Page 50 of Dissension

Kara remains sitting on the other end of the couch, pretending to be an uninteresting shroom until the amused gentleman takes his leave.

After a moment of silence, Dieter says, “Couldn’t contain yourself, could you? Assaulting me in my own home in front of the help. Filthy harlot-”

“You fucker, you instigated it!” Kara cries out, still feeling red in the face.

The laugh he emits makes it impossible to hate him. Kara grabs the new smoothie and gulps it down eagerly.

As time goes on, a warm, soothing feeling in her body begins to spread. A certain false relaxation she hasn’t felt in some time. It strikes her as odd. Staring oddly at the now empty smoothie glass, Kara asks him, “What’s in this?”

“Smoothie shit,” Dieter replies with a grin that looks like a few glasses of wine. A non-answer, eluding the details.

“Is there alcohol in this smoothie, amongst the smoothie shit?” Kara asks bluntly, making sure there’s no loophole out of the answer this time.

His jaw works briefly, as if he’s mulling over his answer. The thing is, Kara doesn’t need him to say it out loud, she can read the answer on his face. For a moment, dismay burns through herrelaxation, making her want to fling the heavy glass across the room.

That would ruin the nice furniture and Kara would possibly feel bad about that.

“How could you give this to me without telling me what was in it?”

“I didn’t think it would be such an issue-”

Oh, really? No, he damn well knew. He knows how hard she’s worked to go sober completely these past few months. “When I tell you I don’t drink alcohol, I mean it. Motherfucker,” she hisses. She drank two of those drinks.

The more she thinks about it, the more she feels the effects. That woozy feeling that brings her calm, and if there’s enough, shuts off all the problems in her mind that keep her awake at night. The tool she’s used in the past to hide from her pain and her problems. In reach again, on her tongue, in her blood.

All her effort, ruined.

Red hot and vivid, her temper snaps. She dives at Dieter on the couch and snarls her fury at him for destroying all her hard work with deception. They tussle, Kara pinning him down successfully. He doesn’t put up much defense.

Instead, he grabs her hands and puts them around his throat in a damning way that makes Kara pause, squeezing only momentarily before easing off.

His eyes are dilated wide, watching her, something wicked gleaming there. “Do it,” he whispers.

The fury flooding her veins eases up, replaced by the sticky feeling of unease. She realizes the position they’re in, sprawled on the floor, albums tossed, Kara sitting on top of him, her hands at his throat. She’s breathing heavily and Dieter isexcited.

She removes her hands with a sniff and dismounts his submissive form.

She grabs her bag and marches towards the stairs, heading up to Saoirse Bittinger’s museum of a bedroom.Goddammit.She’ll have to sleep with that woman staring down at her from the walls with the same features as the man she currently wants to strangle.

“Where are you going?” Dieter asks, sitting up, looking disheveled. It’s a hot look on him.

“To bed so I don’t have to look at you anymore,” she responds through gritted teeth. She’s not driving home now. It’s dark and it’s a long,longway back. “You fucked up.”

It’s not fair. She worked so hard to not touch a drop all this time. A glare blazes out of her features as she climbs up the stairs, simultaneously checking in her bag, making sure that she has her glasses to drive home with in the morning-

“I’m sorry.” His voice is small.

Pausing at the top of the stairs, Kara turns and looks down at him. Dieter is at the bottom of the stairs, his expression appearing to be terribly chastised.

Kara knows the truth because she’s closer to him than she ever thought she would be. She sees right through that pretty mask. “But you’renot. You’re only sorry that I caught you out.”

The next morning, she leaves without a word, still furious.

Chapter 20

“Work has been insane lately,” Bianca is complaining, waving her fork around asBuffy the Vampire Slayermonopolizes the television in the background. “Meetings, meetings, meetings, always back-to-back. I have to start scheduling bathroom breaks, can you believe it?”

“They still haven’t hired the backfill for your teammate?” Kara asks, glancing over at the tv as Spike and Buffy squabble with all that violent sexual tension of theirs. Perhaps she now understands why this was her favorite dynamic when she was younger. “What are they waiting for?”

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