False Starts

Traffic barely moved and for once, Allen Peters didn't mind.

Catrina loved him.

At the time she'd said it, his pants had been down around his ankles, and her legs were wrapped hard around his hips. With one hand on her ass, the other on the copy machine, and only moments away from orgasm, Allen heard her whisper the words he hadn't known he wanted to hear.

"I love you, Allen. I love you."

"I love you Cat," he'd said back, and knew he meant it.

She was more than just the best lay he'd had in a long time or the best office assistant Peters and Leeds Insurance Inc. had hired in the last two years. Catrina Regent was the sexiest woman he'd ever met. It was more than her physical beauty, more than the way she moved, spoke or even looked at him. Catrina made him feel like . . . like a man.

Allen sighed, drummed his hands on the steering wheel, and turned up the radio. He didn't recognize the song, but he could imagine Catrina singing along to it, moving in time to the steady back beat. He'd left the station right where it was ever since the first time he'd given Catrina a lift home after work. It was her favorite station. He didn't care for the new music much, preferring the classics like Aerosmith, The Guess Who, and The Stones, but he was an old dog happy to learn new tricks.

He'd given her the same speech he gave all the girls that came before her (and he meant that literally). He was nobody's ticket to wealthy living and sleeping with the boss wasn't an "in" to moving up in the company. But that was all in the past. This girl was different. He could see it in her eyes. She wasn't just trying to sleep her way to the top. She loved him. He could feel it in her every glance, her touch, her laughter. God, even the way she said his name was unlike anything he'd ever heard.

Traffic inched forward, and Allen pictured Catrina, as she'd looked that morning. He'd walked into his office to find her naked, sitting on his desk, her auburn hair loose and flowing around her shoulders, and nearly though not quite, reaching her pert nipples. She held a steno pad in one hand, and tapped a pen lightly against her full lips with the other. He'd laughed and felt a little nervous that they could have been caught.

"Not on Fridays, Allen."

Yet at the same time, the very idea that they could have been found out had turned him on that much more. It set the tone for the entire day. When his partner, Bob Leeds, had called to say he wouldn't be in, Catrina had convinced Allen to join her in Bob's office. He'd found the idea of making love with her on his partner's desk highly erotic and decided that if given the opportunity, he'd like to do her on every piece of furniture in the fifty person office. After the session in Bob's office, they'd gone at it twice more, both times in the copy room. Hearing her sultry voice whisper "I need you to fuck me," over the intercom was enough to make him want her--and never mind how raw his dick felt from its recent overuse. That last time, he was almost afraid he wouldn't be able to get it up, but she'd plied him into readiness easily with the magic she worked with her mouth. Catrina gave head like no other woman he'd ever met.

Sitting in the car now, he could feel himself growing hard just thinking about the day they'd shared and marveled that he could be ready again so easily. For her. Only for her. He hadn't been able to get it up this easily or often since his twenties.

"Not bad for an old guy," he said out loud and grinned. He'd heard forty was a good age, and Allen had to agree.

His exit ramp was close now but Allen didn't feel his usual eagerness to get the hell off Seventeen. He toyed with the idea of going a little further up to the turn-around and heading back downtown to Catrina's apartment. He still had the key to her apartment she'd given him months before. He had yet to use it, but now might be the best time to start taking advantage it. Hell, maybe today was as good a day as any to start a completely new life. The idea of it gave him butterflies. He'd almost forgotten what those even felt like, at least until Catrina had come into his life to remind him how wonderful new love could be.

He didn't take the turn-around. He may not have minded the gridlock traffic as much as usual, but he wasn't willing to stay in it longer than necessary either. Besides, he'd hit upon a new plan. Her twenty-sixth birthday was in two weeks and originally he'd considered taking her for a weekend get-away up in the mountains. After today though, after hearing her whisper "I love you," Allen's mind turned to diamonds. He wondered if he was getting ahead of himself, but seeing his rock on her finger made the butterflies in his belly dance like they were slamming around in a mosh-pit.
He'd never tried that yet, but Catrina said it was a rush he ought to try sometime. She made him feel young and alive, as though he could do anything, and at the moment, a mosh-pit sounded like the second most fun he could have on a Friday night. Maybe tonight, after a massage of his aching member, she could teach him what it was all about. Maybe now was the time to go public with their relationship. He wanted the whole world to know he was in love. Allen nodded. Yes, he decided. Tonight. I'll call her and ask her to take me out dancing, spend the night at her place in the city, and see how she feels about us moving in together.

The happy grin faded from his face, taking his semi-hard-on with it as he pulled onto his street in outer suburbia. There was a Benz in the driveway. Her car. The bitch was home. Didn't she have a class to go to on Friday nights or had she decided to stay home now and get his weekend off to its typical bad start early?

He let himself in and called out, "I'm home" in an unhappy drone. No one answered. A sleek black cat came out from some hiding place and purred against his legs. "Susan?" He kicked off his shoes, nudged the stupid cat away with his foot, and slung his suit jacket over the back of the wing-backed chair as he peered into the living room. "Susan?"

A walk through the house convinced him she wasn't there. Then why was her car out front? He found a note on the kitchen table, and read it aloud as he loosened his tie.

"Allen. There's something wrong with the car. Transmission the guy at the garage says. I can't get it into gear. Tow truck is coming for it tomorrow," Allen scanned through it, "blah, blah, blah . . . have a pottery class in the city tonight. Hope you didn't forget . . . plate for you, put it in the microwave. Always, Susan. P.S. I love you."

Allen snorted a laugh, crumpled the note in a ball, and tossed it back on the table. "P.S. I love you," he mimicked, going to the fridge to see what she'd left for him. He guessed it was probably something out of a box or a can. Pottery classes, her support group, the book club. No wonder she never had time to cook any more with all the places other than home that seemed to need her attention more. It was the 'P.S. I love you' that annoyed him most. That's exactly what went wrong with their marriage. It wasn't about love at all. Love had become a P.S., a side note to everything else. She'd been using that line since the early days of their relationship. Allen couldn't even remember how the little joke about it had started. They were all of nineteen at the time, and what was cute then was just plain sad twenty-one years later.

"Sad and annoying," Allen said with a shake of his head. He grabbed a bottle of Coors, and twisted the top off, tossing the cap in the sink. He ignored the cold dinner that looked vaguely like Salisbury steak, and stared out the window over the sink, looking at but not seeing the backyard. The pool needed to be cleaned out, and the hedges could use a good trim. The cabana could use some airing out too, but he was oblivious to the disrepair. He smiled to himself. There was nowhere in that yard that he hadn't made love to someone, and not necessarily Susan. Block parties sometimes had a way of getting . . . interesting at times. Speaking of sex, he mused, and immediately his thoughts turned to Catrina.

Now there was a woman who would never make love into a nearly forgotten postscript. Ah, those words. Make love. It was enough to have him longing for her again. He decided he'd call her. He so rarely called her at home, and never from his own house. He never wanted to risk having Susan press the recall button and speak to some woman her husband had no business calling outside of work hours. For twenty-one years, he'd been careful about it, but now--now there was Catrina and everything was different this time. Besides, he'd just call the office after he talked to Catrina, so Susan would never know anyway.

He carried his beer upstairs to the bedroom he shared with his wife and closed the door behind him so the cat wouldn't get in. He undressed down to his boxers and socks and sat down on the edge of the bed. The phone was on Susan's side and if this call went the way he hoped it would, Allen found the idea of jacking off on her side of the bed titillating. He'd no doubt need to use some Vaseline, but Susan kept that as handy as the telephone.

He'd never met a woman who had as much trouble lubricating as Susan seemed to have. Allen pulled open the drawer on the nightstand, spotted the jar he was looking for and pulled it out. He dislodged some papers when he did so, but thought he could just shove them back in later, when he was finished his conversation with Catrina. His hand was on the phone, when one of those papers in the half open drawer caught his eye. He saw the word "love" and it wasn't in a P.S..

Setting the jar on the night table, he reached back into the drawer and pulled out a thick stack of letters. The phone call to Catrina was forgotten as he read through the letters one by one. He still wasn't finished with them when the beer was gone, so he carried the stack down to the kitchen and kept reading even as he reached for another cold bottle.

They were addressed to Susan, but none of them were signed. And every one seemed like the one before it with minor exceptions. Many of them were erotic. Hell, he hadn't even known Susan did half the shit this guy was falling over himself to thank her for. It made him feel like gagging, imagining his wife, his Susan doing these things with some stranger. His stomach clenched and unclenched, then seemed to liquefy the more he read. He took the last few left of the stack to the bathroom with him and continued reading while his knotted bowels expelled noisily into the porcelain bowl.

He had no idea who the son of a bitch was that was fucking his wife, but he intended to find out and put a stop to it. The temptation to wipe his ass with one of those letters was strong, but he stopped himself. He was going to go to that pottery class, confront his wife, and throw every one of those fucking traitorous papers in her face. Embarrass the living shit out of her in front of all her friends who probably had no idea what kind of a tramp his wife really was.

"The number you have reached is not in service. If you feel you have--" Allen made a guttural sound and pressed the off button. He redialed. "The number you have reached--."

"You fucking bitch! Fake numbering your own fucking husband?" There was no pottery class. He threw the cordless phone across the room. It ricocheted off the edge of the table, hit the back part of a kitchen chair and finally came to a stop somewhere under the table. The cat, curled up on the seat of a nearby chair, hissed, gave a frightened meow with back arched, and ran from the room.
Allen tried her cell phone.

"The AT&T customer you are trying to reach is currently away. If you would like--"

Allen paced the large kitchen from end to end. He had to do something, but what? Bounding from the kitchen, he took the stairs two at a time and quickly dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. His heart pounded hard in his chest and he didn't know what his next move should be. He only knew he had to do something. He stood in the middle of the bedroom, slowly gazing around him as though seeing it for the first time. Had he had been here? Had that goddamned prick fucked his wife in that very bed? Allen stared at the jar of Vaseline, and remembered all the nights when he'd tried so hard to please his frigid wife. She wasn't frigid at all. It was just him she didn't want. The lump in Allen's throat made it hard to swallow, and without any forethought or realization of what was coming, he dropped to his knees and cried.

A half hour later, composed, all traces of the weak crying jag splashed away with water, he now sped along the highway towards the city. The letters lay scattered on the seat next to him. He had to get to the city. She was there somewhere. He'd find her somehow and he'd . . . he'd what? He turned the radio off. That new music was an irritant he could do without right now. He had no idea what the hell the singers were saying half the time anyway. Yo mama in da hos, shakin' dat bootie like a chank on my plank. A pirate diggin' on me. My baby is da treasure, and she givin' me pleasure. Pure crap. How Catrina could understand it--

Catrina.

He'd forgotten all about her. God, he needed her now. He needed her more than he'd ever needed any woman in his life. Allen called her apartment. It rang three times before redirecting his call to the answering service. He didn't leave a message. He tried her cell. It rang. That was good. At least she didn't have hers turned off, unlike some lying, cheating bitches. His call went to an answering service after five rings. He tried it again, and the momentary relief he felt was swept away by surprise when a man answered.

"Uh, sorry. I must have misdialed," Allen said and hung up. He wasn't sure how that had happened. He had Catrina's numbers on speed dial. He tried again.

"Hello?" It was the same husky voice.

"I'm looking for Catrina," Allen stated, his brow furrowed. Who the hell was this guy answering his girlfriend's phone?

"She's in the shower. You want me to give her a message?"

"No. Uh, wait. Yeah. Tell her uh . . . tell her Mr. Peters needs that report tonight after all."

"You're Mr. Peters?"

No, I'm his fucking bum boy doing all his errands for him--

"Yes. Yes, I'm her boss, Mr. Peters."

"Oh her boss. Yeah, I'll tell her."

"May I ask who I'm speaking to?" Allen asked.

Deep laughter followed before the man spoke. "What's it to you?"

"Just give her the message." Allen ended the call and threw the phone on top of the letters. "Asshole."

It rang a few minutes later. "Allen?"

Allen almost cried for the warm familiarity of Catrina's sexy voice. He hadn't known how much he needed something good and solid in his life right now after the bullshit of the last few hours. Learning his whole world was just a facade had hit him hard. He needed Catrina more than he ever had before. He started to cry.

"Catrina. God, Catrina." He was at the city limits now. Just a few more minutes and he'd be holding her. They'd start their new life tonight.

"Allen, what's wrong?" Catrina's voice was strong and sure in his ear. He didn't hear the underlying panic.

"I need you, Catrina. God, I need you. I'm coming over."

"Allen, wait. Where are you?"

"About fifteen minutes from your place. We need to talk." There was a pause before she answered him.

"Allen, I can't meet with you tonight."

"She's cheating on me Catrina. Susan is cheating on me." This time the pause was longer.

"Okay, okay, let me think," Catrina said in a rushed breath.

"Allen, don't go to my apartment. I'm--I'm not even there. I--meet me at that little coffee shop near the office. You know the one, 'The Coffee Cache.' Meet me there."

"I'm closer to your apartment, and I still have the key you gave me." He heard her say 'shit' under her breath but she spoke so quickly, he let himself believe that he must have imagined it.

"Allen--I--okay. Just don't go up, okay? Wait out front for me. I'll call a cab now, and I can be there in about twenty minutes."

Allen heard the man's voice in the background yelling at Catrina. "Baby, blow him off. You don't have to work overtime if you don't want to." Catrina must have put her hand over the phone so that the rest of the conversation was too muffled for him to hear. He felt the sick feeling roiling in his gut again. Catrina too? Were all women cheating, lying, sluts?

"Allen. Twenty minutes. Wait out front."

"I love you Catrina," Allen said, a sardonic smile on his face. She didn't say it back. He knew she wouldn't.

"I'll talk to you soon."

The line went dead, and Allen sighed. Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion now. He set his cell phone carefully on the pile of letters. Traffic outside the windows slowed and buildings went by him in a strangely delayed blur. His sight seemed suddenly to be sharper and clearer than it had been moments before. All was still a blur, but somehow a more vibrant and clear blur.

He turned left onto Eleventh Avenue, and eased over to the far right lane. He drove into the parkade closest to Catrina's building, took the ticket the machine spit out at him, drove through when the black and yellow bar raised to allow him entrance. It all seemed so normal and so out of place in Allen's current state of mind. He found a free parking stall easily. Downtown was so much better to drive in after offices closed up for the weekend. Parking was plentiful. That was just one small element that changed when the sun dropped over the horizon. The other side of life, the dark side that stayed hidden vampire-like by day, took over the inner city as though it alone was responsible for the dark blanket of night. Allen wondered if the dark side was the real world, and the rest was just a facade everyone bought into in an attempt to deny the hedonism in their hearts.

Don't go up. Meet me out front. Allen laughed and inserted the key into the security lock. It buzzed momentarily, and a warm rush of air engulfed him as he entered the lobby. Rich upholstery and thick carpets invited visitors to relax comfortably while the apartment building's inhabitants rushed to hide their dark secrets before allowing their hapless victims access to their shop-front lives.

The elevator quietly whisked him to the eighteenth floor. Allen watched as each number lit up and darkened marking his steady ascent. His hands clenched and unclenched at his sides and one leg shook rapidly. Allen was unaware of the nervous gestures as he silently counted off the floors. The elevator stopped, and Allen's heart pounded hard against his ribs as he stepped into the wide hall and approached the apartment door. It was bad enough his wife was sleeping around, but his girlfriend too? His hand shook as he slid the key into the lock and turned the bolt back. He wasn't sure what he'd find, or what he'd do, but he had to know. He wasn't prepared for the sight that greeted him.

Allen knew the man sitting naked on the sofa in the opulent living room. His hands were pressed against the woman's head between his legs, his bald head thrown back in groaning ecstasy. Allen's partner, Bob Leeds, looked up at the sound of the door shutting behind Allen.

"Shit," Bob yelled and pushed the woman away from him before covering his now flaccid genitals with his hands, and trying to rise at the same time. The woman turned around in the slow motion way Allen was almost starting to believe was more normal than the fast motion world he'd known for the past forty years.

"Allen," she screamed and grabbed for an article of discarded clothing to cover her nakedness.

"Susan," Allen said evenly. How he could feel so calm when his heart was still beating staccato was beyond him, but then he didn't care. "How long you slut?" he asked approaching the cowering couple, now scrambling to put on the clothes they'd left scattered around the room.

"Allen, now calm down, and--and we'll talk about this," Bob said as he zipped up his pants and reached for his shirt.

"Talk about this?" Allen laughed. "That is really funny, Bob. Talk about this. Sure. Let's all head down to the lounge for cocktails and we'll talk about how my business partner and best friend is fucking my whore of a wife. Let's do that." He laughed again and picked up a belt. He recognized it. He should. He'd given it to Susan last Christmas as per the precise list she supplied him with every year. He held the buckled end in his palm, and wrapped it once, twice, around his hand.

"Don't you hurt her, Allen," Bob said coming between the married couple when Allen took a step towards her. Despite his bravado, Bob still kept distance between himself and Allen.

"Relax, asshole. I'm just helping her out." Allen snapped the belt so it came just inches from Bob's face, making him wince. He tossed it at Bob's feet. "Nah, you do it. You took it off, you can put it back." Allen sauntered to the sofa where his wife had just had Bob's cock in her mouth and sat down heavily.

"You have no idea what kind of a day it's been. Torture. Pure torture."

"Allen, I'm sorry. I--I don't know what to say."

Allen ignored her. "So Catrina knew about this did she? Wait. Silly question isn't it?" He smiled. "Here we are in her apartment. That speaks for itself." He laughed and tossed his head back, "God, what a two-faced bitch."

"You--have a key," Susan said slowly, understanding of how her husband could have gained access to the apartment dawning on her at last. Catrina had given him a key. Allen smiled at her as he watched awareness come creeping to her aging features.


"Are you having an affair with--"

"Oh, don't you turn this around on me, you slut," Allen said, rising from the couch and lunging for her. Bob stepped between them for a second time, and the two men struggled to block one another.

"Oh, how quaint." All three turned at the sound of Catrina's sultry voice. "Both fighting over the woman you love are you?" She looked pointedly at Allen. "I told you not to come up."

"You knew," Allen stated.

"Of course I knew. Secretaries know--oh I'm sorry office assistants know everything that goes on at their place of business."

She approached Allen in her trademark sexy walk and ran a painted nail from his lips down his chin, then dropped her hand to continue the trail to the top of his belt, "Remember that thing we did in Bob's office today, honey? I got the idea from them." She smiled and turned away from the trio. She strode languidly to the bar and poured herself a scotch. "Drink anyone?" she asked. No one answered. "You're all so quiet."

"You should have--" Susan didn't finish what she started to say.

"Called? Warned you?" Catrina shrugged. "You're probably right, but you know what? You all make me sick."

"Well you make me sick," Allen said angrily. "What the hell kind of games are you playing?"

"Your games, Allen darling. Your games."

She walked idly over to the baby grand piano and past it to the picture window. She gazed down at the miniaturized city below. "Beautiful," she said with a satisfied sigh.

"No, no. You're the one playing games," he said finally. "And I just want to know what the hell is going on. Did you set this all up? Huh? Did you?"

"Allen--" Susan began.

"You shut the hell up," he said pointing an accusing finger at her. "You've got no room to talk, especially with the stink of that fucker's cock on your breath."

"And you wonder why she turned to me," Bob said with a shake of his head.

"Listen to yourselves," Catrina said with a laugh. "Just listen. You're all a bunch of sleazy two-timers, and all so eager to blame everyone else for your plight. Why do you cheat on your wife, Allen?" She looked innocently at Susan. "By the way, did he tell you we screwed four times today?" Susan's face flushed and she looked down at the carpet, tears in her eyes. "I didn't think so," Catrina continued.
"You cheat on her because she's frigid, right? Can't please her husband? Needs a jar of Vaseline just so she can fuck you because Allen, you just don't turn her on. At all.

And why does she cheat on you? Well, because she's known all along she wasn't enough for you. Maybe she pretended not to know for a long time, but the thought of you with all those women turned her stomach, but she loved you too much to leave you. Unfortunately, thinking of you sliding that dick in some other woman dried her right up like an old prune."

She sipped her scotch and moved to the stereo. The rap music she so loved was out of place in the refined ambience, but Catrina didn't much care. It was good music. She turned it low so they could continue to talk, or she could. They could keep listening.

"Poor Bob. Of the three of you he is the one with at least a little bit of class. Not much, but a little. You know, Bob didn't cheat on his wife. And there he was, a lonely old widow, his philandering business partner neglecting his lovely wife. How could he stop himself? She was as lonely as he. And he, Susan knew, wouldn't cheat on her. He'd proven that through his twenty-five year dedication to the same woman day after day, year after year."

She sat down at the piano, set her now empty glass on a coaster on top of the piano, and played along with the radio a little. "Allen, darling, will you freshen my drink?"

Allen's lip twitched in a sneer but otherwise didn't move.

"Fine then," she said with an annoyed little shake of her head as she sauntered to the bar. "I'll do it myself."

"So we're all a bunch of fuck-ups. Bravo, you got us pegged. Why'd you get yourself in the middle of it?"

"How could I not?" Catrina said innocently as she raised her freshened glass of scotch to her lips. She took a small sip then swirled the glass as she spoke. "Finding Bob and your wife like that? Risk the company falling apart, and me losing my job? Of course I did what any good office assistant does. I assisted in ensuring my job security." She smiled around the rim of her glass and took a large swallow.

"And me? You had to drag me into it?" Allen asked incredulously.

"Like I said, just ensuring job security."

"What do you want from us?" Bob asked.

"From you and Susan, or from you and Allen? Which 'us' Bob?"

"All of us," Allen demanded.

"Solidarity!" Catrina said and raised her fist in the air. "You're all going to work together against your arch nemesis, Catrina Regent. How sweet."

"Well, I don't care what you want. I'm leaving." Susan, fully dressed now, even down to the accessories, picked up her purse and headed for the door. "And we'll sue you for . . . for--"

"Extortion," Bob stated.

"No, no. You misheard me. I called it job security. Extortion is such an ugly word." She rolled her eyes and leaned on the bar.

"You're fired. There goes your job security." Allen worked the key off his key-chain and threw it at her. She ducked so it hit the leather wall behind the bar. Catrina's lower lip trembled, and she bent her head, loud sobbing sounds ensuing. She raised her hand and shook her head.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry Judge. Forgive me. It's just that when I think of how long I endured Mr. Peter's sexual harassment--." She lifted her head and smiled at Allen. "Are you sure I'm fired, Allen?"

"We can make extortion stick," Bob said firmly.

"I bet you're right," Catrina said with a nod of her head. "I can see it now. 'Secretary charged with extortion.' I bet it'll be right there under the big headline article, 'Your Insurance Premiums Paying for Premium Lifestyles of the Rich and Raunchy,' And there'll be Bob and Susan and Allen, all trying to cover their faces as they run from the courtroom. Of course, it'll be unclear who exactly the adulterous Mrs. Peters is there to offer support to . . . but the story would be incredible all the same. 'When Miss Catrina Regent, former secretary of Peters and Leeds Insurance Inc., pleaded not guilty to charges of extortion today, the law firm representing her, Cheatum and Howe, submitted evidence supporting her assertion that Mr. Robert Leeds has been siphoning profits into a personal account. When asked for comment on the charges of sexual harassment against Leeds partner, Allen Peter's, Mr. Cheatum advised his client to refrain from commenting at this time.'" Catrina sighed and smiled. "God, that sounds wonderful, doesn't it?"

The rap music played on in mocking contrast to the somber feeling that had descended over the room.

"So. Is that the report you were desperate for tonight Mr. Peters?" Catrina set her glass down, and rest her hands on her hips. "Well. I think this meeting is over. My insatiable boyfriend is waiting for me across town, and I don't want to keep him waiting any longer than I have to."

"What do you want from us?" Bob said, his voice heavy with resignation.

"Can't we just continue on the way we have been?" Catrina asked with a little pout. She rolled her eyes and laughed. "Fine. I'll leave you alone. I'll go away and you'll never hear another word from me. How's that?"

"There's a catch," Susan said quietly.

"No, there isn't!" Catrina said shaking her head vehemently. "The truth is, this is all very boring. I thought this could have gone on longer but I had a feeling shit was going to hit the fan soon anyway. It's Allen's fault really."

"My fault?" Allen's jaw dropped and his eyebrows came to a point over the bridge of his nose.

"Of course! If you didn't cheat on your wife all the time, none of this would have been possible. But you really messed it up today when you said you loved me. You see, your response was supposed to be a smile, a thank you, and then lots of guilt gifts. I never expected to hear you say it back to me. I knew then this would be over too soon. But you even surprised me Allen with this little show tonight. Ah well. I suppose it's better this way. I'm going to miss Peters and Leeds Insurance Inc. It was a good job."

"So--we can just go?" Bob asked.

"You can just go." Catrina stated. "And the sooner the better." No one moved. She smiled at them all, a little perplexed. "Go," she said with a wave of her hands towards the door. "Just leave your keys please. And don't throw them at me like our live-wired little Allen over here."

The three moved to leave as though they were marching to the front of a chapel about to pay last respects to a dying friend.

"We'll have your belongings sent by courier tomorrow," Bob said.

"Oh, that's okay. Don't trouble yourself. I'll get my things when I pick up my severance package tomorrow afternoon."

They all turned to look at her.

"You're an embezzler, Mr. Leeds! And you sexually harass the staff Mr. Peters. Now you don't want to pay me my $500,000 severance package?"

"We can't make a pay-out like that!"

"Yes you can." Catrina smiled. "Allen, you cut me a check for the fall I suffered that kept me from returning to work. $50,000 wasn't it? And Mr. Leeds, I'll show you how to access that private account of yours. There's about $450,000 in there, give or take. So are we in business gentlemen?"

The two nodded almost imperceptibly.

"Oh, and Mrs. Peters. I know you're not an embezzler, or a sexual deviant, but you're no better than these two. Why didn't you just leave him and bleed him dry? You're just plain stupid. What a shame."
She went to the door and opened it for them. "Thanks for stopping by." She smiled. Allen was the last to leave. He paused in the door.

"You said you loved me." He shook his head sadly.

"And you said you were a good lover."

She shut the door, and turned the bolt. Catrina sighed and crossed to the stereo. She turned the music up loud and picked up the paper off the low coffee table. Sitting down heavily on the couch, she put her feet up on the table, and opened it to the business section. Her Boy Toy could wait. Today seemed as good a day as any to get started on her new life.