~ Blind Date ~
by Larisa

Disclaimer: Ya'll know the deal, yeah they do but these ones are mine. I used some stuff that's not mine, no encroachment was intended. Sex between two women, violence, gutter mouth and everything else that I could toss in this piece of insanity. If your jailbait go away, if it's illegal where you live, you must have one Hell of a boring life.
Thanks to Lesia and Ri for reading this slop before I posted it.

Blind Date
By Larisa
Hecate3366@frontiernet.net

The clinking of metal against glass echoed in the still morning air, a loud gruff voice drowned out the clattering in a deep gruff voice. "DIE BITCH DIE!" More clattering and then a yell of success rang out!

"I'd say your blind date sucked big time."

"Shut the fuck up!" Green eyes blazed as Levi went back to making horrible noises with her spoon and bowl. "Take that you slimy hairy good for nothing BITCH!"

Hazel eyes rolled, a snorting noise came from Levi's roommate Shane. Her long curly blonde hair stuck out at weird angles around her head and her large T-shirt was tucked into her skimpy black G-string over one hip. Dropping down into the chair next to her small blonde menace to breakfast cereals roommate, she yanked the spoon from her hand and flung it across the room.

"Hey that was mine!" Levi bared her teeth and growled. "And don't you say a word, not one god damn word!" She shook a finger at Shane.

Looking down into Levi's bowl, she smirked then took her life in her hands by asking a question.

"What did the poor Teddy Grahams do to you?"

Levi ran her fingers through her short blonde hair; she left it to look like she had been hit by lightning.

"They look like my blind date! Short, hairy and stupid looking!" Picking a Teddy Graham up from its milky grave, she bit the head off and flung the little body against the wall. "She had one tooth in the middle and a thick MUSTACHE!"

Shane shivered and rubbed the goose bumps that rose on her arms, giving her friend a heartfelt sigh, she squeezed her shoulder in comfort.

"That one tooth really did you in didn't it?"

"HAAA! Shudup! It was the hair all over her chest that got me; I ran screaming from the restaurant and wiped out three people in the process." Taking a drink of her chocolate milk, she grimaced and added orange juice to it. "That wasn't the worst part; she whipped out her pocket knife and cleaned her greasy fingernails before she flashed me."

"What the hell was she gonna do, shave her chest for ya?"

"That would take a couple of hours to do." A muffled voice came from behind them. "Could use Nair, but that gives ya nasty rash."

Levi smacked a huge hairy paw as it came towards her bagel.

"That's mine get your own hair ball!"

"What did you do to my Teddy Grahams, their heads are all gone!"

Green eyes drilled into Shane's twinkling hazel, then hands slapped at the paw that came over her other shoulder to steal her bagel.

"How do you sleep with hair bear here?"

She jabbed a thumb at the five foot seven grizzly bear standing behind her, then grabbed her bagel from where it was stuck out through the hole in the throat.

"I make her take off the suit before she gets in bed, otherwise she sheds all over the sheets."

"That's 'cuz ya keep grabbing me and screaming. Don't be gentle Ben!"

Shane's face turned a deep red, coughing to cover up the low moan that threatened to come through her gritted teeth, she reached back and smacked her lover in the stomach.

"Shudup Teddy, or I'll hide your head!"

"Won't care as long as it's between your legs."

Levi's head dropped to the table and into her cereal bowl, splattering milk all over herself and the table.

"Well, gotta go. Lotsa singing Teddy grams to do." Teddy stumbled from the kitchen, hitting her head on the door jam and falling out the back door in a huge hairy heap. "Hate when that happens." She grumbled from inside the bear head that had turned backwards when she fell. "Shane help me I'm blind!" She yelled and stumbled around the back yard.

Patting Levi on her milk soaked head, Shane went out the back door to save her lover. Levi groaned, lifted her head from the bowl and slammed the heel of her hand down on the remaining Teddy Grahams

"I hate my life! My life sucks donkey dicks!"

Grabbing the Washington post, she looked through the personal ads for another night of torture.

"Here's a good one. Single dyke, 5'8, 195lbs, body builder, seeking fem for friendship and maybe more. Has possibilities." Circling the ad for later, she picked up her glass of Chocolate/orange milk and went to her bedroom.

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Sunflower seed shells bounced off the filthy ground and stuck to the small bull's eye drawn on the side of the large garbage can. Enormous black flies swooped and dove in to the can causing a loud buzzing noise. A large yellow rubber boot crashed into the side sending the horde of flies up into the humid rancid air.

"Go bother someone else!" A deep voice mumbled as the tattered newspaper was flung in the air to bash flies. "More noise than a buzz saw." Smoothing the paper out as best she could, Brody scanned the personal listings. "Fiftyish woman, Five foot two, plump, loves soap operas, Jerry Springer and eating Ben and Jerry's ice cream." A low growl came from parted lips at the next one. "Power hungry professional, gorgeous blonde bombshell, rich. Seeking loser for sex slave/master scenario." A hideous howl pierced the air followed by a deep glutteral rumble. Never again! Don't do the sex slave thingie, blonde cunt maybe, no bombshell unless I dropped one on ya!" Scanning more, blue eyes came to an interesting one and narrowed. "Small blonde, looking for something close to human, DNA typing required. No drugs, booze or smokers, over achievers, professionals, mobsters, hookers, STD carriers or infected. Just a plain normal person! 8pm Giorgio's restaurant every night." Brody erupted into a hearty laugh, wiping the tears from her eyes, she tossed the paper into the garbage and disturbed the flies again. "You aren't a picky one are ya, small blonde? Right, four foot tall, four foot wide! NOT!" Tromping through the mucky alleyway, Brody went back to where she had been unloading boxes of fresh fish off the semi truck trailer that came in every day from the nearby harbor. The air thick with the putrid smell of fish was enough to make the most hardened stomach roll with nausea. Grabbing a surgical mask from her pocket, she coated it with Vicks vapor rub and slipped it over her nose and mouth.

Slinging an 80lb. wax coated box of tuna over her left shoulder, Brody stacked it on the pallet that was all ready over five foot tall. The dock manager came shuffling over with his ancient hand truck, slipping the forks under the pallet, he ended up balancing his 100lb body on the handle and still couldn't get the pallet to raise off the ground.

"Dag nabit Brody, I can't move this thing." He dropped down from his metal perch. "Why ya gotta put so much on these things?" He wiped the sweat from his wrinkled brow and glared at her with the one eye that didn't wander off to the side.

"Why can't you hang a sand bag around your neck?"

"Tried that, damn thing slipped and hit me in my nuts."

Using one hand, she pumped the handle of the truck, raised the pallet and gave it a good push to get the old man started on his way into the warehouse. A loud whistle blew overhead indicating that her day was over with and signaling the start of the next crew. Punching the clock, she shed her raingear and boots and dropped them into the back of her truck. Dragging her fishy hands through her long dark hair, her nose wrinkled at the smell that she could never quite get off her skin.

"I hate this job, need something that doesn't make people think I have a female problem." Having dated a lot of different woman, she associated the fishy smell from her job with rotten crotch. The thought alone was enough to make her stomach turn and swear off dating for eternity.

Pulling her truck into the parking lot of her condo, she climbed from the cab and snickered when her neighbors gave her one look and ran the other direction. Pulling her sweat stained T-shirt over her head on the way to her front door. She dropped it into the Bio Hazard can on the doorstep, then striped out of the rest of her clothes, added them to the can and walked into her condo naked.

"The way they run, you would think I had hair all over my body." Shrugging her shoulders, she grabbed a beer from the refrigerator and headed for the bathroom. Turning the water on as hot as she could stand it, she poured lemon scent bleach into the water. She could guarantee the entire planet that she was germ free, after taking bleach baths for the last ten years nothing could live on her body. Sinking down into the water, she slipped her body down until her head rested on the edge. Draining half of her beer, she put the bottle on the floor, closed her eyes and relaxed.

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Adjusting the dark green turtle neck, she wore because it brought out the gold flecks in her eyes, Levi scanned the bar area looking for her blind date for the night. She had no idea why she did this every night, for some reason she thought that she would be able to met the one and only woman that she would spend the rest of her life with. She had tried the bar scene and grew tired of drunks falling and pawing all over her. This worked out much better for her, being a food critic for the restaurant, she was able to work and feel out blind dates at the same time. Plus if she ran from the table, she could blame it on the food or vice versa. She had just turned to look towards the door when she saw something, cringing inside, she just knew it had to be her date. Pasting a phony smile on her face, she went over to introduce herself to the tall body builder.

"Hi, I'm Levi Straussenhofer. You must be Edweena Shottowski?"

Levi tried not to jump when a very abnormal deep voice came from the woman. To cover up the jump, she kept jerking her head and one arm. To add to the picture, she stuttered and mumbled to herself.

"Yeahhh, my…ahh tables…in back." She limped sideways, twitched and kept yelling in her mind, Die bitch die!"

Levi wished that she could close her eyes and disappear from the room. Her date had shed her button down shirt and now sat across from her in only a skimpy bikini top. The headwaiter came over once to warn the woman but ended up running into the kitchen to hide when she threw a pectoral shot and made them bounce all over her wide chest. Levi almost fell over in her chair when right at eye level was a bulge between the woman's legs.

"Please someone strike me dead!" Sighing loudly caught her date's attention; she covered it with wheezing and launched into a terretes syndrome screamathon right before she ran from the dinning area. "Fuck, bastard, up yours asshole, mother fucker!" Blue eyes caught the blonde crazy as she lurched, cussed and bumped into her, bounced of the wall and spun her way out the door.

"Damn nut cases are everywhere." Narrowing her ice blue eyes to adjust to the darkness, Brody looked for the "small blonde" She just knew the woman had to be some kind of circus freak, they always were. Taking a stool at the end of the bar, she scanned the area without trying to look like that was what she was doing. Turning her back, she looked into the large mirror over the bar and almost fell off the stool. Directly behind her was the most hideous looking humanoid she had ever seen in her 37 years. Throwing a double bicep shot to the scampering waiters was what reminded her of the steroid pumped character that comedian Jim Cary played on Saturday night live. But this was scarier! Paint it green and you would have a sort of female green hulk. Easing off the stool, Brody kept her arms resting on the bar and moved slowly until she was within jumping distance of the front door. After escaping the lunatic bin of a restaurant, she walked along the sidewalk until she came to a small park that was always abandoned after dark because of the hoodlums and mad rapists.

She wondered if she went to the city council, if they would stock the park at night with female rapists. What could it hurt, it would be one way that she might actually get to have sex. Doing herself wasn't fun anymore, she lived alone so there was no one to catch her giving herself a helping of fingers. It always excited her more when she never knew when her roommates would walk in and catch her.

"Shower massage, jumbo industrial sized one with super sonic cleaning action! That's what I need, Gods, sounds like an advertisement for a dishwasher." Dropping down onto a wooden bench she gazed off into the distance and saw what she thought was a ghost. Eerie wails drifted on the night air and sent chills down her back.

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Levi ran through the park with her hands waving like crazy over her head, she jumped in the air doing little leaps and bounds to accompany her screams of terror. Her scream was "Die bitch die!" Drug out for long seconds and then changed to crazed laughter when pictures of the body builder being humped by a horse ran through her mind. Exhausted, she fell onto her back in the middle of the open field, panting hot air through her gaping lips made her look like a dying goldfish. "Disgusting dick swinging she-thing! Huge hairy nuts!" Turning her head to the side, she saw a man dressed in dark clothes watching her. An evil smirk spilt her face, rolling to her knees she ran on all fours towards him.

"Come on rape me?" She growled in a possessed voice, and snapped her teeth together. "Been years since I've ripped a dick off with my snatch." Howling like a lunatic, she charged, tripped him and jumped on his chest.

"Please lady, I'm a man of the cloth!"

Levi looked down and saw the pearly white collar of a priest.

"Damn, sorry father I guess you were hoping for a lost little boy huh?" Getting off of him, she dragged her feet and kicked empty wine bottles all the way back to her condo.

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Brody was just getting up from the bench when an older man came stumbling towards her, he was smoothing down his dark jacket and wiping sweat from his brow and upper lip. Casting huge frightened eyes on her, he gulped and pointed to the area that he had just come from.

"Don't go over there…werewolf…wants sex!" He looked to her one last time before he took off running down the sidewalk.

"Damn, I'm never in the right place at the right time!" Drop kicking an empty beer bottle, she headed home.

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Shane and Teddy were lying on the floor of the living room eating popcorn dipped in grape jelly, and drinking V8 juice from the bottle. Watching reruns of the Golden Girls and laughing hysterically over Sophia's antics.

"If we end up like that, I'll shot myself!" Levi mumbled as she dropped face first onto the couch. "My luck I'll be Sophia."

"Nahh you're more like Blanche without the sex though." Shane rolled over onto her side to look at the exhausted and dirty blonde. "What happened to you, it looks like you brought a bunch of leaves and grass stains home? Your date didn't you know?"

"I wish! Hell, I will never again take another Flintstones vitamin. That freaky thing I met at Giorgio's brought a gym bag full of vitamins, carbo mix, protein mix and some kinda stuff in a little bottle that she shot into her thigh with a needle!"

"You really need to stop calling those ads, they're bad for your temperament and our sanity."

"I'm not insane." Teddy said from where she had rolled over to look at Levi.

"That's debatable, one thing for sure is you're scary as hell." Levi pointed a finger at the long dark hair that had the look of a nesting area for mentally challenged rodents.

"You wear a bear head all day and see what your hair looks like." She threw a piece of popcorn at Levi and watched as she caught it in her mouth. "Ya know those assholes I work for had me doing Easter grams in my bear suit! Can ya see me singing here comes Peter cottontail in a grizzly suit? I scared the hell outta a bunch of kindergarteners."

"Teddy, you have done that without the bear suit!"

Teddy gave her a toothy grin, punching a hand in the air she yelled "YES! Knew I was scary."

"Some feat your wife has accomplished Shane, she can scare five year olds." Raising an eyebrow at Teddy, Levi smirked at her. "Wanna meet my blind dates and scare them away?"

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After tossing and turning, running for her very life from a whinnying body builder. Levi tumbled from her bed still tangled in the sheets and comforter. Long minutes later she was in the kitchen making a pot of strong coffee while her laptop booted up. She had to send in the results to the gourmet magazine that she worked for and the newspaper.

Sipping the strong brew in between bouts of typing like a maniac, she finally finished both articles and was now checking her E-Mail. One caught her eye and brought a smile to her face. 35-year-old single female, college professor, loves walks on the beach and hiking. Quiet nights at home reading poetry and sipping a nice cup of orange tea. "Sounds perfect!" She quickly sent out a reply and arranged to meet the woman the next night at Giorgio's. She was quite excited about the change to meet a normal woman. When her roommates came into the kitchen for breakfast, she had eggs, bacon and fried potatoes all ready for them.

"Uuhh oohh…she's flipped!" Teddy whispered close to her lover's ear. "She cooked breakfast for us."

Shane felt Levi's forehead and cheeks for a fever, then looked into sparkling green eyes and shook her head in confusion.

"She's not sick."

"What is the matter with me cooking breakfast?" She eyeballed both of them. "Believe me, the world is not going to end." She swung her laptop around and showed them the E-Mail she received. "This might be the one. I have this feeling deep in my gut that she's the one and only." She smacked both of her roommates in the backs of their heads when they rolled their eyes at her. "Come on, it could be."

"We've heard this every time you've gone out on a date." Shane replied. "I've lost count of how many have been. The One."

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Brody tossed the last of the boxes on the pallet and pulled the long rubber gloves from her wrinkled hands. Rolling her shoulders to ease the tightness in them, she sighed deeply with thought of her plains for that night. She had answered one of the ads, that night at Giorgio's, she was to meet a woman for dinner and then dancing afterwards. It was the dancing that she was worried about, it had been years since she had danced. She tried to picture the woman from the description she had given her. Blonde hair, five foot five, athletic build and green eyes. Her heart pounded at the part about green eyes, she had always been attracted to woman with that eye color. She just hoped that she could get the smell of fish off of her before she went out.

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Dressed in tight black Levi's and a green silk button down shirt, Levi grabbed her tan suede jacket and headed for the door. She was a nervous wreck and prayed that she could control her nervous habit of babbling like an idiot. Taking a deep breathe, she walked the four blocks to the restaurant and hesitated at the front door.

"You're are such a chicken shit Levi. Now get in there and see if she's there yet." Clenching her hands into fists, she relaxed them, pushed the door open and went in to take her seat at her normal table. A half hour later, she looked up to see a tall woman enter the dinning room, a bright smile came to her face and disappeared the second she could make out the woman's features. She felt the color fade from her face and her heart beat stop in her chest.

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Brody sat with her mouth hanging open and her fork halfway to its destination, the woman was all that she said she was and then some.

"I hope you don't mind." She grabbed Brody's diner roll from her plate and put enough butter on it to clog the arteries of the entire Redskins football team. "I'm a binge eater and I haven't eaten in three days, you know it's really good to fast your body. It lets all the impurities out and cleans out your intestines. I eat lots of bran and roughage for a solid week and then nothing but liquids for another. I bounce back and forth between the two, and at the end of that cycle, I'm a little drained so I eat continuously for another week." Stuffing half the roll in her mouth she reached across, grabbed half of Brody's steak, took a huge bite out of it and put it back. "This food is really good, I'll have to remember to come here more often. The only bad thing is that I'll have to throw it all up at the end of the night. Can't let this stuff stay in my body to long, clogs up my digestive system and that's not healthy." Using the part of diner roll she had left, she sopped up the bloody juices from her plate then attacked Brody's.

Brody's eyes were drying out from not blinking, her jaw was now stuck open and hurt like hell. She was trying to think of a way to get away from the bulimic weirdo but had no idea of what to do. She hoped that the place caught on fire so that she could run towards the flames and end her miserable life.

"Anyway, I found that if you mix prune juice and fresh prunes in a blender is works quicker than Ex-Lax. Are you going to eat your baked potato?"

Brody shook her head, her long dark hair swayed back and forth across her shoulders, she wished it was long enough to maybe strangle her into unconsciousness and give her a way out of the restaurant. She would have to move soon because drool was running down her chin, she knew it was gross but didn't know why it bothered her so much since the woman across from her was talking with her mouth full of food and spewing it all over the place.

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Levi gasped when the woman sat down across from her, she couldn't peel her eyes away from the site in front of her if her life depended on it. She had seen plenty of college professors but none of them looked like this one. Her hair was a rich black and hung to the center of her back. Yellowish colored eyes drilled into hers and held her in a trance. She waited for the usual saying that a hypnotist used to put you to sleep but all she got was a reedy hello that hurt her eardrums. Tilting her head sideways, she tried to see if the eerie eyes were fake. She also wondered if the woman ever went outside since her skin was so pale. Then she covered her mouth to keep from screaming, she had seen a woman that was identical to her date in the movie Blade. She could very well be sitting with a vampire who planed on having her for a midnight snack. Then again, she never saw a vampire with a huge bone through her nose, numerous face piercings or tiny toolboxes through her earlobes.

"So tell me Levi, what do you do for a living?"

"I ahh…recycle used heroin needles." She had no idea where that idea came from.

"That's interesting, I've been to Needle alley in Berlin. You could do a lot of good there. Have you ever been to other countries?"

"Ahh uhh." She was still in shock.

"I just came back from seeing the greatest heavy metal band that's originally from London. They invited me to their party tonight, actually, it's a rave party. I know they'll have all kinds of drugs, maybe you could collect some needles there tonight. And for just walking through the door you get a complimentary nipple piercing. Want to go with me, it'll be loads of fun."

Tingles of pain shot up Levi's spine at the mention of her nipples being pierced, she swore that they inverted and disappeared from her body.

"Well…I ahh…really…pain…bad…" She was in babble mode and was trying to think of a way out of this mess. Then it came to her, her eyes widened, jaw dropped open and she pointed frantically to the doorway. "Look Marilyn Manson!" When the professor turned her head, Levi slipped under the table and crawled on hands and knees under the one next to her. In her attempt to get away, she didn't see the leather clad legs in front of her and crashed right into them. Stifling a whimper, she grabbed her nose and prayed that the person thought it was their friend kicking them under the table. All hope failed when a large hand came under the table and started feeling her head and touching her face. Kneeling between the legs was not a good place to be at the moment, so she covered her face and pretended that if she couldn't see, then neither could the other person.

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Brody jumped in her chair after something hit her legs, she hoped it wasn't the freaky across from her making a pass. Then it couldn't be, the woman was to busy licking the third desert dish. She could feel a warmth penetrating her legs and couldn't figure out what is was, so she reached under the table and almost screamed bloody murder when she felt a face suspended between her legs. Dropping her napkin on the floor, she leaned over, lifted the tablecloth and spotted the small person hiding under the table. Checking on her date, she saw that she was still licking dishes. Taking one of the fingers that covered the small face, she pulled it back until she could see a tightly closed eye.

"Excuse me." She whispered in a soft voice.

"You don't see me, I'm not really here."

"OK, but if you don't move my freaky date may become a cannibal and chew on your arm."

That brought the small hands down from her face, wide green eyes connected with pale blue and locked. Two jaws dropped open and they gasped simultaneously. Tingles invaded their bodies, arcs shot between them and all the air in the room disappeared.

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"Excuse me but did you happen to see the small blonde that was sitting here a minute ago?" The professor asked the bulimic freak.

"No sorry." She looked for Brody and found her also missing. "Did you see a tall dark haired woman? My date seems to have vanished as well." Her green eyes bugged when the waiter placed two huge plates of food on the other woman's table. "Would you mind if I joined you?"

"No of course not, be my guest."

The two freaks tore into the food and forgot all about their dates that were hiding together under the table next to them.

"I think it's safe to sneak out of here, you go first and I'll follow." Brody said in a low husky voice that had Levi breathing hard and sweating. They crawled on their hands and knees all the way to the kitchen, past the chefs and out the back door to the alleyway. Brody helped Levi to her feet and continued to hold on to her hand for longer than need be. She was held spellbound by sea green eyes.

"Are you…well…why were you…"

"Hiding…freaky date…bone through nose…"

Brody gave her a bright smile and chuckled at the way they were stuttering. "Aren't we articulate, maybe together we could complete a sentence." She shook the small hand that she still held. "I'm Brody O'Sullivan, survivor of a blind date."

"I'm Levi Straussenhofer, blind date survivor. You drink coffee?"

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They sat at a small coffee shop just down from the restaurant, neither one knew what to say but felt comfortable with the silence. Levi looked up from her coffee cup to see pale blue eyes watching her, a small smile lifted one side of her mouth.

"Kind of weird huh, going from one situation to the next." Levi said in a low voice.

"I have to admit, I like this better. My date ate my whole dinner and I was afraid she was going to start chomping on my arm next."

"Mine had a bone through her nose and could have been pinheads twin sister." She took a sip of her coffee and tried not to choke when she finally took a very good look at her companion. The woman was breath taking, high cheekbones, aquiline nose and kissable pink lips. What made her heart pound in her chest were the pale blue eyes trimmed by dark eyelashes. The more she stared the higher Brody's left eyebrow climbed up her forehead.

"You're starring." A husky voice echoed through her head.

"Ohh sorry, it's just that you're…so beautiful." She felt her face heat up and knew she was at the very least ten shades of red. "I just made a complete ass of myself." She mumbled.

"My thoughts are very mutual, not about the ass part thou." Brody smiled and patted the small hand before her. "Please tell me you're not into all kinds of freaky abnormal things."

"As long as you're human, I always ask for DNA typing."

Blue eyes widened at those words, her mouth fell open and she pointed a finger at Levi.

"It's you! I mean, I read your ad in the personal page."

"Oohh geez, now I really feel stupid!" She covered her face with her hands and groaned.

"I liked it, it was very amusing. You want to go for a walk in the park? It's nice out and I've been trying to find this werewolf that's been attacking priests."

Green eyes widened, Levi's breath caught in her chest.

"Was this like a couple of days ago that you heard about the werewolf?"

"Yep, heard about it?"

"Ohh you could say that, lets go. I know just where to find the werewolf."

"Ya know, I heard it's a female and wanted sex from the priest. Poor man was scared shitless."

A huge grin split her face, eyes shinned unnaturally, as she took Brody's hand and led her from the coffee shop. "Really, a horny werewolf. Wonder if there's a full moon tonight."

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It was six o'clock in the morning when Brody left Levi at her front door with just a gentle kiss upon her knuckles. She opened the door behind her and fell in to land on her ass at Shane's bare feet. Tilting her head back, she looked up into half closed hazel eyes.

"We didn't wake you did we?"

"Nope, I have to go in to work early. Are you just now getting in?" Her eyebrow rose up her forehead when she saw the stupid grin appear on her roommates face.

"Yep. Gods that woman is amazing!" She got up off the floor and swooned back into the door. "She has the most beautiful blue eyes I've even seen."

"Your blind date was a hot one huh?"

"Hell no!" She shivered and rubbed her arms. "That woman took 20 years of my life!"

She went on to tell Shane about her horrid night with her blind date, then how she came to meet Brody. Shane noticed the way Levi's face brightened up at just the mention of the mysterious woman's name. She knew that she would have to convince Levi to invite her new friend over for supper. She didn't want her friend to get hurt by this woman turning out to be something completely different from what she had shown Levi.

Levi's face went pale; she turned and started to struggle with the doorknob.

"What is your problem Levi? For Gods sake you're going to rip the handle off the door!"

"I didn't get her phone number!" She went to kicking the innocent door and then threw one hell of a temper tantrum in the middle of the room. Jumping up and down and kicking at inanimate objects. "All those hours and I never got her phone number, or where she lives!"

Shane wrapped her arms around the bouncing blonde and held on for dear life.

"Levi she left you right at the damn doorstep, she knows where you live you…blonde!"

Levi calmed down and gave her friend a pat on her clasped hands.

"I guess I'm just really tired. I need some sleep and then I won't have anymore blonde moments."

She kissed Shane on her cheek and stumbled to her room where she fell across her bed still clothed, with in seconds she was snoring loudly.

"God she's impossible." Shane muttered on her way to the kitchen.

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Brody dropped down onto her couch and yawned wide enough to make her jaws pop. Enjoying the peace and quiet, she jumped when she heard loud bangs and then muffled yelling. She was used to hearing loud music and someone singing way off key at times but this was new. She often wondered why she bought a condo; the damn walls were so thin that she could hear her neighbor pissing. She was tempted at times to pound on the bathroom wall and tell the asshole to see a doctor 'cuz it was abnormal to piss that hard and for five minutes. Then the headboard banging and the screams of release sent her running to the bathroom for a cold shower. She was amazed that she got any sleep at all. She heard the low chirp of her digital clock and saw that she would have to be at work in less than an hour.

"Shit! I'm to damn old to be staying out all night and morning and then go into work." Shedding her leather pants and the black silk shirt she wore, she tread into her bedroom to pull her work clothes on. Once dressed, she made a pot of coffee and just about fell asleep watching the coffee brew. The sound of awful singing widened her eyes and brought her back to life. Covering her ears with one hand, she tried to pour the coffee in her work thermos. Grabbing her heavy work coat she trudged to the door on exhausted legs, she hoped that it was a light day at work or she may fall asleep with the fishes.

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"I fall to Reese's pieces, each time I eat you again.
"I fall to Reese's pieces, now can I lick you again.
"You want me to act like we…wever wissssed…aahhh!"

Levi had her hands wrapped around Teddy's throat trying to choke her last breath from her. Leaning forward she grabbed onto her ear with even white teeth and shook her head. Teddy loaded her spoon with fruit loops and flung it backwards hitting Levi in her eye.

"EEEWWW!!!! You bit my ear!"

"You're lucky I didn't kill you!" She used Teddy's shirtsleeve to wipe the milk from her eye. "You really need singing lessons and what the hell did you do to Patsy Clines song?" She then looked down into the cereal bowl and groaned. "Fruit loops and Reese's pieces? That is so gross Teddy."

Carmel colored eyes blinked at her, shaking her head she mumbled. "And what's chocolate milk and orange juice?"

"Junk food with vitamins, where's my Lucky charms?" She searched through the cabinets and ended up crawling on the counter to reach them. Pulling a bowl down while she was up there, she put it on her head, held on to the box with her teeth and crawled back down off the counter. She did a little bow when Teddy started clapping and yelling.

"Can you do a back flip next time and keep the bowl on your head?"

"I can barely walk with out falling down and you want me to do back flips!" She poured her cereal in the bowl, looked into the box, shook it a few times and then let out a howl that wolves would envy. "WHO ATE ALL THE MARSHMELLOWS?"

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Brody heard her boss yelling at her, she opened one eye, sniffed the air and felt her stomach roll at ninety miles an hour. Looking down with the opposite eye, she yelped, jumped back and wiped at her frozen face.

"God damn fish!" She smacked the tuna's head where she had fallen asleep with her face on its side. Pulling the jumbo size jar of Vapor rub from her pocket, she scooped out a large amount and rubbed it on her fishy cheek. Instantly her eyes started to water and her nose ran. A low whimper came to her lips; her face burning made everything else seem like nothing.

"Can I go home, I don't feel good." She whined to her boss.

The old man took one look at her red-rimmed eyes, runny nose and shook his head at her.

"Go on Brody, you look pitiful. Get some rest will ya."

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Using a scrub brush, Brody scoured every inch of her body until it was a bright pink and she could no longer smell fish. Wrapping a towel around her waist, she went straight to her bed and collapsed into a deep sleep. The world could have fallen in on her and she would have never known until it was too late. The sunset and the stars came out to dance across the sky and so did the mad thumpers in the condo that joined hers. Rolling over on to her back, she pulled her pillow over her face and kicked her heels into the mattress. Flinging the pillow at the thin wall, she bellowed to "KNOCK IT OFF!" Crawling from her bed, she pulled on her leather trench coat, cross trainers and headed to her front door. She was going to give them a piece of her mind once and for all. Stomping around the side of her condo, she went up to the front door and pounded until the door rattled in its frame. Long minutes later, she still stood there with no satisfaction of punching someone. Going back to her own place, she went in to her bedroom, started pounding on the wall until the single poster of Xena and Gabrielle fell of the wall and hit the floor. Her temper shot through the roof and with a war cry, she punched the wall and fell right through into the other condo. Coughing from the drywall dust, she looked up from where she lay on her stomach next to a bed. Peeking up over the edge, she came nose to nose with someone. Yelping she fell back on her ass and blinked. Green eyes gazed down at her and then a bright smile crossed pink lips.

"Nice of you to drop in Brody, but we do have a front door."

Brody fell back on the floor and groaned, she wanted to see Levi again but this wasn't exactly how she had seen it in her minds eye. She sat up when she heard snorting noises and saw that it was Levi in the middle of hysterics.

"Yeah yeah, I know you think it's funny. Now I have to fix the huge hole that now joins our…bedrooms. Her eyes narrowed at Levi. "Was that you banging on the wall and making all those screaming noises?" Just then, two screams came from the other wall. "Zeus' tits, what the hell was that?"

Levi fell forward and rolled off the edge of the bed to land between Brody's spread legs. Her face turned a beat red and she gulped before looking up into sleepy blue eyes.

Sobering quickly she gasped. "Uuhhmm…you're…naked under there."

"Yeah well, I was sleeping until the thumpers started beating down the walls." A huge evil grin spilt her face, wiggling an eyebrow at Levi, she said in a low sultry voice. "Want me to flash you?"

"Want me to pass out?"

Two sets of eyes looked at the red-faced women lying on the floor, snickers came from behind hands as Shane and Teddy saw the position Levi was in.

"Dive Levi dive!"

She didn't think her face could turn any redder than it already was, getting up off the floor; Levi held out a hand to Brody and pulled her to her feet.

"Here's your thumpers, the crazy looking one is Teddy and the one who screams the loudest is Shane. Morons, this is Brody, now if you'll excuse us we're going to her place for coffee." She took Brody's hand and pulled her through the new doorway in her bedroom.

"When did she put that door there?" Teddy asked with wide eyes.

"Come on you crazy bitch, Levi bought marshmallow stuff in the jar."

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"I hope you don't think I'm being to forward or anything." Levi said while pulling a stunned Brody through her condo. "'Cuz with those two moron's busting into my room, Shane would have been giving you the third degree and on top of all that she would have wanted to know why you broke through the wall in to my bedroom, how you did it and if you're some kind of handyman and could you remodel our bathroom and kitchen." She took a deep breath, turned and looked in to unbelieving blinking blue eyes. "Why did you break through the wall, I mean you couldn't have known it was my room, then again…" A large hand covered her mouth; Brody shook her head to clear it and took a large gulp of air before pulling Levi down on to the couch.

"You said all that with out breathing!"

"Sorry, I kind of babble when I'm nervous." She tried to keep her eyes from going to the long muscular legs that were showing from where the long trench coat was laying to the side. Taking in the length of thigh, her jaw dropped open and she became speechless. "I ahh…"

"Fell through, no, no, I didn't and I need some coffee."

Blinking green eyes looked up at her and then down to the muscles in her legs flexing as she rose from the couch and turned to go to her kitchen. Following on weak legs, Levi tripped over the edge of the couch and landed on her back, where she got a good look up the trench coat. Her jaw dropped open and worked for soundless seconds before Brody pulled her to her feet and pulled her to the kitchen.

"Why don't you start the coffee, I'm going to put some clothes on."

Levi nodded her head in both directions as Brody turned her back, she wanted to follow and watch but her feet remained planted to the floor. Before she was able to turn away from the tall woman, a trench coat fell from her shoulders to show wide shoulders, tight gluts and very long legs. Levi gasped and grabbed at her chest fearing her heart was about to jump out of her chest and fall on the floor. Brody glanced over her shoulder and gave one of her best sultry looks, which all but put the small blonde on the kitchen floor.

A low mumbling came from inside her head. "Snap out of it Levi! What the hell is wrong with you it's not as if you've never seen a woman naked before. Well not one that looks like Brody." Running a hand across her face and taking a calming breath, she decided to look for the coffee making stuff while Brody was changing. She prayed and offered her own body as a sacrifice if Brody would come out in a see through black silk negligee that left nothing for her wicked imagination. Pulling open cabinets, she looked for the coffee and sugar. Her blonde moment ran out the door when she realized that a lot of people put their coffee in the refrigerator. She had her hand on the door when a deep voice said from behind her.

"Please don't open that."

She turned to see blue eyes pleading with her. Pulling open the door while still facing Brody, who had now clapped her hands over her face. Levi turned her head took one look, screamed and fell back from the site before her.

"Holly shit! Ohh my Gods, what the Sam hell is that?" She pointed with a trembling finger as the other hand clasped her chest and rapidly failing heart. She didn't know if she could stand another scare. "Are you a mobster or something?"

Brody quickly moved to close the refrigerator door to conceal what was inside.

"Well…no I'm…it's really not very exciting." She opened a cabinet over the counter and pulled down the coffee. "Not to mention it's not very pleasant on the senses either." She noticed the pale face waving back and forth in front of her and reached out just in time to keep Levi from falling to the floor. Wrapping an arm around her waist, she led her back to the living room. "Relax and make yourself at home, I'll get the coffee and be back in a minute." She ran to the kitchen, yanked open the refrigerator door and hid the large tuna that was on the top shelf by stuffing it in a plastic bag. "Just my luck, I get a gorgeous woman in here and you scare her!" She jabbed the fish in its side and shoved it in the crisper. A few minutes later she brought out two steaming cups of coffee, sugar in little packs and little creamers that she had stole from 7-11. "I didn't know how you liked your coffee." She put the sugar and creamers on the coffee table and took a seat at the far end of the couch. It was then that Levi noticed to her disappointment that Brody was wearing a pair of baggy sweats with paint stains on them and a Taco Bell T-shirt with the Chihuahua on the front. The silence was killing them, so Brody being the bravest opened her mouth and stuttered.

"I'll get…drywall…fix hole."

Green eyes blinked, a dark brow rose over a left eye while one side of her pink lips twitched. Seeing the tall woman so flustered was adorable, she expected the rough and tough hit man type after seeing the huge fish in the refrigerator. She thanked whom ever, that it wasn't a horse head, she knew that would have killed her.

"When ever you get the time is fine with me." I hope you can put up a steel barrier! Her little voice screamed. If not, she would push her dresser in front of the hole along with every heavy object she had in the condo. I don't want to hear any funny noises, like screams of pain and agony coming from over here. She shivered and rubbed her goose bump covered arms. Trying not to look like she was looking, Levi searched the room for telltale signs of bloodshed. Probably under the carpeting, they always hide bloodstains there.

"Are you all right, you look a little pale." Brody asked as she moved closer to Levi. "I know it's not the best coffee in the world, I could make you some tea if you'd like."

"No this is fine, thanks. I'm just a little tired; I should go and let you get some sleep." She got up from the couch and walked slowly to the front door half expecting to hear the click of a pistol behind her. With her hand on the doorknob, she turned half way and waved at Brody.

"You could have gone back the way we came."

"Nah, this way I can scare the shit out of Shane and Teddy, I know they're in my room with their big ears trying to hear us." She opened the door and rushed out to stand on the doorstep taking in deep breathes. Bumping into the Bio Hazard can got her curiosity up, pulling the lid up; she gasped at the site of bloody clothes and covered her mouth and nose when the stench hit her.

"My Gods! She keeps the murder evidence right at her front door!" Slamming the lid closed, she ran around the other side of the condo and to her front door. Gasping for breath, she high tailed it to find her roomies who were sitting on the floor next to the huge hole in her wall. When they saw her, they tried to look like they weren't spying.

Shane stuttered over her words. "Uhhmm we were…trying to figure out…"

"How to fix…your secret passage." Teddy gave her a forced grin. They looked at her when she placed a finger over her lips and motioned for them to follow her.

@@@@@@@@@

"You're kidding right?" Shane whispered. "A Mafia hit man?"

"Bloody clothes in a trash can?" Teddy remarked then shivered.

"I'm not exaggerating, they're right there on her doorstep. And the huge nasty fish in the refrigerator wasn't my imagination."

Teddy gave her a toothy grin, winked then dug a huge hole for her self.

"I'd go out with her anyway, she's a THUD!" She ducked but not quickly enough for the hand that smacked the back of her head. "OOOWW! Why'd ya do that Pooh bear?"

Hazel eyes drilled into her, Shane raised her hand again and watched Teddy hide behind Levi.

"You're cut off Teddy! No more for you until you keep your eyeballs off other woman!"

Clamping her hands over her golden eyes, she tried to get her self out of her state of celibacy.

"I ain't looking, I didn't look…Levi, that woman is fugly!"

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Forgetting about the hole in the wall, Brody shrugged out of her clothes, stretched her aching muscles and heard a loud thump come from the room next to hers. Leaning back a bit she saw Levi lying on her back on the floor. She was about to step through the hole when a horrible snoring noise reached her ears. Figuring that it was a usual thing for Levi to fall out of bed, she crawled into her own and fell asleep minutes later.

Levi peeked into the other room and was glad not to see Brody; she couldn't help herself earlier, who in their right mind would not watch a beautiful woman disrobe and stretch her assets to their fullest. Her breathing was still ragged from the little show of silky looking flesh. "Can I still go out with her knowing she kills people?" That little voice of hers was yelling at the top of its lungs. "YES!"

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Brody was cussing under her breath as she tore her closet apart, she had forgotten to do laundry the night before and now had to wear the white coverall's that were provided for her from the fish company. She hated the things because they made her look like the Orkin man. Not to mention that the damn things were too short in the torso area and had her singing soprano every time she bent over. Sliding her feet into her boots, she then stomped to the front door and slammed it as hard as she could. She could hear the glass rattle in the front window and yells coming from the other tenants.

"Fuck ya'll, stupid lazy ass white collar workers." Slamming the door on her truck, she pulled the glove compartment open, and retrieved three M-80's. A wicked grin came across her face as she lit the fuses and tossed them into the small front yard next to her condo. Three loud booms went off and then every dog with in ten miles started barking and howling. To top off the 5am start, she blew the horn on her truck all the way out of the parking lot.

As she pulled her truck in to the lot at the warehouse, she noticed that the truck that brought the fish wasn't there. That could only mean one thing; she would end up gutting and taking the head off the fish that were all ready there. She didn't really mind it to much since it gave her back and shoulders a rest from all the heavy lifting. Going through the side door, she grabbed a rubber apron and headed to the gutting station as she called it. She was the only person there besides her boss, whom was sitting on a tall stool reading the newspaper and eating a donut.

"You are the noisiest damn person around Brody; I heard that god awful truck of yours backfiring two miles away. When ya gonna get the damn thing fixed."

She steeped so that the little man had to lean back to look into her pale blue eyes.

"When you give me a damn raise ya old buzzard, that's when." She grabbed the three-inch hair that grew on his ears and gave it a yank. "When ya gonna go to the dog groomer and get clipped?"

His watery blue eyes looked up at her, a small grin formed on his face to show his ill-fitting false teeth.

"When your Grandma gives me the damn money, cheap old biddy rather spend it on Bingo night."

Brody pulled out her gutting knife and waved it close to his ear.

"I'll clip ya for free Gramps."

"Oohh no ya won't nether, you'll make me look like Mr. Spock. All pointy eared and shit." He slapped her in the stomach, climbed down from his stool and grabbed his apron. "Come on youngin, let's get this over with.

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With all the noise that Brody made in her condo, Levi was able to sleep right through it with out even rolling over. Now sleepy green eyes blinked at the bright sunlight streaming in through her bedroom window. A low moan and a pillow was pressed over her face to block out the morning noises from her neighbors and the offending light.

"Hate mornings, who's damn stupid idea was it to invent mornings?" She babbled to herself as she swung her legs over the edge of the bed and wiggled her toes. Pulling her Tweedy bird T-shirt over her head, she flung it on the floor, stood up and froze as she saw the huge hole in her wall. Covering her breasts, she moved closer to the hole and peeked her head inside to see the huge mess.

"Looks like a tornado went through here." Listening for any noise, she crept through the hole and called out Brody's name in a whisper. "What the hell am I doing?" She asked herself as she went creeping through Brody's bedroom and out into the living room.

"Hello…Brody…anyone home?" Looking around her, she saw that she was all alone, a big grin came to her face with the thought of being able to snoop around her new friend's home. The grin disappeared quickly. "What if I find a dead body in the closet or something?" Shivers went down her back and goose bumps rose on her flesh. "Easy, I'll scream bloody murder, run back in my bedroom and hide under my bed." Moving to the bathroom, she flipped on the light and immediately saw six bottles of lemon scented bleach.

"What the hell does she need all the bleach for?" Looking into the bathtub area, she saw Herbal shampoo, conditioner, a rusty razor and Lever 2000 body wash. "That's normal, but why all the bleach. Ohh shit, to get rid of blood stains!" Going back into the living room she found nothing of interest and knew she had better get back to her own room before she got caught, before she left, she opened the top drawer of Brody's dresser and found a pair of handcuffs, vibrator, and four packs of D batteries, leather harness and other sex toys. She could feel her face burning and knew if she didn't get out of there she would be tempted to play with Brody's toys.

"Find anything interesting?" A deep voice came from behind her.

"FUCK ME SHANE!" She clasped her chest and took a ragged breath. "Don't sneak up on me like that, Gods you could have given me a heart attack!"

"You'd deserve it ya know. Anyway, what's our Mafia Princess got in her drawers?" Shane slapped her forehead and groaned. "Ohhh I forgot, you haven't gotten that far yet."

Green eyes blazed, Levi smacked Shane in her stomach and stomped past her and into her own bedroom.

"I wouldn't tell you anyway…pervert."

Shane came bouncing in the room, jumped on Levi's bed and wiggled her tongue at her.

"Ohh you'll tell me all right, hell the entire state will know when you do get that far!"

Levi braced her hands on her hips and glared at her roommate.

"What are you insinuating?"

"How longs it been since you've had your oil changed…three…four…Ohh that's right, it's going on five years! You'll scream so loud the roof will fly off!"

"Ohh yeah? Well you're gonna scream right now because I'm gonna beat the hell outta you!" Levi sprang across the room and jumped on Shane, placing a pillow over her head, she jumped up and down on her roommate until she heard her scream for Teddy. "She can't save your sorry ass, she's at work!" She laughed hysterically until she was pounced on and found herself being held down by something big and hairy. "Damn! I can never win, no fair tag teaming poor little me."

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"Don't even think about it Gramps." Brody shook a gloved finger at her grandpa. "I smell bad enough when I get home without your help."

"Aaahh what's a matter youngin, women won't come near ya?" He hauled his hand back and threw fish guts all over the front of her.

"She won't now!" She grumbled. "Hell I may clear the whole neighborhood after today!" She scraped the guts off her chest and the apron and threw then back at her grandpa. "Take that ya old buzzard!"

"Good, now maybe the old biddy will stay away from me tonight. Damn woman wants sex all the time, I'm 70 years old, what do I need sex for?"

Brody scrunched up her face and shivered, she didn't like the picture that had formed in her head.

"EEWW! Gramps I didn't need that picture in my head."

"Lucky you, I have ta see it at night! All 200lbs of it, all wrinkled and saggy. Damn biddy's tits hang ta her knees." He shivered and then gave his granddaughter a wicked grin. "I stepped on one once, she howled like a banshee."

Blue eyes narrowed, Brody's brain tried to figure out how he had done something like that, so making the biggest mistake of the day, she asked.

"She was putting her slippers on and I got out of bed, thought the floor felt a little funny but with my half numb feet I couldn't tell what it was till she howled and smacked me a good one."

Brody closed her eyes and tried to shake the image from her brain. "I'm ruined for life, no more women!" That's what she thought until a little green-eyed blonde came to mind. OK, maybe just one.

"Just wait youngin, one day some little hot thing will make your head spin like your grandma did to mine. Then you're toast for the next 60 or 70 years. Or wish you were when gravity hits her like a ton of bricks!"

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The morons and Levi were scrunched down in the seat of her car, dark hats and sunglasses were their disguises for their little recon mission. They wanted to see when Brody came home if she was toting a gun case, they had seen Mafia movies and knew the hit men carried such things along with having huge pistols hidden under their suit jackets.

"What happens if she does have one?" Teddy whispered from the backseat.

"I have no idea, run like hell?"

Shane rolled her eyes. "Chicken shits, both of you." Looking to the side, she saw Brody's truck coming towards them. "Shit, here she comes." They dropped further down into the seats and tried not to look suspicious.

Brody climbed from her truck, stretched her back out and groaned loud enough for them to hear her. Scratching her ass and one tit, she turned to scan the parking lot for people to scare. Unzipping her coverall's she slipped them from her shoulders as she made her way to her front door. Once she was bare ass naked, she dropped the soiled coverall's into the Biohazard can and went into her condo.

"Gods have mercy I'm blind!" Teddy said from the back seat where she was covering her caramel colored eyes. "I didn't see her tit's…or her tight ass…honest Pooh bear." Peeking from behind a finger, she saw that both her wife and roommate had their jaws hanging on their chests. "Hey did you hear me?"

Two sets of eyes turned towards her and blinked before turning back to look at Brody's front door.

"That's it Pooh bear, you're cut off!" Teddy sunk back in the seat and pouted. "Ain't fair, I look and get in trouble but you can drool all over your chest and it's OK."

Shane found her voice, she shoved Levi in her shoulder and just about blew her ears off when she yelled.

"God damn Levi go jump her bones!"

Levi's mouth was still hanging open, she used her hand to push her jaw up. A few silent seconds went by before she left out the breath she didn't know she had been holding.

"Did you see her muscles? My Gods, she ripples when she walks!" Rubbing her wide eyes, she looked back to the door and mumbled. "Didn't see that last night, wonder if she'll put up a plexi glass wall?"

Teddy couldn't help herself, she hated to be ignored. "Guess it don't matter that she had blood all over the front of her?" Two heads spun and looked at her.

"What blood?" They said in unison.

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Sneaking from Levi's rusty Pinto, they looked around them then ran to Brody's front door. Levi picked the lid up, pulled out the coveralls and fell against Shane.

"See, bloodstains." The three of them quickly covered their noses from the stench of the cans contents.

"Geez that stuff needs to be burned!" Shane mumbled close to Levi's ear. "No wonder they're outside." They turned when footsteps were heard on the other side of the door; they bumped and stumbled into each other trying to get away from the door. They had all gotten untangled from each other when it opened to show a naked Brody.

"Hi guys, what're ya doing?" She looked down at the three cringing women.

Teddy turned to face her, her caramel colored eyes glowing. "We were just looking at your bl…." A sharp jab to her ribs from Shane shut her up.

"Blooming shrubs…yeah that's it." Levi finished lamely. "We want to ahh…plant some just like yours." She elbowed a groaning Shane. "What kind are…Gods have mercy!" She hungrily took in the tall naked muscular body before her. "We should be going…shrubs to buy…" A low moan escaped her lips when Brody stretched one arm up to the top of the door, the play of muscles rippled across her ribcage and stomach. Levi's mouth fell open and she blinked wide green eyes.

"Come on in, I was about to grill some fresh sea bass."

She reached out, grabbed the front of Levi's shirt and pulled her into the condo. Walking towards her bedroom, she motioned to the living room. "Make yourselves at home while I shower and put some clothes on."

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They watched as Brody spun between her fingers a wicked looking knife, Teddy ran her hand across her throat and wondered if she would see the next day. Shane and Levi locked eyes with each other and gulped from the sound of the knife hitting the wooden cutting board. Brody looked over her shoulder at the frightened women and grinned, she knew they were scared shitless by the paled skin tones and wide eyed expressions on their faces. Thank the Gods I'm using my little knife.

"So you guys like seafood? I get fresh fish from the docks all the time."

Mumbles and grunts came from her scared audience. She had never seen three women act like them before; then again, she rarely had any company. What woman would want anything to do with a fish gutter?

"I have a couple bottles of white wine, Levi why don't you open one and I'll show you were the glasses are."

"Uuhhmm OK." She replied in a high voice. "Do you have a cork screw?"

"Don't need one; Bubba puts the stuff in screw top bottles."

The name Bubba echoed through three heads, they pictured a large man with a long beard, no teeth and prison tattoos all over his arms pouring rotgut wine into MD 20/20 bottles and capping them with rusty lids. Between the two ways of dying, they all picked the wicked knife.

"Here they are." Brody pointed with the knife at the bottles sitting on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator. Levi pulled one of the bottles out and looked at the expensive parchment label. It said the wine was made in Loudon county Virginia.

"I've heard of this place, they are ranked really high in the wine making business." Hope it's strong enough to deaden my nerve endings so when she kills us it doesn't hurt as much.

"I get it cheap…actually I get it free." She gave them a toothy grin. "Helps when ya know the owners."

Four bottles later, fish bones on a platter and four drunken women sitting around the table snickering at each other's intoxicated state was something Brody hadn't experienced in a long time. With eyes glassy, she looked at her friends with blurred vision. One small blonde caught her attention and held it; Levi was wiggling her eyebrows at her and giving her not so subtle advances. She felt a sock covered foot run up her leg and go towards her crotch but fall short. She held back the moan that wanted so badly to come out. She watched as Levi scooted down in her chair and try again with her attempt. A loud thump came from across the table and then snorting noises from Teddy and Shane.

"She's wasted." Shane slurred and fell into her lover. "Think its bed time Teddy bear." She licked the side of her lovers face, fell across her lap and passed out.

After Brody helped Teddy get Shane to their bedroom, she went back for Levi. Looking under the kitchen table, she found her curled around the table leg in a fetal position. Lifting the table up, she moved it far enough away so that she could pick Levi up. She immediately wrapped her arms around Brody's neck and nuzzled the area beneath her ear. Mumbles vibrated against her skin as moist lips moved, heat flowed down to settle between Brody's legs, a dampness formed within seconds from the small blonde's fingers brushing the back of her neck. A low groan escaped Brody's lips when teeth nipped the flesh below her ear.

Ohh Gods have mercy on me, I can't handle this! She said to herself as her legs became weak at the knees and her breath came in ragged spurts. Not my ear, please don't lick…mother of Zeus! Stepping through the hole in the wall, she stumbled on weak legs to Levi's bed. Gently laying the small blonde down and unclasping the strong arms from around her neck, she was thankful when Levi started snoring deeply. Pulling her shoes off and covering her up with the comforter, she quietly went to her own room where she dropped onto the edge of her bed. Leaning her head back, she took a deep breath and tried to calm herself.

"What has gotten into me, hell what got into them?" She asked herself and then replayed the events that started the night and remembered that she had laundry to do. Retrieving the Biohazard container, she dragged it to her laundry room and dumped it into the industrial sized washer. After adding all kinds of different detergents and half a cup of Oxiclean to it, she closed the lid and started the washer. She couldn't figure out why her friends were so interested in her nasty work clothes or why they were dressed like a bunch of cat burglars. "I know no one in their right minds would want to steal my work clothes." Chuckling under her breath, she went back to her bedroom and peeked through the hole to see Levi still sprawled across her bed. "You are going to pay dearly for drinking all that wine."

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Levi squinted at the light coming in through her window, pain radiated through her head and made her feel as if hot pokers were being pushed through her eyes. A deep groan rumbled from her chest and made her head hurt worse from the noise. Clasping her head between trembling hands, she tried to sit up in bed. "Why was I soo stupid?" Rolling on her side, she pulled her pillow over her head and moaned. "Ohh Gods!" She yelled, threw the pillow across the room and gagged. "Something died in my mouth and I think it's still there!" She could taste and smell the garlic that Brody had used in the small fried potatoes that they had for supper the night before. Falling to the floor, she crawled her way to the bathroom and searched for her mouthwash, toothbrush and peroxide toothpaste. "If that doesn't kill it nothing will." She mumbled before drinking the mouthwash right from the bottle. After swishing it around a while and spitting, she spent another five minutes scrubbing her teeth. It was then that she looked in the mirror and screamed in terror, her hair was beyond tousled; she looked like a dinosaur with the spiny ridge down the center of its head. Sheet wrinkles creased the side of her face, her eyes puffy and red with spider webs and to top it all off. This nagging suspicion of doing something totally asinine to Brody.

"Ohh Levi, what did you do?"

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Pulling open a Styrofoam box, Brody squinted to see through the murky water. She had found the box at the very back of the truck she had unloaded, she asked the driver if it was theirs or belonged to the previous stop he had made that day. He had no idea and told her she could have the damn box as he so lightly put it before pulling his fat ass back into the cab of the truck.

Mumbling to her self as she moved the box back and forth to make the water move. "Lard ass, hate crabby males. Hope your dick gets smashed from your gut dropping on it." Giving up on seeing through the water, she took it to the edge of the dock and poured it out on the ground below. "Zeus' hairy nuts!" She yelped then jumped back a good two foot when a huge lobster snapped at her ankles.

"Whatcha got youngin?" Brody's grandpa asked as he came to stand beside her. "That looks like supper to me, nice big male to."

Brody gave her grandpa a horrified look, shaking her head at him she quickly grabbed the snapping lobster by its back and put it back in its box.

"I can't eat him, he's…to…" She looked down at the creature that had lost one of his claws. "Injured…he only has one snapping thingie."

"You soft hearted little imp, ya eat all the other stuff that comes through here and now when ya get something that would curl your toes you're gonna make a pet out of it." Scratching his bald spot, he clicked his dentures a few times before he went back in to the warehouse mumbling under his breath.

"What would curl my toes is a little blonde imp, not a crusty ole lobster." A bright smile came to her face just thinking about Levi. "Wonder how the gang is feeling this morning, Bubba's wine can give ya a hell of a headache." Putting the box in the back of her truck, she went back into the warehouse to help gut and repack the fish that had come in that day. Their little business supplied all the stores and restaurants with fresh seafood seven days a week, and once repacked per order; they were either picked up or delivered to the places. She had been working with her grandparents since she was ten years old. She had always spent a lot of time with them but it became permanent when both her parents died in a Cessna when it crashed during an emergency landing in Texas. Now 20 years later, she was still hauling fish around and still enjoying it, except for the smell she knew she would never get used to. She turned her head when she heard her grandpa yell her name, rolling her eyes when he added lobster saver at the end.

"Ya want these shrimp, the store said they have way too many of them?"

"They refusing shipment?" She asked while looking in the box.

"Yep, and these are those jumbo sized ones. We can clean them up real quick like and ya can have them for supper since ya won't eat that lobster." He winked at her with his good eye. "Some garlic butter for a few minutes and you're good ta go."

"I'm thinking…" She looked to the ceiling, pondered for a few seconds and then a shit-eating grin covered her face. "Caribbean coconut shrimp with a marmalade-ginger sauce."

Rolling his eyes at her, he snorted. "Youngin, ya should be in some fancy smancy restaurant cooking for rich folks instead of hauling around smelly fish."

"And what would you and grandma do without me?"

"Retire! Travel the world and…on second though, got a good-looking lady friend that would travel with me? I couldn't handle seeing that old biddy on some white sandy beach in her 1920's swimsuit."

Brody shivered at the thought of seeing her boney grandpa in a pair of Speedo's with his skinny white legs. She knew she didn't want to imagine her plump grandma in a swimsuit that would give her nightmares for weeks.

@@@@@@@@

Levi was all alone for the night, she had taken off work because of feeling like the floor of a porn theatre and Teddy and Shane had gone to the movies to see some movie with The Rock in it. Scorpion something or other, she couldn't remember. She planed on having a quiet night of watching TV and having a Stouffer's meatloaf and potatoes dinner. Besides cooking breakfast, she couldn't boil water with out damaging it. Her ears perked up at the sound of a sultry voice coming through the walls of the living room, turning the TV down she made out the words to Alicia Keyes song Fallen, but the voice wasn't Alicia's. Going to the wall, she pressed her ear to it and listened to Brody's sultry voice.

"Ohh baby, you can sing to me any day." She moaned deep in her chest as she slid to the floor. "Do I care that you're a hit man? NOT!"

@@@@@@@@@

Brody pulled the fresh bread from the oven, placed it on the cutting board beside the glass-cooking dish that contained the shrimp, in a dish next to it were snow peas with a buttery white wine sauce she had invented one day. Going towards her bedroom, she yelled Levi's name.

"Levi! You hungry?" She waited by the doorway until she heard feet running towards her. She couldn't help but grin at the small woman, she was dressed in tartan boxers with a Porky pig T-shirt on. "I cooked up some shrimp and I was wondering if you guys wanted to join me for supper?"

Green eyes flashed at the mention of shrimp, she loved shrimp. Actually, she loved food, one of the reasons she was a food critic. Better yet having parents who owned a restaurant and guest chefs a couple time a week to keep her taste buds from getting bored.

"Shane and Teddy aren't here, would you mind if it was just me?"

"Of course not, come on before it gets cold." She took the small hand in hers and led her to the kitchen. After pushing her down into a chair, she served up a huge portion of the coconut shrimp and other trimmings. She smiled when Levi moaned with her first mouthful. "Do you like it?"

"Ohh gods, Caribbean coconut shrimp. Do you always cook like this? This is excellent, and the sauce on the peas, I've never tasted it before."

A light blush colored Brody's face from the compliment; she gave a small smile to her friend and offered her more bread.

"I kinda invented the sauce, it's really easy to make." She leaned back in her chair and grabbed a pitcher of iced tea. "I made some orange spice tea; I don't like to drink too much wine."

Levi waved her fork around and spoke with her mouth full.

"After last night, I don't want any wine for a great while. Still feel a little weak; in fact I called in to work sick."

"I'm sorry, it's my fault you feel so bad. I should have warned you guys that Bubba's wine was potent. Will you get in trouble with your boss?"

Levi chuckled and took a drink of the spicy tea.

"Nah, I'm pretty easy going on myself, the only thing I would have missed was a meal."

Brody looked confused, her blue eyes narrowed as her left eyebrow rose.

"Huh? Ya lost me after the nah part."

"I'm a freelance food critic at Giorgio's; I eat there every night for free. Plus my parents own the place, so even if I wasn't a food critic I would still eat for free." She took a bite of her shrimp and gazed across the table at Brody, she battled with her self as whether to ask her about her job. She threw caution to the wind and asked.

"Me? I have the most un-glorified job around. I work at the docks; you know warehouses and stuff. I unload trucks full of fish." Offering Levi more shrimp, she grinned when she piled her plate with more of everything. "Ever heard of Crusty's Seafood?"

"Uhh huh…arents et ish err." She asked with a full mouth.

"That's where I work; I've worked there for 20 years."

"What! Have they ever heard of child labor laws?"

Brody quirked an eyebrow. "How old do you think I am?"

"Ohh please don't make me answer that. I really suck at guessing ages. But I do know that you have spent most of your life at this job. You don't look close to forty is what I'm saying here." She closed her eyes and prayed for a tornado or something to rescue her; she opened one eye when she heard a deep laugh come from Brody.

"Actually, my grandparents couldn't keep me away from the place." She leaned forward across the table and whispered. "My grandma is a slave driver though. Had me sitting on a stool cleaning fish as soon as I could hold a knife." Taking her plate to the sink, she set it inside and returned to get the rest of the empty dishes; she was surprised when her hands were slapped away and Levi carried the rest to the sink and started running water to wash them.

"You don't have to do that, I was going to clean them up later." She said as she joined Levi at the sink.

"Nope, you cooked. So that means I clean." She gave Brody a light slap in her stomach, grinned up into smiling blue eyes and handed her a dishtowel. "You can dry them though."

They worked in silence, each thinking their own thoughts of how right it felt to be doing dishes together, almost homey. When it was all done, Brody put on a pot of coffee for them and pulled a strawberry cheesecake from the refrigerator.

"Ohh my, you definitely know how to reach a women's heart don't you?"

"To be honest, last night was the first time I've ever cooked for anyone besides my grandparents."

Levi placed a hand on Brody's forearm and gave a slight squeeze. "Thank you for asking me to join you on both nights. You're an excellent cook and I hope to taste more of your creations. Now for that cheesecake, did you?" She waved her hand towards the extremely thick desert.

"Nope, I'm no baker but grandma is."

"They wouldn't consider adopting me would they?"

@@@@@@@@@@@

"Pleeeease grandma, I don't wanna go ta bingo." Brody whined over the phone. "I know its Thursday, and it's the big pot night but I…have date." She smacked herself in the forehead for saying that. "OK…I'll ask her, bye." Slumping on the couch, she covered her head with a throw pillow and screamed out her stupidity.

"How the hell am I supposed to do this, I can't ask her to come with me so I can take grandma to Bingo? I'll just tell grandma she was busy and couldn't come." Rubbing her face with her hands, she tried to come up with something but knew no matter what she told her grandma, the old woman would know she had lied. "Come on badness, you can ask Levi if she wants to watch your little grandma wipe the floor at bingo. Promise her supper afterwards, she'll go9 for food." She knew that was a given since the little blonde had a voracious appetite.

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

"So I see you survived a night alone, anything interesting happen with you?" Shane asked while pouring a cup of coffee for herself and her missing wife.

Levi looked up from the comic page and gave her an innocent look.

"What could have happened, I was here with my TV dinner, the TV and…"

"Tall dark and deadly right next door." Shane wiggled her eyebrows. "Did you see her last night?"

"Would it matter if I did? I mean she is our neighbor and cooks a mean Caribbean coconut shrimp dish." She looked into hazel eyes and blushed. "I had a very nice dinner and desert with Brody, then I came back over here and went to bed."

Shane leaned close to her over the table; eyes searched green for what ever Levi wasn't saying. Finding nothing, she sat back in her chair and smiled.

"Gods you're a boring date, she cooks for you and you come back over here and go to sleep alone."

"We've known that her entire life, little goody two shoes Levi."

Without looking at Teddy, she spoke. "Shudup Teddy bear." She turned in her chair and spit coffee all over the floor. "What the hell are you supposed to be?" Teddy stood in front of her in a tiara, white stockings, short fairy gown and a wicked looking wand with a star on top.

"I'm Lady Luck, one word and I'll brain you with my wand!" She waved it under Levi's nose. "It's extra money and all I gotta do is stand out side the 7-11 on King Street."

Levi bit back a full-blown laugh and remarked instead. "Should be Drag Queen Street from the looks of you." A knock at the front door saved her from being smacked with Teddy's wand. "That must be your chariot fairy God mother." She bolted from the kitchen with Teddy hot on her heels. They made it to the front door, Teddy grabbed Levi with one arm and picked her up around her waist, her legs and arms kicking and swinging in mid air, she begged Teddy to put her down.

"Nope, you made fun of me." She pulled the door open to find Brody standing there, blue eyes traveled down to see Levi struggling under her arm. "Looky here, your savior the Mafia Princess." She stepped forward and dropped Levi into Brody's arms, closed the door and locked it. "Takes care of her for a while." With a huge grin on her face, she went back to the kitchen to have breakfast.

Levi looked up from where she was cradled in Brody's arms, blue eyes connected and a huge smile crossed her features.

"Do you get thrown out the door often?"

"Only when I make fun of Teddy, aren't you supposed to be at work?"

Brody put her down on to her feet; she looked at the ground and paused for a second before she built up the courage to ask Levi if she would go with her to Bingo.

"Bingo? You play bingo on Thursdays." A burst of laughter came from Levi; she wiped tears from her cheeks and looked at a blushing Brody. "Sorry, you just don't seem the type to play bingo. Let me get some clothes and we'll go out for breakfast." She turned and tried the doorknob and found it locked. "Damn her fairy self, she locked me out."

"Come on, we'll take the secret passage."

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

Ice blue eyes gazed from behind wire rim glasses, light blue colored hair shined under the fluorescent lights of the fire halls community room. "You aren't to big for me ta paddle your ass Brody, now sit still!" Brody jumped when her grandma pinched her thigh, scooting closer to Levi she mumbled under her breath. "I heard that Broderick! Just wait until Bingo is over." A wrinkled hand flashed over and stamped a blue dot right between Brody's eyes.

"Grandma! Geez, this stuff doesn't come off easy." She rubbed the spot to no end and knew that it would still be there. She elbowed a snickering Levi and decided that it was two against one and she was not going to win. "Ohh you think it's funny?" In a flash, Brody turned the end of Levi's nose green. "Now see how funny you think it is." Satisfied with her actions, she went back to marking the squares on her Bingo cards. Glancing to the side, she saw Levi trying to see her reflection in her glass.

"Looks like you had your nose up Kermit the frog's ass."

Green eyes narrowed at her, baring her teeth, she growled.

"You look like the blue dot special at Kmart."

"You both look like juveniles to me, now stop before I beat both your asses."

Two sets of hands twitched on bingo markers, eyes bore into each other, lips twitched in anticipation and then it happened. Grandma jumped up and screamed Bingo. Bingo chips flew at them from every direction, cards came at them like Frisbees and chased them under table.

"Is it always this dangerous here?" Levi asked from where she huddled next to Brody.

"You should be on the blue haired ladies bus to Atlantic city, now that's dangerous."

A dark brow rose over a green eye, Levi couldn't think of how that could be worse.

"How so?"

"Just think of 60 old woman taking their dentures out and loosing them in the three hours it takes to get there."

"Ohh…Ewww gross!"

"What are you two doing under there?" They heard grandma ask from above. "Better not be doing the nasty."

Brody rolled her eyes and moaned.

"Geez grandma, you're a pervert."

She felt a hand on her wrist when she went to crawl out from under the table.

"Hold on a minute, let me see if I can get that marker off of you." She pulled Brody's face close to her, used her thumb to rub the spot and decided it needed something else. Leaning in closer, she licked right between her eyes and felt Brody shiver. When she pulled back, she saw that Brody's blue eyes had darkened. "To hell with it." She whispered right before she captured pink lips in a heated kiss. The kiss broke when Brody yelped and her head hit the underside of the table.

"Did I hurt you?" Levi asked breathlessly.

"Nope…she kicked me." Rubbing her ass with one hand, she used the other to snap her grandma's support hose.

"You two get up here before you set the sprinklers off."

Once they were back in their chairs, it became an all out war between the three of them. When Bingo was over, not only was grandma richer as far as funds went but with multi colored liver spots as well.

"Damn kids, the old man will never touch me now!" She reached up and grabbed Brody by her ear. "You take care of that little one, or I'll kick your ass."

Brody looked a good two foot down into her grandma's eyes and smiled. "I will, don't worry."

"Before I forget." She pulled a bottle of Blackberry Merlot from her huge purse and handed it to Brody. "Let me know how it tastes, don't wanna ship it off if it sucks."

After the older woman waddled into her home, Levi took the bottle from Brody's hand. Looking at the label, she read off the name.

"Bubba's Blackberry Merlot?"

Brody grinned at her and shrugged her shoulders, wrapping an arm around her, she led them back to her truck.

"Yep, grandma always puts her name on the wine bottles somewhere."

Levi stopped walking and turned to look up into sparkling blue eyes. Planting one hand on her hip, she tilted her head to the side and glared at Brody.

"That wine we had the one night was made by your grandma…Bubba?"

"Yep, and my grandpa's Crusty Seafood."

"Just great, your grandma is a moonshiner, grandpa's a crusty old seadog and you're a Mafia Princess." Shaking her head, she took Brody's hand and pulled her the short distance to the truck.

"Mafia Princess?"

"Yeah, we thought you were a hit man, you know the bloody clothes, biohazard container, the big fish in your refrigerator etc…"

"Ohh…kinda the Godfather stuff. Don't worry, I'll never make ya sleep with the fishes."

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

Levi snorted at the sight of a very ragged Teddy reclining on the couch, her white hose were snagged and holey, dress smudged with dirt and grime, and an ice bag over her one eye.

"What happened Tinker Belle, Captain Hook get ya?"

"Shudup ya smurf!" She growled and threw the ice bag at her. "What happened to you guys, looks like a weird disease or something?"

"Magic marker fight." She looked closer at Teddy's black eye and cringed. "That looks nasty, who hit you?"

"Some old lady didn't win the lottery last week so she hit me with the samsonite suitcase of a purse she was carrying. Damn thing knocked me right to the ground and then she kept on beating me. Cops hauled her away and charged her with beating on fairies."

"Where's Shane, does she know about this?"

"Still at work and nope. She has ta work late, one of the girls called in again."

"She needs a different job, they keep screwing her over all the time."

Brody leaned over Levi's shoulder and looked at Teddy, she held out the bottle of wine to her and grinned.

"Cures all that ails ya. Where's Shane work?"

"She's a phone operator for a specialized company." Teddy answered and then turned a bright pink.

"She ahh…does phone sex." Levi added and then pulled Brody to the kitchen.

"Phone sex…as in getting horney men off over the phone?"

"Yep, that's the kind. She's really good at it." Levi said lowly.

"Hell ya don't have to tell me, I hear them all the damn time."

Levi pulled open the cabinet door under the kitchen sink, the sound of stuff being moved around, a grunt of pain and then a yell of eureka had Brody wondering what in the hell she was searching for and if she had found a gold stash. Continuing to watch the small blonde move around the kitchen, her eyes watched one part in particular, her ass.

"Does it fit your approval?" She asked without turning around.

"What?" Brody replied even though she never heard what the question was.

"My ass, do you approve or not?"

"Huh?"

She turned and caught unfocused blue eyes starring at her crotch. "You didn't hear a word I said did you?"

"What?"

Waving a hand in front of unblinking blue eyes, she waited until they traveled up her body to stare right at her breasts. Using two fingers under her chin, she tilted her face up so that she could look into her eyes.

"Up here Broderick." She used two fingers to point to her own eyes, grinning when Brody's face turned a beet red. "Horn dog." Leaning forward she placed a soft kiss on her lips and moaned at the silky feel. "Now keep your eyes closed."

"Why?"

"You're impossible, just don't argue with me and do it."

Brody knew when she was beat, she did what Levi said and smelled finger nail polish remover and knew what Levi's intentions were. After they had cleaned the marker off each other's faces, light touches on other body parts flamed the fires. Brody knew that she didn't have a marker spots on her breasts but she wasn't about to complain one little bit. Her face was tucked close to a warm neck, hands cupping what had held her attention for long minutes earlier while a warm tongue licked at her cleavage.

"Ohh come on guys, not on the table. We eat our meals there." Shane smacked Levi on her ass when she walked past. "Get a room for Gods sakes."

Brody cleared her throat, her voice low and raspy when she whispered into Levi's ear. "I should get home, it's late and I have to work in the morning." She hugged Levi close to her chest when she heard her whimper. "I'll see you tomorrow afternoon, OK?"

"OK, meet me at work at 8pm, we can eat dinner together."

Giving Levi a gentle lingering kiss, she left the small blonde leaning against the kitchen table.

"Ohh I see sparkage here! What were you guys doing with fingernail polish remover?" She sniffed the air and then opened the back door to let the fumes out. "You could get high in here from that stuff." Shane groaned when she heard Teddy whimpering from the living room. "I swear I'm going to blacken her other eye if she doesn't stop that whining. Big damn baby."

Levi ran her fingertips across her lips, a goofy grin split her face right before she tore from the kitchen and headed to her bedroom. Diving onto her bed, she hung over the foot and peeked into Brody's room. She wasn't disappointed when tall dark and naked walked past and got into bed. A loud sigh escaped her lips, rolling over onto her back, she continued to watch what she could see of Brody from an upside down position.

"You're starring!" Was said from the darkened room startling Levi so badly that she fell onto the floor.

"Sorry, goodnight Broderick."

"Goodnight Levi Straus."

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

It was still dark when Brody pulled up to the docks, easing her truck close to the wall that divided the building from the dock area. Getting out of the cab, she fished on the passenger seat for her rubber gloves and crate hook. With everything in one hand, she used the other to push her self up onto the dock. An acrid smoke reached her nose, sniffing the air she took in a deeper breath and recognized the smell of marijuana. Peering into the darkness, she could see the red ember of the joint blaze brighter. Snickering sounds and then coughing came from the area of the dock in front of her, hiding near the doors were what she could make out as four dark shapes. Normally she would just run them off, but that was not to be this time, simply because they had once again broken out the security lights. Walking on silent feet, she came to stop right beside one of the dark forms. Grabbing the arm with the joint in the hand, she wrenched it behind his back, spun him around and slammed his face in to the brick wall. A loud crunching nose, and then a groan as his emancipated body dropped to the dock.

Her teeth bared and a snarling noise rumbling in her chest, she turned on the others who were cowering in the corner of the building.

"Who's next?" She growled at them.

"You fucking cunt! You got no business doing that!" One of them yelled at her. "Now you'll pay!" He screamed as he charged at her with a straight razor gleaming in the early morning rays. Brody blocked the razor with her forearm, threw up her fist and struck the addict in his throat. His eyes bulged and rolled back in his head before he fell to the dock. Spinning to the side, she avoided another blade from the third addict; a spot light shone past her and then settled right in her eyes blinding her from the addicts. Throwing up her hand to block the bright light, left her open to a hard blow to her jaw and a sharp searing pain across her back. A loud commanding voice yelled "Police Freeze!" The sound of pounding feet came towards her as well as away, with her vision coming back; she had a split second to see what was transpiring around her before she was thrown to the dock, a knee on the side of her head holding her down, while someone handcuffed her. Once her hands were secure, she felt sharp pains in her ribs, lower back, face and then the feeling of falling.

@@@@@@@@@

Two hours later Brody's grandpa Crusty was confronted by a furious truck driver. Holding his hands in the air, he yelled for the man to "Hold your horses!"

"Now calm down and tell me what's got your shorts in a wad?"

The man's face was beet red, a large vein pulsed in his forehead and his breathing was erratic and came close to the conditions of hyperventilating.

"I've been here for over an hour waiting for someone to show up so that my truck to unloaded. I'm 35 minutes late for another pick-up and my boss is pissed enough to dock me for the whole damn day!"

Crusty scratched the three-day growth of beard on his chin; looking at the driver with his wandering eye, he nodded his head.

"Where the hell is that youngin? You see a silver pick-up truck when you come in?"

"It's sitting near the wall, I ain't seen Brody or anyone else and the doors were all locked until you opened them."

"Damn. Something ain't right here; maybe she's sleeping in her truck?"

"Nope, I checked. Did find a pair of rubber gloves and a crate hook lying on the ground near the dock. I put them near the wall there."

Crusty followed his finger, walked over and picked them up. Flipping the large gloves over in his hands, he noticed a few drops of blood on them, scuffmarks and blood littered the dock near the door as well.

"Please Gods don't let nothing happen to my granddaughter." He pressed the gloves to his chest and jogged into the warehouse. "Using the phone near the time clock, he called in one of the workers from the afternoon shift to come in and work. Then he called Bubba at home and asked her to come to the warehouse, even if it meant coming in her housecoat. When she asked him what the hurry was, all he said was that something happened to Brody. Going back out to the docks with tear-filled eyes, he asked the driver if he could wait for the other worker to get there.

"What's wrong Crusty?" The driver placed a hand on the old man's shoulder and looked into his worried blue eyes.

"Look at her gloves and then look at the ground near the door."

"Dear Lord, what happened here?" He looked closer and found a joint lying in a crevice near the brick wall. "This ain't good Crusty." He held the joint up to show him. "I know Brody doesn't use drugs."

Crusty wiped an errant tear from his face. "No she hates drugs and who ever use's the damn things."

"I'll unload the truck for ya Crusty and I'll call some friends and see if they can find out anything about what happened here."

"Thanks Sonny, I appreciate any help ya can give me. She's my only grandchild."

@@@@@@@@@@@@

Her head ached, ribs throbbed and in total, she felt like she had been hit by a truck. Trying to open one eye sent sharp pains through her left temple. Raising one hand up towards her head, she found that it was chained the concrete slab she was sprawled on.

"What the hell?" She peeked from one eye and saw that everything was blurry, using her other hand, she felt a crusty substance on the side of her face and all the way down her neck. Stretching her back, she gasped when a sharp pain shot through her shoulder and back. "Ohh is grandpa gonna kill me, shit grandma will beat him to it!" Dropping her head down onto one arm, she lay there thinking of what had happened and why she was chained to the slab. "Shit! They think I was with those assholes!" She sat up and felt the room spin, forcing back nausea, she yelled for what seemed hours before she heard the jingle of keys and a cool breeze brush across her face.

"What do you want?"

"What time is it and do I get a phone call?"

"It's 8pm and you would have had one if you were awake."

Squinting one eye open, she glared at the male officer before her. "I'm awake now and I want my phone call and the reason I'm here."

"You'll get your phone call, but you'll have to wait for the judge to tell you why you're here."

She sat there for another hour before the door was opened and a female officer came in with a phone. After handing it to her, she stood leaning against the door and waited for Brody to finish her call. Dialing her grandparent's number, all she got was numerous rings and nothing else.

"My grandparents aren't home, can I make another call?"

"Make it quick." The female officer said.

"Shit, I don't know the number to Giorgio's or Levi's."

The officer came closer to her and pointed to the phone.

"You mean the restaurant in town?" She watched Brody nod her head. "Here give me the phone; I know the number by heart." She gave Brody a grin. "I order take out all the time." After dialing the number, she handed the phone back to Brody.

"Giorgio's can I help you?"

"Yes, I need to speak with Levi, is she there?"

"Who's calling?" The snobby voice asked.

"I'm a friend, listen I really need to speak with her; I was supposed to meet her at 8pm."

"CLICK!"

"I don't believe this, that asshole hung up on me!" Handing the phone back to the officer, she dropped her head into her hands. "When can I be released?"

"As soon as the judge sees you in the morning."

@@@@@@@@@@@@

Silverware was slammed down onto the tabletop, water sloshed out of the glass to soak the table clothe and Levi's chair slammed backwards to clatter to the floor.

"I can't believe she stood me up!" She stormed to the kitchen and ran right into her worst nightmare. "Get out of my way Milton!"

"Ohh come on Levi, you know you want to rub yourself all over me."

"Get a life you scumbag!" She glared at the busboy with his Elvis hairstyle, huge bobbing Adams apple and spoon chest. "I'd rather roll around in poison ivy and I'm highly allergic! NOW MOVE!"

"What is all the yelling about?" A short blonde haired woman asked from the small office.

"Ma get this asshole away from me before I flatten him!"

Mrs. Straussenhofer shooed the busboy out of the kitchen, took her angry daughter by her hand and dragged her into the office.

"What is your problem, since 8pm you've scared the hell out of customers, waiters and busboys?"

"I got stood up!" Pacing the small office, she threw her hands in the air. "I can't believe she stood me up, wait until I get home, I'll kill her!"

Green eyes rolled, a low chuckle came from Mrs. Strassenhofer.

"For crying out loud Levi, how many blind dates have you had in the last two weeks?"

Levi collapsed into the chair in front of her mother's desk, she ran her hands through her hair, and let out a curse.

"Two or three, but Brody's different. She's…not a blind date." Wiping a tear from her cheek, she offered her mother a small smile. "I really like her Ma; she's so easy to be around."

"What was that you said about killing her when you get home, are you two living together?"

"Not really, I mean, she lives in the condo behind us and her bedroom buts up against mine. Actually, we have a passage between our bedrooms."

"What?" Green eyes connected and held until Levi looked to the floor.

"It's kind of embarrassing; Brody was pounding on the wall one night and fell through into my bedroom. She thought it was the moron's room." Levi laughed when she thought of the expression on Brody's face that night. "What's weird Ma is that I met her here and didn't know she lived behind us and now I'm really worried that she didn't show up tonight."

"Call her."

Levi blushed; she looked back down at the floor and mumbled.

"Ohh Levi, you don't even have her number do you?" She threw a paperclip at her daughter. "Phone book Levi, don't be such a dimwit."

She sat in her mother's chair and listened until the Brody's phone rang 25 times. Hanging up, she called home and asked Shane to see if Brody's truck was at her condo. Tears flowed freely when she learned that her truck wasn't there. Giving up for the night, she left for home but knew that she wouldn't sleep until she heard from her friend.

@@@@@@@@@@@@

"She's were?!" Bubba yelled as she waddled around the office at the warehouse. "How the hell did she end up in jail!?"

Sonny cringed. "Now Bubba, my friend didn't know. All he said was that she was in lock-up and had to stay until morning. She's to see the judge a 7am."

"That kid is to blame for all my grey hair, just wait until we get her out, I'm going to paddle her ass until she can't sit for a month!"

Sonny played with his mustache to hide the grin that wanted to break across his lips. He would pay to see Bubba paddle Brody's ass. Crusty covered his face with his hands to hide the fact that he couldn't remember a time when his wives hair wasn't blue.

"Thanks Sonny, we appreciate all the help and that you hung around all day with us old folks."

"No problem Crusty, I have kids, I know what it's like when they get in trouble." He squeezed the old mans shoulder, winked at Bubba then left them to argue over who was going to beat Brody's ass in the morning.

@@@@@@@@@@@@

"Heeelloooo! Can someone please take this damn chain off! Where the hell am I going to go?"

Brody wanted to at least be able to get up and pace, but with two foot of chain, she couldn't even stand up straight. She turned when she heard the door open and sighed in relief when the female officer approached her with a set of keys.

"Sorry about this, they were supposed to move you to a different cell a long time ago." She grinned up into blue eyes. "Seems the chicken shit men around here are afraid of you."

"Why? I mean I didn't give them any fight this morning." She ran a fingertip over her swollen left eye. "Hell, after the spot light blinded me all I remember is being knocked down, cuffed and someone kicking the shit out of me."

"What did you say?" The officer asked as she dropped the chain onto the slab. "You mean you were beat after you were handcuffed?"

"Yeah, I was at my business and got into a fight with some potheads and the next thing I knew, I was being handcuffed and beat."

The officer ran a hand across her face, cussing like a sailor on shore leave. When she had calmed down, she asked Brody if she had a lawyer.

"No, I was going to wait and ask for one before I had to see the judge."

"I'll be right back."

25 minutes later the officer returned with a woman in a charcoal grey suit carrying a worn briefcase.

"This is Janice Banks, defense attorney. Tell her what happened this morning."

They woman pulled a notepad from her briefcase and wrote down every thing that Brody said. A couple times, she looked up with a shocked expression on her face and then went back to her note taking.

"OK Ms. O'Sullivan, it seems that you have been falsely arrested, assaulted and numerous other things. I don't usually do this but I'm going to file papers on your account. I want the cops who did this to you."

"Why?" Her one blue eye gazed in disbelief.

"Because they think they are above the law and can do anything they want and get away with it. Not to mention that the judge you would have seen in the morning would have locked you away until you came to trial on the phony assault charges that the officers have charged you with."

"Assault charges!" Brody paced her cell, her knuckles turning white from clenching her hands. "They said that I assaulted them? That's BULLSHIT!"

"Calm down Brody." Banks said as she gripped Brody's forearm. "I saw the officers this morning and not one of them had as much as a knick from shaving on them."

"This is unbelievable. Knew I should have called in sick this morning." She dropped down onto the slab and asked what would happen next.

"Before I came to see you, I called a judge about signing your release. In the morning those officers will be suspended from the force and held in jail until their hearing."

"Excuse me?"

"One of the guys that got away from you this morning was an undercover officer. You interrupted his operation in a way; he wanted the dirty cops for selling drugs from the police evidence room."

"So because I broke up the little party for them, they beat the shit out of me, toss me in here and were hoping I would just say oohh well, when the judge threw the key away?"

"Pretty much, the judge and the public defender will be sharing a cell with them for their involvement." Banks nodded her head to the female officer, who then motioned for Brody to follow them. As they walked down the long hallway, Banks came up beside her and whispered. "By the way, I'm not a defense attorney, I'm Internal Affairs."

"Ohh this just keeps getting better doesn't it, how can the public defender be involved. Wouldn't I get to call my own lawyer?"

"They would have pulled all kinds of shit to get you rushed through a hearing, held without bail and put away before anyone was the wiser. It's been done before; in fact you're not even in the records as being here."

Brody stopped in the hallway and starred as best she could at the two women.

"You're kidding right? Then how did you know I was here?" She pointed to the officer.

"Since they closed this section a couple of years ago, I come down here for my lunch break, I just happened to hear you yelling earlier. I had to wait until that other cop left before coming back to see you."

"Shit, they could have killed me and no one would have known." She moved so that she was nose to nose with the officer. "Why did you tell me I'd be released in the morning?"

"I was stalling until I could get a hold of Janice; I never left after you made your phone calls. I wouldn't have let them harm you."

Brody let go of the breath she was holding. "Thanks, when can I get out of here, and will I have to do anything else until this is all over with?"

"As soon as we get you upstairs to my office and unless we need more evidence than what the other cop got this morning, than no, this should be it."

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

The first thing Brody did when she got to Bank's office was call her grandparents and tell them that she was OK and was on her way home. She told her grandma that she could beat her ass after she explained to them what happened and that she would see them in the morning if she could move. She was told to take her time that her shift was taken care of for a few days until she recovered. Once the papers were signed and she gave Banks a handwritten report and signed it, she was released to go home. The female officer offered her a ride home and she accepted with out giving it a second thought. She was sore and tired and wanted nothing more than to take a shower and see Levi so she could explain to her why she had missed their date. Pulling her keys from the manila envelope with her personal effect in it, she opened her door and groaned with relief. It felt like weeks since she was home, by looking at the clock on the VCR, she saw that it was close to a full 24 hours since she had left for work.

"Levi is going to be so pissed at me."

Leaving the lights off, she walked to her bedroom on silent feet, she prayed that she could move around her room without falling over something. Her vision was distorted with her peripheral sight missing on the left side. She stopped and listened at the hole in the wall and heard sobbing coming from Levi.

@@@@@@@@@@@

Levi gave Shane and Teddy a brief synopsis of the night she spent waiting for Brody, when she was finished her roommates were ready to find tall dark and stupid and beat the hell out f her for hurting their friend. She convinced them that she would take care of Brody and not to worry about it. Being emotionally exhausted, she turned in but couldn't find her way to sleep, she lay looking through the hole in the wall for hours, waiting for Brody to come home. Anger turned to something deeper, her emotions were raw and bleeding, her heart breaking into hundreds of pieces from believing that Brody was different from all the other women who had come into her life. Sobs wracked her body, her tears washing away the pain as they traced down her cheeks to soak her pillow. She never saw the dark form kneel beside her bed, it wasn't until she felt a warm hand touch her back that she knew she wasn't alone.

"Go away Shane."

"Levi?"

Her body froze at the sound of the deep voice close to her ear, all the anger that she had let go, returned with a vengeance. She flipped over in bed, swung out with her open hand and connected with the left side of Brody's face. A pain filled yelp and then a loud thump came as Brody fell back on the floor.

"How dare you stand me up and not even have the decency to stay away from me. I waited hours for you, I called your condo and there was no answer. I thought you were my friend!" She continued to yell out her frustrations until she was too exhausted to say more. "Don't you have anything to say to me?" She waited for Brody to say something, tears coursed down her face in steady streams to drip off her chin onto her clenched fists. "Fine…get…out!" When she didn't see the dark form move, she flipped on the light on her nightstand and gasped at the sight before her. Brody's face and shirt were still covered with blood, fresh blood was trickling from a split lip and a cut on her cheekbone. Levi crawled from her bed to cradle her friends head in her lap. Tears flowed faster now to drip onto Brody's bruised and battered face.

"Gods what happened to you?" Brushing her dark hair back from her face, revealed a gash at her temple and the swollen left eye and cheek. Pulling her pillow off the bed, she placed it under Brody's head and ran to the bathroom to get a wet washcloth, towel and then to the kitchen to get a bowl of warm water. When she returned Brody was still unconscious, gently she wiped the blood from her face and neck. Soaking the washcloth, she placed the towel under her head and squeezed water across her temple. As the water flowed through her dark hair, it soaked into the towel and turned it a light pink.

"This isn't going to work. Brody…wake up Brody." Caressing her high cheekbones, she waited a few minutes before she whispered into her ear again. "You have to wake up, you need a doctor, I can't…" Her voice cracked with emotion, she didn't know what to do for her friend. "Come on…you can't sleep on the floor." She watched as one eye opened to show spider webs of red running through her eye, the blue a very silvery color darkened with recognition.

"My face hurts."

Levi brought her face down to rest on Brody's chest, silent tears flowed from her eyes to soak Brody's filthy T-shirt.

"Sorry I didn't make it tonight…I kinda got put in jail."

Red puffy eyes connected with one blue. "Why?"

"I'll explain later, right now all I want is to take a hot shower and get about a dozen aspirins in me, maybe a morphine drip to go with them."

"Let me help you, I'm sorry I slapped you. I didn't know…Gods I'm soo sorry Brody." She hugged her and broke down sobbing against her chest.

"It's OK, normally a slap wouldn't knock me out. Seems I've spent more time knocked out today than I was awake. Must be getting weak in my old age."

Levi helped her up off the floor and into her bathroom, she didn't want to have to try and get her back through the hole in the wall and all through her house to her bathroom. This would be easier on both of them, and if she needed help, she was closer to Teddy and Shane. She wasn't too good with injuries, the last time she nicked her leg shaving she almost passed out. She would try and do what she could, she wasn't going to guarantee she wouldn't get wobbly at the sight of blood. Pushing Brody down on to the edge of the bathtub, she had her brace a hand on her shoulder while she took off her boots, it was when she got to her shirt that her face turned a healthy pink.

"Do you want me to leave while you shower?"

A blue eye looked up at her, the skin crinkled at the edge of her eye, her hand flew to her mouth when she tried to grin.

"Damn that hurts, no…I think…I know I need some help." It pained her to ask for help, she had always done things for herself, this time she would swallow her pride. "Modesty isn't one of my things, you should know that by now."

"It's just that everyone I know holds the bathroom as an off limits place."

"I don't, I never even close the door." She eased her T-shirt up part way to her stomach, a low moan came from her parted lips. "Uuhhmm…help." Her ribs hurt like hell, she knew she probably had some cracked ones somewhere and should be at the hospital to be checked out. One problem, she hated hospitals and everything they stood for. Quality care wasn't what she got when she went there other times, more like poking and prodding by a doctor, who was over worked and would rather be on a golf course, than suturing her hand closed where she had sliced it open on a metal banding strap at work. Having Levi help her would have to do until she could go see her miracle worker of a grandma. Levi eased her T-shirt over her head and stopped when she heard air sucked in through clenched teeth.

"Sorry Brody, I didn't mean…"

"It wasn't you, I forgot I have a cut on my back. My T-shirt was stuck to it."

Levi used two fingers to tilt Brody's face up, her eyes narrowed when in the brighter bathroom she could see just how badly Brody had been beaten. Looking down at her chest, she let her eyes follow down to the deep bruises that covered her left ribcage.

"You should be at the hospital, let me take you." She started to move away when a large hand captured her smaller one.

"No, I'll be alright. Hate that place, anyway, snobby doctors think they're gods or something. Speaking of snobby, I called the restaurant and some asshole hung up on me."

Pulling Brody's belt free, Levi unfastened her Levi's then helped her ease them down her hips until she could pull them all the way off.

"You called and someone hung up?"

"Yep, sounded like a young kid. Snotty attitude, mightier than thou type."

"I'll kill that little bastard." Flames shot through her tired green eyes. "I never knew you called, I was so pissed at you for standing me up." She turned the water on, adjusted the temperature, and then helped Brody into the shower. When Brody faced away from her, she choked. "Brody that cut is a gash and it needs sutures…a lot of them."

"I have butterfly strips in my medicine cabinet, those will work until it closes." Ducking her head under the spray, a low moan escaped her lips when the water hit the gash on her back. It stung like hell but she knew it would be better as soon as it was cleaned and dressed.

"I'll be back in a minute." Levi ran from the bathroom and back to her room so she could go through into Brody's. She was thankful the hole was there, it saved time and she could always watch Brody as she slept. When she came back from getting what she needed, she slammed right in to Teddy as she was coming down the hall.

"What are you doing up so earlier?" Teddy asked a gasping little blonde.

"Haven't slept yet, Brody's hurt really bad."

Caramel eyes twinkled when she thought that Levi had knocked the shit out of the tall woman.

"Smacked her good did ya?"

"Well…I did hit her, but someone else did a good job before I got to her. I need your help." She paused while she looked down at the stuff in her hands. "She's got some gashes and you know me."

"Yeah steak tar tar makes you pass out. Come on, it can't be that bad."

Teddy followed Levi into the bathroom, she froze right outside the shower when the curtain was pulled back and Brody stepped out stiffly.

"Holy shit! What train ran over you?" She reached up a hand and gently raised Brody's left eyelid. The white of her eye was full of blood and the pupil contracted slowly. "Can you see out of that eye, head hurt, nausea?"

"It's blurry and hurts like hell, a little of everything else."

"You have a concussion, and I don't like all the blood that's built up in your eye. Tomorrow I'll call my Ma and make an appointment for you."

"Teddy, I appreciate your help but I hate doctors."

Teddy looked to Levi and raised an eyebrow.

"Brody, Teddy's Ma is different, she's the only doctor that we have ever seen." She led Brody back to her room and had her sit down on her bed while she and Teddy took care of her injuries. "Her Ma delivered both me and Shane. She would have done Teddy to but she hates pain and was knocked out until it was over."

"So to make up for it, I've been a pain in her ass ever since. Now lay down so I can get a look at your back." Moans and groans rumbled through Brody as she moved on Levi's bed. Dropping her face into Levi's pillow, she took a deep breath and inhaled her soft scent along with the scent of her shampoo. That was the last thing she remembered before her eye closed and she fell into a deep healing sleep.

"Damn and I thought you fell asleep fast. Did she say how this happened?"

"All she said was that she was in jail."

"She's a mobster, happens sometimes."

"She's not, she works at Crusty's seafood on the docks." Levi felt her face go pale when Teddy spread the gash open, sweat popped out on her forehead and she felt the walls closing in on her. "Teddy."

Teddy turned her head to see her fading friend.

"Come on Levi, sit your ass down and don't look." She was guided to the edge of the bed and her head was forced down between her knees. "Now stay that way, I'll be back, I need to get something. Keep the fish Princess company."

"Ha! Funny Teddy bear. Hate this shit." She mumbled at Teddy's back. Taking a deep breath, she rubbed her tired eyes and yawned. "I really need some sleep."

"Not yet, I may need your help."

"What are you going to do?" Levi asked as she raised her head and eyes to Teddy.

"Suture that gash up, butterflies won't help, it's too deep in places." She pulled a suture kit from its sterile package, held up the curved needle to the light and grinned at a pale Levi. "Here goes nothing." Teddy pushed the needle through Brody's back and heard a thump behind her. "Sleep well little wuss." When she was finished with suturing Brody's back, she picked Levi up and laid her beside Brody. "Now don't keep your hands to yourselves, feel free to free feels." Rearranging Levi to her likes, she placed her small hand on Brody's ass and then covered them up with the comforter. "Bad Teddy bear." She chuckled as she walked back to her and Shane's bedroom, it was time to wake her lover up and let her know what was going on.

@@@@@@@@@@@@@

Brody's eye squinted open at the bright light coming through a strange window, moving her head just a bit, she could make out one wall of the room and recognized where she was. What confused her now was the wetness that was running down her ribcage. She thought that maybe her back was bleeding until she felt a warmth press closer to her side and heard a loud snort. Raising the comforter, she looked under it to see a tousled blonde head resting on her back.

"She lives, she breaths, she drools." Was mumbled under the comforter. Turning on her side with difficulty, Brody watched as Levi moved right along with her and snuggled up against her.

"If I fall on the floor will she go with me?"

"Most likely, she kills stuffed animals by hugging the stuffing out of them."

Brody jumped, flipped the covers over her farther and pretended that she wasn't talking to herself.

"Morning guys, how…why…"

"Short memory loss huh?" Teddy remarked as she stepped past her wife. "How ya feel, headache or anything?"

"Just really sore." She went to get up and felt Levi wrap her legs around one of hers to hold her still. Brody flipped the comforter up and chuckled, Levi looked like a toddler when they hang on your leg. "She's not gonna let go is she?"

Shane gave her a wicked grin, elbowed Teddy and told her to get Levi's alarm clock. "Get used to it you're stuck with her."

"All set, Brody protect delicate areas." Teddy showed her a box of Lucky Charms, then shook it hard right near Levi's ear. Brody felt as if she was in a stampede, Levi's head popped up, and a hand grabbed onto what ever was convenient until she was out from under the comforter and squinting at Teddy.

"Leave my marshmallows alone." Was all she said before she dropped her head down on Brody's chest.

"Hey Shane, I'll flip ya for the little moons."

"Mine…all mine." Came from a still sleeping Levi.

"Ohh Gods!" Brody yelped when a small hand gripped her right breast.

"Moons, stars, lucky clovers…" Teddy shook the box again and watched as Levi's head popped up and green eyes glared at her.

"You will die horribly!"

Shane pointed to a red faced and grimacing Brody. "I think your pillow is about to expire, she looks like she's in extreme pain."

"Huh?" She turned her head to see Brody clenching her teeth and pointing down to her breast. "Ohh geez Brody, I'm sorry." She gentled her touch, ran her fingers soothingly over the reddened flesh and jerked her hand away when she realized what she was doing.

Teddy snorted at a blushing Levi. "And we wondered why she hasn't had sex in five years."

"That did it! You're dead Teddy bear!" She fell out of the bed and chased Teddy through the condo.

"You hungry Brody, I'm going to make breakfast."

"Yeah, I'm starving, it's been a long time since I ate. Let me get some clothes on." When she swung her legs over the edge, the room began to spin. "Ohh Gods, not good." She felt warm hands on her shoulders.

"Stay right there, where's your robe?"

"On the back of my door."

Shane came back into Levi's room chuckling under her breath, she helped Brody get her robe on and then helped her to the kitchen.

"I have a problem with low blood sugar, when it drops so do I."

"We'll take care of that in a few minutes, we've got plenty of juice and stuff." She pulled out a chair for Brody, helped her sit down and heard the front door close. "I swear it's like having two children in this place, they fight over cereal, candy, toys, what's on the TV etc…" She looked to see Teddy coming into the kitchen alone.

"You didn't?" Shane asked with a cocked eyebrow.

"Of course I…DID! Damn little smurf bit me." She held out her middle finger and showed the tooth marks across the top.

Shane shook her head and then gave Brody a smirk. "See what I mean."

"Uhh huh, so I take it Levi got tossed out the front door again?"

"Yep, happens every morning. It's like letting the dog out." Shane gave her a toothy grin and sat down to eat her Capt. Crunch cereal. The only thing odd was the MM's mixed in.

"Lard ass." Levi said as she smacked Teddy in the back of her head. "Paybacks are a real bitch Teddy bear." She turned and snorted at Brody's robe. "Nice robe Brody, little pink piggies with wings."

"Bubba bought it for me, she said I would grow up when pigs grew wings and learned to fly." She looked to a grinning Levi when she felt a furry foot run up the front of her shin.

"Look at my slippers." Was accompanied by a green eye winking.

Brody looked under the table, one side of her lips curled when she saw the pink pig slippers with little wings on the sides.

"Before I forget, Ma said to come see her anytime today. She wants to check my cross hatch stitch." She gave Brody a toothy grin then went back to eating her cereal.

"Cross hatch stitch?" Brody questioned and looked to see two heads drop to look into cereal bowls and the other to look out the kitchen window. "What's the joke that I missed?" She tried to glare at Levi but one eye wasn't cooperating.

Teddy told her about suturing her back and Levi passing out before she had even started to do anything. She further embarrassed the little blond by telling everyone how she grabbed a hold of Brody's ass the second she put her into bed. "And the whole time she kept saying mine, mine MINE!"

"I did not!" Levi argued.

"Yes you did, just like this morning when you grabbed Brody's tit."

Brody laughed more in the time it took them to eat breakfast than she had in a long time. It was like romper room, all they needed were a couple of high chairs, sippy cups and they would be all set.

@@@@@@@@@

Brody sat on the examination table that the nurse had directed her to, Levi sat in a chair close by and kept whistling the theme song from the Wizard of Oz. Brody kept looking at her with questioning eyes but all Levi would do was whistle louder and wink at her. Giving up, she looked around the room. She looked up when the door opened and a female doctor came into the room. The next thing she knew, Levi was being grabbed by her ear and lifted from the chair.

"I can still beat your ass like the day you were born." Caramel colored eyes tracked to a grinning Brody. "She may be taller but I'm older and I know all her little secrets. Blackmail is such a wonderful thing. Ain't it six toes?"

"OK, I won't tease you about being one of the little people." She dropped to her knees in front of Teddy's mother, held up her hands in a praying gesture and begged. "Please don't tell her...Zelda." She busted up laughing when the small doctor growled at her.

"Six toes, Zelda?" Brody mumbled to herself, she was confused until she noticed that the doctor was only about four foot tall and struck a strong resemblance to the actress Zelda Rubenstein from the movie Poltergeist. "Six toes?" She repeated.

"Ever see Levi's feet? Look real close next time, it's the reason why we couldn't give her away when she got to rotten for us to handle."

Doctor Bearsley checked the sutures that her daughter had put in Brody's back. She clucked a lot when she examined the rest of her injuries and confirmed that she did indeed have a slight concussion and if the blood in her left eye didn't absorb in to her tissues in the next three days, to give her a call. Other than that, she was to take the next week off from work and no heavy lifting of any kind.

"Tell Teddy that I have some pants that need hemming." She looked at a confused Brody. "She sews better than I do, has a hell of a whip stitch." Filling out a prescription for pain/anti-inflammatory pills, she handed it to Levi and winked at Brody. "I know she'll get it filled and make sure you take them. You stoic types are all the same, if it hasn't fallen off then it's OK."

@@@@@@@@@@@@

"Stop looking at my feet." Levi bumped hips with Brody and grabbed her by her ear to keep her from looking down at their feet while they were walking. "Believe me, there is nothing wrong with them."

"But Zel…I mean Dr. Bearsley said."

Levi stopped right in front of Brody and glared at her, tapping the tip of her nose with a fingertip, she enunciated every word.

"She's…Teddy's…mother. End of discussion."

Brody nodded her head but she knew there just had to be more to the six toes thing, why else would Levi avoid her question. "Well see little smurf, you can't wear your shoes all the time." She thought about it and realized that she never paid much attention to people's feet, she didn't even do that with her own except to put socks on and that was the end of it. How many other things just went unnoticed in the world? She glanced over at Levi's profile and smirked. "Wonder if she knows her ears wiggle when she clenches her jaw."

"You're starring."

"Am not, just looking."

"And there's a difference? I mean if you're starring, means that you had to look right. So if you're looking then it's the same as starring at me. Why are you starring at me?"

Thinking quick for an excuse and to pull her ass out of the fire, she replied with all honesty.

"I always look at the ground for…money."

Chuckling at Brody, Levi shook her head. "Good save, you hungry?" She stopped to lean against the side of her rust bucket car. "Dairy Queen is close by, we can stop then go see your grandparents."

@@@@@@@@@

The poor girl at the drive-thru window at Dairy Queen was rubbing her lower back after they pulled away. Brody was covered with bags of food, had two Cokes between her legs and two extra large chocolate milk shakes in her hands.

"Did we get enough food? I mean we can stop at McDonalds to if you want."

"HAA! Just wait Broderick, by the end of the day, I'll consume more food than the Steelers defensive line."

@@@@@@@@@@@

"Broderick O'Sullivan you have one ugly mug on you." Bubba leaned every which way, as she took in the full picture of her granddaughters battered face. "What did they use on you a sledge hammer? Gods child get in the office and let me put some salve on that mug." She took an unwilling Brody by her hand, looking around her; she pointed a finger at Levi. "Come on Levi, you're going to have to know how to do this."

Brody huffed at what her grandma had just said; she wondered why everyone was saying the same thing today.

"Do I look incapable of taking care of myself?"

"YES!" Two voices echoed, knowing they were half-right, Brody dropped her head, scuffed her feet along the floor and let her grandma drag her to the office.

"Hey old bastard put your choppers back in your maul, you'll scare Brody's girlfriend."

Crusty looked around his wife and granddaughter to see Levi following slowly behind them. He gave her a huge toothless grin that went right to his blue eyes. He then turned to his wife and stuck his tongue out at her. "If I put my teeth back in then my papers will blow away."

"That's what that damn paper weight is supposed to be used for, not to prop up the leg on this ugly old desk."

"Teeth work better; use them to pull staples out with. Try that with the paperweight." He picked up his teeth from where they sat holding papers down, popped them into his mouth and clicked them a few times. "Happy now ya ole biddy?"

"Be happier if ya sat on the damn things and they bit ya in your skinny ass!" She waddled over to him and placed a kiss on his baldhead. "What do you think of Brody's face?"

His old eyes squinted at her; shivers ran across his back at the sight of her left eye.

"Youngin, that eye really looks bad. I hope it doesn't end up like mine." He pointed to his wandering eye.

"It ain't; cuz she's got Levi to make sure she gets her medicine."

Brody pulled Levi up close to her side, smiling down at her; she introduced her to her grandpa. Even with his bad eye could see something between the two of them; he elbowed Bubba in her middle and nodded his head at the two younger women.

"Bout time someone took charge of youngin."

A blue eye narrowed at him, Brody started to say something until she felt her ass get pinched.

"Hey! What was that for?" She rubbed the spot and took a half step away from wandering little hands.

Green eyes twinkled up at Brody. "I knew you were going to argue with Crusty, so I distracted you."

Bubba pulled a glass bottle down from a shelf and tossed it to Levi, who looked at the clear gel inside with curious eyes.

"Put that on all her bruises and cuts twice a day, in no time they'll be gone."

"No problem, I'll tie her down if I have to." She cast a sideways glance at a startled Brody. "Ain't that right?"

"You're all a bunch of little bully's, picking on me all the time."

Levi laughed at a pouting Brody, taking her by the hand she led her over to a chair and pushed her into it.

"Now don't you move, I'm going to put this on your face and I don't want any lip out of you."

"Always the little ones that are so mean Youngin, can't do nothin about it either but let them hound ya."

@@@@@@@@@@@

Moaning and groaning came from Brody's room, she was trying to find a comfortable position to sleep in but found that every time she rolled on to her favorite side, her face hurt like hell no matter how she adjusted her pillow.

"Problems over there Rocky?" Levi asked from her bed.

"My face hurts." Brody whined in a pitiful voice.

"Did you take your medicine?" When she heard nothing in return, she got out of bed and stepped through the hole to stand at the side of Brody's bed. "I take the silence as a big no?"

"Do I have to? It's only my face that hurts."

Levi turned the bedside light on, narrowed her eyes at Brody and watched her squirm.

Hands planted on her hips, she leaned over Brody who was trying to hide under her blankets.

"Where are they?" A finger peeked out from under the blankets and pointed to her dresser. "I swear you're a big baby."

"Am not, just don't want my senses dulled."

Levi held two pills between her fingers and a cup of water in the other. Waving her fingers over Brody's mouth, she waited patiently for her to finish making excuses.

"Open up." Putting the glass down, she grabbed Brody's nose and waited until she gasped for air, dropped the pills in and held her mouth shut. "Worse than a kid." Grinning when tears came to Brody's eye. "Tastes nasty huh, want your water now?" She helped Brody to sit up and watched as she drank the entire glass of water.

"That was beyond gross!" Slight shivers racked her body. "I'd rather drink cod liver oil."

Levi took the glass from her fingers, pushed her back in the bed and covered her up with her blankets.

"That can be arranged ya know, Teddy just happens to have a new bottle in the bathroom." She was kidding but Brody didn't need to know that. She liked the effect it had on the tall woman, seeing her hide beneath the blankets struck a cord in her heart. "Good night Rocky."

"What you're not gonna read me a bedtime story?"

"Here's a short one." She sat down on the edge of the bed next to Brody. "Levi the Queen of the vertically challenged Amazon tribe. Captured and tortured the mighty fish Princess until she came to her senses and went to sleep."

"Gee thanks Levi, now I'll have nightmares for sure."

Levi gave her an evil grin and winked at her. "Could be worse, could be Teddy bear in her Lady Luck costume singing Like a Virgin."

Brody's one eye widened, her brows rose high into her hairline and she grimaced.

"EEWWW! No thank you, I'll take the short half-naked Amazons."

"Thought you'd see it my way." She leaned forward and kissed her softly. "Night Rocky."

A small smile came across Brody's lips. "Night Queen Levi."

@@@@@@@@@@@@@

"Ma, who do you have scheduled for the guest chef spots this week?" Levi leaned back into the cushions of the couch, placing her winged pig slippers on the coffee table, she wiggled her feet until the wings flapped up and down. Lifting both feet up, she had her pigs doing dog fights in the air, as one did a nose dive she made little whistling noises and then a crashing noise when it hit the table top.

"Levi what are you doing?"

"Oohh…I didn't know you were listening." Her face turned a deep red with embarrassment at being caught acting stupid. "I was…never mind. Do you have a spot for an excellent cook? I know someone that can out cook any chef you've had in the last month."

"I have tomorrow night open, the one I had planned bailed on me. First, who is this great cook?"

"It's uuhmm…Broderick O'Sullivan."

"Who? I've never heard of him, what's his specialty?"

"Ma, you've never heard of her because she's not a chef. It's my friend Brody; I know the customers will love her cooking. That is if I can convince her to do it."

"Ohh I see what you've done, you're pulling one of your stunts. OK, but if her food sucks, I'm planting my size four foot up your little ass. Got me Levi?"

Levi was ecstatic for all of three seconds; she had yet to ask Brody. "Thanks Ma, and believe me you won't regret this." She knew that Brody had only cooked for her family and them, could she get her to cook for the customers? "Gods how am I going to do this?" Going towards her bedroom, she heard Brody's voice in full out song, a grin came to her face when she heard the words clearly the closer she got to her bedroom.

"Oooohhh I wish I were an Oscar Meyer wiener, that is what I truly love to beeee and if I were an Oscar Meyer wiener. Every one would be in love with meee!"

She followed the voice until she came to the kitchen, leaning against the doorframe, she watched Brody dance around the kitchen. Giving a hip thrust to emphasize each word.

She slapped at something in the sink. "Hey stop that, I gave you a piece!"

"Will you give me a piece?" Levi wondered as she fought back a moan as hips thrust back and forth and swung to the melody in Brody's head.

"Crusty, if you don't stop snapping at me I'll rip your other arm off!" Taking a dishtowel, she covered up the sink and went back to her song. "Ooohh I wish I were an Oscar Meyer wiener…"

"And what would you do if you were?" Levi said from right behind her, trying her hardest to keep her hands from reaching out and grabbing two handfuls of tight ass.

"Whaaa! Levi you scared the shit out of me!" She clasped her chest and took a deep breath. "I'd…I have no idea." Grinning like a lunatic, she shrugged her shoulders. "Now ya have something to hold over my head, I'm a closet theme song singer."

"I've heard you before and it wasn't commercials you were singing." She leaned to the side to see what Brody was hiding in the sink, reaching out she grabbed the edge of the towel.

"I wouldn't do…"

Levi jerked the towel away, yelped and jumped back a good three feet.

"That. Crusty's pissed 'cuz I won't give him anymore of my lunch. It's kind of gross what he's eating." She held up a jumbo shrimp and Crusty's claw snapped at it. "Behave or else your supper tonight."

"Yeah, he could be eating a relative."

Brody shook a finger at him. "See that, I told you the same thing. Gods I'm talking to a lobster."

"Maybe you should get a cat or dog. Anyway, what I came over to ask you was," She took a deep breath and rushed her words out. "CouldyoucookatGiorgio'stomorrownight."

"Huh?" Brody shook her head, stuck her fingers in her ears and gave them a little pop. "What was that?"

"OK, could you cook at Giorgio's tomorrow night, my Ma's chef cancelled at the last minute and I sorta told her that you would fill in." Her voice raised an octave with the last words.

"Me cook at Giorgio's, I'm not a chef."

Levi took Brody's hands in hers and brought them up to hold in front of her.

"You're an excellent cook, please do this for me." She gave her the puppy dog look and even dropped down to her knees. "Please Brody; I'll be your slave for a week if you do this."

Brody grinned evilly, raising her eyebrow she looked down at Levi. "Anything I want?"

"Anything." Levi knew she had just dug herself a nice big hole.

@@@@@@@@@@@@

"Leeeeevi what am I supposed to wear to cook in?" Brody whined and stuck out her lower lip.

"Oohhh how about NOTHING!" She had a lopsided grin plastered all over her face as she leered at the tall woman covered only in a towel before her.

"Helloooo, any one in there? Come on I have no idea what I'm supposed to wear."

"Do you have a string bikini?" She chuckled at the narrow eyed look Brody gave her. "Just kidding." She walked over to look into Brody's closet, sorting through her shirts; she pulled out a light blue button down and held it up in front of Brody. Running her hand down the front caused Brody to suck in a breath. "This one and your black Levis."

Levi took a seat on the edge of the bed and lay back to look at the ceiling, and then rolling to her side she watched as Brody dropped her towel, pulled her shirt on and then sat on the edge of the bed to pull her Levis on. Her blood pressure jumped to its boiling point and thumped in her veins, she could feel sweat break out on her forehead and trickle down the sides of her face. Taking a ragged breath in through her nose, she picked up the musky scent of Brody's cologne along with the scent of her soap and shampoo. Her fingers itched to run through the slightly damp hair that hung down Brody's back, and to travel down further to trim hips.

Brody could feel green eyes burning a trail across her skin, she had caught the small blonde watching her numerous times and thought it amusing. She did her best to fluster her friend to see if she would loose control and do something about the draw she knew they both felt towards each other. They had only kissed passionately that night at Bingo and since then it had only been slight touches here and there. She didn't know how much longer she could wait before she took their relationship further. Leaning back on the bed, she raised her hips and pulled her Levi's up the rest of the way. Dropping back, she turned her head to look into darkened green eyes for long moments before she leaned in closer. Lowering her voice down an octave to sound like a deep purr, she spoke to Levi who was mere inches away from her.

"After tonight…I own you." Wiggling her brows. "One week of slave labor. I like scrambled eggs with cheese and bacon mixed in."

"Excuse me? What has eggs got to do with slave labor?"

"Breakfast in bed." Rolling closer to her, Brody nipped at the side of her neck with even white teeth. She felt Levi shudder against her and whimper. "Orange juice." Another nip. "And English muffins with strawberry jelly." She ended her list with a searing kiss, both women forgetting that they were supposed to be leaving for Giorgio's in less than fifteen minutes. Levi wrapped one arm around Brody's neck, locked a leg over her hip and pulled her as close as she could. Pulling back a ways to catch their breathes, they locked passion filled eyes for long moments. Levi gave in and devoured Brody's mouth, seeking out with her tongue, exploring until she saw stars float before her eyes do to lack of oxygen. When the kiss broke, they lay with heads resting on each others shoulders for long moments.

"Do we have to go?" Brody mumbled against the soft material of Levi's T-shirt. "Wanna stay here and cook."

Levi chuckled into Brody's neck, she would love to do nothing better but she knew her mother would kill her. As much as her libido was screaming at that moment and a volcano was ready to erupt between her legs, she rolled away from Brody with a deep moan.

"Me and my big damn mouth. Come on Rocky, get your shoes on so we can get this over with." Before I loose complete control, rip your clothes off, ravage you for many hours and get on Ma's shit list.

@@@@@@@@@

As they walked into the restaurant, Brody's mind was no where near cooking, it was on the tight little ass that was walking in front of her. She swore that drool was dripping off her chin and wiped at it to find nothing. You're like a bitch in heat Broderick, think shrimp, lobster, scallops, your Grandma in a string bikini. That sent ice to douse the flames at her center. Shivers ran up her spine and made her roll her shoulders.

"You OK, you look a little flushed." Levi said from where she had dropped back to walk beside her.

"Yeah, just a little nervous."

"Just pretend that you're cooking for me. I'll be back there in the kitchen with you the whole time."

She pulled at the neck of her damp shirt, sweat broke out across her forehead at the thought of having Levi so close to her. Her body temperature felt like it was about 360 degrees. If that's the case then I'll just serve steamed everything.

"Pretend I'm cooking for a small army?"

Levi backhanded her in her stomach and then took her larger hand in hers. "That's funny, true but funny."

@@@@@@@@@@@

Levi left Brody in the kitchen to get acquainted with the other chefs while she searched out her mother. She wanted to tell her, what Brody would be preparing that night and to make sure it was put on the board near the door. Brody had asked her which she liked better, Grilled shrimp and scallops or Creole Shrimp. Having the taste for something spicy, she picked the former. She knew anything Brody cooked would be beyond what other chefs had prepared in the past. Coming to an area of the restaurant that housed the scullery room, she found her mother pulling a tray of wine glasses out of the electric dish dryer.

"Where's your help at?" She asked as she took the tray from her mother and carried it to the bar area and handed it off to the bartender.

"He's running late, his kid is sick and he had to wait until his wife got home from work." With a smirk planted on her face, Mrs. Straussenhofer pulled the collar of her daughter's shirt up higher on her neck. "Tell her lower so they don't show."

"So what won't show?" Levi rubbed her neck and looked at her mother with confusion.

"Where your girlfriend flea bit your neck."

"Flea bit my…when…ohhh geez." Her face turned a light pink, she had forgotten about what she and Brody had been doing. She didn't think the light nips would have left marks.

"So is she back in the kitchen?"

"Yeah, she's making Creole Shrimp tonight. And when you go back there and see her, don't scream."

Green eyes twinkled into matching ones, mother and daughter both ran their hands through short blonde hair as they regarded each other. "Please don't tell me that she's so ugly that she's scaring my chefs back there."

"Ohh Gods no Brody is not ugly, any other time and she could be on the cover of Vogue. She got beat up the other morning and her face is kind of banged up."

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

Brody watched as one of the chefs cut filets of sea bass, at the speed he was going the customers would starve.

"Can I show you something?" She asked in a low voice.

"Sure, go ahead." He stepped back from the cutting board and handed her his knife, she took one look at it and handed it back.

"That knife is better for chopping, you need a thin blade to filet fish." She pulled her filet knife from a leather sheath and showed him. "Then you start right behind the head, stay close to the dorsal and slide the knife between the meat and the bones." In fifteen seconds, she had the entire fish filleted, skinned and washed. She looked up into amazed brown eyes and smiled. "Takes practice."

"Where'd you learn to do that?" He picked up the steaks and looked at them.

"20 years of gutting fish at the docks." She pointed to the box that he had pulled the fish from. "My grandparents own that fish company."

"There you are." Levi said as she came up behind her and placed her hand on Brody's lower back in a possessive way. "Brody this is my Ma Judy, Ma this is my friend Brody."

"Mrs. Straussenhofer smiled up the two foot into one blue eye and the other which was partially open. "Nice to meet you, can you see OK to cook?"

"Yes ma'am, it's a little hard to focus but I'll get by." She spun her knife through her fingers unconsciously until Levi took the knife from her fingers. "Sorry, it's a habit."

"If you don't mind my asking, who did that to you?"

Brody dropped her head, tilting it to the side just a bit; she eyed both mother and daughter.

"I had a little run in with the police the other morning; they mistook me for a drug dealer when I showed up at work early."

"Brody why didn't you tell me?" Levi asked with fire in her eyes. "That's police brutality, did you press charges?"

Brody cupped her cheek, looked deeply into her eyes and told her that it was all taken care of and not to worry. That she didn't tell her because, she didn't want her to worry about not trusting the police when it was just a few that were bad.

Levi covered the large hand with her own, leaned into the warm palm and nodded her head.

"OK I understand."

Mrs. Straussenhofer watched her daughter with her very tall friend, she had never seen her daughter act the way she was now doing with any one. Her heart warmed at the thought that maybe finally Levi had found some one to love.

"OK, so are you ready to feed some starving people?" She took Brody by her upper arm and began to lead her to a work are that was reserved for the guest chefs. "If Levi gets in your way or drives you to the point of insanity, you have my permission to toss her into the walk-in freezer. And beware; she steals food quicker than you can blink an eye."

Levi planted her hands on her hips and glared at her mother, it turned into an impish grin when everyone with in hearing distance heard what had been said and acknowledged it as fact.

"Come on now, how much can I eat?"

"Half a cow!" Echoed through out the kitchen.

"Busted Levi. I'll take care of you, I'll toss you a shrimp every once in a while."

"See that some one loves me." Levi announced to the laughing chefs and her mother.

@@@@@@@@@@@@@

Levi sat on a stool by the table that Brody was working at; she was amazed at the speed in which Brody could de-vein shrimp. Her mouth was watering from the aromas coming from the skillet as the shrimp cooked, she couldn't wait to taste the finished dish. Reaching over, she grabbed a slice of lemon from the table and sucked the juice from it. Brody looked up and her face scrunched up, she could never figure out why the thought alone of lemons could cause such a reflex.

"That is gross Levi, how can you stand it?"

Levi gave her a grin and tossed the gnawed remains into the trash.
"I like those lemon drops to, the more sour the better I like it. When's it going to be done?"

"About ten minutes or so, can you check the rice for me while I take out the lemon slices and the bay leaves?" Pulling a shrimp from the skillet, she blew on it until it was cool enough to eat, taking a bite she moaned as the flavor burst in her mouth. Feeling green eyes boring into her, she offered the rest to Levi. Holding out the shrimp, she was surprised when Levi gently took her hand in hers, leaned forward and took the shrimp and her fingers into her mouth. She felt her knees go weak when a warm wet tongue wrapped around her fingers and lips sucked at them.

Green eyes rolled closed, and a deep moan rumbled in her chest. "Oohh Brody, this is so good."

You're telling me! "It's OK then?"

"More than OK, I'm a food critic remember and when I say something is heavenly then it's taken as gospel."

Brody chuckled at her; she had never known anyone who enjoyed food as much as Levi did.

"Are you sure your not biased?"

"Well maybe a little, but I'm aloud to." She ran a finger up Brody's arm to her neck and then pulled her down for a quick kiss. Brody blushed at the brashness of Levi to kiss her in front of the other people in the kitchen. "You going to make me up a plate?"

"Yep, can't have you starving on me now can I?"

Brody turned to fill a plate with rice and then started to pour the shrimp and other ingredients over the top. She stopped when she heard a familiar voice behind her. Eaves dropping she listened and felt her temper start to flare to life.

"There you are Levi, I was wondering if you would be in tonight."

"How many times do I have to tell you to get lost?"

Milton puffed up his bony chest and gave her a toothy smile, running a finger up her forearm; he saw the goose bumps rise across her skin.

"Your mouth may say to stay away but your body wants me."

Levi rolled her eyes and snorted at the arrogant scumbag.

"Ohh get real, you give me the creeps, why don't you get out of my way before I drop your sorry ass."

"Ohh please let me do the honors." Brody stepped up to Milton, grabbed him by his throat and lifted him clean off his feet. Her eyes a silvery color, her voice nothing more than a deep growl that sent shivers down Levi's back. "Next time I call and want to talk to Levi, I want you to break the land speed record on getting the phone to her." She pulled her knife, spun it between her fingers and cut a button off his shirt. "Because if you don't, I will come in here," Another button hit the floor. "And gut you like a fish." With a quick flick of her wrist, the rest of his buttons flew off his shirt and scattered across the floor. Dropping him into a heap, she took Levi by her hand and shot him a glare. "And stay away from Levi." She took her back to the table where her plate was waiting. "That was fun; I worked up an appetite doing that." She looked up at the other chefs who were busting out laughing. "Why are they laughing?"

"You just made our millennium, no one can stand Milton." She stepped closer to Brody, wrapped her arms around her and leaned into her body. "Thank you." She stood on her tiptoes and placed a soft kiss on Brody's lips.

@@@@@@@@@

With her first bite of Brody's Creole shrimp dish. Mrs. Straussenhofer moaned with pleasure.

"Ask her if she wants a job!" She placed another forkful into her mouth and moaned again.

"She likes her job at the docks, she works with her grandparents. But just maybe, I can get her to come in once a week and cook for us."

Judy looked to her daughter with narrowed eyes. "I'll pay her double of what the other guest chefs get and she can pick any day of the week."

Levi gave her mother a brief hug and a kiss on her cheek. "I'll ask her tonight when we get home."

"Let me know what she says, with a talent like hers, she should be a real chef."

I would love to see what other talents she has. "I'll see what I can do, bye Ma I'll see you tomorrow."

@@@@@@@@@@@

Levi grabbed the jar of Bubba's mystery salve from Brody's dresser, she knew she was going to throw a fit when she made her sit down and let her put the stuff on her. But it seemed to be helping a lot what ever the stuff was, she would have to ask her what was in it.

"Ohhh Rocky, time for your medicine!" She went through Brody's condo looking for her; she cheeked every room and came up empty. "Where are you hiding you big baby." Scratching her head, she stopped and listened for any kind of noise. Stopping when she heard a squeaking noise coming from the bathroom, she reached around the doorframe and flipped on the light. Not seeing her prey, she was about to turn the light off when she heard the noise again. A wide grin split her face, walking slowly to the shower; she whipped the curtain back to find Brody standing on the very edge of the tub with her hands braced against the walls.

"What are you doing?"

A wide blue eye gazed down at her. "Uuhhmm…checking for mildew?"

"Nice try, now get down here and let me put this stuff on you."

"But…I…shit!" She stepped across from the back of the tub and looked down at Crusty. "It's not funny; this was your stupid idea of a hiding place."

Levi shook her head at her, she still couldn't believe that Brody had a lobster living in her bathtub let alone that she talked to it.

"You're a little bully Levi."

Taking Brody by her hand, she dragged her into her bedroom and pushed her down onto the edge of her bed.

"And you're a big baby; now take off your shirt."

A mischievous grin came to Brody's face; she wiggled her brows at her and took off her shirt.

"A little bully who wants me half-naked."

Not half-Naked, bare ass is what I want and right on top of me.
Opening the lid, she could make out the smell of peppermint and something else that smelled familiar. Taking a finger full of the stuff, she spread it over the fading bruise on Brody's ribcage. Rubbing it in brought a low moan from Brody's parted lips. Her head tilted back and her eyes closed, Brody enjoyed the warm fingers touching her skin. She was wondering if she could get Levi to rub it all over her body.

Levi felt her fingers start to tingle when she touched the warm flesh on Brody's side. When she finally paid attention to what she was doing, she noticed that she had covered areas that weren't bruised. Brody didn't seem to notice so she put the jar down and explored with both hands. Running them slowly up from hips to just below her breasts and around to knead the muscles of her lower back. When she heard a deep moan, shocks went right to her center. Stepping in between Brody's parted legs, she leaned forward and kissed the length of her throat and across her jaw until she came to the sensitive area below a diamond-studded ear. Her hands traveled up a strong muscular back to stop in the middle and trail fingertips back down Brody's spine. Levi felt Brody's breath catch in her chest and felt her pulse race beneath her wandering lips. Large hands rested on trim hips, pulling Levi in closer between her legs, she could just about feel her against her center. Moving closer to the edge of the bed, she wrapped her legs around Levi's hips and locked her ankles. Levi pulled back and looked into a deep blue eye, gently running a finger below the swollen one; she leaned forward and placed a gentle kiss to the multicolored brow. Continuing to place soft kisses across a high cheekbone until she reached waiting lips, the kiss started out gentle, almost chaste in manner. Brody wanted more, flicking her tongue out she traced Levi's bottom lip until she felt them part for her. With long strokes, she caressed Levi's tongue, bringing a deep moan that neither one of them knew who it came from nor not caring as their blood turned to molten lava and surged downward to enflame southern regions. Air was pulled through their noses as the kiss deepened to fuse their lips together. Hands found their way under clothing and across bare flesh to memorize the textures and sounds, the touches caused.

"LEVI PHONE! IT'S YOUR MA!" A loud voice bellowed through out the two condos. Neither one of them stopped their exploring nor the heated kiss.

Teddy stepped through the hole and watched her two friends.

"Did you hear me? It's your Ma and she says it's an emergency."

The word emergency broke through to Levi, she broke the kiss went to step back and lost her balance. Brody caught off guard was pulled with her as they fell to the floor leaving Brody with her face buried between Levi's ample breasts.

Teddy stepped closer, an evil grin on her face she looked down into blinking green eyes. "I think the fish Princess is suffocating. Anyway, your ma is on the phone waiting for you."

"I hate you Teddy bear." She mumbled.

Brody snuggled her face down between Levi's breasts, a long sigh came from her as she breathed in the soft scent and felt the warmth against her face. This was one place she could stay for eternity. She groaned when she felt fingers moving through her hair and then the tips of her ears being pulled.

"Rocky I have to get the phone, it's Ma and she says it's an emergency."

"Ohh shit! She rolled off Levi, jumped to her feet and then helped her up, still holding her hand, they rushed passed a smirking Teddy and ran through the hole and out to the living room to grab the cordless phone.

"Ma are you and Dad OK?"

"Yeah we're fine, did I interrupt something? I really need a huge favor from you and Brody."

Levi rolled her eyes and sighed, dropping down on the couch she sunk back into the cushions.

Her voice sounded harsh even to her ears, but she could care less, she and Brody had finally started to move further with their relationship and it had been thrown out the window.

"Yeah you did. I thought this was an emergency?"

"Well you can go back to what ever it was later. Ohh it is, Thomas was in a car accident on his way home, he broke his leg and can't come to work for the next six weeks. Can you please ask Brody if she would fill in for him?"

Green eyes tracked to where Brody was standing in front of her with her hands held shoulder height and width as she mouthed the words. "What's wrong?"

"The head chef broke his leg and Ma wants to know if you'll fill in at the restaurant?"

Brody covered her face and dragged her hands downward so that her blue eye was looking over the top of her fingers. Taking a deep breath, she nodded yes. Now that Levi thought about it, a bright smile came to her lips, with Brody at Giorgio's she would be able to spend more time with the tall gorgeous dockworker. "She said yes Ma. Gotta go, we'll be there tomorrow night." She hung up before her mother could say another word.

"Thank you." She got up and stepped onto the coffee table, with one finger she motioned Brody to come closer. Brody in return pointed to her chest and replied. "Me?"

"Not Teddy bear the intruder, that's for damn sure. Come closer." When Brody stepped with in an inch, her lips were captured in a kiss that had her knees going weak. Levi wrapped her arms around Brody's neck, and ran her blunt nails across the tender skin there. She felt Brody shiver against her and a low moan rumble in her chest.

"EXCUSE ME! YOU TWO ARE BLOCKING THE TV!"

Two frustrated and pissed off woman came apart with snarling noises to cast force ten glares at Teddy. She just waved her hands in the air, pointed the remote control at them, and clicked it.

"MOVE!"

"Levi, do you think the higher powers are telling us something?"

Green eyes flashed at Teddy, and then a finger jabbed in her direction.

"Yeah, that I should become a homicidal maniac and kill Teddy!"

Teddy stuck her tongue out at her, turned the TV on and ignored the threat of death.

"Come on little bully, I have an idea." Brody lifted Levi off the table and put her right beside Teddy; she then sat on the other side and made sure that she was really close to the now annoyed woman. Brody leaned back, caught Levi's attention, and then winked. When the first commercial came on, Brody sang right along with it at the top of her lungs. It only took six commercials before Teddy was running from the living room screaming. Brody reached for Levi and pulled her against her side, wrapping her arms around her; she laid them back on the couch and rolled them onto their sides.

"Would it be all right if we just cuddled together?"

"That would be more than all right." She felt Brody spoon against her back, tuck her face against her neck and wrap an arm around her stomach. With in minutes both women were sound asleep and snoring loudly.

Teddy snuck into the living room and looked over the back of the couch. The corner of her lip rose and a snarling noise came from deep in her chest. "Rat bitches." Snatching the remote control, she went around the couch and took a spot on the floor. Flipping the channels until she found Buffy the Vampire Slayer, she lay down and prayed that in this episode that Willow and Buffy would run off together.

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

Sometime during their nap, Brody and Levi turned to face each other. Levi's face was stuck to Brody's chest and when she pulled her head away, it made a suction type noise. Blurry eyes opened to take in the darkness of the living room with the flickering of light dancing across the ceiling. The soft murmur of the TV playing in the background, in accompaniment to the soft snores from the other three women that were still sleeping. Green eyes tracked the tanned flesh before her all the way to a strong jaw. Dancing fingertips, trailed the skin there to stop right over moist pink lips.

"You are such a beautiful woman and I can't believe that I'm lying here with you."

"You're staring." A deep rough voice came from Brody. "Is it like a past time thing for you?"

Bright green eyes looked further until they connected with sleepy blue. "Just a recent thing I seemed to have picked up." Looking between both eyes a huge grin came across her face. "I can see both your eyes, can you see out of the left one yet?"

Brody blinked her eyes a few times; a lopsided smile came to her face. "I can see just fine, does it look all right?"

Levi came up onto one elbow and looked closer; using one finger, she gently lifted a still slightly swollen and bruised eyelid. "It's just a little blood shot; it looks a hell of a lot better than it did a few days ago. Roll over and let me check your back, maybe we can get the sutures out if it's healed enough."

"Ya know you're the only one besides my grandparents that can order me around? I was taught to show respect for the wee folks." She dodged the fingers that came towards her ribs but wasn't expecting Levi to change tactics and start tickling her feet. Nothing bothered her more than someone touching her feet. She lost all control, she roared with deep belly laughs as she wiggled to get away from Levi.

"I…GIVE!" She yelled and received a slap in her chest from a hand that came from the floor. Two bodies launched on to the couch with enough force to knock it over backwards. With arms and legs in a jumble, it was hard to tell who was who. It didn't matter to a little blonde, her teeth sunk into the nearest limb.

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I swear she's the smallest biting machine around." Teddy rubbed her ass where Levi had sunk her teeth in. "She's like one of those chopper things on TV that slices and dices."

"And she doesn't cost $19.99 with shipping charges. Just a side of beef a week." Shane added and enjoyed rubbing the sore area for her wife. "I'll kiss it and make it better."

"Don't have to ask me twice!" Teddy grabbed her hand and they ran for their bedroom.

Brody watched as the two took off, and then swung her head to look at a grinning Levi. "You're sooo bad! Lets go to bed…I mean separately…"

"Brody lets go to bed." She took the tall woman's hand and pulled her towards her bedroom. There was no way in hell that she was going to let Brody away from her. Once in the bedroom, Brody found her arms full of clinging Levi. Loosing her balance, she fell backwards to land in the center of her bed and all thought processes went out the window when a warm mouth latched onto her hardened nipple. Her back arched and a low guttural moan poured from her throat. Looking down at the top of a golden head sucking greedily upon her breast, sent shivers through her aroused body. Small fingers pinched and rolled her other nipple, while a muscular thigh pressed up against her throbbing center. She was going insane with all the emotions that were ripping through her body as Levi kissed her way down her body and stopped at the very edge of her waistband. Green eyes looked up and held blue, the glint in those green eyes was enough to make her heart skip a beat. A feral growl came from Levi as she crawled her way up Brody's long body to stop mere inches from her lips.

"I want you." Was all she said before she captured Brody's lips in a searing kiss. With fumbling hands, clothes were shed and tossed to the floor. Deep moans came from them when bare skin touched for the first time causing passions to rise higher. Brody flipped Levi over and covered her body with hers, pressing her hips downward onto her muscular thigh, she brought her own up to rub against a wet center. Nipping at the throbbing point of Levi's neck, Brody sucked until she felt Levi squirm beneath her. Moving her mouth across damp skin, she kissed until she came to firm breasts and pulled a hard nipple between her lips. Small fingers wrapped in her hair and pushed her head lower to where Levi wanted her. Lifting her head, she looked into dilated eyes and growled. Her long fingers brushed against sweat-dampened skin to brush through short wet curls.

"What do you want Levi?"

"Oohh…Gods…down!" She cried out when she felt long fingers run between her wet nether lips. As soon as Brody started to move, Levi yelled no and tried to pull her back up. "Turn…around." She said in between gasping breaths. A wicked grin came across Brody's face, turning her body around she reached out with her tongue and took her first taste of her lover's juices. A deep groan rumbled in her chest, as she plunged her tongue between nether lips. Then a warm wet tongue licked her making her hips thrust against Levi's mouth. Levi wrapped her arms around Brody's thighs and pulled herself closer to her lover's center, licking and sucking at her swollen lips with abandon. They each could feel the other getting closer to the desired edge as bodies tensed and bucked with each lick. Levi slipped two fingers into her lover's center and pulled her pulsing clit between lips. Thrusting with the same rhythm as she was sucking, she felt Brody plunge her tongue into her center. With in seconds their bodies convulsed and bucked, screams stifled against flesh as their climaxes tore through them. As the last of the tremors racked their bodies, Brody rolled over onto her side and gulped for air. She felt a sweat dampened body move to lay sprawled across her.

"I love you Levi." She whispered close to her small ear. With those three simple words, Levi's heart just about burst with happiness. Looking into tear filled blue eyes, she poured out her feelings. "I love you to." The rest of the night, they made slow passionate love to each other until they fell asleep in each other's arms from exhaustion.

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With their hair still wet from a rushed shower, Brody and Levi came through the back door in to the kitchen and ran right in to Levi's mother. Her hands planted on her hips, foot tapping, green eyes narrowed in annoyance, she pointed her finger at her daughter.

"I was getting ready to call the Marines in to find you. You two are a half hour late."

Levi held her hand up to stop what she knew would be a long lecture about her punctuality.
"We were busy and lost track of time." She cast a sideways glance at a smirking Brody. "But we're here now." She felt a blush working its way up her neck from the visions of what they had been doing all day. Judy shook her head when she saw that both women were walking a little stiff.

"Do you think she knows?" Brody whispered to a smirking Levi.

"Nah, how could she?" She stiffened when she heard her name yelled across the kitchen.

"Levi it's about damn time!" She looked over her shoulder to see her mother standing with her arms crossed over her chest and grinning.

"How could she?" Brody mimicked Levi's voice and got a good smack to her stomach.

Brody was standing at the food station looking over the box of fresh jumbo shrimp and scallops. Raising her eyebrow, she glanced sideways at Levi whose eyes were looking at something entirely different.

"Should I use skewers or not?"

"Skewers? Too much pain, small needle."

"Levi what in the hell are you talking about?" She held up a shrimp and waved it in front of blank green eyes. "Grilled or stir fried?"

Levi was trying to join all the words that Brody had spoken with what she was thinking and became confused as to why Brody would want to stir fry her nipples. She reached out and ran her fingertip over the hardened nipple that was poking against Brody's T-shirt. "Pierced, silver hoops." A weird grin came over her face and made her look crazed. "With a silver chain attached." She brought her eyes up to meet blue.

"So, you want me to get my nipples pierced and put them on a leash?" A blonde head nodded. "And attach the leash to Crusty." Levi nodded then her mouth dropped open when she realized what Brody had said.

"What?"

"Should I make grilled shrimp or Stir fry?"

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It had been a week with Brody cooking at the restaurant and cooking for hours with Levi once they got home. She had never been happier than what she was now, for once in her life, she didn't miss the work at the docks but she knew she would have to go back to work. Her grandparents depended on her and she couldn't let them down. She lay in bed with Levi snuggled up to her side, running her hand up and down her arm she stared at the ceiling in thought.

"Whatcha thinking?" A sleepy voice drifted up to her.

"I thought you were sleeping? Just about work, ya know going back and being around grandpa."

"Can I go with you in the morning?"

"Levi, I get up before the sun." She snorted at the thought of Levi up before the sunset.

"I want to go with you, wake me up, please?"

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Brody sat on the edge of the bed and shook Levi to try and wake her up; lifting one eyelid, she saw a dilated eye rolling downward.

"Wakey wakey, its 3am time to play with fish."

Levi mumbled and rolled over to bury her face in Brody's pillow. "Tell Charlie tuna ta kiss my ass." Brody leaned over her and traced her ear with the tip of her tongue, when Levi started to shiver she purred into her ear. "I'll take Charlie Tuna for bacon, egg and cheese biscuits." She jumped back when Levi rolled out of the bed and staggered towards the bathroom. Lying back on the bed with a lecherous grin on her face, she watched her naked lover.

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"EEEWWW! Gods Brody how can you stand the smell?" Levi covered her face with the collar of her coat.

"I can't, even after all these years." She pulled her huge jar of Vicks from her pocket. "I stuff my nose with this, after that I can't smell a damn thing." Handing the jar over, she then opened the door and led Levi to the storeroom where they kept the spare rubber aprons, knee high rubber boots and thick gloves. Levi was lost in the large clothing; the boots came past her knees and the gloves up to her biceps.

"Brody what am I going to do this morning besides fall over my feet?"

"Pack fish, shrimp, lobsters and crabs. It's easy; ya just throw them in a box and cover them with ice."

Two hours later, Levi was throwing ice at Brody trying to get her attention. "When's lunch, I'm hungry!" She whined pitifully and put her best pouting look on her face. "You never feed me, Captain Hook." That earned her a raised eyebrow look. "Well it's true, it's been hours since we ate."

"Grandma should be here soon, she's bringing fresh bagels and all the trimmings." She wiggled her brows. "Plus triple mochas."

@@@@@@@@@@@

After they got home, they went into Brody's bathroom, Brody leaned against the back with Levi leaning against her chest. They soaked in the bleach-scented bathtub until they were wrinkled like raisons and the nasty fish smell was gone. Levi knew that if there was any living germ on her body now, it was one lucky little bastard. Stepping from Brody's bedroom into her own, she looked at the hole that they used as a secret type passage. Running her hand down the wall, she looked over her shoulder at her lover.

"What are we going to do about this?"

Her heart dropped to her feet, she would miss just walking from one room to the other. "I was going to go tomorrow and get the drywall and fix it."

"I have a better idea, how about if we just knock the whole wall down and make one huge bedroom?"

"Are you serious? I mean I…"

"Yep, I am." She walked up to her, wrapped her arms around her waist and leaned up for a kiss. "Can we close off my bathroom and put a door in the other room for the juveniles? That way they'd have their own bathroom and we can use yours."

"We'll do it tomorrow after I get home from work."

"WE get home from work, I'm going with you. Captain Hook."

"You just want to eat all the caviar that grandma keeps in the refrigerator."

"Not only that, it's being able to look up into beautiful eyes all day long." She gave her grinning lover a smile. "Your grandpa is a cute little thing and has very expressive eyes."

"What?" Brody's eyebrows dropped down over her nose.

"Gotcha!" She placed a lingering kiss on pink lips and pulled Brody with her to the living room, where she knew Teddy and Shane were at and trying to eavesdrop on their conversation.

@@@@@@@

Teddy watched them enter the room dressed in their robes. "If it ain't the Gorton fishermen." She tossed the phone to Levi and plugged her ears before she gave her the bad news. "Call your pissed off mother, something about a missing chef."

"All nonono NO! I am not doing this, she can cook herself tonight." She placed the phone on the end table and paced the floor. "This is our night off, we can't work all morning lugging fish around and then spend all night cooking and having to stay until closing time at two am!" She started jumping up and down in a temper tantrum until she jumped right into Brody's body.

"I can do it if she needs someone to cook, it's no problem." Blue eyes showed her concern, she would help Levi's mom any way she could.

"Brody, mom has a total of 8 chefs that rotate days off, she can call one of them in." She leaned her head against her lover's chest and sighed. "I just want to relax and cuddle with you tonight."

Shane cleared her throat when she noticed small hands working their way inside the front of Brody's robe. "Hellooooo remember us over here watching and for some stupid reason NOT taking notes?" She threw a pillow at them and ducked when it came back faster. "If she calls what are we supposed to tell her?'

"I've been kidnapped by a pirate and I'm on my way to Alaska to hunt whales."

Teddy's face lit up, she leaned over the back of the couch and waved her arms at Levi. "Will ya get me one of those baby seals? I love little fuzzy baby's and it can live in your bathtub with crusty." She clasped her hands together and pleaded. "Pleeeease! I'll gmmph." Shane covered her wives mouth and dragged her back down onto the couch.

"Take her with you and use her for whale bait."

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Brody stagger stepped to the front door because Levi was half asleep, wrapped around her and standing on the tops of her feet. She told her that she didn't have to go to the docks that she could stay home and sleep but she would have none of it and got dressed. Before Brody could get her shoes on, Levi had fallen back on the bed to snore loud enough to wake the dead. She tried to sneak from the bedroom and lost when Levi stumbled up to her and put her in the death grip that she was still in. Stumbling all the way to her truck, she unlocked Levi's arms and put her on the passenger side and ran around to the other side and slipped onto the seat. When she pulled up to the docks, She lifted Levi up from her lap and leaned her against the passenger side door.

"I can't believe she's slept through all of this." She ran her fingers through her hair and snickered at hearing the deep snore from the closed up truck. "I could leave you in there and you can scare car thieves away with that noise?" Shaking her head, she went around and opened the door. "Shrimp bait time for work." Whispering in her ear she said. "I stole all the marshmallows out of your lucky charms!" When Levi didn't flinch she tried again. Grabbing her secret weapon from behind the seat, she shook the little box of Captain Crunch next to Levi's ear and watched her eyes pop open.

"Mine!" She grabbed the box and ripped the top open.

"Come on lets get inside, its cold out here."

Levi followed her into the warehouse eating the cereal by tipping the box up to her mouth.

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Janice Banks sat at a table in a greasy spoon restaurant that she frequented after bar hopping. It may look like rats and roaches served the food but you couldn't beat the price or the Western omelets they were famous for. Still dressed in her butch clothes and unrecognizable, she leaned back in the booth and couldn't help but over hear the men talking behind her, she paid little attention to their conversation until a familiar voice clicked on her ears.

"It's all set, I've been watching that bitch every morning, she gets to the warehouse between four am and five. So last night, I broke in and put ten propane tanks in there and opened the valves. The minute I call and that ancient phone they have rings its little bell. KABOOM! No more Brody O'Sullivan or whatever the hell her name is and we're free and clear. As soon as we get that narc that is"

Janice stiffened at the mention of Brody's name, easing from the bench; she went out the door and to her car. Pulling her cell phone from her pocket, she leaned against the door and called the precinct and waited until her boss picked up. Explaining to him what she had just over heard in the restaurant, she hung up and jumped into her car. Slipping the flashing light onto her dashboard, she flipped on the siren and tore off in the direction of the warehouse.

@@@@@@@@@

Brody sniffed the air, grabbing a hold of Levi's arm and stopped her in her tracks. "Do you smell that?" She asked as her eyes traveled around the dark warehouse. "It smells like…propane."

Levi sniffed the air and started to where she thought she saw something that she hadn't seen the day before. Pointing a finger, she called Brody's name. "That's a propane tank isn't it?"

Blue eyes widened when she saw the white tank that was used for BBQ grills. "Ohh shit!" She mumbled, grabbed Levi's hand and started running for the door to the docks. She was within two feet of the door when the phone started ringing. A low whooshing noise started in the small office to become a roar in a matter of seconds. Brody pulled Levi into her body and launched them against the door, the blast sent them and the door outward as the warehouse exploded. They lost all thought when the loud noise deafened their eardrums and the intense heat flowed across their tumbling bodies. They hit the hard pavement in a tangle of arms and legs. Brody got to her knees and crawled to where Levi lay on her side. Throwing her body over hers, she protected her from the debris raining down on them. A searing pain hit her upper back and thighs, shaking her leg's, she felt a heaviness holding her in place.

"Levi can you hear me?" She yelled because she couldn't hear her self speak. Pressing her upper body up as far as the pinning weight would allow. She looked down at a dirt-smudged face but couldn't see clearly. "LEVI!" She screamed again and saw her stir beneath her, sighing in relief; she dropped her head and struggled with the weight resting on her body. Green eyes opened slowly and looked around her and then up to Brody's hovering body, she saw the stress she was under and quickly moved out from under her only to be knocked back down by another explosion. Scrambling to her lover's side, she grabbed the large piece of steel in her hands and screamed when it burned her. Ignoring the excruciating pain, she pushed it off of Brody and then helped her to her feet. Wrapping their arms around each other, they stumbled to a safe area across the road. Easing Brody down to the ground, Levi cupped her face between her hands and searched her eyes.

"Are you OK?" She yelled and watched Brody nod her head. Kissing her softly, she wrapped her arms around her neck and buried her soot covered face against Brody's neck. Out of the corner of her eye, Brody saw flashing lights from different vehicles coming towards them and then Crusty's truck came roaring up to them from the opposite direction. Before the truck had stopped, he and Bubba were out and making their way over to the two women. Bubba leaned over and cupped the dirty faces of Brody and Levi, tears poured from her eyes when she saw that they were OK.

"I'm so glad that you two are alright." She mumbled as she pulled them into her arms and held onto them. Crusty gripped his wife's shoulder, gave them all a quick hug and pointed to where the fire chief was standing; Bubba nodded her head and continued to hold the younger women.

"What the hell happened to my warehouse?" Crusty yelled over all the noise.

"Sorry sir, we won't know until the fire inspector takes a look."

"You're kidding right? I felt the damn explosion ten blocks away!"

The fire chief held out a hand to Crusty when he saw one of his firefighters coming towards him with what was left of a propane tank.

"Do you keep propane tanks in there?" The chief asked.

"No, I used to keep fish in there, what the hell would I need propane for?"

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Janice saw the flames shooting into the still dark sky, she knew that she was too late; she hoped that Brody had not been in the warehouse when it exploded. Taking a short cut to the warehouses, she took a sharp turn down a side street and came up to where Crusty's truck was sitting. In the light of her headlights, she could see Brody and two other women standing near the tailgate. Getting out of her car, she ran up to Brody and laid a hand on her upper arm.

"Ohhh Jesus you were in there weren't you?" Her eyes narrowed when Brody pointed to her ears and yelled that she couldn't hear her.

"Who are you?" Bubba asked the rough looking women dressed in faded Levi's and leather bomber jacket.

Glancing at Bubba, she told her who she was. "I'm Detective Janice Barns, Internal affairs."

"Well Detective, my granddaughter and her lover were almost killed! What are you gonna do about it?"

It was then that she noticed that Brody had her arm wrapped around the other women's waist and had her pressed close to her side.

"I know who did this and as soon as I catch the bastards, they will never see the light of day."

Bubba threw her blue haired head back and gave out a bark of laughter. "Lady we've heard that before."

Janice dropped her head; she knew that Bubba was right. The judge had released the cops that attacked Brody because they were cops. "It'll be different this time, I promise." Laying a hand on Brody's arm, she motioned to an ambulance not far from where they were. She grinned when Brody pulled Levi against her chest and shook her head.

"Just let them check your ears." She pointed to her own ears and then to the ambulance. She was relieved when Levi pulled away from Brody, took her hand and led them over to be checked out.

@@@@@@@@@

After the Brody threatened to rip the paramedic's arms off for touching Levi's chest while examining her for injuries, they were released to go home with strict instructions to return to the hospital if they had any problems. The small group pulled up to Levi's condo and went inside so that she and Brody could clean up and then explain to her grandparents and Janice what had happened. The minute they walked through the door, Teddy was there in her silk boxers and nothing else. Before Bubba could clamp a hand over Crusty's eyes, his mouth fell open and his dentures hit the floor. Teddy took one look at her friends, her dark brows drew down over her nose and she yelled for Shane.

"Mama let me look, what could happen?"

"You could have a heart attack and drop dead ya old buzzard that's what!"

Shane peeked into the living room, saw all the people and then a topless Teddy standing with her hands planted on her hips. Mumbling under her breath, she ran back to their room and got her shirt. She knew that Teddy could care less who saw her but she was not about share her wife's body with no one. Throwing the shirt at her head, she stepped in front of her and jabbed her in her chest.

"I can't believe you Teddy Bear, scaring an old man like that." Turning to Levi, she pointed a finger at her, and you're just as guilty as she is, letting her stand there like that!"

Levi shrugged her shoulders and grinned. "SHE AIN'T MY WIFE!" She yelled and made everyone cover his or her ears but Brody.

"Why are you yelling?" Shane asked her.

Before Levi could answer, Bubba clapped a hand over her mouth. "The warehouse blew up with them in it; they're deaf from the noise." Gripping Brody and Levi's shoulders, she pushed them to where she thought the bathroom was. "Go get cleaned up and then we'll talk."

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Janice had Brody and Levi start at the very beginning, from the moment they pulled into the parking lot to when they found themselves outside after the explosion. She kept cringing every time one of them would speak until Shane handed her a wad of cotton to put in her ears. Seeing that Brody and Levi were tired and in pain, she assured them that she would make sure that the guilty cops put away. With her being a witness to their plans, she should have no problem getting a different judge, to get a court order for their arrest on arson charges and what ever else she could think of. Crusty was worried about his warehouse and what the insurance company would say. She guaranteed him that she would call them personally and tell them what happened so that he would be able to collect the money from his policy. Shaking every ones hands, she left the small group and headed to her office with an evil grin covering her face.

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Levi and Brody's hearing was gradually coming back, every one was grateful for that fact since they were in danger of losing their own from them screaming. Now only a slight buzzing rattled their ears.
"You two go lay down before you fall down." Bubba ordered. "I'll stop by tomorrow with some medicine for you two; I know your hands must be hurting." She caressed Levi's face and gave her a kiss on her cheek. "Take care of that stubborn grandkid of mine; I know her back is hurting her."

"Don't worry Bubba I'll take care of her." An evil grin came to her lips when she looked over her shoulder at her lover.

"I don't mean banging her until she drops either." She chuckled at the light blush that crept up Levi's neck. Giving Levi a wink. "Let me get the old buzzard home so I can bang him until his dentures fall out."

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Brody fell face first onto the bed and let out a deep groan, her body felt like a train had hit her doing at least mach 50 and then came back to hit her again. A sharp pain radiated through her thighs and lower back, she knew that moving would be a painful experience for the next couple of days. She turned slowly onto her side and whimpered.

"Levi I hurt." She whined pitifully.

"I know baby, let me get something and I'll give you a backrub."

A few minutes later, she came into the bedroom with a bottle of eucalyptus oil. Undressing her lover, she had her lay on her stomach. A gasp came from her when she saw the dark ugly bruises on Brody's body.

"I think you should see a doctor, this looks really bad." She poured the oil in her hands and started on the backs of her thighs.

"No doctor. I have you."

After taking her time and massaging the oil into her lover's bruised thighs, she ran her hands up Brody's lower back and heard a low moan came from her lover and then a soft snore. Wiping her hands off, she undressed and crawled into bed beside her, snuggled up to her warm body and drifted off to sleep to the sounds of soft snoring.

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Feet running through the house and down the hallway alerted Brody that something was wrong, to add to her suspicions, voices rang right outside the bedroom door.

"You can't go in there, Levi's indisposed." Shane's muffled voice was heard and then Teddy's

"Yeah what she said. She's with Blue beard."

Brody could imagine the two women blocking the door with their bodies to keep who ever it was from getting to her and Levi. She flinched when two yelps were heard and then the door flew inward to show one pissed off Mrs. Straussenhofer. Her green eyes flashing and a snarl on her lips. Brody yanked the blankets over their heads and buried her face in the center of her lover's back.

Her voice bellowed throughout the room causing Brody to flinch and Levi to mumble in her sleep. "You two had better get your asses out of that bed NOW!" She stomped over, whipped the covers off their feet, grabbed Levi's one foot and yanked. "Listen here you six toed sloth, I called for you and you avoided me." She pulled harder until Levi came fully awake, flipped the covers from her head and gawked at her mom. Brody's mind came to life with the mention of six toes. She had forgotten about looking and now she had her chance.

"Ma what are you doing here?"

"I came to get your lazy ass out of bed and ask your women if she wants a full time job. That's what I'm doing here." She jumped back from the bed when Brody launched herself up, tackled Levi's ankles and looked at her feet.

"You do have six toes!" She grabbed the extra toes on her lover's feet and grinned when they wiggled. "They're so cute."

Judy snickered at her blushing daughter, she couldn't figure out why Brody hadn't noticed the extra toes since they slept together. Then again, there were two parts of her daughter's body that had Brody's attention. It was quite obvious by the hickeys all over them. Then she noticed the bruises over Brody's back.

"What the Hell do you two do in bed that you end up looking like you fought Mike Tyson?"

Levi pulled her feet from her lover, wrapped a blanket around her body and smacked a wandering hand.

"I never got back to you because we almost got blown up in Crusty's warehouse."

Judy dropped down on the edge of the bed, her jaw worked a few times before words came out.

"What? Blown up, what the Hell were you two doing?"

"Ma'am it wasn't us…" Brody started to say.

"Nope, can't blame youngin this time." Bubba replied from the doorway. "Damn crooked ass cops did it. Now me and Crusty can retire and have some money to get that penis enlarger he's always needed." She stepped closer to Judy and held out her small pudgy hand. "I'm Bubba, Brody's grandma."

Judy was beginning to like Brody and her relatives a lot. She liked people that had as warped of a sense of humor as she herself had.

"Glad to meet you, I came over to offer Brody a full time job as my head chef. Mine quit the other night and with Brody being the best chef I've ever had in my restaurant in a long time, I wanted to grab her up before someone else did." She gave Brody's shoulder a slight squeeze. "So how about it, will you work for your lover's mom?"

Brody was speechless; she looked between the other women and then back to Bubba. "Grandma?"

"Brody your hearts always been in the kitchen cooking fancy meals." She stepped closer and laid a hand against her granddaughter's cheek. "Two words youngin, do it."

"But…what about…"

"Don't worry about me and Crusty, after the insurance settlement we'll have a lot of money even after we give you half." She saw that Brody was about to argue and stopped her with a finger against her lips. "You have always been a full partner in the company, use the money to buy your woman there a nice big engagement ring and take her to Paris or something." She chuckled at the light blush that covered Brody's face. "Besides, now I'll have plenty of time to make more wine."

Judy's eyebrows buried themselves in her hairline. "Wine? You make wine?" She took Bubba's hand and led her from the bedroom, Levi and Brody could hear their voices as they moved down the hallway.

"I think mom just got a new wine supplier." Levi said as she rolled over and lay against Brody's side.

"Maybe Bubba got a new Bingo partner, ya think?" Levi wiggled her eyebrows at her. "I think we should lock the door and romp around in bed the rest of the day."

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Brody smashed her chef's hat down on her head so that it flopped back against her neck, she didn't care what anyone said she knew she looked stupid with the thing on. Every time Levi came up to her she would straighten it and run off to be out of range of a well-placed foot. It had been a week since she started as the head chef at Giorgio's, tonight she was cooking a meal that she had created. Judy had closed the doors for the first time ever to have a sort of family get together and a party for the engagement of her daughter and Brody. The two women had thrown a fit about it but lost ought when they were out numbered. They agreed to the party but wanted to have their commitment union in the park under the stars with just a select few. Brody put the finishing touches on the last plate and placed it on the large tray that she would carry out herself. Using her hip to open the door to the dinning area, she almost dropped the tray when she saw all her friends sitting at the tables. What surprised her most was Janice and the female officer that had helped her while she was in jail, sitting very close together. Moving over to where Levi was sitting with her mom, Crusty and Bubba, she placed the tray on the small stand and handed each one a plate. Putting one with three times the amount of food on it in front of Levi, she bent over and gave her a gentle kiss.

"Can't have you starving to death on me."

Levi picked up a breaded shrimp and held it out to her lover, she moaned when her fingers were taking into Brody's mouth and gently sucked.

"Eat up; you'll need your strength later." She winked and then sat down next to her at the table.

After way to many toasts to the young couple, the group of people were feeling no pain from the flowing Champaign and Bubba's wine. Levi and Brody had tried to sneak out but kept getting caught. Brody raised her left eyebrow and nodded her head to the table; Levi gave her an evil grin, dropped her napkin and dropped under the table. Before anyone noticed that they were gone, they had crawled on their hands and knees to the kitchen and then ran out the back door to the alley.

"Flash backs." Levi growled after she launched herself into her lover's arms and wrapped around her taller body.

"Yep." Brody growled back and captured her lover's lips in a soul-searing kiss. When they came up for air, she carried her to their new truck, placed her inside and ran around to the driver's side. Pulling out of the parking lot, she headed towards the park. Glancing over to Levi, she gave her a smirk.

"Captain Crunch what are we doing here?"

"Ohh I thought we'd go look for that horny werewolf."

They walked to the small gazebo in the center of the park, once inside, Brody dropped to her knees and took Levi's hand in hers. Looking up into misty green eyes, she placed a kiss on her knuckles and searched for the words to her heart.

"This is gonna piss off a lot of people but I don't want to wait." She cleared her dry throat and spoke quietly. "I've never been one to use romantic words or be poetic, and singing the wiener song just doesn't seem appropriate for this." She took a deep breath and locked eyes with Levi. "So I'm just going to try and tell you how you make me feel. With one look you can make my heart stop beating and weaken my knees, your touch causes my blood to boil, a single kiss takes my breath away and waking up next to you is where I want to be till my dying day and beyond." She pulled a diamond-encrusted wedding band from her pocket and held it up to sparkle under the full moon. "Will you marry me?"

Tears over flowed from Levi's eyes, she bit back a sob when she slipped her finger through the ring. Wrapping her arms around Brody's head, she pulled her to her and pressed her face to her stomach. Dropping down to her knees, she pulled Brody's face close to hers and kissed her so thoroughly that Brody fell weakened against her when the kiss broke.

"Yes." Was all she said before she pulled a ring from her pocket and held it out to her lover. "For years I searched for my other half, night after night I looked and left with a huge hole where my heart was. You've filled that empty place in me and more, my soul sings the second you come with in my sight. My heart fills with over flowing love when I think of you and waking up in your arms every morning is the only place I want to be." She slipped the matching wedding band onto Brody's finger and placed a soft kiss on top of it.

Howls of passion floated on the air scaring a priest who was out for his nightly walk in the park. He stopped a hundred yards from the gazebo and shook with freight. He could see the top of a blonde head above the railing and had flashbacks to a night many months before. He let out a blood-curdling scream and ran from the park.

Brody spoke with a rough voice. "Well, my little werewolf, I don't think your buddy the priest will be coming to the park anymore." She crawled up from where she had been kneeling between Levi's thighs.

"Werewolf?" Her eyes shot wide. "You know about that?"

"Ohh yeah!" She drank hungrily of her wife's mouth and soon the parks silence was pierced by more howls and screams of release. After that night the crime rate in the park dropped by 50%.

The End
Blind Date
By Larisa
Hecate3366@frontiernet.net

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