CHAPTER SIX

March 15 2001

Miss Parker, Sydney, and Broots stared down at the unconscious man on the bed. They had Jarod handcuffed by his wrists and ankles; attaching the wrist handcuffs to the top iron bedposts, the ankles to the posts at the bottom. To make more certain that the Pretender could not escape, Centre staff had welded the heavy chain from the handcuffs to the wall. Miss Parker was elated and her smile was evil as she called the Centre on the cell phone but her expression changed to alarm as she pressed down the keys repeatedly. "Hello this is Miss Parker." There was no answer. She turned over the cell phone and opened the back, reversed the battery and tried again. "Hello hello." She then shook the phone and then hung up. "I did remember putting a new battery in it. Well, that's it. Static." She shook her head. "Remind me to not to buy bargain brands, Broots." .

"Are you sure you are going to send him back to the Centre?" asked Broots, "I fail to understand why you want him chained like this. Wouldn't it have been easier to just handcuff him hands together?"

"You are the one to ask after what he did to you. Oh how did you like spending time in jail?" She gave her most charming smile and handed him the cell phone, "It needs a new battery. Could you go to the drug store and get some? And tell Sydney, Jarod needs some clothes, a sweater, slacks, socks, and shoes in black of course. Nothing else. Understand? He knows his size."

"Thanks Miss Parker. Are you sure you're safe with him?"

"Yes I am," she said, looking at the semi conscious man and waited until they had left. Once gone, she took the fresh battery from the waste paper basket, put it in her purse, and did a close examination of the light bulb in the ceiling as well as checked behind the velvet picture of the large eyed little Hawaiian girl on the wall. As she did this, she wore an evil smile and turned to her captive. .

He'll spend the rest of his life searching for his mother and putting mine on hold, she thought, and he'll get all the visitors in the nursing home while I'll get Lyle.

She looked at the certificate dated years ago when she was around twelve Daddy had updated it on her eighteenth birthday, making it legal. Two days after that, Raines had taken it. She counted the years she had worked in the field, the years she had worked in the Tower while her prisoner remained twenty or so sublevels below. She also counted the times Raines tried the cloning experiment and the failures she saw in that lab, not to mention the ones probably kept in cages and her frustration of this wasted effort turned to utter rage but she shook her head and calmed down. Now she had to get down to business. With a nasty look, she shook the Pretender. "Jarod, I hope you're awake now. I've finally caught you and you aren't getting away so easily now.. Bye-bye Jarod." She withdrew her pistol and released the safety. It was better this than have him turned over to Raines and Lyle and much more permanent.

Shocked awake, Jarod hovered between anger and fear. His heart started pounding. He tried to loosen his chains, but could not. "Miss Parker?" He did not like the look in her eyes nor the pistol aimed at his heart. .

She loomed over the bed, and started to pull the trigger, but then she stopped and dropped the pistol to the floor. "No this is too easy, Jarod," and then she kissed him.

It was not just an ordinary kiss, but deep and possessive. He smoldered as he realized her intent or thought he did. She was going to kill him slowly not the quick way he thought. "Sydney, Broots, get back here!"

They had already left. Miss Parker wasted no time. She climbed on the bed and kicked the blanket to the floor.

"What do you have in mind, Miss Parker?" She has a knife hidden in her skirt and she's going to place me in an unmarked grave when she's finished, he thought. He waited for her to draw out a blade to descend into his heart, but felt no cold steel. He lifted his head up to see her adjusting her skirt as she got on top of him.

"I own you Jarod. Yes Daddy gave this to me. Read the fine print. All legal and above board," she said, waving the certificate in front of him as she did what she intended.

Jarod's mouth went open for a second at the shock He never had this happen to him before. It was not the same as with Rachel when he had a most pleasant feeling about their joining. This was different. It hurt.

He had to survive for as was stated before, Jarod could not connect the actual act as sex .and just lay there wondering what Miss Parker's actions meant. For him it was normal. When you slept besides a woman, you just put part of you in her. In his pretends, Jarod seldom got the chance for usually he had one purpose to rectify the situation whether it was getting kidnapped children back, or bringing a murderess to justice and there was the Centre always on his tail keeping him from falling asleep not alone.

Miss Parker started to probe him with her hands, moving them down his side, trying to get him to cooperate. Her hair was loose over his face, and her fingers probing other parts of his body, lips kissing his chest, and he knew this was just a lull in what would follow. She moved off him, and now her fingers went to work.

She put her tongue into his mouth again and kept it there until he needed to catch his breath. "I hope you're prepared for what is to follow and don't say that analytical mind is a deterrent, because Jarod it isn't."

"I can take anything even from you." Let her see his courage besides he was beginning to enjoy this. She wants me.

"Ah defiance, Jarod," she said with a smile, "I like that." She began the next phrase of her attack as her hands moved down past Jarod's waist.

For an hour, she continued, manipulating one part of Jarod's body and another, getting on top of him, watching his reaction in his eyes, waiting for the moment when he would welcome her with his whole being.

Jarod's heart seemed to pump two hundred beats a minute. He had no idea of her intentions to get him to submit or to wear him down. He kept his emotions in check (it seemed easier than before) as she tried to manipulate him with a great deal of success, a success that he did not hope for and it was then that it happened—the alteration. What's going on? I'm seeing things different, the colors, the sounds, I hear voices. There's a gas station nearby and I can actually smell the gasoline and someone spilled coffee. A whole torrent of smells and odors and voices assaulted him, the aroma of Miss Parker's perfume and Dove Soap combined with his sweat and body odor.

Jarod compared this incident to when he was close with Rachel and with Zoe, but with Miss Parker, he felt she wanted him to do whatever he did with them without his mind cooperating and she was winning.

I'm doing it already, Miss Parker! They kissed, you and I kissed. Oh and if you unshackle my arms, maybe I can hold you as well. As for that part of me in you, you had it in you already. Oh maybe I have to kiss your feet. Isn't that the acceptable behavior of property to his owner?

He was getting frustrated and then suddenly another instinct took over, the desire to procreate. It overcame his fear of death and the ritual of possession. His body started to position itself so that the next encounter would be that much easier. He also did not move his face to avoid her kiss

"I better get off and see what's keeping those two," she said and pulling down her skirt, started for the door.

Jarod started to panic. If this was a ritual, then if it did not take its course, it meant she was dissatisfied and then she would use her gun or a knife and then from somewhere primitive inside him it came, that thought. I must plant my seed in this female. "Miss Parker, get back here!"

She turned back to the bed, smiling and continued the assault. The Pretender did not say a word. He just looked at her, his mouth slightly open, wondering why he was having these strange thoughts. It was as if he was no longer himself but some alien being. What was happening to him? He heard footsteps climbing the stairs, loud footsteps, those of Sydney and Broots, that is, they sounded to him as loud, but probably were soft and he heard the rumbling of one of those plastic department store bags.

Now the door creaked open and he could hear the conversation as clear as if they were besides the bed.

"We should have got here sooner," said Sydney.

"Well I had to buy that woman another cup of coffee."

Jarod heard the rustle of credit card paper and "Fifty dollars for gasoline including your good Samaritan act. Good thing the Centre credits our account."

Suddenly there was a minute of silence followed by Broots question. "What's that noise?"

"She's killing him," said Sydney, "we have to break through the door."

Jarod heard Broots protesting. "Miss Parker's just guarding Jarod."

Suddenly, Sydney's voice changed. "No she's not just guarding him." He knew the sounds, the bed creaking, and the shouts and the rapid bursts of breathing. Those meant only one thing. Miss Parker was raping Jarod and it had been almost continuous. "We have to stop her! Get your shoulders to the door and push!"

"I can't! I won't! Besides, Jarod knows what is happening. I don't want to barge in and get Miss Parker's wrath. Why she'll throw me into the Centre dungeon for spoiling their fun. He's just pretending. You said it so many times."

"But he isn't. This is one simulation he never learned, one I was forbidden to tell him about and as for your being arrested, it isn't that you're innocent. We could have helped him. I could have helped him escape. I could have told him about sex, but the Centre forbade me. He knows even less than your daughter, Debbie."

For a moment there was silence and then Sydney's voice grew more frantic "Now's our chance! We have to save Jarod, for if we don't—Now, get your back to the door and push!"

The door started to buckle, but Jarod did not notice them. He could see Lyle and two of his henchmen drive up in a car, get out and climb up the steps, even when Miss Parker was on top of him.

Only it was not Lyle and his henchmen, just apparitions that looked like them.

Fighting his lethargy, Jarod shouted, "Lyle's coming. Get off me! I'm going to kill him!"

As Sydney swore in French, Miss Parker moved off Jarod, surprised at his tone. Broots ran outside and looked right and left. He ran back inside. "I don't know. I recognize his car in the distance, just coming down the road," he said to Miss Parker who by now had put on her black laced panties.

They looked at Jarod who had calmed down. He did not resist when Miss Parker kissed him with that same French kiss of ownership.

Jarod took several short breaths afterwards. "A woman, five children," he said, "Are you going to have me again? What am I saying?"

"Do you want more?" asked Miss Parker, "Oh yes much more." She touched Jarod's chest with familiarity.

They had Sydney lull me into a sense of false security. I was not even free. I'm not that now. Miss Parker didn't need to get on top of me to prove it, he thought and asked in his usual manner, "Why wait for that certificate? You could have just bought me, Miss Parker!"

Miss Parker suddenly realized that Jarod did not have the fear and shame that a rape would ensure. Sydney really kept him ignorant, she thought. I'll just answer his question. "Raines stole it. Didn't you see the date?"

"You could have looked for it!"

What was going on? He's more concerned about that damn certificate and blames me because the date's fifteen years old. She did not want to kill The Pretender. She was now reveling in the joys of ownership, to imagine Jarod doing her accounts, programming her computer, and letting her do what she wanted to him. "Even if I had it earlier, I had to make sure you were secure. You would have bolted and ran."

"Secure? Whose idea was that? We knew each other since childhood."

"Does that matter? You wouldn't let me get close to you. Look you had a gun. You could have just grabbed mine and taken me away from the Centre, but no! You see me coming and just disappear."

Broots went back outside and brought in a plastic bag. "I hope these are the right fit. Sydney got the next larger size," he said, throwing them at Miss Parker.

Two minutes later, she emerged into the outer room with the paper bag fill of Jarod's former clothes. "See what you can do with this. I'll need a pillow, and something to make a fake Jarod. Ïf he can spot someone coming—"

"How does he know?" asked Sydney. :"Maybe it's a variation of the Pretender gene that develops after time."

In a few minutes, Jarod had on his new pair of trousers as well as his shoes and socks. "Now, Broots, help me get him off the bed." She unfastened the two remaining handcuffs, and slipped the sweater over Jarod's head.

"Jarod looks furious. You better be careful, Miss Parker."

"I am. I need some computer discs. Only they are made by a certain company."

"So you plan to trade Jarod for them?"

Miss Parker gave them a smile and looked at Jarod who showed no emotion. "I didn't go after him to hand him over to the Centre. Once, they have him, he'll be lost to me. I don't intend to have it happen." She checked the bullets in her gun. "Do you have a gun on you? Sydney, Broots? Be sure you have the trigger loose. I hope you both can shoot, just in case."

"Surely you don't expect to shoot your own brother." said Sydney as they got Jarod moving again. It did not take long.

Jarod just looked at Miss Parker in a rather neutral manner until he blurted out, "You kissed me first when we were children!"

"Was that why you kept trying to avoid me all those years? A kiss? Sometimes I don't know what to make of you." Miss Parker grew pale and then recovered. What was wrong with a kiss? They had played as children until her father suddenly took a stop to it. The way he said it seemed strange. "He's not the same class as you," Daddy had said and she had taken it to mean that Jarod's intelligence was so far above her level, that she would be unhappy. Lately she began thinking that it meant something else. Maybe it refers to his status, not his brainpower, she thought. "A harmless kiss when we were children and what about the time on the Island?" she asked the man who stood in front of her.

"It wasn't harmless."

"Island?" asked Broots.

"I'd rather forget it," said Miss Parker, "we were interrupted. I think that woman was listening at the door and entered at the wrong moment."

"What do you mean wrong moment?" demanded Jarod.

"The Centre plan to keep us apart and prolong the Parker curse."

Jarod just looked at her. "I thought chasing me was part of the curse. So now you've caught me. When do you intend to turn me over or have you something else in mind?" He looked very angry.

Miss Parker just sighed as if trying to move a rock that would not budge. "It's like my efforts are fruitless," she said to Sydney, "Jarod's not acting as expected. I'm beginning to think I'm in that episode where Buffy and Angel made love and he turned into a monster."

"He started acting different after you first kissed him," said Sydney.

Yes, Miss Parker remembered. Jarod wanted to get closer to her in a more intense manner. It was soon after that that her parents decided that the Private School was in order. She did not remember the exact incident, but recalled a visit to the doctor and a hazy examination. They said she gained a bit of weight after that and they put her on a strict diet. She still hid when she ate ice cream.

"I've always looked after you," said Jarod glaring at Miss Parker, "you didn't need to…."

They could not for someone was climbing up the steps.