Chapter 10                 Aspen

The airport clock showed 4:00 PM on the baggage area clock. It had been eight painful hours from Pearson to Sardy Field counting waiting for connections in Cincinnati and Denver. My knees were stiff as I made my way outside. I had worried all day wondering about her danger and savoring the pleasure of seeing her again. As I stepped into the waiting area she ran to me like a schoolgirl bowling me over with her embrace and a thousand watt smile. She even looked like a schoolgirl in her bright blue ski jacket with her long blonde hair in a ponytail under a blue knit cap.

            “Hilti,  you’re finally here. I can’t believe it.” She kissed me and squeezed until I hurt.    

            “C’mon, meet my mom.  She’s in the car.” Her green eyes sparkled with happiness. I hadn’t expect to meet her mother and felt a slight panic.

            With no baggage to pick up  we went directly to the parking lot. I took a deep breath of fresh cold air and looked around.  The sun, still high, turned the ski hill that soared over the town into a glistening white river of snow.

            “Don’t rush until you get used to the thin air,” she said. “It usually takes a day or so.”

            The engine was running when we found their blue Malibu. Tracy’s mom waited by the open trunk. She looked a lot like Tracy, same blonde hair, slim figure and green eyes. Those green eyes appraised me coolly.

            “Mom, this is Hilton. Hilton, this is Mary Jo, my mom.” She watched her mothers face for a frown or other signal of displeasure but saw none.

            “I’m pleased to meet you, Mrs. Barrett.” I wasn’t sure how I should address her.

            “Just call me Mary Jo. Tracy has told me a lot about you.”

            “Only the good things, I hope.”

            “Mom’s jealous that I have a beautiful man like you.”

            Mary Jo snorted and we got into the car for the short drive to West Bleeker Street and Mary Jo’s condo. I tried to make small talk to warm things up. “Aspen’s a beautiful town. The houses are so pretty.”

            “Prices are too high,” commented Mary Jo crustily. “A teacher is lucky to own a place around here.”

            “Oh, mother, you have a beautiful home and it’s handy to downtown. Believe me, it’s much better than Burbank.” She turned to me. “Mom is loaning us her car to go to Snowmass Village to ski. I’ve booked a room for us there. I don’t want my mother stealing you from me.”

            Mary Jo glanced at us together in the back seat. I know she wondered what her daughter saw me, an older man. Mary Jo was close to my age. She had the same round face as her daughter with a few lines around her eyes and generous lips. It struck me that if the genes held true Tracy would look just as good twenty years from now. I wondered what I would look like by then.

            Her  condo included a large living room, three bedrooms and a modern kitchen looking toward the mountain. We hung our coats while Mary Jo filled the kettle. “Would you like coffee or tea, Hilton? Tracy always liked tea in the afternoon but she hasn’t been home much in the last two years.” She glanced at her daughter with a look of sad love.

            As the sun went down we got to know each other. Tracy even told her mother how we met in Aruba and immediately fell in love. I looked at the floor but felt better when she didn’t describe all the things we did together.

            “How does being in love affect your movie career?” Mary Jo asked.

            “It’s awful. We don’t see each other enough but maybe he’ll take me home with him this time.”  She smiled wistfully at me.

            I was not expecting to take her back with me and became uncomfortable with the conversation. Mary Jo made more comments about her daughter not visiting home often enough. She was worried about Tracy and I didn’t know what to say.

            “Let’s go out for dinner, my treat”, I suggested. They agreed and we had a happy time together in a quaint Alpine restaurant.

            I was surprised when Mary Jo put my bag in the spare room and explained that Tracy’s room only had a single bed. Tracy frowned. I felt better. Mary Jo was very conservative and didn’t want her daughter in bed with me while in her own home. I wished Tracy had reserved a hotel for tonight.

I had made decision to come here after Tracy’s urgent late night call. I had to know what danger she was in and what I could do to help her. She had called again to say she was in Aspen waiting for me. She also said the skiing was great and that we would have a wonderful time together. That didn’t sound like someone in danger and so far, since I arrived, she had not said anything about it and I decided to wait and let her bring it up.

Before I left home I learned that  Sylvia’s doctors had decided that I would be the bone marrow donor even though Carol was a good match. Sylvia had been admitted to the hospital and begun the treatment to destroy her diseased bone marrow before my healthy bone marrow could be implanted. They said it would be an allogenic bone marrow transplant and the chances of success were in the range of fifty to seventy percent. I had a week while they continued the preparatory treatment before they needed me, enough time to visit Tracy.

            Karen was my next problem. I couldn’t tell her where I was going. Coincidentally, I had  received a call from a major customer requesting a meeting in Detroit so  I told Karen that I was going to Detroit even though Jack Phillips was to handle the matter. She  knew my cell phone number and agreed to call me if there were any changes in Sylvia’s condition.

As I lay in the spare room bed sensing Tracy nearby I tried to stay awake hoping she might come to me. The fresh air resolved the problem because before I knew it the smell of fresh coffee woke me.

 She poked her head in the door. “Get up sleepy head, its morning. Mom has already gone to work.” She disappeared before I could pull her into the bed.

            Tracy was in the kitchen cooking a breakfast of ham, eggs, and pancakes with home fried potatoes including toast and coffee. She stood in front of the stove when I snuggled against her back with my hands on her breasts and kissed her ears and neck. “Good morning, you sexy woman, it’s been too long.”

            “Get away, lecher, I have to finish this breakfast.” She turned around and kissed me and then booted me away with a quick bum bunt. “Oh, ho, what was that I felt against my butt?”

            “You’ll find out if I can get you away from that stove.”

            “Sit down and eat.”

We didn’t leave the condo until late in the morning. She wrote a note to Mary Jo and I added a personal thank you for her hospitality. Snowmass Village is a short distance up route 28 and we arrived just in time to check into our room and arrange for an afternoon on the hills. I hadn’t skied in twenty years and was very nervous so she took me to the Bunny Hill. After a couple of hours practice I felt more confidence but my legs were tired. I think the thin air had an effect but I hadn’t been keeping fit since before Christmas. Tracy, like many people from Aspen, was an excellent skier. She wasn’t the least bit tired, probably because she had been an all round athlete in college.

I convinced her that the chalet beckoned with a well-deserved drink by the huge fireplace. That was where I first saw Susanne. She was with a small group of people standing near the fire laughing. A tight fitting orange tracksuit with white trim delineated the best body in the room. Rich black hair flowed around a beautiful almost oriental face with flashing dark eyes. She saw us immediately and embraced Tracy in the most sensual hug I had ever seen.

            “Susanne, this is Hilton. Hiltie, Susanne. The two most important people in my life.”   

My tongue stuck and then I muttered something like “Hi, Susanne. You’re Tracy’s friend?”  It was a statement of the obvious but I was in awe of her.             Each took one of my hands and led me to a corner table. A waiter came and somehow I ordered drinks. The girls were talking rapidly and laughing, the sound of their voices like the splashing of a fast flowing stream over pebbles.

            “Susanne came with me from LA. We’re escaping from the place where we work. She has a room in the same hotel as us.”

            “You work together in LA?” It was a silly question but I hadn’t collected my wits yet. Sharing two such beautiful women, one dark haired and one so fair was not my usual fate. The escape was the first hint of the danger Tracy had mentioned on the phone. I wanted to pursue it but before I said anything Susanne looked questioningly at Tracy who shook her head slightly. “Susanne knows all about you Hilton and we wanted to surprise you.”

            “I am surprised. I am more than surprised. How I could be in the company of two of the worlds most beautiful women, I just don’t know.”

            “He’s smooth,” said Susanne with a wink. “I can see how he got to you in Aruba.”

            Actually, I think she got me, but whatever way it went was just fine. We were all a little drunk when we went back to our rooms to change for dinner. While I was in the shower Tracy yelled that she had to get something from Susanne and I heard the door slam. I dressed and watched the TV. When she got back, she looked flushed and happy. I didn’t think anything about it but later learned what made her look that way.

            “We’re going to meet downstairs in fifteen minutes,” she called rushing into the bathroom to change.

After dinner we found a club featuring cool jazz. They seemed nervous at first looking around the room before they relaxed and we went to find a table. Susanne attracted several unattached men and she soon joined them, leaving us free to dance and then retire.

We were in the shower when I asked Tracy about Susanne and LA. “What is this about being in danger? Your mom said you are in the movies. Is that dangerous?” I hoped she might open up.

            She moved away nervously. “I can’t say just now, dear. Susanne and I work in the same movie studio. We’re just extras hoping to make it big but some people there don’t like us.” She put her arms around me. I lost my train of thought.

“Come here, lady. I’ve got something you can make big.”

            Tracy knew more ways to make love than I could have imagined possible. She might have written the Kama Sutra and tonight we practiced new techniques including one she called the Lingam Massage. I had never heard of a lingam but when she massaged mine it was like being in heaven with sweet honey dripping into my senses. From time to time she let me cool, and then slowly resumed her magic.

            I also learned that ‘eating the crow’ is a style usually referred to as sixty-nine and she made me feel  incredibly good. Again, she held me on the brink and we drifted in pleasure for what seemed hours. She rolled away sometime after I had experienced the greatest climax of my life. I fell into a wonderful sleep.

            Three days passed quickly in an orgy of skiing, dining and fucking.  After diner on the third night I shared the most unusual sensual event a man can hope to experience. I was tired, skiing had begun to wear on my old body and one glass of wine too many made me long for the bed. While she was washing I slipped out of my clothes and flopped onto the spare bed. The room had two queen-sized beds. We used the one on the left near the door and I must have dozed off on the other because I didn’t hear her come from the bathroom and completely missed Susanne knock. I was startled and became aware of an intense energy field radiating from the other bed where Tracy and Susanne lay embraced. It was like being near a huge electric generator whose pulses of magnetic force reached out and permeated everything around it.

            In the darkness they appeared as one creature, not two beautiful women. A faint purple aura surrounded them, radiating spikes of darker hue, almost blue, that reached toward me. I felt their tug and was drawn to them. A supernatural energy surged through my body when I joined and three became one. Slowly our corporeal form floated like a comet into the dark universe. I was them and they were me all driven by a glorious sense of freedom soaring ever higher until nothing of the samsara world remained. In huge shudders I felt seed being given and accepted and it seemed as if two small stars joined us before it ended in gentle sleep. If it was a dream the memory has stayed with me. That night we became one person no matter where our separate selves would go.      

 “Wake up, sleepy head.” Tracy was gazing into my face. Her smile radiated happiness and she leaned to kiss me. “Susanne has gone to dress. We’ll meet her for lunch.”

            “What time is it?”  I was startled and didn’t want to wake from my dream.

            “Time you got up and had breakfast. I have something important to ask you, my darling.” Her smile became serious and I saw fear in her eyes for the first time this week,

            “Oh, what might that be?”

            “Will you take us to Toronto? Susanne and I cannot go back to LA. We’ve got to get away and can’t stay here. They will soon find us.”

            “Who are they? You said you were in danger. What kind of danger?” The truth would come out now, I believed.

            “I can’t say but it’s true. We must get away. We love you and know you can help. It’s important, my darling.”

            I had to say yes. Something deep inside knew it had to be and I answered that we would leave right away if she wished.

            “Are you going to tell the studio in LA that you are leaving?” It was a naïve question as it turned out.

            “Susanne will call them. I’ll call my mom so she won’t be worried.”

Two telephone calls put the plan in the dumpster. The first was for Tracy.

            “Hi mom, I was just going to call you,” she answered and then she went pale. “When did they do it? What did they say?” She hung up and looked at me as her face fell. “I can’t go with you. I must go back to the studio.”

            “What’s happened?” She was crying.

            “You remember Jerry, from Aruba.”

I nodded yes. I didn’t like that prick.

He and another guy have Susanne. They told my mother to tell me to get back to work before something bad happens. I have to go. I know they’ll hurt her”

            “What do you mean hurt her?” I was about to say we’d go and get Susanne from them when my cell phone rang. It was Karen.

            “Where are you, Hilton? They need you at the hospital right away. Sylvia is ready for the transplant and she can’t wait any longer.”

            We didn’t talk long. I was on my way home.

Tracy sobbed. “It’s too late for Susanne.” We had to hurry to catch the next flight to LA.

            We left the car in the airport. She would call Mary Jo and explain later. There was only time for a kiss and a hug. I could feel the fear in her trembling body and told her that she must call me. I promised to come to LA as soon as the transplant was done. She begged me not to come but knew I would. As she went through the departure gate I had a premonition that happiness was something we would not again share.

Chapter 11

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