Free Sex by Francine Pascal Page B

Park’s place as her new stomping grounds. And she was desperately looking for someone to stomp.
    Central Park was the ultimate bipolar park for the ultimate manic-depressive city. In the light of day, itwas a sunny, windswept paradise of sorts, filled with hearty bicycle riders and disco rollerbladers. Children laughed and frolicked on the old carousel. Rock bands jammed in the wide-open amphitheaters. Shakespeare was performed outdoors next to a grand old castle. And lovers took rowboats out on the scenic pond while hippies baked under the sun in the grassy expanse of Sheep Meadow.
    That was in the light of day.
    By night, Central Park was something entirely different. It turned into a den of degenerates, gangs, and general assholes. A place where drug deals were always being made and women were most likely being targeted by perverts in the bushes. A place that was too dark, poorly policed, and generally avoided by anyone in her right mind at night. It was exactly what Gaia had been looking for.
    Only tonight she’d had no luck No screams in the night, no gang rapes to break up, no knife-wielding skinheads of any kind. Not even your basic run-of-the-mill eighteen-year-old mugger. It was hard to gauge distance in this massive expanse of landscaping and twenty-foot rock formations, but Gaia figured she’d probably traveled at least ten blocks in the near darkness, and she’d seen nothing but trees, two passedout homeless guys on a bench, and the occasional jogger. She’d heard nothing but wind, rustling bushes, and the din of crosstown traffic. Apparently her lifehad become so empty, she didn’t even deserve the pleasure of kicking a man where it hurt.
    This, it seemed, would be her new life. Long, pointless walks in the park and then back to her beige-and-cream girlie bedroom with Natasha and Tatiana—her fretful fake mother and her supremely annoying fake sister. Her new family of complete strangers. Maybe it was time to just skip ahead to the old folks home now and live out her life in curlers and a lawn chair, staring at daisies and waiting for her next liquid meal. Because Central Park was all she had left. And apparently everything she’d heard about it being a crime-ridden hellhole at night was a bunch of crap. Either that or the mayor had just done such a bang-up job with additional cops that there was no one left for her to save. Central Park, it seemed, was just a park.
    At least that’s what she was thinking until she heard an enraged, muffled scream in the distance.
    She instantly swung her body around to follow the sound. With each step she took, the woman’s screams became louder until…
    â€œGet your goddamn hands off me!” Suddenly they were only a few feet away. She was much closer than Gaia had thought at first. “Don’t you freakin’ touch me!” the woman howled.
    Gaia had only one thought:
    I love New York!
    She took off toward the sound of the screams, heading toward the light pouring through the trees ahead.
    â€œWill your shut your mouth?” a man shouted back as Gaia jumped a tangle of shrubs and leaped through a slim space between two trees. She landed in a crouched position and tried to get a better view of the scenario.
    It wasn’t just one guy. There were three of them. Three “dudes” with ridiculously macho hairstyles and thigh-length leather jackets. Two of them had the girl pushed up against a big rock while the tallest one had his hand on her neck and his body sprawled all over her. They looked like young pimp wanna-bes. Or some not-ready-for-Hell’s Angels looking for something to do. Gaia couldn’t get a good look at the girl yet, what with her assailant mauling her so thoroughly. But that was about to change.
    Gaia was oh so ready to pounce. She was totally juiced up on adrenaline—the cure for all that ailed her. She checked herself for good mental preparation, and then she leaped out from the