Chapter Three: Not the Same as the Real Thing

WARNING: This chapter contains scenes of rape, violence against women, coarse language, and other possibly objectionable material. Please read with caution.

Teddy

February 1

Anastasia, or Stacey as she likes to be called now, McGill is the one true love of my life.

Honestly, I never have been one of those queer, gushing guys who go on and on about how this girl or that one is the only girl in the world for him and how he'll die if he can't have her. I'm not a romantic. I never have been and I never will be, but something about her always makes me feel like a complete idiot. Whenever her face floats into my mind, which is very often, I feel exactly like one of those guys, and sometimes it really pisses me off that she has such a strangely wonderful hold on me.

The only trouble is that she's not actually in my life.

When we were younger, and involved in what was then a perfect relationship with one another, we got into a disagreement about the proper role of women (I believe that a woman's place is silent and by her man's side while Stacey believes that women have the "right" to say and do as they please) and things rapidly spun out of control. Before I knew what was happening, Stacey was breaking up with me and I was trying to show her that her reasoning was actually quite a big mistake. She started to yell when I pushed her, lightly, and suddenly I was being hauled away by the police. As they dragged me from the room, she was sobbing on the ground, like I had actually hurt her.

It was misunderstanding after misunderstanding after that. My father advised me to leave her alone and told me that she was nothing but white trash anyways, so I might as well not bother because he and my mother would never approve of a marriage between Anastasia and me. Still, I had to try and make things right, but when I did, her friends actually had the nerve to attack me and then call the police on me as though I had done something wrong. It's laughable, really.

Now, though. Now it's hard to fit my mouth around any kind of laughter, especially after what that feminist bitch lawyer of Stacey's parents did to me in court. Not only did they have to try to make me look like some kind of evil freak who was stalking some girl who didn't want him within miles of her instead of her ex-lover who she was having some communication problems with, but they petitioned for and managed to get me sent to court on several assault charges and several counts of attempted rape.

As though I would ever need to rape the woman who I loved.

That was before prison.

THREE

"Thomas!"

I hurried up to the collection window, eager to gather my things and get the hell out of that place. My father had sent a car and a driver to come and pick me up. I had every intention of leaving the driver at the first bus station with enough cash to catch a bus his own way home.

"Yo, Teddy Bear, are you leaving?" a gruff, mocking voice asked with a laugh. Had it been early on, I would've cringed, but prison teaches you soon enough not to cringe when someone says something as stupid as that. I whirled around and looked my mocker up and down slowly.

"Not soon enough," I growled.

"Aw, how cute!" the huge, nearly 300 pound man named Jose "Bigs" Verde cried, clasping his hands together. "Teddy-Bear's decided to grow some balls on his last day here, just as he's leaving this joint."

Seething, I turned back to the collections window and snatched the orange eight by eleven folder up from the counter. I could feel the outline of my Rolex and my wallet inside and breathed a sigh of relief. With any luck, my cash might still be in there and I'd be able to give the driver his money without having to use the new ATM card in my front pocket. The card was attached to the new account my father had opened in joint with me so that I could move around right away after leaving prison without having to worry about cash flow. After all, my own accounts had been frozen and my cards didn't work anymore. Once I could get into a bank, I could fix things and straighten them back out again, but until then, I was stuck looking like another rich, daddy's boy.

"What's Richie Rich got in there?" one of Bigs's friends asked, making a grab for the envelope. I jerked it away from him quickly and heard the guard at the window squawk in protest.

"None of that!"

"Come on! We just want to see what he had when they brought him in," Bigs said calmly. He smiled politely at me and held out his hand as though I was supposed to hand him the envelope. I started to back up, feeling more than a little panicked and annoyed. This was my last day. Didn't I get one free day here?

Luckily, a couple of guards wandered in just then and were immediately able to sense the mood in the room. Bigs cleared his throat meaningfully and backed away.

"Well, Teddy-Bear, have a good life on the outside," he said conversationally, as though that's what we had been doing this whole time. I thinned my lips into what I hoped passed as some form of a smile.

"Same for you, Bigs."

One of the guards escorted me to a locker room where I was finally able to change back into the street clothes I had been wearing when I was brought here (an Armani suit and shoes). It felt good to be wearing something other than the standard issue prison garb for the first time in years and even better to be wearing something of quality. I sighed with pleasure as I smoothed out the wrinkles that years in storage had brought to my poor suit.

"Come on, Mr. Thomas," the guard escort said, sounding annoyed. I followed him wordlessly. There was no point in saying anything more to the people in this prison, now that I was only yards from being a free man.

The sun and its heat were stifling. I almost gasped in shock and took a step back inside the cool prison, which I suppose I hadn't even realized was air-conditioned. Instead, I slipped my sunglasses over my eyes and quickly screened the parking lot, where there were only a handful of used cars (undoubtedly driven by the guards and other employees) and a sleek black BMW which I knew my father had sent along for me. I grinned.

"That'll be for me," I told my escort. The guard shrugged.

"Whatever," he said and stepped back into the doorway of the prison to shield himself from as much of the heat of the day as he could. I rolled my eyes from behind my glasses then marched deliberately towards the car. Feet away from it, the driver's door swung open and my mouth dropped open in shocked surprise.

"Jennifer?"

"Teddy!" the brunette who had been sitting in the car squealed and raced around the front of the car to throw herself bodily at me. Not completely expecting such a warm embrace, I staggered backwards a few steps, earning a happy laugh from her. "Wow, look at how thin you are! Prison must be some kind of a diet, huh? Think I ought to try it?"

I grabbed her elbow, yanked open the passenger seat door, and pushed down inside a little harder than was probably necessary. She blinked up at me in surprise.

"I think one Thomas kid in prison is enough for this generation, don't you?" I asked, shutting the door before she had the chance to answer. The moment it was closed, I glared up at the sky.

My moronic father sent my little sister to pick me from prison!

THREE

"Oh, wow, Teddy," Anastasia breathed in awe. She reached her hand back behind her, fumbling for mine and I caught it after letting her search for a moment. I liked to keep my girls just a little bit needy at first, but not desperate. "This is amazing."

"I told you I was capable of being a romantic," I told her smugly.

At this altitude, Anastasia's hair was being carried around by the wind. It was amazing, really, that it wasn't being whipped around, like it had been with the few other girls that I had taken up here to make out with. Their hair had caught around their faces and clogged into their own mouths- it was disgusting. Anastasia's hair, on the other hair, floated around her like she was some kind of perfectly blessed angel whose hair obeyed her every wish and thought. I swallowed as she nodded and smiled warmly at me.

"You are, I know, I just thought you were making it up about how beautiful it is up here," she told me before falling silent ago. Perched on the hood of the chair, her breasts were outlined perfectly each time a gust of wind picked up and blew her shirt back towards her back. I wanted nothing more than to reach out and touch her, but since we hadn't gone that far yet, I knew that she would probably become upset if I did. She smiled at me again. "You've managed to amaze and surprise me yet again, Teddy Thomas. I swear, you really have a knack for doing these kinds of things up your sleeve."

"Well, don't tell anyone, cutie," I murmured, reaching out to pull her down closer to me. Anastasia giggled at the comment that she normally would've scoffed at. "I've got a reputation to worry about."

"Teddy, can I ask you something really serious?" she asked quickly, pulling away from me and looking concerned. My first thought was to fly into rage. She was seeing someone else. She wanted to break up with me. Instead, I closed my eyes for a moment before nodded.

"Of course," I said as gently and with as much understanding as I could muster.

"All right," she said softly. "See, Teddy, I've been worrying about this for a while now and… well, I'm just going to put it out there. I'm only eighteen. You're almost twenty-two. Don't you think that I'm just too young for you?"

"You want to break up?" I asked, trying to keep my voice level and calm.

"Not at all," Anastasia said suddenly, grabbing onto my hand. In my surprise, I let her. "No, Teddy, that's not at all what I'm trying to do or say. I'm just worried that you're dating someone too young and immature for you and that you can't possibly be having as much fun as I am with this relationship. I mean, there's no way that I'm anywhere near capable of providing the mental stimulation that you need in a relationship, especially since I'm nearly three years younger than you are."

She just stared at me with those perfectly wide blue eyes. Her expression was that of concern and worry, like this was something that had been keeping her awake at night. Who knew? Maybe it was something that had been keeping her up. She was a sweet, adorable little thing, after all, the kind of girl who actually seemed to give a damn about whether or not her boyfriend was happy with her. I had to admit that made my attachment to her shoot up through the roof right at that moment.

I squeezed her hand gently. "Anastasia, I think that you are absolutely perfect. You're funny and smart and absolutely gorgeous and I really don't think that three years makes any difference between us." I kissed the back of her hand and her face went still and quiet. "Do you think there's a difference, or were you just worrying?"

"Teddy, I was just worried," she whispered. "I can't help but worry all the time, you know? I mean, I've only been here for a couple of weeks and this amazing senior has already taken a huge interest in me. What's not to worry about?"

"Well, honey, don't worry about us not having anything in common." I looked back out over the pond where my car parked next to. Anastasia quickly followed my lead and my heart beat a little faster. She was adorable. "Do you think I'd keep asking you out if I didn't think that we could go somewhere? That this relationship was going somewhere, someplace special?"

She shook her head. "I guess not. Sorry."

I wrapped an arm around her shoulder and planted a kiss on the top of her head. "Don't apologize, honey. You never have to apologize for worrying. That's just plain silly."

"Yeah, you're right."

"Now, if you were to crash my car into this pond…"

"Waaaah!" she fake-cried like Lucy did on the I Love Lucy TV show. "Ricky!"

I laughed and kissed the top of her head again. God, she was perfect

THREE

We drove for about a half hour before my little sister started to squirm miserably in her seat. I glanced over at her.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" I demanded.

"What the hell do think, genius?" she snapped. "I have to pee!"

"Fuck."

"Oh, don't swear. You sound like an old, drunken sailor when you do, not some uber-hip yuppie, like I'm sure you're trying to."

"Shut up, Jen, and I'll try to find you a gas station where you won't catch too many crabs by sitting on the toilet seat," I snapped. "Not that they wouldn't all die anyhow from all of the clap you've got down there."

She laughed and pinched my upper arm fondly. "You know, I've missed this. I really have. I mean, Mom's been all doom and gloom ever since you got sent to prison and Jimmy got sent to rehab after Dad discovered his stash and his Playboys under his mattress. Only Josh has been normal and I think that's only because he's ten and Nicole's son."

My father had an affair with his secretary, who refused to keep the baby on the grounds that he supposedly got her drunk first and slipped something into her drink. So, even though she had slept with him once willingly before that, Nicole was the victim of my dad's weird little sex fantasies. Unfortunately that meant that poor Mom was stuck raising some other woman's child (though the baby was still Dad's) and Josh hasn't really been very close with her, to say the least.

"I forgot about good old Jimmy!" I laughed. "I didn't realize that he was still living at home."

Jen nodded. "Up until three months ago when the mattress was flipped and out flew the smack and the naked chicks."

"You weren't one of those naked chicks, were you?"

"Ew, Teddy!" she gasped and punched me. Hard. A lot harder than girls really have the right to punch. "I know our family's screwed up and everything, what with you going to jail after stalking that girl and me having to talk to Dr. Philip every week about why I could possibly have wanted to down a bottle of Tylenol and wash it down with a bottle of Smirnoff, but come on! We're not so weird that my big brother jacks off to pictures of me naked, are we?"

"I wouldn't be surprised."

"What, about him or about me?"

"There's a gas station," I said. "You said you had to pee."

"Nice try, but that doesn't get you out of answering that question. It only means that you managed to try and weasel your way out of it, which is even sneakier and dirtier."

"I'm going to drive really slow, so try to get in there and pee fast, all right?" I asked, flinging open her door after I came to a stop. She smiled at me, her teeth two rows of dental perfect white.

"You're such a gentleman."

"Get running, Jenny-poo."

She hopped out of the car and flipped me the finger as she did so. "And after I decided to spend the day picking up your sorry ass instead of doing something more fun like watching Mom stick her head in the oven or grandpa screaming at the new hired help to start speaking English or he'll fire them."

"Ah, home sweet home."

In the end, I decided to be a good big brother and didn't pull away as she came trotting from the gas station, her pockets stuffed with the things she had somehow managed to steal right out from under their noses.

THREE

A few weeks later and Dad managed to pull some strings to get me a job in Stamford, Connecticut. It was close to where she was, maybe too close, so I could satisfy the need to know where she was and to almost be able to feel her movements under my feet like I was an animal hunting his prey.

Only, I hated thinking that way. I hated that part of me. I hated thinking like an animal, or rather thinking of getting her back like an animal. I ought to be thinking of flowers and chocolates, but instead all I thought about was cornering her someplace dark where I could smell the fear dripping off her. Taking her for my own while she had no where to run and nobody to call for help. Oh, she could scream, I found that I rather liked the way she screamed, the more often I replayed it in my head in prison.

So, here I was, wearing a suit and tie, pretending to be a normal, well-adjusted thirty year old man instead of a man who was little more than a predator eagerly awaiting the moment when his prey would show her lovely face.

"Excellent work on that report, Thomas."

I looked up from my desk. I had been staring off into space, at this small dent in the otherwise blemish-free office wall, focusing my energy into it as I forced myself to hold down my hostile and aggressive thoughts. I smiled at my boss.

"Thanks," I told her in a friendly voice. Not too friendly. I didn't want her to get the wrong idea and start suspecting me of starting to stalk her, especially since it was a must that she knew about my dubious past, but I still wanted to let her know that I was grateful for her time and for her encouragement.

She smiled. "I really do mean it, Theodore. I've been working here for longer than I care to admit and, frankly, not many people put as much effort into their reports as you did with yours." She leaned forward like she wanted to touch my shoulder in a friendly gesture then thought better of it. "You're really showing the quality that you're made of."

I laughed. "Ms. Johnston, trust me. When you have no life like I do, working on an analysis report is the highlight of my evening, especially after I've seen every single episode of Reba on the Lifetime channel."

Ms. Johnston, whose first name happened to be Stacy, grinned. "Well, that certainly changed my perspective of you right there."

"Oh, yeah?"

"I definitely would not have pegged Mr. Armani Suits to watch Lifetime until he had seen every episode of any given show."

We both began to laugh and I was surprised and glad to realize that it was sincere laughter. I hadn't shared this kind of laughter with a woman in a long time. I thought for a moment as Ms. Johnston glanced down at her practical brown pumps and realized that the last time I had laughed like this had been with Anastasia. A shiver ran down my spine and I quickly looked away from her.

"I had better get back to work," I said quickly. It was in that moment that I realized that even though her hair was coffee brown and her eyes chocolate brown, she reminded me of her. My chest felt tight and I thought for a fearful moment that it would give out under the sudden strain.

"Listen, Theodore, I was wondering if you'd like to go out with us after work tonight for some drinks," she said and I looked back up in to her eyes. Though the color was different, the shape of her eyes was the same and so was the inviting warmth. I felt my head bob up and down, almost of its own accord. "Oh, good! That would be really great. I know a lot of the kids would love to get to know you better, Theodore. I mean, you work so hard and your work is wonderful, but you know what they say about the boys who are all work and no play, huh?"

"Teddy," I said quietly.

"Hmm?"

"Call me Teddy, not Theodore."

Stacy blushed. "Oh, gosh, I'm so sorry. I didn't even think!"

I laughed. "It's fine, really." I touched her hand, but nothing more. "I'd love to join you guys for drinks. What time?"

"Six-thirty and we meet downstairs in the lobby," she said with a wide smile. "You're going to have so much fun, Teddy!"

THREE

"Teddy, huh?"

I looked up warily. It was the first time that my cellmate had said as much as a word to me in the last three days. Ever since I had been shoved rather roughly into the cell, he had only stared at me, like he was trying to figure me out without using the power of language or communication.

"Yeah," I told him quietly. It was after lights out and I knew that I had to be quiet otherwise run the risk of having one of the guards getting up in my face. As much as I wanted to establish a pleasant living environment here in my cell, I didn't want to have a run in with one of the guards.

My cellmate, luckily, only nodded and went back to staring at me like he had been doing for the past three days. At this point, though it was unnerving as hell, I was teaching myself to ignore him. I was teaching myself to ignore anything that I didn't like and teaching myself how to get what I wanted without causing any trouble for myself. It was a dangerous game, but the only one I had left to play.

My cellmate was a tall, slender white man who, it was plainly obvious, was incredibly strong and muscular, despite his apparent slenderness. His name was Devon Sands and was taller than me, even though I'm over six feet tall myself. Next to him, I felt like a pathetically weak and short kid, trying to pretend that I was a man. Devon was in for one count of murder, three counts of rape, two counts of sexual assault, and two counts of breaking and entering. Needless to say, he was not someone I wanted to mess around with.

Unfortunately for me, I was someone that Devon Sands felt like messing with.

Before I knew what was happening, a heavy weight crashed me down flat onto my bed, where I had been lounging and waiting for sleep to claim me. Before I could cry out and object to whatever it was that was happening, a hand grabbed onto either side of my face, forcing my jaws open. Something rotten and putrid smelling was forced into my mouth and tears immediately began to stream down my cheeks at the taste and smell of this thing in my mouth.

I struggled to get out from under Sands, who was fighting against me with what I could sense was not his full strength. Like a trapped animal, something inside of snapped and went wild. I bucked my hips, hard, and tried to thrash my head back and forth, hoping to snap his nose with my forehead. Instead, that same strong hand caught my head and snapped it violently down against the mattress. I was breathing roughly though my nose and the noise was almost unbearably loud.

"Stop struggling, pretty boy, and I make this a whole lot easier for you," Sands whispered, or maybe even just breathed, into my ear. I expected him to pull away from me then and let out a whimper of shock and disgust when I felt his tongue curl out and lick its way along my ear until Sands came to the lobe where he bit down not so gently. I yelped, but the gag in my mouth kept me from making a noise. Sands smiled. "Good boy."

Christ, this was like a bad movie on HBO. I wasn't going to be some statistic of a jail gang bang rape. Oh, God

Still, when I felt Sands's hands loosen the draw strings on my pants, I felt my entire body freeze in terror instead of springing into outraged action. I should've fought back and murdered the bastard for thinking he could lay a single finger on me, but instead I just lie still as he slid the pants down to my knees and quickly did the same with my boxers.

I struggled a little then, once I felt his hand close around my penis. I felt a whimper rise up in my throat, a noise of protest and fear, and moved my head in hopes of catching Sands's eyes. It worked, but the black lust I saw in his eyes was more terrifying than his uncomfortable touches in this strange, yellow-green jail light.

His hand worked on me for a while, though I actually found myself pleased when I could not get it up. I didn't want my body to cooperate with anything that Sands was doing and each little victory helped to keep me sane.

"Roll over," Sands hissed in my ear, lifting his bulk up off of my body enough so that I could obey his command. My eyes locked onto his, terror coursing through every part of my body. I couldn't move. "Do it, or I'll fucking kill you."

What choice did I have? I could fight, but I knew that Sands was bigger and stronger than I was and would probably beat me senseless before raping me even more brutally and violently than he was intending on doing right now. I swallowed harshly and nodded. I pushed myself up and started to roll over slowly, but Sands clearly found it too slow because he finished my rotation and slammed me flat onto my belly.

That was when I felt something that I had never felt before. Something inside of me. It wasn't very big or painful, but it was definitely not something that ought to have been there. It took me until I felt the second digit force its way inside of me that I realized what Sands was doing. I began to choke and cough against the gag.

I shook my head violently, though it didn't stop what he was doing.

Please, God, make this stop! I am so sorry that I what I did to Anastasia. Stacey! You don't need to prove to me what a piece of scum I was to force myself on her. I understand that now. Please, God!

Then, like it was something piercing through the whole of me, he was inside of me. I could hear his grunt as he shoved himself mercilessly in, the whole way, and sighed with pleasure, murmuring something about how I must be a virgin because I was so deliciously tight. The tears streaming down my cheeks were of no matter to me.

Oh, God. Oh, God. Please, make him get out of me. God…

He began to slide out then slammed back in and my gut was on fire. Over and over again, until I was screaming against my gag, scrambling at the mattress to get away, and twisting and fighting as much as I could bear.

At the end, he jerked the gag out, kissed my mouth so hard that my teeth cut open the inner parts of my lips and cheeks, and smiled.

"You're my bitch now, Thomas. Start acting like it."

Sands died three years later, in a riot. He was stabbed in the chest seventeen times. Nobody ever found the weapon or could figure out a suspect, but I sighed with relief the moment he let out his last gurgling breath.

THREE

"Thanks for taking me home, Teddy," Stacy slurred. Her shoes were in her hand and it was a little disheartening to watch her try and navigate the sidewalk. I hurried to wrap my arm around her waist and she burst into giggles. "Want to come upstairs?"

What a loaded question, even if the woman asking didn't intend for it to be as loaded as it was. First of all, there was the simple fact that she was my boss. That alone ought to be enough to tell her that I'd walk her upstairs and make sure she was safe, but that's it. Secondly, she was sloppily drunk. The group of "kids" who were going out for drinks after work ended up being a group of the office's single, very attractive women in their twenties and early thirties. They were all, however, too drunk for me to want to spend any "special time" with them.

Third, there were all of the similarities between this Stacy and the woman who I was desperately in love with. Both women were fashion plates who loved looking good and loved making sure that everyone else noticed how good they looked. Both of their bodies were similar, shapely with enough fat to show that they were real women. They also both stared into my eyes with such plain, flat out innocence and childish beauty that I wanted to reach out and steal that innocence from them both.

Stacy pressed her body against mine. "So? Are you coming?"

I looked at her. My body was heating up rapidly and I could feel something inside of me start to growl and snarl like the beast inside was waking up. I swallowed then smiled at her.

"I just need to know where your bed is," I told her.

She ran to the front door of the building, laughing and giggling like I had said something absolutely hilarious. I followed up behind her, making sure to touch her enough to keep her turned on and interested.

Despite all of the years of therapy, which I had thought had worked, I could feel all of the words and all of the exercises melting away. The control that I had thought that I had managed to gain over the wild, violent beast inside of me was gone. He was out of his cage and, like Mr. Hyde whenever he was set loose, he was sick and tired of being locked inside. He was ready to have some fun.

THREE

Stacy lie unconscious at the edge of the bed, her mouth sagging open, her legs and arms splayed open. There was blood caked at the hairline of her forehead where she had tried to fight against me and I had whipped a lamp against her head. That was after the rape, when she was trying to convince me that she was going to have me locked away for a long time for what I did to her.

Her hair was tangled from where my fingers and hands had curled into it to pull her head back and to keep her still. Her right eye was already starting to blacken from when she tried to kick and lash out at me as I climbed over her body. There was blood crusted between her legs, turning from the bright, alarming red to the rusting brown red that looked more disgusting than disturbing, to tell the truth.

I sat down on the other side of the bed, watching her with a detached interest. It was as though I just wanted to make sure that I was completely aware of the very moment when she came around again.

The beast had come out. The beast had taken what it wanted and had taken it violently from Stacy Johnston until she was sobbing and pleading for me to let her go. Of course, I couldn't and I couldn't very well explain to her why either, so I had just slapped her hard enough across the face to leave a welt the shape of my palm and fingertips.

Eventually, as I could feel her blood pooling around her legs and down onto the sheets, as her sobs grew softer down into whimpers, the beast finally released me. I couldn't hold myself up the moment that it decided to leave me and collapsed in exhaustion on top of her.

I was still exhausted as I stared on at her. I couldn't believe that I had let it out again. I knew, I knew for certain, that the beast would now want to hunt its primary prey now that I had been stupid enough to give it a taste of what it had been missing. It would want Anastasia and I wasn't even sure what it would want to do with her once it found her.

I know I sound like a crazy man, talking like there's a wild animal inside of me, but there is. I take responsibility for just about everything that I was stupid enough to do to Anastasia, including stalking her at her home with her mother. However, the one time that I had lashed out and had started to beat her… that hadn't been me and even all those years ago, I knew that it was something else that was hitting the poor girl sobbing prone beneath me.

Stacy Johnston stirred and I stood up and crossed around the bed to squat down so that I would be directly in front of her face when she opened her eyes. She moaned for a few minutes, shifted in pain, before finally opened her eyes. She let out a frightened whimper and started to push herself up and away from me, but I caught her wrist and held onto it tightly.

"Don't get up," I told her.

"Why?" she whispered.

"You're not going to tell anyone," I instructed, ignoring her question. Her mouth fell open.

"You're insane."

"You're right, but if you do I'll kill you."

Stacy started to cry, her eyes dropping closed. "Why? Why are you doing this? Why me?"

"I didn't pick you out specially, if that helps any," I assured her. I caught her chin. "Look at me, sweetheart."

"Don't call me that," she snarled weakly.

I grinned. "All right. Listen, Ms. Johnston. If you tell anyone about this, not only will I kill you, but I will hunt down the ones you love and make you watch as I kill them in front of you first."

She continued to sob. I took that as a yes and pressed a bruising kiss to her already abused lips. She sagged back down onto the bed as I circled behind her and out towards the door. I glanced back at her shivering body, so bruised and abused, before clasping the doorknob in my hand and opening it. She wasn't going to be leaving her apartment any time soon, so there were no worries about her following me out and accusing me of my crime before I had the chance to get away.

I hailed a cab.

"Where to?" the cabbie asked in a bored voice.

"Stoneybrook. I need a hotel there."

AUTHOR'S NOTE:
Dear Readers,

Thank you so very much for taking interest in this story! It's been swirling around in my head for month now, ever since I first thought Teddy up. I just knew that he was going to need to do something more with his character, something greater (by the way, greater is not necessarily the same as good) than what he was allowed to do in Where Your Book Begins. So, this is the very first chapter in which you, my dear readers, get to see him run wild.
I would also like to say my usual statement: if you, or anyone you know, is involved in an abusive situation, please find a way to get out of there. You do NOT deserve it, no matter what your partner, or anyone else, may say to you. You are a beautiful, unique, darling woman, who God has created to be happy and loved, so please, locate a local shelter and find the help you need to get out and stay safe. Thank you.

The Lady Elizabeth