Microsoft Word - 5-11 BFAfinal full RESET_NEVER_AGAIN 1.doc, page 16
Joy put down what she was carrying, put her hands on her hips, and stared at him with arched eyebrows, her lips in a slight pout and her
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head at what John had learned was a dangerous angle. “Oh no, you don’t. I’m going to guard this hallway, and I have to be next to the stairs to do that.”
“Is that right?” John said, putting down his luggage. He put both hands on his hips, leaned toward her, and tried to imitate the tilt of her head and her expression. “Jy-ying is on the lower floor to guard us.”
Oops. John immediately regretted saying that as Joy’s eyes narrowed. Thinking fast, he looked down the hallway, pointed, and exclaimed, “Who’s that?”
Joy turned to look, and John quickly lifted all 125 pounds of her off her feet. Holding her in his arms, he strode down the hallway.
With a scowl, she blurted, “John, what do you think you—” Then she must have realized what he was doing. She put her arm around his neck as he opened the end apartment’s door with one hand and carried her across the threshold.
“Hmmm,” she murmured, “you know how to soften me up. This is so romantic. You know, this is our first, really our first, home. I forgot.
The other apartment is for appearances.” She caressed his cheek with the backs of her fingers and purred, “I love you, my dearest.” Then she looked at the empty apartment. “But where’s the bed?”
John kicked the door closed and looked around at the bare walls. He stood Joy up, and said huskily, “I love you more that anything, baby.
Don’t you dare move.”
He undressed and, ignoring the chilly air, put his armor and holstered .45 aside and laid out his clothes on the dusty floor underneath the living room window. She let down her hair and tossed the pins against the wall. Bending over, she shook her hair out, and ran her hands through it until it fell around her in a lush black curtain. She put her armor and weapons on top of his armor, and spread her clothes on top of his. Brushing her hair back from her head and body with a graceful motion so feminine and sexy it charged John with sexual heat, she lay down on top of their clothes.
About a half-hour later, John caressed the end of her nose with his index finger and said, “Now we’ve suitably inaugurated our first home.”
Her smile was radiant, her cheeks flushed. “You surely know how to deal with my objections.”
John put on a knowing smile. “Always.”
He got up and put on his baggy shorts, then cracked open the apartment door and looked out to make sure none of the guys had come upstairs for some reason. He squeezed through the door, crept down the hall, and brought their bags and suitcases back into the end apartment.
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John donned his comfortable, at-home denim jeans and Norwegian wool pullover sweater, and waited while Joy dressed.
“I miss these clothes,” she said with a smile as she gracefully jiggled up and down to slide her favorite pair of tight denims over her white cotton panties. She wiggled her bottom and shook her bare breasts with unconscious sexuality.
John just stood near the window, mesmerized by the soft play of light on her body as she dressed. I’ve got to grip this image, he told himself, and secure it in a special place in my memory. I’ve got to pull this image out when I’m scared, when I’m down on her, when I wonder about accepting this mission.
Finally in her denims, Joy put on her fitted armor and over that, what had been her inevitable gray sweatshirt in the Old Universe. She pulled her blue and white Nike jogging shoes out of her suitcase and put them on. Humming to herself, she pulled her hair tightly back and tied it in a ponytail. Suddenly she stopped and looked from under her lashes at John. “Did you forget, my man?”
That broke his trance. “What?”
“Your armor. You forgot to put it on, didn’t you?”
He tried to cover his chagrin. “Well, a man would forget his name with you lying bare ass naked on the floor, or doing your reverse strip tease.”
“John!”
“Okay, okay.” As Joy watched, John took off his pullover and put on his armor, then donned his pullover again, slipped on his shoulder holster with his .45 in it, and pulled his coat on over that, with his S&W
in a pocket holster. Then, bringing his hand up to his mouth and gasp-ing melodramatically, he asked in mock horror, “My God, where are your knives? You don’t have them on.”
She smiled. “How could you notice? Actually, I can’t wear the hip knife; these denims are too tight. And I was about to strap on my lower leg sheath when you mentioned it. I will have my holster purse with me; one knife less around here doesn’t concern me.
Anyway,” and she looked at him from under her lashes again, “I’ve always got my hands and feet. They’re enough to take care of you, big man.”
As she put on her sheath, John grinned. “Watch it, little woman, or I’m going to have to put you in your place.”
They both laughed, Joy more than John, as they left the apartment. Joy let John go first as they walked downstairs, but shook her head when he started play-act the caution necessary to descend
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into a room full of armed thugs. On the first floor, John grinned as he walked in front of her to the truck, to help the guys move the capsules.
Jy-ying
Having learned all that she needed to know by studying the capsules, Jy-ying was standing aside, trying to direct the work, when Joy and John reappeared. When the guys saw Joy, they stopped work and followed her with large eyes as she climbed into the truck.
Joy noticed the work stoppage, looked at the men, curtsied, and said to John loud enough for them all to hear, “One would think these guys had never seen a woman in pants before.”
John looked up from the chain he was connecting to a capsule, and answered, “I don’t think they have. At least, not the way you look in them.”
All Jy-ying needed was to glance at Joy’s clothes, and she nodded to herself.
With a wide grin, his eyes still on Joy, Sal asked John, “Where did you get this long-haired Chinese boy? He has curves in strange places, if you know what I mean.”
The guys laughed.
Jy-ying’s mind now was beyond humor of any kind.
Still chuckling, John answered Sal, “He’s my personal bodyguard.
Don’t mess with him, or he’ll break your leg.” That brought more laughter, and they went back to working a capsule off the truck and onto the mover’s pallet.
Joy
As they struggled with one especially heavy capsule, Hands asked,
“What do you have in this? Gold?”
Actually, it was the capsule containing their gold bars. “Of course,”
John replied. “I’ve got to have enough to pay you guys and Jy-ying.”
When they finally had all the capsules in a corner of the basement, John said, “We’ll buy the basic furniture we need tomorrow. Let’s find a hotel for the night that also has a restaurant. It has to be far from both the hotel we left and our warehouse. Any suggestions?”
Dolphy offered, “I used to pass by a place called Colby’s Inn.
Looked good, and there’s a restaurant I always wanted to go to within walking distance. It’s Forda Italy—”
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“Fior d’Italia,” Hands corrected. “I’ve heard about it from my baseball buddies.”
Dolphy continued. “It’s on Union Street. They are supposed to have the greatest Italian food.”
“Fancy, fancy,” Sal commented, shaking his finger in the air.
Dolphy ignored him, but not without giving John a quick glance. “I know the way to the Inn. But they are expensive, I think.”
“No problem,” John responded. To all of them he said, “I suggest you leave your bags and suitcases in the truck, since we’ll be staying at least overnight at the Inn. Okay, let’s go.”
As they moved toward the truck, John told Joy and Jy-ying to get in the cab with Hands. Jy-ying refused. Bowing to John, she told him,
“Boss and Number One Assistant sit in front.”
“Thanks, but you—” John started to say, but Joy kicked him in the ankle. He unnecessarily added, his voice running out at the end, “I meant Number One Translator and I—you know, Number One Assistant and Translator.” He turned slightly red.
“But, of course.” Jy-ying replied, nodding, her full lips slightly parted.
Already, Sal was leaning over from the truck bed to give her a hand up. “Come on, Jy-ying, you can sit next to me.”
As Hands drove off, everyone in place, John suddenly realized how out of time Joy’s clothes were. “You can’t go to the restaurant dressed like that. This is 1906. No woman wears tight pants—no woman even wears pants. We’ve got to go back so you can change.”
“No. I’m not changing.”
“Baby!”
“Maybe I’ll start a revolution, and women will start dressing more sensibly and independently.”
“You just want to show off.”
“So?”
“Okay, I’m going to buy a codpiece for my jewels.”
“Is that right? Well, you’ll have to stuff it with tissue.”
Hands guffawed and continued to laugh so hard, he almost drove into a wagon. “Do we go back?” he sputtered.
“No.” Joy got out between laughs.
“Yes,” John barked, apparently still smarting from Joy’s comment.
“I’m sorry, Miss Phim, but he’s the boss.”
“Yes, but I’ll pull your arm out of its socket and beat you over the head with it if you turn around.”
“Sorry boss, she’s the muscle.” And he roared, hardly able to steer.
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John leaned to whisper in Joy’s ear, “Joy, your are being stupid.
The way you look in this age will be the talk of the restaurant, and then perhaps the talk of the town. Those trying to kill us may hear about it, and realize it must be you. Then they may stake out the restaurant.
Dumb, dumb, dumb. Why not send up a flare with our names on it?”
Joy crossed her arms and turned toward him. She tried to simulate his lecture tone. “One. Nobody would know these are clothes from the future. Two. Even the killers may not know, if they are from a time or place where women do not wear pants. Three. The gossip about what I wear will be,” and she twisted her voice into an old woman’s cackle,
“‘Oh, she wore pants. How brazen.’” Back in the lecture tone, she continued with, “Then some woman will try to find out where she can buy such pants. Four. The killers would not believe I would so exhibit myself, and thus will ignore such gossip. It’s like leaving something you want to conceal out in the open, the least expected place. Five. My dear John, I’m most comfortable in these clothes, I’m tired, I’m homesick, and right now, I don’t want to get into one of those stupid, neck-choking, chest-smothering, waist-crushing, leg-binding dresses women are forced to wear.”
She hesitated, uncrossed her arms, and touched the end of his nose with her forefinger. She softened her voice. “And six. You said one
‘stupid’ and three ‘dumbs,’ which makes four negatives. Four negatives equal one positive, so I’m glad you agree.”
John’s jaw dropped and he gawked at her, then shook his head and finally shrugged and laughed. He leaned over close to her ear again and whispered, “Stuff it with tissue, eh? I’ll get you for that.”
Joy sat back and gave him a big grin. She put her hand on John’s leg and gently squeezed it.
An hour later, they had found a place to park the truck, and had checked into the Inn, John and Joy in different rooms. Unlike the Fairfax Hotel, which John had bought as a result, the Inn had no prejudice against Orientals. They gave Joy and Jy-ying rooms without raising an eyebrow or twitching a nose. But the male reservation clerk was all eyes at the way Joy was dressed.
Each room had a hot water bath, one of the reasons for the cost of the rooms, and Joy luxuriated in the steaming water for such a long time that John had to remind her that they were going to meet the others in the Italian restaurant for supper.
When they entered the restaurant, the guys were waiting by the cashier’s counter. The cashier, who also acted as headwaiter—he was probably an assistant manager who would not trust the cash handling to
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anyone else—came from behind his counter and stepped in front of them. With Joy standing on one side and Sal and Jy-ying slightly behind John on the other, he asked the man for a table for six. The cashier looked at Joy, glanced at Jy-ying, then swung his gaze back to stare at Joy and her jeans. He frowned, looked down his nose at John, and told him, “I’m sorry, sir. I cannot seat the Oriental . . . lady . . . the way she is . . . dressed.”
Immediately, Joy whispered in John’s ear, “Don’t you dare buy this restaurant.”
Hands reached out to grab the cashier by his coat, but John pushed down Hands’ arm while reaching with his other hand for his wallet.
John took out a dollar and tried to hand it to the cashier.
The man shook his hand and refused to take the money. “We have a dress code, and I would be fired if anybody complained.”
John added another dollar.
After a noticeable hesitation, the man said, “I’m sorry.”
Sal exclaimed, “You shit!”
John added still another dollar.
The cashier looked out of the corner of his eye at the guys, who appeared ready to dismember him. His hand shook visibly as he reached for the pile of menus on the counter. He simpered, “Well, if you don’t mind where I seat you.”
Holding the menus across his chest, he led them to a large table located in the corner of the restaurant, just to the left of the swinging kitchen door. He pulled out a chair for Joy, and motioned her into it.
She was now seated right in the corner, her denims hidden from other tables.
The cashier walked over to a waiter nearby and whispered something to him. The waiter served them immediately. Obviously, the cashier wanted to get them out of the restaurant as soon as possible.
During the meal, John told the guys and Jy-ying, “I want you to come to my room after we’re through eating. It’s time to give you background on Joy and me. You no doubt are curious about us.”
“Of course not,” Hands said with mock seriousness. “You are just ordinary people.”
Sal added, “So ordinary—really boring people.”
Dolphy appeared thoughtful. “There is this one small thing.”
John looked at him. “Yeah?”
“It’s Miss Phim.”
“Yeah?”
“Well, it’s her behavior.”
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“Yeah?” John’s voice now held a slight edge.
“She treats us as though she’s equal to us men. She doesn’t know her place as a woman. She even tries to wear men’s pants,” Dolphy replied, emphasizing the last word.
For a moment, John looked as if he was about to explode. Then he saw Dolphy’s grin. He sat back and grinned himself. “No,” he responded, “she thinks she’s better than any man but one.”
“Oh? Who is that?” Sal asked with raised eyebrows.
“Your humble boss,” John replied. “Isn’t that right, Joy?”
“Oh yes,” Joy said. “I am your humble assistant and translator and bow to your great superiority as a man.” She punched him in the shoulder. “You men never know your place,” she added, laughing.
When the laughter died down, Joy glanced at Jy-ying, who was studying her menu, and didn’t seem to be amused. Indeed, Joy realized, she had been too quiet, too aloof. I wonder if we insulted her in some way. Well, I’m looking forward to our first conversation alone together, so I can understand her better.
Sal turned serious and asked John, “What are you going to do with the warehouse, now that you’ve moved out?”
“I gifted it to the American Red Cross. They’ve been doing a great job of helping people here after the earthquake and fire. I thought they could use the warehouse as another office and distribu-tion center. I called them, and they said they could use it immediately. So, on the way to the warehouse I stopped at their local headquarters and gave them a signed transfer of ownership from me to them.”
Dolphy’s eyes sprang wide as he blurted, “You can afford to give away the warehouse? Just like that? And buy a new apartment building? Did you rob a bank, or something?”
John looked amused, and answered, “Later. In my room. All will become clear.”
When they’d finished their meal and were about to leave, Joy said sweetly, “I have to go to the rest room. Be back shortly.” She nodded at Jy-ying, inviting her along.
As both of them were getting up, Sal advised, “Jy-ying, make sure she doesn’t go into the wrong room, now.”
Hands added, “We’ll wait to hear the women scream when you walk into their rest room.”
With Jy-ying leading the way, Joy slowly and gracefully walked across the restaurant to the rest rooms.
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John
John knew what Joy was doing. She no more has to use the rest room than I need to go to the North Pole. She loves showing it off.
She’s got it and she knows it. Pure female.
Then he noticed how similar her figure was to Jy-ying’s—a similarity not lost on everyone else in the restaurant. People stopped in mid-conversation to watch what none of them had seen before, a vision the men would hug in their dreams from then on—a long-legged, beautiful, and curvaceous Asian woman with a long pigtail, dressed in pants that hugged her tush like a second skin. And preced-ing her, an equally beautiful Asian with curves emphasized by a hip-hugging, taffeta silk skirt. Many a woman at the tables followed the pair with envious eyes, or gazed insulted at her boyfriend or husband, who sat with a forkful of food frozen halfway to his mouth and lust shining in his eyes.
