be the first time since Shawna was born that she couldn't spend Christmas with her mother. She didn't know what to do. 

For me it was a no brainer, her mom could spend the holidays out here too. It wasn't as if we didn't have the room. And if she didn't want to stay in the main house, there were all the guest houses for the dude ranch part of our operation. 

A week later, I got the OK from my son. After a few more phone calls, we got the dates set in stone. I arraigned for her mom to have a first class round trip ticket to an airport near the college at my expense. That way she could ride to the ranch with her daughter and my son, and I would avoid being required to entertain her until the kids arrived. 

I thought it was a win-win.

When the time for them to arrive arrived, I found myself standing around the front of the main house watching down the driveway. All right, I wanted to see the kids again, I'll admit it. 

Besides my son and Shawna, his sister and family were scheduled to arrive around the same time also. 

My daughter actually arriver first, about five minutes before my son. My daughter, her husband Bill, and their baby Amanda, and me were still standing in the drive way when the Hummer zipped in. My daughter and her husband walked over to greet my son and meet his new "love". 

I walked over a little a little slower, because I was carrying my granddaughter.

Shawna and my son hopped out of the front seat, the back door opened and I couldn't believe what walked out. Shawna's mom was an older version of Shawna. But a woman with the kind of beauty only maturity can being. I admit it; I just stood there and starred. 

My daughter walked over to me to get her baby and whispered," Dad! Shut your mouth. It's hanging open and you're embarrassing us." 

I regained control of my body, and walked over to welcome Shawna's mom. I was introduced to Bridget. She had the most beautiful red hair, green eyes, and a woman's body. I was so "gob smacked" by her presence that I couldn't put two words together, let alone a whole sentence. 

She looked at me and said, "Hello", and gave me a million kilowatt smile. 

My daughter gave Bridget the baby to hold, I think I wasn't trusted not to drop my granddaughter.

The two weeks they spent with us went by too fast. I took Bridget for tours of the ranch. She had owned a horse until her divorce and was a good rider. I fixed her up with a gentle mare and we toured my spread. She loved the views and all the different animals we raised. 

We discussed our lives and our families as we rode. 

By the time the time it was for her to go home, I felt I knew more about her than most husbands and wives do each other with 20 or more years of marriage under their belts. We chatted like live lifelong friends.

After everybody left, I got lonely even though I had 15 people working for me at the ranch. I couldn't wait for Spring Break when the kids said they would be back. 

Bridget didn't think she could get any time off to come out when the kids were here over Spring Break. Without her knowing, I called the doctor she worked for, he and I agreed that I would send him enough money to pay her salary for two weeks and pay a temp to replace her. 

I also called my cousin to see if I could "borrow" his plane (and who was it that said crime doesn't pay?).

When it was time for her to fly out, I called her and explained that the travel times had changed. She would need to bring her luggage to work and a car would get pick her up and get her to the airport. 

A liveried chauffer walked into her office and asked for her luggage, then escorted her out to a stretch limo. When they drove away, all her coworkers were standing in the doorway, mouths open.

She was on her cell phone, thanking me, when the limo pulled up next to my cousin's Gulfstream. The chauffer introduced her to the pilot and he escorted her into the plane. Her cell phone was still connected to me, but she had stopped talking. 

All I could hear was a soft sobbing, so I waited until the plane blocked the cell signal before I hung up. 

I think she was impressed. 

I had an air strip on my property. One year my cousin was complaining about the 3-4 hour trip from an airport that would handle his jet to my ranch. We selected a site on my property that would work for a runway. About a month later, construction vehicles arrived and the work began. A few months after that, I had a 10,000 foot runway with all the trimmings and a big hanger to store the plane. 

When I called him to ask about me share of the costs, I got, "Don't worry about it."

Anyway, that's where I was sitting, in my pick-up, when the plane landed. Bridget deplaned and attacked me with a million questions. I promised to tell her everything after dinner.

After dinner that night, there were just the two of us sitting in my study, I had a small fire going and we were sipping brandy. I told her about being raised by one of the largest crime families on the east coast. 

While I was not involved in the "family" businesses, I enjoyed a lot of the benefits, the jet being one of them. She asked me a few questions, more to establish my moral values, than about the family business. I must have answered them correctly, because she walked over and sat down on the couch next to me. 

She put her head on my shoulder. 

We sat that way until we couldn't stay awake any longer and went to our separate rooms to sleep.

The next morning she was back to being her old self.

At Easter dinner, I put my foot in my mouth again. I asked my son if he had taken Shawna to meet his mother at the hospital. I heard Bridget drop her fork. I looked at her and gave her the, "We'll talk later" look. 

She never finished the food on her plate.

That night, I took her into my study. She sat as far away from me as possible, and hugged herself. I could tell she was really hurting. I wanted to take her in my arms and comfort her, but she had built a wall between us. I knew I had to tell her everything. There would be no secretes between.

So I started talking, and I talked for about the next two hours. I started with the adultery, my ex "falling" down the stairs to avoid the fire and breaking her back, her loss of the use of both legs, and her decent into madness, my running away and starting this ranch. I then explained how I reconnected with my children, how we found their mother in a state institution receiving no care. I talked about finding a private mental hospital in the area and having my ex transferred there. I told about the caring doctor who helped her regain her sanity. Then I told about her death from the AIDS virus that her lover had given her and how she wanted her ashes spread on the hospital grounds. 

By this point my tears were flowing freely.

Bridget ran to my arms and said, "You're a wonderful man. I think I could love you." 

She was crying also.

I said, "Would you like to come with me sometime so I could introduce you to my ex-wife?"

Three days later, we made the trip to the hospital. We sat on the bench all afternoon and brought my ex up to speed on all our lives.

On the ride back, Bridget never let go of my hand.

The next time the family all got together at the ranch was to celebrate Sam's and Shawna's Graduation. Bridget and I met at the college for the graduation ceremony and then drove to the ranch. Sam and Shawna would follow us to the ranch about a week later. They had to pack up all their stuff, and attend a few parties with their friend.

Bridget sat right next to me for the ride home. She couldn't get any closer to me. We had a light dinner in a small Italian restaurant I knew about on the way back. It was late when we finally arrived at the ranch and we were tired. We just headed upstairs to our respective rooms.

Later that night I was awakened by someone lifting my bedding. I felt a very naked Bridget slide in next to me. 

She whispered, "Please make love to me. I need you."

And make love to her I did. I used every trick I know to bring her pleasure. I completely ignored my own pleasure and only concentrated on her.

I really don't know how many times she climaxed, but she finally pulled my head from between her legs and begged, "No more." 

She curled up on her side next to me and fell into a deep sleep. I, on the other hand, had an erection that wouldn't go away. I thought about waking her up to help with my erection. But then I remembered how hard she had come and how many times. I guess I'd let her sleep. She needed it.

As I tried to enter dream land, I held her, thinking that I wanted to hold her for the rest of my life, 'I could really get to like that feeling."

Later that morning I awoke to the sun streaming into my bedroom windows, and a mouth going up and down on my erection, before I could lower my hands to stop her, I ejaculated, again, and again, and again. She swallowed every drop.

I never knew I could store that much sperm. 

When I finally recovered my senses, I looked down and saw her smiling face. I reached down to pull her up next to me, but she shook her head no, and said, "We aren't done yet." She then went back to work to give me another erection.

It didn't take long before she succeeded. Once she was satisfied that I was hard enough for her, she climbed up and lowered herself on it. She then started moving, as only a woman can move, on my erection. 

She was able to climax three times, before I couldn't hold it back any longer.

She lay down on my chest and slowly calmed down. I tried to pull out of her, but she shook her head no and said, "We aren't done yet." 

And we weren't. The sun had set before we finally got out of bed and that was only long enough to sneak down to the kitchen and get some food. 

We ate it in bed.

We made love later that evening. She had multiple orgasms, I only had one climax before I was done for the evening. There was nothing Bridget could do to bring it back to life that night. 

And believe me, she tried. I used my mouth to bring her off a couple of more times that evening, before she fell asleep. 

We slept in each other's arms all night.

When we awoke the next morning, we made love again, very slowly, and with a lot of kissing and hugging. Sometime later that morning we declared our love for each other. We spent the rest of the day planning the logistics of moving her to the ranch permanently. 

The next morning we drove into town and bought an engagement ring. I wanted to buy the biggest and showiest one in the store, she informed me I had no class, and picked one that was perfect for her. 

I guess you could call that our first fight. I know you don't think it was that big a deal, but it did give us an excuse for makeup sex that night. 

And we all know how great makeup sex is.

We continued trying to kill each other with sex until the graduation party guests started arriving. Bridget reluctantly moved back into her room. 

The first night she was gone I missed terribly and she was only just across the hall. About midnight, I felt her crawl in bed with me. We set the alarm for 5:00am so she could return to her room. 

We didn't make love that night, we just cuddled.

The graduation party was a success. My cousin and his family flew out to attend, and impressed a lot of the guests. Bridget was a little nervous around him at first. But once she saw him with him wife and 6 daughters she relaxed. My cousin might be the head of an organized crime family, looking hard and mean, but once his wife and girls are around, he's a big pussycat.

Bridget was cutting the graduation cake, when I noticed that she had slipped on her engagement ring. Before I could say anything, my daughter spotted the ring and started screaming. She jumped up, knocked her water over, tipped over her chair and ran around the table to Bridget yelling, "You're going to be my Mom! I love you so much. When can I start calling you Mom?"

All hell broke out at the table. Everybody was congratulating us and shaking hands and hugging Bridget. I was laughing and joking, when I said to my son that soon he and Shawna would soon be brother and sister and couldn't marry. 

Now you know I was only kidding, but Shawna jumped up and ran out of the room. Before I could go to her and tell her I was only joking, she was back in the doorway holding her left hand up. I could see the rings from where I sat. 

She looked at her mom and I and just said,"Beat ya." 

When the room quieted back down, they explained that after the graduation, they drove nonstop to Las Vegas and did the deed. 

Bridget asked why they didn't wait until we could give them a fancy church wedding. 

Sam Jr. and Shawna then explained, "We didn't want our baby born out of wedlock."

Everybody started yelling at once. It was the best news of the weekend.

Later that weekend we took a family trip to the mental intuition. It was a cloudy afternoon as we sat on the bench and brought my ex up to speed on the currents events. We told her that Sam and Shawna had married and she was going to be a grandmother again.

I then told her I had proposed to Bridget and we were planning on a fall wedding. I really don't know what happened, but suddenly there was an opening in the clouds, and our little group was bathed in sunlight.

I guess my children's mother was happy for us.

Epilog

He and Bridget married that fall. Shawna was the very pregnant matron of honor, and Sam best man. He and Bridget had a wonderful 30 years together before a stroke took him. 

Bridget will be along some day to be with him again.

The End



The Gentle Master



Kingdom of Pierra, 3,548th year of Galen, Planet Adamah of the Weiran Solar System

CHAPTER ONE

Ariana slipped into the queen's chambers just after midnight. The guards on either side of the ornately-carved wooden doors stood to let her through. They did not ask her to announce herself, for Ariana was Queen Maya's favorite slave, and was allowed to come and go freely. 

These men, heavily muscled and naked except for white loincloths around their hips, averted their eyes from Ariana as she approached, forbidden as they were to gaze on her beauty. If the queen's favorite should tell her possessive mistress that they had looked on her with lust, they would come to a very bad end.

Ariana brushed past them, her blue silken gown whispering about the curves of her body. She heard the guards shut the heavy doors behind her as she moved deeper into the inner chamber. The room itself felt like a cavern, dark and deep, lit only by the glow of flickering torches held in sconces on the stone walls. The air was heavily perfumed with sandalwood incense, an aroma that made her heady and languid. 

The queen's gigantic bed stood in the middle of the room, a luxurious plateau of feather mattresses, fur coverings and silken pillows. Heavy wooden posts held up the massive canopy, draped with filmy curtains of dusky silk. Through them, Ariana could see the queen, seated on the edge of her bed, having her long ebony hair brushed by one of her maids. 

When Maya saw her beloved slave approach, a smile spread across her smooth, cat-like face, and she beckoned to her. 

"Ariana," she said in her silky voice, "Come, sit with me."

Ariana approached the bedside and kneeled in obeisance, then rose and seated herself on the plush fur coverlet. She looked on her queen with affection, taken with the woman's sleek golden skin and shimmering raven hair. Of all the royalty and ministers in the palace, the queen had always treated her with the most kindness. 

Maya turned to her maid. "You may go now, Celine."

Celine nodded and set the brush onto a tray, which sat on the bedside table. "Yes, my lady," she replied. The girl retreated obediently, but not before casting a dark look at Ariana. The girl was jealous, not only of Ariana's sumptuous mane of ruby-colored hair, but also of her coveted place in the queen's heart and bed. 

Ariana felt her hatred like a knife slicing her skin. Had she not been in her queen's forbidding presence, she would have cowered visibly under the hateful look. Even though she had been in service to the Pierran court for the last eight years since reaching her eighteenth birthday, she was still unaccustomed to the intrigues and backbiting inherent in all levels of palace life. 

When the maid had left, Maya turned to Ariana, drinking her in with dark, velvety eyes. The queen's assured smiled had faded somewhat, replaced by a troubled shadow. She reached up and entwined her graceful, jeweled fingers into the wild mass of Ariana's fiery ringlets. Ariana knew that it had been her crimson hair and cream-colored skin that had won the queen four years ago. 

Maya had seen her for the first time in one of the court performances, a lustful, lurid show in which she had been on her hands and knees, pleasuring a woman, her heart-shaped face buried between the moaning woman's thighs, while behind her, another slave, a man, threw off his loincloth and mounted her wildly, burying his shaft deeply within her sheath of red curls, his large hands gripping the curves of her hips. After the performance, the queen had asked her guard to bring Ariana to her chambers, and had made the girl her own. Since then, no one else in the court was permitted her services, and in turn, no minister or royal dared touch Ariana, lest he or she provoke the queen's wrath.

"I wished to have you to myself tonight," Maya told her, her words explaining the absence of her other consorts. The queen was a woman of rapacious appetites, rarely satisfied with one partner at a time. So Ariana knew that what her mistress wanted more than mere satiation was comfort, a comfort that she seemed to take from her slave's touch and presence. Maya gazed on her as she let the soft curls slip between her fingers.

Ariana took the liberty of reaching out to touch the queen's cheek, a boldness that Maya allowed only her. "Are you troubled, my queen?" she asked softly. 

The other woman's eyes fluttered closed under her touch and she withdrew her hand from the copper fire of Ariana's hair to put it over her pale one. 

"Always," Maya answered. "Something is wrong among my ministers. I feel it." She shook her head. "They have never wanted a woman in power over them, especially one who has proven herself to be of equal strength."

"Have you told the prince?" 

Prince Dorian had recently entered his twenty-third year and was next in line to the throne of Pierra after his mother.

The queen's eyes of dark velvet opened wide and she chuckled wryly. "My son? I wouldn't be surprised if he were behind what's happening. He is easily swayed by men like Dogon. I believe it was he who had my general try to kill me four years ago." She shook her head. "How I wish Elan, my elder, could be king," she said sadly. "He would rule wisely and well." Her beautiful face darkened. "But because his father wasn't my husband, he must hide, that they don't seek him out and kill him." 

Maya sighed. "If only Karan hadn't turned on me the way he did. I depended on him. My position has been greatly weakened without his protection. He was my prize." She fell silent and closed her eyes again and began to nuzzle Ariana's hand.

Ariana remembered when General Karan, had been found standing over the sleeping queen, a dirk raised in his hand. Ariana had just begun as Maya's personal slave and was on her way to her chambers when she heard the commotion echoing through the wide marbled halls of the palace. The general had been shouting something she couldn't understand, perhaps in his native language of the northern Veltlands. 

Then she had seen him, a large warrior with a mane of silvery blond hair, struggling to free himself from the guards who were dragging him away. He possessed such great physical strength that it had taken four men to restrain him. 

As his punishment for trying to murder the queen, he had been stripped of his rank, whipped, and branded on the cheek and hand. His home and lands had been burned, and his wife murdered. He was banished from the palace grounds, his life spared for the purpose of forcing him to live and suffer his humiliation. 

It was said he had a daughter, but no one knew of her fate. Since then, Karan had been seen stalking the cave-filled hills beyond the Sylvan lands just outside the kingdom. No one knew why he stayed so close to the place of his ruination, but most people, even hunters, avoided that area, for fear of falling into his hands and being the victim of his revenge.

"You have ministers who are loyal, do you not, mistress?" Ariana asked.

Maya looked up from her enjoyment of nuzzling Ariana's delicate hand. "Mm," she murmured. "But none so loyal as you." She looked back down and began to flicker the tip of her tongue along the soft skin of Ariana's wrist.

Ariana felt pity in her heart for her mistress, even as her body came alive with heat from the kiss of her beguiling queen. She reached out and cupped the queen's face in her hands and kissed her, knowing from long practice just how her mistress liked to be kissed. 

Softly and slowly, she ran the tip of her tongue over the queen's dusky lips, parting them to taste the inside of her mouth in light, quick circular motions along the inside of her lips and on her tongue. 

A low moan issued from the queen's curved throat and she let her wrap fall open, revealing her lithe golden body for Ariana to pleasure. 

"Ariana," she whispered when the slave had moved from the queen's mouth to her neck, teasing it with small nibbles and licks, "Make me forget it all, just for a little while."

Ariana lifted her face momentarily from Maya's perfumed skin. 

"Yes, my lady," she whispered as she lay the queen back gently on the fur coverlet. She began to caress her mistress' full breasts with their large nipples the color of plum wine. "I will give you every pleasure you wish for."

Her words and caresses elicited more soft moans from deep in the queen's throat, and Maya reached a manicured hand, seeking Ariana's sex under the folds of her gown.

Ariana smiled and lifted her gown over her head, letting it fall to the marbled floor. She knew the queen enjoyed gazing on her pale skin and ruby-fire curls of sexual hair. Ariana moaned softly as the queen's fingers rubbed her swelling clitoris, gathering the cream that oozed out from her hot opening. The queen had a hunger for woman's musk and delighted in the feel and taste of Ariana's in particular. She paused her rubbing to lick the cream off her fingers, one by one. 

"Oh, my queen," she whispered as she lowered her head to suckle her mistress' full nipples.

Ariana's lips on her breasts made the queen wild and she wove her fingers into Ariana's hair and pushed her head down between her spread legs. 

Ariana nuzzled Maya's bush of dark curls, then buried her face into the wet depths, teasing and licking her slit with her tongue. At the same time, she gently rubbed and kneaded Maya's large nipples between her fingertips.

A cascade of breath-filled moans spilled from Maya's throat and she raised herself on her elbows, a voyeur to her own pleasure. "Ariana," she whispered. "Ariana."

Ariana showered her queen with her arts of pleasure, licking and suckling the golden-skinned woman into a frenzy. She laved the queen's musk-drenched vagina with her tongue until Maya threw her head back, her loud moans echoing through the shadowy bedchamber. The air close around them smelled of their heated musk and the queen, lost in ecstasy, entwined her fingers into Ariana's hair and pulled her harder against her open crotch. 

"Now! Now!" Maya ordered in a frenzied whisper.

Obediently, Ariana took up Maya's swollen desire between her lips and sucked on the hard nub and and tender skin until the queen's entire body shook and convulsed with her climax. 

Maya fell limp and stretched like a cat, while Ariana covered her with kisses, pressing her full lips to her stomach, breasts and neck, and finally, her lips. The queen murmured in satisfaction when she tasted her own cream on Ariana's lips and languorously licked it off. 

When she'd had her fill, Maya stretched again, sighing with satisfaction. She turned over and entwined her almond-colored body with Ariana's. 

"My dear," she purred, "You are a treasure beyond jewels."

Ariana continued to brush her lips along the queen's perfect skin. She reached out and caressed her mistress' breasts and thighs, such as the queen enjoyed after sexual play. However, Ariana was still aroused and her touch was fevered.

Maya leaned her head toward Ariana and suckled her full sensual lips with her own. "My little slave is dying for release, isn't she?" she teased.

"My lady's beauty and touch rouse me to a fever," Ariana answered.

The queen purred from deep in her throat. "I have something for you." she murmured, sliding her hand under a large silken pillow where she kept some of her toys. Maya loved toys and rarely let sex play pass without them. 

The one she chose for Ariana was one of her favorites, a perfect replica of the male sex organ, fashioned from the bark of the coria tree. Maya's palace woodworker had fashioned it for her, sanding it to the most perfect, delicious, smoothness.

Maya teased the wooden object lightly along Ariana's skin, whispering it over her rose-pink nipples and down her stomach. She trailed the head of it through Ariana's bush of fiery curls and teased it up and down her engorged slit. With a silvery tinkle of laughter, Maya pushed the tip into Ariana's sheath, moving it around just enough to elicit a moan. She then pulled it out and brushed it over Ariana's lips. "Lick your cream off, my dear," she purred.

Ariana did as she was told, opening her mouth to take the wooden shaft deeper as if it were real. 

The queen smiled and murmured sounds of satisfaction as she pulsed her toy in and out of Ariana's mouth. Finally, she withdrew it and plunged it swiftly and deeply into Ariana's hungry sheath, rocking it in and out of her again and again. 

Ariana spread her legs wider and moaned, her head thrashing side to side against the pillows.

The queen became roused again by her play and tossed the wooden shaft aside. She straddled Ariana, burying her face deeply between Ariana's thighs. She thrust her own sex into Ariana's face so that they could pleasure each other at the same time. 

Ariana once again teased and licked her mistress' wet folds, breathing in the woman's musk. At the same time, she could feel Maya's tongue on her slit. The queen was licking and suckling furiously, roused to a frenzy by her slave's musk and wetness.

The sensation of the queen's warm wet tongue working her clitoris mounted in strength and intensity until it finally exploded into great shivers of orgasm. The queen did not stop licking her until the last tremor had passed through Ariana's body. 

In turn, Ariana continued suckling her mistress' clit until Maya cried out with the release of her second climax, her sex pulsing against Ariana's lips until the ecstatic shivers had passed. 

When they had, the queen's body relaxed and she rolled off Ariana to lie limp and satisfied alongside her. "My sweet Ariana," the queen breathed, "You are the most potent drug. I daresay I won't need my sleeping potion this night." She gestured to the goblet one of her chambermaids had placed on her bedside table before Ariana came in. The queen always had difficulty sleeping and relied heavily on her chemist's mixture of sleep-inducing wildflowers.

"Thank you, my queen. You, too, bring me the sweetest pleasure." 

Maya purred her satisfaction as she ran an elegant fingertip over Ariana's skin. "Were you anyone else, Ariana," she murmured, "I would think you were merely flattering me." She leaned over and pressed a sensuous kiss onto Ariana's shoulder. "But I know you speak only the truth to me. It's one of the reasons I cherish you."

Ariana stroked her mistress' obsidian hair. "Thank you, my lady," she whispered, even though Maya's words had brought a shiver to her bones. She hoped her honesty with her queen really did mean something. 

General Karan's honesty had not. It had been said he never lied to Maya, and that he had served her with unerring loyalty. He had once been a slave himself, snatched from a traveling group of Veltlanders. His physical strength had been evident even as a boy and the Pierrans placed him in the army. Karan killed his first man at fourteen, while still only a page. He had risen to his rank through hard work and sheer determination and strength. The queen rewarded him with wealth and a beautiful Pierran wife. What reason would he have had to turn on her and come at her with a knife as she slept?

Ariana had always suspected foul play against the general, but didn't dare breach the subject with her mistress who was now much more at ease. There was no fruit gain in dredging up the bitter past. No doubt, a conjuror's hand was responsible for the queen's attitude toward General Karan, but Maya believed herself invulnerable to magery, and would be angry with Ariana for suggesting otherwise. 

So Ariana kept her silence. Her queen was plagued enough with troubles in the present, and Ariana's only duty was to bring the woman comfort and pleasure.

Maya sat up and reached for the goblet on her bedside table. She dipped her forefinger into the potion, smoothed a few drops onto Ariana's lips, and licked them off. 

"Have a sip, my sweet Ariana."

Ariana took the goblet. "Yes, my lady," she answered. 

She didn't wish to drink the potion, but to refuse would be a suspicious act. She lifted the golden chalice to her lips and took as tiny a sip as she could, struggling as she swallowed not to show her mistress how offensive the potion was. 

By the gods! The concoction burned a trail of liquid fire down her throat, all the way to the pit of her stomach. The next she knew, her eyelids began to flutter heavily, as if they were made of lead instead of flesh.

Terror overtook Ariana as she realized what was happening. She could feel the chalice being lifted from her hand. 

"No!" Ariana struggled to cry out to the queen. It's poisoned! But her whole body and face were growing unbearably heavy and numb. Helplessly, she fell back against the pillows as the shadowy, incense-filled chamber faded to gray. 

In her haze, she heard the emptied goblet clatter on the marble floor. Then she felt the queen's supple body slump against hers, just as the gray faded to black.

CHAPTER TWO

Ariana opened her eyes to a fierce pounding in her head and churning in her stomach. She did not know how long she'd slept, for the queen's bedchamber was windowless and remained a cave of torch-lit shadows at all times.

At first she didn't remember the evening before. She felt a weight on her body, and looked down at the queen whose head of obsidian hair lay on her stomach. 

She put a hand on the queen's cheek. "My lady," she whispered.

The queen, who usually slept with deep, sigh-filled breaths, lay unnaturally still. 

"Mistress," Ariana said, a bit more loudly. 

The queen did not stir, and Ariana began to remember what had happened. 

Terror rising, she pressed her fingertips to the queen's pulse. There was no movement. Maya's heart no longer beat.

Ariana cried out softly as she realized her queen was gone, leaving only the lithe golden body, now an empty shell. She covered her mouth to stifle her cries of grief and horror. The only person in the world who gave her anything resembling love and affection was gone, ripped from her by some greedy, power-hungry traitor. She slumped over Maya's body and clung to her, sobbing quietly in the shadows.

Her tears were interrupted by voices echoing in the antechamber. Ariana's heart surged fiercely when she realized what would happen if she were found leaning over Maya's corpse. 

First the General, now me. 

Frantically she disengaged her body from the queen's and slipped off the large bed. Without a chance to look back at her mistress, she snatched up her gown from the floor and slipped behind a wall tapestry, into a small opening in the stones only she knew about.

The opening brought her into the palace's network of underground passages. Ariana had discovered them as a child playing around the palace. Even then she had been in service, fetching and carrying for the kitchen slaves. But in her spare time she was allowed to play. 

She had been young then, no more than eight when the Pierran soldiers had invaded her village, taking women and children for slaves. Her red hair had made her a prize, and she had been kept working until she was old enough to serve with her body.

The secret passages were ancient, woven into the structure of the palace only shortly after Lord Galen had created mankind. 

Ariana's discovery of the passageways had renewed her, giving her something she could call her own, a sanctuary where she could be alone with her thoughts and feelings. The dark, damp corridors were like a womb, and it was in their depths that she knew peace.

Many times she had thought of escaping Pierra through the passages and making her way back to her homeland. But she was a slave with no money and no other skills besides her arts of pleasure. She did not even own a pair of sandals. None of the haram slaves did, for there was no need of footwear when most of one's life was spent in a bed. When the queen had taken her for herself, Ariana had then become afraid to leave the one person she believed loved her.




The Gentle Master



Now, however, she plunged ahead in the pitch-blackness, any reservations about escape, vanished. Her life depended on flight. She needed no light, as she knew the dank hidden maze better than she did the palace that concealed it. She did not hesitate or even cry out when her bare feet stepped on one of the maze's furry, long-tailed inhabitants who squealed in protest.

Ariana knew of one exit to the outside world. During her childhood explorations, she'd found daylight staling through chinks in the stone. There was a round block of wood blocking a hole in the stones. She'd pushed it and found she'd reached the far corner of the palace wall. A thick cluster of gnarled old trees concealed the opening. From there she would be able to swim the moat and go into the cover of the Sylvan Lands.

As she'd known, faint rays of light showed up ahead as she approached the corridor that led to her escape. Swiftly, she moved along the cool packed earth, using the damp stone walls to guide her. The escape hole was small, with barely enough room to spare as she pulled the wooden block aside, dropped to her hands and knees and crawled through. The gnarled trees covering the escape hole tore at her dress, skin and hair, and the rocky soil dug into her palms and knees. But she lunged ahead, desperate to get as far away as possible before the queen's body was found. The first of the three Adaman suns was rising, and the other two would soon follow, leaving her completely visible.

Ariana plunged into the moat, splashing her way across the freezing water. Once across, she scrambled up the steep muddy bank and ran across the meadow, finally able to disappear under the thick canopy of the Sylvan Lands.

* * * *

Inside the forest was dark and cool, with only faint shafts of sunlight piercing the overhead branches. Ariana stumbled around for what seemed hours, unable to find any sort of path. Her feet and hands were badly scraped and she grew hungry.

As the day wore on and the first Weiran sun began to set, she grew exhausted from the potent combination of terror, hunger and grief. She wanted to curl up into a ball on the loamy ground and rest, but forged on lest soldiers from the palace come upon her and punish her as they had once punished the general.

The forest began to darken as the second sun faded over the horizon. What little light penetrated the forest canopy was rapidly fading. Ariana looked frantically around in the darkening gloom, whimpering in fear and frustration. Since she was a little girl, she had known only the palace where all her needs for food and clothing were met. Her only survival skills were those necessary for dealing with palace intrigues. Out here, she felt utterly helpless. She realized that her only hope was to stay in one spot and rest until the morning. The third sun was almost gone, and soon the darkness would swallow her.

Ariana crouched down, pressing her injured palms into the damp rotting leaves on the forest floor. She dropped to her knees, taking the first moment of rest she'd had all day. Soon her eyelids grew heavy and her head and shoulders drooped. She did not fight sleep, surrendering to the possibility of a few hours' escape from her peril.

In her dreams, she heard the night animals crying and croaking. Footsteps sounded on the wet leaves, pattering in her ears. Suddenly she gasped, ripped from sleep by a pair of huge, iron-strong arms gripping her from behind. With her arms pinned tightly to her body, Ariana could not move, and felt herself being hauled up roughly from the ground. She started to scream but a large hand clamped down on her mouth. Her toes dragged along the ground as her assailant carried her swiftly through the forest.

Though the forest was pitch black, her attacker moved with the sureness of a wild creature with night vision. Even in the midst of choking and bouncing around, Ariana realized that the man who carried her was not one of the palace guards. Not one of those men would be able to move through the Sylvan Lands in the black of night with such ease. 

She did not struggle or try to scream again, and soon, her kidnapper stopped and slung her over his shoulder the way peasants did sacks of wheat or barley.

The man wore skins of chaya beasts, and the fur of his clothing brushed her face as her cheek bobbed against his powerful backside. He did not slow down until he reached a break in the trees. From her upside down position, she could make out the fiery orange ball that was the Adaman moon, deep in the purple sky. But that was the last thing she saw, for hanging upside down had caused all the blood to rush into her head. She was so nauseous from not eating and from being bounced upside down, that when her captor began climbing into the rocky hills of the caves, Ariana lost consciousness.

* * * *

When she awoke, she found herself in a shadowy room with firelight flickering off stone walls. For one brief moment, she thought she was back in the queen's bedchamber, having just awoken from a nightmare. 

But when she tried to rise, she couldn't. Her wrists were bound together behind her back and her ankles were bound at the end of her outstretched legs. She was sitting up with her back against stone, looking out into what appeared to be a cave.

Her captor was in the middle of the room, crouched by the fire, bent over something she could not see. Beyond him, was a yawning hole through which she could see the dark night and the Adaman moon. 

The man was large, and even covered in his tunic of furs, Ariana could make out his warrior's build. Part of his muscular back was exposed, the skin criss-crossed by deep angry scars. The firelight glinted off his mane of silver-blond hair. Ariana caught her breath. She knew exactly who had captured her. 

As she watched, he turned around, obviously aware of her gaze on him. When he saw her eyes were open, he rose from the fire and approached her.

Karan knelt down, thrusting his large face close to hers. His eyes were a deep blue, the color of the sky when all three Weiran suns shone at once. He had high cheekbones, and his strong jaw was covered with a wild silky beard the same color as his hair. Though the beard was full, it did not quite cover the queen's brand on his right cheek. Ariana saw in him the beauty of raw male power and in spite of her fear, felt a slight pulsing between her thighs.

"Who are you?" he growled, so close that she could feel his warm breath on her face and smell the smoke of the fire in his beard.

"I'm Ariana," she said softly. "I was the queen's slave."

"Aye? Is that so?" he replied in a Pierran heavily tinged by his Veltish accent. "Did she send you to spy on me?"

At his question about Queen Maya, Ariana felt her eyes fill with tears. "My lady's dead, Sir. Someone poisoned her. I'll be to blame. I fled for my life."

Karan's eyebrows drew together. He wore a fierce expression and looked about to answer her harshly. But as he continued to stare into her eyes, he seemed to think the better of it and softened. "Why do you address me thus?" His tone was less gruff.

"Address you how, my lord?"

"Like that. With titles of respect. Don't you know who I am?"

"Yes, General," Ariana answered. "I know who you are." 

Karan's face went dark and he reached out, grabbing a fistful of her hair and forcing her head back. "Do you mock me? Why shouldn't I drag you back down there to suffer your punishment as I suffered mine?"

Ariana began to tremble. Rivulets of fear pulsed through her bound body. She stared widely at him, grimacing from the pain of his hold on her hair. "Please don't, my lord," she begged. "I don't want to die there! I'm innocent!"

Karan once again pushed his face into hers, so close that their noses almost touched. "What if you're lying?" he growled. "I could just kill you right now."

Ariana looked into his eyes. After long years of struggling to survive as a slave in the palace, she had developed a sensitivity that enabled her to anticipate another's needs, motives and feelings just by a look or a gesture. Sometimes, even by the footfall of her approaching queen, she knew the woman's mood and what treatment would please her most. 

Now, her gazed plumbed the depths of Karan's eyes, past the glittering blue to his soul. Underneath the anger he showed her was great suffering and torment. She felt his goodness and nobility. And she also knew he did not really want to hurt her. 

All her fear left her in that moment. "I would rather die by your hand, lord. By the hand of one who is honorable and decent. And innocent. I know-" 

"Stop it!" Karan hissed, releasing her hair as if it had burned him. He continued to stare at her. But after several moments, the ferocity drained from his features. He did not move away, and though he looked at her less harshly, his eyes still radiated mistrust.

Ariana squirmed again in her bonds. Her wrists were horribly chafed and pain radiated upward, all the way to her shoulders. "Please, my lord! Don't let them find me! I throw myself on your mercy!" She stifled a sob, though tears escaped unbidden. They ran down her cheeks, and she was helpless to stop them or wipe them away as she watched Karan for his next reaction. He seemed to have some sort of battle going on inside him, but what it was, she couldn't tell.

As he watched her, his eyes began to rake over her body as if he had just become aware of her beauty.

Under his gaze, Ariana realized that she was almost naked. Her silk dress, already sheer enough to show the outlines of her breasts and pubic mound, was badly torn, exposing her nipples. The skirt of her gown had also ridden up her legs, making her thighs visible almost to her crotch. One more inch and Karan would have been able to see the red curls that covered it.

"What will you give me in return?" he asked, his voice having fallen to a more husky tone.

Ariana felt the gentle pulsing resume between her thighs. 

"Whatever you wish, my lord," she answered. "I swear it. But please, unbind me, I beg you. I'm in pain and I haven't eaten since yesterday. And I'm cold. I promise, if I prove to be a wretch, you may kill me."

Something in her voice must have touched Karan, for he gave a start, as if shocked from a trance. 

"Forgive me," he said softly. "I have become the animal they tried to make of me." He leaned over and untied her wrists and ankles. "I'm sorry," he said again. "I'll bring some bandages."

He went to a corner of the cave and disappeared, returning with a bowl of water and a rag. Gently, he washed her cuts, carefully taking each hand and foot in his large hand and smoothing the wet rag over the damaged skin. Then he patted the wounded parts dry and bandaged them.

His touch was surprisingly gentle, and Ariana leaned back, closing her eyes with relief. When she opened them again, Karan had gone to the fire and brought her back a crude wooden plate with a piece of roasted meat on it and a goblet of water. 

"Here," he said, setting her meal on the ground beside her. "It's not palace fare, but it's all I have." He sounded embarrassed. 

"Thank you, my lord. For me, it's a feast." The smell of the food made her mouth water and she devoured it like a starving beast, grateful that the general had turned his back on her ravening and gone to the fire again. She washed her food down with greedy gulps of water.

When she'd finished, Karan took her plate and cup. He then went to a trunk against one wall and pulled out some fur skins. He set one on the floor for a bed and draped the other one over Ariana's near-nakedness. 

"There," he said. "Sleep now."

Ariana looked up at him, almost in tears. "Thank you, lord," she said in a whisper. "You are kind."

He looked down at her. The fierceness was gone from his face and she saw only sadness. Had she not been so pained and exhausted, she would have embraced him a placed a tender kiss on his lips. 

He sighed. "Sleep now," he repeated. He turned and went back to his place by the fire.

The warmth of the flames reached Ariana and she lay down, wrapping the fur covering tightly around her. She felt the beginnings of illness stir in her body, remembering her chill in the freezing water along with all the other grief and stress she'd endured. 

She glanced at the General's strong crouching form. Now she could hear the gentle scraping of a knife blade against wood. Her head still hurt and her body ached mercilessly. She knew how utterly helpless she was now, how completely dependent on Lord Karan's sense of honor for her life. 

Ariana closed her eyes, lulled by the crackling of the fire and, strangely, by the general's nearness. She knew deep in her being that in spite of how he had treated her at first, he was truly a man of honor and would keep her safe from the palace guards. For his protection, she would gratefully serve him. She had nothing else to give but her body. 

Except her heart. He so obviously had gone deprived of the softness of love. She craved to give that to him as well. He was everything she'd seen when she looked into his soul. He was decent and honorable and strong. He had all of Maya's good qualities without her rapaciousness. Ariana had loved the woman, but was not blind to her faults. 

The sounds of Karan's wood carving grew fainter. Ariana felt herself succumbing to sleep. But not before she uttered a silent prayer to Lord Galen. Please, Lord! She begged silently. Let it be your will that he would have me!

CHAPTER THREE

By the gods, but she is exquisite! Karan thought every time he looked at her in her sleep. She had been slumbering for nearly a full turn of Adamah around the Weiran suns, and he recognized by the rasp in her breath that illness was overtaking her. He knelt down and placed a large, callused hand across her forehead. The skin burned to his touch, and her sensual lips had turned from dusky rose to a chalky purple.

Karan blamed himself for her condition. After the way he had manhandled her and stared her down with his general's glare, speaking to her as he would a prisoner of war, only a miracle would have made her feel no effects.

He remembered the way she had gazed steadily back at him, refusing to be cowed. She had answered his every question with dignity and respect. A respect he knew he didn't deserve. But by doing so, she had reawakened something in him he had long thought dead, murdered by the queen and her vicious minions. He had felt once again the racing of a warrior's blood in his veins, not because of the fear he had engendered in her; that had made him ashamed, but because of her words. 

The girl's avowed faith in his honor had made him feel the power he still possessed, crouched within him like a panther or a chaya beast ready to spring on its prey. Perhaps that was what had made her so beautiful to him, what had made him burn with an unexpected desire to possess her. No man worth his blood could resist such faith shining from a woman's eyes. The last woman who had looked at him that way had been Lilya, his beloved, and the mother of their daughter, Lara. Only days before all the horror...the last time he'd made love to her, and she'd whispered his name...

Karan shook himself from his agonizing memories and tended to the ill woman, the slave called Ariana.

Her fever lasted several days, during which Karan only left her side to grab a mouthful of food to keep him going. He'd tended many a wounded and sick soldier on the battlefield, but never had he feared for a fallen man's survival as he did for hers. Though he had known her a mere few days, he feared losing her. If she died, he would be alone again, simply battling for existence, haunting the lands surrounding the palace, waiting for some sign to tell him when he could penetrate its walls and rescue Lara from her Pierran slavers. 

To this day, the raucous laughs of their captors echoed in his memory.

"She'll make fine bed sport one day for the future king!" one of them had gibed before dragging Lara off to the palace and him to be whipped, branded and set loose like wild game for the hunt. 

Karan pulled back the fur covering, allowing the heat of fever to escape Ariana's body. The gown she wore was torn and soiled beyond repair. He reached out and grabbed hold of the silken cloth, tearing it as easily as a spider's web, and pulled it away from her body so he could bathe her. Had she not been so ill, he would have taken more time to gaze on her beauty, the cream-colored skin and fiery hair, both on her head and her pubic mound. He had not lain with a woman since the Pierrans had felled him. The sight of her caused his long-slumbering drive to awaken. 

He soaked a rag in a bowl of cool water and tenderly passed it over Ariana's burning skin, across her neck, down her chest to the underside of her breasts. He dipped the rag back into the water to rinse from it the body heat it had absorbed and wrung it out again. He continued on her stomach and over her mound where the water caused the scarlet curls to glisten. Gently, he parted her legs and wiped the cool cloth between them, parting her vaginal lips where the heat of fever gathered and was trapped. 

When he had finished bathing her, he left her uncovered so that the air would chill down her fever. When her skin had cooled slightly, he replaced the fur coverlet and watched, crouched beside her, for her teeth to stop chattering and her body to stop shivering. For a moment, her eyes opened and he thought she gazed at him. The emerald pools were glassy from the fever. He realized she was not seeing him. She whimpered and closed her eyes again, making him wonder what images were passing through her fevered dreams. 

He shivered again with the fear of losing her, and dug into his heart for his long-buried faith. He reached out his large hand, from which the queen's brand would never fade and tenderly smoothed back her hair. 

"By your grace, Lord Galen," Karan muttered, "Let her live." The force of his prayer grew with each passing of his hand over her brow. "Please," he whispered, beseeching the god he had worshiped until his downfall. "Let her live."

Ariana never remembered having so many dreams. She only knew that when there was a pause between them, she would open her eyes, wishing to rise, only to find her body heavy and molten, surrounded by crackling flames. 

She succumbed to the dreams, a hazy mosaic of scenes from her life that passed through the engulfing fire. Mostly, she saw Maya gazing on her, a bewitching smile on her golden face. She could hear the queen's silvery laughter falling in a silken shower around her, and see light glinting off her raven hair. She felt Maya's lips pressing against hers and her mistress' graceful fingertips caressing her breasts and her moist cleft.

Sometimes, though, in spite of her fevered dreams, she would become aware of the general. She would feel his large hand cradling her head, gently ladling cool sips of water between her parched lips. She felt the damp cloth that he passed over her burning skin. A few times, when she opened her eyes, she would see his face hovering amidst the flames, watching her with concern.

He was still there when the flames cooled and perspiration drenched her hair and skin. He had been watching her and she swore she saw moisture glistening in his eyes when she looked up at him. She didn't have the strength to speak or to lift her head, but she was happy to see him and managed a weak smile. Though she wanted to stay awake, she couldn't and began to drift back into a cooler, more restful sleep. But not before she felt his large hand caress her brow.

By the next night, she was able to sit up with Karan's help. He leaned her back against the wall for support and crouched beside her, spoon-feeding her some broth he had made. He brought the spoon to her lips and let the broth slide between them in careful and tender movements, as if she were a child. She thought to herself she had not received such gentle care from a man since her father. 




The Gentle Master



Natan had been a kind and loving man, a Marean fisherman by trade. He had loved her and her mother very much, always generous with affection, never stingy. Her mother, too, had been a loving woman, a timid soul who had been coaxed from her fear by her husband's love. Her parents' example had imbued her with abiding faith in love as a living force, and this faith had carried her through the worst suffering she could have imagined. 

Ariana had been eight when the Pierran imperialist forces invaded her seaside village in Marea. She had watched her father slain by their swords and had cradled her dying mother in her arms when Shira was too weak to survive the rugged journey south to Pierra with the other captured women and children. 

The strength of Natan and Shira's love beat in her own heart, which she had never been able to close, even in the face of the worst cruelty. She had not closed it to Karan in those first moments when he had captured her and tried to make her feel terror. 


And now, in the face of his kindness, Ariana felt for him a depth of gratitude and love that she had not even experienced with Maya.

"Thank you, my lord," she said between sips of broth. "I haven't been treated so gently in many years."

Karan looked down, avoiding her gaze as he lifted the spoon to her mouth. 

"You needn't thank me. I had to make up for the way I treated you." His voice was a murmer full of shame.

Ariana gazed on his downcast features. In spite of her weakened condition, she felt her woman's desire for him begin to rise, a warm rippling in the crevice between her thighs that radiated upward into her breasts, causing a tingling in the pink tips. 

"I understand why you did it," she said softly. "I would have done the same."

Karan looked at her and she felt the space between them fill with his self-reproach. She sensed there were many things going on in his mind and heart that he wasn't telling her. She found herself hoping, however, that one of them was desire for her. 

"Your gown was destroyed," he told her. "I will sew you a new one from skins. They'll keep you warm and dry."

Ariana stared at him, wanting to protest his offer. She did not want him to go to such trouble. But she was naked under the fur cover he'd given her. She had nothing else and no way of getting it for herself. 

"Thank you, my lord."

Karan watched her and she wished he'd reach out and caress her hair again the way he had during her fever. But he did not. 

"How did you know I was innocent?" he asked softly.

Ariana looked into his eyes. Their color was the blue of the placid sea, reflecting the pale morning. Her heart ached. 

"I cannot say how, my lord. You only showed me what is there inside you."

Karan looked as though his eyes would fill with tears. "One of her ministers, Dogon, it was, told me of a plot against the queen." His voice was a low growl. "He asked me to protect her."

Ariana nodded. She knew Dogon only too well. He had been the one to take her virginity. He was a cruel man whose sadism went beyond the bounds of what could be considered pleasurable sex play. He had delighted in her virgin's pain, thrusting into her as hard as he could in spite of her whimpers. After that, she cowered in her haram quarters every time he called for her, and knew it was only by Galen's grace that she had escaped Dogon without permanent scars to her flesh or her soul.

"I did not suspect him for a moment, though I should have," Karan went on. "My loyalty to Maya blinded me to his deviousness. So I went to her chamber as soon as I was given an alarm that her murderer lurked in the shadows where she slept.

'The guards let me through. I didn't know they were part of the whole thing. As soon as Maya awoke and saw me over her with the knife, she screamed." He fell silent and bowed his head. "The worst part is she believed them. I never have understood why. I served her with my heart and soul."

Ariana felt her heart squeeze with pain and wished she were strong enough to comfort him in the way she wished. 

"There are conjurors in the palace, my lord. No doubt Dogon employed them to bewitch the queen's mind. There is no other answer."

Karan sighed deeply. "Perhaps you are right. And if that's so, it does take some of the sting out of it to know she would have supported me otherwise."

Ariana felt a tear collect in her eye and she reached out a weak hand, putting it over Karan's branded one. "She would have, lord. She was a selfish woman in some ways, but not a cruel one. I knew her well. She would not have knowingly turned on you."

Karan looked at her, his expression twisted in pain. He set down the empty bowl and spoon, and picked up her hand, bringing it to his lips, pressing into her soft palm. Then he held it to his cheek.

Ariana's eyes fluttered closed at the pleasure of his silken beard against her skin. Slivers of heat began to shoot through the slit of her crotch, and she could feel the musk gather, like wet rain clouds before a storm. Her breathing deepened.

"I curse those who made you a slave," he said in a husky tone. "I wish Galen's wrath on them."

Her deep breaths caused the fur skin around her to loosen. She let it fall, wanting him to gaze on her nakedness. Her breasts were already swollen, the nipples tingling in erect peaks.

Karan reached out to cover her, but Ariana grasped his hand. She stared at him, silently imploring him not to pull away as she slowly moved his hand over her breast, pressing it down so that his fingers closed around it. 

With her hand over his, she moved it around, bidding him to rub the swollen orb of flesh. 

"Please, my lord," she whispered. "Have me."

She heard his breathing grow ragged. His eyes smoldered as he gazed on her. One breast was still bare, willing him to bend and kiss it, the other, tingling exquisitely under his callused skin. He appeared to be waging an inner battle between her seduction and something in his conscience. 

He started to pull his hand away, but Ariana held him fast and gave a small whimper of protest.

"You owe me nothing, Ariana," Karan said gruffly. "Galen should strike me down for exacting a price to protect you. You are not my slave."

She stared into his eyes, frightened that he was turning her away. It had always been known about the general that he never took slaves. He had always refused the queen's offer of a bed-slave at palace banquets. But this was different, she knew. She loved Karan's soul as she appreciated his warrior's body. These feelings were utterly new and had closed over her like one of the giant waves her father's boat used to battle when he was fishing at sea. She felt her lip tremble and tears gather in the corners of her eyes. 

"I give myself to you willingly, Lord Karan," she said in a near-whisper. "I know who you are and I love you. I would follow you anywhere."

Ariana waited for him to lean forward and kiss her. She wanted him so badly to nuzzle her breasts and cover her body with his. But he still watched her, a strange, twisted look of guilt darkening his chiseled features. Her panic mounted and she bit down on her lower lip, which trembled violently. 

Suddenly, her control collapsed and she began to sob. She lifted Karan's hand from her breast and brought it to her lips, showering the rough skin with kisses and her desperate tears. Her anguish, borne so many lonely years with her grief locked inside her now spilled out, brought to the surface by Karan's kindness. He had nursed her the way her father had so many years ago whenever she was ill. When she was an innocent girl, back before the horrors began. . .

Karan reached out and pulled Ariana into his arms, letting her soak his abundant coat of silky chest hair with her tears. She clung to the warrior for a long time, with fistfuls of his tunic in her clenched hands. She felt little and safe against him, in a way she hadn't since Natan had last comforted her. Karan stroked her hair and placed small kisses on the top of her head where the scarlet tresses parted. 

"Beautiful little woman," she heard him murmur.

With each stroke on her hair, she felt her tears begin to pass, leaving her heart cleansed and peaceful. Once again, she became aware of the man who held her, of the way his chest hairs brushed her damp cheek and his strength surrounded her. She breathed in the scents he carried of wood smoke, animal skins and earth. With each breath, she felt her body melt into his. Her lips were against his chest and she began to dapple it with soft, moist kisses, pressing her tongue to the salt of his skin. She moved across his breast to suckle gently on one of his nipples, eliciting a soft groan of pleasure from him.

Suddenly, she felt his hands grasp her arms. Gently but firmly, he held her away from him. 

She looked at him, wide-eyed, frightened that he was about to turn her away even though he had seemed to want her. 

"What is it, my lord?" she asked. "Don't I please you?"

Karan sighed. "Your beauty makes me ache." 

"Then why..."

But her question was crushed by Karan's kiss. Her eyes fluttered shut as the pleasure of his lips overwhelmed her. She brought her arms around him, her fingertips pressing into the hard ridges of muscle in his back. The exquisite heat of surrender radiated through her, moistening the pink cleft between her thighs. She parted her lips wider as Karan languorously explored her tongue with his. She moaned as he wove his fingers into her hair, his other hand cradling her from behind as he gently laid her down on the fur skin. . . .

Karan tasted and suckled Ariana's lips as if they were the sweetest, most succulent fruit. 

Her moans, caused by his mere kiss, unleashed him, and he paused to tug at the rawhide laces of his tunic so he could feel his bare skin against hers. He wanted to pleasure her as she had never been. A slave's pleasure depended on her mistress or master's whims. But he wanted to take all the time necessary to make her feel adored and treasured, saturated with loving. 

He suckled her breasts, taking delight in how she arched her back to meet his mouth. He intended to kiss and lick her the length of her body, parting the lips of her cleft and massaging the sweet spot with his tongue until she writhed in ecstasy. 

But when her hands roamed over his hips and buttocks, squeezing them and bidding him to penetrate her, his intentions were lost. He had been away from a woman's body for too long. He could not wait. 

He slid his cock into her, letting out a long groan of pleasure at once again feeling the slippery heat of a woman's sheath. Fighting for self-control, he thrust slowly at first, stopping each time to poke the head in and out in small movements before plunging in again. 

With each thrust, Ariana moaned, her head thrown back, her pale neck curved upward. He teased and nibbled the soft skin under her jaw and braced himself on his elbows so he could grind against her sweet spot, hoping to bring her to climax before he exploded. 

Once again he leant down and captured her mouth in a sweet, deep kiss. Her complete surrender made him feel enveloped in feminine softness, as if he were returning to the dark peace of the womb. Her legs were stretched as wide open as she could to accommodate his warrior's body, and he could feel the soles of her feet resting on his buttocks. 

"I'm sorry, Ariana," he groaned. "I won't last much longer."

She reached up and smoothed back the wild silvery-gold mane that hung in his eyes. 

"Please, my lord," she breathed, "Have your pleasure."

Karan closed his eyes with the visceral sense of power her words evoked in him. He hadn't intended to react that way, to be a possessor, a master. But she demanded it of him by her nature, by her faith in the man he was and her surrender to him. He had mastered her with gentle strength and now, they were both beyond return. 

Karan did not have to worry about her satisfaction, for his thrusts against her swollen, taut clit brought her to orgasm and she released several small cries, one with each spasm of pleasure. She fell limp in his arms and after only a few more thrusts, Karan, too, had his release, his warm seed spilling out inside her.

When the last spasm had passed, Karan lay over her, covering her with his relaxed body. He closed his eyes, enjoying the silky feel of her small hands caressing his back and hips. 

All praise to Lord Galen, Karan offered silently. He had never thought to have the gift of a woman's sweetness again. Perhaps all things were possible. Perhaps the same grace that had brought him Ariana would restore to him the other woman he loved: his beautiful daughter, Lara.

Karan pressed a kiss to Ariana's damp cheek. "Thank you," he whispered. 

Ariana reached up and caressed his hair. Her green eyes shone up at him. 

"Lord Galen loves me through you," she said softly.

Karan rolled his weight off her and lay next to her, gathering her against him. He pulled the fur covering over both of them and kissed her hair. "It is I who should be grateful," he murmured into her luxurious ringlets. 

He rested his cheek against her hair, delighting in the soft sound of her breathing. She was not fully recovered and he felt how their passion had spent her strength. He kept his arms around her protectively.

Before he closed his own eyes in sleep, an image of the Pierran guards making their way into the hills came to his mind. No doubt, a search for the escaped slave was in progress.

The Pierrans would most certainly pay him a visit, wanting to know if he harbored her. The men he had once commanded loved to pass through occasionally and taunt him, not understanding he could wring their necks with one hand if he chose. 

But he chose not to. If he killed any of them, the army would swarm him and any chance he had of saving Lara would be destroyed. 

They were the scum of the planet.

He shuddered to think of the fate they had planned for the queen's assassin.

They'll never get Ariana, he swore silently. Never. 

CHAPTER FOUR

For the first time since she was a little girl, Ariana woke with a smile on her lips. Never had a night been so sweet as the one that had just passed. Several times during her sleep, she had awakened and listened to Karan's gentle breathing. She'd breathed in the aroma of his warm skin. His strong arms around her made her feel a safety she'd forgotten could exist.

But now, she didn't feel the heat of his body beside her. He no longer held her. He must have moved away from her in his sleep. She turned over to snuggle closer, but only her body covered the fur skin. 

Ariana sat bolt upright, looking wildly around the shadowy cave for him. She almost began to sob, terrified that he had left her when she became aware of the sound of water spilling in a shower against the rocks, just outside the entrance to the cave. She turned and looked.

Karan was there, naked in the morning sunlight, pouring water from a jug over his hair and body. 

She blinked, her panic receded momentarily as the stirring began between her thighs. Rising to her knees, she watched, captured by the magnificent vision. 

Karan bent over to fill the jug from a basin. He straightened and sluiced the water over his head and down his back and chest. The sunlight glinted off the droplets in his hair and beard and off the rivulets coursing over the bulges and curves of muscle of his scarred back.

He then turned so his front was back and buttocks and thighs. toward her, still unaware he was being watched. The water had plastered down the abundant silvery gold hair of his chest, accentuating his broad strength. 

The sight caused the pulsing in her crotch to radiate upward into her breasts, tightening the pink tips.

Karan set down the jug, reached for a large cloth and began to towel himself as he entered the cave. 

Ariana's gaze met with his as he drew closer. She could feel the heat of the moisture radiating from his body. Suddenly, tears of relief rushed to her eyes and spilled out. She hadn't realized how afraid she'd been that he left. She lunged forward and threw her arms around him, pressing her face into his stomach, just above his silky abundance of sexual hair. 

She felt Karan's large hand on her hair. "I meant to finish and be back next to you before you woke," he said softly.

Ariana sniffled, smiling at the simple joy of his tender caress. "I thought you'd left," she murmured into his skin.

Karan gently stroked her hair. "I'm sorry I frightened you, Ariana. I should have known." He stood quietly, caressing her hair and face. 

She began stroking his buttocks and hips, her fear giving way to the desire that had begun moments before. She pressed her nakedness against his legs, and nuzzled the nest of hair at the base of his shaft. She wanted so badly to please him, to give him the love and pleasure he'd been deprived of for so long. She heard him moan softly, his cock rising in response to her hands roaming over his bare skin

She felt his erection swell against her cheek and lowered her face and captured his shaft in her mouth. She closed her eyes, delighting in the delicious feel of the smooth, velvety skin over hard, veined muscle.

Slowly, gently, she suckled him, sliding her lips up and down the length of his hardness, stopping each stroke at the tip to smooth her tongue over its swollen ridges as she whispered her hands over his buttocks and thighs, and over the sac between them. . .

Karan moaned, stroking her hair with both hands. He closed his eyes and tilted his head back. Her mouth was a warm wet sheath, and he gently pulsed his cock in and out, the fingers of both hands entwined in her soft red tumble of curls. This beautiful woman who was pleasuring him with such love caused his already finely honed senses to flare even more, and he could smell the musk of her cream rising, the scent filling the air around them. 

He could hear the low murmurs of pleasure in her throat and feel them vibrating on his shaft as her mouth slid up and down on it from head to base. The sounds caused his blood to mount and his heart to beat faster. The sudden desire to hear her cry out from pleasure seized him, and in one swift motion, he withdrew from her mouth and crouched down, his hands on her upper arms. He looked at her flushed cheeks and lips moist from suckling him. Gently he pushed her back. 

"Lie down," he told her in a gruff whisper.

She fell back under his hands, her legs spread wide. Her breasts and sex were swollen and the cream he had smelled had saturated her ruby curls and glistened in rivulets down her inner thighs.

Karan knelt between her parted legs and raised his body over her, lowering his lips to hers. 

He began with her mouth, seizing it in deep, wet kisses. Fighting the deep need to take her immediately, he moved slowly downward, trailing a moist path of warm kisses down her neck and breasts, stopping to nibble and suckle the hard tips. 

For a long time, he worked his way down her soft yielding body. The earthen scents of her skin and musk filled him and he experienced a visceral surge in his loins that radiated through his entire body. He could not wait another moment to taste her deepest most hidden parts. 

With gentle fingers, he parted the lips of her sex, burying his face deeply into the hot wetness. When his warm tongue and soft beard met her sweet spot, she moaned loudly and raised her hips. Her glistening cream covered Karan's lips and flowed into his mouth, down his throat as he laved the slick pink skin in languorous circles with his tongue.

Ariana's cries grew louder and more frenzied, and she writhed her hips in the depths of pleasure. The sound delighted him and he slid his large fingers inside her as he continued to suckle the hard nub. In moments, he felt her sheath tighten around his fingers as the spasms of climax coursed through her. He continued his ministrations until she fell limp. Then he raised his head and looked at her.