Author's Note: Any and all persons engaging in any sexual activity are at least eighteen years of age.
*****
Chapter 1
Brother Dominick parked in the rear parking lot of St. Elizabeth Parish's Trauma Center. He admired the five story building; all glass and steel; a truly modern structure.
He could remember when the land he was now standing on had been a field of tall grass. He could remember playing in the undeveloped land with his older brother Anthony and their cousins Chris Dumas and Terry Fontenot. Cowboys and Indians. Army. Bad guys and Good guys.
On the rare occasions that the parish would cut the grass, they'd play football. They'd round up five or six guys from the neighborhood and get a real rough and tumble game going. They'd keep score, of course, but would forget what the score had been the next time they'd meet.
He sighed, mopped the heavy beads of sweat from his forehead and walked to the building.
"I am really getting too old for this," he thought to himself as he rode the elevator to the fifth floor, to the administration offices.
"Miss Lambert?" he asked an effeminate man.
"Is she expecting you?" the man lisped and Brother Dominick fought down his repulsion.
"No, no, please just ask her if I could have a moment of her time," he asked. "If she's too busy, I'll gladly make an appointment.
Inside her office, Paula Lambert tried unsuccessfully to put her hair back into the thick bun that her lover, Terry Dayton had so effortlessly given her that morning. Finally she gave up and whipped her head around to shake it out.
"Mith Lamberth," Grover, her assistant lisped into the intercom.
"Yes?" Paula asked, fighting her annoyance.
She didn't have a problem with Grover's homosexuality; she was homosexual. It was his flamboyant mannerisms that got under her skin. She didn't shy away from it; if asked, she openly admitted to being in a loving relationship with another woman. But she did not flaunt her homosexuality, did not demand that others tolerate her lifestyle.
"There'th a Bwother Dominick would like a moment of your time," Grover sneered.
"Brother... Send him in," Paula said, getting to her feet.
"Hello, Miss... Oh my goodness!" Brother Dominick said, and then broke into a large smile as he confronted a former student of St. Thomas Aquinas.
"Hi!" she gushed and gave the large man a tight embrace.
"Oh my goodness, now I KNOW it's time for me to retire," he said, easing himself into a soft chair.
"What can I do for you?" she asked, taking the other visitor's chair.
He launched into his spiel, a plea for money for the school.
"We generally have two or three students that are charity cases," he said. "But with..."
He looked pointedly around the room.
"The addition of St. Elizabeth's Trauma Center," he went on. "We now have twelve applicants that qualify for assistance; our parish is growing. Unfortunately, though, some are finding that, while we are growing, their paychecks are not."
"Okay," Paula said, got to her feet and pulled a large binder off of a shelf that stood behind her desk. "How much do you need?"
"Well, each student is ten thousand..." he intoned.
"Okay," Paula said and quickly scribbled out a check. "Really wild you would show up today; just yesterday our head accountant was telling me we needed to look into some charitable causes."
"Each dollar that you can give will be put to good use," Brother Dominick went on.
"Oh, and here; get them some uniforms, okay?" Paula said and wrote out a second check from her own checkbook.
"Thank you," Brother Dominick smiled as she slid both pieces of paper across the desk.
"A hundred..." he gasped, looking at the checks for the first time.
"And if you go to Young Insurance, right down the street," Paula smiled as the man's eyes goggled at the amounts she'd written. "You'll find five more graduates of St. Thomas; go Avengers! See what they're willing to do, huh? Remind them that this hospital is one of their biggest customers."
"Oh thank God I'm already in the hospital; I'm sure I'm having a heart attack," he gasped as he again verified; one check for one hundred thousand dollars and a second check for ten thousand dollars.
"I was mowested by a pwiest," Grover sneered as Brother Dominick left Paula Lambert's office.
"Really? That's not the way he tells it," Brother Dominick said to the ridiculous young man.
In a trailer only nine streets away from the Trauma Center, eighteen year old Anita Michelle Lopez sat, unaware that her life had just gotten better. She lazily scratched at a pimple, trying to find something to watch on the old television.
Most days, the television could pick up the four major networks that were broadcast out of Lafayette, Louisiana, as well as the independent station, Channel 12 out of DeGarde. On a cloudy day, the signal from Channel 26 out of Elgee would bounce off of the cloud cover and they could get that station.
But it was a cloudless day and for whatever reason, NBC wasn't cooperating, so she could only get ABC, CBS, FOX, and Channel 12.
"What's on?" her mother, Louisa Lopez asked as she waddled her three hundred and two pound bulk through the living room toward the kitchen.
"Nothing," Anita mumbled.
"Oh, hey, there's that 'Cast Iron Stomach' show," Louisa said.
"Yeah, but it's a rerun," Anita complained.
"Oh? Which one this is? Louisa asked.
"That one where he's at that 'Back Yard Barbeque,'" Anita said, dropping the remote onto the table in disgust.
"Ooh, right down the street? Which I'd know he was there, I'd have gone there," her mother said.
"And done what? Huh? And done what?" Luther Knox demanded.
The thirty five year old Louisa glared at her fifty two year old boyfriend as he scratched his immense belly.
"Anything that man wants," she sneered.
"Where you going?" Luther demanded as Anita walked to the door.
She didn't answer him; he was not her father. Instead, she simply shrugged; a movement that made her braless breasts jiggle in the loose tee shirt she wore.
The sweltering June heat almost pushed her back into the trailer, but Anita remembered she had two dollars she'd stolen out of her older half-brother's wallet the other day, so decided to go down to the Time Saver convenience store for an Icee.
Her tee shirt hung down below the far too short shorts she wore, But Anita didn't care about her appearance. Most people rarely noticed her, with her long, frizzy black hair, sharp nose and heavily acned skin. If they did notice her, it was below her neck.
Her breasts were large orbs; she wasn't sure how large. Her last bra had been a size thirty four Double D and she hated wearing it because it was too snug. Her waist was thirty inches around, and her hips flared out to a very womanly thirty five inches. Her legs were well muscled from hours of walking and were well tanned from hours in the sunlight.
Standing at five feet, three inches, the same height of her mother, her physique was an attractive one. As was the physique of many other girls in the neighborhood and in her school where English was not the primary language of most of the student population.
Because of her face, which was not ugly, but certainly was not beautiful, Anita did not garner much attention.
"Hey girl," Anita called out to a neighbor as the girl walked out of the convenience store.
"Hey," the girl called back, and then got into her boyfriend's car.
"Who's that?" her boyfriend asked, looking at Anita's chest.
"Shit, some girl, goes to my school," the girl shrugged.
The frozen drink machine was still broken, so a dejected Anita walked back to her trailer.
Marco, her half-brother, was sitting in her chair, openly gawking at the television as the girls from Shapes Fitness Center did their daily thirty minute exercise show. The camera operator was obviously male; the camera spent a great deal of time focused on Lycra-covered crotches or rear ends.
"You need to do that," Marco sneered, grabbing a painful handful of Anita's slightly pudgy middle. "You getting kind of fat there."
Louisa had to break the two combatants apart. Marco was fortunate their mother stepped in when she did; he was definitely getting the worst of the fist fight.
In his office at DeGarde High School, Dr. Desmond, the principal of the public high school, was finishing the tuna salad his wife had prepared for him. She hated the smell of tuna fish, so she often dumped the entire can into the mixture, which is why it took him so long to eat the simple meal.
The inside phone line rang and he answered.
"Same as last year; my Bulldogs emerge victorious over your pathetic little Avengers, you wash my car," he said in way of greeting.
"Uh huh, and who's car got washed the last three years in a row?" Brother Dominick laughed.
Brother Dominick got down to business; because of Paula's incredible generosity, and because of the generosity of other donors, he now had a largess of funds.
"Two eighth graders," Dr. Desmond said, rapidly flipping through his files on the nearly obsolete computer.
He located the files he wanted, two twin girls that would benefit much more from St. Thomas Aquinas' curriculum.
"And..." he mused, searching through his seniors data.
"Anita Michelle Lopez; does okay in classes, never been in trouble, just a real good kid," he declared.
"Okay, post their files to..." Brother Dominick said, knowing full and well that Dr. Desmond would have to fax the files over.
"You son of a bitch; quit messing with me, huh?" Dr. Desmond laughed.
A few moments later, the seven students' files came over the fax machine.
"You're the only reason I even keep that fax machine, you do know that, huh?" Brother Dominick confirmed receipt of the files.
"And you're the only reason I keep mine," Dr. Desmond said. "Everyone else is happy with regular mail these days."
