Post Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 

                         Disclaimer

This is piece of fiction.  Any imagined resemblance to
people living or deceased is either the result of dementia
on the reader's part or that the reader is, in fact, a
character of this story.   It is assumed that readers of
this story have the permission of the state, mom, dad, and
pastor and are able to tell the difference between real and
make-believe.  Furthermore, the writer is fully aware that
he is bound for hell, but welcomes both praise or/and well
thought out, humourous insults on his writing skill.  Note:
he already knows he cannot spell 'warth shet'.

The events and descriptions of this story are the sole
property of Kenny N Gamera and should not be recorded,
reposted, or profited from in anyway without express
written permission of the person hiding behind that pen
name. Reposting and free archiving will be tolerated given
the writer's name and address remains attached.  Archiving
by Deja.Com and ASSTR/ASSM is assumed and encouraged.

Thank You and Good Day,
Kenny N Gamera
turtlemeat69@hotmail.com

ftp://ftp.asstr.org/pub/Authors/Gamera
ftp://ftp.asstr.org/pub/Authors/Gamera/Beggars_Can't_Be

                Beggars Can't Be... Part 10
              Warm and Fuzzy, Black and Blue
                            by
                      Kenny N Gamera

I was in the shower when the doorbell rang. I grabbed a
towel and, without due regard to modesty, wrapped loosely
it around my lower body.  I left a trail of drips behind
me.  I made use of the front door as a protective block,
however.  I peered around the side to find Sherry (still in
uniform) and Jenny. Jenny appeared to be crying.

    Modesty then totally neglected, I asked them inside.
Other than my invitation, none of us spoke.  Sherry placed
a small overnight bag that she carried next to a wall as we
entered the living room. She took a seat on the old
upholstered chair that I had gotten from my folks.  I sat
down on my one sister's old couch.  Jenny cuddled next to
me and shoved her tear-streaked face into my neck. I looked
at Sherry.  She looked back at me.  Her expression was
blank.  I could only guess what mine was, but she looked
the way I felt.

   At last, she sighed and said, "I assume that Jenny can
stay here."

   "Yes, but..."

   "Ken," she interrupted whatever I was about to ask (I
don't remember what), "I don't want Jenny around Kim right
now.  I don't trust the bitch with her, but Jenny has no
where to go, except maybe a hotel room.  I don't want her
alone like that either."

   "Kim?"

    "Is at home in a very uncomfortable position right now.
I have a couple of friends watching her, but I will need to
go back to finish her punishment."  She paused for a moment
before adding, "assuming?"

   "Assuming what?"

   "Assuming that you don't press charges."  Her voice
turned all-official.

   Jenny moved her head from where it had pressed against
me.  I turned to look at her at her face.  If ever a face
could be said to be pleading, this would be it.  Her head
shook side to side, and the tears increased their flow a
little.

   I kissed her forehead and told her in a soft voice, "of
course not."

   "Thank you."  Sherry answered, sans the cop voice.
"Jenny doesn't want to..."

   It was my turn to interrupt.  "What Jenny doesn't want
will not happen."

   "She doesn't want to leave Kim, Ken."  Sherry's paused,
and Jenny snuggled back into my neck.  "She wanted to stay,
but I couldn't let her.  Not after what Kim had said to
her."

   "What did...?"

   "I won't repeat it, Ken," she answered.  "But after
hearing how angry she is, I wouldn't feel safe with the two
of them in the same apartment."

   "Kimmy wouldn't hurt me, Sherry."  Jenny's voice came
from against my body, sounding soft and hoarse.  "You
should know that."

   "Jen, she was doing a good job of hurting Ken earlier
tonight.  I don't want her turning on you, too.  And she
might, I've seen this sort of thing before."  Sherry
sighed.  "Maybe after I get her calmed down and after a
little counciling, you two can get back together."

   Sherry looked at me with a knowing stare.  "But I don't
know.  Once a relationship turns violent, things usually
don't work out."

   "Kimmy wouldn't hurt me, Sherry."

   Sherry started to respond, but with her mouth starting
to open, I interjected.  "Sherry, leave her be.  She has
had a pretty massive shock."

   "So have you," Jenny looked up at me and somehow forced
a smile.  I smiled back at her, ignoring Sherry again.

   "Oh, I'm a nerd. I'm used to getting beat up.
Especially, by girls.  I'll tell you about the time that
the JV cheerleaders beat me up and threw me in the
dumpster, sometime."

   She smiled bigger (which is, I know, not anywhere near
correct usage, but I liked the way it sounded.  I promise
not to do it again) and laughed a short but real laugh.
With that respite done, though, she then started to cry
again in silent tears that ran down her cheeks.  Her face
returned to its nest against my shoulder.  I held her
tightly against me.

   "Ken," At the sound of her voice, I glanced back over at
Sherry.  "We'll talk again later.  Me and you.  Just take
care of her.  Okay?"

   I nodded my head and held Jenny next to me as Sherry
found her own way to the door.  As Jenny continued crying,
I just held her tight.  Talking didn't seem right at the
moment.  Holding did feel right.  She cried until sleep
overcame her.

   I quickly followed her into sleep.  We dozed together on
the coach, each other's body acting to prop the other's up,
but somehow I woke around dawn in my bed next to Jenny.  I
could not remember waking up and moving from the living
room.  This brought back uncomfortable.

   Jenny stirred and moved more tightly against me as I
stared up at the ceiling.  I eased my one arm around her
again, as the other lazily traced the top of my old scar,
near and over a new bruise.  The paint on the ceiling had
long sweeping brush marks.  One long, brown brush hair
trapped in the white paint stood out in the half-light of
the new day.

   "Kimmy."

   I turned to look at Jenny.  She still slept, but she
mumbled in that sleep.  I squeezed her against me and moved
my other hand away from my leg to the top of her thin arm.
With a soft touch, I slid the tips of my ring and index
finger along its curve.  I traced a path from her upper arm
to her wrist, then retreating back to where I started,
until, at last, I fell back asleep.

   "Good morning, Kenny."  I looked up into two of the most
beautiful bloodshot eyes I could ever dare to imagine.  The
owner of those peepers gave me a kiss on the lips with a
good smooch sound resulting.  "I hope you're feeling
better."

   I moved as much as I could, which wasn't much.  Jenny
was crouched over me in a position similar to a wrestler
pinning an opponent.  Also, I felt that special stiffness
that only comes with a good beating; each movement caused
another bruise to shout out "here" as if at a roll call. I
returned the smooch.

   "Nope.  I feel as if I was beaten up by an angry
lesbian."  I paused before adding, "Wait, I was beat up by
an angry lesbian."

   "I'm glad that you can joke about it," she replied then
returned the smooch.

   I reached up and smooched her back.  A huge sergeant
major of a bruise announced that all were "present and
accounted for, Suh!"  I winced with the stab of pain.

   "That's what tiggers do best."

   The smooch found its way back to me.

   "You're not a tigger."

   "I never said..." smooch "...I was."

   "Brat!"  She smooched me.

   I smooched her, "I am rubber, you are glue.  What you
say bounces off me and it stays on you."

   "You," smooch, "messed it up, doofus."

   "Did not," I returned the smooch, "dorkwad."

   After that, things became rather childish as we
continued to play hot potatoe with the smooch.  At last, I
gave up. After she had given me the last kiss, I asked,
"what time is it, by the way."

   "Time for you to call into school and work sick."  Jenny
gave me one last kiss, making her one more up on me, and
pulled away.  "Sherry called in for us last night, but
you'll have to do it for yourself."

   "Ouch," I announced as I stood up.  "What makes you
think that I need to call in?"

   "Because you make a funny face everytime you move
and..." she looked me up and down "...it looks as if you
were doorprize at a sadist convention."

   Her point made, I got up from the bed and moved gingerly
to the phone or at least where I had last left the headset.
Not finding it there, I went to the base unit on my desk
and pressed the locator button.  The sound of ringing from
beneath a pile of photocopied technical articles was my
reward.

   School was easy to take care of.  My advisor agreed to
take a series of samples I had drying out of the oven.
Granted, I knew that it would be one of the other grad
students, but at least it would get accomplished.
Naturally, work was a different matter.

   Stumpy answered.

   "Where are you?"

   I pretended that he had been polite enough to avoid
being called rude.  "Home.  I won't be in today.  I'm not
feeling well."

   "Why not?"

   I sighed, "A lesbian beat the snot out of me for
sleeping with her girlfriend."

    "If you don't want to tell me that's fine, but I need
to tell Bruce something."

   "Just tell him that I'm not feeling well.  That's all
anyone else does," I said.

   "All right, but I don't see how you expect me to..."

   He blathered on about the woes of working all by his
little lonesome in a huge, crowded bookstore.  I made the
correct sympathetic noises until he paused long enough for
me to blurt out a good bye and hang up on him.

   It would have been a much more satisfying act if I had
owned an old fashioned corded phone like in the television
stories I had grown up on, mais que sera sera and all that.
Things change, that is their nature.  It is the human lot
to learn to change with them.  Still, it would have been
much more satisfying act if I had owned an old fashioned
corded phone.

   God help me, but I wanted a cigarette and a whiskey.

   "Kenny? You're not losing it on me again, are you?"

   I turned to look at Jenny and smiled a real, unforced
smile.  "Just thinking about old Bogart movies."

   She smiled back for a moment before allowing a frown to
form on her face.  "Why did you tell them you were beaten
up...?"

   "...by a jealous lesbian?"  I shrugged.  "I have found
that if you tell the truth in just the right way no one
will believe it and pry for details."

   She looked at me blankly.

   "I mean who would believe that I would be having sex let
alone with a woman who would have a girlfriend as well."  I
looked at my bare feet and told them.  "Though they might
believe the part about a girl beating me up."

   She kissed my forehead and called me, "silly."  I looked
up and gave her a weak smile.

   "Now, where do you keep your coffee?"

   "Jenny, I..."

   "Do you want coffee or not?"

   "Top shelf, cupboard over the pot.  The grinder is on
top of the bookshelves next to the popcorn popper.  Feel
free to wipe out the pepper, but I usually leave it in to
flavour the coffee."

   "Ick!"

   "Trust me it can be pretty good."

   Jenny reached over to the paper towels as she said.
"While I start the coffee, you work on making my
breakfast."

   She turned from the grinder and looked at me with bright
eyes.  "You should know what to make."

   If I weren't already her hapless slave, her wink would
have accomplished the trick quite neatly.  I began to put
together everything in my typical as she concentrated on
putting together the coffee.  In contrast, I meandered
around the kitchen with bowl in hand and measuring cup more
lost than...well, more lost than something that spends most
of its time wandering around lost (the name of which has
escaped me because I have no clue as to what I am babbling
about at the moment).

   First, I dumped an approximate cup of flour into a bowl.
After finding my way back to the fridge to get three table
spoons (or thereabout) of dried buttermilk (its great for
baking).  I put a tablespoon of butter into the microwave
to melt as I went back to the fridge to get an egg, which I
cracked and emptied, on top of the mound of dry
ingredients.  As the butter dinged, I added about a
teaspoon of baking powder to the side away from the path of
the egg white.

   I poured the butter into the bowl and removed myself to
the sink.  I turned the faucet to a trickle and added
enough water to get the batter soupy as I stirred it all
together.  Naturally, it was at this point that I realized
that I had not bothered to heat up the stove.  I went back
to the fridge and got out a slice of bacon that I dropped
into a skillet that I belated got from the cupboard.

   Soon the bacon began to sizzle.  When it had generated
what I thought was a sufficient amount of grease, reached
in with a fork and pulled it out.  As it cooled, I poured
the grease into the batter and poured the first cake into
the now greased pan.  As it cooked, I ate the bacon slice.

   Soon I had a plate of three cakes.  I place them in
front of Jenny.  As she ate her first bite, I went back and
turned off the stove.  Before I returned to the table, I
also rinsed out the mixing bowl, something that the
occasional failure reminds me to do.

   When I returned to the table and sat down with my cup of
coffee, Jenny looked up at me.

   "Not hungry."

   She shrugged and finished eating with gusto.  She ate
half the stack and a tad more without a bit of the self-
conscienceness that I have seen in my sisters and a few
female friends as they ate in front of men or me.  After a
final bite and a loud sigh, she pushed her plate away.

   Shortly, we each had a coffee in hand and were seated
together on the couch.  We drank in silence staring at the
cat, who had curled up on the chair that Sherry had used
earlier.  The morning sunbeam slowly traveled towards him.
When at last it stuck him, Charlie stretched out. He bathed
in the warmth for the time the day had allotted the sun to
serving him.  Once its path carried it from the chair to
the wall, he stood up and yawned with a good slow stretch.
When finished, he hopped from his spot and moved off to his
next chore.

   I looked from the empty spot to Jenny.  Her eyes were
closed as if she were asleep.  Her whole face looked
relaxed and at ease.  With everything, I thought, at ease
with the world.

   I glanced down to where my arm lay cradled by both of
hers.  I raised my free hand to her cheek and stroked it.
She made a soft moan of approval and snuggled against me
tight as her lips turned up in a smile.  Mine acted in
sympathy, as did my breathing to hers.  My eyes closed and
slowly each of us breathed more and more shallowly.

   We fell asleep, together.
