"Lorraine," my stepdaughter Sharon begged again there beside me, "I don't think you should be doing this. Not now!" Her beautiful soft azure eyes now filled with concern as they looked up into the icy cold angry darkness of mine. The blonde sixteen year old teenager hurrying to keep up beside me, my angry stride long and swift. My high heeled leather booted feet made little sound on the heavy thick carpet underfoot as I strode furiously down that dark hallway past the closed doors of the three vice- presidents of DUVAL COMPUTER INC. The soft rustle of my long black flowing silken dress seemingly loud in my ears as Sharon hurried to keep up at my side. My stylish broad brimmed black hat and net veil partially concealed the hot anger in my face. I am tall, 5'9", and strong as a whip. Far stronger than most women. A tall hard featured aristocratic French brunette that suspected the worst was now happening to her loveless and dying marriage! Why it concerned me so then is a question I can't answer!
Sharon was nicely dressed, better than most teenagers you see. I am a good mother. Perhaps a bit too "strict", but that is another issue you may consider for yourself as I have no wish to get into such things. For tonight she had worn a lovely pale blue silken blouse and a long flowing red and white checkerboard skirt, the color going well with her "peaches and cream" complexion, as did the hose and patent leather sandals she wore. Her hair a glorious golden mane that fell just below her shoulders. She was a beautiful girl in every way, perhaps a bit too "beautiful" for her own good, her sixteen year old body already showing the "promise" of a beautiful womanhood to come. I worried about her. About what would happen if she had to go through another divorce. As a practicing psychiatrist I knew what harm could be done to a young impressionable mind like hers should Sharon have to again suffer the agony of another bitter divorce!
"Please, Lorraine!" Sharon whispered as we halted before the door marked "PRESIDENT". "I- I don't want to lose you!" No doubt vivid in her mind was the thought she would never see me again if there was an end to the marriage between her father and me. Being only her stepmother, there was a good chance that Jack would be "awarded" Sharon. The thought making me hesitate for a moment. Sharon had become much more than just a stepdaughter to me. Much more. Yet it was still our tenth wedding anniversary. Jack had not come home from the office to help celebrate it with me. I thought that I knew the reason why too. That note from Janet Rogers had told me all that I needed to know about things!
Janet Rogers was a young University student working part- time at DCI on our "work-study" program. A very intelligent young woman who people often mistook for my own daughter, we were so much alike. In her I had found something of a "kindred spirit", someone who I could share my thoughts, my ideas with. I had no doubt that someday she would go far, as she was ambitious and bright, willing to work hard for a goal. It had been with tears in her eyes that she had shoved the note into my hand and then fled down the hallway, leaving me standing there, Sharon at my side. The note having read that Jack was "cheating" on me with Sandra Stephens, his personal secretary, a busty short skirted wide hipped bleached blonde with a big rear end who was the subject of a continuous number of quite "risque" jokes here at DCI.
"What ever happens, you will be staying with me," I answered, clear in my own mind the thought that American civil law "ended" at the border and that my widowed sister in Baja would be quite glad to take care of Sharon for me should it become necessary to flee the country. Pushing the door open before me as I spoke, and expecting to see exactly what I saw there before me!
"OH SHIT!" I heard Jack gasp as he looked up, Sandra in his lap "naked" but for her bikinis, drinks there on the desk before them along with a white powder whose "identity" I had no doubt. Jack himself naked to the waist, the marks of her lipstick clearly visible there on his chest. I had suspected for some time that Jack might be "cheating" on me, but I thought he at least had better tastes than this cheap little office tart who flaunted her overripe slutty body in front of everyone! I still recalled the last time, when Jack had made a "pass" at Carol Simmons, the wife of a very good friend of mine, and the angry promise I had made him then to divorce him if I ever caught him doing anything like that again! Obviously he had not taken me too seriously!
"I thought you had better sense than this, Jack Duval!" I snapped, my dark eyes searing into his as we glared at each other from across the room. The rich furnishings of his office a silent backdrop to what passed between us now. Sharon at my side now clinging to me as if she feared losing me this very instant. Her young world suddenly turned horribly upside down. The bleached blonde hussy who had caused all this trouble clutching her red nylon dress to herself as she stood there in the corner, terror showing on her child-like features. I knew her kind all too well. Money "attracts" them like shit attracts flies! A bleached blonde slut who could type and take dictation, but otherwise little different than her sisters out selling their half- clad slutty bodies out there on the streetcorners of Los Angeles!
"She's at least a woman, which is more than I could ever say for you, Lorraine!" Jack snapped back in reply. His gray eyes cold as arctic ice as they burned into mine from across his desk. His hands balled into furious fists on its rich polished oak surface. Sharon there at my side clinging tightly to my arm. The beautiful teenage girl looking first at me and then at her still handsome blond haired father. The hurt now showing in her lovely eyes as she looked up at me. I hated myself for what I had done to her, but I felt it best that she know the "TRUTH" firsthand!
I felt "betrayed" that he would do such a thing to me. Especially with someone like that, Sandra being nothing more than a cheap "TART"! I had not been a "demanding" wife like so many I knew. I had never denied him my slim body whenever he wanted it. I had gone along with whatever he wanted me to "do" there in the bedroom, worn whatever costumes he wanted me to wear. I thought we had a good sexual relationship if nothing else. I certainly didn't deserve to be treated like this! I clung to Sharon like a drowning sailor lost in the middle of the ocean to a water-logged life-preserver. She was all I left now! My marriage was "dead" and nothing could ever bring it back to life now after seeing all this! I am not one who can "forgive and forget" such things!
"You know what this means, Jack," I answered, my voice cold as ice, its tone showing the hurt that I felt. I had warned him before of what would happen if I caught him with another woman after the "pass" he had made with Carol. That time I had "forgiven" him. This time I could not. Sharon standing silently at my side, her hand on my arm. She was all that I had left now of my dead marriage. I briefly clasped her arm, smiled, as if to tell her how much I appreciated her standing by me just then!
"Yes, I know what this means," Jack replied, sitting there behind his desk, naked to the waist, the marks of Sandra's lipstick smeared all over his chest. Reaching down, opening the drawer to his desk as I stood there. Then adding in icy tones, "I hope you do". The blued snub-nosed revolver suddenly in his hand making me start with surprise and stunned disbelief that he would actually be stupid enough to pull a gun on me! Sharon gasping with shock as she saw her own father pointing it at me! Her young eyes going wide with terror as she looked down its deadly waving black muzzle! WHAT WAS HE THINKING OF DOING NOW!?
"Jack! Don't Be A Fool! Put That Away!" I snapped, thinking of Sharon there beside me, putting as much authority into my voice as I could. I felt her shivering with terror as she clung to me. A cold chill going down my spine as he silently cocked it in reply. The metallic click terrifying in its implications! Sandra stepping back a step, her back to the wall, fear showing in her soft brown eyes, her hand before her open red mouth, the red dress she held before herself almost forgotten in her terror.
"I can't afford another divorce," Jack answered in cold tones. His voice was flat and toneless, the Smith & Wesson's muzzle a terrifying sight. I did not think that he would be foolish enough to let me reach the Walther PPK .380 in my big leather purse slung over my left shoulder. Or the slim blade strapped to my left thigh beneath my long flowing skirt. I am not "like" other women. Jack knew that well after ten years of marriage to me. The jokes made at Duval Computer about my being "the toughest bitch in LA" had the ring of truth about them. I should have left Sharon out in the car, I thought to myself as I looked down that .38 bore, aware that Jack was out of his head from the cocaine he had been "sniffing" earlier. I wondered how much the alcohol had slowed his reaction times. What it would feel like when the bullet struck me and plowed through my heart.
"You can't afford three murders either, Jack," I answered in a cold level voice that betrayed little of my true emotions. Slipping my heavy purse down off my shoulder and nudging Sharon to one side with my elbow. My dark eyes hard and cold. My reaction times are extremely swift. The fencing masters back when I was on the French Olympic fencing team had said that they had never ever seen anyone as "fast" as me. I had over the years kept up my skills, more for the exercise than anything else, but it had kept me "supple" and swift on my feet even if Jack had laughed at being married to a wife who engaged in such an "unfeminine" sport! "The Queen of Swords" being one of my nicknames!
As terrified by my words as I thought she might be, Sandra moved towards her lover. Her movement diverting his attention only for that brief instant that I needed. LIKE A BLACK MISSILE MY PURSE FLEW TOWARDS HIM, THE BLAST OF THE .38 DEAFENING AS I LEAPED FORWARD! MY FINGERS LIKE STEEL AS I SEIZED HIS HOT GUN AND THRUST IT ASIDE! MY VICIOUS SWIFT FLATTENED PALM SMASHING HIS NOSE AGAINST HIS FACE, STUNNING HIM WITH THE AGONY OF THE BLOW! My thumb driving deep into a nerve making the smoking gun drop with a heavy thud to the desktop. A harsh shove forcing him back as a second later he looked down the still smoking muzzle of his own weapon! Blood running down his face as Jack whimpered like a little hurt child with the pain of his now smashed nose!
"I was only going to ask for Sharon and enough money for her education," I said in a flat, toneless cold voice, "But now, Jack, it is going to be an entirely different story!" And with this I retrieved my purse, and slipped the gun inside with mine. Gathering my stunned stepdaughter, I snapped, "Enjoy your slut, Jack, if you still can!" With this I turned and strode from the room, taking Sharon with me, and slammed the door behind me as I left. Leaving Jack standing there with the blood running down his face, and his blonde hussy yet standing there at his side.
(.txt)