Woman Scorned Read online

  Bullshit, Josie thought. There’s something else. But what? “De nada,” she said, and flicked the device to the PLAYBACK option and turned it on. The voice that came out was filled with ambient, hissing static, but unmistakably that of Gertrude.

  “It's not a simple thing, Josie, to manage this island. You are the queen that all the girls who come through this place will look up to, including your old friend, Stephanie. Poor leaders sit on their asses and dictate what others should do. Good leaders practice what they preach. The best tool of education is simple modeling. This means you have to be a model woman every waking moment of every single day. You can’t take a break. You don’t have any days off. You can’t ask someone else to just do it for you when you’re tired.”

  A brief pause in Gertrude’s speech was filled only by a faint squeal of tires in the background. Josie watched Steph’s eyes closely. Yes, she was warming up, feeling more included again, but her normally perky self was so subdued it was impossible to see. Something was terribly, horribly wrong. It must have happened during the mission, she thought. She was flustered at my promotion before she left, but not like this. God, was she raped again? Did she have to kill a man on the outside? Are the police looking for her? Something big went down.

  “You’ll also need to lift more,” Gertrude’s voice continued. “A lot more. Your sexual stature worked for recruiting but will be a detriment as a headwoman. On this there can be no compromise. If you fight me on it, the other headwomen will have you expunged faster than Lorraine.”

  Now Steph’s eyes popped and Josie nodded her agreement.

  “Most importantly,” Gertrude said next. “You can't be friends with anyone anymore. You need respect. Commanding respect. You must be… not just firm, but rigid. The average girl here is a temporary blip on the radar. You’ll be here forever. You need to learn how to use them for The Cause, then forget them.”

  Steph’s eyes widened even further. Josie pursed her lips and continued nodding.

  “I got rid of Lorraine because she was getting sloppy, and that's dangerous. It would have happened on its own eventually, but with much greater consequence. The Cause isn't child's play. It is a serious start to a revolution in all of civilization. Women’s Liberation was but a tease.”

  Now Josie’s tinny voice firs sighed then interjected. “Well, since we’re being honest with one another, what about the men? Do any of them actually graduate? Have any ever gone home? Or do you just bring them here to kill them?”

  “I am still awaiting the first official graduate,” Gertrude’s voice admitted. “It is an arduous task we require, and these men have yet to become truly educated. But I believe, I have faith, that one day we will turn out graduates nearly as fast as we recruit them. God-willing, we won’t need to worry about our secret getting out. God-willing, this place will be known to the rest of the world and a man who comes here will be expected to come home improved. I… doubt it will ever get that far, but it’s our ultimate goal here. If we do our jobs, we can claim to be part of the history that one day makes it happen.”

  Another pause came in Gertrude’s speech. This one was blanketed only with the ambient hissing of the recorder.

  “That thing you feel missing, Josephine, is the simple fact that you are just a small part of The Cause and not very important at all.”

  ’Josephine?!’ mouthed Steph, and Josie quietly laughed.

  “If you want to do this job right, you have to give up everything for it. You have to lose your identity in it. You have to lose your life in it. If you had never been raped by Charles, you'd have to lose your virginity to it. Everything, Josie. Everything. The Cause is greater than any one woman, just as one man graduating is only a single piece of our goal. That kind of dedication is something Lorraine could never do. Instead, she lost herself in information that any intelligent woman can discern for herself through common sense and simple contemplation. I’ve thought at length about your successful mission, and I think perhaps you are ready to be a headwoman.”

  The voice paused again, and Josie saw that Steph was leaning forward a bit now. Good, she thought. Maybe she’ll help me after all.

  “Josie,” Gertrude’s voice continued, “The Cause is my life. The same goes for Monica and Rhonda. They've given everything for it. Beatrice I am still evaluating, but she seems to be headed on the right track. If you want to make The Cause your new life, then I'll have found another piece to this great puzzle, and I'd be proud to have you. But before you become all agog about it, listen carefully. This is an all-or-nothing commitment. I've many times been disappointed in a woman I thought could become one of us. Lorraine was full of potential many years ago, but she changed. I still feel Lucy could do it if that was her choice in life, but she surprised me and I was educated once again about the power of free will. If you choose to do this thing right, then you better make it an all-or-nothing commitment. And if you fail like Lorraine did, then yes, I will get rid of you. Nobody messes with the purpose of my life.”

  Josie stopped the recording. Steph’s eyes were saucers and her earlier saddened demeanor was gone. “Jesus,” she said. “I’ve never heard her speak that much all at once. Even at the meetings she’s…”

  “Reading a prepared speech?” Josie offered.

  “Yeah,” Steph said. “Yeah, that’s kind of what I was thinking. What did you say to get this out of her, Josie? Hell, what did you say afterwards?”

  “I told her exactly what she wanted to hear,” Josie said, smiling. “Both times. And she bought it all. Hook, line, and sinker.”

  “So then… what? What now? Jesus, Josie. I’m kinda scared.”

  “Don’t be scared,” Josie said. “Because I have some real power now, and I intend to use it.” She lowered her voice now, and both girls leaned even further across the desk. Their faces were a mere foot apart. “You remember the pact we told ourselves on our first shared recruiting mission?”

  And finally, Steph openly smiled. “You mean how we’d never ‘Live Like That’ banker who worked so hard he was practically drinking himself to death before he felt you up and then really died?”

  “No,” Josie said. She had forgotten about the banker. He had been one of her first victims, but now she realized she actually had been thinking of him all along. Him and the hundreds of other men whose lives she had ruined. “The other pact.”

  Steph’s eyes narrowed, and for an instant Josie was slammed with the fear that her friend really had forgotten, really had become a revengeful killer that Gertrude and Rhonda and Monica had sculpted them to be. Then she gasped and Josie saw the face of her old friend once more.

  “You mean…” and here Steph’s voice became a whisper so quiet Josie read her lips more than she heard her any real words. “You mean you’re going to save them?”

  Josie nodded. “I’m going to try,” she said. “And you’re going to help me.”

  And there it was. Josie’s secret wasn’t just a theory of Monica’s or a fear of Gertrude’s. It was real now. It was tangible. And it was no longer Josie’s alone to bear. On the shelf to her left, she could have sworn the little turtle figurine must have turned its head to look at Steph now.

  “I…,” Steph said. “I don’t think I can.” She sat back up and Josie’s heart broke. The sadness had returned to her friend’s face.

  It’s too much, she thought. I should have waited. And then, But that’s not why she’s balking. It’s that other thing.

  Josie sat back in mirror fashion and, after a moment’s hesitation, stood and walked around the desk. She dropped to her knees and put her hands on Steph’s shoulders in almost the exact gesture Steph had done to her less than a week before. “What happened?” she asked. “And don’t fucking lie to me, Steph. I saw it on your face the second you came in here. Something happened on that mission. What? Spill it. You know I’m here for you, no matter what.”

  Stephanie stared at her hands for a long, long time. Josie waited. The truth would come, she knew that now, b
ut it needed to come in its own time. Before long, Steph had started to cry and Josie felt like she had somehow been channeling Monica’s horrible, seemingly magical abilities.

  Finally, Steph’s mouth began to work, but still no words came for several seconds. Then, when they finally did, it was only two whispered, hitching words that broke Josie’s heart in pieces. “I’m pregnant,” she said.

  And all Josie could do in reply was hold her tight.

  7

  Heather sat in Monica’s office, her head whirling. Insane, she kept thinking. This whole place is fucking insane. For what must have been the thousandth time, she thought of her mother and how much she wanted to call her. It had been almost a week since their fight and by now she might have called back, might have wondered why Heather hadn’t answered. She might, Heather realized, have even talked to my friends or the school or, shit, even the police. God, what the hell am I supposed to tell her if I go back now?

  Across from her, Monica waited with the fingertips of both hands touching. She hadn’t spoken in several minutes, but her last words had been a question. It was the same question she had posed to every girl who had ever come to the island, and she already knew what this girl’s answer would be.

  In her mind, Heather kept seeing the grand foyer and its hundreds of framed jumpsuits.

  So many bloodstains, she thought.

  In her mind, she kept hearing the screams of one man in the training rooms. They’d allowed her to see an empty box and an empty training room with its cold table and its foreboding leather strap, but they hadn’t let her see any of the men. Not yet. She’d only heard them.

  So much pain, she thought.

  In her mind, she kept feeling the touch of her uncle’s hand on her bottom. It had been the left cheek that he had so delicately cupped, and it had only been for an instant, but she knew it hadn’t been an accident. She’d caught him leering at her more than once the past few years. It had gotten creepier and creepier until she’d started to find ways to simply not be in the same room with him. Then, at the family’s annual Thanksgiving football game, it had happened. During a huddle. Right there in front of her other uncle, two of her cousins, and even her own little sister, he had reached over and just… done it. And it had been a warm day that Thanksgiving. That was the worst of it. She’d just taken off her sweatpants and was running around in her white spandex shorts. She hadn’t wanted to do it with him there, even when she’d begun pulling off the gray cotton leggings she’d felt his stare. But it had been so hot after all that running around and everyone else was stripping their outer layers.

  So wrong, she thought. But he doesn’t deserve to be here, does he? I mean… he’s a pervert, but he’s not a rapist.

  “Your uncle is no different than these other men,” Monica said, and Heather almost jumped, wondering how the huge counselor had just read her mind.

  “He only touched me that once,” Heather began.

  “He only had the opportunity to touch you once.” It was a truer statement than Heather had ever heard. All those leers, all those glares, the confounding boldness of when and how he’d finally broken his seal of politeness and actually done the deed.

  “But I don’t think he belongs here,” she said.

  “Doesn’t he?”

  This question lingered as palpable as the one Monica had been waiting for her to answer, but again, Heather could not answer it. “How long would I have?” she asked again. She knew the answer, and surely Monica with her mind-reading tricks probably knew she did, but she couldn’t commit to something so brutal as this island without thinking just a little bit more.

  “We’ll train you for three months. Martial Arts and psychotherapy. At that point you make your decision to either train or hunt. Your sessions with me will run concurrently your entire ten years, dependent upon need and desire.”

  Heather saw the stained jumpsuits again. “And my payout?”

  “A million. Plus bonuses for any special duties taken on, of which there will be many opportunities. Many girls double their initial million. Some triple it. All paid in cash. You can start a new life wherever you want.”

  Heather heard the screaming man behind the door of the training room. “And my family?”

  “They know nothing. No contact whatsoever. Not until you’re done. When you are, it’s your choice what you tell them or even if you tell them. As long as it’s not about the island, we don’t care.”

  Heather felt her uncle’s soft hand cup her cheek and quickly make that horrible, sickening squeeze. “And the men… you really fix them? They really learn?”

  “They really learn.”

  The girl wondered if she could really be a part of such an incredible, horrible, wonderful thing. She opened her mouth to finally blurt an answer before she changed her mind, but suddenly remembered the other, scariest part of the whole proposition.

  “And you want me… to…” but she couldn’t say the words.

  Monica didn’t offer any of her own and sat with her annoying fingertips still pressed lightly together. She could wait so patiently Heather thought she might scream. But after another few moment Monica did speak.

  “You can say it, Heather dear. It doesn’t make you a bad person.”

  “No!?” she suddenly shouted into the confined room. Her outburst had scared her, though Monica hadn’t flinched. “Well what about actually doing it then? Doesn’t killing a man make me a bad person?! Doesn’t that count against my soul?”

  Monica’s fingertips suddenly pressed harder together, and Heather could have sworn she saw a glint of anger flash across Monica’s eyes. “Killing that man, Elton,” she said, “only proves to us you believe in The Cause, that you’re strong enough in spirit. In time, we’ll make you strong enough in body as well.

  “So it’s an initiation. Like a gang thing. Once I’ve committed the ultimate sin I’m stuck with you forever. Isn’t that how it goes? We’re all killers, then, right? Nobody is innocent so we’re all in it together, come hell or high water?”

  “It’s a crude analogy, but not inaccurate,” Monica admitted.

  “But… kill him! I mean… I only just met the man. He didn’t even do anything. Just, you know, looked at me a little.”

  “He’s more than that. Possibly much more. You know it, and I know it. There’s staring… and then there’s staring.”

  “How would I even… he’s huge! I’d never be able to… I’d have no chance. It’s ridiculous!”

  “We’ll give you an appropriate weapon. And don’t judge yourself so quickly. Smaller girls than you have bested bigger beasts than him. His size should not be your concern. Only your will.” And here Monica leaned forward, her fingertips slowly pointing toward Heather’s amazed, wondering face. “What is your will, Heather my dear? Do you wish to go on living as a weak, vulnerable little girl? Or are you ready to strike out, and take your place in this world as a true woman?”

  Heather’s forehead jittered left-and-right, left-and-right, left-and-right. No, she thought. I can’t be a killer. I can’t be. This place, these women… they’re crazy! I need to get out of here. I need to go home.

  And if she had said so aloud, she just might have been on Monica’s helicopter that very night. But instead she waited the briefest of moments, thought just that one extra time of the screaming man, of the stained jumpsuits, of her uncle’s hand. It was in that moment that Monica said that words that pushed her over the edge and finally made up her mind.

  “What will you when your uncle tries again, Heather? Because I hope you know he won’t touch you again. Next time, he’s going to touch your sister.”

  8

  A soft triple-knock came on the door to the training arena, and Rhonda looked up, mildly startled. It was so very rare that anyone would have the courtesy to knock that she’d forgotten what it was like.

  In her own moment of rarity, the words that then tumbled out of her mouth were in full volume rather than a whisper. “Josie!” she said. “I’v
e been waiting for your visit. So very nice to see you… headwoman!”

  “Hello Rhonda,” Josie said. Her voice remained a whisper, Rhonda noticed. But after six years of doing so, the habit was always hard to break. “I’m sorry I haven’t come down any sooner, but I’ve been so busy trying to sort things out.”

  “Nonsense,” Rhonda said, lowering her voice to its customary undertone. “I’d have been surprised and upset if you had. Now,” she said with a proud smile, “what can I do for the blue squad today?”

  Josie smiled back. It was a genuine, warm embrace of emotions. Whatever hell Rhonda put the men through, she had always been nothing but kind to her girls, and her girls loved her for it. That was something that not even Gertrude had yet figured out.

  “I have two requests, and I’ll make them short and sweet. I know how you don’t like distractions from your writing.”

  Rhonda followed Josie’s glance to her screen’s blinking cursor. For the briefest moment, her mind raced to the most recently-written words in her manuscript. ‘…the implementation of which caused severe weeping, clear evidence of a Freudian love of his mother…’ glared back at her. It was wrong. All wrong. She knew that. Man #122 hadn’t weeped, technically. Tears never rolled from his eyes. And while his reaction to having his calves covered in dozens of paper cuts had been intense, she questioned if ‘severe’ was the appropriate word. Probably not. But he did lust for his own mother. Of that she had become sure. The instinct to edit was gone and she was happily correcting one of her former protégés.

  “A headwoman doesn’t make requests,” she said with a smirk. “She merely gives orders.”

  Josie returned her own appreciative grin. “Nevertheless,” she said, “as these are both out of the ordinary, I’ll leave them in your hands. You know your work better than I, and-”

  “Come now, Josie. You’re expertise in training-”

  “I want you to put Charles in solitary.”

  Rhonda’s smile dropped and was replaced by furrowed brows. “I… don’t understand,” she said. “Solitary Confinement can be used for a variety of purposes, but never so early in a man’s… Oh,” she said, suddenly understanding. “You said Charles. Never mind, dear. I retract my statement. That man is your business entirely. You’ll be happy to know I gave him a particularly hard castration and three full sessions a day already.”