The Rage Within

When I was in high school, the boy I fell in love with – the one I gave my virginity to… he ended up being a complete bastard. He dumped me the next day, and refused to talk to me after that. Anytime I tried to talk to him, he’d get his friends to ridicule me.

It was enough to traumatize me for years, but finally, I fell in love with a guy in college. He didn’t dump me, and treated me like a princess, but as it turns out, he was sleeping around with 3 other girls at the same time. I felt so betrayed! I wanted to kill the bastard! I vowed never to fall in love again.

My rage would not subside though. I couldn’t concentrate on anything other than my foolish plans for murder. I knew they wouldn’t succeed, and that I’d get caught, so I decided to direct my ire elsewhere.

I enrolled in several different forms of fighting: kickboxing, karate, even fencing. They helped me take out my anger… on my unsuspecting classmates, heh heh, and I finally calmed down a bit. I even took a yoga class, and finally managed to get my rage under control.

One day in my kickboxing class, I was partnered with an asshole. I hated him from the first moment he looked at me. It was like he was angry about something and directing that at me. He was smug and condescending, and I decided that it would be a great idea to unleash all my fury on him.

Neither of us held back, and we nearly put each other in the hospital before the teacher and our classmates finally pulled us apart. A couple of weeks went by in which we were definitely not partnered with each other before he deigned to talk to me. He waited for me outside the gym.

“I’m pissed,” he informed me without warning.

“So… your point?” I responded as if talking to him was the equivalent of talking to a slug under my shoe.

“My point is that there’s no one that I can have a decent fight with other than you. If I don’t get this anger out of my system, I’ll do nothing but dwell on it. Ironically, as I recuperated from our last fight… I felt almost at peace,” he explained, astonishing me.

“So did I…” I murmured, surprised to realize this. It was almost like my emotions continually filled a cup until they overflowed, and I couldn’t contain them. Fighting with him had temporarily emptied the cup, and now it was almost full again.

“I rent out a soundproof basement from an older, hard of hearing couple. Would you like to come to my place with me and we can fight until we both feel better?” He asked.\

I thought this over hesitantly. With no one to interfere, we might actually kill each other. However… with no one to interfere, we might actually get all of the anger out of our system once and for all. I nodded, and quietly followed him.

We beat the shit out of each other! I really think we came close to murdering one another, but just at that crucial moment, lust took over. He inhaled my sent the one moment he had me in a hold, and that made me want him to… tear my clothes off and rape me. I stopped fighting him for a moment to see what he would do, and sure enough he kissed me.

I punched him – kissing was not what I wanted – and then I tugged at his pants. He understood, and roughly stripped me. The next thing I knew, he had thrown me across the room, and used my momentary distraction to strip and almost jump on me. Part of the fun was trying to fight him off as he rammed himself inside me.

To be honest, had I really wanted him to stop, I would have put up a much better fight! We fought and had sex for hours before we finally fell asleep from sheer exhaustion. I woke up before him, smiled just a little before my body reminded me just how badly we had treated it, and then I got dressed.

I wanted to go get something to eat at a small diner I frequented, but one glance in a mirror told me that it was not a good idea to be seen in public like this. I only had one smallish bruise on my face, but the rest of me was just covered in purplish spots of varying sizes. I went straight home.

For a month, I didn’t see him except for in class. We didn’t talk to each other, nor did I even think about him. Don’t get me wrong, I was grateful for the way he had banished my rage, but other than that, I didn’t care about him in the slightest.

Then, just as all the bruises had completely disappeared from my body, he stood outside our kickboxing class one more. Our teacher watched us warily because he still vividly remembered our fight. The teacher had also noticed our matching bruises, and had warned us that such fighting outside of class would not be tolerated.

All he did was look at me with this intensely angry questioning look, and I knew he was mentally saying, “I’m pissed off! Do you want to fight?” I replied with a nod, and silently followed as he walked away. I could sense that our teacher wanted to protest, but he couldn’t because we weren’t hostile toward each other in the slightest.

This time, we didn’t beat each other up nearly as badly, and ended up having sex much more quickly. Which is not to say that the sex ended quickly. That was still a rough and somewhat violent event that lasted hours. It occurred to me to wonder why something so… well… something that should be painful felt so good!

This became our pattern throughout the rest of college. We never saw each other or even talked at all except for once every month or two. Then, one of us would get thoroughly pissed off about something and approach the other. Our fights got more and more violent in the way that both our skills improved and we were able to defend ourselves better. As a result, we started shouting at each other about whatever had pissed us off.

We called each other the worst names we could think of, and when we were exhausted, we both knew that we would be free of these negative and violent emotions for a while. That was the best part, and the only reason I continued to see him at all.

As time passed, I tried dating various men, but they all ended up hurting or disappointing me. It got to the point that rather than looking for good men whenever I went out, I just let the worst of the assholes pick me up. Life was actually good for a while in that I was having incredible sex with these men that I didn’t give a shit about, so I had no real reason to get angry.

After college, I got a well paying office job, and eventually bought a house. I made sure to buy one that was sturdy with lots of space to fight in because my only friend – the man that I still fought with once every couple of months – came over whenever he needed to get the anger out of his system. In the same way, I went to his large apartment whenever I just had to punch something.

Ironically, we never actually talked at all, so I didn’t really know his name. I knew where he lived and had his number programmed into my phone under asshole, but not his name. He didn’t know mine either, and that was just the way we liked it.

*******

“You look familiar to me,” a male co-worker informed me with a puzzled frown. I shrugged. He didn’t look familiar to me at all.

His frown got deeper as he obviously tried to locate me in his memory. “What’s your name?”

“Sophie. I’m the assistant to the department manager… You’ve probably seen me around,” I replied.

“Yes, I have, but that’s just it, I’ve thought you were familiar since the first time I saw you a couple months ago when I transferred here,” he stated.

I scrutinized him just a bit better. Perhaps if I remembered where he knew me from, he’d go away and leave me alone. I suddenly realized that he looked familiar after all, and my eyes narrowed coldly. “Nope. I’ve never seen you before.”

I spoke pleasantly, using my sweet business assistant voice, but I betrayed my lie by gathering up the rest of my lunch and leaving the lounge. That was the first bastard I’d ever had sex with, and I still hated him with a vengeance! I immediately made plans to avoid him and possibly have him transferred.

“Sophie!” My boss greeted me happily. “I have good news. I’m retiring effectively immediately, and so you’ll have a new boss to help out.”

“But sir,” I answered in confusion, “you don’t have enough time in to retire yet. I thought you had to work for 6 more months…”

“As it turns out, I have saved up enough vacation time that I can take it all now, and be officially retired when it runs out,” he explained with a grin. Damn the bastard for never taking a day’s vacation in his life!

“Who will my new boss be?” I wondered.

“He’s worked around the office for a while now, so you’ve probably met him. He’ll be here shortly, I’m sure. I’m supposed to give him some pointers before I leave.”

I nodded, and sat at my desk to finish eating.

“I’m here sir,” a man announced just as I ate my last bite of lunch. I was not facing him in the slightest, so I let my face show my anger as I suppressed a growl. Him?!

“Hunter!” My boss exclaimed as if he was personally about to hand the bastard a fabulous treasure. I made plans to sneak a picture of him with my cellphone so that I could post it on my dart board.

I managed to get through the entire week without letting him know how I loathed him. I was pleasant and sweet, and he soon came to rely on me like a good boss should. I began to plan out how I would slip some poison in his coffee, but I had no idea how to obtain a substance that couldn’t be detected and traced back to me.

Not willing to go to jail, I made a visit to my sparring partner. He fought with me, and then we fucked. Afterwards, he asked me not to come over for a while because he had a real girlfriend now, and wanted to try giving their relationship a chance. I nodded, honestly praying for his success.

By the end of the first month of working for Hunter, I finally managed to seal most of my rage towards him in the back of my mind. I still hated him, but it was somewhat easier for me to get along with him knowing that I would never fall in love with him. I could focus completely on my job, and not pay the slightest attention to him as a man.

“Sophie… let’s hold tonight’s planning session at a restaurant instead of ordering in,” he suggested.

I shrugged. It made no difference to me.

He grinned. “You’re always so sweet… just like I remember you.”

I am so glad that I was currently sorting through a filing cabinet and that he couldn’t see my face. He would have easily read my desire to murder him had he been able to see my face. I located the file I was looking for, and plastered a softly puzzled look on my face.

“Remember me? I don’t understand.”

“We… went to the same high school. I’m honestly surprised that you don’t remember since I was a mean little bastard to you,” he explained with an ashamed grimace.

I suppressed all response – except for a slight facial tick. “No, I honestly don’t remember you,” I stated as I smiled brightly in an attempt to distract him from the truth.

He frowned suspiciously.

“Anywhere in particular you want to go for dinner?” I asked, setting the file on my desk, and performing a websearch on nearby restaurants.

“I was thinking Chez Fromage,” Hunter answered, shaking off his suspicions. “I’ve been meaning to ask, but… where did you get that bruise?”

He pointed to the fading bruise on my right cheek near my ear. I apparently hadn’t covered it up as well as I thought I had. I waved his concern away with my hand, and smiled.

“It’s nothing to worry about, I’m clumsy and I bruise easily. My doctor says that I have low iron or something,” I lied.

“Ah… so that’s why,” he murmured to himself. I guess he must have noticed some of my previous bruises, which meant he must have been secretly watching me for months.

I called Chez Fromage and made reservations for the two of us. It was not quite dinner time, so they had a spot available. Hunter handed me my coat, and we left the office.

We conducted our business as we ate, but after we were finished, the conversation turned to high school.

“I really want to apologize for the way I treated you back then,” Hunter stated in all honesty, as far as I could tell.

I shrugged. “It doesn’t matter, I don’t remember.”

He smiled. “If you like, I could try to remind you of the few good times we had together before I turned into a bastard.”

I could tell he was flirting with me, and hoped to get into my pants. Whatever… It honestly made no difference to me. “Sure… why not?”

He grinned and hastily paid for our meal. Then, he drove me back to his place. We’d had some wine with our dinner, so he offered me some more wine. I knew he was hoping to loosen me up, so I accepted.

After two glasses, I pretended I was completely drunk, and began kissing him. I figured that if I started things, he’d stop trying to get in my pants and actually do so. I was used to skipping foreplay – unless you counted fighting – so his insistence on it confused me.

He turned down the lights, and helped me remove my clothes. Then, he carried me to his bed, and spent at least a half an hour just kissing me. Maybe the alcohol really was loosening me up a bit because I swear there was a fire spreading from my lips throughout my entire body.

He eventually decided to trail kisses down my stomach, and then settled his face between my legs. I gasped when his tongue parted my second set of lips, and clutched his hair. I felt like lightning was streaking through my body! I’d honestly never felt anything like it before because – while I’d had sex with different men, it was all pretty much endurance fucking. This was something else altogether!

“Oh God!” I chanted as something came over me. I knew I was about to orgasm, but this seemed about a hundred times more intense then the last orgasm I’d had. I could not stop a squeal from escaping… a squeal that seemed to go on forever, and perfectly described how I was feeling just then.

Collapsing after my orgasm subsided, I wanted to go to sleep, but Hunter wasn’t about to stop things now. He spread my legs wide, and positioned himself to enter me. He paused to look at me, silently asking for permission. I nodded.

I expected him to ram into me forcefully, but he didn’t. He slid in slowly, and then kissed me again. I was annoyed because I almost never kissed anyone. In fact, the thought of kissing someone was almost more intimate and vulnerable than the thought of fucking someone.

He looked me in the eyes as he slowly withdrew and reentered me so many times I lost count. I wanted to close my eyes, but they refused to shut! Every time I urged him to go faster, he’d stop to kiss me again. This was all too much, and I started to cry.

He smiled, and took this as his cue to finally speed up and concentrate on his own pleasure. I clung to him, digging my long, well groomed nails into his back. My legs instinctively locked around his hips at some point, and I realized that I didn’t want him to ever stop.

I shuddered with orgasm once more as he reached his own climax, and then I held him to me as I drifted off to sleep. Well, I tried to drift off, but he wouldn’t let me. Apparently, he thought the time was perfect for talking.

“I’m sorry I talked you into having sex with me in high school and then dumped you. I had done so as a dare, and afterwards, my friends just wouldn’t let me ruin the dare. I wanted so badly to tell them to stop it, but every time you came to talk to me, they drove you away by laughing. It got to the point where I couldn’t figure out what the right thing to do was, so I just went along with what they wanted. I truly wish that I could go back and tell them to just leave us alone,” he confessed.

I didn’t know what to say, so I concentrated on my breathing, and pretended to be asleep. Soon enough, I really was asleep, and then it was morning. I was used to being the first to wake up and I usually left before whoever my partner was woke up. This morning, he kissed me until I was awake.

I let him at first, but then I realized that if I just gave into him, he’d pester me for kisses nonstop, and that was not an appealing thought. So, I decided to play the affronted female.

“What the hell!” I protested, pushing him away. “Oh my God! What happened?! We didn’t! … Did we?” I buried my face in my hands, and nearly wailed. “I don’t remember! All I remember is getting drunk…”

“You seriously don’t remember? Anything?” He questioned.

I shook my head, and then scrambled to get out of his bed. I wasn’t particularly modest, but I pretended to be so that I could avoid looking at him. I hurriedly dressed, and called a cab. As soon as it arrived, I pretended to compose myself.

“I’m sorry that I let things get out of hand last night, and promise that I won’t let it happen again. I’ll see you on Monday,” I said in my sweet business tone of voice. He had thrown on a pair of strangely sexy black sweat pants, and watched me leave with an indecipherable expression. It looked like he couldn’t decided if I was being honest or if I was subtly getting back at him for the way he treated me back in high school.

A whole week passed without either of us mentioning what had happened. I maintained my professional persona around him, and he managed to keep a professional distance between us. Then came the Friday night planning meeting. This was when we stayed late – after everyone else had left – and planned out the goals we wanted the office to work on during the next week.

This time, we ordered some chicken lo mein and pork fried rice, and conducted our planning session in the safe haven of the office. Or so I thought. Just as we finished our meeting, I inadvertently dribbled some sauce on my cleavage. Hunter volunteered to clean it up with his tongue before I had a chance to grab a napkin.

I gasped. His tongue sent a thrill straight down to my groin, and I wanted to encourage him to lick me some more. Instead, I held my breath and waited for him to distance himself. He looked into my eyes, and found no actual resistance, so he wrapped one arm around my back, and pulled me closer. His lips devoured mine, and I debated whether to push him away or not.

Lust won, and I let him do whatever he wanted to me. He smiled, and removed my blouse and bra so that he could suck on my nipple. I moaned, and leaned into him.

“I wasn’t certain last time because of the dim light, but it looks like you really do have fading bruises all over your body. I’m glad that they are almost gone now, but I’m dying to know, what really happened? If it’s really a matter of bruising as easily as you say you do, wouldn’t you have new ones? These all look like they were made at the same time.”

I sighed. “I really hate you, you know,” I murmured mildly, as if I were commenting on the weather. “Either shut up and do me or let me go so I can get dressed and leave.”

“O… kay…” he replied slowly, frowning. I waited for 3 seconds for him to make up his mind, and then started to push him away. He took this as a challenge, and kissed me again. I wrapped my arms around his neck, and straddled his lap so that I could return his kiss. Again, my goal was to escalate things so that he’d stop wasting time and just fuck me already!

My mind may have hated him with a vengeance, but my body responded to him with passion. I couldn’t believe just how incredible his touch felt! Every stroke of his hand, every lick of his tongue, every faint caress of his breath made me pant softly and long for more.

I felt my heart melt as he entered me, and had to firmly force it back into its cage. No way was I going to fall in love with the man who had taken my virginity and then traumatized me so thoroughly! Sex was the only thing he was ever going to get from me!

He thrust in and out of me possessively, and I knew that he was the type of man that tried to own his women. Not in a controlling “you must do what I say” kind of way, but in a “you’re mine and don’t you ever forget it” kind of way. It must frustrate him that I was so responsive to his touch, but resisted him otherwise.

I dug my nails into his back as I felt a scream bubbling up my throat, and he grasped my hips as he buried himself deeply inside me. He roared as I screamed, and I knew that we were climaxing together. This was still strange to me, and honestly I had always thought that it was a myth told by love-struck bimbos.

In the morning, I woke to find him sleeping on top of me. “Ugh! Get off of me!” I insisted as I pushed on him.

He groaned. “You can’t possibly have forgotten again.”

“No,” I admitted snottily. “I just want to go home and take a shower. I reek of sex.” I located my clothes, and started getting dressed.

“I was hoping that we could spend the day together. Go see a movie or something,” Hunter suggested.

I scoffed, thinking but not actually saying, “As if!” I straightened my skirt after zipping it up. “No thank you. And don’t you dare try to touch me on Monday. I don’t want any of the employees thinking that I am sleeping with you just to gain the boss’ favor or something.”

I was dressed now, so I stared at him with my hands on my hips. I wanted to be clear that this was not going to happen every day.

He gave me a deeply suspicious look. “There’s a lot more to you than I realized. You actually remember everything, don’t you? You’re just playing with me to get revenge.”

I switched back to my professional persona. “No sir, not at all. I just want to do my job well. If you can’t handle having me as your assistant, I suggest that you recommend me to your superiors. A promotion is actually due to me right about now anyway.”

I smiled sweetly, and then left. I was boiling with rage, but I knew that my “friend” was still happy in a relationship, so I couldn’t vent my ire on him. That meant that the only option left to me was to go to my gym, and spar with the best person available. That didn’t help, so I ended up at a bar.

One man in particular was being an asshole to his girlfriend, and so I decided to give her a break. “Hey handsome, how would you like to come home with me tonight?” I purred.

He was just drunk enough to forget that he was here with his girl, and he agreed without thinking. I led him out of the bar, and we were already hot and ready to fuck by the time we reached my car. I decided not to waste time driving home, and had sex with him in my back seat.

Oh yes! This is how sex was supposed to be! Primal and grinding. No complicated emotions to get in the way, and best of all, when we were done, I got to kick him out of my car and watch as his girlfriend tried to beat him up. She had absolutely no skill in fighting, and probably didn’t hurt him in the slightest.

I smiled… he didn’t deserve someone like her anyway. She belonged with a man that would respect her no matter how drunk he got, and this loser definitely didn’t fit that description. She’ll probably thank me for this later.

On Monday, I did my job as normal, and hid my mental gloating as I watched Hunter try to behave as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. He obviously was not as practiced at controlling his emotions as I was. He claimed that his so called friends had been responsible for what had happened, but he obviously hadn’t had to work through years of rage because of it.

I went to the room that held the supplies and the big copy machine so that I could make about 100 copies of each page of a document that needed to be distributed. This was going to take me a while, so I allowed my mind to wander. The door was only open a crack, so I could ignore the general chatter around the office.

Suddenly, I heard Hunter speaking. “Everyone, listen up. I’m gathering up information for a review, but since I haven’t been here that long, I need you all to help me out a bit. Can you share your thoughts about Sophie? How well does she work? What is she like as a person? Things like that.”

“Sophie? Sure, she’s a hard worker.”

“She always gets the job done!”

“She’s so nice, and friendly.”

This continued for a few moments, and I could sense that Hunter was writing everything down. Everyone praised me, but then their praise turned slightly… strange.

“She’s so innocent that she’s almost a prude.”

“None of us feel we can relax around her because she’s always so proper.”

“I bet if she overheard us gossiping about sex, she’d probably write us up for misconduct.”

“You know, I bet she’s probably never had sex,” one woman finally stated, and was met with a general murmuring of agreement.

Hunter cleared his throat. “Her sex life is not part of this review. Is there anything else you’d like to add?”

“Just that when it comes to relying on someone, we all know to rely on her. She’s good at what she does, and does an excellent job.”

I covered my mouth to suppress a laugh. Man! Did I ever have them all fooled! They think I’m a virgin?! They think I’m nice? If any of them knew the real me, they’d probably have a heart attack!

“Has anyone ever had any problems with her?” Hunter inquired.

“No.” Everyone replied and I imagined that they were all shaking their heads. “She gets along with everyone.”

“I see… Thank you, I think I have what I need for my report,” Hunter stated.

A half an hour later, I was finished with my copies, and I let my genuine smile show as I exited the supply room. I was still highly amused by what my co-workers thought of me. I hummed lightly as I sorted through all the copies I’d just made and assembled them into a packet.

Hunter watched me, obviously curious as to what I was thinking, but he didn’t say anything. The week passed fairly quickly, and then it was time for our weekly planning session. I decided to just give in before it even came up.

“I think we should have this meeting at my house,” I suggested.

“Really?” Hunter asked, interested.

“Yep, that way, when we’re done having sex, I can send you home for a change and relax in my tub.”

“The way you say that is confusing. You want sex, but you don’t want me to stick around and help you bathe?” He wondered.

I rolled my eyes. “Whatever.”

We actually worked on our planning in the car as I drove us to my house. By the time we walked through my door, we had nothing to do but tear each other’s clothes off. It felt like my house was at least a hundred degrees, and I couldn’t wait to have him inside me. He lifted my naked body into his arms, and I wrapped my legs around his hips. He decided to carry me to my couch, and for once, our sex was more like I was used to… only better.

We tried every position we could think of, and he surprised me with his stamina. I thought for certain that I would wear him out long before midnight, but it was dawn by the time we were finished. By that time, I was too tired to protest when he gathered me in his arms, and stoked my arm.

“Do you really hate me?” He asked.

“Yes. Why wouldn’t I?” I wondered.

“Do you normally have sex multiple times with someone you hate?”

“Yes, or at least I do when it isn’t just a one night stand. I normally don’t want to see the bastard again after I’ve had my fun,” I replied honestly. My tact filter between my brain and my mouth seemed to be asleep already.

He laughed. “No, seriously… do you normally sleep with guys you hate?”

“Yes,” I insisted sleepily, and then drifted off. If he didn’t want to believe me, that was his problem.

It was late afternoon by the time we woke, and I could tell by the way he cuddled with and kissed me that I wouldn’t be able to kick him out any time soon. Maybe I should have gone to his house after all.

I made us something to eat, and then let him hold me as we sat on my couch. He kept trying to tell me his life story, but my mind wandered. The sheer fact that he was still here made me wonder why the hell I was letting him worm his way into my life.

“I think it’s time for you to go home now,” I finally insisted, calling him a cab. We stared at each other in near silence as we waited for the taxi to arrive. He kept trying to talk me into letting him stay, but I held my ground.

Suddenly, my door flew open. Hunter had locked it when we’d arrived yesterday, so I knew that only someone with a key could have gotten in without kicking the door down. I smirked almost evilly. “You stay put, and when the taxi arrives, leave!” I commanded.

Then it began. “You fucking bitch!” My “friend” shouted from the entryway.

“You damn asshole!” I shouted in return.

“You fucking cheated on me, again!” He roared. Ah… so that’s why he was here. His girlfriend had been naughty.

“Yeah, and so?! You fucking deserved it!” By this time, we had met each other halfway down my hallway. He threw a punch, and I blocked it.

“I should fucking kill you!” He declared loudly.

“Go ahead and try it, I’ll beat you to a pulp!” I challenged. We were both playing our roles… roles that we had played many a time in the past. My body throbbed in anticipation, and I punched him across the face.

He tried to knee me in the side, but I blocked him, and used his momentum to throw him across the room. “You were such a bastard to me in high school! Why the hell didn’t I take a bat to you and all of your laughing friends?!” I asked rhetorically as I straddled and punched him. I tried to minimize damage to his face by punching his pectorals instead.”

He was every bit as skilled at fighting as I was, so he reversed our positions, and wrapped his hands around my throat. “You called or texted me every 5 minutes to make sure I wasn’t doing anything wrong, but then I find out that all the while, you were spreading your legs for some other guy!”

I pushed him off me. Our fighting got a bit more brutal for a moment, and I’m sure there is a boxing promoter somewhere that would love the opportunity to broadcast this on pay-per-view. He managed to punch me in my abdomen, and I responded with a scorpion kick to his forehead.

“Every time I see your face, I just want to slip rat poison in your coffee! I can’t stand you!”

We were both panting from exertion by now, and I knew that we were almost out of rage. This meant that we were about to move onto the sex. I waited for him to make his move. He took a step closer to me, and I backed towards my room.

I was only wearing a pair of white yoga pants and a black tank top, so it was fairly easy to see that my nipples were hard. I knew that he would bite them in just a few moments. I backed up another step closer to my room, and he discarded his T-shirt as he followed me.

“You’re pathetic,” I taunted.

“You’re horrible,” he responded. He stepped closer to me, and I let him put his hands around my throat. This time, he would choke me lightly. It was a dominance gesture, and meant that he was ready to throw me onto my bed and fill me with his lust.

I grasped the bottom of my tank top, and started to remove it.

“Um… Ma’am… Sir?” A completely new voice interrupted us. We looked over to find two cops and Hunter watching us. Crap!

“Is there a problem officer?” I asked. I let a smile show since I knew that asking a cop if there was a problem while I had a man’s hands around my throat was highly ironic. It was actually pretty funny. Funny enough that he laughed as he dropped his hands, releasing my throat.

The officer responded to my question. “We’re here because we received a call that there was a serious fight going on. We take domestic violence and death threats very seriously, Ma’am.”

I was definitely laughing by this time. “I assure you, there’s nothing to worry about.”

“You both look as if you had a serious fight,” the officer pointed out.

My friend pointed at me and then himself a couple of times. “We’re both black belt martial artists. We sometimes spar like this to keep our skills in top shape.”

“Right…” the officer stated disbelievingly. “And you also bicker like a married couple and vow to kill each other as you spar?”

“Actually, yes,” I replied. My professional persona was back in place, and I smiled sweetly at the cops. “The fact of the matter is that we were doing nothing wrong. I would never press charges against him, and he would never press charges against me. Since this is my house and I did not call you. I suggest you leave. Now.”

“I’m afraid that we are going to need a few more details for our report first,” the other officer – who had been silent up until now – insisted.

My friend shrugged. “Sure, why not. We’ve been sparring partners since college, and we often visit each other when we need to vent some rage and frustration. Today, I found out that my girlfriend was cheating on me, and being a real bitch about it too. So, I came over here to pick a fight.”

I continued. “It had been a couple of months since our last fight, so I had some pent up anger and frustration to vent as well. I decided to kick his ass since he was here.”

“And you are both black belts?” The second cop asked. “You are equally matched and had an equal chance of defending yourselves?”

“Yep,” I confirmed, and then pointed to a picture on the wall not too far from where the cops stood. “See for yourselves.”

They examined the picture taken the day the class had received their new belts. We were the only two who had obtained black that day, and it stood out in the picture against our white uniforms. The cops noted this in their small pads of paper.

“So, you’re friends?” They asked.

“Friends?!” We scoffed in unison. “More like enemies!”

“Then did you break in?” Obviously the cops were fishing for something they could use to haul one of us in with.

“Nope, I have a key,” my friend stated as he held up the key.

“Hey, you should go back and tell that girlfriend of yours that she’s a bitch and you never want to see her again,” I informed him.

“I suggest you refrain from taking a bat to that guy. You haven’t mentioned that one in years, makes me wonder what happened. Ah anyway, I think I’ll be going now. Next time I’ll make sure to call or text first before I come over.”

I shook my head. “No, it’s my fault for not insisting that my guest be gone before we started fighting. I didn’t think he’d call the cops though.”

We gave each other the martial artist’s bow to signal the end of a match, and then he put his T-shirt back on as he left.

“I appreciate your concern, Officers, but I’ll thank you to leave now,” I insisted. They were obviously reluctant, but complied.

Hunter stared at me as I contemplated kicking him out too. I had already called him a cab, but he had to have sent it away as he waited for the cops to arrive. He seemed angry… and then hurt… and then angry again.

I sighed. “Just let me get changed, and then I’ll drive you home.”

He followed me into my room. “So, were you really cheating on him with me?”

I laughed. “No!”

“Am I the one you referred to? … When you mentioned taking a bat to someone and all his friends back in high school…”

“I’ve already told you, I don’t remember you from back in high school,” I lied with a sincere smile.

“You really do hate me, don’t you?” He asked, his voice colored with something akin to depression.

I wanted to lie again and confirm his statement, but something deep down wouldn’t let me. I released the breath I had been unconsciously holding. “Let’s just say that I want to maintain a professional working relationship, and leave it at that.”

“What if I want to date you and work on a much deeper relationship?” He wondered.

I had my hands on my shirt, ready to remove it, but he was officially pissing me off again. It wasn’t as bad as normal since my rage cup was fairly empty at the moment, but it was enough to make me change my mind. Changing to bring him home wouldn’t help anything until I had calmed down. I abruptly left my bedroom, and went to the small workout room I had created in my basement.

I pulled on some gloves, and then started to wail on my long cylindrical punching bag. It hung from the ceiling and was weighted to put up a good fight. It was also chained to the floor so that I could kickbox it without it flying around and then knocking me off my ass.

Hunter watched me in amusement. Perhaps he accurately guessed that I was upset by his question. Maybe he also had a better idea than I did about why I was upset.

“I may not be a fighter, but I am pretty athletic. Have you ever gone hiking in the mountains?” He asked.

“No, and you really don’t want to be alone with me in the mountains,” I warned him. “The temptation would be far too much to ignore.”

“Temptation?” He wondered curiously.

“Yes… to push you into a ravine and then call it in as an accidental fall,” I elaborated.

He paled, and then sighed. “You claim you don’t remember me, but if that were true, then why are you so mad at me? I haven’t done anything to you since we started working together.”

Ah damn! He’d caught me in my lie. I decided to be completely honest for about 60 seconds. “Alright, fine. Yes, I remember you and what you did to me, and yes I hate you because of it. I’m impressed that you’ve apologized and want to make up for the past, but other than the fantastic sex, I don’t want anything to do with you. If you want to fuck from time to time, that’s fine, but other than that, I want you to leave me alone.”

He approached me slowly; his hands up to show that he didn’t want to provoke me. He shifted his hands to my hips, and pulled me close. I shivered slightly as he nibbled on my ear.

“I’ve had you stuck in my mind ever since high school. I was in love with you back then, and could never get over you because of what I did. I want to make it up to you. I want to make things right between us,” he whispered, his breath hot on my neck.

I shivered again as I felt the cage I’d shoved my heart in crack open a tiny bit. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to forgive him, but I couldn’t deny that every time he touched me, I wanted to melt into his arms. The problem was that I was so very afraid that he would stomp on my heart again.

I didn’t reply, but I also didn’t resist as he pulled off my tank top. He bent to take my nipple in his mouth, and I wondered if maybe just maybe I might be able to give him a chance. I also had never truly gotten over him, and it seemed only fair that he should be the one to fix the damage he had caused.

“You had better not be playing with me,” I warned as he removed my yoga pants.

He fixed his eyes on mine so that I could see his serious expression. “I’m not.”

I nodded. It all came down to whether or not I was willing to risk letting him into my heart. Running away from the risk made me seem like a coward, and I was not a coward!

He wiggled a finger between my second set of lips. I smiled as I shifted to give him better access. “You know… I’m looking forward to seeing how you make it up to me.”

He grinned. “So am I.”

I was surprised to feel my rage cup fill with something else. It was only a tiny sip so far, but hopefully – given time – it might overflow with this softer emotion. I sincerely hope so!

Go To Part 2