War-N-Wit, Inc. - The Witch

by Gail Roughton

  The menu remained eternal. Fried chicken to make Colonel Sanders weep, hot dogs with a secret sauce kept in a vault, and hamburgers with meat patties that ran way past the margins of the buns. The fries we won't even go into. Frick & Fries knew the secrets of seasonings long before anybody thought to put anything other than salt on a fried potato. I started salivating.

  "Yeah, I'll go with you," Mark said, coming out of his office. "But let's bring it back. What about Jon?" He went down the hall past me. "Jon! Me and Nathan going to Fricks, you want anything?"

  Jon Tennille walked down the hall towards them. "Oh, yeah. I'll take two hotdogs."

  Okay, I was hungry. I was working on Saturday, a Saturday when I'd been seriously considering summoning my own personal warlock back to Macon. And at this exchange between the attorneys who apparently didn't even notice me sitting there, or Amanda down at her desk, or Dana over in her little cubbyhole, let alone consider us anything but an extension of our computers, or even stop to think we might be hungry too, I was pissed.

  I gave way to the only vent for such a high state of piss-off available to working girls. I mentally chewed their asses off. "I do not believe y'all are that freakin' rude and insensitive!" I shouted at them in my mind. "You've got three girls you've hauled down here on their Saturdays, and you don't even have the manners to ask them if they're hungry, let alone offer to buy their lunch?!?!"

  That was when Jon Tennille did a sort of double-take. "Oh!" he said, something of a puzzled note in his voice. "Oh, guys, wait a minute! Amanda, you want something from Fricks? Ariel, what about you? And where's Dana?"

  Holy hell! Like Steve Erkle from the old sit-com, I asked myself, "Did I do that?" And you know, I believed I had. I smiled sweetly. "Two slaw dogs, please. With fries."

  When the food arrived via the attorney delivery boys—and wasn't that a novelty to savor—I decided to try one more push when they started parceling out orders at our desks.

  "Be nice to eat at the break room table in a group," I projected out to Jon Tennille. "Hall's goin' to smell like chili dogs and fried chicken if we don't."

  "No, wait, Mark, don't do that," said one of the most senior partners in the firm. "Take it to the break room. We'll all eat in there."

  They headed down the hall. Dana came up beside me and leaned close. "You know," she whispered in my ear, "that's the first time in all the times I've been down here working on Saturday with any of 'em. The first time they've ever bought my lunch." I smiled. Oh, yeah. I was coming right along. It was time.

  Around 4:00, the discussion began as to whether to push on until later or to come in on Sunday. I'd never been hesitant to voice my opinion and I wasn't now.

  "Mark, whatever it takes. Let's get through it tonight. I don't want to come in tomorrow. I have plans," I said.

  "Well, it might be 6:00 or 7:00—"

  "I don't care. I don't want to come in tomorrow."

  "Okay."

  I realized as I sat back down in my chair and inserted the earphones that I hadn't even said please. My hands were already curled over the keyboard when I glanced at my phone. I picked it up and slid the keyboard free. "No this is late notice but can u come tomorrow? Figure the PI doesn't need my address"

  I got home at 8:00. I was exhausted, but I didn't have to go in tomorrow. Hadn't had a text back from Magic Man yet, though, and slid the phone open to double check just as it rang.

  "Am I dreamin' or is that text to come for real?"

  "It's for real. Sorry for the late notice, but something happened today. Chad, I think I did something." I explained my little lunchtime drama. "But it couldn't have been me, could it?

  "Oh, of course not," he guffawed. "Since your friend Dana told you they'd never bought anybody's lunch before when they were working Saturday, I'm sure it was nothing but total coincidence, them developing manners with you shouting at 'em like that."

  "But—but is that bad? I mean, we're not supposed to do things to people, are we?" Oh, my. How far I'd come in the space of a few weeks, crediting myself with the actual power to do things to other people.

  "Baby girl. We are never supposed to use any power for anything negative. That risks losing it. And you didn't need me to tell you that. You know that, the same way you know how to breathe, without even thinking about it. But I don't see as how making a group of lawyers sprout manners could ever be bad. So don't worry about it."

  That's what I'd figured but I was still relieved. "So—can you come tomorrow? Did you already look up my address or do I need to give it to you?" I teased.

  "Why don't you open your door?"

  "No!" I said, clicking the phone shut, and racing to the front door. He was pocketing his phone just as I threw the door open. I grabbed his arm, pulled him in, wrapped my arms around his neck, and kissed him as though I were starving. Which I was.

  He pulled me as tightly up against him with one arm as was humanly possible as he pulled the door to with his other.

  "Glory Hallelujah!" he said.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I hadn't managed to turn the lights on when I got home before stopping to check my phone for a reply text from Magic Man, and the only light came from the small lamp I habitually left on that sat on the counter dividing the kitchen from the living space. It was perfect.

  He felt so good, even through our clothes, but not as good as he'd feel without them. I slid my hands inside his shirt and from that point forward I have no memory of how any of our clothes divested themselves of our bodies, or how we actually made it through the bedroom door and found the bed. We found the memories, too.

  Because one thing I knew with absolute certainty. This wasn't the first, or even the thousandth, time we'd made love. First times are awkward, no matter how hot for each other a new couple is. First times are self-conscious, full of hesitations—should I do this? Should I do that?

  This was a melding, a merging, a becoming, a renewal. Of tongues, of hands, of bodies, and far beyond that, of souls. Mutual exploration of flesh that was already well-known, remembered pleasure points targeted, exploited, exploded, before moving on to the next one. He burned so cool, something I found I remembered, that coolness, so at odds with the heat most males threw off, that heat that had always made me feel as though I were being burned alive during intimacy, but not in any pleasurable way; rather, as though I were being consumed.

  I didn't feel in the least consumed as his mouth and hands ran down my body, just complete. Of course. Because my mouth and hands were running down his body with equal fervor. Completing each other. His mouth found its ultimate goal, at the same time mine did. I exploded within seconds but not in any fashion I'd ever experienced before. Rather than the sudden burst that dissolved quickly, an electrical current engaged and cruised throughout every nerve in my body, intensifying until I didn't know if it was pleasure or pain. I only knew I'd explode into fire if it didn't ease off.

  "Stop," I begged, not sure if I wanted him to and not sure he'd even heard me. He had, though, and shifted on the bed, surging inside, moving with a combined precision and tenderness I'd never thought any flesh and blood man could possess, a rhythm I matched as though I'd known it forever, moving until we both melted like a candle whose light is temporarily extinguished by the wax turned liquid by its flame.

  He lay against me, his mouth gently kissing my eyes, his fingers running slowly through my hair. I opened my eyes and smiled.

  "No man outside the pages of a romance novel knows how to do things like that," I said.

  He smiled back at me. "You taught me. Through many years."

  Through the rest of the night we dozed, we roused, we merged again. During one sweet episode when he'd urged me on top with the titillating whisper, "Claim your throne, princess," I felt something slide onto my finger, but I was way past the point of caring what or being capable of ascertaining such if I had cared and finally, before dawn broke fully through, we slept.

  I woke with my head cradled on his shoulder, my arm th
rown over his chest, and filtered light beams streaming in through the bedroom curtains. I stretched, lazy as any cat, and caught a glint of brilliant light. Coming from—my hand? Surely not. I stretched my hand out in front of me and shrieked.

  "OH! MY! GOD!" I furiously punched his shoulder. "Chad! This—this—"

  He stretched and yawned. "It's called an engagement ring, baby girl."

  "Oh, hell no, it's not! This is—this would buy a freakin' car!"

  I gazed in mingled horror and admiration at the marquis solitaire sparkling in its circlet of white gold, smaller diamonds running down the band on either side.

  "No, it wouldn't."

  "Yes! Yes, it would! Mostly anyway."

  "I told you, baby girl. Man puts a ring on your finger, it needs to be big enough to blind folks while you type. While you give your two-weeks' notice. Stones are from the Miami market. One of a kind ring for a one-of-a-kind witch-bitch. You don't like it?"

  "I'm too scared of it to know if I like it! This is—what if a stone comes loose? The solitaire gets chipped? It gets lost for heaven's sake?"

  "Called insurance, darlin'. Just enjoy it. And, uh, small request, please? Don't take it off without warning me?"

  "I can't wear a ring like this all the time! It has to come off when I'm cleaning, or—or—making biscuits! My God, what that would do to it!"

  "Which is why the wedding band is plain, so it doesn't have to come off. But until it goes on, just warn me if you're taking this off, okay?"

  "Because?"

  "I'd feel it," he said simply. "And you'd scare me."

  "You wouldn't—" I broke off, remembering the night of his hydroplane incident when my own neck muscles had knotted into ropes and I'd almost hyperventilated. "Okay. But if you feel it go off and you're out of calling or texting range, just know it's going right back on as soon as I finish doing whatever it is I don't want to do with it on."

  "Deal."

  I looked up and ran my fingers through his hair. "Magic Man, you're more silver than you were at Christmas."

  "Bother you?"

  "Nothing about you bothers me. And damn, I never thought I'd say that when we were sitting in Rosita's and you announced you were a warlock. And we were long-lost lovers. But you really are goin' to be completely silver at a very young age."

  "Yeah, I've used a lot of power since—when did this start? Let's see. October 5, I think."

  I laughed in delight. "You remember the exact date? First time you talked to me?"

  "Hell, yeah."

  "And using power—that—oh shit! I'm starting to use power! Aren't I?"

  "Hell, yeah."

  "So am I going to start going silver?! I mean, it looks great on guys, but on me—"

  He laughed. "Damn. You looked at yourself lately?"

  "Sure. Every time I brush my hair."

  "And you haven't noticed anything?"

  "Like what?"

  "Damn. Goin' to make me get up," he threw back the covers. "Oh, well, we won't be gone long enough for it to get cold."

  "What are you—" He took my hand and pulled us over to my dresser, putting me in front of him.

  "Look."

  "Look at—oh. Oh." I breathed, staring at my eyes. The blue rim, which had heretofore been only a tiny rim, visible only to me, or so I'd thought, until he'd made it clear it was noticeable to him, was at least a sixteenth of an inch wide, edging out towards an eighth.

  "Welcome, precious. To the world of magic."

  Chapter Fifteen

  He tried to cajole me into taking the day off Monday, but I knew I had too much going on at the office. I kissed him good-by and watched him drive off. First order of business when I entered the office would be the infamous two-week notice. According to the chain of command, that should first be given to the Office Manager, but I'd never paid much attention to the chain of command even in my most conservative days and anything about me remotely resembling conservative had irretrievably waved bye-bye.

  The first order of business actually turned out to be surviving the ecstatic hugs of my sister, waiting for me by her car, and her oohs and aahs over the Marquis solitaire that still scared the living shit out of me.

  "I told you to come over yesterday afternoon," I scolded. "It would have been fine, he wants to meet you as much as you want to meet him."

  "Yeah, well, not y'all's first weekend, three would have still been a crowd."

  We parted at the lobby and went down our separate halls, my hand self-consciously turned inward. I couldn't shake the feeling there was a glaring headlight announcing my imminent arrival, but nobody noticed.

  First stop was Anderson's office.

  "Well, is that you?" came the usual jovial greeting. "I had the greatest weekend, we ate at the Oyster Bar and walked on the beach, and it's just fun to have fun! A little work, a little play, not that I could do this without you here keeping the office—"

  "Sure you could, Anderson. You will. I quit."

  Dead silence.

  "You what?"

  "I quit. Two weeks' notice. You're the first to know, couldn't not tell you first, could I?"

  "You're going to another firm?"

  "No. I'm getting married. And changing careers, too."

  "You and Scott got back together? But what's that got to do with your quitting? You weren't going to quit—"

  "Am now. Too long a commute, sorry. And I would have gotten back together with Scott when hell froze over, no, he's out of the equation."

  "But—but—you only broke up with him two weeks ago! You can't go and marry somebody you just met, Ariel, be sensible!"

  "Now, Anderson. What's that you're always saying? 'It's so much fun to have fun!' Along with, 'life's too short not to enjoy it', as I recall. Anyway, I didn't just meet him, met him last October."

  He was beginning to get his bearings, and his gaze sharpened.

  "Too long a commute? From where?"

  "Quitman. Remember your PI who located and corralled your witness in something under three hours?"

  "You're joking."

  "Nope."

  "You don't know a thing about him! PIs are shady characters, always out at all hours, no steady income, good one week and bad the next—"

  He broke off as I held my hand out.

  "His business stays pretty good. That happens a lot when you're the best there is at what you do, don't you think? Now, don't worry about a thing, all the cases are in good shape and I'll be sure nothing's hanging when I leave. Everything's going to be fine, Anderson."

  I walked out of his office and over to Ash's to repeat my performance and by the time I left his and headed to Mark's, I knew damn well the tsunami was all over the office and I wouldn't need to make any further explanations. Corrections, yes, there'd be plenty of room for them by the time the storytelling was done, were I inclined to offer any corrections, but actually, I didn't really care what anybody thought about any of it. I hadn't known there was this kind of freedom in the world. Or that it felt so good. I looked down at the sparkling diamond. "Love you, Magic Man!" I whispered, and rubbed a finger lightly over its surface. A warm glow settled in my stomach and moved a tad lower. And the diamond winked at me. I swear.

  * * *

  By ten o'clock I was automatically throwing my hand out from the keyboard for ease of viewing as the girls approached my desk. Even some of the attorneys cast surreptitious glances. Of course, they tried to maintain a neutral expression but a few of 'em just couldn't pull it off. It'd be a cold day in hell when some of those guys parted with sufficient funds to put a ring like mine on their wives' hands and an even colder day when the thought of doing so occurred to them in the first place. Professional men tend to be tightwads, something that I'd picked up over the years of association with lawyers and, through Scott, with accountants.

  It wasn't a cold day from my perspective, though. I'd talked to Magic Man a couple of times, he was back in his office and setting up his agenda of new locates, services, general inves
tigation for the next few days. And the warm glow that had started in my stomach and moved a tad lower kept moving lower still and it wasn't just warm anymore. It was the full-blown heat and full sensation of lazy, sensual love-making.

  I picked up my phone and pulled up text mode.

  "quit it!"

  Response was immediate.

  "u quit it u started it"

  "did not" I texted furiously.

  "did too quit rubbing damn diamond or polishing or whatever the hell ur doing"

  I looked down at my finger and the diamond winked back again. Oh, hell. I was. I was rubbing the surface of the stone every time it was inspected, polishing off any possible imaginary smudge.

  I sighed. It was going to be a long day. "sorry" I sent back.

  "im not but u play u pay"

  You're telling me, I thought, and concentrated on my organizational lists for each of my lawyers so as to leave them in tip-top shape. Doing so involved frequent ups and downs as I grabbed files to check on their pleadings indexes and general location. It took a little while to realize that my habitual down position wasn't comfortable anymore. I had a habit of sitting with my legs crossed. I'd always done it, never even consciously thought about it. Now, though, whenever I crossed them, I felt an insistent pressure pushing back. Once I realized that, I heard the echo. A protesting wail of "Baby girl!" reverberated out in the great beyond.

  An incoming email from Stacy called out, "Right now right now?!?!??!?!?!" Okay, it was really time for her stress-relief break. And none too soon for me, either, though from the number of ?! in the string, little sister was having a typical Cal Spencer morning. He was detailing a case to death but he wasn't spinning completely out of control. Had that been the case, the string of ?! in the signal would have stretched for the rest of the line.

  "Right now right now," I sent back, and grabbed my phone and coffee cup. I beat her to the garage and took the opportunity to check in with my personal private investigator.