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Desolation

By: jjsharshaw



~~~~~~~~~~

desolation

Function: Noun

1. the action of desolation 2a. grief, sadness 2b. loneliness 3. devastation, ruin 4. barren wasteland

- Merriam Webster Online

~~~~~~~~~~ 

It was 5:00 AM when the alarm went off. Rene Ballinger moaned loudly and then cursed loudly and plaintively before she rolled over and hit the snooze button. She didn't even open her eyes. 

5:08 AM: The snooze alarm went off. She thought about hitting it again and then knew she didn't dare; there was too much scheduled for today and she had no idea of what got added on overnight. She sat up, hit the off button with just enough force not to break the clock. She swung her legs over the side of her bed and sat very still for a few minutes in the darkness, elbows on knees and her face in her hands. She was contemplating going back to sleep. 

After a few phlegmatic coughs, Rene turned on the nightstand lamp and squinted in its light. Another cough and she reached for her pack of Reds and her lighter. The lighter flared to life, she took a drag and picked up the phone. She hit the speed dial.

"House supervisor," she rasped hoarsely to the hospital operator as she slowly blew out her first drag. 

After a minute or two the supervisor came on the line, "Judy."

"Jude, Rene, what's on for today?"

"Oh Rene," Judy rustled some papers for a moment, "they hit you guys hard last night. I have one, two, three...five new cases."

Rene took another drag and ran her cigarette hand through her dirty blond hair sweeping it back from her face. "Please tell me none of those are Phil's."

"Well, I could - but I'd be lying like a dog. You're three for five with Phil."

"Oh, Christ," Rene moaned loudly into the phone while blowing out the drag, "we'll be working all day."

"Certainly a possibility babe," Judy commiserated.

"Gee, thanks. Are you on tomorrow night?"

"Nope, let's see, Rosie's on tomorrow night. I've got two days off."

"Well, talk to you in a couple of days then; have a good one. Bye."

~~~~~~~~~~

Rene Ballinger was a registered nurse and the youngest nurse manager on staff at Taylor General Hospital. She was the nurse manager of the Endoscopy Lab where doctors looked inside patients' stomachs, intestines and lungs with long, flexible fiber optic endoscopes. 

Phil - one of the stomach doctors - was meticulous to a fault and had the personality of a depressed, paranoid robot in one of Douglas Adams' "Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy" books. This translated into Phil being unbearably slow. Coupled with Phil's humorless, soulless, depressive personality, it made doing a procedure with Phil seem like undergoing Chinese water torture. 

A routine colon exam took most of the doctors in the lab about 20 to 25 minutes. Phil took 40 to 45. 

Phil once took 20 minutes on an elderly woman before he realized he had the scope in the woman's vagina instead of her rectum. The nurse assisting him was looking at the video monitor and immediately recognized the landscape they were looking at was wrong. She called for Rene when it became apparent Phil still hadn't gotten his bearings and realized he was six inches up the wrong hole. 

"Jesus H. Christ, Phil! You've got the scope in that poor woman's pussy," Rene practically yelled as she entered the procedure room and looked at the video monitor. 

Even in the dim light it was evident that Phil blushed. Then he chastised Rene for her profanity and disrespect for a member of the medical staff. He had her written up too. In the ensuing disciplinary hearing, where Phil fully expected vindication with the firing of the insubordinate, profane nurse, the hospital chief of staff, the chief of internal medicine and the vice presidents for medical affairs and nursing couldn't stop laughing when shown the tape of the procedure. They laughed even harder when they heard on the tape Rene's disgusted voice chastise Phil. The case against Rene was dismissed and she became the darling of the power elite in the hospital. But Phil, embarrassed by Rene in the lab and a second time when the chief of internal medicine started to call Phil "Wrong Hole Phil" at staff meetings, took on the mission of making life miserable in the lab for Rene.

Rene enjoyed critical care nursing. What was turning Rene's life into a living hell professionally was management. It was one thing to do 12 hours in ICU; each day was a rush. It was an entirely different thing to keep surly doctors happy, put up with doctors like Phil, do all the paperwork, manage her staff, keep up policy and procedure manuals, keep her superiors happy and help with procedures in the lab. She felt a little bit more desperate and depressed with each passing day. But she needed the money that the management position brought. 

She needed the money because her personal life was already on the higher circles of Hell and descending quickly. 

Rene, with sparkling blue eyes, an athletically trim body and wild, long, dirty blond hair, attracted loser men and nightmare relationships like a halogen light attracts drunken, suicidal moths. She could never resist the losers and abusers until it was too late. 

She never saw it coming - ever. And while beginnings were always great, ending her relationships was always a crash and burn situation. 

She'd been in her present job for six months. Rene threw herself into work despite the fact that she knew she was rapidly burning out.

Six months before Rene took the lab job Rene was dating a young lawyer who was violent and abusive, especially when she tried to end the relationship. The night she broke off the relationship the lawyer beat her until she was just conscious enough to scream while he raped her and then used the fat end of a baseball bat inside her, sending her to the hospital for a week.

As she lay in the hospital recovering from her injuries, she was served with papers. She was being sued by her attacker for pain and mental anguish - his pain and anguish. Incredibly, he won the lawsuit. Rene had to pay a small settlement that she couldn't afford.

The lawyer was the last of a string of nightmare personal relationships that cost her money and self esteem. She cheerfully rationalized it all by saying, "Hey, at least the sex was good."

But then family matters rudely intruded on her life and she had no way to say the sex was good. Shortly after the lawyer, her brother, dying of AIDS, out of health insurance and money moved from L.A. back home to live with and be cared for by his sister. Rene loved her brother but she made no bones about the fact that she didn't approve of his addictive drug use or his promiscuous homosexuality - both apparent contributors to his rapidly approaching demise. Rene tried to keep her judgments to herself in her brother's last days but something else came up: their father. 

Rene's brother thought their father could walk on water. Rene knew better and to her everlasting regret, told her brother. Rene's father had used her from adolescence through high school. He used her for everything from a punching bag when he was drunk and pissed off to a whore when he was drunk and horny and his wife, Rene's mother, wouldn't "put out."

Her brother believed absolutely none of it. And so, in his last weeks of life, when he wasn't crying and pleading for relief from pain or fever or delirious on the drugs he was on, he goaded her constantly about her "terrible lies" about their father and called her a whore and worse. Regarding her former boyfriend, the lawyer, her brother said she deserved it and wanted it. 

"You're such a pathetic, needy whore, Rennie, you wanted that guy to beat you."

"No!" Rene replied in horror. How can you say that Robby? For Christ's sake he fucked me with the fat end of a baseball bat until I had to be hospitalized!"

"Ah, yeah, the bat. You're such a fucking liar, big sister. Hell, you're so fucking depraved that you probably got to carried away with the humping the bat and hurt yourself."

Rene simply starred at her brother, her mouth open. 

"What's next Rennie, dogs? You wanna be fucked by dogs?" He laughed luridly, "Be fucked by a whole pack of'em, eh? You cunt!" 

"Robby! Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!" And she ran from the room, shrieking for him to shut up. 

Sitting on the side of her bed, finally getting herself under control, she thought to herself, with bitter irony, her brother's abuse was the ultimate example of the pot calling the kettle black but when she heard him calling her, pleading for her to come to him because he hurt so badly, she swallowed her pride, wiped her eyes and went back to care for her brother. No one else would.

Rene's brother died two days later, leaving her with her credit cards maxed out and a second mortgage on her house to pay for his terminal care and then his funeral.

The proverbial straw that broke her back was her father. Shortly after her brother's funeral, her father showed up at her house just as she got home from a bad day at work. He was drunk and pissed off, which, Rene thought, seemed to be his normal state for as long as she could remember. She never knew what was pissing him off. 

They argued in the street in front of her house. His parting words to her were this: "I hope my little filthy whore of a daughter appreciates my final gift to her, you ungrateful fucking cunt!"

With tears in her eyes and her lips quivering she tilted her head sideways and looked at her father, suddenly wondering if she were just in some sort of extended nightmare and she hadn't awoken yet. Her mouth was open to say "Why, daddy? Daddy, I forgive you, I love you." 

She never got the chance to say it.

His mouth was open too: the double barrels of his 12 gauge sawed off shotgun were in his mouth. Before she could move, shout or do anything he pulled the triggers. The back of his head exploded into a cloud of bloody, misty gore and his dead body pitched forward into Rene's arms. She grabbed his body reflexively and wanted to hold him up. She wanted to cradle the back of his head and comfort him but the back of his head was gone. She violently pushed his body off her and fell to her knees in the street, screaming hysterically. 

Rene screamed until the ambulance arrived and the ER doctor told the paramedics to sedate her and bring her in. She spent the next six weeks in the psych unit, half of the time in the locked ward on suicide watch. Her needed stay in the hospital left her under still more debt. 

Not only did her father leave her with years of nightmare memories of painful sexual encounters and physical and psychological abuse that she didn't want and hadn't asked for but he left his suicide indelibly burned into her brain. Plus, all his estate expenses. 

At age 26, after three successive major mental traumas that drained her bank account, Rene was financially ruined. She declared bankruptcy and that let her out of most of her debt but there was still some she was obligated to pay. That debt, hanging over her head like the sword of Damocles, made her work feverishly, taking on extra shifts and part timing in doctors' offices; anything she could do to get cash. 

Money was her security and to some extent, her self esteem. Without cash, credit cards or the ability to get a loan, the thirst for cash, the thirst for security, self esteem and a certain normality in her life, was rapidly becoming a driving, all consuming obsession. 

She left the position she loved as a staff ICU nurse and took the job managing the endoscopy lab. It meant a big raise and more prestige. 

~~~~~~~~~~

Rene took the last drag off her second cigarette, blew it out and threw the butt in the toilet. She brushed her teeth, rinsed and then filled a glass and took two capsules of Dexedrine to get her going and stepped into the shower. She let the hot water flow over her head and down her back for a while and then she slumped with her back against wall of the shower and let the water hit her breasts and belly. She pulled her long hair back from her face, spread her legs slightly and casually started to pee. 

She really wanted another cigarette right then. But in place of a cigarette she thought she'd masturbate. She slid a finger between her labia and stroked and pulled at her clit with her thumb and forefinger. The amphetamines kicked in just as she came and she smiled, her mouth open as she blew a long, soft breath out, while her orgasm radiated with intense pleasure out from her sex while the skin of her belly and breasts tingled nicely under the softly stinging spray of the shower.

After the shower, feeling nicely buzzed and able to conquer the world, she decided she'd dress "old school" for work. Instead of scrubs she'd wear what one of nursing instructors regularly wore: a one-piece white uniform dress with white hose, white shoes and a blue sweater. She then pulled her hair back into a French twist and clipped it tightly.

A cup of coffee, another cigarette and she was off to work. Despite the heavy schedule and having to deal with Phil, the first few hours had gone by quickly and smoothly. Then however, her buzz started to wear off. 

Phil railed against the incompetence of the nurse assigned to assist him on a routine colon exam and demanded Rene assist. The routine exam found polyps, small growths coming up from the walls of the colon, and Phil was obliged to remove them, adding another 45 minutes to the procedure. 

Rene was starting to feel panicky; her hands were shaking imperceptibly and even though the procedure rooms were kept cold, a fine sheen of sweat broke out on her face. When the procedure was finished and she finished labeling the specimens harvested and her other paperwork she all but ran from the room.

~~~~~~~~~~

Rene sat in her office, back to the door, and tried to catch her breath when the phone rang. It was a creditor. They argued. Rene slammed down the phone, tears in her eyes and in full panic and depression. She reached into her desk drawer and came out with two tabs of Valium that she gulped down without water. 

Dr. Anne Woods, one of the few internists to do her own endoscopies, stood at Rene's office door and watched. Rene startled when she looked up.

"Uh, Dr. Woods, uh, how long...?"

"Since 'Go fuck yourself you fucking bastard and leave me the fuck alone.'"

"Oh."

Dr. Woods waved her hand dismissively, came into the office with a sympathetic smile and stood beside Rene's chair. The doctor bent and put her arm around Rene's shoulders and hugged her. "It's okay Rene. Money problems I take it?"

Rene looked up at the doctor. She wanted to throw her arms around the doctor and cry on her shoulder but she managed to hold herself together. "Uh, yeah," Rene sniffed, reaching for a tissue to wipe her eyes. 

Dr. Woods walked back around to the front of Rene's desk, closed the door and sat in Rene's office chair in front of the desk. "Uh, listen...I have a way that might..."

When Dr. Woods stopped talking and looked down at the floor, Rene sensed that maybe the doctor was offering some financial help. Suddenly Rene was very excited. "Uh, might what, doctor?" 

Dr. Woods blushed and looked away, nervously running her hand up and down her throat a couple of times, "Well, oh Rene, uh, I'm sorry...I have a way maybe that would get you some good money without a whole lot of effort. But..." the doctor looked pained and embarrassed, "it's so improper of me to even ask." The doctor looked even more embarrassed. 

Rene was more excited, "No, really Dr. Woods..."

"Oh Rene, we're in private, call me Annie, please," the doctor interrupted with a smile, "all my close friends and girlfriends do."

Alarm bells should have been going off in Rene's head at the sudden friendliness of one of the hospital's most well known "cold and remote" doctors on staff but they weren't. With Rene, the alarms never went off until it was too late. Rene was looking at her potential savior. All that mattered was whatever help the doctor was offering and her hopes were rising quickly.

"Well, Rene - uh, this stays between us?" The doctor looked quickly behind her to make sure the door was shut, though she knew quite well it was. 

"Oh! Yes." 

"Well," the doctor lowered her voice, "Rene you know I'm a lesbian?" 

Rene was hesitant. Yes, she knew the doctor's sexual preferences but she never gave it much thought. "Uh, well, I'd heard. But that's okay with me; I'm not really judgmental."

The doctor paused and then smiled rather seductively, "Why Rene, uh, are you on my 'team'? You're very attractive, you know. I bet you're very good in bed."

Rene blushed, then laughed nervously. "Uh, gee, doctor, uh, thanks but uh...well..." Rene felt very awkward and sounded it too. 

The doctor took note of Rene's reactions, including the flush rising on Rene's chest. The doctor was certain Rene's red sheen was from from arousal and not embarrassment. Then she let Rene off the hook: "Oh, Rene," laughed Dr. Woods, "sorry. I just got a little carried away."

They both shared a nervous laugh and then the doctor continued quietly and, to an objective observer, seductively. 

"I'm very involved in a medical society. We're having our national meeting in two weeks in Los Angeles. I'm also running for president of the society. It's a very important position - and it comes with some hefty financial perks; salary, speaking fees, expense account; the works. You know me well enough you should know that I've very ambitious and I want it; all of it." The doctor stated her ambitions with something close to fierceness, her eyes wide and shining. 

"I need to do a little lobbying. There's one person who can either block me or help me get the presidency. He's a gastroenterologist from St. Louis."

The doctor stopped and looked at the floor; she crossed her legs and started flipping her foot nervously - but not too nervously. Rene sat silently; eager for the doctor to continue, the previous embarrassment past. 

Presently the doctor looked up, a serious, determined look on her face, "Because of my sexuality I am ill equipped to suitably, um, impress this man, if you understand what I'm saying. He'll be in town tomorrow. Tomorrow night we're going to dinner. Would, uh, you come with me; make this guy feel, well, comfortable? I'll give you $500 dollars for the evening plus your dinner; we're going to Maxwell's."

Rene's face was blank. Finally the doctor's words registered, "Uh, $500 dollars to have dinner with you and this other doctor?"

"Well, Rene, I need him to feel good, have some fun. That's your task. And he's very good looking too. The $500 should tell you just how important this man - and position - is to me. 

"When we have our meeting in L.A., I'll pay your plane fare, a five star hotel, meals, and drinks - whatever - plus say, oh, $2500 for three days and three nights."

"You're kidding!" Rene was stunned.

"No. In L.A. there's going to be lots of jockeying. I need you to be, uh, well, my escort; I need you on my arm. I'll need you to do anything I ask by way of lobbying - if you know what I mean."

Rene hesitated for a moment, "You want us to look like a couple; older doctor and younger nurse lover, right?" Rene asked hesitantly. 

"An older, powerful doctor with a beautiful younger lover; you understand. Of course, we both know you're straight but...we'll need to look legit." The doctor let her voice trail off; her smile was gone and her eyes were locked on Rene's.

Rene felt the stare and the doctor's obvious desire. Finally she averted her eyes, laughed nervously then looked back, "So, um, why me?"

"Rene you must know there are several lesbians in the hospital; doctors and nurses. But none are as beautiful or as smart as you, at least in my opinion. There may be a lot of shoptalk, you know? I don't want to have a pretty but empty-headed red head on my arm. (Rene immediately thought of Suzy Clausen, the O.R. Chief.) I want you to participate in any little bull sessions my friends and I get into. There'll be other endoscopy nurses there; you won't be alone. And well, two doctors together..." Again her voice trailed off and then with a hard look the doctor said flatly, "I couldn't very well whore out a colleague, Rene. What do you say? Are you game to be my bitch? A walk on the wild side, eh?"


Desolation Row



A rather dark tale this. This is not a swift wham bam story, I've taken quite a time developing the story. Nevertheless, I hope that readers find it worthwhile.

Just to help any non-English readers. In those days there were 20 shillings in a pound. A shilling was also known as a "bob". In 1945 the average annual wage was £370 and an average house cost around £1000.

-----------------------------

It was raining heavily the day that Billy Watkins came back from the war. The troop ship was crowded leaving little room under shelter. The grey sky, slowly undulating dark green sea and the damp all conspiring to quell any joy of returning home. Muttering darkly Billy leant on the rail in the rain watching, through the grey haze, the entrance to Southampton harbour gradually draw nearer. It had been a miserable journey across the channel from France and the sight of England was a pleasant relief. Billy shuddered as another drip of water slid down the neck of his soaked battle dress. He had worn the same battle dress for a year and it smelled disgusting. He longed to get rid of the filthy army uniform, get a hot bath and slip into some decent civilian clothes.

Apart from his uniform and his rifle, the sum total of his belongings were in his back pack. His mess tin with mug, knife, fork and spoon, two pairs of socks, pants and vest, wash gear, a diary, paper-back book and bible barely filled the canvas pack. Nestled in the bottom, in a black velvet box, lay his only valuable – his military cross. Although he would not agree, Billy was a hero. In a moment of almost insanity he had rushed a German machine gun post, killing 5 enemy soldiers and saving the lives of the men in his platoon. In reward of this service he received promotion to Corporal and a piece of silver in the shape of a cross hanging from a white and purple ribbon.

He had often pondered what had driven him to tackle the machine gun post. Any sane person would have pressed themselves to the ground in an effort to avoid the constant shower of high velocity bullets coming from the machine gun. Sanity didn't play any part in his actions. Billy's immediate reaction was to do whatever was necessary to prevent those German bastards behind the gun hurting him and his platoon mates. It wasn't a case of courage just pure bloody minded aggression against those who dared to threaten his life.

Billy chose to forget the medal. After all, what use was a bit of silver at the end of the day? He had picked up a dose of shrapnel during his attack of the machine gun post which, while not being life threatening, had given him a dozen or so nasty scars over his body. He had been shipped home to recover from his wounds and receive his medal. Ever conscious of the benefits a hero had on morale of both the troops and the public, his superiors had fitted Billy out with a brand new battle dress before sending him to receive his medal from the King. Showing their profound gratitude for his bravery, his masters sent him back to the war a month later.

There was a big reception at Buckingham Palace after the awarding of medals. There had been around fifty men and women from all services receiving medals that day. Afterwards they were stood in the palace gardens meeting the great and good who had also been invited. Billy enjoyed the food and drink but desperately wanted to get away as soon as he could – he felt uncomfortable mixing with all these strangers. Most of them were in social class above him and he felt absolutely no connection with them.

It had been a privilege to receive his medal for the king but Billy had no time for the faceless men in suits who were also at the ceremony. As far as he could see, the majority of them were self-serving slackers who were more interested in promoting themselves than serving their country.

Billy noticed an RAF officer standing alone smoking a cigarette. He grabbed a couple of drinks from the table and walked over to the man.

"Hey chum, fancy a drink?" He asked, offering the man a glass. Billy was shocked as the man turned to face him. His face was a mask of lurid burn scars, his mouth a lipless gash. Billy had heard of the RAF guys like him who had been burned when their aircraft had been set on fire during combat. These guys were commonly known as members of the "guinea pig club" – men who underwent experimental reconstructive plastic surgery.

"You look like you've been in the wars," Billy quipped, using the graveyard humour adopted by most service men. The man laughed. "Yeah mate, I am a bit fucked up. My spit had an argument with a hill," he replied in an Australian accent.

"Spit?" Billy asked. "Spitfire, you know, fighter plane," Ray replied. "Don't you fucking foot-soldiers know anything?"

"No, we're too busy wading through the shit and bullets," Billy grinned, he liked this guy. They sat on a low wall, lit cigarettes, and toasted each other.

"Lost comrades," Billy said, raising his class. "Lost comrades," the man echoed.

"Billy Watkins," Billy said, holding out his hand.

"Ray McIntyre," the man replied, shaking Billy's hand firmly. "Are you a scouser?" He asked.

Billy nodded, "and you, you sound Australian?"

"Close mate, New Zealand."

"Oh sheep shagger, eh?"

"Don't knock it until you try it," Ray laughed. "At least they don't expect you to marry them afterwards."

"So what you think of all this," Ray asked, after a moment, vaguely waving his hand in the direction of the crowd. 

"Load of bollocks really mate," Billy replied. "I can't be arsed with all this medal crap."

"Yeah, it's a fucking dead who should get the medals," Ray replied bitterly. "I would rather have been somewhere else today, but I figured maybe I should be here if only for those blokes who didn't make it."

At that moment a man in a well-tailored suit came up to them.

"Good afternoon gentlemen. I'm Humphrey Westinghouse," he announced, pompously. "It would give me great pleasure to shake the hands of two of our heroes."

The man held out his hand towards Billy. Billy chose not to shake it. He immediately saw something he didn't like – a man who was obviously wealthy, no doubt considered himself to be a class above the likes of Billy and Ray, and was doing very nicely thank you without contributing to the war effort. In other words, a sponger.

"And what the fuck do you do, Mr Westinghouse?" He asked, his voice revealing his dislike for the man.

"I'm the member of Parliament for the constituency of Lower Appleton on Marsh," he replied grandly.

"And what do you do, Mr Westinghouse?" Billy asked again.

"I'm not sure I understand you young man," Westinghouse asked nonplussed.

Billy shook his head in despair.

"Are you stupid? What exactly are you doing to help this country win this war?" He asked.

Westinghouse spluttered, unsure how to reply. "I think you should show some respect for your betters," he replied, deciding finally to go on the offensive.

"So you think you're better than me? Billy asked. "Obviously I was taught better manners than you, let me give you some home truths. You might think that you're superior to me but like it or not all men are born and die equal. If you can't handle that then that's your problem, not mine. Respect has to be earned and the only way you can earn it is by showing that you're man enough to make sacrifices for this country. Look at Ray," he said pointing at Ray. "You can see the sacrifices he has made. Look around at all the servicemen and women here. They've all made sacrifices. You can see in some cases what they sacrificed, in others you can't but it's there, believe me."

"And what sacrifice have you made?" Westinghouse asked, trying to gain the upper ground.

"Well if you'd been listening during the ceremony you would have heard the citation when I was awarded my medal. Or maybe you couldn't be bothered to pay attention."

"Have you had any active service? Have you killed any of the enemy? Do you even sit on any important committees involved in helping us win this war?" Billy asked, pointedly. "What exactly have you sacrificed for this country?"

Westinghouse's face was red with bluster and embarrassment. Quite clearly he had no acceptable answer for Billy. "I... I...," He attempted to reply before Billy turned his back on him.

"The day that you stop being a fucking fat-cat leech on society and you start fighting for the country, is the day that you will be entitled to earn our respect. Now piss off and leave us alone."

Westinghouse slunk off like a whipped dog, looking for someone else to annoy.

"Fancy going somewhere decent for a drink and a chat?" Billy asked Ray.

Ray gave a final look at Westinghouse. "Nice one, mate, that bloke's a right cunt. Let's bugger off and find a pub, the air is a bit nasty here."

"Fucking cunts," was Billy's immediate response when he received his orders to return to the front.

------------------

Billy had been an orphan his whole life and had been consigned, as a week old baby, to an orphanage in his home city of Liverpool. He knew nothing about his parents. All he knew was that he had been abandoned on the step of the main hospital in Liverpool. The nuns who ran the orphanage had made the life of the orphans hell with a harsh regime of beatings and cold baths. How anyone who allegedly served god could act so evilly was a mystery to Billy and the experience destroyed any belief he might have in a god. Billy hated the place and had joined the army in 1938 when he was sixteen. Billy was tall for his age and having matured early already had a dark jowl. He had little difficulty in convincing the recruitment officer that he was 18.

Billy was hard – the orphanage had made him that. He enjoyed a good scrap and soon got a reputation for being someone to be feared. No-one in the orphanage could compete with Billy's fists in a fight. Don't think for one moment that Billy was just an ignorant thug, quite the contrary. He was an intelligent man who was a good and loyal friend. Paradoxically, if you crossed him, Billy would be tireless in getting revenge. In effect he was a man of two extremes. He was a man of strict and unbending morals - he was unforgiving to those who crossed him but he would defend the helpless without reservation. If you think about it the tough regime in the orphanage was guaranteed to produce men of extreme natures. There was no way you could survive if you were not prepared to handle yourself.

Billy was a quiet, taciturn man who kept his emotions to himself and appeared to be reserved. Having not received any affection he in return found it difficult to show affection.

In an attempt to curb his aggression, the nuns had allowed him to attend a local gym where he learned to box. He quickly achieved a good amateur status but more importantly, he learned to control his anger and aggression. If anything, this made him a much more dangerous man. He was a man who could react with violence without giving any indication of his intentions.

The life in the orphanage had failed to develop his social skills and his experience with women was non-existent. The boys and girls were kept segregated in the orphanage; the last thing that the nuns wanted was inappropriate contact between the sexes. Any attempt by the orphans to mix was dealt with severely.

He was shipped out to Altcar training camp just north of Liverpool the day after he had signed up. The camp was a miserable group of Nissen huts on top of a bleak hillside near the beach. The almost constant rain added to the grave bleakness of the place. Billy shared a hut with 19 other recruits. The guys came from all walks of life but generally shared the same basic background - that is of being young guys without any real permanent employment, filled with the excitement and anticipation of travelling abroad and the possibility of getting involved in the war.

They were under the command of a miserable bastard of a sergeant who spent his time screaming and shouting at them and telling them what a load of useless bastards they were. Their training for the most part involved running about over the sandhills getting fit, dragging themselves through muddy ditches and barbed wire, digging trenches, learning to shoot and stabbing bales of straw with their bayonets while screaming at the top of their voices. 

One Saturday they were given an unexpected treat of an evening pass. Eight of the guys including Billy went to a dance in Bootle, a northern suburb of Liverpool. Naturally a good time was had by all with most of the guys getting drunk on the local beer, dancing with the local girls, and in several cases having a quick fuck in the alley behind the dancehall. A few fights broke out, but that was quite normal for Bootle on a Saturday night.

Billy was at a loss at the dance, not really knowing how to approach the girls that were dancing. He had had a couple of pints which had helped him to relax but this hadn't eased his shyness. Suddenly he noticed a pretty, petite girl with wavy brown hair, sat in a corner, nursing a glass of orange squash, a typical "wallflower". She appeared to be too shy to be able to approach any of the men in the hall. All his mates were either dancing or chatting up girls and he finally worked up his courage and approached the girl.

"Are ya' dancing?" Billy asked using the well-established opening chat up line.

"If you want," the girl replied blushing slightly.

When it came to dancing, Billy had two left feet. Fortunately Maureen, the young lass, was quite skilled and was able to guide him through the dances without too much embarrassment. After a few dances they settled down in a corner to chat and enjoy a drink. Maureen was about Billy's age and proved to be equally socially inept and soon also proved to be a naive and guileless girl. The two of them hit it off although it's probably fair to say that the attraction was more a desire for company than actual love. The tensions in Europe and the possibility of a war had imposed an urgency on young folk. In the case of the men there was the uncertainty that they may be leaving the country never to return and equally the young women feared that having met someone they may never see them again. This tended to make young couples live for the moment and not worry about the consequences.

Billy and Maureen were no different and they married a week later.

Maureen worked in a shop and their combined income was relatively small. Fortunately they found a small, rented, "two up – two down" terraced house in Kirkdale, just outside Liverpool. 

Billy had two days special leave for the honeymoon during which time they simply stayed in bed fucking like rabbits. Their sex life was simple – both being virgins on their wedding night, but they were content and satisfied. 

Billy was stationed just outside Liverpool. They had just over a year of happily married life when war was declared in September 1939. He was shipped out to France in December 1939. Maureen stood waving off at Lime Street station shouting that she loved him and that she would be there when he returned.

The war had changed Billy. Fighting doesn't just involve taking pot shots at an unseen enemy, it gets much more personal than that. Billy remembered clearly the first time he had to kill an enemy from close quarters. He had jumped into a shell hole only to find German soldier pulling a grenade from his belt. Billy threw himself onto the man desperately hoping to stop him from pulling the lanyard from the handle of the grenade. He smashed his fist into the man's face and grabbed him by the throat. Fear and adrenaline gave him strength and he squeezed hard. The image of the dying man would never leave him: The bulging eyes as he squeezed the soldier's neck. The gust of foul breath from his mouth as he struggled to survive. The stench of shit as he gave his final living spasm. His enemy had been a real person; a son, a brother, a father. 

Billy returned from war a harder, less sympathetic man. He proved time after time that he was a demon in a fight. He didn't care how he did it, he always finished off his opponent. Then there were the dreams. No matter how hard he tried, Billy would be plagued by bad dreams for the rest of his life. The sound and sight of his mates dying. The look on the faces of his victims as they died. So many times he awoke in a cold sweat, screaming.

----------------

"Bloody typical weather," Harry Peters muttered in his cockney accent as he joined Billy by the rail.

"Want a fag?" he asked, offering Billy a cigarette.

"Players!" Billy exclaimed, "where did you nick those?" It made a change to have a decent smoke after the crappy French fags.

"That's for me to know, mate," Harry grinned, tapping the side of his nose with his index finger.

Harry wasn't actually a "mate" of Billy's as such any more than most of his army comrades had been real mates. Harry was an idle bastard who had done as little as possible when they had been in combat. Harry was always last to volunteer and he avoided all the crap jobs such as digging trenches, foxholes or latrines. He was tolerated by his comrades but no more than that. When in combat, Harry was equally reluctant to get involved. He would always be last going into battle. Harry had been one of the guys Billy saved when he won his medal. Ever since Billy had saved his life, Harry had made it his mission in life to look out for his mate. "Anyone who would risk death to save my sorry arse has got to be special," he once said.

Harry was a fixer. He had an incredible knack of laying his hands on anything. While most of their comrades in arms had to settle for army rations, Harry always managed to "liberate" decent food for him and Billy to eat. Billy learned early on that it wasn't smart to try too hard to find out where Harry got things. There was a dark side to Harry.

"So are you going back to Liverpool?" Harry asked him. "If not, why don't you come to London with me? I'm sure we can sort you out a job and digs."

"I think the missus might have something to say about that," Billy replied with a grin. 

"You fucking married?" Harry replied, surprised. "You kept that quiet."

Billy had never been one to discuss his personal life and had never mentioned that he was married.

Their debate was suddenly interrupted by a loud voice shouting the odds to a group of soldiers stood by a lifeboat.

"Bloody Sarnt Barras," Harry muttered, "I hate that bastard."

Sergeant Barras was a bully. Unfortunately he was a high ranking bully meaning that he could do what liked with impunity. He was of a breed of NCO which believed that life in the army was subject to one over-riding principle, the constant buffing, cleaning and polishing of army kit known as "bull". They had lost count of the nights between combat when they had been forced to "bull" their kit rather than getting badly needed rest.

"Don't sweat it mate," Billy told him, "in a couple of hours we'll be civvies and you can tell that bastard to fuck off."

Harry gave a broad grin. "Dead right old son."

--------------------

Billy was well off beam if he thought that they would be demobbed in a couple of hours. The process of demobbing involved checking their records, receiving returned kit, payment of earnings due and the issue of a demob suit. Given that 2000 men got off the troop ship and the army's ability to take two hours to do a job when it should only take one, it was nearly 6 hours before the two men emerged onto the dock road, washed and dressed in their demob suits.

"Fuck me you look smart," Harry grinned at Billy.

It had been a long time since he had been out of uniform and even the cheap navy blue suit and white shirt felt luxurious. Add to that a blue trilby hat, his black shoes and a brown rain coat and Billy felt on top of the world.




Desolation Row



"You don't look bad yourself," he grinned back.

"Fuck me I need a drink," Harry retorted, spotting a pub on the corner. "Come on mate, the first round's on me."

The two men settled down at a corner table and drank their pints with relish. It had been a long time since they had enjoyed the clean taste of English bitter. A second pint rapidly followed the first and it was only when they had a third pint that they paused to light up fags and talk.

"So what's all this about a wife?" Harry asked. "You kept that quiet."

"Yeah, well I married her in '38. I haven't had a letter from her since we shipped out so I wouldn't be surprised if she's done a runner," he grinned. Maureen was in fact illiterate and apart from signing her name could neither read nor write. It hadn't surprised Billy when he hadn't heard from Maureen while he was away. He wished he could have seen her when he received his medal but he hadn't been given the time off to travel up to Liverpool.

"Well if you decide to come back to the smoke just call in at the George pub in Praed Street. They'll tell you where to find me," Harry grinned.

Billy nodded. "Thanks, I'll keep that in mind."

----------------

It was raining when Billy walked out of Lime Street station just after nine the following evening. The city of Liverpool looked dull and miserable.

"Welcome home Billy," he whispered to himself. He pulled the collar of his coat up and set out on the two mile walk home. 

His route took him through long narrow streets with terraces of houses on each side. Although not as bad as London, Liverpool had been on the receiving end of its own share of the German bombing and this was evident from time to time where instead of houses there was just rubble. Now that the war was over, the blackout wasn't necessary. The occasional streetlamp, however, did little to dispel the darkness and gloom.

Kirkdale was a dump at the best of times but on that dark, wet night, it had to be the most depressing place on earth. Billy reached his home and started up the path. No lights shone at the windows. He unlocked the door and walked in. Two things immediately hit him.

First the damp smell of neglect. Billy had done his best to freshen up the house before he had left to fight. He had painted the tired house and bought a cheap carpet for the hall and living room. He needn't have wasted his time. Over the time he had been away, the house had been allowed to return to its original poor state. The hall was dirty and neglected with only the weakest light bulb lighting the way. He could see from the hall that his wife had done little to keep the house clean. 

Secondly, he could see the light coming from the back bedroom upstairs and the sound of voices – one male, one female. He walked upstairs and into the room.

Maureen was lying on the bed, naked. From the sight of her gaping, red cunt, dripping white spunk, he could see that she had been well fucked. There was a man in the room, getting dressed. The man heard the door open and looked over his shoulder. Medium height, thin, smart clothes, grease slicked hair and a thin moustache, the guy was a typical spiv – a weasel who avoided serving his country, choosing to make whatever illicit living he could. Billy had met that sort before and hated them on sight.

"It's ok mate, I'll be gone in a moment. Hope you don't mind sloppy seconds," the man said.               

Maureen looked at Billy, her face frozen in horror. She began to speak but stopped when she saw the look of naked hatred in Billy's face.

"That's ok," he muttered back.

The guy finished dressing and left the room. Billy turned, locked the bedroom door and followed the man out.

"Hang on," he called out. "She wants 10 minutes to clean up, fancy a swift pint?"

The other man stopped. "Yeah, that would be nice," he replied. "My name's Syd."

The two men lit cigarettes and began to walk down the road.

"I'm Billy. So is she a good fuck?" Billy asked.

"She's the best tom in the area," Syd replied. "Cheap, always enjoys herself and doesn't mind bare back."

"Nice," Billy replied, fighting to stem his rising fury. It was at that moment that he decided to rid the earth of Syd. He realised that Maureen had fucked many customers and he could never find out all00.

0 their names. Syd, would be his revenge – a scapegoat representing those faceless bastards who had bought his wife. His decision was made easier by the fact that Syd was a sponger – a scum bag who chose to make a living through crime and grifting rather than serve his county. He was a parasite who needed eliminating.

They had just reached the alleyway leading down to the canal when Billy stopped. He turned into the alleyway and called out.

"What the fuck," Billy he quietly called out. "Syd, come take a look at this."

Syd followed Billy down the alley."

"What is..." he began to ask.

"I'm her husband," Billy snarled as he grabbed Syd by the throat and threw him against the wall. 

During his training the unarmed combat instructor had told them "don't fuck about, quick and dirty will kill your enemy just as easily as any fancy moves." Billy had remembered that message. He sunk his knee into Syd's bollocks and grabbed his head as he slumped forward. A swift twist of the guy's head snapped his neck and Syd was no more.

"Hope she was worth it," Billy hissed.

Billy knelt down and riffled through the dead man's pockets. He found a wallet, some keys, a switch blade and a small black note book. He pocketed the items and lifted the body over his shoulders. A quick ten yard walk and he reached the canal. He gently lowered the body into the water – there was no point in attracting attention to his dumping the body by causing a splash. A nudge with Billy's foot and Syd floated off into the darkness.

He left the alley and checked the wallet. It contained over a hundred pounds.

"A hundred quid and a switch blade, my, my Syd, you were a naughty boy," he muttered with a humourless grin as he transferred the cash to his pocket. The now empty wallet, the keys and the note book were dropped down a nearby drain. He kept the knife, it might come in handy sometime.

He felt no regret over killing the man. His sort were parasites who lived at the expense of others and contributed nothing to the world. No-one would miss him.

Maureen was still lying on the bed when he got back to the house. Billy took off his coat and hat and sat down on a chair in the corner of the bedroom. He opened a packet of cigarettes and took one out. He slowly tapped one end of the cigarette on the box before putting it into his mouth and lighting it. He fixed his wife with a cold stare throughout. She looked at him fearfully, not daring to speak.

He took a long look at Mo's naked body. Her skin was marked with bruises and her pert breasts, which had once excited him, were scarred with the marks of the bites from her various clients. There were several fresh love bites on her tits and belly. She hadn't the decency to close her legs or cover herself and he could see that her cunt gaped open, oozing the sperm from god knows how many customers.

He realised that he felt nothing for her. No sadness or pity - just anger and hatred. All the love he had felt for her had evaporated. He realised that he really didn't have a close connection with Maureen. Rather like many war weddings involving the armed forces, they had married on the spur of the moment rather than develop a close relationship. They had been happy in a way, but this betrayal had killed everything.

He took a deep drag of the cigarette before speaking.

"I suppose you're surprised to see me?" he finally spoke. "I imagine that you were hoping that I was dead."

"No Billy, I love you and I prayed that you would come back."

"I can hardly credit that," he replied evenly. "You now have to explain what made my loving wife become a whore."

There was no affection as he spoke the word "loving".

"I needed the money," Mo replied in a whisper.

Billy drew on his cigarette.

"As I remember things, you had a job when I left. Didn't that pay you enough?"

"I was bored," Mo whined, petulantly. "I was lonely but going out needed more money than my job paid."

He pondered a moment. "So how much does a fuck cost?"

"Five bob," she replied.

Billy nodded.

"And how many punters a night?"

"Three, maybe four."

"So that's about a quid a night. That's a fucking good living!"

" And what did you do with the money? Save it? Spend it on our house?"

She caught the irony in his question as he looked around the room, absorbing the neglect of the house.

"I spent it," she replied with hardly a whisper. "On drink and clothes."

Billy paused, looking into space.

"How long?" he finally asked.

"What do you mean?" Mo asked, miserably.

"How long have you been whoring?"

"Three years."

"How many?" Billy asked, his voice cold and emotionless.

"What?"

"How many punters did you fuck?"

"I don't know," she replied after a moment.

"You must have some idea. Let me think, three years, was it a hundred, five hundred, a thousand? Have a guess."

"I don't know, there were a lot of them," she finally replied with a sob.

"Did you ever use condoms?" Billy asked."

"S... sometimes," Mo replied abjectly.

"So I guess you must have caught the clap a few times. How about babies, did you get any of those?"

Mo looked at Billy, her face etched with sorrow.

"There were two babies, I miscarried both."

"You could have carried mine," Billy said, his voice cracking. "We could have had a life together with love, companionship and a family."

"We still can Billy. Now you're back we can take up where we left off."

She knew as she spoke that it was pointless. There was a hardness in Billy's face that wasn't there before. His eyes were cold and unforgiving. Billy had lost the humanity she remembered.

Billy stubbed out his cigarette and shook his head, more in despair than denial.

"You know, I don't have anything against prostitutes. They have as much right to earn a living the same as anyone else. What I do object to is MY wife being a prostitute."

He slowly got to his feet and went upstairs. He pulled a battered old leather suitcase from under the bed and began filling it with his clothes.

"So you're leaving," Mo said - her voice empty and hopeless.

"Yep, I'm leaving and you won't see me again. I won't stay with or support a woman who chooses to be a whore. You chose to be unfaithful to me, fine then you can choose to live alone."

He threw his house key on the bed and left the room.

"What will I do to live," Mo called out with a sob.

"You seemed to be managing fine before I came back. Stick to what you do best, on your back with your legs open."

Billy slammed the front door and walked down the street. Billy had no desire to stay in Liverpool – his city of birth no longer held any appeal to him It was too late to catch a train anywhere so he headed to the pub where he was able to rent a scruffy room for the night.. The best option was to take advantage of Harry's gratitude and start anew in London. His first task was to ring Harry. 

True to his word, Harry was in the George pub and answered after a moment.

"Harry, it's Billy here. I'm coming back down to London, can you still fix me up with a gaff?" he asked.

"So it didn't work out with the missus?" Harry asked.

"You don't want to know," came a cold reply.

Harry recognised that Billy wasn't a happy bunny and kept quiet. "Okay chum, I've got a mate who has some flats just down the road. He owes me a favour or two. You just get your sorry arse down here."

Billy rang off and settled down at the bar for a few pints. He wasn't entirely happy with getting favours from Harry but he concluded that he didn't have to spend the rest of his life with him.

It was still raining the next morning when Billy set out on the walk to Lime Street station. If he felt any regrets about leaving Liverpool, the sight the grey, sodden city confirmed that it was time for a change.

------------------

Harry was sat in the corner of the bar with another man when Billy walked into the pub.

"Billy my old mate!", he called out as soon as he spotted him. "Have a pint."

"This is Bernie," he said. "He owns the place where you can stay."

Billy cringed when he saw Bernie. Yet another slick, smart-arsed spiv. He controlled his revulsion and down.

Billy nodded, barely acknowledging the man.

Harry brought a round of drinks and they spent half an hour on meaningless chat.

----------------------

It was a large four storey house on Praed street. The building had seen better days but seemed unaffected by the bombing.

Billy wasn't impressed. The place had a worn, aged look. The brown painted door was cracked and peeling and they were hit by the smell of over-cooked cabbage, damp and stale piss as they entered the down-stairs hall. The floor was covered in stained, cracked lino and the wallpaper was blistered and peeling in places.

"You've got the top floor flat," Bernie told him as they trudged up the narrow, dim staircase.

The top flat proved to be in the loft space. The single light bulb in the room did little to clear the gloom. It was a large room with a bed, chest of drawers, wardrobe table and two comfortable chairs. There was a washbasin in the corner and a gas ring, a gas fire and kettle. The decorations were dingy but passable. 

"So what's the rent?" Billy asked.

"No charge for a mate of Harry," Bernie replied. His forced smile suggested that he wasn't too happy about that.

"No, I pay my own way, how much?"

"How does two quid a week sound?" Bernie asked.

Billy looked about the room and gave an exaggerated grimace. "It ain't exactly the Ritz, is it? I reckon its worth thirty bob tops," he replied.

Bernie smiled, tacitly confirming that his original offer was inflated.

"OK, mate, it's a deal," he replied.

"And you throw in a clean mattress," Billy added, nodding towards the filthy, stained mattress on the bed. "Fuck knows what shite caused those stains."

Bernie nodded reluctantly.

Billy handed Bernie six pounds for four weeks in advance and received some keys in return. Bernie left, leaving Billy alone.

It didn't take Billy long to stow his clothes in the chest of drawers and put his shaving gear on the wash basin. He lit the fire and a cigarette and lay down on his bed, surveying his new home. 

The room was seedy but liveable. The sloping ceiling gave a slightly claustrophobic feel but also in some ways helped give a cosy atmosphere. There were some stains on the ceiling and on one wall but a quick check revealed no dampness. The wallpaper was faded and blistered in places and there was a small crack running across the ceiling and down the wall ending at the window. Billy suspected that it was the result of vibrations from the bombs dropped during the Blitz. There were a couple of faded pictures on the walls which did little to improve the atmosphere of the room. The curtains were thin and faded.

Under normal circumstances the room was a pretty crappy place, but compared to the places Billy had been forced to sleep in during the war, the room was perfectly adequate.

Overall, Billy was happy enough.

"Better than that shit hole in Liverpool," he thought grimly, recalling how Mo had allowed his home to run to ruin. It galled him how that stupid woman could allow a perfectly good marriage to go down the toilet.

Billy stared at the ceiling, blowing smoke into the air. He thought about his life and where he was going. The one thing that really hurt was that he had no family to give him the comfort and support that any person needed. For as long as he could remember all he knew was the cold indifference of other people. The nuns at the orphanage were simply concerned with keeping the children in their charge alive and healthy – they offered no love or comfort.

By the time Billy had left the orphanage he was a sexual innocent. The orphanage kept the girls and boys separated and any contact between them strictly forbidden. Billy had therefore had no experience whatsoever with girls. This in part contributed to him marrying Maureen. Both of them were virgins when they married, both really didn't have any idea what they were doing.

The war had educated Billy in the way of the world but he had stayed true to his marriage vows while he was away and had not taken any of the opportunities that had arisen to sample other women.

Billy felt a sudden a twinge of concern. "Where the fuck am I going?" he asked himself. Unemployed and living in a rented room, he had no family and no friends. The future wasn't looking too rosy. On the plus side, he was both physically and psychologically strong and he well accustomed to looking after himself. 

He gave himself a mental shake – "Can't keep thinking about her! I have to get my arse in gear." Billy had more important matters to address. Getting a job, for example. He was not a man who tolerated a life of idleness, a man was only a man if he was prepared to work for his living rather than sponge and steal like Harry and his slimy friends. 

Billy had no skills but he was a strong, fit guy. The blitz had fucked up London big time and there was plenty of demand for labourers to work on the rubble clearance and re-building. That seemed to be the best and most obvious option.

Billy still had the hundred pounds in his wallet he had liberated from Syd and he needed to stow it somewhere safely. Carefully he examined his room until he noticed that the wall under the sink was panelled with two foot lengths of tongue and grooved wood. He carefully slid the top plank out to reveal a two inch deep recess. He stowed his money and slid the plank back in. "Should do the trick," he thought.

The next day Billy made his way into the centre of London. There was a lot of rubble clearance going on just off Regent Street and he went up to a group of men working there.

"Can you point me at the foreman?" he asked.

"Over there mate," one replied, pointing at an oldish man in a brown rain coat.

"Are you taking on men?" he asked the foreman.

The man turned and gave Billy an appraising glance.

"Got any experience with building work?" he asked.

"No, but I'm strong and I know how to work."

The man nodded.

"Fair enough. Go to this address," he replied giving Billy a small business card.

The address on the card was for a building company based off Oxford Street.

It was a short walk away but Billy had to ask twice for directions to Oxford Street. 

"Ex soldier?" the recruiting manager asked.

"Yes, just demobbed," Billy replied.

The man nodded approvingly. "I was in the last war. Bullet fucked up my leg so I missed this one. Do you have any skills? Carpentry, bricklaying, electrician?"

Billy shook his head. "No, but I'm fit, strong and not stupid."

"No problem, we need all the labourers we can get. Got any objection to digging trenches, lugging bricks or clearing rubble?"

Again Billy shook his head. "Dug plenty of trenches in the war, whatever it takes, guv."

An hour later Billy was leaving the offices of the company with instructions to present himself at a building site at Piccadilly Circus the following morning at 7 am. The pay was £6 a week for a 45 hour week.

Billy was content.

---------------------

The work proved to be hard but steady and he enjoyed the company of the guys in his work gang. They were a decent bunch, mostly ex forces, who worked hard and played hard. As an added benefit, Billy became toned and his muscles began to firm up as they were before the war. Billy began to entertain an idea of getting back into boxing, if only to keep himself sharp and nimble.

One day on his way home he noticed a building with "McMahon's Gym" painted on the side in large white letters. Billy went in.




Desolation Row



He was immediately hit by the familiar smells of a gym – sweat, liniment, and that intangible aura of testosterone. The room was large with a ring and a variety of equipment. Although somewhat run down, the gym was a haven for fitness and hard work. There were a dozen guys working away, honing their skills. A middle aged guy walked over to him. Wearing trousers, a white vest and a towel around his neck, he looked the typical boxing trainer out of the movies.

"Looking to box?" he asked without preamble. "I'm Paddy McMahon, proprietor and chief torturer."

They shook hands.

"Billy Watkins," Billy replied. "Yeah, I'm looking to get myself toned up."

"Have you done any boxing before?" Paddy asked.

"Not for a few years now but I was a half decent lightweight when I was a lad, I reckon I'm probably a welterweight now."

Paddy nodded.

"Want to try a round or two sparring?"

Billy stripped off his shirt and shoes and put on some gloves.

Paddy asked a guy of similar build over and they got into the ring.

"I'm Mike," the other guy said.

"I'm Billy, I'm pretty ring rusty, so be gentle with me mate," Billy grinned.

The years fell away as they began sparring. Mike was nimble and sharp catching Billy with a couple of stingers reminding him how rusty he was. He did get a few reposts in, nevertheless. They both worked hard relishing the cut and thrust of the pugilist's art and they ended up pretty well even.

Paddy hit the bell at the end of three minutes. Billy felt out of breath but elated as the adrenaline coursed through him. Mike grinned at him. "Not bad mate."

He nodded at Mike. "You too."

"Not bad, lad," Paddy told him. "With a little work we'll soon get you in shape. Membership is a couple of quid a month to cover costs. That'll cover as many sessions a week you need."

Billy nodded in agreement. "That'll do me nicely."

--------------------

Over the next few days Billy spent his time finding his way around London. He found a small cafe just off Piccadilly Circus which served reasonable food and this became his preferred place for dining. Billy had no time or interest in cooking for himself as far as he was concerned eating was simply a means of keeping your strength and health and he couldn't understand how some folk spend so much time with the cooking process.

He had met in passing some of the other occupants of his house but apart from saying hello, he hadn't spent any time chatting with them. The ground floor flat was occupied by an old married couple who seemed nice enough but very much kept themselves to themselves. A middle-aged blonde woman lived in the first-floor flat. Billy had passed her a couple of times on the stairs and each time had received a friendly smile. She seemed quite an attractive woman albeit in a careworn way, but was always well dressed. As far as he could tell, the second floor rooms were vacant.

Over the weeks Billy had seen Harry several times in the pub, mixing with a variety of dubious characters and had no doubt that he wasn't up to anything honest. While in the army he had suspected that he was up to petty larceny but he now cast a much darker image. Added to that that although always appearing jovial, his smile was always brittle and seemed to hide a much more sinister character. Harry always carried a thick roll of bank notes secured with a rubber band which he would produce either to pay bills or to add money to it. The roll seemed to be mostly five pound notes and Billy guessed there had to be around a thousand pounds in it. Harry was clearly making big bucks.

He decided that it would be wise to steer a wide berth from Harry and to live his own life. There was no point in attracting unnecessary trouble.

Inevitably the social centre of the area was the pub. Billy regularly spent an evening in there enjoying a few pints and getting to know Jim, the landlord. Jim proved to be a useful guy helping Billy to get to know the local characters and punters.

He stood at the bar, the first evening that he went into the pub for a drink. The barmaid had served him a pint of bitter and Billy savoured the first few swallows of his pint. He didn't know what it was about British beer, but the first few sups always tasted the best.

Billy loved the British public house. He had been in a variety of different restaurants and drinking places during his time in France but none had compared to the British pub. The etched and cut glass windows and mirrors and the way they reflected the glow of the lights gave the pub a distinctly cosy feel. The permanent smell of beer and cigarette smoke, the ornate mouldings and ceiling roses, all stained brown from decades of cigarette smoke and the constant hum of conversation gave a unique atmosphere. 

Billy was once told that you could see every way of life in a pub. He looked around the room. In one corner were three old blokes quietly playing dominos. Two old girls were sat in another corner slowly drinking and gossiping. A group of five or six labourers were noisily playing cards. A number of other solitary punters, sat solemnly drinking, lost in their own thoughts. Everyone a typical working-class individual – this was no high-class establishment. 

He noticed a middle-aged blonde woman sitting by herself, nursing a drink. He had seen her before, and after a moment's thought realised that she was the woman who lived in the first-floor flat in his building. She wore fur coat which was opened at the front revealing her ample cleavage. She was a pretty woman who seemed both sad and careworn.

After a moment Billy noticed Jim, the landlord, walking over to him carrying a couple of pints. "Hello mate," he said with a smile, "let's go and have a natter and get to know each other."

They made their way over to a table and sat down. Jim put a pint down on the table in front of Billy and introduced himself. They spent a few moments on introductions and supping their ale. They lit up cigarettes and relaxed.

"I saw you with Harry the other week," Jim began. "So where do you know him from?"

"We were in the same platoon during the war," he replied. "We're really just acquaintances, not mates. He offered to arrange me some lodging down here," Billy replied.

"You a scouser?" Jim asked.

"Yep," Billy replied. "You spotted the accent, eh?"

Jim nodded. "My brother's a scouser too."

Jim paused a moment.

"You want to watch out for Harry, he's a nasty one," he said.

"I had figured as much," Billy replied. "There is always been something dodgy about him. You know, sort of shifty. He always managed to keep is arse out of the firing line."

Billy took a deep sup of his beer. "What gets me is why he joined up. I would have thought that a bloke like him would have avoided the fighting," he added after a moment.

Jim grinned broadly. "You haven't counted on his old man. Harry's dad, Charlie, was an old school blagger. He made his living doing bank jobs. He was a hard bastard but he had ethics. He never hurt women or old folk; he never carried a shooter – his tools in trade were a pickaxe handle and his fists."

"You knew him well?" Billy asked.

"We did a few jobs together when were lads. Charlie was good and loyal mate with the heart of a lion and the balls of a giant. The cops hated him and he hated them."

"Anyway, Charlie was very disappointed with Harry's choice of work. Drugs and running brasses went against everything he believed in. Add to that the fact that Harry used his heavies to do his dirty work, he wasn't at all happy. When the war broke out he forced Harry to join up. He told him that maybe it would help him to grow a set of balls and fight his own battles. Charlie had done his bit in the First World War. He might have been a wrong-un but he was honourable and he wasted no time joining up to defend his country."

"Anyway, Harry was right pissed off." Jim smiled at the memory.

"You talk about Charlie in the past, what happened to him?"

"Got killed in the blitz. A bomb took out him, his missus and Harry's brother. A real tragedy."

"Who's the lass in the corner?" he asked, nodding towards a middle-aged blonde he had noticed earlier.

"That's Rosie, the local brass," Jim replied.

"Brass?" Billy asked, confused. He had not yet got to grips with the London slangs.

"Brass nail – tail. Rhyming slang for a prossie," Jim replied with a grin. "You're going to have to learn some rhyming slang if you're planning to stay in London."

"She was a looker in her day but a bit worn out now. She's a lovely bird though. Not an ounce of harm in her."

"What does she drink?" Billy asked.

"Port and lemon."

"Give us one will yer?"

Jim gave a grin. "feeling frisky are you?"

"Nah, just thought she might like a bit of company."

"Here you are," Billy said as he put the drink on the table in front of Rosie. "You look thirsty."

"I ain't working," she said with a hint of irritation.

"I ain't looking for a shag," Billy replied. "I thought you might like a drink and a chat."

Rosie had the grace to blush. "Sorry I thought you were a punter. Sit down and rest yer legs. I've seen you before," she said after a moment. "I know, you live upstairs from me."

Billy nodded.

"Are you sure you want to be seen talking to me?" she asked after a moment. "A handsome young lad like you, people will think you're hard up talking to an old brass like me."

"As long as we're just talking, I don't give a fuck what they think. Now if we was fucking that would be a different matter, given that this is a pub and not a brothel."

Rosie grinned.

Billy was amused by her self-deprecating manner. Rosie wasn't too bad a looker from up close. She looked to be in her late thirties or early forties, her hair was blonde with no dark roots and her low cut dress gave a nice view of a pair of decent, firm breasts. Her face however revealed a great deal. Although she smiled, he eyes showed a deep sadness. 

"Are you looking at my tits?" she asked with a grin.

"Well, girl, you wouldn't be showing them off like that if you didn't want me a cop a look, would you?"

"Touché," Rosie laughed, a gentle, intimate giggle rather than a coarse whorish belly laugh. Billy sensed that underneath the brash exterior, she was a gentle soul.

Billy supped his beer.

"So Rosie, is that your real name?" he asked.

"Short for Rosemary," she replied, blushing slightly, "not that anyone has used it for a long time."

"Lovely name," Billy smiled. "Reminds me of a real English lass. You should use it, Rosie makes you sound cheap."

Rosie blushed even more deeply at the complement. Billy guessed she hadn't done that for a long time. She smiled her thanks.

"And what about you. What's your name?"

"Billy," he replied. "Not William, just plain Billy."

Rosie lifted her glass. "Ok, just plain Billy, good health to you."

"Cheers, Rosemary," Billy replied, also raising his glass.

Rosie put her glass down. "So tell me about yourself, I know from your accent that you're not from here."

Billy was normally a taciturn guy but something about Rosie made him want to open up. Before he knew what was happening he was telling her his life story.

He noticed Rosie's face tense when he talked about his wife's drift into prostitution.

"Listen, Rosemary," he quickly spoke, not wanting to offend her. "I have nothing at all against women who are prostitutes. What hurt me was that my wife chose that way of life without any need. She betrayed me just as much as if she had taken a lover."

Rosie nodded and patted his hand. "That's OK Billy, if it's any help, I think your wife was a very foolish woman who gave up something priceless – the love of a good man."

"Hey Billy, what you doing chatting up that old slag?" Harry's voice boomed across the room. He had just come into the pub with two of his cronies.

"Maybe he can't get his jollies anywhere else," one of them sniggered. Harry's booming laugh accompanied the reply.

Billy turned to the men.

"I'll talk to who I please," he replied. "Now get the fuck out of my face."

Harry's face tautened and anger surfaced in his eyes.

"At last his true colours," Billy thought to himself.

"We may be mates, Harry but that doesn't give you or your idiot sidekick the right to take the piss, OK?" Billy glared at the guy at the snide remark. "Or maybe he would like to repeat himself, outside?"

Harry's face relaxed. "Of course old son, we didn't mean anything by it." He turned with his mates to the bar.

Billy wasn't fooled by the false camaraderie. "Fucking cunt," he hissed sotto voice. He saw Harry stiffen – he had obviously heard the insult – but he did nothing in response.

"Listen girl, I suddenly don't like the atmosphere here. Why don't we slip up the West End for a bit of supper – my treat."

"You sure you want to be seen out with an old slag?" she replied, mocking Harry's words.

"Don't be daft, girl. There's no-one I'd rather be with, now finish that drink and shift your arse."

"There's no need to pay West End prices," Rosie told him as they walked down the street. "I know a nice little pub which does great food."

After ten minutes walking they turned into a small pub down a side road. The pub was fairly quiet and a large, beefy man served behind the bar.

"Hello gorgeous, long time no see," he called out as they entered the pub.

"George, you old pervert," Rosie replied. The man came out from behind the bar and gave Rosie a hug.

"Put me down and behave yourself," Rosie giggled, poking his obvious hard-on with her finger. Can you fit us in for some supper?"

"How do pork chops sound to you?" he grinned.

Rosie led Billy into a small back room. There was a small "Private" sign on the door.

"His brother has a farm in Essex," she told Billy as they sat down at a corner table. "He gets a good supply of meat and fresh vegetables so his friends and close acquaintances can dine."

"How do you mean?"

"Well the rationing is a real problem with restrictions on the food available. George's supply is good but not huge – only enough for those he knows. His wife does the cooking and believe me, its the best around."

Soon they were served with succulent chops, boiled potatoes, carrots and apple sauce. 

"Damn! This is good," Billy sighed. "I haven't eaten like this for years.

"So Rosemary, you've heard my story. What's yours?" Billy asked once they finished eating.

Rosie sighed. "Not a happy story, Billy."

Rosie had been born in Bethnal Green, part of east London. Her dad had been a railway worker and she had grown up in a crowded terraced house with her mum and six siblings. Life had been hard and her parents were strict. This all came to an end when she was raped by her uncle at the age of 15. Rosie fell pregnant and her parents did the only thing they felt they could - they took her uncle's side and threw her out. By the age of 16 Rosie had miscarried the daughter she was carrying and she found herself penniless and on the streets. Her miscarriage and a subsequent infection screwed up her womb and ovaries and she became incapable of having any more babies. She then ran into Harry, who offered to help – at a price. She became the latest member of his stable of prostitutes.

"For the next twenty years I spent my time fucking and sucking strangers for Harry," she sighed, her eyes filling with tears. "He then dumped me." 

"His very words were - I was too old – the punters wanted new meat, not an old whore with a cunt like a bucket."

Rosie began to sob.

"Come here girl," Billy said, gently as he took her in his arms.

"Lucky for me," Rosie continued after a moment. "I made a lot of friends. This meant that I could continue to work but this time all the money went into my pocket. I've managed to make a living of sorts."

"I bet Harry didn't like that," Billy grinned.

"No but there was nothing he could do," Rosie grinned back. "Oh, by the way, how do you know Harry?"

"We were in the same unit during the war. I saved his life."

"Well, I'm not sure you did the world a favour by saving his hide - that bloke is an evil bastard," Rosie said. "Don't trust him for a moment."

Billy nodded. "I had worked that out. I don't owe him any favours, so I won't lose sleep over him. Anyway, forewarned is forearmed and I'll be watching him. Rosie saw the hard glint in his eye and realised this wasn't an empty threat.

Rosie sipped her drink and pondered for a few minutes.

"You know Billy, the hardest part of my life has been that I have never experienced any love or tenderness from any man. I've been to bed with hundreds of men but none of them have ever wanted to hug, cuddle or kiss me. It's just been sex with no connection - it leaves you feeling empty. A person needs tenderness and affection in their life."

Billy was at a loss – how the hell do you respond to that?

"Go on! You're an attractive woman, there's no reason why you can't find a man," he finally told her.

"Would you want to shack up with a woman who's fucked hundreds of men?" she snapped, suddenly angry. "Any bloke immediately thinks of two things. One, how many diseases does she have and two, will she even feel me fucking her loose, worn out, twat?"

Billy was now seriously stuck. How the hell do you respond to that comment? To tell her that he wouldn't would only hurt her but on the other hand, he wasn't looking for a partner and telling her that he would, would most likely lead to complications.

Fortunately Rosie saw his discomfort.

"That was a rhetorical question. I wasn't putting you on the spot."

"Anyway, enough of this bollocks," she said after a moment, sensing his discomfort. "Do you want another drink or do you fancy going for a dance?"

Billy's face relaxed and he smiled.

"I'm a lousy dancer girl but I'll give it a try."

They left the pub and headed down the road to catch the underground to the Hammersmith Palais. 

The evening was a great success. They danced, drank and laughed together until they were both worn out.

"Thanks for a lovely evening," Rosie said as they stood at the door of her room. Harry saw a conflict of emotions on her face.

"I know what you're thinking," he said. "It goes like this. 'I've just been on a great date and maybe I should be inviting him in for a little fun. But I'm a prostitute so should I be handing out freebies? But if I offer him some fun at a cost then he'll be insulted and the true value of the evening and our friendship will be lost. But if I offer and he declines, will it be because I'm used goods?"

Rosie blushed and looked thoroughly miserable.

"Something like that," she replied quietly.

"Tell me, how much do you charge for sex?" he asked.

"Ten bob," she replied.

Billy held out a pound note.

"Stick that in your bra or knicker leg," you've got a customer.

Rosie looked distraught. Billy was just another punter after all. She nevertheless let him into the room.

"Take off your dress and bra," he told her.

Slowly she stripped.

"Leave the knickers," he told her as she began to remove them. Her body was surprisingly sleek. She had very little spare fat and her ample breasts sagged only slightly. Given her tough life, Rosie was one hot piece.

"Get into bed," he told her. She complied.

Billy quickly stripped down to just his underpants, switched off the light and slipped into bed.

He gently gathered Rosie into his arms and she rested her head on her chest.

"You told me that no one had ever cuddled you, well I've just given you a quid and for that you're going to spend the night being cuddled and adored."

He gently and very slowly kissed her, teasing her lips with his tongue. Rosie felt a flood of pleasure fill her. The pressure of her breasts against his hard chest and his kiss made her tingle and her heart begin to race. He gently caressed her and kissed her, making no attempt to touch her loins. This was about love, not sex.




Desolation Sound



It had been awhile since I had seen you. How I missed your chestnut hair, highlighted by the strands of silvery satin, as it cascaded down your shoulders. The silver reminding you of times cruel speed. The days brush away as if they were only after thoughts in the mind. Time is what we didn't have much of anymore. There would be only a few more sweeps before all our memories were taken to the place indefinite. How I missed your dark hazel eyes, sprinkled with its brilliant green. The green in those mysterious eyes seemed to be trying to break free from the shadowy brown bondage, a battle that neither would win. To look into those eyes was to look into a mirror, its reflection haunting me. Your eyes were my eyes and everyday I looked in that mirror it was a reminder how long we had been apart. I remember the moments I stole, gazing at you from a crack of a door. A tiny crack so not to be noticed but that fissure gave me recollections unsurpassed even to this day. It was here that I first saw the most glorious sight, a sight that still brings a pressure to my groin every time it plays its movie in my head. Your soft pale skin had a yearning to be massaged. Your dark erect nipples, dark like the deep red of a blood blister, were aching to be sucked. Oh how I wanted to taste them. To let each solid bud dance over my tongue would have been a waltz of the ages. Still gazing I watched you turn around; gently you rubbed with the soft towel. I wanted to be that towel, to feel every crevice of your body. I could feel my head getting light from the rapid flow of my blood as my heart beat swiftly, natures arousal fully present. Your butt was robust and full; the padding just perfect. I recall the flood of sticky fluid in my pants as I watched you play with your furry friend. Your fingers digging deep, trying hard to find their destination only to be pulled back just before they were totally swallowed up inside your cavern. Your moans were so crude but so right. I could hear you whispering, "Oh fuck me please...., Oh fuck me harder..." I did not know who you called too but in my mind it was me you craved. 

The fight father and I had, had been a terrible one. Terrible in its truth, knowing the hurt would take a forever to heal. We were still young then, you and I. I was only a new man, just about to enter my twentieth year. You were in that time when your body was most responsive. What a cruel fate of god, to have a woman in need at a time when the partner to match her want could only be of a sons age. You did not want to see me leave and I did not want to leave you. I could see the agony in your face as I walked out that door for the last time. I never really understood why you were with this man, my father. He was so over bearing, so cruel. The nights I strained to hear the sounds of a passionate love affair only to be left with a few squeaks of the bed and a grunt from him. How I coveted that spot in your bed. Never could I have left you that unsatisfied. He never let you do much with your life. It was like he held a great secret over your head, just waiting to tell the world if you showed any independence. 


The years rolled by and we lost contact over time. Time that had come and gone, never to be granted again, was wasted time. Like the seconds were thrown in the trash, experiences that could have been shared were never realized. My life had gone on though. Never did I experience the warmth of a caring family. My blood too much like his, I was scared I guess. Scared I would seed his heartlessness. Not that I didn't have my share of ladies, I did indeed. And the times had taught me well, maybe deep in my heart I did want to share my soul someday. I drank in the knowledge of every episode I had with my teachers. I listened, no heard, their directions and wants. I would make sure they were satisfied to tiredness before I would take my pleasure. I discovered all the tricks and means to put them in a heat only hell could match. But unlike hell, the heat I gave was pleasurable. But still with all the passionate affairs in my life, I would still remember that crack of the door.

It had been twenty years when I finally got the call. Your voice, though sounding similar, crackled with your age. I could hear the pain in your heart mixed with the lightness of a burden lifted off your tired shoulders. The contradiction in your voice held a curiosity to me I could not render. You told me of his passing, begged me to go to the funeral. I granted your wish but only did it for selfish reasons. I cared not for his end but for your new beginning. The first embrace was a rush of nostalgia, as I held you firm in my arms. All the smells and events came crashing in my mind with the brief contact we shared. The crack in the door evident in my brain had given me a stirring not recognized in many years. I was blushed by this happening. How I wanted you to feel my hardness as we held but was saddened by your sadness. At the conclusion of the event you asked me to your house to catch up on times neglected. You told me of your family happenings. How your sisters and brothers were doing in their lives. You told me of how heartbreaking it was when I left and how your heart was still broken. You wanted so bad to hear the pattering feet of grandchildren, having to be satisfied with watching grand nieces and nephews. You asked of my life and how I had turned out. You were both astonished and disappointed to learn of my success. You knew a robbery of what could have been had taken place. I told you of the business I owned and the charity work I do. Money not even being a factor in my life anymore, my wealth had more than exceeded my need. You on the other hand were now stuck in hard times. My father did not leave you much to go on with. It was just like the selfish bastard to do something like that. I told you that was not going to be a problem and you were going to come home with me. You tried to decline but you knew if you had, your loneliness would have been unbearable. Reluctantly you agreed, a smile pursed my lips at your choice. 

It didn't take long to get all your affairs in order. I didn't care if it took months as long as we were going to have time to catch up on our relationship. My partners took care of most of my business dealings now anyway. It was better that way, it allowed me to travel and spend time up in my cottage. It was a quaint place, seventy miles north of the main house. It was rustic, yet strong looking with its oak logs and cider shingles. Not another soul for miles, just me and nature unless of course I had chosen to bring a friend. It was a place named for its area, Desolation Sound. A name more fitting, I think not.

After getting your dealings in order I wanted to do something special. I decided to take you shopping and get you a brand new wardrobe. The time other men find torturous, watching and waiting for a woman to finally find what they want, was paradise for me. It let me watch you mother, in a new light. I could see the hidden beauty I used to long for. Even your body had not changed much. The airy way you walked through the mall made me proud. I knew I had caused this contentment. I spent hordes of money on your new fashions, helping you pick out what I thought looked good. Not demanding, mind you, but softly underlining. I desired you to go out on limb never climbed and buy outfits that were racier than you have ever worn. You would blush and tell me an old woman did not need to dress like that. I asked what old woman you were talking about, letting you know I did not see you old at all. You then smiled your beautiful smile at me and thanked me genuinely for all that I had done. After shopping we went back to your house and waited for the movers to be finished. We drank coffee and planned our route to my place. First we booked the tickets then I showed you on the map where I lived. You were happy to be leaving the place which held to many memories. 

The plane ride was uneventful except the times I got to gaze at your legs. The short skirt did wonders, showing off their silkiness. I would also try to look down your low cut blouse, your perky nipples in view for fractions of seconds. I felt like I was at the crack of the door again, peeking on you. We finally landed after six hours in the air; we both craved a cigarette after the long flight. We entered my truck that I had parked in the long term lot of the airport. I lit your smoke like a gentleman, and then followed with my own. I started to drive but had a hard time concentrating on the road. Watching the oral pleasure your smoke was receiving, your sweet lips sucking the tip, breathing in the harsh smoke. My cock throbbed when you would exhale with a slight moan. Your moan prompted my thoughts of the crack of the door. My hardness was bulging uncomfortably in its trapped space. I thought I had seen you glance at it a few times. This only made me boil more. We finally arrived at my place and you commented on how big and beautiful it was. I told you about the cottage in Desolation Sound, and how I enjoyed it there much more. We had nothing planned for the future so we decided to take a week and get lost in the nature that was abundant in its splendor up there. We arranged to go in the morning at first light. That night was agony for me, as I listen to you shower and dry off. Once again my thoughts were taken to the crack of the door. My dreams took a hold of me and all I could see was us making love and how could I make this happen. Over and over in my head the need to have you became insufferable. Finally morning came and I had hoped this perverted want would be out of my mind. 

We each packed a bag and as you went to the car I looked down at the bags. My head started to spin and my heart beat faster. I thought about the cottage and what clothing was left there. I had always had bikinis and sexy lingerie for my dates, but other then a few pairs of shorts, and a couple of shirts, and some sweaters that was it. My mind was weaving an evil plan. I heard you call out to me and I brought out a bag with booze in it and another with munchies for the ride. Although I didn't keep much clothes there, never any reason too I usually ended up naked most of the time, my refrigerator was always well stocked. I opened the trunk and put the bags in, conveniently leaving behind the bags with the clothes. I hoped I could have convinced you it was an honest mistake Mom.

We arrived at the cottage and I unpacked the car. Still keeping my plan quiet, I snuck the bags in and made it look as though they were all there. You toured around the cabin and looked out on the balcony. You noticed I had a hot tub and said that was going to be something you would be doing a lot of. I couldn't wait to see you in one of the bikinis that I had stored there. I started to pulsate with the thought of it. It was high noon and we decided to play some cards and chat. I loved listening to your voice. We were having such a good time we lost track of the hours. The only reason I knew it was getting late was the rumbling in my stomach, as it cried for food. I lit the barbeque and threw on some steaks then put on some corn on the cob. In no time the meal was ready and we sat outside to eat. You told me how delicious the food was and how full you were. We started a bottle of wine with our supper and soon we were opening the second bottle. Maybe it was the drive mixed with the wine but I was starting to feel a little high. We cleaned up the mess and I put on some music to lighten the mood. We stared at each other for a moment, our silence so heavy and thick you cut it with a knife. You were the first to break the stare when you asked me if I wanted to join you in the hot tub. Not even god himself could stop me. I remember every word you spoke as you went into the bedroom to get changed.

"Hey Tiger (you had called me that since I was born) where is the bag with our clothes in it?"

"It's right there beside the bed, Mom." I answered you with my heart in my throat.

"Umm...no it isn't. Tell me you didn't forget to pack the bag with our clothes! What are we gonna do about dressing ourselves?" She asked in quizzical voice.

"You sure they are not there? I know I packed them Mom."

"No honey, they aren't here. Just a bag with some munchies and a bag with some booze." At least she didn't seem upset by this mishap. "Well so much for taking a dip in the hot tub!" she said.

"Heck no Ma, I have plenty of women's suits in the guest room. Go ahead and pick one out." I knew the swim wear that was there was more like erotic wear. I just hoped she would be brave enough to put it on.

"Ah, you don't expect me to wear one of these do you? They barely have any material at all; I might as well be naked." She said sounding a little panicked.

"Sorry Mom, they are all I have. Don't worry you would look great in anything."

She came out to the hot tub in an ensemble that took my breath away. I could see her nipples poking through the material that barely covered her breasts. The dark bikini was a magnificent contrast to her pale skin. I gawked at her body as my eyes traveled downward. She was still pretty firm for a woman of sixty. I saw a little bit of hair as it tried to escape the tiny patch that was covering the part I most coveted. I must have been staring a little too long because my mother made a comment.

"If you take a picture it will last longer!" Then she laughed such a sweet laugh. "I haven't had a man stare at me that way in a long, long time. It feels good."

"Mom I would do anything (I emphasized the word anything hoping she would get my meaning) to make you feel good." I watched as she swallowed her wine with a nervous gulp.

"You're sweet, Tiger. I am so glad you came back home. I couldn't be more happy then I am right now. Is that terrible of me to say, with your dad only being dead for a couple of weeks?" At that moment she had a look of guilt painted on her face. We had opened up our third bottle and the wine was really starting to get to me. I just blurted out.

"Fuck him Mom! He only treated you like shit anyway. He was a selfish controlling bastard who only cared for himself. Look at how many years he kept us apart!" The wine must have been working on my mother as well because she had finally realized the missed time we could have had if it wasn't for him.

"Your right Tiger, fuck him. You know he had affairs too; he didn't care about me at all. I didn't mind though as long as he was fucking other women he would leave me alone. I missed so much of my life...." My mother started crying as she thought about what could have been.

"Hey ma, don't cry. It is going to be fine now. He is gone and you are here and that is all that matters." I said trying to comfort her. I got out of the hot tub and grabbed towels for the both of us. Even though it was summer the night would get chilly so I lit a fire in the fireplace and put some pillows on the floor. My mother changed out of her bikini and decided to wear one of my oversized shirts. I guess she wasn't bold enough to go for one of the baby doll sets that I was hoping she'd wear. She looked incredibly sexy anyway. The shirt barely covered the bottom of her butt and if she would have bent over I would have see what I longed for. I had on just a pair of silk boxers and a t-shirt. I was lying on the floor in front of the fire and my mom choose to join me. She looked heavenly backlit with the shadow of the flames dancing around her. She poured herself another glass of wine and sat down beside me. It was totally silent that moment, only the night creature calls cut into it. 

I looked at my mother and asked, "what's on your mind Mom?" She took in a breath before she answered.

"I don't know the day has just been perfect I should just be happy but something is missing."

"What's missing other than the bag I forgot that is?" I giggled at the thought.

"Us I guess, I mean we have done a lot of talking but we never really shared with each other." She was choosing her words very carefully. "I mean I really know nothing about you other than the material things that is."

"Well," I asked, "What do you want to know?" I was interested on where she was going with this. I looked at her and watched as she kept running her hand over her thighs causing electric waves to my phallus. I could feel it starting to become erect. I just hope it wasn't that obvious. It was there, I knew it. I watched her drop her eyes and stare at my bulge. This wasn't a quick glance but an outright stare. My heart raced as I waited for her answer.

"I want to know about your insides. Things like how you feel, what are you passionate about?" She then dropped her head and said in a quiet voice, "What desires do you have, what secrets are inside you that you can share to bring us closer?" Then she looked deep in my eyes and it was my turn to gulp.

"You want to know everything? I am not sure you can handle everything Mom."

"I would love to hear everything. I'll tell you what we will play a game. I will tell you a secret, desire or what I am passionate about then it will be your turn."

"Ok Mom lets go for it. I think this is really gonna bring us closer together." She was happy with my response and I was intrigued. In my mind it was definitely going somewhere but did my mom have the same ideas or did she really want to just know these things?

"Ok let's see...what secret could I tell you?" She pondered, "I know. I hope this doesn't gross you out too much but I have been peed on once during sex. I didn't like it at all and it never really did anything for me but I did it." She was blushing so hard, not really believing she just told her son about such a raunchy sex act.

"Well...wow...what can I say? I'm not sure if I can even come close to that." I said, but then the wine took over and I spewed out the secret I had been holding inside for years. "Ok here we go...Mom you remember back at the house before I left?" I asked her.

"Yes", she said with wide eyes anticipating on what was to be said next. "Well when you closed your bedroom door it didn't really close all the way. Anyway, I can't believe I am going to say this, I used to watch you. And once I even watched you as you masturbated." I expelled a long breath, the torture in me finally released. I didn't know what to expect from her. She might have been furious or just plain revolted. 

"Really...that is...mmmm..." the words just wouldn't come out of her mouth. "Did you enjoy watching me? Did it get you excited?" she asked.

"Very excited!" was all I could say. Then my mother stepped up the heat and boldly said, 

"Did your cock get hard when you watched me with my fingers in my pussy?" I couldn't believe we had crossed this line, it was fantastic. For a moment I thought I was going to cum right in my boxers.

"Very hard..."

"Did you stroke your very hard cock watching mommy stick her fingers deep inside her warm wet pussy?" She was getting dirtier and dirtier with each exchange, but I told her the truth.

"No I didn't stroke my cock. I couldn't, when I saw you fingering yourself I shot a load instantly. It was the hottest thing I have ever witnessed or ever will witness in my life. I can tell you I still jerk off thinking about it!"

"Can I tell you a secret?" she asked.

"You can tell me anything..." I answered

"I knew you were there. It was your cock I was thinking about while my fingers were deep inside me. Your father couldn't fuck his way out of a wet paper bag. That is, when he fucked me. I wanted to cheat on him so many times but never did."

"Why not Mom, you know he deserved it!" I told her looking into her eyes with a love and passion one can only dream about.

"Well the only person I ever really loved wasn't there.....you!"

To be continued......



Desolation



They were both puffing and grunting. Rene was shrieking incoherently. Rene felt Mitchell's sweat drip onto her ass - and then she shrieked more. 

He slapped her; slapped her ass, back and thighs hard. And somewhere in his brain where reason was still functioning he wanted to flip her onto her back and slap her face, breasts and belly. 

He felt dizzy, out of control. He wanted to possess her, to dominate her. He didn't know how he would satiate his need if he didn't completely consume her. 

Mitchell felt his orgasm come - faster than he had ever needed to come in years - he wrapped a hand into her sweat wet hair and pulled, bowing her back, almost pressing her belly and breasts to the now damp bed sheet. His final assault forced a cry of pain - and raw pleasure - from her. As he started to fill her cunt she ran two fingers down her belly to finger herself. Just as he was about done he felt her contractions begin. 

She opened her eyes in the darkness, felt the sweat running down her face, dripping from her nose; felt Mitchell's cock spasm and warmth fill her cunt and she shrieked in animalistic noises until her throat was raw and her voice all but gone.

Then for long moments the only sounds in the room were them breathing hard and coughing. Mitchell slid out of her and fell back on the bed. Rene collapsed onto her belly then rolled to her side, pulling her legs up.

Minutes passed and still neither spoke. 

Sometime later Mitchell took a deep breath and laughed tentatively, not really sure what to say or do after what he felt was a decidedly different casual sexual encounter. "Uh, huh-huh, gee. That was, uh, interesting. I don't know what to say, huh-huh."

Rene sniffled again. In her raw voice she rasped, "Did you like it?" She cleared her voice as best she could and in the closest approximation of a soft voice she asked, "Did I please you?"

As Mitchell grew older and more powerful in wealth and politics he attracted a certain shallowness in the young women who came to his bed. He completely missed the nuances of Rene's new tone of voice and her questions. He responded with a guffaw, "God, woman...do you have to ask? What's the color of the sky on your planet?" But then he heard her sniffle again. He thought to be gentlemanly. In a quieter, more reserved voice he asked, "Are you okay; did, uh, you like me? I didn't hurt you or anything, did I?" 

"Umm, no. No you didn't hurt me; you made me feel...well, WOW," Rene's voice was sincere; she was sincere. She had enjoyed what happened between them in her body. Her spirit was another matter. She felt damaged, maliciously violated. She would never admit that; she wouldn't tell him her secret. If she hadn't been so sex crazed from the drugs she didn't know how their encounter would have gone. Would she have done what she had wanted to do so badly on so many, many nights when she was younger. Would she have killed Mitchell in place of her father; doing to Mitchell what she had dreamed of doing to her father? That thought made her shudder and she directed her senses back to the pleasure radiating throughout her body; the euphoria and seemingly insatiable want that still filled her despite her other emotions. 

She felt Mitchell roll toward the end of the bed as if he were going to get up. "Hey Mitchell..."

"Hmm, dear?"

"Are you leaving?"

"Well," he spoke slowly, "I need to piss real bad and then, well, usually in situations like this I do leave before I get my ass kicked by the woman or her husband or boyfriend." He tried to make a joke and Rene giggled just a bit - but then sniffled.

"I'd really like it - if you want to - if you stayed; stay the night if you wanted to."

"Uh, sure; I'd love it. You, uh, don't have a husband or boyfriend who's likely to show up while we lay in your bed naked do you?"

Rene sounded normal now, in the dark, with a full fledged giggle, "No! God, no!"

"Well, okay, but I really gotta piss."

"You better piss then. Quit talking about it, Christ!" 

Mitchell picked his way delicately across the floor of Rene's bedroom, reached the bathroom and flipped on the light, momentarily blinding Rene.

"Ahhh! Mitchell! Jee-suz!"

"Sorry," he mumbled as he closed the door. 

Rene rolled over and flipped on the bedside lamp. She looked at the three pills Dr. Woods gave her in the restaurant, wondered what they were, guessed ecstasy and picked two up. She sat up, popped them in her mouth and tossed her head back. The pills went down without any problem. She grabbed her pillow and laid down on her back, a leg cocked up and spread wide with the other leg flat on the bed.

Mitchell came out of the bathroom. For the first time Rene got a good look at what had fucked her; he was still partially erect and his cock was long and fat. He was uncut too, the head partially withdrawn in its sheath. Rene smiled appreciatively. 

Mitchell followed her gaze and looked down, "Oh, that? Huh-huh, I assumed you liked it."

"You assume correctly, sir. It was very, ah, filling."

"And you were very tight, missy," Mitchell said as he climbed onto the bed, lying on his side facing Rene. He reached out with an index finger and slowly traced it around Rene's sweaty face, throat and body, swirling around the undersides of her breasts and along the line above her mons that ran between her hip points. 

"Ohhhh, gawd...Mitchell, I swear, if I were a cat I would purr right now. That's very, very nice."

"My pleasure."

Rene didn't have any sense of time. She just closed her eyes and let Mitchell caress her softly. Sometime later he started supplementing the caresses with light kisses: face, throat, breasts, belly and mons. Rene thought maybe she could come just from Mitchell's after play but somewhere along the line she fell into a very light sleep. She was floating in the darkness.

She got up much later; the clock on the dresser read 4:15. She padded to the bathroom, decided on a lark to piss standing up. It was a technique she had mastered, won bets in bars by going into the men's room and using the urinal. She straddled the toilet, bowed her legs and pulled back gently on the skin on top of her mons. Even the stream of piss leaving her body reverberated pleasure through her body. When she came back to bed Mitchell was asleep on his back. Rene flipped on the bedside lamp.

Rene eased herself onto the bed on her belly and moved her chin over Mitchell's thigh. She smiled broadly and picked up Mitchell's flaccid, sticky cock and began gently licking. Soon she felt the cock start to fill and swell; his purplish glans popped from under its sheath and she giggled quietly not wanting to wake Mitchell. 

When he was completely erect she lightly swung a leg over his hips and lowered herself onto his cock. 

Mitchell woke with a start. Rene hips were undulating, gently and slowly. She was grinding her clit and spread lips against his rough pubic hair, pleasurable sensations radiating from her cunt. Mitchell laughed quietly in appreciation and put his hands on her hips and let her ride. Rene stretched her body arching her belly and breasts outward, slowly pulled her damp hair back from her face and with eyes closed in deep concentration she said in a breathy voice, "Play with my nipples, please."

~~~~~~~~~~ 

The phone rang 15 times; Rene heard it on the 13th ring and reached for, it with a groan, just as the 15th ring ended. "They'll call back," she sort of moaned to herself but then her eyes flew open. The late morning sunlight overrode the soft light of the lamp on her nightstand. Rene said bolt upright in bed and immediately regretted it. As quickly as she could move she literally fell out of her bed and half crawled, half stumbled toward her bathroom in the nick of time to kneel before her toilet, wrap her arms around the cold porcelain bowl and throw up.

When she was sure she had nothing more to throw up she fell away from the bowl and slumped against the wall, panting. Her head throbbed painfully and her stomach made her feel like she was on a small boat in the ocean. She decided to crawl back to her bed and assess what was happening. 

The clock on the nightstand was just about at noon. "Oh, I'm only six hours late for work. Great," she mumbled to herself. She slumped against her bed and ran her hand through her hair, pulling it back. With great effort she focused her eyes on the remaining small pill on her nightstand - the ecstasy Dr. Woods had given her the night before - shrugged her shoulders and reached for it. She popped it in her mouth and then thought Christ, I don't have any water and if I rock my head back to get the pill down the pain is going to kill me. She opened the nightstand drawer and came out with a pharmacy bottle. She struggled to read the label but she finally was able to make out Percocet so she opened it and tapped three of the painkillers into her palm with the other small pill, popped them in her mouth and swallowed with a quick backward movement of her head. 

She was right, the pain in her head was blinding but...she'd feel fine in a short while. Rene pulled her knees up toward her chest, wrapping her arms around her shins, and put laid her forehead on her legs. She stayed like that until she heard a loud, persistent knock at the door.

As she raised her head slowly the pain was gone and she felt warm, peaceful and very alert but very nice. Once on her feet she yelled in the general direction of the front door for the person knocking to hold on and found a sweatshirt to pull over her head. She cautiously headed downstairs to the door. 

"Rene!" Dr. Woods yelled. 

"I'm here, I'm here!" Rene yelled as she opened the door and was surprised to see Dr. Woods. "Uh...Dr. Wo- I'm sorry, Annie."

Dr. Woods was beaming from ear to ear as she reached to open the outer glass front door. "Rene, God, don't you look a mess? I like it," the doctor said with more than a hint of lust and a sparkle of desire in her eyes but Rene didn't notice. 

The doctor pushed past Rene and walked into the entry. Rene was a little confused by why the doctor was in her house; she didn't much care how she looked. She was sure she was a mess. She felt like a mess. "Uh, Annie, I...I'm terribly late for work. I haven't even called. I need to grab a shower and..."

"Work is taken care of, my dear. I take care of my friends and lovers, babe. I thought you might be a little wasted after our night last night so I called in for you. I told Maggie (Rene's boss) that you'd fell ill last night at dinner. My god, girl," the doctor pointed at Rene's exposed thighs, "you and Mitchell had quite the night." The doctor turned to the stairs that led to Rene's bedroom. 

Rene stood still, a blank expression on her face while she tried to piece together the night before. She looked down at her thighs and saw the streaks of dried cum that ran almost to her knees. Rene had a moment of panic; she plunged a finger into her cunt. 

Incredibly, she was still slightly wet and when the finger came out from the depths of Rene's vagina it was covered with a milky white, slick, watery fluid. 

The realization hit her like a hammer: she'd had unprotected sex with Mitchell. And as she worked to focus on the details of their night, she realized he'd come in her at least twice that she could remember. Rene really wasn't worried about catching something from Mitchell but Rene did not use birth control.

"Rene, sweetheart? Are you coming up?" Dr. Woods' voice broke Rene out her internal panic.

"Yeah, sorry," Rene stuttered, "I'm coming." 

Rene took a deep breath, wiped her cheeks with her fingertips, pulled her hair back and then bounded up the stairs and into her bedroom. A new shock that took her breath: Dr. Woods naked, lying on the bed where Mitchell had laid last night. Where Mitchell and she had fucked.

Dr. Anne Woods was a tall woman, taller than Rene. She was in her late 40's with short, spiky red hair and alabaster skin. Her face was rather plain but Rene took in the woman's body. The doctor lay on her side, her head propped up casually on an elbow on the pillow and her long legs crossed at the ankle. Her legs were lean and long; runner's legs.

The doctor's breasts were sort of banana shaped with large puffy nipples and big areolas - and very erect nipples - that laid together very fluidly. Comfortably, Rene thought; the doctor's breasts looked comfortable laying together, twisted slightly with the doctor's torso. 

The doctor's belly had a small rise to it just below her pierced navel and elegantly sloped into a patch of red hair covering her sex. 

Rene blinked. 

"Come on Rene, I won't bite," the doctor teased, her voice low and seductive. 

She wanted Rene. "Come lie on the bed with me. I simply love to lie in a bed where such passionate sex has taken place. My God," the doctor enthused as she swept her fingers over the sheet next to her, "it's still damp with cum stains and sweat!" 

The doctor pulled a damp, stained pillow to her face and took a very deep breath, "Hmmmm," the doctor exhaled slowly, "your pillow has a perfectly heavenly scent of sweat and whatever you use on your hair."

The doctor took the pillow from her face and looked intently at Rene, a small tight smile pulling at the corners of her mouth. The doctor's voice was quiet and charged with desire, "Was he rough with you, dear? Did you like it? Did you like being his little bitch? His little fuck toy? Hmmm?"

Rene blinked again.

She found her voice. "Yes," she said in a small voice.

"You took him bareback; I'm impressed. You younger women are so into safe sex," the doctor speaking of safe sex with a passive derision as if it were some disgusting social practice of the masses. "I find intimate contact with a woman's naked cunt so very erotic; so very primal. The way mother nature intended when she endowed us with slick, salty fluids and divine musky perfumes to give us our appeal as women."

The doctor looked at Rene, standing by the bedside, her expression totally blank. The doctor gave a short laugh, "Ah, Rene, my love, you're not getting any of this are you?"

Rene startled, "No, no Annie, I'm getting - I get it. You have a way with words." Rene nervously looped some hair over her ear and shifted her feet. 

The doctor stretched slowly and fully, yawning lazily, before repositioning slightly. "I bet you're still wet and all sticky and slick inside. Using latex is so, umm, impersonal and standoffish, don't you think?"

Rene had nothing against lesbians or gay men; they were people, just like her. She'd never been sexually attracted to women but now with the ecstasy peaking and mixing with the oxycodone in the Percs and the doctor's very casual way; her way of talking, of laying in Rene's bed naked - it was all starting to work on her. She felt her body starting to respond. 

"I'd love to take you in the shower, you sweet young bitch. You know, take, as in, press your belly and breasts to the shower wall while I press myself into you and work my fingers in that delightful cunt of yours and hear your moaning and...pleading?"

Rene felt warmth come over her chest and face and felt her cunt fill with blood. 

But, my dear, I really, really get off on dried sweat and musk, stale perfume; the taste of wine and cigarettes on some girl's lips and tongue. And," she added with a sly grin, "of course, the taste of a good, musky cunt on her lips too when we kiss. Baby, you have been ridden hard and put up wet. So...come on, let me feast on you. Whatever pleasure Mitchell brought you last night will seem insignificant when I get through with you. Come on, baby, what'd you say? Lie down with me. Take a walk on the wild side, sweetheart. Please." The doctor ended her appeal with a kick of her foot and a pout. 

Rene blinked again, completely overwhelmed. "Uh, Annie," Rene was staring and her voice was soft and uncertain, "I, uh, I'm, you know, well...uh, I'm not attracted to women, you know?"

The doctor tsk'd and got out of bed with a mock groan, "Oh, Rene, Rene, Rene, what are we to do about you? Why do you resist so? You're making this harder than it has to be. And haven't I promised you a huge payoff in pleasure?"

Another "tsk." 

Suddenly Rene found the doctor standing behind her, the doctor's breasts pressed to the top of Rene's shoulders and the doctor's long arms encircling her. 

"Did you suck him off?" It was an intense whisper and the doctor's hot breath in Rene's ear caused Rene to shiver. "Did he play his little girl/daddy routine with you? Hmmmm? Did he fuck you like a whore?"

Rene cleared her voice; she was suddenly very, lightheaded at the doctor's contact with her. It was disturbing - and yet it felt so very, very good. The doctor's voice, breathing in her ear, just about made her come and she'd never gotten off just from being so aroused.

"Yes," Rene's voice cracked, "Annie, he did all those things last night. But then, you know, I was pretty stoned."

"You mean just like you are now honey? Tell me Rene," the doctor's voice was so soft and breathy in Rene's ear and her hand's were now under the sweatshirt and caressing Rene's hips, "did you like it?"

The doctor found the hem of Rene's sweatshirt and she played with it, brushing up against Rene's skin. Rene shivered. "Yes. Uh, yes, I liked it. Very much."

The doctor spun Rene around by the shoulders and then pulled Rene to her body to keep her from falling, "Let's see those eyes, my sweet." The doctor took hold of Rene's chin once Rene was standing stably and tilted it up. Rene's eyes were full of tears and extremely dilated. "Hmmm, I gave you ecstasy last night at the restaurant. It looks as if it agrees with you. You're all flushed, getting a little sweaty and your pupils are as big as saucers. I bet I could get you to come just by touching your breasts or your pussy. You took some this morning, didn't you, my little drug hound slut?" the doctor fairly squealed with delight.

"Ye-yes."

The doctor left Rene standing - though Rene almost fell - and walked back to the bed, exaggerating the swing of her hips. 

The doctor casually flopped back on the bed, got comfortable and and delivered the straw that broke Rene's resolve, "You know what you remind me off?"

"Uh, no...no, ma'am." Rene's body was so aroused but her head was swimming. 

"I have these patients." The doctor spread her legs and ran a finger between the folds of her labia. "Their cholesterol is off the charts. They're one step away from being diabetic; one step from lung cancer or COPD because they smoke." The doctor brought the finger she'd been massaging her clit with to her mouth and slowly licked, her eyes locked on Rene's. 

"They eat rich food and then they drink artificial sweetener in their fucking iced tea. I've never understood it. Never. Maybe its some inbred bourgeois thing." She sounded bored, yawned. "What do I care?" She laughed cruelly, "I don't."

"So Rene, you can suck cock; Mitchell tells me like a pro. And you can apparently fuck like a pro too. You do drugs like the queen of the crack whores. You indulge your body in anything you want. But..." the doctor locked eyes again with Rene, who was now having difficulty standing and staying awake, "you can't let a woman touch you or suck a woman's cunt or her tit or tongue? I mean, how fucking pathetic is that?" Again, the doctor laughed cruelly, disgustedly, all as if Rene were not even in the room.

"There's going to be men and women at the conference in L.A. And believe me, the men are not all going to be as handsome and as built as Mitchell. 

"They're going to have beer guts and jowls and smell bad from perpetual jock itch and the fact that they don't bathe and use deodorant. And God, aren't they going to be rude and insensitive louts too? You bet your ass they will. Some of the women are going to be that way too. But I can keep you clear of the bad ones. I can watch out for you; protect my lover and my little gift that keeps on giving. But...




Desolation



"If you can't play the role I need you to play then what the fuck good are you to me?"

Rene was trembling, tears running down her cheeks. She felt like a little girl; a little girl who was lost. 

"Now," the doctor said in a soft but commanding voice, "strip off your sweatshirt and drop down on your hands and knees and crawl to me."

Rene did not hesitate. She dazedly pulled the sweatshirt over her head and fell to her knees and crawled to the bed. 

The doctor swung one of her legs over the side of the bed, idly kicking her foot. When Rene reached the bed the doctor said, "Now kiss my foot, my sweet little cunt." 

Without hesitation though somewhat awkwardly, Rene obeyed. 

The doctor smiled. 

Rene looked up expectantly into the doctor's eyes, "Did that please you?"

"Hmmm, well dear, I'll give you points for promptness. You will improve though. I have confidence in you. Now, come, let me make you feel better."

~~~~~~~~~~

Anne Woods greatly enjoyed making love to Rene. 

A cloud of stale sweat, cigarette smoke, perfume and strong musk (despite the fact that it was mixed with the strong scent of Mitchell's cum) filled the doctor's nostrils as she took the servile Rene in her arms. Rene looked a little frightened as she let herself be held in this woman's arms but the sense altering control of the drugs had taken over Rene's body. Rene was relaxed and receptive to the soft caresses, soft and probing kisses, licks, nibbles and just the warm caress of the doctor's dry skin pressed along the side of her body. When the doctor took one of Rene's nipples between her teeth and lightly pulled back Rene's body shuddered with an orgasm - the first of several - as she whimpered at the pleasure flowing through her.

Rene, not having the same desire or appreciation for a woman's body or scent, especially when she was more or less forced into the situation, was not a good giver when it was her turn to pleasure the doctor. But, the doctor thought as Rene clumsily licked at her cunt and fingered her clit with a heavy hand, Rene would learn. Most of the women she imagined loaning Rene to in L.A. would be more interested in what they could do to the young woman and not what she could do to or for them. 

Rene, the doctor thought, would be just fine. 

The doctor had gotten two orgasms from Rene, with a little help from her own fingers, and she felt quite satiated. She rolled from underneath Rene and went to the bathroom.

When the doctor came back to bed, Rene had pulled the sheet up around her chin. Her eyes were wide but glazed, her nose was running and the doctor could see her shivering underneath the sheet. The doctor sat on the side of the bed and stroked Rene's tangled, dirty, sweat dampened hair. "Poor dear, you look a bit strung out. Are you going to be okay?"

Rene closed her eyes and swallowed and then in a weak, little girlish voice asked, "Did I please you, Dr. Woods? Are you angry with me?"

"Rene, I'm not angry with you," the doctor's voice was gentle, meant to soothe. "And, you did, umm, okay for a beginner but you'll get better. Don't worry about it."

The doctor stood up and reached down to the floor to collect her panties and bra. Rene was staring at her as she dressed and it appeared her shivering increased. As the doctor fastened her bra she held out her hand to Rene, "Rene, come to me, baby."

Rene didn't hesitate to respond to the command; she threw off the sheet and rapidly went to stand in front of the doctor. The doctor took Rene's hand and led her to the bathroom. "I want you to go empty your bladder and brush your teeth. Then bring me a glass of water and a warm, damp washcloth."

"Okay."

Rene went in the bathroom and closed the door. She sat on the toilet and started to pee; it seemed like she'd never stop. She wiped, brushed her teeth and rinsed her mouth perfunctorily, her mind numb. She filled a tumbler of water from the bathroom faucet and she got a washcloth and ran it under the hot water then went back to the doctor. Rene handed the glass of water and washcloth to the doctor, who had been leaning casually against the wall.

The doctor handed the water back to Rene. "Hold out your palm." Rene did as commanded and the doctor dropped two blue tablets into Rene's palm, 20 mgs of Valium. Rene recognized the pills and popped them in her mouth without being told and drank the glass of water. The doctor took the tumbler from Rene, sat it on the floor, and took Rene by the shoulders. For a brief instant Rene panicked thinking that more sex with the doctor was going to be demanded. Instead the doctor gently turned Rene so that her back was against the wall and then gently began rubbing Rene's face with the washcloth. Rene stood passively.

"Raise your arms for me Rene." Rene raised her arms and put her hands on top of her head. The doctor smiled as she ran the washcloth over Rene's armpits. Then the doctor squatted. "Spread a little bit for me baby." Rene complied. She closed her eyes and sucked in a deep breath as she felt the washcloth rub her thighs and ran the washcloth quickly between Rene's labia; it felt absolutely wonderful and Rene didn't even consider who was doing it. Finally the doctor stood, dropped the washcloth and began fluffing Rene's tangled, matted hair. 

"Do you know what I gave you to take, Rene?"

"Yeah. Valium."

"You've had a little too much speed over the last 18 hours; that's why you're feeling so bad."

"I know," Rene said in a quiet, flat voice.

"So, you're going to sleep for while; relax your mind and your body. I want you to call me when you wake up just to let me know you're okay. If you don't call, I'll come back over to check on you. Okay?"

"Sure Dr. Woods."

"What's with this Dr. Woods business all of a sudden?"

Rene lowered her head and looked at her feet, watching her toes curl and uncurl in the pile of the carpet, "I...I don't know. It just feels like...I, uh, you're angry with me. I've disappointed you; I'm not what you thought and maybe I need to act more, umm, respectful." 

The doctor took Rene by the chin and brought her face up. "Listen Rene, Mitchell was absolutely ecstatic about last night and I couldn't be happier. I'm not angry with you. I don't give drugs and orgasms to young, beautiful cunts like you who disappoint me. I don't clean them up and tell them to rest. I don't care about them enough to check on them. I do what I've done for you because you've done well. Now, let's get you tucked into bed."

Rene crawled in bed. "Do you want a top to sleep in dear?" Rene shook her head then turned over and lay on her side, facing the doctor. The doctor covered her with the sheet and a light blanket lying in a chair. She tucked Rene in. Rene watched the doctor as she finished dressing. 

Once the doctor finished dressing she sat in a chair near the nightstand and reached into her purse. She pulled out her checkbook, quickly wrote out a check, tore it out of the book and laid it on the nightstand. Rene stared at the check; it was lying on top of a thin pile of folded cash. Rene kept her eyes locked on the check and the cash as the doctor bent down and tenderly kissed Rene on the cheek. "Sleep tight, baby."

"I love you mommy," Rene mumbled, the Valium and her amphetamine induced exhaustion were overtaking her. The doctor smiled down at her, pleased that she had brought Rene along; she'd be useful in L.A. 

Before she left, the doctor fished a paper bag from her purse and set it on the nightstand next to the check. "A little goodie bag for when you wake up." Then she turned and left. When Rene heard the front door close she reached out from her sheet and blanket cocoon and picked up the check and pile of bills. 

The check was for $1000 with a notation: "A little extra for the great job and a great lay." There were also five, crisp $100 bills - and a note. "Here's a little something for a fantastic night. Look forward to seeing you in L.A. There are things we need to do :) - Mitchell" 

$1500 dollars; Rene's mind was stunned. She was a whore. Mitchell and the doctor had both paid to have sex with her but then her eyes started to close. The pieces of paper fell silently to the carpet; Rene was asleep, her arm still outstretched. 

~~~~~~~~~~

Rene awoke slowly sometime the next morning. She groaned as she swung her legs over the side of the bed and pulled the covers around her shoulders. My God, she thought, was I having a nightmare or what? But then she noticed the pieces of paper on the floor; the 100 dollar bills and the check on the floor came into focus. She stared at them as she reached for her cigarettes and lighter. As her hand grasped her pack of Reds it brushed the paper bag on the nightstand. 

The lighter flared to life, a deep drag, a slowly exhaled cloud of smoke and then Rene shrugged the covers off her shoulders and reached for the bag. She opened the bag and gasped; she poured the contents on the bed next to her. 

Her finger flicked the contents, slowly separating them. There was a rubber tourniquet, a couple of syringes with Demerol, a couple of morphine, a bottle of Dexedrine, a bottle of Seconal and four suppositories. She picked one up and squinted to read the labeling: hydromorphone - Dilaudid. Supposedly heroin addicts couldn't tell the difference between IV heroin and hydromorphone in either suppositories or via a needle. She held the small foil wrapped suppository and stared at it as she finished her cigarette. Then she placed it gently on the bed, as if it were fragile, reached for the bottle of dexies and headed for the bathroom. 

That Saturday evening she took her first taste of the Dilaudid - shoving the bullet shaped suppository as deep as she could push it into her cunt instead of her ass and then laying back in her bed with her vibrator. The orgasm was intense and due to her wetness the rush from the suppository was slow and just as intense. She spent the rest of the night nodding, tranquilly floating between wakefulness and a light sleep. There was no emotional pain; her mind was unfocused and cocooned. 

It was wonderful, she thought. No pain. 

~~~~~~~~~~

In the two weeks leading up to L.A., Doctor Woods kept close to Rene, as much to make sure she could function in her job as significantly drug impaired as she was as to make sure Rene was not having second thoughts about the weekend with her and Mitchell - or the coming trip and other women. The doctor also made sure there were a steady stream of men - doctors and the few male nurses on staff - near her, clearly available for sex; keeping her stimulated, her libido in overdrive.

Rene flirted admirably but only took advantage of the men twice; sucking off a doctor in a darkened procedure lab and getting high with a male nurse anesthetist who all but violently raped her in the alley behind Rene's townhouse. It was all consensual and Rene, at least while she was stoned, reveled in the taste of the doctor's cum and the slippery feel of the male nurse's cum as it ran down her thighs. 

In a final trial before L.A., the doctor sent a woman, the doctor's pharmaceutical rep and a lipstick lesbian Domme to Rene's office after everyone else had left the lab. Rene played the coy, reluctant innocent girl, nervously shooting herself up with Demerol as the woman gave her directions: how to take off her clothes, how to stand as the woman "inspected" Rene's body, working Rene's clit hard while another finger worked vigorously in Rene's ass. 

Like a well trained dog, Rene went down on the woman on command. The woman threw three hundred dollar bills on the naked and sweating Rene, lying on the floor naked and panting after Rene brought the woman off. When Rene had regained some of her breath she reached down and fingered herself to an orgasm. 

Rene slowly roused herself, collected the money, dressed and went home, her mind numb but her body resonating with intense pleasure at the encounter. She still did not enjoy sex with women but under the influence of the drugs she obeyed and her body responded. When she got home she went straight to her bedroom, stripped, lay on the bed, rolled her hips and legs up toward her chest and inserted a Dilaudid suppository into her ass. 

Her numbness and the rapidly developing emotional pain melted away as her body laid limply in her bed and she nodded. 

~~~~~~~~~~

L.A., from what she could remember, was pleasant. She had more sex in three nights than probably all of her college days. The doctor paid her well - and so did several of the men and women who used her body. 

But back home, things rapidly degenerated. Rene was fired from the hospital several weeks after L.A. 

Management didn't have to worry about too much in the way of cause, Rene was high on Demerol and Ecstasy when she was called into the Vice President's office; Rene could have cared less. 

For the next few weeks Rene kept the mental pain of what she dimly realized as her professional disgrace with Dilaudid and other drugs still generously supplied by Dr. Woods. She had enough money in savings to live off of for a couple of months. But as the savings began to dwindle, Rene started to worry, especially as she noticed increasingly frequent bouts of vomiting and her belly start to swell. She was pregnant and as she had not used any condoms and had been fucked by numerous men since before L.A., all bareback, she had no idea who the father was. Rene went to Dr. Woods for help. 

The "good" doctor had a "friend of a friend of a friend" in L.A. who was looking for art and fashion models. Pregnant women got top dollar because "there were so few pregnant models." This wasn't exactly the kind of help she had hoped for but under the circumstances...

The story was that Rene would be perfect to represent the fresh faced, girl next door from the Midwest who was a successful professional woman, now pregnant. She'd be on the cover of one of those working women's magazines. The payoff: $15,000. 

When Rene arrived in L.A. she was picked up at the airport and checked into nice hotel on Sunset. She was picked up at the hotel in a limo the next day and taken to an apartment building in the Korean section off Wilshire Boulevard. Everything was going great through Rene's drug hazed eyes and mind.

Rene, buzzed on speed, did a "standard photo shoot." After the first roll of film was shot the photographer and her "representative" stopped the shoot and talked to Rene. The photographer and representative were "nervous," they didn't want to impose or offend Rene but - in consideration of more money and a supply of heroin for 6 weeks Rene would pose nude for a different client whom had more raunchy "taste." Rene didn't hesitate to take the deal. 

After a little taste of the H, to take the edge of the speed and relax her for her nude shoot, another 40 or so pictures where shot, highlighting her swollen belly, large brown areolas and nipples, and swollen breasts.

"Okay, now, sweetheart, lean back on your arms and jut those beautiful breasts and that belly out and spread your legs nice and wide so we can see that nice swollen pussy of yours," the photographer coaxed. 

Rene paused in rearranging her pose. "I thought you said this was for a tasteful magazine. I didn't think they did beaver shots in tasteful magazines."

The photographer waved her hand nonchalantly and just as nonchalantly said, "Oh, Rene, you know how men are and how standards change. Really spread shots are okay, just not real close ups or shots where you're fingering yourself."

"Well, okay." Rene spread.

The crew took lunch. They made Rene feel right at home, especially after dropping Ecstasy and a roofie in her drink. When they came back to the studio there was half a dozen black men waiting; all of them were nude, sporting large erections and no condoms.

The stills and video of Rene with the black men appeared that though heavily stoned, Rene was participating eagerly.

Sweating, exhausted, her face, neck, breasts and belly covered with the men's cum she nodded off on the bed. That's when the German shepherd was brought in. 

Rene woke up the next day, disoriented and in a dingy motel room; not in the luxurious suite she had been installed in on her arrival to L.A. She had a terrible taste in her mouth, every muscle in her body felt like it ached and her jaw, cunt and ass all hurt. She had just finished throwing up, kneeling in front of the dirty toilet bowl when there was a knock on the door. It was the photographer's assistant.

The assistant presented the naked and disoriented Rene with a check for $4,000 and a balloon of heroin.

"Wait. I thought I was supposed to get $16,000," Rene said, completely oblivious to her nudity and general appearance. Her speech was slurred. 

The assistant, who'd done this many times before, said blithely, "Oh, this is just the first payment. The rest will come in another day or two. Since we changed the contract amount we had to make some accounting changes." And then the assistant was gone.

Actually, Dr. Woods collected a $6,000 "talent fee" for arranging for the fresh meat. There was never going to be any more money and if Rene pressed the matter she would be shown a spread sheet were the "$16,000" was divided between transportation, studio, and other expenses. 

A day or two later when Rene was alert enough to figure out something was wrong; she had to go to a pay phone on Sunset. She called the number on the photographer's contract. It was "no longer in service." Panicked, she called Dr. Woods. Dr. Woods' business manager curtly told Rene not to call or attempt contact with the doctor ever again or a restraining order would be sought and she may be arrested for stalking. 

Rene, in her moment of partial alertness, was devastated. The $4,000 Rene had in hand went quickly between searching for drugs and living in the flop house motel on Sunset. 

She started turning tricks along Sunset. 

Rene, at this point, did not have a long life expectancy. Her fresh, girl next door face was pock marked by acne. Her fit body was skin and bones except for her swollen belly. Of her belly and her vomiting she was only vaguely aware, in between fixes, that she was pregnant. The veins in her arms were ruined from shooting up. Very likely she had gonorrhea or syphilis or both and odds were excellent she was, or soon would be, HIV positive.

Too tired to go out on the streets to score, she lay in her dirty bed, a torn tee-shirt barely covering her; she was starting to shake from need. 

"Hey Rene, you stupid bitch!"

Rene sat up partially and agitatedly looked around the shabby motel room. "Who's there? Get the FUCK out of my room!"

The voice laughed; a cruel laugh. "So how does it feel?"

"Rob-Robby? Is that you?"

"Yeah big sister, it's me, your dearly departed brother. How does it feel to almost be dead, your looks shot, feeling desperate in this hell hole?"

Rene pushed her dirty hair from her eyes and squinted at a figure standing near her. She gasped, her eyes going wide in horror as she saw her dead brother standing beside her bed. She pulled the sheet up around her chin and her shaking increased. 

"Not so pleasant, eh?" Robby taunted.

Rene's voice broke and her eyes filled with tears, "Robby, I took care of you. I took god damned good care of you. I was holding your hand and wiping your face with a cool washcloth. It wasn't like this."

He smirked. "Well, may as well have been. I was so afraid and I was in so much pain."

"But...but, I did what I could for you; all I could do. Robby, why are you being this way?"

The apparition snorted in contempt. "You judged me for being such a promiscuous fag, for being a junkie and getting AIDS. You judged me and yet, in the last couple of months how many cocks have been up your ass and cunt? How many in your mouth, your cheeks hollow as you sucked like some fucking human vacuum cleaner? Hmmm? 




Desolation



"And, oh yeah, how many cunts have you eaten, Miss Hetero Bitch? Self-Righteous whore! How many women have you spread your legs for so they could fuck you or finger you or lick at your cunt? You even pissed on a woman who paid you $500 to do it while she frigged off. 

"And the dogs! Christ, you really fit the bill! Pot calling the kettle black, isn't it? The apparition was merciless and Rene felt as if she were shrinking from existence before its judgment. 

Rene's face contorted and momentarily she couldn't speak and then she sobbed out, "Robby, what dogs?" 

The apparition laughed, more cruelly as ever. "Oh you silly, stupid bitch, when you were so fucking wasted at that photo shoot, after the black studs got through gang banging you, they brought in a dog. You seemed to really enjoy it - of course you were so wasted I doubt you even knew your own name. 

"But let's see," the apparition ticked off on his fingers, "promiscuous with men, women and German Shepherds and stinking, filthy, about ready to die in the proverbial seedy motel. Yeah, I'd say you and I, big sis, are a lot a like.

"But Fuck! It doesn't fucking matter anyway, bitch. We'll be together again soon. Hell's everything those fucking evangelists say it is. Why don't you take a hit; go quicker and easier? There's a needle lying on the floor back against the wall."

Rene stared at the apparition a moment and then unsteadily scrambled to see if her brother was right. 

He was; it was a syringe that Rene had tucked away for emergencies and had forgotten about. She snatched it from the floor and frantically sat up in bed. 

She forgot her tormentor and quickly put the tourniquet on and started looking for a vein. 

~~~~~~~~~~

Suzy Clausen, the Operating Room Head Nurse from Rene's (former) hospital, was having what she came to call her "5 o'clock spa treatment." A new surgical tech she had hired was working hard on being the "boss's pet." She was just Suzy's type, and at this moment she was happily on her knees, driving Suzy wild with desire and pleasure. 

Suzy returned the favor for her tech. 

Afterward, the tech stretched cat-like on the sofa in Suzy's office, yawned and then sat up to look at her lover/boss as Suzy got dressed. "God, did you hear that on the news the other night?"

"Dee, a lot of stuff happens in this world, most of it bad and I try to ignore the news, such as they call it, whenever I can. What was on the news?" Suzy asked. Suzy was pulling up her panties and scrub pants.

"A former head nurse from here has gone missing and apparently, as the cops have dug into it, it's a real fucking mess. Lesbian sex, prostitution, drugs, the whole fucking nine yards. Did you know her? Her name was Rene something."

Suzy stopped tying the draw string on her pants and looked up. Her voice was quiet. "Rene Ballinger?"

"Yeah, that was it. Man, it sounds fucked. Real fucked, if you know what I'm sayin' boss."

Suzy came over to Dee and kissed her on the top of her head. "Do you know if Eleanor, the Cranston Pharma rep, is skulking around, babe?"

Dee laughed quietly. Suzy's whole demeanor had changed in a heartbeat. "Jeez, boss, what up? You need something a little extra I can't provide?" Dee reached out and playfully grabbed one of Suzy's lean inner thighs. 

Suzy pulled away from Dee's touch as if Dee were a stinging insect. "Do you know if Eleanor is in the theater? I saw her earlier." Suzy's voice was tight and quiet and Dee finally picked up that something wasn't right.

"Uh, I'll go look. Before we came in she was chatting up the new lady orthopod, Bigsby, I think her name is."

"Yes. Go look. Now. If you find her tell her I want to see her right away."

"Suze, uh, what..."

"Dee, just do it, okay babe? For me. And don't ask questions. Go."

"Okay. Sure boss." Quickly Dee got dressed and left Suzy's office. Ten minutes later, as Suzy paced back and forth in her office there was a knock at the door. 

"Come," Suzy commanded. 

Eleanor Nickles, the drug sales rep that was one of Dr. Anne Woods' "friends" opened the door. She was smiling. "I wish I'd hear that more often from you, Suzy."

Suzy sat on the corner of her desk. She didn't react to Eleanor's come on and her stony silence suddenly made Eleanor nervous. 

"You will address me as Ms. Clausen or Suzanne and you will not be improperly familiar with me in any way, is that clear?" 

Eleanor was now completely off balance. Her smile faded, "Uh, yes, uh, ma'am. I understand."

Suzy crossed her arms across her chest. Her expression was cold and threatening. "I am going to ask you one question. If you do not answer me or if I don't believe your answer, it will take me a couple of weeks but I can all but guarantee you will not be able to sell an aspirin in the hospital or to any of the doctors who have privileges here. Is that clear?"

The drug rep got some of her confidence back. "Well, that's clear. But you must know I have powerful friends on the staff and well, your power base is a little light to being making such threats. Are..."

Suzy cut her off. "I know who your base is; that's why you're here now. You, however, don't spend every other weekend with the Chief of Surgery and his wife. You don't go shopping for lingerie with the Chief of Staff when the mood strikes her and take care of her needs so I'd be fucking careful before you get into a pissing match with me, bitch."

Eleanor's face was completely white and she stared at Suzy knowing that Suzy did have her beat in terms of connections. "I'm sorry," Eleanor said in a neutral voice, "how can I be of service, uh, Ms. Clausen?"

"What do you know of Rene Ballinger?"

"Uh, nothing." 

"Huh-uh. You're Annie Woods' pet bitch. One last chance. What do you know about Rene?"

"If...if I uh, tell you and it gets back to Dr. Woods..." A sickening feeling came over the drug rep. She felt trapped and to an extent she was.

"I can deal with Anne Woods. You talk."

Eleanor raised her eyebrows. "That's a rather bold statement."

"Clausen is my ex-husband's name. My maiden name is O'Hanrahan and I know people whom, shall we say, make me feel safe if the need ever arises. Dr. Woods' health could suddenly fail her - partially or completely."

There was a long moment of silence between the two women and then the drug rep laughed. "Are you for real? Did you just threaten me?"

"No, I threatened one of your meal tickets but I could just as easily threaten you. Here, watch." Suzy picked up the phone and dialed a number and then put the call on the speaker. 

"Yeah."

"Sean? Sean McCreary?"

"Depends on who's asking?"

"Cut the crap, Sean, you know who's asking, you Irish thug."

"Yeah, Suzy, I just like to play tough."

Suzy looked at the drug rep. "Sean, I'm in a bit of a spot. I got this situation, if you understand, and I may need it permanently resolved tonight."

"Jesus, Mary and Joseph!" the caller exclaimed in a thick Irish brogue, concern filling his voice, "what's up?" 

"Can you resolve my situation for me tonight? It's just one person."

"Not a problem. Me and the lads need some, uh, exercise."

"Thanks, I'll give you a call later."

Again the drug rep laughed only this time there was nervousness in her laugh and it was restrained. "What was that?"

"A threat against you. Satisfied? Now, Rene."

The drug rep bit her lower lip and suddenly, from her stance, looked as if she needed a bathroom. "Woods had been whoring Rene out, getting her progressively hooked on junk."

"And?"

"And, uh, she had me work her over one night before Woods took her as her eye candy to whore out at some society meeting in L.A. That's all I know."

"Why you?"

"Uh...? Rene really doesn't like girls like us and Woods had a lot riding on this L.A. meeting. I guess she just wanted to make sure Rene would perform satisfactorily."

Suzy nodded. "And where is she now?"

"The last I heard, after she got fired, Woods sent her to some associates in L.A. and I haven't heard anything about her since."

Suzy's worst fears seemed to be validated. "Tell your mistress to watch her back and you should probably find a new territory relatively quickly. Now get the fuck out of my sight - oh, and I don't want to see you in the surgical theater again. Is that clear?"

The drug rep's eyes were wide in astonishment and indignation. She made an indignant, choking noise and then said a quiet, petulant, "Yes," before leaving.

The next morning Eleanor found all four of her tires slashed and sugar in the gas tank of her personal car, a Corvette. There was a note in the driver's seat that contained the alarm code to the burglar alarm in her condo and the address of her mother and father and sister. The note further said, in a casual malevolence, "Perhaps the weather isn't suitable here any longer for you." 

The note was signed, "Sean and the Lads." 

~~~~~~~~~~

At LAX the next day Suzy Clausen was getting her rental car. She barely paid any attention as she handed her driver's license and credit card to the rental clerk; she was thinking of Rene. 

Her ex-husband had been a private investigator and a skip tracer and she had helped him in the early years of their marriage. She'd learned the business well and now practiced it as a hobby of sorts. Not to mention her "family" ties with Irish mobsters in New York, Boston and Dublin. 

Through what she'd learned doing skip tracings and with Eleanor providing a city, Suzy finally had a possible line on Rene in L.A. 

Rene never knew it, she was too self-absorbed but Suzy knew and liked Rene professionally. Rene thought Suzy was an empty headed flake and a lipstick lesbian. Suzy had left her husband not for one woman but for two and she was far from empty headed. 

Suzy had a rough life as a teenager. By 19 she was turning tricks in back alleys in South Boston, drunk or drugged most of the time. But someone had taken the effort to pull her out the cesspool she had fallen into, willingly at first, and she got clean. Her peace and centeredness translated as her being a red haired ditz. No one at the hospital knew the "old" Suzy. She didn't want anyone to either but, even after getting clean, Suzy O'Hanrahan was no one to fuck with. 

Now Suzy Clausen, nee O'Hanrahan, was one of the most competent nurse managers that Taylor General had on staff; a Master's of Science in Nursing and an MBA with a Health care emphasis. And she was a deeply devout Christian woman despite the fact that she was raising three children (one born to her and the other two to women in her life) and was the "husband" to the two women she left her husband for. 

With Rene's disappearance and knowing the crowd she had fallen in with inside the hospital - especially Dr. Anne Woods - Suzy felt the spiritual pull that it was time to repay a debt. 

As she pulled her car out onto Sepulveda she only hoped she wasn't too late and headed for a seedy motel on Sunset.

~~~~~~~~~~

Rene was shaking violently as she pushed the plunger on the syringe. Her eyes went wide; there was only a minimal rush. Someone must have used some of her supply. She began to panic but soon she fell forward on the bed, hugging her pillow, the syringe falling from her hand. There was a rush and then some fleeting sense of tranquility. But it wasn't enough. 

"God damn, whore, I knew you wouldn't amount to a pile of shit, you filthy cunt." The disembodied voice yelled in fury at Rene.

In a trembling, high pitched voice Rene called out, "Daddy? Daddy? Please...please don't talk that way. Daddy, please help me. I'm so afraid. I don't know want to die. Please." 

"Yeah right; wasn't me splattering my brains all over your street good enough for you? Huh? Wasn't that the help you wanted you filthy whore?"

"No!" Rene shrieked at the new apparition. "No! I forgave you! I wanted to help you. Daddy, why? I needed you; I wanted your love, your real love. Couldn't we have worked it out?"

"Maybe in hell we can all have a nice family re- union: me, your stupid slut of a mother and your faggot, junky brother," the apparition said sullenly. 

"Just close your eyes and let go, cunt."

Rene hugged her pillow tightly and wept, "Mommy, mommy, where are you? Please mommy, it hurts! Please!"

~~~~~~~~~~

Suzy Clausen was getting impatient in traffic. She could sense Rene's life was leaving her; she thought she could feel a horrible sense of loneliness and devastation and she felt sick.

Suzy sped past a car and jumped a curb to get ahead of another. A motorcycle cop took notice and pursued. Suzy cursed loudly as she saw the motorcycle in her mirror. 

"Where's the fire, lady?"

"As a matter of fact officer," Suzy said as she handed the cop her license and registration, "I'm trying to save someone's life; I'm a registered nurse. Do you know a motel at this address?" she asked as she handed him a piece of paper with an address. 

"Yeah. Yeah, it's a flop house more or less for junkies and hookers."

"I have a friend there - maybe. I think she may be dying. She's been missing from the Midwest for several weeks. Please. Could you follow me and write me up there? And if she's not there, you can pile on some other charges. Okay?"

The cop regarded Suzy for several minutes, tapped his citation book on his gloved hand. Tentatively the officer asked, "Your old man a cop somewhere?"

"He was. NYPD Emergency Services. Took a medical from a bust gone bad."

"Huh," the cop sort of grunted. "What happened?"

"He was the pointman on an entry team when he tripped a trip wire at a crack house. Took a load of shrapnel from a Claymore. He's a P.I. now but, uh, we kind of..." she left the concept of divorce hang in the air.

She had satisfied the cop of her legitimacy. "Okay. You follow me. I'll keep your license for insurance. We'll be there in 5 minutes."

"Thank you, officer."

~~~~~~~~~~

Rene's life was ebbing away; she was nodding off but her heart and respiration rates were slowing. In a little girl's voice, as she would briefly wake up she would beg for her mother, "Mommy, please. I'm in a bad place. I'm so scared."

There was no apparition to comfort her though at least there was no apparition to torment her either. 

She nodded off again. 

She didn't hear the key in the door as she rolled to her back and took a slow, halting, shallow breath. As Suzy Clausen and the cop cleared the door Rene exhaled her last breath with a quiet, sobbing moan. 

Paramedics, that the cop called for en route, were able to revive her though Rene did not regain consciousness at the scene. Suzy followed the ambulance to City of Angels hospital and waited quietly in prayer in the E.R. waiting room for word of Rene's condition.

Meanwhile, just off Sunset on the fifth floor of a dirty building, Christy Harrod, of Moline, Illinois, sat on a carpeted stage. She was nude except for a thong; she giggled coquettishly as the "film company's doctor" gave her something in a shot "to sharpen her acting skills" and make her more relaxed for her first encounter with an "A list" Hollywood star. 

Christy vomited from her first ever hit of heroin. They cleaned her up and then Christy had just the "sleepy eyed" look the director wanted. Two assistants helped her to stand and totter to the bed. The girl could barely talk, slurring her words together in a jumble. But then, she wasn't there to talk.