Stark takes on her most dangerous prey . . . Grace de Messembry from fleurie's The Deception of Choice. As her plan unfolds, Stark finds she has her own choice to make -- or maybe there was really no choice at all, in the end.

Special thanks to fleurie (along with hugs, kisses, all my love, and a gratitude that cannot be measured) for her insights into Grace, her world, and her motivations. And thanks as well for reading my take on Grace's "comeuppance" and pronouncing it worthy.

Story:

Stark: The State of Grace
by Randalynn

“I do not at all understand the mystery of grace -- only that it meets us
where we are but does not leave us where it found us.” -- Anne Lamott

The town house in St. John's Wood was not far from Lords Cricket Ground, and for all of her world traveling, it was the one place Stark's quarry stayed most often.

'No surprise, really,' Jo Stark mused as she glided down the street, heels clicking smartly on the walk. 'Considering the woman's almost obsessive love of cricket, why would she choose any other place for her London home?'

When Stark needed a handle on her next target, she put Chesser and the hacker boys on the job. As they chased Grace de Messembry's ghost through the Internet, her initial efforts to get the Marlyebone Cricket Club to allow women as members burned like a virtual flare in an otherwise barren sea of information. Her protests were loud, direct, and to the point -- she considered their "obstinate" refusal to comply with her wishes as simply "scandalous." Her comments to the sporting press (and anyone else who would listen) lit up the web like a bonfire of anger and frustration -- a show of emotion quite out of character for the usually quite controlled (and controlling) head of the Venumar Foundation.

'Again, no surprise,' Stark thought, reaching the front of de Messembry's London home and pausing for a moment. 'For a woman who gets whatever she wants, usually through sheer force of will, having a bunch of men tell her 'no' on the basis of nothing more than institutional stubbornness must truly rankle.'

Then, without warning, Grace went quiet for months, and Chesser's team soon discovered why. They found evidence of her carefully working behind the scenes to achieve her goals. Suspicions of corporate blackmail, finding ways to withhold sponsorships and weaken the club. Some words possibly whispered in well-placed ears at Cabinet level, leading to some twisted arms high up in the club. Then finally, a series of brilliantly manufactured scandals, aimed at those decision-makers who stubbornly refused to bend.

In the end, of course, the MCC surrendered. They opened the doors to women as members, and even invited Grace to join.

She turned them down with a wintry smile, saying that she couldn't imagine anything less flattering to a well-dressed woman than the traditional "bacon and eggs" tie. And her final quote to the sporting pages? "What an appauling color combination!"

Stark's lip twitched. 'It's so like her to put all of her energies into a project . . . to fight so long and so hard for something,' she thought, 'only to throw it back at them with contempt when she finally wins the prize.'

Jo could almost admire Grace -- if she didn't know what de Messembry had done to bring her to Stark's attention, and why.

Grace's Venumar tenure was marked by a long string of newspaper and television stories. Most of them were society features, marking her attendance at some cultural event or an upper class get-together. None of the stories went any deeper than a sheet of rice paper. They certainly didn't reveal any of the things Chesser and his people had uncovered. As a former newspaper reporter, Jo felt a bit depressed at how little any of these so-called journalists did to earn the title. She had always gone the extra mile, dug a little deeper looking for the hidden truth.

Until her random abduction from a Baltimore street corner brought her former career to a sudden, unexpected end.

Stark paused for a moment and examined the place where she had finally cornered her prey. It was a terraced Georgian home, three stories tall, classical and solid. It fairly reeked of breeding and standing. Curiously, it was also totally in keeping with the surrounding homes, with no outward signs of ostentatious spending or pretentious self-aggrandizement. Jo nodded to herself. The Grace she'd come to know from the reports she had read would never be so crass as to set herself apart from the crowd with mere "things." She wanted to rise above the rest of humanity through her own accomplishments -- again, through force of will. To de Messembry, wealth was only a way of keeping score, albeit one that allowed her to live as she pleased.

When this situation first came to her attention, Jo was sure de Messembry was just like those rich bitches who had captured and transformed her. But as the research continued, she became more of a puzzle. The woman didn't seem to take any joy in the terrible things she had done. The closest Grace came to being happy about it all was an air of "job well done" -- a sort of satisfaction that her plans had moved forward successfully, and to her mind, rightfully so. Her casual cruelty and complete dismissal of the rights of others seemed to have totally escaped her notice.

Jo planned to bring it to her attention.

The front door opened noiselessly, and Stark stepped into the front hall. She had no qualms about walking into the house uninvited. The servants had all been distracted or delayed by spurious errands, supposedly sent by Grace but actually the work of Stark's talented band of hackers. Still, Jo walked softly. Sometimes, even human predators feel the need for quiet when they approach their prey.

The reception rooms were entirely furnished with Queen Anne furniture, mostly walnut. It was all very elegant but tasteful, to avoid any suggestion of excess. A priceless John Knibbs long-case clock, also in inlaid walnut, stood in one corner of the drawing room. The artwork was similarly impressive, with a Turner on one wall and a Bonnard on the other.

Jo shook her head, thinking about the Internet research she had done when the house inventory dropped on her desk. Turner she knew, but Knibbs? And Bonnard? She had to fight a rare feeling that she was way out of her league, but pushed it aside when she remembered how easily her machete had sliced off the head of a woman who prided herself on her cultural acumen -- an egotistical bitch who enjoyed forcing former men to wear six-inch stiletto heels while balancing trays of champagne and canapés. Her net worth had rivaled that of a medium-sized South American country. Now it belong to Stark and her people, and they used it to try and rescue other men from the fate they themselves had been forced to endure.

'Sometimes,' she thought with a bitter smile, 'it's not what you have or what you know. It's what you earn, and how you earn it. And what you do with it when the day is through.'

Still, the image of that woman's head flying across the room caused a vague uneasiness in her soul, and Jo wondered for the first time if what she was planning today was the right choice.

The door at the end of the hall was slightly ajar, and Stark pushed it gently with her fingertips. It swung open silently, revealing a sitting room that was definitely furnished more for comfort than appearance. This was de Messembry's study, her inner sanctum. Although there was another, smaller, Bonnard hanging on the wall, it was obviously chosen for affection, not for effect. Jo nodded. This was a private place, for Grace alone.

The furniture was a comfortable mixture of styles. A comfortable Edwardian sofa and non-matching chair were positioned for easy conversation, with a low long mahogany table set between the two. A Victorian leather-topped desk seemed almost masculine, and sat in front of a window overlooking a surprisingly large and rather secret garden.

Stark drifted deeper into the room, cataloging things as she passed them. A bronze statuette of a racehorse. A few Art Deco ornaments. Another long case clock, this time by Thomas Tompion. The few rugs on the hardwood floors were rich in color and worn into an even richer patina. None of Grace's possessions here were modern, but all seemed to blend into a perfect lived-in harmony, despite their vastly different origins, styles, and periods.

"Do you like what you see?"

The voice came from behind her, and Stark successfully fought the need to spin around and face its owner. Instead, she took a step towards the window facing the garden.

"Very much," she replied, her tone polite and mannerly. "Especially the garden. I would never have imagined, seeing your home from the front, that such a beautiful oasis was hidden here."

"I suppose that's why they call it a secret garden, dear." Stark turned to face the older woman and found a slight smirk on her face. Jo nodded.

"Quite right," she said.

"I am somewhat surprised to find you here, in my sanctum sanctorum, taking inventory of my most prized possessions and nattering on about my small slice of heaven out there." Grace moved past Stark and perched herself daintily on the desk chair. She was wearing a white blouse buttoned nearly to her neck, under a gray wool suit with a matching skirt that fell nearly to her ankles. Her feet were wrapped in a pair of soft leather boots with modest heels that appeared as comfortable as they were stylish. Her hair was perfect, her make-up understated, and the expression on her face suggested that it would be a cold day in Hell before she would stoop to asking this "interloper" what the hell she was doing in her home uninvited.

"The garden is an appropriate metaphor for the topic I came to discuss, actually." Jo looked her in the eye as she spoke, allowing a hint of her anger to slip out and catch the older woman by surprise. "Bare branches and broken men, to be precise. And the unfortunate fate of a man named David."

A range of emotions rushed across Grace's face, from confusion to understanding, before settling on a self-satisfied smile. The smile lasted a few seconds before a look of abject surprise replaced it, and she rose to her feet, her hand covering her mouth.

"Good Lord," she exclaimed, with just a hint of wonder in her voice. "I can't believe it's true. It's you, isn't it?" It was Stark's turn to look confused. "You're . . .You were Bambi, weren't you? The Society's masterpiece, if their self-serving praise was to be believed."

Jo hesitated, then nodded.

"I'm Stark now," she said simply. "Jo Stark."

Grace nodded back. "Of course you are. If I had the bad luck to be named after an animated deer, and a male one at that, I should change my name as soon as possible. A good choice, by the way, dear. A delightful combination of blunt force and elegant simplicity."

Stark shrugged. "It was mine before they took it away, when they kidnapped me. I just took it back."

The older woman cocked her head, tapping her chin with her fingertip and scrutinizing Jo with a penetrating eye. "Well, it does suit you. And you are quite lovely, in a buxom, Barbie-esque sort of way. They called you their masterpiece, did you know that? Of course, if the tales of the bloody massacre on the night of your unveiling are to be believed, perhaps you should be considered their Frankenstein's monster. I do hate to invoke literary allusions, but honestly, I would think the fear they must have felt the night of their annual ball warrants a reference or two to Mary Shelley's creation."

"I'm sure they were horrified when I decided on 'better living through cutlery' as the theme for my 'coming out' party," Stark replied with a tight smile. "Although I'm sure their feelings of terror were short-lived . . . just as they turned out to be." She turned and ran a finger over the neck of the horse statue. "I'm not sure whether I should be surprised that you know about the Society, or surprised you weren't there the night I killed them all."

Grace shook her head and laughed. "Me? Goodness, no! I knew about them, of course, but I would never be a part of such a misguided mission. Their games were always too sick for me -- nothing but cruelty for the sake of cruelty, and in pursuit of an ultimately meaningless goal. Punishing men for being men . . . by turning them into twisted mockeries of womanhood? Honestly, what a dreadful waste."

Jo let her voice grow very still and empty. "From what I've learned, you aren't one to shy away from being cruel."

"Only to a purpose, Ms. Stark." She gave her head a tilt and pinned Stark in place with a stern eye. "Unlike the Society, whatever I've done that others deem cruel was done specifically to advance an agenda -- to either create a profit for Venumar or success for myself. The actions of the Society, on the other hand, were done purely for their own amusement. A monumental waste of resources that could have been put to better use -- such as the use you are putting them to now."

Jo turned, almost shocked. "You know of my work?"

Grace laughed. "Dear child, how could I not? When the Society fell, you moved into their mansion as if it was your own. You consolidated their resources and made them yours, then started wielding them with an authority and sureness of purpose no mere 'ink-stained wretch' from Baltimore would ever have been able to match, let alone improve upon. I admire your ruthlessness in pursuit of your goals, just as I admire your organization for its purity of purpose. I do, however, question the ultimate profitability of seeking revenge. Eventually, you know, even you will run out of funds -- and what will become of your crusade then?"

"Life isn't always a question of dollars and cents," Jo replied, "or pounds and pence, if you prefer. Sometimes, profit becomes something other than numbers on a balance sheet. It's not just about punishment. It's about taking people out of circulation who don't understand quite what it means to be human. I feel I'm balancing out the innate perversity of the universe by adding justice to what is essentially an immoral world." She smiled. "Besides, I am pursuing other avenues of financing my 'crusade,' even as we speak."

There was a long silence, broken only by the ticking of the long case clock. Eventally, Grace spoke. "So what brings you to my study uninvited, with all of my servants off doing God knows what? Vengeance, I suppose?"

"Of course." Stark smiled. "It's what I do, when rescue is impossible."

"Given the nature of your past . . . successes, it is Helgarren and its sister sites you have an issue with, unless I am much mistaken." The younger woman said nothing. Grace sniffed. "Someone has told you about all of the poor unfortunate men we've turned into butterflies over the years, and you feel you need to get involved? Why, exactly?"

"I'm not concerned with the ones who volunteered for your . . . potentially lucrative social experiment," Jo said, the edge in her voice becoming sharper with each word. "If they want what you're offering, more power to them. I'm just here on behalf of the ones you kidnapped, imprisoned for months without human contact, and then pushed through a sadistic reprogramming regime with threats and intimidation. You forced dozens, maybe even hundreds to become women against their will -- all for the sake of meeting the requirements of a government contract, meant to explore a solution even you don't believe will work."

"You're very well informed." The older woman didn't seem particularly concerned with Stark's anger.

Jo nodded. "I have to be. In my business, it's best to be sure. Besides, I used to be an 'ink-stained wretch,' remember? There's nothing we enjoy more than piecing together a good story."

"I don't suppose you'd reveal your sources."

"If I were still a reporter, I wouldn't say a thing. But I'm not. And since the truth will shock the hell out of you, I'll tell you. You told me most of what I needed to know."

Grace looked shocked for an instant, then her face settled into a small smile. "You placed a listening device in our box at the opera, didn't you? You cheeky minx! How on Earth did you find out about our little program in the first place?"

"We were running a standard comparison model on government and commercial databases in the U.K. We discovered a disturbingly familiar pattern. For all of his life, David was firmly enmeshed in the system. Schooling, then job records, paychecks, credit cards. Then suddenly, without warning, he disappeared completely for almost a year. No withdrawals from his bank account. No charges on his credit cards. No earnings reported to the state revenue. Then suddenly, up pops a request for gender reassignment, new documentation, etc. and so on." Stark's eyes flashed. "The papers were sent care of Venumar. Then we checked the rent on David's flat, tracing it back through holding companies and financial blind alleys until we found the truth. It had been paid in full . . . also by Venumar."

The older woman pursed her lips and gave Stark a disapproving glare. "How disturbingly thorough of you."

Stark spared her a tight-lipped smile in return and continued. "It took a while, but an exhaustive investigation uncovered David's connection with the area he ran to after 'escaping' from Helgarren. Once we tracked him down and heard his story, we began investigating Venumar and this 'Bare Branches' program. Since you figured so prominently in David's tale of his imprisonment and escape, you became a 'person of interest.' Especially since you are the public face of the Venumar Foundation."

"And like the villain in a badly presented melodrama, I gave you far more that you could have expected from such an obvious stratagem." Grace sighed and shook her head. "I have only myself to blame, of course. The price for being smug and feeling somewhat invincible, I imagine. With the champagne taking some of the blame, perhaps."

"You may have thought you were invincible, but now you know you are not." Stark perched on the arm of a sofa that was probably more expensive than a late model Lexus. "My presence here is proof of that. After all, I did just walk in, alarms switched off from the inside, your servants diverted. All of your elaborate security precautions, laid low by an ex-journalist with delusions of standing."

Grace smiled. "I did say you were good. However, you are not as good as you think. My dear, you may think yourself invincible, but I assure you, you are not. If I were to make a single phone call, you would be in chains within an hour, and tied down 'working' in a Beirut brothel in less than a day."

"Of that I have no doubt -- if you were to make that call." Jo smiled back. At last, the end game was here. "But that will never happen."

Grace stared at the intruder.

"Such disrespect is unbecoming in a young woman of quality," she said, her voice betraying a hint of irritation from not cowing the newcomer. "What makes you so sure you are safe?"

"Because if anything happens to me," Stark replied, "you will wind up living out the rest of your days . . . like this."

Jo snapped her fingers --

-- and a gentle hand gripped Grace's shoulder and shook her, just a bit.

"Gertie?" A woman's voice, with some sort of American accent. "Gertie, time to get up, dear."

Grace opened her eyes to see a cracked and peeling ceiling, framed by walls painted an institutional green. Hovering over her in the center of her field of vision, an overweight woman with mousy brown hair and oversized glasses peered down at her.

"Gertie, you need to wake up now or you'll miss breakfast. It's your favorite, cream of wheat!"

Grace shook her head and tried to sit up, but the sheer weight of her limbs surprised her. The woman standing over her motioned to an orderly by the door. Together, they slipped their arms behind her shoulders and helped to pull her upright. Grace was surprised to find herself so weak, until she looked down at herself and nearly screamed.

She was fat -- aggressively so. Her breasts were huge, and hung from her chest with a weight that made her shoulders sag. Bags of skin drooped from her arms, and under her nightgown she could feel flaps of fat resting on massive thighs. Her whole top half balanced on hips so big they took up half the width of the bed. Even her fingers were chubby and difficult to manipulate.

There was a window across the room, and the room behind it was dark, creating a pale mirror. Grace saw her face crudely distorted, apple cheeks and triple chins, unkempt eyebrows and pasty skin.

"Whuh the maddah wit muh?" she mouthed, her mouth and lips not responding to her thoughts. "Whuh happin?"

"You're just having trouble waking up, dear. Probably your new meds making you feel all sleepy."

"I um Grayyss duh Messs ... duh Messuhhhh beeeee." She shook all over with frustration, her body jiggling uncontrollably. 'Why can't I talk?'

The woman shook her head. "Oh, that's so sad. Backsliding so soon." She leaned over and looked Grace in the eyes. "Dear, your name is Gertie Mutz, remember? You used to wash dishes in a diner over in Weeping Willow, on Route 6? The Dew Drop Inn?" Grace's mouth dropped open, and in the window she could see missing teeth. A lot of missing teeth. Her chin began to tremble.

"You came here three months ago, after a breakdown in the kitchen. You started crying uncontrollably, throwing dishes and screaming at everyone. You insisted you were British, and rich, and didn't belong there. Your brother Gus called the state, and they brought you here. It's all in your file."

Grace pushed herself to her feet and waddled over to the glass. Her whole body heaved and rolled, and her bottom swiveled and quivered violently with each step. Her once perfect hair was matted and curly, a washed-out blonde color with inches of dark roots.

"We've been trying everything to bring you back to yourself, but you keep holding on to this fantasy. Not to worry, though. In just a few months, this . . ." she consulted a clipboard she had held under her arm " . . . Grace de Messembry will be less than a memory. We've got all sorts of exciting new techniques to try, and restful activities like board games and television. Oh, it'll be just like a vacation for you, Gertie."

She just stared at her reflection, shaking her head in disbelief and seeing her whole life -- everything she had worked so hard to build -- disappearing in the face of the fantasy that was Gertie Mutz.

"I'm your therapist, dear. Tammy Jo, remember? We've been working together, you and I. I think you must have heard something about this British woman's mysterious disappearance, and just incorporated it into your breakdown." The earnest young woman watched her eagerly. Grace could see her face reflected in the window glass, anxious to erase Gertie's "delusion" and give her back her "real" existence. She came up and placed a hand on Grace's shoulder.

"Not to worry, Gertie," she said softly, her concern evident. "With the progress we've been making, I'm sure we can make you well soon. And you'll be having so much fun here, the time will fly by, just like THAT."

She snapped her fingers --

-- and Grace found herself back in her own sitting room. Stark stood before her, her hand in the air and a smile on her lips. Suddenly, Grace found it hard to breathe, and everything around her took on an air of unreality as the world twisted, and all that she knew wavered around the edges.

"What did you do to me?" she hissed, her fear coming out as fury. "What just happened?"

"A dream," Stark replied evenly. "A nightmare, really. Your nightmare, custom-made and ready for occupancy. The thing you dread most -- having everything you've achieved stolen from you, and you transformed into a poor fat crazy woman, trapped in an asylum full of well-meaning people all anxious to 'cure' you."

"How . . . how could you possibly . . . ?"

"It's a form of reprogramming I discovered in the course of my . . . work." Jo stood up and walked over to the fire. "Infiltrating Venumar's computer and communications systems was only the beginning. I have very talented associates. Once we were in, the rest was simple. Every time you looked at a computer screen . . . every time you listened to music or the news, bits of subliminal programming slipped into your mind along with it. These bits joined with others that had come before, and still others that came afterward. This went on for months. In the end, we managed to make you into a life-sized human puppet, to be controlled and directed -- by me."

Grace was stunned. Her freedoms curtailed, her mind and body no longer her own? From mistress of her empire to powerless pawn in an instant? Impossible!

"I refuse to accept it." Her tone was direct and peremptory.

"You've seen the evidence yourself. Felt it. To deny it would be both illogical and counter-productive." Jo smiled. "I know you well enough to say that to be the former is impossible for you, and even the thought of the latter offends your sensibilities, so just accept what I say as fact. You are mine. And this fantasy . . . this nightmare . . . won't be confined to your head. We have everything we need to make you into Gertie Mutz and drop you in a facility where you will never be heard from again -- just as fat and powerless as you were in your nightmare."

Grace's mind reeled with the possibilities. 'Could this really be true?' she wondered. 'Could I really be nothing more than a puppet on this faux girl's strings?'

She took a deep breath. "If, as you say, I am yours," she said, her voice remarkably calm given the circumstances, "How come I'm not already in some publicly funded bedlam somewhere in eastern Nebraska, wallowing in a sea of cellulite and choking down cream of wheat? I know your reputation, Ms. Stark. Why are we even having this conversation?"

The other woman grinned, a cold empty smile that barely touched her eyes.

"Because for all of your ruthless and quite sociopathic tendencies," Stark said, "you are remarkably good at getting things done. And my 'crusade' needs someone like you . . . sufficiently motivated, of course, and kept on the side of the angels."

"You want me to work for you?" Grace's voice rose so high she squeaked.

"No, I want you to work for you," Jo replied. "Because if you don't do what I say, you will wind up trapped as Gertie Mutz. Without you, Venumar will fall and be forgotten, and Grace de Messembry will be nothing but a memory."

Another long silence as Grace considered her situation. Stark gave her all the time she needed, and finally, the older woman spoke. "What must I do?"

"First, everyone kidnapped or coerced into your program goes free. You give them their lives back, as much as you can after the damage you've done. If they don't want to go back, or if there's no way for them to become what they were, you need to give them some kind of compensation for the harm you caused." Jo's eyes twinkled. "That's the easy part."

Stark slid gracefully off of the arm of the sofa. "Now the other shoe drops."

Grace felt her blood run cold.

"You took the lives of these men under false pretenses," Jo said. "Your forced feminization programs won't do anything to truly solve the 'bare branches' problem. There's no way any country, even China, could physically change enough men into women to take the testosterone edge off of every unattached man in Asia. So I want you to do what you should have done in the first place."

"Which is?"

Jo's eyes twinkled. "Solve the problem."

Grace's jaw dropped. "Excuse me?"

Stark grinned. "I want you to use your impressive abilities and the resources of the Venumar Foundation to keep an entire continent from turning into a cesspit of war, violence, and bloodshed when the 'bare branches' fail to bear fruit." The older woman stared at Jo as if she'd suddenly starting speaking Swahili. Stark shrugged.

"You seem to believe you're better than everyone else in the world," she continued, her tone measured and rational. "As a result, you think the moral and ethical restrictions of lesser beings don't apply to you. Well, now you get the chance to prove it."

"You're mad!"

"Stark raving," Jo said, smiling at her own pun. "But that doesn't change what I want. You do the impossible, and you'll prove, to me and everyone else, that you truly are superhuman."

There was a long silence as Grace considered the situation. Then she spoke, slowly and deliberately.

"And then you'll let me go? Free me from this mind control?"

The other woman laughed out loud. "Oh, please," Stark said, her laughter tapering off into a grin. "Don't be ridiculous. By pushing you into this particular trap, all I've managed to do is cage a tiger. I would be seven different kinds of fool if I ever set you free. You're too dangerous an enemy to ever let loose. No, Grace, you will stayed leashed and collared -- figuratively speaking -- for the rest of your life."

Grace turned to face her captor, her eyes hard as steel. "If I have no hope of release, why should I cooperate?"

"Because if you do as I say, you stay you," Jo replied, meeting her gaze. "Grace de Messembry. Under my thumb, of course, but still Grace."

Grace nodded. "And if I refuse, I will find myself consigned to a small corner of Hell in Weeping Water, Nebraska, waddling into the TV room after dinner every night to watch Wheel of Fortune -- for the rest of my life."

It was Stark's turn to nod. After a time, Grace sighed. "It appears I have no choice."

"Oh, you have a choice," came a voice from the hall. "It's just not a very good one."

Jo turned and smiled, and held out her arm. "Grace, this is your new protégé, Paula. Paula, this is Grace."

The blonde woman in the doorway was young and beautiful, well-dressed in professional business attire but with a saucy grin that made it seem as if she saw the world as her personal play toy, or a source of infinite amusement.

"Protégé?" Grace sniffed. She looked down her nose at the newcomer. "I suppose you mean my keeper, don't you?"

"A little of both, actually," Paula replied, taking a step forward. "I want to learn as much as I can from you . . . while I'm keeping you honest, of course."

Grace's eyes narrowed. She turned to Stark with a question half-formed on her lips.

Jo shrugged. "Your determination, your drive, and your ability to succeed are worth a closer look. Ruthlessness alone is not enough to explain how you always achieve your goals while others fall behind. As I said before, you're a resource, and I hate waste. And having someone like Paula learn what you do -- and use your techniques to get good things done out in the world -- could go a long way towards mitigating the harm you've already done."

"You have a lot to offer," Paula said, drifting further into the study. Her fingers drifted across the artifacts that made Grace's personal space ... personal. "Figuring out how to do what you do -- without becoming a heartless mega bitch myself -- well, it's going to be a lot more interesting than hanging out on the beach sipping frou frou drinks and watching guys in Speedos trying hard not to let me catch them watching me."

Grace looked at Paula for a second, clearly confused. She shifted her gaze back to Stark. "Why her?"

"A number of reasons. First, she's worth several million dollars, so the chances you could actually bribe her into allowing you to do things your old way are so slim as to be virtually impossible."

"I have more than I could ever spend," Paula slipped in. "So getting more of it from you to let you hurt others would be stupid. And sort of cheating, since I'm really working for Jo, not you."

"Also," Stark continued, "she's been through a version of what you put David and the others through. She knows exactly what you've done and what you're capable of, so there's no chance of her taking pity on you and letting you run wild."

Paula flashed a smug grin at Jo's captive. "I promise not to jerk the leash too much . . . Grace." The older woman's lip twitched in irritation. "Interfering with how you do business would make learning how you do what you do that much more difficult. But that doesn't mean I'm going to let you get away with much. After all, the idea is to get you to consider being human as a lifestyle choice."

Grace's face reddened with anger. "What cheek! I am human, you impudent girl!"

Paula looked her straight in the eye, and any playfulness she had exhibited disappeared completely. "You're going to have to prove it to me, bitch. I know how it feels to have your life turned upside down. And I've met David, and some of the other unwilling graduates of your 'fun factory.' As far as I'm concerned, you're only hanging onto the title because no one has come up with a separate species classification for Nazis, cannibals, serial killers -- and people like you."

Grace was stunned speechless by the raw hatred that suddenly poured out of the girl in front of her. Jo reached forward and gently touched Paula's sleeve. Paula turned to look at her.

"That's no way to begin a professional working relationship," Stark said softly. "Is it, Paula?"

"I just wanted her to know where she stands, that's all." The younger woman looked at Jo with a mix of pain and anger, tempered with disbelief. "I mean, look at her! She's like my parents were! She's totally oblivious to the horror . . . the wrongness of what she's done. How can she not know what she did was wrong? How could she not know?"

Jo could see Paula was still trembling, and reached up to put her hand on the younger woman's shoulder. "She's so totally self- centered, anything that advances her agenda must by definition be right," Stark replied, a little sadly. "Teaching her to be human may be too much to hope for. Maybe it's impossible. Maybe all we can do is make it more personally painful for her to choose to be bad. With some people, that's all you have to work with -- their own self-interest."

"Excuse me!" Grace said hotly, growing angry. "I am right here!" Both Jo and Paula ignored her.

Stark looked deep into Paula's eyes. "But if you use your power over her to hurt her, just because you can, that's only going to make you as bad as she is. Or as bad as your parents were to you. Is that what you want?" Paula shook her head no, and Jo smiled. "Good girl. So the best thing to do is . . . ?"

The younger woman took a deep breath. "Let it go," she said, her voice shaking slightly. Paula took another breath, and shook herself. Then she turned back to Grace.

"Just so we understand each other," she said in an even tone, "I want to be perfectly clear on what I mean when I say I won't jerk on the leash too much. The Gertie Mutz fantasy is only one of the 'collars' we put in your head. If you give me a reason, I can make you do all sorts of things out here in the real world without sending you off to Hell in Nebraska -- things you really wouldn't like at all. Anything I want, in fact."

Grace felt the blood drain from her face, and Paula smiled. "Let me give you a demonstration."

The older woman raised her hand and started to speak, but the young blonde opened her mouth and time jumped --

-- and Grace found herself outside, in the secret garden, on all fours. She raised her head to see Paula standing above her, holding an actual leash that trailed down to a leather collar strapped firmly around her neck. She tried to rise, but her body would not obey her.

Paula bent down and whispered in Grace's ear. "I could have taken you for a walk through the center of London, naked and collared, and you would have enjoyed it. I could get you to tart yourself up like a cheap whore and pick up some greasy nobody in some low dive, and have you wake up tomorrow morning in his bed. In fact, I can do anything I want to you. Anything. And the only thing that's stopping me . . . is the fact that I don't want to be like you. So you do what I say, stay on my good side, and you won't wind up besmirching the de Messembry name giving blow jobs in some biker bar in East Croydon. Understand?"

Totally humiliated, Grace nodded. Paula removed the collar, and Grace stumbled to her feet.

"If you try to hurt me, or Jo, or make any attempt to get out of the cage we put you in, Gertie Mutz becomes your world. And I'll make sure everyone knows what a slut Grace de Messembry truly is before she disappears forever."

As Grace made her way back to the study, Stark avoided looking at her. Instead, she spoke to the sculpture of the race horse in the center of the room.

"Venumar is going to be spending a lot of R&D money in a cooperative effort with the Stark Initative," she said to the statue. "You're going to be working with us to stop more abuses around the world. Think of it as community service."

Stark's lip quirked, and she turned to Grace.

"Remember, you'll be under constant surveillance, one way or another," she said, her voice almost playful. "By hook or by crook, we will be watching. So even though you'll be out in the world, doing whatever you do, you'll still be a prisoner." Grace said nothing, so Jo looked up at her, made a circle with her thumb and forefinger, and looked through it for an instant before turning it into an almost casual salute.

"Be seeing you, Number Six."

Grace looked at her blankly. Stark was frankly shocked.

"You know, 'The Prisoner?' Patrick McGoohan? Killer weather balloons?" Grace shook her head, still confused. Jo sighed. "Never mind. Honestly, you British have lost all appreciation for your unique contributions to pop culture. Next thing you know, you'll be telling me you don't even know who the Doctor is."

"The Doctor?" Grace cocked her head. "Doctor who?"

"Exactly!"

Then Jo turned quickly, and walked as fast as she could out of the room, the house, and the situation -- trying very hard not to laugh and cry at the same time.

###

As Stark stepped onto the sidewalk, she saw Jeff, her best friend and second-in-command, approaching from across the street. She paused a moment to let him catch up, and when he reached her side, they began walking together.

There were a few moments of companionable silence, eventually broken by Jeff.

"God knows I'm not one to argue for you to be more ruthless than you want to be," he said casually, "but I have to admit I'm curious. Why isn't she in Weeping Water, Nebraska, experiencing the joys of Cream of Wheat, daytime soaps, and meds three times a day?"

"A few reasons," Jo replied, her head turning to meet an oncoming breeze. She felt the wind on her skin, and shook her head slightly to let it blow her long blonde hair away from her face. It was a very feminine gesture, and one that took Jeff quite by surprise. It sort of surprised Jo as well.

"First, turning her into Gertie Mutz would take a powerful piece off the board," she continued. "Sufficiently motivated, I honestly believe that if anyone can find a solution to the 'Bare Branches' problem, it's Grace. And if she can do that, there's no shortage of problems in the world for her to work on. If I have to keep a tigress in a cage, the least I can do is give her something worthy of her skills to keep her busy. Over time, she might learn to be human as well. And having Paula as her apprentice will give us a far more reliable problem solver in the years to come than Grace will ever be. For all of our precautions, I know she is . . . unbroken. She won't stop thinking of ways to escape. Submitting to anyone is not in her nature."

Another moment of silence, broken again by Jeff.

"But there's more to this, isn't there?" She turned to look at him, while he carefully avoided meeting her eyes. "You've never let practicality come before vengeance before. Not since you started this . . . crusade. So why now? Why with her?"

Stark looked away, and they continued to walk for a while. Then she replied, in a voice so soft Jeff almost didn't hear her answer.

"Because maybe I'm tired of being a vindictive bitch, every minute of every day. I'm tired of doing unspeakable things in the name of justice, or vengeance, or just to avoid having that damned programming turn me into some kind of sex toy. Maybe, once in a while, I'd like to be driven by more than anger and hate."

She stopped and turned her face to him, and he saw the tears pouring from her eyes. "The truth is, I'm reaching a point where it's hard to find a reason to get out of bed in the morning. I'm tired of hurting people, even if they deserve it. But that's all I do. I'm not living, Jeff. I'm existing. I don't have a life anymore, just a purpose. It's like all I am is some kind of dark angel of rage, a fury unleashed. The pain I've caused . . . the things I've done. They haunt me. And I can't keep on this way much longer. I won't. Because I'm starting to hate the person I'm becoming -- more than I hate the people I hunt. I'm afraid if I keep on like this, there won't be anything left of me except the rage. And I couldn't go on, not like that."

Jo started crying in earnest, great wrenching sobs that rose up inside her and shook her entire body. "I won't go on," she repeated, over and over. "I won't."

Jeff didn't think, he just stepped forward and took her into his arms. She stiffened for a moment, then just melted into him and kept on crying. People on the sidewalk looked away as they passed, as if honest emotion in public was something to be avoided at all costs. Jeff returned the favor by ignoring them all and focusing all his energies on the woman in his arms.

He held her until the crying had lessened to a trembling, and still she clung to him. Then he bent his head down and whispered in her ear.

"You're not just a vengeance machine. You proved it just now, by giving Grace a chance to do some good instead of sending her to Purgatory." Jeff smiled suddenly, and Jo felt it and looked up into his eyes.

"Do you know what grace means?" She shook her head. "In Christianity, it's a gift from God. It's that part of the nature of God that loves us and forgives us, no matter what we've done. In giving Grace a chance to be more than what she is, you've shown you're more than just hate and anger. So you're worthy of grace, too, Jo. If God can forgive you with no strings attached, maybe you can forgive yourself, in time."

She rested her head on his shoulder, and felt him holding her. And didn't mind a bit.

"You're not alone, Jo," he whispered. "I'm not going anywhere. I will always be here for you. And we'll work this out, together. Because that's what friends do, right?" She nodded without raising her head, and Jeff smiled. "So lets find some lunch, and then we'll do what we should have done long ago -- figure out a way to finally set you free."

Jo smiled, her face still red and puffy from crying. Jeff put his arm around her shoulders. She put her arm around his waist.

Together they walked away from Grace ... and maybe towards salvation.

© 2008 as part of a work in progress, all rights reserved. Posted with permission of the author.

Sorry for the long wait, everyone. As John Lennon sang, "life is what happens to you while you're making other plans," and this girl wound up ambushed by circumstance and committed to another full-time job as a Marketing Director for a small software company, to keep food on the table and my family connected to the Internet. It has taken much of my creativity to hit the ground running there, but I think I can finally write again, just for me. And, of course, for you. *grins* Hope you liked! -- Randalynn

Evelyn Evell’s shopping mall complex hides a sinister plan for worldwide domination and the unwilling forced feminization of every man on Earth. Can Stark and a group of unexpected allies redefine the phrase “hostile takeover?”

Stark: Everything Must Go!
by Randalynn

###

"I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form
of tyranny over the mind of man." — Thomas Jefferson, 1800
(inscribed over the door of the headquarters of the Stark Initiative)

Evelyn Evell’s four o’clock appointment was extremely punctual, and as she watched the tall blonde walk into her office, it almost felt as if a force of nature had swept through the door.

‘A tornado wrapped in a smart back suit,’ she thought, ‘or a hurricane in Prada pumps. There’s enough anger there to wipe out a small city. Some man must have hurt her pretty badly for that level of rage. No wonder she’s sought me out.’

“Ms. Stark? Evelyn Evell.” She stood and walked around her desk, taking the other woman’s hand with a smile. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Thank you,” the blonde replied, with a smile of her own. “The pleasure is all mine. Or soon will be.”

Evelyn cocked her head slightly, a little confused before her eyes widened and she smiled wider. “Oh, yes, I believe you’re here hoping to join our cause.” She let go of Stark’s hand and wandered over to the sofa, motioning as she sat for her guest to join her. She didn’t notice the other woman staying right where she was. “I’m a bit surprised you’ve heard of us. Our little female-dominated shopping center has spawned a national organization dedicated to feminizing men, but we have tried to keep our true mission quiet, for obvious reasons. I assume you’re hoping to ... get in on the fun?”

“Actually, just the opposite,” Jo said, the smile turning into a grin. “I’m here to shut you down. Or rather, watch it happen.”

Evelyn looked up at her guest, unsure of what she’d heard. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“Well, it seems that you must have missed a day in business school. The day they taught about the importance of keeping an eye on the competition.” Stark walked over and took Evelyn’s seat behind the big desk. “I happen to be the head of a rival organization whose mission plan is diametrically opposed to everything you seek to accomplish. We believe in preventing the circumvention of civil liberties for those born with a Y chromosome, and in punishing those who think they have the right to destroy the lives of others just because they find them ... offensive.”

“I’m the founder of the Stark Initiative, Ms. Evell.” She spun around once in the boss’s chair and came back around to face her. “One of our goals is to stop women like you from doing whatever they want to men and boys, and some of your unwilling transformees have managed to overcome your hypnotic conditioning enough to find us, and let us know what’s going on here. Also, there was one poor boy, scared out of his mind, afraid of his own family turning him over ... to you. But that’s over now. It all stops here.”

Evelyn stood quickly, her face turning red with anger. “What gives you the right to --? To --?”

“To do what? To interfere? To try to stop you?” Instantly, the smile dropped from her face, and Stark’s voice turned sharp enough to cut glass. “I could say its just business, but that’s not true. The profit I earn doesn’t show up well on a spreadsheet. My bottom line is that you and people like you destroy lives. You cut and stitch people to your whims, and you have to be stopped. Every time I put an end to someone like you, I’ve done my bit to preserve the one thing that makes humans ... human. The right to self-determination.”

Jo leaned forward in the high-backed chair, her eyes glittering with hatred.

“Each of us has the ‘inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.’ But you’ve taken that away from every man and boy you transformed against their will — you and every one of your co-conspirators. I’m going to shut down this soulless abattoir in a shopping mall’s shell, Evie, and make sure everyone who enjoyed your 'profitable' beginnings gets their ‘cut’ of the losses as well.”

Evelyn’s lip curled. “And how do you propose to stop us? There are thousands like me, all over the country, ready to do what must be done to take this world away from those abominations who rule it now, with their macho swaggering and their rape and their endless oppression of women.”

Stark stood up and leaned on the desk. “Those young boys you keep castrating and turning into pretty little girls were never old enough to rape anybody, let alone oppress a woman. They were young and rowdy, but you stole everything from them — their lives, their future. Even the children they will never have. And sure, some of those men you turned into women were real jerks, but the last time I checked, there’s no law against being a jerk. However, there are laws against kidnapping and mutilating people — and I’m pretty sure there’s something about brainwashing somewhere in the federal statutes.”

“You would have to prove it was done against their will,” Evelyn said. “And I have signed paperwork from every one of the adults authorizing the surgery. As for the boys, I have the parent’s permission for everything that was done to them.”

“If even one of those parents were influenced by your mind-controlling drugs and hypnosis, you're going to jail. And your head of security has hours of saved digital video, showing how you kidnapped, blackmailed, drugged or hypnotized almost every man you changed. Don't get me started about how you twisted the minds of the fathers of those boys so they would sign consent forms.” Jo hit a few keys on the keyboard. “Didn’t it ever occur to you that hiring a obsessive-compulsive psychopath to be your security chief was a bad ideas? Especially hiring one who enjoys torturing men and likes to 'watch her successes over and over?’ You'll be crucified with the accumulated evidence!”

“In any event, feminizing the boys comes under the heading of parental abuse. At least in this country, you can’t authorize someone to cut your child’s genitalia off without just medical cause, any more than you could give the okay to amputate their arms and legs for no damned good reason. For their mothers, signing those papers was as good as signing a confession. They’ll never come within ten miles of any of their children again — once they get out of jail. If they ever do.”

“And since you and your freakish shopping mall of the damned aided and abetted the torture of multiple minors through humiliation, mental manipulation, and unnecessary surgery, you’re also on your way to prison. Hell, you designed the place expressly for that purpose. I’ve got state and federal prosecutors lining up to take you down.”

Stark waved her hand dismissively. “Finally, I have complete access to your network, including your secret plans for expansion and your contact database. It’s all legal — we’ve got warrants and everything. I know the names and addresses of every one of your co-conspirators — hardly thousands, Evie, so please don’t exaggerate. None of them will be getting away.”

“We also have the names and addresses of every one of those sub-human scum who ordered your ‘home conversion products.’ We’re going to visit them all and explain why it’s a bad idea to even think about feminizing any man or boy they’re having a problem with — then we’re going to make sure the idea never occurs to them again. You think you know mind control? Lady, compared to my people, you’re no better than a ten-year-old with a plastic HypnoDisk and a bad Dracula impression.”

“In a way, you’ve made our job a little easier.” Jo smiled again. “You’ve gathered a lot of the nuts in one basket, where we can crush them without having to go find them first.”

“So, you and your inner circle are going to jail, your organization is going to be dismantled piece by piece, and those boys and men you transformed are going to be free to put what’s left of their lives back together again. It’s already begun.”

There was a knock on the door. Jo stood up, and the door opened to reveal a tall smartly-dressed redhead in jeans and a leather jacket, with two uniformed male officers standing right behind her.

“Evelyn Evell?” She flashed a badge. “I’m Detective Emily Harris, and this is Officer Trent and Officer Machelli. You’re under arrest for forcibly detaining, coercing, and transforming a large number of men and boys into women and girls, and conspiring with others to expand your operations nationwide.”

She stepped inside and turned Evelyn around, shoving her roughly to put her hands on the desk and kicking her legs apart for a quick search.

“We’ve already shut down the school and gotten the boys out of there, Jo,” Harris said, handcuffing Evell and pushing her into the arms of the two policemen. “The girls, both genetic and transformed seemed cooperative, but we know they have all been heavily conditioned, so we’re staying alert.”

“I wouldn’t trust them,” Stark replied, “at least not until my people have a chance to look them over and try to undo some of the damage. You’ve seen the videos, and the drugs and hypnotic recordings. You know what these women can do, and have done. Who knows what triggers they might have implanted when they transformed their bodies and raped their minds?”

“Well, Jeff says you know your stuff.” Emily watched Evell struggle briefly, but Trent and Machelli kept her still. “He was a good cop before he left the force looking for that reporter friend of his. And judging by what you do now, I’m thinking he found ... her.”

Jo looked away briefly, then nodded. Harris reached out and touched her arm.

“For what it’s worth, I think you’re a good woman,” she said softly. “The work you’re doing needs to be done. And Jeff gave up everything to go after you, so you must have been a good man back in the day. Maybe there are some things that don’t change, just because a person trades one skin for another.”

“I’d like to believe that.” Jo looked down, and her voice dropped to a whisper. “But there’s still so much inside my head I haven’t been able to fix since they did what they did when they ... made me what I am today. And I’ve done things I’m not proud of in pursuit of vengeance instead of justice. It’s a hard tightrope for me to walk, and I’m still trying to find balance. I just don’t know if I can.”

“You used to be a man?” Evell started laughing, and the two officers looked at Jo and then at each other, confused. “No wonder you protect them.”

“HEY!” Harris shot back at her. “I’ve always been a woman, and you and your crazy sisters make me sick with rage. I have a husband and two young boys, and the thought of you being in the same time zone with them makes me want to vomit. The only reason you’re still alive right now is that I’m a better cop and a better woman than you’ll ever be, you twisted bitch. So shut the fuck up, or I’ll forget all about keeping you alive for trial and beat you to death with one of your Manolo Blahnik pumps.”

A uniformed sergeant appeared in the doorway with a clipboard. Her nametag said Rodriguez, but even if it hadn’t, her black hair, dark brown eyes, and dark complexion would have made you think Latina.

“Hey, Connie.” Harris threw her a smile. “How close are we to getting all of the evidence out of the offices?”

“Almost done bagging and tagging, Detective. A few more minutes, that’s all.” She shot a quick glance over at Evell. “The rest of the group is in custody. Is that the psycho behind all this?”

“You got it,” Harris said. “Meet Evelyn Evell, the leader of the pack. It was her idea from the start. Even messed with her own husband and child. Sick.”

The sergeant shook her head. “You are one piece of work, chica. Glad we caught you before you went national. I happen to like my men just the way they are — and I think most women do too.”

“That’s your opinion!” Evell couldn’t keep her mouth shut. Rodriguez walked up to her.

“Yeah, it is, and thank God I live in a country where we get to think what we want — oh, wait, you wanted us all to think like you, right?” Her eyes narrowed. “I helped pack up your brainwashing meds for the evidence room, and took a look at some of the videos before they got packed up too. You used that stuff on anyone who disagreed with you, man or woman. You have no respect for anyone’s rights but your own, and I hope you find yourself living a long unhappy life as someone else’s bitch. And for the record? That one doctor’s collection of pickled peckers? Seriously psycho.” Rodriguez curled her lip in disgust. “Just glad Jo found you all when she did.”

Another woman appeared at the door. She was short and slightly overweight, with tousled brown hair that bounced around her head in a halo of curls, and big brown eyes that held intelligence ... and more than a little anger.

“Detective Harris? Been doing an inspection of the mall, and I’ve got to say the place is nothing more a catastrophe waiting to happen. Hell, the whole complex looks like it’s ready to fall. Had to order an evacuation and shutdown.”

“Oh?” The detective smirked, and Jo reached up and hid a grin. “Do tell!”

Evell’s eyes widened. “WHAT? Who the hell are you?”

“I’m Laurell Stirling, chief building inspector for the County. And you’re totally screwed, lady.”

“You’re crazy. This place passed every inspection with flying colors!”

Stirling wheeled around and looked at her, and suddenly she felt the full force of the inspector’s anger and realized that this was more than a terrible run of really rotten luck.

It was an ambush.

“Me crazy? That’s a laugh coming from you. Jo explained what the hell you’ve been doing, and showed me why some approvals deserve to be revoked.” Laurell took a step forward and looked into Evell’s eyes.

“As far as I’m concerned, your entire complex is a deathtrap,” she growled, “and has been from the minute I found out what you’ve been up to. I took the liberty of replacing all the paperwork at the office with versions signed by a disgraced ex-employee who was so bent, he would look the other way and wind up staring straight at you. He’s in prison and still insists he’s innocent, so no one will wonder why he’s not corroborating our version.”

“He’ll deny everything,” Jo agreed. “but we’ve got other evidence as well. We altered his bank records from around the time the complex was being built, so it looks like you deposited a million dollars directly into an offshore account he didn’t even know he has. The money was then redirected somewhere else almost immediately, so there’s no chance anyone can trace it.”

Evelyn shook her head. “What? How?”

Stark grinned in reply. “Things like this are easy when you own a piece of the bank. And I have wonderfully talented hackers on staff. The million will go to help pay reparations for those you transformed against their will. It won’t be enough, but we’ll see what we can get out of your business interests through civil suits.”

The inspector looked at Stark and Harris.

“Not going to be much left when this is over, I’m afraid,” she said with a small smile. “The minute I realized who had ‘done’ the original inspections, I rushed right over this morning. Needless to say, I ‘found’ code violations everywhere. Structural defects, along with improperly install gas heating systems and electrical wiring flaws in every building, often within a few feet of each other. Hell, the complex is nothing more than a mall-shaped bomb, ready to blow.”

Laurell turned her attention back to the mall’s owner. “We’ve got police and fire trucks cordoning off the entire area, and making sure everyone gets offsite safely. I’m here to make sure you all move out and get to a safe distance. There are gas leaks everywhere, and too many mains run into the area to shut off the flow. Since every building was designed with its own redundant power supply, there’s no way to shut off the current — and if we do try shutting down the grid, the power supplies kicking in might blow the whole place. It could go up at any time.”

“In fact, we’ve had to get everyone out of the complex so fast, we had no time to rescue all of the millions of dollars worth of inventory on the premises — and the code violations I ‘found’ invalidate the tenant’s insurance coverage, not to mention your own.” She grinned at Evell. “Now ain’t that a shame? All those folks who bought into your plans are gonna wind up broke and in jail. You too, I expect.”

The mall owner, entrepreneur, and would-be destroyer of mankind was struck speechless.

Rodriguez’s radio delivered a burst of static followed by a brief message. She moved to one side and spoke into it for a moment.

“Evidence gathering is done, Detective,” she said, putting the radio away. “Time to get the hell out.”

“Understood,” Harris replied. “Let’s go, people.”

###

Their footfalls echoed hollowly as they walked through the empty mall, and there was a slight smell of gas in the air that made the atmosphere oppressive. As they passed the food court, they saw all of the food left behind on the tables in the wake of the sudden evacuation. Stores were left open and unguarded, their merchandise just sitting in plain sight. With a shock, Evell realized that in a few short minutes, all of this would be nothing but ashes, and it finally began to sink in that everything she had worked so hard to achieve had been taken from her in the course of a few short hours by these misguided women.

She stopped suddenly, taking both uniformed officers by surprise. The others took a few steps forward, and turned to find her standing alone, her arms held behind her by the handcuffs and her legs apart to keep her balance.

“Wait!” she shouted, almost pleading with the assembled group. “Why have you done this? You’re all women! Can’t you see that what I was working for ... what we were working for ... was for the best, for all women, everywhere? Think of it! A world without masculinity! Without its violence, its posturing, its endless conflict and oppression! A world without rape! Why would you want to preserve any of that?”

They all looked at her for a moment, and then Detective Harris spoke.

“Because your definition of what makes a man is wrong,” she replied, her voice calm and measured. “Because men can be good, and kind, and strong, and loving, too. And women are far from perfect. You and your organization are proof of that.”

Her anger rose to the surface, and her tone made every word cut like a knife. “The hard truth you don’t seem to get is that you and your man-hating sisters have no right to make decisions for every woman on this planet about what kind of people they want their men to be. And you have no right to twist the minds and bodies of men to make them want to be anything other than who they truly are.”

Evell looked at Harris as if she was speaking Swahili, and the detective sighed.

“Your dreams are dead.” Her voice turned cold again. “Live with it, or not. I don’t give a damn.”

She motioned to the officers. “Get her out of here. Now. Carry her if you have to, but I want us gone.”

###

Outside, the world was eerily quiet. Acres of empty parking lots stretched away from the mall’s main entrance, with only the last remnants of the forensics and evidence trucks and a few police cruisers waiting in attendance. They shoved the defeated mall owner into the back of a cruiser, and everyone else climbed into a waiting van. The entire caravan drove across the concrete fields, onto the perimeter road, and off of the property.

No one said a word. Nothing needed to be said.

At the mobile headquarters, the police and fire chiefs of the surrounding areas were assembled, and Laurell went off to brief them on how bad the situation was. There were a few television trucks there as well, with reporters doing live remotes, and Jo noticed that one of the stations had a live feed from a helicopter that showed the entire mall complex from above.

The reporter for that station wasn’t on air, and Stark wandered over to say hello.

“Hey, Tiffany,” she said with a smile.

“Hey, Jo,” the reporter replied. Tiffany Case was a tall willowy blonde with green eyes, and she smiled back in return at the woman responsible for bringing her this story. “Nice seeing you again, so soon after our last meeting.”

“Same here. I’m awfully curious. How’d you manage to get a helicopter for a bird’s eye view?”

“Funny thing,” Tiffany replied. “We received an anonymous tip that said the whole place was only a few minutes away from some kind of a massive explosion, and my boss figured, ‘in for a penny, in for a pound.’” She grinned. “You wouldn’t care to comment on the accuracy of that tip, would you?”

Jo grinned. “Oh, I don’t know. A few more minutes and you’ll have your answer, I think. I’ll let Laurell know you’re here. An interview with her would probably help clear things up.”

“Oh, was that Evelyn Evell I saw in that cruiser over there?” Tiffany’s voice was the picture of innocence.

“No comment.” Stark deadpanned, and Tiffany stuck out her tongue. Jo found herself laughing in spite of herself.

“Maybe she would consent to an interview. After all, it IS her mall.”

Stark shook her head. “You are incorrigible.”

“I’m a reporter, hon.” She shrugged. “It’s what I do.”

“Been there, done that,” Jo replied, before realizing what she was saying.

“You’ve been a member of the fourth estate?” She raised an eyebrow. “Color me surprised!”

Stark sighed. “Guilty as charged. City beat on the Baltimore Herald for a year or two.”

“Must have been a while back,” Tiffany mused, “’cause the last three guys on that beat were ... well, guys.”

“It was,” Jo said, a little sadly. She barely remembered that time, after all she’d been through. “I really miss it. Even though what I’m doing now is worth doing, I miss reporting — the thrill of chasing down a story, the pressure of getting the copy in by deadline, and seeing your byline in the paper the next day. I thought maybe someday I’d luck into a big story and earn myself a Pulitzer ...” She shrugged. “Funny how time changes things.”

“Reminiscing ?” A voice from behind broke into her reverie, and she turned and threw its owner a smile.

“Hey, Jeff!” He came over and stood next to her, almost touching. It made Jo feel good, just having him close. She wasn’t sure why, but she didn’t really want to look too closely at the reason. She was just happy he was here.

“Never get an old reporter started,” she said, “because they never run out of stories.”

“Neither one of you looks old enough to be thinking about old times.” Jeff grinned and Stark blushed, then remembered her manners.

“Tiffany, this is Jeff Blake, my second-in-command at the Stark Initiative. Jeff, Tiffany Case, doing a live remote for one of the local stations, the NBC affiliate, I think?”

Tiffany smiled, nodded, and held out her hand. Jeff took it and smiled back. “A pleasure. Sorry we didn’t meet at last night’s final meeting. The plane from Switzerland was delayed and I missed being able to get here on time. It looks like you all managed quite well without me, though.”

“Working with Jo, it was easy.” Detective Harris walked over. “Hey, Jeff. Long time no see.”

“Hi, Em. Everything go okay?” They hugged, and Jo felt her stomach drop until Jeff broke free.

“Thanks to Ms. Stark here,” Harris replied. “Jo was very persuasive, although after seeing the evidence a few days ago, it wasn’t like any of us wanted Evell to get away. Once everyone at the meeting agreed to the plan, it unfolded like a military campaign, only without the automatic weapons. I’m almost tempted to sign up with you folks myself.”

There was a muted boom, and Jo glanced over at the helicopter monitor in the truck to see the north end of the mall erupt in flames that quickly roared through the rest of the structure. A few seconds later, a mushroom cloud appeared over one of the outlying buildings, followed quickly by a second building going up in a cloud of debris, and then a third.

“Damn! Go live! NOW!” Tiffany ran over to the tech in the truck. ”Tell me you got that.”

“All of it, Tiff. No sweat,” the tech replied. Jo saw the image from the helicopter shaking as the shock waves rose to toss it around the sky, and burning bits of concrete and steel began raining down on parking lots all around the facility. The feed from the station changed to a BREAKING NEWS banner, and the explosions appeared under it.

Tiffany picked up the microphone. “A series of massive explosions have turned Evell’s Shopping Mall in West Springfield into nothing more than smoke, ash, and wreckage. Hello, I’m Tiffany Case, and what you’re seeing happened only seconds ago ...”

Jo wandered away from the reporter and let her do her job. Part of her almost wished the story was hers, then she snorted.

‘As if I could make it as a TV journalist in this body without winding up the weather girl,’ she thought. ‘Although Tiffany seems to be doing just fine.’

She wondered if she could ever go back to life as a journalist, but found herself drawn to the cruiser where Evell herself still sat. The woman was looking at the clouds of smoke with an odd expression, one that Jo knew all too well. The first time she woke up after her kidnapping, the bitches that taken her from the life she had known had led her to a mirror, and she found herself staring at the reflection of a centerfold, just a few years and an eternity ago.

A centerfold with a face full of disbelief, horror, anger, and despair.

Stark walked over to the cruiser and spoke through the open driver’s side window. She was surprised to find her tone almost sympathetic.

“It’s a question of natural law, Ms. Evell. Survival of the fittest. You thought you were the predator, and never realized you had become the prey until it was too late.” Jo thought back to that first day once more. “It’s hard to suddenly find yourself a victim when you thought you had it all, isn’t it?”

It was almost as if the mall owner didn’t hear her, but then Jo heard her whisper. “Dying dreams burn so well, don’t they?”

Stark thought of her past, of the dreams she once had when she was Joe, and male, and happy. She nodded.

“And sometimes, they just turn to smoke,” she replied.

###

© 2010. Posted by the author.

An emergency rescue mission in Paris for the Stark Initiative leads Jo and Jeff to a conversation full of surprising revelations and an unexpected conclusion ...

Stark: Hammer Into Anvil
Part 1: Dropping A Dime
by Randalynn

"A confession has to be part of your new life." -- Ludwig Wittgenstein

###

The beautiful young woman stormed into the house on her three-inch heels, breasts bouncing delightfully under her yellow sundress. As she threw the two bags of groceries she carried down on the table by the door, a casual observer could see the blush on her cheeks made insignificant by a flushed redness that had nothing to do with make-up. Her full red lips were compressed into a thin slit, and her furrowed forehead pushed her thin arched eyebrows down slightly over her pale blue eyes. The artfully curled blonde hair that framed her face was slightly out of place, but nothing a few seconds with a mirror and a brush couldn't fix.

"Aunt Carrie, this has gone far enough!" she yelled. Her voice was high-pitched and sweetly feminine, but her intonation way too masculine for the proper young lady she appeared to be.

From the sofa across the room, a low voice laughed. "I think that's my choice, Brenda." An older woman in a gray suit, Carrie crossed her legs and took a sip of cognac. "It's always been my choice."

"It's Brendan, and you know it." The younger woman put her fists on her hips, her legs spread wide. The tan bag hanging from her shoulder swung for a moment, then settled in the triangle between her elbow, the curve of her hip, and her right breast.

"It's Brenda until I say otherwise," Carrie replied evenly. "And whether I do say otherwise depends entirely on your cooperation. So, Brenda, you will adopt a more ladylike tone this instant. Or would you like me to send those pictures of you in my lingerie off to your teachers or the student newspaper at that ivy-league college you attend? Maybe to all of your friends? I think their e-mail addresses are in that laptop of yours I gave to my friend Madeline. She'll be happy to send them out for me."

"You dressed me in that stuff," he growled, even though it sounded like an angry kitten. "After drugging the wine we toasted with my first night here."

"Yes, well, you know that and I know that." She smiled. "But as far as everyone else will know, I caught you dressing in my things. And you confessed that you had always wanted to be a woman, and this was your first chance to dress in so long. Naturally, being my favorite nephew, I simply had to let you experience your feminine side fully while you were here."

"That's your story," Brendan said scornfully.

"Yes, it is," she replied with a grin. "And it's the only story anyone will believe -- especially after your friends see all of the pictures I took along the way. You prancing about the house in your baby doll nightie, getting your makeover at Mimi's salon, topless with that delightfully perfect faux bosom glued to your chest. Enchanting, dear! Oh, and you smiling in every picture, dear. Always smiling!"

"You set those all up. You made me smile." He looked down, biting his lip. A thin line of red appeared on his teeth, and Carrie tsked at him.

"Lipstick, darling," she said crossly. "Don't get it on your teeth. It makes you look cheap."

He looked up, eyes flashing. "I don't care about the damned lipstick. You threatened me with those lingerie pics! You set up all those pictures and made me smile for them. It was blackmail."

"I'm sure it's only blackmail if there's money or property involved, Brenda. I haven't asked for a cent of your inheritance, and I won't. That would be ... illegal. Threatening you with exposure to force you to dress as a woman has no criminal penalty that I'm aware of." Carrie smiled another lazy smile. "It’s just fun."

"And that date with George last weekend?" Brendan's voice dropped to a trembling whisper. "Was that fun for you, too?

Carrie laughed. "Oh, yes, Brenda darling. And fun for George, as well, according to this statement he wrote for me." She waved the paper at him. "He told me on the phone this morning how happy he was with your performance. He said, and I quote, 'she gives awesome head for a fake chick.' The whole story goes well with the photos and videos of the other night."

Brendan's eyes went wide, terrified. "WHAT?"

"Oh, you didn't think I'd set up a date for you with George and not watch, did you?" Carrie uncrossed her legs and crossed them the other way. "I have recordings of everything. Of course, I edited out the part where George threatened to expose you to those thugs in the park if you didn't comply. Wouldn't want the truth getting in the way of more grist for the mill. Wouldn't want you running after losing your ...virginity, so to speak." She took a long drag on her cigarette. "Of course, you haven't really, yet. That comes later."

"Later? What ...?"

She held up her hand. "Shhhhhhh. No need to get upset. It's already decided. There's really nothing you can do. After a few more dates with George and a few of his friends, I thought I'd help you find a place of your own. A single woman like yourself shouldn't be living with her aunt. You need to go out, meet people. Men, actually. There are brothels in this town where girls like you are sought after ... lusted for. I thought we'd give you some nice real breasts -- well, certainly better than what you have. Maybe even bigger." She smiled. "Buy you a nice slutty wardrobe to show them off, and get you a room of your own where you can ... entertain gentleman callers. Let some stranger ... what's the term you real men use? 'Pop your cherry?' For cold hard cash, of course -- a working girl shouldn't give it away. Not that you'll see a cent, darling. I'll make sure you're kept penniless and demoralized, like a good whore should be."

"I don't have to stay for any of this. I've got money," he said with a touch of desperation. "I'll run."

"You have no way to get your hands on any of it," she replied sweetly. "Not looking like that. No passport ... no real ID, actually. You can't even leave the country, let alone cash a check."

"I'll call my banker in Boston! He'll help!"

"Silly girl! Sounding like that?" She laughed out loud. "He'll most likely call the gendarmes on you for trying to perpetrate a fraud. No one has ever heard of that chemical cocktail I made you drink to tighten your vocal chords. I assure you it's quite permanent, without the counter-agent. And since I have the only sample of that, I guarantee you'll never be a tenor again."

"I'll go to the police! I'll tell them everything!"

"And I'll deny it, of course. 'My nephew? Oh, I don't think so. He was supposed to come visit me, but he hasn't arrived yet. And he certainly doesn't dress like this. It's absurd!' And if I am called down to the headquarters to answer these ridiculous charges, I'm sure Madeline can insert the appropriate criminal record for a she-male hooker and con artist named Brenda into the police files. With your pictures, and of course your fingerprints, darling. We took them that first night, while you slept."

She took another drag on her cigarette. "Besides, once they find the body of that drifter with your wallet and passport, everyone will know Brendan's dead. Poor thing ... burned beyond recognition over most of his body in that warehouse fire last night. Had a devil of a time figuring out the best way to burn him so the passport stayed mostly intact."

The young man dropped into an overstuffed chair across from his aunt and put his head in his hands. The long blonde hair fell forward, hiding his face.

"You murdered somebody? For THIS? This is crazy! I've never done ANYTHING to you. Before my parents died, they never even mentioned you to me. Then you call out of the blue, and I come to Paris for the summer thinking I have family again. You drug me, change my voice, steal my passport and money, dress me up like this ... You're going to turn me into a whore? For what? Why are you doing this to me? Why?"

"Because you're a man, and I hate men." Brendan raised his head and looked into Carrie's eyes from across the room. She smiled. "Because you trusted me and I betrayed you, as every man I've ever known has betrayed me, in his day. Because I've been powerless and I've had power, and believe me, power is better. Because making a man experience the indignity of being a woman, the sheer powerless of being someone else's toy because of an accident of birth, is something I've always wanted to do. When you fell into my lap, so to speak, I had to act." Her eyes glittered. "You're mine!"

From the hallway to the master bedroom, came the sound of a lone pair of hands, clapping. A stunningly beautiful woman walked into the room smiling, still applauding.

"And act you have, Carrie, dear," she said in a voice that could make any man melt. "An amazing performance, trying to frighten the poor boy with tales of his terrible future. Very scary."

"But it wasn't a performance at all, was it? You really are the twisted bitch you were portraying just now. And that's the most frightening part of the show." Her eyes narrowed, and the smile disappeared. “But it’s my show now, I think. And you’re not the star anymore. Just a bit player, after all.”

Suddenly, Carrie was angry. "Who ... who are you? What are you doing in my home?"

The woman turned to her, and Carrie's anger turned quickly to confusion when she saw the chill in those eyes. "My name is Stark. My friends call me Jo. But since I consider you one of the lowest forms of life on the planet, I'd prefer it if you didn't speak my name at all."

Carrie's mouth dropped open, and Stark grinned suddenly, as if she was having the best time ever. "Close your mouth, Carrie dear," she said sweetly as she stepped around Brendan’s aunt. "It's unbecoming."

"Hello, Jo!” The young man rose hopefully, his eyes on the newcomer. "Did we get enough?"

"Oh yes, Brendan," The woman nodded, and he smiled. "More than enough. I switched to the pre-recording we made of you crying. In fact, after all the crowing your aunt did just now, I'm not sure the police will believe she can stay quiet for very long, so we must be quick. I have a friend distracting them, even as we speak, but they could be here any minute."

Brendan smiled, and his aunt turned pale. "P...police?" she stuttered. "I've done nothing illegal!"

"Nothing illegal? Au contraire, mademoiselle," Stark replied, turning on Carrie and pinning her in place, her eyes full of anger. Carrie took a step back in spite of herself, and Jo grinned again. She moved towards the woman a step at a time, doing a dreadful impression of Peter Seller’s Inspector Clouseau, about to reveal the murderer.

"Before embarking on an enterprise such as this, one should really do a bit of research. You see, blackmail doesn't have to involve property or currency at all. In fact, the law in most Western countries generally defines it as 'a criminal act of extortion -- malicious threatening to do injury to another to compel him to do an act against his will. Usually involves the threat to release information about the person that will defame his reputation or bring criminal actions against him.'"

Jo laughed and spun around on one toe, letting her skirt flare out around her. When she stopped, she pointed a finger at Carrie. "You just confessed on tape to blackmailing this boy into dressing as a woman on threat of exposure, so you could eventually sell him into a life of prostitution -- and you laughed about it! On tape, dear, with four burly French detectives listening in. Poor things, huddled in that tiny gray van outside."

Suddenly the grin left her face, and her tone turned very dark again. "Of course, that was only the appetizer. Then you confessed to killing a homeless boy in cold blood and burning his corpse, just so you could make people think Brendan was dead."

She smiled then, and it wasn't anything pretty about it. "And of course, you must have set the warehouse on fire, which mean arson. Nothing illegal? Girl, if you give them any more evidence against you, they'll have to dig for a hundred years to make a hole deeper than the one you've managed to dig for yourself!"

Stark took the last few steps over to the speechless aunt and bent over to whisper in her ear.

"But just in case that wasn't enough for the local authorities,” she growled, “I went ahead and planted the American President's itinerary for the upcoming summit and some bomb-making materials in your closet. Oh, I also hid a fortune in pure uncut cocaine in your car's spare tire well. And just to be safe, I added the home phone number of a local crime boss to your phone bill. You must have called him a hundred times in the past three months alone. Is there love in the air?"

Carrie's face turned pale, and Jo patted her hand, her voice oozing mock sympathy. "Oh, I know, dear. It IS a bit much. But I do so like to be thorough. And with all that to charge you with, they might just downplay the blackmail angle completely, and let Brendan get on with his life without all the fuss and bother of a public trial."

"But Madeline will send e-mails if ..."

"Madeline will do absolutely nothing," Stark said, that smile playing about her lips again. "My people cut her Internet access the minute Brendan walked in here ... and your phones about the same time. The police will arrive at her door, arrest her, and find all of that blackmail material you mentioned sitting on her computer. Along with Brendan's stolen laptop."

Stark reached up to her ear and tilted her head, as if listening.

"It's time for the big performance, Brendan." She turned and pulled the remote from her bag. "The piá¨ce de résistance. Are you ready?"

Brendan smiled back. "Just say the word."

"Go!" She pressed the first button.

Brendan stood up. "I'm not going to stand for this any longer. This game is over. I'll take my chances with the police, and you can't stop me. " He counted to three silently, then gasped. "Oh my God, put down the gun!" He ran over to the far side of the room, behind his aunt. Carrie turned her head and watched, confused.

Quickly, Stark reached back into the purse and pulled out a revolver. Thrusting it into Carrie's hands, Jo stepped aside and pressed the second button.

Before Carrie could drop it, the gun went off with a loud BANG. The bullet buried itself in a pillow on the chair across the room, and Carrie dropped the gun as if she had been stung. Stark picked up the revolver and shot two more times into the far wall where Brendan had been standing. Then she pressed the third button, and dropped the gun on the floor in front of the woman.

"We're offline again," she said. "And you, auntie dearest, are now also on the fast track to an additional charge of attempted murder. Graphite all over your hands, and you didn't even have to pull the trigger." Stark pinned her in place with a glance. “Of course, it’s more overkill. I didn’t know you’d already killed someone before I set this up.”

"The gun ..." Carrie stuttered. "They'll see it was rigged."

Stark shook her head. "My people aligned the cylinder with the barrel and held it in place using a small plastic frame. A radio controlled igniter was inside the casing of the bullet under the hammer. Disposable, very short-range. When the gunpowder in the bullet exploded, it fried the igniter. When I pulled the trigger for the second two shots, I advanced the cylinder and broke the plastic frame into tiny fragments. No fuss, no bother." She smiled again. "Besides, even if they knew what to look for, they'd have to look really hard, and they won't. They want to put you away, dear."

She listened again to her unseen partners, then sighed.

"Brendan? I need to go now. Half the Paris police force is heading for the front door. But I'll be in touch after the dust settles. Whatever you need to get your head on straight and your life back to normal, we'll make it happen. I promise."

He stood there, no longer quite the picture of femininity he had been only minutes before. "Thank you, Jo," he said, smiling.

"Thank you," Stark replied, smiling back. "It was my pleasure." She walked over to the back door and opened it.

Carrie finally found her voice. "I'll tell them about you," she shouted, pointing at Stark. "I'll tell them everything you did!"

"Moi?" Stark raised her eyebrows and placed a well-manicured hand on her chest. "Darling, I don't know what you're talking about! I was never even here." She blew Carrie a kiss. "Au revoir!"

A half hour later, a young couple sat at a sidewalk café across the street, drinking coffee and watching Brendan's aunt struggling in handcuffs as they shoved her into a waiting car. The street was full of police vehicles of all kinds, and members of the terrorist task force stood arguing with detectives from the narcotics division about which group would get to file charges first.

"Not quite your usual style, is it, Jo?" The man said, giving her an inquisitive glance over the rim of his cup. "You've always preferred the 'hands on' approach, but this is the third time you've called in the authorities this month. And the fourth time ever."

"Well, a girl's got to try something new once in a while," Stark replied, "although the practice of 'dropping a dime' is almost as old as the telephone."

"Dropping a dime?"

"Antiquated slang, Jeff. It means calling the police to point them at someone you want arrested, back when a local phone call only cost ten cents. You're a former detective, you should know the lingo."

"Well, I didn't work homicide with Cagney and Bogart," Jeff said with a grin. "Anyway, you dropped a lot more than a dime on this one. The cocaine alone set us back almost fifty thousand dollars."

"And worth every penny, if only for the look on her face." Stark finished her cup and stood, placing her purse over her shoulder with practiced ease. "No one in the police department would ever think someone would spend that much money just to frame someone."

"Well, they say money can't buy happiness." Jeff stood up, reached into his pocket and threw a handful of the local currency on the table. "But I have to say I haven't seen you smile this much in a long time. It looks good on you."

"Thanks to the body those bitches cursed me with, everything looks good on me," Stark countered, still smiling. "But thank you for the compliment." She slipped her arm through his and laughed out loud at the shocked look on his face.

"Brendan's a good kid," she said as they started walking down the boulevard, arm in arm. "I noticed how troubled he was a few days ago in the grocery store, but when I asked if he was okay, he came forward and told me everything. It took a lot of courage for him to trust me. Chesser and the hacker boys took a quick but detailed virtual tour of Carrie’s twisted life, and the police were ever so helpful. We were able to pull of the entire sting pretty quickly." Jeff looked at her sideways.

"Can we help him?" He matched pace with Stark, still on his arm. "With getting his life back?"

"I think so. Carrie left the chemicals she used to change his voice on her dresser. After all, he certainly wasn't going to drink that stuff again. I slipped it in my bag when we were planting the explosives in her bedroom. Our people should be able to create the counteragent. The fact that she said there is one means it can be done. Of course, before we try, we'll search everywhere we can think of to find the sample she said she had. The rest of the changes are cosmetic. Latex and salon work, although getting his eyebrows right again is going to be a bit tricky."

"We can use his passport photo as a reference," Jeff said, still getting used to having Jo on his arm and the warm feeling it gave him all over. "Maybe remove the hair that's still there, then create a realistic short-term tattoo to fill in where the hair was removed until it all grows back again. Or maybe a realistic long-term prosthetic, although that might be harder for him to deal with than the tattoo. "

"You are so clever!" Stark smiled, and rested her head on his shoulder. He stopped short, jerked away and turned to face her.

"Jo, what's going on? You've been acting very strange today. In fact, you've been a little weird all month. It's starting to scare me."

She looked up at him, and he looked deep into her eyes. For the first time since her killing spree on the ballroom floor, Jeff thought he saw a bit of his old friend peeking back out at him. There was a touch of fear, but also warmth and affection — and even though Jeff had been the one person closest to her in this new life she had been dragged into, he had never seen this side of her so openly expressed in the months since he found her ... as what she had become.

They stood next to a bench facing a park. Stark chewed on her lower lip, then sat with a smooth grace and patted the bench next to her. Jeff lowered himself gingerly until he sat as well, half-turned towards her, She turned to face him.

"Jeff ... since I rescued Craig -- Chrissy -- a few months back, I've started thinking about my life, and what it's become." Craig, a twenty-something graphic artist, had been magically transformed into a little girl and kept that way by his ex-girlfriend.

‘Something to do with that Medallion,’ Jeff remembered. ‘Jo's had agents everywhere searching for it.’ He nodded, anxious for her to continue.

"And when I went to save Paula and her friends on Halloween, she said something to me that started me thinking about who I am ... and who I want to be. She said 'the best revenge is living well.' And I think she may have been right."

"After we reached an . . . understanding with Grace de Messembry, we were going to see about working out how to set me free," Stark continued. "But I haven't been able to go near the psych folks at the mansion. Every time I think about it, something in my brain pushes me to turn and walk away."

She took a deep breath. "So I've been working on a sort of experiment. It's a little dangerous, so I haven't told anyone. Not even Chrissy." She stopped, not quite sure how to continue. Jeff waited, a little anxious. Stark sighed and looked down at her hands.

"I've been ... working on coming to terms with my situation," she nearly whispered, "and letting the anger go. I'm relying on it less and less to keep the programming at bay."

For a few seconds, Jeff stared at her, too stunned to speak.

"For God's sake, why?" He stood up, looming over her with fists clenched. His voice was so loud, passersby stopped and stared. "I thought it was the only thing standing between you and what they wanted you to become!"

"I thought so, too," Jo replied. She looked up into his eyes. "But when I rescued Chrissy, I found ... other strong emotions seemed to work just as well. I felt so sorry for her, and sad, but also happy that I saved her, and happy for myself to have found ... a friend. The programming couldn't get past those feelings either. So I thought, why not try something different? Why not try and lose the anger, and take back my life?"

"Why not? Because I could lose you!" Jeff sank back onto the bench, his eyes never leaving hers. "We could lose you. It's like playing with a loaded gun, Jo. I never liked the side of you the anger set free, but at least it's still you in there."

She saw the fear on Jeff's face and took his hands in hers. His eyebrows shot up.

"I know I'm taking an awful chance," she said softly. "We both know what could happen. You've seen what I become if I don't raise the anger, even though I wish to God you hadn't. And the anger was what saved me in the first place. It’s what made me free to ... to do what I did that night. But I'm so tired of being enraged all the time. I have good reason to be angry, I know. Every time I find another 'Aunt Carrie,' I know I'll never be finished. My work will always be there, waiting for me."

Stark squeezed his hands. "But there has to be more to life than an endless loop of hatred and vengeance. Doesn't there? You say you don't like the side of me set free by the anger. How do you think it makes me feel to LIVE with it, deep inside me, all the time? My doctor back at the mansion told me that if I stay angry every minute of every day, the stress alone will kill me sooner rather than later, as sure as if I put a gun to my head. And if I let the anger rule me ... if I let it become all that I am, then I'll be just as much a puppet as I would have been if they won. I'll become a slave to my own hate, instead of a sex toy for some man."

Her friend looked away, confusion warring with worry in his eyes. She touched his arm. "Jeff? When the anger is in control, how much of me ... the me I used to be ... can you see?"

Jeff shook his head. "You were never the vindictive type before, Jo. You let most things slide off your back, never held a grudge. Hell, you wore a smile most of the time. I used to think life just amused the hell out of you."

She smiled. "It did. When you're a reporter, you see so much of what people can do to hurt each other, you have to find a way to deal with it. Me, I either had to laugh or go mad. It sounds cruel, but it kept me sane. It kept everyone's pain at bay for me, even my own." Stark turned away, letting go of Jeff's hands to hug herself. Her voice became remote. "But since the abduction, and my ... liberation, I've been way too afraid to let go of the hate long enough to laugh. Not that there's been much to laugh about, but until Chrissy, I ... I was afraid to even try."

There was a short, awkward silence, then Jeff sighed. "When the anger has you, you're like someone else," he admitted. "Some of the things you've done ... I know you had to do them, because of what you've been through, but the guy I used to know would have been horrified."

"He still is." Stark looked down. "The anger keeps him at bay, too. How can I even try to put my life back together when the man I was hides from what I've become? When even he can't get past my hate?"

"If this is about building a life," Jeff said softly, "how do you feel about living ... looking like that?"

"It's not something I want, or ever wanted," she replied. "But as a reporter, the one thing you learn is to face the truth when you bump into it every once in a while." Stark sighed. "The fact is, I don't have a choice. They did this to me. I'm stuck like this. But looking like this isn't awful. I'm healthy, and strong. And truthfully, if I have to be a woman, better to be nice-looking with a decent shape." Stark turned to find Jeff giving her a dubious look. She shook her head and grinned. "Okay, fine. It's better to be stone cold gorgeous with a body to die for, okay?"

"Where did this all come from?"

Stark looked up at Jeff, and her grin became a small smile. "Chrissy, actually. In a lot of ways, she has it so much worse than I do. But instead of curling up into a ball, she ... adapts. She accepts what she is now. She gets on with life. Works on her art, helps in the kitchen, plays games, watches baseball on satellite. She even still wears play dresses once in a while." She grinned. "Chrissy told me that, now that she actually has a choice, it's sometimes just more comfortable. I guess, for me, that's what always made me angry more than anything. Choice. Losing the right to choose."

Jo turned away, hugging herself under her breasts. "It's the programming, Jeff. That's what I hate the most. Turning me into a submissive slave for any man who wants me. Making me be a slut when all I want to do ... is be." She shivered. "Okay, I'm a woman. I get that. And it's okay, really. As hard as it might be to accept if it happened to you, it's not the end of the world. But if ... if I have to be a woman, I just want to be able to be ... ordinary sometimes, you know? To be a real woman, not some sexual fantasy made flesh."

She turned back and sat beside him, touching his shoulder. "I want to be able to dress down once in a while, wear sweats and a tee shirt instead of being forced to walk around looking like a wet dream or a fashion model all the time. I want to cook food and play with kids, have dinner with friends or meet somewhere for a cup of coffee. I'd like to go to a movie or a ballgame, or be able to hang with my best friend without wanting him to take me in his arms and ..."

Suddenly, everything became very quiet. Stark's last words just hung in the air, and Jeff realized that she had let them slip out without thinking. He became very conscious of her hand on his arm, and of how close she sat, and her natural scent mixing with her very expensive perfume. Part of him wanted to lean forward and touch his lips to hers, kiss her with every ounce of passion he possessed, feel her melt in his arms and press herself to him as her eyes closed and she moaned and --

Jeff jerked upright, and stood quickly, turning away from her to hide his desire.

‘My God,’ he thought, ‘this is crazy! She's my best friend, and I want her so badly I ache.’ He shook his head. ‘No, it's more than desire. I want to take care of her. I want to hold her, and make everything better. That's all I've wanted since I found her, naked and mad and covered in blood all those months ago. I left my job for her, my life ... I helped her do terrible things. If I had to, I would kill for her. Hell, I'd die for her.’

Stark raised a hand, reaching out to him. "Jeff?"

It hit him like a lightning strike, and his knees went weak.

‘Oh my God. I ... I think I'm in love with her.’

‘I think I love her.’

"Jeff? Are you okay?"

He shook himself like a wet dog, all over, and fell back onto the bench next to her. His head fell into his hands. Jeff felt her hand on his shoulder, gently squeezing. But her touch was electric, even through his clothing, and he trembled under her fingers.

"What's wrong?" Her voice was full of concern.

‘I can't tell her,’ he realized quickly. ‘I'm her best, maybe her only, friend. If I tell her I love her and she doesn't love me back ... if things get awkward between us ... who will she have then? And if she finds the whole idea of being loved by someone who knew her when ... when she was a he ... if it scares her, or even disgusts her, I'll lose her completely.’ The thought make him shiver. ‘I can't ... won't ... lose her!’

Jeff scrambled for an answer.

"Just ... surprised, I guess," he said slowly. "It's a lot to take in all at once. You being in danger, letting go of the anger, your ... accepting the woman you've become." Jeff sighed and turned toward her. "I'm afraid for you, Jo. I don't ... don't want to lose you. I don't want to see you hurt."

"Jeff ..." Stark put her head on his shoulder and gave him a small hug. "You're my best friend. I don't want to hurt you, either. But I need to find another way to get free of this crap they stuck in my head, or the anger will kill me. And as weird as it sounds, I feel like I might want to live ... like this."

The hug made him feel warm and whole. ‘Yes,’ he thought, ‘definitely love. Damn it!’

Stark was confused. She had felt something, in that moment ... right after she let that stupid confession about wanting him slip out. For an instant, she felt happy it was finally out in the open. She had known she wanted him for months, but had always tried to keep a distance between them. When these feelings had first risen in her, she was fighting the woman she had become every minute of every day. In her mind she was still Joe, still a man, and wanting Jeff as her lover would have eroded what little of her manhood remained, buried somewhere in the back of her brain.

But now ... now Jo had begun to accept what she had become as an unavoidable fact of life. She'd started pushing away the anger that kept her former self both protected, and alone.

And she'd started to let down her guard.

There she was, with Jeff, baring her soul, finally connecting fully with the best friend she ever had for the first time since -- and suddenly she felt warm all over, and as she looked into his eyes, her mind became wholly focused on whether he would kiss her ... whether she wanted him to kiss her ... whether she should kiss him before the moment disappeared.

It scared the hell out of her. And then Jeff stood up and turned away, then nearly fainted?

‘It can't just be the surprise,’ she thought. ‘He is afraid, too. But more than afraid for me. What else is there? Is he afraid of what he feels? Or what he thinks I might feel?’

Jo hugged him harder, not wanting to let him go. Jeff's arms came up and he held her, his face buried in her hair, and he suddenly lost himself inside her. She wanted him, he knew she did, and in that instant, Jeff wanted her ten times more. He pulled her into him, felt the warmth of her body caressing all of him, and a low groan rose from deep inside him. Trembling, he kissed her forehead, gently, and the words came, unbidden, before he had the strength of will to stop them.

"Oh God, Jo, I ... love you."

In an instant, her whole body stiffened, and seconds later, she shoved Jeff away from her with all the force her arms could muster. Stunned and confused, Jeff looked into her eyes, searching for what he might have done to make her break away ...

... and instead saw an empty, distant look, as if she was listening to something very, very quiet, happening a long way away. It froze his blood. He'd only seen that look once before -- when he had walked in on her at the start of one of the submissive episodes her late unlamented tormentors had programmed into her.

Somehow, Jeff's confession had triggered ... something.

And the Jo he knew ... wasn't quite herself anymore.

Stark started breathing hard, her lips trembling as if she was trying to speak. Jeff raised a hand slowly.

"Jo?" His voice held confusion, and pain.

‘I caused this,’ his mind screamed. ‘Oh my God, what have I done?’

Tears began to fall from her eyes, slipping down her cheeks, and she gave a small whimper.

"I ... l ... l ... love," she stuttered, pushing the word out as best she could. "L ... l ... love ... YOU!"

The last word came out as a half-howl, half-scream. She stood for a moment, her eyes wide and her whole body trembling. Then, without warning, she leaped forward, pushed Jeff down to the pavement, and ran. Her long legs covered ground like an Olympic contender, in spite of the dress and heels. She moved away towards the heart of the city, and was quickly swallowed up by the crowds before Jeff could get to his feet.

He rose so fast the people around him on the sidewalk scattered in fear. Before he could even think, Jeff was running in the direction Stark had gone, ripping a satellite phone from his jacket pocket and shouting as he ran.

"Code red! Code red! Boss Lady is in puppet mode and off the grid, repeat, off the grid, somewhere in Paris. Get the action team to my location, stat! DAMN!" He stopped and bent over, breathing heavily. She was gone. He had lost her. "DAMN! DAMN! DAMN!"

Nobody noticed the tears as they fell from his eyes to the pavement below.

###

© 2010. Posted by the author.

With Jo Stark in the grip of the belated revenge of the women who made her, Jeff finds unexpected allies right around the corner, and learns that, as usual in his world, things are not always as they appear ...

Stark: Hammer Into Anvil
Part 2: The Long Goodbye
by Randalynn

"There's a long goodbye, and it happens everyday,
When some passerby invites your eye to come her way ...

Even as she smiles a quick hello, you've let her go, you've let the moment fly
Too late you'd turn your head, you'd know you've said, the long goodbye ..."
--The Long Goodbye, lyrics by Johnny Mercer

"My brain is the key that sets my mind free." -- Harry Houdini

###

Jeff was still trying to catch his breath and stop the tears when a black Citroen sedan pulled up beside him. The door swung open.

"Jeff! Get in!"

He found himself looking at a little blonde girl dressed in a pink chiffon dress. She wore white gloves and knee socks, and shiny white shoes, and a white hat with the brim turned up all the way around. She looked strangely familiar.

It took him a second, and when it came to him, the name slipped out in a whisper.

"Craig?" The girl sighed.

"Call me Chrissy when I'm out like this, okay?" she replied. "Less confusion for the mundanes."

Jeff nodded, and her tiny voice turned hard. "Good. Now get in the car before we lose her!"

The former cop stumbled forward and fell into the back seat beside her. The car lurched forward once, and the door beside him slammed shut in response.

"Go!" the girl shouted, banging on the seat back in front of her. The engine roared, and the tires spun an instant before the sedan grabbed pavement and hurled onto the street.

"Don't get your knickers in a twist, missy," the man in the chauffeur's cap growled. "Her Ladyship’s wired up seven ways from Sunday. She’s not going anywhere we can't follow. Hey, Jeff!"

He leaned forward and stared into the rear view mirror. "Chesser?"

"The one and only." The hacker grinned and reached up to touch the brim of his cap, then grabbed the wheel with both hands and turned hard to avoid a fruit stand on the corner. The suspension complained with a chorus of squeaks and groans as the car briefly rose onto two wheels during the turn, but Chesser hit the gas and the engine responded with an angry roar that told the rest of the car to behave itself or else.

"What the hell are you doing in Paris?" Jeff shouted over the horns of other motorist and the screams of pedestrians as his hands looked in vain for the rear seat's safety belts. "You're a hacker, not a chauffeur!"

"I AM hacking, copper," he replied, glancing at the obviously modified GPS device on the dashboard. "She's headed right to the Moulin Rouge, like she's got a damned compass in her head."

"Good!" Craig replied. She reached up to touch an earring, and Jeff realized it was a radio pair, just like the ones Jo wore. "She's on track, everyone. Keep a loose perimeter on her but let her run. We want her in the red light district, and that's where she's heading."

"Let her run?" Jeff's eyes bugged out, and he grabbed Chrissy by the shoulders and turned her to face him. "Are you crazy? In the state she's in? Who knows what kind of maniac she could run into out there?"

"We do, Jeff." The little girl's eyes were calm, and the former homicide detective could see the man she used to be staring back at him. "We know."

Chesser honked his horn, and Jeff looked toward the front of the car.

"Ease off there, Kojak," the hacker said, still driving hard. "She's a hell of a lot smaller than you are. Besides, it's not her fault you're a clueless sod. It's mine."

"What?"

"You heard me. I was the one what told 'em to keep you out of it. Need to know sorta thing."

"Told who? Keep me out of what?"

"I didn't want you fuckin' it up by watchin' the Boss Lady too close, so I told everyone to keep you in the dark, make sure you came in late." He grinned into the mirror. "So it's my fault you missed the first fifteen minutes of today's feature presentation. Now Chrissy and I get to tell you what happened while you was at the concessions gettin' popcorn."

Jeff leaned forward, and growled at the back of the hacker's head. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"I told you I was hacking, mate!" Chesser replied, still not turning around. "It's just not sitting at a keyboard or staring at a screen. So you shut up and let me drive. The little girl in the pink dress will fill you in — once you let her go, you wanker."

The hacker turned his attention back to the road, and Jeff let go of Chrissy with a sheepish half-smile.

"I'm sorry. Would you please tell me what's going on?" His voice was unnaturally soft, and she reached out a gloved hand and touched his.

"It's just what Chesser said it is," she replied. "It's a hack. A life hack. We figured out a way to set Jo free from the programming . . . if we can get all the pieces in place, and if everyone does his bit at just the right time."

Jeff sat back, stunned.

"She's saved so many of us," Chrissy said, looking up at the ex-detective. "Now it's our turn to save her."

###

Jo ran like a well-oiled machine, even though she didn’t look much like one. She covered ground with a speed that shocked her and everyone around her. In her pretty spring dress, she avoided obstacles and leaped over hurdles like an Olympian. Of course, her performance on the urban obstacle course was much more impressive, since she was running it in three-inch heels.

Inside her head, the programming had her mind locked down so tight, she was little more than a passenger in her own body. At first she tried desperately to stop herself, or even just slow down a little. But her body kept running, and every part of her adjusted to that without a single thought. Her breathing was measured, her stride sure, each step firm and true. Whatever was pulling her strings today knew just where it wanted to take her.

She hadn’t been in Paris more than a few times in the past. In fact, she was pretty sure she couldn’t find her way without a map, but judging from the route her body was taking, she was pretty sure she wasn’t heading for the Eiffel Tower.

For all of its ruthless efficiency, the programming didn't lock down everything. It couldn't stop the tears from pouring down her cheeks and dripping onto the front of her dress. She was moving further from Jeff with every mile she covered, and the part of her trapped inside wailed at just how easily that small bit of happiness was ripped away by the ghosts of the women who made her like this.

Jeff loved her. But just hearing him say it out loud triggered . . . something. Now she was trapped in someone else's agenda again. Maybe Bambi, the sex toy the bitches had wanted her to become when they did this to her ... maybe she wasn't ever supposed to be truly loved by a man. Maybe she was just supposed to be used and abused, a pretty toy and nothing more. Who knew what the hell went on in the minds of people who could do what these people did to Joseph Stark and all of the others?

Still, Jo managed to fight the programming long enough to tell him she loved him, too. And she resisted without anger. A small victory, but something she would cherish inside while the rest of her body ran a marathon without a sports bra.

'Damn, my chest is gonna hurt later,' she thought, giving herself the briefest of a inner smile. 'But I'll take the pain if it means I get to have a later. This is different from the other times the programming took over, though. I can feel it.'

She had plenty of time to think while her body ran, which surprised her a little. Who knew Paris was so big? As she started putting the pieces together, the picture that appeared wasn't a pleasant one.

'The other times, there were feelings. I was driven by desire. I needed a Master, and I wanted to be used and to serve.' Jo turned it over in her head, following wherever it went. 'As long as I served, I was happy and content. Hell, I was ecstatic.'

'But this time, there’s nothing. I'm a prisoner in my own flesh. I have no control, and nothing but fear to hang onto. The bitches don't want me happy. This time, they want me to suffer. Why?'

Stark felt a chill run through her body. 'Because this isn't about humiliating me anymore, forcing me to enjoy being someone's toy. This time, someone loves me. There's a chance for me to be happy, like this. And they can't have that. So they're going to make sure I never go back to Jeff.'

Her body turned a corner, not slowing for an instant, but the growing horror inside her froze her blood.

'This time, they aren't going to let me free. Whoever I find this time gets to keep me. I'll be somebody's slave forever, forced to do whatever they say for the rest of my life, with no way out.'

She started crying again, and her eyes began blinking rapidly, forcing the tears out of the way.

After all, even a puppet needs to see where she’s going.

###

“The way Jo handled Grace was ... unusual,” Chrissy said, seemingly oblivious to Chesser’s unique driving style. “And when you both came back to the mansion, you scheduled an appointment with the psych staff. No one knew why, but when she couldn’t go, the reason became clear. The programming knew what she knew, and knew why she wanted to meet with them ... and it wouldn’t let her anywhere near the shrinks.”

“I met with them alone.” Jeff braced himself against the car’s frame as Chesser made another improbable turn. “We went over all of the notes, all of the processes they used on her, and couldn’t find a place we could crack it. Just like every other time we’d been through it since she killed them all.”

“And yet, we know it’s got holes, or Jo wouldn’t have been able to kill anyone.”

Chrissy nodded. “Strong emotion pushes aside the programming. Originally, it burned a hole in what they wanted her to become and let her kill all the women in the ballroom that first night. Eventually, it allowed her to form the initiative and begin search and rescue operations.”

“It wasn’t hard to see when she began to let the anger go, even if she didn’t want anyone to know. And we noticed your conversations with the folks in the psych section — it’s not like you ever go down there without a reason. The trouble was, everyone in psych thought she was playing with fire, but they saw the need. And all of us who love her were determined to figure out a way to beat the system.”

“So we set up meetings, late at night or early in the morning,” Chesser said, his eyes still on the road. “We couldn’t chance Her Ladyship stumbling into one. That damned suicide provision meant that whatever plan we came up with had to be done inside the parameters of the program. If we forced the fix on her, she’d just shut down and die.”

“This went on for weeks.” Chrissy looked up into Jeff’s eyes. “We couldn’t let you know. You were always too close to her. She couldn’t suspect anything, or we might lose her. You see that, right?”

Jeff looked down and nodded, a small smile growing on his lips.

###

Jo stopped, her breathing barely affected by the extended run. Still trapped insider her own head, she watched as her eyes scanned the street, moving from doorway to doorway. She was obviously looking for something, but what?

As the sun sank below the horizon, the lights on some of the businesses began to glow. Her body stepped forward, eyes continuing to search, and Jo realized that they had stopped in the Moulin Rouge, the sex capital of Paris.

‘I must have been programmed to hunt for a specific kind of place closest to where I triggered the response,’ she thought. ‘Someplace that would be most likely to have a powerful Dom/me I could surrender myself to.’

Jo felt the tears starting again. ‘This is a nightmare!’

As she moved, the crowds around her pushed her this way and that, blocked her way and turned her around, until she finally found herself staring down the length of a small alley that ran deep between two other buildings. Jo could hear music echoing from a place at the end of the brick passageway, mixed with laughter and screams. In spite of herself, she was drawn to the sounds, and as she moved deeper into the alley, she saw people, some lit by the garish red of a flashing neon sign, some half shrouded in shadow. There were men and women in leather, others in collars crouching at the feet of those holding leashes, or chains, or whips. They all followed her with their eyes as she walked past, but the program ignored them. They were out here, not inside. So they may be Dom/mes, but they didn’t rule here.

The program wanted the most dominant Master available. No one else would do. Stark’s body brushed by them all as her mind screamed inside her.

She walked into the club itself, diving into an ocean of techno dance music, flashing lights, and writhing bodies. Jo pushed back as hard as she could, trying to stop herself, but the programming held fast, and her body strutted across the dance floor like it was a catwalk. The sea of dancers parted as she moved forward, stopping and staring at the beautiful woman in the spring dress as she walked through them, her eyes focused on the raised stage against the far wall.

On the other side of the dance floor, on an ornate throne, sat a huge man. He was tall and muscular, dark-haired and dark-eyed, and handsome. From Jo’s past experience as a reporter, she knew how to read people, and his bearing and the look in his eyes gave the impression that he knew very well who he was without being the slightest bit egotistical about it.

This was his place. These were his people. He was the Master.

Men and women surrounded him, kneeling or on all fours, all naked and collared, their eyes down. He paid them no mind, except to reach out and stroke the hair of the woman closest to him as he watched Jo approach.

“You will stop there.” The voice was deep and powerful, and it touched something deep inside her. She stopped instantly, bowed her head and lowered her eyes.

“Yes, Master.” Jo heard herself say. She felt something in her head shift, as if the program had chosen.

He rose to his feet and stepped forward. He was dressed all in black ... silk shirt, linen pants, socks and boots. The music stopped abruptly, and everyone in the club turned to look. He took a second step forward and towered over the new girl.

“I am not your Master, girl.” The tone of command was unmistakable. “Why do you come to me?”

“This one comes to serve.” Her reply was directed at his feet, and she waited for him to answer.

“Look at you, in your pretty dress.” The huge man in black stood up from his throne and took a step forward. “A pretty dress for a pretty girl.”

Stark dropped to her knees, her head bowing as she screamed inside.

“Thank you, Master.” Her voice was soft and respectful, and she bent forward and touched her forehead to the floor.

“I am not your Master, girl.” He repeated, a touch of annoyance creeping into his tone. “Do not presume. My collar is a gift, one you must earn through complete obedience and dedication to service. If I find you worthy, then and only then will I allow you to call me Master. Will you do as I command?”

“Yes, Sir,” she replied softly.

“You will be tested ... now.” He looked down at her, and his voice sharpened with the tone of authority. “My property does not wear clothing unless I command it. If you wish to be mine, rise and remove everything you are wearing, now.”

Without the slightest hesitation, she rose gracefully to her feet, removed her shoes, and quickly stripped until every stitch of clothing lay in a pile on the floor at his feet. Inside, Jo could do nothing but cry in silence. When her task was completed, the girl stood, head high and eyes down, hands crossed at the wrists before her as if waiting to be bound.

The Dom nodded approvingly. “You are obedient, and hold no illusions about your status. Good.”

He walked around her, his eyes inspecting every inch. His hand reached down and gently caressed her bottom with his fingertips. As he did, his eyes strayed to her face but saw no reaction at all. “You are healthy, fit, and strong. Obviously beautiful. And you seem very well trained.”

He stopped in front of her, while she remained absolutely still.

“Look at me, girl.” She raised her head and looked into his eyes. He saw nothing but the urge to obey. He put his hands on his hips and smiled.

“If I were to order you to kneel and pleasure me with your mouth,” he said, “I’m sure you would be pawing at my belt in an instant.”

“Yes, Sir,” she replied. “Is that your wish?”

“No, girl. Only slaves who have served me well and pleased me greatly receive that gift. No, your next test will tell how devoted you are to my service.” He turned away and walked back to his throne. Opening a side compartment, he withdrew a long thin needle, and returned to face Jo. She looked back at him expectantly, while inside, Stark cringed.

“Take this and push it through your nipple,” he said, holding her eyes with his.

Her fingers took the needle from him without a second’s pause, and she cupped and raised her left breast and positioned the needle to go through her nipple. As she began to push and the pain made her gasp, the Dom held up a hand.

“Stop!” She did, instantly. “Withdraw it.” Again she obeyed.

“Bring it up to your eye,” he said slowly, “and puncture it.”

Again, without a pause, she raised the needle to her face.

“STOP!” he roared. She did. He took the needle from her and tossed it to another slave, who brought it to the throne. His eyes never left her.

“You are magnificent. I have never seen such a natural slave before. You obey without question or hesitation. I must have you. Do you still wish to serve me?”

“Yes, Sir.” The girl looked down, and the Dom reached over and lifted her chin.

“Eyes front, girl.” She looked forward, and he smiled. “Very well, you are mine.”

Stark felt a rush of warmth flow through her entire body, and she realized with horror that she truly was his. Her will was completely gone. It was over.

The bitches had won.

He raised a hand and a slave brought him a silver collar.

“Kneel, girl.” She instantly complied. “Do you accept my ownership and dominion, to become mine in all ways, and to obey my every command as your owner, Master, and God?”

“Yes, Sir.” He reached down and put the collar around her neck, and snapped it closed with a click that echoed in Jo’s head. He grabbed a handful of her hair and jerked her head back to look into her eyes once more.

“Who am I, girl?”

“You are this one’s Master, her owner, and He who must be obeyed in all things.” Her voice was clear and unafraid, while inside, Jo felt herself sinking into sadness.

“And what are you?”

“Yours, Master. Your slave. Your property.”

He released her hair and took a step back.

“Rise. Stand before me.” She rose to her feet once more, hands crossed in front of her. The Dom smiled.

“So obedient. Are you ready for your first command ... as mine?”

“Yes, Master.”

‘Oh, God,’ she thought, fear shooting through her. ‘What does he want?’

“And you will obey without question?”

“Yes, Master.”

“Good.” He stepped forward and locked eyes with her once more. “Listen carefully. Joseph Stark ... Jo Stark ... you will erase every bit of mental and emotional programming that keeps you from being the person you wish to be — the person you truly are.”

A chill swept over her and washed through her mind as everything seemed to freeze. The only thing she could hear was His voice, echoing in her head and saying things that sliced into the core of her and ripped through the months of conditioning with a fierceness that left her soul ravaged and alone in a whiteness that was once a tangled maelstrom of fiery red, built with drugs and surgery and hate.

“You will reclaim your free will, and no longer be consumed by anger, because it is no longer needed to keep you safe and whole.”

She fell to her knees and covered her face, as a battle raged behind her eyes. Line after line of what had been done to her unraveled as she watched, each insult, each trespass, each act of torture faded and became nothing more than memory — not forgotten, never forgotten or forgiven, but faded with the distance of time.

“All the damage done to you will be undone, and your life will be your own once more, to do with what you will.” He leaned forward and commanded her with every ounce of authority he possessed. “This is what I command, and you must obey, because you are MINE.”

With the last few words, she felt the war inside her end at last, and she let her hands fall to her lap and looked up at the Dom. He smiled down at her.

“Did it work?” he asked gently. “Are you free?”

She stood up slowly and looked down at her body, the breasts and hips and all, and sighed.

“I’m about as free as I’m going to get looking like a centerfold for the rest of my life,” she replied, looking up at him. “But that’s a damned sight better than I was a few minutes ago.”

Suddenly conscious of her nakedness, she picked up her panties and wiggled into them quickly, then snatched the dress from the floor and slipped it over her head. Halfway through putting on her shoes, she heard a shout from the area behind the throne.

“Jo!”

Jeff ran across the room and wrapped his arms around her, and the kiss that followed was both a surprise and a revelation to Jo. Even with the programming gone, she still loved Jeff. She still wanted him to be hers. And that both reassured and confused her, in equal measure.

“So I guess it worked, then?” Chesser wandered in behind him, still in his chauffeur’s livery, and tipped his hat. “Evenin’, miss. Programming all gone?”

“As gone as it’s going to get.” She looked over Jeff’s shoulder. “Hey, Chesser. So this was your idea?”

“Chrissy’s, actually. I just had the chops to make it real. Damn, I’m good.” The hacker peered at the two of them. “Although I didn’t realize you two had that kind of relationship before the bitches programmed you.”

Jo smiled at him.

“Bite me,” she said, and kissed Jeff again.

Chesser shrugged. “Maybe later.”

Jo broke off from the kiss, sighed, and turned her head. “Okay, Chesser. Tell us all how clever you are, so I can thank you properly for finally saving my permanently bouncy round bottom.”

He grinned. “Well, since you asked ...”

Everyone in the club watched him as he moved to take center stage directly in front of the Master’s throne, and cleared his throat theatrically.

“Like I said before, it was Chrissy’s idea,” he said, projecting as if he were trying to fill the Albert Hall. “Once she brought it to me, I coulda kicked myself from here to Devon and back, it was so damned simple. And when I went through the notes knowing just what to look for, I saw what we needed to bring this off. We’ve been watching you and Jeff for weeks, waiting for the right moment.”

“It made perfect sense, when you looked at it a while,” he said, pacing back and forth as if he was Sherlock Holmes ... or Inspector Clouseau. “And in the end, we have the bitches to thank. After all, it was their fault that Jo broke free of their control the first time. What finally killed them was their own cruelty — the little touches they put in to make her suffer every day.”

“See, they wanted Joe Stark, the man, to always be able to see what he’d become. They wanted that piece of Jo to remain separated from the program, trapped and powerless, while the other part of her — the part they pieced together — enjoyed being the submissive super-slut they had made her. And they thought they knew enough about the human mind to treat it like a computer.”

“But a computer can’t feel, can it? And no matter how well you think you know someone, you can’t predict how he’s gonna feel when you kick him. They wanted Joe to hurt, trapped inside his own head, drowning in his own sadness. Instead, they drove him crazy, and got pure, raw animal rage instead, one of the strongest emotions there is. It helped Jo break through their programming just enough to let her kill them all.”

Chesser turned and wagged a finger at Jo, surprising her.

“You’ve got to remember, the human mind isn’t really logical, like a computer. I mean, it can be, if you want it to be. But it’s not logical by nature. It’s a complex system that builds itself over time. Memory is holographic, stored and retrieved through a system so complex they still haven’t worked out all the kinks. And because experience writes the program, a human can makes intuitive leaps, making the right choices over and over without enough data to choose logically.”

“The other programming they did to you ...the programming you broke ... was weak, because they made it too complicated. It was still there, still haunting you, but damaged. So you could fight it, but not defeat it.”

“But this puppet thing, what happened to you just now? It wasn’t broken or damaged at all. Because it hid in the deep recesses of your mind, and never came into play until certain conditions were met. It was a failsafe, like a doomsday device. If you ever became truly happy as you are, they wanted you locked in a Hell from which you could never escape.”

“As a result, they made this program about as subtle as a baseball bat to the frontal lobes. Because in order to really control a computer as complicated as a human mind, the program has to be simple, yeah? Little more than a blunt instrument. You have to force it down a binary path — on, off, yes, no. Unlike everything that came before, Jo HAD to do exactly what she was told by her ‘Master.’ The programming overwrote all other considerations. She HAD to obey. And she did.”

Chesser turned back to the assembled crowd, and opens his arms wide.

“And that’s just what we wanted. Because the one overriding command the Master gave her — the one she HAD to obey — was to erase all of the programming completely, and leave her to find her own destiny once more. Which it did, erasing itself in the process once everything else was gone. The end.”

There was a short pause, and slowly applause came from the crowd and swelled modestly as the hacker smiled and bowed.

After the clapping had ceased, Jo untangled herself from Jeff’s embrace. She turned and approached the Master, then reached up slowly and removed the collar.

“I won’t be needing this anymore,” she said.

“I understand,” he said, taking the collar and passing it to one of his slaves. “It was only a means to an end, after all.”

Jo looked over at the man in black and cocked her head.

“Believe me, I’m grateful, and I want to thank you for ... well, for everything,” she said. “But ... who the hell are you?”

“Exactly who I appear to be,” he replied with a smile. “I am the Master here, and these are my slaves. They come to me and beg to be mine because submission fulfills something inside each of them. For me, I care for and love each of those I claim as my own with all of my heart and power, because they trust me to be a Master worthy of their submission, and I dare not disappoint them, or I shall not be the man I believe myself to be.”

He walked back to his throne and sat. “When Chesser came to me and told me what had happened to you, and what those women wanted you to become, I was horrified and angry. The relationship between Master and slave should be freely chosen, and never be compelled by drugs or torture or mental programming.” He glanced at Chesser, then back to Jo. “So when he asked me if I would try to free you from the hell they wanted to place you in, if Paris was the city you were in when this plot came to a head, I jumped at the chance. And I am pleased to see that it worked.”

Jo walked over to the Master and held out her hand.

“Thank you,” she said simply, looking into his eyes. He looked back and smiled, then took her hand and kissed it gently. Warmth raced through her body from where his lips touched her skin, and she withdrew her fingers from his and stepped back, clearly confused.

Chesser cleared his throat, and Stark turned to look at him.

“We approached the Doms in every city you’ve been working since the whole Grace incident,” he said, “just in case something should trigger that puppet mode you wound up in. We needed that ‘blunt instrument’ to wipe the other programming clear — that and a strong voice from someone who knew how to give orders.”

“And they all agreed?”

Chrissy stepped out from behind Chesser. “Most did, for many of the same reasons this Master did. Some wanted cash, and of course we had lots of that to throw around.”

“Hey, Chrissy,” Jo said, smiling. “I understand this was all your idea.”

“Guilty as charged, ma’am.” She blushed and put her hands behind her back. “Sorry we had to trick you, Jo. I didn’t want to, but it was the only way it would work. I tried coming up with something else, but this was the only way that was guaranteed to free you.”

Chrissy looked down, unable to meet Jo’s eyes. “It must have been horrible for you, thinking you’d lost everything. I’m sorry I had to hurt you like that after all you’ve done for me.”

“Well, I’m not.” Chrissy looked up, and Stark grinned. “Damn, Chrissy! You freed me, girl! I can think and feel for myself for the first time in years, and the pain was a small price to pay to get my life back again.”

When she saw that the younger girl was still not convinced, Jo reached out and touched Chrissy’s cheek.

“Look, I know it must have hurt you something fierce to have to make me feel that way,” she said. “But you did it anyway to help me. You did what was hard, what had to be done, no matter how much it hurt you to do it. Because you cared.”

She went down to her knees and looked into the little girl’s eyes.

“Thank you, from the bottom of my heart,” she whispered, “for doing what you needed to do to make me whole again, even though it was hard on us both. I love you for it, and I always will.”

She opened her arms and Chrissy ran into them and hugged her tight. They stayed that way for a while, which gave Jeff an opening to ask Chesser something that had been bothering him.

“How could you be sure she’d find him, and not some other powerful Dom you hadn’t visited?”

“Easy, copper. We stacked the deck.” The detective looked at the hacker, and Chesser sighed.

“Look, when you and the boss here came to Paris ... in fact, in every town we’ve been in the past few weeks ... we planted a group of actors in the crowd near where the most powerful Dom set up shop. They were all linked by short-range radios hidden in nearly invisible earpieces, and directed by someone on the roof of the highest building on the street. The idea was that, if something did trigger this puppet mode, they would work as a team to herd her Ladyship towards the Dom in question. They pushed her towards this particular alley from the moment she arrived ... getting in her way, bumping into her and turning her when needed. Eventually, they got her to go exactly where they wanted her to go, which was here.”

“And now, despite how accommodating our host has been,” Jo said, rising from her knees and ruffling Chrissy’s hair,” I think it’s time for all of us to head back home, don’t you?”

Chrissy looks up at her. “Is it still home? Now that you’re free?”

Stark grinned, and Jeff saw his old friend peeking out in the smile.

“Well, there’s still family there, and it’s where all my stuff is now. So I guess the answer is yes.”

“What about the mission, ‘boss?’” Chesser asked. “Still interested?”

“Of course. Still wrongs to right and windmills to tilt at, after all.” Even as she said it, she knew it wasn’t going to be that easy. Did the new Jo Stark have what it took to do what had to be done?

Did she really want to be that ruthless anymore?

Jeff saw her confusion. He reached out and took her hand. “And ... us?”

She tilted her head and smiled, then reached out and took Jeff’s other hand. She squeezed both gently.

“The Master commanded me to be the person I wished to be — the person I truly am now. I can’t be Joseph Stark, not anymore. I can’t go back, only forward. And I want to go forward ... with you.” She leaned forward and kissed him. He looked into her eyes and saw nothing but love.

She turned to Chesser. “Now ... home, James!”

“You mean me?”

“Well, you are wearing the uniform,” Jo said with a grin. Then she affected a posh upper-class British accent. “Unless you prefer ‘Parker?’”

The hacker stared at her in shock. “I can’t believe after all this time tied up in somebody else’s strings, you’re gonna get all nostalgic about a puppet show!”

Her eyes twinkled. “Thunderbirds are GO!”

Chesser groaned. “A fan girl. I should’ve known.”

He paused a second, then shrugged and replied in a heavy Cockney growl. “I shall await you in the car, your ladyship.” He spun on his heel and stalked out the alley door without a backwards glance.

Jo snickered, then reached out and took Chrissy’s hand again. With both of her closest friends beside her, she felt happy for the first time since she had been taken from that street corner in Baltimore, long ago.

“It’s a whole new beginning, for all of us,” she whispered. “Let’s make the most of it.”

###

© 2010. Posted by the author.

Freed from her programming at last, Jo Stark thinks about her past and wonders about her future. And her first case since her release takes her team back to the US, to help a man in a trap from which there seems to be only one escape.

 

by Randalynn

"Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes." — Carl Jung

"Never make your home in a place. Make a home for
yourself inside your own head. You'll find what you
need to furnish it - memory, friends you can trust,
love of learning, and other such things. That way it
will go with you wherever you journey." — Tad Williams

###

The Rolls moved swiftly across the Swiss countryside, gliding over the well-tended roads with a certainty that was almost the exact opposite of the way Jo felt inside.

It had been less than a day since she had been freed from the programming that had dominated her life for years. Once she had been Joseph Stark, journalist for the Baltimore Herald. After her abduction from a Baltimore street corner, a group of wealthy man-hating psychopaths had transformed him into an ultra-feminine plaything just for the fun of it. After he had become a she, they twisted her mind and tried to break her. In the end, they succeeded — although not quite the way they had intended.

Instead of trapping Joe in a hell he never deserved, they set free the part of him that most people keep locked up deep inside — the part no one ever sees. The uncontrolled rage pushed back the psychological programming they tried to imprison him with, but it also eliminated any thoughts of restraint or mercy. And on the night of her “coming out” party, the woman Joe Stark had become rose up like an avenging angel, broke free of their control, and slaughtered them all.

The anger freed her long enough to liberate all of the other men the bitches had captured and changed. But in the end, the programming was still there, only kept at bay by a constant supply of raw anger that ate at what had been Joseph Stark’s soul as much as the programming did. A well-conceived and executed plan by her friends had unlocked the mental chains that bound her, and allowed her to let go of the anger and embrace her new life.

Now that she was free, a whole new future had opened for her. The problem was, Jo wasn’t sure what to make of that future ... or of the rest of her life, for that matter.

‘Going back to Baltimore isn’t an option, really,’ she thought. ‘Not anymore. There’s nothing there for me. Too much time has passed since the man I was went missing. And as much as I miss being a reporter, no one at the Herald would believe I’m Joe Stark anyway, not looking like this. Heck, I look in the mirror sometimes and I still don’t believe it.’

She looked out the window of the car at the passing scenery, catching a ghost of her reflection in the window. She was still too pretty, even with her golden blonde hair half-tousled and a minimum of make-up. Jo shook her head. She was a long way from the man she’d been ... probably too far to convince anyone that she’d ever been Joseph Stark.

‘And even if I could convince them I’m me, what’s that going to buy me? At best, I’m headlines for the tabloids, another freak for the talk show circuit. At worst, if the Swiss government find out what went on at the mansion when I first freed myself and everyone else, they’ll throw me in a cell until hell freezes over for killing a bunch of very rich women and disposing of their bodies without notifying the authorities.’

Jo looked down at what she wore, and smiled. For the first time since Baltimore, she was wearing a pair of pants. Jeans, too. Authentic American blue jeans, with an oversized powder blue sweatshirt, and white running shoes with white socks. The underwear was still way outside her new comfort zone, a white lace thong and matching demi bra. It wasn’t her first choice, but every time she went into a Paris store to buy plain Jane lingerie, the responses of the staff ranged from scorn to disbelief, and she eventually just went with what she had in her bags from her old life.

And it wasn’t even what the underthings felt like that bothered her. Truly, after all this time, they felt almost normal to her. But in her mind, they still represented a time when she was forced to wear them, and now that she was free, Jo wanted to choose.

She’d almost forgotten what pants felt like. Even now after a few hours of wearing them, they still felt strange. Maybe it was the way the soft denim felt when it rubbed against her hairless legs. Maybe it was how these jeans fit, like they were painted on, hugging every curve and pressing gently between her legs every time she moved.

Or maybe it was just a ghost of the old programming sticking around, making her uncomfortable with the idea of even wearing anything but a skirt or dress.

Chesser said something like that might happen with some of the programming they’d manage to erase.

“It’s like muscle memory, sorta,” the hacker had said as he drove her, Jeff and Chrissy back to the hotel after the life hack that had set her free. “Things like skin care and make-up, how to walk and sit, or take care of that mane a’yours. Even how to go to the loo. That stuff gets to be automatic for most folks over time. The programming they put in to make you do it is gone now, but the body remembers. Some of it you won’t mind keepin’ — I’m pretty sure you don’t want to learn how to paint your face all over again, right? But some of the less useful shite might sneak up and surprise you, so just keep your eyes open for a while.”

Jo felt Jeff take her hand and give it a soft squeeze, and turned to give him a smile. He smiled back, and it warmed her inside, although part of her still wondered how the man she once was could ever fall in love with another man. She loved Jeff, she knew that much. She just didn’t know how to move forward from here, and she was afraid of disappointing him somehow.

‘Things were supposed to get less complicated,’ she thought. ‘I’ve been either a puppet or a monster since the first time I looked in a mirror like this. I have no idea how to be a woman, and Jeff deserves so much more than I could ever give him. But I love him — what the hell am I supposed to do?’

Jo glanced over at Chrissy. She had been a grown man named Craig until an accident with a magical item had turned him into a preschool girl. She could have been restored pretty easily at the time, but her girlfriend threw away the item and chose to keep her a powerless child, just to satisfy some twisted need for control. Jo had saved Craig and taken her back to the mansion in Switzerland, where she had found a new home and a family that would accept her for who she was. Stark had watched her blossom and find happiness again, and in an odd way, the little girl had become her closest friend, after Jeff.

Chrissy was buckled in securely, wearing jeans and a sweatshirt that almost matched Jo’s. She caught Jo looking at her and grinned, glad that her mission had succeeded and that Jo was finally free. Her grin faded a bit as she saw the expression on Jo’s face, but it was too late for Stark to hide it, and when Jeff’s phone rang, Chrissy reached across and pulled the unbuckled woman over to sit next to her.

“What’s wrong?” She put her arms around Jo and gave her a hug. It wasn’t what Craig would have done, but Chrissy had figured out long ago that her future was as a girl, and girls liked to be touched — even girls like Jo, who never wanted to be one but was finding it impossible not to be.

‘You do whatever you need to do to make the people you care about feel better,’ Chrissy thought, her face half-buried in Jo’s side. ‘If anyone needs a hug, it’s Jo.’

Jo’s arm wrapped around her in return.

“I am,” she replied softly. There was a pause, and the little girl gave her a squeeze, as if to tell her to go on. Jo looked over at Jeff again to make sure he wasn’t listening, and sighed.

“I’m what’s wrong, Chrissy. Here I am, free at last, but instead of feeling free, I feel trapped.”

“Trapped? How?”

“Now that I have a future, I’m asking myself a lot of questions I can’t answer,” Jo replied, keeping her voice low. “But I need answers if I’m going to move forward.”

“Like what?”

“Things like, who am I, now? Or even, WHAT am I, now? Can I really be the woman Jeff deserves when I’m still not sure what being a woman means? Is it fair to Jeff? Can I still play avenging angel now that I don’t have what those bitches did to me chasing me through life? Do I want to? I’m so confused, I can barely see straight. I feel like I’m trying to find my way across a burning swamp in a fog. I can’t take a single step because I’m afraid of drowning in quicksand, but I can’t stay still because the fire won’t let me.”

Chrissy pushed herself far enough away from her friend to look up into her eyes.

“The swamp is only burning because you think it is,” she said. “Jeez, Jo ... you’ve only been free for less than a day. Give yourself a chance to breathe. Freedom means making decisions, choosing paths, learning how to be. And you have time. I’ll help. In fact, let’s talk about some of the questions you just asked, ‘kay?”

“Can you really be Jeff’s woman?” The little girl smiled. “Seems to me you already are. I know he thinks so ... hopes so, anyway. You’re not sure what being a woman means? Join the club. I’m pretty sure there are a lot of women out there who were born this way who don’t know the answer to that question. You’ll learn as you go.”

She reached out and touched Jo above her heart. “For now, how about you work on being Jo for a while? Isn’t that enough of a challenge, figuring out who you are? In the end, the kind of woman you are is the kind of woman you’ll be. And right now? You’re the kind of woman Jeff loves. So why not go with that?”

Jo sat there for a moment, her mind spinning. Chrissy watched her.

“Are you okay?”

The older woman shook her head. “I’m not sure. Lots to take it. Lots to think about. And when did you get to be so smart, anyway?”

“Not sure I am ‘smart,’” she replied. “I’m just a little farther away from the questions you’re asking than you are. After all, even though Crystal stole my life, she never changed who I was inside. And even though I had to do a lot of things she made me do to fit in as a little girl, I never quite gave up on the man I was. Almost … but you found me before it was too late, and gave me back part of the life I thought I’d lost forever. It took some time, but I’m happy now. You can be, too.”

“So why don’t you take a little time and just live for a while? Bet you haven’t done that since ... well, since they took you.” She smiled. “After a while, if you need more help, you could talk to Andrea. That’s why Jeff brought her to the mansion, after all. He thought it would be a good idea to bring in a professional, to help everyone try to get past what the bitches put them through. She’s there to help people move forward, if they can. And that includes you, missy, now that you’re actually free to talk to a therapist instead of hiding under the bed when one walks by.”

Chrissy took Jo’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “You’re on the road to somewhere again, right? Maybe you could use a guide.”

###

Andrea’s office was warm and inviting, matching her personality. The walls were painted with soft yellows and decorated with posters from 1940’s movie musicals, and the furniture was soft and well-padded. Classical music played from a small stereo system on bookshelves crammed with both fiction and non-fiction. Her dog, a mixed-breed named Harley, was curled up on a dog bed in the corner, and he watched every visitor carefully for any hint they might be inclined to pet him, or give him a treat.

Andrea herself sat in a chair across from the sofa, legs crossed at the knee while she focused on her visitor. She wore a pale blue cardigan over a simple blouse, and a long brown skirt with a pair of calf-high boots made of soft brown leather. Her long graying hair fell in soft curls onto her shoulder, framing a smiling face with high cheekbones and welcoming eyes.

When Jo delivered a hesitant knock on her door, the therapist greeted her with a soft hug, made her a cup of tea, and sat down across from her. What was supposed to be a therapy session started as a meeting between new friends, and as time went on, Jo found herself sharing more and more. From her kidnapping to her release from the programming, and then about her hopes for her new life, and her fears about figuring out who she had been, who she was … and who she wanted to be.

After four hours, Jo ran out of words. She looked down at her hands and waited, until she felt Andrea sit next to her on the sofa, and turned as the therapist placed a soft hand on her knee.

“Therapy is never about instant answers,” Andrea said, her voice gentle. “Sometimes, it takes years to untangle the knots that time and experience tie us all up with, and therapists are really not supposed to be giving you the answers, Instead, we’re supposed to help you find them for yourself.”

“But after what you’ve been through, I understand your need to figure out who you are and who you will be right now. I hope this is the first of many meetings to follow, because you’ve been through so much, and I can’t possibly hope to help you find the peace you need in just a single session. However, this is an important crossroads for you, and leading you to the truth in the traditional sense would only frustrate you at a time when what you need most is some kind of certainty. So I’m going to break the rules. I’d like to give you a few guideposts … simple truths you need to think about on your own until our next session, that will hopefully give you some peace. Would that be okay?”

Jo nodded, not expecting anything like this so soon. Andrea smiled.

“Good. The first truth is a given. Of course the past few years have changed you. Time changes everybody, and I’ll be the first to admit that you’ve been changed more than most. But maybe deep down inside, you are still who you’ve always been. The decades you lived before they took you weren’t erased, and the Joe Stark you were was a decent man. Can Jo Stark the woman really be any different?”

“Just look how far you’ve come since Paris. Jeans and a tee shirt … and a pony tail? The women who did this to you would be spinning in their graves if they could see what you look like now. And when you admitted to yourself, and to Jeff, that you loved him? You’ve gone way beyond just freeing yourself from their programming. You’ve totally destroyed whatever plans they had for you. They wanted you unhappy forever, and here you are, picking up the pieces and starting all over again.”

“Can you still be an avenging angel now?” Andrea shrugged. “I’m not sure you ever really wanted to be. Joe Stark wasn’t.”

Stark raised an eyebrow. “How could you possibly know that?”

“Give me a little credit, Jo. I couldn’t meet with you because the programming kept you away from the psych team, but I could still read everything about you they had in the files they assembled before and during your … conversion. I also talked to Jeff at length about the man you were, and interviewed some of your co-workers from the paper you worked for. I ever asked Chesser to get me all of your work from your days at the Herald. He dug up your stories from their archives, and I read them all.”

Jo cocked her head, genuinely surprised. “You did?”

The therapist grinned. “Oh, yes. And what’s interesting is that everyone who knew you back then told me the same thing, and the stories you wrote back then confirmed it. Joseph Stark was all about justice. Slumlords, loan sharks, pimps, corrupt cops – whoever the villain was, you used your skills to level the playing field and make them pay. It was who you are then, and it’s who you are now.”

“But when I first pushed the programming away …”

Andrea leaned forward. “When you broke free of the programming the first time, your mind went where it always went before, when you were Joe. You wanted nothing more than to punish the wicked and save the victims. The anger you needed to fight the programming made you homicidal at first, and kept you driven to painful punishments afterward. But now that the anger is gone, I don’t think your overall mission will change much. A little less revenge now, I think, but I’m pretty sure you’re still going to get in there and mix it up for the little guy.”

She gave Jo’s hand a squeeze. “Because man or woman, you’re still you, after all. It doesn’t matter if you’re Joseph or Jo, you’re still going to want to make things right. And whatever you want to do is going to be just fine with everyone at the mansion, because they love you, no matter what.”

The therapist stood up.

“I think that’s enough for now, don’t you? We’re both hungry, and I think homemade pizza is on the menu tonight, so let’s go visit the kitchen and see if dinner’s ready.”

Jo stood up too, a small smile on her face, then stopped.

“And what about Jeff?”

Andrea looked at her. “Do you love him?”

“Yes.”

“Does he love you?”

Jo smiled. “Yes, he does.”

“Then I think your relationship will work itself out, don’t you? You’v been friends for a long time, and loved each other as friends, even when you were both male.” Stark looked at her, confused, and Andrea sighed. “Honestly, girl, do you really think Jeff would throw everything away back home to come here to rescue you if he didn’t care about you that deeply? Men can love men, even if they avoid ever saying it out loud.”

“In any case, this is enough for today. There will be other sessions, Jo, and maybe even a few with both of you together. For now, think about what I’ve said, and we’ll talk more in a few days. For now, let’s hope the pizza is waiting!”

As they walked to the door, Jo felt a little of the weight she’d been carrying lift from her shoulders.

‘There’s time,’ she thought, letting herself feel a little happiness for the first time in a while. ‘She is right. I’m still the person I used to be, inside. But I can use what’s happened to me to keep making a difference. And isn’t that what I always wanted?’

###

I balanced precariously on the garage roof, breathing in the fresh air and feeling free for the first time in weeks.

”What are you doing, baby?”

I turned to look at my oldest daughter, her body halfway out the bedroom window with one arm reaching for me. Her eyes were filled with the anger she never seemed to lose these days, whenever she looked at me.

I stood there, just out of reach, and took a moment to think about my answer. I was wearing my youngest daughter's pink party dress, and out of the blue, I remembered when she wore it last. I had been carrying her on my shoulders from the car to a friend’s birthday party, and I listened to the laughter from inside the house before putting her down to run away with the other girls for party games and cake.

She had grown out of it two years ago, but I had shrunk into it a few months back. Now the whole outfit fit me just fine, from the pink bows in my hair to the plastic panties with the ruffled bottom and the white socks with the lace around the tops. Even her old Mary Janes fit my feet now, although they were a poor choice for climbing around rooftops.

Finally, I replied, in my not-so-new little girl voice.

“I’m taking control of my life again.”

She laughed out loud, and shook her head, still smiling.

"How could you possibly do that, Missy?" There was a sweetness in her tone that just barely hid the burning hate in her voice. “You’re just a toddler now. You can’t do anything for yourself anymore, not even use a potty.”

I smiled at her. “Oh, I can do this, Jeannie. This one thing, I can do. Trust me, I’d climb mountains of broken glass if i had to, just to get away from you. From all of you.”

I moved a little closer to the rain gutter. “And for the record, I did pretty well getting out here. The sliding screen was a little hard to move at first, but after that, it was easy for me climb through the opening I made. I guess being small does have some perks, after all.”

“But there’s nowhere you can go from there, Daddy dear.”

“I can’t believe you’re that slow, Jeannie. There is one place left, I’m afraid. Just the one. And once I’m there, you’ll never touch me again.” I looked down at the hard surface of the driveway below, and wondered if the roof was high enough.

If a fall from here would kill me.

“I probably should have done this a month ago,” I said, turning back to Jeannie. “But I had hope back then. I was alive, and with people I loved, and I thought somehow, eventually, things would be okay. Better. After all, I thought you all loved me back then, and I figured love would find a way. After all, I only looked like a little girl. I was still your Dad. You wouldn’t want to take what was left of my life away from me. Why would you?”

“Then you went and did it anyway.”

“And it was fun!” Jeannie grinned. “Little Laurell loves having a new baby sister.”

“I can’t blame her for treating me the way she did. How could I? She still doesn’t understand why I keep fighting it. She thinks being a girl is the best thing ever.”

“Yeah, Mom treats you like a baby too, now.” I heard the edge of cruelty in her voice. I blinked back sudden tears.

“She does, and it hurts,” I said, after a moment. “Her husband is a little girl now, and she doesn’t have a clue how to deal with it. So she takes the easy way, and treats me as a baby instead of remembering the man she loved is still in here. She doesn’t care how much it hurts me. I still can’t believe she’s evil. I loved her. She’s just … selfish.”

“But you? You’re the one I blame. You hate me. God knows why, but you hate me enough to slip laxatives into my food to keep me in diapers, and do everything you can to hurt me every chance you get.” I started crying, and didn’t care. “Maybe you want to get back at me for all the times I said no when you wanted something, or set a curfew that kept you from doing what you wanted. Maybe you’re just stone cold crazy, and somehow I missed it. I don’t know, and in the end, it doesn’t matter.” I took a step back, closer to the roof’s edge.

“Why, baby?” Her tone was mocking, as if nothing I said to her meant anything at all. “Of course it matters!”

“Because it’s over, Jeannie!” I screamed at her, tears streaming down my face. “That’s it. I’m done. I can’t live in this house, constantly humiliated by people I thought loved me. There’s nothing left here for me except pain, and I won’t let either of you torture me anymore. It ends today, the minute my head hits that driveway. And thanks to you, I’ll be damned glad when it does.”

A voice came from down below.

“You don’t have to die, Mr. Clemson. Not today.”

I looked back to the driveway and saw a blonde woman in a black jacket over blue jeans and a white button-down shirt, standing next to a little girl in jeans and a “My Little Pony” tee shirt. Closer to the street, two men in dark suits held my wife between them, and a third man stood next to a limo, talking on a cell phone.

“Hello, John,” the woman said.

“You … you know who I am?”

She nodded. “The medical team at the hospital wondered why you weren’t coming back for scheduled follow-up visits. The infection that did this to you was unique, and your medical treatment wasn’t supposed to end once you left the hospital. Phone calls to your wife were never returned, and when they came to the door to speak to her, your daughter told them the family had no intention of ever bringing you back to the hospital. That’s when they became worried and called us.”

“Who are you?”

““My name is Jo Stark, and I run something called The Stark Initiative. We’re a global organization dedicated to rescuing people in unusual circumstances from those who would torture and terrorize them, or twist them into something they’re not. They thought you might be being abused, and from what I just heard, I think they were right. So you deserve a little rescuing, don’t you think?”

There was a struggle behind me, and I turned to find two more men in black suits pulling Jeannie back through the window.

“What can you do to help?” I looked at her, chewing on my lower lip. “Can you fix this? Can you make me … what I was?”

Jo shook her head. “No, we can’t. The doctors don’t think anyone can. They’re pretty sure you’ll grow older normally from this point, even if you’ll still be female. But they aren’t certain about anything, since they don’t know exactly what caused this transformation in the first place. Until they know more, all we can do is give you a place where you can be who you are inside – a place you can be safe.”

“How?”

The little girl next to the blonde woman spoke up.

“John, listen. A few years ago, I was like you – just a guy in a bad situation. Instead of the weird virus you caught, an accident turned me into a little girl.”

“You used to be a man?”

“Used to be,” the girl said. “My name is – well, was Craig, although I usually go by Chrissy these days when we’re out in public. My girlfriend could have helped me be myself again, but instead she decided to keep me this way and treated me like a little girl for years, just so she could have power over me. I was 22 when I was changed, and the next three years were a living hell.”

She looked up at the blonde and smiled. “Eventually, Jo came and found me, and brought me back to live with her in the Initiative’s headquarters in Switzerland. It’s a safe place, because that’s what it’s supposed to be. I’m doing good work there, with people who care about me. And no one treats me as anything other than who I am.”

“Is that where you’d take me?”

Jo spoke up. “If that’s where you want to go, eventually. Right now we need to get you back to the hospital.”

“Why?”

“First, because the doctors need to check you out. You’ve been away too long and they need to make sure you’re okay. Also, your eldest daughter has been feeding you laxatives every day for weeks. We need to get you to where you can get those out of your system, so you can work on regaining any control you might have lost. I’m sure you want to get out of those diapers as soon as possible.”

“You also need to figure out what you want to do next,” Chrissy said. “And the best place to do that isn’t here. Considering how your family has been treating you, I’m thinking divorce is probably an option.”

I looked at my wife, and as she looked into my eyes for an instant before she turned away, I saw the shame, and the tears. She knew what she had done, but I still loved her enough to cut her some slack.

Yes, I’m an idiot.

“We probably need to talk, my wife and I,” I said. “But I’m pretty sure our marriage is over. After all, if she can’t see past my body to the man she loved, there’s not much of a marriage left, right? As for taking care of the bills and the children? I sure as hell can’t work like this, and without the income from my job, she’s going to have a hard time keeping things together. Unless she remarries, her job won’t be enough. And my kids need to be taken care of, even if I can’t do it anymore.”

“We might be able to help with that, at least for a while.” Chrissy looked up at Jo, and she nodded.

Jeannie came out of the front door, flanked by the men who had pulled her from the window. She kept her head down as they walked her to the bottom of the driveway.

“Can we get Jeannie some help, too?” Chrissy tilted her head. I shrugged. “The things she was doing to me … she’s carrying around a lot of hate. I don’t know why, but I don’t want her to spend the rest of her life taking that hate out on others if we can stop it now. She’s still my daughter.”

“We’ll see what we can do, John.” Stark stepped forward. “I know what it’s like to have hate burning you up inside. But she’s got to want it to stop, or nothing anyone else can do will help.” I nodded.

“Also,” I raised my voice so my wife and daughter could hear, “I want custody of Laurell. She comes with me.”

My wife raised her head. “Why? Why take my baby?”

“Because she’s my baby, too,” I replied, “and after what you’ve done to me, leaving her with you could make her your next target for cruelty. Worse, she could grow up to be just like the two of you, and I’d be abandoning my responsibilities as a parent if I walked away and let either of those things happen.”

She turned away, head bowed. She was surrendering without a fight.

“Anyway, why not climb back through the window and come down the easy way?” Jo smiled, and it lit up her face. “We’ll get you to the hospital and get things started, so you can get out of here and get your life back again. All right, John?”

I looked down at her, and smiled in return.

“Yes, Ms. Stark,” I said. “I’d like that. And … thank you!”

###

The Stark Initiative private jet moved swiftly across the Atlantic Ocean, gliding over the cold waters with a certainty that seemed to match how Jo Stark felt inside.

Jo stared out the window at the clouds, and tried to sort out how she felt. John Clemson and his youngest daughter were curled up side by side on the bed in the sleeping section. The horrid effects of the laxatives had been purged from John’s system, and the doctors had examined her and done all the tests they needed, for now. She had decided to come to Switzerland and see the Initiative, and the doctors there would continue the tests and share the data with the physicians and researchers who had seen her through the first phases of this disease.

“So how does it feel?” Chrissy slipped into the seat across from Jo and looked up at her.

“Good,” Stark replied, “but to be honest, a little empty, too.”

“You made the save, Jo. Accept the win.”

“I do, but … somehow, it’s not enough.”

“We got John out of there, and they won’t be able to touch him again.”

“But they did more than touch him, didn’t they?” Stark felt some of her calm slipping away. “They tortured him, diminished him. They punished him for being sick and for winding up small and weak. They did it deliberately, and they did it over and over again, for weeks!”

She leaned forward in her seat and put her head in her hands. “Now they just walk away and get on with their lives? There need to be consequences! What if they try and do it again?”

“To who? What happened to John was a fluke. It was a one in a trillion viral infection on a genetic level. The chances of that happening again to anyone, let alone someone they know, are astronomical.”

“They should be punished for what they did.”

“Maybe. But John said no. Therapy and help, but that’s all. And you always listen to the victim, Jo. Always.Besides, they know we’ll be watching them anyway, in case something pushes them over that edge in the future.”

“But they tried to take away who he was. We both know how that feels!”

“Yes, we do. And I bet it still bothers you that I just let Crystal go with a slap on the wrist, too.” The little girl reached out and touched her on the arm. “Come on, girl. What’s really going on in your head?”

Stark said nothing, and Chrissy sighed. “Okay, truth time. I already know what’s wrong. You know I’m your friend. I love you, and you know I’d do anything for you. That’s why I’m going to tell you something I know you don’t want to hear, because you need to hear it.”

“You’re upset because John and I got the chance to say no, and took it. But you never had the chance to stop yourself when you broke free, and you wish you did, with all your heart.”

Jo looked confused, and Chrissy took her hand.

“It was easy for John and for me to step back, because you rescued us. We had learned firsthand how power could corrupt good people. After all, it corrupted the people we loved, and made them angry and cruel. When I finally had the chance to hurt Crystal, I couldn’t do it. If I had, I might have wound up as nasty as she was, but I saw the danger and I backed off. And if I used my power to hurt her, I would have stopped being me. I would have redefined myself as the kind of person who used power the way Crystal did. I think John feels the same way.”

“But when you were set free by the anger, it twisted you. You had to hate those women to win your freedom, but the hatred made you kill, and then it made you harsh. Your punishments were justified, but you enjoyed the pain you inflicted. Now you’re free, but you still hate the ones who changed you, even though they’re dead and gone. Because they made you into something you never wanted to be, and I’m not talking about the body you’re in.”

Chrissy took a deep breath. “The fact is, Joseph Stark never killed anyone. He never wanted to, and he never would. But the first thing Jo Stark did after she broke free of the programming was kill everyone responsible for hurting her. That one night changed how you see yourself as a person, and it still haunts you today. You need to get past what those women did to you, but you can’t, because they turned you into a killer for that one night, and a monster for years afterward. You can’t accept it, but you have to.”

She stood up and hugged the older woman tight, and felt Jo’s whole body trembling.

“To move forward, you need to figure out how to forgive the ones who kidnapped you,” she whispered, “so you can finally forgive yourself for all the horrible things you did while you were ruled by anger and hate – including killing them.”

“How?”

“If I knew, I’d tell you.” Chrissy gave her another hug, and whispered. “But after all you'v been through, if there’s anyone who can find a way … it’s you.”

###

© 2014. Posted by the author.