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

Katherine stopped short of hitting him with studies and statistics. The man was already hopping down from the stage and closing on her with a disturbingly confident smile on his face. She tried to think quickly, how to maintain her attack as he came at her showing no hesitation whatsoever, as if nothing she'd said had even phased him. Katherine stole a glance to the cameras and shuffled a step to the left to make sure they caught the impending confrontation with her at a good angle, knowing the light would play on her hair just right, and any awkward shadowing would hopefully be limited to the man's face and not hers, making him look a little sinister. But as she stood with her papers, waiting for him to stop and discuss, he instead came all the way right up to her. He was already pointing the microphone at her face in what she only hoped the cameras caught as a highly inappropriate and offensive gesture with clear phallic overtones. Katherine whispered urgently out of the side of her mouth at Don, pssst, the pepper spray, he's asking... but it was too late. If Don had just sprayed him right then, the gesture would have been frozen in time with an attacking meaning, but now he'd already pulled it back, as if having offered her the chance to speak with it and now saying a few civil words of her own. Katherine fumed for a moment at the lost opportunity, but didn't dare glare at Don or let her look of resolve change one bit. Her goal was just to maintain focus on the man's face, as if paying careful attention to his words, to look like the defender of the weakest of women, preyed on by men like this. It was surprisingly difficult not to let her eyes play across the lines of the man's face, his chin, the strong jaw line, deep eyes. No, she focused on his eyebrows and listened. He thought he was being cute, the line about 'young lady' and sexism. She interjected, loud enough for the cameras and the crowd that now encircled them like it was a fight in a high school hallway my friends call me Katherine, so you calling me 'young lady' is just fine. Don and the girls chuckled, and thankfully the rest of the crowd joined in. But the man seemed unfazed, just gave a little eyebrow movement like he was letting it pass and then started in about not working with drug addicts, fair wages, and all that crap. Meaningless. He was evading the main point. His weak points finished, he pushed the mic back to her, sadly without the jarringly phallic overtones this time. Katherine took it in her hand and couldn't help noting how much bigger it looked in her small grasp than in his, her mind on the phallic imagery suddenly and inconveniently coloring everything, and she had to cough to delay for a second as she tried to shake the sensation of holding a big cock in her hand before bringing it to her lips. Uh, cough yes, of course. Katherine gave a slow clap, very sarcastic. Aren't you Mr. Wonderful. Drug testing your young waifs before screwing them senseless and worse. I wish we could give you the humanitarian of the year award right now. She glanced at the papers as if preparing her next point. Of course the pages were blank and she was just pausing to let her last quip hit home. We can find study after study showing a commitment to education, like in this University under my father's able administration, -- you're welcome Daddy, she thought -- is the surest path to success for young women. An educated woman with choices doesn't need your fool's gold wages. An educated woman isn't seduced, she let that word linger for a beat, by your flimsy arguments and your promises of quick riches if they just surrender the most precious parts of their bodies and minds and souls and reputations, parts they can never get back at any price. Do you also check for college degrees before you start degrading these girls? Because I can assure you if you truly cared about a woman's well-being, a woman's future, a woman's happiness, you'd be guiding her to this University and not into your dungeons of perversity. Education matters. An woman's education is like armor, protecting her from your indoctrinations, keeping her from falling under your spell, making all of your lies clear as day, so she only does what she chooses to do. Don gave a familiar little noise, the clearing of his throat he did whenever she got on a roll, when she could talk all day without taking a breath. She forced herself to stop. What do you have to say to that? To this... to these educated women? She pushed the microphone back to him, this time with most decidedly phallic overtones.