Revenge Ch. 02

A special thanks to Barney R for his wonderful editing.

*****

He had tried to fight it by hitting the bottle. There was a time he recalled when he just hung about in the house in a drunken haze.

When sanity would return, as it often did, his betrayal and helplessness would seize him; with that awful feeling deep within him growing larger and larger, gnawing into his mind and senses till he could stand it no more and he would then seek escape by grabbing another bottle to keep that ugly monster within him at bay.

The house was soon gone. After all, even booze came from money. He recalled moving into a one room apartment in the downtown area. In fact calling it an apartment was really a joke just like his life had become.

The street downstairs was busy in the evenings with hookers plying their trade. And the daytime was not really a safe place for strangers in the town. But then he didn't really need to worry. After all he was jobless and a laughing stock with no honour or dignity somehow surviving from the proceeds from the sale of his home and the inconsistent inflow from his penning.

Brad smiled bitterly at the recollections, the days working now moving at a breakneck turtle speed. His secretary had popped her head in a couple of times but the look in his eyes as he struggled to concentrate on his laptop screen was an all too familiar sign and she hurriedly moved out and gave a slight shrug of her shoulders to those watching her brave entry.

Today no one would venture in with their output for the day, unless called upon.

He met his first woman after Nancy there ... on the streets. He had left the apartment for a quick bite before returning back to finish off another of his e-publications.

As usual he was half drunk and must have dozed off in the small corner restaurant that was his regular. The dishes were oily and greasy and with all the gravy put in you couldn't really decipher one dish from another. But that was all his money could buy.

The owner shook him awake at closing time. This had happened before but he always paid for his food and never created a trouble so the owner never really bothered if he dozed of every now and then.

As he staggered back to what was now his home he saw someone standing under the lamplight who he thought he recognised! It was Nancy his pissed out mind informed him and she was here to beg his forgiveness! He staggered closer and peered in the dark. Her hair was still dark and wavy. Of course it was. He had seen her picture many times in the newspaper during the past many months with her new husband nee her ex-lover and the man who cuckolded him for over a year.

The press said that they made a perfect couple, he was tall and groovy looking and successful in what was his inherited property business and she was his beautiful and charming better half. She no longer worked they had reported somewhere. She was now a socialite, moving with the moneyed and powerful. Her eyes were the same too, just like he had first seen them so many wonderful years ago.

"I knew you would return to me one day Nancy," his alcohol soaked brains heard him say. He hugged her tightly, finding solace in the warmth of her soft body. Her boobs pressed tightly against his frail and weakened body. They felt good.

He took her by her elbow and graciously escorted her to his meagre room. Shutting the door behind him, he once again peered at her, trying to gauge her feelings. But that seemed one heck of a strain for his alcohol soaked brain to co ordinate. He blinked and gently rocked on his heels. Then he felt her nimble fingers deftly unbuttoning his worn out shirt buttons. His jeans were soon followed by his boxers and his hungry manhood stuck out, seeking comfort, seeking love and comfort.

They were soon in the bed, legs entwined, arm in arm, kissing, licking then kissing again.

"I haven't taken a bath for two days, let me wa...," he heard himself croak.

He heard a rustle then the sound of a packet tearing. Then those soft fingers were putting something on his lost and lonely fella.

"Just put it in," he heard a feminine voice say. That was one command his alcohol soaked brain immediately deciphered and acted upon.

The morning sun's rays filtering thru the broken window pane opened his eyes the next day. After a long time he felt satisfied, almost happy. He looked down at his semi erect cock with dried semen and juices sticking to it and gave a start. Nancy!

He swung his head around. The one room apartment was not all that big. He saw a dark haired woman with garishly painted lips and finger nails sitting on the chair in front of his laptop. She was peering into her hand held mirror and checking herself out.

She had a leather skirt on, that is if you could call that short piece of clothing a skirt. And she was topless. Her big boobs hung free and swung pendulously to the motions of her hand. He stared at the face. She was a pretty woman. But the lines on her face which she was now trying to hide clearly told their story. The woman had seen better days. This woman was a hooker and he had brought her to his apartment the other night. Nancy was still in the arms of her lover nee husband.

"Good that you're awake now. A few minutes more and I would've had to walk off with your laptop. Gimme my hundred dollars now, my daughter is waiting for me to take her to school," she said. She then stood up and began feeling her boobs, as though giving them a thorough check up, totally unconcerned about the naked man on the bed with whom she had spent the night and now had a semi erect manhood because of her.

"Hundred dollars?" repeated Brad hesitantly.

"Yup, you got that right buster. I normally charge a hundred dollars an hour and five hundred for the whole night," she answered as she put her bra in place, all along chewing a gum unconcernedly.

"It had been a long night and I was planning to go back to my daughter when you came by," she continued.

His heart sank. There had been no Nancy the other night, just a figment of his stupid imagination. Why should she come to meet a loser like him in this shabby downtown area? And if she did want to be with him, she wouldn't have started her year-long affair with that asshole. He looked back at the voluptuous woman standing in front of him whom he had mistaken for his Nancy under the dim street light. Like him she too had a daughter and he was holding her up.

He felt a stirring and looked down to see his manhood standing straight up, dried semen sticking at its base. He had a problem there. The thought of the woman going back to her daughter seemed to have triggered off a reaction in him that he couldn't understand. He quickly grabbed the bed sheet and covered himself up. He looked up to see her watching his antics with a funny look in her eyes. I bet she has seen lotsa cracks like me and perhaps some even worse he thought glumly.

But he had another problem, a much bigger problem. He had seventy five dollars to see him thru the week before the payment for his next penning was transferred to his bank account. And the whore was asking a hundred dollars. No, he didn't like it when he thought of her as a whore. She was a mother and circumstances had made put her in the oldest profession of mankind. No, she was just a mother making ends meet.

He looked down at his finger. His last valuable possession was the small platinum ring gifted to him by his grandfather when he joined the engineering college. A loser like him didn't deserve such luxury, but a woman with a daughter could put it to some good use. Besides, he needed those seventy five dollars to see off the rest of the week.

He took it off and silently handed it over to her.

"Put it to some good use. Maybe you wouldn't have to stand under the street light for some days to come," he said.

"Why? You have some problems with my standing under the street light?" she asked with anger visible in her voice and eyes.

"In case you didn't notice, I happen to make some honest money unlike some," she spat, her left hand pointing out in the general direction of the uptown area with their towers of steel and glass, and corruption.

His heart went out to her. She was a brave girl. Maybe he could learn how to survive from her, maybe.

"No, you got me wrong there. What I meant was that you could take some time off and spend some moments with your daughter. I'm sure she needs you more than your johns. You could perhaps stay with her," he replied as sincerely as he possibly could.

She looked at him with a funny look on her face. In her trade she had seen all types. Perhaps she was trying to put him in one of those slots in her mind regarding men and their kinkiness.

Perhaps she is thinking of me as a closet paedophile Brad suddenly thought.

"I too have a daughter ... or had one," he whispered.

She continued to look at him silently.

"I'm Rosy," she finally said.

"Brad," he replied as he nodded his head in acknowledgement.

"Whose this Nancy gal?" she asked out of the blue, "You kept calling me Nancy while you banged me."

He found himself blurting out before he even realised it, "My ex."

She didn't reply immediately, but instead looked around the shabby one room pad and then swung back to face him.

"You live but once mister, and no woman or man is worth wasting your life for," said Rosy. She had winced a bit when she uttered the male word. No doubt hurt deeply by the father of her child.

They continued to stare at each other. He lite a cigarette and offered one to Rosy. She was getting late, but it seemed there was something going on in her mind.

"This ring is worth more than my services and I don't like charity," she replied back with her wonderful chest thrust forward as though in an act of defiance. She may be a whore but she was no beggar. Perhaps that's what she wanted to say.

Brad smiled bitterly. She had been right; she certainly has more ethics than some working in those towers of steel and glass she had just pointed out. And she certainly had more ethics and self respect than someone he had known but then really not known.

"Maybe you could drop by for a cup of coffee now and then, that way we could set off the excess payment," he replied back in mock seriousness.

"Maybe ... maybe," she replied warily and then picked up her bag and walked off. He watched her ass as she briskly made her way out. She was nice all around, very nice from the inside too it seemed.

He made himself a cup of coffee and ate a simple breakfast of bread and biscuits. He had seventy five dollars to splurge upon himself during the next seven days and he was in no hurry. He opened his laptop and began checking his mails.

There was one which caught his attention. It was from his publisher. It seemed somebody had read his stories and wanted him to pen a story, a complete story. No problem there.

As long as the money was good, he was willing to write a whole god dammed thesis on any subject they wanted. What his guy wanted was some kind of a romantic stuff.

Brad leaned back and stared at the screen thoughtfully. Now just what kind of a romantic story could he write? Then his eyes brightened. Why not something on his own real life?

He leaned closer to his laptop screen and began punching furiously. He started with his childhood, its innocence, the growing up years with their dreams and then on the adult hood. He didn't touch the bottle for the first time in almost two years.

A couple of days into this frenzied typing; he was interrupted by the ringing of the door bell. He looked at his watch. It was late, quite late. Who could it be?

He opened the door to find Rosy standing there.

Hi, it's been a long night and I was wondering if you had some hot coffee going about. A gal could sure use that."

She was dressed in her working clothes and still had that wary look on her face. She had a nice face thought Brad and would look real nice without all the garish war paint on. Brad smiled and simply stepped aside and welcomed her in.

Rosy put her bag down and went straight into the bathroom. After a few minutes she walked out again and Brad stared in surprise.

She had washed off all the garish make up and bunched up her hair and tied it into a simple pony tail. She looked nice thought Brad, so homely and yet so incredibly yummy.

"Your coffee Rosy," he finally managed to say as he placed it next to his laptop. Then he looked around at his shabby surroundings and began to feel embarrassed.

This was no place to invite a lady in. He had not been brought up that way. He had been programmed to give them respect and to be at your very best when a girl accepts your invitation to visit your bachelor pad.

First impression is the last impression they say and Mother Nature has made man and woman with some specific objectives in mind; namely the successful propagation of mankind. An invitation to a place such as his would ensure that the girl takes no further steps for accomplishing the objectives of Mother Nature.

"Brenda, I'm Brenda. Rosy is my trade name," she replied albeit cautiously as though she were handing out some highly classified state secrets.

"Hello Brenda, nice meeting you, I'm Brad," he replied back with a laugh. It had been a long time since he had laughed and it felt good. He began to clean up the table which was cluttered with papers and stained coffee cups.

The last of the seventy five dollars had been spent on a packet of French fries and coffee powder and sundry essentials. That meant he had to skip his daily dinner at the corner restaurant and survive on the two items the whole day.

He was now really embarrassed. Here was a girl in his pad and all he had was a cup of coffee and half a plate of French fries to dish out.

"You don't have to do that," she said sharply. "Just sit down."

"It was kinda cold out there tonight on the street and that set my mind thinking about the cup of coffee you promised," she continued as a way to continue their conversation.

"Brenda you are welcome any time of the day. Maybe the next time I'll have something more than coffee for you."

They chit chatted about this and that for some time, and then she told him the story of her life. She was a small town girl and had been head over heels in love with her childhood sweetheart. After high school he took training to become an electrician and they soon married. Their baby girl soon followed and sometime later she went back to school to become an accountant.

Life was not easy in a big town but it was good and she was in love. But with the downturn of the economy things soon began going downhill. Her husband lost his job as the plant was not getting many orders.

She took up the job of a waitress to help with the money. But by now her husband had become a stay at home dad and perhaps out of frustration and insecurity he began picking on her for the smallest of matters. Then he began drinking and when she would object, he would lash out at her. Then one fine day she returned home from her job to find him gone. He didn't even leave a note. Somehow she scrapped by.

Then her daughter began falling sick often. The doctors told her that her daughter had a kidney infection and would require medication. That night she cried her heart out. She had not even touched thirty, but it seemed she had seen just about everything that life had to show to her.

Then she silently stepped inside her daughter's room and looked at her angel's sleeping form. There and there she made a vow to never look back. If she were to run into her childhood sweet heart on the street, she would just walk right past him without looking back.

She sold off the few pieces of jewellery she had and began working overtime. But the medicines were expensive. She began losing weight as she was literally starving herself to feed and take care of her little one. One such night she finished her second shift and was walking towards her car in the parking lot when she heard somebody call out her name from inside a parked car.

"Hey Brenda how 'bout one quick one for the road?" said the guy sitting inside a white van. She peered inside and saw it was Al, one of her regular ones. He was fifty something and had recently lost his wife to cancer. His kids were all grown up and gone leaving him all alone. He was a nice fella and seemed a bit drunk. She saw no harm in joining him and slipped in besides him.

A drink lead to another and then another. He told her his sob story and she shared her sad story with him. Sometime later their clothes lay in a heap as they fucked in the back of the van. He was a bit rough but then every guy has his own technique and Brenda enjoyed the copulation. She hadn't been with a man for some time and she needed that masculine company. It was only when she got home and opened her purse that she saw that Al had slipped in a hundred dollar bill in her purse.

She ought to have felt angry but somehow she didn't feel that way. Besides, she already had some ideas on how to spend her first earnings as a whore. They began to do it two to three days a week. He would wait for her in the parking lot and then they would drive over either to his place or somewhere lonely. The word soon got around and there were soon some more guys willing to pay for her time. That was when she decided to quit her job as a waitress.

It was a helluva story. Brad felt sympathy for the woman. She had been thru some tough phases in life. She was now looking into the laptop screen in a curious kinda way.

"What are you writing?"

"The story of my life," he replied in an emotionless tone. That got her interested and she hit the Page Up button and began reading from the start. He had come up to his marriage and their romancing and he could see that she liked it as tears welled up in her eyes.

"Did she actually call you in dressed just in her high heels?"

Brad simply nodded and smiled as the memories flashed across his eyes.

Brenda then switched off the laptop and went to the bathroom. She soon emerged and Brad's eyes popped open in surprise. She was stark naked! Brenda climbed into the bed and beckoned at him with crooked finger.

"You're a good story writer and I'm horny as hell."

They soon settled down into a routine. A couple of evenings a week she would drop in unannounced and stay the whole night. She would also go thru the chapters he had finished giving her womanly opinion every now and then.

Brad was glad to have a friend, a friend with benefits. It had been a long time since he had smiled and the sex was great.

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Things changed dramatically a week or so after he had finally finished the story and mailed it to the publisher for onward delivery to the final receiving person. Brenda hadn't dropped in the last few evenings and he was really looking forward to meeting her. The next day there was a knock at the door in the morning.

A middle aged blonde was leaning against the door. She had a bored expression on her face, or to put it more correctly the expression of a person who had seen the harsher side of life far too regularly and for far too long.

"You're the writer right?"

"That's right. What's it to you?"

"Rosie's dead! She was murdered by her client two nights back. We girls just got to know some time back. I thought I would let you know that 'cause I dunno about you, but she had a soft corner for you."

Good guys never win. They just keep losing and losing again was the thought that that came immediately to his mind on hearing the tragic news.

"How ... where ..." he managed to say as he let her in.

"He was a rough guy. Some of the girls had been with him and they say he's into some real kinky stuff. And he's also into drugs. But he pays well as most of the girls avoid him and he has to really lure one of us into his bed. One of the girls saw him drive up next to Brenda that evening. According to the girl, she seemed hesitant at first but then the lure of money must have been her undoing."