BEFORE

The Guilty Men

Jade sat before the campfire and stoked it with a stick. Embers exploded into the night, swirling upward with the smoke. Her support group, minus Lisa, sat in camp chairs around the fire.

And they waited.

Not for long.

The three men emerged from the trees into the small open area and approached the circle of women. Jade stared into the fire and continued to poke the flaming chunks of wood.

“We heard you were having a pow-wow about us,” the first man spoke with a smug drawl. “Not very polite talking about us behind our backs.”

The women remained silent.

A second man joined in, casting a casual glance around the campsite. “Kind of romantic out here. It’s getting me in the mood.”

The third man smirked. “Me, too. I say, let’s get this party started.”

“What do you ladies say?” the first guy asked.

Jade raised her head, the hood of her jacket shadowing her face. “No.”

“No?” the man released a scoffing laugh. “Now, you see…” He wagged his finger. “… you can’t say that anymore.”

Jade stared at him, steely-eyed. “I can and I do.”

He snorted. “Well, now, I don’t need your permission. You don’t have the right to say shit about shit because you don’t have rights anymore.” He tapped his temple. “The faster you get that through your pretty little heads, the easier things will be for you bitches.”

“Easier how?” Jade questioned.

“Simple,” the man huffed. “If you give it up—we won’t have to take it.”

Jade rose slowly to her feet, the thick stick gripped in her hand, the tip of the stick glowing red. “We’re not giving you assholes anything. And you’re not taking it, either.”

“Oooh!” The three men laughed.

“What’s gonna stop us?” the first guy snorted. “That little poker you’re holding?”

Jade looked at the stick and tossed it into the fire. “Nope.”

Pointing his finger at Jade, the man grinned. “I like girls like you. You’re just begging to be spanked.” He shrugged. “Submissive bitches are boring. I prefer girls who need lessons in obedience.”

“Is that right?” Jade strolled forward and stood before the man. “Then I guess I’m your girl. ‘Cause I never learned to take shit from men. In fact…” Jade plucked at the front of his shirt. “I’ve always thought of men as the weaker sex… whiny and pathetic… thinking they’re superior when in truth, they’re about the most inferior creature on earth.”

“Might want to watch your mouth, woman,” the man growled. “Before I give it something better to do than talk shit.”

“Like… what?” Jade inched closer and gazed into his face.

“Like my cock in your mouth.”

“Mm.” Jade nodded slowly, then leaned in and whispered in his ear, “If you put your nasty dick in my mouth… you won’t get it back.”

The man grabbed her arms and squeezed, pulling her away from him. Jade resisted the urge to wince. “Not if I rip out your fucking teeth first.”

Jade held his brittle stare. “ Pa-thet-ic.”

“Cunt!” He threw her to the ground and unfastened his pants. “We’ll see who’s pathetic when I get done with you.”

The other women stood up, alarmed. Jade waved them back.

“Don’t worry, ladies,” the second man sneered. “You’ll all get your turn, don’t you worry.”

Jade pushed up on one arm and watched the man hovering over her. His breath turned ragged as he hurriedly opened his pants and pulled out his cock—already hard as a rock.

“It’s go time, bitch.” He stroked his dick with one fist and bent over, reaching for Jade.

“It is.” Jade’s foot shot up, nailing him in the crotch, and throwing him off balance.

“Motherfuck—”

Jade came off the ground in fury as a knife appeared in her hand—and she took his cock in one swift slice. The assailant screamed and dropped to his knees, clutching his crotch in a fit of panic and pain. Blood gushed through his fingers and soaked the front of his pants, splattering into the dirt.

“ What the fuck?!” the other men shrieked in unison.

Jade dropped the severed appendage and stepped around her victim; knife brandished in her bloody fist. The women joined her, each producing a blade of their own.

“What the fuck…?” The men backed away, hands held out defensively. “Just… just calm the fuck down.” They glanced in horror at their screaming friend, slumped forward, holding his crotch. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” one of the men cried. “You’re fucking crazy!”

“That’s right,” Jade murmured. “There’s a lot of crazy bitches in this world… who are going to be cutting off a lot of dicks because you boys don’t understand respect.”

The third man shook his head. “Fuck this shit.” He turned to run and stopped short. “What…?”

Lisa stood behind him, a revolver gripped in her hands and aimed at his chest. A visible tremor swept through her as rage turned her eyes to granite. “Sorry I’m late,” she spoke quietly to Jade without looking away from the man.

“Actually.” Jade smiled coolly. “You’re right on time.” She looked at the frightened men. “Strip.”

When they hesitated, Lisa pulled back the hammer. “ Do it.”

Jade and Barb dragged the injured man over by his buddies and ordered him to strip out of his clothes as well.

“I-I can’t…” he whimpered, still clutching his bleeding stump. His body shook uncontrollably.

Jade took the gun and shoved the barrel to the back of his head. “Yes. You can.”

His hands trembling badly, the man began removing his clothes as his companions stripped naked beside him.

“Why are you doing this?” one of the men choked. “We don’t even know you.”

“Is he for real?” Barb snorted. “They come out here to rape us and they want to know why we’re doing this.” She shook her head. “Men are stupid.”

“ Rape you?” The man shook his head. “We weren’t… we were just messing with you… we weren’t going to—”

Barb punched him in the face, then shoved the blade to his throat. “I know you think we’re just a bunch of dumb cunts,” she hissed in his face, “but I assure you—we are not .”

“Tie them up,” Jade said. “There’s zip cuffs in the bag.”

The women restrained the men’s hands behind their backs while Jade held the gun.

“Take them to the tree.”

The two uninjured men held their ground, fear resonating from their faces. “Wh-what tree? What’re you going to do to us? Let us go!”

“You don’t make demands,” Jade said. “You don’t have that right anymore.” Jade grabbed the dickless wonder by one arm and hauled him off the ground. “Get up, asshole.”

The man staggered to his feet and stumbled after the other two men as blood slicked his thighs and drained down his legs, leaving a sticky trail across the ground.

“What the fuck is that?” One man screeched when he spotted triple nooses hanging from a thick tree limb. The other ends of the three ropes wrapped the limb and stretched down to the trunk of the tree where they were tied off.

Jade crammed the gun beneath the man’s jaw, grinding the barrel into the soft flesh. “You hung a girl— after you beat and raped her.”

“Why-why do you care?” the man croaked. “She was just… a nigg—”

Jade smashed his face with the butt of the revolver, splitting open his temple. The man grunted and staggered but remained upright. “She was my sister’s best friend,” Jade seethed and grabbed a fist of his hair, wrenching his head backward. She dug the gun barrel into the hollow of his throat until he gagged. “She loved her.” Images of Jasmine in the park plagued Jade’s mind—infused with the memory of finding Amy huddled in the shower, raped and beaten. Everything inside Jade pushed her to end this fucker’s life right now.

Control yourself. Make it last. Make it hurt.

Jade grabbed the nearest noose and pulled it over the man’s head, cinching it tight.

“No!” He jerked away, thrashing against the rope.After some brief flailing, he realized the more he fought it… the tighter it squeezed his throat, and he went still.

The other men shouted and resisted as the women put them in their nooses. Cinched up, they stood on the balls of their feet to prevent being fully choked.

The dickless man didn’t have much fight left in him. He barely held himself on his tiptoes, his head kinked to the side against the noose, eyes watery and bloodshot as he stared at Jade. Heavy, erratic breaths hitched his chest.

Jade strolled back and forth before the men. “Your body, my choice,” she spoke casually. “That’s what you told my sister and her friend… right before you raped and beat them.” Her face twitched and she stopped. “As if it was your right as a man . You thought because your rapist messiah was at the helm, that gave you bastards free rein to treat women like property?” She shook her head. “You were gravely misinformed.” Jade returned the revolver to Lisa and held out her hand. Barb placed a baseball bat in her grip. “Your body… my choice,” she murmured. “It goes both ways.”

“Stop… just stop,” one of the men cried. “We… we’re sorry… we didn’t mean to go so far with those girls… I swear, we didn’t. We were… we were being dicks and… and just trying to scare them. We didn’t mean to hurt them— I swear!”

“Y-Yeah,” his friend added. “The-The girls freaked out and… and things just got out of control. We didn’t mean it. We didn’t!”

“Mm.” Jade rested the bat on her shoulder and glanced at the other women. “They didn’t mean it. Things got out of control. Hm.” She stepped up to the men and glared at them. “So… everything that happened was just an accident? Is that what you’re saying?”

“Yes, yes.”

Jade lowered the bat. “So, your dick just accidentally slipped inside my sister and her friend and proceeded to fuck them. And your fists and feet accidentally beat the fuck out of them.” She nodded. “Sounds viable.” Her eyes narrowed. “ Not.” Jade swung the bat between the man’s legs, smashing his genitals, wrenching a gasping scream from him. “The fact that you would even spit out such idiocy only pisses me off more.” Jade breathed hard. “Ladies.”

The women each grabbed a bat or club and came forward, laying into the men alongside Jade. The blows knocked the men off balance, dropping the weight of their bodies onto the nooses. They gagged as their eyes bulged in their heads and screams lodged in their constricted throats.

Once the men were reduced to bloody, bruised rag dolls, Jade waved the women back. Their captives struggled to push up on their feet again as they wheezed and gasped for breath. Jade unsheathed her knife and approached the dickless wonder who was barely conscious.

“Hey.” Jade tapped his chin with the blade. “Look at me, prick.”

The man’s bleary, bloodshot eyes struggled to focus.

“Can you hear me?” Jade asked.

“Uhh…” the man mumbled.

“This…” Jade gestured up and down the man’s battered form. “… not your body. My body. My property. My choice to do with it whatever the fuck I want. I don’t need your permission because you no longer have any rights.”

“Uuhhh…”

Jade dug the tip of the blade into the man’s chest. “ My body…” She took her time carving each letter. “ My choice.” Jade craned her head toward the other women. “ Tell them. Then take their weapons.” Her lips rippled in a snarl. “ Cut them off.”

Wailing screams filled the forest, echoing off the tree trunks and rippling through the boughs. The cries were silenced by the men’s severed genitals stuffed into their mouths.

Banding together, the women hoisted each man a few inches off the ground, just enough that their feet swung freely above the forest floor. Jade approached the flailing victims as both the noose and their own dicks slowly choked them to death.

“No more,” Jade whispered chillingly. “Enough is enough.” She thrust the blade into the nearest man’s lower abdomen and slit him up the belly, spilling his guts. Jade moved down the line, opening up each rapist. Breath ragged, she stepped back, clutching the bloody knife in her fist, tasting the blood of the abusers on her lips. “We are our own masters.”