Chapter 28: Revenge

"Please, Anna, stop this."

The place was packed with people. Some sat, but most ran in and out buying coffee in tall containers — coffee with odd flavors and spices, chocolate, milk and sugar. Or they stood at high tables and counters, talking while they guzzled down their brew. They weren't drinking coffee, Angique thought — they were having shots of caffeine.

She and Anna sat at the back of the room in leather club chairs, a low table between them. Anna had invited her to talk at this downtown Starbuck's. It was her lunch break; she worked in the same block.

Anna started off saying she was sorry and felt ashamed for giving in to her jealousy again. She sounded contrite, using a voice that contrasted sharply with her severe business outfit. Angique cut her off when she started repeating herself.

"You see, Anna," she said. "You tell me you feel ashamed. You use that word a lot so I assume it means something to you. But does it? And if so — what?" Angique sipped her espresso. Its taste reminded her that Italy was far away. She stopped Anna's reaction with a raised hand before going on.

"Why exactly would you feel ashamed, honey? Is it because you feel you didn't live up to your own standard? That could very well be, you are a proud woman. Or maybe it was because you failed my standard?" Angique smiled. "Anyway," she went on. "I guess you blame yourself for not being as strong as you always thought you were. You were weak and you never saw yourself as weak, did you?"

Anna slowly nodded, her eyes down.

"Yes, Angique. I disappointed you," she said. "And I disappointed myself. I thought I was stronger. It is a bitter lesson." She shrugged, smiling sadly. Her hands strangled her cup. Angique looked around the room and to the street outside.

"These are precious insights, Anna," she said. "They may help you become a better person. I don't know if that is a goal of yours, becoming better. I always find it rather abstract, as a goal."

"You see, honey," she went on, leaning forward. "I don't know a single person who ever really changed, be it for better or worse. I would not advice you to try, Anna. It might end up being just a lot of work and no results. It might even become another source of disappointment and shame."

There was silence; it wasn't a comfortable one. At last Anna settled her gaze on Angique.

"I have come here to ask you to forgive me and take me back," she said. Her eyes already drifted away again before she reached the end of her sentence. Angique emptied her cup.

"That's another word you often use, Anna — forgiveness," she said, carefully keeping sarcasm out of her voice. "I have been rather familiar with that word over the last year. I have forgiven Alicia at least four times." She chuckled. "But I guess that doesn't prove that I am a forgiving person. It only proves that she cheated a lot — and that I was besotted with the little bitch, of course. I still am, I fear." She chuckled again, rather bitterly this time. Then she reached out for Anna's hand, caressing its back.

"Sweet Anna," she said. "I have to disappoint you yet again. You see, my bad experience with forgiving has left me pretty calloused. So please don't count on it. The little bitch finally succeeded in making me a cynic, you know, and cynics are wounded romantics, as you may have heard." Angique paused, smiling sadly. "So it might take me quite some time to heal," she concluded, patting the hand. "Too much time, I fear."

Anna protested. There were tears in her eyes.

"I have made mistakes," she said with a thick voice. "And you have every reason to be disappointed in me. But the things you talk about are Alicia's doing. What she did can't be added to my faults, can it? I have been weak, but I never did what I did on purpose. I never sought to hurt you."

Angique's hand let go of Anna's. She watched the woman in silence —≠ a silence she allowed to thicken until it dangled like an invisible sword over Anna's head, swinging from an unraveling thread.

"Stop it, Anna," she said at last. "It's no use lying anymore. I know what you did."

She studied the woman's reaction. First she noticed surprise; then the automatic urge to protest; then surrender.

"The little bitch told you," Anna said.

"Of course she did, Anna," Angique responded. "But if she hadn't, you would have — maybe even today. You would have needed to tell me. It was your revenge, wasn't it? I humiliated you too much, so I had to feel the pain too." Anna looked away, blushing, but Angique didn't let her off the hook.

"You ask me to forgive and to forget," she went on. "Those are noble concepts, Anna. But did you ever consider them for yourself? You hurt me and you knew very well what you were doing. You knew about my history with Alicia. I confessed my deep love for her to you. We even discussed what to do. So you knew how vulnerable I was. Still you had to do it. Not once, but for weeks. I bet you fucked her while I was around — maybe on the same days you begged me to forgive you. You crawled to me with her taste on your tongue, using that very tongue to tell me how much you loved me and how sorry you were. Tell me, Anna, did you fuck her today? Do you plan on doing her tonight?"

Anna didn't answer. She also didn't get up or run off. She just sat, staring.

"Congratulations, it worked. I am hurt, don't worry," Angique said. Her voice was a whisper hardly audible over the lunch hour's racket. "You hit bull's eye. But even now I can understand you; your need for revenge after I tested your jealousy, humiliating you into serving the slut I preferred over you — praising her younger body while denigrating yours. Believe me, Anna, I understand. I could even forgive you, because I have been the cause of your grief. But you never stopped at that, did you?"

Anna's eyes ceased their drifting off as Angique ended summing up the causes of her pain. A hard look replaced the softness of contrite surrender she had shown up till then. It didn't go unnoticed by Angique, whose mouth thinned into a line, her eyes narrowing.

"This is just another game, isn't it, Anna?" she said, sitting up straighter. "You set up this meeting to tell me. You planned to crow over me like the frustrated little would be cock you really are. In the end you are just the same ego-driven fuck as all these girls that fill the seedy rooms at the Club. When the little bitch told me she had been "intimate" with you all the time, I did not get the impression you intended to stop anytime soon. I know she begged you to dominate her, be her Mistress and your ugly heart started racing. Wow, imagine you replacing me as her Mistress! Revenge complete."

Angique swallowed hard before continuing, never leaving Anna's eyes alone.

"You are a pitiful, revenge-ridden creature, Anna, a green-eyed jealous monster. I once worried if I might lose a friend if I gave in to your wish to be trained as my slave. You never were a friend, though, Anna, were you? You were always your own friend. Even sitting here, begging to be forgiven, you plan to go on. Well, let me rob you of your dream, honey. The girl ridiculed your efforts as a Mistress. She dumped you. Then she handed me another bunch of her worthless sorries, soaked them in tears, and ran."

A new and different Anna emerged when Angique ended her bitter diatribe of accusations. A smile stuck to her face, but it was a frozen rose in a field of ice.

"You can't claim her," she hissed. "You can't plant a flag. This is the Club, you know? Don't be silly about loving her; the girl is for the taking. She doesn't know about love if it bit her in her whorish ass. She just wants to fuck and forget, she doesn't give a shit."

Now it was Angique who stared speechless, waiting for Anna to go on, and she did.

"You really hurt me, Angique," she said. "And in the end I am only human too. I couldn't live with the thought that you'd always prefer the little slut over me. She fucks anyone who wants her. She betrays you without a thought and laughs behind your back because you stammer your precious love for her. You have to know that, Angique, I had to show you. You don't know her. I do! I was entirely devoted to you, but you had to have her and ridicule me while you fucked her."

Anna wept. The frozen rose melted, the ice field cracked. Angique once more reached out for the lonely, powerless hand on the table.

"You may be right, Anna," she said, squeezing the hand. "And I may be wrong. But I lost the courage. I won't be this pathetic fool all over again. Not with the slut, not with you. Honey, I may sound cold and distant. Believe me, that was never I. But I feel so terribly betrayed, all through this horrible year. I remember what we had, fondly. And I know that maybe I should give us another try. I also know that maybe I sell you short when I compare you to Alicia. I might even be mistaken in distrusting you. But where can I find proof of the contrary? Where can I even find the energy to look for it?" There was utter helplessness in Angique's eyes, finding its mirror in Anna's.

"Believe me, Anna," Angique whispered. "There is no one in this world wishing more to be wrong than I do. I am very sorry things went like they did, but it was unavoidable. You see, Anna, if your jealousy was the only flaw, I might keep you and try to help you. I would even have taken part of the blame for your betrayal. But there is more, isn't there? Things have been fundamentally wrong from the start." Angique took a deep breath before going on.

"The real question is: who's Anna?" she said. "How many Anna's are there? There is the proud businesswoman." Angique's hand indicated Anna's suit. "She can't be subdued. She always lurks in the background and suddenly pops up to lecture me sternly." Angique smiled. "There also is lil Anna, the sweet would-be sub, always ready to tell me how much she loves and adores her Mistress while at the same time big Anna plays the domme with Alicia, manipulating the silly girl to help you getting back into my good graces." Anna cringed but kept silent.

"Once," Angique went on, "once there was even Anna the little slave trying so very hard to prove she could be my slave — until she was really tested. That's when she suddenly turned into stern Anna and planned her revenge."

Angique sat straighter in her chair.

"So, who am I talking to right now? You tell me. What tone should I use? Should I be the dominant Mistress — or the so much younger girl accepting a wise and older woman's advice? Or am I allowed the hurt tone of a woman cheated upon? Could I trust my friend Anna? Or should I mistrust the friend who stabbed me in the back? Who's Anna?" Angique's voice had risen and the name Anna lingered in the air.

"Who's Anna?" she repeated. "Not an easy question at all. Especially since her opinions seem to shift as well. One moment she warns me against the girl she knows I love by painting her black and calling her a thrill seeker who's only in it for the fuck. Then suddenly she defends her and tells me I am treating her unjustly. Who's Anna?"