Revenge in 750 Words

The letter was filled with venom and accusation—not of Susan but of her husband, Don, although there was an edge in the letter's seven-hundred-and-fifty words—yes, Susan had counted them—that Susan and allowed her husband to go astray. Ironically, though, this Trudy, one of Don's office secretaries, wasn't pissed about any sort of competition with Susan, the mother of Don's children. She was angry about being displaced by some woman named Clarice who worked at Don's golf club.

Susan wondered if there still was value in the bill she'd intercepted two months earlier—the bill for a credit card she hadn't known Don had. It was the bill that clued her in that Don hadn't stopped his womanizing as he had promised to. The bill was for flowers, restaurant meals, and hotel rooms she hadn't received the benefit of. Sleuthing, she had discovered the affair with Trudy and kept the bill to share with her divorce attorney when she got around to getting one.

Would that be any use now when Don evidently had moved on to Clarice from Trudy?

Susan was contemplating that when the phone rang.

"I want to see you. Could we meet in the Hilton bar?" the husky voice of her sorority sister, Madge, curled around Susan's ear. They had been more than just sorority sisters in college, and Madge had been persistent, but Susan had drawn a line at those preferences with the inking on the marriage certificate.

But now Madge had caught Susan in a definite moment of weakness. Just why in the hell had she'd sacrificed herself in this marriage when Don didn't respect it?

"When?" Susan asked.

"Now, if you can. I'm already at the bar, drinking myself silly. The sooner you can get here, the more coherent I still will be."

She was still coherent when Susan arrived, having spent a few minutes to make herself as presentable—and, yes, desirable—as she could. She was still a fine-looking woman, and she knew it. She probably was unconsciously aware, as well, why she let her hair down and wore the slinky black dress. It was revenge time in the limited means she had for it.

Madge was still coherent—and sexy and glib and convincing—when they met in the bar.

She had booked a room. When she slid the slinky black dress off Susan's body down to the floor, Susan sank back onto the bed, parted her legs, and raised her pelvis. She died and went to heaven as Madge buried her face between her thighs and raised her hands to fondle and squeeze Susan's breasts. Madge had brought her strap on, which was thicker and longer than Don was, and when she turned Susan on her belly and mounted her from behind and above, Susan danced on the clouds and murmured a mantra of "Take that, Don. And that and that," in the cadence of the thrusts.

"You got that right, Sweetie," Madge whispered from above as she dominated her old sorority sister.

Afterward, as they lay on the bed in close embrace, Susan unloaded her frustration at Don as an explanation for why she had done this with Madge—and supposedly why she wouldn't do it again.

Madge didn't answer. Instead, she let her hands and her lips go to work and they did do it again, Susan on her back, legs spread and hips raised, as Madge lay between her thighs, deep inside her with the strap on, and pumping.

"Is that what her name is, Clarice?" Madge asked after they'd showered together and were dressing. "I thought it was Trudy."

"It was Trudy at first," Susan said, "But now it's Clarice. She works at his golf club."

"Yes, I know Clarice from the golf club," Madge said through pressed lips. "Why, the little shit."

"Yes, the little shit," Susan agreed, although perhaps not as vehemently as Madge did. She'd had her revenge. but she already was feeling a little sheepish about that. She also was apprehensive about having given in to Madge. They hadn't originally broken up just because Susan was getting married. Madge was possessive and almost violently jealous. She had gotten a little scary when Susan told her she was marrying Don.

The next day, Susan got the call that Don had been murdered—at the apartment of Clarice, who also was dead.

When she visited Madge in jail, all Madge said, was, "I also needed revenge. Don was jilting me too."