The Neighbor [The Complete Collection] (16 page)

Janey felt nervous as the cab pulled up outside the offices of Bauer and Hanson. It was a small firm, smaller than what she was hoping Ben would find in Albany, but it was still good. They handled fairly high value work, by Troy standards, and dealt with some pretty important clients.

The firm’s offices were located in an old brownstone on Second Street, not far from her old apartment on Ferry Street. She took a deep breath and tried to control her nerves as she stepped out of the cab and climbed the steps to the front door. The door was glass. Janey looked in through it to the reception. She’d only been there a handful of times before. She could see the back of a computer screen on the front desk but no one was there. She went in and closed the door behind her. There was a small electronic bell that chimed as she entered. The sound startled her.

In an instant, Suzy emerged from a room opening onto the reception. When she saw Janey standing there in front of her she froze. She couldn’t have looked more troubled if she’d come out to find a dead animal in the room.

—You? Suzy said, doing nothing to hide the surprise in her voice.

It was as if she hadn’t expected Janey to show her face.

—I want to see Ben, Janey said.

—He’s not here.

—Just call him for me, Suzy. I’m not here to fight with you.

Suzy didn’t move a muscle. She just stood at the entrance to the reception, staring at Janey like she was an intruder in the office. Janey wasn’t sure why Suzy felt such hostility toward her.
She
was the swinger! She couldn’t be upset with her for sleeping with Luke. It must have been guilt, Janey realized. Suzy must have felt guilty for sleeping with Ben even though he hadn’t told her. That wasn’t swinging, that was cheating.

—Call Ben right now or I’m calling the police, Janey said. They want to know what happened to me this morning and I’m beginning to feel like telling them.

Suzy stared at her for another minute before letting out an exaggerated sigh.

—Whatever, she said, and shook a curl from her forehead.

Suzy pressed a button on the phone on her desk. She must have been talking to Ben. The phone was cordless and Suzy gave Janey a malicious look before taking the phone into the back room to have a little privacy. It was as if she was staking her territory, showing Janey who was in charge of Ben, who controlled access to him.

Janey’s heart was pounding. It had taken a lot out of her to face Suzy like this, on her turf, and she wasn’t sure she had the strength now to face Ben too. She waited while Suzy spoke in hushed tones into the phone in the other room. Then she came back into the reception.

—She’s
right
here, Suzy was saying. I think she’s expecting you to see her.

Suzy looked up at Janey and acted like she was looking right through her. She spoke to Ben with great familiarity, as if Janey’s wanting to see him was in some way laughable.

—I know, but I can’t just turn her away.

There was a long pause on the other end of the line. Then Suzy nodded as if she’d heard the message she’d been wanting to hear.

—Great, she said. I’ll bring her right up.

Suzy led Janey down a corridor and up a staircase to the second floor. The building had been a home in former times and still felt like one. The lawyers were all spread out around the house’s numerous rooms. It wasn’t open like a modern office. Plenty of opportunity, Janey thought, for Ben and Suzy to get up to mischief in private whenever they felt like it.

Suzy brought Janey to a door and knocked.

Ben’s voice came from inside the room. —Come in.

Suzy didn’t open the door. She went back down the hallway and left Janey where she was. Janey felt incredibly strange as she opened the office door. She was entering her own husband’s office but she felt like she had come to see a complete stranger. She knew that this was the very office where Ben had been screwing Suzy for months. It was like entering Ben’s second home, as if he had an entirely separate life here that didn’t involve her and didn’t welcome her.

Ben was sitting in his chair behind his desk and he didn’t get up to greet Janey. There were a couple of empty coffee cups on the desk, a mess of papers, a half-eaten sandwich. Ben had been typing something when Janey entered and after looking up at her briefly, he looked back at his computer screen and continued typing. Janey wondered if he was he going to ignore her. That would certainly be one way of dealing with the mess they were in.

—Well? she said.

Ben looked up from the screen as if she were disturbing something very important.

—Well, what? he said.

He looked angry. He also seemed to have aged in the past few weeks. She looked at him closely, taking in all the changes that she was noticing in her husband’s face, and he looked away from her.

—Don’t you want to know where I’ve been? she said.

Ben looked at her again. She knew that the bruising on her face wasn’t very bad. She didn’t look like someone who’d just been discharged from hospital. If it wasn’t for Henry Walden, though, who knew how much harm that concussion would have done her? She’d have had to sleep it off in the car in the driveway and deal with any complications by herself.

—I’ve been in the hospital, Ben.

That surprised him. She could tell by the look that flashed across his face that he’d been afraid of something like that. But what did he expect? He’d abandoned an unconscious woman.

—That’s right. I had a concussion. When you left me in the car I was unconscious. That’s serious, Ben. It’s very serious. They wanted to keep me overnight.

—Did they ask you what happened?

—Yes. Of course they did. The police spoke to me. They said my injury fit the profile of domestic violence.

—What did you tell them?

It was typical Ben. He wasn’t concerned about her at all, just about himself. He hadn’t even apologized for knocking her out. All he wanted to know was whether she’d told the police what had happened.

—I didn’t tell them anything. I said I fell.

—Good.

—Good? Don’t you have anything else to say, Ben? Are you sorry.

Ben breathed in deeply before speaking.

—Look. Obviously you shouldn’t have been in the hospital. It’s just typical, female overreacting. The only thing wrong with you was that you’d spent the entire night whoring it up with Luke. You asked for it. I can still see the look on Luke’s face when he came out of that hotel room. You’re a slut, Janey, and you had it coming.

Janey couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Ben had put her in hospital. He’d been the one who’d arranged the swinging session with Luke and Suzy. It had all been his doing. She’d had no control over the situation at all. She’d thought he was going to apologize to her, but all he was doing was blaming her for everything.

—I can’t believe this, she said at last. I don’t even know who you are anymore, Ben.

—I’ll tell you who I am, he said. I’m the guy who’s about to become the youngest ever partner at Bauer and Hanson. I spoke to the other partners this morning.

—While I was in the hospital?

—They said it’s all good to go. If this deal comes through, fifty grand a month, I’m going to be made a full equity partner. That means big things for me and I won’t let you jeopardize it with your slutty ways. I’m going to get you on a leash and keep you on it.

—Ben! What are you saying?

—Shut up and listen. None of this is about you anymore. It’s about me. It’s great for me. I’m going to finally have what I deserve and I won’t have to put up with your shit any longer. You won’t be able to run around and make a fool of me ever again. I’m going to put you in your place.

—Like you did today when you knocked me out.

A mean smile slid across Ben’s face then. He looked so different from the man Janey thought she knew that she honestly couldn’t even recognize him anymore.

—Exactly like that, he said.

Janey was shaking her head. She couldn’t believe how Ben was acting. She couldn’t believe that this was the man she’d been married to for five years. She’d thought she knew him. She’d been wrong. Things had come too far for her to go on. She had to get away from him. She knew that now. There would be no saving this relationship.

—Come over here, Ben said to her.

There was a harshness in his voice, a gravelly roughness that made her obey him. She was afraid not to. She came over to his desk and stood in front of it.

—Look at you, Ben said. Still dressed utterly like a slut. Have you even washed Luke out of your cunt yet?

Janey didn’t think about the fact that Luke hadn’t used her cunt. She was too frightened by the anger in Ben’s voice to concentrate on anything else. She stood straight and still by the desk and didn’t move when Ben stood up from his seat.

—You’re lucky all I did was knock you out, Ben said. Next time you might not be so lucky.

Ben was standing by her side, intimidating her with his very presence. He obviously felt strong and secure in this setting. This was his real home, this office, and he’d just made partner. He felt like a king here. This was where he was powerful and dominant and where she was the weaker one. This was the world he controlled and she’d walked right into it.

He stepped around her and went to the door of the office. There was a key in the lock, a key that Janey imagined him using when he fucked Suzy, and he turned it. The lock clicked.

He came back over to her. Before she could fully grasp what was happening she felt his large hand on the small of her back, pushing her toward the desk roughly.

—Ben, what are you doing?

—Shut up and bend over, Ben said.

—No, she said. Ben. Stop it.

She resisted the pressure of his hand on her back. He was trying to force her to bend over the desk. She wasn’t going to let him do this to her. She wasn’t going to allow herself to be reduced to this. He was out of control, off the rails, and if he wasn’t careful he was going to end up in trouble soon. The police were already talking to her.

—Bend over, he said again, more forcefully than the last time.

—Ben, think. What are you doing? I’ll tell the police.

Janey was crying. She was crying for herself but also for Ben, for the man he’d become. It seemed things had gone so far wrong for the two of them. She didn’t know how they’d arrived at this point.

She could hear Ben opening the belt on his pants and felt them fall to the ground around his ankles. He was pressed up against her back. He put his full weight on her back, forcing her to bend over the top of the desk. She gritted her teeth. How was this happening? How had things gotten so violent, so ugly.

Ben pulled down her g-string and began to press his erect penis against her bare bum.

—Ben. Stop. If you do this, you’re going to go to jail. I swear it. I’ll tell the police everything.

Ben paused. It seemed he’d come to his senses.

—They’ll never believe you. You’re my wife. I can do whatever I want.

—No, Ben. You can’t. Not after this morning. I was admitted to the hospital with a concussion. If I go back for a rape test, they’ll have you in custody before the end of the night. I promise you that.

Ben was weighing up the situation. He was a lawyer, he knew his chances. The sad truth of the matter was that as her husband, he actually did stand a pretty good chance of getting away with rape. But what Janey had said was true. Given the fact that she’d already been in the hospital, had already been questioned by the police, things were different.

He bent down and pulled up his pants. He still had her against the desk, the door was still locked, but he did up his pants and Janey felt as if the immediate danger of the situation was passing. Then she was suddenly forced with all Ben’s weight down over the desk.

The first, loud slap shocked her. It brought her back to her childhood. Her father had been a violent man at times, a troubled man they used to call it, and Janey knew what it was like to have her bottom slapped. The second whack of Ben’s hand against her bare butt cheeks sent her right back to her childhood. The pain, mixed with the humiliation overwhelmed her. Tears fell down her cheeks. She could remember the feeling she’d had as a little girl as her father spanked her. He’d done worse, too. Many times. She couldn’t ever remember what she’d done to anger her father, she had no idea what it was about her that would set him off, but she could remember the way she felt afterward. There was so much shame. There was pain and humiliation and shame. Those were the feelings that she would never forget. Her mother wouldn’t even look at her at those times. It seemed to drive a wedge between her and her mother. All her mother would say was that she was too old to be spanked, and that she had no business being alone with a married man in a room for that amount of time. She spoke as if Janey was another woman, alone with her husband, and not a child being punished by her father. It was as if her mother blamed her for the whole thing, like she’d driven her father to some sort of excess and had done it on purpose.

The whacks from Ben kept raining down on her buttocks. Spank after spank rang through the room, sending a flash of pain through her bottom and a shudder of shame and childhood emotion through her entire body. Then, as the spanking continued, something strange began to happen to her. She couldn’t understand it, but she couldn’t deny that she began to feel a sensation of arousal in her pussy.

All Janey’s normal thought processes began to leave her. She wasn’t her usual self. At that moment, forcefully splayed over that desk by her lawful husband, she began to regress to a different stage in her life. Something about the situation, the strange room she was in, the fact that the door was locked, all of the factors combined to bring out a part of her that should have been deeply buried, a part of her that might never have seen the light of day were it not for the extreme situation she was finding herself in. It brought her back to the moments when her father not only beat her, but went farther.

Ben’s knee inserted itself between her legs and spread hers out from each other, forcing her to open her legs wide. As the spanking continued, she felt her cunt grow hot and wet, the arousal in her vagina rising and rising with each resounding spank on the butt.