Switching Two Andersons

[cardenio1611]

This little story was prompted by the death of Burt Reynolds and recollections of his films. The setting is the hotel room from Reynolds' film Stroker Ace which co-starred Loni Anderson, Reynolds' blonde girlfriend and future wife. The story envisions Anderson playing Emily, and Pamela Anderson of Baywatch-fame playing Susan.

The resort was quiet at 3 a.m. with the only sound the lapping of water in the various pools. Then there was a single burst, a shot from an automatic that was partially covered by a couch pillow. The water continued to lap solo. No one appeared to hear. A young woman left a bungalow and began to run, down sidewalks, around pools, and past the tennis court. She entered an area with a new set of bungalows and ran around the pool. She was wearing a red bikini. She was blonde, busty, panicked, breathless, and was carrying a gun. "Oh, Susan, what have you done!", she said to herself. Susan pivoted around a cart one of the cleaning crew had left and found herself in front of the patio door of a particularly spacious bungalow. The interior lights were out, but those from the pool illuminated a king-size bed with a headboard and no base. Susan tried the patio door and found it unlocked. Before she could enter, Susan heard a car door slam and the sound of approaching sandals. She retreated to the shadows. A blonde-haired woman wearing a wide-brimmed sunhat and lavender sundress walked toward across the patio, slid the door open, entered, shut it, and didn't lock. The new arrival took off her hat and dropped it and her purse on the bed, walked across the room, entered what appeared to be a bathroom, and closed it.

"This might work," Susan whispered. She went back to the cart and found the cleaning fluid and a cloth on which she poured an ample amount of the fluid. Susan crept across the patio, gently slid the door a crack or so, entered, and closed it. The bathroom door opened, and Susan knelt and crawled to the left side of the bed, hiding in its shadows. She placed the gun on the floor, out of the way. The woman emerged, drying her hands with a towel, sighed and walked to look out the patio door. Susan crawled closer, jumped up, and pressed the cloth against the woman's mouth. She screamed, but the cleaner's scent was powerful, filled her nose and brain, and caused her to fall limp into Susan's arms. Susan dragged her to the foot of the bed, all but flung her onto it, and then went to the headboard to pull her further up.

Susan returned to the base of the bed, yanked the drapes closed, turned on the lights and looked at the unconscious woman."This will actually work out!" She reached down, picked up the purse, and looked at the driver's license. "Emily Wood. Three hundred dollars, American Express and Visa. Not bad." She surveyed Emily up and down. Same hair color, same build, same ample breasts. They could be mistaken for each other from afar. Emily was perhaps more glamorous, Susan admitted, while Emily was a little more athletic, fitter. But close enough.

Susan reached down and started removing Emily's shoes. "He was just a beach pickup," she said to someone who could not hear her. "Things went wrong, I saw his gun on the dresser, and then--my clothes were locked in his car, his car keys were in his pants pocket, and there was too much blood to get close enough to get his keys." She sat down next to Emily on the bed and started to unbutton her sundress. "But now I will have you clothes, and you'll have what little clothes I have. People will say they saw a built blonde in a bikini entering the house and leaving it, and that will be you." She opened the dress and undid the belt to reveal a bra full and bursting and smooth, pampered, tapered legs. Susan reached behind Emily and undid the bra, reached down, and slipped off the panties. "Oh, look at you! I only wish there were time to explore you." Emily's face was impassive until Susan leaned forward and kissed her full lips. She started to stir, and Susan reclaimed the cloth and pressed it against Emily's lips and nose. Emily struggled, briefly, and then her head fell back. "We'll leave that on," Susan said, referring to the cloth, "while I dress. The fumes will continue to befuddle your brains. And, by the way, the kiss was nice, even with the trace of ammonia."

Susan stood up, quickly dressed in Emily's clothes, and dropped her bikini pieces at Emily's feet. She saw a bottle of Scotch on the dresser. Susan poured quantities of it over Emily's bare breasts and belly, then dropped it so that it poured out as if a drunken Emily had fallen asleep and it had tumbled from her grasp. Susan leaned over, picked up the gun, wiped it clean with the bedspread and then placed it in Emily's hand. Then, she opened the drapes just a foot so that the police would be able to see the unconscious blonde with a gun in her hand on the bed.

"Of course, you probably have friends to say you were with them until just now and your prints are nowhere in the house. You'll probably get off, eventually," Susan said, taking the cloth off Emily's face." But, in a little less than a hour, I should be on a plane headed to--wherever, using your credit cards until I've maxed them out. I left no ID in my stuff in the car, and my prints aren't registered anywhere. I should be able to come back. It'll be a short, free vacation."

Moving to open the door, Susan turned back, looked at the naked blonde on the bed, and whispered, "Of course, if you have no alibi, you're probably in deep ca-ca." With that, she turned out the light and left.

As soon as the door closed, Emily sighed. She pulled herself up on the bed, Susan's gun still in her right hand, and rested on the edge for a moment. "Amateur," she finally said. "Cleaners can knock you out, but they evaporate on the cloth." She hauled her naked body up and walked to the dresser in the dark with the eyes of a cat. She pulled the top drawer open, found the lever for the secret compartment, and retrieved her Maxim 9mm semi-automatic suppressor with her left hand. She strode with certainty to the door, picking up the bikini on the way. She opened the door and walked out, still naked, to the edge of the patio, just as Susan was rounding the pool. Emily fired twice from her hip with her left hand, with the gun emitting duplicate pops. The first bullet hit Susan in the square of her back, spinning her around, and then the second pierced her heart. Susan fell backward into the pool, but not before she recognized that it was the naked lady on the bed who had killed her.

Emily walked naked to the edge, looking for the net used to pull debris from the pool. But then she saw her purse was lying on the concrete. She picked it up, went back to the cleaning card,wiped Susan's gun clean, and tossed it in the pool with the bikini. "Your little murder down the way now has nothing to do with me, lady," she said, her suppressor still in her left hand. She looked around and heard nothing except the lapping of pool water, which was gradually turning red. "Another kiss might be nice, except for the race of fluoride."

She walked back into the bungalow, locked the door, pulled the drapes shut, and returned the suppressor to its hiding place. She sat back on the bed and mused aloud to the absent Susan. "They'll find you first and your gun. Later, they'll find the man you killed and spend hours trying to find out how the two killings are connected. They may question me, but who am I? You, you're a woman who was probably seen leaving his house in a bikini. You changed clothes somewhere and got killed. Lady, in your next life, be careful who you try to play for a sucker. They may be more dangerous than you." She lay down on the bed and rolled over, exhausted from her afternoon work and from being drugged. "I only wish you hadn't wet the bed," she murmured. But she was too tired to move and instead found that the Scotch fumes hastened her sleep. "You may have done me a favor," she muttered as she fell asleep. "Naked, smelling of alcohol, out like a light, they should be convinced I couldn't have committed the murder you did, yours, and the one I did this afternoon."

[esercito sconfitto]

R.I.P. Burt Reynolds

nothing better to honour the recent passing of an unforgettable actor than rewriting that unforgettable scene from "Stroker Ace"