“If that is your choice…” Lena began, “then look to the back of the room! Because that guy back there is the Stasi asshole that raped my friend, and you need to fuck him up!”
“What are you talking about?!” Dragon Lady demanded.
“I think our little charge here has pulled one over on you.” Red Hat laughed, “She would have no idea who Patrick is working for—she never had a chance to see him. No one here is working for the Soviets; and to even insinuate that they would get involved in this is absolutely ludicrous. And while I can’t say for a certainty that our little charge here works for the West, I know there’s no reason for her to go into a phone booth in the middle of the night.”
Vivika swallowed her heart again. “How did he see me?!” she yelled at herself, “I was so careful!” She had been after all—she had walked the route she walked nearly every night, making sure to take three sides of a square any time someone was behind her, and force anyone past her by taking a smoke break.
“We’ve been monitoring that phone booth, you little twit.” Red Hat sneered, as if sensing her disquiet. “We have cameras absolutely everywhere—especially anywhere that you could contact the outside world.”
“You’re bluffing.” Vivika said.
“Let me see your key ring.” Red Hat said, holding out his hand.
“I don’t have it.” Vivika said, thanking the Gods that she had decided to leave that at home.
“No matter—we’ll be raiding your apartment soon enough.”
“Trying to play night games, were we?” Dragon Lady said as she stared daggers at Vivika.
“I get around.”
“Oh, we know you do.” Red Hat laughed. “After seeing you in the photo-booth, I decided to take a little stroll… and you will never guess what I saw!”
“You saw nothing.”
“Oh, you know that’s a lie.”
“No… you saw nothing.”
“What did you see?” Dragon Lady asked with a note of glee, sensing Vivika’s discomfort.
“I saw our little friend here…” Red Hat started, before being cut off by an increasingly emotional Vivika, who stared at him as if he was giving away her most precious secrets.
“You. Saw. Nothing.”
“…getting around with Patrick!” Red Hat laughed, “Oh, that must have been an experience!”
“Shut the fuck up!”
“You know, I’ve always wondered. How is that little prick hung?” He continued, while grabbing his crotch, “Is he a real man like me?”
Vivika stared at him. It was so terribly hurtful, the things he was saying; but what could she do about it? Anything she said would likely just increase his enjoyment, and remaining silent would likely do the same thing. Worse, the Dragon Lady seemed to be enjoying it as well.
“Well I hope you enjoyed it.” Dragon Lady laughed, “Because that’s probably the last cock you are ever going to get. At least until I’m done working on you… I suppose some of the other officers might want to have a go at you.”
“That’s not all I saw, though.” Red Hat said. “You will never guess who was also there.”
“You can’t be serious!” Dragon Lady giggled shrilly.
“Oh, I am—old Warty Face himself was out on one of his famous photoshoots!”
“Oh? What did he take pictures of?”
“Well… let’s just say that we don’t have to ask our little charge here how much of a man Patrick really is.
Vivika felt so god-forsaken exposed, just then. She imagined Wart Face leering at her as Patrick raped her. She imagined Red Hat doing the same. She imagined how they would all gather around the pictures of Patrick spitting on her, and hitting her, and doing those terrible things… and she imagined them all laughing at her pain, the way that everyone always did.
Everyone knew everything about her darkest secrets—things they had no right to. Was nothing sacred anymore? What was the meaning of life, if she had nothing to herself? Her privacy was a complete fabrication—a toy for others to play with. She was property, and a mere plaything to be abused and discarded at will. As Dragon Lady spit coffee out of her nose with laughter, and Red Hat slapped Vivika’s knee as if some mutual jape was being enjoyed, and Vivika cried, and no one in the cafe seemed to care all that much… Vivika finally stopped caring.
“You know what I think?” Vivika started.
“No one really cares that much, dear.” Dragon Lady said.
“You know what?” Vivika started again.
“No, none of us know.” Red Hat laughed.
Vivika thought back to Lena’s bedroom, and all the illegal things she had hanging on the walls. She remembered the Never Mind the Bullocks album, and everything that the Sex Pistols stood for. She remembered the ‘zines, and everything stuffed between their DIY covers. The alternative love, the rebellion, the activism, the fists pumping in the air, the chest-beating, and the images of women flexing their biceps or holding automatic rifles.
She remembered the pictures of masked men cocking back an arm to launch a Molotov cocktail into the lines of oppressors. She remembered the articles of women violently proclaiming their liberation from situations precisely like this. She remembered all of the homosexuals that were tortured in prisons, only to escape to the West… only to return to the East in print, to give strength to the struggles of those still in hiding. She remembered the stories that Lena had told her about the great things that women had done, and the crazy things that youth were capable of. She imagined what it must be like to be a bare-chested and thoroughly rocked-out bitch smashing a pile of bricks with a sledgehammer… and what that might be like if the pile of bricks were a few Stasi officers.
But more importantly, she remembered the stories of Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth—wild women who couldn’t be bothered to care about the lopsided nature of the struggle. These were people who didn’t see odds. They only saw the path forward, however barred, and decided to push their way through. Armed with sheer conviction, the bad bitches saw the world around them and decided to ignore the reasons why, in favor of what might be, if one simply gave enough of a shit to try.
“No,” Vivika said plainly.
“Excuse me?” Dragon Lady laughed.
“No. Absolutely not.”
“Shut the hell up, you twit.” Red Hat dismissed her.
“No. Absolutely not. I’ve had enough!”
Suddenly, every eye in the small cafe was on her and her table—and for once, Dragon Lady and Red Hat looked genuinely surprised. By contrast, Vivika felt amazing. A feeling was coming over her, drenching her through-and-through with an adrenaline-soaked intoxication that threatened to explode out of her pounding chest, if not unearthed immediately. Words and phrases smashed into the sides of her skull, begging to be unleashed into the air about her. She had seen this once before… she had seen Lena do it. And Gods be damned, Vivika was about to do it herself.
“I’ve had enough!” Vivika screamed, “I’ve had enough of you people! I’ve had enough of your mind games, your hands around my throat, your eyes in my private life, and your insults! You know nothing about me except the things you see through a camera lens, or the things you read on a transcript! You know all sorts of ‘facts’ that you’ve viewed through the lens of conspiracy and fear… but you know nothing about me! You don’t know who I am, what I’ve been through, what a struggle it’s been, what I’ve had to overcome… and you might not think that it matters, but it does. It matters because it means you don’t fucking own me.”