Chapter 18

Once she was satisfied my face was clean of her juices, she pushed up at my shoulders and I rolled off of her.

She still had a huge smile on her face.

Which turned almost predatory as she reached over to touch my erection.

“Your turn to drive, Mike.”

“Any preferences?”

She grinned, “Well, I’m totally loosened up, so how about something energetic. Say I grab my ankles and you take me?”

“Hard and fast?”

“You know it.”

I knew from previous discussions this ‘take me’ was all about unleashing her physical passion by giving her no choice.

Sometimes she needs enough physical dominance to allow her to totally release her inhibitions. Just that extra push from somebody she trusts

Not that she ever was a submissive – she’s far too strong a character for that – but occasionally she gets off on NOT being in control. I’ll never ask her outright, but I suspect her ex wasn’t into variety. One of the best pieces of advice Libby ever gave me with the girls was to keep trying different things, to actively experiment, and always be willing to learn and take constructive criticism.

And as for grabbing her ankles, I take it as a huge compliment in how much she trusts me not to go overboard; to keep it as a one-off and to still fully respect her afterwards.

And I DO respect this amazing woman.

If I could only make a trade so she was my mother...

I mentally vowed to do my very best to get her off big time. I was SO glad we’d already gotten the first one out of the way, so I’d have some endurance.

My knees buckled with the force of my orgasm, but I managed to disentangle us enough to push Libby back onto the bed, then collapse in exhaustion beside her. It was a couple of minutes before our breathing quietened enough for conversation.

“Damn, I didn’t think I was still that flexible! Not bad for an old broad, hey?”

“Old? I’m beginning to think you’ve deceived all of us; if Toni is your daughter, you must have given birth while you were at Junior High. Me, I reckon she’s your sister.”

A huge smile, “Sweetie, I KNOW you’re lying through your teeth, but in this case, I don’t mind at all. After today at work, I could use some flattery. Uh, all that pressure on my bladder, I need to pee; I’ll be back in just a moment.”

I poured us both a glass of fridge-cold water while she was in the bathroom and handed one to her as soon as she’d gotten settled back on the bed with a pillow in her back.

“Thanks, honey. You’ll never know how much I really NEEDED that.”

I nodded my acknowledgment, unsure of what to say.

“Uh, can you stay over tonight? I could really use a cuddle.”

Not exactly a pleading look on her face, but it was certainly more serious than it had been only a few minutes before.

And, although I’m just a guy, I was beginning to learn to pick up on the unspoken signals that women use to communicate.

Yeah, beginning is probably overstating my ability. But even I couldn’t miss this message.

“Surely. If today was that bad, do you want to talk about it?”

She frowned. She didn’t speak for a moment or two; I guessed she was deliberating before opening up.

She sighed, “It wasn’t actually work that was bad; it was the totally lousy start to the day when I watched the TV news while I was dressing. Another murdering shitbag just walked free after strangling his girlfriend, claiming it was just consensual rough sex and it was an unfortunate accident. His weasel attorney totally denigrated the victim’s character, claiming she made him play rough; made me almost ashamed to be a lawyer. This trend for choking is becoming a fucking epidemic of abuse. Fifty Shades of Grey has a whole lot to answer for.”

(Uh oh. From her language, yes it WAS that bad a day.)

I’d heard of the ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ trilogy – who hasn’t? – worldwide sales exceed one hundred million copies of the books, and the movies were a box office hit – and knew the premise of a young but twisted billionaire who pursues an increasingly abusive relationship with a beautiful but naïve college graduate. But ... it seemed to have too many similarities with the way Laura had been treated, and I had no intention of actually reading or watching it myself.

“They showed a few photos of the girl. Nineteen years of age, her whole life ahead of her. Such a waste! Young, idealistic, her friends and family said she made the world a better place, a daughter and sister to be proud of. She made a bad choice of boyfriend, wanted to please him, and the fucking piece of shit killed her. Every time I see a mother weeping for the loss of her child, I think how I’d feel if it was Toni or Tom. Me, I’d be planning on getting him all to myself in some remote cabin and seeing how long I could make it for him to die in agony. You know me, I have huge concerns about the unfairness of the death penalty, but in cases like this ... lethal injection is WAY too good for them. Force feeding them their penis and testicles before slowly strangling them with their own intestines might be a better way.”

I’ll admit I flinched. It’s a male thing, same as why guys don’t like discussing the castration of animals, using euphemisms like ‘snipped’ or ‘done’.

Libby normally abhors violence, but I could tell from her voice and grim expression that she wasn’t exaggerating her feelings on this.

I took her empty water glass from her hand and placed both of them on the nightstand, then shuffled up so I was lying next to her. She half-rolled so her head was on my chest, and I put my arms around her.

She gave me a weak smile, “Thanks, Mike. I’m sorry to vent to you, but it’s been eating at me all day. That case did at least actually go to trial, too many of them either get dropped or plea-bargained down to some misdemeanor accidental killing. It horrifies me there are so many people in law enforcement effectively colluding with assertions that a girl can consent to putting her life in danger. The same assholes who don’t even believe that a man can ever rape his wife. You ever hear of Dante and his nine circles of Hell? I hope there’s a very special torment awaiting those people when they arrive down there.”

She broke off to grab a tissue from the box on the nightstand and blew her nose before settling down again.

“You know the Greek legend of Prometheus?”

I shook my head; I knew the name but couldn’t recall any more.

“He stole fire from the gods to give to man, so Zeus punished him by chaining him to a mountain where an eagle ate his liver every day, it grew back overnight, and the eagle always showed up next day for his box lunch. Rinse and repeat. Now THAT is the kind of eternal torment some of these people deserve.”

Ouch! Now I remembered the story. Zeus had been the original hanging judge when he was riled, though he hadn’t led an exemplary life himself, if I remembered some of the other legends

But I didn’t say anything; Libby was still venting.

“Womens’ magazines aren’t blameless, either. There was always supposed to be a clear dividing line between ’20 things you can do to spice up your relationship’ and ‘asphyxiation gives me huge orgasms’. That’s totally gone missing. And the hookup sites are no longer about maybe meeting someone special; they’re purely about getting laid. I read an article about how many women are totally separating their hookups from their friendships. They meet complete strangers for sex, and don’t even confide in their best friends. That is SO dangerous. Sheesh, one woman they interviewed claimed she would more happily sleep with someone she’d just met in a bar, knowing it wasn’t going any further, than try to take a friendship to the next level and risk losing it ... The whole world is totally screwed up, and it makes it so much fucking easier for the scumbags.”

Like I said, Libby doesn’t normally curse. She’s a genuine lady. However, this topic had clearly gotten her seriously riled.

She almost snarled the next question at me.

“You remember the couple Marsha and Vic were intending to sponsor for membership, Charlie and Cassie?”

The ones who’d plotted to use and abuse the ‘two young sluts’, as they’d described Laura and Jess. I felt an instinctive pulse of rage at hearing those hated names; Libby didn’t wait for my answer to what turned out to be a rhetorical question, and I’d guess she didn’t even see the flash of anger in my face.

“Well, their attitude seriously bugged me. Who the actual fuck did they think they were to behave like that at our parties? I thought about it for a while, and finally made some quiet and very discreet inquiries with an investigator my firm retains. His preliminary report came in yesterday. They do have a despicable hobby; they seriously get off on humiliating and hurting young girls. His people had tracked down three girls who’d been with those slimeballs, and one of them felt able to talk about her experience. They’re genuinely nasty and immoral people. The problem is they’re also very careful. All the girls were over eighteen; the coercion is more entrapment than threats, and although it’s immoral as hell, I haven’t the slightest proof they’ve done anything illegal. I don’t even think we could make an assault charge stand up in court. The girls freely chose to get together with them after hooking up on Tinder. The perps don’t even need date-rape drugs; they WANT the girls to be fully conscious and aware; be so beaten down that they believe they brought in on themselves. And they’re forceful enough that they get their way; after seeing the way our so-called justice system allows the victim to be denigrated, none of them were at all willing to testify before a jury. The evidence I have so far is little better than hearsay, not admissable, but I’d bet the house it’s true.”

I gasped; disgusted at the very thought.

“That’s totally gross, horrific! Why would they want to do that?”

A sigh, “Because they can. Because they get a huge power trip over humiliating others. Like the saddos who laugh as they burn hundred-dollar bills in front of homeless people. It’s not enough being successful; they have to keep demonstrating it to themselves and their cronies. Blame their parents, blame their teachers and professors, blame their churches, but most of all blame them for being despicable. A massive sense of over-entitlement. There’s a lot of it around – you know the Enron story?”

“Yeah, we covered that in one of the business modules.”

Enron is almost a picture-perfect case study of a corporation going wrong through unfettered greed and dishonesty rather than bad decisions.

Like another case study of Bernie Madoff and his pyramid investment scheme, the Enron saga was part of our indoctrination that if something seemed almost too good to believe, then it almost certainly was. A lot of normally intelligent people had been duped by Madoff; their ‘sensible’ filter overwhelmed by their rapacity for an extra few percentage points on the investment return. It had cost many people their houses, their marriages, their savings, their liberty, even their lives; just so Madoff and his thieving cronies could live on the hog on their money.

But the bad guys at Enron hadn’t been at all reticent about their desire to grab a monopoly of the energy market. They had made good decisions – but from their point of view – which had earned them crazy salaries and even crazier bonuses; it was just the investors, customers, and ultimately the American taxpayer who had footed the bill for their greed.

“I bet the professor didn’t tell you one of the ‘alpha executive’ essentials was to have noisy sex in your office during the working day? Because you could. The sexual politics of that place were an absolute disgrace. The word ‘egregious’ is much over-used, but it fit Enron to a ‘T’. You ever see the Enron movie?”

“No, not that I remember.”

“They gave it the title ‘The Smartest Guys in the Room’, because Lay and Skilling were so arrogant and belligerent, they genuinely thought they were. But not smart enough to realize when you get too greedy your house of cards collapses. Same reason we had the economic crisis of 2007-8. Predatory lending, excessive risk-taking, lax regulatory oversight. But they never learn the lessons, it’s only the little people who get hurt, the same little people who pay their taxes.”

“Enron was just the tip of the iceberg. There’s this whole ‘masters of the universe’ thing, people who believe they are accountable to no-one but themselves. Wall Street is not the only place crawling with them. Trouble is, so many of them seem to be just that, untouchable. Like that shitbag Harvey Weinstein; he’s out on bail and it will be another year before he goes on trial, longer if his bottom-feeding lawyers keep delaying things – and he still might get off.”

She sighed, “I’m REALLY hoping he won’t evade justice this time; from what I’ve seen of the legal submissions, he’s guiltier than sin, pressured a huge number of young girls to have sex with him and his friends with the lure of stardom. He got greedy, overconfident, entitled, and it was his undoing. Hubris is an actual thing, and I’m hoping it will also trip up Charlie and Cassie and their gang. But it takes a brave woman to stick her head up above the parapet and risk being pilloried by the friends of a powerful man. Some of the cross examination in rape cases, it’s even worse than the rape itself. Like I said, makes me almost ashamed to be an attorney.”