It was the best weekend I'd had in over five years, I thought as I lounged back on the couch. After getting home on Saturday night, I'd used the Internet to look at a few apartment listings online, and I was interested enough in two of them that I made plans to go see them on Sunday. The second complex was by appointment only, and while not great, it was pretty close to the Georgia Tech campus, had reasonable rent, included utilities and even a shared Wi-Fi connection that I could use. I booked an appointment to see one of their open units for Sunday afternoon, then went to bed.

Waking up, I enjoyed my morning workout and a shower before eating a light breakfast. As I ate, I pondered how best to talk with Chris about Abby. It shouldn’t too much of a problem. After all, they’d been split for a while now, but still, there would probably be some weirdness that I wanted to minimize. Even if I was going to move out, Chris really helped me, and I didn’t want to do him wrong. And frankly, bringing your friend's ex-girlfriend back to his place while you’re crashing with him is just too weird—even for me.

When Abby first messaged me, I was a bit disappointed, but I understood. In the little bit of checking around I'd been able to do, Patrick Rawlings had struck me as the sort of guy who had gotten his success via a lot of hard work and a deep-seated stubborn streak that you didn't want to mess with. If even his own daughter had to sit back and think about the best way to approach him about our relationship, then I had to respect her point of view.

Besides, Abby constantly impressed me. Of course she was beautiful, as even the memory of us having sex on the side of the river, with the hum of the insects in the background, had caused my cock to stir lazily in my shorts. There was no need to do anything about it, though, as I knew that soon enough, Abby and I would be together again.

After lunch, I went over to the apartment and met the landlord. She was an Asian woman named Lynn, and when she looked over my application, she was reservedly impressed. “Well, Mr. Bell, it looks like you at least have a job,” she said. “We get some folks in here who can't even claim that.”

“Can I ask you, what percentage of your clients are students?” I asked, thinking that was what Lynn was talking about. “My girlfriend is going to do her Master's at Tech, and I was kind of hoping she might be able to crash here every once in a while.”

“Not a lot of Tech students around here, but there are still quite a few students,” Lynn answered with a shrug. “When I said no job, I meant nothing at all. The only way I take those folks is with two months’ deposit up front in cash or money order. Then when their section eight comes in, I get our money. Still, sometimes it's not worth the hassle.”

“And you don't have a problem with my background?” I asked incredulously. “No offense, just a lot of people have.”

“Hey, you gotta stay somewhere,” Lynn said. “I'll be honest with you, Mr. Bell. I'm not going to say you're going to make the wall of fame for this place. But I deal with some bad folks every week. If you pay your rent, don't destroy the place, and generally don't raise hell, I'll be happy. Then again, people like that rarely end up staying around here. They move on up and out.”

We shook hands and I returned back to the apartment, stopping at a bookstore and picking up an interesting book. It was just a book on architecture, but it looked intriguing to me, and despite the rather hefty price tag of forty bucks, I didn't mind paying. I got home and decided that the best thing to do on such a relaxing day was just lounging on the couch. I sent Abby another text message and plopped down with my new book, intrigued almost immediately as I read about some of the great designers of the late twentieth century.

I was just reading about the background of Zaha Hadid when the door to the apartment opened and Chris came in. He was out of breath and sweating, but he looked happy, excited. In fact, I hadn't seen him this happy in a long time. “Hey, Dane! Great fuckin' day, ain't it?”

I realized what had gone on—Chris was drunk. I figured after the party he'd had Saturday, and with him not even coming home the night before, that he'd had enough. Apparently not, though, much to my disappointment. “Hey, Chris. Yeah, great day. What have you been up to?”

“Oh, this and that,” Chris said with a laugh. He came in and took the chair opposite of the sofa, kicking his muddy shoes up onto the coffee table. “I see you got a new book. Good story?”

“Kinda,” I said with a shrug. “It's a book on famous architects. So there isn't exactly a lot of plot to the thing. Still, the story about some of them, it is kinda interesting to see where they drew their ideas from, stuff like that.”

“Sounds boring as shit,” Chris dismissed with a laugh. “Tell you what, let me tell you a story instead. I promise—you're going to love it.”

I knew that in this condition, Chris wasn't someone I wanted to fool with. Even drunk, I'd seen him fight three men and kick their asses like it was nothing, walking away without a scratch. While I could probably take him, I didn’t want to hurt the one man that had given me a lifeline. Better to humor him, let him get it out of his system. Then I could look at maybe deflecting his attention somewhere else. Besides, getting into fights with my roommate was not the sort of person I wanted to be anymore. I set my book aside and sat up, paying attention. “Sure, go ahead, man.”

“Well, it's about these two boys, so it's kind of a buddy-buddy story,” Chris began, leaning back in the chair and crossing his hands over his stomach. “These two boys, oh, let's call them Tris and Boyd, they grew up together and raised a lot of hell together back in the day. Now, both Tris and Boyd were from well-to-do families, but deep down inside, both of them were disgusted by the boring nature of their lives. They tried the normal stuff that boys do, sports and games and toys and whatever, but life was just bleh and in tones of gray to them. It was only in each other that they were able to find some real fun.”

I had a growing sense of disquiet as I listened to Chris talk. He was obviously talking about him and Lloyd, telling me about them growing up. There was something else he was trying to say, but I couldn't tell what yet. I decided it was best to listen carefully. “Go on.”

“Well, starting in high school, Boyd and Tris found something that could at least partially relieve some of the tedious boredom that was their lives. That was sex. Now, before you start thinking anything, it wasn't with each other—they weren't into that. On the other hand, both of them absolutely had high interest in women. They developed this sort of game of one-upmanship, seeing who could score the greatest accomplishment. Oh, the two boys, they ran through the normal gamut. Boyd was the first to get a girl to give him a blowjob, Tris was the first to do some ass fucking, Boyd had the first threesome, stuff like that. By the time they were juniors in high school, they had reached a sense of boredom again. So, one day Tris said to Boyd, we need to up the game. Now, Boyd was an adventurous spirit, so he was more than willing. They started betting each other, seeing what the other one could pull off. At first, the bets were for real money, a hundred bucks or so, but soon enough, that same hundred-dollar bill had been passed back and forth so often that it became a symbol, a trophy more than an actual bet amount. The first challenge that Tris gave Boyd was to see who could screw their math teacher—a soon-to-be married young woman of twenty-four who'd just started teaching the year before and gave just about every boy in her class a nice set of blue balls along with his homework. Tris was able to bag that one, along with video proof, of course.”

Chris grinned, and I was starting to feel sick to my stomach, not liking where this was headed.

“Even after Boyd had to move away, the two boys kept up their little game, emailing proof back and forth. Some of the proof ended up on the Internet, of course, but the boys were careful, making sure that their faces or voices were never identifiable in the videos. Some of the games were dangerous, but both of the boys eventually found a prize that they both enjoyed. That was in finding a woman or girl who at first would say no, then with some convincing, whether a little or a lot, would end up on her knees, begging for it. Then . . . well, then it went up a notch.”

“Like how?” I asked, my throat dry and parched as I saw the true Chris. I'd seen him before, of course, but it’d been in firefights—in combat. I thought it was just the side of him that every soldier had. As Shakespeare wrote so much better than I could think of putting it,

I knew that separation, and I thought that I'd only seen that in Chris and Lloyd in those times. Little did I know that the side I saw in combat was the real man, and the joking, easy-going guys I'd called friends were the false side of their natures. “What did you guys do?”

He seemed to ignore that I knew he was talking about him and Lloyd. “Oh, they started with alcohol, which is after all pretty easy to get their hands on and so effective more often than not. You see, Tris and Boyd were both handsome fellows. A lot of the early women, they didn't need much more than a little encouragement, something to help them let go of their inhibitions.”

“Later on, with some of those women whose morals either refused alcohol or just couldn't be pried by other means, they got their hands on some of the little helpers that are so mislabeled in the media. A vial of this stuff in their drinks, whether it be water, beer, or even, say, orange juice, and the girl was out like a fucking light in about two minutes.”

“Date-rape drugs? Fucking sick,” I said, getting to my feet. “I don’t know if this is just fiction or a true story, but I think I've heard enough, Chris.”

“Oh, we’re just getting to the best part, Dane. It’s just getting good. You see, Tris and Boyd, they reunited when both of them joined the Army, although by then Boyd had picked up a battle buddy. Big, tall, handsome fucker, but dumb as a goddamned stump. Let's call him . . . Bane, why don't we? Anyway, Bane had the potential to be as much a player as Tris and Boyd—he certainly had the tools for it. Bane would have been a great player in the game, except for this little problem of his noble streak that ran bedrock deep in him. Tris and Boyd didn't mind, though. Bane was good in a fight, and like I said, he was as dumb as a rock. But reunited, the two friends were able to take their game to whole new levels. They’d finally reached the nearly penultimate level of their game, which they somewhat mourned, but knew it had been a shitload of fun anyway. You see, Tris and Boyd were both going to try and get a fresh, un-plucked cherry and turn her into a total mind-numbed slut. I mean, straight up ruin the bitch. Tris thought he had the edge. He'd found a total hottie who hadn’t even graduated high school. She was stacked like a goddamned porn star, but as innocent and sweet as a Disney character. Nobody could have topped that, Tris was sure. He sweet-talked her, of course, pretending he was willing to wait for her. After all, this one would’ve sealed a victory. She was just about to give it up to him when the Army came calling, sending the boys to the big sandbox called Iraq. The thought of getting that precious cherry when he was back was what got him through it. Little did he know that Boyd had his own plans.”

“You're a fucking psycho, Chris,” I seethed, still not moving and not really understanding where this was going. Chris was nearly at his point, and his face twisted into a gleeful rage as he kept talking.

“Perhaps. Anyway, this one night, Tris thought he would play a trick on Boyd, so he slipped a quarter-vial of the assistance drug into Boyd's beer, just to knock him out. Maybe fuck with him a bit and make him think he’d shacked up with another man. He didn't realize that doing so would make Boyd drunk off his ass while still leaving him conscious and able to function. Tris found out later that not only had Boyd not gone back to the tent to sleep it off, but had in fact left camp, grabbing some local girl and hauling her back for a little fucking behind some supply tent. Now, you'd think that because the girl was saying no that it wouldn't count, but that didn't matter to the two boys. However, Boyd was stopped by Bane, who actually, get this, shot Boyd dead as a goddamned doornail. Total accident, of course, but Bane still went to jail for five years over it. Tris felt bad about the whole thing, so he decided to help his stupid ass buddy out. After all, Tris had given Boyd the quarter-vial, and Bane hadn't done anything more than defend himself. Anyway, during that time, Tris somewhat lost interest in the game for a while, and Miss Teen USA slipped away. Probably better in the long run, since it would protect him from any connection with the string of adventures the boys had. Little did he know that the girl would end up back in his life.”

“Abby,” I whispered, my fists clenching. Chris slapped his knee and sprang up, full of manic glee.

“Yep, that was her name! See, I just forgot, I guess. You must have heard this story before. Anyway, after Bane gets out, Tris sets him up, gets him a job, all of that. Then one day, he finds out from his uncle in passing that Bane stabs him in the back by fucking none other than Miss Teen USA! In fact, from what Tris could tell, Bane was probably fucking her three ways from Sunday! So Tris invited Abby to a fake party, hoping that he could get a little sugar through the right convincing. If anything, it'd kind of close out the game with a final score. But instead, Abby was so fucking love-struck that she sent her big-titted bitch friend in her place while she went off somewhere, probably fucking Bane and draining his balls of everything worthwhile. So, Tris got a little angry.”

“What the fuck did you do?” I hissed, stepping forward. “And stop with this third person Tris shit.” Chris brought his hands up, his eyes flashing with fire as he got to his feet, smirking as he dropped all the smoke screens and told the bare-faced truth.

“It's what I'm going to do that you should worry about. A vial to the friend, a vial to sweet Abby, and both of them are sleeping it off. When they wake up, they're going to find themselves in my nice, new little play room. Then it's going to be play time—all the time.”

I couldn't resist it anymore. I swung. Unfortunately for me, I forgot the first rule of hand-to-hand combat as I was lost in my anger, which is don't let your emotions get the better of you. I should have kicked out straight, or thrown a jab. Instead, in my anger, I let loose with a huge, looping overhand right that Chris stepped inside of, catching my arm and attempting to judo throw me over his shoulder. I hung on, though, the two of us crashing to the floor in a tangle of bodies, arms and legs as I tried to pummel him. Curses and grunts filled the air.

Chris got a shot into my ribs as we rolled, a tight elbow that drove the wind out of me as I felt something inside me let go. Coughing, I hung on as best I could, trying to avoid the punches he began to rain down on my head and shoulders. While he punched, he was yelling. “Man, I so tried to get you into the game, to have some fucking fun. I figured if anything, prison would have made you more understanding. Instead, I come to find that you're fucking the one that I let get away? You probably even love the stupid stuck up cunt too.”

“Fuck you!” I screamed, slipping my head to the side. Chris's punch, which had been aimed at my nose, slipped by, just clipping my ear before I could push the elbow up and over my head, allowing me to escape out the side. I wanted to try for a choke hold, but Chris was fast, scrambling to his feet and grabbing a small statue from the coffee table. He brandished it at me, the dull pewter-like metal gleaming in the afternoon light, suddenly deadly.

“Get out,” Chris said, raising the statue up. I was on one knee, pain flaring through my body as my most likely separated rib sang out inside me. “Get out—you're on your fucking own. I tried, Dane. I gave you a place to stay, got you a job, I even took you out to get some pussy. But you just wouldn't go along with the program. So fuck you. You're on your goddamned own.”

“I'll take this to the cops,” I hissed, backing away slowly. “I'll call the cops, and I’ll find Abby and Shawnie. You won't get away with this.”

Chris laughed, breathless and with a trickle of blood running from the corner of his mouth. “You stupid fuck, you're even dumber than Lloyd. Who's going to believe you? The cops? You're a convicted killer, dipshit. You go to the cops, and you'll be the one arrested. Stalking, sexual assault, murder . . . oh, I'm sure they'd love to find everything. Because I bet if the cops did a rape kit on sweet, sweet Abby's corpse, they'd find your DNA, wouldn't they?”

I could see it in Chris's eyes; he would have a backup plan. It hit me like a ton of bricks. I'd been the fall guy. He knew that if he ever got into a jam, he could use me as a convenient excuse. After all, Chris was the upstanding member of society, from one of the best families that had served his nation honorably. I was just his fuck-up friend who he'd given a second chance to, the most noble of gestures that would be regretted sorrowfully.

“I will stop you,” I gasped, backing away. I grabbed my phone from the counter as I approached the front door, glad that I still had my wallet in my pocket. “I don't know how, but I will.”

“I don’t think so, lover boy. By the time you figure things out, those two will be dead, and I'll be sitting here as free as a fucking bird. Get the fuck out. Next time I see you, I’m calling the cops myself.”

Chris darted forward and shut the door in my face, throwing the lock. I knew from months in the apartment that the door was steel core, and the deadbolt could probably hold back a motivated gorilla if it needed to. I turned and limped as fast as I could toward the elevator, hoping that Chris's bragging had been in haste.

As the elevator descended, I tried to think of someone, something I could use to save Abby and Shawnie. Chris was right, the cops were useless. They'd believe him, and most likely I'd end up arrested. Instead, I had to find someone else. I racked my brain, trying to think. Hank? No, Hank Lake might have been a good man, but Chris was his family. I didn't really know anyone else at work well enough—I didn't even have anyone's phone number.

The bell to the lobby dinged at almost the same time that the answer came to my mind. Daddy. Patrick Rawlings might have wanted to shoot me, but he loved his daughter more than life itself or his dislike of me, warranted or not. If there was anyone in the world that could help me, and had the social influence to get the cops to believe him instead of Chris, it had to be Patrick Rawlings.

Of course, that left me with one major problem. Other than his name, I knew nothing of Patrick Rawlings, or even how to get in contact with him. I left the Mayfair Tower, then turned around. I walked into the concierge area, where the person on duty looked up at me in surprise. After all, I'd been living there for four months now, and other than snatching old newspapers, I'd never said a word to them. “Can I help you, sir?”

“Yeah,” I said, trying to put as casual a look on my face as I could. Rule number one in a firefight: don't panic. If you panic, you’re dead. “I'm trying to get a home phone number for someone. It's a business emergency, and nobody's at the office. Think you can help me out?”