Annabelle was sitting on the front porch. Nicole walked up the steps and stood silently in front of her.“Well,” Annabelle said, “did you learn h...ow to wipe down and curry a horse?”“Yes, Mistress Ann,” Nicole said. Then she looked down at the floor.“And?..” Annabelle said.“And Master Frank said I should show you these,” Nicole said as she turned around and bent over slightly. There were several crop welts on her ass. Some were starting to fade away. One was still bright and angry.“How did you. And on this trip to New York, I was going to play very hard. Because I came to meet Beth, my internet lover. We had made plans to meet in the lobby of the Royalton hotel. At 6′ 3′ and 215 pounds, dressed in a black suit and a sky blue silk t –shirt that matched my eyes, I was hard to miss. As was Beth… She walked into the bar wearing a slinky dress that accentuated the curves on your 5-foot frame. She had long auburn hair that flowed down past her shoulders to the tops of her perfectly shaped. ’ Bert looked over the tapes, picked one out, put it in the VCR, switched the machine on, then he joined Carla on the sofa. Snuggled together, they watched the movie, not talking much, content to be there with one another. Near the end of the movie, Bert felt Carla move in his arms. ‘Bert…’ Carla said, her voice was very soft. ‘What, baby?’ Bert asked. ‘There is…something…a-a fantasy…something that’s always…’ she murmured. Then she paused and shook her head. ‘No…you’ll think I’m…I’m. As he looked them over, he realized that each one was embossed on the bottom of the back cover with the name 'Coombs', and he recognized that as the name of a local specialty store. The next thing that he noticed was that the seven locks appeared to be identical, with no identifying numbers or marks on any of them. He wondered if they were all keyed alike. Another thought quickly came to mind, and he immediately turned to the shelf below the phone and grabbed the phone book. In just a few.