The Unofficial I Love Karen Daniels Thread

March 29, 2019

2 hours ago, DPRK said:

nah, never liked her after what she did to Niko

What did she do? I don´t remember.

March 29, 2019

She made him buy drugs or something and sent the cops in.. I think it was that little warehouse around... Shoot that little island.. I gotta get into gta4 some.. Anyway.

Mmm MMM when she bends over.. And just from the waist mind you.. To slide you that briefcase.. Only reason I love her because she is such a condescending bitch..she has this smart boyish.. Kinda. Intelligent look that really gets me sometimes..over the "tits are out" Cheetah girl.. Or even what.. Nikki?

Damn all that natural beauty.. And she got those hips HAH. f*ckin bitch lol

March 29, 2019

3 hours ago, el carlitos said:

What did she do? I don´t remember.

She beat him at bowling.

That little wiggle of hers can be pretty distracting.

Oh, yeah, and she pretended to be his girlfriend so she could keep an eye on him for United Paper. She really got into the part, too.

[hidden]

Or rather, it got into her.

[/hidden]

EDIT:

Dang it! Can someone please tell me how to hide text when posting from a phone?

Edited March 29, 2019 by Lance Mayhem
I fail at hiding text. Lah-hoo, Ah-zer.

March 29, 2019

https://www.gta5-mods.com/player/classic-karen-daniels

theNGclan released a new mod dedicated to Karen this week.

Perfect for anyone who wants to bring Karen's stylish east coast look to the sunny west coast.

Edited March 29, 2019 by Arnold Stallone

March 29, 2019

Damn how is this old piece of sh*t thread still alive? I coulda swore it died 2 years ago

March 29, 2019

When your funny friend Karen Daniels makes a joke

22 minutes ago, Arnold Stallone said:

Also hooray this thread is back

March 29, 2019

Wow I haven't mas...thought of her, I mean this thread for ages!

March 29, 2019

someone from R* has to be aware of this thread by now, right?

Hopefully, this character returns in a future GTA update.

March 29, 2019

Someone definetly has something for her at the company after that Bikini they put her in ha wowsers.

March 29, 2019

10 hours ago, Urban Legends said:

She made him buy drugs or something and sent the cops in.. I think it was that little warehouse around... Shoot that little island.. I gotta get into gta4 some.. Anyway.

Mmm MMM when she bends over.. And just from the waist mind you.. To slide you that briefcase.. Only reason I love her because she is such a condescending bitch..she has this smart boyish.. Kinda. Intelligent look that really gets me sometimes..over the "tits are out" Cheetah girl.. Or even what.. Nikki?

Damn all that natural beauty.. And she got those hips HAH. f*ckin bitch lol

No. She was assigned to watch elizabeta torrez because she was originally assigned to watch over roman bellic and the illegal things he was getting into as a cab driver. Once niko moved to lc and started making his moves with vlad and lil jacob she was assigned to watch him.

Anyways the story goes that liz sent jacob to sell some product bur it was a trap from a gang liz upon hearing the news was very infuriated with jacob for losing her product and threatened to have him and his brother badman killed sparking a war betweeen the jamaican and liz gang. Niko being the loyal friend to him went to get liz product back only to find himself into a police raid orchestrated by UL paper whom assigned Karen to watch niko. That's how karen end up leaving with the coke after revealing her true identity and intentions to niko.

March 29, 2019

4 hours ago, mute! said:

someone from R* has to be aware of this thread by now, right?

Hopefully, this character returns in a future GTA update.

Come on Rockstar, if not for us do it for her.

How can you say no to a face like this?

April 10, 2019

On 3/29/2019 at 6:31 AM, Arnold Stallone said:

https://www.gta5-mods.com/player/classic-karen-daniels

theNGclan released a new mod dedicated to Karen this week.

Perfect for anyone who wants to bring Karen's stylish east coast look to the sunny west coast.

Ohhhhh, my heart goes pitter-pat!!! Karen is more badass than ever! Swooon!!

April 14, 2019

Here’s a new chapter. It’s been a long time, Karen fans! Waaaay too long. I blame Twitter – biggest waste of time on the planet.

The Karen saga isn’t over, and now it’s finally continuing. Two more talky chapters, and then maybe there will be some action.

Check out Chapter 28, to get sync’d back into the story.

CHAPTER 29: Pain from the Past (Part 19): Brazilian Getaway Special / Long Talks on the Beach

Brazilian Getaway Special / The Second Secondhand Store

Though I had resumed my pier-rail listening stance, internally I was still recovering from my euphoric rush of love and emotional resolution, with Karen. The revelations of these moments, where Karen told me how I fit into her life, were already vindicating my feelings for her, and transforming my outlook for the future. But Karen had moved on, now. She was back to her story, not skipping another beat.

Karen continued, “The overnight Leito sleeper express trip to Recife went completely without incident. Wonderful. I slept almost the whole way, in privacy and peace, not in fear. Now this is the way the fugitive life *should* be.

“I woke up as the bus was slowing for intersections, getting into the urban grid of Recife. I sat up, rubbed the sleep out of my eyes, and opened the privacy curtain a bit, peeking down the aisle, to see if it looked like any of the other passengers were rising, to get off the bus at these intersections.

“As I moved, I felt my neck was getting even stiffer. It hurt, just to lean forward, or to try to turn my head, and the ache was going down into my shoulders, too. Time for more pain pills. I got one of the bottles of water out of my bag, and downed the first pills of the day. They would help, but probably not enough.

“There was almost no activity in the aisle; just a mother helping her kid change his clothes, near the front of the bus, and one sleepy-looking local guy shuffling past my bunk, to the toilet in the back. It looked like we’d have to take the bus all the way to the Recife station. I didn’t want to stand out, and be remembered, by being the only one to ask the bus driver for a special stop, or by hopping off at a traffic light.

“I cracked open the blind on the bus window, to see outside. There was early morning light now, but it was subdued, overcast this morning. The streets were wet, apparently, from a light rain, which had also left a mist of virgin droplets on the glass.

“Based on the commercial business diversity we were driving through, and the approaching city skyline, I could see that Recife was dense, urban, large – ideal for getting lost, hiding from the cops. I was feeling a minor wave of additional relief, and hope. Hope is dangerous, though. It leads to wishful thinking, which leads to laziness, and mistakes. I again reminded myself to continue to take every opsec precaution.

“I closed the blind and got dressed, wiggling back into my clothes, so I’d be ready to get out of the bunk. Once again, I piled up my tangled hair under my fashionable hat, and fitted it on, ready to dodge the security cameras.

---

“At the Recife central ônibus terminal, the buses disembark in a big, outdoor shelter, longer than the Aracaju facility, but with a similar, high metal roof. I looked out the window as we pulled in. The morning sun momentarily peeked through clouds, coming in low, through the large, shadowed metal space, and then it was gone again. Through the tinted, misted windows of the bus, I looked for cameras up on the steel pillars, and didn’t see any. I shut the blind again; time to get off.

“I gathered up my bag and slid out of my bunk, ready to go down the aisle. Max was also awake. He stood up in the aisle and hoisted his duffel bag up on his shoulder. I let him go first, so he could see where the cameras were. We were the last ones off the bus, again. The driver was already out and gone, apparently headed for the station, for breakfast or sleep.

“I kept my head looking down, my colorful hat doing its job, hiding my face, while Max looked for a route with no low-angle cameras, so we could make our way out of the large, covered disembark area. That all went well, too, and soon we were out in the street, greeted by the familiar urban background, alive with the morning’s vehicle and pedestrian traffic. A new day, a new city. We were already blending in.

“There was still a slight drizzle, threatening to get worse. We walked half a block east, away from the bus terminal, and stopped under a veranda, covering the entrances of several adjoining shops that hadn’t opened yet. I suggested that we should try to find a couple of those plastic rain ponchos as soon as we can, so we could keep walking, if we were caught out here in heavier rain.

“Max sort of shrugged, subtly, and said that he didn’t like the feel, the sound, or the monomer smell of those plastic poncho hoods, around his head. I replied that at least they could keep his duffel bag dry, but he said the bag was water resistant, with a seal around the zipper, so he wasn’t concerned. I was actually thinking more about keeping my shopping bag dry, anyway, when I had suggested the ponchos.

“He asked, ‘So, what’s the plan?’

“’A bus to the beach,’ I replied. ‘Get ourselves lost in the tourist crowd; hide in plain sight.’

“I got out the Pernambuco tour book, opened it to the Recife map pages, and flipped back to the metro bus page, showing a small, simplified map of the routes, and the bus stops. Since the metro buses branched out from the same intercity terminal where we had just arrived, Max said he’d go back in, and get metro day passes for us.

“I wanted to walk a fair number of blocks away from this central station, and then get on the metro bus line going to the beach, starting from some random bus stop further away, to break up the continuity of our path. While Max was gone, I chose suitable bus stops, and I again verified the beach area hotels to check out, and noted the other businesses shown on the beach area close-up map in the book.

“There were touristy convenience stores in the beach area, where we could get a few groceries. I looked for clothing stores where I might go to get the elements of another outfit, but no clothing-specific stores were advertised or listed; only the tourist-related businesses were in the book.

“Then I had an idea. I’d had good luck with the secondhand store, getting the hoodie disguise, the pullover cargo pants, and other things I needed, in advance of my revenge run, a few days ago. Plus, the thrift shops typically didn’t have video cameras, being relatively downscale places, or generally not so concerned about protecting their donated, recycled merchandise.

“I thought, I’ll try the secondhand approach again, here in Recife. So, before we got on the bus, I wanted to find a phone book and check the yellow pages, for thrift stores or goodwill shops.

“Max came back with the bus passes, and some other things he was carrying in a plastic bag. He opened the bag to show me, saying, ‘There was a newsstand in the lobby of the bus station., selling the typical mix of impulse-buy necessities, in addition to a hundred different celebrity gossip rags. They had your ponchos.’

“I took a look. The ponchos were just about what I expected – thin, colored plastic, hooded, packed in small pouches of the same material and color. They were meant to be semi-disposable; I expected they would last us about as long as this rain would probably be around, today and maybe tomorrow. I had no idea, at that moment, what hell this rain really portended for us.

I told Max my plan, starting with finding a phone book. I showed him the bus stops, the first of which was about 10 blocks east. I thought we should walk at least that far, maybe go even further, before randomly getting on a city bus. We also noted the two or three suitable bus stops to get off near the pousadas and hotels, along the beach road.

“We started walking generally east, along the bus route, and soon found a cluster of three phone kiosks, one with a phone book. With a little work, checking addresses of a few thrift shops and church charity outlets against the map in the tour book, I found a thrift shop, a brechó – named ‘Flea,’ as in ‘flea market,’ I guess – that was only a little bit out of our way, about six blocks off the bus route. I thought we could walk there first, then head on to the next bus stop on the route toward the beach. Max was agreeable.

“As we walked further away from the central business district, the nature of the city turned more downscale pretty quickly – narrower streets, and not so much attention to urban infrastructure like road surfaces, sidewalks, or curbs. At the same time, the distribution of businesses and interspersed apartments got smaller, more diverse, and not so well maintained. Aracaju had been the same way.

“We arrived at the thrift store in about 25 minutes, and it was open. The building itself was narrow and deep, like the second-tier places of business in Aracaju. Sidewalk footage is apparently a premium resource.

“This brechó shop was packed full of used and trade-in clothing, but no other type of merchandise. Everything was neatly grouped and laid out. It turned out to be a gold mine of women’s clothes; it had every kind of garment, including kid’s clothes, all kinds of colors and styles, and the prices were right. There were no video cameras, inside or out. Excellent.

“When we came in, I had noticed that the front of the shop even had a bit of pride in decoration; painted nicely, carefully, with decorative wooden shutters, and cute, colorful wooden flower sculptures along the bottom of the store window.

“This wasn’t just a lonely, dark, tired secondhand place where clothes came to die, where no one cared. I had the impression that someone with some good local taste curated this used apparel selection. It probably attracted a regular clientele of locals, looking for unique or retro items.

“I told Max I was going to look around a bit, and I suggested that he take a look at the smaller selection of miscellaneous men’s clothes, which happened to be at the far corner in the back of the shop.

“I didn’t mean to necessarily imply to Max that he should get some new clothes, but it appeared that he took it that way. He just gave me a quick, slightly smirky Max smile, and I knew a retort was coming.

“’What? You don’t approve of my fine fashion sense?’ he asked, looking down at his generic plaid shirt, and cargo shorts. ‘Doesn’t meet your rich standards?’

“’Max, you know I didn’t mean it like that,’ I replied. ‘I’m just going take a few minutes to look around. Didn’t want you to get bored.’ He got the idea, cocked his head briefly in a gesture of snarky acknowledgement, and headed in the right direction. I turned around to start my search. In fact, it *is* easier to think about clothes selection when I don’t have the obligation of maintaining a shared social space with someone, so I was glad Max took the hint, and didn’t hover over me.

“I had so many choices, I decided to get enough for two outfits, two disguises, so I could try to confuse the trail even more. This tiny bit of retail therapy was actually making me feel better, forgetting temporarily that I was a murderer on the run. I was just lost in looking at the colors, prints, and styles.

“Many of the clothes would have worked fine. I instinctively looked for girly clothes, to create a different impression than I made, while beating up and killing people – it seemed naturally like the right opsec approach. After 10 minutes or so, I picked out some things to try on. I found a slightly floofy, floral-print, strapless sun dress, as I had envisioned, and for the second outfit, a separate tank top and pedal pushers, for a totally different look.

“There was a little curtained changing booth against the wall, between a rack of dresses and the shoe shelves. I quickly tried on the clothes, and they looked and fit well enough. In the booth, looking in the mirror, in these different clothes, my first reflex was normal, to think about how I looked in them, to imagine wearing these clothes out in the world, like a normal girl with no cares, concerns or worries.

“But then I remembered the situation of that girl in the reflection, standing there, a Karen with no future, and I shook my head. The reason I was here, in this little store, trying on these bright outfits, was because I had thrown my life away.

“‘Jesus F*cking Christ,’ I thought, mouthing the words, while exhaling a long, sad sigh, ‘You did it again.’ But in that moment, an impulse rose in me, to take control of my situation, to change perspective, to consider this problem as something that I could contain, manipulate, mitigate.

“Looking myself in the eyes, in the mirror, I resolved, without even thinking the literal words, that I would somehow get back to the U.S., and I would live under the radar there, building up an alias identity from an old, usurped credential of a person no longer living. This is the way of some of the old 1960’s activist hippies, who had committed federal crimes, like bombings or endangering people, becoming lifelong fugitives, going underground with a false identity, for the rest of their lives.

“It was still possible to steal the identity from, and obtain, an old birth certificate, in some states; it was easy enough, at least, until some future time, when they start hashcoding DNA maps into birth certificates.

“Kind of amazing, really, that a brand new human comes into the world, and the only thing that shows who they are, are a few lines of handwriting scratched on a postcard form by a doctor or nurse, in a hurry to get to their next patient. Such a fragile system, for something so important. Well, that’s the way it used to be, before computers, which ironically, probably makes the information even more vulnerable.

“The change in perspective gave me new momentum, the drive to go more active, in planning and executing my escape from Brazil. The clothes were good. I was ready. Well, except that I realized, glancing in the mirror again, that the outfits weren’t quite complete – they were too plain, too unnatural.

“I came out of the booth with the clothes I planned to buy, and headed for a counter I had seen, on the other side of the shoes, displaying a variety of costume jewelry, necklaces and bracelets. Just what I needed to make the outfits more generic, more girly, and in so doing, less noticeable.

“I found a couple of necklaces, one a dainty chain with colored glass gems, the other a colorful set of plastic multi-strand beads, plus a pair of dangly earrings, and three bracelets that sort of matched the necklaces. Now, I was really ready, hoping to look like a generic female tourist, rather than the vicious, crazed hoodie killer, that witnesses to my crimes could recognize.

“I went to the clearing in the middle of the store, where there was a checkout desk, staffed by a middle-teens local girl, who looked up from a textbook she was reading. Beside her, on the desk, was a last-generation iFruit MP3 player, with a set of earbuds attached via a long white wire, but she wasn’t using them.

“I paid for the clothes, and folded and carefully stuffed them in my shopping bag, which was getting full, now, with the straw hat, water bottles, my phone, and tour books in the bottom. The girl who was clerking noticed the bag, recognizing the fancy name.

“‘Você tem o seu chapéu lá? [You got your hat there?]’ she asked. She was able to discern fashion from casual.

“’Si,’ I replied, and smiled. ‘Muito dinheiro [Too much money],’ I added, with a pout.

“I had a tiny flash of a concern that she would remember me because of this little extra interaction, but I dismissed it – it was so unlikely that the police would just happen to come across this little shop, many random blocks away from downtown. She’d remember the American couple who came in, regardless, so my extra conversational exchange probably didn’t matter. And obviously, now, she’d remember the hat; another good reason for using the straw hat with the sun dress outfit, when the time came.

“Then I thought, I probably should get a tote bag, too, so that in my new outfits, I won’t be visibly carrying anything the same as I had in the last city, like this shopping bag. But I hadn’t seen the right sort of thing in this store; they had a nice selection of purses, but I needed a larger, more utilitarian bag. I’d keep looking for that, elsewhere, maybe in the tourist shops near the beach.

“It was time to rustle Max, and get back on the road. I glanced around and saw him, over top of the racks, in the men’s section, where I had sent him. His back was to me, and he was standing still, apparently deep in that special state of clothes selection catalepsy. Or so I thought.

“I came back the aisle toward him, and even though my sneakers weren’t making audible footsteps, I figured that he would easily sense my presence in his peripheral vision. But he didn’t turn to me. Max’s gaze was locked on a colorful parrot print shirt, hanging on the rack. He was just standing there, dead still, almost trancelike.

“I assumed that he liked the shirt, and was trying to decide whether to buy it. Actually, I liked it, too, so I hoped he would get it. I playfully walked up beside him, where I could look and point at the shirt, and I said, ‘You should get it, Max. You need some color. The parrots’ll look great on you!’

“Max startled, his eyes going wide for a second, and his shoulders jumped, like happens when you’re sort of falling asleep and your body jerks you awake. His eyes suddenly refocused on the shirt and then he immediately, instantly, looked at me. His expression was — god, it was … like, the most profound, abject sadness I think I’ve ever seen.

“In the space of a few seconds, his face went from that look of sadness, transforming, for a fraction of a second, into a glare of fury in his eyes, like pure fighting adrenaline, followed by his gaze looking away, down, dejected, signaling a deep sense of failure or shame, closing his eyes tight shut, and then just as fast, his expression turning into that familiar, twisted look you see, on the face of a person who’s about to burst out crying. He was going to do it again, like he did on the street in Aracaju, when he remembered his wife.

“’Max!’ I hissed, whispering. ‘Not here! Max!’ But the process had already started.

“He kept it quiet, but went into full anguish mode again, his face screwed tight with emotional pain, that I couldn’t imagine. I hoped that the girl at the desk wasn’t seeing this. We didn’t need to be remembered for making a scene, like this.

“This time, Max managed to overcome it. It wasn’t the same as last time. His hands clenched, and he suddenly froze, head facing downward, and I saw him willfully relax, his inrush of breathing stopping at the same moment. His expression returned to something kind of like normal, as he opened his eyes, and then he exhaled, a sigh, a release, a return to this world. He stood there, looking down, for another five seconds or so, and unclenched his fists.

“’Max?’ I said. ‘Let’s go. OK?’

“He looked up at me, met my gaze, but it seemed like he was still a little mentally distant. He replied, ‘Yeah … let’s.’ He reached up with one hand, to wipe away the tears that were clinging to his eyelashes.

“As I turned to lead Max out of the shop, I glanced over to see if the girl was watching us, over the racks. But she apparently was sitting down at the desk, so I couldn’t see her, and she couldn’t see us. In the narrow aisle, Max’s duffel bag was brushing along the clothes hanging on the racks, as we walked.

“As we got to the front door of the shop, I was able to glance back again, to see the checkout desk, about halfway down the center aisle. The girl was sitting there, earbuds in place, now, apparently absorbed again in her book. She might have heard us, and was just pretending she hadn’t; I couldn’t tell. She didn’t look up as we left.

---

“As we got back out on the street, the midmorning sun was obscured by clouds again, and the sky looked dark gray, stormy, out over the ocean, to the northeast. I could see that Max was looking sullen, or sulky, apparently emotionally equalizing, coming back from some terrible memory.

“Because he saw that shirt? Why? He probably wouldn’t want to talk about it. But I thought, this is the time to start down the path, to help him, to find and hopefully fix whatever has messed him up so badly. Strike while the memory is fresh, I decided.

“’Max,’ I started, ‘what was that all about? What triggered you? Tell me.’

“He shook his head, looking down, and he sighed. Meanwhile, I had started walking in the direction of the next bus stop, as we had planned, and Max was keeping up, beside me. I was glad he hadn’t shut down, altogether.

“’Max,’ I tried again. ‘Tell me what you’re thinking. What did you see? What did you remember? Something shook you up, plenty.’

“Max replied, ‘It’s pointless. It… doesn’t matter…’ But the tone of his voice wasn’t final. I could tell that, subconsciously, he did need to talk about it, to unburden his mind of something. He needed someone to tell it to. I could feel it. Now was the time; here was the place; I was the one. It would still be rough going.

“’It *does* matter, Max!’ I replied.

“’Let’s start out easy,’ I said. As we walked, I asked him again, ‘What was it about that parrot-print shirt? What did you see in it? Where did it take you?’

“Max seemed to be coming back to reality, now. I could sense, just by his movement and his posture, as he walked beside me, that his fog and confusion had dissipated. He let out a long breath, and it was clear that he had something to say, in reply.

“’We’ve got to split up,’ Max said, flatly.

“’What???’ I said, surprised. What did that have to do with a parrot-print shirt? It made no sense. Reflexively, I stopped walking, and turned to him. I was shocked. Max stopped, also. We looked at each other. I was trying to read his face; it seemed sad, tentative. Then his lips pursed, like there was something he didn’t want to say, but he was going to force himself to say it.

‘Max looked downward, momentarily, the same way as he did, when he was in the aisle in the store, a couple of minutes ago. Then he looked back up at me, making eye contact, with a seriously serious expression.

“’If you stay with me, you’re going to die.’

---

Edited April 14, 2019 by saintsrow

April 14, 2019

The thread that keeps on giving.

April 14, 2019

hit or miss, karen took the kids

May 20, 2019

Hi, here is another Karen chapter. Sorry, these next two chapters are all talk, before the action picks up again.

This chapter follows immediately from CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 30: Pain from the Past (Part 20): Brazilian Getaway Special / The Curse of Max

“’What the hell do you mean??!’ I snapped back at Max, without thinking. ‘You’re going to die,’ he had said. It sounded like he’d made a veiled threat.

“I thought I was getting to know Max, to understand his nature, but his sudden statement, ‘You’re going to die,’ seemed completely out of profile. Was he actually a crazed psycho-killer, trying to warn me, in his more lucid moments? I already knew he could kill, in the blink of an eye.

“It made me realize that I didn’t know him that well, and it was wrong and shallow of me, to assume that I should have had him figured out, in just a couple of days of interaction, under some pretty *unusual* conditions.

“’Let’s keep walking,’ Max answered, simply. Then he turned and started to walk again, resuming our route toward the bus stop. I did the same, just a step behind him, and caught up.

“He began, ‘I’m going to try to tell you something, without getting blackout drunk, first.’ He paused, and added, ‘We’ll see how that goes. It’s not promising.’

“Max didn’t start speaking right away, apparently collecting his thoughts. We were walking briskly, Max setting the pace. Now, he was the one running from something.

“The sky was getting darker, and the fine, warm rain was ramping up in intensity. I pulled out one of the rain ponchos, and draped it over my shoulders, not so much to keep me dry, since my hat was doing OK for that, but more to keep my shopping bag dry. I extended the other poncho, in its pouch, toward Max, but he silently shook his head, declining.

“Though the rain was increasing, neither one of us wanted to stop and take shelter. Max was ready to tell me something of supreme importance to him, and I was ready to take in every nuance of it. I liked walking in the rain, anyway. It feels, smells, and sounds like the world cleaning itself, to start again.

[I had no idea, then, that these off-and-on showers were not just from a few harmless, scattered rainclouds, but were waves of increasingly fierce squalls, spun off by Hurricane Leslie*, spawned off the coast of Africa a week earlier, heading due west, straight for us, now about 250 miles offshore. These rainbands, outwardly spiraling waves of storm and calm, were spinning away from the center of the hurricane as it rotated, churned, building into a monster. By the time I found out, it was too late… The cost of ignorance is … staggering.]

FOOTNOTE:

Yes, there really was a Hurricane Leslie*, off the eastern coast of Brazil and Bermuda, in September 2012

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Leslie

Blame Leslie. Hurricane F*cking Leslie.

“Finally, Max spoke again. ‘You asked why I was triggered. Yeah, it was that parrot shirt. Stupid fashion choice. Who knew? Two weeks ago, I was wearing a shirt just like it, in the favelas down in São Paulo, standing there like the dumb ape that I am, as a young woman, supposed to be under my protection, got shot in the head, six feet in front of me.’

“He continued, ’There were things I could have done; I could have taken a bullet; I could have made a bigger distraction. I could have used a little stealth. I could have just stumbled in, like the dumb ass that I am, and changed the situation, unpredictably; it might have been avoided. But too late; I just f*cking *stood* there! Still don’t know why they did it. Just a bunch of foreign shouting that I didn’t understand, situational dynamics I didn’t understand, and *bang* – that was that – her brains were all over the floor, and there was no going back.’

“Max was really on a downer. It sounded pretty bad, I had to admit.

He continued, ‘When I saw that shirt on the rack, that parrot pattern, it all came back; I was there, again.’ Furious with himself, he growled, ‘Jesus F*cking Christ!! What a f*ckup!! Christ!!’

“Max shook his head, a single, sharp jerk, like he was trying to violently throw a thought out of his mind. ‘And this was *after* I had resolved to get my sh*t together,’ Max added, ruefully. ‘That sure as hell didn’t turn out so well…’

“‘It’s quite a tradition I’ve got going,’ he continued. ‘If you want to get your woman killed, just hire me to protect her. She’ll be dead in a week. Works every time…’ Max’s tone was pure self-loathing, hopelessness, boiling over with violent regret. His inner torment was a suffocating, deafening cloud, around both of us, now.

“He was going to continue. I knew I shouldn’t interrupt.

“Max went on, ‘And the icing on the cake is, a few days earlier, I’d let her husband get assassinated, sitting at his big rainforest mahogany desk in his executive office, while I was bumbling around downstairs in the cubicles, like the worthless drunk that I was. Well, in that case, I was getting strafed with automatic gunfire from every direction, but still … I wasn’t where I should have been.

“’But even that wasn’t enough,’ Max added, bitterly. Soon after that, in favela gang turf, I was hiding in the street debris, like a rat, watching her brother get burned alive, clueless and helpless.’

“Max waited a second, then added, ‘I was hired to protect all of them. They were vacuous rich people, living the penthouse life, floating on the backs of the working poor, but none of them deserved the cruel death that was dealt to them. I was supposed to be there, to keep that from happening… At least – that’s what I thought – but it turned out, it seems I was down there to take the fall. If my old detective’s instincts hadn’t been burned out by booze, maybe I would have seen it in time. But no. Total fail. F*ck lot of good I was…’

We were both still walking, fast, oblivious to everything but the intensity of Max’s pain. The rain was getting much heavier. ‘Godammmmmit!!!’ he roared. ‘Yeah, I’m a hell of a bodyguard; a real f*ckin’ winner.’ Luckily, there was no one nearby, to hear him.

“Max paused again, then mused, at a normal volume, but his voice full of bile, ‘And those are just the most recent highlights, in my long, glorious career of monumental f*ckups, that so many others have paid for, with their lives.’

“’My resume is just a body count – a long, fatal list of people who depended on me, and it cost them everything. If I had an iFruit – which I sure as hell don’t – my entire contact list would be dead.’

“‘It’s not just people I’m supposed to protect – it’s anyone who has the misfortune to cross my path, to be part of my orbit. My wife, my dedicated colleagues, people I tried to help, random people who tried to help me … they were doomed, all of them, from the moment they met me.’

“He paused again, remembering even more. Then continued, ‘And my daughter! My daughter! Not even a year old! Completely innocent, in this world! Murdered! Because of me!!! What the hell??!! Even my daughterrrrr!!!’ I could hear repressed, emotional agony rising in Max, as terrible memories flooded in. Just out of empathy, I was starting to feel it, too.

“’I shouldn’t even exist!’ he growled, his hand going up to his eyes, his fingers pressing on his forehead with so much pressure, the skin went white. ‘Jesus F*cking Christ!!’ he cursed, again, through gritted teeth.

“I sensed he was going to continue. He took his hand away from his eyes and looked at me, as we walked. ‘If you stay with me, you’re going to die. It’s inevitable,’ he said, ‘it’s just a matter of time. Somehow, soon. I’m telling you. It’s not just some superstition – this is the story of my life.’

“Then Max just looked down in shame, and shook his head again. It seemed like that was the end of his rant. Then he seemed to come back to his senses, with a purposeful look, focused on our quest, onward to the bus stop.

“Still walking, maybe even faster, in the driving rain. And we were making good time, both of us trying to run away from our pasts. As each second of silence ticked by, it seemed more awkward for me to try to restart the conversation, or confessional, or whatever the hell that had been.

“I thought about what Max had told me. I wasn’t superstitious, either, but nonetheless, it does seem like bad luck, or a bad past, has a way of contaminating the future, if by no other mechanism than setting the expectations for disaster, for self-fulfilling failure, but so subtly, it can’t be overcome by self-awareness, or appeal to rationality, or by simply ‘talking through it’ with a friend, or a shrink. Some people’s lives are like this – everything just goes wrong, time after time. It’s probably just statistics, but for them, it might as well be destiny.

“Even being objective, I could imagine, abstractly, that if we got into a police fight, or some kind of mess like that, one of us might be wounded or killed, trying to help the other, in that chaos, to no avail. Max was so emotionally damaged, so sure he was cursed, that he expected the worst to happen to me, despite our best efforts. And Max would surely blame himself. And if Max were wounded or killed, I’d surely blame myself; I was the only reason he was here, in this predicament.

“Knowing how bad ‘the worst’ could be for me, if I were caught down here by the gang scum that I had decimated for my revenge, I was now taking Max’s words quite seriously. At the hands of the gang, I'be tortured to death. A bullet through my brain would be the highest mercy, in comparison.

"I couldn’t afford any more uncertainty. It’s a rule of thumb – when things don’t make any damn sense, go with your gut. My gut was telling me now, to split up, like he said – there wasn’t any rationality to it, just the gut. I didn’t want to try to fight what I didn’t understand, and end up a victim.

“My unspoken vow, in the mirror at the secondhand shop a few minutes ago, to make my way back to the US and live an obscure, simple life, also resonated. My fate was up to me; I wouldn’t, couldn’t, trust it to someone else. This was a turning point. I knew, when the time was right, I’d split from Max. It would be soon.

“Max spoke up again. I guess he felt he needed to elaborate, after his off-the-wall, fatalistic soliloquy. He said, ‘There’s at least one obvious reason, why we need to split up, even if I weren’t your walking, talking, bad luck monkey paw. It’s worse than that.’ Max seemed to be back to his ‘normal’ self.

“He went on, ‘Soon enough, in maybe a couple of days, if not already, they’ll find the car under that bridge, and then they’ll try to figure out if you hitchhiked from there, or if you jacked a car, or whatever.’

“’Then, they’ll check the buses. Maybe they’ll follow up with the cops at the checkpoint we skated through, the first night, and then the bus station at the border. They’ll talk to the cop I bribed, or the bus driver where we first got on, and they’ll say, “Si, si, there was an American woman, suspicious, furtive, hiding her face; she’s probably the killer you’re looking for. I knew there was something wrong about her. I could feel the evil.’ Max smirked cynically, as he imitated them. With a purely mental scowl, I thought, this joke's getting old, now, Max. It was a little funny, the first time.

“’From that, they’ll figure out that the crazy American killer woman headed north, and they’ll know which bus, and then they’ll be locked in. If there’s a detective on the case, one who’s got the bloodhound’s instinct, he’ll be hot on the trail. He’ll follow up on the next bus, to Aracaju, and then here, to Recife. He’ll check the security cameras, the bus stations, and the traffic cameras, all the things you’re concerned about. He’ll talk to people. He won’t let up. That’s what I’d do – at least, back when I tried to pass for a detective.’

“’You’ve got a fancy hat to hide your face. You’re planning to use your new outfits to throw off the scent. But here’s the problem. You can probably see it already, right beside you, splashing through the raindrops.’

“’You can disguise yourself, but on every camera, there’s a big stupid oaf in a ball cap, walking right beside you. When that hotshot detective makes the connection that we were on the bus together at that checkpoint, that’s the end of it. I’m like a big, ridiculous clown, dancing with a bright fluorescent arrow, pointing at you, saying, “HERE SHE IS! GET HER!!!” All they have to do is find me on camera, and they find you. Game over.’

“Max had a good point, a killer point. I hadn’t even been thinking of it like that. It was so obvious! Suddenly, there was a hollow in my chest, and my breath got short, as I fully realized the seriousness, the inevitability, the futility, of my escape trajectory. Exactly like Max said, he could be the one to get me killed, just by trying to help me.

“Well, this changed things. Now, I was caught in a dilemma. I had felt I needed Max to provide cover for me, but in fact he was doing the opposite. What was wrenching, even more so, was that I had lulled myself into a frame of mind, to work some amateur psychotherapy on him, over the next few days, or the next week, to try to get him past the hell that was raging in his mind. I could see, especially after this latest rant, how badly he needed it.

“Max’s revelations about the parrot-print shirt, his opening up about his shame, his failures, his terrible self-accusations, had felt like the first step to me. It was a real breakthrough, even though it was for the wrong reason. I could tell there was a chance of getting through to him. But that seemed moot, now. This new context upended the intuitive plan that I had built around us.

“Max spoke again. ‘When we get out of this rain, let’s look at that tour book again. We should choose different paths. I’ll go my own way, some random route, different cities, and I’ll make a point of flashing my dopey mug in every TV camera I see. They’ll follow me, at least for a while. Meanwhile, you can settle into obscurity, with your tricky little spygirl disguises, on up the coast somewhere.’

“I completely got what he was saying. But then I thought, and said, ‘But Max, what about you? If you draw these bastards to you, what will you do? You can’t fight the whole police force!’

“Max snorted a quick chuckle at that, and replied, ‘Ha! You should have seen me a few weeks ago. Yes, as it happens, I probably can fight the whole police force, if it comes to that. Matter of fact, I’m getting pretty good at slaughtering hordes of dirty cops. That’s about the only personal accomplishment I could claim on my nonexistent LifeInvader page, other than being a wasted drunk, and a talisman of doom. “Dime-store angel of death – that’d’ be my social media profile bragline.”’

‘On the other hand, I don’t want to get into a gunfight with any honest cops. I’ll head inland, to some little obscure towns, and I’ll hide out in the bars. Hanging out in bars for hours, days and weeks, in a nihilistic stupor, down an infinite rabbit hole of regret – that’s another one of my special skills.’

“The idea of Max regressing to a hopeless drunk, cut me to the core. I wanted so much to help him get an upward path for the rest of his life, not sink into wasted, drunken misery. ‘No, Max, no!!!’ I pleaded. ‘Don’t even think like that! I want to help you. I don’t know how, but I can’t let you go back to that life.’

“It was my turn to make a speech. It was coming to me, somehow, from somewhere. I continued, ‘Let’s do this right; let’s think it through, for a couple of days. Let’s just get settled at a little obscure hotel near the beach, and let’s just pretend, for a day or two, that we’re not a couple of human wrecks. Let’s pretend we’re just ordinary tourists. Roleplay can work, even practiced intermittently. I did it in training for my undercover work. You can almost forget who you really are. Really, Max, let’s give it a shot.’

“I reached up and touched his shoulder. It wasn’t anything romantic; I was just trying to make a human connection, to emphasize my sincerity. Max didn’t even seem to notice. He looked up ahead.

“We’d been walking so fast, so absorbed in our respective mental anguish, that the bus stop we had been heading to, was already coming up, at the end of the block. Max stopped, and I stopped, taking my hand away from him.

“’What the hell; why not?’ Max responded. ‘If we lay low, if we’re lucky, and that hypothetical hound dog detective isn’t on our trail yet, yeah, I agree, it wouldn’t hurt to break up the rhythm, instead of automatically getting on the bus again tonight. That would be starting to get a little too predictable.’

“He continued, ‘Besides, the past couple of weeks, I was kind of getting used to the leisure tourist routine, maybe even having a little debate with myself, about what retirement life might be like, if I didn’t run it off the rails like I always do. Well … that was before you came along, with your grenades and gangsters. Now I’m seeing the same old pattern emerging… It’s my highway to hell; I can’t escape it.’

“’Max!’ I interjected. ‘I don’t want to be responsible for screwing up your life. This isn’t a ‘pattern.’ Please, don’t use this as an excuse. We’re going to relax and take it easy, and roleplay a new, innocent life, for a little while.’

“’Fine,’ Max replied, ‘I’ll play it your way. Maybe I’m up for that. Let’s catch the bus.’

“We walked a bit further, holding at the last fifty feet to the bus stop, so we wouldn’t have to mingle with the others waiting there. The bus drove by us, slowing for the stop, and we quickly made our way to it, boarding at the end of the line, after the other passengers.

“The ride, through several more bus stops, to the beach hotel strip, was uneventful. We got off at one of the first of the stops along the beach boulevard, along with several other passengers. I had already figured out the walking route that we should take, to search the hotels in the area, to find one with a rear entrance, no cameras.

“We started walking south on the main beach street, falling in with the rest of the tourist foot traffic, which was a little sparse, but just about right. It was warm and humid. The rain had let up, during the bus trip, and people were back out on the street, heading to breakfast or brunch, or shopping. Max was soaked, and my poncho was dripping water everywhere. I shook it off, and stuffed it back in my bag. The little glimpses of sun, what few there were, still low in the east, felt good.

“I had a planned loop of about 10 to 12 blocks that we would walk, passing several hotels, and then circling around behind them, to see which ones had rear entrances, away from the front desk. Most of the hotels were high rises with big names, no good for us. After several blocks, we came to a couple of places that were on my original search – non-franchised, and small enough that they might not be dotted with cameras inside. But they still seemed a little too upscale. I couldn’t take the chance that they would have security cams in the hallways.

“After a few more blocks, we turned to make a loop, to inspect the rear entrances of the few smaller hotels on the street behind the main beach boulevard. Almost as soon as we turned, we walked by a business on the side street, that could help me, though I hadn’t even thought about, until I saw it. It was a beauty salon that sold cabelos humanos, human hair extensions, and wigs, along with hair styling services.

“Wigs. Wow, it was almost too convenient. Had I even thought about it, I’d have assumed that I’d have to search a whole commercial district in Recife, to find a beauty shop with wigs. But, based on the displays and advertising text on the front window, this store had everything, in the business of fake hair. The shop seemed to me a little out of place in the tourist district, but it must be a thing here, since there was a similar, smaller salon or salão, right across the street.

“I 'd already stopped, without even thinking, as soon as the window display had caught my eye. Max stopped too, realizing what I was thinking. I told Max I was going to see if I could get a wig here. To be efficient, we agreed that Max would go on our planned route and check out the rest of the hotels, and pick the best one, in his judgment, while I got a wig, or the hair extensions.

“I could tell Max was glad that I didn’t ask him to go in to the shop for me, while I hid out, like we had done in Aracaju. That was fine with him, he said, because he wasn’t going to be any help in that place.

“‘Besides,’ he smiled, touching the bill on his cap, covering his bald head, ‘they might try to sell me a new head of hair, while I’m in there.’ He passed for a second, then mused, “Maybe an Elvis ‘do would look good…,’ but quickly added, ‘No, maybe not.’ I laughed.

“Max said, ‘I’ll meet you on this street, about five blocks north, no hurry, whenever you get there,’ and he pointed in the general direction. ‘By then, I should have found a place to stay. Take your time.’ I nodded agreement, and he turned and walked on, to continue our hotel quest on his own.

“I hesitated for a second, before entering the salon. I thought, I’d already been seen in the secondhand store, and the bus, so it’s not like I’m invisible. I’d eventually have to take my chances that the cops would not track down these random places I had been. But then I remembered, I’m screwed anyway, as long as I’m with Max, the walking neon perp beacon. I needed to accumulate enough elements of disguise, to eventually hide in plain sight, after I split from Max; I needed the fake hair. So, in I went.

“It all worked out. It was a small, friendly place, no cameras inside. They weren’t too busy yet, in the morning. A couple of the people there spoke good enough English, probably since the shop was near the hotels and tourists. I gave the stylists a story about how I got invited to a party, and I needed a different look, a style more like a local girl. I was telling the stylist helping me that I wanted naturally black hair, but she laughed and replied, ‘Ha ha, all the local girls want to be blondes!’

“So I thought, as long as I’m here, let’s do it right – I’ll get both black and blonde. After looking a bit at their inventory, and with her advice, I selected a few to try. Now was the moment of truth. I’d have to take off my fancy hat, and let them see my totally tangled hair. This was going to be embarrassing, but it had to be done.

“I apologized in advance, with another lie, saying, ‘I left my hairbrush and toiletries on the tour bus,’ using the name of a tourist express company I remembered from the tour books. The stylist couldn’t suppress an ‘Oh!!’ when she saw the mess my hair was in. She immediately sat me down in the chair, to brush it out. Then she pinned up my hair, neatly, and fitted each wig on me.

“Looking in the mirror, I selected two wigs, and all the stylists nodded approval. It’s amazing what a difference a wig makes, in one’s self-perception. It’s a funny kind of identity displacement; like any costume, it just begs you to change your personality, to suit the new appearance.

“And once again, seeing myself in the mirror, my first, normal context was as a girl just having fun trying on fashion wigs, but then, like before, I remembered why I was doing all this. I quickly suppressed the thought, though, so they wouldn’t see a dark expression cross my face.

“In addition to the basic black wig, which was barely more than a bob, I got extension wefts and tresses, all the same shade of black, sorted and matched, to create a long hair look, as an alternative. The blonde wig was already shoulder length, so I didn’t need extensions for it.

“Besides the tape and pins for the black hair extensions, I also bought a hairbrush, shampoo and conditioner, and some incidental cosmetics, which supported my story about the lost toiletry kit; besides, I really needed these things, anyway.

“I paid cash in reals, significantly diminishing my supply of local currency, and they gave me the articles in a store-branded shopping bag. Everyone there was happy to help, and wished me a fun time, at the fictitious party I had lied about. With my hair still pinned up, I put my colorful hat back on.

“As I left the salon, with a shopping bag in each hand, I felt another kind of displacement, like I was coming out of a fashion boutique, onto Portola Drive, in Rockford Hills, winding up a weekend shopping spree. But instead, now, I was running from a killing spree. Life is strange.

“I headed in the direction of my planned meeting place with Max, and rapidly walked there. He wasn’t in sight. I kept walking, since I didn’t know exactly which block he’d be waiting at. After a few more blocks, I still hadn’t seen him, so I reversed direction. I wasn’t worried that he had abandoned me, or anything like that, but I wondered why he wasn’t here. I’d spent long enough in the salon.

“I walked several blocks south, not quite back to the salon, still no Max, and reversed again. This time, I saw Max in the distance, coming in from an intersecting street, his appearance distinct, unmistakable, with duffel bag, cap and beard, leaving no doubt. He was right. If the police do get wise to him, as my accomplice, he’ll be easy to spot. I momentarily worried about that.

“My eyes were locked on Max. I unconsciously quickened my pace to reach him. I was so focused, I almost stepped in front of a bicycle, blasting through the intersection. That woke me up. ‘All right, Karen, start thinking,’ I admonished myself. ‘What the hell are you doing? You’re going to have to get along without Max, in a couple of days, so don’t get dependent; don’t lose focus on your own objectives. You don’t need that.’

“I took a deep breath and consciously slowed down to a normal pace, and looked around me, to break my inadvertent single-minded drive to reach Max. OK, I was normal again, walking at normal speed, and looking both ways at the crosswalks, so I didn’t get run down by a bus.

“When I came up to Max, I could tell that he knew I was wondering where he had been.

“’All the hotels on the main drag had too much foot traffic around the entrances and exits, and they had security cameras watching their backstreet parking lots. Even the smaller ones,’ Max explained. ‘Didn’t seem like a private enough environment. So I went a few blocks inland, to where the real estate isn’t quite so pricy, away from the tourist grazing land. I figured that I’d find something more like the obscure, random hotel we had in Aracaju.’

“’It’s a little way from here,’ he added. I hope you’re still in the mood for walking.’

“I didn’t mind the walk. After 15 minutes or so, we’d gone some distance inland, and further north. No wonder Max was gone so long. This was definitely a different commercial and mixed residential neighborhood environment than the beach hotel strip. Obscure, for sure. When we got there, Max nodded his head in the direction of the motel, saying, ‘We’re here.’

“’Motel Eros,’ with a pink stucco façade, painted with a huge graphic illustration, close-cropped, of a beautiful woman’s face, vivid red lips parted, head thrown back in ecstasy.

“No doubting what this motel was about. He’d found us one of the ‘love motels.’ Good grief! But it actually looked fairly well kept, on the outside. ‘Around back,’ Max said, gesturing on down the sidewalk, ‘where the cars are parked. We won’t have to walk by the front desk.’

“We went in through the back, into a spacious corridor, and I could immediately hear, from one of the rooms down the hall –faintly, but unmistakably – the sound of a woman faking an orgasm, loudly, obviously over the top. And on top. Ha, love motel was right. Max stopped at one of the doors, keying open the lock, and we walked in.

“The room was dominated by a big round bed, rose gold satin sheets, with a matching, elaborate, ruffled bedskirt. Step-up hot tub for two, in front of the bed, right in the bedroom. Stripper pole next to the hot tub. Huge, arty painting of a reclining, naked woman above the headboard. A mirror covering most of the wall, floor to ceiling. Nothing out of the ordinary here.

‘Check this out,’ Max said, as he flipped a switch, and turned a knob on a wall panel next to the headboard. ‘The hotel guy made a point of showing me how this works.’

“The room light went dim, and several hidden, indirect illumination sources lit up from the corners of the room, and along the border of the full-length mirror, and even from under the bed. Garish purple, pink and red, making the whole room look like the sleazy one-hour sex nest, that it was meant to be.

“’Oh, god!’ I said with a laugh. ‘Max, you can really pick ‘em!’

“Max brought the regular lights back up, and then I noticed, in addition to the ubiquitous stripper pole, next to the hot tub, there was some kind of funny-looking, upholstered, curved piece of furniture in the room, padded in black vinyl, shaped like a narrow, short, miniature armless lounge chair, seemingly made for a midget.

“I saw that the chair, or whatever it was, had handgrips on each side, positioned as though it were meant to be a video gamer chair, specifically shaped for a racing bike video game. I wondered if it had footpegs in the right place. Otherwise, the shape made no sense. Only thing I could see it might be good for, in real life, is sitting on, to pull on your stockings, or to paint your toenails.

‘What the hell is that thing?’ I asked Max, rhetorically.

“He replied, with a smirk, ‘I’ve seen the big brother of this little item in a couple of places, in my travels among the denizens of the criminal underworld. They’re Kamasutra chairs. You can imagine what they’re for, but I don’t know how they’re supposed to work.’ Smiling, he said, ‘I guess that’s why they wrote that manual, about four thousand years ago.’

“Max went on, ‘But this thing, it’s … undersized. Must be out of a different sex book. Maybe it’s some kind of Brazilian thing. I don’t want to know about it, in any case.’ He laughed.

“I shook my head, half embarrassed, and amused. As Max was starting to tell me what it was, I realized that it looked like something you’d see in a gynecologist’s office, and it made more sense. Now that I knew what it really was, I shuddered to think what role the hand grips had, in its function. The stories this room could tell … Yuuuuch. I hoped they had a good, hot laundry, for the sheets.

“I looked around the rest of the room, and asked, ’There’s only one bed, Max. Where are you going to sleep?’ I automatically assumed that I would get the bed, though I noticed Max had already set down his duffel bag on the rose gold bedspread, when we entered the room.

“’Funny,’ Max replied, ‘I was going to ask you the same question. The bed is mine.’ He waited, with a Max smirk on his face, to see me make an indignant expression – which I did – but then he continued, ‘Don’t worry, I booked two rooms. I told them my swinger friends were coming in later, and we’re all going to have a two-day orgy. I have the room next to this one.’ He pointed to a doorway to the adjoining room, on the wall opposite the huge mirror.

“Bottom line is that the motel and the room looked like it would work fine for us, for a two-day stay. Max had done well on his search, to find an ideal entry-exit situation, where we could come and go without being seen on camera, and with a low chance of bumping into people who could remember me being here.

“It would be a bit of a trek to the beach, but that wasn’t going to stop me. Now I had my mind set on getting lunch, later, at a little open-air cantina, plastic chairs and wicker tables, under a palapa on the sand, lazily hanging out there while downing a few cervejas, then taking a long walk with Max on the beach, by the water’s edge, roleplaying, pretending that life is normal.

“…and, meanwhile, I’d be trying to get inside Max’s head and heart, to make him see the hope he could still have in his life, if he would just free himself of his terrible past. Not too much to ask, for an afternoon…

---

Stay tuned for CHAPTER 31 !!

Edited July 17, 2019 by saintsrow

May 22, 2019

We need lewds.

May 22, 2019

When you want to have something done, you have to do it yourself.

(Spoiler for mild erotic content.)

Edited May 22, 2019 by Polynoid

May 23, 2019

May 23, 2019

She does have that "Lemme speak to your manager!" face, not gonna lie.

May 23, 2019

The thread that keeps on giving.

May 23, 2019

how is this thread still alive 3-4 years later?

May 23, 2019

25 minutes ago, Kid-A said:

how is this thread still alive 3-4 years later?

May 24, 2019

On 5/22/2019 at 10:40 AM, Polynoid said:

When you want to have something done, you have to do it yourself.

(Spoiler for mild erotic content.)

Reveal hidden contents

Reveal hidden contents

Our man here is doing the Lord's work. This makes it a whole ballgame, my friends.

EDIT: PS: Does @PNutterSammich have an opinion on Karen's feet?

Edited May 24, 2019 by saintsrow

May 24, 2019

14 hours ago, saintsrow said:

Our man here is doing the Lord's work. This makes it a whole ballgame, my friends.

EDIT: PS: Does @PNutterSammich have an opinion on Karen's feet?

Can't opinion.....busy.....

May 26, 2019

You don't walk alone.

May 27, 2019

5 hours ago, Polynoid said:

You don't walk alone.

Reveal hidden contents

Reveal hidden contents

Ooooh, those sexy bare shoulders ... POV shots of Karen in love ...

And you made Karen smile, an amazing and endearing feat of greatness

May 27, 2019

On 5/20/2019 at 8:47 PM, saintsrow said:

Spoiler

Hi, here is another Karen chapter. Sorry, these next two chapters are all talk, before the action picks up again.

This chapter follows immediately from CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 30: Pain from the Past (Part 20): Brazilian Getaway Special / The Curse of Max

“’What the hell do you mean??!’ I snapped back at Max, without thinking. ‘You’re going to die,’ he had said. It sounded like he’d made a veiled threat.

“I thought I was getting to know Max, to understand his nature, but his sudden statement, ‘You’re going to die,’ seemed completely out of profile. Was he actually a crazed psycho-killer, trying to warn me, in his more lucid moments? I already knew he could kill, in the blink of an eye.

“It made me realize that I didn’t know him that well, and it was wrong and shallow of me, to assume that I should have had him figured out, in just a couple of days of interaction, under some pretty *unusual* conditions.

“’Let’s keep walking,’ Max answered, simply. Then he turned and started to walk again, resuming our route toward the bus stop. I did the same, just a step behind him, and caught up.

“He began, ‘I’m going to try to tell you something, without getting blackout drunk, first.’ He paused, and added, ‘We’ll see how that goes. It’s not promising.’

“Max didn’t start speaking right away, apparently collecting his thoughts. We were walking briskly, Max setting the pace. Now, he was the one running from something.

“The sky was getting darker, and the fine, warm rain was ramping up in intensity. I pulled out one of the rain ponchos, and draped it over my shoulders, not so much to keep me dry, since my hat was doing OK for that, but more to keep my shopping bag dry. I extended the other poncho, in its pouch, toward Max, but he silently shook his head, declining.

“Though the rain was increasing, neither one of us wanted to stop and take shelter. Max was ready to tell me something of supreme importance to him, and I was ready to take in every nuance of it. I liked walking in the rain, anyway. It feels, smells, and sounds like the world cleaning itself, to start again.

[I had no idea, then, that these off-and-on showers were not just from a few harmless, scattered rainclouds, but were waves of increasingly fierce squalls, spun off by Hurricane Leslie*, spawned off the coast of Africa a week earlier, heading due west, straight for us, now about 250 miles offshore. These rainbands, outwardly spiraling waves of storm and calm, were spinning away from the center of the hurricane as it rotated, churned, building into a monster. By the time I found out, it was too late… The cost of ignorance is … staggering.]

FOOTNOTE:

Yes, there really was a Hurricane Leslie*, off the eastern coast of Brazil and Bermuda, in September 2012

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Leslie

Blame Leslie. Hurricane F*cking Leslie.

“Finally, Max spoke again. ‘You asked why I was triggered. Yeah, it was that parrot shirt. Stupid fashion choice. Who knew? Two weeks ago, I was wearing a shirt just like it, in the favelas down in São Paulo, standing there like the dumb ape that I am, as a young woman, supposed to be under my protection, got shot in the head, six feet in front of me.’

“He continued, ’There were things I could have done; I could have taken a bullet; I could have made a bigger distraction. I could have used a little stealth. I could have just stumbled in, like the dumb ass that I am, and changed the situation, unpredictably; it might have been avoided. But too late; I just f*cking *stood* there! Still don’t know why they did it. Just a bunch of foreign shouting that I didn’t understand, situational dynamics I didn’t understand, and *bang* – that was that – her brains were all over the floor, and there was no going back.’

“Max was really on a downer. It sounded pretty bad, I had to admit.

He continued, ‘When I saw that shirt on the rack, that parrot pattern, it all came back; I was there, again.’ Furious with himself, he growled, ‘Jesus F*cking Christ!! What a f*ckup!! Christ!!’

“Max shook his head, a single, sharp jerk, like he was trying to violently throw a thought out of his mind. ‘And this was *after* I had resolved to get my sh*t together,’ Max added, ruefully. ‘That sure as hell didn’t turn out so well…’

“‘It’s quite a tradition I’ve got going,’ he continued. ‘If you want to get your woman killed, just hire me to protect her. She’ll be dead in a week. Works every time…’ Max’s tone was pure self-loathing, hopelessness, boiling over with violent regret. His inner torment was a suffocating, deafening cloud, around both of us, now.

“He was going to continue. I knew I shouldn’t interrupt.

“Max went on, ‘And the icing on the cake is, a few days earlier, I’d let her husband get assassinated, sitting at his big rainforest mahogany desk in his executive office, while I was bumbling around downstairs in the cubicles, like the worthless drunk that I was. Well, in that case, I was getting strafed with automatic gunfire from every direction, but still … I wasn’t where I should have been.

“’But even that wasn’t enough,’ Max added, bitterly. Soon after that, in favela gang turf, I was hiding in the street debris, like a rat, watching her brother get burned alive, clueless and helpless.’

“Max waited a second, then added, ‘I was hired to protect all of them. They were vacuous rich people, living the penthouse life, floating on the backs of the working poor, but none of them deserved the cruel death that was dealt to them. I was supposed to be there, to keep that from happening… At least – that’s what I thought – but it turned out, it seems I was down there to take the fall. If my old detective’s instincts hadn’t been burned out by booze, maybe I would have seen it in time. But no. Total fail. F*ck lot of good I was…’

We were both still walking, fast, oblivious to everything but the intensity of Max’s pain. The rain was getting much heavier. ‘Godammmmmit!!!’ he roared. ‘Yeah, I’m a hell of a bodyguard; a real f*ckin’ winner.’ Luckily, there was no one nearby, to hear him.

“Max paused again, then mused, at a normal volume, but his voice full of bile, ‘And those are just the most recent highlights, in my long, glorious career of monumental f*ckups, that so many others have paid for, with their lives.’

“’My resume is just a body count – a long, fatal list of people who depended on me, and it cost them everything. If I had an iFruit – which I sure as hell don’t – my entire contact list would be dead.’

“‘It’s not just people I’m supposed to protect – it’s anyone who has the misfortune to cross my path, to be part of my orbit. My wife, my dedicated colleagues, people I tried to help, random people who tried to help me … they were doomed, all of them, from the moment they met me.’

“He paused again, remembering even more. Then continued, ‘And my daughter!   My daughter! Not even a year old! Completely innocent, in this world! Murdered! Because of me!!! What the hell??!! Even my daughterrrrr!!!’ I could hear repressed, emotional agony rising in Max, as terrible memories flooded in. Just out of empathy, I was starting to feel it, too.

“’I shouldn’t even exist!’ he growled, his hand going up to his eyes, his fingers pressing on his forehead with so much pressure, the skin went white. ‘Jesus F*cking Christ!!’ he cursed, again, through gritted teeth.

“I sensed he was going to continue. He took his hand away from his eyes and looked at me, as we walked.   ‘If you stay with me, you’re going to die. It’s inevitable,’ he said, ‘it’s just a matter of time. Somehow, soon. I’m telling you. It’s not just some superstition – this is the story of my life.’

“Then Max just looked down in shame, and shook his head again. It seemed like that was the end of his rant. Then he seemed to come back to his senses, with a purposeful look, focused on our quest, onward to the bus stop.

“Still walking, maybe even faster, in the driving rain. And we were making good time, both of us trying to run away from our pasts. As each second of silence ticked by, it seemed more awkward for me to try to restart the conversation, or confessional, or whatever the hell that had been.

“I thought about what Max had told me. I wasn’t superstitious, either, but nonetheless, it does seem like bad luck, or a bad past, has a way of contaminating the future, if by no other mechanism than setting the expectations for disaster, for self-fulfilling failure, but so subtly, it can’t be overcome by self-awareness, or appeal to rationality, or by simply ‘talking through it’ with a friend, or a shrink. Some people’s lives are like this – everything just goes wrong, time after time. It’s probably just statistics, but for them, it might as well be destiny.

“Even being objective, I could imagine, abstractly, that if we got into a police fight, or some kind of mess like that, one of us might be wounded or killed, trying to help the other, in that chaos, to no avail. Max was so emotionally damaged, so sure he was cursed, that he expected the worst to happen to me, despite our best efforts. And Max would surely blame himself. And if Max were wounded or killed, I’d surely blame myself; I was the only reason he was here, in this predicament.

“Knowing how bad ‘the worst’ could be for me, if I were caught down here by the gang scum that I had decimated for my revenge, I was now taking Max’s words quite seriously. At the hands of the gang, I'be tortured to death. A bullet through my brain would be the highest mercy, in comparison.

"I couldn’t afford any more uncertainty. It’s a rule of thumb – when things don’t make any damn sense, go with your gut. My gut was telling me now, to split up, like he said – there wasn’t any rationality to it, just the gut. I didn’t want to try to fight what I didn’t understand, and end up a victim.

“My unspoken vow, in the mirror at the secondhand shop a few minutes ago, to make my way back to the US and live an obscure, simple life, also resonated. My fate was up to me; I wouldn’t, couldn’t, trust it to someone else. This was a turning point. I knew, when the time was right, I’d split from Max. It would be soon.

“Max spoke up again. I guess he felt he needed to elaborate, after his off-the-wall, fatalistic soliloquy. He said, ‘There’s at least one obvious reason, why we need to split up, even if I weren’t your walking, talking, bad luck monkey paw. It’s worse than that.’ Max seemed to be back to his ‘normal’ self.

“He went on, ‘Soon enough, in maybe a couple of days, if not already, they’ll find the car under that bridge, and then they’ll try to figure out if you hitchhiked from there, or if you jacked a car, or whatever.’

“’Then, they’ll check the buses. Maybe they’ll follow up with the cops at the checkpoint we skated through, the first night, and then the bus station at the border. They’ll talk to the cop I bribed, or the bus driver where we first got on, and they’ll say, “Si, si, there was an American woman, suspicious, furtive, hiding her face; she’s probably the killer you’re looking for. I knew there was something wrong about her. I could feel the evil.’ Max smirked cynically, as he imitated them. With a purely mental scowl, I thought, this joke's getting old, now, Max. It was a little funny, the first time.

“’From that, they’ll figure out that the crazy American killer woman headed north, and they’ll know which bus, and then they’ll be locked in. If there’s a detective on the case, one who’s got the bloodhound’s instinct, he’ll be hot on the trail. He’ll follow up on the next bus, to Aracaju, and then here, to Recife. He’ll check the security cameras, the bus stations, and the traffic cameras, all the things you’re concerned about. He’ll talk to people. He won’t let up. That’s what I’d do – at least, back when I tried to pass for a detective.’

“’You’ve got a fancy hat to hide your face. You’re planning to use your new outfits to throw off the scent. But here’s the problem. You can probably see it already, right beside you, splashing through the raindrops.’

“’You can disguise yourself, but on every camera, there’s a big stupid oaf in a ball cap, walking right beside you. When that hotshot detective makes the connection that we were on the bus together at that checkpoint, that’s the end of it. I’m like a big, ridiculous clown, dancing with a bright fluorescent arrow, pointing at you, saying, “HERE SHE IS! GET HER!!!” All they have to do is find me on camera, and they find you. Game over.’

“Max had a good point, a killer point. I hadn’t even been thinking of it like that. It was so obvious! Suddenly, there was a hollow in my chest, and my breath got short, as I fully realized the seriousness, the inevitability, the futility, of my escape trajectory. Exactly like Max said, he could be the one to get me killed, just by trying to help me.

“Well, this changed things. Now, I was caught in a dilemma. I had felt I needed Max to provide cover for me, but in fact he was doing the opposite. What was wrenching, even more so, was that I had lulled myself into a frame of mind, to work some amateur psychotherapy on him, over the next few days, or the next week, to try to get him past the hell that was raging in his mind. I could see, especially after this latest rant, how badly he needed it.

“Max’s revelations about the parrot-print shirt, his opening up about his shame, his failures, his terrible self-accusations, had felt like the first step to me. It was a real breakthrough, even though it was for the wrong reason. I could tell there was a chance of getting through to him. But that seemed moot, now. This new context upended the intuitive plan that I had built around us.

“Max spoke again. ‘When we get out of this rain, let’s look at that tour book again. We should choose different paths. I’ll go my own way, some random route, different cities, and I’ll make a point of flashing my dopey mug in every TV camera I see. They’ll follow me, at least for a while. Meanwhile, you can settle into obscurity, with your tricky little spygirl disguises, on up the coast somewhere.’

“I completely got what he was saying. But then I thought, and said, ‘But Max, what about you? If you draw these bastards to you, what will you do? You can’t fight the whole police force!’

“Max snorted a quick chuckle at that, and replied, ‘Ha! You should have seen me a few weeks ago. Yes, as it happens, I probably can fight the whole police force, if it comes to that. Matter of fact, I’m getting pretty good at slaughtering hordes of dirty cops. That’s about the only personal accomplishment I could claim on my nonexistent LifeInvader page, other than being a wasted drunk, and a talisman of doom. “Dime-store angel of death – that’d’ be my social media profile bragline.”’

‘On the other hand, I don’t want to get into a gunfight with any honest cops. I’ll head inland, to some little obscure towns, and I’ll hide out in the bars. Hanging out in bars for hours, days and weeks, in a nihilistic stupor, down an infinite rabbit hole of regret – that’s another one of my special skills.’

“The idea of Max regressing to a hopeless drunk, cut me to the core. I wanted so much to help him get an upward path for the rest of his life, not sink into wasted, drunken misery. ‘No, Max, no!!!’ I pleaded. ‘Don’t even think like that! I want to help you. I don’t know how, but I can’t let you go back to that life.’

“It was my turn to make a speech. It was coming to me, somehow, from somewhere. I continued, ‘Let’s do this right; let’s think it through, for a couple of days. Let’s just get settled at a little obscure hotel near the beach, and let’s just pretend, for a day or two, that we’re not a couple of human wrecks. Let’s pretend we’re just ordinary tourists. Roleplay can work, even practiced intermittently. I did it in training for my undercover work. You can almost forget who you really are. Really, Max, let’s give it a shot.’

“I reached up and touched his shoulder. It wasn’t anything romantic; I was just trying to make a human connection, to emphasize my sincerity. Max didn’t even seem to notice. He looked up ahead.

“We’d been walking so fast, so absorbed in our respective mental anguish, that the bus stop we had been heading to, was already coming up, at the end of the block. Max stopped, and I stopped, taking my hand away from him.

“’What the hell; why not?’ Max responded. ‘If we lay low, if we’re lucky, and that hypothetical hound dog detective isn’t on our trail yet, yeah, I agree, it wouldn’t hurt to break up the rhythm, instead of automatically getting on the bus again tonight. That would be starting to get a little too predictable.’

“He continued, ‘Besides, the past couple of weeks, I was kind of getting used to the leisure tourist routine, maybe even having a little debate with myself, about what retirement life might be like, if I didn’t run it off the rails like I always do. Well … that was before you came along, with your grenades and gangsters. Now I’m seeing the same old pattern emerging… It’s my highway to hell; I can’t escape it.’

“’Max!’ I interjected. ‘I don’t want to be responsible for screwing up your life. This isn’t a ‘pattern.’ Please, don’t use this as an excuse. We’re going to relax and take it easy, and roleplay a new, innocent life, for a little while.’

“’Fine,’ Max replied, ‘I’ll play it your way. Maybe I’m up for that. Let’s catch the bus.’

“We walked a bit further, holding at the last fifty feet to the bus stop, so we wouldn’t have to mingle with the others waiting there. The bus drove by us, slowing for the stop, and we quickly made our way to it, boarding at the end of the line, after the other passengers.

“The ride, through several more bus stops, to the beach hotel strip, was uneventful. We got off at one of the first of the stops along the beach boulevard, along with several other passengers. I had already figured out the walking route that we should take, to search the hotels in the area, to find one with a rear entrance, no cameras.

“We started walking south on the main beach street, falling in with the rest of the tourist foot traffic, which was a little sparse, but just about right. It was warm and humid. The rain had let up, during the bus trip, and people were back out on the street, heading to breakfast or brunch, or shopping. Max was soaked, and my poncho was dripping water everywhere. I shook it off, and stuffed it back in my bag. The little glimpses of sun, what few there were, still low in the east, felt good.

“I had a planned loop of about 10 to 12 blocks that we would walk, passing several hotels, and then circling around behind them, to see which ones had rear entrances, away from the front desk. Most of the hotels were high rises with big names, no good for us. After several blocks, we came to a couple of places that were on my original search – non-franchised, and small enough that they might not be dotted with cameras inside. But they still seemed a little too upscale. I couldn’t take the chance that they would have security cams in the hallways.

“After a few more blocks, we turned to make a loop, to inspect the rear entrances of the few smaller hotels on the street behind the main beach boulevard. Almost as soon as we turned, we walked by a business on the side street, that could help me, though I hadn’t even thought about, until I saw it. It was a beauty salon that sold cabelos humanos, human hair extensions, and wigs, along with hair styling services.

“Wigs. Wow, it was almost too convenient. Had I even thought about it, I’d have assumed that I’d have to search a whole commercial district in Recife, to find a beauty shop with wigs. But, based on the displays and advertising text on the front window, this store had everything, in the business of fake hair. The shop seemed to me a little out of place in the tourist district, but it must be a thing here, since there was a similar, smaller salon or salão, right across the street.

“I 'd already stopped, without even thinking, as soon as the window display had caught my eye. Max stopped too, realizing what I was thinking. I told Max I was going to see if I could get a wig here. To be efficient, we agreed that Max would go on our planned route and check out the rest of the hotels, and pick the best one, in his judgment, while I got a wig, or the hair extensions.

“I could tell Max was glad that I didn’t ask him to go in to the shop for me, while I hid out, like we had done in Aracaju. That was fine with him, he said, because he wasn’t going to be any help in that place.

“‘Besides,’ he smiled, touching the bill on his cap, covering his bald head, ‘they might try to sell me a new head of hair, while I’m in there.’ He passed for a second, then mused, “Maybe an Elvis ‘do would look good…,’ but quickly added, ‘No, maybe not.’ I laughed.

“Max said, ‘I’ll meet you on this street, about five blocks north, no hurry, whenever you get there,’ and he pointed in the general direction. ‘By then, I should have found a place to stay. Take your time.’ I nodded agreement, and he turned and walked on, to continue our hotel quest on his own.

“I hesitated for a second, before entering the salon. I thought, I’d already been seen in the secondhand store, and the bus, so it’s not like I’m invisible. I’d eventually have to take my chances that the cops would not track down these random places I had been. But then I remembered, I’m screwed anyway, as long as I’m with Max, the walking neon perp beacon. I needed to accumulate enough elements of disguise, to eventually hide in plain sight, after I split from Max; I needed the fake hair. So, in I went.

“It all worked out. It was a small, friendly place, no cameras inside. They weren’t too busy yet, in the morning. A couple of the people there spoke good enough English, probably since the shop was near the hotels and tourists. I gave the stylists a story about how I got invited to a party, and I needed a different look, a style more like a local girl. I was telling the stylist helping me that I wanted naturally black hair, but she laughed and replied, ‘Ha ha, all the local girls want to be blondes!’

“So I thought, as long as I’m here, let’s do it right – I’ll get both black and blonde. After looking a bit at their inventory, and with her advice, I selected a few to try. Now was the moment of truth. I’d have to take off my fancy hat, and let them see my totally tangled hair. This was going to be embarrassing, but it had to be done.

“I apologized in advance, with another lie, saying, ‘I left my hairbrush and toiletries on the tour bus,’ using the name of a tourist express company I remembered from the tour books. The stylist couldn’t suppress an ‘Oh!!’ when she saw the mess my hair was in. She immediately sat me down in the chair, to brush it out. Then she pinned up my hair, neatly, and fitted each wig on me.

“Looking in the mirror, I selected two wigs, and all the stylists nodded approval. It’s amazing what a difference a wig makes, in one’s self-perception. It’s a funny kind of identity displacement; like any costume, it just begs you to change your personality, to suit the new appearance.

“And once again, seeing myself in the mirror, my first, normal context was as a girl just having fun trying on fashion wigs, but then, like before, I remembered why I was doing all this. I quickly suppressed the thought, though, so they wouldn’t see a dark expression cross my face.

“In addition to the basic black wig, which was barely more than a bob, I got extension wefts and tresses, all the same shade of black, sorted and matched, to create a long hair look, as an alternative. The blonde wig was already shoulder length, so I didn’t need extensions for it.

“Besides the tape and pins for the black hair extensions, I also bought a hairbrush, shampoo and conditioner, and some incidental cosmetics, which supported my story about the lost toiletry kit; besides, I really needed these things, anyway.

“I paid cash in reals, significantly diminishing my supply of local currency, and they gave me the articles in a store-branded shopping bag. Everyone there was happy to help, and wished me a fun time, at the fictitious party I had lied about. With my hair still pinned up, I put my colorful hat back on.

“As I left the salon, with a shopping bag in each hand, I felt another kind of displacement, like I was coming out of a fashion boutique, onto Portola Drive, in Rockford Hills, winding up a weekend shopping spree. But instead, now, I was running from a killing spree. Life is strange.

“I headed in the direction of my planned meeting place with Max, and rapidly walked there. He wasn’t in sight. I kept walking, since I didn’t know exactly which block he’d be waiting at. After a few more blocks, I still hadn’t seen him, so I reversed direction. I wasn’t worried that he had abandoned me, or anything like that, but I wondered why he wasn’t here. I’d spent long enough in the salon.

“I walked several blocks south, not quite back to the salon, still no Max, and reversed again. This time, I saw Max in the distance, coming in from an intersecting street, his appearance distinct, unmistakable, with duffel bag, cap and beard, leaving no doubt. He was right. If the police do get wise to him, as my accomplice, he’ll be easy to spot. I momentarily worried about that.

“My eyes were locked on Max. I unconsciously quickened my pace to reach him. I was so focused, I almost stepped in front of a bicycle, blasting through the intersection. That woke me up. ‘All right, Karen, start thinking,’ I admonished myself. ‘What the hell are you doing? You’re going to have to get along without Max, in a couple of days, so don’t get dependent; don’t lose focus on your own objectives. You don’t need that.’

“I took a deep breath and consciously slowed down to a normal pace, and looked around me, to break my inadvertent single-minded drive to reach Max. OK, I was normal again, walking at normal speed, and looking both ways at the crosswalks, so I didn’t get run down by a bus.

“When I came up to Max, I could tell that he knew I was wondering where he had been.

“’All the hotels on the main drag had too much foot traffic around the entrances and exits, and they had security cameras watching their backstreet parking lots. Even the smaller ones,’ Max explained. ‘Didn’t seem like a private enough environment. So I went a few blocks inland, to where the real estate isn’t quite so pricy, away from the tourist grazing land. I figured that I’d find something more like the obscure, random hotel we had in Aracaju.’

“’It’s a little way from here,’ he added. I hope you’re still in the mood for walking.’

“I didn’t mind the walk. After 15 minutes or so, we’d gone some distance inland, and further north. No wonder Max was gone so long. This was definitely a different commercial and mixed residential neighborhood environment than the beach hotel strip. Obscure, for sure. When we got there, Max nodded his head in the direction of the motel, saying, ‘We’re here.’

“’Motel Eros,’ with a pink stucco façade, painted with a huge graphic illustration, close-cropped, of a beautiful woman’s face, vivid red lips parted, head thrown back in ecstasy.

“No doubting what this motel was about. He’d found us one of the ‘love motels.’ Good grief! But it actually looked fairly well kept, on the outside. ‘Around back,’ Max said, gesturing on down the sidewalk, ‘where the cars are parked. We won’t have to walk by the front desk.’

“We went in through the back, into a spacious corridor, and I could immediately hear, from one of the rooms down the hall –faintly, but unmistakably – the sound of a woman faking an orgasm, loudly, obviously over the top. And on top. Ha, love motel was right.   Max stopped at one of the doors, keying open the lock, and we walked in.

“The room was dominated by a big round bed, rose gold satin sheets, with a matching, elaborate, ruffled bedskirt. Step-up hot tub for two, in front of the bed, right in the bedroom. Stripper pole next to the hot tub. Huge, arty painting of a reclining, naked woman above the headboard. A mirror covering most of the wall, floor to ceiling. Nothing out of the ordinary here.

‘Check this out,’ Max said, as he flipped a switch, and turned a knob on a wall panel next to the headboard. ‘The hotel guy made a point of showing me how this works.’

“The room light went dim, and several hidden, indirect illumination sources lit up from the corners of the room, and along the border of the full-length mirror, and even from under the bed. Garish purple, pink and red, making the whole room look like the sleazy one-hour sex nest, that it was meant to be.

“’Oh, god!’ I said with a laugh. ‘Max, you can really pick ‘em!’

“Max brought the regular lights back up, and then I noticed, in addition to the ubiquitous stripper pole, next to the hot tub, there was some kind of funny-looking, upholstered, curved piece of furniture in the room, padded in black vinyl, shaped like a narrow, short, miniature armless lounge chair, seemingly made for a midget.

“I saw that the chair, or whatever it was, had handgrips on each side, positioned as though it were meant to be a video gamer chair, specifically shaped for a racing bike video game. I wondered if it had footpegs in the right place. Otherwise, the shape made no sense. Only thing I could see it might be good for, in real life, is sitting on, to pull on your stockings, or to paint your toenails.

‘What the hell is that thing?’ I asked Max, rhetorically.

“He replied, with a smirk, ‘I’ve seen the big brother of this little item in a couple of places, in my travels among the denizens of the criminal underworld. They’re Kamasutra chairs. You can imagine what they’re for, but I don’t know how they’re supposed to work.’ Smiling, he said, ‘I guess that’s why they wrote that manual, about four thousand years ago.’

“Max went on, ‘But this thing, it’s … undersized. Must be out of a different sex book. Maybe it’s some kind of Brazilian thing. I don’t want to know about it, in any case.’ He laughed.

“I shook my head, half embarrassed, and amused. As Max was starting to tell me what it was, I realized that it looked like something you’d see in a gynecologist’s office, and it made more sense. Now that I knew what it really was, I shuddered to think what role the hand grips had, in its function. The stories this room could tell … Yuuuuch. I hoped they had a good, hot laundry, for the sheets.

“I looked around the rest of the room, and asked, ’There’s only one bed, Max. Where are you going to sleep?’ I automatically assumed that I would get the bed, though I noticed Max had already set down his duffel bag on the rose gold bedspread, when we entered the room.

“’Funny,’ Max replied, ‘I was going to ask you the same question. The bed is mine.’ He waited, with a Max smirk on his face, to see me make an indignant expression – which I did – but then he continued, ‘Don’t worry, I booked two rooms. I told them my swinger friends were coming in later, and we’re all going to have a two-day orgy. I have the room next to this one.’ He pointed to a doorway to the adjoining room, on the wall opposite the huge mirror.

“Bottom line is that the motel and the room looked like it would work fine for us, for a two-day stay. Max had done well on his search, to find an ideal entry-exit situation, where we could come and go without being seen on camera, and with a low chance of bumping into people who could remember me being here.

“It would be a bit of a trek to the beach, but that wasn’t going to stop me. Now I had my mind set on getting lunch, later, at a little open-air cantina, plastic chairs and wicker tables, under a palapa on the sand, lazily hanging out there while downing a few cervejas, then taking a long walk with Max on the beach, by the water’s edge, roleplaying, pretending that life is normal.

“…and, meanwhile, I’d be trying to get inside Max’s head and heart, to make him see the hope he could still have in his life, if he would just free himself of his terrible past. Not too much to ask, for an afternoon…

---

Stay tuned for CHAPTER 31 !!

What in the blue hell is this?

Edited May 28, 2019 by Spider-Vice
hid large quote

May 27, 2019

2 hours ago, Agent 14 said:

What in the blue hell is this?

Not only that, but you quoted the entire f*cking thing.

May 27, 2019

2 hours ago, Agent 14 said:

What in the blue hell is this?

This will make more sense, have more context, if you start at the beginning

First post by OP

Beginning of the Karen saga in this thread

The Karen saga, "A Life of Danger," in the Writers' Discussion Forum

The Unofficial I Love Karen Daniels Thread

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