THE GIFT_(1)

THE GIFT

I stumbled over the metal threshold of the doorway as I hurried into the convenience store. I looked down immediately to see what my toe had hit then looked up, embarrassed, to see the reactions of the other two people who were inside. They averted their stares as soon as I looked their way.

I wanted a quick cup of coffee to drink as I drove the long descent down the mountainside into the desert. It never ceased to amaze me how it could be a warm balmy evening leaving San Diego then drop to near freezing temperatures in the mountains. By the time I got to Palm Springs, it would be hot and dry.

Ignoring everything except my personal mission, I filled a foam cup with coffee, struggled to find the right size lid, grabbed a pack of sugar and a stir stick, and headed toward the counter.

I was second in line. In front of me was a nicely shaped young woman who was certainly not dressed for the frigid mountain air outside. She had on a yellow tube top and blue jean cutoffs which left most of her goose-bumped skin exposed. Without being obvious, I lowered my eyes to catch a glimpse of the backs of her very well shaped legs. I was hoping that she would turn around so that I could see whether the view of her front was as lovely as my view of her back.

As I tore back the perforated flap on the lid of my cup, I could smell the steaming coffee. I also noticed the sweet, fresh, citrus fragrance emanating from the young lady. The clerk was handing her change when I heard a raspy voice coming from behind me.

“Nobody moves!”

I turned around to see two men with nylon stockings over their heads standing just inside the door. The taller man had a small silver gun in his hand. He raised it, his arm outstretched, and pointed his weapon straight at the clerk’s head as he approached her.

“Who else is here?” His voice sounded angry and urgent.

The clerk, a chubby middle-aged woman wearing a stained red smock, just glared at him with her mouth open. It struck me that she shouldn’t have been so surprised that a hold up was taking place in that store. Considering the somewhat secluded location, I would have thought that the place would be robbed every other month.

“Damn it! Answer me!”

The clerk closed her mouth momentarily and looked as if she might be peeing her pants. I was mentally projecting an order to her to answer the guy before I had to watch her face explode from the impact of a bullet.

“Nobody,” she said softly. He had come so close that the end of the barrel of the gun was just inches from her nose. She looked at it, her eyes almost crossed. “Nobody else,” she whimpered as tears began to roll down her flushed cheeks.

“All the money!” The gunman told her, as impatient as I had ever seen anyone.

The young woman in front of me turned slowly to look at the door, only to see that it was blocked by the other masked bandit. She was extremely pretty, even in her frightened state. Long auburn hair framed her youthful face. The tube top didn’t do much to hide the roundness of her breasts and the peaks of her nipples.

The clerk scooped handfuls of bills out of the cash drawer and handed it over. There might have been two hundred bucks at the most. The gunman stuffed them in his pants pocket.

“Lay down!” he yelled at the clerk, who complied immediately, then he turned his eyes toward her customers. He instantly focused on the girl in front of me. “Yeah,” he said, in a different, but extremely disturbing tone of voice. “Nice.”

“Come on!” his companion shouted from the door.

The gunman stepped to the girl and stood a few feet in front of her. She didn’t move, apparently frozen with fear. “Very nice. I bet you got a sweet little cherry that needs to be popped, huh??

A sick expression washed over her face as she listened to his words. I could only imagine the horror she was feeling. Her hands were trembling, just like mine were.

“We’re going to have to take you with us and have a little party for awhile.”

He reached out with his gunless hand and cupped one of her breasts with it, then moved it higher to grasp the edge of her tube top. In one quick movement, he pulled it down around her waist to reveal her breasts. They were indeed awesome. Her nipples, bright pink, were erect and stiff, pointing slightly upward, possibly from an involuntary physical reaction to the cold or the anxiety she was feeling.

With my back to the door, and the gunman’s stare zooming in on the girl’s naked chest, neither of the robbers could see my hands as I worked the plastic lid loose from the coffee cup. I just hoped that the burst of steam from the hot liquid wouldn’t be noticed.

“Oh, yeah. Real nice tits. I’m going to take my time with this little bitch,” he said wickedly, roughly squeezing and twisting her breasts with his dirty fingers. “You can have what’s left of her when I’m done,” he called to his accomplice.

“Bring her then, and let’s just get the hell out of here,” he called back.

Without releasing his hand from her bosom, he aimed his gun at me. Although it was difficult to tell because of the stocking, it appeared that he was still concentrating his gaze on her nipples, apparently preoccupied with them. The foul odor of liquor on his breath overpowered the girl’s perfume.

“Give me your wallet, asshole,” he mumbled, much of the commandeering edge gone from his voice. I glanced down at his crotch and it was evident from the bulge in his pants that he had quickly become sexually aroused from feeling her breasts. “I got a hot date here who just can’t wait to suck my dick and feel it squirt inside her mouth.”

Considering that my wallet probably had more money in it than had been in the cash drawer, I wasn’t overjoyed at the prospect of giving it to him. I had never considered myself the hero type, but I was determined to do something to allow me, and the young girl, at least a fighting chance. My first thought was to throw the coffee in his face. But I opted for his groin instead, figuring that the heat would permeate the fabric of his pants and cause a more dramatic reaction.

“You like to be fucked in the ass? Huh, baby?” He was utterly oblivious to what I was doing. “We might have to party all weekend.” He was moving closer to her, his legs spread apart, more than likely intending to get a cheap thrill by rubbing his penis against the smooth skin of her thigh. I knew that if I was going to do something, I’d have to do it soon. “I’m going to want to come in every sweet hole in that pretty, pink, little body you got. Maybe twice, even.”

Without another thought, I lowered my hand and splashed the contents of the cup between the gunman’s legs.

“Son of a bitch!” he yelled, taking a step backwards. Luckily, it took him a few seconds to compose himself before he could shoot as the scalding coffee ran down his pants legs. I lunged toward his arm, concerned only with the gun in his hand. My momentum carried us to the counter. His back crashed against it, and I pushed his arm back as far as I could.

His hand slammed against the wire hangers of a circular metal rack which displayed cigarette lighters, knocking it off onto the floor. The pain must have caused him to release his grip, because the gun flew out of his hand just as it fired. The bullet hit a fluorescent light fixture in the ceiling, and shards of glass showered down on us.

“Run!” I yelled, letting go of his arm. She had clutched her hands to her face. I grabbed one of them and pulled her down the isle of the store behind me as I searched for a restroom, hoping it would have a lock on the door. I didn’t look back to see what the bandits were doing.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw the guy who was guarding the door keeping pace with us as he ran down the adjoining isle. It was obvious that he would reach the back of the store, lined with coolers for bottled drinks, before we would. I had no idea what I would do then.

Behind me I could hear the gunman cussing at me. I assumed that he was looking for his gun. Just before I reached the end of the isle, his partner appeared. Thank goodness he didn’t have a gun that he had been concealing. Unfortunately, he did have a knife. In fact, it was a very big knife.

I glanced to my side and saw a plastic barrel full of soft drink bottles laying on a bed of crushed ice. I let go of the girl’s hand, picked one up, and threw it at him. He ducked to the side, behind the isle of merchandise, and the bottle smashed against the glass cooler doors spraying cola in every direction.

“The bathroom!” I yelled. “And lock the door!”

She took my hint and darted around me to the right. I kept picking up bottles and flinging them toward the end of the isle as fast as I could, knowing that I might be shot in the back at any moment. The third bottle broke one of the doors in the cooler. In only a few seconds, the floor was covered with broken glass and foaming liquid.

“Jesus Christ, Ben. Let’s get the fuck out of here!”

I saw the top of my pursuer’s head as he ran back toward the door. In a flash I cut to the right and saw two restroom doors. Figuring that she instinctively went into the women’s room, I tried the knob to it first. It was locked.

“It’s me!” I shouted, expecting to be killed. I heard a click, and the door opened. I slipped inside, closed the door, and pushed the button on the knob to activate the lock.

The girl had pulled her tube top over her breasts and had begun to cry, her arms wrapped around her shivering body. I grabbed her and stood her in one corner of the tiled room next to the door. “Stay right there,” I whispered.

She nodded, her eyes wide with a look of complete trust in my spur of the moment judgment. I stepped across the doorway and huddled in the other corner just as the crack of the gun sounded. A bullet pierced the steel door as the sound reverberated throughout the small cubicle.

“I’m gonna kill you, you son of a bitch! You’re one dead mother fucker.” The gunman’s voice was full of rage.

I heard the knob jiggle as he tried to open the door. Then, a few seconds later, four more shots blasted out in quick succession, blowing holes in various areas of the door. Bullets and sharp pieces of metal and wood ricocheted off the walls and porcelain fixtures.

“You better hope I never see your ass again!”

There was silence. I looked over at the girl to make sure that she hadn’t been hit by a bullet. She was sobbing, a terrified look of need on her lovely face. We stood there, completely still. I wondered whether the bandits had gone or whether this was just a lull while the gun was being reloaded. I also had the terrifying thought that they may be looking for the key to the door. If they found it, we were doomed. I couldn’t see anything in the room to use to wedge the door closed. When no more shots came in the next few minutes, I began to relax.

“Are you okay?” I said softly to her. She nodded to me, although she didn’t seem too sure of her response.

“Hold me?” she sobbed. “Please?”

I went to her side of the door and took her in my arms. Her soft shoulders felt cold, like she had been chilled to the bone. Her lithe body melded into mine as I did my best to warm and calm her. It was impossible to hide the fact that I was shaking like a leaf myself. After nearly a minute she seemed to relax a little.

Thank you,” she murmured. “Thank you so much.”

“That’s okay,” I said. “If they’ve gone, the woman behind the counter should come and get us. That is, if they didn’t shoot her.”

“If they’d taken me…oh, God.” She started sobbing again. “If it wasn’t for you…”

“I know. It’s okay.”

“No. I mean… I don’t know if I could have lived through that.”

She pressed her body tighter against me. I could feel the firm roundness of her breasts pressing into my chest and the smooth silkiness of her back with my hand. “I just don’t know how to thank you enough.”

I began to notice pain in my right forearm. I looked down to see that blood was dripping from it onto the side of her shorts. “You’re hurt!” She said in a concerned voice. “Did he shoot you?”

I let go of her with that arm and saw a small gash just below my elbow. I didn’t know whether a bullet had grazed me or I had been cut when I slammed into the counter.

“Here,” she said, going to the paper towel dispenser, seemingly forgetting about the possibility of more shots bursting through the door. She held several towels under the faucet and returned to me. With an incredibly soft touch, she wiped the blood away and cleaned my wound

“Oh my God, you’ve been shot.”

“Yeah, I guess I have,” I admitted, looking closely at my arm.

She looked up at me with a look of true admiration and concern. Her blue eyes sparkled through her lashes. “No one’s ever done anything like this for me before.” She returned her attention to my arm. “It doesn’t look too serious, thank God.”

From the store we heard a voice. I swept her into my arms again and pressed our bodies tightly into the corner. This time she wrapped her arms around me as well. I could feel her yielding to me, as if she enjoyed the feeling of my body against hers. She nuzzled her face against my neck while we waited. When I heard the voice again, I was convinced that it hadn’t come from either of the robbers. Reluctantly, I released her.

“I think it’s safe to go,” I told her.

“If you think so,” she replied. She raised onto her toes and kissed me gently on the lips. “Thank you. I really mean it.”

The voice had come from a customer who had just happened into the store. The clerk finally got up off the floor as we neared the counter, and she grabbed the telephone to call the police.

Within five minutes the parking lot outside looked like a convention of red, blue, and white flashing lights. An EMT swabbed and bandaged my arm while I was interviewed by three different police officers. I declined a ride in the ambulance since it appeared that I only had a bad scratch.

In less than an hour I was told that I could go, but should expect to hear from other officers within the next week. I made my way to the coffee machine again and filled a cup that I hoped I would actually get to drink. I held it up to show the clerk, who nodded and told me it was on the house.

As I started toward the door, I heard the young girl’s voice.

“Wait!” she called, walking quickly toward me. “Who are you? I mean…” she smiled. It was the first time I had seen a relaxed expression on her face. “I’m sorry, that’s no way to make an introduction. I’m Beth Teegarten. I… I want to do something for you.”

Her offer was certainly tempting. She had apparently taken the time to freshen her makeup between police grillings and looked absolutely gorgeous. But, she was at least ten years younger than me. Probably the only thing we had in common was the fact that we’d been victimized by the robbers.

“You really don’t have to do anything. I’m just glad we’re both safe.”

“But…where are you going?”

“I’m spending the weekend in Palm Springs; going to watch the golf tournament.”

“That’s where I live. How about I make you dinner? A thank you dinner?”

I paused, letting her eyes coerce me into accepting her invitation. I might have been reading more into her gaze than she intended, but it was telling me that much more than dinner might be on the agenda.

“Here,” she said, stepping back to the counter. She took a pen from a display and wrote something on a napkin. “Give me a call this weekend.” She handed me the napkin. “Please?”

“Sure,” I told her, “take care of yourself.”

She leaned into me as if we had known each other forever and wrapped her arms around me. When she stepped back, I saw the sparkle of admiration and gratitude in her eyes again. I returned her smile and left to get in my car.

I called Beth Saturday afternoon, and she invited me to her apartment for dinner that evening. The conversation was somewhat uneventful; no indication from her that we would do anything but socialize. Since I had other plans for dinner, we had agreed on drinks and a snack. I wondered if her zealous admiration of my foolhardy bravado had worn off in the intervening twenty-four hours.

I wasn’t prepared for the atmosphere that awaited me when Beth opened the door to her apartment. The lights were off, but the room was illuminated by dozens of flickering candles. She looked incredibly sexy, wearing a burgundy negligee made of silk or a synthetic imitation which clung tightly to her breasts and upper body. The skirt, flaring elegantly from her hips, stopped about three inches above her knee.

“Hi,” she told me sweetly. As soon as she had closed the door, she wrapped her arms around my neck and hugged me invitingly. “I was beginning to think that you weren’t going to come.”

She took my hand in hers and led me inside. Because of traffic and my unfamiliarity with the area, I had arrived almost half an hour later than we had agreed on the telephone.

The air was sweet from the scented candles and much warmer than I would have liked. Her apartment was huge. The living room was nicely decorated with comfortable sofas, chairs, and a low coffee table. The walls were a light peach color, adorned with a tasteful assortment of framed prints. I assumed that the double doors to my right opened into her bedroom.

“Sit down,” she extended her hand toward one of the sofas, arranged in an L-shape in one corner. She sat, tucking her slim legs under herself, and pulled me down next to her.

“It’s warm in here,” I said. I instinctively noticed how her nipples strained at the thin fabric she was wearing. I could still visualize how pink, full, and stiff they had been in the store.

“Well, let me cool you off, then.” She started unbuttoning my shirt very slowly.

“I like to be warm,” she whispered, lowering her mouth to my chest as my shirt opened. She pursed her lips and blew cool air across my skin with feathery softness. Glancing up at me, she said, “I have a surprise for you.”

“Oh, no,” I replied, “I think I’ve had enough surprises for awhile.” The sweet fragrance of her perfume, mixed with the scent of the candles, was beginning to have an intoxicating effect on me.

“Oh, I think you’ll like this surprise. It’s a special way of saying thank you.” She leaned back, staring at me from under her long, dark lashes. “I want you to meet a very good friend of mine.”

I assumed that she was making a coy, erotic reference to some particularly enjoyable part of her body. “Well, any friend of yours is a friend of mine,” I quipped, trying to play along with her.

“Good. Remember that, Okay?”

“Sure.” She pulled me to her, kissing me deeply. She thrust her tongue between my lips and ran it in circles on the roof of my mouth. It brought back pleasant memories of our brief previous encounter in the restroom. Her firm young body felt wonderful and willing in my arms.

She withdrew, and slowly opened her eyes. “Yessss,” she hissed mischievously. “I think you’ll like this surprise.” She turned her head toward the open doors, and called softly, “Jen?”

I was bewildered. I had thought that we were alone. Through the doorway poked the head of a young girl with long, straight blonde hair. She glanced at us momentarily, then started walking toward us, tying the belt of the pink robe which surrounded her graceful, petite body.

“Hi,” she said as she approached.

“Paul, this is Jennifer Allen,” Beth told me, a bright smile on her face.