The Woman who cried WOLF

Penelope picked up a hammer and began to furiously destroy the custom paintings, a commission completed by one of Michael’s lovers.  Splintered shards of glass were distributed across the hall; her neurotransmitters fired chaotically as she had approached their shared residence with malicious intent; she wanted to wound him, by destroying that which could not be replaced; they were no longer together, but still cohabitated. Michael had arranged a locksmith to arrive later that week.

She was acutely aware of the glass grating on her skin, having pulverised the glass and framing, the glass rubbed on her skin with each movement; the glass embedded itself in her skin, causing blood blisters to develop at the entrance of her clothing. Penelope retrieved the watercolour paper contained within the frames and proceeded to head to the backyard; dousing the artworks in lighter fluid, and surreptitiously setting them alight in the firepit, the glow lit up her eyes, the flames dances in her pupils like a malevolent storm. Michael’s silhouette was reduced to ashes, she had burned his form, like an effigy.

Penelope craved cathartic release through demolishing the paintings.  Her throat burned as her nostrils filled with the toxic fumes; she breathed in the lacquer, thwarted by her sense of minor accomplishment.  Penelope had a lust for revenge, which would not be satiated by this mere act; with systematic revenge in mind, she headed for Michael’s laptop. 

Having previously filled in as Michael’s temporary executive assistant, she was aware he did not change his password periodically, and gained access to his contacts, emails, photos, phone back-up – his life; first copying his hard drive to an external device, then proceeding to wipe his laptop.  Penelope reformatted the hard drive with homosexually explicit pornography.

Penelope went to the bathroom, she proceeded to collect her faeces and smear them over Michael’s tallboy, targeting his expensive collection of jewellery.  She removed the gloves, and flung them on the floor, stamping them into the carpet.  If Michael were not to pay attention to her, she would fling her shit like a monkey, in order to gain his attention; any recognition or attention was positive, in her eyes.  She had amassed a small arsenal of bleach and tossed that through the built-in wardrobe, executing a wardrobe massacre; his expensive collection of suits were mottled with bleach, the fabric was discolouring and perishing as she watched with glee. Penelope proceeded to punch and kick at the built-in mirrors until shards of glass rained like icicles from the ceiling; she had cut up her fists quite badly and blood trickled in rivulets across the bed spread and the floor.

Penelope still felt discontented.  Michael was attached to his possessions, always maintaining a meticulous appearance but he had the means to replace the items she had destroyed.  Although Michael generally shied away from contacting the police when taunted in the past, she felt she may have crossed a dangerous line with this latest brain infarction; she had to fabricate a story to destroy his personal relationships; particularly with his family, who were a constant source of support.  Given his misguided past, her manufactured story had the opportunity to splinter these relationships.

Penelope made an inventory of all of Michael’s contacts.  She split them into friends, family, lovers and purported ex-girlfriend’s;  she read through his emails and archived text messages to ascertain personal details, that would merely serve to bolster her claims that she was an investigative reporter, with Michael the suspect of multiple crimes. Penelope maintained she was not at liberty to provide evidence to verify there accuracy.  Penelope obtained the details of relevant information from the people who fell victim to her convincing demeanour over the phone, obtaining address details of those gullible enough to believe her claims.  She had no intention of ‘following-up’ with these individuals, rather she had something more sinister in mind.

Penelope created a Craigslist account, and proceeded to place ads with seemingly innocuous photos of her victims; the women she had ascertained had unknowingly cheated with Michael whilst they were together; she was very careful to operate within the confines of state revenge porn laws, a crime that was punishable by up to 3 years' imprisonment.  Revenge porn laws in New South Wales, prevented intentional or reckless intimate recording of another person without consent, intentional or reckless distribution of an intimate image without consent or threatening to record or distribute an intimate image without consent.  Penelope was sure not to distribute intimate images in an open forum, rather she saved those images for private messages to respondents to her ad.  She posed as these women, requesting to be involved in consensual non-consent fantasies, that namely involved rape and BDSM; armed with their addresses, and Craigslist she sought depraved men to undertake her cowardly revenge plans.