Yael R. Dragwyla 747 N 135th St, Apt 644 Seattle, WA 98133-7438 email: polaris93@aol.com Phone: (206) 365-9849 http://polaris93.livejournal.

com/

First North American rights 87,700 words

Club Vesta: A Journey Beyond the Mountains of Madness to Find a Sea of Stars (Love-Letter to America)
The Novel
Dedication
This book is dedicated, with love and long memory, to Dante Alighieri and the United States Marine Corps: Semper Fidelis.

You Cant Go Home Again Anonymous Once upon a time we had a love affair with fire . . . R. R. McCammon, Swan Song (Bantam, 1987), p. 5 . . . This is the island where dreams come true. Thats the island Ive been looking for this long time, said one of the sailors. I reckoned Id find I was married to Nancy if we landed here. And Id find Tom alive again, said another. Fools! said the man, stomping his foot with rage. That is the sort of talk that brought me here, and Id better have drowned or never born. Do you hear what I say? This is where dreams dreams, do you understand come to life, come real. Not daydreams: dreams. There was about half a minutes silence and then, with a great clatter of armour the whole crew were tumbling down the main hatch as quick as they could and flinging themselves on the oars to row as they had never rowed before; and Drinian was swinging round the tiller, and the boatswain was giving out the quickest stroke that had ever been heard at sea. For it had taken everyone just that half-minute to remember certain dreams they had had dreams that make you afraid of going to sleep again and to realise what it would mean to land on a country where dreams came true. C. S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (New York: Collier Books, 1970, pp. 156-157) See, today I set before you life and prosperity, death and disaster. If you obey the commandments of Yahweh your God that I enjoin on you today, if you love Yahweh your God and follow his ways, if you keep his commandments, his laws, his customs, you will live and increase, and Yahweh your God will bless you in the land which you are entering to make your own. But if your heart strays, if you let yourself be drawn into worshiping other gods and serving them, I tell you today, you will most certainly perish; you will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. I call heaven and earth to witness against you today: I set before you life or death, blessing or curse. Choose life, then, so that you and your descendants may live, in the love of Yahweh your God, obeying his voice, clinging to him; for in this your life consists, and on this depends your long stay in the land which Yahweh swore to your fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob he would give them. Deuteronomy 30: 15-20 (The Jerusalem Bible) The collective unconscious is common to all; it is the foundation of what the ancients called the sympathy of all things. Carl Gustav Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections

Prologue
Traveler, take heed: The whole of the following may be considered to be a sort of lucid dream, in which things dont always make sense according to our normal, daylight expectations. Upon entering here, it is the part of wisdom to lay aside such useless baggage, or at least carry it shut away where it cannot interfere with the journey. As Rudyard Kiplings Kim knew, there are truths, and there are truths, some for each side of ones head, and each has its blessing from the Gods. Lest you become lost in endless argument with yourself over which is realer and which is truer than the others, and become lost on your way through this strange place which you are about to enter, remember that day and night, sleep and waking, outer and inner, male and female, each has its right and place and time to be, and that each is vitally necessary to the well-being of the whole With this in mind, we bid you welcome to Club Vesta, the Inferno of Eros as Goddess, where the Sacred Fire has been banked for the ages, to keep alive the Spirit of all the world!

Level -1: The Gateway

1 Midway in our lifes journey, I went astray from the straight road and woke to find myself alone in a dark wood. How shall I say what wood that was! I never saw so drear, so rank, so arduous a wilderness! Its very memory gives a shape to fear. Death could scarce be more bitter than that place! But since it came to good, I will recount all that I found revealed there by Gods grace. Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy: The Inferno, Cantos I:1-9* _____________________________________________________________________________________ *All quotations from Dante Alighieris The Divine Comedy are taken from the translation by John Ciardi, published by the New American Library in a Mentor Book edition (1954).

It was a scorching-hot day, veils of dust hanging in the air behind us from our passage. The air about us shimmered with that weird, molten, crepuscular brilliance that sometimes presages tornado assaults in the Midwest. The eerie light and nearly unbearable heat were doubly disturbing because this was Washington State, well over a thousand miles north and west of Tornado Alley, where tornadoes and related phenomena were virtually nonexistent. The back of my neck had begun to creep at the feel of the air and the land around us. The sky was iridescent milk, tinged with a rancid butteriness, like old cream; the sun was only a zone of slightly hotter white within the overarching albino horror of the day. The earth baking beneath it had become a ruddy, dusty wasteland, barren and sere. The mountains, far behind us now in the West, were only a sad memory of green coolth. This is Washington State, dammit! muttered Lu as, the moist, rosy tip of her tongue protruding slightly from the corner of her mouth as she concentrated on downshifting the balky manual transmission of the car. We were coming up on a slight upgrade now, one that followed the gently rolling contours of the nearly flat land. I dont fucking believe it, Esh howd you let it get this bad while I was away, hunh? Lu Mrs. Luciferia Blake Skua and I had been friends for years. I had first met her when I was living in San Francisco ten years or so ago, when I was part-time manager for the Eye of Horus, a small but well-stocked occult book-store and supply shop located on Taylor, just north of Filbert, near the North Beach area. Late one October, about five days before my 30th birthday, which fell on the 31st, I suddenly discovered one of the major drawbacks of being a single woman, living alone when some clown broke into my third-story apartment in the same building that housed the shop around 2 a.m. in the morning and assaulted me at knife-point . . . . *** A tall Caucasian male of about twenty-five or so who looked as if hed been pumping iron for years, the perp could have killed me then and there. In fact, I know damned good and well that he intended to do just that, after he first tried to make me go downstairs, unlock the store, and give him the contents of the cashbox. As he told me, he was planning to spend several pleasant hours tying me to my bed, gagging me so that I couldnt make enough noise to attract unwanted attention from other tenants or people passing by outside the building, and skinning me alive with the most exquisite artistic flair.

However, as it turned out, once he had ordered me to slip into a robe and slippers and go downstairs with him, pinning my left hand up against my right shoulder in a take-along grip so painful I wanted to scream as we left my room, I didnt have the keys to open either the front or back door of the store. The only way in was to break out the window and crawl through, or else go through one of the doors with a tire-iron or something, and there were so many apartments nearby that the noise would have alerted at least a few of the occupants, who might well either have come out to investigate or simply called the cops. There were also cars going by on the street Taylor was a fairly heavily-trafficked street during the day, and even at night it had a considerable amount of traffic on it, including heavy haulers bringing their cargoes into the city for the stores and industries that would open up a few hours from now. For a moment, he looked as if he intended to turn around and force me back up the stairs to my room, where he would be certain to kill me, if only to keep me from reporting the assault or testifying against him. But then, blessedly, my neighbor Jane MacGregor leaned out of her apartment window on the second floor, just above the shop, and yelled, All right, you fuckers, whats going on down there?! in a penetrating alto that could have been heard halfway to San Jose. She sounded like Marjorie Main on a bad-hair day (a deliberate choice on her part, for normally her voice was a throaty feminine sirens call that would have given a life-long eunuch a permanent hard-on. In her salad days, Jane had worked as a very high-priced call-girl in cities all over the world, from New York City to Hong Kong to London to Los Angeles and had finally gone into semi-retirement here, working as a part-time curator and docent for the 49ers Museum of California History located over on Market Street). The perp, his eyes growing huge and turning from lethal ice-blue to a sort of sick cobalt, looked up to find himself staring straight up both barrels of the ten-gauge Wilson-Leverett shotgun Jane had purchased on the black market via the good offices of a cop who had been one of her former clients. Its loaded, too, asshole, Jane snarled at him. Eshda! Get the fuck away from him! Im gonna ventilate this sumbitch real good, and I dont want you standing in the line of well, gee, look at him go! she finished, grinning hugely, the points of both incisors gleaming like yellow-white stars in the light from a nearby street-lamp, as El Perp took off running as if his own ghost were chasing him down Taylor to Filbert, where he turned right and disappeared around the corner. No, honey, dont touch that! she cried, as I bent to pick up the enormous, razor-sharp buck-knife he had dropped, the one he had told me he had planned to skin me alive with. The copsll want that for evidence. Here, Ill be right down in just a sec. You stay there, honey . . . A few minutes later, she was standing on the sidewalk before the shop, holding me tight, letting me cry against her shoulder. Weak and shaky from shock, and nearly blinded by my tears, it was all I could do to stand there, using her for support, while we waited for the police to come. It seemed to take forever, but finally the high-beams of a squad-car approached, and then the car pulled over to the curb next to us and two cops got out. While one scoured the area for evidence, making notes as to where the knife had been found and my babbling statement about what the perp had intended to do to me with it, the other went upstairs to my room to check the scene of the crime. At his request, Jane escorted me there, letting me lean on her as we went upstairs (the building, an old one built around the turn of the century, only four stories tall, had no elevator), so that I could show the cop around my place and tell him how the perp got in, any identifying marks or scars or other things I could remember that might help them nail him, and what had been done where. The light in my room had been dim when he entered, but I was able to tell them that he was very fair-skinned, had blond, medium-length hair caught up in a pony-tail with a strip of leather, had luridly colored tattoos of skulls, daggers, swastikas, and a rotting ghoul on his arms and chest, bore extensive, thick white scars on his back and the left side of his torso, neck, and face that could have been the result of burns, and was maybe three inches taller than I was. Hed also had a very peculiar odor, like a battery going bad or a lightning-struck swamp, I told them, at which one of the officers sighed and said to the other, Oh, Jesus, not another adrenaline freak! Well, lets note he might be on steroids big-time, and possibly into cocaine or methedrine. The other officer told him glumly, Yeah, that and the tattoos and scars could nail the bastard, and hes probably in the Central Bureau of Investigations National Computer Index, but what do you want to bet thatll do any good? Okay, honey, he said, turning back to me, pen poised over his notebook, now, lets go over this again, see if we missed anything . . . Eventually the two cops had exhausted everything there was to see and radioed the information back to headquarters, asking for a forensic photographer and a detective to come out and see what they could make of it. In the meantime, they suggested, it would help very much if I would go with one of them to the local hospital, have them photograph any bruises or wounds there there were a number of both; the son of a bitch bit, obviously getting off on causing as much pain as he could and then be treated for my

wounds and given a birth-control shot, and then come back and make a full statement of what had occurred. I had already made a statement, but they wanted to tape-record it, in detail, and could only do that when the detective got here. Still stunned and shocky, I didnt really want to go, but when Jane insisted on my going there and on coming with me to make sure I had somebody friendly with me, I agreed. By about seven a.m. it was all over, I was home again from the hospital, had given my statement, and was so exhausted I could hardly keep my eyes open. The cops had just left when Jane said, Honey, you can stay at my place as long as you want to. I dont want you to have to be alone if you dont want to, okay? You can sleep in my big bed Im off today from the museum, so you wont be alone, and Ill stay out in the rest of the place unless you want me. Ill fix you some lunch or dinner when you wake up and want some food. Okay? The offer sounded like heaven. I let her steer me into the bedroom, where she pulled back the black satin on the bed and gently urged me to crawl in, which I did. I was asleep almost before my head hit the pillows.

When I woke up, the sun had already set, light from the nearby street-lamp only a thin gleam between the two panels of Janes heavy golden brocade bedroom curtains, which shed purchased from a store over in Chinatown. As I came slowly back to the waking world, I saw that Jane had thoughtfully turned on a night-light in the bathroom that opened off the room, the door of which stood invitingly ajar. Aching all over, the places where the perp had bitten me throbbing painfully and filled with a sick heat, I somehow managed to get to my feet and make for the bathroom, my bladder so full it hurt, flipping on the light-switch and nearly throwing myself at the commode in my need to empty my bladder. A few minutes later, my poor bladder nearly moaning in relief, I was looking longingly at the bathtub, wondering if I dared take a bath. Of course you do, honey was gonna offer you one before you crashed out, but you were just too sleepy, Jane said from behind me, clearly reading my mind. Theres clean towels here on the bed, and a fresh gown and robe and some slippers, too, if you want to put something on and have a meal. Naked with Janes help, Id just barely managed to get my clothes off before falling onto the bed I threw my hands over my breasts as I whirled about to face her. Oh, dont worry about me, darlin, she told me kindly, looking me over with a quickly appraising glance, believe me, Ive seen it all and dont care any more. Places Ive worked, you wouldnt believe what Ive seen. You arent an eyesore or anything, youve got a very nice body, and thats better than maybe two-thirds of the population your age, right there. Whatre you, thirty or so? I turn thirty on Halloween, Jane. Well, Ill be darned! Okay, well throw a birthday party for you, then, pumpkin ice-cream and a little cake from Dons Bakery down the street with ghosts and goblins on it, and everything! she told me happily. Oh, why not? How long has it been since you had a real birthday party? Youve been out on your own for the last ten years or so, left your family back when, I remember you saying. I aint had a fun party like that in ages, and Ive got plenty of money, what with my investments and the museum. Itd be a favor to me, okay? Dazedly, I nodded, taking the lovely white satin nightgown, the long blue terry robe, the towel and washcloth, and the slippers she was handing me and piling them up on the toilet-seat, which I put down for the purpose. Quickly she slipped past me and, pulling back the plastic curtains printed with seahorses and other icons of the sea that concealed the tub, began drawing a bath for me. Ill just put in some of this bubble-bath for you its real good stuff, I got it over there at that little boutique on Kearny that has all those lovely soaps and things and a bit of this perfume, just a touch, and Ill bet youll feel a world better after youve had a good soak in this . . . Humming, she completed preparing my bath as I stood by dumbly, naked, sore, and still rather dazed. Then, standing up and turning to me, she told me, Okay, Esh, you get into the tub and have yourself a good soak. When youre ready to get out, theres some stuff Ill set up here on the counter by the sink for you to put on, vitamin E and stuff for the places he . . . hurt you and liniment for your bruises and all, okay? Like a poll-axed steer, I nodded, letting her push me gently toward the bathtub, stepping in when she told me. Taking my arm, she helped me lower myself into the tub, a good thing, because otherwise I could have taken a nasty fall when my feet started to slip on the tubs porcelain surface. Shit, that bathmat just isnt big enough, is it? she hissed as she steadied me. Knew I shouldve have gotten a bigger one when I was in the True Value the other day. Well, youre okay now. Just be very careful getting out, okay? Sure, I told her, smiling tiredly. The bath did feel good, after the initial sting in my wounds which the hot water and bubble-bath solution caused. I was already beginning to feel better. Oh, and I put a lot of hydrogen peroxide into the water, too, good for what ails you, she told me. An old trick that a lady in a house in Bangkok taught me. Disinfects any wounds and makes you feel better, because of the extra oxygen it puts into the water. Goes in through your skin and cleans out . . . well, thats neither here nor there. But anyway, I thought it would help. Oh, it does, it does . . . I sighed gratefully. Okay, Ill leave you here with your bath and go fix something to eat. You just call if you need anything, hear? Sure. Humming something to herself it sounded as if it might be the theme from the Three-Penny Opera, which had had a centennial revival recently and was still playing over at the Fool Too Theater on Haight she left the bathroom, gently closing the door behind her.

As I sat there, soaking, I heard her making a phone call out in the living-room, thinking it was probably either to her boss at the museum or to one of her friends. Then I heard her in the kitchen, moving things around, starting to make dinner. As I was carefully getting out of the tub about twenty minutes later, I heard the door-chime ring, and Jane go to the door. Lou! I heard her cry in delight. Glad you could come! Whoever it was said something I couldnt make out. It sounded like a woman, and the tension that had shot through me at the sound of the doorbell rapidly began to fade. Quickly, I sorted through the tubes of ointments I found on the countertop, rubbing the vitamin E salve into the places Id been bitten, then the Deep Heat Rub on my aching muscles and the Ice in a Tube on my bruises. As I did so, I looked at myself in the mirror. I saw a slender, olive-skinned woman whose long, black hair, somewhat dampened from the clouds of steam from the bath, was still badly tangled from both sleep and the mauling I had received from the perp hours earlier. When freshly washed and carefully brushed, that hair would hang down below my waist, a curtain of midnight that a lot of men and even a few women had told me made me look seductive as hell. But in the shape it was right now, it made me look like some vagabond waif caught out in the storm, all witch-locks and pixie-knots, about as sexy as a mat of burned-over buffalo grass. I was only about thirty years old, but my eyes, a dark brown, almost black, normally bright and attentive, were those of an old woman, with tenebrous purple bags under them, filled with darkness and night. I had a good figure, narrow waist, slender hips, long legs, but my shoulders were hunched far forward, as if I were carrying a terrible burden on my back, so that my breasts dangled in a way that made them look like the dugs of a hag. Hunting furtively around in Janes bathroom cabinets, I found a brush, one that didnt look as if it had been used much, perhaps one shed replaced with a better one but left in there just in case, and used it to try to work out the tangles in my hair as best I could. After a few minutes work, while it still didnt look very good, it looked one hell of a lot better than it had, the worst of the knots out of it and the rest hidden by the hair I had been able to brush out properly. Then I found some face cream, and began to work that into my face. It didnt eliminate those deadly bags below my eyes, of course, but it helped some, and made my skin feel better. I tried straightening my shoulders and standing straighter, and my body looked far better for it. Seeing that, I felt a good deal better about myself. Then, carefully drawing on that beautiful satin gown, pulling the terry robe on over it, and slipping my feet into the fuzzy slippers Jane had left for me, I opened the door of the bathroom, letting the remnant clouds of steam escape into the bedroom, and sat down on Janes great, soft bed, relishing the comfort, trying to decide whether I wanted to go out and eat and meet whoever it was had come to visit Jane, or just lie back down and go to sleep again. Suddenly the bedroom door, which had been pulled to, was flung open. Eshda, honey, you want to come out here and have some dinner and meet my friend, Lou Skua? Uh . . .? Come on, sweetheart, you need to eat, and I think youll like Lou. I . . . Then she was putting one slim hand under my elbow, drawing me to my feet, steering me out into the living-room. Honey, this is my friend Mrs. Lou Skua. Lou, meet Eshda Drake, my upstairs neighbor, who manages the Eye of Horus, downstairs.

3 Hi! said Mrs. Skua with great cheer, holding out a long, slim hand to me. Uh, hi, I said, taking her hand in a rather weak handshake. You youre Lou? My friends call me Lu short for Luciferia, she told me. She had thick, honey-gold hair cut off in a page-boy not far below her ears and lovely, kind violet eyes which, however, had disturbing depths to them, a hint that not too far below the surface there lurked something cold, reptilian, utterly ruthless. Though slender, her body was in top form, a fascinating combination of hard muscle and lovely curves. My mom named me that because she said that Lucifer was originally the name for the morning star, Venus when that planet is rising before the sun, ruling the astrological sign Libra the way that the evening star, Venus setting after the sun does, rules Taurus. Thats pretty . . . On the other hand, she was raised Catholic and I think she did it as much out of rebellion against Mother Church as anything else, she continued, laughing. And I cant say I dont agree with her I think Roman Catholicism is one of the great banes of the worlds spiritual existence, but then, thats my opinion (and hers; I take after her a lot). Here, honey, lets get you set down on the couch, here, Jane interrupted, guiding me over to a long couch upholstered in the same heavy, rich gold, scarlet-patterned brocade that her bedroom curtains were made from. Lu, honey, you sit down next to her, so the two of you can chat while I go get the dinner. You want to stay for dinner, Lu? I did up some sage hens, got them special from Johnny Fong for that favor I did him the other day, theres plenty for all three of us. Well Hey, you told me Eriks out of town this evening, youll either be eating alone or at a restaurant otherwise. Wouldnt you rather stay here and have dinner, sweetie? Oh, what the hell, why not? Sure youre one of the best cooks I know, Jane, loved the last time you had me and Erik to dinner, when you served us the steak and lobster tails! Chuckling richly, Jane told her, Well, I can only do a meal like that about twice a year. Tonight, all Ive got is Italian, but Ive got a lot of Italian! Spaghetti? Mostaccioli. And a salad so fresh youll slap its face made the dressing myself, a honey vinaigrette. And pistachio ice cream for desert, with frozen slices of real cherries on it, some of the ones I picked last summer when I took that trip to Vashon Island. Mmmmmmmm! Okay, Ill stay! Lu said, grinning. Ill bring in the soup and the garlic bread first, Jane told her, bustling back to the kitchen. While Jane brought in the soup, a rich minestrone, and a platter of garlic bread slathered with real black-market butter instead of the often frankly rancid margarine that was all I could afford most of the time, and began setting them out with cutlery and plates on an ornately carved, low teakwood table she dragged up to the couch, Lu turned to me and said, Im glad to meet you. I heard you had a rather . . . upsetting experience last night. Up until then, Id been able to shove the memories of the horror to the back of my mind and forget about it, but when she spoke, it all came rushing back. It must have shown as I looked at her. Oh Im sorry, I can understand if you dont want to talk about it, she told me, looking clearly sorry for upsetting me. No . . . no, I said in a zomboid voice I hardly recognized as my own, thats okay. I . . . its all over, now. I guess I . . . Im going to have to live with it, might as well get used to it now. What er, if you dont mind my asking, what actually happened? No, I dont mind . . . I guess. Haltingly, I told her what had happened to me, the asshole coming through my front door, having somehow picked the lock, coming into my bedroom, telling me I had to do what he wanted or hed kill me, telling me he would kill me when he was done, slowly, that hed skin me alive, so if I wanted to postpone that as long as possible Id better do exactly what he told me, forcing me to do horrible, degrading things, oral, anal, things so disgusting Id never even heard of them before, then his making me get into a robe and go downstairs and try to open the store so he could rob it, and my not having the keys, and Jane suddenly shoving her shotgun out the window and scaring him off, and the cops coming, and . . . Sounds like youve been through hell, Eshda. Call me Esh, its cool. Everybody does. Esh, then. Were you . . . were you able to put up any sort of defense? Defense? Uh . . . no, I had no idea how.

Instead of replying to this, Lu, her eyebrows raised significantly, turned to Ruth, who nodded. Ohho, said Lu, turning back to me. I . . . see. Uh, Esh, have you ever thought of taking self-defense courses? Well . . . I had, kind of, tried to in college, but I was never any good at it, and I felt so stupid out there, getting in everyones way . . . Ive been at some Feminist meetings where they talk about what to say, what not to, maybe kicking the guy in the nuts, but there I was lying down, he jumped on me before I could get my knee up or anything, and I was so scared, I couldnt even move . . . Lu looked up at Jane again, then back to me. Okay . . . what sort of classes did you take in college? Aikido? Tae-Kwan-do? Jiu-jitsu? Karate? I no. It was just . . . stuff. Rolled-up newspapers and . . . some grappling. I couldnt . . . even do that very well . . . Oh, shit. Uh, do you have a gun? A . . .gun? Lord no! Why not? Theyre legal again for home defense, anyway. But they . . . theyre dangerous. Ive been told that . . . that an . . . assailant could take a gun away from me and kill me with it. Same with a knife. Not if you train with them! My face must have been a real study in utter bewilderment. Sweetie, Lu told me, Theres no point in having weapons like that around unless you know how to use them. But if you are properly trained in their use, believe me, theres no danger that just one opponent is going to get one away from you and use it against you. In the first place, if youd have had a good enough lock on that front door of yours Jane said all you had was a key-lock, not a dead-bolt, nothing like you should have had, no wonder that asshole was able to break in so easily! if youd had the right lock or locks on that door, by the time hed gotten in, if he had, youd have been wide awake and could have had an entire armory out and ready for him, and believe me, the son of a bitch would have been history right then and there! And no way in hell could he have taken your weapons away from you at that point! But . . . but he was . . . so strong . . . and so fast . . . All of a sudden, I began to cry again, great, big bawling sobs that came all the way up from my gut and seemed to tear my chest apart. Then Lu, on one side, had her arms around me and had pulled my head against her shoulder and was telling me to go ahead and cry, it would be all right, like the mother I never had, and Jane, on the other, was gently rubbing my back, and I cried until I thought Id never be able to stop. But that seemed to do what everything before hadnt been able to: the core of my shame and nausea and self-disgust and loathing and horror came up in one huge knot and somehow made it up out of the constriction in my throat and flowed out through mouth and nose and eyes and away into the evening, and I was, if not entirely free of it all, able to think and feel and take in the world in a way close to normal for the first time in well over half a day. Finally, blowing my nose on a tissue offered by Jane, I raised my eyes to both of them and said, Thanks. I God, I still feel like death warmed over, but its a hell of a lot better than I did earlier! I know, sweetie, Jane told me, I know. Esh, Lu and her husband, Erik Skua, run a dojo here in town. They teach all kinds of things, all the way from self-defense courses for children to real Japanese martial arts. Karate? Gesundheit! said Lu, grinning. No, seriously, not karate. Something different. Its based on real combat techniques evolved from 9th-century warfare in Japan, the beginning of the feudal period, developed by the mountain clans there, the ones that were never really controlled by the feudal system. ? The ninjas. The real ones. Kind of like Japans version of the Gypsies, honey, Jane told me. Didnt you tell me that, Lu? I think Erik did, or maybe you were at his lecture that time when he compared the ninjas and the Szekeley, said Lu. Yeah, that sounds about right. Anyway, Esh, the real ninjas were just the mountain people in Japan, who lived far away from the big cities, kept to themselves, mostly, and developed their own culture and ways of dealing with things, including what youd call martial arts, because they often had to deal with bandits or people in the next valley who didnt like them or whatever. Thats right, said Lu. They also didnt take well to being under anyone elses dominion, and found ways to avoid it when the feudal system became established in Japan in the 16 th and 17thcentury, so the Shogunate, of course, gave them such a bad press that even now most people think they were nothing but thieves, bandits, and terrorists.

Anyway, because they used their battle techniques for real situations, their various schools of martial arts never got turned into sports arts, the way karate and that sort of thing did. Kinetically you know, in terms of the way people move and use their bodies those techniques are actually based on the same principles that tai chi and related disciplines are, in terms of flow and circular motions and other patterns typical of the natural world, the way your body wants to work, rather than the all-speed-andpower techniques typical of karate and similar disciplines which just tear up your joints and muscles and wear you out at an early age. I I hadnt heard anything about such . . . disciplines before. Never took a tai chi class? No I wanted to once, but I didnt have the money then, and now I dont have the time. Sure you do! You can always make the time what sort of hours do you work at the shop, anyway? Four days a week, about six hours a day. Do you work another job? No dont really need one right now. They pay me rather well there, and I have some money in savings for when I was working at this civil-service job for the city schools up until about a year ago. When I left that, I cashed out my retirement fund and invested it in some stocks and things, and it hasnt done too badly. And I also got my apartment for half the normal rent because the owners of the building are also the ones who own Eye of Horus, so that helps. So you have enough money, it sounds like, and plenty of time. Or do you? Are you going to school or anything? Well . . . I was thinking of it, but its been quite awhile since I was in school, and Im just not sure yet. So why dont you have the time? Look at me, sweetie, she said, taking my chin in one slim hand. If its money, we can er, look, there are ways around that. Whats holding you back? I oh, God, I dont know . . . its just that . . . its just Its just what? Hey, you two, why dont you try your soup before it gets cold, okay? And the bread, too its really good! Jane interjected, still smiling. Oh, sorry, I mumbled. Sure . . . Oh, dear, I didnt mean to be rude! Lu apologized to Jane. Also, I dont want to miss out on your cooking! With which, reaching out to pull the table closer, she drew the soup tureen over and began to ladle soup from it into one of the bowls Jane had provided. Jane, meanwhile, urged me to scoot closer to the table, and then, when Lu was finished with the tureen, began ladling soup out into another bowl, which she placed in front of me, along with a little plate full of the heavenly-smelling garlic bread. At that point, the wonderful odors of the food worked their magic on me, and soon I was nearly shoveling down soup and bread and looking around for more. Hey, thats my girl! laughed Jane. Here, lets try some salad, okay? So saying, taking away the soup-bowl, she placed a salad-plate in front of me and began dishing out salad from her big tiki bowl into it with the salad tongs, then took up the vinaigrette dispenser and added dressing. Kids, Ill be right back going to go get the entre, okay? While she went into her kitchen to get the main course and bring it back out, I polished off most of the salad as well as several huge chunks of garlic bread, while Lu stared at me in astonishment. A little shame-facedly, I told her, I hadnt had anything to eat since last night, before I went to bed, almost a day ago now, I think. I guess I was a lot hungrier than I thought. I guess! Well, its all good for you, and your body probably needs it, to replenish the things that what you went through took out of you. And theres plenty of it, too, Jane said cheerily, returning with a large rectangular Pyrex dish filled with dainty little meat-and-pasta crescents. These are the mostacciolis dig in and get em while theyre hot! Later, as we were finishing up with coffees and pistachio ice cream-cum-cherry-au-natural, the latter topped with a pale brown sweet liqueur which Jane said had been imported from Sao Paolo and had real chocolate bean as one of its core ingredients, Lu said to Jane, Actually, I dont think I ought to bring Erik over here for dinner again. Oh? Whyever not? Jane asked her. Cause youd steal him away from me with your cooking! Lu told her, grinning impishly. Seriously, Janie, that was one of the best meals Ive eaten in years!

Im glad you liked it, Jane told her. Turning to look at me she was sitting in a chair shed drawn up to the other side of the table from Lu and I she told me, Esh, sweetie, I have to confess something. Oh? Not sure what she meant some still-terrified part of me wonderingly dazedly if perhaps she was about to tell me that she and Lu were actually the Mad Rapists confederates and were planning to hold me here, prisoner, for him to come back and finish what hed started I stared dumbly at her. Hey, dont look so upset! Its nothing bad its just that Lu didnt come here by accident. I called her up when you were asleep, asked her if she could come over so the two of you could talk. Talk? I said, beginning to relax again. Yes. After what you went through honey, I dont want any woman to have to go through anything like that, ever, especially a friend, which youve been for almost a year now, since youve moved in. Youre one of the nicest, most helpful, kindest people I know and we dont have enough like that to go around now, as it is. The psychopaths and perps, they always seem to target good people like you and they always know whos vulnerable, who isnt likely to be able to fight back. Baby, Lu and Erik and their students could really help you learn to handle yourself on a, a physical level, if you see what I mean, and I thought maybe youd at least like to hear a little about their dojo and what they teach and see if thats something youd like to try. And if its a case of not being able to afford it, I thought I could, well, maybe help you with a sort of scholarship. I hope I well, I wasnt too presumptive, was I? I was extremely moved. No one had ever gone so far out of their way to help me before, not my adoptive parents or the many foster parents whod follow them, not teachers or friends or anyone else. Certainly not with anything as important as this. I was still reeling inside from what had happened I could have died today. In fact, I had no idea why I wasnt dead now or close to it, skinned alive and exsanguinating in agony with that asshole laughing and laughing the way he had when he raped me after gagging and binding me, leaving me unable to make any sound that might have attracted a rescuer. Instead, here I was, being expertly brought back to something like health and sanity by someone who, in spite of her rather checkered past, I admired far more than almost anyone else Id ever met. This woman, who actually had so much socked away from her various investments, the fruit of her many years of working as a call-girl who had commanded small and not so small fortunes from kings and prime ministers and presidents and heads of international corporations all over the world that she could have been considered to be wealthy, had chosen to live in this somewhat run-down, bohemian section of San Francisco in an old walk-up building because, as she had told me many times, Honey, its got soul. Not only is it generally peaceful here, within walking or BART distance of a whole world of fascinating places and people, but its got about 200 years of history in it, the history of what I think is the most fascinating and beautiful city on earth! And even if it is in the Glorious Peoples Republik of Kalifornia, San Francisco somehow never lost its soul the way that so much of the rest of this benighted world has. Which is why she also worked for the museum, for which she wasnt just a simple curator, but also the assistant to its board of directors because of her expertise on the history of the city and the state. Before she had gone off to see the world and dazzle a good part of it with her erotic skills and instincts she had gone to San Francisco State College and then the University of California at Berkeley, getting a Masters in anthropology and a doctorate in history, her major emphases being on the history of the United States and the cultural evolution of the various peoples who had lived on the North American continent, from the paleo-Indians to modern-day white, black, Hispanic and other Americans from Central America to Alaska, the Aleutians, and Canadas Northwest Territories. And this highly educated, worldly-wise and well-traveled woman, who had been included in discussions and policy decisions about matters that had impacted great nations and the whole world by the great and near-great from everywhere on earth, still trim and beautiful in her 50s, and choosing to live in a place with soul rather than in a Nob Hill palace of the sort she could easily have afforded if she had wanted it this marvelous woman had just taken me under her wing and had offered to pay my way in her friends dojo so that I would never again be at the sort of risk I had been early this morning. Stunned all over again, I could only stare at her. Now before you say no, Esh, the way I know youre thinking, just look at it as a favor to me Ill never be able to sleep well nights knowing that creep could come back and Do Things to you, and youd have no way to defend yourself if I was out and no one else here knew. Look, Lu told me hurriedly, instead of making any decisions about it right now, why dont you come down to the dojo one of these afternoons or evenings and see what we do and maybe give it a try, just for fun? Then if you think you dont want to, well, thats fine, but at least youll have an idea of

what we do there and what there might be in it for you, and can make a better-informed decision about it. Okay? I Esh, Jane asked me, her eyes narrowing, just what is the problem with it, anyway, sweetie? I can practically hear the gears in there burning out No no no! Is there some, er, religious reason you dont want to, or what? I oh, God, Janie, its just that its so, so violent! All that Bruce Lee stuff, and Jane and Lu exchanged a swift glance. I thought so, muttered Lu. Turning back to me, she said, Esh, in the first place, what that that asshole did to you this morning, that was violence! Wouldnt it have been great if youd been able to give him the beating he deserved and then turned him over to the cops, where they could have put him in prison with a whole bunch of old lifers who dont like perverts like that? Better yet, if youd had a gun you could have wasted him right then and there, and saved the taxpayers a whole bunch of money on trials and prison. Instead, hes run off God alone knows where, and the odds of catching the sonuvabitch are just about zilch, at least until he rapes and kills a lot of other women and maybe gets gunned down by someone whose house he breaks into, or caught by the cops. And if he decides to give up his career as a rapist, at least around here, he may never get caught. (Unless hes stupid enough to go to Utah and try the same thing there. The Mormons never did give up their belief in the Bill of Rights and their insistence on states rights. Mormon women know how to shoot and most of them have at least one gun by the time theyre old enough to hit a target accurately. And Mormon men well, what they do to anyone who tries to mess with their women and kids is not anything we want to talk about here at dinner.) But but Lu, what if hed had a gun? And I dont want to be I dont want to turn into a, a monster like that, I dont want to become a killer, and I, and I Starting to sob again, I was nearly on the verge of hysterics. Hey, sweetie, there are a lot of ways to handle somebody with a gun! And who says you have to turn into a monster, anyway? Lu asked me, peering into my face, searching for whatever it was that had me so frightened. I remember her saying something about her daddy her step-father or adoptive father or whatever the hell the son of a bitch was, Jane told her. Wouldnt let her even have a job in the afternoons to earn her own money when she was in her teens you know, wanted her to be his little princess, all pretty clothes and bubble-brained charm and absolutely useless for anything but getting pregnant and staying home to take care of the house for some asshole just like her daddy . . . or maybe her daddy himself, if he could have just got her mommy out of the way . . . and never having any say in anything at all about her life. As helpless as Southern Belles pretend to be without the pretense, she said disgustedly. Lu, wincing, asked me, Was that how it was, Esh? Yes, I mumbled through my tears. So when you got up to where you were on your own, youd already been trained into being physically helpless, even though you were a strong, healthy woman. Oh, great. Just great! Lu snarled. No, sweetie, Im not mad at you. But I will be if you dont at least come down to the dojo, meet Erik and our students, see what we can do, try it out a little, get a real idea if its for you or not. Okay? Both women now were looking at me with tremendous concern, more than anyone had ever shown me in all my life. Overwhelmed, I said, O okay, I will. Good, said Lu, smiling. What days do you have off from work? Uh, Sunday through Tuesday. And I have evenings off after 7 p.m. most times on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, though we stay open until 9 on Saturday, and once in awhile I have to help out during lectures they sometimes give on Sunday on things like alchemy and astrology. Oh, my God, Jane, what day is today? Startled, Jane looked at me. Its Monday, darlin, dont you remember? Holding my head in my hands, I said, It . . . didnt occur to me until just now. Its . . . its a little hard to remember things. Thatll go away in a day or two, Lu told me, smiling. A lot of the women who are in our dojo came to us after having experiences like yours, and most of them were more or less okay within 48 hours after the experience, as far as managing their normal lives went. And once they got into training, they soon were a lot better than just okay, too. Youll see, she told me confidently, as if already assuming I was going to become a member of her dojo. Feeling somewhat stampeded, I said, somewhat sullenly, Yeah, well, right now Im not so sure about that, as far as I go, anyway. Okay, I have tomorrow off, and then I go back to work the next day, Wednesday.

Thats great! How would you like to come down this coming Wednesday evening and watch us train? W-Wednesday? I isnt that a little soon? No time like the present. And you know what they say: Get back on your horse and ride, podnah! she added, laughing. Well . . . Tell you what, Esh: Ill drive you over there myself Im going to lease a car this week, anyway, because I have some errands I need to run and some other things, and it wont be any problem to drive you down there, Jane said. And afterward, Ill take you out to dinner at the Wharf. A Turf- n-Surf Special at Julianos. Okay? It dawned on me that she was trying to bribe me into going, like the loving parent of some little girl whod been horribly embarrassed at Cotillion and didnt want to go back for anything in the world, knowing she somehow had to get her child to give it a try or never do well socially in life. Only this it wasnt just a matter of social skills, was it? This was my life they were talking about about things that could maybe help me keep it a little longer, matters of survival. And nobody, nobody in all my life, had ever seemed to care about me before. Looking up at them, I said, O-okay. Ill do it. Sorry if I seem . . . seem to be an asshole about it. I just . . . Oh, honey, dont be sorry! cried Jane. Theres no need to be sorry youve just had an awful experience, no wonder you dont feel like doing much! But well, I think youll find that once you get down there and give it a try, youll enjoy yourself. All sorts of people to get to know. And it just might dovetail with the things you deal with down in the store did you know that most of the great martial arts schools are based on Zen, at least the Eastern ones? And even some Western ones, like the school of San Anselmo of Padua that the monks at the monastery up near Petaluma teach, use the symbolism of religion and mysticism as teaching aids. Ohh! she said, grinning, her eyebrows arching as she saw my blank look. You didnt know about them, did you? One of the Bay Areas Hidden Treasures, she said teasingly , the capitals quite audible. Even people who were born here dont usually know about them including me, up until I was about fifteen, when my big brother Mike took me up to see them before he went off to fight in some damned war in some itty-bitty useless back-of-beyond nowhere country in the Middle East and never came home again. Our family was Roman Catholic, and Mike was a real believer and hed gone up to the monastery one time with friends, when he was in his mid-teens, because hed heard they had these Secret Teachings about the Saints and so on, and he thought maybe learning about that sort of thing would help his relationship with God, which wasnt doing real well right about then because hed just learned about jacking off and was having a lot of trouble bringing himself to confess it to the priest before Mass. Oops, that wasnt very ladylike, was it? she said, grinning. Well, anyway, when he got up there and found out that these very holy men and they are holy, and so are the nuns who come to help teach the classes there were actually teaching oddball martial arts courses in which everything they talked about and demonstrated in class had a name from the teachings and history of the Church. For example, they called what Lu and Erik call the Heart Chakra, the energy center in your upper torso in about the same place your heart is that influences everything in the body and the mind, the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and the moves they taught to hit that center in such a way that you could do anything to your opponent from stunning him to killing him dead then and there, just depending upon how you timed and delivered your hits on his body, they called Invoking the Sacred Heart. And so on and so on. The thing is, basically what they taught, from what Mike told me about it, wasnt all that different from schools such as Tae Kwan Do and jiu-jitsu and even a lot of what Lu and Erik teach. Only the names of the moves and the parts of the body and so on were different, Western-style mystical terminology instead of Eastern-style. You sound like you . . . like you know a lot about all this, I told her wonderingly. Yes, I do. Ive been a student of Lus and Eriks for about five years now, and enrolling in their dojo is one of the best things Ive ever done for myself. I enrolled just after coming back here, to my home town, from Paris. At her suggestion, Id closed out the house I was managing then for another woman over in the Artists Quarter, set up a money-transfer route from Free Chad, where I still have my bank accounts and a lot of my other investments, so that I would have funds on hand whenever I wanted them, and then moved back here to retire. Only, funny thing about retirement: suddenly you have nothing to keep you busy all the time, and the day seems awfully empty. So I scouted around until I found that job with the 49ers Museum, and

then, because it didnt take up that much of my time, I started looking for other things to keep me from going around and stealing hubcaps out of sheer, unadulterated boredom. I tried taking some courses again over at UCB, but it turned out that fashion had changed yet again since Id been there as a kid and they had gone back to Traditional Political Correctness, maybe out of protest against the increasingly libertarian sentiments and climate among the people in this country and, especially, this state. You know how so many college kids are, whatever the mawsses are for, theyre agin it. Anyway, my academic counselor insisted I had to go to this stupid Womens Orientation Class if I wanted to start classes right away, because, she said, my attitude had obviously been corrupted by all those years among the revanchist elites and that sort of crap, and, furthermore, Id have to live in a damned dorm on campus so they could monitor my political progress, would you believe! I told her to shove it and left there and never went back. But I was still stuck for something to occupy my time when I wasnt down at the museum, which was a lot of my time, like it is now. And then a friend of mine suggested I might try martial arts, for one thing its great exercise, and at the age both she and I were getting to then, you get to be real concerned about staying in good shape. And there was the self-protection angle, of course, although I had picked up a lot of very useful moves over the years in all the places Ive lived, as a matter of self-defense, because you never know whats lurking under Mr. Businessmans nice, polite faade, just waiting to come roaring out once you and he get down to business. Or Ms. Businessmans faade, for that matter. And you know what they say: The female of the species is far deadlier than the male! I remember this sweet, petite little blonde thing in London whose husband, a minister of parliament shed married for position and money (though as far as he knew, she was still madly, madly in love with him after ten years of marriage), had no idea what interesting passions lurked behind those pretty, perky little breasts of Loveys . . . she said, frowning thoughtfully. But thats neither here nor there. Anyway, I thought, well, thats different, anyway, and decided to try it. I went there to one of their Saturday day-classes and Ive been there ever since, in spite of everything the Skuas could do to get rid of me, she said, grinning puckishly. Hey, you know youre one of our best students! Lu protested. Why on earth would we want to get rid of you?! Just kidding, darlin, Jane told her. Okay, then, she said, looking back at me. Is it all set for the dojo for Wednesday evening, then, Esh? I sure. Sure. Okay, and let me just give Mr. Thaddeus, our marvelous landlord and your boss, a call here and see if you can take Wednesday off, too, she said, reaching for the telephone she had clipped to the belt she wore at her waist to cinch in the raw silk blouse she wore over fog-gray bell-bottomed trousers, right next to the little knife-sheath I suddenly noticed for the first time. While I stared at her, even more stunned, mouth open, she dialed our landlords number and then, holding the phone to her ear, nervously ran her other hand through her pixie-cut auburn hair as she waited for him to answer. Hello? Mr. Thaddeus? Yeah, this is Janie. You know, Jane MacGregor, the tenant in 202, just above The Eye of Horus. Yeah. Yeah. Say, Ive got a favor to ask of you. Well, could you lend me your manager, Eshda Drake, for a couple of days? Well, shes an expert on some things I want to check out for the museum having to do with American Indian art and culture, that sort of thing. Yeah, I understand. Tell you what: Im willing to pay to hire someone to come in and cover the store Wednesday and Thursday for her, would that work? Sure. Let me get a pencil . . . Looking beseechingly up at Lu, she made writing motions with her free hand. Reaching into the breast pocket of her long-sleeved blouse, which was printed in a delicate pattern of spring-green vines and tiny blue flowerets on a field of yellow, Lu brought out a small black notebook and a stubby pencil. Here, she said, handing them across the table to Jane. Smiling her thanks, Jane said into the phone, Okay, I have something to write with, now. What are her hours and what exactly is going to be needed? Writing furiously in the notebook, she quickly took down the information Thaddeus gave her. Great, got it! Okay, Ill contact the temp agencies the museum uses first thing tomorrow and find someone who can fill in for those two days. Great! Oh, and Eshda wont get into any trouble over this with you, will she? Okay, good. Shes a great friend and Id hate to have problems about this, especially when shes doing me and the museum such a favor! Great! See you later, then. Hey, baby, she said, turning back to me, chuckling a little as she re-clipped the phone to her belt, close up your mouth or a flyll get in! But-but-but

Look, Tad-Boy is a big pussycat, all you need to know is how to stroke him the right way. If hes given you any problems in the past about work or rent or anything and I know he has, because sometimes he can be a real asshole and also he has a real LOUD voice, youd be surprised at how much of what goes on in the shop I can hear up here real good, as it is, and you could hear that man all the way over to the Embarcadero when he gets going he wont in the future. He knows I can buy and sell him and everything he owns a hundred times over, and on top of that, Im the best tenant hes ever had. I pay him a years rent at a time, my checks never bounce, Im also one of the reasons, maybe the reason, that his little hole-in-the-corner store hasnt gone under lately, because of all the stuff I buy from it and order through him, and he knows hed better never forget it. I also know all the top black-market people in California, and if he wants to continue getting his butter and cream and his silk shirts and all the other good stuff hes gotten used to, hed better never piss me off. So you wont have to worry about him ragging on you for taking a holiday. How long has it been since youve had a vacation, anyway? Youve worked in his place for almost a year, now. Ever had a real day off? Well . . . Thats what I thought. Okay, kiddo, youre going to start enjoying life, because youre Aunt Janies friend, and thats what I like to see my friends doing, enjoying life. And we start with the dojo on Wednesday not to mention a day off tomorrow, which you can use to go shopping with me, or maybe we can go to a play or the opera or something like that, or you can just sleep in all day and take a good, long soak in the tub whenever you decide to get up and live in wicked, sensual comfort for at least 24 hours. You ever done that? I didnt think so, she said, before I could answer. Okay, baby, I want you staying here until youve recovered a little more and also until I get that son of a bitch, Thaddeus, to either have the God-damned lock on your door changed to something capable of at least keeping out a half-stoned rabbit instead of that dime-store piece of junk he put on there that dares to call itself a lock!, or let me do it, and then we can have it taken off your rent, for improving the place. And maybe, while were at it, she mused, I can get somebody to come in and put a real door there, one like the one I had put in instead of what was here when I first moved in here, to replace that hollow cardboard thats there now. Until then, I want you staying here, Eshda and now her voice was serious because Lover-Boy could decide to come back and finish the job he started on you did you know psychopaths like that sometimes do that? and if you arent there if he does, thats a plus all the way around. (And if that mother tries to get in here, theyll carry him out in a body-bag. Or maybe more than one body-bag, once I get through with him.) I stared at her, at her beautiful, unlined face, the fashion clothing she wore that must have cost her at least Cr 500 at Bullocks of San Francisco or Martindales over in Palo Alto, her gorgeous green eyes which, like Lus, seemed to hold unfathomable depths in which lived things I wasnt sure I wanted to know about, the little SpyderCo Classic clasp-knife in the little sheath at her belt next to where she had clipped her phone, and thought dazedly, Eshda, how the hell did a little nobody like you end up being the fairy God-child of this beautiful, accomplished, wealthy, deadly woman? Well, as Saint Banzai once said, wherever you go, there you are. Here I was, and even though I didnt understand at all how Id gotten here, it wasnt a bad place, and why not relax and enjoy it? Lu, Jane said, turning to Luciferia, would you like to crash here tonight, too? Ive got two spare rooms, one for each of you, if you want, and you said Erik wont be back until tomorrow night. Well . . . Oh, come on! Ill make you both breakfast in the morning, and you can get to know each other better, and theres nothing you really have to do tonight, is there? Well, theres Toshi and Misu but I can call Jim Masters, our friend who lives down the street and watches over the house when were gone, to check on them and make sure theyre okay and that they have enough food and everything, I suppose. Hey heres the phone! Jane told her, holding it out to her, grinning. Go for it! Thanks. Taking the phone, Lu swiftly placed her call. Her friend was home, and she quickly made arrangements for him to watch over the house and check on her pets. I thought ferrets were illegal in this state or something, I said when she had finished and had handed the phone back to Jane. Yeah, they are, Lu told me, sighing. The Peoples Republik of Kalifornia still wants to fuck with everybodys lives, pretend they want whats good for all of us, and so theyre going to manage every single God-damned detail of our lives, and the current governor has decided that ferrets are horrible, nasty creatures that are just itching to get at the chickens and ducks and whatnot of every farmer in the state, and the fucking legislature oh, hell, I dont want to go into it right now. Anyway, our poor little

babies are now outlaws, but weve got a vet who loves ferrets, has three of his own, and a safe house up in Oregon where we can smuggle them if it gets too hot for them here. What a drag! The understatement of the year, Eshda. And now Erik wants to get a parrot, an African Gray, and the fucking liberals are getting ready to pass a law against importing any and all exotic birds into this state, and getting rid of the ones who are here to prevent animal cruelty, of course and it seems like every time we turn around, there they are, waiting for us, ready to stop us from doing what we want to do, just because they can! Im ranting. Jane, am I ranting? Youre ranting, love. Hey, I have an idea! she said brightly. What? Ive got some lovely videos we can watch, everything from a re-mastered version of that great Golden Oldie from the 1960s, Emmanuel, to some of those erotic masterpieces from Thailand and France you said youd like to borrow sometime. Or we can listen to music Ive got CDs in just about every genre you could wish, from classical to jump-daddy. Anybody want to watch a movie, or listen to music? Glancing quickly at me to see my reaction to all this, Lu said, turning back to Jane, Do you have Yellow Submarine? Ive always wanted to see it, but we could never find a copy anywhere. Yes! Theres a friend of mine down on Market Street who runs the Golden Age Collectibles outlet there you know the place? and he has connections. Found a copy for me in the inventory of an estate sale from the late Dory Gates place in Palo Alto. Oh, wow Ill bet there was stuff in there all the way back to the 1960s and before! Wasnt she the one who turned her estate into a sort of memorial to her grandfather, Old Man Gates, and everything he ever did, not only Microsoft but also the junk he collected as a kid, memorabilia from his college days, even a crack-pipe he sneaked out to the garage and used to smoke crack with his buddies when he was in his teens? Thats the one, all right. All the videos Gates both of them, Dory as well as Bill and a lot of their relatives, besides had ever owned, among other things. He decided to sell as many of them as he could. Some of them were pure crap cant understand why she kept them but there were some real classics among them. I lucked out. Bought about a thousand of them for maybe Cr 400 you can see them on the shelves over there, she said, pointing to one wall, where rank upon rank of videocassettes were arranged on three huge tiers of shelving, and in the two guest rooms, as well. So name your poison. Ive probably got it. Yellow Submarine, then, Lu told her, grinning. Do you have The Treasure of the Sierra Madre? I asked her. I sure do! We can watch both, if you like. Lets! enthused Lu. Hey, do you still have that popcorn-popper of yours? Vintage Black & Decker. Yep, I sure do, and it still works! I found this little shop on Howard that repairs appliances, even antiques. Theyve got this guy in there whos a genius with tools you bring him just about any kind of appliance, electronic, mechanical, doesnt matter, he can fix it, and make it work better than new. They keep my popper going strong, not to mention all my other gadgets, except for the computer. I call in my friend Fred to work on that. Well, lets make a big bowl of popcorn and have something to drink with our movies, okay? Sure. What do you want to drink? Ive got Anchor Steam beer, Sobe Classic Green Tea, Coke Classic, and even some contraband Kool-Aid, if you like. Unless you want spirits? No, but Id go for a beer about now, Lu told her. Good. Esh, honey, what do you want? Uh, maybe a Coke? Sure. Can, or glass bottle? Ive got both. The Coca Cola Company started doing a Coke Revival, and the container plant in El Cerrito has just started bottling the stuff they got a license from the state as soon as the damned EPA okayed it. Remember that big flap about aluminum cans causing Alzheimers or something? And polluting the Bay Area? The EPA finally reversed its position on glass about time, too. The stuff is chemically inert, about as safe as you can get. Turns back into sand once wind and weather get at it, and why they put a ban on it in the first place is more than I can see. Somebody in the EPA probably had a brother-in-law with an aluminum company who wanted to increase his business. Oh, well, okay, Ill go make the popcorn . . . We ended up watching three movies before finally deciding to call it a night: Yellow Submarine, the Treasure of the Sierra Madre, and Citizen Kane, all of them part of the estate sale from Dory Gates estate. By the time we had finished watching them all, pleasantly stuffed with popcorn and sipping our

respective drinks (Jane had opted for a beer, as well), it was going on midnight, Lu was yawning widely, and even Jane looked tired. I, however, was somewhat wired on the Coca Cola, too tired to stay up but too hyper to go to sleep. Eshda, my darlin, I think that Coke may not have been the best thing for you. You want something to help you get to sleep? Janie asked me solicitously. I I think Id better, I told her. I feel oh, I dont know, all wound up and nowhere to go, I guess. Mm. Okay, let me go see what I have . . . be right back, kids. Wait while Momma MacGregor goes to check her pharmacy . . . Getting up from the big floor-pillow shed thrown down before her giant TV/VCR system, which, like her clocks, ran off LiH-batteries, to sit on while we watched the movies, she went into her bedroom, the one Id slept in, and began rummaging around in the bathroom. Esh, hon, do you have any bad reactions to Seconal? she called out. I I dont think so. Good, she said, coming back into the living-room with a vial full of capsules and a glass of water. I dont want to give you valium if we can avoid that it can have some strange effects, and all this will do, at the worst, is make you feel a little drunk and a little hard to wake up in the morning, maybe. Here, she said, setting down the glass of water on one of the countless hardwood end-tables she had scavenged from antique stores and the like all over the Bay Area, so she could open the vial of capsules and pull out a couple. I want you to take two. Itll nuke you into the Sleep Zone so fast you wont even know what hit you, and you should be able to get a good nights sleep without waking up. I hope. She held out the glass and the capsules to me. Obediently I took them from her hands and, tossing the pills into my mouth, washed them down with the water. Good, she told me. Okay, now we decide who sleeps where. Lu, is it okay if I put you into the Red Room? I dont have any problems with that, Lu told her. Thats good. Last time the two of you visited here, Erik told me he thought it was an eyesore. Oh, he did, did he? Well, it is sort of an eyesore. Just a fun one, thats all. And as they say, all cats are gray when the lights out. Giggling, Lu asked her, Do you have any nightgowns or p.j.s or anything I can wear? Just look in the chiffarobe in there. Youll find everything you need. Extra towels in the bathroom off that bedroom. You can hang your stuff in the closet for the morning. If you want to take a bath or shower, help yourself. Eshda, lets put you in the Yellow Room. Its kind of like spring in there, or, at least, thats what I tried to make it into, and I think you need cheering up. Id like you to have something sunny and cheerful to look at when you wake up. Aw, thats not a problem, you know us Scorpios were never so happy as when were touring the local haunted house in the middle of November, I said, with a grin more complimentary than inspired. Yes, well, thats all well and good, but lets err on the side of whatever it is. Same thing as I told Lu, if you want to change what youre wearing, just look in the dresser drawers and all, take a bath or whatever you want if you like, both rooms have their own bathrooms. If you have a headache or anything, theres aspirin and acetaminophen in the medicine chest, along with all sorts of first-aid stuff. And if you wake up and have a hankering for some chamomile tea or something, just make yourself at home in the kitchen. Im a heavy sleeper and it wont bother me at all. Oh, thank you . . . Jane, youve been so kind, I dont know how to The way for you to repay me, honey, is to heal up from what that bastard did to you, and get into that dojo and start learning how to take care of yourself in that big, bad, wicked world out there, okay? she told me, smiling almost tenderly. I okay. Thanks, I told her again. I I think Ill go take that bath. Or maybe a shower. I still feel as if Id been dipped in slime or something, after this morning. I can imagine. Theres bubble-bath in there, too, if you want a bath, and some really nice shampoos and conditioners, and skin oils and perfume, if you want that. I would leave most of that for the morning, though youre going to get real sleepy real soon, and you dont want to fall asleep in the shower, you know? Okay, Ill just sponge off now, and then take a bath in the morning, I told her. Suddenly I was surprised to find myself yawning. God, that worked fast! I told her, astonished.

I think youre still just really, really exhausted. All the Seconal did was knock down the caffeine so your own body could take over. Go on along to bed now, sweetie, see you in the morning, she told me, blowing me a kiss. Getting up off the floor pillow shed given me to sit on Lu had used one, too, all three of us sitting in front of the big 40 screen, avidly watching those classic old movies and gobbling down popcorn like a bunch of kids I staggered off toward the hallway that led into the rest of the apartment, where the spare bedrooms, a sewing room, and an exercise room were situated. There were five apartments on this floor of the building, four on one side of a long hall and one, Janes, on the other, and hers was as big as the other four combined. Apparently at some point in the buildings history, either one of its many owners had decided to carve one of two large apartments on this floor up into smaller apartments, saving the other for the occasional well-off tenant like Jane, or else had taken out walls between four apartments on this side and made them into one big one. Either way, Jane had quite a deal, here, a hidden cove of sheer luxury in one of San Franciscos seedier neighborhoods, where no one who didnt know her would ever expect someone with her wealth would live. Jane loved her luxury, but she also loved her freedom, hated the lifestyle of the rich and famous in which one ended up something like a pedigreed toy poodle, entirely surrounded by bodyguards and opportunists and damned few others, never able to get out and have some pure-d fun, just for the hell of it. Shed found the perfect compromise, here. On top of everything else, our landlord, Mr. Thaddeus, wasnt at all invulnerable to the sort of gracious, covert blackmail Jane was so adept at exerting, and would never be the one to betray her privacy or anything else about her. He knew better. And wasnt suicidal. Or a masochist. After washing myself down as best as I was able with one of the incredibly soft, fluffy wash-cloths in the bathroom off my room, and exchanging my nightgown for a set of pajamas I found in a dresser drawer it was promising to be a cold night, and, as usual, Bay Area Light and Power was stinting most of San Francisco on both gas and electricity right now, so it wasnt really possible to heat up the room after turning off the main light, I slipped between the creamy-white satin sheets on the bed by the light of another of those little battery-powered Coleman night-lights Jane had in the bathrooms, turned on by a switch, and quickly fell into a deep slumber. Somewhere around weird oclock in the morning, I suddenly woke up, thinking I heard a noise somewhere in the apartment. Trembling, trying not to make a sound, I lay there in the dark, finally realizing that what I had heard was Janes great grandfather clock, chiming out the hours. I had apparently reached a level of sleep close enough to the surface of consciousness that the great clocks chime was enough to bring me all the way into consciousness. I had awakened just as the last echoes of the last chime of the hour were fading away. Somewhat relieved, but now too awake to fall asleep again, I lay there in the bed, trying not to think, trying not to remember anything about the assault Id gone through. It was like trying not to think of a blue hippopotamus after awhile, it was all I could think of. Soon I was nearly overwhelmed with the horror of it, all over again. Suddenly, natures reflexes kicked in, and I found myself sobbing my heart out, crying as I had not since I was a small child, when, every time she caught me crying over anything, my adoptive mother used to jibe and sneer at me, call me bawl-baby and sissy, making endless fun of me, until I was finally not able to cry at all, not even at the death of my beloved pet cat, or my only friend among all the children at school and in my neighborhood, who was killed by a speeding car as he was crossing the street in the school crosswalk one rainy day. I had not cried like this even when, at 18, my fianc, the one human being in the whole world who had ever seemed to really give a damn about me, was killed in an automobile accident on the approach to San Luis Obispo as he was driving back to Ventura, where I then lived, from a construction job in Morro Bay. The assault seemed to have wounded more than my body: it was as if it had torn gigantic holes in my soul, through which all the pain and rejection and grief and despair of so much of my life was now pouring through in a flood, threatening to drown me in an overwhelming black tide of horror. I was aware only of the agony in my soul, and the searing pains in my chest and gut and throat where all those hideous memories and the misery they entailed had lodged, and the need to cry it out, scream it out to the heavens if I could, not thinking at all of how it might sound to Lu or Jane or even the tenants above and below my room. Suddenly the door to my room opened with a creak. Shocked out of that horrible black pit of despond, now fully awake and alert, I sat up, staring toward the door, terrified that El Fiend had indeed come back, figured out where I was now, and had broken in. Was Jane all right? Was Lu ? Psst, Eshda, honey, are you all right? Lu! Oh, thank God, its you . . . Whats wrong, sweetie? Or maybe thats a stupid question. I know whats wrong, she said, sitting down on the bed next to me, putting her arm around me.

Oh, Lu, it was so horrible . . . I moaned, collapsing against her, beginning to sob uncontrollably again. Can you tell me about it? she asked me softly. I suddenly remembered Jane, who, though she had said she wasnt a light sleeper, could well have been awakened by my wailing. Making a massive effort to take control of my emotions, I said, Its just . . . everything, I guess. I understand. Both you and Jane told me what the guy did what he said he was going to do and that would be enough to make anyone cry. At least you can cry, Esh some women cant, they just hold it all in for months and months, and finally it comes out anyway, in spite of everything they can do to contain it, and they have nervous breakdowns. Or worse. The sister of one of my students committed suicide a month ago thats when we all found out that the year before, shed gone through something like you did, but never told anybody except the cops, and when they came to take her body away, they found her suicide note, which referred to her assault, and then they asked the cops, and it all came out then. She didnt even have a diary to tell it all to. If you can cry, Eshda, its healthy. I know. I used to go to these Feminist groups, back when I was in college and then, when I was working for awhile in Los Angeles for Banner Oil, I found a womans center and started going there. They were always talking about rape, and what to do if you were raped, how to report it, actually some useful stuff. And they always said that if you went through that, and you could cry afterwards, you should. Was that where did they have anything to say about self-defense options, anything like that? I tried to bring that up, once, at one of those places, and they told me that that was a mans solution to problems, that women werent born to violence the way men were and should find non-violent ways of dealing with the world. And self-defense can be very violent I mean, look at what a gun can do to somebody, or a knife, or even just fists. I . . . see, she said, her voice about halfway between a sad, maternal tenderness and a growl. Oh, no, I dont mean that I think self-defense is wrong, really, its just that they kept equating it with violence, and, well, maybe one of the reasons I gave up on them is that it began to sound very, very fishy and I just didnt want to put up with nonsense at that point. Good! If nothing else, its a good start! she said, sounding royally indignant. So why didnt you try to find a good dojo and start learning self-protection skills, then? she asked. I you remember what Jane said about my adoptive father? You have no idea just how well, lets just say Im still unlearning a lot of the trips he put on me. I okay, I can relate to that. But maybe the unlearning process will be faster once you get into the dojo, what do you think? Well, I promised you both Id give it a try, so well have to wait and see. Okay. Honey, would you feel better if there was somebody in here with you? You mean, to sleep with me? Yes. I yeah, I think I would. If it wouldnt be a bother . . . Oh, bother, pooh! Move over, Eshda. Its a cold night, damned Bay Area L&P isnt helping any, and Im used to sleeping with Erik. He snores, she said, giggling. Oh? I mean, if I can sleep through Eriks snoring, I can sleep through anything. Unless you have another bad moment and need to wake me up. Just touch me on the shoulder dont try shaking me or anything, because that may cause . . . problems, just a touch on the shoulder will do it, she told me, climbing into bed beside me as I scooted over to give her room. I thanks, Lu. I dont know what to say . . . No need, sweetheart. Now just relax and try to get back to sleep. You had one hell of a day and you need your sleep, okay? Sure . . . Already, oddly comforted by her presence next to me, I was beginning to slip back into the depths, hungry for the seductive oblivion they could bring, no longer frightened of the possibility of being confronted by the nightmares that lurked in their abysses. As I did so, I felt her slip an arm around me, pull me up against her so that we were lying spoon-fashion, my head lying on her breast. As I slipped off into sleep, I felt her stroking my hair in a feather-light caress, murmuring, Sleep, now, Eshda, itll be all right, its okay, sleep now . . . I only woke up once more before morning. I think Id had a dream about something that had happened to me in childhood, perhaps the day my cat died, the way the human beings around me behaved. Tears were sheeting down my cheeks Id been crying in my sleep. Then Lu was saying,

Its all right now, Eshda, Im here, itll be all right, its okay to cry, its all right . . . Suddenly she pressed a kiss to the top of my head, light as spider-silk. And somehow, it was all right. Once again, my sorrow and terror left me, leaving me to fall back into heavy, healing sleep, dimly feeling the comforting security of Lus arms around me as I did so. And this time, either I had no dreams at all, or only good ones, for I dont remember any before I awoke to bright sunlight streaming in through the bedroom windows, whose crocus-yellow drapes printed with tiny, bright-green tufts of grass and small blue and white flowers, a little like the print of Lus blouse, had been flung back to welcome in the morning.

4 Wake up, sleepyheads! It was Jane, smiling broadly. Its 11 a.m. Lu, you dont want to stay too long, today, do you? Oh, shit no! she cried, sitting up and throwing back the covers. Shit Eriks due home in about five hours and Ive gotta pick up the mail, go home, check on the weasels, make sure everythings ready for tonights class before Erik gets back ! she cried, her voice rising in near-panic. Hey, hey, Lu, slow down! Jane admonished her. Sweetie, you have plenty of time for breakfast and a shower! But oh, wait, youre right . . . Well, what if I take a shower now, and then have breakfast? Whatever you like, sweetie. How does bacon and eggs sound? Oh, damn, I forgot Eshda, youre Jewish, arent you? Uh, well, sort of, I told her, as I, too, sat up in bed and began to take stock of the morning. I dont do pork, generally but I will confess my dirty little secret . . . Whats that? she said, grinning conspiratorially, coming over so she could lean down to hear me as my voice dropped. I like omelets with cheese, I told her in a hoarse stage-whisper. Now all three of us were laughing. Okay, girls, you go ahead and take your showers, and Ill get breakfast ready. How does a quiche with truffles, breakfast steaks, orange juice, and toast and jam sound? Wonderful! whooped Lu, rapidly divesting herself of her pajamas and heading for the bathroom. Im gonna take my bath you wanna join me, Eshda? Last one ins a rotten egg . . . Just call me Stinky, I said as she jumped into the bathroom and began running the shower. Jane, is Lu always like that? I asked, a little wistfully, as I got my feet onto the floor and stood up, still not quite ready for my own shower. Like what, Esh? So so enthusiastic. I feel like a tired old woman, compared to her. No sometimes shes actually manic, Jane told me, grinning. Hon, you want to jump in there with her right now weve got hot water again, but it wont last long. The water was cold after I ran your tub yesterday and Bay Area L&P didnt crank up again until about 6 this morning, so its taking awhile for water to heat up, and God knows what itll be like again tonight! Okay, Id better join her, then . . . Jane left to fix breakfast. Gingerly getting out of my nightclothes I was still sore in a lot of places, and stiff in all the rest I went into the bathroom and climbed into the tub, where Lu was happily soaping herself down under a highly concentrated spray of fairly hot water. Come on in, join the fun! Lu laughed, lathering her hair with soap-suds. Here you stand under the water and let me shampoo you, and then we can both rinse and put in the conditioner and wash each others backs, okay? Uh Ive never really done this before . . . Thats okay. Ever been in a hot tub with your friends? Well, Ive never really had friends Id want to do that with . . . Uh . . . I see. Okay, well, anyway, Erik and I have a lot of friends with private hot-tubs, generators to power the heaters so they dont have to worry about BALP wussing out on them on a freezing-cold night when theyre having guests over and everyone wants to tub. Were all pretty familiar with Japanese culture Erik and I go over to Japan as often as we can, to train with Soke (the Grand Master of our school), and the Japanese arent that body-conscious. Over there, they have big public baths where men and women mingle without anybody thinking anything of it, because for them, its not an . . . erotic situation. Ive never really been much disturbed by naked bodies I grew up with two brothers older than me and two younger, and somebody was always stumbling out of the bathroom naked, yelling that somebody else had taken his shirt or socks or rubber duckie or whatever, so it was never any big deal. Giggling, I said, Your mom must really have had a handful! Yes, I guess she did. Shes really a wonderful mom she was always there for us and Dad, and since hes passed away, shes the one we always turn to when we have problems. Now shes a grandmother for my two older brothers kids, too I dont know how she does it, sometimes! Do you and Erik have any children? Well, no. We . . . sort of decided not to, at least for awhile. I guess our students are our children, in a way. You teach martial arts, too?

Actually, she said, putting her hand on my shoulder and making twirling motions with her free hand to make me turn my back to her so she could rub the shampoo into my hair more easily, we sort of call it combat arts. Thats to distinguish it from sports arts, like karate has become, because what we teach is meant to be used in real life in any situation that calls for it. It isnt for play well, its fun, practice is. But when you have to get down-and-dirty somewhere in the Tenderloin with three big guys with not enough brains who think youd make a good play-toy, believe me, thats when you know its no game, and the only award youre gonna get, if any, is walking away with your skin intact and, if youre lucky, managing not to get busted for doing grievous bodily harm to a citizen or something equally idiotic, simply because you defended yourself effectively against a bunch of goons. Or, if youre not so lucky but not totally out of luck, managing to get a lawyer who can get you off the hook. Oy! You said it, Eshda! Anyway, Erik and I have put so much into teaching combat arts and the jobs we do to make a living (the dojo has been a big net loss, financially speaking, for years, and its only just beginning to break even now) that we havent had time or opportunity to raise children. We do, however, teach those self-protection classes for young children teaching them how to evade a pursuer, get out of anyones grasp, what to do if they need stronger measures, even just yelling for help as well as for adults who have never learned anything in the way of self-defense before, so nobody can say we arent doing our bit for species continuity! she told me, grinning, as she pushed my head under the shower to rinse out the shampoo and then began working in the conditioner. We also teach classes for children and young adults who have been the victims of chronic abuse of various kinds, from sexual to assault and battery to mental, as well as people who have undergone political torture, that sort of thing (and it isnt only people who have immigrated here from other countries that need it! I could tell you things about our local police department . . . but never mind). Several therapists who havent been able to achieve a breakthrough with any other methods have sent their patients to us to see if training in selfdefense would make a difference and God, it sure as hell does! You wouldnt believe how it does! Weve had breakthroughs in mere weeks that years of intensive regular therapy never managed! Okay, its my turn, get out from under there and let me rinse out my conditioner before the water gets much cooler . . . Stepping away from the spray, I let her step by and begin rinsing out the conditioner that was still in her hair. She had shampooed, rinsed, and put in the conditioner before starting on me, leaving the conditioner in all that time, so all she needed was one more rinse. Brrrr!! Wish BALP would get those new generators up and running soon, or that China would come through on their contract with the city for those tokamak generators, so we wouldnt have to worry about running out of hot water all the time! Janes got this huge hot water-tank, but the water can only be heated on BALPs schedule, and the waters never quite hot enough to stay hot all day. Damn! she exclaimed as she turned the water-faucets off, stepped out of the shower, and began toweling herself dry with one of Janes enormous fluffy towels. Lu, how does Jane managed to get her towels so clean and fluffy? I can never get my laundry very clean in the washers they have down in the basement here. She doesnt do her laundry here, dear John Wu & Sons has their truck come around once a week, or more often if there are emergencies, to pick up her laundry and dry-cleaning and everything. Janies rich, remember? I thought John Wu & Sons were those big hotaliers, I told her as I joined her. When I picked up a towel to begin drying my hair, she whisked it away from deftly and, making motions for me to turn around again, began drying my hair for me once I had my back to her. Gee, all the comforts of home . . . I said, only half-jokingly. It felt good to be pampered. I had no ready memories of anyone doing so for me, before, at least not with such gentleness and an odd, sensuously pleasant touch. Yes, they are. They own about half the best hotels in this city, which is no small thing. Thats why they started their own laundry, catering, and other services, mostly to make sure that their hotels get the best service didnt really trust anyone else to do the job right. But they also are willing to sell those services to other people at the right price. Janies one of the few who can afford that price. Ooooh! I said, grinning. You have lovely hair, you know that? Its so long all the way down to your butt and then some! Yeah, but its hell to comb out and set and Quit changing the subject! Youre a lovely woman! Why do you hide it? Hide?

Way you carry yourself, and, well, Janie said you tend to dress down. Dont get mad. Shes worried about you. She thinks youre a very good-looking woman, too, but you dont do anything with yourself. Do you hide it? I yeah, I guess I do. Why? I mean, Eshda, you could be you are a beautiful woman. Why would you want to hide it? Because Not know what to say, I just stared at her. Eshda, are you afraid that if you, you know, look as good as you can, it might get you into trouble? Uh I dont know, Lu, I really dont. Well, one thing about dojo training is that after awhile, if thats it, you wont be worried about it. You can dress and look just like you want to, and if anyone tries to mess with you, too bad, she told me, smiling. I felt myself starting to freeze up and then, realizing it, I began to get mad. Not at her, but rather at that shadowy, blobby thing that lurked in the back of my mind, doing its best to terrorize me every time I tried to just be myself, to enjoy life, to do what I wanted to do, rather than what I thought somebody else would insist I do. For a moment, thinking about it, I just stood there, looking off into space. Finally, before Lu could ask me what it was, I said, Okay, I will come to your dojo Wednesday night, you said? Yes! Oh, Eshda, Im so glad! I really think youll like this and well enjoy having you there! Call me Esh, all my friends do. All three and a half of them, anyway, I told her. Whos the half? she said. Both of us, now dry, had wandered back into the bedroom, where we found clothing neatly laid out for us on the bed. Apparently Jane, who could move like a ninja butterfly when she wanted to, had come in and done that while we were showering, then left again. My cat, Gomez. Thank God he was out when that asshole broke in Ill bet anything the monster would have Done Things to Gomez, too, if he could have. Probably. Guys like that usually have a history of small-animal mutilations behind them, too. Hey, I wonder whos fed Gomez these last couple of days?! I exclaimed, suddenly realizing my poor cat hadnt been fed for at least 48 hours. Mnrrow. No problem, kids, Ive been feeding him myself these last two days or so. It was Jane who, Gomez shooting past her ankles to me and now twining around mine and purring loudly, had entered the bedroom. I just came in to say breakfast is on the table. By the way, Lu, will you be wanting a ride back? No, I drove over here, parked up the street in Gutierrez Brothers Car Barn. All I have to do is walk a block to get it. Good between Miguel and those semiautos of his, Diego and that pack of pit-bulls, and all their goombas and their arsenal, not to mention the fact that theyve got the goods on just about everyone around here, theyre more secure than a bank vault. Okay, I wont worry. Now, you two sit down and have some breakfast Ive got those little breakfast pastries you love, Lu, and while that looks and smells and tastes just like real bacon, Eshda, its just soy with artificial flavors, so its all kosher. And real grapefruit juice, too! Dig in kids theres plenty of everything. Help yourself to the butter, I got such a deal on it from Uwajimayas . . . About half an hour later, both of us were stuffed to the gills on delicate little Viennese pastries, an omelet so fluffy and light it had to be bolted down to keep it from floating up to the ceiling before we could eat it, faux bacon that certainly didnt taste faux (and do not ask me how I know one of my lifes darker secrets), all the grapefruit juice Royal Pink, shipped straight up from Texas just yesterday we could drink, slice after slice of real wheat bread instead of that SoyaFlour crap that was all you could get in the regular stores around San Francisco then (80% of it recycled cardboard, I swear), a big pot of raw honey, another of real loganberry jam, all of it tasting heavenly after what Id been able to afford on my miserable salary at Eye of Horus for the last year. Finally, sitting back and groaning a little in surfeit, Lu said, Its going on noon. Id better get back home Erikll be coming in any time, now, and Id better make sure everythings okay at home before I go pick him up at the AmeriTrain station. So well see you at the dojo Wednesday evening? Yes, Jane told her. Both of us. Great! Okay, see you then . . . Rising, she gave each of us a peck on the cheek, stooped down to stroke Gomez, who had successfully nagged all of us into giving him a taste or more than a taste of nearly everything except the juice, and headed for the door, Jane in her wake. Ill let you out, then lock up again, Lu I wont rest easy until they catch that God damned perp.

Thatll probably be a long wait, honey, Lu told her with a resigned sigh of disgust, you know what San Franciscos Finest are like when it comes to assaults, especially when nobody got killed. And besides, I know you can handle just about anyone who might want to try anything around you. What are you worried about? I know that, Lu. But I do have to go out sometimes. What if someone tried to get in here while Eshda was here all alone? All the more reason to make sure she shows up Wednesday at the dojo, Lu told her, grinning. Giving her another peck on the cheek, she said, Take care. Ill see you later. Jane, looking pensive, closed the door behind Lu as she left. Turning back to me, Jane said, Sweetie, I am going to have to go out this afternoon, take care of some business. You be okay if I leave you here alone? Sure. I can watch the videos, read, you know. And ol Gomez, here, will take good care of me, I said, fondly scooping up the cat and putting him in my lap, where he settled down, purring loudly, as I stroked his thick, chocolate-brown fur. Wontcha, boy? Hm? Okay, but I still dont like leaving you alone as long as El Creepos out there somewhere. So dont open that door for anyone unless its me and check the view-screen by the door to make sure it really is me, and nobodys out there holding a gun on me, either, before letting me in! Promise me? But what if Gomez has to go out?! Dont let him out, either! I put a cat-box in my bathroom he knows where it is and how to use it, remember that time I took care of him for a week when you had to go on that business trip up north? So youll both be fine inside. I dont care how much he begs to go out, keep him in here. Help yourself to the food. If you want to take a bath or anything, go ahead. Dont answer the phone, though the perp might decide to try calling around, see if he can find you. Jane ! No, really. You want to keep the lowest possible profile today. You can use the phone to check your voice-mail, see if you got any messages, it wont hurt if you call out, I guess. But dont take any calls you dont know who might be on the other end. Okay, Id better get organized here, I have to be down at Wongs on California by 2:00, and Ive got barely enough time to shower, dress, and call a cab, as it is. Okay, Ill be fine. Nodding, she ducked into her bedroom. Soon, the sound of the shower running came from her bathroom. Picking Gomez up, I headed for the room shed assigned to me. In the bookshelves against one wall of the room, I found a number of science-fiction novels, including some real classics, such as a couple by Murray Leinster, several by Turtledove, and Ring Around the Sun, by Clifford Simak. Placing Gomez on the bed, I took out the novel by Simak and, lying back on the bed myself, began to read. The rest of that day and the next passed uneventfully. Jane went on her mysterious errand to Wongs, returned, and looked in on me. Finding I was awake and feeling pretty good, she invited me to join her in some Chinese take-out shed brought home with her and watch some of her videos with her later. We spent the evening watching Casablanca, Star Wars: A New Hope, and a digitized version of the original Godzilla, the one that had first come out in 1544, over a century ago. The next day was about the same, except that Jane stayed home, inviting me to play with her some of the ancient board-games she had collected, such as a San Francisco version of Parker Brothers Monopoly and a word-game called Scramble, as well as that all-time favorite of bored people with two or three decks of cards on hand everywhere, War. This killed most of the day for us. By the next day, I was more than ready for a change of scene, and when she told me it was time to go to the dojo, I was a lot more eager than I had thought I would have been two days ago. When the taxi let us off near the waterfront, I wasnt sure what I was expecting some seedy little hole in the corner, maybe. The dojo was a surprise. Based in an old warehouse down by the docks on Bluxome Street, not far from Pier 38, it comprised about five rooms, one of them extremely large, about 100 x 300, the others smaller, partitioned off from the big room by judicious use of Masonite and fiberboard. The big room was the training and practice room, the others being used as a kitchen-cum-lounge, a bathroom, and storage rooms. While the building itself seemed old and rundown on the outside, I found, once Janie let us both in with a key she had, that inside it was, in an austere, spartan way, almost luxurious. It had hardwood floors so carefully waxed and polished that they shone like mirrors; faux teakwood walls that had been crafted so well that they looked like the real thing; both an electric range and a microwave oven as well as a good-sized refrigerator and a beautiful old antique farm-style kitchen table in the kitchen; and an actual queen-sized bed with both a box-spring and a good mattress in the lounge, made up with flowered sheets and heavy wool blankets and covered with cushions of various

styles, along with several comfortable chairs. The bathroom, which was itself partitioned into two sections, one for men and one for women, fitted out with urinals, commodes, showers, and sinks all of lovely, aqua-blue genuine porcelain. The walls were all freshly painted in a delicate off-white, decorated with various matted posters of classic paintings by various Japanese artists, others that illustrated various aspects of Chinese medicine, and others that listed upcoming events and that sort of thing. On top of everything else, they had a Coleman stove and a large tank of white gas in the kitchen, just like the one Jane kept in her kitchen at home, in case BALP had one of its frequent brownouts or breakdowns, and two generators, one run off methane and the other off an actual hydrogen cell, for the lights and other electrical appliances, for the same reason. This place is so nice how did they get do it? I mean, this building is so old and rundown I began in a whisper to Jane, looking around in amazement. They fixed it up themselves, honey lotsa expertise in various things among the students here, plus some of the students are professional carpenters, plumbers, electricians, that sort of thing. The original structure was more or less sound, no termites or anything like that, so they didnt have any problems remodeling. Except with the building permits, and I handled that. And some of the more overt costs, she said, with a wink. Where is everyone, anyway? Are we early? A little. I wanted to be able to show you around and have time for us both to change into our gis. ? Those black outfits I brought with us. The one I brought for you will fit one of the things I did after going to Wongs yesterday was stop by at Soos and pick up all the stuff you need. Aw, Janie, you know I cant let you Sez who, my friend? In the first place, Ive got a Black Belt in five different schools of martial arts, so there! she said, somehow managing to simultaneously stick out her tongue at me and grin. In the second, well, this is fun! I like doing this and I think you will, too. I mean training here. But I know, I know, you arent sure you want to keep on with this yet. But lets see what happens, okay? What happened is that right about then, the front door of the dojo opened, and two people stepped in, one of whom was Lu, and the other of whom was the most beautiful men Id ever seen in my entire life. Lu! Jane cried happily. Erik! Hi Ive brought Eshda with me! Janie! Lu returned, hurrying over to us. She wore jeans, a long-sleeved white blouse patterned with tiny red hearts, low boots, and a leather coat dripping wet from the torrent of rain that was pouring down outside. Erik, she said, turning to the man who had come in with her, the woman with Janie is my new friend, Lu the one I told you about. Hi, Erik said, coming toward us with his hand out, a big happy smile on his face, Im Erik Skua. Glad you could make it, Eshda! Taking his hand rather timidly, I murmured something in response, then looked at Jane for help. Hey, this is Erik, sweetie, she told me, he wont bite! And Ive had my rabies shots, too, he added, chuckling. Putting his other hand on top of mine, so that my hand was held between both of his, he said, I heard you had a rather bad experience the other day. I hope that you become a member of our dojo I dont want anyone to have to go through anything like that, especially one of our friends. Thats when I fell hopelessly, head-over-heels in love with Erik Skua. Looking up into his eyes, which were the color of blue lightning, said, I I really want to, if, if youll have me . . . Running one hand absently through his short auburn hair, he said, Well of course we will! Lu wouldnt have invited you, otherwise, and Janie wouldnt have brought you! Please come over and sit down, we have a little time before our other students arrive, I can get to know you a little better, figure out where to start you out . . .

5 Thats how I became a member of the Bujinkan Dancing Weasel Dojo (Lu and Erik named it for all the ferrets theyd kept and loved over the years). Even if there had been no other reason even if Id been absolutely dead-set against it from the beginning from then on, neither hell nor high water would have kept me from becoming a member of that dojo for life. There was no way Id ever turn down that good an excuse to be around Erik, hopeless as my sudden passion for him obviously was. On top of that, the sheer kindness he and Lu gave me, the kindness they lavished on all their students, something Id encountered so rarely in my life, was balm to my soul. Right then and there I had decided: I wanted to become a member of that dojo with everything I had, any way I could, no matter what it entailed. That evening, it didnt entail very much. Mainly I watched and listened as training began, taking mental notes on everything that Erik and Lu and their top students, including Jane, were doing and the results thereof. It looked like more fun than Id ever had in my entire life. I also found myself filled with a nearly poisonous envy of all those superbly competent people, able to do things I would never have dreamed of doing in my life, tossing one another around like sacks of feathers, rolling and tumbling effortlessly about when tossed themselves and seemingly coming back onto their feet without even a blink. I found myself coveting all the lovely tools of their art, too: the polished wooden staffs, which Erik told me were the bo, or staff, and the hanbo, or half-staff; the kusari-fundo, or weighted chain, also known more vulgarly as nunchaka, which could be put together out of an ordinary length of middleweight chain about 3 long, two key-rings, and a cluster of old, unused keys on each in the hands of someone practiced in its use, a properly crafted kusari-fundo could easily take out an opponents eye or even kill him or her by crushing his or her temple; the shurikin, or throwing stars, deadly little pieces of metal which, in the hands of an adept, could quickly maim or kill an opponent; and so on and on and on. I wanted it. I wanted it all. I wanted it even more when it became apparent to me that the techniques and principles being taught here were meant to be used, and werent just for show the way sports-arts techniques were. They had evolved in a process of natural selection in the toughest of all natures arenas, human battlefields, as means whereby those who acted on and used them would have a much better chance to walk off those battlefields alive and in one piece than their opponents, whether those battlefields were the Fields of Mars on which whole armies of men challenged one another in battle, or just the mean streets of the nastier districts of ordinary modern big cities, such as San Franciscos Tenderloin, New Yorks Harlem, or Mutie Alley in what had once been the city of Compton in Southern California. So I was delighted to be asked by Erik and Lu, who clearly had an honest desire for me to do so, to come back again next time, and, if I desired, to become a full member of the dojo, so I could train there under their tutelage every week. When I asked how much it cost, Jane, grinning, told me, Dont worry, sweetie the first years dues have been taken care of. And dont try to tell me you wont accept. Its your Unbirthday today, and its my Unbirthday present to you. I was so overwhelmed with the kindness and love for me that emanated from her and from Erik and Lu that I found myself beginning to bawl like a baby. Fortunately, class was over, the other students had filed out the door and gone home, so I didnt feel as inhibited about it as I normally would. But I still tried to pull my tears back, until I felt Jane pulling me into her arms. There, there, sweetie, go ahead, I think you need to, she told me, patting my back as I cried. Erik said, Why dont the two of you come over to our place now, and have a late dinner with us? Wed love to have you. Then we can drive you both home afterward, okay? Not giving me any chance to say anything, Jane said, Of course! I wouldnt miss that meat pie of yours for anything, Erik. And didnt Lu say something about her streusel? Okay, lets go back and change into our street clothes, Eshda. Then well get our things together and go with them. Hustling me with her back to the ladies room, she quickly changed back into the raw silk blouse and gray slacks shed worn here, while I slipped out of the strange black gi shed had me put on and back into my regular clothing. Then, after retrieving our bags and the gis, we followed Erik and Lu out of the building and down the street to one of San Franciscos ubiquitous car-barns, where they had left their car for safekeeping. After ransoming their little Subaru wagon from the attendants at Mervs SafePark and having us get in the back, they drove us back to their place, which was located in a little suburb somewhat south of Golden Gate Park. After a superb dinner of home-made meat pie (which I gathered was a twice-a-year luxury they couldnt afford most of the time), a big tossed salad, peas with little pearl onions, and Lus heavenly streusel for desert, accompanied by real Glenlivet on the rocks before and after dinner, Erik began asking me about my life and ambitions. Feeling increasingly shy, I was only able to murmur a few

generalities. With an instinctive tact, he didnt press it. Instead, he started filling me in on the dojo schedule, what I would need at first for equipment, and so forth. Jane told me that what I didnt have, she would be more than happy to provide, at least on loan if I didnt want to keep it. Lu began telling me what the other members of the dojo were like and filling me in on dojo gossip, giving me to understand that members of the Bujinkan tended to be the worlds worst gossips and that hot and cold running feuds between dojos, offshoots of the school, and individuals even within a given dojo were routine. Youll love it its just like everybody else, she said, only more so. Apparently that was some sort of in-joke among the three of them, because they all began giggling. Youll understand after you meet Menachem, Erik told me. Thats one of my colleagues from Israel. The whole evening went on like that until finally, when it was quite late, Jane began yawning and Lu, apologizing for keeping us both up so long, volunteered to drive us home. Soon after, we were both back at Janes apartment and Lu, hugging and kissing each of us in turn as we stood on the sidewalk before our building next to where she had parked her car at the curb, bade us goodbye and took off home again. When I came back the next time, two nights later, for my first go at real training, however, it didnt seem to be nearly as much fun as I had thought when I was just a tyro, observing from the sidelines. First of all, I had never had any practice doing breakfalls or rolls. During practice, I got dumped on my sides, back, and ass several times each so hard that even on the training mats, which covered the hardwood floors of the practice room wall to wall, it hurt like hell, and I knew Id be black and blue the next day. Worse, I nearly broke my leg as a result of one particularly nasty fall, and then I did sustain a mild sprain in the ankle of the other leg. By the time it was over, I was sweating rivers, totally out of breath, and feeling like an utter idiot. I hadnt been able to do anything right. I couldnt seem to understand anything. And I was totally bewildered when Lu told me that that was all right, it wasnt my conscious mind they were training, it was my unconscious mind, which would eventually put everything together right so that I could do everything without having to think about it. My conscious minds preconceptions and prior experience were getting in the way of what I was supposed to be learning, but by exhausting it with enough training, they could then get through to my unconscious mind, which would happily soak up the training like a giant sponge. After all, Erik told me, what they were teaching here, the principles underlying all the techniques, were things all of us know instinctively when we are small children, but which acculturation and social conditioning usually pounds out of us, at least at a conscious level, by the time we are entering our twenties. They were simply evoking all those ancient instincts and that primordial wisdom which constitutes the core not only of human nature per se, but mammalian nature in general. To do so, they used a combination of techniques and training regiments which first undid all that training in physical incompetence which, all too often, is the result of the way in which we are raised in most human societies, and then replaced it with true competence, a real mastery of our own bodies and the uses to which we put them that go far, far beyond simple combat. Eventually, he told me, it would extend into every area of my life, on all the levels of my being, intellectual, emotional, and, above all, spiritual, as well as physical, in work, in play, in love, in everything. If not for Eriks presence there at that dojo, Id never have gone back. I hurt all over, I felt like a fool, had a secret hunch that everyone there was secretly laughing at me for being such an awkward dolt. If anything, my soul hurt worse than my body. I did not want to go through that ever again but if I didnt come back, Id never be able to see Erik again, would I? And then what if El Perpo came back some dark night, broke in when Jane wasnt there to rescue me . . . So I gritted my teeth and held on to my determination to keep training there. It took everything I had to do that, for week after week, it seemed to get worse and worse. Id go home hurting even more than time than any of the previous ones. At one point, I actually fractured a bone in my wrist and had to go to the ER to have it attended to. Until it was petty much healed, Erik and Lu kept me training at stuff that wasnt likely to injure it again, but it hurt like hell all the time, it seemed. My gi split up the crotch during one training session, and I thought Id die of embarrassment, even though everyone acted as if nothing unusual had happened, and Lu quickly found me a spare gi I could wear for the rest of the session. On and on and on it went, for what seemed like forever but which in reality was only about three months or so. And then, toward the end of January, something extraordinary happened. One evening, we were practicing various holds on one another, something Id despaired of ever getting right. My partner for that session was a huge man, a good-natured young fellow 7 or 8 years my junior who was a student in business law at Berkeley. Even without the training, he could easily have thrown me across the room without half trying. I despaired of even being able to hold my own during the session, and was beginning

to wonder if Lu had paired me with this guy because she knew I was in love with her husband and was trying to get me killed. And then, just as he went to grab me and immobilize me in a rather intricate take-along, I suddenly found my body shoving me aside and, quickly blocking his right arm with my left as he reached out for me, slithering my right hand and arm up along his left side, under his left arm, and back down in a loop that caught his elbow just right, to immobilize that arm and keep him from using it. But it didnt stop there. He was so surprised at my sudden elegant counterattack that he hesitated for that crucial halfsecond that allowed me to turn about, pull him across my shoulders and dump him onto the floor. Instinctively tucking his head and shoulder down, of course, he rolled over and came up on his feet, facing me. I prepared myself for another attack and was stunned to find him wearing a huge grin and beginning to applaud loudly. Heyyy you did it, kiddo! Congratulations! Then I realized everyone else in the dojo, Erik and Lu included, were also smiling broadly and applauding me. See? See? cried Lu, coming over to give me a hug. You did it! See what I mean about the unconscious mind and your body? She was right. Throughout that encounter, I really had had nothing to do with it. My unconscious mind and my body had done it all, and Id just been a passive observer. Overwhelmed, I looked at Lu and Erik, both of whom were now standing next to me with their arms around me, and said, Thats the weirdest thing Ive ever experienced in all my life! I know, Erik told me. It really is, isnt it? Ill have to tell you a story about me, some years ago, when I started doing this myself. It was like that for me, too, then, when I found myself suddenly acting on all this stuff instinctively. Why dont we have a little celebration, just the four of us, after class tonight? It was Jane, who had come over to join the three of us. Eshda, youre doing so well, youve worked so hard, youve earned it. How about it? By then, shed had me move in with her permanently, ostensibly to keep an eye on the place when she was away on one of her frequent business trips, and we had a relationship very close to that between a mother and daughter, a healthy one rather than the horror Id had to live with under the tender ministrations of my adoptive mother. The next day, Sunday, wasnt one of my work days, and there was no reason for me not to stay up a little late. So why not? Still, I hesitated. I felt so weird not just because of the feat Id just managed to pull off, but also because of the way everyone here was treating me, as if this were one big family and I was truly part of it. Id never had that before, never really had close friends, and was terrified that this was all just some terrible joke and that one of these days, the masks would come off and it would turn out that theyd all been having fun at my expense all along. And yet . . . I had just done what I had done. Or rather, my body had, under the driving force of my unconscious mind. Id actually done something right an important something, a thing that could save my life sometime under the right circumstances. And it was all because of Janes backing, and Erik and Lus careful training. So maybe it was all real . . . So I accepted, and that night the four of us had dinner over at Fishermans Wharf, the Turf-n-Surf special I loved so much but could never have afforded on my measly salary from Eye of Horus. And it was there, in the midst of dinner, that I realized I was happier than Id ever been before in my life, that this was where I wanted to be, what I wanted to be doing, for the rest of my life: continuously learning new skills, becoming ever-more competent at things Id never even have dreamed Id be able to do once upon a time, among friends so close, including in a physical sense, that they might as well have been my close kin, feeling high on the endorphins that hard exercise of that sort generated, knowing that I was finally able to hold my own in a physical contest and maybe any other, who knew? But it was on the day that the clown jumped me in the dark alley off the California Street Station, where I had taken BARTs monorail to drop in on a regular client of the store, that I learned just how much of a difference that the dojo training was making in my life. The client, a middle-aged man of independent means who was seriously interested in the occult as well as cryptophenomenological subjects and paranormal talents, wanted to make sure he had a good home research library to help with his various studies and researches. He had contracted with the store to have an expert me to come over to his place, look over his library of esoteric works, and make recommendations on what he might add, as well as what he really didnt need for full-time, serious study of the Hermetic arts and sciences. So I had arranged to come by his place one evening in mid-week in order to size up his library for him and give him my opinion on what he did and did not need for it. And thats when it happened, when I reached what may have been the most important turning-point of my entire life.

6 It was only a two-block walk to the clients place, but in the middle of the first block there was an alley stretching away from it at right angles where residents left their garbage and recyclables to be picked up by the city. It was filled with old trash, packing-crates, and other detritus and a tall, wiry, psychopathic young man with a jones for doing in pretty girls in ugly ways, a total stranger, who leaped out as I walked by and tried to drag me into the alley, where he could do his thing to me at his leisure. An instant later, he was flat on his face on the filth-encrusted cobbles of the alley, his left arm twisted up behind his back and his fingers caught up in a grip that promised a world of hurt if he didnt keep that hand as still as possible. His right leg was also undergoing reconstruction, or at least rearrangement, of an excruciatingly painful kind. I had nothing to bind him with, and needed to be on my way. So I jumped back, figuring he wouldnt be able to move much before I was well away. I had reckoned without his adrenal supercharger, though. An instant later, he was on his feet, facing me, a razor-sharp switch-blade knife, which he had apparently plucked out of an inside coat-pocket, suddenly appearing in one long, thin, pale hand. Taste steel, bitch, he hissed as he started to glide toward me, slightly hunched over, with hands outstretched toward me. Time slowed down to a crawl. Right next to me was a 2x 4 about four feet long, a foot longer than a hanbo. Before I could think about it, I had it in my hand and had used it to block his thrusting right hand, knocking it aside with a blow at right-angles to the axis of his thrust as if it had been a bundle of straw. While he stood there, astonished, mouth dropping open, muttering, Hunh?, my arm swung back, hitting him under the jaw with the piece of wood, continuing on that arc for a bit, then bringing it back again in the other direction to hit him hard by his left temple, the entire maneuver taking less than a second. He went down like a shot. Around me everything speeded back up to normal time. Not stopping to see how much damage Id done or whether he was all right, still holding the 2 x 4, I turned and walked quickly away from the alley, toward my clients house, quietly dumping my impromptu weapon into a dumpster as I walked by. I didnt run I didnt want to draw too much attention to myself. The perp had made no noise at all after I hit him upside the head, and not that much even when he jumped me, or when Id dumped him on the cobbles. It was likely no one had heard us at all the street was quiet, no lights had come on. Clutching my briefcase to my side Id dropped it during the fight but had recovered it as soon as Id decked the guy I made my way down the street to my clients house. Externally, I probably looked like a businesswoman on her way to some important meeting of some sort. But inside, I was exulting, I did it! I really did it!!! I was so full of energy, so high on my achievement, that I sailed through the appointment with the client, who, though well-off, was normally rather parsimonious with his money. By the time I left his place, I had in hand not only an order for about half of what Eye of Horus carried, but a check to cover it, as well, and a list of things he wanted to sell to us which, though they werent useful to him or his studies, were quite valuable and would sell readily. He even sprang for a cab to take me back home! I half expected to find the next morning that he had canceled the check, but it cleared without a hitch, and he never complained. When we sent the truck over to pick up those books from his library which he wanted to sell to us, he had them all carefully boxed up and ready to go, and even helped us load them onto the truck, smiling pleasantly and making small talk all the while. I dont know what you did, or told that guy, Esh, I want you to know you did one hell of a good job, Mr. Thaddeus told me, the first time hed ever been that enthusiastic about my work for him. We seem to have a customer for life. Hes been raving about you, praising you and your expertise to the skies. Went ahead and back-ordered a lot of stuff we dont have in stock. And those books he wants to sell us ! How in hell did you get him to part with a genuine copy of the Necronomicon?! Or that volume by Olaeus Wormius did you know its bound in real human skin? And that grimoire by Eliphas Levi ! Girl, Im raising your salary Cr 300 a month, as of two days ago! He did, too. Whatever it was adrenaline or just sheer elation, or a combination of both it had put one hell of a whammy on both our client and Mr. Thaddeus, one that didnt wear off later. Of course, when I got home that night, after seeing the client, I had to tell Jane at once what I had done, and my coup at the clients that followed. Jane, who had just come in herself from a dinner-date with an old friend, was elated for me. We have to celebrate, sweetie! Were going straight over to Kirilovs and have dinner and drink a bucket of champagne on me, of course. No, dont you dare tell me no, we just have to celebrate! Sweetie, you made it! Of course, she immediately called up Erik and Lu, who were delighted to hear what I had done.

She didnt, uh, report it, did she? Erik asked. Jane had the speakerphone on, and I could hear him clearly. Hell no! I called out. What do you think I am a dunce?! Reporting something like that to San Franciscos Finest could be a dicey business. It wasnt the cops fault, but rather the result of our AllProtective, All-Caring Mother State, egged on by the media, which loved to howl over the plight of those unfortunates who chose to follow a career of evil and every attempt to put them away where they couldnt hurt anyone again, and hurl anathema at anyone vile enough to try to defend themselves or their family and neighbors against the ravages of said criminals. Report that you had dumped some asshole on his precious tusche in the process of defending yourself from his unwanted attentions and the next morning you were guaranteed to have the city DA and prosecuting attorney, backed up by half the cops in the city, on your doorstep with a warrant for your arrest for assault with intent. No, thank you. Good, he chuckled. Eshda, said Lu, why dont the two of you come by our place after you go to Kirilovs? Its Friday, and we sleep in on Saturday, so it doesnt matter how late we stay up. Sure, sweeties, said Jane, and we can bring some champagne with us, too. Done and done, said Erik. Okay, see you in about an hour and a half, then. (Oddly, even though I checked the papers and the TV news for weeks, looking for some mention of my would-be assailant having been found in that alley or elsewhere, in whatever condition, there was nothing. It was as if nothing at all had happened. It occurred to me more than once that if the asshole had killed me, there would likely have been equally little mention about it save that Jane would have taken the city apart trying to find out who did me in, where he was, and why he wasnt sitting in detention waiting for trial for it. Without powerful friends, life and death had almost no importance as far as the media go. Guess whoever had tried to jump me hadnt had any good connections.) At any rate, from then on, I was hooked. Dojo training became one of the great pleasures of my life I was finding, more and more, that I could be good at this, something my adoptive father would never in his life have had the balls to try, something that many men could never have accomplished, something that could save lives. Beyond that, the sheer exhilaration of successfully putting my body through its paces three or four times a week in intricate maneuvers that challenged every muscle and nerve in my body was better than anything Id ever experienced before, whether drugs, my few abortive attempts at sex, or anything else. And, as Lu had predicted, the effects of the training spread to the rest of my life. For the first time in my 30+ years I found myself looking at real challenges in the business and financial world, too. I had always had a secret dream of owning my own business, a store that would compare to the Eye of Horus the way that the Golden Gate Bridge, when it was still intact, decades ago, would have compared to a piece of wet punk thrown across a narrow stream. One day, close to the third anniversary of the day Id started work at Eye of Horus, I decided that when my next vacation came up I would take a trip up to Seattle, something Id always wanted to do. Mr. Thaddeus was giving me benefits by then, including paid vacations, so why not? So, when our slow season came around, the following July, I took the AmeriTrain ticket Id reserved for myself the previous spring, hopped aboard the luxurious AmeriTrain Vancouver passenger special, with its enormous, twostory sleeper cars and fabulous dining car, and went up to Seattle from San Francisco, arriving at Seattles King Street Station the evening of the next day. From the moment I debarked from the Vancouver, I fell in love with Seattle. The driver of the passenger shuttle van that took me and my luggage from the very steps of the King Street Station to the Holiday Inn in downtown Seattle where Id reserved a room was one of the friendliest and most interesting people Id ever met very different from the surly drivers and technicians on the peoplemovers around the Bay Area. The sky, freshly washed by rain, was the loveliest blue Id ever seen against enormous, fluffy white cumulus clouds, and the air, in spite of the crowded, traffic-filled downtown location, seemed crystal clear, as opposed to the near-transparent but often deadly air pollution that never entirely deserted San Francisco. The people seemed amused by the strangest things, but I didnt run into anyone who was vicious or even uncivil the entire time I was there. And the city itself was beautiful, awesomely so. There was the broad sweep of Elliot Bay that flanked the city to the southwest, an extension of Puget Sound that shone like gold-washed blue steel under a brilliant afternoon sun. There were the Olympic Mountains to the west, rising like Gods into the sky, mantled with snow even in summer, and the Cascades to the east, their peaks likewise rimed with snow even in the warm season, shorter than the Olympics but wild, saw-toothed, like the jaws of great sharks. And, of course, there was Mount Rainier to the southeast, which the Indians called Tahoma, believing that it was alive, inspirited with the soul of a

great woman of their past. Rainier was shorter by several hundred feet than it had been back in 2012, when, in one vast eruption, it had flash-broiled nearby cities such as Longmire with a pyroclastic froth of incandescent gas and white-hot ash, and then obliterated the city of Tacoma the way the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius once had Pompeii, covering it with blistering, choking ash, dust, and lava bombs, and then obliterating it with wave after wave of gigantic lahars, enormous floods of hot mud resulting from the melting of the great snow-packs that had covered its flanks up until the moment of eruption. Even so, it stood far higher than the Cascades or even the Olympics, a slumbering giant that stirred uneasily in its sleep, which might, next time it woke, destroy Seattle itself. The skyline of Seattle wasnt what it had been before that last eruption of Rainier, of course. Earthshocks before the eruption, as well as those triggered by the eruption itself, which had continued for many days afterward, had easily totaled much of the city. Such high-rise landmarks as the great, glasswalled Columbia Tower were, within the space of seconds, transmuted into deadly blizzards of razoredged glass shards and fragments of steel that tore into the soft flesh of pedestrians unlucky to be caught downtown at that moment. In moments, such hard-walled structures as the County Court House and downtown branch of the Seattle City Library became huge piles of broken glass and steel, and the bus tunnels under the city had pancaked as a result of the stresses put on them by the quake, then filled with water gushing in from the Sound through ruptured walls. In its wake the monster quake left mountainous rubble-heaps that had once been beautiful high-rises, skyscrapers, landmark buildings, and office buildings, in the midst of which were trapped and dying people, wailing and screaming in agony and terror. But other structures, such as the much shorter, quaintly tiled Smith Tower and the peculiarly wellanchored and well-built Upside-Down Pencil at the corner of 5 th and University had come through it with only relatively minor internal damage, such as a few broken windows, some loosened plaster, and furniture that had been knocked over (never mind the casualties). Harborview Hospital, down at the end of 9th Avenue, had come through it like a trooper, with a minority of casualties and major systems intact, a Godsend for those in the city who had been injured and needed immediate care. And when the rubble had been cleared away, the buildings that had been too badly damaged to be repaired had been torn down, the injured taken to hospitals and the dead hauled off for quick mass burials to avoid plague, the rebuilding began at once, construction companies and famous architects racing to join the land-rush, taking part in the extraordinary and even heroic work of restoring the battered and reeling city to its former glory, raising vast, towering structures throughout downtown that stood far higher than any of Seattles lost landmark structures ever had. Enormous buildings, fronted with a myriad blue-glassed windows that mirrored the sky, now filled the downtown area, set off perfectly by the faux marble and whitestone faades that fronted them. The streets themselves were still paved in many places with the cobbles and bricks that had been used for paving at the start of the citys existence almost three centuries before, and the decorative brick that had been used to line Pine Street between Third and Fifth Avenue back in the 1990s was still there, too, though refurbished and gleaming, many of the bricks having been replaced over the years because of wear and tear due to automobile and bus traffic. Over the decades, street by street, the sidewalks had been gradually transformed into walkways paved with gorgeous stone from quarries all over the world, some granite, some basalt, a few real marble of various types, and one, at the corner of 1 st Avenue and Spring Street, carved of real natural turquoise and donated to the city by Din Indians in Arizona, in token of our friendship with our brothers in the Pacific Northwest. The piers and slips on Elliot Bay were filled with traffic, both pedestrians visiting the shops and places of interest such as the Seattle Aquarium located on the piers, and boats of all sorts offloading cargo from ports all over the Pacific Rim and onloading cargo for their return trips to those same ports, or picking up and letting off passengers traveling between Seattle and places ranging from local ports in the Sound to Victoria and Vancouver, BC, Alaska, the Aleutians, Western Siberia, Japan, Taiwan, China, Vietnam, Indonesia, Australia, South America, Mexico, California, and Oregon. News, commuter, and police helicopters were busy in the skies above the city, and once in a while a jet would fly over, either coming in to Sea-Tac Airport or Boeing Field or heading outward to foreign ports of call. There werent many jets, of course jet-fuel was still too scarce to allow much air passenger traffic, and bookings on airlines were astronomical, costing as much as Cr 1,000 or more merely to fly between Seattle and San Francisco. But for local commuting helicopters were relatively affordable, a fact of which many Seattlites took advantage to make regular commutes by helicopter between Seattle and Redmond, Tacoma, Kirkland, Kent, and even cities as far away as the Tri-Cities, Spokane, and Portland, Oregon. And the big news-stations and municipal agencies such as the police used them all the time.

From every point of view, even when it rained, Seattle was breath-takingly lovely, possibly the most beautiful city in the world. It was also lively, full of juice, sass, and vitality, far more prosperous than San Francisco in spite of all it had been through or, perhaps, because of it, for disaster strongly tends to stimulate new growth. There was money to be made, here and a lot of people who were interested in the occult, even members of various esoteric orders and lodges. All in all, it was perfect for what I wanted to do. Between my savings over the last couple of years, a loan from the reconstituted Small Businessmans Association, and a large grant from Jane, which she told me I should never even think about repaying, I had quite a sizable nest-egg. So, starting bright and early the next day, I began scouting around the city, checking the classifieds and the local business papers, looking for a suitable location for rent, even as I went out to play tourist. I finally found one, on East Pike Street, at the corner of Boylston and East Pike, a large, one-story structure with a basement that could be easily partitioned into the main store, a coffee bar, and smaller areas for whatever purpose. The basement was big, maybe forty feet wide by fifty deep, and would be perfect for renting to anyone who wanted to teach classes, give lectures, and so forth. Since it was an old building, one that had been built around the turn of the century, and in a part of town that wasnt considered prime real estate, the rent was very reasonable; and because the state of Washington now had hydroelectric stations all over Puget Sound as well as on every available river in the state that wasnt already reserved for the fishing industries, on top of three brand-new tokamak generators they had just purchased from Golden Dragon Industries in Shanghai, thered never be any problem with utilities blackouts or with paying for electricity. Electricity was cheap in Seattle, certainly so in comparison to the Bay Area, where many families did not dare turn the lights on more than absolutely necessary because of the sheer cost of the juice, and freeze-dried and irradiated foods were staples of their diet because they couldnt count on having a continuous supply of electricity for their refrigerators or freezers and couldnt afford home generators to power them. Within a week, I knew I was moving up to Seattle to stay, to open Hermes Trismagistus Treasures there at Boylston and Pike. I had already paid for six months rent on the building and had arranged to have electricity turned on, phones put in, and water turned on by the time I was to come back again from the Bay Area with all my worldly goods in a U-Haul driven by Jane and I. Id even managed to hire two employees that would be there on the very first day that Treasures opened, a salesclerk with a lot of experience at the various esoteric bookstores with which Seattle abounded, and a lady who could do all the clerical work necessary in the store. There was no thought of turning back now. I knew I would miss Erik and Lu and Janie terribly. The idea of leaving them behind, along with all the friends Id made at the dojo over the last year or so, nearly broke my heart. But as Jane had told me the day I left for Seattle on the train, theyd all be up to visit frequently, and I could come down to the Bay Area to visit them any time I wanted, the door would always be open. It wasnt as if I were moving to Mars or something, never to see them again. And, of course, Gomez would be going with me whatever would I do if I couldnt wake up in the middle of the night to his snoring, which had an amazing volume considering how small an animal it came out of, more like youd expect out of a small bear than a medium-sized, middle-aged housecat. There was no dojo of the school up here Id checked but there were always workshops and other events I could attend not too far away in Oregon, not to mention the annual tai kais and the Grand Masters frequent visits to this country from his home in Japan that I could go to on vacations.

7 And so it was, about three weeks later, on fine Saturday morning, that Janie and I headed north in a U-Haul Id hired, everything I owned and some of Janies aboard it, Gomez snoring away in his oversized carrier in the bin just behind the front seat. Trailing behind us came Lu and Erik in their little station wagon, three other cars filled with friends from the dojo, and even dear old Mr. Thaddeus in a Datsun hed leased, all of whom wanted to see my new store and do the tourista trip in Seattle. (Mr. Thaddeus, sniffling a little when I gave notice and told him why, told me he felt like Id been a daughter to him, etc., etc., he couldnt bear to lose me, so of course I told him Id be more than happy to work with him at long distance, finding things he wanted for his store he couldnt get locally if hed do the same for me, and of course he wanted to see my new store for himself to make sure I was doing the right thing, yadda yadda yadda [heaven forefend hed ever admit to just wanting a nice vacation for himself!], so there he was, tooling along behind the rest of us up I-5 in his lend-lease Datsun.) It was a lovely, hot day when we started out. By the time we arrived in Seattle, three days later, of course, not only was it still hot, but we were all so tired and sick of driving that the loveliness had worn off somewhat. Even so, when everyone had managed to find parking spaces near my new store and had come on in with their luggage and sleeping bags I would be living in the store myself for awhile, in a room partitioned off the rest of the basement; the bathroom was in good working condition, with a shower and all the other inalienable aspects of the good life, and with the coffee bar all set up and ready to do we had all the comforts of home right there, no need for a Cr 70-per-night room in a rundown Motel 6 for anybody we were hard-put to stay in any sort of bad mood. Over the next three days or so, together with Ruth Jensen and Maury Fein, my two new employees, we all pitched in and got to work getting the store ready for my first customers, setting up the bookcases and the cases for Magickal tools and jewelry, putting up displays of herbs and Magickal powders and prayer candles and all the other things that customers of such stores make use of, then unboxing some of the books and other items Id be selling and putting them into the proper receptacles. We set up the cash-registers, the desktop computers, the filing cabinets, and all the other office equipment necessary to running a business, neatly racked up all the folding chairs that were for people attending lectures or classes in the basement, made sure everything was in good working order. Finally, everything was ready. Gomez, who had been let out of my room into the rest of the store on the first night, after the doors were tight shut so that he couldnt go running out onto Pike Street where hed get lost or run over, had settled in happily, everyone fussing over him and paying him more attention than hed ever had before in his life. Having chosen for his throne a two-hundred credit silk Lucky Fortune pillow, embroidered with a riot of herons and cranes and tortoises and dragons as Lu said, a distinctly busy scene in brilliant cerise, scarlet, royal blue, icy-white, solar yellow, and spring green that I had unthinkingly tossed down on top of a cabinet to wait until I could find a better place for it, he surveyed his new kingdom with lordly content. Gomez was in his heaven, and all was right with the world. Most of the people, my former boss as well as Erik Skua included, left the next day, because they had jobs they couldnt neglect and only so much time they could take away from them. Lu and Janie stayed an extra couple of days, letting me play tourist guide as I happily showed them around my new city. Then they, too, had to leave. Id already turned the U-Haul in at one of the U-Haul outlets around the city. Lu offered to drive Janie back in her station wagon Erik had taken the train back and Janie, who would otherwise have taken the train home herself, accepted. Taking a tearful farewell around noon, with hugs and kisses all around, they both piled into Lus car and began the long drive back down I-5 through Oregon and Northern California to the Bay Area. And so I opened my store, Hermes Trismegistus Treasures shortened to Trismegistus Treasures or just plain Treasures by just about everyone in town who knew about it by the time a couple of months had gone by and began my life anew in Seattle, far from all that had been so familiar to me, and from all the friends I had made in San Francisco, especially through the dojo. It didnt take me long to begin making friends. I was also able to keep up training, at least to some extent as Lu and Erik had said, there were plenty of workshops and the like held both here and in nearby cities, such as Portland, that I could attend. Through a series of flukes, my store became a success much sooner than I had anticipated, mainly because during the first month it was open, two people came by to check it out who turned out to be members of Osiris Risen Lodge, a local branch of the Ordo Templi Orientis, the Magickal organization in the West. Liking what they saw and spending several hundred credits worth on books, Magickal powders and incenses, and various ritual items in the store,

including a real Malay kris, a lovely marble mortar and pestle for grinding various powders for use as incense or tea, and an enormous brass incense-burner shaped like a rampant winged dragon, to prove it they promised to generate a lot of business for me. Not only did they keep their promise, but a week later one of their friends, an alchemist who lived up in the Ravenna district north and east of downtown, called me up, saying he needed a place to give his lectures and classes, and asking me if he could rent my basement room for that purpose twice a week? Of course he could, I told him, overjoyed. Soon I was making money not only from his rent on the room, but also from the patronage from his students, whom he instructed to purchase books and other items for his classes that were available in the store. Of course I had ads in the Yellow Pages and on what was left of the Internet, now mostly a ragged collection of electronic bulletin boards and localized ISPs, (thanks to the Great Crash of 2012 [a banner year all round, folks!], due to a hideous combination of Solar flares and terrorist activity), as well some in the trade journals and that sort of thing. But by far my greatest advertising resource was mouth-tomouth advertising by patrons of the store, who happily told all their friends and colleagues, some of whom lived long distances away, about the store, the classes, and my inventory. In turn, I took many of the suggestions they offered as to items I might stock, and requests for various books, and improved my inventory many times over during the first year of operation. By the end of that year, I was turning a large net profit, so much so that I was able to invest in city bonds as well as some of the more attractive stocks on the boards of New Wall Street in Portland. By the end of the second year, thanks to thrift, careful management, a large and growing clientele, and luck in my investments, I had an asset that was likely to carry me comfortably for the rest of my life. I was even able to travel, frequently visiting old friends in the Bay Area, such as Janie, Lu and Erik, and others from my dojo, as well as new friends Id made through my store in Tacoma, Portland, Spokane, and even farther away (I even had some patronage from Canada and Alaska, thanks to the informal but highly effective grapevine provided by the OTO, Golden Dawn, and other esoteric organizations). I was also able to attend annual Tai Kais, even managing to afford plane-fare to Osaka for a meet held by my schools Grand Master. So my life settled into a comfortable routine of managing my store and, sometimes, attending or even giving classes in the stores basement, attending various holiday and other celebrations put on by various esoteric orders and Neo-Pagan groups in the area, to which friends in those organizations invited me, and otherwise becoming a solid part of the community. I even managed, by the end of the first year, to be able to move into a lovely and affordable apartment with two bedrooms, both simply huge, over on Capitol Hill, in an older but very well-maintained building on East Thomas Street between 14 th and 15 Avenue. Gomez, who had made lots of friends while we lived in the store, both among the human customers and friends who came to visit and the local cats in the neighborhood, wasnt very happy with the move at first. However, both the managers of the building, who lived downstairs from us, and the neighboring tenants on my floor, were all cat nuts, and soon Gomez had them all wrapped around his tailtip, spoiling him rotten, feeding him a lot of things he wasnt supposed to eat at his age but loved anyway, and generally providing an absolute cat heaven for him. There were squirrels and alley-rats to chase in spite of his age at the time, around 8 or 9, he was still very active and athletic and other cats to get to know, as well as a couple of dogs who turned out to be friendly. So soon he was a very happy cat, the world his oyster, a far cry from the half-starved, worm-ridden, battle-scarred and terrified young tom Id found crying and shivering on my doorstep years ago back in Sausalito, one of the places Id lived before I moved to the Bay Area. He was now the Grand Old Cat of the neighborhood, spoiled rotten by everyone, loved by just about everyone who got to know him, save for a number of local feline toughs (whose butts he kicked soundly within the first month after we moved in, thereby establishing himself permanently at the very top of the local feline pecking order) and the inevitable ailurophobes, whose allergies and/or neuroses made them reject anything feline. Gomez may have been in heaven at that point, but I wasnt. As I said, my life was very comfortable by then, materially speaking, and I had made a lot of friends in the area. I was still training, both at workshops and meets and in tai chi and ba gwa classes, since those Chinese schools of martial arts were based on the same kinetic principles as those upon which the techniques of my own school were based. I was only in my mid-thirties, in good physical shape, a very successful businesswoman with a store that promised to become a permanent feature of Seattles business and occult communities and plenty of money in the bank and other investments. But unlike Gomez, my social life, outside of my store, my attendance at various holiday functions and the like, and my training, was, as it had always been, remarkable mainly for its nonexistence. I had lots of friends, to be true but the best of them lived in the Bay Area, 600 miles or more away, and as for

those who lived nearby, I wasnt really a part of their lives, never really visiting with them in their homes, or sharing the minor and major crises and joys of their lives the way close friends do. Above all, I had no romantic life at all. Oh, I had dated a number of men over the years, but nothing permanent had ever come of it. I had had a few short-term sexual relationships, but none of them were ever more than a fling or an experiment on the part of my partner of the moment, it seemed, and I never really fell in love with any of them. And, of course, I was still hopelessly, totally in love with Erik Skua, but I wouldnt have admitted it under torture, both because I also loved Lu dearly, and would never have done anything to cause her distress, and because I knew damned well that someone like Erik was not for the likes of me. I might have been a successful businesswoman, but as an individual, as me, I was still nothing and nobody, a spinster who had never even gone steady with anyone for any length of time, save for one catastrophic engagement to be married in my late teens which ended with the death of my fianc in a traffic accident in San Luis Obispo. So I was alone, even in the midst of what seemed to be a whirlwind social and business life. Constantly surrounded by and interacting with others, I was nevertheless an island unto myself, my soul touched by no one else, touching no one elses soul or heart.

8 And so it continued for another eight years or so. During that time I was able to expand into a second store in the Ravenna area, not far from the University District, and also became a Neophyte and then a Zelator, a probationary and then a fledgling full member of the OTO. Year by year I improved my techniques in and facility with combat arts, once using them to take down and hold for eventual pickup by the cops three vicious young punks who broke into my store with the intention of raping and killing me and stealing everything they could one Sunday, when the store was locked up for inventory and only I was there, working on the books. Self-proclaimed Satanists, all three of them had long criminal records, many of their crimes involving violence, up to and including a suspected murder, and police in Seattle, Portland, and other cities in the Pacific Northwest had been trying to put them permanently behind bars for a long, long time. Because of recent changes in the gun laws of Washington state, I had been able to get a weapons permit, and had purchased an excellent Mossberg with a cut-down stock so I could handle it like a handgun, and two actual handguns, a .40 caliber Glock and a .38 caliber Colt revolver, both of which, loaded and ready, had been right there with me at the desk where I was working that evening. Grabbing the shotgun the moment I heard the back window break, I had them covered as they squirmed through the window. I had to wing one in the right leg to prove I meant business, but after that it wasnt hard to get them to lie down on the floor while, one by one, I secured their hands behind their backs with loops of red cord which, fortuitously, I had on hand for a lecture someone was going to give later on that week in the basement on Hinduism and the Cult of Kali. Then, before they could work their way out of their crude bonds, I went back and started on their feet, holding the gun on them one-handed while I wound Kali-cord around their ankles with the other. Then I went back once more and wound still more cord around the wrists of each, looping it back around the bonds tying their ankles together so that their ankles were drawn back above their asses to meet their hands. By that point they were effectively hogtied and unlikely to break out of their bonds any time soon, so I was able to put down the Mossberg, get out some nylon cord I had behind one of the counter to use for various purposes, such securing fragile display-racks and so on, and use it to tie each of them up all over again, this time making absolutely sure they couldnt get out of the knots I used short of Judgment day. Lying flat on his belly, hands tied tightly together behind his back and thumbs bound together separately, legs bound to each other and pulled back above his back and tied tightly to his hands, each man was almost completely immobilized at that point, with virtually no chance at all of breaking free before the cops could get there. Which, after I placed the call to 911, they did within about ten minutes, probably because I mentioned the sawed-off shotguns, 9mm semiautos, switchblade knives, and other assorted items of hardware the punks had had on them. I guess the reason the punks had been so readily intimidated by the shotgun is that the information they had had about me was wildly off the mark a not-so-young single woman running a weirdstore, as they put it, nave and somewhat stupid and physically weak. Yeah, right. When they came in through the window and found a woman in good condition confidently training a heavy-gauge shotgun on them and looking not only as if she knew how to use it but as if shed love to have an excuse to do so, apparently it blew what passed for their minds. Their whole world came apart at that point. By the time the cops got there to pick them up, they were utterly demoralized, literally whimpering in their confusion and terror. It wasnt so much me they were terrified of, but the way the world itself had seemed to turn on them, presenting them with a situation completely unlike the one theyd prepared for. For perhaps a month I was the city heroine, lionized on the news, presented with a Good Citizens Award plaque by Mayor Scheffield in a special ceremony held at the local Lions Club center on East Pine, not far from my store, about a week after the incident. For another month or two I was the neighborhood heroine, and business boomed in my store as a result. But somehow it did absolutely nothing for my love life, such as that was, and didnt make me any closer to my friends. I was well-liked, well-respected but not loved. Not by anyone. I had never had been, and I was pretty much resigned to never being loved or loved back, in Eriks case by anyone in all my life. (Except Gomez, but then, you might say I was pretty much the only mother hed ever known, so that doesnt count.) And so it went for ten years after I first arrived in Seattle. During my eighth year there, Gomez died. It wasnt a bad death at all he went to sleep one night and didnt wake up the next morning. When, weeping heart-brokenly, I took his limp little body in a carrier the two blocks up John to his vet so she could do an autopsy and see why he had died, she found hed had a massive stroke, a main artery to the brain letting go all at once. He must never have known what happened, going from contented dreams after a wonderful day of being fed all his favorite foods and being as usual spoiled rotten by all his friends in the building to whatever awaited him beyond the walls of sleep and life within instants. The

blowout had occurred right next to that part of the hindbrain concerned with maintaining respiration and heartbeat, and had crushed it instantly, loosing so great a volume of blood into that small, cramped space in so short a time that function must have been instantly, permanently interrupted. He wouldnt have felt a thing. No lingering in chronic agony from some awful diseases or injury, no wasting away, as so many older cats do, from the ravages of time. Hed died in extremely good health, in spite of his age, which was about 15 or so then, as fit as many cats half his age or less, surrounded by friends and endless love and bountiful food and care. When I die, I only hope it is as good a death as Gomez had and that I find him coming to meet me on the Rainbow Bridge Ive been told awaits us all when we leave our mortal lives behind. Two more years went by good years, especially so from the point of view of my business. But lonely ones, and, at the core, empty ones, somehow. I toyed with the idea of getting a kitten to replace Gomez, but somehow never got around it it would just have reminded me too much of Gomez. At one point, when a friend went on vacation, I let her bring her three ferrets over for me to take care of while she was away, and when she came home and took them back again, for awhile, missing the sweet but mischievous little stinkers, who behaved so much like Brownies in British and European folk-tales, I thought of getting one or two of my own. But I never acted on it. I only had my potted plants and a couple of crows that liked to sit on the back fence and regale me with the news of the neighborhood for company, most of the time, but it never really grated on me, not enough to matter, and so I never even took in a new pet.

9 And then I had been there ten years, and one fine Sunday afternoon in late July the phone rang, and I picked it up to hear Lus dear voice saying, Hi, sport, howre you doing up there? Want some company? Lu! Whats up? How are you doing? Hows Erik doing? Have you heard from Janie? Oh, were fine. Janie is, too. But Eriks going on a trip to Japan in a couple of weeks to work directly with the Grand Master and maybe also clinch a business deal with someone, and I had some vacation time coming, and I thought Id come up to see you, if you didnt mind. Of course I dont mind, Lu! Im just this is so sudden! Why arent you going to Japan with Erik, yourself? She heaved a long sigh. Its a long story. Basically, an old injury in my back is kicking up again apparently one of my vertebrae is a little fragile, and my doctor said I must absolutely not do anything that might make it worse. If I avoid training for about a month, he said, and dont do any heavy lifting or anything like that, I should be fine. Otherwise hes afraid itll get so bad theyll have to do surgery to correct it. So I cant train, cant really oversee the dojo very well one of our star pupils, Don Mason, is doing that for us while Im out of commission and Im getting very bored. You know Ive got my own business? Yeah, werent you doing some sort of consulting work for florists and nurseries or something? Something like that. I advise businesses and schools what sort of plantings to use in their landscaping, analyze soil content and like that when they have problems with bedded and potted plants and see whats needed, sort of like a plant doctor. Well, Im longer overdue for a vacation. Erik makes damned good money as head of security for that big branch of Bank of North America over on Taylor Street, and with what Ive made over the past year, neither of us are hurting. Both of us can afford the vacation, so . . . Im flattered, but why didnt you go with him to Japan, just as a tourist? It must be fascinating over there! It . . . Esh, you know Im a libertarian? Yes, of course. So am I, if you come right down to it. And so is Erik but hes a lot better at playing diplomat than I am. Japan is right back to preApocalypse population levels and then some, and whatever freedoms they gained after it all hit the fan have eroded again to nearly nothing. We had all hoped that eventually Sokes work there would pervade enough of the country to steer it toward libertarianism, or something like it, because the mountain clans among whom our school developed in ancient Japan were very much like that themselves still are, whats left of them. But most Japanese want nothing to do with it. They want order and regularity and a way of life that oh, shit, Id better not talk about it, Ill just get mad all over again! Anyway, I decided not to go because I didnt want to run the risk Id start haranguing people there about their . . . situation and why they dont seem to give a shit whether it goes on like that forever. No, I lied. Erik kind of suggested I might be a whole lot happier not going over there this time, that I could stay home and take a vacation and rest my back, and hed be home again soon and everything would be fine. See, the last time I went over there, Soke had a visitor to the dojo there in his home town, and the visitor was a member of the Japanese Parliament, and very formal, very stiff, and I sort of . . . well, told him my views on the way his country seemed to be going, and it was all rather embarrassing. Oh, shit. You got it. Soke forgave me, of course, and so did Erik in fact, they both told me, afterward, that Id said the same things theyd been itching to say, but hadnt really dared because of the fact that Japanese the government is not very comfortable with schools like ours, which teach real combat arts instead of the damned sports arts that everyone is so hot about, which are lionized in so many of the anim features and the comic books. Thank God my Japanese still isnt very good, because Ive had so little time to practice it, because Mr. Minister didnt understand the really inflammatory parts of it, and Erik and Soke brushed it off as PMS, which Mr. Minister, who is an authentic, dyed-in-the-wool Male Chauvinist Boor if there ever was one, was more than ready to believe. So nothing really bad came of it. But next time well, we decided not to risk it this time. By the way, Soke is thinking of relocating permanently to the USA now. Hes sick of the way his country has gone these last several decades, in spite of the Apocalypse and everything it did to free the Japanese people from an increasingly authoritarian government and the necessity of so much regulation

because of population pressure, and believes that there really isnt anything he can do there to stop it. So hell probably move here, say, somewhere in the Southwest or even here, San Francisco. The Grand Master wants to move away from Japan?! You got it. But if and when he does, it wont be right away. Hes got too many loose ends to tie up maybe a year from now. Why here? Hey bad as it can get here sometimes, bad as it has gotten at times, both before and after the Apocalypse, the old clich still holds true: were still the freest nation on Earth for what thats worth, these days and theres still some hope here. Yeah, maybe. Ill believe it when I see it. Hey, come on, you arent in the Peoples Republic of California any more, remember? Youre in a state where they actually allow citizens to own handguns, and even, in some cases, have a Concealed Carry permit! Where men are men and trees are nervous. I know. Big deal. You sound like Little Lady Sunshine, now. What happened? Oh, its just day in and day out, dealing with New Agers and feel-good wannabe Pagans and Radical Feminist Wiccans other idiots who have no real idea of how the world actually works, and dont give a shit about finding out, either. This last week I had at least five of them, people who wandered into my store over in Ravenna when I was in there doing a shift for Colleen, who was out with the flu, tell me that Im a reactionary fascist anti-Pagan pro-Fundamentalist this-n-that, one of them starting a really loud argument right there in the store that almost turned into a brawl before I gave him a good old fashioned Vulcan Nerve Pinch and hustled him out of there muy pronto. Hey, doesnt that grip Soke taught us all at the Tai Kai last year come in handy? she said, with a true belly-laugh, the first sign of good cheer shed given since about four sentences into the phone call. Heh-heh-heh. Okay, so youd like to come visit up here? Sure, if I wouldnt get in the way or anything. Actually, Im somewhat overdue for a little vacation, myself. Itd be nice to take off a week or two and go explore the Peninsula or the back country up in the Cascades or whatever. Ive just about had it with the sort of customers who come into my stores most of them time these days, and when I get to that point, its either go on vacation or sell the stores and go to work for some bank or something, because otherwise Id end up strangling a few of the bastards. Cant have that sounds like they arent worth being put in Walla Walla over, are they? Okay, is it all right, then, if I come up in a day or two? Why not tomorrow? I was planning on driving. I can afford the gas, now, and the cars in good shape, so I thought Id drive it up there. More mobility, and I can go the scenic route if I want. What sort of car do you have? Actually, its a classic 2023 Lotus, runs like a dream, been repainted and reconditioned and looks almost like new. How in the name of God were you able to afford that? Those things must be worth about Cr 30,000 now! One of our students was moving to Bonn, for various reasons, a permanent relocation, and he couldnt import the car. Remember Harvey Lowe? Yes, I do. Wasnt he the one who got jumped by a would-be mugger over on Powell Street one night and sort of cleaned up the street with the bastard? You got it! she said cheerfully. Hed been with us for about a year at the time. The thing is, that mugger was not only packing a semiauto and a nice sharp buckknife, but he also had a tiny little portable blowtorch he carried with him. A real lunatic. He came at Harv with the torch, but Harv managed to disarm him and take him down without getting hurt, even though the torch was on at the time. Harv said it was spitting a long, blue-green flame like a baby dragon. Hed had this fear of fire ever since he was a little boy, because of an accident he was in, but the training kicked in before he could think about it and he had the torch out of the guys hand and into the street, and the guy down on the pavement, before he even realized what he was doing. He said it cured him permanently of his pyrophobia. It also saved him from some nasty burns, to say the least. Harvs been grateful as hell ever since. Hes also rich, and doesnt need much extra money. So when he found out hed have to move LogoWorks, his corporation, had just opened new central offices in Bonn, the first in any part of Germany, and needed a top CEO there to oversee

operations and couldnt take the car, some stupid regulations they have, he wanted to give it a good home, so he offered it to me for about Cr 1,000. Such a deal! I couldnt pass it up. Lord, I guess! Okay, how long do you think itll take you to get here? Well, I planned on leaving in the morning, and making it up to Portland by evening, where I could crash and then leave the next morning and arrive in Seattle about lets see, thatd probably be late in the day after tomorrow or so, barring accidents or anything. God forbid. Okay, everything should be ready then. Ive got plenty of room here, even have a spare bedroom Ive been using for this n that, since I dont have a roomie or anything. Itll be wonderful to see you again, Lu. Its been, what, four years or so since the last time you and Erik made it up here and a good two and a half since I was able to visit you down there? About that. Itll be good to see you again, too, kiddo. Of course, were going to have to train while Im up there, see if youve gotten any better or lost your edge . . . If you want to bet, bet on the latter. Havent had much opportunity for training, lately. Ah-hah! See what happens when I let you out of my sight? Well, well just have to fix that! she said, laughing. What about your back, though? Hang my back and we can always call a halt if I start hurting. And it isnt that bad. Im just not supposed to have anything to do with full-on dojo training right now, but the doctor hasnt ruled out a few sessions here and there with good friends. So, how long would you like to stay? How long can you stand me? Hey, what kind of talk is that? Id love to have you here as long as you want to stay. So how long can you stay? Three weeks, I think. Erikll get back in four weeks, so thatll give me more than enough time to drive up the coast to Seattle and then, going home, to get back to San Francisco, barring the unexpected. Whos going to take care of your ferrets? Erik has a new friend from work, moved into our neighborhood, he likes ferrets and will be happy to weasel-sit or even take them home with him until were home again. Still have Yoshi and Miko? No, both of them have long since gone over the Rainbow Bridge. I guess I forgot to tell you. No, now weve got Kiro short for Akiro Kurisawa, because the first thing he did when we found him (hed escaped from somewhere, never did find out where, and we found him in our yard one morning) and got him inside was head for Eriks camcorder, which we had sitting on the floor by the VCR. Still tries to get at it every chance he gets. Makes you wonder what sort of movie hed make, and what it would be about, doesnt it? Anyway, the other one, the little girl, is named Otsu. She was given to us by a dear friend who had to move down to the Los Angeles area, God help him, and he didnt want to take her there. She knew us, because when hed go on vacation or whatever hed leave her over here with us, so the transition wasnt too bad for her. Id love to meet them. Maybe someday . . . your state still hasnt banned ferrets, has it? No. My state? Lu, you were born here, but you talk like its foreign country or something! Its just Ive lived here in San Francisco for so many years, its kind of hard to remember what Seattle is like any more, except when I visit there, she said, laughing a little. I think I know what you mean. I feel like Seattle is my true spiritual home, always was and always will be but as you know, I was born down in the L.A. area. Eeeuccchh! Just about anyplace would be better than that, wouldnt it? she said, laughing even harder. As a matter of fact yes. The idiots who live there by choice can keep the place between the radiation, the smog, the crazies, and those roving packs of two-legged wolves, its about as close to my idea of Hell as you can come. I grew up in La Jolla, though, where my adoptive parents lived. A really lovely suburb of San Diego I kind of miss it, at least the way it was then. If you have to live in Southern California, thats the place to be, I think. If it hasnt gone to Hell the way the rest of So. Cal. has, that is. The one favor my . . . natural mother did when she sold me to those monsters was that at least they lived in someplace one hell of a lot better than San Pedro! You were born in San Pedro? You know the Navy went in there and rebuilt after the Apocalypse, after the plagues died out and the radiation from San Onofre dropped down to bearable levels? One of the first things they did there,

besides getting the docks and like that working again, was build a good hospital for the servicemen and their families who would be living on the base once it was ready for occupancy. It was the place to go for any kind of medical work for just about everyone if you couldnt pay, you could get free treatment there if they had bed space and doctors were free and so she picked that. She lived there? Actually, no. She had come down there from Portland to have me. These mutual friends of hers and my adoptive parents paid for her hospital care there, and arranged the adoption, and then she took off again after she had me, probably back to Portland. That sounds rather . . . convoluted. Doesnt it, though? I have no idea why they did it that way. I know my adoptive father was a covert occultist, and I may have been adopted for something to do with that. I know they sure as hell didnt love me. Youll have to tell me all about it when I get up there. Ive never really talked to you much about your past, and it sounds fascinating, in a sort of grim way. Oh, hell, its actually mostly rather boring. I think my joining your dojo was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to me in all my life right up until then, as it was. Well, anyway, I dont want to run your phone bill up any higher than it already is. So youll be here in 2-3 days? Yep! Thatll be fine. Ill arrange for Ron, Kerry, Ted, and Lauren to take over for me at the stores, so Ill have the time completely free for you. What would you like to do when youre up here? You mentioned the Cascades? I havent been up there in ages! Want to do some exploring up there? Or we could drive straight out to Spokane if youd like, maybe put up in a motel for a few days and see whats out there, then sort of take the scenic route on the way back, whatever you like. Havent been to Spokane lately. There isnt much there, except theres a member of our school who lives there, Abe Schwarzkopf, we could go visit him and his wife and kids and see if he knows any others in that area if you want. And then, coming back, we can check out the fishing on the Skyhomish or something got any tackle? Sure! Ill pack my best fishing gear along with the guns. Are there any ranges where we can go to practice? Honey, weve got something better than that two members of the Osiris Risen OTO lodge I belong to own land back up near Gold Bar, I think it is, and all they need is a little advance notice to let us camp out there for a few days and use their own private range. Plus a branch of the Skyhomish runs right through there, so we can get some fishing in there, too. Whether or not we go out to Spokane, we cant miss that! Wow! Okay, Ill come loaded for bear literally. Not that I expect to see any bears up there Oh, theyre there again. The Forest Service restocked recently. Brown bears, close relatives of the ones that were native to this area. They got them from that big underground All-Habitat Zoo up in Anchorage, the one thats been bringing back various formerly extinct species using tissue cloned back in the 20th century thats been in storage at the Earth Ark project of the University of Alaska at Fairbanks, which rode out the Great Quake and tsunamis of 2013 in pretty good shape. But I dont think well see any theyre all way the hell and gone back in the Cascades they stocked them on the eastern slopes of the mountains, and the bears probably havent made it over to this side, because it was rather recent. Certainly not close to towns like Index and Gold Bar, which have just too many people in them. These bears arent yet used to human beings, and would avoid the area wed be in. But there may be deer you up for some venison? A hunting license now costs about Cr 30. Er isnt this a little out of season? It would be, in California. But not here, or at least not up where wed go. Without any bears or cougars or anything up there, the deer have been breeding up all out of proportion to the areas natural carrying capacity, as it is, and theyve started chowing down on peoples petunias and kitchen gardens and trampling up their lawns, and the bucks get really nasty at times and try to pick fights with cars and trucks that go in there and even pitching woo at goats and cows some people have, that sort of thing. So until the deer population is back down to bearable levels and the predator restocking project is successful with its cougar and bear and wolf colonies, its pretty much open season on the deer all year around. So why do they charge for a hunting license, then? Lu asked, now laughing hard. Sounds as if wed be doing everybody a favor! You know how it is the money goes to pay the salaries of the Fish & Game people, otherwise theyd be out roaming the streets stealing hubcaps or something. Cant have that, so we have to have the licenses.

Oh, you okay, then, Id better hang up and start packing. Oh, Esh, I cant wait to see you! And Gomez, the old lazybones! Uh, forgot to tell you . . . Uh-oh . . . is he uh . . . Yes. He died in his sleep about two years ago. Vet said he never felt a thing, poor old man. Poor old man, my eye that cat was the most spoiled rotten, happiest cat Ive ever seen in my life! You gave him a good life, Esh, dont ever worry about that. Well, Im sorry, I wish I could have seen him one last time, but who knows, maybe hell come back as a kitten that turns up on your doorstep or something. You never can tell, can you? Okay, sweetie, Ill see you in a couple of days, then. Yep. And Lu drive carefully, okay? I will. Need directions? No, Ive got your address and phone number, and I remember the area really well, anyway. Okay, then, hasta la vista, vaya con Dios, etc. etc., and Ill see you in two or three days. And in the meantime, Ill be getting the place ready for you, and arranging for my vacation. Sounds like a plan, darling. Okay, bye! Bye! I had a remastered version of an ancient Moody Blues album, A Question of Balance, on the CD player. And the Tide Rushes In was playing: Ive been searching for my dreams A hundred times today; I build them up, You knock them down Like they were made of clay . . . An odd chill suddenly streaked down my spine. A goose walked over my grave . . . Shuddering for no reason I could determine, reaching out I hit the OFF button. The music stopped. Still not feeling any better, I went into my bedroom to see what I had on hand for a trip into the mountains with Lu, so I could make a list of things I didnt have and would need and get some shopping in tomorrow, before Lu got here. Happy as the prospect of seeing Lu again as well as a real vacation up in the Cascades made me, I couldnt shake that uncanny presentiment of doom that had suddenly settled over me.

 10 Lu! Eshda oh, its so good to see you again! she exclaimed as she released me from her bear-hug and, holding me at arms length, looked me over. Hey, you look good, my dear more muscle, I think. And no flab anywhere, Id bet. Uh, you might lose that bet, I told her, grinning. Come on in and sit down looks like youve had a long, hot, hard drive. Bet you could use some iced tea. That bet youd win, she told me, not moving from the door. But therere . . . theres all that stuff in the car, and I dont want to leave it there on the street, even if it is locked up. Hey, weve got an underground parking garage here. I dont have a car now, so you can use my space and Ill help you carry your stuff in right now, anyway, so we wont have to worry about that. Great! Come on, its about halfway down the block from here, she told me, beckoning for me to follow as she bounced back down the front walk toward the sidewalk. Of course, except for the Glock she always carried in her belly-bag and the little snub-nosed .38 hideout gun she had in a holster clipped to the back of her jeans, under her blouse, she had been sensible enough to pack the guns in rectangular cardboard boxes that gave no hint of what they contained, but it wasnt unknown here for smash-and-grab artists to break the windows of cars and take anything from them they could reach, even in broad daylight, so getting her stuff inside as quickly as possible was imperative. Within fifteen minutes, between us we had unloaded her car and gotten the stuff inside. Then, while she drove the car around the block to the entrance to the buildings underground parking garage, I got on the phone and called my landlord and let her know that Lu would be occupying my parking space and what her license-plate number was, so her car wouldnt get towed for unauthorized use of the space. A few minutes later, Lu was back in my apartment, gratefully guzzling down a huge glass of ice Liptons. God, that was good! she exclaimed as she set the glass down, empty, on the coaster Id provided for it. Any more? Well, of course! Want some herb tea? Oooo got any Lemon Zinger? As a matter of fact, I do. I can make it iced, with honey, if you want. Who do I have to kill to get some?! Coming right up . . . I made an enormous pitcher full of the stuff, then, coming back with it and a glass for myself and setting them down on the table next to Lus glass, I poured both of us tall glasses full of frosty, sweet herb tea. Soon wed polished off the entire pitcher full of herb tea, and Lu was looking much better than when she had arrived. Expectably, it had been hellaciously hot on the drive up here shed taken I-5 throughout, to save time, instead of the far cooler US 101 coastal route and shed spent relatively little time en route resting, eating, or otherwise not driving, not excepting a short layover at the Aloha Motel in Portland to snatch about 5 hours sleep before getting back on the road to Seattle. No longer looking as if shed driven most of the way through some of the balmier parts of the Dantes Inferno, she still looked very, very tired, and held herself as if her back hurt a little. Lu, would you like to eat first, or take a shower, or maybe a nap? I asked her. I . . . I had something to eat at a Dennys about two hours ago, one of their sandwich-and-salad combos. I could sure use a shower, though and that nap sounds heavenly. You wouldnt mind? Of course not! You look as if you hadnt had any sleep in the last week I know, I know, you slept in Portland, but that wasnt very much sleep, was it? Look, you go ahead and take a shower and then you can crash out for awhile. My bedrooms down the hallway there I pointed and Ive got two beds. Both made up fresh this morning, so you can use either one. Bathrooms right next to it, fresh towels and everything all ready. Oh, youre an angel! she exclaimed, sighing in relief. Whered you put my suitcase? I need to get a robe and things out of there . . . Sitting right over by the door into the hallway, along with your little night-case thought youd need them, I told her, grinning. I put the guns and fishing-tackle and other stuff in the bedroom; you can sort them out later. My own stuffs in there, too. I think, between the two of us, well be the Terror of the Cascades, I laughed. Anyway, you go take your shower and have a nap and Ill get something ready for dinner while you do. I was thinking steak and baked potatoes and home-made bread with real butter weve got dairies up the butt here ever since Wisconsin went down the tubes and what was left of their dairies moved out here, so it doesnt cost nearly as much as it would in California.

Oh, God, I cant wait! My mouths watering already, she told me, pausing as she looked through her suitcase and night-case for what shed need for her shower and nap. if I werent so hot and dirty and tired right now . . . Well, itll take awhile to fix it, anyway. I can take some frozen dough out of the freezer for the bread, but it takes time to bake properly. And I was going to make some real, home-made ice-cream for dessert Aaagggh! Stop torturing me, dammit! For real, love I get the cream, well, half-and-half from the Safeway down the street, comes from the same place the butter does, and I use real vanilla extract and real strawberries for it. You up for some? Oh, Lord, what I wouldnt give for real home-made ice-cream! All we can get in the Bay Area is that ice milk jazz, which doesnt even have real milk in it any more, just that soy shit substitute, and God knows what else is in it or isnt, as the case may be. Dont they have to label it? Yeah, but you have to use an electron microscope to see whats on the label anymore. Oh, my. You said it. Erik and I have been talking about moving up north, maybe to Corvallis, or maybe even up here, to get the hell away from Californias cockamamie bullshit laws, which they only enforce if they have to do with control of the citizens, not protecting them. Whats holding you up? I asked her, grinning. Rising from where she had been squatting on her heels next to the suitcase, a robe and nightie draped over one arm, toothbrush, toothpaste, and a cleansing stone clutched in her other hand, she said, Well, first we have to find jobs where we plan to go, not to mention getting a place to live. Then we have to close everything out where we are now. And we love the Bay Area its just California we hate. Okay, Ill go take that shower now, and then crash out. Careful Grandma, that one dates you you must be over a hundred now . . . I laughed. Oh, come on, last centurys slang has come back in fashion, that 1960s Revival thing, you know. Yeah, I know. Okay, Ill go start rustling stuff up in the kitchen. Have a nice nap, I told her, going out to the kitchen. A couple of hours later, as I was checking on the bread Id flash-microwaved it to defrost it, then popped it into the oven, which was already preheated to baking temperature I heard a sound behind me. Whirling around, a knife in my hand Id caught up from the countertop, I brought the knife up Lu, for heavens sake! I thought you were oh, Lord, Im sorry, I didnt realize, I said, carefully laying the knife back down. Coming toward me, Lu, still rather bleary-eyed, smiled oddly and said, You did keep up your training, didnt you, Esh? Im sorry, didnt mean to scare you. I just couldnt sleep any longer Im still a little tired, but my body doesnt want to sleep now. Forgive me? Oh, of course theres nothing to forgive, Lu! Come on in, sit down, let me get you something to eat if youre hungry, Im about to put the steaks on but I made soup and you can have a cup, if you like. What kind? she asked, taking a seat at the kitchen table, the afternoon sunlight coming through the window next to the table framing her in a golden aura. Vegetable beef stock-pot I had some frozen, left over from a few weeks ago when I had this brisket of beef and couldnt eat it all right away and decided to make a soup with some of it. Sound good? Yeah, it sure does. Any crackers to go with it? Yeah, if you like saltines. And, of course, theres butter to go on them, if you want. Ill save that for the bread even up here, butter must cost an arm and a leg, and I dont want to put a strain on you while Im here. Actually, to be honest, I get the butter at a discount. It comes from a little health-food store down the street, Rainbow Grocery, its been there for something like 80 years, and one of my regular customers runs the store. He gives me a discount because of all the good deals I get for him he collects Egyptiana as well as occult tools of all kinds, and I find stuff for him at estate sales and so on at bargain-basement prices that he couldnt get for less than five times as much otherwise, in some cases. Sometimes the butter is on the house, depending on how good the season is. Lucky Esh sounds like you went into the right business! If you discount the crazies, the long white gown people who think their gurus are Ascended Masters, the threatening phone calls from various religious types, and so on, yeah. Oh, pooh, you wouldnt still be in the business if it were that bad, would you?

Probably not. But we cant sound like were boasting, can we? The Gods might be listening, and you know what that means . . . What? Hubris begets nemesis, I said darkly. Anyway, its not a bad life, Ill give you that. Here, lets get some soup ready for you, I told her, reaching into the freezer and taking out a plastic tub filled with frozen soup. Ill just pop this in the microwave and itll be ready in a flash. It took somewhat more than a flash, about three minutes, before the soup was defrosted and at the right temperature; by then, heavenly odors of baking bread had filled the kitchen, and Lu was beginning to resemble Pavlovs dog. Okay, heres the first course, I told her, putting a bowl of soup before her along with a spoon and a plate full of crackers. Dinner will be ready shortly I just put the steaks in the broiler, which is separate from the rest of the oven, something you dont see everywhere but I lucked out here. What would you like to drink? Ive got white wine, red wine, herb tea, coffee Red wine, I think. What have you got? Actually, a pretty good red. Californias good for at least one thing, and thats wine this is a Littleton-Minetti, bottled about three years ago. Hey, thats a good brand! she said between mouthfuls of soup. Erik and I buy a lot of their wine. We get some real compliments on it from guests, too. I believe. Okay, lets get a glass here for you . . . My lead-crystal wine-glasses were up on a high shelf. While Lu half-heartedly protested my going to all that trouble for her, standing on a kitchen chair I got a wine-glass down for her, filled it with wine, and handed it to her. Pausing to inhale its bouquet appreciatively, she took the glass from me and sipped at it. Mmm the real stuff, all right! When did they lift the restrictions on out-of-state imports of alcoholic beverages here, anyway? Oh, hell, they dropped those years ago! I wasnt here then, but apparently what happened is that a very large group of citizens had a pitchfork referendum down at Olympia and the legislators caved in fast and annulled the restrictions and those atrocious excise taxes on most imports. People here got very, very tired of Olympia trying to run every aspect of everyones life and tax them in the bargain for it. Pitchfork referendum? Yeah the legislators had ignored a citizen referendum of the regular sort that the people of Washington State put through to throw out those restrictions, and were in session in the process of passing more and worse such, and this page came running in, saying, Uh, theres a whole bunch of people out there want to talk with you . . . The page looked so shaken that the legislators went out to see and when they got out on the front steps of the capital building, they found it had been entirely surrounded by citizens from all over the state, about 15 deep, many of them holding pitchforks, others holding shotguns. Including a lot of cops from all over the state, who had joined the other citizens cops here dont like trying to enforce stupid laws, or living under them, for that matter. Everyone out there was very, very polite, all nicely dressed, looked very respectable but the pitchfork tines were very, very sharp, and all the shotguns were loaded, and there were other things, too, and after getting a good long look at all that hardware, the legislators went back in and quietly threw out all the restrictions. Heh so where were the state cops? Theyd joined the crowd. Erk! Lu laughed. Ive got to say that people here in Washington have one hell of a lot more balls than they do in California and that the cops sure are different! Yeah, it seems as if. Okay, let me check those steaks . . . Soon the steaks were done, as were the baked potatoes in foil Id popped into the broiler earlier. Dishing up the food, along with a platter full of just-baked bread and a butter-holder filled with fresh creamery butter Id picked up earlier in the day, before Lu had arrived, I set everything on the table and then joined Lu there.

 11 We spent the rest of the evening at home. First, Lu wanted to call Erik and let him know shed arrived safely. She wanted to call him collect, but I waved away her protests, telling her, Look, how many times did you and Janie pick up the tab for me when I lived down there? Help yourself. Ive got a good long-distance company, anyway, cheap rates, well, relatively cheap. And how often are you here, anyway? So its on the house. Of course, once Lu got Erik, she handed the phone to me so he could tell me hello, too. After he asked me how I was doing and how the weather was Great and Lovely Lu took the phone again, and they spent several minutes discussing how the dojo was faring, how their ferrets were reacting to their mommys absence, and what lovely things Erik planned to do to Lu the moment she got home. Listening, I sighed, secretly envious what was it like, I wondered, to live with your best friend who was also your lover? What was it like, I wondered further, to have a lover who made sex worthwhile? I caught Lu giving me a long, strange, thoughtful look. She smiled, then wrapped up the call with, All right, darling, Ill call you collect every night when we get back before I head home again, let you know Im okay, just a couple of minutes each time so we wont run the phone bill through the roof. All right, sweetheart, talk to you soon. Night. Putting the phone back onto the jack, she came over to me and said, Its still early. Im not ready to sleep yet. Would you like to see some of the stuff I brought up here with me? Sure. Whatd you bring? Well, Ive got photos from the dojo, so you can see all the gang there, lots of new people but we still have some of our original students. And there are pictures of Janie, plus ones she took on her trips to Bangkok and Israel last year, and some photos of Erik and, of course, the houseweasels. And I brought a new acquisition with me remember the saying, When a better gun is built, Gaston Glock will build it? Yes! Youve got a new Glock? Something better something brand-new, really new, a prototype that the factory that makes Glocks in this country, theyre located in Pittsburgh, California, gave to us to try out, so we could give them recommendations. Its a semiauto with a variable-calibre action What?! They aint no sitch animule! And thats nothing! It can become fully auto in a couple of seconds all you have to do is pull one little bolt. Dear God, what will the feds say about it? The feds dont know about it, and theyre not going to. This is something really new, not made for the mass market. You can swap out the firing chamber and barrel as easily as changing a banana-clip on a Kalashnikov-28. The makers are lets just say that theyre no happier than we are on the way the government hasnt brought back the 2nd Amendment, shall we say, and decided to make this little baby for those who see things the way they do. As it happens, the son of one of the managers of the Pittsburgh factory is enrolled at our dojo, and his father was very impressed with what he saw us doing there when he came to visit one time. Lord! Okay, bring out this paragon, lets have a look at it . . . We spent the rest of the evening looking at photos, guns, fishing-tackle, and some classic Japanese Hentai videos Lu had packed in with everything else. When she brought them out, she told me, giggling a little, Erik thought youd enjoy these we sure have. Actually, these are for you, to keep, a present from Erik. We have copies of our own. Theyre really classics, too they date back to the Golden Years of the World Wide Web, around 1954. Theyre from the Web? No, that is, not downloaded from there. Somebody around then had this wonderful site for X-rated animation which could be uploaded to as well as downloaded from, and he decided to preserve the best on film. Good thing, too, because when the Web collapsed in 2012, as far as anyone knows, that site disappeared along with most everything else on the Web. But by then there were copies of these videos spread all over the country the web-site was free, and he made his money selling the videos, which he advertised on the site. God, I guess! Uh, why this? I mean, its neat, but why did Erik get me these, uh, er . . . I was staring a little numbly at my video monitor, on the screen of which was an anim version of an orgy involving two women and three men, all thoroughly involved with one another in various activities that looked both highly pleasurable and almost physically impossible.

Esh, she said, growing serious, this is something I wanted to talk with you about when I got up here, not over the phone. Taking both my hands in hers so that I had to turn to look at her, she continued, Weve both missed you terribly, Erik and I. We . . . how do I say this? Erik wants to move up here, maybe not to Seattle itself but just outside the city. Hes inherited some money and were planning on buying a house with it after we sell the one we have now. I know I said we were thinking of Oregon, but thats because he has some property there, too part of his inheritance and so thats a possibility. What will make the difference, Esh well, its whether youd like to stay up here or more to Oregon. What?! Lu, are you saying you and Erik want me to Yes, I am. Eriks been . . . well, you see, both of us have been kind of in love with you ever since you first came to our dojo, and Esh, pull your jaw up, a fly may get in if you dont, she told me, smiling lovingly. Both of you have are you saying youre in love with that Erik is in Yes, I am, my dear. Are you shocked? I well, after hearing all about Black Masses and orgiastic Sex-Magick and God knows what else every damned day from my customers all these years, I cant say Im shocked at the idea. Just . . . What? Just that its me you two are Im having trouble believing it. Why, sweetheart? Whatever in the world would . . . would either of you see in me? You really dont know? Esh, youve been one of our top students Ill never forget the night you called and told us about that guy in the alley you took care of when you were on the way to appraise that guys books! We were both so proud of you! And But my God, Lu, Im an old maid look at me! Im looking at you, Esh, I have been all evening well, except for when weve been watching this video, anyway, she said, giggling again, and I see a lovely woman with long, dark hair and a body to die for, a warrior who can take on the worst things thrown at her and come out on top, a brilliant business-woman who has managed to start her own business on a shoestring among some of the fiercest competition in the country and make it pay. Esh, havent you taken a good look at yourself lately? Yes, I have. Hairs starting to come in gray at the temples, my butts starting to sag, my boobs Lu, this isnt some terrible practical joke is it? I mean Suddenly her body was pressed tightly against mine, and her tongue was probing between my lips, and I was falling back, stunned and overwhelmed, a tremendous hot tide rising between my legs. After an ecstatic eternity during which her hands, darting under my clothing like ferrets to nip and prod and stroke, roamed across my body, evoking the most amazing sensations from my breasts, my belly, my thighs and her tongue, sliding and darting around my mouth, came close to giving me oral orgasms, she reluctantly pulled away from me. Sitting up, she looked down at the disheveled robe she wore over her negligee. Muttering Damn, this thing is in the way, impatiently she stripped off her robe and tossed it to one side. Now dressed solely in her translucent pink negligee, which did nothing to conceal her rosy aureolae and nipples or the yellow bush of hair at the join of her legs, she looked up at the monitor. Oh, hey, this is one of our favorite scenes here, let me show you what its like from the inside while you watch it, itll give you a better idea of how to do this sort of thing, she said matter-of-factly as, reaching out to pull me close to her, she began undressing me, reaching around from behind me to undo my blouse and pull it off as I sat there in an ecstatic daze, letting her do whatever she wanted. Soon all my clothes were scattered on the floor nearby, and I was leaning back against Lu, my back to her, watching one anim lady pleasuring another as Lu did much the same things to me, one of her hands caressing my breasts, the other reaching down to tease my sex, slowly working its way down into my cleft to stroke the bulb of flesh rising to meet it there. Eventually I climaxed, crying out wildly. Suddenly I found myself sobbing heart-brokenly in Lus arms as she consoled me, stroking my back, cradling my head against her breast. Finally the crying fit passed. Gently Lu got me to sit up again. Getting up to turn off the VCR, she took my hand and, urging me to my feet, got me to go with her into the bathroom. While we took a shower together, she said, You arent offended, are you, Esh? No oh, no, Lu! Its just its been so long since anyone ever . . . you know. I never dreamed you and Erik why me? Because we do, dear. You mean he you you both really want me to move in with you?

Yes, we do. Are you surprised I want you to, then? Uh that both of you do, I guess. Either of you. I mean, Erik is God, all hed have to do is crook his finger at just about any woman he meets, and he could have her right there on the floor, right in front of God and everyone! And you youre the original Golden Girl, who could have anyone you wanted. Why me? You keep saying that, she told me, helping me to rinse off and then, shutting off the shower and grabbing a towel hanging over the edge of the shower doors, beginning to work on my hair, now freshly shampooed and rinsed. You really dont know, do you? Know what? That youre a beautiful woman not to mention having personality and brains and initiative and courage to match. Lord, your adoptive parents those foster homes you were in they really did a number on you, didnt they? Therere some books written last century by a man named Andrew Vachss Im going to get for you theyre novels, really good ones, but written out of his experiences working as a legal advocate for abused and abandoned children. He talks about something called soul-murder I think thats what those . . . assholes did to you, Eshda. You are a beautiful woman, and youre the only one who cant see it. But but if Im so beautiful, why hasnt anyone I mean, why dont I have a boyfriend now, or something? Because I think you give off touch-me-not vibes. You can see the tension in your body whenever anyone who might be attracted to you gets near you and it isnt sexual tension, either. It looks like some sort of combination of nausea and fear. You were even like that around Janie I know you love her, Esh, we all know it, including Janie. But as she said to me once, she always had that sense that you were terrified shed make a play for you. Why, we were never sure. Shes a gorgeous woman, and sure, shes bi, but she would never, ever in the world have tried anything unless youd made it clear to her you wanted her to. Did did anyone in those . . . homes you were raised in do things to you, you know, molestation or rape or anything? My . . . my adoptive mother. Oh, Lord oh, Esh, thats horrible! What about what about your adoptive father? You really dont want to know, I told her grimly. I know youve said they were . . . nasty people, but it sounds like it went beyond that, didnt it? Yeah, way beyond. Among other things . . . Lu, I told her, as I took the towel from her and began drying her off, would you believe that I saw him gut-shoot another man as part of an occult ritual? And that he had two other people burned alive as part of the same ritual? She was staring at me in horror. Oh, Esh Emboldened by the fact that the horror on her face wasnt mixed with that speculative look that would have told me that she suspected my sanity, I continued: There were a lot of other things, too. Like the times he handed me over to some of his friends and they . . . well, I was about two and a half, then, and supposedly children that young cant remember anything, but I sure as hell remember that. Really ugly stuff. Oh, my God . . . Then . . . then werent you upset when I when I, er, did what I did a little bit ago? I I thought about it as I worked on getting her hair dry, pulling a second towel off a rack to finish the job when the first got too wet. Well, I told her, the idea suddenly popping into my mind, apparently from nowhere, maybe its because you aint de poison, you de antidote. Grinning, she said, Esh, thats one of the sweetest things anyone ever said to me! Its true, too, I told her thoughtfully. Im glad. I know you wouldnt have been turned off if Erik had ever made a play for you. Weve both known youve been wildly in love with him ever since the first time you saw him. It was written all over your face then and that never changed. I yeah, I guess Id have to say that, I told her slowly. You you arent angry? At what? That he wants me? No, of course not. I want you, too, dont you know that now? she asked me mischievously, giving me a little poke in the ribs. But Sweetheart, Erik and I will never stop loving each other. And . . . well, weve never felt this way about anyone else before, either, but youre kind of special. Weve both loved you dearly ever since that first night at the dojo you had so much determination to make it, so much spirit, you tried so hard and never gave up, even though you must have hated the training at times! Same thing with your career, too

 and just about everything else youve gotten involved in over the years, at least as far as weve seen. You dont give up no, hear me out. You dont give up, no matter how bad things are. I know youve been depressed, I know you think youve failed at things so what? Like I said, youre a beautiful woman, and its not just looks. Its everything. You came from a background that sounds like absolute shit, and you rose so far above it, by your own efforts, that its a wonder you can still even remember any of it! Oh, hell, come on in here, let me give you a massage, get your to relax, youre so tense . . . Before I knew it, she had me moving into the bedroom, where she got me to lie face-down on one of the two queen-sized beds there. Then, stooping down by her night-case, which shed brought in here before her nap earlier, she got something from the case. Coming back to the bed, she opened it it was a bottle full of some fluid and, pouring some of it into the palm of one hand, she recapped the bottle and set it with her other hand. A rich, musky odor filled the room as she placed her hands on my back and began to massage it gently. Slowly the skin of my back became charged with heat. What is that stuff? I asked her. Her hands, working their Magick on my back and shoulders and now, on my buttocks and thighs, began to evoke rising tides of sensation from my body, first feelings of relief, as tense muscles began to relax under her artful ministrations, then pleasure. Her touch was deft and sure, sometimes gentle, sometimes almost painful, as she worked the knots out of some muscles and stroked others into quivering delight. Kama Sutra Oil. Havent you ever tried it? I know you carry it in your store . . . Thats Kama Sutra Oil? No, never have used it. Never had occasion to, I guess I mean, you need somebody else to put it on you, and, well, you know . . . What do they use it for, the people who buy it in your store? Tantric Magick, I think Sex-Magick. To get their partners in the mood . . . My voice trailed away as I feel forward into the bliss she was calling forth from my body. Oh, God, that feels so good . . . A timeless interval went by while she worked on my body, kneading, caressing, probing. Then she had me turn over on my back, and began to do even more wonderful things to the front of my body than she had on the back. I hardly noticed when, gently, drawing my legs apart, she began working on the insides of my thighs. With a gasp of surprise, I did notice when, suddenly, a finger slipped into my vulva and began stroking my clit. But by now I was so overwhelmed with pleasure that I still didnt move. Then something else touched my clitoris it was her tongue, beginning to work its way up and down my vulva. From time to time she used more than her tongue, sucking gently on my clitoris, gradually working me into a state approaching frenzy. Now I was moaning, crying out with pleasure. Then something long and slick with fluid slipped into my vagina. It was fairly thick, as big as a mans erect penis, and I wasnt used to such an intrusion, but by now I was so wet and so aroused that I cried out with the pleasure of it, my vagina contracting hard on it. Good girl, Lu said soothingly, good girl . . . What what is it? What are you doing? I asked her weakly. Another present from Erik he said, since he cant be here right now, I can be his proxy. Is . . . is that okay? Oh, God . . . please dont stop! I moaned, my hips beginning to buck as she slowly, gently thrust whatever it was in and out, in and out. I opened my eyes to see her kneeling between my legs, supporting herself by her hands on either side of me, her own eyes half-closed with concentration, her own building pleasure, or both. Her mouth was half-open, her breath rasping in and out as she herself became ever more involved in what she was doing. She had on an artificial penis, filled with gelatin covered with a skin of soft plastic textured to resemble the veined surface of an erect dick, and was fucking me with it, using it the same way a man would use his natural organ. Soon we climaxed, virtually simultaneously she had been careful to time her movements to my own growing arousal to bring about just that result. Crying out, she almost went limp, her arms losing their rigidity as ecstasy overwhelmed her body, but managed to roll to one side, so that she didnt fall on me. I hardly noticed I was busy getting religion myself, crying out to the heavens in my own release and bliss and post coitus tristum. After a few moments, levering myself up on my elbows to look down at her, where she lay beside me, panting and smiling, I said, still a little out of breath, Lu, did you did you manage ? Did I come, dear? Yes, I did. Here, look Sitting up herself, then leaning back against the pillow, she slowly pulled the device from her vagina that she had used to give me that thermonuclear pleasure. It had some extras on it besides the 6 long pseudopenis. There was an extension that rose

upward from the main body of the thing so that, when she was thrusting the penis part of it in and out of me, the extension rubbed up against her clitoris, stroking it with every stroke she gave me, the build-up and relaxation of the pressure of the penis-thing in my body causing the extension to rise up against, then fall away from, her clitoris. There was also an extension near the back of the penis-thing, with much the same shape and size, that she had inserted into her vagina. Finally, there was a string of small plastic balls that was attached to a short cord running from the very back of the device which she had inserted into her anus; with every thrust of her hips, in and out, against my body, the cord was pulled taut, then released, the plastic balls stimulating her anus with every motion. Oh, Lord that looks complicated, I told her, smiling a little. She rolled over a little, took my right nipple into her mouth, briefly massaged it with her tongue and lips, then lay back down, grinning wickedly, hell-hot blue imps of mischief dancing in her eyes. If youd like to try it, I brought one for you, too. Think thats something youd enjoy? I What the hell, Id already gone over the limit on into the Twilight Zone with Lu. Why not? Sure. Where is it? Let me go get it . . . Quickly she rolled out of bed and, bending over to look into her suitcase, which she also had open there on the floor by the bed, in such a way that I could clearly see her sex and the bright yellow fur that graced it, began hunting around in it. Ah, here you are, you tricky little devil . . . Sitting back down on the bed, she showed me a box with a cellophane window in it: Lil Devil 4-Way Wonder Wand, the label informed me. Decanting it from its box, she held it up so I could see it clearly. This is for you . . . darling, she told me, almost shyly. Bending over to give me a gentle kiss, sitting up again, she handed it to me. Er how do I ? No problem, Ill help you put it on. First, though, it has to be lubricated . . . here, Ive got that, too, same stuff I used on mine . . . She was holding a short, round, white jar labeled Sapphos Love-Fire Lubricating Solution. When she opened the jar, a subtly provocative scent was emitted. Inside the jar was mostly filled with a shocking-pink gel that glistened wetly in the rooms lights. What it is, Lu told me, is basically K-Y jelly mixed with pheromones, a few hormones (I added those, it didnt come with those originally, but it sure does give it that extra something!), and something that stimulates the tissues it touches just a little, enough to get the blood flowing and the nerves tingling but not much more. It makes everything nice and slick and it tastes good, too, so if we decide to get down to something a little more personal later, there wont be any bad aftertaste. I, uh, okay, if you say so . . . What do we do now? First, get some of this gel on your fingers thats right, dip them in the jar then take hold of this gadget, like so, and begin lubricating everything. Also, one reason it felt so good is that its got motors in it, in all three of the wands, that make them vibrate. So before inserting it, you want to push down that little button, there . . . thats right. Okay, now, she said, you want to get up, stand next to the bed. Yes, like that, face me. Here, Ill help . . . Getting off the bed, she came over and, taking, the gadget from me again, passed it between my legs so that the main extension faced forward and the vaginal extension was up. Carefully she raised it until I was pleasurably impaled on the vaginal extension, the penis-thing rising from between my legs, the clitoral stimulator pressed against my vulva, teasing it with the vibrations now rippling through the gadget. Now this part is a little difficult when you havent done it before, she said, taking the anal insert attached to the back and beginning to insert the string of beads into my anus, one at a time, with almost maddening slowness. As she helped me with the gadget, her fingers moved lingeringly over my vulva, along the cleft of my buttocks, along my clit, until I was gasping with desire. At last everything was arranged to her satisfaction. Stepping around me, she climbed back onto the bed again. Lying back on the bed, her head and shoulders supported by the pillow, which she folded over to give it enough thickness to hold her head at a comfortable height, she opened her legs and, looking sidelong at me, whispered, Come fuck me, darling. Feeling hideously clumsy, somehow I got into a kneeling position between her legs without losing my vaginal grip on the gadget or otherwise ruining the moment and, with an almost fearful care, began to insert the tip of the penis-thing into her vagina. It wasnt hard to do she was so slick with fluid that, as she said later, she wouldnt have had much trouble with King Kong at that point, and thanks to the lubricating gel shed had me so liberally apply to the thing, even if shed been dry as a bone there still wouldnt have been a problem. My only fear was that I myself now had such a wide-on that I wasnt sure

whether I could continue to hold the vaginal extension within myself. But that fear was needless. The thing was so engineered that as I began thrusting in and out of her body, I myself was driven to everhigher pitches of arousal, my vagina clamping down on the extension within it so hard that it was a wonder it didnt tear it apart. I tried to do as she had done and time my motions to her own building erotic frenzy. Somehow I actually managed to do pretty well just before I lost it myself in a shattering climax that had me screaming my pleasure out to the universe, Lu began to buck and heave and moan so wildly that I could barely stay in her. Just as her moans and cries began to die away, my own climax rolled over me, leaving me gasping on top of her, spots dancing in front of my eyes. As we lay side by side afterward, slowly regaining our breath and coming back to reality, I asked her, Lu, what sort of hormones did you say you put in that stuff? I felt like oh, Lord, like I was going to explode! Nothing bad, sweetheart, just something to get the juices going. Yeah, well, it worked. Does this make me a lesbian? Hmm . . . how do you feel about Erik? I thought about it for a bit. Nope, I was still wildly in love with him. It was just that now I was wildly in love with his wife, too. Uh, like Ill rape him the next time I see him. Chuckling, she said, Guess you arent a lesbian, then. So Im a bisexual? Do you care? No, I dont. I do wish one thing, though. What? Wish I smoked, so I could have a cigarette now . . . No, Im kidding, I laughed, as she rolled over to stare at me. Youd better be! she said, only half jokingly. All that training we invested in you, you want to smoke? Im already smoking, Lu though not from nicotine. ? Oh, yeah, it did get kind of wild down there, didnt it? she said, laughing again, as she lay back down. Lu? What? Do you want me to to eat you, too? You mean cunnilingus? Yes. Only if you really want to. I really want to . . . Before she could say anything else, I was lying between her outstretched legs, working my lips and tongue over her vulva and along her clitoris. Id never done this before, never even dreamed of it. I was going by pure instinct . . . or maybe on the basis of some chemical blueprint contained in whatever was in that witchs brew we were using as a lubricant. God knows something was at work on me maybe it was whatever made her taste like honey, vanilla, and musk, or the pheromones she must have been exuding. But whatever it was sure worked, because soon she was bucking and gasping again, then crying out with the fury of a climax that left her almost limp. As we lay side by side once more, she said, Esh? What? Ive got a confession to make. What? Ive never done that before with a woman. Join the club. Did you like it? Yes, I did. Erik suggested I try it with you, because Id started telling him about being horny for you for years, and he caught me looking at some of his Hentai and other erotic videos. But the idea made me so hot that you could say it was my idea anyway, it just took that to bring it to my attention. You? I . . . look, is the Pacific Ocean wet? Is the Bear Polish? Both of us now laughing, holding hands, we continued to lie next to each other, looking up at the ceiling. Finally she said, Well, maybe wed better get some sleep. When do you want to leave for the Cascades?

Maybe day after tomorrow. Thatll give us time to get everything organized, do any last0minute shopping we need to And fuck like minks a couple of times, she said, laughing. Taking her hand from mine, she raised it and let it drift over my right breast, caressing my nipple until it was so hard it hurt. I liked that. No, thats the understatement of the millennium. That was . . . stellar. God, it felt good! You have no idea, darling, I told her, grinning. It would you believe Ive never had a satisfactory sexual experience before now? Oh, Esh, youre kidding! Never? Not until tonight. But oh, my God, I sure have made up for lost time now! Im so glad . . . okay, lets get some sleep. Sure. Here, Ill get up, turn out the lights, turn on the air-conditioning otherwise well just lie here, tossing and turning, all night from the heat. Okay . . . Lu? What? I . . . Im just curious. Why were you so sure of me? I mean, I did want you. But you said I had that stand-offish thing why were you confident I would want it with you, if not anyone else? Well . . . it was Erik. Erik?! He . . . hes a pretty good psychologist. No, correct that: hes an outstanding psychologist. As far as knowing people, anyway, especially his own students. He has to be you dont get to be that good at combat arts unless you know how your opponents are going to act and react, and since anyone could be your opponent, that means you have to have a good, strong, handle on people in general. I thought youd turn me down once he suggested it, I wanted you, oh, God, how I wanted you! but I was afraid youd hate me for it. But he was dead-on sure youd want me, and that youd like sex with me. Oh, he was, was he? No, Im not mad at him, its just that, even though, as you know, I love him with all my heart, he can be such a cocksure so-and-so at times, cant he? But I was laughing, which reassured her. Anyway, I continued, Im not repelled. Far from it. My answer to your, er, proposal is Yes!, okay? To both of you. Any time, any way, wherever you want to live. I can always relocate the store, or do other things. Oh, thank God, she sighed. Looking down at her, I saw that her half-closed eyes and the skin of her face below them were wet with tears. I . . . I dont know what Id have done if youd . . . turned me down. Or gotten angry. But . . . youve got Erik, you know. He hed have been so disappointed, too. Is that why you want me to move in with you? You know, she said thoughtfully, now looking up at the ceiling, thinking, that might have been the case at one time. But, no, Esh, I want you, too, want you for myself. Relieved, I said, Thats good Id have wondered what had happened to you otherwise. Youve never taken any shit from any man before now, and I didnt expect you to do so for Erik. Somehow I cant see you prostituting yourself for him, not even to me and Im glad to see Im right. You doubted? she said, a catlike smile curling her ample mouth. I wondered. This is . . . all pretty new to me. To me, too. Id never have believed before Erik suggested I try seducing you that I was at all bisexual. Well, as long as we keep it all in the family, who cares? I said, laughing. One other question. What? Whyd Erik get that particular . . . gadget for me? You know, the four-way dildo. Oh, that. All wide-eyed innocence, she said, Well, a few years ago, when he started collecting Hentai videos and I began watching them with him, I told him I was curious about how it would feel to do some of that fun stuff. So he went out and bought me one just like the one he gave you and the one I used tonight, and had me use it to fuck him, to see how it felt. He oy veh! Experimental fella, isnt he? You dont know, she told me, grinning. But I guarantee that once youve moved in with us, youll find out. Er. Okay, Id better turn out the lights so we can get to sleep. Well have a hectic day tomorrow, making sure we have everything for our trip so we can leave bright and early Friday morning. Okay, Esh. Night.

 Night, I told her as I flipped the light-switch off. Then, returning to the bed where she lay, I climbed in next to her, my back to her. Immediately she rolled over so that she was facing me, and put her arms around me. Her body was very warm, and as hot as it was, ordinarily I couldnt have gotten to sleep. But after our frantic exertions of the evening I couldnt keep from falling asleep at once. I drifted off with her scent in my nostrils and her warm breath cascading over my shoulder, and the next thing I knew it was the next morning, and summer morning light was spilling into the room from the window above the bed.

 12 We spent Wednesday looking over our gear, checking to see what we might need in addition, making lists, then going out to shop for what was missing. The shopping trip, which took us to Banana Republic and Warshalls New Store at the Northgate Mall, Daves Tackle & Gun Store on Aurora just above Green Lake, several shops at the Broadway Mall, the Pike Place Market, and, back in my own neighborhood, Safeway and Rainbow Grocery, was much more fun than I had thought it would be. Lu had a way of driving that made it seem as if we were transported on a Magick carpet, somehow managing to avoid the numerous potholes, bumps, and other hazards that still infested all too many of Seattles roads, long-lasting legacy of the Big One back in the early part of the century and the devastating economic chaos that its aftermath had inflicted on the region. When we got back home to my place, it was about 4 p.m. Wed eaten lunch several hours earlier at the Pike Place Market, so we werent hungry. Beyond going through our purchases, packing for our trip into the mountains tomorrow, locking up those of my guns, knives, and other such goodies that I wouldnt be taking with me in the gun-safe built in my bedroom closet, and making arrangements with the landlord to have my apartment checked from time to time by the building security people to make sure nobody got in during my absence, there wasnt much left to do. Tell you what, Lu, lets go over to the Boyleston store for awhile, see whats going on there. Weve got a coffee bar in there and a lot of neat stuff you might find interesting. Okay. Hey, whos going to watch the place while youre gone? Ron and Kerry will manage the Boyleston store, and Bill, Nadine, and Julia will be managing the Ravenna store. Plus both stores have full security installed its a Pinkerton setup, and anyone who tries to get into either store without knowing the codes is gonna have about a zillion armed guards and every cop in Seattle on his or her ass within a minute or two. Im not worried. Pinkerton? How can you afford it? Shhh another of my good customers manages the Pinkerton office here in Seattle. Ohhhhh. Gee, maybe I ought to start doing Magick it sure seems to bring you some real luck, at least for your business! Okay, when I move in with you and Erik, well do Magick every night if Eriks in the mood, that is. She giggled. Isnt there a God in charge of, er, hard-ons? Hey, he doesnt actually have to get off himself as long as he uses those big strong hands and that kissable mouth of his on all the right places on the two of us, it works just fine. I see Im going to have a lot to learn . . . Then we were both laughing so hard we had trouble drawing breath. Finally I said, Okay, want to go over to the store? Sure. Let me just go use the Little Persons Room for a sec . . . A few minutes later we were driving over to the Boyleston store, a few blocks away. You know, Lu told me, we could have walked there . . . Agghh . . . I just didnt think, did I? On the other hand, my feet are beginning to hurt. Look, Ill be glad to cover the gasoline, if you want. Oh, dont worry about it. Im sorry for not realizing you were having trouble with your feet, though what is it? I guess just that its a hot day and my feet started to sweat and these stupid sandals just arent built right for my feet. Ah, here it is . . . When we get inside, Ill pick up some bag-balm for my feet. I can bathe my feet in that tonight, so there wont be any problems tomorrow. Well, hey! Sounds as if you carry a little of everything in there! Yeah, thats right, pull in here, I told her, as we can to the parking-lot next to the store. As she parked the car, I said, Mostly its just books and occult artifacts of various kinds. But we also carry essential oils, incenses, and that sort of thing, and our clientele tends to be interested in alternative medicine, nutrition, all that other good stuff. So we carry a few things of that sort they might like, as well, and they sell pretty well. Gliding into a parking-space, she put the car in neutral and put the emergency brake on, then turned off the engine. Well, here we are. Gee, I remember how it was when you first moved up here, right into this store. It wasnt nearly as built-up along here as it is now. And I dont recognize a lot of the stores around here. The price of progress, Lu. Seattles still rebuilding, after all these years Like a beautiful child, / Growing up, / Growing wild . . . and all that, you know.

It looks better here than San Francisco, I think. San Franciscos really gone downhill in the last twenty years or so, she said thoughtfully, looking around at the neighborhood as we got out of the car and walked toward the store. Maybe the place just needs a good earthquake. No, Im joking. At least as long as you and Erik are there, anyway. Well, come on, lets go inside and I started to open the door, my spirits high. The next moment, something heavy fell at my feet. If it had been half an inch closer itd have brained me. Startled, I cried out. Lu, right behind me, stared wide-eyed at the thing that now lay at my feet on the rug by the door. It was the statue of Anubis that I had put up above the doorway on the inside just after I moved into this store, all those years ago. About two and a half feet tall, it was made of pottery, but had a solid lead core. Stunned by what had happened, Ron, who was working the desk at the moment, came running up to me. Eshda are you all right? I Im fine. But . . . what happened to old Anubis there? I thought he was up there until Judgment Day, the way I cemented him in and all. Has . . . that ever happened before? Lu asked me, timidly. You mean, Anubis falling off the wall like that? Or any of the other things like that youve got up on the walls, she said, pointing at an icon of Bacchus/Dionysos perched on a little shelf next to the big window in front, and a brass statuette of Shiva, doing his eternal Dance Upon the Shining Waters on top of the bookcase behind the counter. No, never anything like that! Ron hastened to assure her. Oh, Ron, I should introduce you Lu, this is Ron Esterhazy, my manager for this store. He trades off with Kerry during the week, and they both cover things on the weekends and when we have events here. Ron, this is Lu Skua, my combat-arts teacher from San Francisco. Hey, Ive heard allll about you! he said, a big grin on his face, extending one of his huge hands toward her. He was about 6 2 tall, and built like Paul Bunyan, a great brunette bear of a man who was, in spite of his appearance, one of the gentlest beings Id ever met in my life. After serving as an officer in a couple of the many bullshit wars our country had been waging here, there, and everywhere over the last several decades, hed decided that it wasnt the sort of career he wanted, and had come here to try to find himself a life. Hed answered an ad Id put out in all the papers and the various job agencies in the county for a manager about five years ago, after the manager Id had at the time decided to move back to Pennsylvania and start a farm, and Id hired him on the spot hed grown up working with his dad in the family business, a Barnes & Noble franchise, and he was perfect for the job. Glad to meet you, Lu told him, taking his hand and shaking it with a firm grip that seemed to impress him. Come on in! he told us. Want to have a coffee over there at the coffee bar? Itd be on the house, wouldnt it, Eshda? Of course, I told him. That sounds good Ill just have herb tea, myself, though. Your usual. Yeah, I know, he said, walking with us across the store to the long, low bar where coffee and pastries were served. God, Eshda, that was freaky, the way that statue fell! That thing was up there good I know, Ive cleaned around it many a time, and tested it once to see how solidly it was attached up there, and I swear you couldnt have gotten that thing pardon me, Anubis down without using nitroglycerine to get him out of there. A shiver went up my spine. I remembered the Moody Blues song Id been listening to the other night, which had hit me the same way. Er, what is Anubis, Esh? Lu asked me as we took seats at the coffee bar and Ron bustled around behind it, getting coffee for Lu and herb tea for me and some coffee cake for both of us. Hes the Egyptian Lord of the Dead, I told her. One of the guardians of the Underworld, the place where souls go after judgment. Funny thing about that, Ron said, as he laid plates filled with coffee cake in front of us and added a butter-dish. What, Ron? I asked him. You know that big statue of Djehuti downstairs, in the lecture room? Did something happen to Him? I asked him, another chill racing up my spine. Sort of . . .when I locked up last night, He was in His regular place on top of the long bookcase against the northern wall. When we opened up this morning, there was no sign that anyone got in last night (Id have known, because Pinkerton would have called), but now Djehuti was standing in the middle of the floor. No sign of any breakage or anything. Hed just . . . been . . . moved.

Hes the Psychopompos, you see, Ron told Lu. Djehuti is the Egyptian version of Mercury and Hermes; he guides the souls of the dead down to the Underworld, there to await judgment. In Egypt, he was also their judge. So theyre both Gods of the Underworld? Lu asked him. Thats right. . . . Come to think of it, thats another funny thing. What? I asked him. Remember all that incense and those candles and other shit we ordered for invocations of Hades and Persephone and like that from The Goth Company? Yes, so? We got them in yesterday from UPS. I had the box sitting on top of the counter last night when I locked up, ready for me to inventory the contents and arrange them on the shelves. This morning, when we opened up, the box was empty, the inventory was already written up in the ledger, and somebodyd arranged the contents on the shelves, just the way I would have. Ooo, weve got a spook! I laughed. Not funny, he said seriously. Another thing I found when I got in here this morning was that big photograph of you and your friends, taken when you first moved up here, the one that hangs up there on the wall behind the counter over there, was lying on the floor behind the counter . . . and two coins had been laid on it, one on each of your eyes. You got any enemies, Esh? Wide-eyed, Lu looked from him to me. What does it mean, Esh? Before I could answer, the big gentle man said to her in a very serious tone, Ms. Skua, theres an old custom of putting coins on the eyes of the dead before burial. Its to pay their fare on the ferry across the Styx to the Underworld. Oh, Lord. Eshda, she said, turning to me, do you have enemies around here? Not that I know of. There was that guy I trashed when he tried to break in here, way back when, but he went to Walla Walla and died there when somebody shanked him in the kidney, I heard. Guy was also a child-molester, and the cons generally dont take kindly to such. Beyond that, there are a couple of newbie occult bookstores around here that might regard us as nasty competition, but the people who run them seem to be okay, and I dont think any of them would threaten murder. Me, I still favor the ghost theory. Maybe its just a bored poltergeist, trying to rustle up some excitement. Yeah, well, well have to wait and see, I guess, Ron said. So, what can we do for you, ladies? suddenly he was all affable huggy-bear, ever eager to please. We still have any of Arnolds Bag-Balm? I asked him. Lu and I went shopping today, and walked all over hell and creation at the malls. My feet feel like twenty miles of bad road on a hot day. Of course we do! he told me, grinning. Let me go get some how many kits do you need? A couple, I think. Theres, what, about four applications per kit? Yeah, I think thats right. Well, I need one for tonight, and then the rest well take with us when we head for the Cascades tomorrow. Thats right, youre going on vacation! he exclaimed, grinning. About time, hon. All work and no play and like that, you know what they say. They say, When the cats away, the mice will play, I told him, cuffing his shoulder and laughing. Bet you and Kerry have Tantric orgies in here every night while Im gone. Naw, well wait for you to get back, beautiful, so you can join in the fun. It was all I could do not to give Lu a Look that would have had me blushing to the hairline. Well, okay, long as you count me in, I guess I cant complain . . . Hey, you want to tell our fortunes? Youre still pretty good at it. Sure, why not? There arent any customers in here right now, so it shouldnt be a problem. Tell ya what, let me go over there and get one of the good Tarot packs so I can do it right . . . Going over to the counter on the other side of the store, he pulled out a drawer below the cashregister and fished around in it. Finding what he was looking for, he grunted in satisfaction, closed the door, and came back to our side of the store with his prize. Here it is, he said, as he laid a pack of cards down on the bar, Aleister Crowleys Book of Thoth pack. Always did have a weakness for it . . . Ooo, thats pretty! Lu exclaimed as he fanned the cards out for us to look at. Id seen them before, but Lu was right, the cards were pretty well a lot of them. The others, which had rather unpretty subjects, were anything but. Ick! said Lu, staring at the Eight of Cups. Whats that one mean? The card showed eight Cups in the form of lilies, ranked three above, three below, two in the middle. Water flowed from the two central ones into the left and right cups below, but all others were empty. In the background was a

dismal swamp, stagnant and dead, and the sky was filled with dark, lowering clouds which promised rain but delivered nothing. The dominant colors were various browns and reds, none of them healthy or lively. Above was the sigil for Saturn, and below, that for Pisces. As you can see, its called Indolence, which means, like, laziness or something of the sort. Another word for it is stagnation. Generally, it means something thats going nowhere, or which was thought to be important, but turns out to be of little consequence one way or the other. Sometimes it means recovery, as from an addiction. Astrologically, it represents the influence of Saturn in Pisces, so it can be associated with coastal and island nations and governments, or evils that come from the sea. And this one? she asked him, putting one hand almost seductively on his, pointing at the Seven of Cups. Now, this ones pretty sort of. But it looks a little bit like arsenic or something, too. The card showed seven Cups in the form of lilies from which dripped poisonous green liquid. The cups, arranged two on the top layer, three in the layer below it, and two more ranked one above the other below that, had the form of beautiful pink-blue-and-red flowers. They were arranged on top of a fountain or something similar with a blue base. Around this arrangement was water through which moved ripples caused by the nasty green liquid dripping from the flowers splashing into the water. Behind it all the sky was gray and murky, a twilight sky that looked as if it were filled with a heavy smog. Above was the sigil for Venus, below, that for Scorpio. Thats right. Its called Debauch. It can mean anything from toxic waste on the bottom of what seems to be a beautiful clear lake to non-stop, compulsive sex. In Waites pack, the picture shows a man looking at seven chalices, from which emanate fantastic images of various kinds the sort of things you might see on drugs, or if you were psychotic, say. According to Crowley, it refers to illusionary success, or external splendor combined with internal corruption. Waite says it represents imagination and vision, ideas, designs, resolve, and so forth. Astrologically, it represents Venus in Scorpio, where She has Her fall. Basically, it represents the idea of overdoing it debauch, as Crowley has it. Okay, how do we get our cards read? Well, first your name is Lou? Its actually Lu short for Luciferia. My mother, whos a lapsed Catholic, has this odd sense of humor. Okay, Lu, first you take this pack up and shuffle it. Keep shuffling until you feel its been shuffled enough. Then hand it to Esh, here, and let her shuffle it. Then she hands it to me, and I do the reading. Im gonna do both of you at the same time, first, because youre going on vacation together, you see. Okay, here goes nothing, Lu said, picking up the pack and giving it several rapid Las Vegas shuffles, flourishing the cards like a pro. Here, Eshda, your turn, she told me, handing me the pack. Taking the pack from her, I shuffled it three times, each time cutting it into three piles. Then I handed it to Ron. Thanks, he said, taking the pack from me. He began to lay the cards out on bar. Hey, we didnt choose a Significator, I told him. Its okay, the cards know what to do, he said, grinning as he continued to lay out the cards. Oh, my . . . Whats wrong? Lu asked him. Well, he said, as if choosing his words with infinite care, Id say that either the two of you had one bummer of a day today, or weve got some real problems here . . . He had laid out, in a classic Celtic Cross spread, Trump XV, The Devil, covering; Trump XVIII, The Moon, crossing; Trump XVII, The Star, above; Trump XIII, the Eight of Cups behind us; Trump III, The Empress, ahead of us; Death, at the base of the Pillar; the Seven of Cups in the house of the environment, above that; the Two of Cups, Love, in the house of ones hopes and fears, above that; and the Nine of Cups, Happiness, above that at the top of the Pillar, in the house of the outcome. Staring at that spread, I felt the chill rising up my spine again. Yet Hey, thats not so bad, Ron, the outcome is the Nine of Cups, so well get our hearts desire. . . . Wont we? Uh Esh, remember the old saying, Be careful what you pray for, because you might get it? Did you have to tell me that? I asked him glumly. Oh, hell, itll probably work out fine. I was just kidding! But his face showed no amusement. Well, youre probably right, I told him soothingly. Hey, Ive got to use the bathroom. Ill be right back for the rest of the reading stay right there . . . I told him as I slipped off my stool and headed for the stairs to the lower level, which contained the lecture room, a small kitchenette, and a unisex bathroom. Wait for me, Esh, I do too! Lu said, getting off her stool and following me. Ron, could you make us a coffee while were gone?

No problem, Lu! he called after her as she hurried down the stairs after me. The bathroom door opened on the back wall of the lecture room, a large room about 40 square whose walls were lined with rank after rank of bookcases, save for a blackboard against the back wall, next to the bathroom door. On one wall, above the bookcases, was a poster showing a heavily stylized drawing of a man and woman engaging in Tantric sex, with the chakras in both their bodies blazing like stars from the uprush of Kundalini energy called up by their activity. Oooo! Lu laughed wickedly, looking at the poster as she crossed the lecture room to join me in the bathroom. Erik and I like to do that a lot Sixty-Nine is good exercise! I was already on the commode, relieving my bladder, which had had no relief for the last few hours and had been somewhat overburdened by our stop at a Starbucks about two hours before toward the end of our shopping trip. Closing the door behind her, Lu came up to me and, taking a pose about four feet away from me, said, Let me show you something, my dear. While I watched, open-mouthed, deftly she reached down, grasped the hem of the skirt of the light cotton shift she was wearing, a pretty, summery thing, white printed with blue-petaled cornflowers and small, pink grass-flowers, and quickly pulled it up over her head, tossing it to one side with an elegant gesture of one hand. Ta-daaaaaa! she giggled. What is that thing youre wearing down there? I asked her, staring at her, stunned. Its a vibrator, dear. Its battery-powered, uses a lithium battery thats good for up to a year, she told me, grinning impishly, lightly touching the light-pink, plastic gadget covering her mons and vulva with one finger by way of emphasis. Shaped like a womans hand, its middle finger curling up over her vulva so that its tip just barely touched the area where her clitoris was, it was secured to her body by means of two elastic thongs around her legs. Ahhh, that feels good, she said, her legs widely spread, stretching her arms and then arching her back. She was still wearing her tiny little high-heeled sandals, and looked unbelievably sexy. Does it . . . does it make you come? I asked her, a little timidly, still staring at her. Unh-unh. The ratio that is, the rate at which it vibrates is set low, so that its almost impossible for it to bring you off, even if you wear it for hours and hours. Thats the beauty of it I wear this thing during the day when I know Eriks going to be in the mood when he gets home. Makes the sex all that much better not that it isnt without it, but this just adds to it. I Ill bet it does. . . . I like your bra. I thought you would, she said, fingering her nipples, which stood up stiffly amid the nest of stiff tulle ruffles surrounding them. The centers of the cups had been cut out and then rimmed with the ruffles so that there was just enough clearance for her nipples to poke through, albeit with some strain to get them to do so. The holes werent large to start with, and the ruffles made them almost vanishingly small. This keeps my nipples stimulated, she said, that same wicked gleam in her eye. The brassiere was made mostly of stiff white lace trimmed here and there with tiny little scarlet bows; it looked good enough to eat which was probably the idea. I can imagine. And what are those other thongs for, the ones around your waist and legs? Snapping one of them like the two holding up her vibrator, they were elastic she said, Oh, these? Why, darlin, they hold up my other little toy see? Saying which, she pirouetted about elegantly on one heel, so that she now had her back to me. Is that . . . another vibrator? I asked her. Now finished voiding my bladder, I stood up, wiped myself, threw the used tissue into the toilet and flushed it all down. I went over to the sink next to the toilet and began washing my hands. Yep! she laughed. In the mirror, I could see her spin around to face me again. Keeps me stimulated in the other nice place I wear a much larger size now than I did at first, since Ive gotten used to it. A few years ago, I got curious about what anal sex would be like, and Erik bought me a little vibrator like this, only much slimmer, about half an inch long. Like this one and the one Im wearing on my crotch, it was powered by a lithium battery, so I could wear it as long as I wanted and it wouldnt run down. I . . . I said, turning around to stare at her again. She had brought her satchel with her, a huge, roomy purse that she wore over her shoulder by a strap. She had it on the floor at her feet, and was kneeling down by it, hunting in it for something. Ah! she said in satisfaction, bringing something out of it with one hand. It was a medium-sized paper bag. Now, lets see what weve got in here, she said mischievously, holding the sack up with one hand and reaching into it with the other. Ah . . . okay, lets start with this. Eshda, why dont you just slip out of that hot dress for a moment, okay? But . . .

No buts, now, Mama knows best! she admonished me. Come on, lets get you ready for this evenings entertainment . . . She was holding out another pink plastic vibrator like the one she wore over her sex. Lu . . . hey . . . Ive never . . . Well, theres no time like the present, is there? Come on, darling, lets get comfy and try this on . . . I couldnt say no to her. In a daze, I began fumbling at the buttons at the front of my white silk dress. A moment later, setting the bag down on the floor and the vibrator on top of it, she came over to me. Clucking impatiently, she said, Now, now, you dont want to tear a button off that pretty dress. We dont want to do that, do we? as she gently pushed my hands down to my sides and began undoing my buttons herself. No leave your sandals on, you look good in them. Now, lets get this dress off you . . . She took her time doing it, every so often brushing my skin below the cloth with her fingertips in a way that sent chills rocketing up my spine and warmth spreading through my crotch. The buttons went down below my waist; by the time she undid the last one and then began drawing the dress off over my head, I was nearly panting with lust. Then she drew my bikini briefs down; directing me to step out of them, she tossed them over by the paper bag. Finally, directing me to turn around, she unhooked my brassiere and drew it off me, tossing it on top of my briefs. All right, darling, now lets put this little gadget on you, she told me, going back to where shed put the vibrator and bringing it back to me. Here, lets put these on . . . She knelt down and, holding the two elastic thongs open by my feet, directed me to step into them. When I did so, she quickly pulled up the vibrator with its thongs so the vibrator was flush against my vulva and the two thongs were tight around the tops of my thighs, so tight they cut into the skin where my thighs joined my hips in a way that would leave red welts afterward. Okay, now spread your legs, dear, so I can make sure this fits correctly . . . Now almost dizzy with the heat rising from my loins, dazedly I complied. Gently she pushed and pulled at the vibrator until, like hers, its upward-curling middle finger was poised just below the top of my cleft, where my clitoris was already becoming erect. Then she flicked on the little switch that protruded slightly from the bottom of the vibrator. Oooohhh . . . I moaned, shivering a little. But she was already going back for the other things she had in the bag. Retrieving them, she came back to me. Here, now lets put this on . . . It was a brassiere just like the one she wore. Quickly she helped me get it on. It hooked in front. As she was doing up the hooks, I asked, How . . . did you know my size? You had to have gotten that thing before you left San Francisco we didnt go into any place today here where theyd have that, I know. But I do know your size, love or rather, Janie does, from when you lived with her, remember? She bought you all those gorgeous clothes, she had to know your size. But I could have gained weight, or lost weight, or and what did Janie say when you asked her? She told me which brand of lubricator gel to get to make sure we had a good time, she told me, laughing. What?! Im not kidding. Shes been Eriks and my friend for years. She knew what wed been thinking a long time before we knew ourselves she knows people inside and out, and old friends have no secrets from her, you know. Thats true . . . Oooo, that tickles! I complained, as she worked my nipples through the holes in the cups. You think that tickles? she said. How does this feel? she asked me, giggling, stroking the tips of my nipples, which went rock-hard at her touch. Oh, God . . . I moaned. Okay, now, turn around, so I can help you get the other vibrator on . . . Pushing on my shoulder to make me turn around, she put one hand on my belly, drawing me back toward her. Oh! Whats wrong? It feels . . . strange. It doesnt hurt, though. It shouldnt, love, I put enough Sapphos Secret on that thing to float a battleship. It isnt very large, either. About the size of the first one I ever had, she told me, quickly looping one of the three thongs that protruded from the back of the little wand around my waist and fastening the end, which had a hook on it, to a little eyelet protruding on the back of the wand next to the place where it was anchored,

then pulling first one of the remaining two thongs around my left leg and fastening it down, then doing the same around my right leg with the third thong. Ohh! I cried in surprised pleasure as she flipped on the switch at the back of the wand, which just showed at the end of my anus. The rest of it, a slim, gel-filled rubberoid wand about three inches long and less than half an inch wide, was now inserted into my rectum, vibrating in a way sent low waves of pleasure radiating away across my pelvic basin and my buttocks, combining via constructive interference with the sensations now sweeping over my vulva, mons, and clit caused by the first vibrator in such a way that I wanted to lie down on the floor, right here, and get it on with her. But she wasnt about to do that at this point. Feels good, doesnt it? she said smugly. There, she said, affectionately patting the left cheek of my buttocks, now lets get our clothes back on and get upstairs. Otherwise Ronll think either weve died down here or were having an orgy or something. Er. Still a little dazed, I shook my head to clear it. My pelvic basin was throbbing with pleasure but she was right, as horny as I was becoming, it wasnt nearly enough for me to come off without something more. Rather weakly, I struggled into my dress again while she got into her own. Then, reaching down to the floor and scooping up the paper bag along with my underwear, she popped my old bra and panties into it. Ill carry this in my purse until we get home, okay? Sure . . . Put a little cold water on your face before we go upstairs, or Ronll know something is up, Esh. I yeah, I guess Id better. Quickly, I ran cold water from the sink onto a paper towel from the dispenser next to it and ran it over my face. Here, I brought some makeup of my own, she told me as I studied the damage to what Id been wearing in the mirror. Reaching into her purse, she brought out a smaller bag, her makeup kit. From the latter she got out dark mascara, a subtle, light-brown eyeliner, a hot pink lipstick, some foundation liquid, and powder. The latter wasnt as dark as I normally liked to wear, but not too light, either. Rapidly she helped me make my face up. I studied myself in the mirror again. Lord, I look like . . . a houri, dont I? Whats wrong with that, love? she asked me as she put her makeup kit away in her purse again. Actually, you look years younger and prettier, I think the way you ought to, even without makeup. Youve sort of gone without a lot of things these last few years, havent you? God, Lu, whats in that lubricator you put on that vibrator in my butt? I feel so . . . strange there. Oh, a little of this, a little of that . . . mostly a cream that has real pheromones and hormones in it. Nothing drastic, just enough to add a, shall we say, grace note to the experience. Thats what Erik did the first time I wore an anal vibrator. He said he wanted me to really relax and enjoy it, and that stuff put me in the mood to do that, all right! The walls of the lower intestine absorb it very quickly, and it all goes right to the brain. Will it . . . do anything weird to me? Like LSD or something? No. Itll just make everything feel . . . erotic. God, does it ever! Hey, girls, you get lost down there or something? Ron suddenly called from the head of the stairs. The door was thin, and we had no problem hearing him. Uh-oh, wed better get up there . . . Running to the door, I opened it and called out, No problem, Ron, were just about through. Lu was showing me something. Be right up. Sure. Coffees all ready, and there are some doughnuts here, too. Great! Come on, Lu, lets get up there! So saying, I hurried through the lecture room and up the stairs, Lu, laughing, right behind me. Still giggling, we came out into the shop and went over to the other side, where Ron, our Tarot reading still spread out on the bar before him, was sitting at the bar, waiting for us. So, what else was in the cards for us, Ron? I asked him as we took seats on either side of him. Well, nothing much I could make it thats a weird, weird layout, strangest Ive ever seen. Tell you what, he said, sweeping up the cards to make a deck again. Lets have you both shuffle and cut the cards, and then well see what comes up, okay? Sure, I said. Lu, you want to go first? Oh, why not? she laughed, taking the pack from Ron and beginning to shuffle it. After shuffling and cutting several times, she handed it to me, to do the same. Then I handed the pack back to Ron. This time, he laid out a circle of twelve cards.

Hey, this is a lot better! he exclaimed happily. See? We looked. Going from leftmost around in a counter-clockwise direction, the cards were the Seven of Cups; Trump XVIII, The Moon; Trump III, The Empress; Trump XX, The Aeon; the Three of Cups, reversed; Trump IX, The Hermit; Trump VI, The Lovers; the Ace of Disks; Trump X, Fortune; Trump I, The Magus; Trump II, The Priestess; and the Ace of Wands. See? Youve got a lot of good cards, here. Youve got the Ace of Disks in your Eighth House, which is very protective maybe its all that martial-arts stuff youre both into. And Trump XX is in your 4 th House there will be radical changes in your life, but because the 7th House the outcome of the 4th contains The Lovers, they will ultimately be really good ones. Youve also got several cups in here if I didnt know you better, Esh, Id say you had one hell of a hot date tonight, with the Seven of Cups in the 1 st House and the Three of Cups reversed in the 5 th maybe its Lu, here. Who you goin out with tonight, Lu? he teased. She shrugged demurely. It took everything I had to keep from bursting out laughing or blushing furiously. Now, he continued, with The Magus in the 10th, Hermes is watchin over both of you. Hes the God of thieves and tricksters, but Hes also Lord of Justice and the Psychopompos, and He does take care of His own, which the two of you certainly are, from everything I know about Esh and everything shes ever said about you, Lu. The Ace of Wands in your 12th House is like a guardian angel type of aspect, another very protective omen. All in all, Id say that whatever happens on your trip, its bound to bring you both good fortune in the end. The only thing that bothers me is Trump XVIII in the 2 nd House thats the near future. Something weird is gonna happen to you, maybe. But it still comes out all right in the end. Well, thats much better! I laughed, taking a sip of my coffee. I was a little worried there for a while, from that first layout you did. I . . . well, to tell the truth, so was I. But this one is about twice as good as that one was bad, so it looks like youre gonna be all right. No, better than all right. I cant tell exactly how, because radical change is just that, so radical that there arent any details. But you twoll be fine. I glanced up at the clock on the wall, then gasped. Oh, damn Ron, its been lovely, but wed better go. Its getting awfully late, and weve got to make sure weve got everything ready for tomorrow and get to bed early, because we want to start out fairly early. Sure, thats cool. Why dont you bring Lu back here when you get back, Ill treat you to dinner and you can both tell me all about your trip? Wed love that! I told him warmly. Uh, Lu, wed better get going . . . I told her, standing up. Getting to her feet as well, she said, holding her hand out to him, Ron, I really enjoyed it! Id like very much to take you up on that dinner when we return. Thats great, he said, giving her hand a squeeze. Well, Id better start getting ready to close up for the night, myself. See you ladies later . . . Oh, my bag-balm! I cried. I almost forgot. Here it is, Esh, he told me, scooping up a small paper bag from the bar and handing it to me. I got it for you while you two were downstairs. The bag held four boxes of Arnolds Bag-Balm. Great! I sure need it! Okay, hon, wed better get going . . . I said to Lu, heading for the door. Sure. Good night, Ron, really enjoyed it, she told him as she followed me. Out in the parking-lot again, I asked her, Shall we just go straight home? Hell no! Lets go out to Neptunes Lair out on Pier 54 and have some dinner! My treat I know its expensive, but theyve got some of the best food in town. Okay . . . Lu? What? she asked as she climbed into the drivers side of the car. How do manage to stay so so together right now? Im feeling like a cat in heat, and if I had to drive, Id wreck us in a minute. Oh, I just use some meditation techniques Erik taught me to keep all that down there in my pelvis until its time to have some fun. It builds up to a much higher pitch that way. By the time we get back to your place, I may just decide to rape you, she said, laughing, as she drove up to where the lots driveway met East Pike Street and turned right into it. Now, she said, changing the subject, whats the fastest way to get off this benighted one-way street onto something going toward Puget Sound? Its been so long since Ive been here, Ive forgotten. Directing her to turn right at Broadway, I said, We go down here to Madison, turn right there, and head straight out to First Avenue. Turn right at First, go up one block, turn left at Spring, go straight on out there to the pier. Thatll be Pier 54.

Good. Got it. Okay, darling, here we go . . .

 13 It wasnt long until we were heading southwest on Madison toward the Sound. Sunset was coming on now; the sky was that ethereally beautiful cobalt blue, edged tangerine, chartreuse, and peacock blue in the west, like a Maxfield Parrish painting of twilight, that only Seattle could boast. Long shadows from the downtown skyscrapers fell across the road, harbingers of nightfall; stars filled the eastern sky, and Venus blazed a brilliant pearl-white about 40 degrees above the Western horizon; the Sun, a fiery well of light, was neatly bisected by the horizon. He was still bright enough that we had to keep our sunvisors down, and Lu had already put on polarized glasses to cut the glare even more, but it wouldnt be much longer until night. God, Lu, it really is late, I told her, checking my watch. Its close to nine p.m. already. We wanted to get an early start tomorrow, didnt we? Depends upon what you want to start doing, doesnt it? she said, that impish smile playing around her mouth. We were now coming up to Fifth Avenue, where we halted for the red light. Well, maybe we can start later in the day, I guess, I told her amiably. Or just wait until morning of the following day, darlin, she said, suddenly reaching up with her right hand and pinching my left nipple through the material of my dress. Oh! I yipped. Jesus, Lu, if you do that again . . . What? Youll rape me right here? she said, laughing. The light changed. Putting the car in gear, she gave it the gas and we surged along Madison toward the Sound again. I . . . I was panting in reaction. Oh, Lord, I feel so horny Ive never been this horny before! Good! Okay, First is coming up, let me concentrate on my turns . . . Shortly we were driving up Spring Street, toward the Pier, which we could now clearly see in the streetlights. Descending darkness gave it a glamorous cast, almost a story-book aura associated with Seattles long, checkered past. Quickly pulling into a parking-lot just across Western from the pier, she turned the car into a spot near the entrance to the lot and, bringing it to a halt, put on the brake, put the car out of gear, and turned off the ignition. Well, here we are, darlin, she told me, smiling. Whatre you in the mood for? You mean, dinner? Oh, I can imagine youd like some of this Deftly she ran a hand up under my skirt and trailed the tip of one slender finger along my belly, making me gasp with pleasure. Then, reaching up with her other hand, she tweaked my nipple again, so that I almost cried out. Then, drawing back, she said, But maybe wed better have some calories first, what do you say? If I remember correctly, Neptunes Lair has the best albacore steaks in the Western hemisphere, and friend cornmeal mush patties that are out of this world. Plus theyve got a very good dessert selection. Uh, okay . . . Sweetheart, now, youve just got to keep your mind on dinner! Well be home soon, and then you can think all you want about the fun stuff, she said, sadistically stroking my nipple again. Okay, come on, darlin, lets get out and go have some dinner . . . Somehow she managed to keep me moving in the right direction and not tearing my clothes off and begging for it right then and there long enough to traverse the long pier all the way out to the end and enter the restaurant. A waitress, a pretty little brunette, probably a college student working nights to help finance her education, came up to us as we entered. How many in your party, maam? she asked Lu, who, at this point, was clearly the group-leader. Myself, I must have looked as if Id just been poll-axed. The waitress, who was dressed in a sea-green bolero top and miniskirt and a little sailors cap, was also wearing a perfume that was probably labeled Astartes Pleasure, and only the fact that Lu had firmly planted herself between me and the waitress kept me from being busted for molesting her. Two, dear, Lu told her, smiling a deceptively gentle smile. All right, come this way, please . . . The girl started up a low flight of stairs that led to deck half a floor above the main one. The latter was reserved for those whose main appetite was for alcohol with a few hors doeuvres, while the higher deck was for patrons more interested in meal service. The girl found us a table right by one of the huge bay windows which overlooked the Sound. Bidding us take our seats there, she handed each of us a menu, then left, promising to be back as soon as wed decided what we wanted to eat. What do you want to eat, Esh? Lu asked me. I Im not sure.

Well, hey, look, they still have albacore steaks. You get either baked or French-fried potatoes with an order, as well as either soup or salad. Id recommend a salad, the soup is generally something like chowder, which isnt kosher. Lu? I asked timidly. What? Is it true that oysters have an aphrodisiac effect? Well have you ever eaten them? No, of course not. Then maybe youd better forgo that one. It would be likely to have the opposite effect on you, if you arent used to them. Id go for the salad. Okay. What sort of salads do they have? Theyve got fruit salad, tossed greens, just about anything. Okay, Ill have an albacore steak and a baked potato and a fruit salad. That sounds good. They also serve garlic bread with meals, but maybe wed better pass that up, she said, laying her menu down. Rolls with butter can be substituted for that. Okay, Ill go for that. What are their desserts like? You mean to say, youve never been here? Shame on you! Youve been here how many years now, youve never tried this place? Laughing, now, I said, Lu, there are one hell of a lot of restaurants in Seattle, you know! I thought I was doing good to eat up in the Space Needle II a couple of times! Hmm . . . well just have to do something about that when we get moved up here. Now, if you want something alcoholic to go with dinner, theyve got a very good bar. Would you? Uh, maybe a screwdriver? Chuckling, she said, Okay, a screwdriver it is oh, good, there you are! she said as our waitress suddenly reappeared, pencil in hand, poised to take our orders. Are you ladies ready? the girl asked us, smiling delightfully. It really was a good thing I was seated next to the window, with Lu between me and the girl now. Sure, Lu told her. Two orders of albacore steaks, with your special sauce; two baked potatoes; a fruit salad for her, a tossed green salad for me no garlic, please. And no garlic bread, either, wed like the rolls with butter. And she wants a screwdriver, too. Would you like a drink, maam? the girl asked her. Come to think of it well, Im driving, Ill just have some wine. Do you have a good Madeira? Sure! the girl told her cheerily. Great! Thatll do fine. Okay, Ill get your drinks, first. Dinnerll take a little bit, the girl told us, turning away to go place our orders and get our drinks. It wasnt long until she came back with our drinks. Setting them on the table, she headed off again toward the kitchen. I started to pick mine up. Lu laid a restraining hand on my arm. I know you havent had much to eat recently, so I suggest you sip that drink very slowly and carefully until the food arrives. And keep on sipping it, just as slowly and carefully, during dinner. I dont want you passing out on me. Youve . . . done this before? With Erik. The first time we did this, he made the mistake of mixing me a Bloody Mary. I damned near conked out on him. The only thing that saved the evening was that it was after dinner, and I already had some food in there to cushion me from the effects. He gave me some niacin and vitamin C and it wore off fairly quickly after that. But we dont have either of those here, and youre running on empty. Hey, look, why dont you eat some of these rolls she left here? Okay . . . Under her watchful eye, I ate two rolls liberally spread with the real butter they provided to go with them. Only then did she let me take a sip just a sip of my drink. I put the glass down self-consciously, not sure I could restrict myself to a sip of it now and then. Lu, why the big dinner? Why dont we just go home and Hush, she said warningly. Were in public. I know. Oh, Lord, Lu, I feel so . .. weird. You dont feel well? Oh, I feel fine, as far as that goes. But . . . its all I can do not to . . . masturbate or something. Or something, she said in a near-whisper. I saw you looking at that little waitress of ours, she said, grinning at me wolfishly. Its okay, Id love to have her myself, and if we could talk her into going back to your place with us, wed have a lot of fun taking turns. But I dont think shed do it.

But thats okay, well be home soon enough, and then you can do all those things with me, okay? Yes . . . Under the table she slipped her left hand under my skirt and ran her fingertips up my thigh, then grinned again as I gasped. Pulling her hand away, she took a sip of her wine, then said, The food will make you feel less . . . buoyant. Itll be easier to keep it together until we get home, and once we do, youll have a lot more energy for things, you know? Then we waited for our food to arrive. The minutes passed, neither of us saying anything. Without conversation or much of anything else to distract me, my libido, which had reached nearly unbearable levels outside in the parking-lot, was now about to undergo erotic meltdown. I stared out the window, hoping nothing of what I was thinking showed in my face. As I sat there in an erotic stupor, I realized Id never seen Lu like this. Always she had seemed to such a lady, except when she was using combat arts on someone, at which point she could turn into a ruthless killing machine. Kind, generous-spirited, lovely as Venus rising newborn from the sea, she had always seemed a little shy even of discussing sex with others. But here, tonight, she was like a a shewolf. Why the change? What had made her so different? But then it occurred to me that, after all, she had just tendered to me an invitation to become part of an intimate threesome with herself and Erik. Maybe this was how she behaved when she was alone with Erik. But wasnt she always sweet, yielding, the essence of the loving wife around him? -- Or was it me? Something about being with me then I realized what it was: she was acting as if she were a sophisticated man of the world in the company of an innocent, almost-virginal young girl with whom he was infatuated. She was still utterly female, but there was something hard-edged and masculine about the way she treated me now, something proprietary, close to possessive hadnt there been an edge of warning in her words when she told me to forget about the waitress? I thought of a satyr, no, a female satyr, looking over the nymphs, rape on her mind. A lesbian satyr. -- Only she wasnt a lesbian. I knew she was at least as much in love with Erik now as she had been, years ago, when she first married him. It dawned on me, then: while she still wanted him with a womans love for a man, she wanted me with a different sort of lust. I was going to be her wife, thats what she wanted. Not just Eriks, her wife. Her . . . concubine. I shivered. Did I want this? Heat pulsed between my legs. Yes, I did. Oh, boy, did I ever! Now, if I could just make it back to my apartment with her without going berserk and trying to rape her in the parking-lot Hey, heres our dinner! Oh, that looks good smells good! Uh? Oh, hey, youre right! Wish Id found out about this place years ago! I said as the smiling waitress began laying out our dinner for us. Oh, damn Esh, will you excuse me a minute? Ive got to use the ladies room I didnt when we were at the store. Sure! After all, I laughed, whats the alternative? There is that . . . Quickly Lu scooted out of her seat and headed for the restrooms, which were just off the foyer at the entrance to the restaurant. Gee, I hope you like it, our waitress said, this is as fresh as you can get! (Well, unless you get stuff out of the Sound, but you wouldnt want to do that the bottom is still full of radioactive muck, not to mention all that stuff from last century they didnt manage to clean up before the Big One hit here.) It looks really good, I said, looking her over. The tag over her right breast said, Irene. Irene, this fruit salad what alls in it? Oh, citrus, apple slices, all kinds of stuff! Its pretty fresh, too we get our fruits and vegetables from the Pike Place Market the same day we use them, and most of it is either from in-state or comes up in the morning on ice on the train from California. I had to fight myself not to keep staring at her breast, or, indeed, any of the rest of her. Doing my best to hide the sudden surge of lust which her proximity, unshielded by Lu, had sent radiating through me, I said, The Pike Place Market is a great place to get groceries, isnt it? Oh, you bet! When they reopened it after the big restoration project here about 15 years ago I was just a toddler then, but my momma told me all about it everyone wanted to go there to get fresh veggies and all! They still do its got a better variety of everything than you can get anywhere else, even at Larrys Markets. I know. I do a lot of my grocery shopping there. Oh, you arent a visitor, then!

Nope, I live here I own Trismegistus Treasures. The one up in Ravenna! Yes, and also one downtown at Boyleston and East Pike. I go there all the time to get candles and incense and stuff! I love it! Its so . . . so Magickal . . . Uh-oh. Were her lips just a little bit plumper, her eyes a bit more sparkling, her nipples starting to poke against the fabric of her shift? Oh, God, where was Lu? Wish youd open one over in the U District I go to school at UW, and its kind of a pain having to bus around the city to get everything. And Ill bet lots of people in that area would love to have a store like that there on the Ave! I bet they would, too, but the rents are just a little too high right now. Maybe next year. Oh, and this is the sauce for the fish, isnt it? Yes, our special sauce, like your friend asked for. Its really good! I oh, hello, maam, she said, as Lu, returning from the restroom, approached the table. Its all ready! Great! Lu told her, taking her seat next to me. Im hungry enough to eat a whale, at this point! The EPA wouldnt let you! Theyre protected! the wide-eyed girl told her in horror. Oh, Im just kidding! Lu told her. Anyway, it all looks great. Okay, Ill be back in a little while, so if you need anything more, just ask me then. Sure. Esh, dont you want to eat that lovely fish? she asked me. Hunh? Oh, sure, I told her, finally able to wrench my eyes away from the waitress as the girl sashayed off, hips swaying. Concentrating hard on what I was doing, trying not to think of what was going on between my legs, I cut into my fish and took my first bite of it. Mmmm! This is heavenly! It sure is, Lu said, taking a bite of her own fish. They havent changed in all this time! Ill have to tell friends of ours who are planning to visit here about this place. I hadnt thought about it much since I first moved to San Francisco, but this restaurant is really one of the real treasures of Seattle. As good as anything at Fishermans Wharf, maybe better. Now isnt that better than our little waitress? she hissed in a much lower tone, staring at me with a smile sharp enough to cut steel. Hey, I didnt Yes, and dont even think of doing it, either, she told me in that same dark tone. Oh, never mind, sweetheart, she said, placing her left hand on my thigh, her whole manner suddenly changing like sunlight breaking through storm-clouds. I know you wouldnt. Im just in a . . . mood. I looked at her sidelong. This was becoming a little scary. Sensing my thoughts, she added, Try that fruit salad, too. It looks delicious! Esh, Im sorry if I jumped at you like that. Forgive me? Yes, of course, I told her, forking up a piece of grapefruit from the salad, taking a bite of it. Mmm! They did something very nice to this fruit some sort of sweet sauce. Thats another one of their specialties. They also have great desserts, too we can have some if youre still hungry after your fish. Truth to tell, I think this will be more than enough. Its great, but Im getting butterflies in the stomach, you know what I mean? Yes, she told me, smiling at me as at a shared secret. Okay, when were done with this, we can take off. Now, Id best give this fish the attention it deserves, she said, turning to her fish and digging in with a will. It wasnt long until we had finished. Calling our waitress over to us as she walked by our table, Lu asked her for the check. Coming over to our table, she quickly totaled up our dinner, which came to about Cr 16, put the check on the table for us, then went off again. Taking a Cr 20 and a Cr 10 note out of her satchel, Lu laid it on top of the check, then rose to her feet. Come on, honey, wed best head for your place. Okay. Feeling increasingly strange, I picked up my purse from the seat beside me, stood up, and followed her as she headed for the exit. Soon we were back in her car again. Well, here we go, she said, turning the key in the cars ignition. Putting the car in gear, she steered it out to Western, turned left, went down Western to Spring, and headed out Spring to Broadway, which would take us north to East Thomas Street and my apartment building at Thomas and Fifteenth Avenue. In the shape I was in now, it almost seemed as if, rather than riding in a car on bumpy Seattle streets, we were being wafted through the air on a Magick carpet or the back of Pegasus. I may have fallen into a trance by the time Lu pulled up to the rear of my building and began to turn into the ramp down into the parking garage below it. Uh . . . where are we, Lu?

Your building darling, dont you know your own neighborhood? Oh, so it is . . . this is the parking garage, isnt it? I asked her as she backed carefully into my parking stall, brought the car to a halt, set the parking brake, put the car in gear and turned off the motor. Yep. Were home. Your place. Oh, good . . . Lu, I feel so odd . . . Turning to look at me, she said, Well, youre home now, so no problem . . . Looking at her, I saw her eyes seem to widen. An odd, almost feral smile crept along her mouth. Before I could say anything or pull away, she suddenly reached out her arms, drew me into them, and kissed me, hard. As her tongue darted into my mouth, her right hand reached up and pinched one of my nipples, while with her other hand she reached down, under my skirt, slipping her fingers behind the vibrator I wore over my sex, snaking her middle finger into my vagina, hard. Only her mouth on mine kept me from crying out in startlement and another, nearly overwhelming surge of lust. For a moment, she continued to rape my mouth and breast and sex, using her fingers on me with a sophisticated wisdom worthy of a Don Juan that I would never have believed possible of her. Finally, drawing back, still smiling that knowing smile, she told me, Come on, Esh, wed better get inside otherwise well start fucking right here and now, and someone is sure to come down here and see us. Laughing a little, she opened her door and, slipping the handle of her carrying bag over her shoulder, stepped out, locked her door and shut it, then came around to help me out. I needed it. I was so dizzy with unfulfilled lust that it was hard for me to get out of the car and stand on my own two feet. Making sure I had my purse, putting a steadying arm around my waist, she walked me to the elevator at the back of the garage. Going up the elevator to the second floor, my floor, we didnt encounter anyone along the way a good thing, because Im sure my neighbors would have wondered just what the hell was wrong with me. I wobbled a little as I walked, as if I were drunk. I had only had a few sips of that screwdriver, so it wasnt that my unsteadiness was purely hormonal in origin. No one came out into the hallway as we went from the elevator to my door and I worked at unlocking it, either, for which I was grateful. My fingers fumbled all over the door, trying to get the key into the lock, until Lu finally, gently, took the key from me and opened the door herself. You know, darling, Lu told me as she grabbed some of my huge floor cushions from a corner of the living-room, where I kept them when I wasnt using them, and threw them down on the floor in front of the VCR, lets plan to stay in tomorrow and leave for the Cascades Friday morning. Thatll give us plenty of time for fun as well as making sure weve got everything we need for our trip. And youll be feeling on top of the world by then, too. If we leave tomorrow, I can guarantee you arent going to be at your best. I yes, I could use that extra day. Well, you sit down here, she said, urging me to sit on one of the big cushions with her hands, and Ill go put something on the CD. Where are your CDs? Over there, in that rack, I told her, pointing. Oh. If it had been a snake . . . Okay, lets see what you have, she said, kneeling down by the CD rack to look over its contents, her legs splayed out a little, her skirt riding up almost to her crotch. I found myself staring. She looked back at me for a moment and smiled, half-closing her eyes so that her long, long eyelashes briefly swept across her cheeks. It was the most seductive smile Id ever seen. Then, turning back to the rack, still not closing her legs, she began looking over the CDs. Ah-hah! she exclaimed in delight. Carmina Burana! And Carmina Catulli! Oh, and youve got Rimsky-Korsikovs Scheherazade, too! Turning back to face me, holding her booty, she asked, How many CDs will your player hold at a time? Up to fifteen. You can program it for any number up to that, and itll loop, too, if you dont want it to turn off after it plays the last one. Oh, good. Scooting over to the CD player next to the rack, an action which made her skirt ride up catastrophically and her legs splay even more, she looked over the controls, then said, No problem. Eriks and mine is like this, more or less. Okay, lets set it for Loop-Three, she said, opening up the CD compartment and beginning to slip the CDs into the racks for them inside. The CDs in place, she closed up the compartment and began pushing buttons. The opening bars of Scheherazade filled the room. Turning the volume up until the air seemed saturated with music, but not so high that we couldnt talk over it, or that it would make the neighbors complain, she laid down the CD cabs on top of the player, then sat up and began slipping out of her dress.

I was still staring at her. I couldnt stop. Grinning at me as she tossed her dress aside, she got to her knees and came back over to me. Sitting next to me on the floor where I lay sprawled on the rug, my head and back resting on one of the big pillows, she put a hand on my breast and said, Its warm in here, dont you think? Dumbly, I nodded. She began unbuttoning my dress in that same maddeningly slow, teasing way she had employed in the bathroom of the store earlier today. Ive got some other videos with me we can watch, too, if you like, she told me as she worked her way down the row of buttons. The last button undone, she began easing the dress off my shoulders, drawing it down past my hips and legs so that she could slip it off my feet and toss it over to where her own dress lay crumpled on the floor. Other . . . videos . . .? Yes. Remember the Hentai we watched last night? Oh, yes. Ive also got some live-action stuff. Some was professionally made, but Ive also got a tape that was made live at a club in Honolulu where a friend of ours lives. Think youd like that? Uh, yes . . . Did I have a choice? Did I care whether I had a choice? No. Okay, be right back . . . Getting to her feet, she went into the bedroom for a few minutes, then emerged again holding several videocassettes. Id love to get these remastered as DVDs DisneyHughes corporation has finally managed to resurrect the technology, and theyre going to be selling readwrite units for home computers soon. But they arent available now, so well have to make do with these . . . Going over to the VCR monitor, she slipped one into the cassette port. As the screen came to life, the title flashed out at us: The Rites of Eleusis. A pretentious title, she told me, but its very good. This is one that was professionally made. Arent you going to turn up the volume? It occurs to me, love, that what weve got playing on the CD is better than the soundtrack to this thing. Pornography rarely has either a great soundtrack or a good story its all in the action. Now, this is more erotica than pure pornography, Id say, but the same principle applies. She set the other cassettes down on the bottom shelf of the low table on which the monitor sat, then came back over to me, her long, slender legs flashing back and forth . . . Was I stoned? What was in that witchs brew shed used on that anal vibrator shed had me put in? Lying down next to me, her head on the pillow, she slipped an arm under me and pulled me close. Can you see the screen? she asked me. Sure. These pillows are pretty thick and the monitor isnt that high off the floor. Cool. Okay, here we go . . . As far as I could tell, the story-line of the video, such as it was, had to do with the kidnapping of mortals by the Olympian Gods, who then engaged with said mortals in all sorts of fascinating exercises. Five minutes into the film and we were watching things which were illegal anywhere in the United States and, probably, Tijuana, Mexico but they were done with such artistry and elegance that I had to agree with Lu, pornography wasnt the right label for this stuff. Erotic art was much closer to the mark or even religious art, given many of the rites that so many ancient cultures had practiced as a way of petitioning the Gods for everything from continued fertility of the soil to victory in war. At one point, when a woman who was, apparently, a priestess came out from behind heavy drapes and began speaking to the men and women waiting in there in the temple foyer to be admitted into the sanctuary, I could easily imagine that she was saying to them, Come, I call thee in the name of the Goddess! There was something almost stately or even majestic about the film, rather than the frantic, rather mindless sexual activity typical of many pornographic films. Just as a naked priestess was inviting a sloe-eyed, raven-haired beauty of a woman to lie down on a couch so that the priestess could begin to perform cunnilingus on her, I felt Lus hand on my belly. Want to take that off? she breathed into my ear. I turned toward her. Take off --? That, she said, smiling a slow, infinitely seductive smile, patting the vibrator at my crotch. You wont need it . . . Uh . . . Overwhelmed with erotic tension, I could barely move. Lu gently began drawing the vibrator down from my thighs and over my feet. Setting it aside on the rug on the other side of her, she turned back to me. Taking one of my hands, she guided it to her own crotch. She had already taken hers off.

Rolling over on her side to face me, supporting herself on her left elbow, she slipped her right hand between my legs, running her finger along my cleft until she was touching my clit. I reached out with my left hand to do the same to her, while she brought her left hand up just high enough to tease my right nipple. As the music went from Scheherazade to Carmina Burana and Carmina Catulli and back again, we watched the tapes she had brought out and gently, slowly, teased each other into a towering, incandescent lust. On the screen, the action went back and forth from man-with-woman to man-with-women to woman-with-woman to man-with-man to trios and quartets and vast orgies of people of one or both sexes engaging in the timeless rites of spring and the invocation of the Gods through one anothers bodies, all somehow in time to the music that poured forth from the CD. I felt as if I were in a mescaline or psilocybin dream, caught up in one eternal timeless moment of erotic heat, aware only of Lu, the music, and the twisting, writhing, turning images of ecstasy on the screen. Now Lu and I were both panting, little whimpers and moans busting forth from us from time to time as we stroked, pinched, and caressed each other into ever-greater levels of heat. From the CD the opening chorus of Carmina Burana flowed out again: O Fortuna, velut Luna statu variabilis, semper crescis aut decrescis; vita detestabilis nunc obdurat et tunc curat ludo mentis aciem, egestatem, potestatem dissolvit ut glaciem . . . Well, she said in a throaty, seductive tone that nearly drove me into a frenzy, want to? Maddeningly, she withdrew her hand from between my legs. I wanted to pull it back, have her continue the delicious things shed been doing to my clit and vagina with her fingers. But I was intimidated by the knowledge that with her skill in combat arts, I could do nothing to her she didnt want me to. Panting with lust and frustration, I looked at her, my heart and other parts of my body in my eyes. Want to . . . what? Ill bet that beds a lot softer than this floor . . . she told me, smiling. Suddenly getting to her feet, she strode quickly to the monitor, turned it off, then came back to me. Extending one slim hand to me, she said, Come on, lets go on in the bedroom. Weakly, propping myself up on an elbow with one hand, I reached up to take her hand with the other. She drew me to my feet. Together we went into the bedroom, me leaning on her more than moving under my own power. Do you want to . . . take a shower? I asked her. Hell no you smell good enough to me. You have any stockings? You mean, like, panty hose? No, I mean like the sort of stockings that are held up with garters. Never mind, Ive got some in my overnight case . . . Going over to that incredible case which held so many wonderful things, she stooped down, looked through it for a few seconds, then, making a sound of satisfaction, rose up again. In her hand were two slim packages. Here, she told me, giving me one of the packages, put these on. The garters are in the package with them. Theyre from Victorias Secret in downtown San Francisco. Inside the package was a pair of dark brown patterned silk stockings and black garters to go with them. As directed by her, I sat obediently on the foot of my bed and let her put the stockings on me. Then, sitting beside me, she put on a pair of her own, a lighter brown but with a similar pattern, rosegarlands interspersed with hearts. Okay, now let me get a few more things . . . Getting up from the bed, she went back to her case, brought out a small cerise-and-white box; a handful of long, narrow silk scarves in red, maroon, cerise,

black, and gray; a package full of incense cones, labeled Kalis Delight; an incense-burner about four inches across and five inches high in the shape of one of those Yoni-Lingam sculptures that grace numerous parks and shrines in India, supposed, as they are, to bring the blessing of the Gods; and a Bicstyle lighter. While she was looking through her case, I started to take off my sandals, which I was still somehow wearing. Dont you dare take those off! she warned me. She, too, still wore her own sandals, which, like mine, comprised three-inch spike heels, a sole that barely covered the bottom of my foot, and little else. hers were black, mine white, but otherwise could have been out of the same box. Standing up once more, she came back with her booty. Here, lets put this on us . . . Laying everything else on the bed beside me, she opened up the box and took out a small bottle of perfume. Labeled Garden of Earthly Delights, it looked to be one of those perfumes that was sold by the halfounce and was somewhat more expensive than gold. Gently pushing my legs apart, she sprayed it at my sex, then raised her hand to spray a bit on the hollow of my throat, then used it on herself in similar wise. Putting it back in the box and setting the box back in the case, she turned to the package of incense. Opening it up and taking out a few cones, she set the cones on the shallow concave disk on the incense burner just below its conjoined yoni and lingam and, firing up the lighter, held its flame to them. Then, as the incense began to burn, she set the burner down on the chest of drawers against the wall by the door. The bottom of the burner was cork, so the heat wouldnt scar the wood but at that point I couldnt have cared less what it did to the furniture. Soon the most heavenly perfume filled the air. Part of it had to have been musk, but the rest of it was completely unknown to me, even though Id been buying incense for the store for years. Whatever it was, it nearly quintupled the tides of lust that Lu had evoked from me earlier. If I hadnt been nearly swooning with erotic need, Id have risen up and raped Lu then and there, combat arts or no combat arts. Certainly there must have been some heady pheromones in the mix. Whatever was in it, it hit me like a nuclear blast. Okay, Lu told me, coming back to me after putting away the lighter and the rest of the incense. Picking up a scarlet sash from the pile of scarves shed set down next to me, she told me, Now, darling, lie back on the bed. No, scoot back up so that your head is on the pillow. . . . Thats right . . . What are you doing? I asked her. My voice sounded thready, as if I were burning up with fever which, in a way, I was. Erik likes to do this with me its an old, old bordello trick. He has one of those classic books, The Joy of Sex, which describes it. Youll love it . . . As she spoke, before I could react she pulled up my legs until they were nearly perpendicular to my body, then had me cross my left calf over my right. Swiftly she bound my lower legs together with the sash and tied it tightly. Then, picking up the black sash, she moved up by my head and, taking hold of my arms, soon had my wrists bound together above my head.

 14 She stepped back for a moment to survey her handiwork, looking thoughtful. Then she picked up a couple more of the sashes and, balling one of them up, she popped into my half-open mouth and then quickly pulled the other around the back of my head to tie it tight over mouth before I could react. Now the only sounds that I could make, at most, were squeaks and low moans. Wide-eyed, I stared at her in horror. Smiling that slow, wicked, bitch-wolf smile again, she told me, Dont worry, darling we just dont want to get the neighbors upset at all the noise. Im not going to hurt you. On the contrary . . . Coming around to the side of the bed, she sat down on it beside me. As I said, this is an old bordello trick. Erik even has a training video of it, you might say, a copy of a documentary made in Paris back around 1995, that shows exactly how to perform it for both men and women on both men and women. This is how it starts . . . she said in a near-purr as she put her right hand out and slowly, delicately, brought the tip of her index finger down on my vulva, then began to stroke it back and forth along my vulva until I was thoroughly lubricated. First, I get you as wet as possible. (For Erik, I use my saliva. Ill do that for you in a while, but first, we do this.) Then I start stroking your clit . . . She began to run the tip of her finger back and forth, up and down, over my clitoris. Very quickly it became apparent that it was more responsive on the left and front than the right, so she began to concentrate on those areas, slowly running her fingertip up and down from the base of my clit to its tip, along the left side and the ridge of erect tissue that formed in front as she continued to stroke. According to the book and what the narrator in the film said, she told me, the whole cycle from base to tip of the clit or cock should take about one second, no less, and not much more. If its less, the excitement builds up too fast and you come too soon. If its more, the excitement doesnt build up fast enough and you never quite get off . . . As she continued to stroke my clit at that increasingly maddeningly slow pace, she told me, You know, love, Erik built a thing in our downstairs rec room, two wooden poles about a foot apart with platforms about a foot and a half off the floor for me to stand on, and soft manacles suspended from the ceiling for my wrists, just long enough so that, with my arms full length above my head, I can just put my weight on the two platforms, one foot on each. Then he eats me out . . . How would you like Erik to do that to you, while I blow him and then I could do that to you, while he eats me? Would you like that, love? And then, she purred, never varying the tempo and rhythm of her strokes by so much as a second or an ounce of pressure, some night Ill tie you up like you are now, and sit on your face and have you eat me while Erik eats you and fucks you . . . and then you and I will trade places . . . and then Erik will lie on the floor and eat me while you blow him . . . Would you like that? Another thing well do is, Ill lie on my back on the bed while you eat me and Erik fucks you in the ass. And then you and I will trade places . . . And Erik can lay on his back on the bed while I blow him and you eat me out . . . Do you like this, love? Is that what those sounds youre trying to make are all about? Ill bet youll like this even more . . . With which she suddenly withdrew her hand and stood up. Moving to the foot of the bed and kneeling on the floor there, she lifted up my bound legs so that she could get her head between them, bent her head down, and placed the tip of her tongue on my clit. Using her tongue as she had been using her fingertip, she continued to stroke my clit in the same maddeningly slow rhythm she had before. But because she was using her tongue instead of her fingertip, the bliss she was drawing forth from me was increased tenfold; her tongue was much softer and more flexible than her finger, and could somehow play arpeggios and trills on my clit in a way that her finger could not. The pleasure of her touch grew and grew and grew, and the fire in my sex built to incandescence, then to thermonuclear heat, and still she continued to stroke me and stroke me with her tongue, never faltering in her rhythm, never putting too much or too little pressure on my clit. When I had gone far beyond the explosion-point and still had not climaxed, my hips and legs bucking and straining so that she had to hold me down hard with both hands to keep me from bucking her off, suddenly sucking hard on the tip of my clit, she inserted two fingers of her right hand into my vagina and began to fuck me hard with them. As she sucked harder and harder on my clit, my level of arousal, which had already attained and passed impossible, inconceivable limits, seemed to come to a point, a laser-strong focus. I hung suspended on the point of the Archangel Mikhails sharp sword like that for what seemed to be an eternity, craving release more than anything Id ever wanted before in all my life, afraid Id die of need if I didnt come soon. Then she gave the tip of my clit one hard, sharp nip with her teeth, and I exploded.

The force of my climax was so great that I literally saw stars. Behind my gag I was screaming my throat raw; if not for the gag everyone else in the building would have been beating the door down, trying to find out what was wrong. In the erotic convulsion that attended my climax I would have dislocated my pelvis if Lu hadnt quickly untied the sash binding my legs together about then. I must have passed out, then, for the next thing I remember was Lu sitting beside me, carefully patting my face and breast with a cool, wet washrag, smiling at me as she asked me, Ever experienced anything like that before, darling? Apparently shed removed my gag and the sash tying my hands together, too. No, never, I told her, a little hoarsely. My God, what did you do? No, never mind, I know what you did. Jesus, those vibrators, the hormone cream, the videos I thought Id go off like an A-bomb before we even got home, though. How in the world did you keep me from coming off in the meantime? Just a little judicious application of chi energy and maybe a little Kundalini, too, my dear, she said, letting the washcloth fall aside and reaching out to tweak my right nipple fondly. Oh, Lord . . . that anal vibrators still running, too, I told her. Getting horny again? Considering the question, I told her in surprise, Yeah, I am. I cant believe it after what just happened, youd think I wouldnt need sex again for a million years! But Im already starting to get hot again . . . How would you like to do me the way I just did you, love? I looked up at her. Seriously? Look, Im so horny now I could rape the Washington Monument if it hadnt been bombed to slag back in 2012. Youd better do me, or Ill tie you up again and do things to you that make the last session seem like two virgins holding hands and never let you come, you bitch! she told me, laughing. Suddenly realizing that the dancing imps of light in her eyes were those of challenge, I told her in a slow, seductive drawl, I certainly have no objections, darlin. Here, help me sit up . . . Putting a supportive hand beneath my back, she helped me get to a sitting position. Thanks, I told her. Do you still have that vibrator in your ass? Well, of course, she told me, grinning that feral grin. Okay, lie down on the bed, here, I told her, patting the bed beside me. A moment later she was lying down and I was sitting next to her on the bed, holding the sashes shed taken off me. Okay, lets see if I can get this right . . . She cooperated whole-heartedly as I bound her legs and hands. You and Erik must have done this before, I told her as I worked to make sure her bonds were tight. Well, of course! Tell me the truth did Erik really know that you were going to do this with me when you came up here? I said, stroking the tip of her left nipple. Drawing her breath in with a gasp, she said, Oooo, thats wicked! Wherever did you learn to do that, just that way? when, with delicate cruelty, I pinched the tip of her nipple with my fingernails. You think thats something? How do you like this? I asked her as I inserted two fingers into her vagina and began to work them back and forth, as she had done to me just before I climaxed earlier. And this? Now, withdrawing my fingers from her vagina, I began to run the tip of my forefinger up and down her clit in the same agonizingly slow rhythm shed used on me. As I did so, bending down to put my face next to hers, I began to worry at her earlobe with my teeth. Tell me, you wicked little whore, I told her, did he know about this before you left? and pinched her clit hard with my fingernails for emphasis, then went back to stroking her. Oh! she cried. Yes! Yes! she panted. Did he show you what to do? What did you do with him the night before you came up here? I growled softly, pinching her clit again, then resuming stroking it once more. I God oh, shit, Esh Tell me, bitch, or Ill pinch your clit and your nipples until theyre black and blue! I hissed, blowing into her ear, then bent down even more to take her nipple between my teeth and worry it. He yes, he did that to me . . . Tell me. In detail. Again I pinched her clit, but more gently, before I resumed stroking it again. Now she was writhing on the bed, gasping and moaning. In bits and pieces, as I continued to worry at her with teeth and fingernails and stroke her into a frenzy of arousal, she described a session with Erik two nights before very much like the one we were having now. It ended with her on top, performing Kalis Dance, Erik playing the part of Shiva, bringing him to a shattering climax that left him passed out for awhile.

Well, Kali, youve met your match, I told her, the feral, almost cruel edge to my words startling me. What was this coming out of me now? How would you like to see how Shiva feels when you dance with him? The look in her eyes was one of pure terror. She started to struggle with her bonds, but Id used some special knots on them Id learned two years ago from a Magickian who was an expert at KnotTying, an ancient form of Magick used in many parts of Europe as well as in Africa and North America by countless peoples over the millennia. Those knots wouldnt come undone short of the solution Alexander used on the Gordian Knot unless, with two simple twists per knot, I undid them myself. But there was no way that Lu could get out of them herself, given the way Id angle her legs and arms when I bound them. (Kris Price, the Knot-Tyer, had offered to give me a personal demonstration of how the knots could be used to enhance Tantric practice. Hmm . . . wish Id taken him up on it. But I thought I had a boyfriend at the time, a schmuck named Billy Taylor, and turned Kris down. Then Billy wussed on me, told me he had another girl, thats how it goes . . .) Before she could start screaming, I had one sash balled up tightly, in her mouth, the other around her head, over her mouth, so that she couldnt make any appreciable noise. Then, continuing to stroke her as I grinned down into her huge, horror-filled eyes, I told her in that same weird, throaty growl, Girl, Im Matresse Ezeli, and Ill make you come so hard it would make an H-bomb hang its head in shame! And I continued to stroke her, and stroke her, at that same maddening once-a-second rhythm with a touch as light as a spiders, telling her all the while all the lovely things I would have her do to me while Erik watched, and do to Erik while she, tied up and unable to move, watched us, and have Erik do to both of us while we went down on each other, and so on and on and on, stoking her fires higher and higher and higher, until her hips began to buck and heave. Then, getting up to kneel down at the foot of the bed, I substituted my tongue for the forefinger of my right hand while I used two fingers of my left hand on her vagina. For an interminable time I continued to stroke her clit with my tongue and then, as she had done to me before, suddenly I began sucking on her clit, harder and harder, as her hips bucked and ground harder and harder beneath me, so that I had to hold her down with my upper body and my arms. Taking a page from her book, at last I nipped her clit with my teeth, and she climaxed. I got her legs untied before, in her convulsions, she could hurt her hips and legs, then got her gag off, but still left her hands bound together above her head. Now she moaned aloud, her climax dispersing itself via a series of diminishing orgasms that seemed to go on and on. At last she fell silent, panting hard, her eyes closed, completely drained. When she finally opened her eyes again, she said, her voice even hoarser than mine had been after my spectacular climax earlier, How how did you do that? I never dreamed youd be able to tie me up like that I thought I could get out of just about any bindings anyone could put on me, except Eriks and Sokes. My eyebrows went up. I mean . . . in training. Soke, I mean. Oh. I wondered, I laughed. Well, lets just say theres more to Magick than meets the eye. After all, you were the one who taught me how to use my chi, right from the beginning, you know, I told her, stroking her breasts. Esh, what about . . . my hands? she asked me. Aw, why not leave them tied up for now? I told her. Otherwise Id have to take my hands away to untie them, and I couldnt do this, I told her, reaching down to tease her clit with my other hand. Oh! Youre horny again? I teased. I . . . think I put a little bit too much of that cream on my anal vibrator, she told me. Where did you get that stuff, anyway? From some witch? Youre not all that far off the mark. You ever hear of Donna Lee LaVey? Who the woman whos supposed to be the great-great-granddaughter of Anton Szandor LaVey, the guy who founded the First Church of Satan? Thats her. Shes got an occult head shop not too far from where Erik and I live. Sells incense and candles and Tarot packs and that sort of thing. Shes also a student at our dojo. Shes become a good friend. I can talk to her about things that I cant talk to anyone else about, even Erik. So, when Erik got to talking about having you move in with us and I realized I wanted it, too, I went to Donna and told her I wasnt sure how to go about that, because Id never had sex with a woman before and didnt really know what all was involved. She told me, Its all in the instincts, honey if you can get those going, you wont have any problems. She

made up that cream for me. Im not sure what all is in it hormones and things, but Im not sure what hormones and I dont know what other things. Is she pretty? I said, continuing to tease her clit. She oh! she gasped softly. Uh, yes, she is. Very. Did you want to do anything with her? I said, bending down to take her nipple between my lips. I uh! She . . . when I told her I still wasnt sure of the mechanics, she had me take off my clothes and lie down on the couch and she . . . showed me. And what did you do for her? I said, slipping my fingers into her vagina. I . . . oh! God, that feels good . . . I . . . sort of did the same things for her after she did them for me . . . I guess she put something in the drinks she served me, because I wanted her so bad I was ready to rape her, and Id never wanted a woman before . . . Does Erik know about that? Oh, dear God, no! Dont you tell him, either! Why not? Think he might get a lech for her? Do . . . do you hate me for letting her have me first? she asked me timidly. If I did, would I do this to you? And this? I . . . oooooh, you bitch . . . she moaned, frustration and desire making her voice tumid. All I ask is that I get to visit you and Erik in San Francisco before you move up here . . . and you take me over to meet her, so the three of us can do this to each other . . . Her moans became frantic, urgent. Suddenly I rose up and, kneeling with my legs astride her head and lowering my sex to her mouth, I put my mouth to her sex and began eating her out. A few minutes later, we climaxed simultaneously. With effort I rose up again, then turned around so that I was sitting beside her once more, looking down on her. Untying the bindings on her arms, I told her, I think youre right about staying here tomorrow and taking off for the Cascades Friday. Like me, she was covered with a heavy sheen of sweat. The scent of sex and something more, something darker, more powerful, filled the air. Panting for breath, struggling to sit up, she said, Thats good, because I dont think I could even get down to the parking-garage now, let alone drive anywhere. You want to take a hot shower? I could use one myself, too. Yeah, I guess Id better . . . Could you help me sit up? I helped her sit up and then to her feet. Limping a little, with her leaning on me, I helped her into the bathroom, where I helped her take off her anal vibrator, then took mine off, laying them down on separate sides of the sink, mine on the right, hers on the left. Turning on the shower, I helped her into it and then began washing her down with a floral-scented bath gel and a faux loofah, followed by a shampoo and rinse. Then, somewhat restored, she returned the favor. After we dried off, we each carefully wiped down our vibrators with rubbing alcohol. She told me, In my case, there are two silk bags Donna gave them to me just before I left to come up here. Ones for your, uh, toys, the other is for mine. How do I tell them apart? One is green with cerise patterning, like a coleus plant, the hem edged with sky-blue, and the other is cerise rayed with sky-blue veins, hemmed with spring-green. She told me the coleus was for you, the other for me. Good. Okay, Ill go get them while you get out the liniment I keep down there and start rubbing it into your joints if you dont, Lu, you know youll be sore as a boil tomorrow. Going into the bedroom, looking through her case, I found the bags and brought them back to the bathroom. Taking hers, she put her little wand into it, then pulled the drawstrings tight and laid it down on the countertop, next to where I put mine. Here, I told her, picking up the bottle of liniment, which shed laid on the countertop as well. Lets go in the bedroom and give each other a good rubdown, okay? That sounds very, very attractive, she told me with an exhausted smile. Somehow she managed not to fall asleep during the massage I gave her. When I was done, she asked me, Want me to massage you now? Yes. Okay, lie down . . . Before long I was floating in a blissful haze of sensation as she worked at the muscles of my back, buttocks, thighs, and arms. If you want to go to sleep, go ahead, darling, I heard her say as I floated out on a long, aquamarine tide of fulfilled release. The last thing I heard her say as I sank down into blissful unconsciousness was, Youre mine, bitch! Youll never leave me! in a low, almost grieving

whisper. The thought that maybe Lu was afraid that I would run off with Erik, so that she was doing all this to make an unbreakable erotic bond between us, to prevent that, followed me down into the darkness, along with Oh, well, thatll work, too. The next thing I knew, it was late morning, and bright light was pouring down on me from the window above the bed.

 15 As if to make up for our being bad little girls last night, we spent the next several hours carefully looking over all the equipment, weapons, tools, and clothing we planned to take with us on our trip, making sure it was all in good order and packed properly, conversing cheerfully on utterly innocuous topics as we worked. Before getting started, we had a breakfast of scrambled eggs, toast, marmalade, and fresh honeydew melon; each of us wolfed our food down as if we were starving and considering the calories wed burned last night, no wonder. Then, around four in the afternoon, when we pretty much had everything ready to go, we broke off for a dinner of soup and sandwiches. Lu, I know weve got a lot of canned goods and so forth to take with us when we take off tomorrow, but is that enough? We should have some fruit and milk and whatnot, too. We can buy that when we get up there. There are lots of little stores all over the place when we get to Goldbar tomorrow, we can buy some then. Yeah, but Ive got a lot of fruit here in the fridge we should take that. Itll rot by the time we get back, otherwise. Youve got a point but with no way to keep it cool, itll probably rot up there before we can eat it all. Not if we keep it double-bagged in plastic garbage bags and put it in whatever stream were working at the time, it wont. Looking at me, surprised, she said, Youre right. Gee, I didnt know you had much woodscraft. Whered you learn that? My pagan friends and customers who come in the store. Theyve been inviting me along on their esbats and other get-togethers up there in the mountains for years. Sometimes we go up into the Olympics, sometimes the Cascades. We do a lot of fishing up there. There are rarely any places with refrigerators or stoves, so we have to make do with whatever nature provides. Wow! I guess you have learned a lot since you moved from the Bay Area! One things for sure: youve come one hell of a long way from the timid, frightened girl you were when I first met you at Janies, she said, smiling archly at me. Youve come a long way, too, darlin, I told her, smiling back. Or, at any rate, before day before last, Id never known you had such . . . versatility. I mean, Ive always known you could tie anybody who tried to jump you into knots and then make them beg to have the cops come rescue them from you, and no woman Ive ever known is more of a lady, or a kinder friend. But hoo-boy, I joked, youve got more sides to you than a Rubiks Cube! Well, I . . . I didnt, really . . . Not until Erik said what he said about becoming a threesome with you, and I went to see Donna, anyway. Oh, my . . . Well, I guess I just got lucky, then. Lu? What? I know a place up there on a turnoff not too far from Leavenworth, where theres a cabin that belongs to Curly Jamieson well, his names really Bennett, but everybody calls him Curly because of the Jewish Afro he likes to wear his hair in. Hes a friend of mine, a guy who buys a lot of stuff through the store. Hes off in Europe for the rest of the summer, wont be back until the end of September, if then. He gave me a key to the cabin, said if I ever needed a place to go in an emergency or anything, I could use his cabin. Even if he was staying there, he said, it would be okay for me to drop in, along with anyone who was with me. We can bunk there when were not out fishing or hunting. Hey, a real bed! she exclaimed, laughing. I must have rubbed the Magick lamp, hunh? Howd you know what I was thinking? Oh, just psychic, I guess, I said, touching the side of my head and grinning. Seriously, it would be a good place to stay. Its a nice, strong little cabin, fairly small windows, anybody attempted to break in would be dead meat by the time he got a window busted and started through it. We can take all our toys up there with us if we want and continue the fun, if you want. Is the Bear Polish? Of course I want! Okay, thats the next thing Ill check to make sure all the goodies are in my case and ready to go tomorrow. While you do that, I think Ill go clean out the fridge. Might as well either we take all that food with us up there or itll go bad here before we get back. That, and I want to make sure Ive got the waterpurifiers we got over at PRI Sports are packed for tomorrow. Okay. Is there any ice cream in the freezer? Yeah, there is, come to think of it. Vanilla. Want to pig out on sundaes tonight?

What was I saying about the Bear? she told me, grinning back. Hey, and dont pack up the melon. Leave it out. Why? Theres only one left, isnt there? Yep. What do you want to do with it? Eat it with the ice cream? No, I want to try a different sort of dessert . . . later. When we go to bed. ? Ever read A. N. Roquelaures Beauty trilogy? No. What is it? Darlin, youve missed a real classic! I read that thing back in high school! Id lie in bed and read that and play with myself for hours! she told me, laughing. Anyway, in the third volume, Beautys Release, theres an erotic feast well, love, ever been fucked by a piece of melon? I Lu, Ill tell you a secret: until night before last, my sex-life was a pedestrian as Mrs. Grundys or, I added thoughtfully, as pedestrian as she wanted everyone to think it was, anyway. You just never can tell, can you? Anyway, Ive been fucked a few times and I mean fucked, not lovemaking, it was never that good by gentlemen whod make a buck rabbit in rut look like Casanova by comparison. You know, whambam-thank-you-maam, nothing fancy, just in, out, and go use the head afterward. Ive masturbated a lot, if you want me to be honest and sometimes Ive gotten into whatever pornography was around. But odd as it may seem, considering that I study the Western Ceremonial tradition, which includes Crowley, Ive never done anything very . . . exotic. Or read much that was, either, to tell the truth. So this is all new to me. Good! she said, laughing. I love making it with a virgin! -- Anyway, well try something interesting with that melon tonight got any rubber sheets? For what? Melons messy, drips all over every damn thing. Dont want to get your mattress soaking wet. Hmm . . . Ive got some rubberized canvas in the closet, was going to make an awning out of it for my balcony. A lovely shade of blue, too. Okay, we spread that on the bed, and you lie down, and I cut up the melon and well, that would be telling. Just wait until this evening, youll see. Do we get to watch any more movies first? Sure. We only looked at one of the videos last night, and there are maybe ten altogether. I just thought of something. Does your friend have a VCR in his cabin? I come to think of it, he does. He hosts gatherings up there for Magickians like himself they do a lot of invocations and stuff. Since he follows Crowleys system, they even do Sex-Magick. He said he has a VCR there in the room where they do the invocations to run tapes that can act as ritual reinforcements, and a good tape library, too. That probably means theres also a lot of X-rated stuff up there we can watch, along with the tapes you brought with you. Oh, my I cant wait to get naked with you up there on a bearskin rug! Okay, Ill go check my case and you package up whatever extra food you want to take up there. Better leave it in the fridge until we leave tomorrow, though. Yep. So saying, we got busy with the last of our preparations for our trip tomorrow. By seven or so everything was ready to go, only needing to be packed in the car in the morning. Want to take a shower? I asked her. Sure. Then we can make some snacks and watch some videos. Sounds like a plan. Before long we were both in our robes, sprawled out on the living-room floor in front of the VCR, a huge bowl of buttered popcorn and two dishes filled with vanilla ice cream covered with Hersheys chocolate sauce between us, avidly watching the amateur video made in Hawaii by Eriks friends. It wasnt long before the we had finished the ice cream and most of the popcorn and, pushing the dishes to one side, were making a slow, leisurely exploration of each others bodies. That feel good? she asked me, the index finger of her left hand in my vagina and her middle finger in my anus, working them back and forth, in and out. Ohhh . . . yeah, come to think of it. Wow! What? I never knew a man could get an erection that big! I exclaimed, staring at the screen wide-eyed. On the screen, a gorgeous naked man, body gleaming as if oiled in torchlight from cressets along the wall of the room he was in, was manacled, hands above head, to a tall upright. At the direction of a glowering

man who looked to be a king of some sort, another man, dressed only in black trousers, a huge black codpiece, and a hood, who had been practicing all sorts of interesting sexual tortures on the prisoner, was now locking a cock-ring onto the cock of the prisoner, who groaned in fear or pain. Then the torturer, if such he was, began slipping a gigantic artificial phallos up into the prisoners anus. Yeah, well, if someone tied you up and teased you like that, you would, too. Or the female equivalent, anyway. You sure did last night, you know, she told me, grinning that feral grin. Hey, you were saying something about that melon --? You want to try that now? Sure, why not? Okay. Here, let me get up . . . Getting to her feet, she went to the VCR and, turning the volume to zero, hit STOP and then the REWIND button. The machine began rewinding the tape with a soft purring sound. Now, wheres that canvas you said you had? she asked me. Its in the closet. Come on in and give me a hand with it . . . Together we wrestled the roll of canvas out of the closet. About five feet wide, it was about twenty yards long, rolled up in a thick, heavy bolt. Now, lets lay it down by the bed so that its parallel to it, I told her. Okay. Oof, this things heavy! Shit, it dinged my thumb. Well, Ill make you feel good again, I told her, leering at her suggestively. Ah, non, ma chere I will do that favor for you, first! she told me in an atrocious French accent, leering back at me. Now, wheres that melon? On the table in the kitchen. Okay, we want to cover the bed with this stuff here, get on the other side of the bed and take this end of the roll when I hold it up for you, okay? Sure. Pulling the canvas over the bed so that it covered most of it, leaving only a little space at the bottom of the bed exposed, I asked her, Now what do I do? Well, get out of that robe and lie down on the bed and wait for me. What, no stockings? No garter belt? No chains and vibrators and other good stuff? Unh-unh. What Im going to do next is so decadent itll make all that stuff look like well, like nothing in comparison. Be right back . . . Going out to the kitchen, she bustled around there for a few minutes, finally coming back bearing a tray covered with slices of melon. Setting the tray on the other bed, she tossed her own robe onto the floor. Okay, now, lie back, raise your legs up and open wide, and Ill do things to you thatll make you feel like a queen . . . I did as she directed me, then waited a little nervously to see what she was planning to do. Lu had a wonderful sense of mischief, too what was she up to? Oh! I yipped. Thats cold! Thats all right, itll warm up fast. And it wont stay there long . . . Then she was between my legs, sucking away at the piece of melon protruding from my sex until it was reduced to a desiccated sliver, then eating the sliver, then licking away all the juice running over my vulva and down my thighs, then inserting another piece of melon and doing the same thing all over again, and again, and again . . . By the time I reached a frenzied climax, about half the melon slices were gone. How was it, love? Lu asked me, grinning her bitch-wolf grin, when I coherent enough to speak again. Oh, my God . . . Like something out of the Arabian Nights, maybe the dirty version. Told you so, she said gloatingly. Okay, I said, my turn next. You ready for that? she asked me as I struggled to sit up. I will be once you lie down where I am, and I get down where you are, I told her, shifting to one side so she could take my place. Ick, melon juice! she exclaimed as her buttocks encountered the sticky juice on the canvas. Here, Ill get a washcloth . . . Going into the bathroom, I ran a washcloth under the tape and brought it back into the bedroom to clean up the canvas. As I did so, she cooperatively raised her buttocks up to allow me to clean under her, giving me a clear look at her own Paradisiacal Garden. Eek! she yipped.

Withdrawing my finger from her sex, I told her, Thats to keep you in the mood. Okay, thats cleaned up, you can lie down again. Getting up, I took the cloth back into the bathroom and hung it over the towel-rack. Then, coming back in, I retrieved the tray with the melon slices from the other bed, where shed put it after finishing with me. I started to pick up a melon slice, to insert it into her vagina. Wait, she said. Her voice was husky, strange. Dont you want to? Esh tie me up first. Please? Her eyes were huge, pleading. I if you want me to, sure. The sashes are back in my case, over there on the floor. Okay. I got up and retrieved the sashes, then came back and sat down beside me. Same as last night? No . . . tie me to the bed, okay? All right, if thats what you want. I sorted out the sashes and, selecting the red one, began to tie one end around her wrist. You want me to tie you to the bedposts? Yes. So I tied her arms and feet, one by one, to the newel posts of the bed. Do you want me to gag you? Only if . . . if I get too loud. Sure. I sat beside her, looking down on her. As I looked at her spread-eagled body, took in her half-lidded eyes, panting mouth, the rising flush around her groin and sex, I suddenly felt an enormous surge of lust mingled with power. I had tied those knots well Kris had been a very good teacher. Shed be unlikely to get out of those before Judgment Day I had angled her arms and feet just so, to make it virtually impossible for her to get the sort of leverage necessary for attempting to undo knots like those, as it was, and the knots themselves were true witch-knots, the sort even Soke would have had trouble with. I could do anything to her I wanted to, anything. And she knew it, too. Continuing to look at her, I realized she was simultaneously terrified and turned on by it.. Reaching out, I tweaked her left nipple. Tell me what you and Donna Lee did together, I demanded huskily. I . . . Reaching farther down, I took her clit between my fingers, began to roll it roughly back and forth, giving it a sharp pinch with my nails every now and then. Groaning in mingled pain and arousal, she whispered, I . . . things Id never . . . never done before . . . Oh! she cried sharply. Relaxing my fingers a bit, I then dug my nails into her clit even harder. Tell me! I hissed. Tell me or Ill keep you tied up here like this and do this Oh! until you do tell me! I she tied me up . . . she tied me up and ate me . . . then she fucked me with . . . with a dildo she put on . . . bigger than Eriks cock . . . And what did you do to her? I . . . oh, God . . . Oh! Tell me, you bitch . . . I . . . she had me get down on my knees and . . . and eat her out . . . Did you like it? Y yes! Oh, please dont do that any more! It hurts . . . Then answer my questions honestly, bitch . . . What do you want me to do to you? I . . . I want you to . . . to eat me . . . If Erik were here, what would you want him to do? I . . . to . . . to fuck you while you ate me . . . Good. Good, good girl . . . I told her, patting her sex affectionately. Now, because youve been so good, you get a treat . . . Turning to the bowl, which I had placed on her belly, I took out a sliver of melon. Stepping around to the foot of the bed, I knelt down and inserted it into her vagina. Then, putting my mouth on it, I began to suck out its juices, hers with them.

One after another, I inserted each of the melon-slices into her vagina, sucked it dry, sucked it slowly out of her and chewed it up, then inserted another slice and did it all over again, until they were dry. But I was careful not stimulate her too much, too quickly, avoiding making her come before I was through. When the last melon-slice was gone, I stood up and, coming around to the side of the bed, sat down to look at her. Her nipples were distended and hard as rocks; her sex with was swollen with blood. She was gasping, hissing with need, her eyes closed, her chest heaving. I reached down and slowly, gently began stroking her swollen clit. Do you like that? I asked her throatily. Oh, dont stop . . . I pulled my hand away. You do not tell me what to do, bitch! Now, what do you want me to do? Oh . . . please make me come . . . All right . . . bitch . . . if you want me to do that for you, you have to do it for me . . . Heat flaring in my sex, slowly I stood up. What . . . are you going to do? she asked me timidly. Youre going to pleasure me while I pleasure you. The more pleasure you give me, the more I give you. You slack off, I stop giving you what you want. You make me come, I make you come. All right? As I spoke, I swung my body around and kneeled over her face so that my clit was just above her mouth. Now, bitch, I want you to tongue my clit . . . tongue it as if I were the Goddess and you were worshipping me . . . I held my sex just high enough to keep her from being able to touch my clit with anything but the tip of her tongue. With a thrill I felt her tongue brush the tip of my clit, then begin to dart up and down its length. Oh, yes . . . I hissed. Just like that . . . Slowly I bent forward until my mouth was over her sex. Extending my tongue, I let it dance along her vulva, into her cleft, onto her clit, mimicking what she was doing for me. All the while I kept my ass high enough that she couldnt do more than flick the very tip of her tongue against my swelling clit. I did not want to let her come too soon, which meant that, in order to keep the mistress-slave illusion, I must not come too soon, which meant I couldnt let her actually start sucking me, which would bring me off like a bomb, as aroused as I was now. As she teased lightly at my clit with her tongue, I did the same to her, slowly getting in synch with her until we were simultaneously doing the same things to each other at the same tempo, using the same pressure of our tongues on each other. My excitement built and built until it was like a furnace. As it did, gradually I speeded up the temp of the strokes of my tongue on her clit, bending still lower so that I could also lave her vulva and the opening to her vagina with my tongue, as well, lowering my ass so that she could do the same. And still we kept up with each other, stroke for stroke. Then my sex was full on her mouth, and she was sucking my clit as hard as she could, and I was doing the same to her, and simultaneously we rocketed to a climax, and when it came it was like a thermonuclear fireball, rising in the night . . . Gradually I came out of the fugue that followed. Lifting myself off her limp body, I swung my ass around and sat down beside her again. Her eyes were open, and though they were filled with tears, she was smiling. Lu, are you all right? Oh, yes . . . Youre crying! Its . . . its all right, she said, sniffing. Whats wrong? I I just realized . . . I love you. Well that was pretty evident, given what weve been doing to each other for the last couple of days . . No . . . I mean, I love you like I do Erik. Only its . . . its different. I mean, Ive never loved a woman this way before. I guess that sounds a little confused, she added. I hey, can you untie me now? Sure. Here. Turning around, I began working at the knots on the sash binding her right arm to the newel post. So what do you mean? I mean . . . what I feel for you is like what I feel for Erik. Only . . . youre a woman, and it feels . . . different. But it is love. What I was feeling earlier . . . I guess it was lust. Youre . . . youre beautiful, you know. You must make anyone who sees you want to rut with you like a a bull, I guess. Or a goat. And whatever it was Donna Lee put in that salve, or maybe the drinks she gave me when I went to her to

get the salve, it had to have added to that. And I guess . . . I guess Ive sort of wanted to try a woman for years, and you most of all, ever since I met you. It took Erik to make me see it, but I guess Im really that way. You know, bisexual. But . . . Id do anything for you, darling. Just like I would Erik. I . . . I couldnt bear to see you hurt, couldnt bear to hurt you myself. Its . . . its a little scary, thats all. I never knew I could feel like this about another woman . . . With a grunt, I got the last knot of the last sash untied and pulled it off her right leg. Then, coming back around to sit beside her, I looked down on her for awhile as she looked back up at me, smiling tremulously, as if worried that Id reject her. All the while I looked at her, I was looking inward, into my own soul. And there I saw that I felt the same way about her. Whatever I felt for Erik, it paled in comparison to this, far more lust than love. But I found that I did love Lu, loved her with all my being. Did I . . . did I upset you, love? she said, losing her smile, looking at me with worry, gently cupping my right breast with her left hand as she used her right hand to sit up. No . . . no, not at all. Lu, I . . . I guess I feel the same way about you, thats all. Its . . . new for me, too. Youll have to . . . thank Donna Lee for me when you see her next, I told her, reaching out to grasp her left hand with my right, bringing it up to my mouth so I could kiss it. I will . . . if that bitch hasnt taken my man away from me while Im gone, she told me, laughing a little. Esh? What? Why did you keep calling me bitch? Same reason you called me that last night. You like me calling you that when I . . . take you, dont you? I whispered, kissing her hand again. Y-yes . . . Taking her hand from mine, she put both arms around me, drew me back down next to her, began kissing my face, my breasts, my belly. Eshda . . . my Eshda . . . In spite of the sticky chill of the canvas, soon we were wrapped around each other in an urgent soixante-neuf, building toward yet another soul-shattering climax. Afterward, we lay limply against each other for awhile before we could find the strength to get up and shower off the sticky melon juices. Tenderly touching each other again and again as we took our shower, we whispered endearments to each other as we washed each other down, then toweled ourselves dry. Then, going into the bedroom, we washed down the canvas, then rolled it back up and maneuvered it back into the closet. Now we were both ready for sleep. It was going on 10 p.m. Falling asleep now, wed be up by six and on the road by eight or nine, which was just right. Slipping into bed together, each of us gave the other a good-night kiss. Make spoons? Lu asked me. ? Here, like this . . . We turn on our sides, with my ass against your thighs and my back against your belly, she said, directing me with her hands, then rolling over on her side herself to show me. Sure, I told her sleepily, slipping an arm around her. Night, Eshda, she told me. Night, Lu, I told her as I drifted off into the darkness.

 16 Someone was gently shaking my shoulder. Come on, sleepyhead, rise and shine, Lu was saying. Hunh? Slowly I came awake. It was morning. Time is it? I asked her groggily. 5:30. Ive been up for awhile, and Im already dressed. If you want, I can make breakfast while you get dressed. We already had our showers last night. Uh. So we did . . . Okay, if you want to do breakfast, you know where everything is, I guess. Yep. Ill make an omelet with three of the eggs and the last of the cheese, okay? Sure. And toast and jam and anything else you like. Juice? Sure. Coming right up. Ill bring a glass in here for you. Thanks. I could use it. Comin right up, darlin. As, still groggy, I began to look through my drawers and closet for something suitable to wear wed packed just about all my clothes, but I knew I had some black Levis and a short-sleeved white blouse I could put on, along with my trail boots, which Id left out last night so I could wear them today she sashayed out to the kitchen, mischievously twitching her hips and glancing at me with a grin over her shoulder to see my reaction as she did so. Soon the scents of cooking eggs and toasting bread began to fill the air. After breakfast, we started porting our baggage and equipment down to the car. Our guns, carefully boxed up with the ammunition just in case we got stopped by a cop, were stowed in the trunk along with our fishing gear, except for her beloved Glock and little hideout gun, which she wore respectively in her belly-bag and waistband holster, and my own .357 Magnum, which I tucked into a shoulder-rig I put on. Wed keep all the others in the trunk, including the rifles and the shotgun as well as our other handguns, until we got to the cabin. There was still room in the trunk for some more, so we added the little portable Coleman stove and the Coleman lanterns to the other things in the trunk, along with Lus little night-case of tricks, a portable battery-powered radio, spare batteries, and our cooking gear. We also included some books to read, including R. R. McCammons Swan Song, an old favorite of mine; Lus battered and much-loved copy of Frank Longs Dreamer on the Nightside; Oxford Universitys Portable Poe; Sokes Spirit of Ninjutsu and The Heart of the Ninja, on which Soked collaborated with John H. Richards; my ancient, ancient copy of Liber 777 and Other Qabalistic Writings by Aleister Crowley; Lus copy of Xavier Hollanders Rites of Aphrodite (actually, it was Donna Lees copy, something inherited from her great-great grandfather, but shed loaned it to Lu for the occasion); Barbara Damasins Gourmet Cooking on the Trail; and Tolstoys War and Peace Id always wanted to read the damned thing, so why not take it along, too, and if I got a chance, Id dip into it to see if I wanted to read the whole thing. The rest our clothes, the food, maps, a good flashlight, a notebook so that I could jot down ideas that came to me from what Lu and I did up at Curlys cabin for a textbook on Tantra I was planning to write, a first-aid kit, travelers checks Id purchased the day after Lu called and the ones Lu brought with her, some small change, and assorted odds and ends went into the back seat of the car, or on the floor below it. The food, especially, I didnt want in the trunk, because it would be hot out there, anyway, and inside the trunk the temperature would get so high the food would be bound to spoil. We had a bucket we planned to fill with ice purchased at the first place we found before leaving the city, and wed put the juice, the milk, and the eggs in there with the ice, to keep them cool. Finally the car was packed. We went back up one more time to lock up and make sure everything was copacetic. Then we went down the elevator to the parking-garage again. Getting into the car, I suddenly shivered. Goose walked over your grave? Lu chuckled as she seated herself in the drivers side of the front seat and put her key into the ignition. Weird, I said thoughtfully. What is? I . . . feel as if Im looking at everything here for the last time. She started to say something, then looked at me strangely. Maybe Id better be careful with my driving, she said thoughtfully. I just flashed on the same thing myself. Oh, well, its probably because weve both been doing stuff weve never done before, and our lives are going to be changing so much when you move in with us. That tends to make the world look a lot different.

Youre probably right, I said, checking my shoulder-rig to make sure I could get my Magnum out easily if I needed to, then pulling on a light windbreaker to cover it. Then, buckling up my seat-belt, I said, You know, Safeway sells ice, and theyre just a block away. Want to stop there for ice and whatever we forgot to get yesterday? Sure. Putting the car in gear, she turned the key in the ignition. The car started smoothly, and we rolled up out of the underground garage into the morning. At the Safeway, we picked up enough ice to fill the bucket, plus some sandwich spread and sandwich meat, three loaves of bread, four quart bottles of Coke, a big block of sharp Cheddar cheese, another bottle of mayonnaise to go with the one we had, extra batteries (Theres no such thing as too many batteries, Lu told me solemnly, then winked), a tube of K-Y Jelly (another wink), several cantaloupes and honeydew melons, a watermelon, a big white cake with white icing trimmed with sky-blue bows and ribbons that proclaimed, For My Love (another wink), two Dell Logic Problem magazines (for me), the latest issue of Guns & Ammo (for both of us; the magazine had only recently been resurrected, once the total ban on personal firearms by the feds had been suspended) and that of Weird Tales (for me; this was the second resurrection of the magazine, this one by Arkham House), a pound of butter, a 24-pack of toilet paper (Theres no such thing as too much toilet paper, either, I told Lu), and a bottle of white wine. We also each got an ice-cream cone from the ice-cream bar that the store had recently put in. Then, after paying for our booty, we took it back to the car. Climbing in, we sat there in the store parking lot for awhile, finishing our cones. Lu? What? Theres a Seven-Eleven a couple of blocks over. Why dont we go get some Slurpees for the road, too? I think they still have Raspberry Ice, Lime, and Coke flavors. That sounds good! But if we get more than one each, well need another bucket. Want me to go back in the store and get one? No, lets just get one each. Theres bound to be another Seven-Eleven on our way up there if we want more. Okay, lets go . . . Putting the car in gear, she turned on the ignition. In a few minutes, we had reached the SevenEleven over on Fourteenth and East Denny. Though they were out of Lime and had substituted Strawberry for it, they still had Raspberry Ice and Coke Slurpees. We each got a 72-ounce Cosmossized Slurpee with a long plastic Slurpee straw, the kind with the little scoop at the end. Then, returning to the car, we headed along East Denny to Broadway, down Broadway to Madison, and over Madison to the recently reopened I-5 freeway, which ran through downtown Seattle between Sixth and Seventh, getting on it going north at the Madison on-ramp just west of Seventh. It wasnt long until, passing Green Lake on our left, we reached the Northgate Way exit. There Lu turned off, following Northgate Way east to where it merged with Lake City Way. Turning north on Lake City Way, we followed it as it turned into Bothell Way, AKA old Highway 522, which had survived the Big One quite nicely and had never gone out of use, so was still very well maintained, and curved around the top of Lake Washington, heading north. As we went, neither of us said much. It was a beautiful day, and both of us were enjoying the view and the feel of the wind n our faces as we drove along. Also, the ghost of whatever strange fancy had visited us earlier seemed to still be with us. There was an oddness to the day, a disquieting edge to the clarity of the air, an aura of darkness that somehow tinged the suns bright light, shaping our moods in kind. Highway 522 intersected Highway 2, which would take us to the Wenatchee Mountains, in Snohomish County, a little ways above the Skyhomish River, near the town of Monroe. We decided to stop there, in Monroe, pick up something to eat and, perhaps, more Slurpees (wed finished the ones wed gotten back in Seattle rather quickly; it was rapidly becoming a very hot day), and find a restroom after the breakfast wed had and the Slurpees, we were in need of one. Wed left Seattle about 8:30 a.m. It was now around 11 a.m. When we reached the turnoff onto Highway 2, we found a billboard advertising Best Chicken in the West! Maes Finer Diner. mile East. Want to get some chicken? Lu asked me. You mean, besides you? I told her, grinning. Oh, you! she said, cuffing my shoulder. Then, putting both hands on the wheel, she turned onto Highway 2 from 522, heading east. Highway 2 was a four-lane road without much traffic; it would get narrower and even less trafficked as we drove east on it.

Maes, as it happened, was just a few blocks up the street, on the right, and there were angled parking slots in front. Turning off the highway, Lu pulled into one of the parking slots. Lets get a box of chicken to go, if they have one, okay? Sure. And maybe we could drink a beer in there. Its really getting hot, Lu. We can always start in on the Coke weve got in the bucket, she said as we got out and she began to lock the car. Thats true. Well, maybe we can by some more soft drinks here somewhere, or juice. Ill ask somebody inside the restaurant whats the best place for that around here. Going inside, we found it to be much cooler than it was outside. Oh, nice Lu exclaimed, grinning happily. air conditioned! I love it! Can I help you, ladies? It was a waitress. According to the little name-tag she wore pinned over her left breast, her name was Vikki. Short, petite, and very pretty, she had a helmet of short black hair, very fair skin, and skyblue eyes. She was probably about 18. As she looked up at us expectantly, her eyes seemed to hold a very strange look, almost one of hunger. Yeah, wed like a table for two, please, Lu told her. What do you have for lunch? Oh, lots of stuff! Vikki bubbled. Come on, follow me . . . She led us from the foyer, lined with planters and two wooden benches, into the restaurant itself, her hips switching tantalizingly. As we followed her, from the corner of my eye I could see that Lu, like me, was staring at that enchanting little backside. Here you go! she said brightly, coming to a halt next to a dinette-style table between two benches. Pirouetting on one heel to face the table, she laid two menus down for us. Here, you sit here and Ill go get your water and biscuits weve got real raw sage honey to go on them today, too! Ill take your order when I get back. As we took our seats she headed for the kitchen, her sweet little butt moving saucily. Is . . . is she trying to turn us on? I whispered to Lu. I . . . was about to ask you the same thing. I cant wait until we get to Curlys cabin if we dont just pull off the road and rape each other right in the car long before that, I told her. Well, its not that far from here, so Fear the wrath of the Lord God! Who the hell is that? I cried, startled. Up by the cash register, a tall, skinny, bearded man in a dark, shabby suit and cracked shoes was waving his arms in the air, gesticulating wildly with a hand filled with sheaves of paper. Two men, clearly restaurant staff, were already headed toward him. The forces of Hell are gathering! The legions of Satan are lying in wait! Your souls are in jeopardy! Ignoring the two men, who tried vainly to grasp his arms, the tall man was thundering directly toward us. His wild gray beard, long and matted, was heavily stained a variety of interesting colors with what was probably old food plus God alone knew what. His eyes, distended and bulging, were gray-blue; they pulsed with internal lightnings, reddish lights swimming eerily in their irises. We sat there, stunned, as he stopped right next to our table. Turning to face us, he began screaming, The Harlots of Babylon! Your wickedness shall overtake you! You shall go down unto the bowels of Hell for your fornication and wickedness! Repent! Repent now, before the Judgment of the erk! So sorry about this, ladies, grunted one of the two men whod chased him here from the cashregisters, as the lunatic gibbered and frothed at him, a spill of Biblical evocations bubbling out of his heaving throat.. He had one arm around the wild mans middle, the other around his chest, close to his throat, hauling him backward, away from our table. The other man, who had grabbed one of the streetpreachers outflung arms, helped the first to drag the man farther down the aisle between the tables, past ours, to a door in the back of the room, which stood open. In the doorway stood several others, who were rushing forth to help the two men with their wildly threshing burden. Vikki was hurrying toward us, a tray holding two glasses of water, a basket of hot biscuits, a tub of margarine, and a honey-pot in her hands. Oh, God, Im so sorry, so sorry! she cried as she set the glasses, biscuits, and other things out before us. Mr. Dunn. Mr. Dunn! she cried, turning to one of the men who had come to help the first two. Yes? Dressed in a white, short-sleeved shirt and tan slacks, tall, bald, and harassed-looking, the man turned from trying to help the others wrestle the raving preacher out of the room and came over to us. Whats the matter?

Mr. Dunn, that that nasty man was harassing these poor ladies. Cant we do something nice for them, to make up for it? I oh, I suppose so. Assuming a tired smile for our benefit, he turned to us. Im so sorry for this intrusion, ladies. We . . . wed like to make up for it, if we can. Would dinner on the house be all right with you? Anything you want on the menu. Sure! Lu exclaimed, grinning broadly. Esh, does that sound all right? I sure, why not? I told her. Id love to try some of your famous chicken, I said, turning to the man who stood by our table. That, and a beer, if youve got it. We do. What brand do you like? Moosehead? That weve got. Sure. Okay, and how about you? he asked Lu. Same for me. And a tossed green salad for us both, I think. Okay Esh? Fine. Oh, and wed like to get some chicken boxed up for the road were going into the mountains. But Id like to pay for that, I said hastily. Can you do that? No problem and no, you dont have to pay for that. On the house. Just tell Vikki, here, whatever you want, shell bring it to you. Great! Lu told him. Okay, Ive got to go take care of this . . . Shaking his head in vexation, the man turned and went to joint the others, who had already gotten their yelling, heaving burden through the door, into the room beyond. The three of us, Vikki, Lu, and I continued to stare after him until he was through the door and had closed it behind him. Well, Vikki said brightly, turning back to us, what sort of chicken dinner would you like? What do you recommend? Actually, the chicken-fried steaks and mashed potatoes with chicken gravy are really good. Sounds good to me, Lu told her. Same here, I added. And you wanted tossed green salads to go with? she said, scribbling on her pad. Yes, Lu told her. And what do you have for dessert? Mostly pie and ice cream well, weve still got some chocolate cake, but I recommend the ice cream. Weve got both regular ice cream and sherbet. Sherbet sounds good, Lu told her. How about you, Esh? You got pineapple sherbet? We sure do! the girl said, making her sure sounds like shore. Youre from Montana! I told her. Hey, howd you know? Accents are a hobby of mine I have a store down in Seattle, and I get customers from all over. Its fun to figure out where theyre from from their accents. That sounds fascinating! the girl bubbled. Lu and I exchanged a Look. Cute as hell, but her head definitely had more air than brains in it, if she wasnt just high on something. Shrugging minutely, turning back to Vikki Lu said, Ill have the same. And can you make a box full of chicken legs and breasts and so on? Oh, shu-er, the girl said, her accent broader still. She had been standing next to me; suddenly I felt the pressure of one of her breasts against my arm, though she continued to look down at her pad, writing away on it. Okay, she said, finally looking up, Ill go tell the kitchen about your order. Would a ten-pound box of chicken do? she asked me, now looking straight at me. That should be fine, I told her, smiling at her. For the briefest instant, she pressed herself even closer. Then suddenly she whirled around, saying, Ill be right back with your order!, heading for the kitchen. My Lord, Lu told me in a low voice, grinning at me, when Vikki was no longer in earshot, you seem to have made a conquest! I . . . do seem to have, dont I? Want to ask her to come with us up to the cabin? Hey, ouch! You remember youre with me, bitch, and dont forget it! Lu hissed as I rubbed my ankle where shed just kicked it. Then, smiling as if she had been joking, she said in a more normal tone, Dont forget to ask where we can pick up some more Slurpees or Coke or whatever before we leave. Oh, thats right. Hey, did I tell you theres a small lake up at the cabin, where we can go swimming? Oh, hey! -- But we forgot to pack bathing suits, she said, pouting.

 Bathing suit? Whats a bathing suit? I said, quoting the line from the old classic, Forbidden Planet. Look, nobody will be around, the lakes not very big and its shallow, so itll be warm, and as I remember, you were the one who always wanted to go skinny-dipping in the swimming hole at the Tai Kais every year, so what do you care? I was just kidding. It sounds heavenly, actually. I wonder where the restrooms are, I said, looking around. I really have to go now. Door by the entrance, where we came in. Okay, Ill go first, while you wait here, and then you can go, okay? Sure. I made my way up to the front, to the entrance. I was glad I was wearing my wind-breaker it was almost cold in here, the air-conditioning was turned up so high. The restrooms were, as Lu had said, right off the entrance. I went into the womens room and entered one of the stalls to empty my bladder. When I came out, looking for the sink to wash my hands, Vikki was standing there. Oh, hi! I told her, a little startled. Hi, she said shyly, her eyes downcast. Are you all right? I . . . Hips swaying, eyes still cast down, she came toward me until she was standing right in front of me. Her head came to a little above my chin. Built like a little china doll, she seemed small enough for me to pick up one handed. She looked fragile, breakable. But then she looked up at me, and the smoldering fires in her eyes, the slow, seductive curve of her lips, made it clear she was anything but a frail maiden. Do you know how beautiful you are? she told me huskily. I . . . Is that woman youre with your lover? She . . . Suddenly Vikki, throwing both arms around me, pushed her belly hard against mine. Would you like to have me here? she said in a voice that sent shivers up my spine, running the pink tip of her tongue against her lush, full lips. Not wanting to make her angry, I put my hands on her shoulders and told her, Tell you what. When me and my friend get back from the mountains, Ill come look you up, okay? Then we can . . . go off on a little vacation ourselves, just you and I. Yes, oh, yes . . . you can always find me here at the restaurant, she breathed. Her hands were dancing at my waistband; before I realized what she was doing, she had me unbuttoned and both my jeans and my briefs down to my knees. A sudden wave of heat exploded in my crotch, and I realized I was ready for sex, aching for it. Reaching down between my legs, slowly she drew a finger up along my clit, then began to stroke it. I tried to draw back, but before I could, she suddenly dropped to her knees, fastened her mouth on my sex, and began sucking hard. Within an unbelievably short time, rocking and heaving in reaction, I climaxed, little whimpering cries erupting from me. There, darling, she said, standing up again. Quickly helping me to pull my briefs and jeans back up, she turned to the mirror, pulled out a comb, and ran it quickly through her helmet of dark hair. Then, reaching into a pocket of the flared skirt of her uniform, she took out a lipstick and began applying it. My God, I thought, how did this happen to me? So fast. Am I a magnet for women with a taste for women? Id better get back to the kitchen, she told me as she checked to make sure her uniform was in order. I dont think your girlfriend will notice me. You wait here a minute or two, then go on out, so she wont think we did anything together if she does see me. And you remember to look me up when you get back, remember? Because if you dont, I took down the license-plate number of your car, and Ill find you. She said gloatingly as she hurried on out of the bathroom. Jesus, what was this? Blackmailing me for sex? Id damned well better do something, because that was Lus car, and shed end up getting hold of Lu, and, oh, God . . . Checking in the mirror to make sure I looked presentable, I waited a couple of minutes, as Vikki had suggested, and then, a little glumly, went back to our table. Everything come out all right? Lu asked me. Ha-ha, I said, taking my seat across the table from her. Hey, here comes our dinner, she said, looking toward the from. Vikki was coming toward us, holding a platter containing our entrees and salads, along with two bottles of Moosehead beer. Here we

are, ladies, she told us brightly as she set the platter down at the edge of the table and began distributing our food. Now just let me know if you want anything more and Ill bring it right to you . . . Having emptied the platter, she took it and went hurrying back toward the kitchen, once more swinging her hips saucily. That little tart, Lu growled. Ive a mind to ask her to come with us after all see how shed like to be raped by both of us at the same time, the damned tease. I saw her go into the bathroom with you, you know, she added darkly. What did she want? No, dont tell me, I know what she wanted. Well, you werent in there with her long enough to do anything, as it was, so theres no point in my being jealous. But if she does try anything with you, just tell that little twist that Ill snatch her bald-headed on both ends and then Ill really give her something to remember, if she doesnt leave you the hell alone! What would you do to her, hmm? I asked her, smiling. Tie her up and tease her until she screamed for it, she hissed, and then tease her until it drove her crazy, and then not let her come until shed eaten us both out about ten times. Her shoulders were shaking. I realized she was laughing. If I dont miss my guess, darling, she gave you a little quickie in there, anyway. What was it hands or mouth? I mouth, I whispered glumly. She had my pants down and was on her knees in front of me before I even knew what was happening. You should be ashamed Soke would have a shit-fit, knowing youd been taken that easily! But she was still laughing, harder than ever. You arent . . . jealous? Unh-unh. I saw you looking at her it wasnt with love, dear. Lust, yes, but all mixed up with disgust. I agree. Shes a lovely-looking little piece of tail, but thats all she is: a cunt with an attitude, and damned little else. I just hope the head she gave you hasnt dulled your appetite for me because my own appetite is back and ready to party! Oh, Lu . . . She reached out and put a hand on mine. Darling, you look just like Erik did the night I found him being hand-raped in the bathhouse when a bunch of us from the dojo had a swimming party over at Anjis place. Remember Anji? Yes, I do. How is she now? Oh, she and her husband are fine. They asked after you, too, wanted me to tell you hello for them. Anyway, this happened back about a year after you left, in August of that year. We were all skinnydipping, nobody wore anything even when we got out; it was hot, and who wants clothes when youre among friends? Anyway, Erik had gotten out of the pool earlier to go up to the house to get something to drink. I decided I needed to use the bathroom, so I got out, too, put on my zoris in case of rocks in the path, and started toward the house. I was passing the bathhouse when I heard voices, and realized one of them was Eriks. He sounded strange. Not sure what was happening, I sneaked up to the window and looked in. There he was, being given a hand-job by Sobol Sobol! But he I mean, Erik isnt gay or anything . . . Len Sobol is a beautiful, beautiful man. Hes also one of the most seductive people Ive ever known, male or female when hes talking to me, he makes me want to take off all my clothes and go down on him right then and there! Anyway, Eriks beautiful, too, and Len mustve been aching to have him for years. Hes been one of Eriks best friends for about a million years still is and Erik is more than a little . . . disarmed, Id say, around friends. Sobol had his hands on Eriks cock, and was stroking him with these slow, sensual strokes that made me horny just watching. Erik just stood there, staring down at Sobols hand on his cock, getting harder by the minute, looking like he didnt know whether to run or enjoy it. Then Sobol suddenly got down on his knees, took Erik in his mouth, and brought him off. He took his time about it, working his mouth on Eriks cock in all sorts of fancy ways, tonguing his balls, all of that. It gave me a lot of ideas about how to keep Erik happy, I tell you! Erik put his hands on Sobols head, and it was clear he wanted Sobol to keep right on doing what he was doing. After what seemed to be a long, long time, with both men getting harder and harder and more and more erect, Erik finally came, hard, crying out a little. Sobol had been stroking himself off all the time he was blowing Erik, and he came at the same time, too. Then Sobol looked up, straight at the window, right into my eyes, and grinned. Come on in, Lu, want to join the fun? he asked. I dont know how I kept my nerve together, but somehow I made myself walk around to the door and on in there as if nothing at all were wrong and oddly, there wasnt. I wasnt angry, or upset, but I

was so horny I was ready to masturbate myself to climax right there if one of them, at least, didnt do me himself. I said coming right up to stand beside them both, Gee, Id love to, Len. Want to give me a good time, too? And damned if he didnt suddenly take his hands away from Erik, swing around to face me, put one hand on my hip and another on my cunt and start playing with me. About a second later, I felt Erik move behind me, and then he put his the tip of his cock against my rectum, and then he shoved it into me . . . And somehow Sobol managed to time the hand-job he was giving me just right, so that when I came, Erik did, too. And all the while Sobol was grinning at both of us with that cat-like smile he has, you know, the one that makes him look like the cat who just got into the cream. And just before I came, I looked down, and it wasnt his hand Sobol was using to stroke me off with, it was his tongue. He was using his hand on himself again, and he came right after Erik and I did. After we came, after Sobol did, Erik went to wash himself off at the sink there in the bathhouse, and then we all sat on the floor on these canvas mats that were scattered around. I asked Sobol, wasnt he gay? He told me, Usually, honey, usually but for you, Ill make an exception. Any time! Erik growled at him, You just leave my woman alone, asshole! But then he laughed, and reached forward, and gave Sobol a hug. Then he kissed him on the mouth, hard. Then he said, Unless Im with her. Then you can do whatever you want. Asshole. Sobol kissed him back, and the next thing I knew all three of us were down on the mats, me blowing Erik, Erik blowing Sobol, Sobol eating me out again. Then we switched. We came about six times, real mutual climaxes, all three of us. Then we all went on up to the house, showered and dressed, had something to eat and drink, and called it a night. Sobol had his own car there, so he drove home by himself, and we went on back to our place. But Eriks invited him to stay the night a few times since, and weve never had a problem with it. Wow! Sobol? And the three of you Whenever hes over. Hes the only one weve ever . . . you know, though. We dont have an open marriage. Not really. And if Erik found some guy messing with me, I mean, who wasnt Sobol, hed I think hed lose it. Sobols the only one. Man, oh, man, the things you dont know about your friends . . . I said, grinning. I looked around. Wed kept our voices low, and no one was near us, anyway, so no one would have been likely to have overheard us. Will you invite him over when you have me move in with you? Of course! Erik was talking about it the night before I came up here. He was wondering what Sobol would do with you, and if youd like it. I oh, God. Well, anyway, you werent mad at Erik then, were you? What if it had been a woman wanking him off, rather than a guy? I I dont know, she told me. I honestly dont. If it had been you . . . Id have wanted to join you, I know that now. But anyone else . . . I guess it all depends. You do love Erik, then. Oh, God, Esh . . . Suddenly tears formed in her eyes. If I ever lose him, I . . . I dont know what Id do. I truly dont. Giving her hand a quick squeeze, I told her, We wont let that happen, will we? Hey, come on, sweetheart, lets eat up, we want to get on up there to the cabin before dark. Oh, yes, I guess wed better do that . . . Turning her attention to her food, she began cutting up her chicken-fried steak. Soon wed worked our way through the steaks and the potatoes, not really doing much with our salads. Suddenly Lu looked up and said to me, Anyway, Im not jealous of Little Miss Twist. If she got you off, thats okay I know she isnt a threat. Thats really good news, Lu, because to try to make her leave me alone in there, I promised Id come look her up when we got back from the mountains, and she said if I didnt, she had your licenseplate number and would use it to track me down. So if you get a call from her when you get back to San Francisco, thats why. Hmmm . . . Grinning wickedly at the thought that had just come into her head, Lu said, I think Ill just tell her Ill only help her get hold of you if she lets me have her, too I know all sorts of fun things I can do to her with some of the play-toys Ive got at home . . . I almost snorted the water I was trying to drink up my nose. My shoulders heaving with stifled laughter, I said, Maybe Sobol would like to help? Heh! Thats a thought I know hes read just about everything the Marquis de Sade ever wrote, too . . . Okay, Im through. Want some dessert?

No, lets just grab our boxed chicken and head out. Dont forget, we want to ask directions to someplace where we can pick up some soft drinks and like that. Sure. Standing up, I said, Shall we tip her? Oh, why not? The food was good, anyway. Okay, Ive got a ten, Ill do the tip this time. We walked up to the cash register. Vikki was hurrying toward us. Anything wrong? she asked anxiously, batting those big blue eyes at us. No, we just want to hit the road and get to where were going before it gets too late, Lu told her. So well just get our boxed chicken take off, okay? Sure, let me go back to the kitchen and get it. Vikki? I asked her, before she could leave. What? Are there any places around here to get soft drinks or anything? Sure. A few miles east of here you are going east, arent you? Yes. Okay, youll see a billboard advertising something called Big Cat Caf and General Store. It has a big leopard on it. The general store is right next to it, and they should have what you want. Great! Thanks. No problem. Spinning about, she hurried to the kitchen. Soon she was back with a large box of fried chicken parts. Here, still hot and everything, she said, handing the box to me, putting a strong emphasis on the word hot. Looking up at me as she handed the box to me, she slowly ran the tip of her tongue over her lip, smiling like Aphrodite on the make. Thanks. We really appreciate it, I told her, somehow put off by that smile. Well, good-bye, she told us, as we turned to leave. Bye, I said as I headed for the door. Dont . . . overwork yourself, honey, Lu told her poisonously as she followed me. Bitch, I heard Vikki murmur as we left. Laughing, Lu got into the car as I came around the other side and, tucking the box into the back seat, joined her on the passenger side. You think that chickens safe to eat? I asked her. I wonder if she put anything in it. Oh, who cares? We can feed some of it to the birds, and if they dont keel over, it should be fine, Lu said, getting the car started and backing carefully out of the parking-slot. Putting the car in gear, she turned onto Highway 2. Soon we were headed east at a good clip, the wind in our hair, looking forward in great anticipation to reaching Curlys cabin.

 17 Hey! I exclaimed. Wed been driving for what seemed a long time, a couple of hours. At one point, we had come to a sign that said DETOUR in huge orange letters on a black background. Below, it had two arrows, one pointing right, labeled Highway 28 Alternate, the other left, labeled 2 Alt. Not far ahead was a junction, one road going south and east, the other north and east. Shrugging, saying, Well, guess we go to the left, Lu turned onto the road going northeast. At that point, the countryside began to look unfamiliar, and became increasingly strange as we continued driving along, the normal late-summer vegetation of the hills and mountains giving way to something more and more characteristic of semi-desert country. What? Lu asked me now. Theres that billboard Vikki mentioned, just ahead! We want to stop there, I said, pointing to it. On the left side of the road, it had a one-story, sprawling building next to it. Big Cat Caf, said the sign. A roaring leopard perched on top of a Caterpillar tractor glared at us from the billboard, paws planted as if it were getting ready to spring. Oh! Quickly, checking her mirror and then looking ahead to make sure no one was coming up behind or toward us, she cut left and turned across the highway into the parking lot in front of the building next to the billboard. Sure enough, on the big front window of the building were painted the words BIG CAT CAF steak and ale our specialty! in two curving banks of dark red letters. Below the painted words, a small rectangular sign at the base of the window announced: Children welcome. There was a wing attached to the caf which had to have been the general store indeed, Big Cat General Store and another picture of the leopard riding the tractor was stenciled on its windows and a sign over the door, which was around the side from the caf. Since wed just eaten, there was no point in going into the caf, so together Lu and I went through the door of the store. It was cool in the store, not as cool as it had been in Maes, but still very comfortable in comparison with the heat of the day outside, which had by now risen to what must have over 40 C. It never got this hot in Washington State, not even in Augusts Dog Days hadnt they finally stopped the Greenhouse Effect with that pulverized comet whose colloidally-fine debris had been injected into orbit around the Earth, and all the rest of it? The counter, long and covered with rough pine boards, was at the back. A clerk, a youngish man simultaneously suffering from premature baldness and acne, was busy there working his accounts with a calculator, going over the days receipts with bleary-eyed irritation no wonder, given the dim lighting back there. Walking up to the counter with me in her wake, Lu called out, Hello, can you help us? Looking up from his receipts, something a little nastier than irritation on his face, the clerk said, Depends on what you want, lady. Uh, we need directions, I guess, she told him. And we need to get some soft-drinks, and ice, I guess. Soft drinks re in the cooler, over there, he said, pointing to the side of the big room that served as the store. You can get ice from the dispenser next to it itll cost ya two credits for a bucket. The bucketsre right next to the dispenser, he said in a surly tone. As he started to turn back to his calculator and receipts, Lu asked him, Uh, we also need directions from here. Can you tell us when this road connects back with the regular highway? We dont recognize anything around here. Where you headed? he asked her, looking up again, fixing her with a gimlet stare and a smile that sent chills down my back. Uh east. Were planning to cut off the highway a bit before Leavenworth. The problem is that this seems to be a new road, not on any map weve got, and we dont know where we should go from here. Waal, he drawled, you want to keep on going east. You should find the turnoff soon. How far north of the regular Highway 2 are we, anyway? I asked him. Ive been along it lots of times, and I havent seen anything familiar since we left Monroe, I think. Grinning, he said something unintelligible that sounded almost like Arabic, but so distorted and filled with odd syllables that it couldnt have been. And the clerk didnt look Arabic at all if anything, judging from what was left of his reddish hair and his pale eyes and his accent, he was probably Celtic by descent and Texan in origin. Hunh? said Lu.

I said, lady, it dont matter much, itll take you where you need to go. Just keep following the road youll pass a big billboard that says Simba Safari Park, next left, picture of a park with a lion in front, thats where theyve got a big natural environment sort of thing, charge people to drive through it on a tour. Just hang left at the turnoff about a quarter-mile beyond it. Uh, okay. So we just keep going east? Thats what I said, he snapped. Then, clearly shutting us out, he turned back to his receipts. Do you really want to get the soft drinks here? Lu whispered to me. No. Weve got some in the car, and weve still got ice well, a puddle and a few slivers, anyway. Theres sure to be another store farther up. I think youre right. Brrrr! she added, putting her arms around herself, miming a shiver. This place gives me the creeps. If you want the honest truth, I told her, as we started back outside, toward the car, everything thats happened since we stopped at Maes has been weird, you know? Like, not too long after we left Maes, I said as we got into the car, we should have passed Goldbar, Index, maybe even Baring way before we got to that turnoff. Instead, the towns we passed on our way here from there have been named things like Last Chance, Despair, Worldsend, Doom, Apocalypse the sort of thing youd expect to find out in the Mojave Desert or places in Arizona, but sure as hell not here! And weve been traveling east from Monroe for about the last two and a half hours, and youd think wed have come to something by now, the edge of the Wenatchee State Forest or a real town. Instead, looks like were at the ass end of nowhere, with nothing but a few stinkers of tiny little hamlets here and there, nothing else. Hmm . . . I hadnt thought about it, but youre right. I dont remember any of the names of the towns we passed from when I lived here as a girl. And all of those places we passed looked old like the places you see up around this way dating back to the 1930s and 1940s or something, and weathered to match in a lot of cases. And Jesus, its hot Ive never heard of weather like this in Washington State at any time of year, even summer. Just what I was thinking. Does it get this hot in California in the summer now? Maybe up near Sacramento or something. But weve actually been having cooler summers and colder winters than before. They think maybe the Greenhouse Effect is reversing, thanks to the Comet Squad. So what is causing this I have no idea. And the weirdest part of it is the way the environment looks like someplace in Baja California, mesquite, scrub pine, cactus, and Spanish bayonet and other desert plants, and not many of them, mostly bare ground and rocks blazing hot from sun, looks like. No animals except a few lizards and a chipmunk or two. The only birds Ive seen since not long after we left Monroe have been some buzzards and a couple of crows and all of them were headed southwest. I dont think they like this area, either. Thats what I was just thinking. Lu, I asked her as she put the car in gear and got back onto the highway again, if Im not being too . . . nosy, did you and Erik ever do anything . . . interesting together? I mean, beyond what youve already told me about Thought youd never ask, she told me, grinning. In fact, some of the lovely little tricks I used on you the past couple of days werent from Donna Lee, but things Sobol taught us. Like, not long after Sobol started getting together with us, one night he asked me if Id ever been tied up, for sex. I said no. So he tied me up the way I did you the first time, and then he and Erik tongued me all over while they fucked and stroked each other. Then he tied Erik up to an overhead beam in the rec room, and he and I teased Erik to distraction, not letting him come, while we messed with each other, only bringing Erik off after wed had our fun. Hoo! God, and Id never had any idea you and Erik were into that sort of thing. Not that I object. It just goes to show, you cant ever tell about people, can you, not even the ones you know best? Laughing, she said, I guess it does. Well, if you think that one was something, this onell blow your mind . . . A few years ago, Erik was going on a ten-day trip to Mexico to host something there. Sobol was on his vacation at the time, and suggested I come stay with him while Erik was gone the dojo was out for spring break at the time, and I had decided to take a few days off, myself. So Erik and I both agreed Sobols a great guy to be around, anyway, almost as good as Erik when it comes to using combat arts, if I happened to need backup, plus when he wants to, he cooks like an angel, and as a conversationalist and companion, hes one of the most fascinating people you could ever meet, been everywhere, done a little of everything, read just about every book worth reading and seen every movie worth a damn, or so it seems hes even into poetry, including the works of various German, Arabian, Japanese, Scandinavian, Chinese, French, and Portuguese poets (he knows about 15 different languages, you know). Sounded to

me like a great way to relax and enjoy myself while Erik was gone, and if any of our students needed us before Erik got back, I had call forwarding from our home phone to Sobols, and Sobol and I together could do whatever they needed. We could park our ferrets with a neighbor who likes ferrets, so that wouldnt be a problem, either. Well, after I dropped Erik off at the airport, I drove over to Sobols. He let me in the door, closed it, and said, Okay, honey, howd you like some real fun while the big cats away? I asked him what he meant, and he said, First, get naked. And he stood right there, not letting me out of the front hall until I took off all my clothes. Id finished my period two days before, so I wasnt going to have that embarrassment, and Sobol had seen every part of me to be seen, already, so why not? So I stripped, and he took my clothes, and took them back into some other part of the house. When he came back, I asked him what hed done with them, and he said, You wont need them for a few days, so dont worry about it. Then I noticed he was carrying some things in his hands. I asked him what they were, and he said, Ever been Eriks slave? Uh-oh, I thought, but then I realized he wouldnt do anything irreparable to me, because if he did, Erik would track him down to the ends of the earth and kill him very slowly and painfully so I said, Well, no. Whats it like? Youre about to find out, he told me, grinning. Now were going to put this on you . . . What he had was a high collar, a sort of harness, some little golden handcuffs, nipple- and labiaclamps lightly lined with fur, and a little vial of some sort of oil. He put the collar on me first it was gold, trimmed with pearls, and it looked rather cool in the mirror. Then he opened the vial and put some oil on his fingertip and began to rub it on my nipples and clit, and into the first part of my vagina, and then into my anus. By the time he was through, it was clear that the oil, which smelled spicy, like a combination of cinnamon and ginger and clove and something else that smelled just heavenly, contained some sort of tissue irritant, because by then all the areas hed anointed with the oil had begun to itch, my clit and anus most of all. It wasnt hot, so much, not like the Jalapeo distillate thats almost pure capsicum that the boy-toys down in the Lavender District in North Beach back home like to put on when they tie each other up in the bathhouses and Do Things to each other there, but oh, God, did it tickle! Then he had me put on the harness. It was leather, trimmed here and there with more pearls and some faux gemstones. It looped between and under my breasts, holding them up, around my waist, around both thighs where they joined my torso, and one strand went between my legs, so tightly it rode up between the cheeks of my ass and my labia, right up against my clit and vulva. The leather was rough, not finished, and the way it rode up against my cunt and anus, which were already itching like crazy from the oil hed used on me, nearly drove me crazy. I was becoming desperate to get some relief, any way I could, either by having him bring me off or bringing myself off and thats when he suddenly grabbed my wrists, pulled my arms up to the back of my neck, slapped the handcuffs on me, and then hooked them to a hook at the back of the collar, so that my arms were held up high, displaying my breasts to great advantage. The itching had so distracted me I didnt see it coming until it was too late and like I said, and Im sure you remember, that guy is good at ninjutsu, and by then I couldnt have stopped him anyway. As I stood there wondering what the hell was next, he quickly snapped the nipple-clamps on me. They werent under a lot of tension, and as I said, they were lined with fur, and they didnt hurt, really, but between the fur and the oil on my breasts they added to the tickling, which by then had me panting hard, like a bitch in heat. Then, reaching up between my legs, he attached the other clamps to my labia. Like the nippleclamps, they didnt hurt, but did irritate the tissue in a maddeningly pleasant way. He put them on well back of my clit, so that the little chains that ran from them slid over my cunt on either side of the lather strap of the harness. He brought those up and, along with the chains from the nipple clamps, he gathered them together and inserted them through a hollow piece of wood, fastening them securely on the other end of it with wire that ran from one side of it to the other, looping it through a link of each chain, so the chains couldnt be pulled back out. And, of course, every time I moved or he pulled on the chains, the chains teased my crotch and clit even more. Then he stood there inspecting me awhile, a huge grin on his face. Finally I asked him, trying not to show how frightened I was starting to feel, Now what? Well, lets see how hot I can get you . . .

I tried to back away. Holding onto the piece of wood that held them, he pulled hard on the chains. Here, bitch, you want to obey your master, he told me. Before I could bolt and maybe pull the clamps loose and get away, he grabbed the harness where it came down between my breasts with one hand and began tracing patterns on my belly with the other. As he did so, he planted his mouth on mine and kissed me hard. Youd think Id be fighting mad by then, or screaming, or something. Instead, I was so hot for him all I could do was let him do anything he wanted. My legs opened up, more and more, my nipples got harder and harder, I was so wet it was a wonder there wasnt a puddle on the floor under me, and my poor clit seemed to be about two inches long under that strap when he finally let go. Or rather, when he finally stopped teasing me. Rather than letting go, he just backed me up to the wall at one side of the hallway we were standing where the front hall of his house opens into his livingroom, and there are coat-hooks there on the wall for guests coats. He just looped the one of the chains between the handcuffs there were two; hed already looped one over the hook at the back of my collar over one of the coathooks, then stepped back and looked me over as I stood there, securely held by the coathook, since the chains between my hands were about two inches long, each, and the coathook was about as high off the floor as my collarbone, and I had no leverage or slack to do anything to get free. Then, still grinning, he started taking off his clothes. Hes got a lovely body, as Im sure you know, and the more naked he got, the hotter I got, looking at him. Okay, he told me, when hed stripped off the last of his clothes, which he tossed over a chair nearby, now, little bitch, you are going to learn how to be a good slave. If you dont, poppa wont ever give you what you want. So youve got to be good if you want poppa to reward you, hear me? So saying, he came back over to where I was tethered to the wall and gently lifted my arms up and got me off the coathook. He spent a few minutes using those Magick fingers of his to tweak my nipples and stroke my belly and otherwise get me hot as hell, and then he led me over to his big easy-chair, where he told me, Kneel down, bitch. Pushing gently on my shoulders with his hands, he got me to kneel down without falling over, so that I was right in front of the chair. Then, taking a seat in the chair, he told me, Poppa wants you to give him a good blow-job. Do it right and poppa will give you something nice. . . . So I blew him. I leaned over as far as I could, his hands behind my head, put my mouth on his cock, and worked him with my tongue as if my life depended on it which, at that point, I wasnt sure it didnt, but somehow that only made me hotter. After he came, he told me, That was fine, that was real fine, little bitch. Now poppa will give you something good . . . Thats when he unhooked the harness strap that went between my legs and began to play with my clit. He had me stand in front of him, legs spread apart, for what seemed like hours, while he teased and teased and teased my clit, sometimes rimming my vagina with his fingertip, as well, but never quite brought me off. Then he had me turn around and sit in his lap, my back to him and he slid his cock into my ass and got off again that way. At the back of my mind I had a hunch that if at any time I told him I wanted him to stop what he was doing and take off the things hed put on me, and showed that I really meant it, he would. The thing is, I didnt want him to stop. I was so ashamed of myself for liking it but I did like it. With one exception, which Ill probably tell you about sometime, nobodyd ever done anything like that with me, or even tried to, and I was so turned on I was ready to screw the bedposts! Well, after he put the strap hed taken off back on the harness, then he marched me out to the kitchen, where he had me turn around, took off my cuffs, and told me I was to do all the cooking while I stayed there, and all the other housework. He had me fix a big dinner, roast and potatoes and salad and everything, and the whole time he kept playing with me, stroking my labia, my anus, my nipples and belly. When it was ready and on the table, he put my handcuffs back on and sat me down at the table and began feeding me, tenderly, as if I were a very small child, or ill with something. He alternated between feeding me and feeding himself. When we were both done, he said, Ah, time for dessert. Thats when he took me into the living-room and had me lie down across a big hassock. He didnt take the cuffs off, just supported my back as I leaned backward and gently lowered me onto the hassock so that I was bent backwards over it, belly up. Taking off the strap between my legs again, telling me to lie still for a minute or so, he went into the kitchen to get something from the refrigerator. When he came back he told me to close my eyes. I did. The next thing, there was a shhhplook! sound and something freezing cold hit my belly. I opened my eyes to see what he was doing, and there he stood, stark bare naked, holding a huge can of whipped cream aimed right at my belly. Grinning, he

told me, Hold still, now, so poppa can trim the dessert . . . He sprayed whipped cream all over my belly, my breasts, my thighs, and my cunt. It was so cold and yet I was hotter than ever. Then, rubbing his hands and putting down the can, which was empty, on the floor next to him, he said, Ah, now for the piece de resistance! and, kneeling down next to me, began to slowly lick the whipped cream off one of my breasts. He actually managed to lick all of it off me. You can imagine the state I was in by the time he was through of course he never did it fast enough to bring me off, and after what seemed like an eternity of his licking and licking the stuff off my cunt and my ass, I was begging him to finish me off and be done with me. If you think his fingers are Magick, theyre nothing compared to his tongue! He can do things with the tip and even the sides of his tongue that . . . well, youll see, when we get you down there to visit again and invite Len to join us for some fun. Anyway, as I was saying, I begged and begged him to bring me off, but he just told me, Oh, no, little bitch! Erik told me to make sure you were safe and sound here while he was gone, and we want you to be in good shape for him when he gets back so I dont want to do anything like that to you, because hes supposed to do that, and laughed like a demon all the while. I wanted to kill him and fuck him senseless all at the same time. It went on like that for the next ten days. I spent the entire time either naked or wearing no more than the harness, collar, and clamps. And every few hours, hed touch me up with the oil again, keeping me as hot as a tokamak the whole time. I was only allowed to piss and shit when he went into the bathroom with me, my hands tethered to my collar the whole time, him helping me onto the pot and then wiping me and cleaning me off and helping me out of the bathroom afterward. He took me into the shower twice a day, washed me down, shampooed my hair, dried me off, then oiled me down again. When I wasnt doing housework, with him sitting or standing by to make sure I was doing nothing but housework, my hands were either tethered behind my neck or otherwise secured. At night, he had me lie on the bed, flat on my back, my arms and legs secured to the posts with soft cuffs, so I couldnt play with myself and then hed sit there for hours, teasing me, saying the most deliciously nasty things to me, getting me so hot Id have done anything for a good screw by then. And then hed sleep on a mat at the foot of the bed, getting up in the morning and letting me up and taking me in to use the bathroom while he watched. Some of the things he did were . . . God, I thought Id die of shame, but at the same time I craved it, it felt so good. Hed secure my hands over my head to a beam that ran the length of his bedroom, then use this strange little dildo on me, soft rubber, the same material as the one I used on you, very, very slender, shaped like a corkscrew, the ribbing standing up about half an inch from the main surface of the thing. Hed use it in my anus while he worked his finger in and out of my vagina. Hed put his damnable oil on the dildo and gently, slowly, slide it in and out of me, making sure it teased the rim every time, and the way it made me feel God, the sensations! They werent like those in my clit, of course, but they felt just as delicious, in a way, and several times I almost came from it, like an orgasm in my anus, not my cunt. Sometimes hed take his fingers out of my cunt and use them to tweak my nipples, too God, Esh, that man is a devil with what he can do with his hands! I can see how easy it was for him to seduce Erik that night . . . Sometimes, when he had me tied up to that beam, hed work me over with his lips and tongue, all over, for hours and hours. Or hed just flat fuck me in the ass, without any preliminaries. And when I was . . . when I was bad, when he said I was bad, he got out this . . . this whip . . . She stared almost dreamily off into space. Careful, Lu, you want to watch the road! Oh, sorry, she said, pulling back into her own lane shed been drifting left, and a car was coming toward us. After the car had passed, she continued: When I was . . . bad, hed tie me up to the beam, and then hed bring out this leather strap, and hed whip my ass with it, several times. Never enough to break the skin or bruise me, but enough to make my ass red as a beet. Then hed bring out a vibrator, bring it up between my labia, hold it there with my clit getting harder and harder, bigger and bigger, letting the vibrations flow through me but not letting me actively rub against it every time I tried, hed crack my ass with the strap again, hard enough to bring tears to my eyes. I learned to stand there, letting him stimulate me, eyes closed, fantasizing about what he and I and Erik would do with one another when Erik got back. Once, when he was doing that, I actually started to come. He hit me between the legs, then, right on my clit, so hard I saw stars. I cried out, maybe screamed. Thats when he loosed the manacles holding me to the beam and dragged me toward the bed and threw me down on it on my back and manacled me to the bed. Then he started working that oil into me again.

Then he brought out a metal dildo, a little cylinder of bright aluminum about six inches long, and slipped it into my vagina. Then he knelt on my chest and made me take his cock in my mouth and bring him off . . . I had to call him sir or master every time, never Len or Sobol, or hed tie me up and whip my ass, hard. The whole time he called me bitch, or sometimes cunt or slut or whore and, once, baby, but never Lu. Not once. It went like that right up until Erik finally came home. When Erik arrived in a taxi from the airport wed all arranged for him to do that when he left Sobol had me tied up to that beam in the bedroom, my harness on, the oil worked into me so that I was raging with need, a vibrator up my ass, a gag in my mouth. Sobol, who was dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, let Erik in when Erik rang the bell, brought him into the bedroom, and asked Erik, What do you think? Erik, grinning, said, Is this my Unbirthday present? Sobol said, It sure is, dickhead wanna open it? Erik said, Naw, lets you and I have a little fun, first. And they both stripped down right then and there, and got onto the bed, and started making it. The way Sobol had me tied, I was facing them and had to watch, and though I could have closed my eyes, I was so horny that I couldnt have done so to save my soul. It had been ten straight days of teasing, and no relief at all, just more stimulation, and I had a wide-on so big I could have fucked a sequoia, no problems, then and there. Did they let you join the fun? It was two more days before then. All three of us werent due back at work for at least a week after Erik got back. So those two bastards spent the next two days having me be a slave for both of them, blowing one while the other took me in the ass and then switching later, being tied up with both of them teasing me and/or making it in front of me. By the end of those two days, Esh, I was just about insane with the need for it I kept bumping and grinding, trying to bring myself off, Sobol laying into my ass or even my clit with the strap when I looked as if I were getting ready to come, Erik just sitting there, grinning like a fiend, watching him, then, when Sobol finished whipping me and joined him on the bed or couch or whatever it was again, going at it with him like two sex-crazed weasels. And both of them called me bitch or hey, you, never my name, the whole time. The third day after Erik got back, instead of untying me in the morning and letting me get up, Erik, who, like Sobol, had already been up for an hour by the time I woke up, kneeled down between my legs while Sobol got behind him, and began to stroke my clit with his tongue. They had me gagged if they hadnt, Id have been screaming for them to fuck me so loud the neighbors would have been banging on the door, demanding to know what was going on and while Erik ate me and ate me, using his hands to tease my nipples the entire while, Sobol fucked him in the ass. Finally, I came, bucking like a bronco, it felt so good. Erik came at the same time, as did Sobol good old Len, he knows how to time things! Erik collapsed on top of me, and Sobol kneeled down on the floor for awhile. Then Sobol went and washed up, and when he came back, he ate me out, and then fucked me, while Erik fucked him. I guess seeing me tied up like that got them both going good, so they were both ready to go at it again a second and even a third time the third time, after Erik washed up, he fucked me while Len kneeled on my chest and had me blow him. Then we all got up Sobol untied me, and let me have a shower, and when I came out Sobol had made breakfast for all three of us. We had a splendid breakfast, steak and eggs and waffles with real maple syrup and real butter, and then it was time to go home. I drove Erik home, we picked up the ferrets on the way, and he and I had a few more days together, having all kinds of fun, the sort you dont tell other people about, unless theyre like Len. Im hot already, just hearing about it, I told her. But Id have been scared stiff if Id been in your place at the time! Maybe not, honey. You havent been around Sobol in quite awhile and never that close. When I get back to San Francisco, well have you down there and maybe do a foursome with you and Sobol, so you can find out, she told me, looking at me sidelong and grinning wickedly. Did . . . did you or Sobol ever have Erik be your slave? Yes, we have. Once I was gone for ten days, and Erik was Sobols slave. Sobol made him wear a cock-ring at all times except when he used the head, put nipple-clamps on him as well as clamps on his scrotum, used a collar on him, whipped him, all of it. After I got back, Sobol and I made it on the bed while Erik, who was chained up to that beam, watched us, and then we teased Erik into a frenzy. Then we made Erik eat me while Sobol fucked him in the ass. And so on and so forth. We kept doing that for a couple of days just like Erik and Sobol had done to me. And then on the third day, I blew Erik while

Sobol fucked me in the ass, and then Sobol blew Erik while I blew Sobol, and then we had breakfast and Erik and I went home. Weve had sessions like that with Sobol lots of times. And at home, Erik and I sometimes take turns being slave and master or mistress, when were by ourselves. Has Len ever played the, the slave? Come to think of it, she said, no, not as far as I know. Now, what would you do with me if I come down there for a visit and you and Erik invite Sobol over to play with us? Oh . . . youd be my personal slave, my dear. Id put you into that harness and the nipple- and labiaclamps, and maybe one on your clit, too after oiling you all over with that delicious oil Sobol uses on me, of course and Id dress up in my sexiest blouse, with no bra, and high heels, and have you kneel at my feet and eat me out while the boys had fun with you. Erikd lie down and have you straddle him and impale yourself on his dick while Sobol took you in the ass and I stood over Erik so you could eat me out all the while. And then Id have Sobol eat me out while Erik tied you up to the overhead beam and fucked you in the ass and teased you into fits while I watched . . . And then, my dear, you and I would trade places, and youd be the mistress, and Id be the slave Oh, God, stop, stop, Im so wet Im likely to flood the seat any minute! I said, laughing. I wonder if Sobols hey, theres our turn-off! She looked up. Dead ahead, on the left, was a billboard proclaiming Simba Safari Park, one-half mile. On it was a picture of a great lordly lion with a heavy dark mane, standing guard over the carcass of a wildebeest, roaring a challenge into the air, a vast veldt, a glorious blue sky, and what looked to be Kilimanjaro Mountain in the background. You got it, Lu told me, putting on her left turn signal as we approached the turnoff. As she made the turn, I looked around. There wasnt another car in sight anywhere. The sky above us, unlike that on the sign, was like molten silver, the huge bronze sun standing about three oclock it wouldnt be setting for at least another five-six hours. On both sides of the road, there was very little ground-cover now, a few large, green-and-purple cacti, several motionless tumbleweeds there wasnt a breath of wind in the furnace-hot air a lot of rocky outcrops and, here and there, small patches of brightly poisonous-looking plants, purple, dark green, and bilious yellow, that looked like something out of the Twilight Zone. Above, there were no birds. No bird-calls anywhere. No signs of life, in fact, other than those few strange plants and Lu and myself. After going about a mile up the road toward whatever Simba Safari Park was, we came to a small cluster of buildings that included a run-down gas station, a small, tacky-looking greasy-spoon whose neon sign proclaimed, Ginas Day-n-Night Diner (coffee refills free), a little mom-n-pop store, Lonnys Polka-Dot Superette, apparently a franchise in some chain neither of us had ever heard of, and a two-story house with a red lantern hung from the front porch ceiling that looked exactly like some bordello that would have done a roaring business during the California Gold Rush. What the hell was that doing here, way the hell out in the back country of Western Washington State, where the Republican Right roamed everywhere and the Fundamentalists were lords of creation? Im going to pull into that little store, there, Lu told me, looking worried. Wed better ask for directions again. This sure doesnt look like its getting us where were going, does it? Nope. And lets see if they have ice we need some. And maybe something like Slurpees. Its hotter than hell have you noticed? Yeah, she said thoughtfully, pulling into a stall on the street in front of the store. Its like the end of the world or something out here . . . Getting out, we walked up to the store. No one seemed to be around. When we entered the store, rather than the lovely coolth wed enjoyed at Maes and even at that horrible little general store a ways back, it was warm, almost hot. Either they didnt have air-conditioning, or it was broken I couldnt imagine anyone working here not wanting it on on a day like this. Lo, girls, what kin I do fer ye? A wizened little old man behind the counter faced us, smiling cheerfully. Uh, we need ice, and something cold to drink, if you have it. And directions, Lu told him, without any preamble. Mopping at her forehead with a red-white-and-black neckerchief shed pulled from her jeans pockets, she told him, We seem to be lost. Waal, thats too bad, he said commiseratingly except that the gleam in his eye looked rather like glee, not sympathy. We do got ice, an lemon or raspberry granitas, too, if ye like. Whar you two heading?

We were heading up Highway 2 to Leavenworth, only there was a detour and we took this road called Alternate 2, and then we came to this place called Big Cat Caf, turned off there for directions, and then followed the road they told us to take until we got to the turnoff for Simba Safari Park, and turned off there, as per their directions, and thats how we got here. Waal, yere on the right road, thats fer sure! Ye dont have too much further to go, like all ye need to do is keep going up this road, its called Simba Drive, and yell come to the sign fer Romulus Farms, shows a she-wolf with the two twins, Romulus n Remus, ye know? The founders of Rome? Lu asked him. Ive seen the original of that statue the one in the New Vatican Museum in Warsaw on a trip, actually. Ye know it then! he said, chuckling in a high, strange laugh that sounded like a monkey chattering. Thats the one, girl. Waal, when ye see that sign, ye turn off at the next left, and that roadll take ye right ta where yere goin. Oh, thank heaven! Lu said, sighing in relief, not noticing the strange smile with which the little old man favored her words. Esh, she said, turning to me, lets get that ice and a couple of granitas, what do you say? Sounds good to me. Mister, where do you keep containers for the ice? Got em right here, sweets, he said, reaching under the counter and bringing up a large tub of waxed paper, good for about a volumetric liter. Great! said Lu, taking the tub from his outstretched arms. Wheres the ice? Over there, in that dispenser by the wall, the man told her, pointing. Turning, she went over to the wall with the tub and began letting ice into it from the dispenser. Esh, you want to get the granitas? Sure. Where do we get those, sir? I asked the man. By the wall on tother side, he told me, pointing. See the thing over there? First, ye put the cups under the spigot for the ice, comes out in a slush when ye pull that handle. Then run whatever flavor ye want into it usin the taps. Okay . . . Soon Lu was back with the ice, and I joined her at the counter with two raspberry granitas. Raspberry okay for you? I asked her. If its cold, itll do. Okay, how much do we owe you? she asked the man behind the counter. Thatll be two credit fifty. Hey, thats not bad! she told him, smiling. Okay, here you go, she said, pulling out her wallet, pulling out two one-credit bills from her billfold and a half-credit piece from the coin-compartment. Thank ye kindly, the little old man said as, smiling, he received the money. Okay, Esh, lets go, its getting on, she said. Going back out to the car, we climbed in. Want me to hold your drink for you? I said, as she dumped the ice from the tub into the bucket, which, besides the milk, juice, and other things wed put in it to keep cool. was filled now mostly with tepid water. Sure, thatd be great! she said, sitting down on the drivers side and putting the key in the ignition. A few minutes later we were heading up the road again almost due northeast. It wasnt long until we came to the sign announcing the presence of Romulus Farms, whatever the hell they were. On it was a blown-up photo of that statue in Warsaw of Romulus and Remus suckling the she-wolf. Below that it said: Romulus Farms Home of the Incredible, Edible Washington Egg! (Turnoff one-quarter mile.) Soon we came to the turn-off, where the road to Romulus Farms veered off to the left, almost due north. Well, Lu told me cheerfully, here goes nothing . . . The road, Lupus Avenue, soon brought us to a complex of buildings, some sort of farmhouse, which was only a few yards from the road itself, behind which stood a barn, a silo, and numerous other outbuildings. Oddly, nowhere could we hear the sound of chickens. A man stood by the road, morosely staring down at a large pothole at its side. Pulling in next to him, Lu called out, Hey, can you tell us where we are? Were trying to get to Leavenworth! Oh, sure, lady, just keep going on this road up that way He pointed to the north. Itll get ye there. about five miles up thetaway He spoke with the same accent the old man at the previous stop had, something like Idaho crossed with the Appalachians. Thanks! Lu told him. Putting the car in gear again, she turned back onto Lupus Avenue and started barreling northward again. You know, Lu, I cant see how the hell this is going to take us to Leavenworth, I told her. Leavenworth was southeast from Monroe weve been trending north ever since we left there. We must be halfway to Canada by now!

Well, lets see whats up ahead. Something should be he said wed get there, wherever it was, about five miles on from there. Yeah, right, I told her sourly. If we dont, lets turn this car around and head back the way we came, until we get back to Monroe, and then we can take the other fork of the road, all right? Okay, thats a promise.

 18 What actually happened was that five miles went by, then ten, then fifteen, and we still hadnt come to any towns, or even a house or other building of any kind. Lu, turning to me, looking utterly frustrated, said, Well, I guess wed better At that moment, a terrible, loud clang! announced that the car had just thrown a rod. We rolled to a stop. Oh, thats great! Lu snarled, trying again and again to re-start the car and finally giving up. Thats just fucking great! How the hell are we going to find anyone to help us all the way out here?! Well, I told her, feeling almost as frustrated, I guess well just have to hoof it from here. Theres got to be something up there ahead. Maybe we can find a phone and call for a tow. Shit, she snarled, furious. God damn this car it was in perfect condition when I left San Francisco, according to Miguels Auto! And damn Miguel Sanchez and his rip-off mechanics, too! she added in afterthought. Slamming the door on her side back, Lu eased herself out of the car, while I got out on the other side. Christ, its hot! Well, it wont get any cooler for awhile. Wed better start walking. Yeah, youve got a point. I guess wed better figure out what were going to take with us. Im damned if Ill leave the guns here, or my case, or anything else worth stealing. Jesus, thats about sixty pounds of weight apiece, Lu! We can leave some of it here, like the fishing-tackle, most of the food and soft drinks, that sort of thing. But I dont want to leave my guns and ammo behind. All right, I have to agree. Well, lets get started sorting our things out and see what we need to take with us . . . Twenty minutes later we were trudging north along the road. I was carrying my 12-gauge in my back-holster, my Magnum in my shoulder-rig, one of Lus Glocks in an impromptu belt-holster she rigged for me from safety-pins and some rags in the trunk of the car, and my own .22 Baretta in my hideout holster at the back of my pants. I was wearing my big Sansom & Travelers backpack which, fortunately, was on a frame, so that its weight was carried mostly on my hips, not my shoulders filled with some of my clothes, about half the books, the boxed chicken, two quart bottles of Coke, various knives, some utilitarian and some strictly weapons-quality, a box of maxi-pads, my makeup kit, my notebook, plenty of ammunition for everything I was packing, my credit-cards and travelers cheques, and numerous other items, the total coming to about 40 pounds. I carried my good black leather jacket, as well, because, as much like desert country as the area looked, it was sure to turn icy-cold tonight, and while I didnt want to wear it in this heat, I wanted it readily available when I needed it. In a pocket of my jeans I had some bills and loose change. I was wearing my good black boots, black jeans, sports bra, and white tank-top; as hot as it was, I was beginning to fantasize stripping down to my briefs and boots and letting it go at that, but I didnt want to court skin-cancer, and who knew who might come along this road at any time? Lu, for her part, packed even more heat than I did, starting with the Mossberg with the pistol-grip stock she wore in a hip-holster and going on through two more Glocks, a Firestar .40, and a snubnose .38 in her own hideout holster. Her backpack, like mine one of Sansom & Travelers top-of-the-line frame packs, held her clothes, the rest of the books, ammunition for her arsenal, her makeup kit, the little bag of tricks that carried all the toys wed had so much fun with the last three days, the sandwich makings, the orange juice, an assortment of knives like mine, a box of mini-pads, plenty of Bullfrog Sun-Block, her travelers cheques, and her credit-cards. Like me, she carried a warm jacket, hers of natural leather; like mine, it was studded everywhere with brass and steel. She carried a wallet in a back pocket of her jeans. Both of us were almost literally ready for bear but in this climate, better we should have been ready for the South Sea Islands, I thought. Then again, though, maybe not that might be inviting melanoma all over, instead of just on our exposed arms and faces. The sun was, if anything, hotter than ever, beating down like the brass door-knocker of Hell out of a blistering, milk-white sky. As bleak and barren as the surrounding area was, with only outcroppings of rock, an occasional cactus, countless heatmirages, and, far in the west, the saw-tooth peaks of the Cascades to break the otherwise unchanging vista of low, shallow hills and flat hard-pan desert, there was virtually no shade anywhere. Sunset was still hours away, and what shadows there were were meager and few. As we trudged north along the road under the blazing sun, sweating like pigs and feeling as if we were already trussed and ready for the oven ourselves, we said little to each other. As it was, we needed the energy for our trek, however far that might be, and every time we opened our mouths to speak,

precious moisture was released from our bodies, moisture we werent sure we could spare. True, we were carrying things to drink, but the Coke, unchilled as it was, was likely to leave us even thirstier than before, and there wasnt a hell of a lot of orange juice. So, in near-silence, we made our way up the road, hoping against hope that we didnt have far to go. Vain hope. It wasnt until late in the afternoon, when the sun was hanging about 40 degrees above the peaks of the mountains in the west, its red light gleaming tantalizingly off snow-pack still hanging onto the peaks even this late in the year, after what seemed an eternity of trudging along that dusty, evernarrowing road, that we finally saw a structure of any kind, about half a mile ahead of us. We had just crested a rise in the road, panting and gasping in the furnace heat that still baked the land, and were starting to descend on the other side when Lu rasped, the dust clogging her words, Esh . . . I think I see something up ahead. There, on the left. Beneath that white-hot horror of a sky, we both stopped to peer northward at whatever it was she had spotted. Staring, I could just make out, far in the distance, what seemed to be a cluster of buildings arranged along the two sides of a square. All around it, as far as the eye could see, there were no other buildings, no man-made structures of any kind. To the west, the land was flatland desert that apparently stretched all the way to the Cascades. South of us, there was nothing but desert, rolling on and on as far as the eye could see. To the east rose low, brown hills or small mountains that looked like nothing that could be found in the Cascades, mostly barren but graced, here and there, with an occasional scrub-pine, burnt-looking swale of brown grasses, or cluster of cacti. To the north well, far in the distance we could see what looked to be high mountains, probably an eastward extension of the Cascades, while on either side of us the land rose in barren ridges that became rocky hills, the road running through a declivity between them and descending to more desert in the north running all the way to those northern mountains. Clearly we must have gone far beyond eastern limits of the Cascades but how we could have done so, trending north as we had, I had no idea. Well, that looks like someplace we might be able to call for a tow, Lu, I told her. Dont those look like a lot of little buildings, there? And I think I see a flag, the sort you see in front of post offices. There should be somebody there who can help us . . . As if we had a choice, she muttered savagely. Then, groaning as she hitched at her pack to try to balance the load a little better, she said, Come on, lets get on down there, see what they have . . . A few minutes later, we came to a sign. Stuck on a post on the left side of the road, made of roughhewn boards in the form of an arrow pointing toward the little cluster of buildings toward which we were making our way, it informed us, in amateurishly stenciled, bright-red letters, that we were approaching

THE MALL AT THE END OF THE WORLD

That sounds intriguing, I remarked. Maybe its one of those huge, brand-new malls that cover half a city or so, containing everything from hotels and motels and theaters and skating-rinks to a postoffice and any sort of restaurant or boutique you could want! Wed be sure to get help there! Dream on, Esh look at it! Does it look like one of those big malls? Er . . . I peered through the heat-haze to where the cluster of buildings, now getting larger with every ten yards of ground we covered, huddled in the distance. No, I gotta say it doesnt. If anything, it looked like a cluster of shacks arranged around two sides of a square, the other two marked off by what looked to be rail fencing. Shit. Well, I guess theres nothing for it but to try it anyway, Lu said. Looks like the best chance weve got anywhere around here. Lets head on down there and see what there is. Resignedly, we both began trudging down the hill toward the buildings in the distance. Level 00. Club Vesta: The Entrance And he replied, seeing my soul in tears: He must go by another way who would escape this wilderness, for that mad beast that fleers before you there, suffers no man to pass. She tracks down all, kills all, and knows no glut, but, feeding, she grows hungrier than she was.

She mates with any beast, and will mate with more before the Greyhound comes to hunt her down. He will not feed on lands nor loot, but honor and love and wisdom will make straight his way. He will rise between Feltro and Feltro, and in him shall be the resurrection and new day of that sad Italy for which Nisus died, and Turnus, and Euryalus, and the maid Camilla. He shall hunt her through every nation of sick pride till she is driven back forever to Hell whence Envy first released her on the world. Therefore, for your own good, I think it well you follow me and I will be your guide and lead you forth through an eternal place. There you shall see the ancient spirits tried in endless pain, and hear their lamentation as each bemoans the second death of souls. Next you shall see upon a burning mountain souls in fire and yet content in fire, knowing that whensoever it may be they yet will mount into the blessed choir. To which, if it is still your wish to climb, a worthier spirit shall be sent to guide you. With her I shall leave you, for the King of Time, who reigns on high, forbids me to come there since, living, I rebelled against his law. He rules the waters and the land and air and there holds court, his city and his throne. Oh blessed are they he chooses! And I to him: Poet, by that God to you unknown, lead me this way. Beyond this present ill and worse to dread, lead me to Peters gate and be my guide through the sad halls of Hell. And he then: Follow. And he moved ahead in silence, and I followed where he led. Dante, Inferno, I: 88-128 Though it had seemed to take hours for any appreciable change in the incandescent day to take place, in the west the sky was now suddenly beginning to take on the reds of incipient sunset, the sky in the east to darken, the sun hastening to his doom as if time had somehow speeded up. The shadows were lengthening visibly now, the land becoming sinister as dusk moved in over it. Just as the last terrible fires of sunsets holocaust were flaring behind the Cascades and night was laying its tenebrous hand on the charred land, dusty, hot, tired, badly needing a bath, food, water, a rest, shelter from the harrowing night with all its as-yet unknown terrors we reached the mall.

Lu was right: the mall, we found, to our vast disappointment, was only a shabby little cluster of small shops and other establishments lining the western and northern sides of a dirt-filled square fenced on the south and east with rail fencing, like a corral. Sure enough, it included a post office, whose flag I had spotted in the distance. There was also what looked to be a number of tacky boutiques, little shops, and, possibly, establishments where we might get a meal and drink, restaurants or night-clubs. There was even what looked like a Tower Records and a bookstore, probably a Barnes & Noble, albeit both tiny and run-down. As unprepossessing as it looked, as Lu said, we didnt have much choice. So, with some misgivings, we entered the mall through the open gate on the south side. Just as we passed through the gate we suddenly were confronted with two hazy, tenebrous figures, floating in the air before us, gowned and crowned in laurel. While nothing really stood out clearly enough for us to be sure whether they were male or female, I got a gut feeling that these were or once had been, might have been closer to the mark men. Or, at any rate, their shades. One of the figures raised his hand. We came to a halt before him. He said to us, in a voice like slow, gracious doom: Per me si va ne la citt dolente, per me si va ne letterno dolore, per me si va tra la perduta gente. Giustizia mosse il mio alto fattore; fecemi la divina podestate, la somma sapenza e l primo amore. Dinanzi a me non fuor cose create se non etterne, e io etterno duro. Lasciate ogne speranza, voi chintrate.* Just as he finished, behind us there came a terrifying, ominous CLANG! Turning to see what it was, we found that the fence had suddenly turned into a high, very solid stone wall topped with spikes and razorwire, and the open gate into a thick steel vault door that was now solidly closed and locked. What the fuck ? began Lu. She advanced on the figures which promptly vanished, leaving us all alone inside the dusty little mall, which was rapidly filling with darkness, revenants of afternoons light clinging feebly to the rooftops and edges of buildings like withered petals to summers last rose. *Dante, The Inferno, Canto III: 1-9. The light was departing. The brown air drew down all the earths creatures, calling them to rest from their day-roving, as I, one man alone, prepared myself to face the double war of the journey and the pity, which memory shall here set down, nor hesitate, nor err. O Muses! O High Genius! Be my aid! O Memory, recorder of the vision, here shall your true nobility be displayed! Dante, Inferno, II: 1-9* Well, I said to Lu, shrugging, I guess were here for the duration. Lets go see what there is here, why dont we? Maybe we can get a coffee, or find a phone and call somebody. Lu, gritting her teeth, nodded assent. Sighing, we walked toward the shops. A narrow, rickety boardwalk of unfinished pine boards, mounted by warped-looking wooden stairs at its southern and eastern ends, ran along the shop-fronts. Approaching it at its southern end, we mounted the steps to the western side of the mall.

The first units we passed included Birds-Eye Restaurant, Furbelow Petorium, Elizabeth Reginas Dress for Success, and the post office, all but the last of which were dark and locked. The restaurant featured a fly-blown poster on the window that advertised an All You Can Eat special and various deals on lunch and dinner, none of which, judging from the photos of the food gracing the poster, would have been worth the pittance charged for them. The Petorium, seen through its windows, looked like a nightmare version of a pet store, containing cages full of strange-looking reptiles, starved and molting exotic birds that looked as if they were on their last legs, and a vicious-looking, mangy badger with gleaming red eyes and foam around its mouth, as well as tanks full of fish floating belly-up and, even worse, cages holding the bodies of dead kittens, puppies, and ferrets at the sight of those last, Lu turned away, her eyes full of tears, and I almost broke down myself, seeing those pitiful, starved little bodies in those terrible cages. We went on to look in the windows of the next unit with guilty relief. The Dress for Success store was filled with the sort of womens clothing a thrift store would have been ashamed to have offered, mostly polyester frocks with the occasional unwearable frothy attempt at something sexy. A couple of ratty-looking mannequins stood in the front window, dressed in tattered old dresses a bag-lady would have scorned, hung all askew on the dummies. While it wasnt nearly as bad as the pet store had been, something about the dim, shadow-filled interior of that store made both Lu and I turn away from the window uneasily, as if there were something in there we couldnt quite see and didnt really want to. As for the post office, the flag was still flying on its flagpole, but should have been retired ages ago full of rips and tears, it had been so thoroughly bleached by the sun and rotted by the rain that it was almost impossible to tell it was the proud Stars and Stripes. True enough, it had a light on, somewhere there in the back but the light was dark red, flickering ominously, and a figure could be seen dancing before it, casting weird shadows as it dipped and swayed and flailed its hands wildly in the air. Unhunh, not there, Lu muttered. No way. Whoever that weirdo is in there, we dont want any part of it! With a shudder, I agreed. The next unit was the bookstore, which, however, turned out not to be a Barnes & Noble, but rather bore a sign informing us that it was

Phillips, Marsh & Sons Bookdealers and Antiquarians Dealers in Curios and Times Finest and Rarest Vintages
It did have lights on inside, and there might have been someone there to let us use the phone to call for a tow. But, though it looked like nothing much, it had an extremely strange atmosphere about it; looking at it, we both inexplicably shuddered. Unh-unh, Lu said, lets try another one. I dont like the looks of that place. Im with you, I told her. Just looking at that place gave me the cold shudders. Turning, I looked at the store to its immediate left. Hmm, what about that one? Diablo Dons Plutonium Oldies looks like a sort of poor mans Tower Records and Videos. Looks closed. And I dont much like the looks of it, either. Hey, whats that? she asked, suddenly pointing to a place about four units down the boardwalk Hmmm Club Vesta, I said, looking at the sign gracing the door of the unit. Drawn by the sign, which was white with the words Club Vesta done in elegantly seductive-looking cerise lettering, and, below the legend, a logo of a lively nude lady romping about a bonfire done in several colors, we walked closer to it along the boardwalk fronting the shops. Other than the sign, the front of the unit, whatever it was, presented nothing more than a large, hot-pink door with a tiny, heart-shaped window in the front and a button at the side to press for admission. It looks just like youd expect The Green Door of the song to look like except its pink! I giggled. Bet its a speakeasy!

For what? Lu snapped. Drugs? A crack-house? An opium-den? Booze is legal, you know or are you still stuck back there in the Bone Age, when Prohibition was going on? And whoever would go to a joint like this, way out at the back of beyond, to get high on nicotine? And if it is a speakeasy, after all, you can bet that the only damn things they serve in there are Shirley Temples the pink is obviously for the grenadine! Naw cant you see? Its for sex Fast fucks, to go! I cracked. Suddenly we both began roaring with laughter. As spooky as this weird little mall was, it had been getting to both of us, more and more. The sudden release of tension left us feeling much better. Oh, what the hey, Lu said, this one doesnt look too bad. Lets give it a try. Not sure why, I agreed with her. We walked closer, preparing to ring for admittance. A miserable little trickle of polluted water ran across the mall, right next to that part of the boardwalk that fronted the doorway to Club Vesta, coming from God knows where and going to the same. Suddenly we noticed that there were three dogs by the entrance to the unit, apparently guarding it, a pit-bull, a Rotweiler, and a Doberman. They stood shoulder-to-shoulder before the door, emitting hideous, terrifying growls, baring all their long, sharp, teeth, drooling rivers of saliva that spilled onto the boards of the sidewalk and ultimately fell into that nasty little rill of water. Lu, piqued by the challenge, said to me, That does it lets try it. Theyre almost sure to have a phone. Uh, Lu what if the dogs dont want us to? Er, well, maybe I could shoot them . . . Christ, we dont want to do that! Are you nuts or something? Here, wait a minute, Ive got an idea. Shrugging out of my pack it felt so very good to get all that weight off my back, after all those hours of carrying it I started rummaging through it. Hey, here we go . . . Whatcha got? Havent met man nor beast yet that can pass up Mrs. Sees Pirates Treasure! I told her, bringing my hand out of the pack, holding a small, brightly-colored box in it. I packed this in the car before we left, figured you never know when youre gonna have a jones for chocolate, I told her, showing her the box. A half-tone picture of a sweet little old, white-haired lady framed in gold printers ornaments on its top, on the sides the box had cartoons of pirates on a desert island burying treasure-chests in the sand. Whats in it? Lu asked, looking more animated than Id seen her for the last several hours. Take a look. Pulling open the top, I let her look inside. The box was filled with several rows of what looked like big gold coins. They were chocolate, wrapped in gold foil. Hmm, that just might work, she said. Can I try some first? Help yourself. Digging into the box, she picked out a handful of the faux coins. Then, walking toward the dogs as slowly and unthreateningly as possible, she said, Here, boy want something nice? With a horrible growl the Rotweiler began to advance on her, stiff-legged. With more nerve than I could ever have mustered, holding her ground and smiling, she told the dog, Chocolate, boy see? With her other hand she picked at the gold foil on one of the coins. The dog, watching her intently, suddenly pricked up its ears. The expressions of the other two dogs, who, if anything, looked and sounded even more menacing than their leader, at once changed from menace to confusion, then to that Oh, boy, something good! look of joy that dogs show when they have detected a treat in the wind. Here, boy give it a try, okay? Lu said encouragingly, coming closer to the first dog, who, having stopped in his tracks, was now staring at her hand as if hypnotized, his tail wagging furiously. Reaching the dog, using her free hand she held the unwrapped piece of chocolate out to him. Gradually he opened his toothy mouth. When the chocolate was nearly touching his front teeth, daintily he closed his teeth over it, began to chew. A look of bliss slowly spread over his features. By this time the other two dogs, wagging their tails like metronomes, had come up to Lu and were now standing next to her, looking up at her with expressions of adoration, joy, and pure gluttony. One by one she unwrapped the coins, apportioning them evenly among the three dogs, until the last was gone. Thats all, boys, she told them, letting the pieces of foil drop to the boardwalk, gently brushing her hands together to get rid of a few small pieces that had stuck to them. Whimpering in disappointment, the dogs drew aside, letting us walk up to the door. Maybe well have more for you later, okay? Lu told them as we passed them. Wagging their tails, somewhat resignedly they lay down on the boardwalk, out of our way, staring at us soulfully. As Lu walked up to the door of Club Vesta which had been thus unblocked, reaching out to press the buzzer beside the door she said uneasily, Wow! Great dogs! Where are their other two bodies? I can only see one no matter where Im standing.

Before I could answer, the door swung open. Nervously, not knowing whether the dogs would remain in a good mood or not, we both stepped through the door. A woman stood there. Wonderful dogs! enthused Lu to the woman. Er, what are they there for? Oh, they keep the riff-raff out! giggled the woman. Dressed a little like a waitress in a cocktail bar in a short-sleeved white blouse and pretty pink jumper, she couldnt have been more than eighteen or nineteen, yet there was the strangest aura of great age about her. Or was that simply the sort of agelessness that graces beautiful women of any age? For she was indeed beautiful, with features like Nefertiti and her dark skin like flawless obsidian. I wondered: just for trespassers? One of the dogs turned its head to glare at me when for, a moment, I stepped backwards a bit, toward the door; clearly it intended to go for me if I continued to retreat. No worry, doggie a blast of wonderfully cool air flowed out of the shop toward us, the desert heat that had followed us here in spite of the coming of sunset retreating precipitately from us, roundly defeated by the stores obviously first-class air-conditioning. Who is it, Lilith? someone asked from farther back in the shop. Whoever it was started to come toward us. Oh, hey what bitchin irons! The speaker came forward, into the light. Lu and I both sucked in our breath appreciatively. Slender and tall, the newcomer wore a stunningly cut scarlet dress patterned with golden dragons, her right arm covered and her left arm bare. There were slits on both sides of the dress up from its ankle-length hem to close to her hips, and it had a cleavage almost to her navel displaying her luscious breasts to perfection literally, because rather than cut in a V as was usual, the front of her dress was cut like that of a Minoan priestess, below both of her bare breasts, which needed no support whatsoever. Her nipples and their aureolae were pale as milk, in strange contrast to her golden skin. Her eyes, whose epicanthic folds proclaimed the Far Eastern part of her ancestry, were nevertheless green as shamrocks and filled with all the mischief of leprechauns. Slender, scarlet slippers trimmed with stylized gold and silver moons, stars, and comets completed her ensemble. I wondered what, if anything, she wore under her dress as her legs moved back and forth and the split at the side parted, displaying her legs in flash after flash of silken gold flesh, it sure didnt look as if she was wearing much of anything by way of underwear. Her smile was bewitching, as Irish as her eyes. Staring at her lush, full lips, which were red as pomegranate seeds, I suddenly wondered what theyd feel like under mine or on my breasts, my sex. Her hair, as dark as mine, fell in rich waves of midnight down her back, to the base of her spine was the hair at the base of her belly that same Stygian black? What were the lips of her sex like pale as her nipples? Flushed dark with passion? I found myself hungering to know, with a devouring, driving need that stunned me. Coming closer, she extended a hand toward us. Hello, she told us in a throaty voice that filled me with an almost unbearable urge to throw her down on the floor, tear her clothes off, and have at her then and there. Im Sumiko Quan OKeefe, she told us as we each took her hand and shook it. And you are Im Mrs. Luciferia Blake Skua and this is, ah, Mrs. Eshda Drake Skua, she said, casting at me a sidelong look that dared to claim differently. I grinned at her she was claiming me as her own, she was, which was just what I wanted. Turning her attention back to our hostess, she said, Uh, our car had a breakdown. We, uh, need a tow. Can we, uh, use your phone? She looked to be on the verge of drooling openly, unashamedly. Well, of course! Sumiko told us with that absolutely enchanting smile. In the meantime, why dont you come in, rest, take a look around? You look as if you could use a little rest maybe a drink, some food? Oh, God, could we ever! I exclaimed. Tugging at the straps of my pack, which Id put back on as soon as Id gotten the chocolate out of it, I asked her, Mind if I take this off? Weve been hiking out there for hours with these packs on. Oh, you poor baby come on in, she cooed, take your packs off, both of you, and sit down here for a few minutes while we get someone to come help you! To one side were some overstuffed maplewood easy-chairs upholstered in white velvet trimmed with little cerise hearts, bows, and cupids taking aim with tiny little bows and arrows. Groaning in relief, both of us swung our packs to the ground, then carried them with us over to the chairs, where we both took seats, our packs sitting next to our feet on the floor. As we luxuriated in the coolth of the room and the relief that getting all that weight off our aching

shoulders brought, we looked around at our surroundings while our hostess, looking secretly amused, watched us as our expressions transmuted from weariness and relief to utter astonishment. Is something wrong, ladies? she asked, covert glee informing her silvery voice with a strange energy. Er, just what is Club Vesta? I asked her timidly.

 19 Her laughter was like fairy chimes. Do you like what you see, ladies? Perhaps youd like to stay for the Tour before calling for a tow . . . On the walls around us were a wealth of framed photographs, all of them of women engaged in deliriously delicious activities. The tamest showed two beautiful nude women, one about eighteen, one about forty, completely involved with each other in mutual cunnilingus. Others showed groups of women in various stages of undress enjoying one another in a variety of ways that ranged from the merely exotic to darkly, dangerously erotic in one, a woman, chained up to two posts on either side of her, was being lashed by one woman who stood behind her with a cat-o-nine-tails while another knelt between her feet, eating her out; in another, one woman, held about three feet above the floor in soft cuffs attached to chains dangling from the ceiling, was being stroked, teased, explored by four others; in a third, a nude woman kneeled on clean white sand in harsh sunlight, her hands cuffed together behind her, performing cunnilingus on a woman who, wearing the black uniform jacket and boots of a stormtrooper and nothing else, stood spraddle-legged before her, glaring down on her ferociously, while a third woman, also nude except for slave-bracelets around her wrists and ankles and a harness like the one Lu had told me Sobol had made her wear knelt down behind the first woman and, reaching between her legs, was playing with her sex. Sumikos silvery laughter came again. I turned to look at her. Do you ladies like the dcor? she asked mischievously. The nipples of her breasts stood up rock-hard as she looked the two of us over speculatively. Something in the corner caught my eye. I turned to look at it. It was a television monitor, high up in the corner, near the ceiling. On the screen a beautiful girl of maybe twenty, her lush red hair spilling in ringlets down to her thighs, lay on her back on a divan while above her, also nude, her golden hair flying wildly about her shoulders, another beautiful young woman was bending down to kiss the first, her hands kneading and stroking the first girls flesh in a manner so sensuous it made me ache with lust just to watch. As we watched, the first girl hooked her knees over the second ones creamy shoulders, and the second one slowly, delicately, inserted one long, slim finger into the others vagina, running it slowly around the rim of her partners sex in ways that had the other girl shuddering with delight. The redhead moaned and gasped as the blond teased her; the blond was saying, in a husky voice that smelled of musk all the way through the monitor, and then Im going to suck on it until you scream, and make you beg me to bring you off . . . and Ill rim you and rim you until you go crazy from it . . . Turning back to Sumiko, I asked again, What is this place, anyway? Why, its a woman-only private establishment where the members can explore any and all aspects of their sexuality, she said slowly, as if she had memorized the words. Her voice was so very lovely I would willingly have dived into it and drowned there if Id just had a diving-board to jump from. Her eyes gleaming like stars, her smile broadening, she added, Members here also have access to many of the other establishments here in the Mall I could hear the capital letter quite clearly as well as numerous other privileges. We invite all non-members who come here to take The Tour and see whether they would like to join, become members themselves. What was that delicious scent in the air, anyway? My sex felt as if molten lava were filling it; glancing sidelong at Lu, I saw how full her lips were, the way her nipples poked through the thin material of her thin tank-top and the lightweight brassiere she was wearing under it, the way her eyes gleamed and her chest heaved, and knew she was experiencing the same thing. Whats The Tour? I asked. Well, you come look and see what the club has to offer. Actually, if you decide not to turn back after youve seen Level I, you are a member; then you go on the full Tour, which allows you to see everything we have here for members, try them all out. Whats the, er, catch? I asked her. I was a little alarmed Lu should have been asking these questions, not me. I was the one who tended to hang back and let somebody else take point. But Lu look as if shed been pole-axed by one of those little arrows the Cupids on the chair she was sitting in were shooting around so freely. Catch? Er, how much does it cost? Actually, there is no cost. Just come on in, try it out. Wow! But there has to be something a place like this . . . I looked dreamily up at the photos, then the monitor, where two young women dressed in tight leather clothing had a third one, nude, tied up

on her back and were busily driving her into a frenzy of frustrated desire with expert caresses. Turning to look again at Sumiko, I said, Isnt there something we need to know before we try this? Well, there is just one teensy-weensy little thing . . . Whats that? I looked over at Lu again. She was staring raptly at the monitor, her left hand slowly stroking one of her nipples, the other drifting down to slip under her belt and work its way down to her crotch. If you are still with The Tour after passing Level I, if you enter Level II, then . . . well, we have a saying here: You Cant Go Home Again. Though the words were spoken in that same soft, seductive voice she had been using all along, chills shot up my back when she uttered them. There was something so . . . final about them. Oh, why dont we do it, Esh? Lus voice came to me dreamily, staring up at the monitor, slowly stroking her nipple, working her fingers under her jeans. We can always call a halt to it if we dont like it . . . You mean, if we dont turn back before we get to Level II whatever that is we cant get out again? Now, Sumiko told me, wearing a mock-pout, shaking her finger at me, I didnt say that! Of course you can get out again. But . . . you wont be the same afterward, I guarantee that, she added, laughing that lovely, tinkling laugh. Luciferia, she said, turning to Lu, reaching out and gently pulling Lus hands away from her breast, out of her pants, why dont you save that for later? Dont you want to have something to eat and drink, first, hmm? Then the two of you can take a look at Level I, and if you dont want to go any further, you can call for a tow-truck then, all right? Wondering at the ordering of those last two items, I started to say something. But Lu, looking bedazzled, turning now to look Sumiko, said, in that same dreamy, disturbingly distracted tone of voice, Oh, thatll be fine . . . Then, tentatively extending a hand toward Sumikos lovely breasts, laying a fingertip on the other womans right nipple and stroking it, as if petting a very small, fragile animal, she said, When do we start? Doing nothing to discourage Lus explorations, Sumiko laughed her silvery laugh again and said, Well, why not right now! Lilith? she called, turning to look over her shoulder at the woman who had first greeted us upon our entrance. The other woman was now bustling toward us, wearing a broad, starry-eyed smile. Yes? Jutting her chest out a little to make Lus contact with her nipple that much firmer but not otherwise paying attention to Lu, Sumiko said, These ladies would like something to eat and drink before they start the tour. Theyll call for a tow after they see Level I . . . if they still want to. Very good! the woman named Lilith said. Ill go let the kitchens and the hostesses know to expect them. Turning, she bustled off toward the back of the shop, then disappeared through a doorway there. If they still want to . . . Whats Level I? I asked Sumiko. Turning back to look at me, keeping her torso and out-thrust breasts rock-steady all the while, she told me, Well, rather than building up, we here at the Mall built down. Much more efficient use of land, you know . . . Here, darling, go ahead, its all right to touch me there if you want to, she said, turning to Lu, spreading her legs so that Lu could reach under her dragon-embroidered skirt and place her fingers far up between her legs. Slowly, as if in a trance, Lu leaned forward until her lips touched Sumikos milky right nipple, began to suck on it, as her questing hand began to explore beneath Sumikos skirt. Well, dont feel left out, darling, Sumiko told me, grinning at me impishly, patting the empty chair on her other side, come sit next to me and Ill make you feel good! Uneasily, but driven by the incandescent heat suffusing my sex, I rose and, coming over to the chair she indicated, sat down in it. Thats right, darling, she told me, now, lets just slide off these ol jeans they must be awfully hot and uncomfortable . . . The next thing I knew, her deft hands were flying about the waist of my jeans, unbuttoning the rivet that closed the waistband, slowly drawing down the zipper, drawing my jeans down off my ass, my thighs, until they spilled onto the floor around my ankles. And these briefs why, theyre so tight and confining, you must be miserable . . . Quickly, my briefs joined my jeans. As I sat there, almost overcome by the heat filling my body, raising her hand she slipped it under my top, up to my bra, which she pulled upward, off my breasts. One silken fingertip began to trace a script on my nipples whose meaning I could almost make out, almost . . . understand . . .

As the first finger began to work its Magick on my nipples, another fingertip slowly traced its way down my belly, into the fur at its base, then between my labia and into the slick, satiny channel between them. When it touched my clitoris, a sharp spear of pleasure so exquisite it was a hair away from agony went completely through me. I must have cried out, for Sumiko said, Oh, dear, we dont want to do too much of that before dinner . . . youll have plenty of time for that later. Lilith? Yes, Sumiko? Lilith, returning from whatever errand shed been on, hurried over to us. Sumiko, now transferring her wonderfully knowing hands to Lu, undoing the top of her jeans as she had mine, efficiently working off Lus jeans and underwear and letting them fall to the floor as she had done to mine, began to caress Lu as she had me, while I watched, aching in frustration. Would you keep these ladies . . . entertained while I go get the hostesses ready to escort them on The Tour? Id be happy to, Sumiko, Lilith told her. Rising to her feet and putting her clothes in order, Sumiko purred at us, Ill be back shortly. While Im gone, ladies, Lilith will keep you both . . . happy. All right? We both nodded dumbly at her as she began to make her way to the back of the unit and Lilith took the chair she had vacated. Lilith, smiling kindly at us, said, Well, you both look as if you could use a little tender loving care while My Lady is gone. Now, both of you, stand up, come forward, and lets see if I cant make you feel good . . . As if enchanted, we both rose to our feet and, stepping out of our jeans and briefs, came up to her, each stand by one of her knees. Saying, Now, open your legs and close your eyes and Ill give you each a big surprise, in a light, teasing voice, she extended her hands toward us. Doing as she bade, we each spread our feet apart and closed her eyes. Soft, delicate fingertips touched our labia, began to stroke the valleys between them. As they did, the heat we were each feeling mounted higher, higher, higher, until I thought I would go crazy if I didnt come soon, and surely Lu felt the same. Higher and higher it went, higher, higher, until I began to see brilliantly colored stars flashing behind my closed eyelids, hear a roaring in my ears, feel the unspeakably lovely sensations spreading out from my clit toward my anus, throughout my pelvic basin, down my legs, up my torso, into my hands and arms and throat and skull, as if my body were becoming one gigantic clit, aching to come . . . Oh, dear, I see My Lady is back! Well, therell be time for this later. Liliths voice, seeming to come from far away, pulled us back to the foyer of the club. My body screaming for release, slowly I came back to myself, the wonderful sensations Liliths delightful hands had been evoking me fleeing like birds before a storm, leaving in their wake only a heavy, dull aching in my sex. Darlings, said Sumiko, who had come back and was standing next to Lilith, everything is ready for you now. You can have a lovely dinner now, use the facilities, whatever you need to freshen up, and then we can start you on The Tour. Uh youll want to put your things back on, first, she added thoughtfully, that impish note filling her voice. Yeah, uh, I guess we should, Lu said, her voice leaden with frustrated need. Slowly, bending down, she caught up her briefs and jeans and began to struggle into them while I did the same. When I had my clothes back on again, Lilith, reaching up to gently tweak one of my nipples, said, Now, dont fret right after dinner, youll be meeting all sorts of lovely ladies who will be more than glad to . . . make you happy! Turning to Lu, stroking her belly with a practiced hand, she added, You are both such beautiful ladies, no one will be able to resist you! Now, lets get you into the dining hall, to have some dinner . . . Rising and taking each of us by the arm, she began to follow Sumiko, who was walking toward the back of the unit, beckoning to all of us to follow. Going through the door in the back, we found ourselves looking down a long flight of stairs. Er, whats down there? I asked timidly. As I said, we build down, not up, said Sumiko, hurrying along ahead of us. Everything in Club Vesta is down there. The first place well stop, though, isnt on The Tour, really. Its the dining hall where visitors who are about to take The Tour can have something to eat and drink. Theres a bathroom there, too, where you can freshen up, so youll be at your best for The Tour. God, Im so hungry, I could eat a Democrat, Lu said wistfully.

Whats a Democrat? asked Lilith, hurrying us along to catch up with Sumiko. I looked at Lu. She looked at me. I shrugged at her. Oh, well, she said. Lead on, MacDuff, she misquoted. I cant wait for dinner! We started down the crepuscular stairway, which looked as if it went down forever. Sighing resignedly, hitching my pack to make it balance better, I left the foyer behind and descended into Club Vesta, equal parts fear and curiosity battling in my soul, curiosity finally winning.