Mistress of the Game

"I can fix you some supper if you like. There's leftover beef in the pantry. I could whip you up some Stroganoff."

"No. Thank you."

Peter drained his glass and immediately poured himself another.

"Go home, Mrs. Carter. I'll see you in the morning."

The words were polite, but the tone was liquid steel. The housekeeper hesitated.

She thought about Lexi and poor Master Robert. Should she leave them here, alone, with their drunken father? Probably not. But if she forced the issue and demanded to stay, she might lose her position. Where would that leave her own kids? With Mike out of work, her salary was all they had.

She reached a decision.

"Very good, sir. As long as you're sure."

The children would be all right. 'Course they would. She was blowing the whole thing out of proportion. Mike would get his precious dinner on time, and all would be right with the world.

Far be it for that lazy bastard to learn how to turn on a microwave.

Robbie sat up in bed, trying to focus.

"I know you want it. You've been staring at me all evening. What are you waiting for?"

Maureen Swanson, naked from the waist up, crawled across the bedspread toward him. Her repellent, swollen udders swung beneath her like bloated bagpipes. When she peeled off her panties to reveal a neatly trimmed rust-red bush, a pungent whiff of rotting fish assaulted Robbie's nostrils. He felt the bile rise in his throat.

What am I waiting for? I'm waiting for Scotty to fix the teleporter and beam me back to the Enterprise, that's what I'm waiting for.

Unbidden, an image of William Shatner in a tight green shirt and spray-on pants popped into Robbie's head. He smiled. Then Maureen came closer and the smile died on his lips.

"It's okay," she whispered huskily. "Everyone gets nervous their first time. You just relax and let Mama take care of you. Everything's gonna be sweet."

Oh God, no!

Even in his coke-fueled haze, Robbie could see the filth under Maureen's fingernails as she slipped her hand beneath the waistband of his Calvin Klein briefs.

"What the hell?"

Maureen glowered at him accusingly. In the palm of her hand she cradled his limp penis, like a useless lump of Silly Putty.

"Are you queer or something? You're not even hard."

"Of course I'm not queer." Robbie found his voice at last. "I...I just...I think I took a bad pill, you know? I don't feel so good."

Talk about an understatement. The whole evening had been a nightmare, a fitting end to one of the worst days of his life. Maureen's so-called friend turned out to be a small-time drug dealer and wannabe mafioso called Gianni Sperotto, a rat-faced Italian kid with an acne-scarred face, a nose that streamed like a faucet, and breath so putrid you could practically see it. Gianni's "apartment" was the top floor of a condemned warehouse. In a year or two, no doubt, some hotshot real-estate whiz would have developed the place into a chrome-walled bachelor pad and sold it for Park Avenue prices. Not even a shit hole like Yonkers had been immune from the development fever that had swept America in the past decade. Overnight, it seemed, an entire generation had become millionaires by the simple expedient of knocking out a few walls and rechristening crumbling industrial relics as "loft-style penthouses."

But not Gianni Sperotto. Gianni Sperotto was too busy shoveling coke up his nose to see the fortune right under it. His "party" consisted of a bunch of half-dead hookers and junkies shooting up on one of the scores of fetid mattresses littering the floor. The bed where Maureen had dragged Robbie was Gianni's own sleeping area, cordoned off from the rest of the room by a cardboard screen, over which their host had thrown a pair of psychedelic velour curtains, a lone shot of color in the otherwise bleak and desperate squat.

There was no music, no dancing, no other even vaguely attractive male to distract Maureen from her prey. Robbie figured his only hope was to get her so looped that she forgot about him. It was a great plan, apart from one tiny snag. In order to get Maureen high, he'd had to get high himself. Robbie got hazy after one strong joint. Maureen Swanson, by contrast, appeared to have the constitution of an ox. No, make that a team of oxen. The girl popped X like they were M&M's and vacuumed up the coke like a pig rooting for truffles. The drugs had done nothing at all to dampen her ardor.

"A bad pill, huh? We'll see about that. Lay back and close your eyes."

Too disorientated to resist, Robbie did as she asked. The next thing he felt was Maureen's warm, wet tongue between his legs. Apparently, she saw his flaccid state as some sort of challenge.

If only I could rise to it!

When the curtain was yanked aside and the men burst in, Robbie's first emotion was pure relief.

His second was panic.

"Police!" Robbie felt a rough, male hand on his arm. "Party's over, kids. Get up, stand against that wall, and put your hands on your heads. Now!"

Robbie's mind was racing. Years of Sunday nights religiously spent watching T.J. Hooker on TV told him that this must be a drug bust. His pants were in a heap at the foot of the bed, with three ecstasy pills tucked into the back pocket - Gianni Sperotto's version of a party favor.

Bright side: I'm a minor. The worst they can give me is juvenile detention.

Not-so-bright side: They can give me juvenile detention!

For all his bravado in his dad's office, Robbie Templeton was terrified of the thought of prison. To him it seemed far worse than suicide. Death meant peace. It meant being with his mother. But prison, even juvie, for a pretty boy like him? They'd eat him alive. And that was before they found out he was a Blackwell and one of the richest kids in the country.

Spread-eagled half naked against the wall, he tried to concentrate. It wasn't easy with Maureen Swanson screaming and cursing next to him like a banshee.

"You assholes lay one finger on me, and I swear to God my dad will personally slice off your balls!"

The police officer laughed. "I'd advise you not to threaten us, sweetheart."

"Great ass," added his partner. "How about you spread those legs a little wider?"

Robbie racked his brains. Did he have any ID in his jeans? Anything they could use to prove who he was? Man, it was hard to think when you were high.

Without warning, Maureen Swanson spun around and smashed her fist into the police officer's face. The cheap cocktail ring she was wearing sliced into his eyeball like a knife through butter.

"Jesus Christ, you little bitch! You blinded me!"

In the pandemonium that followed, Robbie seized his chance. Making a run for the open window, he dived through it headfirst.

A blast of cold night air hit his lower body. That's when he remembered that he was naked from the waist down. When he opened his eyes, he remembered something else:

Gianni Sperotto's bedroom was on the sixth floor.

The fall seemed to take forever. Time stretched out in serene slow motion. Robbie knew he was going to die. The thought made him smile. He'd imagined this moment countless times, wondered if he would feel fear when the time came. But now that it was actually happening, he felt suffused with a deep, rich contentment. Almost joy.

The ground rose slowly to greet him, green and gray in the moonlight.

Then everything went black.

"Dude?"

"Hey, dude? Can you hear me?"

Robbie was by a river, lying in the long grass. He was in South Africa, in the wilderness near Burgersdorp, the little Transvaal town where his mom used to take him as a small child. Once known as Klipdrift, this was the place where Jamie McGregor had made his fortune. The birthplace of Kruger-Brent, the spot where it all began. The wind was blowing softly through the acacia trees. Above him, Robbie could see his mother's face, the loveliest sight in the world. Her lips were moving. She was trying to talk to him. But her voice sounded strange. Unfamiliar.

"You are one lucky son of a bitch, man. You coulda killed yo'self."

His mother's face was fading.

Mom! Come back!

But it was too late. Alex was gone, her loving gaze replaced by the curious stares of three black strangers, kids not much older than Robbie.

He was lying on his back, sprawled across some rhododendron bushes. Their springy branches must have broken his fall. When he tried to move, the pain in his left leg was agonizing. With some help he found he was able to stand.

"You must be seriously high, bro." The oldest boy shook his head admiringly. "What'd you think, you was Superman or somethin'?"

His friends laughed loudly.

"You do realize you're buck naked? Or maybe I'm Superman? Maybe I got some of that Kryptonite shit, X-ray vision goin' on."

More laughter.

"P-please," Robbie stammered. "Help me. The cops...they'll be down here any second. One of you give me your pants."

The boys looked at one another.

"Say what? We ain't giving you our goddamn pants."

Robbie thought for a moment, then started pulling at the little finger of his left hand.

"Here. Take this." He pressed a solid-gold signet ring into the oldest boy's hand. It had once belonged to Robbie's great-great-grandfather, Jamie McGregor, and it bore the symbol of two fighting rams: Kruger-Brent's crest. "It's gold. It's worth five hundred bucks at least."

The boy looked at the ring.

"Jackson, give Clark Kent here your pants."