Star Me Kitten, Part 2

Star Me Kitten (Part 1 of 2)
an4@anon.lelnet.com

   Anderson Giles MacMurty was not the sort of man who made alliances. Truth be
told, Anderson was the sort of man who despised the generally joining nature
of the species. Groups were the death of thought, and Anderson was an huge fan
of the thought process.
   The process almost more than the result.
   While many of his colleagues were concerned about what people thought,
Anderson was more certainly a fan of how they came to be thinking at all, and
the only way to study that in validity was to cull them from the people who
would think for them. Not easily done these days, what with the average chap
or lass running about with their heads jammed full of other people's thoughts.
   And yet, here he was, about to meet a woman who would soon be a part of the
only real group he'd ever joined. Oh, there were the academic societies, but
they hardly counted, or indeed operated, as groups.
   He would want to fuck her.
   The thought brought a laugh up from some dark location. His students would be
shocked at such language even running about in his stodgy head. But there was
no point lying to the self- the self, as Freud has known all along, had too
much baggage without lies clogging up the works.
   She was not a woman who one made love to, because love was not within the
scope of her emotions.
   No, Angel allowed herself the pleasure of the act, occasionally mingling it
with duty, but she was as incapable of making love as he would have been of
performing that bizarre ritual with her. She and he understood one another,
but there would most likely be no fucking- at least not with him, not today.
She had called because she needed something.
   The tone of her voice suggested that it was in part advice, but there had
been more. She had a certain way of insinuating that help would be appreciated
without it being essential, and with her peculiar talents, it was almost
certainly never required.
   There was a knock at the door. Anderson worked his cigar patiently, stood up,
and walked towards the door with the air of a man in possession of all the
world's time.
   Which, in a strange sense, he was, as much as any of them who lived their
lives in heart of cold, waiting, watching.
   Knowing.
   "Angel !" he said brightly as he pulled the door in.
   "Anderson. A pleasure."
   "You're here about the Marchant woman, I suppose. What's happened to you,
Angel ? They've got you cajoling graduate students to colour their research ?"
   "May I-" Angel said, pausing for effect to take a sharp pull on her cigarette
for Anderson's benefit.
   "Of course," he said with mild embarrassment, allowing her to step past him
into the air conditioned luxury of the front hall.
   "I'm not a soldier, Anderson. I can't be killing and maiming all the time.
You know that."
   They walked into the forward sitting room and Anderson poured them each a
stiff three fingers of Glenfinnen.
   "When are you going to sequel the Dark Midnight of the Soul ?  "
   "When the group stops hounding me about posting it on the internet where all
the fools and unbelievers can read it. How's Gillian, Anderson ?"
   "Skeptical, as always. But she did go so far as to call you. I do believe she
has some odd sort of crush on you."
   "You divined this without ever discussing me with her ?"
   Although she was being charming in a burial shroud sort of way, there was a
tinge of menace in her voice as well.
   God, he wanted to fuck her. To bury his lips in her strawberry blonde dyed
hair and try to find her tonsils from below the waist.
   Instead, he pulled on his cigar.
   "I saw the two of you together and innocently asked who the beauteous goddess
with her was. She blushed in a most ferocious way."
   "You want to fuck me," she said, so matter-of-factly it made him wet with
desire.
   Someday, he would find out how she did it. That was a thought process worth a
Nobel prize.
   "Of course. But you aren't here to ask me for that- pity, too. Why are you
here, Angel ?'
   "I want you to oversee Amanda MacMurty's research."
   "But Mattius Barnaby is doing that already, dearheart."
   Angel smiled. As often happened, it gave Anderson the creeps. She was one of
those unique persons capable of appearing dangerous by design. Her sense of
control could spread chilled anguish throughout your bowels in the space of an
oxygen depleted heartbeat. Of course, she neither knew everything nor was all-
powerful, but it was easy enough to imagine that she was.
   "He will be leaving to take a position in Oregon immediately."
   "You know," he said, spreading dark grey smoke throughout the reading room,
"if I didn't despise Mattius and his `my grandfather knew Freud' attitude- he
never mentions that his grandfather was a patient for a brief time as a young
boy, I'd be quite pissed off at you."
   Angel was not a `who me ?' type of person.
   "He was, is, and soon won't be seeing an high school girl."
   "Seeing, as in naked ?"
   Angel's inhale made him want to forget groups and timetables and all the rest
of it.
   "What other way could I cause a man to take a position which pays the same
money in Oregon ?"
   "You have pictures, I assume."
   Her smile set him in a block of ice.
   "I have have them and so does he and no, you can't see them under any
circumstance. With Mattius's spreading waist, there's nothing worth looking at
anyway. And please, don't bore me with the usual `I didn't know'. It took
three professionals a week to catch him on film, partly because they had
nothing more to work on than what I had gotten from an handshake. He was the
picture of discreetness."
   "So you half-scuttle his career so I'll take on Amanda's research. Why ?"	
   "You know the importance of the research itself."
   "But what good does a graduate student's research do us ?"
   "A lot, if it has your name on it. You have no history with verbatim analysis
or smoking research, but your behaviour thought models are among the most
respected in the field and-"
   "You want me to take her research and apply mine to it to demonstrate that
the primary reason teenage girls smoke is because they want to instead of
because of social shortcomings. This isn't Britain, dear. I could write that
smoking at an early age increases life span by inducing relaxation, find the
cure for cancer along the way, and they would still never drop the legal age
to 16. More likely it will go to twenty-one. I mean, in some states eighteen
year olds can't even play slots."
   "You can make an excellent case. I know how well you cogitate- on paper as
well as verbally."
   "Let's see what Amanda comes up with first."
   "That's the right attitude. I placed a call- told her to come in and see you
at four. Mattius will be by at three asking you to take her on."
   Anderson could only smile. Angel was nothing if not efficient.

   Mattius Barnaby was sitting on a park bench.
   He never usually met Chrissy in such a public place, but now it didn't
matter. The pictures told him that more than well enough. And this meeting
would be short. Hi and bye.
   "What was I thinking ?" he asked himself.
   Then he saw her. She was walking down the street, her blonde hair done up in
a perfect ponytail, a few stray strands dancing around her round, sweet face.
She reached up with her free hand and scratched a spot on her chest just above
the breast. He would never touch those breasts again, he realised morosely.
She then lifted her Virginia Slims 120 to her mouth and inhaled.
   Smoke soon was trailing behind her.
   She looked about twenty. That was how old he thought she was the first time
he'd seen her at Perceptions and she'd done nothing to dispel the notion until
they were the best parts of naked in the back of his aging Saab. Of course,
he'd had no business with a twenty year old either, but somehow that had been
a nice transition.
   Steeled to making love to a twenty year old, he found himself just as able to
do it with one just seventeen.
   "Hello, Matty," she said through yet another in what he had once thought was
an endless series of perfect nose exhales. If it hadn't been for the sex, he
might well have been content to just watch her smoke all day long. The wry
wisp of her smile told him that she already knew at least some of what he was
about to say.
   So why wasn't it any easier ?

   Marianne let the phone ring and ring, but Chrissy wasn't home. She wanted to
go to the movies, but Carol was tied up babysitting and Mom had been called in
to meet with either her advisor or one of the other professors at four. The
truth was that Mattius had sounded entirely rattled, and Marianne wondered if
something was wrong. These professors were always changing jobs, looking for
somewhere they could teach less and research more, someplace where they won
the big grants. Marianne was glad she'd been getting ready for college by the
time Mom was ready to take a teaching position god only knew where.
   She lit another cigarette and realised the pack she'd opened at dinner last
night was almost gone. With no restrictions on when she could smoke she was
past moving towards a pack a day-
   And loving it entirely.
   The doorbell rang.
   That was certainly new.
   There were only two houses on the road past their place, and the doorbell
never rang.
   Marianne looked at the cigarette in her hand sheepishly and then realised she
had nothing to worry about.
   Walking to the door slowly, she half-expected the doorbell to ring again,
some impatient Avon salesperson or such thing, maybe the siding people again.
It sure as hell was too earlier for Trick or Treat. The doorbell did not ring
again and she swung the door open without the least thought for her own
safety. She saw a stunning woman with strawberry blonde hair and behind her, a
black Saab with the hood up.
   "I need a pitcher of water, if you don't mind," the woman said. "My car ran
out, and here I am, lost as well. I hate to bother you."
   Marianne drew on her cigarette, turned her head, and exhaled to the side.
   "That's very polite," Angel said, but then she lit her own cigarette to prove
that it was unnecessary.
   "I'll get you some water. Do you want to come in and get some directions ? If
you're up here on this lonely road, you must be lost."
   "That would be nice." She held out her hand. "My name is Angel. And you'd
be-"
   "Marianne." The girl noticed that Angel didn't seem the least bit taken aback
by the fact that she was smoking.
   "Come on into the kitchen."
   They walked together, smoking. Marianne felt strangely ill at ease with this
woman, although she had no good reason to. Watching her smoke was certainly
pleasant enough, but Marianne had the strangest feeling that was why she was
really here, and not because her radiator had run out of water. She saw the
keys in the woman's hand- they were rental keys. How often did rental cars
leave the lot with bad radiators ?
   Angel felt the girl's unease and it gave her satisfaction. The girl was
smart.
   No one had been told of this part of it. Not a single member of the group,
not Anderson. No one.
   She would ask Gillian to befriend her, watch over her. 
   Like other young smokers Angel had worked with recently, she was the real
key. No one needed to understand that part of it yet, not even the girl
herself.
   "Where are you from ?" Marianne asked, trying to alleviate the tension she
was feeling.
   "Lots of places," Angel said honestly enough. "I was in town on some business
at the university and decided to spend an afternoon up at the state park.
   It was a good lie, and Angel saw it take. The fact that she was wearing her
bathing suit under a thin white t-shirt helped sell the story, no doubt.
   Marianne nodded, drew on her cigarette. "You missed the turn about a mile
back. There is a big sign, but you'd be amased how many people miss it. This
time of year- well, I'm not a big beach fan. Too many noisy kids, too many
vendors."
   "Not a big fan of the tourist element ?"
   Angel's inhale was worth watching. Marianne saw the way she seemed to accept
the smoke, like an old friend, and found herself once again envious of another
smoker's skills. Mom said that would eventually fade, replaced by a confidence
in her own abilities. But she also said that would quite likely take time and
right now Marianne wasn't feeling patient. No matter how well Mom said her own
smoking was looking.
   "Not really. I mean, I know that its selfish, but they aren't putting any
money in my pocket, and to be honest, they just muck everything up."
   Angel patted the girl on the arm. "Sometimes it's more than all right to be a
little selfish, you know."
   When Angel touched Marianne a shudder ran down her spine. It should, she
knew, have made her afraid.
   But instead it thrilled her.
   Just as Angel had hoped.

   Chrissy was looking at Mattius with a glow in her eyes. They were no longer
in the safety of the park, where he knew quite well they should be. No, they
were in his car, half a mile from the park in a place where he knew from study
the police never came. They would be safe here. 	 
   Safe from others, but not from themselves.
   They were thick with sweat. It was close to two and Mattius would have to
leave within the next ten minutes to make his appointment with Anderson in any
sort of composed state.
   He wondered how much Anderson would know.
   The logical man told him that Anderson could know nothing, but then again,
the logical man was a long way from this place. The logical man would not be
lying in his back seat, on the bottom, still inside Chrissy while she smoked
for him.
   Losing Amanda's research would be annoying, that was for sure. She was on the
verge of give the exact sort of testimonial-
   "What are you thinking about, Matty ?" Chrissy asked, just before wrapping
her lips around the VS 120 and taking the sort of deep draw which wanted to
make Mattius forget all about his stupid meeting with Anderson.
   But that was what had gotten him into this mess in the first place.
   Although he regretted deeply doing it, he withdrew from Chrissy, who looked
hurt by the action.
   "I'm sorry, pumpkin, but I have to go. We both knew something like this would
happen sooner or later, didn't we ?"
   Chrissy exhale was one of resignation.
   "I don't want you to go. It's not like I did this just to say that I-"
   Mattius nodded. "I know. You weren't just trying to `bag a professor'. But
the unfortunate truth is that you did bag a professor, and if I don't move on
I'm in a shitworld of trouble."
   Chrissy stroked his penis gently, then placed that long cigarette between her
lips and sealed his temporary fate.
   "One last time- you what William S. Burroughs said-"
   How could he refuse ?
   Instead, her reentered her, finding the going, even after all this time, to
be tight and pleasurable. She arched her head back as he thrust inwards.

   Anderson was sitting behind his desk, digesting. Angel had called from her
car. She'd been very vague about where she was- nothing unusual there-
   Vague when she wasn't being blunt. What a woman.
   In a moment or two, Amanda would walk through the same door Mattius had just
left from. He had the look of a man who'd gotten some to go.
   Strangely, Anderson imagined that it had all been worth it.
   He'd read the woman's preliminary workup on the research. It was good work.
Damn good work, actually, and it would certainly do him no harm to get
involved. The truth was he already saw his own angle, how he could pick up
where she stopped and use her research as a springboard. Amanda was a real
sweetheart- she certainly wouldn't object to his taking her work a step
farther.
   "Hello, professor," Amanda said. "I understand that I'm to discuss moving my
thesis to your guidance."
   "Come in and sit down, Amanda."
   As she did, he casually lit another cigar. He wasn't really supposed to smoke
in his office- usually he stepped outside, but the windows were open and what
good was summer term if you couldn't relax a little. She watched him hold the
flame of his lighter near the tip of the cigar, lighting it without making the
tobacco singe.
   "Please, feel free to smoke. I want to apologise again for Professor
Barnaby's abrupt departure, but that's how it goes sometimes."
   "I understand. I hear that the University of Oregon has some excellent
research in his area. You can't blame him."
   Not for that, Anderson thought, but he kept it to himself.
   "Well, this is just a brief formality. I've taken the liberty of reading your
initial work and I must say that I'm duly impressed. There is obviously no
political influences clouding your work. But can I ask you a personal question
?"
   Amanda lit her cigarette graceful and nodded.
   "Does your daughter smoke ?"
   She smiled. "You're wondering if that influenced my decision to chose this
topic, right ?"
   "The thought had crossed my mind."
   He exhaled slowly, blue-grey smoke wafting from his bearded mouth.
   "Actually, it was in the course of my research that I discovered Marianne was
smoking, not the other way around. I was surprised actually. I hope you don't
think me an inattentive parent."
   "Teenagers can be wonderfully deceptive."
   "I hope not too much so. My research is based on their honesty."
   "And I think you've gotten it- more than you realise."
   Amanda wondered exactly what that meant, but decided not to ask- not yet
anyway.
   "Can I be honest with you, Professor ?"
   "You can call me Anderson, Amanda. As to whether or not you can be honest
with me, well that's your call."
   "I- I'm excited that you wanted to take me on. I know that mucking through
thesis work with a graduate student pushing forty is not an idea situation,
but-"
   "Amanda," he said, exhaling again, "don't ever think you're a less serious or
capable student because of your age. It shows a great matter of purpose to do
what you're doing. Don't ever forget that. I'm the one who's thrilled to take
you on. You have a great writing style, a sound research model- that's what I
look for."
   I also had no choice, he thought to himself. But he would have done it
anyway, so there was no reason to go there.
   "Well then, let's set up a meeting schedule."
   Anderson watched Amanda draw on her cigarette, hold the smoke, and then
exhale gloriously.
   He'd been thinking once a week, but now twice a week sounded better.
   At least twice a week, he thought as she inhaled again.

   Gillian swung the door open and there she was.
   Finally.
   With Angel, you never really knew what she would do. It was just as likely
that she'd blow into town, do her business and leave again without so much as
a phone call. Gillain took the deepest inhale she could on her Salem Lights
100 and smiled.
   Angel bent her wrist so that her own cigarette was carefully pointed away
from Gillian and gave her a brief hug and a peck on the cheek.
   It made Gillian, who'd never found any other woman attractive, quiver mildly.
   Angel enjoyed the sexuality inherent in their relationship. It was a
necessary device, injected into their interactions because as tough as Gillian
appeared to be, there was something altogether to gentle about her underbelly.
Angel would need her, and need her desperately in the not so distant future.
   And that was all the future left to them if they weren't very careful.
   "I have a favour to ask, dearheart."
   "Name it," Gillian said, drawing again on her cigarette. She let the smoke
linger before adding that menthol scent to the air.
   "The girl. Amanda's Marianne. I want you to get close to her. Watch her. Help
her."
   "Help her how ?"
   "You'll know when the time comes. I'll stay in touch with you."
   Gillian's face dropped. Only fractionally, but the disappointment was clear
enough.
   "You're not staying, then ?"
   Angel allowed herself to ponder the possibilities.
   "What did you have in mind ?"
   "Just a little talk, a little wine, a little food."
   With a certain calculated coldness, Angel looked at her watch. She had to be
out of the area no later than six, but it was only four-thirty. By now
Anderson would be wrapping things up with Marianne, and she really should
follow up on that in person, but-
   Just to further stimulate Gillian, she let her eyes drift to the bedroom.
   "An hour. I hope that's enough time-"
   Gillian's whole hearted smile made the decision a good one. Angel allowed
herself to enjoy the naked hope in it.
   "We can skip this or that- an hour it is." Her eyes drifted as well to the
bedroom, and Angel allowed herself an even larger smile.
   "Let's start with the wine, and see what happens."
   As Gillian headed off to the kitchen, Angel reminded herself to save
something from Anderson. Not that she was planning to go there, but it was
better to determine to pace yourself ahead of time.
   Which she always did.	 

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