Content Warning:
The following novel-length tale is an erotic murder mystery with graphic violence and gratuitous non-consensual sex. Since I am writing for Literotica, the story contains more sex than mystery.
This story is in Nonconsent/Reluctance for a reason. Sensitive readers should look elsewhere for entertainment.
This story took place in 1977. There were no cell phones, no internet and computers were scarce.
I was clearing out the junk in our basement and came across an old box that belonged to my wife. It was filled with law school notes, an old diary and a strange notebook written in code. The notebook was illustrated with drawings of beautiful naked women. The subject in the last few drawings looked like my wife. My curiosity piqued, I read the diary. I edited the material and filled in a few details, but otherwise, this story is from Jean's diary, almost word for word. Until I read the diary, I was unaware of most of what had transpired that summer beyond a few terse comments from Jean and what was published in the newspapers. I am amazed at my wife's determination and courage. God, I love her!
Chapter 1: The Rent Party
I felt a wave of nausea as I read the horrors detailed in the trial transcript. Inesa was a young woman from Eastern Europe about my age. She had been promised a better life in America only to be forced into prostitution. She worked on the streets of Philadelphia for less than two months before she was butchered. She had been raped and almost cut in two before she died from her prolonged torture. I was grateful the document did not contain the photographic exhibits referenced in the text.
I am an intern to a liberal professor who opposes the death penalty on moral grounds, no matter how gruesome the murder. In this case, he believes the legal system had rushed to judgment and convicted the wrong man. I wasn't convinced of the young man's innocence, but if the professor was right, a monster was walking the streets of North Philadelphia, free to kill again. Whoever killed Inesa, deserved a quick journey to hell. The professor had liked the case summary I had written, and wanted me to perform a thorough analysis of the prosecution's case. Tonight, I didn't have the stomach for the grisly task. The heat and humidity of a summer evening in Philadelphia made the assignment too oppressive. I closed the court record and tossed it aside. I wiped sweat and tears from my eyes and sat back to stare out of the window.
I'd been raised by my mother who was a high school teacher in an Upstate New York college town. The only thing I had in common with the victim, besides being a young white woman, was that I had left my hometown hoping for a better life. Unfortunately, getting my law degree required passing contract law which I had flunked once already. I was also short another three credits. So, I was stuck at Temple for the summer following my third year in law school. I was retaking contract law and working as an intern to a criminal law professor to earn the required credits.
I reached for my thick textbook on contract law and forced myself to study for next Monday's quiz. I couldn't afford to bomb another exam. Unfortunately, I found contract law to be the most boring subject I had ever taken. I didn't even manage to stare at the tedious book for ten minutes before my I started to fall asleep. I wish someone would just shoot me and put me out of my misery.
A stream of sweat fell from my face and ran down the valley between my breasts. OK, I understand offer and acceptance, but even after reading the chapter on promissory estoppel and nonreciprocal promises three times, I realized I would probably never comprehend the material. I dreaded the three-hour classes every morning of the week since the small class size guaranteed you would be called on. Unfortunately, it was a required course. Most of my classmates had earned their law degrees in the customary three years and moved on to begin their careers. I was desperate to earn my law degree. Without it, I was doomed to a future of meaningless, low-paying jobs.
The only stimulating part of the summer was working as a legal aid to a professor who was passionate about helping people who had been wrongly convicted. I had loved his class on criminal law and hoped to use what I learned to help oppressed women after I graduated. Unfortunately, the prospect of finishing law school at the end of the summer was getting more remote by the day, as it appeared likely that I would flunk contract law a second time. Even more disheartening was my feeling that my attempts to impress my advisor were doomed to failure.
Since I had grown up without a father, I had always been intimidated by male authority figures. The professor's forbidding behavior, when I met with him daily, terrified me. He had quickly crushed my assumption that working as a legal aid was an easy three credits. He stated that successful completion of my internship required that I delivered significant progress on one of his death row appeals. He didn't care if it took a year or eternity.
I leaned back in my chair and faced my noisy fan. I was used to hot summers in Upstate New York, but the heat and humidity in Philadelphia were in another league. My skimpy outfit exposed a lot of sweaty skin to the struggling fan. Because of the heat, I was wearing a farm girl costume I had put together to fulfill a fantasy of my boyfriend, Steve. I had found the skimpy outfit in the bottom of a drawer at home while packing for summer school. I decided it would be perfect for studying in my dorm room on hot summer nights. I wouldn't be caught dead wearing it outside of my dorm room.
I had sewn the halter top using lightweight, red and blue cotton. It had string ties behind my neck and back. The skimpy top barely concealed my ample breasts and was designed to exhibit as much cleavage as possible. The colorful top left my trim stomach bare, and Steve also claimed it revealed a significant amount of side boob. The top was cooler than a tee shirt or blouse, but the lightweight material still made my braless breasts sweat. The night's overbearing heat and humidity plastered the thin material to my flesh.
The cutoff jeans were not quite as skimpy as the Daisy Dukes my ex-boyfriend had wanted me to copy from Playboy, but even so, they barely covered my low-rise panties. I had lost weight in law school, and the once snug shorts were in danger of slipping off my narrow hips. In the heat of passion, Steve had ripped the ragged jeans up one side nearly to the waist. I used a safety pin to hold the gap closed. Even so, the tear revealed my white panties. The whiteness of my underwear was the only evidence that my pale body had any hint of a tan. My bleach blond hair was fastened into my customary ponytail.
I had lived with Steve during my senior year at Cornell, but we had separated after we got our degrees. He went to work in a research laboratory in Palo Alto, and I went to Temple Law School. He insisted that we should be free to date other people while I was in school because three years was too long for either of us to remain celibate. The last time we were together, he declared he was excited about dating hot California girls. What a jerk! At the time, I thought our relationship was over.
However, I had the last laugh. The fact that we still talked every week by phone suggested Steve was striking out with the hot chicks. In fact, I had spent the last two summers with him in Palo Alto. I love sex, but even I was surprised at how horny he was. His randy behavior added to my conviction that poor Steve was having little success with California girls.
I wasn't having a lot more luck being single again either. I dated a few guys while I was in law school, but none of them were keepers. A few of them were interesting enough to make it into my bed. Currently, my sex life was so bleak I reverted to my old practice of frequent masturbation. I was still holding out hope of continuing my relationship with Steve. He was supportive of my decision to become a lawyer. He explained that being a success in the San Francisco area required both partners in a marriage have a professional degree.
I stared at the ceiling and for the hundredth time and tried to comprehend why I was in law school. Anything was better than reading contract law, even revisiting old wounds. Originally, I thought I was interested in fighting for women's rights in rural America, but Freud suggested otherwise. My father was a lawyer, and I was desperate to impress him. He divorced my mother when I was four. He insisted on exerting his visitation rights to infuriate my mother. He had sexually abused me for a couple of years before my mother got a court order terminating his parental rights. I had managed to suppress all memories of his abuse until a couple of years ago when they came flooding back. A shrink at the college health clinic suggested my childhood abuse explained my promiscuity and frequent urge to masturbate.
