Secrets By Lady Raffila

Friday Night-3

She was almost home, only two blocks away. If she cut through the alley, her apartment building was only half a block. It was growing dark. She used the alley shortcut daytimes, but never at dusk. She decided to risk it. Her feet hurt.

Midway down the alley, her senses heightened; the tiny hairs on the back of her neck bristled.

Then a voice whispered, "Down here. Come down here."

In the dim light, she glimpsed a staircase going down to a basement door. A shadowy figure was calling softly to her:

"You're right on time."

The voice was calm, kind, reassuring. Strangely, she felt at ease. Her stiletto heels clicked on the concrete steps as she descended.

"I think you're mistaken," she mumbled.

"No, you're the one. I've been waiting for you," he beckoned.

She moved inside the door, as the figure ushered her into a room, softly glowing with candlelight. He guided her into a chair at a table covered by a brilliant white tablecloth.

He took the chair opposite.

Between them, a glass globe centered the table, mysteriously filled with swirling vapors.

The man's face shone in the candle light. Olive-toned skin, regular features, dark eyes.

"Is he a gypsy?" she wondered. "Are Rom men, fortune tellers, too?"

He gestured to the globe: "Your destiny will be revealed."

"But first, let me tell you about your past."

He described her childhood. The short stay at the orphanage, the loving adoptive parents,

toys, games, sunlit memories. He knew the secret names of her stuffed animals, she'd never told anyone.

"Let me take you farther back," he said.

He moved his hands over the globe.

"Look!" he ordered.

She peered into the globe. Like a film, scenes of Paris appeared.

She recognized familiar sights: the church of Notre Dome, the River Seine.

The streets were lit by gas lamps. Carriages rattled down the cobblestones.

A woman stepped out of a carriage, the hem of a silken dress brushed her ankles, as a dainty foot slipped forward.

When she saw the woman's face, it was as though she'd gazed into a mirror.

"Who is she?" she asked. "Is that me?"

'That's your great-grandmother," he murmured. "A kindred spirit."

The globe exerted such a powerful pull on her. She felt drawn into it. She slid inside the woman's skin. She was becoming her great-grandmother.

Captured by the globe, she looked down at her gloved hand. A leash holder encircled the wrist. Glancing behind her, she gasped. Her leash was attached to a collar around the neck

of a young man, still inside the carriage. He was naked to the waist, his skin glistening with oil or sweat.

"Follow," she commanded.

She dragged the male out of the carriage, across the courtyard and into a stone house, nodding to the maid who held open the front door.

Leaning over to examine a striking red rose bouquet in the entry hall, she turned to the maid.

"Did you remove the thorns?"

"No madam, I did as you instructed."

Smiling, she lifted a rose carefully from the vase. Glancing down at the kneeling, leashed male.

"Would you like to smell the rose?" she asked him.

"Yes, mistress. If it pleases you, mistress"

She leaned over and held the rose to his nose. He dutifully sniffed.

Quickly, she drew the stem across his face.

His head jerked back, but not before a line of blood began to ooze, dripping across his right cheek.

She shouted at the maid:

"Carpet, carpet, no staining."

The maid swiftly applied a clean, white square of linen to the male's cheek, blotting up the blood. She pressed the cloth against his face, until it was clean again. The line had turned a darker red.

"I wonder if it will scar?"

The maid showed no expression as she heard the note of pleasure in her mistress' voice.

"Is everything ready?" the woman inquired.

"Yes madam" the maid replied, as she opened a door to a staircase, leading down into darkness.

The maid lit an oil lamp and led the way down to the dungeon. The walls streamed with water and the naked male shivered in the chilled air.

The globe on the table before the Rom grew misty. The woman, peering into it, looked up at him.

"What's happening?" she asked. "Why did it stop?"

"Patience," he replied.

" Your time is up," he said, looking at his cell phone.

"That will be a hundred dollars," he added coolly.

She fumbled in her purse, fingering the emergency hundred dollar bill she kept hidden

in the lining.

"But I want more. Who are those people? I want to know what will happen next."

"It shall be revealed," he whispered.

"Next Saturday, at four o'clock. Come to the bar upstairs at Dominion."