Did you ever wake up totally disoriented? I was pinned by gravity to the hull instead of my bunk and looking up at the opposite bunks rather than up to the bunk above. Was I still asleep and dreaming? Either gravity had shifted or my world tilted but if that were true we’d be taking on water. “What the hell?” I called out my husband’s name to clarify this puzzle.
He woke slowly as usual and looked around groggily.
Springing out of his bunk he tried the cabin door but couldn’t open it so he hopped to a top bunk and wrestled with a trapdoor opening to the deck above and the main cabin. Half of him disappeared into the cabin above and I climbed out of the bunk and threw on some clothes.
He looked down, “It’s O.K., looks like we’re grounded. The anchor must not have caught properly last night. That possibility hadn’t occurred to me. It explained everything.
Embarrassing as hell at the local pub tonight but it beats sinking I thought to myself. The Capt. was as unruffled as an old man who had been at sea half his life could be. He was old country German, heavily accented, who had come to the Pacific Northwest and captained municipal ferries and lumber barges in Puget Sound and Alaska most of his life. I spent hours on watch with him on our way up the inside passage to Alaska and listened to his tales of the early days on this waterway.
It had been quite an adventure coming through Queen Charlotte Sound, we took a log on the bow and it rolled the length of the Queen and ripped out one screw and damaged the other. All we had left to steer with was alternating engine power and the Capt. had managed an impressive docking in Juneau in that crippled condition. I got a few extra days off in Juneau while the Queen was being tended.
Big, celebratory, cocktail party in Juneau to applaud the owner’s intention to put the Good Friday Quake behind him and get on with his tourist Inn, restaurant, and Columbia Glacier Tour ship. Alaska would come back from the devastation of quake, tidal wave, and fire and the 95’ M.V. Gypsy Queen was a symbol of that determination.
As for me, I’ll never drink another martini again as long as I live. If gin were the only intoxicant in the world I’d be a teetotaler. The first day of the Gulf crossing was a head throbbing experience after that party. Alaskans could hold their liquor for sure. Of course, I was still very young so that I found it amusing to try to walk on ice after a bottle of brandy, or scotch, or whatever during my stay in Valdez. Growing up takes all kinds of avenues some of dubious value.
I’d forgiven Capt. for the Gulf Crossing. We had taken heavy seas on our bow for three days and the galley was a shambles. I hadn’t learned to handle a galley in motion yet and Capt. seemed to plot the direct route despite the seas but he made up for it by preparing supper for the two of us. Everyone else was in their bunk or leaning over the rail. Wonder of wonders I didn’t get seasick on the whole journey north from Seattle to Juneau and then across the gulf to Valdez. My first sea voyage. Must be because I cut my teeth on Howard Pease sea stories while growing up or I was riding the waters of the oyster pirate, Jack London.
How can I describe Alaska in those years? Before communication satellites, while she was still not dominated by the lower forty eight and the robber barons. Just a beautiful little town with wooden sidewalks and false front buildings set down in the most beautiful country in the world where air and water were still pure and fresh and there were no beer cans and McDonald’s wrappers littering the countryside. Good people who knew that when push comes to shove we all have to depend on each other but it takes a long time for push, to come to shove. We relied on strange bounces of radio signals to catch good music occasionally but there was always the Aurora Borealis our music of the spheres.
My husband took me hunting while we were in Alaska. I didn’t think a thing about it while we were planning the trip. We wanted to bag a couple of geese for Thanksgiving. It was fall and winter was coming on and the light was changing from summer’s crisp sunshine to the more lavender light of fall before the black of the long winter’s night was upon us. We walked into a beautiful area of the country with high wetlands offering resting stops for the geese. We waited in the silence and soon I saw a formation of geese circling the area and approaching the wetlands for food and rest.
They were majestic in their descent and funny as they landed on the water using their wings as brakes honking their raucous honks and breaking ranks. O.K., I actually caught one in my sites but I didn’t even try to splatter blood and intestines all over that lightly snow dusted flatland, instead I bonded with dinner and I’ve loved the glorious creatures ever since. It was a case of love at first sight and I’d simply never met a goose before.
I told my husband not to bring one of them home unless he wanted to clean it, cook it, and eat it by himself. As for me I bought the frozen variety turkey of unknown origin. No kin of mine. I could fish all day but I was not a hunter. I gardened and there were two full growing seasons in Alaska so I could trade produce for crab, salmon, halibut, and the occasional moose steak. Moose was better than beef and I could live without caribou.
No excuses from me about hunting I just happened to bond with the geese. Well, I did almost release the first salmon I ever caught. She was leaping, fighting and running on the surface of the sea and arching her rainbow colored beauty in the sunlight. A ballet in my mind to the sounds and colors of the sea. She was fighting for her life and with every brave dance move she made, I wanted her to win.
That didn’t keep me from skinning out something that was already dead. We came across a yearling bear that had been run over late that winter and I didn’t have a problem skinning it out and putting my hands in the intestines to keep them warm and pliable. I have to admit to having second thoughts about walking around the woods for very long smelling like mama bear’s dead baby. We took the meat to the mission for the Copper River Indians to feed their dogs.
I suppose I could have killed our maverick bear. She came down out of the wilderness into our community instead of going into hibernation. She must have been sick because she should have been plump and ready for a winter of living off of her fat; instead, she was thin and in town eating garbage. She finally ended up killing a dog and the community became alarmed that a child could be next so we hunted her down and shot her. I felt like Wyatt Earp with that 44 strapped around my hips but it was a community responsibility and I would have shot. I was good at blowing targets up and she was a target at this point.
My first big quake in Alaska felt and sounded like a train rushing by inches from my face. After the big one, right before we arrived, the drinkers repented and the teetotalers started drinking. It turned things upside down. One whole family of eight was killed by the tidal wave. After the quake knocked everything down the tidal wave came and pulled the town back into the sea and then the refinery oil fire defaced what was left standing in a burning inferno. The people suffered greatly from death, destruction and horror.
Alaska was bursting with life and when spring came you could almost watch the garden grow during those long days of light. From morning until the same night a zucchini would pop into being for dinner. A fertile, vital place abounding with life yet supporting an inner peace and quiet. No gun culture here just lots of guns. The last killing in Valdez had occurred when it was still a gold field and the next, while I was in Valdez, was the suicide of a terminally ill, elderly woman. More guns per capita and less violence than the big cities in the lower forty eight. Maybe we should take a look at the psychological effects of over-crowding. Didn’t God have to disperse us on more than one occasion?
Even my Siamese had an adventure as a ship’s cat in Alaska. Somehow she stumbled overboard while we were anchored in icy waters near Columbia glacier. Bumps and thuds on the hull alerted us right away and my husband rescued the freezing, terrified cat from the ice littered water. Her claws grew about an inch into my husband as he brought her to me and I loosened her claws, dried the baby off and kept her warm on the oven door for hours. The guys could wait for supper. She didn’t even so much as sneeze as a result of her icy bath and gave birth to a healthy litter about a month later. Missy flew back to California with me when my husband was killed in an accident on black ice. We buried him in his beloved, Alaska. I often wondered how my life would have differed if I had stayed up there on my own, because by then, Alaska had a place in my soul too.
(c) September 2013 Karen MacEanruig
Monday, September 30, 2013
HOME FOR CHRISTMAS
Evan stopped for coffee and a snack before the final run over the pass. He parked his Kenworth among the other tractor trailers and crunched through the gravel of the huge parking area breathing in the fresh, cold air to wake himself for the final run home to Cindy and the kids.
Walking into the café he asked, “Anyone just come down off the hill?” he asked.
Three truckers advised, “Careful, man, it’s slippery up there with a light dusting of snow,” and they began recounting their crossing from the coast.
“Need chains yet?” he asked ordering coffee from the crispy, uniformed, waitress. She was dressed in the yellow trimmed with brown logo of this particular chain diner.
He moved back to the three truckers with his pie and coffee, sitting in the creamy, yellow plastic booth next to them. He nodded and turned his head toward the fill up, “They have anything for sale here, I want to try to get home tonight,” he said.
The man with a beard nodded, no, “Not since the chain took over,” he complained.
The young one who was smoking said, “They don’t even like you to park for more than an hour or so, no place to sleep until the other side.”
The big ruddy looking man commented, “Ya think they’d accommodate the truckers, we’re their bread and butter.”
“You wouldn’t have anything would you?” he asked them.
“They shook their heads and the ruddy one said, “Used them up crossing the pass.”
Someone put money in the juke box and an old Patsy Cline increased the noise level. Evan sat back and ate his apple pie and had a refill of coffee. Hell, I’ll chance it, he thought, I can stay awake. The men’s john was connected to the station and smelled like urine and vomit but Evan threw cold water on his face and climbed back into his rig.
He cracked the window and chewed some dentyne to keep himself awake. He loved the vacuum rush when he closed the cab and the sound of creaking leather as he positioned himself behind the wheel. She’d still look new in twenty years he vowed.
He hit snow about two miles up the road and was happy that his new Kenworth held the road so well without trailers. He should be home in three hours. Glad he knew the road he relaxed and thought about how well everything was going. He and Cindy had big time equity in the home they held on to despite the tempting market a few years ago. Cindy had wanted one of those big new places with the high entry hall and split levels but he stood firm and now with so many losing their homes she saw the wisdom of his decision.
They had saved their money instead and invested in the Kenworth. The kids loved riding in it and even Cindy had taken a spin around the neighborhood the first week they owned it. Evan treated the tractor like a thoroughbred champion. He never knew his mother but his paw owned a junk yard where Evan grew up and by the time he was a teenager he could put most anything mechanical together. At school he had been that ‘junkyard kid’ and Nell was their junkyard dog and Paw was his junkyard dad. Owning something new was so sweet.
He loved his kids and was proud of how they were doing in school. Anytime he went to the school with them he wore a nice suit, no junk yard names for his kids. And Cindy was beautiful, an army brat and all she wanted was a place to call home for the rest of her life and Evan. She was a sexy little thing and it always scared him when she was pregnant so after number four they had gone and had his tubes tied. Four was plenty. Their house wasn’t fancy but they had a nice yard with a kitchen garden and a great patio for neighborhood barbecues. He’d built a guestroom in the back for his in-laws on holidays and other occasional guests. He was a happy man.
Evan woke in the cab of his tractor trailer bouncing down the side of a rocky ravine and was unconscious again before the tractor came to rest on a rocky creek bed. After the crash all was quiet except for the occasional pop and snap of metal as the wreck settled in to its new distorted shape.
An hour later there was a flashlight shining over the side of the freeway where the guard rail had been crushed by heavy metal smashing through it. The officer, shivering in the increasing snowfall called in the accident on his radio, “We’re losing visibility rapidly here as the snow fall increases,” he warned.
The paramedics and tow truck arrived but soon they couldn’t even see from one side of the road to the other and the officer kept adding flares to the road to slow traffic. They were about to give up until morning when a shattering noise broke the peace of the quietly falling snow. From below came the blast of a diesel horn signaling that someone was alive in the wreck below.
After several bungled attempts to reach the man they finally had to call in a volunteer search and rescue team to try and reach the trucker. They started down to the truck the next morning at first light with slippery dripping snow all around slowing the rescue. The path of the rig was clear even through the new snow so that they didn’t anticipate trouble finding it. Another team was following the creek bed in from below and they still heard the horn occasionally though less and less often as time wore on.
Earlier when he was stronger Evan had tried to find his mobile phone in the cab to call Cindy and tell her where his newest insurance policy was but he gave up in the dark.
They hadn’t heard the horn for hours now and they held their breath as they approached the wreckage.
“Don’t know how anyone could survive this,” the team leader said.
They used a torch to cut into the truck buried on its side in the snow.
“Driver, this is a rescue team, are you alright in there?”
They heard a muffled sound and hurried to cut the metal and pull the man from the wreck to administer first aid. Within half an hour they had him out of the wreck and getting an IV and oxygen along with treatment for hypothermia. They would carry him along the creek bed to a place where a chopper could land and air taxi him to the nearest hospital.
The medic looked up, “Touch and go,” he said, “Don’t know if he’ll last to the hospital.”
The man moaned, “Cindy...my kids,” and then fell back and just moaned semi-conscious and in pain.
They called the highway patrolman on the road above and relayed the truckers I.D. info to the highway patrol and said the trucker mentioned a Cindy and his kids. The officer followed protocol and determined the nearest hospital and an officer was dispatched to the address on the driver’s license.
Cindy was trying to be a good hostess to her parents but she was frantic with worry. Evan always called if he was going to be very late and the kids all kept asking where daddy was more often than they asked when Santa would get there. When the patrolman arrived it was almost a relief to have the reality there to deal with.
“Can you come with us Mrs. Claymore?” the patrolman asked.
Her mom was at the door with her, “Go honey, we’ll watch the kids,” she urged.
Cindy grabbed a few things and went with the officers. They warned her that things didn’t look good and she walked into the hospital, small and all alone. Needing Evan’s arm around her and his steady, warm, patience, she stopped at the chapel and prayed and then took the elevator to his room in the I.C.U.
She sat with him for two days and the second afternoon she dozed off and woke when he squeezed her hand.
She started crying and kissing him but he said, “The rigs gone, Cindy, what will we do?” he asked.
She was furious, “Who gives a crap, Evan, as long as we’re together with the kids?” She was so mad she would have hit him if he weren’t so hurt and defenseless.
He smiled to himself, they’d make it. Somehow they would make it. He pulled her close and tried not to flinch when it hurt badly. He had some healing to do.
“Tell me about the kids,” he said. Then he said, “I love you, Cindy.”
She melted and told him how worried she’d been and how the kids kept asking for him and Evan drifted off listening to her talk about their family.
(C) September 2013 Karen MacEanruig
Walking into the café he asked, “Anyone just come down off the hill?” he asked.
Three truckers advised, “Careful, man, it’s slippery up there with a light dusting of snow,” and they began recounting their crossing from the coast.
“Need chains yet?” he asked ordering coffee from the crispy, uniformed, waitress. She was dressed in the yellow trimmed with brown logo of this particular chain diner.
He moved back to the three truckers with his pie and coffee, sitting in the creamy, yellow plastic booth next to them. He nodded and turned his head toward the fill up, “They have anything for sale here, I want to try to get home tonight,” he said.
The man with a beard nodded, no, “Not since the chain took over,” he complained.
The young one who was smoking said, “They don’t even like you to park for more than an hour or so, no place to sleep until the other side.”
The big ruddy looking man commented, “Ya think they’d accommodate the truckers, we’re their bread and butter.”
“You wouldn’t have anything would you?” he asked them.
“They shook their heads and the ruddy one said, “Used them up crossing the pass.”
Someone put money in the juke box and an old Patsy Cline increased the noise level. Evan sat back and ate his apple pie and had a refill of coffee. Hell, I’ll chance it, he thought, I can stay awake. The men’s john was connected to the station and smelled like urine and vomit but Evan threw cold water on his face and climbed back into his rig.
He cracked the window and chewed some dentyne to keep himself awake. He loved the vacuum rush when he closed the cab and the sound of creaking leather as he positioned himself behind the wheel. She’d still look new in twenty years he vowed.
He hit snow about two miles up the road and was happy that his new Kenworth held the road so well without trailers. He should be home in three hours. Glad he knew the road he relaxed and thought about how well everything was going. He and Cindy had big time equity in the home they held on to despite the tempting market a few years ago. Cindy had wanted one of those big new places with the high entry hall and split levels but he stood firm and now with so many losing their homes she saw the wisdom of his decision.
They had saved their money instead and invested in the Kenworth. The kids loved riding in it and even Cindy had taken a spin around the neighborhood the first week they owned it. Evan treated the tractor like a thoroughbred champion. He never knew his mother but his paw owned a junk yard where Evan grew up and by the time he was a teenager he could put most anything mechanical together. At school he had been that ‘junkyard kid’ and Nell was their junkyard dog and Paw was his junkyard dad. Owning something new was so sweet.
He loved his kids and was proud of how they were doing in school. Anytime he went to the school with them he wore a nice suit, no junk yard names for his kids. And Cindy was beautiful, an army brat and all she wanted was a place to call home for the rest of her life and Evan. She was a sexy little thing and it always scared him when she was pregnant so after number four they had gone and had his tubes tied. Four was plenty. Their house wasn’t fancy but they had a nice yard with a kitchen garden and a great patio for neighborhood barbecues. He’d built a guestroom in the back for his in-laws on holidays and other occasional guests. He was a happy man.
Evan woke in the cab of his tractor trailer bouncing down the side of a rocky ravine and was unconscious again before the tractor came to rest on a rocky creek bed. After the crash all was quiet except for the occasional pop and snap of metal as the wreck settled in to its new distorted shape.
An hour later there was a flashlight shining over the side of the freeway where the guard rail had been crushed by heavy metal smashing through it. The officer, shivering in the increasing snowfall called in the accident on his radio, “We’re losing visibility rapidly here as the snow fall increases,” he warned.
The paramedics and tow truck arrived but soon they couldn’t even see from one side of the road to the other and the officer kept adding flares to the road to slow traffic. They were about to give up until morning when a shattering noise broke the peace of the quietly falling snow. From below came the blast of a diesel horn signaling that someone was alive in the wreck below.
After several bungled attempts to reach the man they finally had to call in a volunteer search and rescue team to try and reach the trucker. They started down to the truck the next morning at first light with slippery dripping snow all around slowing the rescue. The path of the rig was clear even through the new snow so that they didn’t anticipate trouble finding it. Another team was following the creek bed in from below and they still heard the horn occasionally though less and less often as time wore on.
Earlier when he was stronger Evan had tried to find his mobile phone in the cab to call Cindy and tell her where his newest insurance policy was but he gave up in the dark.
They hadn’t heard the horn for hours now and they held their breath as they approached the wreckage.
“Don’t know how anyone could survive this,” the team leader said.
They used a torch to cut into the truck buried on its side in the snow.
“Driver, this is a rescue team, are you alright in there?”
They heard a muffled sound and hurried to cut the metal and pull the man from the wreck to administer first aid. Within half an hour they had him out of the wreck and getting an IV and oxygen along with treatment for hypothermia. They would carry him along the creek bed to a place where a chopper could land and air taxi him to the nearest hospital.
The medic looked up, “Touch and go,” he said, “Don’t know if he’ll last to the hospital.”
The man moaned, “Cindy...my kids,” and then fell back and just moaned semi-conscious and in pain.
They called the highway patrolman on the road above and relayed the truckers I.D. info to the highway patrol and said the trucker mentioned a Cindy and his kids. The officer followed protocol and determined the nearest hospital and an officer was dispatched to the address on the driver’s license.
Cindy was trying to be a good hostess to her parents but she was frantic with worry. Evan always called if he was going to be very late and the kids all kept asking where daddy was more often than they asked when Santa would get there. When the patrolman arrived it was almost a relief to have the reality there to deal with.
“Can you come with us Mrs. Claymore?” the patrolman asked.
Her mom was at the door with her, “Go honey, we’ll watch the kids,” she urged.
Cindy grabbed a few things and went with the officers. They warned her that things didn’t look good and she walked into the hospital, small and all alone. Needing Evan’s arm around her and his steady, warm, patience, she stopped at the chapel and prayed and then took the elevator to his room in the I.C.U.
She sat with him for two days and the second afternoon she dozed off and woke when he squeezed her hand.
She started crying and kissing him but he said, “The rigs gone, Cindy, what will we do?” he asked.
She was furious, “Who gives a crap, Evan, as long as we’re together with the kids?” She was so mad she would have hit him if he weren’t so hurt and defenseless.
He smiled to himself, they’d make it. Somehow they would make it. He pulled her close and tried not to flinch when it hurt badly. He had some healing to do.
“Tell me about the kids,” he said. Then he said, “I love you, Cindy.”
She melted and told him how worried she’d been and how the kids kept asking for him and Evan drifted off listening to her talk about their family.
(C) September 2013 Karen MacEanruig
CELEBRITY
Justin Wakefield stood relaxed before the press pool the morning after his arrest for drunk driving and possession with all of the polish and aplomb of a Kennedy holding a press conference. Neatly shaven and dressed in a conservative suit he didn’t give the appearance of having a morning after hangover. He grinned cheerfully at a reported who commented on his appearance, “My activities last night were highly exaggerated, as usual,” he grinned at them winningly and pointed to the next reporter. There was some ‘good old boy snickering’ which he encouraged with a shrug and an arms open gesture of innocence.
“Justin, why did you refuse the Breathalyzer if you weren’t drunk?” the city reporter asked.
“I asked to be taken to the nearest emergency room for a blood draw,” he said casually, “But they wouldn’t agree.”
The crowd burst into questions again and Justin smiled pointing to a reporter he knew.
“Why, a blood draw?”
“I wanted the assurance that the needle was clean and the test was objective,” he said, “Sometimes that’s hard if you’re well known.”
Justin’s agent interrupted and thanked the press and coaxed his client off of the platform before he got on ‘poor me’ kick and ruined the effect of the press conference.
“That’s enough, Justin,” the agent said and waved off the press.
His client was neatly dressed this morning, nothing like the mug shot last night where he wore a loose, silly grin on his face and was saluting the camera with an unbecoming gesture. Steinham was beginning to wonder if the money was worth the trouble this client caused. His last arrest had been for domestic abuse but his girlfriend hadn’t pressed charges and had since disappear back to her little town in Texas with a settlement. In college there had been a rape accusation that the university officials handled quickly and quietly so that he wouldn’t miss the Bowl Game.
When they reached Steinham’s car Justin immediately lit a joint behind the tinted windows.
“Justin, have you ever thought about rehab for the alcohol and drugs?” Steinham asked.
“Are you kidding?” he asked. “That’s why I pay you the big bucks,” he added smiling winningly at Steinham.
“Try to clean it up some for your own good,” Steinham said.
“Hey, Steinham, everybody wants to party with Justin even the cops.”
They reached Justin’s penthouse and Steinham waved to him as he entered the building. Unrepentant, Steinham thought. Justin was right, he paid big bucks for the privilege of being football’s ‘bad boy’ quarterback. He was treated a class apart in high school, college, and now in the pros and like many players he’d never learned self-discipline. The money, the women, and the admiration all reinforced his denial. Society creates its own monsters, Steinham thought and yet, the fans had no idea what Justin was really like. He was about as attractive as a petulant, spoiled two year old brat having a temper tantrum in a twenty three year old body.
Justin went to his penthouse and called one of his girls for a night in to keep the press off his case. Dhelia arrived an hour later knocked and posed at the door looking like a model right off of the runway. .
“Hey, baby, you look great, come on in,” Justin said.
“Justin, baby,” she said and snuggled up to him, unbuttoning the top button of his tailored shirt.
He turned from her and led her by the hand into the living area which had a panoramic view of the city where the lights were beginning to come on as dusk rolled over the city.
“Let’s have a few drinks and relax, baby,” he demanded, and went to the bar and mixed two whiskey and sodas, not asking what she would like.
“I saw you on TV this morning,” she said, “You looked very handsome and sincere,” she told him.
“I’m just always in a good mood so they think I’m drunk,” he said shrugging his shoulders. Justin honestly didn’t understand how he always ended up in these scrapes but figured that it was because he was so talented and popular. Sure I like to party, doesn’t everyone? Some people are just butt jealous, he thought.
Justin’s doting parents bought him out of a couple of pregnancy scares in high school but he’d been more careful in college and that had saved him from the rape charge - no sperm, no DNA. What remained was a he said, she said case and they were both at the party drinking so he came away with a dismissal. Stupid bitch, he thought. Why would he settle for one when he could have so many and that brought a happy smile to his handsome, craggy, face?
She was babbling on about something and he finally started listening, “The D.A. said you will be charged and tried, just like anyone else,” Dhelia said.
“What did you say, baby? What D.A.?” he asked.
“This afternoon the D.A. held a press conference and said you wouldn’t get away with it just because you’re famous.”
He slapped her hard across the face, “What do you know, Bitch?” He saw the fear crossed her face and it made him hard.
He reached out and took her in his arms, “I’m sorry, baby,” he shook his head as if to clear it, “What am I thinking, the D.A. said it, you didn’t. I was napping all afternoon.”
He grew more roused as he felt her tremble and he shoved her down on her knees and unzipped his pants. Finally, she took him and as he enjoyed watching her eye blacken and her cheek swell his seed spilled into her giving him the greatest pleasure since he raped that girl at the college party.
He handed her money and told her he’d call and then smoked a joint to relive the experience. He wondered if those things he’d heard about online were true. Women who liked being hurt, and wanted a master to obey? He felt himself growing hard again. Too bad he let the bitch go.
He mixed another drink and went to his den and turned on the computer. What to look up, he asked himself. Adult love, he decided and typed it into a search engine. He scanned the profiles but he was looking for something a little more hard core so he typed in sex slave and found meeting sites and web sites waiting to be exploited. Women who wanted to be used and abused.
Soon he had several conversations with women and found out that there were open camera sites on line to talk to women like that. He brought his bottle of whisky into the den and tried to think of something to cover his face. For now he would wrap a one bandana around his head gang style and put the second one on his lower face like a bandit.
Justin woke up naked with his head on the desk and the whiskey bottle empty at his side. His head was throbbing and he was hungry. He didn’t have household staff because he wanted his privacy so he called a deli that delivered and left his American Express number. He stumbled to the bathroom and took two aspirin and an alka seltzer admiring himself in the mirror. The pain begun to ease and he had coffee going by the time the delivery boy arrived. He figured that last night was just a lark, if he wanted sex he’d have it with a real woman, face to face. But by evening he was back at the computer with his bottle, joints, and pills. This time he was going to write down the web addresses of the sites he found. Many women indicated that they wanted to arrange meetings as soon as they knew him a little better.
That night he met a slight, docile, young woman who wasn’t really beautiful but he loved the way she addressed him. She was shy and said that she was just out of a relationship with a very strict, but good master.
“Sir, I am very obedient,” she told him.
He told her, “Get on your knees, bitch.” And she immediately sank to her knees and looked up at him imploringly.
“Now crawl to me and suck my toes.” He watched her on the screen and she kneeled and obeyed every command.
He broached the possibility of meeting and she seemed eager. She brought out a spiked collar and placed it around her neck and reached out to hand him the leash. She was breathing hard and she went back to the drawer with the collar and brought out a small whip. She began to flay herself and he knew he had to meet her. He smiled to himself. Justin has a slave he decided.
They talked two more times on line and then on the phone and finally agreed to meet in a little bar downtown not too far from his penthouse. Justin knew they would end up in his penthouse for the weekend and she would be his. She would fear and obey him and accept whatever he dished out.
Steinham knocked on the penthouse door. He had been calling Justin for days and this coming Monday morning he was due in training camp but the team hadn’t heard from him either. Steinham knocked again and then went down and got the manager. The apartment was torn apart and they found the body of a woman in the living room and Justin in the bed, barely breathing from an overdose. Steinham was almost sorry they got him to the hospital in time.
“Justin, why did you refuse the Breathalyzer if you weren’t drunk?” the city reporter asked.
“I asked to be taken to the nearest emergency room for a blood draw,” he said casually, “But they wouldn’t agree.”
The crowd burst into questions again and Justin smiled pointing to a reporter he knew.
“Why, a blood draw?”
“I wanted the assurance that the needle was clean and the test was objective,” he said, “Sometimes that’s hard if you’re well known.”
Justin’s agent interrupted and thanked the press and coaxed his client off of the platform before he got on ‘poor me’ kick and ruined the effect of the press conference.
“That’s enough, Justin,” the agent said and waved off the press.
His client was neatly dressed this morning, nothing like the mug shot last night where he wore a loose, silly grin on his face and was saluting the camera with an unbecoming gesture. Steinham was beginning to wonder if the money was worth the trouble this client caused. His last arrest had been for domestic abuse but his girlfriend hadn’t pressed charges and had since disappear back to her little town in Texas with a settlement. In college there had been a rape accusation that the university officials handled quickly and quietly so that he wouldn’t miss the Bowl Game.
When they reached Steinham’s car Justin immediately lit a joint behind the tinted windows.
“Justin, have you ever thought about rehab for the alcohol and drugs?” Steinham asked.
“Are you kidding?” he asked. “That’s why I pay you the big bucks,” he added smiling winningly at Steinham.
“Try to clean it up some for your own good,” Steinham said.
“Hey, Steinham, everybody wants to party with Justin even the cops.”
They reached Justin’s penthouse and Steinham waved to him as he entered the building. Unrepentant, Steinham thought. Justin was right, he paid big bucks for the privilege of being football’s ‘bad boy’ quarterback. He was treated a class apart in high school, college, and now in the pros and like many players he’d never learned self-discipline. The money, the women, and the admiration all reinforced his denial. Society creates its own monsters, Steinham thought and yet, the fans had no idea what Justin was really like. He was about as attractive as a petulant, spoiled two year old brat having a temper tantrum in a twenty three year old body.
Justin went to his penthouse and called one of his girls for a night in to keep the press off his case. Dhelia arrived an hour later knocked and posed at the door looking like a model right off of the runway. .
“Hey, baby, you look great, come on in,” Justin said.
“Justin, baby,” she said and snuggled up to him, unbuttoning the top button of his tailored shirt.
He turned from her and led her by the hand into the living area which had a panoramic view of the city where the lights were beginning to come on as dusk rolled over the city.
“Let’s have a few drinks and relax, baby,” he demanded, and went to the bar and mixed two whiskey and sodas, not asking what she would like.
“I saw you on TV this morning,” she said, “You looked very handsome and sincere,” she told him.
“I’m just always in a good mood so they think I’m drunk,” he said shrugging his shoulders. Justin honestly didn’t understand how he always ended up in these scrapes but figured that it was because he was so talented and popular. Sure I like to party, doesn’t everyone? Some people are just butt jealous, he thought.
Justin’s doting parents bought him out of a couple of pregnancy scares in high school but he’d been more careful in college and that had saved him from the rape charge - no sperm, no DNA. What remained was a he said, she said case and they were both at the party drinking so he came away with a dismissal. Stupid bitch, he thought. Why would he settle for one when he could have so many and that brought a happy smile to his handsome, craggy, face?
She was babbling on about something and he finally started listening, “The D.A. said you will be charged and tried, just like anyone else,” Dhelia said.
“What did you say, baby? What D.A.?” he asked.
“This afternoon the D.A. held a press conference and said you wouldn’t get away with it just because you’re famous.”
He slapped her hard across the face, “What do you know, Bitch?” He saw the fear crossed her face and it made him hard.
He reached out and took her in his arms, “I’m sorry, baby,” he shook his head as if to clear it, “What am I thinking, the D.A. said it, you didn’t. I was napping all afternoon.”
He grew more roused as he felt her tremble and he shoved her down on her knees and unzipped his pants. Finally, she took him and as he enjoyed watching her eye blacken and her cheek swell his seed spilled into her giving him the greatest pleasure since he raped that girl at the college party.
He handed her money and told her he’d call and then smoked a joint to relive the experience. He wondered if those things he’d heard about online were true. Women who liked being hurt, and wanted a master to obey? He felt himself growing hard again. Too bad he let the bitch go.
He mixed another drink and went to his den and turned on the computer. What to look up, he asked himself. Adult love, he decided and typed it into a search engine. He scanned the profiles but he was looking for something a little more hard core so he typed in sex slave and found meeting sites and web sites waiting to be exploited. Women who wanted to be used and abused.
Soon he had several conversations with women and found out that there were open camera sites on line to talk to women like that. He brought his bottle of whisky into the den and tried to think of something to cover his face. For now he would wrap a one bandana around his head gang style and put the second one on his lower face like a bandit.
Justin woke up naked with his head on the desk and the whiskey bottle empty at his side. His head was throbbing and he was hungry. He didn’t have household staff because he wanted his privacy so he called a deli that delivered and left his American Express number. He stumbled to the bathroom and took two aspirin and an alka seltzer admiring himself in the mirror. The pain begun to ease and he had coffee going by the time the delivery boy arrived. He figured that last night was just a lark, if he wanted sex he’d have it with a real woman, face to face. But by evening he was back at the computer with his bottle, joints, and pills. This time he was going to write down the web addresses of the sites he found. Many women indicated that they wanted to arrange meetings as soon as they knew him a little better.
That night he met a slight, docile, young woman who wasn’t really beautiful but he loved the way she addressed him. She was shy and said that she was just out of a relationship with a very strict, but good master.
“Sir, I am very obedient,” she told him.
He told her, “Get on your knees, bitch.” And she immediately sank to her knees and looked up at him imploringly.
“Now crawl to me and suck my toes.” He watched her on the screen and she kneeled and obeyed every command.
He broached the possibility of meeting and she seemed eager. She brought out a spiked collar and placed it around her neck and reached out to hand him the leash. She was breathing hard and she went back to the drawer with the collar and brought out a small whip. She began to flay herself and he knew he had to meet her. He smiled to himself. Justin has a slave he decided.
They talked two more times on line and then on the phone and finally agreed to meet in a little bar downtown not too far from his penthouse. Justin knew they would end up in his penthouse for the weekend and she would be his. She would fear and obey him and accept whatever he dished out.
Steinham knocked on the penthouse door. He had been calling Justin for days and this coming Monday morning he was due in training camp but the team hadn’t heard from him either. Steinham knocked again and then went down and got the manager. The apartment was torn apart and they found the body of a woman in the living room and Justin in the bed, barely breathing from an overdose. Steinham was almost sorry they got him to the hospital in time.
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