Our flight turned out to be uneventful. Two hours and one stop later we showed our identification, retrieved our cases, and walked out the deplaning ramp into the terminal where we each found a restroom so we could extract our weaponry from the cases and place them into the appropriate holsters, sheathes and, in one case, a 9mm went into my purse. With two hours to kill, an early lunch was in order, during which we discussed strategy.

“Remember Ralph, only Mr. Thomson is to know.”

“Lynnette, no problem. It isn’t like we haven’t done this before, and you’ve taken this route a number of times.”

“True, but every other time was for only one day, not two weeks and not in such uncontrolled circumstances.”

“Oh come on, Lynn. You know you like the opportunity and the guys certainly wouldn’t mind a bit.”

In a way Ralph was right. Every other time had been, at the very most, for a maximum of two days but normally only a day or even less and I really would have liked the chance to do it for a longer time. Every other time when it was over, I would go home and cry my eyes out for what seemed like hours wishing it had gone on longer. I could probably enjoy two or three days, maybe even the whole two weeks. It might help get it out of my system for a while. It was different when I knew I could change back after a day or two, but two weeks? That seemed like it was nearly forever despite having done it for even longer periods while in the service. Of course I wouldn’t be doing any of the spook’s work this time out. The alternate to that would be that I might do it for these two weeks and not want to stop. I wasn’t certain that would be a good thing. Then again, I wasn’t certain it would be all that bad either.

“Lynnette, you know we can do this ... legally. Then you’d just be another one of the girls as well as the boss.”

I smiled at him, “I know Ralph. That’s such a sweet offer. I know you mean it, but there are a bunch of complications. One of them being that I’m still not certain I want to do this on a permanent basis.”

“I know, but most of the other complications we could handle if you wanted to do it.”

“What about Jeannie? Now SHE’s a complication.” I reminded him about my ex and her antics.

“Lynnette, I told you a year ago that isn’t a problem. I can handle her.”

“I know. I’m just afraid of how ... ”

“Nothing illegal.”

“Uh, huh,” I rolled my eyes.

“Seriously. She says she has some dirt on you which would cause a lot of problems ... well, now I’ve got a bundle on her and if I release it first then whatever she does will just look like sour grapes and no one will believe it, or, they won’t care. You know the original 30 already know and are supportive. That’s nearly half the company. You should let that Canadian lady know, too. I’ll bet she would be supportive as well.”

“Yes, I know ... Maybe I could do it for a while. It might be fun to do it for a longer period. As for the Canadians ... I don’t need that kind of a problem cropping up at the moment. We simply don’t need to be hunting for more Canadian agents when we are so close to opening that office.”

I began to think about how I might enjoy this despite anything my ex might have up her sleeve. Thinking about that made me wonder why I agreed to the possibility of doing this for so long this time.

“Lynn, if this client goes with the flow, then you should come in all this week as well. You need to be in the office anyway for the team briefings, and the final work up ... It would be a great opportunity to see once again what it’s like to do it for a longer time. After all, the time you did it in the Service hardly counts since you were so busy all the time you didn’t really have a chance to think about it. Most everyone not in the know has gone on assignments so it would allow you a little time to get a feel for it before the detail actually begins.”

Three weeks?

“Yes, I know,” I sighed. “I can see Nicci now. I walk into my office and she has the cops in there so fast my head would spin.”

“Nicci knows,” Ralph says with a smile.

Scowling, “You told her?”

“She told me. She’s a bit put out actually. She has wanted to meet you for quite a while, now. She heard about you from the guys whenever you worked a job and she eventually put two and two together. She’s a smart cookie, of course that’s why she has the job she has. I think it’s about time for you to tell her. She wants to be a friend.”

“I’ll think about it, Ralph. What time is it? I forgot my watch.”

“You forgot your lipstick too.” He checked his watch, “It getting on, we should go.”

“I have my lipstick right here,” pulling the tube from my purse, “I didn’t want to waste it, so I didn’t put any on because I knew I would be eating before we went to the meeting. Pardon me, but I need the powder room for a few minutes.”

I got up and went to the ladies room to do my business, and to put on my lipstick. A few minutes later I met Ralph out front where we caught a taxi ride to a huge, new industrial park where we stopped before a modern style, four storied glass walled building.

“Nice digs,” Ralph commented as we looked at the floor to roof entry area which took up the center of the building. It had wrap around walkways at each level plus a garden surrounding the guard station located which was located in the center of that lobby-entrance. After being appropriately awed, we checked in for our one o’clock. By the time someone collected us and we were shown into the inner sanctum on the fourth floor, there were five people waiting for us and it was nearly a quarter after.

“Ralph,” James shook his hand having met Ralph back when he first talked with us, “and you must be Lynnette.” He shook my hand also, but a bit less firmly.

“Mr. Thompson.”

“Call me James.”

“James, then.”

“Allow me to introduce Bill and George. They are the two vice presidents who will also be attending the convention. The other two gentlemen are the vice presidents for our legal and financial departments.”

This event was not unexpected and was a part of the preparatory discussion Ralph and I had during lunch. We had a predetermined manner in which we would handle this part of the meeting so we continued on just as though we were the advance team gathering what extra info we needed, especially that which covered the need for a female agent. Half an hour later things were pretty well sewn up so we stipulated the necessity of a five minute private meeting before we departed. In a few minutes the meeting wrapped up and Legal and Finance left the room.

Ralph looked at Bill and George, “Mr. Thompson, is there more to discuss?”

“You said you wanted a private meeting. Here we are.”

“Yes, a PRIVATE meeting.” Ralph replied.

James gave a slight scowl to Ralph, “I don’t think there is anything to discuss which cannot be said in front of Bill or George.”

Ralph gave me a look of resignation, “oh well, guess you were right, he’s just looking for someone to blame if things don’t go well.”

I frowned before reaching into my purse removing a piece of paper which I placed on the table near James, who by this time was also frowning at Ralph’s comment. Ralph always did have this propensity toward opening his mouth before putting his brain in gear. He did necessarily say bad things but he sometimes let out information that it was best to keep hidden a while longer.

“Mr. Thompson, this is a refund of all the advance monies your company has paid to date. If you cannot follow our instructions explicitly then we are not the security company you need. We suggest you hire some off-duty police officers who will take your orders. Our Principals must follow our instructions as we give them and when we give them; not their own path. Thank-you for considering Stevens Security.”

Ralph and I both stood, letting ourselves out of his conference room leaving James standing there gaping like a fish, his face turning an angry scarlet. His two VP just looked shocked.

After we reached the lobby, Ralph begged the use of a phone, calling for a taxi which pulled up about five minutes after we exited the building. We rode to the airport in silence going in to redeem our return trip vouchers, we checked in our weapons then walked to the boarding gate to wait for the half hour until boarding.

The return flight was just as uneventful as the one which brought us here earlier in the day. We had the opportunity to discuss the costs we had incurred thus far. This round-trip flight ... $ 987, two and a half weeks pay for our team ... $23,827. 31 what with medical insurance, taxes and the like ... administrative costs ... $2671. Why the thirty-one cents? Because the insurance, taxes, etc. came up to some strange amount since a couple of the guys were on the edge of their tax bracket and insurance was going up so instead of making it a nice rounded $23,775 it moved up a bit and was that weird fifty-two dollars and thirty-one cents higher.

“Ralph, pull the twenty three grand from my personal account, that’ll hurt a bit, but I won’t see the guys short changed because I turned down a job at the last minute. The flight costs should be a legitimate expense and tax-deductible, I think ... check with legal and accounting on that. The $2671 is a loss, but the office girls need to be paid for the time they’ve spent on the prep for this job as well and we already tagged their work to this account. Fortunately we have others so it only affected a part of their earnings and the company savings can foot that part.”

“I’m sorry, Lynn. We could have done the job with bells on. Some of the guys were looking forward to working with you. A couple of the newbies too. The old gang always talks you up. It’s too bad about the job, but I guess it’s better we found out he couldn’t take direction before a clinch than during. What irks me is we didn’t even get to see if he was okay with you substituting for one of the female agents.”

“True ... ” I was fairly quiet. I didn’t know how I felt about having dumped the job that could have allowed me to spend just two weeks doing something that felt a bit like a vacation to me.

“Come on Lynnette, talk to me. This is your buddy, Ralph.”

I remained quiet and Ralph just waited patiently. I was looking at my fingernails and the polish which matched my suit.

Ralph suddenly pointed out my window, “Wow, look at that. Some day we need to buy one of those.”

I glanced out the window and saw a Gulfstream flying by in the distance. It was one of the earlier models and seemed to be going in roughly the same direction as we were traveling, but it was separated by distance, a little altitude, and speed, not to mention price. I doubted the cost of our two tickets would have even made a dent in the cost of that little beauty.

“Did you see it, Lynnette? He had to be making about a hundred miles an hour faster than we’re going.”

“Yes, I saw it. He was probably making closer to 150 knots over us. Maybe a few years down the road, if I don’t turn down any more well paying jobs.”

“Aww, Lynn. Don’t kick yourself. He wouldn’t take direction. Some day that will get him killed. I don’t want that to happen while it’s our watch. That could kill our business.”

I nodded my head in agreement then spent the last half of the flight with my mind locked in thought.

We had taken nearly three years to grow to this size and our benefactors needed us to be at least six times larger than this. They would have liked it to have been yesterday. We had a few agents who could play in some of the foreign sandboxes, most of whom we had hired away from other agencies so they were already certified in Europe as well as a few other countries. That helped to satisfy some of our lessor commitments to our spook friends. We had begun to make some serious money, which also made our friends happy since they received a share of our profits, and I had made a point of quickly paying off the one loan we had and which the government had guaranteed. The grants were just that, grants and while not overly large they weren’t exactly small either.

By now, the business owned a number of well protected properties, armored vehicles both for equipment and for people hauling. We were still growing and were about to expand into two additional cities here in the States, which were popular convention sites, as well as one located in Canada. That was the reason for the ten Canadian agents and the three office staff who were here training prior to being cut loose on an unsuspecting Canada.

Turning down this job wouldn’t kill us, but it would hurt for the short term. As a company we had begun working with several Federal Agencies and were gaining a good reputation. However, as good as things seem to be, we still didn’t have extensive cash reserves. We could survive this little bump in the road but things still wouldn’t be pretty for a while yet. I figured pretty wouldn’t come around until we had nearly twelve Mil in savings. At under four we were still a long way away from that.

I continued thinking about the job I had just turned down. If we had done this job well, then we would have had about an additional two hundred twenty K in the bank after all of our expected expenses. That, plus the opportunity for more good publicity which could have helped us start moving at the two new locations and allowed us to come up to speed much more rapidly. The two jobs scheduled to start a couple of weeks later would still bring our reserves up another eighty K from our projected levels, post purchase of the office buildings in those other two cities. Not bad for a little company that started on what I figured was a shoestring budget and a prayer. Our total cash assets presently sat at about three point thirty-five Mil, enough for close to five months with no income so long as there weren’t any unexpected expenses. We weren’t in bad shape, just not in perfect health.
We landed five minutes early for a change, collected our weapons cases then headed on into the concourse.

“I’m going to the office for a couple of hours. You coming in? Nicci would love to meet you.” Ralph suggested.

“Nicci meets me everyday, Ralph.”

“Come on. You know what I mean, Lynnette.”

I sighed, looking at my reflection which was cast back at me by a glass panel that covered an ad for a Bahamas vacation. I could see an attractive woman looking back as I pondered the advisability of going to the office like this.

“Hang on a sec, Lynnette. I’m going to go call the office and see if the Earth’s shaking.”

I continued to stand there looking at my reflection and thinking about ... well ... just about everything as Ralph walked to a nearby set of pay phones. I didn’t know what I was thinking when I agreed to go talk with James. It was a dumb move and I don’t know how I thought it could work out any way but bad. Our business didn’t need that kind of publicity, especially not the kind that said we would turn down jobs at the last second leaving principals out in the cold, dark ocean of the world without life preservers.

Ralph finished his call, “Lynn, we may have a problem.”

“Another one?” I sighed, my five months cash assets rapidly dwindling in my mind to four and hopefully not lower. “What’s this one?”

“Thompson walked in the doors just before Nicci answered my phone call.”

“What? Great! Had to be the Gulfstream.”

I could have smacked my head. I should have realised it could have been him when we saw it was going in basically the same direction we were. When we spoke with him before, he had arrived in a private aircraft and one of my newbies picked him up at a general aviation terminal. I hadn’t made a conscious effort to remember the manufacturer of the aircraft if the newbie had even reported it.

Ralph nodded in agreement, “Nicci put him in your office.”

“Oh great. Did he bring his attorney with him?” I could see all our hard work of these past years going out the window in a lawsuit.

“I don’t know. I didn’t remember to ask, and Nicci just said and I quote, ‘I put him in Lynnette’s office and told him I expected you both back shortly,’ end quote.”

“Okay,” I sigh again, “You head on in and I’ll go home and change then rush right in.”

“Lynn, didn’t you hear me? Nicci put him in YOUR office.”

“Yeah. I heard you. She put him in my off ... ” suddenly the light dawned, “Oh Shit.”

“Cussing in your old age, Lynn? I’ve never heard you cuss before.”

“This is an exception.” I closed my eyes, sighing yet again. Maybe when I opened them again this would all turn out to have just been a bad dream. I opened one eye looking around. Nope, didn’t go away.

“Okay, let’s go face the music.” I hated to use that metaphor ever since that TV game show ‘Face the Music’ had swept the air waves.

I was still hoping this was a bad dream somehow even as we rushed out to find and bail out Ralph’s Buick from the short term lot. I was betting that James didn’t drive a Buick. Hell, he probably rode in a chauffeured limo.

After less than thirty minutes of travel broken up by a quick stop at a pay phone, we arrived at the office, hurrying into the room where we stopped in front of Nicci’s desk. She looked up, smiled at Ralph, then bounced out of her chair to come around her desk and give me a hug.

“Lynnette, I’m so glad to finally meet you. I’ve heard so much about you. Lyon never says a thing and I have to get it all third hand from the guys. Please come into the office more often.”

“I’ve been giving that a lot of thought lately, Nicci.”

She smiled, “Wow. You even sound as sexy as you look, girl. Well, you two had better get on in there,” she pointed at my office, “He’s on his third cup of coffee.”

Ralph and I exchanged glances then started for the office door. Ralph opened it for me. As I entered I spotted James looking out the window, “Your Gulfstream makes excellent time, Mr. Thompson.”

“Call me, James. Remember? How did you know we have a Gulfstream?”

“We saw it as you passed the airliner in which we were riding.” We shook hands again, “What is it you want from us now?”

“I would like you to accept the return of your check and our job.”

“We already explained all that. You failed the test and we will not be responsible for your safety. If one of our clients will not immediately follow our instructions, then they could be killed. That could destroy all our future business. We would rather refuse a job than take that chance.”

“But I am following your instructions. Here I am, and alone. I can do what you require, I just need to understand it.”

“Frequently there isn’t any time to explain, MR. Thompson ... ”

“James!”

“James.” I replied disgustedly, “Frequently you must immediately do what we say, no waiting, no hesitation, no second guessing.”

“All right. I can do that.”

“Drop to the floor.”

“What? I don’t, oh.” he got down fairly quickly once his brain processed the need to follow instructions without questioning them.

“It won’t work, JAMES.”

“Why not? I got down.”

“True. You did, but you were already dead.”

“Dead? How? There’s no one else in here.”

“True. The bullet that killed you did not come from within this room nor from within this building. It came from the building down the street.”

He got up, again without our instructions to do so, then went to the window.

“Someone could shoot me in here from that far away?” He pointed at a brown building half a block away.

“Not the brown building, that red brick building about three blocks further away.”

He looked out again then finally noticed the building which had a fifth story window open to an otherwise darkened room.

“You’re kidding.” incredulous.

“Alpha two, splat,” I said quietly into a small hand radio, hoping that my people had called in after they were set up and not before. A moment later the window thumped, moving slightly as a splotch of yellow colour appeared on it just in front of James’ Face. He recoiled from the sudden appearance of colour as I continued my lesson for him.

“Alpha one, splat.”

Another thump and a splotch of red colour joined the yellow splattered in a slightly different pattern due to the change of shot origin and in response to James slight change of location near the window.

“Alpha team, stand down. Return to base.”

I was thankful Ralph and I cooked this up on the way in from the airport. When we stopped to call in, we found there were two of our guys standing around in the office so we were able to quickly get them to set up in our leased rooms in those other buildings which permitted us to make such demonstrations. We had the Mayor in here one day when he was being particularly difficult with his city provided protection detail. Not normally our concern, but we do have a mutual support agreement with the city. True, not all of our guys were trained as snipers. In fact only three of them had such training but at only three or four blocks and just for a demonstration, most of the guys could hit pretty close to the mark with a rifle and that was all that mattered in a demonstration of vulnerability.

“James, those were sniper’s rifles using coloured marker rounds. Those rounds are not terribly accurate. Bullets are far more accurate and the distance from the sniper to you would likely have been far greater. If we were the ones playing at being snipers then we usually would have selected a building or location at least two to three times as distant. If we suspect we have a problem out there and tell you to get down, we don’t have time to debate it. We won’t say it if we don’t have a very good reason. If you’re dead, explanations won’t matter. If you’re still alive, then we can go somewhere which is more safe and provide the explanation then. As I have said, you don’t take direction well so we don’t want your job. Ralph would you please show Mr. Thompson out?”

“WAIT. Please ... ” Thompson took a moment to compose his thoughts.

“It’s not every day that I’m killed and live to talk about it. Okay. I know we ... ” he grimaced, “I ... don’t understand much about protection but I’m willing to learn. Given a little time and drill, I can do better ... ”

“DROP.”

I’ve got to give him this, he did do better. He quit talking mid-sentence and went to the floor quickly, this time hiding behind my desk. He also stayed down this time until we escorted him out the door as though we were actually taking fire. We didn’t bother to mention that these windows were armored and although we might suspect we had a sniper hiding out somewhere we normally wouldn’t know about a sniper until it was too late. Telling him that information would have defeated our little demonstration. Now that he was nice and pliable we took him to our conference room to run him through a mock debriefing then we dropped the other shoe.

“James, during the two weeks you will be in our care, I will be a part of your protection detail. There is one thing you must understand, however, since we provide full disclosure to our clients. If you decide to terminate this potential contract upon this notification, then you may keep that check. If you accept these terms in full then you may return it to us and we will continue preparations for your protection detail.”

“I agree. Lay it on me.”

“You have requested a female agent be available during these two weeks, however, we have only three female agents and they are all on other assignments. Therefore, I shall substitute in that role. Is this agreeable to you?”

Now he looked confused, “I don’t understand.”

“Mr. Thompson ... James, we have no females available to accompany you as you have requested, nor for those other times you indicated. I shall, therefore, fill that role as you see me now,” indicating myself with a wave of my hands.

I thought I was being fairly specific in my explanation. I again waited to see if he could connect all the dots without my spelling out every little detail to him. Apparently not.

“Let me make it more clear and dot the i’s and cross the t’s. I am not a Female. Sometimes we do not have a Female available for an assignment and this happens to be one of those times. We would, otherwise, have been quite happy to assign one of them to the detail. There are a few times when we will not allow our Female agents on a detail as we feel the risk to them is too great and as we have only the three we are a bit protective of them. Fortunately we believe this is not one of those times, however they are all presently working so we have no one else available. When we need a additional Female agent, I fill in. This must be agreed to by the client, in writing, before we begin. We do ask that you do not divulge now or in the future that I as a non female have filled in that role, and I shall do all I can to be as charming and feminine as possible so that neither you nor your company are embarrassed at any time. Is this substitution acceptable to you for the period we shall be providing your security detail?”

“You ... Uh ... not a female?!?” he stammered out while closely examining me. Apparently he still didn’t see anything other than a woman before him.

“But ... but ... My God.”

He reached out and touched then held my hand, holding it in both of his as though trying to divine an explanation through the touch of my hand. He continued to stare carefully at my face then at my legs and again at my hand.

“This is a joke, right?”

“No, James. This is not a joke,” I sighed figuring we’d still lost the job. He didn’t seem to be handling it well despite our previous empathy.

“Would you mind terribly if we both stood and I kissed you?” he asked.

I recoiled slightly drawing my hand out of his grasp before I looked at Ralph, surprise and disbelief on my face. Maybe James was crazy. Ralph looked at me with just as much disbelief before raising his hands palms toward me as he shrugged his shoulders and tilted his head in a ‘it’s your call, I’m not going to get in the middle of this one'. His face seemed to be just as puzzled as was mine. I hesitantly stood before James who moved closer then gently wrapped his arms around me pulling me into a full kiss on my lips. At first my eyes went wide in panic then after a few seconds they closed of their own volition as I ‘went with the flow’. James began to hold me a little tighter as I weakly tried to pull away. A few seconds later I tried to bring my arms up to go around his neck but the manner in which he was holding me prevented that. I settled for his waist. The kiss continued. Three or four hours later we pulled back from each other and I looked at the clock to discover not even a minute had gone by, probably not even fifteen seconds. I reached up to touch my lips. I was in shock.

James mouthed, “right” at me then, after a few seconds began talking. It took me several attempts before I began to comprehend him.

“Lynnette ... Lynnette? Do you have an evening gown?”

I became aware of his question, “Yes ... I have a nice one, but it’s not strapless ... for obvious reasons,” I pointed toward my chest as I answered in a slightly husky voice.

“You need to fix that. Here’s the deposit check back. You wanted me to sign something?”

Ralph presented him with the papers that attested he had been informed about my status and found the substitution agreeable. James signed them and Ralph gave him a copy to put in his suit pocket. As his hand came out again it was holding his checkbook. He began writing.

“Here, Lynnette, is a check for $4,000. Purchase a couple of strapless gowns. I think Burgundy would be a good colour for one of them, as it seems to suit you.” He nodded his head at my business suit. “You will also need a mink coat, white preferably. There may be several occasions during the two weeks which would necessitate it. See you early next week.”

He walked out leaving me standing there with my mouth open, my eyes watching him leave but ... my mind was a million miles away.

Thirty seconds later Nicci walked in, took one look at me and asked, “What’s wrong with her?”

“Oh nothing,” Ralph quipped, “She just needs two strapless gowns with all the trimmings and a white mink coat by the time we begin the Thompson gig.” He walked out of the room laughing, “Oh ... And she just had her first kiss,” his laughter continued to be heard until he closed his office door... but probably continued afterward.

“Lynnette ... Lynnette! LYNN! Snap out of it girl, come on, get a grip. Here, sit here.” She led me to the chair behind her desk in the waiting room where I had absentmindedly followed Ralph during his departure from my office. She guided me into a sitting position. Unconscious or not, I still managed to be properly demure as I sat. I was still holding the two checks James had given to me. The job deposit and the one for my... GOWNS?

“Lynn, snap out of it. If you’re going to be ready by Monday you need to get a move on. Come on, let’s go. I’ll grab my purse, where’s yours?”

“My ... In my office.” I was still thinking at least; fast and furious. It was my sense of direction that was stumbling.

“WHERE, in your office?” Nicci asked as she rushed toward my desk, while glancing around the room. I was too busy trying to figure out what just happened to reply. She finally searched my desk finding my purse. Dragging it out, she returned just in time to chase away a Newbie, “If you don’t want to be fired, get away from her. She’s the boss.”

His eyes got wide and he quit trying to hit on the pretty girl sitting behind the desk.

“My God. That’s Lynnette?”

“Yes, she’s Lynnette. Scat.” He moved away quickly.

“Is she okay? She seems to be a bit out of it.”

“She just had a bad shock. We’re going out for the afternoon. Would you go tell Ralph we’ll be back in the morning.” She pointed at his office door motioning for the newbie to shoo in that direction even as she gathered me to begin guiding me off and to the elevator.

Nicci continued to guide me out to her car where I sat as she went around to get in on the driver’s side, “LYNN, close your door and put on your seat belt.”

I complied, with my mind slowly beginning to find it’s way back to Earth from wherever it was that it went. By the time we reached Nicci’s destination I was almost coherent again, or at least I was almost able to talk in something close to whole sentences.

“He kissed me.” I mused.

“Who? Ralph? I’ll murder him.”

“No, not Ralph ... James.”

“Who’s Jam ... Mr. Thompson?” She nearly screamed. I nodded my head, hoping she heard the rattle.

“Why?”

“I don’t know. We stood up and he kissed me.”

“Where?”

“In the conference room.”

“No, I mean where did he kiss you, on the cheek or ... ”

“On my lips.”

“Oh hell ... Did you kiss him?”

“On his lips.”

“LYNN! OH SHIT! Did you close your eyes? Did you CLOSE YOUR EYES??”

“My eyes?? I ... Yes.”

“Did you like it?”

“Like it ... I ... He kissed me.”

“Oh God, we’re in trouble. Lynn, snap out of it. Boys like to kiss girls. Is he the first boy who’s ever kissed you?”

“The first??? Yes, my first kiss.”

“Damn it Lynn, come on. You can’t do this. Come on girl, come back to Earth. You have some power shopping to do.”

“Shopping?”

“Yes, shopping; and put those checks away before you crumble them to shreds. Put them somewhere safe in your purse. Do your... No, that would be too much to expect. You probably need new breast forms if you’re going to wear strapless and the undergarments plus the gowns themselves, the purses and shoes ... The fur, and everything will need to be altered and the accessories coloured to match in time for your date.”

“My date?”

Nicci gave me a soft slap, “Hello. Earth to Lynn, are you in there?”

I started looking around discovering we were in a store.

“Nicci? What are we doing here?”

“You’re buying your new breast forms here. They need to match your skin tone and you need them to arrive by Saturday. You need everything to be altered and ready by Saturday. If you don’t start NOW, and I mean right this minute, nothing will be ready. Do you remember anything that happened at the office?”

“He kissed me.”

“Don’t start that again. I mean after that.”

I searched my mind but all I remembered was a fog and muted conversation around me. Everything kept flopping back to that kiss and then it all became vague.

“Something happened?”

“Yeah, a four-alarm fire.”

That grabbed me enough that I realized it wouldn’t be a good thing if our building had been burned to the ground, “The office? What are we doing here? Did they put it out?”

“Relax, Lynn. You were the four-alarm fire, or rather James caused it.”

“James? I’m confused.”

“Do you remember anything from after he kissed you?”

“I liked it.”

“Let’s try a different approach. After James walked out, what do you remember? Oh, for crying out loud. Give me your purse!”

Nicci rummaged in it for a moment before she pulled out a check, holding it about an inch in front of my nose, “Remember this?”

I took it from her and held it out looking at it as though seeing it for the first time, “yes, this is our refund check for the deposit on the job.”

She grabbed it out of my hands then looked at it before she frowned. She began to rummage through my purse again, pulling out another check and looking at it this time before handing it to me.

“What’s this for?”

“What does the memo line say?”

“Gowns, accessories, and ... OH SHIT. I KISSED HIM. Why did I kiss him?”

“Heaven only knows, but you have some fast and serious shopping to do, Lynn. You need to start right now. We are here to obtain your new breast forms so you can wear a strapless gown undetected. I presume you use them?? They need to be ordered NOW so they will arrive in time. Then we need to go from here to find your undergarments and the gowns ... Tomorrow we’ll purchase your fur.”

“I’m fucked,” I said in a medium baritone.

“LYNN ... ”

“Sorry Nicci. I apologize,” still deep in the nearly masculine registers.

“I’ve never heard you swear before. And be careful about your tone of voice, girl. Look around you.”

Once again I came to and realised we were in a store with other shoppers nearby. In a properly feminine voice, “I’ve never been ... I mean, I’m not ... I didn’t ... Oh, hell,” on the verge of tears, “What makes it even worse is I did it to myself.”

“Lynnette Stevens there is nothing wrong with you except that you’re rapidly running out of time. We need to get this shopping done and move on over to Macys. NOW!” Nicci signaled to a sales clerk as she helped me remove my blazer while guiding me in the direction of a fitting room.

All characters in this work have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relationship whatsoever to anyone or anything bearing the same name or names. The characters contained herein are not even distantly inspired by any specific individuals known or unknown to the author. All incidents described or alluded to within this work are pure invention. No affiliations, involvements or gender assignations due to the use of any images contained within this work are to be implied, intended or inferred.

Cover image copyright Maps.com and shown for clarification of area in which the story begins it’s evolution.

DUTY CALLS, L.J. Stevens Vol. One Copyright  © 2012 USA, Earth by R. A. Dumas.

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