Chapter 5

I quickly pressed the door bell button for Jim's place before Mrs. Jacobsen could say anything.

Mrs. Jacobsen set down her bag of trash. Her facial expression and her body language gave the impression of an impending confrontation.

Jim opened the door with a big grin on his face. I took the bag of drinks from Brenda and held it out in front of Jillian. The young teen understood wordlessly and took it from me.

As fast as I could, I made eye contact with Sandra and Jillian. "Go with Jim", I said, "Your mother and I will be there shortly".

I looked up at Jim and gave him a directional sideways nod of my head towards the young widow. Jim leaned forward so he could look down the hall. The two naked girls were squeezing past him and into his apartment as he did this.

When he saw his neighbor, he pulled his head back inside and gave me a silent nod of understanding. He closed his entrance door.

I leaned in close to Brenda so that my lips were as close to her ear as possible without actually touching her. I whispered, "Remember when I told you that I needed to work on your level of fear to disobey me? Well, It's time".

I took Brenda's hand and strode the few yards to where our neighbor was standing with hands on her hips and elbows pointed out in defiance. She had an angry scowl on her face.

Mrs. Jacobsen's eyes met mine as we came to a stop directly in front of her. "Pervert", she blurted out.

I swallowed hard. With that swallow, went what I instinctively wanted to reply back. But, I took the high road. "Mrs Jacobsen, I'd like you to meet my ex-wife Brenda. Those two girls that just went into Jim's apartment are her daughters. Their names are Sandra and Jillian. They are staying with me for a while".

"Where are their clothes? Why are you letting them parade around naked in public?", my neighbor demanded. "I should call the police", she added

"I don't think that would be a good idea for your sake", I replied with a straight face.

"Why?!", Mrs Jacobsen jabbed back.

"Do you remember last New Year's Eve?", I asked. Before she could answer, I pushed on, "I'll answer that for you. I checked with you on New Year's Day. You definitely don't remember. Let me fill you in. At 11:30 pm you banged on my door. You were very drunk and had run out of alcohol. When I answered the door, you asked in a slurred voice if I had any liquor that you could borrow".

I continued, "Reluctantly, I invited you into my place while I looked for a bottle of something that would make you happy and go home. It's a good thing I found something and do you know why?"

Mrs. Jacobsen still had her hands on her hips. But her scowl was gone. She didn't respond to my question.

So I went on, "It is because you were dressed just like Brenda is now ... except you had bedroom slippers on. It's fortunate that you didn't continue your quest by banging on other doors in the building."

Of course, Mrs. Jacobsen's nudity was a total falsehood. The rest was true, including I hoped, her blackout.

A look of suspicion crept across her face. I figured she was questioning my story in her mind.

I answered the look by explaining that if she has any doubts, she could ask Jim. I told her that he had come to his door when he heard the commotion. "At that moment I was ushering you out my entrance door", I said, "He got a good look at you".

Mrs. Jacobsen's mouth fell open.

"If that's not good enough to convince you, there are pictures", I commented.

Her mouth stayed agape, but now her eyes were bugged out as well.

"I was texting a friend when you banged on my door. So, it was easy to switch my phone to camera mode. I've got quite a collection of you from all angles. And I do mean ALL angles. I've down loaded them onto my computer", I said.

I continued, "So you see, if you call the police, you'll be coming with us. Because our testimony and copies of your photos will be handed over to them".

Mrs. Jacobsen's face had blushed when I first mentioned Jim seeing her and the existence of photos. Now her complexion was pale white.

"Do you have any ground coffee?", I asked.

The widow looked back at me. She was obviously confused.

"Well?", I asked again.

"Yes. But why?" she answered as she let her hands drop to the sides of her hips.

"Well, you never replenished that bottle that I lent to you. I'm out of coffee. It's kind of an inconvenient time for me to go to a store. If you would take Brenda to your kitchen and give her a few scoops in a sandwich bag, I'll call it even. I'll even take your trash down to the dumpster for you while you do it.", I offered.

Mrs Jacobsen eyed me suspiciously as if she expected there would be a catch to my offer. But before she could respond, I heard footfalls in the hallway behind me. I turned and recognized Tina and Kevin approaching and grinned at them.