Chapter One: Tough Choices For Anna
Anna Jones was a good girl. She had always been a good girl.
All her life she strove to be polite, appreciative, hard-working, and respectful. She got good grades in school, helped her mother with housework every night, was a leading member of her Girl Scout troop, and regularly visited her grandmother in a nursing home.
It seemed that Anna might have a very bright future in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave...except for two things: a) she had an insatiable desire to be a painter, and b) she was unfortunate to be born at a time when the middle class had been hollowed out to an empty shell.
"We simply cannot afford to send you to a second-rate state college, Anna," her father fumed. "And the Ivy League is, of course, out of the question. -Your mother and I would be bankrupt after a single semester."
"Furthermore, we simply cannot allow you to waste your time and our money pursuing a degree in Fine Art. Just look at your sister."
Tears welled up in Anna's big green eyes, as she heard these words of rebuke from her father. "I know that Emily hasn't been too successful yet, daddy, but that doesn't mean that I can't be," she exclaimed.
"We spent almost $250,000.00 on Emily's degree in Fine Art, Anna. And what does she have to show for it except a mountain of debt and so few job prospects that she was forced to move back into her old room because she couldn't even afford to pay rent on a crummy apartment on the west side of town."
"The only job Emily could find was a part time position at Captain Ahab's -serving $8.00 lattes to self-absorbed baby boomers and the new ruling class of MBA scumbags."
"And just look at her now: working as a phone sex operator for Knight Flush. She has to sit around by the telephone virtually twenty-four hours a day waiting for middle aged perverts to call her from the toilet of a sports bar. And all for 33 cents a minute -minus Knight Flush's employee-gouging fees!"
"If she's very lucky, Anna, Emily might make slightly more in a month than she would flipping burgers on the graveyard shift at some fast food joint. -And your mother and I will simply not allow that to happen to you."
"But if you won't let me study Fine Art at college, daddy, what in heaven's name do you propose that I do?" said Anna, as she sat at the kitchen table and absentmindedly played with a strand of her long, strawberry blonde hair.
"Your mother and I have given this a lot of thought, Anna, and we've decided that you will either go to the school of OUR choosing, or else your mother will drive you down to Captain Ahab's right now and you can fill out a form to start pouring espressos for minimum wage."
"There's no future for me, or anyone else, working at Captain Ahab's, daddy!" Anna moaned.
"Well if you wind up there, my dear, at least you won't be doing it with the millstone of a quarter of a million dollar student loan debt hanging around your neck and dragging you down for the next twenty years!"
"What's this other place you're talking about, daddy? Where would you like me to go to school, and what in the name of God do you propose that I study?"
Taking a deep breath, and unable to look his pretty teenage daughter in the eye, Mr. Jones responded: "Your mother and I intend to enroll you in the Cock Whore Academy."
Anna's cute little bum just about fell off the kitchen chair when she heard her father say this.
"It's a finishing school for college age girls," chimed in Anna's mother. "I'm sure the name of the place is just deliberate provocation to get people's attention, my dear. They'll teach you about poise, and table manners, and how to walk, and sit, and dress for success. -Their brochure says that the goal of the Academy is to prepare young women to be desirable wives for wealthy gentlemen."
"Wouldn't you like to be married to a man with money someday, Anna? Don't you want to have an easy life? Or would you prefer to scrounge for peanuts like the rest of us in this godforsaken society?" said her father.
Anna looked at the brochure. It featured a photo of a group of attractive young women wearing matching school uniforms, with burgundy blazers and ridiculously short tartan kilts. Not much different from the Catholic high school she had attended for four years, Anna thought. Inside, there were brief descriptions of the campus, the dormitory, the cafeteria, and the athletic fields...but nothing about curriculum at all.
"You people must be out of your minds if you think I'm going to agree to go to a school called Cock Whore Academy," Anna fumed.
"And just look at the crests on these uniforms...what the hell is that supposed to be?" Anna had seen a lot of school crests in her day, filled with pretentious heraldic nonsense, displaying old books, parchment scrolls, oil lamps, ostrich feathers, lions, falcons, unicorns, and medieval jousting helmets. But she had never seen a school crest that featured what appeared to be a large leather bag, bulging with who knew what.
"And the school motto is blurred in this photograph. I can't even read what it says."
"What does it matter, sweetie?" offered Anna's mother, resignedly. "Since the state brought in that new union-busting legislation, your dad has lost his job at the plant. If things get any worse, I'll be driving him down to Captain Ahab's to fill in a job application form."
"And how much is this sorry excuse for a temple of higher learning going to cost you, daddy?" Anna sobbed.
"That's the beauty of this school, pumpkin. Tuition is free for the first semester, and the Registrar told your mother and me that if your grades are good enough, in the second term, the school will actually pay US for you to attend."
At this point Anna lost her temper and used the kind of vulgar language that she always tried to avoid, especially in front of her parents: "What kind of a fucking school pays the students to attend it, daddy?"
"I don't really know, pumpkin," said Mr. Jones, with a hint of sadness, but also expectation, in his voice. "I guess we're all going to find out."
Chapter Two: Anna's First Morning on Campus
As the shuttle bus passed through the iron gates that enclosed the grounds of her new school, Anna noticed the words on a bronze plaque affixed to one of a series of limestone pillars: Cock Whore Academy. "They can't be serious," she thought to herself.
When she arrived at the Registrar's Office, a cute blonde secretary who was wearing nothing but high heel shoes and a pair of heavy studs through her large nipples said to her, "Hi there. You must be Anna Jones. Welcome to Cock Whore Academy. We've been waiting for you. I've got your school uniform all ready for you, Anna, and I have to say you're a very lucky girl."