Unnamed story

[Author's note:  I wrote this story close to 20 years ago and have not even considered updating it.  It's not what I would consider your typical fiction and it does get a tad explicit at points.  Just saying to serve as a warning.  I have some additional comments but I will make them at the end as to not bias the reader.  ggg]



Chapter 1

David tried to go back to sleep.  It wasn’t going to be easy.  Jackie had stolen most of the covers and had spread out to cover what seemed like two-thirds of the bed.  “Why did I let her sleep here tonight,” he thought as he slipped out of bed.  He padded lightly out of the bedroom and closed the door gently behind him.  “Early morning nookie, of course.”  He sat on the couch and took a cigarette from the pack lying on the table.  Looking out the window, he saw the first rays of the sun shining just above the horizon.  He rolled the cigarette between his fingers and coughed lightly.  His throat was still raw from the combination of cigarettes and singing from the party last night.  He lit the cigarette and took a long drag.  A brief dizziness overcame him.  The lightheadedness, a result of the fresh nicotine combined with the stale beer he could almost feel flowing in his gut.  He knew he was still hours from the obligatory hangover.  He picked up a blue plastic cup that was filled almost to the top with beer.  He sipped.  Warm and flat with a distinct, all too familiar flavor.  Just below the surface floated a cigarette butt.  He reached in and pulled the butt out, examining it, his fresh smoke dangling from his lips.  He flicked the butt towards, but not into, a large garbage can across the room.  “I’ll get that later,” he thought as he guzzled the remaining fluid in the cup.  The hangover could wait a little longer.

The ‘party’ started out as a friendly night of Poker and cigars.  Just a few friends from work who had nothing else to do on a cold December evening.  He was bored.  Lynn was away for the weekend visiting her folks.  “I have to take some clothes to the dry cleaner,” had seemed like a reasonable excuse to avoid the three-hour car ride and countless inquiries regarding marriage, children, and home purchase.  Lynn wasn’t convinced.  No tears this time, just a few jabs at David’s parents and the over used “When are you going to grow up?” as the door was slammed.  This, he had thought, was his chance to be a stereotype.  While still in bed at 11:00, he ordered a pizza.  No shower, no shave, he pullled on an old pair of gym shorts when he heard the doorbell twenty-five minutes later.  He stopped in the kitchen for a beer on his way to the door. 

“How much?”  He was fumbling through a wad of mostly singles when he opened the door.

“Seventeen twenty nine.”  This was not the voice of the usual middle aged driver he came to know.  David looked up.  Before him stood an image of beauty, no, cuteness, no adorableness was probably the best way to describe her.  She couldn’t have been more than nineteen.  David estimated that she stood about five foot three, the perfect height.  Her brown hair was tied into two pigtails.  Her uniform was just a smidgen too tight and the top two buttons of her shirt were open, revealing just a hint of cleavage. 

He on the other hand was wearing no shirt and, as he had joked so many times before, showed just a hint of cleavage.  His ‘beer belly’ hung just over the barely functioning elastic waistband of his shorts.  His hair was matted down in the front and sticking up, haphazardly on either side of his head.  He appeared to be the quintessential dirty old man and the look in his eyes, slowly rising to focus back on her face, didn’t help the image at all.  This was not the first impression he wanted to make on this voluptuous little darling.

David took the pizza from her and placed it on the floor.  He fumbled through his bills and pulled out a twenty and two singles.  “Keep the change,” he muttered and tried to suck in his gut, knowing the damage had already been done.

“Thank you.”  Such a delicate voice.  She started to turn.

“Ya know, I was expecting Vince.”  He tried, unsuccessfully, to flatten his hair.  “If I’d known it would be someone like you . . .” The sleep was out of his voice and he was able to let it deepen and soften slightly.  “Well, let’s just say, you’re not catching me at my best.”  He allowed a friendly, almost inviting, smile to form on his lips.

She turned back, smiling shyly and gazing at her shoes.  “Well, maybe some other time.”  Her words were nearly inaudible.

“It’s working,” he thought letting his eyes soften.  “Hey, who knows, I might get hungry again later.”  He leaned casually against the doorframe.

“I work till seven.”  And in a flash she was gone.

David shut the door and allowed his smile to become more of a grin.  “Seven, I’ll have to remember that.”  He picked up the pizza and headed into the living room.  He took a long drink from the beer and opened the pizza box.  He removed a slice and took a bite.  “Damn,” he thought, “it’s too hot.”  He replaced the slice and sat in the large lounge chair in the center of the room.  “This is the life”, he said out loud as he took another gulp from the beer bottle.  He reached for the remote control and turned on the television.  He surfed right to the soft porn pay-per-view channel and keyed his secret code into the remote.  Almost instantly the image of naked bodies locked in an embrace covered the screen.  He reached for a cigarette and sat, smoking, drinking beer, and watching nature taking its course.

The novelty wore off in a mere three hours.  The pizza, at its room temperature best, was half eaten.  Three empty beer bottles sat on the table.  An overflowing ashtray balanced precariously on his stomach.  And a series of wavy lines with vaguely discernable female body parts graced the screen.  After the movie was over, David didn’t bother paying for another.  He just sat and watched the channel click off to the sight before him.  “Now what?”

David considered his options.  He could sit here for another few hours, possibly pay for another movie (but the plots were so thin).  He could go out (looks like snow, though).  He could sleep.  He could call up Delores and maybe get some ‘Afternoon Delight’.  No, that wouldn’t work.  Delores had been less than ecstatic after Lynn moved in.  The only time they got together was when she was in the mood.  And that was happening less and less over the past few months.  David was sure she was seeing someone else now.  Was that a twinge of jealousy in his stomach?  Nah, he just needed another piece of pizza.

He reached for another slice and continued his list.  He could call a few buds over and play a night’s worth of poker.  “Now there’s an idea.”  He was reenergized.  “Who to call?”  Most of David’s friends were married, a few with children.  Why did they get so dull since tying the knot?  He paged through his address book and found a couple of guys that were always ready for a little action, especially if they had a chance to win back some money from him.  John was into it and promised to bring beer.  Dan said he couldn’t, plans for the theatre with his chick.  Bob asked if he could bring a few friends along.  The night was taking shape.

David decided to straighten up a little, not that there was much to do.  Lynn kept the place immaculate.  “Someday I’m going to stop cleaning up after you and then where will you be?”

“Exactly where I started,” David would answer in his mind.  His response was usually a little puppy dog smile that he knew she couldn’t resist.

He filled a bag with miscellaneous trash that had been accumulating since Lynn’s departure the night before.  The beer bottles clinked as he picked up the bag trying to remember where the garbage shoot was.  He couldn’t remember the last time he took the trash out.  He stopped in the bathroom before leaving the apartment with the bag.  He wet his brush and ran it through his hair, attempting to even out the contour.  “Maybe I’ll see that little cutie from 2B.”  He swished some mouthwash and walked to the bedroom.  Opening a dresser drawer, he located a T-shirt with a few rips and fake bloodstains that read “MY PARENTS WENT TO TIENAMAN SQUARE AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY T-SHIRT.”  He pulled it on and headed to retrieve the bag of trash sitting by the door.  “Can’t you ever close a drawer?”  Lynn’s words ran through his mind.  He turned, looked at the open drawer and smiled to himself.  He walked out of the room.

A few hours later everything was ready.  He had set up a card table in the center of the room and pulled six chairs around it.  It had taken some time to figure out where Lynn had hidden the poker chips and cards.  He moved a large garbage can into the living room and placed a number of ashtrays around.  Lynn didn’t let him smoke cigars in the house, but they were going to play poker.  It was a necessity.

After showering, David looked around the room one more time to make sure everything was fine.  He was smiling.  This was gonna be fun.  He glanced at his watch and noticed that seven o’clock was approaching.  “Why did that time seem to mean something?  The guys aren’t getting here till at least eight thirty.”  He remembered and went to the phone.  “That’s right, three large with everything and get it here soon.”

Just after seven the doorbell rang.  He quickly glanced in the mirror, practicing a few smile variations.  He decided on the ‘friendly-but-pained’ look and opened the door.  There she stood again, pizzas in hand.  She was now out of uniform and wearing street clothes.  ‘Street walking’ clothes was more like it.  She wore a floor length, obviously fake leather, coat that was open revealing a too short pleated blue skirt, a white shirt, three buttons undone now giving an excellent view of her cleavage and a peek at the bra clasp in front.  The pigtails, white socks, and loafers completed the ensemble.  A Catholic schoolgirl fantasy flashed in David’s mind.  He fought the urge to leer and forced a look of confusion onto his face.

He looked at his watch, stealing another glance from the corner of his eye.  “I thought you got off at seven,” the sentence had been scripted the moment he hung up the phone from ordering the pizzas.

“I thought I’d make one more delivery on my way home.”  The shy giggle was something only a teenager could perfect and, for that matter, get away with.  David noticed that the shyness was starting to dissipate as she looked over his shoulder to examine the room beyond.

“Well, would you like to come in?”  The question dripped with innocent sincerity.

“I don’t want to bother you, ya know, if you’re busy.”  The shyness was back.  She shuffled her feet.

“No bother.  I had a few friends coming over but they just called and said they’d be a few hours late.”  He saw a smile form on her face.  “Might as well start on the pizza.  If you’re hungry.”  The last, a mere whisper, and feigned nervousness.

“Sure, okay.”  She handed him the pizzas and walked past him.  “Nice place.  After this morning I pictured something a bit different.”  There was a strange confidence in her voice as he saw her toss her coat onto the couch.

“I guess I’m a bit of a neatness freak,” he nervously laughed continuing the act.

“Or your girlfriend is.”  She was playing with, no, fondling the chips.

“Excuse me,” for the first time in ten minutes he was caught off guard.  “Just let her continue,” he thought.  “Don’t dig yourself a grave.”

“There were a couple of times I delivered here.  I guess you weren’t home.”  She turned over a card.  “Queen of hearts.”

“Huh?”  He hadn’t been looking.  He had turned away to hide the flush in his face as he was quickly trying to figure a way out of this.

“Queen of hearts, silly.”  She walked towards him holding the card out in front of her.  As he turned she was standing less than a foot away.  “Must be my lucky day.”

She dropped the card and looked up at him.  Her eyes closed slowly.

David pulled back a bit nervous.  “Um, can you excuse me?  I have to get something from my bedroom.”  He walked quickly, closing the door behind him.  His usual improvisational skills were escaping him.  This wasn’t the script he had written.  He fumbled for the switch on the lamp by the bed when he heard the door open behind him.  He turned to see her, bathed from behind in the light coming from the other room.  She was unbuttoning her blouse.

“Hey,” she said softly, “where’s my tip?”

It took less than an instant for him to make up his mind.  “Fuck it,” he thought ironically as he slid his arms into her shirt and they embraced.

The clock read eight ten as David awoke from his half-sleeplike state.  The delivery girl, he never did get a name, lay asleep by his side.  There was the tiniest of smiles on her face.  He was exhausted.  “I’m not as young as I used to be,” he thought as he looked upon her half-covered body.  She moved slightly revealing a perfect breast he had become quite good friends with.  “But she certainly is.”  He shook himself.  “The guys are gonna be here soon,” he thought as he shook her lightly.  She stirred.

“Hi,” she smiled up at him.

“Hi.”  He was all business now.  “Listen, I hate to do this, but my friends are gonna be here soon and, well, we’re gonna play poker.  Ya know, guy stuff.”

“Sure,” the smile remained.  “I understand.”  She sat up pulling the covers to her neck.  “Can you get my clothes?”  She motioned towards the clothing trail that led to the bed.

“Of course,” he answered as he sat up and pulled on his boxer shorts.  He got up and began playfully tossing her clothes at her.  He walked into the bathroom.  Given other circumstances he would have watched her dress, maybe allowing it to add a few more hours to the evening’s entertainment.  But time was of the essence.  John was notoriously on time.  Not that it mattered, but John’s girlfriend was a good friend of Lynn’s and John had a habit of talking in his sleep.

He looked in the mirror and saw that, as expected, his hair was sticking up in patches.  He licked his hand and rubbed down his hair.  He ran the brush under the faucet and tried brushing it down.  It would have to do.  He felt a pair of arms reaching around him and a hand headed towards his shorts.  He grabbed the hand and turned to face her.  She had a dreamy smile on her face.  He sat lightly on the marble-by-appearance-only counter and tried to stop his natural impulses.  “I’m between a rock and a hard place,” he thought and smiled.  She must have interpreted the look differently because she gently kissed his neck, then his chest.   He glanced at his watch.  “Shit!”  He caressed her hair lightly.  “You really do have to go,” he said gently with a hint of honest disappointment.

She rose slowly from the crouched position she was now in.  “I know.”  She looked into his eyes, her lower lip purposely sticking out in a pout.  He kissed her gently.

At the door, he kissed her again, this time with more passion.  She seemed to hold on just a bit too long.  She pulled away, flashing a magnificent smile.  “Give me a call sometime.”  She walked around the corner. 

“Sure will,” he called to her as he closed the door.  “See ya later, um, Pizza Girl.”  He walked over to the table and picked up the phone book already opened to the Pizzeria section.  He ripped out a page, tore it up, put the pieces in a large ashtray, and set them aflame.  He took a cigarette from the pack on the table and lit it from the small fire starting to burn out in the ashtray.  He sat down and took a long drag.  Smoke and a content laugh escaped his lips.

As David finished his cigarette the doorbell rang.  “Coming.”  He extinguished the butt and headed to the door.

“Let us in.”  There was a banging.

“Us?”  David opened the door.  There stood John and his current girlfriend Vickie.  They both held brown paper bags with potato chips and pretzel rods peeking out above the top.

“Are you just gonna make us stand here?  This beer is heavy.”

David moved out of their way.  “Come on in.  You know where the fridge is.  Oh, I got some pizza a while back.  It should be cool enough by now.”  He glared at Vickie as she passed him laughing with John over a joke he must have told in the car.  “It’s guys’ night,” he thought.  “Why would he bring a chick?”

“I hope you don’t mind that I brought Vickie,” John answered the unspoken question.  “I talked with Bob and he said he was bringing a few friends, too.”  His tone turned too sweet, “Plus she just wouldn’t let me out of her sight.”  John pecked Vickie lightly on the cheek.  She returned the gesture.  David had seen this many times before with every girl John dated.  Some sort of mating ritual, he presumed.

“No, it’s fine.”  David’s enthusiasm started to drain.  And now Bob was gonna be over with his friends and their chicks.  “I shouldn’t have let, what is her name, Pizza Girl go so easily”, he thought.  “Yeah, right, and then Vickie would tell Lynn and I’d have to go without for a week while I talked my way back in to her good graces.  His mind reeled.  This was one of those situations that longed for the presence of Lynn.  He hated being uncoupled in a group of couples.

“Have you heard from Lynn since she left.”  Was that a note of sarcasm in Vicki’s voice?

“Yeah, she called last night to let me know she got in and to remind me to not smoke in the house.”  He lit another cigarette. 

“How come you didn’t go?”  Give me a break Vickie.

“I wasn’t in the mood for her folks reading me the riot act over premarital cohabitation.”

“So, when are you two gonna get hitched, anyway?”  What was this, the Spanish Inquisition?

“Hitched?  Is that actually a word?”  Maybe that would shut her up.

“Let it go,” John interrupted as he handed her a beer.  “It’s none of our business.”  He sat on the arm of the couch next to Vickie and started the ‘pecking’ ceremony again.

“Our business?”  David looked up perplexed.  “Maybe I should be talking to you about this hitched thing.”  John looked at Vickie and then turned to David.  He started to laugh.  Vickie joined in.  David, giving in to temptation, let himself laugh, too.

The doorbell rang.  David moved to the door and opened it, tears in his eyes.  “Come on in asshole.”

“Excuse me?”  That was definitely not Bob’s voice.  David looked up.  There before him stood the image of beauty.  Behind her, Bob and a group of five stood shivering, hands filled with bags of food or six packs of beer.  Bob held an open bottle of something, obscured by a brown paper bag.

“Hello, I’m David.”  She was gorgeous.

“Hello, I’m freezing.”  Bob pushed past her and almost collided with David.  “And I have to take a piss.”  He knew which way to head, and did.

“Come in, come in,” David motioned to the others.  They followed his direction without hesitation.  David followed the young woman with his eyes as she walked into the living room and tossed her coat on the slowly forming pile on the couch.  John and Vickie exchanged greetings and introductions with the new group as David gathered up the coats.  He went to his bedroom and tossed the coats on his bed.  He could still smell the light scent of a too sweet lemony perfume.  “Pizza Girl, where are you now?”  He laughed as he reentered what had definitely turned into a party.

“Give me a hand.”  David turned to John, motioning to the card table.  Vickie grabbed the cards and chips as the two men folded up the table.  David passed Bob coming out of the bathroom as he carried the table to the spare bedroom beyond.  “Who’s the chick?”

Bob had obviously started partying hours earlier.  “Don’t know, she drove Sean here.”  He took a swallow from the mystery bottle and walked, well stumbled, to the living room.

“Who’s Sean?”  His voice was drowned out by the stereo that someone had just turned on.

“So how’s Lynn?”  Vicki’s sarcastic voice came from behind.  She had followed David into the spare room and was closing the door behind herself.

“She’s okay, I guess.  You talk to her, why not ask her yourself.”  He tried to maneuver around her but she blocked his only exit.

“I haven’t spoken with her in a few days.  And you know we don’t talk about everything.”  She took a long pull from the bottle of beer she was holding.

“Don’t go there,” David thought.  He fell into a chair.  Vickie took a final drink from her beer and placed the empty bottle on a shelf.  She approached him slowly.

It was two months ago.  Lynn, Vickie, John, and David had gone out for dinner.  It was one of those nights that you felt like getting dressed up, drinking overpriced wine, and eating food that was just too expensive for your budget.  They shared three bottles of wine at the restaurant and another two when they returned to Lynn and David’s apartment.  Lynn, being the petite woman she was, crashed on the couch, falling immediately to sleep.  David, being the large man that he was, was the least drunk of the quartet.  He offered the spare room to the other two.  “Can’t sleep in a strange bed,” John informed his friend.

“Tell me about it,” Vickie retorted, louder than she had wanted.

“I’ll take you home and you can get your car tomorrow.  Not too early, I have a feeling Lynn’s gonna sleep in.”  They all laughed and headed out the door.

John was the first to be dropped off.  He offered Vickie housing for the evening but she declined, something about a headache from all the smoking.  This was the first time David witnessed the ‘pecking ceremony’ and he hoped it would be the last.  Needless to say, it wasn’t.

When David pulled up in front of Vicki’s building she asked if he’d walk her to her apartment.  It seems a light was out in the hallway and she was nervous about going in herself.  David made a sarcastic crack about it being all right for him to come back through the darkened hall as he parked the car.  They were laughing as they got out.  As they approached the apartment through a well-lit corridor, guess the landlord finally did something about it, Vickie offered David to come in for a cup of coffee.

“Well, I don’t know, it’s late and . . .”

“Come on, one cup of coffee.  I don’t think I can get to sleep and the company would be nice.  Hey, it’ll give us a chance to get to know each other if I’m gonna be dating your best friend.”

The logic seemed impeccable.  On top of that, he wasn’t that tired nor too thrilled about returning to Lynn’s snoring.  “What the hell.”  He followed her in.

The apartment was small and almost vacant.  There was a couch, a coffee table, a TV on a folding table, and a combination radio/record player/tape deck sitting on the floor.  “Have a seat,” she motioned to the empty side of the couch.  The other side was piled with newspapers, junk mail, and magazines.  He moved to the couch as she went to the kitchen, began to remove some of the stack, thought better of it, and sat on the floor.  He flipped through a small stack of records then began looking through some tapes.

“Mind if I put on some music?”  He called to her finding a seventies compilation with a few songs he liked.

“Be my guest.  By the way, how are you gonna want it?”

“I’m sorry?”  He nearly dropped the tape.

“Your coffee.”  She poked her head from around a wall.  “Cream, sugar, black?”

“Dark tan and a spoon and a half of sugar.”  He placed the tape in the deck and turned it on.  “Where’s your bathroom?”

“Only door on your right.”

When David returned, Vickie was placing two mugs on the coffee table.  He noticed a lit candle in the center of the table that he hadn’t remembered from before.  “Hope it’s okay.”  She sat on the floor and gestured for him to join her.  “Oh, I love this music.”  Funny, so did he.  When he was younger he couldn’t wait until the disco craze ended.  Now he could stand it and actually liked some of the music.  He joined her on the floor and picked up the mug left for him on the table.  There was an awkward silence.  David only knew Vickie from meeting two times, tonight being one of them, and what John had told him.  In a rare moment, he was without anything to say.  He sipped at his coffee.  She almost had the perfect blend of cream and sugar, but there was something else.  David could taste the unmistakable flavor of whiskey.  He sipped some more.

“Could you excuse me?”  Vickie got up and headed for the only door remaining.  He glanced in as she opened the door.  It was dark. 

“Probably the bedroom,” he thought as he took another sip of his spiked beverage.

Two songs later, The Hustle and Hot stuff, the door opened again.  Vickie stood there in a sheer, black negligée.  David recognized it from one of John’s stories.  “I had to get out of that dress.”  She reached for a light switch.  In an instant the room was dark.  A soft flickering from the candle was the only light.  Vickie sat next to David, took the mug from his hand, and leaned forward.  The Village People’s YMCA started playing.  She brushed David’s lips lightly with her own.

“What’s going . . .” She placed a single finger over his lips and then replaced it with her own lips.  It was a deep passionate kiss.  John had told him about this, he was right.  She wrapped her arms around him and pulled him closer.  He thought of resisting.  He didn’t.

David stood by the door looking at Vickie sleeping soundly.  The negligée strewn next to her on the floor.  He thought about waking her, decided against it, and left.  As he walked away from the door, he could hear YMCA playing once again on the stereo.

They had never spoken about this since.  And now . . .

Vickie crawled to where David was sitting.  She straightened up, still on her knees and placed a gentle kiss on his lips.  For the second time since they met, David was speechless.  She unbuttoned the top button of his shirt and kissed his neck.  The next button was undone.  She followed, once again, with a kiss.  She stopped and took a sniff.  “New cologne?  Smells like lemons.”  He didn’t answer.  She continued unbuttoning and kissing until there were no more buttons.  The music from the other room was getting louder.  David recognized it immediately.  YMCA.

“They’re playing our song.”  Vickie reached for his zipper.

David finally found his voice.  “Vickie, I don’t think this is a good idea.”

There was a banging at the door.  “Hey, what’s going on in there?”  John sounded buzzed.  “I hope you’re not in there screwing my fiancée.”  He burst into laughter and stopped pounding.

“Be right out,” David called to the door.  “You’re engaged?”  He was whispering to Vickie.

“Yeah, he asked me on the way here.”  She sounded apathetic.  “I said yes.”  She pulled down David’s zipper.

Fifteen minutes later David and Vickie exited the room.  David was paging through a Dictionary.  He stopped on a page and pointed to an entry.  “There, exactly what I said.  I hate to say I told you so, but . . .” Vickie tapped him on the arm.  He looked up and saw that nobody was paying attention.  Their little charade was unnecessary.  Bob was on the floor, asleep.  His arm was around a sleeping girl that David hadn’t met.  John, the man who must have been Sean, Harry, and a little blond were in a deep conversation about the increasing cost of cigarettes and beer.  From the bottles and ashtrays surrounding them, it didn’t seem that they were being affected too badly.  That girl, the one who drove Sean, sat alone on the couch, nursing a beer.  Vickie stepped over Bob and joined her fiancée, wrapping her arm in his.  She glanced over at David and gave him a wink then joined in the group’s conversation.  David walked to the couch.

“Hi, I’m David.  I guess we got off to a bad start.”

She took his hand.  It was soft and warm.  “Jackie.  Interesting group of friends.”

“They’re a bit odd, but harmless.  Can I get you another beer?”

“Sure.”  Her smile brightened.

David weaved his way into the kitchen to retrieve a beer.  He stumbled over Bob, stirring him slightly, on the return trip.  He opened the beer and handed it to Jackie.

“Thanks.”  She rocked slightly, holding the beer tightly in both hands.

A new song started.  Under the Boardwalk.  David’s ears perked as he turned to the rest of the group.  The conversation in the corner stopped and John caught David’s eye.  David nodded and stood up.  He half turned to Jackie.  “Excuse me.”  The group got together in a circle and started to sing, using their beer bottles for microphones.  As the song continued, they went through a routine they had done hundreds of times.  When the song ended David returned to Jackie and the group conversation started again.  It was as if nothing had occurred.  “Just something we do.”  His tone was a bit apologetic.

Jackie laughed.  “I thought it was great.”

“If you liked that, just wait.”  He returned her smile.

The evening continued.  Twenty-two songs later -- including performances for Stop! In the Name of Love, the theme for Hawaii Five-Oh, YMCA (David couldn’t look at Vickie who was giggling nervously), and David’s solo of I Left My Heart in San Francisco – the apartment was in a shambles.  There were empty beer bottles all around, two stains from spilled beer, and a fog that had formed from the cigarettes and cigars.  David had spent the better part of the evening talking with Jackie.  He learned about her childhood, college days, and ex-boyfriends.  David knew that the way to a woman’s heart was by listening.  How many times had he heard the complaint about how men only want to talk about themselves?  His unique M. O. rarely failed.

And now all that was left of the party was overflowing ashtrays, half empty beer bottles, and another in a series of one-night relationships.  David looked out at the sunrise as he heard a door opening.  Funny, it really sounded like two doors opening.

“Look David, we have to talk.”  Shit it was Lynn.  He turned to the hall where he expected her head to come around any second.  There, blocking his view, was Jackie.

“Coming back to bed, sweetie?”  She wore a coquettish grin and nothing else.

“What the hell happened here?”  Lynn had made it around the corner.

“Who the fuck is she?”  They were in such perfect synch it could have been rehearsed.

David couldn’t speak.  It didn’t matter.  He took a drag on his cigarette and rested his head in his hands.

[Author's note: This was originally intended to be a multi chapter story, but to be honest, after this chapter I found I couldn't write anymore.  Why?  I really disliked the main character.  I just couldn't write him anymore.  I've read this thing a number of times over the years and still feel the same way.  What an ass.  ggg]