Chapter 12: Sons of The Gestapo

October 8th, 1995, 10:30 AM CT, Mile 1672, 22 miles east of Alpine, TX

Akilah was the first one to wake up, but her motions were enough to wake Josh up, too. The two of them stared at George and Jill. They had not closed the connecting door overnight, and they stared right at them, Jill laying naked on top of George with a contented little smile on her face. They must have kicked the covers up overnight; nothing was protecting them visually from the other couple.

Akilah, also naked, walked over to Jill and shook her gently. Jill’s eyes slowly fluttered open. Jill was irritated at being woken up, that was for sure, but she managed to hide it. There are very few things in the world that irritated Jill, the two biggest being idiots and being woken up. She decided to teach Akilah a little lesson on waking people up, especially while you are naked.

She reached out with her hand and started rubbing Akilah’s mound. It was gentle and sensuous, not particularly invasive, and was intended mostly as a joke. “Mmm, pretty pussy,” she said, pretending to be in a half asleep state, then slowly moving her head towards it and sticking out her tongue.

Akilah jumped back and then tripped on the bed and flopped back onto the bed, spreading her legs as she fell, exposing herself quite thoroughly in the process. The expression on her face was priceless as that happened.

Jill tried to contain her laughter, but couldn’t. It woke George up and soon all of them were laughing their heads off as Jill tried, choked by constantly renewed laughter, to explain what happened. Eventually, even Akilah was laughing. The truth was that both George and Jill were using their mirth to hide how turned on they were by the sight. What they didn’t realize was that Josh and Akilah were also trying to hide that, too.

What bugged Akilah was not that she hated it, so much as how much it had turned her on.

Oh well, she thought, it’s not like anything would ever become of it.

Soon they were all awake and dressed, with Josh and Jill attempting to shower in the two bathrooms, and George, being more experienced, showering in the shower downstairs. When George came back, they were all laughing about how tiny it was and how much they got bounced around during the process of trying to shower. Which is why George chose to shower in the larger shower in the lower level of the car.

George yanked the band off his Rolex Submariner and thoroughly soaped and cleaned the black and grey striped nylon NATO strap, which had gotten a little funky since the last time he cleaned it. He then threaded it back onto the watch, running the strap through the two spring bars, pulling it to the end of the seam, and threading it through the loop at the other end of the band. He then put the watch back on, threading the strap through the buckle, both band loops, and flipping the remaining end over and threading it through the first loop again.

He always felt a bit like James Bond when he saw the watch being on that strap. In the books James Bond wore a black faced Rolex Oyster with glow in the dark numbers and an expanding Oyster bracelet. When Flemming wrote the book, the Submariner hadn’t even come out yet, and the standard Oyster was the last word in waterproof watches you could wear regularly. However, in the early movies, Bond wore a Submariner 5135, with a non-Chronometer automatic movement, no date, and on a NATO nylon strap. That was exactly what he was wearing. His dad gave it to him a couple of months ago, it had originally been his.

Anyway, it was a reliable and accurate wristwatch and he liked being confident that when he looked at it, it was within about 15 seconds of the actual time. So he was completely shocked to all heck when he looked at the watch and saw that it was already almost noon. He had asked Mitch to wake them up, and he was very surprised that he hadn’t. He wondered if something was really wrong with him.

With his eye bulge, Jill looked at the watch he had given her a while back, an Omega Genéve automatic with a gold plated case and a brown face of mid-70’s vintage. It was sized more for her wrist than the larger Rolex, it was relatively cheap- $75, and it kept nearly as good time as George’s Rolex, being equipped with Omega’s in-house 1020 automatic calibre, which was every bit as accurate and capable as the contemporary Rolex 2035. For some reason, older Omega’s had not reached the same level of collectable value as older Rolex watches.

Josh saw both of their expressions and looked at his Swiss Army Watch and noticed that the time said 9:25. Then he noticed that the second hand wasn’t moving. This bothered him, although he didn’t remember ever changing the battery in it.

“Uh, what time is it?” he asked, “My watch battery died ... or yawhs too, or what?” He contemplated for a crazy moment the concept of EMP.

“Our watches don’t have batteries,” George told him, “They are mechanical and wound by wrist movement. Forget about it, for now. I have a watch I don’t wear anymore I can give you when we get to LA.”

“I really like havin’ a stopwatch,” Josh said.

“Yeah, I noticed you like that feature. What I have is a Poljot chronograph from the late 1980’s, you’ll just have to get into the habit of winding it once a day. It’s insanely accurate, I just own a lot of watches.”

“Pahl-yoht?” Josh asked, “I’ve nevuh heard of a Pahl-yoht watch. Where is it built? Germany, or what?

It’s an old Soviet watch,” George explained, “It was made in Moscow, Russia. Not particularly pretty or well finished, but it’s built like a Russian tank, keeps great time, and works well. Typical overbuilt Russian product. It’s spelled P-o-l-j-o-t, because the first company to market it in the west was German.”

“Yuh sure own a bunch of strange tings,” Josh said, “doesn’t he, Acky?”

“Yes,” Akilah replied, “A lot of things that are strange.”

“Anyway,” Jill said, “I’m starving, and it’s nearly noon. Let’s go to the lounge car and get something to eat.”

When they got to the Cafe, they each ordered some form of breakfast sandwich, except for Akilah who ordered a danish. They all had brought coffee with them from the sleeping car since it was free there. It was the same coffee, so buying in the Cafe car made very little sense. George’s dad might be rich, but he didn’t get that way by wasting money, and he had taught George that concept at a pretty young age.

All the tables were taken on the upper deck, but not in the lounge, so they went in there. Seated in the lounge was the Roberts family and Miguel, also enjoying their late over-slept breakfast.

“Hi,” said George with a smile.

Sharon and Miguel both looked at the group and noticed they were an interesting mix. The greeting man with the Van Dyke beard looked like a bit of a nutter, the other guy looked like a pure nerd. So did the brown-skinned girl with the dark brown hair. In fact, they looked distinctly like a couple. A strange couple, given their obviously different races.

The odd one out was the shortish girl with the curly blonde hair. She looked younger and didn’t look like she belonged with a group of people in their late teens or early twenties. She had a very nice and pleasant smile, and looked surprisingly happy and mirthful.

“My name’s George,” said George, “The nerdy guy over here is Josh,” indicating the other guy, “The nerdy girl is his fiancé, Akilah,” Akilah gave him a dirty look, “And the tomboy is Jill, my best friend.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Miguel said, extending his hand which was duly shaken, “I’m Miguel, this is my ... friend, Sharon, and the rest of these people are her children.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, too,” Sharon said.

“So, do you go all the way?” George said.

“What?” Miguel asked.

“Yes,” Sharon said.

“Huh?”

“It’s a line from an old movie, Silver Streak,” Sharon laughed, “He wanted to know if we are headed to Los Angeles.”

“Oh.”

Jessica got up and smiled at Jill.

“Hi, I’m Jessica,” she said.

“I’m Jillian, but call me Jill,” Jill told her, “How old are you?”

“Fourteen.”

“Oh, awesome, me too!” she exclaimed.

They sat together on one bench of a booth, and George rolled his eyes. He didn’t know exactly why Jill was acting like a stereotypical teenage girl for once, but he would accept life’s rich pageant as it came to him. He trusted her instincts almost implicitly, so if she liked somebody, there was probably a very good reason for it. Besides, she didn’t really have many friends; all of them were in this Superliner, actually.

George sat across from Sharon and Miguel, and Josh sat next to Akilah, and across from James. After a little while, Jessica got up and went to the bathroom.

“So, how come you have a fourteen year old girl as your be-” Sharon bit off her sentence when she saw the expression on George’s face, “Ok, there is more to it than that.”

Jill heard her, and George and Jill made the mistake of exchanging looks, the way all kinds of couples who are very close do. Really close people can communicate just with their eyes and faces, as if they can read faces. The way they acted together actually suggested they were lovers. Also the nature of their shared expression was telling; it was bemused yet a little scared. What else would they have to be scared of?

“Ok, you two have some explaining to do,” Sharon said, her motherly hausfrau nature coming in to play.

“Fine, but it’s a long story,” George said.

“I’ve got time; how many hours is it to LA?”

“Ok, Ok,” George said.

“My parents were killed in a car accident four years ago,” Jill started.

“And that gives you permission to-”

“Hold on,” George interrupted, “Look, we’ll give you the story, the whole story, in pure honesty because you apparently know the what, and the story should help you understand the why, but if you want to know, you have to listen without interruption, ok? If you keep interrupting you will probably miss the key points, and you’ll just keep having the wrong idea.”

“Alright,” Miguel quickly answered for her, then nudged her until she nodded. He knew she was quick to judge what she thought was women being taken advantage of; he understood why, but suspected that this couple was not an example of it. All four of them looked too damned happy for that to be the case.

“Their will was woefully inadequate; worse, my Uncle Justin was the executor, and my Aunt Krista was crooked as a corkscrew. It was supposed to provide for me in the event of their death, but it didn’t specify who I would stay with, and it didn’t specify how much salary they could take,” Jill explained, “In fact, my parents made the mistake of assuming that they would self-regulate the whole situation fairly.”

“So the court decided she’d be rotated among her relatives,” George continued, “But her relatives were greedy and took a lot more in ‘salary’ than they paid out in taking care of her. I knew all of this from the story she told me when I met her, but by the time we were done unraveling that mess with a private investigator and an accountant, what we came up with was truly breathtaking.”

“That still doesn’t-”

“Sharon, hear them out,” Miguel said softly, “That’s what we agreed to, isn’t it?”

“You’re right,” Sharon said bashfully, “I’m sorry.”

“An uncle of mine that I got rotated with is a sexual pervert,” Jill said, “He played with me, he touched me, he eventually had sex with me, and reached the point where he even started bondage and sadism. I was living in mortal terror every day, he was absolutely crazy and I didn’t know if his sadistic fantasies would become snuff fantasies. He was really unstable, in more than a few ways.”

“Christ,” Sharon said, “That- I’m sorry, please continue.”

“The rest of the time, I was with another aunt and uncle,” Jill continued, “Who didn’t care about me much, but at least they didn’t physically abuse me. They did rob the estate blind, though. We were riding on the Broadway Limited to Chicago so that she could turn me back over to the sexually perverted uncle. In the dining car on that train is where I met George. He is the sweetest, most caring, and most respectful person I have ever met.”

“Even tho-”

“Sharon, if you want to know the details, stop interrupting!” Miguel told her.

“You’re right,” Sharon said, “I’m too much of a busybody. Please continue, this story is fascinating.”

“She told me about what was going on. Her aunt and uncle left her with me so that they could enjoy some time alone in the lounge car. So we went back to my room and sometime in there, we fell in love,” George remembered, “It was fast. I didn’t know it could happen like that; I’d had relationships before, but I had never been in love before. It was ... powerful.”

“It can be,” Sharon said, “It can also make you do really stupid things and not think very well.”