As LP filled his coffee cup, Scott watched him. Scott always seemed to be watching him--as though he was afraid LP was going to snap and kill us all. He found it difficult to differentiate between an intense role-playing scene and "normal" life. But, in his defense, I have to admit that LP was VERY convincing. Still, it was odd that Scott was always so nervous. I mean, he wasn't a small person. He was tall and had a good build, and he had these huge hands that usually hung down rather awkwardly at his sides. He had ginger-colored hair, hazel eyes and was clean-shaven. And he had size thirteen feet that I personally licked for an hour the night before!

Jason, as opposed to being frightened, flirted with LP in not so subtle ways.

Here he was now . . . clad in only his pajama bottoms. And his feet were bare, purposely allowing LP to spy his pale, size eleven feet. And he kept these feet bare throughout breakfast despite the fact that the kitchen floor was freezing. I'm surprised he didn't come to breakfast wearing his new blue Nike sneakers. Seemed like ole Jase never passed up an opportunity to show off his new "Nike Uptempos". Jason (not his real name) is a husky young Englishman who looks like American football is his game. His freckled face was surmounted by a tousled crown of red hair and the general impression he gave you was one of wide-eyed ebullience.

I myself am an inch or so under six feet and am pretty fit, but not really muscular. I have a narrow waist, but I'm not skinny either. My sandyish-blond hair is thick and, at the moment, cut short. Though some people will say my eyes are "greenish", they're actually a blue-green. Anyone who ever owned the 64-pack of Crayolas (complete with the built-in sharpener) knows what color I'm referring to.

My bud LP was a medium-sized tobacco-brown-skinned, somewhat stoic brother. He had these dark eyes that stabbed deep into you . . . eyes that unnerved you because, even though all you saw was brown, there seemed to be a mysterious light behind them. These eyes were currently scrutinizing Scott and Jason as he continued making breakfast.

It was a long moment before anyone spoke. It was LP's day off, and we all knew why Jase and Scott had shown up last night in this neighborhood. They wanted to play the game. The role-playing game that blurred the line between fantasy and reality. The best kind.

"So y'all came to play?" LP asked Jason and Scott as he calmly sat himself at the table beside us.

Jason and Scott nodded rather timidly.

LP began scanning the morning paper. Almost absent mindedly he said, "Okay, it begins right now. Hmmmm . . . I should make y'all sign documents so you won't try to sue my black ass when all this is over."

Jason and Scott said nothing, but they noticeably blanched. I know I had gone pale as well. It was automatic with me now.

LP, upon putting down the paper and glancing at our startled faces, sighed deeply and said, "Okay . . . y'all make up your minds. You wanna play or not?

If any of you got some kind of heart condition or some shit like that, tell me now. I swear, if one of you punk mutha fuckas die on me, I'll kill you."

Normally this would have been funny, but the way LP spoke, in that cold humorless monotone, gave you the impression that there was nothing to laugh about.

"Last chance to forget the whole thing," He said. "If you wanna punk-out, tell me now."

"Punk-out" was the word that made Jase and Scott both declare their full commitment to the game. It was a matter of pride really. Not for me though.

For me it was the excitement of it.

After we all agreed to play, the rest of breakfast proceeded as if no "game" had ever been mentioned. But I knew that the game had begun. And the first step went like this . . . .

LP put down the paper he was reading and said. "Ha! Look at this; the coroner's report says Flo-Jo didn't die from steroids. And all of you mutha fuckas were yammerin' about which performance enhancing drug she musta been taking."

"I never said that!" Jason--always the suck-up--shouted. "That was Davey and Scott who--"

"Whatever the case, her name's been cleared." LP grunted. "Humph! Your boy Mark `Big Mac' McGwire eats steroids like candy . . . it's even been proven that his performance on the diamond improved after he started taking 'em . . . but he's your fuckin' national hero. Flo-Jo dies and you bastards all jump on her corpse like bloodhounds sniffin' for a nigga-related scandal."

I saw that the glass of orange juice in his hand was threatening, at any moment, to shatter. Jason and Scott saw this too, and were clearly unnerved--too unnerved to speak. Only I knew how to spar with LP. To make the game more exciting you've got to push the envelope.

The first thing I did was change the radio away from John London and the House Party (92.3 THE BEAT) and place it on KLAC. The music played there always put him in a bad mood.

I like all kinds of music, but metal bands like Slayer and Anthrax are on the top of my list. KLAC didn't play them, but--as I've said--the music it did play drove LP crazy. I said a lot of other things. I won't get into it here, but I stopped just short of becoming a casualty right there in the kitchen.

Eventually we were all ready.

Our expressions a mixture of fright and rebelliousness, me, Scott and Jason were dressed and ready to leave out to tour the neighborhood. Hands pushed into the pockets of our pants, hair neatly combed, expensive new sneakers on our anxious feet--we were the very picture of normal suburbanite youth .. .ummm, in spite of the fact that we were all over eighteen.

LP peered at us over his glasses. He removed the glasses, wiped them on his T-shirt, and replaced them on his face. "Okay, I'll give y'all a head-start of a half-hour. Then the hunt is on."

We all nodded, then departed in three different directions.

* * *

There was a slight chill in the evening air, and I clutched the collar of my jacket closer to my neck. My journey home from the 7-11 mini-mart lay through Rosecrans Avenue and Saunders and Castlegate, the latter not yet visible to me as I passed into the truck-lined streets. I was so busy chatting with friends and such that I almost forgot about the game.

On my way home I noticed that an unusual stillness seemed to have captivated the `hood' this afternoon. There were no butterflies fluttering around, no Mexican men pushing little carts and yelling "Tomales!", no bow-tied Black Muslims selling bean pies at the corner--all were missing. I shook my head uneasily. It was all my imagination, of course. Still, the deep silence and lack of activity was unnerving . . . particularly in view of the fact that the "hunt" was on.

I forced myself to hum Aerosmith's "Amazing" and tried to turn my thought to what I was going to do when LP finally came for me. A branch from a shrub brushing against my arm nearly caused me to leap out of my sneakers. Feeling like an idiot, I straightened myself up and kicked at that spiteful shrub. I walked on, feeling a bit anxious, as I glanced worriedly around.

I had almost reached Butler. I smiled and started humming `Amazing' again. I was so intent on the gray house that I failed to notice the shadow that seemed to rise up suddenly, detaching itself from a streetlight and moving swiftly up the sidewalk to intercept me. It was LP . . . and despite the fact that I'd been through this before. A thrill of fear shot through me.

I felt his presence looming up before me like a dark wolf which threatened to rip the throat out of some hapless shepherd boy. With a startled cry of fear I leaped aside, my bag (containing one Hostess fruit pie, a pack of Ice-Breaker chewing gum and a bag of Doritos) and my left hand whipped out the box cutter from my pocket. Even as I crouched to defend myself, I was stayed by a strong arm . . . the box-cutter wrenched rather painfully from my grip. Yep, I was in deep shit, and too dumbfounded to have a chance in hell of getting away. There was one thread of hope--that Jase and Scott were nearby and that they were going to come to my rescue. I've seen LP handle two "quarries" at once, but there was no way he would be able to nab all three of us.

With an unbelievable swiftness, LP's hands seized my wrists and I was lifted up to the point where the toes of my sneakers were barely touching the ground.

I struggled violently to free myself, terror numbing my mind to any real thought of escape . . . and totally blocking out the fact that the "hunt" was all a game. Suddenly I had no idea what manner of psycho had subdued me, but i knew that he was more fearsome than any gangster (they'd just shoot you and move on) and was prepared to do away with me in a brutal fashion.

LP held up one hand to show me something. There was something dangling from his fist.

I didn't have time to really ponder this, for my bud swiftly jabbed my arm with something.

Automatically I became aware that I only had seconds to do something to save my life. I tried screaming, but my voice stayed within my body--it was as if I were dreaming, you know? Then everything began to grow blurry and far away, and I soon realized that I was falling. My head retained some clarity. My eyes focused in on what was dangling from LP's fist. It was two pairs of sneakers.

A huge pair of blue Converse and . . . a pair of Nike Uptempos. Blue Nike Uptempos, just like the ones our favorite redheaded Englishman wore.

In other words, dangling from LP's fist by their laces were Jason's sneakers . . . and Scott's sneakers!

Fright and despair swept over me. I suddenly reached a new level of being scared witless, pissless and shitless. Then the drowsiness coursing through my drugged buddy intensified. I felt LP's strong hands on me--lifting me up and steadying me. As he tugged me over to where he'd parked his Lebaron (the more you move, the faster the drug goes through, you know) darkness suddenly dropped over my head and I completely lost consciousness.

I have a theory about how my bud is able to do the things that he does.

If LP hadn't believed he could do the impossible, he would never have tried many of the things he did. And even if he had tried he wouldn't have succeeded because he would have known it was too unfeasable . . . and too crazy.

But LP wasn't the type of person who believed it was impossible to track down and kidnap three grown boys (oxymoron?) and leave them bound and gagged in a garage all in less than six hours. And since he didn't believe it was impossible, he tried it anyway . . . and succeeded like always.

* * *

My first reaction upon regaining consciousness was one of nausea and my stomach churned. My eyes felt gummed together. I tried to raise my hands to rub my peepers and realized that I couldn't move my arms. I discovered that I was on the floor of the garage--sprawled on my stomach--and that I was tied. I couldn't tell how I was tied at first, but one look to my left, and I became aware that I was in a very uncomfortable position. You see, Jason and Scott (still unconscious) were lying beside me, and they were both bound the same way--their wrists had been bound behind their backs . . . their bound hands looked bloodlessly white. Their ankles were also tied together. Their legs were pulled up behind them, bowing them slightly. Two cords of rope led from their ankles up over their shoulders, twisting them before and after so that they were held tight along their necks. Their sneakers had been removed, as had mine.

"Davey! Always the first to wake up, huh?" said LP, grinning at me. He was sitting on the hood of his disabled Escort, sniffing the interiors of Scott, Jason and my sneakers one by one. He took a strong whiff of the inside of Scott's giant left Converse and said to me, "I really think you've built up a tolerance to orison."

I tried to say something, I can't remember what, but all that came out of my mouth was a dry rasp.

LP dropped the sneakers he had been sniffing, then hopped off the hood of the Escort. He made his way over to us and said, "Shiiiit, I ain't got all day to wait for these mutha fuckas to wake up. Guess I'll get started."

Kneeling on the floor behind us, LP nuzzled his face in our upraised, sweaty, smelly white-socked feet. He moved first to Jase, then to Scott, then to me, sniffing the bottoms of our feet. The aroma of our sweaty feet and socks was pretty pungent, for I could smell us all pretty clearly myself (though I must admit, my nose is 'attuned'). The odor really excited LP. He worked on me and his two unconscious kidnap victims the same way--using his hand to first massage our right foot and nuzzling his nose in the instep and toes of our left.

Eventually LP peeled off our white socks one at a time. He then proceeded to erotically rub these sweaty socks all over his face, while stroking his corpulent hard-on at the same time. Once this was done, he sort of sat back and delighted in the soles of our bare feet. Scott's feet were the biggest--size thirteen. Next was Jason's size eleven's. Last was uh . . . me and my size 9.5's.

Eventually he began to lick our bare feet. He licked between our toes and sucked on them until they were completely soaked. I screamed my ticklish head off while his mouth worked my soles and toes. I watched as Jase's body bucked spasmodically while his soles were licked . . .and he wasn't even awake yet!

My own hard on pressed under me, thus Jason's torment was painful to watch indeed! The soles of our feet must have looked particularly vulnerable to LP then, for he dashed into the house and returned with a hard-bristled hairbrush. A hairbrush that he vigorously broomed across the soles and toes on our feet. I saw Jase and Scott's toes curl in reflexively, momentarily wrinkling their soles. Despite still being drugged senseless, Scott tried to pull his bound feet away from the tickling brush bristles.

LP licked our feet again, tickled all of us crazy, and stroked us off until we came two, and three times . . . which was fine. But the real rush of this experience was the confrontation and capture. I mean, I've never felt such a rush while my penis was still limp.