ATLAS SHRUGGED

“Atlas Boned” by Joe Wadlington

Dagny waited in an armchair in her living room. Hank Rearden was scheduled to be in New York that day meeting with the National Board of Taxation and Business Ruining. His nights were always hers. She was excited. Giving herself a 4:00 a.m. finger tango below Nat Taggart’s statue wasn’t doing it anymore, and she knew they’d get into some filthy shit tonight.

The door was kicked open.

“Yo, yo—it’s the Hank!” Hank Rearden walked in firing imaginary guns into the air. He had a stature so elegant and powerful that it only belonged in an ancient temple or the inner office of a bank. He stepped to the bar and opened a bottle of Dagny’s whiskey.

“Oh, Hank, I—” she began.

“Ehhhh.” Hank put his finger to her lips and laughed. He poured his drink with a lavish gesture, then finished the entire thing in a gulp. “O-kay, now you may address the God of Metal,” Hank said proudly.

“It was an awful day, Hank,” Dagny said.

“I bet! Trains are TOUGH,” Hank said.

“We lost the Rio Norte Line. I will have to reconfigure the train schedule for the entire country,” Dagny said.

Hank nodded vigorously and looked around with big eyes, as if there were other people also not listening.

“Babes, Babes, how many train cars do you have?”

“Twenty thousand,” Dagny answered.

“Whoa! Looks like she’s tryin’ to im-press somebody!” Hank said to the invisible party guests. “Dags, tell me, how many factories do I own?”

“One,” she said.

“One factories!” he said proudly. “Now, trains are cool—way better than people, way better than my wittle wife and her wittle fam-i-wy.” Hank cranked his fists under his eyes like he were a crying cartoon. “But have you ever heard of Rearden Metal?”

“I funded your production of Rearden Metal,” Dagny said with narrow eyes. Hank was wandering around the apartment, not listening. Dagny ignored it. “Hank, I have something important to ask you.”

He refilled his glass from Dagny’s bar. “Aww, that’s cute!” he said.

“Today, two of my most talented conductors retired without a word. My favorite barista, the only one who can spell ‘Dagny,’ left. Everywhere, men are whispering words that feed the poor like hay—or whatever it is the poor eat. I know it doesn’t escape your attention. What is it, Hank?” He went to the window. During conversation, he preferred to be looking out a window so he could point out metaphors.

“Why ask? Don’t you just want to run your bus stations in ignorance? In peace?” Hank said.

This sparked something in Dagny. “I will not have my ambition taunted by someone with a less-developed backstory!” She took a breath. “What’s ruining this country? Is it corporate giveback programs? Is it Christmas?” Dagny asked.

Hank finally looked her in the eyes. “It’s butt stuff,” he said diplomatically.

“Buttstuff?” Dagny asked.

“Buttstuff. There’s not a man in Washington who hasn’t, and, Dagny”—he paused—“I want to do it too.”

“What?” Dagny was astonished.

“I want to fill my fruit basket—my obscene nectarine—my maraschino hairy. I want to buttstuff, Dagny! Will you watch?”

“Hank, I thought you were better than them,” Dagny said, looking away.

“Oh, Dagny.” Hank put his hands on the ground and waved his ass in the air—the universal sign of cats and people who want to buttstuff. “I’m so much worse!” he called out.

Hank’s gray suit pants slipped to the floor like a metal waterfall, followed by his baggy white briefs. His shirt and socks remained on. The first time Dagny saw Hank’s penis, it had shocked her. But now she was used to the teeny-weenie sausage and thought of it as a friend, like a frisky, medium-sized caterpillar. At this point, his man thimble was clearly, probably erect. It looked like the beak of a baby bird, breaking through an eggshell.

Hank gestured to the couch. Dagny pulled three metal bins and a red bell from underneath. She hadn’t known they were there.

“A bell?” she questioned.

“Not just any bell.”

Dagny noticed a gold S A in script on the handle’s end. “This isn’t—” Her eyes widened.

“It’s a Salvation Army bell. They ring it for… donations—for, for the poor.” Dagny dropped the thing as if it had burned her. Hank looked at her squarely. “And, Dagny, I want it in my buttstuff.”

“Hank, I…” Dagny didn’t know if she could do it.

“Do you want to be bad?” Hank said.

Dagny nodded. “I do.” She lowered her chin. “I want to be the worst.”

“Then donate, baby,” Hank said with a whip of his head. He went to Dagny’s closet and produced a red tripod with a bucket suspended in the middle. He set it up a few feet from Dagny.

“How did you—” Dagny started.

“Shhhh, your apartment is very easy to get into,” Hank said.

Hank began deep-throating the bell’s handle and flicking his jelly bean. He strummed himself the way people strum guitars or brush crumbs off trench coats. Dagny remained fully clothed and did not touch him. Independent masturbation was the only noble sexual conquest. Hank fully covered the bell’s handle with his spit. He leaned forward and started to buttstuff the bell into his Goodbye Kitty. A look of immense peace spread across his face, like he’d heard hundreds of homeless people had frozen to death. His body was giving way to a slight rumble, as if a distant train were nearing. Dagny felt the rumble too—deep, deep in her wallet.

Dagny opened the metal bins at her feet. One was brimming with cash; the other held hundreds of gold coins. This was Hank’s entire net worth, cashed out. Dagny had never seen this much money—except for her money, which was more money. Dagny brought handfuls of the cash to her face and took deep, moaning breaths.

“Hank, I didn’t know you were so… virtuous,” she said with a growl.

Hank’s body puffed up, then rolled like a cracking whip. Dagny heard a loud CLANG. Hank didn’t break eye contact. He whipped his body again, violently.

CLANG

CLANG

Hank started muttering—crazed speaking that turned into hungry-eyed yelling.

“Give to the poor!”

CLANG

“Money for the poor!”

CLANG

Dagny realized what was being asked of her. She grabbed a wad of cash and threw it at him. When the bills touched Hank’s skin, his eyes rolled back. His shaking increased and he continued shouting.

“Give to the poooor!”

CLANG

“Money for the poooor!”

CLANG

“Make me moral,” he hissed.

Dagny made it rain with dollars, then hail with coins. Hank stroked his teeny, weenie penis pebble and bucked wildly. Dagny threw the wealth at him with clawed fists. She was so angry. She was so turned on.

The bell ringing became faster and shakier. They both vibrated now, as if the distant train were nearing the station. Dagny took the last fistful of cash and began slapping Hank furiously across the face with it. The ringing was now so fast it seemed constant. Their mutual shaking felt like it would bring the building down. Hank caught the bills in his mouth and bit down. The bell announced his climax like an orgasm maraca. Hank came into the slit of the donation bucket, began chewing the money, and swallowed.

Dagny looked down. She had come all over the money. It was hers now.

“Francisco d’Anconia: A Day in the Life of a Totally Normal Teenage Magnate” by Kamala Puligandla

You can ask anyone around school: I, Francisco d’Anconia, am hot shit. My skin is like butter, my hair is glossier than the finest fur coat, and my dad owns some copper mines that are worth millions.

“I hear that Francisco naturally smells like a peach Bellini candle,” says a girl on the cheerleading squad.

“I hear that his smile can generate actual electricity,” says an artsy girl, who is gorgeous, except for her glasses.

“I hear he has lips like Jessica Rabbit and gives better head than a pool jet,” says Rudy, our custodian, in his deep baritone as he removes a “Closed for Cleaning” sign from outside the girls’ locker room.

“Wait a minute,” I interject. This is not the kind of ego boost I’m looking for on my morning sashay down the hallway. “Than a pool jet? That hardly gives me any credit for nuance. Where would you even hear something like that?”

Rudy shrugs and starts rolling his mop cart away.

I turn to my friends to say, “That guy. He can’t even button his coveralls correctly. Am I right, ladies?”

They’re all like, “Hell yes, Frisco! Can someone please tell Rudy that coveralls are for men who need to cover up? And Rudy should not be hiding such a stately ass.”

Which I haven’t considered until now because Rudy is old. He’s like twenty-five. But his ass is a little stately. A lot stately, actually. “I guess I’d get buried in those cheeks,” I muse aloud.

Which, of course, is the exact moment that my girlfriend, Dagny Taggart, pops out of the locker room. She looks all smug and boss bitch, like usual. I know she’s in a good mood because straight off, she adjusts her blazer and then buries her tongue in my ear—and thank God, because the last thing I need is my girlfriend getting jealous over some comment about old Rudy’s ass.

“Morning, Frisco,” Dagny says. “How about you give me a ride after school?” Dagny is basically panting at me.

“Okay, but I’m not your Uber,” I say. “A ride for a ride, Miss Thang.” I squeeze her butt cheek so she gets the idea. There is a big debate team match in the auditorium this afternoon and I’m sure she’ll be all riled up. Nothing gets Dagny wetter than humiliating other people, which is just one of the reasons she’s my girlfriend.

Dagny wiggles her eyebrows up and down and she growls at me, “Mr. d’Anconia, show me your copper mine and I’ll show you some world-class mining equipment,” or something else totally obvious. When she gets like this, my girl gang tends to scatter. They talk a big game, but they’re all saving themselves for Justin Bieber.

Meanwhile, Dagny is hornier than ten gorillas. Her beaver has a fever 24/7. She loves to fuck me with a metallic gray strap-on named Rearden that’s thicker than my forearm, all while she gruffly inquires about the identity of my daddy. Spoiler alert: It’s her. She likes getting me so worked up that I accidentally come on my favorite sheer black button-down or my beautiful new platform boots or whatever my hottest item of the moment is. Then—only after I’ve ruined something I love—is it my turn to penetrate her: slowly, gently, rhythmically, to infuriate her into coming. Is my girlfriend my frenemy? Absolutely. Hello, we’re the most scary and beautiful people at school—who the hell else could we date?

Anyway, later in English class we’re going over college admissions essays again, for the plebs that have to explain who they are to admissions boards. Our teacher, Dr. Thompson, is always wearing pilly sweaters that don’t bring out his eyes and telling me that I need to be more specific in my essays.

“Francisco, when you say, for example, ‘my pussy is the phattest,’ what are you intending to convey about yourself? Or, ‘I’m the best bitch, doing it, doing it’? Can you show the reader concretely what it is you’re the best at doing?”

I look at Dr. Thompson, cross my arms, and touch my hair. “Specifically, my own feminist narrative involves the empowerment of the pussy—for everyone, mine included. More specifically, my pussy can handle a very wide load and nobody leaves unsatisfied. Do you need more details? I feel like my work speaks for itself.” I’m pretty sure Dr. Thompson would love to get his patient, nurturing mouth on my cock. If not mine, then Dagny’s. Nobody on earth can say no to the both of us.

Dr. Thompson sighs. Passionately, I assume, until he says, “I wish you would take this more seriously,” and I realize he doesn’t want to play this game with me.

“No,” I say. “I wish you would take this more seriously. I’m using my bathroom pass.”

He waves me away and I decide to wander the halls a bit. I figure I’ll swing by the gym and see if Dagny is doing her debate thing. She’s always involved in activities that get her out of class—she knows how to work a system. I’m sashaying by the dance studio when I notice that nobody is taking advantage of those perfect floor-length mirrors. So I let myself in. I want to check on which side of my profile I like better. Last I looked, it was the left. I’m turning my head back and forth and am bent over to take a closer look at the definition in my right jawline. That’s when I hear the familiar rumble of a custodial cart.

“From one stately ass to another, you really ought to be in class,” Rudy says.

That deep voice of his, it rustles something inside of me. In the mirror, I see him watching my cock get hard—I’m wearing my floral printed leggings today, so it’s really not any kind of secret. “Listen, Rudy, I’m not in the business of running my mouth, if you aren’t. But between you and me, we’re gonna need to talk about that booty,” I say.

Suddenly Rudy is close up behind me and I feel a stiff poke in my back. “What exactly would you like to say about it?” His soft, firm hand caresses the left side of my face. “You know, this is your better side,” he says thoughtfully.

I roll my eyes at him. I have to be back in class in like fifteen minutes and I want him to stuff me with his hot meat, not confirm what I already know about the perfect contours of my face. “Yeah, duh,” I say, and shove his hand down the front of my leggings.

He strokes me a few times and then drops his coveralls. “Dagny is not going to like this,” he purrs.

“Oh, she doesn’t have to know about this.” I moan as Rudy works his way inside of my phat pussy. I peek in the mirror at the flexing of Rudy’s pert ass. Stately, def stately, I’m thinking.

Suddenly, I hear a familiar, businesslike bossy voice—one I don’t want to hear right now. “I have to be on the debate floor in thirty minutes, so please get yourself hard right—”

Dagny breaks into the room and then stops. At this point, I’m on the dance studio floor and Rudy is working me like a wheelbarrow. She takes in the scene, removes her blazer, and then plants herself before us, hands resting on her elegant little hips. Neither of us moves.

“It seems to me that both of you are currently in violation of our individual agreements,” Dagny finally announces.

“What?” I ask, catching my breath. “Both of us?”

“Yes,” Dagny answers, and examines her nail beds. “Rudy fucks me between classes. G-spot orgasms help me focus. How do you think I scored so high on my SATs? Listen, Frisco, I love pumping you with my cold, steel rod, but you’re much better at receiving.”

I crane my neck to look at Rudy, who nods in agreement. I’m still rocking against him because, amazingly, he’s still hard and Dagny isn’t the only fierce queen who needs to get off and also, whatever.

“But I can work with this,” Dagny says confidently. She always has the answers. She stretches out her fingers and rolls her neck a few times. In what feels like seconds, Dagny has shed the executive skirt suit that is her official debate uniform and is on the ground, legs in the air, riding my face like a rocking horse. “Mmm, yes, better than a pool jet,” she exclaims while Rudy, who still has more juice, continues to tap my pinkberry. It doesn’t take long before that formation ends in spastic shudders and heaves. “Up, down, open,” Dagny directs us as we move through several more positions. Then finally Dagny whips out Rearden, lubes him up, and punishes the both of us for violations. Afterward, we’re all left panting and glistening on the dance studio floor.

“Well, that was an invigorating experience,” I say. “I think I have some details for Dr. Thompson.”

Dagny is already zipping up her skirt. “Don’t forget to clean the mirrors, Rudy,” she casually instructs. “I’ll need you again when we break at three-fifteen.”

“My name isn’t really Rudy,” Rudy replies. “It’s John, John Galt. And I’m not a custodian. I’m an engineer. I’d like to talk to you two about coming away with me to join my revolution.”

Dagny is putting the back of her right earring in. “Rudy, I told you I was only interested in role-play if you could snag a cheerleader outfit. Stop trying to make things complicated.”

“Francisco?” Rudy is starting to sound desperate now and his coveralls are still not buttoned correctly. “Come on, it’s a really important revolution. Don’t you want to use your popularity for a good cause?”

“Uh, hell no,” I scoff at this ridiculous notion. I have plenty of activities on my plate without some coverall revolution—I don’t know where Dagny finds these losers. By now, I’ve shimmied back into my leggings and am using a sock to clean all kinds of cum off my face.

“Later, Dag,” I say. “Call me when you need another ride or found us a new victim.” I blow her a kiss, shrug, and walk away.