The morning mist had followed Victoria down to the wharf in Seattle. The Pike Street Market drew crowds of travelers along with throngs of cash-card carrying middleclass, high dollar shoppers that lived within even the furthest reasonable commute. Plunked down in the middle of the market is where the DNA of Starbucks wallows in obscure pseudo success.

The store, that is the purported genesis of Starbucks, hadn’t yet been fully updated to the new corporate look and that pleased Victoria. She worried that they might brush this one up too and hoped the corporate brains would leave it be as a historic testament to a past and better time in the coffee obsessed culture that thrived in the winding streets of the city.

Victoria had gotten to know the staff and learned that the first Starbucks might not be what a nation of faithful coffee addicts might believe it to be. But then, nothing is what it seems, most of the time.

Victoria sat alone at a table and she toiled away on her laptop computer until her blackberry phone buzzed importantly. She unclipped the annoying portable thingy as she adjusted her well loathed, but much needed portable computer. She had been considering getting back to monitoring the BDSM scene in Seattle from a cyber distance when the buzz came. She maintained a fear of technology, but also a grudging respect for its power. The truth was, it was almost impossible, in Seattle, to not be hooked into the burgeoning network of connectivity.

She peered into the color screen and saw a text message from her ex-husband, John Preston Marshall III. The message flashed, “We REALLY need to meet.” Her hand quivered with a cocktail of rage and foreboding, besides, she hated anyone who used all caps in any message. She hit the delete button and said under her breath, “Screw that, you prick.”

Several steps behind her, a sharp dressed half-man half-shark eyed his own PDA. He typed quickly, like a man who loved this new toy, “JUST LIKE YOU TO DELETE WITHOUT THINKING.”

Another berry-buzz filled her ears and that same message floated miles into space and right back down to Victoria. She hit the delete key again. The man behind her had already hit the RESEND button and silently stalked her from the rear, approaching and putting his hand on her shoulder.

Victoria didn’t flinch. Without looking up she deleted the message again. Resolutely, she tapped out her own message and hit send. Moments later a slight vibration reached her ears from behind her.

The man’s other hand hit receive and was rewarded with a celestial, all caps and all pissed off, “PAWS OFF”. The man clicked his phone shut and finally spoke, “Just like when we were married.”

Her reply was full of confidence and yet tinged with hurt, “Then you must still be screwing your secretary.”

He responded, “My secretary says such nice things about you.” He paused, and put on a much lower and more serious voice, “We need to talk.”

Victoria spun her blackberry like a top, on the table. “This whole connectivity thing is a bit over rated. It lets scum infest your coffee time. I think I’ll disconnect.” She closed her computer and stood. John blocked her path.

“I mean it Vee. We need to talk, now.”

She relinquished her freedom for a short moment, “Nobody calls me that anymore.”

John sat purposefully and glanced firmly at her chair. She hesitated then finally sat. She looked him in the eyes and held her coffee cup up and said, “When my coffee is done, you are done.”

“Vic, I want you to stop.”

She took a large drink, and almost gagged from the size of it, but she wouldn’t let him see that, “Get used to not getting what you want.”

John sipped his beverage and shook his head. His voice was modulated and annoyingly certain, “Your favorite super hero, Captain Sarcasm has decided to join us.”

Victoria stared him in the eye. She wouldn’t let him have any upper hand, “Don’t forget, I know how to use excessive force.”

He looked surprised that his voice rose in volume, “Damn it Victoria, this wasn’t my fault. You made some bad choices. No one forced you to beat that bastard.” His fist tightened, threatening the table but not Victoria, “You didn’t, you never…you never followed procedure and it cost the police department every time. Face it Vee, the “Dirty Harry wishing you were Bruce Willis” thing never worked out in the real world. You cost the department millions, lost the perp and left the world more at risk than when you started. So grow up, and start making good decisions right now and things will go easier on you.”

Victoria took another long drink of coffee. She glared at John, glanced at her coffee cup and willed him to see that his time was running out. She swallowed and said, “I noticed you went easy on me before. You know, saved the wife, supported your woman, spent some political capital. It was a time to do the right fucking thing by your wife.”

John Marshall was tired of Victoria running this conversation. From the years of marriage to her, John had known this conversation wouldn’t be simple. He took control, “You knew who I was. I did what I had to do. A district attorney, cutting his wife slack on a brutality charge would have reopened every case in the department to appeals. As it was, you lost countless convictions from confessions. We had to start from less than zero on so many cases. It wasn’t just a political decision I made. It was the right decision. Stop blaming everyone else for your lack of control.” His breath was growing short from impatience and frustration. He knew he was right and it made him crazy that this woman just refused to see his side. He had been forced to do what he did. It was time he forced back.

John also knew that Victoria had never gotten to the place where her stretched manners didn’t count and she would never just walk away from a fight. She almost spat coffee back at his logic, “No one is that politically motivated. You abandoned me for personal reasons too. Don’t forget that fucking your secretary part. It was oh so convenient for you wasn’t it? Have a great reason to dump me and appear to start a relationship with your slut. Well, fuck that John, even if no one else ever knows, you and I will know.”

Once Victoria started cussing, he knew she was losing the battle. His voice keeled back to a reasonable tone, “Victoria, you made a judgment call, a bad one and it cost you almost everything. Don’t use that same judgment style here.”

Victoria looked like she knew she was doomed too and it seemed to give into her anger, “Fuck you! He had a kid captive in his house. I knew it and so did you. My first responsibility was to save that kid. I did what I had to do. Ask the kid if he is pissed.”

John pressed her, “Sure, you rescued a kid that wouldn’t testify for us, and gave the real villain a get out of jail card. You screwed the pooch and I didn’t have a choice but to cut you loose, both professionally and personally.”

Victoria tried another drink of coffee and appeared unable to stomach any more, “I can’t change that now.”

John sipped thoughtfully at his coffee. Victoria peered into hers and said, “Half gone.”

John tried pleading, it was something new and he wasn’t very good at it, “I couldn’t save you. I had to save me and ironically, the perp got away.”

Victoria’s eyes brightened, “I have plenty of irony in my work, and I saved that boy.”

John tried giving some ground, “I concede that you do some good and some bad. I’m still trying to do good. Why don’t you try it once more? Do a good thing; the right thing.”

Victoria’s spine straightened, “Mr. District Attorney, I’m not yours to order around anymore, professionally or personally.”

Now it was John’s turn to feel his buttons pushed, “So, now you do the ordering in that smut pit of yours. That…that…”

Victoria leapt in, “Let me help. It’s a fetish club; a place where adult’s go to play kinky games, escape the world, try out some ideas and then go safely home. If you got ‘em drunk at the station, every guy in your prosecutor’s office would want to join the fun. Hell, some of them have. They aren’t very good at it. The truth is your prosecutors are mostly wimps.”

John had guessed that some of his men might have been to the club, but didn’t want to know. He forced that thought away, “Don’t be nasty, it isn’t you. Don’t you remember when you were in the business of serving and protecting. Remember the boy. This club of yours, it isn’t…proper.”

Victoria’s coffee cup trembled in her hand, “Proper? Fuck that. It’s the perfect place for the ex- lead detective from The Metro Division’s sex crimes task force. It’s my place. I make the rules there. I keep order. I serve and protect better people than you and finally I am happy.” She took a slug of coffee and squared her chair like a determined witness on the stand and continued, “Unlike the prosecutor’s office, I protect my clients, especially the women who are vulnerable and submissive. I help middle class couples who are in over their heads. I don’t have review boards, I get to dress sexy and I don’t have to go to trial. And the men who want me are hotter, oh so much hotter than your plain little secretary. You miss this body don’t you little man. So, want a job? I can pay you more as a towel boy than you make as a prosecutor.”

John’s head wanted to explode, his chest wanted to implode. He didn’t have a good option, so he to cut to the chase, “Close your sex club, before it gets worse for you. You know what I can do.”

Victoria volleyed back, “I so love that the club makes your life worse. That’s why I started it. So, how about this? I’ve been thinking of expanding…to the Internet. You should like that. Maybe I’ll link to your sex crimes web sight. That should be fun. You said I changed, and I have. Now, I’m all about fun.”

John had known somewhere inside that it would come to this. It always did with his ex-wife. He narrowed his eyes and spit venom, “You’re all about making me pay for our past, and this club was your best shot. Fine, I’ve beaten you before. Get your A game on, you spiteful Bitch.”

Victoria took the top off her coffee, got up, walked to the trash and poured the remainder into the can. It wasted two dollars and that was ok with her. It was worth it just to see the look on his face. Somewhere, in the encounter, and in her fury, Victoria’s shirt button had come undone. She saw his eyes wander down to her breasts. It always came to that. She smiled as sultry as she could and visibly adjusted them for him, turned and said, “Now, we’re done, aren’t we?” An instant later the door ushered her outside.