Prompted by dreams of her lost lover needing her help, Cassandra leaves her convent and sets out to find him. She doesn’t know that paramilitary operatives of a sinister corporation are looking for her, or that her friends are trying to find her first. She can’t control her overwhelming need for sex. As she travels from bed to bed, her power of prophecy sharpens. Can she persuade her friends to believe her foretellings in time to thwart their hidden enemies, and will her powers guide her to her missing lover?
I’m sitting on the edge of the bed, dressed below the waist, sorting the straps of the bra I bought yesterday at the drugstore.
He watches me while he laces his boots. That’s fine. I need the attention.
My spine arches as if a cold claw forces my shoulders back. My chin tilts upward. Oh, crap. Why now? The stains in the ceiling become figures with meanings I can’t decipher. My voice wails from a forgotten time. “Greet these gates of Hades gaping.”
I sag to the bed. Jerry kneels in front of me and cups my chin in his calloused palm. He says, “Honey, you all right?”
The way he leans backward tells me how wild my eyes are. I say, “Don’t go to work.”
He says, “Uh, I’m ‘fraid I wouldn’t be much good to you.”
I say, “You’ll die. You’ll die!”
He asks, “Honey, you need some meds?”
I say, “I have a gift. I can see the future sometimes, whether I want to or not.”
He keeps a distance, as if he’s afraid I might get weirder. He says, “Gates of Hades? Sooner or later, I s’pose. I gotta go. Sorry.” He leaves the room.
I cry, “No!” I run outside and stand in front of his pickup truck. I spread my arms to bar his way.
An old couple with a poodle passes us on the way to their car. The man nods and says, “Mornin’ folks.” His wife’s glare makes him look away. I’m dressed in my thrift shop cargo shorts, naked from the waist up.
