Nora looks out into the neighborhood and watched as people got ready for work. She had on her robe and was enjoying her freshly brewed coffee. She loved that she was finally home for good now. She was enjoying her retirement. She liked the peace and quietness of her place and neighborhood. It’s not like she didn’t enjoy her oversea assignments, but it was always nice to come home.

As she is sitting on her back deck enjoying her coffee, her cellphone starts ring. She looks at the number and notices it was blocked. She pushes the accept button.”

“Hello?”

“Hello Midnight. I have a job offer for you.” Cheshire knew Marin Jones might go after Christine for saving everyone’s life.

“Hello Cheshire. You do know I’m retired, don’t you?” Nora knew if Cheshire was calling her, something must be up.

“I know you are retired from the DSS, but the job I have for you. It won’t take you away from your home.” Since, Christine lived in Memphis and so did Midnight. Cheshire felt it might be a good idea to have her watch over her. She could train Christine in self-defense.

“How important is the job, Cheshire?” Nora takes a sip of her coffee.

“It’s a long-term babysitting job, Nora. The person in question is a college student by the name of Christine Pyle. Jack and I owe her for pulling our daughters from a burning building.” Cheshire knew no matter what, her and Jack was going to make sure Christine stayed safe. They owed her that much.

“Were your daughters part of the group that was pulled out of the burning warehouse?” Nora had seen a news cast last night of the fire and the people that had been rescued.

“Yes, the Montana Police Officer is Jacks oldest daughter and the Honolulu Police Officer is my daughter. The other young lady. The Private Security Contractor is Jack’s youngest daughter. The rest of the people were friends of our daughters.”

“So, whom am I guarding this college students from?”

“A burned CIA/Delta Force agent. He is responsible for the murder of six different government agents. “Cheshire had more, but Midnight didn’t need to know.

“Alright. Send me what you have on this Christine Pyle. I’m charging you my standard rate for this job, Cheshire.”

“Tack on an extra 20% percent, Nora. This is going to be a long-term assignment. Until, Jack and I catch Marin Jones. Christine is going to be valuable. So, until you hear from me or Jack. I’ll need you to be her shadow. There is one more thing, you need to know as well. Christine is transgender and likes to dress up in different cosplay costumes. So, be aware she likes to play hero while dressed up. Jack has already bugged her place with a micro-camera and mic. Any conversion that occurs there goes directly to a secure cloud account. I’ll send you the website login credentials.”

“Thanks.” Nora heads inside and over towards her desktop and check her email.

After going through several secure connections, the file Cheshire sent her shows up. She needed to use Cheshire’s decryption key to read the email. Before she starts, she refills her coffee and grab a banana nut muffin she picked up yesterday at Tasty Pastries.

She walks back over and looks at the file Cheshire sent her. The person was 18 years old and attended ITT Technical Institute for their associates degree in electrical engineering, was three months away from getting their Bachelor degree in movie production from The Art Institute. Was carrying a 3.62 grade point average, had 5,000 in their bank account. Owned the building she was living in and sold custom made costumes online. She brings up the website and saw it was nicely design and easy to place an order. Police record was cleaned. Bills were paid either on time or a few days behind the due date. Didn’t own any credit cards, except a bank card. Had a cousin in the army working at the Army Research Laboratory in Adelphi, Maryland. There was some video and pictures included in the dossier.

She goes through them and notices how well Christine looked when she was all dressed up. For the next hour-n-half, she goes through everything Cheshire sent her on Christine. Her routine, where she worked, what she orders from different take out joints in her area. The file included who Christine’s friends were and who she was working on with the film she was making and their backgrounds. All the information she needed to keep Christine safe and sound.

She checks her clock and notices that Christine should be in school right now. She heads towards her bathroom and takes a shower. Since this was a simple recon, she dresses in non-descript clothes that allow her to blend in without a problem. She takes her motorcycle over to the school location and locate her motorcycle. Nora waits to see when she comes out and watches as she heads towards her motorcycle.

While she is waiting for Christine to come out, she spots someone else heading over to Christine’s motorcycle and messing with it. She watches from her vantage point and was about to go over and undo what had been done. When she spots Christine walking towards her motorcycle. She watches as the girl stopped and start searching her motorcycle and spots her pulling away a bomb that the person she had seen had planted on it.

“Smart girl.” Nora was impress, and her opinion of Christine went up.

She watches as Christine put her helmet on and head towards her job. Midnight notice a car pull out and follows behind Christine discreetly.
She smiles as she waits and follow them. Midnight pulls off and parks her motorcycle on the other side of The Rainbow Lounge. She works her way around swiftly and quietly to the car that had followed Christine and planted the bomb on her motorcycle.

She sneaks up to his car and opens the passenger side door and shoots him with a fast-acting tranquilizer dart and knock him out. She drives the car with her unconscious passenger to a junkyard where she keeps a container for holding people and for interrogating them. It came in handy a few times while she was overseas for extracting information in private. She knew the owner of the junkyard and had the container transported there. She brought it back home when she retired from the DSS.

She interrogated the guy and let him go after injecting him with a tracker. If he tries to remove it, it will burst and release the poison. She watches as he walks away. She had a smile on her face when she blew the car up. She heads back to the lounge to watch over Christine and to spend some time with the waitress she was dating.

The woman she was dating was recently divorce and had admitted to herself that she was a closeted lesbian. Her ex-husband had taken everything from her and just left her with the clothes on her back. The man was a douche bag and was very connected. She’s been dating this woman for two years now. She knew Kelly was happy she was home permanently now. She wanted Kelly to move in with her, but Kelly liked having her own place.

When Christine finishes her shift, she follows her home discreetly and watches as she pulls into the garage. Nora turns on the hidden cameras and mics Jack had placed and listen and watched Christine till she goes to bed.

She’ll have to find some way to worm her way into Christine’s life. Maybe have Kelly invite Christine over to her place for dinner one night. When she gets home, she notices Kelly’s car pulled into the driveway. She parks her motorcycle next to it and walks into her house. She had her gun ready, just in case it was an ambush. Kelly knew she didn’t like surprises, not after the setup where she was almost killed protecting the ambassador she had been assigned to.

She walks in cautiously and hears the shower going in her bedroom. She walks in and see Kelly in the shower. She had some soft music playing while she was washing her body. Nora leans against the door frame of the doorway and just watch her girlfriend lather her body. She loved how trimmed and curvy Kelly’s body was. Nora knew Kelly worked hard to keep her body trimmed and fit. Originally, she did it to keep her husband interested in her, but when she learned he was having an affair. That caused her to become depress and lazy about taking care of herself. Than the first time she had gone to a sex toy party with some friends. She had enjoyed being made love to by several of the women there and it stirred things inside of her.

It was at a banquet that her and Kelly had met. Kelly’s husband had gone off to bang his teenage girlfriend and left her at the banquet all by herself. Kelly had started hitting the drinks hard. She had to get Kelly a hotel room and one thing lead to another that they ended up in with each other. After that night, the two of them started seeing each other in secret and when Kelly finally got feed-up with her husband. She filed for divorce and her husband managed to get everything, including their house and only left her with her clothes, half the money in their joint account and her jewelry collection. She got a modest one-bedroom studio apartment and worked at the lounge as a waitress.

When she was out of the states, Kelly would take care of her place. She just keeps watching Kelly as she washes her hair. She takes her gun belt and holster off and put her gun in a hidden holster under her nightstand. She keeps listening while Kelly takes her shower and strips out of her body suit and thong panties. She didn’t wear a bra when she wore the bodysuit Cheshire had given her. She hears the water cut off and look towards the bathroom. Kelly comes out drying her hair.

“Hey good looking. How was your night?” Nora slips on a black lacey halter baby doll night gown.

Kelly jumps when she hears Nora’s voice “don’t do that to me. You nearly gave me a heart attack.”

Nora walks over and gives her a kiss.

“Sorry, about that.” Nora kisses her again.

Kelly returns the kiss and gaze into Nora’s sapphire color eyes.

“So, what case are you working on?” Kelly had her arms wrapped around Nora waist.

Nora just smirks “protection detail. What do you know about Christine Pyle?”

“Is she the one your protecting?” Kelly had seen the news with Christine all dressed up and how she had rescue some people from a burning warehouse.

“Yep, I can’t go into detail about the case, but I’ve been hired to protect her.” Nora moves Kelly towards the bed.

Kelly releases her and grabs her night gown and slip it on. She sits down on the mattress and pat the area next to her for Nora to sit down.

Nora sits down next to her girlfriend “those people she pulled out from that warehouse are children of people I know and have worked with in the past. Christine has walked into a problem, that the person who trapped them wants payback for saving them. So, the parents of those people want me to protect her, that’s it. Just a protection detail and maybe teach her how to defend herself.”

Kelly looks at her “will it be dangerous?”

“I’ll be lying if I said no. Someone already tried to kill Christine earlier today. I took care of him, but it doesn’t mean they won’t send someone else. I was wondering if maybe you could introduce me to Christine and invite her over for dinner one night? I’ll do the cooking.” Nora figures she could make a nice Spanish meal for the three of them.

“I have Friday off from work. Why don’t we do it that night?” Kelly knew she was lucky to get Friday off and loved the food Nora cooked. She knew Nora got her cooking skill from her mother, who was a famous chef and owned her own restaurant in Huntsville, Alabama.

“Cool, Friday will be nice.” Nora didn’t have anything planned, except watching Christine.

“Now, why don’t we enjoy each other.” Nora starts kissing Kelly and the two of them fall back onto the bed.

The Next Day:
Christine wakes up and takes the explosive device she found that had been attached to her motorcycle and examine it. She was surprised at the workmanship of it. Whoever made it did a good job, but did a terrible job hiding it on her motorcycle. She would had hidden it down near the battery or something.

She leaves it on her work bench as she heads into the kitchen and fixes herself some coffee. She didn’t have class this morning and didn’t have to be at work till 6:00pm. So, she could get some work done on the movie and pay some bills. She walks over to her computer and start working on the movie. As she is sitting there working, the power goes out. It was good thing she had her computer system on battery back-up as she starts shutting things down. As the computer shuts down. She takes her cellphone out to call the power company, but she wasn’t getting any signal. She checks her cellphone again and she still wasn’t getting a signal. As she is walking towards her bedroom, her front door blows inward and two armed guys carrying rifles come walking in.

There was the sound of two-gun shots as Midnight comes charging into the building with her gun out and pointed at the two men in front of her.
She hits the first one in the back, but he doesn’t go down.

The two guys turn around and fire at Midnight as she drops to the floor. She shots one guy in the knees, while sweeping the legs out of the other guy.

The other guy tries to get up, but Midnight is sitting on his chest and slams the butt of her gun into his throat. She points her gun at the other fellow lying nearby.

“Now, who the fuck sent you?” Midnight had her gun pointed at the head of the other fellow from where she was sitting.

The guy didn’t say anything to Midnight. She just shots him and look at the fellow she was still sitting on. He had choked from her slamming her gun butt into his throat. She stands up and looks around for Christine.

“Christine, are you alright?” Midnight just stays where she was.

“Who are you and yes.” Christine heard a female’s voice call for her. She had hidden in storage area she had.

“My name is Nora Midnight and I was hired by Cheshire And Mr. Bounty to protect you. If you don’t believe me, I can call Cheshire, or you can call her, and she’ll verify what I am telling you.” Nora wonders if Christine is going to trust her.

“How do you know Cheshire and Mr. Bounty?” Christine was standing in the doorway of his bedroom.

“I know Cheshire, because I was her body guard when she uses to be married to a US Senator. Her and her husband came to Germany and I was assigned as her body guard. I used to work for the Diplomatic Services.” Christine just looks at Midnight as she stood where the two men were.

They could hear sirens coming towards them.

“I wonder how much trouble I’m going to be in?” Christine felt that the police might accuse her for this.

“Don’t worry about the police. I’ll handle them. Go and get a bag together, you’re coming home with me.” Nora turns around and head outside to deal with the police.

She uses her special body guard license she was given a couple of years ago. It pretty much said she could carry her firearm while on duty.
She had a concealed carry permit as well.

Christine gets a bag together to take with her. She grabs her portable drive, so she could work on the movie her and her friends were working on. She grabs her laptop and once she has everything packed. She heads towards the front door where Nora was standing.

“Nora, will it be okay if I take my motorcycle with me?” Christine didn’t want to leave it behind.

“You can take it with you. I rode over on my own motorcycle. I know a handy man that can come over and fix your door.” Nora was going to call Jerry. He was the handyman she used.

“Thank you. How much will he charge me?” Christine was worried about the cost to fix her door.

“Don’t worry about it, Christine. Mr. Bounty will cover the cost.” Nora knew Jack would cover the cost.

“Okay.” Christine hops onto her motorcycle and follow behind Midnight as she headed towards her house.

When she arrives at Nora’s place, it was an older house that was listed as a historical house.

“Wow! You live here?” Christine had parked her motorcycle next to Nora’s.

“Yep, I live here. My girlfriend sometimes spends the night with me.” Nora leads Christine towards the front door of her place.

“Will your girlfriend be alright with you having another girl here?” Christine didn’t want to be a bother.

“She’s not going to mind. You work with her up at The Rainbow Lounge.” Nora puts her helmet up on a shelf.

“Who is she?” Christine was curious.

“You know Kelly, don’t you?” Nora escorts Christine to a spare bedroom.

“Yes ma’am. She normally works the afternoon shift down at the lounge.” Christine knew Kelly well. She was a nice person and gave her some suggestion about her appearance.

“You can use this room while you’re here. I don’t think it’s wise for you to go back to your place, until Cheshire and Jack catch the guy they are after.

“Nora, what are Jack and Cheshire?” Christine was curious and really wanted to know.

Nora looks at Christine “I can’t tell you really what they do, but I will say this. If you are ever in trouble and you need someone to rescue or bail your butt out. Those two would be the ones you call.”

Christine was still confused, but took Nora’s word for it. She drops her stuff in the bedroom that Nora pointed out. Afterwards, she joins Nora in the kitchen. She watches as Nora makes them some lunch.

“I don’t know if Cheshire told you or not, but she has asked me to start teaching you how to protect yourself. The question I have, are you willing to learn how to defend yourself?” Nora wanted to make sure Christine was committed to learning how to defend herself.

“I’m willing to learn whatever you are willing to teach me, Nora.” Christine couldn’t remember if Cheshire mention something to her or not, but if Nora is willing to teach her. Then she was willing to learn.

“You’re going to regret saying that, after I’m done training you. Do you own a leotard or any exercise clothes to wear? “

“I have an exercise outfit I can train in, if you don’t mind me wearing girl clothes.” Christine wonders what Nora thought about her.

“Christine, you could walk around this house dressed as a chicken and I wouldn’t care. All I care about is that if you’re going to be a girl, you act like one. If you want to be lady like. I will teach you how to be a proper lady.”

“Thank you.” Tears were sliding down from Christine’s eyes.

“You’re welcome. Now, let’s get you situated and we’ll start your first lesson.” Nora shows Christine where she’ll be staying.

Then she heads towards her bedroom and changes into her exercise clothing. She waits for Christine to changes into her exercise outfit and
show her where the exercise room is. Inside were several pieces of equipment for exercising. She had a total workout machine for lifting weights and building up a person’s muscles, an exercise bike, thread mill and an Elliptical machine. There were several mats on the floor and pull-up bars.

“Alright, let’s get you loosened up then start teaching you some hand-to-hand moves.” Nora hangs her towel up.

Christine follows Nora’s example and follows her out on the mat and assume a position that Nora shows her. For the next two hours, Nora takes it easy on Christine as she puts her through her paces. By the time they are done, Christine could barely move. She was so out of shape as she looks at Nora.

“You do that daily?” Christine drunk some water from her water bottle.

“Use too. When I was an active DSS agent. Now I do it every other day. This is just the first part of training you. Do you do any jogging or anything?” Nora takes a sip of her water.

“I used to when I was on the track team, but I don’t anymore.” Christine knew she shouldn’t had given it up, but she just had so much stuff
going on in her life.

“Well, I’m going to get you back into running every day.”

“Okay.” Christine takes another sip of her water.

“Go take a shower. We’ll go out for lunch today.” Nora heads towards her bedroom, while Christine heads towards the guest bathroom to take her shower.

Once, she is done with her shower. She heads into her new room and changes into a nice dress, a pair of matching 3-inch pumps. She puts on a nice silver necklace that had a crystal butterfly hanging from it. She brushes her long hair and tie it back into a pony tail. She looks at herself and apply light make-up to her face. She adds her favorite perfume. It had a light sandalwood scent to it.

Nora meets her in the living room “ready to go?”

“Yep” She was surprised at how pretty Nora looked cleaned up.

Her short brown hair framed her face nicely. Christine could see some Hispanic features in Nora’s face and was amazed at her sapphire eyes.

She has never seen anyone with eyes that color before.

“So, where are we going for lunch?” Christine was curious.

Nora leas Christine to the garage and opens the door. She unlocks the doors on a black Shelby convertible mustang.

“Get in.” As Nora climbs into the driver seat.

“Nice car.” Christine swipes her hand under her dress and slides into the passenger seat.

“Thanks. I’ve owned it since I was in High School.” Nora had bought it directly from the factory with zero miles on it when she was sixteen years old.

Christine notices there was another car parked in the garage. It was a nice 2015 Mercedes S600.

“Is that car armored?” Christine looks towards Nora.

“Yep, one of the Germany officials I use to guard gave it to me as a departing gift. He just bought a brand new one and gave me that one. I use it every so often when I do protection jobs.” Nora was surprised when the German government gave it to her.

Normally, she wouldn’t had been able to accept it, but since she was retiring. It didn’t matter anymore. Nora backs the mustang out of the garage and watch as the door closes before driving off. She takes Christine to a high-class restaurant for lunch.

Christine notices where they were going “Wow! This place is very upscale.”

Nora just smiles “I know the head chef. He uses to work for my mother, before he came here to Memphis and opened his own place. I fill in every once in awhile for him.”

Nora parks the Mustang and her and Christine heads inside. The place was already busy with Lunch traffic. A black hair young hostess greets them as they walk in.

“Ah, Ms. Midnight, it’s so nice to see you again. Do you want your usual table?”

“Yes please, if it is available.” Nora looks around to see if her preferred table was available and saw that no one was sitting at it.

“Please follow me, then.” Brenda escorts Midnight and her companion over to her preferred table.

Nora and Christine follow behind her. Christine looks around as they walk towards the table. She was impress with what she was seeing.
The hostess seats them and their waitress comes over and gives them their menu. Nora doesn’t even open hers. She already knows what she wanted. Christine looks at the selection and the prices. She couldn’t believe how expensive the place was. Christine spots a nice dish and orders that.

After lunch they go and pick Kelly up from work.

Kelly was surprised to see Christine with Nora.

Christine moves to the back seat, so Kelly could sit in the passenger seat.

“Hey Christy, is everything okay?” Kelly looks at Christine and then towards her girlfriend.

“We had a little problem earlier today, but everything is fine. Christine is going to be staying with me for a while, till I hear from Cheshire.” Nora glances toward Kelly.

Kelly looks at Nora “that bad?”

“Yep, that bad.” Nora figures she would explain later if Kelly stayed the night.

“Can you take me by my place, please?” Kelly knew she needed to check her mail.

“Sure can.” Nora takes Kelly to her place.

Christine and Nora follow Kelly up to her apartment. After spending some time there, they all leave and head back to the mustang and back to Nora’s place. Nora fixes dinner for everyone. Kelly and Christine help with setting the table and with cutting up ingredients for the meal.

After dinner, Christine heads to bed. Kelly and Nora stay up for awhile talking about what happened with Christine and that she had been thinking about taking Nora up on her offer to move in.

It wasn’t because of Christine being there, but because her landlord was going to raise her rent. She would have to take on a second job just to pay for her place.

“Well you know, I know you like feeling independent and having your own place. But, I would love to have you here living with me. Besides, we can spend time exploring each other.” Nora leans over and gives Kelly a kiss on the lips.

Kelly returns the kiss.

The two of them head towards Nora’s bedroom and retire for the night.