Cross Country Tour Part 8

The Story Starts back here

Sam Laid a limp and barely conscious Lucinda on his bed, and smiled down at her as he watched her breast heave up and down in a steady rhythm of deep breaths.  He hadn’t been sure he could have the opportunity to give her the drug in the water glass, but sometimes circumstances line up so perfectly that things just fall into place.

This was practically a gift. It had almost been too easy.   While she was always a source of surprise, she was also a bit predictable.  He knew what she wanted, and he knew, right down to the dress she would wear, how she would jump at this opportunity. Drugging her was doing her a favor.  There were certain things he knew she wouldn’t be able to resist.  But what he counted on most was that she would come to this meeting without telling Ben about it.  

Ben!  That son of a bitch had taken her from him and destroyed what should have been one of the finest careers in the music industry today.  Sam could have been the husband and manager of the next Barbra Streisand, Dianna Ross, Dionne Warwick rolled into one.  She had the beauty, she had the talent, and she was moldable into exactly what he wanted her to be.  And, dammit, he had discovered her. But, like a little fool, she had made her decision to let Ben Webber be the major influence in her career, and 15 years later, she was still virtually unknown in almost half the country.

Well it's time good ole' Sam came to the rescue.

Sam found the zipper on that amazing dress he convinced her to wear.  It began under her arm, and slid down the side of her body, ending at the high slit up her leg.  He gently peeled the fabric away from her skin, and marveled at her tight body underneath.  No, he wouldn’t take her.  Not this time.  Miss Lucinda Hastings was going to have to offer herself to him.

And she would some day.  There was no doubt in his mind. But first he had to make sure that Ben Webber wouldn't want her anymore. As long as Ben was in the picture, Sam knew he didn't have a chance with her.

He looked at his watch.  6:15.  He guessed it was going to be a long night.  He slipped his clothes off, leaving them on a heap on the floor by the bed, removed her shoes and pantyhose, covered up a naked Lucinda, and crawled in bed next to her.  It was like crawling in bed with a lifesized doll.  There was a painful beauty about her that made his cock swell with an ache he was well familiar with. She was the perfect combination of poor, ghetto, blues, and the rise to a class few women of her background can achieve.  He moved his left hand gingerly up her body and lightly touched her beautiful milk chocolate skin.  Her muscles were taught, and her skin was smoothe and fragrant. His fingers passed between her breasts to her collar bone, and on to her cheek. It wasn’t going to be easy to hold off from taking her. But if he was going to be her man, he can’t start by taking advantage and making her hate him.  He had to play it cool.   She’d come to him soon enough. For now, he'd have to let her sleep.

***

Charlie walked through the door of the Standard Club hotel, at 5:30 in the morning after a long night of club hopping and drinking, topped off with a pancake breakfast at the local Howard Johnson's on Michigan avenue.   Monday and Tuesday was his working weekend, and he usually spent these days hanging out in the local piano bars and maybe even gifting the clientele with a number or two on the piano for a few free drinks.  

As he walked into the lobby, he saw Ben, obviously agitated as he snapped at the poor girl behind the desk.

“I’m  sorry Mr. Webber,” the young lady nervously squeaked out.  “Your wife hasn’t left you a message at the desk.  We told you we’d call you as soon as she…”

Ben slapped his hand down hard on the desk, making the receptionist  jump.  She looked terrified that this crazy man was going to climb over the desk and start rummaging through the her papers.”Check again.  My wife is missing!”

Charlie put a hand on Ben’s shoulder.  “What’s going on?”

Ben was relieved to see his friend.  He grabbed the big guy by the lapels of his jacket, and  tried to shake him.  Charlie was as sturdy as a bronze statue.  “Charlie, Where the hell have you been?" He was absolutely wild eyed with panic. "I can’t find Lucy.  She was supposed to meet me for dinner last night.  The cops won’t do anything until she’s been missing for 24 hours.  She hasn’t left a message for me, she hasn’t called the room…"

“Whoa,… wait a second.”  Charlie looked up at the ceiling as he tried to cut through his tequila fog.”  “Oh, God.  I know where she is.”

***

Lucinda didn’t know how long she had been asleep or where she was sleeping for that matter.  Her eyes opened with a bit of pain as she tried to adjust to the light streaming into the window from the sunrise over Lake Michigan.   She ran her hand across her chest to check her clothing only to find that she was naked above the waist.   She had been stripped… but by whom?  The last thing she remembered was that she was sitting before Clive Davis of Columbia Records in the conference room of the Drake hotel.  Sam was there.  talking to her… assuring her that she’d be alright.  But where was she?  How did she get…

“Well, Good morning!”  She looked across the suite to find Sam Harper in a state of undress, wearing nothing but  a pair of plaid boxer shorts and way too much aftershave.  He was wheeling a room service cart toward her and atop it was eggs, sausages, and a small array of pastries and croissants and coffee.  “Did you sleep well?”

Lucinda let her eyes scan his nearly naked body and her eyes grew wide.  Suddenly her brain was functional enough to put the pieces of the puzzle together and she felt her hot blood rushing to her face.

“Something wrong, Baby girl?

“What the hell time is it?” she screeched.

“It’s almost 6:00.”

“In the morning?”

Sam looked toward the window and squinted in the early sunlight and smiled.  “Yes,” he said.  “Definitely morning.”

“Did you… Did we… “

“No.  We didn’t.” he looked disappointed.  “But it wasn’t because you didn’t spend half the night begging me for it,” he teased.

“I what?”

“Couldn’t keep your hands off me.”

“You lying son of a…”

“Now, lets not start name calling,” he said, wagging his finger at her.  “Have a croissant, Baby Girl.”

“How did I get undressed?” She snapped.

“Well... I gave you a little help with that.” he winked at her.

“You slipped me something! In the champagne!”

“Close.  The water,” his smile was unrepentant.  “I just wanted you to relax a little bit.  As it turns out, I gave you a little too much.  I been trying to wake you up for hours.”

Lucinda frantically looked around the room for her clothes.  She hadn’t worn panties to avoid a panty line under her dress, but she thought she’d at least have her pantyhose on.  She lifted the sheet and inspected her lower body.  She was completely naked.  “WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME?” she screeched.

“Now now, let's stay calm...” he was clearly enjoying her panic.

Lucinda raised an accusatory finger.  “You sick bastard fuck!  You drugged me, kidnapped me, and probably fondled me if not rape.  When I tell Clive Davis about this he’ll fire your ass right before I have you fucking arrested, and buried under the jail.”  She poked her finger at him as hot, angry tears started to well up behind her eyes.

Sam held up his palm to stop the onslaught of threats.  “No, Sweetheart. Let me tell you what’s going to happen.”  He was calm, and confident as he grabbed a piece of melon and waved it in the air as though it were a magic wand.  “You’re going to accuse me of kidnapping and rape, and I’m going to deny it.  I mean, you didn’t scream or cry out or fight me.  There are no signs of a struggle on you.  Who do you think they’re going to believe?  Especially since we’ve been having an affair behind your husband’s back for 15 years?”

Lucinda blanched, her shoulders slumping in her confusion.  “Affair?  What are you…?”

“Oh, didn’t you know?  Everyone at Columbia knows that you and I are lovers.  That’s why they relied on me to deliver you into a contract with us. The fact that you wound up in my bed? Clive Davis and everyone else was expecting it."

Lucinda closed her eyes as she put the pieces together in her muddled mind.  Through the pain at the base of her spine, to the throbbing in her temples, she began to see his plan.  This was a nightmare.

Sam picked up a croissant and began to spread butter on it.  “You’re going to walk out of the Drake hotel, wearing the same distinctive dress that you walked in wearing yesterday.  You were seen willingly walking to the elevator by several witnesses… many are fans of your work, by the way.  You didn’t go unnoticed.”

Lucinda blinked, and two huge tears escaped from behind her eyes and spilled down her cheeks. She couldn't believe what she was hearing.

“Meanwhile,” Sam went on, “back at your hotel, good old Benny boy doesn’t know why his woman stood him up for dinner, and stayed out all night.”  He let out a tsk, tsk, tsk with each shake of his head.  “What’s he gonna say when he find’s out you spent the night in my room?  You lied to him… you came to see me behind his back.  You wore that dress that, face it Baby Girl, takes a man’s breath away," he smiled, very satisfied with himself, "and too many people know that I’ve been your lover for years.”

Lucinda shook her head like she were trying to get the strange voice out of her head.  This couldn’t be real!  “But why?” Her voice shook.  “ Do you hate me so much that you just wanted to ruin my career?”

“Hate you?  Ruin your career? “  Suddenly his face softened and he smiled almost good naturedly as he sat next to her on the bed.  “You think that’s what this is all about?  You think I wanted to ruin you?  Take a look around, Baby girl.  Scandal is what drives this business.  Once word gets around, your popularity will explode!  it’s free publicity!  You’re going to be more famous than you could ever imagine!”

"Are you telling me that you concocted this whole farce for a publicity stunt?”

“No.  Of course not.  I’m just saying that it’s just the icing on the cake.”

“I don’t understand,” she covered her forehead with the palm of her hand.

“I didn’t do this to ruin your career, Baby Girl.  I did this to show Benny Boy that his woman... ain't his woman.”

Lucinda felt her heart quicken to a pace that felt like it would explode through her chest.  She couldn’t have heard right.  “My marriage? You did this to ruin my marriage.” It wasn't a question. It was a revelation. Ben would never believe that Sam drugged her and dragged her to his room against her will.  And even if Ben forgives her, there would always be a part of him that’s going to have that little nagging doubt. Little by little it would eat away at her marriage.  

"You did spend the night without calling him.”  He grinned, baring those big white teeth of his and he grabbed a piece of sausage off the cart and popped it in his mouth.  “Were you so swept away by your passion for me, that you didn’t stop to think to cover your ass with a simple phone call?”  He let out another tsk, tsk, tsk.

Lucinda felt the blood draining from her face.  He was right.  She can’t prove anything.  Unless… The hospital! she jumped up, her knees planted underneath her on the mattress, as she clutched the sheet to her chest.. “I’ll go to the hospital and get tested.  Whatever you gave me will show up in my urine or my blood.”

Sam looked  down and chucked softly.  “Sure.  I only hope I can be there when they tell you they found nothing.  I did my homework, sweetheart.  I mean, I ain’t no Chemical Engineer like your husband, but I do know a little bit about where to get what I needed to knock you on your ass without showing up in your system 12 hours later.  Not even the couple of sips of champagne you took will show up.  There’s just been too much time.  The only conclusion...  You must have been sober as a judge when you spent the night with me.”  He grinned smugly.

Lucinda sat shaking in absolute fury.  She was going to kill him… as soon as she got dressed.

Out in the hall, Ben stood next  to Charlie as he knocked on Sam's hotel door and waited for a response.  Sam’s voice came through the door, irritated.  “Who is it?”

“Bellman, Sir.” Ben shot back.

“What the hell do you want?”

“I have a package for you, Sir.”

“Package?  Shit.  Leave it outside the door.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Sir.  Regulations.”

Ben took a step closer to the door as he heard Sam struggling with the doorknob.  When the door opened less than an inch, Ben jammed his foot inside and slammed his shoulder against the heavy wood, forcing it open all the way. Sam was startled as he stumbled back and fought to keep his balance.  That’s when Ben saw her.  Lucinda was on Ben’s bed, sitting up with one hand placed over her mouth, her eyes wide.    She held a thin cotton sheet to her breast and her shoulders revealed her nakedness.   

Ben reached out and grabbed Sam by the neck so that their noses were almost touching.  His thumb pressed into his adam’s apple.  “You. Are. Dead!” Ben seethed menacingly.  Sam’s face was lined in surprise and  fear as his eyes widened and beheld the unadulterated rage in Ben’s eyes.  Ben pushed Sam back, balled up his right fist, and jammed it into Sam’s nose as he felt bone and cartilage crush beneath his knuckles.  Sam howled at the excruciating pain and he crumbled to the floor in a heap of gushing blood dripping through his fingers as he tried to hold his nose onto his face.

Ben stepped over to his wife and stood over her as his eyes scanned her form beneath the sheet.  She had seen him angry before, but nothing like this.  He slowly moved his head to look her in the eye.

“Ben, this isn’t what it looks like.  I swear!” her voice wobbled.

“Looks to me like you’re naked in Sam Harper’s bed,” he said almost in a whisper.

Lucinda bit her lip hard as she wrinkled her brow in confusion.  “Okay… it is what it looks like… But it’s not what you think.”

Sam's eye moved to the heap of clothes on the floor.  He bent down and picked up a garment that looked eerily familiar.  As he slowly lifted her dress, he glanced at his wife who was closing her eyes in absolute horror.  

“You bwoke by dose, buther fuckah!” Sam said from the floor behind him.

“SHUT UP!” Ben barked over his shoulder at him.  He turned back to his wife.  “Well, I guess this says it all, doesn’t it?”  

There was a fury in Ben’s eyes that she hadn’t seen before.  A combination of hurt and distrust, with a bit of hatred sprinkled in for good measure. Lucinda started to cry.  “Ben, please let me explain…”

He pointed an angry finger at her.  “I don’t want to hear one word out of you.”

“But I have to…”

“Not one... word.”  He hissed through gritted teeth. He  calmly walked back over to Sam who was still sitting and bleeding all over the floor.  He, once again, grabbed him by the throat with one hand, and punched him in the jaw with the other.  Ben then  knelt down on one knee so that he could pull Sam’s swollen and bloody face close to his.  “My wife is naked in your bed.  Did you touch her?”

Sam raised his hands to defensively shield his face as he tried to breathe air into his pinched trachea.  “I...I…”

“I asked you a question asshole.  Did you fuck my wife?””

"You'll dever dow for sure, will you?" Sam gasped, knowing he was taking his life in his hands by taunting him. It would be worth it in the end. He tried to smile through the pain in his face.

Lucinda brought the bed sheet up to her mouth and bit it hard as she started to wail loudly.

Ben pulled back his fist again and caught Sam in the cheekbone right under his eye.  Once… twice...

“Ben, you’re going to kill him,” Lucinda said through her sobs. She didn;t want her husband to go to jail. Besides, she wanted to be the one to kill him.

Ben stopped and looked at her sternly.  “I know I told you to be quiet.”

She shut her eyes and covered her mouth with her free hand as she listened to her husband beat her kidnapper over and over again in the face with his fist.  

Sam’s neck snapped back with each blow, blood flew in several directions, and purple lumps of bruised tissue began to form in patches all over his face.  His eyes rolled back into his head, and any fight that may have been in him was gone along with most of his consciousness.

Ben threw his victim down and turned to pick up Lucinda’s dress, pantyhose and heels that had been strewn on the floor.  He wrapped them up in a bundle, and tossed them to Charlie who had been standing in the doorway.  “Charlie, do me a favor.  Hail a taxi and have ‘em bring it around to the rear.  If Lucinda and I take the service elevator down, maybe we can get out of here without too much attention.”  He looked down at Sam beginning to stir and groan in pain.  Ben lifted his foot, kicked him in the ribs hard and watched him double over in agony as the spittle leaking from the corner of his mouth turned pink, and then crimson red.  “And on your way through the lobby, have the front desk call this asshole an ambulance.”

Charlie was clearly trying to hold back a smile.  “Sure, Ben.” Charlie backed out the door and disappeared around the corner.

Ben turned on Lucinda, her shoulders bouncing up and down racked in deep, guttural sobs.  This day had officially taken the lead as the worst day of her life.  Not only had she trusted the wrong person, but now her husband thinks she was cheating on him.  And with his arch enemy.  He probably hated her, and she didn’t have a prayer in proving that she didn’t sleep with Sam.  Sam wanted to ruin her marriage" well he certainly had it by the balls.  Even if Ben forgives her for something she didn’t do,  Their marriage would be changed forever.  She had never before given him a reason to question her fidelity.  But now, she’d never be able to get him to trust her again.  She began to sob loudly in mourning for her dying marriage, like a four-year-old child mourning her lost puppy. THe heaving sobs wracked her body, making her spasm through her gut and her spine.

The only bright spot… At least he was taking her home with him, and not turning away and leaving her there like the selfish slut he must believe her to be.

Ben walked back over to his wife,  ripped the bed sheet out of it’s position, and began wrapping it methodically it around her legs and upper body.  “Ben, what are you...” she hiccuped through her sobs.

“If I have to tell you to not say another word one more time, you will regret it.  Understand?” he snapped.

Lucinda closed her mouth and nodded as huge tears rolled down her cheeks.

“Stand up on the bed,” he said.

Lucinda looked at him inquisitively as her eyebrows shot up.  She wanted to ask why, but she was forbidden to speak.

“You really want to make me repeat myself?”

Lucinda struggled to stand up on the bed as she held the sheet to her bosom with both hands.  When she was standing, Ben positioned some of the sheet to cover her head making her look something like a mummy with a hood.  He then leaned into her midsection, and she folded down over his shoulder like a sack of flour.  Lucinda started crying louder, and let out massive wails of torment and unadulterated anguish.

Ben’s left eye twitched as it did when he was under stress.  “Lucinda Hastings Webber, you are going to stop crying right now, or so help me God, I’ll give you something to cry about.”

Suddenly the wailing stopped, and all Ben could hear was the short, frantic breaths of anxiety.

He then walked over to the door, stepped over Sam, still on the  floor. Before he walked out he turned to address him. "Now you get better, Sam, you hear? Because when your bruises and bones have all healed, I'm going to come find you... and beat your ass again."

Ben took his wife out of the room and turned the corner to the service elevator.

To be continued