[Chasmo]

Walking into the National Museum for Women in the Arts - a classic Revival Style masterpiece of marble in downtown DC that billed itself as "the only major museum in the world solely dedicated to celebrating women's achievements in the visual, performing, and literary arts" - Danielle Marie Parnell felt triumphant. She reveled in the fact that she had used her connections and wiles to have a shrine to women be the location for the all-boys Gonzaga College High School Crew Team formal. The unworthy men and boys of the school - all of whom lusted after her as did every man - didn't begin to appreciate the irony - the losers. What's more, any of their pathetic mothers, wives and girlfriends who may have appreciated it saw Danielle's clever tactic as a "win for the sisterhood," or some other hair-brained feminist misconception. As if Mrs. Parnell would ever consider them her equals - it was pathetic.

As the lovely lawyer made one of her patented grand entrances, mens' heads turned, necks snapped and pants tented - she was a vision. Dressed in a deep royal purple Elie Saab evening gown, with a backless sequin halter top and a thigh split, chiffon floor length skirt, Danielle was worthy of the red carpets of Cannes and LA. With a body better than most women half her age, the 47 year old stunner's sculpted back and arms, made tan by a recent trip to the Turks and Caicos, were magnificent. Each step she took in her 5.5" stiletto-heeled purple and gold Jimmy Choo Karlotta 100 peep-toe pumps, covered in a rich brocade fabric with a slim golden strap encircling each of her perfect ankles and a decorative bow profiling the magnificently pedicured toes of each of her feet, exposed and profiled the musculature of each of her magnificent thighs.

And the view did not go unnoticed. In addition to every adult male at the gala, the twenty or so fit teens who populated the crew team had eyes for no one else once Danielle appeared and - although she glared at them imperiously, showing not a hint of reciprocation -- she loved it. Despite it otherwise being a black tie affair, the seven or so 18 year-old seniors on the Gonzaga team including Will, were dressed in white buck shoes, with white knee socks, white Bermuda shorts, white cotton oxfords with a royal purple tie and royal purple blazers with the Gonzaga crest embroidered in white on the front breast pocket.

Those same boys would be sitting alongside Danielle on the raised dais from which she would give her key note speech. Situated between the two descending marble staircases on each side of the museum's great hall, the dais was awash in the royal purple glow of Gonzaga's famous colors. Behind the long table, bedecked with purple and white orchids, a large purple curtain hid what Mrs. Parnell was there to unveil - a brand new racing shell for the national championship boys heavyweight eights to use at the upcoming Royal Henley Regatta in England. Off to each side were two big screens on which a revolving photo montage of the team's stellar season was now showing and to which Danielle would refer during her speech.

As the crowd of parents, siblings, students, college scouts and others made their way into the lovely affair, and as a jazz band played and hors d'oeuvres were passed, Danielle Marie Parnell drunk in both the adulation of the throng's male attendees and the self-satisfaction of a day on which she had seen her baby boy admitted to Harvard, publicly vanquished and humiliated her red-headed nemesis and set the stage for what would be her magnificent unveiling of the crew team's finest boat yet. Little was she aware of what else would soon by unveiled.

* * *

Anna Parnell originally had cursed herself for letting her mother browbeat her into running the audio-visual equipment for Will's stupid crew dinner. She wasn't getting paid, neither she nor any girl had ever attended Gonzaga, the school had its own AV department and - worst of all - it was going to ruin a Friday night. But that hadn't mattered to her mother who, as usual, bent all to her will through an alchemy of intimidation, wiles and plain old bossiness. Now, however, all that had changed and Anna was eager to make sure that her arrogant mother and brother got the public "display" they so richly deserved. The only real question was how exactly to put her plan into effect.

"Well it's about time," were the first words the eldest Parnell daughter heard as she made her way into the museum's opulent cocktail hour, "where have you been? Thank goodness your brother was able to get the photo montage going or you would have embarrassed the two of us even further."

"I'm sorry mom . . .," Anna began.

"You most certainly are Anna," her mother interrupted sharply, "and that's something that we're going to need to address. For now though I'm less interested in your hollow apologies than I am you making sure the evening's presentation goes off without a hitch. Now get to it young lady . . . chop, chop."

As Danielle abruptly turned away on her designer high heels, and the train of her ludicrously expensive chiffon gown brushed across her daughter's sensible, flat, rubber soled shoes and black jeans - that she had instructed Anna to wear so as not to have one of the "tech crew" steal any attention from herself and the other honorees - Anna was finally freed from any sense of guilt or remorse for what she was about to do. Whatever it was that her mother had coming - she most certainly deserved it.

* * *

Jerry Sarano felt equal parts nervous and ridiculous as he made his way into the National Museum of Women in the Arts for the annual Gonzaga Crew Team formal. Despite all of the other adult males being in black tie, he had been "summoned" to appear dressed in the same apparel as the Gonzaga seniors - and he was in no position to resist. Sarano had been invited to the gala in the first place for two reasons. One was a matter of legacy insofar as the incredibly fit 52 year old was a Gonzaga alumnus who had led the team to both the 1983 and 1984 high school national championship titles. The second was more practical because, after many years as a partner at SmythKnight, the vaunted international law firm run by none other than Mrs. Danielle Marie Parnell, Mr. Sarano had recently been named the General Counsel of Harvard University. Gonzaga had invited him back in that capacity to celebrate the bond between the two schools as evidenced this evening by the recent admission of Will Parnell and a number of other seniors to esteemed university.

The usually suave and fashionable Sarano's summons to dress as a boy, however, came not as a requirement in his formal invitation, but rather as a "demand" from his former partner-qua-boss who took no small amount of joy upon seeing her one-time colleague turned out in what must have been his own high school senior formal suit.

"Why don't you look just dashing, Mr. Sarano," the comely counselor teased, "although by the looks of your shorts you might want to avoid bending over . . . or getting too excited."

As Jerry turned three shades of red, Danielle continued her assault on his dignity.

"Why Katherine," Danielle called with the falsest of smiles to Mrs. Katherine Wray whose son Jackson was a freshman on the crew team and who was in attendance with him at the gala, "look who's here dear, it's Jerry Sarano . . . doesn't he look adorable."

Katherine couldn't stifle a giggle upon seeing the usually cocksure Sarano - most often decked out in the latest Italian suits - looking like an Eton school boy. Although the lithe southern beauty was happily married she had long lusted after both the arrogant Danielle Parnell and the equally supercilious Jerry Sarano. Seeing the one - bedecked like a goddess in her purple finery - practically emasculating the other - dressed like a little school boy -- was almost too much for her to bear.

"Hi Jerry," Katherine laughed as she felt some wetness forming between her fantastically toned runners legs, "I like your knees."

Mr. Jerry Sarano was more humiliated than he had ever been is life - at least for now - and he had no one to blame but himself. It all seemed harmless enough when the first e-mail arrived from his former partner only six or so months ago congratulating him on his appointment to the General Counsel position at Harvard. He and Danielle had practiced law together for almost 20 years prior to the move and although for the vast majority of that time they had been two peas in an arrogant pod - each one thinking he or she was the height of fitness, fashion, intellect and sophistication and together looking down upon and mocking everyone else - since Danielle had overtaken him in prestige and power he had privately resented her while she began very publicly to mock him. What's more, although he had always thought her beautiful, the more she dominated him professionally the more he lusted after her personally - and she knew it.

"I really do miss you," her second e-mail had read, "it's just not the same here without you as my partner."

Finally, he thought, he had her. Whatever her true motivations, whether it was genuine nostalgia - which he doubted - or Danielle wanting to have Harvard as a client - which he figured was her true motivation - he had her right where he wanted her. And then she suggested dinner which was where it all started to go terribly wrong. She made the reservation at one of his favorite DC restaurants. She raved about his fashion sense, praised his incredible fitness, ran her long fingernails across his hand as she brushed so tantalizingly against it - all while she poured more and more wine. The topics began to turn from work and the "good old days" to things of a more prurient nature. Could he guess what she was wearing under her dress? Did he lust after any of the other "girls" at the office? And what was he wearing under his tight Italian suit she teased. She could only imagine what he looked like "out of uniform." Maybe he could send her a picture or two - that night - before he went to sleep. She would love to have the image to fuel what no doubt would be the sweetest of her dreams.

Not twenty minutes after he left the restaurant nor two minutes after arriving back in his suite at the Four Seasons had Jerry Sarano begun to shed his fancy suit - and his dignity - and snap pictures of himself in various states of undress. The most incriminating - which were the ones he of course e-mailed to Danielle almost immediately - were those of him in nothing but a black jockstrap, hand on package, smiling like an idiot at the mirror reflecting yet another man who had been done in by Danielle Marie Parnell.

Unlike the string of e-mails that had led to his undoing, the e-mail that arrived from Danielle Marie Parnell the next day revealed both her true purpose and her nature.

"I always knew you were pathetic Jerry but I never thought you'd sink to this level of perversion . . . how dare you," it began. "I really don't see any alternative but to go to the Harvard Board of Governors with this . . . I'm sorry but you need help."

Within seconds he had dialed her number and - thankfully - she picked up.

"I don't know what came over me Danielle," the exasperated Sarano began, "I'm so . . . "

But before the next word left his mouth Danielle - as usual - interrupted.

"Shut up you pathetic loser," Danielle sniped with complete disdain,"I don't want to hear it . You've always been weak and sickened me but this time at least I'll be able to use it. My son Will has applied to Harvard and unless you want to see your little strip show sent out to everyone you know he is going to get in - do you hear me?"

"Of course Danielle," Jerry responded both terrified and relieved, "consider it done."

"Very good Gerald," she replied using his given name which she knew he hated. "Once my little boy has been accepted . . . and I've had a but of fun . . . you'll get your sexy little pictures back."

The "fun" of which Danielle spoke became clear in another e-mail he received from her after he go the invitation to the crew gala.

"Show up in your shorts and blazer for the event and the pictures will never see the light of day."

Or would they.

* * *

Anna watched while his mother and Mrs. Wray teased that imbecile Mr. Sarano and, despite knowing that he half did it to himself, she felt sorry for him. Since Will was born the Parnell children all knew him as Mr. Jerry. Whatever may have transpired in the twenty or so years since he gave her mom the chance to work with him - on balance - Danielle Parnell owed her career to Mr. Jerry. And now she was humiliating the man to get Anna's idiot brother into Harvard and, worse yet, just for sport. It just wasn't right.

Mr. Jerry may have been too stupid to record the incriminating conversation in which Danielle laid out the quid pro quo for Will's admission to Harvard but not even Danielle was smart enough to realize that Anna could pull the that recording from the records of her mother's own cell phone. Ah, the perils of the cloud.

It was time for "willssmartsister" to afford herself and Mr. Jerry some payback on "willshotmom."