the boss’s special lady

Originally published at The Revolution Will Be Monetized. You can comment here or there.

When Shiva called a meeting, Shiva the leader among leaders, we would all find ourselves hoping for something nice, quiet, isolated. Shiva was like Les in that regard — passionate to the point of being utterly stupid. Unlike Les, she was smart. Les was not. He was just passionate.”Recognize” she said addressing the small circle one of many groups (or so she claimed), “that you are monitored for some percentage of any given day. That percentage may be 100%. The systematic patternization of movements and accepted behavior is organic. The machine is learning in the center (or so I’m told in the reports I’m spending our support money buying from leaders more concerned with money than with progress). The edits to the patterns are being done by hands with agendas.

“The diorama of government is crafted of thin cardboard damp with the sweat of the poor and rainfall urine of the rich high above. The systemic crushes of related agendas spawns…”

What? I zoned halfway through that. She was the queen of random revolutionary slogans. She didn’t need you to understand (she explained this once to me as she sized me up for deeper involvement) just follow orders. This group in particular — a walled off cell that had the job of infiltration. They were most like the norms, were recruited in some cases from those ranks, trained, and then prepared to send back. Most of the faces looking up at her now in our dark dusty subbasement lair had behind them in foolish heads crushes on the shaven-pated Shiva stirring their revolutionary zeal.

She was beautiful — don’t get me wrong. She was exactly the kind of foul evil leader that a group of art terrorists needed. Smarter than 99.99 percent of the population and more beautiful out to at least five nines. She didn’t wear makeup. Her eye lashes were naturally thick and beautiful. There was something east-asian maybe Indian about her mixed in with some teutonic stock. Her skin was dark, her eyes were light, her body perfect.

I’ve seen her naked.

She beat the shit out of me after that. “How’s your hard-on now, fucker??!” she yelled with each kick or punch. She didn’t put on any clothes while she did this. We ended up in front of a tiger team about to head out. They watched. “Harder” I said in replay to her repeated question. Neither of us knew whether I was demanding more punishment or I was answering her question regarding the rigidity of my dick. A little of both probably.

I broke a rib that day.

The tiger team bled off under the boss’s glare. They walked away facing her though. I could see it through a swollen right eye. They couldn’t take their eyes off of her. They were right. She walked off after spitting on me. On her lower back was a mechanical tiger pouncing outward, steampunk style, heavy tubes and dirty parts.

That was a great fucking day.

“We will spawn new cells using the information we obtain from each center we establish and then control. That is our source of income. You’re all cool in your own way. It’s time though to push out your art — subvert the easy listening corporate art world in small bits, one dab of paint at a time if necessary.”

She thinks she coined that phrase — easy listening art. Edits aside, she rarely comes up with anything.

“That went well,” Shiva said grinning next to me reading over my shoulder as I typed, then leaning down, t-shirt wrapped chest pressing into my back. “I’ve come up with some things,” she said letting out a little laugh at the end. “We should go for noodles before Les comes back.”

“Where did Les go?” I look over at his work table. The red armed-light is off and pushed away from the messy tabletop strewn with electronic components and a varied rainbow tangle of wires. “I didn’t see him leave.”

She grabbed my hand from the keyboard, her hand soft warm with a rough callused inner surface. “Come on, dummy, seriously — he’s going to show up and he loves noodles.”

She pulled me up out of the seat. I looked at her ass (everyone does). It was covered in an unflattering green canvas skirt today. It was short enough so that the edge danced buttock-ward and silky brown skin of the inner thigh screamed “hello stranger!”

[Sex appeal is not ranked very high among things to look for in leaders of revolutions historically — television has changed all of that.]

She giggled like a girl as she dragged me through the poured concrete tubes — seven feet in diameter dry as… well… without getting too sexist or revolting I’ll say that…

I stumbled on the lip of one of joints of our culvert hallways. I flew towards her. She gasped, her eyes bright. She showed her age — early twenties — no, she was younger still in that instant. I, circus clown, put on a show for her, flew past, and landed against unmoving concrete, knees and palms.

“You missed me,” she said. I flopped down on to my side, bony hip slapping against the aforementioned concrete.

A few of the local peons poked their heads into the hallway to see what was making the noise. Then they saw her. Then they didn’t care about the noise. I was looking up at her too. She was looking back at me smiling.

I didn’t turn away. I tried to look past it. Her reputation for sincerity preceded her (or rather her reputation for a lack of… you don’t run a war with sincerity she said once and that time even her brow furrowed into a huh?) Is this what the face of a praying mantis would look like as it went to pleasure her mate? Did she, in some insect way, look like this all sweet and sincere.

I heard some mumble (ears not yet ruined by regular trips to rock shows) from the hallway. They fled when I turned to them.

They were calling me “the boss’s special lady”…

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Words: rice, monitored, nice, crushes, leaders, isolated, diorama, center, government, buying, groups, sensors, edits, related, spawn, systematic, sized, hoping, idea, astronaut