Emily

Please read before you proceed.

WARNING: This story contains sexual references, physical violence, emotional abuse scenes, and feminist references.

Emily's long blond hair flew out to either side of her face as she stood on Vista Point, a cliff overlooking the Mediterranean, and looked down at the swirling, foamy blue water. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly through her nose. It wasn't cold outside, but it certainly was windy. And for reasons she couldn't explain, an electric tingle drove up her spine, raising the tiny hairs on her neck and making her shiver involuntarily.

She was waiting for her last guest, Sheila, to arrive before beginning the charity event geared toward empowering her fellow businesswomen to take back their respect in the workplace. 

Emily heard the tires of a car crunch over the gravel behind her, and she turned around and gave Sheila a big, friendly wave. 

Sheila stepped out of her white Suv dressed in an equally impressive suit and tie.

"It's so great to see you again," Emily smiled. 

"I'm very sorry I'm late," Sheila began, "A man in a little green car was blocking the road leading up here. This mountain was named after your great-great-grandfather, Mr. John Carter, right?"

"What about this man?" Emily walked Sheila to the front door of her home, etched into the mountainside.

"Oh, he was just some curious gentleman who saw everyone coming up this way and wondered if there was any trouble. This is beautiful," Sheila said looking at the house, smiling. "And so are you! That's a beautiful blue dress, and it sparkles. Oh my gosh, is that Versace?"

Emily nodded and followed her final guest into the kitchen, where all her other guests were waiting. They were all businesswomen like herself and all dressed to the nine's in company business wear. Sheila took a seat. The last remaining seat at the other end was for Emily. But first -

"I'm going to see how my husband is doing with dinner," she told them, holding up her finger to signal that it would only take her a minute to check.

Fred was sweating and wiping his forehead. He wore his white apron and had two giant pans on the stove and something baking in the oven. "It's almost done. I would say five more minutes."

She peered into one of the pans and saw delicious-looking mashed potatoes mixed with chives. In the other pan, she saw her absolute favorite—yams—whole yams, still in their skin, just the way she liked them. "It's perfect, it's just perfect. And it smells delicious. How did you get the yams so soft?" She poked one of them with a spoon, and it crushed easily.

"I boiled it, and next, I will bake it. I know you love foods that are soft inside and rugged out."

"Well," she said, leaning in to kiss him, "It's what's inside that counts."

Her phone dinged as she was leaving the kitchen. She checked it and saw it was David. "I saw many people coming up your mountain to visit you. What kind of charity event are you having? And I hope you'll still have time for our midnight bang-fest!" he wrote.

She checked behind her to see if her husband had seen the message. But he was pulling out the oven rack to check the chicken. Trembling, she fumbled her phone and dropped it on the floor. It slid over to Sheila, who bent down and picked it up.

Emily's heart caught in her throat, and she felt a strange fluttering sensation in her chest. "Thank you,” she said, plucking the phone from Sheila's hands before she could look at it. She quickly typed a response to David's first question and left his second unanswered.

"Welcome, ladies," Emily said, sitting at the opposite end of the table. "It's nice to meet all of you, and it's so lovely to have you in my home. Today, I want to talk to you about an organization I'm forming to help businesswomen like us reclaim respect in the workforce.

"That's right, I'm talking about female empowerment. For instance, why do people always address women in leadership roles using their first names while their male counterparts are addressed more formally?"

"Because they think women are too submissive to correct them," said another woman at the table whose name tag revealed she was Doris.

Emily's phone vibrated in her pocket. David was calling.

Her hands trembled, so she moved them off the table and onto her lap. "We must prove them wrong by fighting for female autonomy and agency."

"Oh, absolutely," said Shirley. "And not just to obtain and keep leadership roles or be paid fairly, but autonomy over our bodies too."

"Are you okay?" Samantha asked. "You look sick."

Emily looked up from her phone, her face flushed with embarrassment. "Yeah, I'm just texting someone who is overbearing. I'm sorry. I was listening."

"My husband," said Lacy, the youngest of the businesswomen, at only nineteen, "expects me to 'assume the position' in the bedroom. I got so fed up with it one night I told him to 'assume the position.'"

"I wish I would have seen his face for that one," said Sheila brightly.

"Did you get anything physically from that experience?" Emily asked.

"Surprisingly, yes."

Fred popped out of the kitchen with a plate in each hand. "Dinner is served," he announced. Putting one plate in front of Sheila and the other in front of the girl to her right, Marge, he returned to the kitchen for more. 

"Anyway," she continued, "the organization I want to form would be a charity program that wouldn't make money, but it would give women more of a voice. And with that, we can accomplish great things. I was thinking of calling it Femme First -

The doorbell rang.

"I got it," said Lacy.

A few moments later, as Emily's husband put her dinner plate in front of her, David walked in. "I don't suppose you have a place for me at the table," he joked.

"Hey, it's the man with the little car!"

"Hey!" David said, pointing his fingers at her like he was 'The Fonz.'

Emily's heart felt strange in her chest. At first, she thought maybe she was having a heart attack. Then her skin felt warm all over, and a horrid itch broke out between her breasts, likely from the sand last night. "David," she said, sounding like a scared little fool and knowing it. She got close to him and asked him to go outside with her.

Her husband raised his hands in a 'what's going on?' gesture. She raised hers in return in an 'I don't know' response.

David led her by the hand to the hidden beach on the other side of the cove at the mountain's base. He leaned in and kissed her suddenly, passionately, and though tempted, she managed to pull herself away. "David, sit down. I need to talk to you."

"Okay," he said, grinning. He sat on a large boulder and leaned forward, ready to hear the news. 

"David, you are a great guy, and we can continue our 'sessions,' okay? So you're not losing anything, and I'm not disappointed with you, but -

"Uh oh," he said, shaking his head.

"But we have to start doing this less frequently, and you can't text me during the day while David is awake. And you can't text me while I have company over. There are rules to this thing."

He walked over to her and grabbed her hips forcefully, pulling her close to him. "I will tell you what the rules are. Forget, Fred."

"I care about him."

"Forget him." David was walking away now, but he turned back to Emily and pointed a finger at her. "I'm not going to let you leave. I care about you."

Emily stared at him. She didn't know what to say.

"Midnight. Vista Point. Be there," he said. Then, a moment later, he was gone.

She walked back to the house, itching her chest and stomach. Her nerves were getting to her. She sat back down at the dining room table, ate her food, and resumed her talk afterward. The women were receptive to the idea and signed up to be part of the nonprofit organization she was forming.

Despite the day's events, things ended happily, and she was grateful. She smiled and skipped after the last car pulled out of the driveway, and her home was just hers and her husband's once more.

As she was getting ready for bed, she lay down by her husband and felt his arm around her, cuddling and keeping her warm. They were both in their night clothes. 

"Do you want to make love?" he asked. 

In her head, she cringed at a man using the term 'make love,' but she didn't know why. And she wasn't in the mood for sex with anyone tonight. But she loved Fred; she loved how kind and understanding he always was.

"Sure," she said. 

"We don't have to if you don't want to," he said, grabbing and holding her hand. "You know, you should speak up a little more about these things. I think it's important to express our desires."

"I know. It's just been a hectic day. I'm sorry, honey. Thank you for being so understanding." She gave him a quick peck on the lips. "Look, I promise we will tomorrow."

David wouldn't give up if she had told him no. He would try to tease and taunt her into it. But Fred understood, and he cuddled her, kissed her cheek, and went to sleep.

At nine o'clock, the itch came back, and she scraped at her chest and stomach until she drew blood. Getting up, she went to the bathroom, put on some Neosporin, and got dressed, and by ten-fifty, she was standing on Vista Point. She had hoped to get there before David, but he was already standing there with his phone.

"What are you doing?" Emily asked.

He shook his head. "I'm not going to let you leave, Emily. I can't let you leave."

"Fine. How about—I don't know—maybe we keep the nightly sessions, okay? But you don't contact me during the day or while I have people over. Fair?"

David laughed. "I'm not bartering with you here. This isn't a negotiation. You fell for me in the first place and got your rocks off with me because I'm direct and confident. Now, you want me to back down, give up, and go home with my tail tucked between my legs? No, that's not my style."

"Then, David, I'm sorry to have to do this, but I think we should go our separate ways. We should take a break from each other until we figure things out independently.”

"Really? That's what you think, huh?" He tapped his phone screen, and a video of the two of them played. 

"You recorded us in the act?"

"And I'll leak it to everyone if you leave—everyone. Once it hits the major social networks, it should spread pretty quickly. With your clout, it'll be top news."

"Okay, okay," she cried. "you can contact me during the day and at events."

"No," he yelled. “No, that's not how this is going to work. I want the whole package, Emily. You dump Fred and marry me. You just have to get over the fact that I work a blue-collar job and don't make much money."

"Is that how you think of me?" she snapped, backing away from him. "After all our time together?"

"That's how all women think."

"I'm not leaving Fred, so you'll just have to think of another way."

David giggled like he had lost his mind. "I did," he said with tears in his eyes. "I knew you'd say that." He tapped his screen a few more times, bringing up a webpage. "I sent it everywhere. You can't hide our relationship anymore."

Tears fell down her cheeks as she clawed at her chest and arms. "You have to delete it. Write the sites. Delete it right now!"

"I can't just call it back. It's already done." He walked up close to her and grabbed her hips. "So what's it going to be? Will you dump him now?"

And that's when Emily's body suddenly split open and devoured him whole before he had a chance to resist and before Emily knew what had happened. After it was over, the itch faded, and she relaxed on the sandy cliff and watched the water below calmly pass by.