Paul’s camouflage uniform blended in with the dead leaves that had accumulated around the base of the tree, making him nearly invisible. The only sign of his presence was the bipod and a short section of rifle barrel protruding from the leaf litter covering him. Paul held the rifle stock snug against his right shoulder and cheek, finger resting lightly on the trigger. He waited, relaxed and watchful.

A man in a forest pattern uniform stepped from behind a thick clump of brambles to Paul’s front. The man paused and looked about, wary and alert. Scanning. Listening. To Paul, the man acted as if he knew he was being watched.

Paul put the scope’s crosshairs on the man, saw the flag on the man’s uniform that identified him; an enemy soldier, a scout sent ahead to assess what was in the forest. Paul estimated the distance between them at no more than 200 meters; an easy shot, a piece of cake for a newly trained sniper like Paul.

As Paul put pressure on the trigger, the details of his first deer hunt, still sharp and clear after fifteen years, flashed through his mind. He remembered everything about that hunt; his failure, Uncle Ellis’ scorn, and the humiliation that consumed him afterward.

“I’m buying you a deer tag the day you turn twelve,” Paul’s Uncle Ellis said a few weeks before Paul’s twelfth birthday. “That’s my present to you. You’ll be legal then, boy, and you and me are going hunting.” Uncle Ellis tipped his head toward Paul’s father. “That is, if it’s all right with your old man,” he added with a smile.

The three of them were sitting at the kitchen table in Paul’s house, the two men drinking coffee. “It’s all right with me,” Paul’s father said. “But it’s up to the boy.” Both men grinned and looked at Paul. They knew what his answer would be.

“Then it’s all set,” Uncle Ellis said. “Deer season opens the first Saturday in November. Going to bag you a big buck. Your first kill. Mount that buck’s head on your bedroom wall. Something you can be proud of. The first thing you see when you wake up in the morning and say, That’s my deer. I killed it.” Uncle Ellis grinned at Paul.

Paul smiled, pleased to be with men he respected and loved.

“We sit here,” Uncle Ellis said, pointing at the remains of a tree that had fallen many years ago. They sat on the downed tree, peering into the leafless forest, waiting for their quarry to appear. Small, puffy white clouds formed in the cold air with every breath they exhaled, then winked out as quickly as they appeared. Neither of them said anything. After a while Paul started kicking at the deep leaf litter covering the forest floor. The leaves rustled like small dry bones being shaken in a tin cup.

Sensing Paul’s flagging enthusiasm, Uncle Ellis said, “There’s a salt block in that little clearing in front of us. You can’t see the block. The grass is too high. The deer can smell it, though. They have a hunger for that salt. We got to be patient and wait for them. They’re going to show. They always do.”

“Did you put the salt block there?” asked Paul.

“I sure did.”

“Isn’t that baiting? It’s not allowed. What if you get caught?”

Uncle Ellis laughed. “Who’s going to know I put it there? Are you going to rat me out?”

“No, I would never do that.”

“I know that, boy. We got to be quiet now. Stop kicking those leaves. If the deer hear us, they’ll shy away and you won’t get a shot. They’re skittish this time of year. Animals can sense when they’re being hunted.”

They sat quietly after that, peering into the leafless forest. Waiting. Paul’s feet began to get cold. He felt the chill creep up his legs and rise to his knees. He started to shiver and wondered how much longer he could sit on the downed tree without having to get up and move around to fight off the cold seeping into his body.

Uncle Ellis jabbed an elbow into Paul’s ribs and whispered, “Off to the left. See that buck? He’s heading for the salt block. That’s your deer. You’re gonna take him.”

Paul saw the deer, seventy-five meters away, walking slowly toward the clearing where Uncle Ellis said the salt block lay hidden in the dry grass.

“Now,” whispered Uncle Ellis and elbowed Paul again. The deer stopped. Its ears twitched at the sound of Uncle Ellis’ voice.

Paul stood, raised his rifle, put the scope’s crosshairs on the deer’s front shoulder, then lowered his rifle.

“Shoot!” hissed Uncle Ellis. The deer remained still then turned its head toward them, searching for the source of the noise. Paul shouldered his rifle again, sighted on the deer then lowered his rifle.

“Shoot it!” shouted Uncle Ellis.

Paul raised his rifle a third time but the deer, startled by the sound of Uncle Ellis’ voice, was bounding away from them, its up-raised tail waving like a victory flag. Paul watched the deer disappear into the leafless forest.

“Boy, what happened to you? That was a perfect shot.” Uncle Ellis shook his head, bewildered by Paul’s failure to shoot the deer. “Why didn’t you shoot?” When Paul didn’t say anything, Uncle Ellis said, “We got to go home. No use hanging around anymore. The deer know we’re here. They’re spooked. They’ll keep away now.”

“Worst case of buck fever I ever saw,” Uncle Ellis said to Paul’s father later that day. The three of them sat at the kitchen table, the two men drinking coffee. Uncle Ellis drummed his fingers on the table and looked at the boy. Paul sat with his head down, not looking at either man.

Uncle Ellis shook his head. “That deer stood there, big as you please, begging to get shot, but the boy froze up and that was that. He let that deer walk away. Was a fine buck, too. Had a great rack on him. Would have made a grand first kill.” Uncle Ellis drank more coffee, grinned, put his hand on Paul’s head and mussed Paul’s hair. “I’m going out tomorrow. I know where to bag me a big buck with a fine set of antlers.” Uncle Ellis stood and looked down at Paul. “You’re not cut out to be a hunter, boy. To be a hunter, you got to be able to kill something. You got to be able to pull the trigger.”

After Uncle Ellis left, Paul and his father remained at the table. Paul’s father put his hand on Paul’s arm and said quietly, “It’s all right.” They sat at the table and neither one said anything more for some time.

Finally, Paul looked up and said, “I’m sorry, Dad. I really wanted to shoot that deer. I really did. I raised my rifle and had it in my scope, but I couldn’t pull the trigger. I don’t know why.”

“Sometimes these things happen, son. I know you feel terrible right now. I know you do and there isn’t anything I can say to make it better, but it will get better, Paul. It will.”

“My mouth went all dry and I couldn’t even swallow. I just stood there, holding my rifle and not doing anything.” Paul squeezed his eyes shut, trying to keep the tears from coming out. “Uncle Ellis thinks I’m a loser. I let him down. I know I did.” Paul turned a stricken face toward his father. “I failed, Dad. I blew it. I’ll never be a hunter like Uncle Ellis.”

Paul kept the scope’s crosshairs on the enemy soldier. The man held his rifle at an angle across the front of his body. Leaning slightly forward, the man started walking in Paul’s direction, slowly, deliberately, as if every step required an enormous amount of effort and determination. Then the man stopped. Paul wondered if he had alerted the man by making a noise, by rustling the leaves or by making an imperceptible movement. No, not possible. He hadn’t made any noise, hadn’t moved. The man continued looking toward the tree where Paul lay hidden in the leaf litter. As if sensing something wrong, the man turned and started to go back the way he had come.

Not this time, Paul thought. “This one is for you, Uncle Ellis,” Paul whispered as he pulled the trigger.

Robert P. Bishop, an army veteran and former teacher, holds a Master’s in Biology and lives in Tucson, Arizona. His short fiction has appeared in Active Muse, Bright Flash Literary Review, CommuterLit, Fleas on the Dog, Friday Flash Fiction, Ink Pantry, Literally Stories, The Literary Hatchet, Lunate Fiction, Scarlet Leaf Review, Umbrella Factory Magazine and elsewhere.

You can find more of Robert’s work here on Ink Pantry.

For the past three years, I have kept telling Hua that we are never in the limelight in this world of red dust, not even for a fraction of a second. The only exception was the vague possibility that certain readers of my love poetry may have recognized my relationship with her as extramarital, but they would probably take it as an inspiring romance rather than condemn it as a moral crime.

Each time I asked Hua about her worries, she said what she was most afraid of was our affair being found out by her husband, my wife, or anyone else who happened to know both of us.

“Not exactly,” I said. “Your most deeply-rooted fear is no other than the loss of your ‘face’ when people know of your unfaithfulness. To me, this is part of the human nature, but to you, infidelity, as people call it, is morally wrong and thus socially fatal, especially in old age.”

“Whatever you have to say,” Hua has told me again and again, “I just cannot stop worrying, not even for a single day.”

To help deflate her hidden fear, I assured her that nobody around us had actually paid any attention to our emotional lives. While all our mutual acquaintances in China were English illiterates or had no access to my English writings, my family and friends outside of China never showed any interest in what I had written and published.

“So long as we kept our relationship strictly under the rug and always acted like two old zhiqing comrades, the cat will never be out of the bag,” I said.

“How about Za?” Hua asked. “As your former fiancée now living in Holland, she must’ve been your most loyal fun.”

“I doubt she’d be so nosy as to search for me online.”

“Put in her shoes, I would, out of curiosity, if not of concern.”

“Sooner or later, you could tell this by yourself,” I replied. Having paid a visit to Za’s mother and had a long chat with the couple several nights before, I was sure that Za hadn’t the slightest idea about what had been going on between Hua and me in recent years.

The opportunity propped up when Za invited me for a dinner with her husband Wei and a couple of our mutual friends shortly after I moved to a rented room in Songzi. To show my appreciation of their kind offer, I insisted that I treat the couple to the famous local hotpot of the Du rooster instead.

Around eleven thirty on October 17, Pan arrived at the restaurant first, then followed by Za, Wei, Hua and Wang in sequence. Once seated around the table in a small but cozy private dinning room, we began to enjoy the local gourmet foods, chatting and laughing excitedly.

It was the most special party I had ever hosted or attended. For one thing, all the attendants had a close relationship with me. While Za was once engaged with me, her husband Wei had been not only one of Hua’s unprofessed admirers but my closest associate in the Mayuhe Youth Station, who succeeded me as the youth leader after I left the farm for university.

As the host, I started by thanking everyone for coming. After proposing a toast to our own health and longevity, I declared the Za couple as my main guests, while Pan, my best zhiqing friend, and Wang, Wei’s relative, were our main “accompanying guests,” as the local custom would have for every dinner party like this one. On the surface, I put much emphasis on my gratitude to Wei for his friendly support while working at the Mayuhe Youth Station, as well as for his effort to fulfill my wish to hold a grand gathering to celebrate the 50^th anniversary of its establishment. But in the depth I hoped to extend my ‘regret’ to Za, the only attendant who was not from our Mayuhe station, for having broken up with her in 1981 because I found it neither viable nor desirable to live a married life with her in Wuhan back then. Though I said nothing to this effect, I had mentioned this to her on several occasions. This regretful feeling she and I were ready to understand without having to exchange a single conspiratorial glance. During a Tête-à-tête, I once told her that if I had married her, I would have been able to enjoy much more spousal love and support. In return, she had admitted to me in a proud tone that each time when asked how she would compare Wei and me as her man, she would say, “Either’s fine to me!’

As for Hua, I re-introduced her to the party as my newly found relative. Hearing this, Za felt quite surprised, while Pan asked, “How’re you actually related?”

“Hua’s mother’s mother and mine came from the same Zhang family living beside the high school in Jieheshi, the townlet between Songzi and Weishui Scenic Park,” I explained. “But because all our grandparents died long ago, I’m not sure if I’m her uncle by blood.”

“Or I’m Ming’s aunt,” Hua corrected me in a teasing voice.

“So you’re distant relatives,” Wang pointed out, “just like Wei and me.”

Since our parental families originated from the same small place, it was not surprising that we were somehow related, but we all wished to have discovered our relatedness sooner.

As we kept eating, drinking and talking, Za appeared to be particularly high-spirited and asked me if I and my wife had already retired in Vancouver and when we two would visit Europe as tourists. Realizing this as an excellent opportunity to sound out if Za had any updated knowledge about my literary endeavors or, rather, if she happened to know my true relationship with Hua through my English writings published online, I asked her if she knew I had been busy writing not only poetry but fiction during the past few years.

“So, you’re writing novels now?” Za asked in a voice carrying a strong note of amazement. “All I know is, you have published a lot of poetry.”

“Have you read any of my writings online?” I asked further. In so doing, I hoped that Hua would get an answer for herself about whether Za was aware of our affair, since she was the only person among all our mutual acquaintances that might happen to know our secret through my publications in English, which were readily accessible online to anyone who could google outside of China.

“Nah. Except when doing some online reading in Chinese, I seldom turned on my computer. You know how poor my English is,” Za replied, more to Hua’s satisfaction than to mine.

“Our English is not good enough to read any literature,” Wei confirmed, “though we two do have a quite good working knowledge of Dutch.”

“Way to go!” Hua exclaimed. “Having lived in Melbourne for so many years, I’m still an English illiterate.”

From Hua’s response, I knew she was more than delighted to realize that neither Za nor Wei was capable of discovering our infidelity even if they had had such intentions. Seeing how relieved she was from her great fear, I had a strong whim to pinch her right thigh under the table. Dressed in black in mourning for her late mother, Hua looked particularly decorous and graceful today. Since her husband joined her for her mother’s funeral, I hadn’t been able even to take a walk with her, much less enjoy intimacies of any kind. However, probably because she wanted to avoid any suspicion, she deliberately sat much closer to Wang, her neighbor on her left side, thus making it impossible for me to reach her without being noticed by Pan, who sat right beside me.

When we turned our attention to one another’s family situations, we congratulated the Za couple on the success of their outstanding son, a highly accomplished young surgeon in Rotterdam, who married a beautiful Dutch girl and had three sons within five years.

Beaming with smiles, Za told us several anecdotes about how she had brought up his son. Each time she recalled something to her own credit, she would look at Wei’s response. Her carefulness and sensitivity reminded me of Kang, our mutual friend’s comment, “Za doesn’t have much status at home, because she earns little money in Holland.”

Though I fully understood that everyone’s social status was determined by their economic basis, there should be equality within the family. In Za’s case, her relationship with Wei was based apparently on money instead of love. A marriage of convenience in the first place, I thought.

When we began to see Pan’s family photos on his cellphone, we all felt amazed at how well his wife carried her years and how she had become an online influencer in her own right. More impressive were his daughter and grandchildren who looked much more handsome than he was. Though he was both ugly and poor as he himself had often said, his wife and daughter thought highly, and took good care, of him. This fact made me feel particularly envious, resentful and puzzled at the same time. In comparison with him, Ping and even Wei, I had been striving really hard to bring wealth and fame to my family and, as a father and husband, I had done my very best to protect and look after them, but I never felt respected, much less cared for, within my own family.

No matter what, by the time we stood up and got ready to leave the restaurant, my old flames must both have come to their conclusion that the jig is not up yet.

Author’s note: This prose work is inspired by Helena Qi Hong (祁红) 

Yuan Changming co-edits Poetry Pacific with Allen Yuan. Writing credits include 12 Pushcart nominations for poetry and 3 for fiction besides appearances in Best of the Best Canadian Poetry (2008-17) and 2149 other publications worldwide. A poetry judge for Canada’s 44th National Magazine Awards, Yuan began writing and publishing fiction in 2022, his debut novel DETACHING, ‘silver romance’ THE TUNER and short story collection FLASHBACKS available at Amazon.  

You can find more of Yuan’s work here on Ink Pantry.

Agent S was sitting in a dingy hotel room staring at his service revolver on the table in front of him. The hotel was in a nondescript part of a town in a tiny, neutral country (Z) that bordered his (X) and another large country (Y), the enemy. His country and the enemy had fought several wars over a long period that dated back to his grandfather’s time as a foot soldier in the Army. The grandfather had died a few weeks after receiving commission in a desolate, cold, high-altitude outpost. His father, who served in the Air Force, had a distinguished career marked by quite a few distinctions for valor shown on the battlefield. In retirement, he often recounted what sounded like embellished versions of the dogfights he had been a part of. Agent S followed the family tradition and joined the Navy and then, after a long stint as a sailor, became part of a special forces team. By the time he joined the special forces team, he had already been through two wars. When his commander heard rumblings of another war, he decided to leave the special forces and join the intelligence services (XII). Agent S followed him. That was where the trouble began.

When Agent S was with the special forces team, he had worked closely with many in XII. The success or failure of the special forces teams’ missions depended on the quality of the intelligence provided by XII officers. They cultivated contacts in the enemy country, identified safe crossing points and plotted the routes to take, once in enemy territory. So, Agent S felt he was making a natural transition into his new role as a spook. After several months of high-pressure training and shadowing veterans, he was finally ready for his special assignment; to oversee the defection of an Air Force pilot from a base not far from the border. The pilot had been corrupted and compromised to the point where there was no likelihood of a double-cross.

The plan was for the pilot’s wife to leave her country on an early morning bus and commence a 10-hour journey to the neutral country where Agent S was supposed to meet her. Once she had crossed the border, he was supposed to alert his air-defense units to stand down, to ensure safe passage for the defector plane. He was then supposed to transmit the Go Code to his undercover operatives in the enemy territory. The pilot’s task was to change the path of a test flight and make a mad dash to the border, flying low to avoid detection by the enemy’s air defense system. It was a plan with so many moving pieces and any single piece out of place could have possibly doomed the entire project. Yet he was confident he was going to be able to pull it off.

When the station chief showed up at his hotel room early that morning (04.42), he felt a gut punch. He knew the news couldn’t be good. The station chief handed him a cryptic message. Decoded, it read, ‘Talks at critical stage. Cease all undercover operations.’ It came from the national security chief. Agent S was crushed. He thought of the poor woman who was on the bus on a strange journey. In a country where most women lived behind a veil, he imagined she was only doing what her husband had asked her to do, not knowing anything about her husband’s convoluted plot. Now, instead of meeting her husband’s ‘friend’ on the other side of the border, she was going to walk into the waiting arms of the military police on her own side. Her husband, in the meanwhile, would soon be either sitting in the stockade, head in his hands, or being whisked to an interrogation room in a special facility.  

Agent S thought he should feel guilty for thinking that his mission was more important than peace between two war-prone nations. But he didn’t. He told himself he was not going to apologize for thinking what a successful mission would have meant for his career. Maybe it was not the career that he cared about. It was his word. A lot of lives depended on his word: the pilot’s, the pilot’s wife, and those of the undercover operatives. Now they’re all going to be dead because he didn’t hold up his side of the bargain. Should he pick up the gun and blow his head off?

He wondered, what would George Palmer do?

Meanwhile, at Vauxhall Cross, intelligence officers were poring over information they had received on the border situation between countries X and Y. Fresh to arrive that morning was an intercept that read, ‘Talks at critical stage. Cease all undercover operations.’ Alerts went out to MI6 agents in countries X, Y and Z. Within hours they had pieced together details of the defection plot. It turned out that many of the operatives working on the defection plot were also on MI6 pay. The chief wanted to minimize damage all around, but didn’t want any of his agents involved in the mess. He sent for Peter English; said he was golfing that weekend with the PM, so would Peter be a trooper and give it some thought? ‘Have your ideas on my desk by Monday AM. Much appreciated, that’s a good fellow!’

English, somewhat at sixes and sevens, drove his Healey up to Bywater Street, for a rendezvous with his old mentor, George Palmer.

‘Well, George,’ asked English, ‘this is something of a fiasco, I’ll say! Am I allowed to pick your brain for any possible solution?’

‘Well, Peter, this Agent S has found himself in the kind of pickle I experienced in Sofia, Bulgaria, 1953. The whole operation was rolled up by Gala and chums, virtually overnight. Lost a lot of good agents to Moscow Central. Only narrowly escaped myself. Had to rely on the local ju-ju man to get me back through the curtain in one piece. Left by way of the old mole run. Popped up into Greece. Physically fine but dead inside.’

‘I don’t like moles.’

‘Me neither, Peter. Bill Blunt was responsible for the betrayal, though I didn’t suspect him at the time. Nobody did. Like when one crosses the road at Picadilly Circus, my head turned this way and that looking for a culprit.’

‘I once nearly got run over by a bus, there. A big, bloody double-decker! The number 37 to Pall Mall. I’m sure the driver was reading a newspaper at the time.’

‘Hope it was The Times.’

‘Quite. Anyway, what happened next, old chap?’

‘Director kept me at the Big Top for a month or two. Household chores. Light duties. He could see how shook up I was by the whole affair. Gave me a desk in a quiet corner and a bottle of Scotch.’

‘Shame about Director; dying like that at the cricket. Heart failure, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes; but Director wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. I kind of envy him; sitting there at Lords, watching the test match with the sun on his face; a glass of Pimm’s in his hand; the sound of leather on willow.’

‘Indeed, if you put it like that, old bean. How would you like to go, George?’

‘With a bullet in the back, of course. What more noble way for a spy to die?’

‘My thoughts, exactly. Say, George, you’re on fire today. It must be this whiskey; dammed fine stuff.’

‘It’s from Angela. Another sorry gift.’

‘Oh, and I’m sorry for asking, George. I didn’t mean to…’

‘No, no Peter. We are both men of the world and then some.’

‘Where is Angela now?’

‘My sources inform me she’s shacked-up with a young Italian army officer in Rome. Speaks fluent Italian, did you know? Clever girl.’

‘She’ll be back. You’ll see. It’s always the case. But returning to the story; continue with the narrative, if you will.’

‘Ah, well, sure enough, not much later, Director invited me for tea and crumpets at Fortnam and Mason. Y’know, to soften me up. In pretty much the same sentence, he said he could see I was my old self again; and that was fortunate because I was needed in the field. Prompto. Berlin. A veritable holiday park in those days. Never a dull moment.’

‘Good old Director. A golden heart below that cold, grey exterior. And did that do the trick; helped you recover from the Bulgarian fiasco?’

‘Yes and no. Being busy kept my mind off things but the hurt remained. Still does; as from other things, too.’

‘Of course, ‘Slowly the poison the whole blood stream fills.’

‘Yes, ‘The waste remains, the waste remains and kills.’ Empson. ‘Missing Dates’. Very good, Peter. You studied literature at university, didn’t you?’

‘And Arabic.’

‘A double First?’

‘Naturally.’

‘And was Cambridge to your taste?’

‘Stop messing with me George, you old devil. You know we both did our time at Oxford.’

‘Sorry, Peter; one whiskey too many. These cigarettes: strong flavour.’

‘Ukranian. I know they’re a little earthy, but I developed a taste for them whilst out there last summer. Only two packets left, unfortunately. So, what are we to do with this Agent S? By the look of this transcript, he’s feeling somewhat sorry for himself, poor darling. By the way, I hear Agent S is an Anglophile who hates whiskey; whilst his father, a Sandhurst graduate, had a weakness for Johnie Walker. Black label.’

‘Admirable taste for an army man. As for Agent S: fly a Scalphunter over. Persuade him, one way or another, to come work for the Circus asap; before he does something rather silly, such as batting for the other side. After the de-brief, give him a little tea and sympathy; a little R&R at the Circus won’t do any harm. Provide him with one of those mindful people, if need be.’

‘A counsellor?’

‘Yes, that’s the word I’m looking for.’

‘And then?’

‘Send him back out into the garden, of course. Get him to tend the flowers again. Stiff upper-lip and all that. A modest monetary donation from the Reptile Fund might be an incentive.’

‘Will do, George. Another tipple?’

‘Maybe that would be rather unwise. I’m rather on the wain, as they say. A little besotted by the bottle!’

‘Oh, don’t be a stuffed shirt! Hold out your glass.’

‘Okay, if I must.’

‘To the Service, George! Chin-chin!’

‘To the service, Peter. Bottoms-up!’

Balu Swami lives in the US. His works have appeared in Flash Fiction North, Ink Pantry, Short Kid Stories Literary Veganism and others.

You can find more of Balu’s work here on Ink Pantry.

John Caulton is the editor of the website ‘Flash Fiction North’. He is the author of a short story collection entitled ‘The Grass Whistle’.

You can find more of John’s work here on Ink Pantry.

Confession time. Let’s skip the fake remorse and start with the truth:
I’m a scammer.

Not some weepy, misunderstood grifter with a tragic backstory. No. I’m a specialist. I provide a premium service. Companionship with emotional flair. For a price. Sex and money. Sometimes one, sometimes both. It depends on the mark.

I charm. They disarm and are open to my racket. That’s the equation. Simple math..

And let’s get one thing straight right. There’s no wounded crying inner child. No broken home, no shadowy uncle, no addiction in the family tree. I had two stable, loving parents who packed my lunch, kissed me goodnight, and told me I could be anything. I had a golden retriever childhood. Big backyard. Siblings who didn’t hate me. I passed the marshmallow test for delayed gratification. I would have waited five hours for the second marshmallow. Please…. I have it in aces.

School? I did it all: sports, rocket club, debate club, model UN? Check, check, check, and absolutely.

So no, I’m not a broken man looking to fill a hole. I’m a man who sees what women want and give it to them in the exact currency they crave. Attention. Intimacy. The illusion of safety. The hope of everlasting commitment. And I take my fee like a professional.

Romance internet scams were my early portfolio. Sweet messages. Gentle flirting. Tailored promises of forever. Some I bedded. Some I borrowed from. All believed in my sincerity, until I ghosted them. I never felt bad. If anything, I felt noble. Teaching them a lesson: never trust too quickly, never believe in the Wizard of OZ.

But then the amateurs flooded in. Idiots with bad grammar and fake military IDs. They ruined it. Too obvious, too greedy, too soon to snare. The six figures I’d grown used to started evaporating.

So I pivoted.

Christmas dinner lit the match. My brother’s girlfriend mentioned she was in recovery, something about twelve steps and finding serenity. She spoke like it was church and therapy and family all rolled into one. I feigned empathy and extracted everything I needed: meeting formats, the “Big Book,” slogans like “easy does it,” “one day at a time,” and this delightful gem: “normies”—the word they used for people like me.

Except I’m not a normie. I’m their Higher Power.

I’m the First Step they never saw coming.

Alcoholics Anonymous. Goldmine. Women there are raw, cracked open, starving for connection. They’re taught to be honest, to trust, to work the steps, and to confess in front of strangers. They practically hand you their playbook of vulnerabilities.

I infiltrated. Sat in the circle with my most remorseful face. I shared “my story”—all fiction, perfectly paced. A few tears, a fake DUI, the “moment of clarity” sloppy drunk in a parking lot behind a gas station. It worked. They welcomed me like the prodigal son.

Now I’m hunting. Quietly. Respectfully.
I tell them they’re beautiful when they don’t feel it. I listen more earnestly than their ex-husbands or partners ever did. I know when to touch a hand, when to back away. I speak their language. I study them. I’m patient before I pounce.

They think I’m their savior. But I’m just collecting payments.

There’s no guilt. No shame. No need for therapy or jail time or a higher purpose. This is a business. My business. And business is good again. I waited patiently for two months.

Then I roped in my first new member. Easy peasy.

She was overweight, eyes red from crying, shoulders permanently slumped like she’d spent years apologizing for existing. Perfect. The kind who’s starved for kindness and hasn’t been truly seen in years.

I sat next to her in three meetings before saying a word. Just long enough to make her wonder if I might. On the fourth, I complimented her sharing, gently, respectfully. She gave me that puppy dog look. Hook set.

I played a long game. Walks after meetings. Long walks on the beach with deep, soulful eye contact. Museums, because they made me look sophisticated. Cozy romantic restaurants. I told her she was fascinating. That I loved how real she was. That her pain made her radiant. She had never been called radiant before.

When we finally had sex, she cried. Said it was the first time it felt like someone wanted her. I made it the best night of her life, slow, attentive, enough to pass for love.

Thirteenth stepping.

It’s an unwritten rule in AA: don’t date new members. Don’t prey on people just finding their footing. It’s not official doctrine, but it’s sacred. The group thrives on safety, trust, shared vulnerability. Break that, and you taint the whole well.

I didn’t break it. I bent it. I asked her to keep our relationship secret, too sacred to share with others.

***

3 Months later

Hooks set and I was reeling them in. The next months I was juggling three relationships. Not in the same group meetings but meetings far enough away not to slip up. I used the old borrowing con. Money was again flowing into my coffers. Sex was a bonus.

I didn’t see it coming. I didn’t count on women blabbing to their sponsors. You may have guessed by now that my perfect scheme unraveled.

I found out too late.

Unbeknownst to me, word had gotten around that a con artist had been preying upon AA members. Women I had previously courted—read: seduced, drained, discarded—compared notes. The pieces clicked, the anger boiled, and they formed a plan. They brought in a ringer, a woman who knew exactly how to play a man like me.

Her name was Delilah.

I know. I know. You can’t make this stuff up. The irony practically sweats off the page. Delilah was a professional actor. Older than she looked, younger than she acted. Gorgeous in that old-school Hollywood way: red lips, perfect posture, and a dynamite figure. She didn’t stumble into AA. She descended like an angel.

At first, she did the rounds like any new member. She sat quietly in the back, clutching her Styrofoam cup. But when it came time for cookies and punch, she stood out. The dress hugged her curves. The room of thirsty men, all dry from booze but parched for something else, circled her like moths.

But she had eyes for me.

After the meeting, she casually strolled over. She tilted her head and smiled just enough.

She said, “Let’s go for coffee. I’m dying for a cigarette.”

Coffee and cigarettes, the standard high for the AA losers.

Over the next few weeks, she let me believe I was running the game. She cried once during a share, about abandonment, about needing protection. I stepped in like a knight. We went on long drives, even a meditation retreat. She never let me touch her, said she was Catholic and saving herself for marriage. I thought it was a quaint boundary; one I could eventually bulldoze.

But here’s the thing: she had already bulldozed me.

While I was busy fantasizing about what would happen when she finally “gave in,” she had already gained access to the one thing that mattered to me: my online banking. She didn’t ask for it—no, she acted like she needed help setting up her own finances. I volunteered. Then she “accidentally” logged in on my phone. I had left it unlocked just long enough.

By the time I realized I’d been had, my accounts were drained. Every cent I had milked from my previous conquests was gone. The withdrawals were all legal. My passwords had been changed.

I still loved her. I tried to call her. Number disconnected.

She wasn’t at my next AA meeting. I looked around the room—sponsors and sponsees chatting, sharing, sipping coffee—and for the first time, I felt what my victims must’ve felt.

Naked. Duped. Powerless.

Delilah played me better than I’d ever played anyone. She didn’t just take my money; she took my delusion of superiority.

But the story doesn’t end there. Not even close.

I was exposed, humiliated, stripped of my pride, and left with barely enough to pay for a bottle. Then I did what most cowards do, I drank.

I drank until the sound of my own name made me wince. Until mornings came with tremors and nights came with blackouts. Until I found myself slumped behind a gas station dumpster, half-conscious, my pockets empty, and my pants wet. Call it karma, divine payback, or just gravity pulling me to where I belonged.

That was my bottom. And it was darker than anything I’d imagined.

The next morning, I attended the nearest AA meeting. I didn’t say a word that first day. Just listened. I hated everyone in that room. The earnestness. The chipper sobriety slogans on the wall. The way people clapped when someone said they’d gone thirty days without drinking and got a stupid chip, as if it was an Olympic medal.

But I kept going.

Week after week. Something about the rawness in their stories, their pain. They just… spoke it. And they listened. No one flinched when I said I’d manipulated women, stolen from them, lied about love. No one excused it either. They just kept saying, “Keep coming back.”

One of the old-timers who looked like he’d been carved out of a Camel commercial took me aside after a meeting. “You’re not unique,” he said. “Just sick. The good news is sick gets better if you work the steps. But only if.”

I started working them. I went back to school. Social work, of all things. I figured I should do something useful. I should try to help people I once saw as marks. I volunteered at the local domestic violence shelter. At first, the staff wouldn’t let me near anyone. I just filed papers and cleaned bathrooms. Fine. I deserved that.

But it was Step 9 that nearly broke me.

Making amends. Not just saying sorry but doing the work of apology. Owning it without asking for forgiveness. I spent weeks tracking down names I remembered, numbers I wasn’t sure were still good. I made lists. I prepared speeches.

One woman screamed at me before hanging up.

Another called me a sociopath and reported me to her therapist.

Only one agreed to meet me at a diner. She threw a glass of water in my face the moment I sat down. She said, “That’s for who I was when I met you. That girl deserved better.”

Then she got up and walked out. I never saw her again. But something in me changed that day. I didn’t feel vindicated. I didn’t feel punished. I just felt clean for the first time in years.

And now?

I still go to meetings. I still listen more than I talk. I sponsor a few guys who remind me of my old self.

Sobriety hasn’t made me holy. But it’s filled a hole.

Most days that’s enough.

Dr. Weiner has over 40 years’ experience as a clinical psychologist who
specializes in trauma recovery and anxiety disorders. He enjoys using stories
to help readers harness their resilience within to aid them on their healing
journey. He has been published in a variety of professional journals and
fiction in magazines. His psychology books include Shattered Innocence and the
Curio Shop. Non-psychology publications are Across the Borderline and The Art
of Fine Whining. He has a monthly advice column in a Portland Newspaper, AskDr.Neil.

“Don’t answer that,” I told my wife, when the house phone rang for the fifth time early that morning.

When she had answered the first four times, whoever was at the other end waited long enough for her to know someone was on the line, then disconnected. This had been going on for several weeks and had become a growing irritation. Caller I.D. had been blocked, so we couldn’t tell who was harassing us.

“We may as well let the answering machine pick up,” Madeline suggested. “This way we can screen the calls and only answer those we want to.”

It was a sensible, practical solution to the problem and I tried to suppress my anger at this persistent phone intruder. It took another two weeks for the frequency of the calls to diminish, then they became sporadic and we thought the situation was resolved. We started answering the phone again, but a few days later the anonymous calls resumed. We had to be at the office by 8:30 a.m., so we didn’t have much time for our daily routine to be distracted by annoying phone calls.

We both worked at the Outreach Center. Madeline was the executive director and I was the program officer. The Center provided social services to homeless families with children who were placed in temporary shelters, without services. We provided referrals for housing, medical and dental treatment and other needs. Somehow we began giving meals and life skills workshops to several of the family’s children and we needed a social worker to deal with a case load that kept growing.

Madeline and I met at Gotham University, in New York City. We were very different people. She was a dedicated jock who believed in liberal causes. I was a computer and gamer type who believed that child molesters should get the death penalty. My sister had been molested when she was seven years old and it took her a long time to get over it. Madeline was opposed to the death penalty and we argued about it often, never reaching a compromise.

But we found many things in common. She loved poetry and got me to read her favorites, Blake, Emily Dickenson, Whitman, Rimbaud, Rilke and others. I liked them. I introduced her to the world of gaming and she actually got involved in a series of women’s war games and was a fierce competitor. One big quality we had in common was we both wanted to serve the needy.

In our junior year, a close friend, Warren, inherited a huge amount of money from a trust fund when he turned 21. He half jokingly asked our opinion what he should do with his new fortune and Maddie instantly replied:

“When we graduate, fund a program to help the homeless. Charlie and I will run it.”

‘Wait a second! What do you think you’re doing, committing me to some kind of project?’ But I didn’t say it. I only thought it. From that moment on she took charge of our lives, which now included romance and marriage. Warren didn’t know how tenacious Maddie could be. After graduation and our wedding, where he was our best man, she persuaded him to put up $150,000 a year for five years to start a not-for-profit organization to serve homeless families with children. After that we would be on our own.

We rented an office and workshop space in the East 30’s, in an old commercial loft building. Then we reluctantly gave up our dorm rooms that had been so comfortable for the last four years, rented an apartment in an old walk-up tenement building off Third Avenue in the twenties, and began a new life. We quickly got more and more involved with the homeless children, many of whom we discovered were gifted and talented. So we started a computer learning center and more and more kids came to us. A lot of them weren’t in school, so one of our goals was to get them all into classrooms. The problem was we didn’t have enough time or personnel to deal with all the needs and services the kids required.

If we wanted to continue working with the kids, we needed someone capable to help with them. That’s when the complications grew. $150,000 a year may seem like a lot to some people, but after rent, $2,600 per month, Madeline’s executive director salary, $30,000, my $28.,000, we’d have to hire a social worker, at $35,000. All the other expenses, insurance, electricity, the list went on and on. This meant we didn’t have much money for a project coordinator. After some quick grant writing and Mad’s funding efforts we raised $15,000, so we could pay someone $24,000, which would mean our stretching every dollar for the rest of our expenses. But we started interviewing candidates.

The kids were mostly black or hispanic, so we wanted to hire someone who could relate to them. However, the only qualified applicants wouldn’t work for that low salary. And I couldn’t blame them. We finally hired a bright young black woman, a recent college graduate, on a two week trial basis. She seemed to be afraid of the kids and quit after the first week, without explanation. Then we hired a young latino man, but we found out he was bribing the kids to participate in life skills workshops, with trips to McDonalds and promises of new sneakers. Mad fired him. We were getting desperate. I was leading most of the life skills workshops, which I enjoyed immensely, even though I didn’t always know what I was doing. Yet I didn’t have time to do program development, grant writing and outreach to all the agencies and services we needed. Then Michael Donnigan applied for the job.

Michael was in his 40’s, with a history of working for not-for-profit public service organizations. He had a great resume, outstanding references that Mad called and he made a very positive impression. So we hired him. He started his two week trial period on a Monday and spent the first few days going through our records and program guidelines, which seemed to take a lot of time away from the kids. Then somehow he always had a conflict when it was time to do something with the kids. This was disturbing, but I talked to him and he seemed to understand what was required. On Thursday he took the kids to Madison Square Park, then he didn’t come in on Friday. We only found out later that day that while they were in the park he yelled at the kids for making too much noise. Some local parents tried to calm him, but he cursed them and stormed off abandoning the kids.. Of course we decided to fire him.

He didn’t come in Monday. I phoned him, but only got voice mail and left a message asking him to call me. He didn’t. When he didn’t call or show on Tuesday, I phoned him and left a message firing him. I would have preferred to do it face to face, but he didn’t give me any choice. Our good judgment was confirmed when some of the kids told us he ordered them around nastily and treated them disrespectfully. He finally came to the office on Friday and wanted two weeks pay, as well as severance. I told him we’d pay him for the first week, even though he walked off the job on Thursday, but there was no severance, since he wasn’t a regular employee, but was hired on a trial basis. He took his check, told me he’d sue us for wrongful termination and stormed out. We were relieved to see him go.

We hired a young black man who wanted to get children’s services experience and he fit right in from the first day. He liked and respected the kids and they really took to him. We forgot about our previous employee, until we got a subpoena to appear in court. This was a new experience for us. I had never been to court and Mad’s vast experience had been when she paid a traffic ticket once. We did some quick research on the internet, learned we needed a lawyer and Mad contacted a legal referral agency. They told her to ask large law firms for a pro bono attorney who would handle our case. Mad called several firms and one responded, assigning a young associate to meet with us. After a mutually satisfactory meeting, Mary Takagawa took our case.

Mary, a recent Columbia Law School graduate, was barely 5 feet tall, but full of energy and resolve. She had played the cello since childhood, the instrument almost bigger than she, and was sensitive to the plight of her clients. She admitted she knew nothing about labor or wrongful termination law, but researched enthusiastically online. The first hearing was to determine if the plaintiff’s case had sufficient merit to proceed. The judge, actually a lawyer doing court service, an older white woman with an abrupt, almost nasty manner, terrified Mary, who was almost tongue tied. We had hoped for a dismissal, but this was not to be.

The judge scheduled a hearing in a month and Donnigan cordially said goodbye to us, as if this was nothing personal. Mary apologized for her inadequacy, admitting she never appeared in front of a judge before, and vowed to do better next time. Mary was more confident at the next hearing, which had a new judge, a very pleasant, reasonable woman, who stated that not-for-profit public services groups deserved a fair chance to be heard. Mary presented a basic case, outlining the terms of employment and the circumstances that led to termination. Donnigan contradicted those facts, raved about how he was injured on the job and exploited. He presented an alternate scenario and claimed there was no two week trial period. It was our word against his. The judge scheduled a hearing in a month, at which time we could present evidence proving our claims. After abusing us verbally in front of the judge, he bid us a courteous farewell, assuming a lawyer’s persona, which Mary thought was crazy.

At the next hearing we brought letters from former applicants and our current employee, attesting they were told of a two week trial period. Donnigan, citing case law, insisted that the letters didn’t allow cross examination, accused us of forgery, and insisted we were colluding against him. He accused us of nepotism, husband and wife getting government money and exploiting the children. He called us dirty names and when Mary objected to his tirade he told the judge he was being persecuted by a big firm lawyer. Mary’s heartfelt declaration:

“Your honor. This man has more experience then I do,” gave us a laugh, but another hearing was scheduled.

Now that Mary was in an actual courtroom fight, her samurai spirit emerged and she was determined to prevail. She persuaded her supervising attorney at her firm to give her the services of an investigator. The investigator discovered that Donnigan’s employment history and references were false. He had a pattern of either being fired or quitting previous jobs, then suing for wrongful termination. He had worked for the Department of Sanitation, was constantly late, out sick, or walked off the job after disputes with his supervisor. In one ugly incident, he dumped a load of garbage on a supervisor’s lawn and porch. He was dismissed and filed a wrongful termination suit that was still going on. The judge learned these facts, dismissed the case, Donnigan thanked her politely, then said goodbye to us politely, as if this was just a lawyer’s lost battle, not an involved individual.

We promptly forgot about him and went on with our lives and work. Until Mad told me she thought she saw him following her when she left the office to go to a meeting. We talked about it and finally shrugged it off, until she saw him again. And we started getting phone calls at night, just like the earlier ones. Mad started to see him every time she left the office and I knew she wasn’t imagining it. We were playing Pokemon-Go one afternoon in front of Macy’s, at 34^th Street and Herald Square, and we both saw him. I decided to confront him and went towards him, but he disappeared into the crowd of shoppers and ‘pokies’.

We decided that this was becoming a problem and went to our local precinct to file a complaint. The sympathetic desk Sergeant informed us that since Donnigan had made no overt threats and we had no evidence that he was making the phone calls, there was nothing the police could do.

“You should file an official complaint, so if he ever crosses the line in any way, we’ll have a record that can be used against him.”

“Thanks, Sergeant Paxton,” Mad said. “Any suggestions how we should deal with this?”

“Yeah. Don’t go anywhere alone for a while. Be more aware of your surroundings and monitor things more carefully. If there’s any kind of incident call 911.”

“Thanks, Sergeant Paxton,” we both said.

This was a new experience for us and we had a long talk about whether or not Donnigen was dangerous. I dismissed him as a nut job, with nothing better to do at the moment.

“As soon as he gets a job and gets on with his life we’ll have seen the last of him.”

“I hope you’re right,” Mad replied. “But there’s something wrong with him. I think he’s mentally disturbed and we should take the cop’s suggestions seriously.”

“Agreed.”

We kept seeing him at a distance, but as soon as he saw that we noticed him, he quickly departed. The phone calls continued at night, sometimes going on for hours. We talked about the problem, but couldn’t figure out what to do. When Mad suggested we get a gun I couldn’t tell if she was kidding, or not. We were playing Pokemon-Go one evening and we went to the subway station at Park Avenue and 23^rd Street. We were on the platform and Mad suddenly poked me.

“Look. It’s him.”

I made eye contact with Donnigan and he grinned…. No. He smirked at me, letting me know he was getting to us and it would continue. I started towards him, anger changing to rage, just as the train came in. He waved at me dismissively, turned to melt into the crowd and I don’t know if he tripped, or was jostled, but he fell on the tracks. People started screaming and the train came to a stop. A lot of the crowd left the station realizing the tie up could be for hours. I stood there stunned, then turned to Mad, who didn’t know what happened.

“Donnigan fell in front of the train.”

She was shocked, but said: “Is he dead?”

“I don’t know. Should we stay and find out?”

“No. Let’s go.”

“We could tell the cops who he is.”

“Did you push him?”

“Of course not,” I replied indignantly.

“Then let’s get out of here.”

We left as the cops and emergency personnel came thundering down the stairs.

That night there was a short article on the internet about the man who fell on the subway tracks and was killed, but nothing after that. Someone had been devoured by the ravenous city, quickly forgotten in the throb and pulse of continuity. There were no phone calls that day and none after that, a definite indication that Donnigan was the culprit and could no longer call out from wherever he was.

A few days later we got a call from Sergeant Paxton from the local precinct. He spoke to Mad and I listened in.

“Did you folks know the guy you complained about was killed in the subway?”

“No. When did it happen?”

“A few days ago. He fell on the tracks at the 23^rd Street station. Some eyewitnesses said he tripped and no one pushed him. I guess he won’t be bothering you anymore.”

“Those phone calls stopped.”

“Then your complaint will just be filed away somewhere. Funny how things work out sometimes.”

“Isn’t it. Thanks for calling, Sergeant Paxton.”

“You take care,” and he disconnected.

We looked at each other for a few moments, then I said:

“I almost feel sorry for the guy, dying like that.”

“Well I don’t,” Mad responded. “I’m glad he’s gone, before he did anything worse to us.”

“That’s a bit harsh.”

“What if he got crazier and violent and hurt us? How would you feel then?”

I thought about it, then answered:

“I’d never forgive myself if he hurt you.”

“Then forget him. It’s time to get on with our lives.”

“Weird how things work out sometimes,” I mused.

“Yeah. Now come to bed. I want to celebrate being alive.”

“Is that an order or request?”

“Whatever brings you to my arms.”

Gary Beck has spent most of his adult life as a theater director and worked as an art dealer when he couldn’t earn a living in the theater. He has also been a tennis pro, a ditch digger and a salvage diver. His original plays and translations of Moliere, Aristophanes and Sophocles have been produced Off Broadway. His poetry, fiction, essays and plays have appeared in hundreds of literary magazines and his traditionally published books include 43 poetry collections, 18 novels, 4 short story collections, 2 collections of essays and 8 books of plays. Gary lives in New York City..

You can find more of Gary’s work here on Ink Panty.