Lady Behind The Wall

"I agree with yourschwanzstücker; it is a little late for that. Still, you know what I mean, John. I don't want to come to you just in my shift, as Mary Kate Danneher would say. I want to bring something with me, so people won't think you've gone and taken up with a gold digger." I kissed her lips, feeling them part under mine.

"Deirdre, you could come to me naked as the day you were born and I'd be happy to have you, in any sense of the word you care to construe. But you aren't coming to me without your fortune, as Mary Kate said in that movie. You're bringing two houses, one of them an income-generating rental property; your skill as a cosmetologist or beauty consultant or whatever the term is these days; and your skills as a dancer and people person to the table.

"Most of all, you are bringing your most desirable self. I understand why you feel you must prove yourself worthy, especially since you have a minimal support network and will be in a wholly new environment, but none of that matters to me. What matters is that you want to be with me, despite my social limitations and eccentricities. Other girls have tried to live with me and couldn't cope. Whatever it was they wanted, either I didn't have it or they could not accept me the way I am. You're willing to try, to see if we have a chance once you're free to choose whether to stay or leave a year hence."

"John, look at me." I didn't move my head; I could see her perfectly well. "No,lookat me." She took my chin and made me meet her eyes. As in her photographs, the deep, dark indigo blended so well with the black iris that her eyes appeared like still pools of tar and were just as hard for me to tear myself loose from.

"I'm no prize. I've lived in the twilight world and seen the underside of male-female relationships. I've been emotionally abused. I've been the guest of honor at gangbangs. I've had my fertility taken from me. I've appealed to the worst in men to make money as a stripper. I've used sex to get what I want, from free plastic surgery to avoiding arrest. I don't rate a guy like you, a straight shooter who wants to make me happy. You're not getting a bargain!"

"David Dinkins, the former mayor of New York City, once said that two white elephants for a quarter is a bargain only if you need two white elephants and you have the quarter. You are no white elephant, Deirdre, but I do have the quarter, and I choose to spend it on you! If you have a problem with that, say so now! I won't have you undervaluing yourself!"

She replied by throwing herself into my arms, sobbing. I stroked her hair and asked, "What did I do wrong now?"

She laughed through her tears as she covered my face with kisses. "You're just a man, that's all! For all you claim you don't understand people, that was exactly the right thing to say. Oh, John, what's going to become of us?"

"Baby, we're telling each other the unvarnished truth about ourselves. We're going into this with our eyes wide open and with open minds. I'd say a couple like us has the best chance in the world, wouldn't you?"

She didn't answer, but cuddled into my chest, her tears drying on my shirt as I held her close, a tender feeling I'd never really known before washing over me. I cursed as a loudspeaker interrupted our reverie.

"Attention. Visiting hours are over. All visitors will proceed to the desk immediately."

Reluctantly, we left out peaceful little nook and walked out of the pavilion, hand in hand. At the two sets of doors that would take me back to the outside and her back to camp, I said, "I'll wait for your call next Sunday, my darling."

"Just as soon as I can," she promised. A final embrace, her swollen mound pressing hard against my frustrated cock and her magnificently unfettered beasts flattening between us as if they could rip through the cloth keeping us apart, and she was gone.

*****

The women who had had visitors walked slowly back to their barracks, loosely supervised by the guards who had overseen the visit. Deirdre found herself walking next to Sergeant Carter. Without a word, Carter handed her a wipe and she used it to clean her cheeks of tear streaks.

"You have yourself a good man there, Little Fox."

"Better than you know, ma'am. He's a prince."

"And you've kissed enough frogs to know, right?" She looked at the guard but saw no malice there, only a twinkle in her eye, and they laughed together. Carter understood how she felt.

*****

Back home, life continued, but I felt lighter somehow. I had something definite to look forward to now and the world seemed brighter. Tasha and a couple of my plumbers commented on my changed demeanor, but only to her did I confide the details of my 'business trip.' I noticed that she was now sporting an engagement ring. On hearing that she'd accepted the proposal of Richard the lawyer and reporting it to the guys, I collected just under $400 from Emily, my office manager, who runs the office book on bets from the Superbowl to the World Series to who'll catch the biggest bass on Opening Day, or who will take the first buck in deer season. JM Plumbing boasts a sporting bunch.

The found money crystallized something I'd been thinking of doing since before my trip to Texas. Deirdre's letters had told me something of the firefighting training all the women had to go through on arrival at Camp Jackson and the refresher training that they received periodically. So far this year the Fire Foxes hadn't had much to do. It had been a wet spring in the Panhandle; just four platoons, about 100 girls, were sent out for two days to a state forest west of Amarillo to deal with a fire started by a lightning strike. She hadn't cared particularly, but some of the gals were grumbling in barracks about the lack of opportunity to earn good time. They all could use a morale boost.

I was thinking about that at home when the duty phone rang. Since I'd taken myself off Sunday rotations, I was catching more evening duty, a fair exchange. I got it on the fourth ring.

"JM Plumbing, John here. How can we help you?"

"Johnny? Thank God it's you! This is Jayne Bidermann."

Now THAT was a blast from my past. When I'd been in high school, one of the few girls who hadn't treated me like a pariah was Sandy Bidermann, Jayne's older sister. She's a sculptor whose studio is up in New York someplace. I had a few of her early works here in the house and one big bronze outdoor piece out back beyond the pool. The whole family is artistic. Her dad is a recognized abstract sculptor with works in many prominent museums and her mother is a painter whose bread and butter is 'cheat portraits,' oils painted on sensitized canvas from projected photographs, but whose real paintings are respected.

Jayne was Sandy's kid sister, six years younger. She too is an artist, but more commercial than fine arts. She designs logos for companies and teams, does a little painting and sculpture, sketches caricatures for parties and that kind of thing, and has a comic strip syndicated in about a dozen papers in the region. She got her start on the Renaissance Faire circuit doing something she called 'humanimals.' She claims she can talk to someone for a minute or two, study them and see their 'inner animal self.' She then does a sketch of the humanimal, dressed as she saw it regardless of what the person is wearing. She'd done one of me once. Apparently I manifest as a Siberian tiger in a Great White Hunter outfit complete to pith helmet and rifle – with kaleidoscope eyes. Signed and framed, it hangs on the wall over my computer. Her comic strip characters had evolved from the humanimals, and I admit I read it in hope that a tiger in hunting clothes may show up sometime.

"Jayne! Long time no see. What's wrong?"

"I'm setting up to pour some molds for a bas-relief series I'm doing on commission. I was on the phone and my cat knocked the batch I was mixing into the sink. I tried to wash it down before it set, and now I have a sink full of hydrolith. Help!"

"I'm on my way. Fifteen, maybe 20 minutes." I hung up, changed into work clothes and left.

Jayne met me at the front door of her house, hugging and lifting me off my feet after I put down my tool kit. She's a solid gal, a study peasant type like her big sister, who used to describe herself as 'Strong like ox, big like ox, but much smarter than ox.' I looked past her into what in a normal house would be an enclosed patio, but here was her studio. I'd installed a utility sink out there for her to rinse out brushes and such about five years back.

"That the one?"

"No! It's the kitchen sink!"

"Why were you mixing plaster in your kitchen?" I asked incredulously.

"Not plaster; hydrolith. That's even worse. I needed purified water to mix with. Don't ask," she said sourly, leading the way.

Jayne must have been preparing five gallons of the stuff. It had all gone into the sink. If she'd had the drain plug in and quickly scooped it out, she could have scraped off the excess before it set up and she might have saved the sink. Now, true to its name it was hard as rock. Not only was the sink shot, but likely the pipes at least as far as the trap were as well. I looked at her.

"If you would be so kind, Jayne, put on a pot of coffee and clear the junk out from under the sink. This is going to take awhile." I walked back out to my truck for the gear I would need to perform a sink transplant.

Three hours and a trip to the shop later, Jayne had a brand new stainless steel sink, a new faucet, new undersink piping that was up to current code and eight feet of new drainpipe. She also had a substantial plumbing bill, which she looked at glumly.

"Man, I had no idea one batch of hydrolith could be so expensive! I may have to pay this on the installment plan. Unless," she said, leering and vamping an exaggerated bump-and-grind to let me know she was just kidding, "you'd care to take it out in trade?"

I set down my tool kit. "Actually, if you're willing Iwilltake it out in trade."

Alarm flared in her eyes. "Not that kind, Jayne! Your trade. Art. Here's what I mean."

I explained for a couple of minutes. We went into the living room where she kept her reference books. She pulled a big coffee table book of legendary pinup artist Alberto Vargas's work off the shelf, paging through it and pausing from time to time while I looked over her shoulder. She took down a second book, this one of aircraft nose art from World War II and flipped through the pages, occasionally stopping to study one. Back in her studio, she picked up a sketch pad and drawing pencils.

"Do you happen to have a picture of Deirdre?"

I had two in my wallet, one of her in daisy dukes and the other of her in a bikini lying on her tummy with her legs crossed at the ankles. She studied them, banter gone, serious and motionless, for about four minutes. Suddenly she began to sketch. Before my eyes, a portrait came to life.

It was a female fox in smoke-eater gear sitting on a backpack hand pump, leaning back with one leg stretched out and the other bent up against the tank. She stylized it somewhat, giving the firefighting fox pointy-toed calf length lace up boots with stiletto heels and a suggestion of dancer's legs inside the trousers. The waist nipped in, accented by a black web belt, and the coat was opened in a deep vee with a chest rounded to suggest big, furry tits. A luxuriant brush of a tail curled up behind her shoulder and she – this was a vixen and not a dog fox – was looking out with a faint smile on her lips and bedroom eyes. There was no doubt in my mind that the fox was Deirdre.

"That about what you had in mind?" She handed me the sketch.

"That's exactly what I had in mind. What I want is that on a four inch diameter circular patch. The drawing can take up three and a half inches, within an outer half-inch ring that says, 'Camp Jackson' in the upper arc and 'Fire Foxes' in the lower. How long will it take you make up a thousand of them?"

"A thousand? A week to 10 days once the sketch gets to my manufacturer and I approve the proofs. You want it in color, I presume."

"Yes, the words in black Arial on a white ring; the background for the figure tan; the pump olive green with black details; the boots and belt black; the outfit whatever shade of yellow works for you; and the fox in red fox colors. Doable?"

"No problem," she assured me. "Anything else?"

"Yes. Will you color and sign the original and give it to me when you're done, the way you used to do the humanimals?"

She laughed. "I'd be happy to. Let me know how it turns out."

I didn't mention anything about this project in any of my letters to Deirdre. We were too preoccupied with each other in our phone calls to get around to anything so comparatively trivial. They'd taken a hot and heavy turn.

"I'm so hot for you, John. My pussy is sopping wet. And I'm not wearing panties. I want to feel your fingers on my pussy, tracing the lips, teasing me ..."

"I'd like to feel your wetness, you hot little vixen. I'd slip my fingers up and down your outer lips and gather up your cunt-honey and work my way up to your clit. Are you shaved?"

"Just this morning. I know you like me freshly shaved and bare. I can almost feel your fingers on my clit, rubbing it so lightly, making me pant. My thighs part to let you do whatever you want. Oh, darling, please!"

"Patience. Patience. I introduce a finger into your pussy, sliding it in and out. Now, another. You're so wet and hot. I touch your love button with my thumb and your cunt clamps down on my fingers."

"Oh god, I can feel it! This is torture! Oh please, don't torture me!"

"You throw your head back and I feel you shudder as you cum on my hand. You grab my head and pull me to you, sucking my tongue as I hold your head, reveling in the silk of your hair as you deep-throat my tongue. As I feel you start to relax, I pull my fingers out of your pussy and bring them to your lips. You take them into your mouth and lick your own pussy juices off them, fellating my fingers one at a time while you clean them up."

Muffled moaning from the other end of the line. "I unbutton your shirt. Your breasts point up at me, begging to be released from the confinement of your bra. I unhook the front and they spring out, your nipples hard as rocks, demanding that I kiss them. I bend my head to them and lick them, first one and then the other. You put your hand behind my head, guiding me from one to the other as your lust builds."

"Oh god, suck 'em! They're so hard! I need it! Oh, John! Please!"

"I take your right nipple in my teeth and pull on it. I feel your hips arch into me as you reach into my trousers and find my cock. It's erect and waiting for you. You take it in your hand, feeling it throb, wanting to enter you and fuck you. You move your hand along the shaft– "

"Aieehh," barely audible, and heavy snorts, as if trying to pull more air in through her nose than she can get. After a while, "Oh, John. Please. No more. Stop. I don't want you to, I love this, but I'm so wet after you've made me cum twice I really think someone's going to notice! You're a bastard, you really are, and I love you for it. If you can make me cum just talking on the phone, what will you do to me when we're finally together in bed?"

"Or in the kitchen, or out by the pool, or in an open field where any passing airplane can see what we're doing and circle back for a second look *"

"This call will terminate in one minute."

"– And just as well, dammit. Oh darling, I can't wait. I so want to be with you."

"Next year's coming, darling. I'll be waiting when you walk out the gate or however they do it."

"It's out the front door of the Admin Building, I think, and the way I feel I may just jump you right there in the driveway. Goodbye, my love."

Two days after that, Jayne called. I met her for lunch and reviewed the sample her supplier had sent. She thought it was just about perfect and I agreed. We haggled a bit and I ended up tossing $200 into the pot after writing off her bill. She agreed to include the scan that the factory used to make the patches when I explained why I wanted it. Her maker was in-state, and a week later a box appeared on my front steps. I checked the contents, resealed it along with a cover letter and the disk, and sent it on its way.

*****

Deirdre was teaching a new class of students the basics of layering hair when a guard appeared at the door of the camp's barbershop-cum-classroom, a room with 1940s haircutting equipment plus the addition of a few wooden chairs, tables and some hairdryers so old their yellowed plastic hoods could have accommodated the Bride of Frankenstein. She rapped on the jamb.

"Little Fox, the Warden wants to see you. Come along."

Her mind spun dizzily as they walked to the Admin Building. She hadn't done anything to violate the regulations, at least she didn't think so, unless Jarhead had been lying when she swore that phone calls weren't monitored. She mentally tallied up her earned good time. Although she'd cut her sentence by a good bit, she was still months from release. She finally concluded that someone from the family had called her Fort Worth phone, gotten the automated answering machine that was part of her phone package that referred callers to her lawyer's phone; and that he had called the Warden with bad news; and now it was her job to deliver it. The guard knocked on the door and motioned her inside, following her and closing the door.

Rosemary Duffy looked up from her desk. "That's all, Lincoln. You may go." The guard left. Duffy motioned Deirdre to a seat in front of her desk.

"Little Fox, I was surprised to receive a box from John Middleton today. Do you know anything about that?"

"No, Ma'am."

"Do you have any idea what prompted him to send us a thousand of these?" She tossed her a patch. Deirdre caught it and turned it right side up. It said, "Camp Jackson Fire Foxes," with a stylized female fox sitting coquettishly on an Indian backpack hand fire pump as the logo. She looked at the Warden.

"No idea at all, Ma'am. If you are thinking I asked him to, I didn't. I've told him a little about how we are forest firefighters in season, but that's all. I mentioned that some of the gals are disappointed that they haven't been able to earn good time that way because it's been a wet year here, but that's all I can think of. Unless, maybe, he thought it might lift our spirits if we had a unit patch instead of just being anonymous smoke-eaters?"

Warden Duffy smiled for the first time. "You know him pretty well, I think. Here. Read this." Deirdre took the letter.

"Dear Warden Duffy:

"Enclosed please find one thousand Camp Jackson Fire Fox patches which I took the liberty of having made up. If the TDCJ website information is current, you should have enough to issue one to each inmate to sew onto her firefighting gear, plus some extras. Enclosed also is a disk with the master drawing so more can be made when these are used up.

"Please accept them with my compliments. You may consider them a gift to the inmates of the camp which, although not an item on the Acceptable list, I hope you will see fit to give to your ladies.

"I run a small business, which you know from the background check you ran on me prior to my being approved to visit and telephone Deirdre Little Fox. I know something about how identification with a reputable business can boost the morale of its workers and inspire confidence in its customers. It's why the Army used to have fancy regimental uniforms and even today has unit insignia. I imagine it will be no different with your inmates when you send them out on the fire line.

"The U.S. Forest Service says your Fire Foxes have a reputation as an outfit to call on when they have a bad situation that needs fast, thorough handling. Your ladies can wear this insignia with pride, and others will see who they are and respect them because of it. It will be good for their morale.