This
story was inspired by reading through the list of Xena crossover stories at THE
MAMMOTH INDEX and realizing that there were no Lawless
Crossovers. This story is a crossover
between LAWLESS and the final episode of the Xena series A FRIEND IN NEED. It will not make a lot of sense unless you
have seen this episode. It is rated R
for sex and drug use. I thank Becky and
Kim for helping me with the beta reading, editing, and motivational testing of
this story.
This
story is divided into two parts. (I
like to know that before I start reading a story, so I am including it for
you.)
IF YOU NEED A FRIEND
By McJude
The
door was unlocked, indicating that the flat had made its daily transformation
from living quarters to office. Still it was silent and appeared empty. Her
partner was going to consider himself fortunate that she was not a client or a
burglar.
"Lawless,
it’s me." Jodie Keene called out as she put her coffee mug on her desk and
looked around the office. He was nowhere in site. Anyone could have walked into
the office, and if they wanted, walked out with an old computer, a broken
copier, or a few of their files. A cold pot of yesterday’s coffee sat on the
plate and the message light on the phone indicated that there were thirty-seven
new messages.
None
of these things really surprised her. Lawless wasn’t a "coffee in the
morning" kind of guy, still often starting the day with a cold beer. She
reckoned it was better than the pills and hard spirits that he used to need to
wake up. The door to the room where he slept was ajar and she noticed that his
bed was slept in and empty, both were good signs. The "new" John
Lawless could be working out at the gym or taking his morning run; she hoped he
hadn’t gone sailing.
She
closed the door and tackled the phone messages. Even with the step-by-step
instructions she had printed out for him outlining the
retrieve-forward-save-delete functions of the phone system, he seemed to be
intimidated by the answering technology. She might consider it humorous, if it
didn’t mean that she was the only one that could go through the messages each
and every morning. Of course she could see why Lawless didn’t want to listen to
the messages from venders trying to sell copier toner and light bulbs or trying
to get them to try yet another phone system; but sometimes there were calls
from new clients and those were just as important as the rings he took from
current clients on his mobile,
She
was still repeating the open-listen-delete pattern with the answering machine
when Lawless returned. He was still breathing heavily and soaked in sweat.
"Went
for a run."
"I
can see that. Smell it, too."
"Thought
I was doing better, today, so decided on a couple more kilometers. Guess I
wasn’t quite ready. Sorry ‘bout the smell, but it sure feels good." He
walked over to the small refrigerator and bent over to extract a beer.
"I
don’t understand you, Lawless. You run for an hour and then you drink a beer.
Don’t you think you owe your body a little more respect?"
"Just
moving it the beer to get to the juice. I’m trying, Jodie, believe me, I’m
trying. All those years of waking up feeling like shit have taken their toll.
I’m trying."
"Well,
try your way into the shower, I have a call from a possible new client that
seems to be right down your alley."
"Mine.
I had the last one, remember, messed it up, got the office torched, was taken
for a fool. Sure you want to give me this one?"
"Maybe,
just maybe, you deserve another try. This woman . . .
"Thanks,
for trusting me, I’ll be out in a few minutes. Maybe I ought to shave, too."
"Not
a bad idea."
* *
* *
Erika
Jensen lived in a small but well kept house in one of the pricier suburbs. John
pulled into her driveway next to her red SUV. He wondered why women liked these
big cars and their complementary large fuel bills. He knocked at the door, and
waited for a much longer time than he would have anticipated for a scheduled
appointment.
The
woman who answered the door was about Jodie’s size, with short blonde hair and
bright green eyes. She had an incredible body, hard like a gymnast’s or maybe a
ballet dancer’s. She was wearing a cut-off T-shirt tucked into the bottom of
her bra accentuating her pert breasts and a pair of torn jeans hanging low on
her hips. There was a wide expanse of skin on which to feast your eyes,
complete with the almost mandatory naval ring. He had to try hard not to stare.
He had to try even harder not to . . .
"Hi,
I’m Erika Jensen, you must be John Lawless. Come in. Can I get you something to
drink?"
"Thanks,
no." She led him into a nicely furnished room, flush with sunlight and
filled with art from all over the world. They plopped on a large leather couch,
and she pulled her legs up and sat cross-legged looking at him.
"I
suppose you got the details from my message. I’m looking for a friend of mine.
She’s been missing almost a month now. I’ve been to the police, and they say
that they can’t help me."
"Why?"
"First
of all, she’s an adult. Unless I can show an indication of foul play, she has a
right to take off and go anywhere she wants. Police aren’t interested. But I’m
worried," the woman began. "And she disappeared in Japan. Police
there aren’t interested either. In fact they are one sentence short of telling
me that I am crazy. Maybe I am crazy for coming back here instead of staying to
look for her, but at the time I felt I had no other choice. Can you help
me?"
"Probably.
Need everything you have on her, pictures, description, work history, what she
was doing in Japan, what she was doing here, why you think she’s not gone off
on her own. I’m sure you know the routine."
"Do
I look like a woman who is adept at losing friends?"
"No,
you look like a woman who likes to keep her finger on the pulse . . "
"People
say that a lot, good read."
"So
what you got for me, Ms. Jensen?"
"I’ll
get the file, and a beer, your really do look like you can use one."
* *
* *
John
listened as Erika told the detailed story of her friend’s disappearance. Helena
Hull was an American, with an MBA from a mid-western state university who had
come to New Zealand because of her work. He looked down her vita and noticed a
woman who had traveled the world and up the corporate ladder in several
multi-national firms. He wondered why she had stopped this pursuit and settled
in Auckland.
A
picture of the two women, framed in Lucite, sat on the glass coffee table. Ms.
Hull was about ten years older than Erika -- dark-haired, attractive and
statuesque.
"I
can’t really tell you much about what Lena did. I can read the words on the
resume, pharmaceuticals, banking, telecommunications, I grew up in a world
where business was buying and selling groceries and serving the customer. Quite
honestly the details of big business never excited me, mostly moving paper or
money from one desk or account to another. You lose me after the first few
sentences. "
"Hands-on
is the way to go, Ms. Jensen. That’s why I do what I do."
"Lena
and I had been planning a holiday trip – she was finally going to get some time
off and we thought about going several places. From as simple as the Gold Coast
to as exotic as the Cook Islands, but at the last minute she told me that it
was not going to be the trip that she had promised me. We HAD to go to
Japan."
"On
business?"
"No,
it was more complex than that. It was more like we had to go back to her former
life. From before we met. Wasn’t where I wanted to go – emotionally or
geographically."
"So
Japan wasn’t your cup of tea?" John winked at the comment, but sensed that
Ms. Jensen did fully appreciate his humor.
"We
spent a couple of days in Tokyo. I had the distinct feeling she was trying to
relive some past trip, but she certainly didn’t want to discuss it with me. I’d
sleep late, I knew she went out while I was sleeping, but she never told me
where she went. Then she told me that she had to go on alone. To some place
called Higuchi. Without me. She rented a car and left me, alone, in the
freaking hotel room.
"She
never called to let me know what happened., so I guess I panicked. When I
didn’t hear from her for three days, I went to the police. They told me to go
back home, that they would let me know if anything came up. I don’t know why,
but I did what they told me."
"It’s
been how long now?"
"Over
three weeks. I think the trail is getting cold."
"Did
she have anything, guide books, maps, flyers? Did you have any idea where she
was going?"
"She
took them with her, so I didn’t know then. Last week, I get a call from the
rental car agency that they had found the car abandoned, back in Tokyo. I had
to pay the bloody rental tab. It was a fortune. Went to the police here, and
they told me to contact a Private Investigator. Not their jurisdiction."
"Thank
you for calling Keene and Lawless. I’ll look into these things, and get back to
you. I hope that there are still a few breadcrumbs left."
"Panko?"
"Right."
* *
* *
Lawless
was sitting with his feet on the desk reading a travel brochure when Jodie
returned to the office. She walked behind him and glanced over his shoulder at
the headlines and the pictures.
"Let
me make a suggestion. Not for you. I had a friend who went to Japan a few years
back, thought it would be fun to visit one of those tea-houses. Sleeping on a
mat on the floor, soaking in a wooden tub, eating the ritual meals. Christ,
Lawless, she came back aching and starving. She was my size; I can’t imagine
how it’d be for someone your size. You’d have to crawl to get through the
doorways."
"Actually,
not my holiday plans, but may have to go there on business. These flyers were
found in the car our client’s missing friend, Helena Hull, had rented. And, by
the way, thanks for the warning about the doors."
Jodie
smiled.
"Ms.
Hull wasn’t exactly a small person either. Don’t know if she made it to this
teahouse or not, maybe she heard about sleeping on the floor and found another
place to stay. I’m probably going to have to go to Japan and check it
out."
"Another
suggestion. Don’t rent one of those businessman’s special sleeping rooms –
unless you like the idea of sleeping in a coffin."
"You’re
all full of good ideas today, Jodie. I wasn’t planning on it. Helena Hull
doesn’t look like a person who would disappear unnoticed into the general
Japanese population." He showed Jodie the picture and she nodded her head
in agreement.
"Been
reading an interesting story, she’s definitely a lady who moves around a lot. But
she ended up in paradise," he explained.
"Maybe
she just got the urge to go back to the rat race. What do you think?"
"I’m
not sure, Jodie, there seems to be more here than meets the eye."
* *
* *
Before
he left for Japan, Lawless had done a background check on Ms. Hull and her
artful resume. What surprised him were not the fabrications but the omissions.
Helena Hull did have the equivalent of an MBA from Purdue, but she also had a
Ph.D. in biochemistry. Much of her previous employment had been not as a paper
or money pusher, but in the area of scientific research, included running a lab
for a large pharmaceutIcal company – in Japan. He figured he’d stop by the
corporate offices of Edon Pharmaceuticals in Tokyo before attempting to retrace
her path into the countryside.
A
tiny middle-aged Japanese woman in a short, tight, black business suit led him
into the office of a senior vice president who had agreed to talk to him about
Helena Hull. Despite the diversity of the New Zealand population, Lawless was
unprepared for the man who greeted him with a firm handshake. Though definitely
Japanese, the man was almost as tall as he was and probably outweighed him. His
black hair was gelled back and he sported a fu-manchu mustache.
"Fukusaburu
Li" the man introduced himself.
"Just
sort off rolls of the tongue, doesn’t it, Mr. Li. I’m John Lawless. I’m looking
for a former employee of your company, Helena Hull."
"So
what kind of trouble has Lena gotten herself into now?" He asked,
indicating that John should sit for what was going to be a long story.
"I
didn’t say she was in trouble. I just said I was looking for her."
"You
have cop written all over you. She must be in trouble."
"Glad
I didn’t know you when I was working undercover," John mused. "You
read people better than most."
"I
have to. There are a lot of people interested in what we do here at Edon, for a
lot of different reasons. If I took people on face value, I wouldn’t have
gotten where I am today. And since I’m noticing that you are trying to get a
read on me; I’ll make it easy for you, the answer is sumo-wrestling."
"Pardon?"
"My
size. I used to weigh over 220 K – believe it. I was a rikishi, shaved my head,
wore mawashi, the whole show. Believe me the weight comes off fast when you
stop eating those ritual meals and going to bed immediately. It was a way of
life, and it helped me to get where I am today."
"Sorry,
don’t know anything about the sport, except to . . . no I’d better not say that
. . . you look like you could still hold your own even on someone who works out
as much as I do."
"But
I doubt if you came all this way to compare work-out regimens. I think we’d
better get back to Helena Hull."
John
nodded.
"She
was a biochemist, but not a very good scientist. I think that business
background had gotten the better of her. Not exactly into safeguards and
testing when it meant not making money. She was in charge of the lab that had
the release . . . no, you probably wouldn’t have read about it unless you were
in the industry. Let’s say that a lot of innocent people got very sick and a
few more unlucky ones died, because of what Ms. Hull’s laboratory did, or
didn’t do. We fired her, and I was very glad to hear that she had shifted her
career focus out of the lab and into the wonderful world of money."
"Interesting,
that’s not on her resume. It says her next job was in Germany, then Turkey, and
finally moved to New Zealand."
"The
lady likes to travel."
"Did
you know her in other than a business capacity?"
"You
might suspect that. Judging by our – shall I say – compatible sizes. But no,
I’m happily married. I know Helena was uncomfortable here, not just because she
towered over all of the men. I’ve heard rumors about her. How can I put this
politely . . . we have an old saying that the woman has an itch in a place that
no man can scratch."
John
twisted his face and pondered the ramifications.
"She
was always trying, and not just with men, if you get my drift."
"The
lady plays for both teams."
"Quite
well, from what I hear."
John
wondered if Erika Jensen was a teammate or cheerleader.
* *
*
"I
need some more information on the days you spent in Tokyo, Erika." Lawless
found making the call on his mobile from a park bench preferable to calling on
the hotel phone. The connections were clearer and he enjoyed feeding the
pigeons. "Where did you stay? What did you eat? Did your friend meet with
anyone? Hook up with anyone in a bar? Anything?"
"I
can’t remember the name of the place we stayed, but I am sure I have charge
card receipts somewhere. Will have them by morning. We ate a lot of sushi and
drank sake. Lena went out both days for a couple of hours, but I didn’t go out
much, except for dinners."
"Ms.
Hull’s not much on dancing?"
"You’ve
seen the bars in Japan, she always said she felt like Gulliver in the land of
the Lilliputians. So we would go out to eat and go back to the room. Not
exactly exciting. She read a lot, mostly from some of her personal papers that
haven’t shown up, either here or from her car. She may still have them."
"Did
she discuss anything with you?"
"You
know, the usual. I don’t remember much of it; it didn’t seem that important at
the time. I do remember one name though. Akemi."
"Akemi.
Is that a first or a last name?"
"No
idea, just a name she used. She mentioned something about having to see
Akemi."
* *
* *
Erika
Jensen looked down at the credit card bill that had just arrived. It was a
chronicle of the trip to Japan translated from yen to dollars. No one at the
National Bank of New Zealand would realize the emotions contained in those
numbers. She wondered if John Lawless would. She was unsure still how much she
should reveal to him, especially about that last dinner she had had with Lena.
Lena
loved sushi – especially the expensive and the exotic – the stuff you couldn’t
get in New Zealand or New York. Erika was content to humor her and actually
enjoyed some of the "cooked" varieties that went by names like
Manhattan or California roll. She was totally shocked when that last night they
had gone outside the tourist area, to a small three table restaurant down a
dark alley, to partake in a dinner with a special main dish.
She
sat and watched, drinking sake from a wooden box and nervously sucking edamame
beans from their pods. Lena had ordered a several dishes, some not on the menu
at more mainstream restaurants, and as she explained, not usually served to
women.
"Everyone
knows about fugu fish. Japanese puffer fish, which if not properly prepared can
cause death," Lena had begun with one of her typical glassed-over looks on
her face. "The ovaries, intestines and liver of this fish contain
tetrodoxin, a poison that is 1200 times stronger than cyanide." She
enjoyed the role of teacher.
"I’m
sure it’s delicious, but not for me. I like my fish cooked, thank you,
Lena."
"I
ordered us a plate of fugu-sake, the fish is thinly sliced and served with a
ponzu dipping sauce made of citrus juice and soy."
"I’m
sure YOU will enjoy it."
"No,
that’s the safe dish for both of us. The first time I ate it, it produced the
endorphin rush, but I was never sure whether it came from thinking I was that
close to eating poison, or from something in the dish itself. I’ve moved on,
for this trip, I had to come to a place where they actually serve the fish’s
liver."
"Which
is the poison part, right, the part the chefs are trained for years to remove
without contaminating the rest of the dish. Lena, why would you want to eat
poison?" She remembered grabbing her friend’s hand and staring into her
eyes as she asked that question. Nothing on this trip had made a lot of sense.
"More
people die from choking on rice cakes than from eating fugu, Erika. It’s the
rush. I need that feeling again."
"I
just don’t understand." She looked down at her sake box and tried not to
think about the dish that was being put in front of Lena. A small dish, less
than five centimeters in diameter, with about ½ teaspoon of a finely chopped
dark substance in the center. Special, small, chopsticks, rolled in silk were
presented. She watched as Lena picked up a small sliver and placed it on her
outstretched tongue, and slowly swallowed. Lena reached over and grabbed
Erika’s face in her hands.
"Erika, if I only had 30 seconds to live, I would spend it this way,
looking into your eyes."
One
did not have to eat fugu liver to feel the endorphin rush, just watching
someone you love eat it was enough. Not that fear was an emotion that Erika had
cultivated. Hell, she didn’t even like to ride roller coasters. She remembered
the feeling as she watched Lena’s face, but now only felt the anger. Thirty
seconds later Lena explained that she had not eaten fugu liver, but the liver
of another species of Japanese fish, which was not poison. She explained that
she had gotten the rush she was seeking from the look on Erika’s face.
Erika
was never certain why Lena had done this or if she had really eaten fugu liver
and survived. She was also very unsure as to how much of this she should relate
to John Lawless. Lena’s preoccupation with coming close to death might be a
factor in her disappearance. She may have stopped at an even more
off-the-beaten-path restaurant and found a chef promising more excitement and
having less skill.
In
the end she decided to just give Lawless a list of the restaurants they had visited.
He looked like the kind of man who would prefer to learn about fugu-sake first
hand or maybe just risk going one-on-one with killer rice cakes.
* *
*
Lawless
retrieved the faxed charge-card bill, with numbers carefully blocked out, from
the hotel office. The names of the hotels and restaurants did not look
promising, even though Lena Hull was the type of woman who would be noticed.
The Akemi name still puzzled him, and he wondered if Fuku Li might be of any
help with the identification. It was worth another visit to the park and a ring
on the mobile.
"Johnny
Lawless, talked to you a couple of days ago about Helena Hull."
"I
remember you, Mr. Lawless, have you had any luck locating her?"
"Not
at all. She seems to have disappeared. Just calling to check on a name, my
client gave me. Does the name Akemi mean anything to you?" There was
silence on the other end of the phone; Lawless regretted not being able to read
the expression on Mr. Li’s face. "Mr. Li?"
"I’m
thinking. Sorry. I think there was an Akemi who worked for Ms. Hull, in
Higuchi."
"Do
you know how I could get a hold of her?"
"That,
Mr. Lawless, would be most difficult. For Akemi Kanegawa was one of the workers
killed in the toxic release at Lena Hull’s laboratory. To talk to her, you’d
have to be able to talk to a ghost."
"Well,
thank you anyway."
It
seemed easier to pierce the language and cultural barriers of the pigeons, who
seemed the same the world around, than those of Mr. Li and Edon Labs.
* *
* *
Another
problem became apparent when he asked the rental car agent for a map printed in
English. Sure they had them, but he couldn’t find a place called Higuchi. He
had figured it to be a large city, but even when he asked the rental agent
about it, she couldn’t find it on her Japanese map. Yet both Erika and Mr. Li
had talked about Higuchi. The rental agency told him that although it was a
fairly common surname, a town with that name could not be located.
This
sounded like a job for his friend Andy and his computer searches. He put
through a call to Jodie and gave her the information. Try to find something
about a Higuchi – a place, a person, a lab, a tea-house, anything at all about
a place where Lena Hull might have rented a car and driven north from Tokyo to
find. While he was at it, Andy might also check for anything about an accident
in Japan at Edon labs resulting in fatalities. It might be covered up, perhaps
under something related to Higuchi.
For
the first time Lawless cursed himself for not being more computer literate.
While he was waiting he checked out the restaurants on Helena Hull’s charge
bill, ordering the house specialty and a box of sake at each. Other than a
headache and a bad case of indigestion, he had little to show for it. No one
remembered either woman – the breadcrumb trail seemed to have been eaten by the
pigeons. The final restaurant on the list was a place where his intuition said
to skip the food. He ordered a drink and showed the employees the picture,
which of course, no one recognized. He was about to leave when looking out from
the dimly lit restaurant, he saw outlined in the afternoon sun, a woman who
looked a lot like Helena Hull. Except that she was made up to look like an
oversized Japanese geisha and was wearing a red kimono.
There
was no reason to leave; Helena Hull did not know him. She had no reason to
suspect that anyone was looking for her, here or anywhere else in Japan. She
certainly had made the job easy for him. He ordered another drink, overpriced
scotch instead of sake, and waited to see what would happen next.
He
watched and listened as she argued in broken Japanese with the waitress and
produced a roll of money from inside the belt of her kimono. The noisy
interchange led him to believe that Helena Hull was not getting what she
wanted. She threw the money at the waitress and cursed loudly, only to retrieve
the bills quickly and tuck them this time inside the bodice of her robe.
"I
would like to buy a drink for the lady. What does she like?" John asked
the waitress when she delivered his second scotch.
"I
don’t think the lady, if that is what you want to call her, wants you to buy
her a drink, I think she would prefer it if you just bought her."
"I’m
just trying to make the approach a little easier. She seems to have a temper."
"Yes,
she wanted fugu roe, I told her it was impossible."
"What’s
that?"
"Poison."
"You
have that on the menu?"
"Sometimes
. . ." the waitress bowed her head and walked slowly off to retrieve his
order.
* *
*
Lawless
studied the woman as she drank her surely overpriced scotch. She looked like
the title character in M. Butterfly or a foreign tranny, because of her size.
She looked worn, tired, and angry. He understood all of those feelings, but
what he could not understand was the feeling of sexual excitement he felt when
he looked at her.
John
Lawless was no stranger to attractive and professionally available women. His
years of working undercover and working security at strip clubs had introduced
him to many women in all price ranges, but Helene Hull was different. He wasn’t
drawn to her façade; but to something deeper, something he couldn’t explain. He
pictured her naked, straddling him, her long hair unloosened and falling around
her full breasts, her mouth open in sexual pleasure, and it seemed like it had
happened many times before. Yet he was certain that he had never met this woman
in either his or her personal or professional capacity. Still, the feeling . .
. wherever it came from . . . would not go away.
He
read from the glance thanking him for the second scotch that she was interested
in him joining her at her table. He picked up his drink, walked over, and
noticed that she smiled even wider when his full height was revealed.
"Johnny
Wilson," he introduced himself falsely.
".
.ena."
"Funny
you don’t look like a Warrior Princess?" he quipped, even though she did
resemble the Kiwi actress to whom he was not related.
"No,
Lena, with an L. I wonder if people think that sometimes." She had already
placed one of her hands over his, and dropped the other one under the table to
his thigh. "Where ya’ from Johnny Wilson?"
"Auckland."
"So
you would know a Warrior Princess if you saw one."
He
was really thankful that he had not used his real name or this conversation
would have gotten off to a very rocky start. Right now the only rocks were in
his underpants – and they were growing.
"I
noticed you didn’t order any dinner, would you like to go and try to see if you
can get what you want somewhere else."
"If
I can’t get it here, I can’t get it anywhere. So I guess the question is, your
place or mine? And mine’s a dump."
"Mine’s
a micro-hotel room."
"Oh,
goody, I always wanted to fuck in one of those coffins."
"Do
I look like a man who would overnight in a coffin? I’ve got a bed, a single
bed, and it’s very small."
"Does
it have roaches?"
"No."
"Then
it’s nicer than my place? Let’s split."
"I
offered to pay for dinner, not . . ."
"You
I’d do for free, or maybe for breakfast."
* *
*
She
had sat on the bed; he sat on the floor – there was barely room for either of
them. It seemed like they had talked for hours, still they had talked about
nothing. An empty liter of scotch sat on the floor, and he wondered if they
needed another one. Oddly, he felt more comfortable when she took off her
kimono and sat in her underwear smoking cigarettes and putting them out in a
paper cup. She was easier to think of as a real woman than as an artificial
geisha. Her long hair had come down and he wondered if he still had a hairbrush
in his luggage.
He
was as randy as a teenager. As much as he realized that it was totally
unprofessional to take advantage of a woman in her state both physically and
mentally, John had never been so turned on in his life. He had consumed more
than his share of the scotch, primarily for its mind numbing capacity, and it
wasn’t working. She slid to the end of the bed, to make room for him to sit
beside her. Lena unhooked the front of her bra, allowing her full breasts to
hang free, and carefully moved his hands to cover and fondle them. He knew he
should pull back, but didn’t. Her hands had busied themselves unbuttoning his
shirt and his belt.
He
thought of Sonya, the woman with whom he had rebounded after his wife had told
him their marriage was over. Sonya was a drug user, some might even call her a
junkie, but she worked as a nurse; she wasn’t a whore. He’d known whores, some
of whom he liked, but he had always refrained from buying their services. John
Lawless, or Johnny Wilson, didn’t need to buy sex; that was for sure. Even
though this woman said she would do him for free, he wondered what strings were
really attached. Should he send her out into the night and risk the chance that
he would never find her again? Should he ask for her phone number or a way to
reach her? Or should he just take the free shag and worry about the
ramifications later?
"Got
to get freshened up a little." She said with a smile.
He
thought that would be nice; he wouldn’t even mind if she used his toothbrush.
The scotch and cigarettes he could stand, but the day old sushi. . .
"It’s
OK, I got condoms in my dresser. I’m always prepared."
"Nah,
give me a few minutes. OK?"
He
had no choice but to wait. Fantasies came to him, from sources and places he
couldn’t attach to any other place or time or woman. It seemed that Helena was
taking her time, a very long time. He had heard water running and figured she
had decided to take a shower. Both he and his cock were getting tired of
waiting.
"You
OK in there?" he called.
There
was no answer.
He
waited a minute or two more and caught a whiff of something burning, maybe she
was smoking another cigarette, a joint, or even crack. When she didn’t come
out, he decided it was time to check. The door was easy to open, because he
remembered, just before he tried to break it down, there was no lock. There was
barely enough room for both of them in the tiny room. Helena Hull was sitting
on the toilet with her panties around her feet, a bottle cap sitting on her
knee, and a syringe dangling from her left arm. Her face was blank.
Blood
trickled down her arm as John pulled out the syringe. He thought of Sonya.
Another woman was not going to die on his watch.
"What
are you trying to do, kill yourself?" He yelled as he extracted her from
the tiny room, placed her on his bed, and determined that she was still
breathing.
"No,"
she muttered, "I’m trying to stay dead."