"Thank you so much,
"I'm here to help any time,
Miss Nicole. Shall I call 911?" "No," said Noah, in a
whisper because he didn't have enough strength for his voice to come out. Corey was coming into his room at that very moment. "Don't call 911. I don't want to go to the hospital. I don't want Dad to know that I had a heart attack.
That'll give him a heart attack of his own."
"Shall we call Dr. Croce then?" said Mario.
"I don't think that Dr.
Croce goes to his patients' houses." "He does," replied Mario.
"Trust me, unfortunately, I know what I'm saying."
"Still, Mario, let me suffer. It's all my fault."
"I hate to say this, Daddy, but I told you so." When Corey said 'Daddy', he sounded just like he did when he was two years old and he called him, 'Daddy'. This brought thick and bitter tears to Noah's eyes. He thought he'd die today, within a couple of hours.
"No, I won't let you suffer. I know what it feels like, I repeat, unfortunately," replied Mario and picked up the phone to call Dr.
Croce. "I refuse to let you go through this with my arms crossed across my chest."
"What do you mean, Mario?" said Alex, horrified. She thought that she was infatuated with him because she'd always liked him. He had the two elements that she demanded in a man. He was older and he had the body of a passionate body builder, just like Noah--only it wasn't due to this disease that Noah had. It was due to the fact that he really was a body builder. He went to the gym and exercised in a healthy way, in his spare time. "You've had heart attacks, too?"
"Yes, I've had three heart attacks," he answered as Dr.
Croce's phone rang. "Come on, Dr. Croce, Noah needs you and he refuses to go to the hospital."
"Do you know why?" "It's due to situations I
couldn't cope with," he said and Dr. Croce answered the phone. "But I'm fine, thank God. Hello."
Everyone kept quiet as Mario and Dr. Croce talked on the phone. "This is Dr. Croce."
"Dr. Croce, this is Mario Irizarry. I'm calling from the Spears mansion. I'm the guard at the gate."
"Oh, yes, I know you," said Dr. Croce. "You are among all of the things that Scott and I talk about every time I go to check on him." Surprisingly, for some strange reason, Dr. Croce didn't remember Mario. He didn't remember the three times that he saved his life.
"This is not a phone call of sympathy. I'm calling because Noah just had a heart attack." Noah allowed the people that worked at the mansion to call him by his first name because they would call Scott, 'Mr. Spears' and he wanted them to distinguish one Mr. Spears from the other. "He doesn't want to call 911 to go to the hospital for medical attention because he doesn't want Mr. Spears to find out about what just happened."
Dr. Croce felt strange. He was scratching his head as Mario explained the conundrum to him. It was the first time that he knew about someone that loved so much that he was willing to put his very life on the line, just so that other someone special that he cared about wouldn't have to go through the heartache of knowing that something this horrible had happened to him or her. "Ok," said Dr. Croce. "I'm going to go to the mansion, but without the care that Noah needs, there are no guarantees of survival whatsoever."
Mario felt horrible when he heard these words. "My mother told me that those were the exact words that you'd tell her every time that I went through the same situation and I refused to go to the hospital because the food was horrible."
Dr. Croce gasped and got up with the phone in his ear. "I cared for you?"
Corey took advantage of this special gift that he had, of healing people's pain and sickness through prayer, and Mario kept speaking as Corey prayed with all of his faith. "Yes, you did," said Mario. "I can't believe that you don't remember me, Mario Irizarry. Does the nickname, 'Doll', in Spanish, ring a bell? That's what my mom, dad, brothers and sisters used to call me when I was younger."
"I can see why," replied Alex, smiling naughtily and Nicole tapped her on the head with her left hand. They laughed together hysterically.
"Oh yeah," said Dr. Croce and said, the word 'doll' in Spanish, along with Mario's last name. "I'm sorry that I forgot about you."
"You didn't forget me," said Mario. "It's just that you didn't remember my real name. Well, I'll see you later. Every minute that we're on the phone is one less minute of life for Mr. Spears here," he said and cleared his throat.
"You're absolutely right. I can't believe that I'm going to see you again after twenty long years." Dr. Croce hung up, took off his white gown and stepped out of the office.
Twenty minutes later, Dr.
Croce arrived at the mansion. Corey was waiting for him outside, with his arms crossed across his chest. He didn't know that his prayers had gotten where they intended to take them, straight to God Almighty, and that the Most Powerful had already heard them and he'd already done his wonderful work on his father. He was crying, silently. Dr. Croce took his hand to give the message to anyone that was waiting to kidnap this child, that he was supervised. With such a message, no one dared to take Corey from his home. They knew that there was a witness and that they wouldn't have enough time to abduct the child and murder the adult at the same time, without getting caught. The alarms would go off faster and louder than the siren of a police patrol, and the police would instantly be on the case, literally. Too many abductions that dirty passions had incited had taken place in the last couple of days, and if the police couldn't keep the other abductions from happening, they'd surely put a stop to this one. Obviously, they'd be alerted of it.
Croce and Corey walked in. "I'll do what I can for your father, ok?"
"You know what he said to Mario when Mario told him that he'd call you for help?" said Corey, crying bitterly as they went up the stairs. He was inside and he could let it out now. "He said, 'Let me suffer, Mario. It's all my fault'."
They were walking the hallway to Noah's room now. "That's a horrible thing to say," Dr. Croce replied. "Why did he say that the heart attack was his fault, though?"
"What?" said Jessica all of a sudden as she walked the opposite direction in front of them. She wanted to go downstairs to get a snack. Although Jessica and Jill's house was waiting for them to fill it with their happiness and cheerfulness, Scott unexpectedly decided that Jessica would stay. He and Noah had plans for her--big plans. Neither she nor Jill imagined what those plans were. "Noah had a heart attack, again?" She rushed to his room and arrived before they did. "Noah," she said, crying bitterly, but he was asleep.
Dr. Croce and Corey went in. Jessica continued to cry on Noah's chest. She didn't think that he would survive this heart attack. Unfortunately, she and Dr. Croce agreed on this. Dr. Croce checked Noah's heartbeat, monitored his blood-pressure, and checked for a pulse, hoping that there would be one. Surprisingly, Noah's pulse, heartbeat, and blood-pressure were normal. "I don't believe it," said Dr. Croce. "He's perfectly healthy all of a sudden."
"But that doesn't mean that you don't believe us when we tell you that he had a heart attack, does it?" asked Mario, worried. Dr. Croce gave Mario a big hug and said, "No, Mario, I don't mean that. As a matter of fact I never said that he seemed not to have had a heart attack, I said," he said and repeated, "He's perfectly healthy all of a sudden', meaning that it's notable that he had a heart attack, but that he recovered quickly and successfully."
Mario sighed, smiled and said, as Jessica let out a sigh of relief and got off Noah's chest, and held his hand, "Oh. You know, I ask you if you believed me or not because when I know that people don't believe me, I worry that they don't trust me either."
Dr. Croce placed his arm around the back of Mario's neck and replied, still looking at Noah, "You know, Mario," and looked back up at Mario, "The fact that we've lost contact for twenty years, it doesn't mean that I don't trust you. In fact, I trust you so much that I want to hire you as my wife's bodyguard."
Mario gasped in disbelief. He knew in his heart that he was incapable of taking another man's wife, even if she fell in love with him and started seducing him, but he knew that Dr. Croce didn't know this as well as he did, and that's why it astounded him to know that Dr. Croce trusted him this much. "Ah, Dr. Croce, I couldn't."
"If you imagine that my wife is young, sexy and seductive, you can forget about it. She's my age, she's fifty-one years old, and she says that at this age, as long as she gets all of the love, affection and sex that she needs, which she does," he said and cleared his throat, and everybody laughed... "One man is more than enough for her, and that man is me."
Mario smiled, looked at Alex, since she couldn't take her beautiful emerald-green eyes off him, and then looked back at Dr. Croce, still smiling, and said, "I'm glad."
"I thought that you preferred older women," said Alex, surprising everyone with her curiosity when it came to Mario's choices in women. No one knew what she felt for Mario.
Mario looked at her once again and said, "What made you think that, Alex?"
"The fact that you slept with an older woman once," she replied.
"Well, you're right, I only did it once, but I did it because before I got married, I liked to experiment with different women, women of all ages."
"Oh, ok," said Alex.
"Do you ask that to every man once that he shares a little bit of his sex life, or do you have a specific interest in my preference when it comes to women?"
"I don't ask these kinds of questions to every man, just men that I'm interested in," she said, shocking Mario like no one ever had.
Dr. Croce, Jessica and Corey kept quiet as Mario and Alex talked. This exchange of words could lead to an explosive relationship--whether good or bad. "You're interested in me?" said Mario, smiling kindly. "Yes," said Alex, smiling, "but only if you're single. There are no doubles for me."
"That's a nice way of delivering this message about single and married or committed people," said Mario, looking at Nicole, who stood behind him, as she continually examined his back, solely with her eyes to see if carrying Noah had caused him any damage.
"I learned that from a show in a Latin channel," said Alex. "This episode of the program aired almost five years ago."
"I like minds that absorb information quickly and store it for long periods of time," said Mario. "That way, I don't have to use tremendous efforts for people to understand my language and my behavior."
"Surprisingly, I'm the same," she replied, smiling sweetly. "Some people absorb and store tremendous amounts of information in their brains because they're brilliantly intelligent, and some do it because some things are impossible to forget."
"I totally agree," said Corey. "But if I keep storing large amounts of information at this age, my brain will literally fall apart and break into a million pieces, causing schizophrenia, like it happened to the main character of the movie 'A Beautiful Mind.'
They were so amazed with that comment that they just looked at each other, gasping. They didn't know that such a young human mind could be this mature and adult-like. Chapter 44
"When it comes to mental illnesses my dear Corey," commented Dr. Croce, "you have nothing to worry about. I've examined your brain through different forms throughout the years."
"Oh, yeah, who can forget those tests?" said Corey and laughed. "So, I'm not at risk for any mental illnesses."
"That's true unless a traumatizing and life-shattering event doesn't make you lose your mind," replied Mario, and looked at Dr. Croce. Dr. Croce nodded in agreement.
"Well, I guess that no one can escape from that."
"You're right, Corey," said Mario, "no one can escape from that."
"Not even your father, especially now," said Dr. Croce, shocking everyone in the room and making them look attentively at him.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that if your father doesn't get psychiatric treatment soon, he's going to become schizophrenic or just lose his mind, like you said would happen to you if you kept storing excessive information so early in your life."
"But Dad is already getting psychiatric treatment," said Corey.
"Oh, yes? Who's treating
him?" "Dr. Hannibal Lester is." "Oh," said Dr. Croce, "I
guess I'd better call him before I return home. The day is still young. It's only four forty-five," he said looking at his wristwatch.
"It's hard to believe that so many horrible things have happened in one day," said Corey, not knowing that his father had been raped a few hours before. "The day's still young, but yet so tragic."
"You can say that again," said Mario.
"What do you mean?" said
Alex.
"I mean that if I don't get
back out there, God knows how many people are going to break into the mansion. I did my job here, everything that I could've possibly done. Now I have to go and continue to do my job out there," he said, turned around and went to the door to walk out. Alex got up from Noah's bed and walked after him.
"Why do you always worry about people breaking in when we call on you to do something in here?" said Jessica.
"Because human beings are incapable of achieving the impossible," said Mario as he opened the door and he and Alex walked out of the room, "even though most of them don't have any superpowers," he said, smiling, and closed the door. He and Alex walked the second story to go downstairs, leaving everyone stunned.
"He's right," said Noah, waking up all of a sudden. "Although we have no superpowers, we are capable of achieving what's impossible."
"You woke up!" said Jessica and gave him a big hug.
"Noah Scott Spears, you scared the hell out of us," said Nicole.
On their way downstairs, and halfway there, Mario found a red box. He didn't know if it had a piece of jewelry inside of it or not, and he didn't want to see if did. It turned out that Nicole's engagement ring fell on the stairwell when Noah fell with the heart attack. He bent, took it in his hand, and picked it up. "Whose is this?" he said to Alex. "Do you have any idea?"
"No," said Alex, estranged, "I don't. It's probably Nicole, Jessica, Jill or Natasha's. We have to go back upstairs and asks whose it is just in case. I don't want us to make a mistake that will cost us our friendship with these people, and your job."
"You got that right," said Mario, and turned around. They went back up the stairs again. "I'm not worried about my job, though, I'm worried about losing their friendship."
"Do you think that Dr. Croce will pay you more money than Scott?" said Alex as they walked back up the stairs.
"I haven't accepted Croce's proposal yet. When he's around, her wife might seem to be a respectable lady, but we don't know what she's like when he's not around."
"You're right, but don't say that too loud."
"I'm saying it so low that I think that you're the only one that can hear me."
"I hope so." "I know it."
They walked the hallway back to Noah's room. They had no other sensible choice. Noah's room was the only one that had human beings in it. Mario knocked the door. "Come in!" said Noah. He avoided yelling to keep from having another heart attack. He'd recovered successfully from the last one, but if he didn't take good care of him, nobody else could do that for him if he didn't love him enough.
Mario and Alex walked back in. Mario had the box in his hand, "Ah," said Noah.
"Is this yours, Mr.
Spears?"
"Yes," said Noah. Mario
walked closer to him and he took the box from him, gently, to avoid being disrespectful unintentionally. "Thank you, Mario."
Noah put the ring back in his pocket. Meanwhile, Nicole and Alex became suspicious and looked at one another, stunned. Noah didn't notice it, but the only reason that Noah would carry that box with him at all times was if he intended to propose to someone. Surprisingly, Nicole was starting to doubt that this someone was she, and she started to get jealous and doubt his love again. Nicole couldn't help it but to ask, "Who is the ring for, Noah?"
"It's for no one. I'm like Dean. I always carry a ring around, hoping to find the one woman to give it to," he replied, hoping that she would believe him.
Nicole smiled and thought, I hope that I am that someone, and said, "That's sweet. I always knew that you and Dean had a few things in common, ever since I met you, but I had no idea that you were so much alike."
"That's precisely why we're the best friends in the world since we were little," said Noah, smiling sweetly and looked down at the ring, where it was, hoping that Nicole would accept it despite his heart condition. He also hoped that a disagreement between them would never cause a massive heart attack. If it did, he'd literally die of a broken heart, and if this happened, Nicole would never forgive them. She'd live the rest of her life lonely and miserably. She'd think that if she differed with her mate, she'd cause him a heart attack, and therefore avoid a future relationship. He loved her so much that he didn't want that for her.
Nicole wasn't dumb however. She knew how to do things the right way, whether they were good or bad. She'd never make a man upset to the point where he couldn't handle the anger. If she differed with him, she would put an end to the conversation and resume it later, when she thought that she and the other person were calm, and that they could talk it over. He didn't have to worry about that with her. He just didn't know it yet, but he would when they had the first argument as a married couple. He'd learn that when it came to having relationships with other people, any kind of relationships, she was the best wife, even better than Jennifer; thus when he and Jennifer argued, the whole neighborhood would know and Noah always ran out the door, slamming it on his way out, and Jennifer would be left there, unable to contain her utter and passionate anger, and it hurt her so much that she'd end up crying bitterly. Fortunately, without knowing it, Noah would come back home just in time to work things out, without knowing that what he would do was to console her, and luckily, he always knew just the way to do that. When the argument was his fault, he always knew how to make it up to her. That's another of many things about him that Nicole would surely come to love about him. In the end, she would be helplessly in love, so in love, that if their relationship ever ended, she'd stay home and wait for him as long as she would have to. There would be no other man for her in the end of it all. Nicole desired his face, his lips and his body when she first saw him, but in due time, she learned to love him for who he was and not what he looked like. This felt good to her because she knew that a love story that started like this was the love story that would last forever, that this was the kind of love that would go on even after death. She loved him so much in so little time, that she wouldn't stop loving him even if he became the most hideous man in the whole world from one day to the next. It was too bad that he didn't know that she felt so intensely for him, and that he was breaking their heart, just by making her uncertain on whether his engagement ring was meant for her or for a love rival that she didn't know, and that would turn out to be better and stronger than she was. She was doomed if he didn't choose her. She hadn't met or couldn't think of any other good and deserving man to give her love to. There were billions of men in the world that she could've given all of her love to, but she felt that none of these men were like Noah, and if there were men good enough to love for who they were, it would be almost impossible to find Mr. Right among those men, and her heart certainly didn't have the strength or the time to search. She thought that her heart would grow old and stop beating forever in the middle of the endless quest of finding the right man.
"If that ring is for me," said Nicole all of a sudden and sat beside her man, "I won't hesitate to accept it even for a minute." She made her comfortable in his bed and cuddled with him, as she said, sweetly and softly. "I hope that you keep that in mind."
"Come on, guys," said Alex. "Let's leave the two lovebirds alone."
"Oh, no," said Nicole, "it's ok. I know that we can't do all of the things that we yearn to do until we get married because if we did, He-Man here would be committing statutory rape, and if I've held it for so long it's because I don't want anyone to go to jail for me---unless they did something to hurt me."
"Yeah," scoffed Alex, "you better clarify that, girlfriend. Ok, Mario let's spend some time alone."
Nicole smiled at Alex and winked at her repeatedly, advising her silently not to do something that she would surely regret later on.
"That's not what I meant," she said, smiling back.
"Oh!" said Mario.
"No. I just want us to talk, sweetheart. Come with me."
Twenty minutes later, Alex and Mario were at the gate, conversing. They didn't notice that there was a note for Mario, right where he stood. Alex suddenly felt that there was a little stone in her shoe, and just when she was looking down and lifting her leg to take the tennis shoe off to remove it, she noticed the note. "Mario, you have a note here," she said, bent and picked it up. She stood straight and handed it to him.
"That's strange," said Mario as he unfolded the note, "I never receive my letters this way."
"Mario, I don't think it's a
letter." As Alex removed the stone from the shoe by shaking it repeatedly until it fell out, and Mario read the letter, he said, "You're right, it's not a letter. It's a written threat, in different forms. It's an anonymous threat that was made from pieces of pages of magazines and newspapers."
She held him tight, cried in his arms, really, and said, "I'm so afraid for you. I don't want anyone to do you any harm."
"Nothing is going to happen to me," said Mario. "It's the first time in my life that I've ever gotten one of these," and dropped the note on the floor. "It's so pathetic that it makes me laugh and cry at the same time."
"Well," said Alex and let go of him and bent over and picked up the note again, "don't disregard it. Although it's impossible to figure out who it came from, you can put it together with future knows like these, and in the end, from the way that the person writes and expresses him or her, you will figure out who it is if you can think about and know of any enemies you have. You know, Mario, although we don't see them, all of us have enemies, whether fully displayed or occult."
"Yeah, you're right," said Mario and sighed. "It won't be easy, but it's not impossible figuring out who this is, either. I've always loved puzzles and solved them successfully, puzzles and mazes. This one, although it doesn't seem to be, it's a no brainer."
"Are you sure?" "Yes." They hugged,
again.
Meanwhile, Scott was in
the bedroom of his best friend, Jeremy. Suddenly, a stranger walked in. No, this was no fantasy. This was real, way too real for Scott, who had abstained from having sex for the longest time, compared to the periods of time that men his age usually abstained, if they did, for whatever reasons. He didn't know this girl, but he liked her. She was the sexiest woman that he had ever seen. Not even the love of his life, a geeky girl that stood among all the others, and the woman that loved him more than any other woman ever had, but the most unattractive woman in his eyes. As the stranger walked closer to him, she unzipped her long dress on the side. Finally, she let the dress fall on the floor.
She had no underwear. Her naked body was perfect. Looks didn't matter to Scott after what he'd been through with the wife of the rich man that almost killed him, but they sure helped him get more excited than he already was. With all of her sexual experience, and not having the slightest idea what she was about to get into, Stacie hopped into bed with him.
"Who are you?" he said as she French-kissed him.
"It doesn't matter," she replied in between kisses. "What matters is that I want you, badly."
She lied down beside him and started caressing him. "Have you been tested for STD's?"
"Is that the only question that you ask the woman when you're about to do her?" she said. "Because, let me tell you, that's a horrendous pick up line," she said as her hand went down his abdomen.
As she grabbed strongly the one thing that she wasn't supposed to, below his abdomen, he held her hand to stop the motions and replied, "It's a horrendous pick-up line, but it's a very important question." He started kissing her neck. She literally got weak in the knees. He went on to say, looking her in the eyes, "Besides, it's not the kind of question that you have all the right not to respond to if you don't want to, like, how many men you've had sex with or the things you've done to them."
"You're right," she said, smiling devilishly, "but I've chosen not to answer this question. You're intruding my private life, you know. You're entering forbidden territory."
"No, I'm not," he replied, "not yet." He went in between the sheets, lower and lower until he really got into forbidden territory and started taking it. She screamed. Fortunately the door to the room was closed. "I'm not putting anything else down here," he said as he performed oral sex on her with her lips and her teeth. He didn't allow any other part of his mouth to touch the unknown, "until you tell me what I want to know."
"I'm not... telling you... anything," she said in between sighs for each paused line.
"I wouldn't be so sure about that," he said as he went up and tortured her abdomen and her chest with his teeth, as if he were trying to break a jawbreaker.
She screamed again. "What do I have to do to
get you to speak up?" He got to her mouth once again, kissed her like he'd never done anyone else before, as he squeezed her already sore breasts, due to the arrival of those days.
"Ok, ok," she said as he let go of her mouth and let her breathe. She took several deep breaths and when she regained her breath and her peace, she said, "I just tested positive for HPV." She wouldn't have said it if she hadn't been forced to, but she had no choice.
"HPV?" he said and got off her. "That STD is deadly and it leaves people sterile! Did you bring any hats?"
Stacie was baffled. She didn't know exactly what he meant by, 'hats'."
Chapter 45
"No, I didn't bring any hats," she said and scoffed, still lying down, with her hands holding her up to keep her balance. This situation made her helpless.
"I didn't mean hats, I meant condoms."
"Oh! I'm sorry, I forgot." "Well," said Scott. "You
and Jeremy might think that every time that I come over to his house it's to have completely liberated sex with many total strangers in one weekend, but you're wrong. You're the first woman that I had sex with in this house, whether Jerry believes it or not. I'm not catching an STD knowing that there is one, I'm sorry, much less something like HPV! The only difference between HIV and HPV are the letters in the middle of the pronouns! You might think that all that this disease does is to leave you sterile, but you're wrong. That damned disease is deadly!"
"Don't take it to heart, Scott. It might kill you."
"No. Letting it out is not going to kill me. What's going to kill me is to catch this disease knowing that my partner has it, just because I'm uncontrollably horny!"
She smiled again and said, "If you're uncontrollably horny, go for it. Risk it," and kissed him again.
"Risk what, my very life?" he said and pushed her away. "No, baby, not in your wildest dreams. I want to get married, have a family, and be the second Scott Spears, literally. I'm not going to let my dreams wash away before me just because I yearn for a piece of ass."
"If that's the way that you feel then," she said and got up and threw her pillow at him, "go to hell." She felt humiliated. No guy had ever rejected her and she would make him pay for hurting her pride so horribly. But would she reach him?
"Don't go to hell," replied Athena, Jerry's step sister as she walked in, "before giving me a piece of your ass."
Any other guy would be thrilled to have two girls jumping his bones, one after the other, but Scott was horrified. "Please tell me that I'm dreaming."
"I'm your dream girl, baby," replied Athena. She'd had way too much to drink and she'd get one last fling before starting to dedicate eight hours to schoolwork on a daily basis all over again.
"Well," said Scott, smiling naughtily. "If that's the way you feel then come on over!" He didn't ask her if she had any STD's because it was obvious that she couldn't have caught one. Her skin told him very clearly and emphatically that she hadn't had sex in a long, long time, and just like he was, she was starved for it. She had her reasons, but her abstinence period had just reached the end.
Outraged and uncontrollably angry, gasping, Stacie asked her, "Wh