"Psychic Detective" - читать интересную книгу автора (Archer Fletchina)

Chapter Two

“What exactly do you think is going on?”

“I think the son of a bitch is cheating on me. That’s why I called you.”

“And you say that Michelle Anderson recommended my services?”

“She said you had helped her, yes. And she said you were good.”

“Did she tell you that I was expensive?”

“That doesn’t matter.” Mrs. Windborne sat bolt upright in the easy chair in Angela’s office, her purse set primly on the coffee table in front of her. There was a couch, the easy chair Mrs. Windborne occupied, and Angela’s club chair. There were abstract paintings on the walls but nothing figurative to distract clients from what they were here to say. She wanted her clients relaxed enough to open up, but alert enough to be able to hear her responses and focused on their business. Sometimes it wasn’t easy to achieve that delicate balance of relaxed, focused and alert.

A bookshelf occupied one end of the office and a desk the other. Angela never felt comfortable facing a client across a desk. She feared it might make visitors overly tense or guarded-remind them of some previous experience with a teacher or official. Such as a judge. During a divorce.

“Have you talked to him?”

“Talked? Have I talked to him? That’s all I’ve done. I’ve asked him point blank. He denies it. I’ve confronted him with his lies. He just tells more stories. Each one is more outrageous than the last until I finally give up, just glad that he’s back with me for a while.”

“Do you have any-”

“Evidence? What kind of evidence would prove anything?”

“Phone bills. Is he calling the same phone number on his cell phone all the time after hours?”

“He has his cell phone bill sent to his office.”

“I suppose that’s suspicious?”

“He says it’s a company phone because he uses it for company business.”

“Credit card charges? Canceled checks? E-mail messages?”

“Why are you grilling me? I’m not the one you’re supposed to investigate. I thought you were some kind of psychic or something. Can’t you just tell?”

The handsome woman in her late forties or early fifties fell to the back of her chair sobbing.

“It’s mostly old-time detective work. We have to find evidence if you want to be sure.” It was time for gentle words.

“Gumshoes following people around with cameras?” She started to laugh through her sobs at the image.

“To put it bluntly, yes. We have operatives we use when the time comes. When we have a good reason to believe someone is cheating, we do just that. We send someone with a camera.”

“Can you set up a sting?” She was bolt upright again.

“We can do that too.”

“How would that work?”

“One of our operatives-”

“Seduces the son of a bitch?”

“That’s essentially it, yes. Or the girl. We work for men, too, you know.”

“That’s like working for the other side.”

Angela saw Mrs. Windborne’s eyes perusing the books in their case and followed her thoughts. Psychoanalysis, Civilization and its Discontents, The Analysis of Dreams. Classic Freud. Jung, Adler, Erickson, Becker. Books on modern psychology, schools of therapy, and forensics. Doyle? Sherlock Holmes?

“You’d be surprised. Look, let’s go back to the beginning. Let me explain our process. What I can provide with my skills is an understanding of motives, but not actions.”

“Why not?”

“I can read what people want to do, what they plan to do, and what they have recently done, but beyond that, I never know whether something is what a person wants to do, wants to avoid, or has done. It’s all the same in the mind’s eye, and that’s what I can see.”

“Isn’t it enough to know that the asshole wants to cheat on me?”

“Is it? Then we don’t need to do anything else. You seem pretty convinced already. Why do you need me?”

“I want to know for sure.”

“Exactly.”

“But can’t there be different motives behind the same actions? I mean, what if someone does something without meaning to?”

“You mean like a one-night stand?”

“Um-hum,” Mrs. Windborne said, a smile playing across her lips as she wilted into her chair.

Angela knew that this was a time for silence. She saw the image of the man who was not Mr. Windborne flooding the woman’s mind as she reviewed the “mistake” that had fueled her imagination ever since. Angela saw Mrs. Windborne, overwhelmed with his praise and attention, eagerly undressing herself as the mystery man undressed and let his erection loose. She saw Mrs. Windborne kneel before the man, take his cock into her mouth…

“I mean, it could be something you didn’t intend, couldn’t it? Suppose you have too much to drink and it just happens. That wouldn’t be your fault, would it? Unless you planned it or did it again?”

Angela tuned in to Mrs. Windborne’s thoughts. Mrs. Windborne felt feminine and desirable, that made her feel wanted and beautiful and sexy. Supine on the bed, her legs open to receive the man’s cock into her throbbing cunt. He plunges into her as she sighs with pleasure.

Time to speak.

“Think about it. If that happens doesn’t it mean the person wanted it to? Wasn’t the person ready for it, looking for the opportunity? Maybe you didn’t know who or when, but you knew that you were ready for it, that you wanted it. And everyone around you knew it. The signals are unmistakable. Step by step. She sends the signal that she’s available. He lets her know he is too. Each signal becomes more clear than the last until it’s undeniable and…”

Mrs. Windborne was silent for a moment. The image Angela was receiving became more explicit, more active. Plunging, gasping, release of deep-seated pleasures long locked up. The man clasped her to him and rolled onto his back to put her on top. She thrust hard forward and back until the first orgasm overtook her. She didn’t stop but continued until a second orgasm shook her body. Surprised at her response, she continued until she came a third time and then rolled from the man and lay on her back gasping.

Mrs. Windborne’s voice was mechanical. “I suppose you are right.”

“That’s what happened, isn’t it?”

“Yes. I was ready. I was waiting for months. I knew I was going to do it, and then when my mother had her heart attack and I had to fly to New York to visit her…”

“Um-hum,” Angela said a soft, understanding look in her eyes. “Tell me.”

“It was a last-minute flight. We were living in L.A. then. Before we moved to Chicago. I had to go by way of O’Hare. There was a snowstorm. We were able to land, but we couldn’t take off. So, they put us up in a hotel. I couldn’t sleep. I was exhausted, but I couldn’t sleep. I went down to the hotel bar and this nice man offered to buy me a drink.”

She was silent. Angela let the silence linger. She saw the younger Mrs. Windborne in the bar, charming, conversing with the stranger. Finally Mrs. Windborne took up her story again.

“We sat in a dark booth and started talking and he told me about his personal life, about how his wife had grown so different from him, how they no longer had much to do with each other, how they each led their own lives. Even their sex lives. When he asked if I’d like to spend the rest of the night with him, I thought, ‘What harm can it do?’ It’s been so long since Raymond has looked at me with that light in his eyes… So we went up to his room. I’ve never told anyone about that. Until now. It’s not like I planned it. I didn’t know it was going to happen. I didn’t…”

Angela spoke softly but firmly. “But my point is that you had decided well before that. You didn’t know the person. You didn’t know the place, but you knew in your heart that you were available. Why do men hit on women? Or women on men? Because they know that some percentage of them are just waiting. The people who are waiting make themselves available. In bars, for instance. So if you’re looking in such places-a bar, a beach, a coffee house-and find one of those people, you have found what you want. You may strike out four times out of five, but then that fifth time…you may not know why or who or when, but that fifth time… It’s just a question of time. Keep your eyes open and you find them, the people who are ready and waiting.”

Angela looked away from her client’s face to the yellow day lilies in the vase on her desk. A coffee house?

“I suppose. Yes, that’s right. I could have thanked him for the drink and gone to my own room. I didn’t need to…do that. But I wanted to. I’ve never admitted that before. But Raymond never knew anything.”

“You know he’s sleeping with someone else, but he couldn’t tell that you’d slept with someone else?”

“It’s different.”

Angela was silent.

“Don’t you think it’s different? For men and women, I mean?”

“Some people say that we may notice more than men as a general rule. But others say it’s a difference in how we talk about things. They say men notice things that they never talk about. If we notice something, we talk about it. But they think if they don’t acknowledge it by talking about it, it isn’t really there. They can ignore it. They can pretend it’s not real. If they don’t talk about it, it’s difficult for us to know what they’re thinking. I think they notice as much as we do, but they don’t talk as freely.”

“So you think he knew but never said anything?”

“Could be. There are no accidents. So that’s the problem in my business. Someone may be in the same situation you were, they may be ready and willing, but they haven’t done anything yet. Are they guilty of anything?”

“Yes. Of course.”

“Were you?”

“Well, I hadn’t actually done anything except…”

Angela remained silent until her new client finished her sentence. “Masturbate. And everybody does that.”

“So, even though you knew you were ready for a fling, you weren’t guilty of anything?”

“Okay, I guess…”

“Our time is almost up, but remember, it depends on how you look at it. What I can do is tell people if their partner is at that stage. But if we think they’ve gone farther, if we think there’s something going on, then we have to get the proof in the old-fashioned way.”

“But your psychic thing? That can help, can’t it?”

“Lots. I can pick up on a plan and send an operative to the right place at the right time. It saves lots of time. And in this business time is money because you’ll be paying for my services and my operatives as well.”

“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.

“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.