"Nothing ever happens in baseball games," said Janet. "And what little action takes place, they show on replay so you don't even have to pay attention."

  "Which is exactly why I like them," said her father. Then, changing the subject without a pause, "Bruno will drive you to your condo."

  "Father," said Janet, sounding very much like her son a minute before. "I'm a big girl."

  "Agreed." He glanced at Tim before continuing. "This is neither the time nor place to argue. Do it to humor a worried old man. Please?"

  Janet could scarcely believe her ears. Her father never asked for favors. More than anything else, this latest request brought home the danger of the situation. "All right," she said. "But Bruno can wait in the car while I pack. You know I hate anyone hovering over me while I work."

  "That sounds" fine," said her father, rising from his chair. "Come, sir. Let us retire to the television room and feast our eyes on Ms. Funicello's ample charms."

  "I'll take care of the dishes, Miss Janet," said Martha, stacking up the dirty plates. "Why don't you get going. Bruno is waiting in front with the Rolls. You can make it back before Master Tim goes to sleep."

  "Thanks, Martha," said Janet, heading for the door. "I always seem to be in a rush these days."

  "You should try to slow down a little, miss," came Martha's last bit of advice. "Patience is a virtue."

  A virtue she sorely lacked, concluded Janet, a few minutes later, as Bruno steered the huge touring car out into traffic. Moments like this were too few and far between. With a sigh of satisfaction, she kicked off her heels, stretched her arms in a huge yawn, arching her back against the rich leather of the Rolls Royce interior.

  The quiet ride soothed her jangled nerves. The soothing hum of the huge automobile's engine made her sleepy. She felt incredibly tired. This constant running from place to place, day after day, wore her out. She needed a little time for herself. If only the day lasted for a few extra hours.

  What she really needed, Janet ruefully added mentally, was a man. Much as she disliked admitting it, she was lonely. And pretty horny as well.

  The tragic death of her mother proved to be the breaking point for her father. He buried himself in his work, as if trying to blot out all memory of his losses. His efforts paid off handsomely. The Packard empire thrived. What matter if the dreams and hopes of one small child were forgotten.

  Janet was shuttled from one boarding school to another. She only returned home for holidays, and even then, her father was rarely around. A lonely, self-contained child, she grew up feeling not so much unloved as ignored.

  She experimented with sex as a teenager. A few casual encounters with various boyfriends left her unsatisfied and uninspired. She quickly concluded that like many experiences in life, the actual event rarely lived up to the expectations.

  By the time she entered college, Janet was a sophisticated young woman of the world. Or so she thought. She was completely in control of her emotions and sure of her place in the world. With her goals firmly in place, she was determined to let nothing stand in her way. Looking back across the years, Janet often laughed at the certainty of her beliefs. She had been pretty stupid.

  She had met Roger at a fraternity party during her junior year at college. Smart, sophisticated, a bit jaded, Janet considered herself much too worldly to be swept off her feet by mere physical attraction. She was waiting for the right man—perfect in every respect. At least that was what she thought until that fateful encounter one hot spring evening.

  He was tall and handsome and quite daring. Despite all the trappings, beneath the sophisticated shell she wrapped around herself, she was still incredibly naive. None of her previous romantic liaisons prepared her for someone like Roger.

  Her girlfriends had talked her into attending the mixer. Needless to say, the other girls disappeared in minutes after arriving, leaving Janet on her own. Exactly how she met Roger she couldn't remember. It was one of those chance conversations that began with other people and ended up with the two of them wandering off looking for a quieter place where they could be heard above the noise. They settled in a quiet alcove in the rear of the building, with a bottle of inexpensive champagne.

  Roger seduced her with an ease born of years of experience. He instinctively knew how to proceed without upsetting her. For a long time, all he did was gently massage the back of her neck as he entertained her with funny stories and supplied her with drink after drink. His attention, without any strong advances, put her at ease. At the same time, the warm night air and the bubbly wine made her giddy.

  After a while, his caresses traveled a little farther down her back and arms. Then his hands shifted to across her neck and behind her ears. It all seemed perfectly harmless.

  As did his first gentle kiss. And the next, and the next after that. By then, one hand held her close to his chest while his other lightly brushed back and forth across her breasts. The giddy feeling melted into a tingling that spread from his fingers throughout her body. She never felt so excited in all her life.

  Sensing her excitement, his lips traveled down across her neck. Both his hands were busy now, firmly stroking her breasts through the thin material of her blouse. She was not wearing a bra and her nipples stood rigid and hard with excitement. When he suddenly unfastened several buttons so he could reach inside her top, she protested weakly for an instant. But only for an instant.

  Overwhelmed by passion, she found herself powerless to resist his advances. At his urging, they exited the party by a rear door. In a secluded glade only a few minutes away from the frat house, they made passionate love in the moonlight. First with his fingers, then his tongue, and finally with the hardness of his body he brought her to climax after sexual climax. By the time he finished, she was his.

  The next night, they made love for hours in her apartment, trying every sexual position imaginable. During a break, she found herself confessing her innermost sexual fantasies to her new lover.

  "I think everyone in the world harbors a little bit of exhibitionism. I know I've always had this wild dream of revealing my body in public. Just the thought of being naked, surrounded by a crowd of strangers, gets me excited. I've never done it, of course. Once or twice, I pulled my skirt up to my thighs while driving. And I've gone to class with nothing under my skirt. But that's about as far as I ever dared."

  The conversation died as passion engulfed them again. However, the thought evidently intrigued Roger. Enough so, that the next night, he insisted they go to a drive-in movie and investigate the possible opportunities offered.

  At first Janet balked at the idea. It was one thing to imagine such ideas, but completely different to be faced with the actual situation. She finally agreed to go as long as they remained very discreet.

  Roger kept his hands to himself in the twilight. However, that soon changed once the sun went down and the movie started. As the night grew darker, her lover grew bolder. "No one can see us," he whispered in her ear as he rubbed her inner thighs. "And no one cares what we're doing here. Everyone knows you don't go to drive-ins to watch the movie."

  Despite her misgivings, she yielded. After all, it was her fantasy. And, secretly, the thought of being nude in the car excited her. "Just my panties," she said. "No one can see into the car anyway."

  He needed no further invitation. Both his hands slid under her skirt and helped raise her buttocks off the seat. In seconds, her silk undergarments were on the floor of the car. His sensual touch had her moaning with pleasure in seconds. Janet quickly forgot her worries about being discovered.

  When his tongue replaced his probing fingers, the wave of sexual pleasure that swept through her body destroyed what little resistance she still possessed. The rest of her clothes followed her undergarments to the floor of the car. Her wildest dreams turned into Technicolor reality as Roger brought her to one sexual peak after another. That night, all of her inhibitions collapsed in ruin as they engaged in an orgy of incredible lust.

  From then on, whatever Roger suggested, she tried. The more daring the location, the greater the thrill. They had quick sex in elevators; long intense sex in the back rows of movie theaters. Cars and boats and planes all served their purpose. At one of the finest restaurants in town, she brought him to a shuddering climax, using her hands, while an unsuspecting waiter described the menu. He returned the favor a few nights later while riding the Ferris wheel at a local carnival.

  Bruno's voice brought her back to the present with a jolt. "We're here, Miss Janet." Then, when she didn't answer after a few seconds, asked with a bit of concern in his voice, "Are you all right back there?"

  "I'm fine," she replied, drawing in a deep breath. "I kinda dozed off. It's been a long day."

  And I need to get screwed, she mentally added to herself. Sliding across the seat to the door made her acutely aware of the dampness between her legs. Merely thinking about sex got her wet. Since her divorce, she had remained celibate except for a few very unsatisfactory one-night stands. Time for Tim to spend a few nights with relatives, she decided with a grin as she exited the car.

  "Wait for me here, Bruno," she said, pulling out the keys to her town house. "I should only be a few minutes."

  "Whatever you say, miss."

  Bruno leaned back up against the side of the Rolls, his arms folded across his chest. In the dim twilight, his face took on a dark, almost sinister appearance. Suddenly in a rush to get moving, Janet turned and hurried up the walk to her condo.

  9

  Janet took one step inside her town house and then stopped, slightly confused. It was after seven. A light should be on in the living room. The parlor lamp worked by a timer so that she never entered the building in total darkness. Tonight, the town house was pitch-black.

  She hesitated, wondering if she should get Bruno. Then she made a face and entered the main hallway of the apartment. No reason to make a fuss over a burnedout light bulb. Leo's story had her seeing ghosts around every corner.

  Moving a bit faster than usual, she went over to the switch for the upstairs light. That worked fine, sending a bright beam of light tumbling down the stairs. Feeling a bit more confident, she hurried up the steps to the second floor.

  It only took a few minutes to pack Tim's clothes. At his age, fashion meant nothing. Several pairs of jeans, underwear and socks, and a half-dozen T-shirts decorated with every imaginable picture from Thundercats to He-Man. For kids, shirts with buttons had gone the way of the dinosaurs. Now every child looked like a walking advertisement for a toy company. Even boy's underwear featured pictures of their favorite heroes.

  The clothing all fit in a small suitcase Janet kept for just such visits. Toys were another matter altogether. Surveying the cluttered floor of Tim's room, she let out a heavy sigh. Only a few patches of the bright blue carpet were visible from beneath the stacks of go-bots, thundertanks, Dragonlance heroes, and most of all, Transformers. Her son took very good care of his toys. They rarely broke. Instead, they grew old in his room.

  Searching under Tim's bed, Janet found a Transformer carrying case. The plastic covered box held twelve normal-size robots. They had agreed on ten.

  Carefully, she picked ten of the machines off the shelf behind his bed. Though the toys were sturdily constructed out of steel and plastic, Janet knew in her heart that someday she would accidentally crush one and Tim would never forgive her. The only child to turn to a life of crime because his mother broke his favorite Transformer. She handled the robots like fresh eggs, gently placing each one in a space in the carrying case.

  By now, after two years of constant watching and rewatching the entire cartoon series on TV and then on videotape, she knew all of the major characters from the series. Brave and noble Optimus Prime definitely was a must, as was the evil Megatron. Bumblebee, the Yellow Volkswagen autobot; Grimlock, the leader of the Dino-Bots; and Starscream, the most vicious of the Decepticons; all fit snugly in the box.

  Finally finished, Janet hauled the suitcase and the toy box onto the landing. The clothes hardly weighed anything but the container of Transformers felt like it held bricks. Her muscles groaned in protest. One of the joys of modern motherhood, she thought, as she rushed into her bedroom.

  Looking around the room confirmed the notion that her son inherited his messiness from her. There were clothes scattered everywhere. Her dressing table was filled to overflowing with makeup and cosmetics. Her ironing board, not used in many months, stood in one corner with stacks of skirts and dresses resting on top of it. It made an extremely convenient shelf.

  On the floor were a half-dozen boxes, some with covers on, others without. Inside were her winter clothes, packed away with no place to go. Janet often joked she needed another town house just for her possessions. Tonight, in a rush to get going, it seemed like a perfectly logical answer to her problem. Like her son, she couldn't bear throwing anything away. When a garment went out of style, she bought something new and hung up the old outfit in the closet.

  With a determined look on her face, she dragged out her own suitcase and began filling it up with necessities. She worked on the "clean" principle—anything clean went in the suitcase. Fortunately, a maid came once a week and among other things, did the laundry. Otherwise, life would be unbearable.

  Next she packed a small handbag with cosmetics. While she believed in the natural look, a little help never hurt. Some extra cash, hidden in the drawer with her panty hose, completed her preparations.

  Janet glanced down at her watch and cursed. She had spent nearly a half hour packing. So much for taking a few minutes. If she didn't get going, she wouldn't be back in time for Tim's bedtime. Tonight, more than most evenings, she wanted a little time alone with her son.

  Huffing and puffing, she dragged her suitcase to the landing. Two trips to get the stuff outside, she decided. Bruno would help if she asked, but she rejected that thought immediately. Knowing her house was a mess was one thing. Letting other people see it was another. She could manage on her own.

  Moaning and groaning and spitting out a few choice words, she stumbled down the stairs carrying Tim's suitcase, his toy box and her handbag. Reaching the bottom, she dropped the luggage haphazardly on the floor and started back up the steps. Better to finish the job right away before her muscles betrayed her.

  She fought the bulky suitcase down the stairway, one step at a time. It took a few minutes and a lot of sweat, but finally all of the luggage was together in the hallway. Bruno, she decided, could haul the bags out to the car.

  Resting on top of the suitcase, she realized the light was now on in the parlor. That fact alone she might have rationalized as the timer kicking in late. But nothing could explain the soft sound of the radio coming from the room.

  More curious than afraid, she walked over to the threshold of the living room. A brief look confirmed her suspicions. Sitting on the sofa, obviously waiting for her, was her ex-husband.

  He was still tall and dark, but no longer handsome. The muscle and blood had melted away, leaving only skin and bone. Roger had always been slender. Now he looked emaciated. His shirt hung loose and limp across his shoulders and chest. A belt, tightened to the last loop, held up blue jeans otherwise much too big for his waist.

  Bright blue veins stood out in bold blue relief in his hands and neck. The skin stretched like white parchment across his narrow cheeks. Bloodshot red eyes hid deep in his face, surrounded by black lines from lack of sleep.

  His hair bothered her the most. Roger had always been obsessive about his hair. Oftentimes, she felt he spent more time combing and brushing it than he did with her. Now it dropped dirty and tangled in an unkempt mass down to his shoulders. He looked like hell.

  "Hiya, babe," he said softly. "Long time no see."

  "Roger," she managed to reply. "How long have you been sitting there?"

  "I got here around an hour ago. The door was unlocked so I let myself in. When I found nobody home, I decided to wait. That's when I shut the light. Bright lights bother my eyes lately. Saw you come in, but figured I would wait awhile before saying anything. Going someplace?"

  He was lying about the door. She always checked it before she left the house each day. It automatically locked when closed. Still, she decided to play it cool.

  "I'm staying with my father for a few days. His driver is waiting for me outside. You remember Bruno, don't you?"

  "Sure, sure," said Roger, a brief smile flickering across his lips. "Big, strong, tough Bruno. Not a nice guy to have angry at you."

  There was only a hint of mockery in his voice. Just enough to show he understood her veiled threat and it didn't bother him a bit. She edged back a little from the sofa.

  "Hey," he said, raising both hands as if in a peace offering. "Don't get all riled. I came to make peace, not start any trouble."

  His voice gained strength as he talked. "Times change and so do people. I realize that now. We both made a big mistake getting married. We mistook lust for love. It didn't work—couldn't work. Neither of us were ready for the responsibilities. When you got pregnant, it freaked me out. I was a heel. I admit it. But that was a long time ago."

  Janet couldn't believe what she was hearing. This confession didn't jive with what her father had told her earlier. Sincerity echoed in every word he spoke.

  "We've both changed a lot," he continued, his expression serious. "You've matured, grown older. Same with me. I've settled down now. Got a good job, making a nice living. It seemed like a good time to put an end to the bitterness between us."

  Little by little, the tension drained out of Janet as she listened to Roger. Everything he said made sense. To her, he sounded a lot more rational than her father's warnings of this afternoon. Cautiously, she stepped back into the parlor and slid into the big armchair facing the couch. She wanted to believe him.

  "Okay. I agree with most of what you say. But the past is long dead. There's no starting over."