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Three days later.
“OK, sweetheart, I’ll see you when I get home. Love you.”
“Remember. Zingy, Christine, and Lisa, love.” She repeats for the umpteenth time. “Got everything?”
“Yep, I’ve got it right here. What about Leah and her boyfriend?”
“We’ll tell them in a couple of weeks, when it suits us. Everything OK?”
“I’m calm,” I say, winking as I leave.
“Me too,” she grins, standing at the door.
Driving to work feels great. It’s like everything has just fallen into place.
It all goes like clockwork.
When I arrive, I pop into the intelligence office. The grey colour and the hint of that awful smell remind me of what happened, but I overcome any misgivings and give the sheet of paper to my contact.
Calm. This has to work.
“Good to see you again, patrolman. What do you have for me?”
“Just a few names that should cause a lot of damage, sir.”
I hand him an A4 sheet of paper.
“Their names, addresses, sir, other places they hang out and their routines, sir. I hear they’re planning to leave the area, sir. It might be better to move quickly. Your call, obviously, sir.”
“Keep it up, patrolman. Well done!”
“Happy to help, sir.”
“Zingy Warnercraft, Christine Morrison, and Lisa James. Good work. Dismissed”
“Sir!”
Nothing happens as I walk away. No order to return, no one blocking the door.
I don’t know why I’d been so worried.
Exciting, though.
As soon as I get home, Elma is all over me.
“Did they take the bait?” she asks after my welcome-home kiss at the door.
“It all went exactly as you said it would, even down to how suspicious they all were. There’s no need to worry.”
“Good man,” she says happily. “Come here.”
She takes my hand and leads me into the living room. She’s gone to a lot of trouble decorating it, and is lit by numerous candles. Incense burns in the holder I bought her last week, and there are drinks and snacks on the coffee table. Music is playing in the background.
“Sit down here, my inside man,” she says, leading me to the sofa. “You just sit here, have one of these,” popping a small homemade cookie into my mouth, “and have a drink of this,” handing me a glass of something light purple.
She goes over and turns the music up a little, taking a glass and snuggling up to me on the sofa.
After chatting and cuddling for a bit, I feel the first effects of the drink. There’s also a lifting kind of feeling spreading from my stomach up to my chest, shoulders and into my arms and head. My heartbeat quickening.
I give an enormous yawn even though I don’t feel tired. The whole atmosphere in the room is of love. Everything is a little hazy. It’s like looking through rose-coloured glasses.
“Watch this,” says Elma, as she gets up from the sofa and dances.
She pulls a scarf from somewhere, then another, dancing, swirling them around and around, their colours melting into each other.
It’s like it isn’t just her dancing, but three of her. There are no scarves to be seen anymore, but there are three Elmas twisting and turning, swirling and swishing to the music, in and out of the flickering shadows caused by the candlelight.
The three Elmas come over and take my hands, help me off the sofa and coax me to dance with them.
The more I dance, the more they run their hands over me. The more I dance, the more of my clothes they take off. For every piece of clothing I surrender, they lose one too.
Soon, I am naked, writhing in some kind of ritual movement, naked Elmas brushing past, whispering in my ears, trailing their hands all over me, finally pulling me down to the carpet.
I am lost in their bodies. They are all one, then they are separate, sweaty, rubbing, squirming, writhing in pleasure. Moaning, groaning and crying with delight as our dervish lovemaking goes on and on as if forever and forever.
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I am at work. Calm. Checking papers, badging people, ordering drone watches and even recommending some to be taken. My standards have changed recently. I just hope my superiors haven’t noticed. I don’t know if it’s because I’m getting a little older, or if it’s because of being with Elma and mixing with the girls, but I think I’m being a little softer and more lenient than I used to be.
Calm. Life’s like that, I suppose.
“I’ve been here before,” she says, knocking me off my rhythm. I look up and see a nondescript woman standing in front of me with her papers. I take them.
“Who were you?” I reply, giving the stock answer. I look her in the eye, and to my surprise, I recognise the quick, grey, twinkling eyes looking back at me. The smile too is… is… I can’t quite put my finger on whose it is.
“Zingy was my granny,” comes the standard response.
That isn’t code; that’s a statement!
There’s no way this is Zingy’s granddaughter or any kind of relative.
It’s Zingy herself. It’s all her. The way she walks, her smile, her eyes especially, but the body’s different. What the …
I can’t do this here.
“Everything’s in order. Move along and don’t hang around the exit.”
I need to sit down. What the hell is going on now?
I call over a colleague to take over for five minutes while I take a toilet break.
“Next!” he shouts as I walk away.
How am I going to get through the rest of my shift?
I’ll just need to.
Calm.
*****
“I’m home,” I call as I walk in the door. Elma welcomes me with her wonderful sloppy kiss.
“How was today?” she asks. “Anything unusual happen?”
She knows.
“You know, don’t you?” I grin, even though the shock is still very near the surface.
“I know many things, oh master,” she says, giving me a deep bow.
“Come on,” I say gently. “Stop messing about. I just about had a heart attack this afternoon. I don’t know how nobody noticed that something was going on. I was really lucky. You’ve got to tell me what that was.”
We went into the kitchen, and she stuck the kettle on. When we had our drinks, she sat me down at the kitchen table and began.
“The girls at the meeting room,” I still don’t know why she just doesn’t say the coven. “They can all do things that most people can’t. They’re different in some ways.”
“Yeah, I know.” I said, smiling, nodding for her to go on.
“Well, one thing they can do when they need to is to shed their skin, or more precisely, to change bodies.”
“What?”
“Yeah, I know it’s difficult to get your head around at first, but yep, they can do that.”
She wasn’t smiling; she was just sitting there as if she was telling me water boils at a hundred degrees Celsius.
So, when it gets too risky, they… well I can do it too, so we can change bodies and avoid getting caught by the factions or anyone else.
I hesitate a little. “So… the bodies can get caught, … but their spirits can’t?”
Creepy, if it’s true that’s really creepy. This one’ll take a bit of getting used to.
“Yeah, if you want to put it like that.”
I must look stunned.
“It’s not as bad as all that, Chris,” she smiles deep into my mind. “I could change bodies too, if you want, then you could be with a different woman sometimes. I think that’s a real turn on. Shall we try it? If we organise it right, I can change back really quickly. Come on, let’s try.”
“No way,” I say emphatically. “You’re my rock. I need you as you are, otherwise I might drift. I like being the new me. I like being us.”
“I can’t change into a rock.” she laughs.
“And what about men? Can they turn into men? That must be weird.” You haven’t tried that, have you? Could you turn into Major Blake?”
Calm. Calm. Don’t even go there!
She sighs, “No, Chris, it doesn’t work like that, no, I haven’t, and no, I can’t. What do you think we are, a circus act?”
We keep talking about it as we go about our chores, then we unmake the bed.
*****
Much to Elma’s delight, I’m in line for promotion to sergeant, and it might even be in intelligence.
It will.
I know my worth.
After going down this road, I’ve never had any doubts about whether I’m doing the right thing or not. I’ve changed, and that change has been for the better. Everything is better.
Calm. I can feel it when I want to these days.
I feel I have a more complete understanding of what’s going on than all my superiors at the checkpoint and, as a result; I’m more in control than they realise.
Elma and I are married now, and between us, we control the flow of information to intelligence, not only about the coven girls, but the many other aspects of life that they control now.
Elma has surpassed herself yet again by cooking an exquisite meal for the six of us tonight.
“Could you pass the salt, please?” I ask Marissa, Elma’s perfectly proportioned young friend.
“Here you are.” Her quick grey eyes twinkle as she hands it to me.
It almost feels like the old gang are back together again when I glance across at the girl who isn’t Lisa, but keeps her mannerisms of peeking out from behind her fringe and speaking in a quiet voice of silky cream.
The wine is flowing.
“Thank you so much for inviting us, Chris. Elma, you really know how to cook; it’s phenomenal. Your reputation preceded you at work, but I never really believed it, to be honest. A toast to Chris and Elma.”
Ken, the drone pilot, raises his glass and takes a large mouthful.
The girls follow suit.
“To Chris and Elma,” says Major Blake. “I see a bright future for all of us here tonight,” he continued, only looking at Marissa.
“Have you seen it in the cards, major?” said Elma, grinning. “I hope the future is better for you now that your divorce has been finalised. It seems to have taken forever.”
“Maybe I’ll get married again, you never know,” eyes still on Marissa.
And so the wine flows, and the conversation is steered.
These days, although I’m a sergeant at work, I’m really a manager, or maybe it would be better to say a conduit through which information flows to and from the faction.
It seems like such a coincidence that I met Elma when I did, and how things have turned out. Sometimes I wonder if it’s just fate, or if someone has a bigger plan.
Does it matter?
Not to me.
I see the half-dead man being dragged away again.
Once, I’d have flinched.
Now I just observe, steady.
The memory of flinching feels childish.
Calm. I’m not fighting.
I give in.
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