The color drains from Hana's face. "N-no, p-p-please!"
He whispers something into Hana's ear, his eyes never leaving mine, and drops her as she slumps limply to the floor, unconscious. Fear tightly grips my stomach, yet I'm held immobile, spellbound by his mesmerizing stare. Slendil dances over to me, his whole body swaying with sensual ease.
"Sssso..." he begins slowly. "Now that neither of you are going anywhere, what would you give up to keep your life?"
He looks me up and down, breaking the daze and freeing my thoughts, and I quickly return my eyes to his chest. I realize then just how dangerous Slendil is, and how easily he could kill the two of us. It could be weeks before anyone caught on to two missing girls from such a large city campus.
When I don't respond, he gracefully moves to Hana's side and reaches into her purse, pulling out a plain, black leather-bound book titled Grimorium Verum. It looks very old—and very expensive.
"She tried to rob me," Slendil states. "Ssso she will pay her debt by learning the harsh lesson of why to not steal from me. However..." in one fluid motion, he returns to me with an impossible charm. "I see you have an understanding of the occult that is rare for one so young. I would be willing to trade for your life. Ssso, what would you give?"
"Anything," I state with much more confidence than I feel as I stare at his nose. Despite my absolute terror of him, I can't help but feel the impossibly strong attraction and the need to feel his skin beneath mine.
A spark of interest lightens his mischievous eyes. "How much does this one mean to you?"
"Hana is my friend. I would gladly take her debt—so long as no one dies or gets hurt," I add quickly.
His eyes size me up, as if judging how delicious I may be. "I want what I have entirely too much of, yet have a little more bearable than everyone else: time...with you." His fingers gently stroke the side of my face. "I'm sure something as sssimple as that will suffice."
I flinch away from his touch. "H-how much time?"
"Oh, it won't have to be long. One month will do."
I narrow my eyes in concentration as I catch on to his game. "One month, starting when?"
"Any time I wissh, of course. An hour here, an hour there—what difference does it make?"
Twenty-four hours in a day, at 30 days in the average month: 720 hours. "I have school to attend, Mr. Slendil. I won't be able to drop whatever I'm doing to come here. I have classes during the day, but if we set a night aside then I can prepare during the week to be sure it stays open."
Slendil steps closer to me. After some thought, he says, "Your next four Fridays are mine—you will be here promptly at sunset, and you will leave at sunrise. If you can do this, your friend's debt will be voided."
I swallow passed the sudden lump in my throat, and reluctantly agree to his terms.
*The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt by Ian Shaw.
The End.
On a Hot Summer Night
I was on the verge of tears as my car sputtered and wheezed on a seeming death roll into a small town in the middle of the vast emptiness, and nowhere, of southern New Mexico. Hell not even a town; more like a roadside rest area with a zip code. With just four street lights lining the main stretch through the center of "town", I saw only three buildings; thank God that one of them was a service station.
Willing my hemorrhaging vehicle with all my heart and soul to hold on just a few seconds longer, I managed to pull it off the road and into the service station parking lot where it then proceeded to die. I tried desperately to start it again, but it didn't even so much as stir. Pounding my forehead and fists on the steering wheel, I felt the tears begin to flow.
I dug into my purse and pulled out my cell phone only to find that I had no service. Naturally! And besides, who was I going to call anyway? My son was in Iraq on his second tour of duty while my philandering husband was on yet another one of his "business trips" to consult with a client. I wondered how long he'd been "consulting" this particular "client"; and how old she was. The last one was just nineteen; just a year older than our daughter.
Rapidly reaching the end of my emotional rope, I stepped out of my sweltering hot car in the hopes of finding a refreshing evening breeze. Not a chance! The air was completely still and dreadfully stale; and even though the sun had set over an hour ago, the stifling late August heat refused to relent. As I stood in that parking lot in nothing but a white pair of sandals and a lake blue colored strapless summer dress that smocked at the bust and fell into a ruffled hem to the middle of my calves, I felt like a beach-walking hooker. I still couldn't believe that I had let my daughter talk me into buying it; let alone into actually wearing it. But God love her, she had!
I had spent the last three days getting my daughter all settled into her dorm room at Arizona State University. Though Amanda had insisted that she didn't need my help, I ultimately pulled rank on her; not to mention a little bit of a guilt trip too. I still couldn't get over that my baby girl was eighteen years old and a freshman in college. Grumbling at first, Amanda finally came to appreciate having me with her and it turned out to be a wonderful girl's weekend getaway. Once we got her all moved in, we spent the remaining two days giving my American Express Gold Card a massive workout. And one of the purchases we made was the silly little summer dress I was then wearing. I'll never forget Amanda pressing it up against me, still on its hanger and virtually ordering me to try it on.
"Come on! It'll look so sexy on you, Mom." She had said.
"Sweetie, this is for a young woman with a beautiful figure." I told her. "In other words, it's for you."
"Mom, will you stop that! Good God, sometimes you talk as if you're ready for the retirement home. You're only forty-four. And you've got a fantastic body." She argued. "I mean, look at you!"
Amanda jerked me over in front of a full length mirror and stood behind me as she continued to hold the dress over the front of me.
"You're tall and slender; you got perfect olive skin, beautiful face, misty green eyes and all this long and gorgeous brown hair." She continued as she combed her sleek little hands through my shoulder blade length hair.
"Ohh, you're so sweet." I said as I blushed.
"You got great curves, long and sexy legs, a flat and firm tummy, sexy shoulders, big and perky boobs!" She continued.
"Amanda!" I snapped.
"Not to mention one of the most perfect, tight and sumptuous asses I've ever seen!" She went on.
"Okay, I think I get your point!" I shouted.
"That you're a beautiful, sexy woman that any man worth his salt would kill to get naked with?" Amanda said.
"Enough!" I roared and had just about everyone else in the store looking at us. "Alright, you win; I'll try it on."
"Thank you!" Amanda declared triumphantly.
"My daughter, the Madam." I jabbed as I headed toward the dressing room.
"My mother the MILF." Amanda called after me.
"What's a MILF?" I asked.
"Mother I'd like to Fuck!" Amanda replied with a grin.
"Amanda!" I gasped in shock.
"Becky!" She gasped back in a mocking tone and then giggled.
I shot her a stern scowl and shook my finger at her before practically storming into the dressing room and slamming the door.
"Daddy's gonna go tell it on the mountain when he sees you in it." I heard her call after me and I felt as though I'd been kicked in the stomach.
Neither Amanda nor Nick, my twenty-three year old son, had any clue of their father's incessant philandering; and I wanted to keep it that way for as long as I possibly could. Don't ask me why.
Needless to say, I went ahead and bought the damn thing. Now I could lie and say it was because I just wanted Amanda off my back, but the truth is; I was extremely impressed with how nice it looked on me, even for a woman of nearly six-foot-one. As I studied myself in the mirror in the dressing room, I felt very feminine, attractive and desirable for the first time in God knows how long. Of course, w
hether I'd actually wear it in public remained to be seen; I highly doubted it. But as you can clearly tell, my baby girl has not only a remarkable way with words, but is also highly skilled in the art of manipulative persuasion. And it's because of that that I now stood in the deserted parking lot of a small, rundown old service station in the middle of the vast emptiness of the New Mexico desert after dark with nothing but a thin cotton summer dress covering me. And what was worse; I was "going commando". I was already without a bra when I slipped it on that morning and my daughter somehow managed to talk me into not wearing underwear either. Talk about a mid-life crisis.
Except for the four street lamps lining the road through "town", all around me was total blackness; there was not a moon out tonight or even any stars. I could see tiny scattered lights in the distance which I assumed to be homes, but they were miles away across the vast valley floor; and it was deathly quiet. Just then I heard the sound of an air conditioning unit kicking on and it was very close by. Turning back toward the ancient gas and service station, I noticed a faint light coming through the dusty windows of the bay doors of the garage. Was it open? Glancing at my watch, I found that it was just after nine; probably not. But what the hell! I've got to do something.
Retrieving my purse from off the passenger seat, I shook out my somewhat disheveled hair that was sticking to the sweaty skin of my bare back and shoulders then strode hurriedly across the parking lot toward the garage doors. The place was clearly a relic; a classic, all-American, Route 66 type service station with full service gas pumps, free air and water dispenser, a filthy little glassed-in front office that no doubt reeked of sixty years worth of stale cigarette smoke and the infamous, utterly rancid tiny restrooms with the sky blue tiling. There was a war-torn old tow truck parked on the far side of the garage that looked to be as old as the station itself. As I passed under the canopy over the gas pumps, I heard country music coming from inside the garage; I also noticed that one of the bay doors was raised halfway.
Arriving at the half open door, I peered into the garage and was instantly hit with the infamous odors of a service garage: gasoline, tire rubber, burnt motor oil and as I had surmised, stale cigarette smoke. Taking a deep breath, I slipped under the door and was hit with a blast of semi-cool air that was blowing from the huge floor fan in the corner of the shop. I slowly rounded the rear of a beat up old clunker that was parked in the first bay and moved up cautiously between it and a mid 1970s model Ford pick-up truck that was parked in the second bay. Practically tiptoeing now, I heard the sound of a socket wrench cranking beneath the raised hood of the pick-up truck.
"Hello." I called out.
Instantly, a young woman sprang out from under the hood of the truck, clearly startled out of her wits and holding a socket wrench in her hand.
"Jesus Christ!" She roared.
"I'm sorry." I said; equally startled. "I didn't mean to scare you."
The young woman exhaled a deep, relaxing breath and wiped her forehead with the back of her filthy hand. As hard as my heart was pounding, I could only imagine what hers must be doing.
"You shouldn't sneak up on people like that." She snapped. "Especially after closing time. How'd you get in here anyway?"
"The bay door was open." I told her.
"What time is it?" She asked.
"It's just after nine." I replied, glancing again at my watch.
"We closed at seven. Sorry. Come back tomorrow." She growled.
"Look, I really hate bothering you like this, but it's an emergency. I'm in a terrible jam. My car died on me just as I was coming into town. I just dropped my daughter off at college and I'm on my way home. My son is overseas, my husband is on a business trip, my daughter is clear back in Arizona and I'm still hundreds of miles from home in Texas. And there is no cell phone service out here apparently." I explained.
The young woman whistled as she pulled a filthy rag from the back pocket and wiped her sweaty forehead.
"Sounds like you're having a pretty tough day." She said matter-of-factly.
"You have no idea." I replied.
"Where's your car now?" She asked.
"It's right out here in the parking lot." I told her. "I managed to get it pulled in here before it died."
"Well, let's have a look-see then." She said.
"Oh thank you so much." I said; trying desperately to keep from bursting into tears.
Stepping over to the utility sink behind her, the young woman ran her hands under the faucet, scrubbed them with the heavy duty, orange scented soap and then dried them with a blue rag out of the wall mounted dispenser. Now in better light, I was able to get my first good look at her. Dressed in a grimy pair of raggedy denim overalls with a men's wife-beater undershirt on underneath them, my eyes were instantly drawn to her broad and muscle clad arms and shoulders. Though they were not quite bodybuilder caliber, they were still very impressive; exquisitely defined and bulging, accentuated by a couple of rather elaborate tattoos.
Bent over the sink to wash her hands, I couldn't help but here Amanda's words flash through my mind. "One of the most perfect, tight and sumptuous asses I've ever seen." Yep, this young woman's ass was just that. Standing up straight to dry her hands, I could clearly see that though she was clad with muscles, she also had a full set of lovely feminine curves. There was also a long ponytail of dark auburn hair hanging down from under the ball cap on her head. Though she was not nearly as tall as I; probably five-foot-six at the most, she appeared to have long and shapely female legs nonetheless. Grabbing a flashlight off her cluttered workbench and then turning toward me, I got a clear view of her face; it was small and round with an adorable button nose, a cute little mouth and deeply embedded eyes. As she came closer, I could see a small speckling of light freckles on her pale cheeks as well as on her impressive cleavage. She had a surprisingly bountiful bust, which is rather unusual for a woman so muscular. Her stomach was flat and her waist was trim.
"Anything for a lovely lady." She said with a smile.
"Thank you. I'm Becky by the way." I said.
"Sydney." She replied. "But everyone just calls me Syd."
I led her out of the garage and over to my car. Popping the hood, Syd had me try to start it while she studied the engine. This time the car wheezed, coughed and sputtered, but wouldn't turn over. Syd called for me to stop and I jumped out of the driver's seat and came around the front to stand beside her.
"Can you tell what's wrong?" I asked.
"Not sure yet." She said and was quiet for a moment. "So, you say you just dropped your daughter off at college?"
"That's right."
"I wouldn't have guessed you old enough to have a daughter in college."
"That's about the nicest thing anybody has said to me all day." I said; quite touched. "And she's my youngest to boot. My son is twenty-three."
"Twenty-three?" She said; sounding shocked. "How old are you?"
"Ah, is this how you question all of your customers about their vehicle problems?
"No! Now answer my question."
I had to admit that I found her bluntness rather charming. It is so hard to find a person who is so forthright and direct anymore.
"I'm forty-four."
"Amazing."
"And how old might you be, my dear?"
"Twenty-six."
"And you're a mechanic?"
"No, I'm a movie star. Don't you recognize me? I'm just doing this as research for an upcoming role."
"And a smart ass too?"
"Hey, everybody loves some ass; even if it's a smart ass."
"Actually I think that's everybody loves some ass, but nobody loves a smart ass."
"What? You don't love me?"
"Honey, right now, if you can get my car fixed, I'll marry you."
"Careful; I might just hold you to that." She said and paused. "But I'm afraid I can't fix your car."
"Why not?"
"Because it ain't fixable."
"What do you mean?"
"Your engine's thrown a rod. That means its history! Dead! Gone! The only fix to this car is to buy a new one."
"Oh God."
That was the straw that broke the Camel's back apparently; or snapped my emotional rope, for the next thing I knew I had buried my face in my hands and was sobbing.
"Hey? Hey, what's this? What's this? Hey, Becky..." Syd said with concern in her voice.
I felt one of those powerful, muscle clad arms slide around my shoulders and could smell the grime, gas and oil on her, but I didn't care. I turned into her and buried my face on to her broad, muscled shoulder and threw my arms around her. Syd was obviously a tad surprised at my complete breakdown on her and was hesitant at first, but I ultimately felt her powerful arms slide around me as I wept piteously on her shoulder.
"It's gonna be okay, you know. After all it's just a car." She said trying to be comforting.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry." I sobbed. "This just hasn't been my day."
"Apparently not." She whispered and I felt her grip around me tighten as I continued to sob. "My God. There times I'd give my soul to be able to cry like this."
"Oh, I hate it!" I sobbed.
"You wouldn't if you couldn't do it anymore." Syd replied solemnly. "Believe me."
Syd held me contentedly for another minute or two and then gradually released me as I pulled myself together. Syd cupped her fingers under my chin and lifted my head and I looked into a compassionate; not to mention beautiful pair of stunning icy blue eyes.
"This isn't about the car, is it?" She stated.
"No."
"Then what?"
"Let's see: My son is on his second tour of duty in Iraq and I haven't seen him in nearly two years; haven't heard from him in nearly five months, so I don't even know for sure if he's alive or dead or wounded or what."
"Oh Becky...I'm sure he's fine."
"My husband is cheating on me; has been for at least the last five years. He goes off on his "business trips" to "consult with clients"; only problem is his clients are girls young enough to be his daughter and the only consulting he does depends on how many times a night he can get it up."
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