| Fanfic: "Speed" Prequel | |||
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| SonjaRostov | 2008-05-11 04:36:49 | ||
 Forum Posts: 31 Comments: 0 Reviews: 0 | Jack Traven admired her capable hands on the steering wheel, the gold wedding band glowing warmly, the spark of the small diamond when the afternoon sun hit it just so. The slender olive hands were the only thing about Luz that hadnÆt undergone a complete transformation since theyÆd been at the Police Academy. Then, Luz had been a wiry young woman, barely meeting the DepartmentÆs physical requirements, athletic but so short that her timed foot chases were slowest in the class. Jack assumed sheÆd wash out, until the class did a series of speed drills: sprints flat out, too short a pause to catch his breath, then sprint again. And again. And again. Luz and a spindly guy whoÆd played basketball at UCLA were the only ones to qualify on the first attempt. Jack and his classmates, male and female, had given up, red-faced, their lungs on fire. Luz Suarez, plain, sturdy rather than pretty, had more perseverance and stamina than any of them. She was smart, too, and nice, with a smile that warmed him pleasantly when Jack was lucky enough to receive it. Jack moved from admiration to fondness, but life was too complicated to ask her out: his mother adjusting badly to widowhood, JackÆs paychecks eaten by the hospital bills his fatherÆs insurance didnÆt cover. And Jill. She was Luz Gomez these days, he reminded himself, just returned to the job after maternity leave, her new uniform straining against pleasantly pendulous breasts and womanly hips. Jack expelled his unwanted desires from his mind. Speed drills were good preparation for chasing toddlers. He smiled. "What are you grinning about?" After a single glance she didnÆt look at him but drove like the pro she was, her eyes on traffic and taking in everything around the black-and-white, alert for anything that wasnÆt right. "You need to pee again already?" His coffee consumption, and subsequent knowledge of every restroom in the patrol area, had become their first joke as new partners. "Yeah. Up there, coffee shop on the right." "Mr. WexlerÆs store." "You grow up around here? You really know the area." "Once I got my partner and beat assignment I brought the baby every day. Stopped in every Mom-and-Pop and introduced myself. Took the stroller all over, when it wasnÆt too hot, met the old people taking their walks, the kids cutting school, street people, even the whores working the day trade. When Ramon fussed IÆd put him in the car seat and just drive. Puts him right to sleep." "Hope it doesnÆt have the same effect on you." "I love to drive." "Then drive. CÆmon, Luz, I need to stop." "I swear, I wasnÆt this bad my ninth month." Luz parked, a bemused smile on her face. She got out, stretching like a tawny cat, while Jack waved at the counterman--Mr. Wexler, he should have known his name by now--and moved quickly to the menÆs room. When he returned he asked, "My turn to drive?" "No way." She buckled the seat belt across her newly rounded belly. Even LuzÆs face was fuller, more feminine, after the baby. "I have to drive because the only perp I could catch is an old lady." Her tone changed. "Check the pedestrian." "Somebody with a walker?" His eyes scanned the sidewalks. He spotted the one she meant just as she spoke again. "Blue plaid shirt." She slowed the patrol car, cruising the opposite direction. "ItÆs too big. HeÆs carrying something under it. Hiding it--and in a hurry." "I see it, brown--itÆs a purse." Jack picked up the microphone from the dash panel and switched to the speaker mounted on the car. "LAPD. You in the plaid shirt, stop right there. Yes, the blue plaid--" He managed to flick the switch to off before he broadcast, "Shit! There he goes." He was out the door before the car had come to a complete stop. His black shoes splatted on the asphalt as he narrowly dodged a U-Haul twelve-footer. "Sorry, officer!" the driver yelled, to a passengerÆs sarcastic laughter. By the time he leapt the curb, his shoes making a different slap on the sidewalk, Luz had the siren on, the carÆs tires whining as she expertly turned the car in the direction of the chase. Luz would drive past both him and the plaid shirt, looking for a place to cut the runner off if she could, anticipating every avenue of possible escape, from side streets and alleys to stores with back entrances. He didnÆt doubt her for a moment. If he was as good a cop, heÆd be in better shape and therefore closer to the plaid shirt sprinting down the sidewalk. He hadnÆt run a speed drill in months. Jack poured it on, closing the gap between himself and Plaid Shirt. His breath came hard. The guy was fast. Then he was gone. The black-and-white zoomed past. "Alley on the right, past the laundromat," LuzÆs amplified voice told him. "HeÆs cornered himself. Careful, Jack. I saw the sun flash on something metal. He could be armed." Jack Traven stopped at the alleyÆs entrance, his sides heaving, his back pressed to sun-warmed brick. More sweat poured from his scalp than his unruly hair could sop up. He flicked it from his eyes impatiently and wiped one large hand on his uniform trousers. Marla and several of her beauty shop customers stood in a tangle at their front window facing the alleyÆs mouth. A fat woman filled the doorway, half her brassy hair in curlers. Ever since the day heÆd mentioned heÆd quit smoking, Marla flirted and gave him a stick of gum every time he came in. She teased him about his thick hair, which tended to be wild and often overdue for a trim. "You donÆt look like a cop, Jack, unless youÆre growing this mop out for plainclothes." She ran manicured hands through his shaggy dark hair. "IÆve got my application in for SWAT, actually." "They take guys who canÆt find time for a haircut?" If things were different, heÆd ask Marla out, he thought. Maybe he could, lunch or something. Luz wouldnÆt mind, so long as he was available for emergencies. "Officer! HeÆs got a gun!" a woman shouted. "Police!" he called loudly. "Stop right there! Hands over your head!" In the doorway of Mr. LewisÆ shabby camera shop across the street, three men pointed at him, or perhaps Plaid Shirt. Mr. Lewis had binoculars and confirmed the womanÆs warning, making a gun of his hand, nodding vigorously. His heart pounding, Jack drew his weapon for the first time in his career. He felt an urgent need to empty his bladder and thought inanely of Luz. When he peeked beyond the protection of the yellow-brick corner of the laundromat, Jack felt something pass above him an instant before the shot sounded. With automatic response drilled into him at the Academy so thoroughly that it came unbidden, Jack dropped, rolled to the opposite side of the alley entrance, and came up in a single fluid motion to stand behind the protection of the peeling white siding of KrantzÆs Hardware. Time slowed to the luxurious pace of a summer afternoon in the back yard, with a cold beer and the Dodgers on the radio. He poked his head around the corner, this time withdrawing it well before the shot chipped at the wood two feet above his head. The purse lay on the ground at the guyÆs feet. Good, the evidence to nail the son of a bitch who shot at him, make him do time. Jack inhaled to shout the standard warning for Plaid Shirt to put down the gun as he spun across the mouth of the alley again and rose into the shooterÆs crouch, the .38 held in both hands aimed skyward. He never got the chance. The purse snatcher had dashed forward as Jack moved. His gun pointed directly at JackÆs head from only ten feet away. Time decelerated to a syrupy crawl as he stared into the enormous black hole which would engulf him momentarily. Would he see the bullet coming? Behind him tires squealed. The spinning red light stained KrantzÆs building pink. White. Pink. The purse snatcher would fire before Jack could lower his weapon. This was the end. HeÆd never ask Marla out, or see Jill again. With underwater slowness, Jack brought down his .38, aimed at denim-clad legs, exhaled fully, and gently squeezed the trigger. Plaid Shirt went down like dropped puppet, the shot intended for Jack ricocheting wildly off blank brick walls on the second story of the laundromatÆs building. The gun clattered to a stop six feet from the guyÆs hand. "Jack!" A delicate brown hand grasped his arm. A diamond flickered blue and pink. Luz. "Are you hit?" "No." His tongue felt strangely thick. Already people clustered at the mouth of the alleyway. Luz radioed for backup and an ambulance, then trotted past him toward Plaid Shirt, motionless among the sun-bleached trash blowing in the cracked asphalt alley. MarlaÆs hand, with long coral nails, lay on his forearm. "Jack." Her voice shook. "You want a cigarette? Anybody got a cigarette for the officer?" "No, I quit," he answered dully. Marla looked at him with concern, took a single drag on the Marlboro which arrived already lit, and dropped it, smiling at him. "I know, Jack. Gum, whoÆs got gum?" With trembling hands and a grateful smile, he unwrapped Juicy Fruit, shoving it into his cottony mouth almost brutally as he lumbered toward Luz, standing over Plaid Shirt, her weapon drawn. The purse snatcher hadnÆt moved. Dead, Jack though numbly. I killed someone. He worked himself up to looking. The hand, its fingers slightly curled, was fine-boned, the palm a paler honey shade than the back. The nails were dirty. Luz crouched, blocking most of JackÆs view. Next to the sleeve of the plaid shirt, dark red blood filled the tributaries leading to the bigger crack in the pavement. A grease-sheer taco wrapper touched the stream, one corner wicking up the ugly maroon before tumbling away in the light breeze. "Nothing we can do for him," Luz said, taking her hand from the tawny neck. "Stay back and weÆll keep the scene secure." She rose and glanced at him, doe-like eyes narrowing. "WeÆll get you out of here as soon as back-up arrives. Some shot. You must have put in your hours at the firing range." The one thing Jack sweated at the Academy was marksmanship. Tested on good days, heÆd passed, but feared what might happen if he ever had to use his weapon on an æoffÆ day. He couldnÆt find time for speed drills, but he managed the shooting range. "Some," he said, looking at dusty dark brown hair. The taco wrapper returned, danced in the curls briefly, moved on. "æSome,Æ" she snorted. "That was the perfect shot, Jack. He was firing again. I saw it, we got a handful of witnesses who did, too, and you got him straight through the heart. Clean." At last Jack dared to look. The brown eyes staring blankly into the blazing sun were set in a childÆs face, no more than fifteen. Jack holstered his weapon, turned his back on the boy and on his partner, supported himself with one hand on the yellow brick wall, and vomited so hard it splashed onto his uniform. He wished heÆd saved the gum for later. # They let him shower and change into street clothes. Luz typed up her incident report and was back in the squad car with a rookie Jack barely knew before he emerged from the locker room, smelling if not feeling better, self-conscious in khakis and flannel shirt. Lt. Carillo closed the office door. "The call on the purse was logged at about the time you ran down your suspect, Traven. Kid snatched it from a seventy-eight year old woman, Lilian Kellner, right in front of the bank three blocks over from where you and Gomez spotted him. The perp was carrying almost six hundred dollars. And credit cards in the names of Esther Feingold and Jetaysha White." Carillo smiled grimly. "Feingold reported it yesterday. No word yet on White." Jack nodded, feeling numb. "So it looks good. GomezÆs statement will be added to your SWAT application, along with yours once you finish it. They like a man who reacts well under pressure." "Thank you, sir. IÆll get started right now." "First Dr. Russell, in Interrogation One." An officerÆs use of his weapon started a chain of events, including investigation of the appropriateness of his action and a mandatory session with the Nazi bitch of a police psychiatrist whom everyone despised. Jack told the woman what had happened in courtroom-dry detail, withholding personal reactions. She showed no softness or sympathy for Jack or the purse-snatcher. "I donÆt think IÆm going to lose much sleep over open-and-shut self-defense," he concluded, lying glibly. "Maybe not. I understand you became ill?" Her smile exposed yellowed teeth. Jack felt his face heat. "There was a lot of blood." "Of course. You may experience guilt or self-doubt which can intrude on both your personal and professional life. Insomnia. Periods of depression. Inappropriate anger. Impotence. Excessive drinking. I can help you manage." What would she do, take his beer and blow him? He suppressed a shudder at the thought of those teeth anywhere near it. "If I need help IÆll get it." Another lie didnÆt matter. Nothing mattered. He spent the remainder of the afternoon on his incident report, repeatedly tearing it from the typewriter and starting over. Luz brought him a large coffee in a Circle K cup and left without a word. A half hour before the shift change, he retrieved his best effort from the wastebasket and completed it. There was no neutral way to say youÆd chased a purse snatcher, been fired on, then shot the kid through the heart, finally stood well back from the pool of the kidÆs blood and blown your lunch. "Done with that report?" Lieutenant Carillo could see he was. "Good. LetÆs go." "Go, lieutenant?" "Long day. Buy you a beer." Jack didnÆt want to say no to the lieutenant, or the uniforms and even detectives who clapped him on the back or shoulder and pressed second and third Coronas into his hand at the bar with remarks about it being a clean shoot, that heÆd joined the club, that heÆd made his bones at last, that heÆd sleep like a baby, pure in heart, that his SWAT application would surely move to the top of the stack. "IÆm going to make a fast stop, then IÆve got to go," he said. "I got a lady waiting." Hoots of laughter; the ones who knew him well enough sometimes joked about his celibacy. Luz took his arm when he came out of the menÆs room. "What, again? BeerÆs worse than coffee. Fix you up with a diaper?" "DonÆt tell me you need the practice." He accepted the beer sheÆd brought him. Ninety minutes and five Coronas went by before he managed to extricate himself and drive home with muzzy caution. # He let himself into the little house that had been his parentsÆ. Jill sat on the couch watching 'Wheel of Fortune' and did not turn her head when he came in. "Sorry IÆm late," he began, more to her than Mrs. Curtis, who stood with her arms folded, fuming for his benefit. He set down the smelly bundle that was his soiled uniform. "You canÆt expect me to stay hours past my time," she said shortly. "I got better things to do." He knew she didnÆt, but held his tongue. "ThereÆs my own house to take care of, you know. ItÆs going to ruin while IÆm over here every day taking care of yours." With a sigh, Jack reached for his wallet, looking around the small living room. It was tidy enough--neither he nor Jill made much of a mess--but hadnÆt been vacuumed or dusted recently. He didnÆt need to see the kitchen to know the dayÆs dishes awaited him in the sink, along with yesterdayÆs. Laundry was piling up again. A real cleaning this weekend for sure. Jill liked to dust and hardly every broke things. "IÆm sorry to have inconvenienced you," he told Mrs. Curtis, holding out a twenty dollar bill. "Please take something for your time." "Is that beer I smell?" she accused. "You kept me cooling my heels while you were out drinking?" "The lieutenant--" he began, but he knew it was hopeless. HeÆd had a hell of a time finding Mrs. Curtis and had no one to fall back on if she quit. Jack removed a second twenty from his wallet. Brown bag the rest of the week, he thought, and the big thermos. Damn, he was almost out of gas, too. He could get up earlier, catch the bus to work. "Well, all right," she sniffed, accepting his bribe. "But donÆt you let it happen again. IÆve got a life, you know. I spend all my days here and donÆt need to spend the evenings, too, while youÆre out swilling beer. And if you need that uniform washed before tomorrow, youÆll have to do it yourself." "I know, Mrs. Curtis." She did spend her days here--in front of the soaps. When his parents had been alive, they took Jill somewhere every day. Museums, parks, shopping, errands, or just a walk. Mrs. Curtis never took his sister anywhere, didnÆt even like Jill to spend time in the yard, because she hated to lift her fat ass off the recliner to check on her during the ads. "It wonÆt happen again." "Well, all right then. Jill ate. Your supperÆs in the oven." "Thank you." She did cook, he admitted, although she ate more than half and often took leftovers home. "I donÆt like to take the bus this time of day. ItÆll be dark soon." About an hour after you get home, he thought, gritting his teeth and pulling from his wallet the last bill with a zero. "Why donÆt you take a taxi?" he suggested, giving her the ten. "I will, from the Safeway up the block." She didnÆt even say goodbye to Jill. Dinner was in the oven, all right: a pork chop cooked dry and gray, a leathery-looking baked potato, and a limp green salad. Jack grew further annoyed with Mrs. Curtis, and with himself. Why couldnÆt he find some homemaker whose kids were off on their own, one who wanted some money, something to fill her days, and more important, to be needed? One who wouldnÆt be so lazy and uncaring as to put his damned salad in the oven! He carried his plate past the table. Jack didnÆt eat at the table except with Jill. It held too many memories of family dinners, his parents inquiring about school, his thoughts, his friends, and gently correcting JillÆs table manners and urging her to recount her dayÆs activities. Sinking into the couch beside his younger sister, he asked her, "ArenÆt you talking to me?" She didnÆt answer, but her eyes flicked away from Pat Sajak briefly. "I donÆt care if Mrs. Curtis is mad at me, but you, I do. Does it matter that I had a good reason?" He looked again at the gristled chop and warm wilted salad, and set his plate on the table untouched. "For why you didnÆt get home in time for 'Entertainment Tonight'? You should have called." Her small eyes glinted. "I thought you did, but it wasnÆt you. It was for you." "Who was it?" "A girl. Do you have a girlfriend?" "Only you," Jack assured her, with renewed annoyance with Mrs. Curtis. It was fine to let Jill answer the phone, heÆd told Mrs. Curtis more than once, but someone else had to take messages. JillÆs retardation was light, but she was incapable of taking down a name and number accurately. Jill chuckled and play-punched his arm. "Your sister canÆt be your girlfriend, knuckle-head!" Jack smiled at her overt delight in finding him stupid. She took no pleasure when he did it deliberately. In her way, Jill wasnÆt slow at all. "When did this girl call?" "A while ago." "Little while, or a long while?" "Little." That could mean anything from a few minutes to an hour or more. "Did she tell you her name?" "Um, yes." Jill smiled coyly. He recognized his sisterÆs familiar attempt to charm her way past a lapse of memory. It worked. It wasnÆt her fault, he reminded himself. She didnÆt ask to be born this way. "Was it Luz?" "Maybe," Jill admitted. Jack convinced himself it had been his partner, calling to make sure he was okay. Offering to hear him out, the one person whoÆd been there and could understand what it was like to take some kidÆs life away as a means of saving your own. God, Luz was great, so warm and caring, with a smile that could light you up. He should have found a way to ask her out years ago. Jack Traven blinked back tears at an opportunity gone by. There were so many! He was, he realized, a little drunk and utterly drained. "ArenÆt you going to tell me?" Jill asked. "Who was on the phone? I donÆt know." "No!" Again she snorted derision at his failure to understand the obvious. "Why you were late. And why you drank. Mommy didnÆt like for you to drink beer." "I know." Jack remembered more than one blow-up, undoubtedly overhead in JillÆs room, over his drinking beer. Jill wouldnÆt understand that there was a difference between a seventeen-year-old with a six-pack of Bud in him and a man nearing thirty trying to blot out the image of a dusty alley sopping up a childÆs arterial blood. "LetÆs just say I had a real bad day, okay?" "Okay," Jill agreed, and snuggled close to him on the couch. Although Jill was only three years younger, Jack felt more like her father than her brother. Johnny Traven had cuddled his daughter here all her life, reading the picture books she cherished. Dutifully, Jack picked up a favorite and began to search the clever and intricate picture for Waldo. "See him?" she asked. "I do. Right there." "Help me, Jill. You know I can never find him. HeÆs so little." Like the purse snatcher. Jack felt his abdominal muscles clench. Her finger began the trip to the page but stopped short. She couldnÆt see the tears that streaked down his cheeks, but she must have felt his belly quiver. "It was a real bad day, wasnÆt it?" she asked. He nodded. "Real bad," he said, trying to keep his voice calm. "TodayÆs almost over, and tomorrowÆs a whole different day." She hugged his ribs. "Daddy used to say that to me when the kids would be mean." "I remember." He remembered bloodying the nose of a fat little bully whoÆd taunted Jill cruelly and repeatedly. His dadÆs disappointment in him hurt worse than any physical punishment, but Jack was never sorry. The same sense of vindictive triumph flooded Jack when he came across the guyÆs record: the bully was serving three-to-five for assault. Jack savagely hoped he was real popular in the showers. "I remember something, too. Who called." "Luz?" "Almost. Marcia, I think." Marcia? Jack didnÆt know any Marcia. "She was real nice. We talked a while." "Where was Mrs. Curtis?" JillÆs thick shoulders shrugged. "æWomen Trapped in Male Bodies,Æ I think." "What did you and Marcia talk about?" "Everything. SheÆs real nice, Jack. We talked about how the roof leaks on the porch, and the time someone took the VCR and your little TV and even though youÆre a policeman you never caught him, and how the credit card wouldnÆt let you charge the new water heater, and--" Jack felt rage building up. Some saleswoman, recognizing his sisterÆs disability and unsupervised use of the phone, gathering information to sell him homeowners insurance or a second mortgage he didnÆt want and couldnÆt afford. "And I was so lonesome that I told her sure she could come over. Just for a little while," Jill added with obvious guilt. "Jill!" Christ, sheÆd invited an insurance salesman to the house. Damn it, he had to replace Mrs. Curtis with someone whoÆd watch over his sister more closely. He reined in his temper. "You know youÆre not supposed to invite people over without asking me first. Not everybodyÆs nice." "But she is." The bell sounded. Scowl in place, Jack went to deliver a few choice words on his opinion of salesmen--or women--who took advantage of people like his sister. He yanked the door open so hard it bounced off the toe of his shoe and slammed shut. He was dumbfounded at what heÆd glimpsed. He opened the door more slowly. "Jack?" Marla said. "Did you hurt your foot?" "No. I thought you were an insurance salesman." He stepped back to let her in. "You thought what?" Jack shook his head, knowing it couldnÆt be explained. Marla smiled. "Never mind. I just came by to make sure youÆre all right. I called first, but I guess you werenÆt home yet. Jill and I talked for quite a while. SheÆs very nice. IÆm eager to meet her." Could Marla not realize? Better fix that in a hurry. "Jill? MarlaÆs here." "Marla, thatÆs her name! I told him it was Marcia!" Jill laughed at her own mistake. "Pretty close," Marla said. "IÆm very pleased to meet you in person. My, you have beautiful hair. So shiny!" "MarlaÆs a hairdresser," Jack told his sister. "I know. She has an aunt like me, with curly brown hair." Jack glanced at Marla and addressed his sister. "But your hair is straight." "Not like me like that," Jill crowed, enjoying JackÆs stupidity yet again. "Down syndrome." "Oh. Marla, IÆm sorry, IÆm really beat, I--" "This isnÆt a good time?" "No, I mean yes," he said, flustered as a teenager. "I just didnÆt mean to leave you standing on the porch. Come in. We were trying to find Waldo." The three of them sat on the couch, Marla in the center. She was unfamiliar with the book but seemed genuinely delighted with it and charmed by Jill. Why not? If sheÆd been around a retarded adult, she knew how sweet they were. Jill had a more loving nature than any woman he knew, even their mother. When they finished 'WhereÆs Waldo?' Jill scurried off to fetch 'Find Waldo Now.' "YouÆll be here until dawn if we do all three," Jack told Marla. "You donÆt have to entertain Jill. SheÆll let us talk alone if I ask her to. Unless you came here to see Jill." "That wasnÆt my intention when I called, but IÆm enjoying it and so is she. I wonÆt stay late; you look exhausted. How are you doing?" Marla squeezed his hand. "IÆve been better." She nodded, sending her dark hair in a gleaming cascade over one shoulder. "I donÆt know if it makes any difference, but all afternoon people in the shop talked about the boy in the alley. His mother is either a whore or an addict, maybe both, gives him no supervision. HeÆs been stealing food since he was six or seven, but you know how it is; the owners donÆt want to turn in a hungry little boy. Then he started robbing mailboxes and shoplifting things he just wanted, until he was big enough to snatch purses. He pushed down a neighbor of Mr. LewisÆ, broke her hip." "He was just a kid," Jack said quietly. "He was a bad kid, and it sounds hard to say this, but I think it was too late to save him. HeÆd have ended up dead or in prison. When a person like that forces a situation where one of youÆs going to get shot--well, IÆm just glad youÆre all right." "I found it!" Jill called. For another forty minutes the three pored over the pictures, seeking Waldo and pointing out comical elements in the busy pictures in which he hid. "I hate to go," Marla finally said, "but itÆs getting late." "IÆm very tired," Jill announced, with a huge fake yawn. Jack and Marla exchanged smiles of recognition at JillÆs courtesy in allowing them to say good night privately. "Thanks for coming," Jack said, wishing he could think of something better than routine politeness. "And for being so good about Jill." "Quit apologizing for her being what she is. SheÆs really very nice. ItÆs obvious she has a caring family." "Yeah, our parents--" "I meant now," Marla said. "WhoÆs with her when youÆre working?" Jack shook his head. "Nobody good, but sheÆs the best I could do." "You remember my mother? SheÆs looking for a job since my sister got married, but she doesnÆt know how to do anything but be a wife and mother. Listen, maybe we could do something together, to let her meet Jill. Sunday? How about a picnic? WeÆll bring the food." "I couldnÆt let you go to--" "Shut up, Jack," Marla said, and kissed him lightly. He kissed back, hesitant only at first. He inhaled the scent of her perfume, felt velvety skin through her shirt, and his heart pounded beneath the gentle pressure of her breasts. Marla finally broke away, her eyes glittering, her lips moist and inviting. He could feel the warmth of her hands on his back even after they left. "Soon, but not tonight," she whispered. "Even if my mother doesnÆt want to take care of Jill during the day, IÆm sure sheÆd stay with her in the evenings. You need some time to yourself, Jack. To have a life, with friends and everything. Maybe a woman." "IÆd like to take you to dinner," he said, "the first chance there is. After I get paid," he added sheepishly. "IÆll cook for you before payday if Mom can come over. Make things nice and hot," she promised in a sultry voice. "But now, IÆve got to go. IÆm giving a perm at eight-thirty. And cutting your hair at lunch." "What?" "You need tending, Jack. Your hairÆs almost always a mess when I see you. Maybe we should try a buzz, huh? Real short?" # Dr. Russell may have been partially right, Jack grudgingly admitted. He did suffer the insomnia the police psychiatrist had foreseen; his body twisted the covers in knots while his mind raced. MarlaÆs mother might permit him a night out; since he wouldnÆt leave Jill home alone, he hadnÆt had a date since their mother died four years ago. He didnÆt want to think about how many years it had been since heÆd had sex. But maybe he could even replace Mrs. Curtis with someone who needed to mother but whose chicks were grown, someone whose experience would allow her to see all that was special about Jill instead of all that was lacking. His sister was forever a child, eager to please, to help, to love. Jill would never leave the nest. Jack had met MarlaÆs mother, a cheery Italian woman who often brought pastries by the beauty shop. She usually pronounced him underfed and urged him to have a second cannoli or at least put a few biscotti in his pocket for later. When heÆd told her that her poppyseed muffins were marvelous, sheÆd winked and said MarlaÆs were better. He smiled at the thought of Marla, who was preparing a Sunday family picnic and whoÆd promised to make dinner, and perhaps love, some night soon. He finally allowed himself to dwell on kissing Marla, reliving the warm satin feel of her, the taste, even her scent. Jack raised his hands to his face and inhaled the faint smell of her before he allowed his left hand to snake inside his underwear. 'Find Waldo Now,' he thought, and grinned. "Waldo" was growing; Dr. RussellÆs predicted impotence wasnÆt going to happen. Behind closed eyes, Jack envisioned MarlaÆs face, smiling, concerned, laughing, as he worked himself. Maybe. Probably. He imagined her coral-tipped hand on him, then her warm wet mouth. Minutes later, wishing Marla had been in his bed for real so he could hold her in the pleasant afterglow he dimly remembered, he felt himself drifting to sleep. The End | ||
| 2008-05-11 13:25:05 | |||
ADMIN Forum Posts: 3074 Comments: 405 Reviews: 1 | Woot, looks like there's no word limit for several thousand words.  Great writing.  A bit long though, and I haven't watched Speed so I don't know how much it's based on the film, but I think that it would probably work as an original piece if you change names...lol at the Circle-K coffee.  | ||
| 2008-05-11 20:21:56 | |||
| Forum Posts: 142 Comments: 1 Reviews: 0 | Yes - I agree - this was great. Well done. | ||
| 2008-05-21 19:36:05 | |||
Forum Posts: 49 Comments: 0 Reviews: 0 |
 Anakin! I keep meaning to ask...iv seen this posted around several times...but but but WHY have u never seen Speed??????? Is it a deliberate avoidance or you just never got around to it? | ||
| 2008-05-21 20:21:50 | |||
ADMIN Forum Posts: 3074 Comments: 405 Reviews: 1 | Neither; the first time I noticed it airing on TV I saw several seconds of it, got inspired, and went off to my room to write Matrix fan fiction. The second time it was on TV I was busy that night and not in the mood to watch anything.  But I'll make a concerted effort to watch it the next time it comes on. | ||
| 2008-05-23 16:25:27 | |||
Forum Posts: 49 Comments: 0 Reviews: 0 | Genuinely have no idea how uv managed to restrain urself for so long...do u have Blockbuster in Singapore??? Cuz if u do - u shud go get it! | ||
| 2008-05-23 21:29:21 | |||
ADMIN Forum Posts: 3074 Comments: 405 Reviews: 1 | Lots of video stores about; there's one just across the street from my home right next to the McDonalds I just had dinner at, but I'm lazy.  | ||
| 2008-05-23 23:55:44 | |||
Forum Posts: 49 Comments: 0 Reviews: 0 | A lazy genius?! Never heard of one before lol! Seriously, WATCH SPEED! Im going to shut up now tho, cuz i have a feeling the more i tell u to watch it, the more likely u are to not...  | ||
| 2008-05-23 23:57:58 | |||
ADMIN Forum Posts: 3074 Comments: 405 Reviews: 1 |
Douglas Noel Adams. He's dead.  | ||
| 2008-05-24 00:02:27 | |||
Forum Posts: 49 Comments: 0 Reviews: 0 | He was lazy??  | ||
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