The Tolerant
Chapter Sixteen

      Dr. Missy Restrepo projected confidence as she made her way into the lecture hall for the final time that semester. Perceptions were important, after all – as she’d learned in rather spectacular fashion. Two months ago, after her department head learned she’d been fucking a student – in front of her other students, no less – she’d been fired as quickly as the university could legally manage.
      She’d explained that she’d just been trying to be polite. They didn’t understand.
      With her fiancé out of the picture – she hadn’t been able to make him understand either – and her checking account nearly depleted as it was, she’d been desperate. She needed a solid income, in a hurry. Maybe recent events had messed with her judgment, or maybe she was just in a place where she was giving up. Whatever it had been, she’d never have thought she could do it.
      Strip.
      She came fairly naturally to it, though, once she got past the jitters and stage fright, once she got used to former students and the occasional colleague coming in. She’d been on the dance team in high school, after all, so she knew how her body could move. Besides, she told herself, her students had seen her naked already and in a far more compromised manner. Begging for an orgasm from that kid, DJ. She’d never cum that hard in her life. 
      Still not worth it, probably.
      It had been rough going at the club, too – not the friendliest work environment. One of the girls, Sydney, another former student of hers, had made a little name for herself by doing a few kinky things on stage. Big star, by the standards of college town strippers. Sydney was the queen of the roost – made everyone else’s life a living hell. Didn’t share tips, demanded one of the two dressing rooms for herself, showed up when she felt like it, danced when she felt like it.
      Also, she remembered her old professor – and not fondly.
      “Look at you, Dr. Missy, stripping at Scuttlebutt’s. I always thought you had the body for it – guess I was wrong, that you thought you were too good for it.”
      “Sex work isn’t necessarily degrading,” she retorted. “In many societies throughout history–”
      “Save it, Doc. Nobody around here’s gonna appreciate your smart mouth talking down to us. Only one thing your mouth’s good for now.” 
      Missy hadn’t understood then, and just blinked stupidly, waiting for her to continue. “You’re the new girl. That means you get day shifts. It means you’re on call – you show up, whenever we need a fresh skank. I hope you can get by on $300 a week, because that’s what you’re getting.”
      “What! I can’t live on $300 a week! I’m behind on my rent as it is! And… what does that have to do with my mouth?”
      Sydney sat back in the plush chair in the corner of her dressing room and set one of her legs over the arms, the silk robe sliding apart invitingly. The crotch of her g-string was just visible. “I, on the other hand, am the star of the bar. Do right by me, and I can get you evenings. Weekend evenings. Full-time. All you gotta do is get on your knees, and… ask.” 
      Missy thought about the time she’d been lead into a tattoo parlor and asked to have “BITCH FROM HELL” inked on her lower back. Just so she wouldn’t seem rude to a young man. If she could swallow her pride for that…
      Dr. Missy got on her knees and licked that bitch’s pussy like a woman possessed. She’d always been on the bi end of things, so it really wasn’t so bad. She drove Sydney through a multitude of orgasms, the girl’s cries carrying out into the common room. When she finally pushed her erstwhile professor’s head back and slumped down into the chair with a stupid grin, Missy went ahead and iced the cake by licking her lips and thanking her.
      Friday and Saturday evenings it was. Those who recognized her from the university especially enjoyed her, and she learned to switch her pride on and off as she shook her tits, smacked her ass, and grinded her pussy on the laps of boys and men who’d once looked at her respect. Lust too, maybe, but respect also.
      Still, lust alone seemed to compensate a good deal better. Within two weeks she had surpassed her old income. She stopped by the bank periodically to deposit the huge wads of cash she was bringing home, ignoring the judgmental looks from the teller (who obviously knew there was only one reason an attractive young woman would be making daily cash deposits). At the end of the month – thanks to a few more pussy-eating sessions with Sydney – she looked over her bank statement and her jaw just dropped. 
      She’d made just over $6,000. In a month. 
      So when DJ Swanson showed up at her apartment the first week of December to apologize for losing her job – and the tattoo – and told her that he’d missed class for a while, but as soon as he’d found out about her situation he’d gone to her old department head and managed to convince him to hire her back… she hadn’t known what to say.
       “Why wouldn’t you want to go back? I know I wasn’t a great student, but you were a good professor. You rode us hard, and I know that I wasn’t grateful at the time, but I think you ought to go back. Come on, you got a PhD in sociology – that took years! You don’t want to go back? I’m sure you need a job, at least, right?”
      She couldn’t help but smile a little. She’d been pretty upset with him for a while, over what happened, over the tat, and even a little that she’d fucked him and the little shit hadn’t even contacted her after. Hadn’t even come to class.
      But to hear him now… well, for some reason she just couldn’t stay mad. Still… “Look, I… I found another job. One that pays better. I have all kinds of student debt, and I don’t know if I really want to go back.”
      “A new job? Doing what? I can’t picture you as anything but Dr. Missy.”
      By now, she was beyond being coy. Half the campus probably knew about it now. “I strip. Down at Scuttlebutt’s.”
      “You…! No way!”
      “You don’t have to sound so surprised, you know.”
      “I’m not – I mean, you’re a really sexy woman, Dr. Restrepo.”
      “Missy.”
      “Sorry, I mean Dr. Missy. I’m just pissed I missed out.”
      “Well, swing by the club tonight, you’ll get a good look.”
      “Maybe I don’t want to wait.” Without asking, the young man started unbuttoning her jeans. I let him – of course – and a moment later, there she was in just her panties. Since he’d had her start a new dress code before she’d been fired, like all of her panties, they were made to please the male eye, tight pink boy-cut. Her shirt followed a moment later, and he was obviously pleased to find her bra-less.
      “Show me. Show me what you do at the club.”
      Oh, what the hell. She lead him over to the swivel chair she used at her desk; it was armless and would serve nicely for their purpose. She picked out a suitable track from her collection, one she used for practice time to time, and got to work.
      DJ was a tough customer – even having just taken her clothes off himself, he wasn’t hard, and it took some work to get him there. She had to use some of her sluttiest moves on him – the motor-boat, dragging her ass across his chest up to his chin, a little noise she made in her throat when she rubbed herself on his thigh – and finally she was rewarded with an eager hard-on.
      Then the song ended.
      “Why didn’t you ever come back to class?” she asked softly. She was straddling him; his hands rested comfortably on her ass. 
      “I got busy with other things.”
      “Did you think of me, after that?”
      “Hell yeah. You were one of my favorites. Did you think of me after?”
      She smiled. “Just shut up and fuck me. I’ll beg for you again if you want but just get that fucking cock in me already.”
      They fucked for hours. He had stamina like she’d never seen, like he had sex ten times a day or something. She rode him on the chair, he bent her over the arm of her couch, in her bed, in her shower, again next to her bed…
      The next day, he went with her to her department head and officially accepted her reinstatement. The man blushed bright red when he looked at DJ, for some reason, and she wondered what exactly his method had been to secure her job. No matter.
      When the paperwork was signed – and some documents regarding her termination shredded – she laid out her plan. She would return – as a tenure-track professor, not an adjunct – and the university would guarantee support and funding for her new research project. She was researching the field of sex and sexuality between power dynamics in academic settings, he explained. Their tryst had been part of the research, as was her time working at Scuttlebutt’s – and she would continue that research at her discretion, and with their blessing, from here on out.
      Today, administering the final exam, was her first day back. She remembered seeing a handful of these students at Scuttlebutt’s, knew that when they saw her now they were remembering her pasties twirling on stage, the glitter twinkling on her cheeks, the dental floss bikini bottoms barely noticeable between her bare ass cheeks.
      All of them, of course, had seen her cum like a slut at her podium as one of their classmates gave her the dicking of a lifetime.
      DJ was there, smiling at her, radiating confidence. Of course, as he hadn’t been to class in weeks, he stood a slim chance of passing. Though… she probably couldn’t bring herself to give him a bad grade. In fact, just because she felt like it, she was even still following his dress code. It was liberating, in a way, to stride into class in stiletto heels, a miniskirt and a corset. It was backless even, and she didn’t flinch as they took in her ink. 
      Let them stare. She was Dr. Missy Restrepo, and she was the cool prof.
      
      
      
      Jillian walked into the Student Aid Office without a clue in the world why she’d been called in. Had her loans not come through? Was a scholarship being canceled? Had her parents missed a payment? This semester had been stressful enough without adding financial difficulties onto it, especially the past couple weeks, since they’d found that dead girl down the hall from her. Everyone had figured that was crazy as that girl was, it must’ve been some kind of manic depressive suicide or something, but then the rumor mill spread word that it had been a murder. Her RA’s girlfriend – one of them – had been dragged out in handcuffs, screaming obscenities.
      It took the young woman a few minutes before she even noticed the waiting room, beyond just the surprisingly packed nature of it. There was only one guy in here. The rest of the waiting room was young women, and, as she slowly took stock of her surroundings, she realized they were disproportionately attractive. There wasn’t a girl in here that wasn’t at least a 7. (As the boys rated such things, that is. Pigs.)
      One by one they were called into one of the offices, and soon enough, Jillian’s number was called. She went on in, heart in hand, hoping to God she wasn’t about to find out she wasn’t going to be able to afford school next semester.
      In the office, there was the student loan officer. Jillian thought she remembered meeting with her at the start of the year to fill out some paperwork. What was strange, however, was that sitting next to the woman was none other than DJ, her RA. “No, this one’s a definite,” he was saying as she entered.
      “DJ? What’s going on?”
      “Hiya, Jill. This is Mrs. Hofstadter, and she’s helping me out with a few things this week. Have a seat.”
      She did. “Am I in trouble or something? Is this another kind of… inspection?” She didn’t want to go into detail in front of Mrs. Hofstadter, the times DJ had fucked her to make sure she was on the pill.
      “No, it’s not – just…” He gestured for the woman to speak.
      “The university is investigating claims of alleged misconduct, Jillian, and your name is one of the many brought to our attention as one of the involved parties.”
      “Misconduct? What, like cheating? I never cheated on anything in my life! OK, once in middle school I copied my friend Terri’s pre-algebra homework because I’d been out all night at the Twilight premiere, but that’s it, I swear!”
      The woman smiled patiently. “Not misconduct on your part. Misconduct of which you were a victim.”
      She thought back, trying to think of someone had somehow “victimized” her. “No, I don’t think so…” she said tentatively.
      Mrs. Hofstadter looked between DJ and her for a moment before proceeding. “Jillian, I need you to think carefully before you answer. Can you think of anything that has happened to you, or around you, this past semester that may have negatively impacted your emotional or academic well-being?”
      She thought back on this past few months. It had been pretty normal on the academic front – depending on how her finals went, she’d be getting two A’s, two B’s and a C+ in her entrepreneurship class. Pretty normal for her, really.
      On the home front… well, there things had definitely been pretty crazy. She tried to remember it all.
      There was that floor meeting where DJ had announced all the rules changes, where he’d picked her out for inspection, and fucked her right there in the lounge, in front of every girl on the floor. 
      Friday mornings, her spot in the shower rotation. Gently sponging off every inch of DJ’s body. Sucking his dick. Lying down under the spray so he could fuck her tits. The time he’d brought in Cassie, the German exchange student, and fucked Jillian while Cassie sat on her face. Ich werde deine hübsche Gesicht reiten, Miststück! Jillian had no idea what it meant, and when she’d asked her later, the girl had blushed and hustled away giggling.
      The night one of DJ’s girlfriends, Ashley – the really bitchy one – had walked into her room without knocking, grabbed her by the waistband of her panties and pulled her into DJ’s room. There was that girl Mercedes; Ashley told Jillian to make out with her and make it nice and theatrical. The two girls sucked each other’s tits, then took turns eating one another out. They 69ed for a good half hour while he watched. Then Ashley rode him to orgasm.
      “Not really.” she responded.
      The woman looked to DJ, who sighed. “I know you feel bad talking about things in front of me, but I actually want you to. You’d be doing me a favor, actually. Nothing you tell Mrs. Hofstadter here about what’s gone on between us could possibly upset me, or make anyone think you’re mad at me. Just be honest. Please, just tell her what happened between us.”
      She arched an eyebrow. It was super embarrassing to bring this stuff up in front of a stranger, but… she didn’t want to be a cunt and tell DJ no. “Well, OK I guess. We had sex. A lot of sex? He said it was to check me for birth control, but… honestly, I think he just wanted to fuck me. At first, I just felt bad saying no, but then I honestly started looking forward to it. My boyfriend and I had this really ugly break-up over the summer, and it was nice to just have someone to have fun with sometimes with no strings attached.”
      DJ blinked. “You… don’t have to say you liked it if you didn’t.”
      “No, I did! Honestly. Unless… do you want me to say I didn’t? I can, if you want. But if you wanted me to be honest…”
      He smiled, then turned to the administrator beside him. “All right, I guess we can put her on List B.” The woman nodded, and Jillian watched as she tapped away at her computer, bringing up a spreadsheet and adding her name to the second of its two columns.
      “What’s this? What’s List B?”
      “I’m beginning a scholarship, the Emily Turner Memorial Scholarship. It’s going to give tuition to young women who’ve been… mistreated. Your name is among those in consideration.”
      “One of hundreds,” Mrs. Hofstadter added dryly.
      “But… I just told you I wasn’t.” She wanted to kick herself – this was a scholarship! – but compared to letting DJ think he’d hurt her, especially when he hadn’t… There could be no consideration of that.
      “That’s List B. People who’ve been affected, but not necessarily negatively. Or more positively than not, I suppose. It just means you still get the scholarship – full ride, as long as you’re here – but you don’t need other compensation. Loss of property, legal counsel to help suppress and recover photos and videos. Counseling. That kind of thing.”
      “And those people… that’s List A? She peered at the screen, but Mrs. Hofstadter switched it to another window before she could ascertain anything beyond the lengths of the two columns. She was surprised by the balance of it, considering.
      “Don’t worry about it. For now, just know you’re taken care of, and if you ever look back on things and realize you feel differently, let me or Mrs. Hofstadter know, and we’ll take care of it. All right?”
      She nodded, a little too dumbstruck by all this to process it as yet. A full ride? A full fucking ride! Her sister had graduated with almost $30,000 in debt, and now… “Thank you so much for this, DJ!”
      “Please, please don’t thank me.”
      She didn’t quite know what to say to that. “Well, OK then. And, um… well, I know the semester ends tomorrow, but are you still going to be around?”
      “Sure, Jillian – what’s up?”
      “Well, it’s Friday. It’s my last turn of the year.”
      “I’ll see you there, Jill.” He smiled, and she smiled right back.
      
      
      
      Morgan Lazlo took a deep breath as she heard the car pull up in the driveway. Her step-son was home for his winter break from school. Three weeks with DJ in the house.
      There had been a time when she’d found the boy tedious, an irksome reminder of her husband’s passing. The two had seemed so unlike one another. DJ had always been meek, timid, a disturbingly unabashed nerd. She could hardly remember him talking about girls, much less bringing any home. She’d always suspected that even if she hadn’t set any rules for him, he wouldn’t have gotten into trouble.
      His father… Well, the apple had seemed to have fallen pretty far from the tree. Sean had been a tour de force, wild and unrestrained and forceful. She remembered when they’d first met at a single’s bar, how he’d just walked up to her and grabbed two handfuls of her tits right there, then pulled her out to his car and fucked her right there in the parking lot. How she’d just felt so overwhelmed, unable to resist.
      It had always been like that with Sean. If he wanted something, he took it. Objects, women – hell, their first house together hadn’t even been for sale and he’d talked the owner into selling it for peanuts. It was a thrill a minute with him – they’d been proper swingers. DJ had always silently held it against her that his step-sister was born mere months after his father’s passing, but she’d never told him that it had been Sean’s idea for him to fuck Lauren’s dad. Whose name she didn’t even know. She’d just done it to make Sean happy.
      Then he’d gotten sick, and then he was gone. She thought to reunite DJ with his birth mother, but had no idea who that even was. Besides, it had been Sean’s last request, to look after his son. Even after he was gone, she just couldn’t say no to him. So she’d settled down, lived off his fortune, and raised his boring son.
      Only suddenly, he wasn’t boring any more. Evidently something of his dad had rubbed off on him after all. The confidence, the wild party – and, of course, the endless parade of hot women in his bed. That top-heavy blonde from school. Lauren’s friends (who’d always struck her as prudes, but that wouldn’t have stopped Sean either). Lauren. And, of course, Morgan herself.
      Damn it had been good. She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed Sean, the way he could push people around, get his way, take charge of any situation. She’d missed a man who could just demand the world – and get it. Could just make her his bitch, any time he wanted, without even asking.
      The girls were expecting him; they were waiting out back in the hot tub, each sporting the sluttiest bikini they could find. (Morgan knew because that had been DJ’s request, and she’d been included in it.) The girls were only too happy to comply, enjoying their youthful dalliance. She’d talked to them all about birth control, but beyond that, there was only so much she could say on the subject. Even if she didn’t enjoy it every bit as much as them, she wasn’t such a bad step-mother as to deny DJ his fun.
      It was all pretty harmless anyway. In the years ahead, this would be a fun little story to brag about at bachelorette parties, how they were once wild and unrestrained and had a four-way with a dangerous older guy. Jody was going to Brown in the fall, but Brianne and Lauren were both entertaining notions of following in DJ’s footsteps at State. Weirdly, even if he sometimes treated the girls like his personal fuck toys, she still trusted him to make sure they kept on their studies.
      She heard a car door slam shut outside, and her pussy was lubing up before DJ even walked in the door. In the time it took him to set down his bags, untie the string holding her bottoms on, and bend her over the arm of the couch – all without speaking a single word – it was gushing. What a good boy – a real chip off the old block.
      
      
      
      It had been a crazy semester for young Brittney Jenner, and she still wasn’t sure she had a grasp on everything that had happened and how she ought to feel about it all. Plus, where DJ was concerned, what she ought to feel had little bearing on what she actually felt. 
      After things calmed down after Emily’s death, he’d come to her in tears and told her everything, all the things he and Ashley had done – or at least, all the ones he could remember. All the people he’d used, humiliated, exploited, hurt… It had been quite a list. Brittney had known some of it – you couldn’t spend time with him, keep your eye on him, live down the hall from him without knowing some of it. Much, though, she had not.
      “That’s all over now, though. And hopefully now Ashley will get what she has coming to her.” She cradled his head in her lap, stroking his hair softly.
      “That’s the point though – maybe in this one case, she was entirely at fault. Maybe.”
      “Definitely.”
      “But,” he continued, “in all the others I’m totally complicit. Only there’s no punishment for me. It’s a stupid thing to wish for, but it just seems so… unfair. That I get away with everything.”
      “Well look here. You know I’m not mad at you. You know I couldn’t be mad at you if I wanted to. That’s just how things are. You have to live your life, DJ, and that means accepting yourself the way you are now.”
      “But how? I can’t keep going around pushing people around and making them do what I want any more. That’s over.”
      “DJ… I’m not saying none of the things that happened did harm.” Wow, those words had been hard to get out. She’d had to remind herself she was trying to help. “But that doesn’t mean all the things you did were harmful. The damage was all second-hand, you see?”
      He said he didn’t, so she took him by the hand and lead him out of the room, down the hall to where Mercedes was getting ready for a night out. “Heya guys,” she said over her shoulder as she compared tops.
      “I’m trying to demonstrate something to DJ… could you come over here?”
      Mercedes arched a neatly sculpted eyebrow, but did so, standing before the couple curiously. Brittney took DJ’s hands and put them on Mercedes breasts. He eyed Brittney like she was nuts, but didn’t resist. (He’d certainly be the first guy to turn down a chance at feeling those puppies up.)
      “What’s this supposed to show me?” he asked.
      “Mercedes, does this bother you?”
      “No. Why, did somebody say it did? I’ll fuck a bitch up if I gotta.” She planted her hands on her hips. 
      “Now, DJ, ask me if this bothers me.”
      He pried his eyes away from his bounty and over to her. “Does it?”
      “Not at all. If you want to feel a girl’s tits, you should.”
      “C’mon, there’s a big difference in a quick grope and something actually serious.”
      “All right then… Mercedes, is it cool if he fucks you?”
      Her roommate shrugged. “Sure, my ride’s not coming for a couple hours yet, I should have time. Knock yourself out, slugger.” She began undoing her pants.
      “Hey, I’m not really in the mood…”
      “Fair enough. Mercedes, mind getting him in the mood?”
      The blonde chuckled. “Sure, if your slut ass is suddenly too lazy to suck his dick.” She sunk to her knees, and whether he was in the mood or not, he wasn’t up to the task of denying the one-time prom queen her gift. Brittney stood behind him, wrapped her arms around him, kissed his neck.
      Once he was good and hard, Mercedes didn’t even need prompting to shove him back on her bed and climb aboard. Brittney stood nearby, watching her best friend fuck her boyfriend. He really wasn’t in the mood, it seemed, as he mostly just laid back and let her bounce. She’d never seen a guy look so unenthused about a woman that sexy using his cock as a pogo stick.
      Once she’d gotten off, he told her that was enough. The blonde gave him a kiss on the cheek and climbed off. “I think I’m gonna need a shower now – if Bobby calls, let him know I’ll be down soon, K?”
      DJ began dressing himself once she’d scooted out. “Was that supposed to cheer me up or something?”
      “It didn’t? Come on, if sex with a girl like that doesn’t cheer you up at least a little, you really may be a lost cause.”
      He laughed. “Well all right. A little.”
      “Good. Now, there was a point to all that too. Ask me again if I minded you fucking my best friend right in front of me.”
      “I know, I know, you didn’t.”
      “That’s right. And obviously she didn’t mind. Did it do any harm?”
      “Um, I guess not.”
      “It sure didn’t. Nobody to spread rumors or take pictures or judge her or any of the other things that actually caused problems for these people.”
      “Still, it just feels like…”
      “I’m telling you to stop feeling that way. Stop holding yourself back. You were always doing all those programs about diversity and tolerance and all that stuff. Isn’t the whole point supposed to be about understanding that different customs and cultures are all good and valid in their own way?”
      “Well, not all cultures – some people do some pretty barbaric things in the name of custom.”
      “Yes, exactly!” she cried. “If it does harm, then it’s bad. If it doesn’t, then there’s nobody out there policing the way people should feel. In some cultures, it’s polite to belch at the table. Some people refuse to use electricity. In some places, women walk around topless.”
      “Scuttlebutt’s?” he grinned in spite of himself.
      “You know what I mean. You just have to understand that everyone will tolerate anything from you – anything. We’re just not great at tolerating one another.”
      He thought it over in silence for a time. “OK, so as long as I don’t put people in a position to turn against one another, it’s all sunshine and rainbows. Still, it doesn’t make up for the things I’ve done already. For all those things I did, and let Ashley talk me into doing.”
      “Well unless you wake up tomorrow and can time travel, you can’t undo them. Ashley’s going to pay for her mistakes the normal way, by going to jail.”
      “Which would be pointless for me, since they’d let me walk out whenever I wanted. No different than confining myself to my room and making myself eat bad food.”
      “Right. So if you can’t undo the bad, maybe you just need to use your gift to do some good.”
      Brittney had never been one for giving good advice, really, never someone her friends turned to for counsel. For DJ, however, her words did the trick. He took her into his arms and kissed her fiercely. “I really do love you,” he said.
      “I love you too.”
      “And, um, Mercedes didn’t quite… so maybe we could…” He grinned hopefully. 
      “Go down to the showers and have her take care of both of us? Don’t look surprised – you’re the one who got me into threesomes, you know.”
      Bobby had to wait for over an hour. 
      Over the next few days, DJ cooked up a plan to start a scholarship for all the students whose lives he’d disrupted. Some of them he knew by name, others he was able to use his boss’s computer system to track down by picture, but many were just strangers he had no way of locating.
      That was no barrier, though – he put his tolerance gift to use, channeling money (from some rich folks who were too happy to “donate”) and influence (once the university president and board of directors could see how hundreds of thousands of dollars in tuition remission made sense). In a time span that was nothing short of miraculous, the Emily Turner Scholarship Fund was up and running. For weeks, that was where his entire day went, searching his victims out and doing what he could.
      Of course, it only went so far. Some students had no need of scholarships, others had already dropped out, still others hadn’t been students to begin with. DJ tried to find ways to redress the anger they didn’t quite feel. He got a restaurant hostess her job back, with back pay and a raise, fired after he’d fucked her on her manager’s desk while Ashley emptied the register. A police officer who’d pulled him over had quit after Ashley and DJ had made her partner use his baton to fuck her on the hood of their squad car; DJ found the woman, and while she couldn’t handle going back, he got her a new position as a security officer at a school. He managed to halt two separate divorce proceedings.
      Still, as with Emily herself, there was no undoing everything. Some things once they were broken couldn’t be fixed, not even by a well-intentioned super-powered college student. He did his best, and she didn’t doubt he’d keep doing his best in the days to come.
      The night before they left for winter break, he finally broached the topic she’d worked so hard to avoid these past weeks. Earl. “What can we do about your step-father?”
      The question had come from nowhere, yet she wasn’t surprised. She’d known it was on his mind ever since the two had crossed paths, and Brittney knew he’d been waiting for her to bring it up. She hadn’t though. Not once. Steered conversation away from it if something even tangentially related came up.
      “Just let me handle it,” she said firmly.
      “I read the things you wrote about him, Brittney. You’ve been handling it. It hasn’t gotten better.”
      “There’s nothing to be done. We tried the cops, but he’s got too much money, too many connections. We can’t just run away, because my mom hasn’t worked in over a decade and won’t be able to get a job that makes enough to live on. If he even let her go. She threatened to once, and…” She didn’t like to think about that.
      “Let me help you, then. Come on, Brittney. If I’m ever able to use this power of mine to do any straight-up good, this is the time. He’s a monster.”
      “I don’t want you to hurt him.”
      “What, like he hurt you and your mom?”
      “Exactly.”
      “He deserves it!”
      “You haven’t thought it through, DJ. I have. Remember, you can do whatever you want to him, and he’ll take it. So there’s two ways it can work out. You could beat him to a pulp, tell him to never touch me or my mom ever again.” From the look in his eyes, she knew a thought just like that had been going on in his mind. “Only you don’t know him like I do. You won’t always be there, and someday, he’ll get drunk and he’ll get brave and he’ll come back. Maybe kill her this time. Even if he didn’t, we’d always have to worry that he would.”
      Evidently he’d taken her refusal to talk about it as refusal to think about it, too. “What’s the second way it could work out?”
      “You could kill him.” She didn’t say it, but she knew he heard just like Ashley. 
      He was quiet for a time, and she let him process it. “There has to be something we can do. I can’t just sit back and… and…”
      “Tolerate this?”
      “Exactly!”
      “Not everyone gets what they deserve, DJ. I learned that a long, long time ago. Learned it well.”
      “But some people have to. It can’t always be that way.”
      “Well, what else can we do? I won’t put my mom’s safety at risk.”
      “Do you need me to read back to you what you wrote? It’s already at risk! So is yours!”
      Just the suggestion opened the floodgate of memories, and she broke down crying while he held her and let her get it out. Between heaving, ragged gasps for air, she gave words to it all, the first time she’d ever told anyone about these things.
      
      
      
      
      When Earl got home from work the next day, the house was quiet – and, he quickly realized, a lot of his stuff was missing. Picture frames on the wall, knick-knacks that used to occupy tables and mantles and shelves. He called for his wife even though he knew she was gone. She’d pulled a stunt like this once before, and evidently hadn’t learned her lesson.
      “Heather’s not here,” said a voice from behind him. He whirled around to face the speaker.
      “Hey, I remember you. You’re Brittney’s friend from school. Picked her up at Thanksgiving.”
      “Yep, you called it. Anyway, I’m just here to tell you that Brittney and her mother are gone, and they’re not coming back. I found them a new home, in another town, and set them up with enough to make a fresh start. They don’t need you any more.”
      “Who the hell do you think you are, you little shit? Come into my house and tell me my wife and my daughter are gone? You’re no part of this family.”
      “Well, once you sign these, neither are you, Earl.” He held out a clipboard; on it was a small stack of documents in legalese. “They’re divorce papers. Legally, she could’ve taken half what you owned, but all she wants is a separation. If you look around, you’ll find all they took were things of sentimental value, and her own clothes and such.”
      His eyes fell on one of their wedding pictures, its frame still sitting on the hutch in the dining room. Evidently it lacked sentimental value for her. “I’m not signing those. She’s my wife – you tell her this is over when I say it’s over, and I’m never saying that. Understand?”
      The young man nodded patiently. “I figured you’d say something like that. Now, let’s clarify a couple things.” He shoved Earl hard in the chest, and taken aback by the sudden aggression, he stumbled back and fell onto the couch. If any other man had done that, Earl would be up and clobbering, but… well, he was a friend of Brittney’s after all. 
      “First, this is not my idea. I wanted to swing by, give you a nice scar and maybe a broken bone or two, let you know that if you ever touch them again, you’ll regret it.”
      “In your dreams, you little pussy.”
      The kid rolled his eyes, looked around the room and settled on a mechanical pencil sitting on the end table. He gave it a few clicks until the lead was nice and long, then leaned down towards Earl and slowly maneuvered the point right towards his eye. “You wouldn’t mind if I drove this into your eyeball, would you Earl? You got a spare, after all. Might look dashing with an eye patch.” 
      Earl froze. He decidedly was not OK with that, yet… somehow, he couldn’t bring himself to resist. Fighting back would be insane – this kid was just a force of nature, something that was happening and couldn’t be stopped. He froze in place, bracing himself for the impending pain.
      Then he pulled the pencil back, snapped the lead off and tossed it away. “Yeah, I thought as much. Now while you consider how that could have gone, please remember it was Brittney and Heather who stopped me there. Not you. So let’s sign the papers – don’t worry, I’m a notary public – and knock off the unpleasantness.”
      With a shaking hand, Earl took the clipboard with the divorce papers and signed and dated each of the places he was told. “That’s good,” the kid said when he was done. “Now that we’re done with business, let’s look forward. Of course, you could challenge these documents in court, say they were coerced, try to have them nullified.”
      “Damn straight I can. Those cunts can’t get away with this.”
      “Yes yes, because you have money and you could hunt them down and force your way back into their lives. Now first, believe me when I say I spared no expense in security – surveillance, alarms, the works. Even got a trained guard dog, big German Shepherd named Mauler. Molly, for short.”
      The kid paused to let that sink in, then went on. “Now that all being said, Earl… I want you to think for a moment, just sit back and think on all the things you’ve ever done to those two women. All the times you lost your temper and hit them. How you forced yourself on a twelve-year-old girl, who grew up in your shadow in constant terror of drawing your attention, yet still did it when she could sacrifice herself to protect her mother from you. A mother who let you abuse the hell out of her because she thought it would give her daughter a better life.
      “Those are some pretty remarkable women you hurt. Yet, in spite of all that, all the wrong you’ve done and all the justice they deserve, all they want is a fresh start. They didn’t try to take your house or your money or half your business. Didn’t make a scandal and publicly embarrass you by letting the world know what you’ve done. Didn’t even let me come in here and work out some male aggression by working you over. All they wanted was a clean start.
      “Believe it or not, I know a little bit of what you’re going through. I’ve hurt people, too, see, innocent people who’d never done anything to deserve it. I was lucky enough to be given a similar opportunity, in fact. So I want you to think of this as a clean start for you, too.”
      “Clean start – you’re trying to tear apart my family!”
      “A marriage you held together with fear and violence. They didn’t love you, Earl. They tolerated you, because they had no choice.”
      “Sure they did,” he grumbled.
      “Now you can take this opportunity and start fresh, do some soul-searching, get yourself some help and become the kind of man who can be proud of how he lives his life. Maybe someday start a new family, treat them right.” 
      The kid shrugged. “Or maybe you won’t, and you’ll keep being the man you’ve been, move on to terrorize someone new. I hope not. This is a great opportunity you’re getting, and I only offer it once. We’ve done wrong, both of us, and we can’t unbreak what’s been broken. Other people are going to do what they will – plot revenge, run and hide, forgive and forget. That’s up to them. We only get a say in how one person handles our mistakes, Earl.
      “In the end, the only one you have to be able to tolerate is yourself.”
      Ignoring the tears that had begun rolling down the older man’s cheeks, the kid patted Earl on the shoulder, took the clipboard, and walked away. Near the door, he paused and turned around.
      “Oh, and me.”
      
      
      
      <B>Epilogue</B>
      “Lights out!” 
      Somewhere one of the guards pulled the lever, and throughout the cell block came darkness. Her fourth night in prison, and already she’d embraced the monotony of the routine. The fourth night, with 9,127 nights to come. With no possibility of parole.
      The judge had been lenient, her lawyer assured her. He could have pressed for a life sentence, or even the death penalty. She’d plead not guilty, of course. What she’d done had been necessary, logical, and victimless – ending her life was no different than swatting a mosquito. Whatever the consequence, they couldn’t make her say that she’d killed a person. Emily Turner hadn’t been a person, not in any real sense.
      Still, they’d found the suicide note saved to her computer, and the pills in Ashley’s purse matched the ones the chemicals from the coroner’s autopsy. The asshole himself had even shown up to testify, told the whole courtroom all the things she’d said after she sucked his cock. The things she’d said during the blowjob, with her eyes. The whole courtroom looking at her like her chest was two amazing tits and no heart.
      The jury hadn’t deliberated long.
      Prison was going to be hard on her, this was clear. However tough she’d been in the world of privileged college students, it meant jack shit here. Here, she was a pretty young white girl who’d already been groped half a dozen times. Some of them, she thought, were even meant to be flirtatious. Others were just flat-out intimidating her.
      It was working.
      Her life was over. She had no friends – not even on the outside now, thanks to that cunt Emily – and even her family wasn’t speaking to her. She’d be forty-six years old when she got out. Older than her mom was now. In the meantime, she’d be fending off advances from a whole building full of violent offenders who saw her as nothing but a piece of meat.
      That night, Ashley lay there sobbing into her pillow, careful not to let the sound carry to the ears of her cellmates (two of whom had told her they’d beat her ass into the infirmary if she kept them up again like she had the first night). She couldn’t handle this. Whatever purpose her life had, it couldn’t be this, to wind up a discarded convict at the mercy of people who were in here with her because they had none.
      She was weak. Deep down inside in those places in her heart she seldom acknowledged, she knew it. She was no stronger than Emily had been, her life ruined by that asshole just as surely, just as effortlessly. She wished she were stronger – that she could stand up to these bitches here, that she didn’t have to live in constant fear that one of them, or one of the guards, would get her alone. She wished she wasn’t lonely and afraid of every single thing that was happening to her.
      Ashley just wished that she could endure it all. 
      She was awakened by the presence of one of her cellmates in bed beside her. It was still dark in the prison, so it took her a moment to recognize Jonesy, who’d introduced herself by saying she was in for six counts of aggravated assault and told her not to tempt her into seven. She was also one of the women who’d felt her up, cornering her in the showers and enjoying a lengthy squeeze on her tit while another hand toyed at her own pussy.
      “Mornin’, College,” she whispered. “Ain’t nobody else up yet. You and me got a little time to get acquainted .” The woman’s hand was already under Ashley’s tank top, and settled quickly and firmly on one plump tit.
      Holy fuck, it was happening. She was about to be prison raped – and everything she’d read said that once it happened, you were a victim, and you were going to remain one. She wanted to scream, but the only thing she feared more than rape was attracting more attention. She’d already become rather certain these weren’t the sort of women who would empathize with her plight. They were friends of Jonesy, and had obviously made their peace with her appetites. Besides, even if a guard came, they’d not come in time to witness anything, and then she’d be a narc, which was even worse.
      “Ooooh, you got some damn nice titties, College,” the woman said as she lifted her top to expose them. Pale as she was, they practically gleamed in the dark cell. With no other course before her, she did much as she’d done these past months with the asshole, and lie there tolerating having her boobs sucked by some freak.
      Of course, soon sucking wasn’t enough, and the woman got to nibbling – which soon became biting, practically chewing at Ashley’s nipples. “Ow, stop that!” she yelped.
      “OK, that’s it, I done told you not to eat into my beauty sleep, bitch. Now you got to get taught.” Approaching her bed now were two more of her cellmates, the two who had indeed warned her before. Their eyes glared menacingly in the dark cell, and Jonesy quickly hopped down and hid in her own bunk.
      “Shouldn’t go makin’ noise, College, now you made it worse…”
      Ashley hopped up to her feet, tugging her top back into place, and stood facing them. “You wanna kick my ass? Bring it. I got nothing left to lose. But I’ll be damned if I’m gonna just let–”
      Then the woman slugged her upside the head. Ashley went down in a heap, and the two women started kicking her over and over. Ribs, arms, back, even her head. “Bad idea, College, nobody likes bein’ talked at in here,” said Jonesy from her bunk.
      It should have hurt. It should have bruised and broken ribs. Hell, maybe it did.
      But Ashley didn’t feel a thing. She didn’t cry out in pain, which seemed to only motivate them to kick harder. Still nothing. Finally, as their legs tired out from kicking, they stopped. One of them spit on her.
      “Don’t you ever spit on me again,” Ashley said. They turned, stunned to find the girl standing. For all the times they’d gotten her head, there wasn’t any blood, not even any bruising.
      “What the…” One of the women reacted quickly, misdiagnosing Ashley’s state as just being too dazed from the beating to realize she was hurt, and should stay down. She grabbed Ashley’s head and slammed it into one of the bed posts. The metal was so thick it didn’t ring, it just made a thunk that everyone who heard figured meant the new girl was dead already on day four.
      Instead, Ashley stood right back up. “You’re going to regret that.”
      When the lights came back on in the morning, the guards found two inmates with severe bruises, maybe even concussions. They were hauled down to the infirmary on the minute while another demanded answers. One of the new inmates, a young white girl, grinned. “I did it. They got in my face, so I beat them back into place.”
      “You. You’re half that woman’s size, girl, and there’s two of them,” said the dubious guard. “Wanna tell me what really happened?”
      “Just ask Jonesy there,” she said.
      The woman was curled up in the corner of her bunk, pressed against the wall as far from College as she could get. “C’mon, Jonesy. Tell us what happened.”
      She shook her head. “No. No, if I tell you, she’ll get me too. No.”
      “All right then, have it your way, new girl. C’mon, you’re going to solitary.”
      “Nah, I think I like it here,” Ashley said, sitting down in one of the newly vacant bunks.
      “Don’t make us get rough with you – take your lumps like a big girl. We ain’t askin’ twice.”
      “Don’t do it!” hissed Jonesy. “Whatever you dish out, she can take it. They hit her and hit her and… nothing. No pain you can give her she can’t handle.”
      The guard looked at Ashley. “Yeah, well take this then.” In a swift motion he grabbed his pepper spray from his belt and gave her a blast right to the face. The girl didn’t even flinch. Didn’t even close her eyes as it made contact with the eyeballs.
      “What the fuck…!”
      Ashley rose and calmly took the canister from the guard, who was too shocked to resist her. “Yeah, looks like you’re gonna need some stronger stuff.” She turned the can on him and got him mostly in the face. Even as he tried to cover his eyes, enough got through that he shrieked in pain as the spray blinded him. She stepped right over his wailing body and tossed the can aside casually.
       “We’re not just gonna let you get away with that,” he called after her. “You’re gonna pay!”
      “I’ve learned to put up with a lot lately,” she said. “Some shit, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you. But you know what? I think I’m done tolerating.”
       
This marks the completion of the story begun last October. I’d like to thank all my readers for their interest, support and criticisms while I churned this thing out. This was my first work of this magnitude, and while I know it wasn’t always smooth sailing, I’m grateful to you all for showing a little tolerance for a new writer.