Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

I’m Pink Lady Apple Yeggs, and my friend Deviled Yeggs suggested that I record each project that I set up in the hopes of reforming the people who continue to work for Lily the Pink Enterprises.  If for no other reason, it would show how God is at work.

In the midst of my last report, Expand West, Young Woman, I mentioned that Pauline had discovered that we had a stowaway.

She went back to where the stowaway was seated and asked her to come into the executive seating area.  Mashie got the non-verbal nod from his wife and Mashie suggested that the few left in that section needed to freshen their drinks.  It took them no time to figure out that Pauline needed to be alone with her next ‘victim.’

Pauline smiled at the stowaway, “Now, dear, tell me who you are and where you are from.”

The stowaway did not make eye contact.  “I’m Anna and I am from McMinnville, Oregon.”

Pauline pretended to look at her notebook.  “That’s funny.  We have no one here named Anna, and we rescued no one from McMinnville, Oregon.  I wish we had.  I hear that a famous airplane is in a museum there.  I would love to see it.  What’s the name of the aircraft?”

The stowaway smiled, “The Spruce Goose!”  Maybe proving that she knew something about McMinnville, Oregon would stop this interrogation.

Pauline laughed, “Maybe you said you were from McMinnville because you knew one fact about the city.  Young lady, I interviewed everyone in that next compartment.  I am very good with faces.  I am very good with body language.  I know when someone is lying to me.  I should simply kick you out of this aircraft, but then if you are a reporter or you are working for one of the prostitution rings to recover the women that we rescued, then all those women in there will be in danger.  This aircraft is used by a secret government organization, so secret that most of the government does not know it exists.  We have an ejection seat on board.  If I do not get the truth with my next question, when we get up to 30,000 ft, I will place you in the ejection seat.  One push of a button, and ‘bye-bye.’  Wherever what is left of you lands, that becomes a problem of the area where you land.  If we are over the mountains, it might be years before any part of you is found.  Now!!  Who are you, where are you from, and what are you doing here pretending to be a prostitute?!  Make eye contact with me now, or you will not have the opportunity to talk your way out of this later.  My finger has not hit that ejection button in two or three flights, and my finger is starting to itch.”  She heard a groan from the bar area.  Mashie must have heard Pauline talk about the ejection seat.

Note:  The aircraft did not have an ejection seat, but the stowaway did not know that.

The stowaway looked Pauline in the eyes, but she soon did not see much.  Her eyes filled with tears.  “Please, don’t tell Uncle Dalton that my cover was blown before we even took off from Portland!”  Note: in the last report, the aircraft was supposed to be in Seattle, WA, but somehow it was in Portland to pick up the ladies and transport them to the big city of Tracy.

Pauline groaned, “Sam Hill of Portland is not starting a partnership off on the right foot by adding a spy to the group.  You still have not answered my questions.”

The stowaway, thinking that the ejection seat threat was imminent, said quickly, “I’m Anna Hill.  I grew up in McMinnville, but we moved to Portland when I was twelve.  I worked up until today for my uncle, Dalton Hill.  My husband and I were visiting him last night and he started talking about how he would love to know more about how you reform prostitutes.  He regretted that he could not come along for the rescue missions.  That seemed to be the key.  I volunteered and my husband agreed to let me go.  Please, I just want to be a fly on the wall.  I promise to not make waves, do any spying, and I promise to work hard.  I need to earn my stripes anyway.  If Sam Hill of Portland learns enough, we could start doing the same thing in Portland and other cities along the west coast.”

Pauline sighed, “There is nothing special about the reformation.  You keep them safe.  You give them the chance to leave any time, but you sweeten the deal if they stay longer.  You love them and let them know they are loved.  You provide counseling, therapy, and rehab as needed.  They will need one of those and maybe all three.  It is a tough transition.  The trick in the rescue is something that only GrandPa knows.  He can look at a naked woman in front of him and within seconds know if she wanted to be where she was that moment, doing what she was doing or about to do.  Then it was just having the logistics to extract her and get away before the muscle of the brothel or the pimp knew what had happened.  I have GrandPa’s special gifts, but they do not take me seriously when I walk into a brothel.  Besides, I am starting to show a baby bump.”

Anna sighed, “Thank you, that’s one of those awkward questions.  You ask how far along are you and they get in your face to say that they aren’t pregnant.”

Pauline laughed, “You sound like a twenty-something housewife.  How could you ever pull off pretending to be a veteran of the streets?”

Anna scrunched her shoulders and looked away, “I have never been a prostitute, but in some ways, I was worse than that.  I was a predator.”

Pauline asked, “You haven’t killed anyone, have you?”

Anna shook her head, “No, maybe I should simply tell you my story.”  Pauline nodded and waved her hand to let her know that she had the floor.

Anna paused before starting.  “First off.  My mother is Dalton’s sister.  She married Richard Hill, no relation.  My parents got the funny idea to hyphenate their last names when they married.  Then when I was born, I was given the middle name of Hill also.  I was named Anna Hill Hill-Hill.  To make it worse, I married Tyler Hill, no relation, so my name is now Anna Hill Hill-Hill Hill.  Uncle Dalton called me ‘the Third’, short for ‘Hill to the third power.’  Now it’s ‘fourth.’  When he allowed me to go on this adventure, he said, ‘Fourth, go forth.’  But back to my mother, she was everything that Dalton is not.  Uncle Dalton is a Christian. He is sweet and kind and generous.  My mother only believes in herself, and she is great at using people until they are no longer useful to her.  Until I was fourteen, my favorite person in the world to talk to was Uncle Dalton, but he had been told to never bring up Jesus around me or he would never be able to visit me again.”  Pauline gasped, and she had dampness in her eyes.

Anna nodded, “But on my fourteenth birthday, I was not allowed to contact Uncle Dalton, anyway.  I had the usual crowd of girls over for my birthday.  We played all the silly games that girls play.  I was on cloud nine that night, but that was when everything changed.  My mother came in to tuck me in, something she never did.  She told me that my little girlie birthday party would be my last.  I was going to start dating at fifteen, and I had to use the year between now and then to select the proper boys to have sex with – boys plural, nothing about dating, strictly sex.  She said that I had to refrain from dating until I was fifteen and no sex until my sixteenth birthday.  I created my dream list, and she rejected most of it.  She wanted the boys that were not the most popular in school.  So I recreated my list with a lot of the smart guys.  To me it was fantasy, but my mother had a different fantasy in mind.

Anna sighed, “On my fifteenth birthday, I had no birthday party.  My mother came into my bedroom and said that she was going to spend a couple of days each week teaching me how to pleasure myself.  She said that men just wanted to do their thing and then leave or, for a husband, roll over and go to sleep.  The woman’s pleasure was not the most important thing, it was the only thing.  I had to be in charge of the situation.  So, we both got naked and explored each other’s body.”

Pauline said, “Woah.  You had underage lesbian incest with your mother.”

“Yes, but to her it wasn’t real sex.  I was being taught how.  That did not mean that she did not video record the training sessions.  The year leading up to my sixteenth birthday, I went on some dates and each time my mother had me keep the boy in that position on the list, move him up, move him down, or take him off the list.”

Pauline asked, “But then came your sweet sixteen, sixteen candles, all the love songs about turning sixteen.  Did you have cake and ice cream?”

Anna looked at the floor.  “I was the cake.”

“What?!” Pauline ejaculated.  “You were the cake?  That may be a film fantasy, but I have heard no one doing it.”

Anna looked at the wall.  The tears were falling.  “She staged me on the bed of the master bedroom.  That had become my bedroom as of that night until I moved out of the house, a better means to hide the video cameras.  She put cake icing in my hair, creating sixteen strands of hair with a candle at the end of each.  I had cherry juice coming out of my mouth, with cherries in my mouth.  Whipped cream instead of a bra and cake below the navel.  The boy that was number one on my list showed up.  My father showed him to the bedroom door and then left.  My mother lit the candles, and then hid behind the curtains.  I called the boy in and he enjoyed the cake.  I made him blow out the candles before my hair got set on fire, but then it was a lot of birthday cake fantasy.  What I did not know was that my mother recorded everything.  She recorded every fantasy adventure in bed that I had all that year and the next.  She sold them as child porn.  All I got out of it was a trip to Italy on my seventeenth birthday.  By my eighteenth birthday, my mother had made a fortune selling me, but she made me think that I was in control and my enjoyment was the only important thing.”

Then Anna looked Pauline in the eyes, “And after I graduated high school, I got in the sports car that my videos afforded me and I drove to visit Uncle Dalton.  I was empty inside.  I had been used.  I really liked that first boy, but my mother insisted that I move onto the next one on the list.  Sex was just a physical act with no emotions attached, other than I was in charge of what happened and my pleasure came first, really the only requirement was that I had my pleasure.  But Uncle Dalton always had said things that made me feel good inside.  I needed some of that to fill the emptiness.  I went to his house and told him everything.”

Pauline smiled, “Did he tell you about Jesus?”

Anna laughed, “No, he suggested a sexual fantasy.  He asked if I had ever tried it with two men at the same time?  He had two men in mind.  All I had to do was check into a nearby hotel that he would pay for.  He called ahead.  All I did was pick up the key.  The guys would take me to the roof top restaurant and then back to my room.”

Pauline was puzzled, “Wait!  This guy that Pink Lady has partnered with who runs a Christian business is getting you into sex fantasies?”

Anna shrugged, “Let me finish.  The two men and I had a wonderful dinner.  If one of them drew me close for a kiss, the other held back.  They were being polite, taking turns.  We got back to the room, and everything changed.  I kissed one and tried to loosen his tie, but he pulled away.  It was the same with the other one.  They kept saying for me not to do this, whatever this was.  Then I got frustrated and took my clothes off and told them to have me.  Just like Shem and Japheth, they took the comforter from the bed and wrapped me in it.  Then they asked me why I was doing what I was doing.  They asked why I had gone to Uncle Dalton for advice.  They asked why I felt empty.  Then they pulled out a Bible and started reading Scripture to me.  They were back into the mode of being polite and taking turns.  By this point, I was an emotional basket case.  I realized that I had done everything wrong.  My entire high school life had been as a predator, stalking my prey, getting my enjoyment and then dumping them.  When they asked if I wanted to meet Jesus, I was ready.  They had been reading to me for a few hours by then, but I had never seen a Bible, except as a child visiting Uncle Dalton or my grandparents and only then as a closed book on the nightstand.  So, at that moment I quit working in my mother’s bedroom for her.  Uncle Dalton paid my way through college.  I got a degree in accounting, and I married the man of my dreams.”

Pauline asked, “Where did you meet your husband?”

Anna laughed, “He was one of the two men who came to my hotel room that night, the first that I kissed at the restaurant.”

Pauline smiled, “As far as fitting in with this crowd, I think you fit in, but why are you not at home with your husband?”

Anna took a little time to answer, “We cannot have children.  The doctors think that my mother passed off hormone pills to me as if they were vitamins.  My mother controlled everything.  I was developed before the other girls were.  She had me exercise to stay in shape, and I got the body that she wanted to see on camera, but at too young of an age, the doctors think there may be irreparable harm.  Tyler and I are committed to each other, but the doctors said that a period of celibacy, a change of scenery, and eating the right foods might help a little.  In a year, they may try some fertility treatments, but they need the poisons, as they call them, out of my system.  Will I be able to visit Tyler during the year?  Can he come by Lily the Pink?  He’s a buyer for Sam Hill of Portland, and Uncle Dalton could arrange for a visit there.”

Pauline shrugged, “I am just a consultant, like GrandPa, but I suggest that you have a long talk with Pink Lady at your first opportunity.  Once we get off the ground, come see Gwen Quinn.  She can talk Pink Lady into just about anything.  As for learning how to reform these women, you need to dig deep within you.  You came out the other side.  Figure out how that happened.  It was Jesus working within you, and the work of the Holy Spirit, but who helped you?  How did they help?  I think you already have the answers for your quest.  And staying at Lily the Pink for a year may be the first step in the cure, if there is one.  If not, you can adopt.  I know a homicide detective in the county just west of Tracy whose husband works homicide in Tracy.  On their honeymoon, they adopted three children.  They were convinced she was too old to have children, but now they have four children, one born a year after they got married.  Trust in God.  He can work miracles.”

Anna said, “Wow.  When we first started, you were going to shoot me into the mountains on an ejection seat, splatter me all over a mountain top, and now you sound like a preacher or something.”

Pauline laughed, “We have no ejection seat.  I made that up, but with my undergraduate degree in Psychology and being highly trained in interrogation techniques, I was trying to get to the real you and past the lies quickly.  As for the preacher, I was raised by my grandparents after my mother died.  My grandfather is a retired pastor.  I hope you get to meet him.  He visits Pink Lady on occasion.  Now, I think you need to get back to your seat.  A company rep is about to make some opening remarks.”

And Anna Hill (to the fourth power) was seated as No More started her introductory remarks.

As for me talking to Anna, after Gwen gave me her appraisal, I had to talk to her that first day.  After all, this little year off to do research may benefit Lily the Pink.  I need an accountant at the facilities in Washington state, and if Tyler Hill came by to visit her, I intended to steal him away from dear Uncle Dalton.  I needed a buyer too.

Credits

“Go West, Young man” Is a quote from Horace Greeley, which I modified for the title of the previous story.

Lily the Pink is one of my favorite silly songs.  It is adaptable for adding new verses, as long as the “cure” is far from what was wanted or expected.  Although The Scaffold, a group that wrote the song, has a very British version, I prefer the Irish Rovers version, with a few of the same verses.

The writers of the song are the members of The Scaffold: John Gorman (comedian), Mike McGear (a pseudonym, really Paul McCartney’s brother), and Roger McGough (poet).  The Scaffold had back singers and musicians to fill out the “band” that included a young Elton John, Jack Bruce, and Graham Nash.  The song is based on a poem written about snake oil sold in the USA under the label of Lydia Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound, with a picture of a sweet young girl on the label.  The poem states that the snake oil is sold by this face that only wants to love others.

The chorus of the song is:

We’ll drink a drink, a drink
To Lily the Pink, the Pink, the Pink
The savior of the human race
For she invented medicinal compound
Most efficacious in every case

Of course, Jesus is the Savior of the human race, and He cured people rather than selling them snake oil that promised cures that did not work.

I have been to McMinnville, Oregon and aboard the Spruce Goose inside the museum building.  If you like aviation museums, it has a lot more than the Spruce Goose.

The idea about Anna Hill to the fourth power is not a stretch.  The Sam Hill that inspired the idea for Dalton Hill to inquire about the expansion was married to Mary Hill.  She was already a Hill and she married Sam Hill, no relation.  I just took it to the extreme.

What inspired this story were the various people that I have met who tried to force their children into a specific career field.  In addition, I have met some non-believers that have orchestrated every detail of their children’s lives so that they would never hear about Jesus.  They even, in some cases, orchestrate certain sins as being an adult rite of passage, celebrating them.  I have heard of people requiring what Uncle Dalton had been told – to continue visiting, you cannot say the word “Jesus.”  It is sad that they adhere to their rebellion against God, knowing that God’s love is attractive.