Angela reached into her purse and extracted a card.

“Angela Simmons, Psychic Detective? What’s the psychic part?”

“That’s why I don’t do police work. That depends on proof. I need to know more than who did what with or to whom when and where. I need to know motives. Why they did what they did.”

“Does it matter?”

“It can.”

The barista returned behind the bar to polish her coffee-making machines as the last of the other patrons left.

“You read people’s minds?”

“Sort of…”

“I don’t believe in that kind of stuff. Can you tell me what I’m thinking?”

“You are afraid that at thirty-six your breasts are no longer perky, that you are losing your looks and that you are no longer attractive to your husband because he spends so much time apart from you and hardly touches you anymore. You suspect he may be fucking other women because you think he can have any woman he wants.”

“Yeah, but you don’t have to read my mind to know that. You deduced it from my clothes and jewelry, right?”

“Okay, you think that you masturbate way too much, maybe excessively because you do yourself at least once a day and some days two or three times. You were in the library to check out books about women’s fantasies because you’ve become bored with your own. You are afraid of some of your fantasies. You fantasize about being tied up and taken, something you know you’d never want in real life. You fantasize about fucking a stranger in a public place like this coffee shop and people gathering around to watch and applauding when you come. You fantasize and sometimes think about being spanked, and you think it’s dangerous because if you enjoy pain, you might be a masochist and get caught up in the whole S and M thing.”

“Not much of a deduction, is it? Chances are any woman masturbates fairly frequently. At least a few times a week. And most more. Daily. And those are pretty standard fantasies.”

“But it’s not standard to worry about them.”

“Anything else?”

“When your husband is with you, which is much less than you’d like, you fantasize about other men.”

“That’s also usual. Anything that might be unique to me? Now?”

“Yes.” Angela leaned toward the center of the table and whispered. “When I was getting my coffee, you glanced up at me and you were wondering what it would be like to make love with me. For some time, you’ve been attracted to other women sexually, but you haven’t had the nerve to suggest it to anyone because you are afraid that you are strange to have those feelings. You worry that you might be a lesbian. Specific about you? You were having a fantasy about you and me in the sauna at your house and-”

“Okay, you’ve convinced me. And knowing all of that, you still came over here and sat down at the table with me?”

“Yes, I did. Knowing all that. And the answer to the other question you didn’t say is yes, I would like to. That’s why you can’t hire me as a detective.”

He wants me ready by six so we can go to some fancy restaurant with some of his business associates for dinner. They’ll talk about stuff I don’t know anything about and I’ll feel stupid and left out. They’ll sit around drinking wine until eleven, then we’ll come home and he’ll go to sleep. Maybe if I put on something sexy, he’ll pay attention. If he doesn’t, maybe someone else will and he’ll be jealous enough to notice me.

The garage door slid into place with a soft thunk as Ronda got out of her expensive low-slung black sports car and went into the Frank Lloyd Wright house. Not a knockoff, not an imitation, but an original not that far from the architect’s own house.

She undressed in front of the full-length mirror in her walk-in closet.

They may not be that perky, but they’re still firm, she thought as she cupped one hand under each breast. She appraised her body critically. I could stand to lose a few pounds. But when was that not true? I’ve always thought I should be thinner than the one hundred forty or one hundred forty-five pounds I’ve always been. I’d look better at one hundred thirty-five. She ran her hands down her stomach and across her hips as her eyes dwelt on her smooth pubis. I thought maybe he’d notice when I shaved down there. But she had found that she liked herself smooth, so she began having herself waxed every couple of weeks to stay silky soft to her own touch even if Jeff never noticed. He doesn’t have that much chance to notice anything about me.

Sexy. Something short and black. Clingy knit. No bra. She opened a drawer and rummaged in it. Garter belt? No, I don’t want any lines. Nothing under. Sheer black stockings. Thigh-high to give it that tarty look. Closing the drawer, she took the short, tight knit dress from the hanger and held it in front of herself. Yeah, that’ll work. Tight across the butt and stomach, it’ll show off my thighs. Ugh, maybe not. Maybe they’re too fat. Oh well, best I can do. Some cleavage showing. If I lean down, a good view of my breasts to the nipples. It’ll do.

She laid the dress on Jeff’s side of the king-sized bed beside the stockings and went into the bathroom that was as big as some people’s living rooms, past the wooden sauna to a large sunken bathtub. She sprinkled bath salts into the tub and turned on the water.

As the crystals dissolved in the steaming water, Ronda stepped into the tub and lay on her back, letting the hot water cascade over her feet.

She stroked her nipples to erectness, and then pinched them both hard between her thumbs and forefingers, wondering what it would be like to be dressed only in a tight leather bra and thigh-length high-heeled boots and have someone turn her over their knees and spank her bare butt. Her butt warmed at the thought of the stinging of the spanking. I’m becoming a pervert.

She pulled her feet toward her butt and ran her hands down the insides of her thighs and opened her labia with the index finger of her right hand. She didn’t move her right hand as she leaned forward to turn off the water with her left hand. Relaxing on her back again, the aromatic hot water engulfing her, she reached down with her left hand to open herself to her own touch and began stroking the tip of her index finger around her clitoris.

She was trying to imagine what it would be like to be with another woman. To be with Angela. What would Angela do? What would I do? How does it work? Who does what? She knew the effect of every touch of her own hands on her body, whether it felt good or not. She knew when her vagina was wet and when her clitoris was hard. She had her body and her fingertips to tell her. But would another woman know? Jeff sure never did. He would stop just when he should be stroking faster or press too hard when he should be gentle or go too fast too soon. What was so simple to her was so impossible for him. Maybe he just gave up.

An image of Angela formed in Ronda’s mind. In a flowered one-piece bathing suit Angela walked toward the naked figure of Ronda and embraced her. Ronda stroked Angela’s bare arms, took the straps of the bathing suit between her thumbs and forefingers, and slowly peeled the suit down Angela’s body.

Angela smiled and stepped out of the suit as it fell to the floor. She reached for Ronda’s hand and placed it firmly on her bare mons. Or did she have pubic hair? Probably. Angela put Ronda’s hand on the coarse curls of her pubic hair and shifted her weight on her feet to open herself to Ronda’s exploring fingers. Angela tilted her head forward to invite a kiss and Ronda responded by leaning into the kiss, her mouth open, her tongue welcoming the other woman’s into her mouth.

Ronda stroked her bare pubis with her left hand as her right finger circled her clitoris, now large and hard with the excitement of the fantasy. She dipped her finger between her labia into the hot fluid that was flowing from her cunt to lubricate her clitoris. The hot water was interfering, diluting the moisture from her cunt. Ronda opened her eyes and reached to the drain to lower the level of the water. When the level of the water was lower, Ronda closed the drain, closed her eyes, and leaned back to start stroking the underside of her engorged clitoris. Her left hand squeezed her labia together to make her clit protrude and hold it in position.