There will be only one Nikki Havana. Nikki Havana is a real person at least in my mind. For I write of her as if I know her intimately
October 31st 2024
Chapter One
The Hotel
She applies her makeup at the vanity. She is staring at his reflection in the mirror. He is sleeping soundly, lying on his side, nude with his back towards her. She enjoys the opportunity to study his body from a distance.
He is tall and in superb physical condition with strong legs that wrap tightly around her in his passion. Years of conditioning gives him great strength and stamina. He has no difficulty holding her body in positions that give her gratification.
He reserved a spacious suite in an upscale hotel in Center City for the weekend.
The suite occupies a corner of the top floor, the view looks out onto the historic Benjamin Franklin Parkway, and has a large bedroom separated from the rest of the suite by double doors. She stands at the vanity in her La Perla light green bra and matching briefs, purchased especially for this weekend.
Their relationship started several months ago – a chance meeting at a friend’s cocktail party. He was nice, but quiet. She guessed he was older than her by ten years. His dark brown hair with a hint of gray, added to the countenance of the special forces operator her friend told her he was at some time in his past.
Inquiring more about him during the party, her friend raved on. “Get in line, every woman in here wants to get between the sheets with that guy, even the committed. As far as anyone knows he has no attachments. Rumors swirl around about him being Dakota’s paramour.”
She stopped listening, it was only talk, her mind was made up. She wanted to know more about him, directly from the source.
Watching, she smiled as her friend’s cat wove through the high heels of the party goers and went directly to him. He bent down to caress the cat. She took note of his hands, strong, the hands of a man who did physical labor. These were the hands of the man she had decided to take on as a lover.
Staring at her image in the mirror, she suddenly became anxious that he would find out about her past and the murder and reject her. He was the perfect lover, sleeping peacefully on the bed they had recently occupied.
Opening the armoire, she selected a pair of formfitting designer jeans in black, and a beige blouse that allowed a hint of the bra to show through. She dressed and held her sandals in her hand, she wouldn’t make a noise as she left the bedroom to go into the suites sitting area.
Her plan was to go out onto the street and look through the high fashion stores lining the shopping district.
Leaving the hotel, she walked along the tree-lined way, her mind was not on shopping. Should she break off the relationship now before it became painful? All her friends seemed to be stuck in difficult relationships, or, no relationship at all. Her mind raced through the different scenarios.
She was in love with him – that was the problem. She knew she would never be able to possess him completely. He was already possessed by something, not of this world.
March 7th, 2024
Western Union
We pulled out of the station three minutes behind schedule – there would be two hundred miles ahead.
I pulled the throttle open a little too fast and applied sand to control the wheel slip. Once the drivers regained traction we were off and running, accelerating quickly to sixty miles an hour. I adjusted the cutoff to keep up a comfortable pace without using too much steam.
I called over to Angel. “When we get past the grade crossing I’m going to make up the lost time from that last stop. The rails are dry, and it’s good weather ahead, running fast should not be a problem.”
One year ago, Angel began firing for me. At first, I was skeptical about having a female in the cab of a AT&SF Northern Class 4-8-4 number 3751 Super Chief but Angel proved to be very capable, knowledgeable and strong.
In the cab this time of year, it gets quite hot and Angel had opted to wear her bib-overalls, post-era steel-toed work boots and gloves with the long firehouse fabric gauntlets – and nothing else.
Distracting yes, but I am a professional engineer and I could put her diversions out of my mind.
“I’m going to blow down the boiler before the grade crossing,” Angel yelled to me over the roar of the firebox noise in the cab. “That-away I can have a boiler full of dry steam ready to go for the next one hundred miles.” Angel was always ahead of me. “Once we get under way after the grade crossing, I have a Western Union wire for you that the agent gave me at the last stop.”
Then, clang, blam and whoosh! All hell broke loose when Angel hit the blowdown petcock. The rusty and muddy water from the blowdown changed consistency as the mud from the bottom of the boiler blew out onto the side of the roadbed.
“Who’s it from?” I hollered over the blowdown blast. I watched as Angel leaned out her side of the cab window to check the progress of the blowdown.
When steam and boiling water were the only things blowing out, Angel shut off the petcock and announced, “Your editor.”
Angel leaned back into the cab and faced me, coyly releasing one of the snaps from the top of her overall bib and giving me a view of her pert, shapely right breast.
“For you after we finish with this trick,” she said with a mischievous grin.
The grade crossing was approaching; I saw the whistle sign blow by and got on the whistle cord, Wa-Waaa-Wa-Wa-Wa, I blasted away. I could see the flashing red warning lights come on as the crossing gates lowered. Back on the whistle for five more blasts, the standard code for whistling before crossings. No vehicles appeared; we flew by without incident.
I checked the rear of the train and waited ’til I could detect the last car, the observation coach, as it passed clear of the crossing. The red lights went out and I reached up to tug on the throttle.
“Read the telegram to me and stop fooling around with my feelings,” I admonished Angel.
Angel rearranged herself back into the bib of her overalls. She stepped over the foot plate and from her outer breast pocket, withdrew a Western Union telegram.
I still retained the vision of her exposed breast as she unfolded a yellow, 8 x 6″ piece of paper and read aloud:
“I need the fourth chapter of Michael and Lark ASAP: STOP.”
“And the first chapter of the second book of Secrets: STOP.”
“Send me more poetry and the next short story: STOP.”
“Get your mind out of the gutter and stop fooling around with Angel: STOP.”
“You will never achieve your dream if you don’t hurry up: STOP.”
Angel folded the Western Union wire and tucked it into my overall pocket next to my trainman’s watch. She turned coquettishly and slammed the firebox doors open with a loud clang. Angel reached for a long poker and raked some of the clinkers from the fire bed, before closing the doors and going back to her position at the left side of the cab.
“I saw the way you looked at the lady standing on the platform at Lamy,” she yelled over. “The one with the fashionable short skirt and the young boy who wanted to see the engine. They were going to Los Angeles, the new frontier, the West.”
A vision of that young woman, and her shapely calves, appeared in my mind, fresh, like the vision of Angel’s breast; neither one will leave me in my lifetime.
“Claire has been gone for two years now,” Angel interrupted my thoughts. “It’s time for you to find someone, you have seniority, and the new diesel engines are coming to passenger service soon and they’ll relegate this old steam engine to freight service. You can apply for the new engines, they’ll take you and then you can offer a woman security and a pension in your old age. Plus, a woman can help you achieve your dreams.”
I thought of my writing and then of the woman on the platform, of her young son, clinging to her knee. I wanted to take Angel’s advice, to have a woman to hold.
I reached for the throttle and eased the steam on. Adjusting the cut-off, the engine produced a mighty growl, we accelerated smoothly and quickly up to track speed. I would run this section of the trip fast, eighty-five, ninety, then one hundred miles at a time.
September 15th 2020
Angel is another female protagonist who finds her way into my stories.
Angel
The Energy of Souls
Me
“I guess I died, huh?”
Angel
“Yes, you did, well you didn’t die, your physical body died. It got old; you had a few strikes against you by not taking care of your health. It was mostly a good life and got better towards the end, you accumulated a lot of wisdom. I am proud of you.”
Me
“Is the Source proud of me?”
Angel
“The Source doesn’t know you. The Source only creates life. It is up to you to find your love and happiness, either here in my arms in the Universe, or in another body when you decide to reincarnate.”
Me
“Do you mean I am not loved by the Source or the Universe? They do not care about me?”
Angel
“The Source created you and equipped you with all the ingredients for you to love yourself and for you to love others. The Universe is the store of all knowledge, yours and everyone and everything else from the beginning of time. That is enough. There are souls who have loved you in the past, here in the Universe, and during your stay in a human body when you have reincarnated and now that you have passed, those who love your memory.
“Some souls you have met along the way have become soulmates. With them you have a special loving relationship, which nurtures the both of you and affirms you are becoming a complete soul yourself. Then, of course, you have me, you love me and I love you. This is one of the roles angels play as we travel with you on your eternal journey.”
Me
“What do I do now?”
Angel
“You have some choices to make, they are your choices, yours and yours alone. You will need to decide if you want to reincarnate again, or do you want to fly with me in the Universe forever?”
Me
“I have more work to do, I am not ready to fly forever, I still can help others. Tell me again how I will know when it is time to reincarnate?”
Angel
“You have been here in the Universe before. You will use the wisdom of the Universe to find your way to reincarnate into a human body again when you are ready. You are in a state of pure energy. You have no physical form. The Source has prearranged it so your unique energy is yours and yours alone, it is your exclusive energy. You are now in the Universe, a place so immense you may never come across another soul for what could be an infinite length of time.”
Me
“Will I be able to connect with the souls of those whom I have loved and have come here to the Universe before me? Will I find my beloved parents and sisters? Will I be able to be in touch with my beloved Peg even as she has not passed at this time? Will I find my soulmate here, or can I connect with my soulmate even if she is still on earth in the body that she called her own when I met her?”
Angel
“Your questions are natural to ask, because you have not achieved the state of having received total wisdom.”
Me
“How am I to reincarnate if there are no other souls to lead the way?”
Angel
“Dear One, the Universe will supply you with the knowledge of reincarnation when you are ready to go to another human body. You will know when, the Universe will sense that time and supply all the help and direction you need from other souls when your time comes. As long as you have work to do, reincarnation will happen naturally for you. There will be no concern for time or timing, reincarnation is automatic for those who wish to continue their work.”
Me
“Will I eventually come here to the Universe and live forever with you? When will my need to reincarnate stop?”
Angel
“You will sense a time when your knowledge is so great, when you no longer have to ask questions, when you know the answers. Your purpose will change from reincarnating to teaching. Your soul life will become important to the Universe in the role of a teacher. At that time, you and I will live here in harmony and bliss, here in the Universe forever. This is when your role of becoming a complete soul ends and you will serve the Universe’s highest purpose: teaching other Souls to find their highest purpose.”
September 5th 2020
Some women throughout history have played an out-sized role in the minds of writers, Helen is an example.
Nepenthe
Then Helen, daughter of Zeus, took other counsel.
Straightway she cast into the wine of which they were drinking a drug
to quiet all pain and strife, and bring forgetfulness of every ill.
Homer’s Odyssey mentions the drug of forgetfulness or nepenthe.
Like many in Greek literature and mythology, sorrow comprises much of my real life. But sorrow, like my muse, is needed by me to see that I must make a change. The medicine to make me comfortable with my sorrow is creating something from the depth of that sorrowful emotion, which will be new, it will have the potential to be a promise.
Out of the garden of chaos, new and exciting potentials grow; most become so involved with their distress that they miss the potential. Great changes for the better, start with a sigh, a whimper, and the determination to carry on to a better place.
The Source has made it so that all living things change and renew themselves. Everything is in the process of change and renewal, including things we do not consider to be living such as the Earth itself and the Universe, everything is living. The renewal begins with a small change, as in the smallest change in the DNA of the next new cell growing in my body. If I am uncomfortable with the process of change, nepenthe is a drug, a medicine to help me cope.
Rather than forget my sorrow, I use it as the foundation, the bedrock of the new potential, the new promise. Nepenthe used in this fashion is very restorative.
August 29th 2020
“Never run with a woman who has more troubles than you do.”
TCO knows this and doesn’t have any expectations of Nikki other than she will successfully complete the mission she has been hired to do, and maybe have an occasional roll-in-the-hay while they are working together.
Nikki is devoid of empathy. Well mostly except for her son and his father a high ranking military man who was murdered by the government a few years after his son was born. She vows to seek revenge.
Nikki is the only female character I have that is that lacking in Love. All the other women, although tough as nails are looking for love in some form and an empathetic relationship. She was not hard to write about as long as I didn’t deviate from her true persona. There was an occasion when she came close to really loving TCO, she thought better of it as her job came first.
August 3rd 2020
Thinking about the women who are famous in life or death caused me to reflect on how much I may know about powerful and influential women. This would be a good discipline for me to make time to do the research so my female characters could be lifelike, but, not too lifelike.
I think it would be boring to the reader if the female, or male leads for that matter were like real life people. They need to be different from real life. They must stand out from reality. In this way I am creating a new reality.
I write about these characters because I secretly, not secretly anymore that I have told you, want to be like them. This is the fun of writing for me. I can be anyone I want to be. I can go anywhere and live a life only I can dream of. All by writing. Writing about these things sometimes makes them come true.
I have never met a Nikki Havana in real life, through writing of her I feel I know her well, intimately well.
August 2nd 2020
How did she get that way?
Nikki wasn’t always an assassin, indeed she was a wonderful loving child until, it happened. Suddenly she changed. Find out why by reading about Nikki in my novel Abort! Abort! Voyage to Save The Mind.
Nikki got revenge in a big way. She took her revenge on the Government by killing the high ranking members, appointees, representatives and political allies and earned a fortune doing it.
It is a strange fact that those who wanted Nikki the most, were also Nikki’s sworn enemies. She kept it all a secret, which allowed her to travel in inner circles, gain favor and learn the details of how those men and women conducted their daily lives, which gave her the information to kill them efficiently without bringing attention to herself.
July 31st 2020
Nikki is no heroine
Nikki is no heroine, she is in it for the money and to get revenge. The Cause knows this, they are very adept in walking the fine line of morality and practicality. Still she seems to have some other redeeming values, which makes her presence a fascinating study for a protagonist. She sure caught TCO’s attention.
Nikki Havana 