Chapter 5

Back in his room, Errol was mentally kicking his own butt. He'd overreacted. Sure, there might be some small chance a cop or somebody else from that Ohio city might recognize him from a newspaper photo, but it was highly unlikely. He could hardly imagine a copy of the Register traveling that far. He knew now that his reaction to the photo op would create some concern in Jennie's mind, making her wonder why he was so averse to having his picture taken.

But what's done is done. If she brought it up, as she surely would, he'd have to make up some quirky story to cover his camera phobia, something like; recording his image was the same as stealing his soul. He smiled at that one.

He took a long, hot shower, togged down in his sweats and heavy socks and crashed on the bed for a much-needed nap. Three hours later, a knock on his door woke him up. He glanced at the clock radio on the nightstand and saw it was almost eight o'clock. Damn, he hadn't intended to sleep that long.

It was Jennie at the door. "Hey, sweets," he said, taking her hand, "come on in!"

She patted his bedspread-wrinkled cheek and said, "You've got bed hair. Were you still sleeping? If you were, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to wake you up."

He took her coat and hung it on the hook, then pulled her into a hug and kissed her cheek. "Don't worry about it, okay? I didn't want to sleep this long anyway because it'll throw off my whole diurnal cycle."

"Diurnal cycle?" she laughed. "You do love those highfalutin words, don't you?"

"Hey, it's a perfectly legitimate word!"

"Yes, you're right. It's just that you seem so much more erudite than your average college dropout."

"Erudite? You do love those highfalutin words, don't you?"

She grabbed his crotch and asked, "What's a good highfalutin way to ask you for some hot, raunchy sex?"

His dick swelled immediately in her grasp. In return, he grabbed a handful of tit and growled, "Enough said!"

The session was short but action-packed, beginning with a couple of minutes of manual exploration as they rushed to get naked, followed by a few more minutes of soixante-neuf to really get the juices flowing, and finishing with a good fifteen minutes of just-short-of-violent fucking in three or four positions. Errol came first, but he had enough animal stamina and residual stiffness to bring his lady to a bone-shaking orgasm. They collapsed tangled together, challenged for breath and soaking the spread with their sweat.

"Whoa!" Jennie gasped, "That had to be our all-time best effort!"

"Yeah," he agreed, "must be your perfume!"

She giggled, "What, this eau de Lysol? I've been cleaning the restrooms over at the diner."

"Well, you still smell sexy as hell to me."

"Thank you, kind Sir." She untangled herself, sat up and pinched his ear. "Now tell me what the big deal is with you getting your picture taken. Are you on the FBI's ten most wanted list or something?"

There was an extended silence before he got up off the bed and went into the bathroom to pee. As he came back into the room, he asked, "Tea? I'm going to have some."

"Sure. Um, you reacted to my smart-ass remark about the FBI. Anything to that, or do I just have a hyperactive imagination?"

Again with the silence while he filled two cups with water and heated them in the microwave. He added a packet of sugar to Jennie's and dropped in teabags of Earl Grey.

She'd crawled under the covers and sat with her back against the headboard, waiting patiently for him to join the conversation. He handed her the cup and set his on the nightstand while he climbed in beside her.

He turned to face her, brushed his knuckles against the side of her left breast and said, "I wonder if you really want to know. If I tell you the truth, you might not like it."

She searched his face for several seconds. "You know, Errol, I think I've got a pretty good handle on what kind of person you are, and I like what I see. If you're about to tell me something that's gonna taint that image, then I'm not sure I want to hear it. But I don't want us to lie to each other, either. I had enough of that in my previous relationships. Check that - my previous relationship, as in one and only. Why don't you just lay it out? Whatever it is, good or bad, I can promise you here and now that it will never leave this room."

He leaned back against the headboard, took a sip of his tea and began.

"Before I came to Polk, I was staying in a small city in Ohio. Since I dropped out of school, I've been kind of bumming my way across the country, working jobs here and there, mostly part-time. Just enough to earn a few hundred bucks so I could move on.

"I found my way to this city - I won't tell you which one - and got a job as general labor with a construction company. I don't really have any skills to speak of in the construction biz, so I just carried lumber, pushed wheelbarrows, cleaned up around the site, that kind of thing. The pay wasn't bad and after a few weeks I'd saved up enough that I was thinking about hitting the road again as soon as the job was finished.

"So one Sunday, I was sitting on a bench in the neighborhood park, just soaking up the sunshine and reading a book. There was a playground a few yards away and I saw a kid, maybe six or seven years old playing on the jungle gym. I remember wondering where his mom was because I didn't see anyone else around.

"I really wasn't paying too much attention until I heard someone say, 'Hey, kid!' kind of like in a loud whisper. I looked up and saw the kid looking into the bushes next to the playground. I couldn't see anyone there, but I saw the kid point to himself like he was asking, 'Who, me?'

"Then the kid started walking toward the bushes. Well, my curiosity was definitely piqued. I mean, we've all read storied about what kind of pervs hang around playgrounds. Anyhow, the kid disappeared into the bushes. I sat there for a minute before deciding I had to check it out. I put down my book and went around the bushes on the other side, then stopped to listen.

"I heard the kid say, 'No, I don't want to!' Then I heard a man's voice say, 'C'mon, kid, you'll like it! I'll give you a dollar.'

"Well, that was enough for me. I crashed my way into the bushes and found myself in a small clearing that was completely hidden from the outside. There was this guy standing there with his pants pushed down to his knees and his dick sticking straight out. He was holding the kid's wrist and trying to make him touch his junk.

"About that time, the guy sees me and turns to make a run for it, trying to pull up his pants at the same time, but he stumbles over his own feet and takes a header. By the time he gets to his knees, I'm on him. Well the guy starts begging in this whiny voice, "Just let me go, okay? I promise I'll never do it again!"

"But I was in a rage. I grabbed the guy by the collar and punched him twice in the face as hard as I could. He just sags and drops to the ground. His eyes are open and he's looking at me in some weird way. His mouth opens and closes a few times like a fish breathing water, then the lights go out. He's dead. I don't know what killed him, whether I broke something in his head, or if I broke his neck or what, but he was dead.

"I turned to the kid who was just standing there half scared to death and said, 'Kid, go find the cops, uh, a policeman and tell them what happened! No, wait! Go to your mother and tell her to call the police! I'll wait here until you get back.' The kid takes off running and as soon as he's out of sight, so do I. There was no way in hell I was going to go through an intense police investigation over some sick fuck who got his rocks off abusing kids.

"I made it back to my room, packed up my bag and my cash, and headed for the highway. An hour on the road and I remembered I left my paperback book on that park bench. If the kid remembers me sitting there reading, the cops would have a beautiful set of fingerprints. And if they did, identifying me would be as easy as a few keystrokes on their computer. I can only hope the kid was like every other kid that age and he was oblivious to what was going on around him. Better yet, maybe somebody strolled by the bench and picked up the book.

"And that's it. That same evening, I drove into Polk. So, do you think I should pack up and head on down the road?"

Jennie sat staring at him with her eyes wide. "Oh my god, Errol! How awful for you!"

"Not so great for the guy I killed, either."

"But he deserved it! I mean, what kind of a sick mind does that to kids? Errol, you were doing the right thing; protecting that little boy!"

"Jennie, to be honest, I don't feel bad about the guy. I didn't mean to kill him, but I did intend to beat him to within an inch of his life. The fact that he died probably saved a whole bunch of kids from being sexually abused by him. What I feel bad about is having to watch over my shoulder for the rest of my life, wondering if the cops know who did it. And if they do, when they're gonna show up on my doorstep."

She leaned over to kiss him softly on the lips. "Sweetheart, like I said, what you just told me will never leave this room, and more's the pity. If there was any justice, that city in Ohio would put up a plaque in that park commemorating your good deed. Hell, they should rename the park after you.