by T. C. Clover
scratched his chest through a light blue running shirt. “You’ve gotta’ buy me some coffee, though.”
“I’ll go get your coffee,” the paparazzi photographer agreed with a forced smile. “Go ahead and tell him what happened,” she instructed Jazzy and gripped the comedian’s hands in a loving gesture, “and I’ll be right back.” She paused long enough to make eye contact with her co-star before getting up to retrieve some drinks from the bar.
“So, what’s goin’ on, Jazzy?” The criminal prompted with an even stare, shifting in his seat in preparation for a heavy emotional burden.
“Sorry, I’m just really tired,” she answered from a dry throat, pausing to cough and clear her airway. “Almost a year ago, a billionaire named Ned Jones invited me to a party on his yacht.” Jazzy breathed in deep and looked at the ceiling, trying to decide if she wanted to continue. “He was handsome and sophisticated, and I had just broken off a relationship, so I was looking forward to having some fun. Anyway, when we got to the yacht, everything seemed great. There were loads of people all over, and the atmosphere was perfect. So after having a few drinks, Ned came up to me and asked if I wanted to be part of the mile-below club. Of course, I laughed like an idiot and said, ‘Don’t you mean the mile-high club?’ Well, apparently this yacht had a submarine, and he took me down there to show me some of the controls – ballast and down bubble, or whatever.”
Fassim returned to the table with three cups of coffee, which she distributed among their party without interrupting Jazzy. CKB took the brown disposable coffee cup and kept it dangling from the fingers of his right hand. The muscular African-American grimaced as though he knew where the story was going.
“Thanks,” Jazzy emoted with genuine appreciation as she paused and took a few light sips from the steaming container. “I don’t know why I thought I was safe, but he slammed the hatch shut and screwed it down tight like they do in the movies. After that, he punched me in the side of the face and was smiling.” She began to cry as the terror of the visual memory resurfaced. “He forced me into the captain’s bed, or bunk – I can’t remember. And there was nothing I could do. I screamed the whole time, but nobody could hear me. After it was over, he took us down into the ocean and threatened to drown us both if I said anything. He put his hand on the hatch and kept spinning the wheel: I thought we were going to die. So I agreed never to say anything to anyone, and he told me that it was my fault. He said that I should’ve known better than to come to his yacht party. And that’s it...” The celebrity said as she closed her eyes, attempting to dismiss all the unpleasant thoughts.
CKB looked down at the floor and took a drink from his coffee. He then twisted his head from side to side and massaged the back of his neck with rigorous strokes.
“So what’s your advice?” Fassim inquired with a gaze of concern, seeming worried that the criminal might hurt Jazzy’s feelings. “How can we get this guy without Jazzy being harmed?”
“Let’s see,” CKB began with a gleam in his eyes as he stared up at the ceiling. “He’s a billionaire with a yacht and his name is Ned Jones? Does he live in New York?”
“Yes,” Jazzy confirmed with an enthusiastic nod.
“Let me handle it,” he said with a confident grin and stood up from the table to depart with his coffee. “Thanks for the drink.”
“Wait a minute,” Fassim demanded with an expression of disappointment. “What is your advice?”
“Let me handle it,” CKB called out as he continued to walk away from the table without turning back.
“What do you think he’s going to do?” Jazzy asked with an expression of concern.
“I’m not sure, but it’s time for you to get some rest,” the photographer replied with a demeanor of building confidence. “Let’s get back to our rooms, and I’ll take you to get a massage later.”
Building 8 – Space Center Houston
“Stop, they’re going to catch us,” Jason warned his lover with an affectionate giggle. “We shouldn’t be fooling around in here anyway.”
“I thought you said that the cameras can’t see into this area?” Litz pressed with a stare of lust and youthful adventure.
The astronaut was lying on the floor of the space shuttle with the gorgeous reality star straddling his pelvis. He looked up at the roof of the cockpit and felt a shudder of guilt pass through his body. Jason sat up and signaled Litz to get off of him, deciding that they were too close to being discovered.
“So no more playtime?” She asked with a wink as Jason pulled up his pants and secured them around his waist. “Are you worried about the security cameras?”
“No, I’m not worried about the cameras,” he said with an exasperated shrug, “because NASA doesn’t have enough funding to put proper security in this area. I’m just worried that a technician will come back here and find us…”
“And find us doing what?” The perceptive woman taunted with a brilliant smile, leaning forward to kiss her companion with warm affection. “So tell me more about how the shuttle works; you said that reentry was the most dangerous part, right?” Litz questioned with a smirk as she stood up and began to inspect the instrument panels.
“No, that’s not right, naughty girl,” Jason reminded her and got to his feet, placing his arms around her flat stomach. “The launch sequence and reentry are both equally dangerous.”
“Tell me what could go wrong,” she prompted in a loving tone of voice as his arms seemed to melt around her.
“Well, the biggest danger on takeoff is having the boosters explode, which has happened a few times,” he professed with a soothing voice. “But when you’re coming back into the atmosphere, a lot can go wrong. For example, if some technician put clear tape over our sensors, and forgot to remove it, we wouldn’t come through earth’s atmosphere at the right angle. Another problem would be a malfunction in the integrity of the vessel. If the outer shell were compromised, the heat of the atmosphere would cut us open like a grapefruit. We could also have a failure of our life support, a fire, or any number of incidents.”
“Is this the shuttle that’s going to be keeping you safe during the next mission?” Litz suggested with wide eyes, showing concern for her new lover. “I don’t want anything bad to happen to you. Who will I climb down the side of hotels with? And if you’re not around, I may never get out of bed in the morning.”
“You’re such a ham,” Jason concluded as he bent down and kissed the beautiful brunette on the right cheek, “let’s get out of here before we wind up in trouble.”
“No, I want to stay and learn more about how this thing works; maybe they’ll let me go with you,” the television star boasted with a smirk. “Besides, I’m a plumber, and I went to college to become an engineer. So I’m not just some idiot woman that doesn’t understand what she’s looking at. Hell, I installed a furnace for a guy last week, and all I needed was a few teenagers to help me with the heavy lifting.”
“Okay, miss engineer,” he replied with a gaze of amusement, “let’s go down into the belly of the beast and see if you can understand how the systems are run by the circuit boards.”
“Game on, mister romance,” she accepted with raised eyebrows, “and if I can explain everything back to you that you mansplain to me, then you have to buy me dinner. Also, just to clarify, by dinner I mean an upscale restaurant – not Famous Bill’s barbecue shack.”
Jason adopted a more competitive ambiance as he reached out with his right hand and led the brunette to the center of the craft, just behind the cockpit. He then removed a maintenance hatch and helped her to descend a ladder to the control systems. Litz was in awe at the number of systems that the crew could control from one small room. Everything had labels for ease of use and seemed to have enough safety overrides to make a successful journey possible. She rewarded J
ason with a passionate kiss each time he described something that would make his return trip home safer.
Hilton Hotel Lobby – Houston, Texas
“Look at all of these young people having fun!” Robert Duerdin shouted through the hotel lobby as he pranced defiantly across the carpet with a metal baseball bat.
The retired soldier looked ragged with a long graying beard, and his brown eyes gleamed with murderous desperation.
“Are you getting some good vacation time?” The tall forty-four-year-old asked as he raised the bat above a glass table.
Robert drove the thick end of his baseball bat through the glass top of a black coffee table in the waiting room near the front desk. Three people in their early twenties had been sitting near the table and remained motionless, pretending not to notice his antics. However, when the table erupted into shards of glass, the trio of two men and a woman vacated the area with exceptional speed.
Robert raised the steel bat with his right arm above his head like a combat victor. He was dressed in a skin-tight brown and orange bowling shirt and a pair of comfort-fit khaki pants. The man seemed to glow as the younger people dispersed, and he glided across the carpet in a reckless display of aggression. His brown loafers and other attire had caused people to think that his actions were
