Reacquainted Pt. 01

1.

The glass door had a faux-bronze handle and the words "Has Bean's" stenciled on it in some non-specific ye-olde font. "Cute," thought Jennifer Sutcliff, nee Ludlow, as she paused in front of the suburban strip-mall coffee shop; "kind of moronic, but cute." She could feel her heartbeat in the back of her throat. "Oh heck, Jen, get a grip on yourself!" She was neither timid nor indecisive, as a rule, so why was it proving so difficult to open the wretched door. "Just go in and talk to the woman."

She pushed open the door forcefully; too forcefully. It thwacked against a six-foot potted ficus just inside the shop, and a string of carriage bells attached to the push-bar on the other side of the door jangled angrily. Had Jen been given to swearing, she'd have indulged, but instead she contented herself with forcefully expelling a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. Then she glared around the small room—coffee bar with pastry case catty-corner to the door in which she stood, condiments and utensils on a narrow table against the right wall, then two armchairs and a low table in an open space to her right, and two four-tops and three doubles against the picture window to her left—as if defying somebody to complain about the noise.

The place seemed to do a pretty brisk business for three-o-clock on a Wednesday afternoon, and the thwack-jangle had not in fact attracted much attention. An elderly man sitting alone at the closest four-top met her eye for a moment before returning placidly to his newspaper, but the rest of the clientele seemed engrossed in chatter, laptops, lattes, and something new (at least to her) by Mumford and Sons on the sound system. Some half-a-dozen souls had braved the late Spring humidity on a quest for caffeine, or wi-fi, or both. A pair of twenty-something guys in cargo shorts and t-shirts sat in the armchairs and played with identical I-phones. A tiny girl—five-foot-nothing, and rail thin in a white oxford shirt and khakis; dark hair and olive complexion: Italian, Spanish, maybe Persian—patiently explained something or other to a handsome if perplexed-looking young man in jeans, an un-tucked Hawaiian shirt and a haircut that made him look like a Marine. The old man read his paper. And a very beautiful, very tall dark-haired woman in skinny jeans, a sleeveless leaf green blouse, sun glasses and earbuds took the occasional sip of an iced tea, and devoured a scone as if it were the first thing she'd eaten in a week. The tall woman sat at the double furthest from the door. She did not stand as Jen walked past the pastry case and put her hand tentatively on the back of the opposite chair. Instead, she took a paper towel from her lap, dabbed the remains of the scone from a full, almost pouted lower lip, removed the earbuds, and took off her sunglasses to reveal eyes as green as the blouse she wore.

"Jennifer Ludlow, right?" The voice was low with a little rasp to it; a whiskey voice, maybe a bedroom voice, but cool now, polite and a little wary. "It's been a long time. Sit, please." The woman had no discernable accent; she sounded educated, professional. The "Sit" had been clipped, almost peremptory, the way you might address a willing, if not particularly bright beagle. But the "please" had taken some of the edge off the command...some.

"Thanks, maybe I'll grab some coffee, and then I will." Jen tried a smile. It felt awkward, as if she had to order each individual facial muscle into place. "You're Magnolia Sutter, or do you prefer..?"

"Mags is fine."

"So not...um..."

The tall woman sighed. "When I have you handcuffed naked to a flogging post and I'm beating your pretty little ass with a riding crop, you may call me Mistress, or Goddess, or whatever I decide is appropriate. For now, Mags is fine. Is that what we're here to discuss, by the way?"

"Shoot! What? No...um, no it's not exactly...I mean it's not me, or at least...oh heck. Look, this may be a huge mistake. Let me get some coffee, and I'll try to explain. Can I get you anything?"

The other woman smiled, pleased by the offer, although Jen couldn't help thinking that Mags—which would take some getting used to; Jen had never seen a woman who looked less like a "Mags"—might also be enjoying the effect of her little bombshell. Jen didn't much like being laughed at, but decided to let it go. In the circumstances, the question had not been unreasonable. "Since you asked," said Mags, still smiling, "I'll have a large iced tea, sweetened, and another one of these white chocolate cherry scones. Thank you." With the last two words, the smile had vanished. Gratitude, even for something a trivial as a drink and a pastry, was apparently not a subject for mockery. "What a strange mixture of coarse and classy." thought Jen to herself. "Was she like this in school?" She couldn't remember.

"No surprise there," thought Jen, as she got in line behind a couple of middle-aged country-club-y woman who had just come in from a game of tennis, if the white polo shirts and sweatbands were to be believed. She and Magnolia Sutter had attended the same high school for two years. Jen's father, a colonel in the Air Force, had been transferred to a training facility not far from a tony but affordable parochial (all-girls) school during the summer after her sophomore year. But the two girls hadn't been friends. They hadn't been enemies either, although Jen, like most of the rest of her class, had been envious both of Magnolia's beauty and her brains. Everything had seemed to come easy to the tall brunette: grades, sports (Magnolia had lettered in swimming and volleyball), accolades, boys...especially boys. The girl had gone through the local boys' school like...well, heck, like a gorgeous, black-Irish beauty in a blue blazer, plaid skirt, Mary-Janes, and white knee socks through a sea of sexually curious, hormonally-addled, teen-aged males. She'd dated football players and stoners, Goths and geeks, the lead in the school play and the head of the Christian Fellowship. Strangely, while she could hardly have been called exclusive, she never got the reputation for sluttiness some of Jen's less charitable friends felt she deserved. For her own part, Jen had been jealous—of course she'd been jealous—but she'd had the good grace to feel guilty about her jealousy, and she'd made a conscious effort to be polite to Magnolia Sutter, when they'd crossed paths.

Which hadn't been all that often: Magnolia had been a gifted sculptor, and spent much of her free time in the arts studio, fashioned from a converted rectory at the edge of the school's property, while Jen and all her friends had hung out in the choir room in the basement of the science building, under the indulgent eye, and critical ear, of Sister Siobhan. Through the magic of social media and the interwebs—a phrase that her best friend, Cora Bolinger had picked up somewhere—she had remained in touch with several of her fellow choir-members. And one of them, Ashley Carmichael, nee Barnes, had tweeted about running into Magnolia at an exhibition of her work at a local gallery. Ashley had a rich husband and had bought one of Magnolia's more expensive pieces, had posted pictures of the work—an elaborate basket-like confection of brightly painted wooden snakes—on Facebook. And it had taken no more than a basic Google search for Jen to discover that Magnolia Sutter was indeed a promising young sculptor with a growing local reputation, and also that she worked as a dominatrix, under the name Princess Anastasia.

At the time, Jen had been frankly shocked and perhaps a tiny bit intrigued, or at least curious. She was astonished at the ease with which she had discovered her former classmate's...well, could you call it a "day job?" It hadn't taken much ingenuity: Magnolia talked quite openly about her alternate identity in an interview she had done for the local artsy weekly. According to the article, she had made a living as a dom for some time before her art had begun to sell, and since sales of her work were still somewhat sporadic, and since she had a thriving local...practice?...she continued to be involved in the local bondage scene, even accepting the occasional new client; although the fact that she had begun to make money as a sculptor allowed her to be considerably more selective than she had been in the past.

Local bondage scene? The notion had shorted a couple of Jen's circuits. At first, she didn't want to think about it. Then she reallydidwant to think about it: she was desperately curious. Who? Where? When? For eff's sake,how? Would she have friended Magnolia on Facebook, or would she have proposed a meeting merely to see about satisfying that curiosity? Maybe, but then again, maybe not.

"Can I help you?" The barista's pleasant, slightly bored voice derailed the proverbial train of thought, and Jen took a moment coming back to the present before placing her order.

When she got back to the table, Jen handed Magnolia the tea and the scone. The other woman thanked her again, tore off a large chunk of scone, took a big bite, and closed her eyes.

"Hungry?" asked Jen. The question sounded bitchy and ungracious, and she regretted it even before she saw Magnolia frown. "Sorry," Jen said quickly. "That was...um..."

"Yes, it was," her companion replied, "but since I don't remember you as a particularly discourteous person, and since you have just apologized, we'll let it go." She smiled: "I just love these things. They're the reason I come to this place." And with a contented little hum, she took another healthy bite, and a sip of tea.

Jen had been alternately embarrassed by her own rudeness, stung by Magnolia's blunt rebuke, and a little flattered that the other woman remembered her as courteous. 'She's like nobody I know,' she thought to herself. 'And look at the way she eats! She really is enjoying the heck out of that scone.' Cora would have giggled and muttered something about it going directly to her hips. Ashley would have ostentatiously left half of the scone on her plate, and wailed about carbs. Magnolia Sutter ate with pleasure: eff the carbs, eff the hips, and, if her reaction to Jen's unfortunate descent into snippiness was any indication, eff you too if you had a problem with any of the above.

Jen took a sip of her coffee: "You're making me want one of those things."

Magnolia swallowed the bite she was chewing, and dabbed her lips with her napkin: "Next one's on me then."

"I'm afraid that was the last of them."

"Oh, I'm so sorry!" the woman seemed genuinely distressed, "Would you like what's left of this one, then?" She offered her plate on which maybe a quarter of the pastry remained.

Jen smiled, a small part of her pleased to have regained some moral high ground. "It's kind of you, but I'm really not hungry. You just seemed to be enjoying it so much."

"I am. Pardon me a moment." She devoured the last of the scone, took a sip of tea, and sat back. "Well, I was." She smiled. "Thanks again for the treat. Now is there something, or are we just getting reacquainted?"

"No, no." Jen was suddenly furious with herself. She was never inarticulate, but now that they had come to it, she found she had no idea how to broach the subject she had come to discuss. "Mags, I'm terribly sorry. This is really not...um...shoot. Look, may I, er...may one consult you in a...um...professional capacity."

"As a sculptor?"

"Um...no."

Magnolia's smile was gone. "Ah. Well, that depends. I tend to avoid casual discussions about my work as a dominatrix. I'm disinclined to gratify idle curiosity. And of course I never discuss specific clients. I'm also not accepting or training any new slaves just now, although I can recommend some excellent women, if you're interested in becoming..."

Jen interrupted quickly. "No, it's nothing like that. It's just...well, there's something I'm not sure if I should...do, or maybe arrange, for my husband, and there's a potential...um...sexual component to it, and I...well, I guess I'm looking for some advice."

"I'm afraid I'm neither a marriage counselor nor a therapist."

"I'm not in the market for a therapist!" Jen snapped. Then quickly: "Shoot, sorry, Mags, I didn't mean to be...it's just...oh...heck. Look: may I just sort of lay out my situation for you? It won't take long. And if you can't help me, so be it; I'll pay you for your time, if you'd like."

The other woman sighed: "That's kind of you, but it's not necessary. I'll tell you what: since I was selfish enough to eat the last scone, I'll listen for," she checked her watch, "another half hour. Then I'm afraid I really do have to go. I doubt that I'll be able to do much for you, but you never know. If anything occurs to me, we can exchange phone numbers and talk more about whatever it is later, alright?

Jen gave her companion a grateful smile: "That's very nice of you. Thank you very much."

"You're quite welcome. Now, what's on your mind?"

2.

Officer Theodore Patrick Sutcliff did not consider himself either a complex or a particularly imaginative man. He had attended public school in the small Midwestern town in which he had grown up. During his senior year of high school, he had lettered in track and baseball, failed in a bid to be elected Student Council Treasurer, and graduated in the middle of his class. He considered college, but decided to enlist in the Army. Two years later, with help from the post 9-11 GI Bill, he enrolled at a state university, and three years after that, he graduated with a degree in Law Enforcement. He moved east to accept a position with a suburban police force. He'd enjoyed his training, and liked the new job. The one incident which he considered truly remarkable in his life happened a little more than a year after he hit the streets as a beat cop.

That day, he and his partner, a stocky good-natured local boy who rejoiced in the name Serge Sanderson (and whose life's ambition was therefore to become a sergeant) had been sitting in an unmarked Crown Vic across the street from a park watching a couple of teenagers doing not much. There was talk that the kids were pushing a little weed around a nearby high school, but they weren't doing it just at the moment. Theo was pretty sure the kids had made the Vic and were therefore waiting for an old lady they could ostentatiously help across the street. No drugs here, officer; we're just on our way to the church social.

The radio burped, and Sanderson took the call: a woman in a Camry had been t-boned by some scumbag who'd run a stop sign; corner of Beech and Monroe. They were less than half-a-mile from the intersection. They radioed for permission to break off what they optimistically thought of as the "surveillance", and headed for the scene of the accident.

The Camry was almost certainly totaled; the other car had plowed into the right rear door, and the Toyota had spun out into a telephone pole. At some point, the right rear wheel had come completely off the car, and the chassis looked as if some giant hand had tried wringing it out like a sponge. By some combination of luck and high safety standards, the driver seemed to be uninjured; she'd apparently climbed out of the car under her own power. She'd been sitting on the curb, and when the uniformed officers got out of the car, she had stood and started over to them. She was small, almost dainty, and—Theo thought maybe the word was "energetic"; it was kind of fun to watch her move, even to watch her stalk over to the Vic as if she bore it some sort of grudge. She was blonde, her dark golden hair held off her face with a blue Alice-band, which was, in turn a few shades darker than her large cornflower blue eyes. Her skin was fair and a few freckles dusted her cheeks and her small upturned nose. Her face was an oval, just slightly tapered to her chin: small mouth, full lips, a slight figure, teacup breasts under a pale blouse, trim legs under a severe grey A-line skirt. Officer Theo Sutcliffe made a couple of preliminary observations in his mental notebook. The "victim" of this particular "incident" was beautiful. She was also royally pissed off.

"About goddamn time!" She was in Serge's face. He'd been driving, and had the bad luck to get out of the car on the street side; nothing between him and the furious woman but a couple of now-deserted lanes of suburban blacktop. He was also almost a head shorter than his partner—Theo was 6'3"—and the fact that the lady had to look up at the 5'8" Sanderson seemed to daunt her not at all. "What the hell takes you guys so long? There's—what—150 people in this effing hick backwater..." In retrospect, Theo decided he had probably fallen in love the first time he'd heard Jen Ludlow say "effing." "The dirtball is probably halfway across the goddamn state by now! So what the hell are you going to do about it?"

Serge took a step back, and Theo wondered for one insane moment if he were going to go for his gun, or at least his pepper spray. In fact he went for his handkerchief, and used it to wipe the sweat—and perhaps a little spit—off of his face. Theo decided the time had come for him to back up his partner. "Ma'am, we're going to get some information from you. That way we'll know who to chase. And then we're going to do our level best to catch the guy who did this to you. Now, do you feel able to answer some questions, or do you need a minute?"

"No, shit...ah, shoot! Sorry, no. I'm fine. At least, I'm not fine, but I'm...ok...what do you need? Should I...?"

"No, no. I'll ask, and you answer, alright? Now, why don't you start by telling us what happened..."

Given the nature of the incident, she hadn't done badly: dark sedan, maybe black or dark blue, she thought American; lone male driver, maybe Caucasian, maybe Latino, almost certainly not African-American, couldn't absolutely swear no other passengers; come to that, couldn't absolutely swear male; might have been a short haired woman; out-of-state, or at least unusual, plates—first letters or numbers SO or maybe 50; had been travelling north on Monroe, run the stop and caught her just behind the right rear door. She'd spun out, hit a telephone pole, airbags deployed, but her head must have been travelling away from them. In any case she hadn't sustained any injuries more serious that some bruising on the back of her forearms. She declined an ambulance trip to the local emergency room, even after both officers had recommended starting a paper trail in anticipation of a potential lawsuit. Didn't want to sue anybody; couldn't effing afford to sue anybody; just wanted the a-hole's insurance to take care of her effing car.

She hadn't done badly, but it was nowhere near enough. Despite her unkind observations as to the size and character of the town in which they lived, there were, in fact, some 80,000 people there, and another 100,000 or so in the surrounding metro area. If the black-or-dark-blue sedan had been stolen, they might get lucky, but the overwhelming likelihood was that the driver of the car owned it but didn't have insurance. He could fix it, garage it, or dive it out of the area, and there was precious little they could do to find or stop him. They took her statement and contact information, called a local tow service to get the Camry to a body shop, where her insurance adjuster could pronounce it officially totaled, offered her a ride—which she declined—and said they'd do their best.

Back in the Crown Vic, Serge sighed. It was his turn at the computer. Both men loathed paperwork. "Waste of time, but at least I'll get to write another meaningless report which nobody will read. I'll just keep looking on the bright side."

"I'll write it up." said Theo.

"Excuse me?"

"I'll write it up."

Serge stared at his partner in astonishment. "Just so we're clear here, you are actually volunteering to spend the rest of the day going blind in front of that stone-age piece of crap"—(a three-year-old Dell they shared with four other cops)—"making paper on another guy we're never gonna find?"