The Rescuer Ch. 01

The Rescuer

Not Exactly What He Had in Mind!

Chapter 01

by TheRescuer

©2007 ©2008 ©2009 ©2010 ©2011 ©2012 ©2020 ©2021 ©2022

All rights reserved.

Warning: This is Chapter 01 of a full length novel told in a unique world-building style!

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Please note!

This novel eventually contains sex from almost every possible allowable category and combinations of people. The types of scenes change depending upon which characters are in them. The story is purposefully written so that you will not miss key plot details, if you should choose to either entirely skip over, or only glance thru some of the sexual acts.

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Dozens and dozens of characters eventually help carry the story line. They all grow and change as the plot unfolds. Readers get to look through all of their eyes, and learn the differences between what they are telling others, and what is actually going on in their minds and hearts. The type and intensity of the sex varies depending on the actors in the scene, and at what point in their journey you happen to find them.

The plot does jump backwards and forwards in time, for good and very essential reasons.

By necessity, and intent, this is not a quick read.

The story opens with the title character already in trouble and having just made some potentially fatal mistakes. Then you just backwards in time to the night he had to choose between his old life and the woman he loves.

It will take some time to properly set the foundation of the story but it will also let you as a reader take part in the same mystery the other characters are trying to unravel. This is a participatory kind of novel, where some clues are laid out well in advance, if only you can tell them apart from the lies some of the actors tell even themselves!

Everything on the page is there for a purpose. Answers to your questions do come, most often in the very next scene. The story is built of layers and layers, showing how the huge cast of characters interconnect and interact. The plot winds and twists thru time and takes you to places you will become very familiar with, maybe even love.

As you start to follow the actors thru their distant and recent pasts, you can better understand how the journey complicated each of their lives.

Told in a true world building style, the scope and reason for the creation of the "Trust" unfolds slowly, as you watch in the opening scene the man that was driven to create it begin to lose more than just his grip on reality.

There are no pure heroes and no absolute villains here. No entirely selfless or selfish acts. Just challenges to long cherished hopes and dreams that must be overcome.

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Just imagine this is an actual thick well worn paperback book in your hand, the first of a trilogy that was recommended to you by a good friend, and that they will want their first edition back when you've finished with it.

They told you that it was something to be read over time. Not in one rush. But to be put down and picked back up, many times.

Their only advice to you is to be patient as the story develops and really pause whenever you see a small or major scene change marker.

ALWAYS allow the information of each signpost to sink in, before you try to rush by. Even the small breaks can denote switches in characters, time or place.

Please enjoy the character's journeys, as your own life allows you the time and peace to explore them.

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Keeley, a beautiful but troubled redheaded dancer, searches for a way out of an abusive relationship with Seth, her loser boyfriend. Complicating their lives is the sudden unexpected addition of Shelly, her beautiful blonde coworker. Too many secrets already exist between them to remain hidden. The tight emotional knots all begin to unravel, right after the roommates unwise choice to try and experience a relaxing night out on the town together.

Torn between her selfish misery, and a friend who should already be a much bigger part of her life, Keeley desperately wishes for something to just irrevocably force the decision to leave her old life away from her.

No matter what the cost.

To anyone.

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Rescuer's Tiny Apartment

Very early on

a Sunday Morning

One week since

Keeley's move in day

Alone in the bedroom

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One of the nice things about having a strip club dancer for a girlfriend, is that you know they are ready to try just about anything in bed.

That can be both a good and a bad thing. It wasn't easy for me to constantly keep that in mind. I'd known plenty of people that quickly screwed up an otherwise beautiful relationship at this point. Just by trying to take advantage of an eager, curious sexual nature once too often.

In my too complicated past I'd made enough of my own mistakes, especially of that kind, to have finally learned that balance works. Or at least I hoped so.

But right now?

Keeley and I were already having a bit of a rough patch.

We'd barely said a few words to each other this morning. Since she'd had no choice but to rush off, it felt odd for me to be making up the bed all by myself again. Years of straightening out the sheets alone, had been eclipsed by just one short week of having help with that again.

Ruthy hadn't minded me doing Keeley's side. The instant I'd gotten out of bed, she'd turned around in circles and purred, then taken over my own pillow. Now that I was standing over my little gray furred menace, she deliberately kept her eyes closed, and pretended to be asleep. I really didn't want to start another argument with a female, so that only left picking up the entire pillow, cat and all. I very carefully moved it over to the dresser, to her usual spot to take morning naps.

Afterwards, one baleful golden green eye slit open at me, and a chin was raised up so I could give it a quick scratch. The resulting purrs were loud enough to be easily heard over the soft whirring of the ceiling fan. The rest of the bed was simple to do, and I got back to worrying about my little redhead as I finished it up.

To be fair, our current problem was mostly my fault. I should have never let things get to the point it had to last night. But since I was 'officially' in charge now? This new direction our relationship was headed in was my responsibility. Period. I had no issue with accepting the blame. We were still learning how to coexist in this tiny place, and had so much left to discover about each other.

The wild swings of Keeley's overemotional moods had finally begun to settle down, but I still hadn't fully mastered the trick of knowing when to fight back, and when to let her blow off steam. Giving her the wrong reaction, especially at those tense critical moments, always made things worse.

So as I was preparing to spend most of this Sunday alone, I was thinking a lot about balance again.

And honesty.

And how this truly wonderful and unexpected mess had all gotten started in the first place.

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With the bedroom and the attached bathroom finally all straightened back up, I finally began doing my equal share of the cooking. After quietly pulling the bedroom door mostly closed, to not disturb Ruthy, I made sure to leave it the all important critical inch or so cracked open.

My cat hated to be locked out, or on the other side of any door in HER apartment. I'd been yowled at and scratched enough to have learned that lesson a long time ago. Keeley hadn't minded obeying that feline commandment, and so far hadn't messed up. That my little redhead truly regarded Ruthy as her third and co-equal roommate had been an immense relief to me.

Tiptoeing away, I got busy pulling all sorts of things out of the refrigerator, cabinets and pantries. Soon, I was making a huge mess out of the kitchen I had just cleaned up last night. Still, a few very important items eluded me, and I let my mind wander as I began searching everywhere for them.

I'd already promised my new girlfriend one home cooked meal, and had to back out of it.

Twice.

Actually, after we had gotten home from the grocery store last night, Keeley had been the one to veto my original plan to start cooking later that evening. She'd also displayed some unusually good common sense, and made us both get some much needed rest instead.

Yet even with that feminine foresight, we both had been too tired. What had eventually followed, after we went to bed, had been truly disastrous. Instead of just enjoying being able to hold each other in our arms, after reenforcing our growing sexual connection, we decided to talk about our future.

Not the wisest thing to do with Keeley already so stressed about what had to happen today.

The reason my little redhead had left so early this morning, was a day trip to finally visit her parent's, something that she'd put off for far far too long.

After last night's too intense and bitter argument, I wasn't quite sure Keeley would be the same person when she got back.

If she even came back at all.

Me?

While Keeley was on the road out of town, I was still trapped here this morning in this tiny apartment! I should already be out doing so damn many other different things! Especially something other than trying to cook a huge dinner, so we could parcel out it's leftovers all during the next week.

I'd already taken three phone calls since Keeley had left, and gotten the worst end of all of them. I was making my favorite mistake these days. Yet again. All the rashly made promises, both this morning's three brand new ones added to all of the old, were starting to pile up! I wasn't sure even half of them were possible to keep anymore.

Worse, I was beginning to get convinced that one or two of those projects might actually be on opposite sides of the same controversy.

The last phone call had contained the worse news though. I'd spent years drawing up some rather detailed plans to renovate an old historic building. They all considered that every vacant lot next to the unique but dilapidated structure was eventually going to be available for purchase. Suddenly, I had one last lot owner holding out, eager to squeeze a few more dollars from the Trust's rather tight budget.

Luckily, he had no idea the final remaining other three abandoned lots had already been bought, secretly over the last few months. Just like the previous sales, all of the new purchases had been done by separate entities. Randomly picked from one of the dozens of proxies I had invented, to keep my third of the Trust's many plans obscured. It had taken me years to acquire nearly complete control of the entire city block, save for just one last parcel.

Another $20,000 for that corner lot wasn't going to make or break the project. But if the greedy owner, who was so far behind on his property taxes, realized he was actually the last hold out?

The price would skyrocket, and that would be real trouble. To keep the original deadline intact, I would be forced to take certain steps.

A familiar pain suddenly made me grimace.

My fingers trembled and my vision began to darken, much faster than the last time this had happened.

I hated the feeling rapidly overwhelming me, even though it was now such an important part of my life. I never questioned it anymore, and only ignored it at my own peril. My limbs slowed down, and I abruptly froze in place. My right hand shivered while I kept my balance by holding on to a cabinet door, even as my left had stopped just an inch short of the box I needed to look behind.

The room temperature now felt cold, even to me, while my heart raced wildly. My head actually hurt, as my mind began rushing thru all the possibilities I had ever struggled with about the ancient renovation project. All of the old alternate ideas flashed thru my mind, and were quickly rejected again. Yet somehow, even after almost a full decade spent planning this little side job, brand new notions pounded thru my head with relentless speed.

Once my unexpected turmoil re-convinced me that I absolutely had to have that last forlorn patch of land... the sort of things I could easily do about the greedy owner... jumped me next.

With all the extreme training that had been forced on to me, ever since I was a little boy, I had many more options open to me than most men.

Half a dozen radical risky solutions, to violently acquire the last lot by force or guile, presented themselves to my troubled mind in rigidly perfect technical form. If I didn't have a conscious, any one of them would let the renovation begin on schedule in two weeks. My left hand trembled even harder, now just a fraction of an inch away from the storage box, as all the information I needed to consider finally coalesced into one big spinning blur.

How long I held perfectly still frozen in thought, while all the possibilities and even the most unlikeliest of outcomes got weighed out, I never knew. There was just pain and fear.

So much fear about what I might end up having to do.

Time seemed to stretch and begin to break apart, as one by one all the potential paths got relentlessly played out to their ultimate conclusions.

Then I only felt shock as the strange trance-like state was suddenly over... and as I finally took in a deep sigh and let it out... I made a decision.

I shuddered violently for a few seconds, and let the goose bumps that had broken out all over my skin slowly disappear. I finally looked behind the tall box of pasta, and found the last of the seasonings that Keeley had pushed too far back into the cabinet. I blinked, several times, and tried to come to grips with the results of my sudden decidedly unnatural insight.

It definitely would be better to wait the idiot out. Even if my totally unnecessary self restraint delayed the start of that project a few more years, the complicated webs of much larger and more expensive schemes needed to be protected.

No matter what.

The thought of getting my own hands too dirty again wasn't the problem. It never was. Nor was I willingly to compromise on a single new feature of the renovation's design. I just couldn't bring myself to alter the painstakingly detailed architectural plans I was so proud of already. That last extra bit of land was vital. Without it, I couldn't take over the entire historic city block, and make the green spaces surrounding the one remaining structure I was trying to save truly unforgettable.

But the real reason I'd just decided to accept the annoying extra delay?

It had suddenly just felt right.

No numbers. No logic. No emotions. No fears. No worries. No pride.

Just a simple feeling, that at all costs I had to revisit the site again today, and then let this latest snag play itself out.

Without my help or interference.

So after weeks of pushing so frantically? The project I had been looking forward to starting for so many years? I was now actually ok with it being put on hold again. Maybe the city would suddenly squeeze him harder for the back taxes? Or some other peril would strike his life, and make the long standing very fair offer irresistible?

Either way, I wasn't going to be the direct cause of one of my proxies finally purchasing the lot.

That wasn't how my so-called cousin, Anthony, liked to conduct his business. He always seemed to delight in purposefully going out of his way, even when it wasn't necessary, to make things more difficult for other people.

I shuddered again, this time in disgust, and moved on. I finally opened the refrigerator door and pulled out the roast we had bought last night at the grocery store. After setting it on the counter, I looked for my two favorite knives next and found them missing, too. All thoughts of saving the over one hundred year old building simply vanished. Now I was able to only worry about preparing tonight's meal.

Sometimes, that was just how I worked.

I could be all angst, anxiousness and frustration one second, then totally calm and resigned the next. I knew that sudden inexplicable change in my behavior was upsetting for others to witness. Even compared against the well deserved fear of my still far too frequent night terrors, I kept an even more careful guard against accidentally betraying what I personally thought of as my greatest weakness.

Another deep shudder shook my entire body as the last of my 'fits' tremors faded away. But instead of feeling relief, I only grimaced again as my regular world returned much quicker than it should have.

The untrustworthy peace filling me up only left me worried that my supposed 'talent' wasn't quite through with me this morning.

I blinked a few times more and then noticed that a few other favorite utensils had also gone rogue from their regular locations. Rather than getting upset at Keeley for trying to keep busy as her battered body slowly healed, I chose to begin washing the vegetables next. Once my hands got busy in the sink, I had some time to think about the other two phone calls.

They had also been from old family friends. They needed me to look over their own stalled real estate projects, ones that couldn't get over some severe financing issues. I certainly didn't personally have any money left to bankroll them, nor did the Trust, but both men knew how I liked to work that kind of angle. I'd ended their calls by promising to visit their proposed redevelopment sites in a few hours, by myself, and get a personal feel for the buildings and their surrounding areas.

By using my supposed insights and other rather unique talents?

I usually had a better idea than most so-called businessmen about the direction each neighborhood in the city would be changing. Sometimes, I was able to guess truly significant trends years in advance of anyone else. Using the little tricks I had inherited might not be fair, but because of them, I was usually successful at staying dozens of steps ahead of competitors merely playing at one of our family's oldest games.

Only after I got a good current reading on my friend's buildings, and made my own detailed sketches and estimates later in the week, would I even look at their own architect's plans. If the potential partners took on my designs instead? A share of the building's ownership would pass to me.

By me, I actually meant my third of the rather unstable and constantly more complex Trust.

More often than not, instead of very trackable financial payments, I grabbed a small well hidden interest in everything that I touched.

Sometimes, if I also took on the job of secretly coordinating the materials and bringing in the team to get it built? My resulting share wasn't small at all. Over the last decade, my friends would simply give a few knowing nods and winks at a bank's managing partner, to let them know that I was on board a project. But usually, all it took was for the right loan officers to see the unique style of my hand rendered drawings, and the loans would instantly go thru.

But these three extra site visits, added to my other errands and too stressed workload planned for today? It was making me ache in pain already. I wondered if I could actually call in sick, and skip my regular Sunday early evening shift? I'd only missed that extra bit of duty once in the last year. Or was it actually twice?

These days I was beginning to have more and more trouble keeping my many lives separate and whole in my mind.

How much longer could I continue to keep a real mundane job as a cover, and hide all the other extra architectural projects that kept landing in my lap?

Working secretly, full-time, for the Trust was one thing. Going directly head to head against my own family's business, with all of my hidden projects, was quite another.