Lila 2: a Trilogy Nears Its End!

For those narrow-sighted people who simply don't believe in monsters and demons, I offer one simple word: Tuesday. For me, Tuesday's utter vapidity has grown into a more fearsome creature than any long-toothed beastie my subconscious has ever concocted. Monday might represent the depressing beginning of the work week, but when you have a blisteringly boring job like mine, Tuesday is the six-headed, snake-haired, tedious reptile that breathes the fire of monotony through its irritating nostrils. So last Tuesday, I used the one accumulated personal day I had earned through eighteen months of work as a picker/divider on the warehouse floor at Zero Tolerance Industries and decided to sit around on my butt in my sub-efficiency apartment, now and then taking to my knees in prayer for a hasty end to the week, the month, and whatever hopes I may have had for a better life.

But the curse of Tuesday found me anyway-in my dreams, no less. Shortly before noon, during nap four in a proposed series of nine, my sleeping brain began to conjure up stupefyingly erotic imagery to torture me into submission. I dreamed of a raven-haired girl in high heels, a black bra, and no panties walking toward me on a California beach and whispering just five words into my ear, one of which was "you", one of which was "me", and a third, I swear to God, was a rare linguistic hybrid of "screw" and "butt" heard only in isolated tribal nations located close to the equator. My mind then moved on to a rapid-fire montage of sexual delights involving Jessica Rabbit, my third grade teacher Mrs. Tolkinbottom, and a pair of Chinese twins calling themselves Ing and Ung, who showed up at my place bringing their own beer and condoms, and who insisted for some reason on calling me "Sergeant Long." By the time I woke up, having been laid only in the half-reality of unconsciousness, I was so carnally frustrated I knew that to stay in my apartment a moment more would result in a strain injury to my right hand that would undoubtedly jeopardize my future career as an NFL quarterback (stop giggling, dammit, it could happen).

So I went to the phone and called Lila. You might remember Lila, whose adventures with me at a bookstore called Tomes-a-Waitin' gave me enough memories for the first three volumes of the autobiography I have no interest in writing. I knew Lila was bored on Tuesdays too, and she was always up for a road trip of some sort.

But when she answered the phone I heard static on the line, and that meant only one thing.

"Lila, can you hear me?!" I yelled.

"Yes, what's up?!" she yelled back.

"Dammit, Lila," I shouted, "can't you unplug the vibrator long enough to even answer a simple phone call?!"

"Hell no!" she shouted back. "I paid a hundred and thirty bucks for this thing, and it's gonna get used!"

I rolled my eyes. "I need to go out, Lila, but I can't be reminded of anything sexual. I want one day, just one day mind you, to reflect on the higher pursuits in life, not just the eternal quest for tail."

The static on the line disappeared as I heard a muffled click. "Going out is always fun," Lila said agreeably. "I need some air anyway; I've been going at it for two and a half hours."

"Enough, girl!" I warned. "I can only get through Tuesday if I have no sexual distress of any kind, understand? Today I celebrate the nobility of Man through abstinence in thought and deed!"

She agreed to try to think about complying for now, and I swung by her house to pick her up. Lila and I did occasionally dance the giddying dance of coitus, but her animalistic intensity, wildly effective technique, and total lack of inhibition had made me realize that since I would never, ever find a match like her in the future, I'd better wean myself away entirely now while I still could. (I asked you, please, to stop giggling, and I meant it.) I can't tell you how mad I was when Lila bounded out of her house wearing a leather do-me-twice-before-breakfast mini-skirt and a clingy have-your-way-with-me-over-brunch white halter top.

"Good Lord," I complained. "Doesn't anybody listen to me?!"

"These are the only clothes I had," she insisted. "The other ones got kind of sweaty when I was playing with myse-"

I cut her off right there with a proviso that any further suggestivity would result in penalties up to and including ejection from the vehicle. But the mere sight of her fingers playing with her shiny blonde hair, her long tanned legs crossing and uncrossing, and the maddening scent of her perfume caused me to make too many sidelong glances in her direction, leading to a penultimate moment when Lila leaned over to change the radio station, affording me an accursed front row view of her immaculate handlebars, which were obviously going bareback that day, and the next thing I knew a Yield sign was disappearing underneath my front bumper.

"Oh, terrific!" I shouted as I saw blue and red lights flash in my rearview mirror. "That's the third Yield sign I've iced this week!"

Lila was laughing hysterically. "This should take your mind off sex for a few minutes, at least," she said..

Well, that much was true. I fished my registration out of the glove compartment, pretty sure I would be saying goodbye to not just my front end this time but my license as well.

The cop leaned into my window and smiled. "Interesting driving technique," she said.

I gulped, not out of shame but because the armed babe's long brown hair, cherry red lips, and skin-tight uniform had instantly short-circuited six of my brain's eight cylinders. I mumbled something about being distracted by tragic thoughts of the coming anniversary of John Denver's passing and held out my license.

The officer took it and walked around to the front of the car. She bent over, way over, way WAY over, to inspect the damage to the sign. My eyes locked in on her shapely pluto like two horny Stinger missiles.

"Wow, that's some hot five-o snuzzer!" Lila commented.

"I'm....begging....you," I sputtered.

As we watched, the cop reached down and wrapped both of her smooth hands around the long, hard Yield sign, slid them up and down a few times to get a better grip, then ever-so-gently guided it upright again. I moaned. Lila positively delighted in it.

The cop walked back to us, shaking her head. "You really did a job on that. I don't think it'll be fully erect again for a while."

Lila forced a fist into her mouth to stem the flow of her laughter.

"I, um, I'll try not to do that again," I said.

The next thing I knew, the cop was sweeping her eyes up my body and across my chest. "Do you work out?" she purred suggestively.

"Me?" I replied weakly, wondering if the three pushups I did in 1989 had suddenly manifested themselves into something resembling a muscle. "Well, I...."

"Because I think I've seen you at FlexMe Fitness," she said.

"Oh, yeah," I laughed nervously. "I go there a few times a week." The fact is that I had been there only once, trying to find a public bathroom.

She flung her hair away from her gorgeous face and sighed saucily. "I'm going to slurp you off 'cause I'm horny," she said then.

My blood pressure rocketed up five hundred points, hit the ceiling, and dropped another thousand.

"What?" I gasped.

"I said, I'm going to let you off with just a warning. Just go right around the corner to the station and pay for the damage." With that, she sashayed back to her cruiser, leaving my mouth hanging open and my imagination trying desperately to get up off the canvas.

Lila forced her face into her shirt so as to hide her tears of joy. "I haven't seen a look of such sexual agony on a male face since my twelve year-old brother watched the interrogation scene from Basic Instinct!" she laughed.

"Silence, devil woman!" I cried. "I will not be mocked! You probably set that whole thing up!"

"Oh, give me a break," she said. "If I wanted to torture you, all I have to do is start talking about how incredible that vibrator felt in my delicate pu-"

I peeled out rather suddenly to drown out her nightmarish words. It was six blocks before my erection faded. I tried not to think about anything, anything at all, just a black silent void. A lightless, limitless nothingness where no thoughts of sexual congress could ever enter. A dark, wet, enveloping place. A place so accepting, so tight, I could slide right into its warmth, then pull out just long enough to bend it over the nearest picket fence and commence to-

"Stop the car!" Lila was shouting into my ear. Someone's Daewoo had broken down on the shoulder. I caught sight of a female figure and hit the accelerator harder instead.

"What are you doing?" Lila asked. "I feel the need to do a good deed to atone for all the perverse shnazzing I've been doing lately!"

"No women!" I insisted. "They must not enter my sight for even a moment! I'm dangerously close to meltdown!"

"Oh, please, that old biddy was at least a hundred and seventy years old," Lila reasoned. "Back up and let's give her a hand."

I reluctantly threw the car into reverse, figuring maybe Lila had a strange point. Doing something benevolent toward a fellow human bring would almost certainly give me an ever-so-brief respite from the storm of my disgusting thoughts.

The little old lady waved at us as we approached. "Oh, thank heavens," she said happily. "I'm ever so clumsy with automobiles."

Lila grabbed onto my arm and leaned her head on my shoulder. "Don't worry, ma'am, my boyfriend will have you back on the road in a heartbeat."

"Back off, demon slut," I whispered under my breath.

"I hope it's only a simple repair," the old lady said. "I've got to get my granddaughter off to boarding school!"

With that, the rear door of the Daewoo was thrown open and out stepped the granddaughter in question, a teenaged lass with fiery red hair and deep blue eyes. Her absurdly undersized Catholic school outfit was snuggled over a cartoonishly slutty body that threatened to pop out in every direction at once like a jellyfish dumped into a spaghetti strainer.

"Grandma, Mr. DeBlow said he'd have to discipline me again in his office if I was late getting back to school!" she complained. Then, seeing me, she curtsied fluidly and smiled. "Pleased to make your acquaintance, sir."

"Hiya," I said, and shifted my gaze quickly into the distance, where a billboard advertising septic system repairs soothed my jangled nerves and in no way made me imagine what it would be like if the aforementioned curtsey were to end on my outstretched tongue.

"What's your name, baby girl?" Lila asked provokingly.

"Purity!" came the perky response.

"Of course it is," I muttered. I gazed under the hood of the car and tried to focus. I leaned over and played with a couple of wires, hoping for the best.

Purity leaned in beside me, her cheek about two inches from mine. "Do you fix cars for a living?" she asked, the odor of Bubblemint gum wafting in my face.

"No!" I said curtly. "Can someone try the engine again?"

"Ooo, let me do it!" Purity said cheerfully. "Grandma's been teaching me!" With that, she took three bounding steps toward the driver's side. I heard a resounding rip of cotton and glanced up to see almost the entire process of her sky blue blouse separating itself from her body, having gotten caught on the radiator cap with insufferable serendipity.

"Oh Lordy!" cried Lila. "Will you look at what just happened! What are the odds?"

Grandma No-Name gasped. Purity gazed down at her bronzed, bulging chest as if she had never seen it before. Her breasts strained against a red satin bra that was working overtime and probably a few extra hours on weekends just to maintain a hold on its curvaceous burden. I doubted the small metal crucifix depicting Christ's last agonies which rested lovingly between those blinding young blinkers was anywhere near as hard as I was at that moment. (Note to editor: I don't care what parts of this story you cut, but this last sentence has gotta stay.)

"Why does this happen so often to me?" Purity wondered aloud.

"All right, I think we're done here!" I said, slamming the hood shut. "Looks like you need a tow, so sorry, gotta split!"

"Oh, Rufus, your hands are filthy with oil," Lila observed cheerfully. "Purity, give the nice man your skirt so he can wipe them off."

Purity shrugged and began to unfasten buttons, but I was too fast for any of them. By the time I caught a flash of the lacy edge of Purity's black panties, I had seized Lila's hand and dragged her most of the way back to my Datsun. In three seconds we were back on the road, me cursing any and all gods above for the way they had chosen to forsake me. About fifteen seconds after that, we ran smack into what I can only refer to as The Phenomenon.

Cars were skidding to a halt everywhere as no less than forty hot naked chicks charged across northbound route 44. (Dammit, I should really save this last sentence for the opening of my Watergate novel.) Like a herd of unintentionally sexy buffalo they rampaged toward my car, pursued by eight or nine state troopers who were waving gawking motorists out of the way. Video cameras appeared of nowhere, flash bulbs popped, and those witnesses lacking any recording technology at all whipped out sketch pads and hoped for the best.

I threw my hands in front of my burning eyes as the three hot naked chicks in front of the pack passed my car. One of them leapt onto the hood and bounded over the roof. I could hear her hot naked feet up there.

"I'm not seeing this!!" I bellowed. "What the hell is going on?!"

"There's been a breakout at the porn star prison!" a passing CNN reporter yelled.

"There's no such thing as a porn star prison!" I exclaimed.

"Yeah there is, it opened up next to the Playboy Playmate law library on Division Street," Lila noted. "Man, did you see the incredible wetmelon on that blonde? I think I remember it getting shnazzed in the pre-title sequence of A Streetcar Named Semen."

"Okay, here's the deal!" I shouted at her, banging my head against the steering wheel. "We're going straight to the city dump, the most un-erotic place on earth, and we're staying there till dusk, and you're going to take it and like it, understand?!"

Lila cackled mockingly. "But I have an appointment at four to have my nipples moisturized. I thought you could hold my hand through it."

"I consider you an accessory to this day!" I cried. "You tied that girl's shirt to the radiator cap, I know it!"

"That much I admit," Lila said mildly. "If that hadn't worked, I was gonna come up with some kind of lesbian angle, maybe lay a big sloppy French kiss right on that ruby virgin tongue of hers."

"I can't see you or hear you!" I protested. "You're nothing more than a bag of groceries sitting on my passenger's seat!"

"That reminds me, we gotta stop at a farm stand and buy a really big cucumber. I wore my last one out on Friday night. I forget, have you ever watched me insert a-"

She went on, but I had resorted to the last of my dwindling mental weapons to drown her out, replaying the thrilling final inning of the 1997 World Series in my mind, relying on the echoing, sexless prattle of Vin Scully to patch my frazzled psyche. It worked for a good fifteen minutes, right until the moment we pulled up to the dump. The neutered anticipation of throwing out the old soda cans and Arby's wrappers littering the floor of the car restored me to my normal self, and I knew as soon as I saw the first gigantic pile of sludge and cess off to the right that I had somehow managed to completely conquer the many sexual demons that had today tried to possess me. The ambiance of the filth that stretched off in every direction inured me even to Lila's deep-throated complaints about how itchy her panties had suddenly become. I was victorious! Who said that sex was all men ever thought about?

I pulled the car over in Area C, which was reserved for the disposal of broken snow globes, dead animals with four hooves or less, and other loose detritus. Here at last was a place a man could feel completely at peace, where his mind could zero in on the truly important things in life-mainly throwing crap away. As I tossed sundry items over the railing, everything from last Sunday's Help Wanted section to a half-filled box of rotting blueberry Pop Tarts, my very intellect seemed to sharpen, and the unpleasant carnal memories of the day faded into nothingness.

That was when I heard Lila clear her throat behind me.

I turned to see her standing a few feet away, hands on her hips, staring at me bitterly. "You're ignoring me, Rufus," she said testily.

"Terribly sorry, Lila," I said. "I just got caught up in thinking of how society's condemnation of the refuse which society itself creates presents a fascinating paradoxical paradigm. If, for example, we let A equal the garbage we see all around us-"

"That does it, babe," Lila said coolly, and pulled her white halter top over her head. "I can only take so much of your so-called willpower."

I stopped in mid-sentence. Lila stood before me now in only her leather miniskirt and a pink push-up bra.

"Now just a second, Lila, good buddy, good friend," I said nervously. "Wait right there. Don't do anything you'll regret."

"Like this?" she said, and tore off her skirt in what seemed like slightly less than one delicious motion. She put her hands on her hips in a deadly come-hither pose, smiled seductively, and hooked her thumbs inside the elastic band of her thong panties.

"No, Lila!" I said desperately. "Look, let's make a deal! Anything, anything you want, just don't go any further!"

"What I want," she said softly, "is to see you grab that handsome foghorn of yours." She turned slightly and kicked her shoes right over the railing into the abyss below. She then took one step toward me and shucked her panties down a couple of inches.

"Look in your heart!" I cried, sinking to my knees and clasping my hands in supplication. "It is up to me and me alone to celebrate the nobility of Man!"

"Wouldn't it feel just lovely to free that long hard love-bone while you watch me strip?" Lila wondered aloud. "Isn't that what you really want to do?"

"No!" I shouted, staring straight ahead at Lila's navel. "No! I want to use this day to create a work of art, or plant a tree or read a book, or follow an idea to its logical endpoint!"

"Or you could just let me spelunk you silly," Lila said from above.

"I want to read the Koran and paint a Flemish landscape!" I blurted. "Let lesser men be such pathetic victims of their libidoes that they can't go a single day without trying to shnazz anything that moves! I want to be better than that!"

Lila kneeled in front of me, pressing her breasts against me and squeezing my crotch with demanding urgency. "Is the Koran that book of sexual positions?"

"That's the Kama Sutra, you evil harpy!" I cried as I heard the zipper of my jeans being undone. I knew I was spiraling out of control, and grasped like a drowning man at the unsexiest images I could summon. When Lila's cool fingers touched Jude the Obscure, I thought of war atrocities in Sierra Leone. When she playfully touched her tongue to the sensitive underside, I imagined the suffering children of Somalia and Burundi. When she took the whole length of my bursting trumpet into her wet, inviting mouth, I pretty much lost interest entirely in my visualizations of political and geographical strife and decided to shift my focus instead to yoidling Lila's perfect body as hard and as fast as humanly able.

So I blame another menacingly vapid Tuesday for the way I drew Lila back onto her feet and lifted her onto the hood of the Datsun, laying her down with her legs spread wide so I could get my mouth into her Smothering Heights with minimal difficulty. Yes, it was Tuesday's fault that I licked and sucked her for such a long time that both of us nearly passed out. I commenced to make Tuesday pay for what it had done to me by sliding one finger into her just to mark my place so I could pause to swallow her oats down and dive right back in for seconds.