The Manor House Ch. 01

"No, fuck you, you bitch!" The blow that Donald Colvin dealt to his soon-to-be ex-wife, Shandi, spun her in a comical circle. He advanced on her as she stumbled back against the glass-topped dining room table and smacked her a second time. "You think you're gonna get my money? You've got another thing coming, bitch! I'll kill you first."

"No!"

Bright dots of light erupted behind her eyes as his hand, once open, now landed in a closed fist, grinding her delicate skin against more skin and harder bone. It had been a definite mistake to pick a fight with Donnie. She should have kept her mouth shut and just continued to put her stuff in the truck but her pride had gotten the best of her. When he started telling her that no one would want her nearly 50 year-old, saggy black ass, something inside her had snapped and she had said something nasty to him. Something about the size of his cock. She had known that her comment would start a fight; she just never imagined that it would be physical.

And so his slaps became punches and with every punch he delivered, a bit of her soul seeped away much as her blood dripped out, slowly and deliberately. Soon, her left eye was swelling shut and her ribs were screaming in pain, doing their best to withstand the vicious pummeling of her angry husband. She felt her strength waning and minutes later, it was impossible to pull herself up from her knees.

"You're killing me, Donnie. Stop."

She knew he had heard her but didn't care. A weird light was shining in his eyes; a light that she'd seen on two previous occasions. Once when he locked her in the trunk of the car and the second time when he'd broken her painting arm in three places. That light signified fear for Shandi. It told her that he was in a place of no return and that she might actually die tonight. His blows landed again and again, targeting her tender stomach, then face, then thighs. He really loved to beat her thighs. He loved the sound that his fists made when they connected with her meat.

"Please." Blood blew out of her mouth with each word. "Stop. You're killing me."

His strange eyes met hers, then slid back down to her prone body, targeting a shin this time.Bam! Pain radiated up her leg, making her back throb. That would be a good bruise in the morning. "You aren't getting a dime of my money, bitch.Not one thin dime!"

And so this was how Shandi Wilson-Colvin was going to die. She tried to crawl away but his foot caught her in the side, tossing her onto the oriental carpet like a sock. She groaned, trying to hug her torso but his fist in her face caused her to try to cover the damage, hoping against hope that he was spent, that he was done. But he wasn't. Not by a long shot. His thick fist crashed through her protective hands and she felt the bones of her wrist give way, crumbling under his strength.

A scream started in her throat but was arrested by the sheer ferocity of the pain in her arm. She curled into a ball, exposing her back and sobbing in pain as he kicked her in the spine, spittle flying from his lips. "You won't get none of my money, you nigger bitch!"

Now she knew it was over. In thirty-seven months of marriage, Donald Trevor Colvin hadnever called her a 'nigger'. Never. Indeed, their courtship had been a beautiful thing; a private joke between two best friends, a private joke between lovers. The white minister's son and the black drug dealer's daughter. But they were in love and nothing could have been more perfect.

Except that Donnie had wanted her to get product from her father. She had done it for awhile but stopped because that's not what she wanted her life to be about. She wanted to have a nice house and babies but Donnie only seemed to be interested in whores and card games. He had a good job as an assistant district attorney but once he was off the clock, every aspect of his life became illegal. She had overlooked catching him fucking a whore in his office and the used condoms she found in the townhouse but the last straw had been the woman that showed up at the house this morning.

"Mrs. Colvin?" She had sounded so innocent at first. "Are you Mrs. Colvin, the D.A.'s wife?"

"He's theassistant D.A. but yes, I am his wife."

"Good." The benevolence and good will in the woman's words degenerated into the jaded iciness of a hood rat. "Give me some fucking money, bitch. I'm pregnant and the shorty's his."

The confrontation that had followed had resulted in this beating. Shandi sobbed, whimpering as she tried to stand up, her blood-filled eyes fixed upon the brass door knob that signified freedom. If only she could reach it ... when she felt the cold ring of steel on her temple, she knew that it was too late.

"Not a fucking dime, bitch. Not a fucking dime!"

White light filled her eyes and she screamed...