Joanne snuck into her bed after having a shower, she managed to not wake up Freddy. It took her a while to get to sleep, the pain from the new tattoo and from her stretched arsehole made it very hard to get comfortable.
She woke up to her alarm eventually, having gotten a couple of hours of sleep and realised that Freddy was already in the shower.
Joanne went downstairs to make herself a cup of tea.
"Morning mum." She heard Tom say as he entered the kitchen.
"Hey, sorry I couldn't talk last night," Joanne said to him, "It was just a bit late."
"It's fine... can we talk now?" Tom said.
His face was dead straight and he looked upset, Joanne panicked over what it could be, never having seen her son like this before.
"Yeah, sure." Joanne said and took a seat at their dining table with him. She looked up at him but Tom just stared at the floor, "What's wrong?" She asked.
"Is everything okay, with you and dad?" Tom asked her.
Joanne heart started to beat a mile a minute when she heard this,
What does he know?!
She panicked.
"W-what makes you ask that?" Joanne stuttered out and felt sick to her stomach.
"It's just, you're acting different," Tom stuttered back, "I don't know, something feels... off, the new clothes, the going out all night," Then Tom finally looked up and into his mother's eyes, "Are you seeing someone else?"
Oh god, I can't do this to him! My son, I can't ruin his life!
Joanne thought.
She felt like crying as she looked at her worried, only son.
"Tom," She whispered, then she decided what she was going to do, "No, I'm not."
There it was, Joanne had added lying to her sons face to her recent mistakes.
"You... you can tell me if you are." Tom said and looked to the ground again.
"I'm not," Joanne whispered, lying yet again, "We're just having a bit of a tough patch, but your fathers actually been putting more effort in lately."
"So, you two are, okay?" Tom asked her.
"Yes, don't you worry." Joanne said to him and stood up to place a hand on his shoulder, "I love you."
"I love you too, mum." Tom replied.
Joanne went upstairs and saw that Freddy was done in the bathroom so she locked herself in, just in time for her hyperventilating.
Oh my god! He can sense it! Can Freddy sense it?
Joanne thought as tears started to fall down her face,
How could I lie to him, to his face! I'm a monster!
After taking a few minutes to pull herself together, Joanne takes a shower and gets ready to go to work.
However, when she stepped out of the shower, Joanne realised she didn't bring her robe in. She knew that just wrapped the towel around her leaves her open to getting her tattoos seen. One slight movement of the towel and her collar bone tattoo, or the inner thigh tattoo, or her new arse cheek tattoo could be seen.
Fuck, what am I going to do?
She thought.
"Freddy!?" She shouted as she slightly opened the door.
There was no answer.
Maybe he's already gone?
She thought.
Joanne tightly wrapped the towel around her, whilst doing so she did notice her loss of weigh since dieting and going the gym, the towel wrapped around her much more than normal.
Then she quickly rushed to her bedroom.
She bent over to grab her robe.
"Mum?" She suddenly heard Tom's voice say from outside of her room.
"Don't come in!!" She shouted back in pure panic.
"What's up?" He asked.
"I'm not dressed." She told him.
Joanne quickly threw the towel onto the floor and put on her robe, covering up all of her marks and her piercing.
"Okay, you can come in now." She said.
Tom opened the door and walked in.
"Are you at work today?" He asked.
"Yeah, I'm setting off once I'm ready, why?" Joanne asked him.
"Was going to see if you wanted to meet up for lunch?" He asked her.
"That sounds lovely, I'll ring you when I'm free." Joanne tells him with a smile.
After that, Joanne gets dressed and heads back to work. She found herself a little nervous going in, this would be the first time she is seeing Michelle since their argument at Jason and Claire's apartment.
She walked through the office and smiled at some of her employees, Joanne sensed that none of them feared or respected her the way they used to.
It had been months since this whole blackmail started and Joanne now barely spends time in the office. When she does, she has to work at her old assistances desk and never has a lot of contact with her staff.
The odd few say "Hi" as she walks past, but Joanne feels a sense of shame and embarrassment, not being the woman, she once was.
She knocks onto Michelle's door, Joanne's old office, and walks in.
"Oh, what do you want?" Michelle grunts out, barely looking up from her laptop.
"I was just seeing what's happening, checking that everything is okay with the company?" Joanne said, still standing up.
"Sure you're not here just to see if I want to abuse and fuck you?" Michelle spat out.
"I'm... I'm sorry about how I spoke to you last time," Joanne whispered out, "I was going a little stir crazy, staying in their apartment for so long."
Michelle rose her head to finally look at Joanne.
"So, you don't still think you are just their slave anymore?" Michelle asked, still straight faced.
"I... I don't know." Joanne stuttered back, still torn on it.
"Urgh, you're pathetic." Michelle said and went back to looking at her laptop.
"Excuse me?" Joanne asked in shock, not expecting that from Michelle.
"You heard me," Michelle said, "You're pathetic, you bad person, everything you've done."
"This was all done to me, and you were part of it!" Joanne argued.
"When I first started, Claire made it clear you were wanting everything, that you enjoyed the fake abuse, well I thought it was fake," Michelle said, "Then I learnt what you were really like, and I thought maybe I could help you. But you love it, you stupid little whore."
"I do not love it!" Joanne spat back at her.
"You were talking about leaving your husband for them two to just carry this on! You've cheated on him for months, God knows how many men you've fucked." Michelle said.
"I had to for my husband! For my marriage!" Joanne shouted.
"Don't give me that, at some point it wasn't worth it." Michelle said to her, "You're telling me that all the tattoos, the abuse, the piercing, at no point you thought it was worth biting the bullet and telling Freddy the truth and hoping he doesn't leave you?"
