Beast of Venery Read online

  I H Lawless

  BEAST OF VENERY

  Isabell is a Swedish-bred tale teller living in sunny California since her early twenties. She always dreamed about being a rock star and makes it onto the Hollywood scene; she even wrote more than one hundred rock and pop songs. Out of the blue she got hit by the big love train and ended up marrying an oil operator and is now happily married and dots around the house with their child and two cats. Surviving on vanilla flavored coffee when the days seem too long she has made it very clear that baby nap-time is mommy's writing and reading time.

  Isabell's first book, “Beast of Venery”, was published on Amazon Kindle and stays true to her favorite genres: steamy romance and criminal suspense.

  She is bilingual, using English as her second language, but get's the grammar and slight text editing done by a nice oil operator she knows.

  Beast of Venery

  Isabell H Lawless

  Printed in the United States of America

  Isabell H Lawless 2014

  Acknowledgement

  Thank you, dear husband, for reading through this book, looking in nooks and crannies for things that were written incorrectly, or plainly didn't make sense. You're my beta-reader extraordinaire. I owe you a twelve pack of Pabst.

  Love you.

  "Always have an opinion,

  Don't take any crap,

  Revenge is sweet,

  Oh, and never leave the table empty handed."

  - My Mom

  Prologue

  “So, it seems like I still have your email address. You haven't changed it. Of course, you'll write me back. I know how I make you feel, and I know you'll respond to me.

  So, how's life been treating you? Bet you've had a pretty hard time without me. No one to show you the real life and the real world. You'll never be able to cope on your own without my guidance in life.

  Why else wouldn't you have fulfilled those dreams of yours and become a re-known chef and written that cookbook you were so stuck on writing when you were with me. I haven't found that book anywhere. And I've searched for it. Believe me. Searched for your name. Searched for anything related to you. Seems like you don't have anyone to push you now. But you already know that. That's probably why you haven't tried to block my email address, and that's why I'm still able to contact you. But you know that too. Deep down you know you need me.

  You've always been a little mama's girl, running to mommy and daddy for advice and comfort when things get rough, and now you think you'll be able to handle life on your own. I mean completely on your own. It amazes me that you think you can do that.

  Because even with his, whatever his name is, help you'll never know anything about life, and what it is to actually have and hold a real job, or have someone to inform you of how little you actually know about everything around you.

  Yeah, you're right, I'm smiling and shaking my head when I'm typing this because I know I'm right, and I know YOU know I'm right.

  You'll never survive without me, sweetheart. Never manage without me. Never succeed without me. I'll see you soon. “

  Print out, or delete? Should she print it out for future records to make sure she'd have some proof of his threats, or delete it and pretend it never happened?

  If she deleted it, it might make the nervousness twirling around in her stomach disappear for a while, at least until the next email message would come. However, with this being the third or perhaps even forth little message of his, nothing had ever really happened.

  Sure it felt like her stomach would twist in knots sometimes and nausea would make its way up through her body, but these things with crazy exes only happened in movies and books, not in real life. Surely not in real life. Not from a little guy like him.

  Seriously: physically small, at least the same height as her, not even taller than 5 foot 8, with an awful smirk on his face at all times, not at all muscular built, glasses. A man with completely hampered social skills. He had been gone from her life for several years. They were over; she had made that very clear to him. So, over.

  Numerous years of bullying had been enough, but reading his messages sometimes made it feel like it hadn't really been any intimidation from his side at all, merely a need of personality readjustment on her part according to him. Like he often said:

  “You really need to modify yourself and stop being so extremely and overly sensitive of everything I do or say. Sometimes you actually have to alter your attitude and personality to be able to live with someone and sustain a relationship. I mean, you're just too sensitive! You need to change that. It's not normal to behave and respond to things the way you do.”

  Like the time when he requested she started writing him little love notes in black sharpie on their fridge notebook, to actually show how much she cared about him.

  So many things she had to work on. She had to work on. He never wrote a note or a single letter on that pad of paper. Ever. Not a single dot, not even a smiley.

  He never had a problem with being too sensitive or considered the fact that he needed to change in any way. Why would he have to change in any way for her?

  That question had often echoed the rooms of the house they had shared together. He would often say things of that nature while hitching up that awful side grin on those thin lips, shake his head in disbelief just to belittle her, and walk out the door.

  Thank god he hadn't proposed. She had almost expected it after four years together, but when it never seemed to happen she felt genuine relief, not sorrow. It meant she was still free and unattached. She could just run if she wanted, if she dared, and never have to look back.

  During their many years together he never told her where he was going on a daily basis, never said when he was coming back, just grabbed a jacket and keys and left the house. For those few times she actually tried to care about his whereabouts, his eyes would enlarge in astonishment, and he would shake his head then tell her that he already informed her about that and didn't need to repeat himself. She just needed to listen better. As he left, he would just mumble profanities mixed in with her name and walk out the door to his car.

  Among the best feelings in the world was him leaving the house. Oh, how she cherished to walk the emptiness of the rooms. The calmness that seemed to set after she heard his car leave their drive way and take off over the gravel, and the ability to ultimately act like herself again without having to watch what words she chose to speak in his presence. The chance to take a shower when she wanted to without having to hear him bang on the bathroom door, or yell up the stairs telling her she should be done already and not get the bathroom all steamed up and dirty like she used to. How she had to be careful not to push water into the cracks of the newly tiled floor that had been installed but not yet quite finished. He never did finish it, and never even attempted to finish it. She sometimes played with the thought that he had done it on purpose, in an attempt to control yet another one of her daily habits.

  An empty house also meant not having to write love notes to someone who demanded it, not having to be talked to like she was a little child, not being laughed at for reasons she never understood, or having to succumb to having sex.

  Yuck, having sex. With him. She would've rather walked over open fire, sharp nails, or broken shattered sharp glass to ever have to do that again. But as he somehow made her believe – couples in long term relationships have sex, often. Dirty rough sex. Sometimes even if only one partner wanted it just to keeps the spark going. Every so often if one partner started it up the other one would eventually get the aroused and tag along in the love making, usually from watching an explicit selection of pornography displayed on the bedroom television while using sex toys of his purchase that he said should work for her, or simply being
grabbed at any time or place.

  No, there was no love making. Ever. Perhaps from him, but she doubted it. Never did she desperately want to have sex, or want him. Period. Never did that spark of love occur. Never had she dreamed about him at night, day dreamed about his face or his touch when he wasn't with her. Never waited for him to come home, never did she sit perched up on a chair by the phone at night and waited for him to call so they could talk all night about everything and anything, not ever did she long to make love to him. Never.

  Thank God she had never become pregnant with him. She remembered driving home together from a baptism many years ago, and being somewhat drunk on baby-love and admiration, she had suggested they could start trying for a baby on their own. His fingers had tapped anxiously on the steering wheel of the car while he kept on driving in silence. Then, without looking over at where she was sitting in the seat next to him, he'd said that since she hadn't been able to keep up a steady job, or had finished her college degree, he would end up being her sugar daddy whenever she wanted money, and how she never could know how to take care of a baby without any experience.

  That had shut her up. Never again had she brought up the baby issue, nor did he. Thinking back, that actually might have been the best results after all. No strings attached to each other at all. Except for the dogs. His dogs - which she took care of. Walked, fed, pampered, and cuddled with. In his mind they were to be used for hunting, or security, not to be petted with.

  Yet she stayed, for so many years. She still didn't understand what had kept her so silent and locked away from the rest of the world for so long. She pondered the reason over and over again of why she had accepted his behavior and their relationship the way it was, and why she had found his sometimes, shockingly cruel comments acceptable as if they were right. As if his opinions were accurate about how a man and a woman should act and what to tolerate in a relationship.

  Why had she just shrugged and thought that perhaps he was actually right. Why had she believed him when he'd told her that it was her nightly glass of cold, delicious milk, and a yummy banana, as she watched television that made her gain weight? As if a few pounds more weight would have been a very awful thing to have happening to your body, and how difficult it would be for her to lose those pounds.

  “I usually date slender women, but your boobs are actually quite nice. Not that I really care that one boob is a little bit smaller than the other.”

  Those were the things that would escape his mouth, forcing her to place that banana back in the fruit bowl on the kitchen counter, and the milk back in the fridge. Not that he watched his diet. She really tried to care about what she'd purchase at the grocery store to make sure she established an understanding between them that the fridge was always stocked with healthy foods such as chicken, fruit, and veggies. Nothing that could make her fat. Still he would plainly slam the fridge door closed, moan loudly through the house, load enough for her to hear, and once again grab his car keys simultaneously yelling that he had to eat at his mom's house since 'his girl' apparently hadn't cooked anything edible.

  He would go home to a mom whom he exclusively mentioned on a first name basis, never called her “mom” like she did with hers. A mom whom he would dare to give the finger if she didn't say the right thing or do his laundry when he demanded it and a mom who accepted him calling her a “fucking whore” without doing much more than shaking her head and walk away.

  On some instances she would then turn to her, smile, toss her hair back in the air, and mumble “he's always had a bad temper, ever since he was a kid.”

  In Danielle's mind he was a disturbed, angry man, and she should have left the first time this behavior was observed. Yet, the utter shock and surprise of it happening seemed to stun any emotions she'd had, and sometimes, she had to question herself if she had really seen things accurately and if her hearing was truly okay. No one shouts profanities at their mothers like that. And being a whore? ... I doubt she'd ever had anyone else around except for his dad.

  Thinking back, a favorite complaint of his had been his never ending accusation of her poor memory since she never remembered any family events or birthday parties. She always had to scramble together in a few short minutes to get ready for these events. Then having to embarrassingly face his family in an attempt to explain why they were late or had forgotten a present. He would stand at the side or wander off somewhere else just grinning and shaking his head.

  “Yeah, I know guys, she's a little loony, but this is the shit I have to deal with.”

  She'd never had bad memory. She'd never forgotten a party invitation. But after hearing the same accusations, going through the same embarrassment over the course of months and years, she suddenly started to question her own judgment of all things in life.

  That's exactly what he did to her. She always had to question her own opinion, her sanity, and accuracy of her thoughts. She was never right, always wrong, involving anything from choice of meat at the store, someone's last name she'd met at a party, or even what song was playing on the radio. She could never shake her head in annoyance to his comments or behavior. Only he could do that to her, and he did all the time in front of her, and in front of others.

  The acceptance of things that had been going on for so many years started to become a true reality that she learned to cope with, work around it, and sometimes even change to better fit into something that SHOULD work. A relationship WAS work. Wasn't that what everyone said?

  With him it sounded so true and so obvious. According to him, nothing in life was smooth, and their relationship, like any other, needed work and lots of it. On a daily basis he would ask why she never did what was expected from her as a girlfriend in a committed relationship, and she never stood the chance to be perfect in his eyes. However, problems or discussions of that nature would always be done in private and not be shared with anyone. If she had questions or comments, they should be directed to him. Not to involve friends, co-workers (if she ever had any), and especially not parents - being the little mama's girl she was in his eyes. They were adults, and adults dealt with these things on their own.

  “Isn't that right?!” He used to say, expecting an agreement.

  Her mind and body continued to defend him, and in all likelihood, still did. He had always made everything sound so straightforward, obvious, and unquestionable in their relationship. After all, he wasn't abusive in any physical way, being such a small guy compared to her, perhaps only a foot apart in height.

  Well, except for one drunken night - but who doesn't do stupid things when they're really, very, over the top, drunk? She had no outer marks to prove anything. His kick was aimed at her lower back and hips, shoving her over the edge of the bed onto the hardwood floor while she was still asleep were not really that bad.

  Yeah, so her hips had always been a little out of line ever since that moment, according to the physical therapist she had had to visit, but she blamed an old sports injury and was not really bothered by it. Nor had his continuous shouting and following her around the house, shoving her around that same night. She's tried to get away from him and ended up locking herself into their car parked outside the house just to get some peace and quiet, hoping he would just go inside and pass out.

  None of that had ever stopped her from doing anything she wanted and enjoyed. Shocking perhaps to her system that it had actually happened, but she was not terribly hurt. Thinking back, she probably could have withstood a lot worse. She was tough. She was into lifting weights at the gym for God's sake. According to him, she had to perfect that body of hers.

  Chapter 1

  They purchased their old house just a few months ago in their darling South, where the weather was warm, the history of the country was always present, and the culture of the people was just more laid back. The poor shape of the house looked depressing as if it was reaching out with open arms just screaming for help to survive. Looking at it the day of the open house that had been exactly why they couldn't r
esist the purchase. Sure, there would be hours, and even weeks of hard work to even make it livable, but it was worth it.

  A few of the spacious rooms had high ceilings where crown moldings were lining the top of the walls and some had already been remodeled and repainted, while others were still waiting for restoration. Like their kitchen; still covered in soft white linoleum flooring dusted with yellow Primroses, dented white wooden cabinet doors with overused dirty knobs, and outdated laminated beige counter tops. Livable but not workable.

  They were still debating wildly on the design of the kitchen layout as well as the use of materials, so taking the edge off the never ending discussion, they moved their construction focus outside to the new side patio where a wooden floor was being installed. The house was constructed of thick redwood beams and planks with several steps it followed each of the two short sides down to the green lawn area where landscaped plants and flowers were to bloom in the near future. At least it was wishful thinking.

  She loved doing handyman work, restoring old houses, and she was over the moon thrilled to have Andy bring home some new machines from his job as a construction manager at A.G. Construction Zoning so she could try them all out. His business was thriving in the Carolinas, and within the first year as a brotherly duo, they'd had to hire five more talented guys to join their crew. He had built up the business together with his brother about a year before she had met him and fallen head over heels in love with his southern drawl, long blonde hair, and laid back attitude. His creativity using his hands to build things never failed to impress her, and with great talent, he demonstrated how his handyman skills could serve in more scenarios than on a dirty construction site filled with men. His hands knew how to weave some toe-curling magic.