The CEO s Little Stripteuse

"My mother got flowers today--the loveliest she's ever got. Too bad she wont be able to see them this time. She'd smile at them and rest them on the lounge table as a reminder that she was loved."

To everyone else, the speech was lovely, but to Abigail, she knew there was nothing but fervent mockery of the whole situation. She eyed the closed box with nothing but contempt. How could one woman be so foolish? So implicitly blind?

"I placed them beside her casket, because that's where she would want them. Open and bold for everyone to see, so that she could have a reason to love him." She said 'him' with so much venom, but the congregation only nodded in blind sympathy, as they knew not what was really in Abigail's heart.

Ever since her mother met Mark four years ago, no one but her had ever known what truly happened within the walls off the Jenison’s house. To the outside world, Mark was the perfect husband, and her mother's never ending glee of marriage was never seen by the public as something she was suffering from.

She had only been six months into the marriage when Mark first laid his hands on her, and Abigail had called the police in pure fear for her mother's life.

To Abigail's surprise, the woman dismissed the accusations to the police, and scolded her about interfering in what wasn’t 'her business'.

Abigail knew from then that this wouldn’t be the marriage she had hoped for her mother after her father passed. Her loving dad would've been so disappointed in what her mother's love life had become.

The worst part was, that wasn’t the only time.

But Mark with his charming smile, his endless money and his soothing, conniving tongue always found his way back on her mother's good side. When it became too much, he started bringing her flowers, jewels and diamonds every time they had a 'disagreement'. She would love the flowers the most, as she was always a florist by heart.

Mark never hesitated to make Abigail's mom 'happy' with the scented symbols of pain and wholly, being shadowed as an apology for whatever crime he had done to her the night before. They were all forgiven, in her mother's eyes at least, and after four years of begging, pleading and bawling to her mother to leave him, she never listened until she ultimately left forever.

Abi had found the flowers on the porch this morning before the funeral, at the house now void of all screams, shattering glass and Mark's presence since he vanished.

'I really did love your mother Abigail. I wish you could see that.'

She had flung the note in the fireplace, and was about to throw the flowers after them too. But then, she knew her mother would've kept them, until they withered away and died, just like her love for her, and ultimately her life.

"Nice aren’t they?" Her humorless chuckle echoed in the small mic as all eyes flickered to the rested roses. "She would've loved them indeed. They were her hope after all, for a happy life one day." Expect, that day never came, she wanted to add, but decided against it when she realized that a hundred people's view on her mother would've been tarnished.

Let the dead be the dead. There was nothing she could do about it anymore.

Countless times, despite her mother's requests, she had reported the homely affair to the police. Nobody helped. Nobody looked. Nobody cared.

Now it was all too late, and for the mere peace of her own conscience, she had reported it one last time to the police, telling them that Mark had killed her mother. But Mark's lawyer pointed out that her mother had a 'failing heart', which was the cause of her death.