The Mammoth Book of Short Erotic Novels

LAIR OF THE RED WITCH by O’Neil De Noux

It’s always a good day when the client shows up.

On this bright, New Orleans autumn morning, my newest client opens the smoky-glass door of my office, peeks in and says, “Are you Mr Caye?”

“Come in.” I stand and wave her forward. Leaning my hands on my desk, I watch Mrs Truly Fortenberry cautiously step in. A big woman, Truly has mousy brown hair worn under one of those turban hats, the kind Ann Sheridan made popular during the war. She wears a full brown skirt with a matching vest over a white blouse.

A typical-looking 1948 housewife, Truly glances around my office, at my tired sofa, at the hardwood floor in need of waxing, at the high ceiling with its water marks. She looks at the row of windows facing Barracks Street. With the Venetian blinds open, the oaks and magnolias of Cabrini Playground give this section of the lower French Quarter a country feel in the middle of town.

Truly clears her throat, takes another step in and says, “I took the liberty of bringing a friend.” Turning, she waves at the shadow I see through the smoky-glass. “Uh,” Truly says, stepping aside, “this is Diane Redfearn. My friend and neighbor.”

As the second woman steps in, Truly adds, “She wants to hire you, too.”

Diane Redfearn moves around Truly, stops and bats a pair of large brown eyes at me. Her blonde hair up in a bun, she wears a powder blue suit dress with sloping shoulders and a curving waistline. I had ogled a model in that same outfit, an upcoming ’49 fashion. It was a D.H. Holmes ad in yesterday afternoon’s Item. I like ogling fashion models. So sue me.

Diane, a long, cool blonde, makes the model in the paper look like a chubby, over-fed boy. She follows Truly across my wide office to the matching wing chairs in front of my desk (I bought the chairs at a furniture auction on Magazine Street. When was that, three years ago?). Diane slinks into the chair on the left and crosses her legs.

Truly sits in the other chair, filling the seat with her broad hips. I sit in my high-back captain’s chair.

“Any problem finding the place?” I ask as I notice the bevy of diamonds, two rubies and an emerald dotting their fingers.

“Oh no. Your directions were perfect.” Truly blinks her deep set eyes at me and leans forward. “I told Diane how nice you were on the phone, Mr Caye. And since she’s in a similar position, I convinced her to come along.”

Diane bats her eyes at me.

“Lucien,” I tell them. “My first name’s Lucien.”

“Oh.” Truly leans back and digs something out of her oversized purse. She places a five-by-seven-inch photo on my desk. “This is my husband.”

I have to stand to reach the picture.

Diane opens her purse and pulls out a photo and leans forward, uncrossing her legs. Her breasts push nicely against the front of her dress. I smile and take the picture. She leans back and recrosses her legs.

I catch a whiff of expensive perfume. Nice. Very nice.

Sitting back, I look at Truly’s picture first. It’s a studio shot with Truly standing next to a mohair chair where a man sits. His hands in his lap and his legs crossed, the man has a Boston Blackie pencil-thin moustache and a goofy look on his wide face. His dark hair lies thick and curly on an oversized head.

We had a guy like that in our outfit back in Italy. Head too big for his helmet, so he never wore it. Never got hurt either. Just a big jolly fella: he even came to see me in the hospital after that damn German sniper winged me back in ’44. Monte Cassino. But that’s another story.

Diane Redfearn’s husband is another sort completely. He’s alone in his photo, posing as he looks to his right, a cigarette in his raised right hand. He looks like Ronald Coleman, without the moustache, a distinguished-looking gentleman wearing a cravat and what has to be a silk shirt. I hate cravats.

I put the photos down and pick up my fountain pen, holding my hand over my note pad. “So, what can I do for you ladies?”

Truly clears her throat and says, “Our husbands have left us. Mine two weeks ago. Diane’s last week.”

God, I hate domestic cases. But with the state of my bank account, I can’t afford to be choosy.

Truly looks at me as if I’m supposed to say something. Diane’s brown eyes remind me of a sad puppy dog.

“So, Mrs Redfearn. What can you tell me about your husband, besides he’s blind?”

The women look at one another momentarily before Diane tells me her husband isn’t blind.

Lord help me.

Truly clears her throat again and says, “They left us after visiting the red witch.”

It’s my turn to clear my throat.

“The red what?”

“The red witch.” Truly points to my windows. “You can see her place from here. She’s your neighbor.”

I look out the windows for a moment before reaching over to turn on the small, black revolving fan that sits on the corner of my desk. The air feels good on my freshly shaved face.

“Um,” I say as intelligently as I can.

They both speak.

“She always wears red,” Truly says.

“She’s not really a witch,” Diane says.

Truly turns to her friend. “We don’t know that. She calls herself a witch.”

They both look at me and Truly says, “We want to hire you to…”

“Investigate this woman.” Diane completes the sentence and brushes a loose strand of hair away from her eyes. She blows at it when it falls back, her lips pursed in a nice red kiss. I try not to stare, but she’s hard to look away from. Thin and buxomy and married… my kinda woman.

“We tried talking to the police,” Truly says. “My uncle knows someone downtown.”

I nod as I pull my gaze from Diane’s lips.

“They sent someone to talk to the red witch’s neighbors,” Truly adds.

“But no one seems to know much about her,” Diane says.

“Except cats and dogs have disappeared.”

“Cats and dogs?” I put my pen down.

Both women nod. The strand of hair falls across Diane’s eyes again. If I could only reach it.

I pick up my pen and ask, “When do your husbands visit her?”

“Oh,” Truly bounces in her seat. “They don’t any more. My husband’s in Cleveland.”

I look at Diane, who tells me her husband is in Mexico.

“They moved out after visiting the red witch,” Diane explains.

“We want you to find out what she told them,” Truly says.

Diane looks down at her lap. “We want to know what happened…”

“When they visited this… sorceress.”

I stand and move to the windows and open one. A nice breeze floats in, bringing the scent of freshly cut grass. I spot a city worker pushing a mower across Cabrini Playground. Shiftless, his brown skin shimmers with sweat under the bright sun.

“Where does she live?”

Truly clamors over and points up Barracks Street across the corner of the playground to a row of buildings on the lake side of Burgundy Street. Her elbow brushing mine, her perfume isn’t the scent I’d caught earlier.

“See that second cottage from the end? The one painted yellow?”

I nod.

“That’s the place. Her cauldron.”

Cauldron? Isn’t that some sort of kettle? I don’t ask. I turn around and Diane is standing.

Truly notices and hurries back to pick up her purse. I move back to my desk.

“There’s nothing more we can add,” Truly says as she pulls a white envelope out of her purse and hands it to me. “If you need more money, just let me know.”

I place the envelope on the desk and shake Truly’s hand. It’s sweaty. Diane’s hand quivers when we touch and she smiles softly before pulling it back.

She brushes the loose strand of hair from her eyes again. “You’ll let us know as soon as you can?”

“Absolutely.” I reach for my pen and paper. “I have your number, Mrs Fortenberry, but…”

“Both numbers are in the envelope,” Truly says as both women move quickly to the door and leave without looking back. The door closes and I stretch and yawn, then pick up the envelope. Inside, an ivory-colored sheet of paper is wrapped around a C-note. Ben Franklin never looked as good. On the paper are their names, and phone numbers: Fortenberry Chestnut-0719; Redfearn Chestnut-0729. Cozy.

The electric wall clock reads ten-fifteen.

The red witch should be up, even on a Saturday.

I reach into my desk drawer and pull out my snub-nosed.38 Smith & Wesson, slipping it into its tan leather holster on my right hip. I pick up Fortenberry’s and Redfearn’s pictures, my pen and pad and tuck them into my tan suit coat, which I don on my way out.

Stepping into the morning sunshine, I wait for my eyes to adjust. I never wear hats. They mess up my hair.

The warm autumn breeze feels almost cool, flowing through my damp hair. It’s wavy brown and in dire need of a haircut. I’m thirty, six feet tall and have standard-issue Mediterranean brown eyes. I’m half-French and half-Spanish – old blood, pre-American occupation blood. No aristocracy, however. Both sides of my family have been laborers forever, even after emigrating to Louisiana long before Washington and Jefferson started their little revolution.

Moving under the shade of the balcony, I stop next to one of the black, wrought iron railings that support the second story balcony running the length of the building – I rent the apartment above my office – I check my pre-war 1940 DeSoto parked against the kerb. A trail of cat prints dot the hood, reminding me the car needs a good washing. Gray, the DeSoto provides good cover on surveillances and hides most of the dirt, until a cat strolls across it.

I cross Barracks Street and walk next to the low brick wall, with its own black wrought iron railing, that surrounds the playground. The lower French Quarter has certainly seen better days, before everyone around here started speaking harsh Yankee English.

Abutting the sidewalk, the houses across the street are connected by party walls. Masonry plastered over brick and cypress, and painted in muted pastels, the buildings look tired and time-worn.

Rounding the corner, I look at the row of Creole cottages lining Burgundy Street. The second one, painted yellow, is a typical one-story brick cottage with a roofed dormer. In red, the numbers 1233 are prominent on the left cypress post that supports the gingerbread overhang above the small front gallery.

I take the three brick steps up to the small gallery and spot another sign, this one hand painted in black letters next to the bright red door, SORCERESS EROS, the sign reads, LOVE SORCERESS.

“Yeah.” I chuckle as I ring the doorbell. “Right.”

I ring it a second time and the door opens.

She puts a hand up on the door frame and says, “Yes?” Her light green eyes stare at me so directly, it’s almost startling. Women don’t usually stare like that, unless they’re a different sort. And she’s clearly not.

In her early twenties, she has a perfectly symmetrical face with a small, pointed chin and cupie-doll lips, painted a deep red. Her straight hair is long and dark brown, parted in the center. She’s a looker, all right, even if she wasn’t wearing a tight, blood red dress and matching heels.

“Yes?” She repeats as I look back up at her big eyes.

I realize I have no game plan, so I opt for the direct approach. I pull a card from my pocket and hand it to her. As she looks at it, I tell her I’m a neighbor, pointing over my shoulder toward Barracks Street.

She takes a step back and, still looking at the card, asks me in. She closes the door.

Dark, the front room is stuffy with the strong scents of incense and scented candles – vanilla, cinnamon, lilac maybe. A line of candles sits atop a chest of drawers to my right; two more are on the coffee table. Incense smolders in an urn on an end table next to the maroon sofa, reminding me of high mass. I cough.

“Oh,” she says, “it’s cooler in back.” She leads me through the front room, down a narrow hall, past two bedrooms on the right, to a brightly lit kitchen. The rear door is open to a small patio filled with banana trees.

She moves to a window and flips on a window fan, then pulls the chain on the ceiling fan above the small, Formica table. She slips my card in a breast pocket and asks if I’d like some coffee.

“Sure.” I watch her nice, round hips move away. She’s about five-three and slim, but not skinny. Shapely slim. My kinda woman.

She turns to the stove and lights a burner beneath a white porcelain coffee pot. Turning back, she smiles, moves up and says, “Give me your coat. You look hot.”

I pull off my jacket and she takes it and drapes it over the back of a chair next to the table. She points to another chair and says, “Sit down, Mr Caye.”

She sits across from me. The fan-driven breeze feels good, especially on the perspiration collecting around my temples. Her creamy, white skin looks paler in the bright light. She’s very pretty. I notice she isn’t sweating at all.

“So,” she says, “what can I do for you?” Her gaze is penetrating, almost invasive.

“I never noticed your sign before. You’re new to the neighborhood, aren’t you?”

She nods. “Moved in last month.”

I loosen my navy blue tie and unbutton the top button of my white shirt. Then I smile and ask, “What does a sorceress do, these days?”

“Help people.”

“So a love sorceress must help people with love problems?”

“Sometimes.” She stands and moves to a cabinet next to the sink, where she digs out two cups and saucers. “Cream or sugar?”

“Black.”

She fills our cups, puts them on the table and sits again.

I wait. It’s an old police trick. People will automatically restart a conversation if you just wait.

“You have a love problem?” Her right eyebrow rises.

I look into those light eyes, which seem suddenly different. She looks at me in an innocent, child-like way, the kind of look you’d see on a grade-school girl. The atmosphere seems intoxicating again, thick, even with the air blowing over me.

Slowly, almost imperceptibly, her head nods. She takes a sip of coffee and says, “You’re here about someone else’s problem. Why don’t you just come out and ask?”

I take a sip of the strong coffee and chicory.

“Two actually.” I put the cup down. “Fortenberry and Redfearn. Sounds a little like a British law firm.”

“Actually Mr Fortenberry is an architect and Mr Redfearn, an industrial engineer. But I can tell you little else about them.”

“Why not?”

“It’s confidential.”

I grin. “As I recall, the law recognizes doctor-patient, priest-penitent, lawyer-client confidentialities. I don’t remember anything about sorceress-confessor?”

She takes another sip of coffee.

“How long were you a police officer?” She smiles again.

She’s bright. I like that.

“Seven years.” I want to ask her how old she is, but down south we just don’t do that. She can’t be much over twenty. So I ask, “How long have you been a sorceress?”

“Professionally? Two years.”

I take another sip. “You from around here?”

“Born and raised. Went to Sacred Heart. Where’d you go to school?”

I should have known. When someone doesn’t have a recognizable accent, they’re usually from where you’re from.

“Holy Cross,” I tell her. Like dogs, we’ve just sniffed each other. Sacred Heart – she’s an uptowner – upper class. Holy Cross – I’m from the lower part of town – working class.

She pulls her hair away from her face with both hands. I like watching women do that.

“So how did you become a sorceress? They teach it at Sacred Heart?”

She laughs lightly, then her face turns serious. She looks at the window fan and says, “I was born a sorceress.” She turns to me with ovaled eyes. “I have a gift, Mr Caye. I can sense feelings in people.”

And it occurs to me – I don’t know her name, but I don’t ask. I wait for her to continue her train of thought. She doesn’t disappoint me.

“I can sense things about people. Sometimes before they do.”

She finishes her coffee and asks if I’d like another cup. I shake my head and finish mine.

“We’re not talking about witchcraft here, are we?”

“Hardly.” She unbuttons the top button of her dress, reaches in and pulls out a gold chain and crucifix. “I’m still a practicing Catholic.”

“Then you don’t sacrifice cats and dogs.” I watch her face carefully and the surprise there turns into a wide smile.

“No. I love animals.”

“Then you don’t know why so many cats and dogs are missing in the neighborhood?”

She picks up our cups and saucers and moves to the sink. She wipes her hands on a red checkered dishcloth. Turning, she rests one hand along the kitchen counter and lifts her hair off her nape with her other hand to let the fan cool her neck. Her eyes stare at me. I almost smile, because she’s waiting now – for me to restart the conversation.

“So what do you do, exactly?”

“People come to me with problems.” Her voice is deeper. “Sometimes, I’m able to help them.”

“So you have the power to make people happy?”

“Sometimes I can point them in the right direction. It’s up to them.”

I wait a second before saying, “Mrs Fortenberry and Mrs Redfearn think you seduced their husbands. Caused them to leave their wives.”

Her eyes still look innocent as she shakes her head. She lets her hair fall.

The doorbell rings.

“Sounds like my eleven o’clock appointment is early.”

She starts for the door and I scoop up my coat and follow her back through the house, back into the insufferable front room. When she turns back to me and looks up with those soft eyes, I apologize.

“I put you on the spot and you didn’t throw me out. Thanks.”

She turns to open the door and I have another question.

“What’s your name?”

“Maggie. Maggie LeRoux.”

Nice French name.

She opens the door to a young man with wavy brown hair and glasses. He wears a tweed suit and looks soft, almost effeminate as he stands there awkwardly.

“Come in, Thomas,” Maggie says with a warm smile.

Thomas extends a hand for me to shake and says, “And you are?”

I tell him my name as we shake hands. His hand is clammy and limp.

I resist wiping my hand on my pants after he pulls his hand away.

“And what do you do?” Thomas asks, his eyes suddenly intense.

“Detective.”

“Oh, my.” He smiles and there’s something familiar about his face. “I’m a playwright.” He turns to Maggie and says he’s ready. She ushers him in.

I step out, toss my coat over my shoulder and walk away.

I don’t go home. I turn right and walk up Burgundy, past more Creole cottages and multistory townhouses, passing beneath more lacework balconies.

An early lunch at the Napoleon House sounds like a good idea to me.

Starting my canvass at the corner of Governor Nicholls and Burgundy, I find no one in the first few houses who know anything of the woman in the yellow house down the block.

Four doors from Maggie’s cottage, the door is open on another cottage, this one painted a pale blue. I knock on the screen door and a woman’s voice answers, “Hello?”

I knock again.

A slim woman with her hair in a bun steps into the front room. She wears a casual off-white dress and has a mop in her hand.

“I’m not buying anything today,” she tells me.

“I’m not selling anything.”

She huffs and leans on the mop handle. “Then what do you want?”

“I’m a detective. I’d like to ask you a couple of questions.”

She moves forward and I see she’s not a bad looking woman at all. No make-up on her face and a little perspired from housework, she’s not bad at all.

“It’s not about that woman again, is it?”

I turn toward Maggie’s house and smile slightly. “Woman?”

“The red witch.”

“Actually, it is.”

“Well, come on in.”

We talk in her living room. Me on a green easy chair. She on the matching sofa. The room smells of old cigarette smoke. The ashtray on the end table next to me has a gray line of ashes still in it. Her name is Agnes English and no, her husband hasn’t left her. He’s at work at Hibernia Bank. No, she’s never even seen Maggie, but her cat’s been missing for two weeks.

“A yellow tabby. Maybe you’ve seen her. Name is Judy and she’s such a love.”

“Just disappeared?”

Agnes nods and tears well in her eyes.

A half hour later, I’m knocking on another screen door, this one on the house next to Maggie’s. Another woman with a mop moves into the front room, squints at me and asks what I want.

As soon as I tell her I’m a detective, she shushes me and moves quickly to the screen door.

“Keep your voice down,” she says as she unlatches the door and lets me in.

In a light-weight sky blue blouse and short white shorts, she’s a sight with her long strawberry-blonde hair pinned with two barrettes. She leads me through the front room, which smells faintly of pine oil, back to a bright kitchen. I can make out her visible panty line along her ass as she moves in front of me. I like that in a woman.

“Coffee, officer?” she asks. Her eyes are the same color as her blouse.

“Sure.”

I watch her bend over for the grounds and flutter back to the sink to fill the percolator.

“I’m Lola Kinks.” She plugs in the percolator. She’s suddenly self-conscious, standing with the strong sunlight behind her and the way I’m leering at the front of her shorts and the dark patch between her legs.

She moves to the small wooden table, sits and crosses her legs.

I sit across from her as the blush slowly fades from her pretty face.

As soon as Lola tells me she’s a widow, something inside stirs, something down south. I readjust myself as I sit.

When she mentions Okinawa, the stirring fades.

“My husband was killed in the last day of battle. Sniper.”

She’s a war widow. Dammit. I hate moving in on war widows. Like most surviving veterans, I feel a little guilty that I lived. It just seems slimy to ease in on a war widow, even three years after Hiroshima.

As the coffee perks, Lola tells me how she’d married her high school sweetheart, spent a whirlwind honeymoon in Mexico, then sent him off to the Pacific. He fought at Eniwetok and Saipan before Okinawa.

Damn, he’d seen some of the heaviest action.

When the coffee’s ready, she fixes us some and I try not to leer at her, although I do steal another peek at her ass as she’s pouring cream in her cup.

“Didn’t mean to get off the subject,” she says as we start in on our coffee. “I guess you’re here about the red witch again, aren’t you?”

“Why do you call her that?”

“Ever see her? She’s spooky and with that sorceress sign. Who knows what she’s up to next door.”

I take out my note book. “Ever see anything unusual?”

“All the time.”

Lola tells me about moaning and wild laughter, about boogie-woogie music, about strange smells, about hearing incantations and voices whispering harshly late at night.

“Smells?”

“Not cooking smells. But like in church. Incense and other strange odors.” She goes on but tells me nothing new.

I remind myself how good detective work is done in details, not broad strokes. But these details are redundant. I close my note book and thank the widow Kinks.

As she leads me out I ask if she’s heard of any missing animals.

“My dog ran away the same week the witch moved in. Dug a hole under the fence and I haven’t seen him since.”

A black lab, he answers to the name Nigger.

Jesus, lady!

She shakes my hand and gives my hand a gentle squeeze. And there’s something there, for a moment, in those sky blue eyes. But she blinks and looks away and it’s gone.

“She’s a flirt, you know.”

“Really?” I act surprised.

“She flirts with my fiancé.”

Fiancé? Did she say fiancé?

“In the backyard last Saturday. I saw her smiling at him and her in a silk robe with God knows what underneath.”

A war widow with a fiancé. If there’s one thing a man like me knows, a woman with a fiancé is as approachable as a nun. Women with fiancés are newly in love. Bored housewives are more my style.

It takes a few more minutes, but I manage to escape from the widow Kinks’ house and those pretty blue eyes.

The electric clock on my bedroom wall shows it’s almost midnight.

I sit in my easy chair, just inside my balcony’s French doors, as a light rain wets the Quarter. A cool breeze floats in through the partially opened doors. With the porch light on outside Maggie’s, I can see the red door clearly. I raise my glass of Johnnie Walker Red and compliment whoever laid out Cabrini Playground. The trees are interspersed perfectly to give me a clear view of Maggie’s.

A dull light flickers in her front room. Candles, probably, but I haven’t seen the red witch since I got back – unless I close my eyes.

Maybe it’s the smoky scotch or maybe she put a spell on me, but when I close my eyes, I see those hips moving lithely, like a cat, beneath that tight dress. I see those ovaled, green eyes staring back at me. The cupie-doll lips, pursed as they come in close for a kiss, touch my lips and…

I down the scotch and yawn.

Tomorrow, I tell myself. I think it’s time I become a client of the red witch. What have I got to lose?

That night I dream, but not about Maggie’s lips. I’m back in Italy, crouched on a dusty hill, a German machine gun strafing around me. The rat-tat-tat of the automatic rifle burps and the ground shakes and I stand up. No. Yes! I stand up, take careful aim at the German helmet behind the machine gun and squeeze the trigger of my M-1.

A stream of banana pudding gushes from my rifle and I know if I can cover the bastard with enough banana pudding, he’ll drown. Only I run out of banana pudding. So I race down to the Italian fruit peddler at the bottom of the hill and ask him to hurry with the bananas.

I point up the hill and tell him the Germans are dug in and need to be drowned. He shakes his head and tells me not to worry. He points overhead at a formation of heavy bombers.

We move to the side of the hill and watch the bombers destroy the Sixth Century Benedictine Monastery atop Monte Cassino. Germans were using the monastery to spot for their field artillery. The bombers reduce the ancient citadel to rubble, which only provides better cover for the crack troops of the First Panzer Division who’ve kept us at bay for weeks.

I try to explain to the fruit peddler that the Germans up our small hill have machine guns and we need banana pudding right away. He calls me pazzo Americano – crazy American. I run off in search of another fruit peddler.

Only, when I turn around I’m back at Anzio beach where hellfire rains down on us from long range German artillery. You know, the guns of Krupp. A dogface next to me in the foxhole turns and shouts, “Pray! Pray to God for help!”

I start praying and he grabs my arm.

“But tell him not to send Jesus. This is no place for kids!”

A shell blows up next to us and I wake up.

Rain slams against the balcony doors. I roll over and try to force myself to dream of the cupie-doll lips.

Thankfully, I don’t dream at all.

Maggie answers the door wearing a flowered sarong skirt and a red blouse with black piping. She’s barefoot, a coffee cup in her hand. I raise the brown bag in my hand. She smiles and her lips are candy-apple red this morning.

“Beignets,” I tell her. “From Morning Call.”

She leads me back through the house, through the smoldering incense and candles to the kitchen where both fans are already blowing. As she pours me a cup, I pile the half dozen beignets on a saucer and place them in the center of the Formica table.

In a short sleeved white shirt and dungarees, I’m casual today. I even wear tennis shoes.

She sits across from me, picks up a beignet and takes a dainty bite of the French pastry – powdered sugar sprinkled on square donuts without holes. I pick up a beignet and tell her, “I came as a customer today.”

She smiles. “I figured that would be your next move.”

“I have problems,” I tell her. Only I can’t help the wicked grin from crossing my lips.

“I know,” she says seriously.

A half hour and two cups of coffee later, I’m in the living room, reclined on the maroon sofa with candles burning around me and incense smoking up the place. Maggie moves next to me and rubs a potion on my forehead and the back of my hands. It’s cool and smells like overripe bananas.

She moves to the chest-of-drawers and lights two large green candles, then comes back and sits on the coffee table, crossing her legs, closing the sarong that gave me a quick look at her pale thighs.

“Close your eyes,” she says softly.

I go along. The air becomes stuffier and I smell something else. The green candles. Musty, they smell like mud. No, they smell like an old shoe left out in the rain.

“Tell me your most pressing problem.” Her voice sounds distant, but I open my eye and she hasn’t moved.

“I dream about the war a lot.” My eyelids close by themselves. I try to force them open, but they’re too heavy. I drift.

I can hear her breathing close to me now. Her breath brushes my cheek.

“That isn’t your problem,” she says and I feel her rub lotion on my forehead again. She takes my hands in hers and rubs my knuckles. It takes a moment for me to realize she’s humming softly. A sweet tune, her voice is soothing. And I drift again, further and further. I’m carried on her voice and feel as if I’m floating.

“So,” she says when I open my eyes. “Feel better?”

I sit up and stretch. I feel much better, rested, as if I’ve slept for hours. I look at my watch and it’s been less than an hour. Sitting up, I realize I’ve a raging hard-on. Glad my pants are baggy.

She stands and moves to the green candles and blows them out.

“Come back to the kitchen,” she says. I follow the easy movement of her hips beneath the sarong to the well-lit kitchen where she pours us each a fresh cup of Java.

As I take a sip, she says, “Your dreaming about the war is your way of working it out. Your dreams will become less violent. They have already, over the last year, haven’t they?”

The rich coffee and chicory warms me. I’m cold and can’t understand why.

“The war isn’t your problem.”

“What is?” I ask, half jokingly.

“Sex.”

The big eyes look innocently at me.

Sex, huh? I gotta admit, she knows how to keep it interesting.

“You want sex.”

“What, now?” I laugh.

“Always.” She’s serious.

I take another sip and lean back in the chair.

“What red blooded American boy doesn’t want sex all the time? I’m an ex-cop, and ex-GI. I’m French and Spanish. I’ve got hormones coming out of my ears.”

She shakes her head, pulls her hair back with one hand as she takes a drink of coffee. She puts the cup down and I smell her perfume for the first time. Less sweet than Diane Redfearn’s, it’s nice and subtle.

“I’ve never met a man with as powerful a sex drive as you.” She says it so seriously, I can’t laugh, although I want to.

“You want sex now with me and you want sex with your clients.” She props her elbows up on the table. “You want sex with just about every woman you see. The attractive ones, anyway.”

“What’s abnormal about that?”

“Your sex drive is super-potent. Insatiable. You want mind-numbing sex.” She says it matter-of-factly, as if she just told me I wanted to be a fireman when I grow up.

I laugh aloud. And I wonder where she’s going with this. She’s right about one thing. I’d love to screw her – right now. On the kitchen table. Jesus! Maybe I am insatiable. I shake the thought away.

“Your sex drive is quite similar to a male cat’s.”

She catches me with my cup to my lips. I cough and spill coffee on the table. She reaches back, pulls a towel off the counter and tosses it to me. I shake my head as I wipe up the spill.

Me – a tom cat?

“That’s right,” I tell her. “You’re good with animals, too. You tell this stuff to the tom cats in the neighborhood?”

She takes a drink of coffee.

“What’d you do, liberate all the cats and dogs in the neighborhood?” I say, facetiously as I raise my cup again.

“I freed them. I felt their desires, the inner dreams and set them free. They ran away. Just like your clients’ husbands.” She gives me that big-eyed, innocent look again.

I put the cup down. “Wait.” I raise an index finger. “Let me get this straight. Fortenberry and Redfearn went through what I just went through and you told them their secret desires and they left their wives?”

She nods and finishes her coffee.

“It took several sessions,” she says as she stands and puts her cup in the sink.

“What did you tell them? What are they looking for? Other women?”

She puts her hands on the table and leans toward me. “That’s confidential.”

The doorbell rings.

“I have an appointment. Thanks for the beignets.” She shakes her head. “And the interesting walk through your psyche.”

I’m dismissed, I guess. She leaves and I follow her down the hall. She turns into a bedroom. I stop outside just as she comes out brushing her long hair.

“How much do I owe you?”

“Five dollars.”

I pull a fin out and follow her into the front room. She moves to the door and lets in a middle-aged woman in a cardigan suit. No I don’t want to immediately fuck her new client! Although, I must admit, the woman has a nice, shy smile and her full lips look…

A picture of Thomas the playwright in the afternoon’s Item catches my attention as I wait in my office for my clients.

No wonder his face was familiar. He’s Tennessee Williams, author of A Streetcar Named Desire, the play that’s got Broadway sizzling. Seems he just won the Pulitzer Prize. Maggie’s got some clientele.

My office door opens and Truly Fortenberry leads the way in. In another full dress, green this time, she wears a floppy hat with a pink carnation. Diane Redfearn wears a slim-fitting, yellow dress. Her hair in a bun, she wears no hat. They sit in the same chairs, Diane crossing her long legs.

Freshly shaved, I have on my best blue suit, a starched white shirt and powder blue tie. Women have told me blue goes well with my dark complexion. With the windows open and the ceiling fans on high, the room feels almost cool.

“I’m not sure what to make of this,” I start. “So I’ll just tell you straight. The red witch is more like a hypnotist. She claims to be able to discover people’s inner desires and frees them.”

“Frees them?” Truly leans forward.

“She claims that’s why all the cats and dogs have left the neighborhood. She freed them.”

Truly bats her confused eyes at me. Diane looks down at the purse in her lap.

“I don’t think she had sex with your husbands.”

Truly looks even more confused. Diane lets out a long sigh.

“Mrs Redfearn, what did your husband tell you when he left?”

She looks up and shakes her head.

“Did he tell you he was going to sail around the world or something like that?”

She shakes her head again and looks at the windows. Her chest rises as she takes in a deep breath. “He said he was going to Mexico to find a lost city and that he wants a divorce.”

I turn to Truly who clears her throat and digs a handkerchief from her purse.

“Mine told me he was tired of living with me, tired of being married and wants to live in Cleveland.” Her eyes glisten and she has that look on her face. I’ve seen it before, the look of desertion, the look of betrayal, the look of an abandoned lover. It’s not a pretty sight, especially on Truly Fortenberry’s puffy face.

“Why?” she moans. “Why would he leave me for… Cleveland?”

Diane stands and wraps an arm around her friend.

I wait as Truly cries. What the hell can I tell her? Who, in his right mind, would leave New Orleans for Cleveland? The obvious answer was whoever was married to Truly. I don’t say that, but I can’t help thinking it. And I wonder if she thinks it too. It’s an unwritten law of nature. Unattractive people know they’re unattractive.

God, I feel terrible. Really. I know I’m superficial when it comes to women, but I wish there was something I could do for Truly Fortenberry. But I’m no wizard. And I’m sure, if she visited the red witch, Maggie would discover Truly’s inner desire was to be married to Mr Fortenberry.

I look out the window as a mockingbird lands on the wrought iron part of the playground fence across the street. Immediately it goes through its long litany of calls – bouncing, ruffling its gray and white feathers. A male probably, advertising its voice to passing females.

Finally, Truly stops crying and fixes her face. She stands and thanks me. I tell them I’ll try to find out more about the red witch, if I can. Diane says it won’t be necessary as I shake her soft hand. For a moment there’s some eye contact between us, but I can’t read it.

They leave me with a good whiff of Diane’s strong perfume.

As I said – nice. Very nice.

The rain started an hour ago; and as I sit in the easy chair behind my closed balcony doors, windblown rain washes across the balcony in waves. It’s so dark outside, it looks as if the rain has put out the yellow electric streetlights.

The bathroom light is still on behind me, so I know the electricity hasn’t gone out. Leaning back in the chair with my tie loosened and an untouched glass of scotch in my left hand, I watch the rain. The nearly full bottle of Johnnie Walker Red lies next to my foot. In case I need a quick refill.

The persistent drum of the shower has me drowsy. Leaning back, I close my eyes and envision the cupie-doll lips in candy apple red, pursed in a sweet kiss. I see those hips moving away from me, lithely, in a smooth feline movement. I see her legs crossed in the sarong. I watch her uncross them slowly. The sarong falls open and the front of her sheer white panties comes into view. I see the dark mat of her pubic hair through the panties.

I hear her humming again, her voice echoing in my mind. The tune fades, then rises again. I try to open my eyes, but my eyelids are so heavy, I can only crack them. I try harder. Then I feel her fingers on my chin. Softly, she traces her fingertips down my throat, then back up to my chin.

I’m on her sofa and strain to open my eyes. I think I see her face above me but it fades and her fingers leave my throat. The humming is to my right, hovering above me. Turning my head, I try to look, but everything’s hazy.

I feel myself fall into a deep well.

It’s so hot I can barely breathe.

I have to open my eyes. Concentrating, focusing all my strength, I pull myself back.

The humming returns, still above me and to my right.

I force my eyelids to open but no matter how hard I try, I only manage to crack them. The darkness fades slowly and I see her, swaying next to me, her hands clasped behind her head. Her eyes are still closed.

Her hands move down the back of her neck and around to her throat. And slowly she unbuttons her blouse, pulls it out of the top of her sarong and drops it on the coffee table behind her.

She reaches back and unfastens her white brassiere and I strain to focus my eyes on her round breasts. Her pink nipples are pointed as she continues swaying. She reaches to the knot on the side of her sarong. She drops the sarong atop her blouse and bra.

I crane my neck more to the right. Her white panties are sheer enough to reveal her dark triangle of pubic hair. She turns her back to me, her hips still moving slowly to her humming. She pulls off her panties, her nice round ass not three feet from my face.

She turns back and continues her rhythmic gyrations. I stare at this naked vision, my gaze roaming from her pubic hair up to her breasts up to her lovely face. She leans forward, her breasts falling toward me. Moving from side to side, she rocks her breasts above me like a pendulum.

I want to touch them but my hands won’t move.

Her eyes open now, she pulls back and steps closer to the sofa. Still swaying, she presses her bush forward and her silky pubic hair brushes the side of my face, back and forth, back and forth, ever so lightly.

She takes a step back and goes down on her knees. Her face moves forward and her lips touch my cheek. It takes a few moments to realize she’s kissing me. Her lips move to mine. Her kiss is so soft I can barely feel it. But she presses harder and I try to kiss her back, but my lips won’t respond. Her tongue slips into my mouth and she kisses me deeply.

Pulling back, she stands and I feel my hand rising. She’s lifting it. She rubs my open palm along the side of her leg, then around to her ass. I feel her crack but can’t get my hand to squeeze in response.

Maggie moves my hand around to her bush. She opens her feet and slips my hand between her legs. She rubs my fingers along her inner thighs, then turns my hand palm up. My fingers press against her pussy and she moves her hips back and forth on my hand. My middle finger slips into the folds of her pussy, into the hot wetness.

The humming is replaced by heavy breathing. Holding my arm with her left hand, maneuvering my hand with her right, she fucks herself with my finger. My thumb massages her clit as my middle finger works inside. Am I moving my fingers or is she?

Maggie gasps. Her gyrations increase, the weight of her body pressing harder against my hand. Waves of pleasure cross her face. She throws her head back and cries out and I feel her climax on my hand in deep spasms.

Gasping, Maggie collapses next to me. I see her reach up and close my eyelids. She speaks in a distant voice.

She tells me I will remember nothing.

And I fall into that well again.

There’s something else, something suddenly cool on my hand, the hand that fucked Maggie. It’s a face rag. She’s wiping my hand before she wakes me.

My eyes snap open as a rush of wind and rain rattles the French doors.

Jesus! What a dream.

Wait. It didn’t feel like a dream. It felt more like a memory. In that hour I was on Maggie’s sofa, is this what happened? Did that little woman take advantage of me? Use me?

I reach down to straighten my swollen dick. Leaning forward, I look at the darkness of Cabrini Playground. She’s so close I can almost feel her.

Maybe, when the rain lets up, I’ll creep over, like an alley cat.

Maybe, just maybe, she wants me to slink over to her.

Telling me all that about my sex drive. Maybe that’s what she wants. At thirty, I should know women by now; but the older I get the less I seem to know.

My doorbell rings and I almost kick over the scotch bottle.

I swallow my drink in one gulp. It burns my throat and warms my belly. I put the empty glass on the coffee table on my way through the living room. The doorbell rings again as I step out the door to the landing. I look down the stairs and see a shadow outside the building’s pebbled-glass front door, which is locked at night.

As I descend the stairs the shadow moves slightly; and I see it’s a woman. I hurry to pull open the door. It takes me a second to recognize her with her long hair dripping wet around her pretty face. Her hair looks darker wet.

Diane Redfearn pulls her hair back with both hands, steps into the doorway and cranes her neck to the side. Her lips pursed, she leans toward mine and we kiss in the doorway. Softly, she presses her rain-washed lips against mine. Her lips part and her tongue probes for mine.

We French kiss in the doorway, my arms pulling her close, her drenched coat soaking me. The heat of our kiss and the cool water against my skin is electrifying. I feel her arms around me.

A rush of wind and rain blows over us and Diane pulls her mouth away, takes my hand and leads me up the stairs and into the open door of my apartment.

“I’d noticed,” she says softly, “your name next to apartment number 202 on the ringer outside the first time we came. I almost rang it, but Truly said your office was downstairs.”

I close the door and she turns and pulls off her dark blue coat, dropping it next to the sofa.

She wears the same yellow dress. It clings to her damp body. She reaches back and unbuttons it, pulling it off her shoulders. Her lacy white bra is sheer, revealing nice, round nipples. I pull off my tie and unbutton my shirt.

Her velvet brown eyes watch my eyes carefully as she steps out of her dress and drops her half-slip.

My shirt tossed aside, I drop my pants and step forward as she starts to unfasten her stockings.

“Let me,” I say as I go down on my knees in front of her. I unhook her right stocking from her garter belt and work the stocking down her long, cool leg. Tracing my fingers up her left leg, I unhook the second stocking, my fingers following it down her leg. She drops her bra on my head.

My face is inches from the front of her panties. I reach up and unfasten her garter belt, dropping it next to the stockings. My fingers rise along the back of her legs, across her ass to the top of her panties. I pull them down slowly, my gaze never leaving her crotch. Her mat of dark blonde pubic hair is damp. I lean forward and kiss it.

She gasps as she reaches down and pulls me up by the ears. Her bra falls off my head.

It’s her turn now. She goes to her knees and runs her fingernails along the back of my legs. She pulls my shorts off and kisses the tip of my swollen dick. She kisses her way down my dick to my balls and kisses her way back up.

Her tongue flicks the tip of my dick, which throbs in response. Her mouth opens and slides over my dick. She sucks for a second and then works her head up and down, her tongue rubbing my dick.

I pull her up, shove my tongue into her mouth and feel the length of her hot body against mine. I scoop her up in my arms and carry her into the bedroom, without losing a stroke of our French kiss.

I lay her on the bed and stand over her. God, she’s gorgeous naked. Unbefuckinlievable! Her breasts, even as she lies on her back, rise firm and full. Her round nipples are erect. She opens her legs and I climb atop this beautiful woman. I kiss my way down from her lips to her breasts, sucking each nipple, nibbling each before kissing my way to her flat stomach and down past her bush to her soft, inner thighs.

She raises her knees, her legs wide and her gorgeous, pink pussy is open in front of my face. I kiss each side and kiss her soft, silky pubic hair. My tongue flicks across her clit. She lets out a little cry. I press my tongue against her clit and rub it up and down and up and down and up and down.

She grinds her hips against my tongue. I reach around her legs and grab her breasts. I knead them as I continue tonguing her clit. She moans and gasps and cries out. She shoves her hips against me and bounces and grinds and I keep on licking until, with a jolt, her hips lift from the bed and she comes in a deep climax, her thighs squeezing against my ears until they ache.

I keep licking.

I lick as she gyrates, as her hips dig for the pleasure. I lick until her legs fall open and she pulls me up to her eager mouth. I feel her hand reach down to guide my dick into her wet pussy. It takes my thick dick a few seconds to work its way in. She gasps and puffs as she tries to catch her breath.

I moan as I start grinding my dick in her hot pussy. The muscles in her pussy pull in response. Jesus! And I fuck her in long, deep strokes, in and out and in and out, back and forth, riding her until I feel it coming. I stop. She pulls at me, works her pussy around my dick, but I hold still. When it subsides, I go back to the screwing. I keep this up for as long as I can, holding it back at the last moment, until I can hold it no more and I gush in her in long, deep spurts.

Rolling off, I scoop her in my arm and she kisses my face and snuggles against me. It takes a while for my breathing to return to normal. Pressed against me, she raises a hand and gently rubs my belly. Her fingers eventually work their way to my pubic hair.

“You sure your husband isn’t blind?”

Smiling now, she tickles my dick with her fingernails.

“Then he’s just stupid, right?”

She strokes my dick. I’m not ready, but my dick, which has a mind of its own, gets hard between her fingers. She climbs on me, straddles me and rubs her pussy against my dick.

I reach up and grab her breasts, squeeze them and crane my neck up to suck each nipple, to nibble each, as she rubs her pussy up and down the length of my hardening dick. She reaches down and guides the tip of my dick into her and rides me like I’m a fuckin’ horse.

“Come on,” she gasps. “Fuck me. Fuck me! Fuck me!”

I want to tell her that’s what the fuck I’m doing, but why spoil the mood? Instead I watch this gorgeous blonde bounce on my dick.

The second time always takes longer and I savor the good fuck.

She comes again, bucking against me, just before I come. Her pretty face reaches for the pleasure. Man, there’s nothing to compare to this – fucking a beautiful woman and seeing all the pleasure I’m giving her.

Diane rolls off me and lies panting on her back.

I get up immediately and crack open the French doors, using the bottle of scotch to keep it from opening too far. The rush of cool air is invigorating. I climb back into bed and lie on my belly next to Diane.

Her eyes closed, she breathes softly and I begin to drift.

Later, she rolls over and wakes me. I go to the bathroom and on my way back, I fetch my glass from the living room. I refill the glass, reposition the scotch bottle against the French doors. The rain has stopped.

The lair of the red witch is completely dark and looks ghostly, its yellow paint pale beneath the amber streetlights. Sipping the scotch, I stare at the house for a while, then turn to watch Diane sleep. On her back, her legs open, she’s a vision in the soft light.

Finishing my drink, I go back out into the living room to make sure my front door’s locked. When I turn around, Diane’s in the bedroom doorway, her hands high on the door frame as if she’s blocking me from going back in the bedroom with a naked body from a school boy’s wet dream. With her arms raised, her full breasts look even fuller.

My dick stirs.

She smiles wickedly and moves to me. I meet her halfway and she pushes me back on the sofa.

“No, sit up,” she tells me as she kneels in front of me. She opens my knees and kisses her way up to my semi-hard dick. She licks it, kisses it, brushes it with her teeth, sucks it. Her head rising and falling, she sucks until I’m nice and stiff.

Standing, she climbs on me, her hands on my shoulders, those luscious breasts in my face. Her pussy rubs against my dick and Diane slowly positions herself until she impales herself on my dick. She sinks on me and I feel those pussy muscles grab my dick.

She starts a slow, grinding fuck. I cradle her ass in my hands. My mouth moves again from nipple to nipple, sucking each as this woman fucks me, rides me, bucks me. It is so delicious, so hot and wet and I finally come after such a long time, I feel I’m about to pass out.

By the time we get to fifths, I’m shooting blanks, but it’s just as good.

Frying eggs and bacon the next morning, I make sure the bacon doesn’t splatter. I’m still naked. My sofa is dotted with wet spots and my bed’s a wreck and Diane is long gone.

She didn’t even leave a note, the hussy.

My kinda woman.

I pour myself a thick cup of coffee and chicory and take a deep sip. Hot and strong – I need it. I’m wasted. I feel like I’ve been on Anzio beach for a week, until I move and my balls remind me of all the pleasure and I smile.

An hour later, after a shave and a long shower, I walk out of my building into the bright sunshine. I pull on a pair of aviator’s sunglasses and yawn. The warm air smells musty as it always does in the old quarter after a long rain. The ancient mortar and bricks and cypress absorb the rain and seems to remain perpetually damp.

I wear a blue shirt today and dress gray pants with my new black Florsheims. No hat, of course. Moving up Barracks I cross over to the playground side and make my way up to Burgundy to the red door of Maggie, the Love Sorceress.

To my surprise, it’s open.

I knock and peek in. The sofa’s missing and a chest-of-drawers and an end table are against the far side of the room. No lit candles, the room is bright with the curtains open.

“Good,” Maggie calls out from a back room.“You made good time.”

She steps into the front room, blinks at me and giggles. “I thought you were the movers.”

In a pink T-shirt and red shorts, her hair in a pony tail, she looks like a high schooler – a damn good looking high schooler. The cupie-doll lips are a deep scarlet today.

I hold up the palms of my hands and ask what’s going on.

“I never stay more than a month or two in one place.” She folds her arms across her chest and looks around me, not at me.

“What?”

“I’m moving to Mid-City. I’ll send you the address, although you don’t need me any more. Even when you get horny again.” She says it matter-of-factly, without feeling, as if I’m not there. She taps her fingers on her arms.

“I don’t understand.”

“I like moving to new places,” she says quickly, takes in a deep breath, then stops tapping her fingers. She looks right at me and says, “Diane Redfearn came to you last night, didn’t she?”

My mouth opens, but I say nothing.

“I thought she might.”

And it comes to me. “She came to see you.”

Maggie nods.

“You sent her to me?”

“She sent herself.”

“Her deepest desire?”

She looks down and shrugs.

“Wait. You mean to tell me she came to me for ‘mind-numbing sex’ at your suggestion?”

Maggie takes in a deep breath and looks up, focusing those large green eyes at me.

“You have a right to know, I suppose.”

“Yeah.”

“She didn’t go to you for ‘mind-numbing sex’.”

“Then what for?”

“A child,” she says.

And I can hear my heart beating as I stand in the doorway. It sounds like thunder.