Hell Hath No Fury: A Tiger's Eye Fragment

I've got several unpublished fragments that didn't make it into the final draft of my Tiger's Eye novel. I may work some of these in if I ever get around to revising The Tiger's Eye and issuing it as an ebook. Here's a scene from after Juliette had Walter turned into a perpetually handgagged lawn ornament...

Meanwhile in the Capitol building of the Tiger's Eye, Juliette felt a need to take a break. It was demanding work, being the founder and head of the Tiger's Eye, and ruler of all that she surveyed. Juliette walked out of her office, past her secretary, out into the hallway. She had to be careful; even going through an open doorway was not easy for Juliette, with her inhumanly long curling fingernails, each nail grown out nearly 45 inches long.

Out in the hallway, Juliette smiled at the profusion of human bodies, countless living bodies, tangled and motionless and worked into the walls and archways. Lawn ornaments, men and women converted into helpless immobile works of art, conscious statuary unable to move or speak. Juliette walked down the hall until she came to a man sitting there, held captive on a bronze statue's lap. A man held tangled immobile in the arms and legs of a bronze statue of Juliette herself. A man held immobile by a statue of Juliette as she looked back in the days before her fingernails became so remarkable.

"Well hello, Walter," said Juliette. "How are you doing today?"

The man's eyes glared at Juliette. "Mmmmmmmhh, mmmmmm wmmmm mmmmmm hhhmmmm gghh'mmmmmmm!" He was unable to reply, because the hand of the bronze statue of Juliette was permanently fastened tight over his mouth. He couldn't move, he couldn't speak. This statue of Juliette was holding him tightly handgagged forever.

"Oh... I forgot, you can't talk, can you?" Juliette held the back of her ultra-longnailed hand up in front of her mouth to hide a smirk. "I told them to make the hand over your mouth EXTRA tight. I hope they didn't make it too tight? Tight enough to hurt? Because, just imagine having my hand clamped PAINFULLY tight over your mouth forever and ever..."

"Mmmmmmhh, hhmmmmm MMMMMMHHH!" Walter was trying to say something, but not a word of it could be understood.

"Oh... it is so tight it hurts? Well, isn't that too bad! I think this statue is really a very good likeness of me, Walter... Don't you agree? Back when I was your girlfriend, you loved having my hand over your mouth for hours on end. You couldn't get enough of it. Well now, Walter, you can have my hand over your mouth forever and ever... You can have this statue of me keeping you handgagged much too tight forever and ever and ever... How do you like that?"

"Mmmmmmhhh, wmmmmm mmmmmm hhhmmm GGGHMMM MMMM!"

"Oh, just you shush! You won't be talking any more, ever again. You won't be spilling any of my secrets, or any gossip about you and me... And you will never again be capable of speaking the name of that traitorous bitch, Sharrah..." Juliette leaned her face close to Walter's, until her wild dark unruly hair hung down on either side of his bronze-handgagged cheeks. She gazed at him close up with her heavy-lidded dark dragon eyes. Then she spat right in his face. "Remember, Walter... Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned."

Juliette went walking back up the hall to her office. She was feeling much better now.