Thread: Can She Rise To The Challenge (google and skittish_butterfly)

With his slow pouring of his fancy, overpriced swill, making the big deal of showing her he had all the time in the world, Katherine felt almost victorious that he had to work so hard to conceal that his patience must be strained to the breaking point. Then he started ticking off reasonable and patient answers once again to her every point, deflating her arguments where he could and yielding seemingly without regret where he had to, but putting the ball squarely back in her court in a matter of... was it really just seconds? With his every word Katherine felt her heart shrinking in her chest. She squirmed in her chair, even more uncomfortable as it felt like he was stripping away her emotional padding as well now, her sense of confidence that this would never happen. Would she even have come if she thought for a moment she wouldn't be able to stop it? She adjusted the hem of her skirt as she turned a little more in the chair, keeping her legs pressed together so tightly and nervously now. Her every breath suddenly felt like a great weight was pressing on her chest. Could this really be happening to her? Was she really sitting here in a pornographer's office, being chastised as an unreasonable girl, and now being told -- her! Katherine Townsend! -- to stand up in front of this slimeball and strip her clothes off for him to... to... to inspect her like just another piece of meat? Somehow that extra little bit about telling her to keep her arms at her side -- assuming she even complied at all -- irked the hell out of her, that sense he had about himself like it wasn't enough she expose herself completely but that he had to... just... absolutely had to be in absolute control, so very like the patriarchy! Katherine was grinding her teeth again, suddenly aware of it and finding it more difficult than usual to stop, her fingers balled up into little fists gripping the fabric of her skirt. She felt her life perched on a knife's edge, and the knife was in the hands of this low-life and his fake fancy office and his irritating leering stare. Well, maybe it wasn't leering but then again she wasn't stripping for him either, just give him time and Katherine was sure he would be leering, quite sure of it. And now all she had left was the second side of her page-of-conditions, and sadly there wasn't even much on that side, just the last half of her last point from the first side, and one last objection. After that, it was just her and her wits to somehow get her out of this with her clothes on and her dignity intact without taking a shit-storm of abuse from the media and her new feminist admirers and maybe most importantly... from her father. This was not the way she dreamed of finally getting called into his office, no, not at all. She was going to have to make this work, somehow, whatever it took. I... strip? But... but we haven't finished the terms yet. I still have more. You don't realize how... how difficult what you're expecting is and... it would be unwise and unreasonable not to make sure every last... every last concern was addressed before hand. Don't you agree? For instance... for instance... She looked at the couple words she'd scribbled on the back of the little slip of paper, written at the time with such certainty and now all but illegible in her shaking fingers. Let me... uh... let me put my glasses on so I can... one second... She fumbled in her purse, the paper slipping to the floor. Sorry... this will just be a second... She fished her glasses, starting to tremble even more, feeling her pulse pounding fearfully in every part of her body. 19 was too young to have a stroke wasn't it? Was she sweating? Katherine glanced up at him, still drinking that stupid drink, from the pretentious looking glass, and staring back at her with an infuriating smirk on his lips, she was sure it was a smirk. The glasses got stuck on the lining of her purse as she pulled and clattered to the floor, sliding to the side of his desk. Not good, not good. What as she going to do, get down on the floor and retrieve the paper and glasses in one final mega-display of self-humiliation, making it quite clear exactly how undignified and degrading a position she'd somehow managed to work herself into here? Katherine waved her hand at the glasses down on the floor, and the list, as she looked back at him with a poorly faked look of defiance on her face. N-n-never mind. Don't, uh, n-n-need them after all. She looked down at her lap, her fingers twisted nervously together. Why did he have to make her sit on this uncomfortable chair? What had she ever done to him? She squirmed and then squirmed again, then brushed her hair back with one hand, her mind racing in the search for a way out, but just revving in neutral. There was nothing left except that last line on the paper that she couldn't even read. Could we... I didn't really expect to... to really have to... can we take a recess? Maybe come back in a day or two after some time to think it over, finalize the terms, you know? Because, I uh, I wasn't really ready to... wasn't expecting to actually, today, to you know... Strong woman weren't supposed to. Only old-world southern belles and weak-willed girls fainted but Katherine was suddenly afraid she was going to join that list, and that was her best case scenario, her best remaining option. Well, there was one last option. Please? Michael, please could we finish this... this meeting at a later date? I'll come back, I promise. With a type-written list and probably a lawyer if I can get her mother to get her father to get her one.