RICHARD AND ALICE
CHAPTER 1
Many thanks to JackyRussell, who edited this story
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The car stopped right in front of the apartment building on a quiet sunny street in a working-class town somewhere in North East of France. I've said my goodbyes to the buddies I'd made in Paris that had been kind enough to share their ride with me.
I'm Dan, back then I was nineteen. I had been travelling all through my youth. My parents encouraged it. They said that travelling opens the eyes, develops independence and whatnot. I was away most of my vacations and sometimes even during regular school time. Only most of the time I was not backpacking from hostel to hostel, but rather visiting with relatives and the many acquaintances of my parents and staying with them for weeks at a time. It had all started many years before that sunny day in France, the time I was away from home had only grew with each passing year. When I was eighteen or so it had occurred to me my parents were dumping to me to whomever was willing to take me, that they wanted time on their own.
I wanted to travel more on my own, to decide for myself where to go and what to do, do the hostel thing. But my father insisted.
"You'll like Richard and Alice. They're not like anybody you've met before."
I mumbled my doubts but he kept going.
"They're Americans. Well, I met them in France, where you'll be going. Richard is about 40. He grew up in a boy's home. Never had known any parents, real, step or foster. When he was of age, they've released him from the Institute knowing next to nothing of the wider world and how people relate on the street. He was as wild as they get."
"And Alice?"
"Ah, Alice. She's way younger. About your age, really. Twenty, maybe twenty-two. I don't know her provenance, they never said. Or rather, they tell a different story each time. Once Richard said he picked her on the street. That she was a drifter, a runaway. Possibly whoring out to eat. Alice likes to tell wild stories. Like she had been sold for slave by her parents when she was a child. Or that she's literally flung from space. Lovely girl."
***
I rang the doorbell on apartment 17, third floor. After a while the door swung wide open, to a natural light filled home. And a naked girl. Young woman.
"Come on in! You must be Dan. I'm Alice. We were expecting you!"