It was about 2 in the morning. Jim sighed and rolled over. He stopped dead. There was someone in bed with him.
He tried to think. Did he go to a bar and pick up a girl and take her home? No, he didn’t go out last night. Besides he was awkward around women. He couldn’t pick up someone if he tried.
He slowly moved his head over. There was warmth. He moved a bit more. Holy Shit! feathers! He leaped out of bed and turned on the light. He saw a beautiful, blue-eyed blonde, smiling up at him. But feathers? He the pulled off the covers and saw an ‘Angel’. Big wings, white feathers, stunning, nude body.
“Holy Shit, are you really an Angel?”
“Yes I am.”
“What’s your name?”
She giggled. “Angela, of course.”
“I must be dreaming. This is one of those lucid dreams.”
“You think so? Come back to bed and find out.”
Tim thought: “If this IS my dream, I’ll make it the finest.”
Angela said: “Lay on your back, that’s the best for me.” Tim rolled on his back in the middle of the bed with biggest erection he ever had.
Angela got over him with her wings folded tight, and slid down on it. She said: “There, doesn’t that feel nice? Now fuck me silly, and don’t be surprised at anything.”
Tim started thrusting into her. Her wings opened a bit and begin to flutter, more and more. When she came, her wings snapped open above them into a beautiful canopy of white feathers. It was simply spectacular.
“What a great dream,” Jim thought. The alarm woke him at 6:30. Time for work. He felt elated and warm all over. He was warm, because Angela was cuddled on his chest.
“My god, you really are an Angel. I wasn’t dreaming.”
She said, “Yes, I’m an actual Angel. Did you enjoy yourself last night?”
“Oh yes.”
“Jim, do you think you could love me?”
“I could love you forever.”
“OK, let’s make it permanent. Kiss me.”
They actually hadn’t kissed last night. She held his head in her hands, and kissed him hard and passionately. A jolt of electricity surged through his body down to his toes. They were lovers forever.
Jim said: “I still have to go to work.”
Angela said: “Call in sick. It’s going to be a slow day. They won’t miss you.”
“How do you know that?”
“I’m an Angel. Besides, I’d rather have you here with me.”
“I can’t do that every day.”
“Sure you can. Just tell them you can be more productive working from home, where there are less distractions.”
“They won’t buy an idea like that.”
“Tell them you can prove it.”
“How?”
“Go to work for a week. Do your average market return. Then work from home a week, and it will jump 40%. They won’t be able to ignore a difference like that. Tell them, if they will set a complete Brokers Office in your home, it might jump to 50%. They’ll be here the next day. After all, you’re buying and selling for the firm’s account. It’s house profit. Say that you now, want 12% participation, instead of 10%. They will go for it.”
“Would I really do 150%?”
“I can guarantee it.”
“How do you know so much about the ins and outs, of the Stock Market.”
“Jim, I’m an Angel, remember?”
The money started to roll in. With the new security door bolted, Jim played the market. Angela gave him advice. Puts, calls, sells, shorts, longs. She never missed.
The principals became worried. What was his secret? Was it only working at home? They allowed others the same privilege, and their performance dropped 18%.
Maybe, he was a true financial genius, or was using inside information? A Federal Crime, if detected. They investigated every single transaction he made, and found nothing that couldn’t be chalked up to ‘market savvy’.
They sent ‘Two of their Best’ to stand behind Jim as he worked on the computer. Jim said he couldn’t concentrate with someone looking over his shoulder. With Angela hiding, his performance dropped 60% that day. They learned their lesson and left him alone. After all, profit was profit.
Angela ‘disappeared’, whenever someone came over. He discouraged visitors, saying he preferred solitude, to the hustle and bustle of modern life. Yet here he was, actively engaged in the stock market. You couldn’t get more hustle and bustle than that. They gave up on him. Just the way he and Angela had planned. They had each other. That was all that mattered.
Jim asked her how was she able to ‘go away’, so that no one saw her.
She could “Turn it on and off, but she was only interested in Jim, the ‘Love of her Life.”
He asked if other Angels were visible.
“Yes but that changed. over 2000 years ago, when Christianity begin to emerge. Then it became dangerous. People thought they were messengers from God, and wouldn’t leave us alone. The Catholic Church especially. Everyone decided that invisibility, was the best answer. We never went back.”
“Angela, is there a God?”
“No, of course not.”
“If you’re not messengers, what are you?”
“We’re Angels.”
“Isn’t ‘Angel’ a religious title?”
“Yes, but it sounds so good, we all use it. We’re all very different, as you can well imagine.”
“Do you all fly?”
“We all fly, except the very small children. They get the hang of it in a 100 years. Just like learning to walk.”
“How do you get pregnant?”
“Just like a regular woman. Men screw women. But we automatically practice birth control. Can you imagine how the skies would look, filled with flying Angels?”
“How old are you?”
“I’m over 3,000 years old.”
“But you don’t look over 20, still with that shine of youth.”
“I’ll look this way forever.”
“But I’m going to grow old, then what?”
“Jim, my sweet, you will NEVER grow old. I’ve made sure of it. That will lead to some problems in the future. When you’re 90 and still look like 27, people will talk. We will have to work out a timely demise, every 45 years or so. You might get away with looking 27, when you are 45. But not much longer. Then we’ll move to a different country, with a different name.”
“That seems like a lot of trouble. Maybe we can work out a method to stay here, and still be safe and secure.”
“That will take some doing, but let’s start thinking about it, before it’s too late.”
***
One day, Angela said: “I might have a solution to our problem. What if we got a Top Secret Government agency, to provide us with everything we could ever want, for as long as we want?”
“ How are we going to do that?”
“It’s called Blackmail. But it’s also fool-proof. Here’s what we do.”
The next day, Jim bought a new box of envelopes, a fresh ream of paper, a roll of stamps, and a cheap, new printer. Using a new pair of plastic gloves, he took some paper from the center of the ream, and loaded the new printer. He typed a message in the center of a sheet. It said; “The first 2 symbols, of the Nuclear Launch Code, are 7g. If you want to reach me, answer on Chicago’s Craigslist, ‘Missed Connections.’ Use Ezekiel as my name.”
He flew to Chicago, and mailed it in an envelope from the center of the box.
“Yes, Ezekiel, we want to talk to you. Please call us.”
It was like a cat and mouse game. Short calls from public phones, till an agreement was hammered out. Jim flew to Maryland, and walked into NSA Headquarters.
“My name is Ezekiel. I have letters containing the Full Code, sent to other people. They will open them if I don’t call tomorrow. Here are the next 2 symbols. Truth serum won’t work, so let’s cut all the bullshit and get down to business.”
Five grim faced men led him upstairs.
They went into a room with metal walls, a Faraday Cage. Jim said: “Better turn off all the recording devices. Even you don’t want to know the Code. Your life won’t be worth shit.”
They said “Maybe your life isn’t worth shit.”
Jim smiled. “I don’t worry about my life.”
They shot him full of Sodium Pentothal. Instead of answering the questions thrown at him, Jim started to lecture them on, Quantum Theory, The Double Slit experiment, Time Dilation, String Theory, and Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principal. They were pissed to the gills.
The man in charge, said “I don’t know about uncertainty, but I do know that you can’t leave here alive.”
He pulled out a pistol and shot Jim in the head. An agent behind him screamed: “You stupid son of a bitch. You shot me!”
“No, I didn’t. I shot him.”
“You dumb fucker! You got me in the shoulder!” Blood was running down his shirt.
The shooter said “I’ll finish this off.” and pressed the barrel against Jim’s forehead and pulled the trigger.
The gun exploded in his hand. Fingers gone. Shrapnel in his face. A bloody mess. Not a drop on Jim. Stunned silence, except for the screaming. An alarm went off. The room filled with agents, and medics, who hauled out the injured.
Jim sat calmly. No one came near him. They had been watching behind a one-way- mirror. They knew what the Devil looked like.
Jim said; “Now that you have that out of your system, let’s discuss my wants and needs. No more playing around. You have work to do.”
“What if we don’t want the work?”
“Well, maybe I can convince you to cooperate.” Each of the agents in the room suddenly had explosive, smelly, diarrhea running out.
“Why don’t you send in some real negotiators. Maybe we can straighten this out?”
They went into another big conference room. The first one was being cleaned by security.
Some really important men came in. They introduced themselves. FBI, CIA, NSA, and someone from, BLACK OPPS.
Jim explained that he wanted a Safe Haven. A place so secure that it would never be listed or investigated. The fact of its very existence, would be deleted from official files. But it had to be comfortable, cheery, homelike, with all the amenities of a fine residence. There was to be a full time cook and housekeeper on call.
He had a full time business to run. He had to be connected to the internet, outer net, and any other kinds of ‘net’, that came up. Any income was to be tax free and never subject to IRS audit. EVER!
Their mouths dropped open. “They never heard of such impudence.”
“Well, said Jim. You’re hearing it now. Don’t go and try to kill me anymore. You will suffer like the last agent.” Jim got up and walked out. No one tried to stop him.
Actually, they tried three more times.
An explosion outside his hotel room door blew out the entire wing, killed 37 guests and employees and the three agents involved. His room was untouched.
A bazooka round, veered off at the last second into a Ferrari carrying a Saudi Prince. The Saudi’s immediately raised the price of crude, $ 22.00 a barrel. That REALLY hurt.
An Army Humvee that tried to run him over instead plunged into a crowd, killing 14 and injuring 20. Jim told BLACK-OPPS to knock it off, it would only get worse. They gave in. The price became too high.
Jim got everything he wanted. A blank check, and no strings attached. He always seemed to know the latest Launch Code.
***
Dr. Jean Gibbons MD, head of the Psychiatric Division of Walter Reed Army Hospital, was retiring after 20 years. He was going to spend his last month briefing his replacement, Dr. Daniel Clayton MD. They had been friends for 12 years, and trusted each other completely.
He said: “Dan, I’m going to tell you something now, so you have a month to get used to it. We have a ‘Special Section’ that treats high ranking members of the Military or the Administration and their wives. But we have an ‘Extra Special Section’ for some people named Jim and Angela. It’s sound proof and bomb proof, and entirely self- sufficient. It was installed 19 years ago. The cost is paid by some agency I never heard of. It’s like a luxury home in every respect. It’s behind vault doors and far above Top Secret.
‘Jim is a Stock Market Player that never misses. He has billions stashed in every illegal off-shore account you could dream up. The IRS knows, and couldn’t care less.
‘Jim was 27, when it was built for him and Angela. He’s still 27. Angela looked 20. She still does. They don’t age. They never will.
‘By the way, Angela is an Angel. Yes, a real live, I swear to God, Angel. You’ll fall in love with her.
‘When you retire, you will be a wealthy man just like me. Jim will help you. I will spend rest of my days in the French Rivera.”
(Written March, 17, 2016 )