With an arched palm, Philip double-clicked his trackball mouse, revealing a list of similarly named spec docs.
IYP_dbase_spc_900
IYP_dbase_spc_901
IYP_dbase_spc_902
(etc.)
He was about to open the one most recently downloaded, when his eyes fell on the only file in the directory that wasn’t supplied by the company. The naming convention made it stand out.
StAloysius_floorplan.pdf
He sat back in his ergonomic chair, shoved his hands into his armpits, and stared at the tiny icon for a good long time. Then he reached for his mouse.
“Oh, why not?”
The map of the church popped open. He had a dual-monitor setup, so he could keep the image opened to full-screen without covering his workspace. He spoke the immortal words of Warren Zevon as he faced forward and commenced pecking away at his keyboard.
“Enjoy every sandwich.”
This was his day. If he had to spend three hours of it masturbating digital information like the code-monkey he was, he would do so with a symbol of his triumph a mere head-turn away.
So, he worked glancing to his right on a regular basis and dreaming about his next perfect moment. The material was prepared, and he knew exactly where it was going. He just had to figure out how to get it there.
Not going to worry about it right now.
A solution would present itself as all others had. He had help. BIG help. He was sure of it.
He was watching the blue progress bar as his final updates were being complied when he heard footsteps behind him accompanied by a familiar voice.
“Hey, goofball.”
The woman he loved put her cheek against his and kissed him on the neck. She thought nothing of the church floor plan. He always had weird stuff on his desk top.
“Hey pretty lady.”
“Almost done?”
“Completely done.”
“Good. I’m hungry.”
“Me too. Five minutes, I promise.”
“I’ll be in the car”
He closed all his sessions and shut down his computer. His phone buzzed. It was a text. Seeing the sender, he deleted it without reading.
You know better than that.
16. The Cloister
It wouldn’t be midnight for another two and half hours. Arthur didn’t care.
Less than half of the UJ’s members were present. Arthur didn’t care.
He had his three women for the rite. That was all he cared about.
He popped an ecstasy tablet, washed it down with a swig of Bacardi, and surveyed his bevy.
A full set.
The first woman was a willing participant. The second was a trophy. The third…just a novelty really.
Arthur understood what it meant to be a man. He understood it in the truest sense. He knew, as a gender, men weren’t smarter than women. Men weren’t more emotionally stable than women. Men weren’t better equipped to handle high pressure situations than women. Men weren’t better leaders than women. Men were superior in only one, single-purpose characteristic: physical dominance. They were put on this earth to serve humanity’s primal instinct to perpetuate itself. Eating and screwing were a man’s only two obligations.
But, somewhere along the line, men messed up. They talked themselves into believing they were hunters, protectors, providers, and even warriors. Perhaps they were those things when the fight was easy to win. When it wasn’t, they were hiding in the trees along with everyone else.
No.
Men were physically dominant for one reason and one reason only: to force women into submission. Humans were the only species that had forgotten this basic evolutionary fact. Every other species could mate whenever and wherever they wanted, regardless of the female’s willingness. Nature called this arrangement neither cruel nor misogynistic. Nature wasn’t sexist. In the insect world, the whole thing was flipped. Ask a male praying mantis who was in charge; he’d tell you. But human males, men, were forced by the society they created to suppress their urges. Every ugly stain on human history existed due to this basic truth. Arthur didn’t know how the first war was fought, but he was willing to bet that it was started by something with a vagina walking up to something with a penis and saying “go get me that thing, and you can have me.”
Arthur knew he wasn’t alone in his beliefs. It did seem, however, that he was alone in his willingness to verbalize them. It wasn’t long after his second written warning at work that he met Samuel at the Iron Wall. He thought he’d finally found a kindred spirit. After they went to Avery’s gallery together, he was sure of it.
How could he have been so wrong? Samuel was a douche. The guy had a brilliant philosophy coupled with a silver tongue, and he wasted it on idiotic high principles like freedom and love.
We’re men. We ejaculate. That’s what we do. Why does it have to be more complicated than that?
In the end, it didn’t matter. Arthur won. The douche was long gone…merely a necessary stone in the stairway to greatness. Arthur had no problems admitting it: from Nero to Stalin, men like him needed men like Samuel.
The painting party (a lame-ass stupid thing to call it) was ready to start.
Eric had just laid his unconscious and, so far, unspoiled victim on one of the mattresses near Arthur’s feet. His facial expression and demeanor were those of a little boy brandishing a good report card.
The drug he used wasn’t chloroform. His buddy on the phone advised him against it. Chloroform wasn’t the efficient knock-out fluid that James Bond fans were led to believe. At best, it was high maintenance; at worst, lethal. Eric didn’t want to fuck with lethal. When he asked for an alternative, his buddy told him not to worry about it and hung up. As far as anyone else in the cloister knew, the stuff in the bottle was chloroform. Eric didn’t actually know what it was. He guessed it was some sort of homemade something-or-other. It was given to him with one simple instruction written on its otherwise blank label:
ONLY WHEN NEEDED
Fair enough.
Whatever it was, it did the trick. The results pleased Arthur, and that was all that mattered to Eric.
Music was playing at a deafening volume.
