Men are Pigs

Men are Pigs

Alejandra smiled at the fat politician as his body seemed to convulse to the beat of the song playing, ‘Put a Ring on it’ by Beyonce.  Reena and Erika danced around him, as well as their other captive, giggling.  “Ok, Madonnas,” declared Alejandra, merrily.  “It’s time for a waxing!”  Reena and Erika laughed out and stopped their joyous prance.  They were having fun and, oddly, it felt like a party.  

The fat man looked pathetic now, strapped to a chair, blindfolded and gagged. He’d done a complete one-eighty from the boisterous and powerful politician that had ordered his wife to carry his golf bag up the stairs just the week before. “Are you crying again, fat-body?” Alejandra chastised him, leaning in close enough to ensure that he could smell her sweet perfume.  He didn’t answer, but sobbed, instead.  The cold, wet basement looked like a dungeon, with only a single exposed light bulb offering dim lighting.

Erika applied hot hair-removal wax to the politician, and then to the Muslim-American man, who was also gagged, blindfolded, and strapped to a chair.  Reena applied the wax paper, and ripped off a chunk from the politician’s hairy back as he yelped. “Oh!” cried out Alejandra in sarcasm.  “That looked like it hurt really bad!”  The girls giggled.  “Now get the other one, Madonna.” Reena approached the Muslim man and pulled the wax paper off of his chest. He took the pain, managing only a slight grunt.

Alejandra whipped her belt against the basement floor, sending a loud cracking sound echoing throughout.  “Wow, tough guy!  It seems you are enjoying the waxing a bit too much, eh?  Well let’s see how you like a tattoo of my favorite Louboutin pump on your chest then, shall we?”  The Muslim squirmed at the idea and grunted more profusely.  “Get the artist, Madonna,” Alejandra ordered.  

“I think we should paint this piggy’s toe nails, Madonna,” said Erika.  Alejandra laughed at the thought.

“O-M-G.  I love that idea!  Do it!!” she replied with glee.  Alejandra danced to ‘If I Were a Boy’ by Beyonce, and started singing along.  Erika began painting the fat politician’s toe nails pink, as she joined in the singing.

“If I were a boy;
“I think I could understand;
“How it feels to love a girl;
“I swear I’d be a better man.”

Alejandra rained some glitter down on both of the men and danced some more, when Reena returned with a young man, shaved bald.  “Yeay!” Alejandra cried out, turning the music down slightly.  “So glad you could make it!  Madonna, this is Madonna, and you’ve already met the other Madonna, right?”  The cute young man, who could have been mixed with Latino and Asian, gave Alejandra a curious grin.

“Wait, I’m Madonna?  I suppose you’re Madonna too?” he asked, wise to the name game.  Alejandra smiled devilishly, answering his question with the look.  “Got it,” he said, shaking his head with a grin.  “Ok, so what do we got?” he asked.

“Well,” Alejandra answered.  “On this tough guy here, we want a Louboutin shoe on his arm.”  The tattoo artist laughed.

“Ok, just any shoe?”

“Of course not, silly.  I have a picture here,” she answered, holding up cutout from a magazine.  He studied it, and nodded his head.  “And on this little piggy, we want an ‘Oprah’ tattoo on his back.”  The artist laughed out loud.

“An Oprah tattoo?  You’ve got to be kidding?  Are we talking full portrait?  Are…”

“No!” she replied with a loud laugh.  “Just the word Oprah, in like big block letters or in Old English, like the cholos do it.”

“Oh, I see.  Ok, no problem.”  The girls giggled as the cute artist sat down, and got to work.  “Well, I must say that this is really against my, you know, morals and ethics, or whatever you call it.  But, um, Madonna has explained to me that you two are not very nice guys.  And, well, it has been explained to me how awful you all treat women.  So that’s that only reason I’ve agreed to do this.”  The Muslim man began to grunt and squirm profusely.

“Madonna, tie his ankles to the chair!” Alejandra ordered out.  The artist began working on the Muslim man.  As he worked, the music blared again, Lady Gaga this time.  Erika sang along as she teased the fat man, pulling on the pink feathered boa around his neck. She looked over, and Alejandra was trying to fit the Muslim man’s feet into some pink high heels.  Erika shook her head and giggled at the sight.  

Erika thought about her dear friend then, taking a picture of her in action, wondering how the fearless, beautiful, feminist fashionista came to be.  Alejandra had an athletic figure, and she was beautiful.  Erika wondered how well she really knew her friend.  All she knew now was that she worked for the government, was super smart, and for some reason, she could kick serious ass.  Now she’d hatched this plan, to save her friends, and teach a lesson.  They were breaking at least five serious laws, yet somehow they’d been talked into it, and worse, they’d been enjoying it.

“Mr. Muslim Man?” Alejandra sang out.  “Maybe you will think twice about beating your wife and making her walk behind you next time, won’t you?  Maybe when you meet your god, you will find out that you should have been respecting women, instead of beating them?”  The Muslim sat silently, tied to his chair with pink, fuzzy handcuffs, blindfolded with his own tie.

The artist continued working as the Lady Gaga album played on.  They poured themselves mimosas, careful not to give away their identities with their conversation.  The dumb saps could not even recognize the thinly disguised voices of their wives.  It was a perfect reflection of their relationships.  

Alejandra had felt bad for them both.  She had given up on men long ago.  Her father had cheated on her mother. Her uncles and brothers on their wives, and when she thought she had finally found love in college, he cheated too, and broke her heart in two.  It was then, that something deep inside of her was unleashed, and she had become the man-abusing heartbreaker that she was today.

Alejandra looked at Reena as she walked towards her dear, headstrong, husband.  His tattoo was nearly done.  Reena’s poor husband had never seen it coming.  Reena being in America and making friends with someone like Alejandra was simply a stroke of bad luck for him.  They had met in a Mexican cooking class at the community college three years before, and over that time, Alejandra had been putting ideas of the modern American feminist woman in her head.  In America, she’d tell Reena, women come first.  Women have more rights than men, because they give life through birth, which is the greatest responsibility of all.  Women should be respected, catered to, taken care of, and most of all, put first, before men.  Reena thought it utterly ridiculous at the time, but she began to notice things after that, and eventually came to loathe her medieval minded, religious husband.

The artist had completed his work on the Muslim, and the Madonnas looked over it with impressed looks.  “That looks great!” remarked Reena.  This was possibly the rudest, most hateful thing that could happen to him, and he deserved it, she thought.

Alejandra laughed.  “That looks great.  I hope you enjoy it for many years.  Now it’s your turn piggy.”  The artist moved his stuff, and looked over the fat politician, who was drenched in sweat.  “Wow, you are absolutely pathetic,” she said to a chorus of giggling Madonnas.  “I say we put a tampon up his ass, just to give him a taste of what we go through once a month!”

“No!” yelled out Erika, as they all gasped in horror.  Alejandra let out an evil chuckle.

“Ok, ok.  Fine,” she said, winking at the girls.  They drank their mimosas as the Madonna CD began to play.  They carried on for another hour, until the tattoo was finally finished. It came out so well, that Alejandra considered getting one for herself.  “Are you piggies ready to say sorry yet?  Are you piggies going to stop your filthy ways?”

The fat man nodded his head profusely, and Alejandra reached for the duct tape across his mouth.  The man’s body stiffened and he braced himself as she got a hold of the tape and ripped it off harshly.  “Speak piggy!  Speak!” she yelled out.

“I’m sorry!  I promise,” he sobbed out, crying again, uncontrollably.

“You promise what, dirt bag?” Alejandra yelled out, smiling at the pathetic mess of drool falling from his open mouth.

“I promise that I will treat Erika right.  I promise!”

“You promise not to treat her like your slave!” she barked out.  She had carved the words into his brain, after eight hours of repetition and verbal abuse.  She knew though, that after so much time of torture, the mind was slow to react, and even the simple and easy task of repetition, could prove tough.

“I promise not to treat her like my slave,” he repeated in a sob.

“And?”

“And I promise to buy her things, treat her like a princess, and…”

“And what?”

“And cook for her.”

“And do you know how to cook piggy?  We can all see that you know how to eat!”  Reena and Erika giggled.

“I will learn how to cook, and I will cook for her!” he sobbed out.  “I’m sorry.  I love her.  Tell her, I love her.”

Alejandra chuckled, and looked at Erika.  Erika looked on with a sad face, and she gave Alejandra a nod.  “Ok, quit your pathetic crying.  You can tell her yourself, later.  You’d think a powerful congressman would have a bigger backbone that this.”  She winked at Erika, who seemed content that her husband had been taught a valuable, and much needed lesson.  His punishment would now be over.

Reena cut her eyes at her strapped in husband, and gave Alejandra the green light to proceed.  “Now it’s your turn tough guy.  Are you ready to admit that women should be respected with equal rights, if not, more rights than a man?”

He grunted in defiance, behind his taped mouth.  “Hit it Madonna,” she said, and Erika pressed play on the CD player.  Material Girl, by Madonna, began playing.  They sang along, as did Reena, who they’d just taught the lyrics to in the weeks leading up to this event.  Reena’s situation had not been easy, and the surveillance had driven Alejandra and Erika mad.  They had witnessed him yelling at her in public, throwing fruit on the floor in the grocery store only to make her pick it up.  He demanded that she push the grocery cart and walk behind him by exactly five paces.  The worse though, was the way he pointed at items on the shelf, expecting her to reach for them and put them in the cart, no matter how heavy or high up on the shelf they were.  He pointed to his belt more than once, as a threat of violence to her for disobedience.  Alejandra had wanted to run him over with the cart and smash a watermelon over his head.

“Some boys kiss me, some boys hug me;
“I think they’re ok;
“If they don’t give me proper credit;
“I just walk away.”

They sang out the first few verses, and he flinched uncomfortably.  Alejandra looked at his bare feet, smashed into the pink pumps, hiding his pink nails.  He’d suffered the most by far between the two men, and his relentless stubbornness would give him the ultimate victory.  He would retain his dignity, which was more than she could say for Erika’s husband, and they would have to concede that to him.  They had not let him off easily though, and wouldn’t.

“Ok, Madonnas, leave the CD on loopback.  Let’s leave these piggies to roast.  We hope you like listening to Madonna and Lady Gaga, because they are playing on loopback.”  The girls got up, as did the artist, ready to leave.  Alejandra tossed down a razor blade near Erika’s husband’s feet.  “Hey fat body!  There is a blade by your feet.  If you work hard, you can reach down, you can free yourself.  If however, you attempt in any way to free the other piggy, we will come after you again, got it?”  The girls giggled, and they walked up the stairs, and out.  They had taken their revenge.

Laurel's Homecoming

The next day, the skies cleared and it was sunny. This had to be rock bottom. She was starting to feel slight cabin fever after being cooped up for so many days in the house. Being in familiar old surroundings was making her feel a little better, and she had learned that her cousin had a ranch nearby that was close to the beach. The beaches in the Texas gulf were not the same as the beautiful California beaches she came to know, but she decided that it would be nice to get down there anyways. She was in no mood to see anybody, and fortunately her cousins were in Austin for the week, so she knew she’d be safe there. She rode with her father so he could let her in and show her where everything was.

The ranch was amazing. It had a perfect white fence and sprawling green grass surrounding the entire property. The white two-story house sat right in the middle of the grounds and looked over the land and part of the sea in the distance. There were horse stables, and the beach was accessible a few hundred yards away through a path that Laurel could see off in the distance. Laurel felt the faintest shudder of excitement, as they pulled closer. “Dad, they have horses?” she asked.

Dad noted the excitement in her voice. “Yes, mi hija, they do. And you can ride them. There is a stable hand that comes by to take care of them. His name is Steven. If he is not here, well, you remember how to saddle right?” Dad asked, smiling, as he looked at her.

She gave a little smile. “Yes I remember.”

Dad stopped the car and gave her the keys to the house. “Ok, well here you go mi hija.” He paused. He had not yet spoken to his daughter about what she was going through, and he struggled over it. He stared straight ahead, searching for something to say, some fatherly advice. She could sense it, and she wanted to stop him, but he spoke out. “Look mi hija, I know that what is happening is very bad. And it hurts me so much to see you in pain, but you have so much strength in you. You really do, and I know that God is protecting you. I don’t know what He has planned for you, but I know that He is protecting you.”

Laurel turned to face the horizon, staring at nothing out in the distance, taking in her father’s words. She wasn’t in the mood for any of his religious sermons, and she wished he would just save his breath. She didn’t want to hear anything about a few magical words out of the scripture that would save her or make things any clearer. Besides, she had no strength; that’s how she got into this mess to begin with. What was he talking about? The thoughts frustrated her.

“When you were a little girl, I took you to the fair. You wanted to go on a ride so bad, you were begging and begging. It was the one with rockets that went round and round. Do you remember the one?” he asked. She thought about it and nodded.

“Yes, I remember.”

“Yes, well you were too little to go on it, but you wanted to go so bad, and you kept begging, and I just couldn’t say no. So I took you on it. Well, the ride started going faster and faster, and you were so little that you started to slip under the bar. I got so scared, and I was trying to hold you and I…I,” he paused. The memory was so strong and clear to him, as if it had only happened yesterday, and his eyes began to well up. Laurel noted the sadness in him, and remembered then, that same sadness in him when she had decided to move to LA. Her heart sank, realizing that she had been the cause of his pain, so many times before. She loved him so much in that instant, and her heart hurt as she watched him struggle. She started to tear up.

He cleared his throat and gathered himself. “But before I could grab you, you stuck out one arm and grabbed on to the bar, and you held yourself up!” He paused again as a tear began to stream down his face. The pain in him was agonizing to her, and she wanted him to stop talking and stop remembering, but she could say nothing. She needed to hear it. “I couldn’t believe how you did it. How you found the strength to hold yourself up, for those few seconds that the ride was…”

“Dad!” she blurted out finally. She was awestruck, and felt guilty for not remembering the event that he had been harboring so deep inside. An event that was her doing, that he’d been holding so close to his heart, was unbearable for her heart to take.

“Mi hijita, I was so scared that I was going to lose you. I grabbed on to you and pulled you up and held you so tight.” His knuckles were turning white as he gripped the steering wheel. He stared forward, down the road ahead, and she could see the loud reflection of light in his teary eyes. He turned to look at her. “The reason I am telling you this is because God was protecting you that day. He gave you the power to hold on and save yourself, even though you were so little and weak. He was there. He gave you the strength. So I have never worried about you, because I know He is protecting you.” He smiled at her, and she leaned over and hugged him tighter than she ever did before. This was how she imagined home to be.

He hugged her back, as if to let her know that everything would be all right, and she understood, as she got out of the truck. “I will be back in a few hours to get you ok?” He smiled and put the truck in gear. She felt emotionally drained already, and it was so early in the day.

“Ok Dad. I love you,” she replied. “Thanks Daddy,” she added, feeling like a little girl again.

“I love you too mi hija,” he said, as he pulled away. She took a deep breath and watched him drive down the gravel road. She turned towards the barn and scanned the property. The day was beautiful and she could hear the birds chirping. It was really quiet, and in the distance, she could hear the ocean. It seemed so peaceful. She hadn’t known quiet like this in years. California seemed like a million miles away.

Jacob and Eva

He looked at the black crowbar in the back of his barely cracked open trunk. His eyes darted away then, scanning the compound of the gas station. He noted the faces of the people filling their cars up, walking in and out of the market, and sitting in cars, waiting. It was early evening and busy, as it usually was in this part of suburbia.

He tried to keep his pulse down. He was in a potentially dangerous situation. His eyes darted back down to the trunk, and the crowbar was still there. He stepped back, and lit a cigarette. He had been in tough situations before. He had been in at least six or seven fights in his life, and countless other confrontations. The thoughts were working, and his confidence came back.

He walked around to his front seat, reaching in through the open window to get his cell phone. There were no new messages or missed calls. He knew that already. He had only been a few feet away and would have heard it. She was frantic when she had called him. She was scared. He hated that feeling. The mere suggestion, that the only person that ever mattered to him was helpless and scared, was too difficult for his mind to accept. “The car is following me Jacob! I don’t know what to do. They were yelling at me!”

The words echoed in his mind. He dragged from his smoke, and he started to shake again. “Fucking punks!” he muttered out loud to himself. She was still at least five minutes away. He scanned the gas station again. Nobody was paying him any mind. He was parked near the back, where the air and water machines were.

He was her sworn protector. They were only teenagers when they had first met. It was at a gas station as well, but not like this one. He was with his friend, Mark, when they pulled up and he saw her waiting nearby at a bus stop. She looked cool and indifferent, as if she were above anything petty. She had a serious look too, as if her mind was running with a million thoughts and worries. Then suddenly, something her friend said made her laugh and smile, and there it was. The immortal dagger of an image, the most beautiful smile he had ever seen, searing itself into his mind, and from that moment forward, driving his desire to meet her, and know her, and make her his.

An SUV rolled in suspiciously, with some punk looking kids in it and a headlight out. They pulled up to the store and parked. Jacob looked around, but he didn’t see her car. False alarm. He had come to her rescue once before. Eva had a loud mouth, and often used it to defend, or offend, anybody she deemed to be out of order. It was a quality that he both loved and hated about her. She had started a brawl at a nightclub once, and he had to practically carry her out while trying to fight off a couple of drunken guys. He was glad they were drunk, or he might have not been so successful.

He stomped his smoke out. Eva was taking long now. He was getting worried again. He looked at his phone, and there was nothing there. What if they had run her off of the road? What if they had stopped her car somehow? His rambling, worried thoughts frightened him. He held his breath, stretching taller from the tips of his toes, and looked off towards the road. It was useless though. There were too many cars, too many bright lights, and too many obstructions. Maybe they weren’t following her anymore.

He was far from a chain smoker, smoking only three or four cigarettes a day on the worst days, but he lit another one. She hated that he smoked. She had begged him to quit so many times. Her strong passion had turned against him so many times, both driving him mad, and imprisoning him in her rapture. He smiled at the thought. Her touch, her desire, her scent, her smile, her vulnerability, all culminated in a web of love, entrapping him for all eternity. What they shared was like no love he’d ever known or imagined.

He saw her car pull around the corner quickly then. His heart began to beat faster and he lost a breath, as he saw a dark blue van following right behind her. “It’s a van, not an SUV damn it!” he cursed out loud to himself. She rushed toward him, spotting him, and the van followed. People noticed, hearing the screeching tires, and were looking on as an almost out of control van followed closely after her. A guy was hanging out of the passenger window, laughing loudly and yelling something as the driver honked his horn.

She came to a screeching halt, right next to Jacob. He was trembling, both from fear and adrenaline. Her window was up, and he saw her face. Her beautiful Latin olive skin was scared white, and he recognized the fear in her eyes. It sparked something in him, propelling his spirit, and he looked past her to the van that stopped suddenly and abruptly right in front of them.

Jacob got a good look at them, freezing in his steps between his car and hers. They were in their twenties, the driver and the passenger, with nobody else that he could see in the concealed back. “How you doing boyfriend? We wanna talk to your girl!” sang the passenger. He was smiling with cockiness, trying to intimidate Jacob. The driver revved the engine.

“Get out, and I will wipe the concrete with that smile, tough guy!” Jacob yelled out. The fear and adrenaline pushed his legs forward, moving him towards the van. The side door sprang open, and a man about the same size as Jacob got out, and charged towards him. Jacob readied himself, and with lighting fast speed attacked, throwing a punch, connecting with all of his might.

The sting of Jacob’s strike shocked the punk, and he was dazed. Without mercy or hesitation, Jacob struck again, this time sending him to the pavement. Another guy was getting out of the van, and the passenger was too. Jacob ran back to his trunk as the punks followed, and he grabbed his crowbar. Flashing it with fury, he charged at them, and they turned back. The passenger, no longer displaying his cocky smile, retreated, and the other guy helped his wobbly-legged friend get back in.

A second later, they sped off, screeching their tires, throwing a beer bottle out of the window, sending it crashing against the side wall of the gas station. A man came over, to help. It was too little, too late. “Are you ok?” he asked, as Jacob leaned over, out of breath.

“Yeah, they didn’t touch me,” he admitted. Just then, a few more people came over, a woman as well. He put the crowbar down on the ground, allowing it to clink loudly.

“You really took care of them!” the man said proudly with a smile. Eva opened her door, the color flowing back into her face, and she hugged her man. Jacob could hear the man explaining to the others what he had seen, and the noise of the chatter began to rise. He held Eva in his arms, exhaling deeper than he’d ever done before. She was safe. It was over. He did it.

Raider-Charger Wars

I wrote this short story the other day. My brother liked it, so I thought I'd post it:

Raider Charger Wars

It was a cold blustery winter night off the coast of San Diego. The old wooden frigates slowly approached the shore, undetected by the onerous coast guard and navy patrols that were too busy looking for steel vessels. The pounding rain swooshed and battered with the ferociously howling winds, reducing visibility to a mere twenty yards. As the first frigate hit the beach, the first of the silver and black clad Raiders staggered onto the sand.

The Raiders were ugly, mean, reeking of sweat and seawater. They were tired, hungry, angry, and they were thirsting for blood. The formed a march in the sand, with their shields, armor, and weapons clinking and clanking with every step. Black and silver paint was smeared on their faces. Their black uniforms, struggling to cover their armor, hung tattered and torn.

The heavily armored lineman carried the long, iron-tipped pikes. The linebackers in light armor carried swords with the defensive backs mounted on horses. The offensive linemen rolled the battering ram and cannons, and the mounted receivers carried bows as they made their way through the beach and down the valley, marching on to the castle, Qualcomm stadium.

At Qualcomm, the Chargers were carrying on with their normal practice routine. The mounted squad were jousting and practicing sword-fighting matches. It was a normal sort of preparation for the impending AFC battles that could ensue at any given moment. But as the strangely cold, rainy, wintery-night fell, they huddled into their tents on the field to rest for the next day, unaware of the Raiders slowly marching towards them through the valley.

It was before the first morning light. The first group of Raiders was making their approach to the parking lot when the Charger scouts spotted them. “Ambush! Ambush!” yelled out the young water boy as he panicked frantically from the deck of stadium. Alarms began to sound off, those who were awake already scrambled to wake everyone up. The king and his court, housed high up in the stadium were ushered to wake up and make their escape with the princess, the head cheerleader.

The first of the Raiders’ mounted riders rode onto the parking lot and fired arrows lit on fire into the stadium concrete outer wall. Others were firing at the first of the Chargers who were beginning to file out of the entrance slowly. The Chargers were struggling to mount their horses, and some linemen were rolling cannons out to the middle decks of the stadium outer wall.

Within the fortress of the stadium, the royal front office was in shambles. Guardsmen scurried about trying to make sense of the chaos and keep the king safe. His personal guards were working on a exit route out of the back of the stadium. The king’s second in command, Duke Smith, pleaded with the king to make haste. The princess and her handmaids waited patiently in fear in the princess chambers. They knew not of what was going on, but hoped that she would be kept safe.

General Campbell of the Raiders led his armored steed to the front lines. “Receivers go long!” he ordered as the attacking horsemen met the defensive archers on the second deck with a barrage of arrows. “Fire the cannons!” he ordered as the running back and fullback fired a cannonball into the first line of defense.

The Chargers were filing out, forming a line of defense at the entrance of the castle stadium but the cannonball shredded their wall, and sent the defense scattering. More Charger came rushing out, trying to mount a counter attack, but the Raiders slashed and fired upon them, cutting them down. “Cannon!” shouted General Campbell, and the Raiders launched a cannon ball onto the second deck, sending slabs of cement tumbling down, taking out more Chargers in the process. The Raiders linemen moved forward with the battering ram, to push in the castle door. “Full attack!” shouted General Campbell.

It was over before it began. The powerful Raiders swordsmen and a barrage of arrows easily struck down the remaining mounted Chargers, sending them fleeing in all directions. The Raiders linemen broke down the front door, and the linebackers stormed the stadium first. They plundered and pillaged their way up the ramp to the second deck destroying kiosks, filling their carts with kegs of beer and nachos.

The running backs, leaving the cannons for the defense to guard, entered into the king’s chambers, but he was not to be found. They next entered the princess’ chambers and found her, along with her handmaids, trembling in fear. The king had left them to fend for themselves. The mighty warrior, McFadden, pulled the head cheerleader out and led her away. She was now captured and would be under Raider control.

The Raiders surprise attack was flawlessly executed. They finished off the Chargers, leaving them bruised and injured. The stadium was pillaged and plundered. The king had gotten away. The dark lord, Emperor Davis, sat on his frigate command center just offshore, laughing at the news of the victory, as he watched the smoke plumes rise from the castle in the distance.
of the victory, as he watched the smoke plumes rise from the castle in the distance.

Welcome!

My reason for this blog is simply to write short stories that the public can access. It is my hope that people will feel something and be entertained when they read my stories. If that happens, then I will be happy and continue to work.

A-LO