Chapter 1

Thanks to the proofreading genius of Papakilo14, now with 99% fewer mistakes!

Joe tucked his rapidly shrinking cock back inside his trousers and zipped up, staring down at the raven-haired beauty who knelt at his feet. Though her head was still tilted down, he could see she was peering up at him through her long bangs and he was captivated by her eyes. In them he could see hope, a touch of fear and, most importantly, love.

He stroked her hair for a moment, and couldn’t help but smile as she rested her head on this thigh, almost purring.

“I’ll be home in a couple of hours, Marta. I can stop and pick up dinner on my way home, would you like that?”

Marta didn’t say a word, she never did, but Joe could feel her nod against his thigh and, with a small sigh, pulled away and left the house.

As his car pulled out of the drive, he still marveled at how he, a widowed geek, had come to have ... well, there was no other term for it, though it made him feel terribly guilty, a sex slave.

Thirty-five and widowed, he had lived alone since his wife had died two years before. A lonely college boy who had never even kissed a girl, he had been shocked, and honored, when his late wife and chosen him and announced that she was going to marry him, that he should resign himself to his fate with a smile.

Oh how he had smiled.

Cristy had been enrolled in the same college and they had met at the library. She had walked up to the table where Joe sat, his nose buried in his books, and sat down without a word, laying her own books out across from his. Joe hadn’t even realized she was there, at first, until she had slipped a sheet of paper over the top of the page he had been reading.

Startled, he looked up owlishly, first at the radiant smile of the girl across from him, then rapidly scanning the room to see just who she was smiling at in the first place.

Confused, he looked down at the errant piece of paper and only then noticed the writing.

“My name is Cristy, and I think I would like to get to know you.”

Joe read the note. Then he read it again, glanced at the beautiful face, and read the note a third time.

“Um...” he started, his eyes flicking from the note to Cristy’s face, and back again. “I think you ... er ... dropped this?” he finished on a high note, as if not sure whether he was asking her or telling her.

“Oh no,” Cristy replied, her smile becoming, impossibly, even brighter, “I most carefully set it there in front of you, certain that you were not going to introduce yourself. You seemed most intent on your book.”

Joe, quite honestly, was dumbfounded. Again he scanned the room, certain that this was some kind of prank. It was a joke being played on him by his fellow students, none of whom he counted as friends.

Joe had faced his fair share of bullies and pranks in high school, and had hoped he had left all of that behind him when he entered college. Still, there was a chance he was wrong, and it never paid to be discourteous. He screwed up his courage and tried to sound as nonchalant as possible

“Hello Cristy, my name is Joe Morgan. I am very pleased to meet you. I hope you will excuse my bad manners, I was quite involved with my studies. I am, well, I am not used to being approached by beautiful women and I find myself at a loss.”

Joe studied Cristy’s expression as he spoke, hoping for some sign to indicate if she was buying his act. He was stunned when Cristy cocked her head slightly, winked at him and grinned.

“That’s quite all right, my dear fellow,” she began, recognizing Joe’s bravado for what it was, “I simply had to meet you. You see, mother told me that college was the perfect place for a well brought up young lady to find a husband. When I saw you sitting there, studying so assiduously, I thought to myself, “There is a handsome fellow who is serious about getting ahead.” and I plucked up my courage and came straight over.”

Joe, goggle-eyed, his jaw hanging open, felt himself start to grin, and it quickly turned into a giggle, then an outright laugh.

Cristy, losing her battle to keep a straight face, laughed just as hard and reached across the table, grabbing Joe’s hand and shaking it vigorously.

When the laughter died, Joe looked in wonder at his hand, still being held lightly by the blond beauty across from him, and was smitten.

Joe and Cristy became an instant item and stayed that way all through college. It was only a couple of months into their relationship when Cristy had given him ‘The Speech’ (it had always been so, capitalized and bold, in his memory) about marriage.

“Joe Morgan, listen closely to me. I love you with all my heart, and I am going to marry you. You might as well just smile and enjoy it because you haven’t any choice in the matter. Now that we have that straight, I am so very tired of waiting and I want you. Now.”

Cristy had taken Joe’s hand and pulled him to her bed and given him her virginity that night, taking his in the process.

They married a week after graduation, attended by a few close friends and Cristy’s family. Joe was an orphan, his parents had passed away when he was a teen and he was estranged from his more distant relatives, so he felt doubly blessed by the warm embrace of Cristy’s relatives.

They had been very much in love, and he was absolutely devastated when, less than 10 years later, Cristy had been diagnosed with cervical cancer and withered away in less than a year.

Joe was almost inconsolable and practically locked himself away in the house they had built, wandering from room to room, his gaze passing over the photos and mementos of their too short time together.

They had no children, in hindsight he supposed the cancer was probably the reason, and he credited Cristy’s family with saving him from himself. He had, once he had laid his wife to rest, given serious consideration to taking his own life.

Her relatives, who loved Joe as much as Cristy had, saw his pain and made sure that there was always someone there to look after him.

It took a year and a half for Joe to lift his head, bury his pain and start to live again. He spend a solid month packing away Cristy’s things, donating most of them. He stored away their mementos, their shared treasures and all but one of their photographs.

He kept a single picture of Cristy, one he had taken himself on their honeymoon. In it, Cristy was smiling, her eyes sparkling, the wind ruffling her golden locks as she stared out at the ocean. It was, in his mind, the perfect image of the woman he wanted to remember.

As time passed, Joe buried himself in his work. He took a position with his firm that allowed him to work at home and remodeled part of the house. He built himself a high-tech office in the room that had, originally, been planned as a nursery and there he spent most of his days and evening.

His only real contacts with the outside world were over his phone and computer. He was an active member of several web-based communities and hobbies, and of course he was on the phone all day with his work colleagues. The only times he left his house were to run errands and to visit his in-laws.

Joe would make it a point to, at least once a week, visit Cristy’s relatives. They loved him and were a tangible link to his late wife. In return, he loved them back and made sure that he was available whenever they needed something.

His sister-in-law lived with her aging mother and he was the go-to guy for leaky faucets, squeaking hinges, hanging pictures and other domestic chores normally assigned to the man of the house. It made Joe feel useful and he loved puttering around their home. His mother-in-law, completely unlike the stereotype one usually associates with the title, was a wonderful woman who doted on him.

It all started three months ago, Joe had been hard at work, trying to find a bug in some code he had been writing, when his office phone rang. He answered it distractedly, thinking it was a work call.

“Joe Morgan, Fields & Pierce Consulting. May I help you?”

“Joe, it’s Jackie. Can you come over this evening?”

Jacquiline was his sister-in-law and Cristy’s older sister. A vivacious spinster and lifelong lesbian who looked after her mother, she had never been interested in marriage and never failed to have a lover, or three, on the hook at any one time. She was a larger than life character, and a wonderful, caring woman.

“Sure Jackie, no problem. Is it that faucet in the outside bathroom again?”

Jackie’s house had a small pool in the back yard and she had installed a bathroom, accessible from the outside for guests, so they wouldn’t have to track water across her living room. The faucet had sprung a leak the week before and Joe had stopped by to fix it, though he had told her she would need to replace it soon.

“No, Joe, it’s something else, but I really need you to come over this evening. I don’t want to talk about it on the phone. Sorry for sounding mysterious, but you will see when you get here.”

“No problem, I’ll stop by about 6, ok?”

“Thanks Joe, you are a doll! I will see you then. Plan on staying for dinner, Mom is making Lasagna!”

Joe was still hard at work, chasing that elusive bug in his code when 5:30 rolled around, but he set it all aside and shut down for the day. A quick shower, some respectable clothes (he loved working in shorts, a t-shirt and flip-flops) and he was out the door with time to spare.

Jackie and her mother lived about ten miles away, in a reclaimed and revitalized neighborhood that was the known for its bohemian residents. Artists and musicians, dreamers, schemers and, inevitably, the hip place for the LGBT crowd. Even with evening traffic, he was at the door five minutes early.

“Joe!” Jackie gave him a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “Thanks for coming over. Can I get you something to drink?”

Joe just shook his head and walked over to his mother-in-law, giving her a kiss on the cheek as well, then flopped down on the couch.

“No, I am ok. I’ll wait until dinner”

Jackie sat down on a chair across the small coffee table from Joe and her face was unusually grave.

“Look Joe, I have a favor to ask and it’s a big one. It’s kind of unusual too, so hear me out first then I will try to answer your questions.” She sat for a moment, obviously gathering her thoughts and then continued.

“You know that I do volunteer work at the shelter, right?” Jackie looked up, waiting for his response. She spent several hours each week as a volunteer counselor at a Womens’ shelter in the city. The shelter was a place for battered, abused and at-risk women, somewhere they could stay and feel safe. They would get medical care, professional counseling, job training and even assistance in hiding if the situation warranted.

Joe nodded, not saying anything, wondering where she was going with this.

“There is a young lady named Marta who was brought in by the police department. They were concerned that she had been raped or abused, and that she really belonged in a psych ward, but there were no available beds at the county hospital. You know how strapped they are for funding these days.”

“Anyway, they brought her to us, but just being in the shelter made things worse for her. She went almost catatonic, weeping and curling up in the fetal position on the lobby floor. She would start shaking if any of the nurses so much as touched her. It was very puzzling, and the female police officers who brought her to us confirmed that she had the same reaction to them.”

“Funny enough, it was the UPS guy that helped us figure out, at least partially, what the problem might be. He showed up, waited outside like he always does since he knows what we do and knows he is less threatening on the far side of the security doors. When Marta saw him, she starting crawling toward him, almost mewling like a little child.”

Joe stared at Jackie, shocked at what he was hearing, and saw tears rolling down her cheeks.

“Joe, we brought in Dr. Wallace, who looks like Santa Clause, or what Santa would look like if he were a dwarf since he is maybe five feet tall. Marta latched on to him like a limpet and only a shot of tranquilizer got her relaxed enough to sleep. He moved her to a private facility and, over the last few weeks, he has come up with a theory, though it can’t have been easy. Joe, she doesn’t talk. Not a single word in almost a month. She can talk, her vocal cords work, but she doesn’t.”

Joe could see the pain and shock in Jackie’s face as she recalled the memories. He kept silent, just nodding to encourage her to continue.

“Dr. Wallace thinks that she has been abused, but by women. Mother, sister, aunt, something like that. She had several medical issues when she arrived, malnutrition and dehydration the most serious. She had lice, rope burns on her wrists and ankles, cigarette burns on her arms and legs, and even on her breasts. Someone tortured that poor girl and he is convinced that it was a woman, or a group of women.”

“Marta is getting better, but the private facility is pushing to get that bed space back for a paying client. There is simply no way she can go to the shelter, surrounded by women. She would relapse and might never recover. She need a quiet, stable place to heal, to let her relax, and it has to be free of women.”

Joe looked at Jackie, shocked and dismayed. He could see it coming, and he was almost speechless.

“You can’t mean...”

“Joe, we know you. We know what a good, kind and honest man you are. If this was a year ago, we would never even have thought about it, but you have had some time to heal and I know you can do this. When I described you, and your situation, to Dr. Wallace, he thought it was a great idea.”

“You live alone in that big old house. You are quiet, thoughtful and kind, and she needs that. She needs you, Joe. Not to be a father, or brother or even a lover, but to be a supportive friend.”

“This is an insane idea, Jackie!” Joe sputtered, floored that she would even suggest such a thing.

“You said you would hear me out and I am not finished.” Jackie continued, holding his gaze until she could see him relent.

“Marta needs a place to be. A place to feel safe, a place to discover who she is. Joe, they had to teach her to tie shoelaces, for god’s sake! She’s nineteen years old and she could hardly dress herself.”

“When we, the Doctor and I, were discussing her with the other councilors and he laid out the requirements, you came to mind. I didn’t volunteer you, in fact I didn’t say a word. I went home and chewed it over, tried to consider every angle, lost a lot of sleep before I came to the conclusion that it would be good for her, and good for you.”

Jackie saw the wounded look in his eye and knew he was offended by the very notion of another woman in the house he had shared with Cristy. She also saw the confusion, and she knew his next objection before he even spoke.

“What do I know about a damaged teenager? How am I supposed to help her when not that long ago I couldn’t help myself.” He paused for a moment, his voice dropping to almost a whisper. “How can you ask me to bring a woman...” his voice trailed off and he stared at his feet.

Jackie reached across and tapped Joe on the knee, and when he looked up, “Joe, think about it, ok? Christy gave her time at the clinic too, and she cared deeply about the women we help there. What would she want you to do?”

Jackie sat back and waited, watching as Joe’s internal struggle played out across from her. His thoughts were written in his expressions, in the tension of his shoulders and the white knuckled fingers gripping his knee.

Jackie loved Joe with no reservations. If she had had even the slightest interest in men as other than friends, she might have ... well, it didn’t matter. She knew that she was the wrong person for him, and fooling herself would have led to even more heartache in his life.

She had known from an early age that men were creatures of hard angles, flat planes, straight lines and barriers. They fascinatingly complex and simple, all at once, and she knew in her soul that they were not for her. She wanted soft curves, yielding surfaces, open boundaries and the intimacy that only another woman could provide.

Still, as much as she missed Cristy, and every day she seemed to miss her more, she loved Joe. She had been there to hold him when her sister had died, seen the torment in his eyes and known with every fiber of her being that he was a man riding the ragged edge. She saw how close he had come and she had vowed then to do what her sister would have wanted, save him.

Joe was a rangy six footer, a touch heavy, but he had the frame to carry a few extra pounds and make it look good. He had started going bald early but had zero vanity and had simply shaved his head ... and he made that look good too. He should be out there by now, looking for someone to fill the hole in his life.

Instead, she had been watching as he withdrew from the world, living inside his house and only leaving for supplies, or to come to her aid.

Hell, it had taken her almost an hour to figure out how to break that damn faucet in the outside bathroom, all to give him something to do!

This might be just the ticket for him. No, not as a romance match, Marta surely didn’t need that and Joe didn’t need damaged goods. But caring for someone, stepping outside himself to do for another human being, having a woman in the house in any capacity, couldn’t help but be good for him.

“Joe, you do not need to make a decision tonight, I just want you to think about it. Consider it.” Jackie stood and grabbed his hand, pulled him up from the couch and pointed him towards the kitchen.

Her mother had been sitting at the counter, watching and listening. She nodded at Jackie, and winked. Feed a man, pamper him a bit and even the biggest problems could be worked out.

Joe didn’t remember the drive home and he crawled into bed, his mind still awhirl with the monumental task that had been asked of him. He lay there for a long time before sleep came.

The morning sun, streaming through the blinds on his bedroom window brought him awake. Stretching and yawning, he padded to the bathroom and started the shower, determined to not think about last night until he had some coffee and maybe some food in his belly.

Joe stopped in front of the mirror and examined himself, looking into his own eyes and asking ... Could I? Should I? He knew that Cristy would have urged him to help, but she was gone and he was alone. He didn’t know if he could deal with another person in the house he had had all to himself for so long.

A long, hot shower, several cups of coffee and a bowl of cereal later, he didn’t have an answer.

As Joe sat down at his desk and tried to work, his mind kept worrying the problem until he threw his hands up in exasperation. Switching from his work station to his home station, he starting searching the web for information. Teens, young women, victims of abuse, treatment and care. He needed information to make an informed decision.

Hours passed and he found himself fascinated by the flood of data available. Joe read and read and when he finally sat back, he knew that he had already decided and was dithering. He knew he had to help, but he was still afraid.

Sighing, he stood and stretched the kinks out before reaching for the phone.

“Jackie? I’ll do it. I don’t know how, and I am still not at all comfortable with any of this, but I am willing to help.”

Joe was scheduled to meet with Dr. Wallace, Jackie and Marta on Saturday, just two days from now. He had a lot to do before then.

First things first, he had to make some changes around the house. He wandered from room to room, cleaning and picking up the detritus of bachelorhood. Forgotten books on tables, a stray sock that had somehow found its way under the bar, his work boots in the spare bathroom.

He cleared his winter clothes out of the bureau in the spare bedroom, took the half-dozen boxes of ‘stuff’ he had put in the closet and moved them to the garage. He changed the sheets, opened windows to air the place out and added towels and assorted supplies to the bath. A hundred little things that Cristy used to take care of, and that he had let slide.

The spare bedroom had been a project for his late wife. She had wanted a room to decorate by herself, from ceiling to floor. It was a quintessentially girly bedroom with soft pastel paint, 50’s era repop furniture and decorations. It even had a neon-circled clock on the wall that had once hung in a local bowling alley.

To all of this, Joe added some modern conveniences. A flat screen TV for the wall and a DVR for the cable service and a new phone he would have connected to a separate line. The guest bath was right next door, though not en suite like the master bedroom and the only other rooms on this side of the house were his exercise room and the laundry. His bedroom and his office were on the far side of the house.

She would have all the privacy she wanted.

When Joe had started working from home, he knew he would need a way to stay active or end up looking like Jabba the Hut. He had cleaned out Cristy’s office and turned it into a little gym. There was a treadmill facing a flatscreen on the wall, an exercise bike, a stair-stepper and even a small situp bench with some dumbells. Mirrors along one wall finished the look and he took the time to make sure everything was ship shape and working smoothly.

Joe’s next tasks were simpler but he had to make several stops. First to the pharmacy for a new toothbrush, toothpaste, combs, brushes, a makeup mirror and so on. His towels and washcloths were plain white so he didn’t need much in the way of linens, but he did stop by the hardware store and bought a keyed entry set for the spare room. He wanted her to be able to secure her space if she felt the need.

Once he had it installed, all he had to do was wait.

And worry.

On the fateful Saturdy, Joe met Jackie at Dr. Wallace’s office and got a very thorough briefing on what he might expect. Since Marta still wasn’t talking, they couldn’t really be sure of anything. She would communicate with nods, shakes of the head and shrugs. Non-verbal cues helped, but real communication would be needed to make therapeutic progress.

For now, Joe was just to take things day by day. Be a strong, supportive presence and help her to feel safe. She was prone to crying jags and despondency, and the doctor gave him some tips on how to distract her, chivvy her out of her depression.

Joe explained how he had prepared her a space of her own, complete with privacy and a locking door, and was pleased when the doctor congratulated him on forsight.

“One thing that we need to discuss, Joe.” The doctor looked grave, and held Joe’s gaze.

“From what I have seen of you, and what Jackie has told me, I am sure that this is not going to be an issue, but I would be remiss if I did not at least address the elephant in the room. This is a fragile young lady who had obviously been through some severe trauma. She may act out in some non-obvious ways and that may include a sexual component.”

“It is not unusual for an abused person to seek out a savior and project emotions onto that person. They may become infatuated, or they could even feel that such behavior is needed to keep the person near them. Please don’t take offense when I say this, but I don’t want you to be that person.”

“Eventually, when she is healthier and happier, I would be overjoyed if she were to fall in love, and do things normal girls of her age would do, but she is a long way from ready today. Just be there for her, be a father figure if needed. Provide her with structure and, as paradoxical as it may sound, as little stress as possible.”

Joe nodded to show his understanding, but couldn’t help feel just a little offended. He wouldn’t dream of taking advantage of a girl in Marta’s position. He knew the doctor was just doing his job, but damn it, Joe had integrity too!

From the Doctor’s office to the private facility where Marta had been staying took only long enough for Joe to get nervous again.

He followed Wallace and Jackie into the lobby, and waited while the doctor fetched his charge. Wallace returned shortly, leading a tiny, painfully thin girl by the hand and carrying a small valise in the other.

Marta was all of five feet tall and if she weighed more than 90lbs, Joe would eat his own boot. Even through the opaque blouse she wore, Joe could tell that her ribs were painfully evident, and her joints almost seemed to big for the limbs to which they were attached.

Her hair was raven black, but lank and stringy, hanging down to her shoulders in back with long bangs obscuring her face in front. He could just see a glint, as if she was carefully peering through her bangs, using them as a barrier between her and the world around her.

She shuffled behind the doctor, her feet never rising higher than absolutely needed to move forward. She wore a pair of plain, leather sandals and Joe could see that her toenails, and her fingernails, were chipped and chewed.

Jackie moved quietly over to the side and kept her gaze on the windows, almost afraid to breathe in case it scared the girl. Joe, on the other hand, stepped slowly forward and stood slightly more than arms length away.

“Marta, I am Joe, and it’s really nice to meet you. Doctor Wallace told you I was coming to see you?”

The waif of a girl looked first to Wallace, as if seeking permission, then, eyes cast toward the ground, her head bent, slowly nodded at Joe.

“Marta, Doctor Wallace thought that we could be friends, that maybe we could help each other. See, I live all by myself in this big house and it gets a little lonely there. I was told that you need a place to stay, and I was thinking that you might like to come and help keep that big place from feeling so empty.”

Joe waited, but Marta didn’t move. She gave no indication that she had even heard a word he had said. He pressed on anyway.

“You would have your own bedroom, and your own bathroom, and as much space and privacy as you could want. You even get your own TV and your own telephone. Does that sound like something you might like?” Joe was starting to worry that she wouldn’t respond at all, and that his trip here was doomed.

He was immensely gratified to see that Marta had nodded, just once, but it was definite.

“Would you like to come home with me? I won’t make you, you know. It is completely up to you.”

Marta looked at Doctor Wallace again, but his face was placid and unconcerned, evincing neither approval nor disapproval, just polite interest.

Marta seemed to freeze for a moment, then nodded a Joe again before shrinking back a bit, as if she feared she had been too forward.

Wallace stepped forward and, because he still lightly held Marta’s hand, encouraged her to step up as well. He handed Joe the bag he carried, then he placed her thin hand into Joe’s, then stepped aside.

Joe had never felt so afraid of his own strength before. Her fingers were cool, and so very, very thin that he was afraid the slightest touch would break something. Applying just the tiniest bit of pressure, he moved his, and her, hand toward the door. It was more of an invitation than it was a tug, and Marta accepted.

Marta looked back only once, and Doctor Wallace smiled at her.

“We will see each other again soon, my dear. I will ask Joe to bring you to see me in a couple of weeks, after you have settled in. We still have a lot to talk about, you and I.”

Without acknowledging the doctors comment, Marta turned and followed Joe out the door.

Once Marta was safely ensconced in the passenger seat, she immediately locked her door and seemed to slump, a lot of the tension leaving her body in a whoosh of air.

Joe noticed and took note, but didn’t say anything until they were on the road.

“So...” he temporized, searching for a safe topic. “It’s only about a 30-minute drive home,” he paused, wondering if that was the right word to use, “Are you hungry? Thirsty? We could stop and get something to eat.”

He watched Marta in the corner of his eye, his attention mostly on the road. He saw her twitch and lean forward a bit at the mention of food, then turn slightly away, her gaze taking in the passing scenery. His mind churning, he though she wanted the food, but didn’t want to stop. That she locked the door as soon as she was seated spoke volumes, he just hoped he was translating correctly.

“Tell you what, let’s not stop anywhere, we can just use the drive-through and not have to leave the car.” He had to hide a grin as he watched the girl. She had tensed again when he started speaking, but had actually turned toward him, just a bit, when he said they could stay in the car.

He could see a bit more of her face from this angle, and he thought she might actually be cute with a few more pounds on her lean frame, filling out her hollow cheeks.

Ordering food at the drive-through was a process all on its own. He read through the menu, trying to gauge her desire by her reactions.