Informed Consent Read Online Free Page A

  Right when I was sure I’d die if he didn’t…” She drew a deep
breath and laughed.   “He said ‘Are
you going to be good from now on?’   He made me tell him I’d be his good girl.”
      Denise blew out a breath.   “What a bastard.”
    Samantha raised one
shoulder and laughed.   “I wrote it
off as sex play.   Damn hot, but
play.”
    Denise blew her
nose.  
    “So what happened after
that?   Did he start paddling you
for random things? How did you explain it to yourself?   Didn’t you feel like an idiot?”
      “Maybe at first.   After a while no.   Things got pretty interesting. We had
some intense skirmishes here and there at the beginning. I left him more than
once. But things settled down as we adjusted.”
    “You adjusted.   He bullied, you adjusted.”
      “No.” Samantha shook her head.   “That’s not fair to him.   He always, always , listens to me, even if he doesn’t change his mind, and
there are plenty of times too when he does accept my way about stuff.
    “Face it Denise, all
couples have to give and take.   Usually there’s a ton of fighting, until someone gives in for some
reason; maybe a sense that the fighting has to stop before anyone gets badly
hurt. Or maybe because it sucks for kids to live with feuding parents.   Then what?   Bitter feelings and resentment from the person who gave in.”
      “You don’t resent him getting his way in
the end?   I’m pretty bitter when a
man thinks he can boss me around.”   Denise stalked around the room. “How do you live with yourself?”
    “But he can boss me around.   He’s a foot taller and outweighs me by
eighty pounds.   Besides, I’m
utterly incapable of living without him.   I’m totally miserable without him, so I accept it.   I tried the doing without him, because
yeah it was uncomfortable at first. Once you accept it though, you’ll find out
you have a ton of power over him.   It’s simply in different spheres.”
    Denise looked skeptical.
    Samantha laughed. “I
know.   Kind of whoo-whoo…?”
    “Very.”
    Samantha shot Denise a
keen look.   “Here’s a piece of
advice.   Take it or leave it. About
today?   Confess everything.   Immediately.”
     

 
    Chapter Six
     
      Denise wasn’t going to confess a darned
thing. Obviously, she needed to be a heck of a lot more careful.   Her plan had been to fly under the
radar with Andrew, staying as much out of his way as possible, not giving him
any reasons for pitching a fit. If she could avoid it and still live with herself.  
    Well, she’d certainly
screwed that plan up. One kid never made it to school.   She’d driven without a license and been
pulled over by the police.   Finally, depending on your point of view, she had or had not attempted
to bribe an officer of the law.   Hardly stealth mode.
      She needed to make arrangements, today,
to get the boys to school regularly.   Meanwhile, she’d hope and pray Andrew didn’t discover William had missed
class today.   And she could cross
her fingers the man didn’t make a habit of reading the police reports and no
one he knew did either.
      Her chances there were pretty damn
slim.   Some busy body always read
the police reports.
      Possessing an inheritance made it the
transportation issue easy to solve.   A few calls later and she’d hired someone to transport the boys to
school.   Hopefully the agency did
background checks and wouldn’t assign a member of Sicko Man Loves Young Boys to drive her brothers. That problem solved, she moved upstairs only to discover
that William was no longer in his room.   Denise pulled her cell phone out of her jeans and punched in the speed
dial for her oldest, younger brother.   A blast of rap coming from under the bed told her wherever William was,
his phone wasn’t.   Why have a phone
if you’re not going to carry it?Alternatively, why carry it if you don’t want
people to reach you?
      She peered under the bed for the heck