Courted by Karma (The Adventures of Anabel Axelrod) (2 page)

BOOK: Courted by Karma (The Adventures of Anabel Axelrod)
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Th
is hurt bad. Real bad. It only slowed me down for a second, though, and I never once lost my grip on the gift bag handles. I was getting dizzy and warm from all my running around and bouncing off obstructions. I was aware of being terribly thirsty. My mouth was dry from passing out hard for roughly twenty minutes before my phone and the doorbell woke me up. I felt like I had been zonked out for hours, but I knew I was still wasted. My brain was only transmitting in short waves of clear thought. Otherwise, I wasn’t operating on all cylinders.

Hopping on one leg
in my office doorway, rubbing my aching left shoulder, and moaning low in my throat from pain; I laughed exuberantly around my sliced finger stuck in my mouth to be alive, happy, and about to get much happier.


And that stinking doorbell was finally off my back!’

That thought stopped m
e cold. I popped the finger out of my mouth. “Uh-oh.”

P
ivoting slowly towards the foyer, I held the gift bag up in front of me and cuddled it tight within my arms. I strained to see down the long hallway.

I whispered, “Don’t worry,
Gift Bag. I’ve got you.” I called out, “Who’s there?”

It was blurry
, but once my eyes focused I could see a very tall, bulky shadow standing at the top of the stairs and doing something herky-jerky.

I didn’t have time to be
really frightened before I heard a sheepishly apologetic, “Hello, Bel. Sorry about the buzzer, but I forgot the lock code.”

A polite houseguest,
my friend Crookie was toeing off his boots while unzipping his parka. It had slipped my mind he was still out meeting with his sister-in-law to discuss his dead wife’s funeral arrangements. Giggling, I dropped down my protective stance with the gift bag. Due to the death of brain cells by alcohol pickling, it had actually slipped my mind Crookie was even staying with me for a few days over Thanksgiving.


It is cold with gusts of winds coming from the Northwest. The temperature is dropping steadily out there tonight and it is already below zero with the wind chill factor. It will warm up significantly tomorrow. There is no precipitation in the forecast until late Thursday or early Friday. Then the temperatures may raise high enough to produce rain instead of snow on Sunday.” He called out cheerfully, “Freezing rain.”

Luckily, it doesn’t take much brain
thrust for me to be a smart mouth.

I
called back over my shoulder, “Hey, no problems, Crookie. I was up anyway freaking out over the extended weather forecast. You know how anxious I get that I can’t control Mother Nature yet, no matter how many times I stamp my tiny, cloven foot.”

I flipped on the light and dashed into my office.
The scissors were smiling and waving at me from the yellow bowl I’d made when in a ceramics phase. One of the dividends of being left-handed is that nobody steals your shit. Items such as left-handed scissors stay right where I last left them.


Mock me as you will, but it only reaffirms the fact you are an unnatural female. You never listen to weather reports, yet you live in a state that routinely experiences dangerous, life-threatening weather conditions. You make ME anxious, Bel.” Crookie’s voice was getting nearer to the office door. “My point being, the good news is Layla and her friends should not have any problems landing on schedule tomorrow night due to the weather conditions here.”


You’re right; that is simply awesome news,” I agreed, giggling at his aggrieved tone. I love my Florida cousin Layla and having her come stay over Thanksgiving is always a treat, but right now I was all about the sexual fantasy. I placed the gift bag on the center of my desk chair and grabbed the scissors.

“Umm…Bel?”

“Yes?”

I saw
Crookie note the gift bag on the chair. Without one question or any curiosity, he looked away and disregarded its existence. You want to talk about unnatural, men take the cake.

Crookie was standing in the open doorway to the office and watching me with a strange look on his affable, open face. I hid my grin. This perplexed, slightly harried expression coming from Crooks whenever he talks to me is not uncommon and I’ve become used to it. This doesn’t mean I still don’t have to curb my
impulse to shout with laughter whenever I see it. I’ve been practicing my curbing since way back in high school when we first became friends.

Wearing
rimless glasses over round, hazel eyes, Crookie blinks at the world with an expression of slight surprise and shy friendliness. His straight, brown hair is cut short with bangs that fall across his high forehead, no matter how hard he tries to keep them swept back. His face is long and narrow, his nose long and noble, and his smooth complexion is uniformly pale—unless it’s beet red from blushing. He spends the majority of his time buried inside EcoLab using his enormous brain to make them pots of money. This hasn’t helped his tendencies to be shyly anti-social. Put him around people that make him comfortable, Crookie is gregarious and outspoken. Get him in a crowd of strangers, my friend tends to clam up and observe.

He
’s also very tall and lanky. With arms extended straight up over his head, he was easily gripping the top of the door frame with his long fingers. He moved back and forth, stretching out the kinks in his back.

I
tried to blow out a whistle at Crookie’s cool ability to use things like the top of door jams and the top of refrigerators in his everyday life. These are mysterious, uncharted territories in my world. Unfortunately, I forgot I can’t whistle.

Crookie
caught my pathetic attempt and sadly shook his head. “You still cannot whistle? How many times have I showed you how to do it, Bel?”

“I still can’t whistle. I don’t care how many times you have
showed me how; it just doesn’t work for me. My mouth won’t cooperate.”

“Okay,
try it like this.” Crookie pursed his lips and looked like a fish. He blew out softly. A soft, steady stream of sound emitted from between his lips.

“No, Crookie, it just can’t be done with these lips.
It’s a birth defect or something.” Even as I shook my head in denial, I pursed my lips like he demonstrated. I blew out softly. Barely a sound emerged and what did was anemic and wobbly before it disappeared completely. I put my hands on my hips. “See, I can’t!”

Crooks blew out again and started whistling like a songbird, true and sweet. “See, you can, Bel. Just try again.”

“You can, not me. I can’t,” I insisted, giggling.

Crookie paused to say quickly,
“Yes, you can.” He kept whistling jauntily and waved an encouraging arm in a “join me” motion.

I laugh
ed at his certainty that it only needed his special invitation for me to be able to suddenly start whistling “Dixie”. He looked so determined and goofy while wiggling his eyebrows and loudly whistling a lively tune that, puckering up to please him, I blew out again. It was to no avail. This time no sound emerged, no matter how many times I tried. I gave up. I have long ago resigned myself to the fact there are some things in life beyond my capabilities and whistling is one of them. Instead, I started clapping and getting down marching in place while leading the parade to Crookie’s warbling rendition of “When the Saints Come Marching Home”.

Crooks
stopped his whistling and grinned, the strange look back on his face again. “I can see somebody has been having fun tonight. I must have missed out on some partying.”

Throwing out my arms, I laughed.
“Oh yes, you did! We all had lots and tons of fun.” I peered closer at his smiling face, noticing his cheeks for the first time. “Wow! It must really be cold out there; your cheeks are flaming red. Sorry I took so long to answer the doorbell, but I was diggin’ in my undies drawer.”

H
e smiled uncertainly at this while his glance nervously swept down the front of me. The light from overhead glinted off his rimless glasses before he averted his eyes.


Uh, Bel, I am almost afraid to ask, but why are you wearing only jeans and a bra?”

Surprised, I looked down
. Sure enough, I was shirtless and wearing only a black bra. Remembering now what had me groaning when awakening a few minutes ago, I vaguely recall getting so hot I couldn’t stand it and flinging off my sweater earlier in the living room. I may need to reconsider why I usually stick with one drink all night. Apparently, it’s not only because I don’t need to drink to have fun. I get incredibly overheated from booze, and the more I drink the hotter I get. Getting incredibly uninhibited in direct correlation with the number of shots I take doesn’t help. It only makes stripping start to make some kind of convoluted sense.

‘Huh.
Maybe my bestest friend Anna was right again, and I AM liable to do crazy acts when I’m trashed.’


Well, crap,” I whispered out loud in wonder. I really hoped she was dead wrong about the drunken crying prediction because that would be the ultimate in disgusting.

When it penetrated
Crookie was fire-engine red from blushing and not frozen, my hands went up in front of my chest in a move that almost stabbed my eye out with the scissors. I then spread my hands to give my ta-ta’s a quick look to check out their exposure.

Dropping my hands,
I exclaimed on a laugh, “Oh, come on, you are such a baby! This bra isn’t even that skimpy! It’s not see-through or lacy. You’ve seen much more of my boobie’s in a bikini top.” I shooed him away with the scissors. “You go now, Crookie-Pookie. I need to do something. I’ll come find you in a few minutes, okay?”

H
is unblinking eyes stayed so determinedly above my neck that I couldn’t hold back. Bursting out in laughter, I held onto my desk chair so that I didn’t fall over. This caused Crookie to blush harder, shut his eyes with a pained grimace, and turn his head away.

Eyes closed, he
spoke rapidly, “I am wired tonight after meeting with Tina. I think I will check out the movie situation on TV. I am hungry, too. Is there any ham left?”

I had no desire whatsoever to
hear about Crookie’s murdered, almost ex-wife’s funeral plans, but I knew soon I’d have to grimace and bear it. That’s why Crookie was staying with me, so I could offer him succor in his time of need.

Straightening up,
I giggled again when I realized he couldn’t see my nod. “Yep, there’s plenty of ham. Try the red grapes in the blue bowl. They’re the last of the organics this season, and really sweet and juicy.”

I gave all
my attention to the bag until I heard Crookie mutter something. I glanced back over my shoulder in question. “What?”

His eyes were open again
, but staring at some point above my head. Instead of leaving, he cleared his throat in a nervous gesture that I knew meant he had something to say.

Smiling and shaking my head, I
repeated encouragingly, “What, Crooks?”

Behind
the glasses, tonight his hazel eyes were a magnified kaleidoscope of green, gold, gray, and earnest. “It is all about the word “bra” for a man, Bel. Speaking for myself, I do not think it matters if the bra is skimpy or as large as a house. A woman in a bra is not a normal sight.”

S
till snickering over Crookie’s male definition of bra torment, I carefully finished wielding the scissors across the top inch of the gift bag. When the gift bag stood gaping open at the top, I leaned over and peered down into the interior.

The big box I had felt up so thoroughly on Sunday night had
a lined piece of paper folded in half and taped to the front. The words: ANABEL—READ THIS NOTE FIRST were written across the front in thick, black marker.


Holy Moly, this was like participating in a bossy scavenger hunt that was making my Vicky tingle!’

Lifting
the tape and removing the paper, I unfolded it and skimmed it as quickly as my eyesight allowed.

 

Anabel,

 

After reading this note, open the box. What I am going to ask you to do will take some time to prepare for, but I’ve given you all the tools necessary. I do not want you to stress over getting it perfect. I think a week is enough time. When you are ready, we’ll do it at my house. I will tell you then why this is my fantasy.

 

Luke

 

‘Well, Holy Crap!’
Seeing the word “tools” and “prepare for” made my smile falter. Getting serious, I closed my eyes and prayed to the pleasure gods that no tortuous instruments of pain be in the box. I wasted no time opening the box after that. Taking out all the items one by one, I set them carefully on my desk.

When the
large box was emptied, I plopped down on my vacant desk chair. I surveyed His Turn all laid out before me while tapping my bottom lip in deep thought. The grin kept growing bigger and bigger under my finger.

Crookie was absolutely correct to
later accuse me of laughing maniacally. I did it for the first time after comprehending the full scope of Luke’s sex fantasy. I am now completely convinced there are unseen forces at work here, although from where they originate--north or south of the Equator of Evil--I do not know.

BOOK: Courted by Karma (The Adventures of Anabel Axelrod)
8.75Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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