“Who’s there and what do you want?” demanded Bailey, her chest rising and falling as rapidly as the rain pounded upon the window behind her, the window which, a moment earlier, she was so drawn to walk towards for a reason unbeknownst to her.
“You know what I want,” replied the solicitous creature calmly with an air of unearned confidence; “And you know who I am as we have already made our acquaintance in the white hall just a moment ago. I am the crown prosecutor of the UK.”
“I know very well what you are for you mention it every chance that you get,” said Bailey with furrowed brows, her eyes narrowly trained on the stranger.
“Then you’ll know what I want,” continued Jam menacingly.
“I’m afraid that I do not; care to enlighten me?” returned Bailey, racking her brain for answers as to the reasons for this man following her.
“I’ll come out and say it, for I am known to be a passive aggressive weasel sometimes,” he chuckled at himself. “I... I want-” his voice croaked suddenly, and he turned bright red. His eyes fell to the floor as though two giant weight pullies were attached to his pupils, and they then scattered across the floor as if he did not know what to look at exactly. “I... uh,” he continued to stammer, trying to force out the words that were lodged in the back of his throat. He reached to the back of his neck and scratched it nervously, blushing madly.
“Say what?” asked Bailey.
“I want you to be my girlfriend!” he blurted, his extremities twitching like sizzling sausages. “When I first saw you, my heart pounded like mad,” he added shakily, so tremendous was the juxtaposition between his position as a judicial authority and the subordinate position he was now in as a lover that it looked on the outside like a feverish dream; so tremendous was the juxtaposition between the degenerates he was used to sentencing and the young selfless beauty that was now in front of him, who wanted nothing to do with her father’s incredible wealth and power. It pierced his heart like an arrow.
Bailey’s face melted quickly into one of pity as she looked at him with those watering blue eyes so intoxicating to young, lonely men with many material possessions but no one to share them with. “I’m sorry; I am really sorry,” she began, her own voice quivering alongside her tumultuous heart, “It was very brave of you to say that.”
Jam’s own heart almost leaped out of his chest as he heard these honey-soaked words trickle out of those warm, sweet lips. The glow of the morning sun shone at the woman’s back and seemed to envelop the man in its warmth.
“And a very special woman will appreciate them one day in a way that I sadly cannot,” she said with a pained look in her twinkling eyes.
“You do not know the reality of the situation,” said the rejected man, clawing at his breast like a man who had just been shot in the heart. He staggered backwards against the wall and groaned aloud. “You still think that you have a choice in the matter,” he added with bitterness and agony.
“Excuse me?” said the young woman with a raised brow, half-turned away from the wounded man.
“Yes, Bailey; you think that you have a choice in the matter of your betrothal. But as I understand it, you are set to marry a prince in one of the middle eastern countries?”
Bailey instantly turned pink and scowled, turning sharply to look at the wall. Jam, as heartless and as stubborn as he was, acknowledged that this must have been a painful thing to hear; the utter powerlessness she must have felt about her life was not at all apparent in her demeanor, and this marveled him. However, this was not enough to change his true nature as a man. “She is lying,” he thought suddenly, his heart racing to an angry pulp as images entered into mind, “There must be another man.” Then he asked, coldly, “Are you single?”
“There isn’t” replied Bailey hesitatingly, turning pale with embarrassment. She folded her arms and added, “And no, I am not.”
“I know that you are lying,” he thought instantly, and he furrowed his eyebrows into a dark expression. “I have been listening to her calls for months on end and know for a fact that she has been speaking to Rod,” he said to himself. Noticing that his face had become dark and sinister, he softened it with considerable effort, tilting his head, and said, smiling widely with his teeth showing, “You were crying earlier... My intuition is telling me that you must be lacking in a social support structure... and since for many people their partner is their support structure, you must have had a recent break up. Am I correct?”
“This is a personal question,” said Bailey, refusing to fall for his information-gathering effort. “It is none of your business,” she continued. But then, after a few seconds, her eyes started to water as she stood staring into the man’s data-collecting eyes.
“Has your boyfriend moved on yet?” Jam said, forcing out chuckles that sounded more like grunts. “This young woman will talk to hours with a disgusting creature like Rod, whereas with me it is like pulling teeth just to get an answer out of her,” thought he, and he arranged mentally what he must do to squash his competition as quickly as powerfully without upsetting the young woman.
The young woman broke out into a miserable, heart-wrenching cry. She raised her hands, letting her head drop into them, and sobbed horrendously for a few moments. “Shut up!” she spluttered in between each throaty expulsion of tears.
“Hmm,” mused Jam in turn, stroking his clean-shaven chin. “Since I am the crown prosecutor of the whole country, I am able to detain any man for a certain amount of time... perhaps even indefinitely.”
“I don’t want that,” replied Bailey weakly. “I just want you to stop talking about my love life.”
“It is only because I want the best for you.”
“Why?” inquired Bailey, raising her head and narrowing her eyes into slits of suspicion.
“You’re a smart woman, and a man of the government needs a smart woman by his side...”
“I am not available,” said Bailey coldly, her eyes as icy and as sharp as her words. Then, after a few chilling moments, she added, “Not least for a man like you.”
“Not least for a man like me!” cried Jam. “Alas, my pretty lady, I mean no harm. I am hardly a man worth being suspicious about; I do nothing that is not in line with the code of conduct outlined by my party’s manifesto; I am a man of the people, nothing more, nothing less. I do not serve my own interests, but that of the people’s; and what are the people’s interests you ask? It is that I marry a beautiful and smart woman like yourself,” his voice croaked as he said this, as though he knew the extent of the ridiculousness such a proposal would seem to the woman. But when one advances to such heights of power as the position to wield virtually unlimited power over individuals, one bends the rules to suit oneself; or, as we have seen with a certain young, disenfranchised man, when one is so utterly made powerless by authority, it forces he to resort to that same aspect in regards to said rules.
Bailey said nothing; she returned only a look of disapproval at his words.
The man darkened his expression considerably as rage surged inside his gut and ribcage until it so overwhelmed his interior that he could not help but expel it from his mouth. “You aren’t available for one of the most powerful and successful men in this country but for a depraved lunatic you have all the time in the world! Ah, you pretty little thing, you do not understand yet how the real world works. You will see, you will see. You follow with your heart still. I once believed that it was in the heart, but no, it is not in the heart, but in the mind that counts!”
Startled, Bailey retreated backwards a step or two, white as a sheet, raising her hands in front of her, saying, “Oh, what do you mean?”
Jam said nothing, instead opting for his most favourite tactic of all, the silent treatment. He simply looked at her intently, madly, feverishly, gulping down each and every word that reached the tip of his tongue.
“I ask you again,” Bailey said, clenching her fists and stepping forward with a sudden determined expression, “what is it that you mean? More precisely, who is it that you mean?”
“It is nothing,” stammered Jam, suddenly red and perspired in the face. He then became even more nervous when Bailey appeared directly in front of him. His legs began to jiggle relentlessly.
“Excuse me,” said Bailey, “I want to leave now.”
“Wait,” stuttered Jam, shaking like a wind-beat twig.
“No; let me pass.”
“I cannot until you explain to me why.”
“Why what?”
“Why Rod?” Jam finally answered.
Bailey’s heart sank into her stomach. She gasped in horror as she stepped backwards towards the window, her knees buckling with tremendous fear and anxiety. “What did you say?” she asked, her voice shaking incredibly with disbelief.
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“What do you see in Rod?” repeated Jam, his own heart beating thunderously in his chest. He suddenly felt hot, and his hands crawled to the buttons on his shirt with the intention to unfasten them, but restraining himself he forced his hands to retreat to the crux of his back like scared spiders.
“Stop!” said Bailey, petrified. Her own hands found the windowsill, which then pressed into them, turning them white from lack of blood circulation. She looked at him with an expressional mixture of fear and contempt and confusion, all at once, as her heart jerked against each and every corner of her ribcage violently like a trapped monkey. “Get away from me!” she cried, her mind in free fall.
“What do you see in him?” replied Jam, crossing his eyebrows and curling his lips. He stepped forward, glaring at the young, petrified woman. “What is it that you see in the freak?”
“How do you know him?” squeaked Bailey, perspiration raining down her soft, pale skin like dew on a jungle leaf, and her body shuddering greatly.
“How do I know him?” laughed Jam, scratching his warm, glistening bronze cheek. “We all know him. He’s who we’ve been plotting against this whole time,” he said with a horrific smile. “Now...I ask you again: what do you see in that pitiful creature? What do you see in that despicable piece of shit that attracts you?”
Bailey lost feeling in her legs, struck by the overwhelming but slow dawning realisation of the small world she inhabited; it was as if all the air was ripped out of her lungs at that very moment. It took all her strength to remain perched on the windowsill. She pulled her eyes away from the dark, menacing man and to the window, and then to outside on the ground, where she happened to see a crowd composed of what must have been her sisters surrounding a bloodied, pathetic figure. But because of the rain, it was hard to see clearly the definite features of such a being. She could not bring herself to speak; she could only breathe.
Behind her several metres, just beyond the soft orange pool of light of the early morning sun, which arched a semicircle covering half the drawing room, the other half being still in moldy, swampy darkness, hid Jam’s ever evolving wicked, crooked smile. “You see that?” said Jam meanly; “your current position makes it impossible to change his fate. As for mine, that is, perhaps you will see; but I do not want to do the killing blow myself, not with these clean hands. You see, I am somewhat of a lecturer myself – a lecturer on psychoanalysis specifically. So, you must trust what I have to say when I denounce someone as a heretic to the humanistic tradition, to continual progress. I have taught in the most prestigious universities across the country and have many academic citations to my name. Google me if you do not believe me. I have made it so that every educational institution known to the man keeps a bug like him from progressing. So, you know the power that I wield, yes? That right there is the sight of your little sisters beating up that man you think so highly of as deserving your friendship.”
The young woman turned suddenly to him and looked at him with a perplexed expression, several questions running constant in her mind all at once like a combustion chamber.
“We all want to kiss pretty women,” he began, placing his hands together, “but there is a ritual to the madness, so to speak. “Rod is unable to get in line with it. He thinks that if he is simply himself then he can also kiss pretty women. But why does he think that he deserves such? Why does he even want to kiss pretty women? Now, that is the true question. Who implants within us the desire to kiss pretty women?” Jam laughed at his own rumination. “I am talking like that idiot now. But, for all his faults, he is amusing to listen to... sometimes... You must be confused as to why Rod is here, why your own sisters are beating him up, and why you are powerless to stop it.”
“I thought it was one of those rioters; I did not know that it was an innocent man!” cried Bailey, her own heart twitching like mad in her chest.
“Tell me, and I will tell you. Why do we want to kiss pretty women?”
“What?” asked Bailey, her eyes wide in terror.
“What is it,” he said frustratedly, “that makes us want to kiss pretty women? Rod used to tell me that it wasn’t because of biological reasons so much as it was because of behavioural modifications.”
“What?”
“Of course, the desire to kiss pretty women arises out of natural inclinations, just like it is to socialise and to run and to eat and shit; but it can be ramped up several times over through psychological techniques.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Of course you don’t. My point is that grotesque individual out there has been ramped up several times throughout his life to the point where all he thinks about is the attainment of a kiss from a pretty woman.”
Bailey simply shook her head in dumbfounded disbelief at what she was hearing. After a few moments, as though she had just remembered that there was still a crime being committed outside, she turned to the window, pulled the latch and shoved the window wide open. “Stop it! Hey! Stop!” she shouted hoarsely.
Jam laughed out loud. “Rod asked for it. There’s no stopping it now.”
“What did he do to deserve such treatment? Why is he being beaten up?”
“Rod has always evoked enmity sooner or later in all the social circles he has been in over the course his entire life: this is just a natural outcome for a person like him.”
“You made this happen,” said Bailey. “You said it yourself that you plotted against him.”
“You are wrong; you know better than I do the inclination man has to destroy himself. He is so filled with resentment that he cannot do anything about it but direct it inwardly’ but if I were to direct all my energies into destroying such a stupid man as he, rest assured that it would be much more brutal and bloodier than what is happening to him now. It would be a slow, methodical, and heart-wrenching exercise. I would crucify him, not physically, but emotionally and spiritually. I would pin him to the wall and force him to watch a live stream of all his past mistakes and failures, of all the friendships he had ruined, of all the loves he had lost because of his own actions and have him believe that it was entirely his fault, and that the only way out, the only way he could make things right is to exit existence entirely. He is a broken, broken, very broken machine. He is not good enough at all. He needs this drilled into him, that he is a very toxic man deserving of the worst torture imaginable.”
“How despicable of you! But by this logic you imply that there is redemption in such a figure.”
“You are wrong and naive. He is ignorant and doesn’t know any better. He is an eternal child.”
“He can be taught then.”
Jam erupted into a despicable, grotesque laugh. “It is too late for that; he must die because he has caused too much harm to many people, including his ex-lover. He cannot be reformed. He must be deleted from existence.”
“What a disgusting attitude you hold. All people have goodness inside of them. Since goodness is so rare in the world, you seek to destroy even the tiniest sliver of it because around it is a lot of badness?”
“Ah, I can see why an intelligent man would easily become angry with the average person,” said Jam calmly, letting his head fall into his hand before rubbing his oily temple with his spidery fingers. “Shut up, please. I am doing you a favour. I am saving you a lot of time, effort and heartache. You do not know that deranged man like I know him.”
“I know that he is a bit strange, but everyone has their quirks. Everyone suffers from time to time.”
“You will get your heart broken thinking like that.”
Bailey did not say anything, and instead turned once again to the drizzled window with a look of sadness on her face. At that moment, the crown prosecutor stepped forward several paces and clasped her shoulder roughly, his heart in his own mouth and his knees buckling erratically. “Listen...” he said.
Immediately, the young woman tried to pull away from his grip, twisting her neck to look away from the gruesome scene that was on display down below. “Let me go,” she breathed desperately, her face plastered in considerable weakness.
But Jam kept his grip on her shoulder like an iron vice. “Keep watching the man you think is so good,” he said bitterly.
“I can’t watch anymore.”
“Yes you can; you have to understand why such a creature is a problem to society and why it must be destroyed despite what certain people may think. This man thinks that he can just get what he wants without adapting to the societal norms of the day. What an idiot! He thinks that he can kiss a pretty woman without playing the song and dance all those who want to join in the cultural mass must play. All things are economic, my dear lady, all things are economic. Control the means of production and you control the people. Keep a people away from the means of production and you control the people. This is why the man must not enter the system; if he enters the system and succeeds in changing his personality (which is very unlikely) he will become so powerful as to take the means away from people like me and Aleku, from good and honest people. Society isn’t going to change to accommodate people like him, and he isn’t and can’t accommodate to society. Therefore, one must go. Simples.”
“It isn’t fair,” said Bailey softly, “I accept what you are saying, but I cannot help but feel absolutely terribly sorry for him.”
“Hmm,” replied Jam, “that is why I have come here, to destroy Rod once and for all. It is a sorry thing that euthanasia is not enforceable. He should have been dealt with long ago... don’t be sorry: it is a merciful act, an act to prevent the future suffering of both him and the rest of society. Think of it like euthanasia, actually. Rod has a terminal illness of the mind.”
“Although I understand what you are saying, I just cannot accept that a man must be killed.”
“He is not a man; he is a pest, a bedbug that keeps sucking the life out of its victims. After all the evil that it has done, it does not deserve to have an ordinary life like the rest of us. It does not deserve to exist.”
“Everyone ought to be forgiven, even the smallest of us...”
“Rod is incapable of self-awareness. He is just an insect,” laughed Jam.
“But he’s a nice guy; he just has a wounded past.”
“That is no excuse for him not to change. Yet he has neglected to change.”
“Not from a lack of trying,” retorted Bailey desperately. “If he cannot change then how can he be doing these bad things on purpose? How can he be held responsible?”
“Stop trying to justify his bad behaviour. That is the trap his ex-lovers fell into until they realised that a vermin like him does not change.”
“You are condemning an innocent man!”
“Stop!” shouted Jam, his face contorting into one of fury. “Look out of the window,” he snapped, shoving her shoulder forward towards the glass pane. “An innocent man would not have been beaten so brutally by teenage girls!”
“No, no, no,” cried Bailey, “they must have been mistaken; there must have been a misunderstanding.” Immediately she pushed past him and started toward the door, though her legs trembled with pins and needles. “I am going to go down and find out what is going on.”
“Wait! He is a very manipulative person. I have seen it with my own eyes how he manipulates women for his own personal gain. He is a master at pulling on the heart strings. He hosts the most extravagant pity party known to man!”
“I don’t believe you!” said Bailey with a horrifed expression on her face.
“For your own safety I suggest that you bring him to your father’s drawing room, so that he cannot use his wicked powers on you.”
However, when the young woman was already gone before he could finish the sentence. With clenched fists he turned back to the window and gazed out at the lonely, bloodied figure, feeling nothing but satisfaction at such a rotten sight.