Face-Slapping12 min read
My Body, My Rules — The Hairpin I Threw
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I woke up with my neck killing me and my ribs like they'd been judged and found wanting.
"Ow—who did this to me?" I hissed into the dimness.
"Three! Where is she?" a distant voice shouted.
I blinked and felt two strange, heavy lumps under my hands. My fingers froze. "What on earth—"
"Stop staring and get up!" another voice barked.
I pushed myself up despite the pain and saw motion: a masked figure in black fighting someone in yellow by a river, and a handsome man in moon-colored robes wedging himself between them. For a second I thought I’d walked on a film set.
Then memory slammed in like a cartwheel.
"This body isn't mine," I thought. "Wang Baochuan."
"You're the thief!" the masked man snarled.
"Shameless!" someone else cried.
I had watched the old drama dozens of times in my dorm—romeo and ruin in silk and song. I knew the arc: the kindness that warped into obsession, the rescue that became a chain.
"Wait—" I whispered. "No."
I remembered Wang Baochuan's life trailing down like spilled ink: a beloved daughter of a prime minister who threw her lot away for a man who left her to hunger. I remembered the road, the scuffle, the river, the scene that would set her ruin into motion.
"Not happening," I said aloud, half to myself, half to the empty room. "I won't be eaten by bad writing this time."
"She's moving!" someone gasped.
I grabbed a sash, slipped, and bolted.
"Stop!" a voice called. "My lady!"
The voice belonged to a youth inside a carriage. He had hair that caught moonlight like ink and eyes like black glass. He moved with the lazy arrogance of someone who'd been told the world belonged to him.
"Hold there!" he said, as if I were a thing to be inspected.
"Let me on!" I flung myself up, the carriage flap snapping behind me.
"You wretched—" someone outside cursed. "That's our girl!"
"She's mine." The voice belonged to a man who'd hurt me two nights ago. My fists clenched around the sash.
"Stop bothering us!" the carriage youth snapped as he peered down. His look landed on me and for one absurd second I felt like a cat that had been winked at.
"You're in the wrong carriage, miss," he said. "Get down."
"No," I said. "You're in the wrong kingdom. Let me go."
"What's your name?" he asked, as if making introductions could smooth over being chased.
"Why would I tell you? You and I will be strangers in a few minutes."
He smiled in a way that made me weirdly impatient. "I am Oliver Caruso."
"I'm Katherine Dell," I lied without thinking. "And—thank you for the lift."
He knelt enough to meet my eyes and the world narrowed. For an odd flash, under all that moon and carriage lamp, something unnameable shivered through me. It was the first of many tiny betrayals of my own plan.
"You could be hurt," he said softly.
"I'm fine," I said, too quickly. I had a plan: avoid Wang Baochuan's fate. Avoid men who made promises like wolves made garlands. Avoid the man who would one day ruin everything.
"Your thanks—" Oliver's smile was a small revolt. "Keep that hairpin. It might be useful."
He reached out. Before I could say no, his fingers brushed my hand. My chest thudded—not with love; with startled, private alarm. I shoved my stolen hairpin into his palm and ran.
"Wait!" he called. "Where are you going?"
"Home," I lied. "My home."
*
Home was the Wang household, which now felt like a stage set arranged to take my breath. My mother—soft and fierce—grabbed me like I'd been through a storm, and for one dizzy minute I tasted the honey of being beloved.
"You're safe!" Dorothy Watson cried, eyes shining.
"Safe for now," I thought. "Time to rewrite."
My sisters crowded in: Kayleigh Dean, silver-tongued and dangerous in her prettiness; Jillian Soto, measured and careful; and small, excitable faces that felt like strings on a puppet. Their voices overlapped like gossip in the parlor.
"You're out again!" Kayleigh snapped, offended that anyone could have taken a walk without consulting her.
"I'm fine," I said. "I have questions."
"Questions?" Kayleigh's laugh was a blade. "About what? Which boy you plan to ruin next?"
"About what happens when a woman puts her faith in one man," I said. "I want no scenes."
"You sound like you learned that somewhere," Jillian murmured.
I painted tears into my eyes and the household shifted. Power. I learned quickly which words bent men’s faces like light: a soft "daddy," a tremble, a small, sharp look. The family rallied and I felt a dangerous warmth at playing parts so easily.
"You must never go out alone again," Mother said.
"I promise," I said. "But let me help with the matter of the man who took me."
"Who?" Father Jared Cowan demanded.
"The one in yellow and the one with the knife," I said. "Both were there together."
"Search the city," Father said. "Bring him before me if you can."
"Yes, Father."
I smiled. A plan bloomed. If I could find evidence—if I could find the yellow-clothed man—then maybe I could steer the story. Maybe I could unmask the villains not in whispers but in the open, where shame bites and knives dull.
*
I found a beggar camp on accident and a ragtag crew of people who lived loud and messy. Crew Russell was the leader, a man with a cane and a face cut by kindness. Kensley Bishop—small, fierce—ran with a grin like a match. Patrick Burns was the goofy one who would steal your last dumpling but return it wrapped in protection.
"You're not like other ladies," Crew told me.
"Most ladies don't run," I said.
"We don't ask a lot," Kensley said. "Food, a roof, an audience."
I handed them food from the carriage. They gave me a kind of blunt gratitude that felt honest and messy.
"Why help me?" I asked Crew one night.
"Because you looked at us without pity," he said. "Pity ruins people."
"Because you lied?" Kensley added.
"Because you didn't pretend to be smaller than you were," Crew corrected. "And because everything costs less if you buy it in the open air."
My plan expanded: I would find the yellow man, and I would watch. I would be an actor in my own rescue, and if anything attempted to write me small, I would crumble the script.
"Why hide?" a new voice asked behind us.
He was a soldier-looking man with a blade that carried a chill. He introduced himself coolly: Leonardo Bennett.
"You're far from the capital," I said.
"I'm not from the capital," he said. "I passed through and saw a scuffle. I couldn't let a woman be harassed."
"You saved me?" I said, more surprised than flattered.
"You were in trouble," Leonardo said, unbothered. "I didn't expect to be noticed."
"You are noticed now," I teased. "Be careful."
"Nobody needs to be safe from me," he grinned.
"I don't want to be your responsibility."
"You don't have to be," he said. "We can guard ourselves."
That was the second betrayal: his steady presence grew like a warm tide. He lent his arm when we walked through risky streets. He had the gentle habit of ironing worry from the corners of my mouth with a look.
*
Not all men were gentle.
Ambrose Carver—cruel in the funny way a scorpion is pretty until it bites—was a local lord's nephew. He'd led the attempt on my body; he'd planned the "abduction" with his brother-like ally Matthias Ortega, an arrogant man who wore violence like a badge. With a few words and a sleight of cruelty, they tried to make my life a public slapstick of cruelty.
"She has a pretty mouth," Ambrose told Matthias. "It would be art to mold her."
"She will be ours," Matthias said, cold as coin.
They believed themselves invisible because power is often lazy.
"Not if I'm the one unmasking you," I thought.
"Who are these beggars?" Matthias mocked one night in the dining hall, eyes sharp on Crew and his ragged band who had been invited—by me—to lift bowls.
"Vagrants," Kayleigh whispered, a smile like malice.
"How dare you!" I snapped.
"She always has something to say," Kayleigh hissed.
That lit me. I knew their plan: set me up to be grateful, then make me small. I refused. I chose to make them small instead.
*
What followed was long and almost surgical in its revenge. I collected watchers. I listened to whispers between Ambrose and Matthias. I sent notes in the hush of pre-dawn to Oliver Caruso, who had become oddly invested. I watched the way Oliver's fingers when he thought no one watched would find his own pulse and slow it like a confession.
"You're acting dangerous," Oliver told me once, late by the garden.
"Someone has to," I said.
"But why?" He folded his hands.
"For the story," I said. "For not being swept like dust toward his door."
Oliver laughed softly. "Storylines should have better food."
"Better writers," I said.
He didn't stop me. He offered his carriage at odd hours and his face when he saw me angry turned gentle. Leonardo watched from a distance and sometimes joined our ridiculous schemes, more sword than words, more steady than my own breath.
Ambrose and Matthias made mistakes. Men who think themselves sly are often sloppy because sloppiness mirrors arrogance.
When Ambrose's lieutenant bragged too loudly at the tea shop, I arranged for a witness to listen. When Matthias sneered in front of a guard who had a cousin in the scriptorium, I arranged for ink to circulate.
Evidence is a ragged thing until it is laid open in a room where people can see.
"Gather them. The hall," I said.
"Are you certain?" Oliver asked, woods and river in his voice.
"Certain," I answered.
*
The hall was full. Jared Cowan sat at his seat with the gravity of a man whose name carries weight. Dorothy Watson watched my face. Kayleigh Dean watched me as if I were a chess piece she could still move. Matthias and Ambrose sat like black stones, smug.
I walked in with my hairpin hidden in my sleeve.
"Father," I said. "I have evidence."
"You?" Kayleigh sneered. "Little third sister?"
"No," I said, and the room narrowed. "Listen."
"Three years," I said, "I'll not let them make it ten with more ruin."
I had a letter. I had witnesses. I had a map of lies with names and times, and I had a list of payments, the crude ones the men made to buy silence. I did not flatter the room. I did not beg. I laid everything down like a hand on a table.
"This man," I said, pointing at Matthias, "sent men to threaten my safety after you had entrusted them with our protection."
"This man," I said, pointing at Ambrose, "planned the abduction, then boasted in the tea house that he had 'stolen' the future of the prime minister's house."
People leaned. The room was a hive of breath.
"Ambrose!" My voice was a blade. "You've told many people that you 'expertly' took advantage of a helpless lady. You are a fool for saying it. You are a monster for meaning it."
Ambrose laughed, thinking this would be a comedy, but the laughter broke like thin glass when Oliver stepped forward.
"Sign," Oliver said quietly.
"What?" Ambrose blinked.
Oliver held a ledger. Under my instruction, Oliver had used his carriage service as a ledger point to track who had paid which servant to be absent. Crew had helped by recording overheard confessions as they lived among street life. Leonardo had tracked a man Ambrose favored in coin exchanges; Patrick had swiped a receipt from a drunk in the alley that listed Ambrose's name.
"Do you have proof?" Ambrose barked.
"I do," I said. "And if you deny it further, the town watch will arrest those named men and drag your honor through the mud in broad daylight."
Ambrose's face flushed purple, his confidence leaving like breath from a punctured chest.
"You liar!" he roared. "You stole my reputation!"
"Not stolen," I said. "Exposed."
The hall vibrated. Kayleigh's expression shifted from triumph to a ripple of fear—she had backed him. The servants gathered at the doors. Eyes turned to Matthias and Ambrose.
"Confess," I told them. "Tell them the story you told in the tea house. Tell them how you arranged the abduction for a staged 'rescue' to make you heroic."
Ambrose's jaw clenched. He had rehearsed for a moment like this—he had a way with words under the lamplight. He opened his mouth to deny.
"Ambrose," Oliver said very softly, "your younger man here—watch him."
A clerk that Ambrose used to send messages for him produced a folded note as if remembering duty. He handed it to my father.
"You told me to keep it secret!" Ambrose snapped.
"Secrets kept us poor," the clerk said, eyes like a judge. "Not anymore."
Ambrose's face crumpled first to shock, then to fury, then to denial. He laughed, then tried to cry, then slapped the table.
"You can't!" he screamed.
"Watch them," I said. "See their faces. This is the moment they lose their masks."
Matthias went pale. He lunged toward Ambrose in panic as if to stop his own confession. Guards moved forward. I watched the performance: first the smugness, then the blink, then the denial, the pleading, and the final collapse.
"Don't you dare—" Matthias spat, "I'll sue you!"
"You already did," Oliver said. "By clearing this house of your lies."
They were called to stand. I walked to the center and unsheathed a plan I'd whispered to Crew Russell: we'd call the people Ambrose had scorned—servants he'd bullied into lying, widows he'd threatened, the tea house owner he'd bribed. Each person stood and named him.
The scene widened into a public tapestry of evidence. People gasped; some took out pens, some took out phones and scribbled. Among the gasps were the thin, red-hot sounds of knives of truth.
Ambrose went from defiant to guttural to quiet. Someone had turned a cam—my watchers had recorded his boast at the tea shop; Oliver's clerk played the testimony. The crowd heard his voice. The laughter in the recording matched his face.
The public punishment began.
I demanded that the servants Ambrose had abused be brought forward. I named each cruelty. I asked for restitution. I demanded that Ambrose publicly apologize in front of the wardens and that he relinquish his claim on any 'honor' he'd manufactured.
He sputtered, then tried to regain himself and blamed my 'imagination.' He snarled at Kayleigh as if she could be used to save him.
"Shame," I said, loud and cold. "Shame will not protect you. Only accountability will."
Oliver's eyes found mine. Leonardo stood by the door with arms folded, like a mountain.
Ambrose's face finally changed shape: from smugness to stupefaction, to anger, to pleading, to collapse. He crumpled and spoke in a voice that broke: "It was a joke! We were only joking! Don't ruin me."
Around him, people murmured and some recorded. Someone in the crowd—an apprentice from a barber—shouted, "Call the peacekeepers! Bring him to the market square!"
Matthias, who had lines of violence in his spine, suddenly looked like a man whose ink had run out.
The guard captain raised his hand. "By order of Prime Minister Jared Cowan, you will face public reprimand, restitution, and publicly strip the status you used to bully these people." His voice was controlled, decisive.
Ambrose's knees buckled. He fell to his hands and knees, then to his face. His speeches curdled into desperate pleas. "Please—my name—"
"No," I said. "You made a habit of stealing lives. You will be seen. You will be shamed into a smallness you cannot buy out of. You will be stripped of your position at the militia events. You will publicly accept the humiliation of your deeds while these people say their truth."
The crowd's reaction was a hot, messy thing: some cheered; some recorded; some wept to see the arrogance fall. Children who had seen Ambrose swagger by their stalls pointed at him and then laughed—the sound was part triumph, part the city's own justice.
Ambrose begged. He cried. He tried the old maneuvers: charm, threats, tears. He attempted to buy the silence of a witness. Each ploy failed. His friends turned away; Kayleigh watched, stunned, as the man she had leaned near for comfort was made small.
Matthias's punishment would be different. I did not want him to crumble in the same way—his weapon was reputation among fighters. I demanded a public duel with a known champion, with all wagers paying back the families he'd broken. He was forced into a demonstration of his skill only to be bested—his defeat a public proof of his cruelty and his weakness.
Ambrose's breakdown lasted long enough for the crowd to watch his layers peel. He crawled, insulted, then sobbed. He was taken to sit within the public market for three days, wearing a sign naming his cruelties. People spat. People threw rotten fruit. They made a spectacle of his pride.
Matthias was stripped of all his honors at the House of Arms. He was ordered to make public amends through labor and restitution, forced to attend the homes he had harmed and repair what he had broken.
The punishments were made into public pieces: a humiliation for the bully; a day of labor for the fighter. They were different. Both hurt. Both stripped what power they had.
When the scene ended, I stood by my father's chair and unpinned the hairpin Oliver had returned to me that day. I held it up.
"Let this be a hairpin held as a weapon," I said. "Not to trap women, but to free them from the cords men would fasten."
The hall hummed. Some clapped. Kayleigh's face had pale regret. Ambrose had red, wet eyes.
I realized there was a cost: the room's eyes stung me with judgement and mercy both. I had used performance to correct a script written for me. But I had also seen something else: how absolutely public and fulfilling a true unmasking can be.
*
Afterwards, there were personal reckonings. Kayleigh would later find that being complicit cost her friends, and she had to learn to stand inwardly smaller while acting larger in goodness. Ambrose suffered the loss of his privileges and with them the allies he had counted. Matthias could no longer pretend power without proving worth; he spent years rebuilding through labor and public service.
I, Katherine Dell in Wang Baochuan's body, sat with Leonardo and Oliver on the steps after the hearing.
"You turned the whole court into a tribunal," Leonardo said, half in awe.
"You all helped," I replied. "I was only the face."
Oliver reached for my hand. "You were the voice."
Leonardo's jaw—so quiet—moved. "And the sword."
We laughed quietly. Our things were messy: Oliver's cavalier jokes, Leonardo's quiet bravery, Crew's warmth, Kensley's lightning. But above all, the hairpin lay between us—small, slightly bent, and utterly mine.
"Keep it," I told Leonardo. "A token."
"No," Oliver insisted, reaching for it in a gentleman's wink. "She must keep her own weapon."
I slid it into the inner seam of my sleeve and smiled. The life ahead was a map with a dozen traps and a few gardens. I would swim in both.
I had changed the script. I had chosen my own ruin or revival. I had found men who were kind in different ways. I had made villains small in public so they could not act in private.
Later, at a festival, people still whispered about Ambrose crawling across the market square. Children used the story as a warning and an emblem.
When I lay my head down that night, my hairpin glinting in moonlight like the last line of a play, I thought of one truth I had learned: if you are given a part you do not like, you can step into the wings and rewrite the ending. And sometimes you do it by throwing a hairpin.
The End
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