Chapter 5

It was the wee hours of the morning before Lance had his fill of pleasuring me.  It was amazing how selfless a lover he was.  More than once, I was tempted to go all the way.   It wasn’t just because I felt guilty about peaking so many times while his manhood was practically bursting with desire, but because I was beginning to long having him inside of me.  To my surprise, when I literally begged him to enter me, he declined.  He insisted that enjoying my body in that way was all the satisfaction that he needed and was enough to solidify the bonding between us.  He then proceeded to state that we should save his penetration of me for our wedding night.  I was so out in left field with desire that his words never registered correctly. I simply responded with a sigh.

With Nora’s dress cradled in my arms, my naked body followed his equal nakedness to my room where he deposited me with the instructions that I take a long bath.  After one more long and lingering kiss, I bid him goodnight. 

While I waited for the tub to fill, I moved to the sink.   Loading up the bristles of my toothbrush with mint flavored toothpaste, I scrubbed at my mouth with a vengeance.  I felt bad about scrubbing his kisses away, but the remnants of his release needed to go.  It took the entire length of time for the deep tub to fill before I felt satisfied that my mouth was clean again.

I’d just immersed myself into a deliciously hot, lavender scented bubble bath when Nora came rushing into my ensuite bathroom.  She was breathless with excitement.  “Where have you been?  The place is in an uproar.  Melanie went missing about three hours ago. Where were you?”

I decided that it was time to come clean.  “Fooling around with Lance in the servant’s quarters.”

She looked at me with shocked surprise. “What?”

I gave her a defensive look. “You jumped into the pool half naked with that strange guy.  You have no room to judge me.”

“I was tossed into the pool,” she corrected me, “and I’m not judging.  I’m just surprised.”

“As am I,” I said.

“By me? Or by you?”  she asked.

“Both,” I said as I laid back and rested my head against the cool porcelain of the ancient claw foot tub.  “Why is everyone in an uproar over Melanie?  She’s probably off with one of the male guests doing the same thing Lance and I were doing.  Or, maybe she’s off with a woman.  Did you take a head count?”

“You don’t understand,” Nora quickly said. “She was playing around the pool with the rest of us.  One minute she was there and the next she was gone.”  She splayed her fingers in the air.  “Poof!”

“Poof?”  I repeated.

“Yeah. Poof!” she said with emphasis.

“Did you see her go poof?”  the investigator in me asked as I sank deeper into the soothing bath water.  I had no interest in Melanie’s antics or the drama that they caused.  My hours of foreplay had left me a bit tender in certain areas.  The heat of the water was helping to ease that tenderness.

“It’s difficult to explain,” Nora said with a teary voice.  “It’s like she walked off into thin air.”

I sat up and looked at my friend.  It wasn’t her statement that grabbed my attention, but the sincerity in which it was said.  Nora wasn’t joking.  She was clearly upset.  I felt bad about it, but I simply couldn’t muster an interest in the drama.

“Has anyone told Lance?” I asked in a lazy manner that told of my disinterest.

She shrugged.  “I don’t know.  The last I knew, he was nowhere to be found.”

“Because he was with me,” I reminded her. 

I pulled at the chain that was attached to the plug of the tub with my toes.  The gurgling sound of the water rushing down the drain echoed off the walls as I stepped out of the bath and unabashedly picked up the thick towel that was placed on the wooden chair next to the tub to dry off.  Nora’s exposure to my nakedness started long before I bloomed into womanhood; as was mine with hers.  It was ages since we’d experienced shyness with each other.

“What was it like?” she asked in a soft tone.

“What was what like?” I asked while I busily dried my arms and legs; even though I knew what she was referring to.

“Was he as good a lover as you’d expect?” she asked with eagerness.

I nodded. “Even better.”

Her voice trembled with anticipation of my answer. “Did you go all the way?”

I shook my head.  “I told you that we just fooled around.  Foreplay.  Nothing more.”

She nodded and said inquisitively,  “In the servant’s quarters?”

“Yes,”  I said with impatience.

“Why there?” she asked.  “I mean.  Why not here?”

I wrapped the jumbo bath towel around my torso and rubbed at my flesh to help dry it.  “It started out as a tour and just ended up like that.”

She looked wistfully into space.  “That’s so cool.  He’s openly shown his like for you.  Even at the bar.”

I furrowed my brow.  “I didn’t notice at the bar.”

My dear friend chuckled.  “That doesn’t surprise me.  You rarely notice when a man is interested.  They have to literally flaunt themselves at you and present you with a designer dress before you get it.  Now, me, on the other hand, I’d be calling the preacher to set a date if a man half as hot as Lance looked my way.  Hell, I’d take an ogre about now.”   

I understood her meaning.  While I rarely dated because I was more focused on my career than men -as well as the fact that I wanted to avoid being pressured into pre-marital sex-, Nora simply didn’t get asked out.  More than once, she’d expressed her sadness over the lack of love and her loneliness.

“You looked pretty cozy with the guy at the pool,” I said.

She smiled a sassy smile.  “We did it in the bushes.”

“What?”  I screeched.

She shrugged.  “I’d had more vodka than I care to admit and then he gave me something.  A pill.  I think it was meant to make me horny because I practically raped the guy.”

“That’s so wrong,” I spat. “Who is this man?  I didn’t get a good look at him.”

“You will soon enough,” she said with a smug tone.  “He’s taking me out to dinner and a movie next weekend.”

“After this weekend?”  I asked with surprise.  “You mean he made a date with you?”

Her pride and delight poured forth as she rapidly nodded.  “I can’t believe it.  He’s so cute.  It’s like a dream.”

Unlike me, Nora spent the better part of a year seeing a man who was separated from his wife.  He worked in the office building next to ours in accounts payable.  He met her at  her apartment several times a month after work for sex, but never took her out on a real date.  She deluded herself into believing that he really cared for her and that things would change once he got his divorce and didn’t have to worry about repercussions from dating prior to it.  I hated to do it, but I eventually investigated the man and discovered that he was still happily married and simply looking for the thrill of having a lover on the side.  Nora was devastated when I told her the truth about him, but didn’t hold it against me for taking the initiative and checking him out.

That was two years ago and she hadn’t had a date since.  This roll in the bushes was a long time coming.

“Did you enjoy the sex with him?” I asked as I remembered my time with Lance.

She nodded, then shook her head, and then nodded again.  “I’m not sure.  It was kind of a blur.”

I scowled.  “I don’t like the sound of that.  When did he make the date with you?  Was it before or after your tumble in the bushes?”

“Before, but what does that matter?  Don’t go spoiling things for me, Esma,” she scolded.  “I don’t attract guys like you do.  This is a once in a lifetime opportunity.  It’s not like the last time.  He’s not married.  I asked around.  Please don’t spoil this for me.”

I felt horrible.  Esma was a childhood nick name that I’d long outgrown.  She only shortened my name to Esma when she was flustered.  I definitely didn’t want to spoil her happiness, but I suspected that the offer to get together the following weekend was simply stated as a means to get sex on this date rapist’s part.  If I could call it date rape.   Since my desperate for love and very naïve friend remembered the event to some degree and claimed to have willingly participated, I just didn’t know what to call it.  A drunken, drug induced one night stand, perhaps?  Whatever it was, I didn’t appreciate the fact that this guy was using my friend for sex. 

Consulting adults or not, promoting the mood with a pill was simply wrong.  Promising to take her on a date the following weekend -when he more than likely had no intention of following through with it- to assure his tumble in the bushes was downright cruel.  This was a prime example of why I avoided the process of dating.  Weeding out the good guys from the creeps was simply too exhausting.

Sure, I’d behaved boldly with Lance, but there was no sex inducing pill involved and no false promises made.  We simply enjoyed the process of foreplay  between a man and a woman.  Nothing more.  If I never saw Lance again it would be alright because he made no promises to me; nor I to him.  In fact, the man could have had far more of me, but he declined. 

A vague memory of him mentioning our wedding night during out interlude flitted through my head. Thinking that it was the little girl inside me foolishly  fantasizing over the handsome bachelor, I quickly pushed it out.

“Just promise me that you won’t take any more of those pills again,” I said as I hung my towel to dry and strode into the bedroom.  “If the man can’t have sex without them, then that’s a red flag.”

She watched with curiosity as I crawled beneath the covers. “Didn’t you bring a nightgown?”

“I sleep naked,” I explained.

Her surprise at this new bit of information about my habits was evident on her face.  “Since when?”

I fluffed my pillow and sank my head down into it.  “I started about six months ago after reading an article about its health benefits.  It’s supposed to have quite a few.”  I sighed with pleasure as I wiggled between the Egyptian cotton sheets that were softened by age and use.  “It makes me feel sexy, too.”

“I don’t know if I could do it,” she said with concern.  “My nightie is like a security blanket.”

“I had trouble at first, but, now, I’m used to it,” I assured her.  “You should try it sometime.”

“Hmmm. Maybe some time,” she mused.  “Are you going to sleep now?”

“The sun will be rising soon,” I said with a yawn. “I’m exhausted.  You had just as eventful an evening as I did.  I’m surprised you’re still up.”

“What about Melanie?”  Nora asked with hesitation.

“I’m sure our little attention seeker will show up,”  I groaned as I rolled onto my side and snuggled into the bedding.  “This is a big estate.  She’s probably wandering about.  When everyone sobers up, we’ll go looking for her.  If she doesn’t come back on her own, that is.”

Her disappointment in my apathy toward Melanie’s disappearance was written on her face, but she said no more as she lightly kissed my forehead, told me to sleep tight, and left the room.

My friend had barely closed my bedroom door behind her before I could feel my body shutting down for sleep.  A quick memory of Lance releasing his seed inside my mouth flitted about my head.  I shuddered and pushed it as far into the recesses of my mind as I could.  I didn’t want anything spoiling the way that I felt just then.  The satisfaction that my entire body felt from my sexual tryst with Lance, combined with the relaxing lavender bath and pampering of the thick bedding, proved more potent than a sleeping pill. 

Before I knew it, Nora was gently shaking me awake.

“Lance wants everyone to gather down in the sitting room,” she said in a low voice.

I opened one eye.  The sun was up, but its lack of potency and position told me that it had only just risen.

“What time is it? I can’t have had more than a few hours’ sleep,”  I complained.

“Melanie’s in a coma,” she blurted as she turned to leave the room.  “They found her bound behind the guest house.  Hurry.”

I lay still as her words sank into my sleepy brain.  Melanie was bound and in a coma?  Was that what she’d just said?

I leapt from my bed and pulled on a pair of jeans and a tee shirt that was less form fitting than the one I’d worn the day before.  Forgoing my shoes, I slipped my feet into the slippers that the room provided and padded my way downstairs.  I was the last to arrive.

“It’s so nice of the investigator to grace us with her presence,” came a hostile male voice from the middle of the small crowd that had gathered around Lance in the  center of the room.

Realizing that the remark came from the man who I’d guessed had designs on our host, rather than be upset, I inwardly congratulated myself on my ability to assess people.

“That was uncalled for,”  Lance snapped.  “Esmerelda is not responsible for what happened to Melanie.  Nor is she a police officer who is required to investigate what happened.   She’s a guest in this house just like the rest of you.  I would appreciate your consideration in this matter.”

Ignoring the open glowering and snide remarks that were being whispered about me and my association with the very coveted Lance Northrup, I closed my eyes to see if I could get an impression from the house as to what happened.

All I could get were the words, ‘The other side of the mirror.’  They made absolutely no sense to me, even though they sounded in my head over and over again.  Frustrated and irritated, I walked to the far side of the room, away from the crowd.  Perhaps if I put some space between them and me, I’d get a better idea of what happened.

I moved to the tapestry upholstered window seat and sat down.  Closing my eyes and breathing at a slow and steady pace, I concentrated on the energy of the house and its grounds. 

Again, ‘The other side of the mirror’  filled my head.

Lance’s unhappy voice startled me out of my light trance. “What are you doing?”

My hand flew over my heart as if to hold it in place as my body jolted.  My voice had an abnormally high pitch as I stammered, “Y- you startled me.”

“I apologize for the way they behaved,” he said with disapproval.

“It’s fine,” I said, “That’s not why I left although I can see why you thought that it might be.” I took a deep breath and spoke while I released it.  “I probably should have stayed, but I was trying to pick up some information and it was too chaotic over there.”

He cocked his head in thought.  “You are psychic?”

I emitted an uncomfortable chuckle.  Whenever I thought of psychics, I thought of  fraudulent females wearing gawdy jewelry and long skirts with no shoes.  “I don’t know.  I don’t think so.  Maybe.  If I am, I don’t use it.  I just get impressions.  Information if you like, from my surroundings.  It’s as if the place and things speak to me.” 

“That is psychic and you are using it.  Maybe not like Madam Zelda would with a sign over a table and a turban on her head, but you are putting it to use all the same,” he mused.

“I don’t want people thinking that I’m a psychic that they can come to for a fortune,” I insisted.  “That’s not who I am.  I’m an investigator who uses whatever skills I have to solve a case.”

“You are a paranormal investigator, my dear,” he said as he lowered himself  onto the window seat next to me.

“I don’t chase ghosts,” I protested as I quickly looked to see how many evil stares I was getting as a result of his attention.

To my surprise and relief, they were all too preoccupied with conversation that sounded high pitched and argumentative to pay any attention to me.

“Paranormal does not mean ghost hunter.  It denotes events or phenomena that are beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding,” he offered.  “I would say that getting impressions from places or things falls in that category.  Wouldn’t you?”

I thought for a moment and then nodded.

“What have you gotten from this place?” he asked.

I slowly shook my head.  “Very little.  Nothing that makes sense, anyway.   With the place being so old, I’m surprised, but, then, I don’t always get things.  It depends on the place or the thing.  Usually, if the place or thing is as old as this one, I get a lot.  For some reason it’s not happening here.  If I do get something of value, you’ll be the first to hear about it.”

The sound of the police car and ambulance arriving demanded his attention.  He lightly kissed my forehead and then headed off to speak with them.