She Was the Storm

She arrived like a plague wrapped in polyester.

Maxine Sewell—loud, lewd, and already drunk. I prayed she wouldn’t come to this year’s Christmas party, but there she was, chewing a bleeding steak with wine-stained teeth, shouting vulgarities between gulps. The crowd didn’t gather because they liked her. They gathered because they had no choice.

Her words were acidic. Gossip, slurs, sex jokes—punctuated by the half-empty bourbon bottle and a fresh red breathing beside it. She dressed like a teenager, exposing what should have remained wrapped in the past. Two veiny monsters swelled above a plunging neckline. Her dress—tight, black, absurd—screamed desperation louder than she ever could.

And she could scream.

Maxine saw herself as one of the young. A queen among peasants. She demanded male attention with bulging cleavage and weaponised laughter. Sharon, the poor thing, tried to tell a story—something about a wedding she’d photographed—but Maxine steamrolled her mid-sentence.

The air went stiff.

Sharon didn’t know the rules yet. She was new. She didn’t know that Maxine never paused. Maxine didn’t allow space for niceties or context. Only domination.

“Turn it up!” Maxine roared, slopping wine from her mouth. “Fucking turn it up! I love this one!”

Her voice cracked over the stereo, over the people, over the night itself.

She was the storm.

The kind you don’t prepare for—because you think decency will hold the line.

It never does.

[from SEETHINGS, downloadable and free for a limited time].