Run Swinger Run! (Barry Mahon, 1967)

Why should I think of you as a damsel in distress, Laura? You surely don’t have that old-fashioned doe-eyed innocence that we’ve grown accustomed to. When we see you for the first time you’re a girl on the run, with vicious killers on your tail. But you’ re not hiding, cowering for your life. No. You’re just sunbathing, topless, idly browsing an inconsequential magazine.

It’s only when Schneider comes out of his expensive European Mercedes and comes shooting at you that you think of running. But you’ve been running for a long time, haven’t you, Laura? That’s the story you tell to that bloke whose car you’ve jumped into. That’s the way you deal with problems, Laura, you just drag anyone into them?

Well, you know he can’t resist helping you. Even if he doesn’t seem at first to believe your crazy story. But you see the way he keeps throwing glances at your slender naked thighs, and you know he’s as good as yours to command. You sure know that your body is a powerful weapon, a precious instrument of survival on a world of vicious men that believe themselves masters of the game although they’re just children playing at grown-ups.

And you know how to deal with them. When you went to your auntie Mary in L.A. begging for help she wanted to send you to sell dope to school kids. She knew your young body and your beautiful face could sell anything. You look harmless. That’s what that guy thought, your auntie’s henchman, when he came onto you after your shower. But you sure taught him how to behave. Pretending to be seduced, kneeing him where it hurts the most. And there you go again, running, escaping yourself. At that time you still haven’t met Schneider. That came later.

He saw you alone and haunted and beautiful and offered you easy money just to escort some important business men. At least, that’s what he said. And you accepted. You appreciated the money. And I’m sure you enjoyed the dare, the risk. And yes, I’m sure you’d have enjoyed the sex. That is, if you didn’t find out the scheme Schneider was keeping with some Chinese general, selling American guns to kill American soldiers in some war in far-off jungles. That did it. You fucked their scheme. And they want you dead.

So why should I think of you as a damsel in distress, Laura? Well, it’s the look you get sometimes, the air of a lost child in a cold indifferent world. You may be almost bare-naked, and still, in those fleeting moments, you really do seem innocent.

And I know the thoughts that surround you in those brief instants. You’re thinking of when you stopped being innocent. Of that morning on your mother’s boarding house when one of the gests, taking advantage of your mother’s absence, abused you… made you a woman, as he surely would refer to it. You think of the shame you felt. The humiliation. The shame of the rape, and worst of all, the shame of having enjoyed it. Not the rape. The sex. And thinking of that fateful morning that forced you to flee from home, you ask yourself if you became really lost… or just found yourself at last.