The Ruined Princess

Ashleigh awoke abruptly and laid in her California king-sized bed, staring at the ceiling for a moment or two, relaxing her breathing. Listening to her husband’s soft snores also helped ease her mind. “That was one Hell of a nightmare.” she thought to herself, then grimaced at her own childishness. Raising herself slowly, as to not jostle Robert, she crept silently off of her side of the bed and, holding on to the wrought iron headboard for balance, slipped her tiny feet into her satin, ballerina style slippers. She padded across the plush, cream colored carpeting, into the long hallway and into the nearly entirely chrome kitchen. Ashleigh rarely, if ever, cooked but she still had to have the best and the most modern appliances. Ashleigh had to have the best of everything. Ashleigh was spoiled senseless and not one bit ashamed of it. At twenty-two years of age, she had never had to work or fight for anything in her life, and considering her newlywed husband owned multiple law firms, it was doubtful she ever would. Besides, if things didn’t work out with her and her new husband, daddy would always take care of her until she found another suitable, rich husband.

After a few sips of water, she made a face and poured the rest into the sink, opting instead for half a glass of Moscato. Sitting down at the kitchen bar, she lost herself in thought again. She thought of Robert again and smirked at how he was basically just her long-term sugar daddy. At almost twenty years her senior, everyone else knew exactly what he was as well but she didn’t care. “If you can get it, flaunt it!”, she thought and smirked again, a facial expression that was nearly permanent, alternating only with a look of disdain that she gave nearly everyone and a big smile when she got what she wanted. However, this did nothing to diminish her attractiveness and she knew it. At five foot one and one hundred and three pounds, she was slender and curvy in all the right places. Since she was so petite, her breasts weren’t incredibly large, only a B cup, but they were firm and perky, her small pink nipples pointing outwards perfectly. She had a flat stomach wiith slightly wider hips than she would have liked and an athletic rear that was round and tight but still soft to the touch. Thinking of her body, she stretched out a leg from short, silk robe, pointed her toes and admired it. It was toned and shapely from numerous hours a week with her personal trainer. She only wished that her skin tone could be slightly darker, but running her french tipped fingernails through her stylishly cut, shoulder length, ruby colored hair reminded her of why that couldn’t be. “At least I don’t have those hideous freckles.” she thought to herself for comfort. She still turned the heads of all the men at her husband’s dinner parties in her push up bra and Herves Leger bandage dress. She chuckled as she thought of how all of the other trophy wives immediately disliked her.

Sipping the last of her wine, she glanced at the kitchen wall clock and decided to go on back to bed. She had been in the kitchen for at least thirty minutes. She would have to be careful not to wake her husband, since it was 4:00 and he would have to be up and out for work in a couple of hours. Opening the bedroom door quietly, she made her way through the darkness, being careful not to bump into anything. Settling back into bed, she had the urge to show her new hubby some affection. Snuggling against him and throwing her arm around him, she started to drift back off to sleep…and then she realized something was wrong. “What is that smell?” she wondered, putting her nose more into Robert’s neck. It was a completely different smell, a completely different cologne. Robert always smelled of Armani and aftershave, this smelled like…AXE? Ugh! Ashleigh ran her hand down and over the arm of her ‘husband’, noting that the muscles were bigger and bulkier than they should have been and panic struck her. She leaped up, but she was too late. The stranger in her bed caught her by the throat and threw her back down on her back, effectively cutting off her air supply at the same time.

As Ashleigh flailed and kicked, but to no avail, the man forced one of her arms upwards and repositioned himself in one, swift move so that his knee was on her throat. When he had her pinned, he clicked her wrist into a pair of handcuffs and then locked the other side into one of the thick, ornate designs in the headboard. Ashleigh was no longer fighting at this point, she just wanted to breathe. Her head was throbbing, her lungs were on fire and her entire body was screaming for oxygen, when, mercifully, he removed his weight off of her windpipe. Every ragged breath she took in felt like it was laced with crushed glass. Sobbing and gasping for air, her other arm was ripped away from her and attached to the headboard in the same fashion.

She then felt the bed shift, and breathed a sigh of relief, thinking that he was leaving. Instead, he flipped the switch for the overhead light, leaving her blinded. She turned her head and blinking back tears, opened her eyes. Propped up in the corner was Robert, her husband, his eyes open and vacant, his throat slit from ear to ear. Ashleigh screamed, her blood frozen in her veins, her heart somewhere in her stomach. “Holy shit…Robert!” she half cried, half whispered. Then she raised her eyes to the man and was immediately brought to reality by his smile and the malicious glint in his cold, blue eyes. “If you want our money, there’s a safe in Robert’s office, the code is 286-” the man strode to her in three, quick steps and promptly hit her. Hard. “I don’t want your fuckin’ money, bitch!” he growled “I want to show you what happens to snobby, little cunts. Or, actually, I want to show you what happens to the cunts of snobby, little cunts.”. At this, he laughed, presumably at his own wit, Ashleigh thought. Right now, her skin was crawling, her ears were ringing, her head was pounding, her lungs were still burning, she was restrained and her husband was dead in the corner of their bedroom. “How can this get any worse?” she cried inside her own mind. She just hoped that she would live. Her only hope was that someone would come by the house when Robert didn’t show up for work in the morning. She still had a few more hours to get through.

The man then turned away from her and pulled a black, nondescript duffel bag out from under the nightstand. He slammed the bag down onto the nightstand, knocking the Tiffany lamp to the floor. He then flashed Ashleigh the coldest, cruelest, most evil smile she had ever seen outside of a movie. “I have to keep him talking” she thought frantically, “if I keep him talking, it will take up more time.”. “Why did you kill Robert?” she implored. “Was he the target or am I? I don’t understand.”. “Of course you’re the ‘target’, you stupid bitch. Did you think you could always flaunt yourself in front of everybody and look down on everyone other than your little, rich friends and husband and turn your nose up at them without someone bringing you down a few notches? That’s what you need, you know. You need to be knocked off of your high horse, maybe you need some common dick in your mouth. Maybe that will help you out!”. She was taken aback. He was practically shaking from anger, screaming at her, so close to her face that spit had hit her. Maybe she deserved this from some people, but she didn’t think she had ever even seen this man before. “Th-th-then why did you kill Robert?” she asked in a tiny voice. His entire stance changed. He shrugged and said in a nonchalant tone “It was nothing personal. While it may have been fun to bind and gag him and make him watch his hot, young wife being fucked like a street whore, I have better plans for him. It definitely wasn’t done to hurt you, even though you’re so in love with him.” his voice was dripping with sarcasm there “you’re incapable of loving anyone or anything other than money and yourself. We’ll see if you don’t appreciate more than that before the day is over.”.

Ashleigh’s mouth opened and closed to say something, but nothing came to her mind. She couldn’t argue with that, she just never had anyone tell her that to her face before. The last twenty minutes had been the worst minutes of her life. It was the first time she had, had anyone put their hands around her throat, the first time she had been restrained, the first time she had been hit and certainly the first time she was around death so near. She knew it was only going to get worse. The man unzipped his duffel bag and gave her a wide grin. “I have goodies for you, Ashleigh. Don’t you just love presents?”.

The man began pulling items out of his bag, but Ashleigh couldn’t see what the items were. Her view was obstructed by the thick, fluffy pillows on either side of her. She took this time to study him through her fear and slowly increasing dread. He was tall, at least she thought he was, it was hard to tell with her laying down. He was wide-chested, extremely muscular from what she felt of his arms, and deeply tanned. She thought of the feel of his hands on her and remembered that they were heavily calloused. His nearly buzz-cut hair was a deep, dark brown, black away from the light. He had a strong jawline, covered with short, stubbly hairs, a thick nose that looked as if it had been broken once or twice and small, beady, dark eyes that flickered dangerously when he looked in her direction. At the moment, he was completely ignoring her, softly humming a tune while extracting items, looking at them closely, and then, dissatisfied, putting them back and pulling something else out.