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Bare ass and hogtied, pinball number 7 slid at full speed down the watery slip-slide, crashing back and forth between her fellow female hopefuls. She knocked number 4 into reverse just as she slid off the polythene sheet and over the finish line.
Our convoy of delegates broke into a mixture of elated cheers and disappointed groans.
‘And its 7 in the lead!’ Wilkes announced as he marked the score on a digital card. That winning girl’s allotted team, a band of tycoons from India, shared a congratulatory high-five.
Girl 4, coming in last, was yanked up and carted off to the side-chamber where Wilkes’ butler stood waiting, burning iron poker in his right hand and a look of hunger in his eyes. The girl struggled and begged with all her remaining breath before the chamber door closed on her, and moments later screams washed over us.
‘Dartmouth falling off the race again,’ Wilkes commented to me under his breath, ‘too bad the old man can’t make the effort to show up in person.’
Wilkes sided his head at the video-conference screen where an elderly, besuited gentleman was throwing up his hands, bemoaning the poor performance of his girl.
‘Maybe if he showed, he could throw her himself, and stop blaming others.’
‘He lives in the Midwest, and he’s 107.’ I pointed out.
‘Folks from India make it here on the red-eye.’
‘Touche.’ I replied, as I watched the respective teams head to the far end of the wet slide to pick up their women for the next event.
The crowd moved onward, and I made to follow, but instinct held me at bay just moments before I heard the reason for it.
‘Sir! Sir! Message for you!’
Wilkes’ PA, a whippet called George. Already the bane of my life, but far be it from me to criticise another Male.
The kid had an air of caution in speaking to me.
‘There is a message, Sir. It appears that... well, it appears news of your... involvement here, is no longer secret.’
Wilkes heard this. In truth, he didn’t need to eavesdrop. George had barely bothered to keep his voice down.
‘Is that so?’ I asked calmly.
‘Y-yes, Sir.’
I smiled, and George backed up half a step. Little did he know he had just elevated himself in my estimations.
‘And who was it, then, who printed this news?’
Live, Love, Laugh.
A delicate rolling blend of words spelled out in ornament form hung above a pretty lace-pink tapestry of a lake house. Beneath that a window adorned with bracelet charms that overlooked the corner of Soho Street, the axis of her muse, the space in which she could think, and write, as freely as she chose.
Ruth Esther-Narrow, penwoman of the year. Entreprenneur of thoughts, bastion of feminine consciousness, elemental Goddess of the opinions that matter. Yes, those things she wore, graciously, humbly, and earnestly. She took her stand in her seat, there at the desk that was a theatre of war, and opened her air-thin laptop to begin her latest conquest.
Ruth’s thin fingers wrapped around a tube of pale lipstick which she applied via the vacant blackness of her computer’s loading screen. When the desktop appeared, she promptly hitched up her Kitch skirt, folded one leg over the other and tickled the keyboard.
This one was nothing new or special. Today, she had already decided, would be an average day. Just a quick vent on EverydayWomYN and perhaps a tap-update on TweetR, but no new stuff. She had lanced a boil in the last few days worthy of a thousand days’ slacking.
As her fingers flew back and forth she pursued the usual steps; the failure of man, the future of woman, the potential for woman’s administrative and organisational skills, the redundancy of man’s futile maintenance and engineering, followed by a brief foray into the injustice of women’s denial in STEM subjects and the evidence of boy’s failure in the classroom as further proof of the unstateable, but worthy of a smirk or two.
An e-mail popped up as she was in mid-flow. She cursed it immediately, knowing any break would fracture her continuity. It was from the man who was unfortunately her boss, so a break would nevertheless have to be made.
She popped it open and slipped two fingers into a bag of raisins.
MEET SOON. ABOUT LAST ARTICLE. DO NOT PUBLISH AGAIN BEFORE MEET.
The raisin hung over her frozen mouth between her chopstick-like fingers.
What on earth was that about?
She immediately punched in a reply.
No clue wot u mean? :S ??
She had barely swallowed the raisin by the time his reply came.
I MEAN IT. DO NOT PUBLISH AGAIN. TODAY, 2PM.
Ruth shook her head. No, you do not just order me to meetings like that, little boy. She promptly sent back her reply stating she was taking a personal day, and switched off her inbox.
It took a full fifteen minutes to get right back into the swing of the thing. Five more minutes of free typing on female businesses before there was a knock at the door that threatened to break her carefree mood.
‘I swear to god...’ she uttered, pulling on a nightgown and straightening a framed photograph of Ruth and three girlfriends at the Cape.
Peeping through the hole she saw Justin, recognisable by that ridiculous, sexist beard. She rolled her eyes and opened the door.
‘You came to my house?’ she demanded incredulously.
‘Its serious,’ he said, and something about his urgency made her forget her contempt for him for a moment, ‘You can’t publish again, at least not until this blows over.’
‘This is about the DynaCorp thing? The CEO is a sexist?’
‘Yeah, that. Its not good.’
Ruth pulled her nightgown a little tighter over herself.
‘What do you mean, not good?’
Justin was not a bad guy. In fact by many standards, he was a ‘nice guy’. But he had a streak of arrogance about him Ruth just did not like to see in men.
‘Listen, you have to understand... its fine when youre talking about some teen heart-throb or the latest hip-hop jackass but... this is a powerful person. And I mean powerful, the kind who can do, well... anything.’
Ruth had to stifle a laugh. Was Justin seriously this stupid?
‘Let them come at me, Jay. I’ll happily see him in court. If he wants me on Kimmel, I’ll do it, no problem. Just give me that chance and I’ll show that misogynist what a real woman can-’
‘No,’ Justin interrupted her, ‘no, Ruth. Its not like that. I’m not talking about a debate, a media-publicised fracas. He’s not powerful like, he’ll sue you. He’s powerful like, he will kill you.’
Ruth felt a shiver at these words that she blamed entirely on Justin’s melodrama. Typical man.
‘Trying to scare me into silence won’t work’ she stated with a tone of finality, ‘I will continue to fight for women as long as I live.’
Justin sighed and got to his feet to leave.
‘I know that. The trouble is, he knows that too.’
Justin left, closing the door behind him and leaving a much colder-feeling apartment than Ruth remembered. She didn’t take the gown off as she sat back down at the desk.
After a few minutes contemplation, she reopened her inbox.
Justin had not emailed again, but it was overflowing. Endless emails from countless sources, every one of them crammed full of repulsive vitriol. She could barley read one before twenty more arrived, all from different addresses.
‘Keep an eye on your back, bitch!’
‘Men are the masters!’
‘Build a civilisation and fuck off to it, if you don’t like ours!’
She closed it again, colour drained from her face, and somehow from her entire apartment. It felt less pink, and more grey.
A final message appeared, a programmed update from her home news page.
CEO’s OF MAJOR CORPORATIONS SHOW SOLIDARITY WITH
‘No...’ she shook her head slowly, ‘no, thats not meant to happen...’
I hung up the phone and rubbed my neck. A two-hour conversation that felt like a year, but worth it. I knew she would not give up that easily, but that was not the point. Whether she knew it or not, I had now handed her the tools with which to deepen her own grave.
4
Late one afternoon, I volunteered to help Wilkes with one of the more mundane chores available in the Bluenorth facility; cage reallocation.
The simple fact was that our membership numbers had swollen enormously in the space of a few short months, and as a result our supply of women was running dangerously low. Some of the girls who were there when I arrived had been captive at Wilkes’ place for nearly two years. Since my arrival, any that had been there more than six months were considered outdated.
A quick head count told us that around half the cages in the basement were now empty. What girls were left were the less attractive non-screamers, the sickly-looking. Wilkes checked his list as I loaded fresh water from a can into a bottle that fed into a girl’s cage.
‘Four hundred and seventy-seven,’ he announced finally, ‘with the rate we’re moving at, that won’t last another year.’
‘Yeah, but population took a big hit on game day,’ I pointed out, watching the pathetic creature behind bars now lapping at the watery spout, ‘in hindsight, maybe Throwing-Ax St Andrews Cross Darts was not an economically sound final event. I found so many pieces of woman on the lawn yesterday I reckon Dr Frankenstein could build himself a girl from scratch.’
The runtish female lapped up her fill then retreated from the cage door, breasts bouncing with delight as she licked her lips.
‘Funny,’ Wilkes raised an eyebrow, clearly too pressed to be amused, ‘but we need to be more careful. Even with the power in this house, we can’t keep this quiet for much longer.’
I stepped up to the next cage, choosing my words carefully.
‘Well,’ I said slowly, ‘maybe we don’t have to.’
Wilkes continued checking his lists, though a change in his energy suggested he was no longer taking any of it in. Maybe he knew this had been building in me for a while. It could be he had known about my scheming, my liaising with other members behind his back, but if he did, he hadn’t let on a thing.
‘Fifty-six barrels of Protenate needed.’
‘Seriously, its like you said, the most powerful men on earth are here. Why can’t we change things, if only just enough to keep this place safe?’
‘...not to mention salary for gamekeepers, they all want a raise now they know we’re off the grid, legally speaking...’
‘I know its risky, but I also know you didn’t build this place just for a bit of weekend fun. This has taken up every free waking moment you’ve had. You’ve lost sleep to make this happen. And if you didn’t want it to go further, you wouldn’t have invited me here.’
Wilkes ran out of reasons to ignore me.
‘Right,’ he still wasn’t looking up, ‘well... right. Except it just... can’t happen. It can’t happen.’
I seriously considered backing down, but I had come to believe that without change outside, Bluenorth would soon disappear. It was only a matter of time before it was exposed. All I could do was hope there was enough political and fiscal leverage inside that house to change the world so that when we were exposed, it just wouldn’t matter. A fool’s hope.
‘Why?’ I asked, ‘why can’t it happen?’
Wilkes smirked at me, unable to argue, unable to agree. He ticked his last box and headed back upstairs, leaving me with my thoughts.
One of the girls in that row started rattling her door, sobbing as she ached to be released. The padlock barely budged at her feeble attempts.
‘You want to come out?’ I said. The deep voice terrified her, and she shrank back into her cage. I proceeded towards her, tapping my fingers on the thin bars. The tubes inserted into her urethra and asshole that dealt with waste were no doubt currently in use when she saw me approach.
‘Little bitch wants out?’
She shook her head, throat closed with fear. I held up the base of the padlock and swiped my card across it, unlocking the small cage. She shrank back even further, but in a six-foot-deep cage, there is not much retreating space even for a female.
I opened the door and held my arm out.
‘Don’t you want to get out?’
She shook her head, lithe little legs scrambling against the damp floor of her cage, pushing her body as far from me as possible, still well within my reach. She had dark eyes, long black hair, matted and greased with blood and sweat (to be expected), but still, a beautiful woman. I had a sudden urge to ask where she came from, how she was caught. But then, it would be the same old story, sobbed up for pity’s sake. Would it be easier for me if these filthy creatures had backstories, or harder?
In the end there was only one thing I could do; the same thing I had done for weeks now.
I pulled the electroshock rod from my belt and sparked it in plain view of the woman.
‘Get the fuck out. Now.’
A torn-tinfoil heap of a building marred Ruth Esther-Narrow’s view of the sleek, modernised Financial District of Los Angeles. She passed the vulgar monstrosity with impeccable disdain and proceeded onwards to the silvery monolithic block that dominated the skyline, rented space for her latest freelance supporters.
Her pink-cased blackberry had been buzzing off the hook – metaphorically speaking – but for the first time in years she had the will to ignore it, bound by the knowledge of where here click-clacking heels were taking her. For the occasion she had worn a longer dress than usual, formal wear befitting her host, and perhaps keeping lecherous eyes off her legs for an appreciable length of time.
In the lobby of the great skyscraper she waited, expecting every emerging man from the elevators to be her appointee. Finally a woman in her fifties emerged, scanned the horizon, and found Ruth. A smile crossed her pleasant face as she approached with an extended arm and shook Ruth’s hand.
‘Ms Esther-Narrow, what a pleasure.’
‘Oh, please, call me Ruth! I think as women we ought to be informal with one another.’
Her host’s smile flickered slightly, and Ruth felt a ripple of unease before it returned winningly.
‘Of course, how lovely to meet you Ruth. I presume you know who I am?’
‘Are you kidding?’ Ruth felt herself about to gush, ‘I only got into journalism because of Yvonne Wyatt!’
‘Is that a fact?’
‘You had a wall to yourself in my first bedroom.’
Yvonne inclined her head modestly.
‘Please come with me, then, we are all eager to get started.’
The glass-fronted elevator propelled them several hundred feet into the air with full open view of the enormous fall beneath. To her horror Ruth began to feel queasy.
Fight it, girl! Youre in an elevator with Yvotte Wyatt!’
‘Is everything ok?’
Ruth hitched up a smile.
‘Yes, just a few bad memories.’
‘Oh, I’m sure,’ Yvonne pursed her lips in sympathy, ‘no doubt that nasty business with ____ must had left you feeling quite overwhelmed.’
Ruth nodded, not sure what to think about Wyatt’s choice of words. As they left the elevator she felt a wave of relief.
‘We are just through here.’
She opened a side-door that led into a narrow concrete stairwell.
‘Um...’ said Ruth, wildly wondering if Yvonne knew the way at all.
‘Don’t worry dear, the conference room isn’t directly accessible by elevator, for obvious reasons.’
Ruth nodded and followed Yvonne up the hard steps, not quite sure what those obvious reasons might be. She felt silly trotting up the slabs in high heels, and on noticing Yvonne wore flats, kicking herself for not bringing spare shoes.
As Yvonne opened the door at the top of the steps Ruth felt fresh outdoor air brushing over her body. Her long dress billowed out at the back.
‘What – where are – is that the roof?’
‘Its a lovely day, dear,’ said Yvonne placidly, ‘we thought we would meet outside, somewhere secluded. Where better?’
Ruth neglected to mention her debilitating fear of heights pre-interview, so in a way she only had herself to blame for this. Gathering herself, she crossed out onto the open roof.
The sun hit her hard and temporarily blinded her as she heard the sound of Yvonne closing the door behind. When her sight returned she saw no conference table, no benches or fresh coffee urns. There weren’t even chairs.
Five men, three of them enormously built bodyguards occupied the open roof space. They had not been in conversation but stood waiting expectantly for her. As her vision sharped on the two smaller, but no doubt commanding men, she recognised him and drew a horrified gasp.
‘Yvonne, what –‘
Her only female companion on that roof passed her by without a word of explanation and stood beside one of the enormous men. Then, in a move that made Ruth sick to the pit of her stomach, she knelt down and exposed her neck to the man, so that he could fit a collar to his slave.
‘You can’t... Yvonne!’
‘Its good to finally meet you, Ms Esther-Narrow.’
She returned his stare with open revulsion, as if she were addressing a pile of manure.
‘You... what have you done? That is not Yvonne Wyatt!’
‘Oh, I’m afraid it is,’ he said, pacing out of his flanking guards toward her, ‘you see, its amazing what pain will make a woman do. I knew she was your little hero, the perfect bait.’
Ruth had heard enough. She ran for the door and tried to kick it open, but it held firm. A moment’s hesitation in trusting Yvonne had cost her her only escape route.
‘Let me out!’
‘On one condition.’
He held up a single digit. Ruth turned to face him, trying to seem defiant.
‘You will work for us from now on.’
Ruth forced out a laugh.
‘You’re out of your mind. Why on earth would I do that?’
‘Because if you don’t, we won’t even have to explain why you died today. Yvonne will say that you interviewed for your dream job and failed dismally. In delirious devastation you ran to the roof and threw yourself to your death. A slam-dunk story, quite literally. Everyone will buy it, overemotional women, and all that.’
He winked at her and she was bidden by an urge to tear his eye out.
‘So...’ she said through gritted teeth, ‘you think I’ll just walk out of here today and stop writing about your freak shows? If you’re going to kill me, do it now.’
The men seemed almost impressed by this, though she had only said it because she couldn’t think of anything else to say.
‘The trouble is, Ruth, I don’t want to kill you. I want to use you. A change in your views will set off a chain reaction, a ripple that will run around the world. In case you hadn’t noticed, people are getting tired of feminism. Of women, as a matter of fact. How many failed attempts at female presidents? How many screw-ups of social systems, injustices, hypocrisies, in the name of your movement? All they need is one or two outspokens to have a change of heart and it will all come out. Right now you’re a plug holding back the tide of an ocean. I’m here to pull you out.’
‘You talk about injustice. What of the thousands you plan to enslave?’
‘When man liberated his fellow men he made the mistake of liberating women in the same beat. You were mistakenly given the liberty which confuses and torments your inferior species, and we are simply here to correct the disorder.’
Ruth had nothing to say to that, but still had no intention of giving in.
‘I refuse,’ she made herself say, ‘you can throw me off the roof if you want. I’m not doing it.’
She had called their bluff, she knew it. He looked angry now.
‘No,’ he said slowly, ‘we aren’t going to throw you off the roof.’
Ruth clenched her fist triumphantly behind her back.
‘You’re going to jump.’
Her heart sank.
‘Jump?’
‘That’s right,’ he went on matter-of-factly, ‘because if you say no to us, what we will do is publish everything Yvonne has on you. Your original – genuine – credit rating, your history with the IRS, your involvement in certain radical – and illegal – feminist networks. You will get a fair trial which will definitely end in imprisonment.’
He put his hands in his pockets and waited.
Ruth slid down the door and sat on the floor. He had won. Beaten her. It was over. If he could do that, then he was right... she would have nothing left but to jump. Her deepest fear was not falling to her death; it was the slow destruction of her life and everything around her.
‘You tell me what to write.’
‘Oh, of course,’ he nodded, ‘you won’t be required to actually do any writing, just publish what we tell you under your name. Yvonne will back you up and the dominos will start to fall. This will all be over soon, trust me.’
Ruth made no reply as she got back to her feet.
‘Its not that bad, Ruth,’ he plied her, helping her to her feet, ‘I bought your flat this morning, so forget about rent. In fact, you can forget about going outside at all for a good long while.’
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