When The Butterflies Come

by Rosemary Ness Bitner

  “I don’t know. What’s the point?”

  “The point is, and this I learned from a Reformed rabbi I respect, that there are differences without distinction and there are differences that exist for the sole purpose of having a distinction.”

  “Okay,” David relented with a chuckle. “If you think you’re Jew enough, then that’s all that matters. I suppose we’ll just leave it at that. After all, you’re a Jew to all but a few.” With a distant stare, he put the bottom of his necktie in his mouth, held it in his teeth, and looked through Bob to some place far away.

  COFFEE

  It was time. Barbara stoically endured a year of disgust and heartache knowing the office slut was on the road with the man she wanted for herself. She told herself Marty was only eye candy for salesmen with hot pricks and no brains. She endured a greater heartache and humiliation knowing that Bob still pined over Marty, as if he’d go back to the whore like a welcoming puppy after she’d tramped off with another man. Bob’s heartsick behavior told Barbara he liked Marty’s bed scene, and that he loved her. She realized Bob needed his love redirected to her. Barbara accepted her place. She wasn’t married to Bob—yet. In her culture, it was perfectly acceptable for a young brave to buck some squaws before he married one of them and had children. There were no promises of betrothal between them. But she knew he’d loved and wanted her before, and she never stopped wanting him.

  The time wasn’t right then. Chief told her to let some time pass. She followed his counsel and gave it time. She didn’t understand things then, but she did now. She wasn’t ready then, but now she was. She woke up that morning and suddenly everything was clear. Nothing was the same anymore. She was ready for love, she had the cards she needed to play, and she was ready and willing to make a life with Bob. Now she needed to prepare him for her.

  When Bob was in his office, Barbara walked in and sat on his desk. Without saying a word, she propped herself up on her arm and leaned her whole body across his desk, right on top of all his sales reports. Her long dark hair draped her face and flowed over everything. She moistened her lips and smiled with both mouth and eyes.

  Bob was dazzled. He was an awakened red-blooded male who wanted to dive into her eyes and her body. She was more alluring than Marty ever was. Her move was overt, not subtle, yet she kept her mystique. She was special, all right. Any man would jump at the chance to be with her. Her move suggested intimacy in the future, but she still stayed slightly out of reach.

  “It’s time for you and me to start having coffee together,” she said as she lifted her other hand and rubbed her finger slowly under Bob’s lower lip. With her bold move and that one sentence, she took charge of their relationship.

  Bob’s blood pressure shot up. He felt like a little boy seeing a naked woman for the first time.

  Barbara noticed the rising red shade of his skin. The magic between them never left. She intended to play Bob like a hooked trophy fish, make him beg her to stop the tease and slip into her net without resistance. She promised herself she would always be good to him. Bob agreed to a coffee date the coming Saturday.

  “Tell me something, Bob. How many sales kits do you normally leave at a brokerage branch after you’ve made your visit?” Barbara asked over coffee.

  “Ten or twenty, why?”

  “Not a thousand or five thousand?”

  “No way! No office carries anywhere near that much product inventory, even if you combine all the different products they carry.”

  “And where do you place your printing orders?” Barbara questioned further.

  “We use Star Printing. Why the questions?”

  “Have you ever heard of Monument Printing?”

  “No, why the questions?”

  “Well, according to some records I’ve seen, you order supplies from Monument and you leave five hundred to five thousand sales kits behind you wherever you go.”

  “That’s crazy. What are you talking about?”

  “Not crazy. Fact. And you don’t pay Monument one dollar for each sales kit. You pay them five dollars.”

  “Come on, Barbara. You’re off the wall with this. What’s going on?”

  Barbara opened her handbag and produced an invoice with Bob’s name and signature on it. It showed Monument Printing supplying one hundred thousand sales kits to the UGGA distribution company at the cost of five dollars each, for a total invoice of five hundred thousand dollars. She also produced a marketing invoice from the distribution company to the fund for five hundred thousand dollars for printing expenses.

  “There must be a mistake!” Bob cried in shock. “I’ve never heard of this outfit, never dealt with them. I never signed any invoices from them.”

  “Really, Bob? Are you sure?”

  “Of course, I’m sure.”

  “Okay. Well let’s go pay them a visit and see if we can straighten this out, shall we?” Barbara had gone to Monument Printing’s location days before, but she wanted Bob to see their operation himself.

  “Let’s go right now.”

  Bob was clearly upset and wanted to get to the bottom of this. The two drove to a small town on the outskirts of Plaintown and went to the address of Monument Printing. They got out of the car and stood on the address marker on the road. It was a vacant lot.

  “Did you know this was a vacant lot before we got here?” Bob was asking the questions now.

  “I did.”

  “So what’s going on? What do you know about this?”

  “First, I must tell you there is danger associated with knowing about this. I don’t believe you had anything to do with it. You’re not that devious. I know you and I’ve worked closely with you. You were always completely honest.”

  “And I still am. What’s going on?”

  “Before I tell you, I want you to know I have copies of everything away from UGGA’s offices in a safe place. And you can’t breathe a word of this to anybody, not David, not any single person. No one must know.”

  “Agreed, now don’t torture me. What’s going on?”

  “First things first, buster. What happened with you and Marty on your road trips?” Barb stood with her arms akimbo. She was defiant and wore the look of a woman insulted.

  “That’s pretty personal, Barb.” Bob tried to scramble for an exit but found none.

  Barb mounted a frontal assault. “You can tell me. I expect to hear the worst. I’m a woman, didn’t you know?”

  “Yeah, I know. You’re a woman, all right. You’re a woman who didn’t want me.” Bob tried to play on Barb’s sympathies, but he found nothing there. Not many women were sympathetic to a man’s dalliances with a rival.

  “I never said I didn’t want you, Big Stupid Horse! I said you needed to wait,” Barb blurted out her feelings. She almost cried she was so hurt.

  “What did you call me just now?”

  “Never mind. My father and I have Indian names for everybody.” Barb pouted and turned away from him. “I’m surprised you stayed with her as long as you did. That tunnel of hers was drill-bored and re-bored many times, Big Stupid Horse. I’m surprised you could feel the side walls. That tunnel was so well-lubricated at least I can assume you didn’t get any rust on your prick? So much meat moved through that tunnel, I guess I can also assume no moss grew on your prick either, huh?” She looked angry. For an instant, Bob thought she was about to bite him.

  “So that’s it. You and daddy Chief think I’m stupid, that I’m just too stupid for you. That’s why you put us on hold. That’s why you’re reluctant about tell me anything.” Bob spoke as if he were a hurt little boy talking to a coy little girl.

  “You’re not stupid in all things, Bob. But when it comes to women you are very, very stupid. When it comes to understanding people, you need a little help.” Barbara hinted there was more to be revealed than a woman’s scorn. And she was direct.

  “What are you talking about? Plain English, no tribal riddles, please.”

  “For starters, you need to learn th
ere’s a huge difference between loving and fucking,” Barb shouted again. Obviously the woman had pain in her heart.

  “Excuse me!” Bob’s eyes told Barbara he was insulted. His feelings were now where she wanted them. Now maybe Big Horse was ready to learn.

  “Bob, when a female dog fucks a dozen other dogs, do you think the dogs fall in love? Do you think the bitch falls in love? Or do you think maybe the bitch just has the urge to fuck?” Barb was still shouting even though Bob was only two feet away. She was skillfully playing the role of the woman scorned and hurt, even though it was she who had put Bob on a shelf in the first place.

  “Are you saying Marty is just like a bitch in heat?” Bob tried to retaliate, with no success.

  “As a matter of fact, that’s exactly what I’m saying, you Big Stupid Horse asshole. Marty was fucking forty different salesmen in the year before you took her on the road with you. How in the hell could any sane man fall in love with something like that?”

  Barbara was still shouting, Bob noted. He hated when women did that.

  “You can’t be serious.” His eyes widened and his jaw dropped at Barb’s bombshell.

  “I am serious. I don’t say things I can’t prove.” Barb pursed her lips and leveled a gaze at Bob, nodding slightly. That meant she had the goods to back up what she was saying. She didn’t blink and she wasn’t backing down. For a minute it looked like she might cry.

  “Tell me what’s going on,” Bob pleaded. Suddenly it occurred to him that a woman could feel pretty badly if she lost her man to a common indiscriminate whore. What was I thinking? Oh shit, I wasn’t thinking. She’s right! I was just fucking. Oh my God, what have I done?

  “First you tell me how I can be sure I can trust you.”

  Bob suddenly swept Barbara into his arms and kissed her. She struggled and tried to push him away, but he didn’t stop. Her resistance faded and, after pounding his back with her fists, she relented, returning his kisses and hugging him close.

  “I love you, you crazy girl. Don’t you know that? I loved you years ago and I’ve never stopped. I just thought you were off-limits or on reservation or I wasn’t allowed on the reservation or I didn’t know what your world—”

  Barb cut him off with a kiss. His telling her he loved her was what she’d longed to hear for years, and he’d finally admitted it. She knew he loved her. She knew she’d tortured him with her denials. Her kiss turned deep and they held it for a long moment while their bodies pressed against each other. They’d both been waiting for this moment and now it was finally here. They could feel it. They were, from that moment on, inseparable. “Now you’re finally making sense, Big Horse. I suppose I will trust you now.” Barbara had made her point and now she wanted all games between them to stop.

  “You can trust me. I swear by all the buffalo on the plains and all the elk in the forests.”

  “Well, now you’re really talking big, Strong Horse.”

  “Is that what you and Chief call me?”

  “Yes, Bob. You are Big Strong Horse and sometimes Big Stupid Horse. You have interchangeable names. Consider it a big honor.”

  Barbara twirled in a circle with outstretched arms. She dived, swooped, and twirled her body, like a bird she pranced to an imaginary drum beat. She tucked her chin close to her chest and to the side, smiling a winsome coquettish invitation at Bob as she danced. Her hair flew freely from her head and caught the sun. She was a dazzling jewel, a human ornament of radiant happiness. She whooped and laughed a good belly laugh. Bob stared at her, now her bewitched, captivated man. Barbara was the enchantress and she charmed him in her expressive childlike way like no other woman could.

  She walked back into his arms. As she crushed her body to his, Barbara promised herself no other woman would ever know her man. She would never let him out of her arms again.

  “So why are we standing in front of a vacant lot?” Bob begged to be clued in.

  “Here’s what I know so far. Not a breath of this to anyone, especially David. It’s dangerous to let him know we know anything. Very, very dangerous!” Barbara brought her index finger to her lips and nodded, emphasizing the need for secrecy.

  “My lips are sealed,” Bob vowed.

  “There exists a separate set of files for the company, separate records of expenses. Your trips with Marty were paid for by Monument Printing. We’re standing in front of their corporate headquarters, this vacant lot. It looks like you ordered a half-million dollars’ worth of printing supplies to pay for a year-long fling with that woman all over the country, from Hawaii to Maine to California, to Assateague and Shenandoah and New Orleans, New York, and on and on. There isn’t a party you didn’t go to, and what’s worse, it looks like you embezzled money from the fund through fictitious printing bills to pay for a year of nonstop whoring with Marty. Now Marty’s gone. Guess who this all points to, Bob? We have theft from a regulated investment company entity, the disappearance of a company officer, your name on all this phony printing from a company that doesn’t exist. What will you say when the authorities start asking questions about all this?”

  “I didn’t do any of this stuff. Honest.”

  “But you were fucking Marty, weren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Tell me, could you even feel her side walls, Big Stupid Horse? It must have been like putting your stick in a bowl of oatmeal, huh, Horse? I bet she was so stretched out you could clap your hands in there, couldn’t you, Big Horse?” Sparrow baited him. The woman within her couldn’t resist taking one last demeaning shot at her departed rival.

  “Jesus Christ, Barbara. It was sex. Marty’s life is built around sex. Is a man supposed to say no?”

  “Well, I always knew you were honest. At least I hope she taught you a few things. I don’t want to let some Big Horse into my bed who doesn’t know what he’s doing.” Barbara was letting Bob know she was accepting him with all his previous baggage.

  “You have to believe me, Barb. I had nothing to do with the phony invoices or the printing company setup.”

  “I already know that, Big Horse.”

  “How?”

  “You cannot know that yet, Big Horse. Too dangerous for you to know. But rest easy. I know you had nothing to do with it, because I know who orchestrated the whole charade.”

  “You do?”

  “Of course I do. I also figured out who the forged signatures. Little Sparrow flits around the office, unseen and unheard, Big Horse. I have more work to do to fit all the pieces together and solve this puzzle, but just give me more time. I’ll be in touch. But I do not want you to worry. If they try to frame you for this, I can disprove it. For now, you just play along as though you know nothing. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes, but tell me, are you in any danger yourself, Barb?” Bob’s concern for her warmed her heart. He was a good man.

  “Not so much unless some people get very foolish. Chief looks over Sparrow. Chief has powerful medicine. He’s very dangerous to anyone who tries to harm Sparrow.”

  “But he’s up in Montana, on a reservation.”

  “Trust me on this one, Bob. My father has people who work for him, who take care of what he calls ‘the details.’ One of Chief’s men is never far from me. I don’t worry. Don’t you worry.”

  Bob was astounded by what Barbara knew and how fearless she was.

  “You’re telling me you have a protector, a bodyguard?”

  Barbara pulled out a green plastic square from her purse. There was a red button in the center of it and it had two tiny blinking lights on one side. It was obviously a tracking device of some sort. “If I push this button, an armed man who understands his business will appear within one minute.”

  “You’re kidding. How do you know that?”

  “When both lights blink, he’s within a minute. When only one light blinks, he’s within two minutes. When no light blinks, it will take more than two minutes. If the light doesn’t blink for a long time, like five minutes, Chief will be upset
with my protection and he will be replaced. The light always blinks. He’s no more than two minutes away.”

  “This is amazing. I’ve never seen something like this.” Bob was astounded.

  “You’ve never met a man like Chief. He is very protective of Sparrow.”

  “Will I get in trouble for kissing you just now?”

  “No, Silly Horse. But you will get in trouble if you lose interest.”

  “I’m interested. I’m very interested.”

  “Sparrow knows, Horse, but Horse must still wait.”

  “How long?”

  “Not too long, but not real soon either. Chief says we must allow time to play its magic.”

  “Jesus Christ. I’d never guessed any of this was real.”

  “It’s real, Horse. And Horse?”

  “Yes, Sparrow?”

  “Don’t swear, Horse. It belittles you and I am religious. It hurts my ears.”

  “Okay, Sparrow. No more swearing.”

  SPARKY OR THE BLATHERFLAMEER

  The personnel requirements for the sales, marketing, and portfolio portion of the firm grew while the administrative requirements of the business remained constant. David felt an irresistible urge to exercise his growing power. He was free of Marvin’s control. Susan’s role in the firm was as important, but it remained fixed in administration while David’s empire was expanding. He began sowing his oats.

  The impish, devilish pranks and bad deeds David was repressed from doing as a child, bubbled up from his wellspring of parental hatreds. He wished he were a totalitarian dictator of subjugated people, but he had no military to command. He was only a businessman. To slake his sociopathic lusts, he used his money to wreak havoc upon employees, shareholders, and hapless innocents who became indebted to him. He made people squirm under his powers and tortured their lives and finances, much as he’d bedeviled insects as a child.