Carrying his beer along with him for possibly necessary liquid fortification later, he followed Edith’s provocatively swiveling backside into the smoky gloom.
The janitor’s closet proved to be just that: a room filled with brooms, mops, and cleaners stacked on a shelf, along with paper towels for the rest rooms and other necessary oddments. It smelled of ammonia, dirty mopping water, and concentrated floor-wax, but as soon as Edith turned on the light and closed the door behind him, all that Jake Camden could smell was perfumed female flesh sweetened by the breath of his beer.
Oh, God, he thought to himself. Heaven is a broom closet!
“So, private enough for you, Jake?”
“Sure, babe. It’s great.”
Jake was in the throes of a dilemma. He didn’t know which to go for first, the babe, or the coke. Edith decided for him. She took off her jacket, shook that great lustrous mane, bestirring the air with yet more musky aroma.
A little unsteadily, Jake reached for her.
And got a palm on his chest.
“Hold your horses, hotshot,” she whispered, teasing promise soaking her voice, her eyes. “First things first.”
She fished the new vial from her pocket, along with the same small mirror and Exacto knife she had used before. A rolled-up five-dollar bill later, Jake was suddenly standing straight, his brain pushing ignition buttons to nonexistent rocket motors.
“Yeow! I forgot how nice this stuff is!”
“Hmmm!” A bliss-out smile slapped across Edith’s made-up face and her blue eyes rolled up slightly between eyeliner. “Yes. Ben gets it real pure.”
“Ben?’
She put the impromptu straw down by the mirror on a barrel of industrial-strength Mr. Clean and began to unbutton that taut blouse. “Now, then, Jake. Do you think that sport-fucks are better on coke? I do. I think that it’s the biggest rush in this world. Now get those old pants off and let’s do a little experiment, huh?”
The blouse was suddenly off, revealing a black Frederick’s of Hollywood lace bra above an hourglass waist.
Jake Camden gaped for only a moment, then his speeded-up hormones kicked him in the upper medulla and he proceeded to fumble at his pants buckle. His trousers halfway down, though, he realized that he’d forgotten to take off his shoes. He proceeded to do so. By the time he was finished, standing in shirt, jockey shorts, and anticipation, Edith had divested herself of every scrap and stood before him, an impatient hand on hip, clothed only in arousal. “Don’t take anything else off, Jake,” she said. “Come here. Now!”
He found his arms suddenly full of naked woman, blowing away whatever was left of his neurons. Her mouth worked against his with slippery urgency, and before he could even think about doing manly type things like mauling her breasts or grabbing her buttocks, her hand was down in his shorts checking out his state of readiness for the main event.
“Yow!” said Jake.
“Come on, lover. Come on.” Pretty soon Jake was in the starter’s circle all right and feeling his physical response, Edith lay down on the floor. “I’m hot for you. I’m wet and hot!”
She certainly was, thought Jake as he stared down at the woman’s erotic contortions on the floor. He’d never quite seen anything like this before. That country-western, blues-in-my-beer stuff must kindle some interesting flames in the female id! His appreciation had most certainly risen, along with a certain item of his anatomy.
“I’m just an Okie from Muskogee!” he murmured to himself, pulling off his BVDs.
He had just freed one leg and was starting on the other when the door swung open. A big, red-faced man peered in, a scowl perched above broad shoulders like Zeus on top of Mount Olympus pounding out his thunderbolts.
“Oh, Jesus,” said Edith growing limp. “It’s my husband!”
Edith wasn’t the only suddenly limp thing in the room. Jake Camden looked up with wobbly smile and said, “Hi there! You must be Ben. I don’t suppose you’re going to believe this, but we’re just working out a new kind of encounter-therapy involving nude telepathy!”
“Read my fist, buddy,” said the man stepping into the room.
All in all, Jake Camden really would have rather skipped over what happened next.
Picking himself out of the scattered garbage cans wasn’t difficult. Keeping upright on two legs was the real problem. Jake did his very best though, and after a few moments of effort, he succeeded. The coke had pretty much worn off though, giving him the wobblies. And his head and chest were still hurting from the pounding that he’d received from that slut’s husband. Fortunately, the guy’d let him put his clothes back on between punches, before tossing him out into the trash area. Unfortunately, he’d grabbed a bag of fresh garbage and dumped it on Jake as a way of saying farewell.
Jake didn’t care to imagine what the guy would have done to him if he’d come in forty-five seconds later.
The hotel room, he thought. Got to get back to the Holiday Inn. Everything will be okay if I can lock the door, take a shower, and fall into bed.
Jake thrust himself forward, one foot at a time, glad to be mobile. Then abruptly he realized that he didn’t know which way he was going. Through bleary eyes he reconnoitered his situation. The garbage bins were behind him. In front of him reared the back walls of the joint where he’d met his misfortune. He did a little drunken calculating, and steered himself down the correct side, which served as the Golden Wheels parking lot. He’d walked here, but from which way? That was okay, he told himself. Once he got out on the highway, he’d give the avenue a good up-and-down and be able to spot the familiar green and white well-lit Holiday Inn sign.
It felt as though there were some poisonous-spined toad behind his forehead, swelling and expanding with every malignant breath it took. He was in bad shape and he knew it. All he wanted now was to crawl into his hole and heal for a while.
I fucked up, Scarborough, he found himself saying as though presenting a confession. I blew it. But I’ II make it up to you, I swear to God I will. Just as soon as I get some aspirin and some sleep.
The two men stepped out from behind a large black Chrysler van, blocking Jake Camden’s path to the highway.
“Pardon me, gentlemen,” said Jake, surprised at how slurred his words were. “But I have to go home.”
The men stepped closer and Jake realized that they were behaving in a decidedly stolid and menacing manner.
“Oh shit, guys, your buddy already beat the crap out of me and tossed me in the trash. What more do you want?”
“Whew, this guy smells like shit,” said one of the men. “You sure this is the bozo?”
“Yes,” said the other. “It’s him.”
It was then Jake realized that they were wearing suits and ties.
These guys weren’t any urban cowboys!
“Hey. Who the fuck are you?” he said, stepping back and trying to swivel away and start a run.
The men grabbed an arm apiece.
“Come with us quietly, Jake Camden, and you won’t be harmed further tonight.”
“You guys can’t take me! I got mysterious protectors!”
Of course, where had they been when that jealous husband had caught him with the stacked blonde in the janitor’s closet just about to play plumber’s helper.
“Right, Jake. And a snootful besides!” said one of the men, tightening his grip.
Alarm raced through him. Fear sobered him.
Jake struggled, trying to break free and run back into the bar. They wouldn’t be able to get him there! All he had to do was kick up a ruckus and get the cops to take him. He’d rather wake up in a jail cell than wake up dead.
One of the men tackled him. Together, they hauled him back up. With professional ease, one clamped a hand over Jake’s mouth, cutting off a cry for help. They dragged him toward the rear door of the van, which opened as though magically.
“Cut the fight, and you won’t hurt any worse than you already do,” one spoke harshly.
T
his only provoked another paroxysm of struggle from Jake, who suddenly realized he’d much rather be in the hands of an irate husband, or even pissed-off drug dealers than these boys.
Because suddenly, through his alcohol-and drug-fraught mind, Jake Camden realized who these men were.
The blow was quick and efficient, straight out of nowhere, stilling Camden and sending him off into an uncomfortable and lonely darkness.
Chapter 29
He was in hell.
Pain enfolded him like a living sheet of fire and he burned, thrashing and wailing in the darkness.
Everett Scarborough was in hell, which he did not believe in.
“No,” he cried, rigid in his torment, willing away the agony. “No! This is not happening!”
Just as suddenly as they had started, the flames whisked away, and he hurt no longer. He felt himself being whisked rapidly upwards, and fancied that he could feel G-forces, as though he were in a vehicle. But there was no metal or glass around him—he was uncovered by machinery, or even the comfort of clothing. He was naked—naked in the darkness.
Suddenly, stars faded on before him. A panorama of stars, a breathless canopy of brilliance, planets most dazzling in the forefront. He looked down, and saw that below his feet burned the sun.
The flames, he thought to himself. The flames had not been hell. He had been in the sun, and now he was being somehow lifted out into space...
Alone...
Alone in the universe...
Cold and solitary, drifting in the sea of stars.
The feeling of abject terror, of agoraphobia like he had never before experienced closed around him, clamping into him like hooks, tearing him apart.
And he screamed ... screamed with a sound that engulfed him like a closing fist, shutting out the sun, the stars, closing up everything.
... And awoke, lying in the darkness.
“Scarborough,” said a voice in that darkness, and it was a soft voice, though not comforting. “Scarborough, do you know who you are?”
“No,” he gasped. “I don’t know. God help me, I don’t know who I am.”
Upon his threshold of awareness, memories pounded like summer rain on the tin roof of a shed. Memories he could hear, but could not hear, could not touch. They felt totally out of time, out of space, as though they belonged to someone else. And yet, he knew with a profound conviction that they were most explicitly his memories. His and nobody else’s.
And they spoke to him, they hummed to him, they sang to him. Of different times and different places. Threads of images, flashes of texture. A man he did not recognize leaning over him, doing something to his head. A hospital ... Was he in a hospital? He felt as though he was in a hospital, and yet it was like no hospital he had ever been in before. Nor was it just a man who stood over him. There were more men, and at least one woman, and with sudden realization, he knew that he was naked beneath the sheet that draped him, and there were prickings and unclassifiable sensations in his head.
And. peripherally, he was aware of machinery.
Glinting, ticking, working...
“Everett Scarborough. Everett Scarborough, do you know who you are?” said the soft voice, monotone.
“Yes, of course,” said Scarborough, breaking out of his haze. “I’m Everett Scarborough!”
“No.” said the voice firmly, and giving no quarter. “No, you’re not.”
A cold hand reached down and pulled the sheet from his body, as he was aware of eyes, cold eyes staring down at his nakedness ... And he saw the cold, hovering machines bear down upon him flashing and shining with drills and dripping needles like the jaws of some hungry carnivore.
He screamed.
The scream woke him up, and he lay there in the spinning darkness of the bed, shaken and sweating.
A moon was peering through the slats of venetian blinds, spilling a pattern of light across the rumpled bedclothes. Even though a cool breeze whispered through the open window, whistling through those blinds quietly, he felt hot—hot and terribly disoriented. He lay there, clutching his pillow like a life preserver tossed to him in treacherous waters. It took him awhile, but slowly the pieces of memory reassembled themselves:
The last beer of the evening, frigid and tart.
The smiling face of Walter Mashkin, wishing them goodnight.
Marsha Manning’s soft lips brushing his cheek and whispering, “Sleep well.”
He was in New Mexico.
And tomorrow he would meet with Edward Myers who would take him to the edge of that Air Force base—to find his daughter, Diane.
His name was Everett Scarborough. Doctor Everett Scarborough. And it always had been, and it always would be.
“Scarborough,” he whispered to himself like a mantra. “Everett Scarborough. Everett Scarborough ...”
“Everett?”
His heart seemed to skip a beat. He tensed. A voice ... A voice coming from beyond the closed door. Not a man’s voice, but a woman’s. Gentle, and yet clearly concerned.
“Ev, are you all right?”
The door opened a crack and in the moonlight, he could see a pair of eyes peering in.
“Marsha?” He meant to sound cool, collected, and confident, but his voice emerged as a frightened croak.
She came in, with a rustle of her nightclothes: a short silk chemise over panties. Her hair was undone, floating down over her shoulders like a dreamy waterfall, and the smell of perfume and woman and sleep advanced before her like an invisible mist, comforting and familiar, and yet promising far more.
“Ev. Ev, are you all right? I heard you cry out.”
“Nightmare. Bad one.” He sat up, still a little groggy and unfocused.
“I’m not surprised. I’m not surprised at all. You’ve been under a tremendous amount of tension.” She sat down on the side of the bed and tenderly caressed his shoulders, his back: gentle message. “My goodness, you’re a bundle of knots! Maybe we should have taken Walt’s advice, hmm? If only to have someone near you ...”
It took only a few seconds of her rubbing, her nearness, to relax him, if only a little. He sighed with gratification and release. “Maybe ...”
When they’d gotten home, after their “nightcaps,” i.e., another beer each, Walter Mashkin had announced, “Well, I guess it’s time for ya’ll to get yourselves to bed. Big day tomorrow. Gotta get your rest.” He winked with a glitter in his eye. “I took the liberty of putting your bags in with the doc’s, Marsha.”
Marsha had obviously been taken aback by this announcement, but it was Scarborough who’d said something first, “Why did you do that, Walt? We’re not that way ... umm ... We’re just friends.”
It was Mashkin’s turn to be taken aback. His jaw dropped and he did a double take. “Bush my whackers! You’re kiddin’ me.”
“That’s right,” said Marsha, smiling. “Just friends.”
“Sorry, folks,” said Mashkin after an awkward silence.
“There was so much electricity sparkin’ between you two, I just naturally figured you two were one hot item.” He took a gulp of beer and shook his head, grinning. “I’m real embarrassed.” He smiled at Marsha. “In that case, love, any chance of you parkin’ your stuff by my cowboy boots! I’m not crazy, and I know a good lovin’ woman when I see one!” The tone of his voice and the tilt of his head made immediate jest of his proposition.
Marsha had laughed. “I’m glad someone appreciates me. No, Walt. If you’ve got a couch, I guess it’s mine.”
“Oh, no, no. I’ve got another guest room. No problem.”
Scarborough had been afraid that he’d blushed throughout all of this, but if he did, Walter Mashkin hadn’t kidded him about it.
Now, though, as he sat up in his bed, feeling the residue of his nightmare reluctantly parting from him, he wished that Marsha had slept with him, if only so that he could have had someone to grab hold of in his throes of terror.
“You know, Ev. I’m here for you if you need me.”
; “I ... I ...” he said.
“Shhh. Dear Ev.” Her voice was soft and sweet velvet. “You don’t have to say anything. Just hold me if you want to. Just hold me ...”
He opened his mouth to say no, to say he didn’t really need that, that he was a strong person, and he would weather this brief aberration, that it would never happen again, no, not to him. But what came out was a sighing croak instead, and suddenly he found himself reaching out for her, gasping her name.
Her flowery hair swept around him like a curtain of sighs, and her body was warm and alive and achingly soft as it folded him up in its comfort. Her lips found his and they touched with a slippery gentleness that elevated him into a safer, kinder place. He swept his arms around her and caressed her bare back, reveling in the way she was suddenly all abandon, her breasts mashing against his chest hardening with urgency, her breaths coming quicker. He lowered his mouth to her neck and fed upon its heat, and she arched her back and growled with pleasure.
“Love me, Everett,” she said demandingly.
The silent music of erotic heartbeats took sway and the dance of sex began. Scarborough lost himself in the sudden fertile smell of this vibrant woman, lost himself in the eternal now of deliciously slow ecstasy. She stopped him a moment and then slipped off her top. Her full, curving breasts hung in the moonlight, large, and all his, and she offered them to him like fruit. He licked and savored them hungrily, and she sighed with gratification, softly murmuring encouragement.
“Enough,” she said. “That’s enough. I’m ready for you now, Everett. I’m ready.”
She laid back, the glimmer of the moon in her eyes, licking her lips with expectation and tension.
He realized suddenly that he was ready himself, had been even as she had kissed him. Gently, he removed her lacy panties, sliding them down over her large hips and off her legs.
Then he stood and removed his own clothing. The T-shirt came off with ease, but the jockey shorts were a little more difficult. He lay down beside her, his erection stiff and constrained against her hip, and he gently caressed her inner thigh, kissing her arm, her breast, her neck, her mouth. As his hand drifted over her pubic area, he felt her heat and her wetness. Yes, she was ready. More than ready.
The UFO Conspiracy Trilogy Page 66
