The Other Sister (Sister Series, #1)

by Leanne Davis

  She squeezed her eyelids shut tight and concentrated deeply on her breathing. In and out. In and out. Breathing meant you were alive. Alive meant you were okay. Everything would be okay. Everything would get better. Everything would heel. Besides, the more she breathed, the less likely she was to whimper or groan in pain, sounds that only incited him all the more.

  He was not kicking her ribs. He was not punching her stomach. He was not straddling her thighs as he undid his zipper. He was not, he could not, possibly mean to have sex with her now. She breathed harder, faster, in and out. In and out.

  But he did mean to. She gasped and bit harshly on her lip to keep further groans of pain inside of her mouth and let them whither in her chest. Her body shook against the carpet as he jerked violently into her. Her back inched up and down, while the carpet abraded her in rug burns, all the while he slammed his penis into her, in and out. In and out.

  She kept her eyes shut. If she didn’t see him, she didn’t have to picture him. She later, wouldn’t relive what his facial expressions were. She wouldn’t know if his eyes were open watching the pain on her face. Was he smiling in glee or glaring at her in unreasonable hatred? She didn’t know. And not knowing was better than knowing.

  With a guttural cry he suddenly stiffened and came into her so hard she feared her womb would collapse under the pressure. His penis was a sword splitting her in two. He groaned and fell onto her, his weight trapping her on the floor.

  “You are mine. Perhaps now, you won’t forget it,” he whispered. His breath was warm on the skin below her ear. His voice was calmer now, back to his more normal cadence. The warning was in response to what she’d done to incite this.

  Some women found that being a man’s possession was sexy, as if by claiming her as his, she was honored, gifted somehow that he wanted to possess her. Only it wasn’t. It was possession. It was not sexy. It was his ability to break you with his strength. To dominate and control your every word, your every action and even your every thought.

  And to eventually beat and rape you.

  But it wasn’t rape. It could not be rape. He was her husband. Husbands did not rape their wives. They had sex with their wives. They made love with their wives. Of course, most husbands didn’t first push their wife to the ground, and proceed to kick and punch her, before they jumped down on her to stop her struggles and force their penis into tight, dry, aching spaces. No, most husbands have sex with wives who are wet and ready before their husband enters them. Only she wasn’t. But this wasn’t rape. Because she was married to him. Denial. It was how she could finally open her eyes.

  She blinked at the daylight that filled their living room. A deep whoosh of air escaped her lungs. She felt like she’d gone on a long, arduous, awful trip, and not simply spent the last ten minutes being beaten and raped, no, not raped, having sex with, her husband.

  The vaulted ceilings rose up some twenty feet to peak overhead with four different skylights that let in deep squares of sunshine. It fell to the floor that she laid on, highlighting dust as it floated lazily in the air. Her navy blue, leather furniture and dark wood tables that so eloquently filled the room, still stood all in the same spots. The room was mostly intact. How could that be? How could nothing be altered? Changed? Ruined? Everything was neat and tightly. What little dust fell today would be gone tomorrow. She wiped it away every day. He hated dust. He hated mess. He hated chaos of any kind.

  So she didn’t allow dust or mess or chaos of any kind.

  He pulled back off her, to his knees which were now on either side of her legs. He stood up in a lithe, quick moment. He adjusted his pants and tucked in his white, button up shirt as he realigned his tie. He was wrinkled. He’d hate that. The thought filled her numbed brain. She could quickly iron his shirt.

  His gaze roved over her. He frowned in annoyance, as if he’d found her lazing around the couch when she needed to be doing something of importance. It seemed to escape him it was his fault she lay sprawled on their living room floor, too stunned to move. Maybe, this time, too hurt to move. But no, no she couldn’t be too hurt. That was not allowed. He would never allow her to go to the hospital. He always stopped just short of that. As he stopped just short of ever placing a bruise where it couldn’t be covered up. She could always cover them up. It was like, even in the heat of his most profound, emblazing rage, he still could control where he left his marks on her.

  And no one must ever know. Bruises told a story. A story that could not be their story. Not political hopeful, Elliot and Lindsey Johanson. They lived in a large, three story, pristine, brick and colonial style house near Virginia Square just across from Washington D.C. They had a full time staff of three, house keeper, cook, gardener/landscaper. She took care of their house and staff. She ran their social life, and presented herself a stunning, put together, upper class, wife and hostess at all times. Elliot had money, the kind that allowed him to never have to work a day in his life. They could live far beyond the means they did live. But he chose to keep it less than he was. He wanted to present a façade of urban, well to do, middle class. Not overtly, crazy filthy rich like he really was. And it was up to her to keep up the façade. She got up at five every morning to do her exercise routine, and then get ready. She was as perfect as she could make herself by seven every morning. It didn’t matter the day or what she had planned. She was always presentable.

  Except right now, of course. She closed her legs and twisted her lower body to hide it. She could feel the panty hose he had torn off bunch and rest awkwardly between her thighs. Her skirt was easily pushed up over waist. Her heels were feet away. Her blouse was untucked, and twisted around her torso. She gulped in a sudden sob. She could not cry. She could not. She let out a shuddering breath. She slowly, carefully sat up as her entire midsection burned and protested. As her breathing increased and pain drowned all her nerve endings. Her insides, her womanly parts burned and ached in deep, dark sensations.

  “Clean up this mess. Get yourself together. Dinner is still at seven, make sure you are ready. Don’t disappoint me again.”

  Her husband turned on his heel and walked over to the mirror to adjust his hair. Her head fell onto her knees. Sobs suddenly choked her throat. She bit her lip and ground her teeth. She could not cry, he would know, he would see the proof of her tears. So no, she could not cry. She glanced around. Part of the room was in shambles. He had caught her completely unprepared for his arrival, little lone his rage. She was doing her daily touch up to the room. She had a bucket of water and wash rag she used to carefully, gently wipe all finger prints from the dark tables and dust the valuable, mostly one-of-a-kind knick knacks adorning their shelves and tables. Elliot travelled extensively and often came back with his precious souvenirs. Ones she guarded with her life, knowing how he’d react if she didn’t. So she didn’t allow the cleaning staff to touch his things, she did that herself.

  But he had stormed into the room, grabbed her elbow and spun her towards him. His face, before her was dark, menacing, and the rage burning in his eyes bordered on insane.

  He had thrown her into a table, which toppled over. She fell onto the lamp, breaking it. He grabbed her up, pulled her arm behind her back and trapped her against the couch. She feared he was going to dislocate her shoulder again, or break her wrist. But…that had happened before. He had to know it would get suspicious. She could only be so clumsy.

  She did not know what she had done.

  His voice was soft when he bent her over the couch and pushed her arm farther into her back. “Did you think I wouldn’t find out?”

  She wanted to scream, find out what? What had she done? But she knew better. She remained silent and let him fill her in, as he always did. He relished this part, imparting to her how she had failed him, how she had caused this, how he had no choice but to punish her.

  “You left your birth control in the garbage. I found them. I had a meeting I had to take this morning, so I couldn’t discuss it with you then. Did you think you’d
get away with it?”

  No, she didn’t, because it wasn’t her birth control. She was sure of that. She knew better than to take birth control pills. Those were too easily found, and too easy to be careless about disposing of them. She had long ago had an IUD inserted. So it couldn’t be found. And yet… she was about to take a severe beating for just that. The maids? The cook? Who would leave their damn birth control in the garbage? Someone cleaning out their purse? Some innocuous act by a woman starting her next round of birth control pills had led to this, for her. She shut her eyes. There was no use denying it. There was no use pleading her case, the damage had already been done. Why risk his reaction? Or get someone else in trouble. Not that he would react like this to anyone else. He’d most likely merely admonish them kindly to be more respectful and private, after all, they were a prominent family and did not want any of their private matters aired to anyone. He was never aggressive, harsh, rude or angry with anyone. No one. Ever. Except her. She bore the brunt of his entire anger and rage.

  “We will have a baby, Lindsey. Your hesitation in the matter is not appreciated nor tolerated. Is that clear now?”

  She stared at her feet. She understood. But… that was not enough. He jerked her up off the couch, slammed her to the floor, as his foot followed and kicked her in the gut. She twisted, jerked and writhed in silent pain. And then he straddled her.

  Now it was over. She stared hard at her toes. The red color of her pedicure got chipped at some point, she’d have to fix that before tonight.

  “Lindsey? Are we clear about the birth control now?”

  She snapped her gaze to his. His softly worded question suggested he had said her name already. His tone was tight and lethal, the one that indicated her behavior was frustrating him. And he did not tolerate frustration, especially not from her.

  “Yes, we’re clear.”

  His expression softened. He came to her and kneeled before her. He put a hand to her cheek and rubbed his thumb over her bone. “Don’t you want our baby? Is there some reason you would do such a traitorous thing? You do understand, I hope, why this happened today.”

  His green eyes held her gaze. He waited, his head lowering a fraction of an inch and his eye brows rising in expected response. She knew what she was supposed to do now. She was to nod, and say, of course she wanted their baby. That she had been terribly mistaken, maybe scared to carry his child. And she was to blame for this today. Her blue eyes clung to his. She licked her lips slowly, and raised her head, and then lowered it. “I understand. I was… scared. I was wrong to deceive you. I will never take it again, not unless you say so.”

  He smiled, his lips stretching back in his dimpling, perfect smile. He took more than his share of women’s hearts. He was charming, handsome, breathtaking to behold. His smile started in his lips and stretched through his entire face. He was a beautiful, perfect, sculpted, monster.

  He patted her cheek. “That’s my girl. Now I have to get back to the office. See to this, and make sure you are ready tonight. We’ll not discuss this again. And we will try again tonight.”

  Try again? Her shoulders shrunk down in defeat. That’s what this was? This brutal, tearing apart of her vagina, was supposed to represent making a baby? This time the tears burned too hot to repress. She swallowed and gagged on the lump of grief in her. She sat there for a long time, way too long. She tried to breath, in and out. She tried to empty her mind of everything. She tried to find the denial. But… it wasn’t coming. It wasn’t happening. She couldn’t conjure up the façade that so ruled her life. The image of who she was that obliterated the moments when she was this, right here, this beaten, sad, depressed, weak woman. But the thing was, she was this woman. She was beaten, sad, depressed, weak, and…he had raped her. If this wasn’t rape, then what else was?

  I get it, Jessie. I finally know. The thoughts tumbled into her brain and washed out everything else. She had spent years helping her little sister come to terms with the rapes she had suffered at first the hand of their father’s friends, and later, the group her father hired to kidnap her. She had watched Jessie disintegrate for a long time before she even knew what was wrong with her. And after she knew, it was years before Jessie came out of it. And now… she finally knew. Tears bumped her closed eye lids. They slid over her cheeks.

  No, she was not like Jessie. Jessie had insufferable, terrible things done to her. Things far, far worse than the most severe beating she took at the hands of her husband, or rough sex he forced on her. Yes, that was it. He forced rough sex on her. So it was a degree different than rape. Rape was what happened when strangers held you down and forced sex on you. Like what happened to her sister. Not what had just happened to her, just now.

  She shook her head, and slowly, carefully rose to her full height. She shucked off her ruined garments, and slid her skirt into place and tucked in her crumpled blouse. Her chest hurt. It ached and burned, as did her lower extremities and her left shoulder. She glanced at the decorative mirror hanging over the couch, and gasped at the reflection. Who was that? It could not be her. This woman with tangled, ratted blond hair, falling from her once neat French twist. Her clothes wrinkled, and in disarray. Her eyes haunted, harried, and vacant. She was as vacant inside as the reflection of her was.

  She had once been beautiful. Everyone thought so. She was Lindsey Bains, General Travis Bains beloved, adored, perfect daughter. She was everything that Jessie was not. And she reveled in being so. In having her father’s complete and utter devotion and approval. She had disdained of her rebellious, trouble causing, slutty sister. As Jessie deteriorated year after year from the age of sixteen on, she had done nothing but agree with her father on what a horrible person and sister Jessie was. She understood as her father so desperately tried to do right by Jessie and discipline her. Correct her. Stop her.

  Little did Lindsey accept, her father was beating her sister. He was using her to repay debts owed to a variety of high power men who her father cultivated long-term relationships with. Senators, army officers, cabinet members, there was a vast many who he forced teenage Jessie to have sex with. And what had Lindsey known as her sister started acting out? Nothing. None of it. She was off at college on an ROTC program. She was then finishing her army service, set to make it a long-term career, with hopes of rising in rank like her father. Perhaps not as far, but as far as she could, all with the end game to make her father proud. She used to yearn for his shinning recognition.

  She met Elliot Johanson when she was twenty-four- years old. She had been swept away. And her father loved him. So she had thought she had found and married the perfect man.

  And then, she learned the truth about Jessie. And in one afternoon, her entire life, identity and future was changed, altered and damaged. Everything she believed was wrong. Jessie wasn’t bad or insane. Jessie was the tragic victim of so much, to this day, she could hardly grasp what her sister had lived through. First her father, and later a brutal, three days of torture and rape before soldier Will Hendricks rescued her. Will who saw it all. And he was who finally believed Jessie, helped Jessie and rescued Jessie from the monster that was their father. It was Will, not she, who finally saved Jessie. What a joke that all those years, she, Lindsey Bains, was considered the good sister. She wasn’t. She was shit. She was total and complete chicken shit. She never stuck up for her sister as their father bullied and berated her. Though she had not known of the physical abuse, she had known of his terrible verbal assault on Jessie. But… she had been too afraid her father would turn on her to do anything for Jessie.

  And the thing was, she really hadn’t known. Any of it. It was a startling, shocking discover. And the longer it went on, the more she learned about her father, the more her life had been torn apart. Her father was truly a monster.

  But he hadn’t been to her.

  She never knew what to do with that knowledge. Why didn’t her father abuse her like he did Jessie? Why did he act so gallant, and noble towards her, yet pimp out Jessie? How c
ould she never see what was right under her nose? Though it came out that Jessie was not really the generals daughter, it still didn’t explain how he could raise Lindsey will decency and Jessie with horror. It was impossible to reconcile the two generals she now knew about.

  Denial. That was how. And perhaps why she had married Elliot, never once seeing his controlling, rage-fueled, domineering and violent side. Not until she was married to him. And he started the very night he took her virginity in the honeymoon suite of the hotel he married her in. She started to learn right off who she had married.

  Elliot didn’t want her to be in the military. It wasn’t lady like. It wasn’t something he foresaw his wife doing. Her father had just been disgraced at the time her term of service was up. So she was honorably discharged and no longer a soldier.

  She glared her face in the mirror. Some fucking soldier. Look at her. A beaten, fragile, sad woman who couldn’t even a raise a hand in defense to tell her husband not to rape her in middle of the afternoon on their living room floor.

  No doubt Elliot had spontaneously dismissed the entire staff, probably acting as if he wanted to surprise his wife in a romantic afternoon interlude. They probably all left here smiling in their hands at how sweet Elliot was and how lucky she was to have him. He never touched her if anyone was home.

  She turned from her image to upright the table. She picked up the broken lamp and ran it to her car. She’d discard it in some faceless dumpster so no one would realize it broke. She replaced the lamp with a flower arrangement to cover the hole it created. She slowly, made her way around the room dusting and vacuuming, straightening the scene of her latest humiliation.

  She quickly showered all of it off her too. Her soiled make-up and the semen that pooled and ran down her legs. Elliot’s loving attempts to create a child. After five years of marriage did he really think she would ever let an innocent be under his care?

  The phone rang as she was making herself presentable for tonight’s dinner. It was a fundraising charity event at Georgetown University. Elliot was the guest of honor. Therefore she had to be at her absolute best.