Free Secrets by Danielle Steel

her sometimes and couldn't go deep enough or hard enough. He'd been that way even when she was pregnant, and it had scared her sometimes, but no harm had ever come of it. She'd been embarrassed to tell her doctor what they did. And he pulled her toward him now and ground against her, chewing on her lower lip, and then he pulled away and smiled. I'm glad I came home after all. This beats lunch downtown.
    She laughed, but her eyes weren't smiling today, and he grabbed her by the arm and hurried down the long hall with her, around the L shape that surrounded the sunken living room. Their bedroom was at the farthest end, he had planned it that way, and she often wondered if he had done that so the children wouldn't hear the noises he made. He slammed the door behind them, and locked the door. He never bothered pulling the window shades but the kids couldn't see them from the pool anyway, and she liked seeing the trees as he pulled her roughly to the floor and yanked off her bathing suit. He unzipped only his fly and forced himself inside her with no prelude, no gentleness, his hands milking her breasts as roughly as they always had, until he bent down and bit her nipples too. Sometimes he bit them till they bled, but not this time, this time he worked them until she was aroused too, and began to moan softly beneath his hands, and then he startled her by pulling away, and fondling her with his lips, pulling her wide with both hands and then plunging inside her again and this time for the last time as he gave a loud shout and then a long soft moan, as he lay on her, satisfied, pleased with himself, smiling to himself as he touched her breasts for a last time, never seeing the tears that ran slowly from her eyes as she looked at him.

Chapter 5

    Jane walked onto the familiar set with a knot in her stomach the size of Boulder Dam. She saw the faces of the carpenters she knew so well, the sound men, the gaffers she had known for years. And all of them were dear to her. She baked cookies for them, brought cakes, knitted for their babies when they came. She cared about everyone, and she needed all of them. Needed them for her well-being. They were her family, as much as her children were. These people were her only friends. And now she was losing them.
    The atmosphere was somber, no one said hello to her that day. Everyone knew what was coming. Word had gotten out. The victims had been warned. And Jane had to fight back tears when the director spoke to her. He described the scene, the carnage afterwards, and made no mention of what he was doing to her, in real life. That he was taking a role from her that she had cherished for ten years. In fact, this was the first day of her eleventh season on the show. Her first day and her last. She didn't even want to think back to when it all began. She couldn't bear the thought of it.
    She went to her dressing room upstairs, and packed her things into the suitcase she'd brought. Four more black wigs, a sweater, a sweat suit and a pair of shorts to wear between scenes sometimes. She had left a pair of slippers there, and dozens of little jars of makeup, a dozen bottles of nail polish. She packed it all while praying she could do the last scene without getting hysterical. She knew what a shock the scene was going to be to the audience, and like Lou, she thought the director was making a big mistake. And word was out, by Christmas, all the old faces would be gone.
    The stand-ins were in place while the light men worked when she got downstairs. They were being used so the lights could be adjusted properly, and suddenly Jane envied them. She would have loved to stay on as one of them, as anything ' she felt as though she were leaving home for the first time. It had been easier leaving Buffalo than it would be leaving this show.
    There were twenty-five or thirty people around, and the walls of the set were being slid into place, and it seemed an eternity before the warning bells sounded for the last