Her Mother

The brass handle turned, and Lois stepped beyond the Black Door...into soft light, and quiet chatter. Oak panels covered the walls, and rich Persian rugs covered the dark wooden slats of the floor; a long runner with patterns picked out in gold thread on black wool ran to the long, empty bar with the brass rail, and a slanted mirror behind it that ran wall to wall. Antique tables and chairs were occupied by smiling women who drank and laughed together quietly.

No one stopped her as she stepped forward. Her heel and toe sank into the carpet. None of the women even looked at the reporter, though she stared at them, openly. Two of the women she quickly identified as being among the women who were missing. With her peripheral vision, she noted the movement of waitresses—all women, all bare-breasted—who moved among the crowd, to clear away empties and freshen drinks. If not for the nipples and the heat, it might have been an upscale business bar...for women.

Lois blinked, took another step forward to peer around in the dim light. Sweat stung at her eyes—it was as hot in here as it had been in the garage, and all the women, Lois saw, were covered in a thin sheen of sweat; their dresses damp at elbow and armpit, collar and cleavage...and crotch, she admitted, with a blush.

One of the waitresses came up to her, a pale young woman with a mass of black curls that fell to the middle of her back, and perky tits. "Right this way, Miss Lane," she purred. "Your party is waiting."

"My...party?" Lois managed, as she instinctively fell into step behind the bare-breasted woman.

"You've been expected. She kept asking for you and...here you are." Was all the waitress said, as she led Lois to a table near the end of the bar. Lois could see an older woman there at a table set for two, but it wasn't until they arrived that she recognized the woman as...

"Mom?" Lois was rooted to the floor in shock.

The woman that sat there could have been Lois, twenty years from now. Ella Lane had the same secretive smile, the shiny dark hair streaked now with grey. The dress she wore was a familiar cream-silk number that Lois and her sister had seen, many times, in her father's closet...the shiny mother-of-pearl buttons now undone to let the veiny, engorged breasts with their dark brown nipples out to air, covered with a sheen of sweat She was sipping a familiar grey-white cocktail.

"Lois!" She smiled, revealing a film of white over her teeth. "Sit down, darling, you look like you've seen a ghost."

The reporter sank into the chair opposite her. "Mom, you're...you're dead."

"Hmm," her mother hummed. She nodded at the waitress. "Better bring a pitcher for my daughter and I. We have a lot of catching up to do."

The waitress scuttled off. Ella turned her attention back to Lois.

"****...yes, I did die. It seems so long ago now. You of all people should know that **** is not an end...not always. But you must be stifling. Why don't you take off your shirt and get comfortable? Then we can talk all about it, as much as you like."