22
Bernadette put the kids to bed, waited until they stopped chattering and actually fell asleep before she turned on the video the boys had given her.
Her mind had been bouncing around all the things she’d discussed with Melinda’s brother and his friends. Could they really pull this off? And her escape from the Cardinal boys—was she like a cat with nine lives? What life was she on by now?
She’d lied easily to Travis about being in study hall, and she hadn’t told him about her encounter with the Cardinals. The lies were making her life even more complicated.
She made herself tea and put in the first video. Fast-forwarding through Goodfellas, as she seen it before, she put in Bad Lieutenant, which she’d seen before as well. She held the Debbie Does Dallas in her hands, hesitated, and then put it in the machine.
After watching it for an hour, she was exhausted. The movie was filthy, but nothing she hadn’t heard in the schoolyard. However, some of the terminology for sex was interesting. The actors used a lot of terms for sexual intercourse she’d never heard before.
She was, after all, a virgin, and after hearing the words used for sex, she wondered if it was as good as people made it out to be. She shut the video off, changed into her gi, and began doing her training katas.
Karate was a way to channel her energy. Sexual thoughts were pounding in her brain. She needed an outlet to calm herself down.
She started with her katas, the training moves she’d learned in the dojo. She moved through low and high blocks, turns and kicks. She stopped in frustration. She wasn’t getting it right. Her last session was perfect. Why wasn’t she getting this?
She stopped, doing breath exercises to pull the power of chi, the breath towards her, then expelling negative thoughts and bad chi away from her. After ten minutes she was better. One kata followed the other until all were nailed.
Sweating profusely, she drew a bath and stripped off her gi. She examined herself in the mirror. Her seventeenth birthday was in a week. Her body was growing at an exponential rate. Her breasts, her legs, her arms were having a contest to see who could sprout the fastest.
Her breasts had grown in the past six months. Did they have a mind of their own? She’d secretly wanted to throw them a coming out party but never told her grandma or aunt. She thought they might get the joke, but then maybe not.
There was so much about sexuality she still didn’t understand. She knew she was attracted to boys but was still uncertain as to all the urges she was getting. Being a Catholic, there were so many taboos about sexuality. She wondered how the religion was so proliferous when there were so many rules covering intercourse and masturbation.
The bath was steaming when she stepped in. She lay there, submerging herself in the hot tub and thought about the sin of masturbation in the church. The priest and nuns preached masturbation was wrong. It was about pleasure—your pleasure and not for the purpose of procreation.
It was also deemed to be adultery in your heart, and for those who were not married, like Bernadette, this posed a problem. She didn’t plan on being married for some time, so what was she to do with the pleasure center budding between her legs?
There would be the problem with confession at the church should she deem to go this Sunday, but then, she could put it down to “unholy thoughts,” the ultimate catch phrase for all Catholics.
She knew there was a way to express “Venal Sins”; these were not mortal, which were really bad, but just immoral, as in lack of judgment or losing their way along the path of righteousness.
Bernadette reasoned in her young mind, if Catholics told the God’s honest truth about the riotous thoughts they were having, the priest would run screaming from the confessional booth.
She let these thoughts drift around her mind as her hands massaged her tired legs then knees and made their way to her thighs. Her fingers did small circles around her inner thigh and rested on her pubic bone. She let her fingers get caught in her newly grown pubic hair, using some soap to pretend she was washing the area.
The soap came lose in her hands and floated to the surface. Her hands remained there, frozen in place, like they were meant to be there. This was her little spot of forbidden pleasure.
She began a slow massage and probed deeper. She groaned. Her eyelids closed as she kept going; this time she was going all the way. She reasoned the priests would never deny this if they knew how good it felt.
As Bernadette hit climax she moaned, “Please forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.”
The door to the apartment opened. Bernadette raised herself out of the tub and grabbed her towel. What time was it? Who was there?
She peeked out the door to see her aunt coming in. “Hey, Aunt Mary, you scared me. I didn’t expect your back at this time.”
Aunt Mary stood in the darkened hallway. She moved slowly into the kitchen’s light. Bernadette could see the bandage on her face.
“What happened?”
Aunt Mary walked to the kitchen table. She sat down, letting herself drop into the chair like one who’d just been in a prizefight and got the crap beat out of them. “I quit my job.”
Bernadette came to stand by her aunt’s side. “What? Why’d you quit your job? Was it Ace, did he hit you?” she asked.
Aunt Mary broke into sobs. “Yeah…he grabbed me again behind the bar…I slapped him…then he beat on me.” She looked up at Bernadette. “I can’t take it there anymore. It’s not worth the tips.”
“I’m going to get the bastard,” Bernadette said. Her hands curled into her karate fists. She could feel she herself pounding on Ace until his face looked like hamburger.
“No, you’ll do nothing. Remember, I’m just a bar maid, and an Indian bar maid from the reservation. I don’t matter, and you don’t matter in this town either.” Aunt Mary stared up at Bernadette. “Don’t you get it? We Indians and half breeds like you, we mean nothing to these people. They get to beat on us, spit on us, and no one gives a shit.”
“You’re wrong, Aunt Mary, I give a shit, and so do you, and we’re the ones who matter,” Bernadette said. She sat beside Aunt Mary and put her arms around her. “We matter, because we matter to each other. The others can go to hell.”
“Is it that simple in your world?” Aunt Mary asked.
Bernadette stared at her aunt; should she tell her she was about to set up Ace and turn him over to his gang leader? She couldn’t do it now, not in her aunt’s fragile state. She got up from the table and opened the freezer to take out some ice cream.
“Yeah, pretty much, and hey, how about some ice cream?” Bernadette asked as she brought out two bowls and some chocolate chip swirl.
She filled two bowls with massive scoops and sat down beside her aunt. “Here’s the way I see it, you need to move. It’s a crap job, Aunt Mary.”
Aunt Mary shook her head, “Sure it was crap, but it paid well. We’ll have to cancel our new apartment.” She dropped her ice cream by her side. “God, I screwed us up, didn’t I? I brought that big piece of shit in here. You threw him out, now he’s out to get us.”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t you see, he’s getting to you by slapping me around,” Aunt Mary said.
“Really, are you serious?”
“Yeah.” Aunt Mary turned to Bernadette. “Ace said he was sending a message to you from Susie—and then he backhanded me.” Her shoulders shook in sobs.
Bernadette put her arm around Aunt Mary and rested her aunt’s head on her shoulder. “What if I said there was a plan in place to take Ace and Susie down?”
Aunt Mary sniffled, blew her nose, and looked at Bernadette. “What kinda plan? Are the police after him? Are they going to arrest him?” She sat up, her body going ridged. “You’re not going to have me lay assault charges are you? My god, Ace would kill me, then he’d find you and do the same to you and my kids.”
“No, nothing like that,” Bernadette said, giving her aunt a reassuring hug. “I heard talk from Officer M
yers they’ve got a little surprise up their sleeve for Ace, and pretty soon he’ll be history, and so will Susie. Now, eat your ice cream.” She picked up her aunt’s ice cream and handed it her.
“Do you always see life as positive and sunny?” Aunt Mary asked, putting a big scoop of ice cream in her mouth and letting it melt.
“No, not always, but it’s better than trying to always scrape the shit off your shoe. Now, eat your ice cream, get a good night’s sleep, and tomorrow we’ll find you a real job.”
“But we’ll need to give notice to the Goodhues we can’t take their apartment.”
“Nope, not happening. You’ll find a real job. There’s a whole bunch out there. You have to stop thinking you’re no good, Aunt Mary. You’re one hell of hard-working lady who’s let the world tell her she not good enough.” She shook her spoon at her. “Time for a change.”
Aunt Mary dabbed a Kleenex over her nose and smiled. “When did you become the adult in this place?”
Bernadette grinned, took a big mouthful of ice cream, and wondered if she really was a good as the story she was telling Aunt Mary. She needed to pull off a miracle to get it done. She wondered if the price of the miracle might be too high.
23
Bernadette felt surprisingly refreshed the next morning. She realized the feeling stemmed from her illicit sexual release in the bathtub last night. It tugged at her conscience, but she decided to let it go. There was no use in feeling guilty about something so good—especially that good.
No one was there but her. She wondered for a moment what business the Catholic Church had in her sexual life, and then she dropped the thought as she saw her phone ring.
The number was from Jason. “How’s it going, Bernadette? Did you watch the tapes last night I gave you?”
“Yeah, I can say I’m officially a dirty girl now—is that what you wanted?”
“Not exactly, we just want you to play the part to get Ace’s attention.”
“I think anyone who flashes boobs at him will get his attention.”
“You’re on to something. How’s your aunt doing, by the way? I heard she got slapped around by Ace last night.”
Bernadette was in the kitchen on her own. Her aunt and the kids were occupying the bathroom. She dropped her voice to a whisper. “How’d you know about it.?”
“Craig and Chad went into the tavern to scope the place out last night, get the lay of the place. They saw it happen.”
“Couldn’t they have intervened?” Bernadette asked.
“Look,” Jason said, “Craig and Chad are pretty light weight, I mean as nerds go they’re in the shallow end of the pool; they would’ve just been something extra for Ace to beat up.”
Bernadette sighed. “Yeah, I know what you mean, but they could have called Ace on an assault charge.”
“Sure, and he’d be out tomorrow, and we still got him dealing drugs at your school, and your aunt would have to testify,” Jason said. “I don’t think this is where we wanted to go with this. Remember, we want to get rid of him.”
Bernadette looked towards the bathroom where the girls were making splashing sounds. “You’re right. An assault charge just brings my aunt into it. You did the right thing. I couldn’t see either Craig or Chad going up against Ace. They’d have been soft punching bags for him.”
“Look, sorry about what happened to your aunt. It was hard for Chad and Craig to watch. But the bar manager did nothing about it except ask Ace to leave,” Jason said.
“When do we go after this bastard?’ Bernadette asked.
“How about tonight?”
Bernadette’s heart did a flip. Her breathing stopped. Tonight? Was she ready for tonight? “Sure…where and when?”
“The tavern where you aunt worked. We understand she quit, so you won’t be running into her. You need to dress sexy. Make him want you. We’ll provide the dialogue. Got it?”
“Yeah, I got it,” Bernadette said as she closed her phone.
Her aunt walked in the kitchen toweling her hair and saw the cell phone. “Where’d you get phone?”
“Oh, this?” Bernadette said holding up the phone. “Travis lent it to me; he wanted me to be safe in case the Cardinal boys come after me.”
“Good, I’m glad that’s where you got it from, because at your school, the drug dealers carry cell phones,” Aunt Mary said.
“Yeah, how about that. Look, Aunt Mary, tonight I’ve got some stuff going on. You mind picking up the kids after school?”
“Sure, no problem. I’m going out to look for work today and pick up my last pay cheque from the bar, but I’ll be here. You going to hang out with your cool new friends?”
Bernadette broke into a winning, lying smile. “Yeah, some of my cool new friends. I’ll call you if I’m going to be home past ten.”
She slipped by her aunt and went to the bedroom. They all shared the closet. It was tight, but none of them had many clothes. She rummaged through her aunt’s working clothes, since they were about the same size—there was a tight-fitting, open-neck black blouse and short black skirt and a black lace bra. They’d be perfect. She snagged some high heel boots and stuffed them into her backpack.
The door to the bedroom opened as Bernadette closed her backpack. Not a moment too soon. She breezed by her aunt with a kiss on her cheek. “See you tonight.”
The kids were at the door whining they needed to get outside before they heated up in their winter gear. Bernadette ushered them out the door. The weather was cold. Winter had arrived in full force.
The snow was piled on the sidewalk. The city crews could just clear the main streets. Car tires made a crunching sound on the snow as they compacted the snow into ice on the roadway.
Travis was waiting for her on the corner. The kids said hi and marched ahead with their heads tucked into their hoods to avoid the biting cold.
“You okay today?” Travis asked.
“Yeah, I’m fine, why’d you ask?”
“You look radiant this morning. Did you win the lottery or something?”
Bernadette’s face went a deep shade of red, her eyes dropped to the ground. “Hey, can’t a girl just be happy to be alive, and with her favorite guy?”
“Sorry, it’s just, I’ve never seen you so…”
“Happy?”
“Ah, yeah, I guess that’s it.”
Bernadette shook her head. She had no idea orgasms showed from the night before. She was going to have to watch herself from now on.
They walked together in silence for a while. Their breath steamed into the air and mingled, and they held each other close as the snow crunched under their feet. Bernadette realized her little episode in the bathtub had unleashed a wave of impure thoughts of things she wanted to do with Travis.
She felt her body pressing close to him. His thigh bumped into her, and she almost moaned. My god, girl, she thought, you’ve become a mess of hormones.
School was a blur; she’d set her phone to vibrate and hoped Jason wouldn’t call during a class. There was a pop quiz in French she hardly remembered finishing and wondered how she’d done on it when she handed it in.
When school was over she told Travis she was going to the dojo to do some work on her karate moves. He walked to the karate school, and it took all the lies she could muster to tell him she didn’t need him after the school was over. She told Travis that the other students were going to walk her home.
She waved to them, and they waved back from inside the dojo, which somehow made it seem they were in on her lie. Travis smiled, kissed her, and left. Bernadette felt very alone at that moment. She’d lied to get away from Travis, to be able to help entrap Ace, but who was going to help her?
The other students were practicing their moves when Bernadette walked in. She changed into her gi and began working on her yellow belt moves.
Sensei stood there for a while and watched her. When she’d finished the katas he said, “You move with tension. Is there something bothering you?”
&
nbsp; Bernadette whirled around to face him. “Sorry, sensei,” she said, bowing to him. “I didn’t see you there.”
“It seems you’re not seeing much. Your mind is clouded, your moves are stilted,” sensei said.
“Yes, sensei,” Bernadette said with another bow. There was no use hiding anything from him. He read her like a book.
“Stop doing the katas and practice karate breathing until your mind is clear,” sensei said and walked away.
“Oss,” Bernadette said with a low bow. If her sensei could see the trouble in her mind, what would Ace see?
She went to the side of the dojo and practiced breathing by expelling her breath as she extended her arms and inhaling deeply as she pulled her arms in. After a few minutes a calm came over her.
She remembered a time with her grandfather. They’d been hunting for elk and came across a grizzly bear and her cubs on the trail. The big grizzly had risen up on its hind legs, roaring a warning.
Bernadette had been terrified. Her grandfather spoke calmly to the bear in Dene’. The bear dropped to the ground and walked away with her cubs.
When Bernadette asked her grandfather what he’d said to the bear, he said, “I told her she didn’t need to be afraid of us, but if she charged, I’d kick her ass.”
Her grandfather’s memory flooded over her, a small tear forming at her eye as she finished her breathing. She went into the change room and found a message from Jason on her phone.
She dialed back. Jason was to the point. “We’re outside in a white Town and Country van. Did you bring something sexy?”
“Yeah, I did; I’ve got it with me.”
“Good, get dressed and get out here. ”
There was one private dressing room in the karate school change room. Bernadette went to it and pulled out her aunt’s clothes. She’d never worn a short, tight skirt like the one she was holding nor the blouse with the plunging neckline. Could she go through with this?
Black Wolf Rising (Prequel to the Bernadette Callahan Mystery Series) Page 11
