Vengeance

In full disclosure, I got the inspiration for this story from the series Flash by Saddletramp1956. That is an excellent read, BTW. My story is from the woman's perspective. Unlike Saddletramp's story, the wife refuses to cave to the blackmail, she is wrongfully convicted, the husband dumps the wife when she goes to prison, and she goes for revenge when she is finally released. Also, unlike Flash there is no sci-fi in this story. In fact, this story is nothing like that story. I only put this in here to inform you of where my inspiration for this story came from. One other inspiration that I had was a book called If Tomorrow Never Comes by Sidney Sheldon. It is a three-part story where a woman nis wrongfully convicted of a crime and sent to prison. The second part is her being released and taking revenge on all those that were responsible for her conviction. The third part is where she enticed into a life of crime, becoming a con artist, in order to survive. Of note, she only targets criminals and those that rip off innocent people. My inspiration was what would happen if the woman refused to be blackmailed in the first place. What if she had called her boss's bluff about framing her for a crime she didn't commit? This is the result.

Yes, Saddletramp gave me permission to include one of his characters at the end of the story.

I did a bit of research on some of the legal shit, but I am not a lawyer, so I probably screwed some of that up. Keep in mind that this is a work of fiction. All characters and their actions are figments of my warped imagination. If you don't like the way I wrote it, feel free to write your own story.

"Guilty!"

I heard the word pronounced from the jury foreperson. I was standing at the defense table with my lawyer beside me. I was not at all surprised by the outcome. After all, they told me that it would happen. They used their considerable influence to hamper my defense even before I was arrested. I was innocent, but that didn't matter. I even had ironclad proof of it. 'Inadmissible', was what the judge had ruled. This state required all parties to be informed that they were being recorded. The judge ruled that there was an 'expectation of privacy' in a private office when those bastards confessed their plot to frame me. My recording of that was thrown out; never to be heard or even mentioned to the jury.

I always carried my little voice recorder with me. I used it whenever I was in a meeting, just so that I could check and make sure that I had completed whatever task I had been assigned. So, when I had been summoned into my manager's office, I had naturally turned it on before stepping into the room. It was a little thing, but he had me close the door behind me. If the door had been left open, my recording could have been used, even though it was after hours and there was no one else in the building.

"Are you out of your mind? I'm happily married with a 14-year-old son at home. I have a master's degree in computer engineering. You want me to become the company whore?"

"No, not the company whore. Just managers and above. Maybe spend a couple hours with a few clients as well." Geoff, my manager responded.

"Fuck you! First off, I'm going to report this to HR and get your ass fired first thing in the morning. Then, I'm going the EEOC and report you for sexual harassment."

"Well, that might be a bit difficult for you to do from jail."

"What? What are you talking about?"

"It seems as though your embezzlement scheme has been discovered. You will be arrested before you get to your car in the parking lot."

"Embezzlement? What embezzlement? I haven't done anything like that."

"Oh, I know that. Unfortunately for you, all this evidence says otherwise."

"What evidence? There can't be any evidence for something I didn't do."

"Well, not exactly. Sure, you didn't do it, but there is a pile of evidence that you did. Unfortunately, you didn't move the money out of the account that was set up in your name, and I was able to trace it and recover all the money for the company."

"You set me up! You are framing me for this."

"Of course. I figured that you wouldn't do this willingly, so I needed something to push you in the right direction. Think about it. All you would need to do is be available to fuck any manager or above whenever they needed you. You would also travel a little bit to add a sweetener for some of our bigger clients. You would get a $10K increase in your salary as well. We're only talking about a couple of years, then we will find someone else. If you refuse, you lose your job and end up spending several years in prison."

I loved my husband, Derek. There is no way that I would cheat on him. Besides, I was sure that the recording I had would turn the tables on him. I adamantly refused. I then stood up and stormed out of his office. I quickly shut down my computers, gathered by things and left the building. As I was walking out of my office, I sent the recording to my personal email, then backed it up to the cloud. True to his word, I was not even halfway to my car before the police rolled up. I was read my rights, cuffed, stuffed in the back of a police car, and taken away.

OK, so why did they want me to become the company whore? Let's see. I am tall for a woman at 5'9" I weigh about 120-pounds. I have long red/gold hair that I keep down to the middle of my back. My eyes are green. Tall woman equals very long legs. I keep myself extremely fit in the gym, as well as the Dojo I go to. Yes, I have a couple of black belts. I got into martial arts for the mental discipline and to keep fit. I'm 32-years old, and, because of the birth of my sone eight years ago, my breasts swelled to a 40DD. I've been told often enough to believe it that I do have a very attractive face. One admirer told me once that he looked up MILF in the dictionary, and it had my picture there.

Now, it wasn't an aversion to sex itself that made me refuse his offer. I had cut loose quite a bit in college. I was far from a prude. I even did a gang bang or two. I stopped all that when I met my husband. No, he wasn't a prude either. We had a varied and full sex life. The thing was, I believed in my wedding vows. In fact, once we met, we were exclusive. Fuck them and fuck that job. I could get another IT job anywhere. Hell, I could start up my own company if needed.

Well, it didn't go that way. I was booked into the local jail. I was arraigned the next morning and bail was set. My husband had to dig beep into our retirement investments to bail me out. He was pissed at me at first, even though I assured him of my innocence. Unfortunately, I couldn't play the audio for him, because the police had confiscated my phone and all the computers in the house as evidence. I did get to go down to Walmart later that day and purchase a new laptop. Checking my email once I had it set up, I found that I had unsurprisingly been fired before I even got out of the building. Those bastards were even withholding my retirement and all my unused PTO pay pending an investigation. I wasn't too worried; I had the audio of that asshole admitting to the frame-up.

Normally, embezzlement is a state crime. The federal government only gets involved if the money is embezzled from either a bank or other federal funds. Unfortunately, they set me up really well. A lot of the money taken was from some government contracts that the company had. I didn't know that until I was led into yet another interrogation room where two FBI agents were waiting. It was now a federal crime.

I got a lawyer. The company hired a law firm. The company was well connected, so the Attorney General was assigning his best and brightest to the case. My lawyer was sympathetic. He actually laughed when he heard my recording. Even before we began talking strategy, he began discussing my lawsuit against the company. Discovery, depositions, the expected plea deals, we went through it all. Of course, I rejected every deal that was offered. Even though all the evidence they had was overwhelmingly against me, I had the recording.

Innocent until proven guilty. How many times has that been said? It's one of the major tenants of our legal system. It also doesn't apply to the public at large. You know you've done it. Everyone has. Look at OJ Simpson. He was found NOT GUILTY by a jury of his peers. Even after that, he has been ostracized by the community. Of course, my case made the news. Fuck, they were camped out on my front lawn for a month. Evidence in a criminal case is not supposed to be let out to the public, because it could hamper the case. It gets out, at least from the prosecution's side. When the prosecution is being 'assisted' by a party that has a vested interest in seeing that the defendant gets convicted, well you can imagine where the leaks come from. I have already been tried in the court of public opinion and been found guilty.

Relations between my husband and I became strained. Sure, I had played the recording to him, and he knew I was innocent. The problem was that no one else except my lawyer had heard it. Well, I'm pretty sure that the prosecution and all the company's lawyers heard it as well. Derek had been getting some flak from his bosses and coworkers. His job had a lot of responsibility and required that he maintain high moral and ethical standards. Being married to an embezzler was not helping him. The question of whether or not he knew what I was doing began to hound him. He was eventually placed on paid administrative leave until my case was resolved. Yes, he was fully questioned and investigated by the FBI. Yes, he was also subject to his firm's internal investigation. He was found to be clean in both cases. It didn't matter. It was public opinion. Their clients were nervous, so he had to be removed from the equation.

We had to remove Jarrod, our son, from his school because of the backlash he began facing. He was getting into fights over it. Most of his friends even turned against him because his mom was a criminal. His girlfriends caved to the pressure and dumped him. He became a pariah simply because I had been accused of something I didn't do. Unfortunately, there was no way of proving otherwise at this point. My only hope was that my innocence would be revealed in court.

My lawyer was interviewed exactly once. He was confident that my innocence would be revealed in court, and that I had been framed for a crime I did not commit. He boasted that the real criminals would be exposed and prosecuted. The judge imposed a gag order 5-minutes after his interview was aired. Funny how he hadn't done that after the fifteen pervious interviews with the prosecution and the company's lawyers.

I realized that I was completely fucked at my first court appearance. The prosecution filed a motion to ban my audio recording. Two-party state. That meant that both (or all, in case of multiple people) parties needed to be informed that the conversation was being recorded. It had never occurred to me at the time to tell the asshole that he was being recorded. I hadn't expected anything like what happened when I entered his office. I thought that it was just another meeting to assign another project. Well, it was, but that one had nothing to do with my computer skills. Instead, it had everything to do with removing my clothes and using my sexual skills.

Suppressed! The recording was out. It couldn't even be mentioned in the trial. Furthermore, the judge issued a total ban on revealing it. As far as the rest of the world knew, it never existed. That was it; I was fucked. My only chance was that one of my former coworkers could use their magic and uncover the plot from the inside. I tried to talk to a couple that I thought I could trust. Two of them refused any communication at all. The third one actually met me one night in a seedy bar three towns away. They knew that we had been good friends at work. They had been watching him. He told me that he had been called to a meeting with the CEO. If he did ANYTHING to help me, he would really not like what would happen. It was then explained to him that his wife and 18-year-old daughter might just be forced to work for the company in their 'Customer Relations' department while he spent the next decade in prison for computer fraud and child pornography. I was now alone in my fight to clear my name, and the odds were stacked against me.

I discussed it with my lawyer. With my recording out, that was the only real piece of evidence that would help me. There was no help from anyone else. I had no chance, barring a miracle that would most likely never come. Resigned to my fate, I told him to accept the best offer he could get. Too little, too late. All the offers of a deal had already been revoked. The prosecution now knew that they would win. There were no new offers. It was going to trial, and I would be convicted. I could do nothing about it.

My defense consisted of the only three people that remained close friends testifying to my character. My husband didn't testify, as his character for remaining by my side was now being questioned. I got up on the stand myself. I had nothing to lose, so I did it. My testimony about my meeting with my manager was just hearsay without the recording to back it up. It was a last-ditch effort to get the recording entered into evidence. It didn't work.

After the verdict, I was remanded to custody to await sentencing. Derek came to visit me on the second day. It was obvious that he was bothered by something. It didn't take long for it to come out.

"I tried to be as fair as I could. I'm sorry about this, but I need to protect my reputation here. There are a lot of rumors going around right now. So far, it can be explained as a loving husband standing by his wife. Unfortunately, now that you have actually been convicted, that won't cut it anymore. Please, just sign the papers. Everything will be placed in a trust for you when you are released. Jarrod and I need to move forward and get past this. Again. I'm sorry. I know that you are innocent, but that doesn't matter to anyone else. My career is on the line here. Jarrod's future depends on this. He's lost a lot of friends already. Please, just sign the documents."

It's the 99-percent of corrupt lawyers that give the rest of them a bad name. Thankfully, I had one of the 1% that were honorable. My lawyer was pretty upset that I had been convicted, even though he knew that I had been set up. He did my divorce for free. Truthfully, he didn't need to do too much. He mainly looked over the documents and agreed that they were as fair as they could be. Derek did a 60-40 spit on the community property. He kept the house we lived in but left me with the house I had inherited from my grandmother. My share of the investments and savings went into a trust until I was released from prison. He would maintain the trust and manage the rentals of my house until I could take over. He was a decent guy thrust into a no-win situation. I signed the papers and sent them back to him.

Sentencing. The judge knew about the recording. He had listened to it before he ruled it inadmissible. When he looked at me, I saw the sorrow in his eyes. He had been pressured on his ruling. He knew that I was innocent, yet I had been convicted of the crime. His hands were somewhat tied. Still....

5-years in a federal penitentiary. He could have gone for the maximum of 10-years, but this was my first offence. Along with that, I did have a few people testify that I was a good person and that they simply couldn't believe - despite all the evidence to the contrary - that I could have ever done anything like this. Besides, all the money had been recovered. I didn't have to pay any restitution or fines. Still, 5-years was 5-years. For those of you unfamiliar with federal crimes, there is no time off for good behavior. There is no parole. When you are sentenced to 5-years, you serve the entire 5-years - TO THE DAY. On the upside, when you are released, you are done. No reporting to a parole officer. None of that other bullshit. I was immediately cuffed and taken away.

Arriving at the prison, I was processed in. Yeah, all that shit that you see in the more realistic movies happened. Strip out of my civilian clothes, full body inspection, shower and change into prison issued clothing, then escorted to your cell holding the toiletries given to you. Yes, there were the catcalls of 'Fresh Meat' and other derogatory comments. I had resigned myself to my fate long ago. I had even begun forming a plan. I ignored all the comments from the other prisoners.

Eventually, the guards stopped me in front of one of the multitudes of nondescript cells. The door was opened, and I was pushed inside. The door behind me slammed shut. I heard the locks engaged. Looking around, the cell was 12' X 12'. There were 2 bunks, one on each side of the cell. On the back wall was a single toilet and a sink. Beside the sink, there was a small shelf to hold a toothbrush, and soap. At the foot end of the bed, there was another shelf to hold night clothes and a single change of clothes. The bed to my left was empty. It was made as if never used. It looked like it had clean sheets and a single blanket. Looking to my left, I saw another bunk. That bunk looked to be haphazardly made. The sheets and blanket were wrinkled and not pulled tight. At the foot of the bed, a fairly attractive Latina sat staring at me. While not unattractive, she was fairly stout. A second look showed that there was not much fat on her, but she was fairly muscular.

When she stood up, I saw that she was a good three inches shorter than me. Her entire demeanor was a tough bitch that took no shit from anyone. The look in her eye was one of seeing another toy to play with and discard when it was no longer amusing. Time to get this shit dealt with quickly. I set the issued items I was carrying down at the foot of the unused bunk and faced her.

"Well, it looks like you are my new cellmate. I'll give you a choice, you can either be my husband or my wife." She smugly announced.

Looking at her, I could see that she was used to dominating the new arrivals. She had the muscles to overpower any reluctance. Obviously, she intended to do the same with me. That simply wasn't going to happen.

"Well, maybe you should rethink your offer. Obviously, I am a woman, so being the husband is out. I have absolutely no desire to be, or even act like, a man. That would only leave the choice to be the wife for me. Before you get too excited by being the husband, you should probably know that I am here because a MAN wanted me to become the company whore. I refused, so they set me up and had me convicted of a crime I didn't do. Just before I was sentenced, my actual husband, another MAN, divorced me. As you can probably tell, I'm not too fond of the male species at the moment. That being said, if you want me to lick your pussy, you're goddamned well gonna lick mine." I told her. "I have no problem having sex with other women, but I damned well will not be someone else's bitch! So, if you want a piece of my awesome ass, get naked on the bed and we can 69."

She looked me over. The baggy jeans and shapeless shirt I was given did a pretty good job of hiding my toned body. What wasn't hidden, however, was my confident demeanor and the defensive stance I had taken. I don't know what her thought process was, but she apparently decided that since she was going to get a piece of me, it wasn't worth the cost of trying for dominance. Maybe she would have won, but there were a few clues stating that she would pay dearly for the attempt.

"We need to wait for 'Lights Out'. They frown on sexual activities going on in here. Everyone knows that it happens, but we still need to be careful and hide it." She smiled.