"What's strange is that I've never been sexually attracted to women so I don't know why I took the bitch in."
"The 'bitch'?" The therapist asked.
Kara Brandon blushed slightly, "I'm sorry, I don't usually talk like that. Her name is Meredith Logan."
The therapist smiled a benign smile, "Transference."
"Excuse me? Transference?"
"Why you took Meredith in and have been having a sexual relationship with her after you caught your husband in bed with two women."
Kara waved her hand dismissively and smiled cynically at her therapist, "Standard shrink answer, eh, doc? Mind if I smoke?"
The therapist shrugged her shoulders and smiled back.
"Hey, what can I say? That's what they taught me to say in school. And you may smoke if you like, I don't mind. Of course, you realize it's illegal in this building."
Again Kara smiled another cynical smile as she took out her cigarettes and lighter.
"Have you smoked long?"
Kara already had the cigarette between her lips, her thumb ready to strike her lighter.
She stopped.
"Uh, no," She sounded introspective and maybe a bit embarrassed, "No, I uh, I just started when I threw Dave out." She looked inward for a moment, considering what she'd just said and then lit up.
She sat back in her chair, casually crossed her legs, straightened her business skirt and exhaled slowly.
"So you've suddenly started a sexual relationship with a woman even though you never found yourself sexually attracted to women and you've started to smoke - with disregard for the law. Any other changes?"
She hesitated a long time before answering, hoping that the shrink would move on to another question. But the shrink was patient.
"I've started to drink a bit. And I...I've gotten uh, cruel or mean, I suppose you could say."
The therapist said nothing. Her only reaction was a slight shift in her pleasantly bland expression.
Kara took notice, felt a pang of guilt and translated the slight facial reaction of her therapist as, "Why am I not surprised?"
"Cruel or mean with everyone or just the bitch?"
Kara's face flushed, she looked at the floor, took another deep drag of her cigarette and blew it out quickly, "Just the bitch." She didn't realize the therapist had used Kara's own terminology for Meredith. The therapist made a note on her pad.
"And do you enjoy it?"
"Being cruel? I well..."
The therapist wasn't going to push. "That's okay Kara, our time's up. See you next week?"
"Yeah. Thanks."
~~~~~~~~~~
Kara Brandon was the all American girl: 36, the mother of two small girls, a divisional vice president of a Fortune 100 company.
Married to her college sweetheart at age 22. Brought up in a nice Protestant church environment.
She was actually a virgin on her wedding night, not that her husband-to-be and a good number of frat boys didn't try - with extreme effort - to take her cherry.
She was tall and lean.
She had medium long blond hair styled in a pageboy that framed a classically oval, beautiful face.
After 14 years of marriage and two children everything that was supposed to be firm and toned was still that way - with the help of a gym and a personal trainer three times a week.
Her husband was a successful contractor and they lived well in a large house in a gated suburban community.
She was active in their church, taught Sunday school, lead a women's Bible study and volunteered for several charities.
Everyone liked Kara; Kara was nice to everyone, which was unusual for a woman in her position.
And she never saw it coming.
Coming home a day early from a business trip she was going to surprise her husband with a nice romantic dinner. She was a romantic at heart and thought her marriage and family life were close to the American ideal.
She did surprise her husband at 2 in the afternoon, in their bedroom, in their bed.
He was with his secretary and another woman who turned out to be a welder in his construction company.
Her husband was fucking his secretary doggy style.
He had her hands tied behind her back with the belt to Kara's favorite robe; the robe she wore when they made love.
The secretary was on her knees, her ass up in the air and her chest on the bed with her head in the welder's lap.
He was alternating between fucking her rapidly, his belly making an obscene slapping sound against the woman's ass, and slowly stroking her.
They were sweating; he was calling her names, obscene names, and occasionally whipping the woman's shoulders and ass hard with his belt.
The welder, the other woman, was propped up in bed - on Kara's side of the bed on Kara's pillows - wearing Kara's favorite robe. Kara noted that the robe was obscenely open - because the belt was binding the secretary - and the welder's large breasts, along with her belly and sex were on prominent display.
The welder had the fingers of one hand tightly interlaced in the secretary's hair pressing her tightly to the welder's sex. With her free hand the welder was pulling on her own nipple.
When Kara's husband wasn't verbally abusing his secretary, the welder half whispered obscenities to the secretary to urge her on.
Cruel things, Kara thought.
Mean things.
But the secretary was sweating, groaning, moaning and occasionally screaming as the leather belt cracked hard against her skin. And she seemed to be absolutely enjoying being the center of attention for the moment.
Kara's first reaction to the scene was astonishment and embarrassment,
That rapidly turned to hurt,
That rapidly, and just for the briefest moment, turned into extreme lust, as she watched the woman welder so harshly (she thought) dominate the secretary,
That rapidly turned to revulsion; it all seemed so vulgar and crude. They were like animals,