The Journey Home

And here it was, the last fifteen minutes of her life. Fifteen minutes to pack all of her belongings into a small duffel bag, fifteen minutes to dig out the letter she'd written for her husband a few dozen times. Fifteen minutes before she would walk out on everything she had believed was so dear to her, leaving her entire life behind, walking into a life that she knew nothing about. Going to a life with someone who had told her would ignore her, hit, beat and abuse her. Those fifteen minutes were the longest, most stressful, shortest, most satisfying arousing minutes she'd ever experienced. She still wanted to just stay sat down, to not move for the entire fifteen minutes, because then he would leave and never speak to her again. She knew it was absurd, she decided to stay put as she stood up and went to get the duffel bag.

She dithered by the front door, wondering which coat to take, she settled on her warmest, walked out of the front door, locked it, and posted the keys back through the letterbox, walked down the stairs, across the lobby, through the main doors, and out of her life.

Outside there was a soft rain whose daggers of guilt and anxiety stung her skin as they landed. She stood there, waiting for his car to pull up next to her, remembering his instructions to look at the ground until he had come to a halt. The fifteen minutes had definitely passed by now, she wondered if he was testing her, wondered if he'd decided he didn't want her. She stood there, she knew she would wait all night if she had to, she just hoped her husband wouldn't see her first.

After an hour a car pulled in front of her, a long black saloon, she smiled, and thought it had to be black. It stopped with the back door level with her, she opened the door put her bag in the driver's side foot well and lay across the backseat, taking care not to look at him, at one point she caught sight of his hair colour and smiled again remembering the guess she had made all of those months ago. As the car pulled off she started to undress, as she knew she had to do. He had put the rear reading light on, so anybody who walked past could look in and see her lying naked on the back seat. Fortunately, since she had stood waiting for him for so long it was getting late and there weren't that many people around. Though as they were heading out of town he stopped by some drunken lads and waited until they saw her and started leering at the window.

Soon they were on the motorway, making steady progress occasionally he would drive steadily next to a larger vehicle so they could look down and see her at times they would honk their horns in acknowledgement. Other times he would linger for a while and then accelerate off again.

All the while he never spoke to her, there was just the sound of late night radio to distract her from her thoughts, and the occasional waft of cold air blowing from the air conditioning, sending waves of goose bumps flashing over her skin.

The car slowed again, she expected he was showing her to another driver again. But he was turning off the motorway, and onto side roads, she knew it was far too quick for her to be at his already, anticipation suddenly hit her in the stomach, she felt sick with it, but she didn't move, she lay there, facing the back seat, arms under her back, legs open, and bent at the knees, she had been in that position for too long now though and she was aching, her skin was sweaty against the leather seats, pins and needles came and went from where her body was pushing down into her arms. they started driving around city streets it was getting quite late as she could hear the rabble of late night drinkers. He reversed into a dark alley and stopped the car, and they sat in silence. She could hear his breathing, and hated how it relaxed her. She concentrated on it, so to bring her some calm, trying to push the thoughts of what might happen next, trying to block out the noises of the night life out. Wondering if she would actually have the strength in her legs to bare her own weight, thinking how disappointed he would be if she couldn't follow his first instruction. She wondered if he would help her, wondered whether she was excited or scared by the fact that she might be seen, what they would think of the reasons for her doing that. As she was lost in these thoughts she heard the door open, felt the cold rushing in across her body, he got out and closed the door behind him. Would her door open now? Was his it? There was silence. She wondered what he was doing, maybe having a cigarette? No, no he didn't smoke, or at least she didn't think so, she examined there past conversations and was sure she'd asked. Then she heard muffled voices outside the car, there was laughter and the shadow of figures lingered over her body.

He got back in the car, and they were sat in silence again. But the shadows remained, she could hear voices outside the car, low muffled laughing. She was scared.

Both of the back doors were forced open, and hands dove in and grabbed her hands and legs tugging at her, pulling her out of both doors simultaneously, she tried to look around to see who they were, but they were just shadow creatures, it was too dark to make out any faces, but she did see him, she heard that laugh, dark and insidious, she wondered what the expression was like that went with it. Still the hands pulled at her though, occasionally another hand would reach in and squeeze her breast firmly. Then the pressure around her wrists was lost and she was being pulled out of the car by her feet. As she started to fall out she was scooped up by one of them, the stench of beer filled her lungs, she felt sick again for it, for the fear of what he'd done to her. She was pushed back against the car, and there were four of them around her again, hands all over her, between her legs, around her breasts, up and down her legs occasionally a fingers would push into her mouth after a few minutes of this she was manoeuvred around to the back of the car, the boot opened behind her, the corner of it scratching up her back, and she remembered what was happening, where she was going to be put, she felt safe again, even with these hands over her, because he had planned this, she knew nothing would happen to her. She banged her head as she was man handled into the boot, she felt it jarring her brain, which distracted her from the force of the fingers being pushed into her. Then as quickly as it started they moved and the boot was closed again. She heard him getting out of the car and talking to them, they laughed and jeered again and she heard them walking off shouting.

A few minutes later, the boot opened again this time just partially, and her bag and clothes were thrown in, then the boot was slammed shut, then slightly opened again, and a couple of bottles of water were thrown in. At that point she knew she was going to be there for the rest of the night at least.

The car pulled off again, and she set about trying to move things around enough to get herself barely comfortable, fortunately it was a fairly large boot, and she could find places for enough of her things to be able to give her room to move and stretch parts of her body as they needed to be. There was also a blanket in there, that she pulled around herself to keep warm, as it was pretty cold in there. She put her big warm coat under her head to stop it jarring against the boot floor.

Her mind wandered over the story of how she'd got here, how she'd come to be in the boot of someone's car that she'd never even seen the face of, someone who had got so deeply into her thoughts that she'd walked out on her entire life to be a plaything for him. She tried to remember what was written on that chatroom profile that had captivated her so much, whether she would have spoken to him had she known what he was going to do to her. Knowing how weak and needy he made her, knowing how so far removed that was from who she typically was. From who she used to be. From the first moment she spoke to him he had seen her, seen the core of who she was, of what drove her, what scared her, what aroused her. There was no part of her mind that she could hide from his spotlight. No lie she could tell that he didn't instinctively know was a lie. It became the case that she simply stopped trying to hide things from him, didn't even consider not being absolutely and completely honest with him, firstly because she knew he would see it, secondly because she feared the consequences of what would happen if she did. It had soon come to the point where her every action was questioned by herself as to what he might think of it. She started hating having sex with her husband because it wasn't him. She enjoyed the time her husband drunk and got rough with her because she felt it was preparation for her life with him.

She had known from the start that he had other women in his life, she shocked herself to think that she didn't care that she wanted his attention and if that meant she had to share it with others then she would do that because she simply couldn't get him out of her thoughts. She needed his attention, and would suffer anything he could do to her to get it.

And damn did he know how to use her need of attention and acceptance from him. He would tease her with tales of other girls he was talking to, ignore her, sometimes for days on end, and she would hate him for it, and swear that she was never going to speak again, then he would appear, giving her another crumb of attention and she immediately folded, and gave whatever he wished for. No matter how embarrassing or humiliating, all he had to do was ask for it, and she would do it. He didn't even need to tell her to, no matter how difficult she felt it was, his grip over her was always stronger and he took great amusement in proving that to her.

But though all of the negative actions he did with her, she knew that he actually cared about her, she knew she meant a lot to him, she knew he wouldn't be doing this if not. Even during the times when he was being cruel to her in one way or another, he still seemed to have an air of caring to him. Then very occasionally he would actually lavish her with niceness, he would give her his attention, his complete attention and say things that simply melted her and had her smiling for days and weeks after. That is what he did to her, he always knew the exact button to press to put her emotions in the exact state that he wanted them to be, she had no free will with him, and she didn't want any.

The drone of the road and the darkness she was consumed in soon had her falling asleep, she would occasionally be jolted awake and bang herself on parts of the boot. Groggily she woke up, it was light outside, she could see the light spilling into the boot now. She realised she needed to pee, suspected he wasn't going to let her out anytime soon as the car was stationary. They must have parked somewhere in the night. She wondered how much longer she would be there, when he would let her out. Damn she needed to pee.

She was wondering what her husband had made of the note she had left, whether he was looking for her, trying to call her. She also realised how little she cared, she belonged to him now, and as cold and uncomfortable as she was, she was cold and uncomfortable for him. It was his wish, it was his attention that had put her there. In the dark coldness of the boot of a car, she felt warm waves of arousal pushing through her. She smiled and dozed again.

She was woken as the boot was opened and a small paper bag was thrown in to her. The bright sunlight stinging her sticky eyes, she had a drink of water, and woke herself up, then examined the contents of the bag, trying to find a beam of light to see what it was. Mostly through touch she realised it was a half eaten sandwich, and some salad covered in some sort of mayonnaise. Apparently it wasn't just scraps of his attention she had to vie for. She remembered that she needed a pee. Fuck! She really needed a pee now. She remembered feeling a plastic container when she was clearing some space, she fidgeted around behind her to locate it. It was a shallow food container, minus the lid. she wondered about the logistics of actually peeing in it, then she considered what she would do with it once she had. She didn't know, she would work that out after, at the moment she just really needed to go. She shuffled around so she was lying on her front, got the trousers she was wearing and put them underneath her waist then put the container under her and managed to go without spilling too much. God! She needed that.

So what to do with it, she couldn't leave it, it would spill as soon as the car moved, and he wouldn't like that, she wondered if she could pour it into the nearly empty water bottle, that would be difficult in the light sitting up, in a dark boot feeling as cramped as she did, it was impossible. So, she did the only thing she could think of.

She spent the rest of the day locked away in the boot of the car, spent some more time driving, and more time sitting stationary, she wondered where they were, if they were anywhere near her new home yet. She felt uncomfortable, and achy, and cramped. She watched the daylight fading again, she spent the time feeling all the emotions she could think of, angry at herself, proud of herself, happy, sad, smiling, crying.

She had spent a few hours parked in the dark. Her mind was really starting to struggle with the situation now, real regret of what she had done was building. She missed her husband and her bed. She was crying, she had been crying for as long as she could remember now.

Then the boot opened, and she was pulled from it, pulled from it, by him. In one smooth gentle move he pulled her up out of the boot, and held her into him, for the first time she breathed him in. She was finally touching him, she was grinning that his first touch of her had been so gentle. That he was standing holding her.

He supported her as her cramped legs tried to walk towards the house, she was helped up the stairs and taken into a small empty room, with nothing but a thick blanket in the corner, on the bare floorboards, she guessed that this would be her place. He put her on the blanket, and told her to stretch herself a little. He left the room, a key entered a lock and she was locked in.

A few minutes later he returned with a tray of food, a glass of milk, and a smile. She grinned at seeing his face for the first time, she knew she was home, she knew this is where she belonged, and he was who she belonged to, but then, she knew that ever since that very first day she had spoken to him. Finally, she was home.