Chapter 3

The rain wasn't pouring down in sheets. It drizzled, had been drizzling since before I woke earlier. Just what the spring plants in the desert need, I thought as I pulled the car into the garage after my workout with Sifu. Colleen had called it. I had a new friend. Would I have another after our visit to the shooting range?

I pressed my finger on the door lock from the garage into the utility room and stepped into the house. Additional security and locking devices were included along with pots and pans and other accessories when we stocked our new home. Fingerprint door locks improved security and created ease of access (no need to carry a house key). I also installed intrusion alarms and mounted some fake video cameras in the eaves easily seen by any would-be burglar. Weak, I know, but available cash limited my security purchases.

Colleen was busy in the kitchen. I interrupted her with a kiss. She kissed me back and said, "Will sparring with Sifu replace our morning runs?"

"How about running in the evenings instead?"

"Okay, I'll change..."

"Whoa! Sweet thing, you don't need to change your schedule to fit mine."

"Sure I do. I'll practice shooting while you're sparring, which I'd prefer anyway."

"Oh, okay."

"Did you spar with cudgels again?"

"No, sabers."

She looked frightened. "Real swords? You used real swords?"

"Sure. Tomorrow morning, we'll spar with broadswords and then spears the day after, which leaves Friday mornings open, the weekends, too, so if you'd like to run those mornings, rather than evenings, say so. Your choice."

"All right." He could get hurt sparring with swords and spears.

"I suppose that's possible," I said, responding verbally to her silent statement, "but with sparring pads and Sifu's skill, that's not likely."

He's in my mind.

"Yes, a habit. If you wish, I'll connect with you only after you give me permission." To give her back her mental privacy, I'd been prepared to concede this point last night, but the subject hadn't come up.

There will be times...

"Let's do this," she said. "Instead of you asking permission, how about let's say it's all right to... ah, connect with me anytime unless I ask for some privacy?" Like when I get the urge to mastur... "Oops." She blushed deeply. "You heard that, didn't you?"

I laughed heartily. "Yep."

"Have you listened to my thoughts while I've been touching myself?"

"Yep."

"How? I only masturbate when I'm alone in the house."

I grinned. "I connected with you briefly from the kwoon this morning - to check on you, to make sure you were all right. I do that all the time. I can be anywhere and still connect with you, Colleen."

"Wow. How far away... ?"

I explained the distance limitations for first-time connections and added, "But once I've imprinted a mental signature in my mind, I don't' believe distance is relevant. For instance, I can connect with Doc Birch in Las Vegas and Cortez in Tucson whenever I wish."

That's amazing!

She asked, "Can you communicate silently with another mind?"

I frowned. "You mean speak to you with my mind instead of just listening to yours?"

"Yes."

"I don't know. I've never tried. Other than Sifu, you're the only person who knows about my telepathy."

"Well, try, doofus," she said with a smirk.

I love you, I thought. "Did you hear that?" I asked.

"Nope."

I concentrated and tried again. Nothing. Then I tried just one word. That didn't work any better than mental screaming, which was my next try.

"Shucks," she said. "It would've been great to have a conversation with you whenever we're apart or, for that matter, when we're together and don't want others to hear us."

"Yeah," I said with a chuckle. "We'd also save money on our cell phone bills."

We'd drifted into the living room; or rather, I'd followed Colleen into the room.

"That, too. You're not upset that I still masturbate?"

"No."

"Do you?"

"Rarely, but yes."

"I fantasize when I masturbate."

"I know."

"I wouldn't actually do most of the things I fantasize about."

"I know that, too."

"Do my fantasies make you hot?" She slipped the robe off her shoulders and rubbed the palms of her hands over her nipples.

"Yes," I said, "some of them, most of them."

"They make me hot, too. That's why I explore them in my mind."

Sit on that chair across from me, she said silently as she settled onto the sofa. After I sat down, she said, I want to see you while I play with myself and fantasize, see your expressions, your reactions to my thoughts.

I nodded. A test, I figured, to see what turned me on or off, that and to make sure I wasn't upset about her masturbating habit.

She raised her feet to the sofa and dropped her knees to each side, exposing her cunt to my view.

Obscene, huh?

"No, beautiful," I said.

As you know, my fantasies can be obscene.

"Sexy, yes. Obscene, no."

Sexy obscene.

Her fingers spread her labia, and she dipped one inside her.

A friend, the daughter of another whore, taught me how to masturbate. I was ten years old; she was thirteen.

Two fingers rubbed slowly back and forth over her clitoral shaft.

I was hard - and uncomfortable. "May I join you?" I asked.

Do you mean masturbate with me?

"Yes."

Knock yourself out, but stay in that chair.

She watched me kick off my pants and wrap my hand around my cock. Sexy. Jack it off, cowboy. Jack that big cock off. Her eyes moved from my erection to my face. I usually use dirty words in my mind.

"I noticed."

The fingers on her cunt moved faster, occasionally dipping inside to retrieve more moisture.

I was telling you about Kathy, the girl who showed me how to get myself off. She didn't just show me. She finger-fucked me, and she taught me how to finger-fuck her, and it wasn't long before she had her face between my legs. I liked that. I liked it a lot, so I went down on her. Fair's fair, after all.

We had sex once or twice a day for about six months, maybe a little longer, and then her mother was arrested, and the authorities put Kathy in a foster home. I never saw her again. I told you about her not only because I fantasize about her, as you know, but also to tell you that I'm bisexual. Not that that matters. I'll never have sex with anyone but you.

She huffed a small moan of pleasure as her fingers flashed back and forth over her pussy.

For a while, I believed I might be a lesbian, but... well, I went a little boy crazy a few years later.

I won't tell you about how I lost my virginity. If I did, you'd lose your hard-on, but when I was thirteen, a boy named Jimmy Carter, not the president who lusted in his heart, but the boy who lived down the street from me, needed a helping hand, so I jacked him off. Then I taught him how to go down on me, and I practiced giving head on him, and it wasn't long before I fucked him.

His mother caught us, though, threw a fit and forbade Jimmy from even speaking to me, but Jimmy put the word out that I'd fuck, and I had a lot of offers, most of which I accepted. That's what I meant when I said I went boy crazy.

I brought up the boys because sometimes I fantasize about fucking boys. Boys get so hard, cowboy, much harder than men, and their recovery time is really short. Thinking about boy-cocks makes me hot. I could come right now thinking about them. One day, I fucked three of them, one right after the other, and when the last one was finished the first one was ready to go again. Whew! That was fun. I fantasize about that time a lot.

What happened afterwards wasn't fun though. The boys... well, they talked, and I overheard some girls I liked talking about me, calling me a whore, and that put an end to my boy-crazy period. I wasn't a whore; I didn't take money for sex, but I was a slut, and a slut is right next to a whore, so I stopped being a slut, which isn't easy when everyone knows you're a slut, but I was very determined, and I did it. My fantasies to the contrary, I stopped being a slut when I was fourteen. I didn't stop having sex, but I became very discriminating.

Then I found a boyfriend, the boy I told you about who let me drive his car, who helped me get a driver's license, but... well, he found out about my mother, that she was a whore, and he dropped me like I had leprosy. That hurt, and after that, I sort of dropped out, not out of school, out of a social life. Then Mona befriended me, and... well, you've experienced some fantasies or memories I have about Mona.

Mona was a problem for me, though. Boys turned her off, but they didn't turn me off, just the opposite, and at a party one night, I... well, I disappeared, and she came looking for me. I was with this hunk, a college boy. I was fucking him, cowboy. I was fucking him and enjoying it, I mean really enjoying it, and I didn't stop even after I noticed Mona. I hurt her, hurt her like that boy hurt me when he dropped me because my mother was a whore. Mona loved me, and I hurt her, but I didn't love her, not that way. After that, I went a little boy crazy again, but not for long.

I graduated from high school and took a job waiting tables, planning to save enough to take some classes at a community college in Vegas, but living with my mother became too much, so I moved in with two other women, a cocktail waitress, and a dancer. Dancer! Hah! Stripper, that's what she was, and a whore, like my mother. The cocktail waitress wasn't much different. She was a party girl. When I refused to join them for some of their more lucrative parties, they called me Miss Goody Two Shoes, told me I didn't know how the world worked, and my mother echoed their sentiments. Fall came, and I took one class at the community college. That's all I could afford, and then I got sick, the flu, and I couldn't pay my share of the rent, and my roommates wouldn't carry me until I could get back on my feet. I moved back with my mother. A big mistake cowboy. She tried to set me up with a rich john for a lot of money, and the second I felt tempted, I busted out of there to go live with my dad.

I could see tears filming her pretty eyes.

There, you know everything. If you still love me, you'll come over here and make tender, sweet love with me, because I don't want to fuck. I wanna make love and...

Except for a silent moan, I shut up her mental babbling with a kiss as I entered her.

I've met him before. I've seen him shoot, Kevin Smith thought as Colleen introduced us at the gun club. Dr. Kenneth LaPlant. No, his name means nothing.

That Smith believed he knew me excited and dismayed me at the same time. If he knew me, he could give me information that could trigger new memories. Maybe he even knew my name. For some reason, I figured if I could find out my real name, my lost memories would all creep out of their dark hiding places into a light place in my mind where they could be retrieved. On the other hand, if he knew me, he could be a threat to my anonymity, which might bring my enemies down on me before I was ready to take them on.

Could he be trusted?

Like most range masters, he was a little overweight. Whoa! Was that a memory? No, but the round faces attached to thick torsos that flashed through my mind had to be other range masters I'd met in my past. The images were new memories.

Colleen had been right on the money. I had to get out and about the city if I wanted to discover my connection with it.

"Our range rules preclude shooting at the open-air gallery after dark, but you can plink away at paper targets in the indoor range," Smith said.

"That'll be fine," I said. "How's Colleen doing?"

"Considering she's only been shooting a few months, extremely well."

Colleen grinned. "Thanks, Kevin. I try."

That's for sure. If only all my students were as dedicated as she, Smith thought. Still, it's not just how much she practices. She's a natural, very athletic, and her hand/eye coordination is extraordinary.

High praise indeed, I thought.

If Smith knew me, sometime soon he'd pull the real me out of his memory banks. I might as well deal with the trust issue right now, so I know where I stand.

"What did Colleen tell you about me?" I asked.

"She said you wanted to shoot but, for reasons she wouldn't tell me, that you couldn't just come to the club and shoot, that it would be dangerous for you if someone recognized you. When I asked, she did tell me that you were a good man, that you weren't a criminal."

I nodded. "Did you open the club after hours simply because she asked?"

He snickered. "Yes and no. Colleen can be... ah, persuasive when she wants something, and... ah, heck, Dr. LaPlant, I like her. She asked for a favor, so I granted it. Still, I was also curious about you. She says you're very good with a pistol, and I wanted to see just how good you were."

I sighed with resignation. To test him, I'd need to give him some facts, so I told him about waking up in a hospital with amnesia, without naming the city, and how, a short time after I was released from the hospital, I discovered that I had an enemy or enemies I didn't know who wanted me dead for reasons I also didn't know.

"I had no choice, Kevin. I had to disappear until my memories returned. I've retrieved some of them, but not enough to confront my enemies. I also know to truly disappear is difficult, and one way to locate someone in hiding is to track ingrained habits. I'm a shooter, so until tonight I've stayed away from shooting ranges."

Kevin shook his head. He couldn't decide whether to believe me or tell me I was a liar, which was a reasonable attitude after hearing the wild tale I'd just told him, so we had a conversation about skill versus event memories, and he started to come around.

"To complicate the issue," I said, "I sense you know me or have met me sometime in my past. Am I reading you right or wrong?"

"You're not wrong. When Colleen introduced us, I felt like I'd met you before, but... wait! Is LaPlant your real name?"

"No. I don't know my real name."

He studied my face. "Morgan, your name is Morgan."

The same name my enemies called me. Why didn't the name register with me?

"I saw you shoot at the Ben Avery Shooting Facility. Damn, it's a pleasure to personally meet you," he said and stuck out his hand.

I shook it.

"Is Morgan a first or last name?" I asked.

He shrugged. "Doesn't the name ring a bell for you?"

I grimaced. "No."

"I could check around..."

"No! I mean that's the last thing I want you to do. In fact, I'd appreciate it if you told no one about me."

"Kevin promised me, cowboy," Colleen said and turned to Smith. "You promised me tonight would be a secret, that you'd tell no one about how well Ken shoots, and I'm holding you to that promise, Kevin, and the promise also includes the name Morgan, because Ken and Morgan are the same man."

He grinned. "And I keep my promises. Let's go shoot."

At the range, I said, "Ladies first."

"Uh-uh," Colleen said. "You first."

"Ah, Colleen, go ahead. Show him how much you've learned," Smith said. "If he shoots first, you'll be intimidated and won't shoot as well as I know you can."

"He's that good?" she asked Smith.

"You'll see. I'll run a target out to ten meters for you, Colleen."

Colleen stepped up to a station, put on eye and ear protection, and loaded her weapon, the SIG SAUER P239 I bought for her in Flagstaff.

She needs a new weapon, I thought. That P239 is illegal, and with our almost legal IDs we can get her a legal weapon. That's how she'd arranged for the XD-9 she'd given me.

"Give me a grouping of four shots," Smith said to Colleen.

Her stance and grip looked good. She pulled the trigger four times, careful to re-aim between shots. Smith rolled in the target.

"Not bad," I said. "Two in the ten rings, a nine and a six."

"The third shot got away from me," she said. "That's the six."

I nodded. "How are you at 25 meters?"

She grimaced. "Not as good."

"Show me."

After she fired four more rounds, I studied her target. The grouping was fairly tight, but it was low. Her grouping was also slightly low on the ten-meter target. "At ten meters, where do you aim?" I asked.

"At the bottom of the black rings."

"Your weapon shoots low. Try aiming at the middle of the black rings."

She reloaded while Smith sent out a new target, stopping it at ten meters. I shook my head. "Take it out to twenty-five."

She was ready to shoot when the target settled. She squeezed the trigger four times, which used up about ten seconds.

"Much better," I said after Smith pulled in the target. Two of her shots hit the ten rings; the other two slightly lower in the nine and eight rings.

Why didn't I notice her weapon shot low? Smith asked himself.

Colleen grinned. "That's the best I've shot at twenty-five meters."

"Before we leave, we'll adjust your sights, and Kevin, she needs a new weapon."

"Yeah, I wanna XD-9, too," she said with an endearing grin.

"I'll order one for you tomorrow, Colleen," Smith said.

"Your turn, cowboy," she said, unloaded her weapon and stepped away from the station.

"Send a new target out to twenty-five meters for me," I said to Kevin as I put on the muffs and clear goggles, and loaded my new gift.

When the target settled, I started firing and didn't quit until the XD-9 was empty.

"Four seconds," Kevin said. "Ten rounds in four seconds! Let's see how you did."

He pulled in the target. I didn't need to look at it. I hadn't missed.

"Good weapon," I said to Colleen.

"Good shooting, you mean," Smith said. "You shredded the ten rings."

I studied the target. The grouping was a touch low.

"Colleen bought two extra clips for the XD-9. Let's see how you do with thirty rounds," Smith said.

I reloaded the clip I'd just emptied and set the other two on the station platform within easy reach. Kevin pulled out a stopwatch. I grinned, took aim and fired my first round, emptied that clip, released it and slammed in a new one, and then did it again until I'd fired thirty rounds.

"Twelve-point-two seconds! Now, that's speed shooting!" Smith exclaimed. He looked at me. "Did you miss?"

I grinned. "Nope."

Smith pulled in the target. "It's hard to tell, but if you missed, you missed the whole danged target because there isn't a hole outside the ten rings." He looked at Colleen. "Intimidating, huh?"

"I'll say!" she said, and threw her arms around me. "But expected," she added just before she kissed me.

"Hey, you two. This is a shooting range, not a hotel room."

Colleen giggled and said, "May I shoot your XD-9?"

"Sure."

"Did I fuck up?" Colleen asked. She was driving. We were on the way home from the gun club.

"No. I think he'll keep his promise." In a pig's eye, I thought, but what's done is done. I'll monitor him telepathically and try to minimize the damage.

Colleen said, "He'll tell Clyde, his life partner. They've been together for fifteen years. They tell each other everything, so check Clyde out at our party Saturday night."

"All right."

"How long did it take to get that good with a pistol?"

I laughed. "Sorry, your surprise question produced no new memories, but I did retrieve some faces from my past at the gun club, some other range masters I know - maybe. No names or places. Just faces."

"What's with the name Morgan?"

I liked how Colleen bounced around in a conversation, changing subjects frequently. She kept a conversation moving and lively.

She'd asked, so I told her about the thugs in Vegas who referred to me as Morgan. "Morgan might be a pseudonym, Colleen. Protectors use pseudonyms on the job."

"They do! Why?"

"Tradecraft. If an enemy doesn't know my name or where I live, and he wants to extract revenge, he can't find me. Also, while protecting someone, an opponent can't kidnap or otherwise threaten a loved one to distract or blackmail me so he can get at my principal."

"Makes sense. Still, Morgan could be your name. Three men have confirmed that's a name you used in your past."

"I know, but..."

"You said 'where you live, '" she commented, interrupting me. "Do you keep your residence a secret, too?"

"Yes."

Suddenly an image rolled across the theater in my mind. A house. A low sprawling house tucked just under the brow of a rocky hill. Desert landscaping. I could see saguaro cacti.

With a smile, I said, "I think I just saw my house."

"Where?" Colleen said, swinging her head back and forth, looking out the car windows.

"In my mind, a vision - sort of." I told her what I'd seen. "The house must be in the Phoenix area. I don't think the saguaro cacti were transplanted. The landscape looked natural, pristine, undisturbed except for the house."

"Well then, we'll just have to go out and look for it. Do you remember the Ben Avery Shooting Facility?"

"No."

"Thank you for letting me order an XD-9. I understand after shooting yours why it's your preferred weapon."

"You're welcome."

"How's your money holding out?"

"Our money. It's getting a little thin. Not this weekend, not with the party you have planned, but next weekend, we'll drive to New Mexico, and I'll hit a few blackjack tables."

"We can tighten up our belts instead."

"We could, but... Sweet thing, the risk is moderate. We live in Arizona. Gambling in New Mexico shouldn't bring my enemies to our door here."

We drove in silence for a few seconds. "I enjoyed shooting again. Thank you for making that happen for me."

"You're welcome. How are you at shooting moving steel targets at the outdoor range?"

"I do all right."

"Humph. Modesty doesn't become you, buster. Are you as good outdoors as you are indoors?"

I grinned. "Yeah."

"Thought so."

I had promised Colleen that I would go out into the city, and after sparring with Sifu with broadswords, I went out into the city with the specific purpose of locating the house I'd seen in my vision the previous night. Two hours later, I was convinced the house was not on Camelback Mountain, but I didn't despair. There were a lot of little mountains in and around Phoenix and its suburbs - too many. The task ahead of me was daunting.

Sporadically, I connected with Kevin Smith to listen in on his thoughts and his side of his conversations with others to determine if he were keeping his promise. So far, although he'd been tempted to mention watching me shred the ten rings with thirty shots in twelve seconds, he'd pursed his lips and remained silent on the subject. The desire to do some name-dropping was compelling though, and I suspected that eventually he'd tell someone, and then that someone would tell someone else, and pretty soon it would be forty rounds in ten seconds, or something even more outlandish but nonetheless memorable, and being memorable was what I'd been trying to avoid.

Colleen had hit a home run when she introduced me to Sifu, but I feared she'd popped up to the infield with Kevin Smith. Accordingly, the search for my house became more imperative for multiple reasons. Number one, I wanted to find the house for the memories it might provoke. Number two, Colleen and I just might need a new anonymous address unknown to anyone but us sooner than I'd prefer.

Thirsty, I stopped to get a Pepsi at a Circle K. As it turned out, that specific convenience store was the wrong place to be at that moment in time.

I walked in on an armed robbery in progress.

A little, brown Mexican man was waving around a great big Colt .45 and jabbering in Spanish, a language I didn't know. In truth, I didn't believe I knew any language except English, and I'd been known to butcher English more than once.

I was carrying my cudgel. Colleen had proudly presented the staff to me as a gift, and it pleased her when I carried it, so I took it with me just about every where I went, which admittedly until I decided to go out into the city wasn't very many places.

That Colt .45 was an old gun, probably an antique, but even old guns fired hot lead that could kill, and the little Mexican man was waving it at me and jabbering away telling me to do something in a language I couldn't understand. Well, whatever I did wasn't what he wanted me to do, and he became even more agitated. He was sweating and drooling and didn't look at all well, so I walloped my cudgel across his wrist. He screeched something in Spanish, or just screeched period, I don't know which, and the old Colt clanked on the tile floor and bounced. Thankfully, it didn't go off. The Mexican wasn't ready to give up and, with his undamaged hand, pulled a switchblade from his pocket. That did it. Enough was enough. My cudgel bounced off the top of his head, and he crumpled as if poleaxed.

I kicked the old Colt and the knife toward the clerk, walked to the soft drink dispenser and filled a cup with ice and Pepsi. The clerk stood looking dazed. He hadn't picked up the Colt, but he took my money for the drink, rang up the sale, and gave me the correct change.

"Call 911," I said as I walked out the door.

My sprawling house wasn't in or around South Mountain, either, and I figured five hours was enough house hunting for one day. On the drive back to McCormick Ranch, I stopped at another Circle K - a big mistake.

The odds that I'd walk into two robberies in progress in too different convenience stores on the same day had to astronomical. Two young men, not one older man, were waving guns, but like the other thief, they were jabbering in Spanish. I swept one of them off his feet with my cudgel and kicked the other one at the side of his knee, breaking a bone or two, and both of them hit the linoleum. Before they could align their weapons on me, I thumped them atop the head, one after the other.

Fuck it, I thought. I'll fix myself an iced tea at the house. I turned and walked out the door without saying a word.

In all honesty, I don't think either incident would have attracted the attention of the media. It must have been the combination that made my so-called heroics newsworthy.

Heroics. Hardly.

Colleen had the television on watching the local news while she prepared dinner when a cutesy blonde came on the screen to report the incidents and the brave private citizen carrying a walking stick who had foiled two robberies in two different Circle Ks on the same day.

"Walking stick. Humph," I muttered.

"Oh my! Ken, is she talking about you and your cudgel?"

"Just a small effort to protect and serve, that's all," I said.

The blonde shoved a microphone in front of a young woman's face. I recognized her. She was the clerk in the second Circle K.

"It was amazing," the girl said. "He walked in and wham, bam, bop, bop, it was all over." She was swinging her hands around as if she gripped a cudgel and was doing the bopping herself. "Just like that, and it probably took me longer to say it than it did for him to do it. Then he just turned and walked out. I called 911, and the thieves were just coming around when the police arrived."

The scene changed and the blonde introduced the clerk in the first store. "After disarming the thief and rendering him unconscious, the cowboy paid for a drink and left, telling me to call 911," the clerk said. He was obviously uncomfortable in front of a television camera.

"There you have it, Jane," the cutesy blonde said. "All three robbers were taken to the emergency room with concussions and other broken bones, and the cowboy walked away with his walking stick into a glorious sunset."

"Jeez, cowboy," Colleen said with a teasing grin. "I finally let you go out into the city on your own, and what happens? You get yourself mentioned on television. I thought the idea was to attract as little attention to us as possible. Anonymous. Hah!"

"Keep it up woman and it'll be wham, bam, bop, bop, right on your pretty head."

She laughed so hard she cried.

Surprisingly, the newspaper carried the story the next morning. Cowboy with Cudgel Foils Robberies was the headline. The story was printed on the bottom of the second section. Cowboy with Cudgel sounded better than Man with Walking Stick, more accurate, too, so I read the article expecting more in-depth coverage of the events. Hah! Other than my Western wear, with an emphasis on my Stetson, the article contained fewer facts than the television sound bite the previous night.

The next day, I crossed off Squaw Peak, Stoney Mountain, and Shaw Butte as settings for my house. I also stayed out of Circle Ks, and the day passed blissfully uneventful. Kevin Smith said nothing about my after-hours visit to his gun club, and Colleen wanted to fuck, as opposed to making love, so it was a good night, too.

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Protect and Serve

Paul Phenomenon

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