Training Amy (14 page)

            She couldn’t deny it. “Yes.”

            “Good because I enjoy your company and I enjoyed last night. I’d like to keep seeing you and we’ll see where it goes. Besides, a lot of people sleep with the person they’re dating four or five dates in. As I see it, we spent almost a full three weeks, eight hours every day together, which is longer than a four hour date. So technically we know more about one another than those couples. Right?”

            Now it was her turn to laugh. He certainly had a point.  For some reason, that point, regardless how lame or contrived a justification, made her feel a great deal better about herself.

            “So can I keep seeing you outside of work, Amy Myers?” 

            A slow smile spread across her lips. “Yes Master Eric.”

            He let out a sigh of relief. “Good. I was worried you were going to tell me you never wanted to see me again.”

            She rolled her eyes. “No, I was just going to suggest we slow down a little.”

            Pulling into the parking lot behind the store, he put the car in park and turned it off, then turned to her. “I thought we were going slowly. We haven’t technically had intercourse.”

            She felt her face turn at least three shades of red. “True, but we were very close. We might as well have.”

            “I was hoping to build some anticipation to that. I had to take two cold showers last night.”

            She gave him a broad smile and shook her head. “Well if you put me off too long I can’t be held responsible for what I might do.”  She bit her lip, her gaze subconsciously settling on his crotch.

            “Oh really?” He chuckled. “Impetuous little sub. I’m putting that on my list of reasons to give your ass another caning.”

            The warm tingling of arousal flooded her. As if a reminder, her still sore and welted behind throbbed a little.  “Could we wait until my butt has had time to recover from the last one?”

            They started out of the car. “As long as you behave and do as you’re told.”

            While his tone had taken on a serious note, she saw a playful glint in his eye.  Wordlessly, she followed him into the store. Brad was already there, but Kali had disappeared. Evidently Brad had dropped her off somewhere along the way.

            The day started slow, but as it wore on, business picked up and the time flew by. Amy and Eric didn’t have much time to talk and Brad was his usual disciplined self. Before she knew it, it was already six and the store was closed.

            “Are you sure you don’t want me to stick around for inventory?” she asked.

            Eric yawned and shook his head. “Nope. I seem to recall the matter of homework for your classes.”

            It was true. She had an essay to write and some reading to do. She nodded, also yawning.

            “So you guys didn’t get much sleep last night?” Brad asked.

            “Fuck you, man,” Eric said, herding Amy out the back toward the car.

            “Don’t take forever to get her home,” Brad called after them.

            Amy felt her face flush. Guys were always so harsh with each other. It was something she didn’t think she’d ever get used to.

            As they pulled out of the parking lot she saw the familiar car and the familiar face behind the wheel as the car pulled out behind them, but she shrugged it off as her own paranoia. There was no way that after three weeks Paul was still following her. On the way home they talked about their childhoods; Amy sharing her adventures as an only child and Eric stories about tormenting his sister, and his sister getting even. When he dropped her off he waited until she got into the house before driving away.

            Amy carefully navigated her parents questions and want for conversation. Finally she found herself in her basement bedroom reading about business ethics and taking notes. By midnight she’d finished the paper and the reading and fell asleep.

            It was either the thick smell of smoke or the screaming from outside that woke her. The room was hazy and smoky and there weren’t any lights. Panic swelled within her. She tried to turn on the lamp but nothing happened.  Reaching around she found her jeans and a t-shirt and pulled them on, staying as low to the ground as possible. Quickly she held her breath and stood, opening the window. She used the handle of a broom to help push out the screens. Absentmindedly she grabbed her backpack and threw it into the window well, then hoisted her thin frame from the room. Then she threw her backpack onto the front lawn. Coughing, she tried to hoist herself out of the window well.

            “We’ve got the young woman! Over here!” A man’s voice shouted.

            Before she knew what was happening, Amy was pulled from the window well and then she was sitting in the back of an ambulance wearing an oxygen mask. Her parents were there. In front of them the house stood ablaze, crumbling. It was like a bad surreal dream.

           
At least I saved my homework
, she thought. She snorted at the thought. It was absurd. The one thing she saw fit to save was that damn fifty pound backpack filled with her laptop and college textbooks. Finally, her thoughts turned sober when she realized that she and her parents had lost everything they had.

            Her father had managed to save his cell phone and his lockbox, her mother a photo album. He’d just finished a phone call to the insurance company and had gotten ahold of his sister when a police officer approached them. “You folks have some place to go?”

            “My husband’s sister has an apartment in Leichster,” her mother said through a veil of tears.

            “I’ll need that phone number,” the officer said, getting the information.

            Amy fought the urge to groan. She didn’t want to go to her aunt’s house. It was a one bedroom apartment which left her father sleeping in the recliner and she and her mom sharing the pull out couch. So when her father was finished with the phone, Amy took the opportunity to make a phone call of her own.

            Eric answered promptly in a concerned tone.

            “Eric?”

            “Amy? What’s wrong?”

            “How did you know…” she started.

            “It’s three o’clock in the morning. No one calls at three in the morning unless something’s wrong. Where are you? Are you okay?”

            “I’m fine,” she assured him. Just hearing his voice calmed her and made her feel safe. “It’s just my parents’ house, not so much. Umm, there was a fire.”

            He was completely awake now. She could tell because all traces of sleepiness were gone from his voice. “Where are you?”

            “On the side of the ambulance with my parents waiting for my aunt to pick us up,” she told him.

            “I can be there in ten minutes. You can stay with me,” he said.

            “I don’t want you to feel like you have to…”

            “I don’t
have
to do anything. I
want
to. I’ll be there in ten minutes,” he said again. Then the phone went dead.

            “Amy, I need the phone back. I need to call the auto insurance,” her father said.

            She handed the phone back to him. “I’m going to go stay with a friend. I don’t want to overcrowd Aunt Laura.”

            Much to her own surprise her parents didn’t protest. They also didn’t protest when Eric showed up and stood next to Amy, listening as the officer and a fireman discussed how the fire may have started.

            “It looks like it may have started on the west side of the house. I’ll need to come out tomorrow in the daylight and see if it was faulty wiring or arson,” the fireman was saying.

            “Arson?” Amy’s father asked.

            “I can’t be sure, but it looks like the fire may have started on the outside wall.  There’s no electricity on the outside wall,” he explained.

            Eric put his arm around Amy’s waist, pulling her close to him. His touch alone warmed her.

            “Did any of you hear anything or notice anyone acting suspiciously?” the officer asked.

            Amy and her parents shook their heads.

            The officer turned to her then. “What about you, miss? Any angry boyfriends?”

            Amy frowned. “Boyfriends? No. Well, my ex, but he hasn’t bothered contacting me since I broke up with him about three weeks ago.”

            “You broke up with Paul?” her mother asked.

            “It was over months ago, mom,” Amy said, fighting the urge to roll her eyes like an insolent teenager. Their house had just burnt down and her mother actually cared that she broke it off with Paul? She let out an exasperated sigh.

            “Well, we’ll know more after tomorrow. In the meantime if any of you think of anything, contact me.” The officer gave her parents a card with his number on it.

            Eric pulled his own card out of his wallet and handed it to Amy’s father. “That’s my number if you guys need to get ahold of Amy.”

            “I’ll be at school and work,” she said, dazed. The dazed feeling was starting to overtake her.

            “No,” Eric said flatly. “You’re sleeping in and you can call your professors and let them know what happened. Then maybe you need some family time. You can drive my pickup if you want.”

            “My license and my purse are burnt to a crisp.”

            “Then I’ll stay home and drive you around and maybe we’ll stop at the DMV and get you a replacement. Okay?”

            Amy’s parents said nothing, just passively watched the exchange.

            “Okay,” she finally conceded.  She was too tired to worry about any of it and thankful that Eric had taken control of the situation.

            After a few polite words with her parents and after shaking her father’s hand, Eric rejoined her and led her to the car, helping her in. Throwing her backpack into the back seat he got in and pulled away from the home she’d grown up in.  
Amy felt the familiar numb sensation slowly make its way through her, dragging her into the darkness. She hadn't felt this way since High School
.
Finally they were pulling into his driveway.

            There were two other cars there.

            Eric physically had to open the passenger door and lift her out. Her legs didn’t want to work. There were voices and people talking but she couldn’t focus on any of them. It was all a blur. She didn’t have any clothes. No makeup. Not even a toothbrush or a comb. She was homeless. Her parents were homeless. They’d lost even more than her. After all, she was just a college student who didn’t have a lot to begin with other than a wardrobe, some odds and ends furniture, a few nick knacks and memorabilia from her childhood. For her parents, however, their home was something they’d spent a lifetime building. At least all their lives had been spared. They could replace things, but they couldn’t replace each other.

            “Amy, are you okay?” a female voice said.

            "I'm fine," she heard herself say in a hollow, dead voice."

            "That's not fine," the familiar man's voice said.

            "No, she'll be fine," Eric insisted. “Maybe after some sleep.”

            “You’re the one who told me about the scars and how she reacted to the cane. You can’t tell me this isn’t shutting down,” the man’s voice said. “She’s got a history of it, Eric. If you don’t pull her out she could try to hurt herself.”