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Chapter Eleven

 
"That which has been, it is that which shall be:
and that which has been done is that which shall
be done: and there is nothing new under the sun.
Ecclesiastes 1:9

Two months passed with no sign of the Fry Guy or the SWTF for that matter. Spider had relaxed a little, but she hadn't stopped training.

"I thought the crap would stop after the election," Carrie told Laura. "You know, that things would get back to normal. But for about three weeks afterwards the press were still on me like flies on shit . . . "

"Don't you love all the wonderful metaphors you learn living with a cop?" Laura laughed.

Carrie nodded. "Thursday in court I almost told the jury to look at the 'fucking' facts in the 'fucking' case and find the 'fucking scum-bag' guilty. It never ceases to amaze me how many uses Spider can find for the word 'fuck.' Sometimes I think 'fuck' is the only word she knows. Except of course for the ever-popular 'scumbag.' Anyway, I had about decided that I had made a big mistake running at all, and was trying to think of ways—without having a heart attack—that I could just let Chalmers take over for me. But then Congressman Hampton got caught with a transvestite, and suddenly I was old news."

"Thank God for scandal," Laura said with a laugh.

There was a loud thump against the living room wall, and one of the pictures rattled fell off and landed on the couch. Carrie was glad she had decided not to sit there. Before either one of them had a chance to run into the garage, Tommy poked his head in the door.

"No one hurt." He panted to catch his breath. "No hole . . . in wall."

"Aren't you playing a little rough?" Carrie asked. Since they had started this martial arts training kick there was barely a week went by that Spider didn't have at least one new bruise. "I don't want to have to take her home in a bag."

"What are you worried about?" Tommy asked, rubbing at his head. "I'm the one who hit the wall." He shut the door and ran back into the garage.

"As if that somehow makes it alright," Laura said, shaking her head. "Tommy says she learns very fast, and she has apparently showed him a couple of moves he didn't know. Just last week he was telling me how wonderfully she was doing, as he held an ice pack over his eye where she had blacked it."

"I'm sorry," Carrie said, shrugging helplessly. "I don't know why she got it in her head to do this, but I know that it's turned your schedule upside down, and I'm sorry."

Laura shook her head. "I'm not. Carrie, Tommy loves Jujitsu. Hell, it's the one thing in this world that he will admit that he's good at, but he had all but stopped practicing. I'm glad he has someone to train and spar with. I have never seen him so self-confidant or motivated. I just wish he'd loosen up a little bit. Have more fun with it instead of being so intense all the time." Laura got up and put the picture back just in time for someone to slam into the wall and knock it off again. She threw up her hands and sat back down as Tommy's head popped in the door.

"No one hurt. Wall not broken," he gasped, and disappeared again.

Laura smiled broadly. "Since he's fighting again he's about three times as horny as he was before."

"And that's almost never a bad thing," Carrie said with a grin.

 

"Focus, Spider," Tommy ordered.

"OK." Spider took a deep breath. Just how long had she been standing on her fucking hands? Felt like an hour. All the blood in her body was in her hands and brain; her feet were going to sleep. Sweat was running down her cheeks and into her eyes.

"Focus!" Tommy ordered.

"I am!" Spider spat back.

"No you're not. Your mind is all over the place. You're thinking about how much your arms hurt, and how much your back hurts, and how the sweat is stinging your eyes. You're thinking about how long you've been on your hands, and how much longer I'm going to make you do it. Don't think about anything but standing on your hands."

Spider thought he was ridiculous. Standing on my hands, that is what I'm thinking about. Hell! That's all I am thinking about. Standing on my hands. My hands are on the floor, my feet are in the air, my head is hanging free. My back is straight. I breathe in and I breathe out—nothing else matters except that I am standing on my hands.

"Spider you can come down now," Tommy said. "As you come down, tuck into a ball, roll across the floor, and then jump onto your feet."

She did it with little or no trouble. She looked at him and smiled.

He smiled back. "You have learned much, Grasshopper. Just don't get too goddamned cocky."

They walked into the house together, Tommy on his hands.

"Show off," Spider said as she plopped on the couch next to Carrie. "I'm dead, I don't know how you can do that."

"I don't know how either of you can do any of it," Carrie said. "Show Laura your muscle, Baby," Carrie said grabbing Spider's arm.

"No," Spider laughed as her face turned red.

"Come on, Baby," Carrie taunted. "You showed me."

"Come on, Carrie." Spider tried half heartily to pull away.

Tommy laughed as he grabbed two beers out of the fridge. He grabbed one by the neck, threw it up and spun it till he was holding onto the body of the bottle, and then he hurled it bottom first at Spider without announcing that he was doing so. Carrie and Laura both screamed, but Spider caught it with her free hand without so much as a fumble. "I can't believe you're embarrassed about anything," Tommy said.

"I can't believe you're throwing full beer bottles through our living room at her head. Don't do it again," Laura warned.

"I am so impressed by the amount of testosterone in this room," Carrie said jokingly. "Come on, Baby, show Laura your muscle."

Spider laughed. "Only if it will make you leave me alone."

Spider made a muscle, and Laura clapped her hands in appreciation.

"Fucking impressive, huh?"

Tommy promptly started putting on a whole show, flexing everything that he could flex in front of company and singing "I'm too sexy." Then he started swinging his shirt around his head.

They were all laughing at him, he was the center of attention, and for the first time that he could remember he felt comfortable with it.

Tommy felt good, he felt ready, although he wasn't sure just what he was ready for.

 

It was a nice night for a drive, so Carrie was glad when Spider decided to go home the long way around the lake. The moon was full and glinted off the water. It looked deceptively warm. It wasn't. At the end of January, the temperature was thirty-five degrees, and with the brisk wind it felt like twenty below outside.

"What's wrong?" Spider asked.

Carrie laughed. "You know, every once in awhile I'd like to have a thought all to myself."

"I'm sorry," Spider apologized.

Carrie patted Spider's leg. "It's all right. I was just thinking how much I like spending time with Tommy and Laura, but . . . "

"But what?" Spider asked when Carrie didn't finish.

"Why don't you have any other friends? Why can't we ever visit any of my friends?" Carrie asked. "Most of my friends have only seen you when they come to the house, and then only for a few minutes, till you find some lame excuse to leave."

"It's not lame. I'm training . . . "

"You started this shit before you were 'training.' Besides which, just what the hell are you training for? It wouldn't hurt you to miss a day or two. I hardly ever see you anymore . . . "

"That's not all my fault. You've been working a lot more."

"There's not a whole lot I can do about that, Baby. Then when I bring people to the house to help me so that I don't have to stay in the office, you leave rather than have to get to know some of the people I work with."

"I'm not very good with people, Carrie. People don't like me."

"You don't know that."

Spider gave her a sideways glance.

"You don't give them a chance, Spider. You're cold and abrupt with new people, and when you sense they don't like you, you never give them another chance. Do you have even one friend besides Tommy?"

"I still keep in touch with Helen, Victor, and Terry from my old unit in the service. We E-mail back and forth. There's a couple of guys at work. I talk to them, and they don't hate me. I'm sort of friends with them. Jamie, the girl who runs the dispatch desk, I like her, she likes me. But I don't hang with any of those people."

"Why not?" Carrie demanded.

Spider shrugged. "I'm not like you, Carrie. I can't be like you." She was starting to get mad. "It's not easy to be friends with people when you know how they feel about you. Not easy to have friends and to feel their pain. It's easier not to get close."

"Easier, maybe, but not better," Carrie said. "What do you expect? Of course if you blow people off, they're not going to 'feel' very charitable about you."

Spider thought about that for a minute. Carrie might have a point, which of course did nothing but piss her off more. "I'd rather be around people I can trust. Tommy likes me, no matter what I do. So does Laura."

"And that equals safety to you?" Carrie didn't really understand. "Don't you ever want to let anyone else in?"

"I let you in," Spider countered.

"Come on, Spider, you know what I mean. I would like for us to have more friends. To have more of a social life than you and Tommy beating each other up while Laura and I talk about work and watch movies. There are a lot of people in the world. We're getting invited to a lot of parties. I'd like to go to some of them."

"Then go," Spider said. "I never said you couldn't go."

Carrie sighed. "The point is that I'd like to go with you. You'd have a good time if you'd let yourself."

"Ah, come on, Baby. These parties you're talking about aren't really my kind of thing—or my kind of people," Spider said.

"You don't know that. Do you have any gay friends?"

"Helen's gay, so is Terry."

"And they live?"

"Helen lives in Atlanta and Terry lives in San Diego."

"Run into them all the time do you?" Carrie asked. "It's only ten o'clock. Let's go to a club. Go dancing. I'm going to call a couple of friends to meet us there right now."

"I'd rather not," Spider said.

"You know what?" Carrie smiled at her. "I don't care. We've been together for almost a year. Do you realize that we have never been out dancing? You can dance can't you?"

"Of course I can."

"Then let's go."

"OK, all right." Spider gave in. She shouldn't keep Carrie from going out if that's what Carrie wanted to do, and she really didn't want Carrie going without her. Besides, Carrie was letting her fight all the time. So it seemed only fair. "Could we go home so I can change first?"

Carrie looked at Spider's soaked sweat suit. "Oh, all right."

She pushed the buttons on her cellular phone. "Hello, Jenny? Why don't you and Francis meet us at the Rainbow Lounge . . . Yes, it is me, and yes I did . . . Maybe if you're really nice she'll show you her muscles . . . Great! We'll see you in about an hour then. Bye-bye."

She looked over at Spider who looked like she was about to take a really big pill with no water. "Come on, Baby, it will be fun. You'll see."

"That's what my army recruiter told me," Spider scoffed.

 

The club reminded her of her single days when she would occasionally drop in to see if she could pick up a late night snack. She usually chickened out, went home alone, and let her fingers do the walking. So it wasn't necessarily a good memory.

Spider had to admit this was a lot nicer than any of the dives she'd ever gone to. It would be just her luck that now that she was in a permanent relationship she would finally find out where all the good looking, successful women hung out. Carrie caught her staring at someone and slapped her in the shoulder.

"I was only looking." Spider laughed. "You said you wanted me to have a good time."

"With me," Carrie said. "I wanted you to have a good time with me."

Someone waved at them across the room.

"There's Jenny and Francis."

"Good. I was beginning to think I had something stuck between my teeth," Spider said.

Carrie took her hand and pulled her through the crowd.

Spider and Carrie sat down. Carrie introduced Spider to her two friends as she greeted them. As Spider slid into the booth next to Carrie stifled a yawn. She'd worked out for three hours that day, and she didn't really feel up to meeting new people in a strange place.

"Well?" Carrie screamed in her ear.

Spider looked at her. She could feel that Carrie was anxious about something, but didn't know what she was really asking her.

"What?" Spider screamed back.

"What do you think of the club?"

"Great. Really . . . great." Spider said, happy that while she could read people they couldn't read her. Looking around at the clientele made her feel like she was about a hundred and eighty, and the damn music was so loud it was literally hurting her ears. She wondered how Carrie thought she was supposed to get to know her friends if they couldn't actually hear each other. Besides, it was hard to make friends with someone when you knew they were lusting after your old lady and thinking you weren't nearly good enough for her, which was exactly what Carrie's friend Francis was feeling.

The band stopped playing, and Spider's ears quit ringing. The waitress came over to take their drink order. They all ordered some fruity shit Spider didn't recognize, so she just ordered a beer. When she did, the waitress screamed, "Spider! Spider Webb! Well, I'll be damned," she said. "Well, you just stand yourself up here and give Maggy a big ole hug."

Spider stood up and hugged the woman who seemed reluctant to let her go. Maggy Jerrick, of all the luck, she'd slept with maybe three women in the entire state, and Maggy was one of them. Fifteen years older than Spider and fifty pounds overweight, she'd taught Spider a thing or two right after she'd come home from the war. Spider still thought of her fondly.

"Maggy! Good to see ya. You haven't changed a bit."

"Unfortunately." She laughed. She released Spider and Spider sat back down. "Saw ya in all the papers with your lady," she winked at Carrie. "Ya got yerself a live one here," she said and walked towards the bar, to fill their drink order.

Carrie looked at Spider, who was blushing purple. Spider looked back at her and shrugged. "I was young, I'd just gotten out of the army . . . "

Carrie gave Spider an accusing if amused look. "I thought you didn't know anybody in town."

"You said that, not me," Spider reminded her.

Maggy brought them their drinks, and it was she who noticed that Spider wasn't really with them.

"Spider, you all right, girl?" Maggie asked.

Spider looked up at the mention of her name. "I . . . ah . . . excuse me." She stood up and started to make her way across the bar. Slowly at first, and then at a dead run.

"Spider, what the hell!" Carrie screamed.

She saw Spider turning on her comlink and immediately looked around. Then she saw it, the gun in the man's hand as he swung away from the bar. As Carrie hit the floor she saw Spider grab an unopened beer bottle from a table.

"Get down!" Carrie screamed.

Carrie wondered why police even bothered trying to save the bystanders. The majority of the people in the room just freaked out. Carrie couldn't see, but she could hear the gun going off. She was on her comlink at once.

"This is DA Long. We have a gunman and people down." She didn't know if there were or not, but she knew they came faster if there were injuries. She didn't have to give a location. She and Spider's comlinks would give them that.

 

Spider had moved quickly but quietly, and the Uzi-wielding lunatic hadn't seen her. As she ran the last few feet to close the gap between herself and the gunman she grabbed a beer bottle off a table by its neck. No time to go for her gun, not where it was hidden on a leg strap in her boot.

"Hey fuck head! Over here!"

The lunatic turned and started firing.

Spider threw the bottle up, grabbed it by its body and hurled it butt end at the gunman. The bottle smacked into the side of his head and broke, sending beer and glass flying. The gun slipped from his limp hands, and a second later the gunman crashed to the floor as the weapon rattled across it.

Spider looked around and found Carrie hiding under a table, seemingly unharmed. Spider grabbed the gun first, and then she checked the gunman for signs of life. There weren't any. Weren't any at all. She scanned the room quickly in search of another assailant and saw and felt nothing. The side of the perp's head had a very smooshy-looking spot on it. Shit, I didn't mean to kill the bastard. I don't care, but I didn't do it on purpose. The press is going to love this. "Gay DA and lover caught in gunfire at gay night club. This can't be just a coincidence. It has to be the SWTF, has to be some sort of test, but for what I wonder."

"We just got the bastards off our backs," Spider mumbled. Then she continued loudly, "Is anybody hurt?"

Before anyone had a chance to answer, the cops broke in followed by a crew of EMTs with stretchers. Three people had minor wounds. Another had a belly wound.

Since everything seemed to be under control, Spider went to help Carrie out from under the table.

"Well, this has been a lot of fun. We'll have to do it again real soon," Spider said sarcastically as the reporters ran in.

 

Carrie tried to go to sleep, she really did. But every time she almost got to sleep she'd see people falling and hear the gunfire. Knowing some of what Spider had been through, Carrie wondered how she slept at all.

"It would have been my fault," Carrie said. "You didn't want to go; I made you go."

Spider sighed. Carrie couldn't blame her, every time Spider almost went to sleep, Carrie started talking again.

"It wasn't anyone's fault, Honey. Think of it this way. If you hadn't wanted to go to the club, that cu-coo might have killed a lot of people tonight."

"If you couldn't feel him, or whatever you do, we might have been some of the people dead, and it would have been my fault," Carrie said. "I dove under the table like a coward, and let you go off to get shot and . . . "

"I didn't get shot. If I couldn't count on you to use your head and go for cover, then I might have gotten shot trying to cover your ass. Please, Baby, I'm tired. Couldn't we just go to sleep?"

Carrie moved to curl herself around Spider. She kissed Spider's neck, then whispered in her ear. "Make love with me."

"Ah, come on, Baby." Spider groaned. "I'm tired, it's the middle of the fucking night . . . "

Carrie moved her hand down Spider's body, and Spider shivered.

"Come on, Baby," Carrie breathed.

Spider wasn't terribly hard to convince.

 

Someone was banging on her head, a ringing in her ears, a . . .

Fucking doorbell.

Spider forced herself out of bed. She looked at the clock. Damn! It was 8:00. She was late, and on Sunday morning, too. She pulled on her pajama bottoms and headed for the door. She knew who it was before she heard him yell.

"Damn it, Spider!" Tommy screamed so loud he might have been on the same side of the door that she was.

Spider opened the door quickly. "Tommy, I'm so sorry. Give me a minute to get dressed. You would not believe the night I've had."

"Forget it!" Tommy screamed. "I waited in the park for you for two hours! You promised me when we started this that you would do what I told you. That you would follow my rules. If you want to do this, it can't be haphazard or sloppy. There are certain routines, rhythms." He realized then that Spider was just staring at him as if he'd gone mad. That, and that she wasn't wearing any shirt. There were scratch marks on her stomach and her shoulders, and he was temporarily distracted. "What the hell happened to you?"

Spider smiled stupidly. "Carrie."

"You were fucking! I was waiting for you for hours and you were getting a piece of ass. That's it! I'm not doing this. This isn't a game. This is . . . "

"Insane," Carrie finished for him as she came down the stairs tying her robe closed. She handed Spider a T-shirt. "What the hell are you screaming about?" she asked Tommy.

"I was supposed to meet him at six. I forgot to set the alarm," Spider said as she pulled on her T-shirt. "I'm sorry, Tommy . . . "

"You're apologizing to him," Carrie said in disbelief.

She looked at Tommy. "Tommy, we almost got killed last night. Didn't you check your link this morning?"

Tommy shook his head no.

Carrie briefly filled him in on the events of the night before. " . . . We were filling out statements and dealing with the press until three this morning. I," she pointed at herself, "turned the fucking alarm off so that she could get some sleep, because she needed it. The world will not come to a screeching halt if you miss a day of practice. Or even two or three. I would like to wake up just one morning and not be alone, and I imagine Laura feels the same way."

Tommy heard about half of what she said. "There is no excuse! When you break the rhythm you lose everything. She wasn't doing anything at six in the morning, so she should have been there."

He glared at Spider. "You should have been there. You should have at least called to tell me that you weren't going to be there so that I could start without you."

"I'm sorry, Tommy," Spider said though at this point there was a certain, "bite my ass" quality to her voice.

"If it happens again that's it. I'm not doing this. You're too undisciplined as it is."

"This is fucking insane!" Carrie said throwing up her hands. "You need a reality check, dude. Didn't you hear a word I said?"

He didn't have to listen to her. She wasn't part of this. She should mind her own business. She had no idea what was going on. He ignored her. He looked at Spider. "I expect to see you at six. If you're not there I'll start without you, and that's it." He turned and stomped out of the house.

Spider and Carrie just stared at each other.

"What's with him?" Carrie asked.

Spider shrugged. "He really doesn't like to wait? Hell, I don't know. He's never been that mad at me before."

"What are you doing answering the door without a shirt on?" Carrie asked slapping at Spider's shoulder. Spider shrugged. "I was tired . . . I . . . I really don't know." She rubbed at her eyes. "I think maybe I'm a little punchy after last night."

"Want to go back to bed?" Carrie asked.

"To sleep," Spider said starting up the stairs.

"If you say so," Carrie said wickedly.

"You're not going to let me sleep until I give you sex, are you?" Spider said with a sigh.

"No," Carrie said wickedly.

"Well, come on then, let's get this over with."

 

Tommy was still fuming when he got home. He walked in and slammed the door. Laura was sitting watching TV.

"What's wrong, Baby?" she asked.

"Spider never showed up! Started whining about having some kind of trouble in a bar last night!" Tommy screamed.

Laura looked at the clock. It was only 8:30 now. She knew that was way too early for Carrie on a Sunday morning. "You went over to their house?" Laura asked carefully.

"Of course I did!" Tommy screamed. "I had to make her understand what she had done! You can't break the rhythm. You can't . . . "

Spider was on the TV. He sat down and grabbed the clicker from Laura to turn the sound up.

" . . . that is what I said," Spider said, obviously agitated.

"You took down the attacker with a beer bottle?" the reporter asked.

"Yes, a beer bottle. What about that is so—beep— . . . ing hard to understand!"

"Why didn't you use your weapon?"

"Because the bottle was there, and my gun was hidden in my—beep— . . . ing boot. I wasn't on duty."

The picture turned back to the reporter in the studio. "That's what the detective said. A beer bottle. And, once again for those of you who missed it. Here is the footage shot on the bar's surveillance camera."

They played the tape, and Tommy watched, mouth open.

"Between you and me, I think Detective Webb pulls that off with a lot of style, not to mention bravery under fire," the reporter concluded.

Tommy turned the TV off and slumped back onto the couch. That was what Carrie had been trying to tell him, and he had been so consumed that it really hadn't registered. He had tuned her out because she was the "insignificant" woman.

Laura stood up and looked down at him. "You OK, Tommy?"

Tommy shook his head no. "You know . . . I almost hated my father because he put training and discipline above everything else. I always swore I'd never be like him. I told myself I didn't continue doing Jujitsu because it reminded me of him, but the truth is I was afraid of becoming him. Now look at me. I am my father. Screaming at my best friend over something as insignificant as missing an hour of running. She could have been killed last night! She'd probably had little or no sleep, and all I could think about was that she had kept me waiting. That she had broken training, messed up my rhythm." He looked up at Laura. "I love to fight. I didn't realize how much I missed it. I love the challenge, and Spider is a challenge. I think she could win competitions right now. She already knew hand to hand; she's just adapting what she already knows. She's coming up with an all-new system. It's Jujitsu, but it's not. But I don't love it enough to let it turn me into a single-minded monster like my father. Should I quit?"

Laura sat down beside him, and then she put her arm around his shoulders. "I think training with Spider has been very good for both of you. I also think you both need to put it into some perspective. It is just a game, a sport, and since neither one of you are interested in competing, I think you might calm down just a little bit."

"You think I should apologize to Spider?" he asked.

"Yes, I do. Then I think you should cancel the Sunday night fights and spend some time with me. But I don't think you should quit fighting." She kissed him on the cheek. "By the way, while you're in such a good mood, Mom and Dad are coming to dinner." She laughed at the look on his face, then got up and started for the kitchen. "I'll get you a cup of coffee. Why don't you call Spider?"

"Because they're probably having sex. They are always having sex." Tommy got up and followed Laura into the kitchen where he stood in the doorway and watched her as she poured him some coffee. "When I got there this morning, Spider came downstairs to answer the door. She was topless, and she was all scratched up. Looked like she'd been mauled by an animal."

Laura handed him the coffee. "Topless? How do you mean."

"Topless, as in her boobs were hanging out."

Laura smiled. "And how were they?"

"Surprisingly good actually, which was kind of disturbing. Imagine walking in on your sister in the shower and she turns around and she has this dick."

Laura made a face. "I can imagine. Breakfast?" she asked.

He nodded, sat down at the table and watched as she started making it. He helped with the housework, but he didn't cook. He sure hadn't learned how as a child, and as an adult he'd never had to. He'd always made enough money to eat out or had a woman to do it for him. He supposed this was sexist; he just didn't care as long as he didn't have to cook for himself . . . or do his own laundry.

"I asked Spider what happened. She said Carrie did it, and she was grinning like an idiot." He took a sip of his coffee. "I'll just wait a couple of hours and then I'll call. Maybe they will have gotten it out of their system by then."

"I hope not. Then they'll be as boring as the rest of our friends," Laura said.

"I don't think Bud and Judy even smell at it anymore," Tommy said matter-of-factly. "Not that you can blame him. She's gotten so goddamned fat."

"Tommy! What a horrible thing to say," Laura said angrily. "You mean you wouldn't love me anymore if I got fat?"

"Were not talking fat here, Laura. The woman broke our fucking couch, remember? They had to cancel their trip to San Francisco at the last minute because she couldn't get her fat ass into an airplane seat. That's not just fat. Hell, he'd have to roll her in flour and look for the wet spot, or just put his peter in a wrinkle and coast."

"That is such a guy thing, Tommy. Did it ever dawn on you that maybe it's his fault she got that fat? They don't have the best marriage you know . . . "

"Because she is a big, fat bitch. All that woman does is whine, bitch, and eat. I love that shit she does where he always has to get up and go take care of the kids. Says she's resting. Resting from what? Last time I looked, eating a Twinkie was not all that tiring. Bud used to actually be a happy guy. We used to have some good times. Now that bitch won't let us be alone for more than five minutes without her or a screaming, fucking kid."

"She told me she doesn't think Bud loves her anymore," Laura said. "She's miserable, and that's why she's fat and angry."
"He doesn't love her because, once again, she is a fat bitch. Give me a break! You know as well as I do that she has never had what you would call a sparkling personality. If she was thin, she'd still be a bitch . . . "

"Ah! But if she was thin she'd still be fuckable," Laura said. "Because she's fat, she's not even good for that."

"It's the double threat that makes Lenny go limp. You can handle bitchy, or you can handle fat, but fat and bitchy? No way."

Laura laughed in spite of herself. "Well, she was bitchy when he married her."

"Ah . . . but she wasn't fat."

"You're horrible," Laura said as she set a plate of eggs on the table in front of him.

"Oh. I'm sick to shit of all this politically correct bull shit. People are fat because they have no willpower and are lazy."

"It's been proven that there is a fat gene . . . "

"It's not like it's incurable, Laura. All they have to do is stop eating like fucking pigs. Judy claims she doesn't know how she put the weight on, because after all she doesn't eat as much as anyone else. Next thing you know she's stuffing her face full of fucking doughnuts."

"That's what I love about you, Tommy, you're so compassionate and understanding," Laura said, shaking her head in disapproval.

"That's me! I'm a sensitive guy."

"You know, Tommy, some people don't mind being fat. It's not like it's illegal or anything. Some men actually like fat women."

Tommy shrugged. "I don't have anything against fat people as long as they aren't bitches."

She wanted to be mad at him, but she'd have to work at it, and it just wasn't worth the effort. Especially when, try as she might, she couldn't quite clear the politically correct fat hurtle herself. As much as she might want to, she just couldn't sympathize with people who said they couldn't stay on a diet. After all, her entire life from the moment she'd learned that she had diabetes had been one long diet. Every day was filled with things she wanted to eat that she couldn't, and things she didn't want to, but should. Reading the ingredients on everything she bought, asking in every restaurant, measuring her food at home. When she went to the bar and her sugar was all right she could have one wine cooler or a beer; that was it. It was a pain in the ass, but she did it to stay off of insulin and away from needles. Of course she knew diabetics who couldn't stay on their diet, so maybe it really was all a question of will power after all.

"Will power challenged," Laura mumbled.

"What's that?" Tommy asked.

"Just thinking about how you never know what to call people anymore," she said. "You know, all the new labels that are supposed to be better than all the old labels. Like Native American, for instance. That has always bugged the piss out of me."

"Why?" Tommy asked.

"Well, tell me how stupid is this. We don't call them Indians anymore because that's wrong since they aren't from India. But we're going to call them Native Americans even though I'm fairly sure that the 'Native Americans' didn't call this country by the name of an Italian explorer."

Tommy thought about that for a minute. "That is pretty stupid now that you mention it. Why couldn't we just continue to call them Indians when we're talking about all of them, since we all know what we mean, and call them by their tribal names when we're talking about an individual?"

 

It had taken Spider awhile, but she'd finally gone back to sleep. Later she would wish she hadn't.

The faceless woman screamed and screamed. She was in pain. She wanted Spider's help, but Spider couldn't reach her.

They were poking Spider again. Poking her and talking, but she couldn't really understand what they were saying. The SWTF men just stood around and watched.

The faceless woman screamed again. Spider was wrong, the woman wasn't in pain, she was mad and afraid.

"Let her go, stop it!" the woman screamed.

Spider became aware of her own tears now. She was scared, and it hurt. The poking hurt and she didn't like it; it was scary.

"It will hurt less if you hold still," one of the men said.

The car rolled over and over and over. She went out the window.

There was fire, so much fire, and the woman screamed. She was trapped in the car. She needed help, but none came. Scott was running in circles around the car crying, "Mama! Mama!"

Then everything was black and it was dark. Scott was crying and crying. She couldn't see him, but she knew it was him. She was scared, terrified, but she couldn't scream, couldn't even cry out, and she was trapped. A single light pierced the darkness, and then there were others. She knew what they wanted, what they wanted to do. They were going to poke her again, and she didn't want that. Finally she screamed.

"Honey?" Spider heard Carrie's voice, felt her hand on her shoulder and felt reassured. "You OK?"

"The club . . . it was no coincidence, it was some sort of test." Spider was sitting straight up in bed, drenched in a cold sweat. Her throat was a little raw and she realized she must have screamed out loud.

"What?" Carrie asked.

"Nothing, I'm sorry I woke you up," Spider said. She lay back down slowly, and Carrie curled herself around her. "Just paranoia, me trying to make sense of what happened—and the dreams."

"Don't worry about me. It's about time we got up anyway. Who would be testing you, us, for what?"

"I wish I knew. Dammit! It means something . . . I think the dreams are some kind of memory. Something to do with my mother." She shook her head. "Some kind of memory that I've buried or . . . I don't know."

"I know a hypnotist. Good one. Works with us sometimes on potential witnesses. He could do a regression on you, and maybe see what you're repressing."

"I don't think that's such a good idea. I'm fairly certain that knowing whatever I have forgotten could get you killed."

The phone rang, and Spider was only too glad for the distraction. She answered the phone.

"Hello."

"Hello Spider, this is Tommy . . . Listen. I'm sorry about this morning. Sorry that I've been such a prick. Let's take today off. Give me a chance to put things back into perspective."

"But what about the rhythms?" Spider teased.

"I said I was sorry," Tommy said.

"Apology accepted, and I'm sorry I didn't at least call."

"Under the circumstances, I really couldn't blame you. Tomorrow morning at six o'clock?"

"I'll be there," Spider said.

"Great! I'll see you then . . . Oh, and Spider?"

"Yes?"

"Great tits."

 

 

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Framed