*Every old trick was invented by someone once upon a time*
(Thanks to frontma for her wonderful job at editing. If it is messed up it is my fault. Also, this is a slow intro chapter, but is part of a twenty (+) chapter piece I've been working on for some time.)
(Yes, this tale is supposed to be somewhat humorous and outrageous too. While not always comedic I'd like to think it is mostly a good-natured romp.)
*
A Little Background ...
Hi. My name is Glenn Zane Braxton but everyone calls me Zane. I'm a good-looking (or so I'm told) athletic kid just over six feet tall and just under two hundred pounds. I get my Nordic looks from my Mom who hails from Norway. I apparently get my optimistic attitude and loose moral structure from my Dad, though I was to learn that Mom was a bit freaky too.
My parents were killed in a rock climbing accident when I was fifteen so I was sent to live with my Uncle Tim (Dad's younger brother) and Aunt Jill. Unfortunately for me, while my parents had been rich hedonists, Tim and Jill were fundamentalist Christians doing missionary work in northern Thailand. I spent the next two-and-a-half years in a place where a paved road was a luxury.
I have nothing against Christianity; I consider myself a decent Christian but I believe my faith stops at the next person's 'I'm not interested'. My aunt and uncle were a very different breed. They believed that it was every Christian's duty to convert our little brown brothers and sisters (no shit, this is what Tim told me) whether they wanted it or not.
Needless to say, I witnessed them busting their self-righteous heads against the faith and traditions of these ancient people they'd come to 'help enlighten,' while I learned all about Thai culture, cuisine, and kick-boxing. I learned that spending time with Thai women was a hell of a way to get another kind of education too. On the down side, Tim beat me whenever he found out about the women. To get back at him, I spent time with Buddhist monks - score one for the Zen!
Three months ago there was an incredibly brutal monsoon and something possessed Tim to go down to the river to save people. Since every sane individual was running away from the river, I pleaded that we go with the people that actually knew what was going on. Instead, I ended up with my Aunt and Uncle hip deep in the muddy water when an uprooted tree hit Tim and Jill.
Like a fool I jumped into the flood waters after them. I got to Jill - Tim was a goner. Afterwards, when I realized that no Tim meant a return to the States, I was not crying tears of joy - that would have been cruel.
After they gave up the search for Tim, Jill and I returned to Western Civilization. Jill surprised me by actually having a college degree that was useful and she got a job in Virginia working as an insurance adjuster for a nice sized company. I had completed my high school credits online back in Thailand and passed my college entrance exam so I was looking forward to partying it up somewhere far away from Jill.
Fate has a funny way of laughing at me, though. For some byzantine reason, Dad set up my trust fund so that I would get a fraction of my inheritance when I turned eighteen...as long as I was in an institution of higher learning approved of by Tim and Jill - now just Jill. Otherwise, I had to wait until I was twenty-one. I wanted to go to the University of Hawaii Jill found a nice little place close to what she called home -- real close.
Speaking of home; our living arrangements were courtesy of Tim's generous insurance policy and his own little share of Dad's family's money. She bought us an expansive two-story spread with nice large yards, front and back, right where the countryside hits the suburbs. I wished we had a pool and even offered to dip into my own funds to have one put in but since pools were 'cesspits of depravity' Jill nixed the notion.
Getting a car was also an interesting discussion. Jill said 'no way' and wouldn't budge until we noticed that our neighbors were two nice looking ladies in their twenties (I guessed). On the day we moved in I went over to talk (I'm drawn to women like a comet to the Sun) and spent over an hour getting to know them. There were two big pluses about their place; one was the large pool in back, which the girls (there turned out to be more than two) promised I could use whenever I wanted -- real nice of them. The other one was...
When I got home I told Jill not to worry about the car; the cute lesbian couple offered to pick me up from school whenever I needed a ride. "Are they atheists?" Jill gasped. Apparently them being homosexuals wasn't enough? "Nah, they are Wiccans," I lied again with a smile. We went car shopping the next day. I figured I would tell Jill we lived next to a sorority house (to the other university in town) at some later date.
What Not to Wear