Ambiguity


		AMBIGUITY: Love Boat They stepped out of the front door of his stucco-faced flat into the heavy enveloping fog of San Francisco. She, a tall slender shapely brunette of thirty-eight years slowly walked down the last few steps onto a sidewalk wetted by the thick mist which hung about everywhere. He was a tall, slender man in his early fifties who looked younger than his age. Her 50’s dress accentuated her hourglass figure with a hand-knit warm sweater speckled with bright color highlights only an artist could have put there. He was wearing his usual casual outfit comprised of scandals with socks because of the cold, blue jeans and a splendid silk shirt with loose rectangles of cooperative but diverse colors hosting hieroglyphs – numbers and letters – fragments of an archeological dig, over which he’d slipped a thick wool rich-green sweater, his favorite color. She hated being out in the bitter cold bite of damp air, because they’d been basking in their love when they got the call. They were resting together on his living room couch, which they called their ‘couch-boat’. Her back was spooning against his reclining body, both cast adrift from the world and its madness into the soothing un-ambivalent comfort of being with someone who loves you, whose body is linked to yours. Her body had jumped when the phone rang twenty minutes earlier. “Hello?” “Rhett? Is that you?” Asked a quivering female voice. “I wish I could say that it wasn’t, that you have the wrong number, but you don’t. In fact…” “Oh, I’ve caught you at a bad time,” the voice interrupted without remorse. “You sure have,” Rhett replied. “But I ask you, what are good friends for? Please consider yourself here with me and Rhona probably for a very good reason.” “I wouldn’t interrupt you so late in the evening if I weren’t so scared,” the woman said with irritation that erased her quivering. “The man’s here again?” Rhett queried. “Yes.” “Following you again?” “He’s been tailing me all day! I couldn’t take it any longer and just had to call you guys.” Rhona nuzzled her back up against Rhett for comfort. She knew who was calling. “Is he outside now?” Rhett heard the phone receiver clank down on a table. In the quiet that followed no sound could be heard over the phone line. Her house was alone in the woods. “Yes, he’s still there. I was sure he still was. But when you asked…I mean you weren’t convinced at all in the beginning. I wanted to be absolutely sure again so I checked. It’s getting really creepy, Rhett. Please believe me!” “Have you called the police?” “Yes! But every time they come he manages to be hidden somewhere. It’s really maddening…and very frightening!” “You’re right. That’s pretty scary.” “This time you must come out here,” Susan insisted. ”So you can see for yourself how creepy he is!” She’d been calling frequently about this man. The intruder didn’t go away, nor did he do her any harm. This had gone on for weeks. But Rhett knew the inevitable. Susan was Rhona’s best friend. When she heard he knew they would be going to Susan’s. “Okay, Susan. You sit tight. We’ll be over just as soon as we can drive there in about forty-five minutes. You call the police again and insist upon their coming out and staying at least until we arrive.” “They always come, but who knows how long they’ll stay. Anyway, thanks Rhett for coming. And please apologize to Rhona for me. But please hurry.” “We will.” “It was Susan,” Rhona said after he’d hung up. “Yes. She’s desperate.” “We must go.” “I believe you think so.” “You don’t?” “Maybe. It’s just that this goes on so often. We’re fairly frequently being interrupted by this perpetual emergency. Honey, it really feels good lying together on our Couch Boat.” “Yes,” she sighed in agreement. She twisted her body around so she could see his face. “So I’ll come with you,” she said. “But you better be a whiz at this double-duty, adventuring and making love. I don’t want love to be interrupted just yet.” How exquisitely selfish, Rhett mused admiringly to himself. “So you’re coming,” Rhett observed. “At least that’s a consolation prize. Actually now that I’ve said it coming’s a beautiful thought. So hold onto it.” “I’d rather hold on to what wants to come. Oh he’s very active,” she added feeling his groin harden under her. “At this rate I’ll come before we get going,” he quipped his member enlarging. “I think he wants to come too,” she quipped. “Don’t you think we better vamoose before we let him loose?” “You’d better stop rhyming or I’m going to start climbing,” she retorted half turning around, lifting her body up closer to his. “Sweetheart, we’ve got to go. I promised Susan,” Rhett reluctantly insisted. “Give me your hand and I think I can recommend something,” she cooed. “The gearshift will soon be needing that hand. So I must retain its command.” “Your rhyming is declining,” she retorted with mock annoyance. “You’ve got terrible timing.” The fog they soon stepped into shrunk the last remnants of love-warmth as they searched through the mist for his car. WHAT READERS SAY... “Drama…murder…love…all come together in this gripping San Francisco psycho-thriller. Don Fenn weaves a tale of intrigue—part mystery, part romance—that will keep you up into the early hours of the morning. The intense relationship between Rhett, Susan and Rhona sizzles with steamy, hot sex…creating a deep psychological understanding of how people cope in a life-threatening crisis. A story that stays with you—profound, simple, moving, but most of all perceptive. A highly intelligent, realistic piece of writing with pages dripping with suspense. In every sense the San Francisco fog becomes a character…you will think twice the next time you drive through the mist over the Golden Gate Bridge into the Marin headlands. My tip for thriller of the year.” —Larry Cotanche, Winter Park, Florida copyright© 2007, 2008 Don Fenn. All rights reserved.