Modern Day Cavegirls - Bobbi's Tale

But it had become rather clear to him that this was about asserting her dominance somehow. He'd been down this road with her twice before over other things that he'd done - or hadn't when he should have.

It would necessitate his having to catch crap a lot of times - and it was a highly variable number and not less than ten, the way that he saw it. She'd even torn his ear off for a half an hour and then called back to start in again because she'd just remembered 'another thing'.

It was curing his fascination over girls of Irish extraction. He was almost certain that he could find at least a slightly less expensive and painful fetish.

He thought about where to go at this time of night for a coffee for the trip home as he read the text.

'Request meeting soonest - Faisal'

Damian sat back for a moment and then he called his boss's line and left a message, saying that he'd worked very late and requested the next day off in lieu.

Then he replied to the text saying that he had tomorrow wide open.

Damian had just put the phone in his pocket and put his truck into gear when the reply came.

"Jesus, Faisal old buddy, don't you ever need to sleep?" Damian asked the phone as he put the truck back into park and read the text that he had a meeting with the man at noon the following day.

He thought about things for a moment, trying to see where things lay in the balance of his mind.

Catch more shit from Trish... or make money doing something possibly barely legal which carried the unspoken danger of being life-threatening?

He tried to re-order things and looked at it again.

Catch life-threatening crap for nothing or make a ton of money to replace what he'd dropped on the necklace?

He slid the little keyboard out on his phone and typed only 'K'.

Then he put the truck in gear again and motored.

--------------

Chicago, IL

As the private elevator slowed to a stop, the elderly man refocused his gaze from looking out through the window to looking right at the reflection of the opposite wall behind him. The doors slid open and Damian Sorrensson stepped out in a scuffed-up and ancient-looking leather jacket wearing jeans and cowboy boots.

"You must cut quite a dashing figure striding through the lobby of a banking building like this one dressed like that, Damian," the man smiled as he turned his wheelchair around to face his tall and lean-looking visitor.

"Uh, ... sorry about that," Damian said with a disarming grin, "Your text said noon. I'd just gotten off work at 2AM when I got it. I hadn't even gotten home yet. From Minneapolis to Chicago is a bit of a drive and I had to sleep in there somewhere as well."

The man nodded, "I apologize for the timing. I didn't think about it, really. I find that these days, I always seem to be in a bit of a rush. I have so many things that I wish and need to get done while I still have time. I don't seem to need very much sleep anymore and it makes me tend to forget that other people do."

Damian said that it wasn't a problem, really, and then he looked over at the bar and pointed, "Uh, have you still got the coffeemaker on, Faisal? I'm kind of in need right now, you know? I've been good and I've never told a soul that the best Algerian coffee in Chicago is right here."

"Go ahead," the man said with a chuckle, "I know you enough to have some made and waiting whenever you come to see me. It's not such a rare find anymore you know. There are a few Americans of Algerian descent here - all over the Midwest. I wouldn't mind a cup as well, if you'd bring me one.

My thanks for the work with the statues last week, by the way. I was able to make a good return on my investment for them."

He opened his desk drawer and removed a memory card and slid it across the gleaming oak surface, "And my thanks for the photographs as well."

He watched as Damian walked over to sit down, pocketing the card as he did after setting Faisal's cup and saucer down in front of him. "I just thought that you ought to see where they were hidden. I don't know how old they are, but I was a little surprised to find evidence that they're still being utilized in some form of religious observances by somebody. That was real blood there, and it was pretty fresh. I guess I must have pissed them off pretty bad when I left with them."

"I'd agree," Faisal said, "but that's not why I asked for you to come today."

He shifted himself in the chair a little, "I'm an old man, Damian. I've made my livelihood in many ways, not all of them completely honestly, though that was a long time ago and far away from here.

Once upon a time, I was just a poor young Algerian man with nothing. Like a lot of others, I came to be swept up in the nationalistic fervor when we all saw that there was the chance that we could get the French off our backs and our land. You are likely aware that 'Algerians' are a population of many groups.

We were back then as well. It took a little while, but we were able to stop fighting with each other long enough to kick the French out after a hundred and fifty years of oppression at their hands. While that was going on all around me, I came to see a group of people who hated the French even more than the rest of us. I found them to be absolutely fearless men and I used some of them to my own ends here and there a long time ago. All of them are dead now.

But I am coming to the end of my own life in the not too distant future, Damian, and it makes me try to think back to see if I've left anything undone which I might now want to rectify at this late stage of the game, so to speak.

I've come up with three individuals. We are here today to talk about one of them. I'm afraid that I have a little more work for you."

"That's fine, Faisal," Damian smiled, "I assume that I'll get the chance to make a little more coin out of it, so I'm good. What do I have to find and bring to you this time?"

Faisal sat back and after a moment, he began to grin. It made Damian a little nervous, but he held his gaze on Faisal steadily.

"Not what, Damian," Faisal smiled on, feeling just a little relieved already, "but who. This time out, you're going to bring me a person. I need to help her while I still have the ability to."

Damian felt his jaw begin to open. "How, ... how am I supposed to bring a person to you? Is this ... you mean this is for the purpose of a visit or what have you got in mind? Is this for real?

What I mean is; this is to be in a legitimate and legal way?"

Faisal nodded, "Of course. I want her here so that I can begin to have her trained in some of the sorts of occupations that any western person might have the choice of to make their own way in the world. As it is, she lives in poverty and I feel that I am at least a little to blame for that.

A man in my position can sometimes ... accumulate enemies, you might say.

Her father died because it was found out that he'd worked for me on occasion. Since I am still here, I can only assume that his sense of loyalty to me exceeded the ability of whatever means were attempted to get information about me out of him.

But I was only recently reminded that he had a daughter. I sent someone and through them, I learned of his daughter's whereabouts. She was far away at school when he was murdered and she only learned of her father's death on her return when she had to leave because the money stopped coming.

Your role in this is to find your way to her, get her a passport and a visa to come here so that I can help her, and then bring her here. She might want to take what she'll learn and go back, or she might have other plans once she gets to that point. I will have done my part by then and it will be her choice.

Your purpose will be to help and guide her as much as you can while she is here. You may consider it an ongoing job for me.

This will take some time, so I've already arranged for you to begin a ... sabbatical from your job at the museum, you might say."

"How am I supposed to find her, by the way?" Damian asked, "Just for starters."

"I don't think that it will be too difficult, my friend," the old man smiled, "She lives in a village whose name you probably couldn't pronounce but I'll get you some directions, and she sells jewellery which she makes by hand in a little town not far away from that. She's about the only person of her ethnicity in that little place and she wears the traditional style of clothing of her people. She probably stands out like ..."

"What's her ethnicity?" Damian asked, feeling a little strange to be using the word.

"I did say that Algerians as a nation are made up of various groups," Faisal said as he opened his laptop and entered his password. He swung the PC around to face Damian.

"This is one of them. They are not unique to my home country, living in at least four others on the continent as well. All but one of those five nations have borders inside the Sahara Desert. That is the common thing in their case."

As he began to read, Damian also saw the pictures in the accompanying article and his mouth fell the rest of the way open that time. "Tuareg?" he asked, "I thought that was the name of a, ...

Never mind," he sighed, shaking his head a little, "I think I'm about to show my ignorance."

"Something which sets you apart to my mind, Damian, is that you are often aware of it when your understanding of something is lacking, which you then set about improving. That is how a man comes to know his world," Faisal smiled warmly. "The product that you have in your mind was named after a proud and fierce people who have thrived for thousands of years in a barren and trackless place where most people would perish."

Damian was still reading, "So these people, ..."

"They have been what some might call the Lords of the Sahara since time immemorial. They ran the caravans of commerce, transporting everything from camels to salt and many still do," Faisal nodded.

"But one thing, Damian. Do not refer to her in direct conversation as a Tuareg. It is a word used by other peoples. Though it seems to have stuck, the word is really a corrupted French term and to some, it means 'abandoned by the gods'. She would refer to herself as 'Imouhar'.

"My Arabic sucks, Faisal," Damian said, "Just telling you now."

"I know and it's worse than that I'm afraid, since you speak the wrong kind for that place." The man smiled as he picked up a thin folder and laid it down next to Damian's elbow, "There is a photo in here which was taken in the marketplace where she spends most of her time.

Besides her native Tamasheq which is the language of the Imouhar, she speaks several other languages. I would guess that her English is about on a par with your Arabic. You might try French. I believe that she can speak it well - better than you, for certain.

You'll have to try to teach her a little more English than she knows, and do try to leave out the cursing that you're so good at, if you could."

Damian tore his eyes from the page on the screen and he picked up the folder and opened it.

Her skin was very dark, he thought, her eyes as well. "The photos on that site show different people. Same sort of clothing, but ..."

The old man shook his head, "Too narrow a view. Depending on which tribal confederation and its location, their appearance can reflect either a Berber influence - and they are considered an offshoot somewhere far back and their language shows a similarity - or more to the south, a sub-Saharan one.

You will note that regardless of their appearance, they wear the same style of clothing, their speech is all similar, though there are slight shifts from east to west and so, no matter what shade of skin they have, they are the same people. They've been called the 'Blue People' for the way that the indigo dye of their garments can sometimes color their skin.

They are loosely Islamic and are not considered very devout by Islamic outsiders. They themselves might wish to argue the point. Originally, their beliefs were ... animistic. But they modified their belief system as first early Christianity and then Islam swept over them. These days, they're Muslims, but they manage to incorporate their age-old animistic tendencies in there as well."

"Fine," Damian said with an overworked-sounding sigh, "I'll do it."

"That's all?" Faisal asked, a little surprised, "I thought that I'd get more of a reaction from you."

Damian looked up, "You told me not to curse."

"That was meant for when you are with her," the man said, "I would have thought for certain that you'd - "

Damian looked up again, "You didn't say anything about the degree of difficulty here."

Faisal was a little mystified, "Degree of difficulty? How do you mean?"

Damian laid the folder down and he tapped the photo with his finger, "Yeah. I'm American. People in that part of the world tend not to be overjoyed to see somebody like me. I assume that she'll be the same way.

And she's fucking beautiful, Faisal. You know that, right?

I'm in enough trouble with Trish as it is. I can't wait to see how she reacts to me 'helping and guiding' a woman around." He briefly explained his present difficulties.

Faisal nodded and sat still for a moment, thinking. "Perhaps it is time that you found yourself a woman who could accept what it is that you do sometimes."

Damian looked up, "I haven't told Trish about what I 'do sometimes' or who I work for. I've never told anyone that. My dad was the only one who ever knew. He's retired now and my mother has been dead for almost ten years."

"My comment was only my expressing a thought, Damian, and I was referring to your - absences," Faisal said, "It wasn't a test."

"I didn't think it was," the younger man said, "It's not looking too good as a long-term thing right now between me and Trish was what I meant by it."

Faisal reached out and placed his hand on Damian's, "Can you take a little advice from an old man who has surrounded himself with beautiful women for as long as he could afford to?"

Seeing Damian nod once, he smiled, "That little place that they have is completely interchangeable between the great majority of the women that you might come to know well enough for it. A relatively small number of them know how to use it very well - well enough to hold a man's interest forever.

The trick is to separate those of that one group from the rest, and then to allow oneself the joy of their company in all other matters. I have never known even one like that who is not at least a very worthwhile companion.

Have you ever heard the term 'dull woman'?"

Damian nodded, "My mother would say that about a woman that she'd met and didn't like very much. I thought at first that it was only a description of some sort. I only learned later on that she said it as though it was an ... inescapable pronouncement."

Faisal laughed then," Well the ones that I speak of are not dull and can never be - in anything. That has been my experience.

Think a moment, Damian. In a pitch black room, and if she made no sounds, could you tell your 'Trish' from any of the other women that you've ever known intimately? Answer me honestly now."

Damian considered the scenario as Faisal had laid it out. He looked up and answered honestly, "No."

Actually, now that he thought about it that way, Damian knew that it wasn't correct. He really could tell Trish from the rest. Whether he could see them in the dark or not, most of his past lovers had at least shown an interest.

Trish hadn't been overly enthusiastic any time that he mentioned it, now that he thought back. So ... what was he doing?

Faisal sighed, "Then she belongs to the majority and she knows it. She knows that she can offer you nothing that some three and a half billion others cannot also offer. That is why she is the way that she is. You might not wish to hear it, but the truth is that she is killing whatever was between you by causing you to wonder why you need her."

He laughed a little, "And you don't, of course. That is why she is terrified enough to screech at you until you give her what she fears - your absence when you finally realize it."

He pointed to a painting on the wall which showed a pair of lovers on a bed, "One of several by that artist which I own. They were painted by a Frenchman named Dinet who lived among the Berbers for a large part of his life. Study the woman's expression as her lover holds her.

Take a good look at it as you leave when we are finished here today. That woman is not one of the majority. That is the kind which you must seek for yourself and they are not as uncommon as you might think."

He saw that Damian hadn't gotten it and he grinned once more, "Think back to that pitch black room at night. That woman there - in that painting - she and any of the others like her would leave no doubt in your mind. Love - whether emotional or physical - rewards what is given in a like manner."

"You get what you give?" Damian asked.

"Yes. Love and life are the same thing," Faisal said, "Why spend yours with a girl who only curses when she sees the dawn and gets up in a sour mood since she wasn't allowed to sleep longer because her man wanted her more than once the night before?

A woman like that believes that she is doing her part only to lie there and allow your rude desires. Once it is over - to their relief - they think the worst task is done and want only to be left alone. Assuming that you are not a bore in a woman's bed, and even if you are, that is not love.

Why make that your life as well?

Do not ever even think to marry one like that. The wealth of many lawyers are built on those marriages."

He pulled out a blank sheet of paper, "Now, about our terms for this job."

Damian sighed silently, trying to remember what he'd told himself down in the bowels of an ancient temple in Peru.

He wondered over something else as he did it.

He was certain that Faisal had never met Trish or even laid eyes on her for that matter. Yet he'd pegged her pretty much right on the money.

Right down to getting up in a foul mood, one shitty enough to cause him to regret coming over at all.

And that was on a Sunday too, when she didn't have to get up.

Faisal was right about another thing too. Trish was one lousy piece of ass.

Damian did look at the painting on his way out of Faisal's office. He saw what his employer was referring to. He saw it clearly and he got it. Any fool with a mind and a heart would kill for a woman who looked at him like that.

It changed his mood as he was going down in the elevator. His outlook darkened as he walked along the Chicago pavement. He saw nobody and nothing on crowded busy streets and by the time that he reached his truck, he wouldn't have been able to recall whether he'd actually crossed on green lights or just walked across all of those intersections without looking.

He saw a coffee shop and walked in to get just a plain cup of coffee to sip on the first part of the trip home. He asked for a sleeve so that he wouldn't burn his hand carrying it the rest of the way.

He got to his truck and getting in, he set the coffee in a cupholder and looked out through the windshield at nothing.

It was worse that time for a couple of reasons, he guessed. He'd been trying and it had been a little while since he'd thought of her like this; someone who'd loved him like no other. Someone who knew him so well, just as he knew her to the same degree. He didn't need to be reminded even though Faisal knew nothing of it.

He also kicked himself for mentioning the whole thing with Trish. There'd been no need to bring it up and anyway, he'd mentally tossed his relationship with her out the window as he'd driven from Minnesota. Damian asked himself if he owed her anything and since she wasn't there, he looked at it from his side and decided that he didn't.