Then she sat up. "No!" she said. "I will not! I will not let him hurt me any more than I'm already hurt. I won't cry. I won't!" Courage foamed in her blood and she knew that the worst was over. She had learned the truth about her husband, learned it in the most degrading way possible, but she could live with that. She could even live with the prison sentence the judge would almost certainly give her (unless the judge happened to be a woman) when she blew Tom in half with a twelve-gauge shotgun this evening.
She stood up straight, tossing back her hair. She wiped her eyes, blew her nose into her tissue, then threw it into the waste can. "I'm okay," she told herself. "He's the one who'd better watch his fucking ass. Because he has overplayed his hand, but good!"
The door opened and the receptionist came in, a bubbly little brunette accompanied by a tall skinny girlfriend. They were talking about something as they entered the room but they stopped when they saw Joanne standing there. "Hi, Mrs. Hickman," said the receptionist.
"Hello, Sandy," Joanne said. She wondered if Tom had fucked the little brown-haired girl, too. She'd never considered it, but why not? Sandy was cute and outgoing, with gum bubble boobs hanging loose and braless under her clingy sweater. Her pants fit tight around her hips and tough she was a bit short in the legs, Joanne saw no reason why those short legs couldn't wrap around a man's body. She wanted to ask but decided not to. No sense making a case for premeditation, supplying a witness who might damage her in court. She was counting on a plea of temporary insanity.