Dorsai - Taxi

Thirty seconds later, the tail lights of their van were almost out of sight. When they had disappeared completely, Bonnie turned to me and said "I'm sorry for getting you involved in all that, Jim. Those idiots just couldn't or wouldn't let it go, or get the message."

Looking toward where their van had gone, I answered "I'm thinking they probably got the message THIS time", making her laugh. When I turned to look at her again, she said "Come on in, and I'll buy you a drink."

"Deal!" I answered, and the two of us turned and made our way back inside again.

After getting both of us set up with drinks, Bonnie excused herself to change clothes. When she got back, she was again dressed in the jersey I'd seen her in before. As she got herself settled at the other end of the couch, though, I couldn't help noticing that she didn't seem to be wearing any panties – at least, if the brief flash of blond pubic hair that I saw was to be believed.

With her drink in her hand, Bonnie told me "I want to make sure you understand that I really am sorry about getting you involved with those jackasses. I must have told them a dozen times since that night that I wasn't going to help them any more, and they just kept coming back and coming back and PUSHING me about it. When I saw that idiot tonight, I finally decided enough was enough, and that it had to end, once and for all. I wouldn't have been upset or blamed you in the slightest if you hadn't wanted to help, but I'm glad you did."

"Honest, Bonnie, I was glad to help – though I'm not all that sure that you needed it. What mattered to me was that you learned from what happened, and weren't going to do that kind of nonsense again. If they couldn't understand that 'no' means 'no'… well, that's their problem. At least now they know YOU mean it when you say it, anyway."

We sat in companionable silence for a couple of minutes before she asked me "I'm curious about something. You're taking karate, and you're fairly good at it. But it seems like there's something… I don't know… missing when you're in class. If you don't want to answer this, that's fine but… what are you doing there?"

I smiled, and answered "Maybe what you're getting is the vibe that I'm just not as serious as you seem to be about it. Sure, I'm looking to being able to defend myself, but I'm there more for the exercise and all that than I am for being able to whip somebody's ass. I'd be the same way if that place had turned out to be a boxing gym, a judo dojo, or any other kind of self-defense school."

With a small grin, she told me "Yeah, I am pretty serious about it. Like I told you before, my -ex was… possessive. He was also abusive. He never outright hit me or anything like that, but he sure wasn't above using his bigger size to intimidate me. After I got divorced, I decided that I wasn't going to let anyone push me around any more, no matter what size they were. So yeah, I am interested in karate for being able to whip somebody's ass – if that's what it comes down to. Same thing with going to the gym; since I'm smaller than most people, I figure I'm going to have to be stronger and have more stamina if something happens."

I chuckled before I told her "Well, it's working. When we spar, you damn near wear me out before it's over", and getting an answering laugh from her.

Another minute went by before she asked something that just about floored me, "Why haven't you ever tried to hit on me? Get me to go out on a date with you, or hustle me into bed or anything? Are you gay, or don't you think I'm attractive? Does me being better than you at karate throw you, or am I just not your type?"

"No, I'm not gay; and I most certainly DO think you're attractive. Being better than me at karate only counts for anything if we were fighting; I don't know that I even have a 'type'. I've left you alone because you've seemed to make it pretty clear that was what you wanted. Me, I don't like the little games that a lot of women like to play; being coy, not saying what's really on their minds, and that kind of nonsense. Things have changed a little between us since that night, sure – but not all THAT much, that I've seen. Of course, I could be missing something, too, so you'll have to tell me if that's the case."

She considered that for a bit before telling me "You were right about me not being interested in any kind of relationship. I married my -ex right out of high school, and my family was pretty conservative, so I never really got a chance to learn who I am before. Now that I'm divorced and on my own, I'm finding that I'm actually pretty happy about making my own way. And after you helped me that night, I've got to admit that I was kind of playing you a little bit, to see if YOU were going to try and make anything out of it. But you didn't, and that got me started thinking about a lot of things. I've been trying to get full-time custody of my daughter, but my -ex has been fighting it with everything he's got. Not so much because he loves her, but so that I don't have her the way I want. I told you he was possessive, and that doesn't even begin to describe it, really. The whole time I was married to him, I had to answer to him about pretty much everything. To this day, I'm surprised that he agreed to let me even go to college in the first place. But once I got started, I wasn't about to quit – no matter how much he bitched. Between the grants and other programs, all my schooling cost us was my supplies for notebooks and such; my classes were all during the day when he was at work, and even the part-time job I took to cover what little expenses we did have only kept me out of the house for an hour when he was home. I had to put school off when I had my daughter, but as soon as she was old enough to get into day care for the times I was in class or at work, I was back at it. Except that the son-of-a-bitch made it even worse for me by dumping all this crap on me about how I wasn't taking proper care of my family – not just him, but our daughter, too. All the suspicions about where I was going and what I was doing and who I was meeting and talking to finally got to me, and I took our daughter and bailed out on him. That's when he began stalking me to see where I was and what I was doing. I finally got enough evidence to prove to a judge that that was what he was doing, and got a restraining order against him; that's when he got his friends and some of his family to do his dirty work for him. That was all happening while the divorce was going through, and his lawyer made it sound like I was some paranoid nutcase, and got him equal custody. The last few months, I've heard from my daughter that he has been bringing home all kinds of women for the night, and even long weekends. He makes her keep the door to her bedroom open because he wants to control her, too; and he kind of 'forgets' to close the door to his bedroom, so there have been times when she's heard him screwing whatever bimbo he happens to be with at the time."

I just looked at her, and she said "I'm trying to be a good parent, and not asking her to tell me what happens when she's at his place. But when I get her, there have been plenty of times when she's asked me about something that happened there, and I have to try and explain it to her without making him look like the bastard he is. There's a meeting in a few months to see if anything needs to, or should, be done about the custody situation, and I'm hoping that the children's advocate the court appointed for her will hear what's going on, and understand that she shouldn't be with him. The other thing that I'm hoping will help is the fact that she's coming up on twelve, and going to be hitting puberty soon – which would presumably make ME the better parent for her to be with."

Both of us sat there in silence for a bit before she continued "The thing that hurts me more than anything else is the fact that he gets what HE wants by dipping his wick in any female he can get to spread for him, while I'm so terrified about losing custody of my daughter that I won't let a guy get anywhere near me!"