Regan Wolfrom - Catholic Guilt and the Joy of Hating Men

They held me as Eleanor took out her duct tape.

“You don’t want that stuff in your plant food,” I said. “Think of all that adhesive.”

“It’s no worse than whatever poisons you use in that chemical-sprayed hair of yours,” Eleanor said.

I glanced over at her filthy blond locks. “I’m well aware of how much you girls hate shampoo.”

They taped over my mouth before I could ask why they also seemed to hate soap.

And then I waited as the remains of Lima were pressed and ground.

As promised, Eleanor showed me a bag of Lima-meal. It looked like a cross between cremation ash and cinnamon. I’d be lying if I told you I wasn’t curious about the taste.

“Now we’ll take off your clothes,” Eleanor said, holding up the cleaver. “I hope the cutting isn’t too messy.”

“I hope you hack off one of your fingers,” I tried to say, but with the tape over my mouth I’m not sure she got it.

She started with my belt, gingerly cutting through the leather.

I heard a door open, and then came a familiar voice.

“FDA!” Michael called out. “Drop your weapons!” He was wearing body armor and toting some kind of semi-automatic rifle.

Two of the vegans were quick to surrender, putting their hands in the air. But the girl right next to Eleanor lifted up the handgun to take aim.

The gunshots came, two of them, and the armed vegan fell to the ground.

Eleanor brought the cleaver up to my neck. “I’ll slice her open,” she said.

“I don’t care,” Michael said. “She’s a serial killer, you know.”

Eleanor looked surprised. “You know about her?”

“That’s why I’m here… to bring her to justice.”

She kept the blade against my skin. “So what about me?” she asked. “What happens to the rest of us?”

“Put down the meat cleaver… I’ll run your IDs and as long as you’re clean you can go. Then the story will be one vegan vigilante, acting alone.”

Eleanor seemed to think it over… then she lowered her arm.

“Everyone on the ground,” Michael said. “Hands on your heads.”

The vegans complied; I wasn’t sure how I’d be able to do the same, so I just stayed as I was, my wrists taped behind me and a couple of strips over my mouth.

He took out three sets of plasticuffs and restrained all three vegans before coming over and ripping off my tape.

“Are you okay, Marie-Claire?” he asked.

“I’m alright,” I said. “Are you really with the Food and Drug Administration?”

“I was. I’m on disability now. Raw milk raid. I accidentally got some of it on my lips.”

“You’re joking.”

“I was suspended for messing up your case. I lost some evidence, falsified some reports…”

I smiled. “So you’re not going to arrest me?”

“I may slip some cuffs on you,” he said with a smirk. “But that’s more for personal consumption.”

I laughed and then I gave him a kiss.

He told me he’d help me clean up the mess.

“Sorry about Lima,” he said once I’d come back inside with my trusty bolt pistol.

“I just wish you’d gotten here in time.”

“I did, actually… she was a loose end. Uh… sorry about that.”

I shrugged.

I walked over with the bolt pistol and did the first two vegans, saving Eleanor for last. She was shaking when I reached her.

“You did want to die,” I told her.

“But then I changed my mind,” Eleanor said.

“I know… that’s why I didn’t kill you. You should have returned the favor.” I didn’t wait for a reply. I held the pistol to her temple and fired.

“They call them fish fingers in England,” Michael said as I mixed up the batter in his kitchen.

“Fish fingers? That’s sick.”

“And misleading… I’ll bet the fish sticks we’re making will be less than one percent finger.”

I laughed. “I hope they taste okay. That meal powder was pretty dry. Not to mention the ground up dreadlocks.”

“I’m sure they’ll be perfect,” Michael said. “You’re an excellent cook.” His face got all serious, and then he started fumbling in his pockets. “And well… uh… that’s why I want to marry you.”

My heart started to pound and I could feel my whole body shaking.

He pulled out a little box, and then he opened it up to a small diamond ring. “I love you, Marie-Claire,” he said.

It felt like it was too soon… way too soon… and at first all I wanted to do was run away.

I don’t think you can blame me for that.

But then it hit me.

I had nothing to lose.

Either Michael would be the perfect husband and would love me forever and ever, or I’d have something special, if a wee bit stringy, to bundle up and roast when Dad comes home next Thanksgiving.

Either way works for me.

THE SCALEwas broken… that had to be it. How could it say that Maddy McKay was losing weight when everything else told her she was inflating like a balloon? Even her five tiny house-elves had noticed the lack of progress, though they had been far too polite to mention it… or most had been; Alberich Blue-hat often mooed now whenever Maddy walked into the room. Evidently, he thought he was being funny.

Maddy had done it all, Atkins and the South Beach Diet, the Subway diet and the one where you only eat cauliflower and raw salmon… and she’d been blasting her calves so hard they felt like two flabby rolls of patent leather. Alberich had even quipped that Maddy’s best chance of losing weight would be to saw off her legs and sew them into fine Italian handbags. She began to worry once she found his stash of sewing patterns and hacksaws of various tooth lengths.

So Maddy went further.

She now would skip lunch and then she’d skip dinner, trying to motivate herself with visions of the wondrous new clothes she could buy. Wondrous new clothes to attract all sorts of men, up to and including the dreamy Benjamin Trasett who lived across the hall.

One day soon, she told herself… one day soon… skinny jeans for oh so skinny legs, nice short skirts that flare out and stay miles higher than her knees, swimsuits that didn’t even come with matching shoulder covers… if only her body would cooperate.

At first Maddy knew nothing about it; she’d starve herself and exercise until she bled, going to bed exhausted and hungry, falling asleep to the skinny person clothes and inspirational strains of Project Runway and then dreaming of Tim Gunn’s shining smile and silvery coif.

And then she’d wake up the next day and drag herself into the bathroom, ignoring the creaks in her joints, the pains in her muscles, and the Holstein bellows of a sadistic blue-hatted house-elf; once there, she’d climb onto that scale once again.

And then she’d see exactly what she wanted to see: pound by pound dropping away — she’d gone far past her goal, or so the little numbers told her. And the elves would rejoice, Elfriede and Vena hugging her ankles, Elga and Durin humping her heels. Even Alberich would seem touched by her progress, choosing those very moments to remind her that even cows have value beyond their flank steaks.

But though her weight seemed lower, Maddy’s clothes were never looser; in fact, they felt tighter, her shirts and her jeans squeezing her tightly like a full-body corset. It was like all her work was making things worse.