Tilting at Windmills (Claire Lance)

by Geonn Cannon

  Lance finally gave up trying to talk Gwen out of it. She had given Gwen a chance to back out, had given her the opportunity to stop. If Gwen had taken her up on it, Lance would have been shattered. She needed to continue, she wanted to stop; she wanted to make love to Gwen and still keep that special something she had with Elaine. It was impossible, and it was time to stop trying.

  It had been a year since Lance had been with a woman, a year since she had gotten gratification from someone other than herself. If she had died that afternoon, if Keating and Garth had been just a little stronger, Elaine would have been her last lover. It would have been fitting, appropriate, but now things were different. She closed her eyes and pushed the ridiculous thoughts of infidelity out of her mind.

  She focused on Gwen's fingers on her thighs, gently massaging the tired muscles. Gwen bent down and kissed her hip. Lance opened her eyes and looked down as Gwen licked the joining where Lance's leg met her hip. "Have you ever done this before?" she asked, her voice barely more than a whisper.

  "Yes." Gwen's cheeks were red and she was speaking to Lance's stomach. She straightened and looked into Lance's face, wet her lips. "A long time ago."

  Lance cupped Gwen's cheek and then slid her hand around to the back of her head. She held her breath as she guided Gwen's head down, closing her eyes and gasping when Gwen touched her with a slow kiss. Lance's heart raced and she resisted the urge to push Gwen's head against her. Slow and steady.

  Gwen opened her mouth and pressed the flat of her tongue against Lance, easing the lips apart and then curling the tip of her tongue against the sensitive flesh inside. She drew her head back and flicked her tongue against Lance's hooded clit, and Lance gasped. "God..."

  Gwen lifted her head and licked her lips. "Was that good?"

  Without giving answer, Lance pressed Gwen's head back down. With her free hand, she unbuttoned her shirt and let the two halves fall away. She cupped her breast and pinched the nipple. She was breathing hard as she brought her legs up, draping them over Gwen's shoulders and hooking her ankles together behind her head. She dropped back onto the mattress and closed her eyes.

  Gwen kissed her pussy again and pushed her tongue inside. She kept her head still and folded her tongue, curling the tip back. Lance gripped the blankets with her free hand and arched off the bed. She thrust her hips against Gwen's tongue, trying to force her deeper. Gwen brought one hand up and used her index and ring fingers to spread Lance wider. Her middle finger moved inside and she withdrew her tongue to look up at Lance. "Is that okay?" she asked softly.

  "Yes, Gwen. Keep fucking going," Lance whispered.

  Gwen kissed Lance's lean belly, taut, dark skin with hard muscle rolling just beneath the surface. Keeping her finger inside Lance, she climbed onto the bed. She kissed Lance's breast and sucked the nipple into her mouth as she moved higher. Lance slid her legs off Gwen's shoulders and guided Gwen onto her thigh. Gwen whimpered and tugged her dress up so that they were skin to skin, her wetness against the hard muscle of Lance's thigh. Gwen held the front of her dress against her stomach, exposing her panties to Lance's hungry gaze. She was obviously wet again, her thighs quaking as they locked around Lance's thigh. Lance sighed and put one hand on Gwen's hip, pressing Gwen tight against her.

  They kissed as Gwen rocked against Lance's thigh. She moved her hips in a slow, sure rhythm as she slipped a second finger into Lance. Lance grunted and bit her bottom lip. "Oh, God, Gwen..."

  Gwen was crying as she slipped her tongue into Lance's mouth. It felt so good. She tightened her thighs and stopped her hips, wanting the orgasm but also wanting to make it last as long as possible. Lance reached up and braced Gwen's head with her hands. Gwen's eyes opened and they stared at each other, hard, eyes wide and lips parted and touching as their bodies moved together.

  After an instant of eye contact, Lance's eyelids fluttered closed and she began to groan. Her body trembled, rippling like waves in the ocean, starting at her shoulders and traveling down her body until her hips lifted off the mattress to press Gwen's fingers deeper. Lance cried out, moved her hands to Gwen's shoulders, and finally collapsed against the blanket.

  Gwen rocked against her a few seconds longer, her breathing becoming more and more desperate, until she collapsed against Lance. "Claire...oh, Claire..."

  Lance embraced Gwen, slowly stroking her sweaty back. Gwen settled comfortably on top of her, her head pillowed by Lance's breasts. She placed a gentle, sleepy kiss on the inside swell of one breast. Lance moved her hands to Gwen's hair and stared at the ceiling, trying to get her breathing under control, trying not to think about Elaine. Trying not to think, period.

  There would be plenty of time for thinking soon enough.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Lance rearranged them so they were lying in bed the correct way, head at pillows and feet at the bottom. Gwen sat up only to take off her dress and underwear and then curled herself against Lance's side again. As the sun set, the meager light from the fixture over the bed revealed itself to be only a little better than candlelight. Shadows hung like curtains in the four corners of the room, and the bed seemed to be adrift in a sea of shadows.

  Gwen didn't mind the near darkness; it sculpted Lance's features beautifully. Her dark hair was mussed, her cheekbones standing out in stark relief against the rest of her face. From her angle against Lance's breast, she could see that Lance's nose was just slightly too big for her face. It was a slight flaw that made the rest of her look all the more beautiful.

  She kissed the swell of Lance's breast, her heart still pounding at the smooth curve of a woman against her side. It was a thrill she hadn't felt since high school. She had shared brief flings with her girlfriends, the occasional rushed rendezvous outside the football game while Roy was celebrating with his friends. Of course, once Roy found out about her girlfriends, he put an end to it. "No women unless I'm there, you understand?" This he said with a hand on her breast and a drunken leer on his face.

  Gwen shuddered at the memory. She'd always had feelings for women, had always lusted for them, but she had stamped it down, forced it to the back of her mind, and forced herself to be happy with the way things were. Now it was a brave new world. She pressed her hand to Lance's stomach, up to her breast. She was Gwendolyn Morse, and she had just made love to a woman. She felt like a virgin — nervous, amazed, scared. But most of all, she wanted to do it again. "Claire?"

  "Lance."

  "Sorry. I just thought..." She shook her head and her hair brushed Lance's shoulder. "Lance. I don't think I've said thank you."

  "You don't owe me any thanks."

  "Yes, I do. You saved me." Encouraged by Lance stroking her back, Gwen continued. "So, thank you. So much. And I'm sorry. I'm so sorry that coming into my bar has brought all this down on you. If you get caught—"

  "It'll be my own fault," Lance interrupted. "I've been running for ten months; it's about time my luck ran out. You didn't have anything to do with it."

  Gwen settled against Lance's side. "And I'm sorry about Elaine." Lance's hand stopped mid-stroke. "But I don't think she would...I mean, tonight was..." She sat up and rested her chin on Lance's shoulder. "She would have wanted you to be happy, Claire."

  "Don't talk about her, please." Lance's voice was cold, almost mechanical.

  Gwen softly said, "Okay." She put her hand on Lance's stomach and then slid it up to touch her breast. She traced the dark areola of the nipple and watched it tighten and rise to her touch. She was thrilled to be in bed with a woman, to be touching someone she had actual feelings for. In only two days, Lance had made her feel what Roy never had in all their years of marriage. "Lance? Can we make love again?" She was surprised to find her eyes were wet with tears at the thought.

  "Yeah, Gwen," Lance whispered. "Yeah, we can." She drew Gwen's chin up and bent down to kiss her lips.

  #

  When the coroner pulled back the sheet, Garrett Hadley faked several emotions — anger, frustration, shock, anguish. He ra
n a hand over his face and turned around, walking back to the door of the morgue. Through the square of glass in the door, he could see Estevez and Perry waiting outside in the hallway. Hadley stared at them and forced an emotional tremor into his voice. "Yeah. That's him, that's Garth. Shit."

  Detective Acheson was standing against the far wall, his hands in his pockets. The harsh fluorescent light of the room reflected off his gray hair, making it look white as he watched the coroner cover Garth Pope's body. He looked at Hadley's back and asked, "Do you have any idea what he and Mr. Keating were doing in Oklahoma?"

  Hadley shook his head. "I don't know. My associates and I were up here to talk with a couple of banker friends of mine. Kay...that's, uh, that's what we call Keating. Kay was supposed to keep an eye on the bar. And Garth was working at Ben Estevez's farm this week. Maybe...I don't know, maybe something happened down there and he thought it would be best to tell us in person. A couple of our friends were killed recently. But...Jesus. Garth was harmless. He didn't know anything that would get him killed like this."

  "What about Kevin Keating? He was hardly an innocent. Maybe the bad news followed him."

  Hadley shrugged. "Maybe."

  "Do you know an Elaine Lake?"

  Hadley pretended to consider it. "No. Should I?"

  "Garth Pope's body was found in her motel room. According to the clerk, she was quite the looker. You know your friend Keating has a few sexual assaults in his folder. Maybe he saw her, thought he could get lucky. Pope felt left out and went after the lady staying with Lake. Keating made a move, Miss Lake turned him down and things got violent."

  "Then how did Keating get shot?"

  Acheson smiled. "Come on, Mr. Hadley. Women these days aren't the shrinking violets we were brought up to believe they are. Maybe Keating or Pope pulled a gun and found out the hard way that this lady knows tae kwon do or some other martial art shit. Maybe Miss Lake took the gun away from them and gave a little tit for tat."

  Hadley sighed. "I suppose it's possible. Goddamn it, Kay. He had a bad habit of just taking what he wanted." He rubbed his face and looked at the bodies on the metal slabs. "Is there anything I need to do?"

  "Does either of them have a family?"

  "Yeah. Pope has a mother down in Texas; Keating's got a girlfriend and an ex-wife. I'll get you contact information. May I...?" He gestured at the hallway.

  Acheson nodded. "Yeah, you're free to go. Thank you for your help, Mr. Hadley."

  "It was the least I could do. Please, Detective, let me know if there's anything else I can do." Hadley nodded to the detective and the coroner, then turned and walked out of the room. He waited until the door swung shut behind him before he spoke. "They're looking at it as self-defense."

  "Bullshit," Perry said.

  "Well, how would you see it?" Hadley said. "Keating and Pope versus one woman, maybe two? With Keating's rap sheet, no jury will see him as a victim in this. If the cops do catch up with Lance, odds are a jury will give her a medal."

  "She's taken three of us down, boss," Estevez said, his eyes locked on the floor. "Four, if you count Boris. We shouldn't have wasted time with the cops."

  Hadley nodded. "Yeah. Wishful thinking, I guess. We still got the FBI bitch and the Ranger gunning for her. The cops have a security tape of the motel parking lot. Before long, they'll know what Lance was driving. And when they know, the FBI bitch will know. All we have to do is keep her in our sights. She'll lead us right to where we need to be."

  #

  Lance slipped out of bed and dressed quietly in the bathroom. She turned on the light long enough to examine her injuries in the mirror. There was a bruise on her forehead, just under the hairline, and a welt on her chin. Garth's blows had hardly registered during the fight, but apparently they had done some damage. The worst mark was the red welt on her throat where Kay tried to choke her with the sheet. She didn't have a turtleneck, so she would just have to keep her chin down and hope no one looked too closely.

  She wrote a quick note, left it on the mattress next to Gwen's outstretched arm, and left the hotel room. She walked to the Pinto and quietly backed the car out of the spot. She didn't give it gas until she was at the exit of the parking lot, and even then she played it safe.

  The full moon hung high to her left, lighting up the humid night as she drove through the nearly deserted streets. There were still the usual night owls — policemen and garbage trucks and the occasional late-night commuter — but the city was basically shutting itself down for the night. She drove downtown and parked in a lot not far from the site of the 1995 bombing. She had seen the news, everyone had, but she never saw the site in person. She walked down the street until she saw the memorial and stopped on the street corner.

  This is what a memorial should be, she thought. The place was marvelous, bright and shining, a fitting memory to those who had been lost. Not a fucking photograph on the sun visor of a practically stolen Mustang. She felt tears running down her cheeks, but didn't bother to wipe them away. Let the tears fall, why not. Surely plenty of people had shed tears in this spot before.

  "I'm sorry, Elaine," she whispered.

  "What did you think? I wanted you to be celibate the rest of your life?"

  "It's barely been a year..."

  "Gwen needed you."

  "You needed me!" Lance shouted. She was grateful the street was empty, that there were no witnesses to her outburst. Her words echoed down the street and seemed to bounce off the buildings. "You needed me," she said again, quietly. "I failed you."

  "No. You couldn't have done anything. But Gwen needs you now, and there is something you can do for her."

  "I can die."

  "No. You can save her, Claire. It's what you always wanted to do, remember? When you told me about those Ôdomestic disturbance' calls, how you always felt the need to force the women to take action? You can save Gwen. You've already taken her from the abuser, erased him from the picture. Now you need to help her take that extra step to a new life. A better life."

  Lance closed her eyes and nodded. "Elaine. I still love you. I always will."

  "I love you, too, Claire. It's time you stopped running and started living. Your life will be memorial enough for me."

  Lance pushed away from the wall and took a deep breath. She wiped her cheeks, looked one last time at the memorial, and walked away. She had some shopping to do.

  #

  Gwen woke alone.

  She gathered the blanket to her chest and looked around the room, but Lance was nowhere to be found. After a moment's indecision, she got out of bed and wrapped the sheet around herself. She and Lance had spent the entire evening naked, but now she felt suddenly self-conscious being in the room alone. She went to the suitcase and found a pair of jeans and a baggy canvas shirt. She put on clean underwear and a bra, tucked the canvas shirt into her jeans, and went barefoot to the door. She opened it a crack and peered out into the darkness. The Pinto was gone.

  Her heart flipped as she searched the parking lot, sure she was just mistaken about where they had parked, but the car was nowhere to be seen. She wanted to scream Lance's name, but knew it would be useless. The light flickered over her head and made her feel like the world was a stop-motion film. She stepped into the relative safety of the room and shut the door, locked it, and retreated to the bed.

  Alone in Oklahoma, Lance vanished, Hadley and his goons and the FBI all after her. She walked around the bed and sat on the floor, back to the wall, and tried to decide what to do. The entire trip, Lance had been in charge. Gwen hadn't really taken the time to realize that she was in Oklahoma with a virtual stranger. Back in Saxe, Lance made such a big deal about how she wanted to get gone, how she didn't want to be tied down as Gwen's protector. She should have realized this time would come. Lance was done, disappeared, and she was all alone.

  She chewed on her thumbnail and closed her eyes. Forcing the panic down, she told herself to be reasonable. Lance wouldn't have done all this, put herself in suc
h danger, just to turn her back now. If there was one thing Lance had proven about herself, it was that she was loyal. Lance would return. Lance would never just leave her.

  Despite reassuring herself, she spent the next ten minutes wavering between calm and panic, fear and solace, until finally a pair of headlights swept across the window. She heard the low rumble of a truck engine and the world dropped back into silence when it was shut off. A few seconds passed before a door opened and she heard footsteps on the broken glass of the pavement and the rustling of a brown paper bag. Gwen watched the knob start to turn, catch on the lock, then there was a knock.

  "Gwen?" Lance's voice, hushed. "Are you awake? It's me. I left the key on the desk."

  Gwen stood up and hurried to the door. She threw the locks and pulled the door open.

  Lance wore a white cotton shirt and a pair of black slacks Gwen had not seen before. Gwen let her in and closed the door behind her. Embracing Lance, she spoke into her shoulder, "I was so worried. I didn't know where you were."

  "I left you a note," Lance said. She broke the hug, walked to the bed, and searched the blankets until she found a slip of paper. She held it up and Gwen saw the words written in red pen: Gwen. Went out for supplies. Be back soon. Lance.

  Gwen felt ashamed and needy. Her shoulders slumped as she shook her head. "God, I'm such an idiot. I'm sorry."

  "Don't be," Lance said. "You did the right thing. You secured yourself in the room."

  "It felt like hiding."

  Lance put the bag on the foot of the bed and started to unload it. "It is hiding. It's a good way to stay alive if you're unarmed and unsure where your friends are." She had Styrofoam containers that smelled like heaven, two small cartons of milk, and a plastic bag wrapped up around itself. "This is for you." She held the bag out to Gwen.

  Despite the fact her mouth was watering for whatever was in the take-out containers, Gwen took the bag and unwrapped it, like a Christmas present. She frowned at the box. "What is it?"