Hey Folks. So yeah, this is an attempt to write something in a different style from how I normally write. It's an experiment, and I'll be returning to my usual style for the next set of stories.
This is NOT an Ingrams & Associates Universe story – this is a stand alone story.
Thanks Darknicaid and PennLady for looking it over.
Chapter 1
Dan Perry was plodding down Ventura Boulevard when the black car stopped next to him. He barely glanced at it – in LA there are all sorts of blacked out SUV's with god knows who in them; you learned to ignore them pretty quickly. He returned his attention to the churro he'd just bought off a street vendor, munching on it with a fierce intensity. He honestly had no clue what to do next with his life. Everyone had ended last week and he was still recovering, and he was doing what he always did when he was stressed; eat. He was bewildered, angry, frustrated and deeply, deeply hurt. He knew that some of the blame had to lie with him; he could almost not blame his wife for what she'd done, but still, that didn't make it right. He was the aggrieved party here and the biggest issue was he simply had no idea what to do next, how to combat his feelings of worthlessness and humiliation.
Dan was large. He knew he was large. He knew that, if he really thought about it, he wasn't just large. He was fat. He was obese. He was two hundred and ninety seven pounds – he knew because he'd weighed himself that morning, and then cried in the mirror. He was a lard ass and finally, he was facing that fact. Everything that had been said to him was true and he hated it being true. His life had collapsed, the plan, in so far as he had a plan, had ended abruptly and while he wasn't strictly speaking to blame – she'd cheated on him – he wasn't entirely sure he could blame her.
In a way he'd been expecting it for years. June was just too hot for him. He couldn't quite believe that she'd married him in the first place. He was a world class nerd, large and not got enough ambition and yet, she had. Nine years of marriage, and then, well... it had ended. Pretty un-nicely. About as un-nicely as it was possible to get, in fact.
He stopped for a moment to finish up the churro and throw away the waxy paper, and noticed that the black SUV was also next to him. Was it keeping pace with him? Nah. What would it do that?
He idly wondered who was in it. Some celebrity no doubt. He was squinting at the windows to see if he could make out a shape within when the doors opened and two very large guys, in skin tight T-shirts, showing off large pectorals and arms, jumped out.
They looked directly at him and said, "Dan Perry?" He just looked back at them, not quite comprehending what was going on.
His brain kicked into gear and he said, "Um...what?"
The two guys looked at each other nodded and walked over to him. One put a hand on his shoulder and said, "Our employer would like a chat with you, Mr. Perry. Trust us, this is to your advantage, sir."
Now Dan was a large man and he had often felt that his weight could be a positive in situations like this. Two hundred and ninety seven pounds that did not want to go in a specific direction would be hard to resist, he often thought, but these guys just propelled him towards the car with barely any effort at all.
Dan wondered if he should make a scene? Do something to stop these guys? But then, this was straight out of Men in Black, one of his favorite older comics book series, and he was interested enough to see where it was going to go. Right now, he had nothing else to do and nothing really going on, and it was hard to see where the next week was going, let alone the rest of his life. It just simply wasn't much of a risk – the worst they could do was hurt him physically and right now, he just didn't care about his physical well being, so what the hell.
So he allowed himself to be pushed into the car, the doors shut and off they went.
Once they got in the car Dan attempted to start a conversation. "Whose your employer?" he asked the large man squeezed in next to him.
The man looked at him, ignored the question and offered Dan a bottled water. Dan accepted, and the man looked away. Dan got the distinct impression that the large man considered him to be unworthy of conversation – there was a distinct 'you maggot' look in the man's eyes and, as it was not something Dan was unfamiliar with, he just shrugged it off, took a drink of water and watched the world go by outside.
While the car drove, Dan went over his life. Wondering if he was on his way to the end of it, or some kind of incredibly bad situation. Had he made a huge mistake getting into a car with large guys who obviously looked down on him? Well, obviously he had. It was a stupid thing to do, but then he honestly didn't have anything to lose right now anyway. If it ended badly, who would care? June? She'd already indicated in her actions that she didn't. He had friends – he was staying with one now, - but he also knew he wasn't special to anyone. He had no family remaining, no one to miss him. His life, to date, wasn't anything to write home about – the best thing in it was June and now that was gone too.
He looked back on his early life, considering what he should have done different.
Dan was brought up in Madison, Wisconsin. He was a cheesehead, born and bred. His mother, Grace, was a teacher on the west side of Madison, on one of the new schools there. His Father, Bruce, worked for a company that supplied heavy farm equipment for the local farmers. Neither was exotic, but the two loved each other. They'd had one child before Grace had a problem with her tubes with an endoscopic pregnancy, and required surgery that had saved her life, at the expense of having more children.
Dan was, therefore, an only child. He grew up in a fantasy world of his own devising. Dungeons and Dragons, Lord of the Rings, comic books, stories, he was an unusually imaginative boy. He wrote, he read, he played games, video games and generally immersed himself in every creative outlet he could find.
Girls played second fiddle to this, although not consciously – he just didn't know how to even talk to them. He went red when a girl talked to him, stammered out the wrong words and fled. Given he, nor his group of friends could talk to girls and that most of them looked down on him anyway, he just gave up and went deeper into the fantasy realm, writing scripts and plays instead.
This lasted until Dan got to the University of Wisconsin. He went on a full scholarship, studying English. He had already made up his mind that he wanted to write scripts – he didn't aspire to the fancy 'playwright' term – he wanted to write scripts for TV shows, with lots of violence, sex and fantasy. While we was at University, he had his first sexual experience, and boy, did it suck.
He was on the DJ circuit while at University, since it paid well, the work was easy and he had a flair for it. He DJ'd at various functions, frat parties and so on, and enjoyed it. At one party, he met Amy. She hung around his DJ booth and when the party was done, took him home. It was his first time and he felt like it was a disaster. They had a good time, but he fumbled, couldn't get his cock into her hole from the correct angle, lent on her hair; all the things a first time virgin struggles with.
The following week he took her to a frat party he was DJing, and while he was peeing in the bathroom, he could hear a couple of the frat guys outside talking, while they waited to use the bathroom.
"Wow, did you see who Amy is with tonight?" said one.
"Yeah, the man mountain. Man that girl is such a whore. I had no idea she was a chubby chaser!"
Even then, Dan was large – not the size he was now, but still, he was packing the pounds.
"Man, I gotta tell you, seeing her with him makes me
seriously
revaluate whether I am going to continue to do her. I mean, she's fun and all, but who the hell wants to be seen hanging out with a chick that would do a guy like that?"
"For realz man," replied the other guy.
And that had basically taken care of that. He'd gone back to the party, put on a couple more records, and when Amy came over to talk, he'd just looked at her and said two words, "Chubby chaser?"
Dan was about as non confrontational as you could get. He couldn't handle conflict – he got clammy hands and sweated and didn't know what to say. His fight or fight reflex always chose flight – the only time it hadn't, when he was 12, he'd got a hiding off a 16 year old and he'd never forgotten it. And so now, he felt it again when she looked at him.
She'd bit her lip, spread her eyes wide and said, "So what?"
He'd turned to put on another record and when he turned back to her, she'd gone.
He looked around for her and 15 minutes later, he'd spied her walking up the stairs, hand in hand with some other guy. He'd managed to catch her eye as they went, and she smiled at him and shrugged, and that was the end of that. He'd see her around campus on occasion, but every time he did, he got up and walked the other way. Dan realized he was a large man, but he also realized he did have some pride, even if it wasn't as big as his body.
And then he met June. He'd been working in the admin building – more side jobs; the scholarship had paid for his tuition but not much more and if he wanted spending money, well, work was calling.
Dan was handy with computers – he'd done a preliminary course in python coding and was helping out with the admins process. The auto generation of new students accounts had bugs in it and emails addresses weren't being generated correctly, and he was determined to fix it.
He'd been working on it a few days and had noticed some of the other people working in the office. As a temp, he wasn't part of the normal office pool and he had to figure out who people were by himself. And then there was June. Everyone knew June. You couldn't not know June.
She was tall, 5'7" – she weight exactly 130, she had C cups breasts, with cleavage, and she had red hair that came straight to her shoulders. Her eyes were the deepest blue Dan had ever seen and when she smiled, she did it with her whole face. She drank red wine, she hummed to herself and she wore clothes that somehow looked classy and slutty at the same time. She was hit on by everyone imaginable and for some reason she turned them all down. The rumor was that she was a lesbian, but he'd seen her turn down a couple of the hot cheerleaders too, while working at the office, so he was pretty sure she wasn't.
Everyone knew June – she was studying business management and working in the admin office. He knew he stood no chance whatsoever – she was a 9 and he was barely a 4. He didn't even try – he just kept in the background and observed when he could and smiled at her if she passed by.
And then his break came. One of his plays was selected by the drama society. Dan was beside himself – it was a small play he'd written called "A solo for two". It was for two people only and detailed the rise and fall of a relationship. He'd been quite surprised when he'd wrote it; it came out of nowhere. He just started writing and out it came. By the time he was done, he had no idea how it had come out – it was like he was channeling someone else. Literally, as he typed, idea's occurred and just got put down. It had been the most effortless thing he'd ever written and it showed.
So now the casting began, and as the author, he was invited to sit at the back of the small theater and watch. He didn't get to cast votes, but it was a nice offer by the university amateur dramatics society towards the author. He'd always wondered what happened when a director got hold of your script and took it in directions that the author hadn't specified; now he was going to find out first hand.
