I am not offended by rape jokes. Offended is how my grandmother feels if I accidentally swear during a conversation with her; the word describes a reaction to something you think is impolite or inappropriate. It is a profoundly inadequate descriptor for the sudden pinching in my chest and the swelling of fear and sadness that I feel when someone makes a rape joke in my presence.
I’m offended by fewer and fewer jokes, lately. I’ll give you an example: I used to be offended when I heard a joke hinging on stereotypes about native people. I’d think, in a detached way, that it was in poor taste, a bit rude, maybe inconsiderate- offensive. I stopped feeling offended by native jokes when I watched my friend start crying in the middle of our grade twelve law class. We were discussing racial profiling in Canada, looking at the example of a native man who was (most likely) pulled over for his physical appearance but was found to have suitcases of illegal drugs in his trunk. When people started spouting stereotypes to defend the police officer’s actions, my friend broke down. Through sobs, she tried to explain how the casual prejudices that she hears, all the quick jokes that try to wrestle a laugh from mocking her identity, how all the little cruelties add up to make her feel like shit.
Now, when someone spits out some bile-disguised-as-humour about native people, I see my friend’s face scrunched up as she tried to hold in tears and I am not offended. I feel angry. I’m indignant, upset that the person doesn’t understand the harm their words can, and have, done. This isn’t the same chest-pinching I feel when similar jokes are directed toward my identity, but I think it’s a more powerful and more relevant feeling than a detached offendedness.
So I want to share a story that I hope will stop people from being merely offended by rape jokes. It’s a story that I don’t tell very often, and when I do tell it I tend to frame it flippantly, because I don’t like to acknowledge how scary it was.
When I was fifteen, I pushed a man off me and ran out of his house. He was my neighbour; he lived half a block down the street. I ran out his door, ran the half-block to my parents’ home, ran up the stairs and into the bathroom, where I filled my mouth with hand soap and tried to scrub out the taste of him. I ran to the shower and scrubbed my body until my limbs were red, yet still felt dirty. I felt like I’d done something wrong, since, even if I hadn’t wanted him to kiss me, I’d let him. He’d invited me into his house to show me some of his watercolor paintings and I’d followed him, assuming he was just being friendly. I felt afraid. My neighbour is an old man, but if he was younger, if I was not stronger than him, I’m don’t know what would have happened. The possibilities frighten me. I still cross to the other side of my street when I walk past his house.
It is experiences like that one which make it so difficult to hear rape jokes. I wonder, if I hadn’t been stronger, if I had been raped, how would that joke sound? I wonder, if I hadn’t run away, would I feel able to tell my friends my story, having heard them congratulate one another for “raping” their exams? I am reminded of my fear, the fear I feel walking down my street, the fear I now force myself to feel when I meet a friendly older man. The joke also alienates me, because I suspect its teller has never felt that fear. I find it difficult to imagine that anyone who has thought to themselves “if I don’t run now, I will likely be raped” would make a rape joke.
Does that sound like feeling offended to you?
When you make a rape joke and, seeing me cringe, apologize for offending me, you have misunderstood my reaction. When you say to your friend, “hey, don’t make rape jokes, they offend me,” although I commend you for speaking up, you are making this less than it is. Rape jokes are triggering and depressing and maddening and hurtful. Rape jokes remind me, and others who have had to confront rape, or the possibility of it, of the fear. The feeling that a rape joke engenders is not offendedness; the strength of the feeling is often so sudden, so disarming that I’m not able to respond to a joke before the conversation has left it behind.
I wrote this partly so that I’ll have something ready to say, next time, so that maybe I can shake the feeling quicker and address the joke before it’s been forgotten. I also wrote it with the hope of someday sharing it with people who are offended by rape jokes. If you are offended by rape jokes, please reconsider. Next time your hear one, please try to imagine me at fifteen, with soap bubbles sputtering out of my mouth as I try to hold in tears, and do not feel offended. Feel angry, feel ashamed, feel indignant that the person doesn’t understand the harm their words can do. I want you to feel these things, because you, you who are detached enough from these jokes that you could feel only offended, you can help.
Please, for the sake of us who are still trying to push down the clenching in our chests enough to speak, say something. If you do, it will make it easier for us to swallow the feeling, knowing that we have an ally nearby. If you are going to speak up, though, please call the joke what it is- hurtful, unacceptable, cruel- not offensive.
every time i see people trying to normalize fatness by sexualizing it i think of that post thats like “what are you gonna tell a fucking 12 y/o? dont cry dude youre so thick? stop it” bc like. truly. not only do i personally not want my body to be sexualized lol but also its so harmful to kids like?? being fat is normal in all contexts not just when youre in lingerie with a beat face looking pouty at the camera like can we talk about the variances in human bodies without resorting to making them normal only when theyre sexy, my god
your body is good, not because it is desirable to others, but because you live in it
“your body is good, not because it is desirable to others, but because you live in it”
i hate the mbti both because it was created by a White Supremacist. and also because people are annoying about it when its not even as scientific and accurate as everyone makes it out to be
Thank you for bringing this to my attention OP. I am shocked and appalled to learn that I have been promoting a system created by a white supremacist. Not only that but apparently the system itself is inherently racist, sexist, and transphobic (since the original test had separate tests for men and women, which I assume they categorize based on biological sex, and even if not, the exclusion of a third option is transphobic against non-binary people) from this link (screw you Tumblr, I had to painstakingly type the whole url because you didn’t allow me to use copy and paste):
Literally the funniest thing how many people that reblog John stuff from me are like I WANT TO KILL ALL MEN I HATE MENNNN then why do you like John lol go stan Jane curtin
If you don’t know, I work in a homeless shelter trying to get the homeless population in my city housed. My client yesterday is an old paranoid schizophrenic who spent the majority of the meeting hitting on me while I was trying to do his paperwork. I shut that shit down firmly.
But anyway, I’m minding my own business walking to the shelter today and trying to cross a busy street. While I’m waiting for the light; I hear some heathen catcalling me, and it goes something like this:
“Heyyyyy, yo beautiful! I like the way she walks.”
I’m thinking to myself, “What in all holy hell?” Bear in mind that I’m dressed like a frumpy lumberjack with a flannel and jeans, so I don’t know what part of this outfit is so damn attractive to this dude. While I’m ignoring him, the fellow goes, “Aww, I don’t think she like that.”
In any case, I turn to this fool to rip him a new one and replied, “You said WHAT, now?” And I realize that it’s my same client from yesterday. But ol’ Romeo doesn’t recognize me because I’m wearing my glasses. I take them off and look at him and say, “Now, (name), I know you know better than that.”
And the look on his face was priceless. He places his hand on his heart and leans back and wails, “OH! UH OH, THAT’S MY CASE MANAGER!” And his friend loses it.
Criticizing Joss Whedon’s problematic writing choices does not translate to hate.
Also, word of advice, if you want people to stop accusing you of being racist or sexist, then you might want to stay away from the following:
Having the lead female protagonist of your show almost raped by her love interest and then have the showrunner praise the rapist as being his favorite character and having the best character development (Spike, Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
Plan to have a prostitute gang raped to feed into the character development of her male love interest (Inara, Firefly)
Have a show that heavily features Asian culture and religions, but then fail to cast any Asian actors (Firefly)
Claim that having Asian actors was unnecessary because one of your white actors “kind of looked Asian.” (Summer Glau, Firefly)
Fire your lead actress for getting pregnant and then spend the next season shitting all over her character (Charisma Carpenter, Angel)
Inviting that lead actress to come back to the show, promising her that she’ll stick around until the final episode, only to turn around and kill her character off at the last moment as revenge (Charisma Carpenter, Angel)
Creating the single most racist depiction of a black female character by making her violent, savage, animalistic and so dumb that she isn’t even able to speak, and then reveal that the way she became the first slayer, was by having a group of old men force a demon into her body without her consent (The First Slayer, Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
Have one of the most popular female superheroes referred to as a “cunt” by the main villain (Natasha Romanoff, Avengers)
Claim that because a female character was unable to have children, that she was considered a monster (Natasha Romanoff, Avengers: Age of Ultron)
Taking one of the strongest female superheroes in the MCU and turning her into an outlet for her male love interest to pour his man angst all over and then completely dump her in the end without any expression of gratitude for all she did for him (Natasha Romanoff, Avengers: Age of Ultron)
Have one of the most popular superheroes in the MCU joke about raping women (Tony Stark, Avengers: Age of Ultron)
Feature two characters who were originally of Jewish-Romani descent and then have them whitewashed by hiring white actors to play them (Wanda Maximoff and Pietro Maximoff, Avengers: Age of Ultron)
Having two Jewish-Romani characters volunteer for a Nazi organization, despite the fact that Jewish and Romani people were victims of the Holocaust (Wanda Maximoff and Pietro Maximoff,Avengers: Age of Ultron)
Have the audacity to redefine feminism and re-brand it because he found feminism distasteful.
Constantly using the “break the cutie” trope to punish his supposedly “strong female characters.” (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly, Avengers: Age of Ultron)
Using the threat of sexual violence against his lead female protagonists on multiple occasions (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly, Avengers)
Check yourself, fandom. These criticisms of Joss Whedon’s work have been long-standing and are completely valid. So, before you get on your high horse and try to accuse his detractors of being bitter fangirls, take a look at all the fucked up shit your problematic fav has said and done, and then we’ll talk.
At present, Whedon’s full focus is writing an original screenplay about “a girl who goes through some unbelievable shit.”
He was okay when we didn’t know better. Now we do, and clearly he hasn’t learned.
This is a problem.
Let’s clear something here. Natasha was calling herself a monster BECAUSE she chose to be sterile. She chose to go through the process of not baring children. Once she saw Clint and his family. She regretted ever making that decision
Madame B: Sloppy. Pretending to fail. The ceremony is necessary for you to take your place in the world. Natasha Romanoff: I have no place in the world. Madame B: Exactly.
(At the farmhouse)
Natasha Romanoff: Neither can I. In the Red Room, where I was trained, where I was raised, um, they have a graduation ceremony. They sterilize you. It’s efficient. One less thing to worry about. The one thing that might matter more than a mission. It makes everything easier. Even killing. [she hesitates a moment] You still think you’re the only monster on the team?
//
The sterilization was FORCED on her, and she explicitly states that they did it to eliminate distractions and encourage ruthlessness.
I’m looking at screenshots of this horde of furious girls and women destroying Joss Whedon on twitter and it’s so great
Motherfucker you knew you were a misogynist and a fraud in 2002 when you wrote the autobiographical Buffy episode about Andrew the filmmaker fetishizing the pain and hero stories of the house full of women who despise him, and now it’s finally coming crashing down on you and happening in real life.
I sincerely hope some of those girls calling him a piece of shit and a trash can and demanding, “fight me” shook him; this has been his deepest fear about his behavior towards women for over a decade now, but he hasn’t made a change, and he’s always known on some level that he deserves to be hated for it.
BUFFY: Are you still filming me? Stop. ANDREW: But it’s a valuable record. A-an important document for the ages. ‘A Slayer in Action.’ BUFFY: ‘A Nerd in Pain.’ Would they like that? Cause we could do that.
BUFFY: When your blood pours out it might save the world. What do you think about that? Does it buy it all back? Are you redeemed? ANDREW: No.
Ugh ok ok I actually have a ridiculous amount of words about this (hi ocelot, can I post those emails from 2012??) But I wanted to say that this… idk. This has been a long time coming for Joss and it’s absolutely a bed he made for himself, and it makes me gratified on a brutal visceral level to see it coming back to bite him, but a lot of that anger is watching an artist I loved curdle into his own self-hate and turn into the kind of awful man he used to write about. Joss…Joss has had a recurrent fantasy of self-loathing and shame about his treatment of female characters and actresses that started, afaik, in season 6 of Buffy, with the introduction of the three nerd villains Warren, Jonathan, and Andrew.
The initial patriarchal villains of the Buffyverse were men who abused women using either brute strength or political power: Angelus, the Watchers, the Mayor. The three nerds introduced another kind of misogynistic male antagonist that grew to dominate and completely consume Joss’s work in the 00s: the nerdy, story-obsessed guy who used his intelligence and mastery of technology to abuse and control strong, heroic women. Nerdy men who, like Joss, either created or tampered with the women they wanted total control over, either by building androids or altering existing women, usually via invasive medical torture. Joss the writer invents the character of Buffy while having workplace clashes with her actress Sarah Michelle Gellar; Andrew, Warren, and Jonathan drug their girlfriends into compliance and create the BuffyBot to obey their will. This villain character would show up again and again in Joss’ later works: the scientist who had, thanks to his technical and storytelling skills, been given custody by higher powers over women who would normally be far out of their range of influence. And, uncomfortably, all of the actors cast for these roles bore a striking physical resemblance to Joss.
When Joss aired “Storyteller”, I was surprised and impressed. It was penned by Jane Espenson, Buffy’s strongest staff writer, and was a story about Andrew the Joss doppelganger filming the house of potential Slayers for a series he called “Buffy, Slayer of the Vampyres.” A major theme of “Storyteller” was Andrew’s intrusive use of the Buffy cast’s personal lives and pain to make a good story, his refusal to acknowledge their privacy, and possibly, as Anya kept insisting, to use his videos as masturbation material. It seemed like a huge moment of self- awareness and self-reflection about the relationship Joss had to the real and fictional women who worked for him, especially given the conflicts he had at the time with actresses like Charisma Carpenter over her character Cordelia and personal bodily autonomy (pregnancy). It was self-critical and raw and I was incredibly proud of Joss for being willing to go there in such a public way.
Buffy ended, and Andrew redeemed himself, but the misogynist-nerd-self-loathing metastory intensified. One of the aspects of the Three Nerds villain arc that had always made me profoundly uncomfortable was the way Joss positioned the boys’ nerdy pursuits and lack of traditional masculinity– not just their treatment of women– as something inherently repulsive. Viewers were supposed to be disgusted by the sight of three dorky boys nerding out over Star Wars figurines. Buffy and the house full of potential slayers call Andrew vile names for being a nerd, not in response to his behavior; by the end of his run, I felt the urge to protect Andrew, not from the girls, but from Joss, who was clearly using him as a punching bag onto which he was projecting his own self-loathing. (Eventually Joss was quoted saying that Andrew was, as had been hinted, gay, but would remain in the closet indefinitely “because it’s funny,” something that horrified and enraged fans, but which Joss seemed to view, appallingly, as as an ultimate emasculation.)
The next major Joss project was Dollhouse, with evil scientist and Joss lookalike Topher Brink programming, manipulating, and violating various women into playacting roles he’d scripted for them. It was such a blatant story about Joss and his actresses it was difficult to watch. Like, My Feminism Is Just An Excuse To Exploit Hot Actresses, I Am Such A Disgusting Creature!!! Coming soon to the CW! His next project, the webseries I Am So Horrible And My Feminism Is A Sham, featuring NPH as the Joss stand-in, was similarly cringeworthy.
A big outlier here is Wash, from Firefly and Serenity, who almost fit the pattern, but not quite, and that “not quite” was enough of a problem that, like the similar character Oz, he had to be written out of the story. Alan Tudyk had the same general physical resemblance to Joss and the same dress sense as Andrew, Topher, and Billy Horrible. His dinosaur theater sessions looked and sounded like the action figure games the Trio played, and the blurb for Joss’s media company, Mutant Enemy. But unlike all the other nerdy blond men of the Whedonverse, Wash was in a equal and loving relationship with the strong soldier woman he adored. Other characters in the series were preoccupied with the traditional gender role imbalance in Wash and Zoe’s marriage and questioned whether Wash felt emasculated by his wife being stronger than he was, but both Wash and Zoe were completely above and untouched by it. She was a warrior woman and she was married to a dorky guy who told stories and who wasn’t the most physically powerful man on her crew. She could have broken him in half with her pinky and they loved and respected each other and had a happy, healthy marriage. This was, somehow, too much for Joss to handle, and so Wash had to die.
When venting about Joss I want to say that the problem isn’t that Joss was always terrible, or that all of his work was tainted or had a poisonous message from the beginning. It wasn’t; Buffy was and still is incredibly important; it had the kind of powerful emotional intelligence that burrows into your heart and stays there and I think it still stands by itself, years later. Buffy still stands. Charles Gunn still stands. Anya still stands. When my mother passed away last year, I watched “The Body” like a ritual, and I know I’m not the only person to have done something similar. That canon isn’t going anywhere.
The problem is that at some point in his career, Joss became so intent on the masochistic fantasy of being hated by strong women for being a nerd that he spent a decade writing stories about violating those women to ensure they would hate him. I wish Joss had ended that obsession with “Storyteller.” I wish he had talked about the feelings that made him want to make “Dollhouse” with his therapist and tried to make things right with Charisma Carpenter instead of turning those particular personal demons into a bad TV show. I wish the ideas of intimacy and equality weren’t so threatening to him that he had to write men like Oz and Wash out of existence instead of trying to evolve into them. I wish he hadn’t let himself fall into that pit of destructive self-loathing back in 2002, and I wish he hadn’t stayed there so long that he started to turn that hate outward onto the women he perceived as loathing and rejecting him. I wish he hadn’t turned, in twenty years, from the man who wanted to see the blonde girl in the horror movie survive and thrive into the rich bastard who thought it was funny to call Natasha Romanoff a cunt on IMAX and who called her a monster for being the victim of medical abuse. I’m still laughing angrily at Joss being driven off twitter by a mob of angry, betrayed female fans, because wow does he ever deserve it, but man, Joss. It didn’t have to be that way.
I think this is the best summation of the Joss Whedon issue that I’ve seen thus far.
i hate the idea of loki calling natasha romanoff a gendered slur because loki is, mythologically, gender fluid. he has CANONINCALLY taken both male and female forms. he’s even taken the form of a mare and given birth to an eight-legged horse baby. do you REALLY think he would use a gender-based slur? and on someone who has proven to be a worthy opponent, no less? absolutely not. can we say that it was put in there by joss whedon clearly for HIS OWN sexist means? absolutely
I’ve discussed modern incel virgin Xiao with a high-promiscuity darling like camgirl but please consider… modern incel virgin Kazuha
//major slutshaming/overall sexist, mentions of depression/mental health, choking
———————————-
Kazuha would be the epitome of the nice boy. Not the “nice guy” that’s not actually nice and is super demanding… he’s genuinely sweet, he doesn’t do things with expectations of getting pussy for it. Maybe hopes, but not expectations. He’s not going to get sour and upset when he doesn’t get it (after all, it’s never worked before), he hides his disappointment with a smile. But… while he’s not gruff and sort of abrasive like other sexually frustrated young men might be, he’s still not the absolute most socially apt person in the world. How else is he supposed to get it? His plan seems like the best possible plan. If you’re nice enough to someone, they will like you, and want to help you back, right? He’s not like those hateful people that blame their problems on others… especially not girls! Girls are so good and sweet, he thinks… he’s one of those guys that pedestalizes them, thinks you can do no wrong (and will that much more disappointed when that illusion is shattered).
The thing is, his sweetness attracts toxicity. You know someone you can step on and take advantage of when you see it, and you lock your target pretty quickly after meeting him. He’s basically the boy that gets “friend zoned,” and you very much intentionally string him along knowing he will never do anything in retaliation. He’s the epitome of a non-threatening guy. You can see the way he stutters and twitches when he speaks to you, the nervousness in his body language. It’s like he’s asking to be used.
Kazuha doesn’t expect anything in return for how nice he is to you. He’s not going to get mad that you didn’t suck his dick for holding the door for you or whatever meme-tier reaction you’d joke about from the nice guy trope. In fact, he does a lot for you, just because he wants to. Your car breaks down and he drives you everywhere you need to go until it’s fixed (or he volunteers to drive you everywhere if he finds out you don’t have one), wakes up early just to come pick you up and take you to your classes or work. He takes you out sometimes and pays for your food and convinces himself the relationship is going somewhere. He sends you homework answers if you’re in school, sometimes just does it for you. You text him saying you’re in a “situation” and need $100 without providing an explanation and he just sends it. He sends you good morning and good night texts, keeps a little heart emoji next to your contact name.
You practically gut his heart out like a fish when you have him pick you up from a house at 3 in the morning… A “friend” (that you went to visit for some reason at midnight), you tell him, and he chooses to believe it because he desperately wants to. You can go to whatever venue of your choice, be it lively nightclubs or house parties with friends (he understands not being invited, he doesn’t know any of them), get blackout drunk and when you call him, he will come get you. Can’t have you driving, so of course he’ll get you.
And because he is so so so so nice, he won’t… do anything. He will take you home as promised. And since you passed out in his passenger seat, he’ll fish your keys out of your bag, pick you up and take you inside, lay you on your bed, check your forehead to make sure you don’t have alcohol poisoning, and then leave.
No, no, not leave, in fact, he will stay there all night, he decides, just to make sure you’re okay. Make you breakfast, since you probably have a hangover. Stay for a while after you wake up making sure you’re okay until your grumbling and glaring makes it clear you want your alone time (and he understands that! No worries, he’s not offended!). Then he can leave. He already emailed his professor or boss to inform them he had something that was a priority to take care of and would be coming in late, so it’s all good.
After all, it’s the least he can do for you, considering how much you do for him. You… Text him sometimes. Maybe one word or so, he just laughs it off, you’re just a short texter is all. You also… Say thanks for all the favors he does for you. Text him a “ty” when he drops everything on the spot to send you the answers to a document you needed for work or school, and mumble some thanks when you get out of the car, but it’s understandable that you say it quietly, since you usually call your friends when you’re in the car with him and don’t actually talk to him. But, ah… you do a lot for him overall. Really.
It’s… quite pathetic, really. So much so that people who know and watch you both pity him, it’s so obvious he’s head over heels and that you could care less. He’s the type of boy to desperately be like “haha we really look like a couple here!” to a photo of you standing next to each other, to tag you and post pictures of you on every social media outlet available to him while your accounts seem to indicate you don’t know he exists.
And sure, yeah, every time he’s taken to the internet to ask forums of strangers for relationship advice he gets relentlessly bullied, called a simp and a cuck, endless disheartening replies like ‘omg she’s not gonna fuck you dude’ and‘she’s using you bro’ and similar things… but they don’t know you. They automatically assume you’re a bad person, he knows that’s not true. If you were, then perhaps that conclusion would be correct, but they’re jumping to conclusions because they don’t know you’re not like that. He helps you because he loves you, and you really do appreciate it, and you like him too, you wouldn’t spend so much time with him if you didn’t…
Besides, helping you rids him off all the guilt he has from what he sees as such grave offenses against you. He’s a thief, after all… he really did intend to return the panties he stole, but he just hasn’t had an opportunity, you started locking your windows and now he can’t get back inside. Now he’s overcome with shame and guilt every single night after he’s cum on them again, he feels so guilty he has to wait a whole half an hour before he can get hard again (as opposed to the usual wait of a mere few minutes). Besides, even worse, now the smell is fading and he can’t go swap it out for another pair. He’s left to just miserably rut into his pillows longing for that same smell again, the poor thing. Wishing you were with him. Thinking about how you’re just busy, otherwise you would be, because you do like him.
He can only maintain it all for so long. Lying to himself and pretending you care. He knows deep down how disposable he is to you.
So at first, when he inevitably forces himself to face the obvious fact that you date and sleep around with a bunch of people who aren’t him… well, that’s okay. They probably knew you first. You’re not overlooking him, it’s just first come first serve… and you’re so pretty and kind, of course you know a ton of people.
…Or they might have pressured you into it. Yes, he likes that thought better – ah, rather, he thinks that’s more likely. He hates people who do things like that. Not because their aggression and initiative is robbing him of something that should rightfully be his – no, not that, he’s not… entitled like that… nor because it shatters his delusion of having his perfectly pureanduntouched love – no, that’s a horrible attitude to have, that way of thinking is outdated and unrealistic, he tells himself… it’s just that he hates to think you’re being made to do something you don’t want to do… especially for, you know, someone who’s not him.
And you go to nightclubs and things like that, but you’re just having fun with your girl friends, you don’t go to get laid or anything like that… maybe that just happens sometimes, you don’t seek it out though… and you probably don’t want to do it with those guys either, they’re just manipulative and pressure you, and you’re just so sweet you can’t say no. How horrible.
But still, you’re at the age where it’s normal, you’re not ready to settle down yet, right? That’s what he keeps telling himself, it would be wrong to be jealous. It’s… the current year, of course you have your freedoms and it’s socially accepted and that’s good, he keeps reminding himself that that’s good… you can sleep around as much as you want… it doesn’t bother him one bit. He doesn’t lay awake at night trying to push the mental images of you moaning and naked for other guys out of his head. He’s a very open-minded person who would never have such an archaic way of viewing things, as to be be upset over it. Never.
And when you mention starting up onlyfans or something… he just kinda smiles, swallows, his hands’ grip on the steering wheel tightens until his knuckles go white. It’s… not that he’s against such a thing conceptually, no, he thinks it’s a great idea! He’s not bothered by the idea of you being naked for thousands of guys to see with permanent records on the internet. B-but… that can go badly you know? Jobs and doxxing and stuff… better to just avoid it, he says. He uses everything his mind can think of to scare you out of the idea. What about crazy stalkers? Someone using images for revenge? You need to be more careful and not follow through with such crazy ideas! It’s for yoursake that he thinks it’s a bad idea, that’s all. Thankfully, he seems to talk you out of it.
That leaves him uneasy for weeks, but what really ends up pushing him over the edge is a rare, rare occurrence in which heneeds something. He got locked out of his own place, and since he lives alone, only you can help him, since he knows you have a spare key (he told you you could come visit at any time, but you’ve just been too busy to do so yet, he assumes). He texts you, but… you don’t answer. He calls you but you let the phone ring. He texts and texts and tries everything he can, but he gets no response from you until hours later, when you finally call him back, audibly intoxicated and not very concerned for his well-being, you sound more annoyed than anything.
You promise to get a ride or pay for an app to ride there, finally show up a grand total of six hours after he was stuck outside… he’s just been waiting all this time. But… he was the one who inconvenienced you, right? So he can’t be mad, he thinks. He smiles and thanks you for your help. And likewise, when you’re so tired you ask if you can crash there, he doesn’t mind at all. Sure. He’ll let you sleep in his bed, he says, and you assume that means he’s taking the couch.
It’s not until he’s sitting on the edge of the bed, watching the rise and fall of your chest as you sleep that he starts to let his mind wander to some darker thoughts… but he’s startled out of it when your phone vibrates. A contact with a seemingly male name, but the message on the lock screen cuts off way to soon for him to make sense of the first few words.
It’s not snooping, it’s just making sure the message isn’t too important. That’s why he uses your thumb to open your phone. You’re really passed out, don’t even twitch as he does so. He’s just checking. Just going to look for a second and make sure that it’s not a family emergency or your boss. Just for a second.
Two. Three. Four. Five seconds. It wasn’t your family. Just someone asking if you wanted to come over tonight… ‘again.’He finds his thumb scrolling on its own. Just skimming through, since there’s a lot of messages. You have a lot more friends than he realized. Friends. They have to be friends… it’s not like you’re the type of person to be sleeping around with more than one guy, even though these are all male names and all left with their last messages to you being anything from hearts to explicitly detailed comments to suggestive reminders and questions about next time. But you’re not the type of person to have casual sex on your own volition, even. Maybe you have out of pressure, but you’d never seek it out. Not that there’s anything wrong with that! He’s a totally open-minded guy, he doesn’t think badly of that sort of thing, it’s your body and your freedom and all but… but… he just… doesn’t think you’d do that. Hopes you didn’t. Knows you wouldn’t.
But the proof otherwise is right in front of his eyes. It makes him feel nauseous. His brain struggles to rationalize.
But rationalize he does. He understands. So stupid of him, he’s been a terrible friend to have not noticed!
You’redepressed.Or, in some other way, just not in a good state of mind.Yes, you must be having a bad time of things recently and not been feeling good. That explains everything, why you’re engaging in behaviors that are so… out of character… out of the character he knows you really have. You’re depressed about something, or perhaps in general, and are seeking out chemical highs and physical pleasures and cheap validation to make yourself feel better. To fill the void in her heart, such are the words that come to his mind, how poetic.
He blames himself for this. He should have noticed something was wrong with you earlier. He should have helped. He feels guilty. This isn’t like you, no, he may not have known you for very long or ever really spent time with you outside of helping you, but he knows this isn’t the kind of person you are! Not that it’s bad, no, he reminds himself he’s not one of those awful people that frowns upon such things, it’s just… not in character for you. You want love, but you can’t obtain it, or have a mental block keeping you from seeking it out. You want to be in a loving relationship, that’s what everyone wants, right? But instead, you feel guilty for pursuing that or something, so you just seek out a cheap imitation of love instead… yes, yes, that all makes perfect sense.
You do care. It’s not that you don’t like him, it’s not that you’re using him, it’s just… you can be a little inconsiderate at times. Selfish. That’s all. But you’re not trying to be selfish, it’s just that thinking of others doesn’t cross your mind because you’re too depressed about something to think about things like that, you’re too consumed by your thoughts. Too lonely. He can’t allow you to be suffering like that on your own!
And now he sees how many signs you’ve been showing, all those little cries for help. He was so stupid to have been waiting on you to make a move, it’s obvious you were trying to prompt him to do so. Yes, all those times you asked to sleep at his place, all those times you were just pretending to be passed out in his car, those were all… invitations, he just was too dense to understand. Sigh. He could beat himself up for missing that opportunity. You’re uncomfortable asking him outright, so you do so subtly. It makes sense now.
But he swallows, he scratches at his throat, he clenches his jaw and fists. He can’t swallow down that seed of negative emotion in his gut. Anger. It’s not your fault. It’s not your fault. He tells himself over and over. But part of him can’t help but feel mad.But it’s not your fault! You’re probably emotionally damaged, and that’s why you’ve never tried to pursue a relationship outright. Too hurt from all the bad people in your life.
And that’s okay. He can help give you a little push. Make that step for you. He’ll have to make that step for you because you just can’t fucking do it yourself, huh. He’s not good enough for you, is that it? After everything he did?
He has to pause, take a deep breath, collect himself. Remind himself not to be mad at you, no matter how much he wants to be, no matter how strong the twisting, tight feeling in his chest is becoming. He can’t be mad. You deserve empathy and compassion.
And forgiveness. Because what you did was wrong. Ignoring him. Tossing him aside. Sleeping with other men when you were clearly in a relationship with him, even in your own head, and quite obviously to everyone around you. It was wrong. A transgression. He’ll forgive you, but it was still wrong. And you should be sorry.
And you will be sorry.
He knows that people in bad states of mental health tend to say things they don’t mean. That’s why the tape is there on your mouth, to prevent you from saying anything to him you might regret and feel bad about later. He doesn’t want to contribute to whatever complex of self-loathing you might have going on. He tells you so, when your groggy eyes finally open, when you panic at the sight of him straddling your body, looming over you on the bed, you tug against the restraints tying your wrists to the headboard.
He knows you might overreact there too, see. You’re in this… spiral of self-destructive behaviors, and if he calls you out on it, you might feel embarrassed, get defensive, try and hit him. That’s all. But he made it as comfortable as he could, using tape there as well, and not metal. He makes sure to ask if it’s pinching your skin though. Just nod or shake your head.
He apologizes to you first. Says he understands now. He should have noticed before. There were so many red flags! After all, you were… so mean to him lately, ignoring him more, backhanded insults, looks of disgust, not returning as many texts as you used to. If only he’d known that it was just a defense mechanism! It would have saved him a lot of hurt feelings too, but more importantly, he could have helped you sooner.
And he knows you’ll be resistant, people in need of intervention usually are, they lash out against the very people trying to help them. He knows you think you want to go to school or work or wherever your daily routine takes you, but he won’t allow that. Clearly, that has been a source of unneeded stress – and undoubtedly, that’s where you’ve been meeting these guys that take advantage of your poor decision making and manipulate you into sex. He knows. He read them all. You’re so naive, to not see how they’re using you! Sure, you can claim it’s “consensual,” but can it really be called that? You’re so lacking in self awareness that you don’t even realize the real reason you’re doing it! You want someone who will really love you. You want him. He knows you just don’t get it, you think that the multitudes of casual hookups is what you want, but it’s not. You’ll see. You’ll be so much happier with this. They were taking advantage of you. He knows you would never, ever consent to something like that if you were in your right state of mind… which is why you definitely aren’t. So just trust him. He’ll make you happy. He’ll take care of your every need. You don’t have to do a thing. See, even those people that dare call themselves “doctors” wouldn’t give you what you really need… only he can do that.
But he’s still so, so, so sweet about it. Kissing your mouth through the tape and saying it will be okay. Just let him have this. You’ll feel so good. You’re trembling so badly. But you’re certainly not afraid of this since you decided to go out and be a fucking whore – ah… what he meant to say was, since you’ve had experience… even though that’s not your fault.It’swrong, but not your fault. So really, what this means just confirms his suspicions… you could only be trembling out of fear, and what you’re really afraid of is intimacy,vulnerability. You’re scared of this with someone you really love, someone who cares about you… it’ll all be okay. He’ll keep kissing your face and holding you so close throughout.
You’re still so tight. It feels so good. Hah, see, all those guys on the internet that told him it would feel loose were wrong, it’s so good. So good he forgets to keep rambling about helping you. So good he loses himself in the feeling, so good he forgets he intended to be super slow and gentle. Well, whatever, passionate gets the message across better anyway, doesn’t it? So it’s okay that he just lets loose, digs his fingers into your hips to pull you closer with each slam of his hips. It’s okay that he gives in to those darker urges, the ones he’s always felt ashamed of and tried to keep at bay, lurking beneath his gentle demeanor and laid-back smile and soft-spoken voice. Wrapping a hand around your throat. Somehow, his face looks like the same soft, sweet boy as always, the only trace of the sadism beneath is the faintest glimmer in his eye. Likewise, the way he speaks seems so soft, and yet his words – you’re so pretty like this – seem so wrong as he’s gripping his hand hard, watching your eyes go wide and your body writhe with the deprivation. So beautiful. Breathtaking. He was afraid to come out to you about liking this (he imagined the scenario in his head many times, planning out how to go about it once you were dating), though you’d find it weird or creepy, but the way you clench down on him when he tightens his grip (ignoring the unrelated other muscle spasms throughout your entire body) tells him you enjoy it. Just like all those girls in the porn he watched, the ones he sought out specifically because they looked like you.
Yes, you do enjoy it all. The way your little cries and moans underneath the tape made him shudder, the way you clench down, the way you finally, finally spams and convulse underneath him, milking him dry at the same time. He’s glad. He tells you you have to keep the tape on a while longer, but reassures you that there’s nothing wrong and that he’s so glad this all worked out for you two. He tells you you did so good. You made him so happy.
And he will make you happy, too. You just need to give it time.
Warnings: Swearing, military sexism, vague sexual harassment, surprise military people, catty females, handcuffs, prison/brig talk, (if I missed something please tell me)
A/N: We are back! Well okay I am back. After a long, completely surprise hiatus I have a new chapter of Down Payment for you. This one deals with the military and the reality that sometimes its just a sucky place, for all people but especial those that are female. Plus Tom shows just a bit of his human side in this.
Word count: 5.3k
Two months later everyone on the team was wishing they were back dealing with Smokey the Bear and the beating he had laid upon Tom. Instead, they were in the middle of a desert, during the summer and were trying to deal with surviving the deployment. All while praying they didn’t get extended.
It was day four of a six-day mission for the team and they had been out of communication since day three. Jayme didn’t have a normal habit of chewing at her nails but she was quickly developing one while waiting for the team to check back in or to hear from Frankie. She couldn’t pace so she worked out in the gym that the base had set up.
It was five days past when the Team was supposed to return that Jayme was beginning to feel the dread and the worry that she was going to have to make some difficult phone calls. The Teams CO General Watson, was putting the pressure on to call the mission off and write the guys off as well. The thought and subsequent discussion had caused a lead brick to form in Jayme’s stomach. She laid awake that night, after having taken a smaller version of the radios to bed to be awoken if anything should happen. She wasn’t ready to call it quits yet, but she did admit that the feeling of helplessness was no different over here than it was stateside.
At 0200 in the morning, the time when the base was quiet even for night watch and shift the radio starts crackling. Sounding like someone is trying to communicate, the static coming in bursts. It rouses Jayme from her sleep and she listens. In the dead silences, she responds asking for whoever it is to identify themselves. This continues until 0400 when finally the static gives way to a voice.
“Jaybird?” was the only thing the voice says. It’s a male voice that’s all she can make out. Waiting a few more minutes to see if the unidentified voice communicates again she paces about her room. It was only five minutes but it felt even longer. She was just about to give up on the idea that it had been a voice when the radio crackled back to life. “Come on Jaybird, if that’s you please respond.”
Picking up the microphone she acknowledges that it is her and that she waits. “Boy am I glad to hear your voice Jaybird. Music to my ears.” The voice, now identifiable enough to be recognized as Frankie’s.
“Frankie?” The female voice bleeds over the earpiece that he is wearing and causes a smile to break over his face, the first in over a week. He wasn’t sure how things went so off the rails but the last thing he cohesively put together before they ended up having to walk back to base and their long-range comms were destroyed was Redfly had gotten into a firefight with others, then the helicopter had been hit by something, either an RPG or missile, Frankie didn’t know what but the bird went up in flames.
To say the team had been pissed had been an understatement, and all the time walking and navigating back to base tensions were growing with the team. Pope and Benny were even at each other’s throats, which is saying a lot considering those two were the ones you would have sworn were siblings instead of Benny and Will.
“Yes, it’s me. Sorry about all that.” Frankie begins only to be cut off by Jayme.
“Save it, where are you? What happened to the helicopter? Why are you almost a week past your return window?” Jayme asks and he can hear her voice running through the octaves like she has a habit of when she is worried.
“Long story Jaybird, one that I will have to fill you in on when I get back. Bird went up in flames though so we are having to walk back, just got into radio range tonight, well this morning. You didn’t send any letters or make any phone calls did you?” Frankie wants to know so he can pass it along to the team, knowing that has been something weighing heavily on their minds. No one wants to get that phone call, letter, or knock on the door.
Jayme’s mind tries to process the information she is being given. “Catfish, how far were ya’ll when this happened?”
“Oh just about thirty miles out. We should be walking up two days time.” Frankie relays. The walk was going to be hell but if it meant getting back to Jayme then he would gladly do it. “I’ll explain the rest when we get back.”
“Can you at least relay the coordinates you are walking?” Jayme asks hoping that he will tell her not knowing what she might do with the information. When he relays the coordinates they are walking along the signal starts to fade, “just come back, safely.” That was the last thing Frankie heard from Jayme.
When the signal was lost Jayme couldn’t settle herself, she continued to pace her room. Minutes turned to hours and she had come up with a plan by the time reveille came. Dressing and securing herself in her gear she grabbed her bunkmates forgotten patrol gear. Her bunkmate was long gone as it was frowned upon to have a pregnant woman in an active warzone.
Shouldering the bag she headed for the base headquarters where her office was located, as she walks in she takes note of who is in motorpool, it’s McMannis and Anders. Anders was always trying to find Jayme alone, asking her to the showers or his bunk. No one knew that she and Frankie were together, they couldn’t, so she and Frankie played it as if they both were single. After the incident with Rowena, Jayme was confident that she and Frankie were on firmer ground than they had ever been in their relationship.
Waiting for General Watson to show Jayme thought over her plan more and more. She knew what she would do if necessary. Finally when the CO’s administrative assistant, Sargent Alison Alexander, Jayme set her plan in motion. Walking up to the assistant’s desk Jayme nodded, knowing that the woman had enjoyed Pope’s company more than once, speaking when she was next to the desk, “is the General in yet?”
Alison looked to the door and then back to Jayme, “he is, he wanted to see you when you got here. Obviously you haven’t seen him yet despite being here for what, thirty minutes?”
“How could I know he wanted to see me when I got here if you weren’t here to pass along the message? Weren’t you supposed to be here an hour ago?” when Alison opened her mouth to speak, Jayme held a hand up, “I don’t care about your excuses I’m going to go in and see the General now.” With that Jayme moved to the door, knocked twice and waited for the response to enter and when it was heard she did just that.
Walking in she moved to stand in front of the desk and stood at attention awaiting the General to tell her to parade rest or at ease, but the possibility remained that the General would leave her at attention. So she waited, making sure her knees weren’t locked, until the General looked up from his desk. When he finally did he took in her appearance and made sure that she was in proper uniform. “At ease” was all he said and Jayme shifted only slightly to widen her stance and bring her head down so she could look at the General.
“Lieutenant I want to know why Major Davis’s team has not been listed as either missing in action or killed in action? I believe I instructed you to do that thirty-six hours ago. Explain.” The General said his blue eyes narrowing on her, displeasure evident across his face.
“I held out sir, I believed they would return and I have…” she never got to finish that sentence because the General stood and looked her eye to eye.
“You decided it was for the best, you decided. Lieutenant I am your commanding officer when I give an order I expect it to be followed. Now you will go out there and begin generating the reports that show that the team was either killed in action or is missing in action and I want them on my desk for approval in thirty minutes. Is that understood?” The General was demanding, his voice escalating just slightly with the obvious frustration. Jayme could feel her ire rising and while she wondered what her father would do in this moment it was her mother’s advice that rang through her mind.
“Follow your heart, hold your ground and do the right thing no matter what.” Her mother’s voice whispered in her mind, she had told Jayme that after she had gotten into a fight in school over some girls picking on another girl just because of her last name. Jayme had gotten suspended from school but her mother hadn’t punished her and when her father got home from his mission he had taken her for ice cream and new Vans shoes.
“No General, I have evidence that they are alive and if you just….” Jayme tried to begin not wanting to write those letters when she knew that the Team was alive and well. But the knowledge seemed to have fallen onto deaf ears.
“LIEUTENANT! Those men are dead, you are just their Team Liaison and now you are without a team, generate those letters then go pack your shit, you’re on the next transport stateside with any luck with their bodies! Now, GET OUT OF MY OFFICE AND PRODUCE THOSE LETTERS!” The General screamed, vein bulging in his forehead and neck, pointing towards the door.
“Yes sir,” Jayme says as she turns and heads out the door, greeted by a smirking Alison. As she breezed past the desk she headed for her own and grabbed her pack, having decided on what course of action she was taking. It did not involve writing those damn letters or reports.
Heading straight for motor pool Jayme smiled at McMannis, “Hey Mac, hows the kids?” She asked the woman, Jayme couldn’t imagine being a mother in this position but she was in awe of the woman and how she pressed on through the days.
The other woman smiled, “oh their fine, their daddy’s done given them mohawks all three of them.”
“Even Lily?” Jayme asked, knowing that it must have been a bit of a shock to see in the pictures.
“Yup, especially Lily, she’s the one who instigated it. Have a look,” McMannis said as she swung the computer monitor around showed Jayme the smiling toothless smiles of the three McMannis children. Sure enough, Lily had the biggest, and brightest colored mohawk.
“Oh my, that’s fun, are you okay with that?” Jayme asked, knowing that obviously the other woman wasn’t really upset about it and it probably helped the kids take their mind off of their mom not being home.
“Yeah, why not? They’re young, its summer break and its just hair, it grows back. What can I help you with today Jaybird, you usually never pop in here because of,” Mac pauses and looks at Anders who is asleep in his chair, “well because of reasons. Any news on the team? I heard the general yelling.”
“That’s where I need your help Mac, I got a call early this morning…” Jayme tells her as she begins to relay the story to her friend and with little convincing Mac agreed to the plan Jayme had come up with.
Twenty minutes later after Jayme had gone back to her desk, Mac left her desk quietly as to not wake Anders leaving a pair of humvee keys sitting under a set of papers. Jayme got up and headed out of her office area with her pack and snuck into Mac’s picking up the keys she headed for where the vehicles were parked, having plotted out how she was going to get to where the guys should be.
She knew this was going to be risky, knew there was a chance of court martial but getting the guys back would be worth it, especially if it allowed Jayme to ensure Frankie was okay. Getting through the gate was going to be difficult as they usually only let patrols out or in. Looking around Jayme couldn’t believe her luck, of all the times for a patrol to be leaving one was about to pull out.
Putting the humvee in drive and falling in line with the rest of the patrol Jayme left the base and once cleared from sight she turned off and left the patrol heading their way while she headed for her team. This definitely wasn’t in the description of her job post but she’s glad to do it. Heading out towards the coordinates Frankie had told her she drove and drove, what seemed for like a long while it was only about forty minutes, but the desert made everything look the same.
Catfish was getting tired of walking, and tired of listening to Tom and his mouth. Tom was wearing everyone out. He was the reason they were in this mess in the first place, if he hadn’t botched the mission as bad as he did they would have been back in time and they wouldn’t have to be walking across the damned desert.
Water, despite rationing, was running out and he was starving, as he knew the rest of the team was. Benny had started complaining about it on day three. Will was quiet and keeping count of everything, as always. Pope was surprisingly quiet, Tom wouldn’t shut up though. He wasn’t even talking about Molly or his daughters, he was talking about some female on the base. It was really beginning to rankle Frankie.
All he wanted was to get back to Jayme, he wanted to see her and hold her. Reassure himself that he was alright, she was alright, and hope this deployment ended quickly. But until he did he walked on, hoping to get to base without any problems.
They continued walking, Pope had taken point and suddenly stopped and raised his fist up. The team came to a halt and spread out scanning around them when Frankie moved up to stand with Pope and the man pointed at a cloud of dust. Frankie dug for the scope he had on him out and looked through it, and felt hope stir in his chest when he saw what it was.
“It’s a humvee.” Frankie says as he hands the scope over to Santiago so he could confirm it. Santiago grabs the scope and brings it up and zeros in on the moving vehicle.
“Holy shit it is.” Looking again he tries to focus on the driver of the vehicle, wondering if one of theirs had been commandeered by the enemy. Finally focusing on the driver, Santiago couldn’t believe his eyes. “Fish, you’re not going to believe this,” he tells his friend handing the scope back.
“Believe what?” Catfish asks as he grabs the scope and brings it back to his face. He focuses in on the driver and doesn’t understand what he is seeing, swings his focus to the passenger seat and then into the back of the humvee. It was all empty except for the driver. Focusing back on the driver again Frankie sees who it is. Jayme, his Jayme was out, beyond the safety of the base, was out here driving towards them.
Jayme drove and finally saw movement ahead of her and noticed it was five men, her team. Frankie and the guys. She was excited and couldn’t believe she actually found them and they all seemed to be in one piece. Pulling up to them she put the humvee in park but left it running. Checking the surroundings she hops out of the humvee and moves towards the men.
None of the men say anything, even Tom, he’s more just dumbfounded that Jayme would risk herself for them. Frankie however runs towards her and sweeps Jayme up in his arms and holds her close. Jayme holds Frankie close and holds him for a moment. Pulling back she frames his face with her hands and looks him over before kissing him.
“What the fuck are you doing out here?” Tom asks, recovering from the surprise of Jayme just showing up here. “You shouldn’t be out here, you aren’t trained to be out here. Why are you out here?” The rest of the team wanted to know too, Frankie sets Jayme down concern clouding his features.
“I came out here to get you guys. I couldn’t leave you, get in the humvee and we can get back to base. I have water in the humvee but we need to go. I’ll explain on the way back.” Jayme grabs Frankie by the hand and heads for the vehicle.
“You’re not supposed to be out here Jaybird, you’re going to get in trouble aren’t you?” Will asks softly as they all head towards the vehicle, Jayme just looks at him and shrugs as if to say it was worth it. Will hangs his head and shakes it in dismay, “get in the back, Frankie, Pope, and Benny you get in the back too. Redfly you and I are up front. Jaybird can fill us in, lets get going.”
Everyone loaded back up in the humvee, Frankie had Jayme settled between him and Pope, trying to hide her in the shadows of the covering. Steering the vehicle Will heads for base while Jayme retells everything, including the part of General Watson wanting to write the guys off as MIA or KIA.
By the time she was finished even Tom was ranckled with what they had learned. “So General Watson wanted us to be written off, does he know you’re out here?”
“No, he doesn’t. I’m out here of my own accord and disobeying a direct order, one I considered unlawful, but nonetheless I am out here when I shouldn’t be.” Jayme admitted, knowing that should this go badly she’ll end up in handcuffs by the end of the day and not in an enjoyable way.
“We’ll deal with that when we come to it. I know I’ve been an ass but thank you Jayme, I don’t think any of us could have walked much longer.” Tom said in an amazing show of human which shocked Jayme just a bit but they were coming back to the entry point for the base and Frankie removed his hat and plopped it down on Jayme’s head and Pope elbowed her so she bowed over to hide her nametag.
Getting through the gate with Will driving was surprisingly simple the guards let them in no problem once they saw the occupants. Once the humvee was parked back in motorpool looking like it was never missing they all left the vehicle. Frankie wasn’t going to say it out loud but he was worried what was going to happen to Jayme. He was thankful she had come to get them but wished she hadn’t risked her career.
Walking back in the building to the teams offices the men formed only what could be thought of as a perimeter around Jayme, Tom was on point with Frankie being the last position. Mac happened to be in the hall and Jayme passed the keys to Pope who placed them in Mac’s hands with a wink. As they entered the doorway to their office they all took notice of Alison, General Watson and there were two MP’s standing off to the side.
Standing just inside the door Tom drew the group to a stop, when the General saw Jayme in the middle he pointed to her and looked to the MP’s “that’s her, arrest her. Failure to follow a direct order, going AWOL and I’m not sure what else yet.”
The MP’s started walking towards Jayme and the group closed the space around her and Tom started to speak, “no General that won’t be necessary. She was never AWOL, she was acting under direct orders from me. I told her to do anything necessary to locate us should we ever go missing or come back from a mission late. Lt Connor was just following standing orders.”
“Major! I don’t care if she was following orders from the president herself, she disobeyed me. She made a mockery of me. I will not stand for this. Take her to the brig.” The guys moved to pull in tighter around Jayme but she subtly reached down and squeezed Frankie’s hand, looking at him trying to convey that she would be okay and stepped out from the group.
Turning her back to the MP’s the one MP on the right grabbed her hands and pulled them behind and placed the cuffs on her while the one on the left read her the charges. Jayme knew this would be a possibility but her Frankie and most of the men she had or would come to adopt as family, were back here safely and except for the cuts and bruises it was worth it. As the final handcuff was locked into place with a click, Jayme made sure to hold her head high and squared her shoulder as much as she was able to.
As she was being led out of the office the men of the team looked furious, Benny was upset because Jayme looked after him, Will was upset because Jayme had done the right thing, Tom was upset and Pope had moved to keep Frankie from doing anything stupid which he could see the wheels turning that Frankie was about to do something.
Mac and Anders were watching from motorpool door and most of the other people in the administration building had come to watch. To see the person who seemed to be a model soldier marched to the brig. All the while Jayme continued to march proudly.
Even when the cell door shut behind Jayme she maintained her pride and composure. She did the right thing and she was positive the higher ups would see it, for some reason General Watson had always had it out for the team. She was pretty sure Redfly had something to do with it but she didn’t have any conclusive proof.
Watching Jayme be led out of the room Frankie wanted to run his mouth at the General but Pope had moved to stand beside him. Obviously Pope knew what was going through his friend’s mind. So he settled for looking at the General, “this isn’t over and that’s false imprisonment and you know it.”
“Prove it Major.” Was all the General said as he smirked at the team, like he had just won some prize. Frankie turned around and left the room not being able to stand being in the same area as the General. He didn’t know how he could fix this but he was going to try and figure out a way.
Three days later Jayme was released from the brig, and instructed to head to General Watson’s office. Trying to make do with the wrinkled uniform she did as instructed. Trying to figure out why she was released she discovered the answer when she reached the office. Opening the door she took in the people of the room, her team, General Watson, Anders, and the lead officer in charge of the entire forward operating position; a four-star general General Gwendolyn Mayford.
Moving to stand in the center of the room, once again Jayme stood at attention in this office. General Watson did not look please but Will, Pope and Frankie had a more relaxed air about them, Sergeant Alexander, the two MP’s that had arrested her and General Mayford, for all her height, commanded the room. “Good morning Lt. Connor, I trust you are well?” the general asked, her voice genuinely inquisitive.
“Yes ma’am, I am well.” Jayme says, maintaining attention but catching the glower General Watson took on.
“Very good, at ease please. Do relax.” General Mayford told her, then she instructed the rest of the room “at ease for the rest of you, with the exception of General Watson and Sergeant Alexander.” The rest of the room relaxed visibly.
“Now I’m sure you are confused as to what I am doing here, I was too until I pieced together the reasoning why. Through a series of phone calls and emails I was informed about the events of the last two weeks. I had no idea this base was under such foolish and incapable hands. Why it has taken this long to come to my attention is anyone’s guess. There must be some decent coverups to keep the news of actual events that were occurring here.
“I must say, I was disappointed in the discovery that a lieutenant who was following standing orders from her direct commanding officer was being punished. Not only was she punished unnecessarily but she was then thrown into the brig for an offense that did not require such a punishment.” General Mayford paused, “I must say I am disappointed. Therefore General Watson, Sergeant Alexander, you are both relieved of duty pending full investigation by my staff into the operations of this base.
“Gentlemen,” the general turns to the MP’s, “you are to escort General Watson and Sergeant Alexander from this structure and they are not allowed back into this structure until my investigation is complete. Dismissed.” General Mayford tells the MP’s and awaits as they escort those two from the room.
While awaiting them to leave General Mayford turned to Anders, “thank you Staff Sergeant for bringing this whole incident to my attention, rest assured that it will be looked into and I will be recommending your package for Warrant Officer. Once again with my thanks, you are dismissed.” Anders looked between the General and Jayme and mumbled a thank you and took off. “Please shut the door behind you.” Mayford called out as Anders made his way to the door.
Once the office was quiet General Mayford plopped down into the chair behind the desk and took her glasses off. “Now that the unpleasantness is over, Jayme how are you?” dropping all formalities and dropping all military bearing.
Jayme sagged and sat down in the chair in front of the desk, “I don’t know Gwen, I really don’t. I did what I thought was right, I did what I knew Dad did at least twice and this fell like this. I spent three days in the brig all for doing what was right. Frankly I’m a little pissed.”
“No doubt, I would be too, I know for a fact Dougie did this at least twice, possibly four times but the other two are unclear. Twatson, excuse me, Watson there has a burr up under his saddle and I can’t abide his treatment of this base, or of you, I can’t believe he did that to you. But if he did it to you then there must be others. I’ll get to the bottom of it. Now, how was Leah, Jake and Samuel, it’s been so long since we got to see them.”
“Oh they are fine, Leah is moving out on her own finally her business has picked up, Jake is doing his thing and Samuel well who knows what is up with him, he and I don’t really talk. Although Dad finally got to pull the typical dad card on me right before this deployment and thought he was coming to my rescue when it was actually me that screwed things up. So that was fun, the team got introduced to Smokey the Bear though so that was a bonus for them it seems.” Jayme tells the general, all while Will, Santiago and Frankie had moved to stand behind her.
The three men wore the same expression of dumbfounded curiosity as to why their team liaison was just chatting amicably with a four-star general. Their conversation continued for a while until Frankie cleared his throat and got Jayme’s attention.
Both the women giggled when they took in the faces of the confused men. Standing up, Jayme turned to the men and the general stayed seated. “Pope, Ironhead and Catfish, this is my cousin, Lieutenant General Gwendolyn Mayford. Gwen, these are my friends William ‘Ironhead’ Miller, his younger brother Benny is on the team as well, Santiago ‘Pope’ Garcia and this is Francisco ‘Catfish’ Morales, my boyfriend.” All the men seemed to be processing the information that not only were they introduced to Jayme’s cousin as friends, and in Catfish’s case boyfriend, but that her cousin was one of the most powerful women in the Army, let alone military.
“Gentleman it is lovely to meet you, I am glad I happened to take that call and decided to investigate. When I discovered it was Jayme here that was in the center of this I knew this had to be interesting circumstances.” Gwen told them, “now, as for the investigation, I will allow it to continue, once it brings forth all the evidence I will decide what to do with General Watson and Sergeant Alexander. For now though, the team is on downtime, per my orders for three weeks. I am also curious as to how we lost a helicopter but I have a feeling that is another investigation, and conversation for another time.”
Standing up, Gwen points to a box on the desk, “by the way that is from my sister, Douglas had told her you were over here so she sent me a box to get to you somehow. Gentleman, it was a pleasure, Mr. Morales you have a woman here who would walk through fire for you, obviously, take care of that just don’t get caught. Enjoy your downtime,” she tells the group as she gathers her cover to head out the door, “and don’t go making me third-cousin anytime soon, especially over here. Good luck and watch your six.”
With that the general opened the door and breezed out, personnel parting like the biblical story of the Red Sea.
“So, now that we have some downtime, I want a shower and then we can find what is in this box.” Jayme says as she gathers up her box of goodies no doubt her cousin Samantha had sent and leaves the room headed for her barracks room. “Meet me in the team lounge in three hours yes?”
All the men did was nod and watch as she walked away. Will was the first one to break the silence, “so ‘Fish, did you know your were sleeping with the Lieutenant General’s little cousin?”
“No man, I had no fucking clue. Wonder what other secrets I will discover.” Frankie said, surprised and worried about the implications on his career should he fuck the relationship with Jayme up.
Pope lets out a low whistle beside him, “man I don’t know, but that family seems full of surprises. Come on, lets go tell Benny and Redfly what happened.”
“I like that idea, but can we keep the fact that Jayme’s cousin in the General in charge of all this under wraps until necessary? We don’t need Tom holding that over her head.” Frankie asks, knowing Redfly would find a way to exploit it.
“Agreed, none of that information leaves this room. Right Pope?” Will asks pinning the dark haired man with a stare, knowing Pope can let things slip if he thinks he can use them too.
“Are you kidding? I’m not saying anything, Smokey the Bear is scary enough, could you imagine Jayme after my hide? Nope, I’m not saying nothing.” Pope says as he walks out the door. Frankie and Will following close behind. Pope and Will are talking about what they might find in the box but Frankie is just looking forward to a little downtime on deployment and a chance to maybe spend some of it with Jayme.
