"No. There's absolutely no way I'm going to wear these Elliot," Candace stated flatly, pulling the thigh-high boots from their nest of tissue lined cardboard and shiny foil wrapping.
"Please Candy, honey," Elliot stammered. "Won't you please, Candy, for me?"
"I said no Elliot. For Christ's sake, look at these things will you?" she shouted, thrusting the boots toward him in accusation.
"The heels are so high, I could barely stand in them!"
Candace looked at Elliot's forlorn expression, realizing, of course, that Elliot had looked at the leather boots, long and hard.
"Candy, I just thought you might want to wear something a little different. I mean, it's been a long time since you...we...and well...I though...you might wear the boots and..."
"I know what you thought, Elliot and rest assured that I'm well aware of your little perversions. God, you were so sweet when I married you and now you're ordering me about like I was one of the employees! You've changed Elliot!" she said crying.
It was a lie of course, even the tears. Elliot was the same as he'd always been, a little mouse of a man who'd been lucky enough to inherit the family business and...to Candace's thinking...meet her.
"Oh please Candy, don't cry!" Elliot said getting down on one knee in front of her.
Candace rubbed her eyes with the back of one well-manicured hand and grinned inwardly.
That's my Elliot. Soft and predictable. My little man.
"I swear, Elliot, you have no appreciation for the things I do for you."
"That's not true Candy," Elliot stammered. "I couldn't run things without you. Northbay electronics needs you, and I need you. You know that!" he appealed to her.
Candace did indeed know that. After all, she had seen to that little detail hadn't she? Unlike his father, Elliot wasn't much of a businessman. He didn't have the stomach for it. Elliot was a guppy among the barracudas, but not Candace. She was a shark, and she had done some checking on Northbay Electronics soon after she had first met Elliot at a cocktail party three years ago.
Candace had a knack for sizing up people, not that she needed it when she was first introduced to the plump, balding little man who would be her future husband.
He wore his loneliness and social ineptitude like a crown.
Candace had been working as a secretary for a temp service at the time, locked down in the hierarchy of companies whose names she'd forgotten, but she had ambition. She was a ball-breaking, razor-keen, hard as nails woman who knew opportunity when she saw it, and Candace had definitely seen it in Elliot.
Elliot was attracted to her right away, but then most of them were. Candace was a museum piece of flowing auburn hair, long legs, and a voluptuous body. She was as beautiful as Ming pottery and twice as cold, and she had Elliot figured out in an instant as he stammered his way through "Hello". Normally she wouldn't have even bothered to give him a nod, pegging him for one of the "yes" men and flunkies that were swimming around the big fish at the party until he was introduced to her as the president of Northbay Electronics.
After the party, Candace reached her tasteful one bedroom apartment, got online, and punched up "Northbay Electronics" on her computer screen.
It was a respectable company with a young research and development staff on the cutting edge waiting to make it big.
All it needed was a woman's touch.
Candace called the local florist the next day and had half a dozen white roses sent to "president" Elliot Allen, along with a card that introduced herself and gave a phone number.
He called her that evening.
And on that evening, Candace was charming.
And Candace was vivacious.
And within 6 months, Candace was Mrs. Elliot Allen, an event which was one year ago to this very day.
Only today, Elliot was on one knee waiting for his wife's forgiveness instead of her hand in marriage.
"Elliot," Candace demanded through her tears, "I want you to take these horrible things back to where they came from, right now!"
"But Candy, I mean, couldn't it wait?" Elliot appealed to her.
"No "buts" Elliot. Take them back right now," Candace told him, weaving a serpent's coil of sternness around her words that was unmistakable. "I'm leaving for the office to catch up on some work, and when I come back...if I come back...I hope I'll find the kind and gentle man that I fell in love with a year ago today."
With that, Candace tossed the brightly colored wrapping paper in the trash, and threw the small gift card with her name on it back into the box and shoved the package at Elliot like an accusation before she walked out the front door to one of the twin, burgundy BMWs nestled in their car port.
Quickly patting her eyes dry with a wisp of Kleenex, Candace glanced at the house through the sedan's window as she began to pull into the long, semi-circular driveway that curved in front of their tasteful silicon valley home. For Candace, tears were tools, and she put them away easily.
Candace really didn't care about the boots, mostly because she didn't really care about Elliot, but it was important to pull on the reins every once in a while. She had rode Elliot hard today and tonight she'd sleep with him and maybe even let him tie her up again as she often did before they were married. Sex was a tool for Candace as well, and although it was a delicate instrument that required precision, she was adept in its use.
Candace knew that Elliot might eventually have the nerve to take on a mistress... someone who'd be happy to play Elliot's little games, but as long as Candace played him correctly, by the time her husband took that step, it would amount to nothing as far as she was concerned. She was slowly establishing herself as the motivating power of Northbay electronics. It hadn't been hard really. Elliot was a dreamer and, to him, the day to day crunching of facts and figures that formed the framework of a successful business were an inconvenience... a bore in fact. Perhaps, deep down inside, that was why Candace held such a real distaste for her husband. To her, Elliot was a rich kid, born with a silver spoon in his mouth, whose only real talent lay in spending money, not making it.
As the sedan raced through scarce Sunday traffic, Candace thought back bitterly to the days when she worked as a cocktail waitress, struggling for an associate degree in business only to be flushed through a variety of temp jobs after she graduated. She realized early on that she would remain locked down with the rest of the bottom feeders because she didn't have the right connections, and on the heels of that realization, Candace decided that, no matter what the cost, she would not allow herself to be condemned to a future spent in some second rate company making coffee for the guffawing golfing buddies and know-nothing sons like Elliot who were grand fathered into positions above her so that they could shove their privileged little noses in the golden trough.
But those days were behind Candace now, she reminded herself. She was in control of herself and her future now, and there was no way she'd ever let that go.
No way.
In the car, Candace's head shook slowly from side to side like a metronome for her thoughts.
*
Meanwhile, just as Candace was arriving half-way across town at the office building that was the home of Northbay Electronics, Elliot was making his way from a parking lot back to the trendy shoe store where he'd bought the boots that his wife seemed to find so repulsive. With the box clutched to his chest like a broken promise, Elliot moved with quick, furtive little steps as the arid desert wind, choked with exhaust from a hundred other shopper's cars, swept over him. He loosened his tie a little in the heat and mumbled to himself as he stared down at his feet and the fun house reflection of his face in the polished tips of his shoes.
Step,step.
Have I really changed?
