Carl had trouble concentrating in class and was at the library fifteen minutes early. His heart raced every time the front doors opened. After a few minutes of tortured waiting, Carl accepted the fact that he was a fool. Vanessa wasn’t going to show up. She had so many friends and so many activities that he couldn’t picture her missing out on any of her fun to spend time being tutored by him. He was just starting to gather up his books when he saw her standing near the reference desk, waving.
The school library, a huge stone building, had been built with a donation from a railroad tycoon in the early 1900s. Carl led Vanessa downstairs to a table in the rear of the basement where he worked on his homework nearly every evening. It was dimly lit, but its appeal for Carl was that few other students made their way down to it.
Carl was surprised that Vanessa wanted help with calculus. He’d never pictured her as a serious student. Then again, he didn’t really know much about her. He was pleasantly surprised to discover that she was bright enough to understand what he was telling her after he had corrected some basic misconceptions. They were progressing nicely when a large shadow fell across the table. Carl looked up and saw Sandy Rhodes and Mike Manchester looming over them. Mike and Sandy were on the football team. Both boys weighed over two hundred pounds and were in good shape. Carl had heard that Sandy and Vanessa were dating.
“Hey, Van, what’s up? I thought we were going out?” Sandy sounded aggrieved that Vanessa was doing schoolwork.
“I tried to tell you I had to study, but I couldn’t find you.”
“Well I’m here now, so let’s go.”
Vanessa smiled apologetically. “I can’t. I really have to learn this.”
Sandy had not acknowledged Carl’s presence and wasn’t going to accept Vanessa’s protestations.
“Come on, Van, it’s Friday night. The gang’s waiting.”
Vanessa’s smile disappeared. “I’m studying, Sandy. I am not going out tonight.”
“Bullshit,” Sandy said. He flipped her book closed and grabbed her arm.
Carl’s father had walked out on Evelyn Rice when Carl was five. Carl still had nightmares about his father’s rages and his mother’s cries of pain. Burned into his memory were images of the vivid purple bruises that darkened his mother’s swollen face.
“Let go of Vanessa,” Carl said. He sounded frightened, which was to be expected under the circumstances. Carl was wiry, muscular, and in excellent shape, but the two football players were several inches taller and each boy outweighed him by fifty pounds.
Sandy did not release Vanessa’s arm. He stared at Carl the way he might regard dog dirt that had attached itself to his shoe.
“Stick your nose back in your book, dork, or I’ll break it.”
As Sandy turned his attention back to Vanessa, Carl buried his fist in the football player’s solar plexus, leaving him breathless. Then he grabbed the tie that all St. Martin’s boys were required to wear and jerked his head down. Sandy’s chin cracked against the edge of the table, stunning him.
Mike Manchester had been too shocked to react, but the sound of his friend’s chin hitting the table snapped him out of his trance. He swung a roundhouse punch, and Carl thrust his thick calculus textbook forward. Manchester’s knuckle broke with a crack that sounded like a gunshot. As he recoiled in pain, Carl swung his book like a baseball bat, catching Mike in the back of the head and driving him to his knees. Carl stepped behind Manchester and applied a choke hold, cutting off Mike’s air.
“I don’t want to fight. Will you call it quits?” Carl asked the struggling boy.
Mike tried to pull Carl’s arm away, and Carl tightened his hold. By now Sandy Rhodes had regained his wits and was struggling to his feet. Carl cut off Mike’s air and dropped the unconscious boy to the floor before drop-kicking Rhodes in the jaw. Sandy collapsed beside his buddy.
“Holy shit!” Vanessa said as she leaped to her feet. “You have to get out of here. They’ll be furious when they come to.”
“I don’t have a car,” Carl admitted, embarrassed to tell Vanessa that his mother picked him up at school.
“I do. Grab your stuff,” she said as she gathered up her books. Carl hesitated. Mike Manchester moaned. Vanessa grabbed Carl’s arm. “Come on.”
“Won’t Sandy be pissed that you’re helping me?”
“Sandy is a pig. We’ve only gone out three times and he thinks he owns me. I’m glad you kicked his ass.”
Minutes later, Carl was seated in the passenger seat of Vanessa Wingate’s Corvette and they were roaring down the coast highway.
“That was awesome,” Vanessa said. “Where did you learn to fight like that?”
Carl didn’t feel good about the beating he’d administered, and he was ashamed of the pleasure he felt from defeating the two boys with Vanessa looking on, but he could not abide any man inflicting pain on a woman, because of the way his father had treated his mother.
“I’ve been practicing karate since I was little. I go to a dojo every day after school.”
Vanessa turned toward him. The top of the car was down and the wind was whipping her long blond hair and bringing color to her cheeks.
“There’s more to you than meets the eye, Carl Rice,” she said before turning back to the road.
Carl blushed. “Where are we going?” he asked to cover his embarrassment.
“My house.”
They drove in silence for a while. Carl sneaked glances at Vanessa while pretending to watch the ocean. She was so beautiful. He couldn’t believe that he was by her side in this amazing car.
“You’re on scholarship, right?” Vanessa asked.
Carl colored again and nodded. Evelyn Rice was highly intelligent, but her husband had never permitted her to work or finish school. As soon as Carl’s father walked out of their lives, his mother had enrolled in a community college. She earned an AA degree in accounting and was hired as a receptionist at the local branch of a national accounting firm. Eventually, she finished her bachelor’s degree and moved up to the position of office manager. One of the firm’s partners was an alumnus of St. Martin’s and had used his contacts to get Carl a scholarship.
“I envy you,” Vanessa said.
“Why would you envy me?” he asked incredulously. Almost every other student at St. Martin’s was wealthy, and his poverty made him feel small. He couldn’t imagine why anyone like Vanessa would be interested in, much less envious of, someone like him.
“No one handed you everything,” she replied. “You’ve earned what you have with your brains and drive.”
“I’ve had to because I’m poor, Vanessa. Believe me, it’s not romantic.”
“Neither is living with my father.”
“At least you’ve got one. Mine walked out on us when I was five.”
“He didn’t murder your mother, did he?”
“What?” Carl wondered if she was joking. “What are you talking about?”
“My mother died in a car crash when I was thirteen. I’m certain it wasn’t an accident.”
“Did you tell the police?”
“They didn’t believe me. Neither did the insurance investigators. I don’t blame them. I don’t have any proof. I just know the way that bastard operates. He thinks he’s above the law. I’ll tell you this, he definitely knows people who can make a death appear to be an accident.”
Carl didn’t know what to say. “Have you told the FBI?”
Vanessa laughed bitterly. “Ten minutes after I walked out of their office someone called my father. The General took me into the library and told me that he would have me committed to a mental hospital if I didn’t stop spreading vicious rumors. He said he’d have me sedated and put in a straitjacket and I would stay locked up for the rest of my life.”
“Your father’s a general?”
Vanessa nodded.
“He couldn’t get away with that, could he, locking you away for no reason?”
“You don’t have any idea of how powerful my
father is. So I gave up and he stopped paying any attention to me. He’s not home that much anyway. He spends most of his time in Washington, and he leaves me here to do whatever I want, as long as it doesn’t embarrass or annoy him.”
Vanessa turned off the main road and punched in a code on a keypad that stood in front of a high electrified gate. The road from the gate twisted through a meadow that was bounded by woods until it crested at a viewpoint that revealed the Pacific Ocean and an immense Spanish-style villa with a red tile roof. Carl had never been this close to a house like the one that stood before him. It was white as snow and looked larger than his entire apartment complex. Terraces brightened by fresh cut flowers fronted the windows on the second and third floors. There was a stable off to the right. Carl had daydreamed about being rich, but he’d never imagined anything like this.
“You live here,” he asked, awestruck. “This is yours?”
“Home sweet home,” Vanessa answered as she turned onto a circular drive and parked in front of a huge carved wooden door that was shaded by a portico. As she pulled up, the door opened and a man dressed in a white jacket and black slacks came out to greet them. Vanessa tossed him the keys.
“I’m through for the night, Enrique,” she said, leading Carl inside. The door closed, cutting off the powerful sound the Corvette’s engine made as Enrique drove it to the garage.
“Can I use your phone? My mom is going to worry if I don’t call.”
There was a phone on an inlaid table in the cavernous entryway. Carl called his mother’s office and caught her just before she was about to leave. Vanessa listened as he explained that he was at a friend’s house and would get a ride home. Vanessa tapped him on the arm. He told his mother to hold on for a second and broke out into a sweat when Vanessa whispered in his ear.
“Uh, I’m invited to spend the night. Is that okay?”
After a little discussion over curfews and deadlines for returning home, Carl hung up.
“You’ll stay?”
“Mom’s thrilled that I finally made a friend at St. Martin’s.”
“I wish my father gave a shit about the people I hang out with.”
Carl looked around the entry hall. It was paved with reddish-yellow tiles, and the main attractions were an immense crystal chandelier and a curving marble staircase.
“It’s early for dinner,” Vanessa said. “Want to go for a swim?”
“I don’t have a suit.”
Vanessa eyed him wickedly. “Don’t worry about that.”
Carl blushed and Vanessa laughed. “We keep a selection of swimsuits in the pool house. Leave your school stuff in the entryway and come on.”
Vanessa led the way through a large living room lit by sunlight that streamed through high French doors. She pushed open one set, and Carl found himself on a wide tiled patio bordered by a manicured lawn that separated it from a twenty-five-meter pool. There were two dressing rooms on the far side of the pool. Vanessa pointed out the men’s changing room and went into the women’s. Ten minutes later, Carl came out clad in a black boxer-length swimming suit. Vanessa was stretched out on a lounge in a tiny yellow string bikini. Her lean, tanned body took his breath away. Vanessa’s stomach was flat with a hint of muscle, and her legs were long and smooth. He felt himself growing hard and fought with all his might to contain himself. Vanessa gave no sign that she’d noticed his discomfort. Instead, she rose from the chair holding a T-shirt, a sweatshirt for Carl, two big terry-cloth towels and a large beach towel.
“Let’s get wet,” she said leading him toward the far end of the lawn, where a set of weathered wooden stairs took them down the face of a rugged cliff to a narrow beach three hundred feet below. The tide was coming in and large waves crashed on the shore. Vanessa spread the beach towel on the sand, dropped everything she was holding on top of it, and ran into the water before flattening out and swimming into the surf with a practiced crawl. Carl dove into a wave, then swam hard to warm up. Vanessa was nowhere in sight when he came out of the other side of the wave. He treaded water and turned in place, looking for her, momentarily panicked. Then Vanessa rose from the sea with the grace of a dolphin, put her arms around his neck, and pulled him to her. Her kiss startled Carl, but he overcame his shock when she kissed him again.
Carl had wanted Vanessa from the first moment he saw her. It was too much to believe that she wanted him, too, but how else to explain Vanessa clinging to his body, wrapping her long legs around his waist and pressing her beautiful breasts against his chest?
Vanessa broke the kiss and dove under the waves, leaving Carl dizzy with desire. When she surfaced, she was almost onshore. Carl swam after her. When he struggled out of the surf, she was wearing her T-shirt.
“I’m freezing,” she said, tossing him a towel and the sweatshirt. “Let’s go in.”
Carl followed, afraid to speak, overwhelmed by desire at the sight of Vanessa’s buttocks moving rhythmically up the stairs. His erection made it difficult to think. He tore his eyes away, afraid that he would fall if he did not concentrate on climbing the narrow steps.
When they entered the house, Vanessa led Carl up the winding staircase to the second floor.
“You’re here,” she said, opening the door to a guest room. Carl walked in and Vanessa followed him. The room was furnished with a chest of drawers, two end tables, a floor lamp, and a queen-size bed.
“Dinner won’t be for an hour.” Vanessa shut the door and stripped off her T-shirt. “What should we do until then?”
2
Carl woke up before dawn. It took him a moment to remember where he was and another moment to assure himself that yesterday was not a dream. The proof was lying beside him, naked, hair tousled, and achingly beautiful. Carl crept out of bed and slipped on the swimsuit and the sweatshirt Vanessa had lent him. While Vanessa slept in the guest room bed, Carl followed the steps down the side of the sheer cliff to the beach. He needed time to sort out what had happened between him and Vanessa, and to do that he had to clear his head.
In a few hours, the Southern California sun would bake the beach, but at this hour the sun was just rising in the east and the cliff cast a cooling shadow across the sand. Carl stretched for twenty minutes before practicing kata, the dancelike formal exercises of karate. Each kata was a ritual battle fought against imaginary opponents. The moves of the kata had to be performed in a specific order. Carl liked practicing katas more than he liked fighting. For Carl, kata was more than exercise. It was a ritual that imposed a framework of certainty on a life riddled from birth with uncertainty.
Carl glided across the sand just out of reach of the incoming waves. Each kata was more complex than the one that preceded it, and he performed them three times at increasing rates of speed. The kata performed in slow motion and at half speed flowed softly, one movement drifting into the next. Carl was a blur at full speed, but he saw each strike, kick, and block clearly in his mind. As he exercised, the sea, beach, and newborn sun faded away until there was only the blow that he was delivering.
Carl was sweating freely by the time he finished his last kata and started to cool down. He was almost done stretching when he saw a figure descending the stairs to the beach. The sun had risen above the rim of the cliff. Carl raised his arm to shield his eyes from the glare and made out a ruggedly handsome, solidly built man in a T-shirt and shorts. His black hair was sprinkled with silver and worn in a military cut.
“I’ve been watching for the last twenty minutes,” the man said. “I hope you don’t mind.”
“I didn’t know you were there,” Carl answered truthfully. The katas had absorbed all his attention.
“You’re very good,” the man said. “How long have you been studying?”
“I started when I was eight.”
“You must be a black belt by now.”
Carl nodded, embarrassed. “The belts don’t mean much,” he said, so that the man wouldn’t think he was bragging. “Anyone can earn a black belt by practicing hard enough.�
��
“I’m Morris Wingate, Vanessa’s father,” the General said, extending his hand.
Carl forced himself to shake it. The peace achieved by his workout was instantly replaced by shame, because he had just had sex with Wingate’s daughter in Wingate’s house-and fear, because Vanessa had told him that her father was a cold-blooded murderer.
“And you are?” the General asked.
Carl managed to keep his voice steady when he told Wingate his name.
“I assume you’re a friend of Vanessa.”
“We’re classmates. I…I’ve been helping her with calculus.”
“Really? An academic and a dedicated student of karate-not my daughter’s usual type. I assume you stayed over, last night. After the tutoring session.”
“Yes, sir. It was late,” Carl answered lamely as his gut churned. He wondered if Wingate had looked in the guest room and seen his naked daughter and Carl’s clothes.
“I got in very late myself, around two this morning. I find that exercise wakes me up better than a cup of coffee. Care to join me for a run?”
Carl couldn’t think of any way to refuse, so he fell in beside the General. The older man set a steady pace that Carl had no trouble keeping. The beach seemed to stretch forever, and Carl wondered how far Wingate would go. He decided that it didn’t matter. In the distance, high up, a solitary tree with a thick, gnarled trunk had dug its roots into the side of the cliff. It tilted precariously toward the sea, but Carl got the feeling that it had been getting the best of gravity for a very long time. He set his sights on the tree and glided along.
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