Laurel Is Dead

Laurel rubbed her temples and stared at the monitor through bleary eyes, numbers and figures and tables swimming before her. Seven years. Seven years she'd sat at this desk and entered figures into this terminal while the cubicles around her emptied and filled once again as the men and women moved on. Really, it was mostly the men that were transferred up or promoted while she sat where she had since she graduated with distinction from state university with a degree in business administration.

Now, if rumors around the office were to be believed, Evan was going to be the next one to pass her by. Evan, who was twenty-three by his personnel records but barely looked thirteen, was going to be getting his own office starting next week while she was left to perform the same tasks she'd efficiently carried out for her entire professional career. It was infuriating. It was wrong, just plain wrong, and she couldn't take it any more.

There was no chance of her actually getting her work done today. She had to do something about this, had to at least

say

something or else she'd never have any peace. That was why she abruptly pushed herself up from her desk and marched directly to her supervisor's door. Her slender fingers curled into righteously angry fist and rapped sharply, but not rudely on the wood. After a sharp cough and some shuffling, she heard a hasty "Uh, yes? What is it?" from the man behind the door.

"Mister Fitch, I really need to speak to you about something," Laurel called through the door, her frustration only amplifying the customary irritation she felt when dealing with Norman Fitch. As far as she could tell, the fat moron spent every moment of the working day locked behind that office door doing god knows what, sweating through his shirts and collecting more than twice her salary while he decided her future on a whim.

Norman cleared his throat again and called back, "Really busy. Monday, we'll meet Monday morning."

"No!" Laurel shrieked, far louder than she intended. The volume of her voice was startling, even to herself, and it took a deep, settling breath before she felt she could continue. "No, I can't... it can't wait. We need to talk now."

A few more moments went by, and the fact that Norman seemingly made no attempt to suppress his groan as he shuffled about and lumbered to the door only irritated her further. When the door popped open and he stood before her, tie askew and hair matted by sweat on the sides of his head, she had to resist the overwhelming impulse to ask what he'd been doing and instead remained silent as he looked her over.

"Well? Come in," he mumbled, turning away from her and moving back to his oversized desk chair, wheezing a bit as he flopped back into it.

"Mister Fitch," she started immediately, long before she even reached the little folding chair across the desk from him. It pained her to have to address this oaf with respect, but he'd made it very clear that Norman was not a name he would answer to. "Mister Fitch, I need to know what my prospects are with this company."

He looked a little surprised, maybe even flustered by the question, but before his mouth could finish opening to say a single word, Laurel broke into her full-fledged rant. "I've been here seven years, Mister Fitch, and not once have I missed a deadline or taken a sick day or failed to deliver above expectations on a single project. I work tremendously hard and I'm exceptionally good at my job and I know I deserve more..."

"Hey, listen," he broke in, and to her surprise she let him. The sound of his raspy voice reminded her that she had no idea what she was saying or where she was going with her speech, and suddenly she found herself wishing she'd rehearsed even a little before she barged in here.

"Listen, Laura. You do good work, it's true, and you've been a valuable member of our team..."

"Laurel!" she shrieked again in that same startlingly loud voice. "Jesus, you really don't even know my name. Look," she continued, taking a moment to close her eyes and press her fingers into her temples, trying to find some way to settle herself. "I have sat at that little desk in that tiny cubicle and watched empty-headed pigs and vapid bimbos surpass me for too long. I deserve an office and a house and a wedding, but I'll never have those things unless something changes."

She took a deep breath and looked him in his beady eyes. "What needs to change? What's keeping me from the next level?"

Fitch let out a long sigh before he tried to find an answer. His eyes shifted back and forth, glancing about his messy desk and conveniently avoiding her pointed glare until he found a somewhat unremarkable box. It was just slightly longer than it was wide or tall, comprised of dark steel, though Laurel was somewhat certain that she recognized the configuration of buttons and dials on the surface.

"Look, honey," he began, and the term of address immediately amplified the indignant rising tide of fury in Laurel's gut. "You don't know what this is, but let me tell you..."

"That's the MARTI," she interrupted, excited for the chance to prove him wrong. The Matter Amplifying and Reducing Transport Implement. She'd seen the reports about its possibilities to revolutionize shipping and transportation and the explosive revenues expected from its production while reading over things she was just supposed to file, but she had no idea that the technology was already a reality.

"Right," Fitch coughed, a little taken aback by her knowledge but continuing on undeterred. "Here's the thing. This little puppy right here is going to change the world. Do you really think a woman could have come up with such an incredible concept?"

"What?" Laurel snapped, but he clearly didn't expect or want an answer. He didn't even pause and continued his speech.

"I mean, it's not your fault, of course. The female brain just isn't wired for science and math like ours are." He rose from his chair and started to circle around his desk, and Laurel could only sit in her chair, nails digging into her thighs as she watched him. She wanted to do a hundred other things. She wanted to scream every anti-discrimination slogan and statement she'd ever heard. She wanted to slap the smug, self-confident smirk off of his smarmy thick lips. She wanted to threaten him with every lawsuit and complaint she could imagine, but all she could do was sit and stare through the haze of red rage as he slipped up next to her and leaned back against his desk, looking down on her while he folded his arms.

"I can see how important this is to you, though." The sudden turn in the conversation was more confusing than uplifting for Laurel. She'd pretty much lost sight of anything besides her blinding rage at this point, forgetting why she originally knocked on Norman Fitch's door in the first place. "I'd hate to see you leave and pursue other opportunities, especially with the job market being what it is," he continued, but she wasn't paying attention to his words anymore.

Her eyes followed his hands as they slowly and deliberately loosened his belt. This was happening. He was going to do this to her. He was going to fire her if she didn't do what he wanted. She'd seen the videos and read the posters but these things didn't really happen in real life. They just didn't, it was too surreal, too impossible, but still there he was with that repugnant bulge between his thick thighs. His fly was already down; it must have been that way since he answered the door.

"There's a place for women in the world of business, Laura," he murmured in this awful, low and ugly voice. "Especially a pretty, feisty girl like you." He'd broken into this weird, menacing toothy grin while unbuckling his belt, like some sort of fat fucking hyena. Laurel grit her teeth and stared up at him, wide-eyed and nostrils flaring as she took twenty panicked breaths in as many seconds.

"It's time to get out of that chair," he growled in some way that his twisted mind surely thought was somehow sexy. "If you want to get ahead," he murmured with a soft, forced chuckle that only made Laurel think about how many times he'd said the same awful things, "you're going to have to give some."

Every inch of her was trembling, but there wasn't an ounce of fear in her body. Laurel had walked into this room angry and every moment has simply stoked that fire into a white-hot burning blaze of furious rage. She slowly pushed herself up out of that chair, jaw still clenched and gaze still locked with the horrid creature standing above her while she moved to the side and let him eagerly settle into her seat.

"Good," he softly and simply stated with a little smile, and it was that little bit of approval that really sent the bile rising in the back of Laurel's throat. The fact that anything she did met with this wretched man's approval was more disgusting than any other element of this situation so far. "Now get down on the floor and get these pants off, I've got a lunch appointment."

The situation was so inconceivable to her. As she slowly lowered herself to her knees, Laurel thought of her parents, her graduation day, her fiance. She thought of how everything she'd done and all the work she'd put in and all the effort and struggles and sacrifices had led her to this moment. As she looked him in the eyes and unbuttoned his pants, sliding them down over his bulbous reddish knees, she wondered why nobody had prepared her for this. Why hadn't she been told this was what the world was like? Why hadn't her teachers, her dad, her friends... why hadn't they told her that her best was never going to be good enough?

Fitch wasn't going to wait for her to take her time with his briefs like she had with the pants. He squirmed in his seat and pushed them down past his knees as well, and for just a moment Laurel's eyes dropped and caught sight of the lumpy, hairy mess surrounding his straining, chubby potato dick. "Come on," he breathed, leaning back and smirking with delight. "Suck my cock."

Every muscle in Laurel's neck strained. Her eyes were bulging, her fingers clenched and her skull shuddering as she stared straight ahead and watched this vile, fat monster roll his head back on his shoulders and slowly close his eyes while he waited for her to pleasure him. She shifted forward on her knees just a little bit more, and he chuckled the faintest bit when her dress brushed against his legs. Her eyes lowered once again to take another look at what he wanted to put in her mouth, and she took one deep breath before looking back up at Fitch's self-assured smile.

In the next instant her hand shot forward. She seized a ruthless handful of horrid genitals and squeezed, digging her hard nails into the hot, yielding flesh. Norman squealed, his bulky body tumbling from the folding chair and crashing to the floor, but now it was Laurel's turn to grin, twisting and clawing and sneering while the fat man's animal shrieks resounded about the little office's walls.

She didn't say anything. She didn't need to. The whole event seemed like it was over so quickly, and before she knew it, Laurel was back on her feet, standing over the balled up form of her boss. She watched him writhe about on the floor. She heard him scream his threats of lawyers and lawsuits and prison while she picked a rumpled napkin from his desk and wiped a bit of hot red blood from her fingers.

Despite all his hasty, agony-fueled ranting, Norman was right about one thing. Laurel had crossed a line and there was no going back. That's why it didn't even feel like a decision to turn around and pick up the dark box from his desk. Activating the MARTI and letting its scanners get a lock on Norman was just the next logical step, and hearing his indignant rage and profanity-laced rants turn to panicked pleas and disbelief while she adjusted the dials and punched in the commands was only an extra bit of satisfaction before his body was enveloped in a soft, spreading blue light, and then Norman Fitch was no more.

Laurel finally felt a faint sense of relief. It hadn't occurred to her that the MARTI wouldn't work, or that she wouldn't know how to use it. She hadn't considered anything in the form of consequences or risk, she'd just acted decisively and that was that. Now, though, she had to figure out what came next. She had to pull herself together. There was no way that the people outside that door hadn't heard his screams, and there were going to be questions. If Fitch was going to disappear, everyone knew she was in here with him. What could she say when the police came? What answer could possibly explain why he never walked out of his office?

Of course, he hadn't actually disappeared. Laurel's dark eyes scanned the floor and found him, and suddenly she was able to push her concerns to the back of her mind. Everything that he had been, that large, ludicrous, disgusting man who'd held her back and threatened her and tried to

rape

her was now just this tiny, pathetic thing no bigger than the heel of her boot, laying on his side and clutching his mangled crotch and sobbing.

She moved towards him, the impact of her footfalls bringing forth a little shriek from the tiny man on the ground and forcing his eyes open. So tiny. So helpless.

There was no restraining her sudden grin. An unexpected, exhilarating flush of heat washed over her as she stood over the tiny form of her tormenter, watching him writhe in pain and confused, abject terror on the floor at her feet.

"Oh my god," she whispered to herself, though her voice caught the tiny man's attention. Another little thrilling shiver shot through her as she imagined what he saw when he stared all the way up at her from the ground. "Norman, you're fucking

tiny

." It was impossible to avoid stating the obvious. Maybe she just needed to hear herself say it to make it seem more real.

It was real, though. It was

so

real. In one split second she'd wrested total and absolute control from this fat piece of filth, and it felt really, really good.

"Hey," she snapped, and the rounded toe of her black boot shoved forward and smacked into the little man's body, sending him roughly rolling across the floor a few inches. "Hey, you're not just going to lay there, asshole." Her confidence was growing exponentially by the second. He used to control her job, control her future and he came so, so close to controlling her body, but now she controlled him. She controlled his entire little life.

"Get up," she snapped, and when Fitch looked up at her he saw a completely different woman. The slender body that had seemed so little moments ago was towering far above him, ascending towards the heavens or his office ceiling like some callous feminine colossus. He struggled to his feet, every bit of his bulbous frame trembling as he rose. Resisting never crossed his mind.

Laurel's eyes narrowed to vicious slits as she watched the miserable worm quiver at her feet. She never could have imagined hating something so much, being so intensely disgusted by one living creature. "Now, say it again, you wretched little

fuck

."

The words. Her voice. All of it thrilled her to the core. She rarely cursed, but everything was happening so fast, so naturally. It was just right in every way. Norman stood before her, head shaking back and forth nervously, jowls flapping as he stuttered through his confusion. "W-w-w-w-what?" he finally managed.

"Say what you wanted me to do, Norman," she icily demanded, leaning down towards the tiny man just enough to cast him into shadow. For Fitch, it was like the angry face of God rushing towards him from the sky. "Say it like you fucking mean it, insect."

Again, the words came from somewhere she didn't understand, but every passing moment fueled the fires of thrilling, exquisite, righteous and erotic power deep inside her. She barely waited for him to half-heartedly utter the words. Even while he was feebly muttering the phrase, "suck my cock," her tremendous boot was already raising from the floor, knee drawing towards her chest, and in one swift, decisive, brutal motion she brought her foot smashing down towards the gound. There was just enough time for the shortest, shrillest tiny shriek before the unforgiving sole of her boot crashed through his fat little body and slammed to the floor. minuscule little juicy red bits of Norman Fitch spurted and sprayed out to the side of her sole, but aside from that, he was just gone.

Crushed.

Squished to a pulp.

Pulverized and obliterated beneath her foot like an ugly little bug. Deep in her mind, Laurel was wholly aware that she'd just killed a man, but that was so far away from the rush, the thrill of the moment. She'd never felt anything like this, never known such satisfaction, such power...

Jesus, she'd never been so turned on. Her eyes dropped to her foot and to the gory remains of her asshole boss, and she started to lazily twist and drag her boot through them, heart racing as she smeared the unrecognizable mess around. A soft, unanticipated moan rose from her throat as she thought about Norman's last moments, about how she looked to him just before she snuffed out his worthless little life.

As aroused as she was, Laurel was also still just as angry. Neither of those emotions were going to be quick to fade, but as the haze of the last few intense moments began to retreat, rational thought began to creep back into her mind. She'd murdered Fitch and was the last one seen with him. The MARTI wasn't exactly public knowledge, but it wouldn't be hard to piece together what she'd done.

One way or another, her job was over. God, her life might be over. At the very least it was going to need some drastic changes. She wasn't to the point where she regretted what she'd done, though. More precisely, her only regret was that it was over so swiftly, and now that sense of power was on its way to becoming more of a memory than a reality. God, she wanted to feel that way again. Right now, she wanted that most of all.

She needed more, and with that established as her primary focus, her analytical mind could move on to other needs. With an attempt at a steadying breath, Laurel dragged her boot back and wiped as much of Fitch from her foot as she could. She turned and grabbed a file folder box from the floor and dumped its contents over the reddish stain she was leaving behind, then carefully placed the MARTI inside.

With that, she took another deep breath and headed towards the door, back towards the real world. "I quit!" she boldly declared while slamming the door behind her, and after quickly tossing enough personal belongings into that box to conceal her prize from casual sight, she hopped in her car and left her career behind.

*****

She was going to have to leave town. No matter how she tried to think about it, that really seemed to be the only answer. She was just going to have to up and disappear. Laurel worked to put together a sensible plan as she drove the twenty miles to the apartment she and her fiance Ryan shared, and the part that kept giving her trouble was how she was going to get him to understand what was going on.

Ryan loved her deeply, and he supported her as much as he could in every way she could ask. Still, they'd had their ups and downs, and explaining how she'd almost been raped and how she'd ruthlessly murdered the man who'd attempted it by shrinking and stomping on him wasn't going to be an easy conversation.

Just thinking about that moment, though... it sent a warm wave of pleasure running through her to the point where she could barely resist closing her eyes for a moment and just letting out another shaky sigh. She had to feel that way again, she just had to, and she had the device. She could do it so easily, really.

What if she showed him? What better way was there to make him understand than to share that experience with him? Their sex life was pretty good as it was, and she'd always been somewhat open-minded for Ryan before. It would still be hours until he was home from work, but she wanted him desperately and immediately. She fumbled with her bag and dug out her phone with every intention to call him, but another thought came to mind as she set the phone on her lap.