The Electra Complex

In the dim glow of the dining room, Bruce, a rugged blue-collar hunk with callused hands, hunches over the table, knuckles popping like gunfire in the heavy silence. His eyes lock on a faded snapshot of his dead wife, snatched away two months back by some vicious bug that left the house a tomb. The family's shattered, but none more than stepdaughter Laurie—once a bubbly tease, now a venomous ghost haunting the halls. He's stewing, clock ticking past their therapy date he forced for the grief's jagged edge. Two hours overdue, and fury simmers. She storms in, wild-eyed and defiant. Bruce rises, jaw set, but Laurie unleashes hellfire: 'You're no blood dad, can't chain me down—I'm 18, free as sin, bolting this cage soon!' The living room erupts in raw screams, Bruce pleading sanity while she spits barbs and claws at his chest. Desperate, he seizes her lithe frame, slamming her against the wall, pinning her thrashing body under his weight. They freeze, breaths ragged, faces inches apart, heat crackling like a storm about to break. 'Therapy. Now. That's final,' he growls. She hawks a glob of spit right in his mug. Enraged, he yanks her wrist, dragging her defiant ass to the car under the night sky. Cut to the therapist's crisp office, all sterile calm. Dr. Elena—sharp-suited vixen with knowing eyes—taps at her laptop when a knock shatters the quiet. She swings the door wide: there's Bruce, shoulders slumped in defeat, towing his furious, tear-smeared stepdaughter Laurie, mascara streaks like warpaint on her flushed cheeks.