“Careful!” said Three-Piece. The girl slowed down, but wrapped her arms around me.
“Johnny, you’re okay,” she said. I felt her hot tears on my chest and I wrapped her arms around her.
“The jury is still out on that, but I’m alive,” I said. I looked up at the people in the room. “I’m sorry, but I have no idea who any of you are, and I’m sorry that I wandered down here without getting dressed.”
The girl’s hands dropped to my ass, and Cyndi chuckled.
“Laura,” she said.
“Okay,” the girl said. She wiped the tears from her face and backed away from me.
“This is the quintessential Johnny Rand,” the blonde said. “Naked, gorgeous, and shot.” She stood up and walked over to me. I kept one eye on the young guy she’d been sitting with. She traced the wound on my head, then placed her hand softly on the bandage on my chest.
“Hello, Hero,” she said, and brushed her lips against mine. “My name is Tina,” she said. Then she walked back and sat down and held hands with the guy.
I pulled a chair from the table and sat down. “I’m afraid you all have me at a disadvantage,” I said. “I’m just starting to get used to this household. Can you start by telling me who you are and why you’re here?”
For the next half hour or so I got a crash course in who Johnny Rand was, what he’d done in the past, and what he was doing now.
“So I’m rich?” I said.
“And getting richer every day,” Richard Morrison said. “Although I’ve taken a strong cash position lately. I’m seeing signs of a major correction…”
I held up my hand, and he stopped.
“And I work for the chief of police of the LAPD?”
“Not exactly,” Jen Magellas said. “You’re in business for yourself. Sometimes the chief might throw you a case to work, a case that the police and the DA and the courts can’t handle. But he hasn’t yet.”
Everyone had introduced themselves except the shaggy older man.
“Who might you be?” I said.
“I’m the Saturday guy,” he said.
“What?”
“We share your women,” he said, taking a toothpick to his teeth. “I get them on Saturdays.”
I stared at him. His lips were quivering like he was holding in a laugh. Georgia punched him on the arm, hard, and he lost it and started laughing.
“Geez, Meyer,” I heard from behind me. I turned around. Dawn was leaning up against the doorframe in all her nude glory, smiling at him.
“Hey, you can’t blame a guy for trying,” Meyer said. He stood up and walked around the table towards me. I reflexively went into some sort of guard position which came from I don’t know where, and he stopped short.
“Johnny, he’s your best friend,” Mary Beth said. “He’s family. He’s just fucking with you.”
I looked at her, and she looked back at me. I relaxed. Meyer came forward and knelt down beside me. He put his hand on my shoulder.
“You gave us a scare, kid,” he said. “It’s good to see you up and around. You might want to put some clothes on, though, because nobody needs to see that shit.”
“Fuckin’ A,” said Buddy Magellas.
“Do the ladies get a vote, too?” said Jen.
It was too much. I pushed back from the table. “I feel dizzy,” I said. I tried to stand up and I heard people move their chairs and move towards me but the roaring drowned that out and then the darkness came and I never felt my head hit the floor.
When I woke up, there was a slightly chubby dark-skinned woman sitting on the bed next to me with a stethoscope pressed against my chest. She was wearing blue jeans and a tank top that said “Gay Pride”. She smiled at me. I knew her.
“How do you feel?” she said.
I thought about that.
“I remember,” I said. “I remember everything. I even remember how it felt not to remember.” I paused. “You’re the doctor from the hospital. I didn’t know doctors made house calls anymore.”
She smiled again. “I’m being paid handsomely for it,” she said. “But I think I would have done it for free for you, after what you did.” She stood up.
“You’re going to be fine,” she said. “Your chest wound is healing nicely, and your head wound was just a scratch – although the shock to your brain stole your memories for a while. But if you’re past that, you have no worries. Just be sure to finish the antibiotics we gave you.”
“Thanks,” I said. She smiled again and walked out.
Dawn came in immediately. She was dressed in a white sleeveless top and a short yellow skirt.
“That skirt really makes your tan pop, I said.”
She looked at me. “Johnny?”
I held my arms out to her. “I’m back,” I said.
She ran to me.
—
Five days later. I was well taken care of and healing nicely and shouldn’t have had a care in the world. And yet…
Those times when you simply can’t fall asleep are kind of like the times that you’re icky sick: they make you realize how you’ve been taking good sleep or general wellness for granted. The first day that you’re well again, you can literally taste the air and the possibilities of life dangle brightly before you. The second day you’re well, you’re back to taking it all for granted.
I was lying naked on the smaller living room sofa. I idly looked at the glass of rye whiskey in my hand and admitted to myself that it likely wasn’t going to put me to sleep. I’d tried the whiskey, reading a book, stretching and meditating… all for naught. It was pushing 3:00 AM and I was both awesomely tired and awesomely wide awake. My chest was throbbing a little, but not enough to take a pain med. Luckily, I had little that I was obligated to do tomorrow. Later today, I corrected myself.
Weird thoughts were running loose in the back of my head. I’d been living for nearly a year with three women: my blonde teenaged niece and soulmate Dawn, my best friend and lover Mary Beth, and my tiny little Afro-Asian beauty Jay. We were incredibly happy and shared ourselves with each other every day, bringing each other as much pleasure as possible. We were rich beyond my wildest dreams and beyond my ability to decide what to do with the money. We had good and trusted friends. I had a noble purpose in life, enforcing justice at the behest of the chief of police of Los Angeles. Life was full and rewarding.
I had survived yet another encounter with lead projectiles. My faculties were intact. I was loved. And yet it was pushing 3:00 AM and I couldn’t sleep. I guess I was being introspective, examining memories that just this morning had been beyond my grasp.
I searched my mind for the problem. Mary Beth and I had lived as neighbors for years and had become good friends, and maybe more than that, but her avowed lesbianism had kept me from attempting to take our relationship any further. Until Dawn had come back into my life, that is. I had been pretty heavily involved in my niece’s life for years, essentially helping my brother to raise her, and had watched her transform from a loving girl into a beautiful young woman. Although I had lusted after her, and later had admitted to myself that I was actually in love with her, I had maintained the role of the friendly, loving uncle – even though I had to help her through some intimate situations that her father either couldn’t bring himself to handle, or wasn’t available to handle.
Her father had been a money launderer for a major drug cartel. His violent death brought Dawn and I together, first as supportive family, then as lovers. Shortly after that, Mary Beth became our lover as well. Then shortly after that, Jay joined us in our bed. We’d all been living together as a loving family for nearly a year now. It was pretty much the best fantasy a 32 year-old guy could have, right?
Right?
“Johnny.”
I looked up. A very nude Dawn walked around from behind the sofa and stood in front of me. For the thousandth time I marveled at how perfect her little teenage body was. I knew how every part of her body felt and how I felt inside her when we were making love. Yet all I wanted to do now was feel my hands on her body again.
“What are you doing up? Come to bed, baby.” She held out her hand for me.
“I tried that,” I said. “Didn’t work. Something’s keeping me awake.”
“What?”
“I don’t know. I can’t latch onto it. Something.”
“Come to bed and I’ll help you fall asleep,” Dawn said, and I took her hand and stood up and followed her to the bedroom. We laid down in the huge bed next to Jay and Mary Beth who were both happily residing in dreamland. Dawn pulled my hands onto her breasts and pushed her butt back into my crotch and we spooned like the lovers we were. I gently squeezed her boobs and she moaned softly and happily.
“Go to sleep, Johnny,” she said, nestling back further into me. “Go to sleep, baby.”
Lost in her body and her warmth and her love for me, I was out like a light within moments.