At an abandoned shopping center is where we find Esmeralda von Krauss and the women she took from the Dirty Secret. They are inside the largest store and are in a circle. With them, are four of Esmeralda’s female Judges.
They are Minerva, Juno, Vesta, and Salacia. So named for Roman goddesses. The former hookers have been renamed into Nordic names, whatever their former lives were. We will not list them out right now being that there are twenty of them. They are all dressed in exquisite short gowns that allow for a freedom of movement and are made over to look more like high class whores than the abused ones that they were.
Esmeralda von Krauss lights up an Egyptian cigarette in a deep red foot long holder as she walks around the outside of this circle of new recruits.
Esmeralda: You have all proven that you can take abuse, both in your previous job and in the past few days. Now I would like to see if you can dish it out to see what we’re working with. I want to see how far we need to go to get all of you trained to deal with the world and your targets. Minerva, stand in the circle. Kristin, dahling, show us how you would take her down.
Kristen walks from the circle to Minerva where they begin circling around one another to find an opening by which to attack.
Kristen takes a swing at Minerva, but it’s a clumsy one. Minerva grabs the wrist, pulls her down, and applies a hammerlock on the downed girl. Kristen cries out in pain.
Kristen: I give! I give!
Minerva releases the hold and helps Kristen up.
Esmeralda: Back into the circle, dahling. That was terrible!
Kristen steps back into the circle with a sniff.
Esmeralda takes a drag of her cigarette and blows the smoke into the air before she shakes her head.
Esmeralda: Are you crying?
Kristen shakes her head, but wipes at her eyes. Esmeralda just sighs.
Esmeralda: I could have had Minerva snap your arm like a twig, but this is to find out what level you all are at currently. Janne, Greta go!
Janne and Greta leap into the area from the circle on opposite sides of Minerva. She spins around slowly in a circle while the two circle around her to try to keep them both in her sight. They launch an attack at the same time, but Minerva sidesteps Janne’s punch and grabs her by the front of the dress. She throws Janne into the path of Greta to knock them both down.
Esmeralda: GENUG! No wonder you were all beaten as whores! You have not a single inkling of attack or defense. We will start training you all from scratch. We will train you as if you were all helpless little babies. Minerva, start them on punching drills.
Minerva: Line up!
The Valkyries slowly get themselves into a single file line. Minerva sighs.
Minerva: No, no, no. Get into orderly rows. Five rows of four! Go!
Minerva is joined in the front of the class by the other trainers.
Minerva: When I yell strike, you visualize one of your former tormentors and punch them with all of your might. Got it?
Valkyries: Yes!
Minerva: STRIKE!
All twenty of the girls punch out at once. Well, okay…within a few seconds of one another since it is not all at once. None of it looks good.
Minerva: Like so!
Minerva launches into an attack with her right hand that puts her strength and her body weight behind it to strike the air. She repeats the move several times for the girls to be able to see how it is done. Esmeralda von Krauss watches with a smile, smoking away at her cigarette.
Esmeralda: You see how it’s done, dahlings? Throw a punch like you want to punch through a man’s skull or chest. Do not settle for petty little taps. You are dangerous women who are being trained to kill targets. You are not going to be panda little women who do nothing but lay on their backs and get beaten. Those women are gone forever. My Valkyries remain.
Minerva: Do you need to see the punch again? Punch to kill. STRIKE!
The entire class throw punches, this time they are closer in unison and technique.
Esmeralda: I like it. There is some improvement already. Again.
Minerva: STRIKE! STRIKE! STRIKE!
The Valkyries snap off three punches in succession, each punch looking better than the last.
Esmeralda: Let’s try a standard side kick.
Minerva: Watch and learn, Valkyries! Standard side kick!
Minerva throws out a super kick that would have elicited awe from Shawn Michaels. She repeats it several more times in what seems to be slow motion.
Minerva: KICK!
The class all kicked, but the results were less than spectacular. A few of the Valkyries kick each other in the back of the head. About half the class fall down from either being kicked or some mishap of balance with their kick.
Esmeralda flicks her cigarette away where it bounces off of the floor in an explosion of sparks.
Esmeralda: I’m going to call in some basic defense trainers before we go into the advanced class. Learn how to fend off muggers, rapists, and abusive security guards before you get into the more advanced fighting techniques.
Esmeralda smirks as she watches the faces of the Valkyries fall as they anticipate more work to be done in their future in learning how to be Judges. She lights a fresh Egyptian cigarette, regarding the class with a grin.
Esmeralda: Do not think that I have not known about you being here, dahling. Come out into the light and make yourself known to us.
From the drop down ceiling, we see one of the rectangles fall to the floor. A shadowy figure drops to the floor in a hero’s landing. Esmeralda just grins.
Esmeralda: I knew you would come.
While I admire your objective of instructing women on how to defend themselves, I'm afraid your story itself violates principles expressed in our community Manifesto. We do not curate stories that deal in explicit violence, especially violence against women, children and animals. We also do not curate stories that feature negative stereotypes ('whores', for example).Hello @vastrix,
Thank you for thinking of us when you write creatively. Please acquaint yourself with our Manifesto and our Rules when you write again.
While I admit other words could have been used in place of the term “whore”, I disagree with the concept of my story (at this stage) depicting violence. The rules state that there is to be no excessive violence, blood, or gore. There was no actual excessive violence here. Mere exercises that would train these women in the arts of violence. I mean it’s all good I suppose. You don’t want my stuff, you don’t want my stuff. I shall simply take my work elsewhere. Thank you for taking the time to discriminate against y art.
I read your comment last night and am responding this morning because it made me think. Discriminating against art is not my style. I'm a little bit more flexible in my interpretation of genres and art forms than most people, I would say. I'm really flexible about lifestyle and philosophy. A throwback to the 60s (when I came of age). However, I am a person who reacts subjectively to material. That's what art does. It affects us subjectively. That's the best test of art. Does it move us? Even if it makes us gag, it can be art because it moves us.
Your piece does not make me gag, but I reacted viscerally to all the punching and kicking:
As I read the piece now, it still upsets me. But that's me. There are two other curators here and many, many readers in the Ink Well. I gave you my opinion as an individual, and I wrote my opinion personally, not as Ink Well. I think another curator might not have felt the same way.
This has been a lesson for me. When I read a piece that feels very violent to me, I'm going to ask another curator to read it.
Life experience molds each of us. I have a very low threshold for violence. You ran into that threshold and this may not have been fair--which is why I will pass the story on to another curator.
The word whore, though, really is not one that I (as a woman) find appropriate. You and I agree on that.
Hope my explanation helps you, as an artist, to feel you are getting a fair vetting.
Keep creating, pushing boundaries. These boundaries are not fixed in stone. They are dynamic and respond to the actions of creators and audience.
Thank you for taking the time to respond. Yeah, the Valkyries kicking each other was to show how green they were in the fighting arts and it was meant to be something of a clumsy start. Now that’s not to say that later parts don’t get violent, but no more than say Cobra Kai on Netflix (which I drew inspiration from for this piece).
Hello fellow writer :)
Thank you for your openness. Artists (even if I don't write great fiction, I'm still an artist) have to be open to each other. That's how we grow.
Hope to see you around.
scores of those stories. Literally, sometimes two or three a week. It was absolutely unmanageable. We had a turn-over in community admins because they were so damaged by it. So... that's where we are coming from.Hi @vastrix. Thank you for joining our community! As you can see from your dialog with @agmoore, we have some strong feelings and opinions when it comes to content about women and violence. I agree with you that you technically did not break our rules, which are designed to avoid stories about men brutally beating, raping and murdering women. Before we laid down these rules, we had
We crafted our rules and our manifesto, and began enforcing the rules, to ensure that as volunteer admins of this community, we can feel confident that the work here is safe to read, especially for anyone who has suffered from abuse.
That said, there are gray areas. It's not a topic where we can all agree definitively where the line should be drawn.
I hope this gives you a better sense of the challenges we are facing here, and why you came up against this feedback. I like your story's premise, that sex workers should be armed with self-defense techniques. I couldn't agree more! Like @agmoore, I'd be pleased if you toned down the violent parts, for all the reasons above. It's not to clip your wings, but to protect our readers.
I hope you'll keep writing, and that you'll bring us more stories. Now you know where we stand and what can trigger our sensibilities as creatives and community admins. Thank you for listening and understanding.
Hello @vastrix,
Thank you for posting this story in the Ink Well community. While it occasioned a good bit of discussion, the upshot is that the story deserves attention. We look forward to reading more of your pieces.
We do encourage engagement in the community and hope you will read stories from other writers and comment. Thank you!
I appreciate the kind words, but I am going to have to take my business elsewhere as I frequently do write action pieces where violence is the norm and not the exception. Esmeralda is training these former prostitutes to be assassins after all. No hard feelings to the group though, you guys do you.
No hard feelings. Keep writing, wherever your inspiration takes you.