Authors: Ashe Barker
My stock is somewhat improved down at The Fleece since Matt did a deal with Bob over powering the pub from some of
Spirit’s
excess output. Indeed, most of the village stands to benefit and we are much in demand as word has spread.
My mum and I talked. We talked a lot, and we both cried a lot too. I still have mixed feelings about what happened that day and her failure to support me when I most needed her to take my side, but I do understand how it came about. I now know that she’d been in what she thought was a relationship with Bill Findlay for years. It blew hot and cold, but she always believed he would marry her. She’d been flattered by his apparent interest in me, had naively thought he was allowing me to feature in his advertising as favour to her. My accusations against him came at a time when she was feeling particularly vulnerable, and she defended him out of habit, on auto-pilot. Findlay had been pressuring her to get me to be a bit more cooperative, and what she saw as my stubborn refusal to play his games any more was the final straw. She just vented her frustrations and her fears on me, her desperation fuelling her anger. Her temper soon cooled, as it always did, and she came to find me, to talk. But it was too late.
She was horrified to discover I had gone, and no idea where to start looking for me. I left no note, and took only a few things with me. She knew I had hardly any cash, and as far as she knew I had nowhere to go.
She was right about that of course. When I ran out of friends’ sofas and floors to sleep on I hitched a lift up the M1 as far as Leeds, and it was downhill from there. Until I met Matt.
He’s around somewhere, mingling with the crowds as he heads over to a mobile kiosk to grab coffees for us all.
“White for you, two sugars for you, Sheila.” He appears behind us and hands me and my mum our drinks from a cardboard carrying tray. “Tea for you, Annie…”
We all accept our drinks and settle down to wait for the bikes to arrive, the excitement of the crowd mounting as we follow their progress on the radio. There’s a colossal cheer as the leaders sweep past us, their powerful legs pumping the pedals as they climb the punishing incline, making it look almost effortless.
“Well done, sweetheart. Marvellous call.
Spirit
is a triumph. I never would have spotted this.” Matt leans in to murmur in my ear.
“I couldn’t have pulled it off on my own.” I know I believed I could, but I see now how much I needed Matt, how much I relied on him to make this thing work. He didn’t let me down.
“Me neither. We make a great team.”
“It was a very special sort of project.”
“It was. And speaking of which, I’ve been working on a little scheme of my own that you might be interested to get involved in. Or not. It’s up to you.”
“Oh?” I turn to him, curious to know more. I’ve been wondering what I’ll do next, now that the excitement of
Spirit
is waning.
“It’ll be a few minutes at least before the peloton gets here. Your mum and Annie can save our place.” He beckons me to follow him to a spot where there are fewer people and we can talk quietly.
“So, what do you have in mind? Another art meets science scheme?”
He shakes his head. “Not exactly, Mick’s been arrested.”
I scowl, not comprehending. “Mick?”
“Yes. Mick. And not before time.”
“You mean Mick Mick? Our Mick? The Mick who…?”
“The very same, though I wouldn’t call him ‘our Mick’ exactly.”
I ignore his comment. “What for? What did he do?”
“The same old stuff. Indecent assault. Rape. Grievous bodily harm. Nice chap.”
“He did it again? When? Who?” My heart leaps. Now perhaps someone other than Matt will believe me about what a pondlife piece of shit this merchant banker, pillar of the community, actually is.
“He never stopped doing it. And you weren’t the first, not by a long way.”
“I don’t understand this. How do you know?”
“It’s a long story, and I’ll explain the details later. We don’t want to miss the peloton after all, do we?”
I punch his elbow. “Matt, for Christ’s sake, just tell me what’s been going on.”
“Okay, okay. Well, I got to thinking, sparked off I suppose by something you said the evening you got that letter from Sheila. About wishing you’d had a chance to give evidence against Bill Findlay. Your opportunity to be heard. Remember?”
I nod. “Of course, but I don’t see the connection.”
“Well, it was too late to have your day in court with Findlay, but not Mick. And to be honest, it never sat well with me that he got away with what he did to you. I know you hadn’t wanted to go to the police back then, your word against his and all that. So I decided to do a little investigating, see if I could come up with anything else. Anyone else.”
“Anyone else? You mean, other victims?”
“Exactly. You remember I told you I stopped seeing much of him after I got married because Megan couldn’t stand him?”
“Yes, I remember something of that. Why?”
“I decided to start with her, ask Megan what it was about Mick that she so disliked. What had he ever done to her? I rang her up for a chat, and she was very informative.”
“You mean he attacked Megan too? Shit!”
“No. I’d have known about that if he had. But he did try it on with her once, before she and I became an exclusive item. He was pretty full on and not especially gentle. Creeped her out a lot. She made it her business to avoid him after that. I always knew she didn’t like him, but she never told me the full story until recently when I asked her about it. But she knew of several other subs who’d had similar experiences—submissives talk to each other, compare notes. A bad or abusive dom soon has his card marked, and Mick was well and truly ostracised. But there were rumours, women who he’d roughed up. Megan gave me a few names, and I passed those on to James. You remember James, my investigator colleague who turned up the information on Findlay’s convictions?”
I nod as I start to see where this is headed.
“Right. So James went to see the women I told him about, persuaded them to tell him their stories, and once it became clear there was pattern he asked if any of them might be prepared to go to the police. It wouldn’t be just one victim on her own any more. If a few of them stood up and made statements, they’d be listened to. Yes?”
“I suppose so. And did they?”
“Oh yes. In reality, I reckon just one would have been enough to get him questioned, and who knows what else might have emerged then? But we found six. And that was just from the crop of names Megan provided. Four indecent assaults, one of them serious enough to leave the woman in hospital. And two rapes.”
“Shit. Holy fucking shit.”
“Quite. He was picked up in Milan this morning and the British police are seeking his extradition back to the UK.”
“Milan?”
“Yeah. He applied to his bank for a transfer abroad. My guess is he needed to make himself scarce, but we’ll leave it to the police to unearth the rest of the dirt.”
I shake my head, not ready to believe yet. “He’ll have the best lawyers. Men like him always do. They can afford it. What if the police can’t make it stick?”
“Beth, James produced enough evidence to get an international arrest warrant issued. Extradition proceedings have started. Mick
will
be brought back, and he
will
stand trial. The only question is, will you be one of the names on his charge sheet? It’s up to you, love. Your choice.”
“I’m not sure. It was so long ago…”
“Like I say, your choice. But whatever you do decide, and either way is fine with me, you can be certain that what’s happening now, to Mick, and whatever consequences he eventually faces, are a direct result of his attack on you. He didn’t get away with it. In fact, it’s come back to haunt him several times over, and there may yet be more victims ready to tell their stories. His days as a sexual predator are well and truly over.”
“Well, that’s the main thing.”
“Maybe.”
“But…”
“But?” Matt tilts his head to look into my eyes.
“I’m not sure. I just don’t know what I want any more. I have other things to do, other things that matter to me. Other people to invest my energy in.”
“I know, and I’m glad. Okay. It’s a lot to take in, so don’t try to decide now. Sleep on it. Think about it. Take your time. The important thing is, you have a choice. You, Beth. Your choice.” He looks up and over my head, toward the road a few yards away. “The peloton’s here. Come on, we don’t want to miss this.”
He grabs my hand and tows me behind him as he shoulders our way back through the crowd to the roadside. Annie, my mum and a thousand others are shouting encouragement to the sweating cyclists in shiny, streamlined Lycra as they sweep up the lane, heads down, shoulders hunched over their sleek machines. My voice joins theirs and Matt’s, cheering the racers on.
I don’t know what I’ll decide about Mick, and I realise that doesn’t matter. He doesn’t matter any more. I’ll do as Matt says. I’ll take my time, perhaps I’ll decide tomorrow. Or the day after. Or maybe never.
My choice.
The End
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Faith
Following her husband’s sudden, tragic death, Faith is left widowed after only six months of marriage. She wallows in grief until a neighbour, Ewan, reaches out to her. Although his work takes him away a great deal, Ewan slowly becomes Faith’s rock, helping her heal and encouraging her as she struggles to rebuild her life. As time passes, Faith grows more and more attracted to Ewan, but one thing holds her back: he is a dom, and she is not ready to be a sub.
Though the idea of kneeling naked at Ewan’s feet excites her in a way she can’t fully understand, Faith fears that his sexual appetites would prove too much for her. But when he discovers that she has been exploring the lifestyle without his knowledge and hiding her activities from him, Ewan issues an ultimatum: either she becomes his submissive, or they go their separate ways. This is just the push Faith needs, and in the end her decision is not a difficult one.
Ewan quickly proves to be a firm, commanding lover who is more than capable of mastering her completely. He challenges Faith’s boundaries and introduces her to a level of sensuality she never dreamed she could experience, and Faith soon finds herself at peace in a way she has not felt in years. But when fate takes another turn and she learns the truth about her husband’s death, can Faith count on Ewan to be by her side as she adjusts to a new reality yet again?
The Widow is Mine (originally sold as part of The Conquered Brides, a multi-author collection)
Since her husband’s untimely passing, Lady Natalia has resigned herself to a quiet life as a young widow and perhaps one day as a nun. But when her adopted home is conquered by the enemy, her world is turned upside down. After he rescues her from the chaos of Hohenzollern’s fall, Duke Stefan of Richtenholst cannot imagine allowing Natalia to languish behind the walls of a convent. The duke takes Natalia home as his wife, and he quickly proves himself ready to compel her obedience when it is necessary, but can he ever truly make her his own?
You can find author interviews, excerpts of upcoming books, and general thoughts from Ashe Barker via her blog, her Twitter and Facebook pages, and her Amazon and Goodreads profiles, using the following links:
https://twitter.com/ashebarker
https://www.facebook.com/ashe.barker.9