Cooked Goose

maintaining a traditional, two-parent home for her son and daughter. The price of not “meeting her man’s basic needs” and “making it work.”
    As she passed through the food court, the buttery, chocolate-rich aroma of Mrs. Fields’s cookies beckoned to her, promising a temporary sugar high to lift her sagging holiday spirit.
    But what about your diet? she asked herself. What diet? Her self promptly replied, veering toward the red and white concession. Like those extra pounds really matter. Like, who’s going to see you naked any time soon?
    The very thought of being intimate with a man made her feel sick deep inside. She, who used to love sex... the whole breathless, sweaty, passionate act. But that had been before she knew how much pain the subject could cause.
    Now... now her idea of fleshly pleasure was a semi-sweet chocolate chip with macadamia nuts.
    A few moments later, Charlene left the cookie stand with her choice in hand and dumped her packages onto a nearby table. Sinking onto the chair, she decided to rest her feet and savor the calories. If she were going to be wearing this cookie on her butt for the next umpteen months, she might as well enjoy the experience.
    As the first bite hit her system, she thought of something one of the women had said in her support group the night before.
    You’ll get it all back, kid, and more. You’ll find yourself again.
    The quiet voice echoed the words from a remnant of he spirit that had survived the ravages of betrayal.
    It’ll take a while, but you’ll land on your feet.
    Charlene Yardley popped the rest of the cookie into her mouth, hefted her children’s presents under her arms and headed for the mall exit. Yep, she’d make it through this mess and out the other side.
    She might have gotten the wind knocked out of her, but she wasn’t down for the count. Not yet. No, Miss Home Wrecker and the worthless s.o.b. she had been married to hadn’t scored a KO in this fight. Not yet.
    Charlene Yardley lifted her chin a couple of notches, trying her tattered garment of self-respect on for size. Okay, so it needed a little mending. But, basically, it was a good fit.

    * * *

    8:22 P.M.

    Over an hour ago he had chosen her. She was the one tonight. Lucky lady.
    Something about the way she held herself as she walked into the mall’s front entrance—head down, shoulders drooped, as though she had recently lost some important battles—told him she wouldn’t give him a hard time. And tonight he just wanted an easy, no-frills, minimal-challenge experience.
    Sometimes he welcomed the fight, enjoyed the tussle, because, after all, he had the knife; he would always end up on top—so to speak. But it had been a particularly grueling day at work. He was tired. So, in making his choice, he had picked a sheep over a tigress. The only problem was: His sheep was shopping for too damned long!
    Lying scrunched into a knot of tight muscles and strained nerves in the rear floorboard of her ancient Pontiac Sunbird, he was cursing the fact that he hadn’t picked somebody with a roomier car interior.
    But, although the broad with the Cadillac had seemed equally droopy and dispirited, she had locked all her doors. So had the gal with the Mercedes. The Sunbird chick had left the passenger door unlocked, so she had won by default.
    That’s right, you lucky contestant! Guess what’s waiting for you behind Door Number Four !
    When he had crawled into the back and shut the door behind him, his excitement level had been feverishly high. , But as the clock on the dash clicked off the minutes, his ardor had cooled and his temper heated. Twenty minutes ago he had decided that when the bitch finally did show up, she was going to pay. Big time.
    He lifted himself above the backs of the bucket seats, shook the pins-and-needles numbness out of his right arm, and surveyed the parking lot for what seemed like the hundredth time in an hour.
    She was coming!
    A jolt of adrenaline coursed through him, making his limbs weak with anticipation. Then the flow of energy took a detour due south and concentrated in his groin, where it had the exact opposite effect. Suddenly, it didn’t matter how long it had taken; this was well worth waiting for. In fact, the anxiety had made the whole thing better, sharper, more acute, more real... the only real moment of his mundane, detached and unreal life.
    But as he watched his chosen victim cross the parking lot, he noticed that her demeanor had changed