Coping with power chap.4
by demented20
Lisa gets confronted then gets even


Lisa had almost put her abduction and near rape behind her now. She went to
group therapy once a week for a couple of months along with the rest of the
women who Benny had abducted. Lisa had gone back to work only two days after
she had escaped, but it took some of the other women much longer. Some of them
had not recovered by the time the trial came around. It was several months
before Benny was ready for trial. They had done more psychological tests on
Benny than they had done on any two other prisoners. He was intelligent. He
was so intelligent that he almost fooled the doctors, but he was not quite
smart enough. Lisa had been the star witness for the prosecution. She told the
story from beginning to end. Fortunately for Lisa, neither of the lawyers had
asked her specifically how she had gotten loose. The people believed that kids
had moved the busses and they didn’t ask her about it, so she didn’t say
anything. She left out all the strength parts. She didn’t want to have to lie,
especially since she had asked God to be her witness. Benny was in the end
convicted and sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. Lisa would
have loved to have seen him get the death penalty, but oh well. Life would
have to do.

The group therapy helped some, but for Lisa getting back to her routine helped
more than anything else. She continued to train at the gym and train with her
judo master. Lisa told very few people about what had happened to her, but she
told her judo master. He offered to give her special lessons in a smaller
group than her normal group and to add some ju-jitsu principles to her
training. Her lessons were progressing well. Ian still called her every day,
sometimes more than once a day just to make sure she was ok. In the months
after her attack, Lisa had finally gotten back to normal.

Lisa sometimes went weeks at a time before having to use or even think about
her strength. When she trained in the gym, she would work hard, just up to the
edge of her natural limits then stop. Her personal trainer said that Lisa was
one of her best clients. Lisa would just smile and move on to her next
exercise.

Her job was picking up now. She had been put in charge of trying to land a
very large account for her company. There were several of her peers who had
coveted the chance to work on this project, but in the end Lisa got the
chance. Lisa usually had a good working relationship with her co-workers, but
now there was some tension. Lisa didn’t care at all. Du Solei was the largest
perfume and female products maker in the world. The company wanted one firm to
control their global advertising, and they were now taking bids not only on
price, but on the direction of the new advertising campaign. Lisa and all the
rest of her peers knew that if she was able to land this account that she
would probably become one of few vice-presidents of the company, or the even
fewer senior vice-presidents.

"Let’s get those man power estimates together. We have to get them to the
board by the end of the week.", Lisa told the group around the table. Usually
Lisa had about ten people directly under her, but she was requesting twenty
more people. She would get them. Lisa left the room as a few people in her
group worked on some of the details. She first left the room then went to an
attached room to get coffee. She could hear the group agree on something or
other and then start to break up.

"I think this is good enough", Tom told the group as they filed out. Tom and
his friend Jack were the only two left in the room. Lisa was about to go back
into the meeting room, but stopped when she heard Tom start speaking.

"You know why they chose her for this project?"

"No idea", Jack answered as he put his papers back in his briefcase.

"Quotas"

"Quotas? What the hell are you talking about?"

"Look, man. She’s black and mexican. That’s two minority groups. The company
gets more bang for their buck that way."

"Could be, but who cares", Jack began in his southern drawl. "As my daddy used
to say, ‘she’s fuckin this cat".

Tom just looked at Jack.

"In other words, this is her show", Jack continued. "I don’t care who slept
with who. The CEO passed over me for this project. Fine, I can take it like
man. There might still be a promotion in this for me if I play it right."

"You can take it like a man if you want, but I have a plan."

"A plan for what?"

"Don’t worry about it. You just wait and see." Tom started to walk out.

"You do something stupid and its all on you."

Tom stopped and turned. "Look, Jack, I need this promotion. I told my wife
that I’d be a fucking partner by now. Look at me. I’m still in the same
position. I’ve had the same job, no promotion, for three years now", he was
nearly yelling. "I get a raise now and then, but I deserved this project! No,
half breed is going to take my chance away."

"You do what you gotta do, but leave me out of it. I’m happy with what I got.
My wife ain’t bitchin at me about the Lexus she dives or our house on a hill
with a couple acres under it. When I go back to where I came from, I’m the
richest guy in town. No, I keep doin’ what I’m doin’." Jack didn’t wait for
Tom to respond, he just took his attaché case and left the room. Tom left a
moment later.

Lisa stood motionless with the cup of coffee in her hand. Her stomach turned
in knots as she tried to comprehend what she had heard. She had heard of
office politics, but this was ridiculous. She had always gotten along with
Tom. Jack seemed like a good guy as they spoke in the office or in the
cafeteria. Tom was a little damn weasel. She calmed down after a few moments
and drank her coffee, she didn’t believe in wasting it after she had taken her
time to make it. She left work that day and tried to prepare herself for
whatever stunt Tom was going to pull.

The next few days, Lisa tried to be overly nice to Tom. He took it in stride
and acted almost normal, but now that Lisa knew something was up, she didn’t
let her guard down. There was still something wrong with the way he was
acting. Lisa was very careful to keep the CEO abreast of all the progress. If
it was a ploy to go the CEO, he seemed more than pleased with her ideas and
the progress of the project. If Tom was planning on going through the CEO or
the board to get her removed, that wasn’t going to work. There was the off
chance that Tom had some dirt on her, but that seemed unlikely. Lisa never
dated a man from the office, and as far as her special talent, if he knew
about that he would probably have already said something about it. Besides how
could he prove that one. ‘Here, Lisa, pick this up, or bend this’. No, that
wouldn’t work, but Lisa still had to keep her eyes and ears open.

Lisa left work late at night after going over the budget for her project three
times. She left work, and like she did ever Wednesday, no matter how late, she
went to the post office to mail a letter to her mother and cousin. Lisa’s
mother lived in Atlanta now with her cousin Simon. Lisa spoke to her mother on
the phone every now and then, but letters were always the way she and her
mother communicated. When Lisa was in college, broke all the time, neither she
nor her mother could afford the long distance telephone calls so they wrote
letters. They never stopped writing them.

The closest post office was in the urban area of the city near the city
center. It was in what most people would call a bad neighborhood, but Lisa
didn’t care about that. It was a post office and it was close. It was well
after dark and the post office looked deserted. There wasn’t a person anywhere
in sight. That was actually a good thing as Lisa saw it. She hurried into the
post office and bought a book of stamps at the machine before dropping her
letter into the box and leaving.

She had parked her car as close as she could to the front door, but she was
still a good hundred and fifty feet from the door and behind a hedge no doubt.
She came around the hedge holding her purse close to her as she pulled out the
keys to her car. She stopped in her tracks as she turned the corner.

A very large man leaned against the hood of her car. He idly picked at his
teeth with his fingernail. She noticed right away that he wore gloves with the
fingers cut out.

"Get off my car! I’m going to call the police."

"I wouldn’t do that."

Lisa reached into her purse and pulled out her phone.

"I told you."

Two more guys came from around the corner, both were as big as the first.

"What do you want?"

"We were waiting for you", the first one said with a grin.

"You can have my money."

"It ain’t the money we’re after, but we’ll take that too."

Lisa shook quickly and slipped away from the one who had been holding her, but
the third one caught her arm before she could even take two steps. Lisa’s judo
and ju-jitsu paid off now. She used the man’s leverage against him and flipped
him on his back, but the second man hit her in her shoulder. The first man
came in. They weren’t clumsy or oafish even with their great size.

He pulled his hand back and with lightening speed brought it forward. The slap
echoed across the parking lot. He pulled his hand back for another, but Lisa
was ready eventhough her head was spinning. She ducked. His hand sliced
through the air over her head. Lisa spun on the ground and whipped her right
leg out knocking the first man off balance. She came up behind him and kicked
him in the back.

Lisa had never been able to use her strength quickly. She wished she could
now, but she was fighting with these huge men with only her normal strength.
She didn’t have long to ponder that before another of the men came at her.
Lisa parried his well placed punch and delivered a sharp punch of her own. The
man’s head snapped back, but he pressed his attack. He slipped a punch in
between her attempted blocks and hit her square in the solar plexus. Lisa
doubled over and slumped to the ground. She felt a sharp blow to her ribs and
she rolled over on her side. The other two were on her in an instant. She
tried to scream, but the kick had knocked all the wind from her lungs. They
pulled her up by her hair and the first man delivered another blow to her
stomach area. Lisa quaked with pain.

"She’s a lively one. He wanted her busted up pretty good. He didn’t say she
could fight."

Lisa heard him, but couldn’t do anything about it at the moment, but hang
between the two strong men and moan. She started pulling against them, but
they just tightened their grips and held her. The first one slapped her again,
but this time not as hard as the first time. It seemed like he just wanted to
wake her up a bit. Lisa opened her eyes in time to see his fist come at her
again. She tensed her abs just before the punch landed. The force of the punch
came through, but it wasn’t as bad as before. Lisa pulled against the two guys
again. She pulled and pulled. They were strong, but she felt that
determination. She took a deep breath as the first one hit her again. Lisa
hardly noticed as she waited for the right moment to pull her arms towards her
with all the strength she could manage. It was enough.

The two men holding her couldn’t compensate quickly enough. Instead of
running, she elbowed the second man in the stomach and kicked the first one in
the lower leg. The third man reached out for her. Lisa spun and caught his
large wrist in her hand. She held it and used his firm stance to pull herself
towards him. She cocked her left arm back and punched him using the force of
her body. This time it was the sound of Lisa’s punch that echoed across the
parking lot. She fired another and another. The large man buckled and would
have fallen. The second man recovered enough to start another attack. Lisa
smoothly tossed the man across her hip. He landed with a thud on the asphalt.
Lisa pressed home her attack on the third man. She pulled her right arm back
and held it there. She squeezed her fist tighter before throwing her fist
forward with all the force she could manage. The man’s head snapped back. Lisa
didn’t wait for it to come back up. She launched a short quick kick to his
knee. The man fell down on one knee and wailed as Lisa uppercut him directly
under the chin.

Lisa was so intent on finishing the third man that she didn’t notice the other
two coming behind her. They grabbed her by her hair and pulled her back
roughly. The third man fell to the ground anyway. The second man put Lisa in a
punishing hammer lock. The first man spat at the ground and punched Lisa in
the side of the head. Her head spun, but she looked back at him. He pulled his
hand back, but hesitated. She was smiling. It was a sly smile, more of a grin
really. He knew what it meant. Anyone would have known what it meant. It meant
that she knew something that he didn’t know. Lisa flexed her right arm that
was being punished in the hammer and slowly began to straighten her arm. The
second man tried to keep her locked up. His arm shook as he tried to keep her
arm pinned beneath her own shoulder blade, but he was fighting a loosing
battle. If they could have seen, Lisa’s triceps and deltoids had become
striated with definition. Her own muscles shook with power as she had nearly
straightened her arm. With a quick jerk she pushed the second man from behind
her out to her side.

The first one threw that punch now, but Lisa slipped the punch, and she landed
one of her own on the first man’s ribs. His body shook with the impact. The
second man recovered his balance and threw two quick punches. The first barely
grazed her head while the second missed altogether. He threw another, but Lisa
caught his wrist and threw him over her shoulder. He was up in a second. Lisa
kicked him in the chest hard enough to knock him back to the ground. He tried
to get up, but a quick kick to the lower leg sent him back down. Lisa didn’t
hear the bone break, but the second man felt it. He grabbed his leg in his
meaty hands and rolled on the ground trying not to yell, but failing.

The first man was up now. His face was a mask of rage. He rushed towards her
throwing a wild punch at her head. Lisa calmly raised her hand and stopped the
man’s punch cold. Her hands, while fairly large for a woman’s, couldn’t begin
to get around the man’s whole fist, but she could wrap her fingers around it
enough. She squeezed. The man threw a punch with his left hand. It hit her in
the shoulder. She noticed it, but didn’t stop squeezing. The tendons in her
own hands tightened a fraction of an inch and the man was choking off a
scream. The bones popped at first, but then there was a cascading of crunches
then cracks as the bones in the man’s hands snapped then ground against each
other as Lisa squeezed for an instant longer. Lisa let go.

The man backed away from her, but tripped on the curb.

"Who told you I’d be here? Who were you talking about earlier?"

The man backed up more. "Get away from me, you crazy bitch!", he yelled while
holding his hand close.

"I want to know." Lisa rushed towards him and grabbed him by the shirt. She
slowly pulled him to his feet then she raised her arms higher suspending the
man off the ground a couple inches. She dropped him down to the ground again
and slapped him now. The slap knocked the teeth loose on the entire left side
of the man’s face. Blood dribbled from his mouth. He coughed as he tried not
to swallow it.

"Tell me, or I’ll do something worse! Was his name Tom?"

"I... I don’t know his name."

"What did he look like?" She shook him.

"Not as tall as me. He had dark hair kinda slicked back. Looked like a banker
or something, but he didn’t tell me his name. That’s all I know... really."

"How much did he pay you?"

"Five hundred."

"What’s your name?"

"Jumbo"

"Your real name?"

"James", he answered.

Lisa nodded and then before he could react, she launched a punch that hit him
in the side of the head near the temple. He was unconscious before he hit the
pavement. Lisa retrieved her purse and drove home trying and mostly succeeding
at staying under the speed limit. She didn’t want to get pulled over by a cop
and have to explain her appearance.

Lisa was hurting badly by the time she got to her apartment. Her whole body
hurt. She fell asleep that night with the help of a handful of Tylenol and
with an ice-pack on her face and hands. Thursday was a scheduled day off for
her, but true to her form, Lisa was at work on Friday. The swelling was mostly
gone from her face, but there was no mistaking the dark rings around both her
eyes and the healing purple bruises on her jaw.

Almost all the people in the office were very very concerned. She took care to
notice Tom’s face when she came into the office Friday morning. If people
hadn’t known better, they would have thought that the look on his face was
surprise at her appearance. Lisa knew better.

Lisa, for her part, went about her normal routine. She had to move a little
slower, her body ached with even the most simple movement and her legs were so
sore she couldn’t even think about moving quickly.

Tom was jumpy the whole day. One of the office staff dropped a book and Tom
nearly jumped out of his skin. Lisa talked to him as normally as she could
manage, but she tried not to half to talk to him much. Her charade had limits.

This went on for a couple days. Lisa waited until Tom’s nerves had settled to
make her own move. She wasn’t sure if he had something else planned, but she
wasn’t going to wait any longer. She worked late Tuesday and left work after
dark. Instead of heading home, she went back to the area around the post
office. It wasn’t ten minutes before she found what she was looking for. She
parked the car on the street and got out. She calmly approached the group of
men standing in front of the convenience store. They shot glances in her
direction. One even whistled before they saw who it was. They all turned.

"Don’t run. I just want to talk to you." Lisa held up her hand.

They all wanted to run, but they were afraid to do so. Lisa smiled a small
smile and approached the three men. They all had bandages on various parts of
their bodies. James, the leader, and only one she knew by name had his right
hand wrapped in a still clean white bandage. It had been several days, but
they were still hurting too. The second guy was up and walking. It turned out
that his leg was fractured, but he could get around pretty good with a splint.

"What do you want, lady? We don’t want any trouble."

"There won’t be." Lisa reached into her pocket and pulled out a small wallet
sized picture. "Is this the guy who hired you?" The three men leaned over to
get a look then nodded. "Good" Lisa reached in her other pocket and pulled out
an envelope. She held it out to the leader, Jumbo as he liked to be called.

"There’s two thousand dollars in there. I want you to do to him what you
planned to do to me, and I don’t want you to talk to him about anything.
Matter of fact I don’t even want him to know that you’re the same guys he
hired."

Jumbo tore the envelope open with his still massively strong left hand. He
took a look at the money then stuffed it down his back pocket. "This guy ain’t
no marshal art guy either is he?"

"No. Do you know how to find him?" she asked.

They snickered. "We found you."

Lisa nodded. Then turned to walk away.

"Hey", Jumbo called out. "How bad do you want him?"

"Bad enough, but not dead and not too hurt. I’ll need him to come back to work
after a few days. Can you handle that?"

"No problem. For this much money we’ll do a good job." Jumbo smiled a smile
that would have scared most women half to death, but Lisa just turned, went
back to her car and calmly drove home.

The next few days were uneventful. Tom was back to his old joking self. He had
obviously gotten his confidence back. Lisa’s visible bruises were all gone
now, and the pain in her ribs was dull now instead of like needles. She almost
got nervous herself as Tom showed up for work day after day, but then one day
he was a no show. He missed the next day and another day. He was out for
nearly a week, but he came in after four days probably at the urging of his
wife. He walked with a cane and his left arm was in a sling. He had a small
neck brace on and she could tell by his movements that the rest of him was in
a great deal of pain also. Lisa had to turn her head when he came in, she
couldn’t keep from smiling.

She finally caught Tom alone in the copy room. "Now we’re even", she said
softly as she was about to leave the room.

"What?"

"You heard me. We’re even. Oh, and by the way, I’m half Puerto Rican, not
Mexican." Lisa left the room then.

Tom’s eyes bucked for an instant before a look of understanding came over his
face. His plan was doomed from the start. If he had kept his mouth shut, it
might have worked, but that was in the past now. He understood why the bosses
had picked her now. She had "balls" he thought as he finished collecting a
stack of paper for his personal printer. She was more formidable than she
looked. She had to be. At any rate, Tom let go of any more plans he had to get
her out of her job. He didn’t care what his wife had to say about it.

Lisa didn’t have anymore trouble out of Tom. He became, after he healed, the
best worker in her group. He wouldn’t get that promotion his wife so desired,
but at least Lisa didn’t fire him.

comments welcome ppng21@comcast.net