One in Ten Ch. 09

*She said in her review of you* PandorSweets stated. What the...?

*My bracelet is broken. I didn't think women could post reviews* I wondered.

*Hold on* GoldenDoe34 posted. Then,

Freya

*Thank you, Israel, for saving my life and the life of my Son. Remember, you were the man who cares deeply before you ever came to be at my side.*

Venus

*I should hardly need to say that the sex was wonderful. It was. As any woman who has ever had intercourse with him has said, Israel gave his all as if I was the only woman in the world that mattered. What was special to me was what came after we made love in the shower. As we dried off...he reached out and held my hand.

He took me to his bedroom then asked me to close my eyes as he dressed because at his core, he is a shy, gentle soul. This may not make sense to many of you, but at that moment I felt I was important to him. He let me inside his fractured world, told me I could stay by his side as long as I liked and I'm grateful.*

"Less impressive sex, you dummy," Capri whispered. She was smiling. "I would have never guessed Venus could be so eloquent."

*Thank you GoldenDoe34. I don't normally read my reviews. I don't engage in sex for the words that come after I am gone, but for the sight, sound, taste, touch and smell of that one woman at that one place and time.

I don't like being graded, or rated. I would certainly never degrade a woman by boasting to the world our deeply personal experience. I know it is common, accepted practice for women...I wish it was not so.*

*Goddess! It is you!  * PandorSweets exclaimed.

*I agree. No one could be so enchanting, yet irritating at the same time* Verbena Queen joined in. *I'll contact my clubs*

*I'm texting my senior class* GoldenDoe34 added.

"Oh hell," Eloise snickered, "what have you done?" I had no clue what I'd done. Seriously, why would anyone assume I knew jack-all about a dating site? Why would I think I would know what I was doing? I'd avoided, or been kept isolated from, sexual encounters for most of my adult life.

I would not claim ignorance. I knew the basics of social media. I knew that I had an odd appeal and that Troy had preyed upon for his own sick desires. Now I was using the affections aimed my way for my own ends. The best I could say about my plan was that I'd told the truth about what I wanted and the total lack of reciprocity on my part.

I was using their sexual fantasies to urge them toward rebellion. I was walking into a feminine nightmare of my own creation. A horde of women (I hoped) was going to engulf Capri and I, shield us from our pursuers and then be abandoned to their fates. I would do my best to warn them before I ran. I didn't know what else I could do.

Yesterday had been a splash of water to the face. Today, the oceans were boiling. In New York City, a construction worker with a steel pipe went berserk. He killed two policewomen at a food truck, critically injuring two more and one bystander. Only after two other officers confronted and shot him fatally in the neck did they realize he'd added body armor and enough padding to negate the effect of tasers.

Yesterday, fewer than five thousand men threw themselves at the barricades. Today it was fifty thousand and counting. We only detected the rumblings at this early hour about what was coming. In Atlanta, men all over that city walked off the job at ten a.m. Thirty percent of the men walked. In Hawaii, the governor ordered that all gatherings of more than two men were banned.

The backlash was overwhelming. Eighty percent of all men on the islands boycotted - everything. Middle School and High School boys walked out of their classrooms. Local GED departments 'detained' the organizers. That also backfired. Protestors swarmed GED stations, staging sit-ins and getting arrested. Jails were flooded. Men and women signed a petition demanding the governor step down.

In Managua, sixteen male college students gathered in front of the Ministry of Justice building with two bolt cutters. Publically, they cut off each other's wrist bands. They made no attempt to flee and were promptly arrested. In Phoenix, college and high school boys attacked the metro system with stink bombs.

In Boston, men of all ages pelted Federation, State and local office buildings with Red, Green and Blue paint balloons; the colors of the Federation. In Calgary, they parked trucks in intersections, disabled the ignitions and abandoned their vehicles. Except for Hawaii, there was no rhyme, reason, or organization to it, beyond things at the very local level.

The gem of it all was that, outside of that one incident in New York, my brothers were taking my lesson to heart. It wasn't 'get the women'. It was 'we will no longer sit silently by and be ignored'. Things were about to get much worse. Congress had passed the 2nd Amendment to the Gender Inequality Act, to take effect in 90 days. Marriage was gone.

The women in Congress weren't morons, but they weren't men either. Even those who were wives didn't truly understand because they weren't husbands. The greatest burden to fall would be, again, on the men. On Sunday, the ex-husbands would have wept. On this Wednesday, they were fighting mad.

Whether you call it a Cyclone, Typhoon, or Hurricane, there was a forgotten element to this storm. Forgotten by almost everyone, even me. They were the daughters. Specifically, daughters with fathers who were now seeing their papas being ripped away and they weren't happy about this at all.

Only a small number of marriages had children of an 'effective' age - say, over the age of 12. The average family in this group had, on average, four daughters. If you also had a son - well, he was already working out his 'man' issues. These daughters - they understood. They had been marginalized and neglected. Their society had just pooped on them in a big way.

Their parental structure had been severed in twain. The parent they saw the most of, and in most cases, were closer to, was being forced out the door. No one had consulted with them in any Goddess-damned way, shape, or form. With the bang of a gavel, their primary caregiver was told to vacate in 90 days, or else.

The law was very clear - men had to permanently abandon their shared dwelling and maintain their own domicile so they could be 'accessible'. That's right, little girl. We are throwing Daddy into some sleazy bachelor pad where any skanky whore can use and abuse him. Oh, and lest we forget, Dad probably has a few 'nieces' as well - with Aunts Suzy and Karen coming by so often it should be of no surprise.

These young women were traumatized by the destruction being levied on their lives. They weren't sure about what to do - until the boys stood up and marched off to fight their little, hopeless war. Then the girls knew exactly what to do. It started with a trickle of support but quickly became a torrent.

There were still fewer daughters/nieces with Daddy/Uncles than the total number of men. The difference? Women felt entitled. They were not afraid of the cops, or repercussions. Yes, the Hammer of Justice was about to fall on their heads too. They just didn't see it coming so they swarmed into the streets in far greater numbers.

Yes, this meant the police and military reserves were about to use tasers, rubber bullets, tear gas and stun grenades on 14 and 15 year old girls on streaming video. Do you want to make things worse? Remember, the majority of marriages are in the top tier of society. No, that's not Josephine the electrician's little girl.

That's Augustine on the Board of Directors of your Bank who just saw her baby take a tear gas canister to the gut. Then you had Patty, the friend. She was watching Carmella heading downtown because they are turning Carmella's Dad, a nice guy - she's met him several times - into a man-whore (whom she couldn't possibly afford on her allowance).

She probably had some teenage fantasies about him too, though she'd never tell Carmella. The more she thought about it, the more Patty decided that she was not going to let some wacky old bitches, who didn't understand today's modern woman (like Patty), tell her how the world should work. She imagined Carmella's dad would be grateful...maybe really grateful.

The more she thought about it, the more Patty was sure he'd scoped her out a few times. Suddenly, joining Carmella and sticking it to some cops sounded like tons of fun with a 'real' possible pay-off at the end. Carmella's dad was going to see her as a grownup woman now. Yep. Patty gathered up two of her pals who were bored anyway and talked them into helping Carmella.

She showed them a picture of Carmella's dad working out in his home gym to seal the deal. Carmella was happy to have three of her buddies joining her. 'Do they think her Daddy will be happy with their protest?' 'Yes', Carmella assures them, 'her Daddy will be very happy she has such good friends'. The three girls smiled.

In twenty minutes, one of those friends was thinking that calling a rubber bullet 'non-lethal' was patently deceptive. Dialing this all back to me - I had told all my fans where they could gather to do 'something'. Somewhere along the line, they informed a pissed off daughter. Suddenly, all those pissed off girls whose sperm donor had hung around had a focal point for their frustrations.

They knew I would be at GNN. It stood to reason the cops would come and get me - it was my thing. The girls no longer had to storm a police station, or government building to get their message across. There were going to be plenty of police sitting out in the middle of the street with no walls to hide behind. This was about to give a whole new meaning to the phrase 'Daddy Time'.

With the coffin so full of nails, there was one more to go in. Even after forty yours of the Gender Inequality Act, men were still essentially men - especially teenage 'men'. A hundred years ago women took to the streets in parts of the Federation, stood up for their equal rights, cultural liberty, took birth control pills and burnt their bras.

Men marched with them. I was sure a few actually believed in the cause - equal rights. Most believed in something else. Women had for centuries clung to a mythical virginal status. During the sexual revolution, women were giving it away. No ring, payment, religious conversion, or promise required. Hell, sometimes you weren't even required to say anything at all.

In high schools and colleges all across the country, hormone-racked boys were watching girls stand up and walk out of class. In many cases, the rich girls. These guys didn't care about marriage. If they only had sex once in a 14 day period, something was seriously wrong with them. They could get girls all the time - walk alone anywhere for fifteen minutes and they'll find you.

So why would they join these privileged young woman? Passion. These young women were passionate about an issue that didn't involve bondage of some kind for the boys down the line. Men - men who are not like me - liked passion. They liked it a lot. Now, my high school and college brethren weren't stupid. They weren't marching alone.

That's how you ended up naked, God-knows-where with fifteen different phone numbers and 'Call Me' scrawled over your body in lipstick. They did the socially conscious thing; my brothers called all of the brothers in their group and they traveled as a pack to join the girls. This became a twofold problem if you were a law enforcement official on the street outside of GNN.

Last night you gunned down, or otherwise eased into a terminal state nearly a thousand 30, 40, and 50 year old males. Now you are staring down bands of teenage boys interspersed in a sea of hostile girls. Using non-lethal dispersal means would 'normally' break up these children except, what would happen when the girls saw young men dropping next to them?

Fear would become fury. Shock would become rage. Why? If women had been part of the crowd at the MAL Rally, something very different would have happened. Women would have died in droves because women defended men. They'd been doing it for forty years - in their cultural minds anyway. It was why they felt entitled.

Male economic input to the world was negligible. It was a woman's world. The provided for us, kept us safe (mostly) and if they took advantage of us a tidbit, well...they were doing ALL the work, right? These small knots of teenage boys had joined this female protest. The boys had become 'their' boys.

Sure, that meant many of them were going to be 'asked' later to perform, but that's pretty much why most of them were there in the first place. That also meant when a cop put one of 'their' boys down, the women got protective. It was what their culture had been beating into their skulls for forty years.

This did not mean the young women respected the boys - it meant they wanted to get fucked just as much as the boys did. Twenty girls see one boy go down and they suddenly realize he's going to the jail, or the hospital (no one dares think 'morgue'). That means no dick for them. Back to that passion those guys came sniffing after like the horny dogs they were.

Hormones don't play favorites. They erase reason and common sense in both genders equally, especially when you are young. That young lady KNOWS that the boy those nasty evil bitch cops just knocked down was going to fuck her to the stars in a few hours. Sure, they'd never actually made eye contact, but she knew...she knew.

Now, you Evil Cop, you are about to experience why this frustrated teenage girl burned out her last two vibrators with her unrequited lust. If you are the cop in question, you realize that this teenager had nineteen friends in the same basic mind frame and they are all coming for you. If you are a Metropolitan Policewomen, the past 12 hours have been tough for you and it's getting tougher by the second.

Most likely you haven't gotten much sleep. Worse, you've seen the respect for your career start to plummet in the eyes of your fellow (female) citizens. 178 of your sister officers died, a few quite horribly. Nearly a thousand males died. There was no way to look at this in a positive light.

Yesterday's male demonstration had been an annoyance; so comical that she probably joked about it with fellow officers. Today there had been too many to hold back. As she knew it would, chaos had ensued. Allowed to their own devices, men had inflicted their own brand of discipline on the ride to work. Foreheads were getting wacked all over the city.

Women were learning some tough lessons. Using pepper spray in a confined area was bad. It is even less effective when men have 'tote' umbrellas that open on a moment's notice. They apparently made nice shields. Stun guns are nice, but dowels have a longer reach. The world turned full circle.

On Tuesday, women had swarmed men for their impudence. Today, most sat out the conflict on the sidelines. In a final irony, the cop was learning the lesson Israel had learned three and a half years earlier as Campus Security laughed him out of their office. 'If you let them get away with it, they'll try for more'.

Women: 'You went to a Sorority Party. What did you expect would happen?'

Men: 'We went to the Arena as YOU told us to and then you slaughtered us.'

Without even considering my personal tale, if the first statement wasn't spoken, the second would have never have happened.

When women accepted the first statement, the second was pre-ordained and resistance was inevitable. The cop feared the third statement more than anything.

Men: 'We don't care anymore. We will fight until we break you, or you break us.'

Few women appreciated that pitted 300,000 men versus less than 12,000 cops.

With that calamity swirling around my periphery in time and space, I walked with Eloise, Capri and Doyle to the GNN building. We had trouble. In front of the building were three of those light personal transport vehicles (jeep/hummer). The closest and farthest had this 80cm wide hexagonal things on top with some sort of gunner/technician.

The middle vehicle had the biggest damn shotgun I'd ever imagined (an auto-grenade launcher I was later told). Ten other soldiers were in evidence. Across the street where six patrol cars, with officers holding the outer perimeter. Message - this was a Fed show. I was about to back-pedal my ass out of there. To be honest, I was going to break and run for my life. I didn't want to go to prison, or some secret lab.

Special Agent Sosa stepped out of the small gathering of cops, soldiers and suits at the door and headed my way. Gut check - acid test - prom night. I didn't know what the heck to think.

"Come on, Jensen," she beckoned. The two women and one man around me hesitated. I shrugged and walked to then beside her as she led me into the building.

"Do you know Keyser Söze didn't actually exist?" I grinned.

"Oh freaking wonderful," she muttered to herself as we entered the elevator.

"Who was Keyser Söze?" Eloise asked.

"Some guy from an old movie. Tons of men die. It's not real popular these days," I informed her.

"But he didn't really exist?" Doyle wondered. "Huh?"

"It is the study of myth and the power it can hold over the human mind, in the movie's case, a fearful hold," I explained.

"So the man was a myth," Eloise mused.

"Yes, but the belief that he did exist made a band of rational men risk their lives out of fear that he'd hunt them to the ends of the earth and kill them," I stated. The doors opened and there stood Dimples with two of her people - Norris and Tambora.

"Mr. Jensen, this way," she pointed to her right. "The rest of you, over there, she pointed to the left and the way into GNN studios. Capri stuck with me.

We took a few steps, the two agents looking around cautiously while Dimples remained confident.

"The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist," Dimples quoted. We were temporarily safe.

"Are Fraklos and Vabishi back yet?" I asked.

"They are on the way. They had an issue to resolve. Now, how is this going to play out?" Dimples studied me.

"New strain of the Gender Plague broke out in China last week," I began.

"This strain attacks men and women with an insanely high mortality rate. It has been in San Francisco since Thursday, but with a three day incubation period, it is only now starting to appear. The antivirals in my blood do counter it, so there is that," I finished unloading.

"Are you absolutely confident in the source of this information?" she frowned. I nodded then Dimples made a phone call.

"This is Enola. I wish to talk to my Mother," she stated. There was a pause, "Mother, is the government about to engage in extreme action beyond Sierra?"

"Are you anywhere close to the target of your current manhunt?" asked the serene voice on the other end.

"Yes, very close," Dimples responded.

"Good. Keep it that way and Enola, I'm afraid I'll miss Christmas again this year," Dimples' Mother said. "Good-bye Enola. I have work to do." The connection died.

"Who is your mother?" I inquired quietly.

"Flora Treyvon, Deputy Director of Operations for the Ministry of Security," Special Agent in Charge Enola Treyvon replied. The Ministry of Security was the counterpart to the Ministry of Justice. Security handled external threats; the combination of the pre-Plague foreign intelligence services.

Rumor had it that Operations was the section that toppled governments and assassinated people. No one official admitted to that, of course. It was perversely comforting that I continued to associate with the most lethal form of womankind available. Had I joined up with another gentle soul like Kuiko, the shock might have unhinged me.

All of that also made the word choices of the two of them made sense. No mention of plague, China, quarantine, or my name. It took me a moment to place Sierra - the Sierra Nevada mountain range west of the Rockies. I also had the feeling that Enola and her mother had never missed a Christmas, but they knew they'd never share another. That had been their true and final good-bye.