Breathing hard, I sat down on the bench along the side of the women's 'exercise gym' and examined my cracked knuckles. The punching bag I had been using swung heavily from the ceiling, as though eagerly awaiting another strike.
I wiped away the blood on my fists, the sweat on my forehead, and the tears beneath my eyes and stood back up, kicking my brown military-issue Oxford heels out of the way.
The men's training facility in the basement was much nicer than the women's, so I had stolen one of their punching bags to practice with on my own every now and then. Today, it was purely anger that brought me down to the gym.
Over and over, I hit the bag mercilessly. Tears of frustration streamed down my face, and I knew I should have wrapped my knuckles beforehand. Somehow, though, the anger felt better with bloody hands.
Those men would always be better than me, no matter how much I achieved, where I went, or how many people I'd saved. I'd never be respected, or treated decently in any office.
The humiliation and frustration I had held inside for months felt suddenly so real, and I just wished things weren't always so hard.
"Louisa."
My heart sank. Without even turning around, I knew it was Benjamin.
"This is the women's gym, Ben," I muttered gravely, continuing to punch the bag without looking back at him.
He ignored my statement and took me by the shoulders. "Is it true?"
I sighed and pulled away, and he knew it was. That was all he needed to know.
"I'm gonna kill them," he began, starting back for the door with his fists at his side,"I'm gonna-"
Reaching for him urgently, I turned him around to face me. "No you're not. Just calm down."
"Are you crazy?" he exclaimed, raising his voice so loud I took a step back, "They humiliated and hurt you. If they think they'll get away with—"
I grabbed his uniform to try to get his attention. "I handled it, okay?"
"By doing nothing."
"I can't fix every situation with my fists like you, Ben. It's handled."
"How?"
Crossing my arms in front of me and giving him a small smile, I said, "They forgot I was their boss. And that I outrank them."
"Did you get someone to fire them?"
I shook my head. "They'll come in tomorrow morning with a stack of paperwork on their desks about this high," I gestured with my hands, "If they're so interested in women in the workplace, they'll have to see how women actually work."
Benjamin raised his eyebrows and grinned slyly. "You gave them all the filing people always give you, didn't you?"
I nodded. "And not just mine. I asked some of the other ladies if they had any work they needed done, and there was quite a turnout. Most of it was not assigned to them in the first place, surprisingly," I said with sarcasm, going over to the bench and putting my green military jacket back on over my brown skirt and white button up.
"And not a single punch was thrown," I added, glancing at him as he began to wrap my cracked hands with white strips of cloth I'd had in my bag.
He sighed, finishing up the wrapping and kissing my hands. "Point taken. You amaze me."
     Benjamin held the door open for me as I slipped back into my heels, and I put my arm in his as we walked outside towards the building that held Benjamin and the other high officials' offices.
     "Are people talking?"
     "Not much. They're all too scared of you, I think. And Caleb's been bullying anyone who asks where you went all afternoon. Also, what did Arthur Goldberg say about the two of us going to Marseilles?"
     I shrugged. "He seemed to support it," I smiled as Benjamin rolled his eyes a little, "and he's going to talk to Mr. Shepardson about it. Has your opinion changed?"
     "A little, I guess," he conceded, "but I still think it's a terrible idea. The only difference now is that I think it's a terrible idea we should at least look into."
     I laughed, stopping outside his spacious office and letting him take my hands gently.
     "I wish I didn't have this position, Louisa. You work twice as hard as me but you're stuck sharing a desk with Caleb 'take my shoes off during work' Sullivan and doing everyone else's work. Nobody but the Joint Chief of Staff and I will ever know how much you've done for this war, and somehow I'm supposed to be okay with sitting in this big office all day while you're being harassed by Technical Sergeants in the Research department outside? You deserve more than this."
     I put a finger to his lips and forced a smile. "It doesn't matter what I deserve, if anything, Ben. I get to work alongside my pretty-boy in the job of my dreams...besides flying planes, of course. I have it so much better than others in this very building, let alone all over the world."
"But that doesn't make the lack of respect you're given acceptable, Lou."
"Not everything has to be fair all the time," I said with a small laugh, "despite what every man in this office seems to think. Come on now, we have two hours left in the workday. I'll meet you outside at 7 pm, yes?"
He kissed me on the cheek with a quick glance around at the people watching, and gave me a mischievous grin. "I'll be there at 6:50."

     We received word the next week that our request for relocation had been granted, and we were flown out to Camp X, the British and American training camp in Canada infamous for "assassination and elimination" operatives.  Benjamin was more terrified than I was, despite the fact that he'd received his initial training there years ago.
     For the next three months, we learned sabotage techniques, subversion, explosives training, radio communications, encoding and decoding (although we already knew much about that), and the art of silent killing and unarmed combat.
     Our classmates were new recruits to the OSS, including many women, so we had already learned and put into practice many of the things we were being taught.
     Still, we benefitted immensely from our individual training in French colloquialisms, the culture and customs of Marseilles, parachuting over occupied territory, and our new identities we would soon adopt.
     Benjamin was now Alexandre Gilbert, a respectable doctor moving to Marseilles to open up a practice in the heart of the port city. He would dye his hair a deep brown, and wear glasses that—to our surprise—actually helped his vision a little.
     He was born in Cannes, just a little outside Marseilles, on August 24th, 1919. His father was killed in the Great War just before he was born, and his mother died of a broken heart when he was two years old.
I was Anne-Laure Gilbert, the young, loving wife of Alexandre. After much debate, it was decided that Anne-Laure was raised in a boarding school in Germany, which would explain my proficiency in the language in case I ever needed to use it.
     My original blonde hair would make a reappearance, but they insisted on adding a reddish tint and cutting it just below my shoulders. We decided it was too risky for me to wear contacts to hide my well-known green eyes, although I would try to wear sunglasses as much as possible while running errands, and I'd wear heels as much as I could to add to my height.
     "Louisa," Benjamin said as we took our final daily run around Lake Ontario before leaving the camp, "what will you do if someone questions the scar on your neck from that gunshot in Herrsching?"
     I smirked, tugging on my military-issue pants that were three sizes too small. "I fell out of a treehouse when I was a child and cut myself."
     "Sounds believable enough, I guess," he panted, stopping beneath a tree and looking at his watch, "but what if they ask about the wound on your stomach?"
     I gasped and playfully punched him, laughing with him at the absurdity of anyone ever seeing that scar. "If that happens, they'll be dead before they can even ask."
     Benjamin chuckled as we headed back towards the camp dormitories, taking in every sight and smell that we could. He put his arm around me, and I sighed.
"I'm so scared."
"Me too."
Our plan was to fly back to Washington that afternoon to get a few things in order, and then leave the next morning for France where we would be dropped from a plane into occupied territory.
     "Hey," someone called from across the courtyard as we were about to enter the main training building, "were you gonna leave without saying goodbye?"
     It was Wing Commander Dahl, the British SOE agent, writer, and fighter pilot that slept in the room across from Benjamin. We had become good friends with him since our arrival at Camp X, and he seemed to have a knack for storytelling unrivaled with anyone we'd ever met.
    "Roald," Benjamin said to him, jogging over and shaking his hand earnestly, "I'm glad to see you. Yeah, we're going to get our bags as we speak. You could come with us if you'd like."
     He smiled and bowed to kiss my hand with a dramatic smile, saying, "Agent Tallmadge, looking as dashing as ever. Don't let those men in France catch a look at you."
     Benjamin and I exchanged amused glances at his English frankness, and I replied, laughing, "I'll try my best, Wing Commander Dahl. Have you heard anything more from your publisher about The Gremlins?"
     He shook his head, following us up the stairs to where our packed bags were sitting. "The RAF pilots and your First Lady seem to like the book," he shrugged proudly, "but it's hard to get any news inside this rotsome cave-hole."
     We laughed and he followed us to the small airstrip just outside the compound, telling us all about the ideas he had for books in the future.
     "Now I have a question for a story I'm thinking of that needs a truly honest answer," he said turning to face us and walking backwards towards the plane, "Which do you think you'd like better: snozzberries or fizzlecrumps?"
     I furrowed my eyebrows and Benjamin and I exchanged another grinning glance. "What even are those things?"
     Roald rolled his eyes as though it were simply obvious. "They're not real things yet," he explained, "but they will be in my world someday. C'mon," he prodded as we reached the plane, "just which one sounds the most scrumdiddlyumptious?"
    I laughed and Benjamin shouted over the roar of the engine, "Definitely snozzberries. Don't you agree, Louisa?"
     "Sure," I answered, holding my hair back as the wind whipped through the air, "because it sounds sweeter. Fizzlecrumps sound like boring, old biscuits, which children certainly wouldn't like as much as a fruit, yes?"
     Dahl smiled. "Then it's settled. Good luck out there, both of you."
     "Thank you, sir," Benjamin said, "We'll try our best. Thank you for all of your help, and best of luck to you as well."
We boarded the plane and Ben took my hand as we sat in the seats along the side. "Are you ready?"
     "No. But I'm excited."

Yeeee as always hit me up with suggestions and stuff to make it better!!LOVE YALLLL AAAAHHHHHHH