Insatiable

Insatiable

By Ursula Dukes

This book is meant for adults 18+ and contains some erotic themes.

Copyright©2013 by

Ursula Dukes All rights reserved.

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. The ebook contained herein constitutes a copyrighted work and may not be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded or stored in or introduced into an information storage and retrieval system in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the copyright owner, except in the case of brief quotation embodied in critical articles and reviews. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This ebook is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

 Mari White, thank you, thank you, thank you! Not just for your advice, but also for your editing help. Renee Drinkwater, Julie Smith, and the rest of my friends and family, thank you for your support. For anyone who has ever been involved in, or is currently involved in an abusive relationship, please follow the advice that you would give someone who is being bullied. Tell someone! Get out, get help, and stay safe.

Chapter One

MARI

The first punch came hard and Mari landed on the floor. She held the side of her face; she could feel the blood start to pool inside her mouth. It was a familiar taste, the metal, and the saltiness. She didn’t dare cry out, no that would have been the death of her. Ronnie said he didn’t mean it, he said that had she just left well enough alone that he wouldn’t have had to hit her.

But she just couldn’t keep her trap shut, why did she have to nag so much? What was it about her that made him so goddamn crazy? He’d asked her. When she didn’t respond, her husband began to kick her into submission.

“Please!” She begged. "I'm sorry! It won’t happen again Ronnie I swear. Oh god I'm so sorry,” she cried.

“I told you not to cry!” The kick to her ribs came swift then, and it felt like a bolt of lightning had struck her insides. The pain shot through her immediately and instinctively she protected her sides. His shouts so violent that a neighbor heard and had called the police.

By the time they arrived, Mari was curled up in the fetal position in a corner of the living room. Her face and body so badly beaten that they hardly recognized her. It wasn’t the first time that they'd been called to the young couple’s house. There was a history at the home of Ronald and Mari Carr and that history was one of domestic violence. In total, during the past two years of their marriage, the police had been called to their home a total of twenty two times.

But this time was different, this time Mari was almost unconscious, there was no trying to hide it this time. The police were going to have to take Ronnie in; it wouldn’t be his first time getting arrested either. There were times that his buddies down at the police department would claim they didn’t see any visible marks on Mari, thus negating that Ronnie would have to go downtown. But this time there would be no refuting it.

The marks were there alright and her husband Ronnie had caused them. “We can’t cover this one up buddy.” One of the officers had pulled him aside.

“She needs an ambulance.”

Ronnie just nodded his head and looked in the direction of his wife. The other officer had managed to seat her on the couch. He had handed her a wet towel and watched as she held it against her swelling eyes and lips. There was a large gash on the side of her face; it was caused by the heavy ring her husband wore, USMC.

“Jesus Christ what the hell did you do to her?”

Ronnie shrugged his shoulders. “Bitch wouldn’t stop nagging me,” was all he said. The officers exchanged looks and turned back towards Mari, and both shook their heads. Even though her vision was blurred, Mari knew what the officers were thinking. Why did she provoke him? The guy just got home from Iraq for god’s sake. She should have left well enough alone.

“Ronnie man, we’re going to have to take her out of the house you know? Maybe it’s a good idea, considering the circumstances. You can’t keep doing this to your wife man, it’s not right." Ronnie shook his head.

“Just get her out of my sight,” he said and lit a cigarette. He could hear the shrill sounds of the ambulance, it was getting closer. “When the ambulance takes her away, make sure she doesn’t come back.” He exhaled the smoke from his cigarette, extinguished it, and held his hands out for the cuffs.

It was well after midnight when Aurora got the call from the hospital. It was her good friend Renee. Renee worked as a nurse and had been in the ER when the ambulance brought in a young woman. The woman was so badly beaten that she was barely able to recite her name. She was a victim of domestic violence, and after they’d cleaned her up and dressed her wounds, Renee spoke to her privately. She told her about 
Aurora's Place
, a battered women’s shelter that her good friend Aurora Collins owned and operated.

When the young woman named Mari informed Renee that she would willingly go to the shelter, Renee made the call. It took Aurora only minutes to get out of bed and get dressed. She would go to the hospital and be there when the doctors discharged Mari, even if they held her overnight. She would sit and wait because Aurora knew how important it was to know that there was someone there waiting for you, someone who truly cared. And if she decided to stay, Mari would be her first 
friend
 of the fall season. She’d preferred to call them 
friends
 rather than victims. She would tell Mari that when she picked her up.

The term victim made her think of death, and she told her 
friends
 that they no longer had to fear death, that they had made the right choice by getting away. And they were lucky that they’d managed to get away. Her other two 
friends
 had stayed with her for almost six months. She had found them both suitable employment, and had accompanied them to each and every court date where they had to face their abuser.

Aurora's Place
was more than just a shelter, it was a place that her 
friends
 could call home, for as long as they needed. Ever since she’d opened the place, she relied on donations from all over, and without fail the great state of Rhode Island had always come through. Each and every year though, a single donation large enough to provide for every available resource had been given to 
Aurora's Place
 by an anonymous donor.

When she inquired as to whom the generous stranger was, her accountant merely told her that the supporter was to remain anonymous, now and always. "Well I don’t know who he or she is, but I'm grateful none the less," she would always say. She had begun to count on the large donation to pay the bills and then some. Not once since she'd started had her accountant told her that she was in dire straits, and she planned on keeping it that way.

Rosie

Maybe it had something to do with the phases of the moon. 
No
, she laughed quietly to herself. 
He's not a goddamn werewolf
. There were no fangs surging from between his lips, and the only claws that sprang out of his hands were his unattended fingernails. There was just an urge; it seemed to arrive in his mind without warning, no more flourish than a leaf falling from a tree in the dead of night.

As always, when she stood in front of the bathroom mirror washing the blood off her face and applying Neosporin, she couldn’t help but wonder about it, the it being the trigger. What set him off? What made him strike her repeatedly? All she said was that his dinner was getting cold and if he could turn off the computer.

It was no different than any other night. This night though, he seemed to have lost it when she called him to dinner. He told her never to raise her voice in his house. She'd tried to apologize, and when that wasn’t enough, he'd back handed her so hard that stars flashed momentarily against her closed eyelids. When he saw her flinch and cover her face in fear he lashed out even more. He started to choke her before he shoved her and when he did, she stumbled towards the stove. As she braced herself, her hands landed on the hot burners.

Almost immediately large blisters began to form on the palms of her hands. He told her that she deserved it, that she was a lousy cook anyway. Tears welled up in her eyes while she looked at herself. Instead of her year old scars ebbing back inside her skin, they seemed to bulge more and more. They were telling her that the longer she stayed the more prominent they would become. Soon they would envelope her entire body. "Come the fuck out of there and eat your dinner!" His voice boomed. Her boyfriend wasn’t a drinker, so she wondered why this time was worse than all the others. She knew that if she didn’t get out of the bathroom like he asked, he'd bust in and kill her.

"Coming honey," she faked sincerity.

She would fake love and forgiveness tonight, but come tomorrow, she was out of there. All she had to do was keep herself from crying and make it through the night. Making it through the night was harder than it seemed. He was stone cold sober and that thought scared her. She knew that he would want to have make up sex.

She was going to have to do what she did almost every time that they had sex, she was going to have to fake it. She'd grab the bottle of lube from the nightstand and when he wasn’t looking she'd quickly apply it. He'd think that she was ready and willing for him, and then when it was all over, he'd fall fast asleep and she could get into the shower and wash off the stench of him. 
One more night, 
she told herself. 
Just one more night.

Aurora sat in the empty lobby of the hospital. She wasn’t allowed to go into Mari's room yet, she was still sleeping. When she told the doctor that she was from 
Aurora's Place
, he informed her that Mari wouldn’t be discharged until the morning. Aurora told him that it was alright, that she would stay for as long as Mari Carr needed her.

While she waited, she thought back to a time where she too was in a similar situation as Mari. After all, being a victim of domestic violence had caused her to gather up all her savings and purchase the large house. She was lucky, she got out and if there was anything she could do about it, she would see to it that anyone who came to her for help would get out too and stay out. That meant that she was going to have to get help. Running a not-for-profit business was difficult at best but for the past three years, she'd managed to do it.

Weeks after she moved into the old place she started work on the nonprofit organization. In the beginning things were very taxing, she had to keep her full-time day job as supervisor of the medical records department at the local hospital, and work full-time starting up the organization at night. Once she established a small group of directors, which consisted of people from varied walks of life, they steered her in the right direction. Next, she hired a lawyer and an accountant, as well as established a bank account. Lastly, an insurance agent provided liability and property insurance.

With the formalities taken care of she was able to focus on what really mattered to her, keeping her 
friends
 safe. She had to always remind them that they were 
friends 
and not victims. Aurora remembered her first 
friend
, it was weeks after she'd been in business when the Huntington Cove Police Department called her and told her that a woman had just walked in claiming that her boyfriend had thrown her out of the car, they'd had a fight. Within minutes she arrived at the police station and one look at the young woman told her that she had not been lying.

Her knees and elbows were scraped and she had the beginnings of a black eye. Aurora took the young girl home with her and after nursing her wounds, learned that the eighteen-year-old had run away from home with her much older boyfriend. He told her that he would provide for her and give her a better life, but once she told him that she wanted to go back home, all hell broke loose.

Her boyfriend began to get agitated and started hitting her, and then he pulled over to the side of the road and violently pushed her out. Had the police not driven by some fifteen minutes later, there was no telling what could have happened. Lily ended up staying with Aurora for over four months, and by the time she was ready to leave, she was enrolled in community college and had several job interviews lined up back in her hometown.