The Silent Courtesan

"You're telling me you want to pass this up?"

Back peddling was unfamiliar territory to me. I had been on such a dry spell the Sahara desert looked like an ocean.

"I didn't say that."

She grabbed my hand and headed towards my bedroom.

"I thought not, are you clean? Do you have condoms until I can get you tested?"

That's when I realized romance was dead, and at the hands of this woman pulling me towards my room.

Once past that moment of confusion I asked, "Aren't I supposed to be the one asking you questions like that. You are a courtesan after all?"

She stopped so quickly I actually ran into her. It was then I truly knew not to ever tease this woman, the murder in her eyes gave real meaning to the phrase 'if looks could kill'.

One moment I was standing looking at her and a blurred instant later I was on my back in the middle of my bed with this woman straddled across my chest. Her hands came together and I felt my shirt shred into pieces before she shuffled down and started on the belt to my pants.

"I am a courtesan, that doesn't make me a whore. Ask and if it's within me I will tell you, please don't make assumptions about an art that was in my country while your ancestors still lived in caves."

This was perhaps another insight into this woman. She was clearly born in this country but her heart and soul were Japanese, and judging by the way she spoke this afternoon her mind and body sat squarely on that list as well.

"Condoms?"

Her voice broke my thoughts; the way her hand tightened around my cock as she looked at me simply emphasized that one word again. "Condoms?"

She watched as I nodded my head towards one of the drawers by the bed. I couldn't trust my voice anymore. The drawer was open and within seconds my cock had a coat on it.

"These are just within the sell by date, you clearly don't date much so I better get this first one out of the way before we have a good night."

And with that she lifted herself up and lowered herself onto me. Her smile matched the depth she traveled before ass met thighs. If I added a few words to the list that I wasn't to call her after that night then nymphomaniac and energizer bunny were two of them. Kenzie had this Courtesan thing down to a fine art and she was truly insatiable, she strode around the apartment naked the next morning while I was still in bed, worried that I may never be able to walk again.

Kenzie took pity on me and brought breakfast to me in the end. She sat doing that crossed legged thing again at the end of the bed while she watched me eat. And so began the oddest relationship in history, well mine at least.

As one day flowed into another the feeling that she would leave as soon as my back was turned started to ease. What started out to be me offering her shelter soon developed into a relationship, she decided one morning that I was getting fat. She heard me laugh while I was in the bathroom, just how the hell could I not burn calories when this woman shared my bed? But no, she had decided, so we started hitting the local parks' jogging routes and it sure was fun watching that ass of hers.

After the second week she wanted to know why I was always late on Fridays, when I explained she picked up the phone and handed it to me. Kenzie met the two little munchkins and Casey Sunday morning just as we finished one of the circuits around the park. It was interesting to watch both women try and size the other up, eventually they both walked off together leaving me with the twins and the call of ice cream.

Now, on a Friday, I swing past the apartment and picked Kenzie up, or more often than not I got a call at work telling me that she would meet me at Casey's. Whatever they talked about on that walk seemed to work, it was an odd combination but they made it work, and it soon got to the point one was able to finish the others sentence seamlessly.

Did I love Kenzie? We had shared a bed and up to a point she had also shared as much of herself with me as she felt comfortable with. I was an open book of course as all men seem to be around women. The hole in my heart that was loneliness had gone, she gave me a reason to go home at night and a strong desire to return as soon as I could the next day. She read my moods and didn't take long in remolding them, to me she was perfect.

And yet I knew in the back of my mind, in that part of me where denial stands strong, I just knew that someday she would leave. This so called debt would be paid and she would leave. But until then I swore to enjoy every waking moment with this woman that always seemed to leave me an exhausted puddle in the middle of the bed while she bounced around the apartment, leaving the old man gasping for breathe in the bedroom who was left in wonder at how the hell could she do all she does.

Yet if I ever managed to drag that question from my exhausted and befuddled mind and asked her, I knew she would answer in just one sentence. 'I'm a Courtesan'.

*******

Kenzie and I had decided on a boring night in front of the TV, the best part was I got to have this hot woman wrapped around me on the couch as we did. When the house phone rang Kenzie leaned over and picked it up and in the same movement placed it into my hands as her attention was once again on Abbot and Costello's classic 'Who's on first' sketch.

Casey was in hysterics, both screaming and crying over the phone. Kenzie heard her and sat up and away from me so I could swing my legs off the couch, she was already in her coat before I had even managed to get my shoes on. We met her at her door and Kenzie just seemed to swoop her into her arms and sat her down while we got some semblance of a story out of her.

It seems her ex husband had been harassing her for money, his gambling addiction was getting worse and as of today he had reached an all time low. As Susan and Erin left school he was waiting for them.

"He's stolen them Matt, he wants twenty thousand dollars or he's keeping them, I don't have twenty thousand dollars Matt. He wiped us out with his last dead cert that came last in the Kentucky Derby, that's when I threw him out and got the divorce. We've been living from pay check to pay check ever since then."

I looked at Kenzie; she was standing in the middle of the room, her eyes focused on the photo of both girls smiling on that sunny day last month when we joined them for the sun and bar-b-que in the back yard.

She sensed me watching her, "I have to phone the Police."

Other than nod her head and say, "I know." Kenzie simply took my place on the couch so she could hold onto Casey. Both women simply held tight to one another as I watched out the window and waited for blue lights. As I opened the door to let them in something made me look at the couch. Kenzie had just kissed Casey on the forehead, when I looked again she was gone.

The Police took over the room for the next two hours and every time I turned I expected to see Kenzie again. In a lull of activity Casey joined me at the kitchen and hugged me.

"She gave me a message for you Matt, she's sorry but her faith in the Police is minimal at best. She's gone to find them Matt and I have to believe she will."

We held each other tighter that evening, both of us seemed to be saying good bye to Kenzie for slightly different reasons. I did wonder how she could find the children until I remembered who she was and staying with me had made it harder to do what she was given life to do.

Adam phoned once that night, the Police taped everything, even the part of Susan crying over the phone, begging to come home. It broke Casey's heart to hear her daughter in so much pain and fear, he rang off only after telling Casey he needed forty thousand now. The police rotated shifts and I watched the door hoping against hope that Kenzie would walk through it.

The afternoon of the second day he called again, this time he put Erin on, and once again doubled his demand for money telling Casey to sell the house. By the time she had screamed over the phone that he had already placed a second mortgage on it to cover his last gambling debts he had rung off. The police were doing their best but with the different burner phones he was using and the limited time he was on them they were truly struggling.

Late into the evening of the fourth day he just phoned and vented his anger at Casey for taking so long, but something made him stop mid-rant and the phone went dead. We all looked at the speaker and each other trying so hard to figure out what just happened. Two hours later the detective in charge got a phone call and half the room emptied into their cars and with blue lights on they headed out.

An hour later a woman officer took Casey and I to the hospital to be with the children. The doctor told us that they had been given a mild sedative that was harmless enough for him to allow them to sleep it off. There wasn't a dry eye in that room when they both woke, between them they managed to describe the house they were in but nothing else.

It would take a blind man not to realize they were holding stuff back, the detective wasn't blind or stupid, he acted on the information he had and came back later telling us that they had found where Adam had held the children but he was nowhere to be seen. Casey and I took them home a day later and kept them real close, we got them therapists to help with the trauma of the ordeal and waited, and hoped that one or both would tell us the truth.

As for Kenzie, the day she walked out of Casey's house was the last I saw of her. In my free time I would walk places that we had been, even the Sushi Bar became a regular haunt of mine. At first the family treated me with caution but when they realized Kenzie wasn't with me they left me alone, just in case.

Something else that soon became apparent was that the twins only seemed to feel safe in the evenings when I was around. Casey got rid of the couch and replaced it with a pull out and I spent three of the four nights a week with them depending on my work schedule. Casey was always positive, after all Kenzie had made a promise before she left and that promise came true, but it didn't stop me thinking that I had missed something.

*******

As Casey woke from her uneasy sleep her senses screamed so many messages to her brain that it took her half-conscious mind a while to process them. The tiny whimper and a sneeze caught her ears first and then the all too familiar smell of a new born infant caused the maternal instincts, deeply rooted in all mothers to fully wake, her own internal radar scanning the room as her mind still struggled with the information that had penetrated her brain. The infant her ears had detected.

The dark form moved and Casey picked up on the location, the seat across the room from her. As the half light of a weakened moon shed its illumination into her room she watched as the hand lifted a basket onto the bed. The baby within stirred for a moment before the breathing of a contented baby once again lowered the anxiety within her.

"Who...?"

"Relax Casey, it's only me."

The thumping of her heart against her chest eased as Casey heard that familiar voice in her room.

"Dammit Kenzie you just scared the crap out of me, does Matt know you're here, he's been searching for you for almost a year now."

"And so have the police, you are free now Casey no harm will come to you or your children ever again, you have my word on that."

The chill of fear clung to her, everyone suspected but no proof was ever found. Adam had simply disappeared and no one knew where.

"You really need to call Matt, Kenzie."

The shadow didn't move and the only sound heard in the room was from the baby sleeping soundly in the basket. Slowly the shadow leaned forwards and her arms rested on her legs, Kenzie's face finally came into view.

"No, my debt to Matt is now paid. My being here will bring others and your lives will become complicated if I stay. I ask... No, I beg you to follow your heart, you love him I know you do, your children love him, we both know that. Marry him Casey, make that man whole again."

For just a moment a pleasant thought struck Casey and her now unguarded imagination felt his strong hands on her body, pulling hard on her tits as his mouth sucked a nipple deep within his mouth. Her pussy moistened and then that unguarded moment was forced back into its box and her legs clamped tight together hoping that Kenzie couldn't smell her arousal.

The giggle from the darkness caused Casey to blush, her own body had betrayed her to the one woman she feared the most.

"I am a Courtesan, Casey. I've known you have loved him from the very first day I met you. But he's a man Casey and although I have tried to dissuade him he has feeling for me. It's those feelings that make him vulnerable Casey."

The hand once again reached out to the basket and she stood with it in her hand, walked a pace and then sat on the bed. The smell of a newborn increased.

"I bring you a gift and I pray you will treasure it. This is Matt's baby Casey."

She suspected from some of the conversations she had with him but he would never be drawn out on how deeply involved he was with this woman.

"Please Casey take this gift and use it to bond with Matt, I will be deeply in your debt if you do."

"But Kenzie, it's your baby."

"No, Its Matt's child and I hope yours as well."

A car passed, casting light over the bottom end of the garden, Kenzie watched through the window her body tense until the lights faded and the car continued its journey.

*******

The phone ringing on the bedside table woke me, I grunted a hello before Casey's voice sent my whole life once again into free fall.

"Get dressed and get over here now."

When my eyes opened the phone had clicked and a tone could be heard from the earpiece, it wanted to be returned to its cradle since it had done its job.

I made it to Casey's within thirty minutes, most of that was taken up with getting dressed, the door opened as I approached and closed as soon as I entered. Her hand grabbed my arm and pulled me towards the Promised Land, her bedroom.

The bedside lamp had been placed on the floor, its light illuminating the wall and casting shadows over the rest of the room. A bundle between two pillows moved on her bed, I looked and looked again as the bundle moved, it gurgled and even sneezed before it moved once more and then became still once again as the rooms silence comforted the bundle.

Casey's warmth was added when she leaned into me so she could whisper into my ear.

"She's our child Matt."

My mind tried hard to make sense of the situation, even when Casey moved away from me and with deft hands moved the cover and raised the little bundle of humanity firstly towards her so that the child could gain comfort and not be startled and then those same hands held out that bundle towards me.

"Allow me to introduce Paige McAndrews, a by product of a joining of Casey Ann Williams and Matthew Adam McAndrews."

Just looking at the child in my arms and I knew she was mine. I sat on the bed as this little bundle of innocence slept so peacefully.

"Where is she Casey?"

The silence in answer to my question consumed me. Casey knelt on the floor beside me her hands touched both me and the child in my arms.

"She's gone Matt, she asked me to give you a message and even made me repeat it a couple of time so that I would remember it."

I closed my eyes and lifted the baby close to me that smell of a newborn still lingered on her.

"This child is yours Matt and here in this room are the two people that will care for her, an angel of death hovers over all five of you now to protect you all. Stop looking for me and direct your energies toward your family, and they are your family. I am not worthy of your love, the woman telling you this now, truly is worthy."

Through tears I looked toward Casey who was in the process of wiping her own tears from her cheeks.

This time my voice cracked in my throat as I tried one more time. "Please Casey tell me where she is."

My stomach tensed as her head shook; her tears fell just as freely down her face as mine did.

"She has left us Matt, I suspect she waited one last time outside to see you enter but please don't go out there. She's a Courtesan Matt and she loved us both enough to give us this gift."

I understood her words truly I did.

Acting on the last piece of information I had and with my child in my arms I stood, Casey stood with me and we walked over to the window looking out toward the garden. Another car passed the house, its lights pierced the darkness of the garden and standing in the middle of the lawn was a sole figure. Yet even as the lights touched the figure it seemed to shimmer and disappear.

*******

The twins were introduced to their sister that very morning while I was at the store with a list of much needed supplies in my hand that I was diligently following. We had planned to share Paige with the twins together; however a hungry infant sure makes a noise when she wants to be fed and they had already bonded with their sister before I got back.

We shared as much as we could with the girls, both were hungry for information on aunt Kenzie and it's that information that could well place their own lives in danger, we both sensed something as Casey and I spoke to the girls. They looked at each other far too often for it to be a coincidence. Eventually Erin nodded her head and Susan was deemed the speaker for the two of them.

As Susan spoke both Casey and I held hands as she told us for the first time something that they never told the police or to the best of my knowledge, the therapist.

"Mommy we promised ourselves that we wouldn't tell."

Both girls again looked to each other, Erin looked down at the child in her arms, took a deep breath and nodded to her sister to continue. What Susan said next was minimal at best and if recounted to anyone, would be dismissed out of hand as young minds imagination running away with them due to the trauma both were under. When they were found and interviewed by the police both were asked if they had seen Kenzie.

The twins always said no but it seems that wasn't true. Both girls were being kept in a bedroom, they could hear their father shouting and calling their mother rude names. The bedroom door opened and a black figure stood in the doorway, the sound of their father got louder as well. The figure came in closed the door and walked over to the girls now cowering in the corner.

When she knelt down she removed the scarf covering all but her eyes and both girls almost leapt into the arms of Kenzie.

"Mommy, aunt Kenzie told us that no harm would come to us."

Susan quickly looked at her sister and then back to us sitting on the edge of our seats.

"Her voice sounded funny and she kept looking directly at us but her eyes were funny as well."

Although I suspected the answer I had to ask. "Susan what do you mean by funny?"

At first she shrugged her shoulders and then it was as though a light bulb had gone on in her head.

"Aunt Kenzie's eyes are blue and yet when she looked at us they were black."

Susan looked real confused for a moment and then looked to her mom for an answer. "Do people have black eyes mommy?"

Casey looked at me for help, so I explained that when people get excited the black part of your eye gets wider. Since they had no form of reference other than seeing Kenzie I think I got away with that. I couldn't explain to her that I had seen it several times on my tour of Iraq, she was in killing mode and trying to hold it back in front of the twins.

This time it was Susan's turn to nod at Erin who seemed to shiver for a second, she looked at the child in her arms one more time before she gently placed her onto her sister's lap and she started her part of the tale.