The Rage Within - Part 2

“Sophie!” Hunter called out as he entered my house. He had a key now.

Our relationship was complicated, and I was currently mad at him. As a result, I didn’t say a word, though I could hear him repeatedly calling out my name as he wandered through my house. I continued to punch the bag strung up before me, vowing to punch his face if he actually came down here.

“There you are!”

Aw damn, he’d found me. I took a small step back so I could kick the long cylindrical bag that was also anchored to my floor. I had glued a picture of Hunter on it right about where his face would be if he was standing in front of me. My kick landed directly on the picture, and I made a sound of triumph. I saw Hunter wince out of the corner of my eye.

“I know you’re mad that I had to cancel our plans and take a business trip, but I want to make it up to you,” Hunter informed me.

I landed a series of punches on the picture of him, and then grabbed the red metal bat that I had set out nearby. I used the bat to beat the shit out of my punching bag, making sure to get the picture as often as possible. Mad he says?

I hadn’t even wanted to go! He begged me to go on a stupid camping trip with him, and I finally caved in just to make him happy, and then just as we were getting ready to go, he gets a call from the higher ups that he needs to make a trip. I’m not mad… I’m fucking pissed off!!!

“Can you please calm down?” Hunter asked, wisely staying in the doorway where he had a reasonable expectation of escape should I turn on him.

“And. Just. How. Am. I. Supposed. To. Do. That?” I growled between strikes of the bat.

“You could try telling me everything you’re mad about, and then when you’re finished, I can try to come up with a solution to make you feel better,” Hunter offered.

Wailing on my punching bag for three days straight hadn’t calmed me down yet, so I figured that I would give it a try. “Fine, I’ll tell you!” I yelled, pointing the bat at him. “When you look at me, it pisses me off. When you kiss me, it pisses me off. When you breathe on me, it pisses me off. When you spend the night at your house without me, it pisses me off. When you look at another woman, it pisses me off. When you nag me into going somewhere and then bail on me at the last second, I see red and just want to wring your neck. The fact that you are still breathing makes me want to beat you up! I just want to grab you by the hair and smash your face into the wall until your forehead and nose are gushing blood! I can’t stand the sight of you! I hate when you’re gone! I’m just so fucking angry, and I can’t do anything about it! You made me promise not to spar anymore!!!”

I was screaming now, and since I didn’t feel even a tiny bit better, I resumed my efforts to murder my punching bag as violently as possible.

He was silent for a long time. I would love to know what he was thinking because it’s obvious that he couldn’t come up with a way to calm me down. In the approximately six months that we had been seeing each other, he had gotten a very good look at the ugly side that I kept hidden from the world. I think he was actually used to me talking to him like he was a piece of shit smeared on the bottom of my shoe.

I was honestly baffled as to why he stayed. It was obvious that he would be better off if he just maintained a professional distance from me. I always treated him well while we were at work. There I was pleasant and sweet to him. Why would he willingly come home with me afterwards knowing that I would turn into a bitch the moment we left the office?

Even worse, I felt bad about being a bitch, and that only increased my rage. It had been building for months, and this was the straw that had broke this camel’s back. I expected him to call it quits after hearing all that from me. A smart man would wipe his hands of me, and find someone better.

“When you spar,” he asked hesitantly. “How exactly does that make you feel better?”

I stopped cold, and didn’t move or dare breathe for a good 10 seconds. I set the bat down, and turned to face him. My rage had not vanished, but it had temporarily stopped flowing quite so vigorously.

“I suppose it’s because all I want to do is kill someone. When I spar, I can try my best to kill my partner, and he does the same to me. It’s more than that though. It’s like my emotions fill a cup. When I get so angry that my cup overflows, I don’t know what to do. Nothing can calm me down, except fighting. Fighting something like my punching bag just doesn’t do it. It’s like slitting your throat, and then putting a bandaid on it. It doesn’t stop the flow of rage. Fighting a real opponent empties the cup. The better the fight, the emptier the cup gets. It even seems to slow the rate in which my cup fills,” I explained the best I could.

Thinking about why it worked seemed to help me remain calm for a bit. I was able to resume punching the bag without trying to kill it. A moment later, I moved onto a spiked wooden pole that was used to practice other martial art moves.

“What if… What if I gave you permission to spar?” Hunter wondered.

The temporary calmness vanished completely. “Gave me permission! Why should I need your permission? What am I? Your dog? Your obedient little bitch that does whatever you say? You bastard! I should punch you in the face!”

Why was I screaming at him? He was – in his own awkward way – trying to give me what I wanted, right?

He sighed. “Listen… If you’re right about it helping you, then call him and tell him to come over.”

I pounced on my phone, and hit the speed dial.

“You fucking bitch!” My “friend” roared loud enough that I could clearly hear him as I held my phone about a foot from my ear.

“Goddamn bastard!” I shouted in return. “Why don’t you come tell me that to my face, and see how far you get?!”

“Fine! I’ll be there in five minutes, and when I get my hands on you, you’re going to regret the day you were born!” He yelled before he hung up his phone. Yep, sounds like he had needed this as much as I had. The only way either of us could function almost normally was to spar at least every month or two. It had been six since he had last come over and Hunter had called the cops on us.

I punched the air in front of me – my invisible opponent – a few times almost happily, already imagining the release that was coming. I pointed at Hunter.

“You! Go the hell away!” I commanded.

“No… I want to see how this works. Why it works. I want to see what happens when I don’t call the cops over to interrupt you.”

“No!” I roared. “You really don’t want to see that! It’s nasty and ugly and violent!”

“It looked a lot like it was about to turn into sex the last time,” Hunter murmured.

I trembled in rage. He was seriously risking mortal injury by staying here arguing with me, but I didn’t want to hurt him. A good half the reason I was pissed off was that I wanted to kill him, and yet I didn’t want to hurt a single hair on his head. It was baffling and hard to cope with at the same time.

“That’s because it was! I don’t want you around to see that!” I screamed.

“Fine, if it comes to that, I’ll leave, but I don’t want it to come to that,” Hunter stated.

“That makes no sense! It’s what happens, it’s part of what empties my cup!”

“I see…”

I heard my door open with a slam, and then shut with a slam. I wasn’t actually holding anything, but it felt like I dropped everything and raced up the stairs. I was completely excited.

He was shouting at me, and it was pretty standard for him. He was always trying to find the right girl. He would be faithful and attentive to them, and they would end up cheating on him. He was always frustrated because he didn’t know why.

It had been so long that our verbal abuse took a back seat to our actual fighting. We ran the gamut of fighting styles starting with kickboxing, moving on to more sophisticated and faster karate moves, and then finally devolving into lethal thug-style street fighting.

We were both panting and bleeding from several scrapes after the second hour. I never had much that could be broken in my house for this exact reason, but the things I did have were all knocked over and scattered about the floor. I always knew the sparring had worked the next day when I cleaned up the mess, and didn’t mind in the slightest.

His eyes narrowed as he looked at me, and I knew that the second-half was about to begin. He lunged for me, and I let him grab me by the throat. I used one of my legs to kick his out from under him, and we landed in a heap on the floor.

He tore my tank top open to expose my breasts, which made sense since I was on top of him, and he wouldn’t have been able to lift it up over my head. Plus, it was more fun that way! I punched him for damaging my shirt.

He grabbed one of my arms, twisted it just right to fling me to the floor. I was face down, and he maintained the twist in my arm to prevent me from escaping as he covered my body with his, and bit my shoulder.

I growled, struggling. I forgot that we might still have an audience, but if I had been thinking about Hunter, I think that I would have realized something important. Even to someone watching that has no knowledge of fighting, it was obvious that I wasn’t really putting up a fight. The little bit of struggling I did pretty much made it clear that I was ready and begging for more.

Even so, I wasn’t going to give in too easily! I kicked the back of his head in a maneuver that takes a lot of flexibility. Then I used my elbow to roll us over. I leapt up, but he grabbed my ankle and dragged me back to the floor.

I was not wearing much. I hadn’t needed to wear anything at all the last three days, but I liked to wear a tank top and a pair of panties while I punched my bag. They prevented me from getting too drenched in sweat. He had already torn my tank top off, so now all I had on was my boy-short style panties.

I tried to claw the floor in a feeble attempt to escape, and he used the opportunity to grab my panties and pull them off of me. I kicked him, and then scrambled backwards slightly to wait for him to shed his clothes and come after me. A real victim would have used this time to run like hell, but I was no victim!

He was only wearing a wife-beater shirt and black sweatpants. He pulled his shirt off and tossed it to the side, and then slid his pants down to his ankles. I kicked out at him again, knocking him to the ground once more before he could finish his task.

He landed on the floor with a loud thunk, and immediately grabbed for me. I evaded him, but he managed to grab a handful of my hair – which had pulled free of my pony tail at some point during our fight. He used my hair to drag me back to him, and I instinctively used both of my hands to hold my hair so that he couldn’t pull it out.

His hands were on my throat again, not actually choking me, but sending a message that he was in control of the situation. I pushed against his chest as he used his knee to spread my legs. He got into position, and then rammed inside me.

I gasped in pleasure! By this point, I was so wet and ready that I had almost made a puddle on the floor. His thrusts were powerful and dominant.

“Uh, uh, uh!” I kept gasping and panting.

In the background, I heard a door shut. It hadn’t been slammed shut angrily, but it hadn’t been carefully closed to prevent noise either. By this I guessed that Hunter was keeping his promise to leave if we started having sex. It sounded as if he wasn’t happy about the situation, but not angry either.

The ironic thing was that I couldn’t really stop now. Even if I tried, that was what I always did; tell him no and try to fight him off. I had never been serious about it before, so he wouldn’t have any reason to believe me about it now.

Besides… I felt my rage cup draining. It was almost empty now, and that was the whole reason Hunter had allowed this. I started purring, and then it was time to kick him off of me so that we could change positions.

I felt like getting on my hands and knees. I wanted to be able to stick my hand between my legs as he pounded into me from behind. “Oh God! Yes!”

Our sex usually lasted hours, and today was no exception. Afterwards, we both fell asleep from exhaustion. When I woke up, my sparring partner was gone, and Hunter was standing over me with his hands on his hips.

“Hunter!” I exclaimed happily. “Good morning!”

His expression changed to confusion. I got to my feet, and wrapped my arms around him. “I missed you baby. Did you have a good trip?”

He looked shocked. This may well be the first time I have talked to him – outside of the office – in a way that didn’t insult or condescend him. He didn’t seem to know how to handle it.

“Um… yes, my trip was fine. You… look terrible,” he informed me.

I laughed. “I feel terrible too, but it’s nothing a good shower and some heavy concealer can’t fix.” I stretched, wincing slightly as every muscle protested the thorough beating they had received. I sighed in contentment, feeling like the whole world was perfect at the moment.

“I don’t suppose that you would make me some breakfast while I shower?” I asked sweetly, kissing Hunter’s jaw line as I did so.

“Um… sure…” Hunter replied.

I started singing to myself as I walked towards my bathroom. It was a nonsense tune consisting of the word la repeated rhythmically. I felt like celebrating a major victory!

I wrapped a towel around me after my shower, and followed my nose to the kitchen. “Ahhhh! That smells so good!”

Hunter handed me a plate full of cheesy scrambled eggs with onion and sausage. “You sound happy… does getting beat up really make you happy?”

“No silly,” I laughed. “I told you, my rage cup is empty! I can feel something else for a while. And right now, I feel incredibly blessed to have a boyfriend that can cook.” I grinned at him to prove my point.

“O…kay,” he responded slowly, obviously pleased at the compliment, but still trying to focus on what had happened. “I watched the fight, like I said I would. I can somewhat see your point. For over two hours, you were able to expend all the rage you could on someone who could withstand it. I really thought you two were going to kill each other. I had my phone in my hand the entire time ready to call the police and an ambulance!”

He paused, and picked at the food on his plate for a moment. “Then… your fighting style changed. You no longer wanted to kill him. To me, it looked like you wanted him to hurt you. You kept teasing him, but not really pushing him away,” He kept his gaze firmly on his plate. “I left, just like you asked.”

I smiled at him sympathetically. “I bet you feel hurt and betrayed.”

“Yes!” Hunter exclaimed emphatically. “I kept wondering all night long why you looked so eager. We have incredible sex, so why did you need some from him?”

“Need…?” I rolled this word around for a few moments. “It’s hard to explain. It’s not the sex I needed. Sex was simply the tool used to give me what I needed, which was to completely empty my rage cup.”

“How empty was it right before then?” Hunter inquired.

“More than half empty… Maybe three quarters,” I guessed.

“Why don’t you just go out with him?” Hunter asked unexpectedly. “He’s the only one that can make you happy, and you seem to need him.”

I laughed until I was holding my sides. “Him?! Make me happy?!” I asked incredulously when I could manage to speak again. “He doesn’t make me happy! He merely takes away the rage for a bit. If we tried dating, we’d definitely do nothing but fight until one of us finally killed the other!”

I stood up and walked around to where he was sitting. “I know I have never actually said this before, but you are the one that makes me happy. You are the one that puts up with my bitchiness and stays by my side no matter how much I try to push you away. Without you, there would be no reason to try to grow as a person. There would be no reason to try to change.”

I held his face with both hands as I kissed him. “I love you,” I whispered, and then held my breath. I have only ever told someone that twice before, and both times ended in disaster. He was one of them, and so hopefully he would take care not to hurt me again if he didn’t feel the same.

He stared at me in astonishment again. “Most of the time I can’t even get you to admit that you like me! Forgive me if I want to savor this moment.”

He held me tight, and we were both silent for at least a minute. Finally, he inhaled, and I could tell he was about to say something important. “I want to move in. I want to take our relationship to the next level and see if we can stand living together.”

“Wait, what? Next level? Just where do you see this relationship going?” I asked. I was so busy marveling in the fact that someone could actually stand to be around me that I never once considered that he’d want to be around me even more.

“Eventually, I’d like to get married and have kids, but I think it’s really important to see if we can make a relationship work before we jump into that potential mess,” Hunter explained.

Marriage? Kids? I felt numb. Maybe not numb, exactly. Something else… Scared? More like terrified! Who would ever give someone like me a child! Kids were not the type of people I could just scream at and punch until I felt better.

OhGodOhGodOhGod! I was usually too busy being enraged to feel things like panic. How do you deal with panic? I had to calm down. I took a few deep breaths, and that seemed to work.

“O…… Kay……” I exhaled to the count of 7. “Moving in would be good. I think.”

I think Hunter had seen the panic in my eyes before I managed to banish it. He stared at me in surprise. Clearly, he hadn’t expected me to agree without getting angry again. Lucky for him, it usually took a few days for my rage cup to start filling up once more. So long as he didn’t do something really bad, I would remain more or less calm for a while.

He suddenly smiled at me. “Good.” He kissed me, and I felt more love flow into my cup. I realized that I must have more than one cup, because if I only had one cup for all my emotions, the key to controlling my rage would be to fill it with another emotion, but now I knew that that hadn’t worked. My love cup was getting pretty full, but it didn’t control my rage at all. I wondered if it ever could. Maybe if I managed to make it overflow with love? Or would I always have to keep my rage cup empty in order to feel everything else?

It was something to think about. Hunter was right. We needed to live together. If I truly wanted to change, I needed him to keep me motivated. I needed him to remind me why I wanted to control my rage.

I giggled as he lifted me onto his lap. His kisses were demanding, and I wanted him to possess me. I wanted to give everything I had to him. He pressed his hands into my back, and I inhaled sharply.

“Something wrong?” He asked.

“No,” I replied with a smile. “Just a small twinge of pain, nothing to worry about.

“I forgot…” he replied with a blush. He pulled the towel off me, and tossed it aside. “You’re covered in bruises. You must be in agony.”

“No, I’m really not. I feel like I had a really… intense deep tissue massage.”

“Hrmph,” he snorted softly, like he thought I was lying to him. I decided to distract him by kissing him again.

I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed Hunter like he was the only source of water in a desert. He carried me to bed, and we made love. Incredible, passionate, gentle love. He is the only man that I can do this with. Everyone else I just want to fuck and then leave, but he makes me want him there when we’re done.

The week passed peacefully. We got along together at work, and I helped him move some of his things into my house. The next weekend, we took that camping trip he wanted, and life felt perfect. Except…

I could feel my rage cup slowly filling up. I dreaded the day it overflowed once more. I snuggled up to him for warmth in the tent as dawn slowly brightened our surroundings.

“Mmm,” he moaned appreciatively. “I could get used to this.” He kissed me, enjoying the fact that I had been pleasant the entire trip. “Unfortunately, we have to get ready to go or we won’t make it home in time to make dinner. Hand me my pants?”

Something snapped. “What do I look like? Your damn maid!” I got out of our warm sleeping bag, and tossed his pants at him as hard as I could. This did not make me happy, so I quickly gathered my clothes, and took them outside the tent so I could dress without him inadvertently pissing me off.

It was chilly, so I pulled on sweatpants and a sweatshirt. My rage cup felt only about three fourths full, so I figured that sparring with an imaginary opponent might help calm me down at the moment. I started fighting the air in front of me.

“Why are you mad now?” Hunter asked as he emerged from the tent.

“I don’t know! … I don’t want to go home! … I don’t want to go back to work and watch all the women in the office try to flirt with you! I’m just cold out here in this wilderness! I want to chop down a tree and start a huge bonfire!”

Actually, the thought of laying into a tree with an axe sounded really appealing right now. I wondered just how satisfying it would be to actually see something get demolished as I expended my rage on it. Would I stop before I turned it all into sawdust, or would I be satisfied with neatly chopped wedges ready for a fire?

“Have you ever tried meditation?”

“Yep,” I stated. My imaginary opponent was really taking a beating, and I felt almost under control.

Hunter built up a small fire from the embers leftover from last night, and then cooked up some slices of ham and made toast for a crunchy breakfast sandwich. It smelled good, and I was able to declare victory on my opponent and abandon him for a few minutes while I ate.

“Have I ever told you how much I love it that you know how to cook?” I asked gruffly. This was as close to civil as I could get at the moment, but I was trying.

Hunter grinned. “At least I’m good for something, huh?”

“Don’t flatter yourself! There’s nothing good about you!” I mentally sighed after I said that. Why did I always have to be a bitch? It’s not like I meant what came out of my mouth.

Hunter simply laughed, but I think he was covering up the fact that he was hurt. “I guess your rage cup is getting full again.”

The fact that he saw me so clearly made my mean streak deflate for a moment. “Yeah… but I’ll be fine for a while longer.” Please just ignore my prickliness! Don’t turn away from me now!

“I’m not afraid of you, you know?” Hunter informed me. “I’ve seen enough to know that you could kill me a hundred different ways if you wanted, but you’ve never once laid a hand on me. I don’t think you would ever willingly hurt me.”

The strangest sensation occurred just then. It was like my veins ran cold for a second, and then ran hot for a second, and then ran cold again. I felt faint. He was right! I had imagined killing him at least a dozen different ways, but I had never actually harmed him.

“I, uh, uh, uh,” I couldn’t speak!

Six more weeks passed in relative peace. I still lashed out at him quite a bit, but I my cup didn’t feel too much fuller. I even managed to be sweet to him from time to time when we weren’t at work.

Now that he was living with me, we had had sex practically around the clock. I loved the way he scooped me up and carried me to bed the moment we arrived home from work! The more he was forceful with me, the more I wanted him.

Currently, I was making dinner for the two of us. He had a report to finish up, and I didn’t mind cooking for him. It made me feel like a real woman.

“Sophie, I’d like some wine,” Hunter called out. I actually saw red, and before I could even think about what I was doing, I grabbed the nearly empty wine bottle out of the refrigerator and threw it at him as hard as I could. It smashed on the wall behind him, exploding with a small spray of wine everywhere. I think he realized what I was doing just in time because he managed to cover his report so that it did get ruined.

“Are you telling me what to do again?!” I demanded. “What makes you think you have the right to give me orders?!” I used the meat cleaver to violently chop up the chicken meat I was planning to stirfry.

He was much better at ignoring my outbursts by this point. He honestly amazed me… and pissed me off at the same time! He continued to work on his report as if nothing had happened. This pacified me at first.

Then I got irate that he wasn’t paying attention to me. Deep down, I couldn’t blame him. It was the smart thing to do; hold his tongue and wait for my rage to pass, only this time, it wasn’t going to pass. My cup was overflowing, and almost nothing could stop me when I was like this.

I tried to contain my rage while I fried up the chicken pieces and veggie medley. It smelled absolutely mouth watering, but I wasn’t hungry. I poured the strifry onto a large plate, and then roared as I used the pan to beat on my counter.

Hunter approached me carefully, and the moment I threw the pan across the kitchen, he slipped his hands around my throat. “Does this calm you down?”

I guess he had watched my friend do that to me a couple of times, and thought it was the key to redirecting my rage. I wasn’t exactly thinking clearly, so I simply reacted. I threw him over my shoulder across the room. I think he landed in a way that didn’t cause any real damage, but I gaped at him; horrified!

My urge to attack him fought with my urge to rush to his side and make sure he was ok. I was terrified that I would hurt him if I got too close. I felt tears fall at the thought that he might not be so safe around me after all.

I turned and fled my house. I used my phone to text my “friend:” ETA 5 minutes. He immediately texted back: OK.

His apartment wasn’t as perfect for our fighting as my house was only because we could be heard by the neighbors. He had taken the time to explain our sparring to them at some point, so we didn’t have to worry about them calling the police. Even so, I’m sure they hated it when I came over.

He lived in a corner apartment, so he only had one set of neighbors next to him. Maybe he warned them, because they were leaving as I arrived. They stepped to the side as I ran down the hall, and watched me curiously after I had passed them by.

The door opened before I could grab the knob.

“You bitch!”

“You asshole!” I screamed back at him, punching his face. He blocked me, grabbed my arm, and tossed me to the floor of his apartment, and then slammed the door behind him. I screamed my rage, too incoherent to form words.

We fought until we were ready to move onto sex. In the morning, I woke up refreshed. Ahhhh! I felt ready to take on the world!

I slipped out from under my sparring partner, and got dressed. Thankfully, my shirt was untorn. I was going to be late for work either way, so I went back to my house to get cleaned up, and make sure that none of my wounds were visible. Thankfully, my face was completely untouched – except for a small split in the corner of my lower lip.

I arrived at work an hour late. Hunter watched me walk into our office without saying a word. I grinned at him brilliantly. “Good morning! I’m so sorry about last night; did I hurt you?”

We had announced our relationship to the rest of the staff at some point, but we still maintained a professional distance from each other while on duty. Today, I bent this rule a little bit so I could hug him. “I was so afraid that I had cracked your ribs or something.”

He narrowed his eyes at me. I thought he was going to push me away, but he held me close. “You didn’t hurt me beyond a momentary pain from landing on my butt. I’m mad at you though.” He emphasized his point by finding one of my tender bruises, and pushing on it. “We’ll talk about it later.”

I nodded, and stepped back when he let me go. Even knowing that he was angry with me, I couldn’t help but be extremely cheerful. I hummed and sang as inspiration struck.

“You’re in a great mood today!” One of my co-workers remarked as she handed me some paperwork.

“I am! I feel like I have the best boyfriend in the world!” I gushed, my hands on my cheeks to cover a happy blush.

She glanced at Hunter, who was pretending to ignore us. “Is that so?”

I simply grinned, and changed the subject. “Don’t forget, the big boss is coming for a visit today, so make sure everyone is on their best behavior.”

“Sure thing, Sophie!” She replied, and left to organize everyone so that they all looked busy even if they didn’t have anything to do.

Once upon a time ago, Hunter had asked everyone what they thought of me, and they all said that I was a hard and dependable worker, which was still true. They had also said that I seemed cold and prudish. I think they had all revised their opinions ever since I started seeing Hunter. He made me happy, and it showed.

The big boss arrived. He was the man that owned the large company we worked for, and he liked to visit his branch offices from time to time to ensure that everything was running smoothly.

“Hunter, Sophie,” he greeted us each by name. He was the type of man that talked in a warm southern drawl, and treated everyone like they were his cousin.

“How are you today sir?” I asked brightly.

He grinned. “You look uncharacteristically happy.”

I returned his grin, and stepped ever so slightly closer to Hunter.

“EVERYBODY ON THE GROUND!” A man shouted from the main part of the office.

 Hunter, the big boss, and I all turned to look through the glass windows that separated our office from the rest of the employees’ work space. Three men wearing all black with matching masks pointed huge guns around the room to encourage everyone to follow orders. The men and women all looked as if they suddenly wished they had found a good reason to stay home from work today. They held up their hands, and slowly got to their knees.

“We’re here for the boss man, so no one will get hurt if you all just do as we say. Oh… and don’t bother calling for help. We’re blocking all communication to or from this building,” the leader explained.

The three of us stood as if frozen while we watched our co-workers crawl to one corner of the room so that they could be watched over by one man. He did his job seriously, and kept his attention focused on the hostages.

I felt numb, and looked to the windows facing out over the small lawn and the parking lot. There was no way to open the thick solid windows, which were made out of some sort of semi bullet proof, anti-shatter material. We were boxed in, and I was willing to bet that these would-be kidnappers probably knew it.

“Hunter, if you find even a moment to get the boss out of here, take it,” I muttered.

“What are you planning?” He demanded, tightly grasping one of my arms.

“Hey now,” The leader chided as he entered our office. “I’d prefer if you all kept you hands in the air where I can see them.”

I watched the employees watch us in terror, and slowly complied.

“We’re going on a little trip, boss man. Come quietly, and no one will get hurt.” The leader pointed his gun directly in my chest. It hovered maybe an inch from my body. “Or else we’ll shoot the little lady here.”

I grinned. I couldn’t help it; he had left me with the perfect opening. Quick as lightning, I disarmed him and used his gun to beat him over the head like it was a bat. He fell to the ground, and stayed down. I pointed the gun at his astonished partner.

My only real chance to gain control of the situation was to incapacitate this man before the third partner thought to look this way. I held up the gun and my other hand like I was surrendering, and slowly walked closer to the man who was still gaping at me. Clearly, he hadn’t expected me to be able to take down their leader. He reached out to take the gun from me, and I kicked his feet out from under him.

I stepped on his wrist until he let go of his gun, and kicked it out of his reach. Then I stomped on his gut causing him to curl up just enough for me to punch him. I really don’t think he had the slightest idea how to defend himself. In fact, none of these men looked like real fighters. I bet they were relying on their big scary guns to keep us all in line.

I grabbed the second gun, and stood to face the third man. I tossed a whispered instruction over my shoulder. “Hunter… now would be a good time to escape with the boss!”

My co-workers all stared at me as if I had suddenly turned into a two-headed dragon. Their looks must have made their guard apprehensive, because he glanced over his shoulder to find me approaching him with two guns pointed at his back.

“Drop your gun, and I won’t shoot you,” I promised. Then I did something that proved that I actually would shoot him if he didn’t comply… I released the safeties. Shooting had never really been my thing, but I had tried it with a variety of guns because it seemed compatible with all the other fighting skills I knew.

He gulped, knowing that he would never be able to release his safety and shoot me before I pulled a trigger or two. He held up his hands, and slowly turned to face me. He tossed the gun onto the ground halfway between us.

“Do you have something to bind hands and feet?” I found it hard to believe that they would come into this situation without a way to secure any troublemakers. He nodded, and slowly pulled several strong zip ties out of his pocket. I gestured for him to use them on his partners, and he complied.

I reengaged the safety mechanisms, and watched him carefully bind the man closest to the door of my office. I revised my opinion of this one; he actually did look like he had learned a thing or two about fighting. I glanced around to see if Hunter had escaped with the big boss.

The big boss was nowhere to be seen, but Hunter now stood near the employees to keep them calm. He watched me, and I was torn between being frustrated that he hadn’t listened, and being happy that he stayed by my side.

“Don’t worry about our boss,” he told me when I looked at him. “He went to call the police. They should be here soon.” Hunter grinned unexpectedly. “I rather think he plans to give you a huge bonus after this.”

I laughed, completely distracted. The man I was supposed to be keeping an eye on had finished his task, and took advantage of my distraction by plowing into me. The guns went flying as we tumbled to the ground. He tried to use his size and weight against me, but he was no match for my regular sparring partner.

I laughed, and rammed my knee into his groin. He curled up a bit, and I used his momentum to throw him off me. I got to my feet, took up a fighting stance, and gestured for him to come at me again.

“You are one crazy bitch!” He informed me as he managed to ignore the pain in his groin and get to his feet.

“Yeah, I get that a lot,” I murmured. He studied me warily, looking for an opening. I think he would have surrendered, but doing so meant that he was definitely going to go to jail. If he managed to defeat me, he might be able to escape before the cops arrived.

He decided that combining speed with his body weight was his best chance, and ran at me like a linebacker, trying to ram me to the ground. I stepped slightly to the side, and used his weight to toss him to the ground. He must have considered this possibility, because he kicked my feet out from under me.

Normally, I wore skirts to work. Knee length skirts that paired up with a blazer to make me look professional. Today, I’d needed to cover the bruises on my legs. As a result, I wore a silk pantsuit. It was lightweight, and moved almost as well as my karate uniform. I rolled to the side and flipped to my feet, kicking my high heel shoes at him. He dodged the first, but the second smacked him right in the middle of his forehead.

He growled in pain. He was slow, not slow like molasses in January, but slow enough that I closed in on him again before he could get to his feet. He wasn’t high enough to punch effectively, so I used my hands to guide him into my knee. This made him fall onto his back again, and I straddled him so that I could punch him repeatedly. The moment he passed out, I stopped.

With my rage cup already empty, I had no desire to keep hitting him. Had they attacked us yesterday, I may well have killed them all before my rage ran out. Today, I felt like this was just one more chore that needed to be done before I could go home for the day.

“Hand me one of those ties please,” I said in a mildly singsong voice as I held my hand out to Hunter. I wiggled my fingers expectantly.

Hunter rummaged through the pockets of the leader, and found a handful of them. The leader started to struggle as he regained his consciousness. I took the ties, and tightly bound the man I still straddled.

Hunter stepped back as the leader rolled around, obviously trying to escape despite his bondage. I wasn’t wearing heels anymore, so I had no qualms about walking up to him, and kicking him in the back of the head. Rendered unconscious!

“You are so amazing!” Hunter burst out a moment later. He pulled me close, and held me tight.

I hid the blush I couldn’t prevent by burying my face in his chest. I purred happily, enjoying his arms around me. He tilted my head back, and kissed me. I was lost, and clung to him as if he were the only raft in a storm-tossed ocean.

The police must have rushed in then, because I dimly heard shouting and orders to stay put and put our hands behind our heads. I felt like the shouts were far away, or in a different room at the very least. My hands were around Hunter’s neck, and while I know it is cliché, my right leg was bent while my left pushed me closer to his mouth.

His arms held me tightly, and his kiss completely possessed my mouth. Had there been no one around to stop us, I think we were about one minute from tearing each other’s clothes off and getting comfortable on the floor. Unfortunately, a heavily armored police officer cleared his throat as loudly as he could, and then shouted for us to cooperate before they had to shoot us.

It was hard to part our lips, but the threat of being shot gave us the motivation to try. We both looked towards the half-dozen armored men pointing guns at us, and slowly let go of each other. We then raised our hands above our heads.

“They’re my employees!” Mr. big boss finally thought to introduce us. After that, we had to give our official statement on what had occurred here today. Finally, we were allowed to go home.

We took Hunter’s car. Normally, we carpooled, but today had been an exception. We’d come back for my car later.

“So…” I wondered. “Are you still mad at me?”

“No,” Hunter stated. “But I have an idea. I think you should invite your sparring partner over for dinner. I want to meet him once when you two aren’t trying to kill each other.”

I didn’t see how that would be a good idea, but I was willing to give it a try. I took out my cell phone, and pressed the speed-dial code for him.

“This is the first time you’ve ever called me again so soon after a session,” he remarked calmly. I could tell he was relaxed.

“I had a strange day,” I laughed. “Listen, my boyfriend wants to meet you. He thinks you should come over for dinner. How does tomorrow evening sound?”

He considered this silently for a moment. We had been in several classes together, but we had never called each other by name. I called him “Bastard,” and he called me “Bitch,” so it somewhat surprised me when he finally responded.

“Sure, Sophie, why not?”

“Do you have a girlfriend you could bring?” I asked.

“Not at the moment,” he replied.

“Ok, see you then, Justin,” I said, deciding to return the favor of calling him by name.

The next night, I’m not sure if I was helping or hindering Hunter as we made dinner. He was a better cook, but this was my… friend – of a sort – that we were going to entertain. I didn’t think it was right to make Hunter do all the work.

I saw Justin arrive, and made my way to the door to greet him. Part of me wondered if one of us would throw a punch out of sheer habit. He had a key, but my door wasn’t locked. Even so, he didn’t open it. I waited a moment, and then opened it myself.

“Hello,” I greeted.

“Hello… Sorry, I wasn’t sure if I should knock or not,” he explained his hesitation.

I grinned, and motioned for him to come in. Justin and Hunter exchanged friendly greetings, and then we all sat down to eat. The conversation was awkward for a while, but we persevered.

“You’re the guy that called the cops on us,” Justin pointed out. “Aren’t you?”

Hunter nodded.

“And you’re still with Sophie? Impressive!”

I nodded in agreement.

Hunter decided to get down to business. “I’ve had a chance to think about your… arrangement. It bothers me… a lot… but, I understand. I’ve seen the difference it makes in Sophie’s personality. After she empties her rage cup – as she puts it – she’s like a whole new person. Don’t get me wrong, I love her prickly side, but I want to get to know her happy side better too.”

I frowned, puzzled. Where was he going with this?

“Therefore, I think that you two should get together once a week, and spend an hour or so fighting. I really feel that doing so would keep you both calm, and maybe then it wouldn’t…” Hunter paused, trying to find a way to delicately describe his goals.

“Result in me having sex with your girlfriend?” Justin asked, accurately guessing Hunter’s thoughts.

Hunter nodded.

Justin smiled at me. “I like him Sophie. He’s a keeper.”

“I think so too,” I replied with a happy grin. We studied each other. Hunter was basically proposing that Justin and I become proper friends. The type that helped each other out, and actually talked rather than simply shout obscenities at each other as we tried to kill one another.

I let my mind wander as I considered the possibilities. If Hunter’s idea worked, I might never be truly angry again. I could devote myself to making Hunter happy, and maybe even have those kids he mentioned.

I slowly nodded my head. Hey! It’s worth a try, right?