Prompt 65 - Gingery - "Hell's Fury" - ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
spikespetslayer - OC
Oct. 20th, 2007 10:45 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
dedra.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
tamingthemuseTitle: Hell's Fury
Pairing: OFC/OMC, OMC/OFC
Fandom: None
Warnings: Strong language
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Hell hath no fury like Lydia Styles.
A/N: I know better than to write when I'm in this kind of mood--pissed off. Although therapeutic, it does make one wonder about one's state of mental health. Occasionally.
You may think that you know someone, really know him or her, but you don’t until you run up against their temper.
Some people operate on a slow burn, letting their anger simmer and stew until it finally explodes in a white hot fury that consumes the air around them, sucking oxygen right out of your lungs and forcing you to gasp for air. Others have flashpoint angry bursts that are over and done with quickly with little damage and fewer repercussions.
The scariest, however, are those who combine the two—the sudden outburst accompanied by the slow build, the quick flare followed by the slow, even buildup that eventually erupts.
Such was the temperament and anger of Lydia Styles.
Those who knew her believed her to be the most levelheaded and caring person on the face of the planet. She championed causes and worked for multiple charities tirelessly, badgering the rich to give to the poor like a modern-day Robin Hood.
Nobody ever saw the crack in the mask that she wore until they found out that her husband was slipping out the back door and having an affair—with his secretary, no less. The mask didn’t just crack, it shattered completely and she gained a reputation that worked just as well for her, if not better.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Lydia came home from the Red Cross meeting with a special smile on her face. Her arduous work was done and she was ready for a glass of wine and a soak in the hot tub.
When she stepped onto the deck with her 1977 Chablis and a stemmed glass, however, she found that the hot tub was already occupied by a very busy couple that was too preoccupied to hear her—or stop what they were doing at the moment.
Irving must have taken his Levitra today, she thought distantly. It was her last rational thought before the whistle in her brain stopped echoing in her ears.
She remembered every scathing word, every epithet that passed her lips that afternoon and for years after, she wondered how in the world she had become so politely eloquent yet eminently able to flay the skin off a human’s bones simply with words.
It amazed her even now. It overjoyed her to watch Irving’s pitifully small erection shrink and grow limper with every consonant that came out of her mouth. It amused her to see Valerie, his secretary and more, as she crossed her hands over her chest as if Lydia were a man and hide her body in shame. It still made her smile to realize that she destroyed them with her mouth alone, her lips and teeth and tongue shaping words that were sharper than scythes, slicing their egos apart and forcing salt into the wounds she left behind.
But that was only the beginning.
Her mind went into overdrive and she began the slow burn. Her pride was wounded and her heart crushed by the belief that, if nothing else to her, Irving was faithful to her. One afternoon proved her wrong and she detested the thought that others might know—which they did. It was the talk of the town and she noticed suddenly the lapses in conversation and the nervous glances that were thrown her way.
She began to plan Irving’s downfall that day.
Never one for company in the lavatory, she headed to the restroom alone during one of her many charity functions. She was in the stall finishing up when she heard two female voices entering the foyer of the lavatory.
Instead of making herself known, she listened to their gossip when she heard her name.
“…and I heard that she threw her wine all over their clothes and stained Val’s silk blouse something awful. McGuffey’s couldn’t even get the stain out.”
“Irving told Michael that she moved him out of the master bedroom that night. He said that she was even more livid than when her funding dried up for that silly flower garden.”
That garden was not silly! It was a county landmark from over a hundred years ago! Lydia wanted to huff and correct the idiot but dared not show her face now.
She waited until they were gone to burst into tears. Then she came up with the perfect revenge. The ultimate vengeance against Irving.
There were two things in this world that Irving loved more than money. One of them was wine. He had an extensive cellar that he loved to show off to friends and business acquaintances, pointing out one bottle or the other and spouting on their provenance as he magnanimously poured them a glass.
The other—the other was his dogs. His babies.
Irving and Lydia had never been blessed with children. She poured her extra time into her charities and he poured his love into making money and breeding dogs. Rottweilers, to be more precise. They were prizewinning hounds, to be sure, but they still took up too much money and space and the shit and noise were enough to drive Lydia out of her mind. She couldn’t go to the rose garden without passing by the kennel and the dog run full of shit and urine stains that sunk into the concrete like guilty secrets into a soul.
She would change that. Among other things.
Irving came home that evening with the news that he had to make an overnight trip to the city to take care of some business at the main office of his firm. With a small smile, she nodded as she spooned gazpacho into her mouth. She saw his smirk and his pleased expression although she hid her own from him with a napkin.
She would have a busy day tomorrow.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Irving was out the door with his overnight bag approximately two minutes before Lydia picked up the phone. By the time he had reached the train station, she had made three calls—one to another breeder, one to a shelter for animals, and one to a construction company for a rush job that she would pay premium price for overnight completion.
She sat down in her living room and waited patiently.
The bell rang and a foreman came in, wearing a smile. With a smile, she told him what she wanted and led him to the site. Plastic covers were placed on the floor and she sat back in the yard, waiting for the trucks to begin rolling in.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Irving returned from his trip freshly fucked with a new hickey that was barely visible below his shirt collar—unless you were a suspicious wife. Lydia saw it immediately and her lips thinned slightly, but she waited. Waited for the moment to arrive when her revenge would be complete. Irving had a routine, one that he never deviated from in all the time that they had been married. Come home, throw the briefcase and coat over the hall tree, take a shit, look at the dogs, and gloat over the cellar. Daily she had watched him and daily he did the same thing, over and over for the last thirty years. There would be no deviation, this she was certain of.
True to form, he came in the door a few minutes after she heard his car in the driveway. The smell of curry peppered the air and he sniffed appreciatively as he tossed his coat and cases over near the hall tree, heading down the hall to the lavatory next to his office.
Having completed his business, he went out the French doors at the end of the hall and down the stairs of the deck, marching steadfastly toward his babies.
He found the kennels empty. The dog runs were devoid of life as well. The fencing had been removed and the concrete was still soaking under a strong disinfectant deodorizer, waiting to be cleaned the next day. His dog trainer’s office was cleaned out and by all signs he could note, his dogs were gone.
Slightly panicked, he headed back to the house to find Lydia waiting for them at the back door. “Lydia, where is Roger and the dogs?” he barked as he climbed the stairs of the deck to draw level with his wife.
“Oh, they’re gone.”
Her distant reply left him gaping. “Gone? Gone where? They didn’t just disappear.”
“No, they didn’t. Some of them went to Charles Brockhurst, the breeder you’ve been dealing with. I’m sure that he’s sold them now. The ones that he didn’t want I turned over to the animal shelter.”
Irving was beginning to look like a fish out of water. “Why? What? Huh? My dogs?”
She turned. “Dinner’s on the table,” she tossed over her shoulder as she went inside the house.
He decided that he needed something to cushion the blow of his babies’ departure. He would get to the bottom of this after dinner. He turned, went into the kitchen, and traversed the staircase to the basement and wine cellar.
It somehow flustered him more than words can express when he found a plain brick wall where the double doors of the cellar used to be.
He turned and Lydia stood at the top of the stairs, her eyes bright and smiling. “They’re gone too. Every single bottle. I did save one, however.” She held aloft the bottle of wine, her fist loose around the neck. Shaking it gently, she gave him a winning smile. “You see, you took my reputation and our marriage and threw them away. You have deprived me of everything I’ve worked so hard for. Who’s going to listen to me now when I ask for donations? They’ll give, yes, but just to shut me up so they can talk about me behind my back when I’m gone from the room.”
“Lydia, be reasonable. I’ve ended things with Valerie, you know that.” He pleaded with his heart in his throat; in her hands was a twenty-five thousand-dollar bottle of wine, probably one of the most expensive ones that he owned. He had been saving it for their fiftieth anniversary, something that seemed very far off now that he thought about it.
“Yes, hence the hickey below your collar. I’m not stupid, Irving. Although, now people think that I am. You see, there’s two things that you forgot when you brought that tramp into my house. The first was that you don’t shit where you work. That’s a cardinal, if not crass rule of business. The second and probably more important one is never get caught.”
She took one step down the stairs. “You shit where you work and where you live and you got caught. What kind of fool are you? And what kind of fool do you think that I am?”
One more step. “No, Irving, I’ve decided to take you right back to square one. You’re moving out tonight. You’re taking your clothes and the things that you moved into your room and getting the fuck out of my home tonight. Tomorrow you can speak to your lawyer and we can end this farce once and for all.”
She turned and started up the stairs. “Oh, I nearly forgot. Would you like a glass of wine?” He knew her intent just as surely as his name but it didn’t help him as he dove forward, attempting to catch the tossed bottle before it hit the ground. Glass and wine spattered his shirt and face as he watched her from the concrete basement floor. Blood and wine soaked into his shirt and dripped down his cheeks as he looked up at her standing on the top stair.
She sniffed the air. “It smells like Mary cooked some ginger beef or curry for dinner. Are you staying that long?” She didn’t wait for his reply; she turned and closed the door quietly behind her, the latch snicking into place.
With a smile on her face, she heard his screams of rage begin below her.
Pairing: OFC/OMC, OMC/OFC
Fandom: None
Warnings: Strong language
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Hell hath no fury like Lydia Styles.
A/N: I know better than to write when I'm in this kind of mood--pissed off. Although therapeutic, it does make one wonder about one's state of mental health. Occasionally.
You may think that you know someone, really know him or her, but you don’t until you run up against their temper.
Some people operate on a slow burn, letting their anger simmer and stew until it finally explodes in a white hot fury that consumes the air around them, sucking oxygen right out of your lungs and forcing you to gasp for air. Others have flashpoint angry bursts that are over and done with quickly with little damage and fewer repercussions.
The scariest, however, are those who combine the two—the sudden outburst accompanied by the slow build, the quick flare followed by the slow, even buildup that eventually erupts.
Such was the temperament and anger of Lydia Styles.
Those who knew her believed her to be the most levelheaded and caring person on the face of the planet. She championed causes and worked for multiple charities tirelessly, badgering the rich to give to the poor like a modern-day Robin Hood.
Nobody ever saw the crack in the mask that she wore until they found out that her husband was slipping out the back door and having an affair—with his secretary, no less. The mask didn’t just crack, it shattered completely and she gained a reputation that worked just as well for her, if not better.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Lydia came home from the Red Cross meeting with a special smile on her face. Her arduous work was done and she was ready for a glass of wine and a soak in the hot tub.
When she stepped onto the deck with her 1977 Chablis and a stemmed glass, however, she found that the hot tub was already occupied by a very busy couple that was too preoccupied to hear her—or stop what they were doing at the moment.
Irving must have taken his Levitra today, she thought distantly. It was her last rational thought before the whistle in her brain stopped echoing in her ears.
She remembered every scathing word, every epithet that passed her lips that afternoon and for years after, she wondered how in the world she had become so politely eloquent yet eminently able to flay the skin off a human’s bones simply with words.
It amazed her even now. It overjoyed her to watch Irving’s pitifully small erection shrink and grow limper with every consonant that came out of her mouth. It amused her to see Valerie, his secretary and more, as she crossed her hands over her chest as if Lydia were a man and hide her body in shame. It still made her smile to realize that she destroyed them with her mouth alone, her lips and teeth and tongue shaping words that were sharper than scythes, slicing their egos apart and forcing salt into the wounds she left behind.
But that was only the beginning.
Her mind went into overdrive and she began the slow burn. Her pride was wounded and her heart crushed by the belief that, if nothing else to her, Irving was faithful to her. One afternoon proved her wrong and she detested the thought that others might know—which they did. It was the talk of the town and she noticed suddenly the lapses in conversation and the nervous glances that were thrown her way.
She began to plan Irving’s downfall that day.
Never one for company in the lavatory, she headed to the restroom alone during one of her many charity functions. She was in the stall finishing up when she heard two female voices entering the foyer of the lavatory.
Instead of making herself known, she listened to their gossip when she heard her name.
“…and I heard that she threw her wine all over their clothes and stained Val’s silk blouse something awful. McGuffey’s couldn’t even get the stain out.”
“Irving told Michael that she moved him out of the master bedroom that night. He said that she was even more livid than when her funding dried up for that silly flower garden.”
That garden was not silly! It was a county landmark from over a hundred years ago! Lydia wanted to huff and correct the idiot but dared not show her face now.
She waited until they were gone to burst into tears. Then she came up with the perfect revenge. The ultimate vengeance against Irving.
There were two things in this world that Irving loved more than money. One of them was wine. He had an extensive cellar that he loved to show off to friends and business acquaintances, pointing out one bottle or the other and spouting on their provenance as he magnanimously poured them a glass.
The other—the other was his dogs. His babies.
Irving and Lydia had never been blessed with children. She poured her extra time into her charities and he poured his love into making money and breeding dogs. Rottweilers, to be more precise. They were prizewinning hounds, to be sure, but they still took up too much money and space and the shit and noise were enough to drive Lydia out of her mind. She couldn’t go to the rose garden without passing by the kennel and the dog run full of shit and urine stains that sunk into the concrete like guilty secrets into a soul.
She would change that. Among other things.
Irving came home that evening with the news that he had to make an overnight trip to the city to take care of some business at the main office of his firm. With a small smile, she nodded as she spooned gazpacho into her mouth. She saw his smirk and his pleased expression although she hid her own from him with a napkin.
She would have a busy day tomorrow.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Irving was out the door with his overnight bag approximately two minutes before Lydia picked up the phone. By the time he had reached the train station, she had made three calls—one to another breeder, one to a shelter for animals, and one to a construction company for a rush job that she would pay premium price for overnight completion.
She sat down in her living room and waited patiently.
The bell rang and a foreman came in, wearing a smile. With a smile, she told him what she wanted and led him to the site. Plastic covers were placed on the floor and she sat back in the yard, waiting for the trucks to begin rolling in.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Irving returned from his trip freshly fucked with a new hickey that was barely visible below his shirt collar—unless you were a suspicious wife. Lydia saw it immediately and her lips thinned slightly, but she waited. Waited for the moment to arrive when her revenge would be complete. Irving had a routine, one that he never deviated from in all the time that they had been married. Come home, throw the briefcase and coat over the hall tree, take a shit, look at the dogs, and gloat over the cellar. Daily she had watched him and daily he did the same thing, over and over for the last thirty years. There would be no deviation, this she was certain of.
True to form, he came in the door a few minutes after she heard his car in the driveway. The smell of curry peppered the air and he sniffed appreciatively as he tossed his coat and cases over near the hall tree, heading down the hall to the lavatory next to his office.
Having completed his business, he went out the French doors at the end of the hall and down the stairs of the deck, marching steadfastly toward his babies.
He found the kennels empty. The dog runs were devoid of life as well. The fencing had been removed and the concrete was still soaking under a strong disinfectant deodorizer, waiting to be cleaned the next day. His dog trainer’s office was cleaned out and by all signs he could note, his dogs were gone.
Slightly panicked, he headed back to the house to find Lydia waiting for them at the back door. “Lydia, where is Roger and the dogs?” he barked as he climbed the stairs of the deck to draw level with his wife.
“Oh, they’re gone.”
Her distant reply left him gaping. “Gone? Gone where? They didn’t just disappear.”
“No, they didn’t. Some of them went to Charles Brockhurst, the breeder you’ve been dealing with. I’m sure that he’s sold them now. The ones that he didn’t want I turned over to the animal shelter.”
Irving was beginning to look like a fish out of water. “Why? What? Huh? My dogs?”
She turned. “Dinner’s on the table,” she tossed over her shoulder as she went inside the house.
He decided that he needed something to cushion the blow of his babies’ departure. He would get to the bottom of this after dinner. He turned, went into the kitchen, and traversed the staircase to the basement and wine cellar.
It somehow flustered him more than words can express when he found a plain brick wall where the double doors of the cellar used to be.
He turned and Lydia stood at the top of the stairs, her eyes bright and smiling. “They’re gone too. Every single bottle. I did save one, however.” She held aloft the bottle of wine, her fist loose around the neck. Shaking it gently, she gave him a winning smile. “You see, you took my reputation and our marriage and threw them away. You have deprived me of everything I’ve worked so hard for. Who’s going to listen to me now when I ask for donations? They’ll give, yes, but just to shut me up so they can talk about me behind my back when I’m gone from the room.”
“Lydia, be reasonable. I’ve ended things with Valerie, you know that.” He pleaded with his heart in his throat; in her hands was a twenty-five thousand-dollar bottle of wine, probably one of the most expensive ones that he owned. He had been saving it for their fiftieth anniversary, something that seemed very far off now that he thought about it.
“Yes, hence the hickey below your collar. I’m not stupid, Irving. Although, now people think that I am. You see, there’s two things that you forgot when you brought that tramp into my house. The first was that you don’t shit where you work. That’s a cardinal, if not crass rule of business. The second and probably more important one is never get caught.”
She took one step down the stairs. “You shit where you work and where you live and you got caught. What kind of fool are you? And what kind of fool do you think that I am?”
One more step. “No, Irving, I’ve decided to take you right back to square one. You’re moving out tonight. You’re taking your clothes and the things that you moved into your room and getting the fuck out of my home tonight. Tomorrow you can speak to your lawyer and we can end this farce once and for all.”
She turned and started up the stairs. “Oh, I nearly forgot. Would you like a glass of wine?” He knew her intent just as surely as his name but it didn’t help him as he dove forward, attempting to catch the tossed bottle before it hit the ground. Glass and wine spattered his shirt and face as he watched her from the concrete basement floor. Blood and wine soaked into his shirt and dripped down his cheeks as he looked up at her standing on the top stair.
She sniffed the air. “It smells like Mary cooked some ginger beef or curry for dinner. Are you staying that long?” She didn’t wait for his reply; she turned and closed the door quietly behind her, the latch snicking into place.
With a smile on her face, she heard his screams of rage begin below her.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-21 12:13 pm (UTC)slicing their egos apart and forcing salt into the wounds she left behind Beautiful turn of phrase, and I laughed out loud at He had been saving it for their fiftieth anniversary, something that seemed very far off now that he thought about it.
I usually have difficulty with stories about the filthy rich because they seem so far removed from my own reality, but this was crafted really well and brings a stark realism to Lydia's lift. Just exceedingly well done.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-21 12:27 pm (UTC)Steph, you know exactly what to say, don't you? I ♥ your reviews so much!
Thank you--you made my day!
no subject
Date: 2007-10-21 07:17 pm (UTC)