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Message-ID: <52046asstr$1127200206@assm.asstr-mirror.org>
From: "Jim C" <jimc_author@hotmail.com>
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Subject: {ASSM} Lucky Stiff by JiMC (42 of 46)--MF, FF, mc, md, magic, romance
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Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2005 03:10:06 -0400
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This story is copyright (c) 2003-2005.  All rights are
reserved by the author, including that of publication.
Posting on-line is only allowed when permission is explicitly
granted by the author, and then only for the complete story,
including this disclaimer.  Contact the author at
<jimc-author at excite dot com> for more information,
referring to this story ("Lucky Tickets 2: Lucky Stiff").

I explicitly grant permission to post this story to
StoriesOnline.net and asstr-mirror.org.

The following is a work of fiction and is just a fantasy.
Any resemblance to any person, living or dead, is purely
coincidental and entirely unintentional.  There may be
references to people in a historical context, but they are
not really characters in this story.

This is a story that describes sexually explicit situations
in a fictional universe that only vaguely seems similar to
the one we live in.  Most of the characters in this story are
under aged.  However, the target audience is adults (people
over the age of eighteen) with broad minds.

* * *

This is a sequel to the story "Lucky Tickets," and as such,
you may want to read that story first to get a better
introduction to the characters present in both stories.  Like
a lot of sequels, it's not really meant to be read out of
order.

* * *

Chapter 42--Personal Advice

        Not guilty for being on your street,
        Getting underneath your feet.
        Not guilty... no use handing me a writ,
        While I'm trying to do my bit.
                -- Not Guilty (George Harrison)


    On Sunday morning, I woke up in bed, spooned against
Lynette.  I looked around, but Kristen wasn't in the room.

    My movement alerted Lynette.  She whispered, "Kris got up
a while ago and went downstairs.  She told me to keep you
company."

    Lynette and I kept each other company by kissing each
other for about five minutes.  After that, the two of us
showered together.  Lynette even allowed me to wash her hair.

    As I got dressed, I thought about Lynette.

    Lynette and I had, by this time, settled into a
comfortable routine.  Occasionally, Kristen would include me
in her adventures with Lynette, and sometimes the two girls
would do things without me.  Of course, sometimes Kristen and
I would do things together without Lynette.

    I've always found that it difficult to explain the
relationship between Lynette and me to other people.  What I
felt toward Lynette wasn't love--at least, if you define
"love" to be what I felt for Kristen, my mother, or my
sister.  However, it was more than just friendship.  After
having Lynette being an intimate part of the relationship
between Kristen and me for the last three months made it
difficult to even conceive of a relationship with Kristen
that didn't include Lynette.

    It was plain to everybody that Lynette's real focus in
her life at the current moment was Kristen and not me.
Lynette had been close to Kristen for years, and once thought
that a romantic relationship with Kristen was unachievable.
After Kristen and I became a couple, Lynette somehow managed
to become a part of our relationship.  I'm not sure what
happened, but whatever it was must have happened right before
or during the Senior Weekend, because the Lynette that I knew
up until that point would never have accepted the role of
"Pussy Slave" to anybody.

    Lynette once confided in me that she didn't think Kristen
was capable of loving anybody else until she saw Kristen and
me going together.  This may sound heartless and mean, but I
must admit that I thought the same way about Kristen before I
got to know her better.  Kristen always kept her personal
life to herself and managed to appear aloof and superior to
everybody else in school.  Only now was I beginning to
understand the (self-imposed) loneliness that she felt
throughout her first eleven years of school.

    Somehow, Lynette filled a need within Kristen that I
couldn't fill.  Maybe it was the fact that they were both
female.  Then again, it could be that Kristen felt free to
dominate Lynette, which she may have felt that she couldn't
do with me since I had the power of the tickets.  Whatever it
was, Lynette filled a very important need within Kristen, and
likewise Kristen filled an important need that Lynette had.
I remember this sort of relationship being described in
biology class as a "symbiotic relationship," and I guess
that's one way to describe it.  Whatever it was, both
Kristen, Lynette, and even I were much happier by the
existence of the relationship between the two of them.

    Likewise, Kristen and I shared a truly wonderful
relationship, and it was pretty amazing that Kristen and
Lynette's relationship didn't interfere with it, but
augmented it instead.  It made it even more special.

    Both Lynette and I realized that Kristen was the main
focus of our love, but there was also something quite
consequential between the two of us that was there if you
looked deep enough.  The two of us were very much attuned to
each other's feelings, and we could anticipate each other's
moods to a point.  Neither Lynette nor I would hesitate to
stand up to Kristen on behalf of the other if one of us felt
that Kristen did something wrong to the other.

* * *

    Once I got out of the bedroom, the place felt lonely.

    June went home that night, taking Archy to his parents.
I guess they were thrilled that Archy was home for a quick
visit.  I knew that Kristen's "Uncle Jerry" would be taking
Archy back to college this evening.

    Last night, after June left, Sherry went home, but not
before she gave me another one of her enthusiastic kisses in
front of a rather surprised Lynette.

    Cammy and Will were at the main house, and I remembered
that Camille said that she needed to talk to me alone, a
request that almost certainly had to do with the tickets.

    Patty, who also told me she needed to talk with me,
didn't have an opportunity to do so last night, and she
promised before she left that she'd find some time before the
weekend was over.  I knew she was supposed to work at Roman's
tonight, so that meant that she'd probably see me this
afternoon.

    Since Lynette--the one who did most of the cooking at the
apartment--was still in the bedroom, I decided to skip
breakfast, and peeled an orange that was in the fruit bowl in
the kitchen and headed downstairs to the music studio as I
ate the sections.

    I went the long way downstairs, taking the stairs at the
other end of the apartment so that I would walk by the
billiard room to see if Kristen was perhaps playing another
game of pool with Camille.

    Instead of Camille and Kristen in the billiard room, I
was surprised to see Patty sitting on the chair, listening to
the soft and memorable strains of _Stairway to Heaven_ on the
record that Kristen and I were listening to yesterday
afternoon.

    "Hey, Patty!  What's up?"

    I think this was the first time that my presence ever
startled Patty.

    Patty recovered quickly, however.  "Hi, Jim!  Kristen
told me that I could come over whenever I wanted today, and I
felt that the two of us needed to talk."

    I nodded.

    "Kristen told you something that bothered you recently."

    This was a statement, not a question.  I've learned over
the past year that Patty was like that.

    I simply nodded at Patty.

    Patty looked serious.  "The only thing Kristen could have
told you that would have upset you about me was what Kristen
and I talked about before the two of you started dating."

    Again I nodded.

    "You have to realize that Kristen was suicidal, Jim!"

    "Not to mention homicidal," I added glumly.

    "She wasn't seriously going to kill you, and I doubt that
she would have killed herself.  She was trying to scare me."

    "Patty, you are easy to talk to, but you aren't a
psychiatrist!  You can't make that kind of decision!  That
sort of thing is a matter of life and death!"

    "Jim, you never realized how much Kristen prefers to be
in control.  She saw no future with you because she'd never
be able to control you while she had the addiction."

    "Kristen told me that yesterday.  She told me that you
said that if she killed me, she'd be a junkie without a fix.
Some friend you are!"

    I thought saying that would shock Patty, but I was
mistaken.

    "You think that I'm not your friend because I pointed out
the truth to Kristen?"

    "You're twisting my words around!"

    Patty didn't respond, but just looked at me.

    I stared at Patty, daring her to out-stare me.  It was a
child's game; I admit it.

    Finally, I broke the silence.  "I really thought you were
my friend, Patty."

    I slowly turned to walk away, feeling as if my best
friend plunged a knife into my heart.

    To her benefit, Patty didn't rise to the bait.  Instead,
she quietly said, "At that time, Kristen didn't have any
friends, Jim.  The only person she could talk to was her
brother, who was living on the East Coast.  I felt that
Kristen needed a friend right then, and I tried to talk some
sense into her.  Can you really fault me for that?  Isn't
that what a friend is supposed to do?"

    I stopped walking away.  Patty did have a point.  I
sighed and said, "Kristen said you called her up and wouldn't
take no for an answer."

    "I did.  I knew what she was going through.  Kristen felt
violated, and to her, what you did to her was even worse than
what she thought happened to me."

    Once again, I was at a loss.  Patty's words were hitting
me like a sledgehammer.  I was barely able to choke out the
word, "Worse?"

    Patty shook her head slowly.  "Look at it from her point
of view.  You know what you did to her.  She felt humiliated
to have to call my home and then Wendy's mother just to talk
to me in order to set up a 'date' with you.  Usually, I'm
sensitive to these things, and I should have seen this when
you crossed the line, but I must have been under the
influence of a ticket.  I was, wasn't I?"

    Was Patty?  My mind was a mass of confusion of mixed
emotions and self-doubt.  I tried to think what happened the
day that I put Kristen under my power, and suddenly
remembered that I gave tickets to Wendy, Camille, and
Patty--and told them not to worry about how I was doing these
things, but rather to think that I was pretty wonderful.
"Oh, yeah," I said glumly, the realization hitting me.

    Patty nodded.  "That's probably why I couldn't think that
you were doing something terrible, Jim.  I didn't know it at
the time, but I was feeling very guilty for allowing what
happened to occur.  When I heard her on the phone the next
day, I realized that something was seriously wrong.  I needed
to do whatever I could to try to fix things."

    "You keep saying things like that.  You're sensitive to
the tickets; you knew how Kristen was feeling.  What are you
telling me?"

    Patty lowered her eyes.  "I've never been able to tell
anybody before.  Let me see if I can do so now.  If not, Jim,
it's not because I don't want to."

    My ears pricked up.  Patty was teetering on the verge of
answering a question that was on my mind for so long.  I was
genuinely curious.  "Tell anybody what?"

    Patty took a deep breath and said, "Camille and I have
been best friends since, like, forever.  Then something
happened to her.  Everybody knows her hair suddenly got
lighter.  She denied dyeing it, and eventually, everybody
didn't think much about it.  She also used to be an average
student, but she started acing classes.  She also started to
become more popular at school, sleeping with her sister's
friends, both boys and, it was whispered, girls.  That was
all very unlike her.  I'd ask her what was happening, and
she'd just shrug."

    "Camille was under the influence of the tickets," I said.

    "Right, but she didn't have them.  Her sister did."

    Patty knew about Debbie?  I simply nodded to confirm this
to Patty.

    "I confronted Debbie and demanded to know what was
happening.  She simply laughed at me and handed me a ticket.
This happened so fast that I couldn't ignore the ticket and
run away.  I was forced to take the ticket from her."

    "What did Debbie command you?"

    "I heard her words, Jim, and I can only tell you the last
part." Patty closed her eyes and added, "I remember her
saying, 'you will have no memory of what I've just said.'
That was it.  I left her house, and didn't worry about
Camille's odd behavior much anymore.  I started to take it
for granted as if she was always that way--a slut, in her own
words."

    "OK..." I said, drawing the syllables out, hoping that
Patty would continue.

    "I have a hunch about one of Debbie's commands.  I mean,
when I saw the ticket that first time, everything within me
told me to get away... run away... avoid it as if it were the
plague!  However, the next time I saw a ticket... in the
store when you now had them... instead of getting that bad
feeling, I eagerly took it, thinking that it would be fun.  I
knew what you were saying and what you were doing, and I just
went along with it.  I now think that Debbie must have made
me feel that way."

    That didn't follow what I understood of the tickets.
When the tickets passed from Debbie to whomever was next...
Camille?  Anyway, commands made didn't continue, did they?
But wait, what about the commands that Tim gave to Sherry...
they transferred to me, didn't they?

    "You're thinking of something," Patty said, looking at me.

    "Do you remember what Sherry told us, about how Tim gave
her a command and now she's forced to follow it with me?
What if Debbie's command to you is now directed at me?"

    Patty thought this over.  "That could make sense.  If
Debbie told me to trust her, and that command is directed
toward you..." Patty's voice trailed off.

    I let the red haired girl think about this.

    "Those things are... evil!"

    "Yeah," I said with a sigh.  "Tell me about it."

    "You must destroy them!"

    I shook my head.  "Nope.  That won't solve anything.
Debbie got rid of them and now I have them.  I got rid of
Tim's tickets, and now Sherry feels she needs to give up her
virginity to me."

    The two of us were silent for a long time.

    "The record's skipping."

    Patty and I turned to see Lynette in the doorway.  She
was wearing only a robe.

    How much did Lynette hear of our conversation?  I looked
wildly at Patty, and she shook her head a bit, but I didn't
understand what she was trying to tell me.  Was she
indicating that Lynette didn't hear anything, or that she
didn't know what Lynette heard?

    "The record!" Lynette repeated.  She moved over to the
phonograph and lifted the tone arm, which was riding in the
lead-out groove on side one of the Zeppelin album.  "Kristen
will kill you if you break that needle!"

    Without thinking, I pointed to a small box to the right
of the turntable.  "There's another Shure cartridge in that
box over there.  I think the old one was about due for a
change.  The new one's a type III that I've been wanting to
try out.  _Stereo Review_ gave it high marks."

    "You want me to change Kristen's cartridge?  Are you
fucking nuts?" Lynette looked at me with an incredulous
expression that made it look as if I just asked her to do
heart surgery on herself.

    "I'll do it later," I said, shrugging.  "I have the
screwdrivers in the studio, since that was the last place I
replaced a cartridge."

    Lynette picked up the record in between her palms, and
carefully placed it into the paper record insert before
putting it into the album cover.  She placed the album in the
wooden case, and switched the receiver so that it was playing
a soft song from one of the FM stations.

    "I'm going to the main house.  I think Kris is with
Cammy, and I want to tell Cammy all about the new routine
that Sherry and I came up with for the squad."

    "In your robe?" I asked.

    Lynette opened her robe, revealing one of Kristen's
designer bathing suits underneath.

    I whistled appreciatively.  "Give her my love," I said,
softly.

    Lynette smiled at me.  "I'll give everybody your love,
Oogie.  I'm sorry for interrupting, Patty.  I'll tell Kris
and Cammy that you're here."

    "Thanks, Lynette," Patty said.

    I thanked Lynette as well, and she left the billiard room
and headed down the hall.

    After I was sure that Lynette was out of the building, I
asked Patty, "Do you think she heard?"

    "No, she didn't."

    "Yeah, right," I said sarcastically.  "You can, like,
just feel that.  Right?"

    "No, Jim," Patty said, her face looking a bit hurt.  "I
can't talk about the tickets unless you are around, and never
when anybody else that doesn't know about them is around.
She came after we shut up."

    Patty said that with such certainty that I didn't bother
to argue.

    "What were we talking about?" I asked.

    "You said you can't destroy the tickets."

    "No," I corrected.  "I said I won't destroy them.  I
don't know enough about them, but everything inside me tells
me that if I just assume that destroying them will get them
out of my life, then I am seriously mistaken."

    Patty narrowed her eyes.  "Why do you say that?"

    I told Patty what I decided.  "Look, if I get rid of the
tickets, then most likely, they will end up with somebody
else.  Now, I've abused the tickets myself, and I've seen
what other people have done with the tickets.  I may not be
perfect..."

    Patty nodded.  "But you already know how easy it is to go
too far with them.  Right?  You've already made the mistakes."

    "Yeah," I said, nodding.  "Something like that."

    Patty thought for a few minutes.  After what seemed to me
to be an eternity, she finally said, "You have a good point."

    It was obvious to me that Patty wasn't happy whatsoever
with my answer, however.

* * *

    As I entered the kitchen in the main house, Daniel and
Charley Swift were just leaving.

    "Hello, Jim!  Kris, Will, and their friends are still
eating breakfast," said Charley.

    Charley gave Patty and me a big hug, and Daniel shook our
hands.

    I said, "You guys look as if you're going somewhere."

    Charley nodded.  "Kristen and Will sent us on an errand."

    An errand?  "Where's Harry?" I asked, confused.

    "We gave him the day off after he put that party together
yesterday."

    "Oh," I said.  I hadn't thanked Harry for all his hard
work, and I felt a little ashamed at that.

    "Have a nice day, you two!" Daniel added as he and his
wife left.

    Kristen noticed my expression, and laughed.  "Don't worry
about Mom and Dad," she said.  "They're happy for an excuse
to take a day trip to Chicago."

    "Oh," I said, still feeling guilty.

    Kristen jumped up from her chair and almost tackled me as
she gave me a kiss.  "Good morning, Oogie!"

    "Hi, Sweetness!" I said, trying to appear cheerful.

    I looked at the table, and saw Lynette, Camille, and Will
with some plates of pancakes.

    Kristen saw my look.  "Are you hungry?"

    "No," I said.  "I ate an orange."

    "How about you, Patty?" Kristen asked.

    "I don't think..."

    "Sit down!" Kristen ordered.  "Lynette, put some pancakes
on a plate for Patty."

    Patty was a bit bemused by Kristen's remark, and Lynette
immediately got up and started moving some of the extra
pancakes onto one of the empty plates next to the stack.

    I felt a bit left out, being the only one that was still
standing after Patty and Lynette sat down.  "What are the
plans for today, Goddess?"

    "I let Will hear the tape you made for me, Jim."

    Kristen didn't need to tell me which tape she was talking
about.  Unless I was seriously mistaken, it was the _Without
You_ tape.  "Oh?"

    "It moved me," Will said, softly.

    I shrugged.  The performance moved me as well, but
somehow, I felt a bit embarrassed that Kristen played the
tape for her brother without telling me first.

    Patty looked puzzled.  She stared at me for a few seconds
before finally asking, "A tape?"

    Somehow, this whole discussion was getting too intimate
for me.  Patty's eyes widened right before I made up my mind.

    I left the main house and ran back to the apartment.  I
started to go upstairs to the main bedroom, but remembered
that we didn't have any locks on the bedroom doors.  I took a
quick detour and locked myself into my studio and turned on
the DND light.

* * *

    To say that I felt bad was a gross understatement.

    For the last few months, I thought that everything was
going fine.  Thanks to Patty's assurances during the Senior
Weekend, I actually stopped thinking of myself as a terrible
rapist.  I was no longer dwelling on my misdeeds with the
tickets.

    Why were Kristen and Patty both bringing up the past now?
Just yesterday, Kristen told me how suicidal and lonely she
felt when we first met.  Then, this morning, Patty told me
that I was worse than the guy that raped Patty and turned her
life upside down afterward.

    I no longer felt worthy of Kristen's love.  Not only
that, I doubted that I deserved the friendship of Patty,
Lynette, Camille, and Will.

    After what seemed like an hour or so, I glanced at the
intercom light to see if it was blinking.  It wasn't.  I was
right: nobody loved me.

    I started playing the _Moonlight Sonata_ on the upright
piano.  For some reason, my mind was taken back to the Danish
musician-comedian Victor Borge, who I once heard play the
introduction to this song, doing a simple seguب into Cole
Porter's _Night and Day_, and finally into _Happy Birthday To
You_.  If memory served me correctly, Victor Borge called
this the "Moonlight Sinatra."

    I fumbled at the keyboard, missing the shifts in melody
and roundly butchered my attempt at reproducing Borge's joke,
and finally got up out of the stool in disgust with my
inability to play a simple musical parody.

    Frustrated, I felt like throwing things.  I lifted a box
of open reel tapes and saw a music book that Mr. Proilet gave
me last spring.

    Curious, I put the box down and picked up the music book.
I tried to remember the name of the song that Jean indicated
in the book.  I looked through the table of contents until I
saw the name _Canon_, which struck a chord in my memory.
Turning to the page indicated, I saw the composer's name,
Pachelbel.  This was the song that Mr. Proilet played for me
those months ago.

    I set the music on the piano and started playing.

    The song was very simple, but grew more complex as the
song progressed.  Despite its complexity, I found the strains
of the song quite soothing.

    Without thinking, I started playing my original melody
that my teacher told me sounded like this song as a
counterpoint to _Canon_.  It wasn't particularly easy, but I
was determined.  After a few moments, I found that the
arpeggios of _Canon_ worked nicely against the more
structured "verses" of my own song.  I shifted completely
away from _Canon_ to my song when the chord progression
diverged.

    From out of nowhere, words flew into my head.

        Wild geese flying low
        Always moving, on the go.
        Towards freedom's door,
        Moving on and on....
        Kids on the ground,
        Cloud shapes that they've found
        As the birds start to soar
        Before they are gone.


    I was no longer sitting at the upright, as I had shifted
over to the electric piano that Kristen and I purchased in
Lafayette.  I played a simple melody line with my right hand
while holding the sustain pedal down, listening to the notes
ring out like church bells.

    There was a part of me that wished that I was recording
this particular effort--I knew that any attempt to reproduce
this arrangement again would come out different.

    There was also another part of me that realized that
something just shifted in my world.  I couldn't put what
changed into words, though.

    I gained strength as more words came to me seemingly from
nowhere--but at the same time, from everywhere.

    I continued playing the keyboards, but not really paying
any particular attention to what was coming from my
fingertips.  I was singing, but instead of a song of despair,
it was a song of freedom and redemption.

    I closed my eyes and thought about Kristen tuning her
guitar just the day before.  I thought about the way she
fingered the song _Vincent_, a song that reminded her of her
past life.  I realized what I missed the day before.  As she
played the song, she wasn't looking at the strings of her
guitar, but looking directly at me!

    Kristen wasn't telling me about her loneliness and how
she felt when we first met to make me feel guilty, and
neither was Patty!  The two girls were instead telling me how
much has changed for the good since that time.  Kristen, in
particular, was telling me how much her life has changed for
the better!

    How many times did Patty tell me that I moved on from the
power hungry little twerp that tried his damnedest to
humiliate Kristen and ruin her life?  How many times did
Kristen tell me the same thing?

    At the same time, however, I knew that something was
bothering Patty.  I also knew what it was.  Those tickets
were still around, and they could just as easily be misused
once again just as I misused them just a year ago.

    The melody that I was playing switched to minor keys as I
considered the awful burden that these tickets would be to me
and whoever would inherit them next.

    I ended the song on a note of hope.

        My song has no rhythm,
        My song has no rhyme.
        Love wins over evil,
        Time after time!


    I burst out of the music studio, completely rejuvenated.
I must have looked a sight, with tears of frustration and
happiness stained on my face.  It didn't matter to me.

    "Are you all right?" Kristen asked me, surprised to see
me upstairs in the living room.

    "For the first time in a long time, Goddess," I said,
bending down to the recliner where Kristen was sitting to
give her a long kiss.

    I took a deep breath and faced Lynette, Patty, Camille,
and Will.  "I'm sorry for leaving like that before.  There
was a lot on my mind, and suddenly, things are making better
sense to me now."

    There were a few murmurs of "that's all right," from the
majority of the people there.

    Patty simply looked at me strangely.

* * *

    The six of us took two cars to the mall.  Kristen,
Lynette, and Will stopped at Martin's, Kristen's favorite
dress shop.  Patty, Camille, and I were just walking around.

    It was just after noon on a Sunday, and the mall wasn't
crowded at all.  We sat on a bench where we had a good view
of one side of the mall.

    "What happened in your studio?" Patty finally asked.

    "Something that should have happened a long time ago," I
said.  "I've decided to move on.  Kristen has moved on,
there's no reason that I shouldn't."

    "Huh?" Camille asked, confused.

    "Camille, I've finally decided to put the tickets behind
me."

    Camille looked at me as if I had two heads.  "What?
You're getting rid of them?"

    I shook my head.  "Nope.  I'm just refusing to let them
run my life."

    Even Patty seemed a bit confused by this.  "You said that
you won't get rid of them.  Has that changed?"

    "No," I said.  I thought about what I decided back in the
studio.  "I agree with both of you.  Those tickets are evil!
However, there's something deep down inside of me that is
telling me that I don't have the entire story, and without
knowing what I need to know, I can't make the right decision
about them."

    I turned to Patty.  "I can understand your telling me to
get rid of them, but that would only be foisting them onto
somebody else.  Camille's sister got rid of them, Tim Hawking
had them taken from him, but they are still around!"

    Looking at Camille, I added, "You may be right about
destroying them, but I don't know how!  What if I fail?  I
feel that I have an obligation--a duty!--to do the right
thing."

    Neither girl contradicted me, which surprised me.

    Finally, I said, "For the last year, I've been holding
onto them, and only used them when I felt I needed to do so.
There are still some problems brewing, including Sherry."

    "Sherry?" Camille asked, confused.

    Patty and I quickly brought Camille up to date on
Sherry's problem.

    "Yikes!" Camille said, shaking her head.

    "Tell me about it," I said soberly.  "Anyway, I will deal
with her as best as I can, and I'll try to do it without the
tickets."

    Patty looked thoughtful.  "What if they are... like..."
Patty stopped in mid-thought, apparently frustrated.

    "Like what?" I asked.

    Patty tried to speak again, and failed.

    I started getting frustrated.  "Like what?" I repeated.
"Tell me!"

    "Like... what if they are a test?" Patty finally blurted
out.

    "A test?" Camille asked.

    Patty looked quite out of breath.  It appeared that
asking that one question took a lot out of her.

    I didn't have any idea what Patty was talking about.  I
realized also that something prevented her initially from
asking the question.  For some reason, it occurred to me that
this might indicate that she was getting close to the truth.

    "A test," Camille mused.  "Sort of like Job in the bible?"

    "Huh?" I asked, ignorant of most of the bible.  "The guy
in the whale?"

    Camille shook her head, "That was Jonah.  Job was the
person that was tested--as a bet.  He had everything, and
then God took everything away from him."

    "If I was being tested, then I failed miserably," I said
sourly.

    "You could only say that if you know the nature of the
test."

    I shrugged.  I didn't know what test I was being given,
let alone if I passed it.  "What are you saying?"

    "You'll have to decide whether to keep the tickets or get
rid of them.  That's probably the test."

    It occurred to me right then that Camille's answer was
self-serving.  After all, she claimed to have rejected the
tickets.  Was she insinuating that she passed a test that I
failed?

    "That's as may be, Camille," I finally said.  I looked at
Patty, and saw confusion in her eyes, which confirmed to me
what I already decided.  "I'm still holding onto them until I
have more information."

    Camille surprised me by saying, "You know, that's
probably the best choice."

    The rest of our hour spent together was listening to
Patty and Camille talk about what was going on in their lives
since Camille moved to New England.  I excused myself to
visit Kristen's favorite candy store and ordered a container
of freshly made chocolate covered peanuts.

    For the first time, I didn't feel a twinge of guilt when
I ordered Kristen's delicacy.

--
jimc_author@hotmail.com

JiMC is only a pseudonym.  Respect my privacy and I'll respect yours.

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