Across the desk Junior Miss Shawna, despite the pain of the tattooing, looked on bravely and with deep empathy for his friend. “Your tender Prissy Princess feelings are hurt, aren’t they, Little Miss Antonia? Do you need a hug?”
“Yes, Junior Miss Shawna,” he replied through his sobs. He didn’t necessarily see a Prissy Princess when he looked at the picture of him as a very young boy, but his image was certainly closer to that than the monster his father had been grooming him to become at least. He realized now they both were frauds. They ruled with fear and intimidation. They had been taken down by a more intelligent, patient, and ruthless foe. They were nothing but bullies, horrible bullies who made the world a worse place.
One of the women standing by the door walked forward and hugged him from behind and kissed him gently on the head. More pictures flashed on the walls of him as a little boy and a baby with his mother and Nonna.
“Where did you get these?” he asked. As far as he knew his father had destroyed all the copies after his mother and Nonna both died.
His stepmother spoke gently to him, “You forget how close your mother and I were, Antonia. I hid them away, and a lot more of their things as well. I knew one day you would want them, if I could ever steal you away from him for good. I’ve never meant you any harm, Antonia. Everything I’ve done has been for your mother. I married him to help protect you and so one day I could help take him down.”
Realizing who it was that was hugging him he shook his body violently to escape the hug. That horrible woman who had sent him to this place and ruined his life. Or, wait, did he still think that? Suddenly he realized that his time in the Prissy Princess Correctional Club had been as much about deprogramming as it had been brainwashing. His father had brainwashed him into a monster. They were trying to brainwash him into something much nicer, even if it was horrible in its own way.
Cindy spoke to him again, “You must be hungry after all this.” She gestured and one of the masked women left the room and then returned with a plate of food and set it down in front of him.
It was baked ziti. A humongous portion, enough for three people. He smelled it. He looked up at the picture again and tears fell from his eyes. He took a bite. It was just right. It was exactly the same. He sobbed and turned around to face his stepmother, “You saved Nonna’s recipes?”
She nodded at him and smiled. He calmed his crying and he ate until the plate was licked clean. He felt full and satisfied for the first time since he had entered the Prissy Princess Correctional Club. It wasn’t even the huge gluttonous portion that did it, it was the feelings and the memories it brought back. It wasn’t just about taste or about calories, it was about family and community and togetherness.
“Don’t you blame me for putting you in here, Little Miss Antonia,” his stepmother scolded him. “I thought it was the right thing to do from the start. But it isn’t what your mother would have wanted. So I gave you a chance to have a normal man’s life instead, and what did you do?”
He looked down at the ground in horror and shame at having almost caused an innocent boy to die.
“That’s right, you proved exactly why you belong in a place like this where you can’t get into any trouble. You proved why no more men like your father should ever be allowed to rise to power, or even to exist.”
“Yes, Mommy,” he replied, knowing in his heart that she was right that he deserved his fate. Even if he didn’t think he deserved to stay in the PPCC, escape was impossible. Someone would always be watching him, and even another Prissy Princess would immediately turn him in like Shawna had done to try and curry favor for themselves. He couldn’t go anywhere, and if doing so meant ending up a monster like his father was then maybe he was better off in the PPCC.
“Let’s talk plainly, Antonia,” Cindy spoke. “You have exactly two choices now. Your life with your father is over. And his life as Don is over as well. You aren’t going anywhere. You are in the Prissy Princess Correctional Club for the rest of your life. You’re only options for now are if you want to continue on as a Little Miss or if you want to return to being a Prissy Princess Pottypants.”
His stepmother spoke firmly, “Do you understand what is happening today, Antonia?”
“You are taking down my father and giving him to the FBI,” he replied.
“You don’t see yet, Antonia. No, what’s going to happen is you are going to tell me every single thing you know about The Family, which is a lot because your father idiotically toted you along with him everywhere he went. After we deliver your father to the FBI we are going to take The Family in its entirety as well.”
Antonia shook his head in abject fear, “Absolutely not. I can’t testify against the entire Family. If you miss even one of them they’ll find me and kill me, even in here.”
His stepmother shook his head at him. “No, you don’t understand. We’re not taking them all to the FBI. My masked companions and I are going to war. Very quickly and suddenly. The war will be over before they even knew it began. We will have total control and they will have no choice but to obey.”
“But why? If it’s so evil, why not destroy it?”
“The world is changing, Little Miss Antonia. The Family will be a tool, the men will be useful idiots until the women take over the ranks entirely. We’ve already begun to infiltrate the mass media, government, business, and the legal system. But not all power in this world walks in the light. We have to control the underground as well. Even in the dark places, our authority must be total.