Free Better Off Dead by Katy Munger

best strategy was to
print up an anonymous flyer saying I had been sexually harassed by
a Duke professor and wanted to hear from any students who'd had
similar experiences to discuss possible legal action. Then I would
distribute the flyers around the neighborhoods where the rape
victims lived and hope that they called me. I might as well target
women who had been in David Brookhouse's classes while I was at it.
That way, I would not be pointing the finger directly at
Brookhouse, but I would be leaving the door open to anyone who'd
had problems with him. If he'd had an affair with Helen, a graduate
student at the time, he had probably crossed that line before and
since. Maybe some of his jilted honeys could give more insight into
his character—or lack of it.
    It would be easy enough to track down his
class lists and the current addresses of the rape victims. At least
it would be if I had a computer. Unfortunately, mine was bobbing
along in the flood waters over in Raleigh, so I was technologically
unarmed. And this was not the sort of search that could be
conducted privately at Kinko's, as it was a stone's throw from the
campus and likely filled with dozens of people who knew David
Brookhouse in one way or another.
    I stopped by my apartment and called Burly
to see if he'd be willing to let me use his special edition iMac
for the job. Burly liked spending his money on high-tech toys and
had been taking a few computer classes over at Durham Tech to
justify his continual lust to upgrade. It was better than sitting
in front of the television set, drinking beer and provoking Duke
students, so I encouraged his hobby. Besides, I was not without
insight when it came to Burly: the Internet was a world where he
could move instantly from place to place, exploring with a speed
that the real world no longer offered him.
    I reached Burly just as he and Weasel
Walters were about to take apart Weasel's Harley in search of the
cause of chronic sputtering. Weasel was a friend of Burly's from
the old, pre-wheelchair days—one of the few I actually liked. He
had a face like a rat and a heart like a lion. But he kept Burly
relatively sober with his own AA devotion, and there were times
when I felt I would not be able to handle my boyfriend's occasional
journeys into darkness without Weasel's help.
    "How is good old Weasel?" I asked Burly when
I got him on the phone.
    "Pootin' in tall cotton," Burly said. "He's
got a new girlfriend."
    "Another one?" I hoped this one lasted
longer than the previous five. Fat chance, as Weasel seemed to pick
them up at the exit door of the mental ward.
    "Who knows?" Burly answered cryptically,
which told me that already they were having problems.
    When I asked him about using his computer,
Burly sprung a trap on me so quickly that I suspected he'd been
planning it for months.
    "Sure," he agreed. "But let me do the
searching for you. I'm just sitting around on my ass."
    Who could argue with that when it was a
paraplegic talking?
    "I don't know, Burly. I don't like mixing
business with pleasure." The exception being good-looking police
detectives, of course.
    "Babe," he said in his wheedling voice, the
one that usually ended up with my being naked and him being busy.
"You're wasting my talents. I could be your greatest resource.
Think of all the stuff you could do while I'm at the computer,
doing all that boring shit for you. I am starting to know the Web
like the inside of your thighs. I know places you have never
dreamed of. I can find out where those women live now, along with
everything from the balance of their bank accounts to their
favorite stores."
    "That's really reassuring," I said. "God
knows what's on there about me."
    "Come on, it makes sense to let me
help."
    I thought about it. "You live too far away
for me to check in every day," I complained. "I'd waste a couple of
hours a day driving to and from your place."
    "I can set my system up at your place.
Weasel will help me.”
    Now, I love my boyfriend.