Part 3The Heist After the Betrayal

"Stella, please... just calm down..."

Marc's voice trembled.

His face and neck were beet red, the handsome features now covered in shiny, weeping blisters. Steam was literally rising from his hair.

He looked like a boiled lobster.

Years ago, Beth and I had planned to meet at a coffee shop. She was running late, so I opened my laptop to work on my thesis while I waited. Marc, sitting at the next table, had smiled and asked me:

"Are you a design student, too?"

Beth was ten minutes late. In those ten minutes, Marc and I became so engrossed in conversation that when she finally arrived, I didn't even notice the way her eyes lit up when she saw him.

Marc was an exhibition designer. Everyone saw him as a kind, gentle, talented man who was sensitive and soft-hearted. He was the type of person who always carried a small bag of cat food for the strays on the street.

But his soft heart was his fatal flaw.

In my past life, he had knelt before me, sobbing and confessing. He said Beth had gotten drunk one night and told him she'd been secretly in love with him for years, that she had even saved herself for him. She had cried and said she didn't want a future, just one night. He'd refused her many times, until he found her attempting suicide. In a moment of weakness, he had given in.

At the time, the story had filled me with such revulsion that all I wanted was to get as far away from those two as possible. I'd divorced him within a month, splitting our assets quickly and cleanly.

Now, however, I only wished I had more than two hands, so I could dig my nails into his face and pop every single one of those blisters.

But I couldn't be hasty.

This was Beth’s one big shot. If I let her get away, I might not get another.

And Marc... Marc had to come home with me.

"Calm down? How?" I snarled, glaring at him.

His face flushed a deeper red. "Stella, please, just let her go. Let us get dressed, I'm begging you..."

I laughed coldly. "You want to play the hero? Fine. Beth and I once swore an oath that if one of us ever betrayed the other, she would get thirty slaps. I've delivered twenty. I'm tired. You can deliver the last ten. Once you're done, I'll let her go."

Marc shook his head frantically. "Stella, that's not what I—"

"Do it," Beth suddenly sobbed.

"I seduced him! I drugged him! I'm the shameless, disgusting one! I'm the homewrecker! It has nothing to do with him! Just do it, my stomach... my back... I can't hold on much longer!"

Her voice was pathetic and helpless. It was partly an act for Marc's benefit, but it was also true that she couldn't hold that position for long.

After all, she was currently pregnant with twins.

Our friends were all crowded in the doorway, occasionally murmuring things like "Don't be rash," and "Let's talk this out."

But no one intervened. They were all watching the show with rapt attention.

I thought Marc would hesitate. He was, after all, a kind and soft-hearted man.

But to my surprise, before Beth had even finished speaking, he shuffled over to her, still wrapped in the blanket.

Then, the crisp sound of slapping echoed through the room.

One of the slaps was a little too light.

I narrowed my eyes, and Marc immediately hit harder.

As blood trickled from her nose, Beth's expression flickered with surprise and a hint of pain. But she had planned for this for a long time. She knew her goal. This was the price of admission.

After the ten slaps were done, she managed to squeeze out a smile at the panting Marc from her swollen face.

"I don't blame you," she mumbled, her words slurred, giving him the look of a tragic heroine being tormented by evil forces.

But Marc turned his face away.

A few seconds later, he looked at me, his eyes trembling.

"Stella... is it enough?"

My face was a blank mask.

"Of course not. You put this disgusting green hat on my head. If I only punish the other woman and not you, people will think I'm one of those women who only takes it out on her own sex."

Marc immediately nodded, closing his eyes and tilting his face up. "Stella, just do it. I just want you to get your anger out. We can talk about everything else when we get home."

I looked at the increasingly translucent blisters on his face, imagining them popping and spraying God knows what. I changed my mind. I looked down at Beth.

"You do it."

She looked shocked, then shook her head miserably. "No... no!"

Marc suddenly roared, "Just do it! Get it over with! Anything is better than this!"

So, in an awkward, contorted position, Beth began to slap him, her face a mask of sorrow.

"Are you two flirting?" I asked.

Marc gritted his teeth. "Harder!"

When Beth pulled her hand back, I saw it was smeared with a sticky, opaque fluid.

The grotesque scene finally ended with Marc and Beth, one wrapped in a blanket and the other in a bedsheet, crawling on the floor to retrieve their clothes from under the bed.

My vengeance meter... finally filled up by a tenth.