This was my first story. As your comments suggested, it sure could use some editing. So with lots of that editing, I consolidated the separate chapters into one novella (21000 plus words) to make it more readable for you, dear reader...
A second part is on the way.
Chapter 1
Friends Don't Eat Friends
In the dark...so hungry, again!
By the ornate column in the old bar stands Sheila, a stunning woman of vastly indeterminate age. She's in shadow just far enough away so as not to be bothered by the bartender or his customers. Being the residual of her encounters, Sheila wants the babes in the woods, innocents, to bring back what she's lost long, long ago.
And here they be, the new ones, tantalizing appetizers: The wispy haired red head with sad eyes and an elfin face, her lean body a beautiful tender morsel. The confident salesman on the prowl, his closer's smile a tad too bright. The hooked-up couple whose touch, cool and calculating, belies hollow enthusiasm.
As she focuses on them, they become satellites in the sun of her subtle yet undeniable attention. One by one they notice the odd warmth, turn instinctively to that beguiling something, felt but unseen, in the dark of the bar. Little movements, a step here, an adjustment there, edging closer, unconsciously, toward the platinum-haired Sheila who is still, quiescent by the column, radiant in ways unseen, like the moon to the ocean. Draw near weaves the call of her attraction as they smile and laugh and do whatever to preen, to show off, to be noticed, to be selected:
Please!
Sheila smiles. It is all she needs to do to gather the she-kittens, scampering after their catnip and those puppies all aglow in the scent, tails wagging, dicks-up and ready.
Come home to mama Sheila,
thinks.
I'm so hungry.
(And a little nervous she admits—that
unknowingness
—so unlikely after these many years.)
Here in Bisbee, Arizona, a mining town turned arty, she's been an unknowable presence for a long, long time. Small and cliquey, the town hardly remembers her, the traces are faint and to be found in the most unlikely places. The county recorder's office lists Sheila as the owner of Bisbee's oldest, now defunct whorehouse, the deed older than the oldest resident, save one--its owner.
Sheila stirs. There's a problem in this overt stalking. She doesn't want to draw the unwanted attention nor the fretful memories of the unselected. How could she last so long otherwise? She must winnow them, then send the right one on an unobtrusive search. She eases the attraction and moves away to mollify her unsuspecting devotees. Now she focuses a single intention and draws on an unruly instinct to push it forth: An electric impulse from eye to eye like some strange invisible sigh.
Across the room, Julie feels an unmistakable tingle and wonders, why now? What is this sexual urge when all I'm doing is idly looking at that curious woman by the column, who has somehow slipped away.
There! Just like that stepping out the door. I was going to that place by the Copper Queen anyway...
One to go, a take out bakery for a pretty muffin, her skin a glaze of snowy white butter cream, delicious to lick,
Sheila thinks as she stops by a railing to adjust her shoe so that the pretty redhead can catchup.
"These hilly streets are hard on heels," Julie says as she comes near the strange woman with that fantastic silver hair. Normally shy, she is surprised at her boldness.
"I know," Sheila says. "It was just vanity to wear them." Then she reaches out and steadies herself by touching Julie's shoulder.
Julie is electrified; she holds onto Sheila's arm like a drowning swimmer, her body sinking. Suddenly both are shuddering, shivers spiking through them. Like stepping from arctic ice into desert sun, their bodies charged.
"Ow!" Julie shouts, "You shocked me. Talk about static!" As she leans against Sheila to keep from falling.
She is trembling and then laughing. "Yeah, we could light up this town! I hope I didn't scare you," Sheila says and pats Julie's arm timidly. (Her mind whirling,
Like you scared me--why did I react this way to one of the innocents?
)
Julie surprises herself by saying, "We should drink to the newfound lights of Bisbee?" And hopes the woman doesn't notice her blushing.
"Yes, we should! I'm Sheila..." Instead of squeezing her arm or shaking her hand, she leans into Julie and kisses her cheek lightly.
Julie trembles and says, "Nice to meet you, my name is Julie," and cannot resist the impulse to brush her fingertips against Sheila's cheek lingering at her chin as though she too were ready to kiss her.
"Gee, Sheila, I'm usually shy. Here I am acting so...ah familiar. Sorry..."
"No worries," Sheila says, "let's make it a funny start for new friends!" (
Why would I say that?--It will surely be a very short friendship, Do friends eat friends?
)
They walk up the hill in the dark, utterly companionable, arms swinging, hands touching, eager to be held; the women oddly at ease in the mystery of each other's company.
Ahead three shapes silhouetted by a streetlight turn onto their narrow street and walk towards them. Men, their shadows ominous.
Sheila notices Julie tense. "Don't worry about them," Sheila says, and takes Julie's hand.
"They might tease us--or worst," Julie replies, but squeezes Sheila's hand tighter.
"We could get lucky," Sheila murmurs.
"What?"
"I could use the exercise."
"If you say so," Julie says, surprised now at her own sanguine attitude. In fact, she is more excited than afraid. There seems something unassailable, even invincible about the two of them together,
electric ladies of the night
. She says it aloud, "Electric ladies of the night."
"I know," Sheila says, "I heard you the first time."
Julie stops walking and looks at her new friend. "That's weird 'cause I didn't say it out loud the first time. Oh! Oh! Now I can hear you thinking, clear as a bell inside my head, 'This is so complicated.'— Like your plan for us changed."
"You know what else, Sheila, I can even tell that you are resisting the change because it so surprising for, your term, an innocent like me."
Meanwhile the shadows turn into noisy, rowdy men in slouch hats, a sometimes sinister affectation of the town's bad boys.
"Hellooo there ladies," one of them leers, his voice filled with false cheer. "You two want some company?" he adds predictably.
"Nope cowboy," Sheila says pleasantly, still holding Julie's hand.
"Just cause you like her pretty tits, don't mean we can't too!" He says, moving toward them.
Later, Julie can't remember what possessed her to shift sideways and arc her leg, tilting her foot at an angle so as to strike effortlessly, up and out, to cleanly break his jaw. Sheila stares at her in amazement and thinks,
I thought I was tough!
Julie doesn't miss a beat, "You are girlfriend," she replies out loud, "I'd be running away madly without you here at my side."
The man with the broken jaw is moaning, slumped on the street. One of his friends pulls a small-caliber gun and raises his hand to point it at the girls. There is a blur and Julie hears the unmistakable crack of bones breaking (
like a wishbone snapping
she thinks and then hears Sheila in her mind say,
I wish you hadn't seen that
).
No matter,
