Betsy
- 2 years ago
- 31
- 0
Gary stayed away from the house while the rules of the house were explained to the rest of the staff. He was dreading going inside. There was no telling what he’d find when he got inside. He sat in his car staring off into the distance.
Stacy said, “One guy and six women in a clothing optional house. You must be in heaven.”
“Hell is more like it,” Gary said. “Don’t forget that one of those women is you.”
“That still leaves you five women, mister ‘love ‘em and leave ‘em, ‘“ Stacy said.
“Damn it! I was eighteen! I was young, dumb, and full cum,” Gary shouted. “She threw herself at me with her legs spread wide open. What guy is going to say – maybe I should do the responsible thing and say no because I’m not in love with her?”
“I told you that if you went to bed with her that she was going to expect you to marry her,” Stacy said.
Getting out of the car, Gary said, “I wasn’t ready to get married. I had just gotten out of high school. I had no money for college and not a single job prospect. My only option was to enlist.”
“You dumped her when she needed you.”
“I had no idea that she would kill herself when I enlisted,” Gary said.
The slam made when he closed the car door was timed as if to add punctuation to his statement.
“She was pregnant!”
“I didn’t know that at the time!”
Frustrated and angry, Gary took a couple of steps away.
“You didn’t?”
“No.”
“She was three months pregnant.”
“Well, she didn’t tell me! She stood there waving good-bye when I was getting on the bus to go to basic training. I get to the base and a chaplain is there to tell me that she killed herself. That was my welcome to the Army.”
“I thought you knew.”
“Mom told me three years later. That was the first I’d ever heard of it,” Gary said.
“I’m shocked.”
Gary said, “I know that she was your best friend, but to be honest – she wasn’t all there. She was needy and -grabby and ... she was suffocating me. I couldn’t even go to the toilet without her waxing poetic about how long we had been separated.”
“She was madly in love with you.”
“No. There’s love and there’s what she had. What she was feeling wasn’t love. I don’t want to speak ill of the dead, but she was sick.”
Stacy stood there looking down at the ground. She didn’t want to believe what he was saying, but his story was consistent with his behavior at the time. She didn’t know what to think.
“I’ve got to tell you the truth, I was happy to be getting on that bus. I was starting to have nightmares about waking up in the middle of the night, to find her hovering over me with a knife in her hand, like some kind of scene out of a horror movie.”
Stacy shouted, “I don’t believe you.”
“I don’t care what you believe,” Gary shouted.
“That’s the first lie told in this entire conversation,” Ed said.
Shocked, Gary spun around to face Ed. He asked, “What are you doing here?”
“What do you mean that is the first lie?” Stacy asked.
Ed answered, “He does care what you believe. Everything else he said was the absolute truth as far as he knew it. You were telling him the truth, as you knew it.”
“How can you say that?”
Ed held out his medallion and said, “My service to the Two-Sided One is to find the truth and to expose the lies. And, Gary, to answer your question, I’m here to expose the lies.”
“Okay,” Gary said.
Ed asked, “Are you two going to be able to play nicely together, now?”
Gary answered, “No. I’m still mad at her.”
“Why?” she asked.
“You shot at me,” Gary said.
“I fired in your general direction.”
Gary said, “You stood in the center of the street, calling me a murderer, and you shot at me. You blew the back window of my car to smithereens.”
“Don’t be a baby. If I had wanted to hit you, you’d have been dead,” Stacy said.
“I don’t believe you,” Gary said.
Stacy said, “I don’t care what you believe.”
“That’s a lie,” Ed said. “You do care.”
Gary said, “I don’t think I want to have this discussion with you here, Ed.”
“I agree.”
“You’re stuck with me,” Ed said.
Gary said, “If I didn’t care about Betsy so much, I’d quit. She needs me.”
Ed looked astonished. “What do you mean ... she needs you?”
“She needs a friend. She needs someone who will listen to her and try understand her situation. That poor girl is lonely,” Gary answered.
“You’ll jump on her and destroy another woman,” Stacy said.
Gary shook his head. “I’m not eighteen. I’m not interested in having sex with her. She needs a friend and I want to be that friend.”
“This is an interesting development,” Ed said looking off into the distance deep in thought.
It seemed as though he was that way for a long time. Finally, he turned to Stacy and said, “He didn’t know your friend was pregnant. She wasn’t quite all there. He left to pursue a better future in the Army, with the benefit that he was leaving your friend behind. You went off on him without knowing all of the facts. You owe your brother an apology.”
He turned to Gary and said, “You were a young, dumb man when you encountered an unstable woman. You handled it badly. You’re still dumb by letting that event control your relationship with your sister, after so many years. Grow up.”
Ed walked off.
Gary said, “I’m still pissed at you.”
“I still think you knew what she’d do when you left,” Stacy said.
Gary said, “I’m going to check the back of the house.”
He glanced over at the garage. The Hugger Betsy had bought for use on the island was parked in one bay. The Mercedes Benz Benzino was parked in the other. Of the two vehicles, he had to admit that he like the Mercedes the most. There was something about the lines of the car that reached out and touched the soul. It was more art than automobile and he couldn’t help wonder what had happened to cause an entire industry to forget its esthetic past like it had.
Beth’s husband, John, Wheels, and Sam were head down in the engine compartment of the car Wheels was restoring. It only made sense that John was out there. As an automotive engineer, the chance to go through the classic car would appeal to him. Sam’s interest in the car was kind of a surprise to him, but she had a mechanical streak in her that was a mile wide. She probably enjoyed checking out the old-time mechanics that went into the car.
Gary made his way to the back of the house. The large pile of sleeping bags was an immediate reminder of how many people were staying at the house. Everyone in the Carter Clan ... with the exception of William Redman Carter, and his wife, Lucy ... were camped out in the backyard. William didn’t ever leave his home in Arizona.
It was hard to keep track of how many people were on the property at any given time. They swarmed. They came and went, like bees around a hive. There were shopping expeditions to furnish the house. There were trips to Oahu to furnish the condo. There were frequent trips to the supermarket to purchase food and refreshments. The staff were busy moving in and that brought strangers into the house. At least Ling and Claire were there to support him, and Stacy to help with the security concerns.
There was a flurry of activity at the rear of the house when several members of the family stripped out of their clothes and took off for the beach. He wondered how Bess was going to take the sudden influx of nude people on their beach. That reminded him that he was supposed to introduce them to Ed Biggers, so that Ed could check them out. He suspected that Bess would start trying to pressure George into moving out sometime in the future unless some sort of good relationship was established with them and Betsy.
He looked around and decided that everything was okay. He wished that everyone had stayed for another couple of nights in the hotel while he finished getting the security systems in place, but they weren’t to be denied. Instead of having a nice empty house in which to work, the installers were constantly being interrupted with questions, observations, and minor suggestions – all of which were being studiously ignored. All that was being accomplished was that the installation was behind schedule.
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The middle aged man ran across the parking lot, glancing fearfully over his shoulder for signs of pursuit. He tripped over a concrete parking lot divider, flying face first towards the pavement. While attempting to catch his fall, he let loose of his briefcase. It skittered across the pavement. Ignoring his cuts and scrapes, he scrambled forward to catch his briefcase. His suit was torn and dirty as a result of his fall. Betsy had detoured from her parkour run across the roof of the...
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Sally floated into the condo as if walking on air. Betsy hadn’t seen her since the afternoon she had sent Steve over, with instructions that he was to kiss her. She had not been around the condo, her lab, or her apartment, for two days. She hadn’t answered her phone during that entire time, either. Betsy took one look at her and said, “I guess you’ve been kissed.” “Yes,” Sally said. Sally had been kissed! And, despite her lack of experience, she knew she had been kissed well. He had...
Betsy watched a tree remove the wing from her side of the jet, thinking that this had to be the trip from hell. The jet made another spine wrenching jog when another tree removed the wing from the other side of the aircraft. There was a jolt, then the jet came to an abrupt stop, and then the world went black. Unable to guess how long she had been unconscious, Betsy woke with a start. She glanced around the little commuter jet that was supposed to have taken her and ten other passengers from...
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The cell phone rang. Thinking it was important, Betsy answered without checking the caller id. “Hello?” William said, “Hello, Betsy.” “What’s up?” “Just called to tell you to say: ‘yes.’” “Yes?” Betsy asked. “Yes.” Betsy said, “Okay. I say: ‘yes.’” “You haven’t been asked the question yet,” William said. “What question?” “You’ll know the question when you hear it,” William said. “I hate it when you do this to me,” Betsy said in frustration. William laughed. “By the way, you’ve...
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Betsy was at the head of the conference room jumping a skip rope, it was actually a length of CAT-5 cable, while waiting for the next applicant to come into the room. What she had thought would be easy was turning out to be a nightmare. The last applicant had gotten so frustrated trying to talk with Betsy, who was jumping up and down skipping rope, that she had stormed out of the room swearing that she had never dealt with anyone so rude. Betsy had been crushed. Ed, Ling, Dan, and Kelly were...
Betsy turned on her cell phone, and set it down on the instrument panel. The light, although not very bright, managed to displace the overwhelming and depressing darkness inside the cabin. She looked over at Ben and saw that he was looking a little pale. “Is that better?” Betsy asked. “It’s much better,” Ben said. “Good. I got Sharon’s cell phone next to the two guys who are trapped in the back,” Betsy said. “How are they?” “They keep drifting in and out of consciousness. They aren’t...
Chuck stepped out of the jet and looked around hoping to spot Betsy. A blur was heading towards him. He braced himself for the impact. She threw herself at him, landing with her arms around his neck and her legs wrapped around his waist. He staggered back a step or two. She was kissing him passionately with tears running down her cheek. In a husky voice, Chuck said, “I missed you.” “I missed you.” Chuck said, “We need to stop by my house.” “Don’t worry, I straightened it up. I cleaned out...
Betsy walked down to the beach intending to have a nice relaxing swim. It was the weekend and the house was a little crowded. She was still bothered by Chuck’s abduction, but at least something good came of it. He was now living at her house, where he could be adequately protected. There were other benefits of having him around so much, too. At the moment, though, she just wanted a little time of her own. She desired a chance to just get her thoughts in order. It seemed to her that things...
Betsy stood in front of a full body mirror, looking at her reflection. She was wearing a black robe. This was the first time she had put one on. Rather than having the full length sleeves of Druid robes, the robe she wore was sleeveless. This allowed the golden torq, her symbol of service to the Two-Sided One on her arm, to be visible. She turned a little to catch her profile in the mirror. Then she turned the other way examining her appearance once again. She decided she liked the way the...
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It was three o’clock in the morning when the jet Betsy was on arrived at the Honolulu airport. It touched down on the runway, and taxied over to the hangar. Betsy looked out the window. There was one person on duty, along with the limousine driver waiting for them to exit the jet. The man on duty was wearing the overalls that identified him as a mechanic. The limousine driver was wearing the typical black outfit of commercial limo drivers everywhere. While gathering her stuff, Betsy asked...
Ling woke up, immediately aware that every part of her body hurt. She started going through the mental inventory of body parts. Ribs? It hurt to breathe, so she had a couple of cracked ribs. She gingerly moved her arms, legs, fingers, and toes. She was relieved to discover that there weren’t any casts. There weren’t any broken bones. She tried to locate a muscle that wasn’t screaming out in pain and failed, miserably. She knew it was going to hurt to get up and try to move around. She...
Sweating profusely, Betsy wrestled the fifty-five gallon steel drum down the ramp from the ‘Bloated Shark’ to the dock. The wooden ramp creaked under the strain of the load. Forty-five gallons of salt water weighed over three hundred and eighty pounds. It was a little too bulky and heavy for even Betsy to carry. The Bloated Shark was the name she had given the tugboat she had purchased for a research platform. When she had found it, it was just an old tug that had seen better days. It had...
“Hello,” the man said when Betsy stepped into the instrument room on the tug. He was big as a mountain, with tattoos that ran the full length of his arms. His legs were the size of tree trunks. His hair was cut short, and he had a scar on his chin that gave him the appearance that he ate small babies for breakfast. He was holding a screwdriver in his hand, which was pointed in her general direction. “Who are you?” “I’m Paul.” “Well, Paul, what are you doing on my boat?” “I work for Dr....
Betsy stood atop the building looking down at the people below. Several people were looking up at her, thinking that she was going to jump. She smiled, backed up a few steps, and then ran forward and off of the roof. She spread her arms and legs wide while gravity made its presence known. The people below screamed thinking they were about to see her splatter on the sidewalk. She was only on a four story building, so it wouldn’t have been that great of a splatter, but people aren’t rational...
Betsy waded ashore. She had a large fish, which she held by its tail, slung over her shoulder nearly to her waist. It was flopping around, but she ignored its motions. Once away from the water, she dropped the fish on the sand and removed the rebreather from her back. Then she knelt down, and with her knife, filleted the fish. It didn’t take long for her to remove several nice fillets from the fish. She took a minute to wash the fish filets off in the ocean as well as return the innards to...
Once the family left, Betsy and the staff settled into the process of learning to live together. There were quirks to learn and preferences to discover. The house, with its wide open spacious rooms, was designed to give great views of the exotic landscape. It did not promote privacy, particularly with six people living in the house. Betsy was willing to drop her clothes without a moment’s notice, and head out to the beach. She was just as likely to wear clothes around the house as not. About...
In the process of selling the idea of their filtration system, Jake and John Widmeir had made two interesting discoveries. The first was that Betsy Carter had almost limitless energy. They had been told that, but seeing was believing. She could keep going long after everyone else collapsed from exhaustion. There had been one funny little incident in which a cocksure kid had thought he could keep up with her, in the workout room of the hotel. She had walked out bubbly and full of energy,...
Carl had no real idea where he was. Upon learning that he was single and lived alone; Betsy’s father, Ed, had insisted on taking him to the Carter home, where Carl would get around the clock care. It was an offer that Carl found nearly impossible to turn down. It wasn’t that Carl was concerned about the care he would receive in the hospital; but what would happen after he was discharged, was an issue. There was no one at his apartment to take care of him, and he wasn’t about to ask one of his...
Head buried in her closet, Betsy was tossing clothes out left and right. Charlie and Alice were standing at the door watching her. They were a little amused by her behavior. Alice said, “I do believe that Betsy is in a tizzy.” “Tizzy? Yes, she does look like a person in a tizzy,” Charlie said. “It could be a dither,” Alice said. “No. It’s definitely a tizzy, not a dither,” Charlie said. “I wonder why she’s in a tizzy?” Betsy growled and then muttered, “I’ll show them a tizzy.” “I have...
Charlie was seated at the desk in her office inside the house, watching Betsy fidget in her chair. They had returned from the capital the previous day. It was necessary to get caught up on all of the work that had accumulated over the past few days. Fortunately, it hadn’t taken nearly as long as she expected to get caught up on the business aspects of Betsy’s life. The staff had taken care of nearly everything in their absence. She looked down at Betsy’s calendar for a moment, flipped...
The modern person, who has lived a significant percentage of their life in a digital economy, can not imagine what life would be like without checks, credit cards, debit cards, and online banking. Mortgages, rent, utilities, and insurance are paid with check or by electronic transfer. Large purchases and consumer goods are paid with credit cards, or checks. Plastic is not reserved only for big items. People will whip out a credit or debit card to pay for a five dollar lunch, or a cup of...
With Sally away on her honeymoon, Betsy was at loose ends. After Chuck’s kidnapping, she just didn’t want to take off for the ocean for a week at a time. At this point, it wasn’t necessary. She had all of the biological data necessary for her dissertation. All that was missing was sufficient tracking data to support her arguments and time would take care of that. She didn’t need to tag any more sharks since she had already tagged far more of them than was necessary for her dissertation. For...
Ling said, “You look like hell.” “I’ve been around your daughter for a couple of days,” Gary replied pointedly. He tried to count the days, but they all ran into a blur of move and move and move. He had never been so tired in his life. Trying to keep up with Betsy was a constant effort. She was always in motion and that required him to always be in motion. The normal human being wasn’t built for that level of activity. “You should get some rest,” Kelly said. Gary pointed at Ling and said,...
In what has to be one of the greatest plays on words of all time, Mark Twain wrote: ‘Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt.’ “This can’t possibly be happening. It’s impossible. I just won’t accept it.” Everyone has observed denial at work. Everyone has experienced denial for him or her self. Denial is a universal experience. One can deny it, but that denial rather proves the point. Denial is an unavoidable consequence of how the human mind works. The human mind makes gross generalizations...
In the short time she had worked for Betsy, life for Charlie had been interesting. Still unable to get around with any kind of ease, Charlie was more than happy to sit behind the desk and take care of the hundreds of little things, that had been ignored by Betsy. She’d been stunned to discover that Betsy hadn’t even bothered to open a local bank account. She had been shocked one day, to discover a past due statement buried with the stack of mail that had accumulated over a couple of weeks....
Betsy was pacing around outside the construction site. The site engineer (Stan Kubrick) and one of the foremen (Jim Franklin) were there with her, wondering why she had literally dragged them away from their homes. Chuck was standing under a palm, enjoying the shade, while George was nervously licking his lips. A man wandered by and stared at the group for a second. Finally, he approached and said, “Hey, Jim!” “Hello, Kirk.” “What are you doing here?” Kirk asked. He had been working on...
Betsy stood in front of the little stand that was selling meat. The stand had once been a little souvenir hut that had sold glitzy trinkets to tourists. It had a fake grass roof, giving it a kind of hokey appearance that tourists expected of a tropical island. She wondered where it had come from, but wasn’t interested enough to ask. A bird flew overhead and landed upon a branch of a nearby bush. She turned to look at it. It was a red crested cardinal. Like many of the more common birds on...
Betsy skipped down the hallway pausing to read the sign on each door. The other students in the hallway would move over to the other side to avoid getting hit by the jump rope. She stopped in front of one of the doors and read the name off the nameplate aloud, “Sally Tilton.” She stepped back nearly hitting a student with her jump rope and read the sign on the door aloud, “Keep out.” She stopped swinging the rope around, but kept up the jumping motion while knocking on the door. She called...
Betsy paced the floor, criss-crossing the living room in her house. Fortunately, the house was built with a wide open spacial style that allowed her a lot of room to move. If the room had been a bit smaller, she would have been bouncing off the walls ... literally, not figuratively. Not for the first time since returning to the house that morning, she asked, “Where is he?” “I don’t know,” Charlie answered without having to ask who he was. “Why isn’t Gary here?” “He had to go to the...
With the destruction of the economy, a number of things had changed in the world. One, which almost no one would even think about, was the disappearance of certain specialty shops, of which bridal stores were a good example. There just wasn’t a place to buy what had become a traditional wedding gown. What few dresses had remained on the shelves of stores at the time of the collapse had long since disappeared. Young couples getting married now tended to wear nice dresses and suits. The new...
The desert stretches from horizon to horizon, existing in both time and space. One man gazes upon it and sees paradise. Another man gazes upon the same scene and only sees desolation. One desert, two men, and three entirely different worlds. It is not a mystery why people argue and bicker over nearly everything. If two people can’t agree on something as vast and as timeless as a desert, why should it be a surprise if they can’t agree on much of anything? The variations in preferences of even...
Charlie was wheeled out of the hospital in a wheelchair. As with a lot of patients, she had argued that it wasn’t necessary, except that it was. Her prosthetic was packed away in her luggage, which Betsy was carrying. Either the infection had been a little more aggressive than she had thought, or she had really been a lot more tired than she had felt. She was so weak that she was afraid that she might not be able to use the crutches she’d been given. Once they were outside, Betsy handed the...
Tight-lipped, Ed stared at the man. Talking with him was a constant assault on his truth sense. The longer he talked, the worse the lies got. It was as if one lie emboldened the next. Ed said, “She was drugged.” “The test results were lost,” the man said with a smirk. Ed’s truth sense stabbed him in the brain upon hearing the lie. He said, “Quit lying.” “I’m not lying. They were lost.” “She was drugged, and you know it!” Ed shouted. The man replied, “She chewed his arm off and beat him...
Chuck wandered over to the security center and office building construction site, searching for Gary. The building was still a long ways from finished, but he could imagine what it would look like when it would be completed. The foundation was in place, the framing was complete, and some of the exterior walls had been added. Chuck found Gary inspecting the building. Gary was checking to make sure that nothing that didn’t belong had been added to the walls. There were folks who would be...
Chuck was seated in the backyard passing the time by watching a couple of birds working together in building a nest. Watching them build a structure for the results of their mating reminded him that he was going to be married soon. He was looking forward to the event without the kind of nervousness that plagued many grooms. There was only one downside – he wished his parents were still alive to see him get married. He wished his parents could have met Betsy. He was sure they would have loved...
Sally walked into the room thinking that she had made a horrible mistake. There were a lot of people, none of whom she recognized, moving around. She grabbed Gary’s arm to prevent being separated from him. Betsy had disappeared somewhere into the heart of the party. It was a typical frat party – a lot of testosterone driven young men, scantily dressed young women, too much booze, not enough light; and loud music, which made talking impossible. The air had the lingering hint of a sickly sweet...
The sound of waves crashing along the beach provided a background noise that Betsy found particularly relaxing. She was sitting tailor fashion on the beach, looking out across the ocean at the distant horizon. This was about as calm as Betsy could appear to act. It truly was an appearance of calm rather than true calm. She was digging two holes. She was excavating one hole with each hand, and using the sand in the other hand to fill it in again. The strength required to shove her hands into...
By the morning after the altercation with Kyle, the swelling in Carl’s face had reduced to the point where he could see again. His nose was still tender, but most of the pain was gone. It was hard to believe that Kyle had been able to hurt him so badly, with just two punches. He’d been beaten up a few times in high school, but that had been nothing compared to the previous day. He had awakened that morning to find Betsy, wearing a knee-length skirt and white blouse, seated in a chair reading...
Ling, pulling Cal behind her by his ear, followed Millie and Melvin out of the plane. Betsy was inside with Kelly and the rescuers planning how to free the two men trapped in the chairs. Jimmy was over by the fire piling branches on it after getting it restarted. Ed was with him giving him pointers on the care and management of a good campfire. Ling threw Cal to the ground. Looking at Millie, she asked, “What’s the story with him?” “He’s an asshole,” Millie answered. “I figured that much...