Chuck Palahniuk - Beautiful You

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright 2014 by Chuck Palahniuk

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Doubleday, a division of Random House LLC, New York, a Penguin Random House company.

www.doubleday.com

DOUBLEDAY and the portrayal of an anchor with a dolphin are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.

Jacket design and illustration Rodrigo Corral/Devin Washburn

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Palahniuk, Chuck.
Beautiful you / by Chuck Palahniuk.
pages cm
ISBN 978-0-385-53803-9 (hardcover)ISBN 978-0-385-53804-6 (eBook)
I. Title.
PS3566.A4554B43 2014
813.54dc23 2013033379

v3.1

A Billion Husbands Are
About to Be Replaced

Even as Penny was attacked, the judge merely stared. The jury recoiled. The journalists cowered in the gallery. No one in the courtroom came to her rescue. The court reporter continued to dutifully keyboard, transcribing Pennys words: Someone, hes hurting me! Please stop him! Those efficient fingers typed the word No! The stenographer transcribed a long phonetic moan, a groan, a scream. This gave way to a list of Pennys pleas:

His fingers tapped out, Help!

They typed, Stop!

It wouldve been different if there had been other women in the courtroom, but there were none. In the past few months all women had disappeared from sight. The public sphere was devoid of women. Those looking on as Penny struggledthe judge, the jurors, the spectatorsthey were all male. This world was a world of men.

The court reporter typed, Please!

He typed, Please, no! Not here!

Otherwise, only Penny moved. Her slacks were bunched down rudely around her ankles. Her underthings were ripped away to expose her to everyone who dared look. She swung her elbows and knees, trying to escape. In their front-row seats the sketch artists drew fast lines to capture her grappling with the attacker, her torn clothes flapping, her tangled hair whipping the air. A few tentative hands rose among the spectators, each cupping a cell phone and snapping a surreptitious picture or a few seconds of video. Her outcries seemed to freeze everyone else present, her ragged voice echoing around the otherwise silent space. It was no longer the sound of just one woman being raped; the reverberating, shimmering eddies of sound suggested that a dozen women were under attack. A hundred. The whole world was screaming.

In the witness stand, she fought. She wrestled to bring her legs together and push the pain away. Lifting her head, she tried to make eye contact with someonewith anyone. A man pressed his palms to the sides of his head, covering his ears and squeezing his eyes shut, as red-faced as a frightened little boy. Penny looked to the judge, who sighed piteously at her plight but refused to gavel for order. A bailiff ducked his head and mumbled words into a microphone clipped to his chest. His gun holstered, he nervously shifted his weight, wincing at her outcries.

Others peeked decorously at their watches or text messages as if mortified on Pennys behalf. As if she ought to know better than to scream and bleed in public. As if this attack and her suffering were her own fault.

The lawyers seemed to shrivel inside their expensive pin-striped suits. They busily shuffled their papers. Even her own boyfriend stayed seated, gaping at her brutal assault in utter disbelief. Someone mustve called an ambulance, because paramedics were soon rushing down the center aisle.

Sobbing and clawing to protect herself, Penny fought to stay conscious. If she could get to her feet, if she could climb from the stand, she could run. Escape. The courtroom was as densely packed as a city bus at rush hour, but no one seized her attacker or tried to drag him away. Those who were standing took a step or two back. Every observer was edging backward as far as the walls allowed, leaving Penny and her rapist in a growing emptiness at the front of the room.

The two paramedics pushed through the crowd. When they first reached her, Penny lashed out, still gasping and struggling, but they calmed her, telling her to relax. Telling her that she was safe. The worst was over, leaving her chilled, drenched in sweat, and shivering with shock. In every direction a wall of faces looked for blank spots where their eyes wouldnt meet other eyes filled with their mutual shame.

The paramedics lifted her onto a gurney, and one tucked a blanket around her trembling body while the other buckled straps to keep her in place. Finally the judge was gaveling, calling for a recess.

The medic pulling the straps snug asked, Can you tell me what year this is?

Pennys throat burned, raw from shouting. Her voice sounded hoarse, but she said the correct year.

Can you tell me the president? asked the paramedic.

Penny almost said Clarissa Hind, but stopped herself. President Hind was dead. The first and only female president was dead.

Can you tell us your name? Both medics were, of course, male.

Penny, she said, Penny Harrigan.

The two men leaning over her gasped in recognition. Their professional faces slipped for a moment and became delighted smiles. I thought you looked familiar, one said brightly.

The other snapped his fingers, exasperated by words that wouldnt come to mind. He piped in, You are youre that one, from the National Enquirer!

The first one pointed a finger at Penny, bound and helpless, watched by every masculine eye. Penny Harrigan, he shouted like an accusation. Youre Penny Harrigan, the Nerds Cinderella.

The pair of men lifted the gurney to waist height. The crowds parted to let them wheel it toward the exit.

The second medic nodded with recognition. The guy you dumped, wasnt he, like, the richest man in the world?

Maxwell, the first declared. His name was Linus Maxwell. He shook his head in disbelief. Not only had Penny been raped in front of a federal courtroom filled with people, none of whom had lifted a finger to stop the attacker, but now the ambulance attendants thought she was an idiot.

You shouldve married him, the first one kept marveling all the way to the ambulance. Lady, if youd married that guy youd be richer than God.

Cornelius Linus Maxwell. C. Linus Maxwell. Due to his reputation as a playboy the tabloid press often called him Climax-Well. The worlds richest megabillionaire.

Those same tabloids had dubbed her the Nerds Cinderella. Penny Harrigan and Corny Maxwell. Theyd met a year before. That all seemed like a lifetime ago. A different world entirely.

A better world.

Never in human history had there been a better time to be a woman. Penny knew that.