Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience.
 
 This story was 'inspired', if that's the right word, by Alexis and Souvie.
Both have written stories dealing with the issue of domestic violence. 
This is a subject of which I have no personal understanding or experience
and it demands to be treated seriously.  What follows is an attempt, on my
part, to highlight the issue.  DO NOT READ THIS IF YOU ARE EXPECTING
ROMANCE.

   Smilodon

   Monster



   Capricious.  That was the word that best described him, he decided.  He
played with the sound, drawing out each syllable.  Ca-pri-cious.  The more
he said it, the more he liked it.  It made him feel - powerful, somehow. 
It felt good.  It felt so good that that lovely tingling sensation began in
his groin.  He ordered another beer and a whisky chaser, grinning at the
young barmaid as he paid.  She simpered back, the bitch!  He could
certainly give her one, for starters.  He pictured her, legs spread,
begging him for it and grinned again.  If only she could see the vision he
could!  She'd shit herself with fright.  Probably not, though.  He reckoned
she was a right little slut on the quiet.  Nice tits, too.  She handed him
his change and walked away to serve another customer with a shudder he did
not see.

   He hadn't meant to stay at the pub so long.  Someone had come in and
he'd got talking, you know how it is, the time simply slipped by.  It was
only the landlord's call of "last orders in the Bar" that got him moving.
Not that he was drunk.  Oh no, he'd had a few, certainly, but he could walk
and talk straight.  He wouldn't have fancied driving, though, in that
condition.  He was - what was the expression?  - Ah, yes.  'Pleasantly
mellow,' that was it.  Still, it was a warm night and the rain had stopped
earlier.  The walk would do him good.

   He strolled indolently, deliberately not hurrying through the sleek, wet
streets.  Soft pools of light from curtained windows reflected from the
puddles.  It was too nice an evening to waste.  He stopped to light a
cigarette under a streetlamp and vaguely remembered a TV commercial from
back in the days before tobacco advertising was banned.  He'd always liked
that ad; the mysterious man in the trenchcoat lighting up, his features
mostly hidden by the brim of his hat and the hands that cupped the lighted
match.  He was a figure of power, that man, in some loose, inexplicable
way. He had the aura.

   His house was in darkness when he got there.  He fumbled with the key
and cursed softly under his breath.  Why did she do it?  She knew he'd be
coming home.  OK, he'd said he wouldn't be long but a man's got to have a
bit of leeway sometimes - hasn't he?  She could at least have left the
outside light on for him.  A knot of anger began to form in his chest. 
Feeling it there fed his irritation.  Why did she have to wind him up like
that?  He pushed too hard at the recalcitrant door and almost fell into the
dark hallway.  He tripped over something and did fall this time.  His
bellowed expletive filled the silent house.  Getting to his feet and
rubbing his barked shin, he saw it was his daughter's doll's pram.  He
kicked at it in fury.

   A light came on at the top at the stairs and she stood there.  She
looked down and saw him, his face contorted by rage, suffused with blood.
Her heart fluttered wildly as the familiar terror engulfed her.  A low moan
barely escaped her lips.  He was charging up the stairs towards her.  She
could smell the booze on his breath, and the stale tobacco smoke odour
clinging to his suit, from yards away.  Then came the pain as he seized her
by the hair and dragged her back down the staircase.

   "Bob!" she wailed, "Please, you promised!"

   The sound of her voice only served to inflame him more and he backhanded
her across the face without even turning to look at her.

   What horrified her most as such times was the sheer methodical way he
went about the beating.  The rage was there, she could read it like a
banner headline, but there was no loss of control.  If anything, he seemed
too much in control, too deliberate to be human.  It wasn't the act of an
angry man simply lashing out.  It was a calculated cruelty.  She lost track
of time.  It could have taken a minute or an hour, she could never say. 
Her world was encompassed by the pain, by the sickening noise of fist
hitting tender flesh and the rasp of his breathing.  He didn't say a word
throughout.

   Finally he grew tired and let her be.  She heard him walk through to the
kitchen, heard the sound of the kettle filling and the gas being lit.  She
lay still, clasping her knees and sobbing.  The kettle began to sing as the
water boiled and she heard the sound of pouring and the soft 'thunk' of the
fridge door closing.  He appeared in the doorway carrying two mugs of tea,
his face an inscrutable mask.  He placed a mug beside her on the floor and
subsided into an armchair.

   She heard him clear his throat and caught the acrid sulphur smell of the
match as he lit another cigarette.  She heard him draw and exhale heavily.
For a while, he smoked in silence.  She pulled herself painfully to her
knees and, stilled hunched against the agony that gripped her, tottered
slowly to the sofa and sat in silent misery.  Now it would come, the
self-flagellation, the tearful apology, the wet, weeping kisses and finally
the promise:

   "I swear to God, my love, I swear on our daughter's life, I will never
do it again."

   Until the next time.
   ********************