You Get What You Pay For by J. C. Laird (reading tree TXT) 📕

But this time there was no nervousness, only resignation. His right eye was blood-red and slightly bulging, his vision in that eye blurred and almost gone. The pulsing and pounding in his head were constant, the painkillers fighting a losing battle. His left arm was almost completely numb, his left leg unreliable at best. And the tingling sensations had started on his right side. Gabriella had purchased a cane and black eye-patch two days earlier. She said the eye-patch made him look mysterious and menacing.

He turned off the light and walked back into the bedroom. The first faint graying of the early dawn had seeped into the large, south-facing bedroom window, highlighting the form of the woman lying on the king-sized bed with soft shadows. Gabby had been with him for the whole week, not only every night but every day. It had cost a small fortune, but Adam didn’t plan on taking any money back with him. This was his last hurrah.

The only living relatives Adam had were his divorced sister, Amanda, her four-year-old daughter, Jessica, and his estranged, younger brother, Jeffrey. Adam was—had been anyway—a financial conservative and had made prudent investments over the years. And after Wendy’s death, he had sold their home for a tidy profit. Then, there was Wendy’s life insurance policy, a twenty-year term, $250,000 policy. When she died, there was only a little over a year to go before its termination date. He smiled without humor; that had to have pissed Penn Life off.

His death would beat his own policy’s end date. Amanda and Jessica were his only beneficiaries; he had left everything to them. They both would be secure financially. He had saved a little for himself, which he was now spending on himself and Gabby.

Walking over to the four-poster, he slipped back into bed. Gabby was sleeping on her side facing away from him, towards the lightening bedroom window. Adam propped himself up on one arm, his fingers caressing the satin sheet covering her, before sliding it down and off her nude body. The growing dawn cast the long length of her form in soft shades of shadow and light.

Adam placed his hand on her thigh above her knee. He had only half-jokingly referred to her long, slim legs as the “twin highways to heaven.” He leisurely traced a course up the toned, sleek surface until he paused on the silken rise of her hip. Adam admired the erotic view of her rear, its gentle hills and valleys, what he liked to call “The Fabulous Duchene Derrière,” and what Gabby, just as playfully, described as “Adam’s plaine de jeux:” Adam’s playground.

Somehow, it didn’t surprise him that Gabriella was also fluent in French. Early on, he had referred to Gabby’s name, inquiring about its possible connection to a French lineage. This had earned him a smile, a wave of a finger and a shake of the head, indicating this was yet another example of a “don’t go there” question.

Actually, there wasn’t much he knew about her, even after a week. She had made it plain from the beginning that her personal life was off-limits. No questions like, “How did a nice girl like you get into this kind of work? Where are you from? Where’s your family?” About all she had volunteered was that she wasn’t from Nevada, but nothing else about herself, her family or her history. Even her exact age remained unknown. She seemed well-versed in a variety of subjects but was mum on when and where she had received her education. Gabby said everything was to be about him, what he wanted, what he needed. Adam managed a smile in the still shadowed room—she certainly had made good on those promises.

With reluctance, his hand left its supple resting place and resumed its course, leisurely traveling down the slope of her hip, pausing at her waist. Here, he changed directions, sliding over and down to the smooth plane of her stomach, then up to her chest, nestling between the warm softness of her breasts, his starving hand full of her, finally resting, its wandering over and home at last.

He moved closer, his lips now caressing her shoulder, without haste, tracing a route down to her neck. He breathed in deeply of her bouquet; this morning she smelled faintly of tangerines. Somehow, her scent changed almost daily. She said it was another “trade secret.”

Adam’s lips felt Gabby make a low, purring sound in her throat. She slowly moved her arm down, gently trapping his hand to her breast. She wiggled backward, her rump moving against his groin, her back and shoulders pressed against his chest and stomach, her legs folded back against his, their bodies meshed like two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. “Do we have time before your plane leaves?” she whispered, her voice still clouded by sleep.

His lips brushed her skin as he spoke. “Last night it took you a long time to make things work, and that’s saying a lot. Only a dead man would not respond to you, and I’m not even sure about that.” He smiled into the curve of her neck, his voice muffled by its resting place. “But no, that was my last round-up, I think.”

Gabriella released his hand, pulled away, and rolled over onto her back, then her side, facing him. She looked at his bloodshot eye, his pained and pinched face. She reached up, her fingers tracing a route down the side of his head. She gently pulled his head down to her breast and lightly stroked the back of his neck. Her other arm she wrapped around his shoulders, cradling him. She worked her lower leg between his, draped the other over the top and pressed her body against him, trying to envelop Adam in a cocoon of warm flesh.

The pain in his head seemed to recede slightly.

As he relaxed in Gabriella’s warm embrace, Adam remembered a quip that someone had written years before. It went something like… “At birth, Man fights to escape the womb, then spends the rest of his life trying to get back in.” Adam knew it was meant in a sexual context, but maybe there was another meaning, a reference to an instinctual yearning of Man to return to the warmth and safety of the womb… its peace and security…

A short while later, way too short for Adam, Gabby sighed and kissed the top of his head. “It’s getting late, do you have to take a shower or anything?”

He breathed into her breast. “No, I will keep your scent with me for as long as I can.”

When he finished dressing, Adam stood by the door leaning on his cane, eye-patch in place, his suitcase already transferred to the waiting taxi. Nude, Gabby was sitting up in bed, the sheets pooled around her waist. Long seconds passed as he stared at her, his eyes drinking in the last memories of Gabriella. He placed the envelope on top of the dresser. He smiled and nodded at her. “Ms. Gabriella Marguerite Duchene, I want to thank you for making all of my dreams and prayers come true,” he managed, without his voice cracking.

Gabby looked at his eye-patch and returned his smile. “You’re welcome, my Macho Man.” Then her smile dimmed. “It was my pleasure, Adam,” she said, her voice low.

Adam leaned heavily on his cane, turned, and limped out the door.

 

Adam Charles Anderson’s funeral was a modest one, only thirty-seven in attendance. Visitation had been at the Lomas Chapel of French Mortuary in Albuquerque, NM, the eulogy given by Pastor Mark Nagel of Faith Lutheran Church. Interment was at Sunset Cemetery.

Folding chairs circled the gravesite. The bronze-colored coffin was suspended over its final resting place: a shadowy, rectangular opening in the dark earth below. Adam’s friends from the BPOE Elk Lodge #461, and friends of Amanda Anderson, occupied most of the chairs.

Jeffrey Anderson, Adam’s brother, stood apart from the over-flow group behind the chairs, along with his personal attorney, David P. Haskins. The two kept glancing over at the tall, dark-complexioned woman standing near the group opposite them. Dressed in a conservative black dress, the hem below her knees and the collar buttoned at her throat, she wore a wide-brimmed black hat and sunglasses even though the mild spring day was overcast. Thick, dark hair curled down to her shoulders. She had received several curious glances from a few of the other funeral attendees.

Pastor Nagel was reciting Psalm 23, his voice droning in the still air.

Staring at the woman, Jeffrey Anderson whispered to the thin, suit-clad attorney next to him. “David, that’s her, I’m sure of it. Even with the hat and sunglasses, I recognize her from the pictures the detective, Ed what’s-his-name, from the Burn’s Agency took.”

David Haskins glanced at the shorter, thick-set man next to him, then back across the way at the enigmatic, shadowy woman. “You really think a whore would travel all the way from Nevada for the funeral of one of her johns, even a whore that your idiot brother spent a fortune humping? Still, it would make things a lot easier if you were right; we’re having trouble getting information on her. With luck we could serve the papers on her while she was here, as well as serving notice on your sister, contesting Adam’s will.”

Pastor Nagel finished the eulogy and invited, on behalf of Amanda Anderson, the attendees to a small reception at her home in neighboring Rio Rancho. Cemetery workers lowered the casket carefully into its final resting place. Amanda and Jessica headed the line of mourners moving slowly by the grave, paying their last respects, pausing to drop flowers down onto the casket.

The dusky stranger had also joined the line at the rear. She stopped when she reached the grave, took off her sunglasses and knelt near the edge. A single, white rose had appeared in her other hand. She brought the rose to her lips for a second, then leaned over and dropped it into the grave. She rose gracefully and walked towards Amanda and Jessica who were standing and watching nearby.

Jeffrey and his lawyer eyed this little tableau from their original positions. They had no final respects to pay. But they did want to talk to the stranger. They hurried towards the trio near a large oak tree, but the black-clad woman was already walking away. As they scurried up, Amanda spoke. “If you’re after her…” she nodded towards the departing woman… “you can slow down guys, she’s coming over to the house in a bit. She said she needed to talk to me.”

The duo paused and watched the mystery woman heading for the roadway. Haskins spoke. “Who was that?”

“That’s Gabriella Duchene.”

“I told you!” Jeffrey said.

Little four-year-old Jessica chimed in, “That’s Uncle Adam’s friend from Nevada.”

Jeffrey smirked. “Yeah, his very expensive friend from Nevada.”

Amanda scowled. “Please, Jeff, not in front of Jessica.” She turned to Haskins. “Are you still contesting Adam’s will?”

“Amanda, Adam left none of his estate to his brother, Jeffrey; he left everything to you. Does that seem reasonable? And everyone knows his mental competency was questionable the last few months, as evidenced by his financial extravagance on that… woman… on Ms. Duchene. I feel a more equitable division of his assets is warranted, much better than tying things up in litigation for several years. I’ll bring the paperwork to your house later and we can go over it.”

 

The sun managed to break through the overcast sky, shafts of sunlight splitting the clouds, dissipating the gloom and turning the dour day into something more hopeful. Several of the guests had taken their plates of food out to the backyard patio of Amanda’s modest three-bedroom home to enjoy the warming sun.

Haskins and Jeffrey had heaped their plates and were standing in the backyard, surveying the people milling around.

“Well, if it isn’t Mutt and Jeff.”

The soft voice came from behind them. They both turned and were confronted by a smiling and dazzling Gabriella. She still wore