"Thank you. Would you read the date at the top of that page for me?"
"That can't be right," Julie said.
"Could you speak up, please? What date is at the top of that page?"
"That can't be right," said Julie, louder.
"What is the date at the top of that page, Ms. Crenshaw? You can look up here if the type is too small for you."
"March 11th," Julie said.
"So the show you remember the very next day actually played two days earlier, is that correct?"
"No. It played that night."
"Could you have watched it a day earlier and gotten confused?"
"No," Julie said.
"Oh yes, that's right. You were at a cozy little night spot the night before, weren't you?"
Julie's mouth dropped open, and she stared at him.
"Dinner for two, soft lights, slow dancing," he took a couple steps to a silent tune. "Let's see, whom did you have that heavy date with?" he flipped a sheet of paper. "Ah yes, here it is."
He looked up from the paper, looked directly at Laura, then Julie, and then Laura again.
"Did they have 'Tip of the Iceberg' on the TV at this gay and lesbian bar? Were you catching a peek over Mrs. Wesson's shoulder while she shoved her tongue down your throat?"
"Objection."
"Sustained."
"I have witnesses," he turned and looked at a man in the second row, "who'll say that there was not only no television at that club,…"
Laura looked at the man in the second row. She hadn't recognized him. He was the same cocky stud who had tried to parley them into a threesome. He wasn't cocky any more. He had a strange haunted look. He had called himself Tex, but Laura had heard better Texas drawls from the Brits.
"…but a marching band could have stomped past without either of you noticing. Isn't it true Mrs. Crenshaw, that you were doing everything short of making love on the table when that episode of 'Tip of the Iceberg' was on?"
"Objection, your honor," Laura's lawyer said as he checked his watch.
Instead of ruling, Judge Pool simply watched Laura's lawyer, until he finally looked up. She started to say; "sustained," but a low giggling was starting from the back of the courtroom.
Heads were starting to swivel, when the giggles erupted into maniacal laughter. A scrawny figure rose from the back and filled the court with his booming voice.
"Your sins have made you blind," he bellowed, climbing over a bench to avoid the converging bailiffs, "You must face the truth. Seek forgiveness and grant it, or you will face eternal damnation."
Laura stared in shock, as the small form of Bobby Thompson was pulled down from the benches, and dragged out of the courtroom. What was the crazy little homeless man doing here?
Bobby the Preacher, she called him, because everything he said sounded like it came from the Bible. She'd been overpaying him for odd jobs for close to a year now, and had always thought he was harmless. The visage that had just been ranting and raving was a far more frightening Bobby the Preacher than she had ever seen.
Laura's blood ran cold as she remembered some of the more recent odd jobs she'd given him. She had even dropped him off at the beach house, to clean it, the night before she took Julie there. Was he the one who'd been telling the police so much? Was he somehow involved in this nightmare?
"Eternal damnation," his voice echoed from the hall.
Chapter Three
Velvet Traps
Bobby the Preacher was still struggling when they got him to a side door. He was demanding to talk to "God's fist" when one of his own fists connected with a bailiff's jaw.
"That's it. Book this asshole."
"Blind! You're all blind! The truth shall set you free!" he raved as they dragged him out the door.
Bobby was thrown in the drunk tank. All the voices in his head argued over the significance of this. He fought to silence them, and sat drained by the effort.
"What are you in for?" a fat, black man asked.
"Shining the light of truth. Saving the lost from damnation," Bobby said in his booming voice.
The yellowed whites of the black man's eyes rolled and he went to the far corner of the cell, "Amen, brother," he said softly, a sardonic smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "Good luck."
"The truth will set you free. Hellfire and damnation without forgiveness. Shut up, all of you," Bobby kept mumbling as he sat.
If only the voices would stop. If only they'd let him think. They hadn't been so bad that night in February.
It had been bitter cold, and Bobby was chilled to the bone. He went to the big house, the one where the beautiful rich lady lived. The one with the hot tub. The hot tub had saved him that winter. They were seldom home, and the tub was hidden from view.
The accident had brought the mixed blessings of the voices, but part of the price was the loss of his sense of smell. He could tell if he smelled bad from the reactions of the people he tried to bum money off, and they didn't wrinkle their noses for days after he soaked in the life-giving warmth of the hot tub.
He needed the tub that night, but the woman was home. He worked his way up into his Angel tree, the one that overlooked her bedroom. She had that other woman with her. They were putting on evening gowns. They were going out. He could wait.
He was easing in as they click-clacked down the driveway to the car, but waited till he heard the engine fade before he turned on the jets. He sighed and let the warmth seep clear down to his soul.
He had just got the cover back on when he heard the car, and was back in the Angel tree by the time they got in the house.
He had just laid out his bedroll on the makeshift platform when loud squealing froze him. They burst into Laura's bedroom as he watched, and they were both naked.
Bobby was Laura's guardian angel. What good was a guardian angel if he didn't watch over her?
The voices started as soon as Julie rested her nakedness on Laura. She might be fooling Laura, but Bobby could see the lust on her face as she rubbed her nastiness on Laura's innocent back. The voices were telling him to warn them, but the evil one had taken possession of his loins and held him motionless.
The evil one lost his grip when they finally settled down and drifted off to sleep, but roused again, with a vengeance, when Julie started committing her foul acts on Laura's sleeping form.
The voices were crying out urgently that he must do something, and he thought he was answering their call as he shimmied out on the tree's branch. The evil one, however, was in full control of his body. His voice kept still, and his eyes were forced wide as he clung to the branch scant inches from her bedroom window.
Julie looked like a spider, hovering over her prey. Her head dipped down, and the gap between lips and neck disappeared. She was holding her hair so it wouldn't tickle the sleeping woman, and her feather light kisses only caused the slightest of stirs.
Pain grew in Bobby's loins as the evil one forced blood into the devils wand. Even the bitter cold couldn't damp the fever that was gripping him.
Laura rolled to her back, and Julie froze above her. She waited motionless, hovering, waiting. Her head started to lower. Below the predator lips, Laura's nipple lay in ignorant repose. Slowly, painfully slowly, the lips drew nearer. A sigh froze the stalker for a moment, and then the descent resumed.
Tree bark suffered silently as Bobby's claws dug into it. The evil one obviously possessed Julie. No normal human could descend that slowly, take the nipple into its mouth that gently, or suckle that long without waking the victim.
Bobby saw the glint of white fingers in the shadow between Julie's legs. They were moving in a blur as she sucked on Laura's breast.
It ended an eternity later, and panic gripped Bobby when he tried to move. He couldn't move the fingers that gripped the branch, nor the legs that scissored it. Only his head and eyes had movement, and they were being pulled back to the sight beyond the window.
Julie had curled up behind Laura, with one hand lifted in the air. She curled all but one of her fingers, and brought the single finger to Laura's face. She didn't touch the befouled finger to Laura's face; she simply held it close under her nose. Bobby understood her evil design. She was imprinting her scent on Laura, preparing the sleeping woman for the final conquest. She planned to grasp Laura's auburn hair some day, and draw her innocent face to the foulness between her legs. Even now, the stench of her lust was wrapping its tendrils around the feelings of pleasure the cunning hands were gently stroking into her. When the time came, she wouldn't cry out with revulsion as she was drawn down, nor struggle as her face was pressed to the wet dankness.
Control of his body returned, and the voices argued as he worked his way back to the platform. Which power had wanted him to see that? The good, so he could craft ways to set things right? Or evil, so the Devil's wand throbbing between his legs could rule his life and drag him down to damnation?
The part of his mind that was still his grew silent. He didn't know what to think. The voices would figure it out and tell him in the morning. He curled up in his pack and listened to them argue late into the night.
"Get your stuff, freak," a burly guard said.
"They say you hit an officer," his social worker said, but Bobby didn't answer.
The voices were telling him his hands were dirty, but he couldn't see the dirt. She led him outside, and he could see more and more dirt on his hands as she led him to her car. He kept trying to wipe it off on the seat, but the dirt kept getting thicker all the way to the hospital. They were going to let him stay in one of the nice, white rooms tonight. He'd be warm, and they'd feed him. He liked this place, but he wished they'd let him wash his hands again.
