Three weeks that’s how long Calla had been living with Andrew Hartley in his elegant New York City brownstone. Three weeks and she hadn’t heard anything at all from Daniel. Well, at least the divorce papers hadn’t arrived yet. Still dark outside at 5am Andy was out for his morning jog before coming back, having his coffee, reading the business and the arts sections of the newspaper and then he’d be on the phone or the computer most of the day. Calla was just finding out that for all of the illicit drugs and partying Andy did, he really was somewhat of a health nut. Other than special occasions he only ate certain foods and he jogged every morning 7 days a week rain or shine, went to a very exclusive gym 3 afternoons a week and had a private Aikido lesson on Wednesday evenings at the brownstone. Calla supposed that when one was Mortal and liked the needle and the toot one had to make up for that abuse in other areas and Andy did it almost religiously.

5 am and she was awake and alone. Not only that, she was lonely too. Daniel hardly ever got out of the bed this early not unless it was for something very important. Calla dragged herself out of the plush overstuffed oversized dark mahogany hand-carved four post bed with its cocoa brown down quilt and matching silk sheets and king sized pillows. She headed for the master bathroom. Time for a little wakey-wakey but certainly there was no eggs n bacey on the plate.

Avoiding the overhead light and the bathroom mirror she rummaged through the vanity table until she found her secret stash of cocaine which she’d hidden in a facial powder compact. Andy never looked at her make-up well not after he approved it before taking out of the store and then again once it was on her face. Over the last two weeks or so Calla had become adept in the art of make-up and she owned quite a bit of it now. One night, not that long ago, Andy complained that she looked pale and plain, the next morning they’d gone around town and come home with bags full of different beauty aids. From foundation to mascara, blush to eye shadow and don’t forget all the skin care productions which were necessary for preparation and removal of said guck.

Calla found that while she didn’t really like the make-up it was ok and she didn’t know why she’d stayed away from it in the first place after all it hid so many sins. It just took a bit of practice to get the knack of it, that’s all, really. She’d done a very good job with make up for months while she was pregnant. Then she had to hide her wilted withered face from Daniel’s friends but there was no such need to worry about that now. No, now she was hiding that drawn face from the media and herself. That was all right, no one said she had to look directly into the mirror until she was ready to do so and she wasn’t. She’d have to do that soon enough.

To go with the fancy make up, Andy took her to a very fancy hair salon, Jean-Louis David and had her tresses cut off. Calla’s once long, lush and beautiful hair was now layered and cut off just below her shoulders—the stylist said her hair was just so plain and old-fashioned. Andy and the stylist agreed she needed sprucing up so she now had short and sassy bangs on her forehead. Andy told the stylist to add highlights so she had strawberry blonde streaks in her auburn hair which she now had to blow dry every time she washed it just so that it sat on the top of her head correctly. Her days of wash, comb and go were long over. Between the make up, the new hair, the drugs and the utter loneliness and despair, it was getting to the point where it was difficult to recognize her own reflection any more.

Cupping the compact in her hand she stumbled back to the bed and climbed in under the covers. She’d rather have a boot but Andy was keeping a choke-hold on the needle and the liquid bliss it delivered, he said she liked it too much and he’d give it to her when he thought the time was right. She hadn’t been able to get her hands on any of it therefore had no stash of China White or Black Tar. Calla could smoke as much weed as she wanted, Andy didn’t care about that but he did keep the special mildly hallucinogenic weed under lock and key with the heroin. She had been able to get a bit of that before he locked it up and she kept it in a cigarette pack—she was up to two packs of Newports a day—in the back of her underwear drawer. Like the drug addiction she didn’t know when or how she’d picked up the cigarette habit but all of Andy’s friends smoked cigarettes or cigars—of course they all smoked weed and crack too—so it was just natural that she’d fall into it as well. Andy didn’t like crack and didn’t allow his friends and associates to smoke it in his house and never once let her try it. It smelled bad anyway. Although he didn’t seem to mind if she wanted it, Andy monitored his stash of cocaine, she knew that, so she’d taken it little by little until the compact was full. The giggly tea however was freely available just about any time she wanted it all she had to was ask Henry the butler to get it for her.

Lying back on the big pillows she opened the compact, dipped her long pinky nail into the white powder and…sniff…up her nose it went. Another fingernail another sniff. Morning had broken and it was on its way to being a lovely day. Later on they were going to do some serious wardrobe shopping. No more thrift stores or dull boring malls, nope, nothing but the chicest boutiques would do now. Andy, it seemed, didn’t like her taste in clothes—what little she’d brought with her—he said they were dowdy and matronly and didn’t show off that fabulous figure of hers. Calla liked her pretty flowing clothes and her floral prints maybe they weren’t skin tight or in the latest fashion but Daniel never complained about her ‘style’. Andy thought she needed a new wardrobe to complete the aesthetic part of her Make Over, which was not yet complete. To top it off he gave her a brand new old name, Calla Jackson wasn’t good enough any longer, now she was known solely as Callestah. No Jackson. Everywhere they went he introduced her as such and insisted she be called by such. And he did take her everywhere.

The parties were lavish. The people were loud and boorish. They talked endlessly about themselves and little else while putting the spoon up their noses, sucking on drinks and cigarettes and complaining how life was treating them unfairly.

Sniff. Sniff.

All of this hub-bub was so that he could bring her to Europe in two months where she had several very big shows coming up the first one in Rome. From there she was going to be ‘on the European circuit’ until possibly the end of the year. They were booked all over Europe until the end of November and weren’t slated to come back to the United States until early December when she her tour would close at the New York Museum of Art which was when they would hold a large silent auction to sell off the paintings they’d shown the world. In between she had press junkets and talk-show appearances to make. Andy was very big on using the media to one’s best advantage and he was showing her all the ropes.

Sniff. Sniff.

Two weeks ago Andy wrote up her resignation for the University Colorado Silver Springs and she signed it without reading it. There was no going back to her job now. Further he presented her with a Purchase and Sales Agreement for her gallery. Andy emptied it out before they left for New York and all of her paintings there were shipped here. Andy sorted through them categorized them and stored them away. He hadn’t allowed any of her work to be put up for sale since they got here. He said that was because he was ‘saving her and them and creating a demand’ for the European tour coming up and for which much preparation was being made. Andy even handed her little website—which she liked maintaining and updating-- off to someone named Reginald who lived in England for an overhaul. The works by other artists which had once graced the walls of her small but delightful gallery were sent back to them and he’d arranged the sale of the building through the telephone and e-mail. She didn’t want to give up her little gallery but she signed the agreement and the deal was going to close in another week or so while they were away.

Other than her children there was nothing at all for her in Colorado now.

Calla closed the compact and put it on the night stand she’d put it away later or just leave it there he wouldn’t look at it either way. She fished the ounce of regular weed out of the night stand, rolled herself a Philly Blunt while dragging on a Newport and flicking on the morning news.

Yes, Life in the City just rolled right along it seemed it never stopped. If they weren’t going shopping or to the hair salon or to an art opening or party or dinner at some fancy restaurant or if he wasn’t exercising or working—which he did about incessantly as Daniel!—well then there was some time to get high, to fuck (sometimes) and to sleep. Other than that it was just go-go-go and rush-rush-rush. Before he brought her here he told that she could rest and convalesce at his home but she’d done anything and everything but rest.

Inhale the smoke. Hold on to it. Exhale the smoke. Repeat.

Henry, Andy’s Gentleman’s Gentleman—the one who’d helped him ditch Booker’s body in to the dumpster but she didn’t know that little detail—knocked on the door and was bringing her morning coffee and English muffin. Calla didn’t put the bowl away or cover the still slightly bruised breast which was peeking out from under the covers before telling him to come in.

“Morning, Callestah.” Henry said in a bright British accent and set the silver serving tray down on her dresser. “Anything I can get for you, ma’am?”

“No thank you, Henry.” He left the room without a word quietly closing the door behind him.

Before Rome they were going to Switzerland in two days. Andy spent hours and hours on the phone arranging for her to go to a clinic there and have her scars taken care of. In order to get her in faster, or so he said, he made her stand naked in his bedroom while he photographed the scars with a digital camera. Calla didn’t want to be photographed like that but he insisted it was the easiest and fastest way to get this task accomplished and besides it wasn’t like anyone other than the doctors would see them and how ugly they were. While snapping close ups of the knotted and still bruised flesh at her back and the scars on her inner thighs and those further up in that most delicate of places between her legs, Andy swore up and down that he didn’t mind her scars and indeed thought she was beautiful in spite of them but ‘the world, dahling, they want to see you, as much of you as they can. We wouldn’t the world looking at those, would we, love? They won’t understand the way I do, my dear.’

It was impossible to photograph the scars inside her so the Swiss doctors had him tell them what it felt like to be in her. So Andy screwed her several time for ‘research purposes’. They also had Andy ask Calla how the damage had occurred and to send that information to them along with the photographs. Calla didn’t want to discuss how the ‘damage’ had ‘occurred’ but she didn’t want to live with those scars either and if there was some way to get rid of them then that would be good. After a boot and a few toots she told him an ugly story about a man named Kanan and the blade of his knife and his love of the whip. Calla told a tale about a man named Omar and the little silver ball which gave out harsh electric shocks and which he’d he stuffed inside her while he fucked her. From the paling expression on his face she thought Andy was going to get sick and he did excuse himself for a few moments and he did take a few lines when he came back but he didn’t ask any more questions.

In Andy’s eyes and mind he already had everything worked out as far as her new appearance went. According to Andy he was giving her ‘a whole new you, dahling!’ The new wardrobe was going to be skimpy and he didn’t want those ugly scars messing things up. Not to mention the internal scars which were hindering his pleasure when he took her to bed. Andy wasn’t all that satisfied by the knotted place between her legs and from time to time he made no bones about stating that fact. So more often than not they made out and she gave him blow jobs and titty fucks and hand jobs and all that good stuff. Anal sex was also high and Andy’s list of things to do, he seemed to like entering through the back door very much.

Andy thought that while she was at the clinic and being ‘worked on’ that she might have her thighs molded a little bit, just a tad and, yes, well, maybe, dahling, a breast enhancement would be good. He said it would give her a little lift and make her pop. ‘You’re getting older, dahling, things sag at your age, we’ll get it taken care of.’ As if he had any idea of how old she really was and most of the time Calla thought she looked pretty damn good for a woman of 57.

Yes, pop, pizzazz and sizzle seemed important concepts to Andy. Everything had to pop it had to flash and sizzle to life so as to be noticed and not passed by. Of course all of that meant nothing if she couldn’t paint again so in between salons and make-up lessons and clothes and parties and drugs they’d gone to see a very prestigious orthopedist. The doctor examined her hands and assured Andrew—and Calla—that they were healing very well and that the doctor who had originally tended her had done a wonderful job. She was healing well ahead of schedule and shouldn’t have any problems holding a paint brush again. Indeed she had regained most of the use of her right hand the one that had been merely strained rather than broken. The skin there was a dingy yellowish color but she didn’t have to wear that bandage any more and if she took it easy she could do most things for herself—including blow drying her hair which she hated. Andy had been most relieved at the news and they’d gotten into the limousine and gone right down to the supply store and practically bought out the oils and canvas department. He set her up on the largely unused third floor with everything she could want or need to make all the paintings he wanted her to. While she’d gone up there a time to two, just to set the studio up and get acquainted with her new surroundings she’d yet to put brush to canvas. The painting of her Ares and Daniel was sitting on the easel waiting to be finished. Andy said that was another million dollar piece and he couldn’t wait for it to be finished so he could photograph it, send it to Reginald and have it put up on her new flashier website.

The trip to Switzerland weighed on her mind most heavily. She promised Nicholas she would be there when he and Colleen graduated from high school and she was so looking forward to seeing her children again but appointment with the clinic was slated for June 23rd and graduation was the 22^nd They had to leave JFK on the 22^nd in order to make her appointment at the Swiss clinic. (Today was the 20^th which meant tomorrow, the 21^st, would have been her and Daniel’s 18^th wedding anniversary—she tried very hard not to think about that.) Calla couldn’t be in Colorado and Switzerland at the same time. No matter how much she told Andy how important it was to her and the kids that she go to the graduation he just told her that she would have to miss it. It had taken him a lot of work to get this appointment with the prestigious clinic and he’d done it all for her. Reminded her that the kids and Daniel would take and send lots of pictures and she would send them a good gift to make up for things. After the tour she could go to Colorado and see her children if she wanted but until then she was just booked solid and there was no time for anything as trite as family.

Nicholas hung up on her when she told him and Colleen cried. They both wanted to know why their Mother wouldn’t be there for what should be a happy and momentous occasion and Calla couldn’t bring herself to tell them what happened after Daniel stopped loving her. She could only bring herself to say that she had to go Switzerland with Andy. That didn’t go over well at all not with either of them. That’s when Nicholas hung up and Colleen just said a tearful ‘good-bye’. Calla went right down the stairs to the living room after that and again told Andy that she didn’t want to go to Switzerland and that all of that could wait but he was just so damn insistent. He told her to quiet and that he didn’t want to hear any more about it. When she began to argue with him over it he made her a cup of mushroom tea and gave her a few white pills, he sent her up to bed and told her he’d be up shortly. She woke up alone.

Daniel was probably happy that she wasn’t going. It meant he didn’t have to suffer her presence at such a happy and momentous event. She wouldn’t be there to bring him down and spoil everything. That was probably best.

Nicholas was living with Annie in her little trailer he moved out the same day his Mother did. He swore they were both still going to school but then told her he didn’t think he was going to go to UCLA in the fall after all. He’d asked Annie to marry him and she’d said yes. Calla was very angry and upset but didn’t express it. It wasn’t Annie she liked Annie and thought one day they’d make a lovely old married couple. After college. She just to find a way to get him to see to that and to continue his education, he couldn’t just drop out because he was pissed off at his Parents.

Calla drew in a deep toke off the blunt. She had money she knew that, Andy said she’d made a quarter of a million dollars in one day! When she approached him with the idea of sending Annie to UCLA under the guise of a full scholarship he told her that all her funds were tied up in investments and the money she spent was actually a stipend he was giving her from the interest. In other words; no. When she started asking questions about where the money actually was and why she couldn’t do what she wanted with it he gave her a boot to calm her down. And she did calm down. Andy assured her that he was just looking out for her best interests and that while the idea of sending the little waif to college was very kind the girl would just get pregnant and drop out anyway and there would go Callestah’s money and their investment in Annie—and Nicholas’-- future.

Exhale the smoke. Inhale the smoke. Repeat.

Gods she missed Daniel. Sometimes she found herself with the phone in her hand she was dialing home but she always hung up before the call could connect. There was no sense in trying to use her mind to connect with Daniel or anyone else, those circuits were fried and she didn’t know if they’d ever mend. Didn’t care either. If she couldn’t find him he couldn’t find her therefore he’d never know exactly what she was up to at any given moment. That was probably best. She’d written him letters and then burned them, over and over, while Andy was away she’d write letters to Daniel and then just watch them go up in flames along with all the hopes and dreams she’d once held so dear.

Daniel probably didn’t miss her in the slightest. No, why would he? Obviously she’d never filled the bill. The little mousey goddess with red hair, alabaster skin, skinny hips, puny tits and green eyes she was never Daniel’s type. She was never good enough for him she understood that now. He was probably already well on his way to finding some buxom dark beauty to keep his belly warm at night. If he hadn’t found her already that was. Maybe someone like that had been waiting in the wings for a long time before Ares and Andy and Bacchus and Medea came along to fuck everything up. Even if the years they spent together had all been nothing but an illusion it was a good one or had been.

Having smoked the entire blunt down to nothing she dumped the small roach into the ashtray next to her and got out of the bed to get her coffee and choke down half the English muffin. It was almost 7:30 now and Andy would be back any time, he didn’t like it if she lingered in bed too long. He’d say she was lazy and wasting her time when she could be painting. Oh, how she missed the days when she would lounge around in the bed in Daniel’s arms making love, drinking coffee, watching television, making love some more. Daniel never called her lazy he seemed to like it too. Those days were so far gone she couldn’t hardly see them any more.

In some ways she was starting to dislike Andy but what could she do? She was stuck now. Anyway it wasn’t as though he were cruel like Ares or brutal like Kanan she could probably be in a worse situation with some other man if it weren’t for Andy. He kept her warm, fed, dry, and happy—well drug induced happiness was better than no happiness at all—at this stage of her life what more could she ask for than that? Calla considered herself damn lucky that any one wanted her…any one at all….after what she’d done.

Andy knew she’d had sex with her own Father—although he didn’t know why-- and that He hadn’t been very nice about it. Andy even sympathized with her and encouraged her to talk about what happened. And talk she did, when she was high it all came streaming out and she would cry and he would hold her and say soft pretty words to her. It wasn’t in his power to forgive her for the heinous act but he accepted her anyway. No one else did. He didn’t berate her about it or tell her it was her fault. Little by little the entire story of the Life and Times of Lady Callestah a/k/a Calla Jackson was coming to light. Although she hadn’t said anything about Daniel’s new Immortality or her own for that matter, still Andy had enough information to put the pieces together but he’d yet to come right out and ask her if she was really an Olympian Goddess. Maybe he didn’t want to know. Better yet maybe he just didn’t care about that. One good thing on that front was she hadn’t seen hide or hair of Lord Ares since their little…incident. She was fairly certain he was watching from somewhere and probably having a mighty good laugh but he’d yet to approach her.

Over the last three weeks one extremely good thing did happen; calliendanny.com disappeared from the Internet. Just poof. One day it was there and the next it wasn’t.

(What she didn’t know was that while she slept a few nights ago Andy called his old pal Reginald back home in Brixton and asked if he was ready. Reg said he was good to go on Plan B and off it went. They allowed the USAF to catch up with them and shut down the site which had been plaguing them and leap-frogging all over the globe. The kicker was, the site never jumped servers it only looked that way and for the entire life of the site it was housed and originated from the SGC main server. Reg hacked into with flash and ease as Andy requested when the site first went up. It was a piece of cake, stupid gob’er’ment they never know nuttin’. And they didn’t. Although neither they nor Calla were there to see it, General Hammond, General O’Neill, Doctor Jackson and General Thurmond were all shocked to discover where the site originated from and how long it had been right under their own noses. Just a little salt for the wound. That’s all. Andy sent Reg a ten thousand pound bonus with his thanks. They’d both had a very good long-distance laugh about it.)

Almost quarter to eight now and she heard the front door opening and Andy’s voice downstairs. Calla dragged herself out of the bed once more and headed for the master bathroom with its gold fixtures and the shower with six separate shower heads—she figured that was to be sure all of ones filthy bits got good and clean—before he could come up to the bedroom. First slipping and then tying a plastic bag around her left hand which was still in a hard cast, Calla stepped under the hot jets of water. She did her best to wash her much shorter hair and cleanse her filthy-bits—God knew Andy really liked to get her dirty ‘down there’, he never stopped, whenever he had a free moment he was whisking her up the stairs to the bedroom or just tossing her down on the couch in the living room and having his way with her. Yeah, you know what they say; Gas, Grass or Ass Nobody Rides For Free. Calla was doing her best to keep up with the bill. Considering her new digs and high-living lifestyle that bill mounted up pretty quickly. Once she was ‘fixed’ and her Make Over completed she was sure that bill would only rise higher and higher.

“Dahling, you in there?”

Stupid question who else would be in the shower? “Yes, Andy, be out in….”

The door opened and there he was in all his naked glory climbing in with her for a morning shag in the shower. “Good to see you up and ready so early, love and not wasting the day.” He said with a winning smile. He was up and ready too.Even though he complained endlessly about the rocky spot between her legs it didn’t stop him from plunging into her this time. There was no conversation, no kiss, no sweet caress, before he turned her around, put her ‘good’ hand up on the shower bar at the back wall and brought her hips out to meet him and entered her.

Wishing she’d never met him, Calla held onto the gold bar for dear life with her good hand while he pounded away. Oh God, what she wouldn’t give to be back in Daniel’s arms in their bed listening to him tell her how much he loved her and to the sweet sound of his heart beat while they made love.

Andy didn’t make love, Andy fucked, Andy shagged, Andy had sex but he never once referred to what they did as being anything akin to love. Thank the Gods for small favors, she had enough lies and deceit to deal with she didn’t think she could take one more. Another ‘small favor’ was Andy himself. Calla would never dare to say such a thing his tool was no where near the size of Daniel’s, Andy’s cock was a little on the short and thin side, while he was deftly experienced in having sex, he was a lousy lover and had yet to even bring her close to orgasm. Of course the scars didn’t help with that problem either. As she stood there on the verge of tears waiting for him to cum she concentrated on the words at the back of the shampoo bottle instead of the pain between her legs while Andy grunted, groaned and thrust into her. Half way through the words on the bottle of Biolage Shampoo Andy stopped, she hardly noticed when he came and then it was over and he was pulling out of her and turning her around to face him. “Thanks love,” he smiled, “that was really bugging me the last half mile or so.” Andy plunged his blond head under the jets of water. “Hand me the shampoo, dear.”

Calla put it in his hand. The space between her legs cramped and howled in pain, Calla looked down to see a long trickle of dark blood running from her. Andy’s cock was covered with it. She washed the space between her legs again. “I’m all done,” she said to him. “I’ll see you in the bedroom?”

Andy didn’t bother opening his eyes to look at her while he washed his own long tresses he just nodded when he heard the door open.

Words alone could never describe just how much she missed her husband.

End of Chapter One
Tarnished Heroes: Life in the Fast Lane--Calla's Story
Continue to
Chapter Two