This is an entry in the SweetWitch-Marsh Alien Feud Settlement Short Story Writing Contest. As a courtesy to me, if you cast a vote on this story, please also read Marsh Alien 's "Forget the Drink, Gimme the Bitch." Besides, his story has love and romance.
***
The place was a shambles. Devi Sloane surveyed the damage with a frosty gaze. What did it matter to her? Hauling herself upright, she wiped blood from the corner of her mouth with the back of her hand, stepping over the defeated body that still lay on the wet floor among the shattered glass and broken furniture.
Making a feeble attempt at adjusting her ragged clothing and pushing disheveled jet-black hair from her face, she swaggered to the bar on one broken sandal heel.
"Hell, Devi, what got into you?" the man on her left asked, moving back a step.
She fixed him with a killing glare.
"Uh, Hon," another voice offered up timidly. "I think Sam's hurt."
It was true. Samara Grey lay prone, bleeding and whimpering in the center of the barroom floor. She didn't look like she was going to be getting up anytime soon, which suited Devi just fine.
"Forget the bitch," she snarled, turning her eyes back to the astonished man behind the bar. "Gimme a drink."
"You gonna call the cops, Charlie?" a drunk voice slurred out.
"No," Charlie Wells laughed, pouring three fingers of his best Kentucky sipping whiskey. "That's a fight I'd've paid good money to see. Damn, girl, you pack a hell of a wallop. I didn't know you had it in you. Feel better?"
Devi accepted the glass, staring into the amber liquid within. Did she feel better?
"Not yet," she said, taking a gulp of the fiery liquid. "But I'm working on it."
Snatching at the broken strap that hung out of one large tear in her blouse, Devi pulled up on the bra cup that threatened to expose too much of her flesh. Voices around her began to buzz the way they do when something anomalous occurs.
"I always thought she was such a sweet, shy thing," a woman said.
"I always thought she wouldn't say 'shit' if she had a mouthful," someone else tossed in.
Devi knew what everyone always thought about her. Sweet, timid, defenseless, a real pushover -- but they had no idea the emotions that always boiled beneath the surface or how she'd been trained all her life to control them. Not once, since her earliest childhood, had she given vent to the rage of which she was capable. Not until now.
As good as it felt to smash that woman's nose all over her face, Devi still felt the shame of letting go. Her gram would have been so disappointed in her. Raising the glass to her lips again, she shot back the rest of its contents before slamming it back down on the bar.
"Gimme another."
Still chuckling, Charlie poured a liberal amount of bourbon in the glass.
"Better go easy on that," he said. "You're not a drinker."
"I'm thinking of taking it up as a hobby," she snapped, grabbing the drink.
Taking another swig, she allowed the liquor to linger in her mouth, killing the taste of blood before swallowing. The whiskey burned in her empty stomach, adding to the fire of rage she felt in her chest. How had this mess started?
Staring into her glass again, she thought back over the years of her marriage. Gram had tried to warn her, but she just wouldn't listen.
"Any man named Philander is nothing but trouble," Gram had said.
My grandma was right
, she thought. Phil had proved that within weeks of their wedding vows. That's when she'd found out about his first affair. To be honest, it was a one-night stand, but that reality only made the event all the more painful. He'd gone out and fucked some woman just because he could. There was no emotion behind it, just the lust for a skirt that he met in passing.
There had been others, too. Oh, he'd promised, after she found out about the first one, that he'd never do it again, but she always knew when he'd been off shoving his dick into some willing skank. She'd kept her shame to herself, not telling another soul. It would've been too painful to admit she'd made a mistake. It was that stubborn pride that forced her to hold her head high and turn a blind eye to Phil's unfaithfulness, even when it was the talk of the town.
That is, until Samara.
Sam had been her best friend since first grade. It had been Sam that held her hand in the long nights of mourning after Devi's parents had died in the fire that had burned their home to the ground. It had been Sam with whom she had shared all the giggles and tears of a girl's life. In a way, Sam's betrayal was far worse than what Phil had done.
Phil had started showing his tells, those little unconscious signs that he was messing around again. It had been just four weeks ago when she'd realized that he was fucking around yet again, and this time it wasn't just a quick fling.
At first, she had tried to ignore it, hoping it would pass quickly as all the others had done. Soon it became apparent that Phil was involved on some emotional level. When she had finally tried to confront him about it, he'd become combative, even cruel. He had accused her of going off the deep end, imagining things that weren't really happening.
Again she'd tried to ignore it, but the whispers of the people around her had taken on a new ugliness. When Devi couldn't stand it any longer, she had taken to spying on him. She followed him when he left at night, showed up at his office unannounced and scanned his cell phone for suspicious numbers. He'd covered his tracks well.
