Chasing the Huntsman.

r.becker couldn't remember my blog's url, and, in the course of googling for me, came across Chasing Alex ..it's a piece of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit fan fiction. that any one person decided that law & order: special victims unit fan f'ing fiction [hereon LOSVUFFF] would be a great idea, let alone have dozens of other peops who would write and submit hundreds of LOSVUFFF chapters, is quite remarkable. by which i mean, "worthy, i suppose, of some remark."

as is the fact that i've come off looking so poorly. i mean, i know it's "fiction" or whatever, and anyway i became immune to slander some time ago. (having oddly vicious and slanderous remarks hurled at me is not unnormal; and, no matter, my ego is hewn of rock. not actual "rock," you understand, but a very metaphorically hard, rock-like material).

so i'm used to this. all i can say is that, if you're going to slander me, at least have some tact: paint me as colossally amoral/evil as needs be, but in the guise of a mad criminal master or a long-con wunderkind or some nefarious somebody with a cool hideout. all i'm saying is that a little nuance does everybody good, from the slanderr to the slandee.

here is an excerpt:

...at least Alex had the decency to be sweating a little. There was a soft sheen on her throat . . . and the front of her shirt was clinging in places . . . .

"Do you want to get something to eat after this?"

"I don't think you're going to want to be around me," Olivia replied.

"Why not?"

"I'm hot and sweaty and dripping wet."

"So why wouldn't I want to be around you?" Alex hopped up on the curb to make her way around a jogger who was losing steam.

There were so many things she could say right now, Olivia decided, most of them unwise. She stalled for time by taking another sip of water, then casually looked around again at her fellow runners. She wasn't really doing that badly; hell, there were more people behind her than in front of her, right? A zealous race volunteer yelled encouragement at the runners as they passed the 2.5-mile marker.

She could hear Alex saying something else, but she was momentarily distracted. Funny thing about crowds, she thought; you always think you see someone you know, and it never is. In the first mile, for example, there'd been that woman who looked exactly like Petrovsky from behind, but of course it wasn't. And now this guy, up ahead on the left, looked like Mark Huntsman.

A lot like Mark Huntsman.

A lot like a six-time rapist who skipped bail last fall, then disappeared somewhere within the boroughs as only a person with money can.

This is silly. Why would a serial rapist be running in a charity race . . . with all these women . . . . Old habits die hard . . . .

The man in question was jogging with two young women, maybe in their early twenties, if that, both of them laughing at something he said. Chiding herself for her paranoia, Olivia nonetheless found herself moving nearer to him. Was that a scar on the side of his neck? Right where Chris Gardner had managed to slice Mark Huntsman with a pair of scissors before he beat her unconscious?

With a deep breath – you can do this – Olivia picked up her pace, edging closer until she was only a few feet away to his side. At that moment, fate intervened: As the group of runners rounded another corner, the man's gaze fell upon her. Recognition crossed his face.

That's right, you bastard. You know me.