My Scars, His Fiery Oblivion

For years, I was Faron Blackwell' s "whipping post." A cruel pact with his mother forced me to endure one hundred public humiliations for his affairs, a living tally of his conquests. I was a joke to high society, the wife who couldn't keep her husband.

After the final scandal, I discovered I was pregnant. But Faron, repulsed by the scars his family' s punishments left on my body, hadn't touched me in months. He was convinced the child wasn't his.

He ordered his mistress, a doctor, to terminate the pregnancy.

"Make sure she feels every bit of it," he said. "No anesthesia."