The American Princess - Best Love Story Ever

by Jennifer Tate

  She hiked up her skirt and pulled down her panties—the way he used to. Then she reached for the tote bag on the seat beside her, removed her designer chastity belt, and locked it in place with the key that he had worn around his neck. Her tears welled up, and then spilled down her cheeks as she strode into the surf.

  She stopped when she felt the waves lap against her thighs. She longed to keep going, but couldn't. I must deny Venus her ultimate victory. Brad can't have died for nothing.

  "I belong only to you, Bad Brad," she whispered. "Very few loves last a lifetime—only ours is for always. It started with Helen and Paris, and then transcended time to bond us together forever." It is true, she thought, 'love is stronger than death'. Then she flung the key to her chastity belt, and watched as it arced above the waves, before it splashed into the sea.

  When she could see well enough to drive, she hooked her choker around her neck, and headed north on 17. Her dance with Brad was over. But despite the unendurable grief of the previous five days, she realized that she would be forever grateful for the memories of her time with him. For her, their love had not ended—nor would it ever end. The love that she shared with Brad, was a love for eternity. And eternity has no end.

  EPILOGUE

  Betty-Jo and Brad had quietly married in New York, the day before Betty-Jo's last U. S. Open match and Brad's death. The small, but lovely, ceremony was attended by friends and family: the Sheik, Belinda, the Fox, Eddie, and Brad's parents.

  Brad had changed her vow to 'obey him', to 'dance with him'.

  "They'll soon be calling me Dances With Fools," said a relieved Betty-Jo.

  "I knew all along that 'obey' was a non-starter," Brad had told her, "but it was fun having a semi-obedient, vow-practicing cat, even if only for a couple of weeks."

  Initially, sorrow was mixed with joy, because before the ceremony, Eddie took her aside and gave her the gold, heart-shaped locket that Victor had worn after Dixie Lee's death. She opened it, and looked at the picture of her father, herself, and Ben-Gal. He was the finest daddy a girl could ever have wished for, she thought.

  "When dad was dying, he asked me to give you his locket," Eddie said. "He told me to tell you to wear it when you walked down the isle on your wedding day, and that he would be there with you. His exact words were: 'Tell Tiger, that I will be there for my girl, just like always.'"

  She closed the locket, hung it around her neck, and felt the tranquility of her daddy's love within her.

  As she walked slowly down the isle with her father's love, the lyrics to Here Comes The Bride played in her head and its melody wafted around her:

  Here comes the bride,

  Heart filled with pride.

  Radiant and glorious,

  She shines in his sight.

  Faithful and true,

  We lead you forth.

  Where love triumphant,

  Shall crown you with joy!

  As her daddy led her forth, her tears flowed.

  At the front of the chapel, before the altar, Brad wiped away her tears and said, "Never has a crying bride looked so beautiful." And indeed, she was radiant and glorious. She lit up the chapel.

  "And never has a crying bride been so happy," she said, before she kissed him.

  "I thought we weren't allowed to do kissing until we were given permission."

  "We're not. But I couldn't wait. Don't tell anyone."

  "Too late, Tawny Cat, everyone already knows."

  That evening, the newly wed couple slept together as husband and wife—for the first time, and for the last time.

  * * *

  A number of first rate lawyers wanted to represent Felicity—gratis. But that was before she listened to the voice-mail message from her son, changed her plea to guilty, and insisted on the death penalty.

  "Hello, Felicity. This is Brad Raiden," the voice-mail said. "I apologize for calling you out of the blue, but I just found out that I'm your son. You're my birth mother. I'm here in New York with my wife...wife... That sounds strange because it's the first time I've called Betty-Jo that. Her name is Betty-Jo Chance-Raiden. She's playing this afternoon in the U.S. Open tennis round of sixteen. Monologues with an answering machine are weird. Uh, I just can't believe that I've found my birth mother. Having one mother is great, so having two will be fabulous. I can't believe my life now—how all the pieces have come together. I can't believe how happy I am. I'm staying at The Sheraton, room 612, but I'll call you again tomorrow—sixish. I'm ecstatic that I've found you at last, Felicity.... I mean mom."

  * * *

  After Draper Greely turfed out Felicity he placed an add in the personal section of The Village Voice.

  Me Tarzan, You Jane!

  Sir Stephen type, looking for 'O' type.

  Please reply with photo and particulars.

  2043

  Greely thought he'd died and gone to personal add heaven. He'd hit the mother load. Who would have guessed that so many 'O' types were looking for a Sir Stephen. He must have had thirty of them jerking his chain over a period of six months, and his pile of responses was hardly diminished.

  Then, on a miserable February '96 morning, Greely woke up feeling rotten, but he couldn't stay away from work. He showered, grabbed some breakfast, brushed his teeth, and popped a multi, and his last two C tablets. I'm gonna need my stamina to keep the bitches happy, he thought as he carried out his garbage.

  Half a block from the subway he collapsed, and a few minutes later he died, gasping for breath, and pink faced from the oxygen build-up in his blood.

  The autopsy revealed that Greely had been murdered. Although if he had taken his cyanide filled C tablet on an empty stomach the cyanide would probably have gone undetected. But who had murdered him was an entirely different matter, because there was no shortage of suspects. Following a short investigation, Greely's file was shifted to the open but inactive section.

  * * *

  Betty-Jo stopped playing professional tennis and went back to college at Coastal Carolina. She still loved the game, but she'd realized that she could no longer give her fans what they had come to expect from her. Without Brad, she no longer felt sexy and beautiful.

  Strange, I assumed that the thrill of preening on a worldwide stage had nothing to do with Brad. Then, when he died, it was obvious that strutting my stuff for other men had everything to do with him. Freud was right, 'how bold one gets when one is sure of being loved'.

  * * *

  Betty-Jo looked at the line of male students that stretched from the front of the Student Center, around Spadoni Park Circle, and up Chanticleer Drive East.

  "Why did I ever agree to do this?" she groaned. "What's wrong with me?"

  "Do you have an hour?" the Fox asked.

  "Funny," she replied.

  "Stop your complaining, B-J. If they'd pay me five bucks for a hug and an autograph, I'd happily hug those guys for the rest of the week. Might even lead to something more. Anyway, it's for a good cause, the athletic department can use the money."

  "Where have they all come from? I was told that a few of them camped out all night."

  "The organizers of this frosh-week fund-raiser are stupid. They could have charged twice as much, and the line would have been twice as long."

  "At least this time, there's no Frenching," Betty-Jo said. Then she wondered if she knew anyone in the line, and took a closer look. There, five guys back, was the Dung Beetle—his cold black eyes were leering at her. Her heart skipped a beat as fear and loathing engulfed her. When Dungie had slammed into Martin Obourn at the U.S. Open, he'd killed Brad as surly as if he'd pulled the trigger himself. Unfortunately, the cops couldn't charge him, because on the video replays it appeared that Richard was simply fleeing the gunplay. I have to hug Brad's killer. Please God, no!

  Betty-Jo stalled as best she could. The first four guys in the line got a lengthy hug, and then some. But all too soon, Dungie's ugly puss was in her face. I'm gonna be sick, she thought. I'm outta here! But she made h
er move too late. As she turned to flee he grabbed her hair, twisted her around, and forced his tongue into her mouth. His rancid breath nauseated her, and he wouldn't let her go.

  "Hey, buddy. Leave some for the rest of us," the next-in-line guy said.

  "Your ass is mine, Stud Plaything. You've been given the secret kiss, so now I get to do you."

  She breathed a sigh of relief, and then timed her swing perfectly. Behind it was all the force she could generate.

  The crack of her hand hitting Dungie's kisser could be heard half way down the line. He reeled away, a look of pain and disbelief etched on his face.

  "That can't be good for business," the Fox said.

  "Maybe next year, Bouncer," the next-in-line guy said.

  Richard kept retreating. "Your word is worthless!" he shouted.

  "What's that all about?" the Fox asked.

  "Somehow, Dungie learned the secret kiss I had with Brad, and somehow, he also found out that I swore to sleep with anyone who knows it."

  "I always suspected you were deranged. So why aren't you sleeping with him?"

  "Luck. Brad changed our secret kiss the day before he died, and obviously, Dungie doesn't know the new one."

  "You're not lucky, you're cuckoo." The Fox grinned at her, turned, and walked away.

  * * *

  Somehow, Richard appeared to have enrolled at Coastal Carolina for another year. Nobody knew how, because, as the Fox put it, "Dungie's not the smartest pig in the pen."

  A few days after the kissing incident, Betty-Jo enlisted the Fox's help in her plan to shorten Dungie's thing. She wasn't prepared to detail her master plan to the Fox, but the Fox agreed to help anyway when she was told that it was Dungie who had tackled Martin Obourn at the U.S. Open, and that it was Dungie who had killed PussCat. "I hate him more than a fire hydrant hates dogs," Betty-Jo told her.

  The Fox laughed. "This sounds like the good old days, when we planted that tack on old man Ducksworthy's chair."

  "Right. We're majoring in advanced retaliation."

  "But I'm not doing this for Brad. He wouldn't sleep with me."

  "You tried to sleep with Brad?" She could not believe what the Fox was telling her.

  "Of course. He was by far the best of the guys you attracted."

  "I don't believe you! I thought you were my friend!"

  "I'm not just your friend. I'm your best friend! I didn't try to sleep with him on your days, and you didn't appear to be feeling at all guilty about using him for your sinful purposes on mine."

  "I thought you were kidding about sharing him."

  "So did I. Or at least I did until I discovered how fine he was—and such a handsome devil. I just knew that with Brad I'd be able to make it."

  "Make it?"

  "I've never come with a man. Maybe that's why I've gone through so many."

  "So you wanted to practice your coming on my Brad?"

  "Only on my days. With Brad I knew that it would have been different."

  "I'm sure it would have been," Betty-Jo said, "because—just between us girls—Brad was even better in bed than he looked."

  "B-J! That's more than I wanted to know, but I'm not going to lose sleep over it. With your fame, you'll continue to pull in plenty of men for me to try to come with."

  Darn, I'm starting to feel sorry for her. Betty-Jo gave her foxy friend a hug. "Why don't you take a run at my friend Jimbo?"

  "Jimbo!"

  "Well, Brad said he's not a half bad guy, and don't forget, Jimbo owes you for saving his life when you jumped on Brad's back."

  "That's right, he does!"

  "And you can also have any other guys who come my way, because Brad will always be the only man in my heart and on my mind. He walked into my life, and left his footprints on my sole. He's my escape from loneliness."

  "You should be thinking less about escaping loneliness, and more about escaping abstinence—which won't happen unless you go diving for the key to your chastity belt."

  "You don't understand. I was Brad's kite, and he made me soar. Have you ever seen a kite dancing across the sky, and then watched it fall lifelessly to earth when its string was cut?"

  "That bad?"

  "Worse. Brad touched me where I'd never been touched before."

  The Fox threw her an amused smirk. "That would be the Pawleys Island bird sanctuary?"

  "Funny, but you could at least try to understand. He imprisoned my heart, and then lost the key. In the certainty of his love, I had the courage to live more, to love more..."

  "And to show more."

  "You mangy fox! But you're right. More than I ever thought possible. He made me so happy. It's true, 'the supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved.'

  "I'm rather fond of myself. Does that count?" The Fox asked.

  Betty-Jo laughed at her. "Brad made me his fairytale princess. He was my sunshine. He was my hero. I miss his touch terribly, but I still feel his love—every day."

  "I don't understand something. Now that you're wealthy, and can have all the men you could possibly want, why would you bother going after a cretin like Dungie?"

  "That's what I keep asking myself. But I know the answer. When I didn't tell Brad that it was Dungie who killed PussCat, I promised myself that I would even the score for him."

  * * *

  The Fox had no difficulty getting a date with Richard when she slid up to him at the Student Center. Later, she told Betty-Jo, "For years I've been avoiding Dungie like dog droppings, so who knows what he thought when I invited him to go with me on a pub crawl. Guy probably thought his fairy godmother was giving him the last few coupons he needed for a party animal."

  "You must have made his day."

  "I suppose. Although it's probably a good day for Dungie when he remembers to do up his fly."

  "Meet me at my place after you've done your thing with him, and established your alibi. If you can stay awake, I'll tell you everything."

  * * *

  When the Fox arrived at Betty-Jo's place, after her date with Dungie, she demanded to be told the whole story.

  "Don't be so impatient," Betty-Jo admonished. "You go first."

  "There's nothing to tell. Everything went according to plan. I met Dungie at The Surfin Dragon about ten. There was no problem with him. You can see what I'm wearing. The drooling simpleton couldn't take his eyes off me. He would have bobbed for cow patties if I'd told him to."

  How did she get into that tank top? Betty-Jo wondered. "You've definitely outdone yourself."

  "The cretin ordered a pitcher of beer, and then another. He proceeded to get smashed after I told him how much I admire men who can drink. By eleven-thirty he was starting to wobble, so I spiked his beer with the stuff you gave me, waited a few minutes, then suggested that we hop in his car and fool around."

  "No problems in the car?"

  "He got a little rambunctious after I told him there were only two things I didn't do."

  "And those would be?"

  "Cook and swallow."

  Betty-Jo threw the Fox a mandatory grin. "Seems reasonable to me," she said.

  "Then he begged me to get it on with him."

  "You didn't!"

  The Fox looked pained. "B-J, don't be revolting! I may be a lot of guy's ultimate pleasure gal, but I draw the line long before dung beetles. I didn't have to use more than my little finger on him, because what my finger was promising him was more than enough. His fantasies were working overtime, until your potion hastened the sandman's arrival. When he went night-night, I borrowed his keys, put them in the ignition, and returned to the pub. I played some billiards, flirted with a couple of guys 'til one, and then drove here. Now you tell."

  "Are you sure that you want to know?"

  "Do you value your life?"

  "The stuff I gave you to spike Dungie's beer with was Rohypnol."

  "Rohypnol?"

  "Ruffies, the date rape drug—ten times more potent than quaaludes. It's called the forget pill. Dungi
e won't remember a thing.

  "Would it help me forget my date with him?"

  Betty-Jo laughed. "I sat in your car until I saw you get out of Dungie's Chevy, then I got in with him. He was dead weight."

  "You killed him?"

  "No—much as I would have liked to. I shoved him into the passenger seat, drove to his place, and parked his Chevy in the garage. Then I turned on the overhead light, and went to work."

  "That sounds ominous."

  "It was supposed to be. I put on my latex gloves, got out my knife, pulled his weenie out of his pants and..."

  "You didn't!"

  "Then I stretched it out as far as it would go, and put the blade of my knife under the base of its shaft."

  The Fox looked incredulous. "My God, B-J! Don't you know how much men hate that Bobbitt thing?"

  Betty-Jo laughed. "I know they do. That's why Dungie was soon to become Dickless Dick. It was such a good plan."

  "Was?"

  "I was a flick of the wrist away from severing Dungie's already meager protrusion, but to my eternal shame, I couldn't do it. I couldn't help wondering if PussCat's death was partly my fault? Would she still be alive if I hadn't told Dungie that I thought gingivitis was more interesting than he was?"

  "Face it, you chickened out. But maybe it's just as well. Next time, give me the fun job. I'd of placed his weenie on a rock, and pounded it to death with a hammer."

  Betty-Jo hugged her friend. "Ouch!" she said. "But I promise I'll use you if the need arises again."

  "So then what did you do? Just walk away after you'd made me spend an evening with the slug?"

  "I felt badly about the suffering you'd had to endured, but more than that, I owed Brad and PussCat. I had to do something, so I decided to cut his thing and leave the knife with his blood on it—at least scare the SOB a little."