PART TWO – Big Plan

   With Right away for 20 days at a time, one of my other desires came to pass. I had showed my coach Little Lightning "interviewing", and he had been as impressed as I was. I prodded him for permission to make a training video with Light, aimed at big high schools. I explained some of what I knew about practicing alone she had done for four years, that made her into a star forward.

   He actually liked the idea but shook his head, explaining he didn't have any kind of the necessary pull to get something like that done. I asked him if I was free to try to come up with something on my own. He agreed he'd be happy to have me try, and I'm sure he was expecting or at least thinking along the lines of cell phones and those short little video clips people sit and watch all day.

   Before computers took over the entire world, special breeds of people used to be fascinated with using real film in real cameras. Any idiot could handle a commercial camera with its "point and snap" advertised capabilities, even back then. But, there's always a few people… that rose up out of the masses, and took "real" photography serious. They knew their way around a darkroom, and could develop their own pictures, resize them and everything.

   These people had strange cameras, weird lenses, bags of odd equipment. They had their own language and their own math and even had their own crowd to hang out with. Some of them branched out into 8 mm film, and learned to both capture better short films, as well as edit and splice the films, then put music and voice over to it.

   Some musicians were better at recording and mixing and editing the band, and got into the music version of having their own darkroom and editing film.

   The computer and the internet? Brought all this to being done on a desktop computer. The band member that once handled recording and sitting at his mixing board? Now did it on a computer. The photography buff? Had a digital camera and his darkroom was a computer. The 8 mm home movie guy turned into a video camera buff, and finally into… you guessed it, a guy who had a video camera and spent more time on his computer editing the video than anything else.

   Wiz had access to these computer heroes. Me and Lightning, had access to Wiz. Wiz, had access to the "gamer girls", the "unicorns". That video and computer gaming crowd seemed to enjoy me and Little Lightning's presence at their weekend gaming parties. Hmm. It was obvious to me, that the universe wanted this to happen.

   Didn't take much, either. We grabbed up a handful of Miss Moody's present she left us, and hit a weekend gaming party. At the appropriate moment that everyone was having fun, Light asked aloud if anyone knew anything about making a "real" video, not just some dancing twat on a cell phone. Laughter went around, and voices started popping up out of the resulting conversation that ensued.

   It quickly turned out, that the "computer crowd" was into a lot more than just video games. There were guys that were musicians, and all serious musicians recorded, mixed, and edited on their computers. Some of them were pursuing degrees in music. They dreamed of being performers, but would settle for writing music, working mixing boards, becoming music teachers.

   Guys were majoring in AV, audio and video production. One of those, had once had Wiz make him a program to help him out. It allowed him to create the "rolling credits" you see at the end of a movie. He wouldn't rest until he could show off one of his creations. The room groaned and laughed, they had seen this before. But, Light and Hurry were a fresh audience and he was excited to show off.

   He produced a movie Wiz actually owns and we've all seen a couple times. He selected the last five minutes of the movie on the DVD, and told us to watch the last scene. The last scene fed into the rolling credits and music. Then? He pulled out of a clear plastic case his own DVD he had made. He played it, and… the last five minutes of the movie played. Then, it actually took us a while to realize the credits music was entirely different.

   The credits were eerily similar, although they rolled slower because the music was longer. He had completely recreated the credits to the end of a well known and commercially successful famous movie, and if he didn't tell you? You likely wouldn't know. His dream? Was to make "end credits" for movies, and to give the low budget movie makers access to professional, polished credits and titles. He showed examples of how horrible cheaply produced direct to video movie credits and titles could be, and side by side with his own? Yeah.

   In the midst of this demonstration, another voice popped up.

   "Letters on the screen are nice, but… I made the music you're listening to."

   We had thought we were listening to some obscure piece of classical music. No, he had written it. On his computer. He was a digital musician. He was similar to the credits and titles guy, he wanted to give cheap movie makers access to quality soundtrack music. He had his own demonstration. He first played ten minutes of some horrible slasher low budget flick. The soundtrack? Horrible. It sounded like some drunken kid was randomly pressing keys on one of those keyboards you buy little kids to practice piano on.

   Then he showed where he had taken his music, and put it to clips from famous fantasy adventure movies. Another guy there? Pointed out that he was the video editing guy. He took "credits" guy and "music" guy and grabbed scenes from the big budget fantasy movie and spent a weekend on his computer? Editing it all together. He wanted to work in "post production" after he graduated. And if he couldn't get paid to be on a Hollywood team doing it? He would offer his services to the direct to video movie makers cheap, to get his work noticed.

   So, if Little Lightning wanted to make a "secret practice moves" video or two? They wanted it to be an hour long production. Credits guy wanted to make professional looking titles and rolling credits. Music guy? Wanted to provide "real" background music. Post production guy? Wanted to edit it and make it look like a real little movie. Because if stacks of DVDs were going to get burned and mailed out to big high schools, and dozens of young athletes were going to watch these videos? They were excited to have their names on the credits. They all wanted DVDs to add to their own collection to show examples of "commercial" work people were using in real life, so why not hire them.

   The video game party was still early, and other boys got brought in off of cell phone texts and calls. One guy showed up, and had a collection of cheap "game cams". When Light had described one of her self training programs had been zipping among trees, to practice hitting marked trees and avoiding other marked trees? He had a giant cardboard box full of game cams he had saved up. Apparently, he was into wildlife photography and videos, and when some game cam had gone on clearance for 9.99 each online? He had pulled the trigger and bought a large lot of them. The post production guy thought he would be perfect for getting all the various angles and pulled back views of her doing woods and field work.

   Me, Light and Right had an extended workout three days in a row. We just had game cams set up all around us. They drove 2x4s into the field and various places, and strapped the game cams to the 2x4s. A couple of tripods, several inexpensive action cameras, it all provided gobs of raw video for the post production guy to weave his video from.

   Lightning made her own videos, of her practicing her Teddy Ball inspired games in our sub basement. We located an old abandoned garage that reminded her of practicing in her own way when young. A couple of hours of her practicing, describing the games several times each, was all it took.

   Ten days later? The boys showed us a 70 minute long training video. The coach was so impressed, he asked if it was possible to make another video, just for the girl's soccer coaches. Politely explaining what he wanted to recruit. Sure, he wanted the next Little Lightning, but… he was every bit as interested in getting his next Hurricane, too. He needed versatility players, for his fast moving European style of game plan.

   The jumbo tron interns? Had every game on video, from birds eye views. The coach was recorded watching clips from real games, showing what he wanted and needed on these coach videos. Would the coaches pretty please send him versatility players, not just leading scoring players. Would the coaches please consider incorporating even the rank basics of his style of coaching into their own, so he didn't have to spend the entire first year "unlearning" talented players from being man to man and zone "robots". Pretty please, with sugar on top.

   Within a couple weeks flat? We had two DVDs. One for the players to watch, and one for the coaches. My coach amazed me, by asking how much it would cost him to get a thousand DVDs of each. I asked, and at the next video game party? I got taken shopping on the internet. The bigger bulk you ordered blank off-brand DVDs in? The cheaper they were. Pennies apiece. The AV boys had access to a reproducer. You loaded a stack of 50 DVDs in? Set the computer up, and… it burned DVDs automatically, one after another.

   We had another party. We started early, and stayed up real late. Taking turns filling up the stack of blank DVDs, carefully collecting the dropped DVDs that went into a clothes basket filled with clean T shirts to catch them. Plopped them into little cardboard DVD mailers. The post office had free little cardboard envelopes, to entice you to put stamps on them and mail them out.

   After the main video had been gathered, and while post production guy was doing his thing… Lightning wasn't happy until she got the "crew" together and got them to do a short, easy "dance" they practiced for a while. During a wrapping up party and the dance, among other things, ended up getting filmed. While credits were rolling and music was playing, little squares and rectangles of video stills and clips popped up and disappeared. Little "behind the scenes" of making the video. Introducing every member of the "crew" and describing what their job had been to accomplish. Jokes, shenanigans, bloopers.

   The computer AV editing god, also made a third DVD. The "behind the scenes" short documentary. Aimed squarely at young AV students, what they could accomplish with just game cams and some music and some creativity and time.

   The coach already had a stack of DVDs to mail out, and got a hold of the athletic director, and pitched his "idea" to the man. The athletic director liked the idea, but didn't know if the budget allowed for an undertaking such as this. Really? The coach asked if he could just get a little bit of postage and blank DVD money to defray what he had spent out of pocket, then showed the director that he already had it on his desk.

   Wiz and the computer crew also chopped up all the DVDs into multi part numbered downloads. Wiz made a thing he called a "script" to automatically email out all parts in the numbered series to the single email he fed his little program. Then after testing it by emailing out to AV editing guy, he made another one that accepted two or more email addresses and called the first script, twice. When Wiz and his rolling credits computer buddy were done? You took a list of emails and it happened automatically. Naturally, one of the computer gaming guys was the office computer bug in one of the campus offices. The school website had among other things, click here if you play football.

   When you clicked on "click here if you play girls soccer", really just your email program on your internet browser opened up. It helpfully filled my coach's name and email in for you automatically. It still did that, but… now even if you didn't compose and send the automatic email to my coach, you still received a short video clip in your email. It ended with a "click here" to get the whole shebang.

   Everyone sat around scratching their heads, though. The happy and excited soccer coach wanted to email every triple A and quad A high school in America. Me, Little Lightning and Wiz were in his back yard waiting while his wife made us BBQ. Wiz was thinking out loud. The computer department here at the university? Allowed him to hang out with and locate the guys that had made the movies. The AV department, same thing. Couldn't we just hit the education department, to find that? A few calls and texts to university education professors produced nothing. Then later, the coach jumped up smiling. Jumping around.

   NCAA. The National College Athletic Association. The coach found an email online, and left his cell number. He actually got a text back, while we were licking BBQ sauce off our fingers. Apparently. the NCAA had regular dealings with the governing bodies that were the authority for high school athletic programs. The person that texted back said they didn't have that information, but they would send out an email to a few people that likely did. A few days later, my coach was initially excited to get an email. Two attachments to the short email were labeled "quad A" and "triple A". His excitement was short lived though, when he opened them and it was gobbledygook.

   I phoned Wiz, who was at the gym. Wiz asked me if the coach had gotten emailed "tables", which made no sense to me. I again explained that we opened up the information the email said was in the attachments, but instead of emails, we had screens of gobbledygook. He said that was most likely "tables", and we were to erase what we had downloaded and opened up to see the gobbledygook. He said to copy the attachments, and not to try to open that up, because trying to open them up in a regular text editor would destroy the data. Sit tight, and when he was done working out at the gym, he'd be over.

   He copied the attachments onto his own thumb drive, and stuck it in his own laptop. He said they were database tables. He showed us the long lists of emails. Trying to explain it, he asked the coach if he ever noticed "spam" emails before. Junk emails, everyone got them. That, he explained, was bulk emailing. He got a hold of the computer bug that worked in the office that had done the "click here" for the girls soccer team on the school website. He emailed him the tables, and said the school's server would bulk email it all out overnight, when the school's server had no other traffic.

   My coach had been envisioning getting help sending out thousands of emails. When he figured out it was now automatic, he all but danced around his little office. Me and Little Lightning and Wiz got another BBQ party in his back yard that night.

   I already knew I was drafted to help the coach pick ideas out for his replacement young starting center, if he could find one. I drafted Light. How this works, is the coach first looks at all the little video clips he's been emailed by the coaches proffering their own stars. He's got his own picks in his mind. Then, he has me look at all of them. Sees which which ones I like and pick out. Then? We come back and discuss both of our picks. Why he liked one, and I did too. Why didn't I like this one though, and he explains why he didn't like the one I did.

   We ended up with a small pool of our "own" picks each. That is to say, one that we liked the other hadn't thought important enough. Most of our picks though, we both liked them. I'm expecting the coach to make the grand call, which girls would he aggressively go after. Hell, I'd be nervous picking. Turned out, the coach was just like me. Nervous and chewing fingernails hoping he picked the right girl out of a hat chock full of video clips.

   Hey. What would it hurt I suggested. Let me bring Little Lightning in. Let's let her go through all of them blind, and see what shakes out. I got Light to quickly agree to this, but had to go back to the coach to sort of prep him for her appearance all day in his office.

   He had to know ahead of time, about Teddy Ball. I don't want him thinking this is just some joke. I don't want him making fun of her. We both agreed, sometimes an outstanding star player can recognize talent other players and even coaches don't fully notice. In the end? The coach admitted to me, it was fine. He even quipped that he doesn't care if she comes in dressed as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz and has a pet flying monkey with her, and the monkey is making the picks.

   Word of her fascination with the movie has gotten around. So, that's where we ended up. Tedward came with Light, and had a nice prominent position close to the screen, where both Lightning and her precious Teddy Ball could watch all the clips. The coach to his credit? Never said a goddamn thing untoward as she talked to Teddy and he "talked" back to her, as they both watched and discussed the prospects.

   She kept replaying small parts of certain clips over and over, and went slow motion frequently. She was more concerned with watching how the girls did things neither of us would think of. Light had been a dancer for years. Agility and balance were her domain. It took Light two whole office days to review all the tapes each of us had done in one apiece. He let her go.

   We ended up with a fairly large pool of prospects that all three of us picked out and liked. Light's own personal picks? Some of them were her and the coach only, and others were just me and her. She had far and away the record of the highest number of her own personal picks, that neither of us would have given a second look at.

   We had her defend and explain her choices. She explained things to us in dancing terms. Watch how the girls are cutting, how they lean. Which leg they post and lean on. Most of the girls could cut to one side faster and slicker than the other. She liked when girls could cut both ways equally well. Light was inordinately concerned with the girls jumping and coming back down. Which leg they favored coming down on. Her personal picks that were uniquely her own? Girls that weren't favoring one leg over the other.

   Now we all started narrowing our picks down, whittling the pool. Seeing which girls we all liked, and trying to find the one we all thought we couldn't do without. We all three also started narrowing our picks that were uniquely our own. The coach to his credit asked if Teddy wanted his own coffee, and he asked in a serious manner. Lightning said she wanted a coffee, but Tedward wanted a beer. The coach gave Teddy a beer and her a coffee.

   We ended up going to eat with the coach for dinner at his house, something normally only I did. We talked about all our picks. Dinner ended up being BBQ pork chops and ribs. The coach was inordinately fascinated with Lightning and how she evaluated prospects. How she could tell which girls were comfortable cutting hard both right and left equally well. Which didn't favor one leg over the other while performing agility moves. Which were lighter on their feet when turning or whirling around.

   In the end, the coach let each of us have our own personal best pick, that none of the others chose. The rest came from the pool of girls that all three of us had approved, then kept as we whittled our choices down. These were the girls he would recruit heaviest, looking to replace poor Sunshine.

   I approached Elise. I did everything except kneel at her feet. Please, teach me to fight boys. She did. I wouldn't want you to get the idea that I was like those women that Wiz and others had taught "rape prevention" to. The women that took a couple week class a night or three a week, then walked around believing their own bullshit.

   No, I didn't go into it thinking that, and even if I did… Wiz and Elise constantly reminded me of it. So, what did I get out of Elise working with me? I was already more than comfortable fighting other females. This just put that over the top for me. I no longer had to get all worked up and use brute force.

   No, without years of dedication I would never have Elise's easy and effortless grace. Yet, I didn't have to use a fraction of the force as before. Elise had limited time, so she concentrated her efforts into two main parts. The basics, and tricks.

   The basics. Elise and Wiz both had any number of simple but powerful examples and demonstrations to convince anyone of what they did. She had me stand there, feet together, standing up straight. She took her first and second fingers only, and somewhat gently and steadily shoved on my shoulder. I could feel myself falling over at the slightest touch and push.

   Next, she had me spread my feet out, around shoulder width. The same demonstration? Showed I had a huge increase in steadiness. She could still move me a little with pushing, but I could lean and account for it. Finally though, she had me bend my knees and crouch. She actually had Wiz go over my crouch, it was his main grappling stance. She walked all around me, and pushed from all directions. She couldn't move me at all, I didn't even have to lean and account for the pressure.

   So, the first basic lesson was naturally? How to simply stand at the proper time. Then, how to recognize when my opponent was standing the exact wrong way and take advantage of it. The flip side though, and Elise almost always had a flip side to most things. If I was accounting for pressure, she could do something that basically added to my lean. She shrugged, this was her main core concept to what she did, in a nutshell. When I leaned back to account for what I knew she was going to now do though? She now used that. It was maddening. Like Wiz letting me take a few shots, she showed me basic openings and let me take advantage.

   The basics were simple, but put together they made a little system. I was used to meeting force with force. The bigger, the stronger, the more aggressive person had the advantage. She took that away from me. I pushed on her? She not only let me push her, she grabbed my wrist and pulled me into my push. She actually helped me push her. It naturally drew me off balance, which violated the first basics. Watch how you stand at all times.

   When I finally pulled? Elise pushed. Pulling an opponent that is pulling back, fighting you on it? That's using force. The opposite of pushing and shoving after all, is naturally grabbing and pulling. She would either immediately though slyly push as I pulled on her, or other times she would pretend to pull back and fight me, then suddenly "give in" and reverse. I was pulling, trying to win the body tug of war. When she snapped into a push, I would go flying back.

   If I pushed? She pulled. If I pulled? She pushed. My bigger strength pushing on her? Worked against me when she pulled. I was helping her pull me. The same thing in reverse when I pulled and she pushed into it suddenly. She could take a couple fingers and give one of her aggravatingly gentle shoves, and all my strength pulling suddenly worked against me.

   If my opponent wanted to push on me? They couldn't stand with their feet together. They had to put one foot back and lean into the push. Her and Wiz both showed me how without thinking about it, most people automatically send the same leg back. That's their strong leg. Step on that foot? They were momentarily in a mad disarray.

   Elise seemed to know before I did, exactly when my strong leg was going to scoot back. She'd simply step on my foot, which sort of froze me and locked me up. Or, more maddeningly… she let me scoot my foot back so I could lean in to my big push. She stepped on my other foot instead, turned a little and took those couple fingers and shoved at the back of my head. Tumbling down and away harmlessly from her I went, every time without fail.

   Rather than show me 180 different things, most of which I would either forget to use or misuse them? She showed me a limited number of basic ideas. Each had one or more simple "games" to practice them. Wiz was perfect for this.

   Elise's tricks were devious. Bigger stronger people love to grab you up with both hands and manhandle you. Hell, I was guilty of using this. Its intimidating when you show the force you can bring to bear. She simply grabbed one wrist, and put a hand on my straightened out elbow and shoved. Then the next time, as she did it she turned into it, and it magnified the power. Finally, she stepped on my foot as she did her trick and turned into it, and… away I tumbled.

   The brief amount of time I got to spend at these sessions, left me in awe of what was possible if I did it steadily for a couple years. As it was, these brief lessons complemented my size and strength when dealing with women. Elise also cautioned me, about dealing with men. The only reason she could do what she did with Wiz? Was because she had years of experience and training she was exploiting. And, Wiz didn't practice what she did, so it created a great mismatch she could exploit.

   When dealing with men? Use trickery, use cunning. Pretend to be scared, submissive, frightened, shaking and on the verge of crying. Then? You exploded into your one best move… and either follow it up or get the hell out of there and get moving fast.

   Wiz and Elise both had a great sense for using their environment. A tree, a light pole. You can buy time playing ring around the Rosie. How to watch their hips and shoulders to see which way they were really going, so you didn't fall for the old childhood trick of right, right, right… left.

   If they were stupid enough to try to grab you around a pole, or tree? How to wind their arm around it and break the arm easily or hold them as long as you wanted. But its Elise. So they put their arm into the dangerous position for you, trying to break the stalemate of you being so good at the ring around the Rosie game. You simply grabbed the offered wrist and you had them.

   How to keep a chair between you and the opponent and keep away. Things like chairs and bar stools and little coffee tables, were portable games of ring around the Rosie. If I managed to manhandle Elise up against a wall or into a corner? I thought I had something. Instead, she no longer had to worry about keeping herself up, and could now do things she normally couldn't do. When I was up against the wall or in the corner? I was trapped and limited. She somehow had it, at seemingly almost all times? Such that whatever I did, it helped her. I did the very same thing? It was a mistake. No matter what happened, I was always at some disadvantage. She smiled. It only seemed like that, because there was a unique solution to almost every instance.

   She could quickly and intuitively see it, and was even good at seeing it coming. At setting the trap. She said she can’t make anyone stand over the trap door. But if she positions herself correctly? They’ll simply wonder why she quit running away and is now just standing there. Smiling. That last step you took? Down the trap door you went.

   Elise had showed Wiz her stand up game. He had loved it, and worked as many of her tricks into his own game as he could. She had gotten her ground game off of him, though. She had loved his dirty wrestling tricks. Me and the girls got a huge charge out of Elise and Wiz around the house for ten days at a time. They would "fight" like two little kids over anything. The remote, the last cold can of refreshment.

   After a time, it was explained to me that this was another game with deadly intent. The ability to take the remote off of the other person, or the ability to hold onto and retain the remote. This was power. A rubber handgun and a rubber knife got introduced into play. Can you keep your knife, or keep your gun in hand to hand combat? It was life or death if it happened. Or, could you get the knife or gun off of the other person. Power.

   Those two would each take a felt tip marker and have a "knife fight". There was no arguing if you got stabbed or cut, there was a clear mark left. I was always chuckling at the felt tip battles. They were like two grade school kids. Arguing over if the person touched the base or not, or if the ball that went down the third base line was “in” or “out”. A triple, or a foul ball. Some body locations you got the big points for a “puncture”. That is to say, a pushed in “dot”. From the jab or poke. Same spot? Was way less points to get a slice, a line shown. Other spots were the opposite. They argued and pushed and shoved and went to kind of pushing slapping fights over some of them. We stood back and hooted at this. High school? Hell, we were in grade school again. Lighthearted fun. The game though? Was deadly serious practice.

   Its Wiz, though. You would hear him squeal out in some high pitched but soft imitation of an excited little kid. “Nipple!”, and Elise had the little poke-dot over a breast on her T shirt. If he got the second one, because she lost her cool over the first one? “Double nipple!” Then, she’d tackle him and they would roll around all over the living room carpet. He would generally when surprised wrap his legs and lock his ankles around and over his opponent’s hips. One such “double nipple” fight time, he locked around her and she just smashed down with her closed fist onto his “package”.

   She didn’t do it that hard, but not soft either. He grunted and balled up. He hissed out “cheater…”. She stood there and crossed her arms looking down at him. Reminding him dispassionately. No groin protecting plastic safety cup, and all’s fair in love and war. Now get up, you pussy… and she affectionately kicked at him with her foot. He caught her ankle and rolled her leg up like a fishing line being wound up on a reel. He reeled her in like a fish, and had her. He chided her for “buying it”. Wrestling around the living room, one time he got some good carpet burn. She laughed, and proclaimed him her bitch. He got her back. Out around strangers, he sent some guy over that came up and asked about the girl? He smiled and said oh, that one? She’s a real man please-er, that one. When he sauntered up, all sure of himself… boy, was that guy in for a rude awakening.

   Wiz showed me what he had apparently taught Elise way back when. One of his own patented moves? The sudden touch to the back of the head, and you went down. He had played pee wee football, and one of the assistant coaches had taught him a trick. He had been having trouble pushing and shoving playing on the pee wee football "line" position. He said he was offensive guard, and defensive tackle as a kid. He was getting out-shoved and manhandled.

   The trick? Was all timing. A split second before impacting each other, much like sumo wrestlers pushing like two great bears… your feet are back and you're leaning heavy into the push. Just before contact, you simply whipped your hand up, slapped the back of their helmet and whipped them to the ground. Having lived and died by that trick for a couple years as a kid? It was ingrained deep into his muscle memory. Anytime a guy came in like a bull, they were prone to get tossed down. If a stranger was observing it? It would look like he had just stood and awaited the charging bull, and gave a halfhearted slap just before “impact” that sent the guy sprawling.

   He showed me how good wrestlers don't "lead with their head" like that… so he did the opposite to them. They worked for years to keep their head up and not be too forward when coming in. He grabbed the back of their neck, and pushed on their forehead instead.

   As a girl, mainly facing another girl? Things like this were like gold bars being tossed my way.

   It left me with a sense of awe and wonder at the both of them, however. Both so adept and experienced at fighting? It was more or less boring to them to even be in a fight. They both agreed they got nothing out of it. Wiz explained, that when I saw that video that impressed me? It was a "booby match". First of all, it was a "David and Goliath" match up, always a crowd favorite. The crowd loved it, because they either got to see a bigger stronger guy dominate and crush a hapless opponent? Or… they got to see a successful underdog go up against the giant odds and squeak out on top in the end and win. One of the fighters was going to lose, and lose big. The bloodthirsty crowd didn’t care which way it went, each was high entertainment. As ever, the crowd wanted blood.

   Yeah, watching that video? The crowd went insane when he finally started winning near the end. Chairs and drinks were being thrown. Men were screaming their lungs out, cheering. The crowd wanted to see blood, and they got it. David and Goliath matches were a crowd favorite, but it was what Wiz called a "booby match" because it was a trained and experienced fighter? Up against raw size, strength and aggression.

   Wiz explained how that had gotten set up. A fighting team wanted that gorilla. He wanted to be a fighter. The problem was, that his instructors were smaller and weaker than he was. He was constantly muscling his instructors around, instead of going with the moves and learning them. Wiz explained how the guy had grown up nearly always the biggest, strongest guy around, and that was almost anywhere he went.

   He would accept 3 or 4 basic moves… then start using it in addition to his huge size and strength to show he was perfect now. Wiz got elected to straighten him out. As he explained it to me, and I showed Elise the videos… once you knew Wiz personally and heard his explanation? Yeah, you could just see it in your head.

   Wiz mainly came out with other guys in tow, and worked out with them. Teaching them the basics, showing them the ropes. He rarely actually entered full contact matches like that. When he did? It almost always wasn't on "fight night" when everyone came to watch the others go at it.

   So, it would appear to the big gorilla? That Wiz was "afraid" to fight. When the big guy kept egging him on and he kept refusing? It led the gorilla to pursue it more and more. Finally he started insulting him, pushing him, insulting him. Wiz said he let him go for a good while, and the idea was to give the gorilla enough rope to hang himself.

   The fight was a brutal thing to watch. Wizzy smiled, and showed me his own copy. Another phone had to have made it, sitting still somewhere hidden. It was a perfect view and longer. Wiz played the bigger man's game for a while. I now knew just enough to appreciate what he was doing, though I naturally couldn't do it myself. This was a big, tall, thick, muscular gorilla. He wanted to stand up and throw haymakers. Wiz covered up like I saw him practicing letting his own students beat on him. Avoiding him as best he could, tiring him out having him swing on air. Slipping punches that looked good, but were grazing shots.

   After a couple minutes, the gorilla was panting and covered in sweat. Wiz, well… he hadn't been swinging much. He was mostly walking around flatfooted. He was fresh as a daisy. Then, he started coming right in on the big guy, which surprised the gorilla. He was faster and more accurate, and he was clearly way more experienced at this. After coming in several times then covering back and weathering yet another shorter adrenaline storm, he finally waded right into the guy and got right in front of him and went toe to toe with him.

   The crowd went absolutely wild.

   Then? He took him down. He had him, and he got up and let him go. He could have taken his win, he had it. Instead? He got up, and egged him on. The gorilla got up and went nuts, and swung wild. Burned off whatever he had left, and Wiz then took him down again. Let him go again, and continued it. This took the last reserves out of what little the gorilla had left in his gas tank. When his adrenaline finally gassed out? He beat him bloody and unconscious. Proving to the crowd, that not only was all the experience better than size and strength? He could have won many times over when he had him down in dirty wrestling moves.

   But he could gas the bigger stronger guy out, through technique and experience, and beat him at his own game. I asked Wiz what had ever became of that gorilla. He chuckled and explained it. Apparently, he settled right the fuck down and started paying attention to anyone that wanted to give him some pointers after that. Following little tiny guys with experience around, begging for instruction… and taking it eagerly. Wiz smiled, and added that the guy went on to become a fighter. His size and strength and long reach were huge assets to the fighting team, but… only if he learned to fight like a little guy. Using trickery and cunning and strategy instead of relying on brute strength and just swinging wild.

   Wiz said last he heard, the guy ended up as a professional sparring partner slash instructor for semi professional no holds barred fighters somewhere out west. Apparently, that's an entry level job in the fighting world. Being a big, strong opponent. Willing to let experienced fighters practice beating you up, to get ready for a big televised match. Guys that had a lot of technique? Could earn the same living. Teaching big gorillas how to fight smarter instead of harder.

   Wiz showed his characteristic good nature and humor. He said he didn't think he wanted to earn a living as a punching bag that could punch back. Elise's plan was different. First, she wanted to own a building and make it the gym, showers and locker room. A real fighter's gym, not a "faggot gym". She would then collect a monthly fee off of everyone that joined.

   On top of that, she enjoyed working out and staying in shape. So, judo classes. Handgun classes. Practical self defense classes. She had a leg up on others in that position, by being able to train cops and even undercover cops. Also, there were private lessons for people that had the money. A great boxer wanting to get into mixed martial arts? The manager would hire someone like her to teach them.

   She could pick among her students, and put together her own "team". She told Wiz when she finally pulled the trigger and did it? He was welcome to come and be an instructor, if he wanted that. He smiled, and tapped his forehead gently on her forehead. He said he had too much time and money invested in his brain now, but if he was ever on "skid row" he'd take her up on it.

   Life went like this. Ten or eleven days a month? Several people came and camped out, and took over strategy sessions in the basement. Gaining as much intelligence on the enemy as they could get. Then, the camp time came. Me and the girls would host high school kids being bused in and staying several days, while we all instructed our own pack of promising high school players. The coach loved this, this gave him a chance to eye up future stars. It also made money for the athletic program.

   There were bragging rights at stake as well. The bigger the college star? The more their school had paid for their own camp. To put the squelch on pecking order nonsense, the coach kept your level a secret. But, certain expensive schools were known to have perennially deeper pockets than others. Upper class girls got to know some of the bigger ones. Little Lightning? Yeah. Take a wild guess which high school camp she got. Uh huh. The one I heard our team captains or co captains used to always get.

   I got a fairly expensive quad A high school, but… not one of the famous ones. They played a physical game. They wanted the Hurricane showing the girls how to get physical and get away with it, while staying back from being carded. How to set up better screens and blinds. Every so many days, each of us would have our “team” scrimmage another player’s “team”. Light and Right had the big rivalry there because they were the scoring stars. They also switched days with each other to coach each other’s team. Other days they joined forces and combined their camps. Run and gun instruction, one time shooting practice games.

   The higher your university places in the conference stats and standings? The more you can charge. Since first string cost more than second string, since stars were worth more than regular starters? Having Light and Right both made the program more money. The better seasons you have, the higher your conference rankings? The more you can charge. If we ever nail down a conference ring year? The next year’s camp, well… the school makes a bundle. And if we ever lined the planets up and brought home a national championship? Practically no upper limit. If we handed our coach a conference ring? It would make him a star. If we handed him a national championship ring? He would be like a god in the athletic director’s eyes.

   In college sports, the rules are simple. The more you win, the more money you make. Just you don’t get any of it. The school gets it all. You get your degrees, and whatever notoriety you can get for your own name. If you can land some perks, like luxury townhouses and high end free meal plans? Its like giving your championship winning show dog, the expensive pet food. The dog thinks he’s really living high on the hog. The dog doesn’t really appreciate that you take him for rides in a brand new Mercedes. A Mercedes the dog actually bought and paid for. In this system? I’m one of the show dogs. Yeah. I get a really nice kennel and some name brand pet food. The athletic director says if we ever win a conference ring, we get steak once a week in our meal plan. Lightning asked what we got if we bring home the national banner. He laughed, it was a half joke after all, so he played along. Said he’d toss in seafood night once a week, to go with the weekly steaks. He asked her what she thought of that? Lightning giggled, and said she wants lobster. The athletic director bantered back, that the president and himself would take us out for steak and lobster, but… he needed to see that gigantic and epic banner first.

   There was fun as well. Our university girls soccer team would scrimmage some boys quad A high school team. Boys soccer was doing the same thing we were. Making money for the school.

   There was a short break, then… preseason camp hit. Six days a week of grueling back to back double practices. Wiz was finally able to see me coming home whooped. Stiff and sore and barely able to get up and moving around the next morning even though I had no choice.

   This was where he truly shined. Me and Lightning got our shower care, our day spa tub care, then the delight of having a personal rub down and masseuse. Classes started in the middle of preseason camp as well. By the time we started regular practices, I had dropped about 16 pounds.

   The coach had recruited another center to replace Sunshine. She was good, but as a freshman and also having come from a zone only, my way or the highway program? Her skill was diminished temporarily from lack of experience.

   The coach had a new game plan, to add to our others. I was used to switching positions up to half back, then switching positions up to be on the line. Now, I had a zone. I "owned" a strip of the field. So many yards wide, from my goal up to just inside the enemy red zone. When conditions permitted, my job was to play forward and stay forward. When I was playing way up, the center broke left or right, and I took over temporary center. It created a second right or left wing while I was up. This gave me unprecedented access to screening and checking and in general… being the Hurricane.

   We won all but one of our preseason games trying this out, and tied the other. Having a temporary extra center up field? Was confusing and unexpected for our opponents, it was obvious. My coach kept our regular style of playing, and had hand signals to initiate this system when he felt the time was right.

   I even got forced into shooting practice. Normally, my job is to screen and get physical. As long as we could manage to keep the ball in their red zone, and with an extra center up front? I was being taught to follow Lightning or Right. At a signal, I knew to watch for a "drop pass". Instead of shooting, they just left the ball for me to come up and put the big boot to it.

   I don't have anyways near the accuracy those girls have. What I do I have though, is raw power. As a big fullback that can clear the ball nearly from goal to goal? You can imagine this being used up close to the goal. The setup is pretty slick, too. Light and Right do a smooth and well oiled run and gun. They pass back and forth, keeping everyone guessing if the goal shot is going to come from the left or right side.

   They deliberately point at each other, and let everyone "see" their signal. Light points left, and then passes to Right. Right points right, and passes to Light. But, I'm watching the other hand. If I see my signal when I'm following, a drop pass is coming. If the goalie is on the other side of the net, its time for it. The setting up is to first get the other team tired, then to have let them "learn" the passing signals. Then, when the conditions seem right, I might get my chance.

   I can't wait to get a goal in a regular season game. As primarily a fullback, I would never get one. Maybe an empty netter one day, by luck if even then. Being a utility player puts me sometimes up front, but… I'm no ball hog normally. I screen and check and run interference and break plays up. Now, the second half of the game? I get my wide middle zone to play up in a good bit of the time. The halfback on my side, plays back a little to cover my position. Either halfback plays back when I go to that side. Bootsie switches between her side and my side I vacated while this is going on.

   Its a complicated system, but in preseason it worked out well. Our coach is one of the few coaches going full tilt on developing a complete "European" style. Fast, shifting game plans. This added in, makes it worse for the opponents.

   Our captain was finally gone. The coach had everyone suggest another on a secret write in. He gets the final say, but if it coincides with a clear favorite? So much the better. He promoted a co-captain to full captain for her senior year. A junior got promoted to fill that vacated co-captain spot. He took me aside privately, and told me he was figuring me for a co captain next season, but that was just between us.

   Things went predictably well. Me and Lightning got our precious day spa package daily. Class work went okay. Wiz is a self admitted "leg man" and got to ogle me and Light's legs during season. He "complained" it wasn't fair that when our legs were the most muscular and cut? They were also the most cut up and bruised. He said he couldn't wait for just after the season ended. He would get to enjoy his "leg show" for a little while without the damage to mar his view. He was sitting one night between us on the couch, idly running a finger over one or another of our legs, tracing out surface blemishes from the abuse. He said it was like seeing a high end sports car all key scratched up. Vandalized.

   Miss Moody's room? No one ever came to collect her effects. Wiz and the guys staying over, finally moved every item from every nook and cranny of her room to the basement, and put it all in one of the locked cages. None of us could bear to part with it. One of our own? Gone. The guys staying over more or less camped out in that room. Except for Target, because naturally he just stayed in Right's room.

   It will never cease to amaze me, looking now at all of Moody's "artwork". Now I could see it clearly. I could identify "her" in any toe painting she made if "she" was in the painting. She always represented herself in dark and brooding colors. Others were always the neutral or brighter colors. Everyone else always had a smile, and she wore a straight line. Or they had a straight line, and she had the upside down smile, the frown. Or, a little dot near one eye. A tear. Sad.

   Her final toe-painting, on the floor of the abandoned factory where she had decided to hide herself and take herself out of the game, permanently? Adjust her own roster, so to speak. That one stung the worst. All of us, smiles. She had the frown. All she really wanted? Was to be like us. Out of her deep clinical depression.

   Then, the big surprise came. It was near Halloween, and we had a little break. The boys coming in ten days every month were beginning to discuss making some kind of move. Most of them, however, all had one fatal flaw. They looked like cops. It was finally decided, that Elise and Wiz would make a trip there. When the time for them to leave drew near though, the bigger surprise came. They wanted me to go with them. The reason, was my car. I wasn't a cop. I was an ordinary college student. If anyone ran my plate? I was a complete non threat. It was also decided, that while Wiz by himself looked as much like a cop as any of the others? He didn't "act" like one nearly as much as they did. And when he was put with me and Elise, well… it was decided he went completely below radar.

   We took turns making the drive. They had me sign for a cheap and shitty motel room a little ways away from the "target" town. They found a place to park and hide the car, and observed various things on foot. Usually without me. Another big surprise was when Halloween hit and we were there. Both of them got into elaborate costumes, and they got me into one as well. Elise dressed me and did my hair and then spent time on my makeup as well. I was the complete sluttiest "French maid" ever, I swear.

   Wiz's outfit was pretty basic, but effective. Black oversize hooded cloak. A skeleton mask that was definitely not a department store purchase. Elise was a female devil. Wiz was completely invisible, you couldn't see his face, his hands, his outline… nothing was visible. Elise was so painted up and had enough stuff glued onto her face and head, that you wouldn't recognize her face if you saw her every day.

   They used their costumes to walk around safely and get a closer look at a few things. Then, another huge surprise. I was sent into a bar to a dress up Halloween party. I had a target. My job? Hit on this one guy, do anything I had to do, just get him outside and in the parking lot. Just… bring him to the car, they would handle the rest. They had intelligence that he was single.

   I pulled it off. Gee. Turns out, if a guy is single. You're dressed up as the sluttiest French maid ever. You buy him drinks, you chat him up, smile and giggle a lot. Lean on him, touch him, make a few suggestive jokes. Then rub up against him dancing after a number of drinks you insisted on buying him? Its actually not that hard to get him to agree to walk out and get a breath of fresh air in the parking lot. Who would have ever thought.

   I got a little nervous when I got him near the car, and those two were gone. I was afraid now I was going to be put on the spot. I was really laying my role on thick, and… then it happened. I had my arms around his neck, giggling and talking when I saw red. Elise's lady devil costume was all red.

   Elise went from a cute devil to something scary in a flash. She affected a drunk girl's walk, in her slutty devil costume… then it happened, and I almost shit myself.

   Her handgun was rammed into the guy's neck… hard. Her voice and eyes were downright terrifying. Blank, dead eyes that gave nothing away. A bland monotone that showed she was perfectly comfortable doing this. Having a big handgun shoved into your neck around where your jawbone meets your ear is bad enough. When the person doing it is dead calm and not nervous? Its several times worse. The soft and delicate click of the hammer thumbing back made it ten times worse. That sound meant you were already close to dead, and you were now even closer to the precipice. He had to pick a response. Fight, flight, freeze or flop.

   There was no fight. He was dead to rights in a flash. Flight was impossible too. She had him pinned up against the car and bent back slightly at gunpoint. He had to choose freeze or flop. He went with freeze. Her voice was so matter of fact and calm, that I felt a chill up my own spine and I wasn't the one being threatened with a firearm.

   "If you move, I'll blow your wisdom teeth out through your ear. If you don't move? You'll live…"

   She shoved a state police badge in his face briefly. I knew she was a city cop at her last hunting gig, this obviously belonged to one of the others and they had provided her with it. Or, she simply "borrowed" it. Whichever, it didn't matter, she had it now and that's what counted.

   "Now. You, are going to get in the car. In the driver's seat. You? Will do it slowly, and very carefully. Keep your hands where we can see them, and don't make any sudden movements…"

   She had already ran her hands over him a couple times to make sure she didn't think he had a gun on him. He trembled and shook and sort of oozed into the driver's seat. The grim reaper was in the passenger's seat when he got in, and shook the car keys at him. The angel of death flashed an FBI badge case briefly. Then he had a handgun too. Elise stood with me, and we put ourselves in front of the goings on in the car. We were in the back end of the lot, and had privacy. Wiz had the same matter of fact, I'm talking about the weather speech patterns as Elise had used.

   "I'm sure you're wondering what's going on here. We're just having a nice little talk. All friendly like. You. The devil. And the angel of death. Now then. Right off the top? We're not going to hurt you. We're not here to grab you. We? Just wanna have a nice little chat. Nothing will happen to you, and you won't get hurt… as long as you don't do anything… stupid. Do you understand?"

   He nodded.

   "I think its obvious by now, but I'll say it anyways. I know exactly who you are…"

   Wiz calmly rattled off a list of errata. His full name. His address. His email. His job. Even told him some things about when he was younger, to further surprise him.

   "I'm sure you're wondering what the topic of conversation will be."

   He nodded again.

   Wiz took a picture of Lightning out, and placed it on the dashboard in front of him. Top edge against the windshield, so he couldn't help but look at it. Little Lightning was young. He had gotten it off of an online digital yearbook.

   "That… is the topic of conversation. I want you? To take a moment. Clear your head. Stay calm… and let's just talk. Okay?"

   He nodded.

   "Any chance we could break the ice, and you start using… words? Instead of just moving your head around. This girl? Is the topic of conversation. We're going to talk about her. Is that okay? Its a yes no question."

   "Y… yes."

   "Good. Now… why don't you take a wild stab in the dark, and you tell me why you think you might be sitting here. Talking to the angel of death, with the devil standing guard. Why the FBI and the state police are involved. Now, I want you to just wow me here. I want you to pick? One… single… word… that you? Think best explains it. Go on, and make this good. One word…"

   "Uh…"

   "Not really a word. More of just a… sound we use, to fill in conversation. Pick a real word, that you think best sums up why we're here, and why this is the topic of conversation. Go on. I have faith in you. I think, you can do it. Impress me."

   He sighed, and looked down. His voice was very quiet. His entire body deflated.

   "Rape?"

   "Mm. Impressive. Don't worry, I know you weren't there. I've looked into you, you know. I've studied your monthly bills. Did you know your average electric bill, per month across the year? About 112 dollars a month. I've looked at all your bills, I've looked at all your tax statements, and I came to a conclusion. You? Are an honest man. And in this little town, well… that's kind of rare."

   "What… do you want with me, then."

   "You were one of her only friends, weren't you? After… what happened. That was my information. Was I misinformed?"

   He inhaled and exhaled a couple times.

   "I was born here. I've known her my whole life."

   "Its a small town. Everyone knows everyone. That wasn't what I asked you. Were you, or were you not? One of her only friends, after that went on. Yes or no."

   "Yeah."

   "Why?"

   "You want the truth?"

   "Oh, no. I'm here for you to just blow smoke up my ass. Make something up. Yeah, I want to hear the truth. There's no right or wrong answer here. Anything's acceptable. But… there's been so many lies? Let's start telling the real truth, okay? Why… were you one of her only friends…"

   "I… part of it? I… I felt sorry for her."

   "I could see that. Now, you said part of it. What was the other part. Be honest."

   "Well…"

   "Its fine. No right or wrong answer. Go on. The truth. Be honest."

   "She's… pretty. I mean, if you took her out of this town. And no one knew anything? You take that part out of it, well… you'd really have something."

   "What did you like about her. Pretty wise, I mean. Go on…"

   "Well. Honestly, other than she's pretty enough… I mean, is she the most drop dead gorgeous model you ever laid eyes on? No, but… my god. She's… almost six foot tall. Blonde. She ran track, played soccer. She was a dancer when she was little. For years. Jesus, I used to see her roller skating and ice skating… you should have seen it. Everyone else? They just kind of go around in a circle, you know? Not her. She… danced on the roller skates, on the ice skates. It was like watching one of those girls on TV when they do the big song and dance numbers? So yeah. One part of me, felt sorry for her. And… the other part? I… wanted to try to talk to her. I thought… maybe when I graduated. Maybe I could get out of this place. Take her with me… have a girl that could dance and skate like that. But…"

   "But what."

   "You can't… no matter what you do? You can't talk to her. She won't go anywhere with anyone. You can't even… you can't buy her a Popsicle on a hundred degree day. She'll throw it at you. She… its not even her fault, not really. But… then there's the other thing…"

   "What other thing."

   "Well. You talk to her? Everyone gives you shit. A lot of shit, actually. I mean, I took the shit. For talking to her, and trying to get people to lay off her, you know? But… I couldn't get anywhere. She wouldn't help. And I mean, I know its not her fault, cause of what happened. That's why, I know that, but… I fucking tried."

   "Well. That squares up with the information, that I received. Like I said. You were one of her only friends. Now… everyone else. They called her, a whore. You? You knew she was raped. How is that."

   "She'd… every once in a while? She'd… you know… freak out. Scream at people giving her the usual shit they gave her. I was fucking raped. They got me drunk and did that. It… it looked… real. I mean, there's girls that… you know, they get piss drunk and pull train or whatever, it happens. Then? Next day. Oh, I was raped. Uh uh. This? Didn't seem like that. She was just… so fucked up? You could just… tell."

   "Well? I'll tell you what. Back then? Wasn't the time. Now? Is the time. Now, you might wonder why I went through letting you know I crawled up your ass with a microscope, financially. And that I think… you? Are an honest man. Now then. You already summed up the topic of conversation, in one word. I want you to pick one more word, to describe the rest of the town, and why you're here, having this nice little chat. With the angel of death, and the devil standing guard. What's wrong with the rest of this town. The rape thing off the table. Come on. Wow me again."

   "Uh… crime."

   "Ah. Every town across America, has some kind of crime. Elaborate."

   He sighed.

   "I've been to other small towns. I mean, I grew up here, its all normal to me, but… other small towns aren't like… here."

   "True. Smart guy. I knew I picked you for a reason. Now. Let's go for the 64,000 dollar question, huh? If you had to… sum it all up in one word? One name. What name would that be. I already know. I just wanna hear you say it. And by the way? I'm not wearing a wire. This is… off the books. Just, a nice friendly chat we're having. One name."

   He said a last name. But, only after making a dramatic show of looking around first, even though he knew damn well we were alone. Then he leaned over as close as he dared, to the grim reaper in the passenger seat and practically whispered the last name.

   "Yep. He scares everyone, doesn't he. Its okay to admit it."

   He nodded.

   "What happens if anyone steps out of line around here, hmm? Do they… disappear? Get fucked up… how's that go."

   "Oh. That."

   "Yeah, that. What happens if you open your mouth and say it out loud. Seriously."

   He looked around again. Nervous as hell to be having this conversation, but… loosening up a little. About as much as he was probably capable of loosening up, anyways. A sigh before continuing.

   "You don't disappear. You… nothing you can put your finger on? But… you just have the worst luck, you know? You lose your job. You get arrested for drinking and driving. You just happen to get the shit kicked out of you for winning a pool game… just… really bad luck. Your car catches on fire."

   "Hmm. I mean, its that obvious."

   "Lived here my whole life. Yeah."

   "All right. I've enjoyed our little talk. I like you, by the way. Now. I'll tell you straight out. I'm going to rip this town a new asshole. But… you figured that part out already, right?"

   "Yeah."

   "You don't really care about that, do you?"

   The guy erupted into quiet nervous laughter.

   "Fucking go for it… I had a buddy. From high school. Got drunk, ran his mouth a little. I mean, it happens. Poor fucker… his car got burned. His family's house mysteriously caught on fire. His mom, and his dad, and him? They all lost their job. They… ended up moving a couple states away, go live with his uncle or something. Never saw him again. Mister? Go for it. Just…"

   "Just what?"

   "I mean… I'm… not in on any of this shit. My biggest crime? I play poker once a month. I play the… little football slips every week in football season. Hell, everyone plays a five dollar sheet, you know? But… I don't buy hookers. I don't do coke. I'm not into any of that shit…"

   "We're here talking? Because I already told you. You don't have any… financial irregularities. You ever go to church?"

   "I mean, when I was little. Sure."

   "Remember the story, about the angel of death was sent to Egypt? To kill the firstborn sons of the Egyptians. He passed over any house that had lamb's blood painted on the door frame."

   "Yeah, I remember that one."

   "Well? God… is pissed. God? Can be wrathful, or he can be merciful. Guess which way god's leaning, on this one."

   "Hmm. Gonna go out on a limb here. Wrath."

   "Oh. You have no clue. You? Live in Egypt. The angel of death? Is coming. But I don't want you to worry…"

   Wiz adopted a very soft and almost velvety voice now.

   "You? Are one of god's true believers. Lamb's blood, is painted on your door. The angel of death, when he comes? Will pass right over your doorstep and leave you be. I mean, as long as you don't go and do anything incredibly stupid."

   "Well. I tell you, mister. I… try not to do anything… stupid. But, why don't you tell me? What would be stupid things I shouldn't do. Just so I'm sure I'm being smart."

   "For the most part? Pretty easy. Just… do nothing. I mean, how hard is that."

   "I can handle… doing nothing."

   "Good."

   There was a pause.

   "I haven't told you anything you don't already know."

   "Yeah. So?"

   "I mean… I don't… want any part of… and, you can trust me. I won't say a word."

   "Oh. I know I can trust you'll forget this conversation ever happened. You know why?"

   "I'm all ears."

   "Many reasons. First of all, you don't know my face, or who I am. You'd never see me coming. Then? Well. You saw the badges. Feds… state police… that? Would be a really bad deal. Then, let's not forget that you live in Egypt. Why, if you went and told anyone, anyone at all? That… state police, and FBI agents came and talked to you? Well… I'd say, just use your imagination what some of the locals would think about that situation, but… you don't have to use your imagination. No, you saw what happened to your buddy. So… I'm real sure, you'll forget this little meeting ever took place. Right?"

   "Oh. You… have no idea how quick I'll forget."

   "You know. I hate to threaten you like that, but… its really for your protection, more than mine, when you think about it."

   "Yeah."

   "Now. We're almost done. I'm sure that's something you like hearing."

   "Buddy? Nothing personal, but…"

   "You… might wonder. What the angel of death expects out of you. You know, so your door? Gets the lamb’s blood painted on it."

   "Yeah, I'm not completely retarded. I figured there had to be a point to all this."

   "Well, since we're talking about it, and all. I was given to understand… that some people actually took their cell phones out. And… recorded gang rapes going down."

   He pointed at the picture.

   "I want you to look at that picture of your friend there, back when she was still young. All innocent. And you tell me whether or not these little home movies exist on people's phones. Hmm?"

   A big sigh.

   "Yeah."

   "I'm sure young boys… cute blonde girl having a gang bang… I can dig it. Right? You've seen one or two in your day, hmm?"

   He nodded.

   "They floated around."

   "Here's all I want from you. Easy as shit. I want you? To help me. Now. All you have to do? Is get those movies for me. Just… get them on your phone, get them in your email. Save them. Now, I don't care where you get them from. In fact? If you can't get one, and you know it exists? You get me the name of the person that can show you on their phone or computer. Now. How hard would that be."

   "Oh. Not… that hard."

   "All I want. Can you handle that? Just sit on it all. I won't contact you, you won't contact me."

   "That's… it?"

   "I told you before. Then? Wasn't the time to help her. Now? Now, is the time. Do you want to help her? Yes or no."

   "Yes."

   "That's all I want from you. Easy."

   "Am I allowed to ask a question?"

   "Sure. We're friends now. What."

   "Well… how the hell do I get this stuff to you then."

   "Oh. I was just about to get there… look…"

   He took out a deck of playing cards.

   "See this card?"

   He held up the four of clubs.

   "Yeah…"

   "That, is your card. One day, in the future. Someone, somewhere… will be talking to you. They will ask you, to pick out a card, any card. And this? This… is the card you pick out. Also, it should go without saying. That if someone were to show you, this card? Obviously, that's a friend. Understand?"

   "Yeah."

   "Just think about playing golf. You use… golf clubs, for golf. Clubs… for… golf. Easy way to remember it, right?"

   "Sure."

   "Now… I apologize for scaring you like this. I want you to relax. You didn't do anything wrong. You're an honest, decent man. You couldn't help, but? You tried. That's the important thing. Just… forget this conversation ever took place. If, you don't get me any videos? Nothing will happen to you. No threats. But, if you get them and save them, or just tell me who has them? You'll be helping your friend out. That you wished you could help, and couldn't. All right?"

   "Yeah. I can do that. I'll… get you some. They float around."

   "I figured. And hey. One day, when you're old and bouncing grand kids on your knee? You'll have an exciting story to tell them. How you actually made friends with the angel of death himself, and the devil. How many people can say that, hmm? Now…"

   He took out a hundred dollar bill, then added a second hundred to it… and handed it to him.

   "Here. Go. Have fun. Try to relax, and forget this happened. You? Are in absolutely no danger. No one saw us talking. Buy a few drinks, get your… buddies a couple pitchers of beer. Tell a funny story about the French maid you went out in the parking lot with. Your buddies will think you're the man, because you scored. And hey, maybe get your first video for me. Who knows. I don't care if you just start getting the videos because your story is you wanna beat off to them, whatever works."

   "And… that's all you want."

   "I try to keep things simple. I try to make things… easy. For decent men, like you, anyways. For a few others? Not so much. I meant what I said. I'm going to rip this town a new asshole, one day soon."

   "Works for me."

   "Hey. Before you go. What's… I don't know. The craziest shit you ever heard of in this place, huh? Gotta be something."

   "Oh. Other than the… string of bad luck you just run into, if you fuck up? Hmm… well, there was one thing. Now, this was a while back. Sky kind of disappeared after she graduated. I mean, hell, why not. She turned 18 and graduated? Zip. Gone. A day or two after she disappeared?"

   "Yeah."

   "Her mom. Sky just… up and disappeared immediately after graduating, and… her mom. Holy shit, was she fucked up. I mean… bad."

   "Like, fucked up, drunk?"

   "No… fucked up, like… we heard she got hurt, but… she was in the hospital a month or so. And a month after it happened? She still looked like she got ran over by a tractor trailer."

   "Really."

   "Oh yeah. I mean, her mom's a pretty lady, but… she wasn't so pretty for a couple months, you know? It took months for her eyes to not be completely blood. I mean, looked like a vampire, for the love of god. She still has a few tiny scars, but… she's pretty again. She got her teeth fixed, and her nose done after that, but…"

   "You think someone got her?"

   "Well… no one ever knew. She looked like she got ran over, I swear."

   "Maybe she was in a car wreck. It happens."

   "No. Everyone said, she was found in her house like that. I guess she laid there a day or two till someone found her. It was weird, I mean… Sky disappears, then someone fucked her mom up. Bad. Its a small town, everyone knows everything. You miss something? Hell, just go out for a beer, go to the diner for breakfast, you get filled in."

   "No secrets in a small town."

   "Not really."

   "So. That's the most fucked up thing you ever saw here, huh?"

   "Yeah. Oh, shit…"

   "What?"

   "Oh, god. Someone fucked her mom up, after Sky disappeared… FBI… state police… aw, fuck…"

   "What?"

   "She… disappeared. Aw. That's why this is going down now, I get it. Fuck…"

   "What are you getting at?"

   "You… someone… they, you know. Found Sky. Somewhere, right?"

   "What do you mean?"

   He sighed and shook.

   "You found her body, I'm guessing. Her mom got fucked up bad. She disappeared. Now the feds and the state cops are here. I mean, its pretty obvious."

   "You wanna help, right?"

   "Yeah. I do. She… was a nice girl. I mean, you take that whole… thing out of it? Smart, pretty girl. Aw, man. I wish I could of got her out of here… out of that shell she was in. Went somewhere, started over. I'd of had a tall blonde girlfriend, with legs up to her neck. And she'd… still be alive. Christ…"

   "Look. Don't? Say a word. No rumors, nothing. Because if people think she's dead? They'll clam up about what happened to her. And won't wanna share videos. I want those videos. I need them. Remember. There was nothing you could do before, but you tried. Now? You can help."

   He sighed, and stared at the picture for a few moments, before dejectedly handing the dashboard picture of "Sky" back over.

   "I'll do what I can. Poor thing… she didn't deserve what she went through."

   "No. She didn't. Now, about her mother. Speculate."

   "On…?"

   "If you had to guess, who hurt the mom…"

   "Oh, that. Well, I mean… her mom is, who she is, you know?"

   "Yeah. Its her mom."

   "No, I mean… Christ. Its no secret, just no one talks about it, but… her mom. She's…"

   "What."

   "The… head hooker. I mean, you're involved in… I guess its what, organized crime? She had to have done something to get fucked up that bad, you know?"

   "Well, yeah. You work in shady shit? Shady shit comes to your door. It happens. Guys that pump gas for a living? Shit like that almost never happens to them. You run hookers? Yeah, it can happen."

   "Poor Sky… yeah, I'll get whatever I can for you. Its the least I can do. Too little, too late. Four of clubs, and this little… talk? Never took place. I don't need fired and my car set on fire."

   Wiz shook his black leather gloved hand with his new friend's hand.

   "Don't worry. The angel of death? Will pass over your door when the time comes. You're doing the right thing. Alright, there's no one around. Go on, get the hell out of here, and we never had this talk."

   He left muttering under his breath, and shaking his head as he ambled back to the bar. They walked around using the unique camouflage that was Halloween to see some things they wanted to observe. It was weird when we all ended up sleeping in the same bed. Not awkward or anything, actually what was weird for me was there wasn't anything happening. I was used to sleeping literally and figuratively with both Wiz and Light.

   Elise broke the ice with a joke about the situation, how it looked like something was about to go on, even though we all knew it wasn't.

   "So. When Wizzy first met you. Did he…"

   "Oh. Wiz? You wanna field this one?"

   He chuckled.

   "Well, I worked around her, so… I was trying to be professional and at the same time, trying to drop a few hints."

   "In the service, Hurry? You don't have to go out on a date, groups of people just tend to hang out on nights and weekends. He was… very polite about it. Lots of guys just get grabby, he's a perfect gentleman that way. Of course, he didn't know about me. So, while he's trying to drop little hints he might like me? I'm trying to drop him hints that he's barking up the wrong tree."

   "Sounds cute."

   "I guess it was. I ended up having to draw him a picture. Now. Most guys you finally end up telling them? They either think you're giving them the brush off, and they start trying harder. Or? They just kind of give up. We kept running around together. Just because I'm not romantically interested in guys? Doesn't mean I don't like hanging out with them."

   "She's just one of the guys, basically."

   "I know. I still feel silly about trying to give her the speech when I met her."

   Elise smiled.

   "He's gotten drunk and stayed over at my place before. It was kinda funny when one of my girlfriends actually got jealous of him."

   "I guess that would be kind of humorous."

   "I guess I don't freak you out."

   "Huh? Oh, that. I grew up on a farm, Elise. We… didn't exactly have… that was just something on TV where I grew up. I didn't really run into that, until I hit college. Not to mention? You don't… I don't know how to say it."

   "Just say it, then."

   "Well. There was a time I just hit college. And…"

   Elise chuckled. Rolled her eyes smiling.

   "Oh, first time. What happened…"

   "Showers. After practice…"

   "Ugh. I honestly… Wiz?"

   "Yeah."

   "Do guys do that?"

   "Do what…"

   "The shower trick."

   "Uh… I don't know a lot about the girls locker room and showers? Guys don't do that, or…"

   "Yeah. Well? Did you run away, or… hit the girl. Its always one or the other."

   "I went with the famous slipped in the shower trick."

   "Yeah… I don't know how some people think that's the best way to… I mean, let's face it. There's better ways to approach someone, there's better places to approach people, and honestly? The shower is about the worst one to pick. Seriously."

   "Okay. If you don't try to jump me in the shower? I can have a sense of humor about some stuff. Hell. Wiz is my boyfriend? It still took some doing to get him in the shower with me the first time."

   Then me and Wiz took turns explaining what Bootsie had been put up to doing to Light, and why in her special case, it was twenty times as bad a thing to do.

   "Those same people? Will then wonder why… okay, I don't do shit like that. Hell. I only bring it up? If it needs to come up. Wiz knows? Because he was hinting around he liked me. And you? You saw us hugging and putting our arms around each other. Honestly, I'm pretty sure if more people would just… shut the fuck up and go about their business… it would be easier."

   "Hmm. You don't… march in parades, and…"

   Elise laughed.

   "And… run up to people, first day we work together? Hi. My name's Elise. I'm a lesbian. That means I'm sexually attracted to other women. No, I don't do that shit. I'm not real popular with… the community, if you know what I mean by that."

   "Because you don't march in parades, and go around handing out pamphlets at work?"

   "Yeah. Straight people don't do that shit, why should I do it."

   "Why are your… people mad at you?"

   "Oh. Everyone is supposed to be convincing straight people, that we're… normal, just like them. Now… you ever seen a pride parade? I mean a big one."

   "Not personally, but…"

   "I'll say it. There's naked people, marching in the streets. Unicorn dildos strapped to their heads. People marching naked people with dog masks on. Grandpas, naked. Wearing nothing but pink ballet slippers and pink G-strings. If that's supposed to be convincing people, its normal? Well… its not working."

   We all three got the chuckles and started laughing.

   "So yeah. If you don't wear T shirts, march naked in the streets once a year, hand out pamphlets at work… you get made fun of. Christ, I went through the same shit about… women's lib bullshit. I get yelled at, because I refused to… do the whole breast cancer awareness month thing in the service. I think its silly. I don't want treated special for being a girl, I don't want treated special for that, either."

   "You don't care about breast cancer?"

   "Do I care if I get it? Then yeah, but… I don't sit around all day, feeling my own boobs up. Me and Wiz laughed about this at the bar one night. Men? Get prostate cancer and testicle cancer. Actually kills a ton of men. Where's the push for free tests, for any man, any day he feels like it? To go get tested. Where's the ribbons around everything, for testicle cancer? There's not. That's not fucking equality, that's women demanding to be treated special. Should some women be firemen and cops? Sure. Some. But not all of them, trust me on this one."

   "Well. Thanks for helping Wiz."

   "Wild horses couldn't keep me away. He didn't have to help rape victims in the service out? Wasn't even his goddamn job. He did anyways. We're all family. One of our own needs help? We're there."

   "Well? Thanks."

   Elise smiled at me.

   "So. Now that we got the feel good conversation out of the way… we all going to fuck now, or what?"

   My mouth hung open. Elise tried to keep a straight face, then cracked and started laughing. Wiz was trying not to laugh and losing that battle as well.

   "Sorry. I couldn't help it."

   "Um. Do I make you… uncomfortable…"

   Elise laughed, and her laugh was genuine.

   "Hurry? There's a… girl with a crew cut next door to your townhouse…"

   "That? Is the infamous Bootsie. Not allowed in the townhouse, for obvious reasons."

   "Yeah. Are you at all attracted to her?"

   "No."

   "Hell, me neither. And I even like girls. But… straight girls? You're not doing anything for me. How about you, Wiz. Am I doing anything for you over there?"

   He was dry responding.

   "Not really, no. For me? This is about as much fun as having Target laying in between me and my girlfriend in a cheap motel room."

   We all giggled, it was funny. Elise paused before sounding serious.

   "Wiz knows what happened to me. We worked around rape victims for a couple years together. Honestly? I know if… it hadn't of happened to me? I mean, I know that's why I only date girls. I told you, Hurry. There's the ones that try not to hurt you, then there's the other kind?"

   "Yeah."

   "Mine was the other kind."

   "Do you think, if you'd have gotten the right kind of help you needed, that…"

   "Would I still date guys? I liked guys before that. It changed, after that. So… that's my guess."

   Another mom of the year. They were all over, weren't they. Wiz changed the subject.

   "Elise. As fun as this conversation is… we're working."

   "Yeah?"

   "How much trouble are we in. With Target. We pulled the trigger."

   "We did."

   "I like to think, it went okay. Your thoughts?"

   "This ain't my line of work. Investigating and all that. I'm just professional bait."

   "You were there."

   "I think you have a CI. When I did purse snatching, I was vice. Never really had my own CI, but most of the regular vice did… I agree. I was kinda surprised, how the whole conversation went, but…"

   "Well, when he got the idea somehow that Lightning was dead? I just went with it. First, it really motivated him, I thought. Not to mention, if he does say anything? Light's safer, they think she's dead."

   "Oh yeah. In his mind, this is a murder and rape investigation? And everything else on top of it. He's scared shit-less. Nobody wants to be around a murder investigation. I look back on it? I'm glad you let him think she's dead."

   "Rule number one with a CI. Give nothing up, get what you need. I think he's terrified of them thinking he talked to cops anyways, especially now he thinks the mom got almost killed, and Light disappeared the same night. He knows how dangerous they are. I just hope Target isn't pissed."

   "Wiz? Me and you both argued we could use a CI. They sent both of us. It was a calculated risk. We took it. I think we made the right call. Plus? We took every precaution. He can't even pick us out of a lineup."

   "I just hope I made the right call."

   "We're reading emails and texts. We'll know quick."

   Elise shrugged.

   "We're different, Wiz. You? Calculate everything. And, I agree with your… figuring. Now, me? I go by my gut. And my gut tells me? He's on your side. And that even if he isn't? He's less scared of you, than he is of them."

   "That's fair. What's your gut say."

   "My gut says… best and worst. Best? You get one or more videos, just like you asked for. They exist, he'll get some. And at worst? He's so scared, he just keeps his mouth shut. You're winning, or breaking even, with no down side."

   He looked up and off, fingers behind his head, leaning up against the headboard. Calculating and pondering and supposing. I knew I was seeing The Wizard at work on his craft. The gears clicking and whirring. The intricate Swiss watch mechanism that was his intellectual trademark. He could study seemingly any two related disciplines, pick them at random. A farmer, with an intense hobby of watchmaking? Would lead him through unique analogies and strategies, with the same end results as he applied them to his case at hand.

   It made me swell with pride. This? Was mine. Unique and eminently capable and useful. Sometimes beautiful and sometimes terrifying, always uniquely honest and loyal. You? Don't have one of these, and you could neither handle nor know what to do with one, if it was given to you. I own something rare and one of a kind, and I'm the sole owner that both values and can make use of it.

   "All right, Elise. I seem to have satisfied my… engineering of this, and if your highly fine tuned gut is happy, too?"

   "It is."

   "Okay. We did it, we work with it. Its going to pay off big, most likely. If it doesn't? It can't harm us, without destroying itself."

   I jokingly asked if they were going to kiss now. He smiled sly, and said boys don't kiss, that would be gay. Elise tittered in what for her was a relatively rare display of abject femininity. Inside, I wondered if I could help her, if I could have helped her. Was that my true desire to help? Or was that my ego talking to me, that I had to watch out for.

   I never before thought of myself as a mean or selfish person, not really. But now, getting to be around Wiz and his heightened loyalty streak that he put proudly on display for the world to see. It brought out mine. Not that I ever hid it before, but I was definitely more prone to wear it like a unit badge.

   I found myself trying to put Elise into Wiz's karmic view of the world and the universe. Elise was a tomboy and studied sport Judo for her own personal thing. Then, she got violently raped and her little fledgling world ripped apart and destroyed. Right when it should have been flowering, and opening up into full bloom. That was the exact moment when some asshole took the opportunity to tromp on the young flower about to open up.

   I knew what Wiz would say. The universe wanted you hurt and almost destroyed… but not quite. It wanted you hardened and made fierce. So you could become something terrible to be used as a unique weapon just when such a thing was appropriate. Just pretty enough to get glances from men. Just muscular and strong enough to excel in her sport. Just enough of both, to make her the perfect target for some violent rapist who wanted to show "strong" women that because he had a dick, he was superior.

   The universe wanted a flower that was dangerous to look at, and deadly to touch and pluck at. Thorns that dripped with venom.

   I let them go in conversation a bit, and she once again tried to softly recruit him into her world. I was starting to figure out that she must want him to work with her in the worst way. She would slip it in and frame it as another halfhearted half joking attempt. It reminded me of the guy that likes a girl around him in daily life. The guy that accepts the girl doesn't like him enough romantically, but still smiles and slips in little half jokes they both laugh at.

   Except it was reversed. She wanted him. Not romantically either, but professionally. She desired him to go through the state police academy, then to go with her as a sort of package deal. I was getting the subtext of it, picking up on it and having to fill in the blanks as best I could. Mr. Karma? Had her undying respect. He was just soft enough in his emotional underbelly, to be hurt when he saw women beaten to a pulp and raped or terrorized. He was inordinately adept at taking revenge. Set up physically and emotionally, his personality and experiences came together into one perfect Karma rendering machine.

   His fast and accurate intellectualism, his unique and bold strategies. The loyalty streak, the karmic revenge streak. Practical skills she wanted as well. Fast reader, quick memory. Computers and electronics. And there was more, I was sure of it. Most cops that could "handle themselves" in pressure situations? They had this alpha sense about them, and couldn't shake it. They couldn't blend in on the street. Not him. He would be her perfect backup. He could be closer than the others. She wanted him to be her ace in the hole. He would be able to think on his feet quick, when they had only seconds to decide on their story before the rest of the backup arrived.

   I had to read between the lines, that my friendly guard dog was most probably a lot more dangerous than I guessed or realized. He had been taught to recognize and refine the sixth sense. He could be relentless, too. If a guy got away from her? They were taught similar strategies. They could automatically fan out and the fleeing perpetrator would think he shook his pursuance. He would hide. They would both sense which alley they had "let" him "get away" to hide in, and close in from either end. Both having that split second warning when they were near in proximity to the predator prey.

   His unique personality would allow him to blend into her police world as well. Former military, MP experience and recommendations. That weird former military ability to sniff out other former military allies for that wink and a nod off the books help, without a second of pause whether to render aid silently or not. Tough enough when situations arose, yet quiet and unassuming enough to sit back and let others play leader until he was needed.

   Sleeping with both in the same big cheap motel bed a couple small towns away from the target town was odd. We weren't there long. One morning we all woke up, and she had rolled over quite near to me. We both smiled and shrugged it off a little sheepishly. The next morning, she had rolled nearer to him. They derived and shared the same out of the situation. We were all in sweatpants and T shirts, it was fine.

   When we got back home, I had the after season games coming up. We had a good year, and it had its chance to be the great one we wanted and needed and craved. We not only got into the finals this time, we went and made it into the final match ups, and were just on the verge of going from bridesmaid to bride? When we went into overtime on the final down to the wire game, and just missed it.

   As a team, we were heartbroken. The coach didn't scream and yell at us. He congratulated us on our year's performance. We were down our starting center, poor Moody was gone forever. He had scooped up another freshman star that had blazing speed and ball handling, just without the super impressive goal scoring record. She was a confident star center with no problem being happy to be there, and eagerly acted as the clip that fed rounds of ammo to the twin guns on her little airplane. Little Lightning and Right.

   Those two had matured and went from standout freshman stars to the more seasoned star sophomores. My new position when the coach shifted our added strategy into motion surprised and confused the other teams. A big strong utility player suddenly playing up. A second wing that shifted sides and acted as a second center. Always shifting "position" and zone, constantly screening and checking and running blinds. Running right over girls that thought they were going to try to out grit us.

   I was no "Lightning" by any stretch, but… I now had a few sparks in my big cloud. I ended up picking up an inordinate number of assists for a "fullback" by virtue of my playing up when the coach shifted to that style. I even ended up with a small handful of goals. I was being bidden to take more shots here and there. Lightning always was dangerous, with her speed and ability to turn on a dime, that acrobatic out of the air one-timing she had patented.

   Most goalies find it rare to see a girl my size, a big fullback suddenly playing up in the red zone. What I lack in blazing speed like the wings and center, I make up for with more power. I quit putting angles on my big boot drop passes. I started aiming right at the goalie when I was close enough. Lightning was coming in on full afterburners for those rare times the goalie had to deflect instead of catch my powerful but relatively straight shots. My right leg is a cannon; its just not very accurate. If she couldn't get an out of the air one time shot, she could one time it to Right all primed like a cocked gun.

   This was happening all so close to the goalie that it rattled them. It happened too quick. Lightning's pinball abilities were coming out, and her well oiled agility work with Right made them a pair of finely honed weapons up close and personal where things happened fast.

   The coach said we were still bridesmaids? But, some college ball writer that touched on the women's Midwest college playoffs noted that the…

    '…perennial bridesmaids have just inched up. Head bridesmaid this year, and next year? Look out.’

    We had less graduating and disappearing starters than our usual rivals in our big competitive conference. All our usual enemy teams were losing their big guns. Light and Right were up and coming big stars, and were taking on and coming out on top over seasoned senior stars. The writer noted all this, after his cute phrase to hook the reader’s attention. People were noticing, people could sniff a breakout coming soon.

   The coach said next year was our year to strike. None of us is allowed to bet a dime even in legal gambling on one of our games, but we are encouraged to follow the Vegas "lines". Some statisticians are eerily adept at figuring the odds, and we were inching up. Your biggest win in sports gambling, is if you can pick the big winner of the end of the season, before the first preseason game is ever played in the conference.

   We were by no stretch favored to win it all next year? But… those high odds of successfully predicting the final winner in our conference, weren't as high as ever before. Other than losing poor Sunshine to hang herself? I was winning on all other fronts. My love life was solid and better every week. I knew I had my future husband nailed down. I was set to be named co captain next season though it was a secret. I knew I was going to have the college sports career to dream for, because I would be a grad student with the extra experience.

   I would become a doctor in my field, my husband would become a doctor in his field. More girls were becoming jealous of what I had both "professionally" and privately. My sports career, my love life, my professional career. Other guys were grinning at Wiz, at what wizardry he had both pulled off and continued to pull. More people then ever knew he slept in the same bed half the time with two starting female college athletes.

   Little Lightning's new reintegrated personality both stuck and matured. Wiz's karma case was flying high, and the boys were getting poised to strike. They had locked file cabinets in the basement, where they kept a growing ream of well sorted and filed evidence and intelligence. All through the season, me and Light enjoyed our daily spa package, and our occasional brief but intense and satisfying satyric fun. We were all three oh so good, and yet oh so deliciously bad.

   I felt neither one single stab nor pang of jealousy when I elected to go home for the extended break around the holidays and left Wiz in the care of Little Lightning's ever so capable hands and lips and thighs and tongue. We all shared little sexy video clips and SMS text messages that we laughed about and shared freely.

   Those two got creative over their holiday break together with my blessings. One picture was her and him dressed up in "naughty elf" sort of costumes thrown together halfheartedly. What were probably intended to be stockings hung up, were on both their feet. The "caps" looked similar, as much or more of decorations as they were actual items of clothing.

   Another photo, she had him tied up in a little more of a naughty elf themed picture. It was obvious that the junk stores all sell used Christmas stuff for a buck a piece, most items. The last set of photos was what I thought was the really creative pictures. She was "tied up" with LED Christmas lights on a wire. Glowing wrist, ankle, knee, and mouth winding. It was cute and seductive and sexy, I thought. Young boys would kill to have that in high res for their background on their laptops.

   I tried to respond in kind as best I could from being trapped alone in my parent's farm in winter on holiday break. I set my phone up and figured out by trial and error where it should sit and what the lighting should be. I erased all practices then, and sent them pictures of me pretending I was all tied up in the barn. I then undertook a series of photo shoot tries. I modeled things like heel spurs and goatskin chaps with the patterned animal hair still on them. Poses with whips in my hands, amid all the various outfits I threw together by myself, having freakish adult winter barn fun to amuse myself. It felt invigorating to be in love, and to be having childhood fun at the same time.

   Lightning's wardrobe got rearranged. She started using mom of the year's gift cards for neat little piles of regular jeans a farm girl might wear. Simple pocket T shirts and flannel shirts. And yeah, a few sexy things. She smiled and explained she had more than enough clothes like that, and insisted on buying me a few things here and there and forced me to take them.

   A favorite item, and its hard to pick a favorite among others, but still. Lightning surprised me with my "we almost won it all" present. She had gotten a great deal on a pair of "you can't tell them from new" boots on an online auction. The seller was a dealer that had came into a large lot of items from a closed down playhouse. A past "run" of Shakespeare plays had guaranteed a lot of old fashioned looking period clothes.

   A former star of one play had to have a pair of thigh high leather boots, and an intern costume designer had handmade them for a star in the play. I wear size 12, men's. They had almost no heel but were made of thick leather. The sort of thing you would see in history textbooks depicting early Spanish Conquistadors wearing stuff when exploring the new world as the first Europeans off to find indigenous people to exploit and slaughter.

   On a man, they had looked Conquistador or Shakespearean. On me? I looked to be the consummate sexually dominant female in the bedroom. Thick, oiled black leather. Cared for lovingly by professionals, and hardly broken in because they were only worn on a stage. The first time I pranced around in them, I felt so powerful and sexually charged, it was unreal. The instant I put them on, I knew Vaquera loved these things. They were the penultimate projection of her sexual prowess.

   I took charge of my boyfriend and ordered him around confidently as never before. I rode him and heeled him with an ever increased sense of ownership. We played "try to throw me off" rodeo sex with me wearing just the boots. I also was doing a lot of the sweet mommy routine. Super sweet mommy. She was in charge in the bedroom, but would let him get away with nearly anything. I loved laying back and getting my warm slit licked until I had to eat a bedclothes sandwich or scream loud and long enough even college students in the adjoining townhouses might give in and call the police, just in case I was dying next door.

   My personal life, my private life, my professional life… all going perfect. My future husband, my perfect boyfriend. My high end real life worst case scenario rape counseling project I had brought to heel and more. My scholastic, my sports. Everything was… perfect. I felt ego and confidence like never before. Everyone just about gets a taste or more of that feeling for some stretch in their lives. You can do anything, everything comes easily, you feel as if you simply can do no wrong. If you even make a mistake? It turns out to be some blessing in disguise so as to become an even bigger win.

   God, I felt on top of the world. This? Is me. I can have this feeling, for probably most of my life, too. I've done all the work, laid all the great foundation and now I'm starting to reap the benefits. Its just so great to be alive for times such as these. You just, sort of rip the bed sheets back and all but leap out of bed, seeing what the day has to greet with you with. Is it a setback or a challenge? Eh, you're confident you can handle it and overcome it. Or is it more great shit to have happen? Used to that, the world bends to my will easily now.

   You can imagine the sex me and Little Lightning and my boyfriend, our boyfriend… experienced. We all three took turns being the "slut in the middle". We all three took turns being in charge that night and getting just about anything we wanted or could dream up. We all took turns being the third, the one that was either almost in charge, or almost another submissive.

   Me and Light took turns being the meat in the lust sandwich, the one that practically died from pleasure and experienced the rapture. He sometimes had both of us at his command, or we shared him with both of us using him rough. Lightning even got to learn to enjoy both of us pleasuring her in turns, and I will not lie and say I didn't take my turns at that as well. Whoever was in charge and had the other two at their back and call? Got literally anything they wanted. You took a head in either hand, and took turns using either servant’s face or orifice for a fuck toy. A satyric, hedonistic god for the night. Two willing and eager to please lust slaves at your beck and call. A snap of the fingers and a gesture? Acts got performed as you willed it. That weird combination of heaven and hell that was so yummy.

   Lightning's reputation slowly reversed itself. She was still the consummate bad girl, because everyone knew she was in a three way relationship and rumors abounded that we all slept together often. Yet, she was now more and more off limits week after week. She was off the market, she was becoming forbidden fruit. Everyone knew she was pretty to look at, everyone knew she had sexual prowess and experience. But, they also knew she was exclusive.

   I got to begin to shake my nun reputation. I was still super exclusive and more off limits than ever before, but with this new bad streak. Lightning began to sport more and more "good farm girl" clothes. I began to wear the occasional bad girl outfits here and there. Sometimes we both slut-ted it up, and Wiz had a pair of cute female devils on either arm. Sometimes we were both all but demure farm girls all night, but again one on each arm. Sometimes he had one of each, and while that was more likely to be Little Lightning? I did it just enough to keep everyone guessing.

   Me and Light made occasional nights out to be gamer girls with Wiz and his computer crew. We all three made it a point to rotate one or two of them to be with us at parties. I guess in their world, it was quite a prize to have a cellphone pic or short video of one of the computer crew sitting in the hot tub, a shit eating grin on his face for his buddies to see proof of his fun night out. Me and Little Lightning hamming it up sans shirts for his little proof pic or video clip.

   The guys that landed these loved to send this "proof" of their college fun home to other computer friends from their hometown. Me and light gave it freely. What, a fun picture or short video clip? We weren't putting out, but… we knew we were making a little treasure for the guys we hammed it up for. And, those guys deserved it. Me and Light got treated like royalty every time we showed up for the computer gaming nights.

   Wiz's Army "barracks" buddies got to whore around with the female athletes, and enjoy being traded like baseball cards. With a small pack of fighters around, no athlete would usually dare say anything to one of the computer crew we brought around here and there. On the rare occasion it did happen, Wiz was able to handle it without fireworks and it didn’t happen again. Just like he made it into a big joke when he handled the drunk guy ogling Lightning’s wet pantie show at the ping pong games that first party? He had that magical ability to put a stop to things, without any resentment and recriminations.

   You take Little Miss Moody's suicide out of the equation? The universe was nearing perfect balance. The clouds were gathering on the Sigma Lightning about to strike Swellsville as well. Karmic justice sausage, a big plate of it. When hell came to breakfast one day? That's what was on the menu. Everyone that knew that was coming? Was just itching to see the cosmic scales tip back into balance.

   My best year of my life so far. Little Lightning often enough expressed the same satisfaction, sense of accomplishment, and yummy fun. Right was ecstatic. A steady boyfriend, with a great career. Just old enough to be perfect for her slight daddy issue. Still young enough to not look out of place with him at her side. Her private life was looking like mine was. Future husband on lock down, for the extended test drive and looking like that option to buy was going to be exercised.

   Lightning was wanting the occasional reassurance, that she was allowed indefinitely into our shared relationship. Me and Wiz assured her, it was open ended. She could be an equal partner if she so chose. We all easily agreed that for all intents and purposes to the outside world, which meant "after college" ended… me and Wiz would be the ones that got married. But, that privately? She would be "the room mate" that no one not in the know would realize how things truly were.

   She would be a silent but fully equal partner in the marriage, in everything but on paper. When I watched her administer blow-star neurological toxin into him, and derive constant verbal reassurance that she wasn't going to be left behind as they teased and played and enjoyed life's little body rewards, I was happy for her. Hearing her extended begging ritual that it was no game, that it was real… made me feel warm all over inside and out. She begged me for that reassurance as well, and we both gave it back to her. Seeing her easy smile and quiet confidence grow felt great. I was giving back to the universe, I wasn't being selfish. I was truly my sister's keeper.

   When the long holiday break ended, I know a lot of students aren't terribly excited about getting back to campus to start the next semester. I was. I couldn't wait to get back to Wiz and Little Lightning. I couldn't wait to see what I might have missed about the case. I mean, not like I was kept apprised of every tiny detail and far from it. There was plenty being either kept from me explicitly, or less so. But I felt I was being treated on the whole? Amazingly well for my 20 to 21 years of wisdom gained by the older and much more worldly former MP's. I felt a lot like an "equal" in many ways. As the rape therapist and one of the "founding members" of the case… I was included in a way that I found… how would I even describe it, really.

   I suppose a little like a young kid that is included in the adult discussion or decision making process. I knew a lot if not most cops simply disregarded and tuned out "mere" civilians; I felt engaged and included. My status as some kind of gatekeeper keeping everyone "honest" in obtaining first the best outcome for poor Light, was addressed and I felt honestly. Though naturally, these experienced lifetime LEOs could naturally just be well practiced at managing my feelings in this sense. How would I even know. But, I felt included and like a kid asked their opinion? I felt like I was punching above my weight socially.

   Getting to go on forays into "Hellsville" as we unofficially nicknamed it, well that felt awesome. I hate to sound so childish, but how can an inexperienced civilian not feel the lure of excitement and the world of danger and a tiny bit like a secret agent or something along the lines of such a juvenile thought pattern. I know that part of it was the rush of getting to play at it, and that the other half of that rush was genuine and pure. I was actually helping, I was actually making a real difference. A difference in both the world at large, and in the life of my best friend. The fact that I got to pay back her inordinate loyalty towards me, delivering Wiz to me with a bow on him for my present, when she could have so easily played with him and even wanted to? My own loyalty streak demanded that I be ecstatic to pay that loyalty and dedication back.

   Three rare sigma personalities all together. In school, two of us in sports, and all three of us in a relationship. Giving freely, getting and taking freely. No jealousy, all loyalty. There was this notion of all for one and one for all, we were in some way like three musketeers. Any happiness or joy was shared, as was any sense of loss or being slighted. That sense of family and closeness is a warm and fuzzy sweatshirt right out of the hot clothes dryer in and of itself.

   I was the "true" dominant in the relationship, the most of such a thing. Little Lightning sort of played at it, and yeah, it was "another hot game" to her. It was "something Wiz liked" so it made her feel good to do it, and it was novel fun as well. I honestly didn't know I was going to fall into loving playing sweet mommy so much, but I did. Stern mommy made less visits, Vaquera naturally checked in from time to time.

   Lightning got more comfortable with her forays into "playing" dominant, particularly to Wiz. I was the real deal when I did it, Light? More resembled a girl playing the role. I easily fell into the role when I played it. It was believable when I made a sexual punishment threat. It was more of a novelty when she did it. Still, she had a few good ones in. Her normal progression was to first use the switch a little too light, then a little too hard. When she got it right once in particular, she had the face and the mannerisms down pat. Lifting his chin up with the long, thick switch between sets of licks, while she delivered her little "speeches". The grin, the bemused and distracted attitude.

   Light's occasional purchases off of the internet were a fun thing. She landed two Catholic school girl outfits for us dirt cheap. Not the cheap bed-sheet thin ones you get in naughty bookstores. They were actual outfits at one time. When we both wore them, we were the ultimate expression of good girl bad girl both rolled into one. What appeared even under scrutiny to be expensive monogrammed and intricately patched sweater and jacket uniforms. Lightning liked her upscale school uniform so much, she ended up getting several more. She did look really cute in them, and she always was way more of a "clothes girl" than I ever once was.

   We each had our own version of the naughty schoolgirl look in the bedroom. Hers was a skirt and white knee high stockings on with just the school jacket on all opened up showing her tiny but perfect boobs. Mine was only the skirt rode up onto my waist, and just the white stockings. My pigtails covered more of me than my costume did, which is to say not at all. I was on display in most of my outfits.

   He "caught" the naughty schoolgirls down the hall in "their room" at the boarding school. Wearing forbidden stockings and garters in our room, while smoking pot out the window. Of course it called for a good switching to teach us a lesson. Then, when he found out in addition to the forbidden stockings and garters, we dared to run around with no panties on? Oh, that called for more.

   Then, the headmaster or whatever he was, turned out to be a lech. It was either our parents got called? Or… we "had no choice" but to give into his unnatural desires to do things to the naughty schoolgirls who were in no position to argue. We both got shown exactly what naughty girls like we were trying to be, would get.

   I had braided the faux satin sheets cut up in wide strips into showy, sexy restraints. If rough rope was brutally extra rough, and soft cotton rope was showing you cared some? The braided satin was luxurious. One night when we were alone, I ended up with my forearms tied to her thighs. Her forearms? To my thighs. He "made" us 69 each other for a long time. Whichever was on top? Coated the other's face and matted their hair. But, the one on top also took Wiz parking in the rear, so it was a catch 22.

   He rotisserie-d us in that fashion for a long time. We were both eventually coated in each other's as well as our own body's admissions and emanations that proved we enjoyed it. When he finally let us go, well… we took turns sitting on his face or astride his hips and riding him. While we touched and kissed as much for our own benefit as his.

   None of us cheated on the three way relationship, so we were all "good". But the things we did and enjoyed? Bad didn't begin to cover it. Right would grin and roll her eyes at us, Target in particular would snicker and shake his head. Elise never really brought it up once. It was like she didn't notice anything was amiss. The other guys were like light versions of Target. You know, the occasional guy smile or surreptitious thumbs up. The "you lucky bastard" theme.

   Me and Little Lightning even ended up getting another slightly bigger "toy" we sometimes used, though not often. She used it on me first on one of my nights "in the middle". I was quickly wrapped around her sweating and shaking, begging in her ear and talking to cat Jesus before she was done. I returned the favor to her another time, then finally after a break? It got used as lightly and gently as possible on his poor rear end. Tip only and hardly any more. It got used sparingly to say the least; whoever was taking that one? Knew it was being used, I'll say that much.

   Lightning got it "parked" first before I used it on him. I finally got the nerve up not to stop her from it being my turn finally. Light giggled as I squealed and begged through that one. I threatened him with a brutal SWAT entry style followed by the obligatory "around the room" administration of it? It was a fun and idle threat only. I couldn't possibly do that with the thing. I mean I could, but… you know. A sweet mommy would never do that to her naughty little boy. She did credibly threaten it, however.

   It was hard to say what was most important. Our sports and working out, as me and Light had our scholarships and personal aspirations there. Or, Wiz and his own workouts. The barracks crew fell back into regular fighting workouts as had been the regular and usual thing before he took on Lightning and the whole affair up at the party that night when everything started… our relationship, Lightning's therapy, what we didn't even know at the time was the beginnings of Light's "case". Sports, working out, and our overly rich romantic and sex lives. All competed for "most important" spot in the overall scheme of things.

   I caught the whiff of one of his Army fighting students asking Wiz if he was actually training. Getting ready for an actual match. In typical Wiz fashion, he shrugged it off both literally and figuratively. Being mostly out of fighting, other than working out and coaching… he explained you can't over train round the year, but he didn't want to wake up one day and find he had lost it. He had decided to give himself a sort of on season and off season. Like me and Light had with soccer. It made sense.

   Me and Wiz's grades and schoolwork and projects were just sort of "there". Our romantic and exercise and karma case lives all seemed to predominate and take precedence in importance. Yet, our grades never suffered. Lightning's grades actually improved. I think maybe it was the reintegration of her personality, the therapy working its own magic in conjunction with her actually feeling love and caring instead of just physical sex she had enjoyed previously. Being prone to stay at home certainly didn't hurt any.

   I got sporadic "Elise lessons" on the basics of fighting more efficiently and confidently, which was all something recent and new for me. She always told me that rather than show me a hundred and one things, none of which I'd perform well with under stress if I ever had to… she would rather go over a limited number of topics. The very basics, then just reinforce and further those basics over whatever time we had at this. A limited number of tricks that worked well. After a while, she started showing me how to work basics and tricks together, to string them.

   She spent a great deal of time showing me how to "test" a move, how to "see" and more importantly "feel"… if it was working. I was to either push or draw the person off balance, or to lure them into an action where they helped me or did it for me.

   Over these little ten day once a month periodic sessions and the time spent around Elise and Elise and Wiz together? I slowly drew some back story out of the two of them. I already knew Elise had been raped, and that she went from purse snatching bait female MP and graduated into working as rape bait, then assumed her final form. Cold blooded hunter of violent or murdering rapists.

   Naturally being a junior female judo sport champ when young, led me to believe she had always been this confident and powerful. This easy and graceful. She explained that she was only that way around females. She had near zero experience punching and kicking and wrestling in a no rules format. When the instructors saw what she could do, and quit complaining about what she couldn't do? They went to the mentor. Yeah, Wiz's modern day zen master Buddhist monk, all in touch with the karma.

   He took her out of female classes and stuck her in male classes. Apparently he hovered over these classes for a little while personally. To make sure his wishes and instructions were being followed to the letter. Wiz said it didn't take long, before she got used to being pushed and pulled and kicked and punched at. Once comfortable, she was finally able to use her sport judo in a no rules environment.

   They both had different analogies and ways of explaining what happened, but it was clear they were both describing the same thing. A guy, you'd say his balls dropped and he could use what he knew that really wasn't being put to use. But, when she quit freezing and covering up, and got comfortable… what, her tits dropped I suppose.

   Apparently she was something unique in the men's side of the MP gym. The mentor had quickly opened up her little flower and let her unique abilities shine. He put Wiz and her together a few times, and initiated their bond; they had fused it themselves after the initial period.

   She needed special ongoing instruction to round out her sport judo. Female MP's are rare, and ones that can hang in the male MP sense? Rarer than hen's teeth. They needed purse snatching bait, which was hard enough to find and develop. But, rape bait? The mentor knew he had struck solid gold in Elise. What the MP's had imparted into their mascot, he transferred slowly as much as he could on and into Elise. When purse snatching detail worked out exceptionally well, she was permanently pulled off of normal MP duties. She would spend all her time specializing.

   She got the dirty wrestling, the boxing and kickboxing, all the guys dirty tricks off of The Wizard. A quiet, polite though not weak or incapable young man. Apparently, he was perfect for this job. He was eager to please the holy mentor. All the MP's were suitably impressed the mentor took time with him and formed a relationship with him. He was the eldest god in their little world, and god took an interest in both of them.

   Wiz learned things he could use back off of her. Judo isn't the most common thing in the United States in the real world, and rarer yet in the service. They each got a finer honed edge from the other. They were symbiotic.

   And yeah, Elise became known as "Wiz's boyfriend". Because hey, MP's have a rough sense of humor.

   Apparently Wiz was so adept at helping Elise, and she was so comfortable getting instructed and dealing with his unique quiet way he had… this led to him being asked by the mentor would he… and rape prevention got a new volunteer instructor. With no romantic bond, they formed the same bond I saw him have with Target.

   This, was where "it" had come from, I was sure of it. I know, I'm pondering and supposing. I'm reading between the lines, and I'm guessing. But, I just sense and know I'm right. Elise naturally encountered women who had been violently raped and insisted on going the route of just dealing with it and putting it behind them. In frustration she vented on Wiz? She probably noticed something was just "happening" to monsters.

   I was privileged to know just enough to guess that all the bad karma sausage being prepared wasn't at all legal. But that it would appear to be legal. Over time I drew it out of them. I still had to read between the lines, but now I had lines to read between. Their glances and expressions, their eye rolls and grins. Their hints, their denials. If Elise could name a monster? She would ask Wiz if he could do anything. He would swear that wasn't legal and was impossible.

   I gathered it for myself that it dawned on her. That if she had a name for a monster that would otherwise escape justice because of an unwilling and defiant victim? Sigma lightning struck. After a while, I started to pick up on the little grins, the little in jokes about ills that had befallen little monsters back in the day. You ask for help, you're told there is none. Then? Lightning strikes. Hey, the universe is an imperfect place. It happens.

   Wiz had allowed the universe to mold him into what he had become, allowed it to put him where it wanted him to be. To become what he thought was his purpose fulfilled. Now? I was seeing it had all been preliminaries. He was being prepared for me, he was being prepared for Lightning, and most of all? He was being fashioned into the angel of death, that would soon descend on Swellsville.

   There was no mistaking my reading between the lines now. I started picking up on the cold little grins around the planning sessions I was in on. Elise was a cold blooded assassin, of a very unique type of perpetrator. Wiz was a god of ruthless bad karma. These two were intimate in every way except romantically, and had… oh god, what do they say? Be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it.

   How many times had I jokingly prayed that the people responsible for this, would pay dearly. If you didn't want the main players hurt off the books, you would send pretty much anyone else but… Elise and Wiz. I remember the conversation earlier now. Gee, we're having trouble cracking this nut. Elise said… why don't you just send me in to bag and tag a few and get it the fuck over with. Oh, Elise? We just can't do that, dear.

   I got the unspoken sense it was some sort of game, in a way. He had asked Little Lightning an uncountable number of times, to be absolutely certain she had searched her heart, her mind, and her soul. Are you sure you want really bad things to happen. What had she said, again and again. Her tag line. Set them on fire, I'll laugh. Pour gasoline over my own mother of the year? I'll toss her a lit match myself.

   Little Lightning isn't dumb. She picked up on the iterations of these little quizzes. I had seen the blow-star work him with the neurological toxin and beg him to take revenge. Wiz had a funny way of telling you exactly what he was about to do, and you took it for a joke. These people? It was where he had picked it up from. I had been felt out. Ten or eleven days a month at a time, over a period of time.

   When I didn't ask too many questions, when I had consistently made glib jokes. Never once questioned the morality of the dirty tricks being discussed. Apparently, and I'm guessing here, my presence at "developing a confidential informant" was my own little graduation ceremony. I hadn't gotten my hands filthy dirty, but… I participated in the "conspiracy". I hadn't asked any questions. I kept my mouth shut about the specifics of what had went on. When asked? I deflected things I didn't know about, to Wiz and Elise. Hey, I'm just a cover. I signed for a motel room, I rented a car for us to use locally.

   Christ. My signature was all over this. Literally. Holy shit, was Wiz devious. Just like he calculated that even if the contact he had "developed" went rogue on him? He could only burn himself. I was a better risk, to be sure. Yet… if I did have a change of heart, and try to burn them later on down the line? It was my signature on the rented car and motel room. They could burn me back.

   They already all trusted each other implicitly. They were all inner circle to each other. I was the wild card they had to trust. Little Lightning knew nothing of exactly what went on. I was the only one that needed to be signed off on. I was the amateur rape therapist that had discovered this. I was up to my neck in it and there was no way to completely keep me out of it.

   Well, they could. They could just let me develop the witness and extract information to flesh out their intelligence. But… if and more likely when, something very bad happened? I would know. This was the grown up version of running with all boys as a kid. Girls don't normally get invited to throw hard corn and run. When the homeowners quickly learned to simply not come out and yell, and call the cops? We go away. Bored, the boys had resorted to throwing corn at the cop car. Unable to get chased and yelled at, the fun excitement any more? They went to an old standby, the mean old lady that would yell and call the cops every time. Then, they corned the cop car to get chased and have the exciting fun again.

   This was the all grown up version. Target had sized me up that first morning. You're only 20? Thought you were more serious. Older. Wiz said I was 20 going on 30. Target's gut said he could read people, and I was okay. Elise had a stronger gut, and she spent time with me and I must have passed her gut test as well. My signature, every time. I was given the cash to rent the local car and the motel. My face. I went into the bar, and enticed the guy they wanted out for… recruitment.

   I kept my shit together. I followed instructions. I put my name and face on the line. I got my hands just a little bit dirty, to prove I was a safe bet. Because if I woke up one day and there were bodies discovered in Swellsville, and those bodies were ones that Little Lightning had named in therapy, well… I was a huge risk to them.

   I had to have passed my feeling out period. I was getting gentle instruction and practice now. On how to be a good lookout. It was the little things. Don't touch your ear when you talk, all newbies do that, it gives yourself away. Don't talk too loud, that's what our volume settings are for. How to part my lips and speak softly without moving them very much. So if anyone chanced to notice me, I wasn't talking to myself, sitting in a car alone. Which of course I was. I was always given a light "cover". If asked? I always had my immediate and believable reason why I was sitting there waiting.

   Christ. I was going to be near "it", whenever "it" finally went down. I never asked what form "it" would take. And why would I. You ask too many questions, when the boys came and got you to go out and have some fun with hard corn around Halloween? You get to toss a few handfuls then everyone goes home. Well, we all split up and go home, then everyone rejoins without you. Now, you don't ask too many questions? You're out half the night throwing hard corn at cop cars and running with the pack. Its what I was doing now. I really was running with the pack. Hunting. Just like hungry wolves, there were no rules. There was the kill and the meal, or there was emptiness and starvation. And we were going to eat.

   I could do this, because like anything else? I was actually one of the boys. I had my own boy card. I was a member of the team. I was some small time civilian version of Elise. I guess Elise was his non romantic "boyfriend" in the service. I was his romantic "boyfriend", when you looked at it that way. My memory trickled in. I had once assumed that Wiz had to have been around tomboys before, to get his appreciation of them. When I was around Elise? I realized, she was where he had gotten that from. When he hit my university? Where were the green queens, the tomboys at? Girls sports teams. Duh.

   Elise was his prototype perfect woman, I think. She was the penultimate tomboy. A dyed in the wool green queen. She just didn't like boys. I did. Because I had the unique relationship that I had with Little Lightning and Wiz and all three of us, I found myself looking at Elise. And by looking at, I'm pretty sure you know what I mean. I found my naughty compulsion showing me what could have been, if only Elise hadn't been raped and beaten and left for all but half dead in some random alley.

   I'm sure I'm not a lesbian. I don't think of myself as even so much as bisexual. The girls in some sexy video when two cute girls share some boy and put on a show with each other? They're not gay, they're not bisexual, they're just the stars of the little show. Little Lightning taught me that was as nothing. Just another hot game, we play porn star for fun in the bedroom. Big whoop. You got your girl cherry popped, sis. Congratulations, you're an official bad girl now. When men sit and pull their cock, dreaming of what they see in dirty movie clips on the internet? They're pulling their pricks wishing upon stars to find me and Little Lightning.

   So, I can steal glances at Elise when she's not noticing. I've known Little Lightning, and I mean I've known her in the biblical sense. Hell, we both made each other talk to cat Jesus before. When no one is around the three of us, I kiss her like I kiss my own boyfriend. One time she smiled at me, Wiz was off at the gym lifting weights, then going for a run, and finally going for a fighting workout at the barracks basement where they had decorated their "party basement" with an entirely different party theme. Old torn up wrestling mats lined the walls and floor. Heavy bags and speed bags and similar things were around the edges. We were alone.

   She asked if I would kiss her, even though Wiz wasn't there. Sure, why not. I asked her if she wanted kissed "big", or… did she want to kiss me. She blushed and asked if I would start it, then let her go. Yeah, I grabbed her by the back of her hair suddenly, yanked her in and fell on top of the bed and mauled her with my face for a little bit.

   She slowly changed, and put her palms delicately on my face, and whispered barely audible. Please don't be mad, please don't hurt me for this. Please. Then, I got blow-star toxin delivery. We didn't fuck, we didn't circle third base, we… just did that. She went limp when I grabbed her up, then slowly begged into it. Cautious. Watching my eyes and face. Little nervous gulps, afraid of getting backhanded if she offended me. I wanted to cry she was seemingly afraid of me.

   She was more afraid of me backhanding her, than Wiz. I felt, I don't know. Ashamed, and ugly. Someone that loved me in every way possible, was afraid to just come in and kiss me. It made me feel guilty and small. Like… when the little puppy is clearly nervous to approach you for attention. I shushed and kissed her, then let her lead and kiss me, once her soft, warm little palms touched my cheeks.

   The soft little lips opened and closed. Like a fish breathing water. I could smell her breath, and its not like I hadn't smelled her exhaled air before. I had tasted her lips and tongue before. Hell, I had run my tongue over her teeth like a human toothbrush, to watch her shiver and make a face, then giggled. I had given delicate little licks to the roof of her mouth, and she would shiver when I did that, and say… ooh, that tickles.

   Those warm lips open and closed slowly, and I guess I felt the neurological toxin the blow-star fish could deliver to its physically superior victim, and render it helpless. She started shushing me, and actually took the lead. Gently, slowly, she gained the upper hand. Like she did with Wiz. Not with force, the way I did. Gently. Her tongue darted slowly. Nothing fast, nothing hard. So soft and gentle. Like… that scared puppy wanting attention.

   When we were done, she laid in an embrace with me. Normally? I kind of hold her. This time, I was held. The blow-star fish took what it wanted from another victim. Intimacy. She cried into my neck, but gently. No sobbing, no sniffling. No hot snots snorted into my neck. When I tried to pull back to see if or why she was tearing up? She clutched firmly onto me. Begged me please, and I just went with it. I let her lead this little dance.

   She whispered into my neck, a sane parody of me doing it into Wiz's neck, a sane parody of him whispering into my neck. The hot breath, the warm moisture. You feel the words like some human microphone, as much as you make out the whispers.

   She loved me, she wanted me, she needed me. She loved, wanted and needed Wiz, too. She thanked me and wouldn't quit gushing for helping her, breaking her stalemate. She thought at least for now? Not to graduate and get her own guy. She wanted Wiz, and me. She wanted what we had, not something else. She begged me pitifully, would I allow her to stay, would I not send her away.

   I cried as well. I assured her, she could. She fell all over herself thanking me for what I had done for her. Bringing her into a real relationship. Showing her the difference between love, and physical affection. For bringing the boys in, to take revenge. I extracted promise after promise, sweetly as I could. Bad things are, I think, going to happen to those people. Was she absolutely sure, she wanted that. That she could live with herself after.

   I whispered into her neck. I'm not saying your mother will die, but… if she did? Would you be okay with that. Really okay, as in ten years down the road, you won't be in some therapy session blabbing like a retard and spill the beans. Her response surprised even me at this point. She tightened her grip around my neck and whispered hoarsely and somewhat fiercely. If a whisper can be forceful? It was terrifying.

   "Set her on fire… bring me a piece of her charred flesh…"

   I felt that shiver up my spine. The one when I realized that a soccer ball had been brought and given the best seat in the house, front and center. Here, Teddy. You watch, while I say goodbye to mom, okay?

   Christ almighty, what had they done to this sweet little girl, which is of course what she was, before the monsters decided to make money off of her ass, literally. Any other girl would have killed herself, or simply ran away. But, surprise! Not a sigma. I got you now, mom. Your ass is mine. This has been a long time coming, and I'm going to talk to a soccer ball, and you can hear me do his voice for him. While I kick you to death, near death, what the fuck ever.

   Teddy? Am I doing it right?

   You're doing wonderful, hun. Give her some more, she seems to really like it. After all, if she didn't like it? She would have left. She stayed. She likes your attention. Say goodbye in your own special way? A little more.

   I shivered and shook, and I could hear it in my ears as I imagined it in my head. I love you mom, I'm really going to miss you, you know that? As another goal shot force kick got two stepped into her face or head.

   I felt a cold chill imagining what I just know went on, what was described to me in therapy. Over time, she became more and more matter of fact and explicit in describing the scene. She was terrifying in her own right. She was a little Elise in the making. The Pardee house boy she had lured in and destroyed with her wicked feet, her best weapons. She was all set to take her ex out the same way, the same night.

   She hot moisture-d into my neck, my human microphone. Thank you for saving me. I owe you my life, I love you. Please, don't ever leave me. I shushed and kissed her back. No sex, no touching. Just… kissing and hugging and physical intimacy and nothing more.

   So, I'm at times watching Elise get dressed. I mean, I'm not checking her out, checking her out, you know? Just… the naughty compulsion is flashing a few pics that I ignore. Elise isn't looking, whatever. That's when I got a shiver. Without even looking back and up at me? We were getting dressed in the bathroom at the townhouse, like normal. Elise made what I took for a joke at first. She had made them before, so okay.

   "You having fun, checking me out? Hmm?"

   She didn't even look. Her and her damned gut and honed sixth sense. Hell, the fact she was still alive, given her job, well… it was testament to the simple fact it worked perfect.

   I was rooted to the spot, I couldn't speak. My mouth went dry. My voice, such as I found it… well, I stammered. She chuckled. I blushed, and couldn't rid myself of the blood under my facial skin before she was up and standing in my face, grinning thin.

   "It's all right. Look."

   I stammered more. She shrugged.

   "I don't think you like girls. Not like that…"

   Just like that, she just said it. As if commenting on the weather. I asked what she meant. Quietly. Whispered in the conspirators secret fashion.

   "You. Wiz. Pretty Little Lightning. I think, it only works there. You like boys. I can tell. I see your eyes when we're out getting something to eat and some meat hunk walks by. I notice girls, trust me. Your eyes don't track them across the room. Not like mine do, Hurry."

   I did what I could do. Which was blush harder, and stammer unintelligibly.

   "You're in what you're in, Hurry. My advice? Stay there."

   She arranged her hair quick, talking as if observing the weather.

   "I'm jealous of you, by the way. Wiz, and that cute little soccer star? Christ…"

   I stammered ineffectually.

   "Bu--- but…"

   She smiled in the mirror.

   "You're not hurt like I was. Stay where you are. Me? I got forced into this. The lesser of two evils."

   I stammered more, back into half syllables started and stopped. She just smiled and winked in the mirror, but at me.

   "If I'm wrong? I love Wiz. The same way Target loves him, the same way he loves Target back. We're family, Hurry. I think I'm right, but… I'd need Wiz's permission. And? Little Lightning's, too. And even if you're not asking for my advice? Never, ever shit where you eat. Hurry? Take it from me. Love and friendship. Without anything… sexual? Is the greatest thing in the world."

   She turned and stood right in my face then. Grinning thin. She kissed my forehead.

   "But, thanks for the compliment. I meant what I said, by the way…"

   "Wh---, what…"

   "Wiz? Has excellent taste in women."

   She smiled and winked and strode out of the bathroom and left me in an air gulping heap of fear, excitement, apprehension and shame. I had trouble meeting her eyes at breakfast.

   She ever so lightly teased me later on. She stole up behind me, and put her hands on my shoulders, and squeezed. A teeny little faux shoulder rub. Whispering conspiratorially in my ear.

   "See? How bad you jumped when you realized it was me. If you were, you would have melted. Stepped back into me. You're not. You? Are just in, what you're in. Stay there, if you trust the voice of experience."

   She changed to a gentle, sisterly hug from behind that I exhaled and didn't jump out of.

   "I like where I am, and what I am. But… I don't love it. It just is? What it is."

   I was so fucking embarrassed. I had checked out the lines of her body. Not sexually, per se, but… definitely not wondering what her dress size was. I wasn't desiring her, but I was flirting with my inner compulsion. It feeds, and it grows. It never gives back ground it takes up. Like an anaconda. They don't crush the victim, even though it looks like that. The little mouse, when the snake seems like its squeezing it to death? Not so. It just takes up the slack every time the victim exhales. That's all. No squeezing.

   The blood you finally see, squirting out the nose of the mouse? That's the mouse doing it. With all the slack taken up with every exhalation? The victim now tried so hard to draw in breath, under massive adrenaline, mind you… that the diaphragm and lungs rupture and blood squirts out the nose and mouth of the mouse.

   My naughty compulsion was like that. At first? Towel snaps. Getting them, not so good. But good, in that you're now allowed to give a wet towel snap back. Wet that towel, give a good one. Make that boy jump and squeal. Pay him back. The boys? Won't respect you, as another boy… if you don't respond like a boy. Go on, fight back. His back is to you, he just lit your ass up. He told you, it was for wearing a bikini to the swimming hole.

   Don't take that shit, Hurry. Wet your towel, and light his ass up. Snap that wet towel like the hammer of god, and if you catch his nuts and he rolls around crying? Laugh, he fucking earned it. No boy has the right to tell you, not to dress like a whore. What whore? A bikini, a girl's swimsuit, to the swimming hole? Fuck him. He's vulnerable, hurt him back. You don't want to be one of the sissy boys.

   I did. I wet my towel on the sly. I stole up behind him, I lined up. I caught the eye of other boys grinning like idiots, approving? Yeah. I lit his ass up. Tell me I'm a whore, you snap my ass with a dry towel when I'm not looking. For wearing a girl's swimsuit for once to the swimming hole. I'll show you.

   That's how it started. You're one of the boys. Act like one. Then? Oh, you're a girl. Take a make out partner. Go in that dirty, cement, tomb with him. But hey, guarantee his silence so you're not embarrassed about the making out, you know? Get your towel snaps.

   The naughty compulsion was never satisfied. Ever. It talked me into tying that make out boyfriend to a tree, and wet towel snapping him to a few tears, and leaving him tied. So I could circle third base all day, and not be completely bad. You have to do it, the compulsion said.

   The wooden spoon on the young boyfriend. Hey, the boy wants something, and its not that bad. Do it. Yeah, I listened. I did it. I wooden spooned him for his birthday swats. Then, the moment. The curious cowboy. He damn sure knew what swats were really about. He kept reminding me, I promised. He all but demanded my cowgirl belt across his ass. That was my Rubicon. I crossed it. I was a curious cowgirl now. I had hit the crack pipe once too often. I was hooked.

   So, when bets and dares came up. Hey, twenty bucks? Says you can't take ten good licks. Put your money, where your mouth is. Or, was that put your twenty where your ass is.

   My last chance, for normalcy? Pre med boy. Totally not kinky, perfect guy. I was fine. Then… left for med school, and found out he had been sport-fucked.

   Then… my present boyfriend. Fuck me, I was caught. He had the same naughty compulsion. He made the same kinds of jokes and innuendo. It led where it led. The compulsion? Fed. Grew. Now, it took up more slack. Little Lightning joining in.

   Here I am. Actually checking out the lines of Elise's body. Wondering, what it would be like to have her, instead of Lightning as the third wheel. Oh, I saw it. Her. Grabbing me, stepping on my calf and pinning my shin to the ground. Grabbing me and manipulating me easily. Gracefully. So effortlessly in charge of my entire body. She… could do whatever she wanted with me. I could fight back, if it made it hotter for me, but… Elise? She could do anything she wanted with me, and it was useless to resist. I would be the willing, or the unwilling… servant fuck slave in that.

   I was almost always, or generally? In charge. The stronger person, as with Lightning. The stronger personality, as with Wiz. With Elise? Oh, I could end up the slut. Used helplessly, with or against my will? Didn't matter. I'd be touched and shown wetness. Proof of my body's admission, it enjoyed it. Why was I fighting, what did I hope to even prove by resisting.

   That's where Elise preempted my idle reverie. She didn't take advantage of my situation and state. Like Bootsie would have, and for all it was worth, too. Bootsie would force herself on you, while you were in shock. Bootsie? Was the female version of the creepy gentleman rapist. Thank god my moment came with Elise. She even told me, more or less straight out. I liked boys. I was beaten and left for dead by some guy. That's how this happened to me. Stay, in your place.

   Elise? Was Wiz. Turning down the teenybopper, that anyone else would have enthusiastically used for a fuck-toy. She had me. She could have gently kissed me, hand behind my neck while I was stammering and frozen rooted to the spot. Slid a finger down and touched me, and… that would have been it. She didn't. She let me go, and moreover cautioned me. This isn't you. Stay.

   I felt ashamed, and started putting my arm around her. Mugging on her when we all had a couple drinks. Just throwing my arm around her, and being warm and friendly. Like girls do with one another, when its sisterly affection. I stammered, trying to explain what it was starting to… when she asked me why I was… then she made a silly face, giggled. Just fucking with you. Its fine. She simply said, we're family. Sisters? I said… yeah.

   The boys, they said that a lot. Yeah… then a pause? The response. Yeah. We're family. Beyond regular family. You don't choose real family, but we're friends that choose to be more. The ultimate in group, bordering on a little star chamber. Uh huh. We kill, and die for one another. We live by a code. You just smile. Pause. Then say? Yeah. Don't cheapen it with words. Beyond simply… yeah.

   The Black Widow herself, passed from simply my friend? Into sisterhood. Family. It was unstated and obvious. I had cherries. Cherries, normal people don't think or know about. I? Had a death cherry. I hadn't ever killed anyone, and most likely never would. Elise shattered her death cherry many times over. Elise truly had no cherries. She had no rape cherry. Been there, done that, survived and even thrived afterwards? Got the T shirt.

   Now no death cherry, either. Sure, we were family. But, we all knew who would kill for the other. Elise if it came down to it? Would kill on my behalf, I couldn't for her. And it was okay. I had a couple belts of my cheap apricot brandy, and Elise stole up behind me. Draped her arms over my shoulders, and mugged her cheek on mine, smiling. My heart rose, but not terribly so.

   Target made a quip. Hey Wiz, better watch your girlfriend. That guy makes six figures, when he's working, you know. We all laughed. I laughed, too. A genuine laugh. Not forced. Elise's gut knew it was real, her gut knew all. Her guts were her Teddy Ball, never wrong. Her Tummy Ball. I rubbed my cheek up and down. Just affectionately enough it was sisterly. Not so much I was putting on any kind of mild show.

   The Black Widow was not just my friend, she was my family now. Her fangs dripping venom grazed my cheek, and I smiled. It was like being with Wiz. My friendly guard dog. Sweetie pie to me, but… dangerous. We all went to the occasional college party, go figure. Some drunk sports girl, a volleyball player? Gave me raspberries. I was about to tune her up, when Elise exploded quietly.

   She grabbed her hair and stood on her calf from the front, having stepped out of her tenner. Just reached around and stepped down. Pinning her calf to the ground, like a bug. She twisted her neck and held it. Effortless and graceful, like everything she did like that? But firm. She gave her a look. Then, smiled and let her go. Hey, just a joke, but… the big girl made herself scarce as fuck immediately. That was far too scary for her. Elise just put her arm around my shoulder, and went right on as if nothing had happened.

   Girls pointed. Male athletes pointed and smiled, too. Everyone loves entertainment. A good floor show. Yeah, that was quick and scary. But, all jocks are first and foremost streetwise. Just… don't. Not good ju-ju to fuck with Hurry in the first place? Obviously that one, is far worse. Everyone already knew about Wiz and the barracks fighters. Target and the others?

   Well. Target was a little taller and thicker and slightly more muscular looking. Everyone I think just naturally extrapolated the data. Wiz, or Toot as he was known to them. Quiet, polite. Wicked though. This new guy. Taller, stronger looking. Has that weird but easy confidence. Yeah, probably not a good idea to mess with the bigger one, what with the slightly smaller one we're already nervous about. Then Elise does her thing. Yeah, the girl is fucking dangerous, imagine what the bigger guys can do.

   A happy bubble, all around us. I was used to that from out of Wiz, now the whole crew emanated it worse. Wiz gave off the "nice guy" vibe. Target and the others? Polite, sure. But… they gave off that quiet alpha vibe. Wiz was dangerous, the hell were these guys capable of. No one wanted to find out.

   I will admit it to you though. When that little girly part inside me, that I despised existed buried deep within me? The part that gave a little gasp when Wiz acted all masculine and protective. I felt a little twinge of that from Elise's actions. A slight gasp and blush. Wow. This? With me. Mine. The hell are you even thinking. I normally functioned like that on Little Lightning's behalf. I owned and protected her. She enjoyed my protection. I got to see what it was like to feel it back, from Elise. It was really cool. Warm, fuzzy, wonderful. To feel like you were owned and protected like a treasured object.

   Elise had just acted quicker and more sure of herself. Her gut tickled. This girl? Up to no good. I was already gearing up, to get physical with her if it came to it, and I saw Little Lightning was on it as well. Inching in from the side. Winked and smiled. I'm close. I'm getting closer. Just give me a couple seconds, I'll close the deal, in a few seconds I'll be in position.

   Later on, Elise even showed her goods in the hot tub. Shirt off. One arm around me on one side, another arm around Little lightning on the other. These? Are mine. Don't touch. It was like we were sidled up on either side of Wiz at that point. I knew, Little Lightning didn't need to know. About Elise and her secret.

   Some boy though, stared at Elise too long showing her boobs in the hot tub. She just looked up at him with her blank eyes.

   "The fuck you even looking at, bitch…"

   He didn't say a word, he just oozed away. Not a small guy, either. Target chuckled. He obviously knew this game. I might have my boy card, but… Elise had a man card. College boys didn't mind seeing her in the hot tub, not one bit. Plain, but… pretty and fit and trim body. One hazarded a glance too long, and… as quick and effortlessly as she had rendered the bigger volleyball girl helpless. Pinned to the cement like a bug and twisted her neck just far enough it grew tight and didn't feel like it wanted to twist any more, not without something really bad giving way. Then, her blank look up at him? No, not fucking worth it.

   I could see it in his eyes. What she had done, to the bigger volleyball girl? No one even remotely would expect an attack to come like that. Stepping out of a tenner, and pulling behind the knee and stepping on the calf and pinning the shin, nailed tight to the ground. Twisting the neck, until the little eyes bugged out, her hands out, fingers open, holy shit what the hell just… then she let her go, and smiled and made a joke of it, but… everyone knew.

   Jocks are streetwise if nothing else. What Elise had done? She could have done that to any guy, of any size. It was scary, it was downright terrifying. So, when she looked up all dead eyed and asked what he was looking at? He just oozed away. Big male athletes pointed and chuckled, female athletes stared.

   Wiz had smiled, on the other side of the hot tub.

   "And, that's my boyfriend. She handles the light work."

   Elise made a face and stuck her tongue out at him. Quite… girlishly, I would say. Then bantered like a guy with Wiz.

   "Don't make me smack you around…"

   He smiled.

   "Promises, promises, honey. Don't be such a cock tease."

   She grinned and flipped him her middle finger.

   There it was. The tingle in my twat. When my boyfriend says something like that, in coded format for my ears only to decode? I get a little squirt. He basically said right out in public, right out in the open… I like it when a pretty tomboy smacks me around in bed. But in code, for me only. Squirt, tingle. I realized even though Elise's arm was around me? My tingle was for Wiz. Elise had been right. Stay where I am.

   I couldn't help it. I kissed her cheek for her display, and actually made her blush.

   "My hero."

   Light followed suit, and giggled and hammed the moment up. Elise smiled and told her to knock it off, she was embarrassing her. Light said simply… I'm sorry, and sidled back under her arm around her shoulder in the warm, bubbling water.

   I don't know what its like for guys. I know from being a girl? Its fucking easy to get seduced over to the other side, and sample the forbidden fruit. Hell, me and Light put on a show for our boyfriend sometimes nightly, and its just that… a show. We're straight.

   Target took advantage of the moment. He had his one arm around Right, sidled up against him, simply melted like wax in the hot, foaming water. He winked at me, and tried to slip his arm around Wiz, seated near him. Wiz jumped like a spider was on him, and we all laughed hysterically.

   "Fuck you, Target. I require, written notification. Three days minimum, in advance. Before the nature of our relationship changes in such a manner…"

   "We been on bivouac before, Wiz. After three days in the bush? It don't count."

   "Blow me!"

   "Gee. I wanna show my buddy some love. Harmless fun. What do I hear? Fuck you, Target. Blow me, Target. Freud would wonder."

   Wiz got up laughing, we were all laughing.

   "Anyone need a drink?"

   We all laughed, and put our drink order in. Yeah, whoever claims that men and women are the same? Don't know shit. Everyone here except Little Lightning, knows Elise likes girls exclusively. I can sit with her arm around me, she chases off boys looking at us. Even kiss her cheek? And its all harmless, sisterly fun.

   Wiz is straight, and is required to… get all flustered when Target made a faux gay pass at him. Why am I allowed to "play" with Little lightning, sexually, for Wiz's benefit. And everything's okay. Why do I have that, and boys don't? Who knows. Why when I kiss Elise's cheek, is it something to smile about, a tease. If Target kissed Wiz's cheek? So different. But it is.

   I can hug my gay friend, to show we're friends just not romantic. Guys have to stand back, and pause. Then say… yeah. Those guys love and protect one another, beyond what family would do. Elise even confirmed, that you get love and understanding and real support and caring help from men, and the women have no empathy in the same situation. How in the hell are women the feeling, emotional creatures. Men, the uncaring hard ones? All weird. But, I didn't make these rules. It is what it is.

   I had to have psych 101 fun. I handed my plastic couple fingers of schnapps at Elise.

   "No ice. Make him get me some ice, hun…"

   Elise laughed and faux barked at Wiz, to get some ice cubes for his girl's drink. He made a show of comedy, salaaming and taking care of it, before getting back in the hot tub.

   Elise is… I think a female alpha. Other subtle cues, like the way she initiates. Putting her arm around me, and Light. Probably sexually dominant, too. She makes decisions. She leads. Told me no, explained it. Told Light, to not embarrass her. Polite, passes for suggestions. But, that's the female alpha. Orders, not polite suggestions. With men, she'll make a joke out of it, but… he went and got the ice, didn't he?

   Sigma boy. Playing beta, running under radar. Target, male alpha. Elise? Female alpha. Me, Wiz, Lightning. Three sigmas, running under radar. We support the alphas, we play beta. We're just as capable in our own way. I'm comfortable with Elise, and Target too. They're good alphas. Wiz? Is comfortable with both of them as well. Good alphas. They stay, let them do their alpha thing. If they were bad alphas? We'd take them out, but… they do okay. Let them run things. No need to change leaders.

   Elise is definitely a female alpha. After the hot tub, seeing her walking around. Playing ping pong, gabbing with random people. She sticks near to me and Little Lightning. If someone approaches to talk to particularly Light? Here comes Elise. Nothing overt, just her commanding presence. Everything okay over here, it silently asks? Smiles and nods and handshakes. Yes, everything's fine. Great, she's happy. She checks, though. Her body language says it all. This, the Light girl? Family. Don't touch.

   Wiz isn't acting at all like himself, either. Why. Hmm. He's a sigma. He only functions as an alpha. For Lightning, or me if he thinks I could use it. No need. Target and Elise. Two good alphas present. He can go and run under the water line now, as a sigma prefers. Little self deprecating jokes, playing off people talking about things he might have said or did previously that made him appear… tough. Oh, no. Jokes and play it off. Me? I'm no threat.

   Elise ended up picking songs on the internet phone there for the Bluetooth speakers. Then, her and Lightning played some ping pong. They were in just their T shirts and underwear. Hey, hot tub party. They're not the only ones. Aw. There's that one drunk guy. The one Wiz let look at Lightning's bottom, but not touch. He's drunk, though not as soused as last time. They talk, smile, shake hands. Wiz is non threatening. Hey, can I look again?

   Wiz pointed at Light. But, he indicated Elise playing ping pong. He said something, that I can't hear. The guy moved off. I can imagine it. Hey, I like you looking at Lightning, Lightning likes you looking at Lightning's rear end. But that one? Hey, ain't my rules. You piss her off? Hoo boy.

   Later on, they were playing ping pong again. The guy was drunker. He fell into staring at Lightning's cute little rear end and legs, as before. Elise piped up quick, without even breaking her stride playing ping pong.

   "You. Drunk guy. Go? Get another drink. Leave us alone. Go on. Get…"

   He moved right off. Elise was definitely an alpha female, it was unmistakable. I ended up on one of the long couches, and it was time for Wiz's "dancing lesson". She got "permission" to play "their song" on repeat, and gave him his lesson. She had been working on this number, and his supporting her dancing to it. It had gotten better.

   I saw Elise watching. She noticed me noticing her watching.

   "Hey, Hur. I don't mean nothing."

   I smiled, genuine.

   "Its all right. Told you, she used to study dance. Professionally, when she was younger. Before soccer. Before…"

   "I can see that."

   "Hmm. Do you… want me to arrange, a… little dance lesson for you? She taught me and Right the goal dance she likes that we do. She was a dancer, she likes it."

   "Oh, I don't…"

   "What. You don't dance?"

   "A little, just. She's straight. I'd… enjoy it."

   When the dance lesson finally ended, I got Lightning aside and pointed at Elise. She giggled and grabbed Elise's fingers, and amid her protestations, all but dragged her up. She put her and Wiz's song on, and started doing to her, what she had done to Wiz for his first "lesson". She soon had Elise slow dancing credibly, just like she had Wiz.

   Elise's eyes and face for only me to decode? Priceless. Light ended up plopping on my lap, surprising me. Put her arm around me.

   "This is my mama bear."

   Elise was confused.

   "Hmm?"

   "You don't get between a mama bear, and one of her cubs. When I'm playing? This… protects me. Right, too. Neither one of us can score goals, without her on the field, taking the heat off of us."

   I don't know gay straight psychology. Not my field. I only know the basics, and I don't trust the modern "basics" on it. Field's too liberal-ed up. Elise? By her own admission, mind you. Wouldn't be this way, if she hadn't been beaten and raped and left for all but dead in an alley. She regrets it. Not just regrets getting hurt, which is obvious, but… I can see it when she's watching Light dancing with Wiz. Sure, she's noticing the cute, tall athletic girl dancing seductively. But, she's also looking at Wiz, and Wiz with her. She's missing out on this in life, and knows it.

   That's why she told me. This? Isn't you. I've been hurt, you haven't. Stay where you are.

   I'm pretty sure some people are just, for lack of a better phrase? Just… born gay. About two percent of the population, if that. There are other aberrations from the norm, as well. A small, tiny percentage of the population? Self reports being asexual. No sex. Would rather not at all. It used to be a sliver of men, and a sliver of women. The sliver of men has been growing steadily, that withdraw from sexual society.

   Elise isn't one of those two percent. We've talked. Because I'm a therapist, and rape therapy is my thing now, and… here's Elise. She's confident and direct. She self reports being perfectly comfortable, being straight. Right up until? It happened to her. Then, when she scabbed over the wound enough to walk and talk in public again… she still liked boys. Talked to them. Even dated, but… when the time for the kiss, the embrace came? She freaked.

   I've seen this. Lightning associated the car that night, with the first gang rape she remembered. They drove her around for more "parties". It began with a date, and it included a car ride. Dates and car rides? Phobia. Big huge phobia now. Elise was describing the exact same phobia. Hers wasn't a car or a date, so… no phobia there. But a boy? Phobia.

   I watch and observe. As a sigma because that's one of our things, watching and observing. But, as a psych student too. There used to be plenty of tomboys around. Now? All tomboys are being somehow, some way… recruited, is the only way I can describe it. To be gay, bisexual, or to at least call themselves non binary. There have been athletic tomboys since the beginning of fucking time? And most of them are straight. Can you sit there and tell me, that all of a sudden, they're almost all something else now? No, we as a society are doing… something.

   I asked Elise if she was definitely straight before the incident, and that's what she insists on calling it. Its the incident. She shrugged. She basically described panic attacks, when a boy tried to kiss her, let alone more. The fact she doesn't know what panic attacks are? Tells me volumes about how inept and unqualified to handle rape therapy her mom's pet therapist really was. Qualified only to listen to rich, bored housewives bitch about TV talk show bullshit, and recommend… whatever bullshit was being recommended that week, I'm sure.

   She was still young and impressionable, and this is from her own lips. When a girl she met, edged around talking about… the incident. She? Had an… incident as well. They started hanging out. The other slightly older teenage rape victim? Well, she really "got" Elise. She said, next thing you know, a hug when she was crying, turned into… a kiss on the cheek. Next time? A couple kisses, a rub on the neck.

   At this point? Its not sexual. This, is physical intimacy. Caring, love and support. This girl gave it to her, and she liked it. Her fucking own mom of the year should have been doing something, instead of telling her to get over it so as not to embarrass the family. Elise shrugs at this point, shows the progressions of… how it turned into what it turned into. Next thing you know? She had a few drinks with her, and they kissed. Next time? More kissing. Next time, some touching. Down the rabbit hole she went.

   Elise described, with great pains mind you. How sweet and slow and caring the girl was being developing this. She could see where it was leading to, and it felt better than… the hell she was in. She made the joke that you're not full blown "gay", until after your third girlfriend, and you look for another.

   This hurt locker, pamphlet understanding is bullshit. Its a great first session, but… without a clear path towards baseline? You might as well hand the rape victim some pamphlets, some bumper stickers, and thanks for coming out.

   I'm torn. I did better, with a worse rape victim. And I'm a try hard amateur and not much more. Could I do better, or is my first lucky quick success just a combination of luck and my "victim" being one of the most resilient beings on the planet to trauma. Likely a combination of both.

   I gently asked Elise about how men had been more caring and understanding than women. When dealing with her trauma from the last thing she said to a coworker and friend had affected her with guilt so deep as it had. She smiled. There it was. These "caring" females? Revealed their true colors to her. They're just men. Toss your pack on them, and say "Hyah, mule!". One died? Fuck it, more where that one came from, look around you.

   I'm physically scared of her physical prowess, and so I gently him-hawed around until I got it out. Did she not still have feelings, like that, for men? She admitted she did. But, the deep rooted phobia was there, and was dug in deep after so many years. Easier she said, to just keep going down the path she was on. But? Didn't mean she didn't get jealous seeing Light and Wiz dancing and being intimate and close.

   She actually did like Wiz that way, and couldn't uproot the phobia. I could tell. I didn't have to dig around for it, she came right out with that one. And added, after she saw how he was around women and rape victims? That, in conjunction with the other male MP's helping her over her… last words guilt. She knew she was missing out on something in life, that the universe had once intended her to enjoy. That contrary to feminists opinions to the contrary? No, not all men are like that.

   Elise is smart, bright, streetwise and insightful on top of it. She realizes, that after she shattered the leg of the girl that tried to psych her out before her junior sport judo tournament? And that's the word she used. Not broke the leg. Shattered it. After that, she realized that anger felt good. Fuck punching a pillow. When she finally got a license to kill rapists? Therapy grande. Give me a double, and keep them coming. Really hits the spot.

   She's been hunting and killing rapists for so many years now, its her career and her public service. She described being able to shut her emotional responses off, when "working". And it not costing her sleep. Not much, anyways. A couple weeks and she's fine after a… not a kill, no. That? Is another "optimum outcome". The fucking euphemisms.

   Wiz had his fill of this life of violence, bad karma, and seeing humans at their worst only. He wanted out, before it tainted him. Fuck this, I want back to my books and my computers. He can do it, it comes easy, he's good at it. But, he still wanted out of the life. The way a hooker wants "out" one day. This is fun, but not good for the long haul.

   Elise's options had been bleak when she tried to escape. Become basically a paid assassin, or? Keep providing "optimum outcomes". She chose that, instead of chewing off what soul she had left. From Elise's point of view? Fuck it. This is what I do, what's one more, you know. Its for family. For Wiz? I'll do this one more time, persona non grata. Again, for family and a loved one.

   Elise is realizing now, at her age? She’s not an assassin. But, that she's an assassin lite. Hunting and killing rapists that kill women or almost kill them? Its her therapy and she turned it into a career. But, its getting old. She smiles when she talks about her gym and judo team she wants to put together. A couple more years of… therapy. To guarantee enough disposable income she can both have a top rated gym and setup and equipment, as well as guarantee a "life" if the business fails which is always a consideration when entering into any business venture.

   Success is more easily guaranteed in a big city, and that costs more to get the building and equipment. So, more years of… therapy to have enough.

   Christ, this fucking world we live in.

   I asked her, when our time talking like this was over? And really, its a first therapy session, though she doesn't know it. What does she think about all this. She shrugged. Thin smile that really isn't. She self reports, from her own mouth. I'm not really alive. Not really and truly. I'm damaged. I'm a giant scab over a wound. I'm just going through the motions. Until I die working, or retire. I need something, so… another girlfriend. It passes the time, between birth and death.

   I kept my shit, as I realized it. She's walking wounded. A real life zombie. All the attributes of a real, live person. Pulse, warm skin. Smiles and handshakes and jokes. But, she's not really there. She's got those eyes, when she drops her guard on it. And I can tell you, her hard stare is positively terrifying. She's not angry, not even mad, just… that boy saw it, at the hot tub.

   An empty gaze, a thousand yard stare. She looked right through him. You? Just another sack of warm meat. And if you want, I can cool the meat off. He moved right the fuck on. I have no idea how scared murdering rapists are, when they try to grab hold of Elise, and suddenly realize too late that the bait is poisoned, but… I can imagine it. Holy shit. I'm well and truly fucked now, ain't I? I live, its life in prison, I die? Well, not good either. Then… yeah. She has it in her. She just dumps the magazine. Hey, thanks for being a sport and helping my therapy out, bud.

   Then? A little break, and… another city. Same story. How the hell does she keep her sanity. Hey. Been on leave a couple months now. Hmm. Bored… lets look at the paper. See where life is kicking. Hey, someone murdering women after fucking them in… Colorado. Hmm. Never been to Colorado. Always wanted to learn to ski. Fuck it, lets go there. Another city, another six figures. Bet there's a cute ski slope bunny there with my name on her ass. And if there ain't? Gonna be before I leave.

   I asked her if it felt good to talk, she admitted that it did. Just, having someone safe to talk to, did something little. I told her anytime. I swear, half of "therapy" is just listening and not judging. The bartender knows that much, if he's worth his salt.

   Then she quietly asked the big question. I was dreading it.

   "So. We both know I had either no therapy, or… whatever was worse than no therapy."

   "Yeah."

   "I saw those video notes. I watched a lot of it. I hopscotched through to see the progression. Kept going back. Claimed I was scouring it for details, but… I think we both know why I was doing it."

   I nodded, I couldn't even muster the "yeah". But at least I'm not throwing up. That's something, at least.

   "She got better. I could see it, plain as day. You did that."

   "Believe it or not? Wiz. With her, the way it came out… she wouldn't open up and admit anything. He's there, she does. He's there, doing all the… technically wrong things? She opens up more. I mean right and wrong, according to, you know. The book. It was obviously right, going by results. That's all that matters."

   "What about me."

   "I'm not supposed to lie to a client. Even though you didn't pay me, or… you're asking, that's a client to me."

   "Just say it."

   "The professors that teach these classes. The people that write the textbooks on this. In general, and I emphasize the in general part. Okay? Any individual person, can have any individual response to the therapy. But, in general."

   "So, in general. What."

   "They explain it like a physical injury. Say, you got hit by a truck, and your arm doesn't work right. A bad break doesn't heal right, tendons stretched and ripped. Muscle tears."

   "Yeah."

   "The worst thing you can do? Is just… nothing, and baby it. And, the longer you let the injury go? The worse the odds get, for a full and complete recovery."

   "I've waited too long to even think about it."

   "No such thing as too long. Just, statistically? The better outcomes tend to come, with quicker and proper treatment. That said? Your case might not be typical."

   "Mm. I figured about as much. Not like, a couple weeks or a couple months, and… I'd be off looking for a husband or anything."

   "Is that what you would want?"

   "Don't even know what I would want. No one, can make it like it didn't happen. You're describing, what? Years, or a lifetime. For no gains, or gains so small, I'm wasting my time."

   "I don't have the experience to tell you that."

   "I'm happy for her. She can go in a car, with a boy now. Go on small dates. She… reports… feeling love again. With Wiz."

   "Yeah."

   "That was five years?"

   "Give or take. And… I honestly thought she… you know, best case scenario, how it all went."

   She waited a little while. Little non grin. Plastic tiny smile.

   "Mine's a lot older than five years."

   "If you ever wanna try, or… just talk? Or anything."

   She nodded.

   "I think I'm like those people, that are too old to have kids, and didn't? I can just get a little something off of other people's kids. Helping other people as best I can."

   "Two things, Elise. One? There's no way you should take my opinion as… anything substantial. Two. No law says you couldn't have best possible results too. Or even better. No one knows. Or, might be some smaller bite sized peripheral issues left over from it, you could work on those. Lots of possibilities. Don't listen to a third year pre med student, talk to a real surgeon about that shoulder injury."

   She smiled. A real one, if tiny and weak, but still.

   "Ah. I'm gonna go steal some of Target's pastrami and make a sandwich."

   "I'll join you?"

   "Sure. Why not."

   "Just making sure you don't want alone time for a little while. Different people, require different things."

   We went and stole pastrami, and ate our purloined pastrami sandwiches. Right came through, and started to complain if sweetly enough, that the Pastrami was for Target. Elise smiled and chuckled. She got right on her phone and got Target, and put him on speaker.

   "Hey. Tar."

   "Lease…"

   "I'm getting jammed up."

   "Where are you…"

   "Kitchen table."

   "The hell."

   "Pastrami police busted me."

   "What?"

   "I stole pastrami. I'm eating your shit. You care?"

   "Make two more, like I give a shit. Get more at the store if we run out. Who cares."

   "Your little girlfriend. She's cute when she's miffed, by the way. Gets those little dimples."

   Target was laughing into the phone.

   "Take me off speaker, and give her the phone, dear. You can eat the whole package and drink the beer mustard out the bottle if you want. I'm just not responsible for what comes out your ass six hours from now, if you do it."

   "Thanks…"

   She took him off speaker and wiggled the phone at Right. She nodded and obviously if any talking was going on, it was Target talking to her. All she said was "okay" at the end.

   "I'm sorry Elise. I… didn't mean anything by it."

   "Sorry. Didn't mean to get you into any trouble."

   "Ah, I just got a lecture."

   "Which lecture?"

   "Oh. His patented… money doesn't really matter lecture. Pretty much heard it before."

   "Yeah…"

   She continued eating her oversize pastrami on rye with the special beer mustard.

   "Wiz doesn't ever bitch about money, and doesn't even have any, really. What's with the service. Do you all get some… class to not worry about money or something?"

   Elise smiled, and took a break munching.

   "I had a great grandpa. I mean, everyone had one, impossible not to have a great grandpa and all. I mean he lived long enough I used to hang out with him when I was little."

   "All right."

   "My family I grew up in. We weren't rich or anything, but… we lived in the city. Nice section to live in. I mean, I guess we were pretty well off. Anyways. Great grandpa, grew up in the depression. The great depression. Not something you take Prozac for."

   "I know. Everyone was poor, for… so many years."

   "Whole country's economy kinda shut down. There was no work, even though you needed or wanted work. People starved to death. That generation, those people… they were, well… kinda famous for being cheapskates. You'd see a guy that had literally over a million dollars in the bank, and this guy would pick up aluminum cans while he was walking for exercise. Hey, ten cents is ten cents, getting exercise anyways."

   "There was an explosion of crime, in the depression. A lot of it. We're talking Al Capone shit here. Birth of organized crime. Dillinger and his crew, Bonnie and Clyde. So, a lot of people… did what they had to do, was the phrase. Other people? Got by. Said… fuck it. Friends and family's what's important. The depression made both kinds. Money hungry people, and the other people who said fuck it."

   "Which kind was your great grandpa?"

   "Eh. Both, in a way. After the depression ended, he… drove himself. His whole life. To start a business, make another business. Killed himself, to put the family on the map, money wise."

   "I could see that."

   "Yeah, but… in his old age? Sweetest old guy you'd meet. But he'd tell you, straight out. He wished he didn't waste his life making a million dollars. He could have lived just fine, with about one tenth that much. Had more fun, been more fun to be around. More time with the kids and grand kids."

   "I'm sorry about the pastrami thing, Elise."

   "Its fine. Just… in the service? We all make the same money. Its a… non issue. You're worried about your friends not getting killed at work. That's what's important. So yeah. Most of us? Could give a fuck about the extra money, as long as we got a roof over our heads, food to eat every day. Ask Wiz, he'll tell you. In the service? You wear each other's clothes, drink each other's beer, eat each other's food… borrow cars without asking."

   "Hmm. That's actually nice. Like family."

   "Not just like family, Right. It is… family. So, I wasn't being a smart ass, I just knew it was fine to eat his pastrami, that's all."

   "I, uh… I kinda go wear Lightning's clothes whenever I feel like it. She never complains."

   "There you go. Like having a sister. Family."

   Right picked up the bread off the second half of the pastrami.

   "You really should get some more beer mustard on there. According to Target's pastrami instructions."

   "I'll keep that in mind. So. We good?"

   "No problem. Sorry."

   Right sat down, and leaned her elbow on the table, and her head in her palm.

   "If you wondered? Not like I bought the fucking pastrami. Target pays for it. I just… get it and make the sandwiches."

   "Most college students are poor. Whatever."

   "I don't know. I just… sounds stupid, but… making pastrami sandwiches? Kinda how we met. That was my main… requirement. To be… girlfriend material. Position available, must be able to make pastrami sandwich."

   Elise giggled.

   "He's… addicted to pastrami or something. I know. We had a deli just off base, if they were out of pastrami? We'd hear about it, and he'd be calling all day. We had to send a car and units to get him a pastrami on rye, if there were no calls. His nickname should really be… Pastrami."

   "So… I just mean, that without me making pastrami sandwiches? I don't have a boyfriend, and I like him. That's just how that happened. I didn't really mean anything about it."

   "Wanna know a secret, about Target and the great pastrami problem?"

   "Sure."

   "One day, one horrible day? You're going to go to the store, and… they'll be out of pastrami. Wanna know what to do then?"

   "He never mentioned anything? But the pastrami…"

   "His second choices. Corned beef. Ask for it sliced not too thin. Lots of places slice it paper thin. He likes it thick. And roast beef. Same way, sliced thicker rather than thinner. Always stay with Swiss. Kind with the holes."

   "Really? Thanks."

   "You're welcome. Wanna know another secret?"

   "Sure."

   "His ex wife. Bet he won't talk about her. He's like that."

   "Yeah?"

   "She was a fucking cunt. He treated her coffee slinging waitress ass like gold. Nothing wrong with being a waitress, I'm sure there's some of them out there with a great personality, but… she was a cunt. He spent more money and effort, trying to bend over backwards to please her, and you know what she did?"

   "Be a cunt."

   "I'm just saying. You're not following, a… tough act to follow or anything. You don't have to try, you don't have to worry. He shows everyone your pictures, won't shut up about you. He likes you just fine. So? You don't… I don't know. You don't have to treat pastrami, like, not having money in the great depression. Just don't be a gold digging cunt, and you'll be fine. I knew him for years."

   "Any funny stories to tell?"

   "Hmm. Me, and Tar. Yeah… my housing was a ways across the base. Big base. I'd stay over with the guys sometimes, on weekends. So we could get up early, go do stuff when we had a chance. I slept on the couch in his… it was like an apartment. Similar to this, but not as ritzy."

   "Sounds like what Wiz said."

   "Yeah. Wiz, actually lived in the same apartment. Four guys to a unit. Anyways, I always stole his boxers and wore them. Drove him nuts. I'd wear them home, forget, take another pair of boxers next time. I finally had to wash them all, and bring them all back. He'd run up and start pulling at the back of my fatigue pants we all wore for a uniform. Bitching he was checking if I had his boxers on, he was running out of boxers. Funniest story I can come with, on short notice."

   "No other ones?"

   "Hmm. Ask him about… pin the tail on the cocktail waitress game. He tells it funny. If he doesn't remember right off? Say Shooter, pin the tail on the cocktail waitress, he'll get it."

   "Elise?"

   "Yeah…"

   "If your family had money, or was well off or whatever, people had businesses and everything. Why did you… go be a cop in the military? Why wouldn't you… I don't know. Work at one of the businesses, become the assistant manager or some shit. I mean, I can't picture a grandpa with a business, wouldn't wanna take care of his grand kid, especially a cute girl grand kid. You know?"

   "Guess I could of done that."

   "So, why didn't you? Grandpa didn't like one of your parents or something? I mean, my one grandpa, hated my mom. I can dig it if it was like that."

   "No. I… something happened. Not gonna say what, but. I, just wanted to get away for a couple years. Figured I'd do… pretty much what you asked me about, when I got back. Went off, and joined the service."

   "Okay. You wanted to get away. Like… backpacking Europe, people used to do that, before assholes started blowing shit up in the cities and all that. Used to be a thing. So, you went to the service. Had a four year adventure. Then, come home and…"

   "Well. I joined for six years, not four. But, when I got back? Before I got back, really. But especially after I was back. Family friction. So? I… was a cop for six years. Went off, became a civilian cop."

   "Work at a family business… risk getting killed… work at a family business… risk getting killed. I'm not getting it."

   Elise smiled.

   "Remember the great depression? Then… businesses, and making money is a… thing in my family because of that."

   "Okay."

   "In my family? Girls don't run off and join the military. You… get good grades, stay out of trouble. Go to college, and get a husband. The joke is, if you land a decent husband? You don't even have to graduate college. That, is what girls in my family? That's what's expected of us. In my family? You're… expected to land a husband, that… doctor, lawyer… owns a business… something like that."

   "Money."

   "More or less. Its as much about… appearing to be happy and successful. Or, your family is embarrassed of you. My family? Was more or less embarrassed, that I went to the military for six years. Where, unfortunately for my family… I learned money doesn't mean shit, other than you have a place to live and clothes on your back, and food to shove into your mouth. Anything else? Just a bonus."

   "They… disowned you or something? That's shitty…"

   "Not disowned. Just… not made to feel real welcome, when I do come around."

   "Just because you didn't marry a doctor?"

   "More or less."

   "Does being a cop make you decent money?"

   Elise smiled.

   "It… might sound like more than it really is. I'm always a… detective, not a beat cop. In big cities. Where it costs a lot to live, so… it'll sound better than it really is, but… I think my last one? Something like 109 grand a year, before taxes."

   "Wow."

   "Eh. That's not rich, by big city standards. More like middle class. I mean, I think I do fine. I can't think of anything I want or need, I don't already have, or could go get if I wanted it. Within being reasonable about it."

   "Well, if you don't need their… money, or jobs or whatever… what's wrong with just being around?"

   Elise smiled again. I've seen her interrogate Target like this. Twenty questions, like a kid. I don't know, its her thing.

   "Here's the game plan. In my family. Great grandpa was retired by the time I knew him. Now, Grandpa took over. Ran everything. He has all the money. Now, here's how things work. He has a son? The son, is expected to either go to college, or work at one of the businesses. Both, preferably. The son, is my dad, by the way."

   "Okay."

   "So. After college, and you work your way up through the jobs at a business? And trust me, you're family. Hard to get fired. You get promotions, ordinary employees would never get. Then? You get put in charge of that company. You run it."

   "Wow. Sounds like a sweet deal. Just saying."

   "On paper? Yeah. Here's my whole life growing up. Screamed at, to dress nice, do your hair nice. Sit nice. Smile nice. Never get in trouble. Now, other than that business? My dad's whole life? Is ran, by grandpa. When grandpa says dinner, my house, six. You're there before six. Or, lecture time. Grandpa comes over our house? Tells you where the dishes should go. Tells you what clothes your kids should wear. Everything."

   "Control freak."

   "Big time. But? If you wanna pretend you run the company… grandpa can take it away in a second."

   "That's how guys roll in your family."

   "Yep. If you think, as a 40 year old guy with a wife and kids, that you're going to the beach this weekend? Well. Better run it by grandpa first."

   "When… does grandpa allow vacations?"

   "When he decides to go to Hawaii or something? He takes you all. You go where he goes, you stay where he stays. Pretty much like being at home? Except you're in Hawaii. If grandpa doesn't wanna go jet ski riding? Well, that's not happening."

   "What about a girl, though."

   "Same deal, pretty much. Except, your job? Is to locate a guy that makes money. You know. A good husband. And grandpa better like that guy. Or? You get the shits. You don't get disowned? That would be better. No. You have to get lectured, by every family member. Who is trying to impress…"

   "Grandpa."

   "Bingo. Now. If you land a guy that impresses grandpa? Trust me, you take boyfriends to meet him, and he tells you yes or no, basically. If he likes the guy you marry? Well. That guy, gets to…"

   "Oh. Couple years, working at a grandpa business… then he runs it."

   "Yep. And? You now get control freaked as an adult married woman. But, you get to get your nails done, your hair done, all that jazz."

   "You didn't go along with the program."

   Elise smiled.

   "I more or less did. But… there was… something happened, not going into it. I, just kinda ran away because I was 18, and… rest is history."

   "You know? You see rich families on TV. You would think, being in a rich family? Would be a lot more fun."

   "Now you're on my wavelength, Right. Tell you a story. I must have been, oh, twelve or something. You know how kids paint their hair? A streak of color. All my friends did it back then."

   "Oh yeah. Girl that lived here? She's gone now, but… green streak. Sure."

   "I got in so much trouble."

   "You parents were pissed."

   "Sort of. They were more concerned about what grandpa would say, than anything else."

   "Did you get a grandpa lecture."

   "Yes. About an hour and a half. How does this reflect on the family. What will people think. I can't believe you have so little self respect for yourself, and the family. To have a green spot in your hair. Meanwhile, all the kids did it. You got made fun of, if you didn't have a color back then."

   "What an asshole."

   "My sister's wonderful. She went to college. Basically married some guy that, well, the parents talked to grandpa, and got their kid…"

   "Ha. Grandpa fixed her up with her husband."

   "Yeah. I'm not living my life like that."

   "Yeah, I guess I could see that. You'd rather be a military cop, then a cop when you get back. Rather than… go through your life like that."

   "That's the main thing. There was… other stuff, but… you get the picture."

   "You like being a cop?"

   "Eh. Its okay. I'm not doing it forever. You seen me fight with Wiz, I'm sure."

   "Yeah."

   "Judo. I was the… junior women's judo champ. More than one year, actually. I'm saving up, gonna open a… gym. Charge people a monthly fee to work out. Teach judo classes. Private classes. Teach handgun classes."

   "And, more fun than having some… old man control freak, running your life, running your kid's lives."

   "Definitely. I like to work out. Makes me feel better."

   "Ooh. I hope your… judo gym, school… you know, you're successful. So you can, you know. Rub grandpa's nose in it. Look, did it myself. See those dishes? I like them there. And watch as I put this streak of color in my hair…"

   We all laughed.

   "As fun as that would be? I… will be opening the gym, pretty much in any big city except the city my family comes from."

   "Why? You might get big, you can show it off. You'll… win."

   "No. The less I'm around my family? The better I feel."

   "Wow. Its that bad?"

   "Yeah. My own sister? Has a daughter. My niece. I'm not allowed to talk to her."

   "Why?"

   "Hell. She might get some wacky idea, like… she's allowed to go to school for what she wants, or wants to go to a different school… or, might get a really wacky idea, like… hey, if I go to ROTC? They'll pay for my college, and I can get my own degree, be whatever I wanna be. You can't have that in my family, so…"

   "Christ. Tell your mom on her, its your sister."

   "Right? My mum, is the one who told her to do it, and backs her up on it. So… I don't go home anymore. After a year or two in the service, coming home on breaks? Fuck it… I started going home for vacations with the MP guys, home to see their families. Those people? Treated me way better. I simply don't go home anymore. I'm the black sheep of the family."

   "That sucks. How long, till you think you can take a chance on your judo place."

   "Hmm. I could open a small town one, tomorrow. The more money I save up? The bigger place I can open one in. If I have enough to get one in a big city? I'll do better. So… five years, give or take?"

   "You don't wanna wait till you… cop retire. Put your 20 years in."

   "Oh, I'm… what I… do, as a cop? If I stay in the game too long, uh, I'll get the quick and cheap retirement, if you know what I mean."

   "You do something dangerous then."

   "Yeah. As much as you see on TV? Cops rarely get killed working. Believe it or not? Pizza delivery drivers, are twice as likely to get killed, and that's in a small town… twice as likely to die working, than a regular cop in the big city. But, there are a few… jobs? Where… its more likely than the other cops. I have one of those jobs."

   "I'd rather teach judo in a smaller city, and eat TV dinners every night? Than… not wake up."

   "Well. Either way? My troubles are over. Retired quick, or… retired longer. Plus, someone has to do what I do. People die if I don't do it, so? I do it. Before you ask, because I can."

   "You risk your life, for people you don't know."

   "More or less."

   "You need a Hurricane."

   "What?"

   "Hurry. She's the Hurricane. Me and Light? We get hurt, if she's not on the field. Mama bear. You need a Hurricane, for your game."

   Elise smiled.

   "That would be nice. But, unfortunately… what I do? I have to be alone, or it won't work."

   "What do you do, anyways?"

   "Not important."

   "Sounds important. You just won't tell me."

   "Not trying to be rude, but, I just don't talk about it a lot. Its not a fun job. I work… six to eighteen months at a time? On average… then, I get a leave of absence. Go to another city, and… do it again."

   "Did you ever steal Wiz's boxers? You said he lived with Target, and you stayed there sometimes."

   "Uh. One time? Yeah."

   "Why just once. He yelled at you…"

   "No, its Wiz. He… just hid his boxers? I couldn't find them. Which was weird. See, we all have the same uniforms. The same housing, furniture. The same… everything. If you come home drunk and the door's unlocked? You might not realize you went into the wrong apartment and the wrong room, and fell asleep. So… for the life of me? I don't know where he hid his boxers."

   "Hurry?"

   "Right…"

   "Can we go into your room, and hide all Wiz's boxers? For fun, for old time's sake."

   We all laughed. Elise laughed the hardest.

   "Please. We'll make it like an Easter egg hunt, or… he gets a clue, leads him to the next piece of paper, the next clue. He has to… figure out the riddles to find the boxers one at a time."

   Right sat there with a furrowed brow for a bit, then spoke.

   "Elise? Stupid question."

   "Sure."

   "You wear boxers?"

   "Oh. Yeah, I did. Still do, sometimes."

   "Why?"

   "Well… we all had these camouflage fatigues. Guys, girls. We all wore them. I borrowed boxers one time, I forgot my underwear back at my apartment, we were on a weekend field exercise. Liked it, started wearing them."

   "Oh. Just curious."

   "Plus? They're comfortable to wear for gym shorts, bum around the house shorts. Sleeping."

   As you can imagine, we went a little later and raided Wiz's boxers. We hid them all around the townhouse. We decided the rules were that you have to hide them in the townhouse. The moment Wiz couldn't find a clean pair of boxers when he knew he had a stack of the things? He immediately asked me. I pleaded ignorance, and he waited about three seconds before yelling for "Elise!!"

   This was humorous, he laughed and saw the novelty in it. He enjoyed his boxers hunt and played along and in general was a great sport about it. This, however? Is how the great "underwear wars" started. The name was changed to "Underwars". Because "underwear wars" sounds like something one grade school kid dares the other grade school kid to say X number of times really fast.

   We actually did that, the say it three or more times fast game at breakfast. Which is how it got nicknamed… Underwars. Wiz blamed Elise, and when she claimed she never touched his boxers, he called bullshit and said it goes to intelligence. The game was unknown, and discovered independently when she comes in? He wasn't buying it. We let him find most of the pairs easily. Then me, Elise, Lightning, Right… we all wore a pair of his boxers down to breakfast.

   He pretended to be mad and chased us all around, trying to get his boxers back off of us. We honestly looked like a bunch of little kids annoying the parents tearing around the house. The boys in for the ten days of case work, and particularly Target… were annoyed. Wiz decided he was going to "reclaim" his boxers, so naturally the boys all got woke up by high pitched girly screams when he started yanking his boxers down off of us wearing them when he caught one of us.

   Little Lightning was the first one he started getting her boxers actually down, she screamed and laughed loud enough it got people up. Remember, we've got company over, a couple guys staying in Miss Moody's old room. As well as Target in Right's room. When he let Lightning go, and she was pulling her boxers back up from her knees, he chased the rest of us around.

   He about had mine coming, when Elise ran up behind him and… yeah. Yanked his boxers down to stop him, then took off running before he could let me go, I could get mine up and this gave her the split second she needed after her Underwar attack to take off. Failing to quickly get Elise so much as half as easily as any of us others, he resorted to strategy. He grabbed Little Lightning up, kicking and squealing for all she was worth. He sat down on the couch, which fairly well kept his on, and used Light as a sort of "human shield", while naturally working her boxers down to her knees once again.

   We all came to her "aid". Which was all really just strategy for him. He used this pile up to reach out and grab one of Elise's ankles and started reeling her in like a fish. She pretended to be mad, they got into it. We all backed off, and watched this battle royal go on as these two rolled around on the couch, off onto the floor, and started a dirty wrestling match all over the living room.

   They were both trying to… it wasn't clear. It definitely wasn't regular wrestling, because it wasn't to a "pin". Each was trying to… it wasn't clear what the objective was. First it was dirty wrestling, then one would go for the other's boxers… then back to wrestling… then back to a boxers attack.

   Lightning came in and got "cheap shots" on him. He ended up rolling off and getting her ankle, and getting her boxers down again. Elise got his down from that distraction, but he got them back up and went back to concentrating on Elise again. If it sounds like a mess, its because it was. As a continued strategy? Wiz got free of Elise, and managed to get to the kitchen, and to the bottom of the steps upstairs. Which of course had us all somewhat trapped.

   Everyone's up now, and at the top of the stairs looking down at us. Wiz has the bottom of the steps blocked, and can more or less keep his boxers more or less up, because he's sitting on the bottom steps. We're taking turns pushing and shoving to "attack" him, which standing and crowded unable to effectively move as we were all jammed up… left us open to partial attacks. You can imagine all the squealing us girls are putting through ourselves laughing and screaming.

   Right made a game attempt to gain the steps and get past him, she leaped and almost made it. Not quite though, he caught her up. She came down, well… more or less… her boxers about smothering his face, to be honest. Target is in front of the group of former MP cops handling the case, just watching. Right appealed to him, amid her own screaming and twisting as Wiz laughed at her struggles. She can't completely get away, and he's tugging at her boxers in his face. Her using a hand at a time to keep her waistband up kept her from having the two hands she needed to get past his shoulders effectively and make it to safety.

   She screamed for Target to please help, another guy is trying to pull your girlfriend's boxers down. Target was sipping a small container of lukewarm orange juice and was surprisingly chill about the whole scene. He asked if she had another guy's boxers on in the first place. To which she had no real response immediately other than "um". So, he told her if she was wearing some other guy's boxers, she was on her own, and walked back into their room. The other guys standing at the top of the stairs chuckled, and enjoyed the rest of the show.

   Eventually, the games died down. Target and the others came down for the group breakfast. There was still a bit of shenanigans, when one of us would snap a waistband of someone's boxers or give a halfhearted gentle tug on the inseam.

   Little Lightning was the first one to give him his boxers back. She had such a long T shirt on, she simply slipped them down and stepped out of them. There were a few good nature jokes about her picking them up, to which she turned around smiling. She grabbed them by getting her foot under them, and flipped them up to her hand without having to bend over. She offered them to Wiz, in exchange for her getting over easy on toast. He agreed, and she smiled at Right before sitting down, somewhat triumphantly. For a smile and a parting shot, she added on to it.

   "Wizzy? You can get my underwear off me, anytime you want."

   Which had her looking at me.

   "I don't have as long a T shirt on."

   Target teased Right to give him his own boxers back too. Lightning couldn't help a morning tease on Right.

   "Well, that's the other thing. I can sit with my legs together."

   Right couldn't pass up such low hanging fruit.

   "Pffft."

   "Seriously. Both my feet go where I want them. Now you? Your left foot probably won't listen. Its retarded…"

   Company got treated to a Light and Right patented ten year old kid's game of raspberries.

   There were some additional Underwar skirmishes, though largely limited to raids on stealing and hiding underwear. Elise was Wiz's first strike, naturally. This was followed up by a raid on Right's underwear drawer. Wiz had already started locking up his boxers he wasn't wearing in his footlocker. By the time Underwars ended? I guess me and Little Lightning were victorious. We ended up wearing his boxers anytime we wanted. We only wanted the dark green military boxers he had a stack of. Somehow this made it "official".

   I assume its obvious that me and Light started having the occasional "boxers party" when locked in our bedroom some nights. Rules were pretty easy. You weren't allowed to wear anything except a pair of boxers to bed. He never once complained. Lightning admitted to me it was a sexy thrill to get an early morning "attack", and I agreed I enjoyed it as well. You wake up with your boxers coming down, you struggle some, but really just enough to make it look good and keep it fun.

   One of those games you already know how its going to come out. Or I guess I should say more correctly, a game where you already know how its going to go in. Sorry, Wiz's wordplay and little puns have rubbed off on me. I would also add, that the official military boxers are amazingly strong fabric wise. Little Lightning was the first to find out when she slept in the middle one night, all of us decked out for the boxers party.

   He held one ankle, and sort of wound up the other one again and again, twisting the boxers around her ankles tighter and tighter like a rubber band, until she was "helpless". His own boxers went on her wrists in the same fashion. She already knew this game well and was quite fond of it, as lord knows I was. You're trapped, you get rotisserie-d, you bite on the wound up wrist material to keep from screaming while you enjoy being killed with pleasure.

   Everyone that lives in the townhouse now knows about the three of us. We switch beds. We could all three end up in either my own room, which is most of the time. Sometimes in Light's room. Wiz could be seen coming out of really either bedroom on any given morning, and Right's used to it by now and just makes jokes and smiles. We finally switched rooms a night at a time here and there, me and Little Lightning just did it for a lark.

   Light's integrated personality and slow remission of her phobias and panic attacks associated with them, were steady successes. I started organizing my notes, transcribing what I felt were important therapy dialogue milestones. I plan on writing a paper, and challenging several widely held rules of thumb. Not the least of which, concerns men.

   Wiz was so damn highly effective at getting therapy "started", and getting Light to open up and admit what happened when I finally correctly guessed what had happened to her and when. She had specifically requested Wiz stay, when I suggested that the male leave.

   The unique fashion by which she cleverly pretended Wiz was raped by her, for a narrative trick so she could tell her story? I found unique enough to include as well. Also, the manner by which early therapy descriptions, as more and more of the ever growing horror of the complete picture emerged… were again all started out with this narrative trick on her part.

   This isn't unheard of, but… I can't find one single identifiable case where the female rape victim had to "flip" the description, and could only describe it by narrating the tale as if they had raped the male interviewer.

   Wiz's use of rape humor, and ongoing application of it and having it produce top results? Astounding. I intend to make a case for male rape therapists to be trialed as an idea. This universally held notion that women have secret intuitive emotional power, and that men are by nature cold and unfeeling creatures? Is nearly groundless. The fact that women consistently score higher on emotional tests, does not preclude men from being emotional and highly empathetic creatures.

   I'm going to work in a whole chapter on Elise's related experiences, and how the women joked about a man dying, and talked about men as if they were tissues. And that men cared enough to all gather around, and take turns babysitting her carefully through this emotional minefield of guilt she found herself in. Not to mention, her own rape experience and maltreatment or mistreatment.

   Yet another widely held belief, is that when two sets of parents are fighting over custody of a child? It is naturally assumed that the better off financially the parents are, the greater care and advantages the child receives. Elise's experiences with her own family, and comparing it to the family that was much lower in socioeconomic status? Priceless for challenging that.

   You don't use names when you write papers on therapy like this. Elise will be referred to as simply "E." Szarabjorna will be "S."

   Because my paper will be concerning another student, I have to print that one out twice. Once for the private consideration of the professor(s), and one with a pseudonym that other students can read. If or when it got discussed in class? The students would not be able to identify the author, which will prevent them from guessing who the close friend was, outing her as a multiple gang rape victim. Gritty details of the gang rape, go a long way towards how difficult of a case I took on. I'm sorry, how difficult of a case "the author" took on.

   Absolutely no one needs to be able to guess that Szarabjorna Sturmer, Little Miss Two Feet, Little Lightning, the Pride of the Midwest? Had to spit out a piece of her own shit that was stuck like food on her teeth, because a corrupt small town cop bought tickets to an underage gang rape and pulled his pathetic little cock out of her ass and had her clean it off in her mouth while the rest of the crowd waiting in line watched and cheered.

   These papers will be, I think, challenging enough to get discussed in classes, and get students writing shorter papers arguing for or against any of my conclusions. Which should go, if I get to that point? A very, very, very long way towards getting me picked up for my doctoral candidacy when that time comes, as well as bring me into focus by the professors as someone with a leg up and more gumption than the run of the mill general "herd" of psych students milling around the department.

   I plan another paper, on the stopping of "real" rape prevention classes, because social liberals were offended at what works in preventing it. I have a number of child psychology classes coming up within the next year, and I plan an absolutely scathing paper, against a fully licensed first grade teacher. Bragging about her program, where she won't allow the little boys to play with "building toys", only the girls. So the girls can gain spatial visualization skills. Great, but by starving all the boys from the benefits of playing with building blocks and other construction toys? Its unconscionable.

   Simple facts that can't be ignored, are that you can't find enough women to work in for example large bridge construction. The numbers there are artificially pumped up, by women getting paid like the men risking their lives up in the air, while doing make work on the ground. Just like road crews. You see the men muscling equipment and shovels around; the ladies are in booty shorts, working on their tan, holding flags.

   I plan another red hot paper on women in certain male professions. I'm going to facetiously suggest, that small and thin women be recruited to play at this level of university athletics. Everyone will laugh. Big girls mow down little girly girls, no matter how good they are, its simple facts. This university doesn't aggressively recruit "corn fed" farm girls that are good at a sport for no reason. Its laughable to suggest that we lose all our games, to satisfy little dainty girls who wish they could play at this level. Very few 5'4" men can be competitive at basketball at this level, and the women who can do it are so rare as to be non existent.

   Everyone will laugh hysterically.

   Then I plan on showing all the many examples of women cops, trying to take down male suspects that are fighting back. Little tiny girly girls, trying to take down hardened felons. Imagine a tiny girl being a firefighter, trying to carry out an unconscious 200 pound or better person. And finish up with a lengthy discussion, of what happened overseas, and how a girly girl got nine other capable men killed, then was given a medal for bravery.

   I won't be real popular, and I'm not trying. I'm going for making a name for myself, shooting for scholastic integrity. Not burying my head in the sand, and pretending that make believe is real. When any metric shows the complete opposite. A shrinking faction of psych students, are old school. They believe in the old ways. I'm one of them. I plan on contradicting the new world of make believe head on, and not pussyfooting around anymore.

   People are dying, so feel good make believe bullshit proponents can pat themselves on the back and talk about equality. That bullshit's fine in an office setting, and not even then. I recently found out the hard truth about high powered women CEOs. Nearly every top 200 corporation that was heralded as brave and strong and oh so modern, for electing to have a female head of the board? Tanked. My numbers will be unimpeachable, and I want to hear the arguments.

   It will all be logical fallacies. Pronouncements from a position of authority with absolutely no numbers to back them up. My numbers, the real ones? Show the exact opposite.

   Like I said, I don't exactly plan on winning a popularity contest. I plan on finding some kind of allies in my field, and being the one herd member questioning the bullshit loud enough publishing, to get noticed. And that's another thing I learned from Wiz and his long lost zen master mentor. You want better results? First try doing the exact opposite of what everyone else is doing.

   I know. Normally, this would get me shunned and kept out of doctoral candidacy. But… this gets me noticed, and my athletic director? Will see to getting another couple years of me. We almost took the biggest and toughest conference for women's college soccer this year. We're poised to win it next year. I'm betting my unique strategy to get noticed being a sort of lightning rod for bullshit, combined with I hope getting my damn championship ring? Will work.

   Another thing I didn't get off of Wiz, but I will freely admit he honed my own sense of it. Unique strategy, has a chance to produce unique results. Wiz always has the most unique strategies you can fathom. My coach? Is playing the European style game. The skill game, to overcome the size and grit American style soccer game. Adopting their advanced strategies, and he's winning more and more every year, the more of it he garners and implements.

   I'd be a fool to follow the herd.

   In other news, Sunshine. Little Miss Moody. We by no means forgot about her, we by no means put it behind us. Elise, when I ask her, gives me advice and talks to me about it. Because of her unique experience losing a team member and the circumstances surrounding it. It felt sort of… I don't know what, to finally get her room cleaned out and everything locked up and into storage.

   I found myself looking at the cage in the sub basement, wistfully. No one ever came to claim her belongings. Its like she never even existed. I can't believe not one family member expressed interest in obtaining so much as a memento.

   I sometimes went down by myself, and went in. Reverently running my fingers over her belongings. Crying. Remembering the things that were good or okay or even neutral about her. Elise is right. Live every day to the full, tell people you love and care for them, watch what you say and how you say it for those little "zinger" parting shots. Yeah, it feels so smarmy good, to have the last word, to have it be a good one. You… win, is what it feels like.

   But, Elise knows the truth. Its a hollow win. They die, and that's the last thing you said to them? The guilt will eat you up, like Wiz explaining a black hole feeding on a whole solar system and its sun. I'm in Elise's camp on this, I know the truth now too. I want to memorialize her somehow. The team all wearing a little "sun" patch, signifies we know we all lost one of our own. She was "Sunshine", a reverse nickname for a Little Miss Moody girl.

   Some big girl on another team thought making jokes about our starting center missing was a bright thing to do. You know, psych us out. Throw us off. I can tell you in no uncertain terms? It did not have the intended effect, whatsoever. Quite the reverse. I got into a piss-y words match with her over it, and it was already going pushy shove-y. A couple other girls were near enough to hear it, and came over and got in it. This got a few more girls from the other team in on the piss-y words and pushing and shoving. We were all set to have a bench clearing brawl and the game hadn't even gotten started yet.

   This was a home game. The crowd roared its approval. Some wise ass up in the booth, one of the tron interns? Well, he threw up the Hurricane graphic and little audio clip that goes along with it. The crowd cheered more, the main announcer is our home announcer. He got in on it, and cheerfully cracked wise about it. Little Lightning got inordinately pissed and got into the fracas. The tron intern joker immediately threw up the Lightning strike graphic, and the super loud lightning strike and ominous thunder roll went over the PA system. The crowd cheered more, the more unruly the situation got.

   The one good thing about a bench clearing brawl? They have trouble red carding every single member of both teams. You're fairly safe. I say "fairly" safe. Because the two that got into it initially if that started it? Will generally both get red carded or yellow carded. Roster adjustments before the game even gets underway, in this case.

   With both entire teams milling around and moving out into the field about to start an all out brawl at any moment, the ref and his assistants moved in. Okay. Women aren't men, and I always freely admit it. A male ref can separate two girls going at it a lot easier than he can the boys. Problem here? Its a huge crowd all getting into it, and the ref can't make any headway. We have a lot of girls near my size, and what I think of as the smaller girls? Really aren't dainty little things.

   When the ref can't get a thing done, when his whistle does nothing? He yells for the assistant refs. Who also fail with this many girls getting into it, and all they can do now? Well, they blow their little whistles as well. Once things get to a certain point, birds might as well be tweeting for all the good its doing them. By this point? For all their "power", they're reduced to what they truly are. A guy and a couple more, wearing funny shirts. With whistles we all agree to freeze when we hear them.

   When funny shirts and warbling whistles don't get results? They're honestly about powerless. Go ahead and red card both teams in total. Its a tie. Wanna yellow or even red card both of the two that got into it first? Great. I'm important, but… not nearly as important as that girl is to her team. She's the star center, and they'll be lost without her. We're already favored to win before we even start the game. You wanna trade your Queen for my Rook as an opening move? In chess terms, fucking go for it and let's see how that exchange works out for you.

   Now both coaches are trying to come to the referee's aid. Here come all the assistants and assistant coaches. Even the "managers" came running and are equal portions torn. Between trying to help break it up, and out of team loyalty getting into it too. I never understood why volunteers that bring water and help carry stuff and are in general just team gophers? Get called "managers", but they are.

   So, we have a little girly girl manager, which is really a towel and water girl, basically… out and rolling around on the field with the opposing teams little girly girl towel and water girl. They're having a more traditional cat fight. Pulling hair, and pulling at clothes. The crowd heartily approves of this harmless fun, and cheered when ours almost got the other's shirt up enough to show a bra off to the crowd. Hey, that's how little tiny girly girls "fight".

   We have a team mascot, its a person in a silly costume that does little dances and funny things to entertain the crowd. Our costumed clown took the opportunity to run out, and run around pantomiming "put em up" motions with the big costumed hands. This led to the opposing team's costumed mascot coming out, and trying to one up ours, who is getting applause and laughter for the antics.

   Yes, the mascots are every bit as "competitive" as the players and coaches at this level of university play, in a division this big. These mascots? Have a chance to end up as professional mascots for pro baseball and football teams, and that's a huge incentive. So, they're out there trying to out perform each other. Then, they both started on each other. Ours gave the "middle finger" to the other, and made a somewhat slightly obscene gesture with washing a hand back and forth across rolling hips. You know… I'm smacking your ass while I'm fucking you, you're my bitch.

   The mascot's job is to get the crowd watching them, and keep it entertaining and funny while the brawl gets broken up. Which isn't happening quickly. Of course, normally one mascot is on one side of the seating, and the other mascot is on the other side, behind their respective benches. This is our home game, and a night game to boot, so… our home crowd is bigger than their side. Their mascot is playing up to our crowd too, and…

   We now have both costumed mascots pushing and shoving and getting into it as well. The crowd at first thought it was part of the show on the mascots part, but… when they end up rolling around on the ground and getting each other's big protective headpieces off, well… there you go. The mascots are now all out fighting each other.

   Now, this is high entertainment for the crowd. We're not televised right now and thank god, but the game is being recorded from a number of what are these days now inexpensive digital cameras. Clips of this are definitely going out on the internet. Even if the athletic director forbids it? Too easy to sweet talk the interns into it. You see, anything entertaining like this leaks out? It might make the rounds of the internet, or even turn up as a ten second clip for humor on a sports show somewhere, so… wild horses couldn't keep something this good under wraps. Not to mention, you got a big crowd and all of them have cell phones that make and post movie clips. Good luck keeping that a secret.

   With the pregame festivities now out of the way? Things are starting to get separated and the teams back to their own benches. The coaches and assistant coaches are more or less herding their teams back to their own benches and sides of the field. Now there's a pow wow at the middle of the field. The refs all have to show how "in charge" they are. Which is clearly not at all, as was completely apparent. Which of course has the main ref hopping and jumping and screaming around. The crowd cheers this, too. The ref? Is absolutely the one guy supposed to keep his cool, and he lost it.

   Mind you? The mascots are both still beating the shit out of each other. They both have the big hands attached to prevent wardrobe malfunctions when dancing and doing gymnastics tricks and all the physical things mascots are known for. So, they both have the big headpieces off, and are rolling around, bopping each other gamely but somewhat harmlessly with those big padded hand pieces. Crowd's having ecstasy, and cell phones are all up and recording all of this shit.

   Both coaches, with all assistant coaches, and all refs are now out in the middle of the field. Both me and the other girl that "started" the brawl, are out there too.

   Soon as my coach learned this was because they were making fun of Sunshine, that committed suicide? He wouldn't back down. So, we now have both head coaches yelling and threatening and then they get to pushing and shoving in the middle of the field too. We finally get this sort of down to a dull roar. A head ref does not like to be told what to do, and will put any coach in his place.

   Both have to make their plea to the ref. The other coach went first. His official position, is that his girls only used words, to taunt the other team. Perfectly fair to talk trash. Its not encouraged, but hey… its a high level of sports play. If you can't take the occasional smart ass comment? You really need another job. My coach, as I stated already, refuses to back down. Making fun of a dead girl, that tragically committed suicide in the off season? Completely beyond the pale, and he demands its acknowledged as unacceptable that this was the other team's fault.

   When the super highly agitated and pissed off referee pushed my coach, who was not pushing him? I took a step in, and yelled at him that he was supposed to not start putting his hands on people, what kind of example was he setting. This brought the other, and I must say quite mouthy, girl I got into it with? Up and running her mouth again. Which gets me yelling at her again. The ref made the poor decision to physically shove me. Fuck that, I shoved him back, and got in between him and my coach, when he starts foaming at the mouth again.

   Christ, the referee is less manageable than the players and the coaches at this point.

   The ref finally decided, after a quick conference with the assistant refs. No flags, no penalties. We can't realistically red card both team's complete rosters. But? Everybody better get over to their own sides of the field, right now. Which was fine.

   It was at this point, the ref figures out that both team mascots, in costumes, are brawling on the sidelines to the crowd's inordinate approval. Now, I know you have an idea in your head and can sort of imagine this, but I'll fill it in. Mascots at this level? As I said, are trying to become paid professional mascots in the world of professional team mascots who will be seen on live TV one day, and good ones entertain crowds of up to perhaps 100,000 people for huge championship games. If you have a good mascot in the super bowl? You get a lot of coverage.

   You might be wondering what the requirements are for a top level mascot at this stage of the game. So here goes. By tradition, mascots are silent. Anything they wish to express and convey to the crowd? Is by body language and motions. Lifelong trained dancers are the usual thing, and former cheerleaders and floor gymnastics are other good skills to have. When your mascot can do handstands and cartwheels efficiently and crisp, while the other just dances and wiggles around, well, you have the superior mascot. So. Both of them are girls. Ours is dance team and former cheerleader, with a lot of years of floor gymnastics. I assume, so is the other.

   Now, you have two assistant refs trying to separate two very athletic dance and gymnastics girls, in costume with the headpieces off, bopping each other mercilessly but largely harmlessly, thank god, with their big puffy hands. The first assistant ref ended up in the middle of this cat fight, again much to the amusement of the home town crowd that's thoroughly enjoying this extended show.

   People in the front row are getting treated to what these girls are yelling to each other, and trust me here? It was streams of the most… shall I say… colorful phrases you can imagine. As my dad always phrased it so adroitly and colorfully? They called each other everything but a white girl.

   The mascots risk about nothing. I guess you could eject a costumed mascot from the game? But the crowd will boo that ref mercilessly. Their antics in no way affect game play whatsoever, and I'm not even sure they can get carded. Red and yellow cards, are registered things by roster numbers and team names, and are very official. Mascots? I don't think anyone really knows. Now, a ref can eject anyone he wants that he thinks is disruptive, for any reason. But, if he ejects both mascots, and can't assign cards? Its a wholly useless gesture, that accomplishes absolutely nothing except piss off both teams and the entire crowd.

   Basically, the other two assistant refs had to come over and get into it. It took the other two to help out. One grabbed our girl around the waist behind her. The crowd is cheering her trying to get away and not hearing whistles as anything more than annoying bird warbles, and gamely trying to elbow the offending assistant ref in his face. The big padded costume makes this hilarious and harmless for the crowd, who can't get enough of the show.

   The other assistant ref is restraining his mascot the same way, around the waist behind her. Dancers and particularly floor gymnastics girls? Have a huge amount of strength, leg and shoulder muscle, and coordination and athleticism. Apparently a good amount of adrenaline as well. The first assistant ref who got mugged in the middle between both costumed combatants, now is splitting his time between both of the others, each failing to control his mascot he is charged with controlling.

   They really can't hit girls, they're full grown men. They can't I don't think "card" the girls, and really all they can do is eject both. They finally resorted to being practical. Our mascot after all, was in front of her home town stand's side of the field. They decided the other girl mascot, needed to get back over to her side of the field, and join her team. So? They left the one poor assistant ref to hug ours from behind as best he could… while the other two had to bodily drag and carry a kicking, screaming, pissed off athletic girl over to her own team's side.

   Once the other mascot was safely across the field, her own team restrained her until the fit was over. Ours calmed down as soon as the other mascot was where it needed to stay in the first damn place. Little Lightning came over, and held our mascots arm up in the air, to signify she "won" the great mascot fight. The crowd roared with approval and cheered.

   Both mascots continued, pretty much the entire game? To give each other big furry middle fingers, and obscene gestures and lewd dances. The referee was powerless to stop the mascots from doing things like that, as it turned out. I know, because he tried and failed. Like I stated a little bit ago? All it takes to reduce a man with a godlike level of authority, to simply just some guy with a funny shirt and a whistle? Not much. When people quit agreeing to listen to him and his stupid whistle, well… there you go.

   Every time the ref or an assistant ref tried to get a mascot to stop anything? As soon as the ref's back was turned, the crowd hooted at the things the mascot did behind his retreating back. Ours? As soon as the ref's back was turned and moving away, did the most obscene things towards him, to the great heightened delight of the crowd. And every time he turned around to see what all the ruckus was? Our mascot assumed a "what?" pose. Which made the crowd laugh and cheer more.

   Crowd loved it. Technically, there's a no alcohol rule at the stadium? Yeah. You can tell me all about it, when drunk people in the stands are yelling highly colorful shit to any ref who is near enough to be taunted. Refs and assistant refs? Have black numbers on their silly striped pajama shirts. One enterprising fan, and perhaps under the influence of alcohol in the stands? Took the opportunity to scream during a quiet moment.

   "Ref number three, sucks dick for crack!!"

   The offended ref just turned around, shook his head in disgust, and went back to observing the game. As players, we're unofficially trained to take advantage of anything. The closest side ref has his back to the play, right in front of him. The main ref on the far end of the field… Right took the golden opportunity to gratuitously push and trip a girl and steal the ball.

   Don't you dare shake your head at us "cheating" like that. The other team was taking cheap shots, non stop, from the instant the ref blew the first whistle to start the game after the coin toss. Our coach refused to blow a time out, you only get so many and they can be used strategically. But, when the other team burned one? We're all trained to sprint over to take advantage and he can talk or switch players, kind of "for free" if you understand that phrase used in that context as such.

   He told us. That team used to be statistically favored over us slightly, every year. Last year? We were rated even by the stats gurus, that make the official lines in Vegas. This year, for the first time? We're favored to win. They know it, and they showed fear by resorting to making fun of your dead team mate. Going that low? Shows desperation. Go right out there? And I want you to play as dirty as possible, cheap shot them back. But, I want you girls to keep your heads.

   Make sure the ref don't see it, and go overboard. Make them retaliate, when the ref can see it. Draw penalties. And? If you can get one to take a swing at you, frustrated? Make damn sure its an equal or better player. So if you both get ejected, its either still fair, or a slight bump for us. Play hard, play dirty because they started it, and above all? Play smart.

   My instructions in my ear for me alone? I'm only allowed to take out their starting center. The whole team is built around one big star. If I can get ejected and take her with me? We'll crush them.

   There we go. Open season on the bitch that had the gall to think it was a bright idea to insult my dead friend to my face. Before the game started, she thinks a big fullback like me? Won't be around her much. Surprise, bitch. I play forwards a lot of the time. I'll get plenty of time on you.

   So, you can see how this game went. Little Lightning, was fit to be tied. I hadn't seen her this revved up, since the homecoming game where everyone having family pictures taken on the field pissed her off. She gave the finger and choice words to the other team's bench, and even told the opposing coach he can "suck my dick", directly before stealing his player's ball right off her, right in front of his face, and took off and couldn't be caught.

   I got more physical than usual, and played dirtier than ever. My time came at the start of the fourth quarter. I kept annoying that big star center that's the centerpiece of their entire strategy. When I played up, I highly tended to double team her. Not to mention the shit I said, the elbows I tossed, well… you know. Just how I make friends on the field. If I want to start a roster adjustment? I have a habit of flicking their ear from behind, and I mean hard. Its annoying, and a guaranteed fight starter.

   Lightning, when I said she was revved up? That was an understatement. She caught some serious air on a full jets on, full throttle spring to the pile up. A loose ball just before she hit the pile on full tilt? Had her go up trying to head the ball for a surprise. Mind you, her dance team name and her childhood name? Sky Stormer. She can get up there. When she just missed, she came down and sort of "accidentally" got her forehead into another wing's nose. I mean, all her weight coming down out of the air, all that speed unchecked. I saw it, she cocked her head into it and used the top of her forehead like a battering ram. Obliterated the girl's nose, and blood ran like a faucet. Her own face had enough blood on it that the coach was initially worried until she wiped her arm across her face, smiled, and ran back out.

   She taunted the other players, by wiping their own teammate's blood on their faces. It was down her arms and all over her shirt anyways. Until it dried, she could paint a few girls with blood streaks on their faces. She went overboard I thought, when during a brief whistle restart and was near the other bench? Gave a middle finger and licked her arm blood for effect. She'd been all but a complete nut the whole game anyways, so, they probably thought she had a screw loose.

   Oh, by the way. Knocking the girl senseless and smashing her nose like a car wreck and taking a starting wing out of the game? Hey. Coming down from a perfectly legal leap to attempt a head shot. Incidental contact, no penalty. Yeah, that really got the ball rolling, that was third quarter. We were already tied and that was the floodgates opening. Down a starting wing, the replacement sucked? They started getting outperformed and I mean bad.

   This started the cheap shot attack on Little Lightning. Once some player flagrantly abused the "two step" rule and sent her flying? Two things happened. Lightning went nuts and came up and went for the girl. Remember, this is the crazy blood licking nut on the field, so. The other team doesn't quite know what to make of her going nuts. We "restrained" her, which prevented a penalty. But, I said two things. The other thing this incurs, quite naturally? Mama bear's wrath. You don't touch another team's highly rated star player. All sports just about, have this unwritten rule.

   I started mowing girls down and going overboard any way I could. I finally taunted and flicked the star center's ear enough that I finally got what I was looking for. She took a swing at me. Once enough attention was on her swinging on me, and quite ineffectually I might add? I beat that cunt senseless, to the huge delight of the home town crowd. I'm talking about riding her in a full mount as Wiz would call it, raining fists down into her face. I'm already bigger and stronger by a wide margin. I got her down for this, by kicking her foot out from under her while I tossed her. Elise style, or as close as a newbie like me can manage. We both got yellow cards for fighting, but… you're already down a starting wing and the understudy sucks. Now, you're down the centerpiece starting center that the whole team's built around.

   I got to hear the rolling boom as the Hurricane graphics played, and the few seconds of the old heavy metal song that accompanies it. While I got to sit on top of a girl that taunted me about my dead friend, and simply mash her face in for all I was worth. To a cheering crowd, no less. Fuck it. Whole game started with nearly a bench clearing brawl, fist-fighting mascots. Refs, coaches and players taking pushes at one another. Then to even call it a game? It was a four quarter cheap shot extravaganza anyways. We were already favored to win in the Vegas lines for the first time, now they're down their two biggest star players. We're down one good utility player.

   Last quarter was like all but a home run derby for Right and Light. The mismatch was now so bad? My replacement was sent to play up and try to imitate what I usually do. She mainly double teamed the last good wing they had on the field, or cut her off from anything useful to pass off to, completely shutting them down. The Lightning graphic and thunderclap went off twice for both of her goals, a couple minutes apart.

   Light drop passed instead of going for the hat trick and Right was on it and got a goal. Miss Moody's freshman replacement got a goal too. Like I said, at that point? It was like shooting fish in a barrel. Mind you, there's two announcers that trade off. Your own, and the other team's. Our announcer had been taking verbal shots at the other announcer the whole game, and finally started openly making fun of him the whole fourth quarter. When the stadium heard the obvious sound of yelling and a microphone knocked over? They went nuts. The two team's announcers were getting into it in the booth.

   Now, this is where it gets even better. I know, how could that even happen. Well. We have two announcers. The main older one, and the newer younger one. The main one isn’t there for this game, they trade off so each can have a life. The younger is no longer an understudy, he’s definitely past his probation period and is a crowd favorite as much as the main one now. Added in, he’s the obvious replacement for the older one when that older guy finally retires to simply announcing grandchildren’s birthday parties in the backyard. That other announcer of ours covering this game? He’s half black, half white. We didn’t find out until later, but the opposing team’s announcer they sent that night? Was all or half Hispanic. All of which is entirely neither here nor there, because they were hired for their good sounding radio voices, and their ability to banter with no dead air, quote stats, humor and innuendo, all that.

   Yet, once these two get into it? Well. First you hear their back and forth escalating verbally. One dares the other, the other takes him up on it… then you hear that very distinctive pop-boom explosion with that patented squeal that’s obviously a microphone hitting the floor from the table. Followed by the thump, thump… thump, thump… of it rolling and getting kicked around in the now escalating brawl commencing up in the announcer’s booth.

   But I can go you one better. Remember. One’s half black, and the other’s part or whole Hispanic. When I say that “highly colorful” language is getting screamed and audible over the loudspeakers clear as anything? Please don’t think I’m referring to merely motherfucking each other. Oh no. C-o-l-o-r-f-u-l language? Two minorities going at it? You get my drift. As daddy would say, they’re calling each other everything but white boys mixed in with generous expletives that would make a drunken sailor on shore leave at a whorehouse blush.

   The crowd’s roaring with laughter and approval. Watermelon jokes, wetback taunts, green card wisecracks, no knowledge of parentage? You know… the works. This, is going on and continuing. The main ref is trying to get “anyone’s” attention way up there in the area, to go in and cut the damn power to the microphone. He’s making cutting motions across his throat… cut, cut, cut! Nothing happening, and you can now hear someone go in and gamely try to get to the microphone and shut this off of live audio. Its not a big booth, there’s two guys going at it, and they get knocked down and you can hear its turning into a three way free for all. Now? The person trying to help originally, sucked into this fracas… is now hurling “colorful” pejoratives at b-o-t-h of the… minority combatants as well.

   The crowd positively lost it, when the phrase “fuck you, snow nigger!” cut up and out of the audio chaos. One or the other minority announcer apparently launched this at the, I suppose white, don’t really know though… person trying gamely to intervene. You know, salvage any last possible damn shred of propriety out of this game long cluster fuck. As I said earlier? Thank god this wasn’t televised.

   And as I said. Highly “colorful” language.

   Don't forget. While this gritty of a game is going on? We're still playing mainly with our fast European styled slickness. Throw in roster adjustments on top of it? Complete blowout. Whoever in Vegas bet on our team to beat our one goal spread? Made cash. You get a couple sentences in the big Sunday newspaper sports sections when there's a big upset styled blowout. Some sports writer doing it, was our favorite. He gave our game a whole small story, which for women's soccer is like front page headlines for men's college sports by comparison.

   "Well, that's it folks. The bridesmaids are sick and tired of coming up slowly through the Midwest conference ranks, one of the toughest in the country. The bridesmaids have decided to get married by force, and they even have blood on their hands now. Look out for whatever else comes after this. One of their usual rivals lost a couple too many starting seniors. The bridesmaids have been making effective use of their starting freshmen, who are now sophomores. Even their replacement starting center, got another freshman goal."

   "This match up started with an all out bench clearing brawl on the field before the game even got underway. Even the refs and coaches and managers got in on the pushing and shoving. Both team mascots had to be separated by force. Even the announcers got into it in the booth. Another on field brawl saw the losing center go to the emergency room, along with another starting wing who went off in another ambulance during a brutal incidental collision. These girls are obviously tired of getting pushed around. All casualties were sustained by the bridesmaid’s opponents."

   "Their fast moving and shifting playing style is paying off, and they're taking heads now. If you play this team, I suggest bringing extra ambulances, you might need them. Even the team mascot won a brawl. If any of you remember the Pride of the Midwest, Little lightning and her dramatic series winning final goal and injury a couple of years back, in the final game of the national high school all stars series? She almost got a hat trick, and now there's pictures floating around of her playing covered in blood. None of it was hers. This is one of their highest rated skill players, mind you. The goon squad is far worse."

   "Check the internet for the term "bloody bridesmaids", and you can see all the clips on one fan's website. This is a slow success story in the making. One of the largest university athletic programs in the tough Midwest conference, with the full financial backing from a major top ten school. Aggressive and effective recruiting. And this is still a young building team, being led by largely a sophomore starting line with a starting center freshman."

   "This is a possible mid west dynasty in the making, and if you watch all the exciting clips I mentioned? You really don't wanna find yourself in a dark parking lot with these girls. Skill, financial backing and commitment, and now brute force to go with it. All topped off by a unique coaching and style of play. My prediction? Freshmen on this team, better start picking out jewelry boxes now, they're going to need them… to hold all the rings they wear before they graduate."

   That was a Friday night home game. We were all beat to hell. Me? Much more so, being a skilled goon utility player. Wiz helped me and Light to the car, and drove us back. Right took a quick bath and went to soak in the hot tub at Lida's. Friday and Saturday party there to celebrate trouncing our rivals. Wiz admitted he was sorry me and Light wouldn't give him rough sex, dirty and bloody from the game, that it would be hot.

   We both got extra special shower and spa package tub care, then gratuitous rub downs and body massages. He took care of our torn up legs as best he was able. Hot liniment on scrapes and cuts? Brutal, but necessary. Me and Light fell asleep and got a couple hour nap while he retreated to Light's bed for his nap. We got up late and slowly made an appearance at the hot tub party. Our mascot was now drunk, and getting congratulated for winning her brawl. Me and Lightning didn't really drink. We blew a fatty and ended up falling asleep in the hot tub after everyone else was done.

   The athletic director gave us an hour long lecture, but… whatever. Our coach politely mentioned that he didn't even watch the game. That they were making fun of the dead team mate. Then? Taking cheap shots the entire game. Plus? A win is a win. And a blowout against a rival? Way better. The crowd loves the action, and that might put more asses in seats. People enjoy all the cell phone video clips of all the many brawls. Which is huge free publicity. Then? The coach read the story I just related out of the Sunday newspaper sports section. Well? Athletic director checkmated.

   With the director gone, the coach congratulated us. We could all just smell a possible championship ring. And for the coach? Well… the football team isn't setting the world on fire. The lady basketball team has trouble getting even to the playoffs, and gets tossed out of the playoffs on their ear quick. The wrestling team has a few huge stars, but the team overall isn't winning much. Men and women's track team? The same. Some huge individual stars that bring the limelight, but on overall losing teams. Same for softball.

   Right now? the women's soccer team is the only thing this giant athletic program has, that has a chance of bringing home a conference title. Which basically means, that our coach gets a free hand. He can recruit anyone and any way he feels like. He could just about walk drunk and naked out onto the field on TV, and can't really be replaced. Well, not literally, but… nearly that bad. He can damn near get away with murder, as long as he doesn't start an NCAA investigation.

   We carried that momentum as best we could through the season. We made it into the playoffs. We crushed one rival team that had previously knocked us out of the playoffs a couple times in the past. We made it to the final series, and almost won. We missed our ring, by a hair.    

   The coach told us to be proud. We made it farther and further than ever before. Other teams that are favored over us? Are once again losing their giant stars to graduation. His betting on star freshmen is paying off. We're almost on top of our conference, and we're technically still building. Next year is our year.

   I ended up getting the courage to start making home made frames for Miss Moody's left behind artwork. I hung them around like they were things that should be in the Louvre. The one junk store, got me some dirt cheap little lights you put over paintings. You know the kind, looks all classy and stuff, and you can turn the room lights down and they look all dramatic and everything. Wiz converted them to small LED lights.

   With the season over, and the next season looking even better, life was good. I mean, we just missed winning the finals by a cunt hair, and we're favored even more next year. With the artwork up around the townhouse, Wiz got someone to "blow up" the best cell phone rendition of Moody's final toe painting on the floor of the abandoned building she killed herself in. I framed that, and gave it a prominent display position.

   So, I'll sum it up. Was my life and foreseeable future perfect? Hell no. No one, I don't think… has perfection. I mean, maybe? But the universe rarely hands out perfect lives. I've learned a lot, and I'm no longer like the rest of the herd, as if I ever was. I mean, as a herd member? I ran with the herd some, I stood apart at times though. Now? I could run with the herd, I could stand apart… but, now I was willing to go the exact opposite way the herd traveled as well.

   Wiz slowly infused me with his sense of… a lot of things. You don't notice it, it creeps up and into you, and takes hold. I think it's what he describes, that he picked up from the MP's and his zen mentor. I hope it is, anyways. The… glow he has, the light he has in his eyes, when he describes his precious codes he lives by. Guiding principles. A calm assurance, that when faced with a difficult challenge that questions his code and morality? He can pull back, put it into easily digestible pieces, and decide.

   He often enough lets me in on his decision making process, and I think its for my benefit.

   I now look at the beautiful people differently. After time spent talking frankly with Elise, I lost any "awe" I once held for rich and well connected people. Those seemingly perfect lives, those nice cars and plastic hair and smiles… could be masking a wholly terrible existence. Elise was born to be one of those women of leisure you see depicted on TV… and now I don't envy it, at all.

   Elise was lost, wondering why she wasn't happier, being born into what was supposed to be the American ideal. Rich, handsome men from simply the very best families, would all vie for her hand. They wanted to marry into that… the hell even was it, I guess some kind of undeclared minor royalty. And the prettier and better she was, some of them might even be of a higher caste of minor nobility.

   Then, "it" struck. Like it had struck poor Lightning. She hadn't been happy in her pretty princess dollhouse world in the first place, and this shattered it in an explosion. It? Is devastation. As if a volcano formed suddenly under your feet, and lava exploded and ran all around you, as far as the eye could see. If you lived through "it", you were almost unlucky. You woke up, a survivor, sure. But… with a hardened shell of rock on you, covering over a core of scar tissue. A car that hiccuped and backfired, and just didn't run right.

   Elise had her tomboy card from sport judo though. It bought her entrance when she ran away and forsook minor royalty. Get over "it", honey. You're embarrassing the family. No, the tomboy card allowed her to see what went on in the boys club. Like me, having seen both the girl's club and the boy's club? If you have any morality, you apply for your boy card.

   I didn't even have an "it" that devastated and drove me, and I felt it. Primed by my ultimate choice of joining the boys club and never wanting to go back, I felt what Elise felt. A taste of it, anyways. The magnetic gravity of the code, and living by it. True honor and dignity, that took at least a little bravery to wear. Being offered money or advantages, to do the wrong thing? You heard a little "tink" striking your armor. It protected you.

   Hell, no wonder I didn't grow up with rays of sunshine beaming out of my asshole every morning. I was the country bumpkin version of Elise. Minor farm royalty. A dirt princess. A taste of the code though, being exposed to it through Wiz? Mm. Then, seeing the rest of them gathering in, to help one of their own? Rallying the troops. Tasting more of that code and seeing what it does. If you have any streak of morality and right from wrong, you crave it.

   These code men? They must move around some and rub off on those around them that look up to them, wanting that sense of easy calm and assurance. Yeah, these code men were highly sought after. They inspired others around them, to do the right thing. When no one was watching. When it cost you to do the right thing, and you still did it. And all for just that smile, that nod. That warm touch on the shoulder… that holiest of pauses, followed by that simple "yeah".

   Karma, and it just is. Always, Wiz cautioned me. Its not religion. Religion is for people who are afraid of going to hell. This is philosophy and spirituality, its for people that have already been there. Elise, Little Lightning… they knew what hell truly was, to live in it. I felt inordinately lucky, to not have had to endure hell, to enjoy the taste of it. Wiz said if I ever encountered a disaster that left me in my own private hell, I had the basic tools to deal with it.

   God, what had his mentor been like. Him, his former MP allies… they were just the mere pupils. How truly great had the master even been? He had to have really been something. No robes, no temples, no incense… but the same core idea, the same self discipline. The same honor and dignity. When the master picked out pupils, for some of his sadly limited time? The others weren't jealous, they were proud. In some way, they looked up to Wiz and Elise. They had spent extended time with the master, and he was gone now.

   Looking back in my memory, I could see that now. Target, the consummate alpha. His alpha or alpha like allies all around him. Wiz, the mascot. But… because he was graced with extra time and training from the master's own hands and lips? Hey Wiz… what's Sun Tzu, and Machiavelli say about all this, huh?

   Translation. The master is gone, the oracle is lost. What do you think the oracle would say, your best guess.

   Elise, too. Hey guys… I work different. I look at things differently. Look at this my way… and they all sat at rapt attention, while one of the master's former chosen pupils imparted their take on things. The master was gone, they had but these two disciples left to ask what the master might have had for them now.

   This man must have been great. A sort of Christ for them. Wiz and Elise were some of his chosen Apostles. Christ, was gone now. We receive him through the chosen Apostles still here. They were all angels. Elise and Wiz, were some kind of archangels. Elise was actually the darkest and most terrible countenance among this legion of man angels. She was the Black Widow. She was the angel of death. If you were truly wicked? She came to your city, and hunted you down and killed you with no mercy whatsoever. She dipped her wings in your blood and flew off.

   If you weren't wicked? She treated you with protection and warmth and love. Wiz was the other kind. Seeming to be completely benign and benevolent, but he could become the same darkest wrath. Elise dealt mainly in bad karma, and was skilled at when bad karma had built up to too great a karma debt. Yet, she still exuded good karma at all other times. Wiz was again the opposite. All good karma, but he knew how to conjure up a big ball of bad karma and hurl it back at the person who was in arrears.

   That was who they were sending to Swellsville. The dead master's two apt pupils. Wiz's Swiss watch of intellectualism in his skull, Elise's magic gut. Both consecrated apostles of the dead master… yeah, they were trusted to make their own call. The risk of picking out and developing a confidential informant. A CI. Yes, it wasn't some accident those two were teaming up for these little forays into that town.

   He was diabolical in his own light handed way. He let the CI he recruited seem to form his own ideas and impressions, seemingly himself. When they were optimum for his purposes? He stopped and let the cookie cool. The dough arranged itself into the cookie cutter shape he wanted. Bake it just enough and let it cool. Perfect. He created his own chess piece, and put it on the board. He could obviously lie and lie by omission, convincingly and skillfully. He could positively drip with raw cunning and deception. But, only in that context. One of the master's motto's? By way of deception, thou shalt do war.

   I was inching closer to my own personal goals, and I could smell the prize. My first ring, my first championship. I shared that goal with Light, and she smelled and tasted it too. I had Light and Right under me, and now we all had a new freshman. Miss Moody's replacement. I watched over her like a hawk. She looked up to Little Lightning, she was in mild awe she was actually here, playing and starting with the Pride of the Midwest herself. She practiced with Light and Right, and Lightning even showed her how she developed what she had.

   Four years of that, on top of her freshman prowess starting? Yummy. Lightning's transformation was complete. She had started out an outcast, and got carried off the field at times now. Some teams want to outclass you, some teams want to just physically dominate you. Our coach had been building up with a long range plan to do both.

   Even with only flirting with a conference championship, and just missing it? I was groomed for co captain when the season started back up. The coach said to keep it a secret, but… I was his choice for captain after a year at co captain. He said he wanted adult leadership for once. I told him privately? Little Lightning was my pick for co captain soon. He agreed.

   The coach was giddy with excitement. Little Lightning's practice DVDs, and the accompanying "coaches only" DVD… was bringing him what he craved. There's very few women's soccer high school stars with any star appeal to the masses of possible recruits. No one knew who Szarabjorna Sturmer even was, but they knew Little Lightning. Little Miss Two Feet, the Pride of the Midwest. Girls that played were coming to visit the school, and asking to be looked at. Summer high school soccer camp requests? Were stacking up. The athletic director was giddy happy. That was money and prestige, and free recruitment opportunities.

   Our coach could spend less time driving around in the off season, hat in hand, begging to lure stars to commit. They were coming in as if attracted by gravity. A carload of girls drove in, and sniffed around, curious. They squealed and jumped around when they got to meet Little Lightning. I about died when one of them recognized me.

   "Oh my god… you're the Hurricane."

   "They call me Hurry. Its just… Hurry."

   They wanted cell phone pictures, and little cell phone videos of them fooling around with us in the yard. Lightning had put her arm around me in her practice video, and explained how scoring goals was great, but you needed one of these… a Hurricane. To protect you on the field.

   The girl that recognized me from the practice DVD, had a couple phone clips of me sending girls flying and in brawls. She didn't think before seeing Light's practice DVD, that a fullback like her could ever be a useful utility player at this big a school. She thought only "Little Lightnings" got to come here, she wouldn't have tried otherwise.

   The coach was getting what he craved. Bootsie was my other fullback, and she was graduating. If his next "Boot" could be more of a little Hurricane? He'd have two of us taking turns playing up when it was time to shift in and out. He explained to me, that if he could get three little Hurricanes, all decent utility players with size and speed? He wanted halfbacks that could both take turns playing up like I did, to spread my beating I took around. That could fall back to act more like fullbacks and let both me and the new "Little Boot" both get up and raise hell.

   He had what I had, dreams of starting and maintaining a dynasty. Getting on top, and staying there. If we took next year's conference championship, like we were being favored to? It would drive recruitment through the roof, and that would be it. The cycle if managed properly, could become self sustaining.

   Then, out at his house having dinner, he dared to finally speak of it. You win conference title? You get to go to the national playoffs. He admitted, he had no idea how we stacked up there. We could get blown out, we could do something, or get kicked out and sent home inside of three or four games with our first match up. But, that was the holy grail for college sports.

   You get to play indoors that late in the season. You get to play in the big, huge pro football stadiums in the host city that year. Your games get taped and televised. Our tron guys would get to go, our mascot would get to have a tape on broadcast. The athletic director would shit himself with joy, and the school would bend over backwards and throw more resources into women's soccer.

   I'd be co captain for that, captain if we followed up. I could get to see hurricane graphics and accompanying audio clip and hear what it was like to have tens of thousands of people roar. Little Lightning? Could go for a hat trick and be what she was always meant to be, a real star finally.

   But the real payoff? My soccer version of the… yeah. I'd get to participate in the dance. We had four of us now. Sunshine's replacement got dance lessons and participated when we did it. Me, Little Lightning, Right… and now we had our fourth. We had rules to it now. The one that scored the goal, and if one of us assisted? That was the inner two. The other two flanked. We were in perfect lock step under Light's easy instruction playing choreographer. Our lean angles were in time and on matching angles.

   The hell it would even be like, to be in the national playoffs, and get to do the Wizard of Oz dance on broadcast? I could only dream. The hometown fans loved it and expected it now. At away games? The announcers talked about it, and the away crowd even enjoyed it. On broadcast? We could maybe get a little clip of it make the national sports news.

   Its awesome and terrifying and exhilarating to have your dreams within your possible grasp, just out of reach but its there, if you can claw just a little more and grab a hold of it and keep it in your hands. If we could get there a couple times, make any kind of showing nationally at all of any kind? If I was co captain then captain for that… yeah. I could have a chance at being recruited to be an assistant coach at a major university, maybe end up a coach. We'd all be looked at. Even the backup players, would be sought after to be big high school coaches at Quad A high schools. Starters that weren't huge stars like Little Lightning? Could assistant coach or even coach at smaller colleges.

   My coach's unique style of playbook, could seed out and grow. We would be his disciples, sent out to do what he had done. We would bring knowledge of how to build properly and manage it competently.

   Wow. Was I dreaming too much? Wiz and his mentor. My self assessment sheet, to keep my own ego in check. I was seeing myself the big university coach, and Lightning as the assistant coach. It could just as easily end up the other way. It made sense. She had the name appeal, she had the bigger star power. I could end up her assistant coach, her the coach. And? I found I was fine with that scenario, too. That seemed to satisfy Wiz and his mentor's code.

   The new girl. Sunshine's replacement. You pick up your own nickname, if you don't bring big enough of one with you, like Little Lightning had. Everyone started calling her… Little Sunny and Sunny Junior. Then? Just Sunny.

   The announcers have little background talks at big games, when nothing else is going on. I could hear it almost.

   "See the coach? Don't you know who that is."

   "Actually, no. Sounds like you do, Bob. Let's hear it."

   "Tim? That's the Hurricane. Remember the Bloody Bridesmaids, that took over the big Midwest conference, and just dominated it? Everyone's scared to face the BBs in the national playoffs, nearly every year. That's one of the originals. She was the co captain and captain for several years, all through grad school. Her name wasn't just picked out of a hat to lead this program. You wonder where this fast style of automatic shifting play comes from? That's from her coach, that started it. And that's not the Hurricane anymore, that's Doctor Hurricane. She holds a doctorate in Psychology. If you coach high school women's soccer at a quad A school? You can do a lot worse than read her book. She not only shares the ins and outs of coaching, she explains the pitfalls and traps to avoid, to manage it. No, its no accident she's where she is right now."

   "Well, thanks for that, Bob. Whoa, the ref better watch yelling at the Hurricane, huh? Look at her, you don't realize how big she is, till you see her up against a normal sized guy. That's no delicate little flower down there."

   "No Tim, its not. I'm sure you've seen some of the old clips. They didn't call them the Bloody Bridesmaids for nothing, you know. All right folks, a quick word from our sponsors so we all know what beer and toothpaste to buy… and when we come back? We get to see how this fourth quarter goes…"

   You gotta have a dream. And if I don't get my dream? I still have a great practical reality to enjoy. Doctor Hurry and Doctor Wizzy, get married. I would like to maybe be a rape therapist, and publish if I could. If I published, I could maybe end up a psych professor at a university. And that would be pretty okay, too. My backup dream, was as yummy as the dream. I was going to have a great life, seemingly no matter what.

   The case was now entering the end game. Hell would come to breakfast in Swellsville. Then, I could go back to enjoying my life. The case had a great season, and we were in the playoffs. Bringing it to a successful close? A ring, and everybody wins on the team. Little Lightning, finally gets her revenge and justice. Wiz? Gets his satisfaction. That he let the universe mold him into what it wanted, then allowed it to place him right where it needed him to be.

   Elise got more… therapy, the only way she could now that worked for her. And Target and the other boys? Well, they got the same satisfaction Wiz got, but with an added thing for them. They had found and developed their own case, and brought it to a successful close. They used up no official resources, and on their own time had worked it up. In addition to the obvious personal satisfaction, they would get professional accolades. Probably promotions and added levels of responsibility. Higher ups would marvel at what had been done with no resources used up, on personal initiative. Those coaches? Would wonder what they could do with promotions and resources and official backing.

   Everyone wins. As soon as the summer break hits? The end game starts.