Dave Ferman Author

Gordy froze as his mind began to reorient to the reality of that moment. Then, once-again he raised his revolver until it was aimed directly at the woman's forehead. This was not an elaborate hoax to jump start some kind of a bawdy surprise party for the only single widower living in this fully gated community. Dave had jokingly threatened Gordy that he would jump-start that party again someday, but this was obviously not that day. "Holy cow," Gordy said to himself, "this living, breathing vision of every young stud's horniest imagination may indeed be a frigging burglar." If she was, she was definitely an unusually well-stacked criminal whose presence demanded his full attention if he wanted to survive the night. Once again, Gordy reverted to the first order of business; his survival.

With his right hand, which was holding the smallish flashlight, Gordy flipped the wall light switch, abruptly flooding the room with too much light for anyone who had been peering behind furniture and into dark corners for far too long. Blinking, Gordy shielded his eyes with his hand holding the now-unnecessary flashlight. At first glance, he was sure that she was bare-butted au naturale. But then, as his vision adjusted to the instant contractions of his pupils in his eyes, Gordy began to vaguely see skin-colored, figure-flattering, incredibly sheer female skivvies that he had not noticed for the first several seconds; probably because his senses were pretty much overwhelmed by the mind-boggling, up close image of the woman's essentially sculpted body crowned with Dolly Parton bazooms whose excesses starkly contrasted with the supple hips and legs of a well-tuned female athlete. Fairly big for a woman, she had to be every bit of 5 feet, 8 inches tall and had incredibly fascinating curves in places where most women don't even have places. Top all that off with the wide-eyed innocent face of a Hummel cherubim. If that did not wind his watch, nothing on God's good green earth would.

As she turned slowly, ever so deliberately to face Gordy head-on, he was doubly sure that she was one of the most physically blessed females that he had ever seen up close in the flesh, or even imagined in his horniest teenaged dreams of too-long ago. Had she been diddy bopping down Ross Avenue in something fashionably "too tight, just right," he would have bet his last dime that she had padded her impressive bra. But here, in the harsh light of his suburban kitchen, there could be no doubt at all. No pumped-up, air-brushed Playboy centerfold ever had anything on the natural reality of this amazingly stacked young felon.

Fortunately, the best anecdote for a terminal testosterone overload is a massive dose of fear-induced adrenaline. At that moment, Gordy had quite a bit of adrenaline working both for and against him. Unlike dying frogs still lusting for one last copulation, survival is the primary instinct in most adult combat veterans no matter how powerful the distractions.

She, he had never seen before, with or without clothes. He knew that he would have remembered her if he had ever seen her before. With everything that she had brought to his kitchen, he was sure that he would have remembered her even if she was wearing an oversized flannel hoody and baggy sweatpants. As the large, dark-brown pools of her eyes peered blankly back at him over the barrel of his once again unwavering revolver, it was obvious that she did not know him either.

After the first fleeting eye contact, Gordy watched her mentally calculating her situation, her options, his body language: all of the things that rapidly cross the mind of a cornered animal. Then, suddenly she turned it all on. Just like that: one second, she was uncertain, semi-vulnerable, maybe even somewhat embarrassed. But the next second, she was on stage, large and in charge, the ultimate center of attraction, the queen of every red-blooded guy's fantasies from ten to beyond toothless. It was show time, and she was exactly the right gal to make it work.

Gordy had seen that look before when various gold-digging bar-bunnies turned up all the burners to haul in well-heeled easy marks in North Dallas singles bars, or when husband-hunting SMU sorority gals visited the pre-med fraternity house. Hungry for attention, determined to find that special guy with a surgeon's future pedigree. Promising delights beyond measure, her already impressive superstructure rose and expanded even further. At the same time, her belly button tucked ever inward and tightened while thighs and buns and everything else worth mentioning flexed to the exquisite proportions of a Vargas calendar girl as she flowed smoothly by degrees into a pre-planned, favorite pose that could have made a dedicated Trappist monk talk to himself out loud, vows of silence or no vows.

Previously, she had been a vision of idealized female beauty. Now, she was purely mind boggling; a preening exhibitionist from one of Hugh Hefner's silly danged "Hallucinations" articles in Playboy Magazine: the traffic-stopping, sensual Greek goddess who most natural mothers would have loved to have been themselves in their prime, but would not want their darling sons to bring home for the holidays, not even in a muumuu.

Careful to hold intense eye contact as she evaluated her impact on him, she gazed at Gordy seductively. The tip of her tongue first wetted her upper lip and then her lower lip in open anticipation of an exotic smile which, once formed and released, flashed across her beatific face like canned lightening. In a sultry come-hither whisper as her approving gaze measured him from head to toe, she asked: "See anything you like, big guy?"

Startled, Gordy wished he could laugh at such a blatantly corny performance. However, nothing could penetrate the lump constricting his chest and throat. Corny or not, she was marvelously effective as the primordial stirring down below began to overcome his adrenaline block.

But Gordy's cannon of a revolver continued to point unwaveringly at her forehead. Outwardly, he was still all business. Deep down in his gut, he was rapidly turning into jello and he knew it. This could be a matter of life or death: his. However, Gordy was a devout survivor. Therefore, as calmly as he could fake it, he repeated through lockjaw-tight teeth: "I said 'freeze' damn it. You move one damned little finger, and as sure as yer standin' there, I'll blow your pretty little head plum off your shoulders. Do you hear me, young lady?"

He listened to himself. He had not talked that way to a woman since Vietnam. It had to be the gut-wrenching tension.

"So be it!" he thought as he prepared for any contingency.

She held the pose several seconds longer. Then, like a defective hot-air balloon, the young woman's body deflated in stages as she focused, flabbergasted, on his cold eyes staring malevolently at her eyes over the huge, gaping maw of the massive revolver in his hand. As he continued to stare her down, her sucked-in gut returned to normal human proportions and her Dolly Parton kachungas began to deflate as gravity trumped faked passion. There she stood, flatfooted, and awkwardly self-conscious as she stared with increasing fright into .44 calibers of Gordy's unwavering resolve.

Shocked and amazed at her failure to gain the upper hand as she had always done before, her mouth fell partially open as if to speak again, but she had no words to say at that moment. She had taken her very best shot and had failed miserably. For the first time in her young adult life, she was fresh out of tricks and too off-balance to conjure up a new set on such short notice. If the prospect of imminent sex with the most luxurious female frame he had probably ever seen; if that did not distract him, what on God's green earth could distract him? She did not have a clue. She was, for the first time since she had begun playing adult games in her early adolescence, totally defeated, and by a gray-haired old galoot, no less. Who would have believed it? Certainly not herself.

Although she already knew the futility of running, she turned her head to gage the distance to the double-locked back door. Her chances of using it were slim and none. "This crazy old fart really will shoot me" was written all over her face. She did not have the slightest doubt that Gordy would shoot her if she tried any more of her infamous physical-display tricks. With her luck, she figured that he was probably a homosexual geek and didn't even like women. "Somebody shoulda' told me about that," she mumbled to herself.

Scared out of her wits, she realized that this obviously was not some kind of silly, high school game where she could flirt, tease or fool around enough to slide out of trouble like she always had before. That was a deeply shocking, unexplored concept for her. She had never even considered that an adult male would not come completely unglued at the sight of her statuesquely sculptured body posed to centerfold perfection.

Motioning with the barrel of the revolver, Gordy directed her to move to a blank wall at the far side of the kitchen and away from the door. "Back away from that coat; real slow now, young lady. I don't want to shoot you unless I really have to. But make no mistake; I will shoot you if I have to."

Despite everything that had happened, he was all business. She did as she was told. Suddenly overwhelmingly self-conscious about her exposure, she began to lower her hands so that at least her arms would cover her chest.

"I said, keep your damned hands all the way up in the air or I will have to blow a large hole in you right where you stand," he said with DI-like command presence. "What the heck is the matter with you, young lady? Do you really want to get shot tonight?"

She raised her hands as if actually trying to touch the ceiling. Once again, that exercise sculpted an awfully impressive profile from her ankles to her forehead. Somewhat reminiscent of Marilyn Monroe's "September Morn" pose, the view set off a whole new bank of latent male hormones that Gordy could not ignore. Although she did not know it yet, her original ploy was working. He needed a diversion; the sooner the better. "Up against the wall, lady," he said as menacingly as he could fake it.

Her eyes never left his. She dared not break their intense eye contact. To do so, she was apparently convinced, would bring a very large bullet crashing into her face without further ado.

"Careful now, Missy, if you ever want to see the sun rise again, you better do what I tell ya'," he told her, "and ever'thing will be okay. Okay?"

"I'm careful. I'm careful!" she blurted back, fear and frustration evident as her voice cracked in mid protest. Any semblance of the sultry, preening boy toy of moments past was now long gone. Again, Gordy motioned impatiently with the revolver to accentuate his meaning. "Now turn around and put the palms of your hands flat against the wall. Get 'em up there, lady and keep 'em up there. Alright."

She stared at him, her questions unspoken, and still not daring to break eye contact. But he insisted. "Do it, lady. Do what I tell you if you don't want to be in a hospital before morning."

After she placed both hands flat against the wall, Gordy spoke briskly. "Okay now, spread your feet and keep your hands flat against the wall." Her problem was that she did not fully understand what was happening; what this cold-eyed womanhater was telling her to do? More importantly, she was afraid of whatever the heck he was up to now? Was this something kinky? Would he suddenly hurt her? Dumbfounded, flustered and very afraid, she stood perfectly still with her hands extended straight out in front of her. Her finger tips lightly touched the wall as she stared wide-eyed down that dark, menacing .44-calibre muzzle to eternity.

Not yet out of trouble himself, Gordy knew that he had to keep the upperhand or he could find himself dead even yet. "Dang it, lady. Are you gonna' assume the damned position or what?" Again, he jerked his arm forward; accentuating the fact that he was aiming a very large bullet directly at her eye.

Mortally frightened, she was convinced that she had to do something very quickly or she could be dead on the floor. The last vestige of her self-control shattered, she sobbed: "I don't know what you want me to do! I don't. I just don't know what to do."

"Aw, for crap sakes," Gordy said through tight jaws. "Come off it, lady. What kind of a lousy damned burglar are you, anyway?"

In tears, she stubbornly defended what little she had left to defend despite the ludicrous nature of her denial. "I am not a burglar. I am not," she insisted.

"Of course not. Not you. For crying out loud, you're just the second-shift Avon Lady, I suppose," Gordy sneered. To emphasize his point, he gestured contemptuously toward her with the back of his hand. "Look at you, lady. Just look at you!"

Stubbornly, she stood her ground and repeated numbly by rote: "I am not a burglar. I am not a burglar," as though denying the enormity of what she had been doing would make everything okay as it had probably been in the past.

Without taking his eyes off hers, Gordy bent down and slid her coat across the floor toward himself. As he straightened up without the revolver barrel once wavering his aim from her head, he hung the coat on a wall peg and began emptying the large Captain Kangaroo style patch pockets onto the breakfast table by using only his right hand.

In the closest pocket, he found two canvas, gum-soled deck shoes and the keys to a Cadillac rent car—how astute for a burglar in this rather exclusive neighborhood&mdash:and a small but colorful sand painting that had recently caught his eye in Phoenix, Arizona.

Shifting to the other pocket, he found the cheap copper pot that he had also brought back from Phoenix. Then, to his amazement, he found and carefully removed a Colt .22 caliber semi-automatic pistol with a blued and finely machined sound suppressor attached to the muzzle of the barrel. Whistling low, he asked a rhetorical question to nobody in particular: "Well, well. What the heck do we have here?"

Over her shoulder, the young woman could see him examining the pistol. "Oh crap," she whispered out loud.

"Oh crap, indeed." Gordy agreed as he smiled ironically. Keeping his revolver pointed at her, he carefully examined her weapon, removed the fully loaded clip, jacked the "ready" bullet out of the firing chamber&mdash:a super nasty hollow-point bullet&mdash:and set all of those deadly items down on the kitchen table one by one for further inspection.

Just about out of options, the woman tried one last desperate ploy. Her voice, however, involuntarily shifted about an octave higher in mid-sentence, which accentuated her desperation. "You'd better let me go, mister, or I'll yell 'rape' so loud they'll hear me in the next county!"

"You'll do what?" Gordy said and chuckled a couple of times as if to himself.

"You heard me, fellah. By the time the cops get here, I'll be naked, bruised all over, bawling, and covered with a whole bunch of bloody scratches." With that, she stood facing him defiantly, her fingernails poised to begin ripping the skin on her chest and stomach if she did not get her way. "You tried to rape me, you rotten bastard," she yelled as she raised her voice to just a few decibels less than a scream and mentally prepared herself for the critical next phase of her plan. "And if you don't let me go this minute, you're the dumb sonova'bitch who'se gonna' get screwed over. Do you hear me, Buster?"

Derisively, Gordy snorted at her audacity. "You go right ahead and do that very thing, young lady. You just do that," he said with confidence. "And while you're at it, start thinkin' about what you're gonna' say to that jaunty little guy who just came home with me ten minutes ago."

Caught off guard, she hesitated; her question unasked.

"You see, young lady, that sharp-lookin' little guy is the Deputy District Attorney of Dallas County, and he knows for darned sure that I have not been messin' around in your nifty little knickers at any time on this fine, damp evening because he and I have been together all afternoon and all evening until I walked in my front door just now. So you go right ahead and sound off, sister, and while you're at it, get yourself ready for about ten-to-twenty years in a Texas slammer for armed robbery with a pistol that has an illegal silencer screwed on it, and a bunch of really bad stuff like that."

Fresh out of ideas and bravado, hyped to her eyeballs with adrenaline, the woman suddenly began sobbing like a whipped stepchild. And despite or because of her intense fear of further irritating this crazy old guy with the incredibly large handgun, her legs turned to silly putty beneath her as she slowly sank to the floor in a pitiful heap of deflated body parts capped by a mass of tangled, disheveled hair. Putting her hands over her head as a futile measure of self-protection, she wailed: "Don't shoot me, mister. For God's sakes, please don't shoot me. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," she blubbered over and over as if that was her very own mantra for such occasions.

Gordy stared down at her cowering and sobbing on the floor. The tingle in his nether regions had subsided. There was nothing stimulating about a puffy eyed woman with fresh snot all over her face; at least not from that angle anyway.

When he double checked the patch pockets of her coat one last time to be absolutely sure that there were no further surprises, he found a crumpled bill of sale for a set of summer glow, extra sheer, natural support skivvies from the Fredericks of Hollywood store at the Galleria in north Dallas. "Hoooly cow," Gordy exclaimed when he read the price tag. "That much money for only one set of skivvies?" he asked, but received no answer. "Is that what you're wearin' right now?" he asked as he moved a little closer to her to get a better look at her surprisingly, almost imperceptible skivvies. Satisfied with his closer appraisal, Gordy removed her raincoat from the hook on the wall and gave it a hard upside down shake to make sure that he had not missed anything. No longer an immediate threat, Gordy watched her as she nodded affirmatively, but still continued to sob quietly.

"Well, you sure as heck could have fooled me," Gordy said as the mystery of her almost invisible skivvies was sorted out in his mind. Then he tossed her raincoat to her unceremoniously as if to cover something bothersome on the floor. "Here, put that on," he told her. "You sure as heck aren't hidin' anything in that getup." Then, in a conversational voice, he added: "You just be a good little burglar, and I won't have to do something that both of us would rather not happen. Okay, lady?" After a short pause he added: "Relax. It's all over now, so relax and take it easy."

The woman quickly pulled the coat over herself so that only her head and feet showed. Although continuing to sob, she was determined to cover herself, the sooner the better.

"Hey! Come on now. Keep both hands where I can see 'em," Gordy said as he moved around to check everything in the kitchen, closed the window shades and then double-checked the back door locks in case she had an accomplice lurking outside.

Still hunkered down on the floor, she awkwardly fumbled as she pulled the coat around herself until it covered her in the way it was intended to be worn. Stubbornly, she fastened every single button up to her neck, and straightened the shoulder line before she carefully thrust her hands out where he could see all of her fingers clearly.

Finally confident that he had the situation under control, Gordy dropped his aim from her head for the second time. Holding his big, heavy pistol on a tight target picture for so long and under unrelenting tension had nearly worn-out his shooting arm. On top of that, he had the makings of a major league headache coming up through his sore neck to his forehead.

Gordy turned a kitchen chair away from her and sat down on it backwards, gratefully resting his arms on the ladder back for support. After he studied the situation for several seconds, he asked in a conversational tone of voice: "Didn't expect me to come back home so early, huh?"

She stared at the floor, looking miserable and not inclined to answer him.

Rising from the chair, he moved a few steps to the pantry door, opened it and said: "Yoh, Dog, come on out, fellah." Instantly, an unusually large, mostly springer spaniel mutt bounded out, jumped up enthusiastically to plop his paws against Gordy's chest and demanded attention. Then, sensing that Gordy was too busy for the usual two-handed, full-body scratching session, he bounded over to the woman to try his luck with her.

Still cowering on the floor, she put her hands over her face to protect herself from the large, exuberant dog. When she discovered that he was only being friendly, she nevertheless tried to fend off his enthusiastic doggy-breathed, full measure of canine affection.

"Some watch dog you are," Gordy said to Dog and then chuckled. Musing more to himself than to the woman, he added: "That was a pretty darned good trick, lockin' ol' Dog in the pantry like that."

He thought about that for several seconds, then smiled thinly in appreciation. "Darned good trick, except that's mostly what gave you away."

Firmly holding the dog's furry, slobbering face away from hers with both hands, the woman stared at Gordy; an unspoken question in her tear-filled eyes.

"You see, Missy, as usual, ol' Dog here had the run of the house when I left this mornin'. So when he didn't meet me at the door, I knew good and darned well that somethin' wasn't right."

The woman's gaze fell to the floor in front of her as if disgusted with herself. "Oh hell. I can't seem to get anything right anymore," she mumbled. For the first time since she began crying, she was not blubbering.

Smiling agreeably, Gordy continued: "Well, young lady, that really didn't make no nevermind anyway. You see, there's a sure-fire giveaway out front that lets me know whenever some sneaky bozo has been in here during the day. And when this old trash snackin', potty lickin' dog only barked at me, but didn't come a'runnin' like he always does. Well, that did it. I knew for sure that you were still here, and you had to be a woman.

Startled, she looked at him, disbelief showing from her chin to her hairline.

"Yup, ol' Dog here just loves women for some darn reason. Never has growled at one of you gals. Probably never will. If you'da been a strange man, he'd still be snarlin' and tryin' to tear your leg off." Seeing the doubt in her expression, he added: "I don't know. Maybe he remembers my wife. She fed him, and de-flea'd him, and spoiled him perfect from Day One. They were inseparable, they were."

Sitting up straight, the woman readjusted her coat to relieve some minor binding, then turned to face Gordy as he continued. "The only thing is, I can't figure out is why you tried that 'looky looky' routine on me instead of usin' this gun to shoot me?" As he spoke, he casually picked up the Colt pistol and examined it closely, but without taking his attention off the young woman.

Almost inaudibly, she whispered: "I couldn't do that." Then she began sobbing again like an abandoned child, stopping periodically to suck in a big gulp of air before continuing to cry as though she had just lost her best friend.

Gordy set the Colt .22-caliber pistol back on the table, but put the clip and the hollow-point bullet that he had ejected from the weapon's firing chamber into the inner pocket of his suit coat. After a minute or two of unbroken bawling, she looked up at him and asked plaintively: "What are you goin' to do with me, Mr. Tyler?"

Shocked, Gordy felt a cold chill ricochet across his chest from his belt buckle to his Adam's apple and back before settling in his already twisted gut. "Say what? 'Mr. Tyler' is it?"

Wide eyed, horrified, too late aware that she had just said something that put the entire affair on an entirely different level, the woman slapped her hand over her mouth and bit her finger in desperation. But it was too late. The ointment was out of the tube and could not be denied.

Gordy contemplated her intently for several seconds. "Do I know you, Missy?" he asked.

The young woman did not answer.

"No. Of course, I don't. As tired and as tanked as I am, I'd remember you, young lady. I'd remember you even with your clothes on." He glanced at the obvious contours where her coat was pulled tight across her chest. "You danged betcha' I'd remember you, Missy."

"Seeing how uncomfortable she looked from being still sprawled across the hard linoleum floor, Gordy motioned for her to get up. "Here, get yourself up now. No sense in you squattin' on the floor all night." Pointing casually with the revolver barrel, he directed her to another chair. "Take that chair over there. Like it or not, we're gonna' do some talkin', and I'd better be gettin' some straight answers real quick or the fit will most certainly hit the shan. Kapish?"

As she slowly got up from the floor without allowing her eyes to leave his, she carefully tugged on her coat again, adjusting it and pulling on it to make sure that it completely covered her vital statistics. Satisfied, she sat down, very straight and proper in the ladder-backed chair, and demurely pulled the coat over her locked-together knees like a self-conscious adolescent in a junior high school principal's office.

Amused, Gordy noted this ultra-modest reflex and chuckled to himself as he remembered her bawdy, in-your-face act only a few minutes earlier. Picking up the Colt pistol, alternately loosening and tightening the silencer on the barrel, he said: "Let's go back to this little beauty, okay. You know, of course, that this is a professional hitman rig you had there. This weapon, with this illegal silencer, is really bad stuff. They can toss you in the slammer just for carryin' it around." He glanced at the woman for several seconds to gauge her reaction and then asked "Are you a professional killer, young lady? Is that what you do; kill people?"

Averting her eyes to the floor, she slowly shook her head from side to side, but she was so choked up that she either could not or would not say "No."

"No. I don't think you are," Gordy said. "Otherwise, you woulda' used this damned thing on me instead of just trying to shake my tree so I'd get the terminal hiccups, and then you could boogie on out the back door and be gone forever into the night." Chuckling to himself, he asked: "Was that your idea all along; your master plan to escape?" Again, he looked all around the room and under the table. "I don't see any more dry goods layin' around, so you musta' come in that way. Right?"

She glanced at him for only a split second. A hint of a sly, affirmative smile momentarily creased the corners of her mouth. Then, as if catching herself in a tactical faux pas, she resumed staring at a single spot on the floor as if catatonically mesmerized by it.

"Yup. I believe that's what you did. You musta' figured that if worse ever came down to much worse, you'd just flash about a yard or two of bare skin, and this poor, horny, old widow man would just naturally come plum unglued on the spot. Was that the way you had it planned, young lady?"

Once again, she momentarily refocused to stare back at him. Wide eyed, very much afraid, she did not know how best to respond to his questions.

"That's what you thought. Right?" Gordy asked. "You figured that a flash peek of that fine bod of yours, and I'd be so danged shook-up and bent outa' shape that you could just boogie on out the back door, shuckin' and jivin', no sweat. Huh, was that it?" Gordy asked again.

Deliberately, she turned her head slightly away from him, while still looking at him somewhat like the long-slow-sideways glance of a working street walker on the prowl, her dark eyes seeming to penetrate and search the very center of his conscious mind.

"Well. Was it?" he demanded.

Despite everything, the hint of a smile played around the edges of her tear-smeared mascara until finally, barely perceptibly, she shook her head up and down to form a silent "yes."

Musing primarily to himself, Gordy admitted: "And you know what; that just might have worked. That is, it might have worked if I wasn't already expectin' a woman in the first place."

She stopped smiling abruptly and again averted her eyes from his. Huddled silently, apprehensively, she awaited his next move. Gordy held all of the aces. At least, he thought he did.

"And, as a last resort, screamin' 'rape' or maybe even a little foolin' around if it came to that. Right?" He winked broadly, knowingly at her. But she just stared at the floor as if she had not heard any part of his last remark.

After a few moments, Gordy held the empty Colt revolver out in front of her, his arm extended as he asked in a quiet, almost sympathetic tone of voice: "But what the hell about this killin' machine? This is a by-gawd pro rig, young lady, if ever there was one." Then, coming to his feet, he held out her Colt revolver directly in front of her face and demanded: "So where in hell did you get this damned thing if you're not a professional criminal?"

The sudden transformation from quiet sympathy to roaring accusation surprised and overwhelmed her. Recoiling, she stared at the floor without saying a word as if once again in fear of her life. Gordy walked over to her with her empty semi-automatic pistol in one hand and his loaded single-action revolver in the other, and once again he shook the Colt pistol almost under her nose. "One more time, Missy. Where. . .in. . .the. . .hell did you get this nasty, sum'bitchin' professional killin' rig?"

Lowering her eyes once again, hesitantly she whispered: "They gave it to me." With that major barrier finally out of the way, words tumbled over words as she continued to try to tell her side of the story. "They said. . .they said that if you got in the way, I should shuu-shuu-shoot you." With her lips and chin trembling uncontrollably, she did her best to continue. Probably more vulnerable than ever before in her life, she projected the image that she would do anything to gain his acceptance of the story she was about to tell. "They said if I didn't do it, I'd never see my. . .my baby again. Never!" Again, she began to pour out pitifully blubbering sobs. Breaking down completely, seemingly her whole body shook in wave after wave of gut-wrenching sobs.

Gordy needed to know more; a lot more. "Who the heck are 'they'?" he wondered. "Why have they singled me out of the passin' crowd? What the hell do they want from me?" About to ask another question, he looked down at this pitifully sobbing woman, thought better of it, and turned to walk away. She obviously needed more time and a little space to pull herself back together again before he could continue her inquisition.

He had just taken several steps away from her. By reflex, Gordy was hitching up his trousers prior to scratching an itch on his crotch while his back was toward her, when he was startled by a rustling, indistinct sound intermingled with her bawling. It seemed to be coming from the floor below him. Looking down, he saw, in horrifyingly slow motion, the top of a tan, bare foot coming up between his legs, aimed at his crotch. Adrenaline suddenly spurting, Gordy vainly tried to twist out of harm's way. But instinctively he knew it was already too late. And worse, he knew that this was definitely going to hurt a lot. Pain hurts.

And it did, at least for that split second before blessed unconsciousness. The bare but solid foot had impacted solidly with gut-wrenching, soccer-style force against its intended targets. Gordy collapsed like a house of cards as wave after wave of previously unimagined pain and globs of swirling speckled darkness ricocheted back and forth between his smashed gonads and his still disbelieving and thoroughly shocked brain.

Slowly, Gordy returned to a world of conscious pain. His survival instincts were already in overdrive. Where was he? He knew he was helpless; at the mercy of anyone from kindergarten to the old folks' home. Opening first one eye then the other, he discovered that his face was jammed awkwardly against the kitchen wall baseboard. He was lying doubled up on his side halfway under the kitchen table with both hands cupping the source of his pain. Despite his intense apprehensions, he was momentarily fascinated by the flickering light sparkles darting around his head like a swarm of dervish fireflies in an evening haze. Barely able to move or even breathe deeply at first, he involuntarily doubled up into an even tighter fetal ball after a massive jolt of stabbing pain reinforced the sensation that his gut had been split wide open from his crotch up to somewhere around his belly button.

Gordy reopened his eye closest to the floor. The first thing he saw was his single-action Ruger revolver laying on the floor near the other side of the kitchen. Foul doggie breath acting as smelling salts, Dog was licking his face. The old fellow was concerned about Gordy's unusual sleeping arrangement, but still eager to play.

Gordy tried and tried again to focus on the here and now. Bit by bit, he became aware of someone violently kicking and banging on his front door. Vaguely, he remembered that he had intentionally locked the deadbolt so that door was not going to come open without the key in his pocket.

With some difficulty, his mind recalled the nicely shaped, stranger gal standing like an erotic statue in the middle of his kitchen, her hands held high and her bod was. . . "Oh damn, what a bod." That was not a dream.

In the exact sequence of events, the last few minutes flashed before his eyes in a rush of strobe-like mini vignettes that re-created recent events right up to the nicely tanned foot explosively slamming his family jewels up into his lower body cavity. That kick had sent him careening into a horrific world of swirling lights, black depths and wave after wave of intense, nauseating pain.

Pain hurts!

Unable to get up, he heard the banging at the front door reaching a crescendo. Gordy knew that he was in a world of trouble. For the first time in his adult life, he had grossly underestimated a dangerous adversary. His excuse was no consolation. Now, one thought dominated all others: he could be in even more trouble if he did recover his revolver immediately if not sooner. What if she had second thoughts about that Colt .22 pistol? But just moving any part of his body was incredibly painful. Controlling any part of his lower body was close to impossible.

With great difficulty, Gordy began pulling his otherwise unresponsive lower body across the floor by using mostly his elbows, while still trying not to further distress his throbbing guts and family jewels. His progress was not nearly fast enough. But no matter what, hurting or not, he had to keep going or he could soon be in worse shape or even quite dead at the hands of that unusually alluring young woman. "Screw the damned pain," he murmured to himself as he continued to drag himself toward his Ruger revolver. His mom's semi-mantra,"Wantin' ain't gettin'," ringing in his ears.

Finally, Gordy had his revolver in his hands. With quite a bit of difficulty, he propped himself against the kitchen sink cabinet and raised the weapon to his lap. He had just cocked it by using both thumbs to pull back the firing hammer when that same woman came running full speed into the kitchen, leaping over a fallen chair like Phyllis Joiner winning the low hurdles. With key-locked burglar bars securing all windows on the lower level of his home, the back door was now her only avenue of escape.

When she saw Gordy sitting on the floor with that large .44 magnum revolver pointed directly at her face, she skidded to an abrupt halt. Out of breath, she could barely keep her balance by leaning over the table top at the end of her slide. Frustrated beyond endurance, more than desperate, she glared at him like a wild animal. Focusing frantically on the locked back door, she knew with chilling certainty that her chances to escape had slipped from "slim" to "none."

Defeated, in her frustration she screamed at him: "How the hell do you open that friggin' front door?"

With the muzzle of the cocked revolver, Gordy motioned her back into the middle of the room. Still barely able to speak, he croaked at her in a hoarse whisper: "You lucked out, young lady. I didn't shoot you again."

As she studied his still agonized body lying on the floor and the relatively steady gun barrel pointed directly at her face, she shrugged in resignation, smiled wearily and asked: "There really isn't any sense in dropping this damned coat again, is there?"

Gordy wanted to smile too, but he could not. Solemnly, almost apologetically, he shook his head 'no' several times. But even that hurt, so he stopped to collect his thoughts.

Reading the pain and determination in his eyes, guessing his tenuous situation as well as his drive to survive, she extended her arm and opened her left hand to show him the full ammunition clip that had fallen out of his suit coat inner pocket when he went down for the count. Carefully placing it on the table, then backing off as if it was poison, she nodded toward his revolver. "That thing won't go off now, will it?"

"Only if I want it to," Gordy whispered hoarsely, but with a dab of stubborn sharpshooter's pride. Although the pain continued to subside in almost measurable degrees, he could speak only with difficulty. "Now, let me see that gun of yours; real careful, okay?"

The black hole of a pistol barrel muzzle was far more frightening than when he had held it rock steady before. Eager to please, her hand quickly disappeared into her coat pocket. That gave Gordy a split second to decide whether or not to shoot her before she could shoot him. For the third time in their short acquaintance, his finger tightened on the trigger. He did not want to shoot her, but he was prepared to do that if her weapon came out of her pocket pointed in the wrong direction.

When she saw the intensity in Gordy's eyes, the woman slowed her movements by half. She took the Colt pistol carefully from her pocket with the barrel in her fist and the muzzle pointed back at herself. After she showed it to Gordy at arm's length, she bent down and placed it carefully on the floor. Then, with her hands thrust back toward the ceiling, she slid the weapon across the floor with her foot.

As he continued to focus his pistol sight picture on her head, Gordy picked the weapon up and checked the empty firing chamber with his free hand. Satisfied, he sat it down again. Able Baker Charlie Dog immediately began sniffing it, the gun oil tantalizing to a hungry dog, then playfully batted it with his paw like a kitten with a ball of string.

"Why didn't you load it?" Gordy asked.

"I don't know how," she admitted ruefully.

Contemplating that concept as well as his still agonized crotch and belly for several seconds, with just a hint of an ironic smile, Gordy muttered: "That's so incredibly dumb, I've just gotta' believe you."