Chapter 24
Chapter twenty-four
Bess
Iplod back to the library after having recorded the TikTok of the sixth wartime love letter when I should be skipping across the street.
I have all the reasons. Viewing numbers are still astronomical, orders are still streaming in via the online store, My Whatever It Takes painting sold for over ten thousand pounds. Things are continuing on the up.
Except. I've just checked my Gmail account.
The top email in my inbox is notification of the mortgage application I submitted last week.
Declined.
It's only one bank, but I can't make the books look any better. They're performing beautifully. The problem is, they've only been performing beautifully for about two weeks. I need at least a year, preferably two, of fat profitability – no matter what the bank.
I have to find some other financial weapon for my arsenal, and I have absolutely no idea how to acquire one.
My afternoon doesn't look like it wants to improve any time soon.
Standing at the gallery counter is Jason Travers, the scrote I targeted in my megaphone TikTok.
Jason is wearing jeans that look like they could house a whole other person and categorically doesn't look like a purchaser of fine art or hand-crafted jewellery.
Judging from the sneer on his face, he's doing a committed job of scrutinising them, however.
He's here for another reason.
I say, "Hello, Jason," from the doorway and he lets out a tiny squeal and jerks around to face me.
"Geez, Bess. You could give a man some warning."
"I thought 'hello' might be warning enough. What can I do for you?" I move towards the back of the counter, but he blocks my way.
"I've...come to remind you whose world you're lucky enough to be allowed a part of."
Jason is not particularly short, nor is he particularly tall. I am, however, not far off six foot, so we stand eye-to-eye.
I'm not exactly sure what Jason is talking about, but I do wonder if he has, perhaps, been watching too many Andrew Tate videos.
I don't bother to give him the benefit of the doubt. I take a step forwards. "You're in my world now, Jason. And you are lucky enough to not be allowed part of it. Get out of my way."
Jason swallows. "No."
"Are you just going to stand there blocking my way, or are you going to tell me why you're here?"
The decision is clearly too much for him. He blinks, but neither moves nor says anything.
I cluck my tongue and push past him. Waking the computer, I check for any new orders. "Out with it, Jason, or leave."
He takes two noisy, hurried breaths, then says in a rush, "I was recognised on your TikTok and been given a whole lot of shit by my friends, my family, pricks online who don't even know me and are calling me a beta because I let a woman do that to me, and the police have come around to have a word about me doing burnouts.
I've done nothing to you and you've ruined my life. "
I stop and look up at him.
His chest rises and falls rapidly.
"You got some ribbing, you had a police warning and no charges, a bit of trolling from people who have no meaning in your life, and you've been called the type of man every woman wants, because none of them – news flash – are actually interested in alphaholes. It's hardly a life in ashes Jason."
He prods his chest. "I'm a victim."
"Yeah, of your own stupidity."
"You emasculated me." His voice rises and cracks on the second syllable of "emasculated".
"You were behaving inappropriately in a library and incriminated yourself by talking at volume about shredding your tyres doing burnouts."
He pauses as if considering my words. And then ignores them. "I'm not a beta."
I sigh. "If that whole alpha, sigma, beta bullshit were a scientifically-backed social hierarchy – and it's not – being an easygoing, sensitive guy is a good thing. It makes you a much better person."
"It makes me weak."
"It makes you the kind of person who might actually get a girlfriend."
Jason's eyes strain against the muscles anchoring them to his skull. "I've had girlfriends."
I raise an eyebrow and will myself not to blink.
He shoves his hands in his pockets, and after fifteen seconds of bravely accepting my challenge, loses. "I have had girlfriends."
"A girlfriend who might be happy to actually stick around."
Jason's eyes narrow at this, like something's shifted within him. A changing of gears. A trigger switch. He pulls a hand out of his pocket and raises his fist towards me, finger pointing. "I'm sick of all your negging. I'm exactly the kind of man bitches fall over themselves for."
I wince. "Jason, is your mother happy about the way you talk about women?"
"I don't care what my mother thinks. She's a woman."
Of course he doesn't. Poor Jason. He's right. He is a victim. It's strange to view this other side of the social media influencing coin. That certain messages, repeated and shared enough can turn people into the ugliest versions of themselves.
At least, I hope it's the other side of the social media influencing coin. That my messaging can't be – hasn't been – interpreted in any kind of destructive way.
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 TikToks you've tried 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 my Whatever It Takes painting, 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 exactly what will it take?