My heart felt thanks to that poor creature named Dark Empress. Without her help and encouragement this project not only would be daunting but impossible.
This begins the series of stories called Abnegation; which is the second of three separate, inter-related stories of Shane's life. The first set is Dissolute: The Vanderbilt Years. The third is Libidinous. Because of the way I am writing them, each series is designed to more or less stand alone and won't have too much interconnectivity.
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Abnegation: Chapter 1 Meeting Lori
Austin Texas
It was mid September and I was in my last year of Law School at one of the best in the country, the University of Texas in Austin. Historically one of the top twenty schools in the country, UT was a sweat shop churning out some 12,000 graduates a year, losing around 2000 students from each class. Looking back on the previous two years, I really couldn't understand the fuss. Law school was not all that difficult.
In fact the only comment I had heard about my work was my tendency to be over-verbose in my arguments and papers at times. It wasn't often I claimed the limelight, but when we discussed constitutional concepts, I could not and did not restrain myself. I know what I think and am willing to share it, and I am enthusiastic about the topic. I was usually at odds with both the faculty and students of my classes. I was a conservative southern Democrat, which of course meant I was more and more becoming a man without a party. There were a couple bastions of conservative thinking left in the Texas Democratic party, but even they were beginning to face pressure from those in their party left of them, especially in the primaries.
To give credit that is due, for the most part the professors' graded more on how one thought and expressed themselves, and less on what the thinking was. I never heard of anyone that received a grade based on what they thought.
It helped being more than 800 miles from home that I met the two men that would be lifelong friends at UT.
The first was Chuck Bryant. Chuck was a gregarious fellow that almost always had the room centered on him, and to be fair to Chuck, there was more to him than the rest of us. He naturally led conversations and could get people to talk to him about nearly anything. He was about five foot ten and skinny at around 140 pounds. Chuck had neat black hair like the feathers of a raven and piercing blue eyes, not too unlike the waters in the Gulf of Mexico. It was the two most prominent features on a face that could only be described as awesome. He had rugged good looks that Texans seem to have a claim on and everyone's eyes naturally meandered to him when he walked by. His life long dream had always been to be a Congressman to the United States House of Representatives.
The interesting thing about a man that has a life's mission and that has embraced it is that he becomes driven. Each decision was weighed against the goal of public office. If the decision didn't advance that goal, then he didn't do it. Period. Church was based on that, Southern Baptist; his girlfriend was as well, her father a county assessor, her mother a trophy bride in her own right. In fact the decision of UT for law school had been part of that process, knowing that he would make innumerable connections here and be able to access them his entire life.
Chuck always seemed to lead people and never seemed to be lead. The only exception to that particular truth was Binyamin, or Ben. The two of them discussed matters of mutual import calmly and quietly, and the only time half of Austin couldn't hear Ben, was during those conversations. Once they decided something in common, it was solved and no force under the heavens would change their path.
The other person I met was of course Binyamin Dreyfus. He was a mountainous man, standing over six feet six inches and over three hundred pounds. He already had a long beard growing and a shaggy mop on top of his head he had grown as long as most of the women on campus. Sharp brown eyes gleamed from the mass of hair that surrounded and hid his face. A nearly kosher carbon copy of Brian Blessed in "Flash Gordon", he was loud and boisterous, with a seemingly persistent smirk on his face.
Women ate him up. Never without a date when he wanted one, Ben started working at a car dealership to help pay for his dating habits. The problem to my mind was that he loved the car business and was slacking off at school. His grades had slipped and his standing in the class was slipping each semester. He now sat at the fifty percentile and was completely unconcerned about it.
"Don't worry Shane" he had said, "I'll never practice law a day of my life. Car business baby, I'll keep you and Chuck in cash in due time and you two can go remake the world in our collective image. Even if I am in the bottom ten percentile, no car dealer is going to care, all they will care about is if I move metal or not. You and I both know that people have a problem saying no to me."
I had laughed and said, "Yeah, they are afraid you will kick their ass for saying no."
Between the two of them, I managed to walk around relatively unnoticed. If somehow someone's eyes made it past Ben, Chuck was there to gain and keep their attention. I
guess it kind of made me a social parasite, I would frequently mutter, "I'm with him," and pointed at the closer of the two and most accepted that and more than a few would give a knowing smile. All of which suited me fine. I am not normally the limelight kind of guy, more like the guy behind the person in the limelight, whispering advice; and I had two very forceful personalities to whisper to.
I loved those guys like they were brothers, a feeling that would never change.
~*~*~*~*~*~*
It was a Saturday night, after a football game where some sacrificial offering of a football team made the trip to Austin to get pounded into the ground. The three of us had gone to the game, tailgated with one of the local members of the Republican Party before the game, and drank enough beer to miss most of the second quarter pissing it all out.
After the game, we crashed a post game tailgate hosted by one of the local members of the Democratic Party. Between the two, the Republicans had better food, the Democrats better women: Advantage Democrats in my mind.
The three of us were on Sixth Street where everyone was drinking and tying one on. If you have never made it to Sixth Street after a home game, you absolutely must do so. I don't care who you are, or what you are like, someone on Sixth Street will like your look enough to take you home.
Ben, Chuck and I had gone down about 9:00 that fateful evening and were bouncing around half the clubs, aimlessly meandering from one bar to another. Chuck and Ben were flirting with no intent; both apparently wanted to keep in practice. They both had steady girlfriends and while that didn't keep Ben from playing around, Chuck had the added pressure of wanting to run for office one day so always kept in check.
We had stopped to watch one of the street performers play a song on his guitar. It was a Neil Young tune from the mid seventies, and the guy playing it had a better voice than Neil. After all, Neil Young, Tom Petty and a handful of others should write, but not sing songs.
While standing and listening to the performer, Christine and Alice found their respective men, Ben and Chuck. We were all tapping along with the song when Christine gently pulled Ben's head down by the beard and whispered to him. The resulting "Hell ya!" and smile could only mean he was about to take off with her, and was going to do his best to screw her senseless. True to form, after the song was over Ben whispered, which meant only half a block of people heard him, "Christine and I are out of here. She has a surprise for me at the apartment."
Everyone in the mass around the performer smiled at Ben and Christine as they walked off. Ben was taking half steps to Christine's jog. I turned to say something smart assed to Chuck and noticed he and Alice had slipped out during the distraction that was Ben.
I spotted a pretty redhead, hair down her back to about her waist in the crowd. I couldn't tell if she was watching me or the performer, but it seemed every time I glanced her way, her burnt sienna eyes were riveted on me. I didn't pay much attention while the performer played another Neil Young song.
I wandered off toward another bar about halfway through the song, which turned out to be a dance bar with a bass that rattled my insides painfully. Normally I am quite fond of too much bass in music, especially at a club, but not tonight. I headed down the street a little farther to the next club and once again I could hear the music from outside and decided against it.
Restless, I thought I wanted someone's company but for the life of me couldn't figure out who or what I wanted from them. Turning to head across the street, I saw the redhead again, this time with a tall blonde. They were holding hands and chatting amiably as they approached the club I was standing next to. Both were stunning in their own right.
The redhead was perhaps five foot five and slight of frame. She had a pear shaped face with freckles across her nose and cheek bones. Her brown eyes, the color of milk chocolate, had a fire in them. She had massive tits that ponderously swung left and right with each step. A curvy little butt and thin legs allowed her to walk like a wanton slut and make it attractive. With each step she telegraphed, come fuck me big boy to anyone that noticed. She was wearing a shockingly white bra with a black jacket and matching high heels, which was all the rage in the mid 80's. She wasn't wearing a skirt and I couldn't tell if she was wearing shorts or not.
The blonde was taller; about five foot nine with beauty pageant queen written all over her. She had an easy grace, and her body flowed like water when she moved. Her deep bronze tan highlighted the emerald eyes which were the main feature on a long face that was the female equivalent to Chuck Bryant's. Her hair was just below her shoulders and was pulled back out of her eyes to bounce freely across her back and shoulders. Full, heavy breasts were nicely shaped and ensconced in a western styled shirt comprising a shock of color, much like one would expect at a paint factory explosion. Her curvaceous body was further accentuated by a pair of Turquoise Rocky Mountain Jeans that was painted on. Not a flat inch on her anywhere that I could see; and of what I could see, she held her own against the half naked redhead, whose hand rested in hers.
I watched them enter the club I was standing next to as the ebb and flow of the crowd kept me pinned against the wall. Truth be told, I was fine with that. Though either of the women I had just seen would be a lovely distraction for the night, it wasn't in the cards; they apparently had each other, and I really did not care to go inside a thunderous night club.
