“I think she’d like to hear those very words, Honey,” Tim said softly, “Shoshana is a gentle soul and has suffered more than any human being I know.”
“Before you make up your mind, you’ve got to know some things. First, we live a pretty closed life. Some people hate us and would love to find us. Then people would die, perhaps many people. If you come, we’ll do everything we can to help you, but you can never tell anyone where we are. Can you keep that secret? Many lives, including my baby’s depend on us staying hidden,” Alice said. Inside Tim smiled. Alice had told him that the shared terror had allowed the girls to heal and form an incredibly strong bond. He really did not think the danger was significant.
“Second, We’re a family. Shoshana saved you. I’m here because you hated her for a long time. If you hurt her, you will not be welcome. Don’t for a moment think you’re over that hate. You’re not. If you let that hate out anywhere but with me, the family will turn on you. Think if you have the strength to keep the hate inside until we kill it.”
“We have one man. He’s strong, but he has a tortured soul. He cannot abide violence or threats to his family. We sleep with him. We share him and each other. We once had eleven members of the harem, but now there are six of us. Two died and three recently left. We are not asking you to join. We just want to let you know what kind of life it will be.”
“Do you want to go?” Alice asked gently, “it’s a long trip, and you probably won’t be coming back for quite a while.”
“I want to go more than anything in life.”
She hugged Tim, “Thank you.”
He took Alice aside, “Mike’s still having the nightmares?”
“We never knew what he had walled off and almost destroyed him a couple of years ago. But yes, he still has the nightmares but that beast is still caged most of the time.”
Tim shook his head sadly. There was nothing to say.
They traveled in Afghan clothes; testing Alice’s idea that shared terror might help Janet bond. Alice prayed that she had not brought a viper into their garden. The security arrangements were real, though. Tim insisted.
In Los Angeles International Airport, they were in the airport lounge when Jose walked by them. Alice almost fainted. Tim’s agent, also in Afghan clothes saw her stagger, taking her arm. “That man was a Zapata lieutenant and he knows me,” she whispered.
He took them by pre-planned route to a secluded room. The security men began a choreographed set of moves. One group surveiled Jose. They notified Tim and activated the alternate arrangements.
Alice told Janet that she had seen a man that wanted them dead. Janet and Alice were genuinely terrified. Though it had been many years, everyone in the cartel knew Rafaela had fled with Alice. Even with her facial surgery, Alice still looked like herself. The surgery had been done to prevent facial recognition software from locking on.
They were whisked into a waiting Escalade with tinted windows and driven from the airport to a secure location. Their flights were cancelled. They were rerouted through San Francisco. Tim’s network went into high gear. Cell phones were tapped. NSA owed Tim many favors. He collected a few.
Apparently Jose never had any idea Alice was meters from him. Alice’s psychological trick to begin bonding with Janet may have saved everyone.
When Michael heard, he was near apoplexy. The nightmares began. Only Beth and Shoshana could reach him.
When Alice and Janet arrived, he ran to the chopper. Alice looked and was exhausted, but she jumped into his arms.
“Never again.” He said over and over.
Alice had always felt she was a second tier woman for him. The strength of his love overwhelmed her. She surrendered her soul to this tormented man.
Shoshana waited impatiently, but Alice had been explicit. Let Janet come to her.
When she climbed out, Janet looked across the waiting women and children. Seeing Shoshana, she burst into a run. In a moment they were in each other’s arms, crying.
“Thank you,” Janet said, “You’re the bravest and most wonderful woman I’ve ever seen. You saved me!”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t stop them,” Shoshana began.
Janet pushed her an arms length away so she could look into Shoshana’s anguished eyes. “YOU SAVED ME!” Janet said a bit more strident than she had intended, “They tortured you, ruined your ability to carry a child, made you endure things that no woman should even think about, all because you saved me! You’re a hero!”
“Now you bring me to the one place that may help me, endangering your whole family and you’re sorry you only stopped six of the eight? Are you crazy? I could never have endured what you did. You saved my life.”
Alice held Michele, but watched carefully. Alice knew that the hate still lay coiled inside Janet. Alice hoped it was now solely directed at those who had hurt her.
By unspoken agreement, they went to the lap pool, children in tow. Shoshana introduced Janet to her harem mates, Becka and Sandy along the way.
Shoshana showed Janet her room. A bathing suit lay waiting on the dresser. Shoshana darted off to change and was waiting when Janet opened the bedroom door.
They walked into Janet’s new life, hand in hand.
Janet had been told that the people were wealthy, but she began to understand how inadequate that description had been. Clearly the wealth that surrounded these people began with a “B”.
Alice watched Janet carefully as she was exposed to their wealth. Though Janet had apparently dabbled with drugs, she’d never become fully lost in that world. Alice saw signs of wonder in those sparkling green eyes, but no avarice.
Alice had given Janet a short background of each of the women. She knew five of the harem women, together with Becka and Sandy had endured rapes. Somehow they had climbed out of the same hell she now inhabited.
“I’m sorry Rachael crossed over, Honey, she would have liked to meet you.” Michael said when Shoshana brought her, “Misha never got over her son raping Beth. It’s probably a good thing she didn’t know about what he did to you.” He took her into his arms.
Janet shook her head. “Shoshana saved me before Robert did anything to me. I’m sorry about Rachael and Michele.”
Michael liked how that sounded. He smiled into her frightened eyes.
“Do you swim?”
“A little,” he smiled, picked her up and threw her into the deep end. Beth, Shoshana and Jennifer dove after her. She came up with her hair plastered across her face, sputtering in a circle of happy faces.
It broke the serious tone of their return.
Alice pushed Michael in and then followed in a graceful dive. When she surfaced, laughter filled the pool deck. Michael was beside her.
Watching the girls splashing each other, Alice said to Michael, “You really are trying to put me out of business!”
Janet clung to Shoshana, wanting desperately to reverse the pain Shoshana had endured for protecting her.
Bodies flew into the pool. Three nannies stayed in the shallow end with the children.
Beth came to Janet, “Shosh, can I talk with Janet for a minute,” a clear command, though kindly phrased, Beth’s eyes were hard.
“Janet, Shoshana is my sister. I love her. She nearly died protecting you,” Beth looked into Janet’s green eyes, “she needs you to love her and forgive her.”
Janet’s eyes blazed. “I’d die for her. I saw what they did to her for protecting me. Why does everyone think I’m some monster? I hated her because I thought she helped them. Now I know better. How could I hurt her? I’m alive only because she got me out before the sick shit started.”
Michael and Beth had decided this was the best way to see if Janet had really forgiven Shoshana. They trusted both Tim and Alice, but they needed to see it with their own eyes.
Janet watched as Beth’s eyes went from cold to warm to loving.
Beth took Janet into her heart. She pulled her into a hug. Other harem sisters joined, including Shoshana.
Alice went to Michael. “Did you plan that?”
He feigned innocence. “Why do I bother? You have an innate sense of how to break through walls.” Alice said with a smile.
As the day wore on, they went to the lounge pool. Children ran to their mothers and aunts. Janet started to understand that the children were part of the solution and belonged to everyone.
Alice crashed, but Janet drank in the love and joy that surrounded them. She refused to leave.
She sat with Michael and Beth at a shaded table.
“Can I ask you something?” Janet asked softy.
“Shoot.”
“You actually “do” your own daughter?”
Michael nodded, waiting for the inevitable next question.
It never came. “She loves you. You’re her husband?”
Michael sighed and then nodded. “I’m her man. Kat, Beth, Alice, Jennifer, Rafaela and Shoshana are all my wives.”
“You can keep up with six women?”
“I can’t. Not a chance in hell. They love each other. It’s kind of a pre-requisite that my women are bi-sexual.”
“And me?”
“Honey, you’re here to heal, not become a harem mate. I owe you. I couldn’t get Shoshana to climb out of her guilt pit. You did.”
Shoshana and Janet became inseparable. Janet bonded with the other women, but she began to love Shoshana in a way she had never imagined possible. Shoshana became her older sister, mother and, she hoped one day, her lover.
Alice discovered a huge well of love in Janet. Within months, a Janet none expected began to emerge. She was smart, funny, happy and loving.
Alice was fascinated and intrigued on a professional level and attracted as Michael’s woman.
It was early summer in Australia, a time for rebirth. One night in late November, Shoshana and Janet were sitting on the lounge pool deck, enjoying the sea breeze and a glass of fine Australian wine.
Janet looked into Shoshana’s dark eyes.
“Shosh, do you think the DNA transfer would work for you?”
Shoshana’s glass stopped halfway to her mouth. Lynne had tried implantation of her egg, but it did not work. Then Lynne had left the harem. The implications raced through Shoshana’s mind.
“Jennifer is trying to get pregnant. She wants Michael’s child. Alice had problems with her delivery and shouldn’t have another. Rafaela shouldn’t try again. The only woman who could carry a child for me is Kat and she is committed to Beth. I could never ask her to carry my child.”
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