"Uuuuuuuuuuuu…" Niven Mandel moaned from their bedroom. If there was anything she hated, it was being awakened by the screaming of other people. God knows she had had enough of that when she had been living at the half-way house. Fucking little kids! They were always crying about something! At sixteen, the lovely blonde girl felt that she was well above all the simple things that the people at the run-away shelter had been trying to teach her. Arithmetic, reading, history… all those things were all right for the children, but Niven knew that there was more to life than those fucking books. Shit… that was why she had run away from home to begin with.

"Come on, lovey-cunt," Martin said in a cheery voice. "Let's get that luscious body out of bed. Something tells me that there's an adventure ahead of us."

Again Niven moaned, but as Martin lit another cigarette, his third of the morning, he could hear her stirring, and he knew that she would shortly appear at the kitchen doorway, looking as though she had just gotten out of bed, but no less lovely for that.

Martin sat back in his chair and smiled as he heard the door of the next apartment slam. Yes… there was an adventure in the making, and if there was anything Martin liked, it was adventure. God knows life was fucking boring enough.

Martin was a member of that rare breed of man. Blessed with a powerful body and a father who had made an incredible killing in the stock market, Martin had attended four years at Columbia University, graduated fourth from the top in his class, and then realized that he had been wasting his time. As soon as he graduated, his father presented him with some fifty thousand dollars and told him to spend it as he wanted.

Martin went right out, bought a car and headed cross-country, stopping here and there as he chose, living like a king where ever he was and when he got tired, moving on.