Paladin Force: The Phantom War

Paladin Force:

The Phantom War

by R. V. Riccio

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2013 — R.V. Riccio

** Science Fiction-Action Adventure Series **

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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PROLOGUE

An ashen-haired man sat firmly and resolutely in his plush, green, leather recliner, a book resting loosely in his hands. A multitude of ideas carried mixed feelings while they jousted about his erudite brain. In the complex depth that was his mind, the dominant, willful part watched the more subjective parts as they assimilated, analyzed, and correlated information: like a living computer. Although highly educated, the man knew brilliance alone was not enough to solve complex problems. Fate was too complicated, too intricate, and routinely tossed monkey wrenches into the works: events which even super-intelligence could not divine.

The man had earned two degrees in the sciences, and understood the world of humanity was in poor condition; it wasn’t metaphorical or philosophical, it was factual. Like all citizens, he was a tragic victim of an ever-enlarging government which theoretically attempted to solve society’s many problems, problems created by the super abundance of human beings on the planet. The fact of existence was that large groups of people needed organizing and administrating: government. The problem government provided was that its very power structure corrupted the people within it; it seemed to be unavoidable, and history had amply borne that out.

The American forefathers tried to legislate human weaknesses away in the Constitution with their systems of checks and balances; but man always found ways to pervert and misuse those rules for his own ends. It did not take long before any collection of politicians with power began exploiting and abusing the people for their own personal purposes; they hadn’t started out to, hadn’t begun their careers wanting to, but once in power long enough, corruption mushroomed all around them.

That had caused the current global situation, which disturbed the man, worried him, sometimes possessed him. Somewhere in the politicians’ thinking, the fact that they were working for the people, their employees as it were, became lost; and the politicians came to think of themselves as privileged rulers.

The man wondered: was it always this way from the first time of man, when the ape first walked upright, questioned the world, and sought to engage it? Was this system of human self-exploitation created by God, along with everything else, or had man developed it as a consequence of his mechanized, industrialized, atomicized progress?

Pulitzer prize winning author John Steinbeck had written about the brutal exploitation of the common man by Corporate America. That lofty construct gave us faceless administrators and soulless entrepreneurs who hid behind sterile reports and tall buildings, making ruthless decisions on names with numbers after them. The names never knew who was controlling their fate, and the controllers never cared who the numbers were.

The man looked up, considering that, blue-green eyes staring into the bookcase. Humanity’s lot had always been a brutal one, but somehow it had struggled through all its misfortunes and adversities, to provide a better posterity. But in homo sapiens’ attempts to create a kinder, fairer destiny, his society had not alleviated brutality at all, merely shifted the roles a bit, pushing them into a more distant guise.

Politics, war, religion, all plied their styles, seeking to control; the outcomes were always similar.

Hitler, the Crusades, Napoleon, Alexander, WW1, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Southeast Asia, Iraq, Afghanistan, the Arabic Wars, the death of Christ, the Grand Inquisitors of the Catholic Church, these efforts and personages, and more, delivered the same tragic outcomes. It didn't matter who was in charge: the President of the United States, Heads of the United Nations, the Pope, Generals, or madmen. The styles, the outcomes, all wound up the same. No change; mankind ended up suffering more.

The question always remained: how do you do anything about it? And who does it?

Where had everyone gone wrong? Even the well-meaning ones. Why hadn’t society followed the pacifists, and forward thinking visionaries? There had been enough of them over the millennia, if not an abundance. Mankind had given lip service to its profits over the ages, but little more than that. Perhaps what the crucifixion of Jesus Christ ultimately provided was a way of life not to be followed, regardless of what people professed in their religions.

In over 3 million years of human development, how could so many people make the same mistakes, year after year, century after century, millennium after millennium? And now, moving into the 22nd century, the problems had multiplied to a near disastrous level, with society’s ultimate collapse a near certainty within a few hundred years. The man was certain of this, had even made that certainty part of his doctoral thesis.

He frowned at his own train of thought. If power corrupts, always, how does one escape using power to effect a change? Were rebellion and violence the only effective ways to stop injustice and corruption? Even the best of the good guys got their hands dirty in the process. Those lessons were learned from the ancient Greek wars to the Roman Legions to the Crusades to the Marshals of the old west, to modern day police. Perhaps getting dirty was not the determining factor. Perhaps the goal was the only key: the final result; and the means were unimportant.

You couldn't simply appease society; it was the ultimate spoiled child. Giving a child everything it wanted had been shown for centuries to be counterproductive; the child learned little while developing low self-sufficiency, creativity, and problem-solving ability. Anyone in political power who promised society all the things it wanted, while employing no practicality or common sense, gave nothing but a postponement of inevitable doom.

The man shook his head, and continued to ponder. Politicians and Corporate America were the problem: the rich and powerful. He was one of the few wealthy people that cared about the general populace; he had to use that position to do something, since others of lesser means could not. Politicians and Corporations were comprised of people, but, as Steinbeck prophetically warned, there was no one person who was responsible for the incompetence and evil those entities generated. You couldn’t simply eliminate some person in charge of something to solve the problem; another similar entity would replace him and continue on without skipping a beat. Brilliant men knew this problem, but truly brilliant men almost never got into power; they didn’t want it, knew its pitfalls, and eschewed them.

It seemed everyone who had ever obtained the power to do something about injustice was corrupted by that power once they achieved it, thereby perpetuating that very same injustice. All but a very, very few. And they were too few to effect lasting change, no matter how much good they’d accomplished in their lives.

The man wondered: Then, how did you accomplish anything? Rebels had found historically that the rebellion was the easy part, as long as you were the rebel. Once in power, the rebel became the dictator, and the dictator became corrupted, in attempts to maintain peace and harmony, and create a good life for himself and his fellow power mongers: again, and again, and again. Why? That was what the man was considering, the train of thought that ran through his brain. It was why he had yet done little himself, despite his enormous wealth, impressive credentials, and loyal, accomplished friends.

The man had even put the question to his expansive super-computer, but it wound up bogged in a continuous loop in the process. It’s eventual extrication out of the loop was to suggest that man himself not be involved in the process. What did that even mean? What did that leave? Wild animals? Trees? Aliens? Powerful animals had been in charge a hundred million years ago, and most of those living things became extinct; certainly all the big and powerful ones. At least they’d had a good run, surviving a few hundred million years. At only three or four million, depending on which version of man one considered, human kind didn’t look like it was going to do anywhere near as well.

You couldn't use computers or robots, often suggested by others; they were programmed by man, which immediately brought you back to square one again.

If you did get in power, where, then, did you get your ethics? Whose did you use? How did you maintain them in perpetuity, when your every whim was answered as quickly as it came, even the crazy and stupid ones? You could pick a religion, a philosophy, a political party; there was one for just about every conceivable consideration. The trouble with them was they had all failed historically, all the way down to Christ, and many more before that.

If you used force, which is to say, committed violent acts, or killed, how did you maintain any ethics at all? The theoretical morality that had been available for thousands of years were surely good enough: from the Ten Commandments forward, and even before that. They weren’t the problem. Everyone but the insane knew what was right and moral. The problem was that, whatever ethics were ultimately utilized, the people in control left them once they rose into power. Power corrupts: it was more than just a saying. It was the singular defining axiom of mankind, of humanity itself; perhaps even of creation. Survival of the fittest, the hallmark of evolution, was nothing more than power run free and unobstructed. Yet, without power, you could do nothing: the power-utilization conundrum.

What was the solution? If there was none, man was ultimately doomed, even if he managed to escape the current crisis.

Corporate America had coopted those with political power, all the way to the White House. Corporations were things which were created by men. They did things in their own self-interest, to make more money, retain power, control society. And yet the men that ran them escaped responsibility, remained hidden and protected. But if you did find them, men could be killed, power could be taken away, corporations could be dismantled, broken up, destroyed. Steinbeck knew that, but he only wrote about it.

This man knew that you would have to do more than write about it, if the world were ever to change. He looked up, then closed his eyes, resting his mind a few minutes. He turned to squint at the computer terminal built into the library wall between bookcases. He thought about his brilliant machine’s absurd solution to world problems: man could not be involved. Power corrupts. Even the machine knew that. No man can be in power. His eyes widened. Maybe, just maybe, there was something.

Force always begot more force, and eventual future corruption for those who were involved. But you needed force to overcome force. The force had to come from somewhere, from men who could fight other men: Knights, Warriors, Ronin, Paladins. But men could not stay involved, otherwise become corrupted themselves. There was only one course of action left, one proposal, one ultimate battle. The action had to be swift, demonstrative, definitive, and then the warriors, the paladins, had to get out, let society heal itself. It was the only way.

He scratched the notes down on a piece of paper that lay on his oak desk. After several moments, he examined the notes. Yes, that was the only way. The common element of all power groups was that they became involved in the ensuing power system. The rebel always became the new dictator, regardless of what they called the system. It was always the same: Hitler, the Pope, the Grand Inquisitors, Congress, Parliament, they always became the new god, the new power monger. Once man became worshiped, human frailty became corrupted: always, regardless of intentions, regardless of ethics, regardless of religion or politics, Pope or madman.

The trouble was always that the new god was no god at all. Even those that realized it could not avoid the corruption; the power was given by the worshipers, and the god could not take it away. The only conceivable proposition was that man had to employ a paladin force to defeat evil; but then that force had to defect, let the people resurrect themselves. The paladins had to strike, hard and fast: become invisible. In fact, they had to be invisible the entire time, so there would be no one available for evil to fight, no one for the people to worship. The men had to be ghosts; wraiths; phantoms. The computer was not so stupid after all, as difficult as it was to accept its cryptic conclusion. There was the opportunity. It wasn’t perfect; it was a thread, but it was there.

The man lay back and rested his boot-clad feet on his desk, leaning his head against the tall chair. He and his men would have to discuss all this. When the talking was done, they would all be committed; and the commitment would be to action. The time for thinking and talking would be over quickly; everyone would know that the soul of civilization was at stake. He closed his eyes and rested again for awhile.

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CHAPTER 1

It was late morning of a new day as Alexander Colt sat back down in his comfortable, oversized leather chair, putting his grey boot-clad feet up on his giant marble-top table. He’d done some minor renovations to his study in the last few months, enlarging and redecorating it, allowing it to house more people; that, for the comfort of his men in their meetings regarding the upcoming operation. He had just finished a long conversation with them, his twenty friends who now surrounded him in the large study, friends who would become the key agents of the new mission.

He pressed his thumb and forefinger against closed, tanned eyelids which covered eyes that were more emerald green in the Utah mountain daylight that now streamed through the windows situated high on the wall, two-thirds of the way up to the cathedral ceiling. He stared up at the sound absorbing tiled ceiling, while his thoughts continued to work on their problem; he ran large, meaty hands through his somewhat long but neatly trimmed ash-blond hair, then once more turned his gaze to the wall of computer controls, monitors, and interfaces built by his organization for this work area.

His life had been relatively comfortable, if you didn't count the four dirty years as a Marine Commando during the continuing Mid-East Wars eight years ago. But that was not the lot of the majority of the people in the country, as he well knew.

There had been an increased liberalization in the laws; the political and economic intelligentsia opined that it had something to do with the new developments in the global Stock Markets and the US economic trade agreements with the international community. Rules had to be bent in order to bring about the greater good of peace with the world. That was the conventional wisdom, but nobody really knew.

Society grew to accept that the problems in the country were simply corporate America expanding its tentacles into the world market, enabling the rich to become richer, which was to say, business as usual. The trouble was, the richer business got, the poorer the people got; there was only so much money to go around, and with the wealthy hoarding theirs, everyone else was losing out. The average working person in the world knew only that life got a little tougher, government got a little softer, criminals got a little harder, answers came a lot slower.

Having just finished a fifteen minute speech to his men, Colt sat back in his chair and relaxed. Everything was now silent, leaving a deathly and thoughtful calm in the room, and among the men who listened intently. They were very special men, a group who had gathered here from all over the country for the express purpose of finalizing plans for a dangerous and covert operation that was about to erupt in short order. A movement was about to begin which would culminate a decade of thinking and planning by people who recognized the world’s progressive descent into devolving disorder.

Discovering a way to put world systems aright had become the preoccupation of this elite group. Their actions would begin in the U.S., with the domino effect hopefully spreading across the planet. Time was running out for any solution to be effective. No longer was there any time left to discuss methodologies of delicacy or propriety.

The men of this group were good men, intelligent men, men who had come to the painful conclusion that this uncertain and precarious mission was the last hope for themselves, their nation, and the world. These men were not bigoted or self-serving, and yet they were about to engage in a cold, methodical and lonely career devoted with precision to creating a type of order and justice where little now existed; ironically enough, they would employ the most violent means conceivable to effect that order. Where a quiet and subtle disorder now reigned, a very loud disruption was about to begin within the turmoil, and ripple throughout the globe.

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CHAPTER 2

Their meeting having finished, the group of concerned men filed out of Colt’s sanctum and made their way to their own home areas. Guy Colletti, Mike Kelleher, Rene Franks, and Ron Durante shared the same helicopter which, like the other four, spun its way in a westerly direction away from the shack, each to touch down at a different distant point. The men would then head for their home ports by various modes of travel, scattering across the country in starburst fashion. Guy Colletti did the current helo piloting for this group.

The men in the physicist’s aircraft were quiet for the first several minutes. The person who was considered second-in-command, and nearly equal in status to their ash blond leader, was the olive-skinned Guy Colletti. A man with thick, curly brown hair and sparkling hazel eyes, his European features were hard and angular, attractive to female eyes in a distinctly masculine manner. Never more than his constant hundred ninety pounds at five feet ten and a half inches height, he was solidly built, like all Colt agents.

Colletti’s brother agents also shared keen intellects along with special, multiple talents, all experts in their own fields. Colt had originally selected them from his friends and associates as special individuals, those who were a formidable balance of mind and body; they were much closer to him now. Their fair-haired leader had drilled his agents fiercely for months with this operation in mind, assigning each an area of expertise which would be utilized in future missions.

Guy Colletti, just thirty-three years of age, was one of the youngest of the Colt operatives, but far from the least. He held a BS in Chemical Engineering from Arizona State University plus two Master’s degrees in Physics and Chemistry from UCLA. He had spent four years out of college in the Naval Air Force, which rounded out his education and experience, and made him invaluable to the group. He broke the silence as they neared their touchdown point.

Colt laid it on thick this time, huh, the Italian said casually as he flew the craft.

The others either nodded or grunted an affirmative, none quite as talkative as their pilot.

Any of you guys nervous, Colletti continued, just a bit?

Anxious, I should say, old boy. More accurate, Mike Kelleher said, running fingers through light red, wavy hair. What about their rest of you? he asked.

It’s a job that’s gotta be done, Rene Franks responded cryptically, then shrugged his massive shoulders. He was a large, dark, enormously strong man of mixed ancestry; his mother was a beautiful African American woman, who married his father, a half Italian half French derivative. His parents had met in Rome, visiting the Vatican. Rene had a deep husky voice, and generally managed the fewest words of any in the group.

I don’t know, commented Ron Durant, a tall, thin, tan skinned, Australian with brown hair and eyes. "I haven’t thought of it as a job, Rene. It’s truly a mission, you know, mate. Alexander has put this all together for us, showed us the logic and reason of it. We’ll be filling that ordained task. He’s put a great amount of his time and wealth into organizing this. He could’ve sat comfy on his millions and watched the rest of the world devolve. He’d have been set for all of his lifetime, anyway. This is a far greater challenge: as I say, a mission. Regardless, my friends, it has now left the drawing board and been put in our able hands to implement."

Durant was a Cambridge don before coming to the US, as was Mike Kelleher. Both picked up a tad more English accent during their time there, that modifying Durant’s slight Aussie style and Kelleher’s American-Scottish-English one.

Fancy talk, Durant, Franks returned. Same thing. A job. More important one than we’ve had, but a job just the same. Gotta be done right. That’s it. Makes us all a little edgy. What about you, Guy? The big man’s exterior was much harder, gruffer, and more ominous than the man himself. Rene Franks was an Aerospace Engineer, with degrees from MITT and Cal Tech, and in general could tinker together just about any mechanical thing anyone would want from a pile of junkyard parts; his genius lay there.

Oh, I guess I’m a little nervous, sure, the Italian answered. It all came up pretty fast. The execution, I mean. I know we’ve been putting it all together for months. I suppose I’m anxious to put the thing into gear. Even though I have mixed feelings about the entire mission. The sooner everything gets going, the sooner we can stop this stagnation and social degeneration. Damn, I’m starting to sound like a preacher.

That would seem to be the general idea, now, wouldn’t it, my boy, Kelleher commented. You know, being totally into the job and all that.

Mm-m, yeah, the pilot uttered pensively. All of you get your envelope of specific instructions?

The men signalled that they did. They all sat back and were silent for the next twenty minutes, until the helicopter started its decent for a landing. He would leave the helo there where a secondary operative would pick it up and deliver it back to its home airport.

Okay! Everybody out, the pilot shouted as the doors sprang open for the men to jump to the sandy terrain, some hundred feet from two parked cars, a motorcycle, and a private plane. See you guys later. Stay in touch, he finished with a wide smile.

He watched as the three men made off before leaving the helicopter and making for his own speedy Corvette Coupe, which he drove home at his usual madman pace to his bachelor pad in Las Vegas, where he would begin his own phase of the operation.

It was late in the evening when he arrived at his ranch house on the northwest corner of the Vegas outskirts, as far from the developments as he could get, and close to the desert itself. It was hot, and dry, but Colletti hated air conditioning and hadn’t used it while driving the long, boiling stretches of road in the classic silver Vette, preferring to keep the hatches off and windows down as he’d sped down the highways averaging over 110 miles per hour. Now home, he opened all the windows to air out the house.

He thought about making something to eat, but right now all he wanted to do was sleep. His mind was crammed with the studies of statistics, logistics, and strategies; there had been memorization of codes, the proper directing of operatives, mazes of file information to consider. Add to that the physical exhaustion from the daily workouts with the others back at the shack. He was fit and prepared, but he was tired, despite the vitamins, minerals, and high proteins he maintained to sustain himself. Sometimes, as unhappy Colletti was at the practice, there was no substitute for a few hours sleep.

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Two and a half hours sleep was not quite enough for the brilliant physicist. Guy Colletti awoke feeling like the proverbial train had run over his body as he lay there. He had to make a couple of dozen calls to operatives, then leave to pick up materials and deliver them to still other operatives who would work through the night and the next day to put together last minute mission preparations. Finally, after another twelve hours of work, he fell into a fitful sleep, still clothed, which lasted an uncharacteristic six hrs.

He popped open his left eye to the sound of the door chimes. It was ten am. The Italian shook his head of thick, dark, curly hair as he moved swiftly, if sorely, out of bed and to the bathroom to splash some cold water on his face. He pushed wet fingers through his hair a few times to straighten it out and keep it in the casual style he maintained. That done, he quickly pulled off his shirt, slacks, and underwear, tossed them into the hamper in the large bathroom closet, and put on a clean set.

He walked out through the bedroom, across the spacious living room and foyer, to the front door. Gazing through the white curtained side windows, he espied the voluptuous form of the stunning red-haired female who stood anxiously outside. He smiled at the curvaceous figure of the twenty-four year old, prominently displayed through scanty, rose colored hip-huggers and a brief beige top, her long, red hair flowing over her shoulders.

Guy! she was shouting, her southern accent more obvious at the moment. Guy, Honey, for pete sakes, baby, open the door!

He stared at her a few moments before the Physicist mind which was again working on schedules and logistics, drank in the presence of his most recent and steadiest girlfriend, Melissa Kiernan. He shook his head, wryly smiling at the current intensity he carried within him for the mission which was about to commence. He’d only seen the vivacious southern charmer a dozen or so times in the last few months since he’d met her, although she was a very warm-hearted, cheerful, and adoring beauty, who had become extremely attached to the dark, masculine man with a brilliant mind and romantic soul. Colletti kept that aspect of himself mostly hidden, except from the charming girl’s sharp, sensitive mind and delicate touch.

Okay, okay! Just a minute, he shouted as he made his way to the front door, opening it up along with the screen behind it. He turned as the girl’s bright face made its way through the screen door, walking back to the bedroom bath to shower. Get comfortable, babe, while I go and wake up. Make yourself something.

"I am something, sweetie, she called after him as he disappeared into the bedroom. Hmph! No humor there, she muttered, then called, Want some breakfast, baby?"

Colletti popped his head out of the bedroom doorway, nearly naked. You can cook? he asked with some incredulity. Nobody that looks like you knows how to cook!

The red-haired beauty frowned for a moment, putting her hands on her hips. You’ve just got to get around more, darlin’, she said in the heaviest version of her normally light southern accent. Four years of Art College in Georgia and a commercial art practice do not preclude my domestic capabilities. You see! Her green eyes sparkled impishly.

He stared blankly at her for nearly a minute, then, with mild amusement and a couple of shakes of his head uttered, Hm! How about that. He walked into the bathroom and finished undressing, then called back. Three eggs, lightly done. There’s some Canadian Bacon and whole wheat muffins left in the fridge.

Ya’all still eatin’ that health food stuff? she shouted through the bedroom door."

Yes! he called back. Everything’s high protein and natural. Good for the body.

Ugh, she muttered. Terrible tasting stuff. Not that it doesn’t work, she continued, talking softly to herself. He always looks so great. She walked through the bedroom and to the bathroom door. I don’t suppose you’re goin’ to want any accompaniment in that shower with you, huh, baby.

Uh, no! You make breakfast. We’ll shower together some other time.

Mm-m-m. Promise?

No.

Figures. She sighed heavily, then headed back to the kitchen.

Fifteen minutes later, Guy Colletti walked out of the bedroom, cleaned and redressed. He downed some vitamins with a small glass of protein drink he kept in the refrigerator.

Melissa watched him, twirling her long, red hair around her left, delicately finished forefinger. How can you drink that stuff, Guy honey. It’s awful! Tastes like cardboard.

You tried it?

Uh-huh.

Why?

I wanted to see what the allure was. There isn’t any.

The Italian chuckled. "Health is the allure."

So you say. Maybe God just makes you that way because He loves you.

Well, in case He doesn’t, I take this stuff.

Mm-m. A scientist to the end, huh. She sighed again. So, you still gonna eat that eggs and bacon I made you? They’re nice and warm on the table. She smiled her best at the man she’d come to love in a short period of time. She wore no makeup to enhance her beauty, just a touch of light lipstick. Her naturally glowing peaches and cream skin were offset perfectly by the vibrant green of her eyes.

Sure! It’s all fuel for the fire, you know, he answered her, sitting down to the kitchen table and digging into his eggs.

Mm-m. Melissa grabbed the coffee pot from the coffee-maker and poured out two cups, then sat down opposite her beau and started delicately nursing her own meal. So, when does all the action start with you guys? she asked.

What action?

You know, all that, whatever it is ya’all’re doin’ with Alex Colt. She waved her hand twisting some air in a small circle.

Oh. I mentioned that? he asked as he sipped some coffee.

Not so much, no, not really. I dragged a little out of you when you were sleepy; just enough to make me curious.

Oh, well, it’s probably better that you don’t be.

Mm-hm. Might as well tell me to stop breathin’, sweetie.

True. Well, a lot of it’s already started. Planning and everything. Mission implementation will occur soon enough.

I see. ‘Mission implementation,’ she reiterated. Sounds very formal and important.

The Italian shrugged. We’ll see.

You know, this thing has really got a part of you inside, Guy. I keep tryin’ to make myself irresistible for you, but you hardly even notice!

Don’t be silly, kid, Colletti said between mouthfuls. I always notice. You’re beautiful. I notice it again every time I see you. There’s nobody like you. It’s like God carved you together out of the best stuff on Earth.

Thanks, she returned glumly. I just wish there was more than words to your noticin’!

There will be. Everything in its own time, babe. What my mom used to say.

I’d’ve loved to meet her.

Yeah. She sure would’ve loved you alright.

Nice to know. That’s somethin’ I guess.

Now, why is that?

Oh, because you’re sweet. Wholesome. Mom loved sweet and wholesome.

I see.

Sure. So, how’d you know I’d be here today, anyway? We don’t give anyone our timetable.

I didn’t. I drop by every day, checkin’. I came earlier, saw your car, but you were still sleepin’. I peaked through the window. So I went home and freshened up a little.

Freshened up. Hm! Did a great job. Of course, you didn’t need much. More than that, you’re a very bright and considerate lady. You’re going to make someone a terrific wife.

Someone? How about you!

Oh, Liss. There’s no way I can have a wife right now. Much as I might like to. Things are way too complicated.

Then what are you doing with me now?

Well, uh, having a really nice friendship.

Friendship, huh. Seems to me we’ve been more than that. You know, for now, it doesn’t have to be wife, Guy. I just would like to be a permanent part of your life, she drawled, using her best southern accent and charm.

Permanent part of my life? What’s the difference?

The difference is it lacks the official nature that seems to scare ya.

Colletti smiled and nodded his head at the witty girl’s comment. He continued to finish his food and sipped some coffee. You know, Liss, we’ve only known each other three months! You think you can possibly know that already?

Sure, she replied simply.

How!

Gee whiz, it’s not one of those really hard things to figure, baby, she answered. "Ya don’t have ta be as smart as you are."

Uh-huh. How many boyfriends have you had?

"How many? You mean, ever?"

Yeah! How many. Are you able to count them?

"You’re talkin’ about serious ones."

Okay. Let’s go with that.

Uhm, a few.

Mm-hm. I’ll bet.

There were none like you!

What the hell does that mean?

She shrugged. Someone I’d want to be with forever.

Really. Forever.

Uh-huh.

Hm! So, what were you doing with these other guys? he pressed.

Just dating. Normal stuff.

"Normal, eh. How many did you sleep with?"

Guy! Why should you care?

He maintained a serious stare at her.

She huffed out a sigh. Two. There was a nice boy I thought I loved when I was sixteen. He was nineteen. It was, you know, a first love thing. We dated about a year before he went away to college, and that was the end of that.

"He left you? You? At sixteen? Guy must’ve been nuts."

She shrugged again. "Lots of older, faster, girls there. Lots! I think that’s the main thing."

You mean the quantity thing.

Yup. You know, I was very shy and old fashioned then. We were only intimate a few times. And even those were a little scary.

A few times?

Yes. Three! To be exact. He wanted more, naturally, and to do more stuff than I did, but that was all I could manage.

Because you were shy and old fashioned, huh.

Yes! I didn’t know anything at sixteen.

Mm-m. I should’ve known you back then.

Yeah. I wish.

"Then what."

Uhm, when I got to art school. College. I met a boy at the beach between my Sophomore and Junior years. He was nice and polite. Handsome, I thought he was a great thing.

Mm-m. That must have been something. You at the beach at, what, nineteen?

She nodded. We had a summer romance, but broke up when I went back to school.

He wasn’t an artist?

She shook her head and smiled. No. An Engineering student. From Georgia Tech.

Uh-huh. What kind?

"I don’t know! Just, engineering! I thought I sort of found my type."

Colletti chuckled. I see. So, what was his story? Or yours.

You mean, why we broke up?

Yeah.

He told me he had a fiancé back home that he had to marry.

Had to? She was pregnant?

No. No, not that. She was rich, a multimillionaire, you know, five or six hundred million; their marriage had been arranged for awhile, and the families were all wrapped up with each other. He asked me to be his mistress, because he said he loved me, and not so much her. But, he couldn’t give up the opportunity to have that kind of a life. Said he’d be sure to give me a good life, too. She shook her head. That wasn’t what I had in mind. I told him no, and felt pretty stupid afterward.

For saying no to a guy who was going to be rich, huh.

No! For getting involved with him in the first place. I mean, he seemed to be a nice guy, and doted on me well enough that summer. But, overall, I hooked up with the wrong guy.

Well, I’m sure he did dote on you that summer. You at nineteen had to be something.

Oh, maybe. But, if he’d have told me everything in the beginning, I wouldn’t have had any relationship with him. Which, I s’pose, is why he didn’t. So, the whole summer thing was really a lie, you know. I didn’t like that. I felt used.

Hm! Colletti nodded thoughtfully. Your folks know?

Sure. I told them. We’ve always been close. I wouldn’t lie to them just because I was stupid. Daddy just told me I’d have to be more careful with the people I meet, especially in these more desperate times. Especially those you’re goin’ to be close to.

He was certainly right about that.

Then I met you. And fell in love for real.

You know that, huh.

Yup.

Nobody between the summer romance and now?

Nobody serious. Just, casual dating. I was being more careful.

Mm-hm, the Physicist muttered as he finished his breakfast. Didn’t seem like you were being all that careful to me.

You were the right person to not be careful with!

And you’re sure of that.

Uh-huh. She leaned forward on the table, elbows on the top, resting her chin on her closed fists, a smile on her face. I learned a lot between then and now. Especially about men.

"Long time to go without sex. How could you learn anything about men?"

"Oh Guy. Sex is not somethin’ you really have to work at learnin’ about. It comes kinda natural, ya know! It’s everything else you have to learn about. Watch an adult film, and you’ll learn all you need to know about having sex. Love and friendship are somethin’ else altogether. You can’t learn anything about that from films. And you don’t learn about people by having sex with them all the time. In a lot of ways, havin’ a bunch of sex is a lie."

How do you mean?

Well, everything’s always good when you’re doin’ it. You both feel good, excited and all, and so you say these really romantic or sexy things to each other. People don’t really mean them, but they say them because they feel like that when they’re havin’ sex.

"That what you did?"

She sighed deeply. I s’pose I did a little of that, here and there, in my passionate moments. I have strong feelings and emotions, and am pretty sensitive, if you noticed.

"Yeah, I noticed. So, I guess