“Chris, babe, you know I love your fur, but let me wake up first, so I can do you justice.” I heard loud laughter coming from beside me, and I opened my eyes to complete darkness. Soft, hairy darkness. And then the darkness moved, and I realized it was our kitten, Blackie, sitting on my face. She licked my nose. Chris was laughing so hard I thought she would roll off the bed.
“Is this a dream?” I asked disjointedly.
“No, dreams aren’t real, and this is definitely real,” Chris replied, moving the kitten off of my face. She then placed her warm hand between my bare breasts.
There’s something about a warm, loving hand placed so close to my heart that makes me feel secure. Makes me feel loved. And, sets me on fire. She couldn’t know it, but that’s definitely one of my erogenous zones. I could already feel the heat from her hand warming its way down to the cold spot in my belly. I put my hand over hers and pressed her warmth into me, sending a surge of heat to the tips of my breasts, and causing a tingling sensation between my thighs. It wouldn’t take much, even in my sleepy state, to fan those sensual tingles into flames of ecstasy.
“Wow. Your touch is the best way to wake me up quick. Next time leave the kitten out of it, okay?”
She laughed. “Okay, but it won’t be near as funny.”
“No, but it will be much more lustful, I mean useful.”
“Uh-huh, sure it will,” she said with a laugh. “So, I’m glad you’re awake, because I want to talk with you about our first case.” She bounced up in bed and wrapped her arms around her legs.
“Now. I mean… now?” I wanted something entirely different, and in fact, my loins were throbbing for it.
“Yes, now. I’ve been waiting a half-an-hour for you to wake up. I should have thought of the kitten a lot sooner.”
“I’d rather you didn’t.” I laughed, and pushed myself back against the headboard, letting the blanket fall to my waist. “Okay, what did you want to talk about?”
“Our first case.” She turned toward me, her eyes dropping down to my cold breasts, and I thought, oh yeah, she wants me. “Um, where was I?” She move her eyes back up to my face, and continued, “Well technically, I’m not sure it can really be called our first case, because we’ve helped a few people like our new secretary, who will be here today, don’t forget. I want you here to help with introductions, okay?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said, not really all that interested in anything else but Chris looking at my breasts again. I shifted my position, hoping to draw her attention back, but it didn’t work. She was too worked up about the case.
“Anyway, when we find Richard, what will we do with him?” she asked. “He can’t live here because it would be too hard on Norma, and he’s much too old to roam the streets anymore.”
“Chris, remember, I told you yesterday, that we’ll need to get him into a rehab, or shelter if he won’t go to a rehab.”
“Yes, I remember you told me all that,” Chris frowned, “but it was just random thoughts. It wasn’t a plan that we could follow, and we’ll need to have a backup plan in case the first one doesn’t work out.”
“You do like to plan ahead, don’t you, babe?”
“I just like to be prepared, that’s all,” she pouted.
“Now, don’t take it wrong. I like that you plan ahead. It leaves less for me to do.”
She laughed and I melted at the glint in her eyes. I wish I could always see her eyes shine like that.
“So, what do we do first?” she asked, and I realized that until she had her plan in hand, I wasn’t going to get laid. I needed a quick solution to end my torment.
“I was thinking of just hiring your pal, Meg, and letting her do the leg work for us.”
“Oh, no, honey. She’s working on finding someone for me already,” Chris explained.
“You mean the guy you hit?” she nodded. “Well, why can’t she have more than one project? Private dicks, I mean private chicks, do it all the time. Either that or hire her wife to help out.”
“I was kind of thinking, if we’re serious about paying it forward, we shouldn’t automatically get other people to do the work for us. Otherwise, why are we doing it?” Chris had a point, which I wasn’t happy with.
“You know that we can still help people without even having to leave the house.”
“No, Melinda. Remember we talked about this too. Handing someone a wad of cash is not helping them.”
I opened my mouth to disagree with her, but Chris continued.
“Don’t you see? Paying it forward is all about the recipient knowing that someone cared enough for them to help them out personally.”
Again I opened my mouth to speak, but Chris was in her own little world now.
“Here’s my plan. Tell me if you don’t like it. We find Richard and first take him to a restaurant and get some food in him. And while he’s eating, you and I will have a talk with him about going to a rehab, where he’ll get three square meals a day, room and board, free of charge. Of course, we would pay for everything. And not just any rehab, like a hospital, but a resort that will cater to his every need while they slowly detox him. In Richard’s day, rehab meant drying out in rubber rooms, wearing a strait jacket, but if we can show him what some of them are like now, I think he might want to go. I’ll print out some brochures from online, and we’ll start looking for him right after breakfast.”
I sat there, waiting to see if she had finished, but she hadn’t.
“Well, don’t just sit there like a sleepy lump on the log, let’s go!”
Chris pulled my hand until I was forced to follow it, just to keep it attached to my arm. I loved how excited and determined she was, and I even felt a twinge of excitement myself, for our new adventure. But it was a different kind of excitement that I was wanting right at the moment, so I came up with a plan of my own that would combine two of my needs into one. I asked her if she wanted to share a shower with me. She was most agreeable.
After a deep, titillating shower, where Chris was very generous with her excitement and enthusiasm, and I was very satisfied by her generosity, we went down to the kitchen to see what Charlotte’s new cook had made for breakfast. Charlotte had stolen the cook, Konani Kalani, who is Hawaiian, from a mansion down the road, which I took some competitive delight in.
The first thing Konani, who is forty-nine, short and pudgy, with dark hair, did when we interviewed her, was explain her name. The Hawaiian people take great pride in their names, so I knew that I had better not be lazy when I called her by name. Konani means shining, and her last name, Kalani, means the queen. I asked her if that meant she was the shining queen of the kitchen, and she replied that she wasn’t gay. I told her that’s a shame because I would seriously think about leaving Chris for her. She blushed and then laughed and told me that if she was still single at age fifty, she would consider it.
Norma, who usually rises before the sun does, was already seated at the table, enjoying a hot cup of coffee, an empty plate in front of her. Chris and I both kissed her on the cheek and then sat down beside her.
“Konani. What’s cooking, good looking?”
She looked at me seriously and said, “You got one out of two right.”
Was she challenging me to guess which one? I’m much too smart for that old ploy, so I laughed instead and picked up my coffee cup. Konani went back into the kitchen and returned carrying two plates to our table.
Konani made a traditional Hawaiian breakfast for us, and I’ll admit, I was skeptical at first. I’m not much of a morning person, preferring dry cereal for breakfast, with lots of coffee or soda. That was until I saw Chris roll her eyes in satisfaction when she took a bite of the Hawaiian French toast with coconut syrup. There were also eggs and Portuguese sausage on a bed of rice, Hawaiian rainbow papaya, and apple bananas, along with Hawaiian coffee. One bite of the sausage, and I scarfed down everything in sight and then asked for seconds.
Wiping her face with her napkin, Chris looked up at Konani as she po
ured more coffee into our cups, “Konani, I am honored that you would prepare such a delicious Hawaiian aina kakahiaka for us.”
Konani looked as shocked as Norma and I did.
“Mahalo. Ōlelo Hawaiʻi 'oe?” She asked.
Chris shook her head. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”
“I asked if you speak Hawaiian,” Konani replied, although she had her answer before she translated the question.
“No. Not at all,” Chris said. “I looked it up on the Internet.”
Konani laughed. “That explains why you were cussing at me.” Konani winked at me, so I watched for Chris’s reaction.
Chris blushed a bright red. “Oh no. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to.”
“I’m just playing with you, Ms. Chris. You spoke the word for breakfast perfectly, and I appreciate you making the effort.”
“Oh, you are a card.” Norma laughed.
In fact, we were all laughing, except for our very staid butler. She was not laughing, which gave me pause to appreciate the dynamics of our little group. I think we had done a fine job of picking our employees, each one of them bringing their own unique gifts to our home.
Tomorrow our new maid will join us. And just as Chris had asked, Charlotte found a maid who was homeless. Charlotte was responsible for vetting our employees, just as I had her checked out, and she told me that she found Baylee-Ann Reynolds at the local shelter and spoke with her at length to learn that she has had jobs as a maid before, mostly working for an agency. She ended up homeless because she took care of her dying grandmother, who had no insurance, so Baylee-Ann was left with the bills to pay. With the death of her grandmother, Baylee-Ann was also an orphan, her parents having died years ago. She had no children, no spouse, and now, no-where to live.
Charlotte brought her in to interview with us, and all three of us were moved by her determination and willingness to work. Having lived a month in the slums, without money, I had a small taste of what she must be going through. I told her that if we hired her, she would have to put up with my lame jokes about her deep Southern accent. She told me that if she got the job, she “reckoned she’d be pert nigh ta busting at every one of my jokes, even the good ones”. This kid was sharp.
Chris, who survived almost a year in that dump, took a softer, understanding approach, when she asked Baylee-Ann to talk about her grandmother. As I sat back and listened to their exchange, I learned that Chris was also very close to her grandmother and was devastated when she died. Baylee-Ann and she bonded almost instantly.
And Norma was taken with her as well, even before she talked of her grandmother. Norma told me later that she could never master the Southern accent when she played one in the movies, and before Baylee-Ann left, Norma asked for advice from her. She told Norma to talk like a hillbilly and split the difference between it and her natural English, and it would come out sounding Southern. Norma has been talking with a strange, mixed-up accent ever since.
We had our maid, and I was beginning to feel rich again.
Chapter Seven
Paying It Forward, Case #1 — Melinda Blackstone
In the morning, Chris and I will venture out on our first real case, and I admit, I feel a little bit excited about it, and a little bit anxious, too. Going to the slums and actually talking with the beggars and derelicts is not something I look forward to. I had always made sure that I was no-where near those type of people, because I was afraid they would somehow jinx me into losing all my money. It’s not that I label everyone without money a vagrant, or otherwise I never would have fallen in love with Chris. But I was raised to steer clear of those type of people. After that month of living in the slums with Chris, where I passed the drunks and drug pushers on the street every day, I am better able to recognize the struggles of the homeless. I’ll admit, I am excited by the adventure, but I still don’t want to socialize with those people in the back alleys of Memphis.
I called my friend, George, and used him to brainstorm about what it would take to get people to talk with me. Money, of course, would be the obvious way, but I thought that they would probably say anything to get it. George suggested that we blend in with them, and offer them food instead of money, not as a bribe, but as a gesture of good will.
Realizing that I can’t wear my thousand dollar boots, jeans and shirt to such a depressed area, I knew that I needed to find what I’ve heard called, gently used clothing, which is the politically correct way to say rags not fit for a dog. I may have over-stated that one just a bit. And of course, pulling up in the Lamborghini is out of the question for so many reasons, including the thieves who would have it stripped and sold for parts in a matter of minutes.
So, today I will go on a shopping spree of sorts, and along with finding clothes, I think I should pick up something to protect us while we’re socializing with those people.
And when we find Richard, I will ask him what he did with Norma’s Oscar. That is, if he’s sober enough to answer me.
Paying It Forward, Case #1 — Chris Livingston and Melinda Blackstone
I intend to catalog each case that Melinda and I undertake in order to learn from any mistakes we might make along the way. But I will keep my notes locked up, because I don’t want them to be made public. That’s not what we’re doing this for.
Our first case is to find and help Norma’s ex-boyfriend, Richard Burke, a onetime aspiring actor, who ended up a homeless drunk, living on the streets of Memphis. I had actually seen Richard many times on the stoop of my apartment building and had even given him money before. Norma had spoken a little about her relationship with him, and I get the feeling that there’s still a tiny spark of love in her heart for him. She met him while filming the first movie she ever starred in, Invaders from Pluto, and had a love affair with him, as she puts it, in-between husbands. Unlike Norma, who had a successful career in the movies, Richard never made it off of the B-list, which is probably what led him to drink.
Melinda told me that Richard had disappeared right after we moved Norma out of her apartment. Melinda even looked for him, but it wasn’t an in-depth search, it was just around the building. So now we are going to visit every shelter, every church and every back alley, until we find him.
I waited for the printer to spit out the last page of a brochure I found online. It’s from a rehab facility in Hot Springs, Arkansas that specializes in detoxification while bringing the client back to health. The pictures made it look like a spa, and when I called and talked with the manager, he gave me vivid details of the process. He assured me that Richard would be cared for, but that he would also have a hard time of it at first. There would be a medical doctor assigned to his case, and nurses to see to his medications. He may even have to be locked up while he dried out, but he would be in a clean room, where he would be made comfortable, but unable to do himself harm. All of that seemed very extreme to me, but remembering the alley that I woke up in, next to a smelly, snoring bear of a man, whose hand was groping my breast even as he slept, it couldn’t be that much worse. I shivered at the memory and frantically pushed it from my mind. If I allowed myself to think about it, I would lose my way again. I returned my focus to Richard.
The one problem that I had no answer for was that we weren’t his legal guardians and could not admit him ourselves. So we would need to find him and talk him into the facility of his own free will. I had a bit of an uneasy feeling about getting someone to do something that would normally be against their will. I justified it by convincing myself that he would die otherwise. The man was in his seventies, after all, and deserved a better way to live, or a better way to die.
“Are you ready to go?” Melinda asked as she strolled into the office. She was dressed in tattered clothing, and her hair was tossed around in clumps that hung about her face, which had smudges of dirt on it. Even looking like something the cat dragged in, she was desirably beautiful to me.
“What on earth?” I asked her, suppressing a desire to laugh at the hole in her tenni
s shoes.
“If we want to be able to ask questions, we have to blend in. They won’t give us the time of day if we pull up in my Lamborghini, wearing designer-made clothes.”
I was impressed. She had given it a lot more thought than I had.
“I took the liberty of getting you some grubby clothes from the thrift shop, too.” Melinda handed me a faded shirt and tattered jeans with a pair of frayed tennis shoes. “I would have told you about it last night, but you were at your mother’s, and I fell asleep waiting for you to come home.”
“I know, I found you in the theater room, out like a light. I guess the movie wasn’t that good?”
“Or I was that tired. I’m not sure which,” Melinda said
“Wait. What is that?” I notice a dark lump under her shirt.
“What? This?” Melinda pointed to the lump. “It’s just an insurance card in case we run into trouble.”
“A gun?”
“No, it’s not a gun, it’s a can of pepper spray.” Melinda lifted her shirt to show me the cylinder can attached to her belt, next to her cellphone. “But just so you know, I do own a gun, several in fact, and I am a certified expert shooter.”
“And just so you know, I’m not keen on having guns around. I’m very afraid of them.”
Melinda looked at me as if she were trying to decide something. “Duly noted,” she said. “Anyway, we don’t know what we’re walking into down there and I just want to have a little protection, just as a precaution.”
“I applaud your forethought. Even though I prefer to plan ahead, I’ve always had tunnel vision when it came to things like that. You have the gift of seeing all four corners and planning accordingly. I really like that in you.” I was so impressed that I was practically gushing.
“Wow, thanks, babe, that’s really nice of you to say that,” Melinda said.
Combining Riches (Riches to Rags Book 2) Page 8