Anjali's Red Scarf Ch. 11

"Well fuck." I tried to remember what we'd said and done within earshot of the phone. Quite a lot, all things considered.

Lucy squeezed my hand again. "It doesn't necessarily mean it has, but we need to talk about this. With Anjali. And figure out what to do about it." She hesitated. "I mean, if you want me part of that, you don't have to—"

"Please. She's probably getting up soon, we should go straight over—"

Lucy shook her head. "You're in no state. You need sleep." I started to object, but she shut me down. "A few hours isn't going to make a difference. And I do have to meet my mum. I know this is hugely upsetting for you"—she clasped her other hand on mine—"and I promise I'll be there for you, but if you take my advice you'll go home and go to bed and we'll go over in the evening. Just let her know you have her phone and we'll be over." Then she looked past me. "Motorbike guy just made a call, then left."

"Well thank god for that, at least. I wonder who he is."

"You said the parents are in Sydney, right?"

"Yeah."

"My guess would be they've hired a private investigator. Check out where she's going, who she's with, what she's doing. Had a few cases with Family Court dads doing that."

I nodded, and yawned.

"Come on," she said, "we can talk about this after you've had some shut-eye."

I left her in town, agreeing to meet up later en route to Anjali's. Back at my place, I emailed Anjali:

Hi, I have your phone, Lucy and I will drop by your place around 3 this afternoon if that's okay?

It irked me to omit the most important part, but as Lucy had pointed out, we were only speculating. We couldn't confirm our suspicions until Anjali was able to unlock the phone for us, and it would not be doing her a kindness to leave her worrying for hours over something that might be a false alarm.

Having sent the email I lay back on my sofa, just for a minute, and sleep caught up with me at last.

* * * * *

I'd never been inside Anjali's apartment. Indeed, until the previous night's taxi ride I hadn't even visited. It was neat and clean and extremely cosy, a bed-sit just large enough for one smallish woman who enjoyed her own company. With the three of us crowded in together it felt extremely cramped. She'd insisted on giving Lucy the one and only chair, so Anjali and I sat side by side on her bed.

She had at first been pleased to see the two of us, if a little confused as to why Lucy was there and why we hadn't immediately given her back her phone. As Lucy explained things, her face slowly crumpled, and when Lucy had finished she said nothing.

I handed her the phone, wrapped in several layers of my winter socks to muffle the microphone. "If you unlock it, Lucy can check it."

Anjali nodded slowly, keyed in her PIN, and handed it over to Lucy, and we watched in silence as Lucy did her thing. After a few minutes she put her finger to her lips, then showed us the list of installed apps, pointing at one called something like "map helper". Then she powered the phone off, popped the battery out, and set it on the table.

"Installed February 27, three days after all the basic apps, and not updated since. It has access to location and mobile data, so everything it needs to let somebody know where you are. Can't be sure from the name but it smells sus to me."

"No access to anything else?" I asked. "SMS, email...?"

"No, but I can't guarantee there's nothing else on there. Have to get a professional to check it to be sure. There's a company work uses when we need to check staff phones, like after that Guangzhou trip. I can find out if they're available for a private job, or if they can recommend somebody."

"Okay," I said. "So what do we—"

I stopped. Next to me Anjali was shaking, rocking back and forth, making a soft wordless noise.

"Anjali?" I touched her shoulder. "Anjali?"

No answer. Her hands were clenched into tight balls.

"Anjali, are you okay?" Lucy asked. No answer.

I didn't know what to do. I'd seen Anjali melt down before but never like this, never completely uncommunicative, and I'd never been there myself. She was hurting and I hated it and I didn't know what she needed. I couldn't stand it.

When I touched her hand with mine, she just pulled hers closer into her body, breaking the contact. Still rocking and shivering and keening softly to herself, and all my protective instincts howled at me to do something.

I looked up at Lucy. She was looking back at me, waiting for me to tell her what was needed. Like I knew. She mouthed something and pointed at herself, at the door, and I realised she was asking should I go? I gestured back, I don't know. Now I was starting to shiver myself, besieged by vicarious emotion. What to do?

The only thing I could remember was a story I'd read years ago, not long after I got my own diagnosis, from a woman who'd been caregiver to a non-speaking autistic girl. I didn't know if it was right for the situation, but I didn't have any better ideas, so I did that.

"Hey Anjali," I said softly, "I'm going to put a blanket over you, but if you don't want it, you can shrug it off." There was one on the bed, and Anjali was sitting on that, but I found another folded at the foot of it. "And I'm going to get you a glass of water—oh, thanks Lucy." She'd already risen to fetch a glass from the rack by the sink and fill it.

I wasn't really sure how water was supposed to help, but it was what the woman had done in the story I'd read. I guess hydration is important? I accepted the glass from Sarah and touched it to the back of Anjali's hand, but she didn't take it. "It's next to the bed. You can have it if you want but you don't have to. Lucy's going to go now, but I'm going to stay here with you unless you want me to go."

Lucy nodded at me, mouthed something else that I didn't get, and let herself out very quietly. Anjali shuddered, and I sat with her, and I waited. The clock ticked, and I waited, and I waited.

It had been early afternoon when we arrived. It was getting on for dusk when Anjali spoke at last, voice dull and empty. "May I have that water, please?"

I passed it to her again, and she sipped from it and passed it back to me. Time stretched out a little longer before she spoke again. "Is this my fault?"

"Is it...what? How could it be your fault?"

"I've been lying to them, haven't I?"

"Oh god." I hugged her, unthinking. She didn't hug me back, but neither did she flinch away. "No no no. You're a grown woman. They don't have the right to know all your business. You have the right to keep some secrets." As I said it I wondered how much of that was honest advice, and how much selfishly defending the arrangement I had with her, the arrangement which I enjoyed and her parents could never have approved. I thought maybe eighty-twenty. But it was true, even if my motives for saying it weren't purely altruistic.

"I want so much just, just to have a normal relationship with them. I know there's a stereotype with Indian parents, and it's not entirely false, but...I talk with my friends about their families and it's not like this. Not this...crazy. Maybe if I was normal."

"No." I wasn't sure if she was in the right place to hear my script, but it was the closest thing I had for this. "Not everything that happens is your responsibility. You don't have influence over everything. Your parents chose to do this. It was a shitty choice and you didn't force them to make it. They get to own it."

"What if they've been listening to us? The things we've talked about?"

Then they know you've been fucking me for money, and we're really fucked, I thought but didn't say. I was trying not to panic about that myself—I wasn't completely sure of my legal situation, but even aside from that, it really wasn't the kind of thing I wanted my colleagues knowing, or my family. "Let's not stress about that yet," I said, as if that was the kind of thing one could just decide not to do. "Let's find out what they have done, and then we can figure things out based on that."

"I guess," she said, in a tone that suggested she had no more faith than I did in our ability to stick to that advice. "How do we do that?"

"Lucy said she knew a company."

"Oh...where is Lucy?" Anjali looked around as if expecting to find her fallen down behind the desk.

"She left. To give us some space." I checked my phone, and the brightness of the screen made me realise how dark it had become. I'd thought I'd felt it buzz some time ago, and indeed, there was a message from Lucy: Here to talk if you want to. No rush.

I replied. Still at A's. She's talking but v shaken. Hope you got home safe?

No. I'm just up the road at a cafe.

You what?

Waiting around in case you needed company or a lift after. It's okay, I brought a book.

"She's just up the road," I told Anjali. "Shall I ask her to come back?"

"Um." She shook her head as if trying to dislodge something. "Yes? Maybe?"

Ten minutes later Lucy was back in the flat with us, turning on the lights that we'd left untouched as the flat slid into darkness, making tea, switching on the oven. "I brought pastries," she said. "I reckoned neither of you would have eaten."

We sat and munched together in silence. In an odd sort of way, it felt more intimate than...had it just been the previous night? I'd lost track, and had to check my phone calendar to confirm that it really had been less than twenty-four hours since I'd debauched "Lily" in Lucy's dining room.

After we'd eaten, and things were feeling a little less fraught, Lucy said, "You should both consider getting legal advice."

"You're a lawyer," I replied. "You've done family cases before."

"I can't be your lawyer. I work for P-K, I can't just take independent jobs, especially not for a co-worker. Even if I was allowed to, it wouldn't be a good idea."

I nodded reluctantly. "Point taken, I guess."

"Look, I can recommend somebody. A friend of mine." She picked out one of Anjali's notepads and jotted down a name and phone number. "Get yourself a new phone, call Salwa tomorrow, tell her I sent you. She's going to need to know about your arrangement."

"Okay," said Anjali, although she didn't sound at all certain.

"I'll get you details for a guy to look at your phone. Anything else?"

Anjali looked at us uncertainly. I didn't know what was best to do, but I was pretty sure nobody else did either, and I was getting back to that state of tiredness where I didn't trust my own judgement.

"Okay, what if Lucy and I head home now and let you rest, but you know how to reach us if you need anything."

"Thank you, I will."

We were almost out the door when I remembered. I left Lucy waiting and spoke to Anjali softly: "By the way, we have a date booked next weekend, did you want to cancel or—"

"No, I'll be okay," she said. "I think."

* * * * *

Anjali looked up at me from her seat on my sofa. "So, ma'am, what are we playing tonight?"

I'd treated the two of us to a banquet dinner at a posh Middle-Eastern restaurant, because both of us needed cheering up after the week we'd had; as well as the phone business, I'd been up to my ears dealing with the aftermath of our little Schiphol glitch, documenting everything and making sure we didn't make the same mistake twice. The banquet had been rather larger and more delicious than expected and we'd eventually admitted defeat, boxing the last of it up and taking it back to my place for later.

"Well, I was going to tell you a story..."

"Go ahead..."

I stood behind her, hands propped on the back of the sofa. "Once upon a time, there was a great big company. So big that nobody really knew exactly what they did, but everybody agreed it was dreadfully important and it made a lot of money."

"Mmm-hmm."

"In that company was a senior manager named Mr. Brown, and he had two junior execs working for him. Both of them hired at the same time. One of them was Miss Lily Bell."

I ruffled her hair, just enough to punctuate my story.

"Miss Bell was very bright. She came top of her class in university. She made the best pie charts and wrote the best reports and came up with all sorts of good ideas for new products. And as well as that, she was lovely. She never had an unkind word for people, she remembered everybody's dietary requirements, and every December she sent everybody in her department a handmade card where she wrote about some of the good things they'd done that year."

I stroked her hair again, and then leaned back.

"The other one was Miss Miriam Dorn. She was also very bright, and she would have come top of her class if she hadn't been sharing it with Miss Bell. Her pie charts and reports were very good but not quite as good as Miss Bell's. And she wasn't as nice as Miss Bell."

With the tip of one finger, I stroked the back of Lily's neck. She squirmed, just a little.

"In fact, I'm sorry to say, she wasn't nice at all.

"Now, one day when they were all in a meeting, Mr. Brown mentioned that he was planning to retire at the end of the year, and everybody knew that Miss Bell and Miss Dorn were the favourites to replace him.

"Now, Miss Bell should have been the obvious choice, because her work was just that little bit better than Miss Dorn's. But somehow, she had a run of bad luck. One of her reports turned out to be missing an important section, even though she knew she'd written it - somehow she must have accidentally saved an older version over the newer one. She had to stay up all night rewriting it at the last minute. And sometimes the data in her spreadsheets was wrong, and she couldn't understand why it didn't match the proper values. Lots of little things going wrong. But fortunately Miss Dorn was always there to encourage her.

"It happened that the Board of Directors was meeting to make a decision about whether to buy Luxembourg, and both Miss Bell and Miss Dorn were giving presentations to the Board. They spent weeks working on their presentations, and gave one another feedback on their slides, and then the company flew them to the Bahamas because that's where the Board was meeting. For tax reasons.

"The meetings were going all week, and Miss Bell was due to give her first presentation on the Monday, around one o'clock. But at lunchtime, when she switched on her laptop to go through her slides one last time... instead of her desktop, a message popped up with a picture of a pirate and a message that just said 'You've Been Pwned By Davey Jones! All Your Base Are Belong To Us!'"

"Oh no," murmured Lily, not sounding entirely shocked.

"Poor Miss Bell was at her wit's end. The meeting was due to start in just forty-five minutes, and here she was with no slides and no laptop. But luckily her good friend Miss Dorn was there."

"How fortunate," said Lily.

I sidled around to the front of the sofa and sat down next to her. "And she said, 'I think I have a copy of your slides on mine, from when you sent it to me for feedback last week. I could lend it to you for the presentation this afternoon.' And she loaded up her laptop and there it was.

"'Oh, Miriam, you're the best!' said Miss Bell.

"'But,' said Miss Dorn, 'I need a favour from you first.'

"'Of course,' said Miss Bell. 'Anything for a friend.'

"'Come with me,' said Miss Dorn, and she led Miss Bell to a little meeting room just near the big one where the Board was meeting that afternoon. 'I've been feeling quite nervous myself about this week's meetings, and the best way to deal with that starts like this.' And she turned to Miss Bell and kissed her."

"Oh, Miss D—mmph!" spluttered Lily, for I had just matched my actions to my words. When I eventually let her disengage for a moment, she exclaimed, "Well, I—Miss Dorn! What are you—mmph!"

When I let her go again, after a much longer and deeper kiss, I said, "Miss Bell, we only have thirty-five minutes before your presentation. If you want to make it on time, we can't waste time on poorly considered questions." I slid one hand up her back, grasped the back of her neck, as the other teased at the V of her blouse. "I'm doing you a huge favour here."

"Yes, and I'm very grat—eek!"

As she was talking, I had slid my hand around, grasping her breast possessively. "Now, Lily, you're obviously very worked up, and as your good friend, I can't relax and concentrate while you're stressed. So we need to do something about this hysteria of yours and we need to act fast. Over my knee."

"What?"

"Thirty-two minutes." I pulled her down across me, grinning as she quivered in my arms. "It's okay, you're going to love this bit." My fingers slid up her stockinged thigh, pushing her skirt aside, rough and quick.

"What are you—ooh!" She was warm and soft, and through her gusset I could already feel the beginnings of arousal.

"Don't worry, I'm not undressing you." At least, not technically. I worked a fingertip inside the gusset, seeking, stroking. "It's a shame we don't have more time but I bet we can have you well and truly relaxed by one o'clock. Now, are you going to be difficult?" With my other hand, I squeezed a little tighter at the back of the neck.

"Oh, no, Miriam, I'll—"

"Good. In that case, let's have your knees a little wider apart, hmm? Yes, like that. Just like that." My fingertip was outlining her lips, just starting to wander inwards.

"Miriam, this isn't, we shouldn't—"

"Lily, you're a very clever girl, but sometimes you need to learn when to take somebody else's lead. Speaking of which, I think you should call me Miss Dorn. Got that?"

She shuddered as my fingertips drifted into more sensitive territory. "But—"

"The words I'm looking for"—I pressed a little harder, felt her body jerk—"are 'yes, Miss Dorn'. And if you want variety, 'please, Miss Dorn' or 'thank you, Miss Dorn'. You're not going to need 'but'. Do you understand?"

"Y-yes, Miss Dorn." That catch in her voice made me want to do bad things to her...well, worse things. So I worked my fingers in deeper, feeling how slick she'd become, probing into her, drawing out her lubrication.

"Oh..."

"See, I told you you'd love this." I slid two fingers all the way in and she groaned, back arching, and subsided again as I drew them out. I teased her that way for a little while, listening to the roughness of her breathing, the slick-slick-slick of my fingers as they slid through her wetness.

"Let's move you, cutie." I eased her up off my knees, and laid her over the armrest. "Like that." I continued to tease her until she was squirming at every touch, and then I said, "Twenty-six minutes. Better get a move on if you're going to have time to check your slides before the show. Luckily for you, I came prepared for this trip."

I reached behind me, down under the cushions where I'd stashed a bag before dinner. Lily couldn't see what I was doing, but she made curious noises as I tipped it out, and more so as she heard me shedding my slacks. But as I snapped the harness into place, she made a small sound of recognition.

"Miss Dorn, why on earth did you bring that on this trip?"

"Think of it as a relaxation aid." I pressed a small button near the base, and it started to buzz, which earned another gasp from Lily even before I eased the gusset aside and nuzzled the head against her.

"Miss Dorn, you said you weren't undressing me..."

"And I'm not. Your skirt and your panties are still on, aren't they? Now, we have twenty-four minutes before your presentation starts. So what do you say?"

In a very quiet voice: "Please, Miss Dorn?"

"See, I knew you were a smart girl." I grasped her hips and slowly eased the cock into her. "There, isn't that nice?"