Those grey/blue irises are indeed the same that captivated me at the Lusty Lady, and I feel as though I have been punched in my solar plexus.
I am having trouble breathing, and all my organs are on overload. On the verge of losing consciousness, I begin hyper-ventilating, gasping for air, struggling to get oxygen moving again.
“Shh, shh, it’s okay, just breathe.” She has one hand on mine and gently stroking my forearm with the other.
Ash, the hostess, appears. “Hey, Gina, what’s the matter with him? Should I call an EMT?”
“No, I think he just swallowed the wrong way. He’s okay, I got this”
“He sure doesn’t look okay, and that noise he made freaked out half the restaurant.”
Noise? What noise, all I did was almost black out and start hyperventilating.
I gradually regain control of my breathing as my solar plexus reboots. My aorta finally gets enough oxygen north of my neck that I no longer feel on the verge of blacking out.
My other organs return to functioning, and I begin taking inventory. Apart from a slight tremor still running through me, I seem to be returning to normal.
My chin is on my chest, looking into my lap. I feel exhausted. I pull long breaths into my lungs, refueling myself. She stops stroking my arm but leaves the other hand on top of mine.
Dropping her head almost to the counter, she looks up at me. “Hey, now don’t make me a liar. Are you going to be okay?”
I lift my head, and she follows suit, we are now facing each other. “What noise did I make? What was she talking about? I just freaked out when I recognized you.”
“Well, actually, you cried out. I don’t know what you would call it, but it was feral, painful, and plenty loud. Then you started gasping for air.”
“Thanks for covering for me.”
I look down at her hand on mine. I feel like I am about to burst into tears. What the fuck is going on inside me?
“I’m going to order some sake, would you like some?”
“No, I’m a recovering addict, I don’t drink. But you go ahead. It’s the one liquor that I truly miss, so please, go ahead. I like to watch people enjoy themselves.”
There is a huge, stunned pause as we both hear what I just said and extrapolate it into where and how we first ‘met.’
Simultaneously, we both start laughing. Naturally, fully, freely, And loudly. The whole restaurant is now on alert for the weird guy with the pretty woman at the end of the bar.
“Oh fuck, who would believe this scenario? What’s your name anyway? I’m Gina.”
“I’m Tom, and I’m embarrassed as hell!”
“You shouldn’t be, I am sure you are not the only bourgeois reader of Ed Abbey,” she teases. “You do realize that you are in the heartland of the American anarchist uprising, don’t you?”
“Gina, you, of all people, know I may not be what I seem. And thanks for yet another diversion, as you know, that’s not what I was referring to.”
Ash slides in between us to serve Gina her sake. She seems to intentionally block me out as she does so. It’s not hostile, but it is protective, and I realize there is more to this relationship than hostess/customer. She finishes pouring and walks back to her station by the door.
Lowering her voice, Gina leans a bit closer. “So what were you referring to? That my friend Ash might change her opinion if she saw you without your handmade boots and haute couture clothes. With your tattoos and piercings on display? Or that you’re a closet exhibitionist and get off being naked in front of others? No, let me rephrase: You like getting off in front of others.”
“Both, I suppose, but I was actually talking about my younger days in particular and how I spend my personal time now. Neither would lead you to a fellow looking like me.”
Another sardonic grin from Gina. “Well, from what I saw of how you spend your personal time, I would say you are correct that you may not be what you seem. Who made that shirt anyway, Hugo Boss?”
“Okay, nice dig! The shirt is Zegna. You have a good fashion eye for a…”
Shit! I turn beet red and try again. “For a…”
“For a stripper? For a professional coaxer of cocks? For a fisher of semen? You only know what you saw as well. Lusty Lady is not exactly a career move on my part. But I am not ashamed of it either, I just wish I was more comfortable.”
“Yeah, ‘for a stripper,’ sorry, that’s where I was going.”
“Chill, Tom. What else are you going to call me, knowing what you know? So what do you do to earn your living? My Zegna mystery man?”
I notice that she used ‘my,’ and while it certainly means nothing, I hold it close as I am beginning to like this woman.
“I put together concerts for corporate events. We are here in Seattle to do a show for Microsoft’s annual summit.”
“Hai!” The sushi chef presents her with a ‘to go’ box of her sushi. He also deposits my tamago in front of me.
“Hai, Hontoni arigato gozaimasu,” she responds in the simultaneously emphatic but casual form of ‘thank you’ that only someone who has lived or spent a lot of time in Japan would know.
“I think we may have more than one mystery sitting at this bar.”
“Yeah, I thought that might get your attention. Those waves and iso bars on your quads are not from American machine work, are they?”
“Iso bars? Really? No, they are not. Pretty good eye for a fisher of semen!” I am truly more than impressed at this point.
She laughs, and to be completely honest, my heart melts a bit — she is a delight!
“I lived in Tokyo for three years, and while it seemingly took forever, I finally became somewhat fluent for a gaijin. I am going to guess that it was Horiyoshi III since Horihide and most of the others wouldn’t be accessible to a gaijin like you.”
“Okay, you got me. How does a flamed crotch coaxer of cocks know about Japanese horimono masters when most Japanese don’t?”
“You love alliteration, don’t you?”
“I am just recycling your own witticisms. And trying to impress you.”
“Tom, why don’t you take your dessert, put it in my box, and escort me home, where we can finish this conversation.”
I don’t hesitate for a second. This woman is fun. I wave for the bill, and Ash comes over with fire in her eyes and the bill in her hand.
“Ash, it’s okay, really.” Gina stands, pulls her aside, and whispers in her ear. Ash laughs and looks back at me again, this time with more of a look of pity. Gina continues, and Ash’s look changes once more, this time to something I cannot read, but at least it’s no longer hostile or pitying. Taking my card, she struts back to the register.
“Great, I am guessing that your hostess friend knows your job and how I met you.”
“Don’t be silly, Ash works there too. For that matter, she is my mentor, even though I am a shit student. I just told her I already learned something from you today and thought you might be able to help me a bit more.”
I don’t even know how to respond. I have no idea what she learned from me and am nonplussed as to what I could do to help her.
Ash returns with my bill, and I sign it, leaving a healthy tip as an apology for my outburst. I take my card and hand the plastic folio back to her. “Okay, Mr. Thomas Davies.” Her eyes bore into me as her nostrils flare around that eight-gauge nose ring. ‘Don’t fuck with my friend’ is unsaid but clear as a bell.
“Ash, just stop, he’s benign.” Gina steers me around her protectress, and we walk into the Seattle summer dusk.
I’m benign? Wow, I might as well be pathetic. The word means gentle and kind. But it also means harmless in a medical sense. Not exactly how someone who considers himself an Alpha male yearns to be perceived.
“My car is about two blocks away, all uphill.” She smiles as we turn left out of the Pike St Market complex.
She is taller than I thought, probably about five-foot-ten, and has a spirited, long stride — she gaps me as we head up the hill. She’s wearing a light cotton skirt with a batik print blouse, her hair pulled back in a ponytail, and intricately wrapped sandals on her feet. Gina might be the visual definition of a casually affluent Wasp woman out shopping, certainly not a dancer at a peep show.
The hair that seemed dull and flat in the lights of the booth is shining in the waning sunlight, and her skin is flushed and radiant. The ponytail bounces as she continues to leave me in her wake.
Catching up to her and trying to catch my breath, I ask where we are heading.
“Why, do you know the Seattle area?”
“No, not really.”
“Sorry, that was a bit curt of me. We are heading south, near Brace Point, it’s about a fifteen-twenty minute drive, Is that okay with you? Damn, there I go being abrupt again. It’s Tom, right? …Tom, I suddenly am not sure what we are doing… and yes, I know I was the one who told you to put your dessert in my box.”
We stop in the middle of the sidewalk. The street is steep enough that her position has her eye to eye with me. This woman is quick, empathetic, and uniquely erudite on a variety of topics… Where the hell did the bored stripper go?
“Look, at this point, I am just along for the ride. To be honest, I have been on my back foot since you stopped ‘working’ and started watching me in the booth. Then, I apparently had a minor meltdown in the restaurant. After that, you told Ash that I had helped you in some way and could possibly do more, and I have no idea what that means. I am as lost as I can be.”
“Okay, fair enough. I did not mean to be so presumptuous. From what you have told me about yourself, I’ll bet you are in charge all the time, and this has to be freaking you out unless you are just going along because you think you will get laid, which I can assure you is not going to happen.”
While not in the forefront of my mind, I have to admit, that fantasy was lurking somewhere – and she obviously knows it.
“So what is it that I taught you, and what can I do to help you?”
“I don’t mean to be obtuse, but I am still formulating that for myself as well. And I am starving. I have not eaten all day and tend toward hypoglycemia. Just come back with me. We should just make the sunset. I’ll get some food in my belly, and if I can’t put my thoughts together by then, I’ll just drive you back to your hotel.”
The hell with getting laid. I really like this woman, spending an evening talking to her is a fascinating prospect. “I’m in. Lead on.”
We walk another block. At the lot, she greets the attendant by name, and he actually throws her the keys from the booth, a good fifteen feet toss. She catches it with a flourish, laughs, and tells him she will see him tomorrow. My interest continues to grow as I climb into her vintage but well-maintained Toyota Land Cruiser.
As we head south on Rt 509, she fills me in a bit on herself. After graduating from Bard, she got a job as a copy editor with Conde Nast. She spent most of the 1980s in Manhattan being bounced around the CN roster, mostly The New Yorker and Vanity Fair. She even spent some time at Architectural Digest.
In her last years at Vanity Fair, she finally got her own byline and reported her own work rather than polishing that of others. In 1988, she did an article on the Japanese appetite for all things American with a focus on American models brought to Japan to model Japanese products to the Japanese public. It was a combination of a business exposé, an examination of cultural appropriation, and a feminist manifesto. It stirred things up a bit on Madison Ave and in Japan.
The multi-national ad agency that she wrote about in the article offered her a job, essentially saying, ‘Help us fix it,’ and included a top-tier position and salary to go with it. She accepted and spent the next three years attempting to do exactly that, overseeing advertising copywriting that was inherently sexist and attempting to alter the misogyny of woman-sold products.
While she also wanted to take on the cultural imperialism of using blonde, blue-eyed models as aspirational examples for Asian women, she knew that she was on the wrong side of the fence to lead that charge.
Like my time in the vanguard of revolutionary action in the early 1970s, she admitted to considerable naiveté regarding what she would actually be able to accomplish. While she felt they were sincere in wanting to be less sexist and less culturally imperialistic, it did not work out. The reality was that money dictated when it came to fashion, alcohol, and the other products they were pimping. She left there with a comfortable nest egg and an unwillingness to compromise on her next endeavor. That endeavor is to work on her novel and do stringer pieces for magazines that would keep her visible and bring in some money.
As she tells her story, I run the math and realize she is even closer to my age than I originally thought when I had my confessional epiphany. For a moment, I become embarrassed again but shrug it off quickly. We have moved well beyond that.
We pull into a driveway on a point poking into the southern edge of Puget Sound. The point is narrow enough that the only neighbors sit behind her property, closer to the access road. The sense of privacy is amazing, considering how close to downtown Seattle we are.
Her ‘house’ is a large block building with an oversize size garage door and an outside staircase to an upper deck running the width of the house. The lower area has one opaque window and looks like a bunker. I’m guessing it is cinder block at its core. It is covered with vertical, weathered wood panels laid on each other like the lapstrake hull of a clinker-built boat. On top of the block sits a large, wooden A-frame with lots of glass. She hits the garage opener clipped to her visor, and the double-wide, RV-size door cantilevers open. We drive inside.
The shop is a full sixty feet deep and at least that wide. Ceilings are twelve feet high with a pair of I beams crossing in the center. A half-ton Lodestar hoist hangs from one of the beams, hook unoccupied. There are several work tables, an oxy/acetylene rig, a mig welder, an industrial compressor, a peg board wall covered with hand tools, and two mechanics’ rolling tool chests.
It’s an active workspace and well-ordered. Most tools are on the wall or stored away in boxes. The gas rig has a cutting head affixed and is lying on the welding table. Nearby are some pieces of half-inch sheet, already cut into various shapes. Two projects stand in the open. One is a welded metal structure, still taking form but somewhat birdlike, the other is a stone sculpture and most definitely destined to be a woman. It is on a short plinth and is approximately twice life-size. The rough outline appears to be reaching out to something.
Stranger and stranger. Who the hell does she live with? Or is she a peep show dancer, a writer, a welder, a sculptor? Not sure anything would surprise me anymore.
I climb out of the Land Cruiser and walk over to the work area, kicking up stone and metal dust as I go. I can feel Gina watching me and am confident she is enjoying my confusion.
“You are a woman of many talents. My barn in Colorado isn’t this well equipped. And you are making serious art.”
“Not me, that’s Ash’s work. I can change a tire, but beyond that, tools are not my forte.”
“So Ash is a bit more than your mentor…”
“Yeah, I was probably being a little cute and precious with that. Ash is my partner, my lover. Oh! That certainly got a reaction. Let’s go eat, and I will tell you about us, more or less.”
There is an inside staircase from the shop up into the kitchen area, which opens up onto a huge living space with no separating walls. It is essentially broken into four quadrants. Bathroom and shower in one corner, sleeping area in another, both in the back part of the large, open room. There are two hinged shoji screens partially separating the bath area, but that’s all. The kitchen area is at the top of the inner stairs, and the living area is by the front door, accessed from the deck and outer stairs.
While I look around, Gina takes the sushi and lays it out on a serving plate, and begins to set the patio table on the deck through two sliding doors.
The whole western wall is either glass or sliding glass doors, and the view is amazing. On the horizon, Mount Olympus is glowing gold, the sun just about to dip behind its summit.
“C’mon!” Gina pulls me away from my inspection of her bookshelves, and we go outside. She has placed two chairs next to each other, facing the sound, mountains, and sunset. She has split her sushi into two equal servings and taken one of my tamago. “I refuse to eat alone, and you still look hungry.”
We eat in silence as the sun gradually turns the entire Olympic range a rich amber, then pink, before dowsing itself behind them. The dark settles around us.
“Okay, you have been insanely patient. And I have probably been a bit of a tease, but that’s kind of what you hired me for me, isn’t it?”
“Touché! Yes, it is what I ‘hired’ you for, but you were frankly pretty poor at it.”
“I know, and that’s part of the reason you are here.”
“Other than my penchant for masturbation and newfound acceptance that I may be an exhibitionist, I don’t know what I might have done.”
“That’s exactly what it was, but let’s get all those questions behind your eyes out of the way. Go ahead, ask away!”
“So, Ash is your lover and your mentor?”
“Yup, I am a lesbian, full-blown. I met Ash in Tokyo at one of the very rare lesbian clubs. She was in town doing live two-woman sex shows for rich Japanese businessmen. She is a very talented and legitimate artist, but she supports herself between commissions doing sex shows. She is in high demand and makes a decent living in the underground sex scene.”
“I was in the middle of my tenure with the ad agency, and we dated each other off and on for over a year until I finally tossed it in and moved back to the States. She had a lot to do with my willingness to take a chance as a writer instead of an editor or reporter.”
At this point, we move inside as the mosquitos have taken note of our presence. We move to the couch, still facing out to the west, and although indoors, we are still wrapped in the northwest gloaming, the night settling around us.
“Here in the States, she is a star at both the San Francisco and Seattle Lusty Lady locations. She does not work the big room ever, occasionally works the confessionals, but the real money is in Private Pleasures booths where customers make appointments, can tell you what to do, and live sex shows take place. She works the restaurant because a friend is the owner, and she has fun doing it.”
“When we moved in together, she asked me to join her for some Private Pleasures shows. I had to get really drunk the first time, and it was a disaster. However, we did it twice more, and while it was fun, Ash cut it off as she felt she was pimping me. Frankly, I kind of agreed.”
“An editor friend at Vanity Fair had visited us and suggested I write an anonymous article about the confessionals with background from the girls of what seems to be a dying scene. I liked the idea and have been working on it for the past six months.”
“Most of the girls are in their twenties, and some are as old as forty. Ash and I fall in between. They span a wide and interesting demographic and give great interviews. However, I was still unable to translate what it felt like, and so about two months ago, I began working the confessionals. It has not gone well. Dan, the manager, has relegated me to afternoons as too many customers have complained about how I am not ‘hot.’ If it was not for Ash’s clout, I would be long gone. When you are doing sex acts, most clients don’t give a shit. Lesbian sex seems to be some sort of holy grail for the peep customers. But when it is solo, you either have to convince them you are getting off being watched by them, or you have to interact and tease and pull them into your game. Ash has tried to teach me dominatrix tricks for the latter and to just let go and enjoy the former. Neither of them works for me. To interact, I have to actually look at these guys, most of whom are pitiful, if not outright ridiculous. And to indulge in self-pleasure in front of them, I have to …” She shrugs into a shiver and starts again. “Hell, I don’t know what I have to do, but you do. You did it today. You checked out on me until you caught me watching. I was kind of wondering why the hell you were even there. I have now had the odd experience of watching about 500 guys jerk themselves off, and until I interrupted you, you were the first who didn’t really need me at all. Most of these guys just chug themselves, no matter how lame my show is. A few pounds on the window demanding that I get ‘into’ it. They do that too often, and Max or Henry will remove them from the premises. Sometimes we get guys like you who make me wonder why they are there, moderately attractive and obviously affluent. Seemingly able to get laid out there in the world… And then they turn into window pounders or shouters.”
I cringe a bit at the ‘moderately attractive.’
“Watching you disconnect was new for me. I was kind of bummed out when you opened your eyes, but I still wanted you to continue — that was fucked up, making you keep them open, but it did excite me a bit. Margaret Meade would not have been pleased.”
This woman just referenced ‘Coming of Age in Samoa’ during a discussion about peep show booth behaviors!
“Ash has tried to show me how to do it myself, but I think that because she is a “pro” and my lover, I just can’t quite find the essence of the act. You seemed to have a solid connection with enjoying yourself whether I was in the room or not, and that’s what Ash always emphasizes is the key to solo work in the booths. The misuse of women in this trade is obvious, and I get all the feelings of that when in the booths, probably too many. But the girls talk about another side, where they are in control. Unless I can find a way to really feel this work and the control it brings, I don’t think I can convincingly finish this article.”
She has laid this out logically, and I am stunned at where I think she is going.
“Excuse me, but are you asking me to teach a lesbian how to masturbate for the stimulation of straight men?”
“No, I am asking you to teach your new friend Gina how to approach masturbation the way you do.”
Stunned no longer suffices. I am developing a crush on a woman who is completely unavailable to me. Now she is asking me how to pleasure herself in a manner similar to how I do myself. And she is serious.
Silently, I quickly recite the Third Step Prayer. And then ask God to allow me to simply be a vessel for truth and not let my ego or especially my libido get in the way.
Approaching her request seriously, I begin doing what I can to help.
“Gina, when you masturbate for yourself, how long do your sessions last? Do you really make love to yourself, or do you just rub one out?”
“Not very long, just a few minutes, actually. Never more than five.”
“Do you simply do it because Ash is not around, and you need to get off?”
“Yeah, that’s more or less it. Usually at bedtime when alone.”
“Well, with guys pumping tokens into that window, you are going to be played out really quickly if you approach it that way.”
“That’s what Ash says too.”
“Have you ever taken your time, I mean really taken your time masturbating?”
“Only when a partner and I have done it together, like foreplay. But that usually disintegrates kind of quickly into lovemaking.”
“I know, I find it far too stimulating with a lover, but we are talking about solo or, in this case, on the job. Do you like clitoral stimulation, G spot, anal, or tit play? What gets you off?”
“I really like them all.”
“Then you have a lot of options. I used to do the same thing, just jerk off for release. And in a lot of ways, that was fine, but I found that the more self-foreplay I had, the more pleasurable and intense my orgasms were. Do you know what ‘edging’ is?”
“Of course, it’s when you take yourself or your partner right up to the brink, the edge, and then quiet down before repeating.”
“I have had solo edging sessions that have lasted hours. Sometimes the stimulation involves pictures or erotic writing, and sometimes it’s only touch.”
“But you still come to the booths, what’s that about?”
“Do I like watching a woman masturbate, even if it is an act? Yes, I suppose I do, and that worked for years. Then I started showing my body mods to hopefully get the confessional girls more into me. And I discovered I just liked being watched. Maybe you have not given that a chance.”
“Tom, you are a clean, good-looking guy with a nice body, with or without the ink and metal. Most of the guys on the other side are nothing like you. Usually, they are pathetically comical or outright disgusting. And when they make eye contact, ecchh!”
“So when they do, just close your eyes in ecstasy and let them think you are now fantasizing about them.”
“Shit, this is all the same stuff that Ash tells me. I may owe you an apology. It’s possible this was a waste of time.”
“I’m sorry, I’m trying my best over here. And since we are being so damn honest, I have to tell you that I know you are completely unavailable, but I am developing a crush on you. And it has nothing to do with sex.”
“Tom, let’s try one more thing. Will you take your clothes off for me?”
Without waiting for an answer, She begins unbuttoning her blouse and steps out of her skirt.
I sit there dumbfounded.
“Sorry, I better explain. You’re sweet, but no, your proclamation of love did not smack me straight. I think I am kind of digging you too, but as you so accurately stated, nothing in my chemistry finds you attractive below the neck. Above it, you are a knockout. I could fuck your brain all day long, but that’s called friendship. Will you help me with a little show and tell?”
She shamelessly walks over to their bed, sits down, and unties her sandals. I move to the chair opposite the bed and take off my shoes, socks, slacks, and shirt, laying them on the coffee table. As she watches me, she unties her hair and shakes it free. “Now what?”
“Now, do what you did this afternoon, but let me do what I did not do. I think I can do it now, I trust you. I want you to become my customer template.”
“You know that I now know you, have professed love for you, which is completely unrequited, and this could qualify as the biggest tease in history?”
“Yes, I am counting on that. I am going to cling to it when those other men are ogling me, and I am hoping that it will sour you on ever going into a confessional again — because we haven’t even gotten to that broken part of you yet… You want any lube?”
“Damn, Gina, the surprises never end with you. Yeah, what do you have?”
She reaches up to the bedside table and pulls open a drawer.
“Astroglide or KY?”
“KY, please.”
She throws me the tube, fluffs up three pillows and piles them up against the headboard, gets off the bed, and walks back to me.
“Okay, I am going to do myself while you watch. And you have to do the same, just like it was supposed to be this afternoon. Can you do that?”
“Yeah, I think I can pull it off.”
Gina begins the playbook, just like this afternoon, but this time it is not glassy-eyed. This time, it is Gina, and she is playing me like a violin.
“Damn, wait a second.” She runs across the room to the stereo and starts looking through the CDs. Finding what she was looking for, she slides it into the player and heads back. Al Green fills the room with ‘Love and Happiness.’
“So that was your music today?”
“Yeah, they give me leeway because there are so few customers.”
“Well, I loved it.”
“Then keep loving it.”
She begins dancing in front of me, about the same distance as she would be in a booth. This time, her body radiates sexuality. While I know for a fact that it is not directed at me, it is charged with eroticism and fills me with desire. It is a wonderful moment, absolutely wonderful. I laugh out loud, and she stops for a moment, unsure of my laughter.
“Go on, Gina, you got this,” motioning to my completely erect, untouched penis.
She laughs back, and something clicks inside as her movements become even more sensual as she leans her head back and she sucks the fingers of one hand while the other begins pinching and pulling on her nipples.
Widening her stance, she squats, her labia opening, the flames rippling up over her mons. Bringing her spit-covered fingers down, she rubs them between her lips, now spreading her inner labia open as well. She begins squatting in rhythm to Al and the band as her clit and hood rise between her two fingers.
I am sitting there mesmerized and on the verge of coming even though I have not touched myself at all.
“C’mon, Tom, get in the game.”
She shouts as this CD shuffle moves to ‘Take Me To The River,’ which is where I lost it last time.
“You said the trick is to make it last. Let’s see you make it last.”
She goes to Playbook Number Two, climbing on the bed on her hands and knees, showing me the same view as four or five hours ago, but this time it is wet and glistening with her arousal. She reaches under herself and begins alternately fingering herself and spreading her lips wide open. I tentatively stroke my cock, trying to think about rush hour traffic, worn tires, lawnmowers, rusty cans, anything but the woman in front of me. I promised I would hang with her through this.
I have lost track of how much Al Green we have gotten through by now. I am raging with desire for this woman, and her endurance is now a challenge for me as well. Her cunt is dripping, and she is working two fingers in and out of herself.
She is no longer on all fours. She is still on her knees, but her shoulders are down on the bed, head pushed to one side as one arm is folded under her, the hand pulling on her nipples as the other hooks two fingers up into her vestibule, stroking her G spot. She is grunting loudly.
I am staring into her cunt and stroking myself hard. Unaware, I have risen from the chair and am leaning forward, peering into her but waiting for her moment of pleasure to hit first.
“Don’t come without facing him! You need to look at him to take control, to mark him,” exclaims Ash, who arrived without our noticing.
Gina immediately jumps up, and I fall back in the chair. Standing in the doorway is Ash. She walks towards us, tossing her shoulder bag onto the kitchen table and dragging one of its chairs over to the area by us.
CONTINUED IN PART THREE
