Scissor Link by Georgette Kaplan (novels to improve english .txt) 📗

The elevator doors closed between him. Another set of doors dinged, and Janet stepped over to them as they opened up.

Grinning.

“Too bad you’re not going to Yuma.”

CHAPTER 9

Wendy had been drinking. Tina had been managing her. She’d come home too buzzed to sleep, worked on cleaning her Bonneville’s wheels and hubs. Then, covered with grease too stubborn for Ajax to get off, she wrapped herself in a shower towel and passed out on top of her bed, too gross for the sheets.

The purple bunnies were just about to swarm when the world abruptly had a ringtone. Wendy opened her eyes and saw something far scarier: she’d left her phone on the other side of the nightstand and to get it, she’d have to leave her bed, which was suddenly the most comfortable place in the world.

She was this close to letting it ring—it couldn’t be that long until it went to voice-mail—but then she remembered that she was in a relationship now and really couldn’t tell her phone to fuck off just because someone wasn’t courteous enough to text.

Besides, someone could’ve died or something. And now she was worried someone had died. How could she enjoy her bed when someone might be dying?

Cracking inactivity out of her bones and groaning, Wendy shuffled herself out of her bed and picked up the phone. She sagged back down on the bed as she answered. “Yeah?”

“Ms. Cedar, good, you’re up.” Janet’s voice was a strong jolt of espresso, even if Wendy could only manage a weak smile. Four hours later, this call would’ve made her day. But it wasn’t four hours later. It was four in the goddamn morning.

“We have very different definitions of ‘up’. You know, if you feel the need to wake me up, you could at least do it by crawling into bed with me, wearing mink…”

“This isn’t a social call—”

“And it’s Saturday, right? Because I don’t know who told you I spend my Saturdays masturbating, but they’re sorely half-mistaken.”

“Yes, I’m afraid there’s no time for pleasantries.” Janet kept the faux-professionalism in her voice, to the point where it didn’t sound so faux. “Our current marketing director was diagnosed with leukemia yesterday. He’s starting treatment immediately, so I’ve been chosen to go to the conference in his stead. Very last minute, they just settled on me being the one to make the trip. I’ll need someone to assist me, so since you already worked on the pamphlets, I take it you’re familiar enough to be of assistance?”

“Yeah. Go to Arizona, I’m cool with that. Do we get hazard pay?”

“If you could pack a bag and come down here, I’ll drive us to the airport. It’ll just be for the weekend, and I’d really appreciate it. I’m afraid we would have to share a hotel suite, but I trust that won’t be a problem?”

Wendy rubbed some errant sleep from her eyes. “Okay then, we spend three hours doing a sales pitch, the rest of the weekend finger-banging and watching cable porn. I like it, I like it. Should I bother packing underwear?”

Janet faked a laugh. “I’d love to hammer out those details, but I’m with the board of directors finalizing the arrangement, so use your own best judgment and we’ll attend to the little concerns later on. Please come right away, you don’t have time to shower.”

“Yeah, no doubt, no doubt. What’s your favorite color? Because whatever it is, I can probably bring a dildo that color. There was a sale and I thought, ‘Wendy, why not treat yourself?’”

“All right, glad to hear I have my best man on the job,” Janet said with false cheer. “Please get in touch with my secretary if you have any further inquiries, she probably knows more than I do at this point.”

“Are we taking a plane? Because, Mile High Club? Very easy with two women. Unless you’re really into scissoring, and I’ve always found that pretty overrated.”

“Thank you again and I will see you here.” Janet hung up.

Wendy cracked some more stiffness out of her joints, going around her apartment and unplugging her appliances. While she tried to remember every gizmo that needed to stop leeching electricity, she rang Regan. She got her answering machine. “Hey, sis, can’t babysit this weekend. Work thing. Janet needs me to go with her to Yuma.”

The phone abruptly picked up. “‘Janet’? You’re going to Yuma with a ‘Janet’ now?”

“Yeah, she’s my boss.”

“I bet she is.”

Wendy held the phone away from her ear while she worked on a straight face. Regan could detect a snicker at five hundred yards. “I need to go. And we’re not having sex.” Technically true.

“I’m looking her up on Facebook.”

“Do not send her a friend request!” Wendy hung up. She didn’t have any clean clothes. She’d have to take her laundry and do it at the hotel.

It was true what they said. Nothing good happened after 2 a.m.

“Need any help with your bags?”

Still stretching after the long car ride, Wendy jerked in surprise. That didn’t sound like her Uber driver, and she should know after listening to him talk about dolphins for thirty minutes, like geez, dude, host a nature documentary already. Although it was kind of cool that killer whales were just really big dolphins.

She looked over to the speaker, un-spacing out. It was a small woman, thin and seemingly frail except for a steely, spindly aura of strength she possessed. Her hair was dryly styled, her face neatly made up to hide the fine bones of her features in suggestions of volume. Wendy couldn’t place her exact age, but had the idea that calling her an old soul would be taken as an insult. Still, she was beaming a pleasant smile and Wendy returned it.

“Sure. Hate to make two trips.”

Wendy wished the driver a good day and agreed to give him five stars, or whatever system Uber had nowadays. Then she handed the woman her carry-on bag while she