No Flying Tonight Ch. 09

"Jack, I'm sorry, I wasn't trying to compare you with Iain. What I was trying to do was to convey to you what I felt when we were making love and not to blame you. It's all my fault. I wanted to respond to your love-making and you can't imagine the despair I felt when I couldn't. That's what I meant to say. You have to believe me."

She paused; she knew he was upset and if she wasn't careful what she said, she may lose him. Her only chance was to tell him about her marriage to Iain.

"Jack, I didn't want to tell you about my relationship with Iain. I find it difficult to think about it, never mind talk about it, but if I don't, you'll never understand."

Sophie stopped and looked at Jack. She was going to tell him about all of her sex life, from the happy times with Jenny and Tom to the misery of her marriage. Telling him about her sex life with Jenny and Tom would be embarrassing but relatively easy; telling him about Douglas was going to be another matter. It was almost as though she assumed he would accept her relationship with Jenny and Tom because of the uniqueness of the situation, but exclusive sex with a man would be unacceptable. Telling him about Iain was going to be almost impossible and ran the risk of him seeing her as damaged goods and not someone he would want as a lover; but she had to do it

"Jack, I want and need to tell you everything about my sex life. It's the only way I can get you to understand my problem."

Sophie started, hesitatingly at first and then with a feeling of inevitability as she recounted her story, starting with sex with Jenny and Tom but omitting the encounter with Douglas. Jack listened intently. He hadn't heard of lesbian or three-way sex and it intrigued him and he had to admit, excited him. At first he wondered how her relationship with Jenny and Tom could possibly have any effect on her current behaviour, since from the tone of her voice and her demeanor, it appeared she had enjoyed the experience.

When she had finished recounting her experiences with her student lovers she paused before asking him,

"Does what I've just told you, shock you?"

He thought. Initially it had shocked him, but the more he had heard, the less shocking and the more exciting it had seemed.

"No. It sounds as if you really enjoyed it, but I don't understand why this has anything to do with the last time we tried to make love."

"It doesn't, but I felt I needed to tell you everything I enjoyed the sex with Jenny and Tom and was naïve enough to believe all sex was like that. Iain soon disabused me of that belief. Life with him was a nightmare and I'm sure it's the reason I couldn't respond to you the last time we tried to make love."

She paused. She was going to tell him about her relationship with Iain but even now, was unsure how much detail to reveal. When she started, she was still not certain what she was going to say.

"After the war ended Iain stayed in England, at first in the Army and then, according to him, researching the British steel industry. He arrived back in the early summer of 1919, just as I completed my first year of law school. By that time he'd already written and tried to set a date for our wedding, but I'd managed to put him off. When he got home he was insistent, but I told him I would marry him only if he would agree to me finishing law school. He didn't want to agree but as he could see I was adamant, he gave in. It was one of the only two instances in our marriage when he agreed to something which I wanted and with which he disagreed. We got married in the summer of 1919. On our wedding night he raped me."

She paused; almost as if inviting a question. Jack remained silent. She continued.

"I know it wasn't legally rape. I'm a lawyer and I know a husband can't legally rape his wife, but that's what he did to me. During the reception he'd been drinking heavily with some of his old army friends and when the time came for us to leave on our honeymoon, he was drunk, truculent and reluctant to go. We had booked into the Royal Connaught for the night as our train for New York didn't leave until 9.15 a.m. the next day. When we got to the hotel he was belligerent with the receptionist and insisted on changing our room for one with a window overlooking King Street. When we got to our room he didn't carry me over the thresh-hold, as I'd imagined he would, but just opened the door and let me in.

"I sat on the bed and took my shoes off while he tipped the bell-hop. Iain went into the bathroom and I picked up my travelling case and started to unpack the things I needed for the night. I'd just finished unpacking when he came out of the bathroom completely naked and as his penis was totally erect, obviously excited. I had expected to make love to him but I didn't expect it to be just then. I was still dressed, which seemed to annoy him. He said nothing to me other than 'get undressed'. Apparently, I didn't comply quickly enough and I'd just finished taking off my dress and stockings and was trying to take off my under-slip when he grabbed me and pushed me face-down onto the bed. I still had my underwear on and he grabbed them and ripped them so violently he tore them. They were white silk, from Paris and really expensive. They were a present from my mother, who had bought them for me to wear at the wedding.

"Once he'd ripped them off he pushed me onto my stomach and tried to enter me from behind. I was stunned. Even during our love-making in the King Edward he had been polite and civil but this time, there was no civility. He wanted me and he was giving me no choice but to go along with what he wanted. He was drunk and aggressive and I was frightened and worried what he might do if I resisted. I didn't resist. I let him enter me and then lay there, letting him take me from behind. It was the same as the night we spent at the King Edward. He entered me and reached his climax almost immediately. When he'd finished he didn't kiss me and hardly looked at me. It was almost as if I didn't exist. Jenny and Tom had taught me what making love was supposed to be like and this bore no resemblance to what I'd learned from them.

"I was frightened, hurt and ashamed by what had happened. I stayed awake most of the night, trying to understand why he'd made love to me the way he had. In the end I managed to get to sleep, but when I awoke in the morning, he was sitting in a chair at the side of the bed with just his pyjama bottoms on, smoking and watching me. When he realised I was awake, he came over to the bed and kissed me. I don't know why. The kiss had no passion; it was as though he was fulfilling an obligation or as I mistakenly thought at the time, it was a clumsy apology for his behaviour of the night before.

"I got up and went into the bathroom and ran the bath. I was sore. When he'd taken me the night before I wasn't excited, I was dry and my body wasn't ready for him. How could it have been? He hadn't spoken to me, he hadn't kissed or held me. These were all the things I had expected and he had done nothing, other than rape me.

"He must have been waiting at the bathroom door because as soon as I'd got undressed, he came into the bathroom totally naked. He was excited as he'd been the night before, but I wasn't and I certainly didn't want him. I tried to get into the bath but he grabbed me from behind and trapped me against its side. I tried to struggle but he just held me tighter and then forced me over until I was almost bent double, with my hands against the rim of the bath. I could feel his penis probing for my vagina and, when he couldn't find my opening, he reached down and grabbed it with his hand. He hadn't said anything, but he was obviously getting tired of my lack of co-operation. He turned me around, gave me a look of pure venom and told me what he was going to do and although I can't remember the actual words, they were something like; 'You're my wife and I want you. I don't care what you want. I want to fuck you and I'm going to fuck you. You can forget about a bath. I'm going to fuck you.'

"I was frightened. This time he wasn't drunk, but the look on his face had frightened me even more than he had the previous night. I didn't know what he might do to me if I didn't comply and so, even though I was sore, I let him bend me over and take me, once again, from behind.

"I didn't mind being taken 'doggy fashion', in fact when I was making love to Jenny and Tom I liked it, particularly when all three of us were involved, but with Iain it was something different. It was as if he took me that way because he thought if he couldn't see my face, he didn't have to consider my feelings; just his own. When I was making love to either Jenny or Tom or when I was watching them make love, I often watched their faces and got pleasure from seeing their reactions. Why didn't Iain want to know what I was feeling? When he'd finished with me, he totally ignored me in the same way as he'd done the night before. I stood there crying, with his semen leaking from my vagina and dripping onto my thighs. He got washed and dressed without a word and told me he was going down to breakfast and if I wanted any, I had ten minutes.

"I was sore and even more worried than the night before. The night before he'd been drunk, but that morning he was sober. I didn't know what to do. I knew I couldn't tell anyone or do anything. Even if I could have plucked up enough courage to talk to her, my mother would have told me it was my duty; women didn't have to enjoy sex, and if I didn't like it, then I would just have to put up with it.

"From then on he almost always took me from behind, sometimes when he'd been drinking too much, not even bothering to take off his clothes. I felt like a mare being serviced by a stallion – but that wasn't the worst of it.

"I became pregnant with Catherine when we had been married for eighteen months. I didn't want to become pregnant as I was still in law school, but whenever he'd taken me, he had never taken any precautions. I didn't know whether or not I was happy. I wanted children; but not just then. I wanted to finish law school and most of all, I was afraid children would tie me, even more, to him. I graduated from law school, but only because of the support of my mother and my sister. Iain wanted me to leave, but I was determined to graduate – and I did.

"One day, when I was seven months pregnant with Catherine, he was trying to make love to me – for some reason he made love to me far more often when I was pregnant - when he tried to push his penis into my rear. I wasn't expecting it and it shocked me. I tried to roll over onto my stomach but he held me down and told me he was going to 'stick his cock into my arse' and as if trying to justify it, he was doing it this way so he wouldn't hurt the baby.

"The language was vulgar and not something I expected from him and also, I didn't believe him, but as I didn't want to be blamed if anything happened to the baby, I let him do it to me. The pain was terrible; much worse than our wedding night. From then on until the day he died he hardly ever made love to me properly - in my vagina that is - except when he insisted on trying for another baby. When I became pregnant with Andrew it was the end of proper sex and from that day on, he would only take me in my rear. After a while it didn't hurt any more, but it took me a long time before I got over the shame of lying with my face in the pillow while he was forcing his penis into my rear."

Sophie paused again. The next part of her story was humiliating. She'd consented to her husband's demands because he was her husband but his later use of her body to entertain his friends, in effect turning her into a whore, was demeaning and so shameful it hurt her every time she thought of it.

It had started sometime in 1932, when he had come home from a regimental reunion with a friend who'd served in France with him. She'd been lying in bed reading when she'd heard a cab pull up and then draw away. It was about one in the morning and from the noise they were making as they came up the drive, it was apparent they were both drunk. She heard them stumble into the house and then go into the living room; to have a drink she thought. She finished reading and went to sleep but was awoken, some time later, by the sound of voices in the bedroom and the bedside light being switched on. She could see her husband and his friend; her husband standing naked next to the bed and his friend at the foot of the bed, taking off his underwear. She'd tried to turn the bedside light off but her husband had grabbed her arm and forced her back onto the bed. She could see his penis was erect, but couldn't believe he was going to try and make love to her with his friend in the room. She had been wrong.

He'd turned her over as usual, pulled up her night-dress but instead of entering her, he'd held it up, exposing her rear. She heard his friend come over and felt a hand stroke her, followed by a finger entering her rear. It wasn't unusual as her husband often did this, particularly if he'd been drinking and wasn't hard enough to enter her; apparently it excited him. But it didn't feel like her husband's finger, it was much fatter and when she felt him push his thumb inside her cunt, she knew it was his accomplice as Iain had never done that to her. She had been frightened and wanted to scream, but had been scared of what they might do and had remained silent.

She heard her husband say, 'Let her go Max'; which resulted in the finger and thumb being removed and someone, whom she assumed was her husband, mounted her. Over the years he'd gradually changed the way he'd fucked her. At first he'd taken her violently, driving his penis into her as though he wanted to tear her in two and often finishing in less than two minutes. As he'd got older he'd slowed down, as if savouring the act, although, sometimes, she felt he was trying to deliberately prolong her humiliation. On this occasion he'd reverted to his former approach; taking her violently and when he reached his climax, driving into her so hard it felt as if he were trying to push his penis into her bowels.

When he finished and got off her, she heard him tell his friend, 'All right Max, your turn'. She had half expected it, but was still horrified. Before she could react, they had pinned her to the bed. His friend got on top of her but unlike Iain, played with her body in what he imagined was foreplay. He grabbed her breasts and squeezed them so violently the bruises lasted for over a week. He put his finger in her rear and his thumb in her vagina - just as he'd done before Iain had taken her - and played with her; thinking she would respond . When it became obvious it she wasn't responding, he tried to insert his penis into her vagina. It was tight and he had a hard time getting even part way in. Once he realised she was too tight and dry to make it enjoyable, he gave up and pushed himself into her come-coated rear. She was used to Iain, but his friend's penis was longer and fatter and he was far more aggressive and by the time he'd come in her, she had started to bleed.

When his friend had finished, Iain had laughed and said,

"Just like France; and as our English friends would say, 'if one of us has to bat on a sticky wicket, then rather you than me'."

She couldn't believe it; her husband had shared her with his friend, without her permission and was treating it as a joke.

She should have left him then but knew she couldn't. The children were still young and she'd nowhere to go but her parents' home. She knew she couldn't tell them what had happened and without an explanation, they were not likely to be supportive. It wasn't only a lack of support from her parents which would pose a problem. Iain was a respected member of Hamilton society and if she left him, she would, almost certainly, be ostracised, probably lose most of her legal clientele and with it any chance she had of supporting herself and the children. She also thought, even for Iain, this incident must be an aberration and had only happened because he was drunk. She couldn't believe he would let it happen again.

As she recalled the nights of shame she had experienced servicing her husband and his friend she started to cry. Listening to her describe her torment Jack found it difficult to believe what she was telling him. Sophie had been abused, fucked without love and offered and used like a whore. At first he had been angry at her husband and his friend; angrier than he'd ever been but as he heard more of her story, he started to feel sorry for her and wanted to reach out and hold her; to show her he loved her and wasn't going to abuse her.

Her final humiliation also involved her husband's friend.

"I thought sharing me was the worst they could do to me but again I was wrong. His friend, Max, was a lieutenant-colonel in the army, stationed in Ottawa and somehow or other he managed to arrange visits to the Hamilton area at least once a month. Every time he came to visit they went out drinking and when they came back, treated me as their own sexual toy. I tried to fight them but whatever I said or did, they just ignored me. I got no respite; they even took me when I was menstruating since, in Iain's words, 'there was no problem with my rear'.

"This went on for almost four years before they subjected me to my final humiliation. I knew to expect they would both take me as soon as they arrived home. One would mount me; it would appear they normally flipped a coin for who went first, while the other waited his turn. On this occasion they ran up the stairs and burst into the room. Usually, when I expected them, I lay face down on the bed with my night-dress round my waist. It was less humiliating if I didn't have to face them and the more accessible I was, the quicker it was. This time something was different.

"Normally, the first one would mount me within seconds of them entering the room; particularly if it was Max's turn and I could always tell when it was Max's turn first because he would have undressed and entered me almost before Iain started to get undressed. Iain usually undressed slowly; either to savour the moment or to prolong my humiliation. This time I heard them approach me and then stop. It wasn't something they usually did and it made me apprehensive; afterwards I deduced they were trying to work out what to do or how to do it. Iain picked me up, turned me over and laid me on my back. My first thought was they were going to take me in my vagina and I would be forced to look at them while they were violating me. It was worse than that.

"For the first time in almost fifteen years Iain tried to use my vagina and, over those years, it had become tighter and, since I was not excited, it was dry. I can't describe how much it hurt and, although he pushed as hard as he could, it took a long time for him to get it all the way in. When he finally managed he turned me over so that he was lying under me with his penis in my vagina. I couldn't understand what he was doing and why he was doing it, but it didn't take long for me to find out what they had planned.

His friend got on the bed behind me and started to insert his penis in my rear, but found it more difficult than usual - I don't think he had ever done it that way before. It was only a temporary respite as my rear was used to being violated and it didn't take him long to get it in. It must have really excited them because when they took me they were far more aggressive than usual. I kept my eyes closed but once, when his friend hurt me, I opened them. I can't describe the look on Iain's face. He looked as though he hated me and wasn't trying to make love to me, but was trying to kill me. I know it sounds fanciful, but that's what it looked like. When they finished, I lay there, with semen leaking out of my vagina and my rear, feeling totally humiliated.