Dreams and Desires (57 page)

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From the fourth floor of the Omaha Airport Best Western, Ramón could see nothing but a white wall of heavy, late February snow as it fell to the parking lot below. All flights had been cancelled due to the storm and he was resigned to spending another night away from his familiar. He had called Adele earlier to check up on her and his servant had assured him the woman was dealing with their separation as well as could be expected. She had been fed a dose of his formula a couple of hours before and Melissa and Felicity with her now, comforting her.

It had been a productive two days. His search for the renegade had begun. Before he had made his jump, he had known the approximate arrival point of his quarry some five years before. But everything else had to be done by research and deduction. Like Kelly, the familiar who had drawn the renegade to this side of the dimensional wall would be single, female, somewhere between the ages of 25 and 30 years old, bright and probably successful in her field. She would have disappeared without a trace and there could be expected to have been some publicity.

Over the almost three month period of time since he had been adorned with human form, Ramón had researched through the newspapers of the period around the time the renegade would have arrived. Female disappearances were unfortunately frequent, usually with tragic results. But he was able to discount those cases where the women's lifeless bodies had been recovered or who had turned up days, weeks or months later. The renegade would not have murdered his familiar or let her go. She would still be missing, her case long ago relegated to the unsolved files.

He had narrowed his search to four women who had disappeared within a three month period. The first one, a pretty, blond, 28 year old artist, was easy to eliminate. On investigation, she had led a quite dissolute life. Her heavy involvement with liquor and drugs made her an improbable candidate for a familiar. Her emissions of passion and her ability to cast them through the dimensional divide would have been severely compromised. Moreover, there was evidence she and her boyfriend had been involved with some rather unscrupulous drug dealers and had received a number of threats from them for unpaid services. The woman and the man disappeared on the same day. Unfortunately for them, their bodies were probably resting in shallow unmarked graves somewhere.

The second woman he looked at was a 31 year old surgeon. She was the first African American female surgeon to be named as head of the surgery department at Cook County Hospital. She had published numerous articles based on new procedures she had developed for removing lesions from the brain. She was unmarried and, apparently, had no boyfriend or other private life to speak of. When he investigated the circumstances of her disappearance, Ramón found out she had just left a late night seminar at the hospital. Her car was found a few miles away, its doors left open and there had been signs of a struggle. This was not consistent with the means the renegade would have used to convert her. Ramón could not help but morn for the loss of this promising woman and cursed the profligacy of this culture with talent and life. He had been astounded as he perused its history and reviewed its daily news at the amount of violence and harm the humans inflicted on each other. There was apparently a dear price to be paid for their remarkable passions and sensuousness.

That left two women who could qualify as the familiar of the renegade. One was an aspiring architect. She was 26 years old and had already designed two large skyscrapers. Both were notable for their environmentally friendly design, their comfortable, interesting interiors and their inspiring structural aspects. She was a handsome, shapely, brunette. She had not reported to work for several days and when the police eventually went to her apartment to investigate, she was just gone. Nothing was missing. It was as if she had just disappeared.

But it was the final one that really caught his interest. Professor Diane Lanier had called in sick to work one day and was never seen again. Interviews with her associates at the University of Chicago Biology Department had revealed no reason for her to run away. She was bright, well liked and very successful. She had been only recently hired and it was assumed that in a couple of years she would be a candidate to replace the retiring head of her department. She was only 25 years old, on the lower cusp of the age group Ramón considered likely as the renegade's host, but there were other circumstances that intrigued him. Apparently, all of her cash had been withdrawn from her accounts. There was evidence in the apartment an unknown man had stayed there for a few days. His fingerprints, unknown to any database, had turned up on glasses and on several items of furniture. Semen stained sheets had been found on her bed and in her laundry basket, in spite of the fact she had not been known to have a boyfriend. And most peculiar of all, her 19 year old sister, Nadine, had gone missing with her.

Ramón had decided he had enough to justify a trip to Chicago to find out more, if he could, about the woman's disappearance. Once there, he had hired a private detective, a female one of course, to search through police files and interview the family. Yesterday, she had hit pay dirt.

Two years after the disappearance of the young women, Nadine had turned up in a raid on a house in East St. Louis. She had been working as one of a stable of whores for a local gangster. He had started out as a pimp and had expanded to drug dealing. The house also served as his headquarters and the police had been given a tip on a major drug delivery. The gangster had objected to the entry of the police into his safe haven and had announced his opposition with shots from his 9 millimeter automatic. He went down in a blaze of bullets.

Three of his girls had been there at the time and normally, they would have been processed and released. But the one, a pretty, little brown haired, white girl, had reacted hysterically to the death of her owner. She had screamed and moaned when they tried to drag her away from the body. Nothing had seemed to console her or to calm her down. The other girls didn't know much about her except that she had been wholeheartedly devoted to the gangster, had never complained or argued with him and was wholly compliant with all of his orders no matter how scurrilous or degrading. She had been known by the name of Candy, but had no identification. She had been with the pimp for about two years.

One of the enterprising detectives solved the mystery of her identity. He noticed she spoke with a distinctive, flat, Midwestern accent. He was originally from Nebraska himself. On a hunch, he sent off an inquiry to the Nebraska State Police together with a mug shot. As luck would have it, one of the clerks there had been long friends with the Lanier family and recognized Nadine right away.

For the last three years, Nadine had been resident at St. Catherine's Psychiatric Hospital. She had never recovered from her pining for the dead gangster and was normally kept heavily sedated. The PI, who had come with Ramón to Omaha from Chicago, had learned from Nadine's family the facts surrounding her discovery and Ramón had been granted reluctant permission to see her.

The skies were already heavily clouded with the impending storm when Ramón drove his rental car out to the hospital. It was an aging structure, built sometime in the Fifties and was situate about ten miles outside of Omaha. Nadine was considered a charity patient since her family had long ago exhausted their resources in her care. A nurse at the reception desk was very helpful, after Ramón gave her a little nudge, to arrange for him to see her in a private conference room.

The room was small about five by ten. Ramón was sitting behind an ancient, wooden table on a rickety, wooden chair when Nadine was escorted into the room by one of the attendants. He was a burly, black fellow, genial in appearance and he kept a tight hold on Nadine's arm as he led her into the room. Nadine was dressed in a short, flimsy, faded yellow hospital gown. Her chestnut hair was cut short and in disarray. Her eyes had a glazed look and her hands were confined to her waist by a leather belt with handcuffs on both sides. Her face was gaunt and a speck of drool peaked out from the corner of her mouth. He skin was pale and dry.

"I'll be right outside if you have any trouble,” the dark man said helpfully. “She can get a little wild from time to time, but she had a shot about an hour ago and she should be okay for a while."

Ramón nodded to the man as he left the room. A probe of the distracted girl's mind told him all Ramón needed to know. He felt the presence of the renegade at once. He had done much damage to her mind. He reviewed her memories and saw the life of hell he had condemned her to. A well of sorrow flooded him as he perceived the harm done to this life form. Even now, although suppressed by the heavy dose of Thorazine she had been given, he could detect her wrenching need for the presence of the gangster to whom the renegade had enslaved her. He saw the long line of men she had been required to service, the indignities she had suffered. But, most importantly, deep inside her, buried beyond her own conscious memory, he saw the face of the renegade.

Blonde, handsome, with piercing eyes, the image of the man who had enthralled her was burned deep into her subconscious. She knew him as Jonathan. For her, he had no last name. She had no clue as to what happened to him after she had been sold to the pimp. She had never again given him a conscious thought. Neither had she recalled her sister, the enthralled Diane Lanier, or her former life. Her parents had been unrecognizable to her.

The young woman's eyes barely recorded Ramón's presence. His heart went out to her. He was torn as to what to do. He could easily relieve her suffering. But if he unblocked her mind, the memories of what had happened to her would flood her brain like a torrent. She would recall her role in her own sister's enthrallment by the renegade. She would remember each and every depraved act she had been forced into, the years of slavery to the ruthless, conscienceless gangster, her long time as an irrational prisoner at this dreary, hopeless hospital.

On the other hand, could he permit himself to leave her as she was? He had been sent here, in part, to undo the harm caused by the renegade. The ethics of the Whole demanded nothing less. But he would need hours, if not days, of contact with the woman to relieve her suffering, to adjust her mind so she could live with herself. And, there was also the fact that her sudden recovery would be astounding to the doctors and her parents. It would be immediately connected with his visit. He did not want the questions and notoriety that would result.

But he had to do something. He could not, in good conscience, leave her like this. He decided on a middle ground.

The dream man pushed aside the effect of the sedating drugs from the young woman's mind. As her mind stirred, he claimed her, calling her to him. She looked at him for the first time, a spark of life emanating from her eyes. She rose slowly from her chair and stepped around the small table until she was close to him. He took her arms and pulled her to his lap. He put his hand behind her head and drew her into him, circling her with his arms, sending a long, strong message of comfort to her. She began to cry.

Ramón knew he had only a short time to deal with the disconsolate woman. The attendant was just outside. Luckily, the door to the room had no window and he couldn't see in. It would take a long time to explain why he had a nearly naked mental patient sitting on his lap. It was an unjustifiable risk, given the importance of his mission, he knew that. But he did not want to walk away from this hospital knowing he could have helped her and did nothing.

The dream man stroked the petit woman's short, brown hair as she cried on his shoulder. He removed her obsession for the dead pimp. He barred her access to her memories and adjusted her so she would adapt comfortably, for the time being, to her life as a psychiatric patient. He gave her a spark of hope, knowledge of his promise to return and redeem her, to free her from all of her suffering. Finally, he rendered her unable to relate to anyone what had happened between them, to remain silent and distant with only her knowledge of his covenant with her to return to comfort her.

Nadine pulled her head from his shoulder and looked into his eyes. Life had returned to them. There was a look of happiness on her face. Her lips trembled as she whispered to him hoarsely, “Thank you."

Ramón knew he needed to seal the frail, young woman's connection to him. He had touched her lightly and there was always the danger his commands to her would fade. He rubbed his hand over her head and passed a message of lust to her, the first she had experienced for many years. Her eyes widened and she gave him a timid, hopeful smile. He sent another wave of passion to her and she moaned, her thighs tightening, her body shuddering.

The dream man eased Nadine to her knees in front of him. She waited expectantly as he lowered his fly and freed his already hardening cock. He would need to be quick. If the guard chose this moment to come in, he would probably pound the shit out of him before calling the police.

Nadine opened her pale, dry lips and took his cock into her mouth. Her eyes closed with bliss and she moaned lowly as he filled her mind with his radiance. She slowly slid her lips down his shaft, caressing it with her tongue. When her head pulled back, she suckled at the thick helmet of flesh at the end before descending once again.

The experienced former whore quickly picked up her pace. Soon, she had Ramón emitting moans of his own as his fluids rose. He placed his hands on her head, fueling her passion as he came closer and closer to climax. He suppressed his groan of pleasure as best he could as his cock exploded in the kneeling woman's mouth. She moaned too as her pussy recorded and echoed his pleasure.

When his soothing essence had ceased to flow, Ramón raised the dazed woman from her knees. He kissed her and brought her back to her chair. With a caress of his hand, he sent her deeper into her funk, restoring the numbing effects of her Thorazine shot to her brain. She would look to the attendant as she had when she came in. But over the next few days, her mind would slowly spring back to life. Her violent outbursts of desperate yearning for the gangster who had held her in bondage for so long would be gone. She would be childlike in her innocence, with no memory of her life. But deep inside, she would have a source of joy, a kernel of hope the strange man who had changed her would return.