Man Detox: A Novel Read online

  If Lauren was crying before, she was now weeping uncontrollably. In an odd sort of way, Tom wondered why she doesn’t ever run out of tears. She was too emotional. Sure, she was selfish, but he also found her irresistible for those finite windows of time. It was as if her helplessness and desperation wiped away the memories of her selfishness and he was attracted to her all over again. As he computed the upside potential of this trip and made sense of what Lauren was saying, he came to the inevitable conclusion that she may be right.

  It was true that Irene had been temperamental for the whole weekend. When he put his heart out there confessing something he hadn’t done before, she trampled on his weakness and ran away to only later hook up with Jared. Now, she wandered off causing unnecessary alarm and left without even saying goodbye. This line of reasoning left him feeling foolish for looking elsewhere when there was a beautiful girl with the sort of petite breasts and ass he loved in a woman.

  From where he was sitting, he could see the dark brown and pointy nipples that were slightly too big for her breasts. Lauren’s face had reddened from all the crying. As she gasped for air, opening and closing her mouth, he saw for the first time throughout the weekend why he loved this girl and why he wanted to marry her.

  There had never been a girl in his life who fucked and sucked him as well as she did. For every other girl, it was always one or the other. With Lauren, every aspect of her body was tight and small, exactly to his liking. Add to that her never-ending infatuation and jealousy and adoration and insecurity, it had made for the most intense orgasms he had ever had as long as he was willing to overlook all the negatives.

  Without wasting any more time, he leaped to the bed and began what would become the beginning of an intense and guilt-free honeymoon, which would silence all of Lauren’s tears and anxiety. They didn’t leave the room the next day and would keep going at it to the exclusion of the rest of the world.

  ∫---∫

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “Hang tight; we’ll be there soon,” Ethan said, caressing Irene’s hands.

  He had come back from talking on the phone. The pain medication had knocked Irene out the whole time he was away from her side. Her body ached despite. Most of the splinters lodged in her arms and legs had been taken out, but the sense of insecurity remained.

  It was as if the one unwelcome invasion had been turned into a thousand little cuts she couldn’t save herself from, a metaphor for her defenselessness. Despite the resolve for purity, the commitment to detoxing from all the benefits and privileges she didn’t know firsthand, she was reminded of a conversation she had with her mother.

  “Isn’t that a contradiction?” Her mother had asked her when Irene decided on her 18th birthday she wanted nothing to do with men. It came at the end of those terrible months of heartache first semester of freshman year.

  “I don’t know. Isn’t detox giving up something? Like, having nothing to do with it?”

  “Yes, it is. But you also want to live your life, sweetheart. This time will pass. You won’t be brokenhearted forever. That is what happens in life. You will love. You will lose love. You will be enriched by it all. You will be happy for knowing what love is and what it means to lose it. Don’t be too hard on yourself. Life will go on. There will come other boys. Because of this heartache, you will know when the special one comes into your life.”

  “Then, I don’t want to be in pain for no reason. This is too much, mummy. To make it all worse, he is dating my own roommate. He acts as if he doesn’t see me, pretends like I don’t exist at all.”

  “Boys do that all the time. It’s their way of asserting their superiority and control over you. But that is the power you have control over. It’s up to you to decide whether to give him that control or not. It won’t do anything if you don’t let it. It starts and ends with you. You will love again, I promise. When someone worthy of that love comes along… I’m so proud of you, sweetheart!”

  Irene still remembered that conversation with her mother, sitting on her bed, in the tiny dorm room on campus. She had come a long way since then. What seemed like an eternity had passed, and she would soon see the unworthiness of guys in her circle for her love. The childish ways and recklessness and silliness had lost their charm.

  Buried in her books, she had gone through college fortifying her defenses stronger by the year all through nursing school and the hospital floor. Now she sat crumbled in the small cabin of the plane, feeling the same confinement of her dorm room, but seated next to a promise delivered. Maybe her mother was right, maybe someone deserving of her love has finally arrived in her life…

  “I’m fine. Don’t worry too much about me,” she said to Ethan, for once proud of herself for having endured the test. Out of the darkness of the night has come the dawn of a new day. The sun was rising on the horizon. Could the moment be any more magical?

  “We are going to the hospital directly,” he said.

  Ethan didn’t know how to broach the topic. He was confident Roger and his men had raped her. That was what happened to all women from everything he heard about men living outside the bounds of the law. He had seen how ruthless men can get even when they knew about the restraint the law puts on them.

  “How are you feeling?” He put his hand on her forehead, she didn’t have a fever at least, he thought.

  The conversation with Rob hadn’t relieved him of worry. It was still not clear how the men found out about him so quickly to take that kind of decisive action. Although he had been pushed to consider all possibilities, including potential contribution Irene might have had to the situation, he had ignored all of Rob’s warnings outright.

  “Look, Ethan, I’m giving you my professional advice here. These guys aren’t going to sit back and watch. One, I find it hard to believe they got wind of your arrival and acted as quickly as they did without some prior knowledge. This was highly mechanized for it to be an opportunistic attack. Two, this won’t be the last time we hear of these guys. Given how the situation unfolded, they are bound to seek retaliation. So, you gotta be careful to not drag them to your front door. Are you listening?” Rob had said to him, filled with pride for the flawlessness of how his team executed the rescue operation.

  He was sure word will soon travel through back channels bringing in lots of new clients. He could imagine his business doubling in no time. There was no better advertisement than proven demonstration of capability. Word of mouth was all that was needed.

  “I know. I hear everything you are saying, Rob. But I can’t imagine she had a hand in this,” Ethan had countered looking back at her from the distant. She was staring at him with eyes that bespoke of tenderness and surrender. What he saw in her was love. She was shaken, understandably so.

  “We can’t be sure at this moment, that’s all I’m saying. What do you know about her anyway? Look, I have looked into her background. I agree with you there is nothing to indicate she had connections south of the border. Still, we can’t rule out she wasn’t turned on the way there or in the day she spent before you arrived.”

  “It’s madness, Rob. I appreciate your concern. We will be careful. I have to go with my guts.”

  “Alright. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. As a precaution, limit her access to electronic communication.”

  “I think you are being paranoid for no reason. I can’t thank you enough for taking care of this situation. It’s the worst close call of my entire life. I have you to thank for my life,” Ethan said.

  “Doing my job, boss. You pay me to do this, remember?”

  “Not enough, my friend. Thank you, I will keep in touch.”

  Colonel Rob Ratner put down the phone relieved this operation had come to an end. He hadn’t slept in days. It was the worst nightmare. It was meant to be a minor scare, daring sure, but barely enough to increase the threat level among his clients. Roger had given him his word nothing bad would happen to his client. It was to be a win-win situation. Rob would get his reputation and Roger hi
s money. And everything had gone terribly wrong.

  The entire time the rescue operation was proceeding, Rob couldn’t be sure whether it was Roger and his team that did the kidnapping. Could the word have leaked to another group? Could Roger have turned on him? If he did, that wasn’t going to be the first he would be betrayed. He had to scramble to make sure his best rescue team was on the ground in case something went wrong. The lesson of his military days had stayed with him. One needs to hope for the best but plan for the worst.

  His instinct had been right. The radio silence had been sweeping. The agreement with Roger had been Ethan would be kept in electronic reach the whole time. That didn’t happen. SLR was disabled, which was a significant indication something terrible had happened. Most important, the crucial piece of evidence that indicated to him something had gone wrong, Roger had stopped contact with him.

  So, knowing there was no turning back, Rob had allowed lethal action to take place. He knew how risky that was bringing attention to the quiet operation that should have gone without a hitch. Before a major international incident came about, he needed to instill suspicion in Ethan’s mind about Irene.

  That was the only feasible link knowing only a handful of trusted people had known about Ethan’s trip. It was going to take more work to clean up after the fact. It will likely cost him much, but the risk had been worth it as long as he managed to keep Ethan in the dark about what happened exactly, Rob concluded, satisfied with the overall outcome.

  Ethan, on the other hand, had assumed it had been a freak accident. Sure, it went against his belief nothing is ever an accident, but that was the only explanation he could come up with. Only a handful of his team knew about his travel plans, and he couldn’t bring himself to believe Irene went out of her way to harm him.

  All he needed to do was have one look at her. He could tell if someone tries to hide something from him. Guilt is the least likely of human emotions to be suppressed easily unless one is dealing with a psychopath. Everything he had known about Irene didn’t give him any cause for concern. Instead, he was filled with a deep desire to protect her and make up for the turmoil he made her go through.

  “That was the craziest thing I have ever seen,” she said to him as he settled next to her for the remaining part of their trip.

  “I thought it was perfectly alright. Kidnappings and gun battles. Psshhh! You should see how my typical day is like…” He smiled as he caressed her shoulders in his hand.

  If there was one thing Ethan knew about life, it was that there was nothing like live action. The moment before launching a product, for example. The adrenaline rush and anxiety and apprehension. The experience in that jungle was a whole different level of drama.

  Ethan had shot a few rounds at gun ranges before. But to hear the nonstop rounds had left him terrified for life. He had been in verbal fights before. But to be beaten as if there was no tomorrow had left him with an indelible impression of what pain truly was. To think that he had come out alive was nothing short of miraculous, and he didn’t believe in miracles.

  His logical brain had always believed in consequences. All outcomes are the results of intentions. Good or bad, conscious or unconscious, nothing happens in life without intention. And to think that he might have gone through this experience with a potential reward of someone to love alongside him was more than he knew how to appreciate.

  “Everything about your world seems to be about chaos. First, you get me almost killed in a car accident. Then this craziness that defies imagination. I, for one, am not looking forward to seeing what comes next. Can anything top this?”

  “You mean the fact that we were accidentally brought together and made to experience the biggest test of survival?”

  “This wasn’t a test, Ethan! We could have died in the jungle. Those men were insane.”

  “You know what, though? We didn’t die. We are here, together. If there was ever a reason to believe in signs and destiny, this is one, wouldn’t you say?”

  “I can’t say I like your version of destiny, Ethan. I mean, people talk about meeting someone in some kind of idyllic situation, full of charm and beauty. Not one chaos after another coming to the edge of survival…”

  “I am a strong proponent of resilience and grit. This experience might have broken many. But it didn’t break you. You are the opposite of fragile. You are anti-fragile. Like me…”

  “All I want now is to be somewhere peaceful… I don’t know if the screams and chaos will ever stop ringing in my ears. I’m scared to fall asleep.”

  “I’m terribly sorry. I’ll make it up to you, I promise. Will you give me a chance?”

  “Like I have a choice. You have a way of forcing a decision on me… in a good and surprising way…”

  “That’s what I like to hear,” he said to her, kissing her lips softly for the very first time.

  ∫---∫

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Upon arrival at the airport, Ethan and Irene were whisked by the ambulance waiting on the tarmac to the emergency room at UCSF. Rob was on hand to welcome them.

  “I’ve had my men sweep through your residence. Security is beefed up, and I want these two guys here to be with you at all times.” Rob said.

  As far as he was concerned, everything about his survival and business depended on how he handled the aftermath of the chaos that he had unleashed. As soon as he finished talking to Ethan on the plane, he had called his Mexican contact berating them for not keeping their word. The line he was pushing, which seemed to achieve some traction was Roger had gone rogue and put everything at risk.

  “I know what you are saying. That fucker baboso messed up everything. My men didn’t do nothing,” the guy on the other side of the call had assured him.

  “Do you know how fucked up this was? I can’t do business with a whole bunch of incompetent jerks anymore.”

  “Hey! Hey! Slow down. Don’t say that Coronel. We can work together. This was some shit. I lost my men too. Let’s cool down, ok? But I need something for now. You know what I mean. I need something to keep this quiet.”

  If pushing a little money was all that was going to cost him, Rob could breathe a sigh of relief. A pittance compared to the upside staring him in the face. The news of the rescue mission was already leaked to back channels triggering increased business interest.

  Now all he needed to do is show the level of alarm the situation demanded knowing fully well there was no need for it. He needed to play the security theater to make sure Ethan remained scared and in need of his services.

  “Thank you, Rob, I appreciate this. I owe you my life, buddy,” Ethan said to Rob before dispatching him from the hospital. “I got this. I want to keep this under wraps.”

  “You got it, boss. I’ve instructed my men to be discrete. It is my job to keep you safe.” Rob said before he left, fully confident the situation was now in complete control.

  He would soon leak about the adventures of his men. Those who needed to know would find out about it. He will make sure he gives generous credit to his client.

  “Doctor, can I ask you a question?” Ethan asked the emergency doctor, who attended to their wounds.

  “Sure, what have you got in mind? By the way, I don’t feel comfortable about not reporting this to the police.” Answered the young doctor, tall and self-effacing. She had suspected the injuries came about because of a fight. She had suspected domestic violence when treating Irene first to only discover Ethan had more bruises. It didn’t make sense to think the woman would do that kind of damage to the man.

  “I know you gotta do the right thing. But I, we, would rather not press charges. This was some kind of misunderstanding, doctor. I want to ask you a question, though…” Ethan said as he led the doctor away from the bedside.

  Irene had nodded to show her agreement about not pressing charges. She knew as a nurse what sort of escalation would ensue if they let on their secret. What happened in the jungle was to be kept between them. No one nee
ded to know about the ordeal they went through.

  As soon as they were far enough away from the bed, Ethan whispered to the doctor, “Could you check if… I don’t know how to say this… I am worried my friend might have been attacked… You know what I mean?”

  “Do you mean she might have been raped?”

  “I couldn’t say… But could you please check?”

  The doctor shook her head. As she listened to Ethan talk, given the new information relayed to her, she was ready to believe this was a crime that needed to be reported. She didn’t want to confront Ethan outright and needed to talk to Irene separately.

  “Can you wait outside? I will check on her and update you shortly,” the doctor said as she led him to the outside waiting area.

  When she got back to Irene’s bedside, she was trying to think through the questions she might ask to get to the truth. It still didn’t make sense that the man would look more bruised than the woman. Could there be a hidden truth? It sure wouldn’t be the first time. It was the life of an emergency room physician to come in contact with all the ills and misadventures of humanity. That was what made the job interesting.

  “I want you to know you are safe here,” the doctor started, having decided how to broach the topic.

  “Thank you. I feel good. I think these wounds are superficial,” Irene said, sitting up on the bed. “I am a nurse, by the way.”

  The doctor was relieved to hear. This was going to be easier to talk about, she thought.

  “I spoke to your friend. He said something might have happened to you. You know the drill, right? I need to ask you some questions if there is suspicion of domestic violence.”

  “Oh! This isn’t domestic violence. He didn’t do anything to me. He’s a good friend.”