“I made a deal and they reneged on it, and killed my niece in the process.”
Christina Roberts

Monday evening, 14 March 2016

GM: One Shell Square is New Orleans’ tallest skyscraper. It’s imminently due to be renamed the Whitney Hancock Center, after they relocate their corporate headquarters to the building, but it might be a while before people stop using the old name completely. The Corner Club is in its basement. One Shell Square is one of the comparatively few buildings in New Orleans to even have a basement, thanks to the CBD’s rockier ground.


The club’s interior is best described as subdued. Soft multichromatic lights illuminate the silhouettes of dark figures. In contrast to the wildly spinning and scintillating lights at French Quarter dance clubs, the Corner Club’s are stationary and reflect a graduating color palette: yellow by the bar, orange in an adjacent corner, magenta in the one next by, and indigo at that spot’s neighbor. People’s faces are visible up close, but dark and hard to identify from farther away. Background music is soft, relaxing, and only half-audible against the low murmur of conversation. There is no central dance floor. Most patrons are parked at the bar, reclining on comfortable-looking leather seats, or secluded in private alcoves or meeting rooms. Most wear business or business casual attire. Ages range from yuppies to parents to grandparents.


Marcus Marrow greets Victoria warmly when he sees her. He greets everyone warmly, though her perhaps more so than most. Still, she’s not here for him tonight. Christina Roberts has missed their last several get-togethers. She’s here tonight, though. Parked at the bar and nursing a drink with a sour look.

Victoria: “Marcus,” she purrs, resting a hand upon his forearm and standing up on her toes to kiss his cheek, a glint of warm fondness in her eyes.

“It’s been far too long.”

It hasn’t been long; but, then it feels longer than it is once Victoria Wolf enthralls your attention, doesn’t it?

“Unfortunately, we won’t be remedying that problem tonight. Another night, perhaps?”

She doesn’t say when. Poor boy.

GM: “Another night,” the handsome club owner agrees amiably, raising her hand to kind in turn.

Is there disappointed longing in his eyes?

Yes. Yes, there is.

Maybe he could have some say when, if he paid her hourly rate.

But that’s just crass, when she’s seeing you outside of work.

Victoria: She’s already taken enough to make it worth her while, time well-spent aside.

She looks around, spotting Christina at the bar.

“Til then, my dearest.” Her fingertips grace his chin, then leave him wanting and cold.

GM: So very wanting.

Victoria: She arrives at the bar, stealing a stool from Christina just as a man arrives, likely to accost her for a phone number.

“Christina,” she breathes, as if the woman is a gift.

GM: The man glowers at Victoria and heads off.

Christina glowers after him.

“Thanks,” she says rotely, taking another sip from her drink. She’s a handsome, 40-something woman who wears her age well. She has long brown hair that falls to her upper back, matching eyes, and faint lines around her mouth that give her face a slightly sad, or at least contemplative expression. Or at least when she’s not looking as sour as she currently does. She’s dressed in business casual.



Victoria: She looks at the bartender, taps the bar, points to Christina’s drink, then holds up two fingers.

Two more of whatever that is.

“My, my. I haven’t even had time to bug you yet and you already look at me like that.”

GM: The bartender gets started on Victoria’s drinks.

“I’ve had a death in the family,” Christina says frankly.

Victoria: Her lips part in shock, her hand following.

“Christina… I’m so, so sorry. What was their relation?”

GM: “My niece,” answers the madame in the same hard tone. “My sister’s daughter.”

Victoria: She touches Christina’s forearm gently.

“You have my most sincere condolences, Christina. You’re a dear friend. If there’s anything I can do…”

GM: Christina looks her over thoughtfully as the bartender slides over her drinks.

Victoria recognizes her. Becca Flynn, one of Channelle Riqueti’s occasional escorts.

“Dead is dead,” the madame answers. “There’s not much to be done.”

“How’s work?”

Victoria: Still, she gives her a sympathetic look and brings a drink to her lips, sipping.

“Productive. Riveting. It’s something to fill the dreams of those who… Well, you very well know.”

She isn’t going to allude to anyone. It’s their silent agreement.

She offers Christina a somber look.

“Do you need to talk? We can go somewhere more quiet.”

GM: Christina’s happy to talk about what clients do with girls. But she never gives names.

“Our drinks aren’t empty yet,” she observes. “Maybe then.”

“How’s the one who wants his mommy to say she’s proud?”

Victoria is pretty sure that Jordan savors that more than the actual sexual release.

Victoria: Victoria snorts.

“Babe, you could flip open a phone book and you’d have touched at least 6 names that fit that description.”

GM: “The real question is which half are seeing you or my girls,” Christina says dryly.

She sips her drink.

“Has your girlfriend had any luck finding another teaching job?”

Victoria: She gives a coy smile.

“Variety is spice, and all of that. Anna… Has not. I worry for her if she doesn’t find some outlet for her dreams, but I worry more if she thinks about teaching in the slums again.”

GM: “You can’t teach that class of people,” says Christina.

Victoria: Victoria looks like she can’t decide whether she wants to laugh or kiss her.

GM: “I’ve had a few girls from that sort of background. They’re driven and hungry. They’re also a minority. Diamonds in the rough.”

Victoria: “Clearly someone finds them desirable, or they wouldn’t be in your employ. Though, desire is as much a craft as it is a gift.”

GM: “They’re only desired, at least by my clients, after they’ve cleaned up and learned how to speak. I’ve coached them. You wouldn’t know they were from the Ninth unless they told you.”

“Regardless, that’s unfortunate for your girlfriend.”

Victoria: “How long does it take you? On average.”

She doesn’t answer the comment on Anna yet.

GM: “I coach all of my girls, to some degree, so it’s more of an ongoing thing. They’d already risen above their backgrounds just by going to college.”

Victoria: She smiles, sipping from her drink to fill the pause.

“An ongoing miracle worker,” she teases. “As for my girlfriend, she’ll live. I hope. I’ve filled her time with other activities and other avenues for feeling valuable, but it’s not the same as what she wanted to do. I suppose I could open a school myself…”

GM: Christina raises an eyebrow. “That’s not the sort of thing someone does as a side project.”

Victoria: She shrugs.

“I don’t anticipate it would be, though I don’t anticipate I would be more than funding it. More musing about the idea.”

GM: “Careers don’t always work out. I thought I was going to be a lawyer.”

Victoria: “I thought I was going to build space ships, or ride them.”

She shrugs.

“Now I live the American dream.”

GM: Christina makes chatter about assorted topics for a while longer. The recent death among the Malveauxes, very sad; hopefully they don’t have enemies. The pair’s drinks eventually empty.

“I’m going to stretch my legs at Lafayette Square, if you’d care to join me,” she declares, setting her glass down.

Victoria: Something in Christina’s question piques her warning sensors.

“Sure, I could go for a walk.”

She places a tip on the counter.

GM: Christina does likewise and exits the club. A low drizzle falls overhead. The madame retrieves an umbrella from her car.

“I heard about Anna’s firing,” she says. “Scapegoat, wasn’t she, to placate the girls’ families before the NOPD did anything about Gettis?”

Victoria: “Exactly what she fucking was,” the dominatrix hisses, huddling with Christina beneath her umbrella.

“I managed to connive an extra week’s severance out of them, but they’d hear nothing of reinstating her place, nor even a good word for a future employer.”

GM: “No, I imagine they were putting in a bad word,” says Christina, making her way down the street. Pedestrians pass them by, some with their own umbrellas out. “The Devillers, Whitneys, and Malveauxes went to a lot of trouble to ruin everyone connected to their daughters’ arrests and shootings. The involved NOPD officers have all been fired or demoted.”

Victoria: “They’re going through an awful lot of trouble to ensure word never gets out about what happened,” she says through a sideways glance.

GM: “That what happened, some idiot girls got themselves into trouble?”

Victoria: She lofts a brow, but remains silent.

GM: Christina waits expectantly.

Victoria: “So they say. There’s always more we don’t hear. Do you know?”

GM: “Do I know what?”

Victoria: “What the ‘more we don’t hear’ is.”

Her words are hushed enough that the rain covers.

GM: “Speak plainly,” says Christina as the pair reach the park. “I doubt that any of the club’s Malveaux eyes and ears have followed us out.”

“I suspect I know more than most about the events of that night, though.”

Victoria: She glances back toward the club, verifying for herself that no one followed.

“I can’t promise revenge, but those events affected me, too. You must want revenge for what happened.”

GM: Victoria doesn’t see anyone among the press of pedestrians.

Christina raises her eyebrows.

“And I thought I was to the point.”

Her gaze darkens.

“Yes. I do. I made a deal and they reneged on it, and killed my niece in the process.”

Victoria: If Victoria still had her drink, it’d be all over the bar.

She stares.

“…do you have a close place?”

Even the rain is too open.

GM: “We’re safe enough here,” says Christina. “But your or my car, if you’d prefer.”

Victoria: “Mine. It’s a few blocks back toward the club.”

GM: The pair walk back and get in.

“She said Ms. Perry was one of her favorite teachers,” Christina remarks. “Engaging, enthusiastic, and appreciative of her knowledge.”

Victoria: “She’s one of the best teachers ever to grace this city, and it’s a crime that she’s taking the fall.”

She clenches the armrest in lieu of punching the wheel.

“So, what can we do? I don’t have the resources to fight every wealthy family in the city at once. Not in a public fight.”

GM: “More than the fall,” says Christina. “I know how these families operate. They don’t want her to just get another job. Strong probably spoke with other principals at the city’s better schools and recommended against Anna’s future hiring.”

Victoria: “But why? As a show of good faith to the families? Is this all some warped yubitsume metaphor to sate them?”

GM: “Because Abélia Devillers, Lyman Whitney, and Vera Malveaux all sit on McGehee’s Board of Trustees. They blame Anna for what happened to their daughters, and there was a while in between their daughters getting shot and Gettis getting shot. So they set out to ruin the life of someone they could get to. They tell Strong to put in a bad word with other principals, so of course she does.”

Victoria: This time, she does punch the wheel. She does not, however, hit the horn.

GM: “It’s consistent with what’s happened to the involved NOPD officers. And Amelie. They want everyone they think was involved to suffer.”

Victoria: “All because some girls goofed off in a haunted house? That feels a bit harsh.”

“Not that it’s any less true.”

GM: “Because those girls were arrested at the haunted house, got shot, and almost died.”

Victoria: “Why were they shot? It doesn’t make any sense.”

“I recall seeing the news days later. Hell, Anna got the phone call right next to me as we were watching.”

GM: Christina shrugs. “I could care less. They blamed Amelie. I made a deal with the Malveauxes in good faith to stop this from completely destroying her future.”

“Now she’s dead. I want payback.”

“I imagine you do too, for Anna being blacklisted from her career.”

Victoria: “They took one life, ruined one, and lessened many others. I want them to suffer.”

GM: “They don’t yet know that I know. All the same, you’ll have a freer hand to move against them than me. They dealt with me. I don’t know if they even know abut you.”

Victoria: “They don’t know that you know… what? That your niece is dead?”

GM: “Yes.”

“They disposed of her body. There won’t be a funeral.”

Christina’s jaws clench.

Victoria: “You’re not serious.”

She wouldn’t joke in a conversation like this.

“How did she die, Christina?”

GM: “She was sent to OPP’s male ward. I imagine that had something to do with it.”

Flint dances in the madam’s eyes.

Victoria: Victoria pales.

GM: “I have no idea how she died. She could have been gang-raped to death for all I know.”

Victoria: “Wait… Amelie? Anna mentioned her before. She is your niece?”

GM: “Yes. The girl at the center of the LaLaurie House fiasco, and used as the scapegoat for everything there.”

Victoria: Her poor steering wheel. The cold, collected woman is boiling over and slopping fire all over the car.

“I hope you have a way to collect the names of those who allowed her in there. Police. Judges. Lawyers. Whoever the fuck.”

GM: “None of them were involved in her going to the house. Just the bullshit sentencing for drug charges that should have stuck to the rich girls.”

Victoria: “Every face that watched her go from sentencing to the male ward is just as guilty,” she spits.

GM: “You can’t just send female inmates to the male ward. That’s illegal. Someone went to a lot of trouble, and paid their share of bribes to sheriff’s deputies, to ensure she wound up there.”

Victoria: “My point exactly.”

She rubs her hands over her face, drawing in a breath, holding it, and releasing.

Calm, Victoria. Calm. This isn’t 5th grade, and you can’t go punching cops. Not if you want to strap more than one to a table.

GM: “The best revenge on these sorts of families is destroying their reputations,” says Christina. “They have deep enough pockets to win any legal battle, but you can’t buy reputation. Easily, anyway.”

Victoria: “And how would you suggest we ruin their reputation? We’re two small fish in a very large sea.”

GM: “We deal in reputations. With every client we, or our girls, see. With every dirty and sordid detail we keep out of the public eye, we protect our clients, and they feel safe coming back for more.”

Victoria: She gives Christina a look.

“The moment we open our mouths to ruin one, we’ll be found facedown in the Mississippi.”

“We have to do it without it being traced back.”

GM: “Yes,” says Christina. “They don’t need to destroy us. Just convince our clients we aren’t discrete. Then our businesses evaporate.”

Victoria: “You know as well as I that the moment we’re fully discredited, we’ll disappear. Point remains the same.”

GM: “Disputable, but irrelevant, insofar as both are undesired outcomes.”

Victoria: “Well… We have piles of dirt, and no ability to use it. How would you suggest those secrets come out?”

GM: Christina thinks. “Get other dirt. Get something bad enough on one family member and put the squeeze on him for dirt of another variety. Leak that out through someone else.”

Victoria: She breathes a long sigh.

“We are so dead.”

A pause.

“They can’t get away with it.”

GM: “No. They can’t.”

“They won’t.”

Friday afternoon, 18 March 2016

GM: It’s another few days before the pair meet at a crowded restaurant to discuss plans, at Victoria’s request. Christina thinks it’s better to avoid meeting at the Corner Club for such talk.

Victoria: It’s better not to plan the bear’s demise in its own den.

The pair take a wooden table in the corner, ensuring they’re readily able to spot any eavesdroppers.

“We’ll have to be cautious about how we approach this if we want our own lives not to go down with them.”

GM: Christina orders drinks and appetizers to start off.

Victoria: Victoria sticks to water.

And a plate of wings.

GM: “Naturally. What did you want to discuss?”

Victoria: “The first domino. Our goal is the families themselves, but targeting them would be foolish; so, we’ll target peripheral names or less prominent members, find something about them, and use that leverage to pry something out against the major names. Do you have a preference on which family is first?”

GM: “The Malveauxes,” says Christina. “I don’t see the Devillers or Whitneys being the direct hands behind Amelie’s death.”

Victoria: “Explain.”

GM: “Modus operandi. Connections.” Christina waves a hand. “The Malveauxes play dirtier.”

“They are also the most vulnerable now, in many ways.”

Victoria: She listens intently.

“Ways such as…? Why?”

GM: “Orson had his heart attack. You don’t recover from that easily, at his age or weight. Claire’s and Westley’s death have been all over the news. Frankly, I’d already suspect foul play, with two Malveauxes dead in one year.”

Victoria: “You think?”

Sarcasm.

GM: “Every so often,” Christina answers dryly.

Victoria: Victoria produces a notepad and paper, setting it between the pair. On the page is a list of all living Malveaux members, with a myriad of lines and scratched notes judging them on numerous categories.

“We need a target. I’ve been going over what I know about each, which is minimal. I think… We need to consider a crossroad between how likely one is to have left problematic information, and how likely they are to be damaged by it.”

GM: “All of them have skeletons in their closets,” says Christina, looking over the notes. “That’s just the nature of those families.”

“Dirty laundry can always be manufactured if there’s none within easy reach.”

Victoria: “Right. The elder members would present greater risk but carry dirtier laundry, while the heirs and heiresses would present perhaps less damaging potential, but be less risky for us to toy with. Hm.”

GM: “Not necessarily. Westley had more vices and dirtier laundry than anything his parents personally got up to.”

Victoria: She drums her fingertips on the table.

“Savannah… is an option. I have a relationship with her, but I respect her.”

A pause passes.

“Which Malveauxes are you aware were involved in what happened?”

GM: “If you mean Amelie’s death, I don’t know.”

She pauses as their server arrives with the drinks (one alcohol, one water) and a plate of crispy grilled chicken wings.


Christina trades brief pleasantries with the woman.

“If I had to guess,” she resumes after the server leaves, “one of the Devillers or Whitneys asked one of the Malveauxes, who passed down the order to Roger Ferris, who possibly passed the order down to one of his agents, either of whom got someone else to do the deed inside the prison.”

“It could have been Abélia or Lyman asking Orson or Matt or Claire. It could have been Abélia asking Cécilia to ask Luke to ask Orson or Matt or Claire. It could have been Abélia or Lyman asking Caroline to ask Orson or Matt or Claire.”

Victoria: Victoria takes her own smallplate, loading a pair of chicken wings onto it—one drumstick, and one wing.

She tents her fingers.

“Curious, that. Why do you suspect the asking ended inside the Malveaux family with those three? You mentioned the trio twice. Only one of those three in each is alive. I wonder if the third has a target on their back.”

GM: “What are you talking about? Claire is the only one who’s dead.”

Victoria: She shakes her head, swallowing a lump of chicken.

“Sorry—victimized. I speculate as to the organic nature—or lack thereof—of Orson’s heart attack.”

GM: Christina waves a hand in dismissal. “You can’t induce heart attacks in people. He’s old and fat. I can believe that easily enough.”

She looks at Victoria for several moments.

“You’re young. You’re new to this world. So I’ll explain how these things work. Ferris is an employee of the Malveaux family. I don’t know who he works for on paper or where he specifically draws his salary from, but Orson, Matthew, and Nathan control the family’s purse strings. They make the family’s major decisions.”

“Someone your age, like Luke or Caroline or Savannah, can’t just order Ferris to go kill people. They don’t pay him. They aren’t his boss. If they think it’s in the Malveauxes’ interests to carry out blatantly illegal acts that carry a minimum of life without parole if someone gets sloppy, they have to go through their parents. Even if Abélia or Lyman approached a younger Malveaux, one of the three kings—or Nathan’s proxy in Claire—would have to sign off on it.”

Victoria: “Not in a moment’s notice,” she muses.

Still, she listens to the woman intently. She is the protégé in the business.

“I see. That makes more sense. I apologize for my… inexperience.”

She draws a breath, wishing this meeting was scheduled for one of their homes instead of a public restaurant.

“That still leaves us with the whole damn family to sort through; though, we don’t need revenge on specifically the one who made the order to have our revenge.”

She thinks for a moment.

“Luke. What do you know about him?”

GM: “His family’s golden boy. Recently engaged. A wonderful life and bright future ahead of him, by all appearances.”

Victoria: “Someone to be protected. Any unfortunate mistakes?”

“…including his wife-to-be?”

GM: Christina gives a sour look.

“If I had dirt on either of them I’d have done something with it by now.”

“Nothing I know of. Cécilia’s even more of a goody two-shoes than he is.”

Victoria: She drums her fingers, thinking.

“Do we tarnish the golden boy, or move on to another?”

The question is only half to Christina.

GM: “His tarnishing would hurt the family. That would be of some satisfaction.”

Victoria: “Do you see another that would bring you more satisfaction? They took your fucking niece, Christina.”

GM: “You think I don’t remember that?” Christina snaps, her eyes flashing.

“If I knew who was directly responsible, you think I wouldn’t have named them instead?”

“I don’t know. I’ll take my satisfaction from whatever hurts the family as a whole.”

“The golden boy. Fucking sure.”

Victoria: She meets that fury, unyielding, but pressing her no further toward anger.

“We’ll start with the golden boy, then.”

Because he won’t be the only one.

“But how to do so…”

Tap, tap, tap.

“…his wife? That may be a bit direct.”

GM: Christina gives a sour look and starts on a wing.

“I could care less whether it’s subtle or direct. So long as they don’t know who’s behind it.”

Victoria: The pair go back and forth over the course of their meal, with Victoria going through each of the Malveauxes and what she knows about them, for what little there is. In the end, she seems to be focused on a pair:

Luke, the golden boy, who would be symbolic to ruin. He’s the shining star. The bright future of the Malveauxes. He’s not half bad to look at, either.

Adam, the future archbishop.

On the latter, she continues, “Is it too cliche to catch him with underage choir boys?”

GM: “Yes,” says Christina. “He’s young. Around 30. Pedophile priests are usually older. I’d find it more believable if he broke his vows fucking a woman than molesting a little boy.”

Christina thinks that both of them are good targets, though. They’re the only adult males of their generation. Both of them will succeed their fathers and uncles some day.

Victoria: “Not if we’re successful,” she muses between sips. A margarita appeared somewhere during their discussion.

GM: Christina’s ordered entrees. Hers is pan-seared something (Vic doesn’t catch what) over a bed of green and yellow vegetables with dollops of sauce.


Victoria: “All right… women.”

She pauses to look at Christina, who has no shortage of that. But using Christina’s girls would present them being traceable back, which would sink both of them.

“We can’t seduce him, obviously. Nor can we have any of ours do so. How, I wonder?”

GM: “Third party, obviously,” says Christina between a bite of asparagus head. “Someone who can be trusted to keep her mouth closed.”

Victoria: She lofts a brow. Third party is the obvious answer. She knows that much.

“How many families damaged by this whole conspiracy have a young woman that might be thirsty for revenge?”

GM: “None, unless you know of ones that I don’t.”

Victoria: “Slim chance on that.”

“A bribe won’t work. Any bribe we can make to a prostitute can be dwarfed by that family. Threats, perhaps? Mm, no…”

Think, Vic. Think.

GM: “You’re quick to dismiss both of those means out of hand.”

Victoria: “Would you like to explain why I’m wrong?”

GM: “A bribe from the Malveauxes to do what? The deal I’d make with a prostitute, or some other woman, is simple. Sleep with this man, take this money. Done. Another day on the job.”

“If this hypothetical woman goes to the Malveauxes with this plan and without any proof to substantiate it, what is she doing? Gambling they’ll believe her, some random low-life. Gambling they’ll choose to pay her for unsubstantiated information. Gambling they’ll pay her as much as I will for a finished job.”

“Does she even know how to get into contact with the Malveauxes? Does she expect to just walk up to Orson’s estate and get let in? If she doesn’t, does she know what employees of theirs to approach and where to find them?”

“All of that is a lot of maybes and extra hoops for something outside of her typical line of work. Sleep with the man, take the money. That’s familiar. People prefer familiar.”

Victoria: “It’s much more simple when you present it that way. The ‘what if’ that gives me concern is: what if they find her and try to pay her to admit who hired her? Do prostitutes often try to seduce priests of their own volition? If I were a Malveaux, I’d be suspicious. Especially when Adam comes home claiming he didn’t initiate.”

GM: “Is there? How do they find her? Is she so stupid as to give Adam her real name?”

Victoria: “If she is?”

GM: Christina makes an exasperated sound.

“So you make sure she’s not. You interview her. You go over the plan together. Including fake names.”

“Fucking hell. You dye her hair and drug the man, if you really want to cover your tracks.”

Christina gives Victoria a flat look.

“What do you bring to the table?” she asks bluntly. “What help are you?”

Victoria: She snorts.

“I suppose we could just black bag him and take pictures of him being fucked, if we really need to.”

GM: “Why do I need you?” Christina repeats.

Victoria: "Because we’re better off in this together than alone, Christina, and whether I’m a criminal mastermind planner or not, I’m not going to fuck up the execution and I’m not going to sell you out; and,I did suggest both targets along with why, and provide the option of black-bagging, drugging and taking pictures. "

She holds a pause, appraising how her words are taken.

“Sure, you could do all of this yourself. You’d probably be successful. You’ve been playing this game almost as long as I’ve been alive. Work with me and you’ll be better off.”

Her expression softens.

“I know you’re angry, Christina. I can’t imagine the pain you feel right now. If you want to take your anger out on me to feel better, fine, we can do that a bit later, but let me help you now. They deserve all the rage you have, but I need your patience.”

GM: Christina’s scowl abates, partly, at Victoria’s words.

“If you’re in, you need to pull your weight. I presume this is your first time doing this sort of thing. I can’t hold your hand the entire way. There is much less room for error than keeping a middle manager’s wife from finding out he’s getting his needs met by someone else.”

“Now. Adam. Who would you bring in to do the job?”

Victoria: She takes her time, thinking. She isn’t entirely sure it’s the right answer, but it’s sound to her.

“If we want someone to fuck him, we use a third party agency. Paid cash. Tell them we want to give our friend a good time and he’s a little shy. Take pictures from afar of him conversing with them, or better pictures still if she managed to fuck him. If we want to black bag him… I’ve got a favor I can call on. Someone reliable.”

She hopes.

GM: “No agencies,” says Christina. “An outlaw.”

Victoria knows that’s an independent prostitute who doesn’t work for a pimp or madam.

“That’s chancy, though. Seducing a priest. Some of them do take their vows seriously.”

Victoria: “Outlaw works. But I think we’ll have a much better effect recording him passed out in bed with a prostitute than otherwise. So… kidnapping.”

GM: “Yes. Who’s the friend?”

Victoria: She lofts a brow, looking briefly to a passing waitress. Once she’s gone, she answers.

“Deputy in my pocket. Leave it at that for now.”

GM: Christina takes another bite of her greens.

“I’ll say this. A prostitute might not be able to seduce a priest, but there’s a lot fewer ways that could go wrong than a kidnapping attempt.”

“Is your deputy going to fuck this up? Will he go off on his own half-cocked? Will he refuse to listen to good advice? Does he have an inflated sense of his own importance?”

“Because I’ve worked with those kinds of people. Never again.”

Victoria’s heard all about Emmett Delacroix from Christina.

Victoria: “The deputy? He’ll listen. I can see that much. I don’t imagine he’ll be who we’ll be working with, though. He’ll provide me some references.”

GM: “If you’re getting a reference, he won’t know what for,” says Christina. “The less he knows, the better.”

“If he does know what the reference is for, then you won’t meet the reference. He’ll be your intermediary.”

“The more intermediaries between you and Adam, the safer we’ll be if something goes wrong.”

Victoria: She nods. “I think it makes sense to inform him as to what we need done, but not who it will be initially. Yes?”

GM: “Are you meeting the deputy’s reference or using the deputy as your go-between?”

Victoria: “He’ll be the go-between.”

GM: “Until your deputy has a name, his reference can’t set up the kidnapping.”

Victoria: “…fair point. Yet it seems an easy slip-up point to give the name immediately.”

GM: “What do you expect him to accomplish before he knows who the target is?”

“If you mean to have him find a specific kidnapper before saying it’s Adam, then sure. You don’t want him shopping around with every thug from the gutter telling them that he wants to kidnap Adam Malveaux.”

Victoria: She nods at the latter.

“That was my thinking, yes. I’d rather not have word get back to Adam that he can expect a mouthful of chloroform and a dark van.”

GM: “I don’t see word reaching his ears from some gutter thugs. Blabbing about planned illegal acts is just bad general practice.”

Victoria: “Still, as you said, better not to have the name broach lips until we’re sure of our candidate. Trouble avoided and all that.”

GM: “Then that finishes our Malveaux business for tonight, if you had nothing else to go over.”

Victoria: “No. I’ll call you when it’s arranged. Thank you, Christina.”

GM: “The pleasure is all mine.”

Monday evening, 21 March 2016

GM: The pleasure is all Jordan’s too, after his latest visit with his “mommy.”

He prefers aftercare. Cuddling. All part of the experience after he climaxes. He lies against Victoria with his face on her breasts, looking like the most content little boy in the world, apart from how he isn’t a little boy.

Something is wrong with this man, Victoria is fairly certain, but that describes more than a few of her clients.

Victoria: It describes almost all of her clients. Her fingers trace lines through his hair, her breathing soft, a gentle hum emanating from her throat.

“My boy…”

GM: “Mommy…” he murmurs back, nuzzling his face against her tits. Victoria well knows he could do that forever, or at least until their booked time ends.

Victoria: He could do that forever, but this session has a purpose beyond money.

She takes his face in her hands, turning his chin up without removing him too far from what he loves.

“Mommy needs a favor, Jordan.”

GM: His eyes find their way up to hers.

His nose and mouth don’t.

“What’s that, Mommy?”

Victoria: She taps his nose.

“A very, very serious favor. The type of favor that won’t be mentioned outside trusted company, and that may earn you… some free time? Or cash… or something else, hmn?”

Her expression loses a modicum of its curated softness.

“Do you understand?”

GM: He smiles at the tap if Victoria’s finger.

His own expression loses a modicum of its own childlike regression. He looks like he’s listening closely.

“Yes.”

Victoria: “I need someone taken. Just for a bit. Ideally, without messing up that pretty face of his. After all, we want some pictures taken of him having a thoroughly good time. Drugs. Girls. The dream, hmn?”

GM: “You’re the dream,” says Jordan. He delivers the line like he’s saying something deep.

Wit has never been one of his strong suites in their time together.

“Okay. Who and how much?”

Victoria: She kisses the top of his head as if he really is her son.

“The who will be made known once you have someone in mind who you can trust to have it done right. I don’t want my name or likeness attached in any way to this. You are my middle man.”

GM: His eyes swim at that tender kiss.

“Well, I mean,” says Jordan. “I could do it. You can trust me.”

Victoria: “Mmmn, yes, but you know me. I wouldn’t want my dearest boy in danger, and you wouldn’t want me in danger… So… I’d like you to pick the person you trust most to do it right. Or persons.”

GM: “Oh,” says Jordan at that explanation.

“Well, okay. I know some guys.”

Victoria: Her fingers splay over his cheeks, cradling him.

“Some guys…? Or some very capable men? As capable as you?”

GM: “Oh. Yeah,” Jordan answers, smiling widely at the praise.“They’re good.”

“I mean. Not as good as me. But good.”

Victoria: She presses another kiss to his forehead.

“And do you know any as good as you…?”

GM: Jordan grins.

“No. None as good as me.”

Victoria: She grinds her hips downward, grinning.

“There’s no one alive as good as you, and you’ll earn what’s yours. Would you tell me a little about these not-as-good-as-you boys?”

GM: Jordan makes a little noise of pleasure.

“Well,” he gets out, “they do this kinda stuff a bunch. They’re in the mob. Though they won’t ever admit it.”

Victoria: And yet you did.

Never trust Jordan to keep a secret. Vic understands.

“Come on, baby. Sell them to me. What makes them so good? How did they do another one?”

GM: “They’re in the mob, like I said,” Jordan repeats. “They smuggle stuff and fuck people up.”

“Like, need a wheelchair fucked up, sometimes.”

Victoria: “And what will they cost for a job like this, hmmn?”

GM: “Uh, depends. Maybe… couple hundred?”

Victoria: That feels cheap to Vic, but she doesn’t let her concern show.

“Regardless the target?”

GM: “Well, they’re probably not gonna do the mayor for that little,” says Jordan.

Victoria: She snickers.

“No, not the mayor. Prominent family member.”

GM: “Like, one of the mayor’s family members?”

“Still probably more, yeah.”

Victoria: She shakes her head.

“No, no. Different family.”

GM: “Probably more if they’re a big deal, yeah.”

Victoria: “How much more?”

GM: “I dunno, depends? Maybe a few grand?”

Victoria: She hums a note of approval.

“Tell you what…”

She releases his face, hands sliding to his chest.

“Today is free, hmn? You talk to your boys, and I’ll get back to you in a few days.”

GM: Jordan grins.

“Wow, okay. That’s really great. What do you want me to tell ’em?”

Victoria: “You know them better than I. That there’s the possibility of a job. They can’t do much if they disappear to Hawaii.”

GM: “Okay, so you want to meet ’em?”

Victoria: “I’ll get back to you on that.”

GM: “There’s a possible job isn’t really a lot to tell ’em.”

“Like, they’ll probably ask who and how much.”

Victoria: She shrugs.

“Then don’t tell ‘em yet. I have a few details to tidy up on my side; so, I’ll call you soon, hmn? And you… can think about what you want with your next session.”

GM: “I’ll think a LOT about that,” grins Jordan.

Wednesday afternoon, 23 March 2016

Victoria: The day after tomorrow, Victoria arrives at Audubon Park, and pulls out a book five minutes ahead of their scheduled meeting time. She pulls out a book to read while she waits for Christina.

GM: Christina meets her there, on time.

Victoria: Once the two exchange pleasantries, Victoria jumps in to why she asked to meet again. She has her middleman, and her middleman feels he—at least, to him—has trustworthy muscle to perform the job; however, that muscle is tied in with the mob. She asked her man not to talk to them just yet.

She continues on that working with the mob isn’t something she’s done before, and before she commits the pair of them to a relationship that could harm them, she wants Christina’s opinion.

GM: Christina says the mob is fine as long as they don’t know that women are behind the middleman.

Victoria: She nods, feeling immediately better about that avenue, and asks if she’s worked with them before, commenting on how casual she seems with it.

GM: “I’ve worked with a variety of people,” Christina answers vaguely.

Victoria: It’s enough of an answer to give Victoria what she needs.

“My middleman is… not the brightest crayon in the box. Would it it be worthwhile or paranoid to give him a masculine name to use to refer to me?”

GM: Christina shrugs. “He’s your man. You decide.”

Victoria: Victoria wonders if Amelia turned into a bug and died in Christina’s asshole.

“Right.”

She goes over the plan one more time: the muscle will kidnap him, leaving him as unmarred as possible—if not unharmed—and will shoot some photos of him with drugs and prostitutes.

GM: Christina has no new objections to the plan.

Victoria: “Very well. I’ll call you when it’s done.”

*GM:

Saturday afternoon, 26 March 2016

Victoria: Victoria meets with Jordan after a few more days on offer of a free session, and a full session is what he receives. Once he’s spent and pliable, she recants the plan again once more, then makes him repeat it back to her. She reaffirms that the compromising pictures of him as guilty as possible is what matters.

She then adds, “If you need to refer to me, you’ll refer to me as Mr. White.”

GM: Jordan seems more than happy to spend and render himself pliable in the dominatrix’s arms.

“Why Mr. White?” he asks.

Victoria: “Because that is what I’m asking you to call me.”

She squeezes his scrotum.

“Do I have to tell you twice?”

GM: He gives an intake of breath as his body stiffens under her grip.

“No. Mommy,” he says meekly.

She can also feel him starting to get firm again.

Victoria: “Good… boy…”

She purrs the words, a tigress luring her prey.

And then she leaves him hard.

Previous, by Narrative:
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Previous, by Character: Story Fourteen, Victoria I
Next, by Character: Story Fourteen, Victoria III

“Mom… you’ll love me no matter what, right?”
Victoria Wolf

Monday afternoon, 23 November 2015

GM: Weeks pass.

The boys are convicted by Judge Carson Malveaux for their assorted offenses against Derek and Anna. They receive seven years in Louisiana State Penitentiary and will be up for parole in four. They’ll be convicted felons once they get out. They’ll probably do something to get sent back, Derek thinks, even if they don’t violate parole.

Victoria: Sylvia doesn’t mention what she did to ensure the boys received their just desserts, unless she asks. Anna probably guesses. She also guesses that Sylvia feels their punishment isn’t enough.

GM: Anna does not seem to guess at all.

Why would she suspect that Sylvia went so far as to bribe the police?

Sarah Whitney goes back to school, around December. Anna hears. She’s happy over that. Sarah was in a coma for a while. Doctors feared there would be brain damage.

Still no job back.

Victoria: Sylvia asks if she wants to visit Sarah.

Maybe that’ll provide some closure.

GM: Anna is not sure if either of the girls’ families would want her to have any contact with their daughters. She doesn’t have anything against the kids themselves, though. She just wants her job back.

But that’s nothing new.

Victoria: She pulls Anna into a hug and consoles her.

GM: Weeks pass. Christmas approaches. They’ve been together for around four months, now, and they’ve obviously had feelings for far longer.

Both of their families want each of them over for Christmas dinner.

They haven’t told either of their families they’re official, yet. Anna does not think hers would be thrilled over her being in a same-sex relationship.

Anna asks what she thinks they should do. Both in general and for Christmas.

Victoria: Sylvia makes a suggestion that they adopt six or seven cats and play out the cat lady trope.

“I’m not going to make you feel guilty if you don’t want to tell them,” she says, rubbing her arm where Anna smacked it.

“I don’t think it’ll be any easier at with my family. Just… a different brand of difficult. For visits, maybe yours in the morning, mine for dinner?”

GM: “Do you want to tell yours?” Anna asks.

“About us?”

Victoria: “Do you?”

GM: “It’s your family. I’ll support whatever decision you want to make with them.”

“I do think it’d seem… weird to show up to Christmas with a platonic friend, though, don’t you? That’s for family and significant others.”

Victoria: “Anna. You were my family long before you were my girlfriend.”

GM: “I meant in general,” Anna smiles. “Not with you.”

She curls up against her girlfriend, laying a head on her shoulder.

“You’ve been family for a long, long time.”

Victoria: Sylvia runs her hands up her face, then fingers through her mane of hair, breathing a long exhale.

She can tell her family, and deal with the consequences. She can’t see life without them, nor does she feel any of them will excommunicate her.

She can not tell her family, and…

She’s not spending Christmas without Anna.

“You’re coming with me. I’ll spend half the day with you at your family, but only if you want. If you want to go alone, it’s fine.”

It’s not fine. She’ll be hurt, but she won’t let it show.

GM: “Okay,” nods Anna. “I’m happy to spend Christmas with your family. Whatever they tell you.”

She smiles faintly at the take-charge ’you’re coming’ tone. That’s gotten pretty normal.

“I kinda don’t want to tell mine,” she says with a sigh. “I don’t think they’ll take it well.”

“But… if it’s not a thing this year, it’ll be a thing next year. And the next year. And they’ll ask about grandkids and why there’s no guy in my life.”

She lets out another sigh.

“I guess it has to come out at some point. Just… really not looking forward to that conversation. I’d kinda rather not have it at all.”

Victoria: “According to my mother, if you pray hard enough, God will show you the way. If we pray hard enough, maybe he’ll show me the path to getting you pregnant.”

Yes, even in what’s clearly a joke, Anna would be the carrier.

“You don’t have to tell them. Not if you don’t want to. I won’t make you. Not on that.”

A moment of silence passes between them.

“…you really want there to be a next year? And the year after?”

GM: “Maybe if we pray hard enough you’ll grow a penis, you mean?” Anna muses.

Even joking, she doesn’t say that would be inappropriate.

Victoria: “We could always hire someone.”

GM: “I want there to be many next years.”

Victoria: Even joking, something pulls at Sylvia’s insides. She pulls her closer in turn.

“…I like you being mine.”

GM: Anna smiles up at her and kisses her cheek.

“I like being yours, too.”

“I’m your girl.”

“When you say hire… you mean a sperm donor?”

It’s asked seemingly hypothetically.

Victoria: “I mean… if we ever felt that drive…”

“I’m not sure I will…”

GM: Anna looks at her thoughtfully.

“I love kids. You know that.”

Victoria: “Would you want that…?”

GM: Anna thinks, then nods.

“Eventually. Doesn’t have to be now. But I want to be a mom, in some form.”

“Is that something you… how would you feel about that…?”

Victoria: “We could switch roles?”

GM: Anna snickers.

Victoria: It seems she isn’t going to escape, despite Sylvia bringing the topic up in the first place.

“I… maybe. I don’t know. Something feels so… Artificial about that. I think I’d want a real partner, or at least the warmth of a…”

She shivers, shaking her head.

“This is weird to think about!”

GM: Anna looks at her thoughtfully.

“What do you mean when you say artificial…?”

Victoria: “Insemination. A cold chair, cold hands, cold syringe, cold lube…”

She shudders.

Sylvia perks up.

She pulls up her phone and writes something down.

GM: “Yeah,” admits Anna. “It wouldn’t have to be you, though. It could be me.”

A pause.

“Would you still be comfortable?”

Victoria: “That’s… I need to think about it.”

Not right then.

“There’s adoption, too.”

GM: Anna nods.

“I was going to bring that up.”

“Adoption… obviously means so much to you.”

“And there are obviously more kids who could use loving homes.”

Victoria: She simpers.

“There are so many that need it.”

GM: “How does adopting make you feel?”

Victoria: “Like I’m not ready.”

GM: Anna smiles.

“I don’t want kids just yet. However we’d want them.”

Victoria: The series of topics is an anchor on Sylvia.

GM: “But say when we’re older. 30 plus. How would you feel then?”

“About adoption.”

Victoria: “I… can see it, yeah. Maybe an older child; 10, or so. I’m not sure I’m the right mother for one younger.”

But if she doesn’t does she relegate them to effectively prison?

GM: “Your age,” says Anna.

“When you were.”

Victoria: “I guess.”

She puts her chin against the back of her palms on the table.

GM: “Is this something you’d prefer to think about later…?” Anna asks, rubbing her shoulder.

“We haven’t even hit our first anniversary.”

Victoria: “I think later would be better. It’s… there’s so much in my life that I want to do, Anna.”

So does Anna. It stings her to say it.

“I could lose my business and we’d be screwed. I want more security before I think about children.”

GM: “That’s totally fair,” says Anna. “We’re still young. I don’t even… I don’t even know how my career is going to pan out.”

She sighs at that topic.

“God. Why can’t it just be summer already.”

“I hate waiting.”

Victoria: “Maybe I can talk to my mom… after she calms down about us.”

GM: “About my career…?” Anna asks, confused.

“I thought she was a social worker.”

Victoria: Sylvia explains Mary’s church connections. She might be able to hook up Anna with something at a Catholic school.

GM: “Oh,” she says. “That makes more sense.”

“Yes, please, that would be wonderful! I’d be happy to teach at a Catholic school. I’d be happy to teach anywhere, so long as the students don’t threaten to kill me!”

Victoria: Sylvia makes a mock gesture at shooting a gun.

“Same thing will happen again.”

Not that she wants it to. No, she might not be quite as level-headed if she has to save her again.

“A Catholic school might be calmer…”

GM: “I don’t want you to be in that situation again, either,” Anna says, deathly serious.

“I know you can handle yourself. I know you’ll always fight for me.”

“But something could have gone wrong, and I don’t ever want to take that chance again.”

Victoria: She takes one of Anna’s hands, stroking the back with her thumb.

“I don’t want you to be there again. Seeing you so close to dying…”

She blinks away a tear.

GM: Anna kisses her cheek.

“It’s okay. You saved me.”

“We won’t do an inner city school again. We learned our lesson.”

A pause.

“I learned my lesson. You were right all along.”

Victoria: Sylvia regards her with a mask of disbelief.

Anna corrects herself.

That earns a ‘ha!’.

“We won’t be going anywhere near that type of school. I’d rather you teach in the bayou than that, and I’m not letting you get murdered in a swamp either.”

GM: Anna gives her an amused look at that.

“Sorry, I learned my lesson… mistress. Is that better?”

Victoria: She earns a faint smile.

“One day I’ll have to save you from a trip to the grocery store.”

Sylvia shakes her head

“So… Christmas.”

GM: Anna sighs.

“I kinda don’t want to tell my family, this year. There’s just… been enough stress, and ups and downs. I’d like some peace.”

A pause.

“I’ll tell my parents I want to bring you, though. Say how you’ve been so supportive, through everything, Jeff and losing my job and putting me up, it only feels right. They know we’re roomies.”

“Maybe that’ll make it easier when we come out, too. For you to have already spent a Christmas with us. For them to accept you as a big presence in my life.”

Victoria: She squeezes her hand.

“They’ve already accepted I’m a big presence in your life, and I think that’s a fair reason to invite me for the holiday without suspicion,” she muses.

“There’s no pressure to tell them this year. Or next. I understand.”

GM: “Thanks,” smiles Anna, squeezing back.

“We can spend Christmas Eve and morning with your family, and dinner with mine? Since it’s a long drive up to Lafayette.”

It’s phrased as a question, not ’let’s do this.’

That’s become normal.

Victoria: She tenses her brow, thinking.

“Or the reverse? Or one day with your family, and one with mine? Dinner is important to my mother. Probably more than any point of any other holiday.”

GM: “Okay. We could drive up for Christmas Eve, spend Christmas morning, then drive back your mom’s.”

Victoria: She kisses her hand, signing the deal.

“Sold, to the one making pizza tonight.”

GM: That’s Anna, of course. Like always.

Friday morning, 25 December 2015

Victoria: The pair spend a lovely evening and subsequent morning with Anna’s family. Mr. Perry has always been fond of ’Anna’s Friend’ from their very first meeting, where he walked in on her roleplaying a petulant student for Anna’s ‘Classroom Management’ course. He made a quip on punishing bratty children with a ruler back in his day, causing both women to blush for their own reasons. Mrs. Perry was less immediately intrusive to their doings, but offered Sylvia a lukewarm start than only heated over the years.

Sylvia enjoys the evening. It’s just as it always was. In that sameness, she feels hollow. In a way, is she lying to her beloved’s parents? Is she betraying kindness received without condition? She isn’t the same bubbly self by the time they leave in the morning.

GM: Mr. Perry is a police officer, after all. He says that a little discipline is a good thing. Tempered with loving, if course.

The couple really have to try not to blush over that.

The Perrys are delighted to have Sylvia over. Anna’s brother is present too, with his girlfriend. The Perrys don’t seem at all questioning of Anna not having a boyfriend this year. She lost her fiance and her job four months ago. Those wounds are still fresh. Everyone is very supportive and wishes Anna all the best in finding a new position come the summer. Mr. Perry starts to rant angrily about those “no-good f… udgers,” at a look from his wife, who used his daughter as a scapegoat. He looks about to start on a lengthier tirade when Anna’s mom touches his arm and entreats him, “Dear, please, it’s Christmas.” Mr. Perry sighs and tells his daughter she’s the best teacher in the world and that McGehee is going to rued the day they fired her.

“Thanks, Daddy,” Anna blushes.

Victoria: Sylvia makes a comment about Mr. Perry getting her out of jail when she lights them on fire. She’s moved on from cars.

Still, it’s clear Sylvia was affected by her firing, and she cares immensely.

GM: The Perrys are full of cheer and goodwill towards Sylvia, too. They’re so thankful she’s had a friend she can count on during such a trying time. “You sound like exactly what she needed, when she needed someone most,” Mr. Perry remarks.

Anna tells her family about how Sylvia saved her life. The story has everyone gasping and exclaiming incredulously. Mrs. Perry cries, then hugs Sylvia. Mr. Perry looks like he’s fighting tears as he hugs her too. They can’t thank her enough for saving their daughter. They’re overflowing with thanks as Anna reiterates how her best friend saved her life. They say Sylvia will always be welcome in their house.

Anna looks at Sylvia over her parents’ shoulders and mouths,

‘Tell?’

It’s a question. She looks unsure.

Victoria: Sylvia gives it no acknowledgment.

No.

GM: Spending the night isn’t without awkwardness. The Perrys have converted their kids’ old rooms. Anna’s is a guest room. She tells her parents that she and Sylvia can share the bed, it beats anyone sleeping on the couch. They raise their eyebrows, but accept the logic.

There is no sex that night. Just a kiss, and sleeping without touching.

Anna does not want them to walk in and see anything.

Victoria: Sylvia doesn’t press it, even if she teases a few kisses. When they fall asleep, it’s on opposite sides of the bed, facing away.

GM: The Perrys prepare a lovely Christmas breakfast. Anna’s brother and his girlfriend rejoin them for it. Everyone opens presents under the tree. Mrs. Perry gives Sylvia a hand-knitted sweater. Mr. Perry gives ammunition, two concealed holsters—one under the shoulder, one for the waist—and a cute note with a gun drawn on it, saying it’s redeemable for lessons at a New Orleans shooting range from Mr. Perry. He laughs that he’d have gotten Sylvia an actual gift card, but everywhere is closed on Christmas Eve. So he’ll get her one when they re-open.

“You want a good holster,” he says, patting the two. “These are good. Cheap holster will come right off you, if a bad guy grabs it. Cheap gets you killed.”

He’s printed out the forms for a concealed carry permit, too, and filled out as much of Sylvia’s info as he can. He’s also included cash in an envelope to pay for the application fee. All of that is in another present.

“Always conceal that you’re packing,” he says. “Those idiots who walk into Herricks’ with a handgun you can see on their belts? Or those fuckheads-”

“It’s Christmas, dear,” says Mrs. Perry.

“-er, fudgeheads, with semi-autos over their backs at O’Tolley’s, thinking they’re being pro-Second Amendment. Fuc-fudging idiots. If I’m the bad guy, guess what? I know exactly who to target first. You paint a giant bullseye on your back and lose the element of surprise, when you open carry. Always conceal. Got it?”

Victoria: Sylvia holds back tears, her eyes shimmering. As little as Mary has to give, she’s always managed to deliver a happy Christmas for her children. The St. George matron is and has always been magic in providing for her children and teaching them modesty and respect as she does.

“Yes, Mr. Perry. I understand.”

It’s probably better than leaving it open in her bag, even with the safety on.

“This… I didn’t expect… thank you. Really. We’ll get lessons as soon as we get back, and I think it’s time Anna gets her own weapon, too. Just in case.”

GM: “We didn’t expect either,” Mr. Perry chortles.

“Santa had to do some last-minute wrapping,” smiles Mrs. Perry.

Victoria: She gets up and hugs each of them, bleary-eyed.

GM: Anna’s parents warmly return her embrace.

“This is a gift for us, too,” says Mr. Perry, patting Sylvia’s back. “An investment in Anna’s safety. Isn’t that right, pumpkin?”

“Yes, Daddy,” Anna replies, sounding a little choked.

“I showed Anna how to shoot when she was younger,” says Mr. Perry. “But it’s been a while since she was at the range. You going in together sounds like a great plan.”

The drive back to New Orleans is a happy one. “I think my dad gave you his holsters,” says Anna. “There couldn’t have been anywhere open on Christmas Eve…”

Victoria: That drive back to New Orleans is one of the few times Anna has seen Sylvia cry. It’s a happy cry, but a cry no lesser.

“You h-have the b-best… parents…”

GM: “Awww… Sylvie…” Anna smiles, embracing her.

“I do. I love them. That was the best gift I could’ve asked for…”

She doesn’t talk about coming out to them.

She doesn’t want to ruin the moment.

Or maybe it’s happy enough she doesn’t think it.

Victoria: “I—I… I love you. A—and I love them. A—and I hope they’ll always love us!”

She probably shouldn’t be driving like this, but the car doesn’t move from the lane.

GM: Sylvia is always the one in the driver’s seat.

That’s their normal.

Anna smiles, sniffs, and rubs her hand.

“I love you too, Sylvie. So much…”

Friday afternoon, 25 December 2015

Victoria: It’s just after noon on Christmas Day that they reach the St. George home and rap on the door.

GM: The St. George house is abuzz with Christmas cheer. The tree is decorated, the advent calendar opened, and the manger scene is set with little porcelain models of the baby Jesus and the witnesses to his birth.

Sylvia’s mother receives Anna and her daughter with hugs and warm words. Beth passed some years ago, but the modest house still feels more than full between her five children and their significant others. Leslie is the only one who’s single.

Jason, of course, is not present.

Victoria: Nerves wrack Sylvia the closer they get to the St. George home. As Mary opens the door, she’s trembling.

“Hey Mom,” she says, pulling the elderly woman into a hug; tight, but not Sylvia-tight. “Merry Christmas.”

GM: “Merry Christmas, dear,” smiles her mother. Her hair is all-gray now, but there’s strength and life in her embrace yet. She can handle tight, it feels.

Victoria: They exchange their pleasantries with the group, and spend some time enjoy company before the fireplace.

After a (non-alcoholic) eggnog and a few snacks, Sylvia rests a hand on her mother’s shoulder, whispering.

“…Mom? Can I talk to you? In private.”

GM: “Of course,” Mary nods. She tells the others over the playing Christmas music (currently “It’s Cold Outside”) that she’ll be back soon and takes Sylvia into the kitchen. The air is warm from the many dishes in the oven.

“I thought all of you getting older would mean less cooking, but it just means even more during Sundays and holidays,” Mary laughs.

“All of those +1s…”

Victoria: “It means more help, too, Mom. I can do a lot more without you worrying about burning down the house… or putting my brother in the oven.”

She wonders if that has anything to do with why Jason turned out how he did. It was the first and last time they played ‘Christmas Turkey’.

“Mom… you’ll love me no matter what, right?”

GM: Mary smiles at the quip, but turns serious again at her daughter’s question.

“Of course I will, Sylvia. Always.”

“I still love your brother, even after what he’s done.” Mary’s face stills slightly at his mention. “A parent never stops loving their child, Sylvie. Not ever.”

“What do you have to tell me?”

Victoria: Her mother’s response quells her racing heart, but only a little.

Just enough to let her speak a thought. She looks to the door, ensuring no one is walking in.

“I love Anna.”

She leaves it at that, expecting a quip of friends loving each other before reality sinks in.

GM: “More than as a friend, you mean,” says Mary.

Victoria: She doesn’t answer. Sylvia looks like she’s barely held together, shame cracking through her mask.

GM: Sylvia’s mother embraces her again.

“‘Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed His love among us: He sent His one and only Son into the world that we might live through Him.’”

“I will always love you, Sylvie. I will always accept you. That will never change.”

“The morality, health risks, and potential dangers of a homosexual lifestyle make me very concerned for you. But understand always that my concern is borne out of love for you.”

Victoria: Silently, tears overflow down her cheeks. She remembers those first days, when her mother held her as she bawled at the top of her lungs. Now, it’s a simple hugs. Sylvia doesn’t scream anymore.

“I’m careful, Mom. You know me.”

She returns the hug, this time tighter.

“I… wasn’t sure how you’d react, but I didn’t want to be unfair to you; to bring her here and not tell you; to lie to you.”

GM: “I do know you, Sylvie,” her mom repeats, rubbing her back. “I know you will be smart and careful.”

“But being smart and careful can keep you physically safe. I am more concerned for the morality of your actions and the impact they will have on your relationship with God.”

“I am grateful your honesty with me. Thank you for telling me the truth.”

Victoria: “Then pray for me, huh? I don’t think I would have made it to fifteen without your prayers.”

Mary knows she’s trying to appease her, but she also knows Sylvie means it.

“I’m not forgetting about God, Mama. I still go to church. I still pray.”

Just not as often as Mary would like, which she leaves obfuscated.

GM: “I have always prayed for you, Sylvie,” says her mom. “I will never stop.”

“I am glad you are still praying and going to church. I’ve always believed they’re like exercise. More is better, and even a little is better than none.”

Victoria: She hugs her mother, then releases.

“It won’t be weird outside, right? I don’t want Anna to be uncomfortable.”

GM: “You are always welcome to bring your friends into my house,” says Mary. “There are some ground rules, for when you do. I will ask that you refrain from overt displays of homosexual affection. I will ask that you refrain from overt discussion, around the others, of the fact that you are in a homosexual relationship. Can you and Anna abide by those?”

Victoria: Her heart sinks.

“Yes, Mama. Of course. No affection, no talking.”

Not quite, but close enough.

GM: “Thank you, Sylvie,” says her mother.

“Thank you again for sharing this with me. I would rather know what you’re going through than not know what you’re going through. I want to love you and be there for you no matter what happens. I always want you to feel you can tell me things without fear of losing my love.”

Victoria: “I know, Mom. I know. I love you.”

She turns to leave.

A brick from the bridge between them falls into the river.

*

GM: Christmas dinner otherwise goes largely well. Dinner is roast goose and other Christmas staples, with lit plum pudding for dessert. Sylvia sees some of her siblings holding hands with their significant others. Anna doesn’t try to. Everyone sings carols and opens presents. There’s more non-alcoholic eggnog. Maria and her husband kiss under the mistletoe.

The story of Sylvia saving Anna’s life at work draws gasps and exclamations from everyone. Mary asks concernedly whether Anna still works there, and is relieved to hear that she does not.

Mary asks if Sylvia is still concerned for Anna’s safety. Or her own.

Victoria: Sylvia only ever eats plum pudding at her mother’s house, but it’s one of her favorite desserts. She has more than her fair share.

Anna and Sylvia sit by each other. Their hands brush at one point. That’s all. Sylvia doesn’t need to tell Anna what her mother said. Her affection normally rivals God’s, and now she’s gone cold. It’s explanation enough.

Sylvia’s answer takes a moment, but she shakes her head.

“No, I think she’s quite safe where she’ll be working next.”

She doesn’t mention more about the gun, or her other gifts.

GM: “A mother never stops worrying,” says Mary. “No matter how safe her children are.”

“I don’t know what the future holds, Sylvie. But I don’t think that will be the only danger you face in your life.”

She undoes the crucifix around her neck and presses it into Sylvia’s hands. It’s the same one she showed to her daughter in the long-ago thrift store.

“I want one of you to have this.” She looks between Sylvia and Anna. “Whoever you believe needs it most.”

“It’s not a gun. But it has your grandfather’s love for me, and my love for you. I believe it will keep you safe.”

Victoria: Sylvia can’t speak when she’s handed the crucifix. To say she’s stunned is an understatement.

“God’s love and family love is more powerful than any weapon, Mom.”

Anna knows that Sylvia has Christianity somewhere in her heart, but in all these years, it’s the first time she’s ever heard her speak a phrase like that.

GM: Mary’s smile is joyous when she hears those words, so declarative of her daughter’s faith.

“Love overcomes all, Sylvia. As it always must.”

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Previous, by Character: Story Two, Victoria VI
Next, by Character: Story Fourteen, Victoria II

“You’re full of shit.”
Jefferson Parish sheriff’s deputy

Friday night, 1 April 2016, AM

Zoe: Zoe doesn’t remember the walk home. It feels faster than it was, her memories a blur. Maybe it’s fatigue. Maybe it’s hunger. Maybe it’s her smarter subconscious blocking out what memories would otherwise prove to damage her future self.

She slips her key into the lock, nearly falling into the apartment with fatigue. She closes her eyes. She breathes. She needs a shower.

A long, hot shower, and a night of sleep. Chuck can wait. Chuck will wait, no matter what sort of deal they made.

Or maybe not? Fuck, what is in this cocaine, Cash? Maybe she won’t mind it if he wants his payment.

After a shower.

GM: Zoe would say she’s not sure what she expected to find back in Chuck’s apartment, except she was sure.

She was sure it would be something other than this.

Chuck is naked in the bedroom, eyes barely open, ballgag strapped around his mouth. His wrists are secured to the bed with steel cuffs, while a spreader bar is secured between his ankles. His thighs are wrapped and connected to the headboard, so he’s at an approximately 90 degree angle. The head of his penis is covered in a steel sheath that looks as if it prevents erection or stimulation. It’s secured to a padlocked steel ring around his scrotum. There are two keys on the nightstand, on top of a napkin with a lipstick kiss print. On the floor is a strap-on with a double-ended dildo and bottle of lube.

Four photos lie on the bed:

From behind, Chuck bent over on hands and knees. He’s looking back at the camera, ball gag in place.

From behind, there’s a closer shot of his ass. The dildo’s head penetrates his ass.

A closeup of a long-nailed feminine hand locking his penis in the cage.

A photo from behind showing a woman’s back as she rides him. Her body is bare and perfect, with long brown hair that falls down to her back.

Up close, the napkin reads in stylish cursive,

He’s all yours ;)

It’s signed underneath with a simple,

—A

Zoe: She walks into the bedroom and opens her eyes.

…

“What the FUCK, Chuck?!”

Zoe is caught between trying not to laugh, trying not to be angry, and wishing the entirety of his antics can vanish long enough that she can recover from her endless nightmare.

She stomps into the room, hands flailing. She isn’t sure what to do.

GM: Chuck is still there after the shower.

Still naked.

Still restrained.

Still everything.

He tugs against the cuffs as she re-emerges.

A moaned noise slurs past his gag.

It sounds angry at her.

Zoe: She presses hands to a too-tired face.

She doesn’t need any of this nonsense. Why can’t she have a normal day? A normal night? A normal anything?

Did she actually die and go to hell? It feels like it.

Zoe unlatches the ball gag.

“Who the fuck is A?”

GM: “Fucking… un… tie me…” Chuck grogs.

Zoe: She pinches the bridge of her nose. Okay. This is fine. This is fine. Everything. Is. Fine.

She grabs the keys, then moves to unlock him.

GM: Chuck immediately grabs the first of the pictures and starts tearing it to pieces.

Or at least as ‘immediately’ as he can. He’s pretty slow and groggy about it.

“Fucking… cunt…”

Zoe: For the first time since her phase of questionable faith the first time she’d been made to distance herself from the substance, Zoe wishes she wasn’t as high as she is. Fuck. Her fatigue feels as if it’s been replaced with an injection of coffee, bypassing the stomach and taking a direct line to her heart. She wants to dance, and to fuck, and to scream, and to play, and to shower—mostly shower—and to be fun

She shakes her head, pressing a palm to her forehead and smacking herself a few times.

“Can’t fucking—I’m too high for this shit.”

She sits beside him, picking up one of the errant photos.

“I didn’t know your ass could wink.”

She shrugs, cackling, and tosses it down.

“Is it really winking with one hole? Hmn.”

Maybe that’s a topic for a thesis, when she returns to school. When.

“I’m too in need of you to consider blackmail, too tired of my day to have the energy to think any other way on it, and too high to connect one thought to the next.”

A little embellishment, but just a little.

“So, what in the fuck happened, Chuck?”

GM: Chuck does not immediately answer. He just grabs the next photo and rips it up. His eyes are drooping as he slurs,

“Bad. Decision. All right?”

Zoe: She picks up another errant photo, glances down at it, and begins to tear it.

“Want revenge?”

GM: Chuck stares at her for a second.

His face looks out of focus.

But she sees the hate in his eyes.

“Yeah.”

Chuck grabs the last of the photos and rips it up.

“Those. Those whores.”

“I’ll fucking ruin them.”

Zoe: “Girlfriend, or…?”

She tears the picture to pieces, bit by bit. The edges come first; the periphery of the room, then the bedposts, then the nightstand, then the headboard. Little by little she tears it apart, until all she holds is the center—a snippet of his asshole so focused that one can’t even tell the hole is attached to a human unless they know the context.

She holds it up to her eye, as if an entire dimension of possibility lay inside.

The grin that spreads across her face could light up a city.

GM: Chuck isn’t grinning. At all.

“No,” he growls, though it still comes out half a slur.

He rips the photo’s pieces into even smaller pieces.

“Literal, fuckin’, whores.”

Zoe: She shakes her head as if she’s a dog throwing off water.

“Fuckin’.. what the fuck is in this?!”

It’s some good shit.

“You hired a bunch of whores and they did this? Are you high?”

GM: “They… drugged me.”

He blinks slowly.

“Those whores… they fuckin’ drugged me.”

“They drugged me,” he repeats, as if to himself.

He grabs the key on the nightstand and fumbles to unlock the padlock on the device around his dick.

Zoe: “Sounds like you’ve got some enemiiiiieeessss…” she sings, waggling a finger back and forth like a bony metronome.

She comes up behind him, throwing her arms around his neck from behind, as she would her boyfriend. If she had one.

“We should help each other get revengeeeeee! It’ll be fun! I’ll kill your whores, and you kill a cop! Easy peasy.”

GM: There’s a padlocked leather collar around his neck.

Chuck, though, is still fumbling to get off the chastity cage. He swears several times before he finally undoes the padlock and pulls off the steel head. His penis is tinged an unhealthy shade of blue.

“I’ll fuckin’ destroy them,” he slurs.

Zoe: “Ooooooh… That looks sick! We should get the blood flowing.”

She does not, however, move to touch it.

“How will ya destroy them?”

She moves to flop back onto the bed.

GM: Chuck tugs at the ring around his scrotum and swears some more when it doesn’t come off.

Zoe: “How many fucking locks do they have on you?”

GM: “Isn’t a lock, it’s…”

Chuck finally crams in the head of his penis and drags it underneath a protruding, keyhole-shaped portion of the ring. Then he pulls his balls through and throws it aside with an angry look. Normal color starts to return to his manhood.

“Z’where’s the other key,” he slurs.

Zoe: “You need another key?”

She sounds both surprised and annoyed.

“Haaaaa…. guess you’re lucky they didn’t chain your asshole shut!” she says, poking the shred of a picture she’s determined to keep.

GM: Chuck grabs at it.

Zoe: She closes her fist. It’s no more than a square inch after all her ripping.

“I waaaant it!”

GM: Chuck tries to un-pull her fingers. But the man looks ready to pass out at any moment, and there’s barely any strength behind his hands.

“Not… funny!”

Zoe: She rolls back further onto the bed, having the time of her damn life. Why did she ever feel tired?

“Cmonnnnn! It’s cute! I waaaant it! What made them do this, anyway?”

GM: Chuck glowers at her.

“‘Cuz they’re fucked up, is why!”

“Give it to me and I’ll tell you, all right?”

Zoe: “Nuh! They’re whores! Whores fuck! This is a conspiracy.”

She mourns the pretty little photo; at this point, barely a crumpled black dot and vaguely Chuck-colored background.

Then hands it over.

“Fine.”

GM: Chuck rips it up.

“Did a whore a favor. Said she’d pay me back with sex.”

“Brought a friend.”

Zoe: “You should invest in a safe word. Or a gun.”

GM: “Gun,” he mutters.

“Yeah. Drugged me and did…”

He fumbles around for the other key.

Zoe: “Well, technically, they didn’t break their word. Whatcha do for them?”

GM: “Some loser didn’t pay them for sex. Called my uncle ’bout where he lived. Rented from us.”

Chuck finds the key and tries to unlock the collar’s padlock. He swears when it doesn’t come off.

Zoe: “Ooooh. Not very bright going back on their word…”

A pause.

“Whatcha want to do to ’em?”

GM: “Fuck ’em,” he mutters.

“Ruin their lives.”

He tries the other key on the collar’s badlock. It finally comes off. He angrily throws it aside.

“Get them arrested. For whorin’.”

Zoe: “That’s boring,” she sings, waggling a finger at him.

“Oooh, let’s call the cops! That’ll show them what’s what. We’ll just show the cops the pictures—which don’t exist anymore—and they’ll chase them down. That’ll show them.”

Is she mocking him? Absolutely.

“You can do better than thaaaat!”

GM: Chuck glowers at her.

“No, dumbass, get them arrested for being whores.”

“Prostitution is illegal.”

Zoe: She palms her face.

“Dude, you’re literally paying me with a place to sleep and eat with sex. How will reporting them to the police—”

She shakes her head. Hypocrite.

“You don’t want to take revenge yourself? Something more personal? Come onnnnn!”

She reaches out, tugging on his forearm.

GM: He gives her a bleary look.

“Are you… high?”

He shakes his head.

“Whatever. Personal revenge. Yeah… wouldn’t say no.”

“Fuck them.”

“Fuck those cunts.”

Zoe: “Top of the fucking clouds. MAN that was some good shit he gave me!”

She tugs him over and kisses him, hard, exactly as unromantic and unsexy as a cartoon rabbit in a dress kissing a hunter.

“Good! Don’t say no. Personal revenge is much more satisfying.”

GM: Chuck’s response is equally unromantic. He doesn’t even kiss her back. Just pulls away and mutters, “Not in the mood,” with a dark look.

He ambles up and rifles through his dresser for some sweats and a t-shirt. He tugs them on.

Zoe: “Come onnnnn! There has to be something more going on! Paid whores don’t just torture their client in repayment of a favor. Are you suuuuure you don’t have enemies?”

GM: “Yeah, sure!” he exclaims, sinking heavily down back down onto the bed. “Yeah, my family’s got enemies, but I dunno who the fuck’d… who the fuck’d do this to me.”

“She was just some whore I fucked a bunch. Paid her.”

“Then brought over this… this literally insane…”

“I dunno where the fuck she came from…”

Zoe: “Did they at least get you off once?”

GM: “I d-ddunno, wh…”

Chuck clutches his stomach, then barrels out of the room. Zoe hears the sound of him retching.

Zoe: She clicks her tongue. Now that she finally wants to fuck, not a soul available is ‘in the mood’. Maybe her mother gave her a good enough fucking that karma continues to decide she’s meant for chastity. Hmn.

“Do you need me to hold your hair back?”

She doesn’t sound entirely serious.

GM: There’s no answer, but after a little while, the toilet flushes.

There’s the sound of gargling and spitting, then Chuck ambles back in to the bedroom with a barely comprehending look and plops back down on the bed.

“Why the fuck are you even here, anyway?”

“Don’t you have… friends?”

Zoe: She shakes her head.

“They won’t talk to me. Mom wins this round! You want to be my friend? Like, the kind I don’t have to fuck? I’ll still fuck you. Apparently I’m good at it! Good enough for three-hun—”

She looks puzzled all of a sudden.

“Two-hun… Dred and…”

She can’t remember how much cash she has. Oh well.

“I got paid for it! I went out and got locked in a closet!”

GM: She doesn’t have any cash. The other Cash took it all.

“Yeah,” Chuck grogs.

“You’re high as a kite, ‘n I’m drugged. Night.”

He sags onto a pillow and rolls over.

Zoe: "Pffffff! Kites got NOTHING on me!”

She lays back beside him.

“…so…”

A pause.

“Develop a pegging kink?”

GM: Her answer to that is total silence.

Friday morning, 1 April 2016

GM: Zoe’s dreams that night are troubled and fitful. She feels like shit when she wakes up. She supposes that a night of cocaine, stripping, and nothing to eat in 24 hours but cheese sticks and O’Tolley’s cheeseburgers may do that.

Chuck is still soundly asleep and lies face-first against the pillow. He doesn’t even snore. The pale-faced man looks really out of it.

Zoe: Fuck. You can’t live with drugs. You can’t live without them. Take them, and you earn a hangover to make any bottle of rum blush with envy. Don’t take them, and you earn a hangover to make any bottle of rum blush with envy, and you’ll punch your own mother to get some.

Zoe doesn’t need a lack of cocaine to want to punch her mother. She’s wanted to do far worse for days now.

She stirs, pressing a palm to a sweat-slick forehead.

Her heart thumps with urgency upon seeing Chuck. She places an ear to his chest. Did she kill him now?!

GM: The sheets are sweaty too. Hers and Chuck’s. Neither of them seems as if they had a good sleep.

Zoe finds it impossible to place her ear against Chuck’s chest when he is lying on the bed chest-down, but his neck has a pulse.

Zoe: He’s alive. That’s good. That’s a relief. For a moment, she wondered if Cash killed him while they slept with intent of pinning a murder on her. It seems he either has a merciful side, or he’s not as vindictive as paranoid-Zoe thinks he is.

She hasn’t showered in days. That’s her first order of business. Also, a time check.

GM: She has a marked sense of deja vu as she steps into the shower. It can’t have been days, can it?

It’s around noon. Friday.

Zoe: It can’t have been days.

But it has been.

She’s a has been.

She has to.

Has to what?

Has to shower.

Has to get to work.

Has to eat.

Food.

Real food.

So much food.

All the food.

She tries to recall what Chuck has in his freezer.

She stored frozen tadpoles in her shared office at Tulane. Some stupid exhibit-to-be to wrestle the interest of doe-eyed undergraduates-to-be. She had better things to do, but as Master commands, Apprentice does.

Maybe she’ll strike him down, one day.

Tadpoles aren’t food.

Not unless you cook them.

And season them.

In that order.

Shower.

Then food.

The sweat won’t come off.

Her skin will come off before the sweat.

Is Cash under her skin?

Are metaphors reality?

Does he really call himself Cash because he likes money?

She has money.

Had. Money.

He’d have liked Zoe.

Last week.

Except her tadpoles.

Though, both are green.

She has no clean clothes.

Fuck.

GM: It has been days.

One night with Chuck already.

Locked up all day in a closet for another.

Stripping all night and parting with her dignity for $280 and coke.

The sweat eventually comes off under the shower. Zoe may or may not feel clean.

There’s food in the fridge and freezer. Frozen meals and leftover, half-eaten restaurant takeout.

Her laundered clothes are a mess. At least half are ruined.

Chuck had wanted to see her naked.

Zoe: She would fuck Chuck three times right now for enough spare cash to buy some clothes and pay back those who fronted her dancing gear, but Chuck is passed out in his own drool.

Should she call a doctor for him? Probably. His heart continues to beat, so she continues to eat.

Zoe rummages through his freezer, finding a breakfast of eggs, sausage and a biscuit—somehow mashed into a paste—and nukes it in the microwave.

It’s better than some alternatives in there.

GM: The microwave dish slowly rotates around with the two ‘biscuit-style scrambles.’ The packaging looks appetizing enough, but it always does.

Do strippers work during the day?

Maybe she has that to herself. Cash Money didn’t say when or at what time she needed to be back.

Zoe: He didn’t, and while she is sure he expects common sense to be applied, she doesn’t want to make assumptions on his expectations lest she get locked in a closet. Again.

The microwave beeps, and she descends upon that poor plate of depressed eggs and other accompanying niceties with all the reserved restraint of a starved dog.

There are no survivors.

Once her plate is clean—quite literally, licked so—she finds the remnants of her clothing. What’s even left?

GM: The finished product, for ‘product’ seems the most fitting term to call it, is two open-face biscuits with egg, sausage, and cheese topping. The food tastes very salty and simultaneously filling but empty. Zoe can already feel her blood sugar spiking.

Technically, all of her clothes are left in the returned hamper. The delicates are ruined. The main articles to survive are the sturdier ones, like jeans.

She feels another striking sense of deja vu. Has she done this before?

Zoe: She has. She knew she had before subjecting herself to facing the same reality again: she doesn’t have enough clothing lift over to make an appropriate outfit to get coffee from down the street.

She groans, tugging her hair.

Okay. This is salvageable. No underwear is fine, for now. Jeans are safe.

She’ll borrow a shirt from Chuck.

GM: The shirts in Chuck’s dresser are a little big for Zoe, but he has plenty of them. They range in style from formal button-ups to wear with suits to more casual t-shirts like the one he’s still sleeping in. Polo shirts and long-sleeved tees round out the middle.

He’s still collapsed on the bed and looks completely out of it. The handcuffs, spreader bar, strap-on, ballgag, and chastity cage lie haphazardly strewn over the floor.

Zoe: They’re a little big, but it’s better than going out topless.

Concern laces her face when she regards him again. She slides onto the bed beside him.

“Chuck.”

GM: The sleeping man does not answer her.

Zoe: He doesn’t answer her, but he’ll probably be fine; and, if he isn’t fine, it’s because she’s already died days ago, gone to hell, and is living an eternity of punishment for her selfish existence.

So, you’re on your own, Chuck.

For the first time since her ‘Worst Day Ever’, she pulls her laptop out. She’d shut it off with intention to preserve it from any water damage before she left the coffee shop. It should be fine, right?

GM: For once, fortune smiles upon her, as the Sunbook laptop boots up without issue. She must’ve packed it fairly high up in the soaked and ruined bag.

Zoe: Blessed be!

She plugs the laptop in, gives it a few minutes to charge, and boots up her browser. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no.

How bad is her inbox?

GM: It could be worse.

But her advisor asked her to come work on Saturday and seem distinctly irritated by the lack of response. Someone else will do that, she’s told, and will get all the credit.

Her advisor also tells her to come wash his car by Monday.

Grad students are, unfortunately, their advisors’ bitches, more or less.

Zoe: She writes her advisor most of the truth: that she ran into some trouble with her family, and that she needs to find a source of income to continue giving her focus to the remainder of her degree. It shouldn’t take her too long! At least, that’s what she tells him.

Unfortunately, she can’t make it to work and she can’t wash his car; but, she says she’ll wash it twice!

Probably in a bikini, if he has his way.

GM: It’s perhaps Zoe’s “luck” that her advisor seems to be checking his mail right now. Her inbox pings with a new email.

Granted, it’s not as if the response took him very long to compose.

It’s only one sentence long.

Wash the car by 5 PM today or you’re terminated.

The threat, she knows, is completely genuine. Advisors have total power over the doctoral students who work for them. There is no appeal. There is no transfer to another advisor. There are no second chances—leave your doctoral program, which you can do at any time, and you are done forever in academia.

Zoe’s heard horror stories about doctoral students who quit and went back to flipping burgers at O’Tolley’s because they found the abuse from their advisors so intolerable.

Zoe: She grits her teeth hard enough that she worries about cracking one.

Given her luck, she consciously relaxes her jaw, rubbing the connection at the rear.

Okay. Leave the supplies out and I’ll come over right now. But seriously, I need to find income aside; my projects will have to keep on hold.

GM: Another just as swift and curt reply pops up:

Keep up with the work or you’re terminated.

Zoe: She smacks the desk.

GM: There are other doctoral students eager to replace her.

She knows that bitterly well, too.

If only she could turn to Mom or Grandpa or even Dad to get him to see reason.

Zoe: How the holy fuck is she supposed to manage her degree, pleasing Cash—literally, probably,—keeping Chuck appeased, and somehow managing to keep enough income to eat once Chuck gets tired of feeding her?

Where does Chuck keep his stash?

She goes to rummage for that. Fuck sobriety.

GM: Zoe’s parents would be the first to tell her she’s a disappointment. She’d be the first to agree that her life is now a disappointment.

Chuck’s stash doesn’t disappoint, though. He keeps a fair bit of booze in his place. Enough that she might be able to kill herself via alcohol poisoning, if she wants to go out that way.

Zoe: No, no, no. She doesn’t want to die. She just wants to feel something more than cold, harsh reality. Cocaine is ideal! She’ll wash her advisor’s car in minutes!

GM: Alas, Chuck has no cocaine in his apartment that Zoe can find. Just alcohol.

Zoe: She whines. What kind of wealthy spawn is he? Terrorists are no fun.

She huffs.

Fine.

She’ll go wash his stupid car.

Maybe blow up his stupid head.

GM: Her advisor’s address is in Metairie. She’ll need transportation.

Or she can just walk the seven or so miles.

Zoe: Why can’t the world pass free transportation?

Well, Chuck did agree to lend her a car. She’ll just take that.

GM: It takes some searching, but eventually she locates his keys.

Zoe: Perfect! Lucky for her, she managed to pass her driver’s test. On the second try.

GM: It’s a too-familiar route to the parking garage with her keys in hand. It almost feels like she’s going out for a drive, in her old car, in her old life—apart from the fact she’s borrowing someone’s else car.

Is she borrowing someone else’s life, in so many words, staying here?

Zoe: The thought strikes her like a pallet of bricks.

All those thoughts of death and Hell and this false reality, when she really is a ghost, possessing others and living their lives, punished every time she tries to live her old life.

She was rewarded when she lived a new life the night before. Somewhat.

But how can she just move on? She can’t just forget who she was, drop decades of work and become a whore.

Her hand settles to her belly at a red light. The thought of a parasite inside her from Trip, or worse, Cash…

She shudders.

But how can she move on?

GM: The only answer she receives is a rude honk from the car behind hers.

Traffic is a poor source of advice.

Zoe: You know how Zoe moves on from who she was?

She rolls the window down and flips the driver the bird, then—checking VERY carefully to ensure she’s not about to hit someone—zooms off.

Friday afternoon, 1 April 2016

GM: It’s a much briefer trek by car than it is by foot. The house of her advisor, Craig Estes, is a well-to-do property located in a nice suburban neighborhood. There’s a big and neatly maintained lawn. It’s a fairly nice house, the kind that belongs to someone with a six-figure income.

If on the lower side on that income level, for him to be relying on his doctoral students to do household chores for him.

There’s a Suburban parked in the driveway, ready to clean. Zoe sees no supplies laid out.

Zoe: Stupid advisor. Stupid Suburban. Stupid supplies. Stupid missing supplies. Stupid PhD. Stupid Zoe.

She huffs, locks the car behind her, and knocks on the door.

GM: She’s answered by Dr. Estes, a middle-aged man with rectangular glasses and receding hair who’s dressed in a button-up. He looks her over with a bored air.

“Supplies are in the garage. When you’re done, I have a list of groceries for you to pick up.”

Zoe: “Yes, Dr. Estes,” she answers, as if it’s Christmas. What’s gotten into Zoe? She’s never been so happy to serve his needs.

“I miss Tulane. I know it’s only been a few days…”

GM: Dr. Estes gives her an odd look.

Zoe: She smiles at him. What a lovely smile. Something’s different.

“Well… I’ll let you know when it’s done!”

And so she sets to it.

GM: Dr. Estes gives a grunt of acknowledgment and closes the door.

Zoe finds some cleaning products, rags, and a bucket in the garage. There’s a garden hose nearby to work on the car with.

It may be April, but the Dixie sun is fat and swollen overhead. It feels around 80 degrees, and it’s extremely humid. Like it always is in south Louisiana.

Dr. Estes’ house is almost certainly air-conditioned.

Zoe: Stuffy corpse. Act like that and I’ll grant your wish.

Still, she cares about finishing her degree. If that means washing his car, and buying his groceries—with his own money—it’s a small price to pay. He’ll pay the bigger price in the long run.

GM: In short order, Zoe finds herself drenched in sweat and extremely thirsty. It’s tiring and physically intensive work, especially in this weather, to scrub the car completely clean.

Zoe: She pushes herself, for now. Suffering is part of the game, isn’t it? He doesn’t care to see his mentees succeed or fail. He cares to see them suffer; so, suffer she will. It will all be worth it in the end. Every. Last. Bit.

GM: Zoe is a sweat-soaked and red-faced mess by the time she’s done scrubbing. Maybe she’s gotten sunburn. She smells awful. Her clothes are going to stink after they dry out, if they do at all in the muggy weather. Dr. Estes looks the car over after she’s done, then says,

“My cat got diarrhea. You can clean the litter box before you pick up my groceries.”

Zoe: “Can I…”

She swallows a sandpaper tongue.

“Can I have a glass of water before I go?”

She’s worked herself to exhaustion; at least, it feels that way, and it shows that way.

GM: “Wash the glass when you’re done,” Dr. Estes says impatiently.

He snaps his fingers.

“Oh. I’m glad you reminded me.”

“My dishwasher’s broken. The repairman comes by tomorrow. Wash and put away everything that’s in there.”

Zoe: “Certainly, Dr!”

She always does. Cleanliness is one of the core tenets of her chosen educational path. Once you know what really lays unseen on used surfaces, you never forget to wash them again.

She just might bash it over his head first.

“Before or after I shop for you?’

GM: “Either,” he shrugs. He produces a wallet and hands her $200, along with a paper shopping list. “That’ll be enough for the groceries.”

Zoe: “Yessir.”

Water. Then another glass.

She takes care in washing the dishes, ensuring that nothing is scratched or broken. No. Zoe is the perfect student. She’s the perfect candidate. She’s perfect. Perfect perfect perfect.

She drinks a third glass, then washes, dries and adds her own glass to the collection.

Next: cat poop. At least it’s in the litter box, right?

GM: There are a lot of dishes. It’s over half an hour before Zoe finishes drying and putting away all of them. Her legs are sore from stretching on the hard tile floor. Her fingers are wrinkled like raisins and smell of dish soap.

At least it’s cool inside.

Zoe’s hope, however, proves misplaced. The litter box is in the pantry room. The cat looks like it missed the box. There’s wet, stinky poop all over the floor.

Zoe: She could leave the cat in the oven…

She hasn’t had Chinese in a few weeks.

Deep breath, Zoe. Outside the pantry.

It’s not the first time she’s been made to clean up after that geriatric feline. It will probably be the last.

She collects the supplies, regretting contacting the doctor, and sets to her next task.

GM: If she wasn’t doing his household chores she’d be terminated from the program.

It’s gross and unpleasant work, even if it is shorter than doing the dishes. Zoe’s wrinkled hands smell like cat shit through the layers of paper towels she uses to clean it up.

Zoe: Where is the monster, anyway? Maybe it can read her mind.

Back to the sink. More washing. Always washing. Her hands still smell like precum to her.

Money in her back pocket, she calls out to him, “Going for your groceries! Back soon.”

GM: Dr. Estes gives no answer. It’s a short drive to the local Herrick’s. Dr. Estes looks like he’s planning a nice dinner, or maybe dinner party, given some of the items on his grocery list. There’s a lot of wine and prime cuts of beef.

Zoe also realizes, as she tabulates up the prices of individual items, that he’s not given her enough money to buy everything. She’s around $50 short.

Zoe: She pinches the bridge of her nose, and looks up at the sky.

I know I’ve never been one for visiting your house on Sundays, God, but if you’re trying to make a point, I’m listening. I give up. Truce. You win. White flag. What do you want me to do?

She calls him.

GM: God doesn’t answer.

Neither does her advisor.

The phone rings until voicemail. She’s invited to leave her name and number and the nature of her call,

“And I’ll get back to you as soon as convenient.”

Beeep.

Zoe: She hangs up.

Okay.

Fine.

Back to his house, buying what she can as close to $200 as possible—including tax.

GM: Dr. Estes looks over everything when she’s back, as if to be sure she did it right. Then he says,

“This isn’t everything on the list.”

The man with absolute power over her future in academia stares at her with a very displeased frown.

Zoe: She whimpers. The moment he opens the door, she tells him, before he even takes the bag.

“There wasn’t enough cash. I’d have paid it forward myself, but—I don’t have any money. I’ve only been eating because a friend has been kind enough to feed me.”

Annoyance: boiling.

Demeanor: calm apparent.

GM: Dr. Estes stares at her, as if making up his mind.

Zoe can see the future of her PhD hanging in the balance.

Over this man’s groceries.

Then he reaches into his wallet, gives her another $50, and says,

“Go pick up the rest.”

Zoe: “Thank you for understanding, Dr. Estes!”

It must be near time for work. She won’t race—she doesn’t want to kill anyone—but she will skitter along quickly when she can to ensure she can get back and shower in time. The last thing she wants is Cash upset with her.

GM: The trip back to the grocery store feels as if it takes forever to pick up the remaining one bag of items. When she’s back, Dr. Estes tells her,

“Go clean my bathrooms.”

Zoe: She checks the time.

GM: A few hours past noon.

Zoe: She groans internally. Still a few hours before she has to be back at Barely Legal.

“Okay.”

He’s punishing her for disappearing for a few days.

On to the bathrooms…

GM: Zoe gets sore from kneeling over tile floor and stains her hands with bleach as she scrubs.

“Did you do the toilets?”

Zoe: “Not done yet!”

GM: There’s no reply.

Zoe: Toilets. Cleaner than when they were bought. At least it’s a feasible request, unlike buying groceries with more money than she’s given.

GM: Then when that’s done and they’re freshly scrubbed, her advisor tells her,

“You can vacuum the floors next.”

Zoe: “O-okay! Anything else?”

I can’t pay for my own funeral when Cash kills me. If you keep this shit up, one of us isn’t surviving the night.

GM: “Not for now.”

For now.

Zoe: Zoe is the best at vacuuming. There’s never been a person who’s vacuumed quite as good as her. Just ask anyone who matters, and they’ll tell you, Zoe J Kelly is the best vacuumer. Believe you her. Her vacuuming brain is yuge.

GM: Dr. Estes doesn’t look particularly impressed when she’s done. He doesn’t tell her she did a bad job, but he doesn’t praise her either. Instead he says,

“Laundry hamper’s in the bedroom. Do a load and fold everything when it’s dry. Iron my shirts.”

Zoe: Eat my shorts. Don’t you have other grad students to fuck with? Does everyone with an iota of power wield it over others as if they’re the ruler of their own, minuscule empire?

The answer is yes, Zoe, and you know it.

“Okay.”

If there are streaks, she’s lighting the washing machine on fire.

GM: There are bunch of dirty men’s and women’s clothes for Zoe to haul to the laundry room and load into the machine. It spins and spins in its cycle.

30 minutes until it’s done.

Does Dr. Estes expect her to just stand around until it’s done?

The drying cycle will take more time, too.

Does her time mean that little to him?

Zoe: Apparently, it does. He’d have been kind to ask her to do this in the midst of everything else.

But he didn’t, did he?

No, he elects to inconvenience her—and other candidates—every chance he can. He’s a bully through and through, even if he is one of the brightest people in the state.

How many of his achievements—how much of his success as an academic—stems from abuse and theft of his protégés?

He doesn’t encourage growth. He doesn’t encourage the field to move onward. He doesn’t want to breed a healthy community that will shepherd humanity into another era.

In a moment of clarity, she decides: If he doesn’t care for any of it in the way she does, he doesn’t deserve his position any longer. Since this Hell began, every time she’s felt that all-consuming fire of inside her—toward Chris, and toward the rapist-that-wasn’t in the club—their life was snuffed out as if a candle in the wind.

She walks back out while the laundry is in.

“Thank you for all you do.”

And she wills that same passionate hate to tide onto him.

GM: Dr. Estes is in his office, working on something over his computer.

“You’re welcome,” he agrees without looking at her.

They are the last words he ever says.

At first, all that happens is he stops typing. The clitter of fingers against keyboard goes silent.

Then he sags forward, breathing hard. He clutches a hand to his chest.

He jerks around in his chair, swiveling to face Zoe. His forehead is beaded with sweat. His mouth hangs open and his eyes are wide. With pain. With terror.

He tries to say something to Zoe, as his eyes lock with hers. All that comes out of his mouth is a paper-dry rasp, but there is no mistaking the look of pleading in his eyes. As he finally sees her as a fellow human being, who right now, he needs.

He staggers out of his chair, towards her, clutching his heart. He makes it two steps forward before he collapses forward onto his shoulder, then rolls to a stop on his back. His mouth hangs dumbly open as his eyes vacantly stare towards the ceiling.

The smell of piss wafts up Zoe’s nostrils. There’s a wet stain around his crotch.

Zoe: Zoe shrieks as if she witnessed her own father stabbed in the heart in front of her. There’s some guilt there, in her heart. What gives her the right to be judge, jury and executioner? Who is she to decide who is and isn’t fit for anything at all?

Guilt is made to take a back seat. This has to look right.

“Professor!? Wh—”

Her eyes widen with surprise; faux surprise, but surprise nonetheless.

She crosses the room in a pair of long strides, meeting him just as he stumbles and collapses in front of her.

“I-is it medicine?!”

Her fingers fumble across his chest, lowering herself to listen to a heartbeat she already knows is fading.

“Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my GOD!”

She draws her own phone out, shaking, and dials emergency.

GM: Zoe might be faking it if she screamed over her father’s death too.

“911, what is your emergency?” greets a female dispatcher’s calm voice.

Zoe: “I-i-it’s my profewdor! I w-was ’elwing him anee COLLAPSED!”

She’s bawling so hard that she’s hardly understandable.

She does, however, manage to convey the address.

GM: The dispatcher stays on the line with Zoe for the seven or so minutes until the EMTs arrive, accompanied by a police escort. It’s a fast response, all things considered. Zoe is asked to open the house’s door for them so they don’t need to break it open.

Zoe: Her voice quivers like a sapling in a storm while the dispatcher tries and fails to restore some calm to her, her tears taking the role of the rain. The leading lady stumbles over her words while they speak, finding a nearby seat on the floor.

When the EMTs arrive, the door is open, Zoe standing moon-eyed behind the frame. The tears stop. She doesn’t have any more tears. How can she? Tears are replace by shock, and Zoe is shock incarnate.

GM: The EMTs try the defibrillator paddles on the motionless man, anyway, despite his minutes-stopped heart: there is always a chance they may be able to resuscitate the clinically dead. They try several times.

Their patient just lies there.

It’s not long before the EMTs “call it” and document his time of death. There’s talk of notifying next of kin.

Dr. Estes’ eyes stare blankly up at the ceiling.

Friday afternoon, 1 April 2016

GM: The EMTs leave the resuscitation adjuncts in place. No one moves Dr. Estes’ body or otherwise disturbs the scene.

Two black-uniformed Jefferson Parish police officers ask Zoe to tell them everything that happened.

Zoe: Zoe tells them the truth: that she was helping her advisor when she came back to mention a thought—momentarily spiraling off into some too-deep, boundary-pushing thought on cellular biology, before getting back to the point once their eyes gloss over sufficiently—and he collapsed. She describes the symptoms in the vague detail that she remembers, and she immediately called emergency.

GM: The biology talk seems to largely go over the heads of the two police officers, if the glazed looks on their faces are indication.

They trade glances between each other when Zoe is finished.

“How well did you know him?” asks one of them, a middle-aged man with a graying mustache.

Zoe: They seem to have bought it. That’s good.

She sniffles. It’s wet and globby.

“A… a few years. He was my advisor. I’m one of the d-doctoral candidates at Tulane.”

GM: “Did he have any health conditions you know of?” asks his partner, a slightly younger and clean-shaven man.

Zoe: She shakes her head.

“We didn’t talk about his health. I just… I didn’t expect anyone… I’ve never—”

GM: “What was your relationship like?” asks the other cop.

Zoe: She explains what is again the truth: that she’s been his candidate for the last couple of years, and is nearing the end of her degree.

“About as healthy as any professor-candidate pairing is,” she adds with a shrug.

“I… I didn’t expect…”

GM: “Who would,” nods the mustached cop. “How long you been over at his house today?”

Zoe: She pulls out her phone to check the time.

“A few hours?”

GM: “And you spent these past few hours talking about biology with him?”

Zoe: “Among other things. I helped him out with this and that around the house,” she shrugs noncommittally.

“I’m…” She shakes her head. “I just can’t—”

GM: “Pretty easy stuff, I’m guessing?” nods the second cop. “Dishes, that kinda stuff?”

Zoe: She nods. “Nothing stressful. Not that I’d think would cause enough stress to—”

GM: “How’d you get so sweaty?” asks the first cop.

“Your clothes smell, no offense.”

Zoe: “Have you been outside?” she answers, raising a brow. She’s more teasing than accusatory, as much as one can tease when so distraught.

“I helped him out by washing his car earlier.”

GM: “Miserable work in this weather,” says the second cop. “Really miserable.”

“He couldn’t just go to a car wash?”

“Looks like he makes all right money.”

“Made,” says the first cop.

Zoe: “Probably. You ever been through the military? The masters in our world trial their students, just as the masters in that world do. One has to be strong, even in academia,” she answers sagely.

Her eyes widen.

“You don’t think there’s something in the house, do you? Gas or something? I haven’t used bleach or anything, but..”

GM: “Mm, maybe. We’re definitely gonna have a detective look this place over,” says the second cop.

“Ask his wife about his health history, that kinda stuff.”

Zoe: She nods solemnly.

“We’re worse off…”

GM: “So, why’d you wash his car, again?” asks the first cop.

Zoe: “When you went through the academy, did your, erm… sergeant? I’m not sure who runs things in the police academy. Did they make you do push-ups? Anything like that?”

GM: “Sure did,” says the second cop. “You gotta pass the fitness test. Same as in the military.”

Zoe: She nods.

“Similar idea, I guess. Need to be able to ensure discomfort and monotony, even in my field. Washing a car sounds silly, but it matters. Things like that aren’t uncommon in doctoral candidates.”

GM: “Less about discomfort than needing to be fit,” says the second cop. “Police work can involve pursuing fleeing suspects. Gotta be able to run. Can involve fights, too. Gotta be strong enough to do push-ups.”

Zoe: “Gotta be able to sit in a lab with a broken air conditioner for more hours in a day than not, or lean over a sink, or—”

GM: “Was washing a car the only thing he made you do?” asks the first cop.

Zoe: Zoe stops in mid-answer.

“What’s this all have to do with him?”

GM: “Just helping us paint a picture of what he was up to, on his last day alive,” says the first cop. “His wife and kids are gonna want to know why.”

“Might be he had a health condition or something and this doesn’t matter, but we like to be thorough.”

“So what’d you do besides wash his car and talk about biology?” asks the second cop.

Zoe: She frowns, sniffling. “Maybe. I’ve been his protege for years, and he’s never talked about his health. Nothing major like this. A cold here and there. I came over to talk about finishing my degree. He mentioned hosting a dinner, and that he needed some help before we’d discuss some problems I’ve been having that took me away for a little. I figured we’d talk after the preparation was done. Just a few other things: the car, shopping, which he paid for, and throwing some laundry in. He was doing some things for the university anyway, so better my time is used than his.”

GM: “So you washed his car, bought his groceries, did his laundry, and talked about biology,” says the first cop. “That was everything you did today?”

Zoe: She shook her head.

“I was just coming back from setting his laundry to go when he—”

She gestures toward where his body is.

GM: “What else did you do?” asks the second cop.

Zoe: She has to think about it. “Cat… poop? Nothing that would make the news or be considered out of the ordinary, officer.”

GM: “So you did his cat litter, bought his groceries, did his laundry, washed his car, and talked about biology,” says the first cop.

The second cop guffaws. “No way I’d wanna do all that shit. Hire a maid.”

“You shoulda seen him at the university. Office hours or whatever.”

Zoe: She smiles politely, pained.

“We’re more than just students. Doctoral candidates are—a brotherhood, of sorts.”

She breathes a quiet sigh.

“I don’t know what we’ll do.”

GM: “So, you wanted to help with all this stuff?” says the first cop. “It was your idea to come over?”

Zoe: “My idea to come over. His idea that he needed help. It’s really no trouble,” she shrugs.

GM: The second cop grins. “Yeah, figures that was his idea.”

“Seems like a real cheapskate.”

Zoe: She shakes her head.

“Sometimes time with the masters is valuable, even in such mundane ways.”

A pause.

She sighs.

GM: The first cop laughs.

“You’re full of shit.”

Zoe: She shrugs.

“Aspirational, probably. Too dreamy? Definitely. Full of shit? Maybe the first two make it so.”

GM: The second cop removes some handcuffs off his belt.

“Hands please. You’re under arrest.”

Zoe: She squints. “Arrest? For what, officer?”

GM: “Hands. Now.”

Zoe: She offers them her hands gingerly.

GM: The second cop snaps the steel around her wrists while the first dryly recites,

“You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have a right to an attorney. If you can’t afford an attorney, one will be provided to you. Do you understand these rights?”

Zoe: She nods silently, eyes welling up.

“Wh—what am I being arrested for?”

GM: “For hating his guts, being alone with him when he died, and feeding us shit.”

Both police take Zoe by the arm and start leading her out of the house. She sees that more responders have already arrived and are filing into Dr. Estes’ office. They start snapping pictures of the body.

Zoe: “Wh—but I didn’t—”

She doesn’t resist. What is she going to do?

They’re irritating her, but she’s already so thoroughly worn through bone into marrow on how thoroughly this purgatory is punishing her that she doesn’t feel much else.

Fear? Yes.

Anger? Somewhat.

Mostly impatience. What comes next? Will she be charged for wishing someone’s death?

GM: The officers help Zoe into the back of the cop car. The seats are hard, plastic, and uncomfortable. Steel bars separate any passengers in the back from the front seats. The second cop stays behind. The first cop starts driving.

Zoe: She begins to wonder if these are even real cops. What’s next on the menu? Rape? A beating? Maybe they’ll force her to snort cocaine, too.

“What’s your name, officer?” she asks, heart thumping just a little too quickly for her own comfort.

Calm down, Zoe. Thoughts aren’t crimes. Not yet.

GM: “We prefer not to disclose those to crime suspects, ma’am,” answers the officer.

Zoe: “Wh—b—but… how can I have committed a crime? He… he just collapsed!” she whimpers.

Thump thump. Thump thump. Thump thump.

This doesn’t feel right. She is liable to have a heart attack if she doesn’t calm herself down.

“Where are you taking me?”

GM: “The station,” says the police officer. Suburban houses roll past the car’s windows.

Zoe: She doesn’t answer him, nor does she ask anything further. She leans her head against the glass, focusing on her breathing. Why does everything feel so complicated? Every little thing, every moment of every day since she returned home just a few days prior.

In. Out. In. Out. In. Out. Don’t have a heart attack.

GM: The police officer drives Zoe to an ugly beige building with Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Department written over the entrance. The surroundings are nothing but concrete, cars, and viaducts for as far as Zoe can see. There’s no plants or trees. There’s a small and dilapidated building near the police station, almost a shack, with a sign that reads, Troy’s Bail Bonds—The Key To Set You Free!

Zoe: Every step she’s taken for the last few days feels like the long-delayed result of a children’s playful game of warning. ‘Step on a crack, you’ll break your mother’s back!’

Zoe doesn’t much care if her mother’s back is broken for every step she takes, but the relentless, spine-shattering pain she seems to be dealt at every choice she makes—and even some she doesn’t—she does mind.

In.

Out.

In.

Out.

What if she holds her breath? What if she holds it and doesn’t draw another here in the back of this cruiser? What would her false accusers do?

GM: There’s only one way to find out for sure.

The police officer parks his car and opens Zoe’s door for her.

He leads her inside a side entrance to the building and past several empty rows of cells to a room where some other people tell her to stand on a yellow line facing forward and sideways while a flash goes off. They ask her several questions:

“What is your full name?”

“What is your home address?”

“What is your phone number?”

“Who is your current employer?”

Zoe: She gives the officer her name, sparing her mother none of the shame she’d have prefers, sure she’ll pay for it later. She gives her phone number just as easily.

Her address, however, she clarifies as ‘staying with a friend’, followed by his address.

“I don’t really work,” she answers. “My degree is my work. Well… I don’t know where that is, given…”

She huffs.

GM: Then comes fingerwiping. A deputy rubs Zoe’s fingers with a sequence of baby wipes and then splays them onto the glass plate of a scanner: images of her fingertips floating in the computer monitor. A series of electronic chirps seems to indicate the pictures are keepers.

Zoe: The fingerprinting she doesn’t mind and complies.

GM: After that, Zoe’s taken aside by a black, portly, and middle-aged female deputy who boredly says to her,

“Strip search. Take off your clothes.”

Zoe: The strip search prompt earns a raised brow and a questioning pause, but she does begin to undress with all the urgency of a would-be president being informed he’ll be chained down in an all-you-can-rape Middle Eastern dungeon.

“I didn’t do anything…” she whimpers.

GM: No one blinks upon hearing her name is Kelly. She supposes it’s a common enough name.

The cops accept the address she gives without remark.

They ask what university she’s attending for her degree.

The deputy clinically searches Zoe’s clothes and person before handing the former back for her to re-dress. Any personal effects she had with her are confiscated.

Zoe: She answers the questions as simply as they’re asked, redressing with more haste than when the Tulane football team rushed through the women’s locker room whooping and hollering. Shock humor. Ha ha. Very funny. Go Green Waves. She’d have turned the waves a little more red if she had the power.

GM: Another officer then tells Zoe she will be allowed to make a single phone call at this point.

Zoe: She mentions her friend—Chuck —who she’s staying with. He’ll be the one she calls.

“I’m not, like—am I being held? With bail? Because I really didn’t do anything.”

GM: “You’re being held ’til your arraignment,” answers a cop. “Judge’ll set your bail then, if any.”

No one seems to care who Zoe says she’ll call. She’s given access to a landline phone and space alone to make her call from.

Zoe: “How long off is that?”

Can they legally hold her that long? She could have gone into law. She’d know what to do if she did.

Pending their answer, she dials Chuck.

GM: The cop helpfully shrugs.

The phone rings for a long time before it’s answered with a tired-sounding,

“Nnnh, what.”

Zoe: “H-hey, Chuck? It’s Zoe. Look—I—I’m at the police station, or jail, or… something. They think I killed my professor, but I—I didn’t!”

Of course she didn’t. How could she have? She hasn’t been anything but an obedient, complacent protege.

“Can you help me out? Please? I’ll owe you.. and we can call it even on what I helped you with the other night.”

GM: “Wai… wugh?” he says groggily. “What your professor?”

Zoe: “C-come on, Chuck!”

Think, think, think. What was the sign?

“Jefferson Parish Police Department. Please.”

GM: “Righ’, start from the begin… th’ fuck you mean, killed him?”

Zoe: “I said I didn’t kill him! He just—he collapsed! I was at his house, and he collapsed. I called the cops, and they arrested me. Come on, I need help, Chuck!”

GM: “Righ’,” Chuck grogs. “I feel like shit an’ I’m a property lawyer anyway.”

“Bu’, okay. I’ll sen’ you a crim’nal lawyer, and we’re even. For las’ night.”

“Don’ talk to cops without your lawyer,” he adds, seeming to find a bit more wind. “Can only hurt you. Won’ ever help.”

“Literally don’t say nothin’ but ‘lawyer.’”

Zoe: “Thanks, Chuck. I owe you. I mean it.”

Little late for the last bit, but she’ll heed it from here on out.

GM: “Eh. Fuck it. We’re even. Balances out.”

Zoe: “What’s the lawyer’s name? Are… you covering the fee, or…? If not… you know I’ll pay you back. One way or another.”

GM: “Amber Cox. An’ yeah, I know you’ll be good for it.”

Chuck still sounds too out of it to be giving a proper leer.

Zoe: She verifies that Chuck is indeed sending the lawyer, and that he has the correct police station, then hangs up. Okay. At least there’s that.

GM: Yes, he’s sending her. Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Department.

“All done?” says a deputy after she’s done. “This way.”

The police take Zoe to a small, bare, and claustrophobic room containing a single table, several hard chairs, and a single dim light. Two handcuffs bolted to the table are securely fastened around Zoe’s wrists. Two middle-aged men dressed in plainclothes suits rather than police uniforms come in and sit down on opposite sides of the table from Zoe.

“How long have you worked under Dr. Estes?” asks one of the men.

Zoe: She nods to the deputy, and follows. Her hands are cuffed, she sits, the men ask their question, and she answers.

“I’ll answer all you’d like to ask once my lawyer is in the room.”

Let it not be said that she doesn’t listen to Chuck.

GM: “This is just double-checking whether the info we have is right,” says the man. “Sooner it’s in order, sooner you can get out.”

Zoe: She simply raises a brow. Nope. Lawyer.

GM: The second man smiles.

“‘Say nothing without a lawyer,’ right?”

Zoe: She nods.

GM: “They give that advice to their clients a lot.”

Zoe: She nods.

GM: “Yours tell you how soon you can expect to get out?”

Zoe: She shrugs. Are non-verbal answers considered ‘talking without a lawyer’? Probably, but these seem harmless.

Zoe folds her hands, waiting. Any minute now.

GM: “Well, it’s up to us and up to the judge,” says the first man.

“We have some leeway in how long we get to hold you before seeing a judge.”

Zoe: “Officer, I won’t be answering anything else until my lawyer —Amber Cox —is sitting next to me.”

GM: “Then when we see the judge, up to him whether you get bail or not,” says the second man. “If he doesn’t set bail, you could be sitting in jail for months.”

Zoe: She falls silent again. Threats won’t sway her. Chuck said not to talk, so she won’t talk. She was polite, yet firm —as she’s been told to be.

GM: “Our jail isn’t as bad as OPP, but I’m sure you have other places you’d rather be.”

Zoe: “All respect, we’ll continue once my lawyer is here.”

GM: “You’re working on a PhD, right?” says the first man. “How many months can you miss before you get dropped from the program?”

“Being sent to jail for any length of time might be an automatic disqualifier,” says the second man. “Lucky for you, police holding cell isn’t real jail.”

“We can talk to the judge,” says the first man. “Get him to set bail instead of sending you to jail.”

Zoe: Silence. Not a smile. Not a frown. Lawyer.

GM: “Are we on the same page?” asks the second man. “Do you expect to complete your program if the judge locks you up for months?”

Zoe: Maybe the cops are less educated here. Oh well. Silence.

GM: “Suit yourself,” shrugs the first man.

He and his partner get up and leave. They close the door behind them.

Zoe is left by herself on the uncomfortable chair, hands chained to the table.

Zoe: She whistles one of her songs. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting.

GM: She waits.

There’s no clock to mark the passage of time.

No windows to look outside from.

Nothing to do but stare around the featureless room and wait.

Zoe: She counts cracks in the wall.

GM: She counts six.

Zoe: Six! Six whole cracks!

GM: Maybe there are more. The lighting is dim.

Zoe: Wait… No, seven!

What a shit hole.

She bets the officer is so grumpy because he has a tiny penis.

GM: Zoe’s not sure how much time she spends staring at the walls. She feels very sore. She’s hungry and needs to use the bathroom.

Eventually, the door opens and a woman walks into the room. She looks in her early to mid 30s. She’s blonde, somewhat pudgy, and dressed in a gray pantsuit and pearl necklace.


“Hi, I’m Amber,” she says as she sits down across the table from Zoe.

Zoe: She looks up from her daydream.

“Ms. Co—Hi! Zoe. Zoe Kelly. Thank you so much for coming.”

GM: “It’s my job,” says Amber. “So, let’s not waste any waste time. Why don’t you tell me what happened?”

Zoe: “My PhD advisor collapsed. I called emergency, and was arrested,” she states plainly. Succinct, and to the point.

“In no way did I harm or want to harm the man, Amber.”

GM: Amber nods. “So you know, it’s my job to defend you whether you harmed him or not. Are you familiar with attorney-client privilege?”

Zoe: She shakes her head. She’s been around lawyers all her life, yet never interacted with one in a legal manner.

“Explain?”

GM: “Basically, anything you tell me as your lawyer, I’m not allowed to repeat without your permission. Even if you’ve killed a dozen people, and I tell the police, I lose my license and don’t get to practice law anymore.”

Zoe: She nods. Simple enough.

“I haven’t hurt anyone. Honest.”

A pause.

“They threatened me. Saying if I talked I would be let out sooner, or kept longer and given bail if I didn’t. I didn’t say anything more than that I wouldn’t talk until you’re here.”

GM: “Smart,” says Amber. “They do that a lot. But talking to cops on your own never helps you. If there’s something that would help you to tell them, waiting a few hours to vet it past me isn’t going to kill them.”

Zoe: She chews her lower lip, thinking.

“I let them know some things at the house before I was arrested. That I was his student, I was helping him around the house; that sort of thing.”

She pauses.

“Why would they arrest me? How could I have hurt him?”

GM: “Lots of reasons to arrest you, unfortunately,” says Amber. “Doesn’t cost them anything to lock someone up, and pretty often that’ll get people to spill.”

“And if they’re wrong, oh well. No skin off their noses.”

Zoe: “They are wrong,” she huffs, trying and failing to rub her temples. Stupid chains.

GM: “Well, hopefully we’ll have you out soon. Can you tell me the full story of what happened?”

“Starting when you went to your advisor’s house.”

Zoe: “That… really is the full story. I was helping him at his house with various bits and bobs, he collapsed, I called emergency services, they came, they examined him, then they arrested me.”

GM: “Can you tell me the extra full version, then? Even things that seem irrelevant, like why you were over at his house, what bits and bobs you were helping with, etcetera. You never know what will turn out to be meaningful, whether to the case itself or just to what the police or DA may seize on.”

Zoe: “He’d asked me to help with a few chores. It’s common for PhD students. I washed his car, picked up his groceries, and cleaned a bit around his house.”

A pause.

“The police mentioned my being sweaty as suspicious.”

GM: “To be clear, I meant those things as examples. Can you give me a full account of your time at his house?”

Zoe: And so she does, recounting her time at his house in honest detail. She’s cognizant of what is and isn’t appropriate for a student to say, but tells the full truth in the confidence of client and attorney.

At the end, she clarifies, “…to be clear, we had no form of sexual or romantic relationship, nor had the thought ever been raised by either of us.”

GM: Amber takes that all in and asks for the details of Zoe’s conversation with the police after Dr. Estes collapsed. As much as she can remember there.

Zoe: And so she relays, as much as her memory recalls.

“I just want to go home, Ms. Cox.”

GM: “Getting you out is what I’m here for,” nods Amber.

“I also don’t think you’ve been completely honest with me,” she says frankly.

“Now, it’s up to you how much you tell me and how much you don’t. I’m your lawyer, not your interrogator. But the more I know about the facts of your case, the better I can defend you and represent your interests.”

Zoe: Her brow softens with a touch of defeated hurt.

“I am honest. I didn’t lay a finger on the man. Not one.”

GM: Amber looks less than convinced by the denial.

Zoe: She lofts a brow. “Be honest. What do you think happened?”

“Why would I throw my degree —a goal I’ve worked on most of my life —and my life itself into jeopardy by murdering a man while alone in his house with him and no reasonable alibi for being elsewhere, then call emergency and sit there? I’m suspicious, I understand —but I’m not stupid.”

GM: “I don’t think you liked him. Doctoral students have to put up with a lot of abuse from their advisors. No one enjoys being made to do a lot of unpaid chores.”

“Could be you saw him collapse and you waited before calling 911, instead of doing it immediately. But that’s just speculation. You’re the one who was there, not me.”

Zoe: “I called immediately,” she affirms with reserved tension. “I don’t know if he has cameras or not, but you’re welcome to check them if he does.”

“Is delayed call of emergency actually a chargeable offense?”

She sounds as surprised as she is.

GM: Amber holds up a hand. “Look, I’m not your prosecutor. It ultimately doesn’t help you to convince me of anything.”

“I’ve represented clients who haven’t told me the full story on their end before. Their thinking usually went, ’She’ll represent me better if she thinks I’m innocent’ or ‘she doesn’t need to know I did X illegal thing to do her job.’”

“But it doesn’t work that way. It’s my job to represent clients whether they’re innocent or guilty. Very often, seemingly unimportant details a client leaves out can be relevant to their cases, as they lack the legal expertise to know for themselves. That usually results in me defending them less effectively, and their getting a worse sentence or plea deal.”

“And no, a delayed call of emergency isn’t a chargeable offense. You’re under no duty to aid someone in peril.”

Zoe: “It doesn’t matter how I feel. Frustration isn’t a crime,” she answers.

What is she going to say? That she liquefied his brain with her thoughts? That isn’t how sane society works.

“Every PhD candidate on the planet becomes ireful toward their advisor at one point or another, whether for mistreatment or high expectations. I’m no different. I didn’t want to be there all day serving him, but I did. Because that’s what my life demands. Under no circumstance did I harm him in any way. He is —was —my path to a career.”

Lesson one in murder, Zoe. Plausible deniability. Noted.

GM: “Frustration isn’t a crime, but it is a motive,” says Amber. “Most murders are committed by people who knew the victim and had something against them.”

Zoe: “What did I kill him with? My thoughts? I didn’t touch him. I was barely within touching distance all day.”

GM: “There are ways to kill someone without touching them. The coroners are probably doing a toxicology test on his body.”

“Telling the police you were honored to do his housework was a bad look. They obviously didn’t believe that, because no one likes doing unpaid labor, and it made you look as if you were trying to hide how much you disliked him.”

Zoe: “Okay—fair. I shouldn’t have said that. I still didn’t harm him.”

And she sure hopes toxicology doesn’t come back with anyone else feeling murderous…

GM: “Okay, you didn’t harm him. Is there anything else you haven’t told me that you’d like to?”

Zoe: “What else would be smart to tell you?”

GM: “Everything. As I’ve said, the more information I have to work with, the better I can do my job of getting you out.”

Zoe: She tentatively shakes her head.

“Can you get me out today?”

GM: “Nope. Police can hold you for up to three days before an arraignment.”

Zoe: She groans. “And they’re probably pissy because I didn’t cave.”

GM: “Or better said, I might be able to. What the police think isn’t everything. You only get arraigned if the DA’s office decides to charge you with anything.”

Zoe: “How long will toxicology take?”

GM: “So, first, the police are going to examine the scene of Estes’ death. The coroner’s office is going to examine his body. The police are also probably going to search his house and talk to his family and/or doctor about any health conditions, to see if him dying the way he did is an unusual event.”

“If it turns out he had a heart condition, or if there’s some other ready explanation for his death, then the police won’t talk with the DA’s office and will just let you out.”

“If they can’t find a satisfactory explanation for how he died, they could then decide to tender their findings to the DA’s office, who’ll decide whether to file charges against you or not.”

“The police can’t hold you for longer than three days, so if the DA doesn’t decide to charge you with anything by then, you’ll be out by then.”

“However, a prosecutor is not bound by your initial charging decision; they may later change the charged crimes once more evidence is obtained.”

“So, for instance, the police could let you out within three days, but then arrest you again a month later if the DA decides to charge you with anything.”

“As for autopsy and toxicology, around three days is pretty typical turnout time for both. They might release you before finishing the exam.”

“It’s also possible that Estes’ family will pay for a private exam of his body, if they’re not satisfied with the results of the coroner’s.”

Zoe: “I see.”

Words hardly true. The fact is that Zoe can’t see the path her future carries her toward any further than she can kick a pebble of gravel. Despite understanding their logic—thanks to Amber—she’s lost respect in the police force.

Is that loss in respect reasonable? Fair? Absolutely not, and even she sees that. It makes the feeling no less true.

“Whatever you can do,” she continues, wilting her head to run shackled fingers through her hair.

She hasn’t forgotten about Barely Legal for so long the entire day. Bigger problems. Fuck Money in more ways than one.

“What do I do now?”

GM: “At this point? Mostly sit tight and see if the DA chooses to prosecute within three days.”

“If this were the full story, I’d advise talking to the police again in my presence, answering their questions, and being helpful enough they decide to release you early. But if it’s not, talking to the police only has the potential to get you in more trouble.”

Zoe: “That’s up to you,” she answers. “What do you feel I’m being untruthful about?”

GM: Amber shakes her head. “Doesn’t matter. If that’s everything, I’m going to look in to some more things on my end and see if there’s anything else I can do.”

Zoe: “That’s everything. Thank you for helping me, Amber.”

GM: “It’s my job.” Amber hands Zoe a business card with her contact info.

Zoe: “They’re probably going to take this…”

GM: “Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t. Memorize the number just in case.”

Zoe: She looks down at the card, committing it to memory one digit at a time. Over. And over. And over.

“I’ll see you again within three days?”

GM: “Yes. I’ll review the evidence against you, if any, find out whether the DA intends to pursue charges, and talk about your legal strategies from there.”

Zoe: “I’d give you a hug, but…”

She pulls the chains.

GM: Amber gives a wry smile. “We usually prefer to shake anyways.”

Zoe: She offers a hand, however limited.

GM: Amber shakes it and says she’ll be in touch, then takes her leave.

No one comes for Zoe.

Zoe: And so the wait begins.

Timer: 72h.