A Slave to the Fantasy (9 page)

For some reason, the usual way he always did things
when he traded introductions with an attractive girl he wanted to
sleep with, he always felt a pressing need to say more to keep the
conversation going. He couldn't shake the feeling that silence was
deadly.

Not today. It all shifted. He asked her for more by
just simply gesturing and responding “ok”.

Then low and behold she started asking him for more
information.

“Imagine that,” he thought to himself. “She wants to
talk to me and is digging for more. A hot girl. The shoe is on the
other foot.”

It had never gone down like that before. Still, on
this morning, it felt right. It felt natural.

He didn't know why it was working but he felt without
question it was. The answer was simple: keep it going. Keep being
the one with the high standards. Keep being the one who was
challenging her in a playful fun way. Be willing to walk and
instead of doing what he always did: try to please her or find
“connection”.

“I am going to Wendys,” he announced. “You should
join me.”

Out the door he went down the terminal to the Wendys
for the $6 single small hamburger.

He expected Justene to follow and she did. This was
truly uncanny.

He teased. He shut up and drank in the uncomfortable
silence he used to dread. He was too damn tired to care. He had no
clue why he felt so powerful. Was it the succession of success he
kept having with this girl? Or was it behavior that drew her in and
created the success? And if that success didn't happen here like it
was, would it have even mattered?

He did a lot of touching on the shoulder, the arm,
the cheek. He felt no nervousness. Just enjoying this unique 1 hour
or so experience. He'd tell her to slow down, while he sped up.
Then he'd pull back. Role reversal. Serious about funny things.
Funny about serious things.

Basically it was all the things he thought he had to
do, had heard he had to do, but now he was doing them naturally
without thinking. All of this was that way.

These are things only experience can teach. He was
having it happen. But he was about to get more experience than he
had bargained for very soon.

When it was time to depart (she was heading to
Minneapolis and he was onto Chicago and home.)

“If you meet anyone more interesting than me, don't
use this,” Roberts said as he handed her a business card with an
email on it.

No good bye, just a walk off like John Wayne off in
the sunset.

…

When he got back to his house, he jumped online to
clear correspondence and there was a simple message from a sender
he had never seen before. The name and headline were in
Spanish.

The message simply read “20”.

Roberts chuckled to himself because he knew that this
was Justene, the girl from the airport. He had teased her playfully
about her age and how she was “too old” for him and he doubted she
could “keep up”. On and on it went.

She was clearly loving it. A man who wasn't giving in
right away. A man who was making her chase. A man who had power and
didn't “need” anything. She was hooked.

A couple emails later, plans were made for him to be
in her area. He made it clear he would be there on business and she
could meet him if she wanted.

She wanted. She definitely wanted. That night they
all (her friends were there too) watched a movie in a hotel room
near where she lived. (A room she actually paid for). He and
Justene made out. Often. Right there with her friends on the other
bed. She'd say “no, no” every time he grabbed for another, but she
was basically powerless.

The next night they got their own room. They kissed
more and she started sweating from her belly button and her ears,
as she tingled all over from his touch and his kisses. Her top was
off and he kissed her all over for like an hour.

She exclaimed between deep but quick breaths: “no
sex”.

“MMM. Who needs it!?” A clearly gratified and in
control Samuel Roberts countered, between gentle kisses on her
nipples, and light blowing in her ear slightly obscured by her
matted and now slightly perspiration-ladened hair.

He was still a virgin but it didn't matter. The
possibility of sex was secondary to the whole thing. The ability to
pleasure a woman and make her actually beg for him to be inside of
her. This was the prize and he was loving it. He'd felt orgasms
many times before after all. This actual experience was the
prize.

“I do. I do. Please Sam,” Justene exclaimed softly
under her breath.

He peeled her jeans down off her completely after
they'd been stuck around her knees, and began to kiss her on the
upper thighs, right where her black and white striped panties met
her pubic bone. He rubbed his hand on her cotton underwear and felt
a spongy sensation of wetness seeping through. He just kissed it
gently and she erupted again.

“Tomorrow girl. Tonight, it's my tongue,” Roberts
said now on his knees looking into her eyes. It really wasn't about
intercourse. It was about her experience.

He never forgot the lesson: it's about what she is
feeling about you. Not the reverse. If you want true loyalty with
no worries from a woman, focus on that.

He'd failed to stay focused on that with Tanya and to
sad and deadly consequences. This was the story of his relationship
with Tanya: the rules and better judgement often were cast
aside.

“I can't,” Tanya said crying uncontrollably. “He's
done nothing. He came only for me.”

“I never knew you to be so sentimental,” Professor
Blake said. “Besides he isn't who you think he is. Just follow our
plan. Do what I say. I am not saying kill anyone. I don't believe
in that.”

Tanya's skin began to crawl because she knew from her
tragic past with this man, this couldn't be true. She began to
shake violently, the direct result of a trust she no longer
believed existed.

No power. No one to turn to. Only her looks and her
sex to keep her from total devastation or worse. How could she turn
it all in her favor?

“Alright,” she agreed knowing it was fruitless to
hide her erratic and frenetic body language. “Thy will be done.
He's smart though. The American.”

Her phone went off.

“It's him,” she said. “We're going to the
movies.”

“How quaint,” Blake said disinterestedly. “Don't fall
into him. Don't. I promise you everything and I will deliver, but
you can't choose. That was our pact.”

Chapter 12--Tara

“When you are homeless. I mean really homeless with
no place to live or go that is suitable, there are a few important
things you want to have covered.

The first is have a way to eat and drink. Somehow,
some way. The second is have a way to contact a person who can help
you and who has the capability to show compassionate understanding
without judgement. Three, is make sure you go homeless in a place
with a temperate climate, especially at night,” Samuel Roberts said
to a throng of men hopelessly lost with women.

Each paid upwards of $1000 to be with him this
weekend.

He didn't know he was going to say what he just said.
It just came out. But he was determined to stop the sweat pouring
down his brow and his arm pits.

“I am sorry,” he said. “It still sticks with me.”

He had no more to say.

“Can I have 10 mintues?” he said as he began to fight
back tears.

It was his last live event before he left for
Manila.

Roberts thought back often to his nearly 3 weeks
homeless, spending most of it in skid row Los Angeles.

Transcript of pre-trial:

September 21, 2013

“So you were wanting a girlfriend Mr. Roberts?” the
lawyer bellowed.

“I have to be honest, I think I did. I think it was a
major motivator for me at the time.” Roberts said. “You won't have
to go far to see that I did a lot of things most people wouldn't do
to get better with women.”

“What do you mean “get better with women”?” the
lawyer shot back with hint of theatrical fake stupidity. “Can you
elaborate more on that? You mean manipulate them? Trick them? You
do expect a certain mis-understanding on this from normal people.
It seems like the coward's way.”

“Well people can look at it anyway they want. It's
not relevant to what I am trying to do when I take those steps,”
Samuel said leaning forward. (He was clearly agitated. You could
always tell this by his need to jump in and answer quickly and
guess the rest of the question before it happened. He was warned by
his attorney to not do this. Let him finish please.) To me there
were always guys who had their choice of the most sought after
women. The women who we men wanted back in high school or at
work.”

“I wasn't willing to let the same old excuses and
same old way of looking at things hold me back,” Roberts declared.
“As a man, it is against everything I am about. All the ways I was
wired. I believe all the ways we are all wired. A dissatisfied man
who settles for something he isn't inspired by creates a
dissatisfied woman. Divorce often ensues.”

“So you are some sort of philosophical crusader? True
to your very fringe beliefs?” the lawyer asked.

“No I am practical in that I was looking for answers.
I have been fortunate. My experiences forced me to do think things
through because thinking is all I had,” Roberts mused. “That's good
overall but sometimes bad. Especially with women. The thinker type
guys often suffer the worst fate. Action takers with a blind eye
towards failure get the girl.”

“Go on please,” the lawyer said grinning
slightly.

“Well if you know who I am. If you know what I paid
to get to the point where no one girl mattered, you'd know I
couldn't and wouldn't risk it on petty jealousies or violence
towards some guy. I wasn't in love with Tanya any more at that
point,” Roberts claimed.

“But what about the state the police found you in
when they questioned you only hours after the victim's death.
Minutes after you saw the video?” the lawyer noted. “You aren't
going to begin to tell me that you weren't in shock. Two officers
and a detective with impeccable credentials said otherwise.”

“I don't know what to say. I was in shock over the
video,” Roberts admitted. “I can't deny that. I had to bear the
burden of almost 4 whole years of chasing around a woman I never
met in person and never talked to even just on a skype feed. Then
after finally drawing closer to her. Finally making passionate love
with her and thinking she was satisfied fully and completely,
seeing her in a deeper state of ecstasy with another man. I
absolutely felt small and I felt like I was inferior. A lot of the
old insecurities came rushing back. But love Tanya deeply at that
point, I did not.”

Roberts took a long sip from his cup of water. In the
back of the courtroom the door opened and in walked a lighter
skinned Filipino woman, likely no more than 20 years of age at the
most. She was probably little more than 5 feet tall, even with
black heels. Her hair was pulled back in a bun tight to the
forehead. She had dimples on her attractive face. This and her size
tended to further give the impression of a little girl playing
“dress-up”.

She wore an all black business suit. The suit was
conservatively cut and she had on lightweight black nylons. She was
perhaps overdone with make-up making it hard for anyone past 10
feet or so to determine her real appearance or level of natural
attractiveness.

She carried with her a soft leather attache case
which was no more than the size of an 8.5 by 11 inch piece of
paper.

She made eye contact with no one apparent, and took
an immediate seat on the outer edge of the first gallery bench to
her immediate left.

After this brief interlude where the attorney
gathered his papers to resume further questioning and Roberts had a
drink, the questioning resumed.

“So you say you are a thinker. Clearly you have
thought this woman thing through with great attention,” the lawyer
stated matter of factly. “But what about this thinking. A key
element to your defense is that you have been a deep thinker when
it comes to women, you have found your truth: that you weren't
obsessed with Tanya Carasco enough to kill?”

Roberts stared straight ahead and confidently
answered: “I have been homeless and nothing gets worse than that. I
swear anybody who has been without shelter for any length of time
and is forced to rely on the social safety nets and charities. You
see life beyond what the media or societal conditioning tells you
to aspire to.”

Basically I was out there alone. Me and my dog, but
alone. Right then and throughout the entire 3 week process of these
events, you understood gratitude. You also understood that you
didn't need anything to be happy. At least not all the things we
were always led to believe would create it.

During that time, happiness was measured in simple
acts of kindness like the stranger who left me a hot cup of coffee
in a park bathroom along the coast near Los Angeles on a brutally
rainy chilly night. All this other stuff, if you pardon the slang:
“don't mean nothing.”