One in Ten Ch. 03

Somerset looked to Gayle, who shrugged. They would have a go at me later today no matter what.

"What happened to Steve?" Somerset inquired. I was glad I didn't blurt out 'he escaped'.

"He jumped in front of the metro," I told them.

"Are you sure he fell deliberately?" Somerset continued.

"Absolutely. He even waved good-bye to me before he did it," I tried not to smile.

"Why didn't you stop him?" Gayle interrupted.

"I don't normally tackle people who wave at me," I stated deadpan.

"Wasn't it obvious to you what he was going to do?" Somerset persisted.

"No," I looked at her as if she was an idiot. "The metro was pulling up. Steve rode the first car while I rode the third. I assumed he was preparing to board like every other passenger and like he had done the three previous days I'd seen him. We never talked."

"I thought you men stuck together?" Det. Trainer queried.

"Drugs had rendered Steve a zombie," I reminded them. "He wasn't defending anyone. He couldn't even defend himself."

"Who would he have to defend himself from?" Somerset prodded me.

I lowered my head and tried not to cry at the blatant stupidity of that question. It was meant to annoy me and we all knew it. They were sex crimes after all. They had no excuse for ignoring that segment of male reality that include being groped in public.

"You are the detectives – detect," I replied. "As I said, we never talked."

"Yet you felt entitled to say he couldn't defend himself," Somerset recounted.

"You have a gun. You can defend yourself," I pointed out. "He was a fifty-five year old man on so many drugs he could barely stand up with no obvious weapons, thus my observation was that he couldn't defend himself. Maybe if your system hadn't given him so many drugs we wouldn't be having this conversation."

"I didn't know you were an expert on our drug policies," Somerset sneered. That was stupid of her.

"You are right," I sneered right back. In a very loud voice I added, "Because it has been four years since I've been on your drug regimen after I was RAPED by a POLICE officer."

I was giving into my rage after all these years and it felt liberating. It was also death by slow suicide and I knew it.

"Keep your voice down," Det. Seger growled.

"How about I do your job for you?" I stared. "Steve committed suicide. No one was close to him when he jumped. He was smiling and that should be attributed to him slowly lowering his drug doses so as to not set off his bracelet's sweat sensors. His suicide note will be in an empty box in the freezer."

"How do you know any of that?" Somerset regarded me.

"I saw his face as he jumped. No one was closer than two meters. Having been on the drugs, I know how hard it is to focus on a full dose, and if I wrote a note, that's what I'd do because you never know if some police swine is hijacking your security system," I ticked my points.

"That is very paranoid of you and sounds like you've contemplated ending your own life," Gayle smiled as if she'd tricked me.

"My suicidal thoughts are in my therapy notes from when I was sixteen. Don't give me any crap about confidentiality. I know you've already accessed them," I shrugged.

"The law states that the appropriate law enforcement agency is authorized to spot check any person under a government controlled drug regimen, including visual surveillance," I quoted from the Gender Inequality Act. "That means you can and do peek in from time to time. To write a suicide note and not get caught, you write it inside a box."

"You put it in the freezer so that someone will read it. An empty box in a freezer is weird after all," I reasoned.

"Wow, Summer," Gayle chuckled. "We should give Mr. Jensen all our cases. He's a freaking wizard. The rest of us can go home."

"I agree," I bit back. "I'd make a great cop except for the fact that I'm not greedy, venal, corrupt and/or incompetent. I also have a dick, but not a gun. If I had a gun, I'd be tempted to make you pay for your blind arrogance and gleeful viciousness." I could tell the only thing standing between me and an epic case of police brutality was the crowd of over one hundred female commuters bearing witness to every word being said.

"There won't always be a crowd around you," Gayle muttered.

"Let's go then," I shrugged. "I'm tired of being afraid of you and your breed. Get it over with."

"I'll take care of this Gayle," Somerset ordered. "I'll take Mr. Jensen out of here. Make sure the investigative unit assigned to Mr. Rosenberg's (Steve's) house checks the freezer for an empty box."

"Are you sure you don't need a hand?" Detective Seger asked.

"You wrap things up here and I'll meet you at the station," Somerset replied. "Come with me, Mr. Courageous." I had to admit that when we stepped out into the sunlight, I had to repress the impulse to run for it yet again. Where would I go?

"Get in front," she directed me as I went for the passenger rear door. That would put me in easy reach, not something I was looking forward to. I got in, buckled up and stared straight ahead as Detective Trainer pulled out into traffic.

"You are not so mouthy now," she noted.

"Did you ever hold the illusion that you were a good person?" I responded.

"It's going to be fun breaking you," she smiled at me. Oh shit. By my facial expression, she knew that I got the veiled reference to Isobel Diaz, the Mayor's Chief of Staff. Yesterday afternoon she had promised to 'break me' too. "Did you really think you would get away with your 'illusions'?" Somerset laughed.

"Not really," I muttered after a moment. She huffed in amusement.

"Why did you do it – mouth off?" she asked after a minute. "Not that it really matters. Once she set her sights on you, you were pretty much hers."

"It felt good," I answered with a rekindled passion. "I felt free. You wouldn't understand."

"What a whiny little bastard," she snorted. "Right, life is so tough for you," she mocked. "Can't you guys simply shut up and do your damn duty?"

"When the alternative to masturbation is having sex with you, I'll choose masturbation," I observed. "You are a lousy human being and most likely a worse mother."

"I have two daughters, idiot," she grumbled.

"I guess they will either be criminals or cops," I mused. "What am I saying? Cops are criminals. You are living proof of that."

"You are throwing your life away," she taunted. "It is going to be nice to watch you go 'splat' when you hit bottom."

"For the first time in my life, I'm okay with that," I replied.

"Isobel is really going to have to give me a crack at you when she is finished," Somerset threatened.

"I'll either be dead or my mind will be gone," I admitted sadly, "so it won't matter to me."

"Maybe if you beg, she'll leave a few pieces of you alive," Somerset teased evilly.

"In that case, I had better get lucky and be one of those guys that vanish," I laughed. What else was I going to do? Only later did I realize that Somerset didn't find that funny one bit.

Inside City Hall, Somerset 'suggested' security do a full body cavity search because I was now associated with an earlier male suicide. They were happy to oblige the GED officer and they even let her watch. They threw in a few sexual proposals with their indignities and physical violations.

"No witty banter or snappy repartee?" Somerset teased me. A security goon was probing, and probing my ass with her latex-gloved finger.

"I once had a nine-inch vibrator shoved up my ass for three or four days," I replied through gritted teeth. "This hardly rises to the level of creative sexual harassment."

I knew a fisting was in my future when the intercom came on. Apparently someone had come looking for me and the guards needed to produce my body ASAP. Somerset told them to keep at it and she'd see what the problem was. They must have thought I had an ICBM up my bum. I wasn't sure what an ICBM was but it had to be huge.

Right as the woman was about to shove all five fingers past my already abused anus, she told me that I could avoid all this hassle if I simply agreed to have sex with the guards a few times a week. They had a break room and everything.

"What about Troy?" I suggested.

"The ten-second popgun? No thanks," the guard muttered. My rectum prepared for violation. I couldn't help it – I shuddered. When my sphincter gave way, so did my bladder. I started to cry, my elbows gave out and I fell face first on the table they had me leaning against. Courage only took me so far. Eventually it was eroded by pain, the memory of pain and the shame of it all.

If there was any victory for me, it was that I didn't give them the scream they wanted. Further desecration was avoided by Detective Trainer returning.

"His boss says she needs him for news event," she sighed unhappily. "Get him on his feet." They dressed me rather sloppily.

They wanted people to know what I'd been through as an expression of their power. Ms. Silverhorn looked downright furious at the whole situation.

"If he can't work today, I'm calling your boss," Francesca snapped at Somerset.

"Knock yourself out, Bitch," Somerset laughed. "Israel was in close proximity to a probable suicide so we were required to check him out as well."

"Besides, with the MRA incident in Denver, I doubt anyone will care about your office pet getting adjusted," Trainer added. Francesca was apoplectic. Feebly, I reached out and touched her arm.

"You are worth more than ten of her," I rasped to my boss. That seemed to reach her.

"I'll see you at one," Somerset regarded me.

"Yes, you will, but in room 417 here, not at the Plaza, you Cunt," Francesca battled back. "I have friends too and they say we need Israel here in the job, not wasting his time cooling his heels in one of your interrogation rooms."

"It won't matter," Somerset grinned. "Your boy is falling apart. It is only a matter of time before he's under constant supervision. Then he's ours." Francesca bristled.

"Don't make her angry," I mumbled. Somerset smirked. "After all, if she leaves here angry, she might not use any lube when she uses her strap-on to sodomize some cute, perky college girl – who happens to be connected. What a pity that would be."

Somerset's smirk died but Francesca's frown turned into a vindictive smile.

"You've already promised to destroy me, Detective. I believe you so that leaves me free to do what I want until then," I gave a rather pathetic grin.

"You are more vulnerable than you know," Somerset hinted.

"Let's get out of here," Ms. Silverhorn said as she steered me toward the elevators. "Can you get your head on straight? Something has come up and I need you on the job."

"What happened?" I tried to concentrate. The accumulation of abuse over the years, both active and passive, had trained my mind to submerge my pain so that I could focus on the moment.

"There was a daycare school attack in Denver less than an hour ago," she informed me. "Details are sketchy, but from eyewitness reports, three masked MRA terrorists broke in, rounded up sixteen preschool boys, took them to the kitchen and blew themselves up."

I had to process that.

"You would have thought they would want to steal the boys and hastily exit," I noted.

"They left their van running in front of the daycare," she filled me in. "No driver." I kept thinking things over well after we returned to the office. The Mayor was having her press secretary make a brief statement. We had to prepare.

The ladies gathered for a spit-balling session, tossing ideas and catch phrases back and forth. It wasn't that they were callus over the death of so many children – it was our job to put words to happenings. It took Francesca to invite me over.

"You look like hell," Bethany whispered to me as I reluctantly wedged myself in.

"I witnessed one of the few guys left in my district commit suicide today and to show me how much the police force cared, they had Stella the security guard gleefully fist me," I shrugged.

"What?" Wanda gasped. "How? Why?"

"You place your fingers into a sort of wedge then push forward with all your mass behind it," I showed her.

"Your anus gives way and then they have their entire hand and wrist inside your rectum," I added. Wanda looked like she was about to lose her breakfast the hard way.

"God, doesn't that hurt?" Tabitha blurted out. She was our research wiz.

"Let's stay on subject," Francesca insisted.

"I am," I stated. "Those guys weren't MRA. I doubt there is an MRA anymore. The last confirmed arrests were in Atlanta eleven years ago and most of those guys were old timers. You are looking at this all wrong."

"They claimed to be MRA," Selma pointed out.

"Brand recognition. Had they told the truth – 'we are three mental cases with knives' – the tactical unit would have stormed the place," I explained. "Not that it mattered too much. The second those bastards got those male children isolated, they killed them."

"But why?" Bethany muttered.

"Those guys hated you and your society, Bethany. They didn't see themselves as killing those boys. They were freeing them from you and what you would do to them," I told her.

"That's insane," Wanda gasped.

"Fuck ya, it's insane," I agreed. "They murdered sixteen kids then killed themselves. Add their deaths and that's nineteen men removed from the reproductive pool."

"That's pretty much the definition of madness. What won't be recognized is that this is an act of hopeless desperation and is likely to be repeated when men start figuring that things are only going to get worse for them," I prophesized. None of them wanted to ask why I felt that way. Either I was of the same, insane mindset, or I had an inexplicable insight to what was going to happen.

"What makes you say that?" Francesca asked when she realized no one else would.

I reached out quickly and squeezed her breasts. Francesca screeched and recoiled.

Francesca didn't say anything, but Selma did.

"What is your problem?" Selma shoved me away from Francesca.

"I go through that fifty times a day," I responded. "Every day I come to work, or go to the store. Anywhere I have to stand still or in line. Every day. Every day and I can't complain because no one cares. I have to put up with it. Like most guys I like to think I can ignore it, but it eats at us. Selma, how would you feel if every day I stopped by your desk, leaned over you and looked down your chest?"

"You would have to unbutton two more buttons though. I'd want to see your bra," I met her glare.

"You are messed up," Selma spat back.

"I don't wear these pants because I want to, Selma," I pointed out.

"Ms. Diaz made it contingent on me if I wanted to keep this job. Now all of you need to think about is how much of that you could take before you decided how much was too much," I questioned. I let that sink in. "That's the angle we need to look at for our press release."

"You want us to say it women's fault because they pat men too much?" Bethany looked offended.

"No," you idiot, I thought, "we – you say this is a Doomsday Cult, not the MRA, they are spurred on by the belief that this society is teetering on the edge and this will happen again. You may want to ask the male population to keep an eye out for any of their fellows who seem overly edgy or strained. Asking women to help is pointless as they have never cared to learn the difference between a man at his breaking point and a guy having a bad day."

I was hardly surprised they didn't use any of my suggestions. No one wanted to admit that this was a calamity of their own creation; in the blame game, you didn't blame yourself. I didn't care. I had to ready my mind for the interview/interrogation with Detectives Trainer and Seger. Today the press conference was given by the Mayor's press secretary. This wasn't a local problem after all.

Monday morning seemed so long ago. I had told Ms. Silverhorn that all I wanted to do was do my job, collect my paycheck and go home. The first question to the press secretary before she even got started?

"Where is Mr. Jensen?" Eloise Granger from the Sentinel inquired.

"Um, Mr. Jensen is an employee of the Public Relations Department, not a public speaker," she replied politely. We PR people were sitting at our desks, but we always watched the conferences on our screens.

"Oh God, no," I muttered.

"So basically you are going to regurgitate this garbage dressed up like a press release," Eloise continued. "I'm outta here. Ladies, I'm off to the Chantry (a local bar). First round is on me." There wasn't a stampede for the door but maybe a third of the room was rising. Eloise wasn't done yet. "Maribel, are you coming? This won't even qualify as stock footage."

The Sentinel was the largest news publication in the city, but GNN was one of the most watched news sources on the planet. Maribel looked at the press secretary as that woman's face slowly drained of blood then shrugged and joined Eloise in her exodus. It was a colossal disaster for all concerned. The call came to Francesca a second later. Ms. Diaz had clearly been watching too.

I didn't have to be clairvoyant to realize that Isobel was pissed and taking it out on Francesca. It took Bethany hissing at me to get my attention because I was trying to be as unnoticeable as possible.

"Get in there," Bethany whispered. "Francesca is waving for you."

A dumber man would have slinked into Ms. Silverhorn's office. A smarter man would have been hiding in the bathroom five seconds after Francesca's phone rang. I was neither. I quick-stepped it to Francesca's desk and waited.

"I'm putting you on speaker," Francesca grumbled. "He's here." I had no illusions about who 'he' was.

"What the hell have you done?" Diaz snapped at me. Francesca turned her monitor so the Mayor's Chief of Staff could see us both.

"What do you mean?" I shrugged.

"The rebellion at the damn press conference, you prick," Isobel sizzled.

"I repeat, 'what do you mean'," I glared back. "In case you missed the update, your buddy Somerset has been sitting on me since six-thirty this morning. I was at the metro – a guy killed himself – she and her partner, Ms. Giggles, pulled me out of the crowd and questioned me about the incident. Then Somerset was kind enough to drive me to work and chat me up."

"Then she polished my early morning by having building security strip and body cavity search me. I'm sure Ms. Silverhorn heard me crying in pain and Stella's fist popping out of my ass when she came for me," I related. "If it is any consolation, it hurt like hell. It also means I had zero time to launch any conspiracy against you or the Mayor because I've been in fucking CUSTODY all morning long."

"I didn't know about the school shooting before Ms. Silverhorn told me, thus I could not have known about any press conference this morning. Best of all, when I made suggestions about the press release, all my advice was ignored. Nor did I go to the bathroom or anywhere else outside of the view of my office mates.

"See, I pissed on myself when I was fisted and I'm not going to take a shit until my sphincter un-dilates, which from my experience with women violating my ass, will not be for another few hours," I finished. "Whomever made those women walk out wasn't me."

"That was uncalled for," Isobel growled. Francesca was emotionally trapped between being amused and horrified at my outburst.

"If you don't want detailed answers, only ask me 'yes' or 'no' questions," I shot back.

"Francesca, discipline this asshole," Isobel demanded.

"I actually think his asshole has had enough attention for today," Francesca successfully fought down a smarmy smile. "Is there any other part of his anatomy you think needs taken care of?"

"Do you find that response amusing?" Isobel asked Francesca. "Is his dick truly so good it makes you want to throw your career away?"