.:The Illumination of Sorrow:.

THE PERFECT ARYAN SPECIMEN

Rather than peel his tangelos, The PAS preferred to devour them skin and all.

He ate his tangelos like apples, ripping huge chunks out of the dimpled flesh, not minding having tangelo juice run down his chin in a citrusy Niagara Falls. A tangelo pyramid was assembled in his living room for ease of access as well as aesthetic effect. Within the first two minutes of stepping inside his apartment The PAS wanted you to have no question about his wealth and good taste.

"Why didn't you string him up by his teeth like I asked?" The PAS flopped onto his couch in disappointment. In a funk he plucked a small tangelo from the artsy tower and popped it into his mouth whole. He rubbed his face, caressing his cheeks to check their elasticity.

After several months of working as his hitwoman, Olive still questioned her employer's mental stability.

She stood near the door in case a quick escape was necessary, not wanting her sixteen years on this earth to be ended by a fascist madman. "It was too messy. I finish my hits as cleanly as possible."

"But Olive," The PAS propped himself up on a creamy elbow. She counted the blue train tracks pumping underneath his white shores. "What am I paying you for?"

The weekly Botox injections rendered his facial expressions useless, so she could never tell when he was being playful.

"My services."

"Exactly. One doesn't insult the Perfect Aryan Specimen's kindness and not expect retribution." Along with citrus fruit, he also enjoyed speaking in third person.

"For a superior being, you sure don't have any qualms letting darkies do your business."

"This demonstrates the Perfect Aryan Specimen's mercy as a leader." His eyebrows twitched in what Olive assumed was a scowl. "And when I pay for a mark to be strung up by his teeth for all of his family and loved ones to see, I damn well expect those exact results, down to the detail."

"Maybe you should hire someone else. Revenge hits never end well."

The PAS braided his long, blond ponytail with particular care. When in a particularly nasty mood he would poke fun at Olive's patchy head.

Where's all your hair? Did you forget it at home again?

And Olive would answer, time and time again: Stress is the cheapest barber.

"Since you failed to follow instructions I demand reparations."

Olive sighed. "What do you want?"

"You know what I want." He leered.

"I can't afford tangelos. They're the most expensive fruit on the market."

"Well until you can cough up the goods you're in my debt, Olive." His blue eyes flared out of his frozen face, the most human organs left in his body. Olive couldn't remember seeing anyone so ghostly pale. The PAS never left his apartment out of fear the sun would darken his porcelain skin. Besides whole tangelos he consumed solely milk and white bread. He ate egg whites, no yolk. He plucked any hairs not platinum blonde, on his head or otherwise. He moistened his baby blues on an hourly basis.

He also indirectly paid for Bean's school supplies and their electric bill, guaranteeing two thousand credits every time she crossed a name off his hit list.

Knowing this, Olive could only say one thing.

"Fine."

"Ah, we're in accord? Fantastic. And don't come back till you have my tangelos."

Once Olive left the PAS's high rise condominium, she hustled back to the other side of town, cursing The PAS's insistence on meeting face to face. She would've quit a long time ago if he didn't pay so well.

After trading balm for a bundle of Ronan's tangelos with no small amount of anger, she went home and found Bean sitting at the dining room table finishing up his homework.

"Hey Beanie."

"Hey Ollie."

"How was your day?"

"Great. Breezed through my calculus test and nailed my world lit paper." The twelve year old eyed the bag of orange fruit before asking her who they were for.

"My boss."

"Can I have one? I've never had one of those."

"Not this time, Beanie." The fruit sags on the counter. "Maybe another day." She trudged into her room and locked the door behind her, commencing her second scream therapy session of the day.

Ten minutes later she walked back into the kitchen, ready to head back to the The PAS's apartment. 

She picked up the bag...

...and slowly set it back down.

She eyed the boy sitting quietly at the table, scribbling in his workbook. "Bean, did you take anything?"

"No." He didn't face her.

"Bean, I don't have time for this today. Please, just give them back."

The prodigy set his pencil down and stood up, trembling not out of fear but compulsion.

Olive noticed what was wrong.

Two thick spheres bulging from Bean's crotch.

"Sorry." He mumbled.

Olive was speechless, both at seeing the fruits of her labor literally shoved down her brother's pants and at the fact Bean actually thought he could get away with it. She couldn't trade the tangelos with anyone in good conscience knowing where they'd been stuffed.

Thankfully, she didn't have much of a conscience, and what she did have wasn't all that good.

"No, Bean." She wiggles her brother's thin shoulder. "That's perfect."

.

.

.

Back on the other side of town, the Perfect Aryan Specimen grabbed at Olive's peace offering and eyed the contents. He figured Olive was too simple minded to do him any harm. "I bet you'll follow instructions next time, won't you?"

"Of course." She said this with ease.

Pleased with his cleverness, The PAS drug his tongue across the tangelo skin before sliding it into his mouth. Delighted.

"Everyone gets what's comin' to them in the end." He spoke with his mouth full, tart spit flying onto his beached whale thighs.

"Yeah," For the first time ever Olive smiled in front of the Perfect Aryan Specimen. "They do."