“As long as you bring me the proof.”
“I have another appointment soon, so we’re going to have to stop for now, but another thing to remember is that not everyone wants proof.”
“Why not?” She looked straight into Angela’s eyes, her disbelief showing on her face.
“They may be like Raymond. Suppose he knew something was wrong. Suppose he suspected or knew on some level that you’d been with another man. Or men. Do you think he would ask for proof? Maybe he’d rather not know for sure. Some people are like that. They’d rather not know. It’s enough to confirm their partner’s wish without knowing about their actions.”
“I want to divorce him if he’s fooling around.”
“You don’t need proof for that. We have no-fault divorce in Illinois. All you have to do is ask.”
“Well, I want to know anyway.”
“You understand I’ll need three thousand dollars as a retainer.”
As she got out of the chair, Mrs. Windborne pulled a signed check from her purse and handed it to Angela.
“I’ll be in touch.”
--
After Mrs. Windborne left Angela sat behind her desk, idly scribbling on a legal tablet. She couldn’t focus on the problem of how to approach the Windborne case. She’d probably need to get a read on Raymond first thing and determine if there was anything going on. Then she could line up some of her operatives to get the details.
Her mind wandered until the phone startled her out of her reverie.
“Did you mean what you said?”
For a moment Angela was confused. Who was speaking? What had she said?
“In the coffee shop yesterday,” the familiar voice continued. “You gave me your card? It had the phone number? At the coffee shop?”
“Ronda?”
“Yes, it’s me. Did you really mean what you said, or were you just being kind?”
“Just let me know when and where.”
“Are you free this afternoon? Tonight? Jeff is away on another business trip. Can you believe the asshole stood me up last night? I’m free today, tonight, tomorrow. If you meant that about the answer to the question I didn’t ask. You said yes. You know what the question was?”
“Whether I’d like to make love with you.”
“And you want to?”
“Yes. I have one more client to see and I will be free at four. Where do you live?”
When Ronda told her the address, Angela said, “I can walk from here. That’s in that area of Frank Lloyd Wright houses, isn’t it?”
“Yes, the one that looks like a Mayan temple if you’re not an archaeologist.”
“I know that place. Is there a place for my car?”
“Asshole’s place. He took his car to the airport with him. The garage door will be open. Push the button by the door to the house to close the garage door, and come in when you get here. You can have his place in the bed too. And the sauna. Through the kitchen, up the stairs, left into the master bedroom, right into the bathroom. First door on the right. I’ll be there. Nobody else will be in the house.”
***
Angela pulled her small hybrid gas-electric car into the darkness of the open garage and turned off the engine. She walked to the open door and pushed the button and heard the garage door close behind the car. She only briefly noticed the marble countertops and restaurant-quality stainless steel appliances as she walked through the tiled kitchen to the dining room or the starkly beautiful Danish teak furniture arranged on the intricate designs of the Oriental rug. She climbed the stairs to the master bedroom and turned into the bathroom.
There she picked up on the psi patterns, the images of her making love with Ronda in the sauna. Angela unbuttoned her white blouse and folded it carefully onto the marble countertop in front of the mirror. She unhooked her utilitarian bra and put it on top. She unzipped her black slacks and stepped out of them and picked up the bra and blouse to put the folded pants at the base of her clothing. She left her shoes on the floor and put her panties and socks on top of the pile.
Aware of Ronda’s growing urgency, she turned to look at herself in the mirror. At forty-two, she thought she still had an athlete’s body. Her rower’s shoulders were broad and her waist narrow. Her breasts were shapely and curvaceous. The hours working out in the gym after she had the baby had paid off. It was good that she got back to her rowing. It helped her shoulders and chest. The stretch marks were hardly visible.
When she opened the door of the sauna a cloud of steam enveloped her.
“Close the door!” said a voice from the cloud.
“Ronda?”
“Top bench.”
As Angela’s eyes adapted to the dim light inside the sauna, she saw the slim figure of Ronda sitting on the top bench, her legs dangling over the edge.
Ronda didn’t know what to say or do, so she waited quietly. She leaned against the back wall and pulled her feet up to rest on the top bench as she replaced her hand where it had been when Angela opened the door.
The image of Angela’s face filled Ronda’s mind as her fingers began to pull her labia apart and stretch them idly. She imagined Angela naked, below her, on the bench, beginning to sweat in the steam. She tried to visualize Angela’s breasts. The images shifted in her mind as she reviewed the possibilities. The uplifted boobs of her college roommate? The small conical tits of one of her high school soccer teammates? The full womanly breasts of the goalkeeper?
Did she get waxed as Ronda did? Or did she have a full curly bush as Ronda had imagined in the bath?
When Ronda opened her eyes, Angela was standing in front of the door of the sauna, smiling at her. Then she saw the womanly beauty of her real breasts and started to move her finger around her clitoris wishing that Angela would do something. I sure didn’t know what to do next.
Angela must have gotten the message because Ronda saw Angela move up to the bench beside her. Angela turned her face to the left and kissed Ronda slowly and deliberately on the lips, her tongue moving slowly but firmly into Ronda’s hungry mouth. Ronda returned the kiss with mounting pleasure and did not move her hand from between her legs, but increased the pressure of her finger circling her clitoris.
Angela took Ronda’s left breast in her right hand as she leaned her head down to take its nipple between her lips, draw it in, and circle her tongue around it. Ronda gasped as Angela’s hand moved over her sweat-beaded stomach and down to the smooth crease where her inner thigh became her mons. Angela nudged Ronda’s hand from between her legs and caressed the inner edge of her thigh until Ronda shuddered in anticipation.
But again Angela knew what Ronda wanted and resumed her kiss as the fingers of her right hand teased open Ronda’s labia and found their way to the drenched interior. As soon as Ronda imagined it, the pressure decreased and moved up to orbit her clitoris, now throbbing and hard.
Before her mind could even form the image, Ronda’s clitoris registered a featherlight stroke on its underside. A sigh escaped Ronda as Angela began to kiss her again. Ronda’s bones melted in the heat of the kiss and sensation of the rhythmic caress. When Ronda thought of prolonging the pleasure, the pace of Angela’s finger slowed, but then Ronda knew she wanted to come fast and the pace resumed.
Ronda struggled for breath as the vibrations moved from her clitoris to overtake her thighs and then her whole body in a shudder that sent her into the oblivion of pleasure.
Ronda didn’t know how much time passed before her eyes fluttered open to see Angela bringing herself to an orgasm at the end of the bench.
“What can I do for you?” Ronda asked.
“Come into my arms and hold me.”
Ronda complied and the two lay side by side, the streams of their sweat mingling. Ronda felt Angela’s breasts on her own, felt her back under her hands, stroked the curve of her hip and marveled at the sensation of her thighs on Angela’s. They kissed.
“The tub is full of cold water when you’re ready,” Ronda said.
&
nbsp; “No snow to roll in? I guess cold water will do, let’s go.”
Hand in hand the two women left the steam of the sauna and stepped into the cold tub of water.
“Ayyyyy,” Angela shouted as she ducked her head under the water and then lifted herself out of the tub. “That is cold.”
Ronda ducked and then led Angela to the shower where they soaped and washed each other’s bodies.
“How do you make yourself so smooth down here?” Angela asked as she soaped Ronda’s mons.
“I visit a waxing salon every ten days or so.”
“I shave, but I can’t get my skin that smooth unless I do it every day.”
“It’s nice the way it is. And I like the fringe you’ve left,” Ronda said as she twirled the long lock of pubic hair that decorated Angela’s labia between her fingers.
They rinsed off the soap, stepped out of the shower, toweled each other dry and went into the bedroom where they both collapsed onto the large bed.
--
Angela’s thick, wavy, shoulder-length, honey blonde hair fanned out around her head as she lay on her back, spread-eagled on the bed. Ronda lay on her side, propping up her head on the palm of her hand, beside Angela.
“Have you ever done this before? I mean…with other women.”
“Yes.”
“Do you do it often?”
“No. I’ve been with other women. Some for quite a while. Does it matter?”
“I don’t know. Does it make us…lesbians?”
“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being a lesbian. But I don’t think of myself as a lesbian. That’s just because I also like men. It’s been a long time since I found a man that I liked enough to sleep with, but I have done it and I like it. I won’t deny that. And I won’t deny that I like men. Some of them anyway. I don’t think I’m promiscuous if that’s what you’re asking. With either men or women. I’m pretty picky.”
“Yeah, me too. But I have to say, I don’t really like most men. If it’s a question of liking someone, I like women better. Not all women. But I like more women than men. If you get my point?”
They both laughed. Then they were silent until Ronda said, “Do you think women can love each other? I mean in the same way that we can love men? Not just…physically, but real love?”
“Of course they can.”
“But can it ever be the same?”
“Why not? What does it mean anyway, love? It means you’d sacrifice everything for the other person. It means you trust them with everything you have and everything you are. Does it matter if the person is a man or a woman? I think you can love someone and not be physically involved. And I know you can be physically involved with someone and not love them.”
“Yeah, like my asshole husband. Well, maybe not. He’s not that physically involved. Fiscally, maybe, but not physically. It’s like he doesn’t want to fuck me anymore, much less do all the other…things.”
“Yeah, when I deduced you were well-off, I had no idea-”
“He’s a corporate big shot. But that’s why I think he’s involved with another woman. Or other women. He doesn’t seem to be interested in me.”
“It may not be that.”
“What? You think he’s really in meetings all the time? You think he’s really in Zurich now?”
“Could be.”
They lay silent and Angela absorbed the patterns of the place, patterns of frustration, doubt, anxiety.
“Do you think we could love each other?”
Angela wasn’t sure whether Ronda had spoken or whether she’d intercepted the thought. It doesn’t matter whether I heard it with my ears or my mind. The question is the same.
“Yes. Don’t you think we’re already there?”
“We don’t have a joint bank account yet.”
“Is money the measure of love?”
“I don’t know…”
Then Angela knew she was intercepting a mental image because it was strong and vivid. The image of her going down on Ronda.
Angela slipped her hand under Ronda’s shoulder and pulled the other woman toward her to give her a long kiss. Then she lay Ronda on her back and kissed each nipple, ran her tongue along her chest and stomach, circled her navel, and reached one hand under each thigh to lift her legs over her shoulders as her tongue flowed over the crease of her left thigh and mons down to her labia and back up the other side of the sensitive triangle.
Sensing her partner’s eagerness, Angela separated her labia with both hands and saw the glistening pinkness of her open vagina. She took one of the swollen labia between her lips and then the other. Her tongue sought the underside of Ronda’s erect clitoris, as large as the end of her little finger, and began to gently stroke it.
Ronda sighed and Angela understood what to do next. She placed the flat of her tongue over the top of Ronda’s clitoris and pulsed up and down on it until her thighs began to quake uncontrollably. Then, sensing that Ronda wanted to prolong the ecstasy of that moment, she ran her tongue along the outer side of each of the engorged labia, then along the crease at each side of her mons, and across the bottom of the slight swell of her stomach before she returned to the underside of her clitoris.
Ronda’s stomach began to quake in rhythm with her thighs and she thrust her mons upward to Angela’s tongue. Again, Angela slowed the rhythm of her tongue, circled the erect clitoris, ran the tip of her tongue lightly over Ronda’s stomach and circled her navel. She returned to her clitoris and began stroking it slowly and deliberately, just enough to bring Ronda to the edge of orgasm, enough to hold her at the edge but not push her over.
Finally, when she knew that her companion sought release, Angela moved the flat of her tongue quickly and firmly over her clitoris as Ronda continued thrusting her hips rhythmically upward. Angela matched the rhythm of Ronda’s hips until Ronda lost control of her body in a prolonged spasm as she cried out and gasped for air and her head fell to one side, her body now limp.
Again, Ronda did not know how much time passed before she opened her eyes. And again, Angela lay stroking her own clitoris and looking at Ronda admiringly.
“Oh my God. I’ve never felt anything like that. Who’d have known? Jeez…” She lay back again, her body flaccid. “You could tell exactly what I wanted, couldn’t you?”
“Yes, but I could also tell when you didn’t know what you wanted.”
“Wow. That was something else. But what can I do for you, lover?”
“What would you like to do?”
“I just wish I could give you half of what you’ve given me. How can I do that? You have to tell me. I can’t read minds. Tell me and I’ll do it. Anything.”
“Give me a hug.”
“That’s not enough, is it?”
“A lot of times, that is the most important thing, don’t you think?”
“Maybe. I don’t know.” Ronda embraced her lover and felt the returning pressure of her body. They slept in each other’s arms.
Chapter Three
“Mrs. Windborne, I asked you to come in today because now we have the evidence you asked us to get.” Sympathetic but professional and firm.
Angela spread out the photographs on the coffee table in front of her sobbing client. Angela pushed the box of tissues from the end of the coffee table toward Mrs. Windborne as she examined the photos.
The butt of a middle-aged man between the upraised legs of a woman. Her thighs were firm and trim but her face was not visible. The back of his head was visible but the length of his backside obscured the view of the woman’s body.
“Well, we don’t know exactly what they’re doing. I mean, we can’t really see if he’s, you know…”
Angela remained silent. Sometimes people don’t want the evidence, she reminded herself. But she’s paid for it, now she has to see it.
“Penetrating her or anything. Maybe…” Mrs. Windborne’s voice trailed off.
Then her voice became angry. “You used one of your operatives, didn’t you
? You set the poor man up. This was a sting. I didn’t authorize a sting! That’s what this is-one of your…your…people…seduced my husband.”
“That’s not one of our people, Mrs. Windborne. Our operative just took the photos.”
Angela fanned the color prints on the coffee table hoping that one of the more explicit ones might convince her client.
“Well, I don’t think these are decisive.”
Angela was familiar with this response, and sympathetic with the woman. What would be decisive? You have pictures of your husband fucking the woman. What would convince you?
Angela tried another tack. “Can you identify the woman?” Angela stood and took from her desktop a frontal photo of Mr. Windborne and a woman, both fully dressed sitting on a couch in what looked like the living room of an apartment.
“Yes, it’s Michelle Anderson from church, my best friend.”
“That’s the woman in these photos.” Angela indicated the photos on the coffee table in front of Mrs. Windborne.
“No. It couldn’t be…”
“Would you like to hear the recordings?”
“You tape-recorded them?”
“You asked for evidence.” Please don’t make me show the videos.
“How could you do this? This is an invasion of privacy! This is unconstitutional.”
“It would be unconstitutional to use this evidence in a court of law, but as I told you, you don’t need evidence for anything legal.”
“But you were spying on them!”
“That’s what we do. That’s what you paid us for. The woman who sat behind you in church Sunday before last? Do you remember her?”
“No. How would I if she sat behind me?”
“You sat next to Michelle Anderson.”
“How did you know that?”
“The woman behind you was one of our operatives. I followed your husband to lunch the Wednesday before that Sunday. I sat at the table next to his at the Greek restaurant downtown, Sage and Honey. Do you know the place?”
Psychic Detective Page 3