Gina: Laughter
Gina laughed. Gina laughed until she thought she would split. She could barely breathe. The giddy, giggling, quaking quiver shook her silly. She had no idea that laughing hurt. Laughter's breathless side-ache surprised her; its goofy gasping unnerved her. She just had had no experience.
Gina had never been able to laugh. She had always taken this personal malfunction to be a sort of disability and the distinguishing symptom of her solitary nature and freakish personality disorder. She tried to laugh; but she just could not. All these years Gina had felt so left out, kicked to the side, watching all those happy shining people sharing laughter.
"And so this is what it is like? It hurts? Oh, my." Gina laughed for the sake of laughing, so her laughter doubled up, and she doubled over. Until this, Gina hadn't even been able to pretend to laugh. When she tried, everyone gawked at her as if she had transformed into a braying donkey. She practiced in the mirror, and she just squeaked like a mouse. But this was funny. This was perfectly hilarious. This joy sucked her breath away and made her knees weak. Laughing tears bounced down her cheeks. She laughed like spring flowers cascading into a rushing brook. Gina through her arms around Ashley and breathlessly pleaded, "Oh, please make her stop. It's too much."
Immediately after Anna's talk on the erotic Mesopotamian artifacts, Anna and Ashley had hustled Gina and Edward off to Anna's house, a huge old Victorian lounging gracefully off Main Street under giant, ancient oaks. Anna made hurried excuses to all the shocked academics and took off with Ashley, Gina, and Edward in tow. No one objected to this sudden departure of the star of the evening because no one could think of a refined, professional way of discussing bondage pornography, albeit six thousand year old bondage pornography.
Edward had gotten the women drinks and was vigorously striding back and forth across Anna's elegantly appointed sitting room balancing his wine and pontificating about the revolutionary nature of Anna's discoveries. In mid sentence, Anna rose from her chair, walked up to him, smiled politely, and vigorously kneed him in the balls. Edward's wine spilled all over his face, up his nose and down his stylish herringbone jacket. Edward gasped for breath. His mouth formed a perfect "o". Professor Edward Fish treated the girls to a hilarious caricature of a cartoon fish, mouth moving in silent gasping oh's, wine dripping out of its nose, its fish eyes watering and pleading. Edward turned slightly green and fell to his knees with a pathetic, "Oomph."
Edward's callous betrayals had driven Gina to the brink of emotional collapse. Now for a fleeting moment she thought this must be a wish-fulfilling hallucination. Anna bent over the knelling Edward, hooked her finger in his gaping mouth, and raised his face to look into her mocking eyes. Edward looked like seafood on a stringer. As Anna bent slightly at the waist, her full breasts shifted forward and pressed against her silken bodice. A swell of embroidered flowers bloomed on Anna's bulging bosom. She looked down, smiled sweetly at the famed professor cringing at her feet and tenderly inquired, "Sweetheart, are you alright? Are you paying attention? Your eyes seem a bit glazed over. You really should listen when I speak to you."
Understanding suddenly lit Gina's way. "That's just what I wanted to do. That is just what the son-of-a-bitch deserves. Look at him. Look at that slithering creep; he is fucking ridiculous." Gina's anger, depression, and anxiety dissolved, morphing into a wave of laughter. Laughter too long repressed welled from deep within, surged over the levees of reticence, and swept Gina away.
Anna's long blushing locks fell softly upon her creamy shoulders. Her silken scarves and full-length dress floated lightly about, draping her in an aurora of pastel. She looked down on her fiancée hooked by his lip on her finger. With faux sympathy dripping with derision, Anna mocked, "Edward, darling, sweetheart, oh my loving husband-to-be, you seem to have spilled wine all over yourself. You can be such a clumsy bumpkin. If you spilled on my rug, I will be most upset. Lick the floor; clean up your mess."
Edward's voice returned with a weak, hoarse croak. "Anna, what was that? What were you thinking?"
Anna smiled pleasantly, "Edward darling, I was thinking you are a worthless lying prick. Ashley has told me everything you have been doing to this innocent girl. You are truly disgusting." There was no anger in Anna's voice, just a touch of patient disappointment, amusement perhaps, but mostly Anna's ever composed feminine tranquility.
Edward attempted to get up off his feet, but Anna put her hand in his face and smoothly directed him back down. "I said lick the floor." Edward burned with embarrassment and rising anger. He was a fit, athletic looking man, but despite this, he was a bookworm, not a fighter. He always avoided physical confrontations and competitions; he even avoided golf. Now a woman half his strength had laid him low by while two girls, his students, sat by and laughed at him. This was totally beyond his realm. His mind whirred; ethical arguments, excuses, principled positions, and verbal stratagems assembled. Edward reasoned, "First I must stand up on my own two feet. This is absurd."
"Anna let me expl..." This time, unseen from behind, Ashley kicked him in the back of his knee as Edward attempted to rise up from the floor. He collapsed again in surprise and pain. Ashley said, "Please excuse me Anna, but I found him so much more attractive groveling on the floor. And Gina seems to be having the time of her life looking down on the slimy, lying slut-man cringing at your feet. I don't think I have ever seen her laugh so hard...for that matter I don't remember her laughing at anything. Can Gina have a turn? Can Gina kick this hollow jerk-off in the balls?" There was a feigned echo of Anna's forbearance in Ashley's voice, but elation and bald contempt were the dominate cords.
"Why of course. Gina darling, would you like to kick my fiancé in the balls? Since you have been allowing him to use your bottom to vent his masculine compulsions, I think it is the least you ought to do. It is time for you to restore proper gender relations. I really do not mind that you were fucking him, but I do think you owe it to me to put him in his place. He gets all puffed up and unruly if women don't assert control in their relations with him."
Gina looked at Ashley. Ashley urged, "Go on. It'll be good for you. Oh yeah, sorry Gina. I told Anna he was doing you dirty. I know you said he wasn't, but I knew you were lying, and I know he put you up to those lies. I detest dishonesty, but I will forgive your lies if you show that for once you'll act on instinct, for once you will step past trite social convention and be the real you. Since you were simply repeating Edward's lies, I will hold him accountable. I realize what a sweet talker he can be and that you were head over heels with him. But now that you see him crawling at our feet, I hope your see your love in a new light - heels over head, so to speak. Set things straight and I will forgive you.
"Oh, and I haven't forgotten it's your birthday, happy eighteen. That thing on its knees is your birthday present. Set him straight; teach him what it means to be a man, M-A-N." Ashley sang the blues.
"You remembered my birthday. Wow. And this is the perfect present." Gina looked down on Anna's fiancé cringing at her feet. "I like him down there. This feels right. I guess I was kind of seduced by the submission, the sweet goo of giving. But I didn't like the pain, I didn't like his abuse, and as for being fucked in the ass, well if he had shown any sensitivity...but no, not by him. It just hurt. Ashley I am so sorry that I lied to you, and for that, that piece of shit. It won't happen again."
Gina thought, "This has been an epiphany. Ashley tried to teach me to be a free woman, but I wasn't ready. I carried around way too much foolish baggage - yearning for acceptance, lust for status, and craving for the full rich flavor of submission. But given a choice to submit or to rule, I see now what is right for me."
"Anna, I am sorry. I...I...well there is no excuse. But thank you for offering this man to me. This is more generosity than I deserve." Then for perhaps the first time in her life, Gina declared with full confidence, "Set things straight? You bet I will. I was a fool, but I won't be fooled again. Edward, meet the new boss"
Anna stood aside and Gina stepped up in front of the kneeling, cringing Edward. When Anna had kneed Edward in his balls, it had not been such a hard shot. The ever-feminine Anna wore light dressy flats with her elegant attire, not appropriate ball kicking footwear or attire. Gina was dressed for the part - a simple black tee shirt, blue jeans and heavy biker boots.
The boots frightened Edward. His academic mind could not stop judging, "Those things are trite symbols of lower class social-sexual rebellion, just more of Ashley's ridiculous pretensions. But they look heavy."
Gina swaggered to her predestined place to stand in dominion over knelling men. She snarled, "Edward, you cheat on your fiancé, you sexually abuse your students, you fucked me in the ass, whipped me, you lie, and you're boring. Do you think we can all agree that you are a worthless prick in need of a ball bashing?"
Edward looked up from the floor, attempted a smile, and lied, "Gina, sweetheart, don't let these perverts deceive you. After this, I am through with Anna. Let us, just you and I, leave here together. We will be as one. I know I should not have stood you up. I should have left town and met you as I promised. It would have been wonderful. No, I should have taken you with me in my car, openly, proudly together. You can see Anna pressured me. It is her fault. She tricked me. I don't want anything more to do with her, so you and I can start anew. I will be proud to have you on my arm, my beauty at my side, in front of the whole world. Together you and I will make a couple that will be the envy of everyone. Let's leave here together, hand in hand." All this said from his knees.