“Smegma. Dirk Smegma.”
“No need for an introduction,” Bonanza said. “Your reputation proceeds you.”
“Does it now?”
“It does,” Bonanza said. “And that is why I’m here.”
“To join the mile-high club, darling?” Smegma inquired. “There’s always room for another member.”
“No, Agent Smegma,” Bonanza said as she handed over her card. Smegma inspected the credential. It read: “Cooter Bonanza, Attorney-at-Law. Central Intelligence Agency, Human Resources Division. Langley, VA.”
Smegma crumpled up the card and tossed it over his shoulder, uncaring as to where the rubbish would end up. “A lawyer. How positively dreadful. I was so much happier when I thought you were here. to treat my…head.”
“Comments like that are why I’m here,” Bonanza said. “Sir, in light of the me too movement…”
The agent cleared his throat. “The what now?”
“The me too movement,” Bonanza said. “Agent Smegma, do you go on the Internet regularly?”
“No,” Smegma said. “I’m attractive.”
“Well,” Bonanza said. “I’ll have you know that women the world over are logging on and shouting to the rooftops in great detail the stories of abuse they have suffered at the hands of powerful men.”
“I see,” Smegma said. “Good for them. So, I take it, they are sending these accounts to the police?”
Bonanza clutched a strand of pearls that dangled around her neck. “You cad! Why would you ever expect abused women to discuss the personal details of the crimes against them to the police?”
Smegma sipped his rum and generic cola. “Because the police are in charge of solving crimes. You just answered your own question, darling.”
The attorney’s jaw dropped. “Sir! I demand you cease your horrid mansplaining at once!”
The agent raised his right eyebrow. “I’m sorry, darling, but I’ll stop mansplaining just as soon as you start woman-understanding.”
Bonanza’s face turned red. “Agent Smegma, women who have been abused must be protected by society at all costs and they shouldn’t have to re-live the worst experience of their lives all over again by having to tell the police about it.”
“You’ve got me there,” Smegma said. “We hail from a free country. Ergo, a woman’s business is her own and if she’d rather not speak to the authorities, I sympathize. I barely trust the government I work for so I’m not about to tell others that they should.”
“You’ve missed the point, Cro-Magnon,” Bonanza said.
“Feel free to enlighten me anytime, darling. Over and over again, if possible.”
“When women want to smash the patriarchy by utilizing social media to broadcast the details of the heinous acts perpetrated against them, we must support them,” Bonanza said.
“Darling,” Smegma said. “Let me see if I have this straight. It’s too hard for women to report crimes perpetrated against them to the police which, and I freely admit, has its share of imbeciles but by and large, most police officers are professionals trained how to interact with the victims of crime with the utmost discretion?”
“Precisely.”
“And yet,” Smegma said. “It’s much easier for women to jump onto Lifebox, grab a virtual bullhorn, and inform any fool with a keyboard about the heinous acts perpetrated against them?”
Bonanza was speechless.
“It’s too hard to tell Officer Jones but telling Lifebox users with silly names like FuckFace69 MeowKittySparkleNuts is a mere walk in the park?”
Smegma waited patiently for an answer, but hearing none, he took another sip of his drink. Bonanza balled her fists, clenched her teeth, and seethed with rage.
“Darling,” Smegma sat in an effort to cut the tension. “We may have different ways of expressing ourselves but when it comes down to it, I doubt we’re very far apart on this issue. I, for one, would gladly snip off the testicles of every man who has so much as thought about committing rape and boil them in hot oil.”
“Good,” Bonanza said. “And on that note, I’ve come to talk to you about…”
Smegma sat up in his seat. “Wait. What in the devil’s name has any of this got to do with me? If you’re implying that I’ve ever engaged in sexual congress without a woman’s consent…”
Bonanza stared coldly at the spy. “But haven’t you?”
“Of course not.”
The attorney repeated the question, leaning into it this time. “But haven’t you?”
“Never!” Smegma held up the palms of his hands and held them out on opposite ends of his head, framing his face. “Darling, have you gotten a good look at me? This puddum is all the consent I’ve ever needed.”
Bonanza scoffed. “My word. They told me you were an unabashed egomaniac, but I never dreamed…”
Smegma cut his inquisitor off. “…that you’d ever meet a man so dashing? So bold? So macho?”
“So deranged,” Bonanza said.
“Attorney Bonanza,” Smegma said. “I’m sorry, but your superiors have sent you on a fool’s errand. Every sexual act I’ve ever engaged in has been purely, one-hundred percent consensual without question.”
“Without question?” Bonananza repeated.
“Absolutely without question,” Smegma answered. “My dear, I did not ask to be one of the most absurdly handsome men to ever walk the face of the planet, but unlike the small percentage of men who look like, I didn’t squander my gift. I didn’t become a gigolo to lonely old women or work my way into the sleazy underbelly of the gay porno industry or even, god help me, become a politician. No, instead what God gave me to save my country more times than I care to remember.”
“Is that right?” Bonanza asked.
“It is,” Smegma said. “You shouldn’t be here to chastise me. If anything, you should be here to give me a medal.”
The blonde opened her brief case and pulled out a thick file folder. “Agent Smegma, have you ever heard of the term, ‘informed consent?’”
Smegma stared blankly at his inquisitor. “The who now in the what now?”
“Informed consent,” Bonanza said. “It’s when an individual is made fully aware of every last possible consequence of the action they’re being asked to engage in so as to ensure that the decision made is genuine.”
“I don’t follow,” Smegma said.
Bonanza pulled her martini glass out of the cupholder in her seat. “If I offered this to you, would you drink it?”
“Sure.”
“And if I told you up front there was poison in the glass, would you still consume it?”
“No.”
“If I were to allow you to assume that the drink was fine, only to tell you after you swallow it that it had been poisoned, would you feel betrayed?”
“Yes, but…”
Smegma fell back into his seat. “Oh…shitballs.”
“Shitballs, indeed, Agent Smegma.”
The agent pondered the quandary for a bit before he offered a defense. “Wait. Darling, I’m in the business of obtaining information, the type of data that can be used to stop evildoers from committing the most vile acts possible against God and country.”
“I’m aware,” Bonanza said.
“I take it you’ve been read in on my greatest accomplishments?”
“I have.”
“Then,” Smegma said. “You know that I’ve kept the East Coast from being nuked twice, the West Coast from being nuked thrice, the Midwest from being burned to a crisp via a massive magnifying glass that was constructed on the surface of the moon…”
Bonanza waved her hand, trying to get the agent to stop. “Agent Smegma…”
“I foiled a Cambodian plot to kidnap sixteen sitting U.S. Senators and replace them with robotic facsimiles. I stopped a helicopter full of explosives from crashing into Mount Rushmore. I have diffused 1,049 bombs, extricated 329 damsels in distress from imminent peril, disarmed three separate weather controlling machines and one earthquake causing machine…”
“Agent Smegma…”
“Abroad,” Smegma said. “I snatched the British Prime Minister from the jaws of a hungry lion, prevented a war between France and Spain, stopped a chemical weapons attack that would have wiped out all of Brazil, and don’t even get me started on the Canadians. Oh, they pretend their so polite, but do you have any idea what they tried to do?”
Bonanza nodded in the affirmative. “I do, but…”
“That thing with the hijacked tanker full of jet fuel and the homing pigeons and the secret army of eunuch assassins and the boxes of autographed Anne Murray photos?”
“Everyone is aware of that,” Bonanza said. “But what I want to know is do you have any idea how many women you have taken advantage of throughout the course of your career?”
Without skipping a beat, Smegma offered an instant reply. “1,387.”
The attorney’s eyes widened. She flipped through her notes. “You…what? How…but…really? I don’t think anyone at the CIA realized it was that high.”
“I don’t report every little tryst, darling,” Smegma said. “If I did, I’d do nothing but paperwork. But rest assured I never seduced a villain’s moll unless it was an absolute last resort, that there was no other way to get the information I required to save lives.”
“And before your so-called seductions, you never informed them that you were an intelligence operative seeking to bring down the evil organizations operated by their vile boyfriends?”
Smegma doubled over in laughter. “I’m sorry,” he said as he wiped away a tear. “It’s just that, surely you know as well as the next woman that the quickest way to dry up a vagina is to mire a woman in nerd bullshit.”
The look on Bonanza’s face indicated that she did not find Smegma’s antics humorous in any way, whatsoever.
Smegma straightened up his face and made an attempt to be serious. “Darling, you’re a healthy, young woman, you must know that…”
“We’re not here to talk about me, Agent Smegma,” Bonanza said. “We’re here to talk about how you lie to women to get into their pants, how you put them into danger to get what you want and how the agency won’t tolerate it another day longer.”
“Lie is such a strong word, my dear,” Smegma said.
“What would you call it?”
The agent considered the question. “Fantasy fulfillment.”
Bonanza sipped her martini. “Oh, brother.”
“The women I’m dealing with in the field, Attorney Bonanza, are what you might call, for lack of a better term, professional hot chicks,” Smegma said. “They exist all over the world. They’re a dime a dozen. I’m talking about women who put all of their time, money and effort into their looks. Some use their beauty to reach the zenith of their profession. I’m sure you didn’t make it in the legal sector based on long nights with your nose stuck in law books alone.”
“You’d be wrong,” Bonanza said.
“So, you say,” Smegma said. “Though something tells me that your superior looks didn’t hurt your career prospects. And while some attractive women climb those ladders and put cracks in the proverbial glass ceiling, others simply seek to land a man. A rich man. A wealthy, obscenely powerful man.”
Bonanza stammered. “That’s…that’s not…that never happens and…”
Smegma glared at the blonde until she relented. “OK, I suppose that happens.”
“Trophies,” Smegma said. “But do you think a trophy can ever be truly happy?”
“I don’t know.”
“How could it be?” Smegma asked. “It sits there on a shelf, occasionally admired by the man who won it. It looks nice and pretty but it is never allowed to excel or achieve, to live and love, to have a mind of its own.”
The blonde frowned. “How awful.”
Smegma stood up and made his way to the bar. He refreshed his drink, pouring equal parts run and generic cola into his glass, followed by a scoop of ice. “When I come along, these women are so thrilled to have a man as absurdly good looking as they are who is willing to listen to all of their hopes, dreams, and fears that they can’t help but spill the treacherous secrets of their boyfriends along the way. May I?”
Bonanza looked at the hunk’s outstretched arm and realized he was offering to fix her another drink. “Please,” she replied.
Smegma took the glass and went to work. He poured in some gin, added vermouth, swirled the concoction about and added an olive on a toothpick. He then returned to his seat and handed the lady her booze.
“Much obliged,” Bonanza said.
“Don’t mention it,” Smegma said.
“Despite your archaic embrace of outdated patriarchal norms, it’s nice to see you don’t view the practice of fixing a drink as quote unquote ‘woman’s work,’ Agent Smegma,” Bonanza said.
“Not at all,” the agent replied. “What kind of a man would I be if I saw you sitting there, exhausted by a career that no doubt comes with all sorts of trials and tribulations and I didn’t offer my assistance?”
“That’s charming,” Bonanza said. “But if we could get back to…”
Smegma interrupted the lady. “What troubles you?”
“I’m sorry?”
“There’s no need to apologize, my dear,” Smegma said. “You live a difficult life. I can see it in your eyes. The burdens you must carry as a lawyer for a governmental organization that’s constantly getting itself into one international jam after another. Please, lay some of that weight on me.”
Bonanza and Smegma locked eyes. They leaned forward, pursed their lips, and drew closer and closer until the lady pushed the man back.
“Ugh!” Bonanza cried. “You animal! I can’t believe you thought that would work on me!”
“It did.”
Bonanza comported herself. “It did not.”
“It almost did,” Smegma said as he held his thumb and pointer finger together. “Just a little bit.”
“Enough!” Bonanza said. “Agent Smegma, you cannot, under any circumstances, bilk women into falling in love with you without telling them that you’re a spy.”
Smegma swirled his glass around in his hand. “Honestly darling, on some level, they already know.”
“And what makes you think that?”
“These women,” Smegma said. “These professional trophies…they go from one rich fool to the next and do you think any of these men work out? Take care of their bodies? That they can do even one sit-up? That they’ve done any work to cultivate their intellects or personalities? These men are usually gross boors and by the time these lovely ladies see me, they’re ready to pounce like a cat on a mouse.”
“Because you dupe them into thinking you’re going to whisk them away to a better life,” Bonanza said.
Smegma chuckled. “And now you’re the one who is selling these women short. Darling, these ladies know more about the inequities of life, the utter unfairness of it all, that they are never truly surprised when it turns out I’ve double-crossed them. Oh sure, they feign surprise but deep down, they always knew I was too good to be true, that life is so cold and cruel that a knight in shining armor would never come to them so easily. They all had a little voice telling them that I was up to something and they all chose to ignore it because I offered them the brief escape from the lives of villainous servitude that they so desperately despised.”
“Not to mention that you effectively relieved them of their lives altogether,” Bonanza said. “Seeing as how villains never fail to seek vengeance against those who betray them.”
The agent nodded, matter-of-factly. “It’s all part of the game. They know they’re tempting fate the second they press their lips against mine.”
Bonanza and Smegma leaned in once more. They pursed their lips and this time, the blonde didn’t fight it. She pressed her lips against his and the pair became wild with passion. Arms went everywhere. Tongues danced. Spit was swapped. She ended up in his lap.
For a moment, the make-out session stopped. “Damn you, Dirk Smegma!”
The spy grinned. “If I had a nickel for every time…”
Bookshelf Battle 