Here in this story segment, we see Liz persuading Jill to share the responsibility of graduate assistant selection. Instead of helping her, Jill subtly challenges Liz to assume the burden herself. In doing so, Jill prepares Liz to put take leadership of the graduate assistants once she selects them, and of the entire project. Later, this leadership experience is bound to pay off for both women. Liz will overcome some of her fear of powerful people and Jill will be free to pursue her agenda, both visible and hidden. That's all I have to say about the topic.

Look around, Minnie. Women who have responded to Jill's challenges surround us. Look at Ume, who used to be a slave and a whore. Lizzie was a sheep rancher's daughter. Alice was an assassin for hire. Sara, my mentor, was sneaking around, pretending to be an auditor when Ume discovered her and brought her close to Jill. Donna Esteban, Leanne Hansen and Chen Mei responded to the challenge that Jill puts out to anyone in her presence. All of these women are successful executives now.

Personally, I know exactly how Lloyd feels when she looks down at her work, blinking back tears and trying to breathe. Jill just knocks the stuffing out of me sometimes with the force of her energy and power, and I haven't even met her. I sense my response to Jill's challenge—largely unspoken—to step forward and make a difference.

I generally agree with all that everyone is saying here but I would not characterize Jill as anything as warm and friendly as a "compact electrical generator," as Marcus so ineloquently put it. Jill Price is a misanthropic pulsar—a neutron star—cold, alone and utterly destructive. She has made an exception for whom and what she allows in the vacuum of space about her. If you do not fit that exception, and approach out of either curiosity or bad intent, you could die. At the very least, the experience will forever alter you. As Raj so eloquently put it, Jill Price has become death.

Everyone, please welcome our newest Jill critic and member of the secondary group, Bill Price Junior, who also happens to be Jill Price's godson and nephew, twice removed. You may recall that Jill told us that she had a single affair with a married woman. What she neglected to tell us is that the woman, Nancy Price, was married to her second cousin, Bill. Before she died, Nancy bore her husband two children, a son and daughter—Bill Junior and Amy. Bill, please tell us a bit about your self, if you don't mind.

I love her, as does my wife. My children practically worship her. Jill loves my family and me without reservation. Since the death of my mother, Jill paid child support for my sister and me until we turned 18. Both of us attended college on Jill's nickel. After my sister and I left home, Ume and Marlon brought us to their home and gave us a start. Every Thanksgiving weekend since, Jill and Ume gather everyone for a reunion of the extended family. We're always part of that reunion.

As for our relationship, Jill smothers my family and my sister's family from a comfortable distance. For example, I'm almost certain that she ordered one of her minions to purchase the mortgage company that sold us our home because they are almost avuncular. Occasionally, our cars disappear when we don't need them and re-appear in perfect condition. I do not know, but I believe that if someone approached my family with bad intent, half of the strangers and casual acquaintances around us would rise up and smite them hip and thigh, as Samson did the Philistines.

Jill, how did you and Ume know to be at the curb?

Jill Price generally loves and respects people who tell the truth, Rajneesh. Spend any time around her and you quickly learn to hold nothing back. Marcus' simile is limited and weak; mine is colorful hyperbole but closer to the truth. I meant no offense, Marcus.

Right. It is late spring in Utah so it's still chilly and damp that afternoon in 1993. Jill, Ume and Marlon meet us at the curb in an enormous car—one of the Buicks, I think. They take us to the airport where we board a small jet and fly to Reno. When we walk in the front door, KMark runs down the stairs, grabs me and pulls me upstairs to his room. He's excited because he had set up a bed for me and wants to show me. At supper, more than 20 people gather in the kitchen, fill plates of food, and sit around at the island, the counters, the table and the floor, eating in a disorganized, raucous hubbub.

KMark fills my plate, sits down next to me on the floor with several of his brothers, sisters, cousins, friends and some other boys and girls he barely knows. I remember seeing Amy looking back at me across the kitchen. She is grinning as she sits beside Jill while Jill is talking with someone else. Tears of joy are streaming down my sister's face. I grin back at her. We had no idea that supper could be such a noisy, happy, social event. At my father's house, we ate separately in our rooms.

Later, on the way up to our room, KMark throws an arm over my shoulders and says that we're brothers. We stay up talking until ten-thirty or so when we hear a ruckus downstairs. We run down to find three of the boys wrestling in the living room. KMark shoves me into the rumble and then jumps in after me. One of the boys elbows me in the nose and makes me bleed so KMark holds a towel over it and leads me upstairs to the girls' rooms. Amy and her new sisters and cousins lay me down, wash off the blood and stop the bleeding. Just before they push me out the door, Amy hugs me and kisses my cheek. She has never done that. She whispers, "Welcome home."

Back in our room, KMark asks me to go to Montana with him for the summer. It seems outrageous, just as the entire day has been, but I say yes. The next morning, KMark announces that we are brothers, and he is going to Montana for the summer and taking me with him. Everyone just shrugs and says okay.

Suddenly, it's all too overwhelming and I realize I'm crying. I stand, run upstairs to the room I share with KMark, sobbing like a baby. Amy and half a dozen other kids follow me. KMark walks in, shoves them out, closes the door and sits beside me, one arm over my shoulders. Still crying, I tell him I have no clothes for Montana—no coat, no work boots, not even socks and underwear. He holds me at arms' length, a big grin on his face, pulls me up and takes me to the closet. He points at the right half and says all those clothes are mine. I can't believe it. There are jeans, boots, running shoes, shirts, belts, socks, underwear, coats, jackets, hats and even a wallet with two hundred bucks inside it. I remember dropping to my knees and staring, barely able to breathe. In fact, I didn't take a full breath again until we were on our way to Montana days later.

Yes, I did. Jill told me that just before she died, my mother had asked Jill to watch out for Amy and me. When she knew that we'd be coming, Jill took KMark and his brothers, sisters and cousins shopping, gave them Amy and my sizes and told them to get everything they could think of getting.

Later, Jill handed Amy and me checkbooks, credit cards, debit cards and passports—all in our names. The checking accounts had twenty thousand dollars apiece. When Amy asked what we were supposed to do with all that money, Jill told her to do whatever we wanted, no strings attached. Since I was going to Montana with KMark for the summer, Jill suggested that Amy visit Europe, Australia, Japan or some other place she had always wanted to visit. She told us to pick a university before we left so she could register us, arrange for our tuition and fees and find us a place to live. In the garage were two vehicles—a 1980 Ford Bronco for me and a Chevy sedan for Amy—both in perfect condition, of course. We didn't even have driver's licenses yet.

Jill's not nice. She doesn't smile or greet children. If she says anything at all, she says the only way she likes children is with salt, pepper and mustard. Invariably, however, when children are in the room, they stare at her. I've seen it time after time. Eventually, they approach. If she's standing, they take her hand. If she's sitting, they sit beside her or crawl on to her lap. Within a few minutes, they're demanding her attention by poking her, hugging her or whispering in her ear. Several times, I've watched Jill walk over to fussy, whining infants—complete strangers, mind you—and simply touch them. Within a second or two, they calm down.

Chapter 1, Part 1, but I didn't become aware of my reaction until well into the 2nd paragraph where Jill describes the green furniture, the oak floor and desk and Peter with the sun over his left shoulder. I distinctly remember suddenly gasping and blinking because the glass wall, the floor and the room were all about me. The impending challenge was rushing through me. That's how I know that this happened: I was there, in that room with Jill. I could smell the lemon-oil furniture polish.

Oh, I still go back and read those opening words again and again just to recall those impressions and the feelings they gave me. Reading Jill's words here has similar power and immediacy.

Mm, that never occurred to me. No, I think not, Ian, because I have had none of the girl's experiences with Jill—only my own. She was not at the interview by Jill's account. Besides, Jill's interview with Peter happened before I was born.

Why, thank you, Bill. Nothing charms a French girl like quoting a homicidal psychopath. Personally, I quite enjoy your adroit questioning and frank revelations. Would you be opposed to joining the primary group?

Thanks, Ian. Hello, everyone. Jill and Lizzie, I'm actually one of your employees at ANZ Fleet Service. I began working here 5yrs ago as a summer intern while still in prep school. As I worked my way to customer service manager, I've also nearly finished my business degree at university. Despite my accomplishments, I simply accepted as fact that I should fall in love, get married, become a homemaker and have children—even got engaged to good-o bloke I've known since grammar school. By the way, I'm Caucasian and straight with no religious affiliation.

Reading the story and chat on this site has inspired me to change my life. Jill and Lizzie, I've taken both of you as my inspiration. Instead of marriage, I've enrolled in the executive track at Fleet Services and begun moving about Australia and New Zealand to broaden my experience. As far as my contributions to group discussions go, you can expect a practical perspective. I'm a hardheaded realist with few illusions and a quick uptake. I'm studying simplicity, Sun Tzu, martial arts and flying.

To me, Jill is a natural evolution within a society that is duplicitous and morally confused. Moralists who point the finger of blame are invariably hypocrites themselves. Children are tough, resilient and desperately in need of fresh, challenging experiences that teach them to stand on their own merits. Yet, the same mother who whines about the harmful effects of competition and experience on her children thinks nothing of raising her daughters to be fat, lazy, gold-digging princesses and her sons to be eunuchs afraid to exercise either body or mind. Men should stand up for their rights and act as if they have a pair instead of accepting the media's steady stream of emasculating lies and contradictions.