Preface -
Karen’s abrupt — and inexplicable — separation from her longtime partner had begun to make a terrible, sickening kind of sense.
Close friend and confidant Nikki hadn’t minced words: Tom, the man Karen still loved, had gotten involved with someone else.
And not just anyone.
Tamara.
(Of course it was Tamara.)
Tamara — co-worker, rival, arch-nemesis.
The woman Karen had despised since the moment they first laid eyes on each other.
The feeling had been mutual.
Their relationship had been poisonous from the start — an instant, visceral dislike that went far beyond professional competition.
Both were attractive. Both were stylish. Both were acutely aware of it.
From the beginning, there had been a silent, bitter contest over who was prettier.
Who wore the sharper outfits, the sleeker blouses, the better-tailored pantsuits.
Who had the more expensive heels, better-styled hair, more flawless makeup, smoother, younger-looking skin.
Every jacket. Every heel.
Every flick of eyeliner, every swipe of lipstick — a weapon in their private war.
And when they became the final candidates for the coveted role of Director of School Development & Academic Engagement, the animosity deepened.
Tamara’s victory — narrow, bitter, and humiliatingly public — poured gasoline on an already raging fire.
That humiliation still burned inside Karen.
And now this.
This final betrayal.
Furious — and more than a little humiliated — Karen made a decision.
Later that very day, still simmering from Nikki’s revelation, she marched toward Tamara’s office.
Naively, foolishly, she believed a few stern words — a demand to leave Tom — might somehow fix it.
But deep down, she knew better.
Tamara wasn’t going to apologize.
Tamara wasn’t going to back down.
Tamara wasn’t going to give him up.
Karen knew that.
Yet she went anyway.
Because doing nothing — swallowing it — would’ve been even worse.
But as she approached Tamara’s sleek, spacious, glass-walled corner office, one thing became painfully clear:
This wasn’t going to be simple.
Tamara greeted her with cool arrogance — a smugness that felt almost surgical, an infuriating calm that only poured fuel on the blaze inside Karen’s chest.
The two clashed instantly.
Snapping. Sneering. Hurling insults.
Years of tension — status, jealousy, vanity — all exploded in a catty, puerile exchange of words.
And as the barbs cut deeper, so did the realization:
Neither was walking away from this untouched.
Then Karen spat the challenge that would change everything:
“Talk, talk, talk, bitch. Let’s sort this out. Right now. One-on-one. No one to interrupt.”
Tamara’s smirk never flinched.
The door locked.
No witnesses.
No rules.
And after years of restrained hatred — jealousy, vanity, betrayal, and wounded pride — the dam finally burst.
What erupted inside Tamara’s office that afternoon wasn’t a spat.
It wasn’t a scuffle.
It was a raw, vicious explosion — a long-overdue catfight between two glamorous, mature Asian women.
Fighting for pride.
For revenge.
For a man.
And something uglier neither of them could fully name — that humiliating cocktail of love, hate, possession, and the stubborn refusal to let the other woman win.
Tamara — 5'4", fifty years old — 5'7" in her Jimmy Choo snakeskin stiletto pumps.
She wears immaculately tailored black skinny 7/8 pants, a sleeveless ivory halter-neck blouse — silk-polyester blend, with front and rear keyhole cutouts — and a sharp black Ponte blazer.
Karen — 5'0", fifty-two years old — 5'4" in her Christian Louboutin beige patent stiletto pumps.
She wears a modern navy houndstooth skirt suit, the fitted jacket unbuttoned over a navy silk-wool blend turtleneck.
Opaque navy pantyhose cling to her legs, and beneath it all, black high-cut panties hug her hips.
Two polished, professional women — about to explode in an out-of-control, drag-out catfight.
A jilted lover and her man’s ‘new mistress.’
A war years in the making.
Please Enjoy.
Chapter I - Collision Course
Karen surged down the drab, grey-carpeted corridors of the Administration Building, hips snapping from side to side, her round backside jerking with every furious step — the focused, determined gait of a woman on a mission.
Her mind raced at a million miles an hour, as it had for most of the day — ever since Nikki had broken the news to her over coffee that morning.
She could appreciate why Nikki had withheld the information — in her own way, she’d only been trying to protect her, as any friend would — but it still hurt. It still felt like a betrayal.
Since her split from Tom a few weeks prior, Karen had poured her heart out to Nikki in hurried, whispered conversations between classes and during stolen moments in the staffroom, believing she was being heard,
understood — the whole time Nikki had known the ugly truth: Tom had already moved on.
And with that fucking bitch Tamara, of all people.
“I think you just need to step back, take a deep breath, and simmer down. I know there’s already serious bad blood between you two,
and I’m not saying you shouldn’t confront her at some point… but remember — it takes two to tango,” Nikki had counselled, hinting — to Karen’s growing agitation — that Tom might somehow share the blame.
But Karen didn’t want to hear it. She didn’t want balance.
As far as she was concerned, Tom must have been tricked. Manipulated.
Tamara — scheming, vindictive Tamara — had sunk her claws in when he was vulnerable and ripped him away from the life they had built together.
“At least let me come with you. Please?” Nikki had implored, alarmed by how volatile Karen appeared.
But Karen had made her mind up.
The emotional rollercoaster of the past few weeks had gathered new passengers — despair, confusion, humiliation — and now a healthy, roaring injection of red-hot rage.
Let Nikki dress it up however she liked.
As far as Karen was concerned, there was only one villain here — and it sure as hell wasn’t her, or Tom.
Her world had been upended.
Her man, her life — stolen, right out from under her, by that brazen, vindictive hussy.
Of course it was Tamara.
“Skanky bitch,” Karen spat under her breath, picturing Tamara’s smug, arrogant face.
She tried to steady her breathing, fighting to keep a grip on her emotions — but it was futile.
She wasn’t walking into a conversation with a rational co-worker.
No — this was Tamara.
Karen knew it was going to be explosive. The only question was how ugly it would get.
It would be the first time they’d been alone in a room together since the restroom incident — all bets were off.
Tamara could either forget about Tom — or face the consequences.
In her gut, Karen knew the odds of this staying verbal were almost zero — too much history, too much pent-up animosity.
Deep down, she wasn’t just ready for it. She was aching for it. Yearning for it.
The second they locked eyes, it was going to escalate.
She had plotted two broad strategies throughout the day:
If Tamara was on her feet when she burst through the door, she’d attack her without hesitation — fists flying, insults spilling. Attack first, ask questions later.
If, on the other hand, her foe was seated behind her desk, she would have to attempt to draw her out — bait her, challenge her, make her retreat from the safety of her desk.
“You know better than anyone what she is like. Tamara isn’t just going to roll over and end it with Tom because you demand it — or threaten her,” Nikki had warned her.
“Well, if she doesn’t want to listen to reason, then she’s going to have to listen to my nails, because I swear I’ll scratch that bitch’s fucking eyes out,” Karen had brashly fired back, abruptly rising from the sofa.
“So that’s your big plan? You’re going to barge into her office and demand she leave Tom and when she tells you to go fuck yourself… you’re going to have some kind of catfight?” Nikki exclaimed, shaking her head in disbelief at her friend’s lunacy.
“If it comes to that, Nik — yeah, a catfight,” Karen had bitten back, defiant.
“That bitch isn’t getting away with stealing my man!” she’d said as she turned to leave the staffroom.
“Just be careful, Karen. Please,” Nikki called out, genuine concern lacing her voice.
“Tamara has claws too.”
Karen didn’t respond. She stormed off in silence, arms stiff at her sides, vision narrowing to a single, furious objective.
“Hey Karen, what are you doing all the way up here so late in the day?” a cheerful voice sang out from a doorway behind her.
Startled by the interruption, Karen snapped out of her swirling thoughts, halting her petite, curvy frame on a dime as she spun to face Terry Adams, the Head of Middle School Curriculum.
She forced a wide, toothy grin, flashing her prominent top gum, and subtly preened — her shoulder-length chestnut hair masking her irritation at being stopped.
“Hey Terry, um, I’m just looking for Tamara’s office. Am I close? It’s a complete maze up here,” Karen said breezily, lying without hesitation.
She knew exactly where her destination lay.
“Thought you might be lost,” Terry chuckled, rolling his eyes in exaggerated sympathy.
“Lucky I caught you. You’re almost there — just take a left up ahead. Her Royal Highness is parked at the very end, big old corner office of course.”
He grinned, the cheeky dig hanging in the air between them.
Karen’s smile tightened into a thin, brittle flash — the mention of the corner office hitting a nerve she couldn’t quite hide.
Terry caught the tension and immediately regretted the jab, moving the conversation on without missing a beat.
“Though at this hour...” he added, casually glancing at his wristwatch.
“She’s probably already gone.”
“Her car’s still downstairs. Talk soon — I’ve got to run. Don’t want to keep Miss Corner Office waiting,” Karen curtly snapped, her voice tight, her mind locked on the confrontation ahead.
She had spotted Tamara’s sleek black Mercedes on her way up, parked smugly in its usual prime spot in the staff car park — and for one heated moment, her fingers had drifted to the keys tucked into her suit jacket pocket,
the urge to rake them down its polished side almost overwhelming.
“Yeah, of course, Karen. Sure thing,” Terry chirped, watching her glide down the hallway, his gaze lingering briefly on her small, voluptuous frame as he locked his office door and headed off the other way.
To be a fly on that wall, Terry mused, slipping his keys into his pocket as he wandered toward the stairwell.
What could those two possibly need to talk about this late in the day?
Like everyone on staff, he knew Tamara and Karen had history — long, bitter history — and that they utterly despised each other.
It was one of the worst-kept secrets among the faculty: two experienced, professional educators locked in a rivalry so intense, most of the staff had long since stopped pretending to
be scandalised — and had started quietly enjoying the drama.
Whenever the two crossed paths — in a meeting, the staff lounge, even just passing each other in the halls — heads would turn, and eyes would inevitably drift toward them, waiting to see how they'd react.
One of the more infamous, if still unconfirmed, rumours involved a supposed catfight in the staff restroom a few years prior, when the pair — both sexy, respected Asian MILFs in their late forties — had allegedly
been found locked in a furious, undignified tangle of hair-pulling, scratching, and slapping.
Apparently, it was Gaye, the Admin Assistant from the Music Department, who had stumbled across them — and had been forced, with some difficulty, to break them apart.
It sounded too outrageous to believe — and yet, given the depth of their mutual loathing, few were entirely convinced it hadn’t happened.
Whatever the truth, the roots of their feud ran deep — tangled in professional jealousy, personal pride, and shared resentment.
Some even speculated that underlying ethnic tension played a part — Karen, the daughter of Vietnamese refugees; Tamara, of Cambodian descent — but most believed
it was simply the clash of two beautiful, similarly-aged women, each determined to outshine the other.
Tamara’s ‘victory’ over Karen for the highly coveted position of Director of School Development & Academic Engagement had only poured gasoline on an already raging fire, transforming petty dislike into festering, poisonous hatred.
As Terry descended the stairs, he felt a familiar twitch below his belt — a flicker of heat pulsing through him as his mind wandered.
He imagined them in Tamara’s office, heels kicked off, rolling across the carpet in a wild, unfiltered catfight — legs tangled, nails raking, hair tearing, moans of rage and breathless struggle rising between them.
“Maybe I should hang around a bit longer,” he muttered.
“They might need a referee.”
He let out a dry sigh, pushed the image from his head, and gave a quick grunt as he turned toward the stairwell — and a wife waiting at home.
As Karen rounded the corner, she heard the distant sound of Terry’s office door closing and locking.
Good — get the fuck out of here, Terry, Karen thought with a flicker of furious irritation, her brisk pace slowing to a hesitant saunter as she cautiously approached the closed door at the end of the hallway.
Tamara ******** – Director of School Development & Academic Engagement read the small sign by the doorframe — just the sight of that name sent a spike of angry, nervous energy rushing through Karen’s body.
Should be my name up there, she thought bitterly, reaching out to grasp the cold door handle, pausing only to glance over her shoulder one last time.
All appeared quiet. The coast was clear — as clear as it was ever going to be.
Come on, Karen. Time to give it to this home-wrecking whore.
Drawing one last deep, shaky breath to gather her composure, Karen hurled the door open, bursting into the office, slamming it behind her with perhaps a little too much gusto.
