Mrs. Hollister, Bitch

"So?"

"Hurry home from work, but be warned: I may be a bitch by then."

"If you are, I'll just have to fuck you into a better frame of mind."

"If I am, you better, Honey. You better."

***

Two weeks went by without result. But the good side was: She didn't go bitch on me, either.

The following Monday when I gave her my how did it go today greeting when I came in from work, she said with a sigh, "I found Momma and me way back when I lived with her, and I found Hollisters then, too. Then I found me living at Hollisters with Benson Jr. as my husband, and Momma living alone at our old address. But the year they threw me out, after that only Benson and his parents. Never any baby boy. No kids at all, before or after. Isn't that strange?"

Lots of things about this Hollister situation seemed strange. Very strange.

Rest of her week's research added nothing, but she now had a street address she recognized for the Hollisters, but none in San Francisco for Benson or his wife—if he'd remarried. And of course no address for her mother after Amy's inheritance check arrived.

"What you think I should do," Amy said after she kissed me and hinted—quite strongly—a trip to our bedroom was on her immediate agenda.

"Write them a letter, I think. Don't tell them about me; just use the box number at my office. That way they have an address to rely to, but will not have an easy time tracing it back to me and you. Then sit back and wait."

"What should I say?"

"That you think it's time to check up on Hector, see how he's doing, where he's doing so if he's away somewhere, and make plans for his continuing education. All reasonable things a mother would worry about."

She nodded, then looked up to me and smiled. "Oh, Frank," she said. "You're so smart and I love you so much. You make this all sound so easy."

"Things are lots easier when there're not as close and important to me as it is to you."

That got me a kiss that cluttered my mind for at least five minutes.

I read her letter before it went out. Fine, no problems. But no answer returned after three months. I hadn't really expected otherwise. More of this Hollister strangeness.

"What's next, Honey?" Amy said one evening we discussed her situation with the Hollisters.

"I think we take the bull by the horns and confront them."

"You mean drive down there and show up on their doorstep?"

I nodded. I had two weeks vacation coming up, and that would get us there and back and give plenty of time to make a vacation of it in Reno, too.

So we went, me taking a company uniform from work, one of the ones that only had our emblem embroidered on it, not the company name. Blue with a gold emblem on the shoulder; I might have to pretend to be more important that I was.

I picked Monday morning to accost the Hollisters. Really, I should say Mrs. Hollister because her husband, according to her, was at work.

I left Amy in the car at the curb opposite the house, and in my starched, Navy Blue uniform, strode up onto the porch, clipboard in hand, and knocked resolutely on the door.

The woman who answered looked as Amy told me Mrs. Hollister would.

"Are you Mrs. Benson Hollister?"

"Yes?"

"Is Mr. Hollister at home?"

"No, he's at work. He works weekdays."

I nodded. "No problem. I'm here to see his son, also Benson, I believe." I examined my clipboard as if checking that data. "Is he at home?"

"I don't know. He doesn't live here any longer."

"Oh, I see. Is his wife here?"

"He's divorced. We don't know where his wife is. We don't know, and we don't care."

"And what's her name?"

"Amy. Say, why are you asking all these questions?

"Because I'm investigating a missing person report, possibly a kidnaping or even a murder."

"Who?"

"His son, Hector Hollister."

"There's no one by that name, not in this family, anyway."

"Then where is he?"

"There's no one,"

"Ma'm? Do you know the penalty for knowingly giving false information to an official? It may be prosecuted as perjury and carries a stiff jail sentence." Within seconds she began squirming, so I knew I had her.

"There never was a Hector Hollister, sir."

"How can that be? I have this form right here that says there is. He was born on this date—I pointed to my sheet—right here. His mother was Amy Hollister. See? It says so right here."

"No. There never was. That woman lived here for a while, but her only pregnancy was still- born."

"Hum! I don't know about this. You have documentation, I assume? Did this occur in a hospital or other facility?"

"No. We only had a midwife."

I nodded. "Have you had contact with this woman who would have been the mother?"

"We may have had a letter several months ago, but it was improperly addressed and only returned to a box number, so we assumed it was junk mail."

I pulled a copy of Amy's envelope from under the clip on my board. "Is this the envelope?"

"Yes, I think so."

"And this is your address, right?" I pointed to the right side of the door and tapped my finger on the house numbers. And this is North Campbell Street, correct?"

"Yes."

I shook my head with a motion I hoped meant to her, Lady, you and your husband have really stepped in it this time and may find yourself in jail.

"Next time you receive an envelope addressed like this one properly is, you better take note and answer it. Understand?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Now, where is young Mr. Hector Hollister, Ma'm?"

"He was still-born by a midwife. That's all I know."

"So you killed the fetus?"

"No, no! We did nothing like that. It was natural."

"You know what the penalty is for aborting a fetus that far along? It's murder, and all that goes with it. Your whole family and that midwife may have adjoining cells in San Quentin. Was this would-be mother in on this murder, too?"

"No, no! She had nothing to do with it. It was already dead."

By now Mrs. Holllister was so flustered I was sure she was telling the truth as best she knew it and Amy had never born a viable fetus. But how would I ever tell Amy? Miscarrying was bad enough—if you wanted the kid. But to be told this string of lies and then kept as a hu-cow for four years? For those purposes? Could reality be much worse for a young woman?

All the way to Reno, during our vacation at Reno, and then all the was home, I stewed with myself about when, where, h ow, and all those other questions about telling Amy.

The whole tale might be easier on Amy if I just lied and told her the baby she'd thought she had, suffered some sort of medical emergency and died. Could that be worse than the truth here?

***

"When you gonna tell me where Hector is, Honey?" Amy said one Saturday morning. She always picked Saturday when she wanted more from me than she thought I'd give without persuasion. "I'm a big girl. If he's retarded or crippled or something like that, I think I can handle it. Is that why you've never told me?"

How do you tell—how do you risk the best sex a man ever had—to correct old history myth like Amy's? I suppose that quandary shown on my face. Her method of persuasion was the usual she inflicted upon me, a two hour long I love you, Darling session that left me unable to resist—or do most anything else, either.

"So tell me, Frank, or I'll screw you lights back in, than back out again! How can a man be so good, yet so stubborn?"

"Amy? Honey?" I said.

She turned enough to look me squarely in the eye. I knew that look, and it meant the time had come.

"Amy? You know I love you, right?"

"Sure you do, but I love you more"

"I don't think so. That's why this is so difficult. I'm afraid afterwards, you might not like me enough anymore, and I don't want to lose you or your great loving."

"Honey, no matter what it is, whatever you say, I'm still gonna be in your bed screwing you every time I get a chance, and belonging to you! Don't you understand?"

"This may be so bad you won't want me."

"The only time I won't want you is when you've been in your coffin fifty years—and I'll probably still want you then."

I shook my head.

"You don't believe that? Why not? Maybe I better fuck you again right now so you remember."

So she did, and that got me off the hook for another two hours. But when that expired, time had come a second time around.

"Amy?" I said as I shook my head gently. I snugged my arm under her shoulder and pulled her toward me. She looked at my eyes now, an expectant rise lifting her eyebrows.

"Honey?" She said. "Please tell me. Either of us is strong enough to carry this, I'm sure. And we love each other—you say you love me, and I sure as hell love you—so together we can't miss. Tell me, please?"

"Okay."

"Good." With that she returned the embrace my arm still held around her shoulder.

"Honey?"

Yes filled her face.

"There is no Hector."

Amy may have thought she was strong enough, but she wasn't ready for this.

"He died?"

I nodded and gave her a moment to let that settle in.

"How did it happen? How old was he?"

I shook my head.

"How, Honey?"

"I'm sorry, Amy. God, I'm sorry!"

She looked down for a moment, then with a different expression, back up again. Then she nodded as if she'd accepted what I said. Now came the hard part of this because it would be a one-two punch.

"Amy? I said there never was a Hector, at least far as I can figure out."

What do you mean? Sprang across her face.

"Or better said, he died at birth. He was stillborn."

"But I saw him just a flash-by when they first took him away."

I nodded, She probably did. "But you never saw him after that, right?"

She half nodded, half softly shook her head.

"That's best I could make out from talking to Mrs Hollister. She kept repeating that the baby was born dead when I practically accused her and the midwife of murder."

"They killed him."

"Maybe, maybe not. You said Mr. Hollister and you husband and Mrs. Holister did all sorts of things to you while you were pregnant—and afterwards? You said they must have domed your kid hundreds of times? Maybe that did it. Maybe ... I doubt we will ever know. I think it's better you just write it all off and go from where we are now."

She took a huge breath, now, then looked around the room for a moment.

"But what ...? What about the milk they got from me for Hector?"

"I think—you said they milked Mrs. Hollister, too, right? I think they sold it. I think they kept both you and her as hu-cows. I can't come up with any other workable explanation."

Amy just shook her head.

"Were you the only girl they ever kept?"

She nodded a moment, then stopped. Some level of remembering shown on her face.

"Maybe yes. Maybe not."

"What."

"Not long after they divorced me and made me leave, I went to their house unannounced one day to get something they still owed me. There was another pregnant girl who answered the door—about seven months along, I'd guess."

"They say who she was?"

Amy shook her head.

"And you never saw her again?"

Another head shake.

"So, quite possibly she was the new hu-cow brought in to replace you?"

Amy nodded, thoughtful. "She looked as if she might already be making milk. I know I was at that stage."

"You were making milk even before Hector was born? They were milking you before?"

She nodded.

"Didn't that seem strange to you?"

Amy shrugged. "I only knew what Momma and the Hollisters told me. Already I was getting a belly and both Benson and Mr. Hollister were fucking me more because they liked it more that way. Everyone was telling me lots of things. I didn't know what to believe and what not to."

Now it was my turn to shake my head.

Dead silence reined for five minutes before either of us said anything. Then Amy reached over and took my arm.

"Frank?" She said, her voice about as stable as you'd expect for a situation like this. "Frank? You said from now on, right? Forget the past, right?"

I nodded.

"I won't forget how nice you've treated me since you saved me, but I say we forget everything else before then. I don't want to remember being a bitch. I don't want to remember being locked in that room full of cold water for four days. I don't want to remember how nearly dead I felt when you helped them get me out of that concrete box. I don't want to remember having a beer can shoved up my ass and a 2-liter soda bottle forced into my pussy. My bigger breasts I'll keep because you like them and I may need them if you make babies in me, and maybe my thicker lips and labia I'll keep so I have kissable lips for you with red lipstick tattooed on. But I'm taking out my labia, clit, nose, lip and tongue piercings and letting them grow closed—that is, if you don't mind."

"Fine with me. One earring in each ear will be plenty."

"No, Frank. Plenty will be what we do in bed: every night, every day, every morning, every evening, and every time in between."

"I'm okay with that if you are." I think I chuckled in spite of myself.

"So now, past is finished and we're looking to the future, but how about those dozen little Franks I should be making for you? We still got our house to figure out."

"Amy, I ..."

"Frank, I know what you need: More bedtime experience. And I'm just the woman to give it to you. Come in here with me, and tell me what you want. I want you thinking about our future every moment you have nothing more important to think about—and if it's that important, it better be something like saving all of Humanity or the World.."