9 comments/ 68281 views/ 7 favorites The Redemption of Love By: Icingsugar Author's notes: This story was not supposed to be about a moviestar. The celebrity could had been any pretty, successful woman. But a friend of mine asked me for a piece of fan-fiction involving this particular beauty. And I think it turned out pretty well. This is one for you who enjoy a bit more background to your reading than just "we met, we did it." So be patient, I think it'll be worth it. Oh, and don't try to find the town or the movie being shot. It's purely fictional. Enjoy! /Icingsugar ------------- "Hey, Jimbo!" i shouted. That, if anything, ought to get her attention. And it did. She stopped dead in her tracks. Slowly she turned around, her eyes searching the crowd on the street. Her beautiful, big, dark eyes rapidly scanning the hundred-or-so fans that had gathered to get a glimpse of one of the handful of Tinseltown stars that had blessed our little town with their presence. Hollywood, or rather, a New Line Cinema crew had landed in town a few days ago for a movieshoot. Apparently, the movie was some sort of high-profile Sci-Fi drama in the same category as Contact, or Close Encounters. The main part of the story was supposed to take place in a quiet, nondescript, typical Small Town. Well, they couldn't have picked a better place. That was after all why I moved there in the first place. I hadn't cared that much about the whole freakshow though until I read about the cast lineup in the local gazette. It was an all-star team of top of the line silver screen talent, with names like Ed Harris, Claire Danes, Elijah Wood and Christian Bale in the most prominent roles. Further down the castlist there were still lots of interesting names. I idly browsed the namedropping article. When I saw her name, I almost ripped the newspaper in two. Hate is a dangerous word, and one should use it carefully. But I hated her. I had reason to. First I had planned on locking myself up in my apartment and ignore it all. Stick my head in the sand and wish her away. But when I saw her slender, toned body and her radiant face come walking down my street, escorted by two buff bodyguards, smiling, laughing and signing autographs left and right, I knew I had to do something. She was so beautiful, so successful, so happy. All those things that she didn't deserve to be. I wanted to take her down, to get back her some way. But first, I had to get her to notice me. "Up here, Jimbo!" I called out from my second floor window. And then she looked at me, and spoke to me, for the first time in over seven years. "Matt? Matt, is that you?" "Sure is!" "How...what are you doing here?" she asked, baffled. "I live here! What's your excuse? Hey, don't go anywhere, I'm coming down." I moved away from the window and hurried down the stairs. Right before I went out into the street, I had to calm myself down and take a few deep breaths. There was no turning back now. The ball was rolling and there was no way for me to stop it. "You can do this, Matthew. Just play it cool. Be nice. This is your chance." i thought to myself. Chance to do what? I didn't know yet, the only thing I was sure of was that if I didn't go out there and say hello I'd probably never get a chance like this again. Somehow, I'd make her pay. Bracing myself, I entered the street. And there she stood, the all-American girl next door, the jerk-off fantasy of countless teenage boys, the moviestar sensation that is Jennifer Love Hewitt. Of course, she wasn't all that to me. I knew her before the hype exploded, when she was just another unnoticed teen actress with a handful of so-so appearances on her resume. And from even further back, when she was just that cute girl down the block. For a second I dreamed myself back to those days of childhood games and adolescent crushes, before it all went wrong. But whatever I felt there was no denying the striking effect she had on everything around her. She made everything else fade away. I had to admit it, Jennifer was a wet dream walking. Her straight hair was in a shorter style than I had seen on her in magazines and movies recently, but it still framed her face perfectly, ending just above the shoulders. It was a hot summer day, and she wore a classic sleeveless thin pale blue dress with minimal shoulder straps and a deep cleavage. So deep in fact that you could see the top of the matching blue laced bra she wore underneath it. Small gusts of wind tugged the dress back and forth, making the thin fabric cling either to her back and her buttocks, or to her breasts, belly and crotch. The dress ended about halfway up her thighs, showing enough of that pair of downright flawless legs of hers to arouse any man alive. Any man except me. She may be sexy, but I hated her. Anyway, it was time to act. "Hi, Jen." "Matt...wow. Matthew...how long has it been? Six years?" she said as her eyes met mine. "Seven years, almost on the day. You ran away and broke my heart, remember?" I replied.. She flinched, and her smile was instantly wiped away. I seemed to had hit a nerve there. Could this coldblooded...bitch actually have a conscience? "Oh, yeah. That." she mumbled. I quickly gave her a big grin to assure her that I was just joking. "Hey lighten up, Love. That's way past, ok? I'm not holding any grudges." As if. She beamed back at me and reached out to touch my arm. I had to clench my teeth to stop myself from backing away. Her touch felt like heaven, at he same time it burned like acid and hellfire. I still longed after her. Her tender touch, her warm breath, her soft, sweet lips. But the hate was stronger. Somehow, I managed to pull myself together enough to keep the cool, smiling mask on. "So," I said as gaily as I could manage. "welcome to my street. It's good to see you again." "Matthew Davies. God, it really is you. Hey, any busy right now? I'm on my way back to the hotel. If you want to, we could have a coffee, or maybe a drink, and yap about the good old days. I wanna know what you've been up to. Whaddaya think?" "Sounds fine to me. Lead the way, Jimbo." "Don't call me that." "Sorry, Jimbo." "Stop it!," she laughed. "Ok, Jimbo." She stuck out her tongue at me, and turned around to face one of the two huge monoliths in suit and tie that had trailed along after her. "Robert?" "Yes, miss Hewitt?" "This is Matthew. He is not a deranged fanatic freak who wants to kill me or marry me or something. He is an old friend of mine. So if he wants to see me on the sets, or at the hotel, you let him in, ok?" "Fair enough, miss Hewitt." "Oh, and if he ever calls me Jimbo again, you have my permission to slap him silly." "As you wish, miss Hewitt." "Good boy!" "Will that be all, Jimbo?" the tower of a man said, without the slightest trace of a smile. His partner however couldn't help but emitting a short laugh. Jennifer just looked from one to the other, and then at me. "You guys are hopeless, you know that? Oh well, let's go." ----------- For a two horse town in the middle of the great North American Nowhere we had a pretty decent hotel. No four star palace, but modern and comfortable, with good service, a terrific kitchen and a bar that that felt far more metropolitan than this place really deserved. Since the arrival of actors and production crew a few days earlier that bar had become the obvious place for the guests to hang around, have a drink or just take it easy after finishing shooting scenes for the day. Naturally, it then also became crowded with clusters of star-struck locals trying to spot some of the famous faces. Jennifer and I agreed that we'd want a bit more peace and quiet, so we headed over to the much less crowded cafeteria and took a corner table. Her two stone-faced gorillas thoughtfully kept their distance, ordered at the desk and sat down in the other end of the room. A waitress came by and took our order. After the usual "Ohmigod, you're her, aren't you?" directed to the girl beside me, she walked away, an autograph and an order for juice and Pepsi richer. As we waited for our drinks, Jennifer nudged me and directed my attention toward the bodyguards' table. Their coffee had arrived, and it seemed that the one called Roger was a bit of a connoisseur, as he had ordered a small cup of espresso. Now, Roger was a huge guy. 6"5 and built like a brick. His arms were trunks, and his hands were like baseball gloves. Seeing him lift that tiny piece of china and carefully take a sip was one of the most surreal things I'd ever seen. We both broke out laughing. It was the strangest feeling. Here I was, sitting with the woman I hated, and having an absolutely delightful little moment. "What's up with the gorillas anyway?" I asked her. "Oh, I had some weird creep calling me, like hundred times every day, showing up outside my house, and my parent's house. He sent me tulips, white chocolate and..get this...stuffed doves!" "You're not serious! That's creepy as hell." "Yeah well, you almost gets used to it. This isn't the first weirdo either. Some years ago there was this guy who proposed to me, once every week for over six months." "Now that's love, baby." She laughed. Then suddenly, Jennifer looked up at me, all serious. "Look," she said. "I'd really want to know. Where do I stand with you? I mean, we didn't exactly part ways on an up-note, if you know what I mean. I was going to call you, and to try to set things straight, but with my life spinning so fast those years it never seemed to be the right moment. And when I finally came around to, you were no where to be found. I wanted to apologize for running away like that, I guess. " "Girl, you really need to wind down. That happened ages ago, and we're both different persons now. You know, thinking back, I realized that I wasn't the only one with a major crush on you." She tilted her head. "What do you mean?" she asked with prying eyes. Didn't she know? How the hell could she not had noticed? "C'mon, don't act all innocent now," I said with a wink. "Back in school, you had more admirers than all the other girls put together. You were pretty, you were popular, and you loved every minute of it. And although you had only been in a few TV shows, we had our very own moviestar to worship. You wouldn't believe the schemes I heard back then for getting into your pants. Of course, they were all pretty dumb, and would never had worked. You weren't exactly the kind of girl who would put out. Or were you, Jimbo?" "Damn sure I wasn't!" "Aww don't look so shocked. You do know the effect you had on the rest of us kids, don't you?" i teased her. "Well, I guess. But..." she left it hanging. Then she thought of something else. "Hmm, I guess I ought to pay you back those two thousand. Or was that you dad's?" "Don't worry about that. I have more money than I know how to spend." "Well, good for you. But it was still wrong, and I feel bad about it. I just hope it didn't cause your family much trouble." My family. That stung like hell. Right there and then, my mask almost broke. I wanted so badly to just reach over, grab her chin and punch her pleasant little smile into a mess of blood and teeth. I clenched my jaws and gripped the arm of my chair to compose myself. Calm, composed, charming, witty, don't screw this up now! She didn't seem to notice, as I took another drink, and finally felt my pulse slow back to normal. "Trouble? Dad was pissed at me for being careless, and pissed at you for taking off with his savings. But hey, he couldn't stay mad forever." "Glad to hear that. But you know, I'd feel a lot better if I could make it up to you some way." "I see. A quickie in the ladies' room is out of the question I guess?" ..."fraid so," she smiled."I still don't put out...that much." "Well then, unless you can deliver Denise Richards in her birthday suit and a collar, I think I'll pass." She made a face at me and laughed. "Pervert." "Hey, I'm a guy. What did you expect?" Damn, I was witty. Slowly I did what I could to make her comfortable with me, to make her like me and trust me. So we sat there and talked. We talked about her career and life as an actor, we talked of common old friends from all the yesterdays we had shared, I asked her about the current movie, and she asked me question after question about my life for the past seven years. There were things I couldn't talk about. The aftermath of her betrayal, and the pain she had caused. This was not the time nor the place. But I told her the basics of pretty much everything else. I told her about my pretty uneventful college years, i told her about my two years in Europe and my career as a copywriting consultant in London. And how I later had come back to settle down here, in the middle of nowhere for a year of peace and quiet. "Since I have all the money I need, I decided to do what I really wanted. I write some tech articles and assorted essays, mostly too keep in touch with the business. But what I really do here is trying to write a novel. A UK publisher liked my first draft so it just might get printed. With luck I'll have it finished before Christmas." "Wow, that is great. You said you always wanted to be a writer. What is it about?" "It's a bit hard to sum up. You could say it's basically a love story, with some...odd twists. Really, it's difficult to explain. I'll tell you what, I'll drop by tomorrow with the latest edition so you can read it for yourself." "That would be awesome." she said. "Hey, Jennifer." said a voice behind my back. I looked up, and there stood a hobbit. Or well, not really. It was a tired looking Elijah Wood with his eyes deep into a manuscript. "Hi Elijah!" Jennifer replied. "You look like someone ran over your cat and FedEx'd you the remains. Whats wrong?" "I just got the details on the radio show scene, the interview you know? It's just gonna be one shot and no cutting, so I got to get the whole dialogue into my skull by lunch tomorrow. And however I try, I just can't get it right. I suck at this. Who's this guy?" "Elijah, meet Matthew, the mysterious writer. Matt, meet Elijah, the - according to himself - terrible actor." We shook hands. "She is right." I said. "You sure look like you could do with a break. Or a week's sleep." "Uuh, yeah. You're probably right. I need caffeine. Lots of it. Are you two having a very private moment here?" he asked. "Not really. Get a cup and join us." said Jennifer. The young actor slumped away with a step that seemed to belong to someone well over their fifties. He returned minutes later with a a big mug, boarding on bathtub, of steaming black-as-hell java. "Ah, the real black gold." he exclaimed. "This place has the best coffee on the planet." "Really?" I said. "Personally I think all coffee tastes pretty much the same - like baboon piss." "You don't know what you're missing." he said, and took a large gulp. "See, that's the point. I'm not missing it." From the direction of the bar, two young women came walking up to our table. One was a short, curvy girl with a latin look. Pitch black wavy hair, olive skin and a cute, almost childish face crowned with piercing eyes and an eyebrow piercing. The other was her complete opposite. Pale, blond and very slender. A sophisticated beauty, but with a youth and liveliness in her face that gave it a certain warmth. It took me a few seconds to place her, but then it dawned to me that the blond girl curiously eying me was Claire Danes, the leading actress of this whole circus. I should had known. I wasn't that much interested in the silver screen and their icons, but Danes performance and radiant beauty in Baz Luhrman's Romeo and Juliette version a few years back had had me completely mesmerized. She handed Jennifer a sheet of paper. "Congratulations, we've got our lines changed - again. Not very much this time, but I wish Rob could make up his mind." I guessed this Rob was someone higher up in the food chain, the screenwriter, or maybe the director. Jennifer eyed the note. "Yeah, well this wasn't too bad. When are we scheduled?" she asked. "Sometime around ten tonight, as soon as it's dark enough. Do you have an hour after dinner? I'm gonna need some rehearsing." "Sure." "Then I have two questions for you: First, who is the tall, handsome stranger? And second, why does Elijah look like someone killed his cat?" After introductions the two girls joined us at the table, and we engaged in the intricate dance called small talk, the polite chit-chat that strangers use to probe each other personalities with. Topics flowed from the weather, to mine and Jennifer's schooldays, to sports, current news and of course, movies. Having the head hobbit nearby our conversation was bound to at one point of the other turn to Lord of The Rings, or rather, the filming of it. "Yeah, a three hour movie sitting is a bit of a stretch, but not when it's that good a flick." I said. "Although it was really embarrassing to watch at one point. Not that that is your fault. You know that scene where you're hiding beside the road behind a tree, and a ringwraith is sniffing around trying to find you?" "Yup. What about it?" "I recognized that tree instantly. You see, I lived in Wellington as a kid..." "Really?" "Yeah, I'm not a native kiwi though. Love and I are both Texas kids. Anyway, I used to play in the park where that scene was shot. I remember this one day in the park. I was seven, maybe eight years old. I'd been drinking way too much lemonade, so nature was calling. And what do you do when you are in the middle of the woods and that happens? I'm pretty sure that I took a leak exactly where you guys were sitting." Jennifer became a fountain of Pepsi, as she exploded into uncontrollable laughter. Claire and the third girl had also doubled over in their chairs. Elijah just stared at me. "You're shitting me! You can't be serious!" he said. "You'd better believe it. It was actually the preferred tree for the local bums for that kind of thing. That's why I chose it, it stank already." "Hah! Sean actually mentioned it reeked. But we thought he was just his whiny old self." My mood was beginning to lighten up. Sitting there, in a comfortable atmosphere, sipping a cold drink and chatting the afternoon away with some friendly faces, was actually the most fun I'd had in months. The fact that two of those faces belonged to two of the most desirable women in the world was of course a bonus. And the latin girl, her name was Janine and she was a makeup artist, was just as striking. In fact, had I the opportunity to bend one of them over the table and fuck her brains out, I think I would had chosen her. She had an aura of mischief and wicked humor around her that hinted that sex with her could be an interesting affair indeed. Looking up I could see that the girls were still in their laughing fit, and Jennifer finally managed to pull herself together. "Hey, Jimbo. You're drooling." "What? Oh shit!" she blurted out as she saw what spewing Pepsi all over a thin blue dress did to it. Wet brown stains were evenly distributed all over the front. A drop of the dark drink had also landed on her upper chest, and was slowly traveling down into the luscious valley between her slightly pushed up breasts. The sight was simply hypnotic, and I wished I could lean forward and just lick that little wandering drop off her skin. "I really need to get out of this dress." she murmured. "Hey, don't let us stop you, baby." Elijah said with a broad grin. "My thoughts exactly." I volunteered. She gave us a blank stare. "Men! Look, I need to change and take a shower anyway." she said, directed to me. "I'm due for a rehearse in just about an hour. We'll get together tomorrow, ok?" "Yeah, I need to get home and finish an article, before my editor sends a hit-man after me. Just drop by my place, or give me a call. I'm listed." The Redemption of Love As I stood up, she leaned over and hugged me confidently. This was going really well. She liked me, I had made her trust me, and I had made the people around her trust me. Noone could tell what I really felt. "Hell," I thought to myself. "I'm a better actor than they are." I said my good-byes and headed back home. It was a ten minute stroll, and by the time I reached my stairs I knew what I was going to do, how to turn my hate into retaliation. All I needed was to wait for the right opportunity. When I could get her alone. ---------- It happened a week later. Every day I would meet up with Jennifer and the three other "kids" as they called themselves, either out on location, of at the hotel café. The three actors and the makeup artist were at least one generation younger than the rest of the cast and crew, and therefore they felt most comfortable in each other's company. Of course they socialized with the others too, and I got to shake quite a few famous hands when I tagged along on the sets. It was on one of those occasions that I finally had my chance. After a long day of perfecting a scene out in the woods, about a mile away from the city, I found Jennifer sitting in the doorway of a trailer all muddy and wet, with a blanket wrapped around her. "Hey, milady. How's it going?" "It's going crappy. I'm tired, wet and cold. I've been rained on all day, and I just fell into a ditch. I'm done here now, and all I want to do is get back to the hotel, take a shower and get some nice dry clothes. But there seems to be no cars to spare. Oh no, I'm gonna have to wait another three hours for the rest of the bunch to finish. I'm beginning to wonder who I'm gonna have to bend over for to get a ride into town around here." "How about me?" Her head shot up. "You got a car?" "I've got a piece of shit. But it moves, occasionally in the right direction. How did you think I got here? I'm not taking a stroll in this lousy weather. I'll even give you a discount and settle for a blowjob. How about that?" She grinned up at me. "You are an angel. Let's go!" She went to inform the producer and the bodyguards that she was going to the hotel with me. There had been no signs of said stalker during the visit up here, so they took it pretty easy with the security to allow for as much privacy as possible. Besides, she was with me, so she'd be perfectly safe. Oh, yes. Perfectly safe. She returned with a light step and a heavy bag, and we walked to the outskirts of the set to my parked rusty old sedan. As soon as we both were in the car, I turned to her and reached for my zipper. "So, you wanna pay now, or while I'm driving?" Her eyes bulged, and she scrambled to get out of the car. I immediately zipped up again. "Gotcha!" I said with a laugh. She froze, sat down and punched me in the arm. She was stronger than I thought. It actually hurt a bit. "Don't do that, you freak." she said with an impish smile. I turned the key. The 'piece of shit' coughed a couple of times and settled into a comfortable purr as we drove off. Five uneventful minutes later i had parked the car and was trailing along behind Jennifer down the corridor to her room. She dug deep into the bag and produced a keycard that she opened the door with, disappearing inside. I stood in the corridor, hesitating my next move. But Jennifer was way ahead of me. She popped her head out into the corridor again. "Well don't just stand there. Come in, sit down." The room was your standard run of the mill hotel franchise. Comfortable and clean, but without any real luxury. A bed on one end and a small table and sofa on the other. There were small touches of it's current guest everywhere. Clothes here and there, a perfume bottle in the window, a picture of her family and a few magazines on the bedside table, a laptop computer on the table by the sofa. I noticed that my book-script laid open beside it.. Then I didn't notice anything else about the room, because Jennifer Love Hewitt was casually stripping right in front of me, as if I wasn't there. Her shirt was off, lying on the floor. She was wearing that blue bra, the same she had worn when I first saw her. She reached down and loosened the straps that kept her loose fit pants up around her waist. Naturally, my eyes popped out of their sockets, and my jaw dropped to the floor in perfect sync with her pants. She looked at me, slightly amused. "Enjoying the view?" "Very much so." "Really, what is the big deal? Half the world has seen me in a bikini by now. Is this any different? Hey, I'm up here." I pried my eyes off her hypnotic bosom and looked into her eyes. She smiled a knee-weakening smile and shook her head. "I said it before and I'll say it again: Men! I don't get it. Why does guys obsess so much over my tits?" "I dunno. Because they're magnificent?" "Well, thank you. I guess." She reached up behind her back to unclasp her bra. Unfortunately, she realized that I still had my eyes glued to her. "Do you mind?" "Not at all. Go on, girl." "Turn. Around." "Yes, mistress." I said and turned, painfully aware of the fact that the most gorgeous woman I could think of was getting undressed, just a couple of steps behind my back. I heard her rustle out of her last small pieces of clothing. A few soft steps behind my back, and I heard the bathroom door close, after a minute, the shower started drumming rain into the bathtub. And presumably onto her. I sat down on the bed. And I waited. After about fifteen minutes the shover went silent, and a minute later the door opened. A cloud of steam welled out. Out through the fumes stepped a wet dream, a shampoo commercial, a soft porn video star. Jennifer walked out of the bathroom dripping wet, wearing nothing but a hotel towel barely big enough to cover the absolute minimum. She took a deep breath, and walked by me to the bedside table, where she took out a hairbrush from a drawer. She went over to the sofa, where she sat down taking care of the wet hair clinging to her neck. "Feeling better?" I asked. "Yeah, that was exactly what I needed. By the way, I read your book." "Already? Damn, you're fast! So? As my first ever critic, what's the verdict?" "Amazing. You said it was a love story, so I had expected some lame Harlequin setup. But that was a goddamn rollercoaster ride. Seriously, you've taken every traditional concept, had it bend over and screwed it from behind. It's brilliant! Where did you come up with all that stuff?" "Weed. No, I honestly have no idea. It's just bits and pieces of what-ifs bunched together." "And all those characters! Morris, Paige, the dead boy, the angel... My favorite was probably the schoolteacher. She was so cool! What was she called again?" "Linda." "Linda... Hey, isn't that your sister's name? She was such a cute kid. She was sick, right? How is she these days?" And so it began. Until that moment I had not been entirely sure that I was going to go through with it. But there was no turning back now. I answered with a voice of granite. "She's dead." The words hung in the air like thick mist, like an echo that just refused to fade away. Jennifer stopped dead, put down the brush, and stood up. "Oh shit, I'm sorry Matt. I didn't mean... Jesus, fuck...I didn't know that." "That's right. You didn't know. So that makes everything all right, doesn't it? You don't know anything, so it's not your fault." "Huh? What are you talking about?" The girl looked at me, confused. "You see, you don't have a clue. You never had a clue, did you? Rushing on, thinking about yourself and noone else, leaving a trail of fuckup behind you. You never even bothered to look over you shoulder and see what you'd done." "Ok, Matt. Cut it out, it's not funny." "It was never funny, Love. Nothing has been funny for a long time. Not for seven years." She looked really worried now. "Please...stop. You're scaring me." she said in a small voice. "Oh, am I? I didn't think that was possible. You, who live such a wonderful life? Could anything really touch someone like you? So pretty, so perfect, so happy. So wrong. You don't deserve this. You took all I had from me that day...left me in a world of shit, without a second thought. You are a bloody thief, that's all you are. You don't deserve this." "Matt? You...you said you were ok. You said that was then, and this is now." "I lied. I thought I could forget. I tried to push away the hate, but no more. I hate you, Jennifer. Oh, how I hate you. Are you scared now?" She looked nervously at the door, as if estimating her chances to get away. "Oh, go ahead." I said calmly. "Try to run. Try to scream. I dare you." I had no idea what I was talking about, or what would happen if she tried any of that. But sounding in control was the key here. And that was enough for her to believe it. I made her think that I knew she couldn't get away, and her own mind began imagining what would happen to her if she tried. She had been taking in air to shout for help, but now she let out her breath over a trembling lower lip. Fear had taken a first little hold of the always so carefree, careless star, and she pleaded with me in a tiny, trembling voice. "What is it you want, Matt? What!? I'll give you anything. But please, stop. Tell me what you want, and it's yours." I knew it would come to that. One last desperate attempt to stay in control of the situation. I was a little surprised that she had grasped the situation so fast though. I had gone from 'good cop' to 'bad cop' in a heartbeat, and it hadn't taken her long to understand that I was serious, and that she was in deep shit. But that silly plea was an easy target, something I could twist around and throw back at her. "What are you doing? Are you trying to buy your way out of this? Do you think there is money enough in the world to make up for what you did? Well, think again." She was out of speech by now, shaking her head, her mouth trying to formulate words that were not there. I could almost sense her frantically searching her own memories for something she had done to deserve this. And obviously she didn't find it. Not that I had expected her to. "I... I don't...Wh-what did I do? What do you want?!" "I just want to get even. Now tell me, are you scared?" She just nodded, staring at me in horror. My face hardened, and I took a step toward her. "Good. Let's see how much this scares you." With that I reached out and yanked the towel off her. She let out a short gasp. A picture of her imminent future was being painted in her imagination. And it wasn't a pretty one. "No! Please, don't..." she whispered. I looked at her with neutral eyes, and my voice was emotionless, which seemed to scare her even more than her present naked state. Inside I was boiling, but I wouldn't ever let her see that. "Get on the bed." I said calmly. Nothing happened. She just stood there in silence. She hadn't even bothered with trying to cover herself up. Instead she had her arms clutched across her belly, and her head sunk down between her shoulders, as if trying to make her as small as possible would accomplish anything. "I said on the bed, Jennifer." At least now she reacted. Not with fear, but defiance. "No. No! I won't do it, you can't make me!" I sighed, rolled my eyes and, totally out of the blue, hit her cheek with my open palm. Not very hard, but enough to turn her head and to shut her up. Before she could gain composure, I grabbed her by the arms, dragged her across the room and threw her straight down on the bed. Only then did she have time to react. As she laid there, chest down, she grabbed a nearby pillow and buried her face in it. I traced her incredible body with my eyes. From her small feet to her long neck. She was so beautiful. Smooth, delicate, curvy, fit and painfully close to irresistible. I wanted so badly to just put my hands on her and feel that wonderful sensation of soft skin traveling under my palms, to kiss her feet, to lick the inside of her thighs, massage her back, nibble the back of her neck, taste her, touch her, caress her... I pushed all those thoughts away, tapped into the hate, and entered the second stage of my revenge. I'd break her. And now I knew how. "You dumb little cunt," I sneered, as I sat down beside her naked, whimpering form on the bed. "Did you really think that this was about money? Are you really so stupid that you don't think what you did came with consequences? I'm here to punish you for what you really took from me that day. Let me tell you about consequences. Look at me when I'm talking to you." She didn't respond. I promptly took a handful of hair in my fist and yanked her head up from the pillow. She shouted out, probably more in surprise than in pain, as I pulled her over, hair first, so that she now lay on her back. Her chest heaving with her rapid breath, nipples brushing against my shirt as I hovered above her. Her terrified eyes met mine, and I stared coldly into them for a few seconds. Then I lowered my head and spoke quietly into her ear. My voice was hard, cold and controlled. "I said look at me. Do as I say, and don't fucking hesitate, understand?" She nodded. "Now sit up, shut up, look at me and listen.." She obeyed instantly, not knowing, fearing what I might do if she didn't. She sat up, clutching her legs, and looked at me. She looked like a deer caught in the headlights of an approaching car. Too scared to think straight, but still unable to run, or in this case, look away. And I told her about consequences. The cold, hard, terrible consequences of her actions seven years ago. I told her of Linda, my beautiful, beloved little sister. I told her of those springy, carefree steps, that sweet, bubbly laughter and the smell of grass and flowers that I remember her by to this day. I told her about fate's blow against my family on the eve of Linda's 13th birthday, when the doctors told us of her disease, of how leukemia was rapidly eating her from the inside. I told her of the failing medication and radiation treatment, the long painful search for a compatible bone marrow donor, of how Linda, gentle brave Linda took it upon herself to provide comfort through moms many nervous breakdowns, while the young girl herself got weaker and weaker. And then, hope. A donor was found. We were going to get Linda back, if we acted quickly, and preformed the surgery within days. But our economy was drained. Donor tests had eaten up the medical insurance money, and pretty much everything else we had owned. Daddy managed to gather his last savings, and a few loans from friends to cover for the surgery. That's the money that was going to save his daughter's life. That's the money he put in his safe. That's the money that a lovestruck boy called Matthew showed a pretty girl called Jennifer one night, the same money that the girl called Jennifer stole from us, bought a plane ticket to Los Angeles for, and disappeared out of our lives. Money wasn't really an issue, but fast money was. The insurance company didn't care, they had paid what was agreed on. The hospital didn't care, they refused to lift a finger without money up front. And no one could loan us the needed sum quickly enough. After more than a week of intense nagging, Daddy finally managed to convince the bank to consider a small loan. But by then it turned out to be too late. Too late to cure her. "She fought it for another seven weeks," I told Jennifer. My voice was emotionless, but there was no way of stopping the tears welling up in my eyes. "Then her blood was too thin, her heart was too weak and her lungs were too...rotten...to function. She went away weeping. She once told me she believed in heaven, but now she feared going there because she was going to be so far away from us. Tired like never before, she held my hand and cried herself to sleep. That was it. She died as soon as she closed her lids. I sat there for hours, feeling her little hand grow cold in mine." Jennifer's face was a battle of terrible emotions. She felt the pain of Linda's unfair fate, she shrunk in fear of the man in front of her, and as her mind slowly started to comprehend the picture that had been painted before her, especially her own part in the story, she started to tremble. Silently, almost inaudible, she whispered. ..."oh my god...oh dear god..." I gave her no respite, hammering more guilt into her emotionally overloaded mind. "At first I blamed myself. I had been so stupid. So naive and gullible. If i only hadn't been so careless. Then I realized that at the heart of it all, it wasn't my fault. You. It was your fault, Jennifer. You betrayed my trust and stole Linda's chance to life. Congratulations, you made it to that audition. But you killed Linda, you killed my little sister!" It hit her like a ton of bricks. I saw her reel back, as if punched in the face. She trembled like a leaf, and tears began to fall. Until then she had looked into my eyes, like I told her to. But now her eyes unfocused, her head slumped and her arms fell to her sides, as if nothing mattered anymore. She just sat there, tears falling, mouth gaping, but unable to utter a sound. I leaned over and grabbed her hair, jerking her face back up to mine. "You killed my angel, and now you're going to pay." I hissed. "You fucked up my family for two thousand dollars. It's time to return the favor. Two grand's worth of fucking you up. With a cheap whore like you, this is gonna take hours." That brought her back to her senses and she stared at me in horror. She breathed a "...no...please..." and brought up her arms in front of her chest, as a desperate form of protection against an anticipated assault. I just grunted, and pushed her roughly back into the bed. I leaned over her, grabbed her legs by the knees and jerked them wide apart, leaving her in the most open and vulnerable of positions. "This is going to hurt." I told her. That did it. Jennifer's last defense crumbled, the last faint traces of self control washed away, leaving nothing but sheer and utter despair. She let out a final cry of surrender, and started sobbing, softly bawling like a little child. I stood up, looked at the broken star on the bed before me and felt a bitter taste of satisfaction. My work was done, my revenge was over. There was nothing I could do that could destroy her more. Raping her would only give her an excuse to shift focus from her own guilt, to victimize herself. And besides, there was no way in hell I could had gone through with it. She was still the picture perfect girl, with a toned, sexy body to match it. But it was just the image of a beautiful woman, projected on a human wreck. You can't fuck waste. "Stop whining," I told her in a neutral voice as I stood up and waked away a few steps. "I won't rape you. You're too disgusting for that. Here are your two grand, bitch." I reached into my jacket pocket and produced a pack of 20 hundred dollar bills, and tossed it on the floor. I thought of adding "go buy yourself a fucking rope," but decided against it. I wasn't going to get tacky here. Instead I just walked to the door, and turned to her one last time. "Goodbye Love." I spoke softly. "I'm sorry it had to come to this." I exited the door quickly, walked with a careless stroll down the corridor and into the elevator. I drove numbly home. Meeting noone, looking at nothing, feeling absolutely nothing. Once back at my apartment, I took my clothes off, had a brief shower and went into the kitchen. I emptied four shot of clear vodka, drank a glass of water, and went to bed. I fell asleep before I hit the pillow. I dreamed of Linda. She was seven years old, and danced around on the lawn on a beautiful day. I ran to pick her up. I lifted her from the ground, drew her to me and kissed her on the cheek. It was cold. I sat in her bedroom, holding her hand. Linda was thirteen, pale, thin, rigid, cold and dead. The Redemption of Love I awoke with a scream, sweat burning in my eyes and my stomach in turmoil. I ran out into the bathroom and vomited until there was nothing left to throw up. Then I went back to bed. I dreamed no more that night. ----------- I was already awake when she started yelling. I had been awake for awhile. How long? I couldn't tell. When you drift out of a troubled sleep into an even more troubled reality, and all you have to protect you from the chill and bitterness of the world are your eyelids, you keep them shut. And behind those, time moves in it's own peculiar pace. An hour can be a minute, a second can be an hour. And you can drift away, lose yourself in a big world of nothing. You can forget. I wanted so desperately to forget. "Open the door, you son of a bitch!" a female voice shouted at my closed apartment door. I couldn't really place the owner of it, although it did sound familiar. "I know you're in there! Open the door now, or you'll have no fucking door left, understand?!" It was too late now. I could not go back to the blissful state of half-sleep, where Nothing and Forget lulled me into ignorance. The hammering on the door pounded itself into my ears, whipping my consciousness back into shape. My eyes already took in the gray sight of my bedroom in the bleak light of a rainy morning. I got up, absently grabbed a pair of jeans, put them on and headed for the door. As I opened the door, the furious, fiery face of Janine stared up into mine. She was a short girl, but today she could had been ten feet tall. She had an aura of don't-fuck-with-me around her that would had intimidated Mike Tyson. And no one in their right mind would dare to. She was literally shaking with anger, and it seemed like she had to use truckloads of willpower not to throw herself at my face and claw my eyes out. "What did you do to her?" she demanded. "What the fuck did you do to her, you freak!?!" Her words cut into my ears, and my head throbbed in pain. "Please, can you keep your voice down?" "Oh, little boy's got a migraine? Is that it?" she said with a sarcastic voice. "Guess what? I DON'T GIVE A SHIT!!!" "Jesus! Please, it's not for me. My neighbor, she's like ninety-two I think. She has a heart attack every time she sneezes. So don't wake her up, she doesn't deserve any of our trouble." She was about to shout something more back at me, but thought better of it. You can't debate the dear old lady-argument. Besides, it was absolutely true this time. That's why I hired this apartment in the first place. It was quiet. "Come in." I said and walked back into the apartment, leaving the front door open. "Have a seat, or whatever." First she just stood there, peering nervously into the rooms that I called Home. She finally took a deep breath, walked in and closed the door behind her. "I'm not afraid of you, ok?" she said, as she tossed her jacket over a chair in my living room and resumed her staring. I sighed, and sat down on another chair. "You have no reason to be, Janine. So, why are you here?" "Something is wrong with Jennifer. The doesn't eat, she can't work, she doesn't even talk! And she barely wants to leave the room." I sighed. "Sounds about what I had expected. So why are you here?" "You were the last one with her yesterday, so I'm thinking it was you who made her that way. Well, was it?" She pulled up a chair and sat down opposing me. "Wow, you seems to be a smart little detective girl." I said. "I'll take that as a yes, then. So what the fuck did you do to her, asshole?" I looked into her eyes, they were staring at me with the heat of molten lava. "Look," I said. "I like you Janine, and I'm sorry you have been dragged into this. But the truth is, this is personal. And you don't know shit. So just...back off, ok?" I did not want to discuss this. Not here, not now, not with her. But as she had already let me know, she didn't give a shit. "You beat her. You did, didn't you? You hit her." "No. I slapped her. Once." Her voice was small now, but cold as ice and hard as steel. "Did you rape her?" "Did she say that?" "That's no fucking answer. Did you rape her, Matt?" I just stared at the floor. "Did you rape her?!" she screamed. "No, I did not!" I yelled back. "Maybe I should have! But I didn't, I couldn't! I don't do that kind of shit! Did she tell you I did? Did she!?" She shook her head. "No, she says the same thing you did. You scared her up real bad. Then you told her something, you said something to her. And it broke her heart." "I only told her the truth. She deserved it." Janine looked up at me, no longer with pent up fury in her eyes, but with a concerned stare, as if trying to drill a whole into my head via my eyesockets. "What the hell happened? What is this terrible thing between the two of you? I need to know. If you don't tell me, I'll get it out of her, sooner or later. And then I'll fix this." "Don't." It was all I could manage to say. "Nonono. You're not going to get away that easily. This shit, whatever it is, has got to go." "Why do you care!?" i lashed out at her. "This is none of your business." "Well, I've made it my business." she said in a defiant tone. "Shit! This is between her and me, you've got nothing to do with it. Why can't you just let it be?!" "I can't let it be! I just can't!" "Why the hell not?!" "Because i love her! I love her, ok!?" she shouted, tears welling up in her eyes. Nothing was said for a few seconds. I had no idea how to respond. So i just sat there, staring into the floorboards. "I love her so much." she said. "I can't stand it if she is unhappy. And I don't know what you said to her, but you destroyed her." I had destroyed her. It was what I had planned to do, the whole reason for my seven days of careful play-acting, to finally find the right opportunity. I had taken from her the only things that really mattered. Her confidence, her pride, her dignity. I had broken her, just as I had wanted to do. Turned her into a tight knot bundle of guilt. I had revenged my sister's cold hand and bitter tears. But was it over? Did the echo of Linda's sobbing finally fade away? Did I feel better? I felt like shit. "Does she know?" I asked. As soon as the words left my mouth I couldn't for the life of me understand why I had said it. I was the one who hated. I wasn't supposed to care. "She knows I love her. And I know she loves me as much as she can. But not like that, not like I do." Janine almost whispered now. "That's ok. It's better than nothing. And it means I can be her friend, be around her. Care about her. Protect her. I'd die for her you know." I looked up at her. One glance at her face told me she really meant what she said. Jennifer could probably let go of her two bodyguards, the petite makeup girl could easily take their place. Because she cared. And she'd stop at nothing. "If anyone hurts her..." Janine murmured, more to herself than to me. "If anyone ever hurts my Jen...I'll fucking erase them." We sat there, our eyes lost at our feet for over a minute without uttering a single world. An odd couple, I found myself thinking. She loved, I hated and we both waited in silence. All while the sky was weeping outside, hammering it's tears into the roof above us. The perfect soundtrack for this sad, strange scene. I didn't even hear her stand up and leave. But when I looked up she wasn't there. Only me, an empty chair and an open door gaping out into the dark hallway. I got up, closed the door, went back, laid down on my bed and drifted away again. -------- There was a shy knock on the door. Until I heard that, I didn't know that there even was a way to knock on a door shyly. It sounded as if knuckles against wood was just a formality, and that there was no intention to wake me up. But awoke I did. At least partly, as I stumbled out into the hall and fumbled with the lock. I nudged the door open, and was instantly acutely awake and aware. It was her. She was here, standing in the hallway and looking nervously at her feet. "Jen...what?" was all I could manage to say. I was out of plans now. I had gotten my revenge, what would happen after that I had not given a second thought. But I definitely did not think that the girl I had psyched to the brink of collapse yesterday would be standing in my hallway today. Her hair was still a mess, her eyes were red from tears and lack of sleep and she slumped inside a gray jacket many sizes too big for her. She looked so small, more fragile than ever. She looked dead. I felt dead. "I don't know... I don't know what I'm doing here." she said. "I'm sorry, I'll go now." With that she turned and half ran to the stairs. "Don't go!" I heard myself call out to her. "Please don't go." She froze and turned. Finally her eyes met mine again, and right there and then I knew. This was wrong. What I had done to her still hurt her and it hurt me just as much. And it didn't make anything better. It didn't silent Linda's crying. It didn't make the memory of her cold, dead hand torture me any less. Janine was right. This shit had to go. "Please come in, Love. I think we need to talk." She nodded, took a deep breath and came back down the corridor. She stepped inside and I closed the door behind us. I walked in to my living room and stood staring out the window. It was about lunchtime by now, and a handful of people strolled the street under the black domes of their umbrellas. Outside my gate I could see one of the studio's vans parked. As I watched it it started, took a u-turn and drove off. I guessed there was a short, cute little puertorican make-up girl behind the wheel. I glanced over at Jennifer, who was standing in the hall, still leaning against the door, eyes cast down. "Janine dragged you here?" I asked. She nodded. "You know how she can be." she replied as she put her jacket on a hanger by the door. Then she looked up at me. "Matt, I don't know what say." she started. I interrupted her. "Then I'll say something. I want to apologize. Everything went all crazy yesterday, and I was over the line. Way over. I wasn't thinking straight, I'm sorry." "Don't be. I'm the one who should apologize. I've been so stupid, so...mean to you. You did the right thing telling me." "Telling, yes. But the rest! I beat you, Love. I humiliated you, scared you half to death." I paused. "Shit...I don't know what the hell happened. That is not what I do, I don't pull crap like that, it's not me!" "I know it's not. But you had all right to." she murmured. "I had it coming, I earned every last bit of it. I'd had deserved it if you had...continued too." "No! Jesus... Noone deserves that. It was wrong on so many levels to mess with your head like that. And I was never gonna rape you for real. I don't think I'd be able to. I'm really sorry, I should have just told you." i said. "I should have just told you." "You know..." she said, hesitating. "I was about to sleep with you. I really wanted to." I turned to her. "What?" "I had made up my mind in the shower. I was going to finish my hair, stand up and let the towel fall. Then I'd push you onto the bed and, well, try to seduce you. That was the plan. Well, that was my plan, at least. I hadn't really expected your plan." Again, she fell silent, staring at the floor. "I was thinking...maybe..." she started again. "Maybe we could...continue?" I just stared at her in disbelief, unable to speak. What was she saying? Did she come here to... I didn't think much longer than that, before Jennifer started unbuttoning her blouse. She wore no bra underneath it. And as she carefully spoke in a serious tone, she stepped out of the rest of her clothing. "I don't know much I can do to ease your pain, to make things better, but this I can do. And it's ok, I want to. I really want you. Come on, Matt. Take me. Sleep with me." She stood in the hallway as naked as she had been in her hotel room yesterday. Or even more naked than ever before. Exposed, unashamed and eager. Years of burning hate and overwhelming desire had been fused together into something new. A need to get. Get her, get inside, get off. A need that my ego kept trying to suppress. But my ego had no control over certain parts of me. I turned away from her to hide my growing erection. I guess it looked to her like a gesture of distaste and rejection, becuase Jennifer's voice became more desperate. "Take me, Matt." she pleaded. "Please take me. Use me, fuck me, rape me, anything!" And so I snapped. There was no holding me back now. I rushed over to her and slammed her bare back up at the door, pressing myself against her. She gasped and looked straight into my face with a desperation, need and lust in her eyes that sent direct orders to my reptile brain. I pressed my lips to hers in a fierce, passionate kiss, grabbed her hands, and pinned them up against the door over her head. When we broke the kiss I let go of her hands and placed mine on her silky smooth skin. One hand low on her back, and one hand over her pussy. Her eyes flew open, and she took in air to shout out. I immediately shoved a finger into her and, as I had half expected, she was already wet. I slid it in easily all the way. She groaned out loud. Her hands had now reached my hips and she started tugging on my t-shirt to get it off me. I let go of her and quickly tore off my own pants, the only thing I had put on when being woken by Janine a few hours ago, before instantly throwing myself at her again, grinding her delicate frame between myself and the door. Her tits pressed up against me, my painfully hard erection rubbing against her belly and her neatly trimmed pussy rubbing against my thigh. We kissed again with a fierce hunger, probing, licking, sucking, nibbling tongues and lips. Her hands were around my neck, pulling me toward her. My hands stroke the side of her thighs, her hips, tits and up to her arms. I finally tore my face away from her and our eyes locked. Wide eyed, she stared at me looking far from dead now. In fact, I had never seen anyone so intensively alive. It was time. She clung to my shoulders as I pressed her body up against the wood of the door, and grabbed her legs, right below the ass. She clung to me and wrapped her legs around my waist. My cock found her moist opening easily, and without hesitation I pushed the head inside of her. Although certainly not a virgin, she was much tighter that I had expected. She was nervous of course, tight knot and tense. She whimpered a bit as I entered her, but did not protest. But I was far beyond caring or being gentle anyway. I buried the full length of my cock inside of her and she half cried a soft little nothing in my ear. I barely heard her. I was so consumed by the sensation of her hot, narrow tunnel around my cock that nothing else came close to get my attention. She wanted me to take her, had begged me to fuck her. And took her I did. I started to pump myself into her pussy with unforgiving, long hard thrusts. At first, I heard her grunt in pain and she was panting; "No...please...slower.. slo...uuh...softer..." But there was no way for me to go easy now. I didn't do this for pleasure and desire alone. I was fucking away my grief and my pain. I was fucking to survive. After about a minute she fell silent and clung even harder to me, and her mild protests had been replaced by the moaning of intense, brutal sexual sensation. I pounded years of suppressed frustration, desire and blame into the rag doll of a girl literally hanging on my cock. If there had been room for a comprehensive thought in mine or Jennifer's brain at this moment, it would probably have had to do with the fact that we we're fucking like maniacs against an unlocked door that opens outwards. But none of us were giving a damn. Everything was Fuck, and we slammed into each other, faster and harder in a desperate race for relief. Jennifer had started murmuring a silent loop that grew louder with each thrust. "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, fuck me, I'm sorry, use me, rape me, I'm sorry..." Tears were forming in her eyes as I looked up into them before slamming myself into her one last time. My orgasm rushed over me and I pumped my load of semen deep into her womb. And with it came the last of the anger, hatred and blame I had been keeping inside of me all those years. With that poison out of the system I looked at Jennifer in a whole different light. She was hurting, and it was my fault. But what would I say, what could I do? She kept whispering her terrible mantra. "Jennifer, stop it." I murmured into her hair. "I forgive you. I forgive you, Love. Don't do this to yourself." Spent, more mentally than physically, I withdraw my soaked and softening cock from her. She had been close to orgasm when I stopped my assault, and was still trying to grind herself into a frenzy against me. Now that was something I could do for her. "Want some help?" I said. A lame line, but I had to start somewhere. No reply. Then a quick nod. "Come on," I said. "Let's do it right this time." With her arms and legs around me and her head on my shoulder I carried her into the bedroom, where she finally untangled and sat down on the edge of the bed. I sat down beside her gently nudging her to lie down. My cock was not going to be ready for action for quite a while. But that was fine. This was all about Jennifer. I let my hands slide all over her, from her feet up to her hair, massaging the inside of her thighs, her round, full breasts. I kissed her bellybutton and let my tongue trace her skin up to the solar plexus and onwards, letting my lips close in on her areolas, sucking one at the time, carefully nibbling the nipples with my teeth. For about ten minutes, I played with her that way. Kissed her skin, licked her body, caressed her, teased her. I didn't really intend to, but it seemed like she was hovering on the brink of orgasm the whole time. Eyes shut close, hands gripping the sheets, she tossed her head back and forth mumbling utter nonsense to noone in particular. It was absolutely adorable to watch. When I felt my cock swell and my own lust kicking back into life again, I laid down between her legs and shoved my tongue without warning as deep into her pussy as I possibly could. Her back arched, her legs flew up and her hands were on the back or my head in an instant. "Oh goood!" she groaned as I started lapping up our combined juices from her soaked slit. After a minute and a gentle massage of her clitoris, she came, pressing my face harder into her crotch. Her whole body tensed up, shuddered, and she shouted out random vowels into the room. As she calmed down, I climbed up and kissed her deeply. And with the sensational taste of both of us filling her mouth I placed my cock against her pussy lips and pushed forward before she even had the chance to react. For the second time in less than half an hour I entered her. Last time, in that ugly, sweaty fuck against the door, the sensation had been intense. Now it was simply incredible. It was magic. Her warm, tight walls gripped me, sucked me deeper into her, and I began pushing and pulling in a slow pace. Slow, however was not good for either of us, so pretty soon we had worked ourselves up to a steady pace and such force in my fucking and her fucking back that the pulling out-part seemed more like a rebound to our attacks. She lay there under me with her eyes closed, mouth open and head tilted back. There was a short twitching in her face when our bodies slammed together, over and over, in sync with her breasts rocking. Her perfect legs were wrapped around my back urging me back in, in, in. "Matt, can I be on top?" she gasped. "I wanna ride you." I had no objections with that. I laid down on top of her, grabbed her hips and rolled over on my back. She put her hands on my shoulders and raised herself up into an upright position. Then she took both hands and pulled her hair back from her face. The sight of her sitting there, impaled on my cock, with her arms up behind her neck, slightly glazed eyes looking into mine, and biting the lip of a nervous, almost shy little smile was the most incredibly erotic thing I'd ever seen.