Black Widow

"Everybody get back to work. The Terror is coming," admonished the shift supervisor.

The Terror, as Danelle was called behind her back, was born Daniela Elle Crisostomo van Hulst. An only child, she was the result of an affair between Jan Peter van Hulst and Erlinda Elmonde Crisostomo.

Danelle did not have an easy childhood. Truth be told, she did not have an easy life. Grade school was an endless parade of visits to the Principal's office and constant hunger.

Danelle's sophomore year in high school would prove to be the most heart-wrenching in her life. Her mother was diagnosed with leukemia. And she was presented with a life-changing revelation. As her mother lay on her death-bed, she told her about her origins.

Her mother was working in the Netherlands as one of many house staffers for Jan Peter, a wealthy Dutch business man. The master of the house was smitten with Erlinda. It was a love story straight from today's popular tele-novelas. The love story, however, was not meant to have a happy ending. Jan Peter's wife discovered the affair and used her money and influence to have Erlinda, then pregnant with Danelle, deported from Holland and sent back to the Philippines.

Jan Peter, guilty about being powerless to defend Erlinda, found ways to send monetary support. The money kept coming for about two years until Jan Peter's wife put a stop to it. Erlinda was forced to work as a housemaid, a seamstress, a gardener, a nanny, a cook. The jobs were diverse but the money was sparse. Most nights she would shed tears, not for her, but for her daughter. Her daughter was constantly bullied throughout her grade-school years for being the only poor white girl. She vowed to do eveything, short of selling her body, to give Danelle the best future possible.

Erlinda died destitute. She was interred in one of the many rent-a-tombs that was typical of many Philippine cemeteries in Metro Manila.

Danelle loved her mother. But she hated her weakness. She hated the weakness that allowed her mother to succumb to the charms of a married man. She hated the weakness that led her mother to accept the ignominious eviction from what could have been a life of privilege. She hated the weakness that deluded her mother into thinking that menial labor was something to be proud of. She hated the weakness of being poor. The poor were weak because the poor did not have power. Danelle vowed that she would not live the rest of her life weak.

Now, as she strides between the rows of office desks, Danelle is the epitome of female corporate power. In point of fact, the epitome of corporate power. Period. As statuesque and visually stunning as Ruffa Gutierrez, she was the CEO of Danelle Consulting International. The company that she built with her own blood, sweat and tears was responsible for closing multi-billion dollar deals between Philippine corporate interests and power houses in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and North America.

She could feel the nervous gazes from her employees. She could feel their fear. And that makes her smile. It is better to be feared than respected. To command fear is power. Men lusted after her, yes, but ultimately their trepidation got the best of them. When asked to describe her, Danelle's ex-husband would spout his favorite line from the movie Evolution,"...a humorless ice queen in desperate need of a good humping." She had a reputation for being a man-eater. That reputation was well deserved.

She was brokering a license deal between an electronics giant from Japan and a Philippine company that owned an electronics manufacturing facility in Cavite. The head representative from Japan did not particularly care for the standards of the factory. A multi-million dollar deal was in danger of falling through. Millions were at stake. Danelle decided that further incentives for the deal to go through were required. She wined and dined. And she bedded.

During the coup de grace, the copulation at the Shangrila Makati where Danelle hoped to close the deal, the bastard had the audacity to say no. She wanted to do this the easy way. Time to play hard ball. She took matters into her own hands, literally.

The head representative was rushed to the hospital with a broken penis. He told the attending physician that it was due to a night of rough sex. What else could he say? What else could he do, for that matter? That crazy bitch threatened to upload a copy of their bedroom antics to his wife's e-mail account. It was the right account all right. The crazy bitch read it to him. As chagrined as he was, he couldn't help but admire the resources that she had at her disposal.

To commemorate her victory, Danelle had a necklace with a special pendant custom-made. The pendant was a 24-karat gilded caricature of the male gonads. Desperately trying to sink into the cleavage of her more than ample breasts, she was acutely aware of its garishness. She didn't give a fuck.

As her employees feigned immersion in their work in order to evade her scrutiny, Danelle was also keenly aware that they found her business attire questionable. Her ensemble consisted of a black silk business jacket and matching tight skirt with a slit that rode as high as the bottom of her underwear. Pinned to her left breast was a golden brooch in the fashion of a two-inch long black widow spider. Encrusted on the black widow's abdomen was a small hourglass-shaped ruby. She wore a blood-red silk shirt with the top buttons undone to accentuate her bouncing breasts. Her hosiery consisted of a red sheer pantyhose with black spider webs. Her black stilettos were each crowned with miniature versions of her golden brooch.

Her affinity for an arachnid that ate its mate after mating was unnerving to those around her, especially the men.

She reached the frosted-glass door to her office and unlocked it using her key card. As she sat down on her massive leather-clad chair, she flipped a switch under her desk and the frosting on the glass that separated her office from her employees vanished into crystal-clear clarity.

Before tackling the day's business, Danelle made it her routine to survey her domain. Once satisfied with the activity of her queendom, she would smile and utter a line from one of James Cagney's movies, "Made it, Ma. Top of the world."

To be continued