Chapter 11

"I want to see your father," Susan said, her voice stronger now. "And I'm so thirsty I feel like I might turn to dust and blow away."

Jennifer blinked. Her face still felt hot from blushing when she realized her mother had actually heard about the masturbation and trying to get Uncle Bob into bed. But her mother's reaction threw her for a loop.

She jumped up. "I'll g-g-go g-g-get a nurse!" she yipped.

Wanting to see her husband seemed like an eminently reasonable and simple request, to Susan. Jennifer agreed. But hospitals don't necessarily operate in ways that most people would define as either simple or reasonable. Perhaps it's relative.

It wasn't that the nurses didn't want Susan to be able to see and talk to Don. It was just that Susan was still in ICU and Don wasn't. They were on separate floors, and Susan wasn't in the kind of bed that you can just push down hallways and into elevators. And Don's bed was festooned with rods and cords and cranks and pulleys, all designed to immobilize his leg.

Jennifer, unable to make any headway in granting her mother's wish - though she was able to convince a nurse to give her mother some water - went looking for Bob, who she was sure would be able to make things all right.

And that was when she found out from her father that Bob had left and was going back to Atlanta, where he wouldn't represent a danger to poor, innocent Jennifer.

Two hospital security officers hurried down the hallway toward the sounds of screaming. A nurse caught up with them, jogging. She had a syringe in her hand, with a pink plastic cap over the needle.

"I have a sedative here!" the nurse panted.

"Won't need it," one guard almost shouted. He waved a pair of handcuffs in her face, already out of the leather carrier he'd never removed them from before now. At least he'd never removed them for official reasons. "We can handle it." They saw three nurses huddled together in front of the door to the room they'd been dispatched to.

The screaming suddenly stopped and a young woman wearing a black motorcycle jacket came storming out of the room. The three nurses scattered as the biker babe stomped between them. She ignored the two guards and the nurse with the syringe as she stalked by them, muttering under her breath.

They entered the room to find only two patients in it. The first was an old man, sitting up in bed, who had watched, fascinated, as the good looking girl who stuttered suddenly stopped stuttering and raked her father over the coals like a Marine drill instructor talking to a raw recruit who had dropped his rifle in the dirt. The other was the girl's father, though they didn't know that at that moment.

It took them only a minute and a half to realize that their presence was no longer needed. They'd missed the whole incident, and the girl who had caused the uproar ... the one who had stalked by them ... was gone.

Jennifer, whose body was enjoying the benefits, if you can call it that, of a number of chemicals dancing through her bloodstream, exited the front doors of the hospital and suddenly jerked to a halt.

She looked around helplessly, not knowing what to do. She knew where the motel was, but had no way of getting there. With a stab of regret, she realized she had wasted precious time by yelling at her father. What if he was already gone? She knew how quickly he could move when he was motivated.

More adrenaline was added to the mixture coursing through her body.

She transitioned from standing to running as though a sprinter's starting blocks had been at her disposal.

Bob's gear was packed and strapped onto the bike. He'd moved everything he wasn't taking into Jennifer's room. He couldn't find the keycard to that room anywhere, and hoped she had it with her.

Now he was waiting, while a couple who had to be octogenarians negotiated with the desk clerk to pay for their room. The man seemed to have a whole list of possible discounts that might apply to them, and was going through his billfold pulling out cards.

"How about AAA?" wheezed the old man. "Do we get a discount for being in AAA?" He held out a card to the desk clerk.

Bob tapped the toe of his riding boot on the floor.

"Give him our AARP card, Henry," urged the man's wife.

"I'm pretty sure I've given you as low a rate as I can," said the desk clerk.

Finally the couple was finished. They'd paid in cash, which had seemed to take forever, as the clerk had to make change and count it out twice. Then the old man carefully put the bills in his billfold and pulled out a coin purse to drop the coins into.

Bob explained the change in arrangements to the clerk, who then had to navigate through four different computer screens to close one room out, while leaving the other one booked. He seemed relieved when Bob handed him a credit card.

"Do you want me to charge this now, or wait until she clears the room?" asked the clerk. He frowned. "Maybe I should charge you for the room you're vacating now and just hold the card number for when she leaves."

"Whatever," Bob huffed impatiently. "I just want her taken care of, okay? I don't want her to have to worry about anything."

Then Bob wanted to leave some cash for Jennifer in the hotel safe, with instructions to give it to her the next time they saw her. That ended up being an absurdly complicated task as well, which involved counting the money three times and having Bob sign across the seal of the envelope the money was put into.

By the time Bob walked out to the parking lot to get on the bike, he'd been gone from the hospital for almost an hour.

Had there not been cross traffic, requiring Bob to stop at the entrance to the motel parking lot, it might have been tragic. Jennifer saw him, from half a block away. Her lungs were burning and she felt like she might fall flat on her face at any second.

But there was traffic, and Bob did have to stop. It also required him looking both ways repeatedly, before he could release the clutch lever and move onto the street. It was the third time he looked to his right that he saw her running toward him.

To his credit, Bob never thought about pretending not to see her and just taking off. She was running with that wobbly kind of gait that runners have at the end of a race where they use every last erg of energy to cross the finish line, before stumbling around and sometimes flopping on the ground. Reason told him she knew he was leaving, and that she was here because of that. He pulled a U turn in the entrance and put the bike in a parking space. He sat there, lifting his left foot to toe the tranny into neutral so he could release the clutch lever while he waited for her.

She arrived, stumbling so much that Bob was afraid she'd go down. Her mouth was wide open and all she could concentrate on, initially, was dragging in breaths. One hand reached to grip the shoulder of his jacket and she held on, leaning into him while her head drooped. While he waited for her to catch her breath, he began thinking of how he'd phrase his goodbye. He was therefore surprised, to say the least, when her first gasping words were "Shut the fuck up!"

"Say what?" he asked, confused.

"I k-know," she gasped, "what y-you're," she panted "g-g-going to s-s-say."

"Well then you know it makes sense," he said.

"I s-s-said shut th-th-the f-f-fuck up!"

He couldn't help but smile. Even though she had blossomed so much in the last week, she was still so ... so Jennifer! She reached for the key and flipped it off. The bike went suddenly still.

"Y-you're n-n-not l-leaving!" she panted.

"I have to, Jen," he said gently.

"Says who?" she asked belligerently.

"Says your father, for one," said Bob. "And we both know he's right."

Jennifer was in the middle of another rant that was surprisingly similar to the one she'd delivered in the hospital, when a patrol car pulled into the entrance of the motel parking lot and stopped. The window rolled down and a crisp young man looked out at the man on the motorcycle and the woman standing beside it, screaming.

"Is there a problem?" he asked officially.

"No problem," said Bob, swiveling his head to face the man.

"Yes there is a problem!" screamed Jennifer. "He r-r-raped me!"

Six hours later Bob lifted his head from where it had been cradled in his hands as he heard the big lock clank. The cell door opened and a man in uniform looked at Bob.

"You can go now," he said. "It's all cleared up. We talked to the girl's parents, and she recanted her accusation."

"I told you," said Bob. "Didn't I tell you?"

"We had to check it out, man," said the officer, unapologetic.

"Yeah," said Bob, disgusted.

"Follow me and you'll get your personal belongings back. There's a little paperwork to do and then you're out of here." The officer seemed disinterested, now that the excitement was over.

A woman, also in uniform, dumped a manila envelope onto the counter and shoved a form at Bob. "Sign there," she said, pointing to an X beside a blank line.

"Where's the key to my bike?" asked Bob about thirty seconds later, gathering up his things.

"There wasn't any key on you when you were arrested," said the woman.

"It was in the ignition of the bike!" Bob was obviously upset. "What if somebody stole it?"

"I wouldn't know about that." she said. "If it's gone, you can file a stolen vehicle report."

"Thanks so much!" Bob said, acid in his voice.

"Look, sir," she said, a flush on her face, "I'm just doing my job here."

"You can feel proud. I feel so well protected," said Bob, still angry.

"Is that everything that was taken from you when you were arrested?" asked the woman icily.

Bob scribbled on the form and put his things back in his pockets, ignoring the woman. He looked around, and the woman pointed.

"That way is out," she said, as if she hated having to give him the information.

"And how am I supposed to get anywhere?" he asked, disgusted.

"I don't know, sir," said the woman. She seemed pleased that he was stranded.

Bob left the police station with the intent to walk back to the motel. He hadn't paid that much attention to how they'd gotten to the station - he'd had other things on his mind during the short ride - but he remembered some landmarks and was pretty sure he could find the motel again.

That became superfluous when he saw Jennifer sitting on the bike, waiting for him. When she saw him, she reached, turned the key that had so recently been the center of attention, and thumbed the bike into a throaty roar. He didn't know what to think.

He walked up to her.

"G-get on!" she shouted.

"It's my bike!" he shouted back.

"G-get on!" she yelled.

"This is crazy!" he roared.

Her right wrist dropped and the motor revved. The bike shot forward five feet and then stopped. She looked over her shoulder at him. She didn't have to say anything this time.

Bob walked toward the bike. The extra helmet was perched on top of the sissy bar, but he ignored it. He wanted to snatch her off the bike and paddle her butt, but he knew if he tried she'd just take off. He stepped on the left foot peg, and the bike leaned as her left leg struggled to compensate for the weight.

"You are in so much trouble!" he growled as he settled into the queen seat and put his arms around her.

Then his hands gripped at her shirt as the bike suddenly shot forward.

Bob wouldn't have admitted it to her, but she was a lot better than he though she'd be. She went through the gears smoothly, like she'd been riding for years, and leaned into the turns the same way. He'd expected to wince as she abused his machine, but there was no jerking. He became aware of his groin almost immediately as, for the first time, he felt the effect of the clitty whizzer on his own genitals. And, for the first time, he realized how truly underhanded it had been to design the bike that way.