Chapter 1

His scent ... I can still smell it in the coffee. I thought this was over. Done and finished with to be no more once again. But these were his final words to me before I went far away from where he could follow and track me. With a staid and heavily serious expression, he looked into my vigilant and alert damn eyes to tell me the harsh and cruel-like words themselves:

"You think you can succeed to get away from me. The honest truth is that you can barely triumph to do anything like that. I will be there with you wherever it is that you run off to. I will haunt you always and without any slight bit of fail. You will not live to see the joy and happiness of life itself. I swear on this. You will not ever enjoy life and all the goodly qualities that it boasts and possesses!"

I am all alone. Everyone has already gone by this time. I am seated still and fixed frozen and motionless here, typing and resolving out a few things that Turner will want to see finished and carried through by the dawn of tomorrow coming, Tuesday--7 April 2020 that is. Well, I should finish this up quickly and get on going my way. I probably and definitely should. I am not dragging any helplessly tired foot out of this office up till I am through and ended with the present task at hand here.

It is sharply cold and chilly outside here. Midtown Las Vegas, Nevada State. Damn it! I forgot to carry and bring my coat with me here for work. And now I will have to suffer and pay for that silly damn mistake of mine. Crap it straight into the bin. I have no other alternative than to pull through the whole nasty and excruciating ordeal. As I make my way through the restless people, I wonder what it will be like if I were to meet Charles anew. He is the monster ... he has always been the monster, who won't rest until he has devoured and consumed me up into nothingness. Oh God! Does it have to turn out like this yet again? Huh?

I expect to find some cabs here at the Trill Manor Junction Square. Rather, I see and sight absolutely nothing at all. What does this have to mean then? It is either I take a tramcar or maybe a public train straight damn to my apartment. Schroeder must be waiting. Hard; restless; like a bee that has not yet come across that valuable and precious something that it is searching and scouring for. I wonder why she still hasn't called me up already ... I only wonder ... I ring her up instead.

"Hey. You have been expecting me to show up there, haven't you, sweet chocolate babe?"

"No. And I wouldn't miss you if you slept out there in the cold or in whatever damn shack it is that you feel like taking a nap in."

"Sorry to disappoint you. I am actually on my way there."

"Alone?"

"Yes, I am all alone. I got from the office quite a little bit late than normal and acceptable. I thought you were supposed to process and read that on your own, or were not you, sweet babe?"

"No problem, Tori. I will be waiting for you. Safe journey on your part!"

I make it late to the rail station. I am expecting that they have closed by now. I will have no choice but to get on a public bus. Three hours of walking? I can't bear that anymore. I have gone on foot enough already this early morning. It is now night, and somebody with a sick and wicked mind that I don't know might attack and assault me for no any sound or sane reason at all. I have heard enough of such horror stories already. And I don't want to be on another episode of The Tragic Most Things That Might Happen To You At Night Time with Brody Cooper interviewing and interrogating me throughout the whole painful and agonizing recalling-up ordeal of mine. Duh—huh!

It is twenty minutes now since I have been last walking on the street alone there. I am perched and stooled down at some Rail Depot—I forgot to call up and even swat up its name. This shouldn't be terrible though. What matters is that I get home—straight into Courtney's loving and supportive arms and hug and tell her what the hell I've been exactly through and for what purposes precisely. Yeah ... yeah! Enough of this silly brain talk for now!

The tramcar is moving slowly and bit by bit. I feel like I should kick and smash its windows up for eating and chewing up my time very slowly and annoyingly before my very own face and eyes. Yeah! Even yell and shout out at the driver like I am the hornet of a big, awful train itself. What is he even thinking? Wait a second! Has not he been drinking too much liquor—huh?

There is a couple seated right there in front of me, chatting and smiling and laughing to themselves. How do I know they are apparently wed and jingled-the-bell-up? Well, the way the are postured and positioned in the face of the other ... it is all so obvious and evident. If that's not truthfully so, maybe one of them is preferably married, possibly the man who looks very much older and senior than the poor girl my own exact age. Hmnnnn. She is going out with my grandpa, right? Bad choice on her part! It is not that I envy and feel jealous for her. I just don't. I solely question if he really and to the fullest brim makes her intensely and incredibly happy.

What about you yourself, Tori? My conscious asks and conjectures me. Me? I am happy and very much free with the way I am presently. Okay. This is my plan for now. First work hard and diligently in life. Then after that find someone worth your whole attention to marry and settle down with. Maybe I should do the actual opposite. Like throw myself into the big pool of love before I get ugly and dispeacable and then seek my life and goals and desires later on? No way. It would be torture to me, I swear. I just what to get what I want to nab first, and then nab and hold on to other things later on.

Back in the Cape, so many people who knew me were every time wondering why I never became jealous at all if they happened to be paired into strings and groupings of two that romantic and affectionate way. My dreams come first just like my precious damn life itself. I don't want anything to get in my way. Unfortunately and very much sadly, a lot way more things than I thought possible have harassed and badgered me up. But this has not stopped me from fighting and contending to be where I want to get myself to. Love careless sometimes can ruin up your entire building of life and priceless wishes. Better keep it in watch and safeguard than regret it later on. Okay, I could have stayed with Charles or Pearly, and made them both wildly happy and in seventh heaven ... all at the expense of risking what I have long worked for and wanted to have in life? Hell no! I was faced with a choice. I had to choose between them and my coming self. And I went on for the later. Like they say, no sacrifice comes without any sort of painful cost. I had to suffer some things just to lose them and thereafter in the end score the ball into the goal post and triumph furiously. I hope I don't have to come to this scenario again.

Finally, I am a few bearable steps away from home. As I walk in the breezing and fanning cold, I am thinking of what else I have to do with my coming spare time. Yes. I can be sort of a careless and unthinking alcoholic most frequently of the times. But then there are those precise times that a thoroughly tired and to the inch dead beat exhausted lazy me do not do any sort of tad bit mite work. I am thinking. What better way than to fall in love now? Yes, it would be all wonderful and beautifully great indeed. I mean ... I am good-looking and socially standard and average in character and deeds. It would be not be that much hard to find love here and any goodly shoulder that I can lean and brace myself on. Stop it, Tori. Don't think about love ... it will just come to you on an unexpected moment, and you better just keep your heart open and highly willing to receive it.

At times I do feel that I am left out and lagging behind in this whole love thing. But then I hardly and barely am not. My heart and instincts tell me so. If I die young and beautiful without ever deeply and heavily falling in love then that will be it. If I do, the excellent and better still! Dying young again? It can easily happen ... it has taken place so many times with so many people after all.

When I push the door open, I see Courtney perched and seated down there on the mammoth brown couch where she is typing up and surfing something on the net on her laptop. What? A dating site? She is dating Gavin now and they both met on some dating website online. Of course! Things don't have to end online there. They have met and hanged out with each other a couple row times now.

"Chatting with Gavin?" I ask her coolly and steadily as I close the door behind me.

"Kind of," she replies calmly and sedately. "He is as of now in some night club with his guy friends. I wonder what manners and mentalities they are etching up into his proud mind. And I hope it doesn't affect and touch me afterwards on, or will it, Tori?"

"You know how guys are like. You can't restrain them from what they want to be—or can you?"

"You are right there, sweet buddy."

"Good. What is there to eat for supper if I may ask?"

"Am I your cook?" She gives me that go-find-out-in-the-kitchen-for-yourself look that is a bit impolite and bitter to some marginal extent. Fuck her for it! Jeez! This girl and her bossy behavior! It drives me nuts and crackers like I am going to choke and throttle her up direct on the throat. Seriously!

Our kitchen is sizeable but not so big again, neither is it that all inconsiderably and helplessly small either. No, it is perfectly not. It is well and nicely kept. And all so magically and beautifully clean. If you see it, you will be like, "This certainly has to be polished up for some perfect GO-SPOTLESS advert." Courtney and I always like it this trim and immaculate sort of.

What must I eat for tonight, huh? A cup of yoghurt will do, with boiled eggs and Italian Pane Siciliano bread and the Chinese Keanu Reaves chicken salads and a bit slice of Berwick—or is it Bacon sandwich? Whichever name is suitable. This is what I want to gobble and guzzle up for tonight. Seriously; dummy!

Once in the living room, I seat and entrench myself right next to Courtney. She is there on her laptop, busy typing and scribbling something up. "So what is going on here if I may ask—pardon me, girl, but I have to be snoopy and dowdy with you just this once more time around?"

Her eyes wander to me and then stray off back to her huge laptop screen. "It is just that ... I am telling him not to misbehave and annoy me up. If he does, I won't forgive or let him off for it."

My God! This woman here with her long flowing red hair is extremely beautiful. I, on the contrary, have long cascading chestnut brown hair and dark goldish skin and sparkling amber-like eyes. Yes. I am from Western Cape in South Africa and my name is Tori Wolf. Before I moved my way here, I was back there in the tip and farthest off south of Africa, trifling and messing around with Charles Berlusconi. The only thing I want right now is to have him kicked and booted mercilessly out of my heart and life itself. He has no rightful and deserving place here. Screw him for that!

"And you? You are still thinking about Charles Berlusconi right?"

My God! It is slightly a little bit painful to accept that I would devote my priceless and golden moments over just fantasizing and drooling about him. Well, this is not the actual and verifiable truth. I once loved him. So very much indeed; but not anymore! I can't escape him now. He is part of my history and gone life itself. And I have to live with him in my heart without loving him up till the day that I breathe my last in this small sick little world of ours. It is the same on his part too. The guy is this dazzlingly beautiful, and you don't always get around to see his drop-dead type anyhow, and he has lots and lots more of girls or even less or just one like he wants to. I have literature.com and Hollywood celeb gossip-up life myself. Yes. I am so much interested and absorbed in Hollywood and its glamorous celebrities. I do work for some Paparazzi agency here in Las Vegas part time. I lost Charles. He lost me. We both lost each other, but the beautiful truth is that I would never be more happier than I am now if I were with him.

He has got another totally different life from mine. He wants to be a Pastor, I dare hear. He wants to be The Ladies' Best Man, I dare unravel. I want to embrace and love Hollywood. There is no way we can fit in together like this. I will want to write and scrawl all latest celebrity articles, and he will be just there, telling me I should rather stop my nonsense and sing for him 'Amazing Grace' continually. I will want to fan and follow my favorite stars, and he will be ever looking upon them and their achievements to be nothing other than the works and master-crack-pieces and organizations of the Great Illuminati itself. I will be a wicked remediless devil before his very eyes and face. I just don't mean to say that I cannot be spiritual and very much godly focused. I can be! But we will and shall evermore be very different in deeds and tastes. I want to eat the Bologna sandwich. He wants hell-names-what inexistent sandwich.

"I am not thinking about Charles Berlusconi, Courtney. Or maybe you want me to start drooling and falling madly in love with him all over again?"

"No, Tori. I didn't say that."

"Then don't make me think about him another time. Or if you dare do, know that he is not the most important thing that matters to me in my life right now. You hear that, chocolate girl?"

"Sure, candy sexy Tori."

"Thanks by the way. Who told you I am hot damn candy sexy?"

"Don't talk as if I don't get around to see you strutting about naked on your way to the Jacuzzi. You have a so hot body just like mine that you should let it be enjoyed and relished by dudes."