The Brand Ch. 07

"Very good. Now; do you wish to bathe?"

Victria, confused, turned to regard Francisca again.

"Uh; bathe?" she said.

"Think of it as another baptism; perhaps." Said her hostess; drawing closer, "Though, it can be just a bath. You do, after all, smell terribly of the bayou."

Victria smiled as Francisca took her left hand. Standing very close, she proceeded to unwrap it. Then, together, they looked at the open palm. The redness of exposed muscle was still quite vivid, but there was no pain to the touch. Quietly amazed, Victria watched as Francisca poked around her palm. Presently, their faces very close, the woman took the other, and unwrapped it as well. It too was pain free. Victria stared in charmed disbelief; at her hand, at the stark contrast between the whiteness of her palm and the rich dark brown of Francisca's long fingers, her lovely chin, full red lips and gently sloped nose.

The kiss had come, not unlike the taking of her hand had in front of Roba's shoe shop. It was an innocent thing, a gift; an expression of trust. Victria had grown eager over their hours together, but it wasn't that eagerness that drove her to find Francisca's lips in that moment. Communion was the word that had whispered through her mind as the exotic woman met her lips and took both of her hands in her own.

The tub, vintage, enameled cast iron, its short legs tapering to four ball clutching lion paws, dominated what was obviously Francisca's bathroom. She explained that, unlike the kitchen, the original bathroom's pipes had remained, and so her friends in the community were able to rebuild an adequately functioning replacement. So a decent tub had been salvaged, as well as a toilet and a fairly good conditioned pedestal sink. From the ceiling, Francisca hung a lantern. Under its light, she drew a bath and proceeded to undress as Victria looked on, her arms folded, from the opposite corner of the room.

Naked, her full breasts swaying in time with her every move, Francisca carefully smoothed her blue dress for hanging. As she carried it, draped over her arm, out of the room, she indicated that it was one of only three dresses she owned. Upon her return, she saw Victria playing with the hem of her muddy brown tinged white shirt. The women's fingers met and the hostess helped her guest remove the soiled garment. From there, Francisca went to her knees and helped Victria peel the damp pants from her hips and legs.

It was Victria that had entered the tub first, Francisca bracing her as she climbed over the roll rim of its edge. In silence, she submerged herself, happy to feel the fresh warm water through her hair. So they remained for a time, saying nothing, Victria in the bath, Francisca, outside, kneeling beside her, gently shampooing her hair. Soaping a washcloth, Victria washed her face, shoulders and arms. Then, when Francisca indicated that she'd finished soaping her hair, Victria submerged herself again.

The sound of rushing water and the splashing of her fingers through her soapy hair filled her ears. Again, she rose above the surface, took another breath, and then submerged herself once more. Then she saw them; greenish white bloated faces, eyes staring wide and black with hemorrhaged blood, naked bloated bodies rolling, skin floating off in ribbons, flesh disintegrating in purple brown clouds, crabs crawling free from gaping mouths, bayou red fish darting, devouring morsel after morsel of Katrina's dead, Francisca's dead.

The sound of the water in her ears had suddenly become the sound of her quickening heartbeat. Victria felt herself reaching, to breach the water's surface, to grip the roll rim edge of the tub. But, the water seemed to stabilize, thicken and solidify as the bottoms of her flip flops had on the asphalt beyond Saint John's fire. Then she saw her, approaching, shambling through the hardening murk; the old woman, 1 dead in attic, her naked skull smile, high jaundice yellow green forehead and the floating wisps of cob web hair floating as she reached a pointing bone clustered hand and tried to pull Victria, drag her down with her, pull her out of the living side of the world.

With a splash, her speeding heart bent on explosion, Victria burst from the tub, tripped over its edge and then scrambled to the corner of the room where she'd stood before. There, wide eyed, her lungs drawing quick deep breaths of air, she stared at her healer, her hostess, her witch. Drenched, seated naked on the oak planked floor, Francisca regarded her side long and said:

"Tourists come and go, and they see nothing, they know nothing. But you; you have been given the gift of understanding. There is no truer love than that; mighty Victria."

Then she rose to her feet, emptied the tub, and then refilled it for herself.

"Come Victria." She called; stepping into the tub, "You have nothing to fear from me. Our ceremony is not yet finished."

Still huddled, her breaths shallowing to their normal speed, Victria felt drawn, pulled; the tide of her to Francisca's moon. On hands and knees, she crawled her way back to the tub, and then kneeled on the bath mat. Spellbound, she watched Francisca slowly lower herself below the surface of the water, never closing her eyes or taking them off of Victria's. Still the image of tranquility, Francisca rose slowly again from the water, broke the surface and then leaned her face in close to meet her guest's lips once again.

Later, their bodies cool and dry, they drank more deeply of each other in Francisca's bed. Her mind quiet and her heart settled, Victria lapped hungrily at the Voodoo priestess's dark pink folds. Deeply, she probed her fingers inside her hostess, eliciting her morning's dew. Outside, Francisca's cocks began to scream their proclamations of the dawn and her hens began to worry and cluck. Inside, Francisca had turned to her side and pulled Victria's hips, and the vulva between, to her own hungry mouth. Together, they indulged ravenously; each covering the other's face with their virgin dew, tongue polishing hard red morsels, their eye teeth dripping succulent juice, their fangs biting, their throats growling, their feline hips grinding and quivering with goddess ecstasy.

Still, the roosters crowed as the morning sun loomed high outside. Francisca had provided Victria with a shopping bag in which she stowed her soiled clothes. Dressed in a scarlet sun dress, given to her by her lovely priestess, Victria regarded the woman from the kitchen chair she'd occupied the night before. Francisca was still in bed, passive, alert, her head propped up on an elbow. Victria smiled brightly at the woman; the passionate lover, her wise teacher, her amazing stranger.

Taking her wallet, Victria got to her bare feet, and then crawled to Francisca. Kneeling, reverent, she brought her lips to the priestess's and kissed her mouth gently until Francisca returned deeper kisses, and cradled the back of her head. Then, taking one last deep breath of the woman, Victria rose and stepped around the mattress to the alter. There, she opened her wallet, uttered a solemn expression of gratitude, and then left as much as she could afford on the plate upon which Francisca had burned a candle the night before.

"Do not forget mighty Victria." Said the priestess as her guest strode to the front door, "The laws of Karma, of fate, are real. Everything we think and do has power and consequence. All is well; that ends well."

Victria studied the woman as she used the toes of her left foot to flip off the lid of one of the eight boxes of shoes stacked by the front door. Francisca rolled onto her belly, her lovely back and buttocks exposed, and looked on as Victria slipped into the odd ruby slippers she'd purchased at Roba's.

"I'm leaving the rest with you." She beamed.

"You're much too generous my friend." The priestess intoned, "Do not forget what I've told you."

Victria said nothing as she looked at the woman one last time. Then, as if it had been her cabin, Francisca that was the guest and Victria that had healed herself, her face darkened as she flung the door open and squinted her eyes to the brightness of the Louisiana day.

"Come in Ms. Charpentier."

The firm's CEO, Coleman Cheevers, regarded his chief risk officer from his seat at the far end of the boardroom. He was an imposing man, though in his late seventies, standing a full six and a half feet when he wasn't seated in his high backed leather upholstered chair, steepling his index fingers, his legs crossed in listening to reports or expressing the decisions he'd made.

They had been talking before her arrival, but Victria's entrance had initiated a silence. Quickly, she looked around to see who was also present. There was Dick Rancourt, seated to Cheevers's right; Bruce Duffy, down three seats from Rancourt's right and James Ricchio, two seats to Cheevers's left. Most of the rest of the seats were occupied by a handful of underlings from other departments. Simple Simon's seat at the far end of the table, where good old Dobbs used to signal Coleman through a pre-arranged system of eye contact and gestures, was appropriately vacant.

"How are you?" Cheevers asked.

"I'm well sir."

"Good."

A new silence echoed. Cheevers's fingers, rather than stepled beneath his chin, were folded in his lap. Why aren't you asking me to take a seat? You're going to grill me and give me shit;Hell, maybe even trim my ass from the budget, and you can't invite me to take a fucking seat after-

"Look;" continued Victria's CEO, "I certainly don't want to devote any more attention to; what happened than we need to. So, uh, I just want to ask:"

Cheevers paused. Throats were cleared. Foreheads were rubbed and glances shot.

"The; items, recorded on our surveillance cameras; where are they currently?"

Flushed, though working very hard not to be, Victria held her head high and leveled her gaze at her CEO.

"Everything's been destroyed." She said.

Ricchio breathed a harsh breath of displeasure.

"Destroyed." Cheevers repeated, sighing.

"Yes sir."

"And may I ask-"

"I never made one; sir, of you."

Jesus Christ, you pompous shit! You couldn't ask me that in the privacy of your own office? Even you; at the very top, a total pussy. You are embarrassing me out of your fear? This is unbelievable.

"Sir," she began just a little too loudly, "I just want to say-"

"Ms. Charpentier." He interrupted, "This matter is closed, I'm not afraid to say."

Oh please pussy.

"But sir-"

"What I am expecting at this time; is that, in the face of so many of our clients reducing their advertisement budgets, you prepare a presentation to show me, as my risk manager, the soundness of the decisions we might take to reduce our costs."

No...fucking...shit.

"Yes sir. Thank you sir. Will that be all then?"

"Yes. Thank you Ms. Charpentier.

Victria closed the door behind her, glanced at the executive suite's secretary seated behind her desk, and then walked briskly back to her office. Closing the door behind her, she threw her back against it and closed her eyes. Never in a million years- how inconceivably absurd it- How could I have been so stupid? Trying to calm herself down through a series of deep breaths, she remembered how she'd forgotten. I feel ashamed that I'd forgotten, she thought, seeing Francisca, dressed in her blue dress, in the fire light of Saint John, watching a naked Melody weaving out of the crowd beyond. I was foolish. I am; foolish, and now; I must atone. Exactly how, I don't know. But, I will.