Chapter 2
Dave Crenshaw was not really old. As he sat by the window watching the secretaries go back into the office building, he had to admit that, except for his balding hair, he was in far better shape than most men of thirty-eight.
He got up and looked himself over in the mirror. The handsome, clean-shaven features and the longish brown hair-carefully barbered and combed to hide the bald spot-combined with his deep tan to give him a young, prosperous image.
"Yeah, maybe you look good enough to attract a young fox like that," Dave grinned at himself in the mirror. "But are you rich enough to afford the alimony and the settlement when Paula finds out?"
One of the busiest young contractors in the city, Dave still shuddered to think about how disastrous a property split with Paula would be if he ever did make a play for another woman and got caught. No more summer house at the lake. No more boats, cars, planes, and other adult toys.
Besides, Dave told himself, he really did love Paula. True, she could be a bitch at times. True, she didn't like to swallow his cum. True, she was losing her figure. But he still cared for her as much as he had the day they had been married.
She was his second wife. Connie and their two sons had all died in a car wreck four years ago-a time so painful in Dave's memory that he still didn't like to recall it.
Paula had been the first girl Dave had dated after the tragedy, and that was what was tearing at his insides now, whenever the redhead or someone like her passed by, He just hadn't ever given himself the chance to be single!
He had married Connie right out of high school, worked his way through two years of college as a carpenter, finally becoming an assistant to an old, established contractor. All his first marriage had been was kids and work, and more work.
The Sexual Revolution had come, and was still going on, and Dave Crenshaw was watching it go by. Girls were practically begging for cock in the streets nowadays, and Dave, like a dummy-he told himself bitterly-had gone right out and fallen for a nice, middle-class, sexually hung up girl like Paula and married her. He had blown his one big chance to see what all of the hot young cunts parading around today were all about.
"Girls of fourteen with their tits rolling around free under tee shirts!" Dave grumbled to himself. "In the fifties girls didn't wear tee shirts, let alone go braless!"
The whole free-sex, swinging singles scene going on today had Dave panting to explore. But his fear of losing Paula, and his whole, comfortable lifestyle, held him back.
No longer! he vowed, getting up from the desk. By God, it would work. He could do it!
Hands shaking a bit from nervousness, Dave Crenshaw went into the bathroom and stopped in front of the light switch. He turned the switch, plate and all, in a clockwise direction and the whole side of the room swung open, revealing a hidden tunnel.
Dave flipped on the lights and followed the secret passageway downward, locking the switch-entrance knob into place behind him so that it would admit no one else. The tunnel ended abruptly at a triple-insulated door.
Stepping into his proudest, most bizarre room building accomplishment, Dave examined the soundproof, heavily padded, impregnable chamber carefully. He checked the camera equipment hidden in the crawl-space room he had created in the old house by lowering the secret chamber's ceiling to a normal eight foot height, and found his video-recorder was working perfectly. Every movement in the room-a virtual mattress with three walls which were padded every bit as thickly as the spongy floor-would be clearly visible through the one-way, mirrored ceiling.
"You can't hear a fucking thing in here!" Dave screamed after he had climbed back down into the room and secured the doors once more.
And you couldn't. Dave was sure of it. He had spent an extra month on the building's renovation, not telling a soul about the passageway, the room, or the extra sound insulation, lighting fixtures, and electronics gear he had installed in it. The room was absolutely secret and inaccessible.
"It's perfect," Dave told himself in a whisper, padding over to the nearly hidden rear exit. "Now, the only question is, do you have the balls to use it?"
Dave pressed the button hidden in the padding, and the rear entrance swung open. He went down the stairs to the garage he had built under the offices, carefully checking to make sure no one was inside before pressing the device that released the back wall of the broom closet. He quickly opened the broom closet door and came out into the garage area, locking the closet wall back securely into place and shutting the closet door.
The remote bell was ringing as he entered the garage, letting Dave know that the office phone was ringing. He hurried across the wide, three truck area and answered it.
"Hello."
"Hi, Dave, this is Paula. Listen, Julie had asked me to go up to the lake with her and spend a couple of days earlier this week," Paula still sounded cold, and angry. "I'm thinking about driving up this afternoon. I called Julie, and she still wants me to make the trip."
Dave listened silently, his heart pounding. Was it fate, he wondered, that this opportunity had come up, just as he was fantasizing about his secret room for the thousandth time?
"Well, okay, darling, I guess it might be best at that," Dave said in as calm a voice as he could manage.
"I'll call you tomorrow about when I'm coming back," Paula said, trying for the dramatic.
"Okay, babe, hear from you then," Dave ignored her anger completely, thinking of tonight, alone, with his room in readiness. "Have a great time."
He hung up. Looking quickly at his watch, Dave went to the paint cabinet and took out a can of the special water-soluble paint he had bought for this occasion-just in case he ever got the balls to go through with it.
In twenty minutes, Dave had transformed one of his work vans into a rundown-looking vehicle with all sorts of splotches up and down the original company paint job. You couldn't read his name on the side, you couldn't see the company phone number any more, and most importantly, there was a huge glob of mud obliterating most of the front and rear license plates.
Hurrying back upstairs, Dave went back into the tunnel and changed into a cheap-looking plaid shirt and brown pants he had bought and hidden for just this occasion. He downed a quick bracer of vodka, to kill the nervousness building up within him, and began putting on his make up When Dave descended the stairs at four-thirty that afternoon, any of his men surprising him in the garage would have detained him as a prowler. The professional quality blond wig and mustache he wore made him look like someone else entirely. Of course, Dave was sure none of his men would be coming in that afternoon. He had checked with them on the C.B. radio in the office and confirmed that they were all driving their company trucks home for the evening, to drive directly out to the job site the next morning.
Dave hit the button on his automatic garage door lifter and backed the van out quickly, pressing the button to close the door behind him as he sped off down the alley. This was the only really dangerous part of the operation, and he wanted to get it over with quickly. If one of the neighbors saw him in the beat-up truck, they might remember.
But there was no one visible as Dave ripped down the deserted alleyway. His blood was singing through his veins. Now all he had to do was wait for the redhead in front of her apartment. He had timed it a dozen times, just "for fun", to see if his plan was workable. This time it was for real!