Posted by Menagerie on February 12, 2005 at 22:13:15:
MAKERMEETER
As she waited in the anteroom, Helen nervously straightened her suit. For some reason, she wanted to look her best.
This had been her third visit to the perky little storefront at the strip mall. The other businesses ranged from dog groomers to thrift shops, and had dull, gray and white facades; this shop proclaimed ROMANCE!, with hearts of all pastel colors floating effortlessly up the wall, pierced by Cupid’s arrows. The bells above the door tinkled merrily with each arrival; even the ornately carved handle had a slope and feel that begged slick sensuality.
The only thing that might give away the true intent of the business was the flowery name in script above the door: MAKERMEETER.
Helen found out about the business at the Club, from Doris. Geoffrey had joined the Club at Helen’s urging; he was out of town a lot, or attending late night meetings, or frankly just didn’t want to go out, so Helen went most nights by herself. She met a lot of men. A lot. She was so delightfully tiny, her eyes so twinkly and her teeth peeping out with each broad smile, the big guys just wanted to smother her with affection.
After Geoffrey passed, she stayed away from the Club only briefly, and then returned. They flocked to her again, lit her cigarettes, bought her drinks, invited her out for a nightcap. She sampled a couple of them, found them lacking, kept on looking.
They didn’t have what Helen craved, not that Geoffrey had been perfect. He was too worried, too sensual, too glum. His participation was half-hearted in the bedroom play she’d pleaded for; when she wanted a belt across her buttocks, a clamp on a nipple, he applied a little pressure, muttered an apology, and backed off. Their love life slowed, then stopped; he came home, said hello, said goodbye.
When Geoffrey’s bad heart claimed him, they were apart; he was at a business luncheon, and simply fell forward in the salad. The funeral was quick, the tears dried fast, and Helen buried a stranger.
-----
From the Club, only Doris was at the funeral, along with her diffident, asshole husband Jack. Most of the women at the Club avoided her; unlike them, she worked—sold cosmetics on the side, did well enough to get a big, fancy, bright pink Cadillac. And they didn’t like the way their husbands eyed Helen as she sauntered across the room
Doris had become her best friend; the two of them, both before and after Geoffrey’s passing, would chat into the night, at the Club, on the phone. Jack would always abandon Doris quickly at the Club, checking on her curtly—“Got enough money?”—and then going to the backroom to flirt with the waitresses.
Why he treated her like shit, Helen couldn’t figure—Doris was a knockout platinum blonde, fully stacked and wasp-waisted. The lines in her face betrayed her 40 years, but they were nicely contrasted by ice blue eyes and as WASPish a nose as had even risen demurely from high cheekbones.
Helen was envious, but not terribly so. She looked pretty good, herself, petite and brunette, pale skin and a dainty little puckered mouth that guys wanted to feel all over them. Helen wouldn’t wear a skirt that wasn’t either ass high or slit that way; her slender, sexy legs beckoned, and the men at the Club responded like lemmings. She and Doris compared cockteasing techniques; they compared a lot of things, and finally, the blonde admitted—no, those marks on her neck, they weren’t hickeys. They were fingertips.
Helen professed shock, but she started to feel warm. “Doris! With Jack…?”
Doris was already crocked and working on Margarita No. 7. She lowered her head and swiveled it back and forth, peering furtively, even though there wasn’t anybody sitting near them. “No,” she admitted. “A guy I met at a company party. Client.”
Looking closely, Helen could see where Doris had covered up more bruises with foundation. "Looks pretty rough,” she observed, tilting back her own drink. “Did you tell him to be more careful?”
Doris shook her head, and peered directly at Helen through half lidded eyes. “He’s going to kill me,” she said. Matter of factly. Confidently. Conspiratorially, as if she’d said, “He’s going to leave me his fortune.”
The glow had spread throughout Helen’s body now; her lips were hot. So were her nipples; she guiltily pulled her blouse chinward. “Why?” she finally gasped. But she knew why.
Doris giggled, and now her eyes were alight and gleaming. “It feels so gooooood,” she purred. Her voice seemed to drop an octave, huskier, and Helen could picture the hands around her friend’s neck, hear the breath forced out of her, the gasps as she tried to draw air through an aperture that fingers had squeezed to a pinhole. “He hits me…he knows just how hard to hit. It hurts, it’s so good…he uses his hands, I just come, in waves and waves…”
She broke off. “One day,” she said, “and damn soon, I’ll tell him to finish. That’ll just be the ultimate, Helen. I can’t wait. God, I can’t!”
Helen smiled, weakly. One smooth, paper-white hand had sneaked beneath the shiny wooden table, and she touched herself.
-----
She got the number of the business from Doris, who got it from her friend. A couple of weeks later, Doris disappeared. Her clothes were gone; her dogs had been boarded. She left Jack with no clue, and he bitched long and hard about his faithless, floozy wife to everybody who’d listen, then started hitting on the waitresses at the Club. He really did look quite morose. Helen wondered where she was…what the guy had done with her.
“Makermeeter!” chirped the cheerful voice on the other end of the line. Helen hesitated, then slowly repeated the phrase she’d been told to recite, very carefully. She didn’t want to make any mistakes. “Yes, ma’am!” the voice responded. “What can we do for you?” Helen said she wanted to use the service. We’ll need an introductory screening, first, said the unduly cheerful voice. Do you know the old strip mall on the East Side, off Maynard? Just look for the hearts…
She was a bit surprised to find herself seated across the desk from a man; he was bearded, bespectacled, and just deadly serious. “I am so sorry to hear about your husband,” he said, and did not sound like he really was sorry in the slightest. “And you’ve been very depressed…very down?”
No, Helen told him, not at all. “Geoffrey went very quickly,” she said. “We shared many things…but not all. There’s a part of my life…” She explained, and as she described the razors, the knives, the incredible feeling as she dangled from a rope, the frantic pumping as the cigarette burned into her breast…well, the man didn’t smile. But he relaxed a bit, seemed a lot less forbidding. “You’ll need to take our compatibility test,” he said. “The price is $49.50, in advance.”
That was surely no problem, and the next stop was a dim room, a computer on a table, a screen. A stiff, unyielding chair, a peculiar oblong box with track driven paper spooled through it. Leads coming from it, cuffs and suction cups. Helen sat demurely as the man hooked the cuffs to her wrist and ankle, plugged the suctions above her breast and in the crook of her arm. “Watch the screen,” he said, and the device started to hum, the paper slowly tracking through it.
The scenes on the screen were an odd mix of the joyous and melancholy. A child playing with puppies; a young man in a casket. A smiling old woman, jagged teeth beaming through wrinkled lips; two boxers frozen in mid punch, the man on the receiving end with his jaw ajar, a spray of sweat surrounding his face like a halo. The man kept looking down at the paper, barely moving. And Helen gasped.
On the screen was a naked woman, hanging by her wrists in a basement. A long gash had opened her abdomen wide, from neck to belly; the white of her ribs showed, and the dark red of the stuff inside her. Blood dripped down her leg, and a trickle of it ran down the side of her mouth. Then, the image was gone again, replaced by a young woman sitting idyllically under a tree. Helen exhaled; the man never budged.
There were more like that in the 50 or so pictures that followed. Helen found herself anticipating, ignoring the scenes of beatific life and casual death, waiting for the good stuff. When a ravaged or destroyed woman appeared on the screen her brain immediately latched on to it; she drew in breath and took in as much detail as she could, her eyes frantically recording the raw wounds, the blood, the face so still. Her tongue swept across her pouty lips; her twat stirred and itched.
Near the end, between a nature scene of gamboling deer and a shot of a policeman shoving a young thug against a wall, Helen got the payoff. It was a pile of body parts, jumbled up, a bare foot sticking out here, half a torso atop the stump of a leg. A girl’s head lay to the side, eyes swollen closed, tongue out. “Ohhhhh!” Helen sighed involuntarily, and she shuddered, and came. When the cop and thug came on, she closed her eyes and sat back, breathing hard; the room light was switched on, and Helen’s eyes snapped open. The man was standing over her, unlatching the cuffs and cups. In his eyes was satisfaction.
“See the girl out front,” he said, “for an appointment.”
-----
It would be another couple of weeks, and Helen was nervous. She visited the Club, stayed late, chatted with the suave guy from California, the one with the tan and the open shirt. He bought her margaritas, asked how she was doing, wondered if she played golf. “I could give you some pointers,” he smiled. She smiled back, looked at him, and thought about the woman dangling by her wrists and split wide open. She pictured the guy from California advancing on the woman, menacingly, bloody knife in his hand, with her twisting and turning and trying to get away. “I don’t know that I could trust you in the clubhouse,” she teased, and he laughed. “Don’t you worry,” he assured her. “I’m a perfect gentleman.”
For the second appointment, the man was gone, replaced by a young woman in a cheerful, print blouse and slacks, hair tied behind her, casual, open toed shoes. “I’m Marci,” she said, shaking hands, and it suddenly occurred to Helen that she didn’t have the vaguest idea what the name of the bearded man was. “This is your ‘presentation’ session; we’ll get information and pictures from you for our male clients. You are seeking a man, right?”
Yes, she was. There was a multi-page questionnaire, height, weight, place of birth, age. Education, job. Measurements, bra size, tattoos, body imperfections. Yes, she still had all her teeth. Yes, her ears were pierced. No, no operation scars. Yes, all her organs were intact. Helen again felt that quiver in her crotch; she shifted her thighs, felt the juices spread inside her.
Marci escorted her into the next room, where there was a screen and a clothing rack behind it. The young woman smiled and handed her a white terrycloth robe. “Just remove your dress, now, please,” Helen was told. She did, hung the casual dress she was wearing very carefully, slipped her shoes under the rack. Marci beamed when Helen emerged in the robe. “You look very nice,” she smiled. Unlike the bearded guy, Marci sounded like she meant it. “Now,” she said, “let’s find you a match,” and led the way into the next room.
-----
Well. A mounted video camera stood in the middle of the room, which was well lit by assorted stage lights, some white and some colored; they pointed in the direction of various small sets, as for a play. There was a bedroom; the bed was covered only by a white sheet, with a glossy, cluttered dresser and a mirror behind it. There was a large, wooden chair in front of a bookcase and other typical living room décor. Helen gazed in the direction of another set, a pseudo torture chamber, iron manacles dangling from a fitted rock wall. There was even, off in a corner, a fake gallows, the hempen noose casting an ominous shadow against a sheer concrete wall behind it.
“We’ll do this several way,” said Marci, as Helen stared at all the props, her tongue out a bit and wetting her lips. “We’ll try several poses while I read a script; if you’d like, then you can offer your own introductions, as well. Which would you like to try first?”
The gallows was very enticing. Helen doffed the robe and stood very still in her bra, panties and nylons as Marci fitted the noose over her head, then pulled a pair of handcuffs out of a box of props. “Would you prefer a little pressure?” she asked politely, as she cinched Helen’s hands behind her back. Helen’s breath was shallow, her heart pounding “Yes, please,” she whispered; the young woman pressed a button, and Helen heard a hydraulic, felt the rope tighten under her chin. lift her ever so slightly. Her heels came off the wooden platform; the balls of her stockinged feet rested against it, lightly. “You’re such a little thing,” said Marci, “hardly need any lift at all…ready…action!”
Helen saw the camera pointed at her; she swiveled a bit, her tongue coming out again as she strained to catch her footing. Marci was reading into a microphone. “This is Helen,” she was saying; her voice was dramatic and seductive. “She’s 35, has a 36-inch bust—and she’s only five feet tall! Isn’t she cute?” the girl cooed, a naughty lilt in her tone. Helen caught on, pretended she was trying to get her hands free. “You might say she’s at the end of her rope,” said Marci. “Wouldn’t you like to see her dangling in person?” Helen looked at the camera, achingly.
“Perfect!” announced Marci. “What’s next?”
-----
It had been a good idea, Helen decided as the younger woman lowered her and then removed the noose, not to try to talk during that scene. Her heart had been beating so violently, she thought she was going to pass out. All sorts of thoughts had run through her head as she teetered from the gallows—the California guy, his open, friendly mug beaming as he lowered her from the scaffold, then raised the rope, then lowered it again. At one point she thought of Geoffrey, watching her as she dangled—would he jump to his feet to stop it? Would he have sat back and crossed his legs, his hands clasped around his knee, as always, and smirked as Helen’s breath ebbed away? And then there was Doris; Helen saw her hanging limp from the rope, tongue out, blonde hair swept across her face.
They did a perfunctory scene on the bed; Helen was starting to get into it. The girl had hogtied her, cinching her wrists to her ankles as expertly as a practiced seaman, and had carefully stretched a strip of duct tape over her mouth. Helen rolled back and forth on the bed as Marci gushed, “She’s ready for whatever you want—and she can’t say no!”
There was also a shower stall; real, running water. “Shall we see all you have to offer?” asked Marci, smiling. Helen couldn’t wait; her underwear were already soaked with sweat, and she peeled frantically out of the bra and panties. The woman dug a pair of cuffs separated by a long chain out of the toybox; she hooked one of the links to a protrusion over the spigot, then shackled Helen’s wrists and replaced the duct tape. The water came on, a bit cool; that was all right with Helen, who was steaming hot, shifting her feet on the tiled floor as the spray cascaded over her, tugging at the chains that bound her arms overhead. “Helen’s ready for a wet and wild time,” said the girl. “Like something out of Hitchcock…”
Helen had thought of that, too, and again imagined Doris, her big tits bouncing as she writhed in the stall, the knife coming closer and closer…the tip against her slim belly…she saw the crimson clouds puffing up in the standing water and then swirling down the drain, the bare feet hop hopping as each thrust found its mark, Doris’ ice blue eyes murking over and rolling back, her slim body now suspended by the chains as she collapses…”You were sensational!” cried Marci as she unlocked the cuffs.
-----
Helen stood for a moment, dripping and shaking, before she accepted the proffered towel. These brief scenes, the girl’s voice mockingly describing her plight as she fought the very real bonds—she was getting used to them now. She was only an actress, putting on a show, trying to find a man. Just like any other dating service, except the outcome. Doris had gotten the number from her friend, the man who had beaten and choked her—would he see one of these films, and give Makermeeter a call?
Marci could tell, too, that Helen was getting accustomed to the roleplay. “Happens all the time,” she said lightly as Helen briefly donned the robe—it enveloped her, way too big for her—and sat for a Winston. “If this wasn’t just a ‘dry run’ for you, you wouldn’t be here. But you really do look marvelous; I’m sure we’ll find some ready matches in no time at all. Then, though, you get to choose…”
That was how it worked, Helen realized; she wasn’t just going to be turned over to some guy who liked the way she swung from the gallows. She’d pick whom she wanted to spend—well, eternity with. She was ready to try her own come-on, and they selected the dungeon scene; again, Helen found her wrists gripped by steel. Her ankles, too, were shackled to the floor; she was spread and open, bathed in an eerie, dark green floodlight. “Any time,” said the girl, peering into the viewfinder.
Helen half-smiled; she felt relaxed, almost stoned, or post-coital. She looked at the camera through lidded eyes. “Hello,” she said, quietly. “I so want to feel your hands on me. I want you to hurt me." Her voice got huskier; she thought of Doris saying, “He knows just how hard to hit…” She went on, “I want to feel your hands around my throat—your cock in my cunt.”
She paused, wet her lips again. “Please—take me! Cut me, stab me. Cut my tits off and rip open my belly. Bite off my nipples. I want to feel your knife in me; I want to cover you in my blood. I’m yours, to tear into pieces…”
Helen went on. And on, and the warm glow rushed through her extremities, the throbbing heat centered between her legs; her desperate patter, a plea to an unknown man to butcher her, ended in a pained yelp as an orgasm drew the energy out of her in long, slow, hard waves.
“That,” announced Marci, “was great!”
-----
The filming session had cost $399.50, and Helen kind of wondered why they were offering the fifty-cent discount. Did they think she was going to shop around for another service? Marci warned her the third visit would be several weeks away. “How much will that cost?” she asked, not that it mattered. The young woman shook her head. “Your prospective matches pay for that,” she said. “That’s why it takes a while; we have to round up all the men you’re compatible with.”
She also wondered about the guy with the beard; was he the owner? He’s on retainer, a psychologist, said Marci. “A lot of people don’t get past the first round.” A psychologist would work for Makermeeter? Marci winked. “Maybe,” she suggested, “he’s also a customer.”
The weeks dragged on, and Helen was starting to see Makermeeter customers around every corner. She was getting a reputation around the Club; she’d go home with any Joe, but was never satisfied. She even tried a fling with Jack, and sure enough, the asshole slapped her when she wanted to go home. She threw her tiny body back on his bed, Doris’ bed, and spread her arms wide. “Again,” she pleaded. But he just climbed back on board, no more rough stuff. When he was done, she got up, got dressed, and left.
The guy from California turned her down. “I told you,” he laughed, “I’m a gentleman.” She wrapped her tiny hands around one bicep. “Got another cookie in the fridge?” she teased. He had figured in Helen’s daydreams, his big, brawny body pinning her, his strong hands digging into her, fists pummeling her. He shook his head, the big grin intact. “Let’s just say you’re too good for me,” he laughed, holding out his lighter as she produced another Winston. She looked down at the flame, imagined it under her nipple, her breasts…searing the skin brown and yellow and black…
Helen was burning the candle, and it showed; she sagged from lack of rest, running around with guys while she anxiously awaited the return call. She’d stopped her door-to-door cosmetics sideline; she was taking pills to sleep, pills to stay awake. A couple of times, she drove down Maynard; the place wasn’t padlocked, the hearts and façade were still intact.
And so, she was startled when the call came. It was a different voice. “Can you come in tomorrow, say, around eleven?” No, she needn’t bring anything. No, she needn’t make arrangements to be dropped off. All of that would be explained during the session.
Marci finally opened the door to the anteroom and escorted Helen back to the room where she’d been tested. The man was not there; instead, an older woman, elegantly coifed and wearing an expensive suit, greeted her, “I’m Eleanor,” she said, warmly. “We think you’ll be very pleased at the selection; your application brought a good many responses.”
When Helen mentioned she’d expected the bearded man, Eleanor laughed. “I handle everything at this level,” she said. “I’m the president of Makermeeter. I know just what you’re feeling—yes, I do. I chose this route instead of yours; helping others, you might say, while helping myself,” and laughed. Marci smiled, and closed the door behind them.
---
The box with the leads was gone, and a couple of armchairs had replaced the uncomfortable office furniture from Helen’s earlier stay. Eleanor sat next to the computer on the table; the screen was still overhead. Helen hunkered down in her own chair, feeling even smaller than she was; she scrunched down and looked intently at the blank screen.
“Each of the clients who wished to contact you,” said the older woman, “has an interesting tale to tell.” And she started the computer.
The screen was filled with the image of a smiling man, maybe mid-thirties, deep eyes, a small mustache. “Hello, Helen,” he said, kind of a high-pitched, quavering voice. “My name is Steve. I would love to meet you…and add you to my collection.”
The camera angle swung wide, and Helen could see Steve was in a den; he was seated on a swivel chair, at a wooden desk heaped with papers. “This is where I get away,” he said. “I find the surroundings very relaxing.” And the camera panned away from Steve, off to the side, and focused on the wall. And on a woman’s head, mounted on a plaque.
Her eyes were wide open and shone in the artificial light; her mouth was half-ajar. She had longish red hair; there was a small brass plate beneath her jaw. Steve’s voice continued, as the camera panned to another woman’s head, Asian features, again with wide, staring eyes. “You would be right at home here,” he said. “Once I’ve separated your pretty head from your body, you would join the others, here, with me, forever.” A third head on a plaque, short, brunette hair, kind of a round, moon face. The same look of blank horror.
“That was Number One,” Eleanor said brightly. Helen had been mesmerized by the display. “We’ve several more to go; no need to make any decisions. Steve is quite charming, wouldn’t you say?”
“Yes,” Helen managed; she had pictured her own head on that wall, a brass plate under it, with her name and date of death. Her own eyes wide and unseeing. The second presentation was beginning; Helen sat back, shifted her weight uneasily.
This man was big and rough looking. His straw-colored hair was tied in a small toreador’s knot; he was well muscled, in flannel shirt and jeans. They were outdoors. “Helen,” he announced sternly, glowering into the camera, “I am Zygmunt. I do not speak English so good, but let me show you, OK?”
The camera followed him on a path through some trees, to a small, metal building. “This is what I do,” said Zygmunt, and opened the door.
It was a smokehouse, the smoke curled up from a grate on the floor. Hanging dead center before the camera was the butchered carcass of a woman. Her head, hands and feet had been removed; her torso was split wide open and empty. She had been skinned; patches of fat alternated with red meat. “You wind up in here,” said Zygmunt. “I cut you up real good, nice and slow. You wind up on my table. OK?”
Helen was panting for breath; she looked at the mangled body, up and down, as surreal as a clay model. The foreign man slapped the flank of the carcass; the sound bounced off the walls of the cramped little building. “This one,” he said, “give me a fight! I hope you fight, too!”
“A very interesting man,” said Eleanor, as the scene froze on the screen. “He actually is, you know, an executive with a meatpacking company. Worked his way up from the production line. Now, remember, you don’t have to make a decision, today; you don’t even have to select any of the applicants we offer. If you don’t, though, your application is withdrawn, and you would have to go through the procedure all over again.”
“Zygmunt seemed quite forceful,” Helen said; she was hugging herself, eyes still locked on the screen. Her thighs rubbed together, up and down, her pussy itching against the fabric.
“Perhaps he’s for you,” said the proprietress. “If not—well, a lot of our clients would love to meet you,” and another vignette began.
This was in a bedroom; there was a man, stripped to the waist. He was slim, but looked rock hard, and scarcely in his twenties. There was a woman lying face-down on the bed. The guy had a mop of black hair and rather fine features, small, black eyes. “Helen,” he said, “I’m David. I want you. I love older women; I make every inch of them ache for me.”
The woman on the bed had blonde hair—was it Doris? No; David reached down, picked her up by the hair. It was another woman in her forties; her face, her body, were battered and bruised. Welts striped her breasts and belly. She moaned; David doubled his fist, drew back, drove a right cross through her face. Blood flew, teeth broke; Helen thought of the frozen boxing scene in the “test”. The young man roughly shoved her back onto the bed, and looked back into the camera. “It would end here for you, Helen” David said. “I would beat you until your body screamed for death; I would choke you until your bowels emptied. It would end in utter humiliation, just one more brutalized corpse, one more pretty face smashed to bits.”
“He’s from France,” Eleanor said brightly. Helen’s mouth had gone dry; maybe he was Doris’ friend. She worked some spit back into her mouth. “He’s very handsome,” she managed to say.
“Now, you just relax, dear,” said the other woman. “Remember, I know what you’re feeling. I could easily have let myself be hacked to bits by Mr. Zygmunt or decapitated by Steve. I envy every woman who passes through here; she’s getting what I’ve always desired. For every woman who needs one,” and Eleanor lapsed into a singsong voice, "there’s a Makermeeter! That’s my slogan. Perhaps this one is for you…”
---
There were butchers; there were neckbreakers. There was a man who hung women upside down, slit their throats, saved the blood, drank it at his leisure. There was a man with a pet alligator; “I drops ‘em in the water,” he told the camera in a thick, Cajun drawl, “’n’ there’s a whole buncha thrashin’ and a-screamin’, you betcha!” The amphibian hunched proudly over a ravaged torso; Helen swallowed, hard.
“One more,” said Eleanor. “We’ve given you quite a selection; hopefully, the man for you is among them.” And she once again flicked the mouse on the desktop; the screen came to life. There was a bare woman, tied spread-eagled to a wooden pallet, perched on its side. She bled from a dozen, two dozen cuts, deep cuts, a long trickle of blood descending from each. They had been administered very carefully, to maximize the pain, the hurt; slits through breasts, a knife blade plunged deep into organs, into thighs and upper arms.
And there was more—burn marks on her breasts, and on her labia; flaps of skin torn open, the wound exposed. Needles in her belly, through her nipples. She had suffered, for a very long time, and her eyes were deep pools of agony; she breathed hard, occasionally rasping and choking on her own blood.
He was there, big, broad, strong. He playfully grasped her face by the cheeks between his thumb and forefinger; he slapped her, backhanded her. Her head hung in defeat, then was lifted again by his hand, one mitt clutching her blood-matted hair, a long razor clenched in the other, and he brought it slowly, deliberately, through her throat. She gurgled, gasped, hacked up blood; he released her head and she hung there, a product of his monstrous handiwork, breathing no more.
The husky man turned to greet the camera. He grinned. “Hi, Helen,” he said, softly.
They met at the pre-arranged place, a motel parking lot, off the freeway; she took a cab. He was waiting, in a somewhat beat-up LeMans.
Helen got in, looked over at him. He was grinning; she was cool, but that wasn’t how she felt. “Well,” she told the guy from California, “I’m ready for that lesson.”
He pulled out onto the freeway; she put her hands in her lap. Her pussy seemed to be throbbing; she pressed down with the heels of her hands. “Turns out,” he said, his eyes on the road, “we really do have a lot in common.”