Torn Lives

Prologue

The yell was almost deafening to the fifteen, almost sixteen years old boy, and his hand, about to grab and pet the turgid breast cringed as if bitten by a scorpion, his face was a masque of confusion, as he sent a look of heartbroken bewilderment to his mother, not understanding the reason for such a fierce cry. He was just trying to do what he thought, both of them, his thirty five years old mother and he wanted, what she had been causing with her permanent and mercilessly erotic and sexualy charged flirting in recent months with her son.

"WHAT THE FUCKING HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING? YOU PERVERT "

His mother, a very gorgeous and beautiful woman was the centre of his dreams and the cause of his undesirable permanent nocturnal emissions.

"Nothing, I...I...I have just thought..."

"What did you think you thought you little pervert, trying to get a feel and grip your mother that way"

"I...I...I am sorry mom.....I. I. I... just...." stammered the boy, and with a sob darted away. He ran, ran, and ran out and away from home, his mother's cry, which he loved with a desperate passion, piercing his eardrums in her scorn and rejection. He did swear himself never; never again would he be in a position so humiliating with any woman, least of all with his mother. While the tears flowed freely down his cheeks he promised himself never, never again be humiliated in this way by any person in the whole world.

1)

It was a dark and stormy night several months later. Rain and slate was coming down in sheets and wind was sweeping it around furiously. Doors and windows were trembling against the onslaught of both air and water on the dilapidated house where some boys and other street people had taken refuge; Pierce Bridgeport, because of the resulting cold was almost sick.

It was a dreadful night. The blanket over him was not thick enough to keep the cold from seeping in and the small brazier next to his sleeping mattress on the floor was too weak to keep anything warm. There wasn't heat, only a small comfort in the dim red glow coming from the few, almost burned out coals, overshadowed every now and then by the bright lightning in the skies

He was counting his heartbeats to keep his attention away from the roaring thunder and to occupy his thoughts with something other than the weather and memories of his parents, mostly of his mother; and of his warm bed and comfortable room in what he now thought of as his former and lost forever home. At sixteen years old, and protected from the worst aspects of life, nature's ferocity was unsettling to say the least.

Somewhere along the way, in the wee hours of the night, the cold became even more biting, when his body started to shiver in an effort to instinctively warm itself, he realized that the red glow from the brazier was no more. Coal had gone and there were only ashes. He curled himself into as tight a foetal position as he could; wrapped himself from all around to minimize the cold coming inside the blanket and started praying. Night was more than half way over and the rain wasn't showing any signs of subsiding and he started dreaming.

####

They were at the poolside, mother's beautiful tanned body dressed in a so skimpy bikini she didn't ever use when father was around or when they went as a family to the beach.

Natasha Bridgeport stretched her long, slender body on the huge towel, the hot sun heating her. She rested her face on crossed arms, her smoldering eyes hidden behind dark glasses. Her rich luxuriant blonde white hair moved lazily in the slight breeze of the hot afternoon. Sitting at her side, her young son Pierce was pouring tanning oil onto her back, rubbing it into her satiny flesh; his hands felt good on her skin, the slow way they moved up and down from her shoulders to her skimpy bikini bottom. She had untied her halter, not wanting to have a tell-tale strip of whiteness on her flesh. It was bad enough she had to wear the bottom, as it was.

Natasha would have preferred to have been nude, completely naked to the rays of the midday sun. But she certainly couldn't strip off on her son side, could she? Even without people around. She didn't like going to the public beach much, it was better for her purpose be at the bedside pool on her backyard. She murmured softly as Pierce's hands kept up their movements, massaging her flesh gently, almost too lightly. She shifted her shoulders, finding a more comfortable pressure on her tits. To look at her, one would have thought she was dozing as her son rubbed the oil into her flesh, but Natasha was wide awake, her eyes open behind the dark sunglasses. She was watching her son, her eyes taking in the changes in his body, the shapes and forms of his abs, his young muscles, and the bulge below.

"Your skin is so soft, Mom," she heard Pierce say softly.

"Mmmm," she replied lazily.

"I like to feel your skin," I said as I worked my hands up and down her back.

She purred with excitement, gazing at the young boy nearby, her son, her eyes fixed upon the enticing bulge of his swimsuit. She wondered how big the boy's cock was, how big his balls were, if they were full, loaded. Natasha liked full balls, hot balls. She especially liked what they contained.

She then turned around on the towel and sat.

"Darling, would you mind getting me a paper towel, please?"

I looked at her and saw her hand putting thin drops of milky sun cream over the front her body to protect her of the sunrays; the cream appeared to be leaking from her exposed and engorged nipple. I stared mesmerised a few moments too long and when I came to my senses I found my mother staring right into the boner I was sporting with a huge grin on her face. I blushed and immediately went into the house and the kitchen, it took me a few seconds to get my wits and remember why I had went inside the house, that gorgeous shinning breast with its dark angry red nipple was making me crazy. Then I looked for and found the paper towels, grabbing a handful and carrying them to her.

Mother laughed when she looked up to see him standing there handing her almost the whole pack. She looked up at me, who looked almost drunk and to the bulge in my shorts and said laughingly,

"Your big little brother down there thinks mommy made a big mess with the sun screen, doesn't he? Yes he does." She looked up and smiled. "I only need one, Sweetie."

With shaking hands I had ripped the first towel from the pack to shreds and cursed under my breath for being so stupid.

"It's all right, Baby. There are plenty more where that came from," his mom had told him.

And then, when I felt it, I almost fainted. My mom's foot was pressing against the inside of my leg, just below the knee, her toes were lightly scraping and playing as I was standing in front of her.

She chuckled again and he quickly tore off another paper towel and waited as she wiped her fingers and then her bare breast. Sweat drops dribbled between and under her breasts and she roughly ran the paper towel up and across her breast and nipples. He was almost catatonic and for some reason couldn't bring himself to move from his position in front of his mother, and then her foot which she had pressed harder against his leg had and moved up and down his calf, he had wondered at the moment if he was misreading things; that she was just using his leg to keep balance and not flirting with him. But she knew, yes she knew her impact in the still developing libido of her son.

####

Somewhere between the knocking of windows, clapping of the thunder, and banging of the rain on the doors, and in between dreams of his mother he heard a creak, then a small hand shook him through the blanket and he heard a smaller boy saying,

"Move over Pierce, please, so I can get in with you. I'm freezing".

Some of the kids taking shelter that night in the decrepit house, had ran away from home like him and became street kids, while others, non living in the street, when they left school, hung around the shopping mall pinching old ladies handbags, stealing little things and stuff like that. Pierce went with them, they were his new pals, but the first time the group had problems with the police, as he was the least experienced and wise with life on the streets bore all the blame, both his and that of the others.

Belonging to a good and respected family, and being a minor, the judge ordered to call his parents to decide what punishment he was going to apply. The boy was adamant, when his parents arrived at the Court House were informed he would talk with his father only; he wouldn't see or talk to his mother. His father, a respected neurosurgeon and college professor went alone to talk with his son in custody.

As it was, he was sent to a young offender's institute until he was eighteen and as luck would have it, there was where he picked up the diving bug and love for the ocean from a young intern whose father was a professional diver, it was something that would change his life forever. He was very lucky because he was good at physics and maths, and maybe, that was what got him the apprenticeship to become a sub-aquatic welder.

On his release, he went to a swimming and diving school and at the same time persuaded his father to pay for him to go to college on a very technical course of underwater electric and argon welding which proved to be a very sound investment, he graduated eighteen months later and soon was working in the oil industry, after a year, being twenty one, he was sent to work at the construction site of several high sea oil rigs and platforms where he become an specialist and earned fantastic wages in the North sea, Gulf of Mexico and elsewhere ever since.

2)

Natasha Bridgeport, neé Sorenson, was the only offspring of a couple formed by third generation Norwegian immigrants in the mountain ranges of Idaho, near Montana. In fact the nearest town to their family ranch is Clark Fork over interstate 95. Despite her parents being strict Presbyterians, she was a loved and pampered girl, not strange to the works of the ranch as any hand would, who went from a long legged and adorable teenager to a beautiful young woman. She had inherited the genes of her norwegian ancestors; good and long bones, which sustained the frame of a spectacular slim and trim body of 5 foot nine, 125 pounds with coltish long muscular legs, which ended in supple hips with an intriguing view of that magical area where a woman's legs transform into a round and perk derriere, she had a tiny waist with hourglass shape and an incredible pair of 36 inches breasts roughly the size of medium-sized oranges, they were up thrust and proud; her nipples were pale pink and somewhat thicker and longer than the average pencil eraser. The areoles that surrounded them were quarter-sized and similarly pale pink and quite smooth.

The vision of this goddess was completed with her hair long and fair, blonde almost white, that she used in a pony–tail that went almost to her waist and framed an unforgettable face of large jade or emerald green eyes, natural full rose colored lips that were maybe just a touch wide; she has a small and straight nose, with toned and tanned skin, firm and supple, with only a few laugh and sun lines around her eyes. Her cheekbones were high and well-defined. The small vee of hair that covered her pubic mound was thin and light honey coloured, and she kept it neatly landscaped. This gorgeous person, this goddess, was eighteen years old when she left her parents ranch to go east, to Boston Medical College to learn how to become a registered nurse and a lady world wise, she got her second wish, and instead of the first (becoming a registered nurse) she met her destiny.

Dale Bridgeport was an eminent neurosurgeon and twenty four years Natasha's senior.

Now in his early forties, Dr Bridgeport still rated second glances from women. He had retained the build which had made him an outstanding quarterback in his college years —a tall erect figure with big, broad shoulders and muscular arms. Even nowadays he has a trick of squaring his shoulders when ready to do something difficult or make a decision—as if readying instinctively the charge of a red-dogging tackle. Yet despite his bulk, mostly bone and muscle with less than a pound of overweight, he still moves lightly, like a dancer.

He had never been handsome in the Adonis sense, but he had a rugged, creased irregularity of face, his nose still carried the scar of an old football injury, which women so often, and perversely, find attractive in men. Only his hair showed traces of the pass of time; his not so long ago jet black hair, now it was graying swiftly as if the color of pigments had suddenly surrendered and were marching out.

When Natasha first arrived at campus in Boston form rural Idaho the change was like an earthquake in her life, she was dazzled, and amazed by everything she saw. It was a new world. In the first weeks she went from surprise to surprise, everything was new and different and exciting, her classmates, hospital technology, every think was amazing, but soon her curriculum demands, the work routine of the nurse block, and having to do, as a rookie, the heavier and boring tasks, made what had been a wonderful impression in the first moments, loose its luster in the light of reality; in the opacity of a job that was dramatically exciting and glamorous on TV series only. However, her life would change dramatically in a few months. She was going to meet her future.

####

From the corridor outside there was the sound of feet. Then the autopsy-room door opened, and a nurse, whom Natasha recognized as a member of the nursing school's teaching staff, looked in. She said,

"Good morning Dr Bridgeport" behind her was a group of young student nurses.

"Good morning" answered the neuro surgeon. "You can all come in"

The students filed through the doorway. There were six, and as they entered all glanced nervously at the body on the table. Dr Bridgeport grinned.

"Hurry up girls. You want the best seats; we have them".

Dale Bridgeport ran his eyes appraisingly over the group. There were a couple of new ones here he had not seen previously, including the young blonde girl. He took a second look. Yes indeed; even camouflaged by the Spartan student' uniform, it was evident here was something very special. With apparent casualness he crossed the autopsy room, then, returning, managed to position himself between the girl he had noticed and the rest of the group. He gave her a broad smile and said quietly,

"I don't remember seeing you before"

"I've been around as long as the other girls" She looked at him with a mixture of frankness and curiosity, then added mockingly,

"Besides, I've been told that doctors never notice first-year nursing students anyway"

He appeared to consider, "Well, it's a general rule. But sometimes we make exceptions—depending on the student, of course"

His eyes candidly admiring, he added, "By the way I'm Dale Bridgeport"

He didn't say, "I'm Dr Dale Bridgeport"; No, just his name, that was class.

She answered, "I'm Natasha Sorensen" and laughed, them catching a disapproving eye from her class instructor, she stopped abruptly.

Natasha had liked the looks of this dark haired and mature professor, but it did seem wrong to be talking and joking in here. After all, the man on the table was dead. He had just died, she had been told upstairs; that was the reason she and the other student nurses had been taken from their work to watch an autopsy. A brain's autopsy. The eminent neuro-surgeon Dr Bridgeport, performing.

To say Dale Bridgeport had been struck by Natasha's youth and beauty is a no-brainer. She was different from the students to which he was used, she had not the sophisticated or sometimes predator style of the girls in the big city. Her attitude had an unusual freshness in the environment in which he moved, he was sure that those features would not last long, and he proposed to himself to seize them and make her his, It didn't matter how, even if he had to abandon his desirable bachelorhood and marry her. He had fallen in love with a young woman who was old enough to be his daughter. But she was not.

####

The cafeteria of the hospital was a traditional meeting place for most of the hospital grapevine; few events occurred inside its walls –promotions, scandals, firings, and hirings – which were not known and discussed in the cafeteria long before they became official.

Medical staff frequently used the cafeteria for "curbstone consultations" with colleagues whom they seldom saw except as a meal or coffee break. Generally the cafeteria was a democratic area where hospital rank, if not forgotten, was at least temporarily ignored. An exception, possibly, was the practice of setting aside a group of tables for the medical staff.

With few exceptions the senior attending physicians used the reserved tables. House staff, however, was less consistent, residents, interns and eventually some professor joined the nurses and other groups. There was nothing unusual, therefore, in Dr Dale Bridgeport dropping into a chair opposite Natasha Sorensen who, released from an assignment earlier than some of her fellow student nurses, was eating lunch alone.

Since they had met a few days before in the autopsy room, Natasha had occasionally encountered Dr Bridgeport in the hospital corridors and on each occasion -- seeing his elegant bearing, his dark hair strewn with silver threads and his buying smile—she had increasingly come to like the look of him. Intuitively she had expected that soon he might make a direct approach to her, and now here he was.

"Hi" Dr Bridgeport said.

"Uh, hello" the greeting was awkward. Natasha had just bitten a chicken leg and had her mouth full; then mumbled "Excuse me".

"That's perfectly all right," "Bon appetit and take your time, I'm here to make you a proposition"

She finished her mouthful of leg chicken, and then said: "I thought, usually, that was supposed to come later"

Dale Bridgeport grinned. "Haven't you heard? -- This is the jet age. No time for formal frills. Here's my proposition; theater the day after tomorrow, proceeded by dinner at the Cuban Grill."

Natasha asked curiously "Can you afford it?" Among home staff and student nurses poverty was a time honored, rueful joke.

Dale lowered his voice to a stage whisper. "Don't tell a soul, but I'm on a side line. Those patients we got in autopsy. A lot of them have gold fillings in their teeth; it's a very simple matter..."

"Oh shut up, you'll ruin my lunch" She bit the chicken leg again, and Dale reached over and took two of her french fries.

"Well, will you come?"

"I'd love to," Natasha said, and she meant it.

"Great ¡ I'll pick you up at your apartment at seven o'clock. Okay? As he spoke Dale Bridgeport found himself regarding this girl with even greater interest. He was suddenly aware that she had a deal more than a pretty face and a good figure. When she looked at him and smiled it conveyed the feeling of something warm and fragrant.

"Okay," Natasha said. "I might be a little late but not much."

####

Afterward, Dale had driven Natasha home, she had recently moved from nurses quarters to a not as large as fashionable apartment not far from not far from medical school and hospital.

She had said, "You'll come in for a nightcap, of course"

He left his car in the parking lot and followed her. They rode the gleaming, silent elevator to her floor, and then turned down a birch paneled corridor, their footsteps silenced by the deep broadloom. He had raised his eyebrows and Natasha timidly smiled.

"It is a little awesome, isn't it, it was my parent's idea, they are a little old fashioned and disagree with what they thought the promiscuity of the nurses building, I'm still impressed myself."