The sun had long since set, and the late spring night was growing cool.
I checked my watch: 10:43 PM. As I shifted my position to get more
comfortable on the flat roof, I heard the crunching sound of a vehicle on
the gravel driveway below me.
In an instant I came fully alert, peering down through an open skylight
into the gloomy old warehouse. After a moment, one of the garage doors
along the east wall slid open, and a black van rolled slowly inside. The
man who had opened the door stepped in after it, pulled the door back
down behind him, then switched on the lights.
I blinked at the brightness, and moved back a bit from the skylight. The
driver of the van cut the engine, then jumped out and came around to open
the side door. As it slid aside, I could see a pair of small feet,
encased in black high heels and bound together at the ankles, sticking
out over the edge of the seat. The driver grabbed the ankles and stepped
back, and the slight form of a young girl emerged from the van. She was
wearing a deep burgundy dress–a prom dress, I thought–which ended
slightly above her knees. *Not a hooker this time,* I thought. *And
she’s white… another Jewish schoolgirl, like poor Becky Stein?* I
could see that she was being lifted from behind by another man who held
her by her upper arms; her wrists had been tied behind her, and she was
gagged and blindfolded with three-inch duct tape. Though I couldn’t see
much of her face, she seemed vaguely familiar. I considered it for a
moment, then dismissed the thought in favor of more immediate concerns.
Once they had her out of the van, the driver slung the girl over his
shoulder, ignoring the groan she gave as the air was forced out of her
lungs, and carried her to the center of the warehouse, where he dumped
her unceremoniously on a large couch. As his cohorts came to join him,
he began adjusting the video cameras arranged on tripod mounts around the
couch. A wide variety of whips, chains, tools, knives, and sex toys were
arrayed on a large table to one side; one of the men walked over and
began examining them, while the other sat down next to the girl and
started kneading her breasts through the dress.
The driver spoke for the first time since they had arrived. “Hey, Hans,
wasn’t Curtis supposed to be here by now?”
The man on the couch looked up and said, “Yeah, but you know how he is;
he probably had to work late at the garage. I’m sure he’ll be along in a
few minutes.” I smiled grimly, bringing up my rifle and quietly thumbing
the safety off; the fourth member of this vicious crew, Curtis Byron, was
lying in a pool of his own blood on the floor of his basement, where I
had left him after extracting the information I needed about the
whereabouts of his accomplices.
“Well,” said the man by the table, turning around with a cat-o-nine-tails
in his hand, “I don’t see why we need to wait for him; let’s get
started.”
“Good idea,” said Hans, running one hand up the girl’s silk-sheathed leg
and under her dress. “I can’t wait to get a piece of this little kike.
Hey Scott, I’ll flip you for first turn with her.” *So those are Hans
Schultz and Scott Clarkson,* I thought. That would make the cameraman
Dennis Kessler: ex-Marine, ex-cop, and by far the most dangerous of the
group. *So he gets the first round….* I slipped my finger into the
trigger guard. *Come on, asshole, give me a clear shot.*
Clarkson, the man with the whip, leered and moved toward the couch as the
girl shook her head violently and tried to protest through the gag.
Kessler said, “Hey, guys, just hang on until I get all the cameras
working, okay?” As he bent to look through the eyepiece of the last
camera, I sighted on the base of his skull and squeezed the trigger,
simultaneously thumbing the switch on the remote control in my other
hand.
The soft “pfft!” of the silencer was masked by the much louder “crack!”
of the blasting cap I had hidden behind some crates in one corner of the
warehouse earlier. Kessler dropped without a sound, the junction of his
brain and spine obliterated by the 9mm hollow point round. The other two
men dived to the floor, seeking cover from the apparent source of the
shot. I sighted on Schultz’s head, fired, then quickly shifted my aim and
put two rounds in Clarkson’s torso before he could react. He gave an
awful, gurgling cry, which cut off abruptly as my third shot hit just
behind his ear.
A wave of exultation washed over me. It was over! After nearly two
years, it had all ended in less than a minute; the men who had murdered
my parents and fiancee were dead.
A frightened whimper from the girl brought me back to reality. I swiftly
anchored the climbing rope I had used to reach the roof, then slid down
into the warehouse. The moment I hit the floor, I moved quickly over to
the couch, careful not to slip in the spreading puddles of blood around
the dead men. Reaching the girl, I laid a gentle hand on her shoulder,
and spoke in my most reassuring voice: “It’s all right, you’re safe now.
Your kidnappers are dead.” She made a quizzical sound; sitting down
beside her, I carefully peeled away the tape that covered her mouth.
“Thank you,” she said. “May I ask who you are?” Her voice was vaguely
familiar, too, but I still couldn’t place her.
“A friend,” I said, drawing my knife and cutting the cords that bound her
ankles. “Can you stand?”
“I’m not sure,” she replied, as I freed her wrists. Immediately she
lifted her hands to pull away the tape over her eyes, but I stopped her.
“Not yet,” I said. “Wait until we get outside. It’s dark out, which
will make it easier for your eyes to adjust. Besides, you do *not* want
to see the scene in here, believe me you don’t.”
“Okay, I’ll buy that. Will you help me?”
“Of course.” I stood up, took her hands in mine, and helped her to
stand. She was a bit unsteady on her feet, so I put her right arm over my
shoulders, and wrapped my left around her back to support her. Then we
walked to the back door of the warehouse, which I had unlocked earlier,
and out into the night.
Once the door was shut behind us, I helped her to sit on a nearby
boulder, and very carefully removed the blindfold. As she blinked in the
dim light from the street lamps around the corner of the building, I
stared at her face, finally realizing why it was familiar. “Well, I’ll
be especially damned….” I said. “Natalie Portman!”
She smiled shyly–the same smile that had melted the hearts of millions
of movie viewers at *The Professional,* *Beautiful Girls,* and, most
recently, *Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.* “That’s just a screen name,
you know,” she said.
“I do, but I don’t know your real name,” I replied. “I love your work,
though.”
“Thank you,” she said, coloring slightly. “My real name is Natalie
Levine, but you can just call me Natalie. Heck, after what you just did
for me, you can call me anything you like.”
“How about ‘sweetheart?'” I asked with a grin, kneeling down to chafe her
ankles where the cords had been. She flushed a deeper shade of pink, and
replied, “Sure, I guess that’s okay, if you want to… what do I call
you?”
“My name is….” I hesitated. I hadn’t used my real name in over two
years, I realized, but now I was free to do so again. “My name is Samuel
Goldberg.” Damn, it felt *good* to say that. “My friends, back when I
had friends, called me Sam. I’d like very much to think of you as a
friend, Natalie.”
“Oh, I don’t think I’ll have too hard a time seeing you as a friend, Sam.
But what do you mean, ‘back when you had friends?'”
“I’m legally dead,” I replied. “I’ve lived the last two years of my life
under an assumed name, infiltrating my way into the neo-Nazi underground
until I got to the men who died in that warehouse tonight… the White
Shadows.”
“White Shadows…? I’ve heard that name before… oh, right, the
Goldberg-Braithewaite murders! You were the Goldbergs’ son… so you
didn’t commit suicide after all! Oh, shoot, I’m sorry Sam….” she
trailed off, seeing the old pain in my face.
“It’s all right, Natalie,” I said, softly. “It’s been a long time now,
and tonight I’ve had my revenge.”
“You spent two years tracking those creeps down? Wow… are you sure
your name isn’t Inigo?”
I struck a pose, and declaimed in a rough approximation of a Spanish
accent, “Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father.
Prepare to die!” Then I sobered. “Actually, if it had been just my
parents, I would have grieved, certainly, and done anything I could to
help the police catch the bastards… but I think I would have put it
behind me and gotten on with my life. It was what they did to my Andi
that set me on this path….” Andrea Braithewaite had been the love of
my life–a brilliant, beautiful college student from England whom I had
met while she was doing an internship under my mother at the Anti-
Defamation League. When the neo-Nazi thugs who called themselves White
Shadows had invaded my home and shot my parents, they had taken her
alive; after holding a mock trial and sentencing her to death for the
“crimes” of miscegenation and race treason, they had used her in their
first snuff movie. Since then, they had tortured and murdered six other
young women and girls that I knew about, and probably a few more that I
didn’t. Most of their victims had been black or Hispanic prostitutes,
but one had been a middle-class high school student, whom they had
apparently chosen because she was an Orthodox Jew… and of course, their
last intended victim had been the lovely young actress before me.
“So, what do we do now?” she asked.
“Well, my car is parked just through the trees over there,” I said,
pointing. “I’ll have to take you home, of course, but I think that had
better wait until morning; it’s going to be a very long ride.”
“It was getting here. Six hours in that van, tied up and blindfolded,
with those bastards pinching and pawing at me…” she shuddered, and I
thought she was about to be sick, but after a moment she managed to get
control of her emotions again. “Where are we, anyway?”
“Maryland,” I replied. “Northwest of Baltimore, near the New Jersey
border.”
“Really? I used to live here, before we moved up to Long Island. I
guess I won’t be getting back there tonight.”
“No. We’ll go to my place; it’s only about half an hour away. You can
call your parents from there and let them know you’re all right.”
“God, yes,” she agreed. “They must be worried sick. Those creeps called
my father on a cell phone right after they picked me up; they said they
wanted ten million dollars, which they expected he could get from George.
They put me on the phone just long enough so that he’d know they were
telling the truth, then cut it off.”
“George? ….Oh. Clever bastards. Ten million is a drop in the bucket
to George Lucas, and I’m sure he’d pay it to get you back unharmed.”
“He wouldn’t want to have to recast the role of Amidala in the next two
movies,” she deadpanned. “But seriously, he’d do it even if he didn’t
need me professionally; he’s a good friend, and like you said, ten
million is nothing to him.”
“They wouldn’t have let you go, though, Natalie,” I said. “I’m sorry to
have to talk about this, but it may become important. It’s possible I’ll
be tried for murder for this night’s work, and you may be called to
testify. Those men were going to rape you and kill you tonight, on
camera. That’s one of the ways they finance their terrorist activities:
the production and sale of snuff movies. It’s what they did to Andrea,
and at least six other girls. They might have tried to collect the
ransom, but you would have been dead before it was ever paid–after
starring in one last, horrible movie.”
The blood had all drained from her face, and her eyes were very wide.
“That’s what he meant about the cameras,” she said, recalling her
kidnappers’ conversation back in the warehouse. “Oh, God…” She
started shaking uncontrollably. I wrapped her in my arms and rocked her
gently until the horror passed, murmuring over and over again, “It’s all
right sweetheart, you’re safe now, nobody’s going to hurt you….” After
a few minutes she calmed down, and I released her.
“Thanks again,” she said, softly. “I needed that.”
“You’re welcome, Natalie. Shall we go?”
“Lead on.”
We walked down a narrow path through the green belt behind the warehouse
to another empty lot where I had parked. “Nice car,” Natalie commented,
on seeing my Taurus.
“Thanks. I suppose it is a pretty nice car, but I got it mainly because
it’s inconspicuous; there are more maroon Tauruses on the highway these
days than you can shake a stick at.”
She nodded. “Smart. Do you think of everything?”
“I certainly try; you sort of have to, when you’re dealing on a regular
basis with very suspicious people who would kill you if they knew who you
really were… not to mention trying to work your way into the
confidences of criminals without attracting attention from the law.” I
opened the passenger door first and stood back.
“Sounds like quite a balancing act,” she observed as she got in,
graciously accepting the unnecessary but chivalrous hand I offered. “And
I thought I had it tough trying to balance school with my acting
career….”
“Don’t underrate yourself,” I told her. “If half of what I’ve read about
you is true, I’ll bet you could do everything I’ve done, given sufficient
motivation. Just thank your lucky stars you never had it.”
“Amen to that,” she replied. I shut the door, then went around to climb
in the driver’s side.
“So, Natalie,” I asked, pulling out of the parking lot, “Would you mind
telling me how those bastards managed to kidnap you? I would have
thought, given your fame and the risk of being stalked, that you would
have a bodyguard or two.”
“Not at home,” she ruefully replied. “When I’m working, I usually have
someone from studio security along when I leave the set, and one of my
parents as well, but when I’m home I’ve relied on being anonymous. Based
on what I’ve read about celebrity stalkers, I figured that I’d have
plenty of warning before someone like that became dangerous–they
generally start by sending lots of fan mail. I get my share of that, of
course, but I’ve never had anything that would make a person nervous
enough to hire a full-time bodyguard.”
“I see,” I said. “So what happened tonight?”
“Well, I was on my way to the senior prom with my friend Seth Ruben–no,
he’s *only* a friend, so don’t get any ideas….”
“I didn’t say a thing,” I demurred.
“Your eyes did,” she replied. “I suppose it’s inevitable, though, this
country seems to live on gossip about actors. I think it’s a silly waste
of time, as well as an invasion of privacy, but what can a person do?”
“Exactly what you do,” I replied. “Keep your real name and where you live
secret, and live the kind of personal life that doesn’t generate any
interesting gossip. But you were saying….”
“Yeah. Seth picked me up in the limo about 4:30; we were supposed to
pick up another couple, then go to dinner before the dance. Instead, the
driver pulled off into a grocery store parking lot, and parked behind
the store where nobody usually goes. Then he opened the partition and
pulled a gun on us. He told me to get out of the car and Seth to stay
where he was. There were two men in ski masks waiting to grab me when I
got out; they pulled me into their van, slapped duct tape over my eyes,
and tied my wrists and ankles. Then they called my parents and made
their demands. After putting me on the phone just long enough to tell my
father that it wasn’t a hoax, they cut it off and taped my mouth. I
still can’t figure out how they replaced the limo driver with one of
their people.”
“Well, I can’t say for sure, but I’ll tell you how I would have done it.
First I’d have to find out where you lived and who you were going to the
prom with; I presume they accomplished that by following you, and
possibly tapping your phones–the leader of the group was an ex-cop, and
they had some skill at surveillance. Then I’d get a limo of my own and
arrive at your friend’s house before the one he’d hired. If they tapped
his phone as well after establishing that he was your date, they would
know which company he called, and they could just rent one from the same
place. Or they might have car-jacked the one that Seth had called before
it got to his house. Speaking of which, I hope they didn’t hurt your
friend; it wasn’t like those bastards to leave living witnesses.”
“I think I’d have heard if the driver had shot him,” she said. “I mean,
his gun wasn’t silenced or anything. Anyway, he had dark glasses and a
full beard when he was driving the limo; after they grabbed me, they
drove for about fifteen minutes and then stopped for a while. I think
they changed the license plates on the van, and I also heard an electric
razor; I don’t think he was worried about being recognized after that.”
“I suppose not,” I said. “They probably didn’t want a murder
investigation to start right away. As long as they’d only committed
kidnapping, there was a chance your parents wouldn’t involve the police
immediately; even if they did, the cops would be more circumspect in
pursuing kidnappers who hadn’t killed anyone yet.”
“That makes sense. They did tell my parents not to call the police.”
“Do you think they listened?”
“I don’t know. They might have called George first, to see if he would
help pay the ransom. If he said yes, it’s possible that they wouldn’t
risk calling the police.”
“I rather hope that they didn’t,” I said. “It would make my life a bit
easier.”
“How do you mean?” she asked.
“I’d like to have some time to consider my options before they find those
bodies and the manhunt starts,” I replied. “If the police know you were
kidnapped and then rescued, they’ll be onto me a lot faster than they
would otherwise. I still haven’t decided what to do. My original plan
was to flee to Israel after I’d killed the Shadows–if they didn’t
extradite that psychopath Samuel Sheinbein, they certainly aren’t going
to extradite Samuel Goldberg. However, with you in the picture, I might
not have to leave the country; under the circumstances, what I did might
be considered justifiable homicide.”
“Well, Sam, you can count on me to support that argument,” she said, with
a grateful smile. “You saved my life; I’ll be happy to do anything I can
to help you.”
“Thanks, Natalie.”
We drove on in companionable silence for a few minutes. Then she said,
“I was wondering, where did you get that gun? It looks military.”
“It is,” I said. “Actually, you and my rifle have something in common;
it was made in Israel. It’s a sniper’s variant of the Uzi, used mainly
by IDF commandos and Mossad operatives. It’s light, compact, accurate,
and silent–and of course, *very* illegal in this country.”
“I see. So how does a lone gunman on a quest for revenge come by a fancy
Israeli weapon?”
“Trade secret, Natalie; the less you know, the easier it’ll be for you to
testify in my defense without lying. Maybe after I’ve been acquitted
I’ll tell you the rest of the story. I shouldn’t have told you even this
much; I’d much rather let the law think that I shot the White Shadows
with my perfectly legal, registered Glock.”
“Sam, I said I’d do anything to help you. I *am* an actress after all;
don’t you think I can tell a convincing story?”
“I’m sure you can, but I’d rather you didn’t have to. But if you’re
really that curious, I suppose I can take the chance… just remember,
this conversation never happened.”
“Okay. So what is this story I’m never going to hear?”
I flashed her a grin. “My closest living relative is my mother’s
brother–Colonel Avram Jacob Lefkowitz, Israeli Defense Forces, retired.
The ‘retired’ part is misleading, though; he actually works for the
Mossad. In return for a substantial contribution to his directorate’s
black budget, he enabled me to spend six months training in Israel–the
same sort of training that Mossad field operatives receive–and to
requisition some equipment from the agency’s arsenal. Now that my
‘mission’ is over, that equipment is going home; I have most of it boxed
up already, addressed to a townhouse in Tel Aviv that the agency uses as
a mail drop. The rifle is the last thing; it’ll be going back in several
pieces, sent from several different UPS and Fed-Ex offices.”
“I see. Well, that was a long silence.” She winked. “Do you have any
music we could listen to?”
“Every song Billy Joel ever wrote,” I replied. Sharing my music was
another pleasure that I had had to deny myself over the last two years.
I often reflected that one of the hardest parts of my mission of
infiltration was pretending to share the atrocious musical tastes of the
skinheads and Klansmen with whom I had to rub elbows, while keeping my
real music collection carefully hidden. “Plus an eclectic mix of
classical, pop, and movie and Broadway soundtracks. What would you
like?”
“Billy Joel sounds good. How about ‘Only the Good Die Young?'”
“I thought I disproved that theory tonight,” I cracked. “And I prefer to
listen to that one when I can dance to it. But pick whatever you like;
the CDs are in a case in the glove compartment.” She opened the hatch,
pulled out the CD case, and leafed through it. After a moment’s
consideration, she pulled out “Glass Houses” and slipped it into the
player. “Good album,” I approved. “I hope you don’t mind if I sing
along….”
“Not if I can too.”
“Fair enough. ‘Friday night I crashed your party,/Saturday I said I’m
sorry,/Sunday came and trashed me out again…'” we sang in unison, as
the music started.
Twenty minutes later we arrived at my home, a small, secluded farm house
on a wooded side road in Harford County. “This looks like a good place
for someone who doesn’t want to attract attention,” she commented.
“That’s why I chose it,” I said. “Come on inside.” I deactivated my
security system and led her into the house. “What do you think?”
She looked around, clearly surprised. “This is really nice,” she said,
finally. “Different than I expected….” While the outside of my house
has the weatherbeaten, slightly dilapidated look typical of old farm
houses, the inside is thoroughly modern and very comfortable, with deep
pile carpeting, hardwood furniture, well-stocked bookshelves, and prints
of various Renaissance and Impressionist paintings decorating the walls.
“You expected something more spartan, perhaps?” I asked.
“Yeah, I think so. I guess I was imagining something like Leon’s
apartment in ‘The Professional.'”
“Ah. No, that isn’t my style at all; I like to live comfortably. And,
as a certain Robert Heinlein character once said, ‘I’m not an assassin.
Killing is more of a hobby with me.'”
She gave me a quizzical look. “Which character was that? I’ve read a
few of his books, but I don’t remember that line.”
“That was Dr. Richard Ames, in *The Cat Who Walks Through Walls,*” I
replied.
“Oh. I never read that one. I’ve read *Stranger in a Strange Land,* of
course, and *The Moon is a Harsh Mistress,* *Time Enough for Love,* *The
Door into Summer,* *Podkayne of Mars,* and few of his juvenile novels.”
“*The Moon is a Harsh Mistress* is my favorite novel,” I said. “If
you’ve read that one, you really should read *Cat;* they resurrect Mike
at the end of that one.”
“Oh, cool. I will have to read it some time. What I have to do right
now, though, is call my parents and tell them I’m all right. May I use
your phone?”
“Of course,” I said, handing her the receiver. She quickly dialed, then
held it up to her ear.
“Hello, Dad? Yes, of course it’s me… I’m fine. It’s kind of a long
story, but the short version is that I was rescued…. No, not the
police… he’s a sort of modern-day knight-errant. His name’s Sam
Goldberg. The guys that kidnapped me killed his parents and his fiancee two
years ago, and he’s been looking for them ever since…. yeah, *that* Sam
Goldberg; it seems he didn’t kill himself after all. He says…” she
swallowed, looked at me for reassurance, then collected herself and
continued. “He says that they were planning to do to me what they did to
Andrea Braithewaite… that they make snuff films, like in that awful
Nicholas Cage movie that came out a few months ago. We’re down in Maryland
somewhere; Sam says he’ll drive me back to Long Island tomorrow morning.
You want to talk to him? Okay….” She handed me the phone.
“Hello, Dr. Levine. I’m Sam Goldberg.”
“So I gather,” said the faintly accented voice on the other end of the
line. “I want to thank you for what you’ve done for my daughter; if there’s
ever anything I can do for you in return, you have only to ask.”
“Thank you,” I replied. “There is something, actually; I’d like you not
to tell the police about me just yet. You see, in the process of
rescuing Natalie, I had to kill all three of her kidnappers–and while
you might agree with me that the Nazi bastards had it coming, I don’t
know that the law will see it that way.”
“I understand,” he said. “As it happens, we haven’t called the police.
When the kidnappers called me before, they said that they had contacts
within the police department who would tell them if I called, and that I
would never see my daughter alive again; they told Natalie’s date and the
limousine driver the same, and I wasn’t about to call their bluff.”
“It might not have been a bluff,” I said. “The leader of the gang,
Dennis Kessler, was a former NYPD officer; it’s conceivable he knew
someone who would share information with him. It wouldn’t even have to
be an accomplice; the kidnapping of a famous actress is the sort of thing
that would come up if he simply asked an old friend whether there were
any interesting new cases being investigated. Even if the informant was
a bluff, it’s very hard to keep the tabloids away from something like
this; if you had called the police, there’s at least a fifty-fifty chance
the *National Inquirer* or the *New York Post* would have had the
kidnapping on the front page tomorrow. Not that it would have made a
difference; those thugs never intended to let your daughter go.”
“So she tells me. Again, thank you for saving her life.”
“You’re welcome. You mentioned Seth and the limo driver just now; are
they okay?” I asked.
“Yes. The driver had been drugged and locked in the trunk, but he was
alive, and Seth was fine too, if somewhat shaken. The poor boy kept
apologizing for letting this happen–as if there was anything he could
have done to stop it.”
“You tell him, from me, that not resisting them was exactly the right
thing to do,” I said. “If he had fought, the only thing he could have
accomplished would have been to get himself killed, and maybe Natalie
with him.”
“I’ll tell him,” he said. “May I speak with Natalie again?”
“Certainly,” I replied, and handed her the phone. “I’m going to go in
the kitchen and make something for us to eat,” I told her. “Come on in
when you’re finished talking.” She smiled and gave me a thumbs-up.
A few minutes later she joined me in the kitchen. “What’s for dinner?”
She asked.
“Hummus and tabouli salad in pita pockets,” I replied, handing her a
plate. “It’s the one thing I like that a strict vegetarian can eat.”
“Sounds good,” she said. “How did you know I was a vegetarian?”
“I’ve read a couple of articles about you. The one in *Vanity Fair*
mentioned that you don’t eat any kind of meat or cheese.”
She gave me an odd look. “You read *Vanity Fair?*”
“Only when they put you on the cover, my dear.”
“Oh.” She blushed deep red and became preoccupied with her dinner.
“The cover photo was nice,” I continued, enjoying the effect of my half-
teasing flattery, “But what I really liked was the one inside where you
posed as both Sleeping Beauty and the Prince. That was absolutely
gorgeous.”
“It was the photographer’s idea,” she demurred. “I just posed the way he
told me to.”
“All the same, it was your beauty and poise, no less than the
composition, that made that picture work,” I said. “That, and the
symbolism involved in having you play both of those roles.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, as the prince you explore, learn, and overcome obstacles, all with
the goal of awakening the sleeping princess–which is yourself, your own
potential….” I saw the look she was giving me and burst out laughing.
“What’s the joke?” she asked, sounding slightly put out.
“I’m sorry, Natalie,” I said. “It’s just that you just gave me the exact
same ‘You’ve got to be joking’ look you gave Liam Neeson in *Star Wars,*
right after finding out that the kid he’s betting your ship on has never
managed to *finish* a pod race, let alone win one. So you think I’m
reading too much into that picture?”
She thought for a moment. “Maybe, maybe not. I never really thought of
it the way you described, but maybe that is what the photographer had in
mind. So what do you think my potential is?”
“Whatever you want,” I replied. “To be America’s next screen goddess, if
you continue your film career. Otherwise, whatever attracts your
interest while you’re in college. Again, based on what I’ve read about
you, you’re smart enough and determined enough to do whatever strikes
your fancy–medicine, law, science, business, politics… anything.”
She blushed again. “You shouldn’t believe everything you read.”
“Oh, I take the hype with a large grain of salt–but I think that in this
case the simple facts speak volumes. You’ve managed to graduate from
high school with an ‘A’ average, taking multiple advanced-placement
courses, while acting in six movies and a major Broadway play. If you
can do that, you can do just about anything you put your mind to.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” she said. She seemed to be
accepting my compliments with a bit more equanimity now. “I really love
acting, and I’m glad you think so well of my work, but I don’t know that
that’s what I want to spend the rest of my life doing.”
“Well, to paraphrase one of your movies, ‘Whatever you do, it’s going to
be amazing.'”
“*Beautiful Girls,*” she said. “I had a lot of fun making that one.”
“It showed,” I replied. “Those scenes with you and Tim Hutton really
made that movie for me. You were the most beautiful girl of them all, my
dear.”
“Hmmph. What kind of man would prefer a skinny thirteen-year-old to Uma
Thurman or Mira Sorvino?”
“Now, now, Natalie, I’m not a pedophile. It’s just that, in assessing
beauty, I tend to pay a lot more attention to faces than figures–and
yours, in my not-so-very-humble opinion, is the loveliest face in
Hollywood today. The only other actress who comes close is Catherine
Zeta-Jones.”
“Now you’re making me jealous,” she said. “How can I possibly compete
with a beauty like her?”
“It’s not a competition,” I replied. “You and she are such completely
different types that it’s like comparing apples and oranges… or perhaps
angels and succubi….”
She shrugged. “If you say so. As the saying goes, beauty is in the eye
of the beholder.”
“Certainly… and I’ve never yet met a beautiful woman who fully
recognized her own beauty.”
“I’ll bet if you did she’d be a terrible snob,” Natalie replied. “Like
Darian in *Beautiful Girls.*”
“Maybe so,” I agreed. “Next to your scenes, I think her comeuppance at
the reunion was the best moment in the movie.” We both smiled at the
recollection.
“That was a good scene,” she agreed. “Well… it looks like dinner is
about finished, and it’s after midnight, so maybe we’d better get some
sleep.”
I nodded, though I didn’t feel particularly tired. “Good idea. You can
have the bedroom; I’ll take the couch.”
“Oh, no, I couldn’t possibly kick you out of your room…” she protested.
“No, but I could. Really, it’s fine; I’ve fallen asleep on that couch
before, and it’s perfectly comfortable. Look at it this way: after what
you’ve been through tonight, don’t you think you’ll sleep better if you
have a closed room, and me sleeping between you and the front door?”
“Mmmm. Maybe so,” she replied, thoughtfully. “I think I’d feel pretty
safe anywhere in your house, but you’re right… it would feel good to
know that anyone who wants to get to me has to get past you first. I
mean, intellectually I know that those creeps can’t possibly hurt me, or
anyone else, ever again. But emotionally….”
“I know exactly what you mean, Natalie,” I said. “After Andi and my
parents were killed, I had trouble sleeping for months.”
She nodded sympathetically. “I would think it must have been worse for
you, knowing that they were still alive out there.”
“That’s true,” I said, “But I was in Israel most of that time, so it
wasn’t a rational fear that they might come after me. Humans are afraid
of the dark for reasons much older than rationality; when something
terrible happens to us, it makes those instinctive fears all the more
powerful.”
“I guess so,” she agreed. “Hmmm. I could use a shower before I go to
bed; would you mind?”
“Of course not,” I replied. I showed her to the bathroom, and gave her a
clean towel and one of my t-shirts to wear to sleep. “There’s plenty of
soap and shampoo, and an unused toothbrush in the medicine cabinet. The
bedroom is right across the hall. I’ll be in the living room if you need
anything else.”
“Okay.” She hesitated for a moment, then stepped up to me and wrapped
her arms around me. I hugged her back, pleasantly aware of her small
breasts pressing against my chest, and the sweet scent of her silky brown
hair. “Thanks for everything, Sam,” she murmured.
“You’re welcome, Natalie. It’s been a pleasure,” I replied, sincerely.
After a long moment she ended the embrace. “Good night, Sam,” she said.
A line from the movie we’d just been discussing popped into my head:
“Good night, sweet girl.”
She gave me look that was half-amused, half-exasperated. “That was
Andera,” she said. “Marty wouldn’t be nearly so easy.” She vanished
into the bathroom.
I went back to the kitchen and washed the dishes from dinner, then
returned to the living room to read the news. After a while I heard the
shower stop, and a few minutes later the opening and closing of doors as
Natalie crossed the hall from the bathroom to the bedroom.
I went back to the bathroom and took my own shower. As the hot water
sluiced over me, I found my thoughts turning to a glorious vision of
Natalie as she must have appeared in here a few minutes ago, naked and
wet and flushed from the heat. Simultaneously aroused and disturbed, I
tried to erase the alluring image from my mind. As I combed my hair and
brushed my teeth, I studied myself in the mirror. I’m six feet tall and
broad-shouldered, but lean and wiry rather than muscular. My neatly
trimmed, reddish-brown beard covers a jaw a bit too wide to be considered
classically handsome, and gives some definition to a broad, plain face.
My eyes are what is generally called “hazel,” though I think “chameleon”
would be a better word; they go from bluish gray to greenish tan,
depending on the light, and are deep-set under bushy brows. Andrea had
liked my looks, even though I had been out of shape and slightly
overweight when we met, but she was in the minority. Most women, even
with my current, more athletic build, seemed to find me eminently
forgettable. *Surely Natalie doesn’t find you as attractive as you do
her,* I told myself. *She’s seventeen years old, and you’re twenty-five
going on about forty. Sure, she’s grateful for what you did for her, but
that doesn’t mean she would give herself to you. At best, she might give
you a good-bye kiss when you take her home tomorrow. After that, you’ll
probably never see her again, unless you really want to stay and risk
going to jail….* I glanced balefully down at my cock, still semi-erect
from the heat and the delightful image of Natalie in the shower. “Forget
it, you stupid tool,” I told it. “There’s nothing here for you.” At
length I pulled on a t-shirt and sweatpants, then retired to the couch in
the living room.
Try as I might, though, I couldn’t sleep; the night’s excitement was
simply too much. I lay awake, musing on the long road which had ended
this night in three quick bursts of gunfire, the problems still to come,
and the amazing luck which had brought me into the company of one of the
brightest rising stars of the silver screen.
* * * * *
Around 1:30, I heard the bedroom door open again, then Natalie’s soft
footsteps in the hall. “Sam?” she whispered, stepping into the living
room.
In the dim light that filtered in from the porch lamp, she looked
tousled and bleary-eyed. Her arms were folded tightly across her chest,
and she was trembling; I could see goose bumps on her thin legs. “Are
you awake?”
“Yeah,” I replied softly. “I tend to be a night owl anyway, and it’s
been a pretty exciting day; I’m too keyed up to sleep. What’s the
matter?”
“The worst nightmare I’ve had since I was six years old. I can’t even
remember the details, just that it was horrible, and I woke up with the
shakes… it took me ten minutes just to get up the nerve to get out of
bed and come out here. Can I sit here with you for a while?”
“Sure,” I said, sitting up and moving over to make room. She sat down
next to me and leaned against my right side. I put my arm around her
shoulders, and she reached up and gave my hand a grateful squeeze. She
was still shivering slightly, whether from fear or the cool night air I
couldn’t tell; I pulled my blanket around us, covering her bare legs.
“Thanks, Sam,” she whispered. We sat like that for a while, my arm
around her, her head resting on my shoulder, neither of us saying a word.
Finally she asked, very hesitantly, “Sam? Could I, um…. Would you…
would you like to kiss me?”
I pulled back a bit and turned toward her, studying her face. “Natalie,
I would like that more than anything in the world… but are you sure?”
She bit her lip and nodded. “All right.” I moved my hand up from her
back to twine my fingers in her hair, and she closed her eyes as I leaned
in and pressed my lips to hers. After a moment’s hesitation, her lips
parted, and I felt her tongue dart against my mouth and retreat again. I
slipped my own tongue into her mouth, probing, playing over her little
white teeth. The tips of our tongues touched with something akin to an
electric shock; she moaned softly and seemed to melt in my arms. I
caught her lower lip lightly in my teeth, let it slide free, then
returned to the dance of tongue against tongue. Without really noticing,
I had gathered her into my lap; her arms were wrapped around my neck,
while my right hand tangled in her hair and my left pressed into the
small of her back, pulling her tighter against me.
At length we both came up for air. She was flushed and breathing hard,
and I was suddenly very aware of her bare legs draped across my lap, and
the absence of a bra beneath her thin cotton t-shirt.
“Natalie…” I said, pausing to steady my voice. “If we don’t stop now,
I don’t think we’re going to stop at all. I really ought to send you
back to bed before we do something you’ll regret.”
“Don’t do that, Sam,” she pleaded. Her voice sounded brittle and her
eyes were very bright; she seemed on the edge of bursting into tears.
“Please… I want your arms around me tonight. I think… I think if you
hold me, the nightmare won’t come back….”
Again I studied her face, seeing for a moment the scared, scarred little
girl she had portrayed so touchingly in *The Professional.* That thought
was jarring, but, I reminded myself, this was no naive child I held;
Natalie was only a couple of weeks shy of her eighteenth birthday,
unusually mature for her age, and certainly capable of making her own
decisions. *And the age of consent in Maryland is sixteen,* I thought,
*And I’M not the one one responsible for transporting her across state
lines for immoral purposes. The most immoral purpose imaginable,
actually, which I thwarted… and if she chooses to reward me for that,
who am I to refuse her…? Assuming that is what she wants, of
course….* “All right,” I said, finally. “But if we’re going to
sleep together, let’s go back to the bedroom.” I disengaged myself from
her, stood up, then lifted her in my arms and carried her down the hall.
Reaching the bedroom, I set her down on my bed, shut the door behind us,
and turned my reading lamp on at its dimmest setting. Then I lay down
beside her, propping myself up on my right elbow so I could look at her:
delicate little feet, slender, shapely legs, deliciously curved hips,
narrow waist, flat belly, shallow breasts with hard little nipples
outlined by the thin white cotton of the t-shirt, long, graceful neck,
delicate chin, wide mouth, full lips curved in a languid smile, small,
straight nose… wide brown eyes in which a man might lose his soul. I
brushed a wayward strand of hair back from her face. “Natalie,” I said,
“If you just want to be held, that’s fine, we can leave it at that. But
if we start kissing again, I don’t think it will stop there.”
She turned onto her side and got up on one elbow to face me. “It won’t,”
she agreed. “I was too caught up in it before to put the brakes on; you
could have deflowered me right there on the couch, and I wouldn’t have
tried to stop you. Thank you for giving me a choice… I love you for
that, I think, as much as for saving my life. And yes, I *do* love you,
Sam. I know, it’s crazy, we only met a few hours ago, and maybe it won’t
last past tomorrow morning, but right now I’m dizzy in love with you, and
I want to *make* love with you. Maybe I’ll regret it, but I think I’ll
regret it more if I don’t… and so will you, right?”
“You’ve got me there, sweetheart,” I told her. “If I refused you, I’d be
kicking myself for it for the rest of my life. But now that we both know
what’s going to happen, there’s no need to rush things; if this is your
first time, it’s best we take it slow.”
“You’re the experienced one here, Sam. ‘I put my trust in you, and where
you lead, I follow.'”
“James Thurber,” I commented, catching her reference to *The Thirteen
Clocks.* “You have good taste in books.”
“Thank you. But right now I’m more interested in exercising my taste in
men. Kiss me again.”
“First things first, my love.” I got up and went over to the closet to
fetch a couple of towels, which I spread out on the bed. “This way,
nobody has to sleep in a wet spot.”
“You really *do* think of everything,” she observed dryly, moving onto
the towels. “Now come back here.” I complied, stretching out beside her
and enfolding her in my arms. We kissed again, a long, slow, smoldering
kiss, exploring each other’s mouths, using every possible combination of
lips and teeth and tongues. After a while I broke off to kiss the rest
of her face: forehead, eyelids, cheeks, chin, the line of her jaw and the
hollow of her throat. I blew lightly in her ear and she giggled, then
turned her head to catch my mouth with hers again.
“Surely you’ve at least done this before,” I said, as we stopped for
breath. “You kiss too well for a beginner.”
“Oh, sure–stage kisses,” she said, with a hint of distaste. “But you’re
the first man I’ve ever kissed for real. It’s wonderful….”
“It is,” I agreed. “*You’re* wonderful.” I stroked her cheek, letting
my fingers trail down along her neck until they reached her breast. She
lay back and closed her eyes, savoring the sensation as I traced a lazy
spiral, closing in at last to tweak her nipple briefly between two
fingers. She inhaled sharply as I let it slip free. “Feels good?” I
asked. She nodded quickly. “Good. Now, you’ll have to help me for a
moment….” I sat up, and took the hem of her t-shirt in my hands.
Taking her cue, she arched her back so that I could slide it up her body.
When it was around her shoulders, I slid one hand under her and lifted
her partway off the mattress so that I could get it over her head and
raised arms. Then I paused to admire what I had uncovered: small but
shapely breasts, capped by dark little nipples that contrasted strongly
with her creamy skin; taut, smooth belly between her ribs and hip bones,
with a perfect oval navel in the center; silk panties the same dark wine
red as the dress she had been wearing. “Behold, thou art fair, my love,”
I murmured, “Behold, thou art fair.” I cupped her breasts lightly in my
hands and brushed my thumbs over her nipples, making them crinkle and
stand at attention. She smiled, eyes still shut, as I continued to tease
and caress her. After a few moments, I paused to strip off my own shirt,
then stretched out to embrace and kiss her once again, grasping her
shoulder blades so that her breasts were pressed against my own bare
chest. She raised her leg, pointing her toes at the ceiling for a moment
in a ballet lift, then hooked it over my waist, pulling me closer so that
the bulge of my cock pressed against her mons and I could feel the heat
of her loins through my sweatpants.
I rolled on top of her, supporting most of my weight on my knees and
elbows so as to let her breathe. Then, ever so slowly, I moved down her
body, kissing my way along her throat and collarbones to her breasts. As
I had with my fingers before, I now traced spirals with my tongue,
licking up and down each breast, catching her nipples lightly between my
teeth and flicking my tongue back and forth over them. Then I sucked in
as much of her left breast as would fit in my mouth; she gasped and her
fingers entwined with my hair. “You have lovely tits,” I said, as I let
go.
“I thought men preferred big ones,” she teased.
“Mm-mm,” I replied, my mouth momentarily full of her other breast.
“Anything more than a handful is superfluous. Yours are the perfect
size.” I squeezed them lightly while kissing the valley between them,
then moved downward again. I kept fondling her breasts while kissing her
belly and blowing in her navel, which made her giggle; at last, I reached
the lacy waistband of her panties. “Fancy,” I commented. “I wouldn’t
have figured you for the Victoria’s Secret type.”
“That dress tends to ride up a bit when I dance,” she replied. “If what
I’m wearing under it is the same color, it’s less noticeable. Besides,
they’re comfortable.”
“They’re very sexy,” I said, stroking my finger lightly along the cleft
between her thighs. “But they’re in the way.” I got up onto my knees
and hooked my thumbs in the waistband; she arched her hips, and I slid
the silk panties slowly down over her thighs. Once they were past her
knees, she quickly pulled her feet free of them; I dropped them on the
floor beside our t-shirts.
Natalie’s pubic hair formed a small, dark triangle, which only partly
covered her mons. Her outer lips were parted slightly from arousal, and
the pink folds of her inner ones peeked out from between them. “Such a
pretty thing,” I said, admiring her vulva. “Like an orchid or a lily.”
“Georgia O’Keefe,” she murmured, glancing at one of the paintings on my
wall.
“Georgia had it exactly right; flowers are a plant’s genitalia.”
“But they smell nicer,” she said, ruefully.
“I beg to differ.” I inhaled deeply. Natalie’s scent was subtle,
complicated, like a good wine. There was the sweet, heady smell of musk,
and the clean smell of the soap she had used in the shower, and something
else, a light, almost floral aroma which I couldn’t place.
I started off lightly, touching only the hair at first, then gently
stroking her mons and inner thighs. After a minute or two of this, she
spread her legs wide and brought her knees up, inviting me in toward her
center. I ran one finger around the outside of her vulva, brushing the
thin, sensitive skin between her thighs and labia. Moving down, her
pubic hair grew sparser and wispy, ending above the entrance to her
vagina. I could see a few droplets of moisture at the bottom of her
slit, morning dew on that fairest of flowers. I pressed there, lightly,
so that the tip of my finger slipped in between her outer lips. She was
already very wet; her inner lips felt silky, nearly frictionless, as I
stroked my finger up one side and down the other. She inhaled sharply as
I passed her clit, careful not to touch it directly just yet. I laid my
other hand on her mound, massaging it lightly, as my fingertip reached
her vagina and slipped a little way inside. Once it was thoroughly wet
with her natural lubricant, I drew it ever so slowly upward, parting her
inner lips and brushing over her clitoral hood, lifting it so that I
could see the tiny pink pearl beneath. A tremor ran through her body as
the cool air touched her most sensitive spot, and her hands moved to her
breasts, cupping and stroking them as I had done earlier.
Continuing to tease her sex with my left hand, I moved my right hand and
mouth back up her body; she took her hands from her breasts and ruffled
my hair as I resumed playing with her nipples. Moving up more, I kissed
her again as my index finger sank into her vagina, and my thumb massaged
her clit. Her kiss was frenzied, urgent, and she moaned softly. My
fingertip found the odd, roughened pad on the roof of her vagina; I
pressed against it, simultaneously flicking my thumbnail over her clit,
and she came, hugging me convulsively and keening into my mouth.
As she relaxed, every muscle in her body going soft and limp, I withdrew
my hand and licked my index finger, savoring the taste of her.
“Like that?” I asked.
“Mm-hmm,” she said, nestling into my embrace.
“Would you like to do it again?”
“Mm-hmm,” she said again.
“All right.” I gently disengaged my arms and moved down to lie between
her legs. Again, I started out by teasing her mons and thighs, this time
with the soft, tickly hair of my beard. Then I began to lick her,
lapping up and down her outer lips before parting them with my fingers
and sliding my tongue between them.
When she was again quivering with arousal, I pushed my tongue into her
vagina; her hips bucked as I slid it in and out several times. Then I
ran it up her slit and began licking her clitoris, while again teasing
her G-spot with my finger. I switched back and forth a couple of times,
always with my fingers in one place and my tongue in the other; then I
caught her clit between my lips, sucked on it hard, and tapped it with
the tip of my tongue. Her second orgasm was longer and louder than the
first, and after it ended she remained aroused, rubbing and squeezing her
breasts.
“Now?” I asked.
She opened her eyes, gazing at me though a haze of passion, and said,
“Now.”
I quickly got out of my sweat pants. My cock had been hard as steel for
over an hour now. Natalie stared at it curiously. “How big?” she asked.
“That’s an impertinent question,” I teased, stroking it over her mons.
“How big do you think?”
She raised herself on her elbows for a closer look. “Seven inches?”
“Could be. It’s usually about six and a half, but just now, considering
all we’ve been doing in the last hour, it probably is closer to seven.”
I moved over so that I could reach the top drawer of my night table;
opening it, I pulled out a condom and a little tube of K-Y jelly.
“Thank you,” she said.
“I was wondering when you were going to ask,” I told her, as I extracted
the rubber from its package and put a drop of the lubricant inside the
tip.
“You’re the man who thinks of everything,” she replied. “I knew you’d
have protection.”
“Good call,” I said. “Would you care to do the honors?”
She took the condom and placed it over the head of my cock, careful not
to lose the lubricant inside; then she rolled it very slowly down the
shaft. It twitched a bit at the touch of her hands, which made us both
smile. “Down, boy,” she admonished. “I’m not finished with you yet.”
“Don’t worry about that,” I told her. “I have pretty good control.” I
gave her a long kiss as she finished putting the condom on me, then knelt
between her legs. I put a bit more of the lubricant in the palm of my
hand and smoothed it up and down the length of my cock. She closed her
eyes as I probed gently at her vulva with the tip, rubbing it up and down
between her clit and her vagina. At last, I pressed firmly and steadily
against her entrance; her lips spread and engulfed the head of my cock,
and she gave a little cry as her hymen tore. I looked at her face; she
was biting her lip, and there were tears in her eyes. “You okay?” I
asked, concerned.
She nodded quickly. “It hurts a bit… but it feels good, too. I want
more of it.”
“Okay,” I said. Slowly, a millimeter at a time, I penetrated her. Her
vagina was warm and tight, and I could feel her inner muscles twitching
around my cock. When it was almost entirely inside her, I carefully
moved my knees back and stretched out on top of her, my legs pressing
hers farther apart, my fingers entwining with hers to pin her arms to the
bed. Our tongues met and dueled for a moment. Then I released her hands
and put my weight on my elbows so that she could breathe easily, and
began to move. She wrapped her arms around my shoulders, her legs around
my waist, and locked eyes with me. I varied the rhythm: long, slow
strokes that withdrew all but the head of my cock and drove it back in to
the hilt, then shorter, faster ones, then a pause with my shaft buried in
her as deep as it could go, during which I kissed her and rocked my pubic
bone back and forth against her clit. Then I started the cycle over
again, using one hand to support my weight while the other caressed her
face and breasts. After about ten minutes of this, Natalie’s breathing
grew quick and ragged; I reached down and squeezed her firm little bottom
with both hands, and as I rubbed up against her clit she came again. The
rippling spasms in her vagina triggered my own orgasm; it pulsed along my
shaft, filling the condom almost to its base, while my ears rang and
sparks danced before my eyes.
We lay there for a couple of minutes, both completely spent, letting
ourselves drift slowly back to reality from the high place to which we
had flown. At length I pulled out of her, holding the base of the condom
carefully so as not to let any semen escape. I stood up, then paused,
leaning down to kiss her. “I’ll be right back, sweetheart,” I whispered,
and walked across the hall to the bathroom. There I disposed of the
condom, quickly cleaned myself off, and returned with a warm, wet
washcloth and a towel, with which I proceeded to gently clean and dry
Natalie’s sex.
By now it was getting close to 3:00 AM, and exhaustion was finally
catching up with me. Natalie was half-asleep already, curled on her side
with her eyes closed and that familiar, angelic smile on her lips. I
rummaged in a drawer and found an old pair of silk boxers to wear to bed.
Much as I would have liked sleeping nude, I remembered a couple of
occasions when Andi and I had managed to start having sex before we were
fully awake. Pleasant memories, but Andi had been on the pill, and
Natalie was not; I wouldn’t risk getting her pregnant.
Satisfied that nothing serious could happen between us without a
conscious effort on my part, I lay down behind her, turned out the light,
and pulled the sheets up over us both. She cuddled up to me in a
comfortable spoon. I put my arms around her, and she murmured, “Thanks,
Sam. For everything.”
“Thank you,” I whispered back, kissing the top of her head. “You made it
all worthwhile.”
“Y’re welcome,” she said, her voice slurring a little as she drifted off.
“G’night.”
“Good night, Natalie my love.”
