The Bitter Ex

The fact of the matter was that her boss was a bitch. Nina didn't have a better explanation.

Working as an intern at Goldward Bank was, quite simply, an ideal start to her career, and would probably guarantee her a job once she finished her degree. It had only one downside.

Her boss was a bitch.

Nina had already reworked her pitchbook twice, and analyst Svenson had complimented her on the work. However, when she presented the pitchbook to Mrs. Hardy, she looked at it for less than two minutes before calling it rubbish and telling her to redo the figures again. But worse than that, far worse, was that she had the gall to look Nina straight in the eye and tell her that if she wasn't going to give it "One Hundred percent," she might as well go study marketing and stop wasting her time.

Nina burnt with the insult - made worse by her minor in marketing - but graciously accepted the feedback while swallowing her bile.

Nina always gave 100% to everything she did. When she'd had a boyfriend, she gave herself 100% to him. In her studies, she gave herself 100% to each essay and test. Nina had been called many things - frigid, crazy, ambitious, bossy, sexy, arrogant, bitchy, hot, slutty, annyoing, a go-getter, a role model, a cunt, a tryhard, and many, many other things - but no one had ever called her a slacker.

And she wasn't going to let Mrs. 'framed Master's Degree in her office' Hardy start. Who even frames a Master's Degree? All it means it that she couldn't cut it for a PhD. Nina was going to show her.

But first, she had to redo the figures. At least she didn't have anything planned for the evening. She never did, anyway.

She was just sitting down at her little desk next to Analyst Svenson's office when she felt the dizzyness come over her. She sighed in frustration and tried to clear her head, then got up. She just needed some... Just needed some water.

She was halfway to the water cooler when her legs gave out.

When Analyst Svenson turned over to investigate the clatter, however, the room was empty.

AT THE HANGING GARDENS OF BABYLON

Theo was too used to this to sigh by now, but both Jo and Anna reacted. Joanna had finally guided herself out of trance, and her eyes narrowed as Theo's old lover appeared. Anna, however, had her eyes go wide, and to Theo's shock, she seemed... relieved? Only for a moment, before the horror of the situation came back to her, but still. Theo knew Anna and Nina were still friends - and in fact, he was happy for it - but maybe that friendship was closer than he knew. Anna had seemed a little distant since Theo and Nina broke up, after all.

As for Nina herself, she was, as usual, dressed in a business professional suit and skirt mathematically calculated to project the image of a competent and consummate professional. She wore a white shirt and a charcoal suit jacket, with a matching skirt, which went right below her knees. An understated navy blue scarf was tied under the collar of her shirt, and a pair of elegantly subtle hoops hung from her ears. Her blonde hair was, of course, tied in a tight bun.

As Ishtar approached, her eyes darted across the goddess, not in admiration of her beautiful curves or sheer sexual presence, but warily, as a predator sizing up a rival. As her eyes landed on Ishtar's smirking face, she flinched. The goddess was not, on her part, evaluating a rival - rather, she looked at Nina like a cat might look at a particularly unlucky mouse.

"Oh, sweetheart, you can do better than that."

With those words, Nina's clothes changed, as the others' had. Writhing around her, they stretched and transformed. The magic stopped nearly as soon as it had started, and Nina stared down her body in horror. Instead of her perfectly calculated business professional, she was now wearing something more like a fetish costume. Her jacket was gone, and her shirt had tightened to a tight, see-through thing showing off the curve of her chest and her nipples, while her skirt was now a black pencil skirt barely covering her ass. Even worse, somehow, was her shoes, where a pair of tall stripper stilettos had replaced her modest 2-inch pumps.

Having batted her mouse around a bit, Ishtar gave her a moment of befuddled rest, relishing the slowly dawning horror as Nina looked from herself, to Ishtar, to the people seated on the chairs behind her.

"W-wait, what's going on? What is this place, why am I here?"

"Well, darling, you've just won the cosmic jackpot!," Ishtar replied, then launched into her spiel, though she slowed it down a bit, giving the audience - and herself - a longer moment to relish Nina's horror. As she ended, she stuck her microphone back in the girl's face and asked her to introduce herself.

"Well, I'm studying for my Bachelor's in finance and I've got an internship at Goldward Bank which pays my bills. I don't have a lot of hobbies, but I do like camping and hiking. Oh, and I used to enjoy mysteries, back when I had more time. Theo's my ex - the wimp didn't have it in him to give it 100%, like i did, so he broke up with me, the cowa-"

"That's not true!"

Theo had stood from his chair by now, and was staring daggers at Nina.

"I was giving it my all! You just couldn't accept that 'giving it my all' means keeping you safe, not just jumping in the deep end!"

"Or maybe you're just a wimp who coul-"

Both of them abruptly fell silent, and Ishtar took back the microphone.

"Well well well, isn't that interesting - sounds like our lovebirds have some bad blood to figure out! While I am dying of curiosity to find out what happened here, why don't you save it for the show, darlings? We do have an interview to get to."

With a wave of her hand, Theo was **** back down, though he was clearly still struggling, trying, to no avail, to open his mouth.

Meanwhile, Ishtar pushed her microphone back to Nina, who continued her Interview in the same fluid, confident voice all contestants had.

"Last time i had sex was... oh, more than a year ago? I was dating this rebound after Theo, but he was really just an asshole, more interested in getting off himself than anything mutual. So, I'm sorry, I don't think I can tell you anything salacious about my sex life, because the most interesting thing to happen to my cunt the last year has been my vibrator getting new batteries."

Despite her casual tone, Nina's eyes were wide in horror and embarrassment, and her heart was sinking.

"Well, at least that won't be a problem anymore, sweetheart," Ishtar laughed, and with a gesture sent Nina to sit with the others.

"Well, folks, with that we're taking a little break! Please enjoy a few messages from our sponsors, and we'll be right back after, and the next one's gonna be a doozy, folks, so do stick around!"