grime of city life.
When the hard-edged clatter and bustle of urban life all got too noisy to bear, Hayley’s sturdy boots and her little backpack took her out on the high slopes, out through the pines and into the rare, clean air.
Her life was about to change, probably for the worse, and she couldn’t face it all. She needed to breathe, to walk and to think.
Drawing and painting with watercolor was like meditation for Hayley. Looking long at a subject with soft concentration, a soft intensity, making light, precise marks on the thick paper, so faint they were hardly visible.
Then washing the color across, quickly blending the hues to give the streaky sky and the shape of the green and gray terrain. At the end came the foreground detail. A tree, a path, a cabin with a rising plume of smoke. A deer, maybe, or an eagle.
The concentration took her out of the world that she knew, and it parked her city life in orbit. She was one with the world as she walked, observed, studied, and recorded, and she forgot her worries about the job, the bills, and now the apartment.
Today she had more to forget than usual. Her little life was about to run hard into a major crisis and she had no idea how she would be able to deal with it. As far as Hayley could see it, setting her thoughts and fears aside for the day would be the best preparation.
As she watched the mist in the valley, Hayley took in a long breath. It would be wonderful to sketch out the deep fissure of the rocky valley and wash watercolors over it to capture the magic of the morning light, but she contented herself with the picture in her mind and another snapped on her phone. Maybe she would use it to paint the scene later.
Long ago, Hayley had fantasized about living at the top of a Park Lane mansion and being waited on hand and foot in exchange for her sexual favors. She’d imagined herself the kept concubine of a tycoon with a dark secret.
Her days would pass in jewels and silk pajamas or diaphanous negligées as she awaited the sudden, savage, and unpredictable demands of her master. He would be tall and heavy-set with a luxuriant golden-brown beard, deep, dark brown eyes, and prone to sudden rages.
His needs would be as outrageous as they were obscene. He would be insatiable and tireless. His strength would match his depraved inventiveness.
He would arrive unannounced. The huge, heavy double doors would slam against the walls when he burst them open. Filling the gaping doorway he would stand, panting so hard a low growl grated under his breath.
With his feet wide apart and his hands balled in big, round fists he would shout from the doorway, “ Hayley! Where are you?” and his fierce eyes would scour the expanse of soft white rugs and cushions.
Raging through the apartment he would find her in the kitchen, bent over some luscious morsel she had meticulously prepared to tempt him. Or bent over her keyboard, straining for the perfect rhyme to delight him with.
His huge, hairy hand would seize her wrist and drag her to her feet. The wet heat of his breath would soak her sheer robe to her skin. The thin cotton would shape itself around her pert nipples.
He would be inflamed by the sight of her full breasts as they heaved under the flimsy white cotton. His hands would grasp and hold them and his face would fall to her.
The rough press of his tongue, the clamp of his strong lips, and the hot suction from his breath would flash dark thrills through her body to boil in her pelvis. Her hips would seek him. She would throw her legs around him.
She would soothe him, lull and quell his rage, and make him forget his persecution. He would enfold her, constrain her, and violate her in unimaginable ways.
His rough passions would use up and exhaust her. Her pain and occasional scratch or grazed skin would melt his heart and inspire him to fetch more and more extravagant gifts for her.
She would be his prisoner, a beautiful bird kept and pampered in a
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