THE RETURN OF YOUTH

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  Three nights ago I dreamed about the return of youth. When I awoke, might I have missed the flab about my middle? The 5’ 8” shrunken height? The comfort of old-lady shoes? My pallid hair? Matching wardrobe? If I could turn youthful, would I miss those and the benefits of a sage? Would the phantoms vacate my mind? I wish I knew.

  On my presidential Delta 1, I examine my last itinerary. Like a cobra in brambles, ready to strike, the youth announcement made me pause. It drove fangs into my mind and empowered the specters thriving there.

  Only three days ago, Charles had laid the agenda on my desk with his suggestions on which mood to assume in the meetings. Each person to face me that day wanted something as if I acted as a conduit to her or his desires. I had to kowtow to the way they saw things

  When younger, I had held to my viewpoints. Vigor carried me through trials, but I have grown old. My ideals have dimmed. Of late, my friends and associates, especially men, advise me without asking if I would appreciate their points of view. This builds the first step in shoving me aside, in putting me in the category of a lesser-than-them. Oh, it happens nearly every week.

  Let me imagine, what did I wear at those meetings? Oh yes, the mauve suit with silk scarf and creamy carnation to match. Of course, my dresser had gone through her routine of getting my approval. I had agreed even though bouffant and lace suited me more.

  After I had eaten the breakfast Charles chose, he drilled me for sixty minutes on the mood I would portray for each meeting then escorted me into the office.

  The first meeting occurred with that donor to my last campaign. Charlie Agamont had traveled to DC to cajole me into giving him a plum: Would I push for a tax break to bridge his company over a downturn in Alaska? Smoothing my shoulder-length hair, I feigned interest. Of course I would. I ran a finger over his blazer to assure him. His reasons stood unimportant. Nevertheless, donations rested on adequate exchange.

  Next, the chew-over with the senator from Missouri, head of the opposition. For this one, I had removed my lipstick, ditched the flowers and waxed hostile. I compromised only to encourage him. Most of the meetings ran similarly. I played the moods well and smoothed out ruffles.

  All went per plan except for the meeting with Dr. Achem, my physician. Surprise at his message blew my poise. I had the honor to receive the Presidential Rejuvenation Award. Deprived of air, my heart stuttered. What did this change in my future mean? Charles had to cancel the rest of the meetings so I could escape to my rooms.

  At 7:00 P.M. Vice-President Flores escorted me to the banquet. A devil with silver hair, trimmed to a cilia of perfection, he gave me his arm, and we entered the annex. Every chair, occupied by my supporters and enemies, faced the entrance when he and I stepped in. All clapped although that of my friends rang louder.

  I cast out that they all admired my blue satin gown and the tiara pinning my permanent in place. Actually when we appeared, those veterans seemed to suck in air. Suddenly I became dizzy as a teenager who drank too much on a date. Unsteady on my spikes, I leaned on Flores's arm, and we made our way to the main table through heads that followed as if their eyes had stuck.

  I do not remember the chit chat or the acceptance speech I made. All inane, all senseless. Me a beaver with an unfinished dam. Still lightheaded after the banquet, I left as soon as I could without seeming rude. Charles escorted me to my private quarters. I went in only to collapse on the bed dressed and head spinning.

  Dr. Achem attended me that night. Finding my vitals stable, he said, "Looks like you experienced a catharsis. The upcoming rejuvenation must have stunned you.”

  Stunned me? Devastated me rather. I did not comprehend what rejuvenation would mean.

  “Someday” he went on, “eminent leaders in politics, the arts, science, business, education ‒ it blows my mind to contemplate it ‒ will rejuvenate. Not only will this benefit them, it will uplift those who do not receive the gift. Can you imagine how those rejuvenated will approach their tasks and treatment of others? The wisdom of old age alloyed with youth. Staggering."

  I could not argue with that. Brought to mind that Amish adage: "too soon oldt, too late schmart." Suspicious of Achem though, I anticipated what rejuvenation might do. I didn't want to jettison every comfort I'd earned: the knickknacks that tracked my life, the voices of friends, the odors that welcomed me to my rooms, the familiar touch of my blouses and sweaters, the taste I'd acquired for fine food, my sensual pleasures, my aesthetic penchant. No, I did not want those to go.

 

  I travel with the unseen who critique my mental baggage. The past they invoke solidifies into Delta 1 speeding over the Section-Six countryside. I glance out the window, forgetting that the ship's cloaking masks the outside scenery.

  My eyes snap to the inside where the cabin's metallic ambiance predominates. Uninspiring decor surrounds me. Crisp lines set off fixtures, seats, lights, consoles and the aisle. Some designer choosing utility over comfort, no doubt. Smells a bit antiseptic, clean. You do not want to touch things.

  I sip wine, the only alcohol allowed me because of my heart. As President I must follow my doctor's orders. And I do, although when my husband asks me to share pizza or a dish of ice cream, I yield to make him happy. As well, even when exhausted, I love him whenever he wants.

  Something playing on the windows draws my gaze. My heart stutter-beats. Sweat drips from my forehead. There. Reflected from the glass,, shape-shifting in and out, dance the specters of my mind.

  The result of old age, or too stimulated by the award? I have not stopped quivering since, and Achem’s last visit did nothing to calm me. Conjoined to my melancholy, the specters slither through the space of me.

  My 135 age sticks to me like tar and seems to concentrate doubts and forebodings. During the past year, disillusionment has fed terror of getting older. The nearer to death I come, the more I experience the loss of self, the impossibility of returning to youthful vigor.

  In the window, the specters point and laugh. Sliding in the haze, they remind me of Achem’s speech. Scary! After a rendition of my accomplishments, heshe’d announced that I had been designated for that award. What got to me hung not on the $2,000,000 part, but rejuvenation itself.

  Achem's shifty eyes had studied me, like he wondered if some threat had revealed itself. He had said that rejuv carried a blessing only the eminent receive. Yet, despite my fifty years of service, I turned in on myself, Why me? Nevertheless, I could not derive any reason why not. Such an award, to enjoy youth again.

  Still, I remember that Nobel Laureate ‒ $500,000 and rejuvenation. A news article had reported that she retired to some island after rejuv. She has not published anything since. Later an analysis of her state had appeared. The article implied that after rejuv her new-found youth had posed problems. Her biographer had difficulty formulating the facts of her life. The laureate seemed uninterested in her own accomplishments and spoke only in generalities.

  To steady myself, I order another glass of wine, one beyond my limit. As I sip, I stare into the window at the gray forms still scurrying. I close my eyes, and they drive me out of the reality that life has drilled in.

  An hour later, the cruiser lands in the Guyana Preserve, 60 kilometers from that mothballed European Space Agency site. Aster and Zoro, my bodyguards, escort me through 200 meters of jungle on a dirt path to the entrance of the Rejuvenation Institute. 25-foot-high gray walls surround the place. In the moist heat, moss clings to the ramparts.

 

  The Institute reaches for me; a 6' 2" wo-man slinks from under a moldy arch. Herhis stroll reminds me of a vid that had scared me when a girl: a black panther stalking a quivering goat. The shehe's eyes ape the panther's slits of hypnotic yellow.

Herhis welcome sounds more like a command than what a president of a country would expect. The wo-man dismisses my guards as if shehe has a right that supersedes mine. I fight the urge to accompany them and return to my familiar life. But, my reward beckons, and I want it.

  As Aster and Zoro walk away, they whisper too low for me to pick out their words among the growls and screams of the jungle. I realize that they have protected me for over 20 years. If they leave, that means they have decided I will remain safe. Besides, they will monitor the tracer implanted in my left thigh.

  My welcomer Dr. Luz, a female-dominant blend, escorts me to herhis office. As we enter, shehe says, "Ms. President, we at the Institute feel honored. Did Dr. Achem explain that for us to rejuvenate your body, your senses must first disengage?"

  "Yes, I understand that mesmeric command accomplishes disengagement, eliminating some subjective experiences, right?" From Luz’s thrown-down eyes I realize that I do not comprehend anything about this. I sicken, for usually I receive briefing and talk sensibly.

  Luz smirks. "Something like that. As well, we must stop your injections. You won't see your husband for a few weeks. I assume he would agree to cessation."

  The weekly injections kept me active. That information would lie in my file. "Yes, go on."

  "Although the concept may seem simple, some people have found disengagement trying. We have machines to assist us, of course." Herhis lips turn into a bloodless smile. Lust suffuses the room and creeps into me like a descending incubus. Spittle hangs on herhis lips.

  Shadows slide past as they had during my meetings with Dr. Achem. These occurrences have disoriented me. About to tell Luz this when an undercurrent of sound cuts in: voices traveling in the jungle, drums beating the rhythm of natives dancing around fire.

  Luz eyes me as she would some robot. Shehe remains quiet for a moment. At last, shehe says, "Oh, that's nothing. Let us get you some refreshments, then the concierge will show you to your room."

  The concierge serves me then stands by as I begin to eat. I tell him he does not need to stay, but he informs me that he has orders not to leave me alone until lights out. When he takes me to my room, I discern nothing about it, just collapse on the bed as the lights dim.

  When I wake, no window greets me, no clock, no monitor, completely shut off from the outside. My mind reaches for stability. On the way to the cafeteria, I ask the concierge for the time. He says that time's not part of the Institute's environment.

  But I operate with schedules by the clock. Well, chalk these idiosyncrasies up to the treatment I will receive.

  The concierge routes me to a laboratory where technicians strip off my clothes. The lead says that I will remain naked. The techs ignore my discomfort. Engrossed in their devices, they seem to have forgotten me. Suddenly, all 5 present turnabout. I sense lechery hiding. They lay me down on a table over which hang dozens of instruments. A barely audible drone issues from the walls. They give me a drought of coconut-tasting liquid....

  I awake stupefied. Luz stands beside the bed. Through the mist in my head, shehe adjusts the screens. Shehe has a body smooth as a China doll. No hair anywhere. Must ordinarily wear a wig for herhis head shines in the glare of the lamps. "Your treatment will begin."

  "Will you not brief me about what's to happen? Briefings rule my professional life. Really, I cannot get along without them. To govern, I must understand many secrets, threats, motivations and moods."

  "Neither necessary, nor advisable. Briefings would make the results uncertain. But I will tell you the steps as they occur. First, we'll remove any propensity you have to distrust others."

  I do not say that I maintain distrust as one of my tools.

 

  Clamps rise out of the table and pin me. The room turns that black where you suspect you see movement, but your eyes don't focus on it. Growls and other animal sounds, along with the hum of voices, fill the room. Hot breaths, rough touching of claws and tongues, sniffing and the grate of gnashing teeth impale me.

  Yet, what happens next stimulates. Every centimeter of my body, surface, and inside, vibrates like a microwave has pummeled me with pleasurable rays. I toast as skin does on a warm day.

  That lasts about 2 minutes, then mental things embrace me as tight as an ecstatic lover. Time and again these things rip my fabric, each one followed by a microwave reward. After what seems hours, I realize that time no longer matters to me, that Dr. Luz will care for me, that after rejuvenation my future will brighten as ... what? I lost the thought.

  The clamps fall away, and the room hazes purple. Luz touches me. A shiver rockets up my spine. Shehe turns dials on a machine suspended above the bed. Then examining the depth of my eyes, shehe asks for my ideas.

  I cannot pull out of herhis gaze. Malice? Lust rises in my organs, then shoots through my body past my heart into my head. My eyes bulge out of their sockets as it roars through them into Luz.

  And then, the days of bliss before the pure-gened men vanished welcomes the mentalist. I trust herhim. "Hold that thought," shehe says. In herhis eyes, bursts out the town where I came into this world.

  Herhis mouth opens, letting out a groan. Oil erupts from herhis pores and rivulets down herhis body onto me. Shehe grins, then jumps off and says, "That should give us enough data. For each disengagement, we will run a similar [fades out]"

Shehe reads the displays and enters their information into my compufile. "For your disengagement, Ms. President, I’ve programmed the perfect affair based on your history and responses here." Shehe flicks a switch on the machine to the left of the table. Time suspends, and a dynamic simulation of my favorite pure-gened man floats above me. When a teen, I had worshiped a poster of him above my bed. Many a night he kissed me.

  The simulation has imperfections, but as I notice each defect, it vanishes. In a few minutes, his clone tempts me. He descends as gently as snowflakes settle. Vibrations matching my own, his body merges with mine. I rapture as, from the inside of my body, he strokes my skin.

  Nonetheless, I cannot hold him. He degrades, first losing form, then breaking up into packets of shimmer that swirl into a machine hanging above the bed. No, not that ‒ the energy leaves the machine and disappears into Luz’s brow.

  No matter my advanced age, even if they had not formed pure-gened, I still had noticed handsome men. They seemed drawn to power, hence, more than my share had hounded me with their attentions. I discovered attraction more than I would have liked.

  But when an Adonis walks by, no sex trails him. That seems wrong way to, without the siren’s call, I mean. If rejuvenation works, shouldn't I experience more want?

  I gawk at Luz. Despair at my loss of libido crushes my desire for rejuv. The doctor strikes through my defenses with a mesmer. Something far away, yet strangely near, snaps in my mind. I beg Luz to stop treatment, but shehe just smiles and walks out of the room.

  At my next meeting in Luz’s office, I bring up again ceasing rejuv, but shehe waves it away and tells me that shehe has good news: Pleased that I have done so well in my disengagements, Dr. Achem has sent me a note. Why do my hands shake as I reach for the facsimile? I trust him, depend on him. Why then, oh why?

  Achem has operated as my medical adviser for the last 25 years. Besides commending me, heshe writes that Vice President Flores does excellent standing in. That news leaves me with urgency to get this rejuvenation over and back to my duties. Flores has ambitions. Yet, oddly, I trust him; he has never let me down though I keep winning elections against him.

As if Luz could read my mind, shehe says, "Well, let’s speed this up. You’re familiar with the sensations of eating of a fine meal? We’ll go for disengagement of that pleasure next." Herhis appetite has changed subtly. Shehe licks herhis lips as if shehe's just eaten a succulent capon.

  Perhaps I can finish in a week, not two. I ready myself, but unease comes over me. Luz's words do not reach me directly. They slide off askew as if shehe speaks to someone to the side. Do I exist only in some dream? How can this happen to me?

That uneasiness stays until a technician escorts me to a Brazilian game room where I will eat. The oxygen in the room matches that of a 16th century jungle. Makes me a bit heady, although the increased oxygen does stimulate my appetite.

After turning on a machine above my table, a server sets before me a selection of my favorite mock meats, vegetables and fluids. Each item has arrived at its peak of taste, warmth and texture. Each bite tastes better than the one before. I cannot recall a more delicious meal. Yet my mouth hangs two meters away, chewing in the air.

  With a sigh and a pleased stomach, I lean back in my chair. Just as my contentment slides toward sleep, Luz materializes then sits down and leers as if shehe awaits some outcome. Herhis eyes bore into me, licking my soul.

  I try to avert. Useless. The eyes will not budge. While a tech lays me in the bed and hooks up the machines, Luz plunges into me with asperity.

  Far off within, I imagine, no, more like resonating in third sight, the ripping of gossamer. Lights go out in my mind. I do not remember what happens after, for a sense of loss pushes me down into my dungeon of phantoms.

 

  The next morning, I awake in shadows moving peripherally. As they circle about, they strike at me, crackle and spit. I shake like a leaf in the wind and forget to eat breakfast. By lunch time, my body has weakened from hunger, but I have no interest in feeding it.

  Odd, I have always eaten a meal early in the day. The technicians show up and insert a tube, then force mush into my stomach. I move about in space and time of no ambiance. How did I get here? 

  I lie in a laboratory. Luz and the technicians fly above the linoleum like buzzards. When they talk, their words enter the past without touching the present. I can barely grasp any meaning. Luz says, "Ms. Delacourt, comfortably done, defecation brings the most pleasant sensations."

  Does shehe talk to another? Has shehe called someone, "Ms. Delacourt?" Shehe could not have forgotten protocol ‒ that the other answers to "Ms. President" or "President Delacourt.”

  Luz goes on as if shehe has made no gaff, "In about two hours, you will eliminate waste. Before that, we’ll increase your tonus and enhance your anus and urethra sensitivities."

  To whom does shehe talk? I do not need to go to the lavatory.

  Through visions, hundreds of commodes blur by. The stools, sinks and floors soar through me. I swim through water in the crapper. I lick the soap. I slither in the scum.

  I overhear the technicians lugging someone to the defecatorium. Luz enters the room and swims to the table on which a stranger lies drowning. Shehe applies a chartreuse oil to someone's anus. Then, shehe runs a sensitivity probe around a bum plastered to the ceiling.

  When shehe has the sensitivity set, shehe backs off and sighs. I imagine herhis skin flushing with moisture. Shehe says to the technicians gliding by, "She’s ready. Set her up."  

  Who implies this "her?" The technicians plummet deeper. Something happens between here and there, but a person cannot find out because her body lies over there needing to defecate.

  The defecatorium smells balmy. From a jungle comes the sound of rain pattering on leaves. The technicians rub the body with oil and sit it on fur. It leans its head on satin.

  A sphincter parts. Slow and sensual, wonderfully warm, excrement having the texture of cashmere snakes out of an anus accompanied by a pleasant flood. With ease, another's bowels and bladder empty.

  Luz appears and does something to the machine above a head. A person's bowels had burst with excrement. That person had groaned with pleasure. However, the memory of it has lost itself in the jungle. Luz searches those eyes, then says, "Snap and part, snap and part. You disengaged.”

  Discovering she has changed, someone glances around the room. No one else there, except fear from her childhood oozing blood red. Screaming at her, it smears itself on her face, and she sucks it into her nose and eyeballs. She gurgles, "Get away from us. We act not for you."

  On this assertion we return. A familiar voice slices through our fear. "Molly Delacourt, from your profile I learn that exercise drives your passion. Incline yourself to what we’ll take up next."

  I coalesce, relieved to find Luz standing beside me. Even so, I stand alone. What shehe'd said escapes into the jungle. Then, shehe goes on, "First, we’ll cleanse you."

  I drift into the sanctum of someone. Standing off to the side, amazed that someone’s skin exudes foam that rises and falls with someone’s breathing. In the foam, thousands of bubbles wear grotesque faces. The one that mimics Luz grows larger, then rushes into someone’s mind. "Get out," some being exclaims. "Who asked you into my hell?"

  Shaking uncontrollably, someone changes into me. I begin walking. A hand touches my shoulder. The lead technician stands there solid, thank the planets. I stop hyperventilating enough to realize that Luz moves to inside my body to replace me on the exerciser. The exerciser! Have I exercised?

  The technicians put me onto an exercise simulator. Luz mounts the exerciser that connects to it. Shehe begins working out. As hundreds of herhis muscles flex and contract, someone’s do too. This entity deepens, and her pulse increases. Soon, both someone and Luz sweat slick.

  Then, a person passes some threshold where her body becomes as resilient as gum. Chew. Yummy. Let us blow bubbles. We will swim to my heaven. We will eat pizza and French ice cream. Tumble in the sheets of sleep. Push the button, blow up all the oil pumps. Off in a jungle drenched in dark, ooze the phantoms imagining this.

  Endurance and vitality. Luz increases the rate, and somebody handles it with ease. She glances in a mirror, fascinated, watches as wrinkles disappear. Not only does she appear younger, she acts younger ‒ 70, 50, 30 years old, strong and agile, with a crop of curly hair. Distract the planets. Fulminate the sun. Flood the moon.

  The woman still stares in the mirror. Luz steps off the exerciser. Shehe says, "Look within." My God, she speaks to me! Have I come back?

  I follow the fibers into my brain. Suddenly, two disappear. I lean outward to Luz for explanation. Through herhis puckered lips and sunken cheeks words tumble out like popcorn from an air popper, but they pass me by, leaving despair in the wake of the specters screeching my ideas. Behind a bend, they click and ratchet, surfacing, exfoliating my skin.

  Yet I glory in someone’s youth. Young. Everyone makes happy. The woman, the shehe, and the me implode into some swamp, alone, strange and distant. In herhis office, I imagine, shehe speaks. The words stick on bubbles. "Delacourt, tonight we’ll strip off the thrill you get from winning."

  I cave into myself. “Delacourt" my name? Perhaps I sleep. Maybe I or someone slimed another.

  Ten thousand people with blue on their left wrists sway in their seats. I stand before them on the stage and examine my patch. In my right hand I hold a vial of fluid. I say, "This vial contains the vaccine to cure the plaque. I will drink it now and save my life. You out there have the honor of watching and the comfort of knowing that one will yet live."

  I glance at my now pinkish-blue patch and raise the vial to my lips. But I do not drink. Instead, I seek victory, winning. The crowd gasps as I walk to the edge of the stage and, there, pour the contents toward the floor. The liquid enters an intake.

  The people stare at their patches. "My patch is bluer," a voice says. More and more say those words. Then, cheers, and the people begin to glow with fire .

  My patch turns bluer, my shine rises brightest before all the others. Happy me until the crowd begins chanting, "dream, dream, a fool of visions."

  My burning becomes the size of a pebble, then nothing but a wish. I wake up. Luz probes a light into my eyes. "Not exactly what I expected, but the thrill of winning disengaged just the same."

  I flee into my mind. Luz tags along. Shehe says, "Next, we’ll remove your aesthetics."

  Do I ascertain what she says? Do I sit in a chair? Does Luz scoot around her projector of illusions? Maybe shehe says something, and the room fills with images and sounds of words and galaxies. Starting out crass, the images perhaps grow in beauty until they steal my breath. Or so it seems when someone smashes one’s future.

  The visions start fading, and I realize that if they go, I will die. I crawl around on my skin trembling and sobbing and screaming, Don’t let them go. I need beauty.

  Out in the jungle, things snap. Off in the next universe, a "slurp" like the dregs of a milkshake streaking up a straw. A tugging parts the curtains of my mind. Luz stands beside me. "Another success," something hints.

  Who needs successes like these? The curtain closes before an answer stalls. Specters gorge on my conjectures as the lights go out. They have time because when Luz slipped in, the curtain jammed on herhis bubble. It bursts and releases its reflection: “Your primary senses collapse with the next and final step.”

  With sight acute, an unknown permeates galaxies, colliding outside what I can sense. So tender, I touch trenches. I lie inside the head of a cubic person. Become the particle that brings the ancients to life.

  Harbingers fill the vacuum left by my departed senses. Past doubts and sins, debacles and sorrows, mistakes and fears, come to haunt me, and everywhere foam the bubbles. They force penetration on me. Thousands of philosophers, each wanting to scramble my body and mind, caress my cheeks. Pillows in the night. I flail at the bubbles, and they back off to mock me. A fool should not rule. I deserve their mockery.

  One bubble does not agree. It bursts. A remembrance floats free: At an awards banquet, while the senator from Missouri whispers to a colleague, I glide toward the podium to accept the award of rejuvenation.

  I recall my trepidation at trusting this "good" news. No upside without a downside. Youth. At what cost? Returning to that day, I cancel it, and my desires, albeit somewhat changed, rush in.

  I pull a Derringer out of my sling-purse and blast 25 years of Achem’s advice out of my head. I return to my rightful place and portray myself: Wife to my husband, the president of a great country. Yet, differences now rule my course. I could retire, start a less stressful career, and that does have appeal. Perhaps I might find the happiness of ducks in the rain. That promises something too. However, I did not get to here by taking the easy course. No, millions, perhaps billions depend on me to choose wisely.

 

  If shehe has not already, Luz will report to Achem the success of my rejuvenation. Achem will meet with others. Wheels will turn, plans will formulate, positions in a new hierarchy will firm up. They have a surprise coming. The future they hope for will not mean the future they will experience.

  Aster and Zoro walk me out of the Institute. They remark how young I seem, how I move with the grace of a 20-year-old. Yes, that falls true. But raped during the process? Some things lie wrong for solving a problem.

  From the jungle come the voices of those mangled in this place. "Welcome to rejuvenation," they say.

Nevertheless, I keep these voices unexposed. Rejuvenation has taken something from me. It has postponed death. I will share this experience. I will fix things.

  I gabble to my bodyguards and smile the voices resident. Luz stands grotesque at the gate. For her benefit, "I have no plans. There's not a thing more that I want to achieve."

  Shehe smirks. Meanwhile, Aster, Zoro and I enter the jungle strip, me striding with assurance, they leaning toward me to catch my orders. We arrive at the airfield. Delta 1 sits there. I enter without support while my bodyguards fade back into the jungle.

  I readjust the headrest to fit my 5’ 10” body and wait an hour until Aster and Zoro return. I instruct the pilot to deactivate cloaking. As the plane circles over the Institute, I put my spectacles in their case, and an eagle gazes down. We soar up above the verdant. Thousands of butterflies flit among the trees like a storm of flowers. They remind me of the millions who elected me. They deserve a report. No frills, no rose-colored glasses, straight out.

   A burst of flame shoots through the 10 buildings. Fire consumes the roofs. Smoke knifes into the sky. Those running out fall as my phantoms, free at last, enjoying a thrill denied me, streak from my mind to savor the killing.

  I lie back in my seat and consider the many new appointments I will make. All my advisers will go, Achem with prejudice. Friends I will need, those who recognize where power lies. Of course, I will promote Aster and Zoro for their service. And after pizza and ice cream, I will tease my husband once again.

 

  A new story from the book Eve of Valor will post on or about 1 Mar.

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  To get the book Eve of Valor: click here.