The Redemption of Love

As I stood up, she leaned over and hugged me confidently. This was going really well. She liked me, I had made her trust me, and I had made the people around her trust me. Noone could tell what I really felt. "Hell," I thought to myself. "I'm a better actor than they are."

I said my good-byes and headed back home. It was a ten minute stroll, and by the time I reached my stairs I knew what I was going to do, how to turn my hate into retaliation. All I needed was to wait for the right opportunity. When I could get her alone.

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It happened a week later. Every day I would meet up with Jennifer and the three other "kids" as they called themselves, either out on location, of at the hotel café. The three actors and the makeup artist were at least one generation younger than the rest of the cast and crew, and therefore they felt most comfortable in each other's company. Of course they socialized with the others too, and I got to shake quite a few famous hands when I tagged along on the sets.

It was on one of those occasions that I finally had my chance. After a long day of perfecting a scene out in the woods, about a mile away from the city, I found Jennifer sitting in the doorway of a trailer all muddy and wet, with a blanket wrapped around her.

"Hey, milady. How's it going?"

"It's going crappy. I'm tired, wet and cold. I've been rained on all day, and I just fell into a ditch. I'm done here now, and all I want to do is get back to the hotel, take a shower and get some nice dry clothes. But there seems to be no cars to spare. Oh no, I'm gonna have to wait another three hours for the rest of the bunch to finish. I'm beginning to wonder who I'm gonna have to bend over for to get a ride into town around here."

"How about me?"

Her head shot up. "You got a car?"

"I've got a piece of shit. But it moves, occasionally in the right direction. How did you think I got here? I'm not taking a stroll in this lousy weather. I'll even give you a discount and settle for a blowjob. How about that?"

She grinned up at me. "You are an angel. Let's go!"

She went to inform the producer and the bodyguards that she was going to the hotel with me. There had been no signs of said stalker during the visit up here, so they took it pretty easy with the security to allow for as much privacy as possible. Besides, she was with me, so she'd be perfectly safe. Oh, yes. Perfectly safe. She returned with a light step and a heavy bag, and we walked to the outskirts of the set to my parked rusty old sedan.

As soon as we both were in the car, I turned to her and reached for my zipper.

"So, you wanna pay now, or while I'm driving?"

Her eyes bulged, and she scrambled to get out of the car. I immediately zipped up again.

"Gotcha!" I said with a laugh. She froze, sat down and punched me in the arm. She was stronger than I thought. It actually hurt a bit.

"Don't do that, you freak." she said with an impish smile.

I turned the key. The 'piece of shit' coughed a couple of times and settled into a comfortable purr as we drove off. Five uneventful minutes later i had parked the car and was trailing along behind Jennifer down the corridor to her room. She dug deep into the bag and produced a keycard that she opened the door with, disappearing inside. I stood in the corridor, hesitating my next move. But Jennifer was way ahead of me. She popped her head out into the corridor again.

"Well don't just stand there. Come in, sit down."

The room was your standard run of the mill hotel franchise. Comfortable and clean, but without any real luxury. A bed on one end and a small table and sofa on the other. There were small touches of it's current guest everywhere. Clothes here and there, a perfume bottle in the window, a picture of her family and a few magazines on the bedside table, a laptop computer on the table by the sofa. I noticed that my book-script laid open beside it..

Then I didn't notice anything else about the room, because Jennifer Love Hewitt was casually stripping right in front of me, as if I wasn't there. Her shirt was off, lying on the floor. She was wearing that blue bra, the same she had worn when I first saw her. She reached down and loosened the straps that kept her loose fit pants up around her waist. Naturally, my eyes popped out of their sockets, and my jaw dropped to the floor in perfect sync with her pants. She looked at me, slightly amused.

"Enjoying the view?"

"Very much so."

"Really, what is the big deal? Half the world has seen me in a bikini by now. Is this any different? Hey, I'm up here."

I pried my eyes off her hypnotic bosom and looked into her eyes. She smiled a knee-weakening smile and shook her head.

"I said it before and I'll say it again: Men! I don't get it. Why does guys obsess so much over my tits?"

"I dunno. Because they're magnificent?"

"Well, thank you. I guess."

She reached up behind her back to unclasp her bra. Unfortunately, she realized that I still had my eyes glued to her.

"Do you mind?"

"Not at all. Go on, girl."

"Turn. Around."

"Yes, mistress." I said and turned, painfully aware of the fact that the most gorgeous woman I could think of was getting undressed, just a couple of steps behind my back. I heard her rustle out of her last small pieces of clothing. A few soft steps behind my back, and I heard the bathroom door close, after a minute, the shower started drumming rain into the bathtub. And presumably onto her. I sat down on the bed. And I waited.

After about fifteen minutes the shover went silent, and a minute later the door opened. A cloud of steam welled out. Out through the fumes stepped a wet dream, a shampoo commercial, a soft porn video star. Jennifer walked out of the bathroom dripping wet, wearing nothing but a hotel towel barely big enough to cover the absolute minimum. She took a deep breath, and walked by me to the bedside table, where she took out a hairbrush from a drawer. She went over to the sofa, where she sat down taking care of the wet hair clinging to her neck.

"Feeling better?" I asked.

"Yeah, that was exactly what I needed. By the way, I read your book."

"Already? Damn, you're fast! So? As my first ever critic, what's the verdict?"

"Amazing. You said it was a love story, so I had expected some lame Harlequin setup. But that was a goddamn rollercoaster ride. Seriously, you've taken every traditional concept, had it bend over and screwed it from behind. It's brilliant! Where did you come up with all that stuff?"

"Weed. No, I honestly have no idea. It's just bits and pieces of what-ifs bunched together."

"And all those characters! Morris, Paige, the dead boy, the angel... My favorite was probably the schoolteacher. She was so cool! What was she called again?"

"Linda."

"Linda... Hey, isn't that your sister's name? She was such a cute kid. She was sick, right? How is she these days?"

And so it began.

Until that moment I had not been entirely sure that I was going to go through with it. But there was no turning back now. I answered with a voice of granite.

"She's dead."

The words hung in the air like thick mist, like an echo that just refused to fade away. Jennifer stopped dead, put down the brush, and stood up.

"Oh shit, I'm sorry Matt. I didn't mean... Jesus, fuck...I didn't know that."

"That's right. You didn't know. So that makes everything all right, doesn't it? You don't know anything, so it's not your fault."

"Huh? What are you talking about?" The girl looked at me, confused.

"You see, you don't have a clue. You never had a clue, did you? Rushing on, thinking about yourself and noone else, leaving a trail of fuckup behind you. You never even bothered to look over you shoulder and see what you'd done."

"Ok, Matt. Cut it out, it's not funny."

"It was never funny, Love. Nothing has been funny for a long time. Not for seven years."

She looked really worried now. "Please...stop. You're scaring me." she said in a small voice.

"Oh, am I? I didn't think that was possible. You, who live such a wonderful life? Could anything really touch someone like you? So pretty, so perfect, so happy. So wrong. You don't deserve this. You took all I had from me that day...left me in a world of shit, without a second thought. You are a bloody thief, that's all you are. You don't deserve this."

"Matt? You...you said you were ok. You said that was then, and this is now."

"I lied. I thought I could forget. I tried to push away the hate, but no more. I hate you, Jennifer. Oh, how I hate you. Are you scared now?"

She looked nervously at the door, as if estimating her chances to get away.

"Oh, go ahead." I said calmly. "Try to run. Try to scream. I dare you."

I had no idea what I was talking about, or what would happen if she tried any of that. But sounding in control was the key here. And that was enough for her to believe it. I made her think that I knew she couldn't get away, and her own mind began imagining what would happen to her if she tried. She had been taking in air to shout for help, but now she let out her breath over a trembling lower lip. Fear had taken a first little hold of the always so carefree, careless star, and she pleaded with me in a tiny, trembling voice.

"What is it you want, Matt? What!? I'll give you anything. But please, stop. Tell me what you want, and it's yours."

I knew it would come to that. One last desperate attempt to stay in control of the situation. I was a little surprised that she had grasped the situation so fast though. I had gone from 'good cop' to 'bad cop' in a heartbeat, and it hadn't taken her long to understand that I was serious, and that she was in deep shit. But that silly plea was an easy target, something I could twist around and throw back at her.

"What are you doing? Are you trying to buy your way out of this? Do you think there is money enough in the world to make up for what you did? Well, think again."

She was out of speech by now, shaking her head, her mouth trying to formulate words that were not there. I could almost sense her frantically searching her own memories for something she had done to deserve this. And obviously she didn't find it. Not that I had expected her to.

"I... I don't...Wh-what did I do? What do you want?!"

"I just want to get even. Now tell me, are you scared?"

She just nodded, staring at me in horror. My face hardened, and I took a step toward her.

"Good. Let's see how much this scares you." With that I reached out and yanked the towel off her. She let out a short gasp. A picture of her imminent future was being painted in her imagination. And it wasn't a pretty one.

"No! Please, don't..." she whispered. I looked at her with neutral eyes, and my voice was emotionless, which seemed to scare her even more than her present naked state. Inside I was boiling, but I wouldn't ever let her see that.

"Get on the bed." I said calmly. Nothing happened.

She just stood there in silence. She hadn't even bothered with trying to cover herself up. Instead she had her arms clutched across her belly, and her head sunk down between her shoulders, as if trying to make her as small as possible would accomplish anything.

"I said on the bed, Jennifer."

At least now she reacted. Not with fear, but defiance.

"No. No! I won't do it, you can't make me!"

I sighed, rolled my eyes and, totally out of the blue, hit her cheek with my open palm. Not very hard, but enough to turn her head and to shut her up. Before she could gain composure, I grabbed her by the arms, dragged her across the room and threw her straight down on the bed. Only then did she have time to react. As she laid there, chest down, she grabbed a nearby pillow and buried her face in it.

I traced her incredible body with my eyes. From her small feet to her long neck. She was so beautiful. Smooth, delicate, curvy, fit and painfully close to irresistible. I wanted so badly to just put my hands on her and feel that wonderful sensation of soft skin traveling under my palms, to kiss her feet, to lick the inside of her thighs, massage her back, nibble the back of her neck, taste her, touch her, caress her... I pushed all those thoughts away, tapped into the hate, and entered the second stage of my revenge. I'd break her. And now I knew how.

"You dumb little cunt," I sneered, as I sat down beside her naked, whimpering form on the bed. "Did you really think that this was about money? Are you really so stupid that you don't think what you did came with consequences? I'm here to punish you for what you really took from me that day. Let me tell you about consequences. Look at me when I'm talking to you."

She didn't respond. I promptly took a handful of hair in my fist and yanked her head up from the pillow. She shouted out, probably more in surprise than in pain, as I pulled her over, hair first, so that she now lay on her back. Her chest heaving with her rapid breath, nipples brushing against my shirt as I hovered above her. Her terrified eyes met mine, and I stared coldly into them for a few seconds. Then I lowered my head and spoke quietly into her ear. My voice was hard, cold and controlled.

"I said look at me. Do as I say, and don't fucking hesitate, understand?" She nodded. "Now sit up, shut up, look at me and listen.." She obeyed instantly, not knowing, fearing what I might do if she didn't. She sat up, clutching her legs, and looked at me. She looked like a deer caught in the headlights of an approaching car. Too scared to think straight, but still unable to run, or in this case, look away.

And I told her about consequences. The cold, hard, terrible consequences of her actions seven years ago. I told her of Linda, my beautiful, beloved little sister. I told her of those springy, carefree steps, that sweet, bubbly laughter and the smell of grass and flowers that I remember her by to this day. I told her about fate's blow against my family on the eve of Linda's 13th birthday, when the doctors told us of her disease, of how leukemia was rapidly eating her from the inside. I told her of the failing medication and radiation treatment, the long painful search for a compatible bone marrow donor, of how Linda, gentle brave Linda took it upon herself to provide comfort through moms many nervous breakdowns, while the young girl herself got weaker and weaker.

And then, hope. A donor was found. We were going to get Linda back, if we acted quickly, and preformed the surgery within days. But our economy was drained. Donor tests had eaten up the medical insurance money, and pretty much everything else we had owned. Daddy managed to gather his last savings, and a few loans from friends to cover for the surgery. That's the money that was going to save his daughter's life. That's the money he put in his safe. That's the money that a lovestruck boy called Matthew showed a pretty girl called Jennifer one night, the same money that the girl called Jennifer stole from us, bought a plane ticket to Los Angeles for, and disappeared out of our lives.

Money wasn't really an issue, but fast money was. The insurance company didn't care, they had paid what was agreed on. The hospital didn't care, they refused to lift a finger without money up front. And no one could loan us the needed sum quickly enough. After more than a week of intense nagging, Daddy finally managed to convince the bank to consider a small loan. But by then it turned out to be too late. Too late to cure her.

"She fought it for another seven weeks," I told Jennifer. My voice was emotionless, but there was no way of stopping the tears welling up in my eyes. "Then her blood was too thin, her heart was too weak and her lungs were too...rotten...to function. She went away weeping. She once told me she believed in heaven, but now she feared going there because she was going to be so far away from us. Tired like never before, she held my hand and cried herself to sleep. That was it. She died as soon as she closed her lids. I sat there for hours, feeling her little hand grow cold in mine."

Jennifer's face was a battle of terrible emotions. She felt the pain of Linda's unfair fate, she shrunk in fear of the man in front of her, and as her mind slowly started to comprehend the picture that had been painted before her, especially her own part in the story, she started to tremble. Silently, almost inaudible, she whispered. ..."oh my god...oh dear god..." I gave her no respite, hammering more guilt into her emotionally overloaded mind.

"At first I blamed myself. I had been so stupid. So naive and gullible. If i only hadn't been so careless. Then I realized that at the heart of it all, it wasn't my fault. You. It was your fault, Jennifer. You betrayed my trust and stole Linda's chance to life. Congratulations, you made it to that audition. But you killed Linda, you killed my little sister!"

It hit her like a ton of bricks. I saw her reel back, as if punched in the face. She trembled like a leaf, and tears began to fall. Until then she had looked into my eyes, like I told her to. But now her eyes unfocused, her head slumped and her arms fell to her sides, as if nothing mattered anymore. She just sat there, tears falling, mouth gaping, but unable to utter a sound. I leaned over and grabbed her hair, jerking her face back up to mine.

"You killed my angel, and now you're going to pay." I hissed. "You fucked up my family for two thousand dollars. It's time to return the favor. Two grand's worth of fucking you up. With a cheap whore like you, this is gonna take hours."

That brought her back to her senses and she stared at me in horror. She breathed a "...no...please..." and brought up her arms in front of her chest, as a desperate form of protection against an anticipated assault. I just grunted, and pushed her roughly back into the bed. I leaned over her, grabbed her legs by the knees and jerked them wide apart, leaving her in the most open and vulnerable of positions.

"This is going to hurt." I told her.

That did it. Jennifer's last defense crumbled, the last faint traces of self control washed away, leaving nothing but sheer and utter despair. She let out a final cry of surrender, and started sobbing, softly bawling like a little child. I stood up, looked at the broken star on the bed before me and felt a bitter taste of satisfaction. My work was done, my revenge was over. There was nothing I could do that could destroy her more. Raping her would only give her an excuse to shift focus from her own guilt, to victimize herself. And besides, there was no way in hell I could had gone through with it. She was still the picture perfect girl, with a toned, sexy body to match it. But it was just the image of a beautiful woman, projected on a human wreck.

You can't fuck waste.

"Stop whining," I told her in a neutral voice as I stood up and waked away a few steps. "I won't rape you. You're too disgusting for that. Here are your two grand, bitch." I reached into my jacket pocket and produced a pack of 20 hundred dollar bills, and tossed it on the floor. I thought of adding "go buy yourself a fucking rope," but decided against it. I wasn't going to get tacky here. Instead I just walked to the door, and turned to her one last time.

"Goodbye Love." I spoke softly. "I'm sorry it had to come to this."

I exited the door quickly, walked with a careless stroll down the corridor and into the elevator. I drove numbly home. Meeting noone, looking at nothing, feeling absolutely nothing. Once back at my apartment, I took my clothes off, had a brief shower and went into the kitchen. I emptied four shot of clear vodka, drank a glass of water, and went to bed. I fell asleep before I hit the pillow.

I dreamed of Linda. She was seven years old, and danced around on the lawn on a beautiful day. I ran to pick her up. I lifted her from the ground, drew her to me and kissed her on the cheek. It was cold. I sat in her bedroom, holding her hand. Linda was thirteen, pale, thin, rigid, cold and dead.