Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2006 08:15:15 -0800 (PST)
From: Stephen Aramburu <aramflag@yahoo.com>
Subject: Wish Upon A Star Part 3

	His hand dashed with the speed of light across the thick piece of
clamped down Manila paper, leaving behind trails of seemingly random pencil
marks...pencil marks that came together, like the miniscule fabrics of a
tapestry, to form an unreal image...a sketch that put the artist's dazzling
abilities and flabbergasting talents on full display.  What was depicted in
the sketch was nothing more than a wondrous fantasy...a fanciful object of
the artist's boundless, almost childish imagination...inspired by a
dream...a random thought conjured within the depths of the person's mind
that manifested itself into a seemingly realistic sequence of experiences
only because the dreamer, himself, is too dead, or unconscious, I should
say, to concentrate on anything else.  Yet, the sketch was done with skills
so honed and accuracy so painfully sharp that it captured its viewer's mind
and brainwashed it into thinking that what it depicted was real.  The
picture was, indeed, an undeniable reality, an unchallenged truth, a solid,
flesh-and-blood, material entity.  "How could it not have been real?  I saw
it with my own two eyes," would be the initial thought of the viewer after
having diverted his eyes from the godly sketch, for the artist behind the
sketch had made it nearly indistinguishable from a picture.  Yet, it was
still incomplete...expanding and improving with each pencil stroke from the
artist as we speak.
      One could only guess what was going on through Joe head as he was
drawing, cross-legged upon his soft, comfortable bed...as the hand-guided
pencil darted swiftly across the paper.  (Of course...I know...for I am the
narrator) A little more shading to the eyes...more texture to the
torso...give the angel's lips more essence and more moisture...more
shadowing...make the angel's thighs look like they're glowing...make the
whole figure look like it's glowing...less line patterns on the
clouds...less shading on the hair...erase that extra finger on the angel's
left hand...improvise...then, a mental block.  Look at that clipboard!  So
brown...so smooth.
      Clipboards always had a weird characteristic, he thought.  They
looked like coffee...smelled like coffee...shared the same color as coffee.
Yes...clipboards always had that special bitter-sweet aroma to them...the
aroma that evaporated from a fresh, hot cup of coffee...pleasing to the
soul...soothing to the mind.  "But what the hell?" he suddenly blurted out
loud, snapping out of his lapse.  It was just a clipboard...a clipboard
that clamped papers!  Why was he even taking notice of all this useless
crap...obvious crap that nobody really gave a damn about?
	"Guess that's what happens when you have no life," Joe thought,
disdainfully, of himself as he continued with his sketch.  As Joe drew, his
picture crept closer and closer to the perfection his eyes had witnessed on
that curious day.  The portrait showed a small, yet masculine
angel...radiant as the shining sun...glorious and emphatic as
Michelangelo's David...yet as lovable and as innocent as a new-born puppy,
complete with the anime-inspired "puddle eyes."  Never before had two
completely opposite characters with clashing traits been fused together so
smoothly and so effortlessly as to form one, superior being.  The angel's
masculinity was beyond doubt as muscles rippled throughout his body and his
broad shoulders.  Pride and arrogance swallowed up the angel's face and his
posture showed that he was shameless in flaunting his magnificent, naked
body for the viewing pleasure of the mortals below...the lowly, unworthy
mortals, constantly aging...constantly turning their heads up to the
heavens...up, miles into the sky...up toward the ground he walked upon.
      Yet, at the same time, he seemed so boyish and so adorably ignorant.
His skin was as smooth as silk.  His face seemed as though it would crumble
to dust as soon as it was touched.  The angel's warm, youthful eyes melted
into your soul and consumed you from the inside out with a feeling that
made you wanted to go "Awww."
       Joe had done it!  He had finally managed to capture the image that
blew his eyes away and sent his heart into a state of shock.  He had
captured the ultimate symbol of beauty, power, agelessness, and eternal
youth onto a simple sheet of paper.
      Joe lifted his hands in triumph and collapsed onto his bed.
      "Shit...if only..." he thought.  "If only wishes upon stars came
true.  If only I could be there in the clouds with that angel...instead of
this hell...this unbearable hell of a life!"
      Then...another mental block.  If only...if only Joe could glide atop
the soft, white clouds with the angel, surrounded by the limitless
heavens...unchained by hassles and the miseries of life.  For Joe, life was
one big pit of despair.  And everyday, he found himself sinking deeper and
deeper into a maze...an endless labyrinth of agony.  In other words, life
sucked.
      Joe closed his eyes and temporarily loosened his grip on his mind.
In his relaxed state, Joe's conscience gained a life of its own and began
to replay, to Joe, the events and memories of this past week.  At first,
Joe saw, only a cloak of blackness.  Then, random concepts and images began
popping up into the dark background...bits and pieces of time scattered
throughout the deep contents of Joe's memory.  But before long, the little
bits and pieces began to link themselves together, like individual slides
panels of a motion picture, joining to form an image...a moving image...a
memory...

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	The sun shattered through Derek's closed eyelids and soon, his
green pupils were visible through the shining sun.  Derek was
exhausted...his arms and legs sore, though he hadn't done anything
physical.
      "Where the hell am I?" he thought to himself, having no recollection
whatsoever of where he was or what he was doing.  His eyes darted across,
from left to right and back, soaking everything there was to see.  He was
in a room...the fanciest room he'd ever seen.  The carpet was black and the
smell of fresh, clean detergent found its way into Derek's nostrils.  Derek
was seated atop deluxe, but not overly comfortable leather seats.  In front
of him stood a television set.  The room was big and spacious...surrounded
by pitch-black windows.  The leather seats clung onto the walls of the
room, making a square couch around the square walls...the black,
carpet-covered walls.  Derek was unused to such luxuries, living in poverty
all his life...his only complaint was that the room was too low.  The roof
of the room was only about 3 feet tall.  Wait...3 feet tall?
      Only then did Derek realize that he was in a limousine.
"Duh...you're in a limo, dumbass!" he thought to himself.  Now he
remembered!  Today was the day Derek was to start his new job...as a
housekeeper for the Carter's, Nebraska's richest family of business
tycoons.  8 whole dollars an hour!  Wow!  And to be taken by a
limo...fancier than anything he'd fantasized about.
      Then, everything...the events of the past few hours...came back to
Derek.  His mind became clear again and felt as though it had been lifted
from the dead.
      This morning, Derek was sitting in his hotel room for the last
time...his mother's condition worsening.  Derek's mother's health
fluctuated violently throughout the course of the last few days.  She would
be perfectly fine for a couple of hours, putting Derek under the illusion
that her disease was a thing of the past.  But then, out of nowhere, she
would collapse and bleed out of her mouth and her nose.  Derek had been on
his knees in the streets of Weedhole, the prosperous, modern metropolis
five miles to the north of Oak Mill, begging doctors to come and treat his
ailing mother.  Some of the doctors, who saw their superior knowledge and
income as an excuse to worship themselves, saw how ragged and dusty Derek's
hair and clothes were and brushed him away like a piece of dust.  Others
were mystified by Derek's stunning looks...his angelic face and his godly
body seducing their twisted desires into a frenzy...and agreed to check his
mother out...if Derek agreed to sleep with them.  Derek would just walk
away, disgusted.
      Meanwhile, his mother had continued whoring, despite Derek's numerous
protests.  But something was different.  Her recent customers and
one-night-standers hadn't just been taking advantage of her.  Once they saw
her bleeding out of her eyes and nose, they would lose their temper call
her a dirty slut, before abusing her...smashing beer bottle over her
head...beating her...gang-raping her...She knew that she should stay home
for the sake of her health, as Derek had repeatedly begged, but to Derek's
mom, anything was worth another $700 per night for her precious son.
      That morning, Derek sat by his mother in tears.  Her condition had
worsened even more and she looked as pale as a ghost.
      "Mom..." he whispered, holding her hand.  "Mom...hang on...don't
worry...the doctor...he'll be coming really soon."
      "Derek..." his mom uttered, weakly.  "How...how did you find a
doctor?  Where did you get the money?"
      "Mom..." Derek said, looking down onto the bed, below his mother's
face.  "I...I kinda..."
      "You kinda what?"
      "I kinda..."
      "No," his mother whispered.  "You did not agree to sleep with him..."
      Derek said nothing...but moved his head up and down...guilty and
ashamed.
      "Derek..." his mom whispered, unsure whether to feel grateful or
disappointed.  "You..."
      "Yeah...I did it, mom," Derek said, tears pouring down his face as
the sobs choked up his voice.  "I...I didn't know what else to do.  I
couldn't find any other way to convince the doctor to treat you!"
      "Derek!" his mom yelled, a sudden burst of anger resonating through
her voice.  "What did I tell you, Derek?  You should never stoop yourself
to your mother's disgusting level!  You're only twelve years old!  You
promised, Derek...you promised never to be a whore...never to have sex with
anybody unless you truly love them and they truly love you!"  She gave a
sigh of disgust.  "What kind of a son did I raise?  What kind of son could
I have raised...considering the fact that I'm nothing but a diseased slut
whose only achievement in life is sex and money.  I knew I would influence
you, someday..."
      "Mom," Derek said, crying uncontrollably.  "I don't care what I
said...for you, anything's worth it!  You're my only friend mom...the only
one who has ever cared for me!  I could never lose you.  I could never see
you die...if I did, I might as well kill myself, too."
      The contorted expression on Derek's mother's face softened as she,
too, began crying, overcome by Derek's love.
      "I could never lose you, mom!" Derek continued.  "Hell, I would sleep
with all the disgusting bastards in this entire hell of a town if I had
to...in the entire, god-damn Oak Mill Nebraska...just as long as it kept
you alive!"
      "Oh Derek!" his mom sobbed, embracing her son with every last speck
of strength she possessed.  "You're such a good son!  You're so good to
me...the only one, since your father, who has ever been good to me.  But
there's a difference.  He used me...he liked my body, not me...but
Derek...oh Derek!  What did I ever do to deserve such a wonderful son?"
      It took a while for the two of them, mother and son, to pull
themselves together, emotionally.
      "Derek," his mother whispered.  "I know you won't be like your
father.  Any woman who has you as a lover someday will be the luckiest
little tart in the world."
      "Mom..." Derek said, blushing.  Then, came a knock on the door.
Derek leaped up and flung the door open.  Standing in the doorway were two
men.  Both were handsome, young, and really nicely dressed, but in
different ways.  The man on the right wore slacks, a sweater vest, and a
tie and looked very professional and classy.  But the man on the left made
the first one look like a hobo.  He wore an expensive, black tuxedo with a
diamond-studded "C" on both sleeves and shiny, black shoes.  Derek
instantly recognized the man on the right as the doctor he had slept with.
Though the doctor's face was bright and friendly, it brought shivers of
disgust that jolted down Derek's back, for it reminded him of the night he
had disgracefully sold his virginity.
      "Hi there, young man," the doctor bent down and said, as if Derek was
some patient at his office he had just met for the first time.  "Where's
your mother?"
      "She's right there," Derek said softly, pointing to the bed, while
trying his very best to avoid eye contact with the doctor.
      "Alright," the doctor warmly replied.  "I'll see what I could do."
He took his bag, winked at Derek, and gave his butt a slap, before walking
over to his mother's side.
      "Asshole," Derek whispered, as even more memories of that horrifying
night replayed themselves in Derek's head.  Derek then looked up to the
other man standing in the doorway.
      "Who the hell are you?" he asked, turning his eyes to the other
nicely dressed guy in his doorway.
      "Oh..." the other young man mumbled.  "I'm Stan...the limo
driver...the Carters' personal limo driver.  I'm here to pick up a
Derek...he's supposed to be the new housekeeper for the Carters' home."
      "Oh, God!" Derek exclaimed, his mood suddenly brightening.  "I almost
forgot!"  Derek leaped up and grabbed his bag of personal possessions,
which he had packed days earlier.  He then cut through the doctor and knelt
down next to his mom's bed.
      "Don't worry, mom," he whispered.  "I will come back..."
      "You do that, son," was Derek's mom's reply.  "Good luck, sweetie."
She gave Derek a kiss on the forehead and watched, through tearing eyes, as
she tried to get one, last glimpse of her son.
      Stan, the limo driver, was rather taken back by how absolutely
stunning Derek was.  Derek's deep, green eyes...the endless pools of
green...pierced right into his soul and made his knees feel weak.  Derek's
blond hair glowed as brightly as the sun and his perfectly chiseled body,
cloaked within rough, brown burlap fabric, was nothing less than divine.
      "He's the housekeeper?" Stan thought to himself, chuckling.  "He
seems more like a play-thing for Mrs. Carter."
      Derek nearly fainted when he saw the limo.  It was a long, shimmering
vehicle that temporarily blinded Derek as the sunlight bounced off its
smooth, waxed surface.  Its tires were made of state-of-the-art,
"needle-free" rubber that cost $50.00 per roll, with platinum tire frames
screwed tightly in the middle, each with the word "Carter" carved deep
within it.  The luxurious 6-wheeled limo stood out, like a sore thumb,
among the decaying mule carts and the old, legless beggars that cluttered
the already horrific scenery of Oak Mill, Nebraska.
      And there Derek was, three hours later, seated within the
limo...staring blankly out of the window, into the sky.  Surrounding the
limo on both sides were green pastures that seemed to extend forever into
the Nebraska horizon.  Derek was mystified by the scenery.  Never before
had he seen anything so beautiful...anything so pure and unpolluted.
      "We'll be at the mansion, soon," said Stan, breaking Derek out of his
trance.  "We should be there in about another thirty minutes."


************************************************************************
************************************************************************


 	The pain was insufferable...a blinding flash of physical agony
ripped itself across Joe's body...then another...and then another.  Joe
wasn't able to clearly interpret what was going on around him, but when he
did muster the courage to open his eyes, he found himself pinned against
the floor, with a 700-pound piece of blubber crushing itself upon him.
Then, a fist flew into his face, as if from nowhere, and slammed it against
the floor.
	"Stop...please..." Joe begged hoarsely.  "What...what did I do to
you?"
	"Little bitch!" yelled Keisuke, the sumo wrestler/bodyguard.
	"Why are you doing this to me?" muttered Joe through his
tear-stained face.
	"You know why!" was Keisuke's response, though he failed to provide
a reason.  For some reason, Keisuke just enjoyed beating the hell out of
Joe.  .  Keisuke wasn't used to the lifestyle of not having to wrestle
anybody on a daily basis.  But he was never seen by the public eye on a
wrestling mat since he was banned for a sex scandal that brought shame to
the wrestling world.  Perhaps beating Joe was a way to filter out the
negative emotions he'd felt since being forced to retire at the peak of his
career and to rid himself of his unused energy.  Even he wasn't sure.
	He would beat Joe at least three or four times a week ever since he
was hired as the bodyguard for his parents.  The beatings had gotten more
bearable for a while, after Joe had accepted them as a part of his life he
had to settle into.  But recently, the beatings only got more violent and
more spasmodic.  What the hell was wrong with Keisuke?
      Finally, after what felt like an eternity of hell, Keisuke got up and
walked away from Joe's room, leaving Joe gasping for breath.
      The very next day, Joe was driven to a house five hours away to meet
a girl named Mindy Klein.  The Kleins were the second richest family in the
entire state of Nebraska (second to the Carters, of course) with a mansion
just as huge and an army of personal limo drivers just as impressive as the
Carters'.  Joe had been told that he would see Mindy...just to try her
out...see how much he liked her and make her a candidate for being his wife
someday.  But the truth was, the Carters and the Kleins had already decided
that Joe and Mindy were to marry, thus merging the two greatest fortunes in
the entire state of Nebraska into one.
      Joe had seen Mindy once before...and that was enough.  Mindy was the
most disgusting, slobber-mouthed baboon imaginable.  It was unreal how
obese and hideous Mindy was.  With a patch of short, red hair and a
bloated, zit-infested face, repulsive yellow teeth, and a body that looked
like it had been stuffed with helium, Mindy was the last person Joe wanted
to have anything to do with.  But his parents had insisted that Joe spend
the rest of his life with her as a slave to a lifestyle whose only purpose
was to get richer and wealthier by any and all means.  Joe despised
Mindy...she was an arrogant, snobbish 5-year-old in a large, 16-year-old's
body who, from a young age, was fed with misguided information that stated
how gorgeous she was and how every boy in the world wanted to be with her.
She was spoiled and would cry and whine, like a baby, if she didn't get
what she wanted.  Joe didn't want to marry her!  He wanted to stab a
pitchfork through her fat ass and burn her alive.
      Joe snapped back into reality.  Here he sat, in his bed, wandering
the deep chambers of his mind for memories of the past week.  It was Monday
morning, but school was closed.  It was spring break and his parents were
going on vacation.  That meant that there was no more homework and no more
long, boring lectures about the U.S. economy, at least for another week.
He had the entire house at his disposal, with only Keisuke's brutality to
worry about.
      His eyes shifted outside onto the bright scenery of the horizon and
the endless pastures of green that seemed to stretch on forever toward it,
flawed by only one, narrow highway.  On the highway, a white limo caught
his attention.
      "Must be the new housekeeper," he thought to himself.


      Whew...long chapter.  Now that Derek and Joe are in the same house,
things are going to get more interesting.  Tell me what you think.  Email
all comments, good or bad, to aramflag@yahoo.com/