Restitution

"Let go..." Hannah breathlessly whispered, "...Let go Jason please."

Her pleas fall on death ears, he either did not hear or did not want to hear. Straining her head up as he pinned her neck Hannah attempted to brace and push back, such was the strength of his grip she could not. Eyes looking forward catching her reflection in the monitor screen once more, spotting the recently achieved glass trophy sat next to the monitor. Precariously close to the edge of the desk as it seemed to shift on every brutally heavy thrust the desk creaked under, the rocking on its legs from the thrusts transferred through Hannahs body.

"Jason... Jason..." she attempted to reason as his hips heavily punished her now. "Jason we.. you...

"Shut up... shut the fuck up... I'm nearly... I'm nearly fucking..."

He need say no more his words lost immediately to a prolonged groan as she felt him press forward, skewering himself deep into her. Hannah lost her footing as he kept her held down bent over the desk her feet slipped back allowing him to press forward, deeper as she instantly felt him release and the wet warmth of his ejaculate flooded into her unprotected body as he dropped his body over hers so that his warm heavy breath swept over her left cheek.

"That felt so fucking good" Jason offered a passionless appraisal of their intimacy. An intimacy that should never have happened. An intimacy for which Hannah should have insisted on protection, for his sake as much as for hers.

Regret filled her mind in an instant.

"You should've worn a condom," Hannah offered quietly.

"Well, you'd better get a pill..." Jason immediately replied with an ugly sterility "...I don't want to be signing off your maternity leave in a few months time."

Beneath her hair, which spilled across her face Hannah grimaced at the brutal uncaring response of the vile individual whose dick still sat nestled within her body.

His callous personality regarding her with disdain barely seconds after ejaculating into her. For the first time Hannah thought of his wife, she could only imagine the lack of respect he treats her with, not least given the ring that symbolises their marriage sits pressed up against the back of her neck as Jason Palmer refuses to release her from his grip.

"There might be more consequence than pregnancy you'll regret." Hannah offered on a shuddering exhale.

"Consequence..." Jason stated on a continued dismissive cold tone, "...you deal with consequence... I got what I wanted."

"You may have got more than that." Hannah sneered but refused to elaborate.

"I got everything I wanted the first time we fucked... that night was unbelievable... this... this was just a bonus."

His words stabbed her conscience with a lightening bolt of clarity, followed by the words of Hector Salazar "I didn't fuck your in that hotel room," echoing through her memory.

"But... if you're available now... perhaps we can come to a regular arrangement," Jason continued.

Hannah barely registered the words he spoke. Her mind caved in on her at the possibility of such a brutal reality.

Jason had been there that night but how could it have possibly been Jason? Her memory of events of the night her mind immediately went to had never returned, lost to the trauma of her betrayal of trust in cheating on Logan. The sickening uncertainty of at first believing she had slept with Salazar, then the confusion of his taunting words stated in the confines of the dark room in the bowels of the Warehouse that he had lured her to offered doubt, a doubt she could not comprehend, what had he meant what his words could truly infer. Hannah eventually convincing herself Salazar had said what he had said merely to taunt her given the weakness of her surrender.

Suddenly a clarity dawned once more in her fractured mind, a clarity focussing around the turgid memory of a vision of two used condoms swimming in a vomit filled toilet.

"You..." Hannah stammered as she attempted to press away from the firm grip he still held her against the desk with, "...it was you?"

"It was certainly worth walking you back to your room with that..." Jason offered, with a further gap to her knowledge, his hand now slowly slipping from her neck, "...well whoever the fuck he was it was quite the reward for being a gentlemen."

"Or rapists!" Hannah sneered.

Her neck freed she acted swiftly, acted without thinking, acted in instinct.

Grabbing the first thing that came to hand, she pressed up off the desk, she pirouetted in her heels.

The sound of the impact was sickening her hand letting go of the solid glass award embedded with a gold star which shatter on impact, either on the floor or against Jason Palmers left temple, dark red blood immediately pouring down his face from a deep laceration above his left eye.

Jason stumbled, his balance lost to the combination of the unexpected ferocity with which he had been struck and tripping over his own navy suit trousers discarded in a crumpled heap behind where he stood.

Seconds later, on his knees before her Hannah Walker stood over Jason Palmer her chest rising and falling on hate filled breaths of rage which replaced the exhausted breaths.

Pressing her skirt back down her thighs drawing her blouse across her chest she felt physically sick, a surge of bile rising in her throat.

She had barely consented under the inebriation brought about by heavy vodka consumption, but she had let him fuck her. Ignorant to the truth of what had occurred the fateful night of the awards ceremony in the London Hotel.

The symbolism of the smashed trophy could not be any greater in this moment Hannah considered, the night where everything in her life had suddenly gone so wrong from being so perfect.

She could not piece together the connection between Salazar, Jason and the events that had transpired or what they had led to a week later. Considering now on further doubt the full extent of the situation under which she had not only been unfaithful but played into the hands of the manipulative Ecuadorean.

Fighting back her nausea and her tears she stepped forward. Looking down on the pathetic semi naked male clutching his blood-soaked hand to his head, his body curled up as he cowered away from her.

"Dirty fucking rapist" Hannah sneered

"I... I didn't," stammered holding his hand to his blood soaked face.

He immediately looked, weak, the pitiful, manipulative little specimen she had always known.

"You both fucking raped me." Hannah continued

"He didn't... he didn't..." Jason Palmer offered.

Hannah heard his begged apology come explanation of what had played out insisting repeatedly how she had consented. How the stranger in the room had been the ring leader of events. She took in every word he confessed or fed to her of his version of events. Hannah could not trust him just as she could believe him. As she heard him out against the backdrop of her furious disposition a plan was already forming in Hannah's mind.

"You know the problem with miserable little pieces of shit like you?" Hannah sneered as he fell silent

"Wh...what?" Jason offered

"You think you got what you wanted..." Hannah offered repeating back to him his own words from earlier, "...but now I'm going to fuck you for what I want."

A little over an hour later Hannah stepped through the glass revolving door of the offices to Willoughby Fairclough for the last time.

Drawing her black belted rain jacket tightly around her waist against the chill of the darkness she raised a hand to signal a silver Mercedes taxi idling on the far side of the plaza that she stepped out into.

Watching the taxi creep towards her as she took her phone from her pocket, dialled a number and pressed the phone to her ear.

"Yeah it's me...." She offered in response to the warm greeting received, "...fancy a visitor...a long term one?"

**********

The departures lounge was a sprawling mass of bodies during peak holiday season.

Looking up from her phone screen Hannah Walker watched all around her as she sat sipping from a takeaway coffee cup while perched on a tall stool chair that faced away from the coffee shop and out over the main departures lounge for Terminal Five.

A nervous agitation gripped her, an anxiety that was no where near as strong as the one that had sent her on a spiral of depression until two days prior. The anxiety she now felt was of nervous excitement at the step into the unknown that awaited her.

All the sane she could not help but feel a pang of remorse watching the excited faces amongst the chaos, young families all setting off to enjoy a vacation in some foreign quarter for a week or two. Experiences she may now never have despite long harboured ambitions and visions for a family of her own.

Checking once again the balance of her bank account she smiled weakly, taking what little solace she could from the transfer Jason Palmer had made sat at his own desk late on Friday evening. How he had acquired the funds or how he would cover the loss of capital was not her concern, it was his. Hannah had little doubt the devious cunt of a man would leave a near faultless audit trail to cover his tracks on the transfer of just under a quarter of a million pounds into her personal account. The fact that he may even turn on her to cover the embezzlement would not surprise her, she was braced for such an instance, her destination would offer her a physical distance of that she was sure. If it offered her safety from impunity she was not so sure given the rash and hurried wheels she had set in motion less than 48 hours previously. Her whole life packed in to two suitcases and now beholden to the one way ticket she had purchased.

Finishing her coffee Hannah set down her cup. Taking a sharp inhale of breath at the reality of what she was doing not so much dawning on her but becoming reality.

She did not dread the future though, she was excited.

A long-harboured dream was becoming a reality, driven on the spur of the moment.

The vibration from her phone, sat on the strip of a shelf table before her, snapped her from her thoughts. Hannah smiled as she read the five-word WhatsApp message without need to open her phone from the Lock Screen;

"See you soon my lovely."

The message received from the only person she had confided in, the only other person that knew of her plan. Who had encouraged her to follow her heart.

Hannah's smile held across her lips as she considered all the prospects and opportunities that awaited her. A new life

She was turning her back on her old life, the life she had been happy with. The life of which she had been blissfully ignorant to the toxic elements that not so much conspired but combined to cause so much misery. It was why she knew she had to do this, act selfishly for her self for once.

Too much had gone against her in the last two months alone. There was everything to gain and nothing to lose it was her time to move on, not out any need for self preservation but with a need to be self-servient for once when it mattered most.

As she looked up at the departures board she watched it refresh and noted by pure coincidence how flight NZ2351 now displayed as Boarding, she had plenty of time but as she slipped from the high seated chair she made her way towards her departure gate.

Pausing on route as she passed a bin for general waste. Taking her phone from the back pocket of her white jeans she tapped out a short blunt SMS message she knew the recipient would not appreciate receiving. Even in her moment of absolute selfishness she knew she had to think of the wider implications for one of the men who had done her wrong so recently.

Message: Advisable you book a STI health check. I have HIV.

Taking a deep breath Hannah pressed send on the message without a moment of thought to the implications and ramifications for the recipient.

With her phone in hand, she extended her arm towards the bin, as she was just about to drop the handset into the wide mouth of the bin when the intrigue of the three little dots rippling across the message screen captured her attention.

The message landed with a soft 'vloop' sounding noise as the conversation remained open. Hannah's eyes scanned the screen, causing her a wry smile.

"That's not funny you Bitch!!" read the message received.

Her fingers darted over the screen once more on a quick reply and hitting send on the message before dropping the handset into the bin, watching it through the opaque heavy duty plastic liner as it nestled amongst sandwich packets, fast food containers and other discarded litter.

Not looking back Hannah strode on, moving forward.

Leaving her past behind her.

**********

Jason Palmer picked the broadsheet newspaper back up as he sat at the island in the middle of the expensively designed hand crafted kitchen, fitted only weeks previously.

His eyes scanned back over the business and economy pages to genuinely locate the article he had been reading only a minute before hand and lost site of under the distraction. His mind suddenly fixating on the distraction he knew could not be true, but that scared him all the same.

His left hand absentmindedly grazed the deep laceration above his left eye that had required eight stitches to stem bleeding from the wound she had inflicted. All around him the usual weekend chaos continued incessantly, five-year-old Toby racing around the kitchen imitating some film he was supposed to be watching on the wall mounted plasma television that was turned up to an ear bleeding volume. |Not loud enough to drown the screams from upstairs where nine-month-old Arlo wailed in the safety of his cot, pained by the onset of teething.

"Have you heard from the Police?" Laura his wife of seven years enquired.

"The who?" he absentmindedly answered.

"The Police..." Laura reiterated as he noted how dishevelled she appeared in the shapeless baggy light blue t-shirt worn over faded navy leggings, "...the mugging...your eye...they checked for concussion at the Hospital didn't they?"

Her voice grinds, even if her intent is good natured and well meaning.

"Uh no... and yes they did... but no nothing from the Police," he answered her from behind the newspaper.

His story of being mugged in the car park late on Friday evening had stuck, he had convinced her with an explanation to cover his wound and his absence across Friday night. His deceit had to incorporate a tale on letting the local constabulary know about his misfortune to make it even ore credible.

Discarding the paper once more as he heard the double tone ping of the incoming message clearly invade the silence that had miraculously if only temporarily settled around him as Laura opted to turn the TV off.

He read the message, then read it again, a knot forming and twisting in his stomach.

"Who's that?" Laura enquired.

"Just someone from work," he replied sharply.

"On a Sunday?" Laura incredulously responded, "They do know you have a family don't they?"

He ignored his wife a cold sweat breaking out across his forehead as Laura paced slowly around the counter and he hurriedly shut down the phone screen.

"That bang on your head might've had some effect...." Laura whispered on a delicious little giggle into his ear as she wrapped her arms around him from behind "...you've not fucked me like you did last night for years."

Jason Palmer shivered, the ambiguous words of the message etched into his mind. The white letters on a green background received from Hannah Walker that offered such menacing threat;

"I'm deadly serious. There's no soap in a dirty war!!"