Chapter 10: The Opening of Minds and the Wall

The alarm went off at 5:45 am. I stirred but I didn’t wake, then it kept on ringing. I was spooning into Michelle and didn’t want to move. She murmured and shrugged at my touch. I put that into my memory for later. I cupped her boob and pinched her nipple hard.

“What?” Came her question as she jumped and tried to remove my hand. She tried to raise her head but just laid there. I grabbed her backside and kissed her neck. “Do you always put the alarm on to wake me up so you can have me?” she asked?

I smiled at her insolence and again made a note for later on. “I have a business meeting at 7.” I told her, “You will stay here, but you had not be still in bed when I get home.” She raised herself onto one elbow, “Can I come too?”

“No, this is business. Maybe next time I have an early morning meeting I will just send you and I can stay in bed.” I told her as I dragged my weary body out of bed, being naked gave me wonderful sensations as I caught Michelle looking at me and smiling, as she licked her lips as she kicked back the covers revealing her nakedness. I was tempted to just crawl back into bed next to her and continue where we left off the night before. But I had things to do.

I walked into the walk-robe and pressed on my mirror and then walked into my on-suite and started my morning routine. I peed and cleaned myself, I then turned the shower on and let the warm water tumble over me. I washed, humming away to myself, the steam fogging up the glass around the shower, I felt good. There was a gentle knock on the glass and a voice in the steam, “Can I join you?” She asked.

I opened the door to her smiled and let her in. “Sure, but I’m almost done and I have no time for playing,” I explained.

She kissed me and said “Yes Mistress.” As she took a handful of gel and started to wash. I leaned over her shoulder and asked, “Are you always so grumpy first thing in the morning?”

“I wasn’t grumpy, I was in the middle of a beautiful dream and you shattered it by waking me.” She told me.

“Oh, what were you dreaming about?” I asked

“You my Mistress.” She smiled as she told me.

“Oh, really and what was I doing with you?” I ventured further with her.

“You were showing me how to be a good girl Mistress, using your cane and some rather large toys in my backside.” She put a finger to her lips while looking at me blushing. “Is that good Mistress?” She asked me.

“Very good,” I told her. I kissed her then stepped out of the shower, and dried myself while starting to hum again. She too started singing in French, a tune I didn’t recognise but sounded familiar.

I dressed quickly while Michelle was drying, the shower had been turned off. I went back into the bedroom and noticed how untidy we had left it after last night, clothes thrown into corners, totally unlike me. I wasn’t happy with it and wondered if I was making the right decision or in fact had made the right decision.

I went down to the kitchen and started making a fresh pot of coffee, then looking at the clock realised it was almost 6:40. I shouted over my shoulder, down the hallway, that I had to go and the coffee was on. I turned around to leave and there she was. Dressed, in a new shirt, tied in a knot under her small breasts, only one button fixed in between what should have been her cleavage but wasn’t, her new jeans were hugging every contour and crease she possessed. She had used a dab of perfume, an old bottle of Chanel #5 she had found on my dressing table. Some lipstick and eye shadow. All in the time it took me to brew up a pot of coffee.

I stood there in silence.

Taking in this wondrous young woman. She had literally taken my breath away.

“Oh wow Michelle, you look, you look Magnifique. I am not sure how long I will be, but I will hurry back to you.” I told her with a cheeky kiss on her nose.

She hugged me, “I will be here.” She replied.

I raced out the door and down to the Port. Arriving there last of all.

“Typical,” said Terry, “You live the closest and the last to arrive.”

I poked my tongue out at him and then gave him a hug. “Hi, little brother. Remember this part of town, you know where you grew up. I’m surprised you found your way here, did you use your natsav?” I said to him while smiling.

“Where’s Cindy?” I continued.

“Don’t be nasty now Kathy, it’s beneath you.” He replied.

I hugged everyone as we were talking. Mia and Emily looked like they were just getting home from a big night out. While Erica was there but Anita wasn’t.

The builders were unloading some tools as I opened the front door. I did notice that Emily and her grandfather were walking arm in arm and Mia was following up behind them. Erica joined me and asked, “Who’s the latest squeeze then?”

“Say what,” I asked.

“Emily was asking me who your new girlfriend was and had I met her?”

“Was she now? Good grief one little giggle over the phone and she is blabbering about a girlfriend. I will fill you in later on. Are you coming out on Friday night or will you be tucked up in bed early?” I asked with a wicked raise of my eyebrows.

“Not sure yet, we might both be there.” She told me. “This mysterious woman, she must be ok then, you have ‘that’ glow about you.”

“And what glow is that Erica?” I asked her in a none too subtle tone.

“That glow one gets after a night of shagging.” She reminded me.

“Oh that glow, well you would know all about ‘that glow’, wouldn’t you,” I told her.

She laughed then said, “My name’s Erica, not Emily.”

We laughed out loud “Oh yeah, but you know.”

“Did you say you are both coming on Friday night? That would be good but dangerous, tell her. We don’t hide the fact of who we are.”

“She knows.” She said as we watched the tradies set things up in the cellar.

Terence came over to us and looking at the wall asked. “How do you know it shouldn’t be here?”

“I’ll let Mia explain it, she is the genius that found it.” As I waved a hand over at Mia and Emily who were talking to the builder. I asked him ‘What did you think of your Blue Prints?”

“Haven’t seen them yet.” He told me. I grab hold of his arm and asked quietly, “Hasn’t Emily spoken to you about dropping them off?”

“Oh yes, but we can’t find a time that suits us.” He told me.

I hissed at him through gritted teeth, “Don’t start your bull shit, Terry. It was you who told me that you and Cindy were going to take them out to dinner, remember.”

“I never said Cynthia, I said I would meet her new friend over dinner.”

I walked him away from everyone and then gave him my, ‘don’t do this stare’.

“She is your granddaughter, who wants to introduce you to her potential new life partner and you are playing fucking stupid games. ARE you kidding me?” I said in a raised voice but gritted teeth. Trying my hardest not to draw any more attention to us than we already had.

“Just stay here for a sec,” I told him and waved again to Mia and said in a none too pleasant tone. “Mia, can you join us please?”

She looked up from some simple drawings she had done, as she was trying to explain something to the builder. And raised a finger at me, no not the bird, but a wait for a second type finger. Which considering my now foul mood, probably wasn’t the smartest thing to do. Erica took a further few steps backwards away from us, having seen me erupt before and knew the tell-tale signs of an impending explosion.

Mia came over with a smile and Emily scurried along after her, I turned to Emily and in a harsh tone asked her “Is your name Mia? She doesn’t need you to hold her hand all day long.”

Emily stopped where she was, Mia looked at me wondering what on earth was going on. Terry put his hand on my arm and I shook it off. He then whispered in my ear. “Not here, not now. Just behave!”

I took a deep breath. Closed my eyes, counted to 5, opened them then opened my arms to Emily, then whispered to her “Sorry darling, I didn’t mean to growl. If you haven’t already you should introduce Mia to your Grandfather.”

I felt her stiffen and her eyes were pleading with me. I nodded, then whispered into her ear. “It’s time.” She shook and I held onto her. “If you want I will do it.?”

She hugged me. “I will do it.”

“Sorry everyone a little bit of family business first,” I told everyone.

She went and hugged Mia then took her over to her Grandfather. “Granddad I want you to meet Mia, my girlfriend, the love of my life. Mia Di Lombardo this is my granddad, Mr Terry Ambrose.”

Mia extended her hand. He looked at it, at her, then at Emily. Took a step forward and took her in her arms and hugged her, firmly. Kissed her cheek as Emily joined them. Mia then shook his hand with the biggest smile I had seen on her face in the short time that I had known her.

I stood back, and Erica came up beside me. “I thought you were going to blow a fuse back there?”

“I was about to, but Terry intervened. Perfect timing. Are you doing anything tonight?” I asked.

“Nothing planned, as far as I know, catching up on some paperwork maybe.” She quickly explained

“So nothing really important. Why don’t you bring Anita around for dinner and you can meet Michelle.” I told her.

“OK, I’ll make a phone when we finish here and we can see what’s what.” She replied.

Mia and Emily joined us as did Terry. “Mia has an idea and I agree with her, instead of knocking the whole wall down, can’t we just make a hole in there to see if anything is behind it. If there isn’t anything there then take it all down.” Terry enquired

Erica called over to the builders who were now just hanging around waiting for us to get our act together. We all wandered over to the wall and talked to the builders who with hammers and chisels in hand were ready to start work.

“Can we just take a few bricks out first so we can see what’s behind it, and then decide what to do?” I asked them. They nodded and started to scrape away at the mortar with their chisels. The mortar crumbled easily and before long the first brick had been knocked through.

Pitch black!

“Does anyone have a torch handy?” I asked.

“I’ve got one in the glove box, I’ll be right back.” Said Terry.

He hurried off giving me time to have a chat with both Mia and Emily. “Have you given the Wall Art to your Grand Father yet Em?”

“We’ve got them in the car Aunt Kathy.”

“So the answer is no?” I told her. “And while I have your attention after we have finished here, pop around home and meet Michelle,” I told them. “But shussshhhh, your Grand Father doesn’t have to know just yet.

The footsteps coming down the staircase announced his return.

“Give it here Terry?” I asked forcibly. “No way, I want to look first for a change.” He replied.

And he ran around me in a wide arc as a child would do. By this time another 4 bricks had been removed but it was still no lighter behind the wall. He raced over to the opening with all of us right behind him.

He shone the big torch in through the hole in the wall. With me trying to look over his shoulders. I couldn’t see a flaming thing.

He stuck his head and shoulder in through the hole and was talking back to us but it was all muffled and incoherent.

“Well, there is some sort of old paintings, of half-naked ladies, right up your alley Kathleen, some old furniture. It seems like a couple of old trunks, but that’s about all. Just a big empty space with some old storage bits and pieces.”

I turned to the builders, “How long to make just a doorway to let us in.”

“We will have to make it safe, so I’d want to put a lintel in to support the bricks over the opening. This mortar isn’t to flash. End of today or tomorrow at the latest.”