Bitch Witch

by S. R. Karfelt

Likes a woman’s legs wrapped around him, and keeps eye contact during sex. Bites.

  “I brought you lunch,” he whispered.

  “It’s delicious,” she said against his lips. “Thank you.”

  He laughed again. “I’m talking about the sushi in the back. I brought a bottle of wine too. I was hoping the weather might clear up for a picnic.”

  “It’s not, and we’re not going anywhere anyway.” Sarah pressed her body against his. “Not until I finish every bite of you.”

  “Whoa, kitten. Don’t forget we’re in a parking lot in a Jeep full of windows.”

  Sarah glanced up at the steamed glass and giggled. “Are you shy, Henry?”

  “I don’t want to get arrested.”

  “I’m willing to risk it. Besides, no one can see in!”

  Henry tried to sit up, but Sarah didn’t let him. She tugged the top of her dress down until she exposed far more than cleavage. “How about now? Are you willing to risk it now?”

  Judging by the reaction of Henry’s body beneath hers he’d gotten past his worries.

  At that exact moment the passenger door swung open. Before Sarah had a moment to fully turn her head in that direction, Avery Gross hopped into the passenger seat. “Wow, Sarah! Are you starting without me?”

  Sarah stared, trying to make sense of him being there.

  “What the hell!” Henry shouted. He flipped the seat lever, sending himself flying upright and wedging Sarah’s rear against the horn.

  ”Get off her!” Avery shouted.

  I’m definitely the one on top. Sarah continued to gape at him; certain he was the slowest man she’d ever known. She reacted too late as he swung a fist toward Henry. “No!”

  The sickening sound of fist on jaw seemed louder than the horn blaring beneath her backside.

  “You bastard! Sarah, did he hurt you?” Avery crawled over the console, trying to hit Henry again and elbowing Sarah’s face in the process.

  It hurt like hell. “Stop it!” Sarah grabbed a handful of Avery’s hair and yanked as the driver’s door swung open.

  All three of them turned to look. A flushed and tousled Henry clung nose to nose with Avery, an arm around his neck. Sarah held both men, her bare breasts pressed against them in the confines of the little Jeep while her backside continued to blare the horn.

  Jackie Hamilton stood in the rain, her mouth hanging open. Behind her, Sarah’s boss Mercer and several security guards looked on.

  Paul laughed. He slid off the edge of the sofa and onto the floor and laughed until tears ran down his cheeks. He laughed until he had to press a hand against his stomach to control his wheezing. Sarah and Henry’s problems seemed to have gone a long way toward cheering him up.

  “Stop it!” Henry wasn’t amused. “I got arrested!”

  Sarah hadn’t known until that day that getting arrested didn’t always involve handcuffs. They’d been issued citations to appear in court, but according to Henry their crimes would be listed in the local newspaper. He’d shouted into his mobile phone the entire way back to the house.

  Somehow Paul managed to laugh harder.

  “You think it’s funny? I’m CFO of the goddamn company, Paul!”

  Paul collapsed, pounding one bare foot against the carpet as he gasped with breathless amusement.

  Fear thundering through her, Sarah swung her hands above her head and brought them down hard. “Both of you stop!” The entire house vibrated with her anger; windows and dishes rattled and something upstairs thudded to the floor. “I lost my job!”

  Had a pet hamster in third grade. Made a tape of breasts cut from movies in college. Earned his first $10,000 with it.

  “Sarah, I told you not to worry! It’s an easily replaceable job!” Henry frowned at her. “You’re a clerk! I could get you a dozen jobs in my company alone—at least until this all gets back to Dallas. Dammit, don’t overreact!”

  Paul sobered in an instant. “Don’t swear at her, Henry.”

  “Fuck that! This is going to cost us millions!”

  “Don’t be absurd,” said Paul, wiping his eyes. “Even if word gets back to the stockholders, so what? You made out with—well, it’s going to look like the other woman I hope you realize, since everyone knows you’re engaged to Kathleen. But still, it’s hardly the crime of the century to attempt a hook up in a car!”

  “There was another man involved!”

  “What? Who?” asked Paul, hoisting himself back onto the couch. “Just what were you two doing?”

  “It was a misunderstanding!” Sarah protested. “The stupid logic spell caught this guy at work in the aftershock. He thought—shit, I don’t know what he thought! It was so long coming and subtle I didn’t realize how it was affecting him!” Sarah stalked back and forth, frantic. She should have seen it coming. It made perfect sense the aftershock would suck Avery in. She buried her face in her hands. “I thought it was a small aftershock! I should have known better! It’s never small!”

  Dozens of spells ticker taped through her mind. It would require major casting on a dozen people to fix the mess at this point. She could almost feel the dark matter in the basement pressing against the floorboards beneath her feet, anxious to help. “Shit! What am I going to do? I need that job!” Sarah pressed her hands against her mouth, fighting the sobs building up in her chest.

  “Come on, kitten! I’ll find you a job. Even if I lose mine I can find you a clerk job,” said Henry. “If you need money, I can help you with that too. Don’t worry! Please, don’t cry!”

  “It’s not that simple,” Paul told him. “She needs repetition to soothe herself. It’s like that autistic kid you have in the mailroom at the Dallas office. You couldn’t stick him in any mailroom, he fits into yours. Sarah needs this job.” Paul pushed to his feet and went to her, offering a hug. “Hey, you’ll figure something out.”

  “Yeah,” she said through tears. “Sure I will. I always do. That’s not it. Don’t you understand? I could make it go away in the next hour by casting. The dark is always there waiting to help. I can’t get away from it, not for long. I’m doomed!”

  “No, you’re not. You’re not going to have to cast to fix this. Tell me exactly what happened and who was involved. We’ll figure this out together. I’ll help you.”

  “There’s no way. My boss, H.R., and security made that perfectly clear. I’m out.”

  “You’ve already made up your mind, haven’t you? You say you want to give up casting, but it’s your first line of defense. If you don’t want to cast, Sarah, you have to find other ways to get what you need.”

  “There is no other way!”

  “Fine! Don’t even try. Give up. Cast away. It’s your choice and your life.”

  “Wait,” Henry interrupted. “Ya’ll are serious, aren’t you? You both believe a bunch of mumbo jumbo—just words that you say from here could change what happened?”

  “No,” Paul answered. “She can’t change what already happened! Don’t be ridiculous. She can only change what will happen.”

  “Do you really believe this stuff, Paul? You actually believe Sarah can change the future?”

  “Is that really so hard to believe? We can all affect the future. You say you’re in love with her and you don’t even believe she’s really a witch! Did you not notice the entire house shook because she swung her arms? Did you not see what happened in the basement yesterday? Did you not participate in a spell this morning? How deep in denial are you?”

  “I’m not saying she doesn’t have telekinesis. She did staple me to the door! I’m not pretending to understand it. I saw it! Still, come on, Paul, there’s no such thing as witches! No offense, kitten,” he added to Sarah, then looked back to Paul. “Sarah simply believes what she was taught. It’s a mindset that she’s been programmed to believe. I can understand that, but you have no excuse.”

  “So are oil barons a mindset. Henry, who else has a box of bones in the basement and spell books in the attic? You claim to love her, brother, but
you can’t even accept what she is!”

  “Stop arguing over semantics!” said Sarah, extricating herself from Paul to pace over an antique Persian rug. Her hands shook. “Call me what you will, but there’s a war going on in the universe between darkness and light and I don’t want my soul going to the dark side. It is winning you know! This fight isn’t just about me! You’re all part of it no matter what you believe!”

  “Hey!” Paul kept pace beside her. “You’re not in this alone, and you don’t need to go into battle right this second. Go upstairs and take a hot bath, have a nap, and come have dinner in your pajamas. Then we’ll plot and plan over my lasagna.”

  “Witches don’t take naps!”

  “Try. Listen, they cannot fire you for kissing your boyfriend in your car.” Paul looked at his brother. “Can they, Mr. CFO?”

  Henry made a face. “She had her top down. So maybe.”

  Paul glared at him and said evenly, “Wardrobe malfunction. While Sarah takes her nap, you’d better go ice your face, bro. You look like you were dragged behind a horse. I hope you at least punched the guy back.”

  POUNDING WOKE SARAH. The first thought that came to mind was Paul hadn’t gotten her out of bed for lasagna. She sat up and turned on her bedroom light to check the time. The clock flashed ten minutes after midnight.

  I haven’t eaten for an entire day almost. It felt like a medical emergency.

  The second thing that came to mind was the memory of Mass Power and Light security guards taking her badge.

  Sarah threw herself against the pillow. A few tears escaped down her cheeks and into her ears. She rubbed her eyes furiously, and realized too late she was grinding mascara over her face.

  The pounding continued to thunder through the house. Sarah sat up, threw the covers off, and crammed her feet into ruby red slippers. Witches were not without a sense of humor. The sparkly slippers were the last thing Aunt Lily had given her.

  She slapped light switches on as she hurried downstairs. From the noise level she half expected the guys to be tearing down a wall or dragging dangerous things out of the basement, but apparently they’d gone to bed and gone deaf.

  Those bastards better not have eaten all the lasagna!

  It took her a moment to realize the pounding came from the front door. Visions of reporters crowded into her imagination. Her brief flash of boob in the parking lot probably wasn’t worthy of television news coverage, though. Sarah stalked to the front door and yanked it open.

  The woman pounding nearly fell inside.

  “You’d better be drunk,” Sarah told her.

  The tall blonde straightened, adjusting a fringed pink scarf. “Not a day in my life. I’m Kathleen Karrie. I’m here to see my fiancé, Henry Longfellow.”

  The sentence rendered Sarah speechless.

  Kathleen shifted impatiently from one long leg to another.

  Sarah remembered to close her mouth and drew herself up to her full height. It wasn’t very impressive next to Kathleen Karrie.

  “Do you mind if I wait inside?” The tall blonde crossed her suntanned arms, shivering in the sixty-degree temperature.

  “I think you have the wrong house,” Sarah lied.

  “I tracked his phone, and I can see his shoes.” Kathleen pointed at a pair of loafers next to a jumble of Sarah’s shoes. She put one hand on a slim hip and tugged her roller bag closer with the other. “I know he’s here, sweetheart.”

  “Henry’s asleep. You’ll need to come back later.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Kathleen. She pushed past Sarah, wheeling her roller bag over the toe of a witch slipper. The woman looked around the spacious entry for a moment before turning back. “Where is he? I’d be happy to wake him myself.”

  Sarah put a hand on her own hip and looked Kathleen up and down, determined to ignore the mean girl attitude. Kathleen looked like a Victoria’s Secret model, complete with big perfect blonde hair and artfully drawn eyebrows. It made Sarah aware of her own frumpy sweats and braless sag. Unconsciously a hand flew to her hair and she remembered she’d gone to sleep with it wet. It now stuck up far bigger than the Texas fiancée’s. It didn’t take a mirror to know she looked like a witch. She dropped her hand without trying to change the truth.

  “What’s going on?” said a male voice from the kitchen.

  Both women spun to see Paul crossing the foyer, barefoot in only his gym shorts, his horse tattoo more visible than Sarah had ever seen it. “Sarah, what are you pounding on?” he asked, rubbing his eyes.

  “Hello, Paul,” said the fiancée with a serious Texas twang.

  “Kathleen!” Paul seemed to wake up quickly. “Uh, I didn’t know you were coming.”

  Henry appeared right behind Paul in striped cotton pajamas. He smiled at Sarah. “Hey, kitten! You’re up!”

  Kathleen whipped her head around to stare at Sarah, her jaw dropping. Apparently she hadn’t put one and one together to come up with Henry and Sarah as a couple. Disbelieving eyes examined Sarah from head to foot, pausing on every flaw—unkempt hair, imperfect skin, breasts hanging around town without support, slight belly bulge, and soft thighs in baggy sweats.

  Kathleen arched a flawless brow and drawled, “All right, so you’re his someone else? That didn’t take long. And he calls you kitten too? How nice.”

  Henry froze. “Kathleen?”

  Avoids confrontation, except with lawyers. Always sleeps in pajamas.

  Kathleen turned her attention back to him. “Henry. I hope you don’t mind my stopping by without calling. It’s just that after four years I think I deserve more than a text that says, Sorry, I met someone else.”

  “Oh,” said Henry. “Ah.” He nodded. “Yes.”

  “Dear Lord! What happened to your face?”

  Henry didn’t answer, but Paul chuckled. “You might want to start with something less combustible.” He crossed his arms over his bare chest as silence descended.

  Kathleen shot one accusatory glance at Sarah and waited, her long fingers clenching and unclenching the handle of her bag. Henry’s gaze flitted between both women, settling at last on Sarah. Kathleen’s fingers froze in their clenched position until they turned bone white. Sarah’s stomach snarled, and she had to pee. She knew whoever spoke first lost. She understood power plays, and she’d piss herself before losing this one.

  “So, awkward,” said Paul. “Anyone want a glass of wine? Some midnight lasagna? I know you do, Sarah.” He turned and shuffled back toward the kitchen, and Henry hurried to follow.

  After another brief moment of silence and a short staring contest, Kathleen went too. Sarah stopped in the half-bath off the hallway. She peed, but left her hair and face alone. Even if her mascara looked like Marilyn Manson’s, there was no way she’d fix anything for the ex-fiancée. She had her own version of mean girl and she called it bitch witch.

  All the kitchen lights were on, and Kathleen’s roller bag sat next to the island. She sat perched on the edge of a kitchen stool. Sarah watched her adjust diamond jewelry and smooth her hair like she was putting the finishing touches on an art exhibit.

  “Are Mom and Dad okay?” asked Paul as he dug food out of the refrigerator. Henry hid behind him.

  “Your mom and dad didn’t believe it when I told them. They assumed Henry’s text was some sort of mistake or a really bad joke, which is a reasonable assumption. I thought so too until I realized Henry had blocked my number.” Kathleen hooked her heels over the bottom rung of the stool, glaring at Henry. He now shadowed Paul, feigning helping him carry a plate of lasagna to the microwave, as though it took two men in their thirties to carry a single slice of lasagna.

  Obviously I’m going to have to take care of this myself.

  Sarah took the stool right beside Kathleen. Mockingly she adjusted the cuffs of her sweatshirt and smoothed the front so that the green glitter letters of the word Wicked laid flat against her plentiful breasts. She made exaggerated motions patting her snarly mess of hair. Paul rolled his eyes at her
.

  “I’m Sarah Archer, by the way. Henry’s new girlfriend.”

  Kathleen turned to her and offered her hand, clasping Sarah’s smaller one warmly and smiling a gracious southern smile. “Kathleen Karrie, Henry’s fiancée.” Her smile vanished on the last word and she let Sarah’s hand drop, turning her attention back to the men.

  “Would you like some lasagna too?” Henry asked, not quite meeting Kathleen’s eyes as he pushed silverware and a napkin across the counter for Sarah.

  “You know I don’t eat this late.”

  “Uh, that’s right. How about a glass of wine?” Henry slid an empty goblet in front of Sarah and held the second one while he awaited Kathleen’s permission. He seemed incapable of making direct eye contact.

  “That would be nice.”

  Paul walked up behind his brother with an armload of wine bottles. “Is it okay if we open these, Sarah? You have enough bottles around the house. I don’t know much about wine, but based on the years I think the best we can hope for is a glass of vinegar.”

  Kathleen leaned forward, eyeing the bottles. “Henry! Did you look at these? Good gracious, there’s a Vino Nobile di Montepulciano from Tuscany!”

  “Really?” Henry plucked a bottle from Paul’s arms as his brother unloaded them onto the counter. “This one is a Brunello from the eighties! Sarah, you’ll want to save these. They’re valuable!”

  “Might as well open them tonight. It’s not every day your fiancée meets your girlfriend,” she said.

  “Uh,” said Henry, his confidence going from investor to intern. “Um. Yes. Wine would be nice. You know, I’m uncomfortable wearing this and drinking those though. Excuse me while I go put on something more appropriate.” He scampered out of the kitchen in his striped pajamas.

  Paul grabbed a corkscrew and went to work on a bottle. “So you must have gotten a flight this morning, Kathleen? How long after that text did it take you to get to the airport?” His grin couldn’t have gotten wider without hurting something in his jaw.

  “Don’t you want to go put on a shirt, Paul?” replied Kathleen.