Spring 1999
 

Why I ever agreed to skip off with Jimmy Belmont and the insipid Timmy Landau beats me.  Talk about lame.  Although, Jimmy, a gaming bud from time to time's, got an excuse.  Says his father accidentally dropped him on his head at the tender-headed age of eighteen months.  So he says.  It makes for a half-way decent running gag though whenever Jimmy strands himself on a page in the course of meaningless conversation anyway.

Oh, well, this seemed like a good idea at the time; anything to get away from suicidal Byers and his pining of the love-torn.  Man, you'd think Mata Hari is God's gift to men or something.  Like she's some guileless, unwitting pawn in all this, which I so don't buy, to hear him talk.  I have heard him talk; way too much for my taste, like an old broken forty-five.  Which is why I decided to split; for that reason, and my seeing how much Frohike wanted to set the FCC drop-out straight, by his lonesome.

All Modeski's ever turned out to be is one colossal pain in the ass.  For my money, in Byers'.  Trouble is, the narc's too blinded by sappy sentiments to see her for what she is; an easy on the eyes manipulator who played him like a fiddle.  I've told him this before, and I'll say it again.  He's too soft on the chicks.

And I am, well, was starving, afterall, so I guess that's why I'm here stuffing my face full of lobster, along with the Bobsey Boobs.  Serves me right for thinking with my stomach, (just like my Wookiee alter ego Chewbacca) or as Frohike, sans any comic relief, refers to my belly as, 'the bottomless pit.'

I'm stuffed with enough crustacea, suborder, Reptantia, right now to grow my own shell --'delish.'  And speaking of which...the floor show isn't bad either.

Landau's two-fold enticement to get me to join them was right on the money.  Mercy... I've never seen this many beautiful women struttin' their fine stuff in one place, all at the same time.  Every one of these Vegas babes are beyond awesome.  They parade around so arrantly, droolin' comes as easily as breathing; veritable second nature.  Just because I haven't technically, 'dipped my pen in the inkwell,' in the strictest extra conjugal sense doesn't mean I avoid gettin' eyefuls of 'em like this.

On-line babes are okay.  They're good for a quick release, but seeing flesh and blood beauties like these is, and I quote...'a whole nother country.'  We've got a serious 'boobage' bonanza going on here 'in the house.'

Man, I can't wait to see Leese again.  Maybe if I whine (already, it's fair to say that when I resort to my trusty secret weapon, she's putty in my hands.  Mighty fine putty) real hard, I could get her to change her mind so she'll leave Miami sooner than she said she would, and sign on for the gig Ryan's old lady offered her at the bar.  Quit her singing for Carnival's cruises, and my having to go for too long not seeing her.  Nip my aching for her, and Scully's thinking I'm not good enough for her Mexican-Irish cousin in the bud.  To say I have a serious thing for the Fibbie's exceptional relative is putting it mildly.

I'll be the first to admit I've sorta got it bad.  I mean I'm thinking about the girl practically every waking moment...

Could be I'm really in love; emphasis on the in love gradient of the meter, not lust.  But it wouldn't be my first time being bitten.  I had a girlfriend before; in high school.  What?  Don't believe me?  She was my best friend.

And...my first love.  Back in Erie, PA, ages ago; several long time warps way back when.

Scully's bi-ethnic cousin could really be the one this time.  Even for a guy like me.  What kind of guy is that, you ask?  Okay, yeah...a thirty year old virgin who may get a break for once in his nonextant sex life.

I believe tentative steps in coming to grips with the condition were taken.  She and I had one, solid blast on that toasty one-week Caribbean trek in February; an unbelievable vacation, spent in the pleasurable company of a goddess.

Bet we had tons more fun than Scully and Mulder, who kept going over the luxury liner like they were on a clue hunt.  More than I thought we would, considering it was Scully's idea to take a cruise so she could spend some getting reacquainted time with her cousin.  She sure didn't leap for joy when Leese had the wild idea about my horning in.  Scully's dissatisfaction couldn't have been more obvious.  (Oh, too bad...)  It was over the top of being pissed, big-time.  Mulder was more or less an afterthought to round out the paired situation.

Tough...

I treated the chick like the lady she is, (I know how, despite what I know Frohike thinks, yeah, ol' ramrod up his straightlaced ass Byers too, man.  They think they've got what I'm about all figured out.  I save my more presentable manners for those deserving few) and Leese treated me like we're made for each other.  She's perfect...  I had hickeys for days.  She was a little shy at the beginning, hell, so was I, the way I mostly always am.  As old as I am, women still do the serious number on my head.  With Leese, it was a different story.  I hadn't felt that mellow in years, since...

Okay, that was a very long time ago, and I'm so over it.  Some days it's easier to think so than it is others.

The better I got to know Lee, the less shy I got, the way I normally am with members of the female race regardless of whether they're so-so looking, or go-for-the-jugular gorgeous like Lislita.

If what we discovered we feel for each other isn't love, it's close enough, man.  I'll sure as hell take it.

"Hey, Langly..."

My eyes drift lazily over to Jimmy's facial collection of pinched nerves.  "Yeah.  What?"

"How 'bout another round?"

"Sure.  Why not," I readily agree.  "Hell.  Long as you're buying."  I must look as mellow as mellow can be, reflecting on the perfection I held in my arms what feels like yesterday instead of several months ago.

"I said it was my treat," Landau snaps back, like somebody just pricked his ass with a safety pin.

"Fine.  Whatever.  Do I look like I'm gonna split hairs?"  I ease away from the round table and look around as though someone were calling my name.  A someone with a much sweeter voice.

Landau snickers, acting as though I'd already caught the dig.  "Bet you don't have to work too hard at it.  Not with that mop."  I absorb his sneer and watch him down the rest of his brewski.

Glowering, I toy with the idea of cupping mirror handfuls of lobster and showering him with the plentiful shellfish.  Have I mentioned how much I cannot stand this guy?  No?  Okay, so now you know.  He sucks without a straw.

"Ooooh," I toss casually, "that was supposed to be..."  I challenge him with more visual assault.  "Your bid for a time slot on Comedy Central?"  What I wouldn't give for a cattle prod right now.

He fakes humility, like I'm too dense to know he's such a sham.  "Shorts knotted where the sun don't shine, Mister Blond?  James Blond."  He cracks himself up like he does it on a regular basis.  "Where's your sense of humor?"

"I'm eating with you, right?"  I return the bogus camaraderie quickly before he gets an inkling of how Uriah Heep I think he is.  "Nice place.  You two've been here before?"

Jimmy nods while stuffing more buttery lobster into his grinning mouth.  Sounding like he's gagging while he chews he says,  "Yeah.  I think one of the half-naked chicks has a thing for me."

As if, unless the delectable in question goes for bottom feeders.  Not raising my eyes a degree, I say, "Be cool, man.  The government could be setting you up, using her as bait."  Shifty-eyed, zinger-slinger extraordinaire that I am, I see he's mulling that over despite his industrial strength smirking.  "Don't wanna be caught with your pants pulled down over your eyes."

"I'm too swift to be anyone's patsy," Jimmy insists, nets the server for our table with an electric snap of his fingers, and requests a refill for our pitcher of Black Label.

Landau regards his simpering acquaintance with something akin to clairvoyance, I read.  His look has my spine mass-producing icicles.

Which is why I mutter, "That's what they all say.  Nobody chooses going a flight up from cautious civilian to a done human binary tree."  After I've poured myself another installment of beverage of respectable alcoholic content, I sip it slowly, swaddled in a semi-conscious reverie.  Nursing suspicions comes all too easy when I let my overloaded mind coast like this, as nuances of conspiracy-tinged thoughts which my co-con theorists hold in common wend their way through it.  "Nobody wakes up one day and says, 'Hey, I wanna be a patsy.'  Only, there's one born every halved second..."

Landau's contemplative eyes target me.  "Jimmy's right about the girl, but wrong about who's getting paid her attention, my friend."  I stare him down, pupils for pupils.

"You think it's you?" Jimmy whinily objects, which I'd admire under varying circumstances.

"No, GP--"

"GP?  What the hell's GP?" Jimmy erupts, looking flustered.

Landau zeroes in on the scrawny man's T-shirt, then lampoons me with a glancing dekko and I feel the iciness spreading.  "Not the sharpest tack in the pack, is he?"  My mouth puckers like it's crammed with sourballs.  "No, not _me_, and definitely not _you_.  Our dining companion of the tow persuasion."

I tense.  In a single move I never saw coming, I feel him box me in.

"See that strawberry blonde over by Hermes' Fountain.  No, no.  Over to your right, Langly..."

My face radiates fever, my eyes dart nervously over to where he's stipulated, and when my jittery peepers settle upon the sensuous vision sheathed in luminosity, I know I look as if I've seen a ghost, which I have.  It _can't_ be.  What the hell's _she_ doing here?  Looking as mouth-watering as she does?  Looking so not how I remember her, way back when...when she was my...first...  Love; my personal angel of many an Erie night.

"W-What about her?" I half-demand, half-plead.  I so hate it when I sound like a stooge to the point where I'm ready to get up and get the hell out of here.  I steal another look, and there's no doubt about it.  She's not figmentary.  I'm gawking at my former girlfriend, Cin...Cindy Tanner, in conjunction with my ass reuniting with my chair's plushycushion.

Damn, she looks good!  I can't take my eyes off her now.

"She can't take her eyes off you.  Hasn't since she pranced out," Landau informs, piercing me with syrupy, knowing looks.  Yeah, he must really think I'm as dense as they come with me wide-eyed and jaw dropped somewhere around my ankles.

Excitedly, Jimmy exclaims, like he's ready to pee in his pants, "She's comin' over, dudes."  He's gulping deep breaths.  "Hey, Langly, this is your big chance.  Don't blow it.  You play it right, she might return the favor."

"Shut the hell up, dweeb," I say all snarly in the pit of my throat.

Sluggin' him feels like a good idea, as a treasure trove of ticklish memories seize the reins of what I'm remembering.  ...Like that Friday afternoon, one in a host of many, when she babysat the Palmatry's four-year old brat on wheels.  I'd rolled up to keep her company.  What was that juvenile delinquent in the making's name?  Vincent, I think it was.  Yep, that's it.

Vinny had had other ideas about what to do with his vanilla and chocolate shake, like splashing it all over the kitchen and me.  As it had turned out, it wasn't a major catastrophe.  My 'Doors' T-shirt never quite looked the same, though.  The lactose faded the lettering permanantly.

After Cin had washed the mess out of my hair, which wasn't quite as long back then, giving me the greatest towel dry I'd ever had, I volunteered my services, and cleaned up while she settled the blue-eyed monster (I really wanted to impress her.  Nowadays, I let Byers knock himself out).  Once that mission of spruce-up had been accomplished, we had the rest of the afternoon and the better part of the evening to ourselves.  That impromptu make out session has replayed in my mind many times over the years.  (No, we didn't, so get your minds out the gutter.  She was working, and our relationship wasn't about 'that thing'.  One thing was always a given, though.  She always treated me right.)  We were cautious make out artists.  I couldn't let Cin know I was scared to death she'd see what a total loser I was, even back then, if we tried going all the way.  Hell, the loser I still am, which is why I see so much of Cin in Leese.  I consistently drew the line, and as exceptional as Cin was, she never had a problem with it.  I loved her; really loved her...

My former's coming over, wearing a face I'm having a hell of a time reading.  Is she glad to see me, or is that disappointment trying hard not to be obvious?  With my emotions in an uproar, I know what I must look like.  Very, very uncomfortable.

End Part 1

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