The Venus Fix

Eighty

Nina didn’t waste any time when she walked into my apartment. She didn’t stop to take off her coat or drop her bag in the foyer. She tracked snow in on her boots as she walked across the tile floor and into the den, where she sat down in front of my computer.

“Put it on, please,” she said.

I pressed the play button and she leaned forward, still in her coat, still holding her bag.

Simone came on the screen in her red butterfly mask and I heard a soft “oh” escape from my mentor’s lips. I turned away from the screen and looked at her.

Nina’s forehead was pulled tight with tension.

“What is it?”

Nina didn’t respond. She was riveted to the screen, watching the action on the computer. After the second segment she turned to me. “You can shut it off, Morgan. I don’t need to see any more.” Her voice cracked.

I knelt down so that I was on her level and put my good arm around her. We did not embrace often-kisses on the cheek, a hand on an arm, but Nina and I were not physical women. Not touchers. I smelled her spicy perfume and felt her body tremble. “Simone Alexander is Stella Dobson’s daughter, Morgan. She died of an accidental overdose last June.”

“Based on what Amanda told me, I don’t think it was accidental. I think Simone killed herself.”

And then I remembered something that couldn’t be a coincidence at all. Something both Nina and I had known for weeks, but that hadn’t meant anything until now.

Stella Dobson was interviewing Blythe for a book she was working on. A book about women and pornography.

“Blythe-” I started.

Nina had already thought of it. “There has to be a connection. Blythe is in danger and so is Stella. We have to get to them.”

I didn’t want to question Nina’s assumption about Stella Dobson. She was a feminist heroine who still mattered in a postfeminist world.

“How do you know that Stella isn’t the one who-”

She shook her head. “You’re getting carried away. Stella’s a brilliant, driven woman who has devoted her whole life to helping women. What we have to do, Morgan, is warn her.”