Chapter 28: Looking for a Glass Slipper

When Simon arrived in Staunton, a customs guard, anonymous behind her helmet's black faceplate, checked his Citizen Identification Card while her partner scanned his vehicle for contraband and illegal weapons. Once clear of the checkpoints, Simon drove through the small bustling town on his way home. He noticed the surveillance cameras on the light poles and the wary looks people gave his car. Parking his car in the driveway, he walked over to the neighborhood warden and signed in.

The warden was a frumpy, self-important housewife who seemed to take an instant dislike to Simon.

"Been gone a while, haven't you?"

Simon had never met this lady before and she was openly nosey.

"Military duty," he said smoothly. "Just got out of the Army yesterday."

Seemingly satisfied, the heavyset woman became all business. "Here are the rules. Read them over. You owe the Smith boy for keeping your yard mowed while you were gone," she said as she ticked through a laundry list of regulations.

Finally finished with the warden, he returned to his house, eager to start preparing the place for home life once again. The house smelled humid and musty, having been locked up for months in the depths of a Virginia summer. Simon looked around sadly. All the plants were dead. A fine coat of dust covered the kitchen counter. He slumped into a chair. This wasn't the homecoming that he'd planned.

Simon called his office but Felicia didn't answer the phone. He sat for a few minutes trying to think of whom to try to call next. The only person he could think of was Granny. He grimaced at the thought of having to deal with the "Earth Momma", as he called her when Arabella wasn't around, but knew that Arabella would probably call Granny if she had come home and needed help. Whether he liked it or not, contacting Saffron was the most logical next step.

After he'd straightened up the house and gone to the corner store for dinner, Simon went to the rave club looking for Saffron. He had never felt comfortable in the thundering dungeon of a club and had been secretly glad when Arabella hadn't insisted on coming back there when they went out on dates. His eyes scanned the crowd of writhing bodies, jerking and hopping in the stop motion of the strobe lights.

After some searching, Simon found Saffron in a corner with a group and tried to pull her into a side room to talk with her. The worn and stained couch barely fit inside the closet sized room, but it was marginally quieter than the bar area. Granny, dressed for the night in a flowery lace bustier and a mini skirt, wasn't pleased to be dragged away from her friends and sat down in a huff. She shouted at Simon and accused him of treating Arabella like a runaway slave.

"I'm just trying to get her out of the mess you got her in when you introduced her to your friend Paris," he retorted.

Granny stuck out her bottom lip and pretended to sulk. "It was his mysterious side that appealed to me," she explained with a shrug.

"You've got to help me find her."

Granny threw herself against the back of the couch and pouted. "Why should I help you? All you want to do is chain her to the stove while you're out saving the world. She deserves better than to be somebody's live in cook and bedwarmer."

Simon was shocked to silence by Saffron's sudden outburst. Before he could think of a reply, she continued her tirade.

"Have you ever really thought about how you're going to treat her? What's she going to do when you two settle down with you white picket fences and wife's coffees? I bet that you're a once a week, missionary position kind of guy."

"There's more to life than sex."

"That's the part of life that I choose to ignore."

Saffron waved down a waiter and ordered some drinks, giving Simon time to reflect on his feelings toward Arabella and his plans for their life together. His thoughts distracted him, blocking out the loud music and the smell of tightly packed bodies and cigarette smoke. Seeing him lost in thought, Saffron crawled across his lap and took his head into her hands.

Simon opened his eyes and saw that his field of vision was completely occupied by Saffron's brown eyes. Satisfied that she had his attention, Saffron unsnapped the topmost hooks of her lace bustier and exposed her small brown tipped breasts to his view.

"Relax." She drew his face into the valley between her petite tits. "Stop thinking so hard. The answers will come to you."

She pressed her naked thighs against his lap. His hands reached around her to cup her ass cheeks and hold her steady. Her skirt rode up and the smell of her excited pussy reached him. Saffron writhed and pressed her snatch against the growing bulge in his pants.

"Now show me what keeps Red coming back to your bed," she sang in his ear in a little girl voice.

Her hands tugged at his belt and then at his fly. She gripped his engorged cock though his briefs, roughly jacking him off through his underwear. While he sucked a rock hard nipple into his mouth, his hands grasped her firm ass cheeks and pulled her hips firmly against him.

"Give me your cock. Give it to me now." Her voice rasped against his ear.

Simon strained to lift his hips and push his clothes away. Saffron raised herself from his lap and helped his trousers and underwear slide down to his knees. His cock sprang from its confinement and slapped her thigh. Guiding his mouth back to her throbbing nipples, Saffron rubbed his long thick cock against her furry slit. Her hips undulated against his firm shaft, parting her engorged labia and smearing her copious juices along the length of his cock.

Simon's eyes were screwed shut. His senses assaulted by the slick feel of her pussy and its musky, intoxicating scent. Her tits tasted warm and salty. Her rubbery hard nipples swelled under his tongue. He felt her hot, velvety cunt envelope his manhood like an oily glove wrapping itself around his fleshy spike. He gasped as Saffron tugged at his hair, riding the length of his shaft as she impaled herself on him.

She grunted softly in his ear as she worked her way down his pole, "I can feel you. Feel you split me. Feel you all the way up to my stomach."

Simon felt her as well. The way her pussy gripped and milked his cock; the warmth of her juices leaking from her snatch and spreading over his balls. Her gyrations became more and more insistent as she slammed herself down on his prick, wetly slapping against his lap.

His cock swelled until it felt as if it would explode. Simon threw his head back, his mouth gaped open in a silent scream. His balls tightened and unleashed a surge of hot sperm into Saffron's depths. As his thick fluid flooded her, she ground her ass against his lap.

"Christ. Fuck. Good," she babbled. "Close. Cum. Agh. Fuck."

He held her still and felt her pussy convulse and flutter along his entire shaft. A rivulet of sweat ran past his ear and onto his shoulder. Saffron's raspy voice was loud in his ear as they both fought to catch their breath.

Her teeth nipped his earlobe lightly, waking him from his reverie. "That's my favorite way to relax."

She lifted herself off of his lap. His cock slid out of her to lie wetly on his bar thigh.

"We'll definitely do this again," she said as she gave him a quick peck on the cheek.

She tossed a slimy tissue at the trashcan in the corner.

"Just remember what I told you," she said from the door. "And thanks. I hardly ever cum on the first try. You tell Red that I think you've got potential."

"Saffron, do you know anyone who can help me find Arabella?"

"I haven't seen any of that crowd for months. They all left about the same time Red did."

"Shit." Simon felt his hopes sink.

"You might try Hank. He lives out by Monterey. Got a quiet little trailer off the main road. If he's there, he might know something."

"Draw me a map. I'll go up there tomorrow."

Simon drove along Route 250 West toward Monterey. His thoughts centered on what Saffron had said about Arabella's fear of being neglected while he worked. As he drove, a face hovered in front of his mind. The face of a beautiful, bitter woman - one that had loved him and had later tried to kill him to ease the hurt that she'd gotten from a husband who had chosen duty over love. Laura Buckley. He whispered her name aloud but it was lost in the noise of the car's air conditioner. Her name and the vision of Laura's sad face as she tried desperately to understand what her husband had though was more important than their marriage consumed his thoughts as he drove.

He was so preoccupied that he drove past his turn. He slammed his foot on the break pedal and backed his car before parking on the shoulder and crossing the road. A rusty chain chain stretched across the dirt track. He walked along the muddy ruts that led to a small trailer beside a stream. Simon was about to yell toward the trailer when he heard a rifle bolt slam shut behind him.

"That's far enough." The speaker was a man, older rather than younger, with a voice made raspy from smoking.

"We know him Doc." The second voice was younger and had a heavier Southern drawl. "He's Miss Airy-bella's feller."

"That doesn't mean that he's not here to kill us boy. Mister. Just put your hands on that tree. RJ you stay on your side of him and search his pockets."

Simon did as the voice bade him. "I've got a pistol in a shoulder holster," he told them.

"I got it Doc." Simon recognized the young man as one of the men that had found Arabella when they had been at Swoope.

"Didn't you guys used to live around Swoope?" Simon tried to get the voice with the rifle talking. No answer. "I'm trying to find Arabella. She caught an earlier convoy and I haven't been able to find her."

"So why'd you come here?" The voice didn't change position so Simon tried to twist around so that he could see the speaker. "I wouldn't move if I were you," the voice warned.

"Look I was told that a guy named Hank lived here. He knew Arabella and I wanted to ask him if he'd seen here. Are you Hank?"

"Turn around Mr. Woodsman." Simon turned to see a small older man with a patch covering one eye. The old man gestured toward the trailer with his rifle. "Hank's buried behind that big oak over there."

"I've got to find her." Simon pleaded with the man. "I've got to find someone, anyone that can help me find her."

The man looked at RJ and then at Simon. The muzzle of the rifle lowered as he considered the state of things. "C'mon up to the trailer. We'll tell you what we know."

Doc filled the hours until dinner with a confusing story of corruption, politics, and violence. Doc told Simon how he and his boys used to loot armories and warehouses under the protection of a motley band crew of Army deserters and bandits. Once the equipment and goods had been gathered up, Doc would meet Bobby. The politician would pay him and tell him where to take the trucks.

"It was easy money," the older man said. "Nuthin like stealing and killing like other folks were doing."

Slowly, Simon pieced together the picture of how Bobby Tyler had played everyone for his fool. Using people like Doc, Bobby had collected military hardware and then, using government connections, he had sold weapons to the highest bidder. In this case, the rebel Shoremen.

Simon gulped his drink and felt the cheap whiskey burn its way down his throat. Arabella was dead the minute Bobby's goons find her, he thought. Even if she doesn't know anything about how the weapons got to the Shoremen, she was proof that the rebels traveled freely throughout the state at the height of the rebellion.

Doc finished the story, a distant look on his face as he looked out the window. "Once Bobby had what he wanted, he started to clean up the loose ends." Doc tapped his eye patch. "Lost this in a little ambush outside Elkton. Same guys that used to ride shotgun with us pulled the ambush. Bel, Marcellus, all the boys. Dead." Doc took a large swallow of his drink, a tear rolled down his cheek from under the eye patch. "Just me and RJ made it out."

Composing himself, Doc said, "There are no hard feelings. It was just business."

Just thirty miles away as the crow flew; Felicia and Hooke came to visit their guest. Arabella watched warily from the bed as Felicia popped two little brown capsules into her mouth.

"Want some? It's Sin."

Arabella recognized the name of one of Granny's favorite club drugs. A powerful aphrodisiac. "No thanks."

"Try one Red," Hooke said as he threw himself into a chair. "We're celebrating."

Arabella rolled on to her side and tucked her knees under her chin. "What are you celebrating?"

"Heh, heh. Part of my job is soliciting donations for the cause. Today the mayor of the fair city of Waynesboro made a generous contribution. One that my employer will be most appreciative of."

Arabella felt herself start to get angry. "All that means is that you're a crook. You lie and steal and extort money from people."

"Only people that lied and cheated and stole to get the money in the first place," he said, mocking her. "And to celebrate, you're going to help fulfill one of Felicia's deep dark fantasies."

The blonde woman blushed furiously as she stood next to the bed. Felicia reached into her big shoulder bag and pulled out a leather harness and a 12 inch tan dildo. Without saying a word, she undressed.

"Arabella. I want to play." Felicia obscenely stroked her latex cock as she crawled on to the bed. "I want to fuck you."

A flush crept up Felicia's neck as the drugs that she'd swallowed started to take effect. Hooke pulled up a chair to watch while Felicia lengthened Arabella's chains.

Arabella sobbed and asked, "Why are you doing this to me?"

Felicia stroked Arabella's hair. "Sweetie, in this life you've got to choose sides or get caught in the middle. I've had nothing and I'm not going back there again."

"But Simon would have taken care of you."

Felicia, the high powered aphrodisiac racing through her system, kissed Arabella softly and cupped the redhead's smooth shaven mound.

"In this game, Simon's just a pawn like you and me. It's people like Bobby Tyler that are making the real moves."

Felicia had a sad look on her face as she sat astride Arabella's face. "Let's not talk about anything like that." The older woman reached between her legs and held her cunt lips apart. "Now be a good girl and eat me."

While talking with Doc, Simon recognized that Bobby was the real enemy. Bobby Tyler was a man who had twisted the system and become more powerful with each turn he took.

"But Doc," Simon asked, "how come, if you guys know so much, Bobby's left you alive?"

Doc put down his drink; a wry smile wrinkled his cheek. "For starters, he can't find us. We came up here to find Hank and ended up burying him. Figured we'd stay 'cause lighting don't strike twice and all that."

"That's it?" Simon was suspicious. Doc seemed to be a lot smarter than what he was putting on.

"That's it. The world's a big place to hide as long as you stay quiet and don't make yourself a target. There's been a guy running around town asking questions, but we don't get into town much. Do we RJ?" Doc swirled the ice in his drink, laughing silently.

"Mr. Woodsman, if I thought I could pull it off, I'd show the world what Mr. Bobby Tyler really was." Doc saw the puzzled look on Simon's face. "RJ. Pour the man another drink. We're going to watch a movie."

Doc placed a video disk in the small player. Settling back into his chair, he used a remote control to start the movie. The video was grainy and full of shadows but it was damning enough to put a death sentence on Bobby Tyler's head. The politician was easily identifiable, his trademark smile firmly fixed on his face, as he made deals for special military hardware.

"But Doc, I don't understand what Tyler got out of all this?" Simon started the video over at the beginning. "How were the rebels paying him? Anti-tank missiles for corn and sweet potatoes?"

Doc laughed and settled into his chair as if preparing to explain a simple fact to a child. "Bobby just wanted everyone's attention somewhere else while he built up his organization. Then, once he was ready, he jumped into the ring and made himself the peacemaker. He was going to negotiate a settlement with the rebels, win himself a Peace Prize, be the main man and all that shit. He'd a pulled it off too, but your General Manlius got trigger happy and stole the show."

"But the guys in the video..."

"The tall one was Paris Mawbry. The older man was his father." Doc shook his head sadly. "They were idealists. They thought Bobby would help them. I don't think they realized that they were being used until the very end."

"And now what?"

"They're dead and we hide like animals." Doc froze the picture on the screen. It was Bobby smoking a cigar and talking. "He's got the world by the balls and he knows it. In two weeks that little cocksucker will be Virginia's next senator."

"Unless someone sees these disks."

Doc's laugh sounded more like a cough. "And who's going to show them? The media's controlled by the government. The government's controlled by Tyler. Haven't you been listening? The man has built an organization specifically to protect himself from this kind of shit. You, me, RJ. Shit, we wouldn't last a day if we started letting folks know about these disks."

"But Doc." An idea started to gel in Simon's mind. He put down his drink and smiled broadly. "Doc, there's one man that can bring Bobby down."

"Who's that?"

"Major General Arthur Manlius. He's got Article 9. And he hates Bobby just as much as we do."

Simon paused to enjoy the shocked look on Doc's face slowly change to a smile as the realization of what Simon was proposing sank into the professor's face.

"RJ, pour the man another drink. Now Mr. Woodsman, how do we get these disks to your friend the General?"

Full of hope, Simon returned home after his meeting with Doc and RJ. Doc had been eager to help strike back at Bobby Tyler, but had insisted on keeping a copy of the disks for his "own piece of mind." Doc had agreed to meet him in the Greenville Market, the Freezone trading outside the city limits, and deliver the disks.

The next day Simon passed through the checkpoint and wandered the market admiring the stalls that lined the old mall. He was standing in front of a tailor shop when he felt a light touch on his elbow. It was Felicia.

"I'm glad I caught up with you," she said, her eyes constantly watching the crowd.

"How did you know I was here?"

"I'm friendly with some of the guards. They let me know when you passed through the checkpoint." She glanced around and steered him through the flow of people in the narrow lane. "Come with me. I can take you to Arabella."

"What? Where is she?" His heart raced at the prospect of finally finding his girlfriend.

"She's safe. She's with some friends at place outside of town. We can go there now."

Simon looked around for Doc. He needed those disks but he couldn't risk missing the chance to find Arabella. Spotting RJ through the crowd, Simon thought quickly.

"Felicia, meet me at the south entrance in five minutes."

She nodded her head and disappeared into the crowd. Simon slid through the knots of people toward where he'd seen RJ. He looked around and finally spotted Doc sitting at a small cafe table.