HOME (NOT-SO-) SWEET HOME
I'd left a wakeup call for five-thirty. Dee brewed a small pot of coffee (provided in the room), while I walked next door to a gas station to buy pastries and a detailed map. It took me several long minutes of study before I could locate the street name indicated on Willie's key chain. It was in a very small subdivision containing numerous short, minor streets. I carefully plotted our course, fed the dog, finished my second cup of coffee, and we were off. I was expecting a house, or maybe an apartment. It was instead a small single-wide mobile home in a trailer park, sandwiched among hundreds of others, the units separated by only a dozen feet on either side. This one was much shorter than the other homes, and we drove past it twice before we figured out which one it was.
Once again, I left Maxine in the truck as Dee and I climbed the short set of metal stairs to the front (and only) door. It was still before seven a.m., and either no one was about this early, or they just chose to ignore us. The key fit the lock, and we went in.
The walls were a sickly shade of green, and thin wooden strips were spaced along them. I happened to know that this is a very prevalent feature in mobile homes. They cover expansion joints, which allow the walls to flex as the unit is being towed on the highways. A naugahyde couch was built into one wall, and it faced the only table in the room, the dining table, I guessed. This small room obviously encompassed the duties of living room, dining room, kitchen, den, and everything else except the bathroom and bedroom, which lay behind a partially open sliding door at the far end.
Dee started crying. "She was so ALONE here!" she whispered through her tears. I had to agree. There was no TV, no radio, and evidently no books. I opened the top of a small chest of drawers, and immediately came across an amazing find. It was a small, flat mahogany box, about four inches by six, and maybe three inches deep, inlaid with ancient signs of the zodiac all around its base. The top was varnished and hand painted with a great deal of skill: a picture of a woman in a sheer robe, her luscious body clearly visible beneath, an aura or halo surrounding her head. It was absolutely exquisite.
"That must contain the cards," Dee told me. "It was on the table when she was playing her game." I looked at her quizzically. "In my dream," she explained.
This didn't really impress me; I still didn't believe all this rigmarole about dreams. We'd come specifically for a box of cards, and here was a box that was certainly the right size. I set the box on the table and took off the lid. It contained, as I expected, a tarot deck. The cards were set inside in two stacks, side by side, and like the box itself, each card was an individual work of art. I picked up the top one and turned it over in my hand. It was made of some type of wood, very thin and very hard. The card's back was inlaid with the same design that was on each card, precisely identical, excruciatingly exact in every detail. The face of the card bore the same picture as the one on the box, obviously hand painted, and amazingly intricate. I knew that there were literally hundreds of different tarot designs, some dating back hundreds, perhaps thousands of years, as well as some very modern ones. I also knew that the collectors of these decks often waited impatiently for the latest designs from the more famous tarot artists, who normally painted one new series of cards every year. And, I realized the value of the deck that now lay before me. It appeared VERY old. I would guess that collectors would gladly pay thousands of dollars PER CARD for these. This deck belonged in a museum.
"Is that the queen?" Dee asked, looking over my shoulder. She picked up the next card on top of the deck, and her brow furrowed. "They're all face cards. Is this one the jack ... or the king?" She obviously knew nothing about the tarot. Quite frankly, neither did I. One of my students had written a paper on it once, but I had no idea what the symbols were or what they meant. I took the card from her, put them both back in the box, and put the lid on it.
"Let's get out of here," I told her. "Get the boxes out from under the bed. I'll look around a little, and we'll get back to the hospital." I began rummaging through the other drawers, but they were mostly empty. In one, I found no fewer than seven passports, four issued in the United States, and the rest from different countries. All were for our "Mr. Wharton," and all were under different names. Willie's clothes were in a drawer under the "couch," but they were not in very decent shape. I found a plastic bag in the kitchen and began stuffing shorts, t-shirts and underwear into it. I had an eerie premonition, and I suddenly decided to eradicate all evidence of Willie from the place. I snatched up a hair brush, a package of Cotex, a woman's razor, and threw them into the bag, as well. There weren't many feminine items in the place.
"Master! Quick! Come here!" Dee yelled from the bedroom. I plopped the bag containing Willie's things on the table next to the card box and went to the bedroom at the rear of the trailer. She had pulled three boxes from under the bed, and she knelt next to an open one, holding up banded bundles of currency toward me. The box was full of money, neatly stacked. I opened another box, which was also entirely full of bills. I flipped through a bundle. They were all fifties, but the bundle under it was a stack of hundreds. No denomination seemed smaller than a twenty. There were six boxes in all. Some of the bills were obviously new, others just as obviously were not. I couldn't even begin to estimate a total.
We quickly carried the boxes out to the truck, made sure not to forget the plastic bag or the tarot deck, and I locked the trailer's door securely. As we drove off, I marveled at the fact that we had not seen one other human being since we arrived.
"What do you suppose it all means?" Dee asked me.
"I don't know," I answered. "Nothing makes any sense at all." We drove in silence for awhile. "I found all of her things in the living room in a couple drawers under the couch."
"That's where she slept," Dee said with certainty. "HE slept in the bed."
I shook my head. "I'm sorry, Dee, but I simply can't believe that you could know that she's a virgin just by looking at her. And I can't believe that Wharton, or any other man for that matter, could call a girl like that his wife without ...." I couldn't finish.
"I know what you mean, Master. I feel it, too."
We drove north quickly, toward ... what? "I don't know what we're going to do, Dee," I admitted. She let a long minute go by before answering.
"Brenda will know what to do," she said confidently. "Brenda ALWAYS knows what to do."
And after thinking about it for the next sixty miles, I was forced to admit she was right.
BORN TO BE A SLAVE
The hospital was ready to discharge Willie when we got there about ten o'clock. Our young, white-haired beauty sat on the edge of her bed in one of those hospital gowns that gaps open in the back no matter how hard a person tries to keep it closed, and I must admit that the few glimpses I caught of her smooth young back and buttocks were certainly enticing. I tried hard not to stare; but I also noticed that Brenda noticed that I noticed. She smirked. I shrugged.
Willie's clothes were in tatters, so Dee had brought her a change of attire from the plastic bag. While the girls fussed over her, I went back to admissions to check her out. I didn't want to associate Willie with her husband or the address we had visited down in the city, so I gave them my address at the lake as a contact point. I wasn't sure how we were going to handle the inquiries I knew would be coming from the coroner's office and other officials. I'd figure out something later.
The drive home was a little strange. Everyone just naturally assumed that I'd be taking her home with us. Willie never asked where we were going or what was going to become of her. She just did exactly what she was told. The girls both chatted constantly about all sorts of things: what we would be having for dinner, Brenda's latest article, weeding the front flower garden, the addition to the house. (We had decided to add on to "Walden" to accommodate the new nursery, and that topic was good for a bit of time. I couldn't see just adding one room, so the new addition would be comprised of three new rooms and a third bathroom. The workmen would be coming in a few weeks, and they expected to be finished in October. That was the plan, anyway.)
It was a beautiful day, and as we pulled up to the house Willie gave a gasp. It soon became evident that her eyesight was a little better in the bright light. I was anxious to learn the limits of her visual abilities, but that would come in time, I knew. (Was I already beginning to think of her as a permanent resident?)
The girls took her on the grand tour, walking slowly down to the lake and back, Maxine running happily all around them, before they all finally disappeared inside the house. They had seemed to be chatting almost constantly, and I could tell, as I was setting up the sodden tent to dry out, that Willie, who had been almost painfully silent during our drive, was beginning to join in the conversation. It was nice to see her opening up. Come to think of it, it was just nice to SEE her, period.
It's difficult to describe her. The analogy to feline grace is a tired metaphor, but the girl definitely had a way of moving that was ... well, MORE than just attractive. It was mesmerizing. She walked with a sort of subtle, slinking gait that was a cross between innocence and pornography. She obviously didn't know she was doing it, and that made it more tantalizing still.
When I'd finished putting things away, I joined them indoors. Brenda and Willie were sitting on bar stools watching Dee make lunch. To Willie, everything around her was new and exciting, but her demure nature wouldn't allow her to ask questions until her curiosity became too great to be denied. The girls were more than happy to explain everything to her: the food processor, the electric can opener, the microwave, the coffee maker. More than once, I found myself about to demand how it was that she had never been introduced to these common items before, but I wisely remained silent.
Lunch was a rather pained event. Willie watched all of us discretely but closely, then followed suit with her soup spoon for the clam chowder, and daintily picked up her tuna salad sandwich and nibbled a corner. Finally, unable to contain herself, she practically inhaled the meal. We couldn't help but stare as she wolfed her food. Sensing our gazes, she blushed and stopped eating entirely. Albinos are interesting folks when they blush. They turn much redder than other people.
"I'm sorry," she said in a low voice after she had chewed and swallowed. "This is VERY good. I haven't had the pleasure of eating food like this for many months now."
