At age 24, Jennifer was not a happy girl.
She had just ended an affair with George, after making a decision to move on with her life. She now realized that she never should have had the affair, but it was obviously too late for that. She had moved to Houston three years earlier for what sounded like a nice career opportunity with a mid-size investment firm, and she had worked hard and developed a nice client book.
About a year before the managing partner, George, had begun to pay a little attention to her, and she had flirted back as any 24 year old probably would have. The harmless flirting soon became more and before too long a full affair was underway. At first it was very exciting for Jennifer. George had spoiled her and taken her shopping, to nice restaurants, even along on some trips. Jennifer was young and single and having a good time. George was older, married and bored. While Jennifer was smart and ambitious, George did not see her as anything more than a playmate. But she was an incredible playmate in his eyes, probably about 5'6" and 135 pounds, somehow thin but with perfect D breasts.
Over the next few months, George began taking Jennifer for granted. The shopping trips and dates gave way to quickies in the office, and, what once had seemed somewhat romantic (despite the fact that George was married) became mundane and ordinary.
Jennifer decided that she needed a fresh start and told George that it, whatever it was they had, was over and that she needed to break away emotionally and look for someone who was more available to her in ways other than purely sexual.
That was all she wanted, just a clean break.
Of course it didn't go that way; it rarely does.
George, realizing maybe for the first time that he didn't want to lose her, tried valiantly to win Jennifer's love. The gifts started back up. Many propositions were made; he now offered more trips and more dinners, even a bigger apartment that he would pay for, but Jennifer wasn't interested. She hadn't ended the affair as a way to get more gifts; she had simply come to the realization that she wanted more. George offered everything, at least everything other than the full time commitment that she coveted, so it was easy for Jennifer to stand firm and reject his offers.
As George offered more and more and got nothing, he became extremely frustrated. As his attempts to win her back obviously failed, his actions began to go negative. He saw to it that Jennifer became persona non grata in the office. He made sure that she was not assigned to any new accounts and began to slowly take her old accounts away from her. He did it cleverly and patiently, as he knew that if he did it all at once, it would be obvious and could result in a lawsuit that would be hard to defend. He would make sure that when Jennifer was out and customers called in that they were given the choice to have another account manager handle their requests immediately, rather than have Jennifer call them later to handle the issue. He would raise fees on some of her loyal customers to the point that they practically had to look elsewhere, and during all of this, he would raise Jennifer's quotas and belittle her declining performance to the rest of the office.
It didn't take but a few months, and Jennifer could not take anymore. Her income was plummeting, and she knew exactly why. She knew she had to get out and start over completely, but she was very angry about the way that she was being treated and decided to come up with a plan for revenge. Being very analytical by nature, she diagrammed out at night at home the strengths and weaknesses of both George and herself to help decide her best course of action. George's strengths were basically that he ran the office, and, of course, that he was bigger and stronger than her. She wasn't really looking for a physical confrontation so that wouldn't really matter. His weakness was that he was married; she could after all just call his wife and tell her everything, but where would that get Jennifer? Nowhere really, she decided. She could ruin his life, maybe. Or even maybe not, she concluded; it could be that George's wife knew about his philandering and didn't care. Maybe she just stayed because it was comfortable. Either way, Jennifer decided that she needed something else. She wanted a way to both get revenge on George and benefit herself.
Jennifer's strengths were ambition and persistence; she had known this for years. And her weakness was that she was on George's home turf where he made the rules of the game. Then it hit her; she was missing the obvious. George's weakness was her; this whole thing was going on because he couldn't have her. And the direct correlation to this was that she held tremendous power over him. She knew his likes and dislikes and what would drive him over the edge. As this realization expanded in her mind, she began to experience a feeling like she never had. She felt confidant and powerful and even sexually excited. Damn, she thought to herself, she was getting wet just thinking about this. She was certain that this was a new feeling for her. And, she liked it... a lot.
The next day she contacted an employment attorney. She explained that she was resigning from her company and just wanted him to come by the next day at noon to review her exit documents before she signed them. The lawyer seemed entirely uninterested, but she offered $250 cash, and it was his lunch hour so he agreed. She thanked him and told him to come to George's office and meet her at noon.
Jennifer went to work the next day as usual and packed up her desk; she then e-mailed the firm's client list to her personal e-mail account. When she got to her new firm, wherever that may be, this list would be like gold as she plucked them off one by one and built her business back up.
About 11:30, she dialed the extension for Human Resources and asked one of the reps to meet at George's office at noon. She explained that she was going to offer to resign, since business had been slow, and ask for some severance.
"If George accepts my offer, I'd like to get everything written up quickly so as not to cause a disturbance," she explained.
The rep agreed, and Jennifer hung up the phone then stood up and headed to George's office. As she had to walk through most of the office she took great care to look as professional as possible. She was in a black suit; it was form fitting without being too tight. The skirt may have been a bit too high, but not entirely inappropriate as she was 24 after all. Her auburn hair that usually fell just passed her shoulders was up in a bun. Her heels were sexy without being slutty, and her legs were stunning in black nylons. If one were asked to describe this beauty, "Sexy Librarian" would probably be a term thought of initially.
She reached George's office at about 11:50 and told his secretary know that George had just called for her. The secretary was obviously unaware of this as it wasn't true, but, without knowing the details, she knew something was going on between George and Jennifer so it didn't seem unlikely. Without putting too much thought into it, the secretary stated that George was on the telephone and that she would let him know in a moment.
