Punished

By Gracie Snow

This Dark book is not for the faint of heart. Please read the description before reading.

Life was never meant to be easy, or so the saying goes.

My story is not one of fairytales or happily ever afters. I don't even know what that means anymore. I don't even believe it can exist. Not really.

If you had told me years ago that I would be married to a violent man who handed out punishments often and freely, I'd never have believed it. I was too strong. Too independent.

It's funny how our life circumstances ultimately shape what we believe to be right or wrong. Do I know that what he does to me is wrong? Yes. Would I call myself an abused wife? No. Try to puzzle that one out for me. I live in a life of contradiction and uncertainty and have accepted that.

I've learned that violence in the home is similar to a game of Chess. Each move you make in the game, planned or not, comes with both advantages and disadvantages. You have to keep moving forward, win or lose. You learn to expect the unexpected because both the wins and the losses are just part of the game.

I've learned to hide the pain that I know so well, pain that aches to my very bones. I've become an expert at putting on a smile and hiding the tears, making myself presentable as I camouflage the deep scars that echo within my heart and into my soul. I can detail the circumstances behind every mark, every scar that is permanently tattooed on my body. I can tell each story in vivid detail, stories that could bring tears to the eyes of the hardest men. I'm far too familiar with pain and what it feels like to be broken and I'm really not quite sure what to do about that anymore.

This is my story.

Take this journey through Kaetlyn's tumultuous marriage, one that is marked with violence and pain. It's a story that few are able to tell, stories that are all too often hidden behind closed doors and shuttered windows. Violence in the home is more common than most realize. This book will take you through the emotional and physical horror that Kaetlyn endures at the hands of her husband.

This isn't a book that ends in a happily ever after, but it does have a happy-for-now ending. This is a nontraditional Dark Romance. There are things that may trigger some readers, so please don't read if you aren't comfortable with: depictions of harsh and violent punishments and strong sexual material that most often includes some form of violence. It is raw and it is real.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gracie Snow
• Release date: Mar 25, 2019
• ISBN: 9781386756088

Book preview

Chapter Two

This is not the life my parents dreamed I would grow to have when I was born, and certainly not the life I anticipated falling into. I was always a free spirit and had yearned for my freedom, straining at the rules and barriers even before I neared eighteen. I always wanted to be older, have more, make my own decisions. I knew even as a child that I would live a better life than the one I had been raised in. When the time finally arrived, the clock hands wound down to declare it was time to leave childhood behind and move on to adulthood, I was already sprinting forward, desperate to find my place in the wild world.

I longed for freedom for so long, I often wonder if I inadvertently sent my life reeling in the opposite direction. How could a young woman so desperate to spread her wings choose to leave freedom behind in an instant to live a life with a mountain of rules and endless boundaries?

I'd dreamed of becoming a powerful woman, beautiful and confident, taking on the world single-handedly. And I'd always fantasized that when the proper amount of time had passed, when I had conquered my career and my life, a handsome man would sweep me off my feet and carry me off into a lifetime of love, adoration, and forever bliss. Those were the silly dreams of a naïve girl, I know that now, but life never seems to work in just the way we dream it will.

Now, I try to tell myself that I should have done this, or I should have done that, but I often believe that none of that would have mattered. I never really wanted to end up where I did, but, if I really look back at my life, maybe in some twisted way, I knew it was exactly where I would end up in the end. No matter which path I took to get there, I would have ended up right where I am. Good or bad, wrong or right, I know that I took this path for a reason, even if I can’t explain exactly why. 

In a weird way though, I'm at ease with my life and my daily routines. My pain and sorrow seem to be all too familiar to me and in a sense, I wonder if maybe growing up all those years ago, maybe somewhere in the back of my mind I've always felt shadows of the pain I would inevitably feel. It's what I accepted.

This is my destiny. Lord knows I can’t imagine my life any differently now that I'm here. I can’t even fathom a life with a docile husband or freedoms beyond my understanding. It all seems so far outside of reality to me.

I know that any attempt I've ever made to secure that kind of lifestyle, to dream and reach for love, it just slips so easily through my grasp like white hot sand whenever I reach out for it. I'm not meant to love without abandon, to feel the soft whispers of a man’s fingers trailing along my skin as he drinks in every bit of me with greedy eyes that hunger for only my touch. I know that love like that isn't in the stars for a person like me. That's a lesson I learned the hard way, a lesson that will forever leave me with a hollow empty feeling and a scar so devastating I can barely breathe steady whenever the memory of it invades my mind.

My story is not one of fairytales and happily ever after. I don’t even know what that is anymore, I don’t even believe that it can exist. Not really. I can’t even create a false happy ending to what I have endured. My life has not been ordinary and there are days that I can’t even see clearly to the next morning. You see, I can't even imagine a comfortable and settled life like some of you live. I'm not bitter about it, how could I be? I'm content with my life, and in the end, that's all that really matters. Each person has their own story, and this is mine. Good and bad, dark and light, my life has been lived in nothing but extremes. I won’t deny that I sometimes wonder what it must be like to live a different life. That's only human nature, right? Always wondering if the grass is really greener on the other side of the fence because happiness is truly fleeting in even the most simplest of lives. 

It seems every little girl is born with the desire to find her prince charming and live happily ever after, dreaming of romance and love from the moment she's born. This seems to be innate, a need to have both companionship and love. As a toddler, a girl is already walking down the path toward the husband she yearns to be with. I remember being young and having wild dreams that all seem so empty and hollow now. I was so innocent and believed in fairytales despite the world around me. I'd play dress up, putting a pillow case over my hair for a veil, wearing an old dress of my mother’s and carrying a bunch of flowers picked out of my back yard, pretending to be the beautiful bride that I would one day become. Now I know that toddler play is just preparing the young girl for her big day, a practice run, if you will. I always yearned to be married, to have that one man propose on bended knee flashing a brilliant diamond and a wide smile, his eyes shining with hope and love beyond my imagination. I'd cry and accept his offer instantly, letting him slip the ring on my finger and we would live happily ever after.

It seems so simple really, especially when you're that young. But being an adult woman is far more difficult than the innocent play of a little girl. The husband I chose, the one I married, is a far cry from the dreams of my youth. Was I too anxious to marry and ended up choosing the wrong man? Had I waited long enough for my prince charming to sweep me off my feet? Would I have even noticed him had I seen him right in front of me? These are questions that haunt me.

Wanting to give and receive love is a need we are born with, what we crave to share. From those innocent days of make believe and dress up, a little girl holds inside herself a vision of what her adult life will be like. For me, it was a fairytale dream including a dashing prince, a spiraling castle and a lifetime of fun and laughter, and of course a pony of my own.

As I grew up and the years flew by, the dreams may have changed slightly, substituting one boy or another into the role of dashing prince, but the main theme continually remained the same; a knight in shining armor would save me from my distress, I would find true love and we would live happily ever after.

Naïve and innocent, I set out into the world at the age of eighteen, certain that my prince would come and sweep me off to his castle within moments of becoming an adult. How naïve I was.

Knowing now how life really is, I yearn for those innocent years again when I still had dreams, when the possibilities were both enchanting and even possible. Just to have the possibility of a happily ever after, I would trade my life for just a moment of that sweet innocence again. I've learned the hard way that not all stories end with a happily ever after, you must choose the right path or you're faced with the burn of the dragon’s fire until the end of time and happily ever after can easily turn into just the desire to make it to the next day and to continued survival.

Life was never meant to be easy, or so the saying goes. It's what my Grandmother used to tell me when I was a small child. She'd sit in her rocker, knitting multi colored blankets, as I sat on the floor watching the rhythmic movement of the rocker, back and forth in a consistent pattern that rocked in time with her needles.

Katelyn darling, she would say, The good lord put you on this earth to work for him, he didn’t intend on it being easy.

But, Grandma, what's so wrong with having it all? my six year old mind couldn’t understand the complexities of life and the reason my parents denied me the pony I'd set my eye on. In my mind, everyone should have whatever they wanted, wouldn’t that make life easier?

Her tired eyes lit up as her lips curled into a smile, you're young still, my love. You'll understand when you grow older. She put her knitting aside and pulled me into her lap, rocking gently as my head burrowed into her shoulder, All that matters to me-, she whispered, her wisdom and age coming out in wispy breaths, is that you're happy, promise me that you'll be happy with all that the lord has set out for you.

I promise Grandma.

I was short sighted at that tender age, so much so that my only thoughts at the time were about getting a pony. If only that would happen, then I'd be happy, as long as I could have just that one thing. In hindsight, I only wish I had the wisdom back then to realize that happiness is achieved in so many different ways and that for