The Beginning of the End

The thick antiseptics smell of disinfectants and cleaners didn't do much to hide the underlying scent of muck and must that permeated the small motel room. With his back to the bed and his knees drawn up, he had been in the same position for so long that his back and legs had begun to ache. He knew it had only been about thirty minutes, but it seemed like hours since he had moved at all. The stagnation of his overtaxed body was causing his muscles to protest.

It was no real surprise that his body was hurting. Just a few hours earlier he had endured a fifteen mile hike through thorny underbrush, rocky terrain, and mental torture.

Whining, he said, that's all she ever does.

At the moment, it didn't really matter. Mercifully, she had decided to stretch her legs while trying to find something to eat. The only convenient place around was the small grocery store attached to the motel, and he was certain the selection would be outdated, stale, and undernourished; he would be alone with his thoughts for a while.

Something had been bothering him for some time now and the more he attempted to focus, the less apparent the cause became. No matter how hard he tried, he simply couldn't wrap his mind around the reason for his agitation. The two of them hadn't been together long, but everyday he felt more and more like the cause of his inner turmoil was centered around their relationship. It was likely she was the one that had his mind set on tilt.

He had met her at an aerobics class three months prior. Not that he attended aerobics classes, mind you. In fact, his idea of exercise was exactly the opposite; he preferred to get fit by actually doing something, not just pretending to do it. That day he had taken an unintended detour from his normal routine and fate had brought him to her doorstep. Looking back on it, the entire meeting seemed strange given the fact that he didn’t give a damn about aerobic step class or his girlfriend.

Their trip to the gym had started out like any other. After picking up Samantha from her apartment, they made their way to the fitness center and helped each other stretch a bit before going their separate ways for the afternoon. Like always, he headed for the basketball courts and Samantha made her way towards the aerobics classrooms.

He didn’t really like the place much, mainly because they didn’t have any racquetball courts. Basketball was fine, but given the option he would always choose racquetball. Inside that tiny glass cube he could be as aggressive and as domineering as his heart desired. Smashing a tiny hard rubber ball between the shoulder blades of your opponent was just one of the many things he loved about the game. After all, in basketball any roughhousing got called foul and sucked the life right out of the game.

At that time, Samantha had been attending classes regularly for several weeks and he had resigned himself to the fact that he would just have to settle for basketball rather than his preferred sport. Make no mistake, he still absolutely dominated everyone on the floor, it just wasn’t as much fun.

After finishing a good solid hour of play, he would normally head straight for the showers and be ready to go by the time Samantha had finished her after-class chat with the other women. For some strange reason he was compelled to change his normal routine. He decided instead to stop by the aerobics studio to watch the class as it finished up. The second he walked through the door of the small wood-floored studio he knew that he wouldn’t be settling for basketball much longer; he wouldn’t be settling for Samantha either.

The instructor was a young woman, slim and tan, beautiful and obviously athletic. She was after all, an aerobics instructor. As he sat in the back waiting for Samantha, he watched the young blonde leading the class as if he were a hawk waiting for the right time to strike his prey. With each step up and down on the small brightly colored plastic step, the woman took his breath away and caused a knot to form in his stomach. The way that her long hair flowed and ebbed in rhythm with the music, her blue gray eyes burning with intensity, and those boobs, he said out load with a smirk.

Whoever invented spandex was a genius.

After the class had ended, he had already decided that this new woman would be his next conquest. It wasn't that Samantha wasn't attractive. In fact, Sam was every bit as attractive as this woman, but this woman was in fact, a different woman, and that made all the difference in the world.

When the music ended and Samantha had left for the locker room to shower and change, he strode confidently up to the blonde and said, Hi there, I'm Kristian. What time would you like to have dinner tonight?

At first, the woman seemed puzzled, and continued to wipe her brow with her towel. After a few seconds of gazing into his eyes as he held his best innocent smile on her, the young woman gave a reluctant smirk in return and agreed to meet him after the next class. He had suggested an upscale Sushi restaurant, to which she joyfully agreed, and promised to meet him at the gym entrance in about an hour. She was hot, and as Kristian had come to learn over the years, he had a way with 'hot' women.

Now, three months later in a roadside dump, all he could think was; ‘Ball and chain’. He had spent most of his young life using and manipulating women. It was sport to him. He knew exactly what to say and how to say it and without fail it always worked out in his favor. Most women never knew what hit them. By the time they figured out what was happening, he was up and gone.

As he sat tossing an old tennis ball against the faux wood paneling, he thought about the day and all that he had accomplished. The hike earlier had simply been a ruse to get her out to the site. If she had known what his true intentions were, she never would have agreed to go with him. Now that he had finished what he intended, his entire future looked different as it rolled out before him in his mind.

With most of his time spent cleaning out women's bank accounts, he really didn't have all that much experience at trying to maintain and grow a relationship. He always figured that since he wouldn't be around long anyway, there was no sense in trying to get all lovey-dovey. This time however, he found himself doing something he had never really done before; not running.

After, several months of intense passion on his side, and what he presumed was love on hers, he had entertained the idea that he might keep this girl around for a while. Although he wasn't one hundred percent certain, he figured this new revelation of 'feelings' is what had him searching for the cause of his mental unrest. He had taken what he considered to be, a huge leap.

There was no room for interpretation here, he was not in love. Although, he knew without a doubt that she was in love with him, just as he knew the sun would rise from the horizon just as it had for eons before. He had to admit that he did feel somewhat different than he had in the past. Along with this new set of strings being plucked within his chest, came an even bigger step forward in his life. He had finally found a way to acquire loads of cash without the need for a woman as the supply conduit.

He attributed the rise of warmth in his heart to the loosely based fact that he didn't need her money anymore. Since his life had been so strongly based on whirl-wind sex-capades and well planned and orchestrated money grabs, just the thought of that lifestyle floating away or morphing into something new made him uncomfortable as hell.

Maybe the tangible feeling of discomfort would subside once they got a little farther down the relationship-highway. It was possible that he would discover that love and companionship were things he truly needed in his life, and that without it, he would only feel empty and lost. He caught the ball as it bounced back from the paneling on the wall.

That doesn't sound like me at all. That sounds like a bunch of weakling prissy-boy talk. Who needs that shit? Hell, I'm anything but weak.

He tossed the ball again. The rhythmic sound of catch, toss, bounce, catch, reverberated throughout the small room. Who knew, maybe it would work out and he would be super-duper happy.

Yeah, that's what I need. Then again, maybe it wouldn't.

On to the next victim. He smiled.

Chapter Two

As she scanned the shelves of the small grocery store, her eyes read the labels but her mind was on the events that had transpired earlier in the day.

The worst of it was she couldn't quite remember everything that had happened. She had spent hours rolling it around in her head, trying to remember the darker details, but no matter how hard she tried, that small frame of memories seemed to be lost.

It had started out as an adventure, that part she knew. They were headed up into the mountains for a romantic hiking trip. He had called it a 'fact-finding mission'. She figured it was just another one of his weird quirks that she was just discovering. It didn’t really matter what he called it, to her it was another opportunity to spend some time with her man. Their relationship had been rocky lately and this might be just what she was looking for to help turn things around.

Early on, he had told her very little about the trip itself. She knew it would be cold at night, he told her that much, but she had no idea that the hike itself would be so extreme. He on the other hand, had done this sort of thing before. He used that type of extreme hiking to keep himself fit. He was always telling her that aerobics was just a game with no clear winner, and that certain things like extreme biking or hiking was a true workout. Being an aerobics instructor, and a successful one at that, she argued the point.

She had told him repeatedly that she could hang with just about anything he was doing, and all thanks to her intense aerobics training. She didn't really believe that herself. Her classes were very thorough, and everyone raved about the transformations their bodies went through, but she also had no doubt that he could run circles around her in just about any athletic event he chose. In fact, she had been with him long enough to have seen some of his extreme sporting events and knew without a doubt she could no more hang with him than she could sprout wings and fly. She wasn't going to let him insult her craft however, and the same fight always ensued.

He would insult her ability to maintain any sort of competition with his physical prowess, and she told him he was a jerk. Next came the yelling and screaming. She hated to admit it, but she was usually the instigator at this stage in the process. His accusations carved such a deep and painful wound in her pride that she reacted out of blind defense and rage. As her voice would escalate, so would his. Within five minutes, they were always in a full blown shouting match. As the words became more harsh, so did the physical posturing. He would stand over her, look down into her face, screaming profanities, small blobs of spittle catching her on her forehead. Like clockwork, she would shove him away from her as hard as she could after warning him to get out of her face. He would bounce back two, maybe three times before he would grab her up by her arms. As soon as he had a good firm grip, he would kiss her passionately with such force that at times it was impossible to tell if the sensation she was experiencing was pleasure or pain. Invariably, they would make love.

The same strange scenario would happen every time without fail. She knew the entire situation was ridiculous, and that her emotions were telling her that things were all wrong, but she had no idea how she could change any of it; it all seemed out of her hands.

He was a very physical man. Not in the sense of being physically threatening towards her, although he was quite the assertive type, but he was physical in all aspects of his relationships. Everything led to sex or some form of physical closeness. She knew that being intimate after their ever escalating arguments was only making things worse, but in that moment it made everything seem all right. Until she could come up with a better solution, it was all she had.

She had agreed to go with him on the hike, hoping that the entire experience might be her first opportunity to show him that she was his equal and deserved the same respect that she offered him. Tirelessly, she attempted to pry any information she could from him, hounding him repeatedly about the trip and the locale. Unfortunately the only thing she had managed to shake loose was that he wanted to test a theory he had been working on.

He had been very persistent in suggesting that she go with him. In most cases he would insist she either stay home, or watch from the sidelines, so it came as a shock when he was adamant that she come along. Although his request was way outside of what passed for normal in their relationship, the thought of a romantic hike in the cool mountain air with her beau, no matter how extreme it might be, got her all fired up about the prospects; the two of them hand-in-hand, traversing the virgin landscape. They would find a spot under some large overhang and make love as the sun came up. She could feel her heart skip a beat as the images flittered through her mind; it was just the thing they needed.

As the sun began to rise higher into the morning sky, they gathered the things they would need for their excursion; a compass, two small flashlights with extra batteries, some food and water, matches, a small pocket knife, and a first aid kit. Kristian had also spent a considerable amount of time packing items into his pack that she either didn't recognize, or he wouldn't allow her to see. Truthfully, it hadn't bothered her much. He could do what he wanted. He was a big boy after all.

After making sure everything was neat and tidy, they stopped at one of his favorite health food delis for a well balanced lunch of fruits and high proteins. She didn't much care for all the 'health food' he insisted she eat. She did care about her body and its physical condition, but there were just certain things she wouldn't sacrifice. One of those precious things was food that actually tasted like something. Lots of tofu and raw vegetables combined with brown rice and no condiments what-so-ever made for a very boring meal. It was debatable that his choice of foods had no taste. After all, cardboard is a taste and although completely unpalatable to most, it could be argued that some found it appetizing. When the mind-numbingly bland meal was finished, and they had successfully completed the last round of twenty questions, much to Kristian’s aggravation, they jumped into his truck and headed out for the first leg of their trip.

The drive was pleasant enough, but more than anything it was quiet. Usually he had the radio up so loud that you could barely hear yourself think. That was always another point of contention between the two of them. He would turn it up, she would ask him to turn it down and he would turn it up louder; on it went. This time however, he hadn't even switched on the booming bass and screaming guitars. Although the lack of overpowering music was nice, it was so far out of their range of normalcy that it pushed her comfort level towards a new low. With little else to do, she sat in silence and thought about how strange he had been acting the last few weeks.

Normally he was constantly touching and flirting, and eventually working his way towards sex, but not lately. The last few days this change had intensified to the point that, more than anything, he just seemed distant. About the only conversations they had any more involved her need to make more money, and Kris’ desire to spend it all. She wasn't sure that their relationship was doing so well and, if she was being honest with herself, she wasn't so sure she was even in love with him anymore. At this point, it wasn't entirely clear that she had ever really been in love with him in the first place.

For now, she would just have to shake off the negativity she was contemplating in her mind, and sit quietly while the world sped past the car window. In its own way, it was peaceful.

As soon as they arrived at their destination, they quickly unpacked and donned their gear. It was a fifteen mile hike to the remote location, an old Indian burial ground in the middle of the Sierra desert, Arrow Canyon was the destination. The Arrow range lies on the Eastern side of the Sierra Mountains and runs north to South along the main flow of the mountain range. Although it was only twenty five miles long, from her vantage point it seemed to stretch on for an eternity.

Before the trip, she didn't know much about the area, or what types of flora and fauna that lay within its reaches. She was however, familiar with the range. She had seen it hundreds of times as she traveled along Route 93 towards Wells, Nevada. A lot of the avid hikers in town said that Arrow Canyon was one of the best hikes on this side of the range and it seemed that many people spent weekend trips up there, some even taking their young families along. Knowing that couples found hiking in that area suitable for children helped to comforter her about the perils that might be present and had relieved her stress over the intensity level she might encounter while on their adventure.

The focus of their trip, according to Kristian, was a burial mound, not sightseeing. He claimed that it was haunted. She couldn’t be sure if he was serious about the place or if he was simply attempting to dash her hopes of a romantically-healing couples hike. More than anything, she wished that this information had been provided before she made her decision to go along. Trying to put the best possible spin on things and make the most out of the trip, she figured a little mystery and intrigue never hurt anyone. Besides, her man was certainly excited about it, and that was more than enough cause for her to try and do the same.

After parking the red SUV, Kristian had spent quite a bit of time trying to disguise their presence. The entire trip grew stranger by the minute. Her repeated attempts to understand why he felt it necessary to brush-over their tire tracks when the vehicle was plainly visible due to its size, only earned her a frustrated and dismissive glance from Kristian. For whatever reason, he was not giving in. She did her best to help cover what little marks were still visible in the hot sand by brushing them with the soles of her hiking boots. After another ten minutes of work and several long scrutinizing looks from different angles, Kristian gave his final approval of their work and they struck out towards the wilderness.

Surprisingly, the hike had gone well for both of them. She had no doubts that Kristian would pull it off flawlessly, but as for herself, she was a bit worried that she wouldn't be able to keep up. Once her legs found a rhythm that matched the terrain, she discovered that it came much easier to her than she had expected. There was no doubt that she would be exhausted when it was all said and done, but she held her own in front of him, and that was what was most important to her. If she could show Kris that she had the ability to hang with him, mile for mile, he might come to see her as an equal, a partner in life. If he could look at her in a different lightand see her as a companion, not just a sexual object, their relationship could finally bloom into the beautiful arrangement that she always hoped it could be. So, with as much gusto as she could muster she pressed on beside him.

She was 25 years old, he was 27. They were both in impeccable shape, even for their ages. Not that body builder sort of physique, but a toned highly efficient body that would be reliable and, not to mention, attractive. Years of being an aerobics class attendee, and then an instructor had given her the body she had always wanted. She was lean and muscular, but not very tall. Women with her height always had that problem of looking 'stumpy' when they put a lot of bulk on their frames, but she had the long lean muscles that gave her the appearance of a much taller woman. Her aerobics class was one of the most popular at the center, mainly because she spent so much time fine tuning the workouts. They were fun, and strenuous, but not so tough that the students got discouraged quickly. She had women and men from all walks of life attending her classes on a daily basis. Lately she had even begun to form a waiting list of people that wanted a chance to sit-in on one of her sessions. She could have up-sized the class to accommodate more people, but she felt that each person would be losing that personal attention that she gave to each and every one of them. She knew that it was an integral part of what made her classes so effective. It was for that simple reason that she had left things alone and continued on in the same fashion that had always afforded her so much success; she had just enough students who got all the attention they needed. Besides, she liked things the way they were, and unless she could come up with a better solution, she figured it was better not to tinker with things.

Kristian, on the other hand, was fanatical about his body. He had once told her that his first year of exercising had focused completely on learning the proper techniques of working out, and subsequently the re-sculpting of his body through toning exercises. Later, he combined long intense bike rides, extreme climbing sessions, and strict diet control to obtain his ideal physique. She had to agree that his methods seemed to have worked flawlessly. As he stood gazing towards the horizon, she was struck by the thought that his build resembled that of the famous statue of David; he was tall, lean, and had a perfectly defined musculature. She recalled him saying that if he ever found that his legs were beginning to develop too quickly, he would shift focus and catch-up whatever body part had lagged behind. Attractiveness was not the only perk to Kristian's extreme training. It was clear to her by how nimbly he moved across the ever changing terrain, that his workout regime made him easily adaptable to any type of extreme physical situation. While she struggled to focus on the placement of each foot, he seemed to glide effortlessly along the rapidly changing landscape with little or no effort. She knew it was likely obvious that she was struggling at times, but she had done her best to hide it.

The day passed by quickly, and as they reached their destination, the sun had begun to set. The perfectly clear blue of the day gave way to pinks and bright oranges that faded to a brilliant purple in the sky overhead. Physically tired, but no worse for the wear, they sat to watch the sun sink over the ridge. As the warming rays became ever more scarce, the sun slipped slowly behind the distant horizon with the temperature gradually following suit.

She had been in the desert before, so she knew that the air would get much cooler once the sun went down. Even though Kristian had not requested it, she had packed a light sweatshirt for each of them, just in case the night air proved even chillier than she remembered. As her body began to shiver from the cold, she removed the sweatshirts from the hike pack and helped Kris into his. Surprisingly, he had done the same for her. As the sun disappeared behind the distant ridge of stone, worn smooth by time and the elements, he leaned in towards her.

She was anticipating he would want a little passion after such a long hike. He was notorious for hard workouts followed by intense love making. Any other time in their relationship she might have been reluctant, but given his strange indifference to her physically over the last few weeks, she secretly hoped he would want to be with her now in this romantic setting. Kris didn't let her down. As he leaned in for a kiss, a passion she had never felt rippled through her body as if an unseen source of electricity had been wired to her very fiber. It may have been the distance that had grown between them or it might have been that her hopes of a renewed relationship might sprout from their hike, either way she submitted and the night air no longer seemed as cool as it had only moments before.

As their heart rates slowed to a more normal pace, they quickly dressed without saying a word. For her part, she felt that this excursion may have possibly been the best thing that could have happened to their relationship. She could feel a smile creeping slowly across her face as she felt, more than saw, Kristian approaching her slowly from behind. She remembered the warmth of his body as he stood there behind her, hugging her loosely from behind. He took a deep slow breath and leaned his head in close to her ear. She knew she would never forget this first step forward in their new relationship. He quietly whispered, It’s time, and that is where the fuzziness in her memory began.

Chapter Three

Wickenburg, Arizona was not what most people would describe as a booming metropolis. Although the town had seen huge growth during the 60's, eleven and a half square miles and a little over 6,000 people did not qualify the place as a massive city. The town had started its life just before the turn of the