Message-ID: <25381asstr$964073430@assm.asstr-mirror.org> From: kellis X-Original-Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Subject: {ASSM} Pandora's New Box (MF extremely-violent) {Kellis} [1/3] Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2000 02:10:30 -0400 Path: assm.asstr-mirror.org!not-for-mail Approved: Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.moderated,alt.sex.stories Followup-To: alt.sex.stories.d X-Archived-At: X-Moderator-Contact: ASSTR ASSM moderation X-Story-Submission: X-Moderator-ID: IceAltar, newsman Pandora's New Box a Story by Kellis Copyright (C) July, 2000, Kellis Part 1 of 3 The explosion was muffled with distance but compelling in a silence seldom broken except by storm or coyote howl. Del hastily switched the portable computer to *Standby Mode*, took up his rifle and dashed out of the cabin. The orange hills and irregular formations of the badlands basked in sunlight and their usual morning tranquillity. Motion aloft attracted his eye to the source of the disturbance: a ball of black smoke half-way up the western sky and a dark streak connecting it to a flaming object directly overhead that was moving swiftly to the east. Another moving object glittered in sunlight below the smoke ball, falling free and trailing no smoke. Except for the second object Del would have thought he was witnessing the close approach of a meteoric bolide. But clearly an aircraft had blown up in mid air. The larger portion was in flames, descending past him to the east, while the smaller part, a wing or perhaps the tail assembly, was falling to the northwest. He stepped to the side around the hilltop behind the cabin and watched the fast-moving gout of bright flame. It was tumbling, occasionally throwing off a black particle, descending at an accelerating rate. The spectacle was soon complete. The burning object disappeared behind High Rock Mesa, leaving its black trail across most of the sky. Almost immediately an orange ball of fire blossomed above the mesa, only to turn into another puff of oily smoke. Del began counting: "One thousand, two thousand ..." He had reached 17 before the sound arrived, a second muffled explosion. So the crash site was over three miles away -- and remarkably close to the Antonville road that skirted High Rock Mesa. He hurried to the battered old pickup, jerked open the door and hung his rifle on the back window brackets. Flipping the special toggle switch installed last year when the ignition switch failed, and crossing his fingers, he turned the key that had not been removed from the dashboard in months. To his pleased surprise the battery still had enough energy to crank the engine, which finally caught after a few seconds' grinding. Sputtering and emitting blue smoke, the old engine agreed to run. The truck still held most of a tank of fuel. He paused long enough to decide where the silvery part was likely to reach ground -- much nearer his cabin -- then dropped into gear and set out bumping around the hill toward the fiery crash. Finally he rounded High Rock Mesa and laid on his brakes. The plain ahead of him was a sea of burning fuel. Peering between his fingers, he could see wrinkled black metal faintly through the flames. Two darker masses were probably the aircraft engines. He shook his head. No one could have survived this impact. His cracked windshield creaked from the radiant heat. Snapping into reverse, he backed the pickup around and sped off toward the other site. Clearing the mesa, he saw that the silvery piece was no longer in the sky, but as the trail began to wind up his own hill, he discovered it in the distance, perhaps half a mile off to the right, and recognized the swept back tail fin and elevators, apparently intact as a subassembly, of a commercial jet plane, a medium sized type with engines under the wings instead of the tail. He veered down into a familiar dry arroyo. Bumping over the stones that he could not steer around, he finally reached a point where the truck could climb back out onto level rock within a hundred yards of the silver metal shape. He drove right up to it and turned the vehicle around before switching off the improvised ignition. He shook his head again. This was a small part of the aircraft. The fuselage had sheared off just forward of the elevators' leading edges. He walked around in front of the oval opening and found himself looking directly into the rear of the passenger cabin. One row of seats remained, fixed against the lavatory bulkhead. About six feet of aisle terminated in a bin, now empty, that might have contained carry-on luggage. Aside from sheared metal skin, structural stringers and numerous straggling wires and cables, the tail assembly seemed completely intact and undamaged, perched at a slight angle on the foot of a hill. The corner of a paper peered out from between the remaining seat cushions. Del stretched forward to retrieve it. The heading in large boldface announced, *Treasury Department / Office of the United States Marshal*. Centered below that in slightly smaller type was the phrase, *Prisoner Transport Manifest*. Below this were four columns of printed names -- women's names -- each followed by a number. Quickly he counted the names in the left-most column: 24. Two other columns held the same number, two less in the last: 94 women's names. At the bottom of the page was a date and someone's initials. That of the guard who had been sitting in this seat? He folded the paper and tucked it into his shirt pocket while looking towards the distant smoke column. Had 94 or more women just died three miles to the east? "Damn!" he muttered sadly, thinking of 94 opportunities forever lost to all men everywhere. He looked up at the sky. It was too early yet for investigating helicopters, but he was confident they would not be long delayed. An air-force base lay only a hundred miles to the south. Time to move on. He was just turning away when something caught his attention, something he had noticed but passed over. The lavatory door ... something about it. He studied it again, with widening eyes as the indicator above the latch registered in his mind. It read *Occupied*! -- Meaning that it was locked from the inside. An effect of the crash or the explosion? Or did a body remain inside? He caught a ripped stringer and swung himself up onto the aisle floor. He stood in front of the lavatory door and pounded on it with his knuckles, shouting, "Hey! Is anyone in there -- in the lavatory?" He tried to rotate the latch but only verified that it was locked from the inside. He remembered a crowbar under the seat in the truck and was just about to turn away when once again he was brought up short. With a thunk the indicator changed to *Vacant*. Hesitantly Del reached again for the latch. Apprehension filled his chest as he pressed it down. Now it rotated freely. He backed away, pulling the door open. And found himself staring into a female face. Its owner winced at the light, a hand flying up to shield her eyes. But he had received a glimpse of blue eyes in a pale countenance, enough to suggest attractiveness under other circumstances. The hand did not conceal chestnut hair, nor the orange jump suit, wetly stained over most of her chest. The source of the stain was only too apparent to his nose. "My god!" Del exclaimed. "God?" repeated the woman. "Am I dead?" Del took a breath and regretted it but said, "If you can ask that, you're not." She stared at him between her fingers. "If you're an angel, I sure hope not." Vomit dripped from her chin. Nevertheless it was apparently a smoothly dimpled chin. At that instant Del reached a momentous decision. He said, "Give me your hand. We have to *move*, if you're going to get out of this!" Her hand thrust out without hesitation. He took it to lead her out of the lavatory and discovered that her feet were tangled in the bottom half of the orange jump suit plus cotton panties once white, now stained in several biological colors. "Lift your feet out of that," he ordered. She did, walking completely out the mess. Her white socks and sneakers were equally stained. "Pick it up," he directed further. "We can't leave it here." She stooped and obeyed. He led her to the edge of the floor, jumped down, then lifted her down by the elbows. Her eyes were huge as she looked right and left at the bare red rock of the badlands. "Come on," he urged, taking her elbow. "The choppers will get here any minute." Her soiled orange tunic dangled just below her buttocks. She held her retrieved bottom clothing before her in a sodden ball and stumbled along as his hand directed. "What ... What ..." she stuttered. "No time. I'll explain when we get out of here." They reached the tailgate of the pickup. "Give me that," he ordered, taking the soiled bundle from her and stuffing it into a cardboard box left lying in the truck bed. "Everything you've got on stinks," he noted succinctly. "Take it all off, even your shoes and socks." Her hands rose to the buttons on her tunic. "What ... What'll I wear?" "Nothing. You can wrap in this blanket." He lifted and straightened a dusty blanket that had been wedged behind the tool box. "Hurry, damn it! We've got to get out of here." She shrugged out of the tunic, leaving a cotton brassiere as the only article of clothing on her torso. He had a glimpse of narrow waist, well padded hips, thick reddish pubes and unshaven legs. She jerked the sneakers and socks off her feet. All went into the cardboard box. He closed its flaps and turned it upside down in the truck bed, then held the blanket open for her. She turned her back into it and he wrapped it around her, guiding her hand to hold it at the overlap. "Now into the truck. Here, let me move the seat back first." When she was seated, he slammed her door and dashed around to his own side. The warm engine started immediately and he drove it down into the arroyo. "If anyone stops us," he instructed her, "before we get to my place, you drop down into the floorboards. I've moved the seat back enough for you to fit. You understand?" "Yes." He dodged an outcropping of rock. "Damn!" he declared. "What?" "We're leaving a dust cloud. Now much we can do to avoid it, is there? ... Uh-oh! We've got company." The girl peered where he pointed. Two helicopters, tiny with distance, were moving from right to left across their path, just visible above the rock walls. "What will they do?" she asked. "Nothing about us right away," he explained. "But they must have seen my dust. Not much point in hurrying now." He slowed the truck to a less frenzied dash. "Where are they going?" "To check on what's left of your friends." He glanced at her. Her returning glance held horror. "What's your name?" he asked. "Theresa. Tessy." "Tessy. That's pretty. Call me Del." "Del," she repeated. She took a deep breath. "What happened, Del?" He grunted. "You tell me." "But I ... I don't *know*!" "You went to the bathroom, right?" "Ye-es." "And what happened?" "A terrible noise. The lights went out. I was just ... doing my business. The wall hit me on one side. I tried to stand up but something was pressing me back onto the seat. The seat started going around and around, at least that's how it felt. I got sick and puked my guts out. It went on and on and ... I don't know what happened next. Maybe I passed out. When I could think again, I thought I was dead. It was pitch dark and I couldn't hear a thing. The seat was tilted but at least the spinning had stopped. "I don't know how long I just sat there, waiting to see if I really was dead. Then I heard you hollering and beating on the door. Now I could stand up! I found the lock and pulled it back. You know the rest. But what was it, Del? What happened to most of the plane?" "It blew up in midair, Tessy. All of it but the very tail end caught fire and crashed about three miles from here. Your part, the tail, fluttered down like a falling leaf. That was the luckiest dump anybody ever took! "I drove over to the other site first, long enough to understand nobody survived that one. They'll never even find all the bodies. If you had any friends in that crowd, I'm sorry. We're there really 94 prisoners on that flight?" "94? I don't know. Nobody on it was a friend of mine. You got anything to drink, Del? My mouth tastes awful." "I'll bet it does. Hang on. Not much further and I'll give you a cold beer." "Oh, god, I would do *anything* for a cold beer!" He chuckled. "Would you!" "After a bath. Can I get a bath?" "Well, sort of. Got to be careful of the water." He glanced at her. She was studying him. "Where are you taking me, Del?" "I've got a little place on a hill. You'll see in a few minutes. You do know what's happening, don't you, Tessy?" "Tell me." "You were right the first time. You're dead." "I'm ... wh-what?" He chuckled again. "Don't get me wrong. You're dead as Theresa, but your new life with a new name and no record is just beginning. All you have to do is make sure you don't leave fingerprints anywhere that matters." "I ... Oh. I see." "Tell me about the flight." "It was ... They were taking me east. To a different prison." "Why?" Her eyes wouldn't meet his. "Who knows why? The feds do things like that. Maybe to balance the load between prisons. We were going to Wash-- to Virginia." "That far back east!" "So they said." "What was your original crime?" "Tax fraud." "No kidding!" "I'm a federal prisoner, Del." "*Was*, Tessy. How long were you in for?" "Twelve years. I have -- had -- another ten to go. But the worst is the $10 million fine. Not admitting your debt really throws the IRS into a tizzy! But if I'm dead that's settled." "Mind telling me how old you are?" "28. Hmm. I think I'm going to be 22 from now on, at least for the next few years." He laughed. "You're beginning to see the possibilities." "Yeah... All kinds of possibilities... Problems, too." "I'd like to hear what problems you foresee, but here's where we get out of the gully. Stay low until we know who's watching." He guided the truck over the arroyo lip, but as they turned onto the trail, a blue helicopter appeared, growing steadily larger as it descended toward them. "Now's the time for you to hit the floorboards!" he called. She obediently slid forward off the seat. He added, "Tuck your legs under and keep your face down over your knees." When she was settled, he pulled an end of the blanket over her chestnut hair. Then he patted her arched back. "You'll be all right. Just keep still. This truck is such a mess, nobody will question a blanket wadded up in the floorboards. They'll understand I'm a bachelor." The helicopter hovered not far off the trail, crabbing backward to stay at the same distance. Its national insignia and U. S. Air Force markings were fully legible. "What're they doing?" Tessy hollered over the noise. "Looking us over. I'm giving them a thumbs-down." As he spoke, Del put his hand out the window and gestured several times with thumb turned down and extended. "Now the pilot's waving... There they go!" The helicopter lifted over them towards the fallen tail section. After a moment the woman called, "Can I get up?" "Just a minute." Del scanned the sky carefully. "I see three more choppers, but it looks like they're all heading for the main wreck... We're in sight of my place. Okay, come on up. Just be ready to hop back down." The woman rose up cautiously and perched on the edge of the seat. The truck was climbing up the hill that was mostly Del's property. Near the top was a low, weathered building, hardly more than a shack, except she saw as they neared, it sported a front porch with a single battered chair. Behind it, further up the hill, were some constructs of similar size, one quite shiny. On the very top of the hill were affixed two small parabolic reflectors, one pointing into the sky, the other along the ground. "What's all that?" she asked with raised eyebrows. He chuckled. "You may not be familiar with what it takes to live out here away from all municipal services, where even the ground water is half a mile down. The shiny thing is my solar power generator. The tank is my cistern. Most of it is buried in the rock. And those reflectors on top are my link to the rest of the world." "Cool!" she said admiringly. "It gets me by. All right. I'll pull right up under the porch. When I say 'Go,' you dash into the house. The door's unlocked. Make sure you close it behind you while I go park the truck. Understand?" "Yes." "And try not to touch anything. We'll get you a bath first thing." Several helicopters hovered beyond High Rock Mesa. Another was moving low and slow towards the tail site as if it were scanning the ground. Del stopped the vehicle with its right side up against the porch floor, threw it in *Park*, opened his door and stood up, checking out the rest of the sky. "All right, go!" he called. The woman was quick, but the blanket caught in something on the truck just as she reached for the house door knob. She looked back at him with huge eyes. "Shrug out of it! Get inside *now*!" She let the blanket fall as she threw open the door. He had a glimpse of pale round buttocks before she slammed it closed behind her. Immediately he returned to his seat, put the truck in gear and drove away from the cabin. When he had parked in his customary place and switched off the ignition, he walked around to the passenger side, gathered up the blanket, which proved to be caught in the door handle, and stuffed it back behind the tools. He considered the box with her soiled clothing. It remained upside down in the back of the truck. He would have to bury it, he thought, but not just yet. He took his rifle down and strolled back to the house, surveying the sky thoroughly. A heavy lift helicopter was approaching the main crash site, where several others hovered, marked by a thinner but still rising column of smoke over High Rock Mesa. The ground scanner had disappeared, presumably having reached the tail section, which was concealed from the cabin by a minor rock peak. He found her waiting, standing in the middle of the floor with back turned towards him, in the front room of the two-room cabin. Her shoulders were hunched protectively. She looked apprehensively over one. "Do you think they saw me?" "No sign of it. Whew, Tessy, you need a bath right now! Go on through that door. You'll find a rag and soap next to the sink. You'll have to take a sponge bath. I don't have enough water for a shower." She obeyed and closed the door behind her. But he opened it again and followed her. This room was his kitchen, containing a white enameled sink, a gas stove and a small state-of-the-art low power refrigerator. At one side a curtain concealed an alcove with a toilet seat built out over a pit. On the other side was a doorless pantry, well-stocked with canned goods. Standing before the sink, she sighed pointedly as he moved past her toward the pantry. He explained, "I need to show you something." She said with heavy irony, "I was tired of privacy anyway." "Look here. See this raised nail?" He wrinkled his nose as she bent beside him, looking where his finger pointed at the molding between wall and floor. "Yes." "When you stomp it --" He demonstrated. "-- that handle pops up." With a click a section of floor board, seemingly a foot-long fitted fill-in, popped up a couple finger widths between the pantry door jambs. "Watch." He leaned in front of her, slipped his hand under the raised board and lifted. The floor of the pantry came up on hinges in the rear, exposing a dark hole suddenly illuminated by an interior light as the floor rose to the limit of the shelves above it. She was looking down into a room extending back under the kitchen floor. The rungs of a ladder were attached to the descending wall. "A storage room?" she asked. "More than that. The guy who built this place meant it as a refuge and a fall-out shelter. Look at the bottom of this handle. When you start down the ladder, stop, let the door back down and pull the handle down, too, until it latches. Then nobody can tell what's here -- at least not if they're in a hurry." "You want me to go down there?" "Not now. But sooner or later, probably sooner, they'll come here to ask me some questions. I want you to scamper down there at the first news of them and stay till I let you out. You understand?" She hesitated, then looked up at him anxiously. "You *will* let me out?" He grinned slowly. "What do *you* think? But it's the handle that latches, not the door. You can also open it from the inside just by pushing up. Now get busy and clean off that stink." He turned away from her and threw open both windows, letting in the slight breeze, then paused at the door. She continued quartering her back toward him, watching him over her shoulder. Her skin was almost as pale as her brassiere straps. He asked gruffly, "You need any help?" "Uh, n-no thanks." She placed the stopper in the sink. "I see what I need." "Good. Yell and I'll bring you one of my shirts." He sat down in the single porch chair, leaning his rifle against the shingled wall beside him. He took a deep breath, shook his head and murmured aloud, "God, I surprise me!" The customarily silent desert air was filled now with the distant roar of engines. After a while one of them grew louder and added the distinctive whop-whop-whop of an approaching helicopter. A blue Huey with air-force markings settled on the trail about a hundred yards from the cabin, throwing up a cloud of dust that quickly dissipated. Without turning his head, Del called, "We've got visitors, Tessy!" He heard a feminine response, "Got'cha!" followed shortly by a thump felt through the porch floor. As the rotors slowed, two men dropped down from the open passenger compartment and came to the porch. They wore blue military fatigues. The one with captain's bars on his collar carried a clipboard, the other a blue flight bag. They halted at the edge of the porch. The captain asked, "Are you Mr. Delbert Forrest?" Del grinned. "Ain't computers wonderful!" The captain grinned also. "I take it that's a *yes*?" "I am Delbert Forrest. Who're you?" "Jameson," the man replied, which agreed with the name tag above his shirt pocket. "We're with the air force." "So I gathered." "What did you witness here this morning, Mr. Forrest? Turn it on, Airman." The silent man reached into his bag and flipped something. "I heard an explosion," Del recited. "I saw the tail of an airplane fall over there while the rest of it fell burning behind High Rock Mesa. I went to investigate. When I got beyond the mesa, I could see only a sea of flames and some twisted metal. No sign of survivors. So I checked out the tail section, found no one and came back. By that time your people were arriving." "You say the front part fell *burning*?" "That's right. It must have caught fire from the original explosion. It left a black streak of smoke behind it all the way." "That's good information. Thank you. Did you see any human remains?" "No, not to be certain." "What does that mean?" "As the burning part was coming down, it threw off pieces. I thought one of them might have a human shape." "One." "Well, it threw off more than one piece. Three or four, I guess, but only one looked like it had ... arms and legs." "Where did that one land?" "Well, I don't really know. About half way between the two sites, I would guess. Say, would you guys like a cold beer?" The officer smiled. "You have cold beer?" "Sure." Del stood up. "Did you think I was just a lonely hermit, Captain?" "You'll permit us to come inside, Mr. Forrest?" "Yes, of course." Del opened the door. "After you, gentlemen." As they passed through, he added, "I'm rather proud of this place, actually. It doesn't look like much on the outside, except you must have noticed my solar generator and --" "Yes, we did. What type is it?" "Mercury vapor. The light condenser boils mercury and the vapor passes through an ion stripper. In the summertime I can get six kilowatts from it." "That's impressive!" "I keep thinking I'll replace it with one big enough for air-conditioning, though here in the mountains it's not so hot as your base down in the valley. Come on in the kitchen to the refrigerator." They followed him into the next room. Tessy had allowed the sink to drain, but her wet washcloth perched beside the bowl, and he saw that she had helped herself to a bottle of beer, also standing on the sink. The breeze had blown the room clear of her sour odor. Thanking providence for dry desert air with no moisture to condense on the cold bottle, he opened the refrigerator and took out two additional brown bottles. "I only have Coors," he said apologetically. The captain held up his hand. "No, thank you, Mr. Forrest. It's very kind of you to offer it, but of course we're on duty." Del allowed himself to frown. "Then why did you come in?" The captain's chin rose. He said firmly, "To see if there was any other witness." Del put the bottles back, then asked, "Well, in that case how about answering a question for me?" "What's that?" "Did 94 women actually die in that crash?" The officer started. "94 women? What makes you think that?" Del took a breath. "I found a paper wedged in the seat that was still left in the tail section. It said this was a federal prisoner transport and gave the names of 94 women." Both men stared. "Could I see that paper, please?" asked the captain. "Why not?" Del took it from his shirt pocket and gave it to the officer, who opened it and scanned quickly. He said, "Look down here. This is yesterday's date. That plane was owned by the U. S. Marshal's Office. It was probably often used for prisoner transport." To Del's surprise, he handed the paper back. Taking it, Del asked, "But today could have been another big shipment?" The officer shrugged and said in a confidential tone, "I'll tell you one thing: that was a damned bad crash, so bad, they say, that the black boxes were smashed, too. I think everyone aboard bought it. We won't know exactly who they were until we see the passenger manifest." "I guess not." The captain hesitated, then took a breath. "Mr. Forrest, would you do something to help us out?" Del straightened his shoulders. "Do what, Captain?" "I noticed that one of your parabolic reflectors is aligned horizontally. Do you have microwave telephone service into the nearest town? I guess that would be Cayman." "Yes, I do, as a matter of fact." "Very good. This is what we want you to do." He handed Del a business card. "If anyone comes to you with questions about this or behaving suspiciously, please call this 800 number, ask for that name, 'Frank,' and report it." "What kind of suspicious behavior?" "Wearing orange clothing, for example." Del's eyes narrowed. "You think somebody survived that crash?" "I don't know. I'll admit it seems unlikely. We're just covering all the bases. The government transports some pretty desperate people on these flights sometimes -- desperate *and* dangerous." Del took the card and cocked an eyebrow. "Were such people on this one, Captain?" "Maybe." "Yeah, 'maybe.' I just realized something. I assumed the air force was investigating this because your base is the closest source of choppers. But now that I think about it, *all* the choppers are *blue*! Where's the TV crew, Captain, and the reporters? What's going on?" The captain smiled slightly. "Turn it off, Airman." When the silent man had obeyed, the officer added, "You'll see a lot of olive drab ones in about a half hour. A special forces battalion is going to examine every square inch of this area. Call that number, Mr. Forrest, if anything interesting develops. It's for your own protection." He jerked his head toward the door. "Let's go, Airman." Del followed them out across the porch and onto the rocky hillside. He scanned the sky in all directions while they reboarded their machine. He counted five blue helicopters aloft, two passing slowly over the ground between the two sites, still searching. Then the one in his yard lifted to join them. He waved good-bye to the men in the passenger compartment, one of whom returned his gesture. He returned to the kitchen and raised the pantry floor. "Come on out, Tessy. They've gone." She appeared and climbed the ladder as he held the door open. He took her hand and helped her stand beside him before lowering the door and pressing the handle down until it latched. He raised up to find her facing him, one arm across her breasts, the other hand inadequately covering her pubes. Her face was still anxious. "You didn't tell them?" "No, of course not. You look better. Did you finish your bath?" "I was just drying off with your dish towel. I need to wash my hair, too." "I'm sorry. I'm short of clean towels. Where's your brassiere?" "Left it in the cellar. It stinks, too." He turned away. "Wait here and I'll get you a shirt." He went to the clothes closet in the next room and took down a long-tailed white shirt. Turning around he found her immediately behind him. He grinned. "No longer so modest, Tessy?" She shrugged and grinned at him as she took the shirt. "Modesty is a habit, one that prison wears down. I really just hate for you to see me with all my body hair. I have such a lot of it." "You don't believe in shaving?" "Huh! They wouldn't let me have a razor." "Not even an electric one?" "A guard told me they had a prisoner once who made a radio transmitter out of his electric razor." He grunted. "That's ridiculous." "You know that and I know that, but guards are very credulous about some things." He paused thoughtfully. "Now that I think about it, I suppose you could make a primitive arc transmitter." "Are you technically trained, Del?" "I was an electrical engineer. Saw the handwriting on the wall and took early retirement before my job got merged out of existence." "What are you, about 50?" "58, thanks." She had buttoned the shirt most of the way up the front. With a grin she held up her hands, the cuffs dangling past them. "Think I'll start a new fad?" "No. Girls have been wearing men's shirts for a long time. I'll admit it looks cuter on you than on me." "Despite my hairy legs?" His eyes dropped below the shirt tails and he shook his head. "Who said hair on a woman is such a bad thing? I like that reddish tint." He chuckled. "I'll bet it would be fun if we were all furry as apes." Her eyes sparkled as she studied him. "Living out here in the desert all alone ... with a secret refuge under his cabin, I'll bet you're an iconoclast, Del." He grinned. "Worse than that. I'm a closet anarchist." "Really?" Wide eyed, she shook her head. "God, this is *fate*!" He laughed. "You were looking for an anarchist? Well, why not? Tax fraud? If I had my way, that wouldn't be a crime." "No, Del," she objected softly. "I wasn't looking for anything. One minute I was in trouble at 30,000 feet and heading for more, and the next ..." She took a breath and straightened herself. "If you'll let me borrow your razor, I'll shave my legs and underarms." "Razor? Do I look like a man who owns a razor?" Her eyebrows lifted. "Well, your beard is pretty neat and I'd say you've had a haircut in the last month." "Right. I take my laundry into town once a month and stop by the tonsorial parlor." "The what? Is it that old-fashioned?" "I think so: shower, shave and haircut -- or as much of that as you want. Not too old-fashioned. They have a beauty parlor next door. But I don't have a razor, Tessy. I'm sorry." She sighed. "I've been living with it for two years. If you can stand it, I guess I can." "Well, I didn't notice your underarms, but you're a pretty woman, Tessy, hair or no hair. Speaking of that, you still have some vomit in it. There's shampoo in the pantry. You can fill the sink again for that, if you want." "Are you really short of water?" "You didn't see any clouds in the sky, did you? It'll rain here in December, but that's a couple months off." "You get all your water from the winter rains?" "I usually get a truckload delivered in July, but of course I don't want to order another one now." "My hair stinks, doesn't it?" "Yes." "All right. I'll wash it." She turned to the kitchen door. "Need any help?" "I'll have to take your shirt off." "Oh. Okay. Look, that investigator said the army was sending troops to comb the rocks. I want to see if they've arrived." Indeed several of the promised olive drab machines were hovering near the tail section site. In the other direction two of them had actually landed atop High Rock Mesa. The roar of distant engines had grown louder. He counted 18 of the greenish helicopters, about half on the ground. In a few places between the rock fingers he could make out dark figures, tiny with distance, apparently spread out in search formations. His porch was on the wrong end of the cabin from the main crash site beyond the mesa, but most of the activity appeared centered around the tail site anyway. He took his seat and watched for awhile. The soldiers were making a good job of it. They were spreading out from the tail site as a center. In another hour or so they would reach Del's hill. He heard the woman's voice unintelligibly through the closed door. He got up and pushed it open. "What is it?" She was standing naked in the middle of the room, wet hair covering her shoulders. She twitched tensely sideways, then sighed and deliberately relaxed her posture. "Do you have another towel?" "I think there's one left." He went past her to the closet, withdrew the towel and passed it to her. She immediately applied it vigorously to her hair. She stood frankly before him, eyes clenched shut, while working the towel. He stood silently watching. Her breasts were ample, as he had already understood, well-rounded and crowned with small pink nipples, bouncing in response to her lively arm motions. He took a deep breath. She asked, "My skin doesn't bother you, does it?" He chuckled. "What's the matter? Could you *feel* my eyes?" She smiled. "So to speak." "No, it doesn't bother me. But I'm certainly not indifferent to it." She lowered the towel, folded it and passed it to him. Her hands went back into her hair. For the first time he saw the heavy chestnut tufts in her armpits. She stared into his eyes. "And I'm not indifferent to you seeing it. You're the first man who has, in over two years." He licked dry lips. "Tessy ..." She combed her damp hair back with spread fingers. "Were there any soldiers looking for me?" "Quite a lot. Looking for something." She nodded. "Me." Her hands settled to her hips. She drew her shoulders back, watching with a twinkle as his eyes dropped to her outthrust nipples. But she asked, "Will they come here?" "Maybe. It'll take them a while at the rate they're going." She took a step toward him. "How long a while?" He shrugged. "An hour." "That's long enough." She smiled slowly. "I'll bet ten minutes is long enough." He drew a shaky breath. "Tessy, I ... I don't want to take advantage of you." "Then why did you bring me home with you?" "Well, yes. I hoped you might feel grateful." "I do, Del. And what's more, I've been without a man longer than you've probably been without a woman." His clothing was quickly removed. She came readily into his arms, pressing her soft body against him. She smelled of soap and shampoo. Their lips met and she accepted his tongue. He tasted the beer she had drunk. When he threw back the tattered blankets on his bunk, she fell into it backward and pulled him down atop her. She was a well-fleshed woman with broad hips and narrow waist. Her skin was untanned, underlain most noticeably in breast and thighs with a network of veins. He saw no sign either of cellulite or stretch marks. The hair on her legs tickled curiously when she wrapped them around his buttocks. Her hips rolled in vigorous response to his thrusts. "Oh, god, Tessy!" He lasted about a minute. Breathing heavily, he raised up off her on extended arms, looking into her open eyes. She had developed a slight flush. He said contritely, "I'm sorry, Tessy. I promise I'll be better for you next time." She smiled lazily. "I'm sure you will. Think of that one as a first expression of gratitude." The patted the pillow beside her. "Lie down, let me snuggle, and tell me about yourself, please, Del." He obeyed her, still feeling apologetic. "I'm afraid I'm out of the habit of pleasing my partner. But I do want to please you!" She grunted. "Your tonsorial parlor gives full service, does it?" "Well, no, not the parlor. But there's a woman down the street that, uh ..." "Only once a month, Del?" "I guess I'm getting old." "Nothing old about what you just did." "You bring it out in me, Tessy. God, I'm glad ... I mean, ah ..." She chuckled. "So am I, Del." She moved her head onto his shoulder and a leg over his hips. She discovered that he was chuckling and asked, "What's funny?" "I was just remembering. The second thing you said." "Huh?" "You first asked if you were dead. When I said no, you said, 'If you're an angel, I sure hope not.'" He laughed aloud. She smiled. "I was pretty confused. I thought I ought to be dead, but the paintings show *devils* with beards!" "Are you religious, Tessy?" "I was once. Five years of marriage to a nuke head and two years as a government guest pretty well leached the fuzzy thoughts out of my head. At least I thought they had until the rubber met the road this morning." "A 'nuke head?'" "That's what he called himself. You would call him a nuclear physicist." "Is he waiting for you, Tessy?" She sighed. "Don't get me wrong, Del. I *am* grateful for your help. You're probably saving my life right now, and I'll thank you again as soon as you're able. But if Craig was waiting for me, I wouldn't be in this bed with another man." "I understand. You still love him." "Make that past tense, Del. He's dead." "I ... I'm sorry." His hand fondled her breast. She chuckled. "You are and you aren't." She patted his cheek. "Life goes on, even for us federal convicts." "An interesting point. Just how could the wife of a nuclear physicist be guilty of tax fraud?" "*Anybody* can be guilty of tax fraud, Del! Would you believe I endorsed a million dollar personal check from a fictitious company but declared only a tenth of it on my 1040? That I then signed a document agreeing to dispense with a jury at my trial?" "Are you saying you were framed, Tessy?" "Oh, the signatures looked like mine, all right. They looked exactly like mine! But I never saw either document." "The government forged your signatures? Why would they do such a thing to a sweet -- What's your full name?" "Theresa Jane Smithers Grable, widow of Craig Melrose Grable, Ph.D. Don't search your memory, Del. I promise you've never heard of either of us." "'Grable.' Like, what's her name, *Betty* Grable?" "No relation. Those movie stars all had made-up names anyway." "Okay. So why did they frame you, then?" "That's easy. I knew way too much. The alternative was to kill me, but lately we've been short of men in high office with that kind of guts. Fortunately for me. Until today, anyway." "You mean --" "That explosion was no accident, Del. For two years I've been in solitary confinement with guards under orders not to let me say anything in their hearing except answers to the simplest questions. But they don't care what *I* hear. Right after we took off this morning I overheard the marshal in charge tell another we'd be lucky to get her -- meaning me -- delivered." She grimaced. "Funny how luck works out, isn't it!" He grinned. "So you know some terrible nuclear secret?" "Exactly." She glanced up into his skepticism, smiled and nodded. "Your tone of voice is what has kept me alive until today. John Arnold said no one would believe me if I did blurt it out. Still it was a near thing. Devkrit drew his pistol and aimed it at me in the NSA offices. He almost had guts enough." "Devkrit? You don't mean the FBI director!" "But I do. Del, I'm amazed you even know who he is." "And John Arnold is ..." He closed his eyes. The name was familiar. "Director of National Security. He was my boss's boss." "You worked for the NSA?" "As a systems analyst. I may still know more dangerous trivia than all but a dozen people in the whole country." He thought about it for awhile. "Then you were the only prisoner on the plane?" "Yes." He took a breath. "I found a manifest showing 94 prisoners aboard. I'm glad it was for yesterday." "So am I." She kissed his shoulder, then chuckled. "Did you think you could save *94* women, Del?" "No. But I was thinking that 93 would be a terrible loss." "Were you? So tell me, what does a man who loves women so well do all alone in the desert?" "Write novels." "Novels?" She raised her head. "What's *your* full name, Del?" "Delbert Maurice Forrest. I've only published --" "But I've heard of you. They did let me read in my lonely cell. You wrote *Last Man Standing*! My god, you *are* an anarchist!" [End Part 1 of 3] -- Pursuant to the Berne Convention, this work is copyright with all rights reserved by its author unless explicitly indicated. +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | alt.sex.stories.moderated ----- send stories to: | | FAQ: Moderator: | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Archive: Hosted by Alt.Sex.Stories Text Repository | |, an entity supported entirely by donations. | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+