Free Paradise - Part One (The Erotic Adventures of Sophia Durant) by O.L. Casper Page A

file many papers—and sometimes magazines. I opened the great drawer and found a bunch of manila files. Patiently, I went through them all. Mostly spreadsheets with lots of numbers. I checked in the back of the drawer. Nothing. I checked the bottom drawer on the other side, then all the drawers. Finally I looked in the closet. After searching the closet for a solid ten minutes and finding nothing I nearly gave up. Seeing my mom still watering in the back garden, I decided to venture into their bedroom and look. I scoured the room: drawers, closet, adjoining bathroom. Finally I looked under the bed and found and old suitcase. I pulled on it. It was stuck. I yanked with great force for a seven-year-old—it came flying out and I went with it. The next problem was that it was locked. I removed a wire cut from a coat-hanger and a paperclip from my pocket, all pocketed earlier in the event that I run into this very problem. I picked the lock quickly. I had found out how on the internet. Jackpot—the suitcase was stuffed tight with “Penthouse,” “Hustler,” and “Playboy” magazines. Some of the women were actresses I recognized from films or singers or athletes. Most I didn’t recognize at all. I leafed through the pages, some were stuck together, or the ink had been smudged. I had never seen full grown women in such states of undress, except for my mother only briefly. But she never smiled at me when she was naked or looked at me like she was half-asleep with the tip of her tongue on her lips. Many of the women looked surprised to be naked. I was baffled. This was my first introduction to the secrets of womanhood. There came the sharp crack and thud of the door closing downstairs. I knew instantly, it was Mother returning from the garden. Like lightning, I packed the magazines back into the suitcase, shut it, failed to lock it and stuffed it back under the bed. Closing the door silently behind me, I crept into the hall and to my room. I heard Mother coming up the stairs.
    I don’t know why I recalled this memory just then or even what significance it held. There is no moral to the story. The recollection was cut short by the discovery of a fissure in the rock about forty feet ahead. I ducked lower as I crept closer. The chasm widened in my view and I was there; the cove appeared in all its glory before me outlined by fog as if viewed in a crystal ball. Then I saw people, like specs, standing in the sand, about the length of a football field away. I took the binoculars from my pocket and focused on them.
    There was a group of ten people standing and sitting under two large canopy tents with no walls. There were a few plastic tables and foldout chairs. I clearly recognized Stafford, but hadn’t seen any of the others before. Stafford was dressed the same as when he left but for the addition of a windbreaker, sunglasses and an English cap. All of them, all men, wore sunglasses and dressed sharply. And uniformly they wore combat boots. Then I noticed something that gave me chills.
    One of the men at the far end, who stood looking away from the group, smoking with some difficulty, had what appeared to be a small automatic weapon like an M-4 strapped to his shoulder. My heart rate steadily increased. My breathing became shallow and fast. I quickly scanned the others. Finding three more at the other corners of the group and looking away, I lowered the binoculars and lowered myself into a sitting position against a rock wall, facing away from the group in the cove. The first thought of course was to leave immediately. And naturally that was the wisest course of action I could’ve taken. But, I reasoned, none of this journey had been wise to begin with. I might as well get a few more glimpses.
    It took me a moment to work up the courage to peer back over those rocks and into the cove. Lifting the binoculars before turning around, I made a momentary scan of the sea. The canopy of sky was covered in thick gray clouds. It would