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“Lucy Ann, I had no idea you had become a philosopher.”

I snort a laugh, “It’s kind of difficult not to, Mom. Just look at what’s happening to me. It really gives me a lot to think about.”

Janet comes over and gives me a hug, grimacing a moment at the pain as her face touches me. Mom comes over and gives me a hug too.

“We’re here for you, baby sister,” Janet says.

Mom adds, “Yes, we are. You make a pretty good young lady, Lucy Ann. Don’t you ever let anyone tell you different. Your great, great grandmother would be proud you have her name.”

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Admin Note: Originally published on BigCloset TopShelf by T D Aldoennetti on Tue, 2008/11/04 - 7:24am, Air Force Sweetheart -- TacPzlSolGp Chapter 11 is revised and reposted on Sun, 2009/12/13 - 03:19 PM ~Sephrena

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Hup, tooop, threep, fore:

Chapter 11

 

Janet and I clean up after supper while Mom takes care of a few things and does her laundry. Janet needs some more clothes and wants to check on Tony so we all drive over. A typical male, Tony has the house in a shambles so Mom and I spend a couple of hours putting it right while Janet prepares food and does his laundry.

He will at least have proper nutrition and clean clothes until this mess is resolved.

It’d better happen fast, as I need to leave soon and I don’t want Janet and Mom facing that jerk alone.

Tony comes in about the time we have all finished and he goes straight to Janet, holding her tight and giving her a long kiss. He tries to explain how much he misses her and how things are still up in the air so she better continue to stay with us for a while. The slimeball has dropped off the face of the earth for now, so we figure he is up to no good. His Dad wanted to file charges against us, against me, but the police just laughed at him, as did the attorneys and the judge. Everyone in town, and presumably over in Cheyenne by now, have read the local newspaper stories, which told what really occurred. His bully son was finally beat up by a 120 pound female, not good for his image.

We finally drive home again and Happy is, of course, happy to see us. Mom finishes her laundry as Sis and I continue to watch the tape. Tomorrow I need to look at the others more and pick up the other five trunks and some olive drab paint. I don’t think the Army would be too happy if I show up with six silver trunks.

Mom comes in, telling us she is going to bed. She inquires as to my progress and Janet says, “It’s there. She isn’t great but she’s improving.”

I still can’t see the difference. Janet tells me I have most of the expressions “down pat” but she says I’d better not try the other one without more practice, a lot more practice.

“Lucy Ann, shoulders back.”

I immediately raise my head, put my shoulders back, suck in my tummy and sit up straight.

“That’s better. Good night, girls, don’t stay up too late.”

After Mom goes to her room, Janet looks at me, “What does she want from you? A Victorian lady?”

“I don’t know. The more I try to remember this, the more people accept me without question, so I guess it is helping.”

“Mom tried to drill all that into me too. It wasn’t until I moved out that I began to relax a little. It is great training, though, especially if you are going to be going to highbrow affairs. One doesn’t want to look like a chicken amidst the peacocks.”

I start laughing and moments later Janet joins in.

We decide to also call it a day and I shut down the TV, removing the tape before shutting off the VTR. It’s a little warm so I open my window to allow some air in; the screen will keep out the bugs. Happy makes himself comfortable on my bed and I tell him to move over which he does, grudgingly.

-o~O~o-

When I awaken halfway through the night, I discover he has reclaimed his territory and I’m sleeping on the edge of the bed. Pulling on the covers I roll him over so I have more room and slide further in before he can react. He just goes back to sleep.

-o~O~o-

Sometime in the early morning I wake up to paws scratching my stomach as Happy looks at me with his head held low. Then he lets loose a quiet, “Woof” and jumps off the bed, then pads toward the door. Another quiet “Woof” and he is out the door. I get up to see what’s bugging him when I hear him bark loudly several times, start growling and it sounds like he’s going into attack mode. A few seconds later he yelps and everything is silent again.

I go out to see what’s going on and Mom and Sis have turned on their lights. The light spilling from Sis’s room shows me the figure of two men coming up the stairs with a third just entering Sis’s room. I yell at Mom to call the police and go on the attack. The first man, closest to me, swings a knife at me. I manage a lucky withdrawal and the tip just slices across my nightgown. I play ‘let’s put the knife in your own stomach’ with him and flip him over the railing to let him crash to the first floor as I charge down to Sis’s room where she has started screaming.

The guy never sees me coming and drops to the floor under my attack. He spins to get up and I slam a one-two blow at his nose, first breaking it, then driving it up and back. He drops like a rock. Now I need to get out of the room and find the other one. I take a quick glance to see if it’s okay to go out through the door and then I’m out and hunting. I hear Mom on the phone screaming at the police but I don’t see number three. A quick check of my room yields nothing. Maybe he bugged out when the other two went down.

Mom finishes on the phone and comes out but I motion to her to wait and to be quiet. Sis has also come out of her room with my old baseball bat. I motion for her to be quiet too. I listen carefully and don’t hear a thing. Taking a quick look over the railing I see the first one still on the floor below. He isn’t moving. I motion that I still want quiet and slowly start my search. The top floor seems clear, so I go down the stairs trying to avoid the creaky ones. A search of the first floor shows nothing and I hear a siren growing closer in the distant background.

Something isn’t right here. I can feel it.

My feelings lead me up to the second floor again. Mom and Sis are trying to stay out of the way and yet to be close for support if needed. I suddenly realize the only room I didn’t check was Mom’s. I hadn’t bothered, since she came out without a problem. I quietly go in, motioning for them to watch our backsides. A check under the bed and around the room yields nothing and the damn siren is getting close enough that it is hard to hear if someone is in the room. I motion for them to come in as I want to check the closet. The door is open just a crack and Mom’s hand suddenly touches me. I jump back involuntarily because it surprises me.

“That door was closed when I went to bed.” she whispers close to my ear.

The siren has pulled up outside so keep an eye on the closet door as I whisper to Mom to go down and let them in. “Tell them the third one might still be up here.”

Mom goes out and I hear the stairs creak as the police begin to pound on the door.

The pounding stops about the same time the closet door bursts open and the sneaking coward is coming at us with a knife. Janet drops the bat and shrieks as she tries to get away. I just miss being opened up like a can of sardines. The creep is yelling obscenities at us as he continues to swing the knife, trying to gut me, just like the one downstairs.

I’m backing across the room looking for an opportunity and Sis has stopped screaming and has finally recovered the baseball bat. The creep takes another swing at me, cutting my gown near the place the first one caught it. They must have been trained to gut their opponents. He presents an opening to me and I’m about to take it when a shot thunders through the room. Mr. Creep pitches to the side, falling away from the door like he was hit with a sledgehammer. He gets up once again, his face a mask of rage, and slashes at Janet as another shot takes him to the floor. This time he doesn’t get up. I think I’ve gone deaf. Don’t remember handguns being that loud before.

My ears are ringing and everything is pretty quiet. Janet is crying now and I try to comfort her but my own tears are getting in the way. Mom comes running in and we all sit on the bed crying together. Mr. Creep is dead by the time help arrives.

The one in Janet’s room doesn’t make it to the hospital. The third one who had his own knife in his stomach has survived both the knife and the fall. He makes it to the hospital and will be charged with attempted murder.

The following day, I make a deposition concerning my part in this whole fiasco, since my orders will take me out of here before any further actions can be taken, although they know where they can find me. The father of the three was outside in their car and the neighbors saw him peel out just before the sirens arrived. He won’t get far. The turds killed Happy. When I discover that, I want them to give me the third man and turn their backs. I also want their Father. This isn’t over!

The police take their time to calm me down. The officer who watched me playing with the creep in the hospital parking lot is trying to convince me that they will do everything to prevent the Father and the surviving son from ever doing anything to a woman again.

“If it’s any satisfaction to you, I’m with you. If these creeps had been trying to do something to my mother or sister, I wouldn’t rest until they were six feet under. We’ll make certain they get what’s coming to them.”

I try to be polite and ladylike but I tell him that his idea of what’s coming to them and mine are somewhat different.

He laughs and nods his head. Grabbing my hand, he kisses it, as I give him an incredulous ‘What’s this all about?’ stare.

“Your mom’s lucky she has a daughter like you. I think I’m going to convince my wife to allow my daughters to learn martial arts. Who knows when it might come in handy?”

He gets up and leaves and I suddenly remember that I’m dressed only in my cut up nightgown.

Mom and Sis are both wearing their robes.

The police are still downstairs completing their reports and checking things.

“Lucy Ann, you get right in your room and put on something decent. I’m ashamed of you,” Mom says, which is oddly reassuring.

The two officers downstairs look up, smiling at us as I hang my head and go to my room. “Don’t be too hard on her, Ma’am. If she hadn’t been here you all would probably be dead now. She did the town a service. We won’t be too much longer. Maybe an hour.”

I’m dressing when I hear another commotion downstairs and peek out my door to see what’s going on. It’s that reporter again. He heard the three sirens charging around town headed in our direction and turned on his police radio. He heard the calls as the police reached the house and was on his way over when he heard yet another call go out asking for an ambulance, then he put two and two together and got three (the wrong three, thankfully).

Mom goes downstairs to put on coffee, and moments later Janet and I are going down, now out of our nightgowns and in shorts and blouses. I go check on Happy again but nothing can be done, he’s gone. They gutted him the way they tried to gut me. I’ll miss him, a lot. I want the father. I want him really bad. I would like to raise him by his feet and make a couple of slices to….

“LUCY ANN, you stop those thoughts this instant.”

I forgot to tell you, Mom’s a mind reader.

I get up from Happy with tears in my eyes and Sis comes over to take me into the living room where we sit and cry for a while both in grief and relief.

It’s nice being a woman. I can cry and get the grief and shock out. Then again, I’m crying because we all survived, all except Happy. That will hurt for a while.

I think about the four spots where the bodies had been lying. We may be able to clean up the blood, but the memories of what transpired and ended at those four spots can’t be dealt with as easily.

-o~O~o-

The sun finally pokes its head above the horizon, following a slow spread of light across the sky. The clouds are fluffy and turning pink and golden, then white as the light of day increases. A locksmith is coming to fix the back door. Mom is going to have deadbolts installed too. I give her three hundred of my personal cash to help replace the carpets after I spend the morning preparing a place for Happy in the back yard, where he used to lie watching the various small wildlife traipsing through the yard.

When he was a lot younger he would chase them but they always got away. Finally, he learned to just lay back and watch, even when they got close. I saw a field mouse walk right up to him one day and touch noses while he watched it. It turned and ran off but he let it go. For a dog he must have been quite a philosopher.

-o~O~o-

We go back to the shop to purchase the rest of my trunks and some paint. The handkerchiefs I purchased are coming in handy, for all of us. The neighbors drop by now and then, and Mrs. Cavendish brings over a platter of her orange flavored cookies for us to munch.

Mom invites her to supper, but she declines. I don’t remember people acting like this since Dad died.

The reporter drops by again, not for more news but to let us know that the father has skipped. The police went to the house and discovered he had been there and gone. No one quite knows where. They have a few leads to investigate. The surviving son is being held on three counts of attempted murder while the District Attorney drafts the final charges. If they ever find the father, he will be charged as an accessory at least, and probably as an accomplice and co-conspirator, which could make him a murderer, depending on what the DA can come up with. I can’t say I’m sorry.

My life has been filled with complications since becoming a woman and I haven’t even finished the change. I hope it settles down enough that I can raise a family.

Two girls and two boys, that would be nice. Maybe the boys first, so I’m able teach them to protect their sisters.

Janet has gone home to Tony and things are starting to settle down again. Mom called the carpet company and they are going to come out and measure the rooms this afternoon. The rest of the week is spent picking up my gowns, finding little things here and there that I need, and painting the six trunks. I’m getting better at my makeup. The video tape helps a lot. I’ve continued my exercises, but I continue to have difficulty in the chest department.

Mom measures me and decides I’m growing, so I decide to go into Cheyenne and pick up a new set of breast forms to have just in case. If I grow past those, then I’ll just have to do without and wait to see how I do. “I haven’t changed that much, so I think I’ll wait a little,” I tell her. I put all my uniform jackets in the shop for alterations which will allow me just a little spare room until I need new forms. I figure that’s about two or three months away. I wonder if the doctors can give me something to help me develop? That might be nice, I could get used to having my own breasts. I almost take these forms for granted now.

“Head up, shoulders back. Lucy, it’s time for you to practice something else. Please come inside with me.”

I wonder what else there could be as I walk into the house.

“Go upstairs and bring down a pair of your pumps.”

As I climb the stairs I look at Mom with a ‘What’s going on, Mom?’ expression.

“You just get the pumps and come back down here.”

I pick out my most comfortable pair of black pumps and return to her in the living room.

“Now, put them on and come stand over here.”

Mom’s getting weird on me. I take off my flats and slip on the pumps, then go to stand beside Mom, who is holding a large book in her hand and has just stepped up on the hassock. “Come closer,” she says.

I look at her suspiciously, wondering if she’s going off the deep end, when she tells me to stop fooling around and stand right next to her.

“Stand up straight, head up, shoulders back, tummy in. Come on, Lucy, you know all this stuff.”

I do what she says and she plops the book onto my head. “Now hold still and balance that book.”

I instinctively reach up one hand to steady it as it starts to wobble.

“NO. Do it without using your hands.”

Easy for you to say, I think to myself, but try anyway.

After about ten seconds the book begins to slide off. I catch it and Mom says, “Put it back on your head.”

I wonder again what this is all about as I manage to balance the book once more. This time it stays more than ten seconds as Mom watches me.

As we approach the 30 second mark, “All right, now walk over to the doorway and back without dislodging the book.”

What is this? I turn and, of course, the book falls off.

“Pick it up and try again.”

Mom has gone off the deep end all right. I’m well into thirty seconds of standing when Janet comes into the house. “Hi, Mom. Where are you?” she calls from the hall.

“In the living room, Janet.”

Janet flows into the room, takes one look and breaks out laughing. “I wondered how long it would take before you had her trying to learn that. Here, Lucy, give me the book and watch.”

Janet stands there and puts the book on her head, then turns and walks to the door, turns and returns. The book remains on her head.

“You need to learn to allow yourself to flow along instead of bouncing. Don’t worry, after a day or two you will be able to do it too. The idea is to always think the book is on your head and you want it to stay there. If you walk with a bounce then the book will fall off.” She looks at me and starts laughing, “The look on your face is priceless. Come on, let me get a book and we’ll do it together,” she hands me my book.

The next hour is spent with me becoming more and more frustrated.

Janet comes up with an idea, “Mom where’s the video camera? Could you tape us walking next to each other so we can play it back and she can see the difference?”

Mom goes out, returning in about a minute with the case holding the video camera and its power supply/charger. She puts the battery into the charger while she goes and hunts for a blank tape. She returns and plugs the charger into the camera allowing the battery to continue its charging while running the camera off the supply side of the charger. The power cord is about 10 feet long, so she’s able to move around a little. The cable from the camera to the VTR is also about ten feet.

“Okay, I’m taping, go ahead,” she says.

Janet puts her book on her head and tells me just to walk next to her without a book. We cross the room and return, then Mom says, “Do it again.”

We walk to the door and back. Mom takes the camera down from her shoulder, “That’s a relief,” she says. “It’s heavy!” She pops the tape out, puts it into the VTR, and then turns on the TV while rewinding the tape. After the TV warms up, Mom pushes play and we watch Janet smoothly flowing across the room with me moving beside her.

“See the difference?” Janet says.

I don’t quite get it yet, and watch the second performance. I get the remote and rewind then play the whole thing again. I still don’t get it.

“Try fast forward and watch your head and shoulders,” Mom says.

I rewind once more and put it into fast play. Now I can finally see it; Janet is smooth and silky as she crosses the floor and I look like a basket ball dribbling in comparison to her. I play it at normal speed and now I see the difference in our movements.

I must look shocked, since Janet grabs my arm, “don’t worry about it,” she says. “After a couple of days, it will all come naturally. Come on, race you to the door.”

We put the books on our heads and before I take two steps mine falls off while Janet is now standing at the doorway looking back at me with her book still on her head. Her hands didn’t touch it once except to put it up there.

“Watch, Lucy.”

Janet continues out the door and up about five or six stairs, turns and comes down again. The book hasn’t moved. Oh, maybe turned a little but it is still in nearly the same place on her head. Now I’m determined. I’m going to master this if it takes all day. (It did and the next day too, among all the other things I need to do) Finally I am able to make it up and down the stairs without my book falling off.

Mom adds a new video to the same tape and I play it again start to finish. There I am playing ping-pong and finally there I am flowing just as smooth and silky as Janet did yesterday morning.

I smile my, ‘I did it.’

Mom nods and says, “Yes, you did it. Keep practicing until you can walk anywhere in the house without it falling.”

I put the book back on my head and in half an hour am following her up and down the stairs and into the kitchen then walking all around the first floor. Finally I quit. “Mom, my legs are killing me again.”

“They’ll be better. You’re using your muscles differently again, so they are complaining. If you get a big book, then after your surgery you should practice walking again until it comes naturally. This helps teach you to hold your head up and stand tall and straight. If you don’t, then the book falls off. It also teaches you to flow across a room. A lady glides, a scullery maid bounces. A lady shows finesse in EVERYTHING she does. Walking, talking, eating, sleeping, her expressions are smooth and carefully orchestrated. She doesn’t crash from one expression to another; she gently and smoothly slides from one to another. It may be quick but she always flows in her approach. A lady may sometimes act like a scullery maid, but a scullery maid will never act like a lady. She has never had the training.”

I break down in tears, an all too common occurrence lately.

“Mommm,” I wail. “I want to be a lady. I don’t want to be a scullery maid.”

“Then pay more attention, Lucy, you have watched me for years. Think. Remember how I move, how I do things. I know it’s all in there,” she taps me on the head, “so use it. Practice it. Learn from your memories. Learn from what you remember of me and of Janet. She could do it if she so chooses. She knows how. You have all the information now. Practice it. Now, sit up straight, dry your tears and put that book on your head. Get up and walk to the door and back, then sit, and don’t knock the book off your head.”

I look at her incredulously. Get up and sit down? O… kay….

Mom grabs the book from my hands and puts it on her own head. She gets up and walks to the doorway, does a complete spin before returning to the chair and sitting once more. She takes the book off her head and hands it to me.

“When you can get up, walk to the door and back and sit again without dislodging the book call me to watch.”

“Okay…, I mean…, yes, Mom. I wish you had started teaching me this stuff ten years ago.”

“Don’t be silly. Boys don’t flow. Girls do.” Mom gets up and leaves the room as I watch her ‘flow’ from the chair and out into the entryway, listening to her ‘flow’ up the stairs. I can even hear it in her footsteps. I’m in more trouble than I could ever have imagined.

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To Be Continued….       © 2008, 2009 by T D Aldoennetti & Rénae Dúmas. This work may not be replicated or presented in whole or in part by any means electronic or otherwise without the express consent of the Author (copyright holder) or her assigned representative. ALL Rights Reserved, including but not limited to ownership of Characters, final content decision, and more. This is a work of Fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional and any resemblance to real people or incidents past, present or future is purely coincidental. An Aldoennetti Original.