JC: William Redman Carter Noble Savage Chapter 51 By Lazlo Zalezac Copyright (C) Lazlo Zalezac, 2005 It was nearly midnight when William and Colt entered the house. William tried to be quiet expecting everyone to be in bed, but Colt just walked in without worrying about the noise he made. At the irritated glance from William, he said, “I’m up all night and no one notices. If I tried sneaking around here all the time, I’d wake the whole house the first time I made a noise. Everyone is used to me walking around.” “Oh, I guess I didn’t think about that,” William said uneasy about the direction his life had suddenly taken. He watched Colt go into the security room to talk with Nicole to get an update about the evening’s activities around the house. Wishing he was alone, he looked over at Lucy lying on the couch reading a book. He was surprised, but not really surprised, to find that she was still awake. He wouldn’t have been able to sleep if she had been out of the house for the same reason as he had been out that evening. Overhearing the conversation between the two men, Lucy was watching William over the top of her book with a smile. When she was sure that she had his full attention, she asked, “Did you have a good time?” “I guess,” William answered. He shrugged his shoulders and said, “I feel guilty.” “Don’t feel guilty,” Lucy said with affection. She could tell by the way he was standing at the door that he felt miserable. Mother Kelly had warned her that William would react in that manner. John Carter had fought tooth and nail to avoid collecting a harem of interested women. He had been unsuccessful in his attempt, but it wasn’t his fault. She held out her arms and said, “Come here.” William flowed into her arms happy that she still welcomed him. His greatest fear had been that after pushing him into visiting Amanda that she would start pushing him away. With her arms wrapped around him, he sighed and said, “I love you so much.” “I love you,” Lucy said. She ran her hand across the back of his neck and pulled him down to her chest. He settled there in comfort. Others might have thought it strange for a wife to comfort her husband after he had gone off to make love to another woman, but Lucy understood how much he had not wanted to do that. After several minutes, William asked, “Aren’t you going to ask me if she was happy that I …?” “I don’t need to ask you that. She called after you left the house and told me that she was very satisfied,” Lucy said softly. Amanda had been crying tears of happiness when describing the session with William. She had used the word incredible to describe the experience. “I guess I’m glad,” he said. Of course, he had spent the entire evening making sure that Amanda enjoyed herself. The last thing that he wanted was for her to feel cheated. It had been her first time with a man and he wanted to make sure her memory of it would be special. Lucy smiled at the doubt in his voice. She said, “You concentrated on her and put me out of your mind when you were with her, didn’t you?” “I’m sorry, Lucy,” William said. That was his true source of guilt. He had made love to Amanda like a real lover, not like a sex surrogate. While he had been with her, he had felt real emotions for her and expressed them. “Do you know what I love about you?” Lucy asked without expecting an answer. She said, “I am your one true love. You love me with your entire heart and soul.” “So why are you so insistent that I make love to the women who work for us?” William asked. “Such love is rather heady stuff for any person, but you are the most intense and focused person that I’ve ever met. There is so much force behind your love that it is a little like being in the path of a hurricane.” “I’m not sure that I like being compared to a hurricane. Are you saying that my love is destructive?” William replied with a frown. “Not at all. All I’m saying is that there is enough left over for you to give your love to others.” “But you are the loser,” William said. “Loser? Me?” Lucy asked with a laugh at the suggestion. She kissed the top of his head and said, “I’m the luckiest woman in the world. You are my one true love. You complete me and make me whole. Even with all of the love you have within you, you can’t make me more than that.” “Oh,” William said. It amazed Lucy that while William could see and understand relationships for everyone else he almost totally blind when it came to himself. She was halfway convinced that the reason the Two-Sided One had given William visions of her was so that he would recognize that she was the one. Without that vision, William would have gone his whole life waiting to meet someone who he could love without ever recognizing anyone who could love him. She held him closer to her breast and said, “The thing is that I’m not the only one who loves you. To be true to yourself, you must return their love. To turn your back on others who need to be made complete and whole would be to deny something integral to yourself. It would cripple you.” Sighing, William moved so that he could look her in the eye. He said, “I love you so much. If you were to ever leave me, I think I would die. I never want to do anything that would risk losing you.” “The only thing that you could do that would risk losing my love would be to start limiting your ability to love,” Lucy said touched by his statement. “Your wish is my command,” William said giving into her position. Deep down, he knew that she was right. The moment he started turning his back on others, he would be turning his back on her. That would put their love at risk faster than anything. In the morning, William and Lucy sat at the dining room table surrounded by books and papers. William pointed to a section of one of the papers and said, “I think that this is incorrect, but my math isn’t good enough to prove it.” Picking up the paper, Lucy read the section of the paper with care. Her mind entered into the mental space of mathematics in which equations became living entities. It was one of the times for which she lived. After five minutes, she said, “It is correct, but it isn’t the only possible solution. There are three other solutions to it.” “What are they?” Lucy picked up a pencil and pad of paper. Her hand flew across the paper as if she were writing down a shopping list. She was humming to herself as she worked. William watched her work. Her eyes were alive and her lips were curled into a small smile of satisfaction. It was easy for him to understand the pleasure she was feeling since he felt the same thing when working on a good challenging problem. She finished writing and, while pushing the notepad to him, said, “Here they are.” Smiling, William enjoyed the pleased expression on her face. She looked up at his face and asked, “What?” “I love it when you’re working math,” he said, “You’re so sexy.” “Flattery will get you everywhere,” she replied shaking her head. If anyone else had told her that she looked sexy when solving a math problem, she would have laughed at them. She knew that William was serious. William picked up the pad and examined the other solutions. One of them leapt out of the page screaming to him that it was the solution he was seeking. Smiling, he said, “You might want to write up these solutions for publication.” “Really?” “Yes, really. It would make a nice Master’s thesis,” William said. “Why?” “Well, lots of people have been using that one solution while ignoring the other possibilities. I think they’ve settled on the wrong one because it was the only one they’ve identified,” William answered. He picked up several other papers on other topics and said, “These papers have that same basic equation to solve and all of them have the same solution. None of them address the other solutions.” Frowning, Lucy took the papers from William and started to read them. It took her nearly an hour to get through the half dozen papers. As if no time had passed, she said, “You’re right.” “Of course I am. I’m William Redman Carter,” he replied with a grin. She reached across the table and slapped his hand with a soft love tap. She said, “Being William Redman Carter negates the possibility that you are correct.” He laughed and said, “Thank you for solving my problem.” “My pleasure,” she said meaning it. It was a pleasure to have a good problem to solve handed her. She looked down at the pad of paper and asked, “So what should I put in the thesis?” “I suppose that you could describe the behaviors of the various solutions and point out where the different behaviors would affect the results presented in those papers that I handed you,” William said. “I could do that,” Lucy said thoughtfully. It would take her a month or two of effort to do what he suggested. “I know you could do that,” William said with a grin. “You’re terrible,” she accused. “Of course I am. I’m William Redman Carter,” he said. “You got that right,” she said with a smile. She said, “Now take me to bed and ravish this body of mine.” After the pair left, Lisa entered the room and looked at the mass of papers spread over the table. She knew better than to disturb their work. She just hoped that they would come out of their bedroom in time to clear the table for lunch. Ken joined her in the room and looked at the papers. Shaking his head, he said, “They were working together again.” “Can you believe that they spend hours discussing math like most people discuss politics?” “I don’t get it,” Ken admitted. “They are perfect for each other,” Lisa said. “Yes, they are.” The four bodyguards were gathered together at the office of the private investigator they used for their weekly security meeting. Rock frowned when Lucy and William entered the room. Irritated that they weren’t at home, he said, “We prefer to have these meetings without you.” Lucy glared at him and sat down at one of the empty chairs around the conference room. William stood behind her and rubbed her shoulders trying to ease her tension. She said, “Professor McDonald put another woman in the hospital. He hurt her the same night that we ran into him at the restaurant.” “We know,” Rock said after glancing around the table at the other bodyguards. That was one of the topics they were planning on covering in the meeting. They all knew that William would take matters into his own hands if they didn’t come up with some plan to stop the man. He was actually surprised that William had not stepped in already. “I want him stopped,” she said with iron in her voice. Professor McDonald had used a whip on a coed leaving cuts that had required stitches. When questioned about it, he had declared that it was all part of a sex game that she enjoyed. Although the event had happened a week ago, she had learned of the situation that morning. She knew that their confrontation with the professor had triggered the sadistic act. “We were going to discuss the matter,” Rock said. “No, you are going to fix the matter,” Lucy corrected. Chastised, Rock said, “We are going to fix the matter. Perhaps I should have said that we were going to discuss how to do that.” “That’s what I want to hear,” Lucy said with a grim smile. The girl who had been hospitalized was only nineteen years old and would bear the scars for the rest of her life. Her family had been so embarrassed by her actions in sleeping with a professor for an A that they had talked her out of pressing charges. Natalie looked over at Lucy recognizing what was motivating her. Nodding her head, she said, “Protect the weak from the strong.” “Exactly,” William said proud that Lucy felt such a high degree of anger at the outrage the professor was propagating. He had wanted to charge out and take care of the man, but Lucy had demanded to handle it. “We’ll leave you to your planning, now,” Lucy said while standing up. Jan was seated at the dining room table reading the local newspaper. Looking up at Lucy, she said, “The paper has another editorial about the homeless that live in the park.” “What does it say?” “It says that we need to chase them out of town,” Jan answered while shaking her head in sadness. The idea that the locals would chase her friends out of town hurt her feelings. She said, “We have to do something.” “I agree,” Lucy said. She looked over at William who was busy working the crossword puzzle. She asked, “What do you think we should do?” Without looking up from the paper, William answered, “Tell their stories. Fight the negative image with positive advertising.” It was a good suggestion. Lucy looked over at Jan and asked, “Can we do it?” “I know their stories, but I don’t know where you would even start something like that,” Jan said. “Me? You mean, you, don’t you?” “Me?” Jan asked terrified at the responsibility that Lucy was giving her. She said, “I don’t know where to start.” After going to her desk to get a pad of paper, Lucy sat down beside Jan and said, “Let’s work out a plan.” Uncertain, Jan nodded her head and said, “Okay.” “Who is the most famous of the homeless folks who’ve done well?” “Happy Harry,” Jan answered automatically. “Then let’s start with Happy Harry,” Lucy said. Their decision reminded William that Happy Harry was going to die soon. He looked over at Lucy with a sad expression. Nodding his head, he said, “That would be nice. Someone needs to tell his story at some point in time.” “I agree,” Lucy said. She looked over at him and asked, “After we have worked out a draft, could you look over it to add any details that we might not know?” “Of course,” William said. Turning to Jan, Lucy said, “The first chapter will be about Happy Harry.” “Good,” Jan said looking down at the pad of paper while Lucy scribbled his name on the first line. “Tell me about another one who has done something rather spectacular,” Lucy said. “I suppose you would have to include the Duke and Duchess of Dallas,” Jan said. Never having met the couple, Lucy was familiar with the stories told about them. She thought they would be good subjects. Writing them down on the page, she said, “Okay.” “How about we include Fat Fred?” Grinning, Lucy said, “Sure, he’s a good man and his story is a good one.” “I’m not so sure that it is a good one, but it is a common one,” Jan said with a frown. She added, “I don’t think it would be right to paint of a picture of the handful of us who have made it well as representative of all of us.” “I agree.” “How about we include Handlebar?” Jan suggested knowing that Lucy had loved the old man. “Yes, he would be good,” Lucy said. For the next hour, the pair discussed who would be good subjects for their positive advertising campaign. It was about that time that Jan realized that they were talking about writing a book. Looking up from the pad, Jan said, “This is a book.” “You’re right,” Lucy said with a smile. She had wondered how long it would take Jan to realize that. “I can’t write a book,” Jan said. “Sure you can,” Lucy said. She pointed to the first entry and said, “First you tell Harry’s story. Then you tell the next one. Before you know it, you’ve told all of their stories and the book is done.” “But…” “That’s all there is to it,” Lucy said. She glanced down the table at William. He was pretending to be very interested in his crossword puzzle, but she knew him well enough to know that he had finished it at least thirty minutes earlier. “I can’t write a book,” Jan said waving her hands in front of her body as if to ward off a very unpleasant idea. “Why not?” “People who write books know stuff that regular folk like me don’t know,” Jan said. “You know the stories of all the people on that list. It seems to me that you know a lot,” Lucy said. Smiling, William said, “Listen to her, Jan. She knows what she is talking about.” “But…” “I’ll make a deal with you. You write the stories about the first four people on your list and I’ll let an internationally recognized author read what you’ve done. She’ll tell you how to change it so that it reads well,” William said. “Who?” “Momma Linda,” William answered. Jan looked from Lucy to William and then back at Lucy again. The whole idea of writing a book terrified her. She was about to object, but Lucy said, “You are doing it for your friends. The stories will convince others to look twice at your friends and not chase them away from here.” Knowing that any objection that she would raise would fail, Jan said, “I’ll give it a try.” William, reading science fiction, was lying on the couch with Lucy’s head in his lap. She was reading one of her math books. He ran a hand up and down her arm taking pleasure in the feel of her skin beneath his fingers. Lowering the book, he said, “Forest Shadow is coming.” “Talks Truly told me that she finally convinced her to come here,” Lucy said. Forest Shadow was the young woman who was supposed to teach her the ways of Native Americans. William laughed and said, “I mean, she is about to pull up in the driveway.” “She should have called to let us know that she was coming,” Lucy said thinking about the inconvenience her unannounced arrival would cause Lisa. From across the room, Jan frowned at the idea of anyone being that rude to Lucy Diamonds. She said, “I’d send her packing until she learned some manners.” “She’ll never learn manners if we don’t teach them to her,” Lucy replied. She wondered what would happen the first time that Forest Shadow was rude to her when Jan was around. The next few days would be very interesting. Looking over at Rock, William said, “You might as well get the door. She’ll be here in a minute.” Shaking his head, Rock stood and walked across the room to the front door. He opened the door and watched the security guard at the front of the driveway deal with the person driving a small sedan. He pressed the button on the intercom and said, “Let her in. She’s expected.” William grinned at the suggestion she was expected and returned to reading his science fiction book. Lucy looked at her math book for a second and then closed it. With a sigh, she said, “I’m never going to get through this chapter on topology today. Maybe tomorrow I’ll slip out to the office and read it there.” “I’m sure that you won’t have to do that,” William said. He glanced over at the door just in time to catch the arrival of Forest Shadow. He grimaced at the old fashioned Native American garb she was wearing. Forest Shadow looked around the room. Her eyes settled on William for five seconds and then she looked over at Lucy. In a very irritated voice, she said, “The only reason you are somebody is because you married Talks with Animals. Don’t expect me to coddle you.” As Jan rose out of her chair, William said, “I see fireworks and it’s not even the Fourth of July.”