“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?”
Mrs. Windborne nodded.
“He called Michelle on his cell phone.”
“You eavesdropped?”
“In a manner of speaking. It’s noisy in there, but I could perceive his thoughts.”
“The psychic thing?”
“Yes. That’s how we knew to keep an eye on Michelle. But I couldn’t do it because…”
“Because she knows you, she’s the one that recommended that I come to you. She knows all about you. You’re the one that found the evidence about her husband…and she left him. This is her place, isn’t it?” It was a statement, not a question. Mrs. Windborne’s finger was on the innocent photo of the couple on the couch.