Perusing The Novels

Prologue

Mexico City, 1991

He had hunkered in the shadows of some sweet-smelling jasmine bushes for nearly an hour, anticipating the arrival of his prey. As usual, he was wearing black clothing, and the skin on his face and hands was darkened with shoe polish. He kept his eyes focused only on the path that wound through the ornamental garden, priding himself on his ability to do the job at hand without emotional involvement.

He’d had a pleasant day. He’d wandered around the city soaking up local color and Hispanic culture. He’d seen a lot of Diego Rivera-style murals, had listened to mariachi music in several outdoor venues, had enjoyed a really superb lunch of chicken enchiladas with mole sauce, and had taken a city tour in English that had a surprising amount of really interesting historic information.  Someday he’d like to come back to Mexico City on a real vacation. The only thing that bothered him was the somewhat smoggy air from the exhaust of too many autos with too few pollution controls.

But here, above the center of the city, on an estate set on the slope of a higher hill, the air was relatively sweet and exhaust-fume free. And so he waited patiently, still savoring the pleasure of his day and enjoying the sweetness of the jasmine.

Hearing footsteps coming down the path, he shifted to a crouch and mentally prepared himself to spring. The one he’d been waiting for was finally returning home. Once the footsteps had just passed his hiding place, he silently rose and pounced, grabbing the small, dark-skinned man from behind, dragging him into the bushes, and forcing him to his knees. 

“Please, Señor,” the man whimpered. “Why are you doing this? I know nothing. I’ve done nothing.”

“It’s nothing personal,” the killer said softly in a conversational tone. “It’s an assignment. And why me? Because I have the stomach for these kinds of assignments. Besides,” he said, pulling the little man’s head backward to steady it against his body, “I have a spiritual purpose. I’m sure you can appreciate that,” he said, fingering the crucifix on the chain around the man’s neck. “So if you like, say a prayer.” Drawing his knife, he pressed the blade to his victim’s throat.

He waited only a few seconds, then with one swift movement he drew the knife across the man’s throat, watched the blood spurt from his jugular, and lowered him gently to the ground.

The assassin straightened up and lifted the weapon. “There’s more than one meaning to the term ‘wet work’,” he said. Slowly, he drew the knife toward his face and gently touched the tip of his tongue to the already congealing blood on the blade. Then he held it high in the air in front of him and chanted a few words of a strange incantation.

He wiped the blade on the little man’s jacket and sheathed his knife. Then he placed his right hand over the Kali pendant that hung on a silver chain around his neck, resting on his heart.

Chapter 1

Friday, October 17th, Twelve Years Later

I was in the middle of my last class of the day, teaching the background of an early piece of feminist writing, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz’s The Answer, a letter written in Mexico in the 1690s.

“Sor Juana Inés was a scholar, a poet, and a very well-known author. In those days, women couldn’t get the brilliant kind of education you people are getting.” A couple of people tittered, and I grinned.

“Unlike most of the women of her day, she wanted to study instead of getting married. She’d even begged her mother to let her dress up like a man so she could go to the university in disguise.”

One of the guys, looking around the room at all the female students in pants, said, “And this has changed how?”

Another fellow interjected, “None of us wants to get married. We’d all much rather study.”

I grinned again. “Well, I have to tell you, as a feminist, a scholar, a poet, and a not very well-known author who joined the Army in order to get an education, I identify with Sor Juana Inés, who had to go into the convent to be able to study!  And while I was in the Army during Desert Storm, I did dress up like a man—much more so than any of you ladies. I’ll tell you, studying beats the heck out of guard duty in the desert.”

There was another ripple of laughter from my students. 

“Anyway, in the convent Sor Juana got herself into a spot of trouble for mouthing off too much about a famous male writer’s work, criticizing his arguments. For the benefit of her sisters at the convent, she wanted to point out his errors. But wouldn’t you know it, the day she was delivering her criticism of the work, the local bishop decided to visit. He asked her for a copy of her disputation, so she had to write it up and send it to him, begging him as she did so that it be for his eyes only.

“The bishop, who decided Sister Juana Inés was a bit too arrogant, sent it to press and distributed it widely. Then, under the pretense of being another nun, he sent her a letter of advice—warning her to stop studying, stop writing poetry, and stop arguing with men or speaking in public. Sor Juana Inés knew the letter was from the bishop and realized she might be in trouble with the Spanish Inquisition.”

“What was that?” asked a student in the back of the room.

A girl on the front row answered, “It was a Roman Catholic police force, mostly run by the Dominican order, that sought out heretics and generally burned them at the stake in order to cleanse them of their sins.”

Another girl added tartly, “Yeah, heretics like Jews, gypsies, women with brains, men with money—sinners like that!”

“Yes, exactly right! It was a pretty scary time,” I said. “One historian estimates nine million women were burned at the stake for witchcraft over a four-hundred-year period. Mostly these women were midwives, herbal healers, and as you said, women with brains.”

“Nine million women?” echoed a female voice, as the class lapsed into stunned silence.

“Yes,” I said, “it was really mass legalized execution of anyone the Church disapproved of, and if they called someone a witch, nobody argued.”

 Just at that moment, there was a little tapping at the door.

“Excuse me,” I said jokingly, “the Dominicans are here to take me into custody.”

I opened the classroom door to a student assistant, who handed me a note. “Dr. Quigley, Dean Riordan would like to see you as soon as class is over.”

“Thanks,” I said, taking the note, looking at my watch, and nodding. “I’ll be up at the end of the hour.” Then I shut the door and turned back to the class. “You see, it was the Dominicans.” And everybody laughed again.

***

If truth were known, being called to the dean’s office did feel a little like being ordered to appear before the Spanish Inquisition. And the timing of the summons to my classroom discussion of the woes of Sister Juana Inés seemed eerily synchronistic. But that’s a situation I’m used to.

My name is Ariel Quigley, and I’m an adjunct instructor of English at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. That’s about as low as a teacher can be on the academic totem pole—we do an equal amount of work per class as any other teacher, but we get paid about half what a full-timer would earn. And that means I get to do other things to fill in the financial gaps—like writing articles for local newspapers and magazines and teaching evening creative writing classes at a community center in Alexandria.

My sister, who’s a real estate agent, has also been trying to talk me into doing a little ghost busting and house clearing for haunted houses that she’s having trouble selling. See, I’m also psychic, and sometimes ghosts like to talk to me.

Actually, I believe everybody’s somewhat psychic, but my talents are a little more out front and accessible than most people allow for themselves. In fact, the whole topic of the Inquisition is of great interest to me, because if I’d lived in that time period, I would doubtless have been burned at the stake for witchcraft.

However, as psychic as I usually am, I couldn’t get any sense of what the meeting with the dean was to be about, partly because I have trouble accessing intuitive information about things pertaining to myself, and partly because I was nervous about being called to his office. I’d never met him before, though I’d seem him at a couple of meetings.

At one minute to the hour by my watch, I opened the door to his office and introduced myself to his secretary.

She smiled and hit an intercom button. “Dr. Quigley is here, sir.”

“Good, good,” I heard him respond. “Send her right in.”

As she ushered me into the inner office, the dean stood and came around to shake hands with me. Clearly he was all politician.

“Dr. Quigley! So good of you to come!” he gushed, as if I was there of my own free will instead of by imperial summons. “Delighted to have you on the staff. So sorry we can’t make you a full-timer yet, but budget cuts, you know. But I’ve just been reviewing your record. Very impressive scholarship. Oh, please, please, sit down, won’t you?”

 A little overwhelmed and still a bit puzzled, I put my briefcase on the floor and sat down in one of the chairs facing his desk. I raised my eyebrows, waiting for him to tell me the reason for this meeting, inwardly relieved that it didn’t appear I was being fired—or anything else especially dire.

“Well, now, I suppose you’re wondering why I asked to meet with you.” He settled down in his own chair and paused as if composing his thoughts. “I’ve had a most unusual phone call this morning from a lawyer in Alexandria. She asked if we had anyone on the staff who had any scholarly background in the ... um ... the occult.” I could sense he was both pleased to be asked by a prominent member of the community for assistance in a matter of scholarship, but disquieted by the subject matter. “I remembered noting your dissertation topic when you joined the faculty last year—Yeats and the occult, wasn’t it?”

I nodded.

“You appeared to be the most obvious candidate for this assignment.” Then he chuckled. “Actually, you’re the only person we have on staff at the moment with any background in the occult.” He seemed artificially jovial.

I was intrigued by the situation. “Why would a lawyer need a scholar in occultism?”

“I asked her that, and she said it was personal. But she did insist it was urgent. So I’d appreciate it if you’d be willing to give her a call right away.” He handed me a slip of paper with a name and number on it.

I nodded, and he immediately stood up, letting me know our interview—or was it an audience?—was over. “Good, good, good!” he said, stepping around his desk to shake my hand again and conduct me to the door with many thanks for taking the burden from him and bearing it away to my own office cubicle and telephone.

As I made my way down the hall, I was still in a bit of a daze. I’d heard rumors and gossip that the dean wasn’t a very good teacher, but I could now vouch personally for his prowess as a politician.

Once I was in my cubicle, I dropped my briefcase on the floor, then simultaneously hit the computer’s ON button and started dialing the number on the paper the dean had given me. I was no slouch at multi-tasking!

On the third ring, a deep, rich, female voice answered with, “Jessamine Steele here.”

“Ms. Steele, this is Dr. Quigley from George Mason University. Dean Riordan asked me to call you.” I was amazed with the formality in my voice since I very seldom had to identify myself with my academic credentials outside the classroom.

“Oh, Dr. Quigley, thank you so much for calling,” said the woman. She sounded relieved. “Dean Riordan said you had some knowledge of occultism. Do you think your background might be sufficient for you to act as an expert witness in a court case?”

“I guess that would depend. What branch of occultism are you talking about? My real expertise is in the occultism of William Butler Yeats, but I’ve studied a variety of schools of magic, alchemy, Theosophy, mystery religions, and Eastern philosophy. What in particular do you need me to have a background in?”

“How about black magic?” she asked tentatively.

“Again, it depends. Are you talking about African, Asian, Caribbean Island Voodoo—or Aleister Crowley’s version of just being beastly?” At the turn of the previous century, Crowley had made quite a reputation for himself by telling people he was an incarnation of The Beast of 666.

There was a long pause at the other end of the line, as if she was loathe to put a name to her poison. Finally she said softly, “What do you know about Kali worship?”

I thought for a moment and then answered, “Enough to know it can be distorted and abused, like anything else. But I’ve read quite a bit about it as part of a course I took in Eastern religions. The dualism of Shiva and Kali as simultaneous life bringers and destroyers is just part of the cycle of life. But if you’re talking about a negative form of Kali worship, it probably focuses, as some 19^th-century cults did, on calling upon Kali’s destructive powers for personal gain or retribution.”

“Oh, that’s exactly what I need!” said the woman, and I felt as if I’d passed muster. “Would you be willing to meet with me, perhaps tomorrow? I’ll be happy to buy you lunch, and we can talk about the details of what I need.”

“Where are you located?”

“My office is in Old Town Alexandria. On St. Asaph. Do you know where that is?”

I smiled to myself and answered, “Yes. I live in Alexandria myself, quite near Old Town. I’d be happy to meet with you tomorrow.”

“Wonderful! Please come to my office around noon, and we’ll talk a bit and then do lunch.” She gave me her address and said, “I’ll leave the front door unlocked for you. Just let yourself in and take the stairs up to the second floor. There’s no elevator, I’m afraid—it’s a very old building. My office is at the end of the hall on the left—my name’s on the door. Ring the buzzer, and I’ll let you in.”

I wrote down the details and said goodbye, and she responded earnestly, “Thank you so much.”

I checked my school email account and was grateful to see no students had any pressing emergency needs, so I logged out, switched off the computer, and packed up my things.  As I walked to my car, I thought about the joke I’d made to my students in class about being summoned by the Dominicans of the Inquisition. And here I was, being summoned to go to court in what appeared might be an actual witch hunt. Fortunately, I wasn’t the witch who was being hunted!

***

For the past few months I’d been living in a self-contained apartment in the “splendiferous” colonial mansion of my friend Bernice Wise, a fifty-something hippie wannabe psychotherapist. Bernice was a perpetual student in my evening poetry classes at the Alexandria community arts center, and she gave me a break on the rent for my apartment because I’d also helped her clear the house of a long-time live-in ghost, Annie Grace, a pre-Civil War slave who’d often disrupted her cooking preparations. Bernice and her twins Mike and Michelle, who were also students at George Mason University, young TV producer/directors at a local cable station in Fairfax County, and entrepreneurs with their own website business, had become part of my extended family. Not being much of a cook myself, I often joined Bernice for a meal in her mess-hall size kitchen, and it had become de rigueur for me to share weekend breakfasts with the three of them.

This weekend should prove to be interesting for all of us, since Mike and Michelle were working as crew at the cable station on a talk show that had invited us to be guests. The subject was ghosts and house hauntings, always a popular topic in the month of October, and Bernice was going to join me to talk about her experiences with Annie Grace.

As usual when I walked through the front door, Bernice’s voice greeted me with a cheery, “Hello, Ariel. I’ve got the kettle on and cookies already on the table.”

I’d had to double my exercise efforts since I’d been here just to offset the effects of Bernice’s goodies and snacks.

“Be with you in a jiffy,” I called back. “I just want to change clothes. I have a date with Greg and his son this evening.”

I dashed upstairs and shucked my semi-professional outfit, which consisted of a wool pantsuit and pumps, exchanging it for jeans, a blouse and my favorite angora sweater, and running shoes. I preferred to wear sexy, slinky, silky clothes when Greg and I were going out alone. But this weekend he had his son with him, and we were all going for fast food and a movie.

Greg is a sergeant with the Alexandria Police, and we’d met less than a week after I’d started staying at Bernice’s. I’d helped bring a murderer to justice, partially thanks to my psychic abilities and partially due to just dumb luck, and in the process, I’d encountered the sergeant several times, during which I’d noticed he had extraordinarily gorgeous gray eyes. He’d been intrigued by the whole concept of how psychic talents work, and when the dust had settled at the end of that case, he’d asked me out for pizza. We’d been dating for just about a month now, and our relationship had rapidly moved into a more personal and steamier stage, with regular dinners out and occasional sleepovers.

Greg was divorced with an 11-year-old son, Brandon, whom he had for weekends as often as his unusual work schedule would allow. Greg had told me his relationship with his wife was amicable and that she was very flexible in sharing custody of their son. When Greg had a weekend off and his son was visiting, I didn’t stay over because Brandon’s mother had a live-in boy friend, and Greg wanted to keep his relationship with his son uncluttered. Moreover, I didn’t want to be a live-in woman unless I could be a wife and mother, and I wasn’t ready to make that kind of commitment yet, nor had Greg asked me to. We were taking the relationship slowly, spending as much time together as we could, but leaving plenty of personal space.

When I got downstairs Bernice had already settled at the table with a big pot of tea and a heaping plate of oatmeal-raisin cookies. I always enjoyed my little chats with Bernice, especially after a day of trying to push intellectual information into teenage minds mostly occupied with non-intellectual thoughts—like relationships, social events, money, jobs, cars, clothes—and hormones. Bernice was intelligent and witty, with a wide range of general information in many areas—she was, in fact, a Renaissance woman—and I appreciated being able to use her as a sounding board. She’d helped me analyze many things, from concepts I wanted to present to my students to the clues on the murder case I’d been involved in the previous month.

Bernice poured a cup of tea for me and pushed the cookie plate in my direction.

“Just one cookie, Bernice,” I said, “since Brandon’s taking me and Greg out for fast food and a movie, and I don’t want to spoil my appetite for popcorn.”

As soon as I’d settled onto a chair, Bernice’s fluffy Tabby-point Siamese, Freud, jumped onto my lap, looked me in the eye, turned round so she could tickle my nose with her tail, and settled down for a nap.

“You’re always the epicure, I see,” said Bernice. “What kind of fast food will it be this time?”

“I don’t know. I think we’re going over to the theater area in Shirlington where they have a bunch of different eateries. That may mean I can choose something a little upscale from hotdogs and pizza. Or it may not. I’m easy.” I munched the cookie, enjoying the homey atmosphere of Bernice’s kitchen. She was always ready to listen to my adventures in the classroom or discuss philosophy or simply trade jokes and anecdotes. In fact, a lot of her psychotherapy clients had shared tea and cookies with her at this very table, receiving healing and wisdom in the process. Food for the soul as well as the body.

“Do you know a lawyer here in Alexandria by the name of Jessamine Steele?” I asked. Bernice had been in practice for over twenty years with her office in this house, and with many clients from all walks of life from Virginia, D.C., and Maryland.

Bernice cocked her head. “I’ve heard the name, I think, but I don’t know her personally.”

“Well, I had something kind of strange happen today. The dean called me in to tell me Ms. Steele was looking for a ‘credentialed’ authority on occultism to act as an expert witness in some kind of legal case, and he told me I was ‘it.’ I’m meeting with her tomorrow for lunch. And when I spoke to her, she said I’d need some scholarly background in black magic and Kali worship. What do you think of that?”

“Do you mean ‘cauli’ as in the floweret vegetable I sometimes cook as a side with dinner—although I can’t understand why anybody would worship it—or is this a dog worshipping cult?” As I grinned appreciatively at her puns, she continued, “Or do you perhaps mean Kali, who is a mother goddess in one aspect, while in another she’s a bug-eyed demon with long claws and her tongue sticking out about half a foot?”

I laughed. “The last option,” I said. “Of course, with respect to food, people say I have the ability to perform black magic in the kitchen—I can take just about any food and turn it black by trying to cook it.”

This time it was Bernice’s turn to laugh, but then she got back to the subject of Kali. “Sometimes when I’m working with a particularly uptight and angry female client, I’ll show her a picture of Mother Kali in her demon-goddess pose and tell her to think of the man she’s angry with and make a face to match Kali’s—and aim it at him! It’s really very therapeutic.”

“I’ll have to try that in class sometime,” I said. “There are one or two arrogant young men I might be able to put in their proper places with the fear of Kali.”

“If you do that in class, my dear, I might have to bring your cookies to you at the Braddock Road Home for the Bewildered.”

“Given that Ms. Steele was talking about black magic, I don’t think it’s the worship of Kali as mother, but rather as demon-goddess—the taker of life rather than the giver of life.”

Bernice took another cookie for herself and nudged the plate toward me.

“All right, one more,” I said. “But just one more.”

“I know you,” she said. “You’re easy.”

“Now you’re making me eat my words as well as your cookies.”

Bernice nibbled her own cookie pensively. “There’s always two sides to everything, isn’t there? Even with goddesses. The life giver is also the death bringer, quite naturally since the minute you come bawling and mewling into this world, you’re already in the process of dying.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “And since women are the givers of life, they set up the whole process in the first place—and get blamed for everything. Oh, well, nothing like a little entropy to set you on your way in life. The Kabbalistic Tree of Life, like the one Michelle constructed in the back yard last month, also displays this dichotomy of life, you know. The left side of the tree is controlled by Binah, the Dark Mother, and is called the Pillar of Severity. The masculine side of the tree, on the other hand, which is headed up by Chokmah, the energy of the Great Father, is referred to as the Pillar of Mercy.”

Bernice snorted. “Just sounds like a patriarchal religion taking out all its woes on the females in the society.”

“I can’t deny it sounds that way,” I laughed.

“Of course,” Bernice continued, “you know the right side of the brain is considered the ‘feminine’ side. It’s our non-verbal, intuitive, visual, imagistic, artistic side. And it controls the left side of the body, which has also been associated with the feminine, and words that simply mean ‘left’—like ‘sinister’ in Latin and ‘gauche’ in French—have taken on negative connotations over time.  That’s why in earlier times it was considered bad to be left-handed.”

“Earlier doesn’t go too far back!” I countered. “When I was in the Middle East, I learned that many of the people consider the right hand to be good and use it for eating, while the left hand is the one used for cleaning up after—how can I put this delicately?—taking a dump. So the worst punishment for someone caught stealing would be to cut off his right hand, leaving him forever outcast—and unclean!”

Bernice put down her cup and her cookie and examined her hands. “I’m glad we live in a culture where we have soap and water readily available and don’t have to make that kind of distinction.”

“Yeah, and where we don’t have to drink goat urine or blood to keep up our own precious bodily fluids!”

Just then the doorbell rang, and I got up. “That must be Greg and Brandon, come to take me away to dinner.”

“Well, don’t drink anything I wouldn’t drink,” said Bernice by way of goodbye.

***

As I’d mentioned to Bernice, Brandon had already decided the evening would consist of hamburgers and the latest family-rated action movie. Fortunately, there were enough eclectic restaurants near the Shirlington theater that we found one with a food bar where we could all be satisfied. It had faux New Orleans cuisine—oyster and clam Po’ Boys—as well as subs, burgers, dogs, and fries. Greg got a plate of fried clam strips, I treated myself to an oyster Po’ Boy, and Brandon got a burger with all the fixings that was slightly larger than himself. 

I looked at his plate somewhat aghast as he proudly carried the giant burger and mountain of fries to a table. I turned to Greg and asked, “Are there government grants available to help defray the cost of feeding boys through their growth spurt years?”

Greg grinned and said to Brandon, “I’ve heard it said you should never eat anything bigger than your own head.”

“Well,” answered Brandon, “Mom always says I have a really big head.” He paused to settle more comfortably in his chair, then continued, “And that I get it from you.” And he stuffed a fistful of French fries into his mouth.

I took a mouthful of the Po’ Boy, then gazed at the two guys sitting across from me. Brandon had Greg’s sandy hair, gray eyes, and casual, laid-back attitude. Some of their actions and gestures were so similar they almost seemed choreographed. I looked at Greg fondly and thought what an excellent role model Brandon had in his dad and how strong the bond was between them.

Greg had just swallowed one of his clams and speared another onto his plastic fork when Brandon looked at him and asked, “Hey, Dad, how do you make a clam strip?”

“All right, I’ll bite,” said Greg, doing so on an unoffending clam strip.

Brandon grinned, “You offer it a role in a nudie film.”

We both looked at him in shock.

“Brandon!” exclaimed Greg. “You’re only 11. What do you know about that sort of thing?”

“I’m almost 12!” Brandon proclaimed haughtily. “Anyway, they talked about nudie movies on one of the cop shows last week.”

I said thoughtfully, “Hmm, a professional clam stripper. I wonder if she keeps her occupation a secret from her family?”

The guys looked at me questioningly, and Brandon said, “If her mom’s like mine, she’s not gonna talk about it.”

“You mean,” I said, pausing to emphasize the punch line, “she clams up?”

“Aargh!” said Greg. “What have I done to deserve this? Enough already.”

After we’d finished dinner, we wandered toward the theater, and Brandon kept about two shops ahead of us, gazing in windows and occasionally pausing if something caught his eye. Greg took the opportunity to hold my hand as we sauntered along.

I smiled up at him. “It doesn’t take a psychic to see you have a really good relationship with your son.”

He smiled back. “Thanks,” he said, “I’ve tried to stay sane since the divorce.” And he gave my hand a little squeeze. “But you know, I could actually use a psychic at work. We’ve had two more grand theft auto cases just this week. Can you tune in on a Hummer or a Mercedes? Oh, well, they’re probably hundreds of miles from here by now, or dismantled for parts.”

“I don’t know if I’m up to taking on this kind of case right now. I’d have to brush up my dowsing skills and really spend time focusing on it. Looking for a piece of property is like looking for an individual—the psychic would need the owner’s name or license number or a lot of distinguishing features that would make it unique. And as you say, it might be hundreds of miles away. But I’ll bet a good dowser, like the ones who use maps to dowse successfully for oil, or precious metals, or buried treasure, could train himself to dowse for stolen cars.”

“Well,” Greg said, “if you get any sudden hits about cars that are in the wrong places, let me know.”

Then I had another thought. “You know, you have all the details about the stolen cars. Why don’t you see if you can get your own psyche involved in trying to find them? All you need to do is when you go to sleep at night, just before you drop off, give yourself a suggestion that you’re going to dream about where one of these stolen cars can be located. Then write down whatever it is you dream about, see if it makes any kind of symbolic sense, and follow up on it.”

He glanced at me with one of his eyebrows raised.

“Really, I’ll bet you can get something if you try.”

He smiled an enigmatic little smile at me. “Trying to teach an old dog a new trick?”

“Well,” I said, giving his hand a little squeeze, “he’s not such an old dog, and he’s a pretty smart dog. And if he succeeds, I’ll give him a doggy biscuit!”

We caught up with Brandon in front of the multiplex, bought our tickets, and went in.

“Can I get some Starbursts, Dad, for dessert?” asked Brandon, and Greg acquiesced. “Want anything?” he asked me. I just smiled, rubbed his hand a little, and raised an eyebrow slightly, and he had the grace to blush a little. As we entered the theater where our show would play, Brandon asked if he could sit up front.

“You’ll be by yourself, buddy,” said Greg. “I can’t sit that close anymore.”

Brandon said that was okay and chose a seat in the middle of the first row. We wandered down to about the center of the theater and settled into seats on the end of the row, saving a seat for Brandon in case he were to change his mind and decide to join us after all. As the theater darkened, Greg took my hand and gently began to stroke my palm and the webbing between my fingers.

Interesting, I thought as I began to feel a little warmth creep down my body. This film had just changed from a family-rated feature to an X-rated one!

Copyright © 2007 Honora Finkelstein and Susan Smily