Between HeVan and Hell (10 page)

“One last thing: I need to disappear.
It’s best you don’t know where we are. And it’s also best no one
else does either. Go around to the others and give them the news.
Ask them to stay away; we don’t need this person bothering my
friends. You’ll explain? Make everyone understand?” Gilda
asked.

“Of course I will, but I’ll wait until
after you’ve gone. Tell them tomorrow. Now, I’ve thought of
something else, you didn’t think of it, so points for me!” Ethel
said with a grin. She was happy to see a smile on her friend’s
face.

“I’ll go to the post office and ask
them to hold all your mail. Give me the key to your post office box
and some deposit slips. That way I can deposit your rent checks
from next door. You find a way to contact me, okay? I know your
handwriting so send me a letter. Or call if you get a chance. Have
Marta show you how to pay your bills online. We’ll drag you into
this century yet, Gilda,” she finished with another grin. It was
well known that Gilda liked to do things the old fashioned way. She
still had the same black rotary dial phone she had thirty years
ago.

“I’m going to miss you, Ethel. I will
contact you when I can. I’m going to have to come back to testify,
anyway. I’ll see you then. Now shoo, Marta will be back soon. If
that bad man comes back, I don’t want you here,” said
Gilda.

“Bah! I’ll leave when Marta returns
and not one minute sooner, Gilda Cohen Levin! Now, there will be no
more arguments. Here, I will clean up this mess.”

She was about to use the damp cloth to
wipe off the display case, a matter of habit in their industry.
Gilda stopped her just in time with a reminder of the fingerprints
the police needed. A very sheepish Ethel left ten minutes later
when Marta returned.

“You called Auntie Ethel over. I’m
glad you weren’t alone,” said Marta. Ethel Mitnik wasn’t really her
aunt. But she’d grown up watching the two women spending time
together and socializing. They often were invited to Shabbat dinner
on Fridays at the Mitniks. She put down the backpack next to Gilda
and asked her what she should do next.

“Now, go upstairs, pack up my jewelry
case, my two black photo albums, your grandpa’s picture on my
bedside table and the brown wooden box on the top shelf in my
closet. Don’t pack a lot of clothes, just enough change and
underwear for a week. Oh, and don’t forget my medicines. These are
nasty people and they’ll break in here and go through our things.
So take whatever means the most to you and leave the
rest.”

Seeing the look on her granddaughter’s
face, she added, “We’re having an adventure. Don’t worry. I’m not
senile. I’ve got a few cards up my sleeve.”

“Okay, Grandma,” said Marta as she ran
upstairs.

Just like that, our lives
have been turned upside down
, Marta
thought. She was thinking of calling some of her friends and
decided against it. She’d watched TV right along with her
grandma—better safe than sorry.

Downstairs, Baba Gilda used the new
cell phone to call Jett back. She knew he was expecting her to call
and she had an idea he and his brothers would make sure she was
safe.

They had just left the jewelry store.
Grace was taking a turn driving the Escalade, sneaking admiring
glances at her engagement ring every time she turned the steering
wheel to the right, when she heard Jett’s cell phone go off. She
listened in as best as she could and then said, “Ask her not to
give the cops our names.”

After he ended the call, Jett turned
to Jalen and Grace. “I don’t like the sound of this. Grace, you say
you feel as if you’ve been watched all day. Now this happens only a
few minutes after we leave the store. I’m going to call
Arjun.”

Jett called Arjun and related the
day’s events. They batted ideas around and finally came up with a
plan that seemed workable with the resources at their disposal. As
usual, it was Addie who came up with a solution.

About an hour later, they were sitting
in the living room of Grace’s condo. She’d gotten a large roomy
two-bedroom condo on Lake Shore Drive with part of her inheritance.
Hers had a view of the lake. She had hardwood floors put in with
area rugs using bold geometric designs. She was too busy for pets,
so she splurged on good fabrics for the couch and two chairs. The
couch had a design in Faberge blue and gold; the club chairs were
rich chocolate brown velvet. The coffee table was an old steamer
trunk she’d found at a garage sale.

She’d given them the nickel tour
already of the kitchen, with its stainless steel appliances and
granite countertops. The dinette had a 70’s era chrome and glass
table with matching chrome and white leather chairs. The guest room
was the blandest room in the house with her desk tucked into the
corner. Addie was her most frequent overnight guest.

She had skipped the master bedroom on
the tour; she wasn’t ready to be near a bed with these two.
Especially with the heated looks they kept giving her. They’d wait
to see if Gilda called back. If she didn’t, they were going to call
her, or go back to the store. They spent the time waiting, going
through her photo albums. Jalen had mentioned a photo of her that
Addie had shown them.

“You were wearing something she called
a bodysuit. It was blue, and you were holding a weapon and wearing
your uniform hat…”

“Oh, my God! She showed you that
picture? I told her to throw those away. I was just fooling around
because I was so happy to have graduated from the Police Academy,”
said Grace.

“Well, we all thought you looked sexy.
Justyn took the photo because he couldn’t come here until late
tonight or tomorrow. He’s keeping it with him,” said Jalen. They
continued going through her photos and asking questions about her
childhood, waiting for Gilda to call them back.

They were about to give up and call
her when the call came in from Gilda. Jalen picked it up on the
first ring.

“Hello?” said Jalen.

“Hello. Jett, is that you, honey?”
asked Gilda.

When he heard Gilda’s voice, he nodded
to Jett and Grace.

“No, Gilda, this is Jalen. If you need
help, we have a plan to get you to safety.”

“Well, it looks like I may need that
help after all. And I thought to myself that you’d know the best
way to keep my granddaughter and me safe. Do you have one of those
beamer things? Like they say in Star Trek? The evil man that came
in the store and hit me was named Anton Kadyrov. The police seem to
think I need to hide,” said Gilda.

“How badly are you hurt? Do you need
to see a medical?” asked Jalen. It was a measure of his state of
mind that he forgot to say doctor.

“Are you safe? We made arrangements
after you called the first time. Just in case. If you hadn’t called
in another fifteen minutes, we’d have called you,” said
Jalen.

“Well, the officers didn’t seem to
think they’d be able to keep us safe here,” she said.

“Someone will be there within two
hours. Be ready to go. Just pack the essentials for now. We’ll take
care of the rest but we won’t be beaming you, you’ll be picked up
by a van,” he said. “You’ll be using another transport later in the
evening, I won’t say on the phone but I think you’ll like
it.”

“Thank you, Jalen, we’re very
grateful. We’ll be ready. Bye for now; we have to go back to our
packing.”

“Take care, Gilda. You won’t ever have
to be afraid again. Good-bye," said Jalen.

He hung up the phone and turned back
to Grace and Jett. “It’s a good thing we called Arjun. Addie says
that she’s spoken to Suzanna by cell. She asked Suzanna to get them
in her car, she’s due to arrive back at the house with her mom any
minute. She has government plates so even if they’re seen, they
won’t be traceable. Suzanna said the car doesn’t officially exist,
and the name and address will come up as owned by the White
House.”

“That’s totally cool,” said Grace,
chuckling.

Jett looked at Grace sitting in the
corner of the couch and said, as he stood up to walk over to her,
“Gilda and Marta will be safe. We don’t have to do anything about
your case until this evening,”

He stood in front of her and held out
his hand. “Will you come and make love with us?”

Jalen’s head turned at Jett’s
question. He’d been standing in front of the window, trying to get
his need for Grace under control when he heard Jett’s words. He,
too, waited for her answer.

Grace looked at them both, and knew
what this step meant.

“What about Justyn?”

Jalen walked over to the couch to
stand with Jett. He also held out a hand. “Justyn will be here by
morning. He would not deny us this opportunity.”

Grace reached up with both hands and
let them pull her to her feet.

“Follow me,” said Grace.

Grace walked down the hall to her
bedroom. Her bedroom had an Asian feel. The bed was on a low
platform with just the mattress on a black frame. Behind a Shoji
screen, there was a small sitting area with another window
overlooking the side street with the lake in the distance to the
right.

Good thing I went with the
king-sized bed,
she thought.

She opened the door, stepped through
and turned around.

“I’ve never been with two men at the
same time before. How does that work, exactly?”

Jett had already removed his shirt and
tossed it on one of the chairs in the corner. Jalen was watching
Grace, and he could see the hesitation in her eyes.

“Did Addie have a chance to explain
the physiological differences between human and Nephilim? Though
you have many human traits, we’ve discovered that Nephilim DNA is
dominant when it comes to parts of the body that are affected by
arousal. The giving and receiving of pleasure in our culture is
considered essential to good health. Our bodies are made to
experience those pleasures,” Jalen explained.

“No. She hinted at stuff, but there
was so much to tell me that we never got down to the nitty-gritty,”
she said, and they smiled with her.

“The two biggest differences are that
you can take both of us at the same time, one from the front and
one from behind without discomfort or pain. As your arousal
increases, your body will relax and secrete the necessary moisture
to lubricate our entrance. You’ll find that during sex, all of your
orifices are linked sexually and the intensity of orgasm increases
when more than one is penetrated during sex.” He gave her a close
look to see how she was taking the explanation and then
continued.

“The second biggest difference is that
Nephilim have a skin tube or flap at the back of their throat,
which is normally closed. With arousal, it opens and allows you to
breathe through your nose while at the same time taking one of us
deep in your throat. When you approach orgasm, small ridges or
bumps will appear along the flesh in your throat, which when rubbed
against, gives pleasure to both.”

“Wow! I wonder why our medical doctors
never discovered that?”

She gave a little shiver as Jett
stepped up behind her and put his arms around her waist, pulling
her back to lean against him.

“The flap seals completely when not
engaging in sex; it would be difficult to discover even during an
autopsy, unless you knew it was there. And though the number of
Nephilim on this planet is unknown, relative to the normal
population, I’m sure it’s a small segment,” Jalen said, stepping
closer.

“Okay, that makes sense,” she
said.

If they get any closer, I’m
not going to be able to concentrate on what he’s
saying
, she thought.

“There are many places
which heighten arousal and give pleasure. To make you feel more
comfortable, Jett and I would be happy to give you a female
pleasure massage. What we, in our language, call
Kuan Haddis
, which means
opening the heavens joyfully. Will you let us do that?” he
asked.

“Alright. What’s a male pleasure
massage called?”

“Kalu
Ki’
, which directly translated means, hold
the earth. Men are considered of the earth and women of the
heavens. The
Joining
of the heavens and the earth is the
Ankida
, which is why once
Joined
, what you call
married, you will refer to us as your
Ankida
.”