CONFLICT RESOLUTION
PART 1
Leafing through the pack of papers in the back of the taxi, Laura cursed. Why
she was going along with this she had no idea. Two years she had spent building
this case. Looking over the latest submission, the witness statements, she was
proud of what she and her team had achieved. The arguments were unusually strong
and compelling. And they had built it up, bolstered it from a quite uncertain
beginning, through sheer effort. Now she wished it were a proper criminal case,
instead of this civil arbitration, but she was comforted by the thought that the
former would surely follow a successful outcome for the plaintiffs. Yes, Charles
Feierlein, Charlie, Chuck, whatever your friends call you, the net is finally
closing. Corporate raider, swindler, embezzler, common thief. Rich, yes;
powerful, yes. But you won't be the first big hitter to go down. And the
shareholders will get their compensation in the end, however long it takes.
And now her boss, her senior partner, had just told her to go over and meet with
this scum at his office. Why? Because his lawyer had called up one of his mates
who also happened to be a senior partner at her firm. To what end? He didn't
know. Probably wants to deal, he told her. Why deal, at this stage, when our
hand is so strong, she had asked. Maybe six months ago it would have made sense.
Cut short these interminable proceedings, get a good return to her clients. But
now -it made no sense. Just hear him out, he had said. Well, OK, she would hear
him out. But she would tell him straight that she could see no point in
discussing any kind of out-of-court settlement. Especially after the tactics his
legal team had employed during the last round.
The taxi pulled up. Laura paid, ten percent tip, exactly, and got out. She
looked up at the towering, ostentatious offices of CFF Corporation, just one of
about thirty group companies she had been investigating. Even more lavish than
her own firm's, she thought with a cynical smile.
In the reception, Laura sat staring at her wristwatch. Ten minutes late already.
She looked at the woman behind the desk, who ignored her. How tacky, she
thought. Did he really think that he could throw her off balance using that old
trick?
Finally, a PA approached, quite attractive, smiling, and invited Laura to
accompany her. She was ushered through a large pair of fine wooden doors and
spotted him seated behind a square desk. It looked like mahogany, clearly the
most expensive one he had been able to find. She was unimpressed: with his desk,
with him, with this whole charade.
"Look, Mr Feierlein, I..." she started. He cut her off with a smooth gesture.
"Please, Miss...ah...Koczy -have I pronounced that correctly? Good. Do take a
seat. Can I offer you some tea or coffee? Oh yes, and may I introduce you to Mr
Harris over there?"
Mr Harris, whom she had not previously noticed, was sitting on a leather sofa to
her right. He smiled at her, nodding briefly. A bit rough-looking, she thought.
Unshaven, cheap suit, dirty shoes. She had expected Jacobs, the chief company
lawyer, to be present. But this guy seemed out of place.
She was slightly unnerved by the fact that neither of the men bothered to get up
to shake her hand. Laura sat down somewhat awkwardly on the chair in the middle
of the room and began to open her briefcase.
"Are you sure you won't have tea or coffee?" the grey-haired man behind the desk
asked again, pleasantly.
"Oh...no thanks" she replied, politely.
"Look, Mr Feierlein", she continued, "I really think that we are all wasting our
time here. My firm has no interest in negotiating with you at this point. Next
week's hearing is fixed and we expect that our submission will leave the judges
no alternative but to find entirely in my clients' favour. If you want to talk
about our damages calculation we can do so after the preliminary award."
"Now, Miss Koczy, do calm down" replied Feierlein. What a lovely young thing, he
thought as he looked her over. A little thin for his tastes, but tall with
strong features and glossy black hair, and wide, full lips. Very smart too, as
he had found to his cost.
"I really don't like to get off to a bad start with a lady as lovely as
yourself."
This really was too much, thought Laura. What a sexist pig. The arrogance of the
man, the vanity. To think that he could soften her up with this inept charm
offensive.
"I'm leaving", she said, closing her case and rising abruptly from her chair.
"Please, Miss Koczy, give me a chance to explain" he pressed, urgently. Laura
sat down again, hesitating.
"Now I know that you think I am a bad man but I would ask you to give me the
benefit of the doubt just in this case. Business, especially my line, is one
great big grey area as you know. Nobody can tell at the time when they are
crossing the boundaries. If only we were all blessed with hindsight...well of
course the world would be a much better place." As he spoke he tipped back in
his chair. He was clearly completely at ease.
"I acknowledge that there may have been some error of judgement on my part" he
continued. "So I am willing now to discuss some form of settlement. I'll be
straightforward with you. See, I don't even have any lawyers here so you can
consider me completely unarmed." He smiled at this, and Laura smiled too. "How
would you like to begin, Miss Koczy?"
The man was talking like a complete fool, thought Laura. Where did he plan to go
with this faux-naif crap?
"I'm sorry, Mr Feierlein", she replied. "Of course you are predictably trying to
charm your way out of a situation in which your legal team cannot help you. The
reason you are in this situation is that you cheated hundreds of people out of
their savings and the evidence against you which we have accumulated is
overwhelming." Laura paused. "It's time for me to leave." She stood up.
"Oh dear" said Feierlein. "I can see I'm not persuading you. I guess I need to
try another line of attack." He paused. "Could you help me a moment?"
The grey-haired man opened his desk drawer and rummaged around, finding a pair
of scissors which he placed on the desktop next to a pile of paper while he
continued to search with his other hand. Then he produced a roll of black tape
and proceeded to pull out a length with a loud tearing sound.
"Could you cut about six inches of this?" he asked her. Laura was confused. What
on earth was he doing? But, well mannered as she was and seeing no reason to
refuse, she obliged, picking up the scissors and making a neat cut in the taught
material. She put down the scissors gently. Feierlein held the tape between his
hands.
Then she heard the creak of the sofa and looked round to see the other man
getting up. Before she could turn he was behind her, grabbing her wrists. She
heard metallic noises and suddenly felt steel against her skin. A ratcheting
sound. Ouch. And her hands were cuffed tightly behind her back.
Laura was paralysed with shock. Her head span. She should scream, she thought.
But even now her inhibitions prevented such an active response. And then,
suddenly, Feierlein was pressing the tape over her mouth. At last, in vain, she
tried to cry out. She struggled but the man behind held her tightly by the upper
arms, his stubby fingers digging into her flesh, and had his foot in front of
her, his leg blocking hers.
She stared at Feierlein, wide-eyed. The man looked at her dispassionately. Oh
God, what are they going to do to me, she thought. Help, someone help. Stop,
please stop. Please. Please.
Feierlein approached. "Hold her tight" he said over her shoulder. Then he seized
her blouse and ripped it open, sending buttons pinging onto the floor. He pulled
it over her shoulders and down to her wrists. Her chest was heaving under a
white, unembroidered bra. Turning to his desk, he picked up a silver
letter-opener and brought it towards her body. The girl, terrified at the sight
of the knife, struggled desperately. Harris held her fast. Feierlein lifted the
bra from her skin and cut through the elastic with the knife, letting her
breasts spill out. Very choice, he thought at the sight of them. Nice and soft
and firm. Young flesh. He took them in his big hands, squeezing them hard,
causing the girl to jerk away. Moaning, she looked to one side, too embarrassed
to meet his eyes. He rolled her nipples between his thumbs and fingers, feeling
them swell.
Then his hands were at her waist, unbuckling her slacks, pulling them down over
her hips and letting them fall to her ankles. The girl's legs were shaking
violently as he yanked down her panties to her knees, revealing a dark triangle
of pubic hair. As he bent down, he caught the faint smell of her sex.
Returning to his desk, he sat back in his chair. Harris had her by the hair, his
other hand round her waist. She was breathing heavily, straining to draw air
through her nostrils, which flared. Her abdominal muscles were tense beneath
Harris's hand, breasts quivering as she struggled. She was looking at him,
shocked and confused and appalled.
"Bring her over" he told Harris.
Laura, by now shaking and moaning desperately, was propelled forward towards the
desk. She had to move her feet quickly to stop tripping over, making little
steps. Then her thighs were against the wood and the hand gripping her hair was
forcing her head forward. No, she tried to scream into the tape gag, terrified.
She tried to resist with all her energy, fighting to keep her body vertical. She
managed to hold herself for a second or so but then her strength was gone and
her face came down hard against the desktop. A hand was pressed between her
shoulder blades, crushing her breasts into the leather surface. She screwed up
her eyes. God help me, she prayed.
She heard Feierlein's voice. "Go on" he said, calmly.
The hand pressing down on her was released but she remained petrified in
position, bent over the desk. She felt the cool, conditioned air on her buttocks
and between her thighs. She heard sounds: a belt being unbuckled; a zipper being
unzipped; a throat being cleared. A man preparing to rape her.
Rape: run, get free, kick, scream, do anything, fight or flight. Up, up, get up
girl...
She tried to rise but he was already on her, grabbing her hair, forcing her head
to one side, hand between her legs, spreading them. God that's his penis,
searching, no, no he's...
And then he was inside her: one, two strokes, all the way in with the third. He
began to work her slowly, taking his time, enjoying the action of opening up her
vagina. Laura tried to move away but the hands gripping her hair and pressing on
the small of her back held her firmly in place. The table creaked with each
movement. Laura's breasts were stuck to the leather. Her left nipple was caught
awkwardly and it stung each time she was forced forward.
She tried to look up at Feierlein, who was seated just a foot or two from her
head. He had picked up the phone and was looking at a diary. On the desk was a
glass of water, the surface rippling in time to Harris's thrusts. Next to it, a
pile of papers: her submission. Focussing her eyes, she could see the words,
askew --her words, double-spaced. She tried to follow the text as she was rocked
back and forth, to take her mind away from what was being done to her. Harris
slowed his pace, paused, then rammed hard into her body, breaking the spell and
forcing a loud grunt from the back of her throat.
"Keep it down" whispered Feierlein loudly, cupping the handset. He was actually
talking to someone on the phone. "Sorry about the noise. Workers. Yes. Making a
real mess as usual."
Suddenly, Laura was released and the man withdrew. Before she could move, she
felt his hands parting her buttocks. Then, his penis was against her anus. The
sensation triggered a difficult memory: that awful night with Jack, when he had
persuaded her to turn over. She remembered the pain, the shame, the crying as he
held her afterwards. Now her eyes again filled with tears. She screamed as he
entered her easily, using her own juices to lubricate himself, and her eyes
rolled back in their sockets. She winced as his shaft penetrated her, stretching
her delicate tissues. Pain seared through her rectum.
Feierlein had put down the phone and looked directly at her, callously.
"Get on with it" he said to the man behind her. "We don't have all day."
At this, Harris abruptly quickened his pace and Laura found herself being rammed
hard against the sharp corner of the desk. Her thighs smarted as the wood dug
into her flesh. Then, suddenly, it was almost over. She felt him pause, and
swell against her tight passage. She shut her eyes as he ejaculated into her
bowels with a loud sigh. "Bitch", he muttered.
He withdrew, catching her rectal muscles painfully with his still-swollen glans
as he did. Then he unlocked and removed the handcuffs. Laura, shattered, did not
react and remained face down on the desk, weeping. Feierlein, reaching over,
unpeeled the tape from her mouth. "Get up" he said to her.
Shaking, Laura lifted her chest from the desk. Her breasts left an outline in
sweat on the leather surface. She stood, weakly, arms quivering, supporting the
weight of her upper body with hands gripping the wooden edge. She could not look
at the man who had sat and watched her being raped and so she hung her head.
Again she looked at the shape of the marks on the leather. In addition to the
crescents of sweat formed by her breasts, she saw a pool of tears above and
another deposit below, near the edge of the desk. The liquids formed an
imprint, like a chalk outline around a removed corpse: evidence of a terrible
crime.
A white handkerchief, folded, was tossed in front of her, caught in its path by
the sweaty patch.
"Dry yourself" came the voice again.
Humiliated, Laura picked up the cloth and wiped her eyes, nose and breasts. Then
she pressed it between her legs, mopping up the juices from her thighs. The
material was soaked by the time she had finished and, not knowing what to do
with it, she held it in her hand.
She was ordered to dress, which she did as best she could, pulling up her
panties and slacks and holding her blouse together with her left hand. She
looked up at Feierlein.
"What are you going to do with me?" she asked, pitifully.
Feierlein looked back at her without malice. "I guess I'll call you a cab." He
picked up the phone and spoke to his secretary.
Laura, dazed, unable to absorb either what had just happened or was now
happening, was led out into the reception. She looked at the floor to avoid
seeing the man who had hurt her. At the door, her bag was handed to her and she
closed her fingers reflexively around the handle.
"Your cab will be waiting outside the main entrance" the secretary announced,
giving her a contemptuous look. Laura shuffled over to the elevator and
automatically pressed the call button. As she stood looking at the crack between
the steel doors, she could feel eyes on her but did not turn round. Then, at
last, the doors opened and she was inside, stabbing the door-close frantically
as if it were a panic button.
