Dancing With the Devil

The next day at work Caspar came in and kept giving me funny looks. At first I thought it was about the mess of Ladonna messages as she had been a pretty constant source of garbled messages for days but then he asked me if I knew about Jojo and Lynx. I was surprised that Caspar would bother about what Jojo did but then I realised he probably was close to Lynx. I told him yes I knew and he went on to say that was how Lynx usually worked, she would toy with someone until they bored her and then move on. I thought he was speaking from bitter experience having been one of Lynx’s cast offs and said it must hurt to be tossed aside by her but he just smiled and said life with Lynx would be hell and being tossed aside is probably the best thing that can happen to a guy. I don’t know if he was trying to reassure me that Jojo would be ok or just let me know that Jojo was victim to the usual antics of Lynx. I pretended I didn’t care and walked off but I knew that the fact Caspar even spoke to me at work means he had heard about Jazz and me in the café.

This was confirmed by an unexpected visit from Ladonna and Gervais for if I had wondered why the phone had suddenly gone silent it was because Ladonna was squeezing herself into some thing sparkling and spandex. She is a strange woman Ladonna, she wears the worst clothes which are far too tight and covered in far too much glitter for daywear yet she exudes a sense of style that is uniquely her own, large, overpowering, noisy and opinionated Ladonna is a character none can ignore. I rather liked her straight forward manner and the way she insults the old boods in town was good for a giggle. I thought if you could get her away from the Dubois circle, no doubt a place she was always fighting for her life, Ladonna would probably be a lot of fun! At the sight of Gervais my heart froze because Caspar was not exactly protective of me, at least at Sedero’s I was on my own turf but here I was in enemy territory. Ladonna caught me looking at Gervais and before he could oil his way up to me she grabbed my arm and dragged me off saying she wanted to look at fabrics.

Now I should have given her over to Caspar as he was the fabric expert but since I did not want to be left alone with Gervais I went and sat down with her at the samples desk. Ladonna spent the next twenty minutes going oohhh and ahhhh over everything and changing her mind every ten seconds. When Caspar and Gervais moved over to the coffee bar she leaned her impressive bulk forward and whispered in my ear that Gervais had my scent however I didn’t quite know what she meant and tried to ask but Ladonna had been about as disloyal as she intended. I guess she meant that Gervais knew about me shouting at Jazz in the café and now was coming to make as much trouble as he could. I decided to do a Coco and went blank for the rest of her tirade over samples and it worked until she got over excited and grabbing Caspar led him to look at menus.

It was the lull Gervais was waiting for and before I could take a breath there he was, right where Gervais always was, too close and scary as hell. It suddenly occurred to me that through no fault of my own I had put myself in a position of taking on a Dubois and this was one powerful enemy I did not want to tangle with. Gervais smiled the smile the snake in Eden must have showed Eve just before giving her an apple and asks me if I heard about Lynx and Jojo. Of course he knew I had, hell the entire town had been buzzing with the news but I knew he was just twisting the knife, something a Dubois could not resist, that little extra touch of torture. I told him as coldly as I could that yes I knew about Lynx and Jojo and it was none of my concern, I was busy with my own life.

Gervais leaned even closer, I knew he was going to whisper something awful, this is what always happened when he leaned in closer. He chuckled and I could feel his breath on my cheek making me want to scream or dong him with something heavy. He whispered “You asked me what it would cost to have Elyce occupied for the next few months,” he paused and leaned back with a knowing smile and said one word. I gave him a look of pure hate, he was determined to make my life a misery no matter what I said or did. I knew he would never leave me alone until he got what he wanted and I had nothing to lose anymore, that door had been closed.

I looked Gervais straight in the eye and said “Deal.” I remembered what I said to Coco, never dance with the devil cause he always wants to lead, well he certainly led this dance for the word he had whispered was Jojo.

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