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FFF#6

Here is my FLASH FICTION ENTRY this week. If you wish to see the earlier postings of mine, here is the first week of this story, and here is the second week of the story. Below is week three (FFF#6):

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Chapter 3 - Reality Check


"You know Javier, poets say that in the spring a young man's thoughts turn to love, but I think they're wrong."

I glanced up from my beer, to look Dr. Javier Moralez in the face to see if he was listening to me any longer. Javier was an old friend of mine, and he taught poetry for the Department of English. We always enjoyed each others friendship, even though our disciplines at first glance appeared so divergent... he in English, I in biology.

"Why you think that?" said Javier as he signaled with his hand to the bartender to come over and refill his glass with a double gin and tonic.

"Because," with more than a hint of exasperation in my voice, thinking he had not listened to a damn thing I said about the motorcycle trip nor about the waitress with the puppy, "I think in Spring, EVERYONE's thoughts turn to love."

"So, what'd you do then, did you give her a poke?" said Moralez with a sideways glance and a wry, teasing, furry-faced grin.

Unlike his own actions with his spouse, Javier knew without question that I was faithful to my wife. That fact just eggs him on further. He enjoys trying to rile me about that at every opportunity he can. Sometimes it works, sometimes it does not.

"Yeah, right." I said clumsily and awkwardly, not sure if I was more aggravated at his accusation, or more embarrassed that he already knew I didn't do a damn thing. I picked up my beer, and took a long, deep pull from the bottle so I wouldn't have to think of anything further to add.

To Moralez, bedding only one woman was akin to reading the same novel, over and over again for the span of a lifetime. It nauseated him. He needed the charge, the new "spice" in his life that a fresh female form provided. He relished the "cat and mouse" game of finding a woman who willingly could be convinced to accept his services.

His wife of 30+ years, Lucinda, had long ago accepted that Javier was hers, but not wholly hers. I remember in an especially candid, yet rueful moment when she took me aside at their Christmas party last year. She joked that Javier was very much into "cereal monogamy" for he ate the same brand each and every morning since the day they married, but that was not into "monogamy," nor even "serial monogamy."

And he had no trouble choosing from the large array of women who seemed to melt under his devilish stare, from his various secretaries over the years, to his female students, to the waitresses at the many restaurants and watering holes around the campus proper.

"Look at her," he pointed towards a woman near the jukebox with his index finger, the rest of his hand surrounding the glass of his double gin & tonic, "you could probably have her, if you were willing to give her a hundred bucks." His eyebrows waggled at the humor he felt at his joke.

"To hell with this. " I said, aggravated. I sat the empty beer bottle on the bar, and turned around and walked out of the tavern towards Hill Street, the building where both my office and lab were located.

Stepping outside, the coolness of the early fall was comforting after the hot, muggy closeness in the tavern. As I walked down the sidewalk toward the intersection of Hill, I reached into the pocket of my corduroy sports coat and pulled out my pipe, a full-bent Peterson, and my tobacco pouch. I filled the bowl with a plain burley leaf proceeded to meld flame and leaf in the bowl. The richness of the smoke quelled a bit of my frustration.

Up ahead, I could see the window to my lab, on the 8th floor of the Natural Science Building. But I was not really paying attention, my mind was thinking back on the motorcycle trip. It was a time where I truly found out about myself.

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Thank you everyone, I look forward to any comments you may have.

PipeTobacco