Patience's Close Call

To my readers,

I wrote this story about Patience and Langdon, my brother-sister lovers from “Patience’s Virtue,” in response to a request from a reader. The original story was written in 1998, so this one has been updated a little with cell phones and my current interests. I hope that it retains the feel of the original story. Enjoy!

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Part One

It was half past nine at night, and Patience and Lauren were driving through a bad part of town. Lauren had known it was a risky idea to cut through this depressed area on the south side, but her regular route was blocked for construction, and the bypass was much longer.

Now, as the dark-haired, attractive Lauren steered her car deeper onto streets littered with trash and lined with tenements and dilapidated houses, she knew she’d made a mistake. Streetlights were few and far between, and there were usually groups of five to ten youths loitering underneath them. They were mostly African-American kids, some wearing gang colors, some not. Occasionally, the groups were Hispanic. Neither Patience nor Lauren had seen a police car since they entered the area.

Patient, blond-haired, slender, with her blue eyes wider than usual with anxiety, said, “I don’t think we belong down here, Lauren.”

“I don’t know,” Lauren replied wryly, “let’s ask them.” They drove past another group of yelling, catcalling kids. A couple of times, boys had actually ventured into the street as if to stop the car. Lauren had set her jaw and driven on.

They came to a particularly dark section of the street. Here there were no houses, only warehouses, locked and shuttered for the night. Lauren breathed a sigh of relief. They were past the worst of it now. Another mile and they would hit a cross street that would take them into a better part of town and home.

Patience Mackenzie and Lauren Black were faculty and student, respectively, at North Central College. Patience was a graduate student in Fine Arts, and Lauren was an Associate Professor of English. The two women were friends and sometime lovers. Lauren had had a late class, and had offered to give Patience a ride home from the library. This would save Patience’s brother Langdon a trip to the campus. The two women had gone out for coffee. Their conversation had lasted longer than they anticipated, and now they found themselves out at nine forty-five in a bad part of town. Still, they considered their time well spent.

Patience had short, blond hair cut in a pixie. She was tall and slender, with an upturned nose and pale blue eyes that held a hint of the sensuality lurking beneath. Lauren was shorter, voluptuous, with brown eyes and hair that fell to her shoulders. She was intense and intelligent, and more than a match intellectually for any man. But she preferred women, particularly Patience Mackenzie.

The topic that had kept them so late the coffee shop happened to be the one male Lauren enjoyed a physical relationship with. Langdon Garroway was Patience’s brother and fraternal twin. They had been separated when they were young, but had found each other years later. By that time, Langdon had been adopted by his foster parents, the Garroways.

Their reunion had been intensely emotional. The two siblings had moved in together and it had not been long before their emotional attachment had become physical. Both Patience and Langdon had felt they had found their perfect soul mate and sexual partner. However, that did not preclude them inviting another person, invariably female, into their union. That was where Lauren came in.

Patience and Lauren had drunk several cups of coffee, discussing the possibility of Lauren coming to live with the two siblings. It had not been Langdon that brought it up. Patience had come up with the idea. Although she loved Langdon with all her heart and body, she still craved a woman’s caresses. She loved Langdon’s large cock, but she also loved Lauren’s sweet furry pussy. (Lauren did not shave down there.)

The two women had gotten so excited that they had decided to present the idea to Langdon that night. Secretly, Lauren had a few doubts, but Patience was so sure it would work that she decided to go along, for now.

They had turned off the campus, intending to follow the usual route to Patience and Langdon’s apartment. Patience dialed home on her cell phone, and Langdon picked up.

“Hello,” he said, sleepily.

“Hey,” she said. “Did I wake you up?”

“I fell asleep on the couch. What time is it?” he asked.

“About nine-twenty. Lauren and I were talking and the time got away from us. We’ll be home in about twenty minutes,” Patience explained.

“Okay,” Langdon said. “Be careful.”

“We will. I love you,” Patience said.

“Love you, too,” Langdon replied.

Now it was nine-fifty, and they were overdue. Langdon would be worried. Still, it seemed that the worst was behind them. In the distance, just before the side street they were heading for was another street light with a group of about four or five youths clustered under it. Once past them, they would be in the clear. Patience began dialing home on her cell to let Langdon know where they were.

Just at that moment, the car, an old Saturn, lurched and began slowing down, losing power. “Oh shit,” Lauren swore. On the dashboard, the “Gen” light glowed. Lauren managed to get the care to the curb before it ground to a halt. She turned the key in the ignition but it would not restart.

“What’s wrong?” Patience asked nervously.

“It’s probably the alternator,” Lauren said. “I’ve been meaning to get it looked at.”

Patience started to say something about the prudence of taking a malfunctioning car into a bad part of town, but thought better of it at the last minute. Lauren turned on the hazard flashers. Patience snapped, “Don’t do that! Look down the street.”

Lauren looked, and her face went white. The gang, attracted by the hazard flashers, had begun pointing at them. Some of the boys were walking toward them. Lauren quickly turned the flashers off, but it was too late.

“Oh shit oh shit oh shit!” Lauren said.

“I don’t think we should wait for them to get here,” Patience said, a tremor in her voice.

“Me neither,” said Lauren.

Patience said, forcing herself to be calm, “Get your purse and your phone. We are going to walk away from the car and find a place to hide.”

“Isn’t it safer to just wait for help?” Lauren asked.

“Not this time. I didn’t see a policeman anywhere around here. I definitely am not going to wait until those guys get here.”

“But…,” Lauren started to say.

“Listen to me!” Patience cut in, “If we stay here, we’re going to get raped, pure and simple. Maybe worse. We’re going to leave this car and find a place to hide. “We’ll call the police then.” She thrust Lauren’s purse at her and said, “Now move it!”

By now, a couple of the boys had approached to within a hundred yards of the car. When they saw the two women exit the car and duck down a side street, out of view, they yelled to the others and began running.

Patience and Lauren moved as quickly and quietly as they could into the darkness of the side street. Patience had the presence of mind to note the name, Canal Street. Lauren, in high heels, removed her shoes reluctantly—they been her favorites—and threw them into a wastebasket. On stockinged feet, she was quieter, but no quicker than before.

They moved along the side of an abandoned building. The windows had been broken long ago, but someone had remembered to lock the street level doors. Patience tried each door as they came to them, only to find them locked. Behind them, in the pool of light thrown by a streetlight, she could see the Saturn. Several of the boys had reached it and were standing around it, obviously looking for the occupants. The two women heard the sound of glass breaking.

“Those little shits,” Lauren said. “I wish I could kick their collective asses.”

“Don’t worry about the car now,” Patience whispered fiercely. “Let’s just find a place to hide.”

In the distance, Patience heard one of the boys say, “Where’d those two bitches go?”

Another one, perhaps a leader, said, “Spread out and find them. We gonna have some fun tonight!”

“Yeah,” another one said. “They was both white, too! I love me some white pussy!”

Patience had been steadily moving, steadily trying doorknobs. Unbelievably, one turned in her hand. She pulled the door open and peered into the darkness within. It was all blackness and silence. She really didn’t want to go in, but there was no choice.

Patience grabbed Lauren, who was standing on the sidewalk trembling with fear, and pulled her inside. She quietly pulled the door shut behind her, wishing she could lock it as well. Broken glass crunched underfoot, and Lauren yelped as a piece cut her.

“Shhhh!” Patience hissed.

From out of her purse, Patience produced a miniature flashlight. In its dim light she could see that they were in an office of some sort. It had long been abandoned and there was no furniture, but there was a hallway leading back into the building, with door that indicated other offices. Patience grabbed Lauren and they began trying the doors. The first two were locked, but the third door opened into a small, foul-smelling bathroom. Both women went inside, closed the door and stood quietly. The only sound was their breathing. Patience hoped there were no spiders. The only thing that could make her lose it was spiders.

More alarmingly, she began to feel tight in her chest. This was the initial symptom of an asthma attack. Carefully, she felt around in her purse for her inhaler, then swore to herself as the realized that she’d left it at home. She tried taking slow deep breaths to calm herself. It helped a little.

The two women could hear the voices of the boys as they approached. Though muffled, the phrases “…white bitches…” and “…white pussy…” could be heard.

Patience waited until the voices faded, then quietly opened her cell phone. “Thank god,” she whispered when she saw that she had three out of four bars. She dialed 911 and waited.