Chapter 23 - the Endgame I
They say that time heals all wounds. It doesn't. My wound that I sustained? Will not be over until I close my eyes one day for the final time. I can't forget it, I can't erase it. I can't pretend it didn't happen. What I experienced, was the elephant in the room.
I changed profoundly from the entire experience, in all ways large and small. It felt good to strike back at the entire structure that had done in my fiancee. Working on my own, staying unknown and in the shadows? Was a very effective strategy to fight with. The bigger organization has no ability to locate one pissed off person, if there's no obvious relationship there.
Its been some time now. A couple years. I have my routines I've gotten myself into. My life has changed, and I've changed with it. It feels weird, to do the same thing for a living as before. Yet to be paid so much for it now, was a game changing turn of events. My previous owner's son, the much vaunted vice president. I had inadvertently tapped into his secret power. That the expert the owner sends in to handle a client's problem will happily work for a mere fraction of what the billable work is actually worth on the open market.
Previously, I had thought of headhunters and agents as merely a good way to get rid of five to ten percent of your earnings. But in my situation, it made perfect sense. The agent lined work up that was right up my alley. It was like a home run derby. I worked in a few short bursts throughout the year. Where normal used to be long stretches of working, interspersed with vacations of varying length? It was now reversed. I worked about as long as I ever spent on various vacations and times off.
The less work I did, the more money I was making.
I feel personally indebted to my furry little four legged friend, the one who made it all possible... little Sogger. And of course, his doting owner. I dutifully kept my relationship with both. I consider it a bit of a hobby, to keep a loose eye on a certain small time crime family. I certainly wouldn't hesitate to nip off one spring bud that looked like it was going to grow the wrong way.
Taking out the governor's personal security consultant, had been a lot of planning and very little actual work. Like my new computer programming setup, where I work way less than before yet make way more money doing what little I still do? This was the same.
During planning, the idea became to come up with something to blackmail the governor with. We realized the best thing? Was also inherent proof he knew and either authorized or even organized her death. The blackmail? Was that the blackmailers claimed to know that the governor had ordered the death of one eccentric woman.
It was classic logic. If they had anything to do with it, or even knew about it going on? They would be attracted to it. And if they honestly had nothing to do with it? Well, they would hardly be intimidated with what to them would be a laughable made up story and nothing more.
It was no laughing matter, right from the get go. I contacted them by email. Computers and technology is my world, its where I'm powerful and confident. An older politician, a lifelong military guy. Both would be the type to refer to the computer as the confuser. Maybe not, but the odds are good.
For poking them, an anonymous email from an untraceable source was perfect. If they respond? Its all but proof they were involved and probably responsible. If they never respond, it muddies the water. And in my world, if I want to be unseen and never found? I am.
When they finally clicked on my third teaser email, it was like fishing with little Sogger. Sometimes you toss bait out, and then you sit there all night and all the next day, for nothing. But sometimes? You toss it out there, and immediately you get surprised with an immediate hit. A great one from out of nowhere.
I claimed to be an independent investigative journalist, who just happened to wander across this. For the right price? Why shouldn't I get paid more to not print this story, than what little I'd make being a small time writer going with it.
I established myself as supposedly a reporter. With the anonymous email contacts, also as a tech person. Not a seemingly dangerous individual, not to a man like my prey. When the anonymous contact came back. They did want to meet. They met my demands. I accepted an offer to meet somewhere, that was suggested by them.
In another classic act of logic, I took the much vaunted security consultant anywhere else but at the meet location. Because as my mentor at this game taught me. There's a basic, underlying easy part to it. I know who he is, he has no way to know who I am from Adam. The intelligence icing to spread on the perfect coffee crumb cake? Taking him way before that.
My prey, is very very good at surviving and coming out on top of these sorts of situations. His mere being alive and doing the job he does, confirms it. He's going to bring 20 years of experience, art and science into his plan to remove a nosy reporter. A nosy reporter, that's stupid enough at this fun blackmail game? To agree to meet where the other side suggests.
So while 20 years of ability and attention all gets focused on that one thing, like only a true professional can? He has tunnel vision, leading up to the big event in his mind. Me? I had two weeks to prepare. In reality, I honestly didn't care where he suggested we meet, because I'd never set foot there.
He's a seasoned professional. He'll be perhaps very good at catching me scoping out for him, at the meet spot. I'm hardly a professional at all this. Even my own mentor who had experience, recommends caution. There are guys with superior intelligence training, and you have to be wary about running across one of these rare gems.
No. Days before the meet, when his mind and every ability is churning to make that future event go smooth... is where I live. He's blind to all around him, leading up until that moment. Everywhere else? Safe and carefree. The only future worry, is going THERE.
Every Saturday night, the illustrious governor and one member of his employee entourage, go to dinner. I mean, not every single Saturday? But they do it often enough. A private dinner club, of all things. So a piss ant like myself can't get a look at them doing it, much less get a seat nearby.
But they sit at dinner when they do it, for a couple hours. Which means in all practical terms? Most likely... a couple drinks. Or a shared cigar in some special after dinner cigar room? Like I know. But then, they split back into their own cars, and each go their own way home. The governor? To his damn mansion. The security consultant slash aide. To his own not so humble abode.
I know where mister scary is starting out, and I know where mister scary is going to end up at. And, I've observed him many times on this same route. He never takes different ways home. Mister scary is also zoomed in with tunnel vision, on a very important event a couple days in the future. Not tuned in to looking for danger in the here and now around him. He'll make schoolboy mistakes now, barely glancing over the obvious things.
All I need now, is two things. One, I need to stop mister scary, en route from point A to point B. Two? I need it to be a routine matter, that will arouse no real suspicion on his own part.
We came up with a solution, quickly. A nice and permanent solution. The kind I like now. In certain areas, what you drive determines how easily you blend in. I have a buddy, and he has a beat up old pickup truck for his business he owns, that little operation being a scrap yard. He always did say, that out there? He was invisible in his beat up old work truck, out in the sticks.
I tell you, I was out to visit him for lunch? He was behind me. Honking at me, trying to get me to pull in and we get a sloppy Joe and a soft drink. I didn't know it was him. True as he always claimed, in a beat up old pickup? He was invisible out there. He was. Hell, I know both him and that truck? Didn't realize it was him behind me, honking the horn.
This mister scary, is no different. I just needed a different vehicle to blend in where he was located at. I stole the vehicle early on Friday night. Friday afternoon, really. I had a very unprofessional spray painter. The fifty dollar sort of tool paint sprayer, that any homeowner might pick up to spray fences and decks with.
I quickly taped from a stack of newspapers, the rough outlines of the frame of the car. I spray painted it black. The doors, hood and trunk? Basic white. I was done inside of two hours of getting the stolen vehicle to my home base. I had practiced, painting wrecked cars at a junk yard. A little electric generator to run the little electric deck sprayer, and voila. Three cars in, I knew it would work.
After dark, the "fresh paint job" looked spectacular and new. From a few feet away. In the dark. Which was all I needed. A few stickers and decals, too. Laughably silly in the daytime to really notice and look at the stickers? But again, at night... it goes by at a glance.
It happens to everyone, once in a while. And everyone sees, yet no one ever notices. I was waiting on him to come home this way. Naturally, he did. Making no attempt to hide at all, I accelerated directly after pulling out of my parking space and sped up to almost hitting him from behind.
I flicked a simple switch, and within seconds he pulled right over. I pulled in behind him, after flicking the switch back off.
"Good evening, officer."
"Good evening yourself, sir. Tell you what. I doubt you're who I'm looking for. Tell you the truth? I got a vague description of a vehicle. If you were to just hold up some kind of ID? Honest, I'll send you on your way, not even a warning. Sorry for bothering you."
"Not a problem, officer. I'm in no rush. Just coming home from dinner."
"Thanks."
His attention went to getting his license out. I pulled my own item out. A stout plastic spear, basically. Wide, thin, flat, long, pointed and reasonably sharp enough. No different than a letter opened shaped like a decorative dagger? But longer. When his attention came back to holding his license up for me to scan his name and see it wasn't him I was looking for? It was already a done deal.
I shoved the plastic spear straight down. Into the hollow of his shoulder facing me, the base where the neck meets the top of the shoulder. There's a triangular region right there, where a thin layer of soft skin is in direct contact with the tops of the lungs. By going straight down in the hollow, I guaranteed a devastating lung injury.
A lung injury as severe as that you would inflict on a deer when hunting. By knowing the lung was pierced in that very spot, I guaranteed a quick time from injury to unconscious. Seconds, not minutes. The injury has nowhere to bleed, but straight down and in. The lung fills up like a balloon, within seconds.
Before the lung can fill up, a normal lung injury will bleed out. Low enough in the lung, death might take many long minutes. With the puncture at the very top, though? It fills up the other lung within seconds as well. The victim is unconscious, basically drowned in their own blood, within seconds. Crying out and even screaming for help? Turns quickly into gurgles.
By the time he realized I had pierced him, I had already driven the plastic spear down through and pulled up and back out. In his obvious confusion, he was right handed. His right hand held his ID. I grabbed his strong wrist he held out for me helpfully for a few seconds while he quit moving. His weak left hand was trapped below me holding his right wrist. Two against one, it was an easy matter to hold onto him with two wrists for his handicapped single wrist he got to play with. I have zero concept of "fair".
Any gun or knife he went for anyways, was going to be available to his right hand. The one I had that he naturally used to hold his ID up with.
Within seconds, I simply walked back to the car that I had painted funny, and drove off into the night.
Uncounted numbers of cars had seen us, and none would ever report anything more than this... I drove by, and some cop had some car pulled over around there.
The governor himself? Would have to wait.
The problem with the governor though. He is who he is. He lives in the special governor's mansion. He was a rich important guy before coming to this station in life, and he'll go back to being even more rich and even more important now, having been governor several times.
He has at his beck and call all manner of minions. While he's the governor? The state police act like his personal bodyguards. Harrisburg, the capitol itself? Has downtown local police. They report to him regularly. The part of the capitol that's all state government buildings and property? They have the Capitol Police, another superfluous law enforcement agency, on top of the regular local force.
The capitol police? The double icing. They report and patrol the governor and his mansion, and indeed all his comings and goings, as well. There's even regular security guards on top of the capitol police in all the state buildings, and they're obviously at the governor's beck and call on top of everyone else.
No, he's untouchable where he is. But, I have him a little isolated. He's used to having a smart killer on hand, to advise him. Not any more. My investigator assures me, that its not a simple matter to find another one of those, either. It takes time. Introductions have to get made. Personalities have to mesh. Negotiations have to go well. Then it takes time to build trust, to even begin to have what you once had. An experienced killer on tap that you trusted implicitly.
I had also taken out a 5 million dollar a year spigot of tax free money flowing in. How much of that was the governor's cut was anyone's guess, but it was gone now too.
Now? With the three blind county mice gone, and the governor's pet killer out of the way... I simply went into hibernation. Sooner or later? The governor wouldn't be the governor any longer. And he would then become mine. Until then? The lure for me of regularity.
I now sit back, waiting. Looking for more crooked back room players from back in the prime days of the illegal video poker's days in the sun. Legal research, for instance? Is quietly combing the many and varied sources for who hired lobbyists for something.
If we can successfully trace back, whoever pushed for the long standing Pennsylvania ruling that as long as you put a "for amusement only" sign on every illegal and openly operating gambling machine across the state, nothing at all could be done. Oh. See, there's this ink on paper. Says for amusement. See, we're not allowed to arrest that machine owner for paying off. See the sign?
Because its pure logic. If we can trace that desire? We have the source, the wellspring of it all. Time is sometimes a precious resource, and other situations? You almost get too much time. We hit that part in the investigation. I had to watch myself, watch my carefully crafted personality I had built up by this point. I don't want to wear out my friends in the capitol, so to speak. Being too eager, being too unable to drop everything and accept what I had gotten already.
It took a long time to slowly get used to being in that house, alone. Over extended time, you find yourself slipping and forgetting. You look up, and your head swivels towards the door. You just heard an engine, a door. Like a family dog, your heart leaps, then... nope. Oops. Forgot for a second there. That sounds like the right year and model of car, the engine pulling in, the car door sound it made.
But no, it can't be Rain. She's gone. And that, is what hurts the most, right there. Those little slip ups, where you let it slip your mind, just for a second? And it bites you on the ass, quick. You don't want to dwell on it, but you have no choice. This breaks you down over time. Or it hardens you, into something considered antisocial.
I need to hover over everything and watch carefully. I don't care for my public image in any real way, other than I need my anonymity, my camouflage. I have very well meaning friends and acquaintances that lecture me. See, I make this much money when I'm working. And its a lot of money. If I just worked a little more, couldn't I see what I could "have"?
I have my spiel down pat.
"Sikes. How long we been friends, now. Must be, what. Help me out here."
"Mono? We not only grew up in the same small town? No. This little housing plan we both lived in. It used to be its own tiny zip code, before the main town took it over. When I was a couple years old? We still had our own cops. Honestly? I knew who you were, to point at you... since first grade, maybe? Just didn't meet you, or any of your crowd... until I did. Might only have known you personally, from around high school graduation on, but... I knew of you? Pretty much my whole life."
"Are we not brothers?"
"We are. How many times you ever said it, now. Brother from another mother."
"Okay. So don't get mad when I---"
I dead panned him. I know where this is going, its gone this way several times with others, already. I can sense it, before I hear the actual words that its starting. I held my hands up, a pleading face on.
"Please. I'm pretty sure where you're going to go."
"Are you sure? You tell me, then."
"I get two speeches. I get the... work more, it'll take your mind off it to work more, make more money working more, that whole thing."
"And?"
I took some folding green paper out of my pocket, and tossed it on the table.
"There. Money. I got some. I'm fine. You want to count it? Go on, and count it."
He riffed through it.
"Wow. Nice little wad, actually. I kind of thought, you were... you know. Hibernating? Working on stuff."
"Actually? I do. But, that's just pieces of green paper. I need a certain number of green pieces of paper, to have electricity. To buy some cat food. I traded some? For this big basket of smelt and french fries. Some tools, a computer here or there. I really don't need much. What is everyone's problem, anyways."
"Honestly? We want you, to treat yourself better."
I shrugged.
"What is it. That I'm missing out on. What. If you guys could all get together, make a list. I don't know. This used car. That sofa, that chair. Make a list. See, everyone that gives me this speech? Always different stuff on their list. Now, you guys get together, and all decide what it is I'm missing out on, you can all agree on? Do that. Vote on it, pick the items out of a hat, we'll have a party. But, I'll buy the stuff on that list, then... will everyone finally be happy? Then, I can cross this... talk... off my list. Been there? Done that."
"You're being a smart ass."
I shrugged.
"I am. You have to understand, though. I know to a normal person, with a normal life going on. Buying some nice stuff? Makes you feel better. I wish people could understand this. There, is absolutely nothing? That I can buy, that will make me feel better. Seriously. You can't give me... 100 million dollars, free and clear? Do anything I want with it. I'll figure out something responsible to do with it, but... there isn't anything that 100 million dollars buys me? That makes the pain go away. I mean, I buy what. My own island somewhere. A little paradise? I go there... alone. Or with friends, but... try to understand this. The more expensive of a nice thing, I buy myself. If its just to try to make myself feel better? It works in reverse. It makes me feel worse."
"I hear you."
"I tell this to everyone. Other than eating what I feel like eating, working on whatever I feel like working on at the moment? Money has no use."
"Maybe its time for something else, then."
"Like what."
"I think you should spend some free time, with a girl. There. I said it. Are you mad?"
"No."
"Are you going to think about it, at least?"
"Now that you mentioned it? I'm thinking about it, right now."
"And."
"And what. I'm not mad, but... when you guys vote on the list. Of stuff I have to buy, and everyone's finally happy? Stick some girl's name on there. If I manage to bang her, and she admits in public we slept together? There. All done. I can go back, to what I was doing."
My close friend from childhood isn't exasperated? He's used to this. I always did march to the tune of a different drummer all along, and that's putting it mildly. Now? Go figure I'm more eccentric about everything than another person might be.
"Can I ask, then. What is it, that you're doing. I'm used to you, always getting into things. Doing things. You get all excited, you tell everyone about what you're working on. Whether they want to hear it, or not. Its just... you. You want to go back, and do what it is you're doing, fine. Can I know what that even is?"
I sighed. I could tell him the god's truth, and he'd just laugh.
"My hands. I need to do something? With my hands. Did you ever see some crazy person, always playing with twisting and untwisting pieces of paper, or whatever it is they do. The repetitive hand motions? Produce a mild calming sensation. So. I do things with my hands, it makes me feel a little better. So, you see all my hobbies now? Are hands on. Doing things with my hands."
"Does that... help?"
"A little. I don't tell a lot of people, but I know you know. I'm on medication. Just so I can function, after all that. I only feel? Horrible emotions. The medication, makes the feelings go away. But, I need so much of it that it takes everything else away with it. I'm like a shell. And, you think I need to be dating. Christ."
"Okay. Maybe not, dating dating, like most people do it? Hell, you never did anything like other people do it. But, maybe try. Not dating, but... just finding a female friend, and hanging out with her?"
"When I go stay at her house in the city, I told you I'm friends with the lady lawyer. Doesn't she count?"
"You must mean the lawyer and her girlfriend. So no. That doesn't count."
"What. This is high school, all over again? I'm not getting laid enough. I'm not one of the cool kids, then."
"Look. You had your life, before... and now after. Can I talk about, your life... before this?"
"Sure."
"Was it perfect."
"My life? Hell no. Nothing's perfect."
"I know. We talked before, back in the day. You had your... issues. I'm not saying to jump into dating with just anyone, but you get another chance. For something... different, this time around. If it happens."
"Ah. My problems, that I had."
"Your life wasn't perfect. You have to admit that. You can't expect to make things perfect now, it just---"
I stuck my phone in his face.
"Me? I'm going outside. Going to have me a smoke. Go on, look at that."
"What am I even seeing, here."
"Watch it. I cut a clip out of a longer one. Watch it a couple times, while I'm out there. Maybe you'll see it."
I left him, and had my smoke before I came back in. He had given up guessing. I grabbed the phone, and moved the slider through the short video, to where I wanted it. To show him the still shot it left on the screen, when the little triangle was in that location.
"See her hands? Look."
"What am I---"
"Look at her finger. The ring. She's wearing it."
"So?"
"Its right out on the open senate floor. In session. Important people, that know her dad? Will ask him who bought her the new engagement ring. Right before this happened? She was out in the open, about us. My problems? Were just over. Things were just about to get? For lack of a better word, obviously. Perfect."
Not wearing the couple thousand dollar ring, and the in general nature of the whole situation the way it used to lay? Yeah. The ring, the ring, the ring. It was a pet peeve of mine. So he knew the significance, of me showing him these. I had more little clips. I showed him. The people working in those meetings and in senate sessions? They all know each other, and lots of things they say don't make sense to the person watching that doesn't know everything.
The last video I showed him? She mentioned me, though not by name. Some older guy shouted in the slight commotion of a vote and little talks getting broken up finally. She held her ring up and pointed at it, raising her voice about what she was going to go and do soon. My nickname at the time? Boo. Not this weekend coming up, I'm spending it with Boo.
I patiently explained the last video. I? Am Boo. She was not only wearing her ring in public, around people that would report it? She was naming me publicly. In that circle. I was finally going to get my share of the credit.
He understood. It abruptly ended the conversation. We talked about everything else but now.
I have any number of zany little things I do socially with people that know me. People that don't know me find it to register anywhere from a novelty to annoying. Honestly, I don't care now and never did before. One of those things, is that I will suddenly include fully an outsider handy to the conversation. Give them parameters, ask for decisions and thoughts. Some giggle. Some try to answer. Some do both and go with it. I consider it low level proof the person might not have a board stuck up their ass when they go with it.
I did it to the girl waiting on our table. She smiled nervously and started coming up with answers and smiling as she did it, to let us know she was playing along but had no idea what choice to actually recommend. We're at the truck stop, and small wonder there. If you want to "run across me" and catch me out and about? Knowing my coffee nights and which truck stop I consider "mine" will take you right to me.
New girl. Has to be, I know all the regulars. All of us coffee regulars do. She's now standing there on the other side of the counter I relocated to. Great. I'm socially indebted now. I have to talk to her, every time she stands there and does this. My own damn fault. I don't know what it is. Some women? You can draw them a picture, of you eating their pussy. Like it doesn't even register. Or, they giggle and tell you how funny you are. Then? There's the other end of that spectrum, and I give you exhibit A. Standing here, smiling.
This opposite end of the spectrum? Oh. You ask the girl what time it is, and she hands you her email and phone number, and tells you what days are good for her to go out, the way her schedule works. You ask what's going on? Oh. You were telling me jokes, making me laugh. Obviously, trying to chat me up. Here you go.
I talked to her. I made her giggle, being irreverent and including her in our conversation to be lighthearted about the weighty topics we were discussing. Christ, there's no getting out of this. I about have no choice, but to acknowledge her standing there, right in front of me. I decided to address her, without looking up from the paper I was trying to lose myself in. If I'm by myself, like I blissfully was when I came in? I like to get one of each newspaper. Three are sold here. Do all the crosswords, puzzles, everything. I like this one paper, because they have the logic puzzles I like. Lots of puzzle pages leave out the logic puzzles these days. I miss them. I like the brain teasers.
"Do... you need something, ma'am?"
Without looking up, I could see her shaking her head.
"Well. If I give you money, will you go away?"
Nope.
"How about five bucks extra. Your boss, gets the money for my food. You? Get five bucks. I bet you'd go away for five bucks, huh."
"Do you really want me to go away? Hmm?"
I put my paper and pen down, and looked up.
"No. What I really want? Is a three letter word for a grassy hill."
"Three letters?"
"No. THREE letters."
She giggled at my little joke. I'm the only one I know, who makes that style of joke. Should I turn right, you said? No, I said turn RIGHT.
"Got any letters?"
"Yeah. First two? L and E. Third letter? I don't know. Its going to be one of those retarded crossword only words. I'm trying every letter there, seeing if I can get it by getting the one going the other way. Got any ideas?"
"No. Sorry."
I went back to my puzzle page.
"Ma'am? You're of limited usefulness here, you know. Who even hires a waitress, that can't give you crossword puzzle answers. Jesus. Some people's kids, you know."
"So. What do you like."
"Well. My puzzles? That usually gets it for me."
"Hmm. So. I'm new here, and..."
"What."
"The one girl in the back? She said you took her computer, that worked but just sat there, doing retard stuff when you turn it on. She said you gave it back the next day? It was like new again."
"I did. If the computer itself isn't broken, I'm just playing with it? Yeah. If nothing ends up needing replaced, which is ninety percent of the time. Fifty dollar minimum."
"I want that. Will you make mine fast like when I first bought it? She said that's what hers did when you were done with it."
"Sure. When should I pick the computer up. You want to bring it to work with you one night? Just tell me when. I'm usually here three nights a week."
"I know. My computer's at my place. Wish you could get it tonight."
"So? Have someone bring it in for you."
"I live alone, silly. There's no one there. I just moved here. I really don't know anyone, that I don't meet through someone here at work."
"You far away?"
"No. Its some little town, a couple miles out behind the exit ramp? You---"
"I know where you mean. Let me guess. You make a right at the big sign for the you pull it junk yard."
"Oh. You're from around here, then."
"Not here, I just know out that road. A cook and a dishwasher, a couple waitresses live out there."
"Well, you do know where, then."
"Its close. When you're on break? Drive out and pick it up. All the girls that live out there go out on break time. Even the girls that don't live out there? They'll go out with whoever does live out there, to get away for lunch. Ask anyone. You're allowed."
"Yeah. I, kinda misplaced my car keys. I don't know, I was in a rush."
"How are you getting home, then."
"One of the other girls will take me out, when the morning shift comes in. Or..."
"Or."
"Or? Its close by. Why don't you drop me off. I can give you the computer. You'll be in tomorrow night anyways, unless your schedule changed."
"You trust a stranger, with your computer."
"Hmm. You're not a complete stranger. The girls all know you. You're out here all the time. Besides. If you do steal it? It wasn't working anyways. I'm not out much. So? I'll take my chances."
So now I'm roped in to give her a ride home after work ends. Plus signed on to fix her computer. She was renting a cheap beat up mobile home out of someone's back field out there. Next thing I know? She's like a curse. I keep getting things like free pie and ice cream, free side dishes, even main dishes if someone sends something back and there's not really anything wrong with it. I get free refills and replacement side dishes without asking. She comes out on breaks, and sits next to me.
The only way to get rid of her? Would be to pick another truck stop. Or to of course scream at her and berate her, until she got the message. Although I can do that? I won't. Even if I find her slightly annoying, her motivations are all on the up and up. For me? This would be as if I were screaming suddenly at a cat, dog, or small child.
And just like that? Its how it happened and how it came to be. With the "it" in question being I have a girlfriend again. Technically, anyways. Is she really my girlfriend if I'm not having sex with her? At all? The hell even is the ruling on that one, I wonder.
Though it freaked me out to have it happen? Still kinda neat, I guess. It is a slight ego boost to have a little one member fan club like that. Quiet, smiling... and up your ass 24, 7, 365. I make it sound as if I don't like her and this condition that developed? But I do.
To discourage any female that starts to give me attention and I notice it? I thought my strategy would be easy, here. Pretend like I didn't hear her, or was at all even paying attention. Smart ass glib one liners. Being slightly rude, then dismissive and mildly rude when confronted or questioned about it.
Yet, women are strange creatures and some are stranger than others. A few women? The ruder and more dismissive I got, the more they giggled and told me how funny and cute I am. I was amazed to learn I had to have a plan B. The first really persistent one I ran into, was sweetly cornering me in the parking lot and making polite but explicit suggestions.
Stuck for a plan B I hadn't known I was going to need? I looked her straight in the eyes, and told her my fiancee had died. And that... I couldn't physically do it. Yeah, I claimed impotency from trauma. I know I sound puerile and childish as all holy hell, but hey. I was on the spot, I was stuck, and I needed something fast.
And yeah. While I don't exactly broadcast it? I'd prefer people think I can't get it up. As opposed to having to go through the mechanical motions of going out when I don't even want to in the first place. Naturally, the irony of it all struck me as odd and funny simultaneously. Young? A man wants desperately to date and have sex. You can't make it happen, and even when you can? Not like you can do it on demand.
The impressive indelible irony to it all? Was that being actually uninterested in dating and even casual sex... was clearly working "better" for getting laid and meeting new girls than anything I had done when younger, trying my little heart out like any youngster.
Who designed this world. Anyone? Its easy to find it all a big accident. No one would ever design a system, whereby... 20 year old men run around like hamsters on crack, standing on their head and juggling with their feet, to try to get 20 year old girls to notice them.
The 20 year old girls? All collectively chase after a select few of the 20 year old boys all around them, and guys up to about 30. Now I'm in a position where I actually don't care about dating and sex? To the point I'm phobic about dating. So, I'm really trying to avoid having to go on a date or be alone with any girl that shows me attention.
The more I try not to date? The more offers I get.
This girl, though. She had a weird style. She sort of smothered me with soft positive attention? And nothing else. If you won't kiss a girl? She'll either kiss you, or leave after getting frustrated. This one though, never tried but never left, either. I was kind of waiting for the hand on my leg, the hand going down my jeans... but nothing like that went on.
It was everything just like we were dating, except... no sparks, so no fireworks. Wow. For me? This is too perfect. I want this "relationship" to last for as long as I can maintain it. I mean, if I wasn't damaged goods, and damaged the way I was? I'd want to date this girl. If she dated me, I'd feel lucky. And if she kept dating me, and seemed to genuinely like me? I'm sure I'd feel really lucky.
But I live in this world, which is of course the best of all possible worlds. And in this best possible world? I am damaged. If I had lost a wife when older, it would be a lot more socially acceptable to be able to just "quit" dating altogether. But, I'm young enough it sticks out like a sore thumb.
So, this is perfect. I first noticed it just out at the truck stop, in that little micro social environment. She was simply... my girlfriend. Just like that, all of a sudden, as if a light switch had been thrown. The more I tried to play it off, or even deny it? The more everyone chuckled and giggled and rolled their eyes.
I got the little home cooked meals brought in, and given to me publicly. The constant stream of little freebies that marked me as her pet customer. Her hip rubbing up against mine anywhere I sat or walked or stood, announced it like a billboard. When this became routine, I quit jumping out of my skin every time she came up and attached herself to me physically.
She had a dirt cheap rental on an 80 foot mobile home that was waterproof and solid, but beat to holy hell. She got me to start coming in when dropping her off, and slowly made that into a routine. Once I figured out I wasn't going to be cornered into sexual intimacy? I once again calmed down. I found it annoying, that the bathroom light switch was one of those, "you have to know how to make it work" light switches.
If it runs on electricity? I can take it apart and fix it. Light switches and plug outlets and wiring aren't mysterious or dangerous to me. Its ten minutes to change a switch or a plug, if the underlying wiring isn't iffy. And even if it is? An hour more of finagling a chunk of new wiring to run next to the faulty one? I disconnect the original wire, and connect the new one. Voila.
She wasn't mad that I took a screwdriver and replaced the light switch without telling her. I figured when she went in to take a piss in her own bathroom, and the light switch just worked like new? Kind of figured she might smile or maybe even skip around a little. She didn't. She got slightly quiet and moped a little.
Which caught me off guard. Her slight bad mood from me fixing her light switch? Quickly dissipated. When I went to plug the toaster in, and she unplugged it and plugged it into the plug that worked next to it? Go figure what happened. I brought over a new 15 amp receptacle that cost every bit of one dollar brand new at the store, and this one was free to me even new in the box.
Yeah. I got another little patch of quiet moping. Which again, did dissipate quick enough I didn't cry foul. Still strange, though. But I made hay while the sun was shining. I made sure I brought my buddy out, so he could see that I had a "girlfriend". Now, that shut him up. But, he spread it around. That I was doing better, that I had a new girl... and that shut everyone else up.
Which really was rather optimum. Just like a "real" new girlfriend? We had to ever so slowly make the rounds of every couple I knew, coming over to eat and socialize. In short order, I started to enjoy what I was getting out of this. It made me feel guilty, so I started trying to do various little things for her. To show my appreciation, to keep this system going if I could.
This led to more than moping, this led to... not arguing, but.... something. It was clear something was going on, and at first I thought it was just me. I quickly realized though that there was something on her end of it as well. I naturally at first thought this was just her dealing and wondering with and about me and my situation. You can see it on a person's face, you can "hear" it in your eyes with their body language. The starting and stopping, trying to find a way in.
Everything that is, has a beginning. It exists for a period of time, and its on you if you even know or notice or wonder any about it. It then ends at some point. This makes sense, because we live in a universe. Its the very definition of limitless with no end to things like space and distance and time. Its in our language. How many is too many to ever count? As numerous as the stars. How long and how far is... infinity? We simply reference the universe all around us.
Yet? This universe had a definite beginning. A big bang. We can argue how long its been here, how long it will be here. There's some end to it, somewhere and sometime. To us pitiful human beings? Forever, is anything that existed before we were born, and will exist after our death. The thing that your father made the day before you were born, the thing that exists all of your life, and you die leaving this world looking at it in your room. It will survive you. Its forever. Perhaps the day after you die, they throw it out or toss it on a bonfire. There. Burned to ash and gone. There, is your human "forever".
Nothing, not even the earth, the sun, or the universe itself? Is truly forever.
Friday is one of my treasured three coffee nights at the truck stop every week. While I know forever is just a concept never achieved, like chivalry? I still like the ideal of it. Every Friday, barring any scheduling of things disrupting my itinerary... I like to go after dark and stay out late. Enjoying cups of coffee with idle talk, and a late dinner slowly picked over. Its a Friday, so I want to go. The fact that in this country at this day and age, we have decided Friday coming is some special day, some holiday? Why should I not get my coffee, my late dinner, my social time I enjoy. Its one of those few things from before my trauma that endures, its one of those few things I still have on my dinner plate that was kicked off of the dining room table that is my life.
I like the truck stop being open every holiday, every hour of every day. Its a constant in my little world. I feel like early man must have felt. You don't know what happened or what might happen? But that hot orange thing will rise and set every day, and that's for sure. Its comforting. Its familiar. Its predictability in an uncertain universe. So it warms and comforts the cockles of my heart, that its Friday and I can go and do Friday night's bidding. Independent of the day of the week, day of what month, and whatever else.
I arrived at a decision a little ways back. What even was she, to me. Is she my girlfriend, though we never have physical intimacy. Beyond what can be shown in public. We kiss, hug, touch in public like a normal couple displays affection publicly. But in private? Hardly much more. Everyone clearly assumes more is going on, and for quite a while now. I make believe we landed on the moon, personally. This? Is my own little conspiracy. She's in on it, too. We have this elaborate and obvious relationship, and... its all a fake. Its not a real relationship, its a real life movie set.
The people at the truck stop? Oh. There's that guy. There's that waitress. His girlfriend. They're just watching the movie, that this man and woman have a relationship and are boyfriend and girlfriend. They believe its true. In reality, I'm just an actor, and she's just an actor, and we put a show on three nights a week that people in and around our lives watch. Its bizarre.
Saturday is her birthday. Because she works the graveyard shift at the truck stop, her schedule reflects it. She gets Saturday off. She wants to spend it with her boyfriend. Which is me. I'm that character that plays her boyfriend in the movie. Saturday. You can think of it as beginning when you wake up Saturday at 8:00 am. It technically begins at midnight, Friday night though. And so, Friday at midnight begins her birthday and her day off for it. With Sunday off of work, she has nothing to do until Monday night and her regular schedule resumes.
I'm off just before midnight, with her, to celebrate and do something for her birthday now. In planning this, she more or less just told me what the schedule was this week, because of the day of her birth. And, what did I want for dinner late Friday night. What would make me feel good. I argued sweetly. No, its your birthday. You pick that. She smiled and refused. Forced now to choose, I flailed through memory banks.
My mom when I was little asked what I liked, and might request for dinner. I sometimes picked meatloaf. With the dark brown gravy. And please, no chopped up vegetables in the meatloaf. Its a me and mom memory, mainly. But yeah. My late fiancee once asked a similar thing of me, and I picked... meatloaf. No chopped veggies, dark brown gravy. This choice? Satisfied both inner requirements. Enough of a me and mom and a childhood memory, that I wouldn't break down and cry myself to pieces. Yet, it had her in it. So I wasn't forgetting and casting her memory aside, as if it were mere baggage or trash to me.
Sometimes I follow her out to her mobile home. Sometimes I leave early for the truck stop. So I can pick her up early, eventually take her to work. Wait through all the night and her shift. She told me to leave my car there, and just get in hers for once. I'm used to driving her or following her. It was a unique experience to be driven by her. She waits longer that I do, for stop signs. She signals carefully, each and every turn. Even though at midnight in this tiny side town, there's no one to signal for.
Turning onto the side trail next to the nicer house's driveway, and going out the back to the field that has the mobile home she rents. She paused before we got out to go in.
"Its unlocked. Go in. I'll be in? In a minute."
I shrugged and said I'd wait, that I'd help her to carry in whatever she was bringing in. She kissed my neck, then bit it. A little hard.
"What I said? Was for you to go in. Its unlocked."
I got bit again. Harder. I decided to go in. I like my setup, my little movie. I like portraying a man with a girlfriend, and the people watching the movie can smile and assume what all goes on and goes into it. If she actually ever asked for anything? Within reason, I'd probably just do it. This facade is too valuable to me. Its a castle of ice. Its cold and sterile? But its inordinately pretty to look at, with the moonlight glinting off of the ice. I went in. She carried a few things in, and it took two trips. I heard the dull clunk of her trunk lid closing at the conclusion of the last one.
When I turned to see, she smiled but was mildly curt.
"Did I ask you to watch me?"
"No."
She grinned.
"So? You just turn your head around, and watch that TV. Can you do that for me."
I nodded. She grinned again.
"Great. So do it."
Not knowing what to say or do, I simply turned my seeming attention back to the TV and its big, wide screen. When she was done with what she was doing, she came up behind me sitting on the couch. I turned my head, and her palms swiveled my face back towards the TV screen once again. My neck got kissed while she held my chin and a cheek firm in her warm palms gripping tight. Then I got bit again. I gasped. I felt her chuckle hot moist air into my neck.
"I said watch the TV. I didn't say turn around, did I."
I got my neck bit again, even harder.
"Do it again? I might have to bite a chunk off of your soft, little, neck."
I was bidden to promise I would just watch the screen, and listen to her.
"There, we, go. Finally. Got you listening to me, huh."
I nodded. One strong warm palm was across my mouth from behind, preventing me from speaking. Though I nodded of my own assent, she was moving my head for me, chuckling as she did it.
"I, want us to play a game. Its a trust game. Will you play it with me?"
The palm over my mouth moved my head yes for me again.
"Good..."
She blindfolded me, giggling, telling me to sit still. So, I did. I heard her putter around the kitchen briefly, then I felt her weight on the couch near me.
"Dinner? Is being heated up. We could eat fifteen minutes from now? Or an hour or two. I added some water when I turned the heat on low, so it won't dry out. Its my birthday. We'll eat when I say so. Understand?"
My clamped mouth and head nodded on her accord again. I got my neck bit again, but it didn't hurt this time. Gentle, fun, soft nibbles.
"Good."
I squirmed with my neck being kissed and bit.
"Do you trust me?"
She didn't make my head nod. I did it myself, agreeing. She hissed in my ear.
"I mean, do you really trust me."
I nodded on my own all over again.
"Then stand up. We're going to play a trust game. Its so people realize they can trust one another. My little birthday. My little birthday party. Will you play my game, and trust me that much. Hmm?"
Judging by my head's movement, I would. After being stood up, I went to turn to face her, and... my neck was bitten. Hard. I cried out softly, as she wagged her head biting my neck, like a little dog with a toy.
"I left a mark. I'm just sure of it. Don't do that again."
I heard and even felt her giggling into my neck, as she tied my wrists together behind my back. Quite tight. She laughed and climbed over the couch. Hugging me from behind. Roaming hands. I could smell the meatloaf in the oven slowly warming up, while I smelled the moisture from her lips, tongue and mouth in my nostrils. How is smelling a stranger's saliva so disgusting, while smelling it from your partner's mouth was so exciting and intimate. Yet it is.
Her front yard, if you want to call it that, is simply the back field rising behind the nice house that had this old mobile home on the back end of the property. Some prior tenant must have had children or watched them enough they had a swing set and attached children's entertainment devices. It sat there rusting, never to be used by children again. It was in that awkward phase of a metal swing set's life. Too rusty and old to trust with a real child now, yet not literally falling over begging to be hauled away to the trash heap.
It was the "me" of swing sets. Taken care of, kids still here? It would have been scraped and painted and kept up. But with the child that it was for long gone, it sat as a hulk. Not so badly worn as to be destroyed and gotten rid of? But clearly no longer useful for its intended purpose. Like me. I used to be a boyfriend, but not any more. Now I'm just something that looks like one. You look here, you see this swing set. Oh. Children could play on that. Like a girl looking at myself, sizing me up as a partner. Oh. That could work. Looks like its in okay shape.
But you get up on me, and spend the time? No. Like the swing set in the yard, and the child is pointing and dancing. Playtime. You go and look, though. Some rust. Are these old screws and bolts steady? Or will one rust apart under the strain of a child swinging. Unless you're drunk or stupid, you wouldn't put the child on it and swing them. Not without testing it. Pushing, pulling. Sitting on it yourself, to see.
And that's me. Up close? Something is clearly wrong. A swing set that should have been scraped and painted like any other, has been left out to decay. Am I getting lucky, finding an unused and available swing set? Or, is this just a deathtrap that will disintegrate as soon as I try to use it. I stand. I look strong and sturdy. But up close, after time to see and inspect me? Maybe not.
She walked me out back to the old swing set. If I pulled or moved, I got my wrists yanked up behind me. Stopped and held, my neck would get bit. Quite hard. She stood there at the swings, biting my neck. Hearing me almost cry out. Loose rope trailing from my wrists, ended up in the air behind me. With my bound wrists up at the level of my neck, I was trapped and couldn't move without difficulty. She hissed in my ear. Commentary, instructions, teasing. My jeans and underwear were below my knees before I realized it, and I was squirming putty in her hands.
"Yeah. That's right. We? Are going to have a little talk, you and me. Do you want to stay with me tonight, or... would you rather I drive you back to your car, and you can go home, and that will be the end of it. What will it be. Me? Here? Now? Tonight? Or... not. And nothing else. Just tell me, you'll be at your car and on your way home, in minutes. Or? Just ask me. To keep you here."
I felt it was completely unfair that her wet hand was stroking my soaked hard cock, while I was being interrogated. Hey, if the police used this technique, with cute lady cops? Might get way more confessions this way, just saying. She kept me hard. Wet. Squirming and squealing. But it was a tease. She'd quit and hiss in my ear before starting up again. I asked, she teased and chuckled in my neck.
"Maybe. Going to tell me what I want to know, hmm?"
Seems I would, going by my noises, my squirms. She asked me if I liked girls. I nodded my head yes. Did I like boys? No. Not at all. Since I liked girls, and girls alone... did I like this girl, who had me now? Or not. And I did like her.
"All right. Essay question. You tell me, what you like about me. Better be the truth, too. Or else?"
Her new weapon. Tickling. She worked me into hysterics, then quit. Demanding her essay on what I liked about her. When I wasn't forthcoming quick enough? Another longer, hysterical tickling session. Then asked again. There was no holding out, there were only periods between her fingertip's gentle attacks. Probing, finding little spots that made me squeal and squirm back into her over and again.
I found myself panting for breath between long attacks, as she drew the entire story out of me. Slowly. Stopping and asking for clarifications, administering more fingertip torture to keep me on her path she had chosen. Eventually, it ended. The it started again in earnest, and didn't seem to quit.
"You? You lied to me. You told me, that this thing, here..."
She flicked my dripping hard cock with her fingers.
"Doesn't work..."
Then worked her warm wet hand over it and quit again.
"Seems like it works just fine."
She started again, in earnest this time.
"You lied to me. You like me. You want me. And you still lied, to keep me away. Why. I don't know yet. But? I will. I guarantee you, that one."
Her hand made impossibly fast wet noises now. A wet blur of warm moist pleasure.
As I was starting to finish, and the explosion of noise and motion that accompanied it was starting? She hissed again.
"When I said ask? I meant... beg..."
I begged to finish now.
"If that thing squirts off? You, are in big trouble, mister. For lying to me. You? Are going to have to be punished for that, you know. Lying. Making me all horny. Making me wait. Making me? Go through all, this, trouble."
When I went off momentarily after that, her hand went off like a shot from a referee's starter pistol had cracked. Her hand moved in the wet blur and more, and continued. I became even more of a squealing, begging, piece of putty in her hands. She finally quit the motion, and hugged me to her from behind. My wrists came down, as she clutched me to her, in tight.
"Well? Want taken back to your car, or... are you staying now."
I had to beg, that I wanted to stay.
This was her breakthrough moment. She had gently taken charge, but now grasped it tight and held on. She hugged me tight from behind through my afterglow. She idly played with my now soft cock. She made a little "hmm" noise when she worked her fingertip and nail on the sensitive spot under the tip.
"Well, well, well. You got a problem now, don't you."
My noise my mouth made under her hand had her shush me.
"Shh. I wasn't asking a question. Do you think you have a problem now. I was telling you. That you do have a big problem now. Because you really are? In big, big, trouble. You need punished. I just don't know how bad you've been. Yet. I'm about to find out."
I was naked from the waist down in seconds after that. She balled my clothes and shoes up, and disappeared and reappeared shortly after she had hidden everything away. She teased me in my ear.
"I, got, you, now."
My T shirt went up over my head and ended up draped around the rope around my wrists behind my back. I was always hugged tight by her clutching onto me from behind.
"Naked. Tied up. Out in the middle of nowhere. I'm going to ask you questions, and you're going to answer them. Right?"
I nodded myself, and it dragged her hand up and down with it.
"Okay. One of the girls at work. Heard, that... something happened. Maybe, your wife is gone. Car wreck, or... is this right?"
"No."
She kissed my neck.
"Essay question. Tell me what you can. Just what I need to know."
I sighed.
"I was engaged. For a long time. It was serious. And yeah. She's not here anymore."
"Just wasn't a car wreck, huh. Its all right. You don't have to tell me. I get the picture."
"Someone killed her. In the city, where she worked."
"I'm sorry. Did they find the asshole that killed her?"
I paused.
"No. They didn't."
"I'm sorry you lost her. I mean that, too. If you weren't deeply in love, for a long time? It wouldn't have hurt you this bad. Now. I'm going to ask you a question? And I expect a yes no answer. Do you want me to let you go now. I... was planning on... a car wreck, a bad breakup. Like that. You can leave if you want. I'll take you back to your car. You, can... never talk to me again, if you're mad at me. Or, you can pretend this never happened, if you want that. Do you want to go, you want me to take you back? Hmm?"
I shook my head no.
"You want me to call the cops for you? I kidnapped you. I just raped you. Pretty sure, its going to happen again. More than once. Its my birthday? And you're my present. I intend to play with my new toy. All night? And more."
I felt a playful tug on me down there.
"Sure you don't want to tell on me, to the police? Go on, tell them all about how that bad girl. Tricked you, kidnapped you, even raped you."
She whispered the hiss into my ear.
"They'll probably think you're just bragging. How hot of a date you had. Tell you how they need my phone number. You know. To... investigate me. Thoroughly. Is that what you want, hmm? You want the cops, to investigate me? Hmm?"
I shook my head no.
"Mm, hmm. Or do you want to... investigate me. Thoroughly. By yourself. See if you can... crack... this... nut..."
She flicked me with her fingernail popping out of her thumb, into my nuts. I jumped and started, squirmed.
"Here's the thing. Your dick? Likes me just fine. In fact, I just proved that. Isn't that right."
I nodded her hand yes.
"And you seem to like me, too. Or, do you not like me, maybe. Do you like me?"
I nodded her hand yes, once again.
"I thought so. So, if your dick likes me just fine. And you like me just fine. I'd ask what the problem is, but we just talked about that, obviously. And that's the real problem, right?"
I nodded her palm yes. She whispered in my ear.
"You're afraid to like, let alone love."
Another yes into her hand.
"I guess, I'll just have to rape you. Until you're willing."
She took me back in, still blindfolded, still naked and helpless. She sat me at the kitchen table, and I heard her getting things for the table for us. She sidled her chair right up against mine, and untied me. After she now easily succeeded in getting me to make out with her again, she had me get her undressed for our before dinner make out session. She kept me blindfolded for fun, through dinner. Sometimes putting bites of food into my mouth for me, and at other times had me feed her.
She got me to eat out of her hand, or putting it in my mouth. By spoon, by fork. By finger, or... off of herself, and basically anywhere. This went both ways. I had the curious sensation of my little buddy being used as basically a spoon, to get cake icing. She explained how she had picked up a container of ready made cake icing. I always picked vanilla, so she went with French vanilla icing. I couldn't make it out by listening blindfolded, but I soon enough found out. I was to lick all the icing. It coated her cute boobs like they were large cupcakes. Lots of other places followed. I was being forced to have fun, forced to enjoy physical intimacy with a girl I liked, that liked me.
It felt liberating, somehow. I finally got the blindfold removed for dessert. Which was of course? The birthday cake she had picked up. It was clearly not a size of cake a single person picks up to be by themselves. Far bigger than for two, really. We've both smoked a joint out behind the truck stop on her break and with the other girls that wait on the counters and tables there. So it wasn't a huge surprise when she lit up a perfectly formed unfiltered cigarette.
"So. You only work a little bit. Here, there. You're good for all year that way."
"Yeah. What I used to do for my boss, for other people? I just cut out the middle man and do it for them by myself now."
"You don't have to be anywhere."
"No."
"Well. I'm off tomorrow and tomorrow night, too. Stay here. Till I go back to work. Go in Tuesday night with me. What do you think."
"All right."
I spent the next several days and nights like that. Laying in bed in the dark, she explained her story. She had gotten beat up and raped in the back end of one of the lonely parking lots on her college campus late one night after staying late at the library. She never finished her degree. Static with her parents over dropping out of college and other friction led to her moving around for a time, trying out waitress jobs until she liked it here, she thought. She was several years younger than I was.
She admitted that she hadn't been with a guy in a while, but wouldn't specify how long a period of abstinence that was. And yeah, getting beat up and raped had caused that. The rope, and tying me up for sex? The rape and aggravated assault made that seem like a great new idea for her in bed. She liked feeling powerful and in control. To replace the feelings of fear and helplessness, when she had tried and failed to have sex after it was long over.
Somehow, my avoiding her made her like me. The more she tried to get physical with me, the more I resisted, the more she liked it. Taking her at her word? Here we both were. Both okay looking people, both damaged goods. Both scared to be in another relationship physically, both afraid of never having that again as well.
There was no revelation, because everyone assumed we had been fucking for months all this time. Somehow? The whole thing was so fucked up, that it was perfect.
Knowing how silly it was that I felt guilt? Didn't make it go away. The occasional extra cc of happy juice, though. That, kept it at bay. I wondered if I was starting to come together finally, or just the last frayed ends of my grip on sanity would unravel. Neither one seemed to really happen. So, I lived under this waiting for the other shoe to drop feeling.
After what I've been through already? Small potatoes.