Monday 21 July 2014

Monday, July 21, 2014 -

Tales of Chastisement: Volume 2

by Rick Marlowe
Published: Jun 20, 2014
Words: 24,629
Category: general
Orientation: M/F
Click HERE for further details and purchase options.
OPENING EXTRACT
Finding Emma

If there was anything Emma feared, it was looking back on her life, years from now, and realizing that she had never really lived. For her first nineteen years, her entire life had seemed, well, ordinary. So when she met Friedrich, who courted her, showering her with gifts, and promised her a life among the elite of Europe, she was more than ready to accept. Her parents were horrified. After all, Friedrich, at forty-eight, was a year older than her father.

True love, it seemed, had blossomed on the beach during a December vacation in Bermuda. Anticipating their reaction, Emma had been evasive when talking to her parents about the guy she was seeing - for tennis, sailing, snorkeling, dinner and dancing. When they found out the truth - about Friedrich's age, that is - they forbade her to see him. She pouted for the final two days before her return to the States.

Her first act when she was safely back in the relative freedom of her college dorm was to call Friedrich, who briefly took up residence in a nearby hotel. There followed a whirlwind courtship that culminated in a springtime engagement announcement. Begrudgingly, Emma's parents accepted their daughter's unwelcome choice, and began planning an early September wedding. Interspersed throughout this period were quick get-away trips - to Acapulco, to the French Riviera, and to New York City.

Friedrich was a Swiss businessman, with industrial and real estate interests inherited from his father. Emma had no concept of the extent of his holdings when she signed the prenuptial agreement he produced just a week before the wedding. The reception, which her parents insisted on financing without Friedrich's help, was no small affair, but it paled in comparison to some of the parties she had already attended with her fiancé.

Following a honeymoon in the Greek islands, Emma's new husband took her for the first time to his home - now their home - in Switzerland. It was a large chalet, very old, overlooking the city of Zurich. While a valet unloaded the luggage from the car, Friedrich gave her a tour of the house. So many rooms, furnished with such elegance!

Emma learned, much to her surprise, that she and Friedrich would have separate bedrooms. When she queried him on the matter, he dismissed it with a reference to European customs and his restlessness at night (which she had indeed experienced). Besides, he assured her, his visits to her room would be frequent enough that she might soon start locking the door.

It wasn't until she returned for a second time to the parlor that she noticed a woman seated in a chair by the window, reading. The woman, roughly Friedrich's age and quite tall, rose to give Friedrich a warm kiss on the cheek. Only then did she turn her attention to Emma, whom she studied carefully from head to toe, before speaking, in heavily accented English.