Chapter 12: Eunuch Empire

“I bet that you go to bed and wake up asking who you can kill today,” Major Blake said to me as I was consuming a meal. I nodded as I shoveled food in my face. “You must be angry all the time.”

“Why haven’t you fucked her, then?” Joe asked.

Major Blake finished off his coffee before answering. “I knew Jackie when she was a man. I’m not into men.”

“She’s all girl now, down to her chromosomes,” Zara said as she took a seat next to me. She poured herself a cup of coffee and before sipping asked, “What’s your other reason?”

“She looks too much like a little girl” Major Blake said. “I don’t find kids sexually appealing. Now that Gail is what I look for in a woman!”

Zara coughed and sputtered and spilled her coffee—she was laughing.

“What?” Major Blake asked.

“You were briefed on the Sons of Ares,” Joe smirked. “Gail is one of them.”

“You’re kidding!” Blake exclaimed.

“I’ll show you after breakfast.” Zara promised. “Story time. Do you remember the cult of Cybele? India’s Hijra? The Skoptsy? No? Good. History has it all wrong. The perfect human is female. Men are expendable. In the dawn before history, the Matriarchy ruled. Men were only good for making babies, for hunting, for heavy labor—and women were in charge.”

“I don’t have time for a history lecture,” Major Blake slammed his cup on the table. “Jackie, your mission in Miami is to investigate a plot by Cuban exiles to assassinate President Kennedy. Report back to me at this number.”

I was given a phone number and I repeated it back.

“Second mission: investigate a Mob plot to assassinate the Attorney General of the United Staes. Check Tampa for that plot. Report. Don’t kill anybody except in self-defense. When you report in, you’ll be given a second contact number. Questions?”

“Yes, sir,” I had to say something. “Why the witness?”

“Zara now knows that you are acting as information people—that you will take direct action only when ordered. Now she can relax. Share what you learn with her and Billie. We will get word to you if something changes you back to being an action person. You have briefed Billie on backstabbing?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Carry on. I can find my own way out.”

Major Blake departed with dispatch.

“I guess Blake is not interested in Gail anymore,” Zara commented. “What was that backstabbing comment about?”

“Joe, you are routinely in situations where the law is no protection,” I said. “What steps do you take to make sure that your business partners don’t cheat you, rob you, kidnap or kill you?”

“Don’t be stupid,” Joe shook his head. “Nobody will do that.”

“I suggest that they would be killed when caught,” I insisted. “Italy is the land of the vendetta. There are many crime families there.”

“I am not a crook!” Joe objected.

“As you say, sir,” I agreed. “I was in Europe with Mafia people. Nice, family types. Went to church regularly. Kept their word. Mafia worked with police and government officials and military intelligence. Police, government officials and military intelligence didn’t always keep their word. It got worse. Right now there’s a Mafia war going on in Italy. Would it surprise you to learn that communist operatives tricked the underworld into waging war on each other so that Italy would be destabilized?”

“It could be worse,” Joe said. “Were you aware that the Ares Boys Academy was an underground eunuch empire?”

“Tell me more, please.” Never mind that I had spent five years in that hell hole—there were lots of things that I didn’t know. I listened to stories as Willard and Gail entered the kitchen. All the boys at the Ares Boys Academy were sterilized upon arrival—circumcised, too. Some had testicles removed while the rest of us were forced to watch. I fainted the first time. Willard left for a moment as Joe prattled on. Gail pulled her dress off—I noted that she no longer had pubic hair. As Joe described the processes, Willard and Paul strolled into the room holding hands—and naked. Willard had a blank crotch—and for a moment I experienced panic. Had Willard suffered the same fate that had terrorized me when I was in the Ares Boys Academy? I got control over my panic before anybody commented. “That place was small for an empire.”

“One-third of American women have hysterectomies by the age of 60,” Zara stated. “One in eight will lose one or both breasts. You are familiar with female genitalia.”

“If not, Jackie just hasn’t been paying attention,” Billie quipped.

“In the past, castration was mostly something that men did or had done to them. Women were routinely desexed but not in the same numbers. The Hijra of India still exist today despite near eradication when the British ruled. The last known Skoptsy adherent died a few months ago. Female Skoptsy sliced off their tits and cut off their pussies, then burned the holes to seal them.” Joe smirked. “I’ve fixed Paul, had him clipped so that he can’t father children.”