Campaign Chaos Pt. 02

As the perennially confident Danielle Parnell began to wrap up her introductory words -- all the while delighting in the rapt attention with which each man and boy in the audience hung on her every word -- she suddenly began to feel very warm. Despite the sun having set almost completely set, Mrs. Parnell could swear its rays were beaming down on the back of her neck as small beads of perspiration began to form on her usually bone dry brow and atop her perfectly formed lips. Thankfully she'd be able to sit down in a moment which would give her a chance to remove her jacket.

"Never let them see you sweat," she said to herself as she did her best to push the minor discomfort from her mind.

Billy Miras couldn't believe his luck. The light from the laser was completely invisible to the naked eye but its beam clearly had the intended effect. More than once he watched the finely manicured hand of Mrs. Parnell reach back to rub the bare patch of skin on her supple neck between the collar of her jacket and the bottom of her officious librarian style up-do. It was working.

"Thank you Mrs. Parnell," came the voice of Nicole Silver who was surprised -- and delighted -- to see the sheen on the arrogant Danielle's brow. Maybe the little tease isn't as cocksure as she'd like us all to think, she mused.

Snapping out of her micro-fantasy, Mrs. Silver continued, "we'll now move on to the question and answer portion of the evening. Mrs. Duncan, the first question is to you."

As Emily Duncan stepped to the podium to field the first of the debate's questions, Danielle took her seat as well as the opportunity remove her stylish bolero blazer. As she hung the fashionable jacket off the back of her chair, Davidson's male residents were treated to a most delicious site. Up to that point no one could have known that Mrs. Parnell's very businesslike Armani bolero suit coat, once removed, revealed a Tom Ford backless, sleeveless, crop-top blouse that in turn uncovered the self-satisfied lawyer's incredibly toned and tan arms, flawlessly muscled but feminine back and, most alluringly, between where her wraparound skirt fastened at her waist and the bottom the crop-top ended, unblemished golden skin of her wonderfully trim midsection.

Danielle had donned the sexy top not so much to flaunt her undeniable physical glory in the face of other women -- that was done easily enough with her jacket on -- but to validate for herself how truly superior she was to the dumpy nobodies standing beside her. What's more she thought to herself, with the result of this ridiculous debate and the election to follow already a foregone conclusion, why not cool myself off while working the town's pathetic male population into a lather. At the very least it would snap them from the monotony of whatever blather was coming from Emily Duncan. More definitively, it would most certainly snap their nether regions to attention. Smiling devilishly to herself and delighted with the added sex appeal brought on by duffing her couture bolero, Danielle regained her composure quickly and completely.

"Mrs. Parnell," Nicole Silver announced from the moderator's desk just below the stage, "you have two minutes to respond."

While Danielle veritably strutted to the podium for her say, the ire of the crowd's women increased exponentially. They sat in collective disbelief at the audacity of the little tease who, by taking her blazer off, had captivated entirely their husbands, boyfriends and sons and in so doing rendered them completely invisible. In the meantime, Billy Miras cursed his failure. Sure he had caused the preening narcissist to sweat a bit but somehow, by merely peeling off her stylish little jacket, she had turned that discomfort to her advantage and now seemed more self-assured than ever as she eloquently dissected the argument Calum's mother had just made. He had to try again.

Looking at the beautifully toned and tanned back of Will's mother, particularly at the thin swath of fabric that, running behind Mrs. Parnell's neck seemed to hold her entire blouse in place, Billy came up with one final desperate plan. Maybe, just maybe, if the laser was hot enough to cut through paper, it could also cut through fabric. Before testing that hypothesis on Mrs. Parnell's blouse, he thought, it would make sense to run a quick test on something else -- but what?

With her scathing retort to Mrs. Duncan complete, Danielle sat back down next to her son Will.

"This is easier than taking candy from a baby," Billy heard her snidely remark to her equally arrogant and smirking child.

Looking at Will Parnell's smug face, and as Rachel Miras stood up to take Nicole's next question, Billy decided on his test subject. Watching the sexy Mrs. Parnell take a seat next to her son, Billy noticed that Will's khaki trousers were fastened by an old fashioned threaded button. Carefully, Billy Miras took aim at the threads holding that button together and, after a few swipes back and forth, to his great delight, watched the button roll from Will Parnell's lap onto the floor -- success. What's more, no one else, including Will, whose zipper had opened almost completely once the button gave way, had noticed a thing.

After the crowd listened to Emily Duncan respond to the answer that Mrs. Miras had provided to the moderator's most recent question, Nicole Silver's voice again could be heard to say, "Mrs. Parnell this question is for you."

As Danielle approached the podium and the fetching Mrs. Silver continued her question, Billy Miras went to work. Rather than beginning with her blouse, the young scoundrel aimed the laser beam at the silken tie that held Mrs. Parnell's luscious locks in the imperious bun atop her head. Slowly he watched the silk begin to split but, with a grander reveal in mind, stopped short of cutting it completely thereby leaving Danielle's appearance thoroughly unchanged. As the sexy solicitor continued ably to answer Mrs. Silver's question, Billy next took aim at the strip of fabric behind Danielle's soft, tanned neck. But again, rather than slicing all the way through the fancy garment, the hoped for future failure of which would cause Mrs. Parnell's blouse to fall quickly to the ground and, ideally, confirm Billy's suspicion that this particular garment did not permit Will's mother the opportunity for a bra, Rachel's 18-year-old son merely set the stage for what was soon -- along with most every man in attendance -- to come.

Ably completing her answer to Nicole Silver's question, Danielle returned to her seat on stage with her confidence and swagger growing with every high heeled step.

"Mrs. Miras," Nicole Silver continued, "you have two minutes to respond."

In a very thinly veiled stage whisper that Rachel Miras was most definitely intended to and did hear, Mrs. Parnell snarkily remarked to her son, "she wouldn't be able to respond if she had two years."

Although he was willing his mother to succeed, Billy knew that Mrs. Parnell's barb, which he also heard, had completely undermined Rachel's confidence even before she reached the podium. As Mrs. Miras stumbled over her words in an attempt to refute the learned and eloquent position that Danielle had most ably elucidated, Billy's blood boiled. Gazing over at the pompous Mrs. Parnell exchanging eye rolls with her smug son Will -- who was becoming just as much a know-it-all as his mother -- while his own mom floundered publicly, Billy opened up yet another avenue for his attack.

With her admittedly fabulous and firm legs crossed, the result of which permitted her skirt to open slightly revealing an appropriate but alluring amount of mouth-watering thigh, it became clear to Billy Miras that Danielle's very fashionable Armani wrap-around skirt relied entirely upon the rather large and highly stylized button holding it together to remain safely around the pushy MILF's toned waste. By now an expert marksman with his laser pointer, Rachel's son slowly and purposefully -- but not yet thoroughly -- began cutting through the threads that held the big button in place.

Following Rachel Miras' mangled attempt at rebutting Mrs. Parnell's answer to Nicole's most recent question, the red-headed Mrs. Silver, who was relishing her role as moderator and mistress of ceremonies even as she fumed at all of the male attention in the park going to her self-perceived rival, sought to bring the debate down the home stretch.

"Thank you all ladies for the informed and spirited public exchange of ideas this evening," she began. "I'm sure I speak for all of Davidson's residents when I say how impressed I was by the level of discourse and civility."

For God's sake, Danielle thought to herself, put a sock in it you fat cow and let's get this over with.

"At this point," continued Nicole, "all that remains is for each of you to make a final statement. You will have three minutes to do so and, Mrs. Parnell, we will begin with you."

Rising from her seat as she adjusted her glasses on the bridge of her perfect nose, Danielle Marie Parnell felt invincible. In less than an hour she had shamed the two women who had deigned to oppose her, reasserted her intellectual and physical dominance over the dimwitted female population of Davidson and stoked the libidos of every pathetic man and boy in attendance -- most of who she imagined would be either pleasuring themselves to her image tonight or picturing her as they engaged in whatever otherwise unfulfilling sex acts their useless wives and girlfriends might permit. In other words, as usual, she had won.

"Why thank you Nicole," the diva of Davidson began, "and permit me to say that in the simple role of moderator you've clearly found a sweet-spot for your.... oh... how best to describe it... limited prosecutorial talents."

As the men in the audience laughed at Danielle's snide put-down of the buxom redhead, and Nicole Silver stared daggers at her, Mrs. Parnell continued, "and thank you to my opponents. It's not every day that you get to witness firsthand such a graphic example of dogged perseverance in the face of abject failure and hopelessness. Bravo ladies. Clearly nothing can get you down... you are unflappable."

While Emily Duncan and Rachel Miras stoically endured their silent humiliation, and the rest of the women in attendance sat stunned by the sheer gall of the town's self-appointed Queen Bee, Danielle Parnell arrogantly went in for the kill.

"Citizens of Davidson, let's be frank..."

But before the next word could leave her plump red lips, Danielle again felt the sensation of the sun's warmth -- this time on her back -- and, equally distracted and confused, paused for a moment to reach over her shoulder. Some in the crowd, surprised by the ordinarily hyper-confident lawyer's break in cadence, began to murmur.

"... as I was saying," she began again, somewhat less confident than before and with the smallest beads of perspiration forming over her pretty lips and on her lovely forehead, "let's be frank... while the town's charter will compel you to choose between the two battling failures behind me so that no vacancies are created on the council, there is only one woman here tonight who truly deserves your vote and that woman, of course, is..."

But again, before Mrs. Parnell could finish, thanks to a rather quick flick by Billy Miras of his now trusty laser pointer, the rather austere bun atop her head came undone causing her hair to cascade down her back and, to the delight of every woman in attendance, resigning the usually collected beauty to even further distress. Smiling uncomfortably, and with a slight sheen of perspiration now forming on her lovely décolletage, Danielle tried her best to rearrange her hair into a bun but, having no success, settled for putting it into a makeshift pony tail with what remained of the black ribbon.

"Excuse me," Mrs. Parnell quietly remarked more sheepishly than she had intended, "I don't know quite what happened there."

And then, attempting to regain her confidence, she distractedly asked of no one in particular, "now -- where was I..?"

"I think you were persevering in the face of abject failure," joked Emily Duncan loudly, eliciting peals of laughter from on and off the stage particularly from the women who loved seeing the tables turned, if only temporarily, on Mrs. Parnell.

Danielle -- already out of sorts -- was thrown further off her game. She knew she needed to reassert herself lest she be made to look even more foolish by this Duncan woman so, spinning around on her very high heels to confront the source of the joke that had been made at her expense, Danielle went aggressively, if somewhat uncharacteristically, on the offensive, "now you listen here you... you... this is my time to speak -- not yours."

As the chorus of women's giggles grew louder at Danielle's evidently ebbing confidence, Mrs. Parnell snapped back around and, directly facing Nicole Silver who was now laughing along with everyone else, chided the pretty moderator, "and you Silver, get some control over this circus. Is there nothing you can do right!?!"

"Now, now Danielle," smiled Nicole Silver, loving that for once she had an advantage to play against the snooty Mrs. Parnell, "try to stay calm. The voters will want a councilwoman who is cool under pressure. You, on the other hand, seem to be... shall we say... a little hot under the collar."

"Don't patronize me you cow," shouted Danielle further losing her composure while trying to regain the upper hand as the likes of Katherine Wray, who had suffered many an indignity at the highly moisturized hands of Mrs. Parnell, laughed even more heartily, "do you honestly think that I feel any pressure competing against these two... nobodies... in this... this... high school popularity contest..."

Reveling in the beauty queen's distress, despite being called a nobody, Rachel Miras joined the fray, "clearly not Danielle... nothing can get you down... you're unflappable."

As the local PTA President laughed vociferously with the crowd that Danielle had now all but lost and the rage inside Mrs. Parnell bubbled up to the surface from having her own words thrown back in her smug but beautiful face -- the perspiration on which was causing her usually perfect make-up to run -- the comely counselor again spun around for a confrontation.

"How dare you speak to me that way... you... you... little... HOBBIT," Danielle finally shouted having abandoned all sense of propriety, "do you have any idea who I am?"

But before Rachel or anyone else could answer, and as the crowd and those on stage stared in shocked silence at Mrs. Parnell's venomous overreaction to Rachel Miras' harmless jibe, Billy Miras again flicked the wrist of his hand holding the laser pointer -- this time at the big button on Danielle's fashionable skirt.