"Eh? She told me. Told me everything she ever did. Sometimes she was proud of it. Sometimes less so."
"Then maybe she made it up. I mean, maybe her rapist didn't deserve--"
"Are you calling her a liar?"
Jake's countenance was cold, his eyes blazing.
"No, I just mean, maybe she misremembered."
Jake pulled back, and sighed. "I investigated pretty thoroughly after--after. By all accounts Greg Vanderhague was as big a jerk as she told me. I won't waste two tears over the guy; other than his parents, I don't think anyone did. But are you gonna let me tell the story, or are we going to debate all night?"
"You're right, Dix. So she'd just decided to become Madison's avenging angel, right?"
Jake smiled a thin smile. "Right."
* * *
The next few days were a blur for Liz. She couldn't believe that she'd actually killed Greg. Crushed him to death between her thighs, next to the thing he'd taken from her by force. Part of her was sickened by what she'd done. He'd deserved it; she truly believed a rapist deserves death. But that didn't mean she didn't feel some guilt about being the judge, jury, and executioner.
Whatever qualms she felt about killing Greg, however, were more than trumped by the feeling of peace it had given her. Her friends had mentioned it to her. So had her roommate, Sue.
Sue Nguyen was the daughter of Hmong immigrants, the first in her family to go to college. She was bright, witty, and insightful. She was also drop-dead gorgeous; I mention this only in passing. She had broached the topic with Liz two days after the incident.
"I don't know what it is about you, but you seem happier than I've seen you since...."
"Since March?" asked Liz, who was presently painting her toenails a deep blood red.
"Well...yeah. Now that you mention it."
"Maybe I'm finally over it," said Liz, carefully buffing the nails to a mirror shine. "It's been seven months. I don't know, I just feel more...in control." With that, she laughed in such a way that Sue was put off a bit--it seemed, well, evil.
"That's...that's good, Liz. I'm glad." Sue went back to her reading, trying to put the odd laugh out of her mind. Well, heck, Liz had been raped. She was allowed a little weirdness once in a while. And she did seem happy. That was a good thing.
As for Liz, she was getting ready to go out alone. It was a Saturday night, and she was going to try out her new found powers. She'd go down to Langdon and see what was going on--and see what she could do to help.
* * *
The Claris spell still disoriented her briefly, but it was a quick way of figuring out what was going on--who was safe, who wasn't. The Sigma Chi party seemed clean, she noted happily as she leaned against the wall. Nobody seemed to be getting groped beyond reason, and while there was plenty of fornication going on, it all seemed pleasantly consensual. She didn't mind consensual sex. She was after the nonconsensual kind.
I'm going to have to get a costume, she mused to herself. Micro-Girl, or Giganta, or something like that. She laughed a little as she turned the corner and walked by the Langdon.
Casually, she reached out to try a few minds. A boy and a girl were engaged in hot and heavy action. She tarried just a moment in the mind of the woman as her boyfriend licked her clitoris softly, achingly slow. Liz pulled out of the moment feeling happy and calm. Perhaps she'd go home.
She found her way to the Lakeshore Path, and walked along the darkened path back to the dorm. She was relieved. She was starting to think that she didn't want to be an avenging angel. Maybe it was better just to be a coed again, graduate, and move on with life.
A chill wind blew off of Lake Mendota. Liz shivered involuntarily. And then she heard it.
It was muffled, coming from up the hill a bit. She turned, trying to hear what was being said. After a few moments, she gave up. "Claris," she whispered, putting her consciousness in the mind of a girl.
She was on the ground, a rough hand covering her mouth. She struggled to scream, but he had her pinned well. The glove was thick and leather, resisting her teeth. He was trying to spread her open with the other hand, causing her intense pain, but he didn't care. He was going to take her, she could see it in the eyes that peered out from the mask.
Liz pulled herself out of the woman's mind and started sprinting up the hill. "Back off! I know you're up here, and I know what you're doing. Get off of her now!"
She saw them now, shilouettes in the moonlight. He stood up to face her, and pulled out the knife. "Fuck you, what'cha gonna do, bitch? Tell you what, you get on the ground, and I'll do you after I do her."
She slowed now. He was backing away. He was just looking for an exit strategy--he didn't want to kill the women, at least not both of them.
But Liz was undeterred, and more than a little angry at the arrogance. "What am I gonna do? This," she said, raising her right hand.
* * *
When he woke up, the man found himself unable to move. He struggled to look around, and saw himself in a field of brown grasses, about the same height as he was. He looked down, and screamed, or would have if he had lips.
He was one of the blades of grass.
But that wasn't right. It wasn't grass at all. It was...hair.
He saw a slight clearing off in the distance. A yawning chasm. A familiar scent wafted from it.
My God, it was a giant pussy.
He tried to scream, to run, but he couldn't. He was no longer human. He was just a hair in the bush of a nineteen-year-old sophomore.
His life from that point on was grim routine. Watch her pee, watch her masturbate, watch helplessly as she and her boyfriend had sex. Watch as the years went by, and babies emerged from the great chasm in the distance. As far as I know, he's still watching today.
* * *
She helped the girl to her feet, helped her pull her panties back up and get back to a state of dress.
"Thank you," said the girl. "What did you do? Where did he go?"
"He won't bother you any more," said Liz, simply. "He's gone."
The girl nodded. She didn't know what had just happened, but she was grateful. "I...I need to get back to my dorm."
"Where are you?"
"Bradley."
Liz smiled. "Okay, I'll walk you back."
They walked in silence along the Lakeshore Path, until they reached the Lakeshore dorms. "Thank you again," said the young woman, turning to look at Liz. "I never even got your name."
"I never mentioned it," said Liz. "Just think of me as another coed who knows what you've been through."
The girl nodded. "My name is Angie. You saved my life. If you need anything, ask and I'll do it."
Liz smiled. "Just remember, it wasn't your fault. You need feel no shame. He was an animal, and that's all."
With that, Liz turned, and headed back towards Elizabeth Waters Hall. She felt a lightness in her step. She'd helped Angie. Saved her from rape, for sure; probably indeed saved her life.
It was her destiny, she thought, to end this evil that men could do. It was her destiny to fight for women on this campus. She would have to keep up her patrols.
And she had to work on that costume--or at least the mask.
* * *
Liz didn't catch another rapist for two weeks. Despite what some feminist literature asserts, rapists are not common; they're nearly as rare as murderers.
But they do exist. And it was only a matter of time before Liz had the opportunity to exact revenge on behalf of her sisters.
She was at a party at the Theta Chi house. Her friends had drug her along after noticing that she wasn't exactly doing a lot of socializing. It was a good time, she thought, though she demurred on a few passes her way; she wasn't really interested in men right now. Instead, she danced and watched as the party unfolded, ready to do what she had to do.
She saw him early on. He was grabbing women's asses, and getting shot down regularly. Liz' eyes narrowed; it wasn't rape, not quite, but it was close. She kept a vigilant watch on him as he groped his way around the dance floor. After he cupped a fresman girl's breast, Liz wanted to scream. The girl did scream, and threw a drink in his face. He just laughed and walked away.
It was at this moment Liz made a fateful decision.
She raised her hand and murmured, "Shrink, 1:576 scale." This done, she went back to dancing.
She didn't realize she'd turned a corner; not at that instant. The guy was a lout, but he didn't deserve to be shrunk; he wasn't a rapist, just a cad. Of course, Liz told herself that she hadn't killed him; she'd just shrunk him to 1/8". But we know different.
* * *
"How do we know different? He could've survived," said Scott. "I did."
"You were a bit bigger than 1/8 inch tall. But your point is well taken. He could've survived. People have. But he didn't. He died about two weeks later, alone and scared.
* * *
Liz would check up on him from time to time, to see what he was doing. He had bravely survived being shrunk on the dance floor--not easy when half-mile tall people are moving all around you. Fortunately, he'd been over by the doorway when Liz struck. He was able to escape into a corner, where he tried to figure out a way to get in touch with somebody.
He had an opportunity almost immediately. A rather inebriated Chi Omega stumbled over to the corner and plopped down on the ground, pulling her knees up to her chin and burying her face in her hands. She was wearing a short skirt, which the man quickly entered. He crawled up the crotch of her panties without hesitating a second; he was able to turn off the lothario act when survival was on the line.
But of course, she got up eventually, and went back to her sorority. She peeled off the panties, which he had clung to somehow, and tossed them in the laundry. To make a long story short, he spent the next two weeks trying to get in touch with one of the girls in the house. He came close a couple times--once he even got into the ear of one of the girls, and if she hadn't been half stoned, she may have realized that she wasn't hearing voices. But in the end, he finally met his maker by falling onto a bed while that stoned girl made love to an equally stoned freshman girl; he was crushed under the breast of the freshman, a breast he'd cupped at a party two weeks before.
* * *
"That's a helluva story," said Scott, pensively.
"It's hardly the only one," said Jake. "Once Liz decided that low-grade lotharios were worthy of death, well, let's just say things picked up a little. Over the next three weeks, three more guys disappeared. Well, when five people disappear from a college campus in a seven week period, it's bound to come out. And when there are rumors that a possibly mythic vigilante calling herself 'The Coed' is involved, well, that's when things start to get interesting.
"It's also when I enter the story," said Jake, sipping his Macallan. "And when I enter the world of GTS."