It was a beautiful Hawaiian morning, but my disposition was anything but sunny as I climbed the three concrete stairs and stepped onto the red brick lanai of the home next door to mine, two blocks from the beach on the windward side of Oahu. I was there to set my friend Valerie straight; to make her understand what I expected from my friends and where she stood with me.
I was primed for confrontation. I'd spent the wee hours of the morning in a video teleconference with several managers from a chain of pottery and home decor stores I owned on the East Coast. We were in the process of implementing an automated inventory control system, and these particular managers had apparently decided that they could half-ass the current system until the new one was up and running. By the end of the teleconference, one of the managers was wiping tears from his eyes, and I was convinced that all of them understood that I wouldn't let their incompetence and laziness destroy the business I'd built.
After that, fixing little Valerie's behavior was going to be easy money. I rang the doorbell and her sing-song Disney princess voice met me at the door like an excited puppy. "Who is it?"
"It's Lisa." And her successful businesswoman voice, thank you very much.
"Oh! Come in. It's not locked. I'll get us some coffee."
I dropped my flip-flops on the porch, stepped through the door, and started through the foyer. Dust bunnies hopped and rolled over the parquet flooring along the baseboards as the door swept a puff of air in behind me. Valerie had often declared herself allergic to housework, and it showed in the details. Still, the place wasn't a dump, and I loved stepping from the solid foyer floor to the padded Berber carpet in the living room. My feet were just saying "ahhh" when Valerie arrived from the kitchen with two steaming cups of coffee and a big smile. I decided that I might have to take my confrontational style down a notch. She was a nice girl; just needed a little instruction. I thanked her for the coffee.
"Gosh," she said. "We haven't done this in weeks. I'm so glad you came over. Please, take a seat."
She set her coffee on an end table and used the remote control to mute the morning news on her flat screen as she settled onto her brown leather couch. I sat at a right angle to her on a matching recliner and enjoyed a few sips of coffee, then set my mug on the end table between us.
"So," she said, "are you here just to visit or did you want to do something today?"
"Actually, I came to talk to you about last night and what I asked you to stop doing a few weeks ago. Do you remember that?" I was leaning in, looking her in the eye and waiting for her to break eye contact.
She pushed a strand of blonde hair behind her ear, but kept her eyes locked on mine. "If you're talking about dressing more conservatively when I go to your house, then yes, I remember. I've been doing that."
"Yes, you have," I said. "You've been honoring the letter of my request, but not the spirit. Almost every day when Erik gets home, you are out front in your bikini watering plants or sweeping the driveway or rolling out the trash bins. Then, last night, you hop in the hot tub, and your little white swimsuit becomes practically transparent. I feel like you're trying to steal my husband's attention, and I want you to stop."
My voice was sharper now, and I was wearing the you're-close-to-being-fired expression that had withered my errant managers earlier that morning.
Valerie seemed unimpressed. "Whoa," she said. "I wear bathing suits all the time. This is Hawaii. It's summer. What do you expect? Also, I get home from seeing personal training clients about half an hour before Erik gets home, so it's not unusual for me to be doing outside chores when he pulls in the driveway. If I put it off for ten minutes, I'd never get around to it."
That wasn't quite the tearful apology I was expecting. I raised my voice a bit. "What about last night? Thanks again for having us over for drinks, but my husband didn't need a T&A show."
Valerie's face showed something between determination and anger, but her voice was all exasperation. "Holy shit, Lisa. It's not like I invited him into the bedroom, and it's not like you never flirted with Bill when Erik was deployed. I honestly forgot what that suit looked like when it got wet. I'll admit that I enjoyed the male attention, just like you did on our girls' nights out when Erik was the one flying helicopters around the desert. I practically had to peel a couple of those guys off of your drunk ass. Do you remember that?"
I broke eye contact first. I was trying to forget those nights. "Yes. I remember and appreciate everything you and Bill did for me while Erik was deployed, and I want us to be there for you in the same way now. I just don't want my husband seeing the details of what your swimsuit is meant to hide. And what was that little wink you gave him as we left?"
Valerie rolled her eyes, and my temper heated a few degrees. "I winked at
you
, not him," she said. "I thought you two were going to wear out some furniture when you got home. That was a 'you go, girl' wink."
I pointed at her for emphasis and said "Well, you thought wrong. The only thing that got worn out last night was Erik's ego. I wasn't going to reward him for ogling another woman. He didn't get to touch me for a month after I caught him drooling over pictures of women in his
Esquire
magazine. His dry spell would've been longer if I hadn't felt sort of obligated to relent on the eve of his deployment."
Valerie shook her head like a disappointed parent. "Jesus, Lisa. I'll bet Erik has a huge hidden porn stash and masturbation callouses on his cock. You should be getting under that Marine's hard body every chance you get, not denying him and driving him toward other women. If you keep it up, someone will give him more than a peek of tits and ass."
I was on my feet. I glowered down at Valerie and shouted. "You don't know him. Erik and I saved ourselves for marriage. He's not going to be tempted by an easy piece of ass like you. He's..."
Her slap torqued my head to the right. The left side of my face burned from temple to chin. I backed away, eyes watering, as Valerie said something that ended with "fucking bitch." I was shocked. Then I was angry. How dare she?
As my vision cleared, she was right in front of me, shaking a finger and lecturing me on some point that was lost in my desire to make her pay for that slap. Emotion had obviously clouded her judgment. Valerie couldn't be more than five-foot-four and 110 pounds. I had a good four inches and twenty pounds on her. It wasn't even going to be a fair fight. The brunette was about to kick the blonde's ass.
I grabbed her in a headlock, except her head was no longer there, and I was suddenly off my feet and upside-down. I landed on my back, hard. The air gushed from my lungs, and my calves bounced on the couch cushions.
Shit! The lucky little whore had ducked, and my momentum had somehow caused me to flip over her. She wouldn't be so lucky again.
I rolled to my feet and stood facing her. She was actually smiling. Energized by anger, I grabbed a handful of the loose t-shirt she wore over her usual skimpy two-piece.
Valerie's hand slapped over mine. She stepped back and pivoted, and my arm was straightened, turned, and under her control. My hand was trapped against her chest in a thumb-down position and she was flexing my fingers toward the ceiling. The pain was like an electric shock from my wrist to my shoulder. Her other hand kept my elbow locked, and the pressure forced me to my knees. I balanced on my free hand and watched a tear drop from the corner of my eye and splash on the carpet.
I had never been so completely under someone else's control. Valerie tsk-tsked. "I didn't realize you had such anger issues, Lisa. Perhaps you'd settle down if I kicked your tits back through your shoulder blades." She flexed my wrist further, and I was forced onto my elbow to ease the pain.
"Please," I begged. "Let me go. I'm sorry. I was totally wrong." I was blubbering; crying like a child.
"I think I'm going to need more than an apology, Lisa." She added pressure to my arm. "Now get on your belly. We're going to work off some of that angry energy."
Somewhere in the midst of my pain she had changed to controlling me solely from my wrist, using both hands to bend it in ways nature never intended. Ever smaller movements were required to create pain. I felt totally defeated.
"Please, Valerie," I said. "I'll do anything. Just let me have my arm back." I sunk to my belly.
"Hush, hush, my easy little piece of ass. I already know that you'll do anything." Valerie paused for a second, leveraging my arm against her knee. "The first thing you're going to do is fifty repetitions of up-downs. You are in the starting position now. Standing straight up and then back down to your face is one rep. Now, go!"
I pushed up onto my knees, then stood up, and Valerie kept the tension locked in my arm the whole way. Once I was standing straight, she added pressure, and the pain forced me down again. "C'mon, Lisa. You can move faster than that," Valerie said, "just forty-nine to go." She was in her element, coaching me like one of her clients at the gym.
I was determined to show her that I could accomplish her silly task. I would not be broken. But by the tenth rep, my free arm was shaking as I struggled to my knees, and by fifteen my legs burned and sweat dripped from my face. Valerie kept pushing the pace. Twice, she literally kicked me in the ass as she encouraged me to move faster. I began to feel nauseous.
I pleaded for mercy. "Please." I sunk to my knees. "No more." I fell forward, just saving my face from planting in the carpet. "I can't."
"Thirty-six," Valerie said. "Fourteen to go. Get your ass in gear, Lisa."