CHAPTER ONE: A SEXY MYSTERY LADY

IT STARTED AS AN ORDINARY day at the grocery store. Boring as usual. Mrs. Miller came for her pills and footpads at eleven. Mrs. Chambers dropped in at twelve-thirty and poked around as usual, hoping something would happen to give her something to gossip about.

And Amy sat at the front counter, watching all of this nothingness unfold, fighting off the urge to take an eight-hour nap. But at 12:45 something happened to wake her up and give Mrs. Chambers an actual reason to gossip. The mystery lady strolled in. Amy snapped at attention, watching her every move with wide-eyed curiosity.

The lady’s petite but curvy frame was wrapped in black leather and lace. Her boots climbed nearly to her knees while her miniskirt didn’t quite get that far. Amy noted a bright red shade of lipstick on her full lips and hair that curled almost halfway down her back. Her look was racy for so early in the day. And for Crimson Valley, South Dakota, it was downright scandalous.

She strutted through the breakfast aisle, whistling to herself like somebody without a care. Then she studied the ingredients on some pancake batter, giving Mrs. Chamber the perfect chance to slip over to Amy, eager to share the latest from the grapevine. “Have you heard about that one?” she asked.

“No! What have you heard?” Amy asked.

“Well…” Mrs. Chambers said. She leaned in closer, as if guarding potentially explosive information. “Word around town is that she’s a… lesbian,” she said, mouthing the word.

“No!” Amy gasped.

Mrs. Chambers nodded her confirmation. “I was shocked too.”

This made Amy stare even harder, more intently. So that’s what one looks like!

“Her name’s Cicely Rossi,” Mrs. Chambers then shared. “A musician from New York City – so you know what that means, don’t you?”

“She’s going to rob me?” Amy asked.

“Maybe. But I was thinking it means this…” she put a finger on a nostril and mimed a sniff, indicating drugs. “But we better be careful when she comes to the counter anyway.”

Amy’s body grew tense as the lady strolled to the counter. With a gentle smile, Mrs. Chambers backed away.

“Hello, there,” Amy chirped. The lady smiled back, but had no words. She was cool, like somebody you’d see on TV or something. When she placed a box of pancake batter and a half-gallon of milk on the counter, the tension slowly floated away. The lady was not a robber. But she was still a mystery. Amy wanted to know more.

She rang up the lady’s order, then said. “That’ll be nine-fifteen, please.”

With another easy smile, the lady reached into her purse and pulled out a twenty-dollar bill, then she made Amy blush when their hands made accidental contact.

Amy gave the lady her change, watching her coolly step away after a coy wink.

“She gave me wink!” Amy gasped to Mrs. Chambers. “What does that mean?”

“I don’t know, but it could be pretty dangerous. I’d stay away if I were you.”

But Amy had no plans of staying away. She needed this mystery to be solved. Who was this woman? What was she doing in Crimson Valley?

She wrote the name Cicely Rossi on a scrap of paper. She tried to reflect on everything she knew about lesbians, but she couldn’t come up with anything. People had whispered things about them, but she never met one. Except Diana Harper. Maybe. And that was just a rumor.

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful compared to that. Only four more customers. But that gave Amy plenty of time to think of this mysterious Cicely. And she thought about her a lot.

At the dinner table, Amy’s husband was his usual quiet self. Not much to say except a few grunts. But Amy had plenty of questions for him.

“You heard anything about this new lady in town?” she asked him.

“Nope.”

“I hear she’s from New York City.”

“Haven’t heard that.”

“Not only that, but she’s a… lesbian.”

Michael wrinkled his brow, looking like he wasn’t sure he’d heard her correctly.

“That’s right! That’s what Mrs. Chambers says anyway. I’m going to look her up on our computer and find out for myself.”

Michael put a loving hand on her wrist. “Honey, I don’t think you want to go poking around this lady’s personal business like this. Some folks can get a little… touchy about such things.”

“Not this lady.” Amy said. “She was out in the open about everything. I mean, she just let it all hang out. You should have seen what she was wearing!”

“Uh-huh,” he grunted.

“So I’m wondering… if I looked her up on the internet, where would I be able to find out where she’s from? I was thinking I could try to find her on Facebook but –“

“Look, Amy,” he said, firmer this time, jaw clenched in anger. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist you leave this lady alone.”

“I don’t understand why.”

“Because it’s an ungodly lifestyle and I don’t want you getting all wrapped up in it, that’s why!”

“I wasn’t going to get wrapped up in it. I just wanted to find out about it.”

“It’s wrong!” he shouted. “That’s all you need to know! If you go poking your nose into this lady’s business, folks may start to talk about you. Do you want to wind up like Diana Harper?”

Amy respectfully lowered her gaze. “No, Michael,” she whimpered. “I don’t.”

“Then leave all this lesbian talk alone!” he yelled, throwing down a napkin and stomping away.

Amy’s eyes stayed down until she heard the bedroom door slam. Then she could breathe again.

In two years of marriage, she’d never seen him like that before. She knew he was a man who took God’s word very seriously – and insisted that she do the same. But never before had his views about sin erupted so violently.

Still Amy found curiosity itching away at her. So she tiptoed to the living room and turned on the computer, keeping her ears alerted for Michael’s return from the bedroom.

She Googled the name Cicely Rossi and watched the computer screen explode with glorious images. Cicely had something about her that brought Amy’s smile out. There was a bravery to the way she teased the camera, long hair dancing down her back, giant boobs threatening to spill from her blouse’s lacy trim. This lady’s temping ways make Amy’s mind rattle with thoughts and ideas she’d been warned about.

In the past, the warnings had always kept her away. The stern glare she’d get from Mom and Dad whenever she expressed anything unacceptable was usually enough to shove naughty deeds to the back of her brain.

But there were always moments when Mom and Dad weren’t around. Carving out private time was never easy with three big sisters and a little brother, but sometimes she’d get home early from church and stumble across Dad’s secret magazines in the shed. The ones that were very different than the sports magazines he kept in the living room.

The ladies were so glamorous, so free. They didn’t care what anybody thought about their naked bodies or the scandalous poses they twisted themselves into. They wore satin and silk with stockings that didn’t cover up their private parts as well as frilly bras and six-inch heels that Mom would never let Amy or her sisters wear. And they made Amy tingle in a place she couldn’t tell anybody about.

So she’d sneak off to bed, pretending she wasn’t feeling so good. She’d lie on the bed, face down against the pillow, hips pressed to the mattress until a quiver would overtake her. This started a year or so after she was out of high school and kept going on until Mom and Dad started talking about this handsome young man from Eaton springs who they’d like her to meet. His name was Michael and he was just what she wanted: a good church-going man who could provide for her.

A year later, she married Michael because that’s just what girls like Amy were expected to do. She figured sooner or later, she’d wind up doing things with him that felt as good as that tingle she’d get on Sunday afternoons alone. Two years later she was still waiting. But every once in a while, she thought about those girls. And she wished she could have the courage to be like them.

Today she at least had the courage to look up Cicely’s information. She stared for a while at her webpage, reading the opening paragraph over and over again.

Cicely Rossi is an avant-garde musician from Brooklyn whose music bravely defies the barriers of convention category. She describes herself polyamorous and polytheistic. She’s currently taking a break from touring while spending a year in a tiny rural Midwestern town called Crimson Valley.

Amy didn’t know what polyamorous and polytheistic meant but everything about that opening paragraph sounded strange and dangerous and thrilling. It was everything that her life wasn’t.

And it was also sexy. The itch she’d experience on Sunday afternoons seemed to be crawling back into her life – and into...