Chapter 14 

Ann Arbor, December 2004 CE

 “You’re right, it is a nice city,” she said, as I pulled us into the parking structure a block or so from the restaurant. Yeah, downtown

Ann Arbor was beautiful, especially since it was Christmastime. The city had put up soft white lights to decorate its many trees, which added a nice ambiance to the late dusk. We’d been working a lot on the book project, and it was nice to step out and relax a bit.  As we got out, she stuck her left hand, which was wrapped in a brace that looked almost like a cast, into her jacket pocket. The hand had grown significantly, but it was still very, very thin and weak. As I walked around the back of the car I saw her dither a bit, thinking about leaving her walking stick in the car. Finally she sighed and leaned on it as she closed the door.

We walked down the street to the restaurant I’d chosen, a micro-brewery called the Maple Tree Inn. As we got near it, I noticed a willowy blonde in leather walking down the street toward us. As she glided past, I noticed she was sporting a streak of green in her hair, and had several ear piercings. As I turned my head back to watch where we were going, I noticed Zsallia looking at me. She chuckled softly.

“Pretty, isn’t she?” she asked.

“Yeah I suppose. She’s a little young for me, and I don’t know how I feel about all the earrings. I kinda like the hair though.”

“Do you know what makes a woman beautiful?” she asked, as I opened the restaurant door for her.

“I must admit I don’t,” I said.

“I can tell you,” she replied.

I told the waiter there were only two of us, and asked for the smoking section. I knew she liked to be a little old-fashioned, so I took her coat and held her seat for her. As she gracefully settled into her chair she pulled out one of her Camels, briskly snapping her Zippo to flare it ablaze, then went on with the conversation.

“Beauty is partly decided by your tribal values, your upbringing. But it’s mostly not,” she said. Then she quickly glanced at her menu and, before the waiter could get back, told me she would like a 20-ounce porterhouse, rare, with rice, a large Greek salad with extra cheese, and a bottle of the house Burgundy. I was a bit confused at first, because she just sat there after that, smoking and looking around the bar. Then I got it, and laughed a little as she winked at me. When the waiter arrived, I ordered for her, and ordered a beer and a burger for myself.
“Okay, what makes a woman beautiful?” I asked.

“Different times, different places, men may like women thinner or fatter, taller or shorter, more or less hair, and so on,” she said. “Individual men also have their personal preferences. But these are all minor. A man may find a woman desirable even if she looks nothing like his fantasies.”

“Okay, so what is it?”

“Honestly, it’s only a few basic things. Youth is helpful—you men are all looking to make us pregnant, whether you realize it or not. It’s instinctive, not intellectual, so even if you are certain you don’t want kids, that primal urge still informs your lust to a degree. But that isn’t everything.”

“Okay. I’m with you so far. What else?”

“Clear skin is important, and anything else that conveys basic healthiness. Symmetrical features help. Makeup helps us highlight that, or conceal shortcomings. It can also help us attract attention. If we look different, we’re more likely to catch your notice. Other than that, it’s almost all a matter of attitude, how a woman carries and comports herself.

“Some men are attracted to vulnerability, to damsels in distress. Some prefer quiet and demur. Some prefer tomboyishness. Some like women domineering. If you manage to throw in a little of all of that, you’ll drive most men wild. But most of the time, what men most like to see is a certain kind of feminine confidence.”

“Is that it?” I asked. “What about blonde hair, or fair skin?”

”Hair is a matter of taste, just so long as it looks healthy. As for skin, some men don’t care for fair skin at all. Clear skin without blemishes is what’s most important. But those of us who have fair skin do have one advantage. It’s a minor thing, but it is helpful. Do you want to see?”

“Come on, you know I do.”

She slowly unbuttoned the top buttons on her blouse and spread her collar, showing me a bit more of her cleavage. I laughed.

“Boobs is boobs, honey,” I said.

“Wait,” she replied.

She closed her eyes, arched her back a bit, and exhaled. She opened her eyes and looked at me, and as she did, her cheeks and her chest flushed pink. She plumped her lips at me, turned her head, dropped her shoulder a little, and grabbed me with her eyes.

I started a little and said, “Whoa. Don’t do that!”

She laughed, and deftly lit herself another cigarette. “You’re such suckers. Anyway, when a woman is sexually excited, she tends to flush a little in her face and chest, and it’s more noticeable in fair-skinned women. If she blushes while she’s looking at you, she probably wants you, and that tends to excite you as well. Neither of you may be aware of that, or maybe you are, but either way, most men find it sexually stimulating when they see it. The same thing happens when a woman’s pupils dilate open, by the way. It excites you.”

“Seems kind of clinical, physiological,” I said.

“Aren’t smiles and laughs physiological?” I had to nod at that. “It’s simply all part of the game,” she said. “I’m a vain woman at heart, and I know it. You can safely say I’m relatively pretty by today’s standards. Then again, I’m not one of those tall skinny women on those magazine covers, and am clearly not every man’s type. No woman is. Some men would find me very attractive, others maybe only a little. Yet I can make almost any man want me.” She paused, and looked at me sideways. “Do you like smallish redheads, by the way?” She smiled seductively.

“Hey, you know I’m married.”

“Oh, you’re no fun,” she said, flicking her fingers at me. “But honestly, aside from clean healthy skin and fairly symmetrical features, almost everything else is how you carry yourself, and how well you do courtship dancing without seeming desperate.”

“Courtship dancing?”

“There are a handful of postures, and hand and foot gestures, that all women use; men too for that matter, although some of theirs are different. But some are found everywhere, in all societies.” I looked at her skeptically. “Well, every single tribe or culture I’ve been in or read of, anyway,” she said. “Very simple things. For example, a woman who’s interested in you will always show you the palm of one or both her hands. Usually both.”

“You’re kidding,” I said. “I’ve never seen that.”

She laughed. “Yes you have. I’ve never even met your wife and I know she did it to you. Unless it was an arranged marriage?” I shook my head. “Well then, she may or may not have been aware what she was doing, but she did it. You likely did it to her too.” She looked up as the food arrived. “Maybe I’ll show you later,” she said. I remained skeptical.

As the food arrived, she picked up her knife, and then looked a bit dismayed. Coming to my senses, I offered to cut her steak for her.

“Thank you.,” she said. “Having you help feed me would be a perfect start to seducing you, if that’s what I wanted,” she added.

“Yeah, yeah, shut up and eat. Why are you so obsessed with sex, anyway?”

“What better thing to obsess about?” she said, with a grin. “Besides, it’s one of the basic things I share with you people, not to mention it’s helped me into and out of more than one situation.”

I laughed. “It must be a lot of work, being a woman. Having to work so hard to get attention, play games like that.”

”Well, I quite enjoy it, but I confess I didn’t used to, and some women don’t. For a long time, I thought men had it better. But the more time went on, the more I realized that there’s no real truth to that notion. You’re a little less self-conscious than we are, but you have to work as hard as or harder than we do, especially in the modern world. Your bag of tricks just has to be different—and it’s often more harsh, and you’re less quickly forgiven if you step over a line.”

I thought about that, and we grew silent for a bit as we ate. It was funny to watch her eat that steak. I’d never seen anyone with such impeccable manners eat so quickly. She daintily but quickly polished the whole thing off in just a few minutes, drinking generous amounts of wine between bites, then started to work on the salad. “I’m not normally such a wine drinker,” she said, when she noticed me noticing her, “but I’ve had such a craving for it this last month.”

“Must be something in the healing process,” I said.

“No doubt,” she replied.

When the waitress approached again Zsalli ordered coffee and dessert: a hot fudge sundae and cheesecake with strawberries and whipped cream and a slab of Black Forest Chocolate Cake. The waitress was nearly cross-eyed when she turned to me, but I just ordered coffee.

“Man I’m glad you’re paying,” I said. “So, you’re going back to Pennsylvania for the holidays?” I asked as she polished off the last of the wine. Christmas was only a few days away.
“Yes. I have a flight the day after tomorrow. I just need to get the flipper into a cast.” She lifted her left arm and grinned at me as I tried not to laugh. “The fingers are solid enough to pass, but still too weak. With a cast I should be good for the week I’ll be there.”

“Why Pennsylvania, anyhow?”
“I have people out there. Family, for lack of a better term.”

“Oh, right, you mentioned that before. Who are they?” I asked.

A brief look of discomfort passed through her face. It was momentary, but unmistakable. Then she gave a diffident shrug.

“I married a man from Pennsylvania, lived there until 1852. They are his family,” she said.
The waitress interrupted us, bringing our coffee, and then returned a moment later with the first of Zsallia’s desserts. She made happy sounds and ate a little noisily, offering to share with me. I begged off while she talked about how good it was. This went on for a few minutes, her eating, me wanting to ask questions but keeping my mouth shut. She was obviously changing the subject again, but we were having a nice time so I dropped it.

When she was finally done, she said, “It’s been a productive week, and a nice evening, but I imagine you’ll want to get home to your family, yes?”

“Yeah,” I nodded. She dropped a wad of cash on the table as I got her coat and we left.

Outside the temperature had taken a plunge and the wind had picked up. I steered us towards a side alley that would lead us straight back to the parking structure. It wasn’t a narrow or very dark passage, and I’d used it many times without thinking anything of it, since it was my favorite restaurant and I’d been here often. But as we started towards the far end three men entered from the other side. I glanced at them and shook my head. For all Ann Arbor’s charms it had more than its share of scruffy anarchists and drug addicts, and these three were pretty typical: young, shabby green jackets held together with duct tape, unshaven and generally looking like flies would be buzzing around them if it weren’t so cold. I grinned, thinking it was good we had the breeze was our back.

As they approached I naturally guided us to the right to pass them, but suddenly they spread out in front of us. I tensed a bit, trying to stay calm, see what they wanted. “Hey, dude…” I started. But that was as far as I got.

Without so much as a sound, Zsallia lashed out with her right foot, kicking the one on the right in the knee as she swung the heavy end of her cane hard against the jaw of the one in the center. The kid with the smashed knee grunted and fell back, while the other one hit the gravel like a sack full of batteries. As her cane clattered to the ground, in one smooth move she pushed me back with her shoulder, hopped once, then seemingly out of nowhere pulled out a pistol and leveled it at the last guy standing, who was only just reacting. His eyes crossed as she moved forward, favoring her left leg, and pressed the barrel of the big snub-nosed revolver against his forehead. Her thumb very deliberately drew the hammer back until it clicked.

She swore softly, and said something I didn’t understand. Then, her voice radiating command: “If you would be so kind as to get on your knees. Now.”

It wasn’t until then that I saw the knife in his hand, and noticed that the kid on the ground spitting blood and teeth had a chain wrapped in his fist. The other was holding his knee and moaning; it looked like she’d bent it sideways, hyper-extending and maybe breaking it. The kid with the gun to his forehead dropped the knife and slowly kneeled.

It had all happened in no more than five seconds. My heart was pounding, but she wasn’t even breathing hard.

“Any of you makes a move, I turn his head into a canoe,” she said, her voice grating but steady. “Lie down, little man,” she said to knife-boy, who was shaking, his eyes big as saucers. As he lay down, I noticed she’d put a red dent from the barrel of the gun into his forehead.

“Could you fetch my cane, please?” she asked, her voice friendly but without taking her eyes off the three of them. I snatched it up and looked behind us. People were walking back and forth across the entrance of the alleyway. All it would take would be for one of them to look our way.

“We need to go, now,” I said as I stepped up beside her. She was so small, but at that moment, she seemed enormous. She neatly tucked the gun in her coat pocket, kicked the kid on the ground in the side of the head, and then cursed loudly, in an almost bloodcurdling yowl. As people passing the alleyway behind us alley started and turned toward us, she grabbed my arm and deliberately strode toward the parking structure.

“They’re lucky I didn’t take their balls as souvenirs,” she muttered, with a disturbingly matter-of-fact tone. Then, solicitously, almost motherly: “Are you all right?”

“Um, yeah,” I said, my voice quavering just a little. I’d been in street scuffles before, but I’d never seen anything like that in my life. My head was reeling. “Wow,” I said, “what the hell was that?” But she just flashed me a pretty smile as we emerged from the alleyway. I looked around nervously, but no one on this end of the alley had seen anything. Suddenly, it was like we’d stepped into another reality, and nothing had happened at all.

“Turn his head into a canoe?” I asked.
“Tombstone. I always did like that movie,” she said. “You have to understand, if there is one thing I do not tolerate, it’s bottom-feeders.”
We reached the car and made a quick exit, turning west as the sound of sirens approached. I wasn’t too concerned about the police so long as we were gone, but…

“Where’d you get the gun?”

“I know people,” she replied, and refused to say more about it.

We drove silently for a while, and she turned on the radio, humming a bit as she listened to some old rock and roll. I pulled into the hotel lot and parked towards the back.

“May I?” I asked.

“What? The gun?” She seemed surprised, but took it from her pocket, checked the chamber, and handed it to me. It was heavy, a snub-nose Ruger .357 with a smallish handle. I checked the loads and nearly got sick.

“Magnum hollow-points? Are you insane? If it doesn’t break your arm it’ll make you deaf.”

“Well, I prefer my Army .45, but an automatic is tough to manage one-handed. This came highly recommended.”

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

She stowed the pistol in a holster behind her back. I was a bit surprised that it was so well concealed. She let me walk her back to her suite and gave me a peck on the cheek at her door as we parted company. “Merry Christmas to you and your family,” she said.

I didn’t see her again until after New Year’s.

Posted on July 8th, 2007 by Zsallia
Filed under: The Novel