Part 1

Breast Ironing

The practice of beating away or ironing girls' breasts at puberty. Approximately 26% of Cameroonian girls undergo these rather useless and painful attempts to get rid of their breasts to protect the from men's sexual interest. More importantly it is to protect the family's honor from taking a sting if something should happen to the young girl at the hands of a male suitor.

Cameroon has instituted a nationwide campaign against this practice and it is also criminalized the practice at least to some extent. If a medical doctor determines that damage has been caused to the breasts, the responsible party may be jailed up to three years.

Chapter 1

Wednesday, January 2

Lisbeth Salander had finally had enough. She slammed her book of mathematical equations down on her desk and trudged over to the door. She let the person ring the door a few more times before she finally answered it with a gruff, "What?!"

"Hello Lisbeth, am I interrupting something?"

Why was it that conversations with him always started this way. Hello Lisbeth, I brought bagels am I interrupting? Yes he always was interrupting.

She stood back from the door and he made his way inside putting down the bagels and coffee he had in hand. She shut the door muttering and took the seat opposite from him. Grabbing the sack she dove for which ever bagel she wanted. She ended up with two of the blueberry bagels and strawberry cream cheese and reached for a cup of coffee.

"Not that one." He said. "You like yours black, yeah? Monica has me taking mine with cream. Says its better for my health."

She scowled and took the other cup. Taking a large bite of her bagel she stared at him for a while. While it wasn't unusual for him to stop by her apartment every once and a while to make sure she was still alive, this was the third time this week and she was beginning to get cautious.

He saw her staring over the edge of her bagel and laughed which made her scowl more. "I know your wondering why I am here." He took his time to drag it out by getting a bagel out for himself. "I'm here Lisbeth, to offer you a job." He held up his hand before she could speak. "I know you already have your job for Milton but this would just be a part time thing. I have already discussed it with the others and they agree that your talent is what we need."

She took a bite of her bagel and rolled the thought around her head. She would be working at Millennium, under Mikael. He would be able to keep a closer eye on her like he know doubt wanted, but what would she get out of it.

"What would I be doing?" She finally looked up at him after rolling her thoughts around in her head. No point in jumping ahead of herself until she knew what she would even be doing.

"You would be doing background checks on anyone we couldn't get information on ourselves. We can do a certain amount of digging but your skills far surpass our own. You would be getting the information that the masses want to read and the money moguls don't want us knowing about. Like with Wennerstrom."

She had, in the past, helped Blomkvist out with a money tycoon named Erik Wennerstrom when he had set up a trap for Blomkvist to go to jail for libel. On her own before meeting Blomkvist, she had already dug up enough information to put him away for a while but when she dug deeper she was able to set up a trap of her own and end up with all of Wennerstrom's money. Mikael had found out how she had done it but hadn't told a single soul besides Erika fucking Berger. The thought of working with her was almost enough to say no.

She did an assessment of why she should and shouldn't take this job. Did she need money? No. Would the affiliation with the magazine look good if she ever decided to switch jobs? Depended on what job she wanted to take. Was she getting very much work done at Milton since she came back. No, not as much as she would have liked. Only small cases here and there. It was like Armansky was still punishing her for leaving without telling him and for not telling him of her past.

All of her past was now at everyone's disposal thanks to the trial that had happened Last July. She hated not having anything to hide behind now, not that she was ever really hiding. But it was different having everyone now know the personal details of her life. The only good that had come of it was that she wasn't in jail and it had brought her and Mimi closer together. She had finally called her to see when she was coming back from Paris. In a few weeks she had went to pick her up when her plane touched down and they spent a week in her apartment only coming out to get food or cigarettes.

Though Lisbeth had told her she wasn't in love with her, she wasn't she what she was feeling anymore. She knew that she lusted after her greatly, but she didn't know if it was more that she was feeling. They had spent a great deal of time together now that she was back. After almost lossing her Lisbeth realized she needed to come out of her shell a little bit more and start seeing people more often.

Whether she really wanted to or not that seemed to happen quite a bit with Blomkvist. Just like now he felt it his right to come visit her whenever he got a wild hair up his arse. But he wasn't the only one she was seeing more often. Dargan called more and she made more visits to Palmgren. Normally she went every Sunday to visit Palmgren and play chess and talk about the latest news in the paper. He had taken to reading Millennium recently which Blomkvist had gotten for him free.

Finally the thought crossed her mind which really sold her for the idea. Did she want to dig in more bastards lives that probably deserved it?

"When do I start?"

Sorry that its so short but I gotta start somewhere right? Hope you liked it and if you want random Salander stories check out my tumblr=

I'll have pictures and little stories and all things salander on it. Anyway R&R and thanks for reading.