Loading...I want to tell you a story. No, that’s not right, I HAVE to tell you a story. It’s not a true story. Well maybe it is, at least in parts. I’ll let you decide. But I do have to tell it.
The story is about Ed and Andrew, probably more Ed than Andrew.
But you know, that may not be true either. You tell me. It’s not the story you are expecting, but I think it is a pretty good one anyway.
Ed, we’ll start with her. Everyone called her Ed, but the name her parents blessed her with was Edwina.
She wasn’t a tall girl, nor was she short. I guess she was kind of average in height. But boy was she slender. Her daddy used to joke she had to carry weights in her pockets to keep from being blown away by the next breeze. But she was a real beauty. Not your busty, blond haired, blue eyed cheerleader type.
No, not her.
Edwina, or Ed, had huge gray eyes, and lovely, soft and long light brown hair. The hair used to drive her mad. You see she was a swimmer. Not a competitive swimmer, but she swam hard laps at least an hour or more every day. She really had to, because what she really was, was a musician.
She played the cello. She was a virtuoso cellist. A cellist of stunning talent, a giant of her music in this tiny small angel body. If you have ever seen a movie starring Audrey Hepburn you have seen a woman with the same general gut wrenching, waif like, unmatchable beauty. The huge eyes speaking to you, the almost little girl body that moved with such grace and dignity. But with Ed it contained a giant spirit feeding musical genius.
Now this wasn’t too surprising, because her daddy was a world renowned classical orchestra conductor. He loved her very much, but if you know the world of classical music, you know that great conductors either have their own orchestra, or do an unbelievable amount of travel.
Sometimes both.
Ed’s daddy didn’t have his own orchestra, but he spent up to nine months a year traveling and somehow inducing average or below average musical groups to truly world class performances. His was a truly rare gift. But like the know- nothings would have us believe about all great talents, he did suffer for it. He was a wildly passionate man and he dearly loved his family. But with all the time away, he became an intensely loved but distant man to his only child. And when he was home he had difficulty relaxing, and particularly to relate to a child’s perspective.
No, she loved her father with all her soul, but he scared the bejabbers out of her.
Ed’s mother was also a musician. She too was world class, playing classical piano as few have ever even conceived it possible to play. And talk about passion! She of course specialized in Mozart And some of Beethoven’s works. Only complete passion could claim her. And sometimes when she was with a select few, very close friends , her husband was near and she had a few drinks, she sat down and played jazz. When she played and sometimes sang some of the great blues songs the evening was usually short. She and her husband sent everyone home so they could ‘retire’ to their bedroom and ‘meditate’ to screams and curses and sweat and juices. They never had difficulty sending their friends home after they had listened to Ed’s mother’s passion on the piano. They needed to go to their own bedrooms to meditate. Some never made it past the first motel.
But Ed was terrified of her father’s intensity and her mother’s passion. She became a world class cellist, and her specialty was the precision and perfection of Haydn. None of the wild, uncontrolled passions she saw in her parents was to be found in her music.
Oh yes, you were wondering why she had time to swim. If you are a musician you have probably already guessed it. If not you don’t realize how physical making music is. Ed was a very ephemeral girl, and needed the stamina and strength swimming gave her.
So now you know just a little about Ed.
Andrew was something else, too. His parents were good old-fashioned working class all-American mom and dad. And Andrew scared the bejabbers out of them! You see, Andrew was a mathematical genius. Not the least bit interested in sports, he just wanted to take his math and play with the figures. He was a nice guy. Not tall, And certainly not short, he had a slim physique which he kept fit in the strangest way. His dad had bought him a weight set which sat in the corner of his room. He found himself lost in thought and absent-mindedly doing repetition after repetition of lifts. Never very heavy, but LOTS of them. That and absent-mindedly forgetting to eat kept him slim and very trim.
Andrew was scared of girls. Girls fascinated him, but they weren’t reducible to numbers. Math didn’t explain a damn thing about any girl he had ever met. Math didn’t help him with boys either, but he wasn’t really interested in boys.
So somehow these two near recluses found one another and married. Ed knew there was passion in Andrew, but his was inside and not loose. He didn’t scare her.
Andrew knew there were unfathomable depths in Ed, but she kept them under tight control and they didn’t seem to attack him.
And both of them were making more money than you or I would think decent. And they both remained unknown to others outside their talent. Ed traveled frequently, doing guest appearances. She played Haydn as Haydn had only dreamed it could be played. There was unlimited passion in her performances, but so controlled as to be near terrifying to her audiences. She was beloved and world famous. She would be gone a month, sometimes two and then be back home with her husband Andrew for a month or two. It was a very satisfying life for them.
Andrew was one of those talented geniuses who could not be held to a schedule. He could be given a problem, and you knew he would give you and answer. You just never knew when it would come. Think a moment about some of the creative geniuses that have touched all of our lives. How many ‘Easy-Bake Ovens’ did its inventor invent? Not many, in fact the man was employed for decades at more than a very good salary with the hope he would come up with another idea just half as good. He did come up with ideas, some of which made his company a lot of money, but not every year.
So someone would give Andrew a problem, and he would go home and play with his beloved numbers. Sometime later he would call that someone and give him the answer. For that answer he was paid an obscene amount of money.
And every month or so his beloved wife would be home, and they would spend time together, each wound tightly with passion which was never allowed reign. Their lovemaking was controlled, precise and complete. Not messy, but like Haydn or Mathematics.
And then it came crashing to a close.
Andrew had just been given a particularly juicy problem, and Ed had just returned from a tour of Eastern Europe the week before. Both were relaxing in their penthouse in New York. Those who knew them knew that they would be locked in the penthouse for at least two more weeks before they were ready to see friends, or even take a walk. Andrew would be taking his exercise with his weights while thinking. Ed would spend at least an hour every morning in the building’s pool down in the basement. She then spend the rest of the day testing new nuances in one or another of Haydn’s hundreds of concertos, small group pieces and symphonies. Everyone was expecting her to begin conducting soon. Not many women did, but no one knew Haydn, had ever known Haydn, like Ed.
Several weeks before Ed and Andrew’s world came crashing down the police had managed to locate and actually arrest one of their most elusive targets. The man, one Sean Sebastian, had been identified as the doer in an incredible number of burglaries and robberies over the past five years. He had been getting increasingly bold and violent, with rape becoming an added fillip to his MO. The police psychologists had labeled him a sociopath, with no morals or acceptance of any law except his own. Increasingly the women he had victimized had paid dearly for his locating them. Their stories were very similar, in that he made no attempt to physically harm them, but by the time he released them, to a woman, they required extensive counseling. No details had been released on his activities or the areas of counseling the ladies required.
To the misfortune of three police officers and their families, Mr. Sebastian had been armed when he had been cornered. One of the men was expected to be able to return to duty within the year, the other two he seemed to delight in permanently maiming. For no discernable reason other than his enjoyment he had ‘capped’ both of the other men. That is, he had carefully and from close range, shot each in the kneecap. The patella’s were shattered, and neither man was expected to walk normally again. Luckily for the third man, he had called in assistance and before Mr. Sebastian got to him, several squad cars had arrived and he recognized he was surrounded and gave himself up. It was recognized that he would not have been caught if the task force seeking him had not been in the immediate area, and the help had not arrived in just seconds. The police were privately calling him a devil, and some unusually religious members of the force believed he might even be a new face of Satan.
The evening before Ed and Andrew’s trial began, Mr. Sebastian escaped.
The next morning started as usual for our couple, with Andrew heading directly for his weights where he began what had become a session of lifting weights that lasted three or more hours a day. The weights were not great, but the repetitions were many. As usual he spent the time tossing the current problem around in his head while staring at the pale golden wall paper in his bedroom.
While he squatted and bent, he idly watched his waif-like wife slip out of bed and into her blue robe, then walk to the bathroom where she brushed her teeth and performed her early morning evolutions. Carefully taking care that the robe was pulled closed around her slim and athletic body as she passed before her husband, she headed to the kitchen for her usually black coffee wake me up.
Ed was in for a rude and increasingly unpleasant surprise. She had walked almost halfway across the living room heading for the Kitchen when she suddenly felt she was being watched. She spun and looked behind her. She found a very large man sitting in one of her Louis XIVth chairs. The man looked very much at ease, but the leer with which he was ogling her was very unsettling. Her first reaction was to back away, as she would on encountering a poisonous snake.
If she hadn’t backed into, and sat down upon one of her overstuffed chairs perhaps this story would have been very different. But she did and with a sinking feeling she remembered from past experience this chair was a difficult one for her to get up from. It always seemed to fold about her and the angle was such that she couldn’t just lift herself from its confines. By the time she had managed to half way rise to her feet the large scary man was in front of her. A firm soft hand on her bosom prevented her from getting to her feet and pushed her back into the chair. In a word, she was trapped in her chair.
The startled squeal she made was immediately stifled by Sean’s lips covering hers for of course that was who it was. The squeal was much to soft for Andrew to hear over the soft clanking noises he was making himself as he did snatches with his weights in the bedroom with the golden wallpaper. He had no idea anything untoward was happening in his home.
Sean wrapped one big hand around the back of Ed’s head, holding her mouth to his. With the other he grasped the closed lapels of her blue terry cloth robe and effortlessly lifted her out of the chair and pulled her tightly against him.
A stunned Ed beat ineffectually against his shoulders with her little hands, her bare feet scrabbling, barely touching the hardwood floor. Eyes staring into Sean’s and trying to scream through the lips sealed around hers and past Seam’s tongue filling her mouth.
Leaning hard into her, bowing her body backwards with his own, Sean moved the hand from behind her back and let it fall downward trapping her arms as he embraced her. Holding his lips firmly against hers, he pulled the robe open with his other hand and yanked it downward off her shoulders.
Ed mewled and complained through the lips covering hers, as the hand not holding her tightly to him began softly and gently exploring her chest. Cupping a breast, he rolled it and squeezed it softly with his big hand, sending sudden chills through her body. Ed twisted and bucked her body against his, desperate to break free from this sudden molestation in the quiet and private confines of her own home. In the bedroom she heard Andrew’s weights clanking as he steadily and rhythmically lifted and dropped his weights, his mind lost in exploring the rarified heights of mathematical mystery.
In her living room his wife now felt herself being turned until her side was against her attackers chest, one of his hands holding her close. Her terrycloth robe now tangled her arms. She found her hands covered with the sleeves as the stranger wrapped the cloth belt quickly around her arms and tied it. Never once could she break her mouth free from his to scream while he tied her securely, and then leisurely, and thoroughly, began exploring her small very feminine body with his free hand.
Ed’s eyes looked like small moons in her face as she stared up at her molester, feeling the tingles of pleasure as his hand softly explored her curves, her hills and valleys, with his hand. In memory the most terrifying thing was the slow, leisurely exploration. The complete confidence of mastery, the feeling the man holding and fondling her knew…
knew he owned her…
knew she had no recourse…
knew he truly had all the time in the world to do what ever in the world he wished to do to her, in what ever way he desired.
Continuing to hold her bent backward, Sean hooked a leg around her near leg, And pulled it open wedging his big thigh between hers, opening her to his exploration.
His horrid confidence began paralyzing her as his fingers began exploring her again. Pushing down the front of her panties to the wonder between her legs. Softly and gently she felt his fingers stroking her labia, pulling them apart. To her horror she felt herself moisten, and suddenly one of his huge fingers pushed slowly into her body. Her stomach knotted and she wondered if she would throw up.
Instead she felt the tingles in her belly, the rare tingles when everything Andrew and she did worked just right. And she felt them with this beast so softly, gently, confidently and meticulously taking liberties with her body. Her toes curled and she struggled hard against the confinement of the robe, belt and his massive arm.
With a sudden jerk Sean lifted her into the air and dropped her again, as he ripped her panties cleanly off her body. Pulling his lips from hers, he waited a fraction for her to open her mouth to scream. When she did he jammed the wadded up panties deep into her mouth. The scream was loud and piercing, but only inside her head.
In the bedroom, Andrew’s weights rhythmically clanked down, rattled as he lifted and then clanked down again. Time after time, relentless as a clock works he lifted and thought, lifted and thought, lifted and thought.
Carrying the now sobbing woman to the large black soft leather couch looking out over a spectacular view of the Hudson River. Laying her back against the seat, with her legs spreading out from the cushions, he pushed her to lean against the back of the couch. With Ed sprawled back with her legs splayed open, Sean stepped back to admire his captive. Eyes open in terror, her mouth stuffed with her panties she lay with her arms tangled in her robe and tied to her body.
Stepping between her legs he chuckled at her fear and knelt, spreading her legs wider still. Leaning forward he pushed his tongue against the valley between her breasts and tasted the salty sweat produced by her fear. Chuckling he watched the pleasure bumps rise in her flesh And admired the ripples of pleasure running through her belly. His ham sized palms cupped her soft shoulders and so gently kneaded them. Knowing the horrid pleasure she was feeling from his soft and apparently loving touch. Feelings only elicited before from someone sharing love and caring were now being forced out of her by a hateful monster.
He loved it. It was what had emotionally crippled all his other victims. He was going to enjoy her body, was going to cum in and on her. Sean was going to make her give him pleasure so deep. But what he would remember the most, what he turned over in his mind in the small hours of the night, what he chuckled and shivered over was the knowledge of how he was corrupting her sensual pleasures. This was the knowledge and pleasure that had been driving him the past three years. And this waif-like, child-like woman with her so delicate features and tiny, exquisite body was going to be one of his biggest pleasures.
He had spotted her going into the building when he was slowly strolling past the front doors last night, just minutes after his hurried ‘departure’ from the local precinct house. It was important he find a totally unexpected hole to hide. That was when he had seen her tiny self. The woman was average height, but so delicate she looked like she needed to be handled like fine china.
Sean had licked his lips. She was going to be handled like fine beef, not fine china. While Sean was within hearing he had heard the doorman greet her by name. It was just a moment before he spotted an unexpected entrance to the building she had entered. Now he knew what his entertainment would be the next few days, while the heat died down.
Sean had been successful because he had been able to make use of such, ways in unsuspected by the building’s occupants. And in many cases still unknown after he had struck and was long gone.
It was only a moment’s effort for his finely tuned physique to gain entrance to the third floor window that seemed unreachable. Finding her name on the locator board had taken seconds, and it had been particularly exciting to discover she lived in the penthouse. Maybe with some luck he could hole up there for as much as a week, maybe more. It would be a pleasure with such a toy to please him and train.
The husband being a problem never even crossed his mind. Even those who ‘worked out’ had no real knowledge of what kind of conditioning his MO required. He had once happened upon a Kung Fu ‘expert’ on one of his expeditions. The poor fool ended up being his only fatality. Luckily for Sean because his modus operandi so clearly showed no violence he was never connected to that death.
The woman before him was now weeping uncontrollably, which was a shame. He would have to wait until she could get control of herself before proceeding with her corruption. Taking the hem of her robe, he tore off a strip, quickly wound it around her legs and tied it. Then tearing off another strip he wound it around her huge staring, now tear filled eyes. Pulling the ends of the sleeves further over her hands, he tied them together behind her back, then buttoned the collar tightly, putting her in a makeshift straight jacket.
Making sure she truly could not see out of the blindfold, he picked her up and spun her around rapidly. It was but a moment before she was dizzy and hopelessly disoriented. Opening the patio door he carried her outside and after spinning her around again placed her on a stone bench. Leaning closely over her he whispered in her ear, warning her she was outside and reminding her how far the fall was from the roof to the sidewalk below. He was telling her what she already knew, that she was hopelessly lost in this space and without vision. If Ed were able to climb to her feet, hopping, lunging and jumping on her tied together feet would as likely as not catapult her over the railing. He suggested she remain very still until he returned.
He also told her he might not ever really leave her side. She would never know if she was alone or being observed. He grinned to himself when he heard her sob.
Quietly he walked back inside and stalked to the bedroom. Looking inside he say Andrew with his back to the door, lifting weights like an automaton, never pausing, clank, creak, clank, creak, clank, creak…
Softly he walked up behind him, raised his ham-like hand and brought it crashing down on Andrew’s temple. The man simply collapsed, never aware something was going to happen.
Sean opened the closet door and was startled at the absence of men’s ties. He wondered how a man who could afford such a penthouse avoided wearing ties. Pulling several leather belts off a rack, the three ties he found and belts off several robes he dropped them on the vanity.
Picking up the unconscious Andrew, Sean sat him in a pink wooden chair in front of the silk covered vanity table. Andrew was trussed securely with each leg secured to a front leg of the chair. Each of his arms was then tied individually to an upright on the chair’s back then he wrapped a long sash from one of the robes around his chest and arms.
Walking into the brightly lit, white tiled bathroom he looked under the sink and as expected found an ammonia based liquid cleanser. Carrying it to the unconscious Andrew, he held the open bottle under his nose. The raw ammonia fumes brought Andrew awake almost instantly. His eyes watering, he began struggling as he came to. It took a moment for Andrew to realize he was tied tightly to the chair. Later, in his own words, he described it as realizing ,’he wasn’t in Kansas anymore’.
When Andrew’s eyes finally focused, Sean returned to the bathroom and opened the dirty clothes hamper to pull out a soiled pair of Ed’s panties. Taking a roll of adhesive tape from the cabinet and carrying the tape and panties behind his back Sean sauntered back to Andrew still tied to the chair.
Once there he reached inside the robe Andrew was wearing, grabbed his right nipple and pinched and twisted it as viciously as he could. With the sudden pain Andrew’s mouth opened to scream. Before a sound came out Sean crammed the dirty panties into his mouth before and slapped a strip of adhesive tape over his mouth, sealing it shut with the panties inside.
Stepping back, Sean looked searchingly at the bound man. Nodding his head he stepped back to him, opened Andrew’s robe, reached inside to his groin and grasped the horrified man’s balls. Squeezing slowly Sean watched Andrew’s eyes trying to pop out of his head, a sudden sweat on his forehead and the tendons standing out from his neck. Grunting to himself when no sound came through the gag, and satisfied he had Andrew’s complete attention.
Stepping back, Sean waited a moment until he was sure Andrew was looking sanely back at him. Then told him to remember what had just happened and that it could happen again any time that Sean chose to do so.
Smiling to himself Sean turned to leave the room. Before stepping through the door he paused to look at the weight set Andrew had been using and guffawed. The man had only one hundred twenty pounds for his lift. Chuckling to himself he left the room, never stopping to consider Andrew was lifting that weight continuously, over and over for hours every day, doing an untold number of repetitions. Over the years he had become so accustomed to the lifting he was lifting that one hundred twenty pounds at least five times a minute, or three hundred times an hour, eighteen tons an hour. Not all at one time, but his apparently weak frame was capable of enormous sustained effort.
Sauntering back outside to the deck opening off the living room Sean inspected the patio. Ignoring the trembling, trussed and blindfolded captive lying on the bench he looked around. It was pretty nice. This side of the building, this area was entirely hidden from anyone this side of the river. Winglike extensions swept from both sides, masking activity on the patio from the sides.
Stretching comfortably Sean silently slipped over beside Ed, reached down and quickly wrapped a hand around the back of her neck. In one sudden heave he lifted her off the bench she was lying on, and dropped her on her feet in front of him.
Without use of her hands to balance herself, with her feet tied together the totally unexpected maneuver would have caused the woman to stumble and fall except for the hand still wrapped around her neck. Instead Sean yanked her up against him where her nipples, erect with fear, rubbed against his rough shirt. Her scream was entirely muffled by the panties still in her mouth.
Chuckling he turned and pushed her to stumble and hop ahead of him back inside the apartment. In effect he was carrying her by the nape of her neck. Ed bruised her toes badly on the doorsill as she stumbled and fell on her face when Sean gave a final shove, pushing her back inside.
Lifting her again to her feet, this time by her hair, Sean walked the blindfolded woman into the kitchen. Quickly spotting a rack of chef’s knives on the counter he selected one, and slipped it inside his belt.
Tiring of tormenting Ed with blindness and the fear of falling, at least for now, Sean untied her feet and took off the blindfold. Pinching her jaws open with one of his huge hands, he pulled the panties out of her mouth, then held her body pressed firmly to his as he proceeded to give her a searing and passionate kiss.
Leaving her hands tied, he sat her on one of the kitchen chairs and proceeded to deepen her nightmare. He told her he would be with her husband and herself for several days. Pulling the super sharp chef’s knife from his belt, he pulled one of her eyelids out by grasping and pulling on the eyelashes. Swiftly, with apparently complete carelessness he sliced through the lashes.
Ed screamed and he drove an elbow deep into her belly. Propping her up until she was again able to breath normally, then stepping back and Sean held his hand out, showing her the remains of the eyelashes he had removed.
Holding the small bits of hair so she could see them, he told her how lucky she was, the last time he had tried that he had sliced off part of the eyelid. He told her how funny it was watching the woman try to shut her eye while he held part of her eyelid in his fingers.
Then he explained the laws she would be living under while he was there. The over reaching directive was that whatever Sean decided he wanted, she was to provide. Any hesitation on her part would cause her pain, any attempt to thwart him would cause her serious pain. If he suspected she was plotting to escape or call in the police he would begin cutting on her and/or husband. He asked her if she knew the Chinese torture of a thousand cuts. When she said no, he explained it was many, many tiny slices into the flesh, all producing blood, all painful, the pain growing with time and the number of slices. That’s what Andrew would be subjected to if she chose not to obey her captor. He told her he had seen a man’s mind disappear with the pain as the cutting continued.
Sean didn’t understand the horror in Ed’s face came from imagining Andrew with a shattered mind. It was worse than imagining him blinded, or even castrated. Andrew was his mind.
Chuckling Sean went on to explain how he would castrate her husband if Ed didn’t make him feel she craved Sean’s attentions. Ed was to consider and act as if Sean was her lover. She was to behave as if she desired him to have and enjoy any part of her he wanted, in any way he desired. She must smile when he fondled her, she must make him believe she was enjoying ALL the things he would be doing to her. Sean smiled strangely when he reemphasized, ALL the things done to her. When he felt he must punish her she was to thank him and apologize for making him do so. All were to be done with a smile on her face.
Then Sean explained many of the things they would be doing would be pleasurable to her, many she had done before. Some she may have never considered or imagined, but she must still display to him how pleasurable they were to her. He guaranteed she would be experiencing many things for the first time. Some of them she might have found repugnant in the past, but now she was to show him how they delighted her.
Some of them she may find painful, but she was to accept them and he was sure she would soon like them and wish to do them again. She was to tell him so. He must never know she did not like anything he was doing to her. If she showed him she was less than pleased with what he was doing, he would find ways to make them significantly less pleasing.
No protests would be accepted, and probably would be punished if noticed.
Sean stepped back from her, and looked her up and down. Then he asked her what she should say, when he was so good as to explain what her role was to be for the next few days.
Ed looked at him blankly for a moment, then comprehension swept over her face and she blurted out a thank you.
Sean chuckled and told her she was a good girl, then told her to stand up and give him a thank you kiss.
Struggling to her feet, she moved to him and held her lips up to be kissed. Sean bent his face to hers, and gently met her lips with his. When his tongue licked at her lips, Ed wanted to pull away but stopped herself. Slowly she opened her lips and mouth to allow him to enter her mouth again. Then she sucked gently on his tongue.
After a moment, Sean pulled his head back and asked her why she didn’t want to kiss him.
Taken aback she stuttered, feeling her stomach churn. Then telling him she did want to kiss him Ed rubbed herself against his while plastering her mouth against hers. Sean asked her why she wasn’t using her tongue to play with his, he wanted to suck on her tongue when she poked it into his mouth. Raising one of his big hands he used one finger and lifted the corner of her mouth, making a smile on her face. It looked like grimace.
It was difficult, but Ed was finally able to give him a tremulous smile, then leaned to him again and initiated a kiss as her stomach churned. Feeling her stomach churn she licked his lips and explored his mouth with her tongue praying she wouldn’t vomit into his mouth. Suddenly she shuddered when he took her lower lip and sucked it into his mouth where he chewed it lightly, sending unexpected and unwanted pleasure through her body. It flashed through her mind that she would be experiencing a lot of unwanted sensation until this monster was gone. Much of it her body was sure to mistake as pleasure.
Leaning back and looking her in the eye he asked her if the shudder was because he made her feel good, and in a little voice she told him it was.
Putting an arm around her waist he pulled her to his side and strolled with her beside him to the bedroom where Andrew was trussed and gagged. It was only as they approached the door that Ed realized she hadn’t been hearing the familiar sound of Andrew’s weights as he exercised. Coming to the door they could hear him grunting with effort and the chair creaking with his exertions.
At the door, Sean pulled Ed around in front of him, and the first thing Andrew saw was his nude wife standing in front of the man who had tied and tortured him. The man’s hands were cupping Ed’s breasts and he was smirking over her shoulder at Andrew. He could see the fear in Ed’s eyes, but didn’t understand the smile that seemed to be painted on her face.
“Ah, my man. I am glad you decided to stay for a while,” Sean said. “We came back here to have a good solid fuck. Your idea, wasn’t it, cutie?” and Sean squeezed Ed’s tits.
“Yes, it sounded like fun,” Ed said, keeping the smile on her face.
Sneering down at Andrew Sean said, “Glad you’re here, you can see how your woman really wants to be loved. She’s been pretty glad to have a man that can actually please her so far. I thought we could have our first fuck here on your bed, kind of show you the way it should be done. I guess that’s mean of me ’cause you won’t be able to satisfy her like me anyway. But enjoy the show. This hot slut of yours told me she wanted to really put on a show, let you know what she really can do, didn’t you honey?”
Slipping his left hand from cupping her left breast he slid it around to cup her right tit. Pulling her hard against him with the other hand he pulled her head back, twisting it to accept his kiss.
Ed thought momentarily if she could refuse kissing him in front of her husband or at least to make her assailant do the work. That thought was gone almost instantly as she felt his hand tighten on her sensitive mammary. The thought of the pain he could cause her made her gasp. Sean of course thought she was being overcome with the sensations to which he was giving her.
She suddenly recognized Sean was not wrong in believing that he was creating sexual passion in her. She could feel it beginning to boil up in her. Ed knew that unless she could escape from his control she was doomed to enjoy the defilement. And there was no immediate escape.
The man knew where to touch a woman, and how to do so to amplify her sensation. To her shame she recognized her body was indeed reacting to Sean’s evil touch.
Her pussy was moistening, and her nipples grew. A sexual blush grew on her nude body clearly seen by her husband. Her stomach churned and she wondered if what the rapist would do when she vomited as she was being fucked.
Suddenly terrified at the consequences of such an act, she resolved to force herself to join with her defiler in her ravishment. God only knew what he would do to her Andrew otherwise.
She only prayed her husband, her true love, could understand.
Despairing, she knew it wasn’t possible. No man could understand and accept the betrayal she was now bent on displaying before her man. But if she didn’t act to make him think she was enjoying this monster’s attentions, what would the monster do to Andrew!
To both the men her moan sounded like arousal.
Sean pulled her legs apart, and began licking the insides of her thighs. Working higher, he took his time. After all he had several days before he would relinquish his new toy. As he felt the pleasure bumps grow on her skin, he would work a little higher.
Alternating between the inside of each thigh he enjoyed the hot woman smell coming to him from her center. He didn’t have to look to know her juice was seeping out of her lips.
Reaching the raised flesh just below her pussy, he covered the area on her left thigh with his entire mouth, sucking gently and tongue the softness. Ed was still, hardly breathing for the gently consuming sensation. Unexpected! She had been braced for the big man to fall on her immediately and jam his over large cock hard into her womanhood. Instead she was feeling soft pleasure and waves of sensation were traveling slowly up and down her body.
Unexpectedly he pursed his lips, and sucked on the tenderness of her inner thigh. When he raised his face from between her legs he grinned triumphantly at her. She was flowing with her juices. Looking down past his grin she could just see a hickey forming on her thigh, and then he turned and covered the same soft area on her other thigh.
Laving it with his tongue while giving her the hot sensation of his mouth on her sensitive skin. Then he kissed and sucked, leaving a matching hickey on that let.
Looking up with a sneer, he stared at Andrew sitting helplessly watching this stranger introducing new sensation to his woman. Andrew had seen several little shudders rock Ed’s small body and knew she was feeling pleasure he had not known how to give her.
Sean placed his palms on the inside of Ed’s knees and slowly pushed her legs farther apart than she could remember there ever being before. His strength was inexorable, she could not resist it, yet slow and steady. No pain was felt, but her center was opened farther than ever before. Her nether lips were gaping open, engorged and wet. She could feel the cold air reaching inside her passage, and shuddered.
Grinning at her again the hated rapist lowered his face and blew a steady stream of air directly into her vagina. It was a sensation she had never experienced, and one she never expected. Another shudder of pleasure rocked her body.
Andrew saw, and perspiration popped out on his face. Ed turned her face to him, and tried to tell him with her expression that this meant nothing to her. Just as she locked eyes with Andrew, Sean licked the tip of his tongue softly, gently but firmly on her distended clitoris. Her eyes bugged out, then snapped shut as her mouth opened in a perfect O. Andrew could see the pink of her tongue wiggling in her mouth, the red inside her mouth. The thought seared into his head that Sean was enjoying the vision of the same reds inside her sex. He groaned in agony.
Sean covered Ed’s entire pussy with his open mouth, sucking hard and drawing a fresh flood of juices from deep within her vaginal passage. Ed groaned and another shudder ran through her.
Slowly he began mouthing and sucking her pussy, not touching inside her outer labia, careful not to again quite touch her clitoris. He always enjoyed a woman’s juices, finding subtle differences in women and sometimes not so subtle. Ed was a sweet musk. And he proceeded to savor it.
Finally giving in, as her hips were moving harder and harder in involuntary waves, and began licking her from her pink rosebud to just under her clit. Licking the liquor of her sex, pulling away at odd times and blowing another cold breath of air deep into her wide-open channel.
The woman’s eyes were now wide eyed, staring unseeing at the ceiling. Her mouth was open, the tip of her tongue poking and licking her gaping lips. She seemed to be unaware of anything not directly connected to between her legs. Her hips were rocking hard, only her punisher’s strong hands kept her attached to his pleasuring, teasing, tormenting mouth.
With both hands holding still holding her legs impossibly open Sean slowly thrust his long tongue into her hole. Wiggling it from side to side, touching where only his soft breath had been before. As she shuddered at the new sensation his tongue reached its deepest penetration. He dipped his head forward and rubbed the tip of his nose on her clitoris, gently firmly moving it side to side while fucking his tongue deeply in and out of her.
Ed exploded in orgasm! Her body rigid, it seemed to strum at the same time. Her mouth open trying to scream, no sound came out. She came and came while Sean continued to fuck her with his tongue. Then he slowly, gently pushed a finger into her nethermost passage and she hit a new plateau in her pleasure.
Raising his face from between her legs he grinned maliciously at Andrew and his anguished face. He loved to have the husbands watch. A woman’s body was wired by nature to respond to this stimulus. There was really nothing she could do to prevent it when she was physically dominated like this. Eventually she would respond. With Ed, she had been emotionally beaten all morning. She had still held out longer than he expected, but he would not tell the tortured couple.
As her cum slowly ran it’s course he moved up her body and just as she was coming back to herself he thrust his big cock slowly up her chute. The sudden unexpected sensation was too much and she exploded again, this time howling softly as she was overtaken by the ecstasy.
Sean began slowly fucking in and out, in and out. Deeply and completely filling her passage he kept her cumming. Ed was flailing her head from side to side, grasping at the bed, rucking up the covers and kicking her widely splayed heels on the bed.
Suddenly her legs wrapped around Sean and her hands grabbed his shoulders as she shuddered again and again.
With Ed in a continual climax, differing only in it’s intensity Sean began fucking her strongly, obviously seeking his own release. Plunging into her depths, then holding himself deep inside her he would rock hard against her entrance. It seemed to Andrew, looking agonizingly on, as if he was trying to force more of himself into her body.
It seemed to go on and on, Ed obviously totally out of control, the passion rocking her small frame, drool running out of her mouth. The huge man completely covered her small body, and every thrust finally seemed to rock the top of her head.
Finally he growled, and shoved his prong as deep into the beauty under him as it would go, and shuddered.
To the watching Andrew it seemed like long, long minutes before the rapist relaxed atop his wife. For long moments the man just lay on her, making no attempt to hold his weight off her. It looked like she wasn’t breathing and her eyes were closed.
Finally Sean stretched his big frame and rolled off the small woman. In doing so, he glanced at Andrew and laughed outright at the hatred fury and frustration he saw on the small man’s face. “Enjoy the show, shrimp? Well, think about it, I think I’ll use the little lady to initiate each of the other rooms of the house just like this. You can sit here and listen to how she’s enjoying it. Bet she likes it when I take her ass, don’t you?”
Laughing out loud he slid off the bed and went to the closet. Grabbing a few more of Andrew’s belts he turned and scooped Ed off the bed. The woman was exhausted, sore and humiliated from her treatment. Truth be told she was too sore to walk well. As he threw her over his shoulder and headed to the living room, she truly understood what a wonderful and considerate lover was her Andrew. She did recognize the sexual charge that was involved with being raped and forced to perform sex. She also knew it was something she would and could never seek out. She dreaded the ordeal that was ahead of her, whimpering softly as he carried her down the hall. She prayed she could keep this animal from destroying her and more importantly her Andrew.
‘God,’ she prayed to herself, ‘please let me convince my love that what I am doing is only a performance to save our lives!’
While Sean was ripping several electric cords off kitchen appliances to use in further restraining Ed, Andrew was finding himself entering a world he had never experienced before. He had read of it, in adventure stories, but had never given a thought to it’s real existence. He found his mind becoming cold, the fury and hatred he felt was still there but it was now a directed force. After Sean had left carrying his poor tortured wife the white-hot broil of his thoughts cooled, and he discovered he could concentrate and think more clearly than ever before.
Something Sean, Ed and even Andrew had never considered was what the daily, hours long exercises Andrew indulged in had done to his small frame. He had concentrated on lighter weights, thus had not built impressive looking muscles. His stamina however, after weeks and months of lifting moderate weights for hours at a time may have been unequaled. And his pure strength was very great.
The one area where he had followed the usual practice of steadily increasing the resistance against his exercise was in increasing his grip. When he found himself sitting at his computer or desk, pondering whatever it is a theoretical mathematician ponders he was squeezing a ball. He had started with a small rubber ball, a child’s toy that was soft and reasonably safe for a child to toss inside. When he had needed to replace them every couple of days because they were bursting when he squeezed, he had gone looking for sturdier and stronger balls for his exercise. For a year now he had used a solid rubber ball. Squeezing it unconsciously while at his desk he had gone through three of them in the last year. He had begun wondering several months ago if he shouldn’t get something that allowed his hand a more complete range of motion he had located a source of balls about the size of a softball, but squeezable. At odd times when he thought of it, he would use one of those balls instead of the solid rubber ones. He could almost close his hand on the ball, so only used one of the larger and softer balls a couple of times a week He had to concentrate when using one so he wouldn’t burst them so quickly.
To put a different face on it, Andrew was able to use his now not inconsiderable strength for an incredible length of time. And his grip was great enough to break a strong man’s hand. He was such a gentle and unassuming man, his abilities were totally unknown. Not only to someone as near to him as Ed, not even to himself. The man, who had made a fortune thinking, just never thought of it.
But now he did.
Sean had tied him to the chair, trusting in its strength to hold the little wimp. Now Andrew took advantage of that. Twisting, he was able to wrap a hand around each of the uprights to the chair back. These uprights were fitted, glued and wedged into the chair seat. Now with a virtually unbreakable grip he began rocking his upper body from side to side while lifting upwards with only his arms and shoulders.
Progress was slow, for the average strong man it would have been impossible. But after half an hour he had loosened the uprights enough that he knew the glue joint was broken, now all he had to do was pull the uprights up out of the chair seat. What made it difficult was the uprights had been driven through the seat, and then wedges tapped into the ends so that Andrew must compress and widen the holes to extract the uprights.
To a casual observer have he appeared to be just sitting. His struggle against the nature of the wood could only be seen in the tendons standing from his forehead. And he was thinking. Wondering how long he had before their captor returned to the bedroom, and trying to block out what he feared was happening to his beloved wife.
His hardest struggle was keeping his sanity against the terrors.
While Andrew was tormenting himself and performing his own Herculean labor, Sean was amusing himself quite differently.
He had dropped Ed on the sofa, and used a belt to fasten one of her hands to a front leg of the sofa. Then stomping into the kitchen he yanked the toaster cord out of the toaster, the power cord out of the microwave and the power cord from the toaster oven. Knotting them together, he returned to the living room grabbed Ed’s free left hand and pushed it behind and under her. Snatching her right ankle, he twisted it under her, and then tied her left hand to her right ankle. He had pulled the cord tightly enough to hurt, but not so tight as to cut off circulation. He stepped back and considered his new toy for a moment, then grunted with satisfaction.
Sure that Ed was trussed securely he started inventorying the liquor cabinet. It was well stocked as would be expected of a home that occasionally entertained black tie, though few of the bottles had even been opened. Selecting an unopened bottle of an obscure single-malt scotch whiskey he sauntered into the kitchen. There he pulled an havarti cheese from the refrigerator, grabbed a box of crackers and strolled back to the living room.
There he opened the whiskey, held it to Ed’s lips, and kept it there until she had swallowed a hefty dose of the 15-year-old scotch. Grinning to himself, Sean knew she soon wouldn’t be able to think clearly enough to plot a way out of her situation even if she was able to get free. He doubted her ability to free herself from the bindings anyway. Settling into Andrew’s favorite recliner he snacked on the cheese and crackers, washing it down with rare single malt scotch. Then he took a nap, sorely needed after the strenuous activities of the past twenty-four hours or so.
For Andrew the next hour seemed like a year, every moment a week. But he kept making tiny progress in working the chair’s back free of the seat. Finally he succeeded.
Which of course left him with his feet tied to the chair legs and his hands still bound together behind him. But now he could see a way to gain his mobility.
First he stood up and leaned forward to examine the lashings around his ankles. Then letting himself fall to the side, Andrew wriggled and contorted until he was able to pull the ankle bindings down and off the ends of the chair’s legs.
Now he could stand and move even if his arms were still bound behind him and the ties still wrapped his lower legs, impeding his mobility. Now he had access to things that could be turned into tools. And it was tools and a brain that enabled man to oust the cave bear, and extinct the saber-toothed tiger.
Shuffling over to his weight bench, he backed up to a spot where the padding had worn away which he had been intending to repair for months. Now he blessed his unusual procrastination. Leaning against the sharp edge he began rapidly, patiently sawing the ties against it. It took time, all of which were filled with his demons.
Particularly as he now heard the captor stirring in the living room. Particularly as he heard noises from his wife, and knew the son of a bitch was raping her again.
Later he was to wonder and marvel at his never once doubting Ed, never once did he wonder whether she was not really enjoying the sex. Never once, though he heard her responses to the bastard’s actions. Heard her responses that said she welcomed the horrors being done to her small and exquisite body. He knew the woman, knew she loved him, knew her to the smallest most remote part of her being. At the time it was a torture to him. Later, after it was over, it saved his sanity.
After twenty minutes of sawing against the sharpness, ignoring the pain of slicing his own flesh with his efforts, one of the ties broke. After that it was only moments until his hands were free and just moments more until all the bonds were off.
Hefting the chair’s uprights, he yanked the ladder back slats off and had the equivalent of a twenty-four inch night stick in his hand. And he was now free to move.
A sudden piercing scream from the living room decided him that he had no more time to plan. He had to take action now.
Clutching the make shift truncheon, Andrew stalked out the bedroom and into the living room. There he saw Ed, her right hand still lashed to the sofa leg but now she had been twisted around to lie with her belly on the sofa arm, her face buried in the sofa cushion. Her left hand was now held in Sean’s huge fist, her legs waving in the air. Sean was standing between her, naked below the waist and with just the head of his prick lodged in Ed’s rectum. Her face was a rictus of agony, her mouth now filled with Sean’s jockey shorts muffling her agonized screams.
Andrew stopped, stunned as he saw the action in front of him. Then half ran to help his tortured woman. Sean seemed unaware of him until he began swinging the truncheon, aiming at the back of Sean’s neck.
Catching movement out of the corner of his eye, Sean turned just enough to avoid the side-armed swing from hitting its aim. Instead it landed with a solid thunk on the point of his left shoulder. He staggered away to his right, eyes suddenly wide at the violence of the strike and his left arm suddenly numb. In turning he did not let loose of Ed. She was dragged around until Sean’s numb left hand was no longer able to hold her and she fell hard flat on her back.
The wind was knocked completely out of her, but she still fumbled to untie her arm from the sofa leg. She was first filled with hope that a rescuer had arrived, but sagged when she recognized Andrew. She knew he would be fearless, but what could this nice and gentle man do against the sadistic animal he now faced.
Andrew, unpracticed in any kind of fighting, let alone the art of using a truncheon, used a wide full arm swing aimed at Sean’s head. The big man casually snatched the club and pulled hard.
Something totally unexpected happened. Sean was fully confident his yank on the club would wrench it easily from the wimp’s hand. Instead, he found himself trying to pull Andrew’s weight, the club remained firmly in his hand. Andrew, seeing and feeling Sean grab the club entered the other half of the world he had found when his mind went beyond white-hot passion and into the clear, calm and lucid world of pure hate. The world suddenly slowed down. Everything the son of a bitch did seemed now to be in slow motion. Every action was easily countered, and even better he seemed to sense his enemies next move before the animal made it. He found it ridiculously easy to plan his next move, based on what Sean would do and his own abilities.
The second time Sean yanked on the truncheon in his hand, he put his entire strength and body behind it. As he did, Andrew leaped toward him. Sean found himself staggering backward, the expected resistance never occurring. He stumbled and tripped over the rug and fell on his back. But he never let go of the club.
Andrew danced over his opponent, and when he landed on the other side of him he tried to pull the club from Sean’s hand but was unable to do so.
Sean scrambled to his feet, keeping tight hold of his end of the two-foot club by which the two men seemed to be attached together. It’s soft pink contrasting with the suddenly ruddy complexions of both men. Sean suddenly leaped at Andrew, sensing that once he was able to lay hands on the small man his weight and bulk alone would win the fight for him. But Ed had now unfastened her hand from the leg of the sofa and as he tried to move on Andrew, she slipped a foot around his ankle. Sean fell hard again, this time landing on his injured left shoulder.
The pain from the shoulder turned his world red for a moment, but he did not release the truncheon.
Carefully but swiftly coming back to his feet, Sean suddenly swung the club to his right, using his body as a fulcrum. Andrew, refusing to release the club was slammed against the wall, temporarily stunning him. But he kept his grip on the club.
Setting his feet, Sean swung the club with Andrew attached back to the left. But his hands were now sweaty, and at the apex of the swing the club slipped from his hand.
Suddenly without the offsetting anchor that was Sean’s grip on the club, Andrew staggered backward. As fate would have it, he staggered backwards at a near run directly out the door to the patio. Still stumbling, the back of his knees caught the bench Ed had been tied on earlier. Falling backward over the bench his shoulders just cleared the top of the two inch iron pipe serving as a safety bar protecting visitors from a thirty story fall to the pavement below. But he still held the club. As he flew over the railing heading for his doom Ed screamed, and Sean involuntarily laughed.
But Andrew hooked the bar with his left hand, and easily held his bodies weight when it came against his the hold on the railing. And he still held the club.
Swinging his body to the left and then back he managed to hook a leg over the bar and rolled back onto the patio. Ed sagged with relief as Sean stared open mouthed at the dead man suddenly back confronting him.
Cat stepping toward him Andrew shifted his grip on the club, now holding it closer to the middle. He had learned about swinging a club. Stepping just out of arms reach of Sean, he suddenly drove the club forward like a spear into Sean’s gut and the huge man’s face turn white.
Sean staggered to his right and back, away from the wall. Andrew again drove the end into his belly, then drove it once again.
But this time, Sean was ready and while he was speared again he managed to latch on to the club. Heaving hard, trying to catch Andrew off guard he pulled with all his might. His size alone was obviously too much for Andrew’s small frame to resist, forget leg strength. But Andrew managed to stretch out his left hand and caught the edge of the doorway. While the hold kept him from flying forward, the force of Sean’s pull partially tore the frame loose.
Now Sean was between Andrew and the forty-story drop, and he judged one more hard pull and Andrew along with the doorframe would disappear over the side and onto the street below. Keeping pressure on the club, he shifted his feet to give himself the most leverage, leaned back and pulled with his shoulders, back and the strength of his legs against the small man and the now broken frame.
For the first time, Andrew let go of the club.
Sean, the monster, stumbled backwards totally out of control. The back of his thighs hit the iron bar, and he slowly leaned backward over the abyss below, frantically waving his arms and screaming. He disappeared over the edge, still clutching the club.
His high pitched almost feminine wail grew fainter until it suddenly stopped.
Andrew and Ed stood frozen, listening to the shriek get softer as it fell further. It had seemed to go on forever.
Andrew looked over to his wife, who was on the verge of collapsing. Taking her in his arms he held her close, then realized she was holding the fireplace poker. There was blood on the end. Gently taking it from her he dropped it on the deck and then led her into their penthouse home.
It was good, knowing he was not the only one fighting for their freedom and love.
Andrew carried his now weeping, nude wife into their apartment and into the bedroom. Pulling underwear out of her drawer he turned to his darling, and sat beside her on the bed.
“Ed, Edwina,” he began, “we have to make some major decisions very fast. Honey, do you want the world knowing what happened here, what you had to go through?”
“Oh Jesus God, NO!” she wailed. “Don’t let them know! Oh please, Andrew! Don’t let anyone know!”
“I never will, my love. But we have just a few minutes to do a cover up as to the extent of this monster’s depredations. Help me get you dressed, is that alright with you?”
She nodded yes, and he helped her slip into clothes as he pulled them out of the closet. He dressed her in a very conservative loosely fitting hostess pantsuit. Handing Ed a pair of her slippers appropriate to street wear, he lay her hair brush beside her.
Giving Ed a kiss on the forehead, he went in search of a phone but as expected their captor had disabled everything he could find. Snapping his fingers, he trotted back to the bedroom and pulled out his seldom used cell phone. For once, the battery was charged.
Then Andrew dialed 911.
— — — — — — — — — — —
The next morning Ed and Andrew were both exhausted. The police had arrived almost immediately after Andrew had dialed 911. A pair of detectives were already in an elevator heading up to the penthouse suite from which the man lying on the street below seemed to have fallen. With Ed and Andrew help it was only minutes before Sean was identified. It was only another few moments unfortunately before the press was trying to swarm over the world renowned Genius of the Piano and her mysterious reclusive husband, one of the modern giants of mathematics.
Ed and Andrew told both the police and the press only the bare facts. They had awakened to find Sean in the apartment, where he had holed up waiting for the search being made for him to die down. He had tied Andrew to a chair in the bedroom, from which he had worked himself loose. Shortly before Andrew managed to free himself, Sean had turned his amorous attentions on Ed who was trying to resist his advances when Andrew came bursting out of the bedroom wielding part of the broken chair. A fight that started in the living room, ended out on the patio. Sean had fallen backward over the railing, falling to his death on the concrete sidewalk 40 stories below. Only unbelievable luck had prevented Andrew from being the one going over the railing. Ed had tried to assist Andrew, but was afraid of striking her husband so mostly cried and wrung her hands.
The police were really easily convinced, as the dead man was not someone they wished to preserve. Privately they were glad to a man that the small man had somehow managed to do away with one of their current headaches.
The press was a different matter. They wanted to make heroes of the two, which horrified both of them. That type of publicity they did not need. They hadn’t been able to rid themselves of the last reporter until after 2AM.
Alone at last, Ed had broken down in tears. Andrew had held her in his arms the rest of the night. The first thing on Andrew’s agenda the next morning was contacting a therapist, reputedly the best in the city, to begin helping Ed immediately. The man they contacted turned out to be a devotee of Haydn, and would have been willing to forego his fee to treat the woman he considered to be the greatest living performer of Haydn’s piano works.
Over the next several months Andrew found Ed clinging to him, afraid to go out without her husband accompanying her. To an outsider the sudden loss of independent action may sound irritating, but Andrew seemed to grow with his wife’s need of him. Instead of resenting it, he welcomed the closeness.
With direction from the therapist, Ed learned to channel her need to healthy love for her man. In both the long and the short run, the marriage was strengthened. As were both man and wife in unexpected ways.
Having been exposed to the horrors and unexpected and unwanted wonders of rough sex, rough love she developed a deeper understanding of the human passion. She lost her fear of losing herself in passion having learned the human being, maybe most specifically the human female actually thrived on it. As much as she hated Sean and his actions, she learned a deeper understanding of her own capacity for passion. Before her next scheduled world tour, Ed had steeped herself in Mozart’s and Beethoven’s piano music. She was well on her way to gaining immanence as an interpreter of those two, whose passion so much contrasted to her already profound knowledge of Haydn. Her concerts became a wondrous experience and where they had been well attended, they soon seemed to have to fight off crowds of admirers where ever she played.
Andrew emerged from the trial with a sudden and until now unknown self-confidence. Before he had been the shy genius recluse, he now found himself enjoying consulting with his peers, few though they were. His impact on the arcane world of mathematics had been felt before, now it was earth moving.
When Ed next went on concert tour, her husband accompanied her. They became inseparable wherever they went. And Andrew enjoyed meeting his colleagues during the day, and attending Ed’s concerts in the evening.
And the passion in their love seemed reborn, also. Both had seen the latent passion Ed held within her, both had seen the horror rape was to this wisp of a woman. Somehow Andrew was able to grow to dominate in their love making, while maintaining his gentleness and care for his lovers well being.
When children came, they were blessed with their parents, and the love in the family.