ONE
The 22-year-old good-looking blond sat at the table, head hanging, waiting for his mother to prolong the agony by continuing on about it. The wagging tongue of a female in full mobilization was not one of his favorite worldly experiences. Nor was the subject.
"We've come to a new city, give it time darling, give it time; 'all good things come to those who have patience'. Have patience."
Registering the misquotation but decided to let it be, he murmured 'Yes mom', knowing of course that would only give her encouragement to prattle on while banging the crap out of pots and knocking new cracks in the tableware. The door opened and he was saved; in walked his sister Capucine, second only to his mother as the world's greatest motorized mouth.
Capucine kissed her mother and asked about her day. After a couple of minutes she acknowledged her brother: "Get your leg over at last today buddy?"
"Capucine!"
"It's okay Dottie, (both offspring called their widowed mother by her former stage name) he needs some sympathy and attention."
"Oh, of course," Dottie said weakly, accepting the validity of the explanation in preference to bickering over her daughter's appalling question.
He son simply sighed. Capucine had introduced him to sex and remained available whenever he felt like sinking into a woman. The fact that she also shared it around with his friends didn't worry him unduly. Guys befriended him to get close to Capucine.
"Xavier, go wash your hands and pour the wine. This duck stew is almost ready."
"Yes mom."
Therein lay the problem – the name Xavier. What nubile babe playing the field goes into sex with a guy named Xavier? If there were any Xavier hadn't found them except for a soft-hearted sister. He couldn't understand it – Capucine also had a terrible name given by their arrogant French father but faced more sex that she could comfortably handle while he was left wanting.
Life was such a bitch.
His mom had been little help, being a little mixed up herself culturally, with a New Yorker academic for a father and a wealthy socialite heiress from Dallas for a mother but being predominantly raised by a house maid from Mexico.
Xavier's classmates – one by one – were initiated into the eroticism of dipping in between a female's thighs whereas he was confronted by female thighs that remained firmly crossed.
Xavier sought counsel from his mom. She inspected him and placing a hand to her breast announced a little breathlessly that he was 'amorously' well prepared down there. She had his hair cut more expensively by better hairdressers and ordered him to shower twice a day, She purchased for him men's scents with names like 'Sure Thing', 'Fatal Attraction' and 'Never Fails' but all failed for Xavier.
Dottie escorted – dragged, actually – the sexually deprived teenager (being unaware Capucine had launched her heroic attempt to haul her brother back from despondency) to a sex therapist. Much of the $300 session was consumed by the therapist explaining masturbation techniques to the almost luckless victim of rejection and vaguely suggesting that anyone named Xavier automatically had the 'X' factor.
Dottie had Capucine invite several girlfriends to stay overnight (one at the time) and then next morning would ask Capucine to go shopping with her. They'd returned eager for Capucine to find out if there had been collusion – but no, the girlfriends would shrug and say while the opportunity caught their imagination, doing it with Xavier didn't. None could explain why – they all had the same vague answer: "Just because."
One evening when finishing the bottle of wine after meat balls, Xavier's plight was the subject, yet again, at a family conference. Capucine hadn't visited his bed for almost three weeks so he was a little tense.
"Change your name, darling," Dottie urged. "I'm sure it's the name – there doesn't seem to be anything else."
"Over my dead body," the victim growled uncooperatively.
"It will be if you continue to go without sex," Dottie suggested unhelpfully, noticing her youngest had a very flushed face. "Are you feeling well, Capucine?"
"Just guilty at not helping Xavier enough," she said, looking her mother in the eye.
"Darling, there's absolutely nothing you can do – masturbation seems his only chance of survival."
Now Xavier flushed.
"Unless..." Dottie paused until she had attentive ears from across the table. "Unless we move to another city – to a place where Xavier's neglect by females is not known."
TWO
Three cities later they were at the table where Capucine had made the comment about her brother getting his leg over after his first day at his new job. She loved these changes of cities as she found a few new guys to fondle and Xavier because of his awesome physique and sporting ability immediately bonded with guys and bought home heaps of them for her to sort through.
"I'm off to a movie – you guys want to come?" Dottie asked.
"Yeah," said Capucine then remembering sisterly duty looked at Xavier with a raised eyebrow. But apparently sex could wait; he said he was off to enroll at a gym.
Although the evening rush was on, it was quiet at administration. A guy enrolled Xavier and said he'd book him in for an assessment.
"Any chance of that happening now?"
"Sorry, policy is to book – you'll be advised over the next couple of days. Because of insurance stipulation you cannot use the gym until you've been assessed and a recommended program discussed with you and approved."
"I'll take him."
Xavier turned and saw a babe in her late twenties adjusting her head band. Her face was a bit plain but the body looked great and she really was a blonde – her hair had real shine."
"Are you sure, Binne?"
"Yes, this guy looks a challenge."
The desk guy Hans introduced them. Binne didn't blink when Hans checked the sheet and said, "This is Xavier."
"Come this way and change and then we'll get into it," she said with a slight European accent. Xavier gave her a toothy grin, thinking about getting into it with Binne; she didn't appear unnerved.
As she put the tape around his chest, momentarily leaning her cheek against him, Xavier felt compelled to flirt, almost a lost art with him.
"I'd like to measure you." As soon as he said that he thought how fucking pathetic – she'd be thinking he was a brainless dork.