by Jane Keeler
“Aren’t you going to sleep as well?” his son asked.
“I’ll just stay up a little longer and finish this book I have been reading.”
“Okay, see you then,” Johan said and headed off towards his room. Just then his father called him. “Oh son, I almost forgot to ask! How long is your vacation this time round?”
“Ten weeks! Why?”
“Oh no reason, just asking!”
Chapter 4
A couple of weeks passed as Johan slowly settled back into his life in New York. His father was pleased to be in the company of his son once more and insisted on treating him to new delicacies every day. Little did the military Sergeant know that in his absence, Steve had picked up yet another hobby – that of wrecking havoc on the gastronomic system!
The Sergeant never protested to being pampered by his father, even though it was coming in after all these years. He had craved for this kind of attention way back in his childhood, a period that was slowly turning into a distant memory for him. Nevertheless, Johan felt that it was better late than never and bathed in all the love being showered upon his adult being.
As had been his plan all along, Johan had informed his friends of his homecoming; rather, they had picked up that snippet of information from his posts on one of the popular social networking platforms. They were the same friends he had made during his early days in college. Though he had moved out and joined the military training institute, their friendship had remained. The gang was more than pleased to know of his return back to the country after a gap of almost two years – for them the wait had almost seemed like an eternity!
Christmas was just a couple of days away when Johan received a call from Matt, his best friend in college. Matt Ryan was an assistant manager at one of the finance houses on Wall Street and a very busy man. So he was a little surprised to get a call from him.
“Hey Matty boy! How’ve you been?” Johan said, answering the call.
“As good as these bloodsuckers at office allow me to stay!” Matt said with a sigh. “Anyhow, leave all that aside right now. It is Christmas time and I hope you don’t have any plans?”
“So far as I know, I am staying home with dad! Is anything cooking up with you and the boys?”
“Just the usual, night at the Reindeer Bar! The four of us guys…” Matt said and tailed off his last words to create an air of suspense.
“What about the girls?” Johan asked. Christmas never seemed fun without having a girl to get laid in bed for the night.
“Some lucky bird this time round,” his friend answered with the sarcasm clear in his voice. “When do I pick you up?”
“Your call!”
“Will nine after dark be fine?”
“Sure! See you then. Oh and by the way…dress code?”
Matt gave a snigger. “Don’t act stupid serge! Anything that comes off easy, you know that,” he said and cut off the call.
That evening, Johan informed his father of his plans to hang out with his friends. “Oh, no worries son! It’s Christmas and I think you have every right to enjoy. Go out there and revel in the Yuletide spirit. And yes,” his father continued with a wink, “Don’t come home until you get laid!”
Chapter 5
Matt was his usual punctual best, arriving just after the clock had struck nine. He was dressed in a black woolen t-shirt with a brown jacket casually thrown on top. His hair was done up in its usual mop style and he wore some fancy glasses to complete his ‘funky’ look. Matt was always the one in college who stood out for his weird fashion sense. Johan would always wonder how he managed to carry himself through this way in his professional life.
“Sergeant Walters!” Matt said and gave Johan a mock salute as he walked out to the car. “Your tank is ready! Let’s go out to war.”
“Shut up you old fool,” Johan said as he got into the car. “Else I’ll make sure you get blown up by a hand grenade!”
“Oohhh….I’m scared! Do you people really blow up civilians?” he asked mockingly.
“Can you please start this damn thing and drive?” Johan asked, a little irritated with his friend’s childish attitude and eager to dive into the festive mood.
“Okay okay, let’s save you a hand grenade!” Matt said as he powered up the engine and drove off. They rode through the relatively dense evening traffic and reached the Reindeer Bar after around half an hour. The third member of their group, Noel Martins, was already present and waiting for them. There were a couple of girls with him whom Johan had never seen before.
“Hey Serge Walters, great to see you out here man!” he began as he spotted Johan and Matt entering the place. The two of them walked up to Noel and embraced him. “Been a long while, eh? How’s the old boy been?” he asked addressing the military man.
“Just about keeping body and soul together in Afghanistan,” he said. Then he turned towards the girls who were eyeing him with a ravishing look in their eyes. “And who are these wonderful ladies may I ask?”
Noel looked at them. “Them? Well this one here is Anna and this is Jesse. We go back a long way and you can regard them as your Christmas present!” he winked. Noel was the ‘supplier’ as the guys called him in college. He always seemed to find a girl to hook up with a guy though he always maintained that he was “above getting into something as trivial as a relationship.”
“You work with them you say?” Matt asked. “Hmm, interesting! The last I remember, you were getting kicked out of your job at the Walmart store.”
“That was six months back,” Noel retorted. “I have got another job. Besides, what do you care?”
Johan stepped in. “Cut it the two of you! It is Christmas night and look at the two of you fighting like little kids.”
Soon, the group was chatting among themselves, catching up on all the interesting things they had gone through in life over the last couple of years. To be precise, it was the men who were doing all the talking while the two girls simply sat around and downed one drink after another. They wore a bored expression on their faces and it did not look like they were enjoying their time very much. The men on the other hand seemed to be totally ignorant of their presence and carried on in their own world.
Finally, one of them decided to speak up. “Guys are you planning to just chat through the whole night or are we going to do something else as well?”
“Yeah I’m bored,” the other one said. Then she looked at Johan with a flirty look in her eyes. “And I bet the little soldier here is craving for attention just as much,” she said, rubbing her hands over his crotch.
He was taken aback by her straightforward behavior. “Noel, who exactly are these women?”
“Ah, Johan just forget it! You want to enjoy the night don’t you?” he asked, trying to change the context.
“Yeah but where –,”
“I have booked us a couple of rooms at the back. Jesse, do you mind taking our Sergeant along with you?”
“No problem! Come on big daddy, it’s time for my big Christmas present,” Jesse said as she lured Johan down a shady corridor towards the back of the bar. There were a number of doors on either side of the corridor and every one of them was closed. The military man thought he could hear screams and moans coming from the inside but he was not at all bothered. He wanted to enjoy himself and enjoy was what this unknown woman was taking him to do.
They entered a small room at the far end of the passage and Jesse immediately shut the door. It was a shabby looking place and had no more than a simple double bed in the middle of the room. There was a small sofa on one side and a table stood beside it. The place was pretty warm thanks to being connected to the central heating system.
“Now, you have been talking long enough and I am pretty angry with you,” she said in a seductively angry tone, placing her hands round his neck. “I have waited for my present for way too long. Give it to me!”
Without another word, Johan took her face in his hands and started kissing her juicy, red pout. Jesse s
eemed to be in a hell lot of hurry for she did not give him enough time to work up a passion between them. After a short kiss, she took off her clothes and went down to take Johan in his mouth. Before he could realize what was happening, she was up in the bed and spreading her legs out invitingly for him to enter. He did not waste his time and thrust his hardness inside her. Johan felt weird at the way they were making love. He had slept with many a woman before but never had the feeling been anything like what he was experiencing at that moment. The sex was rough and wild, the kind he had read about and seen in erotic stories and movies but never experienced.
It was only after the two of them had reached their climax and was lying naked in each other’s arms that Johan realized who Jesse truly was. When he was willing her to do a second take, she promptly sat up in bed and said, “Okay, then that will be an extra fifty dollars!”
“What?” Johan asked in surprise. “Where is money coming into the picture?”
“So you think I’m doing this for free, fucker! Come on, out with the money or I’m done with you. There are more people waiting for me.”
That was when he realized that his friends had just got him to spend the Christmas night with a cheap city hooker!
Chapter 6
Johan returned home early the next morning after picking up a real big quarrel with his Noel that threatened to snowball into a major fight. Matt had stepped in just in time and played the role of mediator, pulling the military man aside and practically dragging him home. The Sergeant had not at all liked the idea of being hooked up with a prostitute and he made his feelings clear to the man who had planned for all of it to take place.
He sneaked into his pretty quietly and went up to lie down in his room. His father was not yet awake but he figured the old man would be up very soon. He did not want to disturb him so he went about as silently as was humanly possible.
Johan lay down in bed and closed his eyes. It had been a pretty hectic night and he had not been able to catch a single wink of sleep amidst all the camaraderie and excitement his friends had planned. Before he knew it, the man had drifted off into a soothing sleep.
Soon he started dreaming about a pretty young girl with beautiful blonde hair. She was running through an open meadow with the catching her hair and fluttering it about like a waving flag. Her face had a solemn smile that brought a smile to Johan’s lips even though he was asleep. Then he found himself standing at one end of the meadow under a big tree. The girl ran straight into his arms and they embraced with the whole thing ending in a delightful kiss. The man could almost feel the touch of her silky soft skin on his body and imagined the sweet smell of her body lacing his nose. It was almost as if she was a fairy who had come down from Heaven just to be a part of his dream.
Johan woke up with a start and sat upright in bed. Even in the freezing December cold of New York, he was sweating like crazy. He had often heard it been told that dreams are actually thoughts hidden in the subconscious. Though he had never really believed it, this proved to be one occasion where he did not have an option to think otherwise.
All of a sudden Johan realized that he had managed to figure out what he had been missing all this while. It was her; it was the girl he had been with the last time he was in New York. Her thoughts had escaped his mind for good – or so he had thought – but apparently they had simply been lurking around in his subconscious and had sprung up at the opportune moment. However, the Sergeant was unable to recall her name for the time being but he knew he had to do it. Dawn had long made way and the sun was shining through the clouds. He checked his watch and it was seven in the morning. He had slept longer than he had imagined. Johan jumped out of bed; there was something of an adventure for him to undertake!
***
Noel was lying down in his bed and staring blankly up towards the ceiling. The night had not gone according to plan. He had just wanted to make his friends happy but thanks to the stupidity of the prostitutes he had hired, his cover had been blown. He did not know what to do and was wondering about how to get his friends back on his side.
He was fiddling around in his mind with a number of thoughts when the phone rang. Noel looked at the clock on his bedside table; it was almost eight in the morning. He wondered who could be calling him at such an hour and picked it up. His surprise was tremendous when he heard the voice of Sergeant Johan Walters at the other end. He seemed excited and surprisingly a little out of breath.
“Noel you’ve got to help me!” Johan said. “I have been dreaming about this girl and…and…I don’t know –,”
“Whoa slow down man, slow down!” Noel protested. “You don’t make any sense.”
There was a moment of pause between the two callers before he resumed. “Okay, now tell me what seems to be bothering you and please keep it slow and steady!”
Johan described the queer dream that he had had and said, “I realized that I know this girl. In fact, we had met a couple of years back thanks to your efforts. Now I need to know where she lives so I can go and meet her.”
“For Heaven’s sake Johan I have no idea who this girl is you are talking about. Describe her for me please will you?”
So Sergeant Johan Walters got about describing that fairy-like lady he had seen in his dream and recognized as someone from his own life. His friend listened to him patiently and remained silent for a while. “Hmm…now let’s see! Yeah I do remember hooking you up with this girl back then. What was her name now? It was something with an ‘R’ but I can’t quite recollect….Rose, Rosa, Rosalyn…no, Rebecca? No that was not it…Ah, I remember now! Rita – that was her name.”
Johan felt the excitement growing inside him. “Rita? Do you have her full name?”
“Rita Taylor! Yes, that was her name. Rita Taylor. Hey now I remember, the two of you hit it off instantly that night and…”
“Address?”
“Sorry, can’t help with that I’m afraid.”
“Thanks Noel that was a lot of help. Bye!”
Johan disconnected the call and fell back in his bed once more. Rita Taylor! The memories of that pleasant night he had encountered with her came flooding back to him. It was time to find out where she lived and have a meeting with her.
He opened the New York City Yellow Pages website and typed in her name. Multiple results appeared under the search name of “Rita Taylor.” “Fuck!” he thought. “How am I going to find her?” He scanned the number of results returned – it showed the number seventeen.
Johan took a printout of the list and dressed in preparation to go out. He had a long day ahead of him.
Chapter 7
It was Christmas night a couple of years back, the last instance when Johan had been back in his hometown. Like always, he was out with Noel and Matt to celebrate the day and Reindeer Bar had once again been their destination. And as had been their custom, Noel had brought along a few girls to enjoy with them on that night. Unlike the events of this year, those girls had not been prostitutes. Rita Taylor had been one of them and Johan had taken an instant liking towards her.
The night had gone pretty much like any other Christmas night. The group had partied hard and drank to their heart’s content. In the end, they had taken the girls to bed. However, there had been something about Rita that had made Johan stop in his tracks. The night was supposed to be one of casual sex – do your thing and then forget all about it in the morning. This duo had done nothing but stayed up and chatted through the night. He had come to know that she was working as an assistant at one of the many retail outlets in the city. Rita was from a humble background and he had given her the impression that she was just the kind of girl he wanted to settle down with in life.
Johan and Rita had spent a good amount of time over the following days in each other’s company. One fine night, just before he was scheduled to return back to duty in Afghanistan they had finally made love. It had been the most passionate encounter he had experienced in life. She was an Angel and Johan could not bring himself
around to hurt her in any way. However, he had been forced to leave abruptly the next morning upon receiving a call from his seniors in the army who had requested his return at the earliest. Sadly, he had never had time to explain the situation to her for she had been asleep when he had left. Eventually amidst all the excitement and agonizing terror prevalent in the Afghan War camp, he had completely forgotten all about Rita Taylor.
Now he was back and his subconscious had suddenly sprung her thoughts back for him. There was no way Sergeant Johan Walters was going to surrender the love of his life to someone else though he realized that in all the time that had passed, a number of stumbling blocks may have come up in his way. And as he soon found out the hard way, he was not too far from the mark!
Johan hopped into his car and took out the printout he was carrying with him. He decided to try the addresses as they were mentioned in the list and set off in search of the first one. Luckily for him, he did not have to roam around for too long. After a couple of misses, he hit the jackpot on the third attempt.
When he reached the third address, Johan looked around in surprise at the neighborhood he was in. It was one of those shady places his father had always warned him to stay away from as a teenager. The place literally smelt of danger and illegal activities. The building that was apparently his destination was a ramshackle old place with gaping holes for windows and cracked walls in a number of places. He could not imagine a human being living in such a dilapidated condition, let alone the girl he had fallen in love with. For a moment, he felt like skipping the place and moving on to the next one but then changed his mind. Johan entered the building and climbed the rickety stairs on to the third floor. He stood in front of a closed wooden door and looked around for a doorbell or knocker. Finding nothing of the kind, he made best use of his hands to rap on the soggy wood.