IN A DESERT PLACE

By Atonia Walpole

 (Picture creations also by Atonia)

Part 5

Martha Langston was a sensible woman. She picked up the phone and called the hotel desk. Perhaps Charlie had gone down to see about transport to the airport or something about the bill.

Upon reaching the penthouse, David went straight to the pool and stripped. Swimming always calmed him and helped to clear his mind. He was upset about Charlie, deeply upset in ways he couldn’t reveal in his present surroundings. It went deep inside him, raw and bloody. Today the water refused to work its magic and after a while he climbed out and wrapped himself in the thick terry robe held by a servant. One of his security guards caught his eye and he stared at him a moment.

“Where is Joh?”

“He is not here. He is in the desert.”

“Explain, please.” David lit a cigarette.

“He has a house that belonged to his people. He goes there sometimes.”

“Alone?”

“Always alone. He will be back soon. I am sure of it. He never stays there for long, only to see to the place.”

“Who lives there?”

“No one. The house is empty.”

David walked to the glass wall, looking down on the city. Out there Charlie and Lyssa were under the same sky and he could not see them.

“When he returns I want to see him immediately.”

“Are you absolutely sure? Ask around the desk if you will. I’m sure she must have inquired about the bill.” Martha glanced over at Lyssa, who was now taking the dolly’s clothes off.

“No, we were leaving today. Breakfast? There is not a breakfast trolley in the room nor in the hallway. I’ve just come across…I assure you there isn’t. The mistake is on your part, not ours.” She turned to Lyssa. “Have you had an egg, ducks?”

Lyssa shook her head and rolled over on the bed, working on the dolly’s shoes.

“If she did it never arrived.” While she paced about the phone table something caught her eye over by the door, a shoe. “Sir…please will you listen…I think you’d better send security up here. Mrs. Blaine appears to be missing.”

He rolled her out of the hotel tablecloth onto the stone floor. “Too bad you are not dead already,” he purred over her, arranging her body and fanning her hair out around her head. “How could he have ever wanted such a creature? Only to beget a child, I know this.” He took a drink from the water bottle and set it down by her. “I leave you this and know lips that touched that bottle will soon touch his,” he smiled in the semi-darkness of the store room. There was no need to tie her up. Once the door was locked the sand would take care of the rest. He must hurry before the sandstorm struck.

Martha scrolled down Charlie’s phone  and found David’s phone number. She punched it and waited. The phone rang and rang in the bag back at  Ali’s new residence.  She felt a little helpless as she waited for the hotel security to arrive. There was the child on the bed, Blaine’s child, and she and no idea where to find him.

After his return from China his true identity had been regained but as far as Martha Langston was concerned he would always be Blaine. He intrigued her from the very beginning. She hadn’t been kidding about his seductive personality. Had she been a young woman it might have affected her in a different way, but now she wanted to mentor him. He had such potential, such brilliance…and it was being wasted here in the desert.

She only knew Charlie through Blaine and really did not know her at all .  She’d been surprised  Charlie had confided such intimate details about Blaine to her but she could understand the woman’s dilemma and had offered to help. It didn’t matter now what she thought of Charlie. One thing she knew, no woman walked out with only one shoe. Something was amiss here.

 David had moved to the den and was propped up on a lounge with the English papers. He heard the door open and looked over the paper then carefully folded it and put it aside. Joh came in with something wrapped in paper.

“Where have you been?” he asked.

“In the desert.” He came over and went down on knees by the lounge and unwrapped the sweet he’d brought for David.

“What were you doing in the desert?”

“It is my father’s old house. I go there to see it, to make sure it does not fall down.”

“Where is your father?”

“He is in Jeddah with my mother. They have moved on…you like this I know.” He broke a piece of the roll and tasted it then offered it to Blaine.

“Why do you keep the house?”

“It is all I have of him.” With the tip of his finger he brushed a crumb from David’s lips.

“I have nothing of my father and I find I do not need it. You will not go into the desert again without permission from me. You are not to go alone…ever, do you understand?” He tilted Joh’s face up.

His dark liquid eyes, half lidded, looked into Blaine’s. I will do nothing that does not please you. You missed me.”

“Yes, I missed you.” Their lips touched softly and David pulled away, dropping his hand from Joh’s face. He lay back on the lounge and closed his eyes. It was not Joh’s face he wanted to see. “Don’t do that.” He stopped Joh’s hand. “Not unless I ask you to…do not touch me.”

Joh dropped his head and sat back on his heels. “I have displeased you?”

“No, you have not. I don’t want to be touched.” David thought about the on and off button Ali had spoke of. He’d been too lenient with Joh, letting him have his way too often, spoiling him with affection, and it had worked. Joh no longer talked of Ali. His affections had been transferred to him as he’d planned. But now he had another problem…what to do with him…what to do with him if he ever hoped to go home again.

 Pure and simple the boy was a whore and he would sell himself to the highest bidder if left to his own devices. He recognized this from the beginning . It was not his loyalty or love of Ali; it was what he could gain from the relationship. When he had enough expensive baubles to satisfy him, what then, political intrigue, an assassin’s blade, a poison sweet? Ali didn’t know about the drugs. What else did he not know about or was he blinded by the boy’s beauty and didn’t want to see anything beyond?

David loved Ali and he felt he owed him more than he could ever repay. It would have surprised Ali to know the real reason behind Blaine’s affair with Joh. He was content to let them play with each other, delighting in Blaine’s openness and his sexuality.

Martha was more than a little exasperated. There had been so far, three different sets of security people in the room, each asking the same questions. Lyssa was becoming fretful and crying from the bullying she’d received. Martha intended to put a stop to it.

“May I ask you if there is yet another tier of security here or are you the last because I think we need someone like the police in here. I’m not going to sit by and watch this child be treated this way. While you’re asking the same thing the last lot did her mother is still missing and, as far as I can see, nothing is being done to find her.”

Lunch was brought up to the rooms for Martha and Lyssa and later Lyssa went to sleep. Martha trusted no one to sit with the child and yet she didn’t want to be confined to the room. She was becoming a little desperate when the detective showed up at half past two.

He took a look at the tall thin woman, accepted her direct look and sat down with her and got her story.  “Where is the husband now?”

“If I knew I’d have called him hours ago. I last saw him in the lobby by the fountain. I honestly don’t think he has anything to do with this. He would never have left his daughter alone and Lyssa said it wasn’t her daddy that took Charlie away.”

“What relationship are you to the family, nanny?”

“I beg your pardon, I am neither related nor employed by the Blaine’s. I’m a master gardener by trade, garden designer.”

“So you are a friend?”

“I am a friend and colleague of David Blaine. I’ve worked with him on a few projects in England. I came down here with his wife, Charlie, to find him.”

The detective picked up on this. “He was missing?”

“Not exactly…well, yes, she didn’t know what had happened to him. He’d been gone for six weeks without contact. She was worried about him.”

“What was the nature of his business here?”

“Personal…it was personal.” She knew where this was going and she sighed. Now the whole thing would come out.

“What has any of this to do with the disappearance of Charlie Blaine? Why aren’t you out looking for her?”

“We are looking for her and her husband. He should be here, should he not?” He eyed her.

“In all honesty, yes, he should be here,” she answered.

Part 6

She lay still, not moving lest the thing in the back of her head fall again. It had fallen twice already and each time the pain was unbearable. She wandered into sleep again, her blanket uncommonly heavy. Outside the storeroom the wind had died down and the sand had settled. The sky had been red with sand for over four hours. Out on the highway vehicles were passing, strewing the sand off the road back into the desert. It would not claim the highway as it did the unattended landscape.

She came to, coughing and gasping for air, digging herself out of the sand. It was in her mouth, her eyes and her ears, her nose. Full consciousness followed shortly behind the gasp for life. Charlie pulled herself up to a sitting position, ignoring the nausea and the headache. Where the hell was she?

“Uuh!” She tried to stand and her head hit the doors. “Hey…hey, somebody….hey…!!” She was in sand up to her ankles in places where it had blown through the cracks in the doors.  The doors were set in the ground at an angle so that the room, about the size of her pantry at home, was higher at one end than the other. She pressed her face against the doors, trying to see, but there was nothing to see. They were covered in sand and her  pressure upon them only made more sand sift into the room.

She felt along the walls, stone and slightly cool, so she figured she was underground, maybe in a root cellar of some sort, but where? She found a little alcove, some shelves empty except for sand.  Stumbling upon the bottle of water, she took it in measured sips as the evening wore on and her situation played itself over and over in her mind. The boy with the breakfast she didn’t order, his insistence on pushing the trolley into the room, then the struggle and then nothing. He’d done something…her hand went to her neck. A needle, it had been a needle. But why? Why, she didn’t even know anyone here. She was nobody, not worth anything to a kidnapper. Unless they knew who she was, that she was a former agent. Could the young man from the Embassy…but no…that didn’t make any sense. The boy who took her from the hotel was an Arab.

She shook her black pants and the matching tank top. Sand fell from her clothes but it was everywhere. Later on the temperature dropped in the room. The sun had gone down. Charlie pulled the tablecloth from under the sand and shook it. Doubled over, it made a shawl to cover her bare shoulders. She’d been packing…Lyssa. She hoped Martha Langston had her. Lyssa…David.” She finally gave way to tears.

He finished his dinner and walked out of the dining room, rolling a cigarette in his hand. Joh was there with a light.

“What will you do when I leave?” he asked him.

“You will not leave, ha, ha! No, Ali will not let you and I will not let you go. I love you, Blaine. Do not speak of leaving.”

“Ali has no control over me. I leave when I wish.  I have work to do in another country. What will you do when I leave?”

“You will not leave,” Joh smiled a little. “There is no reason for you to go. Here you have everything…you have me.”

“Will you go back to Ali?”

“Please, Blaine, do not speak of it. You will not leave me. You love me…you told me you loved me.”

David smiled a little, “And you believed that?”

“You make a joke. I know you love me. I feel it here in my heart. Ali gives me many things but he has never loved me the way you do. It cost nothing…love that you give to me, but it is more precious than all the jewels…all of them.”

“You are very, very good, Joh…”

“So do not talk of leaving me. I have this for you. Take it in your mouth, half for you and half for me. It is a sweet you will like.…”

Joh was up to his old tricks. Blaine realized too late what he had eaten.  He let it slide for the night for it would be the last night they would be together. The next morning he pulled Joh’s head up to his chest and looked him in the eye. “If you ever try and drug me again…I will kill you, not beat you, not have you beaten, I…will kill you. Do you understand me?”

“There is someone to see you, sir. You must come down.” Blaine’s personal servant had delivered the message. He had bathed and now he dressed in slacks, a white shirt and the white robes over his clothes. He went down into the reception room where two men, one in uniform, waited for him.

“Good morning, Sir. You are David Blaine?” the detective greeted him.

“Yes.” His eyes traveled from one to the other. “Why are you here?”

“It’s concerning your wife, Sir. We have reason to believe that she was abducted from her hotel room yesterday between 10:00 and 10:45 in the morning by a person unknown to her. He was caught on camera but unfortunately his face is not shown.

His mouth had gone dry. “What are you telling me? Where is she?”

“We hoped you might shed some light on that, Sir."

They questioned him for over an hour and it was plain to him where they wanted it to go. He’d left her for Prince Ali. She’d come after him and he’d disposed of her. Now all he had to do was tell them where the body was. They were even supplying him with excuses. Perhaps she’d been unfaithful and a bad wife to him.

Just when it looked as though they might ask him to accompany them an emissary from Prince Ali arrived. Ali had been called by one of the guards when the police arrived. He soon had them sorted out but David was still in shock that Charlie could be  missing. It just wasn’t possible. Lyssa was with Martha Langston for the moment. Of course he would take her. She was his daughter. His mind was whirling about when he caught sight of Joh in a doorway. He didn’t have time for Joh now. Things were going to change and change quickly. Charlie had to be found. He knew he had to deal with Joh and he knew what needed to happen to  him but he couldn’t do it. Ali would have to if he believed him at all.

“Is she still at the hotel?” David asked of his daughter.

“Yes, with the other woman, a Miss Langston,” the detective answered.

“Do I have your leave to go and fetch her and bring her here with me?”

Blaine left with his guards for the hotel.

Charlie rocked herself back and forth, humming the same song Lyssa always sang. It was from one of her favorite videos. The room was becoming warmer, which indicated it was now day, day two of her ordeal. The water bottle was nearly empty. It wouldn’t last the morning. She had to get out of there. Her first duty was always to escape. There had to be a way out of this hole in the ground. She began with the cracks in the door. The more she thumped the doors the more sand came through the cracks so that she had to stop and clear a space at the bottom of the doors where the cracks were wider.

“Can you manage her, Blaine? Are you sure?”

“Yes, she is my daughter. I can take care of her. You need to go back to England. I understand this. There is no need for you to stay. Thank you for all you have done for us.”
 

“It is true I need to go home, but I hate to leave you like this with Charlie missing.”

“We will find her.” He held Lyssa close to him.

“I’d call you but I’ve already tried that. Your phone is not working here.”

“My phone is not with me. I promise I will call you when she is found.”

Lyssa was overjoyed to see her Daddy and he’d not let her down since he picked her up at the hotel.

Along with her baggage she moved into the penthouse with him. That afternoon he took her for a swim in the pool. It felt good to be with her. He hadn’t  realized just how much he’d missed Lyssa and the serious conversations they had on a daily basis.

Today she told him that a man took her mother. He asked the questions and she answered and told him she was tired of telling the same story.

“Tell a different one. Tell me a story, Lyssa.” He had her wrapped in a towel on the lounge with him.

“I tell you a story about the man. He gave me a dolly…do you have any polish here?”

“Nail polish? I don’t think so. Why?”

“His fingernails were painted,” she giggled,” and he was a man.”

“Sometimes Daddy has his fingernails painted, too.”

“Not black,” she said. "Yours are, like now.” She examined his nails. “Yours are painted, too.”

“But never black,” he smiled at her.

“No…Mummy’s are blue, blue nails. I wish I had some polish.”

“Are they?” he grinned, thinking of Charlie painting her nails blue.

Joh listening at the door, walked quickly to his rooms balling his fingers up. Had he noticed? Would he remember his hands? He set to work removing the layers of black polish and wishing he’d taken the little girl, too, but there hadn’t been enough room on the trolley.  Still there might be time. He would wait out of sight for his chance. The little female might identify him.

However, Lyssa was never far from Blaine. He worked with the police and now Ali’s people had been brought in on the search.  Upon hearing what had happened, Ali had called Blaine and offered help and a place for him and Lyssa to stay at his residence but Blaine rejected the offer. He preferred to stay at the penthouse nearer the hotel.

Part  7

Joh was sulking. He was neglected. Blaine hadn’t so much as touched him since word of his wife’s disappearance. Perhaps he’d got it all wrong. He should have killed her right away and he could have comforted Blaine. He would want him then to hold him and dry his tears as he’d done in the restaurant that night. He moved silently around the corridors, listening at doors and being moved along by the security people. By mid-morning he had disappeared.

Charlie’s shoulders ached, her whole body ached from constantly bumping the doors, but some progress had been made. Sand no longer drifted through the cracks. She’d been in the sandpit now for nearly thirty-six hours. Nothing to drink since the morning before. She worked the corner of the door until her fingers  ached so badly she had to quit, then stopped and sucked her bloody fingertips for the moisture. She thought she heard a car, a motor, and tried to call out but her throat was so dry she nearly choked. She backed away from the doors and waited.

He listened with his ear to the doors before he slid his key into the lock. The force of the door hit him in the face and knocked him backwards. Charlie used her legs to slam the door open as soon as the lock clicked open.  She scrambled out of the pit, nearly blinded by the sun and saw him regaining himself on his knees now and getting up. She couldn’t stand up straight but, by God, she wasn’t going back into that pit again. They rolled on the ground. She hit him with everything she had, fought back using the training she’d received years ago and never had the opportunity to use.

The highway was about fifty feet away and a busload of women were returning from an athletic tournament when one of them called out for the bus driver to stop. They all piled on one side of the bus, watching the fight. A man and a woman. She was not one of them but they cheered her on.

Charlie was totally unaware of her audience. She was intent now on killing the bastard for she knew that’s what he was trying to do to her. He was slight, not much bigger than she was, and he wasn’t a fighter. He made some dumb moves and she took advantage of them. She had him now, his face down in the sand, and she pushed his head down with all her might, then knee to the back of his neck. It was all over for him. When he ceased to move and struggle she fell off him and rolled over to catch her breath. She turned her head and saw three shapes, black shapes, and it frightened her until they got close enough for her to see it was three women. They gathered her up and helped her to the bus. Several of them spoke perfect English and she haltingly told them of her ordeal. She was given water and some crisps and an extra garment was found to cover her. She had the bus drop her at the hotel.

As soon as she entered and pulled off the headdress, the desk clerk called the police.

“I just want to see my daughter,” she told them.

“She’s not here. She’s with her father.”

“No…no…!" She shook her head.

Charlie seemed to be floating in and out. She was still standing but only with the support of the counter. A doctor was called, the police arrived, Ali’s people arrived and finally David arrived with Lyssa.  She was going to be transported to the hospital but he got into see her in her hotel room, leaving Lyssa with one of Ali’s guards in the hallway.

He leaned over her, taking in her battered and bruised face and body. “Oh, Charlie, darling, you’re going to be okay. You have to be.”

Her throat was so swollen she couldn’t talk. She blinked at him and turned her head away.

He touched her cheek. Martha had been right, he had a lot of work to do here with Charlie.

Over the next twelve hours David learned what had happened to her. The police were looking for the body she supposedly left behind. A women’s soccer team made a statement to the police about what they had witnessed in the desert and then the body was recovered.

“Were you acquainted with him?” the official asked David.

“Yes.” He moistened his lips and turned away from the body of Joh. The beautiful young man was no more. Part of him was glad. It was the only solution for Joh. He could not be allowed to return to Ali and now he wouldn’t be returning. He wasn’t sure how Ali would take this news. He had cared for the boy. As for himself, he had some fond memories of time spent with him but perhaps it was justice that he had been killed by Charlie. His worlds had collided violently and left him shaken to the core.

He left the viewing room where he’d had to go to identify Joh. Lyssa was sitting in the lap of one of the guards. He rarely left her and only when necessary. Next he was going to the hospital to see Charlie. She’d had a night to recover from her ordeal. None of her injuries were serious, nothing broken, but she was sore and bruised and sported a few bandages.

She set down the cup of water she’d been sipping on. Their eyes met. “I understand he was  your lover.”

“Who told you that?”

“Cops.”

“He was in a manner of speaking, my lover. He belonged to Ali.”

“I don’t want to hear. He was a fuckin’ asshole who tried to kill me!”

“Yes, I know. He was jealous and desperate because he knew I was going to leave him and go home. I’m very sorry, Charlie. He hurt you…I would have killed him myself. I want to explain to you what I was trying to do here for Ali.”

“If it involves male whores I don’t want to hear it. I hardly recognized you.”

“I’m not like that, Charlie.”

“I saw you.”

“I was playing a role to protect Ali. The boy…Joh, was a threat to him. I took him from Ali.”

“I’ll just bet you did! What kind of um role are you playing today…huh…caught in the act sorry? You know…I don’t want to do this anymore. I’m a fairly normal person with a child I want to bring up fairly normal. I don’t want her to come upon you one day in eyeliner and makeup. When she’s older I’ll explain about you but not now. She’s too young to understand. I know who you are and what you are and that’s not the issue here between us. It’s the fact that you went off for six weeks without contacting me. It’s the fact that I live with this big fear that one day Ali is going to win and you’ll be gone.”

“There is no contest, Charlie. I will never leave you for Ali. We have an understanding between us. We have our separate lives. You are correct; I should have contacted you. This has been a very…intense experience here and one that you were not a part of, one that I did not want you to be a part of.”

“No…I’m not a part of this life that you lead. I don’t understand it all. I know it exists but it hurts…it makes me feel inadequate and ugly and afraid that it’s going to take you from me. I want to walk away from you and keep what I have left of myself…but I can’t.”

His eyes filled. “You are beautiful to me and I love you and our daughter. I want to be with you, Charlie.  I never envisioned myself married until I met you. I have not held up my end of it very well. Please give me a chance to show you how it can be with us."

“There will always be a third person in the room with us even during our most intimate moments. I don’t think I can do that, David.”

“My darling, Ali has nothing to do with us.”

“It’s not him…the third person is you. There are two of you.”

“You are mistaken. I am one man, a man of many parts as you are a woman of many parts. You are the mother of our child, you have lain beneath me in love and yet you have killed  a man."

“I had to. He was going to kill me.”

“I know, but this is something I have never done. To kill with your bare hands. I can only imagine, Charlie, what it took for you to do this. We are not perfect either of us but we come together as one person in love. Do not take this away. We need each other...we love each other.”

“All debts are paid now. There’s just you and me and Lyssa. I’ll try to be enough for you. I don’t want to take anything away.”

He gently kissed her bandaged hands and then her lips. “I love you, Charlie. I love no one the way I love you. I want you to get well so we can go home together. I will make no promises to you that I will never step over the line again. I do not believe in making promises that you cannot keep. I do promise to love you and honor you if you will let me.”

The day before she was released from the hospital, Ali paid her a visit. Unannounced, he walked into her room alone.

“My dear, I cannot express what I am feeling at this moment. I am so very sorry for what happened to you. The boy, Joh, was mine and I take responsibility for the terrible things that you have suffered at his hands.”

“Ali…well, he’s…he’s dead now. I know you cared for him.”

“Do not think of it. He was nothing.  You are healing well and I am told can be released tomorrow. When you are ready my plane is at your service to take you home.”

“I’ll be ready to go right away, David and I.”

Ali smiled a little. “Yes, I understand how it is. I love him, too, but I can never be to him what you are. Do not fault him, Charlie. I think he would be well away from me and I do not know if we shall ever meet again.  We were young together once and that is enough to remember. It is bittersweet now when we see each other. You have a lovely daughter. I have met her outside in the waiting area.”

“Thank you, Ali, and thank you for cutting through the red tape to get me out of here.”

“Blaine loves you and that is enough for me to know. Take good care of him. I give him back to you.” He kissed her forehead and left.

A few minutes later Blaine came in carrying Lyssa. “I hear we are leaving tomorrow?”

“Yes, we’re going home. Oh…thank you, David.”

He gave her a brilliant smile and shook his head slightly. “For what?”

ON TO THE FORTUNATE ONE

BACK TO PARTS 1 THROUGH 4

BACK TO NO WAVE WITHOUT WIND

BACK TO A THOUSAND NEW PATHS

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