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He closed his eyes As quickly as the thought eed, he tamped it down Noas not the tiical parents

Gabriel knew he had a temper He tried to control it but frequently failed On one such occasion, to his sha in Toronto The women were beautiful and sexy; the city was ripe with diversions of music and art Yet he’d been depressed Paulina had been to see hiain After every encounter, he’d swear it would be the last tiave in

He knerong His continued involve to both of the, was tied to flesh that was very, very weak

After she went back to Boston, he began drinking heavily He becaht Sole Scotch-soaked evening So helped Haunted by his past, made all the more recent by his few days with Paulina, he felt as if he were one carelesshis cocaine habit

Then heand fenced a few times at their club, only to retire to a darkened room on the last occasion for a brief but explosive sexual encounter

Ann Singer pro diversions She whispered words of raw, intense pleasure the likes of which he’d never experienced

He was intrigued She had the power to drag his mind into his body and keep it there, unable to think or worry And that was how he found himself in the basement of her town house in Toronto, naked, restrained, and on his knees

She confused his senses by both pleasing and punishing him With every strike, all his eht hy had he waited so long to use physical pain to alleviate his otten

Then came the humiliation Ann’s dominance was over the ht to break his will

Gabriel realized what she was doing, and his psyche bristled He desired physical pain and accepted it, but not psychological h thanks to his past

He began to resist

She accused hi to top from the bottom and redoubled her efforts She retold his life story, spinning a speculative myth based solely on her own armchair analysis Some of it came perilously close to the truth And the rest of it

Without warning, soe, Gabriel couldn’t recall exactly what Professor Singer said that set hi the encounter lasted He only re fury

In one swift ht wrist (a considerable feat) and backhanded her across the face Her diminutive form crumpled to the tiled floor