Short fiction by Russell Twyce

Darren stood forlornly in the corner of the busy nightclub. He sipped at his drink sparingly and watched the other people seeming to have fun. As his usual pastime in a night spot setting, his mind played with the notion of how great it would be if his mind could exert control over others. ‘I wouldn’t use my powers maliciously.’ He consoled his conscience. ‘I’d just use it to overcome my natural shyness.’

Shyness put it mildly: Darren couldn’t work up the never to even ask a cute waitress for a drink. One would have to ask him and then wait for him to stammer out his request in as few words as possible. So really, he couldn’t even manage to control his own mind but that didn’t deter his imagination from trying to control a girl’s mind.

‘Look over my way.’ He strained to project his mental energy to a girl in a tight little black dress. ‘I’m here looking at you and mentally willing you to see me.’ It didn’t work and the object of his mind control experiment just laughed while listening to conversation around her. Obviously, she was a popular young woman and those around her were somehow blocking his mind’s manipulations. ‘I’ll seek another prime target for my mind controlling attempts.’

A Same Night Lay Doesn’t Take Rocket Science

Darren’s eyes slowly scanned the plentiful females that a nightclub setting supplies. He spotted a sexy oriental woman, currently standing alone: he sent a mental probe. Then abruptly, his head cranked over to his right and his eyes locked onto a woman he hadn’t noticed before. She was curvy and pleasant looking in loose garb: quite unlike the flashiness that more slender women here aspired to. She was a girl that his eyes would’ve usually swept right by.

‘Would she be susceptible?’ Darren projected his controlling thoughts.

He started to move before his thoughts realized what he was up to. With purpose in his stride, Darren crossed the distance. Then acting on a compulsion from nowhere, he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her fully on the lips.

“I’m sorry.” He said in shock and embarrassment. “I don’t know what happened.”

“You think you might be able to control minds.” Barbara said. “That is where you fail. I know that I can exercise firm mind control, so I do it successfully.”

“So did you?” Darren mentally sent a request for her to tell him more, but suddenly forgot where his verbal query was headed, so he asked instead, “Would you like to dance?” Why had he done that? ‘I feel self-conscious and really uncomfortable on a nightclub dance floor.’

‘Certainly I want to dance.” Barbara said with a smile. “Did you suppose I’d waste some perfectly good mind controlling, just to prove I could control your mind?’

“Just for one song.” He said as they walked. Internally he was mentally sending a request for her to set him free. “Or maybe all of them until the nightclub closes and stops supplying music: then we can go wherever you choose and do what you want.”

Out on the floor, Darren’s body moved in slow circles while his brain wobbled on several axes, like a gyroscope missing a few spokes. ‘How do I know if my mind is controlling myself, or she is controlling my mind’s every thought? I’m enjoying a woman’s attentions but is that my mind thinking or her controlling that nice feeling.’ And mind control ability was no longer the blessing he had thought it before.

‘You’re my boy toy now.’ Barbara thought as she grabbed a double handful of his buns. ‘My showing you I can control your mind makes you utterly vulnerable to me.’

Hypnosis Works! – Click Here 2 Try

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Warning: This story contains some fairly explicit sexual depictions

Click Here for the Secrets of Same Night Lays

For the next few days, Belinda stayed over. One day they drove to her apartment to collect fresh clothes and toiletries. She called her folks to assure them that aliens hadn’t abducted her but that rather she was on a special freelance assignment.

The interview sessions took place during the days and evenings, punctuated with frequent sex breaks and various outings. He hadn’t dropped any more conversation bombs like the admission of his having murdered his adoptive father. Rather, the talk was on whatever topic struck a moment’s fancy or detailing the exotic places he had been to and dwelled at. The bulk of his work experience had, not surprisingly, been related to scuba diving, scuba gear, diving equipment and/or swimming.

The two settled into a domestic routine that Belinda found to be surprisingly comfy. It was almost like they were newlyweds and the intercourse that went on without prophylactics or even usage of the Catholic rhythm method made cohabitation feel as if they were a church-wedded couple.

To be completely honest, Belinda quite enjoyed the unprotected sex. When he dived into her naked like that, it felt like she was swimming in the nude. When he came, there was a warm and gooey feeling inside her that made sex with a condom seem clinical in contrast. There was also the background fact that she could conceivably conceive and that bit of life drama turned their sex acts into reproduction events.

“Let’s go to the beach today.” Scott offered. “I’ll teach you how to scuba dive.”

Along the way he stopped off at a specialty sporting goods store for the appropriate scuba diving equipment.

“Can’t we just rent my scuba gear package?” Belinda cringed at the hit to her credit card that a full set of diving equipment might cost.

“We could,” he ushered her to the scuba gear section, “but I’ve seen the way rental diving gear is handled at a dive charter outfit. Most, but not all companies give their stuff a thorough maintenance but I’ve seen scuba gear abused worse than I was.”

He picked out diving gear items and got her to try them on. And a pile of equipment that met his approval grew steadily larger. There were scuba fins, a diving mask, snorkel, a scuba BC vest, regulator and a weight belt. The final selection was a sexy looking scuba diving wetsuit with short sleeves and the leggings ending at her mid thigh. But there her meager finances rebelled.

“I don’t think I’ll need the scuba wetsuit: it’s such a nice warm day.”

“Try telling me that after we’ve been down to about 10 meters or so.” He grabbed the bundle and headed for the store’s checkout. “The warm sunshine isn’t quite as toasty in deeper water.

Belinda’s worst fear, an embarrassing transaction declined message, didn’t materialize though, as he flipped his credit card onto the counter. They wheeled the purchases out to his SUV and loaded them in the back beside his equipment bag.

“What if it turns out that I don’t enjoy scuba diving?” Belinda asked.

“Then I suppose I’ll have to offer it all to the next hot female reporter who wants me to grant her an interview.”

She could tell from his expression that he wasn’t being serious, so she punched him on the shoulder. Her hit was fairly hard: it was stronger than she had intended.

“I barely even felt that.” Scott laughed and scoffed. “Luther’s right hook was a like a freight train coming around a tight corner.”

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“Fully understand one concept before we move onto the next.” Scott grasped her scuba mask and he kicked his flippers: he towed her like that out to deeper water, laughing all the way. Then he stopped kicking and relaxed his grip. Her scuba mask settled onto her face but it was a bit cockeyed. “Let’s go back down to the reef and watch the fish swimming again. This time pay careful attention of how they use their tails and play back the video clips to compare that with my unique kick.”

…

“You’ll not likely finish so far ahead of the rest in the next Olympic games.” Belinda had sat in the truck quietly thinking, before uttering the pronouncement. “Others will have copied Fosbury’s flop.”

“A flop?” His attention was diverted from his driving. “And who is this Fosbury?”

“All high jumpers used to drape their bodies over the bar with their bellies facing down. Then in the 1968 Mexico City Olympic games, a high jumper named Richard Fosbury stunned the world and captured the gold by employing a different style. He went over the bar with his chest facing up instead and it became known as the Fosbury Flop.”

“A ‘flop’ described his odd looking drape over the bar?” Scott correctly guessed.

“Then in the following 1972 Munich games,” she continued, “more than half of the high jumpers employed his technique.”

“Whether or not others emulate my style doesn’t concern me whatsoever. For one thing, in order to beat me, other swimmers would have to overcome my final edge.

“And that is?” The sports reporter asked.

“A coach wants his athletes to follow his game plan. He gets them to start fast and then coast from there, or perhaps he’ll order them to start slowly to conserve the best strength for a powerful finish. My game plan begins with expending maximum effort and then to keep accelerating with all I have, to the end.”

“That would be your poetic heart.” She concluded it for him.

“And secondly,” his resuming caught her off guard because she had forgotten that his previous, ‘for one thing’, had hinted of another reason, “I’ll not be competing in the Olympics again. My times might be later bested, but I won’t be beaten.” Then in a muted tone he added. “I had more than my fill of that during my childhood years.”

Belinda Lyle went quiet. No matter how many times Scott casually remarked about Luther’s abuse, the thought still affected her as strongly each time. She just didn’t like to think about how it had been for the boy to endure it.

…

“Why won’t you do it again?” She asked later that evening, when they were in bed.

“I could gamely try my best,” Scott accurately guessed what she was referring to but an intentional was more fun, “but I think it’s too soon after our last for a reasonable hope of physiological success.”

“You know what I was asking.” Belinda’s fingers tweaked a tender place under the sheets. “So answer that intent or I’ll demand that you go for the second.”

“Decisions, decisions.” The athlete mocked a pause of thought. Then his demeanor became serious. “The reason I won’t compete in the Olympics again is closely linked to my motivation for entering the last games and to the driving force that spurred me to win my events. I wanted to find a strong voice.”

“Fanning water into an open mouth doesn’t grow gills and it hasn’t been shown to augment the development of vocal cords either.” In truth, Belinda had surmised the reason but she felt that some misconstrued turnabout would be fair play.

“Oh never mind.” He sighed. “I have an idea of how I can demonstrate it for you tomorrow.”

“That brings us back to the other meaning.” Her hand walked on her fingers like a crab and it headed straight for his male sex package. “Look on this experiment as a purely scientific study into the physique facts of your stamina and recovery times.”

…

“How old do you suppose she is?” Scott asked as a young streetwalker strolled by.
Instead of driving his truck, they took a taxi to the inner city and got dropped off at a coffee shop with an outdoor seating area. The view from their table was somewhat less than spectacular, as it only looked out over some rush hour traffic amid a light drizzling rain.

“Not very.” Belinda answered. She watched the teenager looking into car windows in hopes of finding a man who had left work horny.

“Yet according to the documentaries one sees on television, underage prostitution only seems to occur in poverty stricken parts of the third world.”

“People here don’t want to see it here.” She replied.

“He especially doesn’t seem to want to see it.” The Olympic swimmer nodded over at a crossing street where a police cruiser was stopped at the curb. “Do you suppose that her apparent age would be discernable from his current location? And does it appear that she’s trying to mask what she’s obviously attempting from him?”

“Easily to the first,” the reporter replied, “not in the slightest to the other. Instead, she’s overacting her intent and physically leaning towards each car to ensure the men inside are able to plainly see that she’s not just an innocent girl on the street.”

“So one could guess that even though the cop is currently looking at a clipboard, a could look in her direction has already shown him precisely what she is up to.”

“That is reasonable to assume.”

Scott then abruptly dropped the topic and he took a drink of his coffee.

“Your point?’ Belinda urged.

“It’s not such a nice day today.” Wagner remarked. The sky had a low overcast and the air was thick with moisture in the form of a fine drizzle.

“One constant thing about the weather, is that it’s always the weather.” Belinda said dryly in frustration over his obvious stalling tactic. “And another is that regardless of what we think of the weather, it will be exactly what it is until it changes into the form it will be next – of its own accord.”

“I see she’s found a mark.” Scott observed. A late model American car had stopped at the very young girl’s position. The man inside leaned over to roll down a window on the passenger’s side.

The streetwalker approached and bent over to discuss the terms. Behind the halted car, several other commuters honked their horns. “And the music of the tooting must’ve sparked the policeman to look over at least briefly.”

They watched as the girl climbed into the car. The vehicle moved forward again, to rejoin with the slow flow of traffic.

“I’m just a layman,” he continued, “but I should think that the crime of ‘soliciting a minor for the purpose of sex’ has already occurred here. Our faithful law upholder is just now jotting something in his pad, if it were the vehicle’s license number and he tagged along behind at a slight a distance, I can surmise that some other offenses could be fairly easily spotted. But obviously, the cop was oblivious to the scene. His cruiser has remained stationary.”

“He really might have legitimately missed it.” Belinda defended. “There may really be something riveting on his clipboard.”

“Your reciprocal blindness has just placed an imaginary fog to cloud what you know to be the real truth.” Scott took another sip of coffee. “But let’s wait a moment to see if this scenario will present us with more information. I’ve been here for coffee more than just this once, so I’ll give you this reality opera’s libretto. In a minute or so, the officer’s cell phone will ring. He’ll answer, listen without speaking and he’ll write something else on his notepad: I suspect it’s an address or a location.”

They watched for a few moments and events unfolded exactly as Scott predicted.

“I’ll attempt to put down my white cane for long enough for you to enlighten me.”

“The first thing the policeman wrote in his pad was the car’s tag number because he was well aware of what was going on. The phone call was from the girl, telling him where she could be found if her john turned into a bad trick. The police come down much harder on pimps, than they do on prostitutes—because pimping is the ideal moonlight job for police officers and they don’t want the competition. The overly young girl has to pay off his pretended blindness and his emergency protection with the coin of gratuitous sexual services and/or a commission of her received fee, with a dividend of insider street information. Should she refuse to cooperate, she would be arrested on a charge of prostitution and locked up in a juvenile offenders home—where her only customers would be the non-paying guards.”

Belinda was tempted to again remark on his omnipresent cynicism but she had just seen it as he did. The scenario as he described it was the most likely explanation.

“Now take the final exam.” Scott continued after a few seconds of her reverie. “Who would God think committed the worst sin here?”

“You’re the only one at this table who has had a death experience to go by.”

“That only qualifies me to grade your answer. You are as capable as anyone is of fathoming God’s mind.”

“Me.” Belinda Lyle answered after a pregnant pause. “And you, and the motorists behind who only honked their frustration over the minor traffic inconvenience.”

“That’s a perfect score. If we had done what we should’ve done, what blindness lets avoid doing, then that girl wouldn’t have her body exploited at such a tender age.”

“This has been your demonstration?”

“No.” Scott chuckled wryly. “I haven’t started that yet. This was only some gravy. Take some photos and videos of what you see here.” He set his digital camera on the table. “You should interview some of the participants.”

“I don’t really see anything going on.” Belinda looked around to confirm that only commonplace things were happening. The heavy traffic was stop and go. Several homeless men were walking between the lanes and using their squeegees to clean motorist’s windows. Because of the drizzling rain, the commuters were less than willing to pay for the cleaning of windows that would be dirtied again so quickly.

“You will.” Scott Wagner stood and removed his shirt. [Content protected for Chevron members only]

…

“What are you planning to do with those?” That evening after making love, Belinda’s eyes fell onto his four medals hanging on the bedpost. During her time with Scott, he hadn’t touched them or even seemed to notice they were there.

“At first I thought I’d use the gold to replace some lead in my weight belt. But having them there might lead to the theft of some treasured scuba gear. Lately though, I’ve been contemplating whether they would net more on Ebay if I sold them singly or as a complete set.” He crawled to the foot of the bed and grasped all four. “Offer me a good price.” Scott Wagner placed the Olympic medals around the girl’s neck. “And maybe you can take them before the bidding opens.”

“None of those are going to happen.” Belinda sternly warned. She had seen him on the computer earlier: he was drafting a message to someone. She hadn’t encroached on his privacy by trying to read it, but had noticed he was messaging from an Ebay account. “Those are the material emblems of your Olympic glory and your publicist absolutely requires you to have them physically available whenever she feels they need to be seen, either in the background or around your stiff neck.”

“I’ve already struck a tentative deal with a power seller.”

“You’ll immediately back down from it. Pay him off with some cash to unruffled his feathers if needs be or give him something else of yours to sell instead. The medals are now utterly OFF the auction block. Am I crystal clear on that?”

“Yes madam.” He acquiesced in the same meek tone of voice that a schoolboy might employ when telling the teacher that he wouldn’t throw rocks again.

…

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Warning: This story contains some fairly explicit sexual depictions

She watched his scuba gear tattoo as Scott preceded her down the hall to his bedroom. As they wended their way, Belinda Lyle reflected on the past hour.

Belinda had walked behind him from the cab to his building, while admiring both his grace and his form. She couldn’t imagine Scott Wagner having to resort to this ruse, just to get laid. His fame, coupled with his handsomely chiseled features and exceptionally fine physique would have the females in any nightclub fighting for the opportunity of squirming wantonly in his muscular arms.

‘Why me?’ As Wagner had keyed the outer knob, she had asked. His answer had been, ‘that is the last question you should ask.’ His inflection had left her unsure of whether he meant it was an answer she might regret hearing or if the answer to it would terminate their deal.

To his credit, Scott hadn’t simply ushered her to a bed and ordered her to strip as a common strumpet might’ve been. Instead, he lit candles in the living room and put on some mellow music. They had sat on the sofa necking and engaging in foreplay. Their bodies were now both piqued for the consummating event and as they moved to the bedroom, they were already in a state of partial undress.

She stopped on entry and looked around. The paraphernalia and sport photos one should expect to find in a world class athlete’s home were as absent here as they had been missing from the rest of the suite. The only signs of his swimming career were his four Olympic gold medals hanging haphazardly on his bedpost—as if he had just tossed them there like an unlaundered t-shirt. The pictures on the walls were of tropical reef scenes and a there were framed advertiser’s posters with various items of scuba gear. A full set of scuba gear was hung reverently in the half-open closet. Belinda was so engrossed in viewing his private domain that she barely felt him tenderly removing the rest of her clothing, or noticed his stripping off his own.

“Do you have protection?” She asked as he lowered her nude body onto the sheets.

“I only wear a wet suit when swimming in cold water.”

“What about in an unfamiliar ocean?”

“Immersion in water gives me a sense of security, regardless of where it’s pooled. And where might a man feel more at home, than in his own comfortable bed?”

Belinda balked only briefly and then relented. If Scott’s past had been hedonistic, it would’ve already been splashed in newspapers. If anything, his lifestyle was devoid of any reported sex partners. His failure to stock prophylactics actually lent her a convoluted impression of safety. It implied that he wasn’t a weirdo with a scripted scenario that was complete with all the props emplaced. At least she allowed her mind to trust in that because the only other option was calling for an immediate cease and desist. In ordering a halt, she would be tossing away a possession she’d already purchased by agreeing to mortgage her genitals to finance her ambitions.

“Just be prepared to pull out,” Belinda spread her thighs apart as an open threshold for his hips, “because I’m not on any birth control.”

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“You were supposed to pull out!” In mock frustration, she slapped both his biceps. Retrospectively, neither one of them could’ve interrupted the inevitable end of such an intensely passionate session.

“I can slip out now.”

“It’s too late so don’t bother.” In the afterglow of her orgasms, even this didn’t seem crucial enough to panic her. There was not much she could do about it now either. “If your sperms swim anywhere near as fast as you do, they’ve already mapped out and conquered the most remote regions of my egg realm.”

“That reminds me of a life defining element of my childhood,” he pushed up from between her legs and rolled to a position beside her, “and you’ve now definitely earned the right to hear it.”

Belinda wished that he hadn’t cheapened the wonderful moment with a reminder of their pact but she rapt her attention onto the lips she had so recently been kissing.

“My mother understood my love for swimming and she gave me my first set of scuba gear: actually it consisted of only mask, snorkel and fins. We lived near a small lake and I explored it completely.”

“The limited confines of our childhood play areas seemed much larger to us them.”

“That is true. But I knew this lake more intricately than anyone else alive. I went to nearly every part and knew almost everything about it. I circled its perimeter.” His hand found the curve of her waist and explored over her flat abdomen to her other hip in demonstration. “Even without scuba gear tanks, I dived to its depths.” His fingers disappeared down under the blanket. “I saw where garbage was dumped.” He plucked playfully at her pubic hairs. “I found the small streams that fed water in and the river that was its outlet.” His knuckles returned to view and traced a meandering path to her chest. “I knew the homes, structures and interesting features along its shoreline.” His palm cupped over each of her breasts in turn. “I found out where it was shallowest and where it was deep.” The first was illustrated with a flat hand on her stomach and the second with a finger in her naval.

“I get the picture.” She giggled and extracted his fingertip from her ticklish belly button. “The intriguing portions were ‘nearly every part’ and ‘almost everything’.”

“You are perceptive because those are the two pivotal phrases. I hadn’t thoroughly examined an abandoned industrial complex that had two rickety piers and a number of rusty old hulks littering the waterline. It was deserted, spooky and I had avoided it. And one thing I didn’t know was that my best friend the lake, would turn into a killer to drown my mother.”

“That’s terrible!” Belinda reacted. She had known from her research that both his parents were deceased but she was unready for that subject to so suddenly arise in this after sex chatting. She then thought for a pause. “I should think something like that would turn me right off swimming but for you it seemingly did the reverse.”

“Neither my mother nor her death ever factored into my relationship with water. We can talk more on that later. After her death, I resolved to either conquer the lake or to let it kill me, as it did her. I braved the part that I had previously shunned and at the side of one of the old piers, I made a startling discovery. My mom was not the only one my lake had killed. I found a fully dressed skeleton with its feet in buckets of concrete. A wallet was in a pocket and the name on the ID matched with a certain teamster union boss who mysteriously disappeared and was never found.”

“Oh!” Belinda Lyle scrunched up her nose and slapped his chest. “I suckered along right up to just then. Let’s sleep now and start our truthful interviews tomorrow.”

“Okay.” Scott switched off the light. He put an arm around her and kissed her on the cheek. Then he whispered softly in her ear. “Why would I vehemently profess lofty morals in any selection between truth and vanity while in a taxi cab, but then prove my character as utterly the reverse, when given the first practical opportunity?”

Men tend to nod off easily after sex and soon, Belinda knew he was asleep. Slumber for her took longer as her mind was alternately recriminating on the consummated arrangement, rejoicing the career vistas his willing cooperation could open, and the occasional remembrance of his Jimmy Hoffa fable with a pang of worry over how a believed lie from him, could ruin her. Exhausted, sexually well satisfied and having the lingering effects of the wine she’d consumed, Belinda finally slept and soundly.

…

She awoke to the aroma of coffee mingled with toast and a hint of mint toothpaste. Scott Wagner had a silver tray on the bed beside her and was gently blowing the smells towards her nose. The breakfast included orange juice, a stack of toast, a pot of coffee with the fixings and strawberry jam. The platter held a cardboard jeweler’s box of about the size to contain a scuba gear watch and her eyes occasionally drifted to it while they ate.

“I told you in the restaurant that I always speak the truth and that is now especially so with you.” His eyes held hers but his fingers found the box lid and he opened it. The billfold inside was badly weathered and the stitched seams appeared to have at least once suffered from bloating. A plastic laminated driver license clearly showed Hoffa’s name. “I won’t be able to back up everything I tell you with physical proof, so we will need you to try trusting in my honesty.”

“You really do know where Jimmy Hoffa’s body is?”

“It does seem so. It’s true that haven’t been back there in years, but I’m fairly certain his skeletal remains are where I found them and where I left them.”

“Why didn’t you tell anyone? Or did you report it to someone? Your father maybe?”

“You are the first person I’ve ever told and my father is the last one I would’ve told. If he were still alive, I wouldn’t have let it slip to you now lest he could learn about it. I would’ve taken the
knowledge of Hoffa’s final resting place, to my grave.”

“You really hated him?”

“Let’s not talk about that ass-wipe yet.” He ran a hand up her thigh and flirted with his eyebrows. “I have another scintillating idea of what we could be doing.”

The reminder of the exquisite pleasure she had enjoyed in this bed last night swiftly put her into the same randy frame of mind as his. A condom was again absent from their fun and it was almost as good in the morning as it has been at night. He didn’t pull out this time either.

‘An unwanted pregnancy wasn’t part of our deal.’ Belinda Lyle formed the sentence in her mind while they snuggled afterwards but she didn’t utter it. Her reporter’s second sense advised her not to broach that topic. He hadn’t given her the personal information she wanted and needed yet. ‘I can always have an abortion if needs be.’ Her female instinct supplied a niggling premonition that for him, her being pregnant might not be totally ‘unwanted’. Scott seemed to have no qualms in blasting his seed into her conception zone. ‘But maybe he’s had a operation that I’m not aware of?’

…

Belinda joined Wagner in a long hot shower. He turned around so she could scrub his scuba gear tattoo. Then they went to his kitchen for a second round of coffees.

“Do you mind if I use this now?” She had brought along her notebook and a pencil. Her digital recorder’s battery was flat-line deceased in her handbag.

“Feel free.”

“Can we talk about your father now?” She began by flipping to the page after her notes on his scuba gear tattoo and comments. “He was a policeman, right?”

“He was that.” Scott frowned. “In fact the word ‘policeman’ defines his entire life because he was nothing but one. Actually, I want to strongly stress that he wasn’t my true biological dad. I don’t share any of his features or family traits and his marriage to my mother was only about four months before my birth.”

“He gave a girl in trouble some respectability.” Belinda winced slightly at the words she was speaking, as they were poignant to her own possible future situation.

“The man you refer to as my father was scum and he never did anything for a noble purpose. He was ignorant white trash who found a vocation in policing that meshed with his vile nature. Instead of saying ‘father’ let’s refer to him Luther Wagner.”

“Luther and your mother were young when they married but they didn’t have any children.” Belinda remarked. “Did your mother have a problem birthing you?”

“I was too young to remember that event clearly.” He chuckled and it lightened the somber cast of the past moments. “I don’t believe she did though. I like to think my mother had a way to prevent herself from conceiving again. She would’ve already known that Luther’s genus was descended from the Suidae family and wouldn’t want his Sus-domesticus chromosomes polluting her Homo-sapiens DNA. Or it might’ve been that Luther was sterile, just as a mule cross-bred from horses and donkeys are typically incapable of reproducing.”

“Was he abusive?” Belinda surmised from his litany of derogatory terms.

“Physically, mentally, sexually, conceptually, spiritually and even my memory of him tortures me to this very second.”

“I’ve never heard of the term conceptual abuse. How would you define it?”

“Luther’s views of how society operates soured my taste for the world because I can’t intellectually refute his opinions, or find real examples to the contrary. Some suggest our society is Democratic Capitalism but Luther showed that it’s really an RBR system. Reciprocally Blind Rectalism is where shortsighted assholes rule and everyone pretends they don’t see anything wrong. The press fully supports the RBR by insuring that nobody gets to see the crappy stuff the assholes are really up to.”

“This seems like philosophy and I’ll be the first to admit that isn’t my strong suit.”

“Instead of in the abstract then,” Scott took a long drink of his coffee, “I’ll explain it in concrete form with an anecdotal description of why swimming became such a vital aspect in my life.”

“I’m ready.” Belinda flipped to a fresh notebook page: she had used the last jotting down the RBR description.

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“Luther beat me morning, noon and evenings. Sometimes he would wake from sleep to hammer me for something I did in his dream. I was in my first elementary school years when I observed that Luther only punished me when he was breathing. That suggested to me that I was safe where he couldn’t breath and that was underwater.”

“You would’ve been 7 or 9 years old?”

“About in that age bracket somewhere.” He confirmed. “It was before Luther went from exclusively using his hands to his adding implements like belts, bats, whips and a car’s radio aerial to his repertoire: that started in my fourth grade and water was already offering me some respite by then.”

“Luther hit you with a bat when you were only 10?”

“Your question’s ambiguous phrasing could lead a reader to wrongly assume we are referring to only one event when in actuality, it was in the multi-multiples of times.”

“Multi-multiples?”

“Numerous sessions of bat beatings, comprising several bat strikes per.” He paused to allow time for her pencil to catch up and then continued. “I was only truly safe when I was underwater, in my lake or a public pool. I dreamed of living aquatically like a fish. In the local swimming pool, I would blow out enough of my air to sink. I would sit on the bottom fanning water into my open mouth and trying to grow gills. Then one time I stayed under too long and I blacked out. Nobody really knows how long I was out for but a lifeguard saw me stretched out on the bottom. I was rescued and revived. Fortunately, my mother was there alone when they called my home. If Luther had learned of it, I’m certain the incident would’ve broken numerous laws ranging from breathing water without a license and not wearing scuba gear while drowning to failing at a suicide attempt.”

“Only your mother ever knew?” Belinda asked but she also jotted and underlined the word ‘blackout’ in her pad’s margin.

“Mom collected me at from hospital where I was breathing from an oxygen bottle. She bought me some scuba gear; a mask, snorkel and swim fins on the way home. I think getting me the snorkel was her first priority so that I wouldn’t drown again. She told Luther the stuff had been on sale so waiting for my birthday would’ve made the scuba gear expensive.”

“Did you see anything in your blackout?” She asked and stroked out her reminder.

“Yes. I had a vivid and prolonged death experience. It was wonderful and up until last night, I’ve had nothing in my life to compare it to. That also happened in water so it positively reinforced my already strong affinity for water.”

“Is there more on your experience in death?”

“That query is also an unfocused one.” He chastised light-heartedly with a smile. “It leaves me to choose between expanding the description of my first DE, or going into the circumstances of the following ones.”

“You had more of them?” She narrowed the inquisition’s beam but it wasn’t done by her will to go there: it was her exclamation of surprise at there being more NDE and a slight lilt in her voice at the end turned it into a question.

“Sometimes Luther would be feeling his sadistic oats extra keenly and his beatings would intensify dramatically. My mother’s present of scuba equipment had given me increased ability in the water and I found that eternity’s gift let me swim from my body when the pain was the most unbearable. I could float up to the ceiling and watch Luther pummel me but while feeling nothing. Unfortunately, I always had to return to my physical body and acquaint myself with its fresh hurts and bruises.”

“Did Luther hurt you worse than your mother?”

“What is worse? Is the intensely localized pain of a fractured clavicle worse? Or is the all over agony of internal bruising worse? Is living an abuse free life until you suddenly find you’re shackled in matrimony to a sadist worse? Or is experiencing hurting that predates earliest memories worse?” Scott paused after his barrage of rhetorical questions. “Mom shouldered the lioness’s share of the sexual cruelty.”

“But you got some of that too?”

[Content protected for Chevron members only]

“No one ever became aware of Luther’s nefarious actions?”

“Nearly everyone knew of it.” Scott’s words were upbeat and he even gave a small chuckle. “That’s the sublime beauty of Reciprocally Blind Rectalism in operation. A town doctor realizes that a lad of twelve, who has suffered 4 fractured ribs, a broken leg, a dislocated shoulder and a crushed cheekbone during one year, is not merely ‘accident-prone’. However, this physician occasionally takes his Mercedes into the seedy part of town looking for drug-addicted teenaged girls as a prescription for his flaccid dick syndrome. The doctor wants the police to be blind so he needs to show good faith in his being reciprocally blind. My next-door neighbors knew of it, but they were also aware of both the doctor’s periodic indiscretions and the policeman neighbor’s hyper-violent nature. They required health care sometimes and would prefer not being on Luther’s bad side. Those are two leading causes of blindness.”

“The scornful plot descends even further into the dark alleys of cynicism.”

“That statement hinted at your wishful blindness.” Scott confronted. “I’m telling of my horrendous childhood and I’m surmising your natural human empathy gives you some mental pain from it. A defense mechanism offered by RBR enables you to limit your bad feelings to just me. By grasping at straws that offer a remote possibility of folk being innocently unaware of my real situation, you’re enabling a slim chance of my case being an isolated occurrence where the system failed. But that slim chance is enough: then you don’t have to accept the true fact of the precious system failing far more often than it succeeds and you can spare yourself from having to empathize with the suffering of the many other children subjected to similar maltreatment.”

“This isn’t about me.” Belinda said in a meek voice.

“It doubly involves you. First, you’re human and you should share a 1/x-trillionth percent responsibility for the problems experienced in the world shared by other humans living on earth—but you willingly allow yourself to be nudged into blissful blindness. Secondly, you’ve chosen a career path into journalism. In the hard news, a media person makes the event story finite. Harsh action is on the television screen but surrounding the appliance, the pastel-painted walls and soothing décor lets a viewer be blind to the fact that beyond the camera’s frame, comparable things are likely happening in an expanding ripple effect, that tomorrow may be pounding as surf on his very door. A talented newscaster will point out how authority has the situation well in hand, when in truth, it wasn’t in control when the victims had their lives sundered, and it won’t be in check tomorrow, because not one damn thing is being done today—but the authority gets the thrill of looking officious on TV.”

“I’m in sports.”

“You’re in the blindness support squad. You divert the viewer’s attention from the real problems, to a fantasy realm where life is beautiful all the time. Imagine what would’ve happened if on emerging from the Olympic pool, I had spoken the truth. Producers would’ve suddenly cut to a live feed from the track-and-field venue. They know that people want to be blind and they eagerly facilitate it.”

“Then why,” she almost said ‘why me’ but managed to snip it in time, “are we here?”

“Because you’re paying me with your supremely enjoyable sexual services.”

“Uh.” Reversing the payee-payer but with a sidebar of her possessing a courtesan’s flair was to Belinda like a hard slap in the face with a hand gloved in gossamer. “I wanted to ask you how escaping from your body compared to being underwater?”

“That was by a wide measure,” Scott Wagner reached out his left hand and gently grasped her lower jaw. He used his grip to slightly reposition her chin so that her eyes were directly on him. Were it not for the nearly infinite tenderness of his odd gesture’s performance and his benevolent, almost to the point of angelic smile, it might’ve seemed that his left hand was holding her face steady to receive a solid punch from his right fist, “the most deftly accomplished segue from a touchy topic that I’ve ever had the pleasure to witness.”

“Thank you.” She wasn’t entirely sure if he meant it as a compliment or as sarcasm.

“And as to the question currently on the table,” Scott stood, “in my pre-Lyle period of media relations, a likely answer might’ve been ‘same, same, but different’—and that pretty much sums it up well enough today too.” Wagner walked out the apartment door without any explanation of where he was going or when he might be back.

…

“Where did you go?” She asked on his return.

“Can’t you sleuth it out?”

“Your wet hair and damp clothing suggests a swimming pool was involved.”

“I ran about a third of a marathon to blow off steam. Then I skinny dipped in the building’s pool to cool down.”

“Had a bike been handy, you could’ve done a full iron man event.”

“I like cycling. If the triathlon becomes an Olympic sport, I’ll win another gold.”

“I made you angry.” Belinda dropped the banter and cut to the juice.

“Yes, you did. But while running, I realized that it was entirely my fault. Then I swam lengths trying to think of ways to make you understand.”

“That’s where my being a reporter comes in handy. I can read back in my notes and try to understand your words differently than my first comprehension.”

“Did you do that?”

“Of course and the next time we touch that area, I’ll be a different person than I was. I won’t guarantee to follow as you want then either, but that will be another chance for me to reread and recalibrate myself.”

“I’ve never thought of that possibility.” Scott smooched her on the lips, scooped her into his arms and waltzed around the room, with her feet barely brushing the floor.

“You swam naked in the building pool?”

“Sure.” He set her down. “I’ve done it loads of times. People casually entering the area probably don’t even notice because I’m always swimming fast lengths. Security likely knows because they have video surveillance but they’ve never mentioned it.”

“The guards are probably selling the videos of a nude celebrity.”

“Who is the cynic now?”

“Do you see what a notebook review can accomplish?”

Scott Wagner just smiled.

“It’s early enough to get back at it before supper.” Belinda suggested. “We might talk about Luther’s death.”

“That’s a scrumptious idea.” His voice was seductively low. “We get back at it now.” His eyes flicked towards the bedroom. “Then we go out for dinner, where I speak about Luther’s death – on empty testicles and while gaining a full stomach.”

“You reviewed your notes.” Belinda’s voice was sultry. “That’s precisely what I said and exactly as I hoped it would be understood.” She giggled and wiggled to the bed.

…

“The years following your mother’s death must’ve been.” Belinda paused and tried to find the right word. “I’m sorry, but even ‘hellish’ doesn’t seem strong enough.”

“Bizarre as it might seem, my situation actually improved in a number of ways. For one thing I didn’t have to see her beaten anymore. But Luther’s assaults on me were on the decrease as well. Over a span of several years, my beatings went from nearly continuous, to frequently, to occasionally, and finally they leveled off at rarely. Of course Luther spent increasingly more time away from the house too.”

“Perhaps a late-blooming conscience?”

“I can speculate on reasons but to have any likelihood of one being truth, it would need to be either utterly self-serving on his part, or related to policing somehow.”

“I’ll note that you’re not attesting certainty, but could we explore possible ones?”

“I will ponder while we order.” Scott only mouthed the words for her to lip read as the waiter had arrived with his notepad.

‘Of course he is has to be the same man as before.’ Belinda said silently to her mind. They had taken another taxi to the very same quay restaurant as their first date. In the corner of her eye, she caught movements: it was kitchen staff poking their faces up into the window and then ducking away after satisfying their curiosity.

“And madam would like?” The waiter turned his attention to her.

“You order for me.” Belinda feigned an interest in her notes. “I’ll enjoy whatever you select.” She rummaged back several pages as if verifying a sudden idea. ‘What must they think of me?’ she wondered. The clothes she was wearing was a pale pink silk blouse with a scarf, and a knee length skirt that hugged her hips and tapered down her thighs. They’ve now seen my look go from teenybopper to a young skank and today I might appear today as either a secretary or with my hair tucked into a prim bun, I could be seen as a teacher or worse, a librarian.’

“Do you mind again?” The waiter blushed. “The staff wants more autographs.”

“Uh,” Scott looked over at her and shrugged quizzically, “I guess so.”

The kitchen door opened and the tiny throng raced out with their books, napkins, and whatever they planned on getting endorsed by a celebrity. Then the weirdness happened. Scott’s wasn’t the signature they were after. They were shoving their stuff at Belinda Lyle and getting her to sign, with an Olympic gold medalist neglected in the periphery. But they already had his scribble in their collections.

“What was that all about?” Belinda asked when her fans had left. ‘This place could be renamed ‘the warped perception’ for the bizarre way things get skewed up here.’ “I’m certainly not a celebrity.”

“I couldn’t quote a specific dictionary’s definition of ‘celebrity’, but an elucidation that seems to fit would be ‘one whom common people deem as important or distinctive enough to ask for an autograph’. And that would apply to you tonight.”

“This was just too ‘off-the-wall’ to even think about right now.” She flipped to the most recent page of her notebook and readied her pencil. “Where were we before that strangeness all began?”

“I was thinking of reasons for Luther’s relenting and two have come to mind.”

Belinda looked at him, pencil poised in her fingers, and then she had an inspiration too. ‘Scott said something about me—while I was in the restroom.’ That was the only way to make sense of the kitchen staff’s oddness. ‘Did he say I was the current Heidi Fleiss?’ If they had thought she was a notorious ‘prostitute to the stars’, as Ms. Fleiss, then her librarian look fit right in today, but then she could come dressed as a cheerleader or a nurse without raising any eyebrows either.

“You’re not writing.” His voice brought her back to the here and now.

“I wasn’t listening either.” She adjusted her bottom in on the seat. “My mind went wandering back to my fans. I wish I could read the captions or notations they’ve put next to my signature.”

“That might be deemed privacy invasive.”

“I wasn’t suggesting I get a court order to view them.” Belinda snipped. His words had given her the confirmation that he knew those notations would incriminate him. “But never mind. What were you saying whilst I was wool gathering?”

“My mother’s death might’ve made Luther’s footing in the department tenuous. I’m told prison inmates use the term ‘skinners’ for people incarcerated for sex crimes and those have to be kept segregated, lest the rest attack them. I seem to think that those who convicted of crimes against their own families, are similarly protected.”

“And?”

“Police and criminals are closely akin. The police regularly commit crimes but they rationalize it as sacrificing their honor for the law’s benefit. It stands to reason that their unspoken code-of-conduct could also be comparable to a prisoners morals. By his wife’s dying, Luther’s standing in the subtle, unspoken, and reciprocally blind way might have dropped because she was both of the other sex and his family.”

“Meaning that he had to be more careful of his outward appearances?” She scanned back a page in her notes. “I’m thinking this thread isn’t really all that helpful.”

“Good. Let’s drop it. I’ve never wasted much time dwelling on why Luther was of swine kind. I thought it no more productive than a farmer musing on a pig’s mind.”

“We’ll talk about his death.” Belinda said. She noticed the waiter had materialized at their table with a carafe of wine and two goblets

“I’ll drink to that.” Scott took up his wine.

“You don’t need to get me blotto and pour me into your bed.”

“Tonight, I’ll share this with you.” He clinked her glass in toast. “To Luther’s killer.” Scott Wagner drank about a quarter of his glass.

“Had he not been killed while resisting questioning,” Belinda recalled from her prior research, “I expect you would’ve been his most frequent visitor in the prison and his most ardent admirer.”

“That unfortunate sod had nothing to do with Luther’s murder.” Scott sipped his glass down to half, but one drop of red wine escaped from the corner of his lips and it fell silently onto his shirt’s front. “He was just someone that one or more of the cops held a grudge against.” The gold medalist set his glass aside. “They had no real proofs to convict the true sniper and even trying to truthfully solve the cop killing would’ve been counterproductive to their best interests. So the police found and slaughtered a handy scapegoat.”

“You barely touched that stuff the other night.” His matter-of-fact statement was the obvious beginning of a riveting discussion. So while reading her mind for strenuous exercise, she garnered a few seconds with a minor observation.

“That’s because I have a drinking problem.”

“Then don’t!” Belinda quickly shot out her hand to stop his, as he was reaching for his goblet again.

“My problem isn’t of the sort that sprang to your mind.” He chuckled. “I tend to be sloppy.” He pointed to the red spot on his off-white linen shirt. “But as you’ve said, I don’t need to weaken your chaste resolve with alcohol anymore, and I don’t have to impress your willingness with my crisply perfect appearance either. I can savor my wine, despite my ‘problem’, because even if my chest ends up looking like a messy baby’s bib, it just doesn’t matter and I’ll still get laid.”

“Here’s to you,” Belinda toasted her drink, “comfortably being your slovenly self.”

“I feel so special.” Scott’s expression was enigmatic while he watched her finish the toast by taking a sip. “You’re the second one who’s offered me a salute me tonight.”

“Apparently I missed the other one.” A wrinkled forehead betrayed her puzzlement.

“I don’t know how it could’ve slipped by. Your full attention appeared to be on me when I toasted myself.” Scott set his elbows on the table and he leaned close to her. Then he said in a conspiratorial voice, “I shot Officer Luther Wagner.”

Belinda Lyle’s pencil nib broke on the paper.

[Content protected for Chevron members only]

Warning: This story contains some fairly explicit sexual depictions

“You won gold in the back stroke, breast stroke, freestyle and the butterfly,” Belinda Lyle asked, “but you didn’t compete in the four by one hundred relay.  Why not?  That could’ve given you a fifth gold.”

“Just because.”  Scott Wagner answered offhandedly.  He was more interested in toweling off after a recreational session that had included all of his four swimming disciplines.

“Some of your teammates have expressed displeasure at your refusal swim with them.”  Belinda trailed along as he walked towards the showers.  “They feel that with your speed in anchor, they would’ve placed first instead of sixth.”

“They should’ve just swum faster.”  The Olympic star went into the locker room.

“May we talk afterwards?”  Her request bounced off his back unanswered and she watched him disappear into the men’s change room.  The last thing she saw was the sentence ‘I live in my scuba gear’, tattooed across his shoulders.

“I should’ve mentioned that his time in the four by one hundred distance I just saw might’ve been gold if he had performed the relay alone.”  She muttered aloud after consulting her stopwatch.

The reporter strolled around to the pool lobby entrance to the men’s change room door.  She jotted down the three sentences the sport star has uttered and then she looked at them.

“I can’t use these in a story.”  She flipped to a fresh page in her notebook and jotted down his tattooed sentence.  ‘I live in my scuba gear.’   Her eyes lost focus on the page as she mentally reviewed the reasons that brought her here.

Scott Wagner was a swimming sensation.  He had suddenly appeared at an Olympic qualifying swim meet and had vastly outstripped his competition to win a berth.  At the world games, he had left all the other swimmers in his wake on the way to gold in each event he had entered.  Sports reporters from around the globe clambered to speak with him but he shrugged them all off.

“Getting him to talk with me would give my reporting career the boost that I need.”  She crossed her knees and adjusted the material of her knee length plaid skirt.  That with a white shirt and her auburn hair arranged in pigtails gave her the appearance of a schoolgirl doing a homework assignment.  Other female sports journalists had tried almost every variety of looks to try to entice an interview with this elusive star.

“You’re still here?”  Scott emerged suddenly and saw her touching up her makeup.

“Of course I am.”  Belinda tucked away her compact.  “I want to speak with you.”

“For the record no doubt.  But now is not a very good time because I’m hungry.”

“I’ll buy you dinner,” she blurted, “and we can chat informally.”

The Olympic swimming sensation stopped and scrutinized her.  He wasn’t drawn to her teen costume but it did lend an air of desperation, as if she would do anything.

“Can you keep your notebook in your bag while we eat?”

“Certainly!”  Belinda almost swallowed her bubblegum.  She would just make sure that she could find a sly moment to switch on her digital voice recorder.

…

“This is nice.”  Belinda glanced around the upscale restaurant set on a seaside quay.  Internally she cringed at a thought of how much the bill would amount to.  So far she had not gotten anything from him.  In the taxi, he had been quiet as a Greek statue—as well as his classic physique being as sexually appealing as one too.”

“I like the sea.”  His gaze was on the sun setting into the aquatic horizon.  The yellow orb was already half submerged and with the golden reflection pointing directly at them, it looked like a comet from the earth streaking back into space.  “I wish I could be underwater at the exact place where the sun is splashing down.”

“That would be rather warm for my tastes.”  Her cheeks reddened as if flash burnt by the reflected ray because it suddenly seemed to Belinda that her perspective was off center.  Normally the spear of sunlight on the water should’ve aimed directly at her eyes but this one was slightly off and it was pointing towards the Olympic star.

“I suppose so.”  Scott smiled for the first time since their meeting.

“You like scuba diving?”  She found his smile enigmatic and yearned to find out what was behind his standoffish nature.  “Your life in scuba gear tattoo was a clue.”

“Scuba gives me the gills that I can’t find otherwise.”

“Then your tattoo means—.”  Belinda had to break off her sentence because a waiter had hustled over with menus.  She silently growled at the man’s efficiency at such an inopportune moment when she seemed to have found a juicy topic to explore.

“What would you like to drink?”  The waiter asked.

“Just water for me.”  Scott said.

“I’ll take a glass of red wine.”  Belinda had briefly considered having only the same as him but since she had a tough job ahead in cracking his nut, she felt that a small bracer was needed.

“Actually,” Scott handed his liquor menu back to the waiter, “red wine sounds good.”

“Let’s make it a shared carafe then.”  Belinda smirked.  A little social lubricant might oil up his tongue.  She regretted not ordering tequila shooters instead.

“You only feel your life is complete when you’re in the water?”  She tried to bring the talk back to the interrupted topic.  “So you’re living in your scuba gear.”

“I guess so.”  Scott’s words were noncommittal and a slightly perplexed face showed that his thoughts had traveled away from the sunset discussion.

“When did you first aspire to be a competitive swimmer?”  She tried another tack.

“Well,” he paused while taking a tiny sip of wine, “I never aspired to that.”

“As a child,” Belinda took a gulp of her drink, “did you spend much time swimming?”

“Actually,” he seemed to be thinking of a good response, “yes.”

‘Damn you to Hell!’  Belinda internally cursed him and was tempted to up and slap him as well.  Wagner was cruelly teasing her with his hesitations, only to squash her attempts with non-expanded answers.

“Did your father coach you?”

“No.”

Belinda took another big swallow of wine and then topped her glass back up.  With her spending ten words to elicit only one from him, this wasn’t turning out to be much of an interview.  After a few more questions that gained only an affirmative or a negative, she stopped trying.  She sat in silence, trying to think of a way to breach his walls and finished her second glass of wine while waiting for the main course.

“Excuse me,” the waiter had returned unexpectedly empty handed, “but some of the kitchen staff were wondering if they could get your autograph.”

“Send them out.”  Scott offered and the waiter scurried off.

“I’ll use the washroom while you’re busy.”  The young woman rose from her seat.

“Please comb out your pigtails so it looks like I’m dining with an adult.  I don’t want the scandal rags saying that I’m going out with underage girls.”

…

Belinda Lyle found her way to the ladies room through moisture welling up in her liquid brown eyes.  When there, she examined her face and watched a big tear trace a black mascara trail down her left cheek.

“Why did I think I could pry open his mental oyster shell when nobody else could?”  She asked her reflection but it didn’t reply.  She didn’t see her image as the raving beauty that some of the other girl reporters were but she felt she had a pleasant look.  She took a tissue and daubed at the dark smear on her freckle-strewn cheek.  Belinda then pulled out the elastic bands from her hair and combed her mid-back length hair.  ‘I look frumpy now.’  She thought.  Without the pigtails, her schoolgirl look had lost its charm and her one shirttail was untucked.

“This misadventure has just cost me money that I don’t have.”  She recalled the taxi fare being larger than she expected and the bill for the meal would be another pricey hit with nothing to show for it.  She could imagine her successful accountant brother saying ‘it can be written off as a legitimate business expense.’  “Against what?”  She retorted to the fleeting thought.  “I need a work related income to deduct it from.”

Belinda wanted to fix her face but realized that she had left her handbag at the table.  She made do by cleaning the mascara smear and sponging up the tear’s remains.  The aspiring columnist modified her clothing’s impression from ‘schoolgirl’ to ‘tart’ by tying her shirttails to display her midriff and tugging the skirt down to ride low on her hips.  She practiced her bravest smile before leaving the mirror and returning to the disappointing ordeal.

…

The people surrounding him looked at her oddly: then they skittered away.

“I’m not sure if that’s better,” Scott smiled again when commenting on her adjusted look, “or worse for my reputation.”

“Are you planning,” Belinda didn’t know him well enough to accurately read his face, so she equated his expression to smugness, “to repeat your amazing performance at the next Olympics?” 

Internally, she vowed to somehow shove that condescending look right back down his throat: Belinda Lyle would do whatever it took to wrest what she wanted from him.

“No.”

“Why are you so reticent with the media?”  She had noted that the dishwashers and cooks had been beaming, indicating that the swimming star had been genial.

“Because I only tell the truth, and that’s not what the sports writers want to hear.  It’s also not what they seem to believe their insipid readers are interested in either.”

“And you haven’t memorized your handbook of ‘win one for the Gipper’ platitudes.”  The verbal exchange had happened so unexpectedly that Belinda didn’t realize that this was actually something she could use, until it was finished.  But then, she was stuck for a way to prolong the full sentence conversation.

“Nor will I.”  Scott effectively terminated the verbal thread.

The meal arrived and the talk was confined to bland remarks on the food’s flavor and requests to ‘pass the salt’.  Belinda finished several more glasses of wine.  She finished the whole beaker by herself because the swimmer hadn’t touched his glass after that one first sip.

“If you’re not going to drink that,” the girl reporter indicated his glass with a glance, “may I have it?”  This nearly valueless meal was costing her plenty and she resolved to at least get a glow from it.  She was already feeling somewhat tipsy.

Scott Wagner wiped the corners of his mouth while she drank his wine.  Then he set his napkin on his plate and watched her savor the final drops.

“Will we,” he set his both elbows on the table and leaned towards her, “have sex?”

“Why—?”  Stunned by the query, Belinda couldn’t quickly compose an appropriately indignant reply, so the lonely word was left hanging as a blunt question.

“Because that will be the price of the insightful interview you’re so anxious for.”

Belinda Lyle’s head spun with the effects of the alcohol and from a conflicting swirl of her thoughts and emotions.  The swimmer’s expressionless eyes were those of Satan as he waited for her to sign away her immortal soul.  The inner demon of her ambition and the angel of her conscience scratched, bit and eye gouged one another.  The internal fight’s non-impartial referee seemed to be her body—that suddenly gave a favorable gush of hormones in response to her admiration of his physique.  Then in the midst of her turmoil, the host presented the check on a silver platter and she fumbled out her credit card.

“Yes.”  After a very long pause the girl scrawled her blood ink onto Lucifer’s contract.  The sales slip arrived and she signed it without noticing the amount.  Scott took her by the elbow and guided her wordlessly outside to catch a cab.

…

“Have you propositioned any of the other female media?”  Belinda whispered when they were nestled together in the taxi’s back seat.

“You already know the answer to that one.”  He intoned.  “And from here forward, all I expect to hear from you are intelligent and purposeful questions.”

“Agreed.”  Belinda thought for a spell.  ‘Yes, it would’ve quickly become public news if this were his normal pickup routine.’  “I do have a question that other journalists have continually asked without receiving a satisfactory reply from you.  Why didn’t you compete in the four-by-one hundred relay event?”

“I’m not a team player.”  Scott spoke softly with his lips next to her ear, to keep the driver from overhearing.  The warm breath of his words fluttered her shimmering hair slightly and he felt her quiver from the pleasurable vibrations on the nape her neck.  “Water polo is a team sport and that’s why I don’t play it, even though I swim well enough to excel at that game.”

“You were accepted onto a nation’s Olympic t-e-a-m,” she stretched the word out, “and that gave you an obligation that you didn’t meet.”

“I won a berth on an Olympic squad on the basis of my having swum qualifying heats faster than anyone else the nation could field and I then proved my merit by taking first place in every event that I entered.  Had I considered swimming a team sport, I wouldn’t have tried out, for the same reason that I don’t go out for water polo.”

“What’s wrong with team sports?”  The taxi driver asked over his shoulder.

“If one enjoys playing in or watching a team sport, then nothing is wrong with them. But I prefer individual sports where my own performance is all I need to rely on.  The relay event bastardizes the solo pursuit of competitive swimming to create a mockery of a team endeavor.  The end product is a farce that returns false results.”

“Four swimmers each race one quarter of the total distance and the combined time is measured against the other teams.”  She said.  “How could that be a false result?”

“Your mind’s speculation suggested to you that the a relay is not entirely valid but instead of listening to your own reasoned evaluation, you allow a politically correct view to take prominence in your altered opinion.  So you are defending an untruth that your inner psyche knows is complete and utter bullshit.”

“Competitive mind-reading isn’t an Olympic event yet.”  Belinda scoffed.  “So forget about trying to win gold in it.”

“For no other reason than my own enjoyment, I individually swam the equivalent of a 4X100 relay in the pool today.”  Scott reminded.  “When I finished that, I displayed no signs of having employed my maximum exertion.  To all casual observers, I was just engaging in a recreational swim.  But you weren’t just that passive witness.”

“Your aura-reading nonsense is the only bullshit here and it’s fast getting old.”

“The absurd suggestion of my employing paranormal means to hit so closely to the true mark was your suggestion, not mine.  Like our chauffeur, I’m not deaf.  Through the open change room door, I heard you musing whether my time was sufficiently fast to have won Olympic gold by competing as a one-swimmer team.  And you were correct.  I have done the same distance as the four by 100 relay all by myself—and closely challenged the Olympic winning times.”

“You hear me say that but you’ve obviously misinterpreted my reason for saying so.  You erased the previous records in each of your four events by a wide margin but to do the relay alone, you’d need to swim four tenths of a kilometer in the four strokes at Olympic pace PLUS make up the time that three of those swimmers save in their power starts.  I didn’t actually think you could do it: I was just searching for a pick-up-line to get an interview with you.”

“And in that event, you’ve won your gold.”

Belinda Lyle sucked on her lips to keep from responding.  She felt far worse than a whore.  Prostitution wasn’t an Olympic event because a bed shouldn’t be a spectator venue.  But each publically read column she now produced would be a result of her having taken his shaft in barter for his words, and people could view it as so too.

“Okay.”  Scott noted her tight mouth and smiled.  “Whether you believe I could do it is moot.  News editors aren’t going to purchase an article outlining a reporter’s view.  What I suppose to be true comprises the marketable story, regardless of whether my belief is intrinsically sound or not.”

“I do concur with that assessment.”

“Then let’s finish this line of discussion for a Pulitzer caliber capstone on Belinda Lyle’s first piece on the previously evasive, but recently acquired, Scott Wagner.”

“Let’s do.”  Belinda made a deliberate show of taking out her notepad and pencil.

“While Scott Wagner has an unshakable faith in his ability to competitively swim the 4X100 relay all by himself,” he spoke as if reading her prose, “then he can staunchly assert that three lesser teammates would’ve only served to slow down his finish.  He can further envision how his excellent individual performance would be harnessed to elevate inferior swimmers to gold medal stature they were incapable of attaining on their own personal merits.  To support his position, Scott Wagner has delivered a statement.  ‘My would-be teammates may carp about how they might’ve taken first if I had joined them but without me, they only placed sixth.  In baseball, a pitcher is not able to throw a ball, and then run down and catch it too.  He needs a teammate and even if the catcher is not as talented as the pitcher, together they are a battery.  A relay in any athletic discipline is not a team event.  It is just a number of athletes lumped unnaturally together, who really should be prevailing or failing according to their own personal abilities – and drive.’  Period, and end of story.”

“The decision on where to place the punctuation is mine alone.”

“Granted.”

“And do you realize how conceited that article makes you sound?”  In the confines of her mind, Belinda became conscious of a demarcation line she had just stepped over.  It was too late for her to change her mind.  She had just accepted his first payment in currency they had agreed was cash and her body now owed him sexual gratification.

“So be it.”  Scott shrugged.  “In any adventure requiring a choice between looking good or being loyal to my perception of truth, I will always opt for the latter.”

“Then in our team,” Belinda found herself saying, “my part is pitching the questions and your job is to bat back the answers, with as much spin and relish as you care to put on them.  I’ll either field them and play them back to you, or allow them to float from the ballpark—at my discretion.”

Short Fiction by Russell Twyce

“Oh my God,” the male college student exclaimed to his friend as an incredibly beautiful young woman walked by, “she is ultra fine!”

“I concur.” The substantially older man had looked up from his idle perusing of a course calendar: he had no intention of taking any classes. “I suppose she has a boyfriend or husband.”

“Not that I know of.” The younger man sighed heavily. “She is like way out of any guy’s league.”

“That must be quite lonely for her.” The mature man said sagely. “Perhaps I should solve that dilemma for her.”

“You can only wish!” The male student laughed. “If none of the guys here stand a chance, then the odds of your scoring with her are infinitesimal. I would gladly bet a billion dollars against.”

“I do enjoy a challenge but if I succeed, I won’t come bragging,” his eyes had followed the scintillating female while she crossed to her work area, “even if you did have that amount of wager money.”

“Well,” the younger man stood, “I should get to my next class. Thanks again for bringing over my forgotten homework paper.”

“See you later.” The older man took a renewed interest in the campus brochure but this time his gaze was intent on it. His left hand stroked his clean-shaven chin as he pre-planned his stealthy approach.

Conversational Hypnosis Blasts Away the Ice

“This seems fascinating and exciting to me.” He was holding the pamphlet book against his chest and tapped his finger several times on a course title.

“I’m not actually the person with information.” The girl glanced up from the page to his face. “I just do parking passes.”

“Then I am human and in err.” He smiled. “Your presence struck me as so fact filled that I was drawn to you with my simple query.”

“I can try to help.” She offered. “What did you wish to know?”

“How do I apply to attend this stimulating course?” He was still holding the booklet open and he tapped on it once again.

“You’re kidding?” She had read the title: it was on the subject of religion. “Right?”

“Au contraire mon cher.” He grinned and set the course synopsis onto the corner of her desk. The man was probably twice her age or more but he was fit for his age. “I find the topic haute, that is h-a-u-t-e,” he spelled it out, “and sects, as in s-e-c-t-s, is a particularly attractive pursuit.”

“I’m glad you clarified.” She giggled at his flirtatious word usages. “Otherwise, your phrasing might’ve been grossly misconstrued.”

“And you are serious about enrolling in this class?” Her eyes inadvertently roamed slightly up from the page. His height and proximity to her desk placed the bulge in his jeans into her line of sight—and her gaze lingered.

“Yes”

“Uh,” she forced her eyes away to extract a card and pick up her pen, “I’ll give you the contact person to call.”

“Thank you dear.” His gratitude flowed like honey over his lips. He watched her right hand tremble slightly as she jotted down the information. Then he collected the card, turned, and walked away without a backwards glance.

Click Here and Learn to use NLP in your enriched daily life!

“May I speak with Belinda Peterman?” He asked after making the call on his cell.

“There is nobody here by that name.”

“Her flustered mistake is a positive sign.” He then dialed the college information line to get the corrected information. And he examined the differences. “Peterman instead of Pederson is pleasantly Freudian and my manhood was somewhat in her face at the time.” Comparing the phone numbers turned up a second discrepancy. “The last four digits should be 3766 but my quarry wrote 3799. I wonder if I’ll ever know what inspired that slip-up?”

“To acquire the finest pelts,” he keyed his ignition, “an experienced trapper must exercise patience.”

The man was smiling as he drove away. He would return at the opportune time.

Conversational Hypnosis sends Selected Minds Wherever You Want

Jenna had experienced the warm glow of an increased blood flow, even before the interesting man turned and left. She couldn’t resist watching his butt as he strode away. An older man has never turned me on before. Her mind marveled at her body’s state of pique. That’s odd: a pick-up attempt often has the exact opposite effect on me.

Then she got back to work and diverted her mind from the mildly erotic interlude. But he wouldn’t stay away from her thoughts for long. Whenever she encountered the number nine, his memory returned.

“I rated him as nine on my one-to-ten scale.” She muttered. “Even a shirtless Brad Pitt only rates a 9 and my mysterious man wasn’t that handsome or exceptionally well buffed. I must’ve factored in his entrancing intellect and suave demeanor. I think I also added points for the nine that my mind envisioned behind his zipper.”

Spurred by that last thought, she again felt a flush sexual excitement and the girl broke her pencil’s nib on her note pad. She examined the breakage and noticed for the first time how a pencil’s firm lead was tightly encased in the wooden sleeve.

“Damn!” Jenna chuckled lustily as she went to the sharpener. “I could almost go for some haute sects training right now.”

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Click Here to Learn How He Manipulated Her Mind

“I had a wonderful night.” Jenna passionately kissed her much older lover after he had opened the car door for her. She pushed her pelvis into his as his hands found and squeezed her shapely butt.

“Enjoy your day and I’ll see you tonight.” He watched her walk into the building.

“Dude!” The man’s younger friend rushed over after witnessing the scene. “I bow respectfully to a true master but I’m a student and flat broke.”

“Don’t beat yourself up over it.” The older man laughed. “I’m not going to break your kneecaps.  Last night was more than worth every dime of that unpaid wager.”

The End

Short Fiction By Russell Twyce

A teacher stands before her class of Junior High School students. The fashions and hairstyles have changed much over the last ninety years, but the arrangement of desks and the faces flushed with life of the children remains as it is today. The history teacher is holding a paper for a pop quiz.

“Quiet now.” She holds up a flat hand to call for silence and attention. “Now who can tell me what the three main era’s of the previous 2000 years were called?” She chose one from amid the small wheat field of raised hands. “Jilvian?”

“The first was the dark ages,” a girl answered, “of which not very much was recorded with full accuracy.”

“Correct. And who will tell us what period came next? Rodagar?”

“Yes mam.” A blond boy stood up to answer. “Then came the age of feudalism and serfdom when people were owned by the land and where the land was owned by the nobles.”

“Very good.” The teacher smiled. “What was the third? Jacqeleze?”

“Industrial Age.” A timid girl answered quickly. Then she saw the imploring look on her teacher’s face and expanded on her answer. “It is also known as the second age of feudalism and serfdom.”

“Thank you.” The teache said. “Now can someone tell me the difference between the first and second ages of serfdom? Barklane?”

“In the first, the nobles owned the land and the land owned the people. In the second, the lawyers, police and politicians owned the law and the law owned the people.”

“That’s close, but you missed something important.”

“Nations owned the land and the people?”

“Yes.” The teacher nodded. “In order for it to be considered serfdom, human bondage needs to be involved and that was certainly the case when nations were thought of as all-powerful. Who can remind us of what other overly powerful entities people had to overthrow before they gained real freedom?”

“The corporations that had been given super-human status.” A boy answered after the teacher nodded at him. “They had huge revenues and they bought and sold politicians, lawyers and judges. I think it should be called the black age of corruption and greed. How were people stupid enough to abide with it?”

“As we covered in the lesson, populations under the two Nazi regimes were repressed mostly by the harsh police action, economic blackmail and a mass media that pumped out propaganda. Adstell, will you tell us how the two Nazi regimes differed?”

“The German Nazi government was anti-Semitic and the American Nazi government was pro-Semitic. And while the German Nazis called themselves Nazi, the American Nazi government used the names Democrat and Republican.”

“Fazette, can you elaborate on why the American Nazi government was not named for what it was?”

“The Americans fought the German Nazis during World War Two and so a stigma was attached to the term. However, the American Nazis were just as racially intolerant of all non-Americans as the German Nazis were. The American Nazis were also as violently expansionist. They felt that their strong economic and technical abilities entitled them to crush ‘inferior’ nations, cultures and people.”

“Well done.” The teacher beamed. It seemed like her whole class of students were likely to score well on the formal test. “So for a final question in this quiz, who will describe what finally ended the Nazism and serfdom to give us the wonderful civilization we enjoy today? I’ll point and you can each offer an answer.”

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“Excellent!” The teacher applauded. “Next week we’ll be starting our next module. That will cover the history of economics. We start at the gold standard and finish when the criminal greed practices like the commodity futures market and debt based currency were abolished. Have a great weekend!”

The Akashic Records Hold the REAL Future Answers – Click 2 Read

Nataraja and the Bull Nandi

From his vantage in a void space behind a mechanical room, the assassin Dimitri Petrov watched the tiny dials. They were his only real view of anything happening outside of his enclosure. Was this vertical shaft originally to house a large dumb-waiter, or just the current pipes and conduits? It ran from the basement to the upper floor as a cobra’s lair.

“This space is a claustrophobic’s worst nightmare.” He was at the top of a ten-story well that was only 4 x 4 feet. Two large cylinders were chained in place, further cluttering his section on the upper level. Directly ahead was the back of an air-handling unit, as the duct doubled as part of the ventilation system. Dust of decades coated the walls. Suspended now in a fall restraint harness, Shiva’s Messenger was like a spelunker in an artificial cave.

He closed his eyes and imagined the link between his sniper’s blind and the one behind the fence in Dealey Plaza. His father was alive and standing with his carbine under his jacket. Dimitri took a deep draught of the fresh Dallas air. Thank you, Carl.

Silently, he watched and listened for the infinitesimal sounds that would signal the beginning of the endgame. In his mind, he circulated his plan again, avoiding the myriad of latent disasters. His confidence needed to remain doubt free. The skills his father had instilled in him were running at peak efficiency. Shiva’s Messenger was dangling in limbo and the world took a deep breath in anticipation with him.

…

The President of the Ukraine was at Boryspil Airport to greet the U.S. President when his foot touched Ukrainian soil. There were the customary handshakes and welcoming words. Weeds performed the rituals with his usual panache. This type of formality looked good on the newsreels but it took no special effort. The toughest job was for his stylist to make him look good after his long flight. Weeds would have time to relax and have a good night’s sleep before the grueling stuff began. Good thing, too, because he felt a major dump coming on and Larry hated airplane crappers.

He slid into the limousine amid a knot of Secret Service. Their heads were craning, ever watchful for an out-of-place move that signaled danger. The motorcade whisked him through the streets of Kiev, to his waiting hotel suite. Motorcycle escorts blocked the side traffic while they swept past all lights. His guards and the Secret Service would have already checked everything. He was probably safe but alone in the passenger compartment. Larry Weeds watched the crenellated building tops, for a sniper’s outline.

“Anyone standing on a roof would only appear to be a chimney pot, until a shoulder-fired missile contrail pointed him out.” Images accompanying that thought sent Larry sliding into the corner of the limo seat, out of sight. Weeds felt the familiar knuckle of fear grip and begin to twist intestines behind his belly button.

The POTUS detail was dedicated to his protection, and they performed as well as any agency ever could. He had appropriated a vastly increased budget for his personal safety but he didn’t feel any improved comfort level. “Could any extra spending ever keep me completely safe?” The law of diminishing returns said emphatically, no. A tiny risk must be overlooked. A dedicated assassin, like the innovative Shiva’s Messenger, could always find some way. Weeds gave an involuntary twitch, at the thought of that name.

“I felt so confident of my safety in Kiev but now I’m uncertain.” The president hoped beyond dread that the assassin would show up at the Washington lure but he hadn’t. Nick Taylor must’ve been confounded by that too because Larry’s buddy hadn’t been quite the same man since. Something was different about him and it was uncomfortable. “I didn’t even want Nick riding with me in the limo.”

Under a screen of American agents, the president was ushered to his suite. It was comforting as always to see Marine guards in the corridors. There aren’t many of them: perhaps they’re tucked away out of sight. Standing back a pace, he gently lifted the shade to peek out the window. Could Shiva’s scope see through the glass? Nervously, Larry tucked the curtains, so no daylight could peek in.

“With one outcome or another,” the president referred to his alternate plan, “at least it’ll all be over.”

…

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The End

Dynamite Speeches that Bomb

The highway leaving Odessa again required caution in order to negotiate the sections where half completed repairs lurked. Some of the holes were almost big enough to swallow the tiny Lada in one gulp. The diminishing distance to the area of the national capital could be measured by increments of road surface improvements. Like governments everywhere, the Ukraine liked to waste the most money where it showed. In the city center of Kiev, the two would later chuckle as they witnessed road crews resurfacing asphalt that would’ve been considered brand new, if it had been in Odessa.

“Hello, Dimitri Petrov.” As Carl took his turn at the wheel, Shiva’s Messenger borrowed the rearview mirror and transformed. He stashed his German passport and became a Ukrainian national.

“That is impressive.” Hamster Man was surprised to note that from the moment he changed papers the effect was complete. The accent and whole demeanor dramatically shifted to match the new persona. Carl couldn’t help but immediately think of him, as ‘Dimitri’. As the idle traveling chat continued, Eckert marveled the part that was even more outstanding. “You know the language but now you also speak English with a Russian accent. When you were Gunter, you spoke it with a German inflection. How do you do that?”

“It took a lot of practice with my dad but I also start thinking in my persona’s language and I’m sure that helps.”

“Could you speak Russian with a German accent?”

“Yes, but only because Russian is my second strongest tongue.” The chameleon explained.

“Conversely, I can’t speak German and sound Russian. Well, at least not without a lot more rehearsal.”

“When you were Alex, I would place your accent from Nevada or California. I assume you could be from Boston if you wished.”

“A Bostonian sounds pretty thick,” Dimitri noted, “but I wouldn’t try to match to a city or someone may expect me to know intimate details. I’d make it more general to New England. The accents in North America are fairly easy. A few key word sounds can make the switch. My being an Australian in England would be harder at first but I’d get better as I used the persona.”

“You’re a human chameleon without even changing clothes or your appearance.” The exchange had brought Cark to stare with awe as if watching to observe a skin color change.

“But you’re not a flounder,” the passenger remarked on the driver’s long fixed gaze but he wasn’t excessively concerned yet as traffic was light, “with both eyes migrated to the side of your head.”

“The CIA trained me in watching the road through my ear?” Carl split his attention to give a little to his driving duty as well. “When did you ever have time to learn to shoot?”

“Weapons were only a small fraction of my father’s curriculum.” The young assassin fondly recalled. “My education was also started before my first childhood memories.”

“It must’ve been different as a tyke playing soldier,” Eckert tried to envision it, “but with live ammunition.”

“A loving parent doesn’t give toddlers knives to run with.” John squelched his friend’s thought. The memories invoked by this talk had slipped him from the Dimitri persona but since it was only with Carl he paid it no heed. “My father didn’t give me skills before he thought me responsible enough for them.”

“When did your languages training begin?”

“I could read and write both English and Russian before other kids would be starting kindergarten. I was also fluent in French and conversant in German.”

“Did he never give you time to just play and have fun?” Carl’s face had to turn away from the road again as he felt sorrow and had to study the effects of such a regimented childhood.

“It was all fun with plenty of play.” John read the expression. “I’ve had a wonderful life. My dad started off reading children’s books with me in English. Then he read them again in different tongues. I had friends my own age when we traveled and in the rest of the year he was a playmate as well as my parent and teacher.”

‘I suppose it built a strong relationship between you two.” Carl recalled his young years. “My father worked long hours and I saw him only on evenings and weekends.”

“My dad was at least your age when I was born but still a lot of fun to play with: maybe I kept him young. He and I did play soldiers and if the game involved being squad mates instead of opponents,” John grinned, “sometimes it was with real guns and bullets.”

“I suppose you’ve turned out rather well from it.” Hamster Man chuckled. “Other than the long string of corpses in your wake.”

“Its been my choice. A butcher may teach his son all he knows in hopes of passing on a family tradition but a good father also gives his child a wide base to build any future on. The boy could become an accountant—who also has a very good knowledge of meat.”

“I can see our young Shiva’s Messenger as a lawyer with latent skills to take out the bailiffs, judge and jury over a wrong verdict.”

“My being with you puts me in mind of spending quality time with my father but with an odd transition.” John glowed as he was realizing this for the first time as he was sharing it. “It’s like I’m my father and you’re me, trying to learn what I know with enjoyable conversations and having fun with the educational stuff we’re doing.”

“Hamster Man,” Carl’s chest puffed as he expanded on his official title, “the assassin’s apprentice.”

“Hi again Dimitri.” The young assassin switched back as they neared Kiev.

“Could you do that without seeing your reflection?”

“You probably don’t really need a mirror to brush your teeth but you’d certainly feel awkward without one.”

…

After finding a nice apartment through a rental agency, Dimitri scoured the classified ads for a large storage unit wired with electric. He applied for a job as a temporary maintenance man at a premier hotel in Kiev and managed to get hired part-time.

“You were lucky to apply at the perfect time,” the hotel staffing manager smiled, “a very important guest is expected soon and extra mechanical personnel are required for sprucing up the place.”

“Great,” the maintenance manager’s voice was cynical as he met his new temporary man, “another young one. I suppose you’ll need a day or two off after every payday too.”

“I’m a diligent worker.” Dimitri offered quietly.

“That’s what they all say.” Ivan issued the lad with a tool belt and his new coveralls.

…

“Some of the stuff we need is really tough to get, probably even impossible, not to mention dangerous.” Carl mused while shaking his head slowly in thought. Dimitri had sketched out a rough outline of the project. “I don’t think even selling your highly-touted soul will net enough to buy any C4 compound.”

“The hardest things to get, I brought with me.” After fishing into his bags, Dimitri pulled out the carefully prepared shaving kit from Calgary. “May I use your scissors?”

“You may as well.” Carl snapped back. He’d never seen the kit, it had irked him slightly that his boss always borrowed his shampoo and toothpaste.

“This bag is far too extraordinary for storing toiletries.” Dimitri’s tantalizing voice hinted at a treasure trove of delights.

“Oh my god!” Eckert’s eyes widened. “What have you carried half way around the world, on planes and through customs?”

“Airline security and border crossings can be a problem but not insurmountable. In addition to random searches, they also regularly use metal detectors, x-ray and explosive sniffing units.” Using the scissors, the smuggler cut the side out of his shaving kit. “You have to prepare well in advance of the screening.”

“The zipper triggers a booby-trap bomb?” Eckert leaned away.

“No,” the young assassin chuckled, “why would I set a trap to kill an innocent security worker?” It just doesn’t work because I dipped the whole bag in several coats of liquid plastic and let it harden.” Dimitri emptied now the ruined satchel onto the table. “The method of getting past explosive detectors, is to seal everything in airtight packaging. The sampling wand hunts for fumes only in the main suitcase cavity.”

“You took explosives onto an airplane!”

“This can make washing your hair a real blast.” Dimitri quipped and tossed a medium sized plastic shampoo bottle and another with conditioner. He had carefully filled and compressed as much C4 plastic explosive, as each would hold. Following that, the semi-solid was tamped into the containers and topped up completely, so the non-liquid consistency wouldn’t be apparent. “The ploy for x-ray units is to make the items look like something the operators see so often, that they pay no attention.”

“Be careful!” Carl handled the potentially volatile bottles like they might detonate. “I was wrong about the spirit auction.”

“This is a high velocity military explosive but it’s safe to handle until you use some of these blasting caps.” Dimitri broke the shell of his electric razor and extracted two detonators that were mixed in with assorted electronic components.

“You don’t just go into a supermarket and ask for C4 by name.”

“No. It’s controlled and purchase requires an end user certificate. It might be possible to get it here but with extreme difficulty and danger.” His father supplied a quantity and it had a ten-year shelf life. It was easier just to bring it along. “The rest of the components could come from hardware store and electronics shops.”

“I would’ve been sweating torrents at every checkpoint.” Carl marveled at the ingenuity and the nerve to pull it off. “They would have torn my up gear seeking the headwaters of my perspiration.”
“It’s a good thing I didn’t tell you or get you to carry anything. ‘Security forces never examine further when they see exactly what they expect’.” Dimitri recited one of his father’s favorite lessons. “I could use a gun too but those are tougher to hide. Even stripped down to components, a gun and bullets still looks like gun parts.”

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…

“Good morning Dimitri.” He pulled on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt to go for a long run through Kiev. What a beautiful city: I wish I could run naked. Stopping on the crest of the Dneipr River bank, he performed stretching exercises to limber up his supple muscles. Flexing his biceps, he was pleased that there was no longer any pain from his heavy exertion.

“Don’t spend all day glued to the TV.” Dimitri doubted that his employee would follow instructions. “You’re a Russian soap-aholic.”

“I only watch the news.” Carl fibbed: he also flipped often to the fashion channel too. Eckert really wished he could think of more to say but he didn’t want to risk casting the fatal doubt.

The Stairs of the Distorted Stares

Along his coach ride, Carl found new situations to curse in each passing segment. He was physically too big in all three dimensions to sit in bus seats. His aching knees were cramped into a space that was too small and they pressed against the seat in front. The vehicle was filled to capacity and there was no room to unbend his legs. That was still only the first hop.

“I might’ve experienced a more luxurious seating jammed in the trunk of the car.” Eckert’s pained knee joints popped in protest as he descended the three steps to the curb. He walked until fully stretched and limbered for the following phase. Carl loitered as the nearly full passenger load was onboard, to relish each extra second. That left him one seat up from the furthest back row.

Here, the vision of the luggage compartment of a mid-sized car also seemed pleasurable. In shocking contrast, Carl imagined the ease that his employer would be voyaging. With the boy’s supple young body, he could have been folded up into a suitcase, found it conducive to a nice nap and emerged ready to run up behind a stretched limo.

The formed vision of that descriptive thought included Hamster Man watching the jogging assassin from a tailgate rumble seat. Carl’s mind’s eye even had difficulty focusing to see the gunshot into the passenger window for all his bouncing on the rough road. A seat behind the rear wheels, as was his current spot on the bus, maximized even small highway lumps. The large humps had his ample butt feeling like the skimpy cushion was a trampoline. Shiva’s playful puppy would’ve likely had fun with that too and engaged in acrobatics.

“Youth is wasted on the young because the aged need it more.” Carl remarked as the jarring had his belly fat jiggling like a bowl of jelly on a spin dryer doing a load of track shoes. Both of Eckert’s hands steadied the bulk and he didn’t like what they held. He wasn’t built like this back when his dreams felt attainable. “I should’ve bought a stair-master and climbed it whenever James Bond ran his treadmill.”

“The flight shows full,” the ticketing agent at O’Hare smiled encouragingly, “but you’ll be in first standby so you’ll be okay.”

“How is it in business class?” The recently homeless man saw a puzzled expression form on the woman’s face.

“There’s still some seats available.” She consulted her screen but he didn’t even look employed, much less a business executive.

“I’ll take it.” Eckert peeled cash from a roll nearly the size of a toilet paper tube. That was just what was in his pocket: the wads in his suitcase were even larger. While his employer’s payroll was tight fisted, the expense account was far more than just generous.

“The bus was as cruel as keeping a fat hamster in a habitat designed for a gerbil.” As the plane lifted off, Carl Eckert squirmed into his roomy seat like a rodent getting comfortable in shavings. He could stretch the standby to unavailable if his travel claim was questioned.

“Damn!” He giggled with glee. “I love my new job!”

…

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“Because you told me females don’t see you as attractive, even when you are. They only find you as uninteresting, because you think of yourself that way. You’re broadcasting your low self image and they get the first impression that you’re not stimulating.”

“Maybe so, but that’s the way I am and I can’t change that.”

“Who says you can’t? I change all of the time. I can be whoever and whatever I want. All I have to do is convince myself and then others will believe. Try right now to only think of yourself as Carl the interesting ladies man.”

“OK, I’m Carl the ladies man.” He gave it only lip service.

“Saying it’s alright but now you have to believe it. When you can think of yourself that way, then the women will also.”

“I think I can maybe do that.”

“I know that you can. You made everyone think that you were a homeless destitute man and they were convinced because you believed. If you were simply acting a role then people wouldn’t have given you money for panhandling.”

“You may be right.” He strained his well-developed imagination to believe he was interesting to women. No, more than just that. He was Carl Eckert the ‘babe-magnet’ Hamster Man. “Am I mistaken or did that beautiful woman just smile at me? I think she’s now looking at me differently as well.”

“I do perceive divergence in her stare,” Gunter confirmed, “but we can’t prove if it’s really so. We can only believe or not.”

Thorns in the Rosebushes

“I’ve never seen anyone so casual about making an armed assault on a well-guarded president.” As Carl Eckert emerged from his lavatory routines, he found the young assassin had partially rearranged the furniture to facilitate his maximum sloughing comfort in a chair, with his legs on the bed. The Messenger’s one hand held the remote control unit now slightly modified with a spare part from the aircraft model kit: his finger idly spun a propeller set with the antenna as an axle, as he watched the window and the TV.

“How many of us have you observed in action?” The casual boy asked but he expected no reply and continued with that thought. “I read of a guy that applied for a research grant to study why fifty percent of female instructors at a particular campus married students. After the funding was in hand, the one of only two female teachers answered his study question. Because I loved him.”

“Don’t be smart—Alex.” Carl dried his hair and contemplated how in the last 50 hours they had watched as several times the Secret Service personnel had combed the street. Specialists had used explosive and metal sensors to sweep the environs. Welders also came by to tack down the manhole covers. It was almost as watching TV but it was occurring outside the window. The only part where reality had even come close to his fantasies of a dark sinister ploy unfolding happened at 3 AM on the night preceding Larry’s arrival.

“It’s time.” Alex had noted that almost exactly when it was anticipated, the vehicle he was waiting for appeared around the corner. The greenhouse truck that the city contracted to plant and water the floral displays began to make its slow progress up the street. Instead of staying to watch, the two president hunters had hurried out the back hotel entrance and traversed the distance to the dark parking structure. Their stolen truck was swiftly decorated with magnetic logo signs and Eckert had slid into the driver seat.

With Alex in the truck bed seated on a wooden crate, Carl drove the pick-up slowly out onto the dim street. He paused at the entrance of the main road and looked to ensure that the real maintenance crew had finished and moved on. The chassis had groaned, as he urged the wheels up the 4-inch step of concrete. In the back, Alex made a pretense of watering the boxes. He copied the motions of the other unit, while Carl navigated the sidewalk.

“If someone witnesses this minor event happening twice, they may even discount the oddity as their own sense of déjà vu.” Carl had muttered as he stopped briefly beside the chosen lamppost but his internal confidence didn’t match his words. The vibrations he felt were from both the vehicles engine and his nervous twitching.

The rearview mirror showed Alex removing the flowerbox and replacing it with the special one he removed from the crate. The job now done, the driver went on again slowly. The gardeners in green coveralls eased off of the curb and vanished.

“It appears our predictions of his true route were correct.” Carl watched the room’s television as the moderate sized motorcade was seen on a local channel. This presidential visit was big news in the area and stations were providing continuous coverage. “The entourage is not as large as the one that arrived at the hotel.”

“Larry will be slipping out the back to his meeting, while press crews watch the other limo taking a scenic tour of Spokane.” Alex took his feet off the bed and redoubled his focus on the access point from the rear entry route. As predicted, soon a smaller motorcade could be seen. “What happened to James Bond?”

“Let’s not talk about that right now—here they come!” Carl’s hissing whisper showed his extreme nervousness.

“He was your pet. You must have done something about him.” Alex urged, as the stretched black sedan rounded the bend.

“We’re about to fire shots at the POTUS and you’re asking about the fate of a stinking rat?” Actually, expressing it in those terms made it much more fitting. “I’ll tell you later.”

“Tell me now or I won’t push the button.” Alex poised his finger tantalizingly over his RC remote. Larry Weeds, in Limousine One, slowed at the corner. “It’s nearly time, tick, tick, tick.”

“I sneaked back into my apartment after they assumed I was dead.” Carl excitedly spoke as fast as he had in the Oval Office. “I turned him loose in an alley, now hammer down!”

“Alright.” As a sportsman leading the flight of a Canada goose, Alex mentally added travel time to his action and then thumbed the control. A servomotor in the flowerbox spun and cinched a wire around the triggers of the three fully automatic rifles secured inside. The wooden side splintered and blew out as the first 7.62 mm NATO issue rounds fired. “Your pet is probably in a stray cat’s belly. It might’ve been kinder to just hammer down on his skull.”

“I couldn’t do that.” As Carl watched, a hinged bottom dropped out of the flowerbox. A rolled paper banner flapped to the ground, accompanied by a drum roll of the rifles emptying their clips.
“I could.” Alex’s words hung as tangible as two icicles.

…

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Taylor kissed the audiocassette before tucking it into his pocket. That would go into the ultra secure Chief of Staff’s office safe. H.R. Haldeman should have kept this type of get-out-of-jail-free card in that safe when he was Nixon’s Chief of Staff.