THE CHRONICLES OF GIN
A Serialized Gingerbread Man Retelling for Adults
Part 8: Into the Compromise
“That was a compromise,” Scruff replied simply.
“A compromise?! Help me out here, Scruff, I'm going to need a little more than that.”
“What exactly do you want to hear, cookie?”
“Something, ANYTHING! Just make it make sense!” I whisper-screamed into the night.
Scruff gave another of his trademark long-suffering sighs.
“Cats hunt. Even spoiled, clinically obese princesses who only eat premium wet cat food like Kitherine. Even as a little kitten, she was some kind of prodigy. She'd have the whole farm bathed in blood if left unchecked.”
My jaw dropped. Could my dark angel truly be that violent? He went on.
“A few years ago, I busted the ‘consent-optional’ version of the playroom. She called it the dungeon. And if you think what you just saw was twisted… anyway, I was going to ban her from ‘playing’ outright when she showed me this mouse she'd been slapping around and tearing at for weeks. He begged me to let her keep hurting him. He cried every time I even mentioned rescuing him from her, and I had an epiphany. Do you get it now?”
“You can't stop Kitherine from playing, so you only let her play with masochists.”
“Bingo.”
“And she decided I was one the instant she saw me.” My shoulders slumped.
“You’ve got the look,” Scruff agreed with a shrug.
So, I had just about had it with the whole situation.
“Can we leave now?” I begged. “I really don’t like it here.”
Scruff shook his head. “We're waiting on Kitherine.”
“Uh… will she be long?”
“Between five minutes and six hours.”
“What?!”
“And before you ask, no, I cannot extract her before she's ready to leave. Once she enters the playroom, she's going to play. I make most of the rules, but this one is out of my hands.”
Roughly twelve minutes, forty-three and a quarter seconds later (not that I was counting), Kitherine emerged from the playroom, purring loudly. Like a cat who was not even slightly ashamed of herself for anything she had done that night or ever before.
“Alright, let's get back to this sham of a trial,” she sighed blissfully, and we all headed back to the barn.
And so ends another CoG installment. Is the trial truly a sham? How long has Scruff been sheriff? What ever happened to that very sad mouse? At least some of those answers will be found in the next installment, definitely eventually 😉.