*Author's Note: Any and all persons engaging in any sexual activity are at least eighteen years of age.
Disclaimers: This story has been edited by myself, utilizing Microsoft Spell-check. You have been forewarned; expect to find mistakes.
Just a quick, unhappy story of one man's anger and two recipients of his bitterness.
*.*
Venice Apartments had a sign out front, with the name 'Venice Apartments' in black against a background of the Italian flag of green, white, and red. Encircling the name was the silhouette of a gondola and gondolier.
The complex was comprised of four separate buildings arranged in a square. Each building faced inward, faced the pool and small courtyard. The first building, the northeast building was three floors, with five apartments on each floor. Apartments 101, 105, 201, 205, 301 and 305 were two bedroom units. The three units in between each two bedroom unit were one bedroom units. The southeastern building had apartments 106 and 107 on the ground floor, each a two bedroom unit. The second and third floors had four single room efficiencies on each. The southwestern building was a duplicate of the northeastern building, each floor with a two bedroom unit on the corners, separated by three one bedroom units. And the northwestern building was a duplicate of the southeastern building, a ground floor of two units, each with two bedrooms, then eight one room efficiencies atop. Behind the northwestern building was a large laundry room and an exercise room.
Across the parking lot in front of the northeastern building was the rental office. And on top of the rental office was the apartment building's clubhouse. Each tenant had the right to reserve the clubhouse for parties, but they must notify the apartment manager of the desired time that they planned to use the clubhouse.
#102
Timothy Edward Douglas relaxed on one of the chaise loungers near the pool. He had use the complex's exercise room and had just swam fifty laps in the small pool. The late morning sun beat down on him, but Tim did not feel the warmth of the sun. He felt no warmth at all.
Could he have prevented it? When Bobby Marchon, his best friend, his roommate for the four years they'd played football for the University of Louisiana at DeGarde had said he would not live to see age twenty five, should Tim have seen the warning signs?
Everyone said there was nothing Tim could have done. Even Bobby's father, a frail, defeated shell of a man had hugged Tim as they stood at the gravesite and said if Bobby wanted to kill himself, he was going to find a way to do it. Wasn't nothing Tim could do about it?
"Bobby, you God damned ass hole," Tim muttered angrily and flung himself into the pool again.
When Tim surfaced after twenty vigorous laps of the pool, he saw that he now had company. He smiled to the two young girls as they pretended they didn't see him. Again, Tim flopped onto the chaise lounge, feeling some of his anger slowly dissipating.
The two girls, Tim knew lived in one of the studio apartments on the second floor. Both girls were very similar in body types; short with a few extra pounds, mostly in their buttocks and thighs, and pale, pasty skin.
One girl was a red head that kept her carrot orange hair in a messy bob. The other girl was a brunette with mousy brown hair that just graced her pale, chubby shoulders.
They both kept glancing at him, then hurriedly looking away and whispering and giggling to each other.
He had seen one of them, the red head wearing a Brick's Pizzeria uniform. The other girl, he had heard her say that she worked at the Joy Four movie theater. Tim was sure that working part-time jobs at minimum wage meant they really couldn't afford much more than the rent on the studio apartment.
Short Moves, the company he and Bobby had started with Bobby's pickup truck did not have any jobs scheduled for today. Even if they'd had a job scheduled, Tim would have cancelled it due to the funeral. Tim supposed that either the two roommates were off today, or were working the late shift.
Again, they glanced his way, then looked away quickly and giggled to one another. Tim smiled; he could finally feel some of the sun's rays breaking through the clouds around his mind. He did not know their ages, but he could remember a time when he had been young and inexperienced and felt exhilaration at the simplest of things.
"I'm Tim. Right there, in one oh two," Tim said, his voice sounding oddly loud to his ears.
"I uh, I what? Oh, uh hi Tim, I I'm Leah," the brunette stammered, adorable blush coloring her pale face.
"I, I'm Pam," the red head chirped breathlessly.
"I've had enough of baking out here," Tim said, toweling his long brown hair.
"I uh, oh, okay, see you," Pam squeaked.
Tim smiled, seeing the disappointed looks on the girls' faces. He wasn't vain, but he did know that he was good looking. He'd posed nude a few times for art classes at U.L.D. and had been featured in four pictorials in Parasols Magazine. His brown hair was long, reaching to his shoulder blades. His eyes were large brown eyes, his nose was a regal nose, and thanks to forty five hundred dollars' worth of orthodontist work, his teeth were straight and dazzling white in his tanned face.
His arms and chest were massive, both from gym work and from the physical labor he did nearly every day, moving furniture and odds and ends in and around the greater DeGarde area. His waist was narrow and his thighs were massive.
"I've got some pork stew heating in the slow cooker," Tim continued, flinging the towel over his broad shoulder.
"Uh, yum!" Leah said.
"What? What's a slow cooker?" Pam asked.
"Mm? Oh, some people call it a crock pot," Tim said. "Just need to make some rice go with it."
"Oh!" Pam said.
"And biscuits. Can't have stew without biscuits," Leah said.
"Good idea," Tim smiled and Leah smiled, happy with his praise. "So, y'all want some?"
"I, what? I, pork stew?" Pam squeaked, blushing hotly.
"I uh, yeah, yeah, I guess," Leah agreed, trying to act nonchalant and failing miserably.
Tim led the procession to Apartment 102. Opening the door, he stepped aside so that Leah and Pam could enter first. As the two girls entered, Tim did ogle their chunky buttocks in their too tight bikini bottoms. He guesstimated that the two girls sported B cup breasts, just a mouthful on their chests. But both possessed nice, full, squeezable and flappable buttocks.
"Mm, oh man!" Leah said, approving of the good, earthy smells in the apartment.
"Wow," Pam said, looking around at the expensive furniture.
Tim smiled; he'd managed to pick the furniture up in a hotly contested divorce between an oil field platform manager and his trophy wife. The couch alone was a five thousand dollar piece that he'd paid two hundred and fifty dollars for.
In his kitchen, Tim quickly assembled the ingredients for biscuits and put a pot of rice on for cooking. As he worked, he learned what he could about Leah and Pam. They were both nineteen, both were part-time employees, and both were life-long friends.
"Yeah, ever since like first grade," Pam said.
"How tall are you?" Leah asked.
"Six four," Tim said, sliding the biscuits into the oven. "You? How tall are you?"
"I'm five feet," Leah lied.
"You are not! She's four eleven. I'm five feet," Pam corrected her best friend.
"Shut up; I'm five feet," Leah insisted.
"Which is what I'd guessed first time I saw you two," Tim agreed. "I said, bet they're about five feet. What y'all want to drink?"
"I, what you got?" Leah asked.
"Hmm, beer, got this oh, can make us some iced tea; it's that powdered stuff," Tim mused. "Water. Hmm, got this sparkling water crap, Bobby was always drinking that, the big homo."
"I, you, you not homosexual, huh?" Leah asked, face a mask of shock.
"Hmm? Oh! On no, no, see, that, that's just the way buddies talk about each other," Tim laughed. "No, Bobby wasn't a homo. He, he loved him the ladies."
"Then why..." Pam asked.
"Just busting each other's balls," Tim tried to explain. "I, you call each other names and they try to do you one better than you slap each other and laugh and..."
Both girls looked on in shock as Tim burst into heart-wrenching sobs. He cried for the loss of a friend, a true friend that he would never ever see again. The loss of a friend he would never ever laugh with and drink with and play video games with ever again. He would never ever call Bobby a 'homo' or 'pussy' again and hear Bobby's smart ass response ever again.
When Tim came out of the bedroom, still wiping at his running nose, he saw that Pam and Leah had taken the biscuits out of the oven and had turned off the rice. Quietly, he served the meal and they sat to eat. Tim noticed that both girls had cans of Gratchely's beer in front of them. He grabbed a bottle of Bobby's sparkling water and offered a silent toast to his departed friend.
"I, man! This, this is good," Leah praised, using a biscuit to shove some more onto her fork.
"You, there any honey for the biscuits?" Pam asked.
"Hmm? Oh, oh yeah, sorry. Need butter?" Tim asked, getting to his feet.
After all three had eaten seconds, they sat on the couch. Tim somehow found himself sandwiched between the two girls. Neither girl objected when he casually draped an arm across their shoulders.
"I um, uh, so, uh..." Leah tried to think of something to say.
Tim leaned over and softly kissed her. Leah wound her arms around the handsome stranger's neck and returned his kiss with enthusiasm.
Pulling his mouth away, Tim kept his left arm wrapped around Leah's chunky body. Turning his head, Tim saw Pam staring at him and Leah, eyes wide. She jerked her attention away from her roommate and focused all of her attention on Tim when he leaned over and put his lips to her mouth.
Just as Leah had done, Pam wrapped both chubby arms around Tim's neck and kissed him with deep passion. Pulling away from Pam, Tim kept his right arm around her pudgy shoulders.
