Chapter 30 - Claude
At long last Margery felt free and ready to take on a new life. And yes, a rich and famous husband would be an asset and good cover for her witchcraft. It's time to step up her campaign to get Claude.
Claude's never been married and must value his independence to prepare him for marriage he will need to be handled carefully. He's no saint, clearly an experienced lady's man and something of a user in his own right. Margery knows instinctively that he will not fall for an early Christmas present.
He would simply be pleased that she was such a slut but would decide that she was not at all suitable as a steady girlfriend or a wife. It would be a one-night-stand and he would be cold and distant if they met in the lift. The best that it would lead to would be an occasional late-night knock on the door if he'd been drinking and needed company.
The campaign has to be two pronged: Cindy has to go and she needs to be on hand to console him.
***
Margery's campaign to become more than an acquaintance to Claude has been slow but relentless. She began by 'serendipitously' running into him around town until she became a familiar figure in his life. Yet she took care that he didn't feel that she was stalking him, sometimes pretending to be distracted, ignoring his attempt to be polite. Other times obviously, noticing him but turning away.
After a few weeks she began to consistently smile and say 'hello' and was pleased that he responded in kind. She made sure that he was never with Cindy, the current girlfriend, when they ran into each other.
Soon she was introduced to his other companions as this is 'a woman in my block'; then she became 'my neighbour' then 'a girl on the floor below' and eventually 'my friend from the floor below'. She became more flirtatious and occasionally ribald. She had to avoid becoming too much of a friend. There needed to be some mystery about her. That wasn't too difficult.
***
Then there was the night of the spider. Discovering that Claude was home alone, Margery first had a luxurious bath. Afterwards she would be warm and smelling of bath oil. While the water drained, she put on a flimsy robe, that she had carefully chosen and purchased for the purpose, then she rushed up the stairs to bang on Claude's door.
"There's a spider," she managed to tell him breathlessly. "Please help me."
He'd obviously, been naked, perhaps in bed with Cindy. He'd wrapped a towel around himself. He rushed back inside and pulled on some pants.
"I'm so sorry but they terrify me. Can you please help me," she explained, her panic subsiding as they went downstairs.
As they entered her apartment there, sure enough, was a large huntsman spider, seven or eight centimetres across.
Margery had caught it the other day and immediately seen this opportunity. But now she squealed in terror as Claude chased it around with a large glass and a postcard. The spider rushing from one hiding place to another fleeing from Claude who was being careful to avoid its bite and at the same time trying not to hurt it. By the time it was safely in the glass he'd had a good look at Margery's body when her loose robe flew open as she jumped from floor to chair and fled across the room in mock panic. She was delighted that he was wearing nothing but his denim pants and smelled of sex as he crawled here and stretched up there.
After he had swung the glass over the balcony, centrifugally flinging the spider off into a tree, Margery ran up to him, embracing him with thanks. She was demurely wrapped and tied into her gown again.
"Oh thank you," she said. "Sometimes it's so hard being a woman on her own," she added, as she ushered him to her door.
There must be no suggestion that she was looking for sex. But now he'd had a good look and feel of the goods on offer. And so had she.
***
She let herself into his apartment again. It was incredibly risky. She'd been lucky the first time to be invited in soon after. These days DNA sweeps are commonplace. Now if she left any sign that she'd been there or worse, was caught coming or going, by Claude or a neighbour, it would be disastrous.
Fortunately, her widget seemed to reliably override the security systems. And now Cindy proved to be an asset, marking his bedroom and bathrooms with all her feminine stuff and ransacking his cupboards. So, Margery chose her moment one morning after Cindy was just leaving the building and Claude had already gone to work. She particularly wanted a copy of that home movie that she'd found on her first visit.
As she had hoped, it was still in the entertainment system and Cindy and Claude soon became her favourite evening entertainment too. Now she wanted him in the flesh more than ever. And Cindy was quite enticing too.
As she luxuriated in her bath, experiencing them in three dimensions on her bathroom's system, she began to formulate a plan.
***
In Margery's world it's far too risky, and somewhat demeaning, to court a man then passively let him choose between her and other rivals. A far better strategy is to take positive action against usually unaware and unsuspecting rivals to eliminate them. Then the man is left with only one choice, her.
So, in order to secure her relationship with Claude, Margery needs to eliminate Cindy, in the same way that she'd eliminated any woman who had so much as flirted with Philip her current, soon to be surplus, boyfriend. Not a few of them had found themselves in a departure lounge or signing up for unflattering body modifications.
First, she'd needed information. So, whenever she knew that Cindy was with Claude, Margery had let herself in to Cindy's apartment and made herself at home, going through draws and cupboards, even making herself a gin and tonic, before settling down to open Cindy's screens and watch her media. To avoid Cindy noticing the drink, she simply made up the volumes with tap water and took the remains of the lemon away with her. The risk of a DNA scan here was slight Cindy was not at all tidy.
Cindy also had a habit of leaving her devices logged in so, with her Widget, Margery had interrogated them for her passwords. This knowledge continued to allow her assess, even when Cindy had shut-down before going out.
Among the things she discovered was that Cindy read her horoscope daily. She must keep this secret from Claude because she knew that he frequently spoke against the 'myth of astrology'. For her part throwing someone's horoscope was one of those 'dark arts', taught by Morag, that helped her to manipulate believers.
Although Cindy is a Grad and well educated, her underlying superstitious nature is her Achilles Heel. As Morag taught superstition is innate and the default belief system of all humans. Only a few of us successfully supplant it through rationality. As she is at least interested in astrology, clairvoyance should do the trick.
As in all her witching studies, when learning The Craft at the feet of Morag, Margery had excelled in clairvoyance. Clairvoyants are a dime a dozen, so it's never been a career choice for Margery. Yet it remains a useful skill, which she's used very effectively on occasion to destabilise colleagues on her climb up the corporate ladder. For example, there's nothing like a bit of relationship trouble, stemming from a fictitious insight into one's boss or partner, to damage a career.
It was during her third visit that she discovered that Cindy had several more editions of those explicit home movies, made with Claude, they too were loaded on her entertainment system probably as solace when Claude had been away to look at his telescope thingy. So, the movie Margery had found at Claude's was no secret. Cindy was a knowing and willing participant, which accounted for her frequent staring into the camera when she moaned or cried out.
The new movies were quite as raunchy as the first and Margery copied them all for later enjoyment. Together with the contents of her bedroom side-table, they made Margery want to meet this naughty girl in the flesh. She started to plan an anonymous evening together.