A Plot! A Plot! I Uncover a Plot!

I'm still trying to write an opera-lite about the current state of the world (the work starts here -- though it is a pleasure to read, not a work). Unfortunately, I have the attention span of a gnat. So I came up with a plot before I forget what the lite grand operetta is about.

First, I figure it needs love interests. So far I have two: love of power and self love bordering on lust. Also, it requires a prize that the contending parties can use to bring to fruition their love. It will be a metaphor for the brass ring, which itself is a metaphor for -- actually, I forget.

The Opera is set on the estate of Artful Shortseller, the world's richest man, where The Conference for Solving All the Planet's Problems in One Fell Swoop is being held.

The Mean Well (a type of wishing well) is located on the estate somewhere below the The Bell Curve Rainbow. All the colors of this rainbow have the same arc and all the characters in the opera tend to converge on the Mean Well, seemingly drawn there by an irresistible desire to be part of the group.

Now, The Mean Well is a Wishing Well but some call it an Ivy League PhD phdishing well, because of the significant differences. First, when you throw money into the well it takes a long time to land. It is said that one quarter will require five quarters to hit bottom, so you should expect the desired effects to be delayed. For in practice:

The mean well is a very deep well indeed.

Also, once you throw money down The Mean Well, you have to keep throwing money down The Mean Well, or bad things will happen. For in fact:

The Mean Well is a very mean well in deed.

Also, every wish requires the erection of a massive bureaucratic edifice before it can take effect. For in practice:

The mean well is a jobs program.

Those folks whose well meaning tributes are deemed inadequate will be sucked down into The Mean Well -- well below the mean of The Mean Well and well into the depths of The Mean Well. They are the lucky ones. For the mean part of The Mean Well will also unleash the Spirits of the Special Interests, which reside in the bureaus found in all rooms in Artful Shortseller's Mansion. These Spirits will guilt your pleasures and destroy your dreams and shrink your 401Ks and shorten your end of life care -- which you will shortly, and unexpectedly, require. Then they will tax away your children's inheritance. So once you start, you not only must keep throwing money down the Mean Well, but you most throw progressively more money down The Mean Well until your personal income catches the ever descending mean.

At the bottom of the well are gnomes who use the resources tossed down the well to finance real estates speculation, oil price spikes, assaults on the dollar and attempts to collapse the world financial system. They also do hair.

Now, some folks think that the treasure halls of the gnomes contain the great wealth of The Mean Well but this is not the case. The real object of desire is The Speech of Peace, which is hidden away in the Labyrinth at the base of The Mean Well. The Speech of Peace is known in the speech trade as The SOP -- the most powerful sop known to man (and woman, too!). Any politician of sufficient eloquence who acquires The SOP and can deliver The SOP will be awarded the title of "The Prince of Cool, The Ruler Formerly Known as a Politician." Using The SOP, this Prince can transcend politics.

Meanwhile, his top advisers will compete for the Machiavelli Prize.

Of course, there is a catch. First, any politician who acquires The SOP but who proves inadequate in its use will be utterly destroyed. And The SOP is well guarded by the gremlins who once possessed the Kremlin (and who still have many close contacts there). Of course, for purposes of the stage show, such a tremendous Prize requires a lot of song and dance to justify the quest involved in getting it. So the hearty party of questers sing:

We seek...
The Speech of Peace, The Prize of Peace!
As desirable and old as The Golden Fleece.
The Prize of Peace, The Speech of Peace!
More valuable, we're told, than a Peach of Gold.

A Peach of Gold but without The Pit.
You'll feel transported when you hear it.
With a Tinkle down your leg, and a tingle up your spine,
You'll feel sublime when you reach cloud nine.

The Speech of Peace, The Prize of Peace!
More desirable than a Greek's
Ratty "Old Yeller's" Fleece!
Which came from a dog that was killed by a hog
Or a rabid pooch that attacked from the fog.

OK, the lyrics still need work but I got the dance down. Three types of folks join the quest:

1. Those of high eloquence who want to acquire The SOP and deliver it to the multitude and exercise power through its legitimizing effect. They are accompanied by their chief advisers and major supporters.
2. Those that want to experience The SOP and be transported by The SOP. A lot of this second group die along the way and for purposes of the show they can be called the SAPS. SAPS is the acronym for "it's not important, everyone lies and dies, so let's move on."
3. Those shady characters who do not want to acquire the Speech of Peace, nor do they want to experience The Speech of Peace. Rather, they plan to stuff their ears with ceiling wax and take over the world while the speech is delivered.

Now, originally I wrote "sealing wax," then I thought: I've heard of waxing cars, but who would wax a seal? OK, maybe those people who wash seals with dish soap will wax them after, but I doubt it -- not with all those hair jells on the market. On the other hand, I have heard of floor wax, and from the existence of floor wax it is possible to deduce the existence of ceiling wax. And, of course, wall wax. But if their was seal wax, you would have to assume walrus wax, wouldn't you? And that is just silly.

Where was I? Oh. Right. Why don't they just use ear wax?

Where was I?

Right. I still need an ending. It will be a huge production number and if the cast does not meet the huge production number, they'll be shot.

Nemesis and the "Ironic Storm"

Originally I thought Al Insky might play the role of Nemesis in the Novel I'm working on. But I now see that Insky, as a speech writer and political hack, is not quite up to the Task. Oh, he thinks he is and he will try, but will fall short. He could play a "John the Baptist" role though -- preparing the way for the real deal.

I'm not finished working it out, but Nemesis will be a fellow who is called "The Duke of Siding" or just "The Duke." He gets his name from ripping aluminum siding off homes (to sell for scrap) in a rapidly declining working class neighborhood in a yet to be named steel town. This he does when he is quite young but not for long, since he is a upwardly mobile thug. The model for the Duke is The Count: Count Dracula. I notice an upsurge in interest in vampires (though they are never out of style for long) with some indication that, like sharks, vampires are misunderstood. According to legend, Dracula could not just enter your home: you had to invite him in. The Duke is handsome and charming (and some think him romantic) and like the Count he will take over your life -- but first you have to invite him in. And, yes, he is often misunderstood by people who think such a blood sucking creature is misunderstood.

I was working out the story of his early life when the Roman Polanski scandal bubbled up from the depths with his arrest in Switzerland. In the initial rehash of the case I heard that the 13 year girl was provided to Polanski by her mother, with sex more or less included in the package. Now I gather that was not the case. There was also the story of the Safe School Tsar who advised the 15 year old boy -- picked up by an older man in a men's room -- to use a condom when having sex. And then the Safe School Tsar exchanged knowing smiles when seeing the boy on campus. Keeping these news items in mind, I tried to keep the story of "The Duke's" early life real. What follows is my initial run at it.

Noble Gas

The Duke's Mother, who acquired the name Natalie, ran away from the circus when she was fourteen. Her own mother -- The Duke's grandmother -- was employed as a psychic card reader. All who knew her in her earlier life considered this an unlikely career choice. For the Duke's grandmother was descended, in a more or less straight line, from a man who made a fortune selling in the tropics that which God put in New England: namely, ice. He would ship the fresh frozen water in Sailing vessels to a warm place where it would melt, and, while melting, cool and help preserve food. It was rumored the original entrepreneur brought slaves back, smuggling them into the South. This was a charge made when his descendants entered politics after the Civil War.

Natalie's birth name was Natal, which her mother insisted be pronounced like the province in South Africa. Why she would name her daughter after an African province is lost to memory and, perhaps, reason as well. Level heads -- which both sides of the family produced in abundance -- insisted on calling the baby "Natalie." The mother, despite an initial display of determination, yielded to the leveling effects of so much levelheadedness and settled on calling her child Nat and, other times, Midge.

She found life with her banker husband boring -- monotonously boring, is how she put it -- and divorced him when Natalie was eleven. Some picketers had showed up outside her suburban home to condemn the business practices of her husband, and, to relieve her boredom, she went out and talked to them and provided refreshments. The lead picketer engaged in what was known in the business as "consciousness raising" and her consciousness rose to the point where she was introduced to "Old King Saul" -- the king of the community organizers, who was not so old then. Charmed, she gave him a nice donation to the cause. It was through her new circle of friends that she met, and took as a lover, the Chief Juggler at the circus that was then touring the area. It was his job to not only perform his own juggling routine, but to supervise the juggling of everyone else. He was also the accountant.

The cause of the divorce was her husband's infidelity. This was somewhat ironic, since she kept the lover. She had no proof of his infidelity until he was seduced by a double-jointed trapeze artist. She got a generous settlement and took their daughter, Nat, with her when she joined the chief juggler's traveling show. She had always known she had psychic abilities but it was not until she was at the circus that these became fully developed. She could predict events that had already occurred. She would meet perfect strangers, deal out the cards, and say, "You have recently experienced a fire...or a plumbing leak...o-r-r something lost, o-r-r stolen, o-r-r, perhaps, some other difficulty?" Quiet often -- in fact almost always -- they would answer yes. So often, in fact, that it could not be dismissed as mere coincidence -- at least by her.

Though it is true that the Duke's Grandmother had found life in the suburbs with her banker husband monotonously boring, such was not the case for her daughter. Natalie had found it settled and safe. But she was just a child, and what did she know? Given time, she too would have become bored. Life in the circus spared Nat that fate. Still, after sailing along in tranquil waters, she suddenly found herself on a storm tossed sea, so it is understandable if the whole affair made her disoriented and nauseous. Children are quite adaptable, it is said, and perhaps one of her adaptations was running away from the Circus. This she did after her mother had several more children through the good offices of the Chief Juggler.

In a sense, life in the Circus prepared her for life on the streets. She had lost her virginity when twelve -- numerous times, in fact, just to make sure (during the final instance her partner caught the clap) -- and when she ran away it was into the arms of a boyfriend. They engaged in petty crimes and when they were caught she was sent to live with her banker father rather than her circus mother (at that time there was still residual prejudice against circuses in the child welfare system). Now it was Natalie who found the suburbs boring. She despised her father and stepmother without needing to analyze why. She was intelligent, and despite a rather spotty education during her circus years, did well in high school. She was a tough girl and those boys who looked for her heart of gold soon discovered it wasn't.

She even spent a four years, more or less, in college where she became half-educated. There she learned -- or thought she learned -- that the sins of the father are indeed past down to the sons, from the first to the latest generation. This original sin was countered by an original grace that flowed down the maternal line like Mitocondrial DNA, unchanged since Eve -- the original seductress of man and wielder of the power of the Earth Mother. There she learned to channel her undefined resentments into an undefined righteous anger. If she were a nation, and there is a sense in which she had become one, her policy towards the rest of the world -- starting with her own country -- would best be described as "revanchist." Revenge.

University life bored her. She left school and went to work in a strip club where her biker boyfriend was the bouncer. It was said she nicely filled out a Harley shirt. On their nights off they would go out clubbing. They would go to bars where she would often provoke fights between the guys to keep her boyfriend in practice, and then join in herself. So their night out clubbing actually involved clubbing.

Her boyfriend got arrested for dealing cocaine. It was said that he died quite peacefully in a prison hospital after choking on a sharpened spoon and falling into a prolonged coma. Somewhere in there Natalie became pregnant with Duke and settled down to be a mother.

By this time her own mother had joined the peace corps. After her tour of duty ended she traveled the world lecturing on sustainable development while living off a trust fund her parents had set up. Later a portion of this money would come to Natalie, but for the time being she was on her own.

2.
When the Duke was twelve years old he had an affair to remember with his sixth grade teacher. But in truth he was not a virgin when he first met her.

The Duke and his mother were family and dependent child, according to government definition, and therefore qualified for government aid. Natalie thought the allotment rather meager and engaged in prostitution to make ends meet. But as she grew older, the ends grew further apart and became harder to pull together. Still, the Duke was always well dressed and presentable when he went to school.

And presentable at home as well. Now it so happened that during his eleventh year of life, and just before he turned twelve, one of his mother's many "boyfriends" regarded Duke, who was big for his age, with what is best described as an aspirational gaze. A few days later, when Duke sat at the table eating, the friend, whose name was Peter, came over and massaged the boys shoulders, plunging his fingers into the muscles of the neck and arms. This his mother told her son to tolerate until she told the man to stop. Then, on the boy's birthday, Pete gave him a video game.

A few days later his mother walked in on Duke when he was preparing to masturbate and told him to "hold off on that." It was not a particularly awkward scene. When he was a baby his mother would masturbate him to get him to stop crying. When she was in college she had read of this technique -- used by such and such a tribe on such and such an island that was part of such and such an archipelago found in one of the world's oceans -- in a book on anthropology. It was presented in such nonjudgmental terms that she interpreted it, perhaps mistakenly, as an approved method. Regardless, it seemed to produce better results then the second hand "clock-work swing" which had, in any case, broke. As she rubbed his boyhood he stopped crying, looked a bit confused, and then smiled. She bonded with her baby at that moment. He was, she reflected, a male. She carried on with this child rearing method for number of months, until he learned how to do it himself. Of course she didn't just beat him off. Sometimes she would beat him up.

On this day, at the start of his twelfth year and as he was preparing to masturbate (without her help, it should be said), his mother stopped him. "You're getting to old for that," she said. Now, if the boy knew he could outgrow masturbation, he would not have so looked forward to his twelfth birthday. She looked him over. He still wore his underpants, and she judged he had nice butt.

For months she'd encouraged him to exercise. She even bought him weights and got his "father" (one of the men who may have been his real father) to stop over and instruct him in their use. She deliberately kept the boys parentage obscure. As part of her education, Natalie had read of a lost tribe (though they did not think of themselves as lost) in the rain forests of the Amazon basin in which murder was the leading cause of death among children. Apparently, having a number of men believe they were the likely father improved the chance of a child making it to adulthood, since it would have more protectors among the males. Natalie contrived to improve her own child's chances in a similar manner. It was insights like these that kept her love of learning -- or rather half learning -- alive.

She was pleased with the initial results of her boys exercise routine. She also exercised and was something of a health fanatic. Besides, even though she was a large and tough lady she wanted a little extra muscle to help keep her clients in line.

She told Duke to put on clean underwear, because she was going to find him someone to help him with his masturbation problem. She gave him a nice shirt and pants to wear, too. Then she brought him into the kitchen and sat him down to wait. Soon, her friend Pete showed up and she said, "Here's the help I promised you."

Pete wore a smile, but it hardly disguised his desire. "Right," said Pete, "I'll help you with that little problem of yours."

"For a boy his age," his mother pointed out, "he's not so little." She told Duke to stand up. Since his mother was the only person in his life he really feared (plenty of people feared his various "fathers," but Duke was not among them) he did as he was told. He saw the look in the man's eyes. There was longing, excitement and hunger there. It was not the first time Duke had been looked at in that way -- and it wouldn't be the last -- but this would be the first time he understood the significance.

His mother wanted to show him off a bit. "You got nothing to be shy about," she said, "You're good looking." His mother gave him precise instructions. When to walk, and when to turn. When to undo his belt buckle and his pants buttons and lower the fly and spread open the front of his pants. "Let him see the package, but keep the underwear on."

Pete tried to conceal his interest but failed miserably.

His mother had Duke pull his pants back up. She sent the man out of the kitchen, and then counseled the boy. "Don't you worry, Honey. All he's going to do is help you whack off. It is just a friend helping a friend and grateful for the chance to be of help. That is all that's going on." He didn't much analyze the logic content of what she said. His mother could be vicious or charming or Socrates or Sophocles, whatever helped her get her way. As she left the kitchen, she thought to add one further stipulation. "While we're gone, honey, don't start jerking off." She knew males had only so much in them, for all their bluster, and she didn't want him wasting any of his.

The man must have quickly acceded to her demands because they were soon back, caring a few towels, a bowl and some lotion. His mother supervised Dukes unveiling, while she and the man discussed the boy as if he were a marble statue. But of course there was a difference, and that difference is what peaked the man's interest. His mother had the boy sit in a chair on top a towel and hold onto the arm rests. "All he's going to do," she told Duke, "Is what you would do." As the man applied the lotion he asked Duke if he enjoyed the video games. Duke said he did. They even discussed it for a minute. Then the man gave Duke's boyhood a good squeeze and said, "This is what I call a joy stick." The two of them laughed at the joke and so did Duke. "This is no longer a wee-wee," Peter said, and then he made a sound like he was on a thrill ride, "It's a whee! Whee!" The man leaned in towards Duke but his mother gave him a shove back. She set the conditions for this encounter and remained on hand to enforce them. Apparently Pete was not allowed to grab Duke's ass because when he did she slapped him on the back of the head. She laughed and joked as she did so, but Duke saw a good deal of contempt on her face. Her presence made Duke nervous even if she was there to protect him. The boy need do no more than sit in the chair and watch the man masturbate him, but he would much rather take care of 'the chore" himself.

It turned into a rather protracted affair, and Duke thought the guy might get bored with the help he was giving but he showed no sign. His mother grew restless. Though she didn't leave the room she started doing the dishes, which struck Duke as peculiar behavior on her part. Peter took the opportunity to tell Duke that he was not just handsome, but gorgeous. "And you have a Buddha like smile," he said. Duke like hearing that. But the man leaned in to close and his mother came over and smacked him with a large wet dish sponge. Then she saw the man playing with himself when he should be masturbating Duke. Apparently that was not part of the agreement. So she smashed the dirty sponge into his face until he fell back on the floor. He did not resist. He wanted to get back to helping Duke but his mother had lost Patience and told the boy to finish up himself. She let Pete watch, though, and after Duke ejaculated the man cleaned him up using a wet towel. Then she had the man finish cleaning the kitchen, since he had interrupted her before she finished the job.

She took Duke out into the living room. "He's not so bad," she said, in a voice dripping with contempt. "Remember, that weren't sex. That were just a friend helping another friend and grateful for the chance." She let Duke play with the other joy stick, the one that came with the video game, and she went back in the kitchen and hollered some at the man, and probably collected the agreed sum and got some more besides, since Duke took longer, and, in truth, was longer, than she had anticipated. Then she kicked Pete out of the house, perhaps literally. Duke thought she would have sex with the guy, because he didn't see why Pete would be satisfied with helping Duke when he could help his mother, too. Of course his mother got something out of it, but it didn't occur to him that she might get more for Duke than she would for herself. As far as he could tell, she never had sex with Pete again.

Duke's mother had decided months before that Duke would have a bright future making gay pornography. Any guy with good sized dick can make a stag film, in her way of thinking, but gays don't just look at the package, they look at the entire package. And that is what her son would have, the entire package: Tall, handsome, and strong. It was more of a long range plan, until she noticed that one of her regular Johns had fallen for her boy. She decided to use him to bring the boy along. And the fact that Duke was still, technically, a boy (but an adult in some cultures) meant that the penalties for their interactions were great and the rewards, therefore, commensurately greater.

After sending the man on his way, she again told Duke to stop jerking off. "You're too big for that now," she said. "Save it. Believe me, there are a lot of people who'll be happy to help you out. Grateful for the chance."

The next day Natalie explained to Duke that receiving oral sex was no closer to having sex than masturbation. "I think you will enjoy it more than the hand job, but a blow job ain't so different. It's just a friend helping out a friend. It ain't no bother. He's happy to help." Sure enough, Pete showed up and, after some preliminaries, gave Duke fellatio while his mother looked on. At first it was quite awkward and uncomfortable for the boy. Natalie told Duke that the man was there to serve him. "Tell him what you want," she said. Duke thought Pete was doing just fine, at least compared to that hour he spent masturbating Duke. But his mother whispered a few commands in Duke's ear and when Duke told the man what to do, the man did it. And for the first time in his life, Duke felt powerful.

One time Natalie had heard it said of Julius Caesar, Emperor of all Ancient Rome, that he was every woman's man and every man's woman. She forgot most everything about Julia Child Caesar, even got his name wrong, but she remembered that. This was not what she wanted for her boy. She wanted her boy to be every woman's man and every man's man, too. If he could do that-- or even come close -- she figured an empire, of some sort, would follow. Of course, she reasoned from a selection of data points that would not necessarily lead to the correct conclusion.

A few days later his mother told Duke that it was OK for a boy to have sex with a man "as long as the boy is the man and the man is a bitch." She further explained, "In that case you are no longer a boy. You are a man fucking a bitch. Even if he's a man, he's a bitch and a whore." In fact, she made it sound like a rite of passage or a coming-of-age ceremony. If Duke did what she told him to do it would make him the man at the same time it made the man a bitch. It was surer to make a man of the boy than downing a shot of whiskey -- though it would not make him an adult or give him leave to drink whiskey (she didn't want a drunk boy on her hands). When her Pete showed up, she once again stayed in the room, both to provide instruction and to make sure the bitch did not decide to become the man, which she thought might ruin her boy and spoil her plans.

So there was hardly even a hand shake or a hug between Pete and her boy. It was just Duke using Pete to get his rocks off, which, as his mother pointed out, he would have done in any case, but now his mother was offering advice while taking pictures.

By then she referred to Pete as "the cumbucket," though she was too polite to use the term when her "saltpeter" was around. She did call him "my saltpeter" -- and used it like a term of endearment. "Saltpeter honey" did not sound appetizing to Duke, but it didn't seem to bother her or Pete (Duke still thought of him as Pete). She heard that saltpeter -- the mineral compound -- was an ingredient in gun powder and fire works and got used up in the process of detonation. Also, she knew saltpeter could curb the erections of horny boys, and she certainly had one of those on her hands. She did not want her son having sex out in the street -- which she suspected he had already done, despite her precautions (actually, she had got hold of him just in time). Also, she heard of a species of matriarchal chimpanzees, bonobos by name, who used casual sex between all the sexes -- even between children and adults -- to eliminate stress and relieve feelings of aggression and thus promote harmony. So, all in all, she thought it fortunate she found saltpeter to help relieve the boys tensions and aggressions and erections, and that saltpeter was so hungry for the trade.

She used different friend's darkroom to develop the pictures and put them in a family album to document the proceedings. She showed the photos to her saltpeter, and he said they had come out well. When she took the photographs, saltpeter had not objected, which had not surprised her -- after all, he was in the throes of desire at the time. But her son was not now in the room, and she expected saltpeter to show more concern when confronted with photographic evidence of his quite disgusting behavior -- with the penance being a long, and highly unpleasant, stay in a penitentiary. Instead, he asked for copies which, of course, she was not willing to provide.

Later, as Duke engaged with the "cumbucket," and proceeded with the preliminaries, she became distracted as she thought of why saltpeter might want copies of the photographs she took. She thought of all the possible uses she might put them to if she were him, including a kind of reverse extortion. This was perhaps the one case of empathy -- at least on her part -- in their relationship. As she had these thoughts, she became both concerned, angry and distracted. That's why she was not listening when Pete sneaked a few words in during the preliminaries. He looked up at the boys face and said, "I would like to reach you." Duke thought that a peculiar thing to say, since Peter had not only reached the boy, but was practically inhaling him.

Natalie's deep thoughts explain why she wasn't watching when Pete's fingers rubbed Duke's glutius maximus as he performed fellatio on the boy. Duke guessed what Pete was up to, that he was about to slip his fingers into Duke's "private place," which his mother had previously indicated was not part of the contract. But Natalie wasn't paying attention, so Duke acted in this matter. He moved Pete's hand from his butt to his thigh, and then grabbed the hair on the top of Pete's head and pulled on it until he opened his mouth to yelp. Fortunately, Pete did not bite down (it did not occur to Duke that he might do something like that) nor did the man seek to remove the boys hand from its grip on his hair. When Duke released the pressure, Pete went back to his duties and kept his hand in the safe zone. This is as it should be. After all, Duke's body was his own. And, he began to realize, so was Pete's.

His mother's attention was attracted by the yelp. She looked at Pete with a great deal of hostility and suspicion. She sped up the process of intercourse. She had Pete put the condoms on Duke (which Pete enjoyed doing). Duke's ma understood that sex between two men was safer than sex between a man and a woman (at least that is what she gleaned from the public service ads she saw on TV and in magazines) but she wasn't taking any chances, hence the condoms. Under her supervision the pair got quickly to it. She had Pete bend over and guide the pubescent youth's penis to the opening of the anal canal and hold the penis there as the boy worked it into Pete's private place, which was no longer so private. Only a thin layer of latex prevented Duke from leaving a bit of himself there 20 minutes later.

Which seemed much longer to his mother. When Duke finally finished with Peter, his mother didn't give Peter a chance to recover. She began demanding more money from him. She wanted what she thought the pictures would bring, and was sure Pete planned to trick her out of it by acting unconcerned about the extortion. Pete refused to provide the bonus, but not very convincingly.

However, Natalie seemed convinced. She picked up a glass and smashed it across Pete's face. The glass broke without cutting her hand -- she had slipped on some gloves to be safe -- and she used the shattered end to stab him several times, inflicting what is commonly called "defensive wounds." A couple of quick punches and he fell to the floor like a sack. Natalie ordered the boy to kick and stomp the man. Duke was a bit taken aback by this. On the previous occasion, Pete removed the sheath and kissed the boy's penis and then cleaned him up. But his mother had skipped the cool down, and the boy felt a bit awkward kicking Pete since the sex (and apparently it was sex) had not quite ended. His mother gave him a few smacks to encourage him.

Pete was on the ground sobbing and pleading but Duke realized his mother was right: the "cumbucket" could take a lot more punishment than she had delivered. The boy had a lively and curious mind, and he decided to find out how much Pete could handle, and warmed to the task. In fact, at that moment he realized he had never liked the man, but as a customer of his mother's he had always acted in a polite and proper manner towards him. But now the cool turned to burning anger, as quickly as flicking a switch. Soon his mother, with some difficulty, pulled him off. "That's enough. He still got to get the money."

By then Duke wanted to finish him. But Natalie wouldn't allow it. She told him to go take a shower. The boy refused to leave his mother alone with the man, even if he wasn't much of a threat to her. "If that cock sucker gives you any trouble," the boy screamed in anger, "I'll punch down his throat and rip his guts out!" His mother was now the voice of reason, though his righteous anger pleased her. Natalie did believe that sex relieves feelings of aggression, but she also knew aggression relieves feelings of aggression. In fact, in her experience, aggression worked better than sex. Still, she thought to protect Pete. "Calm down, take a shower," she told her boy. When she got him to the bathroom she gave him a bit of advice. "You need to handle people with care. If I let you, you'd have killed him." Natalie had once killed a man. He was drunk and she was sober and had just raised the price and he pulled a knife and she took it off him and used it on him with enthusiasim. But then she had to clean up after and dispose of the body (she needed help from her biker boyfriend for that) and the whole time regretted doing it. But years later, when she realized she would not be caught, she thought it had worked out for the best. Still, she offered advice to her boy. "You need to exercise judgment in these matters." Duke could tell she was only mildly upset. Otherwise she'd be beating him. She told him, "Ain't there a song, The Punishment fits the Crime?" She thought that funny. "That means you don't just kill people who get in the way. You handle them with care. You consider the ramifications. Genghis Khan didn't go straight for the city, he torched the countryside. He considered the ramifications. Take a shower and play with your joy stick." She meant the video game, and that he should play with it after he took the shower. She wondered what kind of advice Genghis Khan's mother gave him.

She went back to Pete. She half expected him to be crawling after Duke, he'd become so attached to the boy. But the man was still on the floor, groaning. "Boys will be boys," she said.

Pete was a wuss. He would not have even talked to her boy without her encouragement. But she saw what he secretly wished for, and she was hardly responsible for what other people wish for. She had gone to a parochial elementary school, and they taught her to be careful what she wished for -- be careful about what you covet. But she had not been careful and dreamed of a happy, prosperous and boring suburban life (an actual, and she now realized inordinate, desire) but was soon sorely -- quite sorely -- disappointed. Now she kept a look out for people who were not careful about their wishes.

She had told Pete she wanted his help bringing out the real man in the boy. She didn't want the boy to be ashamed of the way he was on account of the unreasoning prejudices of the people around him, her own included. That was about all the persuading Pete needed. She set strict boundaries for the encounters and they quickly agreed on a price (though they called it a college fund -- Nat had in mind a much nicer college than Pete). So far she thought Pete had been a real help, both financially and emotionally -- though perhaps not quite in the way Pete himself had expected -- with Natalie financially flush and the boy becoming emotionally detached.

She helped Pete up off the floor and took him into the Kitchen and allowed him to clean himself up a bit and helped him get dressed. He agreed to get the extra money for her and she agreed to be bit more patient.

She was experienced in these matters and the stabs were just her way of telling Pete not to fight back. She could have easily stabbed him twenty more times, if she wanted. She clobbered him a good one, but only to put him on the ground. That was quicker, and more effective, than asking. If she had asked, it would have led to more arguing and more stabbing and she wanted him down, quick. The boys first kicks were, in truth, pathetic -- maybe the sex put him off his game but you got to be prepared for whatever comes your way. He showed a lot of promise at the end, though, but then was ready to go over board, which ain't good either. That's the way with men: too little or too much. Her own, much more legitimate (in her opinion) irritation with Pete was taken care of by smacking him with the glass. She proceeded quite rationally from that point to turn it into a teachable moment for her son, who at times seemed a bit too easy going.

Now that Pete agreed to come up with the money, she decided he wasn't so bad. Besides, he was helping her raise her son so she did not want to dispose of him, at least not yet.

The Ironic Storm

I'm working on a Novel called The Ironic Storm but lately I have been working more at work and less on the book. However, with the onset of cold weather, I hope to get back to it. I am posting the first draft and that is but my first excuse.

Chapter One is here.

Chapter Two is here.

Chapter Three is here.

Chapter Four is here.

Chapter Five (part one) is here

Chapter Five (part two) is here

The Rest of Chapter Six

The first part of Chapter Six dealt with the back-story of Al Insky and Bill Haley (the President and his Machiavelli in "The Harbinger of Change") and Greg Strasser's minion, Sandy (in Flexi). Sandy may be making plans of her own, and could make the leap from minion -- but to what?

With this installment I begin to toggle back and forth between the town in Ohio where people fight for survival and a series of meetings in Washington, DC, where they fight for advantage. The first meeting is used to provide some context in the greater world for the events described.

The Mighty

Pirate would have heard the warning sounds if he kept the windows down as Rod instructed. But a few minutes after leaving the buried tractor trailer and the body of its forlorn driver, Pirate raised the windows on the snogo to sneak a little heat, and punched a CD into the music player. Distracted, he only saw the ice monster, the soul robber of snow fields, as it pounced. The Wide Winged Beast, this crusher of mortals, bounded from among the drifts, blasting through the tops of the the buried trees -- clanking and snarling as it pounced, wide tracked, on the slow snogo Pirate drove. Pirate shifted the converted SUV into second gear as he accelerated, spinning the steering wheel right through the steering inhibitors of recent design. The vehicle spun out of its makeshift tracks and into a shallow chasm in the snow -- a snogo no mo' but out of the clutches of the beast.

The windows were up and buried in the snow. But Pirate could, if he took his coat off, skinny through the sun roof or try the rear hatch with his coat on. He climbed over the two cases of frozen Pizza and the tool box and shovel toward the rear hatch.

But he stopped. He heard foot steps in the snow outside. And then a voice, tentative and inquiring, "You OK."

"I'm suffering Post Traumatic Stress Disorder-ly, ah, conduct! And it was your conduct that was disorderly." Pirate liked the world to know when it caused him stress. "And if OK is being buried alive in a glacier, I'm OK."

"You exaggerate," said Rod.

"What the hell you doing here anyway."

"I came looking for you."

"Well, I ain't found until I'm out of here."

"I'll dig out the back a bit and you can come out that away."

Pirate heard steps go and come back. He wanted to harangue Rod but Rod was a stoic and wouldn't harangue back. He would just absorb the harangue like a black hole sucking in matter. It would make him heavier, too, adding weight and gravity to his moroseness. Rod took things personal, and would act wounded and then Pirate would have to apologize but that wouldn't be enough. And then Rod would be there, Obese in his moroseness, which he would wear like a fat suit. Besides, a harangue would make Rod dig slower and cause Pirate to be stuck inside longer. On the other hand, a good harangue would pass the time nicely. Finally, Pirate compromised by crawling up front and putting the music on. Whatever this music was it was lousy music, some screechy, angry girl, not at all like lady Rose, who he now kind of missed and who bellowed like a woman, not some ditsy girl angrily screeching out lyrics that should have been done like a polka -- the My Guy's a Bug polka. So Pirate turned it back off. About that same time the back hatched popped open.

Pirate was set to climb out but Rod began climbing in. "I hope you don't want to cuddle," said Pirate.

"Ah-huh!" said Rod. "You broke the steering limiters."

"Inhibitors," corrected Pirate. "I broke the steering inhibitors. I'm an uninhibited guy. Besides, it was either that or death. What the hell is that thing you're driving? You were driving it, right?"

"Oh, that?" said Rod. "That's the Cold Rod. It's like a hot rod--"

"Only, Cold! Ain't it kind of vain, naming it after yourself?"

"It ain't named after me," Rod said, modestly. "Why don't you straighten out the steering wheel and turn the snogo off. It's going to melt its way down to China."

Pirate realized the snogo's engine still ran. He straightened out the steering wheel and turned off the ignition before climbing out.

The cold rod was a white four-wheel drive pick-up truck perched on top of four pairs of tracks -- one pair for each wheel. The tracks stuck out beyond the front and back end of the truck above, and stuck out on each side as well. The truck wheels didn't have tires, but instead gears that linked into other gears that reached down between the tracks to drive them. The truck was grimy, but the same light gray as the snow. But the tracks and metal below were brown, black, and dark gray, while the driver's cab windshield was the navy blue of a cyclops' eye. "The cold rod has articulated steering," said Rod. "As it moves, hydraulics can nudge the front tracks to the right or left. It's got a high steering radius. So you got to think in terms of curves, rather than angles. So it's not real articulate."

"Inarticulate," Pirate corrected. He thought Rod might be trying to make a joke and, being a nice guy, Pirate thought he'd help. "Us articulate people call it 'inarticulate.' That's not meant as a criticism, by the way, leveled by an articulate guy against the other sort. However, in this case inarticulate steering may not be the right term. I'd call it, let's see, stutter steering."

"Stutter steering," said Rod, with a precisely measured packet of mirth. "Stutter steering, that's good."

Rod tried to pull something he identified as "the sled" off the back of his truck -- or Cold Rod, as he called it. It was a predominately flat piece of wood and plastic. Pirate thought it only proper he help, and grabbed one side. Once they had it positioned, Rod took a cable and hooked it up to the SUV and quickly had it out of the shallow snow chasm, and took a look at it. "The tracks held up OK. They didn't slip off until you broke the steering limiters."

"Inhibitors," Pirate corrected.

"Point is, it was driver error."

"What you mean by driver error?"

Rod paused, while his mind retrieved the mechanics definition of the term. Pirate didn't want to hear it. "Ain't it Ironic," he said, as he allowed Rod to return to work. "There are two vehicles on the road in all north Ohio and they get in a wreck in the middle of a farmer's field. Explain that one to the insurance agent."

"When you alter the vehicle enough," said Rod, as the power winch pulled the snogo/SUV onto the sled, "You are no longer covered under your old policy."

"They are still licensed vehicles," said Pirate.

"Licensed for what?"

"You mean," Pirate mused, "We are operating outside the law? Floating above the regulations? But without permission?"

Rod worked rather than mused. As he lashed the Snogo to the sled he said. "Go on. Get in the cab of the Cold Rod and get warm. I'll be done in minute."

"It's Monster Ice, not Cold Rod," Pirate corrected. "The Monster Ice Tracked...The Monster Ice Tracked Incisor, we'll call it Mighty!"

"Incisor? Isn't that like a tooth?"

"Tracked...tracked engine. Monster Ice Tracked what I said. Mighty."

"Wouldn't that be MITE? As in tiny insect--or maybe an expression of probability? Might be this. Might be that."

"Mighty! We are going to pronounce it Mighty. It don't matter what the acronym is, see? No more acrimony about acronyms! We can always stick in something to give it the sound of 'why?' at the end. Or is it e?" Pirate was about to give up on naming things. It seemed like mind stretching work, at least with Rod around. "Well, one thing I learned: you can work and be picky at the same time. You driving?"

"Damn straight I'm driving."

Pirate found getting into Mighty mighty difficult. That is because the cab of mighty was mighty high -- the High and Mighty Command Cab, as it were. He first got onto the front passenger side pair of tracks, but found he could not open the door and stay on the tracks. Then he got on the back pair and found he couldn't open the door. So he got off the tracks to open the door and found he was sinking into the snow, which began to give way under him and soon got in his boots. So he got back on the front pair to open the door and on the back pair to climb in. Only it was more of a stretch and a crawl to get off the rear track and into the cab and as he did it he realized how tired he was. It took Pirate so long to get in that Rod got in at almost the same time.

Rod put his seat belt on, so Pirate did the same. "The wide tracks make it stable," said Rod, "as long as the snow crust don't give way under it." He put it into gear. "The gear ratio is altered a bit. Normally, you start this baby out in second. But since we're pulling a load, I'll start in first." Rod directed mighty along Pirates old track for a bit and then veered off, following the track that Mighty had put down earlier. They crossed Brood Creek, which emptied into the lagoon on the lake, using a bridge which had snow piled on top between the bridge supports. The Mighty had busted through before, and just barely passed under the central support beam. On the other side of the bridge there was a deep dip in the landscape of snow and the track led under some utility wires and then came out near the bank of the creek. Pirate briefly feared that the sled with the snogo attached mighty slide down the bank and into the creek. But Rod seemed unconcerned. He was near his garage and handy to equipment that could handle most challenges he would encountered. For him any screw up would just provide more enjoyment. He was the sort that could finish one crossword puzzle and immediately start another. Pirate felt one should savor one's accomplishments for a while, or for a long while -- depending on the accomplishment.

They dropped off the snogo on a snow platform by Rod's garage and then Rod told Pirate they had an errand to run. Pirate wanted to get back and take a nap but he was trapped into going along.

Rod took the Mighty down a trail someone had marked for him. Fairly soon they came to the farm field with the cattle grazing on the hay the farmer had dug out. It was, in fact, the same field Pirate and Fred had commented on earlier. Rod and Pirate used the power winch to drag hay bundles out from under snow and position them so they could be accessed after the next series of storms. Then they loaded a hay bundle onto the sled, apparently by way a payment (though Pirate did not know what use Rod would have for the hay) to drag it back to Brood.

Just before they left, Pirate spotted Paul's Party returning from the Industrial Park. They were on the other side of the valley, across both Brood creek and the smaller Indian Run that had done in the truck and driver. So Pirate tried to yodel like an alpine goat herder, to get their attention. And he yodeled again, but not very well, all and all. Still, they looked his way. And someone called back. "Is that Pirate?" And Pirate heard it and called back, "sure is. It's Pirate!" And it felt good, in that moment, to be alive and tired.

2.
The first meeting was about to get underway in Washington and Sandy still had much to do to produce her presentation for the next day. Greg had only given her the most general idea of what he wanted and it was a sure thing he'd come back and throw whatever she produced into the shredder. Then again, he might not since he might use it even though he told here he wouldn't. One thing was sure, he certainly was not above keeping her guessing.

It wasn't until she got on the plane that she got a good idea of his plans. Apparently the government was set to write off what was formerly known as "The Great Lakes Region" as well as much of the Northeast. Greg saw no reason to let everything contained in those regions go to waste. So he had gone back to the ancient maritime notion of "Salvage." Basically, if you find it and can put it to use, it's yours.

Sandy was writing provisions to stick in the bill that had just past the Interim Congress the day before. It was growing at the rate of 2,000 pages of thick legal language a day, so no one had time to read it. It was estimated that by the end of the next week it would reach 36,000 pages -- which seemed quite enough for the time being. In fact it never would take final form, with additional pages added on a whim. But not just any whim: Al Insky's whim. He controlled the official word processor of the Interim Congress. It was an ancient model that would be hard to hack. To Al it was an updated version of Clay Tablets, where "The Living Laws" of the Interim Congress were kept and could only be tampered with by a select few. These laws may be prepubescent now, but promised a robust and romping adolescence leading, in turn, to a deep voiced and well hung adulthood. Insky saw it all quite clearly.

Al sat at the head of the round table, around which the Principles -- or at least the principle Principles -- were gathered. The principle staff of the principle Principles were aligned behind like a pyramid -- with the main guy at the top. And Sandy noticed they were all guy guys and none of them girl guys. Apparently, the Secretary of State was somewhere in Africa, the Secretary of Education was touring a school, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development was stuck in New Orleans and the Secretary of Health was in the hospital -- perhaps sick, perhaps visiting, perhaps touring -- after a botched abortion or perhaps many -- whose botched abortion and how many and who done the botching, Sandy did not know. In any case, she was glad these women were not there since other woman invariably ganged up on her and she didn't need that.

Sandy sat immediately behind Greg and was one of the few women of any rank in the room. Even the menials providing the extra chairs and filling glasses with water were male. Apparently, this is what results from feminists supporting chauvinist for high office: a lady sandwich. The wet and soggy bottom bun was mostly men -- most of whom seemed reconciled to their new, step-n-fetch lot in life. Then women dominated the middle ranks with a layer of men -- ivy league macho types, for the most part -- at the top. Whatever coup d'etat the ladies had planned obviously wasn't happening today. How they could allow themselves to be outmaneuvered this way was beyond Sandy.

Of course even the men present regarded her with suspicion -- even the men she had previously charmed and seduced and who hoped to once again be victimized. No one here trusted her, even though she had the highest national security clearance imaginable. But her political clearance was suspect. Most that would occur in the following days -- at least in the important later sessions -- would be political. For those who had not met her, the very fact that she sat in the first rank behind Greg meant she was a highly skilled (and highly paid) hired gun. Her reputation for turbo charged, ruthless efficiency (with Greg providing the turbo-charging) had preceded her. In fact there were only three men in the room who did not fear her: Gregor Strasser, because he thought he knew how to control her; Al Insky, because he no longer knew fear; and Hal Bore, because he no longer knew.

Her job now was to listen, learn, and calculate.

3.
From Al's point of view, the initial meeting went rather well. Of course the hard bargaining would come later. But he expected everyone would get pretty much what they wanted, since he invested a lot of time making sure that everyone involved knew the stakes and the situation. If their was a pie to be divided up, it was now a mud pie that, after slicing, might slide off the spatula while serving.

Al knew Greg thought it more like baked Alaska, and wanted a huge serving for himself. But that was OK. Al needed Greg now, and would continue to need him for months to come. Al would see that Greg got much of what he wanted, and Al knew Sandy -- an act of nature in her own right -- would be the implementing force in Greg's plan. If Al looked at her with an admiring eye that day -- and he did -- it was as much for that reason as her beauty.

While preparing for these meetings, he wrote a speech on the very topic of Greg and Sandy and the others in the room, one that would never be delivered and one that no one else would ever read. It was a speech that he put in his top secret speech bank -- a speech that was frank and devastating in its analysis and identified conspiracies and acts of criminal incompetence and treason, most of which had not yet happened. This speech would help him formulate his strategy going forward. One that was sobering, yes, but in its own way inspiring, too -- but only after certain purification rituals the speech called for were performed, scheduled for a later date. There were three people in that room who faced the future with confidence and excitement: Al and Greg, because they knew what they were doing, and Sen. Hal Bore because he didn't.

The meeting took place in Washington, while the government was stuck in snow. It started with an ice storm that made the streets and walkways unnavigable. Then came three feet of snow in a city where six inches was enough to spread panic. A quasi melt briefly followed, then another foot and a half. Then some melting and freezing and more ice storms and snow. It sapped the spirit of all around. The administration brought in the military to clear the streets since the local authorities proved helpless. The government workers still thought it best for the nation that they stay home and collect sick leave. Considering the overall situation, they had a point. How does one pursue one's normal duties in such an abnormal situation? And that is what this group hoped to do over the next few days: establish the New Normal, and implement it over the next 100 days. In fact, it would be called "The Program for the New Normal," which everyone thought a reassuring name for. The program was intended to provide much for government workers, at all levels, to do.

The first meeting aimed to bringing everyone up to speed on the big picture -- not just in the US but around the world. First, in the middle east US forces were finding themselves in the middle of a multi sided war over Iraq and Kuwait which included the Iraqi's -- who started out wanting Kuwait (that old bugaboo of theirs) and given what the Iranians were up to, the Kuwaitis may well have wanted the Iraqi's to want them (reports were confused on this point). In any case the conflict soon included Turkey, Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia and various "out of theater actors" such as Russia, China and India, who all wanted a chunk of Iraq for themselves or their clients, with no one quite sure which client was theirs. Because of poor communications, the administration had given permission to the local US commanders to take force protection measures. The local commander responded to the first "terror attack" on US forces by taking out much of the Iranian "Revolutionary guards," much to the dismay of the Iranian Regime, who thought it unfair that the US fought back so hard. They threatened the use of Atomic Weapons they supposedly did not have, in a quantity that everyone hopes was an exaggeration. The US units were hold-up in the Western deserts of Iraq, consolidating around two Air Bases near the Jordan border. Jordan was quietly resupplying them, but did not want to play host to the US forces nor did Jordan want them to leave.

Still, attacks on Americans had stopped almost everywhere. Of course, they all knew knew the massive retaliation by that commander was a reckless gamble but it did seem to have paid off, at least for the time being. Still, much of the US military was stuck out in 'Injun country" -- as the racists use to say. In fact, even Europe was fast becoming Injun country. So Insky wanted them back. But the world did not want to give them back. They were viewed either as a stabilizing force or hostages, depending on who was doing the viewing. At some point, they would start viewing them as dead meat.

Though the events were more than likely unrelated, after the commanders retaliation against the Iranians, domestic terror attacks seemed to have stopped. But the ones that occurred were damaging enough. There'd been a couple of successful terror attacks and some damaging sabotage.

The latest news on the surface to air missile that took out an Airbus full of "contingency evacuees" from northern Europe was the same as the previous: it was fired by "they knew not who" for reasons "they knew not what." Northern Europe was cold, but not yet snowbound, and still governed by the global warming orthodox. Still, many of the powerful were getting their families out, to beat the rush, as it were. It was a shame that those who searched for safety were the victims. But were they the target, or just at the right altitude at the wrong time?

On it's way down, the Airbus took out a commuter plane that was, ironically enough, full of climatologists heading for a meeting that had been moved from Washington to Atlanta on account of inclement weather in DC. Fortunately, there did not seem to be a shortage of climatologists. In any case, they put out the story it all resulted from a mid-air collision.

Then there was the paramilitary group that attacked an evacuation center in Tennessee with automatic weapons, grenades and suicide vests. Though they were highly trained paint ballers, they were ill-prepared when the women and children started shooting back. As a result the terrorists were quickly dispatched after they took out the security guards and well before taking over the refugee school, which seemed to be their objective. The story was put out that it was the actions of a disgruntled Red Cross employee and gun nut that resulted in several deaths.

It was not known if these attacks were the result of rogue actors taking advantage of an opportunity to disrupt the hated nation when it was most vulnerable, or an enemy intelligence agency activating sleeper cells for that same purpose. So far, the feared terror offensive had not yet materialized.

As for the Refugee Camps, the bad news was that they were severely over crowded already. The good news was, with the arrival of Hurricane Demetrius and the spawn storms to the south, transportation had broken down to the point that people could not travel to the camps.

The bad news: getting supplies to the camps was proving difficult. Apparently, the new smart communication system was sabotage, which was Kind of OK with Insky -- there was simply too much communicating going on. But to add to the mess, the new, partially installed Smart Grid -- designed to cleverly move electricity about the country -- had a stroke, what with so many power surges and cut offs, and short circuits occurring. The result was that power throughout much of the US had simply gone out.

But all this was beneath the pay grade of those assembled. They were there to plot the way forward. And in this case, the plans really were plots.

The last part of Chapter Six, "The Mighty," is here.

Notes on "Flexi"

Flexi continues Sandy's backstory and is part of Chapter Six, "The Harbinger of Change," and will follow the backstory of Al Insky and Bill Haley. After this I hope to leave the backstory for a bit and get back to the front story.

Sandy is leaving for the meeting where the "wish list" (a "ball" Gregor Strasser set rolling) is hammered out and divided up -- all while the next series of storms batters the heartland. I might toggle back and forth between Ohio and DC as the storms and the meetings progress. I do not know what will ultimately happen to Sandy. Her end is really in her hands. But I see possibilities in "flexi" that, no matter how tragic her end, it may yet be a good one.

I want to push on, so the following posts may not be so highly polished and brilliant as the previous! But not to worry, I will brilliant them later. Promise. By this I mean I must speed things up or never finish. I might use the "comment section" to note, and track, changes.

Flexi

Sandy could fold herself up to fit in a suitcase. She thought of this as she packed for her flight down to Washington (Greg could fly even though the skies were closed). She was no more than ten at the time but a promising gymnast and ballerina angry that, despite her obvious talent, she would soon grow too big and clumsy to be a world class star in either role. To have showed such promise and worked so hard and dreamed so much (and be encouraged in those dreams), only to have the promise broken by her own body was a jolting experience. Perhaps she gave up on such childish notions altogether. Still, she often thought it a good thing that she retained much of the flexibility she acquired at an early age.

In the summer of here fifteenth year, about the time Sandy first met Jimmy at the door of her parents' home, Sandy decided she was bisexual and a psychopath. She was young and lacked a certain amount of experience (which, if it was a problem, was a problem she intended to quickly rectify) and also maturity (which she thought the same thing as experience). Her understanding of these matters derived from movies and the discussions she had with friends and the instructions she received at school. So naturally she thought it would all fit together nicely -- being a bisexual psychopath, or bi-conscience, as she later thought of it.

She first decided on psychopathy because it allowed her to act without the burden of conscience, which seemed to her an evolutionary artifact left over from the time before laws, regulations and the rules of evidence. These days proper behavior was pretty thoroughly hashed over and decided, so why limit your actions on the basis of "it just don't seem right?" You can look it up on the Internet and find a precedent and obviously that which is not forbidden is allowed -- while much that is forbidden is allowed if you just argue the case. A conscience, it seemed on mature reflection (she thought it a mature sort of reflection), was like the appendix: if you have a conscience attack then get rid of it (your conscience, not your appendix). Or perhaps, she decided on another occasion, the conscience is like the spleen: it is there; science is not quite sure what it is good for; you better keep it just in case.

So she did not want to totally lose her conscience, just loosen it. She wanted to have a loose, slatternly conscience that slept around with some dicey conceptions but she did not want to be a Sociopath -- which she associated with males and a certain testosterone induced excess that outraged her sense of style, much as hoop earrings and beehive hairdos do. It is Sociopaths, she felt, that gave a lack of conscience a bad name. Besides, she most certainly wanted to have a conscience as regards wars and famines and other big events that don't really involve her, because she was moved when her feeling of outrage drained into the sea of outrage of those around her.

While she had no problem with excess in general, in the particular case of conscience she thought moderation -- combined with an ability to be easily seduced and manipulated by her intellect -- was best. Later, she refined the idea into the "biconsceince." It could be applied strictly (and quite strictly) outside her circle of behavior and hardly at all within it. This would protect her from accusations of hypocrisy (which seemed to her the greatest sin) since she never pretended to be judgmental as regards her own action. All this she decided on mature reflection in the summer of her fifteenth year.

Of course she was more than flexible girl. Pretty much everything came easy to Sandy. She was the smartest kid in her small school and got the best grades without expending a whole lot of effort (though the fact that she rather liked studying helped). She saw no reason to go to a bigger school or a "gifted" school where she might have to study harder to achieve the same result. She liked horses and was the best rider in her limited circle of friends. Ditto swimming. But, once again, did not wish to seek a more competitive environment. Nor did she want to be "self surpassing" -- in a race with herself, as it were. Passing everyone around her was quite good enough. She liked being smarter, prettier, and victorious -- all the while seemingly expending little effort, though she had, in fact, thought it through and picked her venues accordingly. She started college a year early, though she could have started a year before that, if she had wanted.

It is not the case that she decide to seduce Jimmy Savannah upon first seeing him. Rather, she made up her mind before seeing him, when she heard her cousin Bea and her mother discussing him in the kitchen of their home. Seducing her cousin's "man" started as a thought problem for her emerging biconscience, a stretch exercise meant to limber it up. She decided she'd wait until her cousin Bea and Jimmy Savannah were married, because she was not sure seducing him before the event would be all that wrong, at least according to the new social conventions. Besides, Jimmy sounded like the sort that might take his vows seriously -- which would add both challenge and spice. Mostly, she wanted to participate in a little "all in the family" adultery just to see what it was like. So waiting until he was part of the family made sense.

In the meantime, she wanted to seduce her high school gym teacher who was, in this case, a female and a lesbian. It would be a fling and end with broken heart. She wanted the broken heart to be the gym teacher's, but, having observed her, Sandy thought the last bit both highly challenging and quite unlikely. So, should the instructors heart not break in a timely manner, Sandy would pretend to have her own heart broken instead. It was a kind of exit strategy and it all came to her upon mature reflection.

Sandy closed up her suitcase. Her laptop was still on the dresser, open and impatient. She had kept it open in case she thought of something she wanted to add to the presentation she would give at the meeting. She wasn't quite satisfied with it. She had prepared her presentation while making other plans. But now she closed up her laptop, and picked up the suitcase she could once fit in, and exited the apartment. Her and Greg were going for a three day meeting, but given the storm heading toward New York it was likely an evacuation -- and for Sandy, given her newly emergent plans, likely a permanent one. As she turned out the lights she took a look round, and briefly thought of all the nice stuff she left behind and it actuaoly felt pleasant.