Chapter 10
Same [Expletive Deleted], Different Day
I was a big freaking hero. So were others, but they can write their own books. I was all over the internet, the newspapers, the TV (though I didn’t have access to any of them), and the freaking President was going to give me a medal that I could probably sell for thousands of dollars. Ahhhh…. Victory. Sweet mother victory.
But it isn’t all about me. I knocked on Ash’s door with my arm that wasn’t in a sling, got the word, and opened it. My jaw almost broke on the floor. I waved my good hand in a frenzy.
‘You look awesome!’
‘It’s different!’
And she did. A knee length dress, red like her hair but with scary awesome Jap dragons climbing up along her sides, red like her hair, lip stick, red like her hair, a purse, red like… well, you get the idea. She looked like a high end, top flight harlot, piquing my envy. My purse holding muscles had atrophied, but I plotted how to steal hers’ nonetheless.
‘You packed?’ I felt childish in my school uniform, so I sat on her bed and unleashed my hair to hide behind it. My butt was still sensitive from the electro spanking, but if I knew one thing it was how to survive a spanking.
‘Joel’s on it. He should be at the car now. Your girl is getting that tracking doohickey inside me turned off so the satellites wont call down the army when I cross state lines, and Lauren is picking up my paperwork and I.D. cards. I’ve said my goodbyes to most everyone except you.’
I waved her away. ‘I don’t do goodbyes. If you don’t email me once a week I’ll track you down and kill you, satellite or not.’ Ash moved faster than my brain registered light via my eyes (a trick most people can do it seems. I need better reflexes). I found myself incased in Ash, her kneeling on the ground before me, messing her dress and squeezing all the oxygen out of me. She wept a little. That’s the way it is with tough guys. You can beat them all day with a cane, but if you wanna pump a gallon of tears just show them the end of a sap movie and they turn Niobe.
I hugged back.
‘Hey, maniac. Come on.’ I patted her back. ‘Look, it’s not like one of us is going to the moon, muscle atrophy from the reduced gravity to the extent that a return to Earth would kill us, and thus we’ll never meet again.’ The truth was that I wanted to cry to beat the band. Ash was being released into Taggart’s custody. The President, the public opinion whore he was, nixed the nine years she had coming (nine freaking years! That’s thirteen years of high school total!)(one year for reckless use of an automobile, eight for escape attempts) and, as parole, put the little vixen into the care of a recently retired Free Range Agent. The idea was that her parole needed to be watched by a man capable of killing a bear with his bare hands, and the retiree needed some excitement in a boring life of teaching others how to kill bears with bare hands. They say retirement is the number one killer. We’ll see…
Parole aside, of course, Ash and Joel were totally hot for each other. I watched Ash baby Taggart on the EMT’s stretcher when the cameras recorded Snuggle Bunny explain how she shoved Alexia’s nose into her brain by ramming the traitor’s breather into the locked Utility Room door again and again until the door burst opened, allowing SB to turn the power off before the damn bomb charged to a critical mass to kill us all. Adorable. I love having a tough guy protector for a girlfriend. If wolves, pirates, or DDU agents ever attack me, I’ll just unleash The Snuggle Bunny, sit back with a martini for sipping, and watch my enemies catch a world class beating.
I fixed Ash’s tear stained eyeliner (DAMN IT I WANT EYELINER TOO!!!) before escorting her to the garage. I prepared her for life on the outside, which was apropos because we were outside.
‘The trick to good Chinese food is wooden chop sticks. Don’t go into that ivory crap. Pretentious nonsense. Oh, and make sure Joel takes you out to eat after the movie. You eat before the movie and all the blood is in your stomach instead of your head, where it belongs at the theater. Plus, you know, you have something to talk about at dinner. Let him talk first. If you disagree on the movie he’ll get defensive because men are like that. Find out how he liked the movie, then… This is so unreal.’
We stood outside, in front of the garage, where a bunch of cars sat ready to be stolen, and nobody was spanking us. The other direction was Mother Earth with all her glories, plains and trees begging/demanding eye attention. An intoxicating paradox.
Taggart’s car sat around the bend in the guest parking lot.
‘I know. Getting out…’ Ash grabbed me and stared me down like she is want to do. ‘Joel has a Mustang. A real one.’
‘Well I want to see it.’ I pouted even though I didn’t really know what a “real” Mustang was, other than a horse.
‘It has an internal combustion engine. A real one. I love him. I…’ I pat her cheek. I could tell that was the first time she said it aloud. It wasn’t casual enough. It was a confession, not a statement. And she didn’t love him because he had such a vehicle; it’s just that an honest man on a public salary putting in the effort to acquire and maintain such a beast is the type it took to acquire and maintain an Ash. That type of guy. ‘I’m sort of scared, you know?’ I nodded. ‘Of course, I like to be scared.’
‘Is he going to… you know.’
‘He’s threatened to spank me everyday for the rest of my life if I don’t calm down, but I don’t think his heart is in it. He’s got this hang-up about keeping the innocent safe from pain.’
‘Yeah, but is he going to spank you?’ I like making her laugh. And I’m good at it.
‘Your girl is coming. Hey, could you distract her? Lauren is coming in a sec, and I only want one goodbye. Okay?’ See? Tough guys are saps. ‘And I have a stuffed animal for her in the car I need to get. And, you know, Joel is packing the car, I’d like a last private moment with him here, where we met, you know?’
‘But you didn’t meet him here.’
‘Yes, but I stopped hating him here.’
‘Right. Say no more. Run on, then.’
Ash walked off while I blocked the invading Snuggle Bunny with hugs and kisses. She only put one arm around me because the other was in a sling, like me, but I don’t accept excuses so I kissed her twice as hard to teach her a lesson. I did have to release her eventually because of oxygen and the human need to consume it. My nose never quite healed.
‘Where’s the psychoooo?’ Darlin Snuggle Bunny slipped into her southern accent. She did this whenever she got to converse with a fellow rebel, even if born again.
‘She’s being efficient. Wants to say goodbye all at once. How was your call to Governor Phair this morning?’
‘Just got off the line with the Honorable Lady. It was nice to talk to someone from
‘Yank?! I’m from the… What?’
‘Yeah, the Queen Georgia Peach is slated to name this new fangled solar liner supposed to make trade with the plastic plants on Pluto viable. She told me I could name it for my legendary-in-our-times heroism and because she couldn’t think of anything good herself. I don’t know what her ideas were because our line got cut and I couldn’t get her back. But now I’m naming the dang thing after the family dog. “All aboard! The F.A.S. Roscoe leaves in ten minutes!”’
‘You are naming that damn thing the F.A.S. William Archer after my dad or I will—‘ She took one step closer.
‘What? What will you do?’
‘I’ll put salt in your coffee for the rest of your life. See your governor best friend save you from—wait. Wait, wait. Weren’t you turning off the tracker doohickey in Ash’s body?’
‘No. No, how could I? I wouldn’t even know who to call, and even if I did, what power do I have tell a Fed to… didn’t Taggart already inject her?’
‘Inject?’
‘Yo!’ Killroy sauntered up with her hands out in the “what the fuck” gesture of my beloved New Yorkers. ‘What the fuck!? Phone lines are out so I can’t get any paperwork through the Faxdat. It’s like
‘Paperwork?’ I said and thought aloud. ‘Lauren’s getting Ash’s paperwork.’
‘That ditz? Nah, Ash asked me, and I thought, “What the Hell,” ya know, “Hey, I once processed the paperwork for a big damn hero, you hear?” to my grandkids, sept I can’t because the damn phone lines are… hey, what’s with the power?’
Snuggle Bunny and I followed her gaze. ‘What?’ SB asked.
‘The light to the garage door security lock.’ Killroy said, pointing. The little box was dead of light. ‘See, the little button should glow red, but it ain’t on. Powers out now—this is
‘Wait! You didn’t deactivate Ash’s tracker, and you were working on her paperwork. So… Ash lied to me. So… Ash is—‘
‘Hey!’ Lauren pounced on us. ‘I have the letter!’
SB snatched it. ‘What letter?’ Lauren felt hurt. SB could be a little harsh at times of total chaos, probably because she preferred order over chaos, but I’m no shrink; I’m just the person that nibbles her ears.
‘The letter for Danielle in the Utility Room. Ash forgot it there and asked me to get it. Funny, the lights went out after I closed the door.’
We stared at her. Well, most of us.
‘Yeah,’ Killroy slanted her rat eyes at the garage. ‘All these tires are slashed but good. These cars aren’t going nowhere.’
‘Wait,’ Snuggle Bunny said again. ‘This letter is addressed to Taggart, not Danny.’ I snatched the letter from SB.
‘Oh?’ Lauren peered over my shoulder. ‘Well, Ashley didn’t ask me to look at it, she just told me to grab the letter five minutes after you two left her room, then make sure I closed the door all the way until I heard an electric snap. I thought it was a game.’
Killroy shoved me. ‘Hey, lookit. A ring of keys is hanging out of the Car key box. Lookit.’
Snuggle Bunny ran off to investigate. I squinted and kind of saw what might have been a ring of keys in the car key box hanging off the wall. I have 20/20 vision.
‘Did an eagle get your mom drunk and take advantage of her or something?’
Killroy sneered back. ‘Eat your carrots, Archer. They’re good for ya.’
‘Hey,’ Taggart! He limped up on his crutch. ‘Why do all of you look confused?
‘Psycho!’ Snuggle Bunny ran back to us. ‘Ash slashed the tires and stole all the Southdown car keys with her keys.’ Evil-Lyn (Snuggle Bunny rested dormant) displayed the ring of copied keys. ‘And she rigged it so Lauren here cut the power to the school by shutting the Utility Room’s door. I don’t know how she cut the phone lines, but she did.’
Taggart drew his phone like a gunslinger drew his gun that wasn’t there. I don’t know how few we are, those that have seen a Praxis Man astonished, but I’m a card carrying member of the club.
‘She lifted my phone.’
‘She left you a letter!’ Sweet Lauren, always so helpful.
Taggart, beaten and broken and deadly, looked right at me.
‘She said you were packing your car! Right over there!’ No
Taggart ripped into Ash’s letter. He mumbled aloud:
I want you to catch me. I wont argue it: I’m crazy. I’d rather be caught by you and forced into your custody than court ordered. Like a real mustang. I want you to win, but I’m not going to make it easy for you, Joel. I’m going dark. I’ll be patient. You should rest a bit first before, you know, tracking me down. I wont cavort. I love you, but I think this is my last run, so I plan to make it a doozey.
P.S. To the girls, I demand our friendship doesn’t end at graduation, no matter where we end up. I love you too much for that. The Pattington Bear by the Mustang’s tire tracks is for Lauren.
Taggart looked up from the note to watch his Mustang run off with his mustang.
‘She will never sit down again.’
‘Hey,’ Killroy patted Taggart on the back. ‘At least I seen she was wearing her seatbelt. That’s something, right?’
Idiot.
Epilogue
Free two weeks to the day, I regained consciousness on the bathroom floor of the finest penthouse suite in
Evelyn came back two hours later. From her fine attire she had been out early pressing the Establishment for a job at Southdown. She looked wonderful in a gray dress suit. She didn’t look like a child at all. She looked like a woman. Evelyn, tired, her suit hung neatly, sat at the living room table and checked papers in her briefcase. She had a briefcase already. I hadn’t even bought her a Indiana Jones hat yet. God, she’d look so hot…
I was dressed in black sweat pants and a white T-shirt because they were the only clean clothes I possessed. There was a cartoon kangaroo on the T-shirt I didn’t recognize, but I remembered buying it sometime that week, or perhaps the week before that. I don’t remember stealing it.
I sat down with my face and hair down, my hands in my lap. She ignored me.
‘I think, maybe,’ I began. ‘We should go back to the way it was before.’
‘Hmmm?’ She kept her eyes on her work.
‘I think, maybe, I’m not a very strong person.’
‘Hm.’
‘I think… well,’ My eyes and my hair were down. My hands were in my lap. However, they were not empty.
I put Evil-Lyn’s hairbrush on the table.
‘I… well, I’m pathetic. After four years inside, and saving the Free World, and two weeks later just look at me. I’m, well, with all this talk of freedom, and fighting for freedom, I don’t think I’m fit for freedom. I’m pathetic, and if you don’t want me around, I understand. But I think you should give me a chance.’ I wrung my hands. ‘I feel like a rat. I think, with your… help… I wouldn’t be so pathetic. I could be, you know, the way I was. When you met me. I can’t change the past, how I have been, but if I could argue how I will be, then…‘
She didn’t let me, the pushy bitch. She just picked me up and hugged me. I decided to shut up and let her talk.
‘Do you have any idea how painful the last week was for me?’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Hey!’ She pushed me off her far enough to point a finger in my face. ‘Don’t you ever say you’re sorry to me, understand?’
No, I didn’t, but I didn’t feel I was in a position to argue. ‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘Good. Never tell me you’re sorry,’ Evil-Lyn grabbed the brush. ‘Until I’ve made you sorry.’
Sweat paints around my knees, me over Snuggle Bunny’s lap, me right at home, I couldn’t help but appreciate how awesome the penthouse carpet was.
WHACKWHACKWHACKWHACKWHACKWHACK
‘Hey! Ouch! JEEZE! Warm up spanks! Warm up spanks! ACH! ACH! ACH! Jesusfuckingchri--YEOW!!!’
‘Warm CRACK up CRACK spanks CRACK are CRACK for CRACK good CRACK girls CRACK brat!’
Forty or so seat smackers later, I gasped into the carpet. Mmmmmm… I could get used to this. The carpet was much softer than Southdown’s. More tear absorbent, too.
‘Now, that was for calling yourself pathetic.’
‘Pardon?’ I’d been in
‘Danny, you learn, but after you learn a little you think you know it all.’ This is what she told me. ‘Yes, freedom is responsibility, but none of us are gods. The best you could do is give me my brush and ask me to use it when I see fit, and you did it. That’s not pathetic, wench. That’s knowing yourself. I’m so freaking proud of you.’
She rubbed my neck, but she didn’t fool me. I panicked and tried to beat it to safety. This was
Knowing her enemy as her enemy knew herself, Snuggle Bunny lynched my arm into my back, and raised the hairbrush I should have hidden in the penthouse fireplace.
‘Let’s see… fifty for equating my girlfriend to a rat, fifty for doubting your girlfriend’s love, and fifty for getting you a job.’
SMACK!
‘OUCH! Wait wait wait. Job?’
‘Yeah, dummy. What do you think I’ve been doing while you partied? Southdown is dangerously understaffed due to half of the teachers being foreign agents who are now dead or getting waterboarded; in any case not teaching. Since they named me the next Matron a week ago, I’ve been working with the state to fill positions. Guess whose teaching classes in literature and accounting next semester?’
SMACK!
‘No!’
SMACK!
‘That’s 3 smacks out of 150.’ Evil-Lyn mused. ‘What does that leave your bottom, Teach?’
‘Bitch!’
‘No, the answer is not 197 licks, but then again, you’re the accounting professor, so I guess I’ll just have to take your word on it. So, 196 then.’
‘No! No! I meant it-YEOCH! GAHH! GAHH! GAHH! JEE! WHAAAAAAAA!!!’
Sigh. That was damn fine carpet, though.
Couch Van Brown stayed coaching. She realized, after saving us by brutally slaying Gregor in the cafeteria (the Pope gave her a medal, which is pretty multicultural of his Holy Father if you consider she’s Southern Baptist), that we girls needed her protection and guidance more than some ice miners needed a psalm spouting third-rate cook. She’s added kickboxing and fencing to the regime. Every generation should be better than the last. The next generation of degenerates will be able to run the mile in six minutes, then kick the crap out of somebody.
The rest of the girls made out alright, but they can write their own damn book. Still, my story isn’t quite over yet.
Ash is doing fine. Taggart, in crutches, caught her in three weeks. She worked as a roadie for a touring German classic rock band with diplomatic papers that allowed travel without inspection. Taggart caught up to them in the Chicago Principality. Ash wrote me that she was so delighted at being hunted down that she didn’t even mind Taggart breaking the drummer’s left index finger. “Shouldn’t poke Joel in the chest like that,” she wrote.
She also wrote some science fiction. She claims, to this day, that Joel forced her to craft a wooden paddle that would scare even her, then spanked her with it every three days for two months, stopping only after she finely asked him to stop. Ash wilting to pain? Ludicrous, but I wasn’t about to call a psychopath a liar.
The day after she wrote this letter she escaped again. So Joel caught her again, spanked her again, then bought her the old timer’s used car garage. The old timer stayed on, immortal, and taught Ash all about cars. Ash was content for three whole months, then Joel read that body language. She was getting that cagey look about her, so he latched her to an 9 pounds 8 ounce anchor.
Now Taggart can’t even get her out of the baby’s room. Joel wrote me that Ash spent all her free time clutched to the rim of the crib, inspecting like a hawk, so Snuggle Bunny and I visited on Spring Break. It was a nice break from sending girls to get spanked by my Life Partner. I’m just not into spanking others. I tried spanking Evelyn for kinky fun, but we couldn’t stop laughing (after the failure, she dressed me up as a French maid and walloped me with a strap, just for clarification she told me). However, the girls fear my intimate relation, so I keep a pretty tight ship. Also, of course, I know every trick in the book.
Quis Custodiet ipsos Custodes? Answer?
Me.
Guess what we did first at Casa del Taggart?
Behold in all his glory! Daniel William Taggart. Taggart lied that Daniel was named after Ash’s father. Bah! Blonde hair like his daddy, eyes psychotic-sky blue like his mommy.
Danny William Taggart, before he could stand, learned how to pull himself out of a crib by kneeling on bunched up stuffed animals. I looked down on him as a giant. Half out of the crib, brain not even fully developed, he stared me square in the eyes, daring me. He smiled like he knew where I hid my cookies.
‘How much did it cost?’ I asked, squinting at the rug rat.
‘What?’ Joel asked.
‘To get the plastic surgeon to remove the “666”?’
Little brat wasn’t a year old and already got me spanked, right there in the living room. Ash and Taggart, laughing, assured Snuggle Bunny it was just a funny joke, but they didn’t assure very hard. My blonde taskmaster gave me a good one, but only half as bad as she could and had or would. My punishment done, I thanked Evelyn for my spanking, wiped my eyes, returned my clothes to their proper position, and sipped my second glass of wine slow, as I was allowed only three. Normally two a night, but this was a special occasion, so I could drink three.
Later I took everybody’s glasses to refill while Evelyn took Daniel in her arms and cooed at him. ‘He’s perfect.’ She looked at the baby. Then me. Then the baby. Then me. She smiled.
She looked at the baby again while I poured my third glass and then downed it all in one go.
The End
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