Fiction
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Vocations
(I’ve received a large amount of email about the stories in the Short Fiction section. It’s always good to receive such notes, even when they’re critical rather than complimentary; it means 1) that the stories are being read, and 2) that they’ve “touched a nerve.” The distribution, however, of mail-over-specific-stories is sometimes a source of bafflement. I wouldn’t have expected so many to address this one, or this one.
There appears to be a hunger among Eternity Road readers for more about Helen and Martine, in particular. I must admit, I have a great affection for my characters and any excuse is good enough for me to return to them. But I think it important to avoid telling the same story over and over, so…well, judge for yourself.
Gentle erotica set in Onteora County—and more.)
"Helen..." Martine scanned the little space quickly. Whatever her mentor saw in it had yet to register on her. "Are you sure this is a good idea?"
The older woman raised one eyebrow ever so slightly. "Isn't it a bit late for second thoughts, dear?"
"No...well, maybe." The surrounding area was beautiful, open and lushly green, but the city was quiet, far quieter than Los Angeles. It wasn't exactly farm country, but it bore little resemblance to the milieu in which her mentor had recruited her and honed her skills. The great majority of the buildings were one or two storeys. The streets were traveled, but not full or nearly so. Most of the men were in overalls or blue jeans. The women they'd passed on the streets simply didn't look like the sort who'd seek the services of a specialist of her sort. "Where will our clientele come from?"
"Just set up as close as possible to how we were set up in California and wait to be noticed," Helen said. "Surely you're not worried about money?"
"No...no." Martine tried to imagine the rows of displays, the racks of goods, familiar from their store in Los Angeles. It was hard; the lighting, the differences in geometry, and the lack of ambient noise from the street beyond worked against her. The back of the store, just then partitioned off by a plain drywall but ultimately to be concealed by a wall of mirrors, was impossible to imagine set up as Naughty But Nice was arranged. She grimaced briefly and strove to quell her misgivings.
Helen laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. "You have nothing to fear, dear. Remember, we're not here to turn a monetary profit. We are called to this work. If that which we serve decrees that you be here, then here you must be." She smiled. "Just do what you've trained to do...what you did so well in Los Angeles. Do it with skill, pride, and joy. My confidence in you is boundless. One word of advice?"
Martine nodded vigorously.
"Whenever you're open, always have the tea service ready. And the cakes."
"I will." Impulsively, Martine whirled and threw her arms around the older woman. "I'm going to miss you."
Helen squeezed her and stroked her short cap of shiny black hair. "I'm never more than half a day away, dear. I'll be here whenever you truly need me."
Martine repressed a shiver. "I hope so."
Another squeeze. "Count on it."
Maureen Harkness quickly made the Sign of the Cross and started to turn toward her husband, but Chris had already turned away and pulled the blanket to his chin. She tensed, thought briefly about importuning him, and relaxed with a silent sigh. Two tears leaked down her face in the darkness.
His goodness is killing me.
Fully aware of her vaginitis, Chris would not, as he put it, impose himself on her physically. He loved her too much to cause her pain for his own pleasure.
Maureen had come to miss that pain more than life itself.
Lord, how do I cope? He's the best man You ever put on this earth. I love him beyond all reason. Amanda, too. I could never have believed in his degree of bravery or integrity before I saw them with my own eyes. And I can't convince him that, despite my problems, I want him still, that having him in my body means more to me than anything else in this world. What must I do?
She feared it was having an effect on Chris that he wouldn't discuss. He'd become ever quieter since their last attempted coitus. There was a new tone of resignation in his carriage and his dealings with others. That morning he'd politely asked a garbageman not to toss their cans into the street. The lout flipped him off without eliciting a reaction, much less a penalty for his cheek.
His calling was to be a warrior in service to freedom and justice. Has my lessening as a woman lessened him as well?
She held herself very still, careful not to disturb Chris's incipient slumbers.
Guide me, Lord. Help me to find a way out of this impasse. But if that's not to be, if our marriage is to be without fleshly coitus from now on, help me to accept it with patience and bear it with unfailing love. Grant me Your grace.
She turned onto her side and closed her eyes, willing herself to sleep. But before she drifted off, a faint signal, like something heard from across the sea and over the horizon beyond, seemed to impinge on her semiconscious mind.
Ask Christine.
Maureen edged tentatively into the Integral Security gymnasium, mindful of the irregularity. Interrupting a training session in progress simply wasn't done. Kevin Conway, Integral's owner-proprietor, took a dim view of it. She'd likely hear about it from her husband, too.
As she rounded the turn into the martial-arts room, she collided frontally with Patricia Larson. The young patrolwoman seemed in a hurry to get to wherever she was going. The two women turned faces red with embarrassment on one another, each muttered a low apology, and Larson continued away at a fast trot.
Lord, help me to forgive her. Not to hold it against her that she wants what I have. Had.
Christine hoisted herself out of her seat as Maureen scampered across the exercise mats. She smiled widely and spread her arms, and they embraced.
"Good to see you, babe," Christine said. "Are you back on the schedule again?"
Maureen looked up at the younger woman and shook her head. "I'd like to be, though. Do you have an empty slot I could fill?"
Christine's smile grew wider still. "I'll make one. Just pick a time and I'll reserve it for you. Anyone who complains can fight for it."
"Me?"
The trainer shook her head. "Me!"
Maureen pulled her close again, rested her cheek against the cushion of Christine's bosom, luxuriated in the welcome there.
Lord, what comfort there is in holding this girl! So warm, so gifted, and so beautiful! Feeling her against me is almost as good as holding Chris. Truly, You never made two things the same. All praise to You!
Presently they sat, Maureen's hands enfolded in Christine's. All it took was for Christine to say, "So how have you been?" and though Maureen had never willed it, the whole of her agony poured forth uncensored.
It was several minutes before she ran down. When she did, she slumped forward, breathless and exhausted, ready to collapse into Christine's arms.
The trainer didn't speak for nearly a minute. She chewed her lips, stroked the backs of Maureen's hands with her thumbs, glanced randomly around the gymnasium, and finally gave a great sigh.
"We have to come at this from the beginning," Christine said. "Are you absolutely, positively certain it's just your problem that's in the way?"
Maureen straightened up. She started to expostulate an indignant affirmative, checked herself.
Am I really sure?
"I...don't know. I'd assumed so, but..."
The trainer nodded. "You can't be. You never can. It could also be a loss of desire on his part. Or he might have flogged himself into no longer thinking of you as a sexual being."
"Can a healthy man do that?"
Christine nodded. "I never told you about my trainer, did I?"
"No, you've..." Maybe I don't know you as well as I'd like. "Might I learn something from the tale? I don't wish to pry --"
Christine smirked. "I expect you would. Both ways, babe. Women are cats. We have to know everything, explore every crevice and lick every surface. Why pretend otherwise?" She squeezed Maureen's hands. "So come sit by me and cock an ear."
Maureen shifted in her seat to draw closer to the younger woman, but the geometry of the metal chairs held them several inches apart. Christine snorted, trotted to one edge of the exercise mats, and yanked it loose from its moorings in a display of her considerable strength. With a few tugs and twists she fashioned an improvised chaise longue large enough for the two of them to share.
"Will you get in trouble for this?" Maureen settled gingerly onto the mats next to Christine.
The younger woman drew the older one snugly into her arms, encouraging Maureen to rest her head on her bosom again. She stroked Maureen's hair and rocked her gently.
How she mothers me, and me the older by a good twenty years!
"I'll put it back later," Christine said. "Right now, I want to tell you all about Louis Dylan Aloysius Redmond."
"I never would have guessed any of it," Maureen murmured. "He sounds like an angel made flesh." Like my Chris.
Christine stroked her hair again. "He was, if there are any such. When he died it damn near killed me. Took the heart right out of another woman who loved him just as much. But that's the story."
Christine's hands went to the sides of Maureen's face, held her tenderly but firmly as they locked eyes. "It took a whole week, even after I'd raped him --" Maureen winced. "What's the matter, babe?"
"That word. Is that really...what it was?"
"Well, what would you call it when one person forces himself, or herself, on another sexually? I promise you, the first time around he fought me the whole way."
Maureen nodded. "And the week after?"
Christine pouted. "He wouldn't touch me. Acted like it had never happened. I pretty much had to do it again." She smirked. "He didn't fight me the second time, though."
"Bloody --" Maureen clapped a hand to her mouth. "Sorry."
The trainer chuckled. "For what? I can outswear a carrier battle group when I get cranked. Anyway, he'd never had anyone to do for him what he'd done for me."
"What was that?"
"Made me beautiful." A joy swelled in Christine's face that engulfed all the sorrow there. "Treated me like someone special, someone who deserved respect and admiration. Made me someone to love, instead of someone to abuse."
"Chris, if you had to be made to feel beautiful and special, I can't imagine --"
"And I don't want you to," Christine said. "I want you to feel the way he made me feel. Stand up." She rose and pulled Maureen to her feet. "Off with the duds."
"What?"
"Come on, it's just us little girls. Skin 'em!"
Maureen cast a hasty glance at the entrance and complied.
"Undies too."
"Must I?"
Christine scowled, and Maureen hurried to doff her panties and bra. When she was completely nude, the younger woman bade her stand still, arms at her sides and feet slightly spread, and moved around her, looking critically, touching her gently here and there and emitting the occasional hmmm of assessment.
"You've got the goods, babe. Good shape, still tight in all the right places, skin smooth, no big moles or tags. Not much of a rack, though. A or B?"
Maureen cringed. "A's just a little tight."
"Well, we can fix that. Get dressed." The trainer trotted to the front row of chairs and fished up her purse. "We're going shopping."
They were on their sixth outfit before Maureen protested in earnest.
"Chris," she whispered as the Albrecht's saleslady moved away for another selection, "I can't afford this!"
Christine's eyes twinkled. "Yes, you can. Relax, babe. We're not halfway there yet."
Dear Lord. Everything silk or linen. Everything gorgeous. Everything so flirtatious I could never have dreamed of wearing it. Where's the money supposed to come from for all of it?
She'd gotten a single fleeting glance at one price tag before Christine ripped it out of her hand.
And we haven't been to the shoe salon yet. I think I feel faint.
Her hands rose to cup the pliable gel "cutlets" Christine had molded to the undersides of her breasts.
"Are they uncomfortable? Coming loose?" Christine said.
"No, not at all. I very nearly forgot they were there."
The younger woman grinned. "They do you good, babe. I'd say to wear them all the time. Well, maybe not in bed." She put on an exaggerated upper-class-Londonian accent. "One must let the skin breathe now and then, eh?"
Maureen couldn't help but giggle. "Oh, mustn't one just. And serve the cause of discretion as well!"
Christine laughed. "Discretion and a C cup. A breakthrough for the ages!"
A seventh fitting, this one a daringly cut red silk minidress that clung to her like a desperate lover, and Christine called a halt. They toted their selections to the register, and before Maureen could say a word, Christine told the saleslady to ship all the purchases to the Chase residence, whipped out a gold credit card, and thrust it through the stripe reader. The saleslady rang up the transaction without comment.
"Chris --"
"My treat, babe. We're getting you beautiful." Christine grinned, signed the credit slip, and pocketed the receipt before Maureen could glimpse the total. "And we're way far from done, so summon your reserves. Next comes the fun part: shoes!"
"What's fun about that?"
Christine frowned. "Are you sure you're a girl?"
Martine had done her best with the available space. Thinning out the breadth of the selections helped. There was room for at least one of everything, and much to her surprise, she'd managed to make the displays somewhat reminiscent of Helen's shop in Los Angeles. The workmen had finished installing the tub and mirroring the walls of the rear gallery, and she'd hung a lovely curtain of Baltic amber beads in the doorway to it. The card table was set up in the corner, the tea service and a plate of Helen's special cakes upon it. A sense of having settled in was building in her.
She sighed in satisfaction, went to the door of the shop, and stepped outside to breathe the evening air. On impulse, she flipped the sign to OPEN before pulling the door closed behind her.
I'm ready. It's time to make Helen proud.
There was a prospect of traffic after all. She hadn't previously taken account of the large department store a block to the south. With Grand Street, the city's main drag, only a block further to the north, pedestrian passers-by might be more numerous than she'd feared.
As she scanned the area, her eyes lit on a pair of women exiting the department store. Even at a block's distance, Martine could tell they were revved high, excited and pleased with themselves and their purchases. From their body language it was clear that the taller one was the dominant, leader of the expedition.
Martine's hand drifted toward the steel busk that covered her mound. The anxiety of solitude, the sense of nakedness from not having immeasurably wiser and more assured Helen to backstop her had risen in her again. She fought it down, prayed for the chance to prove herself.
Walk this way, ladies. Be my first customers. Please!
The two did exactly that, the taller one with a relaxed yet confident saunter, the smaller one stumbling, wobbling, and giggling in unfeigned delight as she accustomed herself to her high heels, probably the first high heels she'd ever owned.
"Oooh," Maureen cooed.
"Getting the hang of it?"
"Chris, this simply must be a mortal sin!
"Hm?"
"Feeling this good. This..."
"Sexy?"
Maureen blushed.
"The point is sex, isn't it?" Christine said.
"Well, yes. Partly."
"Oh? What's the other part?"
Maureen giggled. She'd learned that the knack for walking in her five-inch stiletto-heeled sandals was to put one foot directly in front of the other, keep her legs close together, and take short, deliberate steps. It compelled her to swing her hips as no ordinarily modest Englishwoman would have done. The minidress caressed her from shoulders to hips with each step. The sensuous friction as her silk-clad thighs swished against one another was more of a delight than she could have imagined. "Feeling beautiful." Young, innocent, and carefree. Like a newborn.
"Wallow in it, babe. This is what life in America is supposed to be. Capitalism without guilt. Work hard, play even harder. Pamper and be pampered. Give your best and be your best. What I don't get is why Chris never did this for you."
"He's a very practical sort, dear. He deals with necessities readily and quite well, but luxuries are...foreign to him." You should see his underwear. Or perhaps not. "What is it?"
The younger woman had halted, eyes fixed on the front of a nearby store. It appeared newly occupied. The windows displayed an assortment of saucy lingerie, in a wide variety of fabrics, styles, and colors. The marquee proclaimed the name of the establishment to be Evenings To Remember.
"Aren't we done for the evening, Chris?"
"Maybe not," Christine said. "Let's have a look in here."
Martine stood before her counter and waited with as much nonchalance as she could fake. When the shop door finally opened, she had to repress a sigh of relief.
The two women who entered were a study in contrasts. One was young and tall, with a Valkyrie's figure. She carried herself like a warrior, as well: boundless confidence, unfazed by anything and ready for all of it. The other woman was slender, short, and middle-aged, with a natural reserve, or shyness, that she couldn't conceal. Both sported smiles, but the older woman displayed a hint of tension, of the sort that comes from finding oneself in unfamiliar, disturbing surroundings.
The older woman's eyes roved the racks of lingerie and marital aids, her expression slowly changing from puzzled to disturbed. The younger one stared directly at Martine. She murmured a single word: "Yum!"
Martine smiled and bowed. "Welcome to Evenings To Remember, ladies. I'm Martine Arnault. Today is our grand opening, and you're our very first customers." She gestured toward the card table and the tea service. "Shall we take a few minutes to celebrate and get acquainted?"
The younger woman smiled naughtily and pulled the older one forward. "We shall."
It took only one of the little cakes to dissolve Maureen's reserve like the sugar lump in her tea. Not ten minutes after they'd stepped through the door, she was holding Martine's hands and chattering away as if the two were bosom friends of twenty years' standing. Christine simply sat back and listened, attentive but relaxed and openly amused. Time passed unmeasured and unmonitored.
Presently Christine stood and stretched. "I have to get going. I have early appointments tomorrow. Take care of her for me, Martine?"
Maureen started from her chair. "Chris --"
"Enjoy the rest of the evening, babe. I can catch the bus at the corner. " Her eyes moved to Martine's. "Congrats on your opening. I'll be back sometime."
Martine smiled suggestively. "I hope so."
As the door closed, Martine squeezed Maureen's hands gently and said, "You're lucky to have a friend like that."
"I know," Maureen said. She took a second cake from the salver and nibbled at it, savoring the spicy sweetness as it spread over her tongue. "These are frightfully good. Is it your own recipe?"
Martine shook her head. "Taught to me by Helen. My mentor."
"Hm?"
"I'm sort of an apprentice, Mo. This is my first venture out from under Helen's wing." Her gaze briefly swept the shop. "First test of a lot of things she taught me."
"Does Helen run a shop like this, then?"
"In Los Angeles. Where we met." Martine hesitated. "It's only a day since she left, and I already miss her terribly."
Maureen leaned forward. "I think I understand, dear. I can't imagine life without my Chris."
Martine peered closely at the older woman. "What about your other Chris? The one you ran to first with your problem? The one who just dolled you up like the queen of all English sexpots? The one who checked me out for a whole hour before deciding it was okay to leave you in my care?"
Maureen's mouth fell open.
"Did she say what moved her to bring you in here, Mo?"
"...no..."
"It disturbed you at first, didn't it?"
Maureen nodded. "I'm a Catholic."
"I'm a Catholic too, Mo. I know all the teachings. I know how the Church treats sexuality and sexual pleasure. And I'll tell you something your pastor never will." Martine felt her intensity rise. "Every woman who lives is married to every other woman who's ever lived. Husband or no husband. We have a bond from birth that marriage to a man can't undo. It goes all the way back to Creation, to Eve, to the first blood that dripped from our loins. And when we accept it, and learn to make use of its power, we become more than we were. Much more."
"How?" Maureen whispered.
Martine hesitated, suddenly unsure. She groped for reassurance from the Power, felt it come vibrantly awake within her, and her uncertainty vanished.
"Celebrants. Priestesses. The true keepers of the fire of life."
Around them, the little shop was silent. No noise intruded from the street, now fully dark.
"I don't understand," Maureen whispered.
”Your friend does.” Martine went to the shop door and locked it, bade Maureen to rise, and urged her gently toward the amber curtain. "And you will."
Martine positioned Maureen before a wall of mirrors and bade her stand at ease. The shopkeeper examined her critically from every angle, as Christine had, but without comment. Strangely, she felt no tension at all.
Lord, I am in your hands. I don't fear this new sense of indulgence, and I don't know if I should. Guide me rightly.
Finally Martine said, "I don't understand it."
"What?"
"How could you have not known that you're beautiful?" The young woman smiled. "I saw it right away. Is it the vaginitis?"
Maureen's head drooped. "It might be."
"Would you like me to fix that?"
Her head snapped back up. "You can?"
Martine nodded. "Maybe. Would you disrobe, please?"
Maureen felt an unexpected thrill, the current that goes with the anticipation of onrushing joy, course through her. She grinned impishly.
"I will if you will."
Martine grinned back. "With pleasure." The young woman stepped out of her high-heeled pumps, peeled off her stockings, undid a short zipper on her form-fitting leather sheath and slid it past her hips as easily as if her skin had been greased. The figure thus revealed was as lusciously striking as Christine's. Maureen blushed, turned away, and made to remove her new clothes.
When she turned back, she noted that the shopkeeper had retained a single garment: a device of steel and leather that circled her waist and enclosed her groin.
"Is that a...chastity belt?"
Martine nodded. "I wear it just about all the time."
"Good Lord, why?"
"It's part of my vocation."
"Hm?" You're too sexy for Opus Dei!
"I'm a professional horny bitch, Mo. I'm supposed to stay as horny as possible as much of the time as possible. Believe it or not, that's the fuel that keeps me going."
Maureen Harkness had thought herself worldly. She'd thought she knew Mankind in its profusion and variety. In that moment she learned how narrow her horizons had really been. She stepped forward and crouched to examine the contrivance that bound Martine's loins.
It was a solid steel plate, brightly polished, closely fitted to the young woman's flesh and held tight there by thick leather bands. The edges of the plate were smoothly beveled, but even so, there were deep red grooves in the flesh along them. It looked as if it would permit no ingress at all.
"Does it hurt?"
Martine shook her head. "Not any more."
"You wear it...all the time?"
"Almost."
She touched her fingertips to the plate. "Is this what I should --"
"No and hell no! Your program will be completely different." Martine gestured toward a massage table at the far end of the room.
Program?
Maureen followed the shopkeeper to the table. Martine gestured to her to get up on it, bade her lie on her stomach, arms at her sides.
"There are several kinds of vaginitis," Martine said as she fumbled in a drawer set into the table's base. "Yours might be treatable, but you’d never get the right kind of treatment from a medical doctor." She grinned. "That's part of what I do. Will you trust me not to hurt you?"
Maureen hesitated, then nodded.
"Thank you. Just lie there and let me work."
And so it began.
Martine's awareness of her every movement as she labored over Maureen was uniquely vivid. The tremors that ran through the older woman's form as Martine massaged and caressed her reminded her over and over that this was not a creature accustomed to the thought of sex as pleasure or play.
She's led an arid life. Love, maybe even a lot of it, but not much fun.
"Time to turn over, Mo."
Maureen's skin was smooth and pliable. It bore the milk-and-roses tint typical of English womanhood, and the chamois-like texture of maturity that embeds every past caress in loving remembrance. Her breasts were small and firm. Her ribcage musculature was solid, without hernia or sag. Her waist was trim, her hips motherly but not overly padded. She bore her years as well as any woman could hope to.
Her husband must know what he's denying himself. I have to fix this.
It was at her vagina that things went sour. Martine parted the labia tenderly and leaned close. The opening was completely dry. The residual lubrication that can be found in a healthy woman, unaroused but sexually fully functional, was entirely absent.
"Mo," Martine murmured, "I'm going to remove your pubic hair. Is that okay?"
Eyes closed, the older woman nodded.
Martine plied an electric clipper over Maureen's mound until only stubble remained, then lathered her up and carefully scraped away the stubble with a safety razor. At the end, Maureen's pubis was as clean and smooth as Martine's own.
"You'll have to keep this up for yourself, Mo," she said. "Shave it every two or three days. Otherwise the vaginitis will return, and it will itch like crazy, to boot."
From the table drawer, Martine extracted a small torpedo-shaped vibrator. She coated it liberally and carefully with the special unguent Helen had compounded for easing an irritation of the mucous membranes, parted Maureen's labia again, and murmured, "Try to hold still, dear."
The older woman nodded again. Martine activated the vibrator, put the tip against the entrance to her vagina, and inserted it slowly. Maureen gasped and her eyes popped open.
"Does it hurt?"
"No...no!" Maureen's long muscles contracted and relaxed in a steady rhythm. Her hands clenched the edges of the table. "It's wonderful!"
Martine rotated the vibrator slowly as she worked it in and out, doing her best to spread the healing balm evenly over the whole surface of the vaginal membrane. She kept an eye on Maureen's reactions, vigilant for any indications of pain or stress. There were none, only a rising arousal building inexorably toward orgasm.
Just before climax, Martine put her free hand against Maureen's sternum and pressed downward. The orgasm that followed was volcanic, likely more violent than anything Maureen had experienced before. Without Martine's restraint, she might have flown off the table.
When her gasping and spasming had subsided, Maureen elbowed herself upright, tears streaming down her face, and beckoned Martine into her arms.
"You're an angel," she sobbed. "A genuine angel."
"No, Mo, not quite," Martine murmured into her ear. "But I'm on pretty good terms with one."
”You have to do it every day,” Martine told her. She handed the vibrator and the tube of unguent to Maureen. “All the way to orgasm. Two or three days, and you’ll start to feel fresh and moist again. In about a week, the tissues will start producing their own lubrication. Then comes the hard part.”
Maureen thrust the gifts into her new purse. “What’s that?”
”Persuading Mr. Harkness that you’re ready for battle.”
Maureen chuckled. “It’s Mr. Chase, actually, but I got the idea.” She pulled her stockings up legs that seemed twice as sensitive as they had in Albrecht’s women’s department, fastened them to her garters, and slipped her feet into her sandals. Every movement brought a languorous delight. Her state of dreamy contentment repelled all her misgivings and cares. “Will it be like that every time?”
Martine grinned. “We can hope so. Mo,” she said, “if you’re nervous about it, or shy, you can always stop by. I’ll help.”
”I know, dear. We’ll just have to see.” After this, bracing Chris won’t seem like that much of a challenge. She adjusted her minidress, stood and held out a hand. “Thank you for everything.”
Martine stepped past the proffered hand and caught her in a full, warm embrace.
”May I make two little suggestions, Mo?”
Maureen pressed the younger woman’s form firmly against her own. “Anything, dear.”
”Drive home barefoot. Learning to drive in heels takes a lot of practice.” Martine paused briefly. “And tell him you want to take his name.”
”Hm?” She pulled slightly back and peered into Martine’s eyes.
”You wouldn’t believe what it means to a man. They all say it doesn’t matter.” Martine’s eyes twinkled. “They all lie. Trust me.”
”I will.” Maureen hugged her again. “Are you sure you’re not an angel?”
Martine chuckled. “I think God would have told me.”
Only after the door of the shop closed behind her did Maureen realize that her evening wasn't quite over.
Though brightly lit, copiously traveled Grand Avenue was only a block away, the side street on which she'd found Evenings To Remember was fully dark, lit only by scattering of stars, and seemed devoid of life. Maureen wasn't reflexively afraid of the dark, but the city was largely unknown to her. Her husband had warned against walking its streets alone at night. She started hesitantly toward the municipal parking lot, placing her feet carefully, straining to see through the dark but only able to discern objects a yard or two away.
The lot was well lit, and her fears retreated. She was almost at her car's door when a large, dark figure in rough clothes stepped between it and her.
"Yo, mama. Whatchoo doin' out here? Lookin' fo' a good time?"
The slurred words were followed by a metallic click. A blade gleamed in the figure's hand. Her fears surged to a height she hadn't felt since London. She backed away, stumbled, and would have fallen had a pair of strong hands not caught her by the waist and steadied her.
"Careful, babe."
Christine stepped around her and confronted the knife-toting thug.
"My friend's a little tired. Want to play with me, asshole?"
The young thug snarled and lunged, knife held low, and slashed across Christine's midsection.
Maureen couldn't see clearly what happened next. It looked as if Christine caught the knife blade with a lightning sweep of her hand. It looked as if the thug froze in mid-swing and tried to wrench the weapon free, without success. It looked as if Christine snapped off the blade with her thumb, tossed it aside, and knocked her attacker cold with the neutered grip. But that, of course, was entirely impossible.
However, at the end of the tussle the thug was lying motionless on the macadam, and Christine was standing over him with arms akimbo, clucking in disapproval.
"Where were you?" Maureen whispered as she strove to quell her shakes.
Christine shrugged. "I waited outside the store. I wanted you two to have some privacy, but I thought I should stick around in case you needed a little help. Come on, it's time you got home."
She bundled Maureen into her car, shut the door, and sauntered back toward the shop. Maureen fumbled out her keys, started the car, and headed for her Foxwood home, her mind alight with thanks and praise to God for the friendship of Christine D'Alessandro.
Martine was unsurprised when Christine returned to her shop.
"Did your friend get home all right?"
"Not quite," Christine said. "A little trouble in the parking lot. I just put her in her car. I think she'll be okay."
"I had a feeling you hadn't gone far."
Christine nodded, absently fingering random items on the countertop. "The city isn't a safe place for a woman alone."
"Not even you?"
Christine chuckled. "Well, maybe for me. I wanted to chat with you a little, if you're not busy with important stuff."
Martine laid her journal aside and gestured at the card table, and the two resumed their seats.
"I wanted to thank you for helping my friend," Christine said. "She's had it pretty rough since coming to this country. She can't get a job in her field, her daughter was gang-raped a couple of years back, and her husband works way too much for his own good, or hers. What with all that, the sex crap was almost too much for her to bear."
"I sensed some of that," Martine said. "Anyway, I was glad to help." A thought struck her. "Have you ever been to Los Angeles? To Helen's store there?"
Christine shook her head. "I haven't left New York in...well, ever."
"Then how did you know I could help her?"
Christine was slow to answer. She stared down at her folded hands as obscure currents of emotion and contemplation passed over her face.
"You know what I do for a living?"
Martine nodded.
"It's not just a job, babe. It's more like a calling. One of those things that someone has to do, and I've been assigned." Christine looked up. "I've got what I need to do it, thank God, and I enjoy it, too. But the calling is the important part. I don't think I could walk away from it if I wanted to. And I got the same feeling about you and what you do."
Martine said nothing.
"I think...maybe we're the same that way, and different from everyone else. That other people get to work out their own ways through life, but our jobs were chosen for us."
"Yes," Martine said. "Helen is like that, too. I wish you could meet her. You'd love each other."
"If she recruited and trained you," Christine said, "I expect so. Tell me, babe." She hesitated. "Are you in contact with something?"
Martine's breath came short. She nodded convulsively. "Are you?" she whispered.
Christine smiled. "All my life. He's kept me sane."
"We are the same," Martine said. "Except I wasn't...in touch until Helen recruited me."
Christine flipped a hand. "Not important. Look, Onteora can be a rough place. You're new here, so you're likely to be targeted by some of our less refined citizens. Private and public." She pulled a card out of her jeans pocket and passed it across the table. "If anyone gives you trouble, you use that number. Day or night. Hell, put it on speed dial." She grinned. "Or call if you want a drinking buddy, or a shoulder, or someone to shop or watch TV with."
Martine closed her eyes and prayed for communion with the Power. It came at once, and blanketed her with the sense of approval for which she'd hoped.
Did Helen know this would happen?
"Chris? You haven't seen the whole shop. And I have an apartment in back. Would you like the grand tour?"
Christine rose. "Sure, why not?"
Martine rose and held out a hand, and Christine took it. As they passed through the curtain of amber beads into the mirrored gallery, Martine said, "The apartment isn't much, really, except that it has this amazing tub."
Christine grinned. "Really? Let me see."
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