My stomach gives rise to an arctic wind that chases away any capacity to feel sorry for him.
"You know what? We're done. Get out of my gallery."
Jason gets his teeth over his bottom lip to form the first sound of what, no doubt, is an expletive designed to tell me what he thinks about me ordering him around, and Elly comes into the gallery.
All aggression leaves him. "Alright, Ells?"
Elly stops in her tracks and eyes him. "Don't call me Ells, Jason. In fact, don't call me anything. I don't want you to even look at me, let alone speak to me."
Jason throws a look designed to kill at me. "You see the shit I now have to deal with after you dissed me and spread it all over the internet?"
Elly places a hand on her hip. "Actually, my wanting to have nothing to do with you has bugger all to do with Bess' TikTok. I don't want to have anything to do with you because I've seen the TikToksyou'vetried to spread all over the internet. You're nothing but a parody of the ideals held by toxic masculinity."
Jason's face does an impression of a colony of larvae trying to bore their way out of a turnip. He opens his mouth to make a retort, but Elly isn't finished yet.
She takes a step towards him and jabs a finger in his direction. "You believe women owe you respect. Respect is earned and you have a long, long way to go before you even come close to earning mine."
He takes a step back like he's been slapped in the face. Then he pulls himself together. "What was that? Did somebody say something? All I heard was the sound of lips flapping." He mimics a mouth opening and closing with his right hand.
Before he can gather more unsavoury words on his tongue, I say, "Enough!" and point to the door. "Jason, leave. You've said your bit, now bugger off."
Throwing his hands in the air, like I've said something unreasonable, he saunters into the café to leave by its door instead, presumably to prove he can choose how and where he exits.
He throws a look over his shoulder that might otherwise be designed to incinerate were it not for the chair he fails to notice and stumbles into.
He doesn't look back after that.
"God. Is that really what the world has come to?"
Elly confirms it has with a grunt.
"It makes me sad. All those impressionable young men being led down that awful path. How old is he?"
Elly leans against the counter, still watching Jason, and folds her arms. "Twenty-three, maybe?”
“Huh. I would have picked him for younger.”
“Don't feel sorry for him. He made a fake porn of my friend, Lou, after she turned him down. He'll probably make one of me now."
"Jesus. Did she tell the police?"
"Nah. He removed it before she could do anything."
I look at myWhatever It Takespainting, which I haven't yet taken off the wall.
The pink word gun is vibrant against the camo of the women's shirt. As bold as if it were a real gun.
And I can’t help but wonder exactlywhatwill it take?
Chapter twenty-five
Bess
"You,sir,havebeennext to useless."
Ed throws his hands in the air, like I'm pointing a gun at him and cautiously lowers himself into his sun lounger. "Guilty as charged."
"Do you even know what I'm talking about?"
