The Sisters of Monte Cristo

Sisters of Monte Cristo

First Published in Adventures for the Average Woman Jan. 2007

Christina had been having a shitty day to begin with. The job interview she had just come from hadn’t gone well. They never did for her –probably something to do with the tattoo on the back of her wrist. (They just never seemed to believe you when you said you weren’t part of the Monte Cristo organization anymore.) And the fucking taxi driver that was supposed to take her back to her apartment had dumped her in the middle of an abandoned alley because she had discovered that she didn’t have enough money on her to pay for cab fare. The alley was dark even though it was mid day, and it was far too quiet for her liking.
So it was no real surprise to her when a hand reached out of the darkness somewhere and wrapped itself around her mouth, pulling her close to someone else’s body.
“Well, don’t we look pretty and lost.” A voice hissed from behind her head.
Christina didn’t like that voice, it was low, it was raspy and it was breathing down her neck. She didn’t know what this guy wanted, but she wasn’t happy that he wanted it from her.
Her captor pushed himself closer, and wrapped his other arm around her. Christina quickly realized what he was after when he placed his other hand on her breast. She also noticed something hard pressed against her right thigh; she was pretty sure it wasn’t a gun (if it was, it was an awfully sad one). The hand on her breast began fumbling its way towards the buttons on her shirt. It gripped and pulled at them unsuccessfully, too clumsy to actually open them. This situation needed to change, and change fast. Christina wasn’t one to sit around and wait while someone took advantage of her –or worse- so she got right down to business.
Her right elbow shot back from its resting place by her hip and made direct contact with her offender’s stomach. Her head simultaneously shot in the same direction as her elbow, and made direct contact with her offender’s nose. As she pulled away, the groping hands clenched her shirt, and tore it open at the chest.
She was loose, for a second anyway, but she had to keep moving. She broke away from her attacker and turned around quickly to assess the situation. He was a middle sized man, about 5’11” with a pale complexion and dark sunken eyes. Oddly, though, he was wearing a suit, a nice suit at that. He was unarmed. He was going to pay dearly for that.
The tattoo on Christina’s wrist was not just some arbitrary decoration she wore around –if that were the case, it probably wouldn’t have cost her so many job interviews. No, this tattoo was a special mark, a mark that signified something that most people wanted to stay away from. Christina was part of a gang most commonly known as the Monte Cristo organization. This was not your ordinary gang. They did not fight other gangs, they did not vandalize, they did not deal in drugs or in offing random people; they stole. They did not steal cars, or hubcaps, or food or other low worth items. They stole money, they stole information, and they stole jewels. They were the best –or so it was said- and they did not hesitate to put a symbol of their prowess right on the back of their members’ wrists because, while they had been involved in many illegal acts over the years, they had never been caught, charged or tried. In fact, they ran under the guise of a registered LLC. Nonetheless, they were rather infamous for their rumored deeds, and they had a hard time finding jobs in the everyday work place. But, in such a line of work certain precautions had to be taken. You did not join and work for the Monte Cristo organization for any number of years without learning how to defend yourself. Not to mention how to attack someone when needed. Which is why, my friends, this fellow who had so feebly tried to rape Christina, was in a whole lot of trouble.
Said offender was currently occupied trying to stop his nose from bleeding and trying to breathe after having had the wind knocked out of him. This made things all too easy for Christina. With two swift movements, her leg connected with the backs of his knees and the side of her hand and wrist with the back of his neck. With only these two motions he was on the ground and unconscious.
Christina searched the man and took out his wallet. Driver’s license, credit cards, business cards. He looked like your average Joe, his business card even claimed he was a lawyer. Frank Potter, Attorney at Law. Christina pulled her cell phone out of her jacket pocket. She pressed 1 on speed dial.
“Hey, is Monte Cristo there?... Yeah, I’ll wait… Hey, Monte Cristo, I need some help. I’m on 34th and F. Well, the back alley behind 34th and F. Can you send a car?... Great, thanks… No, I’m fine. I’ll explain when I get there… Yeah, see you in a bit.”
Just as Christina was putting away her cell phone, Frank began to stir. She bent down quickly and hit him over the head with her phone.
“No, no, Frank. You’ll wake up when I tell you to.”
A few minutes later a black mini-van pulled up and the driver helped Christina load Frank into the back. A minute later it was gone, the alley left abandoned once more in its wake.

*         *         *

When Frank finally regained consciousness he found himself in a dimly lit room that appeared to be part of an abandoned warehouse. He tried to look around and get a good sense of where he was and who he was surrounded by, but his neck was quite sore and would not allow him the motion that this effort required. So, instead, he fell back and closed his eyes again for a minute in order to try to regain some of his strength. As he did this, he began to recall some of the events leading up to his unconsciousness. He had gone to his usual pick up place to meet his dealer (when rich lawyers get bored, they slip into some of the same nasty habits as everyone else, just for a higher price); he’d taken a pill that he’d bought for the round sum of a hundred dollars. He’d spent five minutes or so trying to shake off a blistering headache, and then he’d seen her. A very pretty girl had been dropped off in the middle of the alley. She had looked like she didn’t belong there. She had looked like something he wanted to have. He had all of a sudden felt like he could have her if he wanted to. At that moment he had felt like he could easily have anything he wanted. Judging by his current placement, the pain in the back of his neck, and the new headache he had discovered when he had tried to sit up, he had clearly been mistaken.

*          *          *

When the black mini-van had pulled into the warehouse and stopped, Christina had been the first one to get out. She left the woman driving the van to deal with Frank. While her companion dragged Frank from the back of the van and took him to a place where he could be safely watched, Christina walked quickly over to a set of tables in the far corner of the warehouse.
A tall, lean woman, wearing a charcoal pinstriped business suit, was waiting for Christina behind one of the desks. She was reclined comfortably in a tall, leather, well padded desk chair. A pair of black-rimmed spectacles framed her stern blue eyes, eyes that clashed wildly with her jet black hair. Her face was alive with concern when Christina approached.

“What happened out there? You had me worried.”
“Oh, it’s nothing too serious, nothing that would compromise us.”
“As glad as I am to hear that, I’m more worried about you. You were supposed to have a peaceful interview today. I wasn’t supposed to hear from you again until tomorrow, but then I get a call from you on the emergency line saying you need a pickup. Please do me the favor of explaining how this is nothing serious.”
“Well, it could have been something serious I suppose… I don’t know, Monte Cristo, now that I’ve had time to think about it and I’m calm again it’s not as bad as it seemed. Adrenaline gone down and whatnot…”
“Get to the point Christina, something happened, what was it?”
“Well, some really stupid –and I think drugged up- lawyer attacked me in an alleyway after my interview.”

A sudden flash of anger was visible in Monte Cristo’s eyes. Her jaw muscles tightened, and she restrained herself from jumping out of her chair. Now her face merely looked resolved.

“Tell me the whole story, why were you in an alleyway to begin with and what happened next?”

Christina gave her a play-by-play of the events that afternoon. When Christina described her attacker’s assault, a cloud of hatred crossed Monte Cristo’s eyes, but she did not speak again until Christina had finished.

“So, what’d you do with him?”
“He’s with Jill, she and some of the other girls are keeping an eye on him for me. What do you think we should do with him?”
“You know what I’d really like to do with him. But, since we usually try to avoid killing off more people than necessary, and since he seems to be so inept in his criminal intent perhaps we should just toy with him.”

A cold smile spread across Monte Cristo’s face as she said this, and her hand went to a silver plated nine millimeter that was visible underneath her suit coat as she stood up to join Christina in walking across the warehouse in order to visit their captive.

*          *          *

Just as Christina and Monte Cristo were approaching Frank in his corner of the warehouse, Frank was regaining a little bit of the motion in his neck and trying to get a good look at what was going on around him.
Before the two parties converge, perhaps it would be appropriate for me to give you a little bit of background on what Frank was taking in.
As you have no doubt already gathered, both Christina and Monte Cristo were women, not to mention Christina’s companion in the mini-van, Jill, who, as her name would suggest, is also a woman. What you most likely have not gathered (as I have not really given you any evidence of it yet) is that the Monte Cristo organization was a gang (or enterprise as they liked to call it) that was entirely comprised of women. In fact its true name was the Sisters of Monte Cristo. Monte Cristo, who you no doubt have guessed was running under a pseudonym, had started the group a number of years ago, and had decided that she trusted men too little to involve them in her endeavors. To go into great detail of their operations would distract us too much from the point. But suffice it to say that Monte Cristo ran an organization of about 23 devoted female employees who were the best in all of their respective fields, and that she was a likewise devoted employer, and a strategic mastermind. There were many rumors about the Monte Cristo organization, but the most popular of them was that they were the best at what they did, and that they were unstoppable. If any of the rumors even came close to being true, that one came closest.
So it was that when Frank came to, he found himself completely surrounded by female sentries.  There were three of them, they were all armed. The drug he had taken that had made him feel so blindly invincible had now worn off. So, he felt no urge to tempt fate by trying anything. Those women looked only too willing to shoot him on the spot.
But not, perhaps, as willing as the woman who was walking towards him right now tossing a nine millimeter back and forth between her hands, almost casually.

*          *          *

Deep down, Monte Cristo probably did want to shoot this guy on the spot. She had never had any tolerance for the kind of scum that tried to take advantage of unsuspecting females. Her anger was only slightly lessened by the fact that the attempt had not merely been incompetent, but had been directed at a woman who was neither unsuspecting, nor capable of being taken advantage of. To Monte Cristo that simply meant that this guy was going to get what he deserved, instead of managing to evade the authorities and go on living his life the way he would if he had tried his little stunt on someone else. In her mind, he still might have deserved death, but she was not overly quick to judge, and at this point, she had no intention of killing him. But he didn’t need to know that.

*          *          *

With a few motions to Frank’s guards, Monte Cristo made it clear that she wanted him on his feet, and then that she wanted the entire group summoned for a meeting. She ordered Frank tied to a chair, and had him placed in the center of the warehouse. Within five minutes all 23 of Monte Cristo’s group were gathered around him in a circle. The group of women was comprised of all different nationalities.  More than half of them were armed with some sort of weapon. They donned swords, daggers, guns and even crossbows. Monte Cristo and Christina stood in the center of the circle, near Frank. Frank’s wrists were bound behind him on the back side of the grey desk chair in which he had been made to sit.
The circle of women was silent in anticipation, but after only a short pause in order for her to check that everyone was there, Monte Cristo broke that silence.

“This man has been brought in by Christina.” She said calmly as if she were introducing an old friend.
“He attempted to rape her earlier this afternoon.” She continued to speak with a disconcerting ease in her voice.
“Unfortunately for him, Christina had no problem in rendering him unconscious and bringing him here. Now, we’re here to decide what to do with him.” At this point she smiled, and upon seeing that, our friend Frank nearly wet himself.
“Any suggestions, ladies?” She asked coolly.

The reaction from the circle of women up till now had been appropriately horrified but mostly silent. However, upon the request for advice, there was an immediate song of voices. The harmony was: “Shoot him!” The melody: “Kill him!” And the chorus was: “Dump him in the river!” You get the general sentiment.
At this point, good old Frank really did wet himself. This brought on a few calls of disgust, but mainly it brought on laughter.
Monte Cristo held up her hand for silence.

“Well sir, these ladies seem to think it fit to take away your life. Do you have anything to say in your defense?”

Franked stammered and sputtered for a minute, but eventually came up with something to say.

“P-p-pl-please don’t kill me.”

Not very eloquent, I must admit, but what can I say, the poor guy was literally scared out of his wits.
Monte Cristo looked on her captive with pity and disgust.

“What would you do to keep us from taking your life. What could you do for us that would make your life worth sparing?”

Frank was quivering in his chair, he was clearly racking his brain for something that would be useful to this group of women. Over the course of the last few minutes he had noticed the tattoos that they all bore, and he had eventually put together the fact that he was dealing with the infamous Monte Cristo organization. He had never known that the group consisted entirely of women. It would have perhaps struck him more profoundly were he not in the throes of fearing for his life. Taking into account who they were, and what his talents were, he couldn’t think of anything he could possibly do for them. His head shook with humiliation and fear.
Monte Cristo had been toying with her gun for the last minute or so. She now took it in one hand and placed the tip of the barrel next to Frank’s temple.

“Nothing, huh?” She asked matter-of-factly. “Well, guess we’ll just have to kill you then.”

She cocked the gun. Frank let out a high pitched cry, and proceeded to defecate on himself.

“Or…” Suddenly she removed the gun from Frank’s temple and released the hammer slowly back into place.
“Or, maybe you could just do some research for us.”

She stepped back a few paces. Frank started sobbing out of relief.

“Now, granted, you wouldn’t be any use to us with our projects. And besides, I would never trust you with one. But perhaps you could do something else.”

A sly grin flicked across Monte Cristo’s face. Christina was smiling too, thinking that she saw where Monte Cristo was headed. A few of the women in the circle began to laugh a bit.

“You see…” She began slowly. “There’s this age-old question that I’ve always wanted to know the answer to. Well, ok, to be honest, I already know the answer. But I think it would do you some good to figure it out yourself. And just to be nice, I’ll give you one year to do it.”
“Anything, anything!” Frank pleaded. “I’ll find out whatever you want, just don’t kill me.”
“Very well.” Responded Monte Cristo. “It’s a simple matter really. Just one question. What do women desire most?”

Frank looked awfully puzzled, he had been thinking of all the ways that he could disappear in a year’s time and never be seen again, and this question threw him off his train of thought.
Monte Cristo smiled.
“Now, before you get too excited about being let off so easily, and before you start thinking of where you’ll be, other than here, this time next year, let me warn you. You’ve seen the tattoos on our hands, you know who we are. We can, and will, track you for the next year’s time. And don’t think that you’re actually going to find out how we got you here. You’re going to leave here the same way you came, unconscious, in the back of a van. We’re going to drop you right where we found you. And, don’t think you’ve got any advantage over us by having seen our faces. We’re not in hiding, the authorities know who we are, but they can’t pin anything on us. No, Frank, you’re our servant for the next twelve months, and we will collect you at the end of that time. You find out what women desire most. We will collect you no matter where you are, exactly one year from now. If you’re right, you can have your life back. If you’re wrong, then these ladies will get their way, and you’ll be dead. Understood?”

Frank nodded. Just after he did so, he was rendered unconscious again, but this time by a drug that was not going to wear off anytime soon. In a few minutes time, the black mini-van was pulling out of the warehouse and headed back towards that alleyway.

*          *          *

“Odd punishment,” said Christina, once all the women had disbanded, Frank was on his way home, and she and Monte Cristo were left alone. Monte Cristo was silent for a minute, as if contemplating.
“Haven’t you ever read Chaucer?” She asked, flickering an ironic smile across her lips.
“Something I should know?” Christina was somewhat puzzled.
“Oh, nothing, just a little scheme I’ve been cooking up.” She fell silent again, as if deep in meditation.

*          *          *

Frank found himself in the middle of our aforementioned alley, only at this point it was truly dark out. He looked around, stood himself up and shook himself off. He had regained consciousness to the less than pleasant warmth of a dog pissing on his leg. He hardly believed what had happened to him. In fact, he wasn’t sure that he did believe what had happened to him. After all, right before he had been rendered unconscious he had been using some mind-altering drug. Perhaps the whole thing had been a dream. Actually, considering the fact that he found himself right back in the same alley where he had purchased the drugs from his dealer, it seemed quite likely that as soon as he took it he had just passed out and begun some violent hallucinations. Then, compulsively his hand went to his nose. Bad idea, it started bleeding again. Well, that didn’t prove anything, he could have done that to himself when he collapsed on the pavement… But his neck was awfully sore. All of a sudden it occurred to him that dream or not, he might very well have been robbed during his periods of unconsciousness. He checked his pockets for his wallet. After a brief scare from not finding it in his back pants pocket, he calmed himself when his hands stumbled across it in his inside jacket pocket. He opened it to be sure of its contents. All of his money, credit cards, and business cards were there. But, there was one new business card in front of all the others. It had a small round symbol off to the left, and just two small words on the right: Monte Cristo.

*          *          *

Frank spent the next twelve months doing the most frantic research of his life. He took a year’s leave from his firm on the claim of health reasons (which I suppose is true when you consider the consequences of failing at his task), and he began his quest for the answer.
He started with the most obvious thing he could think of, the Internet. He did hundreds of web searches in all kinds of languages, trying all kinds of different phrases pertaining to “what women desire most of all.” Unfortunately, no matter how he reworded the phrase; “what women want most,” “what women desire,” “desires of women,” “how to please women,” etc. all he turned up were porn sites. At best, he found websites regarding feminine Viagra, or other sexual stimulants. After a month of this he gave up, having decided that either the answer was better sex, or else he needed to find a different medium. He would have considered sex an appropriate answer, but he somehow figured that if that were the case, then he probably wouldn’t have been in trouble with this group of femi-nazis to begin with.
So, he took the next step, and began library research. He checked out every feminist text he could find. In two months he had done thorough research on all the most prominent feminist texts from the last two centuries (or all those that have been designated as feminist since then). But, all that he could come up with after that was that there were a lot of women who wanted the male half of the species either executed or castrated. For simple reasons of science and procreation he dismissed this as a suicidal ultimate desire, and he was desperately hoping to give women more credit than that, especially since he would be presenting this answer to a group of women that would have the power to do either one of those things to him with ease. No, books, he decided, were not going to provide the answer he was looking for.
Next he tried movies. Surely, he thought, in the last 20 years, someone has produced a film that has addressed the absolute most desires of women. After all, this was the defining age for women, they were taking over everything, the business sphere, the entertainment field, research, law, medicine. They had the incomes now, and therefore they should be a huge marketing target for the movie industry. And what better than a movie that gave them or told them, exactly what they wanted? He watched every chick-flick he could find. He spent two more months renting flick after flick, trying to find a movie that clearly captured what women wanted. He put it off till last, thinking that it was too obvious to be at all plausible, but he even watched “What Women Want” with Mel Gibson and Helen Hunt. At first he laughed at himself thinking: “Well that’s easy, women want Mel Gibson.” Then, as he watched the film, he became engrossed. There was something there. He watched it again. There was definitely something there. The change that Mel Gibson’s character undergoes in the movie, the final scene with Helen Hunt. There was something there that was important. But Frank couldn’t put it into words. He thought about showing his judges this movie and explaining that he thought the answer was there but couldn’t place it exactly. Upon closer reflection he decided that this would merely look like the world’s cheapest cop-out: “Here you go ladies, here’s a movie that has your question as the title, I think the answer’s in here somewhere, but I’m not sure where.” They would kill him in a heartbeat.
He went to his last resource. People: hearsay. He began with his close friends and his family, vaguely questioning them about women’s desires under the precept of relationship problems he was having with his –unbeknownst to them- non-existent girlfriend. He asked everyone he knew, men, women, even children. He had heard people say that sometimes children have an enormous insight into questions that frequently baffle adults. One month went by. No luck.
He was running out of family and friends. He moved on to vague acquaintances, people he’d met only one or two times at parties and such. Another month, no luck.
He began going through ex-girlfriends. This was not the world’s longest list, but between finding them again, and then convincing them to talk to him again, he used up another month quite quickly. He tried asking them what he had done wrong, what he could have done better in each relationship, the answer was far from helpful: everything.
He was nearing his wit’s end. He started asking random people he saw in the street. Most of them hurried away from him looking panicked. Others stood and bantered with him briefly until they realized he had no hidden camera with him and had no association with the Tonight Show or Leno. He got a few people to really stop and talk to him, without apprehension and without the lure of a photo-op. Unfortunately, these people were actually as crazy as the people who ran away from Frank suspected him of being. No help. He wandered the city talking to strangers for 3 whole months.
With one month left, he locked himself in his penthouse apartment and began poring over his notes from the last eleven months. The answer had to be in there somewhere, and he was going to find it if it was the last thing he did. Of course, if he didn’t find it in the next 30 days, it would be the last thing he did…

*          *          *

“How’s our boy doing?” Monte Cristo asked, looking over Christina’s shoulder at he computer monitor. “Has he tried to skip town yet?”
“No. Oddly enough, he hasn’t. And it doesn’t look like he’s likely to either. At this point he’s locked himself in his apartment and is doing god knows what. Well, ok, so we know, but it looks like he’s just reviewing his notes. All he does in a day is read notes and order take-out. I guess he’s just waiting for an epiphany.”
A smirk was present somewhere on Monte Cristo’s face. Not on her lips, not in her cheeks, but somewhere in her eyes.
“Shall we give him one?” she asked, coldly.

*          *          *

Frank’s luck hadn’t changed in the last 20 days. He continued to examine his notes with the most scrutinizing detail, but nothing had come of it. He had re-read some of the feminist texts. He had tried once more, in vain, for a non pornographic website concerning women’s desires. He had even watched “What Women Want” five more times, hoping for some sudden glimmer of clarity. No good. He spent his days racking his brains with silly answers he’d come up with along the way: World peace, true love, faithful men, higher paying jobs, men with good senses of humor, to never age, to never gain weight, to live happily ever after… He was lost. He had begun to focus more on the take-out he kept ordering rather than his unending research, since the take-out was much easier to contemplate and didn’t leave him feeling lacking.
Actually, the take-out had become particularly intriguing lately. He had been ordering from the same pizza place every night for the last three weeks. But three days ago he had noticed a new pizza delivery girl. Well, pizza delivery whale would be a more appropriate term if he were really to be honest. This girl must have weighed about three hundred pounds. He couldn’t figure out how she managed to fit into the elevator with the pizza boxes at the same time. He certainly couldn’t see her driving a delivery truck all around town. But, somehow, she managed it. And every night for the last three days she’d brought him his pizza. The truth is that he was so preoccupied that he had barely noticed at first. Once his attention had been caught though, he had a hard time ridding himself of the image of that bloated pizza girl.
One week later, three days away from his judgment, but no nearer the answer that was to spare him his life, his doorbell rang. It was nine o’clock, pizza time. It was the same extra large pizza girl that had delivered his pizza to him for the last week. But this time, as he was paying her, he couldn’t help catching her eye, and then he was caught staring at her for a minute. It struck him that her face was pleasant, that it seemed to show that thin girl that is supposedly trapped inside all fat girls struggling to get free. Then he took in her body, she was simply huge. She looked as though she lined herself with sandbags before she got dressed in the mornings. Her hands were still delicate and refined, and her feet seemed disproportionately small. All of which simply reinforced the thin-girl-trapped-in-fat-one theory in Frank’s opinion.
Frank was startled out of his less than complimentary stupor by the sound of the girl’s voice.

“I’m sorry sir, I don’t mean to intrude on your personal business, but I couldn’t help but notice that you seem a little, well… distracted, let’s say. Are you alright? You seem like you’ve got something awfully important on your mind…”
“Huh?” Frank quickly tried to re-grip his senses and stop staring at the blob of woman in front of him. “Oh, yes… yes. I’m doing some very important research. I need to answer a very important question. It’s very important to me.”
“I can tell sir, you seem to be going about it as if your life depended on it.”
Frank caught an odd glance from the pizza girl when she said it. It was funny, her voice was quiet, and respectful, but nothing like he had expected from a three hundred pound Domino’s employee. She began to explain herself.
“I mean to say… well, with you studying so late and seemingly not leaving your apartment. I’ve delivered the same pizza to you at the same time for the last week straight. Whatever it is must be very important to keep a man like yourself locked up for over a week…that’s all.”
She shifted uncomfortably as if worried that she had offended him.
“You’re right.” He said. “It is important. Would you believe me if I told you that it was a matter of life or death?”
The girl looked slightly taken aback, and yet curious, perhaps with a trace of pity.
“Your life sir?” She asked timidly.
Just then Frank had an idea.
“Yes, mine.” He pondered for a moment longer. Then he decided. After all, he thought, I’ve only got three more days, and my luck seems to be fresh out. It can’t hurt to ask. He leaned towards the pizza girl conspiratorially.
“I don’t suppose you would want to help me would you?”
“Me, sir? How on earth could I help you?”
“Well you see, that’s just it, I’m not sure, but what I need to know, directly concerns women, and I don’t see why you won’t do as well as any other.”
“I guess I’ll take that as a compliment.” Her eyes flickered with sarcasm, but her voice remained steady and Frank didn’t notice.
“Do you think you could answer a question for me?”
“Certainly, sir, in so far as I know the answer. What’s the question?”
Frank paused to add some drama to the moment.
“What do women desire more than anything?”
The pizza girl began to chuckle softly, her eyes filled with humor and her hand shot up to cover her mouth from Frank’s view.
“What?” Frank insisted. “What’s so funny? This question has been controlling my life since, since… well since this time last year!”
“I’m sorry sir, it’s just that, well, you were clearly never an English major, were you?” She stifled another laugh.
“What has that got to do with anything?!?” Frank was somewhat less than amused at the moment. The idea that someone found his last twelve months of torment to be some kind of practical joke didn’t sit well with him.
The pizza girl thought for a minute, clearly considering something important.
“I’ll make a deal with you.” She said. “You promise me that you’ll do me one favor. Just one. But any favor that I ask of you that is in your power to do. We’ll write up a contract, and we’ll both sign it. Then, I’ll tell you the answer to your question. If the answer is the right one, the one you need, then you owe me my favor. If I give you the wrong answer, then you’re free of any obligation to me, the contract becomes null and void. What do you think?”
Frank thought about this for a moment. If he didn’t come up with something in 72 hours he was a dead man. If he took this girl’s answer and it was right then he only owed her a favor. How much could a three hundred pound pizza driver in her mid twenties want? Shit, plastic surgery probably, maybe some lypo, nothing he couldn’t afford. Certainly worth living long enough to do anyone a favor again anyway, right? Sure.
“Alright, you’ve got yourself a deal. Where do I sign?”

*          *          *

Frank stood in front of his judges yet again, this time freely, and without having urinated all over his clothing, but with a similar sense of awe and fear. He stood facing Monte Cristo and Christina, again with the other 23 women encircling him.
They had come to get him at his apartment. They had actually broken in while he was sleeping, drugged him and then brought him in from there. (Or at least that’s what he assumed had happened since he had gone to sleep in his apartment last night and woken up here this morning.)
Monte Cristo looked at him with a stern face. Everyone was gathered. It was time.

“Well, Frank, you’ve had a year now, we’ve been monitoring you, and it seems you’ve dedicated some serious time to your quandary. Have you come up with a response?”
“Yes I have.” He tried to answer with confidence, but something about his memory of Monte Cristo brandishing that silver nine millimeter made it difficult.
“And?” Asked Monte Cristo, expectantly.
“Well, I spent a lot of time working this out, and I think you’ll all agree with me when I say that what women want most is sovereignty.” He tried smiling triumphantly for a moment but failed miserably. There was silence in the room.
“You’re going to have to translate that one out of middle English if you want it to count, Frank.” Said Monte Cristo, with half of her mouth raised into a coercing smile.
“Oh, right.” Frank stumbled. “Well, that is to say, women want control. Control of what goes on in their own lives, control of the situation at hand.” He smiled again, he’d been able to remember the words he’d so painfully memorized over the last three days.
“Well ladies,” Monte Cristo panned the room “any objections? Does that sound about right to everyone?”
A general murmur of consent filled the room. It seemed to sound good to everyone. Monte Cristo began to speak.
“Well, Frank, I’d say you’ve done it, you’re free to…”
But then a strangely familiar voice broke in from behind where Frank was standing.
“Miss Monte Cristo, I have a request please.”
“What is it Beatrice?” Asked Monte Cristo.
Frank turned around slowly. It couldn’t be. It simply couldn’t be. But, as he rotated the rest of the180 degrees to look behind him, he saw that indeed it was: the pizza delivery blimp. She waddled up to Monte Cristo and Christina. She had a piece of paper in her hand. She presented it to Monte Cristo.
“I want this contract honored, if you please.” She said, triumphantly.
At first Frank’s heart had sunk, thinking that this girl had some diabolical scheme to keep him from leaving that room alive. But then he calmed himself as he realized that she would simply be asking him for money or some other material effect, and then he could be done with this whole ordeal.
As this went through Frank’s head, Monte Cristo was carefully reading over the contract.
“Very well,” she said “What favor will you ask of this man?”
“Oh a very simple one, Miss.”
Franks eyes brightened at the prospect of this solution being simple.
“Well, Beatrice?” Asked Monte Cristo.
“I want him to marry me.”

*          *          *

This time when Frank regained consciousness he was in a tuxedo. He wondered if he had been drugged again, but then he remembered what had happened right before he blacked out and realized that he must have fainted. There were three sentries posted at his door when he awoke. After a few moments one of them disappeared for a bit and then reappeared with a boutonniere for his tux.
“The wedding’s in five minutes, now that you’ve got your strength back. We’re just trying to get the bride into her dress.”

*          *          *

Picture a king size feather pillow stuffed into a white pillow case half the appropriate size. Now picture that oddly deformed pillow standing next to a penguin and in front of a judge. That’s what it looked like. That’s all you need to know. Let’s move on to the wedding night.

*          *          *

Frank didn’t even try to carry his bride over the threshold. First of all, he would have killed himself trying and, second of all, it wasn’t a tradition he was feeling very open to at the moment. They walked in side by side, not even touching each other, and as soon as they were in the door he shut it and stalked off to the kitchen.
“You don’t seem happy darling.” Beatrice was all aglow with something, although Frank couldn’t figure out what. At the moment she seemed to simply be flourishing her keen ability to state the obvious.
Frank scoffed. He pulled his stainless steel fridge door open and stared blankly into the empty cold of it for a moment.
“What’s troubling you dear?” Beatrice was peppering her speech with as many synonyms for ‘man I love’ as she could think of.
“What’s troubling me? What’s troubling me?!?” Frank glared at Beatrice with an immense hatred. “I’ve just married a two ton whale who delivers pizza for a living, and you have the nerve to ask me what’s troubling me?!? Look at you! You must be a size 50. I’m surprised they even make clothes big enough for you! And you’re an uncultured, cheaply educated, piece of white trash as far as I can tell. I have just thrown my social standing at the firm down the toilet and you have the nerve to ask me what’s troubling me?!?”
Beatrice’s face turned from that of pure innocence towards the accusations that Frank was making, to one of bitter vindictiveness. When she finally spoke, her voice was much calmer and more composed than Frank had imagined it capable of being.
“Your problem is that I’m fat? Heh, that’s easily taken care of. I can turn myself into a playboy bunny for you if you like. Fat is easy. As far as my being uncultured, uneducated, white trash… Well, I did know the answer to your little riddle, an answer that I might add, saved your life. Which, by the way, you should be immensely grateful for. But that aside, it’s people’s decisions and actions that make them, not their so called ‘social standing.’ You’re worried about saving face with the firm? You haven’t even tried me out as a hostess. Who knows, I might be the world’s best trophy wife. But you wouldn’t even bother to find out before denouncing me in front of the entire world.”
At this point a shimmer of ironic triumph passed over Beatrice’s face.
“I’ll make a deal with you,” she continued. “I promise you that I can make myself as slim and beautiful as a playboy bunny as fast as Clark Kent can change into Superman, but I’m not going to tell you how. Just trust me on that part. That being the case, you have two options. Option one: I turn into the beautiful playboy bunny and you can trot me around as your trophy wife in front of all of your lawyer friends. However, that comes with all the dangers that it normally does, the cute little bunny likes to play around. There are lots of lawyers to play with in any one given firm, and rabbits aren’t the most loyal mates. If you keep me as the trophy wife, you take on all the risks of all the scandal that come with that. Your second option, however, is that I remain as this three hundred pound monster you so despise, but I will be the most faithful, brilliant, tactful and presentable wife you could ever ask for. Those are your options. You must choose one or the other.”
Frank thought for a minute, and he was about to make the obvious choice for the playboy bunny because at least that could be explained to other people… But, something about the last year’s events struck him, and he remembered the words that he himself had uttered to a crowd of women earlier that day. Then, he made his decision.
“You choose dear.” He put forth in the least condescending voice he could muster. “I leave it to you to decide what kind of wife you wish to be to me. After all, it’s your life.”
Beatrice’s smile went from sarcastic to sadistic, but Frank was so proud of himself for the moment that he didn’t even notice.
“So you did learn something today then?” She was all too pleased with this response from him. “Very well then, since you leave it to me… I choose both. I will be both the honest, loyal wife, and the beautiful vixen, never straying from your side.”
With that, she began stripping. At first Frank was horrified, thinking he was about to get the worlds most disturbing nudie show, but then he realized that what he was seeing under Beatrice’s clothing wasn’t actually flesh. It was more like, well, sandbags. It was a series of flesh colored pillows sewn together into a body suit. After she had peeled off her clothes, she began to peel off her faux flesh. By undoing a series of zippers she was able to loosen and then pull off the oversized body suit. Underneath it, she was wearing a skin tight black spandex body suit, and it became incredibly clear to Frank where the playboy bunny image had come from in Beatrice’s description of herself. In a few seconds, Beatrice pulled off a bit of latex face make-up that had made her face seem somewhat close to proportional to her body. Then she let her hair down. Frank almost fainted for the second time that day, but this time for entirely different reasons.

*          *          *

And so they lived happily together, with Beatrice as the good honest house wife, always loyal, always loving. Frank was able to parade her around in front all of his friends from the firm and he never had to worry about her faithfulness to him. It was the picture of a 1950’s business marriage. For a time.

*          *          *

One day Frank came back from the office, to find a note on the kitchen counter. Upon reading it, he collapsed in a heap on his kitchen floor, having fainted yet again.
The note read like this:

Dear Frank,

Three years ago today we were married at the Monte Cristo organization’s warehouse. Earlier that afternoon you had explained what sovereignty was and that it was what women wanted most in life. That night, you granted me sovereignty and let me choose my own fate. And I did...
I have spent the last three years slowly undermining all of your investments. All of the stock you own will be rendered worthless with one phone call from an anonymous investor. I have negotiated an agreement with a very good lawyer who plans on getting you for about 80 percent of what you’re worth.
 I am a member of the Monte Cristo organization (which I’m amazed you didn’t work out on your own) and you have just been robbed blind. I’m filing for a divorce (that is to say I have already filed for a divorce and it is currently in the works) and the aforementioned lawyer will be sure to meet with you about it.
Sovereignty is what women want most in life. But, it’s not given to us by men. We’ve already got it. Thanks for the ride .

Beatrice