Edited by Michael-Leonard
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Chapter 1
Paul Cullen was a self-employed programmer and computer consultant. He lived in a small two bedroom apartment in a fifty year-old garden apartment complex in northern New Jersey. The neighbors, mostly young adults, single or recently married and just starting out their lives, kept to themselves. The complex had been built adjacent to the state highway which served as a major access route to New York City. Every morning the bus stop at the corner was packed with commuters waiting for the next bus into the City and their places of employment.
That was how Paul had started his career; working for a large consulting firm in the City. Soon the daily grind, the late hours, the never-ending traffic and delays began to take their toll. As the firm had grown, management had started to ignore some of its smaller, not-as-profitable clients. When two of his clients complained to Paul about the poor service, he saw his opportunity to escape. He told them that if they would be patient with him, and if they sent the company a formal notification ending their contracts, he could serve their needs at night and on the weekends.
Six months later, after working the equivalent of two full time jobs, he submitted his resignation and set up his own consulting business. Careful not to run afoul of the non-compete clause he had signed when he first started, he built his business slowly, advertising in trade magazines, attending trade shows and encouraging word-of-mouth advertising by his clients. It took several more years of hard work, long hours, and frugal living, but he finally had a successful business and a comfortable, if not extravagant, life style.
One of his major customers was a company whose business was electrical parts distribution. They were a small player in an industry that was dominated by two or three extremely large and highly successful corporations. The company concentrated on the nuts and bolts of the industry, small parts with low markups; they were content in filling that niche. The two owners of the business knew that they would never be rich, but were satisfied making a decent living for themselves and a providing employment for about thirty hard-working employees. The writing was on the wall; within ten years, maybe sooner, they would be forced to sell the company because each year their client base, primarily small manufacturers, were moving overseas. Paul was well aware of this fact.
They also had a more pressing problem. Their systems and their hardware were old and outdated. It was 1995 and Y2K was looming over the horizon. The owners had given him the task of maintaining their existing systems and hardware instead of planning for an anticipated switchover to a Windows-based platform. Much of his efforts for the company were spent on finding used replacement equipment and program patches. He was spending more and more time there, after hours, just maintaining their systems.
The company was located in a large industrial park, near the New York/New Jersey state line, in a small run down warehouse. The offices were clean and neat, and every square foot was utilized for sales and sales support. The servers were located in a small area carved out of the warehouse; that's where his workstation was located. It was cold in the winter, and because of the large window air conditioner, noisy in the summer. It was usually nine or ten o'clock in the evening, sometimes later, when he would be finished for the evening. On the way home, he would stop at his favorite place for a late night dinner, Angel Heaven, a strip club located just outside of the complex. The place was relatively small with a three-sided bar, each side lined with fifteen stools. The beer taps were located at the corners and a narrow aisle for the bartenders separated the bar from the raised stage located in the center. The perimeter of the room was lined with small bar-height tables and chairs. The capacity of the room was about one hundred and twenty.
Angel Heaven was a blue collar joint. No fancy drinks, the décor was nondescript, the music was loud, and when the dancers were working so was the crowd. Paul normally avoided the place on Friday nights, that's when it was really crowed and trouble usually happened. During the week, however, it was a great place to get a great burger and a beer, and to get an eyeful of some of the most beautiful girls Paul had ever seen.
You see, Paul was a 30-year-old virgin. It was not that he was bad looking; he could best be described as cute. His blond hair, blue eyes and dazzling smile would have made him a real catch if it wasn't for his size. In his boots, he stood a mere five foot, five inches tall and weighed around one hundred and twenty pounds. Ever since he could remember he was always one of, if not the shortest, person in his class or where ever he worked. It seemed that girls looked upon him as a companion; a friend, not someone they wanted as a lover. That was the reason Paul buried himself into the world of computers; they didn't care about his size.
Being a semi regular, Paul had gotten to know Dave the bartender pretty well. When things were slow, Dave would park himself across from Paul and they would talk sports and current events or just watch the dancer. On one such occasion, Paul had noticed a set of rings handing from the rafters just above the stage.
"Hey Dave, what are the gymnastic rings for?"
"Those are for when Angel takes the stage."
"Angel, as in the owner?"
"That's her; you've never seen her act have you? You're usually gone by the time she comes on. You should plan on staying late one Friday night. She only works Friday nights, and usually comes on around midnight and puts on quite a show."
That became his plan for this particular evening. It was a Friday evening around ten thirty and he was determined to stay to catch Angel's act. Dave hadn't gone into any detail about it; "Why ruin the surprise?" He only said that tonight she was premiering a new act.
Around eleven the bar began to fill up with the regulars; the noise level increased noticeably. Suddenly there were shouts coming from directly behind him. Dave came running over in front of him shouting, "Hey you guys break it up."
As Paul spun around on his stool to see what was happening, a fight broke out right in front of him. A big guy was throwing punches in all directions as three smaller guys tried unsuccessfully to subdue him. Paul jumped off his stool in an effort to escape the melee. Instead, he ended up right in the middle of it. Before he could even think, the big guy hit him with a powerful right hand which sent him backwards against the bar. He sagged down to the floor between two stools, stunned.
As he began to regain consciousness, he could hear somewhere in the distance, someone, a woman he thought, shouting; there was more fighting going on but he didn't know where. Suddenly, two powerful hands were grabbing him by the front of his shirt and lifting him clear off the ground. The woman's voice was louder now, it seemed like it was right in front of him.
"I'll teach you to come into my place and try to break up the joint."
That's when everything seemed to happen at once. He felt one of the hands that were holding him let go; he heard Dave somewhere behind him shouting, "No Ang, stop," and his vision cleared just in time to see the massive right arm of the huge woman holding him up swing forward, her bare fist connecting solidly on the left side of his face. He felt an intense pain and then everything went black.
Chapter 2
The sunlight was just beginning to shine into the room as the first morning rays edged over the horizon. He heard someone moan; and feeling the pain in face and the throbbing in his head, realized that it was him.
'Where am I?' he thought as he glanced around the room. He had to turn his head to see what was to his left because he couldn't see anything out of his left eye. That's when he saw her, sleeping in the chair next to the bed.
'She's the one that hit me. I've got to get out of here.'
He threw back the covers and tried to get out of bed. He immediately stopped; first of all his head started pounding even harder than before and second he realized that he was completely naked. He pulled back the covers and tried to think.
All the movement caused Angel to wake up.
"Oh, thank god you're awake; I thought I was going to have to take you to the hospital," she said as she stood up and walked over to the side of the bed.
He laid there, panic beginning to overwhelm him. She was the biggest woman he had ever seen. She was not just tall, she was huge; her shoulders were wide, her arms were thickly-muscled, her tee shirt was straining to contain her chest and it appeared close to losing the battle.
An off-duty EMT that had been in the bar last night had told her to watch him for signs of a possible concussion. After examining him, he had told her that nothing seemed to be seriously damaged, that the only thing Angel had to watch for was vomiting.
"He's out cold now, he'll probably just sleep until morning, don't let him out of your sight until then."
"How do you feel? Nauseous?"
"How do you think I feel? My face hurts like hell and my head is pounding."
The words slipped out before he realized it; the last thing he wanted to do was to antagonize this Amazon of a woman.
"Do you remember what happened last night?"
"Yeah, you hit me."
"Yes, that's true. I'm really sorry about that. I thought you were one of the guys that tried to jump Gus. He was the big guy. I was just coming down stairs to get ready for my act when I saw the fight break out. I turned the corner around the bar just when he hauled off on you. I thought you were with them. Three guys that Gus works with followed him here last night after work and tried to settle an argument that started at work. I don't tolerate fighting in my place; it's bad for business. I threw them all out after giving them something to remind them about my rules. I was about to do the same to you when Dave yelled to me. I'm so sorry; I just couldn't stop in time. He explained to me that you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. That's when I picked you up and carried you up here."
"Why am I naked?"
"I had to get you out of your bloody clothes before I could put you in my bed. Gus must have hit you right in the nose, because by the time I picked you up, the front of your shirt and your pants were soaked with blood right down to your briefs. I soaked your clothes in cold water and washed them last night. They should be dry by now."
"Can you get them for me?" He said holding the covers tightly up to his chin.
"Of course. I'll be back in a couple of minutes so you can dress. You know you have nothing to be embarrassed about. For a little guy you're packing a pretty good-sized piece of meat down there."
Angel laughed as she closed the door behind her. She went down to the basement, took his jeans and underwear and socks out of the dryer and his shirt off the hangar, and after checking for any blood stains, brought them back upstairs.
