Chapter 1

I woke up that morning as usual. It was early, I always woke up early. I can never sleep in like most people.

As always, I didn’t move at first, I just listened to the dark.

There were the warning sounds I’d been hearing for a week or more. Whirring in the distance, the crunch of heavy ordinance too far away to be sure of, the gentle popping of remote small arms fire.

I knew none of those things were real. It was all in my head, the remnants of post traumatic stress disorder, still with me 20 years after my Iraq tour.

I had been spared the sounds for more than a decade, and I wasn’t happy to have them back. I rose and made coffee, looking through my widow as the sky lightened in the east with the gloomy light of dawn.

I still kept the pills my shrink had prescribed to help me keep myself calm. I didn’t like to take them, but I knew I had to calm my nerves or I might end up in trouble of some kind again. I had learned several ways to chill myself out over the years, but they didn’t seem to be enough right now.

I poured two cups of coffee, one for myself and one for Sherry next door.

I stepped through the crisp dawn air to her door and opened it with my key. Silently, I slipped into her bedroom, locking the door behind me.

She was lovely in her sleep, her dark hair strewn over the white bedding, breathing easily in the way of those who have never feared for their lives.

I put a hand on her naked shoulder. “Good morning.” I said.

“What time is it?” she groaned.

“Coffee time.” I said.

She rolled over and looked up at me. “Fuck, Hank! It’s the middle of the night!”

I sat on the edge of her bed and gave her a cup. She accepted it resentfully.

“How was your date?” I asked.

“Nice.” She said.

I’d baby sat for her little boy the night before so that she could go out with some guy from her work. She’d come in pretty late, but I’d watched her give him a kiss and send him home.

“Just nice?” I prompted.

“What, are you jealous?” She asked.

“Of course. But that doesn’t mean I don’t hope the best for you sweetheart.” I began to pull off my clothes.

“Hank, I’m feeling a bit woozy this morning.”

“You’ll feel better in a minute.”

“I have to make Freddy’s breakfast and get him ready for school.”

“He can sleep for another hour. I’ll make us all breakfast later.” I said, getting into bed with her.

“Hank, I’m seeing someone now.” She said.

“You haven’t slept with him yet have you?”

“No, but...”

“I need you this morning, Sherry.” I told her as I sidled up against her.

She sighed and surrendered. It was our little arrangement; I picked up Freddy for her when she had to work late, made the odd meal for him or them both, ran some errands. I had a lot of free time, I didn’t mind. I liked the boy, we had fun together. Sherry knew I had certain needs, which she generally enjoyed fulfilling for me.

She was a big woman, not fat, but big. Tall and big boned, big breasted, strong. She was 28, half my age. A single working mother who lived in one of my rental cottages. I liked her.

She put her arms around me, and we grappled in a hot sweet embrace. It felt good, very good to feel her young strong body against me, her lips on my mouth, her half full breasts against my chest, and her hand on my stiffening dick.

“Damn, you’re one horny nigger.” She laughed as she pulled on my manhood.

Sherry was a Baptist girl from Alabama. There’s something about her deep south accent when she calls me “Nigga” that makes me wild to fuck her sweet white brains out.

She worked for the big hospital up the road. All my tenants did; the hospital was the only employment in the area that paid more than minimum wage.

She wasn’t very beautiful; she kept her dark hair cut short, her teeth were a bit crooked. But she was a fine woman, and we got on great in bed and out.

We kissed and fondled for a while, getting into it, making each other horny. I loved kissing Sherry; she was always hesitant at first, but within a minute she’d be as hot as I was, responding instinctively, her fingers on my cock stimulating me exquisitely.

It wasn’t the fucking I needed as much as the affection; the distraction from my inner angst as my brain focused on her instead, on her acceptance of me, her pleasure at my touch.

After a while, Sherry spread her long legs and I climbed aboard, fitting my cock into her familiar frame. That felt pretty good too, I have to admit. The sounds were gone, my mind was easing as my cock was tensing. I’m a big boy, but Sherry was accustomed to taking me. I kissed her and lay on top of her for a moment before starting.

I had gotten into a lot of trouble when I first got discharged. There was fire in my brain, I had seen things no man should see, I’d looked men in the eyes and killed them.

I got into fights, I got thrown into jail more than once.

But after a while, and a lot of therapy, I learned to control myself. I gave up alcohol, and at the first signs of trouble, I could take some antipsychotic drugs, or later, just meditate. But sex worked best for me; if it was available.

I fucked Sherry hard, my big black penis ramming deep into her with a steady even beat. I held her tightly, gripping her long white body with the power of my need for her.

My young fuck friend bucked below me, gasping with the impacts, grabbing my black ass in return.

“Gawd damn, Hank!” She gasped, “What are ya tryin’ ta do ta me?”

She was just what I needed; Sherry worked out regularly, her strapping young frame was in top shape, and I didn’t have to worry about injuring her muscular body as I gave it to her like the madman that, just below the surface, I am.

I felt my head cooling as my body warmed, the cogs of madness slowing to a halt as the gears of sex spun faster. Sex was good; safe. As if my body drained the blood from my head to fill my cock, relieving the pressure in my skull.

She screamed in orgasm, but I wasn’t through yet. No, not yet.

I wasn’t wealthy you understand; the payments on my property were only a little less than the income. I’d kept building, because I had to do something to keep myself busy. By the time I was through, I was in hock up to my neck and the land my daddy had left me was covered in houses. I couldn’t work with people; alone, I was ok. There was no one to argue with, I was safe, I could keep myself calm and stay out of trouble.

Sherry grunted and moaned, coming for the third or fourth time.

She was beautiful when she came; the weird expressions that crossed her face, the pleasure, the passion. I really liked doing it with Sherry, but I knew we could never live together or anything like that. Aside from the age thing, she was still close with her family, and she could never let them know she was having relations with a colored man.

I’d had enough; I was still humping on the outside, but I was at peace on the inside.

I released myself into her. She liked that, feeling my seed invade her. Probably something to do with her rejection of her racist roots.

Ah, that was good; my ejaculation, her acceptance of my fluid, her legs around my ass and her big brown eyes in my heart.

“Do you like this new guy?” I asked a little later, as I got up to go get Freddy out of bed and make the breakfast I’d promised.

“Yeah.” She said; “I guess we should stop meeting like this.”

I nodded. We both knew that we were never going to be a couple, we were just helping each other out with a few issues.

I crept through the woods above the road. Looking down at the kids as they walked together to the bus stop. They were all my tenants, my charges. They didn’t know I was there; I would have been hard to see. I’ve had training in this.

There was Freddy, short and blond; the two Sharma kids, brown with jet black hair. Gertie from number 3 and little Susan from number 2. I waited on the ridge above them, stock still in the cold morning, listening to their happy oblivious jabbering until the bus came to take them.

I could hear the sounds again, faint in the distance. Something was wrong, there was danger somewhere.

Later, I would be in the same spot as the same bus dropped the kids off. I would watch them until they were safe indoors.

I’m nuts ok, I know that; but that doesn’t mean I’m not right. Just because you’re paranoid, it doesn’t mean they aren’t after you.

I reencountered the area, slipping through the woods back along the road to the cottages. I walked around my property in a large circle, staying out of the civilized clearing with the neat lawns; looking for any signs in the forest that surrounded my territory. Then I checked the lawns, flowerbeds, and finally the parking area for unfamiliar tire tracks. I didn’t expect to find anything, but checking would make me feel that I’d done what I could.

I was just finishing with all of this around eleven, when Francine came home; she was on night shift.

“What are you up to cowboy?” she asked as she got out of her car.

“Just checking the drainage.” I said. “How are things up at the big house?” That was one of our pet names for the hospital.

“Aggravating. I’m there to get some research done, not to spend all my time bogged down in paperwork. So what are you up to? Want to come in for lunch?”

Francine was a hot little Jewish woman from Now York. When she invited me to come in for lunch, I knew she meant did I want to come in her, and forget lunch.

She wasn’t as young as Sherry, but she was sexier I guess. Five foot two, petite figure and flame red curly hair, she was a thirty five year old mother of two. She was wearing a tight green dress, her customary high heels, and glasses.

Thirty five might seem over the hill to some who read this, but she was a kid to me; and as I said, she was hot.

“Sure. Lunch, great. I said.

I don’t want you to think it was normal for me to get laid twice a day or anything; but it happened sometimes.

Francine lived opposite Sherry’s place and mine, next door to the Sharmas. I didn’t like her much, sometimes I nearly hated her. Francine was a loud, bitchy, argumentative woman who thought she knew everything better. That she was usually right didn’t help at all.

She was a vegetarian, the kind that loved to berate carnivores like myself. Especially when I’d shoot the rabbits that ate my garden.

“Take those boots off before you come in the house.” She said as we neared the door. “My landlord will be pissed if the floor gets scratched up.”

What she was really thinking about was scratching up the landlord, not the floor.

Franny had a tight little ass that called out to me through her tight dress; “Put it right here baby, between these tight buns.” It said amiably “You know you want to.” I took off my boots and jacket as Franny shook her hair out with a toss of her head.

But I’m getting sidetracked here, because this story wasn’t supposed to be about my affairs with Sherry and Francine.

What I really want to write about were my feelings for Kamila Sharma. I was in love with her from early on. There was nothing sexual between us, she was happily married with two children. I’m sure she had no idea of my feelings.

I loved her husband too, like a brother. And the kids, they were as sharp as whips; I like smart kids.

The Sharmas both worked at the Hospital, he was a neurologist and she was a radiologist. But they invited me, a weird old cantankerous black local, into their home. They befriended me, we had laughs and barbeques. I was always impressed with the warmth they all had for each other, the way the parents and kids talked and laughed with each other. When they had relatives visit from India, they always introduced me as their friend first, landlord second.

And then, a year before this narrative begins, Rajesh had died of cancer; struck down in his prime; he was just 40 years old.

I cried at the funeral, more for Kamila and the kids than for myself. They were such a beautiful family, why did it have to happen to them? It wasn’t right.

Perhaps I cried because it reminded me of the families I must have ruined when I killed the men I shot in battle, or the family I’d had as a boy. I had been very close to my dad too, but he’d died when I was young.

I did everything I could for them, which wasn’t very much. But I talked to the kids a lot; I could relate to them, to their pain. They trusted me, and that made me proud. I’d spent a lot of time in therapy myself, and as I said I’d lost my own dad as a child. I would have given up both Francine and Sherry in a minute if I’d thought I had a ghost of a chance with Kamila.