Read Online The Price of Hannah Blake by Walter Donway - Free Book Online

she wanted to seize it, pull it to herself, but she never did. Still, it was wonderful, to crave, to feel the rising pleasure.
    Then, at last, it hit her, the dark, sensual thing brushed across her belly. It was thrilling! It left a scar of pleasure on her flesh. But then she became terrified, because, every time it brushed across her, it left a white scar. It lashed her again and again, now across the breasts, the stomach, the very delta of her belly. She felt no pain only pleasure, but she would be scarred, her flesh lashed away by the thing.
    “Stop!” she cried. “Stop him, please!” But the watchers, men and women, would not help her. The swinging, lashing sex went on whipping her body. When would it start to hurt, when would the agony come?
    And then, it hit her squarely on her sex, her cunt—the name was odd, but somehow she knew that was what it was called—the whipping sex hit her across the cunt, and the pleasure was unbearable. She didn’t care about the scars. The pleasure kept rising in its intensity; she wanted it to keep striking her cunt. A little higher, a little harder—yes, there! But the maddening whip would not hit her hard enough, often enough. She thrust her hips to meet it, but it denied her need.
    “Hit me!” she cried. “Hit my cunt! I can’t…not yet…hit it!”
    But the wonderful, jumping jack naked man seemed not to notice her, to hear her. He bounded unawares, higher and higher, oblivious to her need for the lashing whip to strike her.
    She felt a terrible disappointment. “Oh! I am not good enough even to be whipped in the cunt!” And the dream ended.

 
Chapter 9
“They Just Devour You, Every Crumb”
    Sun from the high windows touched her legs and moved up her body. When it shone in her face, her eyes opened. Her body felt full, almost swollen, and her skin, especially on her breasts and belly, felt sensitive, stimulated even by the soft coverlet. She closed her eyes and passed a hand over her body, touching each place Charles had touched, but brushing, not probing. As she did, it all came back.
    Charles had owned every part of her, her woman’s body, her emotions. And yet, here was that body, intact, rested, full of an odd energy—an impulse to run or climb. Hannah sat up, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. “Beautiful”—it had a new meaning, now, after what Charles had said and done.
    At the big marble basin she looked up into the mirror. Her breasts were pale and heavy, a little creased from pressure of the wrinkled coverlet. Her bush looked flatter, mussed by sleeping on it. All the unthinkable things that Charles had said came back to her and she flushed. How had it ended? As he touched her, at the end, she had squirmed her buttocks against the bed, opened her mouth, made a soft cry. But perhaps they had not heard. Men never had seen her body before, now many had seen every private part of it. She had not died of shame. But now, this morning, she would see them—how soon? Would she be naked? Leaping, breasts jouncing, for all to see?
    She bent her head; she smelled, smelled of last night. Smells were nothing new; sometimes it seemed everything in the cottage smelled bad. Except for rubbing herself with a piece of towel, she bathed once a week. It was hard work, shuffling buckets from the well, heating the water on the stove, filling the tub. Now that the boys were a little older, they could help—not full buckets, but they had a bucket, a kettle, and a big pan. They carried the water faster than she could heat it. The wooden tub leaked; it needed more tar in the seams. A father would do that, but there was no father.
    She always bathed first, in the clean water, then washed the little ones. Usually, she made the children go outside while she stripped and bathed. Not always, though; the way they studied her, naked, was oddly satisfying. It made obvious she was changing into a woman. Her mum never cared if Hannah watched her bathe, so Hannah could match her