Читать книгу Witch Hunter - Willow Sears - Страница 5

Mimi decided early that it was a perfect day for a picnic. She knew the perfect spot too, found just a few weeks ago when she had been out walking alone. She had been drawn off the beaten track after sighting a fox. She had tracked it through to a small clearing where she had stayed crouched behind the greying trunk of a fallen oak, watching it as it played around and pounced upon leaves and insects. It had been a magical few moments. She had felt a sudden surge of elation at this window on nature. She had seemed at one with the world, experiencing a mixture of freedom and security, cosseted as she was by the dense foliage surrounding her.

She had also felt a rather uncharacteristic urge to frolic. She had flashing images of herself stripping off right there, although such daring public naughtiness was hardly her forte. She might even have gone through with it if it hadn’t been rather too chilly that morning for whipping your bits out, especially when brush-tailed wild animals might be watching. If she had been there with someone else, though, and that someone had taken it upon themselves to ravish her, maybe forcing her over that same fallen trunk and ripping her knickers away to leave her at his mercy, why, then there would have been little she could do about it. No one would have been around to come to her aid, there would be nothing she could do to resist being plundered, maybe even spanked …

So a picnic it was, and lazy Dominic would have to play the loving boyfriend and drag his arse out of bed to accompany her, even though he had sounded so uninterested in the whole idea on the phone. He didn’t even seem to care that he would be off back to college in a few days and this would be one of their last chances to be alone for a while. Fortunately that morning the Spinster had gone off to garner the latest village tittle-tattle, giving Mimi free rein of the kitchen to prepare a picnic for two without prying eyes and uncomfortable questions. Dominic was her secret and tongues would be ceaselessly wagging if anyone knew they were an item.

Getting out of her room and having the run of that gorgeous wisteria-covered cottage was a treat in itself, however brief such moments were. She loved the place. One day she hoped to have enough money to buy just such a property within the village, but for now renting a room was a more than acceptable alternative, despite having to share with the spinster landlady. It meant a time-consuming drive to reach work in Oxford, but the quiet leafy lanes could make your heart soar with optimism when the early sun lit the green, flint-strewn fields and the beech woods behind, and brought the hedgerows alive. It had been a different story in her first winter, when any snowfall or thick ice rendered the roads impassable and forced her to exist for days off pub food or remnants in the freezer. She didn’t care though. Anything was worth it to live here. She had coveted a place in the village for as long as she could remember.

She had grown up in the nearby town where Dominic now lived. Her parents would bring the family out here for summer picnics in the glades or autumn walks amongst the copper-leaved trees. They provided many of her fondest childhood memories: colour-splashed meadows, swallows dipping and zipping over lush-cropped fields, dew-covered cobwebs amid frosty thickets, or pristine snow blankets and freezing breath. Sun or rain, it was always special. She tried to imbue her lethargic boyfriend with the same enthusiasm as they sauntered through those woods on the way to her Secret Location, but he had his standard couldn’t-give-a-fuck face on. He seemed so one-dimensional sometimes that it wearied her. How their short relationship had continued was a mystery.

He was tall and nicely muscular, and good-looking in a posh-student way. Plus he had the most delectable of pricks: slim but very long and silky-smooth when erect, which was often. It seemed to have a mind of its own. It certainly had more go than the rest of him. A few times when she was making advances he had seemed to be crying off, only to be outvoted by his own member. And once unleashed it could certainly hammer home with the best of them, even if its owner was more than a little unimaginative when it came to dirty business.

The staying power and speedy recovery rate of his young erection ensured she was never left disappointed. That was not something she had always been able to claim in the past, so it was worth clinging on to, even if the man himself could barely raise the passion to hold her hand, better still delight in the promise of the secret place she was taking him to. He could gather even less zeal for the smells and the promise of the day that were firing her, or for the snatched views across the landscape of her childhood haunts.

The timelessly pretty villages and hamlets here were dotted around the countryside, some more easily reached across the fields than by the narrow roads. To her they all seemed like miniature empires in sleeping valleys, all unique despite their close proximity, all holding their own wonderful secrets that were jealously guarded from outsiders. In more recent times these outsiders had come to populate the villages. The steep rise in house prices forced the locals elsewhere as wealthy Oxford and London commuters took over. Affluence was pervasive, but nowhere lost its ancient, deep-set notion of serfdom, of the poor locals giving service to their richer landowners. The old customs and folklore were maintained and even the new wealth could not diminish it. The newcomers simply had to absorb the traditions or suffer isolation.

Before Mimi had even moved into her room, some nine months ago, her gossip-happy landlady had shuffled her fat posterior from house to church to village hall telling anyone who wanted to know that a young journalist from the Echo was to be her new tenant. Fortunately, the Spinster also told everyone that she was a local girl, so Mimi found herself more immediately accepted than some of the London incomers would be, although she still noticed some reticence when being spoken to. She guessed she would have to live there a good many years before this wore off.

She also noticed that she became a hub for gossip. If certain blabbermouths wanted a scandal spread around they often ‘accidentally’ divulged their secret within her earshot, as if she had the power to splash it across the front pages. This didn’t bother her. Hopefully one day the local scandal might well prove to be the roots of the very story she was desperate to break, the one that did indeed make headlines and get her noticed.

She would be the first to admit that in nearly five years at the Echo she hadn’t made the impact she had intended. She was well-liked and appreciated but she suspected this was more for her prick-pleasing attributes than for her journalistic prowess. She had the kind of looks that many men seemingly found hard to ignore, although they tended to induce private thoughts of filthiness rather than outward declarations of love. She was blonde and by many accounts very pretty. She received plenty of compliments about her large blue eyes and her sunshine smile, but it was her body that brought out the lust in her admirers.

You could just see indications of extra weight under her chin but if she stayed hiding behind her desk you might never realise that she was quite a big girl. Her breasts were a nice handful and still perky and there was a paunch but by no means a roll. It was her bum and thighs that carried most of the excess. Her bottom stuck out from the pronounced dip at the small of her back, defining a round curve down to the heavy tuck. In loose skirts she thought she looked like she was wearing a small Victorian bustle, so she always stuck to tighter ones, even though it might look as if she was trying to show off her biggest asset.

Her thighs and calves were thick but firm and soft white under the stockings she habitually wore for work. As soon as she got home it was straight into clothes more suitable for country living, but when at the office or out seeking stories she always took to her high heels and hosiery and squeezed her fat bum into hip-hugging skirts, although her intention was always to look businesslike rather than plain sexy. She wasn’t entirely happy with her body. If the glossy mags were to be believed, her figure should have been a turn-off for most. However, for so many it seemed one to lust after, to build your dirtiest fantasies around. One former beau had told her plainly: ‘The thought of your bare arse bending over in front of him could send any sane man senseless. You are the kind of girl you want to touch, to kiss and squeeze, to bury yourself deep inside.’

She even found that drunken girls at office parties hugged her for longer than was considered appropriate, or snatched New Year kisses from her under the pretence of doing it to wind up the guys.

She was certainly no tease though. She wasn’t quite ready to settle down but within her was the feeling that she should be looking for something more meaningful than a few dates and some quick, urgent sex before an inevitable petering out. All this made her question the wisdom of her more-off-than-on relationship with Dominic, who at barely nineteen was seven years her junior.

She had met him when following up a story about lads from the area disappearing ‘without trace’. In the last few years five males from the locale in either their late teens or early twenties had abruptly departed, leaving friends and family behind without any warning. This would have been odd, were it not that such deathly quiet villages were a graveyard for youthful ambition and could not compete with the brighter lights of any town or city. As for ‘without trace’, this wasn’t quite an accurate description of their disappearance, since all of them wrote home telling loved ones that they were fine and settled. These letters had continued to arrive at fairly regular intervals. True, in these days of mobile phones and texts, it was strange that they solely communicated by letter, but if you had escaped and didn’t want to be found and dragged back home, it was the safest form of contact. All the boys shared one thing in common: they were bright, fit lads who were expected to do well in life. Maybe it was merely the weight of expectation that drove them away, and once one went others followed the example. One thing was for sure, there was certainly no front-page story in it.

Mimi now met Dominic less and less often, and not just because her work made her keep odd hours or he was busy with his college studies. Despite his obvious intelligence, the immaturity – or, to be fairer, the lack of life experience – was beginning to tell. It was nice to have an athlete in bed but Mimi was aware of his shallowness. He was also somehow detached when they had sex. He would slam into her from the back as avidly as any former lover, but she never felt his simmering lust before they got to bed or any closeness during the act.

It was hard enough finding time and privacy for them to do anything, which sometimes led to snatched shags down dark lanes, trying to get the job done before the chill air numbed the desire. Considering their lack of opportunity, he never seemed as desperate for her as an on-heat teenager should have been. He wasn’t always grasping and fondling her or pulling her in for kisses. He waited until a chance presented itself and then without much preamble gave her a breathless seeing-to.

They just didn’t quite connect. Maybe they would have done if they had ever opened up about what they each wanted. He had once crawled naked over her lap, jokily asking to be punished. She had given him a few light smacks but too light-heartedly for it to go anywhere. Inwardly she had squirmed with the embarrassment of it all. If it had been the other way round, if he had dragged her over his lap and dealt a series of stinging slaps to her big bum, she was sure, despite never having received such treatment before, that she would have simply loved it.

Once, when the Spinster had gone to her sister’s for the night, they had actually had time to watch a bit of internet porn together before climbing into bed. They had looked at a few sites, jumping around a selection of video clips, their choices acting as unspoken demonstrations of what they each found appealing. She was surprised when he chose a short clip of a naked man bound with thick ropes and bent over, yelping as a corseted Mistress forced a strap-on into his rear end. Mimi had said something about how much of a fuss the man was making and if it had been the other way around the girl would have been expected to take it all without complaint.

‘Well, having a big one up the bum can hurt, as I’m sure you know!’ he had replied.

Actually, she didn’t know. She probably wanted to find out but for some reason she never had, although everyone seemed to be doing it these days. Plenty of girls told a different story, that it was a scintillating experience not to be missed. By the way he was talking, it sounded like he hadn’t missed it either. Another time, they had been indulging in some simultaneous oral with him on top, lapping at her bud whilst pressing a slender smooth vibrator into her puss. Only later, when she recalled how he had slightly wiggled his hips above her and pushed his behind back a little more, did she realise that he might actually have wanted the toy forced inside him. Basically, if both of them were displaying signs of submissiveness then it wasn’t going to work, and if he was bi-curious or trying to figure out if indeed he was gay she did not want to be fumbled around with while he made up his mind.

Relocating the secret picnic spot proved harder than she thought and Dominic didn’t help by getting exasperated. Eventually, when they did find it, he was typically underwhelmed. He seemed more distracted than usual, not really listening to anything she said. He hardly looked at her, more often glancing at his phone as if imploring it to receive some important message that would get him out of there. As ever he stuffed his food down as if he hadn’t eaten in weeks, barely noticing the trouble she had gone to in preparing it.

She had made a point of only buttering the baguette, leaving the cut sections otherwise bare and wrapping the intended contents separately, since he was so fussy and was always changing his mind about what he did and didn’t like. She didn’t want to give him any excuse to moan. No matter how many hints she kept dropping about being alone and isolated he refused to pick up on them. When he started checking the time she knew he was planning to get out of there without giving her what she needed. As always she would be forced to initiate things, and that was irksome.

He was idly holding a piece of buttered baguette, silently aghast that there was no more ham to fill it, even though he had put half a sliced pig into his last one. She sidled over with a mischievous smile, curled her hand around the bread and ran it up and down the length in a wanking motion whilst telling him that the French stick reminded her of something. Having your penis compared to something crusty and yeasty is probably not every man’s dream but her suggestive hand action was enough to do the trick. She spotted his ever-lively prick stirring in his jeans and seized her chance before he could back out.

‘Looks like he wants some attention,’ she said.

The evidence seemed indisputable so he could do nothing except mumble something ineffectual like ‘not here’ whilst she ignored him and unzipped his jeans. She fumbled inside and gave a little gasp as his hot member was suddenly in her palm and growing against her. It was a feeling she could never tire of. She loved to clutch a stiffening prick and feel it swell in her grip. Sometimes you could even sense the pulsing rush of blood and the rise in temperature. For just a few brief moments it was to feel the essence of sexual power, of uncontrolled desire, and to know that it was aimed at you.

There was surely no greater compliment a cock could give you than to fill up in your grasp. As his had been constrained beneath tight briefs she got it in all its expanding glory. For just a few wonderful moments it seemed like it might go on growing for ever. She would have loved to feel it swell inside her, stretching her open and surging into her hole.

‘So, Dominic,’ she said, ‘what shall we do with this?’

She didn’t like calling him Dominic. She would prefer to shorten it but he simply would not allow such things. ‘Dom’ would have been less of a mouthful and it would certainly be nice to think of him as a Dom even if it was so far from his real character. He didn’t even have the gumption to tell her what he wanted done with his gripped prick. She teasingly stroked it up and down but he remained impassive, still clutching his section of buttered baguette as if eating more lunch was a far better option than doing anything sexual. Well, if he wanted some meat to fill his roll he would get it.

She prised the bread out of his hand and forced the split side of it around his shaft so that it nestled like a large sausage in a bun. He at least smiled at this. She was giggling saucily and grasping the bread, twisting it against his shaft and running it up and down, using it to gently masturbate him. She could see the smear of butter on his skin and she pictured him sliding into her tightest passage without warning, forcing her over the tree trunk and entering her and pushing relentlessly deep inside her. She could scream but no one would hear her, and he might just stuff her knickers into her mouth anyway. Even his slim cock would stretch and maybe even hurt her, but the butter would ensure his forward glide proved unstoppable …

He didn’t move. He let her continue her gentle tease but she was feeling full of lust, too much to not make this situation dirtier. She reached for the tube of mustard and squirted a thick line of it down his length to complete the hot dog. He was panting harder and his cheeks were colouring but still he kept his passion contained and didn’t force it upon her. She didn’t want a mouthful of hot mustard but she would have sucked him to his balls if he had ordered her to. With the bread disintegrating and his cock a smeared mess there was nothing else to do but give up and give herself to him.

She was desperate for him to rip off her clothes and force her over the tree trunk but he didn’t, so she had to do it herself. Her knickers came down with her pedal pushers and she kissed him breathlessly for just a few seconds before going forward over the trunk, to leave her chubby pale bottom sticking out for him. His former reluctance was gone because he was now in command. He held her hips and was inside her in no time, surprising them both with the sudden depth of his entry, helped both by the butter and her slickness.

He held her as he caught his breath and she felt an unfamiliar tingling warmth spread inside her. It gave her a rush in her belly and made her slightly panicky – just like a mouthful of hot curry can do – and then she realised it was the mustard singeing the delicate skin of her puss. She let out an ‘oh!’ at this unintentional S&M rudeness and wondered if his prick was burning too. As if in answer he gave her a sudden barrage of arse-slapping thrusts, grunting over and over as he bashed against her cheeky rump and had it dancing. He kept on going too, as if needing the rapid action to soothe his itch.

She was aware of the sun on her bare skin and the sound of birds chattering around them. She was used to outdoor sex but it still felt so rude to be doing it there in broad daylight. It seemed such a bestial act, surrounded by gentle nature. She tried to make herself squeal louder, to add to the risk of them being caught, but, even though she knew the chances were infinitesimal, she still couldn’t bring herself to increase her volume. She wanted to talk like a slut in one of those porno clips they had watched. His quick-fire, bum-splatting thrusts deserved it. Imagine having the courage to yell out like they did, to beg him to do you any way he wanted. If she could only do that she would get it in the bum for sure. She could plead for it. She could say, ‘Please stick that big cock in my ass!’ just like those horny porno girls did.

Imagine having the courage to reach back and pull your cheeks apart while you said it, to actually display your most private place to him, to cry out that you were dying to have him in your bum. She trembled at her own thoughts but he couldn’t read them. He continued to slam into her and it was just enough to take her over the edge before he juddered and came. She loved the hot hit of his ejaculation within her. She was so glad she was on the pill, even if it did compound her weight problem. The feel of him shooting inside her always heightened her own orgasm.

He slipped out and she stayed where she was, eyes closed, allowing the warmth of her climax to gently spread through her. While she was feeling so horny she didn’t mind her bare bottom being so exposed. It might even encourage him to go again and finish what he’d started. Maybe he would even try something new, like giving her a good hard spanking before he sank inside her once more.

There were rustlings from behind her and she imagined him searching the undergrowth for thin sticks to use as canes upon her defenceless rump. She had no clue how much it would hurt her but just to be used in such a fashion would surely outweigh any pain. She would take any sexual indignity from him at these moments, do anything he commanded. She didn’t care if he bit her arse, smacked her soft quim, covered her exposed skin in muck from the forest floor – anything to make her feel like a wanton slave.

She turned at last to see what he was doing. He was on his feet and facing her, looking at his phone. For one adrenalin-bursting moment she thought he was taking a picture of her plump bare bottom, but it transpired he was just looking for that same elusive message. His member had already been stored away and he was apparently done for the day. She felt suddenly foolish, bent over as she was, with him not even caring. She pulled her clothes back up and sat in silence while the burn in her cheek slowly subsided.

She packed up and they walked home again, with little said between them. A few days later and he was gone, off back to college. They didn’t talk much in the interim and he didn’t want to be dropped at the station, let alone to be waved goodbye. He didn’t even text to say he had made it there OK. She tried ringing him but got nothing. So that was that, she had been dumped.

Dominic remained the only hangover from the ‘Disappearing Youths’ story that never was, a reminder that everything about that so-called mystery was a damp squib. She latched onto the tale out of desperation, having had another local story crumble before she had even managed to move into the village. One of the reasons she so coveted a place there was Haydn Shady, an unlikely-named villain who had taken possession of a big property on some of the estate lands outside the village. He was a shady character indeed, suspected of extortion and fraud at the very least, plus kidnapping and murder if you believed the gossip. He seemed omnipotent although he was seldom spotted. He was large, with a completely shaved head, and he always wore sunglasses, the myth being that no one had ever seen his eyes.

The manor house he stayed in was originally leased from the aging Baron who owned nearly all the land around. Somehow, through threats it was believed, Shady had then managed to purchase the house outright, along with many acres. The original theory had been that he needed the privacy to oversee his nefarious business, and he needed the land to safely bury the bodies of his murdered enemies. Bit by bit he seemed to eat into the estate, purchasing parcels of land here and there so that many of the tenant farmers suddenly found themselves at the mercy of a new and far more ruthless landlord, one prepared to raise their rents without scruple.

All this was juicy enough gossip for any aspiring journalist, although it was a story most would fear to follow, given the reputation of the subject. The plot thickened when it transpired that a new road had been proposed, a bypass that would run through the estate lands. The old Baron would never consent to such a thing but he held only a small area that could still stop it from happening, and it seemed Mr Shady was more than happy to allow the purchase of his newly gained land for a whopping sum, far in excess of what had been paid for it.

Everyone waited with bated breath, sure that the villain would bully or threaten the poor Baron and get this remaining land. The new road would have seen the whole area ruined. Ancient woodland would be levelled. Noise and traffic pollution would increase, spoiling the general atmosphere for ever. Most of the farmers would be driven out and the village would die a slow death, peopled only by the commuters who may have silently been pleased with the faster routes onto major road networks. Mimi, following the story over the months and years as closely as she could from her flat in Oxford, decided that she couldn’t bear to see the area she so loved desecrated. This would be the cause to champion, the story that would show her mettle and talents and make her a heroine to the locals – who might reward her with a house there on the cheap.

However, another hero beat her to it. A few months before she secured her room at the Spinster’s house, the equally mysterious Pieter Bakkers stepped out of nowhere to help the ailing Baron. He was a powerful businessman who seemingly could not be bullied. He saved the day by buying up much of the estate’s remaining lands, promising to restore it to its former glory and never to sell off any further land. The loss of these ancestral lands and properties was tempered by the knowledge that they would be in the hands of someone with a genuine desire to keep the estate and restore it to its former glory.

Bakkers ‘discovered’ rare butterflies breeding in the meadows that the new road was set to go through, and quickly ensured the fields were designated as Sites of Special Scientific Interest, which meant that they were legally required to be maintained as they were. The proposed road plan was dead in the water. Mr Shady was no doubt grossly put out that his scam had failed but, rather than fight it in the way the villagers thought and feared he would, he instead decided to accept an offer from Bakkers for all the property and lands he had screwed from the Baron.

The price paid was apparently more than generous, an offer that simply could not be refused, although how anyone knew this, other than the protagonists and perhaps a single solicitor, was unclear. Maybe grateful locals were just quick to swell the legend of their saviour. Whatever the truth, Mr Shady sold up and slipped away without a word, leaving a new lord of the land in place, one who saw to it that the farmers were charged a fair rent again and that the village would never again come under threat.

Mimi was elated that Shady had been defeated but sad that her story had evaporated along with him. She would have loved to do a piece about the new hero but the man just seemed to be a ghost. No one ever saw him and no one could understand his vast generosity. The only explanation was that he was a true philanthropist, a lover of tradition and beauty and of the quiet, perfect villages quaintly nestling so far from his South African homeland. He made sure that buildings were properly maintained and, where necessary, renovated. He provided money for the church roof. He used his influence to ensure the post office stayed open, at a time when so many others fell under the axe.

Like most South Africans he was rugby mad, and he also came to the rescue of a local amateur rugby club who found themselves without a home. Not only did he assign an area to be used as a pitch, and build changing rooms and even some seating for the crowd, he designated other estate buildings as the clubhouse, to be used gratis by the team members for functions, and as a centre for the players to participate in outdoor leisure pursuits such as cycling and hiking, all great for building team spirit.

It was rumoured that the man himself secretly watched his new amateur side play, although no one seemed to know him by sight so no one could confirm this. It was said that he was away almost permanently on business, but it remained unclear why he never showed himself in person. Perhaps the weight of being so much the hero was too much for a genuinely generous man to carry. All dealings were overseen by an estate manager, and journalists’ requests for interviews with the Great Man were politely declined. Mimi knew she would win few friends by trying to unmask a beneficiary who wished to remain anonymous.

With the status quo returned, the village lapsed back into its tranquillity. Mimi even found herself a little isolated, particularly in the winter months. Her naughtiness seemed to increase exponentially with her boredom, and since Dominic was usually otherwise engaged or unreachable she had to resort to her fingers to sate her needs. Once in a while she found herself alone in the house and could dig out the carefully secreted vibrators. But on most nights the landlady stayed resolutely at home and Mimi came close to tearing out her hair with the frustration of not daring to reach for her toys. One overheard buzz and it would be all round the village before breakfast.

Her fingers were willing substitutes, seemingly working to their own plans as soon as her bedroom door was shut. Soon even the thought of another night in her room trying to avoid the Spinster’s incessant chatter had the strange dual effect of making her chest heave and her pussy tingle with anticipation. She seemed to spend all her leisure hours lost in either sticky-fingered escapism or guilt at her own wantonness. Her fantasies became more extravagant and drawn out, her head full of images of her being pleasured or, more commonly, abused by ever greater numbers of the most immoral people imaginable.

She tried to escape the slavery of masturbation by focusing on anything that might involve her in social life and keep her from her room and her mocking sex toys. She scanned the local paper for events or clubs she might join – anything that might prove more enticing than frigging while thinking about being held down and desecrated. Then one day she saw it, a barely noticeable advert in a little box buried within the classified section of her own paper.

‘The Ana Lucia Plan: a magical way to lose weight. For girls 18–30.’

Mimi didn’t know if the figures referred to size or age, nor had she ever heard of this Ana Lucia. But that wasn’t the name that struck her most. The one below it was; the one given as the contact, with a phone number beside it: Morgana Innamorato. Mimi thought the name so exotic that she repeated it over and over in her head and then felt compelled to say out loud, just to hear it roll off her tongue. The Spinster broke off from her TV-induced trance at the sound of the words, a deep frown forming as if it were sacrilege for that name to be spoken under her roof.

‘She’s a witch,’ she said, and meant it.

The landlady felt that no other qualification was needed and went back to her soap opera. Mimi’s imagination had already been captured and so, ever the journalist, she probed further. Apparently the charge had been levelled against the woman and had never been denied. It was said that she ran a coven from her house tucked away within the estate lands, and brainwashed accomplices to help her ensnare other victims. Wicked rites were performed including ritual sacrifice. Curses were laid upon any who dared to go against them. Money was extorted from landowners all around the county in exchange for spells to bring good crops and healthy livestock. Worst of all, it seemed, was her refusal to let women either too old or too fat into her slimming club to learn the magical weight-loss secrets of the Ana Lucia Plan.

‘I’ve tried to join several times,’ huffed the portly spinster, ‘but she don’t ever allow it.’

Mimi smiled to herself, convinced now that Miss Innamorato was no more evil or insane than any of the villagers. Her heart was pumping though, enlivened by unfounded tales of sorcery by an exotically named local beauty who ran a Fat Class that banned overweight old women who talked too much. That kind of club, Mimi mused, was one that she definitely needed to seek out. And so she did.