Salted Earth
Sep. 8th, 2019 07:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hennessysTitle: Salted Earth
Rating: PG-13
Summary: It all comes back to Andrew Dalton.
Warnings: mentioned drug use, sexual harassment, minors having sex, and a blink and miss it mention of unwanted sexual activity (in the midst of otherwise consensual sexual activity. Plus inherent misogyny and racism.
Notes: LAST OF ALL OF THESE AND I HAVE DEFEATED CLOISONNISM WITH ONE MINUTE TO SPARE. HA.
Miranda slipped into her mother's office and set the signed contract down on her desk, silently.
Isobel Hennessy picked up the contract and read it through. While she waited, Miranda drifted around the office, eying the law books. She'd used some of these herself in law school, studying in the wing-backed chair that had once been her grandfather's, the imposing and just slightly uncomfortable one her mother kept for visitors. She'd paid more attention there, surrounded by the effects of a man who would have assumed, based on her heritage and her sex, that she was worthless.
It had been, and would continue to be, a genuine pleasure to prove him wrong.
"He really signed this?" Isobel's voice broke the silence, and she looked up at her daughter, one eyebrow arched in a slightly incredulous way. "Does he know how disadvantageous it is to his company?"
Miranda, who truly did not care since the company in question was not one of their clients, shrugged. "He'll find out."
"Miranda." It was all her mother said, but she had thirty years of experience saying it.
"He was easily distracted by a strategic show of legs and cleavage," Miranda snapped. "He might get fired, but he'll deserve it."
Isobel regarded her for a long moment, then nodded. "Very well," she said, and then added, in Spanish, "but we will continue this discussion later, at home."
"As you say, Mama," she said, and left the office before Isobel chose to continue the discussion right then.
It hardly mattered. It wasn't anything she hadn't done before. From her first day at the office, men had tried to get in her way. Some had laughed at her, some had sabotaged her, some had simply ignored her, and all of them had been destroyed, in the end. In their own ways.
It had begun long before that, though.
She returned to her office, told her assistant that she was unavailable, and locked the door behind her before settling into her own, significantly more comfortable wing-backed chair. The position she took was painfully cliché, but there were reasons for that, she assumed—fingers steepled, gaze fixed on the impeccably neat stacks of paper on her rich oak desk, it spoke of power to her, and control. There was no one here to see her, but she needed that control anyway.
This last one had been... a problem.
The way he looked at her, greedy and possessive—people looked at her like that all the time, of course, because she was a beautiful and powerful woman, and either they wanted to own her or they wanted to destroy her. But the particular, peculiar way this man looked at her, like he was imagining her naked and collared, kneeling at his feet—he wanted to own her and then destroy her, and that always made her think of Andrew Dalton.
It always came back to him, didn't it? This last man, the others in her way, they were nothing, forgettable, because in the end it was her family name on the building and her talent helping to keep the firm afloat, and none of them could harm her in any real way. But Andrew Dalton, oh yes. Andrew who had hurt her, put his hand around her neck during sex and refused to let go until she bit him. Andrew who had hurt her brother, if significantly less, and every time she thought of Jack on his knees before that slime she wanted to break something.
Andrew who had hurt Charlotte, left her weeping in her bedroom. And that—
She cut off the thought before it could reach fruition.
Jack had to physically restrain her from cutting his brake lines. "You'll get caught," he'd said, dark eyes worried, and even at fourteen he'd been thinking more than she had. "You'll go to jail, and who will protect Carlita then?"
He would, of course, but he had only been fourteen, and he was right, anyway. Carlita and Jack both needed her. She'd had no right to give away her freedom.
They'd been careful, in the end. Jack had his own plans, which he kept to himself, and Miranda never really knew what of the subsequent chaos had been due to those. She, though—she could do things Jack couldn't. She had access that he didn't.
Sugar in the gas tank wouldn't get him killed, but it did destroy his precious Ferrari. A few careful rumors wouldn't put her in jail, but they did destroy his reputation.
The half pound of cocaine she put in his car's trunk and the anonymous tip she called in hadn't put him in jail, unfortunately, but all of his college offers were mysteriously withdrawn once that little tidbit came out. And he was over eighteen, too; he'd have to deal with those consequences forever. She couldn't make him face what he'd done to her sister, but she could make him live with that.
The last she'd heard of Andrew, his parents were sending him to family in Washington to try and live down that fiasco. She hoped he'd died there.
She was a little calmer now, thinking of that. The other man—what was his name? Ah well, it didn't matter—he would almost certainly lose his job once his superiors found out what he'd signed on their behalf, and it was no more than he deserved. The men (and a few rare women) she'd taken down on her way up, they deserved what they'd gotten, too.
Andrew Dalton had deserved every second of what happened to him.
Miranda smiled a little, looking at her immaculate desk. Time, and past, to get to work on her next assignment.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: It all comes back to Andrew Dalton.
Warnings: mentioned drug use, sexual harassment, minors having sex, and a blink and miss it mention of unwanted sexual activity (in the midst of otherwise consensual sexual activity. Plus inherent misogyny and racism.
Notes: LAST OF ALL OF THESE AND I HAVE DEFEATED CLOISONNISM WITH ONE MINUTE TO SPARE. HA.
Miranda slipped into her mother's office and set the signed contract down on her desk, silently.
Isobel Hennessy picked up the contract and read it through. While she waited, Miranda drifted around the office, eying the law books. She'd used some of these herself in law school, studying in the wing-backed chair that had once been her grandfather's, the imposing and just slightly uncomfortable one her mother kept for visitors. She'd paid more attention there, surrounded by the effects of a man who would have assumed, based on her heritage and her sex, that she was worthless.
It had been, and would continue to be, a genuine pleasure to prove him wrong.
"He really signed this?" Isobel's voice broke the silence, and she looked up at her daughter, one eyebrow arched in a slightly incredulous way. "Does he know how disadvantageous it is to his company?"
Miranda, who truly did not care since the company in question was not one of their clients, shrugged. "He'll find out."
"Miranda." It was all her mother said, but she had thirty years of experience saying it.
"He was easily distracted by a strategic show of legs and cleavage," Miranda snapped. "He might get fired, but he'll deserve it."
Isobel regarded her for a long moment, then nodded. "Very well," she said, and then added, in Spanish, "but we will continue this discussion later, at home."
"As you say, Mama," she said, and left the office before Isobel chose to continue the discussion right then.
It hardly mattered. It wasn't anything she hadn't done before. From her first day at the office, men had tried to get in her way. Some had laughed at her, some had sabotaged her, some had simply ignored her, and all of them had been destroyed, in the end. In their own ways.
It had begun long before that, though.
She returned to her office, told her assistant that she was unavailable, and locked the door behind her before settling into her own, significantly more comfortable wing-backed chair. The position she took was painfully cliché, but there were reasons for that, she assumed—fingers steepled, gaze fixed on the impeccably neat stacks of paper on her rich oak desk, it spoke of power to her, and control. There was no one here to see her, but she needed that control anyway.
This last one had been... a problem.
The way he looked at her, greedy and possessive—people looked at her like that all the time, of course, because she was a beautiful and powerful woman, and either they wanted to own her or they wanted to destroy her. But the particular, peculiar way this man looked at her, like he was imagining her naked and collared, kneeling at his feet—he wanted to own her and then destroy her, and that always made her think of Andrew Dalton.
It always came back to him, didn't it? This last man, the others in her way, they were nothing, forgettable, because in the end it was her family name on the building and her talent helping to keep the firm afloat, and none of them could harm her in any real way. But Andrew Dalton, oh yes. Andrew who had hurt her, put his hand around her neck during sex and refused to let go until she bit him. Andrew who had hurt her brother, if significantly less, and every time she thought of Jack on his knees before that slime she wanted to break something.
Andrew who had hurt Charlotte, left her weeping in her bedroom. And that—
She cut off the thought before it could reach fruition.
Jack had to physically restrain her from cutting his brake lines. "You'll get caught," he'd said, dark eyes worried, and even at fourteen he'd been thinking more than she had. "You'll go to jail, and who will protect Carlita then?"
He would, of course, but he had only been fourteen, and he was right, anyway. Carlita and Jack both needed her. She'd had no right to give away her freedom.
They'd been careful, in the end. Jack had his own plans, which he kept to himself, and Miranda never really knew what of the subsequent chaos had been due to those. She, though—she could do things Jack couldn't. She had access that he didn't.
Sugar in the gas tank wouldn't get him killed, but it did destroy his precious Ferrari. A few careful rumors wouldn't put her in jail, but they did destroy his reputation.
The half pound of cocaine she put in his car's trunk and the anonymous tip she called in hadn't put him in jail, unfortunately, but all of his college offers were mysteriously withdrawn once that little tidbit came out. And he was over eighteen, too; he'd have to deal with those consequences forever. She couldn't make him face what he'd done to her sister, but she could make him live with that.
The last she'd heard of Andrew, his parents were sending him to family in Washington to try and live down that fiasco. She hoped he'd died there.
She was a little calmer now, thinking of that. The other man—what was his name? Ah well, it didn't matter—he would almost certainly lose his job once his superiors found out what he'd signed on their behalf, and it was no more than he deserved. The men (and a few rare women) she'd taken down on her way up, they deserved what they'd gotten, too.
Andrew Dalton had deserved every second of what happened to him.
Miranda smiled a little, looking at her immaculate desk. Time, and past, to get to work on her next assignment.
