by Rose, Rhea
He wrecked and ruined my stats.
Then he put the book down. I guess he’d done his dirty work.
He jiggled the computer mouse and the screen saver -- playgirl centerfold -- disappeared and revealed my empty bank account. The negative balances glowed bright red. “Aww, see Jane broke.”
He scrolled through all my accounts; the need for passwords didn’t stop him. He laughed and chuckled, drank more wine, spilled wine on my keyboard, wiped his mouth on his sleeve. Then this devilish man noticed a package of cigarettes opened on the coffee table.
I’m a social smoker. I pulled out a pack last night. He took one, put it to his lips, didn’t light it, but pretended to have a great old time smoking the cigarette. He pulled the cigarette away from his lips, and studied the unlit end. Then he did the craziest thing! He blew a smoke ring in my direction and I coughed! The ciggy wasn’t even lit and he blew a smoke ring!
Cigarette in hand he got up and walked into my bedroom.
My heart raced. He went over to the young man still sound asleep. He leaned in real close “Don’t touch him!” I screamed in my head. He then came over to my side of the bed. He lowered the sheet that covered my breasts and he took a good look, two eyes full. Then he ever so lightly ran the palms of his hands over my butt. He stood and stared a long time. He leaned down and kissed me on a butt cheek! He stood a moment and I swear he thought about helping himself to more of me. Instead, he did a second, very crazy thing. He ignited his cigarette with the tip of his finger, raised the cigarette to the room's smoke alarm and made it scream.
He grabbed the sleeping Theodosia, dropped her in his hoodie pocket and quickly stepped into the living room and out the front door!
Chapter 5
Wands Beneath Her
Get in there you little piece of furry shit. Aaaaah, damn, she bit me, that hurts like hell. Aaargh! Effing cat, won’t stay in my pocket. Gotta zip her in. Soon as I get outta sight I’m gonna hurt this freakin’ piece of tail. No, no, no, oh, hell, she’s climbing up my back. Got to grab, ah, ooo, ouch. Got the little beggar. You stoopid kitty. Do you know who you’re dealing with? I’m gonna hold you out at arm’s length till you settle. I gotta get my phone. “Y’allow, wuzup? Maisie, that you?
“Devon, don’t hurt the cat.”
“F#%k, Maisie, I’m bleeding bad, from this critter. I’m not gonna hurt her; I’m gonna kill her.”
“Devon! Whatever you do, don’t remove her collar.”
“I’m holding it by the -- Oh, oh.”
“Devon?”
“Don’t worry, I still got the collar.”
--The Knowitall Journals--
I struggled to wake up, to get my body moving. I dragged myself over to the screaming fire alarm and pulled it open then popped out the battery.
That shut it up.
*
I searched for Sia all day, but I knew he’d taken her. I reported her stolen but the police said cats wander all the time and she’d be back. How can I explain that I saw her disappear in a dream?
I figured it was Manuel who sent the thief to take my cat. Yes, Manuel was everything a girl doesn’t want in a guy. I met the jack-ass at a party. I wore a tight, neck-plunging evening gown. The plunge was lined with rhinestones that went right to my navel. The skirt was sheer and ragged toward the ankles and the whole thing had a black metallic weave that caught the light. My reflection in the windows and mirrors that night enchanted everyone, even me. I didn't know Manuel was there with a date, his long-time girlfriend, but he went home with me and stayed.
I thought he loved me, but he’d set up camp at my place to get away from her.
A few weeks later his ‘girlfriend’ arrived right to the front door to pick up her things, which he’d taken! I had no idea who she was, but she walked right in like she owned the place, which I didn’t even own. She yelled at Manuel for a solid hour. He slapped her around and pulled her hair. She took three boxes of her things and that was that.
He was mine.
Now he hated the fact that I’d rented the sexy, little loft condo far away from him--too bad. I really can’t afford the place. I can't really afford anything. It’s not like I don’t work. I had to get a job after I left Manuel and I did. During the school year I work as a substitute teacher for a private girls' school where the students remind me of myself when I was their age. I got good grades, and went to a prestigious university. The private school I work for wanted my prestige; unfortunately for them, I came along with it!
And Manuel hates teachers more than he hates me divorcing him.
Anyway, my money, if I had any, was on Manuel. He sent that stalker guy here to steal my cat and that’s what I told the police.
*
I decided that I’d hang posters of Sia in public places. In the village, downtown, I bought some wine for the evening at the Water to Wine shop and asked the manager, Steve Davis, if it was okay for me to put up a poster of Sia. Theodosia looked adorable in the photo, her blue eyes staring out at the world. Her pink, heart shaped nose, a symbol of love. The manager, a ginger haired young guy, who’d recently taken over his father’s specialty shop, was more than happy to help out. Steve was a nice guy, but a little goofy and never stopped hitting on me. “I’ll get you a new pussy if you need one, Jane.”
Stuff like that!
“Very funny, Steven. But I don’t need a new pussy. My old one is fine.”
Then he’d laugh too loud. “Gotta watch out for the coyotes,” he’d said, and then he howled like a wolf.
“That’s a wolf Steve. No wolves around here,” I said.
“Don’t be so sure,” he said, and winked.
“Bye, Steve.”
“Really, Jane. A coyote’s in the area and he probably got your cat.”
“She was stolen. I saw the guy that took her, but if he lets her out someone might see her and bring her back,” I explained.
That felt good to get that first poster up until he mentioned the coyote in the area and that made me feel worse. I didn’t want to hear about the possibility of Sia being taken by a coyote.
*
When I stepped out of the wine shop, my mind ruminated on many things: where to hang more posters of Sia, wild animals in the neighborhood, my impending date for tonight and all the prep that entailed. Once again my preoccupation made me miss recognizing the street stalker in his signature black hoodie standing against a wall, a paper bag at his feet. Maybe I’d have noticed him if Sia's absence hadn’t weighed on me, and if my cell hadn’t started to ring at that moment. I answered hoping someone had found my kitten.
It was my eternally cheerful best friend, Glendie.
“Hey, Glendie!” I said, sounding more up than I felt. She wanted to know all the details of last night’s date. “No, he wasn’t a hot dude! More like a young dud, no not stud, dud. The young ones are still learning.” I paused a moment and absent mindedly dropped some change into the street guy’s paper bag. “Here you go.” Not thinking for a minute that he was anything other than a beggar. The guy grabbed his paper bag with my change in the bottom, and I didn’t know it at the time because I was too busy chatting, but he started to follow me.
“I hope tonight's date is better,” I said to my friend, whom I loved, and then I laughed because Glendie said something inappropriate. I tried to tell her about Sia, but all she seemed interested in discussing were my plans for the evening. “Hey, who you calling promiscuous?” Then I said, “I can’t meet you tonight. We’ll do beers another night. I promise. I will leave one night open for us. I need to tell you about Sia, but I gotta go, Glendie. Talk soon.”
Talking with Glendie always made me feel better.
The sun shone and the gorgeous day in the village went on and on. Flowers quivered, purple, white, pink, red fluttering flowery heads decorating both sides of the street. They looked freshly watered and glittered in the sunlight. People shopped and ate at sidewalk cafes.
If Sia weren’t missing life would be grand.
I turned down a quiet, empty lane heading towards the triple X adult shop, located off the main street inside an older, more dilapidated building. An old box-shaped store built in the early settler era of Meadowvale. This lane had one or two other shoppers strolling along, but not nearly as many as the main drag. And even as I left most shoppers behind, I knew I was not alone. I got that spine jangly feeling of someone watching me. I slowed a bit and looked behind me, but saw no one. I glanced to the shop window across from me and checked out the reflection, but saw nothing unusual.
I walked toward the triple X shop and paused to stare into the window. My reflection stared back, but this time something else in that reflection stared back – the cat thief.
Chapter 6
Pentacles Behind Her
The triple X shop was a family owned business as ironic as that sounds and was located appropriately enough on a street called Lover's Lane. I didn’t really know the owners. They hire people to work in the store. At the moment, I stood dumbfounded outside the shop for several minutes. When I saw the reflection of the guy that stole Sia, I quickly turned to confront him, but he wasn’t there. I turned back to the window glass and there he was!
What the eff was going on?
Our reflections in the triple X window slowly began to morph. We became entangled, two people having sex. At first I thought the triple X projected some kind of creepy video of a couple onto the glass, and I only imagined they looked similar to us. I was by horrified, but it was so erotic that as much as I wanted to turn away, I continued to watch. I had to take a deep breath and did a slow three-sixty to see if anyone else watched the sizzling little display, but no one noticed; thankfully the lane was empty. The graphically sexual image faded, and that’s when I decided I’d had a hallucination brought on by too much wine, pot and not enough sleep the night before.
*
When I entered the shop, I heard the radio playing a local music station. I recognized it because I played that station myself. I entered the shop with my picture of Theodosia in hand.
The clerk was an older, sixtyish-look, biker-type lady who nodded to me. I greeted her but before I approached with my Sia poster and my request for a particular video, I moved to the display window and stared out into the lane--looking for the stalker and thief –
“Waiting for someone?” The clerk asked me. I turned to her and sized her up. The boldness in her voice sounded a little challenging, like I’d disturbed her at something important, but I didn’t want to cause any conflict. I wanted to hang a poster in her shop.
“Did you see someone...standing out there, earlier?” I pointed in the direction I’d come from. The clerk stretched her neck a little. She looked like she’d seen it all. Her pixie haircut, bleached silver, needed saving, and the tattoos running up her neck made me cringe. From where she stood there was no way to see where I pointed, and she didn’t look like she wanted to make any moves in my direction.
“Where?” she asked, craning a little more.
“Standing there?”
The clerk shook her head, no, “Only you.” I’m certain my confusion showed because she looked like she had no idea what I was getting at.
I tried changing the subject. I held up Sia’s poster. “Can I? Would you mind if I hung this poster in here? My cat got stolen.”
“Sure. Who’d steal a cat? Crazy. She’s sure cute, though.”
I noticed that the clerk’s name tag said Jamie, another long time Meadowvale mundane, at least that’s what I thought then, which meant non-magical, but that didn’t turn out to be quite the case. I didn’t know it at the time, but she wasn’t actually completely mundane, but I didn’t find out until much later just what her magic was all about. She dabbled.
Knowing the mundane from the majors was crucial and about to become very important.
“Thanks, Jamie. Where?”
“Put it in the window, there.” She pointed out a spot where the poster fit perfectly. “You’re cat looks like a Cheshire,” she said.
I stopped pushing the poster to the window and turned to look at Jamie. “She is,” I said cautiously. “I thought she was a ragdoll, at first, but the note she came with said she belongs to the Cheshire society, so I guess that makes her one.”
“They’re a special breed,” she informed me.
“Do you know much about them?”
She shook her head no. “Only that they’re expensive and most people who own one are allergic to them and give them up.”
“Allergic? Like itchy, watery eyes?”
“And sneezing,” She said.
“Sneezing?’
“Uh, huh, like aaaachooo, that kind of thing,”
“Well, that’s not me,” I assured her. “I’m not most people.”
“Sure. If you’ve kept the cat, you definitely are not most people,” she said, with a chuckle.
She had me thinking. I was sure my OCD and sneezing wasn’t the same thing as being allergic to Sia. I did that before she came to my home, but I was certainly doing more of it since she arrived. I wasn’t going to worry, though; nothing could make me get rid of Sia.
Jamie gave me some tape and as I stuck my poster to a strategic spot in the front window, I came face to face with very sexy lingerie on the mannequin in the window display. I touched the negligee – so sheer, and exotic, black with ostrich feathers. I fondled it a bit. It looked like something a goddess might wear in her boudoir, long with a side slit. “I want this,” I called over to Jamie. She moved slowly to the display and leisurely disrobed the tired, old mannequin. I made a b-line to my next purchase at the back of the shop.
*
The triple X store was shaped like a long shoe box that needed a good steam cleaning, like most triple X shops. The videos were hidden at the back behind a black curtain. I liked to come early in the day. That way I avoided all the creepy men that frequent the place.
While I searched through the DVDs, I heard Jamie struggling with the mannequin. I wondered what the problem was and turned.
I froze.
Beyond Jamie, I saw him, the cat thief, standing in the lane, staring into the shop; Jamie saw him, too, then turned to look back at me. She looked worried, frightened even. I grabbed my DVD ready to run out the door and grab the guy.
When I looked back, he had moved from the lane and pressed himself against the store’s glass window; crazed and looking dangerous, he gave the window a lusty, pulpy lick.
That’s when the frightened Jamie knocked over the naked mannequin.
That sopping lick on the window left its ugly print; he took off. We didn’t see where because my DVD just cracked open on its own and the disc fell. Jamie’s fallen mannequin began to a quiver and bounce across the floor! “Oh, that ass, that effing demon,” I heard her utter. . Jamie recovered the mannequin.
I held up the erotic DVD cover—titled: "NOTTI GIRL'S GUIDE TO ONE NIGHT STANDS."
“Was that the guy?” Jamie asked sounding very annoyed.
“Yes,” I assured her. “He took my cat.”
*
When I left the triple X, I had my DVD in a bag inside my purse and my poster of Sia hung where it was obvious to people on the street. Outside of the dark shop, a bright ray of sunlight fell across my eyes and made me squint. That’s when he stepped out of the shadows.
He bumped me on purpose with his shoulder and dropped his paper bag at my feet. Bundles of money, bricks of cash – tumbled out from the dropped bag. I was so startled by the jumble of money at me toes, I took several steps back. I stared down at the loot and waited for it to disappear, proving it really didn’t exist. Then I heard his deep gravelly voice.
“Pardon me, Jane.”
He pulled back his hood and revealed himself. He was more attractive than ever. Much more than when I saw him stare through the window at the triple X shop; at least six feet tall, maybe a little taller. His movie star pirate-like aura really resonated with me.
Close up I could see he had an intere
sting space between his front teeth. This made him look a little dishonest. I’m sure he was a bad boy and that made him all the more attractive.
As we stood there, staring at one another, he kept subtly changing; he’d have a five o’clock shadow, then his hair seemed a little longer, or shorter, his chin had a bum dimple and his lips were wide then they changed to narrow, his ears were pierced, then they weren’t and one lip was pierced, all changes that made him more or less attractive to me. At first I wanted to punch him in the stomach, the way Manuel had taught me, because this guy had my cat, but the longer I looked into his liquidy, chocolate colored eyes, it didn’t seem right.
Then I remembered the money! I really wanted to look down again at the money, but his half grin, and the twinkle in his eye, and the tattoos down the front of his neck compelled me to keep my eyes on him.
I was locked in his spell.
It wasn’t until I noticed a glittery twinkle from under one of his sleeves that I again remembered this was the guy who’d stolen Sia from me!
I took him by the arm and pulled up that sleeve. Yup. Sia’s collar! He wore Sia’s collar on his wrist like a bracelet. The rhinestones caught the sunlight and reflected back into my eyes, and that snapped me out of his mind control.
It took all my strength to muster any kind of sincere annoyance for the gorgeous and spell binding stalker. “Why did you take Sia?” I asked, still hanging on to his arm, staring at her collar. Instead of answering me the insolent man started to wobble in a strange way, as if he was about to faint dead away. He slowly got lower and lower as his legs gave out from under him, like a slow motion limbo. When I realized what he was actually doing it was too late.
His descent to the ground stopped at my girly area. He made lewd gestures with his long tongue, which I won’t describe. While I was in shock at his display, he reached down with one hand and gathered up the money he’d dropped there. With remarkable dexterity and flexibility he scooped those bundles of cash right back into that paper bag.
