Ben had switched his data to a more substantial safe in our office, and the laptops used in the design and development work were encrypted and secured...from theft. Backups were run daily and also kept in the company safe. The lab itself had no windows, and was a conventional concrete tilt-up building, secured by substantial steel doors. There was no sign on the building, only a number.The trial meeting was a bit chaotic, with enthusiasm for the results overriding the need to chart a path. I couldn’t take ahuge thing like that.’ But Madeleine’s voice betrayedthe excited anticipation, which was growing insideher.‘Yes you can. Come here. I said come here, you bitch.COME HERE, YOU BIG CUNTED BITCH!.’ Madeleine cametowards her.‘That’s better’, said Deirdre, ‘Now touch it. That’sright. Play with it. Play with it.’ Deirdre wasswaying with pleasure as Madeleine fondled the hugepenis. ‘Now get down on your knees.. Make your decision. Now.” Click.There was neither a dry eye nor a closed mouth in the room. She shocked all of us. Georgina, the quiet, loving, little urchin, had just taken control of the beast that was her mother. She was on top of the world and stayed that way for months after the entire debacle unwound.Nancy backed down. She called back the next day, told her daughter she had signed the papers and they were on the way back to William’s lawyers. She asked if they could meet, soon, before any. Yet if only it hadn't happened, if only the beach episode had turned out to be the healthy, relaxing family outing he had intended it to be, then he would not be in his room now breaking his vow not to drink today. As it was, he had not only broken his non-drinking vow, but had smashed and shattered it into a thousand pieces. Though he had been drinking privately -- not just in company -- for a year now as an escape, he had seldom consumed enough at one sitting to get drunk. Perhaps a dozen.