The Penitent

Now published in one volume. Kathy Ryan's feelings of guilt began at an early age, when she used to masturbate in her uncle's basement, only later to hear him whisper, Shame, Katherine, shame. As an adult, a lovely young wife with a promising future, she's haunted by her guilt. Writing to a man who captures her imagination, she says: I can only guess why I am so powerfully drawn to you, why I am both excited and repelled by you, desiring you, yet very much afraid. I can only guess at why I feel this overwhelming compulsion to subjugate my will to yours'I know that such a desire is wrong...obscene...terrifying. The men Kathy desires disgust her: crude, filthy, wretched creatures? men no woman would want and yet she does. Even when she tries to swear them off, she finds herself again and again, lowering herself and returning for more humiliation and brutality. Driving heedlessly toward her twisted sexual shame, she quickly finds herself under the control of the hideous Mr. Stein....