- HIGH HIGH
- Tales of Suburban Cyberpunk
- By Stefan "Twoflower" Gagne

- Episode 3 : That's Entertainment

     The Fourth of July had arrived.

     The Fourth was one of the few holidays Terra still
celebrated.  Its true meaning has been lost to the sands of time,
though... now it's just an excuse to gather together, have
picnics and set the sky on fire.

     However, the Fourth was a crucial holiday in Suburbia, being
a time of family bonding and massive pyrotechnics.  Large groups
of burbanites gathered in the parks, in backyards, in the little
unexplained patches of grass that occasionally crop up between
street lanes.  The barbeques were freshly fired, the grass neatly
trimmed, the rockets ready to send bursts of color streaking
across the crisp night air.  It was going to be quite a show.

     Although the way they would be streaking wasn't going to be
as planned.  To understand why, history needs to be examined.

     A few weeks had passed since the Mood Building gag.  Since
then, the trio had been engaging in other practical jokes. 
Having all the elevators at the Mall play some generic, evil
sounding rock... dousing a few lawns in Miracle Grass Grow and
watching the burbians frantically try to mow it again and
again... filling Town Hall with shaving cream.  All in all, a fun
time to be alive.

     In addition to the jokes, Mitch and Benton had been easing
Jody's transition into High High life; she now wore her school
uniform with pride.  She originally was less than pleased upon
finding out what it was.

     "A skirt?" she asked, frowning.

     "Dress codes," Mitch explained.  "Guys wear white button-
downs and blue pants, girls wear white blouses and long blue
skirts.  It's yet another way for the principal to make us
conform to their oppressive educational society."

     "I just wear my jacket over the outfit," Benton said. 
"That's enough for me on the nonconformity front."

     "But I hate skirts.  They flap around," Jody complained. 
"Pedal access isn't as efficent."

     "Come on, you'd look great in one.  I hear they're quite
comfortable," Benton urged.

     "Then YOU wear it!"

     And he did.  Undaunted by the strange looks his family gave
him (and the Freudian jokes Mitch was cracking), Benton wore the
skirt for two days until Jody finally broke down and agreed to
wear it.

     After Jody started wearing her school uniform on non-school
days, it triggered a fashion trend.  Within days, you could
identify the High High students by the waves of white and blue
deliquients, zipping here and there, causing mayhem and good
natured chaos.

     But getting back to the present, a little more mayhem and
good natured chaos was about to take place on the grounds of the
local park.  At the top of the tallest hill around, overlooking
the hordes of wanna-be pyromaniacs eating hot dogs and potato
chips.

     "It's almost eight, Jody, hurry it up," Mitch urged,
continuing to scan the crowds of holiday picnickers below for any
official looking people.  "We're gonna get caught if you don't
get a move on."

     Jody turned one eye up to Mitch.  Both eyes, actually... but
via the neural suction-cup on her forehead, the other eye was
busy dealing with the task at hand.  "Keep your shirt on, Mitch. 
I've told you guys before, I'm good at this sort of thing. 
Almost as good as my driving skills."

     "I'll believe that when you succeed in actually hacking in. 
What's the holdup?"

     "This firework routine's suprisingly secure.  I've almost
got it, though... THERE."

     The final ice surrounding the town fireworks program
shattered, revealing the 3-D construct of the firing paths.  Jody
grinned and keyed in her own program.

     "Okay, all set," she said, jacking out of her palmtop
computer.  "No problem.  Our program's in place."

     "I got the sodas!" Benton yelled from the bottom of the
hill, waving a six pack of obscenely bright-colored aluminum in
the air.  "The GOOD stuff, not the usual diet garbage.  Sugar
deluxe.  Did we hack in okay?"

     "Program's loaded," Jody nodded.

     "I live for this stuff," Benton said, unfolding his lawn
chair and plopping down.  "You just don't get quality
entertainment like this during the school year.  Folks, you know
what summer's all about?"
     "Soda?" Mitch prompted.

     "Fireworks?" Jody suggested.

     "No, slacking off and having fun.  Although the soda and
explosive devices are a nice touch too.  Where'd this holiday
come from, anyway?  Who got the idea of shooting explosives into
the air?"

     "I think it's a demonstration of man's inner desire to burn
everything he sees," Mitch said.  "Some sort of masculine power-
showing, to flaunt the ability to destroy one's enemies with fire
and lightning.  Or maybe it's because of some revolution.  Either
way, hey, fun for all...  7:59, gang, shades on."

     The three pulled out identical sunglasses, and slipped them
on.  It would have made an interesting, if not unusual postcard
image; three students sipping soda in lawn chairs, each with dark
glasses.

     "I can't see anything now," Benton complained.

     "Don't worry, it's for safety's sake.  Okay, first flare
going up...  RED.  Good.  That means the program's in," Jody
confirmed.  "Hold on."

     The skies remained silent.  Below them, on the lowlands of
the park, the picnicing families began to worry.  A few town
officials started radioing in queries to the firework control
center.

     "And..." Jody said, watching her watch.  "NOW."

     KABOOM.  Six flashblasts went off at once, turning the sky
from death black to blinding white.  The crowd below yelped, and
many eyes were rubbed.

     More bursts went off, lighting the sky in every color of the
rainbow.  A few war veterans started having flashbacks.  Small
children cried.  All the teenagers for miles around hooted and
yelled in approval of the mass-destruction light show.

     In the finale, a series of rockets twisted around, carving
the words HH RULES out of smoke and sparks.  An airburst
triggered, wiping the letters away in a firey explosion.  The
dust settled, mostly on people's food spreads.

     There was a pause, and the normal firework display resumed,
a simple series of sparks and rockets.  Mitch lifted his glasses.

     "Hey, I thought that was supposed to be the end," he said. 
"What gives?"

     "Come on, I wasn't going to REMOVE the old program, just add
to it," Jody said.  "No need to ruin everybody's fun by cutting
it there."

     "Yeah, but it'd be more fun to watch their collective hope
be shattered.  An angry mob would form and we could laugh at them
from a distance," Mitch suggested, dreamy.

     "You may get your wish," Benton said, peering over his
sunglasses.  "Just not at a good distance.  Take a look down the
hill and tell me what you see."

     Mitch leaned out of his lawn chair, peering over the grassy
hilltop.  "Uh-oh."

     "Uh-oh?  Why uh-oh?" Jody asked.

     "Rambos," Benton said.  "Rampart, I mean.  Your old school's
football team is headed this way, and they don't look happy."

     Sure enough, lumbering up the hilltop were five brick walls. 
Mitch blinked at this, and removed his glasses.  Blinking a few
times to get his eyes back to normal, he counted quite a few
muscular behemoths, not entirely un-walllike.

     "Hey!" the leader rumbled, bass tones eminating from deep
within the diaphragm.  "You three punks are High Highers, huh?"

     "Our alma mater," Benton nodded.  "Is there a problem?"

     "Don't think we don't know it was you guys who did that," he
said, stomping up to the top of the hill and pointing a meaty
finger towards the sky.  "We Ramparts are sick of you geeks
riding around causing all these weird things.  Now you gotta
wreck a holiday?"

     "How do you know we had anything to do with it?" Mitch
asked, assuming his most convincing grin.

     "Hah.  You HH twits are always doing this stuff.  Maybe we
oughtta just rearrange your organs now and have the rest of the
summer joke-free, huh?" the quarterback said.  On an unseen cue,
his partners started cracking their knuckles.  The cracks had an
unnerving echo to them, not unlike coffin lids slamming shut.

     The two sides faced off, one in terror, the other in rage. 
The likely future, if the situation went uninterrupted, would see
three High High students left battered and unconscious at the
bottom of the hill.  Fortunately, someone interrupted.

     "Yeah, I did it," Jody said, standing up to address the
quarterback.  "So what's it to you, Bruno?"

     Benton blinked.  "You know this gorilla?"

     "Jody?" Bruno asked, shocked.  "What're you doing with these
High High wimps?"

     "I'm GOING to High High now, you musclebrained moron," Jody
sneered.  "So you can forget about breaking their necks, unless
you want to break mine too.  I'd like to see you try.  How're the
stains on your sport jacket, by the way?"

     "Fine," Bruno growled, eyes narrowing as he remembered the
stain.  "No thanks to YOU for throwing me into that punch bowl."

     "Whoa.  Time out, clarification please," Benton said,
putting himself between the two, against all common sense.  "What
punch bowl?  Inside jokes aren't funny unless they're properly
explained."

     "Simple story," Jody said.  "He asks me out to a school
dance last year and for some reason I say yes.  Fifteen minutes
in he tries to feel me up so I throw him into the dessert cart. 
Open and shut case."

     "You... threw... HIM?" Benton asked, giving Bruno the once
over to make sure he hadn't shrunk while nobody was looking.

     "What, was I supposed to just let him do that?" Jody asked,
insulted.

     "No, I mean--"

     "Shaddup, runt!" Bruno said, pushing Benton away as easily
as one might topple a stack of dishes.  "This is just between me
and--"

     That's when the first punch was thrown.

                              ---

     "Sorry about that," Jody said to Mitch, who was holding a
cold soda on his forehead.  "But I thought you were one of them."

     "Be happy you weren't the one she kneed in the crotch,"
Benton grinned from the back seat.  "I think that guy might never
get his voice back."

     "Sheesh," Mitch sulked.  "I try to do a favor and calm you
down, and you slug me one.  How'd you manage to take out an
entire football team, anyway?"

     "I was angry," Jody noted.  "I dunno, that just happens when
I get angry.  Can't help it.  I suspect there was a viking
beserker somewhere in my family lineage.  Sorry I didn't snap out
of it fast enough, though... I doubt we'll have to worry about
them again.  So what do we have planned for tommorow?"

     "You're a regular gag-demon now, aren't you?" Benton noted.

     "Hey, it's fun," Jody smiled.  "This is one of the best
summers I've ever had."

                              ---

     The Rampart High football team dragged itself home that
night, bruised and battered, but more or less intact.  The team
transport van skidded to quick stops whenever Bruno's driving leg
started to spasm from pain, leaving irregular rubber marks on the
clean subruban roads.

     Bruno was foaming.  Not only had he been beaten to a pulp by
a GIRL, but a HIGH HIGH GIRL nonetheless.  Weren't High Highers
these wimpy little brainiacs?  Since when did they get a fighter
with the speed of a tiger and the common sense of a pirahna?! 
(Well, he didn't use that analogy.  His analogy had something to
do with football, but animal comparisons are usually easier for
non-atheletes to understand.)

     "Bruno, what're we gonna do?" his injured linebacker asked. 
"You're the quarterback, plan something.  I don't want to show up
at school this fall and have everybody know a High High bimbo
knocked us around and we let it slide."

     "I'm thinking!" Bruno shouted back, genuinely attempting
thought.  It wasn't a very normal process for him, and required a
great deal of concentration.  Unoiled gears ground together. 
They weren't inside his head, though.

     "What's that noise?" Bruno asked.

     "Looks like they're building something over there," the half
back said, pointing out a window.  "Looks like a movie set or
something... hey, that guy's wearing a High High uniform!"

     "Let's go pound him," Bruno suggested.  "They can't ALL be
psychos, and I need the time to think."

                              ---

     Night turns to day over suburbia, the various residents
slowly recovering from vision problems caused by the previous
night.  Many had deep tans, which they certainly weren't
complaining about.

     One particular house out of a thousand was already awake,
however.  They had been awake since the previous night, working
all night on a new project.  A vision.  A cinematic vision.

     Francis, High High's premier director, was always having
visions like this.  A few of them were actually understandable. 
Benton was the only person who could translate the
incomprehensible ones, which is why he was the first person to be
called that morning.

     "So what's this one?" Benton asked, from the other end of
the holophone.  He peered into the camera/screen, trying to find
Francis.  The boy liked the half-shadowy look, and his room had
specially placed panels to keep the whole place from being in
view at any point in time.

     "Okay, here's the conceptual," the wild-eyed director said,
walking into view, achieving the important dramatic effect of
uncovering the hidden idea.  "We've got these three people and
they're carrying a mysterious package, but no, we never get to
see what the package is, because, like, it symbolizes man's
pursuit of the mystery... anyway, these three people are in a
spaceship and they're busy lugging this package around trying to
keep it away from people, because if man ever found what he was
looking for he'd go insane, so these insane people are trying to
save the universe from insanity.  And we get to blow up a LOT of
stuff along the way.  How's that sound?"

     "Francis, this is definitely one of your weirder ones.  You
been smoking those suspicious mushrooms again?"

     "Nope.  This one came to me last night... a vision."

     "Mushrooms," Benton confirmed.  "Okay, I'll be one of your
spaceman types.  Just as long as I don't need to pose in fetal
position above the planet again or walk around a day-glo hotel
room, like in your last movie.  As for the other two... I think I
could get my friends to do it... do you mind if one of them's
female?"

     "Of course not!" Francis said.  "That's what I had pictured,
anyway.  Two males and one female.  It shows a possible problem
in the theory of creation, as in 'what if a circle has three
sides'?"

     "Check.  We didn't really have anything planned for today
anyway.  When do you need us?"

                              ---

     "Come on, guys, do this for Good Old Benton," Benton pleaded
into his holophone.

     The split-screen images of Jody and Mitch did not smile. 
Three way calling was nice at times, but not when the other two
people were ganging up on you.

     "Francis is a crackpot, Benton," Mitch said.  "He could
START with some warped allegorical space opera, but he might turn
it into ballet or something equally silly as he goes along.  I
don't get what you see in the guy's cheeseball art films."
     "Gotta support the arts," Benton pleaded.  "Without him,
we'd only have two students, which is under the absolute minimum
for any High High department.  Besides, it'd just take the
morning.  None of his films are epics.  Please?"

     "This is the guy who's always building stuff in his
backyard, right?" Jody asked, from the right half of the
hologrammatic image.  "He keeps running out to me when I drive
by, screaming something about innate stage presence and roles. 
He's a bit scary, in my opinion."

     "Aw, he's harmless.  Just a misunderstood genius, that's
all," Benton said.  "It'll only take a few hours.  What possible
harm could there be?"

                              ---

     The Francis Films Incorporated Sound Stage (also known as
the backyard of Francis's house) was abuzz with activity.

     The younger siblings of the household were busy gathering
props and sets.  Extension cords from the kitchen were put into
place, providing the required power for several dozen lights. 
The set itself was something to behold; a series of cardboard
boxes and plastic chunks which, when viewed from the correct
angle, didn't look like a spaceship.

     In the center of this mess was Francis, the scraggily
bearded, director's hat wearing ball of pent-up energy, bouncing
over the grassy yard to keep this whole Santa's Whirling
Unsheilded Easy-to-Topple Workshop from collapsing.  He didn't
notice his actors enter until three minutes after the fact.

     "Guys!  Hey!  Glad you could make it!" Francis said, waving
a megaphone and charging briskly over.  "I'm hot on this one,
Benton.  Closest thing to the ideal film I've had in wee... say,
do I know you?"

     "Sort of," Jody admitted.  "I'm Jody."

     "Yeah!  I remember now.  The one with the intense stage
presence that keeps driving by at high speed.  You never stopped
to chat, though.  Shame, I've always wanted to cast you into a
role in one of my movies.  You carry this... this... ultra-weird
AURA that just looks remarkably good on vidtape.  Honestly."

     "Glad to hear it," Jody said, looking for the nearest exit.

     "So what's the subtle message you're conveying in this one?"
Mitch asked, as if he was requesting the punchline to a
complicated joke.

     "Okay.  See, we have this box, and you guys are protecting
it because you're insane and trying to keep the sane people from
going insane, but the sane people really want it because they're
insane.  And we blow things up.  All in all a very simple
concept.  I've got some more stuff to set up with the sibs, then
we can begin."

     "But we don't even know our lines," Jody said.

     "Oh, that's okay.  No lines, this is more of a performance
art piece.  Just do what I yell to you from behind the camera. 
No costumes needed either, I like the school uniform look.  It
just says... says..."

     Francis paused, lost in thought.  His eyes searched for two
words he couldn't quite phrase into english.

     "Blue and white?" Mitch guessed.

     "Exactly.  You're good at this!  Maybe I can sign you onto
my movie team for a few weeks and we could do a sixty hour tale
about--"

     "Err, no thanks," Mitch said.  "I can't honestly see myself
equal to a genius like you."

     "Hmm.  Got a point there.  Welp, I gotta go help my younger
sibs finish the lighting grid.  Spotlights are murder to get
pointed correctly!  Just hang tight, do you best, and hey... have
fun with it, right?  Kudos!"

     Francis jogged off, doing his little director things.

     Mitch twirled his finger around his ear and stuck his tounge
out, the universal symbol for 'insanity'.  "He's gone completely
out of his head this time.  Take it from an expert on hidden
meaning, this whole concept is pointless and sophomoric."

     "I don't like being ordered around," Jody said.  "Plus his
brothers give me the creeps.  I hope you're right, Benton, and
this won't take long."

     "Don't worry, there's never a dull moment on a Francis set,"
Benton grinned.  "We'll have fun yet."

     "Okay!  John, Rich, Mel, front and center.  Man the cameras. 
Don, get the soundtrack ready!  Actors, to the ship."

     "Yes master," Jody mocked, as the three walked off to the
hastily assembled spacecraft.  They walked up the cheap stairwell
made out of living room footstools, and into the three-sided
spaceship.

     "Okay, now what?" Benton asked, protecting his voice to the
camera across the lawn.

     "Cameras... rolling," Francis said, making highly
complicated arm gestures to his younger work crew.  "Alright. 
Picture this, you're out in deep space, guarding that box behind
the pilot's seat.  You're insane and you like it.  Look insane."

     The three just sort of stood there, not quite sure what to
do.  They weren't told to look insane on a daily basis.

     "It's easy, really.  Here.  Mitch, bang your head against
the wall.  Benton, start repeating 'satan finds work for idle
hands' over and over.  Jody, just sit there and concentrate
staring on a light fixture."

     "I can't, I'll go blind."

     "Well, then gaze directly above it, it'll look the same on
camera.  Alright.  Soundtrack?  Where's the soundtrack?!  We need
more accordians to achieve germanic overtone!"

     "The batteries are dead!" one of the brothers yelled, waving
the tiny portable tape deck in the air.

     "Hmm.  Okay, I'll just dub it in later.  Roll the piano out
of the den, we'll need it soon."

     "Piano?" Mitch asked, between head slams.

     "Don't worry about it," Francis said.  "Okay.  We've
established the opening morals.  Now the evil sane space pirates
invade the ship."

     John and Rich pushed a plunger, and part of the spaceship
exploded.  The three dived for cover, a large chunk of the mock
cockpit collapsing in a heap of dust.

     Several brick walls walked onto the set through the newly
formed hole.

     "Perfect!  Perfect!  Okay, space pirates, look sane..."

     "Heya," Bruno grinned, under his cheesy plastic space pirate
helmet.

     "BRUNO?!" Mitch yelped, cowering.  "What the--?"

     "Well, we were driving by last night looking for a fight,
and out comes this crazy-eyed High Higher who said we had stage
presence, so we think, why not get him to do a movie with you
three... where we get to pound ya?"

     "Great!  Great drama!" Francis shouted from the director's
chair.  "This is perfect.  I gotta thank you nice guys for the
vision you gave me last night."

     "Can we kill them now?" one of the football pirates asked.

     "STUNT DOUBLE!" Mitch called.  "I want a stunt double!"

     "There ain't one," Bruno said, widening his grin to inhuman
proportions.

     "If it's a fight you jerks want..." Jody warned, stepping
forward.

     The two sides faced off, duplicating the positions of last
night's conflict.  Only in this case, one side drew weapons.

     "Eh?" Jody said, blinking at the recently drawn
miscellaneous blunt objects.  Two baseballs bats, a croquet
mallet, and several other swingable things, all swiped from the
Rampart sports equipment shack.

     "Bruno, old friend, those are fake movie weapons, right?"
Mitch asked.

     "Real ones," Bruno said.  "We supplied them.  Francis said
he liked the added tone of realism or something like that."

     So this is it, Benton thought.  Beaten to a bloody pulp in
the name of fine cinematography.  If it was ironical, maybe he
could appreciate it, but this is just--

     "CUT!" Francis shouted.  "Okay, great job, gang."

     "What?" Bruno asked, turning away from the students.  "I
thought we got to smash 'em!!"

     "Well, I figured later on last night that the only way to do
a proper death sequence was with a little classical music. 
Therefore, the only sane way to handle it would be if I went ALL
the way and did a ballet sequence instead, with pantomined death
scenes.  Mel!  Rich!  The tutus!"

     The two toadies scampered out, fetched all the objects 'o
death from limp football paws, and started handing out light pink
leotards and puffy skirts.

     "I think you guys had a pretty good idea with the death
sequences, but I like my idea a bit better.  Hope you don't
mind," Francis said.  "Okay, roll 'em."

     Mel started playing the recently rolled out piano, plucking
out a bouncy little number by some dead german composer.  All
actors present weren't quite sure what to do, each holding a
frilly garment and being surged on by easy listening notes.

     "Bruno, what now?" one of the pirates asked.  "I thought you
said we were gonna get some revenge."
     "We are," Bruno grimaced.  "We can take 'em, weapons or
not... Starting with HER."

     Jody poised herself, eyes burning with rage, and prepared to
face off against the whole football team.

     Then she turned around and made a run for it.

     "!" Mitch objected, but she was already at the front yard
and accelerating.  The piano music picked up an ominous tone, Mel
starting to like his work.

     "Not so tough without your little Wonder Woman, are you?"
Bruno taunted, grabbing Mitch by the collar.  "When I'm done with
you, you're gonna..."

     For some reason, the piano music wasn't audible anymore.

     Sure, Mel was still playing, but there was a far louder
noise in the air.  A louder, more unpleasant noise.  A noise that
spoke of cylinders and gearshifts and corpsegrinding engines that
roared like the endless fires of Hell itself...

     The Traffic Smasher roared between houses, skidding around
on the freshly mowed grass, crazed driver intent on doing some
SERIOUS damage.  More than a few adrenaline induced karate throws
and nut punches.  The kind of sweet destruction that can only be
found at 55 miles per hour, with a ton of alien steel at your
fingertips.

     "Oh, shi--" was as far as Bruno got before the Traffic
Smasher plowed into the set.

     (As any Yttian Motors salesman will tell you, the Traffic
Smasher is not your everyday land rover.  It was designed with
the highway system on far off planet Yttia in mind, a system
designed by several insane asylum escapees with a CAD program. 
As a result, drivers there tended to express displeasure with
automatic rifles, not silly little horns that went 'HONK!'.  A
car's gotta be built TOUGH to handle that.  Certainly tougher
than a few hundred pounds of cardboard and plastic.  Certainly
tougher than a few hundred pounds of football player as well.)

     A vague bowling alley noise was heard as the set collapsed
around the Traffic Smasher, sending the starship occupants
sprawling around the grass.  Those like Benton and Mitch who were
fortunate enough to run away the minute they recognized the
engine noise were spared being thrown a great distance by the
sudden impact of Yttian chrome.

     "GET IN!" Jody screamed to the two, holding a door open. 
The two plowed in, Mitch still with his legs dangling over the
seat as the rover made a quick circle and ambled over the lawn
once more, engine noise droning away as the car crossed suburbia
at speeds no man was meant to handle.

     Francis sat in his chair, dumbfounded.  The set gave a final
heave of disgust and collapsed.  The ex-pirates lay strewn about
the backyard like stringless marionettes.

     "Whoa," Francis managed.

     "Yow," he added a few moments later.  "That... was...
PERFECT.  Couldn't have thought up a better ending myself!  John,
TELL me you got all that!"

     "I was supposed to be recording it?" the brother asked,
looking up from his doughnut.

     "Oh.  Well, I guess we can do the shot again.  Hey, Bruno,
are you boys free tomorrow?  Well?  Why aren't you moving? 
Hello?  (pause.)  Um, John?"

     "Yeah, boss?"

     "Get out some band-aids."

                              ---

     Mitch wriggled into the passenger seat, panting.  "Gaah. 
That was a little too close for me.  NEVER get out of the car,
man, never get out of the car..."

     "Couldn't you have thought of a less dangerous escape than
that?" Benton asked, leaning forward.

     "Sahib wants his bacon saved, Sahib gets his bacon saved,"
Jody grunted, pushing Benton back in his seat.  "That's the last
favor I ever do for your little friend, Benton.  Stage presence
be damned."

     "Alright, I apologize for the mess," Benton said,
straightening out his jacket.  "But you HAD to admit, that was
pretty fun, just like I had promised."

     "Obviously a definition of 'fun' I'm unaware of," Mitch
said.  "Okay, so we got to knock the Rambos silly, cause some
massive destruction and interfere with a movie production.  Hmm. 
Actually, if you took out the actual life-threatening parts, that
would have been fun."

     "See?  Told you."

     "At least we'll be without Bruno and company for awhile,"
Jody said, tightening her grip on the steering wheel.  "I can't
believe I actually dated him for fifteen minutes."

     "You find it particularly arousing when guys have big
muscles, eh?  Got a thing for him?" Mitch joked, flexing his
biceps and laughing.  Benton closed his eyes.

     You could hear Mitch's yell over the Traffic Smasher engine.