Virginia McClain: Freelance Writer, Novelist

Some of the following short stories have been published already, if so, that has been noted. Others are either in the process of being submitted or they are written for fun and not for publication. All works are original works by Virginia McClain and are copyrighted. 

I've made an attempt to organize them by genre, but some of them defy genre. So, you'll just have to have an open mind about the labels, alright? All stories are fiction unless otherwise noted.

Some of these are quite long and others are only a handful of pages. Don't be discouraged though, they're all totally worth it!

It was her silent affirmations that kept her from going completely insane. The cold and darkness were overwhelming, and she didn’t have any breath to spare; but she had to keep telling herself that the light and the air were only a few feet away. She had to or she would collapse where she was and succumb to the frost bite that was slowly taking hold in her extremities and threatening her very life.

            The avalanche had come down on her so fast that she had barely had time to throw herself behind the giant pine tree that she had been about to scale in order to try to get her bearings. As far as she could tell, the ancient pine seemed to have survived the impact of hundreds of tons of snow falling from a nearby ridgeline, or at least it hadn’t collapsed on top of her. The tree had been so massive that the ridges in the bark would have provided decent handholds leading up to the first branches 30 feet off the ground. Thus, it had provided at least some protection from the onslaught of snow that had come down on her so unexpectedly.

            She had landed on her back as far as she could tell. Once she had loosened up the snow around her a bit, it seemed pretty clear that gravity was pulling her down from behind. The snow immediately around her was somewhat packed, but she was able to move a bit and begin scratching away at it so she couldn’t be too far underneath the snow. Or so she hoped. Luckily, and somewhat by design, she had been protecting her nose and mouth with her arms as the avalanche had come down on her, so she had landed with a small air pocket surrounding her head. The problem now was not to drop snow into her mouth and nose as she slowly scratched away at the snow that confined her. She had no sense of time. She wasn’t sure if she had been digging for hours or just minutes. She was fairly sure that she didn’t have enough air to last hours, but it seemed as if she had been trapped here forever. She pushed on. Constantly thinking to herself “Just a few more swipes, and I’ll be free. Just a little farther, and I’ll see sky. Just keep moving, don’t stop.”

            She had taken her gloves off in order to scale the tree, and her movement was too limited to do anything with her pack to get them back out. So, she had scratched with bare fingers and then dug at the snow in front of her with bare hands that had started to bleed. Her hands had grown so numb that if it hadn’t been for the snow that was falling at the sides of her face, she wouldn’t have known that she was still digging. But she pushed on. Suddenly, the snow pack in front of her face bowed outwards with her hands. Then it fell in, covering her head. She coughed and sputtered and worried that she would drown in snow; but suddenly her arms had room to move and to reach out, and she could feel wind on the parts of her forearms that weren’t numb. She fumbled the snow off of her face and took deep breaths of slightly warmer air. She clawed more snow away from her body. Apparently she wasn’t totally flat on her back but rather slightly inclined towards a standing position. She uncovered her legs and slowly pulled and rolled herself free of the snowy pit she left behind her. She just lay there, sorely tempted to lose consciousness and just give in to the exhaustion that consumed her. But she had to keep moving. The sun was out, the air was warmer than the snow, and she had to regain the feeling in her extremities.

            She sat up. This was a struggle with her pack still on, but just the effort which that movement required, while exhausting, acted to warm her; and it was energizing to feel warmth again. She could see a field of snow stretched out around her. Judging by the fact that she was still alive, she had to assume that she hadn’t suffered the brunt of the avalanche. So she scanned the horizon for a break in the snow. Spring was budding in the valley, and there had been minimal amounts of snow on the forest floor prior to the avalanche. The largest accumulation she had seen on the flight in had been the cornice piled up on the ridgeline connecting the two summits nearby. She had asked if she should be wary of avalanches with the warmer weather starting, but the pilot had told her that the rangers blasted any dangerous build ups on a regular basis and she had nothing to worry about. She made a mental note to file a complaint at the ranger station if she ever made it out of here alive.

            Of course the pilot and the ranger would just be two more on the list of people she intended to have words with when, and if, she made it back to civilization. The person at the top of that list was her climbing partner. Her climbing partner for this trip was a friend of a friend of hers whom she had come out with in order to get on some multi-pitch trad routes that weren’t very popular because they were hard to get to. As a high school Spanish teacher, she had spring break off, and, while she usually climbed with her husband, he had agreed to do an outward bound trip in South Africa and he wouldn’t be back in time for her planned departure date. So, she was left to climb with a guy she didn’t know very well, but whom she had climbed with a few times and knew to be a solid and safe climbing partner. Unfortunately, he was also apparently a horny bastard. Through the first few days of the trip, he had flirted with her mildly as they made their way deeper into the wilderness and got on a few trad routes, but it was nothing she wasn’t used to; and she just playfully shrugged it off. Then, last night, he had seriously come on to her.

            They had been making dinner, and she had mentioned something about the wind picking up and the temperature dropping. He had started making erotic recommendations about how they could stay warm. At first she had laughed and said that she didn’t think her husband would think much of that. She started to worry when he said that he didn’t give a damn what her husband thought about it and he would never have to know. Then she got serious. She made it very clear that she didn’t have any intention of sleeping with him, ever. He made it very clear that he was only mildly concerned with her intentions. So, she made him more concerned with them by supplying him with a swift knee to the testicles followed by a head butt. It ended there. Needless to say, they didn’t talk much through dinner. She had barely slept that night, worried that he would try something again by breaking into her tent. Thankfully, he wasn’t that despicable. Or at least, that’s not how he chose to demonstrate how despicable he really was.

            When she had woken up the next morning, her tent was alone in the woods. Her partner was gone, along with all the topo-maps and guidebooks for the area, as well as the compass. She had had her own compass at the start of the trip, she never traveled without one; but her partner had dropped his off a 300 foot cliff earlier on, and they had been sharing since then. All she had left was her climbing gear, her rope, her personal supplies and the food and water she had been carrying in her pack. Plenty to survive on in the woods for a week or so, but with no way to know where she was or where she was going.

            As she mentally recapped the last week’s events, she unclasped her snow shoes from the outside of her pack and attached them to her boots. Slowly she began making her way to what looked from here to be the edge of the avalanche field. She could still see the giant pine that she had planned to climb, and some of the trees around it still stood as well. She must have been very close to the edge of the avalanche for everything here to have fared so well. After a 15 minute trek she reached the edge of the avalanche field and was on solid ground once more. After removing her snow shoes and reattaching them to her pack, she started downhill, once more determined to find another tree to use to check her bearings.  

            After a while, she found an appropriate pine. She once more stripped off her gloves (her fingers were slowly and painfully regaining some feeling), put on her harness and left her pack at the base of the tree. This pine wasn’t as large as its giant cousin had been, but it was large enough, and its base wasn’t covered in six feet of snow, so she could actually get some purchase on it from the ground. She started the laborious climb up, trailing a rope behind her in order to rappel back down, and she gradually made it to the first branches. Once in the branches the climbing became easier, and she was able to secure herself to the branches while resting. When she was about 70 feet up and clear of most of the trees surrounding her, she took a good look at the surrounding valley.

            She could see a giant white swathe where the avalanche had fallen, and she could see the ancient pine she had intended to climb earlier. Down in the valley she could see a small reflective line snaking through the trees and meadows, which she took to be the river. Along it, she could see a thin black line. So, there was a road down there. She tried to keep down her excitement as she assessed the obstacles between her and her goal. From the features that she could see, it looked like the way down with the lowest gradient started about half a mile to her left. From there she should be able to descend to the valley without running in to any giant cliff faces. She checked again to be sure, but everything to the right seemed steeper, and she could even see what looked like a sharp drop-off not too far away from her in that direction. Left it was then. From what she could see, it was about 8 miles overland to the valley floor.

            She hiked all day and stopped at sunset. From what she could tell she had made it about half way from the tree to the valley floor. Normally, hiking with trails, she would have made it at least twice that far in a day’s hike, but the uneven terrain and the occasional obstacles that had to be circumvented made the going slower than usual. As the sun dropped behind the mountains, she prepared to make camp. The day’s hike had returned the life to all of her extremities, and she smiled as she flexed her toes and fingers and felt the warmth running through them. She ate some energy gel as an appetizer just to keep her warm while the water was boiling. Luckily the bastard hadn’t taken the mac and cheese. Easily-digested carbohydrates were exactly what she needed right now. She had just enough energy left after dinner to struggle with her tent and unroll her sleeping bag; once her head hit the down, she was on the far side of consciousness.

            She woke up to darkness, and the sound of metal on metal and nylon rubbing against fleece. Or, was that… FUR? Crap. In her hurry to go to sleep last night she hadn’t put away the dishes or hung up her pack. She slowly unzipped the window flap on her tent and held her breath as she waited to confirm her suspicions.

            A large and curious black bear was rummaging through what was left of her food stores. “How could I have been so stupid?” was her only thought. Well, extreme exhaustion and frustration were pretty good excuses in this case. But, that didn’t change the facts. A black bear was eating her provisions. “This can’t be happening to me. Seriously, this only happens in movies. This much crap doesn’t happen to just one person in less than 24 hours.”

            There is nothing to do in this situation but to sit very quietly in your tent while the bear eats all of your food, anything else is just tempting fate. However, if the bear takes an interest in you and your tent, then you have other problems.

            She had never felt safe sleeping in trees. She was sure she would just roll out of them. But, she was still exhausted and she was still hiding from the bear. Not that black bears couldn’t climb trees, but she hoped that it would be too lazy to come after her there and be more content with her food and her tent. At least she had salvaged her sleeping bag.

            So it was, she met the dawn half asleep, 15 feet up a pine tree, cursing almost everything in nature and particularly bears. Once the sun had shed enough warmth to warm up her limbs, she shed her sleeping bag and followed it down to the ground.

            After an hour of reassembling what little was left of her belongings into a makeshift sack made out of her sleeping bag, she headed off again, eager to finish the last 4 miles of her trek to the road and civilization.

            It was late afternoon when she reached the winding river that split the valley. She was dismayed to note that, at least at the point where she had come to it, the river was between her and the road. However, after all that she had gone through so far, fording the river didn’t seem like much of a problem. It was relatively wide, but not terribly deep, and she was fairly confident that she could cross it without too much trouble.

            She had forgotten just how cold snow melt was. She hadn’t even fully appreciated it when she had gotten her wool- and boot-clad feet into it and started crossing. But she had enjoyed the full effect when she tripped over a submerged log and tumbled headlong into the swift moving water. She managed to lodge herself against a rock a little way down stream and succeeded in righting herself, but she had lost her makeshift pack and was now soaked from head to toe. She hurried to get herself to the other side so she could keep moving quickly and start to warm up; she didn’t need to add hypothermia to her list of woes.

            Fortunately, getting to the opposite bank went smoothly after that, and she had little trouble warming up once she got to dry land. However, to stay warm she had to keep moving. All of her clothing was either wool or synthetic so it would continue to insulate even though it was wet, but she had to keep producing body heat in order to enjoy the benefits of that insulation. She soon found easy motivation to keep moving.

            Black pavement glistened up at her in the sun. Her smile glistened back at it. A two lane highway was sure to have traffic on it sometime in the near future. All she had to do was wait. In order to keep from freezing to death, she would keep walking while she waited. She couldn’t remember which direction the nearest town was, but she decided to head south along the highway just because it made her think of warmer climates.

            After being passed by a few cars whose drivers seemed to think she was crazy, she had her first bit of true luck in this debacle since surviving the avalanche itself. It came in the form of a ranger truck headed to a ranger station.

Her description had been submitted that morning as a missing climber. She and her partner had filed their itinerary with the local ranger station prior starting their trek, including brief physical descriptions of themselves, and when the avalanche was reported by a local woodsman they had immediately sent out a search party, but had expected her and her partner to be beyond salvage. As she learnt on the drive to the ranger station, they had been half right. Her climbing partner’s body had been found on the opposite side of the avalanche field from where she had climbed her way out.

            She spent the next 24 hours pampered with warm blankets, hot cocoa, warm food and copies of National Geographic from all the rangers at the station. She also enjoyed a hot shower and some clean, dry clothes. Plus, a few kind souls had donated some climbing gear to her once they heard that she had lost all of hers in her numerous misfortunes. Finally, her husband showed up to take her home.

            On the flight back, her husband asked her what exactly had happened. She had been dying to tell someone, dying to rant and scream, dying to have someone agree with her about what a son of a bitch her climbing partner was, right up until the ride to the ranger station. Now, she fumbled for a response but only came up with “we had a disagreement and got separated. Then, the avalanche killed him.”

Back to top

(According to our rafting guides, this is how all good rafting stories begin. I was ten at the time, so it really stuck with me.)

No shit, there I was. A ten-foot waterfall looming ahead of us and the guide at the back of the boat yelling, “Pull right! Pull right!”

My father and I had decided to be in the paddle boat that day. That’s the one boat on our guided raft trip that was paddled by guests along with one guide at the back. I chose to be in that boat most days because you got a lot wetter, and to my ten-year-old sense of adventure it was a lot more fun. At that particular moment, it was a lot more frightening.

We were attempting to aim for the right of the big hole where the wave was a bit smaller. That would let us run the rapid without flipping the boat. Unfortunately, we missed. We managed not to flip the boat over. However, the boat managed a superb beavertail that flung out more than half of its occupants, my father included. Left in the boat: two ten-year-old girls, one dentist and the guide.

“High side, high side, high side!” The guide yelled at us from behind as I watched my father disappear under water. Well, I won’t say I wasn’t scared – I think I started crying for my dad- but I did have myself under enough control to do as the guide said and put all my ten-year-old weight onto the side of the raft that was getting pushed upwards by the hole we were in which was the side that would have caused us to flip.

Someone handed me a paddle, I think it was the dentist.

“Pull HARD!” We pulled hard.

As the guide shouted, I witnessed my second family member go under water. My brother, who was in a kayak behind us and couldn’t see over the waterfall, plunged directly underneath our boat. His kayak popped up a few seconds later on the other side of the hole we were trapped in, but I never saw my brother pop up.

“Keep pulling!” We kept pulling.

I’m really not too clear on the details of what happened next. My mind was frantically considering all of the horrors of having just witnessed my brother and father disappear into a fast moving river, and my eyes were blocked by tears and spray from the rapids. But a very loud voice was shouting directions, and I was following them with all my ten-year-old might.

“Paddle forward!” We paddled forward.

Somehow, two ten-year-old girls and a dentist managed to pull out of that hole. In retrospect, it might have had something to do with the bear-sized guide at the back of the raft.

After we were clear of the rapid, we pulled into the nearest eddy, and the guide took stock of who and what was missing. As soon as we were close to land, I leapt from the raft and began running towards the line of rafts that was stationed down river to pick up anyone who had been jettisoned out of our boat or the kayaks.

Convinced that my brother and father were dead, I ran shouting at the other rafts trying to find out if they were still alive. Half way there, I was stopped by one of the other rafters.

“They’re okay, Lee. I just saw them pull your dad out of the water. He’s fine.”

“But my brother! My brother went UNDER our raft, and I never saw him pop up. Where is he?”

“I haven’t seen him yet, but I’m sure he’s fine. They said they’ve got everyone.”

I didn’t listen. I just ran to the line of rafts. I saw my dad. Totally soaked, but he was alive, and he seemed to be laughing at something someone was saying. I scanned, and I scanned. My heart constricted horribly as after the first pan I didn’t see my brother. I panned again. Finally, I saw my brother being dragged out of the water by a couple of the guides and a guest. He had apparently taken some extra man power since he was tall, somewhat muscular, and very wet. But he, too, was alive and seemed to be uninjured. Finally, I could breathe.

As soon as we made camp that afternoon, we set up a tent and passed around hot cocoa for all those who had been involved in our little “adventure.”  We discussed it as a learning experience--- which was good. We laughed and joked about faces people had made when going over, going under and being left behind. We talked about what we did wrong to end up in that situation anyway and we shared other stories about other adventures from different times. That was when we learned that all great river stories start with “No shit, there I was.” Something I will NEVER forget.

Back to top

CChristina had been having a shitty day to begin with. The job interview she had just come from hadn’t gone well. They never did for her –probably something to do with the tattoo on the back of her wrist. (They just never seemed to believe you when you said you weren’t part of the Monte Cristo organization anymore.) And the fucking taxi driver that was supposed to take her back to her apartment had dumped her in the middle of an abandoned alley because she had discovered that she didn’t have enough money on her to pay for cab fare. The alley was dark even though it was mid day, and it was far too quiet for her liking.

            So it was no real surprise to her when a hand reached out of the darkness somewhere and wrapped itself around her mouth, pulling her close to someone else’s body.

            “Well, don’t we look pretty and lost.” A voice hissed from behind her head.

            Christina didn’t like that voice, it was low, it was raspy and it was breathing down her neck. She didn’t know what this guy wanted, but she wasn’t happy that he wanted it from her.

            Her captor pushed himself closer, and wrapped his other arm around her. Christina quickly realized what he was after when he placed his other hand on her breast. She also noticed something hard pressed against her right thigh; she was pretty sure it wasn’t a gun (if it was, it was an awfully sad one). The hand on her breast began fumbling its way towards the buttons on her shirt. It gripped and pulled at them unsuccessfully, too clumsy to actually open them. This situation needed to change, and change fast. Christina wasn’t one to sit around and wait while someone took advantage of her –or worse- so she got right down to business.

            Her right elbow shot back from its resting place by her hip and made direct contact with her offender’s stomach. Her head simultaneously shot in the same direction as her elbow, and made direct contact with her offender’s nose. As she pulled away, the groping hands clenched her shirt, and tore it open at the chest.

She was loose, for a second anyway, but she had to keep moving. She broke away from her attacker and turned around quickly to assess the situation. He was a middle sized man, about 5’11” with a pale complexion and dark sunken eyes. Oddly, though, he was wearing a suit, a nice suit at that. He was unarmed. He was going to pay dearly for that.

            The tattoo on Christina’s wrist was not just some arbitrary decoration she wore around –if that were the case, it probably wouldn’t have cost her so many job interviews. No, this tattoo was a special mark, a mark that signified something that most people wanted to stay away from. Christina was part of a gang most commonly known as the Monte Cristo organization. This was not your ordinary gang. They did not fight other gangs, they did not vandalize, they did not deal in drugs or in offing random people; they stole. They did not steal cars, or hubcaps, or food or other low worth items. They stole money, they stole information, and they stole jewels. They were the best –or so it was said- and they did not hesitate to put a symbol of their prowess right on the back of their members’ wrists because, while they had been involved in many illegal acts over the years, they had never been caught, charged or tried. In fact, they ran under the guise of a registered LLC. Nonetheless, they were rather infamous for their rumored deeds, and they had a hard time finding jobs in the everyday work place. But, in such a line of work certain precautions had to be taken. You did not join and work for the Monte Cristo organization for any number of years without learning how to defend yourself. Not to mention how to attack someone when needed. Which is why, my friends, this fellow who had so feebly tried to rape Christina, was in a whole lot of trouble.

            Said offender was currently occupied trying to stop his nose from bleeding and trying to breathe after having had the wind knocked out of him. This made things all too easy for Christina. With two swift movements, her leg connected with the backs of his knees and the side of her hand and wrist with the back of his neck. With only these two motions he was on the ground and unconscious.

Christina searched the man and took out his wallet. Driver’s license, credit cards, business cards. He looked like your average Joe, his business card even claimed he was a lawyer. Frank Potter, Attorney at Law. Christina pulled her cell phone out of her jacket pocket. She pressed 1 on speed dial.

“Hey, is Monte Cristo there?... Yeah, I’ll wait… Hey, Monte Cristo, I need some help. I’m on 34^th and F. Well, the back alley behind 34^th and F. Can you send a car?... Great, thanks… No, I’m fine. I’ll explain when I get there… Yeah, see you in a bit.”

            Just as Christina was putting away her cell phone, Frank began to stir. She bent down quickly and hit him over the head with her phone.

            “No, no, Frank. You’ll wake up when I tell you to.”

            A few minutes later a black mini-van pulled up and the driver helped Christina load Frank into the back. A minute later it was gone, the alley left abandoned once more in its wake.

*         *         *

When Frank finally regained consciousness he found himself in a dimly lit room that appeared to be part of an abandoned warehouse. He tried to look around and get a good sense of where he was and who he was surrounded by, but his neck was quite sore and would not allow him the motion that this effort required. So, instead, he fell back and closed his eyes again for a minute in order to try to regain some of his strength. As he did this, he began to recall some of the events leading up to his unconsciousness. He had gone to his usual pick up place to meet his dealer (when rich lawyers get bored, they slip into some of the same nasty habits as everyone else, just for a higher price); he’d taken a pill that he’d bought for the round sum of a hundred dollars. He’d spent five minutes or so trying to shake off a blistering headache, and then he’d seen her. A very pretty girl had been dropped off in the middle of the alley. She had looked like she didn’t belong there. She had looked like something he wanted to have. He had all of a sudden felt like he could have her if he wanted to. At that moment he had felt like he could easily have anything he wanted. Judging by his current placement, the pain in the back of his neck, and the new headache he had discovered when he had tried to sit up, he had clearly been mistaken.

*          *          *

            When the black mini-van had pulled into the warehouse and stopped, Christina had been the first one to get out. She left the woman driving the van to deal with Frank. While her companion dragged Frank from the back of the van and took him to a place where he could be safely watched, Christina walked quickly over to a set of tables in the far corner of the warehouse.

            A tall, lean woman, wearing a charcoal pinstriped business suit, was waiting for Christina behind one of the desks. She was reclined comfortably in a tall, leather, well padded desk chair. A pair of black-rimmed spectacles framed her stern blue eyes, eyes that clashed wildly with her jet black hair. Her face was alive with concern when Christina approached.

            “What happened out there? You had me worried.”

            “Oh, it’s nothing too serious, nothing that would compromise us.”

            “As glad as I am to hear that, I’m more worried about you. You were supposed to have a peaceful interview today. I wasn’t supposed to hear from you again until tomorrow, but then I get a call from you on the emergency line saying you need a pickup. Please do me the favor of explaining how this is nothing serious.”

            “Well, it could have been something serious I suppose… I don’t know, Monte Cristo, now that I’ve had time to think about it and I’m calm again it’s not as bad as it seemed. Adrenaline gone down and whatnot…”

            “Get to the point Christina, something happened, what was it?”

            “Well, some really stupid –and I think drugged up- lawyer attacked me in an alleyway after my interview.”

A sudden flash of anger was visible in Monte Cristo’s eyes. Her jaw muscles tightened, and she restrained herself from jumping out of her chair. Now her face merely looked resolved.

“Tell me the whole story, why were you in an alleyway to begin with and what happened next?”

Christina gave her a play-by-play of the events that afternoon. When Christina described her attacker’s assault, a cloud of hatred crossed Monte Cristo’s eyes, but she did not speak again until Christina had finished.

“So, what’d you do with him?”

“He’s with Jill, she and some of the other girls are keeping an eye on him for me. What do you think we should do with him?”

“You know what I’d really like to do with him. But, since we usually try to avoid killing off more people than necessary, and since he seems to be so inept in his criminal intent perhaps we should just toy with him.”

A cold smile spread across Monte Cristo’s face as she said this, and her hand went to a silver plated nine millimeter that was visible underneath her suit coat as she stood up to join Christina in walking across the warehouse in order to visit their captive.

*          *          *

            Just as Christina and Monte Cristo were approaching Frank in his corner of the warehouse, Frank was regaining a little bit of the motion in his neck and trying to get a good look at what was going on around him.

            Before the two parties converge, perhaps it would be appropriate for me to give you a little bit of background on what Frank was taking in.

            As you have no doubt already gathered, both Christina and Monte Cristo were women, not to mention Christina’s companion in the mini-van, Jill, who, as her name would suggest, is also a woman. What you most likely have not gathered (as I have not really given you any evidence of it yet) is that the Monte Cristo organization was a gang (or enterprise as they liked to call it) that was entirely comprised of women. In fact its true name was the Sisters of Monte Cristo. Monte Cristo, who you no doubt have guessed was running under a pseudonym, had started the group a number of years ago, and had decided that she trusted men too little to involve them in her endeavors. To go into great detail of their operations would distract us too much from the point. But suffice it to say that Monte Cristo ran an organization of about 23 devoted female employees who were the best in all of their respective fields, and that she was a likewise devoted employer, and a strategic mastermind. There were many rumors about the Monte Cristo organization, but the most popular of them was that they were the best at what they did, and that they were unstoppable. If any of the rumors even came close to being true, that one came closest.

            So it was that when Frank came to, he found himself completely surrounded by female sentries.  There were three of them, they were all armed. The drug he had taken that had made him feel so blindly invincible had now worn off. So, he felt no urge to tempt fate by trying anything. Those women looked only too willing to shoot him on the spot.

            But not, perhaps, as willing as the woman who was walking towards him right now tossing a nine millimeter back and forth between her hands, almost casually.

*          *          *

            Deep down, Monte Cristo probably did want to shoot this guy on the spot. She had never had any tolerance for the kind of scum that tried to take advantage of unsuspecting females. Her anger was only slightly lessened by the fact that the attempt had not merely been incompetent, but had been directed at a woman who was neither unsuspecting, nor capable of being taken advantage of. To Monte Cristo that simply meant that this guy was going to get what he deserved, instead of managing to evade the authorities and go on living his life the way he would if he had tried his little stunt on someone else. In her mind, he still might have deserved death, but she was not overly quick to judge, and at this point, she had no intention of killing him. But he didn’t need to know that.

*          *          *

            With a few motions to Frank’s guards, Monte Cristo made it clear that she wanted him on his feet, and then that she wanted the entire group summoned for a meeting. She ordered Frank tied to a chair, and had him placed in the center of the warehouse. Within five minutes all 23 of Monte Cristo’s group were gathered around him in a circle. The group of women was comprised of all different nationalities.  More than half of them were armed with some sort of weapon. They donned swords, daggers, guns and even crossbows. Monte Cristo and Christina stood in the center of the circle, near Frank. Frank’s wrists were bound behind him on the back side of the grey desk chair in which he had been made to sit.

            The circle of women was silent in anticipation, but after only a short pause in order for her to check that everyone was there, Monte Cristo broke that silence.

            “This man has been brought in by Christina.” She said calmly as if she were introducing an old friend.

“He attempted to rape her earlier this afternoon.” She continued to speak with a disconcerting ease in her voice.

“Unfortunately for him, Christina had no problem in rendering him unconscious and bringing him here. Now, we’re here to decide what to do with him.” At this point she smiled, and upon seeing that, our friend Frank nearly wet himself.

“Any suggestions, ladies?” She asked coolly.

The reaction from the circle of women up till now had been appropriately horrified but mostly silent. However, upon the request for advice, there was an immediate song of voices. The harmony was: “Shoot him!” The melody: “Kill him!” And the chorus was: “Dump him in the river!” You get the general sentiment.

            At this point, good old Frank really did wet himself. This brought on a few calls of disgust, but mainly it brought on laughter.

            Monte Cristo held up her hand for silence.

            “Well sir, these ladies seem to think it fit to take away your life. Do you have anything to say in your defense?”

            Franked stammered and sputtered for a minute, but eventually came up with something to say.

            “P-p-pl-please don’t kill me.”

            Not very eloquent, I must admit, but what can I say, the poor guy was literally scared out of his wits.

            Monte Cristo looked on her captive with pity and disgust.

            “What would you do to keep us from taking your life. What could you do for us that would make your life worth sparing?”

            Frank was quivering in his chair, he was clearly racking his brain for something that would be useful to this group of women. Over the course of the last few minutes he had noticed the tattoos that they all bore, and he had eventually put together the fact that he was dealing with the infamous Monte Cristo organization. He had never known that the group consisted entirely of women. It would have perhaps struck him more profoundly were he not in the throes of fearing for his life. Taking into account who they were, and what his talents were, he couldn’t think of anything he could possibly do for them. His head shook with humiliation and fear.

            Monte Cristo had been toying with her gun for the last minute or so. She now took it in one hand and placed the tip of the barrel next to Frank’s temple.

            “Nothing, huh?” She asked matter-of-factly. “Well, guess we’ll just have to kill you then.”

            She cocked the gun. Frank let out a high pitched cry, and proceeded to defecate on himself.

            “Or…” Suddenly she removed the gun from Frank’s temple and released the hammer slowly back into place.

            “Or, maybe you could just do some research for us.”

            She stepped back a few paces. Frank started sobbing out of relief.

            “Now, granted, you wouldn’t be any use to us with our projects. And besides, I would never trust you with one. But perhaps you could do something else.”

            A sly grin flicked across Monte Cristo’s face. Christina was smiling too, thinking that she saw where Monte Cristo was headed. A few of the women in the circle began to laugh a bit.

            “You see…” She began slowly. “There’s this age-old question that I’ve always wanted to know the answer to. Well, ok, to be honest, I already know the answer. But I think it would do you some good to figure it out yourself. And just to be nice, I’ll give you one year to do it.”

            “Anything, anything!” Frank pleaded. “I’ll find out whatever you want, just don’t kill me.”

            “Very well.” Responded Monte Cristo. “It’s a simple matter really. Just one question. What do women desire most?”

            Frank looked awfully puzzled, he had been thinking of all the ways that he could disappear in a year’s time and never be seen again, and this question threw him off his train of thought.

            Monte Cristo smiled.

“Now, before you get too excited about being let off so easily, and before you start thinking of where you’ll be, other than here, this time next year, let me warn you. You’ve seen the tattoos on our hands, you know who we are. We can, and will, track you for the next year’s time. And don’t think that you’re actually going to find out how we got you here. You’re going to leave here the same way you came, unconscious, in the back of a van. We’re going to drop you right where we found you. And, don’t think you’ve got any advantage over us by having seen our faces. We’re not in hiding, the authorities know who we are, but they can’t pin anything on us. No, Frank, you’re our servant for the next twelve months, and we will collect you at the end of that time. You find out what women desire most. We will collect you no matter where you are, exactly one year from now. If you’re right, you can have your life back. If you’re wrong, then these ladies will get their way, and you’ll be dead. Understood?”

Frank nodded. Just after he did so, he was rendered unconscious again, but this time by a drug that was not going to wear off anytime soon. In a few minutes time, the black mini-van was pulling out of the warehouse and headed back towards that alleyway.

*          *          *

            “Odd punishment,” said Christina, once all the women had disbanded, Frank was on his way home, and she and Monte Cristo were left alone. Monte Cristo was silent for a minute, as if contemplating.

            “Haven’t you ever read Chaucer?” She asked, flickering an ironic smile across her lips.

            “Something I should know?” Christina was somewhat puzzled.

            “Oh, nothing, just a little scheme I’ve been cooking up.” She fell silent again, as if deep in meditation.

*          *          *

            Frank found himself in the middle of our aforementioned alley, only at this point it was truly dark out. He looked around, stood himself up and shook himself off. He had regained consciousness to the less than pleasant warmth of a dog pissing on his leg. He hardly believed what had happened to him. In fact, he wasn’t sure that he did believe what had happened to him. After all, right before he had been rendered unconscious he had been using some mind-altering drug. Perhaps the whole thing had been a dream. Actually, considering the fact that he found himself right back in the same alley where he had purchased the drugs from his dealer, it seemed quite likely that as soon as he took it he had just passed out and begun some violent hallucinations. Then, compulsively his hand went to his nose. Bad idea, it started bleeding again. Well, that didn’t prove anything, he could have done that to himself when he collapsed on the pavement… But his neck was awfully sore. All of a sudden it occurred to him that dream or not, he might very well have been robbed during his periods of unconsciousness. He checked his pockets for his wallet. After a brief scare from not finding it in his back pants pocket, he calmed himself when his hands stumbled across it in his inside jacket pocket. He opened it to be sure of its contents. All of his money, credit cards, and business cards were there. But, there was one new business card in front of all the others. It had a small round symbol off to the left, and just two small words on the right: Monte Cristo.

*          *          *

            Frank spent the next twelve months doing the most frantic research of his life. He took a year’s leave from his firm on the claim of health reasons (which I suppose is true when you consider the consequences of failing at his task), and he began his quest for the answer.

            He started with the most obvious thing he could think of, the Internet. He did hundreds of web searches in all kinds of languages, trying all kinds of different phrases pertaining to “what women desire most of all.” Unfortunately, no matter how he reworded the phrase; “what women want most,” “what women desire,” “desires of women,” “how to please women,” etc. all he turned up were porn sites. At best, he found websites regarding feminine Viagra, or other sexual stimulants. After a month of this he gave up, having decided that either the answer was better sex, or else he needed to find a different medium. He would have considered sex an appropriate answer, but he somehow figured that if that were the case, then he probably wouldn’t have been in trouble with this group of femi-nazis to begin with.

            So, he took the next step, and began library research. He checked out every feminist text he could find. In two months he had done thorough research on all the most prominent feminist texts from the last two centuries (or all those that have been designated as feminist since then). But, all that he could come up with after that was that there were a lot of women who wanted the male half of the species either executed or castrated. For simple reasons of science and procreation he dismissed this as a suicidal ultimate desire, and he was desperately hoping to give women more credit than that, especially since he would be presenting this answer to a group of women that would have the power to do either one of those things to him with ease. No, books, he decided, were not going to provide the answer he was looking for.

            Next he tried movies. Surely, he thought, in the last 20 years, someone has produced a film that has addressed the absolute most desires of women. After all, this was the defining age for women, they were taking over everything, the business sphere, the entertainment field, research, law, medicine. They had the incomes now, and therefore they should be a huge marketing target for the movie industry. And what better than a movie that gave them or told them, exactly what they wanted? He watched every chick-flick he could find. He spent two more months renting flick after flick, trying to find a movie that clearly captured what women wanted. He put it off till last, thinking that it was too obvious to be at all plausible, but he even watched “What Women Want” with Mel Gibson and Helen Hunt. At first he laughed at himself thinking: “Well that’s easy, women want Mel Gibson.” Then, as he watched the film, he became engrossed. There was something there. He watched it again. There was definitely something there. The change that Mel Gibson’s character undergoes in the movie, the final scene with Helen Hunt. There was something there that was important. But Frank couldn’t put it into words. He thought about showing his judges this movie and explaining that he thought the answer was there but couldn’t place it exactly. Upon closer reflection he decided that this would merely look like the world’s cheapest cop-out: “Here you go ladies, here’s a movie that has your question as the title, I think the answer’s in here somewhere, but I’m not sure where.” They would kill him in a heartbeat.

            He went to his last resource. People: hearsay. He began with his close friends and his family, vaguely questioning them about women’s desires under the precept of relationship problems he was having with his –unbeknownst to them- non-existent girlfriend. He asked everyone he knew, men, women, even children. He had heard people say that sometimes children have an enormous insight into questions that frequently baffle adults. One month went by. No luck.

            He was running out of family and friends. He moved on to vague acquaintances, people he’d met only one or two times at parties and such. Another month, no luck.

            He began going through ex-girlfriends. This was not the world’s longest list, but between finding them again, and then convincing them to talk to him again, he used up another month quite quickly. He tried asking them what he had done wrong, what he could have done better in each relationship, the answer was far from helpful: everything.

            He was nearing his wit’s end. He started asking random people he saw in the street. Most of them hurried away from him looking panicked. Others stood and bantered with him briefly until they realized he had no hidden camera with him and had no association with the Tonight Show or Leno. He got a few people to really stop and talk to him, without apprehension and without the lure of a photo-op. Unfortunately, these people were actually as crazy as the people who ran away from Frank suspected him of being. No help. He wandered the city talking to strangers for 3 whole months.

            With one month left, he locked himself in his penthouse apartment and began poring over his notes from the last eleven months. The answer had to be in there somewhere, and he was going to find it if it was the last thing he did. Of course, if he didn’t find it in the next 30 days, it would be the last thing he did…

*          *          *

            “How’s our boy doing?” Monte Cristo asked, looking over Christina’s shoulder at he computer monitor. “Has he tried to skip town yet?”

            “No. Oddly enough, he hasn’t. And it doesn’t look like he’s likely to either. At this point he’s locked himself in his apartment and is doing god knows what. Well, ok, so we know, but it looks like he’s just reviewing his notes. All he does in a day is read notes and order take-out. I guess he’s just waiting for an epiphany.”

            A smirk was present somewhere on Monte Cristo’s face. Not on her lips, not in her cheeks, but somewhere in her eyes.

            “Shall we give him one?” she asked, coldly.

*          *          *

            Frank’s luck hadn’t changed in the last 20 days. He continued to examine his notes with the most scrutinizing detail, but nothing had come of it. He had re-read some of the feminist texts. He had tried once more, in vain, for a non pornographic website concerning women’s desires. He had even watched “What Women Want” five more times, hoping for some sudden glimmer of clarity. No good. He spent his days racking his brains with silly answers he’d come up with along the way: World peace, true love, faithful men, higher paying jobs, men with good senses of humor, to never age, to never gain weight, to live happily ever after… He was lost. He had begun to focus more on the take-out he kept ordering rather than his unending research, since the take-out was much easier to contemplate and didn’t leave him feeling lacking.

            Actually, the take-out had become particularly intriguing lately. He had been ordering from the same pizza place every night for the last three weeks. But three days ago he had noticed a new pizza delivery girl. Well, pizza delivery whale would be a more appropriate term if he were really to be honest. This girl must have weighed about three hundred pounds. He couldn’t figure out how she managed to fit into the elevator with the pizza boxes at the same time. He certainly couldn’t see her driving a delivery truck all around town. But, somehow, she managed it. And every night for the last three days she’d brought him his pizza. The truth is that he was so preoccupied that he had barely noticed at first. Once his attention had been caught though, he had a hard time ridding himself of the image of that bloated pizza girl.

            One week later, three days away from his judgment, but no nearer the answer that was to spare him his life, his doorbell rang. It was nine o’clock, pizza time. It was the same extra large pizza girl that had delivered his pizza to him for the last week. But this time, as he was paying her, he couldn’t help catching her eye, and then he was caught staring at her for a minute. It struck him that her face was pleasant, that it seemed to show that thin girl that is supposedly trapped inside all fat girls struggling to get free. Then he took in her body, she was simply huge. She looked as though she lined herself with sandbags before she got dressed in the mornings. Her hands were still delicate and refined, and her feet seemed disproportionately small. All of which simply reinforced the thin-girl-trapped-in-fat-one theory in Frank’s opinion.

            Frank was startled out of his less than complimentary stupor by the sound of the girl’s voice.

            “I’m sorry sir, I don’t mean to intrude on your personal business, but I couldn’t help but notice that you seem a little, well… distracted, let’s say. Are you alright? You seem like you’ve got something awfully important on your mind…”

            “Huh?” Frank quickly tried to re-grip his senses and stop staring at the blob of woman in front of him. “Oh, yes… yes. I’m doing some very important research. I need to answer a very important question. It’s very important to me.”

            “I can tell sir, you seem to be going about it as if your life depended on it.”

            Frank caught an odd glance from the pizza girl when she said it. It was funny, her voice was quiet, and respectful, but nothing like he had expected from a three hundred pound Domino’s employee. She began to explain herself.

            “I mean to say… well, with you studying so late and seemingly not leaving your apartment. I’ve delivered the same pizza to you at the same time for the last week straight. Whatever it is must be very important to keep a man like yourself locked up for over a week…that’s all.”

            She shifted uncomfortably as if worried that she had offended him.

            “You’re right.” He said. “It is important. Would you believe me if I told you that it was a matter of life or death?”

            The girl looked slightly taken aback, and yet curious, perhaps with a trace of pity.

            “Your life sir?” She asked timidly.

            Just then Frank had an idea.

            “Yes, mine.” He pondered for a moment longer. Then he decided. After all, he thought, I’ve only got three more days, and my luck seems to be fresh out. It can’t hurt to ask. He leaned towards the pizza girl conspiratorially.

            “I don’t suppose you would want to help me would you?”

            “Me, sir? How on earth could I help you?”

            “Well you see, that’s just it, I’m not sure, but what I need to know, directly concerns women, and I don’t see why you won’t do as well as any other.”

            “I guess I’ll take that as a compliment.” Her eyes flickered with sarcasm, but her voice remained steady and Frank didn’t notice.

            “Do you think you could answer a question for me?”

            “Certainly, sir, in so far as I know the answer. What’s the question?”

            Frank paused to add some drama to the moment.

“What do women desire more than anything?”

            The pizza girl began to chuckle softly, her eyes filled with humor and her hand shot up to cover her mouth from Frank’s view.

            “What?” Frank insisted. “What’s so funny? This question has been controlling my life since, since… well since this time last year!”

            “I’m sorry sir, it’s just that, well, you were clearly never an English major, were you?” She stifled another laugh.

            “What has that got to do with anything?!?”

            Frank was somewhat less than amused at the moment. The idea that someone found his last twelve months of torment to be some kind of practical joke didn’t sit well with him.

            The pizza girl thought for a minute, clearly considering something important.

            “I’ll make a deal with you.” She said. “You promise me that you’ll do me one favor. Just one. But any favor that I ask of you that is in your power to do. We’ll write up a contract, and we’ll both sign it. Then, I’ll tell you the answer to your question. If the answer is the right one, the one you need, then you owe me my favor. If I give you the wrong answer, then you’re free of any obligation to me, the contract becomes null and void. What do you think?”

           Frank thought about this for a moment. If he didn’t come up with something in 72 hours he was a dead man. If he took this girl’s answer and it was right then he only owed her a favor. How much could a three hundred pound pizza driver in her mid twenties want? Shit, plastic surgery probably, maybe some lypo, nothing he couldn’t afford. Certainly worth living long enough to do anyone a favor again anyway, right? Sure.

           “Alright, you’ve got yourself a deal. Where do I sign?”

*          *          *

Frank stood in front of his judges yet again, this time freely, and without having urinated all over his clothing, but with a similar sense of awe and fear. He stood facing Monte Cristo and Christina, again with the other 23 women encircling him.

They had come to get him at his apartment. They had actually broken in while he was sleeping, drugged him and then brought him in from there. (Or at least that’s what he assumed had happened since he had gone to sleep in his apartment last night and woken up here this morning.)

Monte Cristo looked at him with a stern face. Everyone was gathered. It was time.

“Well, Frank, you’ve had a year now, we’ve been monitoring you, and it seems you’ve dedicated some serious time to your quandary. Have you come up with a response?”

“Yes I have.” He tried to answer with confidence, but something about his memory of Monte Cristo brandishing that silver nine millimeter made it difficult.

“And?” Asked Monte Cristo, expectantly.

“Well, I spent a lot of time working this out, and I think you’ll all agree with me when I say that what women want most is sovereignty.” He tried smiling triumphantly for a moment but failed miserably. There was silence in the room.

“You’re going to have to translate that one out of middle English if you want it to count, Frank.” Said Monte Cristo, with half of her mouth raised into a coercing smile.

“Oh, right.” Frank stumbled. “Well, that is to say, women want control. Control of what goes on in their own lives, control of the situation at hand.” He smiled again, he’d been able to remember the words he’d so painfully memorized over the last three days.

            “Well ladies,” Monte Cristo panned the room “any objections? Does that sound about right to everyone?”

             A general murmur of consent filled the room. It seemed to sound good to everyone. Monte Cristo began to speak.

            “Well, Frank, I’d say you’ve done it, you’re free to…”

             But then a strangely familiar voice broke in from behind where Frank was standing.

            “Miss Monte Cristo, I have a request please.”

            “What is it Beatrice?” Asked Monte Cristo.

             Frank turned around slowly. It couldn’t be. It simply couldn’t be. But, as he rotated the rest of the180 degrees to look behind him, he saw that indeed it was: the pizza delivery blimp. She waddled up to Monte Cristo and Christina. She had a piece of paper in her hand. She presented it to Monte Cristo.

           “I want this contract honored, if you please.” She said, triumphantly.

            At first Frank’s heart had sunk, thinking that this girl had some diabolical scheme to keep him from leaving that room alive. But then he calmed himself as he realized that she would simply be asking him for money or some other material effect, and then he could be done with this whole ordeal.

            As this went through Frank’s head, Monte Cristo was carefully reading over the contract.

            “Very well,” she said “What favor will you ask of this man?”

            “Oh a very simple one, Miss.”

             Frank's eyes brightened at the prospect of this solution being simple.

            “Well, Beatrice?” Asked Monte Cristo.

             “I want him to marry me.”

*          *          *

            This time when Frank regained consciousness he was in a tuxedo. He wondered if he had been drugged again, but then he remembered what had happened right before he blacked out and realized that he must have fainted. There were three sentries posted at his door when he awoke. After a few moments one of them disappeared for a bit and then reappeared with a boutonniere for his tux.

                “The wedding’s in five minutes, now that you’ve got your strength back. We’re just trying to get the bride into her dress.”

*          *          *

            Picture a king size feather pillow stuffed into a white pillow case half the appropriate size. Now picture that oddly deformed pillow standing next to a penguin and in front of a judge. That’s what it looked like. That’s all you need to know. Let’s move on to the wedding night.

*          *          *

            Frank didn’t even try to carry his bride over the threshold. First of all, he would have killed himself trying and, second of all, it wasn’t a tradition he was feeling very open to at the moment. They walked in side by side, not even touching each other, and as soon as they were in the door he shut it and stalked off to the kitchen.

            “You don’t seem happy darling.” Beatrice was all aglow with something, although Frank couldn’t figure out what. At the moment she seemed to simply be flourishing her keen ability to state the obvious.

             Frank scoffed. He pulled his stainless steel fridge door open and stared blankly into the empty cold of it for a moment.

            “What’s troubling you dear?” Beatrice was peppering her speech with as many synonyms for ‘man I love’ as she could think of.

            “What’s troubling me? What’s troubling me?!?” Frank glared at Beatrice with an immense hatred. “I’ve just married a two ton whale who delivers pizza for a living, and you have the nerve to ask me what’s troubling me?!? Look at you! You must be a size 50. I’m surprised they even make clothes big enough for you! And you’re an uncultured, cheaply educated, piece of white trash as far as I can tell. I have just thrown my social standing at the firm down the toilet and you have the nerve to ask me what’s troubling me?!?”

            Beatrice’s face turned from that of pure innocence towards the accusations that Frank was making, to one of bitter vindictiveness. When she finally spoke, her voice was much calmer and more composed than Frank had imagined it capable of being.

             “Your problem is that I’m fat? Heh, that’s easily taken care of. I can turn myself into a playboy bunny for you if you like. Fat is easy. As far as my being uncultured, uneducated, white trash… Well, I did know the answer to your little riddle, an answer that I might add, saved your life. Which, by the way, you should be immensely grateful for. But that aside, it’s people’s decisions and actions that make them, not their so called ‘social standing.’ You’re worried about saving face with the firm? You haven’t even tried me out as a hostess. Who knows, I might be the world’s best trophy wife. But you wouldn’t even bother to find out before denouncing me in front of the entire world.”

             At this point a shimmer of ironic triumph passed over Beatrice’s face.

             “I’ll make a deal with you,” she continued. “I promise you that I can make myself as slim and beautiful as a playboy bunny as fast as Clark Kent can change into Superman, but I’m not going to tell you how. Just trust me on that part. That being the case, you have two options. Option one: I turn into the beautiful playboy bunny and you can trot me around as your trophy wife in front of all of your lawyer friends. However, that comes with all the dangers that it normally does, the cute little bunny likes to play around. There are lots of lawyers to play with in any one given firm, and rabbits aren’t the most loyal mates. If you keep me as the trophy wife, you take on all the risks of all the scandal that come with that. Your second option, however, is that I remain as this three hundred pound monster you so despise, but I will be the most faithful, brilliant, tactful and presentable wife you could ever ask for. Those are your options. You must choose one or the other.”

              Frank thought for a minute, and he was about to make the obvious choice for the playboy bunny because at least that could be explained to other people… But, something about the last year’s events struck him, and he remembered the words that he himself had uttered to a crowd of women earlier that day. Then, he made his decision.

            “You choose dear.” He put forth in the least condescending voice he could muster. “I leave it to you to decide what kind of wife you wish to be to me. After all, it’s your life.”

            Beatrice’s smile went from sarcastic to sadistic, but Frank was so proud of himself for the moment that he didn’t even notice.

            “So you did learn something today then?” She was all too pleased with this response from him. “Very well then, since you leave it to me… I choose both. I will be both the honest, loyal wife, and the beautiful vixen, never straying from your side.”

            With that, she began stripping. At first Frank was horrified, thinking he was about to get the worlds most disturbing nudie show, but then he realized that what he was seeing under Beatrice’s clothing wasn’t actually flesh. It was more like, well, sandbags. It was a series of flesh colored pillows sewn together into a body suit. After she had peeled off her clothes, she began to peel off her faux flesh. By undoing a series of zippers she was able to loosen and then pull off the oversized body suit. Underneath it, she was wearing a skin tight black spandex body suit, and it became incredibly clear to Frank where the playboy bunny image had come from in Beatrice’s description of herself. In a few seconds, Beatrice pulled off a bit of latex face make-up that had made her face seem somewhat close to proportional to her body. Then she let her hair down. Frank almost fainted for the second time that day, but this time for entirely different reasons.

*          *          *

            And so they lived happily together, with Beatrice as the good honest house wife, always loyal, always loving. Frank was able to parade her around in front all of his friends from the firm and he never had to worry about her faithfulness to him. It was the picture of a 1950’s business marriage. For a time.

*          *          *

One day Frank came back from the office, to find a note on the kitchen counter. Upon reading it, he collapsed in a heap on his kitchen floor, having fainted yet again.

            The note read like this:

Dear Frank,

Three years ago today we were married at the Monte Cristo organization’s warehouse. Earlier that afternoon you had explained what sovereignty was and that it was what women wanted most in life. That night, you granted me sovereignty and let me choose my own fate. And I did...

            I have spent the last three years slowly undermining all of your investments. All of the stock you own will be rendered worthless with one phone call from an anonymous investor. I have negotiated an agreement with a very good lawyer who plans on getting you for about 80 percent of what you’re worth.

 I am a member of the Monte Cristo organization (which I’m amazed you didn’t work out on your own) and you have just been robbed blind. I’m filing for a divorce (that is to say I have already filed for a divorce and it is currently in the works) and the aforementioned lawyer will be sure to meet with you about it.

            Sovereignty is what women want most in life. But, it’s not given to us by men. We’ve already got it. Thanks for the ride[1].

            Beatrice

Sometimes the name they give you is all wrong. Agnes was sure that hers was.

Agnes. She would probably never forgive her parents for their inanely anachronistic breach of naming protocol. She had taken the liberty of looking it up and found that Agnes had been at its most popular in the year 1899 when it had ranked as the 37^th most popular female baby name in United States. 1899! That was almost a hundred years before she was born! What the hell were her parents thinking? Agnes hadn’t even made the top 1000 baby names for the last 35 years. She had only been born 21 years ago, her parents had no excuse.

She supposed her parents might have been hoping for her name to sound exotic since there weren’t bound to be many other Agni her age (she had come to think of the group of women subjected to the name Agnes as Agni, despite the name not being at all related to Latin or its rules for pluralization) but, she couldn’t really give her parents credit for that. It’s not as though they had named her something creative like Adelia or Elenia or something else pleasingly exotic albeit a bit archaic. No, instead they had named her Agnes and she was decidedly NOT an Agnes. She secretly believed that her parents had named her thus in order to insure that she would grow into an Agnes. Every Agnes that she knew was a straight laced old woman who loved cats, lived alone, crocheted baby clothes for all the neighbors and made casseroles for all the neighborhood potlucks. They were clearly all women no parent had ever had to worry about. Of course, this may have been something more attributable to the fact that all the other Agni she knew were over the age 70 rather than the fact that they were named Agnes, but it was hard to tell. She had a difficult time imagining some of her more elderly neighbors off carousing at a younger age, vibrant harlots who shook the night with their sexual energy and raged against the oppression of their gender. Agni of the night! Agni of the streets! Agni of desire! Something about that just didn’t fit.

Agnes was a name that wouldn’t have fit any woman in her early twenties these days, but it fit Agnes even less than she imagined it would fit most women her age. Surely, there was a 20-something out there somewhere who enjoyed cats and crocheting and maybe had a somewhat stilted night life. But Agnes was the least Agnessy person she knew. She liked sports. Not watching sports, but playing sports. And not just any sports but contact sports: men’s lacrosse, rugby, karate, rock climbing, activities that required speed and toughness, mental acuity, and perhaps even a bit of bloodshed on occasion. She liked dogs, and she loved the outdoors, she liked men, and loved sex and she certainly had no interest in crocheting baby clothes.

So it was, that sometime around her 17^th birthday she had created her alter ego: Ahnye. It was really just how she imagined her name might be pronounced in French or Italian or some combination of the two. It sounded far more exotic to her, and somehow more appropriate to her personality. However, what started off as a simple alter ego that she occasionally used to lure in men when she was feeling lonely eventually became something much more.  Agnes soon recognized that Ahnye had a number of other talents that were far more lucrative than her ability to attract the male half of the species.

As it turned out, where Agnes was somewhat reserved about guns and a little bit intimidated by them, Ahnye was a crack shot and completely comfortable with anything from a 22 revolver to a high-powered assault rifle. Perhaps even more importantly, Ahnye was capable of using her feminine charms to connive her way into places she wasn’t supposed to go. Agnes was already good at blending into a crowd when necessary and, as it happened, both Agnes and Ahnye were good with throwing knives (a little skill that Agnes had picked up through one of her Uncles on her mother’s side of the family). While Agnes might have tried to ignore the money making possibilities of these talents, Ahnye used their combined abilities to put Agnes through college.

It wasn’t until a week ago though, the day after her graduation from Georgetown University (Agnes had graduated with a BS in linguistics and minors in three different languages), that Ahnye had been approached by a woman using a pseudonym, who said she might have a use for her talents. Agnes had been surprised, as Ahnye had only ever been contracted by men before. As far as she could tell few women had use for contract killers, or those who did only wanted cheating husbands or meddlesome exes removed from their lives -contracts which Ahnye refused on principal. She had always carefully researched her kills, and she made sure that all of the men she accepted contracts on were men who had committed heinous crimes, either rape, or murder or some unsavory combination of the two and had somehow managed to escape the law. She wasn’t about to start rubbing out the unsuspecting ex-husbands of the DC area simply because their wives were tired of not receiving child support, or because their mistresses were becoming too expensive.

So, she was surprised when she was approached by a lean woman with pointed features in a pin-stripe tailored pants suit asking if she would be willing to partake in an assignment she had to offer. Agnes was somewhat skeptical, the woman had said “assignment” after all, who’s to say she wasn’t with the feds? But, Ahnye was intrigued. 

Since Ahnye usually won those little battles, Agnes now found herself on the roof of the Air and Space Museum with her rifle trained on the scene unfolding below.  Two other women, clad entirely in black, were making their way out of one of the museum storage facilities that was located underground between the Air and Space Museum and the Hrishhorn Museum across the street. Ahnye was under strict orders to watch for interference and to take it out if necessary. That wouldn’t normally be something either she or Agnes would have been ok with – she didn’t like the idea of wasting some poor security guard who had simply ended up on the wrong shift- but she had accepted the assignment, as her assault rifle had been modified and was currently loaded with tranquilizer darts. Anything she shot would go down and stay down, but it would get up in a matter of hours feeling like shit, but unharmed aside from a massive bruise and, possibly, some nausea.

She had been on the roof for the past hour carefully scanning the scene and now she was on full alert as the two women she had been waiting for finally emerged from the storage facility carrying a massive trunk between them. Once they had cleared the facility by about 50 yards a black unmarked van pulled up beside them and they loaded the trunk into the back. Just as they were closing the loading doors on the van Ahnye heard two shouts coming from the door to the Air and Space Museum. Soon, two silhouettes appeared and raced towards the van. Ahnye didn’t even hesitate. Two shots of compressed air rang out and the silhouettes dropped.  In an instant the van was gone. Ahnye waited to see if anyone else were to follow, but found everything quiet. She would have to make her exit soon if she was to be sure that no one associated her with the two sleeping bodies lying in the middle of the square. She disassembled her rifle and packed it neatly into the back of her mandolin case. She removed the black trappings she had draped over her form and stuffed them into her hemp messenger bag.  30 seconds later she was at the foot of the service ladder that had led her up to the roof and was walking nonchalantly down the street whistling her own private tune.

Once she was a few blocks away a black Mercedes sedan pulled up beside her and the side door opened. She stepped in.

“Not bad Agnes.”

“Ahnye, I told you my name is Ahnye.”

The woman who sat across from her eyed her speculatively over her thin rimmed glasses.

“Well, you’re going to have to sort that one out on your own. I can’t afford to hire both of you, and I need Agnes’ skills as well as Ahnye’s, you’ll need to resolve your little identity crisis there.”

Agnes thought about that and nodded.

“Do you think you can handle that?”

“Yes.” Agnes didn’t hesitate.

“Good. Then welcome to the Sister’s of Monte Cristo.”

The woman extended her hand.

“My name is Gladys. Anyone who wants to live calls me Monte Cristo.” 

Back to top

irony, n.

2. fig. A condition of affairs or events of a character opposite to what was, or might naturally be, expected; a contradictory outcome of events as if in mockery of the promise and fitness of things. (In F. ironie du sort.)

Add:    [2.] spec. in Theatr. (freq. as dramatic or tragic irony), the incongruity created when the (tragic) significance of a character's speech or actions is revealed to the audience but unknown to the character concerned; the literary device so used, orig. in Greek tragedy

 (Oxford English Dictionary online)

Kevin Arch once lamented that there just weren’t enough trucks. Rather ironically, he was killed by a truck one month after uttering said complaint. Thus proving that, at least from his perspective, there was already at least one too many trucks.

Lisa used that example of irony in the English class that she taught at nights at the local public college. It was almost as good as the song “isn’t it ironic” not having a single actual example of irony in it, and thus actually being ironic in and of itself. But, most of her students understood the Kevin example better than they understood the song and its title. 

Kevin would have understood it. He would even have appreciated it and probably would have found it amusing had it not ended in his own death. Lisa missed Kevin horribly, but it was healthier to commemorate him as an example of irony than it was to pine away after him. Why couldn’t he have wished for more cake, or more love, or more pillows? Something softer, at least, that wouldn’t have splattered him all over the pavement like the semi that had hit him as he crossed road from Starbucks to the dangerously placed Einstein Brothers’ Bagels across the street.

But he hadn’t. Instead, one month before he was killed, he and Lisa had been driving cross country to go visit Kevin’s “Crazy Aunt Mary” and it had been raining a lot. They were driving late at night and the absolute easiest way to travel in such conditions is to get behind a big rig that’s actually in the fast lane and drive in the nice dry ruts they create in the road. They had been following a friendly Wonder Bread truck for a hundred miles or so, but it had pulled off to a truck stop somewhere in the flats of Kansas and they had lost track of it. So, he had wished for more trucks. Lisa didn’t know if the overall number of trucks in the world had increased by the time Kevin got flattened by one, but she had officially decided there was one too many in the world.

Appropriately, Lisa now complained that there weren’t enough Kevin’s in the world. So, a year later, when she met a dark haired, blue eyed, and well built man named Kevin at the local Starbucks, the literary importance of such a coincidence did not go unnoticed by her. It was clearly a sign. And, to top it all off, Kevin was a writer.

She fell in love almost immediately. Lisa spent her days working on the novel she had let go unfinished for five years, and spent her nights teaching English and attending martial arts classes three times a week. Kevin spent his days teaching high school English, and his nights writing murder mysteries. Kevin and Lisa spent their late nights and their weekends together writing and… “getting their creative juices flowing.” Kevin’s writing was going well, he had sold a few short stories over the last few months and he had even had a call from a producer about one of his plots becoming a movie because it was so creative and yet true to life. Lisa’s writing had been progressing but not going quite as well. She had written a few short stories on the side and had some published, but she just couldn’t get her novel wrapped up.

Lisa and Kevin had been dating for almost two months when she started asking him where he got the inspiration for his stories. She had read them and enjoyed them immensely. The characters were true to life, the plots were original, and his narrative was so clear that it transported her directly to the scene of the crime. She could feel the breath of the killer on her neck as he snuck up behind his victim and ran a knife through her. Some of his stories were actually told from the perspective of the criminal, which made them very intriguing and gave a newer slant to older stories. Kevin informed her that it was all in the research.

“So, you follow detectives around and check out crime scenes in your spare time? Read up on police reports etc.” Lisa asked over coffee one morning.

“That’s part of it yes.”

“What’s the rest of it?”

“I try to think like a criminal, too. Get the other perspective. Try to think about how I would break into a house if I were going to attack someone. What kind of weapon I would use… That sort of thing.”

“Like method acting.”

“Yeah, kind of like that.”

“That’s kind of creepy. I’m not sure I like the idea of you thinking like a criminal.”

“Well, don’t worry, I’ve never written a story where the killer was in a relationship with the victim.”

“Well I guess that’s somewhat reassuring.”

“It wouldn’t be a bad plot though.”

“Hey!”

“I’m just kidding.”

“Not funny.”

            “I’m only teasing.”

            “Well, if you ever do write something like that, just make sure you dump me first. I don’t want to be part of your research.”

            “Deal.”

            Kevin broke up with Lisa two months later. Lisa was heart broken and had completely forgotten about their joking agreement over coffee months earlier. It never occurred to her that the two things might be related. She just assumed that Kevin’s writing success (which had been even greater over the last two months) had taken him to new places, places where she wasn’t welcome.

            Three weeks later Kevin started calling her in the middle of the night wanting to talk about the way things were. One Thursday night at about 2am, he asked if he could come over for coffee. Lisa reluctantly conceded. She had missed Kevin terribly, but she was just starting to get over him and had thoroughly convinced herself that Kevin hadn’t been right for her and she was better off without him. When he showed up at her apartment door wearing a leather jacket in the middle of June she was suspicious, but not for the right reasons.

            Lisa turned to lead Kevin into her apartment. She nodded towards the two cups on the coffee table by her couch and headed to the window so she could try to avoid facing Kevin while she talked, in case the conversation got too emotional. She was standing there looking out the window when a hand clamped down hard on her shoulder. She turned abruptly towards Kevin as he slipped a large dirk that he had been hiding under his jacket into her ribs. As she tried to jump back the blade ricocheted off her rib cage and withdrew as she backed off. Shaking off her initial confusion Lisa found her martial arts training take over as she caught the crazed look in Kevin’s eyes when he came at her again with the dirk. Kevin swung at her with the blade coming in wide from the outside left. She deftly stopped his swing with a side arm block and immediately followed up with a palm heel to the nose. Kevin’s shock showed in his eyes as the blood started to run from his nose, but Lisa barely had time to notice as she turned on her heel and ran for her front door. Just as she made a grab for her cell phone on the stand by the door, thinking to call 911 for help, Kevin caught up with her. As she wrenched the door open and tried to step through it he grabbed her trailing arm that was still on the handle and pulled her back across the threshold. Instantly she turned and threw the elbow of her free arm into Kevin’s chin and immediately followed with the same elbow to his windpipe. She was free again and she wasted no time in sprinting down her hallway and to the stairwell that lead down to the street from her third floor apartment. She leapt the stairs five at a time, barely controlling her balance and crashing into walls and railings as she went, occasionally causing great pain in the wound in her rib cage. After about a 30 second delay she heard running foot steps behind her and knew that her blow to Kevin’s windpipe had not been as effective as she had hoped.

            Lisa finally reached the door to the street, but she could hear Kevin gaining on her. The wound to her side was slowing her down more than she had originally thought. She ran on to the sidewalk and scanned in every direction to see if there was anyone or anywhere she could run to for help. The sidewalks were empty. The streets were practically empty except for the occasional passing car. With no better options she ran towards the Starbucks down the street just as Kevin emerged from her building. Even running flat out she knew he would soon catch her, he had a longer stride than she did and he didn’t have any flesh wounds. She could only hope that her palm heel and elbow had done enough damage to slow him down some.

She almost made it to the Starbucks. She was about 100ft away from the circular green and white sign when an arm clamped down on her shoulder yet again and the momentum whipped her around. She automatically kneed for the groin, it stunned him a bit but he didn’t release her and he started another in swing with his dirk. She side blocked again, this time she gained purchase on his arm and pulled him in. She kneed him in the chest as her arm guided him in and down. This time he let her go. With nowhere else to run, and little energy left for the chase, Lisa stood to fight. She remembered something her sensei had taught her, when someone comes at you with an attack the first rule is not to be there. Kevin lunged at her. She blocked and stepped back into the street. He fell forward onto her raised knee. This time he went down. She kicked him in the face and he lay on the ground. He lay still.

            Lisa stepped back. She paused. She didn’t want to touch him. She decided to call the cops. She crossed to the opposite side of the street and pulled her cell phone out of the pocket where she had hastily stowed it as she had been wrenching open the door. She dialed 911. The reception sucked. She had to keep moving around to try to get a better signal. She kept trying to tell the dispatcher where she was and why she needed help but the signal was in and out. She ended up dancing in circles trying to get a signal. On one of her rotations, she turned to see Kevin coming at her again with his dirk upraised.

            Lisa realized with dramatic irony, that while her first Kevin had wished for more trucks and been killed by a truck, she had wished for more Kevins and was about to be killed by a Kevin.

 Suddenly, Kevin turned and stared as he was enveloped in a bright light. Lisa turned too to see what the source of the light was. She had been so focused on telling the police dispatcher what was going on that she had ignored all else; sound, sight, vibrations in the pavement. Kevin must have been similarly focused, for he didn’t notice the semi barreling down on him until it was too late. He tried to dive off to one side, but that just spread him over more of the bumper.

Lisa woke up in the hospital hours later. Apparently, she had fainted due to a combination of shock and loss of blood. When she came to the police interviewed her about what had happened. She told them everything she knew. During the questioning she eventually recalled the conversation she had with Kevin about his inspiration. When the police later went to his apartment and searched through his notes they found some very disturbing evidence. There were notes on killing people that were in the first person and sounded suspiciously like some of the murders Kevin had written stories about, they also sounded suspiciously like a few cases they had been working. They also found a few pictures of some missing persons, all female. When they searched his laptop they found an almost completed murder mystery told from three perspectives, the killer, the victim and, at the end, the detective. The victim was clearly supposed to be Lisa.

Lisa was thrown off by the whole situation. She puzzled over her relationship with the first Kevin, how she had missed him, and what they had had together. And she puzzled over her relationship with the second Kevin; why he had tried to kill her and whether their relationship had meant anything, or if it had all been a plot for her murder. However, one thing was perfectly clear from the moment she had woken up in the hospital. No matter what else might be said of the world, there were exactly enough trucks in it.

Back to Top