Fade To Black

As I decended I checked my teeth in the mirror wondered if I should have shaved, then realised that I’d had a chin full of stubble when I’d first seen Jennifer, and that hadn’t stopped her from climbing all over me. I checked my nails, and as I did so realised that my hands were very slightly shaking, from anticipation as well as excitement and nervousness. Was I really about to cross the street and meet Jennifer Garner, me a lowly English journalist and she a gorgeous actress? Did moments like this ever happen in real life, or had I fallen asleep on my bed and still as yet not woken up? I pinched the skin on my bare arm and decided that pain I felt meant that I wasn’t dreaming.

A ding, and the doors glided apart, and the expanse of the lobby was before me. I crossed the tiled floor quickly, walking evenly so as not to draw attention to myself, and even managed a nod and smile to the girl behind the reception desk. A desperately thin man wearing red trousers was being led through the revolving doors by a well-groomed terrier, and I let them pass before going out into the cool night air of the city of angels.

**********

Jennifer was across the street away to my left, still leaning against the car which I now saw was a deep blue Audi. Her arms were crossed over her chest and her hair was tied back in a ponytail, and if anything she looked even better than when I’d seen her in the Elektra costume. She was a wearing a plain white t-shirt that was cut short on the sleeves and showed an inch or two of midriff, faded blue jeans and a pair of black boots. I jogged steadily across the street on legs that still didn’t really feel like my own and as soon as she saw me she stood up from the Audi and her face broke into a big smile.

I stopped infront of her and for a moment did nothing more than stare, drank in the sight of her, and this time found that I knew what to say. ‘I was right.’

She frowned. ‘Right about what?’

‘You do you look beautiful,’ I said, and moved towards her, into the arms that she held open for me, and we embraced, pushed our bodies against each other. I threaded my hands up into her soft mass of hair and pulled her face to me, met her parted lips with my own and felt her tongue slide into my mouth as we kissed deeply. She pushed herself against me and my thigh went between her legs, and even through her jeans I could feel the heat that she had there. In turn I ground my erection up against her, and felt her hand move from my shirt down to cup me, pushing into the lump my dick had formed. In reply I forced my thigh up against her pussy and she gasped hotly into my mouth and kissed me harder, our tongues fighting against one and another. My hand found it’s way over the front of her t-shirt and grazed her nipple that was stiffly pushing against the cotton. I squeezed, and she gasped again before breaking out kiss and looking at me directly with those deep dark eyes.

‘You’ve got to fuck me,’ she said, ‘right now.’

‘Come up to my room then,’ I said, easing my hand under her shirt and onto her stomach. Only a few feet away cars were streaming past behind us, but I didn’t care. My only concern in the whole world right now was the woman before me.

‘No, I want to do it out on the street.’

I laughed. ‘Here? You’re crazy. We’ll get arrested.’

She grinned and kissed me quickly, still with her hand on my dick, and looked around over her shoulder. ‘Over there. We’ll do it over there, c’mon.’ I looked and saw the entrance to an alleyway that led down between two buildings, the small gap ominous and bathed in dark shadows.

‘I don’t know, Jen,’ I said, but she had already grabbed my belt and was pulling me away from the car to the sidewalk and in the direction of the alley. ‘It’ll be so horny,’ she whispered in my ear. ‘We’ll be able to see whoever goes past, but they won’t see us. Come on.’

At that moment I was so consumed with lust and only thinking with my cock that if she’d have suggested we strip in the middle of the street and screw in the traffic I’d have probably agreed to it. Although there were people about it wasn’t crowded, and I hoped that the gloom would be deep enough to conceal what we were about to do. Jennifer giggled again as we stepped past two elderly ladies and grabbed my hand as we both jumped into the shadows.

I didn’t need to worry if the alley was concealed enough; it was as dark as Indian ink, a solid blackness that was all consuming. Jennifer grabbed me and held me tight against her, and for maybe half-a-minute we stood still and both looked out towards the street. We had moved maybe ten feet into the alleyway and looking back at where we had come from appeared like a square of light in the darkness. She was right, we could see the cars and the people moving past the entrance, but no-one would be able to see us, not even if they stopped and peered into the alley.

My eyes had adjusted to the dark, and I could just about make out Jennifer before me. She kissed me again and then pushed me away from her, and I watched as she grabbed hold of the hem of the t-shirt and raised it up over her belly, revealing milky skin, and then over her breasts. She wasn’t wearing a bra and even in the shadows I could see how hard her nipples were. I started to unfasten my jeans.

There was a noise behind me, and I saw Jennifer’s eyes flick up and over my right shoulder. Before I could even turn my head something struck above my right ear, sending a cloud of pain through my temple and pitching me forward. I felt my feet slip on the slippery bricks of the alleyway and I lost my footing, stumbled and fell heavily, and my face crashed against the ground. Before I could turn or even cry out there was the sound of heavy footsteps behind me, and then I felt a fresh agony as a boot drove itself into my kidneys. I rolled over and tried to come up with the mementum but the boot caught me again, this time against the base of my spine. It was too dark to see anything, to get any bearings, and I called out Jennifer’s name, told her to run before the boot caught me again in the stomach and the air whooshed out of me and I went face down in the alley. I couldn’t hear anything save for the sounds of people moving close behind me and the sounds of traffic out on the street. I looked up and saw a yellow taxicab pass the alley entrance, but it may have well been a thousand miles away.

I took another blow, this time to my ribs, and I cried out as my hair was grasped by a large hand and my head was yanked backward, stretching my throat and causing the cry to turn to a gag. Tape was wrapped briskly around my mouth, cutting off any future plans that I might have had of noise, and a knee slammed me in the back as I was held down, and I wondered where Jennifer was or what was happening to her. She hadn’t made a sound since I’d been attacked. I closed my eyes, dirty stone caressing my cheek and a mixture of blood and mucus pouring out of my nose making breathing a near impossibility. I could sense two people, one kneeling, one standing. From the position that I was in there was no way that I could make out any details, and when I tried to twist my neck to see my head was once again pulled up by the hair and my nose was smashed into the ground, bringing more blood and making my eyes smart. And still I heard nothing save for the deep breathing of whoever was above me and the street traffic.

Then a voice, deep and rough, close enough to my ear so I could smell sweat and dope on his breath. ‘You’ve got to understand.’

The knee moved from my back but I was still held by large hands, and even if I could get away I was in too much pain to do anything about it. The powerful grip twisted me around and threw me back against the wall of the alley, and I lay slumped in a heap against the gutter that ran the length of the building. I looked up and saw the shapes of three figures standing menacingly above me. Two were obviously big, heavily built guys. But the third? The third was...

A flashlight snapped on, the full brightness of the beam concealed by a palm covering the lens, and it was at that moment that I realised what a complete fucking idiot I’d been. It was also the moment that I seemed to lose a few more of my precious brain cells to insanity.

Jennifer stood above me, flanked by the two big men who’d just given me a decent beating. She was unharmed, her hair and clothes neatly in place, and the same smile that I’d seen throughout the day still on her face. But this time, I noticed, the smile never touched her eyes.

‘Look at you down there,’ she whispered, all measure of beauty now gone from her voice. ‘Look at the state of you.’ She paused and crouched down before me, contemplated me for a moment. ‘Did you really think you were going to get to fuck me?’

I didn’t know what to think, how to think. Fires of pain were coursing through my body and my mind was incapable of rationalities. I felt like I wanted to be sick, and as soon as the thought crossed my mind I felt the bile rising in my stomach, and one of the goons must have realised what was about to happen because he ripped the tape away a mere moment before I threw up, foul vomit and more than a little blood splattering the floor of the alley. I spat and looked up at where Jennifer had jumped away from me and was eyeing me with obvious disgust.

‘Why?’ I said, my voice shaky and sounding as if I was about to cry. ‘Just tell me why you did this?’

‘Because I can,’ she replied. ‘You like to watch me. I like to watch you.’

‘I don’t understand.’

She crouched down beside me once again. ‘It’s like this. You came breezing onto the set of my movie today full of yourself, and as soon as you saw me you wanted to have me. I know you did, I saw it in your eyes. And it was possible that you might well have, had it not for us being disturbed. I let you have a taste of what might have been but that wasn’t enough for you, was it? You had to come back for more.’ She stopped and brushed her fingers against my hair, making me flinch.

‘I knew you’d forgotten your phone, and I knew you’d be back,’ she continued. ‘That’s why I had Amy all over me as soon as I could. It wasn’t you that had got me horny, it was the thought of you seeing me, of watching me. Just knowing that you were there turned me on even more. And then you left me your number, which was fine, but also address of that website.

I frowned and ran my tongue over one of my front teeth. It felt loose and my whole gumline was throbbing. ‘Are you telling me that this is all because I told you about Literotica?’

She shook her head. ‘No, I’ve got no problems with your cute little site. I said I liked it and I meant that. But you leaving that for me to discover that place was like a little message. Like a game. And I love playing games.’

I stayed silent but nodded my head in agreement. That was something I had begun to realise.

‘It’s a game to me to turn you on, like I did in my trailer, and like I did when I was talking to you on the phone. It makes me horny to know how far I can take things, how far I can lead people into doing what I want them to. Like getting you to come into this alleyway with me. That was a lot easier than I thought it was going to be.’

I spat blood again. ‘Did you have to have the shit beaten out of me as well?’ I said, and looked up at her with an eye that was already beginning to swell shut.

She smiled. ‘Actually, yes. That’s all part of it too. As I said, I like to watch, no matter what it might be. I thought you might have put up more of a fight though. I’d like to have seen that.’

I struggled into a sitting position and felt my back scream in protest. ‘I’ll bet. What makes you think I won’t just call the cops?’ I said, already feeling stupid for even saying it.

Jennifer laughed, and this time the brick-shithouse twins laughed with her. ‘Because you’ve got nothing to tell them. Who’s going to believe you? And anyway, I know far too much about you. Where you work, your phone number, everything. What do you think your magazine would say if they knew that they’d flown you over to LA and you’d spent most of your time trying to fuck one of the stars of the film you’d come to report on? Or if I complained to the production manager of my movie that you’d been sneaking around and spying on the stars. What kind of phone call do you think he’d make?’

She looked down at me, and there was almost pity for me in her eyes. Shockingly, that was the most painful thing of all. ‘This is my game, Rich. Mine. And I always win. You were never even in it.’

She made a quick gesture to the twins and they stepped into line behind her as she turned and walked to the entrance of the alley, shutting the flashlight off as she went. I watched as they appeared in the light from the street, and Jennifer stopped and turned back towards me.

‘Have a good flight home,’ she said. ‘And maybe you could a write a story about me for that site, if you get the chance. Just make sure you only tell the good parts though, or who knows what could happen.’ She blew me a quick kiss and left, and I watched her and one of the guys get into the backseats of the Audi while the other squeezed his way into the drivers position. The indicator flashed, and a second later the car pulled away into traffic, out of my line of sight and out of my life. I pulled my knees up to my chest and hugged myself as I sat there, grim relief against what had just happened but better than nothing. My whole body felt alive with pain and I groaned as I moved. I tried to look at my watch but the face was broken and twisted, so instead I just sat there with my head on my knees and thought over and over again how stupid I’d been. Tears came and I let them, and the salt ran down my face and stung sharply against the grazed skin that I knew was there. I stayed that way for a long time, listening to the traffic, to the people moving past the alley entrance, and to the sound of my own heartbeat knocking against my chest...

**********

I finally got back to my room after skirting around the back of The Marriott and giving a porter the last ten dollars from my wallet if he’d let me into the building through the back kitchens. He did, and I fended away his questions by telling him that I’d been mugged in the street, which wasn’t far from the truth. To his credit he never even suggested calling the police, and I neither knew nor cared if he believed me or not. He gave me a shot of scotch and took one himself before showing me to the service stairs and telling me too take it easy.

Seven flights of stairs when you’re healthy is tiring. When your broken and bleeding it’s exhausting, and my joints were aching so badly and my ribs were giving me so much pain by the time I’d made it to my room that I was virtually weeping again. I was afraid to let myself look at my reflection, and instead found a trash bag and stuffed my ruined jeans and bloodstained shirt inside before I bought the shower to life and hobbled underneath it. The water stung wherever it touched my skin, but I endured it, leant with my hands on the tiled wall and looked at the water draining away beneath my feet turn from pink to clear. The spray massaged my aches and made me feel slightly better, but by the time I’d stepped out and gingerly toweled myself dry I started to throb in many places once again. My ribs were in a bad way and I suspected one or two might be cracked. I needed to check myself out.

It took me a moment to pluck up the courage to look at myself in the mirror, and when I did I wasn’t disappointed. My nose had taken it badly, there was a lot of crusted blood still in my nostrils and bruising was already starting to appear under my eyes. An ugly graze worked a haphazard route down my right cheek past the corner of my mouth, and when I painfully parted my lips I could see that one of my front teeth was chipped and that my gumline was raw. The left side of my face was relatively unscathed, but there was a mass of yellow and brown already forming around my ribs. When I turned around and looked over my shoulder I glimpsed more bruising to my lower back and between my shoulder blades. Even my fingers hurt. I couldn’t bear to look any longer, and instead I limped to the bed and eased myself between the cool sheets, placed a call to reception for a six a.m wakeup call. It took a good five minutes to get myself into a position that I could call comfortable, and after I settled I started to think of how I was going to explain my beating to everyone when I got home, and how I was going to be able to write the article on Daredevil without thinking constantly about what had happened to me. Most of all though, I thought about Jennifer, about the type of person that she was and the reasons why, and why there were some games played in this life that I wanted no part of. That night I lay awake for a very long time.

**********

I made it back to London late the next afternoon and walked through Heathrow looking like I’d just spent the weekend in Kuwait. Both the reception staff at The Marriott and the customs officials at JFK and Heathrow took an interest in my lumps and scrapes, but I stuck with the line about being mugged and they all bought it. Back in the office the guys expressed concern and bought me beers as a consolation, and my friends and family fussed around me and made all the right sympathetic noises. My editor Barney was naturally for concerned more for the story than my health, but seemed satisfied when I told him I’d got plenty of material while I was over there. That wasn’t a lie; I’d got plenty of material all right, some of it I was desperately trying to forget.

It took me a few days longer than normal to write the story, mainly because I kept grinding to a halt while dark thoughts entered my mind, but eventually it was done and Barney was satisfied. It was due to be published in January in preperation for the film’s release a month later, and I took my fee and used it to pay for a long weekend away in Prague with a couple of close friends. I felt I deserved to do something worthwhile with the cash.

I started to forget about what happened in Los Angeles and got on with my life, until February this year and the worldwide release of Daredevil bought all the memories flooding back. I saw the trailers and looked at production photos with Ben Affleck in his superb costume and Colin Farrell and Michael Clark Duncan hamming it up as villians, and I knew that the movie was going to be a hit. I’d known that the day I stepped on the set. And of course, I saw pictures of Jennifer Garner, looking beautiful and deadly in her leather outfits, and I knew that many guys were going to start going crazy about her. I also knew that the girl I saw on the trailers was very different from the one that I’d met. Very different.

So after a few sleepless nights and a couple of sweat-soaked nightmares, I decided to exercise the demons from my mind in the only way that I knew how; I’d write them out. I’d been toying around with the idea of another story for Literotica, something based in as much reality as I could, and now I had the perfect material to work with. Jennifer had even suggested it with the very last thing she’d said to me.

The result is the story you’ve just read, and against the advice Jennifer gave me, I’ve left everything in with nothing edited out. I hope you’ve enjoyed it, but most of all I wonder if she’s enjoyed it, if for the last few months since our encounter she’s been monitoring the site and waiting for something about her to appear. I wonder if it’s given her a secret thrill, or if my telling of the story will one night find me losing my bearings in an alleyway again? I’ve changed my phone number and put the Atlantic between us, but you never know what might happen.

I wait for the next move, and wonder if I really should be playing this dangerous game...