Eventualities: Allison Ch. 02

The word had gotten out somehow among the young (and not so young) emergency room nursing staff that I would meet on a nightly basis, delivering my EMS patients, that I was a "Grade A+" catch - hard working, rich, dedicated, (did I mention rich?) and best of all very single! It seemed to me that young pretty nurses came from all over the hospital to show up at the Emergency Room and 'help' once they got the word that my EMS unit was on the way to their hospital. I was rewarded with lots of views of lovely creamy (and dusky) cleavage (seeming more exposed every visit), and more than a few 'accidental' rubs and bumps.

One nurse actually went so far as slide her skirt upwards to reveal that she wasn't wearing any underwear, and she was completely smooth shaven with a prominent clit and had well featured (and delectable) cunt lips which she desired that my cock press between and into at the earliest possible moment. When I declined (I'm only male and human and I was attracted somewhat to her but the room we were in wasn't nearly private enough) she cried "What does a girl have to do to get you in bed?"

My reply was, "Invent me a time machine so I can go back in time to force the woman I loved into Rehab." She had no answer to that and left me mostly alone after that time but it certainly added to the legend of my utter unobtainability, which just added to the challenge for many other young ladies.

I did end up dating quite a few of them when I tired of the chase game and even bedded a number of them (and had a few unforgettable experiences with a pair of pediatric nurses who did 'everything together'). While I can admit to having some fun now and then while getting some regular sexual stress relief, I met no one who really filled all the empty pieces of my heart. I still had yet to meet any woman who could replace Allison's position in my heart -- and was beginning to doubt, but slowly accept that this was unlikely to change.

On the day of my thirtieth birthday (and five years w/o Allison), Tiny threw me a little party. The guests were mostly a few HFD and HPD friends and acquaintances, along with a few pretty nurses thrown in for decoration (I was starting to make a few friends finally). After the last guest had left Tiny whispered in my ear, "Allison has moved to Denver."

Apparently for the last year or two she had gone through a revolving door of men, or rather she was getting passed around an increasingly lower class of men, some of whom supported her briefly and then discarding her or passing her down to a friend or business acquaintance. Occasionally she would go on her own, try and start a relationship but invariably ended up supporting him through her limited earnings. Her latest man of the moment had been in prison twice on drug charges and appeared once again to be working the corners of the narcotics traffic trade. This was the man she packed up and followed to Denver.

This was enough to spoil for me the enjoyment of the entire evening. Undoubtedly why Tiny saved this last choice birthday gift for last after everyone else had gone. The sight of me crying uncontrollably on my knees on the floor would definitely have been a downer for my guests.

I had no further news about Allison from any of my usual sources for the next year or so. It was a mixed blessing at best; I was concerned for her but I had the expectation that any current news about her would be even worse still. More honestly, I had began to admit to myself that we undoubtedly had no future together that I could possibly foresee. I began to see myself finally healing and I was about ready to move fully onwards with my romantic life, possibly even being ready to start another serious relationship.

*************

It was the last day of February and at the dot of midnight the phone rang. I was still awake and had been sanding some kitchen cabinet pieces to be installed in my current project house the next morning. I wasn't expecting any calls from work, I now had my Instructors certification and worked significantly fewer hours now roving from station to station each week evaluating the performance of other techs for my current job. I didn't recognize the voice at first and when I did I just about dropped the phone. If I had been working on my bench saw I have no doubt that I would have probably had an accident and sliced off my own hand.

It was Allison. She sounded well, her voice a bit husky in that sexy Katherine Hepburn sort of way, but more importantly her voice was clear and sober!

"Today is my two month sobriety anniversary," she said. (And I believed her).

"Congratulations," I told her, "I'm not sure you understand how happy this makes me, if it's true."

"It is. It's been so hard… so very hard, but it's worth it. But I wanted it."

She really had wanted to do it and had managed it all by herself, with no one forcing her. I think that was what made all the difference in the world. We talked for what seemed like hours, but it was really at most only fifteen minutes. Not long after her move to Denver, her dipshit druggie boyfriend got himself arrested while transporting someone else's stuff. It was enough to send him off to prison for awhile. Allison was able to convince the Denver police that while yes, she was a hopeless falling down alcoholic, she had nothing to do with her boyfriends business and was happy to see him gone from her life.

She was taken to see some AA program counselors where for the first time she got a good hard semi-sober look at where her life was going and the scare took. She found an AA sponsor that kept a close but friendly eye on her, helped her to use her English degree that had gathered dust since college and helped her to get a provisional Elementary Education Certificate. She failed sobriety a few times early on but never fell completely down to stay. Each time she picked herself up, dusting herself off, and pledging to do better the next time. Two months of sobriety was her best milestone yet, but she seemed as if now she had the confidence to continue.

And she did. She called next at the end of March for her three month anniversary and then again at the end of April for her four month. Our conversations grew in length each time, and we could both tell that the old feelings for each other were still there, not far under the surface. The deep sighing on both ends was palpable. I got to learn all about an entirely new Allison I had never heard or seen before. She seemed to have conquered most of her inner demons and, while she had regrets without number, she wasn't going to let them ruin the rest of her life too. She was definitely a happier and better person. She then asked if I could come at the end of June to Denver for her six month Sobriety Party and I wavered, thought and didn't know at all what to say. From somewhere inside of me, to the best of my recollection, here is what I replied.

"Allison, I still love you, but I can't see you now -- not until I know for sure the old Allison who hurt me is gone forever and can't ever hurt me or us again. When you have been sober for a full year, I think that will be this New Years Eve, call me and I will come to you wherever you are in the world, and won't ever leave your side again, unless you want me to."

Wow, did I really say that? Oh shit. What had I done? She replied something vague in reply (I think she was utterly shocked too) and muttered something about calling me on New Years then, and then, I swear I heard her say in a tiny distant voice before hanging up, "I love you too). Well that did it, now we were both pretty much screwed.

I waited to hear from her in May and June, but she did not call. I assumed then that she had taken me literally about the year of sobriety and I wouldn't hear from her again until after Christmas. For some reason this made me more nervous and emotionally upset than I had been back in the period when I hadn't been hearing at least occasional news of her whereabouts. I had started to care again and that just meant that I was ripening for more disappointment, pain and hurt. By Thanksgiving I was a nervous emotional wreck, alternately terrorizing my young EMT trainees by day and leaving increasing agitated phone calls to Tiny for updated news from his network.

**********

In early December, just when I was starting to finalize and confirm my scheduled vacation time and get the plane tickets to head up to Denver, Tiny finally took pity on me and broke me the news… or else he felt that he couldn't hide it any longer and one of my HPD friends would bring me the news instead.

"Allison's gone from Denver, she's been missing for about a month and no one has seen her, most of her stuff is still at her apartment. It's probably no coincidence that her one-time boyfriend just got out on early parole two days before. He's skipped too, never even checked in once with his PO (Parole Officer). The Denver folks think he grabbed her and forced her to go with him. No news yet, everyone is still looking."

By everyone, Tiny really did mean everyone, on both sides of the law. They would turn up. By everyone's account Travis (her ex's name) wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer and was certain to screw up or make some mistake. Hopefully his mistakes weren't going to get her killed.

I kept a bug to Tiny's ear and called every Police contact I knew or could get my hands on. Soon I found out that the FBI was treating this as a kidnapping case, much to my relief, as there seemed to be some evidence that Allison had certainly not gone with him willingly. Their last confirmed sighting had been at a gas station between Las Vegas and Los Angeles. A security camera had a few photos that showed them in a stolen red Mustang convertible, with Allison's right hand apparently handcuffed to her doors armrest and her left hand drinking from a bottle of Wild Turkey that he seemed to be pretty much forcing down her. What a bastard. Either he didn't like or want her sober, or as the lead FBI agent thought, he found her much easier to control this way.

Reports dried out to nearly nothing. A similar make and model red Mustang with different plates (those also later reported stolen in LA) crossed over into Mexico the next day, unfortunately about the same time the police found the security tape, so too late to get an APB on the stolen car to the border crossings. After that news there was nothing. Nothing at all from any source, anywhere. The two had effectively vanished.

Eventually, the FBI took the case from off of the front burner (if in fact the case was ever on one) and the case started to grow cold. Conventional Wisdom from nearly everyone was that dickhead had sold the car off to one of a thousand different chop shops in Mexico and Allison soon decorated a nameless grave somewhere in the lonely deserts of Northern Mexico. I didn't think so, some tiny little spark inside of me kept saying that Allison was a survivor, she now had the will to live and do whatever was necessary to keep alive and going to the next day, when her ordeal could possible become over.

Right. Keep thinking that -- the power of positive thinking, etc. I wasn't religious, but I began to say a prayer for her health and safety every morning and every night, and began to seek what comfort I could from the HFD and HPD department chaplains and even managed to regularly visit a few hospital chapels when I was stopping by.

The word got out among my nurse friends, of which a few stepped forward offering their occasional companionship, a home cooked meal, an ear to listen with… and sometimes offering their nude body to comfort mine if I happened to desire it. I think a few of them still thought they could win my heart for keeps, but one by one they became disillusioned and accepted other marriage offers. Others just wanted me as their friend (particularly 'a friend with benefits') and I have remained especially close with several of those ladies, even to this day.

*********

I had been seeing a lot of a woman named Myra, just before Allison, and the news of her new sobriety, re-entered my life. She was a counseling Psychologist and I learned more about troubled human behaviors from her than I did from any medical textbook and she knew every detail of my troubled relationship with Allison. She gently scolded me for my mistakes, educated me as to what I should have instead done and what I should do in the event Allison and I ever did have a future. She believed utterly without reservation that Allison was alive and I would again see her someday.

We had been dating casually for several years and lately she had been sharing my bed at least once a week or I shared hers. I didn't quite 'love her' -- she was just a little too emotionally remote and distant for us to make that final connection, but we were good for each other. We could be lovers, but we were never "intimate" with each other. Her soul was locked and sealed behind an array of locked vaults that no lover could seemingly ever enter. She satisfied my emotional and sexual needs enough that I had long cooled off most of my other relationships with my other nurse lovers. Never once did we really seem to get serious and there was never any discussion of one of us moving in and living full time with the other. There were no thoughts, let alone any discussions for a more 'permanent' arrangement. She never seemed jealous of my other part time and diminishing romantic attachments, as she knew none of these relationships were serious, or ever likely to be. These women were all friends I had known for some time who would never intentionally emotionally hurt me, nor I them.

Myra recognized that my heart still seemed pre-occupied and never once sought to supplant herself in Allison's place. Again, this was probably due to her persistent habit of hiding all of her personal feelings, even to herself. She could have been boiling inside with anger or seething with jealousy, but her eyes would remain clear and her voice and demeanor always calm, collected and clinical, as if she were in her office talking to a patient rather than her lover and 'best friend'. She obviously had some secrets, but would never open up enough to share them with anyone.

She did have a fairly sordid and checkered sexual past herself and, if in the mood, would graphically tell me a few of her sexual exploits while we were in bed together and see how aroused her story telling could make me without her even touching me (yet). Despite her emotional distance, when it came to physical sex or descriptions of it, she could be quite graphic. In bed she tended to be very submissive; she preferred being told exactly what to do while in bed even to the extent of enjoying being 'tied and then used', - her words. She clearly also had some rape fantasies and I swore I heard her on at least two occasions call me 'daddy' while we fucked. Out of bed, she ruled all that she could survey with a glove of steel that brooked no debate or dispute from her staff, her peers or even her few friends.

Marla was unashamedly bisexual, but I seemed to be her only primary male lover. She had occasional 'dalliances' with other men but most of her other friends and lovers were primarily lesbian. Upon hearing of my past enjoyment of a romantic interlude with a nubile young pair of nurse roommates that 'shared everything', Myra would occasionally surprise me with an threesome opportunity with one of her obliging bisexual or 'curious' lesbian acquaintances. She asked once if I could enjoy a threesome with her and another man, but I declined. I felt I would have to know the man fairly well for it to be enjoyable, but I would probably have feelings of jealousy, depending upon the woman involved - and I wasn't particularly interested at all in any bi-male encounters, if the situation came to that. The matter dropped and never recurred, although we did get involved in a couple of foursomes, the first time unplanned, and a few occasions with them afterwards. The women were very bisexual and we men very macho and hetero. That and other things were fun, but I drew the line at going to an orgy. I was invited to one once, but I had too many memories of Allison being gang-banged at that fateful New Years party with Willis, and declined to go and let Myra go with one of her other girlfriends instead.

Myra reminded me in many ways of my early vivacious experiences with Allison. She was a woman who seemed to know what she wanted (in bed anyway) and willing to try anything at least once (twice if she enjoyed it). Unless there was a way to break into the lock guarded vaults of Myra's heart and soul there was no possibility of us ever having any kind of real future together.

**********

Allison had been missing for nearly four years when I received the strangest message I'd ever gotten. It was too cryptic even for one of Tiny's messages. A few years ago he had moved out of Houston to become the Children's Services Manager for Lovett County, Texas. We don't phone each as often as we should, but I do get regular postcards from him.

I had never heard of Lovett County and had to look at three different maps before I could even find it. It's the smallest county in Texas, and undoubtedly the strangest and most mysterious. I asked questions about it and received a number of very strange answers from the few who had ever heard of it. No wonder they wanted Tiny, I think he fit right in!

The message, was an unsigned email (a new thing to us because we had just gotten HFD office email for the first time the previous year and not all of the fire stations were wired to the Internet yet) that seemed to be sent from one of the San Diego public library branches. The message stated

"Oh, it will be so funny seeing her after so long,

And the way she looks, you won't be impressed.

It seems she's let nearly everyone,

Take off her party dress.

I hope you still feel a bit sentimental,

And feel a bit of the old Valentine,

Because she is still loving somebody,

Only I know it is still you (and not mine)

You know this world is killing her,

Please let your aim be true."

And the short postscript,

"If you wish to put out the big lights or can't stand to see her this way,

Come visit me at the Velvet, and ask for a dumb blonde named May"

Allison.

It had to be about Allison, and only a friend would probably know that the Elvis Costello song "Allison" was one of her favorites. She had loved new wave music and I had been partial to British Invasion and Progressive myself, but we had tolerated each others musical tastes fairly well.

A few phone calls and a bit of research turned up that while there was no bar or club called the Velvet, there was a low rent dive of a strip joint called the Blue Velvet Lounge, that according to my new police contacts in San Diego was rumored to be a hotspot for the drug transport underground pipeline from Mexico. The club owned by several extremely suspicious persons SDPD and DEA had been watching for some time, and it also had a reputation of being a biker hangout.

Neither SDPD or DEA had had any prior success getting anyone "inside" to talk (the last potential informant had been found floating in San Diego Bay) and the mere suggestion that I "might" have a possible contact working inside the club brought everyone from both organizations salivating at the prospect. A few phone calls to the FBI got Allison's current case agent involved (she was one of over three hundred 'cold cases' sitting on his desk) and once he was filled in he made a few calls of his own to the San Diego FBI Office that got their major case squad also ready for action. The next day I had a written instructions and plane tickets in my hand to fly to San Diego, allegedly to assist with an FBI operation that featured EMS elements. My current boss (a useful idiot if ever there was one but getting close to retirement) saw this merely as an example to his boss, the head enchilada Fire Chief, on how successful his EMS training program was, that even the Feds needed his personal assistance. Ha-Ha!