Although this is a new, and much longer, version of the story, part one and two remain substantially the same.
Chapter 1
June 2015
Minh Chen sat in the bright glare of the spotlight, her eyes focused on the chessboard that lay before her. Her mind raced, calculating moves, playing enter matches in her head, making decisions and playing them out again and again, calculating every outcome of the game. Time seemed to slow
down, every second like an hour, her focus entirely on the match she and her opponent were engaged in.
Chess tournaments never drew huge crowds. One hundred, two hundred people at most. Most were played in small theatres or hotel conference rooms. Minh's games had been attracting more attention than most. She knew this had more to do with her age and looks then her aggressive playing style and she resented it. More than three quarters of the crowd was there for her, casual fans the other masters called them. The air in the room seemed to crackle with anticipation as the final moments of the game approached. The press, an unusual amount of press, wrote their hack description, "as the audience held their breath, their eyes glued to the stage, the tension was palpable"
why is the tension always palpable, why does the audience always hold their breath? Minh
shook the press from her find. She could not stand the attention. She loved the attention. She needed the attention. Minh, with a well-practiced neutral expression, made her final move. Her opponent had anticipated this move, he knew it was coming three moves ago, but he would have needed to have seen it five moves ago to be able to change the outcome, unable to counter her meticulous attack, the game was finally over.
A polite smile tugged at the corners of her lips as she looked up, meeting the eyes of her opponent. They shared a nod of respect before Minh turned to leave the stage. But as she left the stage she was stopped in her tracks by a barrage of cameras and what seemed to her like a horde of journalists. She blinked, and blinked maybe hoping that each time she closed her eyes the horde
would vanish. Momentarily stunned by the sudden spike in anxiety, Minh closed her eyes, held them shut, and took a deep breath to calm her racing heart. When she opened them again she was once more a practiced mask of serenity.
"Minh, can you tell us about your thoughts on winning the tournament?" one journalist asked, shoving a digital recorder in her face.
Minh adopted her carefully constructed character, keeping her expression neutral. "I'm just happy that I played well today," she replied, stepping around the journalist.
She couldn't shake the feeling of being hunted... watched... prey. The journalists followed her, asking more questions about her appearance, why she always dressed so conservatively, her personal life. She politely answered some of the questions and ignored others. When one photographer asked
her if she would unbutton her shirt a bit for the camera, she let her guard down.
"Excuse me?" Minh asked, incredulous.
"Come on, Minh," another photographer chimed in. "pose a little for the camera".
Minh felt the impulse to comply; she felt her hand playing with the top button on her shirt.
Minh's friends, who had been watching from the side-lines, moved closer, forming a protective barrier around her.
"Hey, back off," her friend, Ava, said, a fierceness in her voice. "Minh just won a grand tournament, and all you care about is her body? That's messed up."
Ava, at twenty eight was five years older than Minh. Although shorter at five foot five inches, she had a hundred times the presence. She was born and raised in the north of Brazil and she had fought against poverty and repression and expectations to get out. She had broken away from her country and her religion and her family and moulded herself out of her own clay. She was fierce and
intelligent and beautiful and yet the journalists stared right through her.
The photographers seemed unfazed by Ava's words, continuing to press Minh for skin. Minh felt her hands trembling, her heart pounding in her chest as the pressure mounted. She felt a weight in her stomach and uncontrollable warmth spreading between her thighs. The button popped open in her fingers, her hand still holding her collar shut. But Ava was not going to stand for it. "Leave her alone," She commanded.
Beside Ava was Lan, Minh's oldest friend. Lan was short at five foot nothing, her petite frame and slight figure burning with rage. Lan was Vietnamese/Chinese she had almost been raised to be seen not heard but as the third daughter of six she had often been neither seen nor heard. Her greatest rebellion had been to dye her naturally black hair blond. Every fibre of her being pulled against her drawing attention to herself or causing trouble, yet she was ready to fight for her friend.
"Fuck off scumbag," Ava continued, moving towards the journalists. "You're treating her like a object. She deserves respect!"
The journalists seemed to shrink back, sensing the change in atmosphere. Minh felt a wave of relief wash over her as the focus shifted from her and to Ava and Lan.