Belinda Zallo is a woman without a past, a widow trapped and lonely in a dying Midwestern suburb. Then a warrior from another reality, Mane, steps into her world and explains that she is not who she thinks she is. She is not truly Belinda, but an immensely more powerful being, who belongs in his world: Elysion. Gradually she realizes that he is right and that they are bound together.
But Belinda also discovers that she has a powerful rival, a sinister and alluring witch who wants Mane for herself. All three cross over to Elysion for a showdown between demigoddess and witch, between elemental forces and deceptive illusions. The confrontation reaches its climax in a dimension where the impossible is possible—and the passion between Belinda and Mane reaches its explosive peak.
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Exile From Elysion
Copyright © 2011 Cathrine Amadoro
ISBN: 978-1-55487-845-1
Cover art by Angela Waters
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.
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Smashwords Edition
Exile From Elysion
By
Cathrine Amadoro
Chapter 1
Belinda Zallo stood before the bathroom mirror and tried to adjust her hair for the funeral. She was a brown-haired woman of average height with a softly curved figure, wide hips, large gray eyes and a long, straight Italian nose. Her full lips formed a perfect oval.
Belinda moved with a certain fluid grace, and people sometimes told her she must be an ex-athlete. Those comments puzzled her, for she could not remember ever having been involved in sports. When people guessed her age, they figured her to be around thirty years old. Belinda was at her most beaming when she spontaneously laughed or smiled—but during the past few days, she had not laughed or smiled once.
A few moist locks of hair refused to settle. She gave up trying, pulled all her hair back and tied it into a schoolmarm’s neck bun. She regarded the reflection of her dry eyes in the mirror and wondered why she was not weeping. She felt obliged to demonstrate her grief, especially to John Zallo’s grieving parents. And she was in mourning, she really did miss John, but…
She realized, now that John was gone, that the hole she felt inside wasn’t really from her dead husband. Rather, it was John who had been patching up the emptiness—more or less—while Belinda lived with him. But now he was gone…and the hole remained.
Someone knocked on the bathroom door and Felicia’s voice sounded from the other side. “Hey, Belinda. It’s getting dark and I’m freezing my ass off. Let’s get this over with.”
Belinda splashed water on her face—it always seemed to revive her spirits just a little—dried herself and opened the door. Outside stood Felicia Ferroes, her best and only friend, athletic and a head taller than her, with her copper-dyed hair and oversized earrings.
Felicia frowned and gave her a strong hug. “Don’t worry. It’ll be all right.”
“Okay. Let’s go.”
Supporting herself on her friend’s arm, not because she was physically frail but simply to feel her reassuring presence, Belinda walked out from the back of the chapel and off to the graveyard. She still felt ashamed that she had not shed a single tear on this day.
The time was past four in the afternoon of late November and a light rain had turned the first snow into slush. Waiting for Belinda, lined up by the open grave and John’s coffin, stood John’s few surviving relatives—he had no children—and his first wife—who never spoke to Belinda—and…no biological relative of herself.
Belinda wished now that she had known her real parents. Her foster parents had been informed about the funeral, but had only sent a formal postcard. They were in fact strangers to her. Since she met her husband-to-be, her foster parents had only stayed in touch through Christmas cards and they did not even have a phone number—or they kept it from her.
Only Felicia was there for her, as she had been before. Felicia’s first entrance in Belinda’s life had happened a few years earlier, at work. The day had begun with an ominous incident. Belinda was sitting in the supermarket checkout, passing items before the barcode scanner. It was monotonous work, but it passed the time—and it was the best John could arrange for a wife with no documented education or formal training.
Soon, Belinda discovered her greatest job skill, a surprising ability to learn speech as she heard it. After just a few days’ employment, she could master several phrases and simple conversation in Spanish with her co-workers. It had made her a popular employee—but still far too shy to get to know her colleagues outside of work.
As Belinda sat there behind the counter, moving items with robotic efficiency, her daze was interrupted when a customer leaned over the counter.
“You have pretty eyes.”
The man was drunk or on drugs, and his foul breath made Belinda sick. She froze up and pressed the alert button underneath the counter.
He saw it and snapped, “Hey! Look at me when I’m talking to you, bitch!”
Belinda was terrified and pressed the button again.
The man reached for her arm. “Let’s meet again somewhere…”
Then a tall copper-haired woman standing behind the man said coldly, “Hey! She’s not into you…bitch.” The man spun around with his fists clenched and glared at the tall woman. She looked back at him with such open menace that he backed off. “Go now…while you’re still standing.”
The man blubbered some incoherent threats at Belinda and the tall woman, then retreated with fitful steps to the exit. Only now the co-workers arrived and asked what was the matter. Belinda told them the danger was over and took a break.
She walked outside with the tall woman and thanked her.
“You’re welcome. My name’s Felicia Ferroes, by the way.” They shook hands.
“Belinda Zallo. Do you think that man will come back?”
Felicia peered around at the road and the streets. “You can never tell with those types. Just to be safe, I should stick around for a while until you get home.”
“My shift is over in a few hours.”
The manager of the supermarket came out of the building and walked over to Belinda. He told her to take the rest of the day off and left.
“If you want to join me for a cup of coffee,” she said to Felicia, “there’s a place across the street.”
And so began their friendship. Felicia was often on the move, but when she was in town, she called Belinda to join her on shopping sprees, to the cinema, bowling alleys and sports events. And Belinda always enjoyed the company of this very direct, relaxed person who seemed unafraid of everything and everyone.
Before Belinda had quit her day job to move north with John, one co-worker had told her, “I think your friend’s coming on to you and you don’t notice.”
Belinda had just laughed and said, “You don’t know her like I do. I know she goes both ways, so what? She knows where I stand. And in a way, I sort of envy her. She’s totally free to choose.”
Belinda and Felicia arrived at the grave. It was a sparse arrangement, John had never been wealthy and never cared much for money—and his relatives were cheap. The coffin was plain unvarnished wood. She wanted to protest, but the sight of the coffin suddenly drained all energy from her body. She staggered and would have fallen had Felicia not been there to hold her upright.
Now the tears came, flooding her mind, draining her. It was all so dreadful, so sudden. They had not been married for very long, they had just moved to the new house up north, John had walked up to his car and…
The police never found the hit-and-run driver. They were not even certain what had hit John Zallo—a large truck or several vehicles, because all the tire tracks were smeared by rain. Belinda had never seen John’s mangled body with her own eyes—she had not dared to. But she had seen the morgue photos. They gave her nightmares…
The funeral ceremony passed her by in a daze, she could not remember what was said, what questions she answered, or how long it lasted. John’s brother, a priest, who had also married them, took care of the proceedings. When she became aware again, she was sitting in the backseat of Felicia’s car as her friend drove her home. Outside was pitch black, apart from where the car’s headlights illuminated passing wet asphalt and oncoming sleet.
“Belinda,” said Felicia and peered into the rearview mirror, “I have to go away for a couple months. Got some important things to do, they can’t wait. I can’t stay over.” She sobbed once, then winced and focused on the dark road ahead. “Shit. I don’t want to leave you all alone in your big empty house like that. Do you know anyone in the neighborhood? Someone who can give you a call now and then?”
Belinda shook her head. “Nah. Most of the other houses are empty now. The recession hit the area pretty hard. Clever ol’ John, he saved up and paid for our house in cash…”
“One should not speak ill of the dead,” said Felicia, “but there’s a saying, I married beneath myself. All women do.”
“Please, not now,” Belinda said and she knew what was coming.
“He was nice. And neat. And sober. And all that…but he was not the kind of man you needed. The kind of man you need.”
“Should I be chasing younger men, like you do?”
“Not just younger men, girlfriend. And maybe not just men.”
“Dream on.”
Their banter stayed friendly in tone—a fact which never had ceased to amaze Belinda. If anyone but Felicia had told her those things, Belinda would’ve reacted with anger.
“Just look after yourself while I’m away, okay? Get out more. John liked having you stay at home a bit too much. Don’t fall back into that habit again.”
“Yes…Mother!”
Felicia let out her loud, clucking laughter and it warmed Belinda to hear it. But still there was that hole inside her…and it was beginning to grow.
The next morning, Belinda woke up with a light headache. Out of old habit, she turned around in bed and reached for John…and groaned at her mistake.
“Get out more,” she echoed Felicia. Easy to do when you’re stuck in a dead-end suburb on a Sunday in a dead-end town with endless bad weather…
She wanted to drive or take a plane down to the coast and Meet Felicia, but recalled with another groan that Felicia would not be home for weeks. So Belinda had to busy herself alone in the house—or start crawling up the walls. She knew what she ought to be doing, sort out all the stuff John left behind in the basement, in his bookshelves, in his home office, in the garage, on his computer…
It was a pity that John’s relatives had shown no interest in taking over his work files and papers—in fact, no one had. Belinda had called up the university where John worked, during those days when he did not work holed up in his home office—and asked the dean if he wanted to come and have a look at the piles of documents and printouts.
The dean’s answer shocked her. “John’s personal writings were much too obscure, too eccentric for a serious scientific institution. Perhaps you should just get rid of them.”
Belinda had been so embarrassed by the brush-off, even now she dared not read John’s files. She still feared his writings might be page after page of psychotic gibberish.
So she did not clean house or go out, but stayed indoors for a late breakfast.
And soon she found herself stuck playing Solitaire on the laptop John had bought her, for hours on end.
In the afternoon she tried to call Felicia. And she received an answering-machine message, in her friend’s inimitable manner.
“Hi, this is the recorded voice of Felicia Ferroes. If you’re an ex…buzz off! If you want to sell me something…stuff it! If you’re a friend…I’m really sorry but I’ll be out of town for a few months and I had to leave the cellular behind. Just hang in there, okay?”
Belinda spoke, “I’m hanging in there,” and hung up. Her skin began to itch. She needed to get out, get some direction back in her life, but…
She went back to the laptop and played Solitaire until dinnertime.
On Monday, the weather finally improved, but the sky stayed gloomy and clouded. She went out to the car to buy food and had a good look at the neighborhood.
The suburb bore the name Cedar Flats for no reason—no cedars grew for miles around—and consisted of 20 two-story tract houses on top of a low grassy hill, all clapboard and white picket fences, built quickly during the last housing boom. Now it seemed all houses but Belinda’s stood empty. When the town’s major employer went belly-up during the previous year, most of the new homeowners had to sell and leave.
Belinda’s last neighbor had moved out just last week. The house by the freeway exit had been spray-painted by local young punks, who apparently got bored and gave up after doing just one house. They had left behind an angry slogan on the house front, greeting Belinda each time she drove past. EVER HAD THE FEELING YOU’VE BEEN CHEATED? Each time she saw the slogan, she felt a sting in her chest and that hole inside her grew a little more.
When she drove back home, she noticed a change in the neighborhood. The For Sale signs were gone from the two houses next to her own. She might get new neighbors soon. They can’t come soon enough. It would help just to have someone to say hi to now and then…
Each day she waited to hear people move in next door. Weeks passed. The houses next door remained empty and dark. An icy wind blew dead leaves across the streets, November went by and December began. Nobody moves in December. She stopped hoping anyone would arrive until at least next year.
Halfway through one December morning when snow was falling, Belinda felt so apathetic she could barely get out of bed. She knew she had not taken a shower in three days, nobody called or visited, she had given up on looking for a job. She spent the days watching TV and playing Solitaire. Stacks of takeout lay in the kitchen sink.
The hole inside her had become an abyss she could sense herself slowly falling into.
Belinda was standing in the kitchen, wearing only a dirty sweater and baggy long underpants. Vapor came out of her mouth and nose as she breathed cold air. She was trying to work up the energy to go and turn on the heater.
A car horn beeped outside. She went over to a window facing the street and saw a caravan of vehicles roll past her house. First came a car bearing the logo and name of the real estate dealer who had sold the house she was living in. After it came a rusty station wagon, packed with luggage and last came a rental truck.
Behind the steering wheel of the station wagon sat a blonde woman wearing a shawl and shaded eyeglasses. From the backseat, a young boy and a teenage boy peered out at Belinda. A middle-aged balding man, probably the woman’s husband, drove the rental truck. He glanced in Belinda’s direction and nodded.
She hurried into the bathroom to clean herself up.
After a quick, thorough cleaning-up she dressed in a clean wool sweater and blue jeans and walked outside to have a look at the new neighbors.
As she trudged through the fresh snow which was already reaching up to her ankles, she noticed that the house on the opposite side had already been moved into. On that house, a new name tag had been attached to the mailbox—B. MAYNER. When did that happen?
But she could not see any sign of Mr. or Mrs. Mayner—no car, no footsteps crossing the driveway or at the door—except a few empty crates piled up on the front porch.
The newcomer family exited their station wagon and the husband immediately glued a name tag to their mailbox—HARRIET JONES & CO. The two sons ran for the front door, and Mrs. Jones shouted at them, “Come back and help me carry all this stuff!”
Then she turned toward Belinda and made to shake hands. She grinned. “You must be Mrs. Zallo! Hi! I’m Harriet Jones.” Harriet took a firm grasp of Belinda’s hand and shook it vigorously. “My, your hand is trembling! Are you all right?”
Belinda looked down and forced a shy smile. “Well, I…I didn’t know anyone was coming…now.”
“I know, moving in December is a pain, but this place was just right for us. Were you born here?”
“No, I moved up from the lower East Coast. My husband was from around here.” Belinda peered at the license plate on the station wagon. “You’re from Alabama? You don’t sound like…”
Harriet Jones spoke flawless American English, but almost too perfectly—she carried no trace of an accent, which sounded a bit strange for a person with her looks and company. She wore a coat and pants in garish, artificial colors, matching the tasteless appearance of her husband and sons.
“Lodeburg, Alabama, that’s right,” said Mr. Jones as he came over to shake hands with Belinda. He spoke with a heavy Southern drawl and had a pasty, ruddy face.
Belinda thought his handshake felt clammy and wrong, and withdrew her hand quickly.
The real estate dealer drove off without saying anything to Belinda. She gazed at the fast disappearing vehicle and asked, “Did they tell you I’m a widow?” She saw the wife and husband stiffen a little. “Let’s just have it out of the way. He passed away a few months ago. I won’t bite.”
Mr. Jones stared at Belinda, then at Mrs. Jones, who stood perfectly silent for a second too long. Then she burst into a shrill laughter. “Oh, you’re funny! I can see men are drawn to a woman with a sense of humor. We’ll let you meet my single friends, I’m sure we can help you find new company.”
Belinda felt uneasy. She realized now that her attempt at humor had been clumsy, but she had been cooped up by herself for too long and needed to stretch her social muscles. Mrs. Jones, on the other hand, appeared to be more outgoing, but to Belinda everything the woman said sounded…off, as if Harriet did not quite know how to talk casually.
Belinda thought, Get a grip on your nerves, girl. It’s just your cabin fever. Give them a chance.
She offered to help the Joneses carry their items. They let her move crates from the truck to the empty basement of their new house. Belinda was out of shape and quickly worked up a sweat, but she appreciated this chance to break out of her shell.
Mr. Jones spoke very little except when he shouted at his two sons, who rushed around the house and called out every time they wanted to comment on some detail or the view. Harriet spoke incessantly about the problems of moving, how much she missed the people back home, how the bad economy had forced them to go north, and wasn’t the weather a bore, and…
Belinda began to realize she could wish for more interesting neighbors. After only one hour, the Joneses were already boring her numb. She excused herself. Harriet begged Belinda to come over for a welcoming dinner the same evening and kept insisting until she had forced a yes out of Belinda.
When Belinda finally walked out of the Joneses’ house, she wanted to kick herself for accepting the invitation. She glanced at the other house belonging to B. Mayner.
For a moment, she thought she had caught a movement in a window. Was someone hiding in there? She took a walk around the neighborhood and made a wide circling movement to the back of the Mayner house. Watching from the other side of the house, she faced the low-lying sun that shone through the living room and back windows.
For a moment, the sunlight blinded her and she blinked away bright spots. She squinted at the house and then glimpsed a silhouette in a window. The figure was unmistakably male, tall, broad-shouldered with very long hair but no beard and a powerful nose like that of a Native American. The silhouette seemed to be completely naked. It froze momentarily, he turned his head as if to study her, and then quickly moved out of sight.
Belinda hid behind a pine tree and kept watching, but the figure did not reappear. Mr. B. Mayner? A shaggy recluse lives next door to my house? Great, that’s just what I need—another nutcase like me. She was getting cold and the landscape was getting darker, so she retreated back indoors.
As promised, she came over to the Joneses for dinner. They served takeout pizza on their big living-room table, with white wine in plastic cups for the adults.
Mrs. Jones praised the fact that their new house came mostly pre-furnished and said, “You have got to give some advice about the carpets and curtains we will have to buy soon.”
At first Belinda thought that by we Harriet meant the family. Then she understood Harriet meant you and me.
“I don’t know if I can be of any help,” she began. “I never was any good at home decorating.”
“Nonsense, it’ll be fun,” said Harriet and poured more wine into Belinda’s plastic cup. “You and I are going to be good neighbors.”
Belinda drank up and soon found herself getting a bit tipsy. She almost never drank much and she had not tasted alcohol for months. At ten thirty in the evening, she finally found the nerve to get up, thank the Joneses and leave.
She walked the short distance to her own house and noticed smoke coming from the chimney of B. Mayner’s house. From the windows flickered the warm, orange glow of a lit fireplace.
Belinda sniffed the air. The smoke carried a rich aroma of fowl or some other wild animal being roasted over a fire. Now she felt heavy from the pizza and wine. Whoever that weird new neighbor may be, he’s a better cook than the Joneses.
She slept badly that night.
In the morning, she could vaguely recall a dream about her late husband and then another dream. In the second dream, she had been smelling an open fire where plucked birds were being roasted on a spit. She had sensed a presence, something which had both comforted her and made her incredibly aroused, and a faint musky scent. It had also felt like coming home after a long trek in the wilderness. But the dream had faded and she had forgotten what it looked like…
Two days later, only two weeks before Christmas, Belinda drove into town and shopped for gifts. It made her wistful to see the crowds of families and couples, reminding her that she would spend the holidays alone in her house.
She picked one present to give Felicia later when she returned from abroad and a few cheap formal gifts for the Joneses. Then she thought of the mysterious B. Mayner, whom she had only glimpsed from a distance.
Since that occasion, he had not shown up, even when she spied on his house from her window. Her curiosity had only grown, as well as her caution. There had to be some small gift which would give her an excuse to break the ice but not large enough to embarrass the reclusive neighbor. After some consideration, she bought him a Christmas card and a small box of chocolates. She was still feeling frail from the long period of isolation and eventually the crowds in the shopping mall spooked her so much she had to leave.
At one point, she thought she was being watched inside the mall. An intuition made her turn around, but there was no one there except the normal busy shoppers.
In the early winter evening, Belinda exited the mall and headed for the car park. Suddenly, she became convinced that someone was following her. From the depths of her memory stirred the incident with the nasty male customer who threatened her in the supermarket. Even after all this time she still worried occasionally that he might stalk her. She ducked behind a row of cars, moved to the end of the row and peeked up. She gasped. It was a tall, broad-shouldered adult male of indeterminate age with a Native American nose and shoulder-length hair, wearing a poncho of what must be real animal fur.
Instantly she knew it had to be her mystery neighbor, B. Mayner. He seemed to be looking for someone. Then he spotted her, started for a second, turned around and rushed after a passing bus.
A few seconds later the bus stopped and the man climbed or rather leaped in through the open door. Belinda saw that he was wearing only pants and sneakers underneath the poncho, but no shirt. His pants were visibly bulging with muscles. How weird—and perhaps it proved he was a stalker.
But in her mind lingered the memory of how he had stopped for a moment to look at her. There was something vaguely familiar about the eyes, the chiseled features of the beardless face, the total lack of guile in his gaze.
She went into a hunting shop and bought a pair of binoculars, just in case she had to watch out for him from a distance. I’d never use it to ogle him in his own home. Only a pervert would do something like that…
Later, when Belinda had returned to Cedar Flats, her mind drifted back to the brief encounter with B. Mayner at the car park. Where in the world was he from? She called up the real estate dealer’s number and asked whether her neighbor was a foreigner.
“I have no idea where he’s from,” said the agent who answered. “And even if I did, he has a right to privacy. If he doesn’t want to tell you, why should I?”
“He’s not an ex-con or a released mental patient? I mean, didn’t he strike you as odd?”
“I really don’t have to answer that kind of insinuating question. Good day to you.” The agent hung up.
Belinda blushed with embarrassment, confusion, anger and some other emotion she could not place. Guess I’ll have to approach him myself then. What are you really, Mr. B. Mayner—if that’s your real name?
Belinda waited for Mayner to check his mailbox. He never did. She waited for him to take out his garbage. He never did that when she might see it. She saw a pile of firewood on his back lawn and waited for him to carry some of it indoors. She missed every opportunity. She spotted him from a distance several times. He was often walking around the fields and woods surrounding Cedar Flats, but she never found him going near the freeway.
He had no car, no family and apparently no visitors. How did he keep from going insane? What made him stay alone in his house? How did he support himself?
Every day, one of the Joneses rang on Belinda’s doorbell or stopped her on the sidewalk. Usually it was Harriet who invited Belinda to dinner or asked her to come along on a shopping trip to the mall.
Only once Belinda found no excuse to say no and so she came over to dinner a second time. Again, the Joneses ate takeout food. Harriet’s two sons seemed visibly larger than the last time Belinda had seen them to dinner and they ate more, too.
Harriet finished her wine glass and primly wiped her mouth with a napkin. “Have you met our mutual neighbor, Mr. Mayner?”
Belinda dropped her fork on the plate with a clatter and became self-conscious. “No. Have you?”
“I think he’s mute. I’ve told my kids, stay clear of that man. He must be dangerous.”
“You think so?” Belinda asked, trying to sound casual even as her heartbeat raced—though she did not understand why.
Harriet looked at the teenage son playing with his fork and knife. “Jimmy Joe, tell her what you saw that man do yesterday.”
Jimmy Joe blinked at his mother and turned to Belinda. He talked urgently and with an excited, sneering expression on his acne-ridden face. “Saw him in the woods, like, just past sunrise. He made a snare out of rope and he like, caught a fox. Snapped its neck with his bare hands. Snap! Then he carried the fox, like, into his basement. I think he eats them! Like, animals.”
Harriet nodded knowingly. “See, I’ve got this Mr. Mayner figured out. He’s the kind of eccentric who is trying to commune with wild nature.” She lifted an arm and fanned out her fingers. “In a suburb like this! A maniac, obviously. I bet he reeks like a bag lady.”
“I haven’t spoken to him yet,” Belinda admitted and immediately regretted saying it.
“Good for you!” Harriet and her husband nodded in unison.
Mr. Jones added smugly, with a heavy drawl, “I reckon Mr. Mayner is one of them confused half-breeds. You can take the darkie out of the jungle, but you can’t take the jungle out of the darkie!” Mr. Jones grinned at everyone as if he sincerely believed he was funny.
The youngest of the Jones boys made a snorting giggle.
Belinda coughed and nearly choked on her wine. She coughed a little more, just to get a reason to excuse herself and leave.
Harriet followed her to the door. “I do apologize for my husband. He can be such an ogre sometimes.”
Belinda put on her shoes and winter coat as fast as she could without making a scene and walked out the front door.
“See you soon!” Harriet called.
Belinda locked herself in, undressed and hurried into the tub. In the water, she untied her hair and let it soak with the rest of her body in the hot water. A bath always reinvigorated her, now she wanted to bathe all night long. The Joneses disgusted her. But even so, perhaps Mr. Mayner really should be avoided.
She put on a bathrobe and headed into the kitchen to get a glass of water. Do I have to give those horrible people Christmas presents?
As she drank, she caught a movement in a window of the Mayner house.
Chapter 2
Belinda switched off all the lights in the kitchen and pulled out the curtains, so that she could spy on her neighbor’s house unseen.
Strangely enough, none of the windows in the Mayner house had curtains, blinds or draperies. For a recluse, he had no concept of privacy. But this time he was not alone. He was facing the front hallway of his house. Belinda could see the rigid tension in his posture.
He was only wearing his fur poncho. The only lighting in the house appeared to come from the blazing fireplace behind him.
In the adjacent window appeared a female figure who was slowly moving toward Mayner in the living-room. Belinda thought of the new binoculars—and she hated herself for it. With only a moment’s hesitation, she fetched the binoculars from the hallway and hurried back to the kitchen window.
This ain’t normal, she thought as she put the glasses in front of her eyes and adjusted the focus. But then again my neighbor ain’t normal.
The view through the binoculars was not brighter than naked-eye vision, but much sharper. Now she could make out more details. Mayner was standing still, his powerful arms tense by his side, clenching his fist while he looked at the visitor.
He made a very slight bow of his head, like a formal greeting, but he did not relax at all. The visitor, visible only in profile, was a stunningly voluptuous woman of medium or below medium height. Her mass of curly blonde hair grew down to her waist. She was wearing numerous gleaming bangles, rings and what might be a golden tiara around her head. Her lush curves were wrapped in a silk-like diaphanous gown.
Belinda watched and held her breath for so long she had to gasp for air. Who was this woman and what on Earth was she doing in this God-forsaken suburb? Why wasn’t there a single car parked outside Mayner’s house? How did the visitor get through the snow to his house in the first place?
The voluptuous blonde opened her thin lips and spoke.
Belinda zoomed in the woman’s face and tried to read her lips through the binoculars, but all she found was that the woman was smiling at Mayner. He shook his head in response. The woman moved a step closer…and suddenly Mayner backed away and raised one large fist at her.
This was the first time Belinda had seen him shaken. But the visitor was not behaving in a threatening manner, quite the opposite. She kept talking as she gently grasped Mayner’s raised fist and held it with long, slender fingers…
Belinda looked on with disbelief and excitement rising inside her as she saw the blonde woman extend a wet tongue and lick Mayner’s fist. The woman kissed and sucked each knuckle in turn, then leaned her head closer and took his thumb in her mouth. She sucked on it so intensely that her cheeks were pulled in and while she did, her eyes stayed wide open, fixed on Mayner’s face.
Belinda felt herself getting wet between her legs. She had to stop watching now, she knew it was wrong, but had to see more. She continued to observe the silent drama through the binoculars and saw Mayner stagger, his massive back rigid, as if he were fighting himself.
With what seemed like an effort, he extended his free hand and grabbed the woman’s long hair. The woman made a grimace. He pulled her head backward, slowly, and she let go of his other hand…then she smiled, as if to say I’ve got you now.
And she was right. In the next instant, Mayner pulled her violently against his body and kissed her hard on the neck, then her chest. The woman responded with equal fervor and wrapped one shapely leg around his buttocks.
Mayner pulled off his fur poncho, the only garment he was wearing, then grabbed the woman’s sheer gown and tore it in half with one furious move. The pieces fell to the floor and the woman opened her lips wide. The two tumbled down below the window and out of Belinda’s line of sight. She had to smother a cry of frustration with her hand, then rushed upstairs to see if she could get a better view.
From the guest bedroom’s window, she could see through the binoculars directly at the floor in Mayner’s living room. Shadows cast by the fireplace danced across the bare floorboards and over the two writhing, glistening bodies on the floor.
Mayner pawed and sucked on the woman’s large breasts, while she bent her legs around him, visibly rubbed her crotch against his torso and pulled his long black hair.
He went up on his knees and lifted her by the legs until her sex came up against his face. Sharpening the binocular’s focus, Belinda saw the lips of the woman’s vulva and the drops of sweat on the bridge of Mayner’s nose.
And then he thrust his tongue inside the woman’s vagina. She arched backward as if electrified, and he jutted it in and out of her at a frenzied pace. Belinda could not overlook Mayner’s growing erection. It was not merely long, its girth frightened her. Abruptly, he pulled his tongue out of the woman, whose nipples stood out stiffly from her taut heaving breasts, and grabbed her head with both hands.
He forced the woman to bend forward and swallow the head of his shaft, her lips bulged and there was a brief struggle.
It could not be rape—the woman had forced herself upon him. And yet Mayner treated that woman with such contempt, even as he apparently wanted her so much that he lost his self-control. He began to thrust in and out of the woman’s mouth, going deeper with each forward motion, and she ceased to struggle. She gave her mouth willingly to him and caressed his wide chest.
Belinda was unable to tell for how long it lasted. From between her naked legs welled up a lust so strong she had to fight down the urge to touch herself where she stood. She had to watch more.