ROMANCE: Romantic Comedy: Love in 30 Days - The Best Plans Don't Always Work! (Plus 19 FREE Books Book 13) (63 page)

“Now, you have been talking long enough and I am pretty angry with you,” she said in a seductively angry tone, placing her hands round his neck. “I have waited for my present for way too long. Give it to me!”

Without another word, Johan took her face in his hands and started kissing her juicy, red pout. Jesse seemed to be in a hell lot of hurry for she did not give him enough time to work up a passion between them. After a short kiss, she took off her clothes and went down to take Johan in his mouth. Before he could realize what was happening, she was up in the bed and spreading her legs out invitingly for him to enter. He did not waste his time and thrust his hardness inside her. Johan felt weird at the way they were making love. He had slept with many a woman before but never had the feeling been anything like what he was experiencing at that moment. The sex was rough and wild, the kind he had read about and seen in erotic stories and movies but never experienced.

It was only after the two of them had reached their climax and was lying naked in each other’s arms that Johan realized who Jesse truly was. When he was willing her to do a second take, she promptly sat up in bed and said, “Okay, then that will be an extra fifty dollars!”

“What?” Johan asked in surprise. “Where is money coming into the picture?”

“So you think I’m doing this for free, fucker! Come on, out with the money or I’m done with you. There are more people waiting for me.”

That was when he realized that his friends had just got him to spend the Christmas night with a cheap city hooker!

Chapter 6

Johan returned home early the next morning after picking up a real big quarrel with his Noel that threatened to snowball into a major fight. Matt had stepped in just in time and played the role of mediator, pulling the military man aside and practically dragging him home. The Sergeant had not at all liked the idea of being hooked up with a prostitute and he made his feelings clear to the man who had planned for all of it to take place.

He sneaked into his pretty quietly and went up to lie down in his room. His father was not yet awake but he figured the old man would be up very soon. He did not want to disturb him so he went about as silently as was humanly possible.

Johan lay down in bed and closed his eyes. It had been a pretty hectic night and he had not been able to catch a single wink of sleep amidst all the camaraderie and excitement his friends had planned. Before he knew it, the man had drifted off into a soothing sleep.

Soon he started dreaming about a pretty young girl with beautiful blonde hair. She was running through an open meadow with the catching her hair and fluttering it about like a waving flag. Her face had a solemn smile that brought a smile to Johan’s lips even though he was asleep. Then he found himself standing at one end of the meadow under a big tree. The girl ran straight into his arms and they embraced with the whole thing ending in a delightful kiss. The man could almost feel the touch of her silky soft skin on his body and imagined the sweet smell of her body lacing his nose. It was almost as if she was a fairy who had come down from Heaven just to be a part of his dream.

Johan woke up with a start and sat upright in bed. Even in the freezing December cold of New York, he was sweating like crazy. He had often heard it been told that dreams are actually thoughts hidden in the subconscious. Though he had never really believed it, this proved to be one occasion where he did not have an option to think otherwise.

All of a sudden Johan realized that he had managed to figure out what he had been missing all this while. It was her; it was the girl he had been with the last time he was in New York. Her thoughts had escaped his mind for good – or so he had thought – but apparently they had simply been lurking around in his subconscious and had sprung up at the opportune moment. However, the Sergeant was unable to recall her name for the time being but he knew he
had
to do it. Dawn had long made way and the sun was shining through the clouds. He checked his watch and it was seven in the morning. He had slept longer than he had imagined. Johan jumped out of bed; there was something of an adventure for him to undertake!

***

Noel was lying down in his bed and staring blankly up towards the ceiling. The night had not gone according to plan. He had just wanted to make his friends happy but thanks to the stupidity of the prostitutes he had hired, his cover had been blown. He did not know what to do and was wondering about how to get his friends back on his side.

He was fiddling around in his mind with a number of thoughts when the phone rang. Noel looked at the clock on his bedside table; it was almost eight in the morning. He wondered who could be calling him at such an hour and picked it up. His surprise was tremendous when he heard the voice of Sergeant Johan Walters at the other end. He seemed excited and surprisingly a little out of breath.

“Noel you’ve got to help me!” Johan said. “I have been dreaming about this girl and…and…I don’t know –,”

“Whoa slow down man, slow down!” Noel protested. “You don’t make any sense.”

There was a moment of pause between the two callers before he resumed. “Okay, now tell me what seems to be bothering you and please keep it slow and steady!”

Johan described the queer dream that he had had and said, “I realized that I know this girl. In fact, we had met a couple of years back thanks to your efforts. Now I need to know where she lives so I can go and meet her.”

“For Heaven’s sake Johan I have no idea who this girl is you are talking about. Describe her for me please will you?”

So Sergeant Johan Walters got about describing that fairy-like lady he had seen in his dream and recognized as someone from his own life. His friend listened to him patiently and remained silent for a while. “Hmm…now let’s see! Yeah I do remember hooking you up with this girl back then. What was her name now? It was something with an ‘R’ but I can’t quite recollect….Rose, Rosa, Rosalyn…no, Rebecca? No that was not it…Ah, I remember now! Rita – that was her name.”

Johan felt the excitement growing inside him. “Rita? Do you have her full name?”

“Rita Taylor! Yes, that was her name. Rita Taylor. Hey now I remember, the two of you hit it off instantly that night and…”

“Address?”

“Sorry, can’t help with that I’m afraid.”

“Thanks Noel that was a lot of help. Bye!”

Johan disconnected the call and fell back in his bed once more. Rita Taylor! The memories of that pleasant night he had encountered with her came flooding back to him. It was time to find out where she lived and have a meeting with her.

He opened the New York City Yellow Pages website and typed in her name. Multiple results appeared under the search name of “Rita Taylor.” “Fuck!” he thought. “How am I going to find her?” He scanned the number of results returned – it showed the number seventeen.

Johan took a printout of the list and dressed in preparation to go out. He had a long day ahead of him.

Chapter 7

It was Christmas night a couple of years back, the last instance when Johan had been back in his hometown. Like always, he was out with Noel and Matt to celebrate the day and Reindeer Bar had once again been their destination. And as had been their custom, Noel had brought along a few girls to enjoy with them on that night. Unlike the events of this year, those girls had not been prostitutes. Rita Taylor had been one of them and Johan had taken an instant liking towards her.

The night had gone pretty much like any other Christmas night. The group had partied hard and drank to their heart’s content. In the end, they had taken the girls to bed. However, there had been something about Rita that had made Johan stop in his tracks. The night was supposed to be one of casual sex – do your thing and then forget all about it in the morning. This duo had done nothing but stayed up and chatted through the night. He had come to know that she was working as an assistant at one of the many retail outlets in the city. Rita was from a humble background and he had given her the impression that she was just the kind of girl he wanted to settle down with in life.

Johan and Rita had spent a good amount of time over the following days in each other’s company. One fine night, just before he was scheduled to return back to duty in Afghanistan they had finally made love. It had been the most passionate encounter he had experienced in life. She was an Angel and Johan could not bring himself around to hurt her in any way. However, he had been forced to leave abruptly the next morning upon receiving a call from his seniors in the army who had requested his return at the earliest. Sadly, he had never had time to explain the situation to her for she had been asleep when he had left. Eventually amidst all the excitement and agonizing terror prevalent in the Afghan War camp, he had completely forgotten all about Rita Taylor.

Now he was back and his subconscious had suddenly sprung her thoughts back for him. There was no way Sergeant Johan Walters was going to surrender the love of his life to someone else though he realized that in all the time that had passed, a number of stumbling blocks may have come up in his way. And as he soon found out the hard way, he was not too far from the mark!

Johan hopped into his car and took out the printout he was carrying with him. He decided to try the addresses as they were mentioned in the list and set off in search of the first one. Luckily for him, he did not have to roam around for too long. After a couple of misses, he hit the jackpot on the third attempt.

When he reached the third address, Johan looked around in surprise at the neighborhood he was in. It was one of those shady places his father had always warned him to stay away from as a teenager. The place literally smelt of danger and illegal activities. The building that was apparently his destination was a ramshackle old place with gaping holes for windows and cracked walls in a number of places. He could not imagine a human being living in such a dilapidated condition, let alone the girl he had fallen in love with. For a moment, he felt like skipping the place and moving on to the next one but then changed his mind. Johan entered the building and climbed the rickety stairs on to the third floor. He stood in front of a closed wooden door and looked around for a doorbell or knocker. Finding nothing of the kind, he made best use of his hands to rap on the soggy wood.

He waited for a while but there was no response of any kind. He tapped on the door once again, this time a little harder. After a few seconds, he heard the sound of the door being unbolted from the inside and presently it swung open. A stream of light burst out through the door and lit up the dark corridor. He adjusted his eyes to see clearly. Two years had passed and the memories of those days had been pushed away to the back of his mind but he did not fail to recognize the woman who stood in the doorway, staring questioningly at the man.

Rita Taylor had lost a good amount of weight, and she looked frail and tired. There were dark circles around her eyes and she seemed to have aged more than what was natural. In spite of all this, there was still a certain grace and charm about her that made him fall in love with her all over again.

“Rita!” he exclaimed. “I have found you!”

She continued staring at him. “I beg your pardon. Do I know you?”

“Maybe you don’t recognize me but I have not forgotten you,” he lied blatantly. “I’m Johan Walters. We met a couple of years back on Christmas at a party, remember?”

“Johan Walters…,” she mumbled as if trying to recollect something. Then, reacting as if a bulb had just lit up inside her head, she said in a louder tone, “Johan Walters? The man Noel Martins had introduced me to you?”

“I see you remember!” Johan said with a smile.

“What do you want?” she asked in a stern voice, the cheer suddenly disappearing from her sweet voice to be replaced by an ice cold touch.

“I have come to say something I never got a chance to say all those months back,” he began. “Rita, how much I have loved you all this while. My life feels empty without you. Will you please say yes and become a part of my existence?”

She looked at him with that same ice-cold glare in her eyes that made Johan feel as if he would break out into a sweat. Just then, the sound of a crying baby came floating in from inside. He looked surprised. “What are you doing with a baby?” he asked in amazement as Rita turned to go inside.

“Caring for it,” she said without turning towards him. “Just as a mother would care?”

“Mother!” his surprise grew even further. “Rita none of this makes any sense to me. Will you be kind enough to explain?”

“Sure, why not! I have always looked forward to this moment,” she said before beginning with her story. “After you left me abruptly in the morning, I tried getting through to you but all your calls went unanswered. I called up Noel and was told that you were already on your way back to Afghanistan and it would not do much good to try and contact you. I felt a little sad but thought that you would call from the camp. Days turned into weeks, the weeks soon became a month but your call never came. And then I realized that I was pregnant! I had not slept with anyone else since that night with you so the identity of the father was anybody’s guess. I was living with my stepbrother who immediately disowned me as soon as I broke the news to him, insulting me and kicking me out of the house. I took up accommodation of my own and continued working but as the pregnancy progressed, it became difficult for me to report to work. The manager found out about my condition and fired me, saying that I could reapply when I was fit enough for strenuous tasks. Then the baby arrived and had it not been for my friends and neighbors, I would have been dead in my flat already. My savings were dwindling so I had to give up my previous accommodation and come to live in this hell hole! Now you come with your generous offer to take me home and wish to settle down with me. To answer your question, no! If you have nothing else to say then you are free to leave.”