The Weapon - Lex - part 5
By Diana the Valkyrie
Coffee for two
Update: 20/10/2003 to valkyrie05


She left the room, and returned carrying a cafetiere, dark rich coffee was
infusing in it. Now I'm absolutely sure that I don't own a cafetiere. It's not
the sort of thing that you own without knowing about it. This was one mystery
too many. On top of the question of where had the food come from, and those
ice cubes, not to mention the chocolate biscuits that she was bribing Frank
with, and a few other things that looked kind of impossible to me. So I
thought, time to ask her straight out. "Wendy, where did you get that
cafetiere?" "I borrowed it." "You borrowed it? Who from?" "Mrs McAllister."

"Who?" She just smiled.

I frowned. "Wendy, you can't just take things from people when you feel like
it. That's wrong." She froze for a moment. Then she slowly turned to face me.

"How dare you!" she said, angrily.

Suddenly, I realised that I'd just done something rather stupid. I'm not used
to dealing with dangerous people; by her own admission, she was probably the
most dangerous person on the planet. "You think I stole it?" she hissed,
rather loudly, "you think I sneak into people's houses and steal their cooking
implements? You don't suppose, do you, that if I were a criminal, I wouldn't
be stealing glass coffee-pots, I'd set my sights a bit higher?" "Well, I, I, I
mean ..." "And, by the way, what happened to that great legal principle of
"praesumeo innocente"?

"Look, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't mean ... " "Oh yes you did. I'm an
alien, so I'm a crook. I have 'no fixed abode', so I'm a thief." "No, I'm
sorry, I really am, I spoke before I thought, I'm an idiot, can you forgive
me? Please?"

She stopped frowning. Then she smiled. "Yes, of course I'll forgive you,
you're a silly baby and I love you." She walked towards me, and I willed
myself not to flinch. She sat on my lap and hugged me with her arms; it wasn't
like the full-body hug I'd had the other day, but at least it felt like I'd
been forgiven. "You're not very heavy, are you?" "About a billion tons mass,"
she replied, "but obviously I'm holding my weight down, I don't want to squash
you, do I?" "Mmm, no," I agreed, wondering what on earth she was talking
about. Mass? Weight?

"Listen," she said, "I'll explain the situation to you this once, but don't
ever do this to me again, OK?" "OK" "Mrs McAllister is someone I helped last
night, some drunken idiot was on the wrong side of the road, and drove head-on
into her car. I got her out just before impact." "And the drunk, what happened
to him, I hope he went through the windscreen!" "No, silly, I got him out too,
left him ralphing over a lamp-post, called the police to book him for drunk
driving. But I took Mrs McA home, and made her a cup of hot sweet cocoa to
help her recover from the shock, and while I was there, I saw this cafetiere,
it's lovely, isn't it? And I asked her if I could borrow it, I told her I have
a date tonight with a rather nice man, at least, that's what I thought before
you started flinging unfounded accusations around, and that I'm cooking a
special meal, and it would be great to finish it off with cafetiere coffee
instead of instant, which I notice is all you have, and she said of course I
could borrow it. So. Now. What do you say?"

Easy one. "I say sorry. And I won't do that again, I promise. You're the
Guardian of Humanity, and of course I trust you."

She smiled. "Trust is good. Well, we'll forget the incident. Ice cream."
"What?" She flew off to the kitchen. I don't have any ice cream. She didn't
have any with her when she arrived. She hadn't gone out to get any.

It was chocolate ice cream. I didn't ask any questions. I trust her.

I had three helpings.

"You're not very good at resisting temptation," she remarked.

I looked at her as I slurped. My goodness, she was so good-looking. And just
now, when she'd been angry, even though I was quaking in my shoes, her eyes
flashing, her body bristling, I'd thought she was absolutely rad. But, you
know, on the whole, taking one thing with another ... I didn't want to make
her angry ever again.

We drank coffee, slurped ice cream and talked for hours. And it turns out that
dogs like chocolate ice cream too, what a surprise. How I was going to ever
restore discipline with Frank, I had no idea, she was spoiling him rotten.

It was getting late, and I was getting sleepy. She didn't seem to be slowing
down, though. She was telling me about some of the people she'd known, some of
the places she'd been, some of the things she'd done. It was all very
interesting, but although the spirit was willing, the flesh was falling
asleep.

I think I must have nodded off at some point. No, I know I must have. Because
I woke up the next morning, undressed and in bed, and I don't remember doing
that myself. Undressed as in naked. I woke up, and moved to get the weight off
my arm; as soon as I did, I felt a tongue, gently licking my back.

"Oh," I said, wriggled happily and smiled sleepily. I turned over to face the
licker, and opened my eyes. "FRANK!" I yelled, "what the hell are you doing in
my bed, get out at once!" He gave me the lugubrious look of a dog denied his
rightful privilege, and ambled out of the bedroom. Damn! If only.

I showered, paying special attention to the dog drool on my back, and got
dressed. Frank was in his basket in the living room, looking up at me
soulfully. "I suppose you think you're going to get chocolate ice cream, do
you?" He sneezed, which I took to be an expression of regret. "Come on, then,"
I said to him, "walkies". That word he did understand, and looked a lot
happier.

I took him down to the park and back, a dog needs a bit of exercise, and while
he was in the park, I let him off his lead, so he could frisk a bit, and do
what dogs do in parks. Take care of business. I sat on a bench and watched
him, and I didn't notice her until she sat down next to me. "He's having fun,"
she remarked. I turned and looked at her. "Oh. Good morning." She turned to
look at me. "You know what every dog needs? Kids to play with." "Yes, well.
That isn't likely to happen, Wendy." "Why not?" "I'm not married, and not
likely to ever get married. I kind of missed the marriage bus, it left without
me about twenty years ago." "Why?" she asked. "Well, it's just that. Well. I'm
just not. I mean. Not much good at. With girls. You know what I mean?" "You're
fine with me." "You're not a girl." "True," she admitted.

"But I'm a pretty good emulation of a girl, don't you think?" I looked away,
gazing at the dog, snuffling along the ground pretending to track rabbits.
"How would I know?" I replied. "Oh. Right," she said, "I see."

We sat in silence for a while.

"He's a very nice dog," she said. "Mmm, sort of cross between an Alsatian and
a Labrador, I think," I replied. "Plus some Terrier, some Retriever and a bit
of Poodle," I added to be honest about it.

I turned back to look at her, straight in the eye. I had to know. "Last night,
did you ..." I couldn't finish the sentence. "Put you to bed? Yes, of course I
did. You fell asleep while I was telling you some of my ship-hauling stories,
and it seemed silly to wake you up so you could go to bed, so I flew you
upstairs." "And took off my, I mean, you removed my, um." "Clothes? Yes,
obviously."

I blushed. I can't help it, I'm just not used to this sort of thing.

She watched me go red. "Hey, I'm a trained nurse, you know. Fee showed me how
to undress a patient for bed, she used to do it all the time, but when she got
too old, I used to help her. You don't have to be coy, you haven't got
anything that I haven't seen a thousand times before."

Which, of course, made me feel even worse, my redness felt like my face was on
fire. "Yes, but why did you put the dog in the bed with me?" "Oh, shouldn't he
have? He seemed to think it would be OK, and you were too fast asleep to ask."
So I told her what had happened in the morning.

Women are supposed to have little tinkling laughs, a feminine "tee-hee". Wendy
had a great guffaw that filled the park; a "WOO HOO" that made everyone for
about a mile around turn and look at us to see what the matter was. Oh, great.

Thanks. You could have melted the North Polar icecap with my face. "Oh,
Herbert, you are red!" she remarked. "Humffle", I said.

"Come on," she said, "you haven't had breakfast yet." She took my hand and
pulled me off the bench, and started to drag me towards the park exit. I got
my wits together fast enough to realise that there wasn't any point in being
dragged, I might as well go where she was pulling me. "Wait, Wendy, you've
forgotten the dog."

There was a noise like a steam whistle, and "Frank, heel!" The dog bounded up
to us, and positioned himself at her left heel, following her like a faithful
hound as we walked briskly home. He never did that for me.

When we got in, she said "Breakfast," and let go my hand. I gave the dog a
black look, said "traitor" and followed her into the kitchen. Dogs can't
understand a word you say to them, I know that. But it made me feel better. As
I was about to enter the kitchen, she turned to me. "Can't you read?" she
said, pointing to her pinafore. I hurried back out again; having seen her
angry once last night, I wasn't about to risk it again. The dog raised his
head from the floor as I came into the living room, thumped his tail a couple
of times on the floor, as if to say "welcome back" and then went back to
thinking about bones, rabbits, or whatever it is that dogs think about. I
pulled out the documentation on Wendy's case, at least there was something
useful I could do for the next half hour.