Tracks

  TRACKS

  Niv Kaplan

  Copyright © 2013 Niv Kaplan

  All rights reserved

  . ISBN-13: 978-1492880288

  ISBN-10: 1492880280

  In memory of David Zait (1947 – 2007)

  A man of vision and a dear friend

  CONTENTS

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS vii

  PROLOGUE 1

  Part One – SANDSTORM 15

  Part Two – REVELATION 240

  Part Three – DELIVERANCE 357

  EPILOGUE 504

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  As with "Disappearance", this novel has waited a very long time to be published as well, and I want to thank my family and friends for the love and patience which allowed me to complete it.

  PROLOGUE

  Michelle grimaced in pain.

  Her naked body was covered with sweat. The blue veins crisscrossing her breasts were extremely noticeable. Her nipples bulged dark and erect.

  She grabbed the bed frame with her hands making her knuckles white, her chest heaving rapidly up and down as the sweat drained into the base of her neck. She ground her teeth and bit her lower lip trying to keep from screaming.

  Deep low moans came from within her.

  Her swollen stomach hardened with every spasm. Her legs were spread eagled, resting high on the silvery stands, exposing her swollen vagina to all. Mucus and blood were slowly dripping out of her onto the bleached bedspread.

  They were beyond the Lamaze class theories. Both were drained of energy after seven hours of labor spasms. Michelle was brave. She wanted no epidural shots. No sense drugging the little creature.

  But she had come close to giving in. Her labor pains persisted for hours, unrelenting, each spasm sharp and agonizing. The nurse would come in every few minutes to check on her condition, but Michelle’s uterus would not yield. Exhausted and ready to accept a pain reliever shot to her spine, her womb finally gave way and she became fully dilated; ten fingers wide and ready to deliver.

  The doctor was, not surprisingly, late. Something to do with gun shooting practice and to beep him when she was ready. The nurse crouched between Michelle's legs, talking to her, comforting her.

  The doctor appeared just as the tiny head began to emerge from the thrusting womb. Sam held his breath. He could not imagine a live thing, his baby, emerging out of there.

  Michelle pushed once more, crying out, desperate to relieve the pain. The head was now completely out but the infant seemed to be stuck with the mucus and vaginal lips closing on his neck and shoulders. Michelle needed to push again. Sam felt weak. The doctor eased his hand into her and the nurse pressed her stomach.

  The baby slid out and the doctor raised it, sucking the mucus out of its mouth with suction. It was a boy and he finally let out a muddled cry.

  Tears of joy streamed down Sam's face. Michelle cried with relief. The pressure was finally lifted. As the nurse carefully cut the umbilical cord and laid the crimson infant on his mother's stomach, they both felt in heaven.

  Samuel Baker Jr. was perfect.

  *****

  She checked on little Sammy and quietly eased his door, leaving it partially ajar so she could hear when he awoke.

  She walked to the bedroom and stopped in front of the large mirror. Studying her nakedness, a year after giving birth, the signs had all but disappeared. Her breasts had returned to their normal size, still surprisingly pert. Her nipples were pink again, not dark. The veins had all but retracted into place, and the brown line that had formed down her belly had magically disappeared.

  She caressed the bare skin between her legs and began fantasizing how she and Sam would make love.

  She caught her breath and felt aroused as she imagined the wild rhythm they would reel into before the shattering orgasm and the exhausted collapse.

  She looked to little Sammy's room as if suddenly aware he was present just beyond the door, and felt a little abashed by her fantasizing in front of the mirror, so close to him. A few balloons still hung from his bedroom door, remnants of his first birthday. Little Sammy had grown so beautifully his first year. He had taken his first few steps only a month ago and was already running around the house and lawn, his blonde curls bouncing with every step.

  She never imagined how much love she would have for him. He had innocently won both her and Sam over, from the moment he drew his first breath, and their love for him had grown without bounds. They both spent every spare minute of every day tending to him, chasing after him, cuddling him, kissing him, reading him stories, playing his games. Only work kept them away, becoming a matter to get over with and get on home so as not to miss a minute with their child. Sam, being something of a workaholic in his pre-fatherhood days, suffered a complete transformation of character and would put off anything not considered urgent, to be with his child.

  Sammy Jr. had become their number one priority by a long shot. Michelle had added three months to her three months maternal leave and had breast-fed the child until the day she went back to work. Sam had requested a special leave of absence from the office during the first month when Michelle was still recovering, but the law firm had granted him only two weeks before he had to return full time. Still, those first two weeks, with little Sammy just barely opening his eyes to the world and Sam fussing over their every wish, were the happiest and most complete she had ever felt. Breast-feeding seemed as natural to her as any task she had ever performed though her nipples became quite sore with the constant sucking. Little Sammy had located his source of food a mere one hour after she had been wheeled out of the delivery room, and had not stopped sucking until she had to end it to go back to work. She had slowly primed him, alternating more of the bottled food into his daily diet but when she finally ended it, both she and her baby felt a great loss. Her breasts became extremely sensitive and sore once she stopped as the liquid first hardened into lumps then dried out. Sammy still clawed at her breasts with his tiny hands and made sucking motions with his mouth every time she picked him up.

  She was a software engineer for a fighter aircraft manufacturer, working on cockpit avionics. Before Sammy was born, her job would often take her away from home for spans of time when she would be required to participate in flight testing and technology demonstrations at Air Force bases around the country. Sammy changed all that. Upon returning to her job, she mostly remained at the home office, sending off her assistants who would report back on the outcome and any modifications that had to be made. She was well regarded in the company where there was always a shortage of capable software engineers, and had actually been promoted just so she could cut down on travel.

  Sam, who was well on his way to making full partner at Sweeny & Sweeny, a medium sized Century City Law firm, had considerably slackened off in his dedication to work since Sammy was born and had brought his advancement to a halt. The stuck-up executives arguing in stuffy courtrooms over incredible sums of money had lost their charm and had taken a back seat to the toddler who was now occupying his home, always ready to give him a hug when he came in the door.

  Before returning to work, Michelle had found a day care center for Sammy, a few blocks from their house. The place was lively and well-kept and it served the hours she needed to have him looked after, eight in the morning to five in the afternoon. The children at the center were aged six months to two years. The head Supervisor was a young and very dynamic redhead named Pam whose son Timmy was only two weeks older than Sammy. There were twelve other children besides Sammy and Timmy; all were older when Sammy joined the center. Pam and her two assistants seemed very capable keeping the children busy and well fed for nine hours, five days a week. The place was a rented two-storey house with a large back yard full of swings and slides, a sand lot, push carts and toys, and appropriately isol
ated from neighboring houses by a tall fence wrapped with spindly bushes and lofty trees. Inside was a dining room where the children ate breakfast and lunch, two toilets with a diaper change area, two large bedrooms where the children napped, the younger ones in cribs, the older ones on mattresses, and a huge lively playroom equipped with an array of children’s playthings.

  Michelle preferred the day care to taking a nanny and having Sammy spend his entire day with adults. Both she and Sam believed Sammy was better off socializing with other children, though she did feel very guilty leaving him alone for so many hours at such a young age. But Sammy adjusted well to the center and before long he would brush her off in the morning and crawl away to play with his friends. It made her both proud and sad. Proud at his ability to adjust so quickly and sad at the thought of him no longer needing her as much.

  She looked at the clock on the dresser next to the bed. It was past nine. Sam had alerted her he would be late, something about an involved deposition. It was quite rare for him to be late these days. Still, she missed him. She missed not having him at dinner, the family nucleus being incomplete. She also missed watching him give Sammy his bath, or more accurately, joining Sammy's bath. It was perhaps her favorite part of the day. Sammy hated being put in the tub, but once in, he refused to come out. When Sam would finally manage to strip the little fella, his diaper and clothes thrown on the bathroom floor, Sammy would gingerly try to elude his dad from putting him into the tub and would kick and scream once caught. For little Sammy to yield, Sam, on various occasions, would finally strip and get into the tub himself. Then the two would spend a good part of an hour laughing and splashing water in every direction. Lately, Sammy had learned to stick part of his face under water and would repeatedly show off his newfound art. Michelle would pass by every few minutes on her way to the laundry room where a stack of clothes waited to be ironed and folded. Eventually she would be called to assist in shampooing Sammy’s wet curls, another deed he detested since the shampoo always found a way to sting his eyes. To perform that task, Sam would hold him still and Michelle would quickly shampoo and condition his hair then soap the little squirming body.

  Then she would do the same to Sam, caressing his body with soap. It would remind her of the time they first met, when she, a freshman at Stanford, had taken off for the Greek Islands during summer break, and there, on the island of Rhodes, in a crowded youth hostel, she first saw him.

  He lay naked in a tub, the only male among three naked beauties, two Scandinavians and a Greek. The Greek woman, Elena, whom Michelle got to know quite well later, stood with her naked behind to the bathroom entrance soaping the man. As Michelle would later learn, parties involving booze and bare body parts were nothing out of the ordinary during summer time on Rhodes, world renowned for its promiscuous indulgence. It was difficult to spot a bikini top or any top on the beaches and mostly no one, women or men, wore anything at all.

  Michelle, who had arrived in Rhodes the day before she happened upon the erotic bathroom scene, exhausted from the trip, had fallen sound asleep shortly after checking in at the hostel. She had awoken late in the night and lay wide awake listening to the festivities in the room opposite hers, unable to go back to sleep due to jetlag. She had finally worked up the courage to go investigate when she encountered the bizarre scene with her future husband lying stark naked in the middle of it.

  Besides Elena, the Greek nude, there was Lota, a Swede, who lay in the tub opposite Sam, her large breasts sticking out from the soapy water, rubbing against the man's exposed knees. The other nude, Nilla, also a Swede, was attempting to light a large cigar stuck between the man's teeth. Sam was actually the first to notice Michelle and he drunkenly grinned at her and made a gesture with his head for her to join the crowd. Elena, still busy soaping him, turned her head then stood up from her crouched position. To this day Michelle could recall the woman's engaging features: her strikingly sharp face, her piercing black eyes, her slender body alert and proud glistening from water and soap, her breasts round and erect, her tanned skin, her pubic hair neatly trimmed, her long legs shapely and smooth. She smiled at Michelle flashing a set of perfect white teeth then in lame English invited her to join.

  Michelle did not linger long enough to observe the conclusion of that scene and Sam never bothered to complete the tale, partly because he could not recall much and partly because it felt awkward. Embarrassed, she took one last glance at the naked bodies, noticing the man's erection then quickly retreated to her room.

  Later that day she met Sam and Elena on the beach. They were both naked and she felt out of place again. They invited her to join them under their shade and she accepted seeing as she knew no one on the island and felt quite lonely. She found herself seated across from Sam unable to take her eyes off his penis which was semi loosely dangling between his legs. Later Sam would tell her he had quite a difficult time keeping from getting aroused by her glances. Elena ordered beer then asked Sam to apply some suntan lotion on her body. She stretched out on her back and succumbed to Sam's caressing. Sam smeared the lotion all over her body not being shy caressing her more private areas. To help him, Elena, totally unabashed, spread her legs allowing him to lubricate the inside of her thighs and buttocks. At one point, Michelle noticed Sam's penis hardening but when he was done, it went back to its normal state. The beer arrived with the two Swedes, Lota and Nilla, both naked, then began the small talk and Michelle learned that Sam was actually a native Californian like herself who was to begin his second year of Law at the University of Southern California. Then the three girls took off for the water and Michelle was left alone with Sam. He suggested she take off her bikini so she would feel more comfortable. She did not respond right away but, inspecting the beach, noticed she was the odd woman out. She looked at him again, sitting naked, so unabashed in front of her, then took off her bikini top and ran for the water. When she returned, Elena suggested the use of suntan lotion on her pale breasts, a task Sam quickly volunteered for. But it was Elena who employed the lotion under Sam's watchful eye.

  Later the gang invited Michelle to lunch at a local taverna just outside of town. They had three rented scooter bikes, which they used to get around the rather large island. The two Swedes used one, Elena another, and Sam gracefully invited Michelle to share his own.

  They had more beer, homemade wine, Greek salads, tzatziki and lamb chops for lunch then headed back to the hostel to rest before night activities commenced. As the convoy scooted down the narrow asphalt road that led back to town, Sam let the two other scooters continue ahead while he veered off to a dirt road and drove Michelle to a deserted patch of beach, hidden from view by great boulders that sloped into the sea. There they sat long after sundown, feet submerged in the tingling surf of the Aegean Sea. Michelle felt at ease with him and told him about herself, her two older sisters, her father the engineer, her influence, and her mother the TV news anchor. She was born in Paris, France, when her mother was on assignment as a news correspondent to a national TV network, hence the French flavor of her name. She still lived at home, in Sunnyvale, and was to begin her sophomore year at Stanford. He told her about his family, his older brother and younger sister, his father the Circuit Court judge, and his mother the educator. He grew up in Newport Beach but was living in the USC dormitories. He had been in Rhodes for nearly a month, his second tour on the islands, and as she could easily tell, was having the time of his life.

  Elena was an old acquaintance from his first trip to Greece. They had met on the island of Kos, introduced by an Italian friend Sam had then traveled with, and had remained friends. Actually they had been more than friends but had settled into a non-committing relationship this time around. She had a Greek boyfriend in Athens where she lived, but the two had kept an agreement to vacation apart, he in the Ionian Sea, she in the Aegean.

  Lota and Nilla, the two Swedes, shared their room at the hostel, and the four of them pretty much stuck together since arriving in Rhodes. Sam admitted to Miche
lle that, like her, it took him a while to get used to the promiscuous attitude of the place, but now that he was over it, it seemed perfectly natural. When she asked what he did with himself when aroused in public, he confided that he simply turned on his stomach and stuck his pecker in the sand or would run for water. It made her laugh. Then they discovered that it was not by total chance they had met in Greece. They both had a fascination with Greek mythology and both took it with General Ed courses in college.

  They rode the scooter back to the hostel past midnight and found Sam's room empty with a note directing him to a certain beach party. Michelle, still tired from jetlag and the long trip, opted to go to sleep. The gang woke her up at six for a morning swim. Only when they got to the beach did Michelle realize she was in panties and t-shirt and too committed to turn back and fetch the bikini. She hesitated only for a moment before she stripped naked with all of them watching and sprang for the water.

  The following two weeks were a blissful blur of gradually falling in love with Sam Baker. She could not quite point to a certain event or a certain moment in the short time they had spent together, but when it came time to leave, she knew she would miss him terribly. She joined their group by swapping beds with a South African fellow involved with the French girl who shared her room. Into her third day on the island, she found them entangled on the bed above hers, huffing and puffing into a deafening climax, and offered to trade beds. The two, still catching their breaths, nodded in unison and continued their conquest of each other. Still astonished by the promiscuous habits of the place she would later find herself in a similar situation when Elena walked in on her and Sam’s lovemaking. It would be the very first time they made love. Sam had suggested they leave the beach earlier than usual and Michelle was the only one of the group to oblige. She got first dibs on the use of the lone shower in their room but it wasn't long before Sam poked his head through the door and asked if she needed her back soaped. She turned her back to him and handed him the soap. He caressed her body from behind as they stood in the tub under a trickle of warm water, then made love to her, wet and hungry. Elena's presence would have gone unnoticed but for short gasp of surprise that had escaped her throat. It was almost a carbon copy of the scene Michelle had walked into her first night on the island, her and Elena in reverse roles. Michelle was not entirely certain it was a surprised gasp or simply a giggle that had escaped Elena’s lips, but Elena, who allowed herself to watch for a bit then gracefully retreated, did not seem at all disturbed when they met afterward. She treated them both to beer at the beach bar they frequented and went on about daily matters as if nothing happened. It eluded Michelle how anyone could be so unperturbed with such matters and she decided Elena was being a hypocrite. She later confronted her, reasoning that such matters of the heart were not so easily overlooked by ordinary people, but Elena laughed it off, arguing that she was not ordinary and that she could not enforce her will on anyone, especially not on Sam. Michelle had argued that the woman was allowed to feel betrayed and angry, but Elena had no such qualms. She explained to Michelle that her relationship with Sam was of the kind that could not embody constraints since they were not obligated to share their life with one another. She did love him, she admitted, but they had both realized sharing a life would be fruitless because of distance and culture differences. She had no desire to live in the States and he had none to live in Greece. They had realized that the first time around and decided to make sure they could enjoy each other's company once in a while without the constricting obligations that accommodated most relationships.