Community Service (5 page)

Fresh tears sprouted, but she nodded
in a kind of wonder.

“
Yes, Albert.” She cuddled
in his arms and he held her close as their lips met.

She closed her eyes and
the world went all dark again, but it was a warm and fuzzy sort of
darkness, a wet and warm and
squirmy
sort of darkness as well,
where all sorts of good things might happen—if only a person had
the courage to let them.

Thank God one of them had some
guts.

When he pulled away, she was smiling,
giggling at herself, both of them even.

“
What?” He lifted a wet
chin and took a good look at her.

“
I can see the headlines
now: Judge seduces former convict…pays for sex with cookies and
muffins…”

He gave her another kiss.

“
That seems about right.”
He looked into her eyes for a while, just looking.

“
Albert.”

“
Yes, Marion?”

“
There’s a pair of
scissors in the far, left-hand kitchen drawer.”

“
Ah. And what would the
nice, criminal-court, judge-type lady have me
do
with these alleged
scissors?”

“
Well, you could start by
cutting this damned girdle off of me…”
Take your time, Albert and cut these damned inhuman grey
slacks off me too.
“You know. I might try
to escape or something…”

And we wouldn’t want that,
now, would we?

Their lips met again, and there was
humour in his eyes.

He kissed her over and over, pulling
her head back to take a look and also to let her have a look from
time to time as she kept pulling him in, pulling him back
down.

Finally, it seemed, he had made his
decision.

“
I think you may be trying
to trick me.”

She nodded, eyes shining.

“
But if it
is
a trap.
Albert…?”

“
Well. There’s only one
way to find out.” His eyes went up and down her.

He released Marion.

Carefully squirming out of his lap and
up onto her feet, she spoke.

“
I’ll just go and get them
for you.” He gave her an appraising look, as if not quite trusting
her—after all, it really could be a trick—scissors were a weapon,
after all—and then he smiled into her eyes.

He nodded calmly, even looking away,
as if seeing the room for the very first time. He put his feet up
on the coffee table.

“
I think there might be
some wine in the fridge.” She stood there waiting for his
word.

“
Okay.”

Walking carefully, with her legs
hobbled and wondering just where in the hell she had put the
corkscrew, Marion left the room, conscious of her great good
fortune in finding one such as Albert.

Imagine the nerve. Imagine taking that
kind of a risk. She dried her tears with a tea-towel.

He must have been pretty sure of her,
which was a fair enough assessment she supposed.

She really had gone
and
done
it,
hadn’t she?

Whew.

“
Lover?”

“
Yes?” His voice, coming
from the other room, was calm, deep and self-assured.

A man with a voice like that had a lot
going for him, something she’d noticed right from the start—perhaps
one reason she didn’t just give him thirty days in the county
bucket and a three-hundred-dollar fine. Something must have guided
her, her subconscious desires perhaps, a miracle, or a guardian
angel maybe.

“
White or red?”

“
Ah…white, I
think.”

She felt a lot better about things all
of a sudden.

“
Albert.”

“
Yes, Marion?”

“
I don’t have to be at
work until ten o’clock Monday morning.”

“
That’ll be
fine.”

She snickered a bit at the sheer,
unmitigated confidence of him, and bit her lip, trying to focus on
the task at hand through misty eyes.

Taking down two of her
lovely, cut-crystal, long-stem glasses was one thing,
but,
where was that
bloody cork-screw? Her mind had gone all scatter-brained all of a
sudden. She cussed and fussed and hobbled about in the kitchen,
putting ice in the bucket, and finding an ashtray for the
man.

Now, what else?

Food, yes, but that could come
later.

Oh. And she mustn’t forget the
scissors, either.

End

About the Author

Constance ‘Dusty’ Miller has written
fiction, non-fiction and worked for newspapers and magazines, even
working for a brief stint as sports editor of a small-town weekly.
She likes to make people laugh as well as think. Her erotica has
strong qualities of literary romance. Out of work and recovering
from a life-threatening illness, someone suggested writing erotica
which she initially rejected for lack of confidence. But love makes
the world go around, and Dusty can no longer deny its pull. Dusty
squeezes a little writing in between raising a daughter and
building up her business.