Reconciliation

Slowly, the criminal's head turned to look at her. One eyebrow raised. She kept looking at the ground, not meeting his eye. "Tell me Reginald Perry, did I PROMISE to kill you if you kept bothering us?" He bent over and looked directly into the face of the tied up man. Reg looked into his eyes. Old, measuring cynical eyes which looked out of place in a mid thirty face.

Reg estimated his chances, considered lying, but simply chose honesty. "I don't remember. I was distracted at the time." His mouth was the driest he ever remembered it. This man who seemed to set such stock in promises...there was no way he didn't remember one as important as that.

"Very good. No, I didn't promise. I very strongly implied it." He turned back to his wife, a look of incredulity and disgust on his face. "Really? Him?"

She considered this. "No. A loose end like him makes you uptight and sulky. You do what you have to do." Her face suddenly brightened and she leapt up and gave him a squeeze. "Tell you what. We finish up here, kill him, dispose of the body, then we can go home, I'll give you a nice...long...hot...bath. Then we get dressed, get you something to eat...maybe a steak house, and we go dancing. Then I'll take you home and fuck you until you can't move."

Curtis frowned and looked at his watch. "Date Night is tomorrow."

"No need to be wed to timetables." she said lightly. His frown deepened. "We'll do it a bit early is all. Tonight will be all about you." She smiled lovingly at him.

"Why, pray tell?" Curtis asked suspiciously.

"I have some chores coming up which might take a few days...two at most...girl stuff." Her tone was light and innocent. "I promise to make it up to you when I get back. No need for you to get involved at all..." she nuzzled his neck.

Curtis pulled his leg back but stopped it midkick at the kneeling wretch. The pair looked at each other for a long while as unspoken communication passed between them. Finally, they both nodded. "I bring you news, Reginald Perry!" Reg cringed back from the expression on Curtis'. "Today is your lucky day." The thug said through clenched teeth.

"Good luck or bad luck, because it's been a pretty shitty day so far." Reg asked cautiously.

A knife flicked into Curtis' hand. "For me or for you?"

"Now now." Andrea put her hand on her husband's forearm which held the knife. "Our friend," this was met by a low growl which she ignored, "came to us venting about a personal family issue to get some advice and make a generous job offer...which, of course, we cannot accept. Whatever promises or implications we made before were irrelevant because he was NOT hunting us." The couple stopped and examined him like a truant school boy, waiting for a response.

"NOPE! NO HUNTING HERE! I...um..." Reg winced inwardly, "I promise I owe you two NO ill will or animosity." Particularly considering how uneven the ill will each could inflict upon the other. The two kept watching him. "Even after today." He said, swallowing his anger and bile. He needed to get out of this horrible situation. "This ... was a... ah ... misunderstanding." No doubt most people would think he lacked courage. Most of them were probably comfortably at home and not tied up next to a quarry with a pair of armed psychopaths in arm's reach.

"See...I knew he was a reasonable man. He is obviously secure enough to not get excited over minor misunderstandings. We should be encouraging people like him." She skipped over to Reggie and kissed his forehead with cold lips. Reg wondered if she could feel his gooseflesh at the contact which was in no way caused by her temperature.

A large hand grabbed the yoke of his shirt and leaned him off balance over the Rock again. Reg waited for a slash across his throat, but instead there was a quick tug at his ankles and suddenly his ankles were free again. He was pulled up to his feet. It took Reg a few seconds for him to control his legs as he hyperventilated from stress relief.

"Only thing worse than a near death experience is a full death experience, Reginald Perry." Curtis quipped, holding him steady.

The entire tone of the meeting seemed to have changed in an instant, so much so that it gave Reg the courage to ask a question which had bothered him for a long time. "Why...why did you offer to hit me in the bar?" Reg asked the man.

"One, a punch would be less painful and permanent than what she would do to you. Two, I've been told that the basis of effective communication is to share one's feelings and I wanted you to understand exactly how I felt. Three, I found your actions a rude and annoying lack of professional courtesy."

"What?" squawked Reg.

Curtis pulled him fully erect from where Reg was leaning over. "I'm a bad guy. You are..." his brow furrowed a bit as he paused, tilting his head as he examined Reg, "...a bad guy?" His tone was not certain and he peered for several moments. "What have you been doing lately, Reginald Perry?"

He shook his head clear. "I know bad guys on sight. It's a gift. Since you lack that gift, I was giving you my bone fides so you would wise the fuck up and get out of there, but you were too stupid and arrogant to take the hint. I take offense when bad guys do not show me the proper...respect. It never ends well. It still might not." He ended ominously as he started to march Reg toward his car.

"I guess I need to tell you I am sorry." Reg offered.

"Why?" Curtis asked curiously. "You already paid. I worked you over pretty hard. That is over. This" he gestured at the quarry, "is about you trying to get even with us."

"Even so. I was wrong to make a run at her. I was wrong for being...disrespectful."

"Does that make you feel better to say that?"

"Yes." Reg nodded.

Puzzled, Curtis asked "Why?"

"I think we've clarified matters quite well." Andrea said brightly. "He's not messing with us and we are not going to Boca Raton." Reg started. He hadn't thought she had heard that bit of whispered dialogue. She stopped the pair of them and grabbed Reg gently by his ears so he could look her square in the face. "Just in case you decide to change your mind: Boca Raton is right next to Busch Gardens." she said distinctly to him.

"It's on the other side of the state." Curtis corrected mildly.

Andrea smiled directly at Reggie, teeth showing and her eyes glowing. "Reggie...I like driving." she said in a dreamy tone. Reg shivered and wondered why he thought CURTIS was the scary one.

"So...do you want another promise from me to help her?" Reg offered.

"No. What is man if not a victim of his own Choices? That moral onus is on you." Curtis intoned. Andrea frowned but did not disagree.

Reg was pushed face first against his car and held there as Andrea unlocked his cuffs. He rubbed his hands as Andrea handed him his car keys back. Curtis very carefully put the still open cuffs in his right back pocket. "Can I borrow a gun?" Reg asked.

Laughter met his request. "No, I'm not giving you a gun. However, let me give you that advice you so obviously need. Don't attack when all three of them are there at the same time. It will improve your odds...IF you decide to try a rescue on your own." Curtis said.

Reg, who slid into his car, just turned and looked askance at the psychopath. "What? That's it? That's all the advice you can give me? Any idiot knows that!"

"Oh...so you had already thought of that?" There was a pregnant pause as Reg's ears reddened. "I guess you aren't just any idiot then." More mocking lilting laughter followed from behind Curtis. Reg drove off quickly with wounded dignity.

Andrea snuggled in front of Curtis as the two watched him leave, her rear end pushed against his pelvis. His left arm reached around her as he pulled her against his chest. "Do you think he'll do anything?" she asked wistfully.

"You can only hope...but I find when it comes to humanity, 'hope' is a four letter word." He felt rather than saw her frown just from a change in her posture, an interesting sensation. He stifled his sigh to avoid warning her and his right arm reached back...

CLICK!

"Curtis! CURTIS!" He took her handcuffed right hand and pulled it up behind her back as his left hand immobilized her left arm and he secured the other hand. He twisted her off balance to the right, spinning her in place where he squatted and put his shoulder in her stomach and lifted her into a fireman's carry. "Curtis! Put me down! This is SO undignified!" He started to walk toward their car, carrying her struggling figure.

"I know...it's an assault on your dignity, your freedom of choice, your personhood blah blah blah. I also know that you figure laughing boy's odds are pretty bad. I am not about to have you run off alone on one of your quixotic moral crusades where you can get your ass hurt or worse. Not after I let that fucker go. That was the deal."

"Curtis..." her tone had a warning edge to it. She shifted gears. "It is perfectly okay for each person in a relationship to have separate interests." She assayed.

"Yes. Right now, I have an abiding interest in bondage. Cosmo said couples should share their interests." Andrea knew it was a mistake to have pointed him to relationship guides. He stopped walking. "Tell you what. I'll let you go right here and now if you give me a promise that you won't get involved in this bit of nonsense and leave it alone." There was a brief silence. "Right." He started walking again.

Andrea relaxed on his shoulder and tentatively pulled on her hands. "These handcuffs are much more comfortable than the ones you usually use. The other ones pinch sometimes. I particularly like the padding. We should get some more." She said conversationally.

"I'll put it on the list."

"You know...since I'm all tied up and all...do you want to put me in the back seat and take me?" she asked coquettishly.

Curtis slowed as he neared the passenger side of the car as a detail nagged at him. He smiled and turned on his heel, talking her to the hood of the car. "Oooh...public sex." She simpered at him as he pushed her facedown across the hood and stuck his thumbs in the waistband of her leggings. He glanced at her hands. The right one had the fingers slightly splayed, the left was a fist.

In one quick motion, he pulled the leggings down to her knees, including her panties. The firm pale globes of her ass undulated slightly as she winsomely shifted her weight from one side to the other. The tracework of scars along her back peeked below the bottom of her shirt.

His left hand grasped her shoulder while his right luxuriously and slowly came up her right buttock, admiring the firm flesh and working to her lower back. "Mmm." She cooed.

Then, quick as a cobra, he jammed his fingers into her left fist and pried her fingers open, exposing the handcuff key. She tried to rear back, but her pants and his left hand kept her supine. "You're impossible!" she groused with a big huff as he pocketed the key.

"And you're manipulative."

"Oh well...can't blame a girl for trying. So...wanna?" She undulated her buttocks a little more, conceding the point in their running relationship skirmish.

He did.

+

Reg ran into his apartment.They found him, they found him, they found him! Months of nightmares came to fruition! They'd picked him up as easily as picking up a bit of litter off the ground. They had him dead to rights!

He dithered in his living room for a few moments, and then ran into his bedroom. He'd just finished unpacking from the last move. It had cost him thousands of dollars to disappear...to try to make himself safe. Money wasted...

Coming to a conclusion, he went to his closet and removed his suitcases. It was WELL past time for this sorry little son to find somewhere else to live. Florida? He could go and defend his dad. Or California and stay away from anyone. Maybe someplace anonymous, where no one lived, like Nebraska. Was that even still a state?

He started pulling his favorite clothes out of the closets and putting them in the suitcases. Favored knickknacks went in as well. Toiletries! My god! How many kinds of cologne did he have? Gifts from his prior paramours. What a waste! He grabbed two of his favorites which he had bought himself.

Definitely a place with EASY gun control laws! Why hadn't he picked one up before this? He thought about meeting them in a gunfight and shuddered. And even if he had had a gun, they never gave him a chance to use it. Maybe he'd better rethink that.

He ran back and forth with little direction, panicked. Stuff...stuff...stuff...he went to his bedside table and absently picked up one of the picture frames. He made the mistake of glancing at it. It was Phil's younger daughter's confirmation. She was ten. Kelly was in the picture, caught in mid laugh. Wes, Phil and Hank were huddled around him, smiling and laughing. He stopped and started pounding on the nightstand with his fist.

No...they had their chance. He'd tried and tried to make this up. It was...it was their problem. They threw him out. But they came to him for help...His mind shied away from this fact.

Not wanting to deal with that right now, he put the frame face down and ran to the kitchen. He had a few kitchen things from days with his father he wanted to bring with him. He glanced at the fridge. There was a picture of him with Jimmy and April at the COSI. He knew Beth wouldn't let him have any connection to them, so he took this on his phone and printed it. Next to it was a picture April had drawn for him there. He stopped, staring at it. What if it were April... He recalled her smiling at him in COSI. He remembered her face when her father wasn't coming home.

Outside, he heard a bunch of footsteps, jolting him from his reverie. Was it them? Had they changed their minds? Had they come to finish him off? He was suddenly paranoid again. He heard laughter. That didn't mean it wasn't' them. They could laugh at a funeral! But the steps quickly went upstairs. Several sets. He pressed his hand against his still aching chest and felt the dirt from the quarry still on him.

Feeling unclean, he ran into the bathroom and pulled at the sides of the shirt, not caring if the buttons clattered all over the place. He was NEVER wearing this shirt again. Reg jumped in the shower and started to shiver, despite the hot water, his mind still whirling. Who cared if it was April? April wasn't his. He remembered when they went to COSI and entered the space tunnel; a long tube you walked through which whirled and twisted around you, causing vertigo. She was scared and disoriented and her little fingers wrapped around his fingers for comfort...

Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! You had to look out for number one. He could DIE here! Die from psychopaths or meth dealer or sui...his mind shied away from THAT too.

Okay...he would get packed and...he would leave. Where didn't matter. Away was what mattered. People bought cars everywhere. He could go someplace no one knew him. Where no one cared what he was, what he did.

He crawled out of the shower, and toweled himself off, his gaze constantly moving. Okay...time to clean up and pretty himself. Sometimes he could charm hotel clerks into giving him an upgrade. It was when he brought the shaking razor to his face that he finally realized that he was fighting to avoid looking at himself in the mirror.

He was a piece of shit. He betrayed his friends. He betrayed a woman he loved. And he couldn't make it any better.

He looked into his eyes. SomeONE would always know. Someone clearly cared. Shame. That was what ailed him. And he couldn't run away from himself no matter how fast he went. No matter what shithole he crawled into. Booze, women, drugs...all it did was paper over the problems.

He looked himself straight in the eye. He already knew what he was. The question was: what did he want to be?

His hand gracefully traced its way down his cheek. Idly, he wondered if he should go get the things he needed at Meier's or Walmart.

+

Reg knocked on the screen door of the doublewide. It was so cliché he couldn't stand it. A male opened the door, with that whippet thin toughness which one found in Appalachia or among carny workers. It was the same male he saw gnawing on Kelly's face those many months back. His memory for details and names earned him a lot of points with his former paramours.

He'd arrived an hour earlier, parking around a corner at the trailer park. A little recon work showed the main bedroom was tightly sealed with blinds and curtains. A peek in the bathroom upper window, which was clear, unlike the frosted lower pane, revealed a few sets of panties drying on the shower bar. In the front gravel parking area, a yellow Camaro sat next to a red Dodge Challenger. Through the window, he saw an occasional male figure walking around. He counted three in all. Once, he saw the crown of a blonde head walking by from the kitchen area toward the back.

But he hadn't seen a face.

It was 10:30 and two men came out of the trailer, getting into the Challenger. They drove off. Reg waited for ten minutes. Now seemed to be the time. He went up and knocked on the door.

"What the fuck do you want?" Rick asked the car salesman.

"I know. It's really late. I was 'visiting' this girl a few streets over," Reg gestured vaguely at another part of the trailer park, " and as I was leaving, I noticed this absolute classic Camaro. What year is that?"

"It's a '69". Rick said a bit suspiciously.

"Wow! I happen to deal in classic cars. One guy I know is a Camaro addict. He pays good money on ones that can be restored or are restored. So I thought I'd take a chance and come ask you about it."

A look of pride and greed came over Rick's face. "How much are we talking about?"

Reg had already sized this guy up. There was no way in Hell he was selling this car. It was as much a part of his identity as his balls. But he was more than happy for someone else to lust after it and wanted the ego buffs which came from having someone offer a high price just so he could turn it down. Make him feel big. "That depends." Reg said cautiously, playing the part of a savvy negotiator. "I have to ask a couple of questions about it."

"Like?"

The questions came fast from Reg's lips "Are you the owner?"

"Yes."

"Is that original chrome?"

"Yes."

"Is it the I-6 or the V-8?"

"V-8." He looked hurt for Reg even asking the question.

"Is Kelly in the back bedroom?"

"Ye...what?"

Reg's punch came fast, bolstered by the roll of quarters. He had not forgotten the duct tape. Rick staggered back. Reg's follow up was blocked and Rick got a good one in with his right, which Reg shrugged off.You call that a punch? Considering his past, Reg was a connoisseur of beatings and the last few months had been red letter days of pain. A kick allowed him to grab his other purchase: an aluminum baseball bat. Frustration fueled his arm.

Rick's elbow was exposed.

Crack

Shin.

Crack

Neck

.

Neck

.

Neck

.

Rib

Crack.

Running from the back, Kelly showed up wearing a little tank top and some low rider jeans, the strap of a thong slightly exposed, her mouth agape. "Uncle Reg! What are you doing?!?"

Reg looked at her, looked at Rick. "Go get changed into something your mother can see you in!" He growled at her. "I'm taking you home." He was amazed at his sense of outrage. If she weren't his goddaughter, he'd have happily had his lovers wear such an outfit. On her, it just made him angry!

"What? No! Did you hurt him?" Yet Reg noticed she didn't go running over to her erstwhile boyfriend. Her sense of shock and alarm were definitely muted. There was a sense of shame on her face...and relief?

"You've been here three days. You know what he is. I know what he is." A half a dozen arguments whirled through his head. Instead, Reg just pointed significantly at the half conscious man at his feet, then glanced at her and opted for simplicity. "Do you really think I'm taking 'no' for an answer?" He glared.