Bob Gillis glanced in irritation at his watch as he looked around his empty office -- the office that should have been filled with a furry client and her paying owner. He'd tried to convince Joe Michaels of the need for stability in his dog's life, if Cotton Gin was ever going to conquer her anxiety issues. This absentee showing wasn’t a reassuring response.
Still, the unexpectedly free hour meant he could end the day early and sneak in an extra round or two at the bar. He'd been working for weeks on picking up Marisa, the new weekday-afternoons barmaid. She was a tough one. His gradually increasingly tips were only thawing her flirtatious-but-brisk demeanor by incremental degrees. At this rate, he'd be into triple-digit payouts before he could lure her out for even a lunch, let alone dinner. Maybe if he showed enough persistence she'd take pity on him and let him cut straight to dessert.
Bob rifled through his office closet in search of a sports jacket -- one of the nice ones, like the one that made him resemble Tom Selleck in his Magnum PI days. Or so he'd been told. Once. And, ok, she was a little tipsy... but that didn't invalidate the observation, right? Bob personally considered himself at his most perceptive after a few pints, bottles, shots, belts, chasers, or some combination thereof.
On his way out the door, he paused then doubled back to his desk to retrieve a charm he'd been holding in readiness since spotting the lovely Marisa: a special mix CD of his favorite Sinatra. It was almost an unfair advantage, he knew -- what lady could resist Ol' Blue Eyes? He'd been waiting to bring the disc home until the moment felt right, like the starts were aligned for a bit of luck. The no-show client should have been a downer, but instead, it intensified the irrationally gleeful mood Bob had felt building for hours.
Today felt like a good day. Perhaps a magical day. As Bob headed out the door toward his Mercedes, he played catch with his keys and mentally replayed a highlight reel of his greatest conquests. Definitely time to bring on the Sinatra, put his seductive powers to the test, and see if Miss Marisa could be lured back to his chateau for an evening of crooning.
--
"I don't even know where to begin," John managed faintly before sinking into a sitting position on Joe's bed. His eyes remained glued to the photograph. "What did you do with them?"
"What them?" Joe asked, craning over to study the image.
"Those them!" John bellowed, jabbing at a tastefully covered but nonetheless impressive display of cleavage. They were the kind of dazzlingly natural bounty onto which most male eyes studying this and similar photos quickly latch.
The photograph was a prom portrait. One of the participants, the one in a strapless evening gown and elbow-length gloves, was clearly a younger Joe.
The first explanation that raced through John's mind was that his lover's awful secret was a past drag-queen phase. A few seconds longer staring at the image, though, derailed that train of thought. The wrists -- one of which was circled by a lovely corsage of orchids. The waist-length hair. The heels -- not drag-queen stilettos, but sensible low, square ones like those Sue preferred. The breasts.
And then, the clinching realization: Who the hell is brave or crazy enough to go to their high-school prom in drag?
"It's true," Joe said, his voice once again thick with barely restrained tears. "What I haven't told you is -- my name used to be Joanne."
--
Sue's first lucid thought was that she was about to faint. Her next was that if she did, she might fall and injure the baby. She willed herself to remain alert. Instead of swooning, she settled for gasping audibly and lifting a hand to cover her mouth, in a melodramatic manner worthy of the Victorian heroines she'd studied for her college thesis.
As Sue startled and broadcast her distress, he friend and colleague Mandy breezed into the lounge.
"Sue, did you hear? One of the running backs is flunking pre-algebra, and they're pressuring Jay to find some way of pulling up his scores so he'll stay eligible. Jay is over in the math office dithering about it."
Sue stayed frozen, staring at the paper still clutched in her hands. Noticing her friend's troubled state, Mandy broke off her commentary. "Hey, Sue. What's going on?"
Wordlessly, Sue handed over the offending document. Mandy, her closest friend, was the only one in whom she'd confided the horror of her darkest and most desperate action.
Mandy, always pale to start with because of her Scottish ancestry, noticeably whitened a further tone or two.
The two women knew of Sue's secret shame: Her baby wasn't John's. The child's father was a baggie of genetic material, #4421, shipped in from a sperm bank in Chicago.
The decision hadn't been easy. She'd been though months of anguished discussions with Mandy, and written dozens of pages in the journal she kept hidden in the very back of her closet, trying to sort her tangled psyche. It wasn't that she didn't love John. She did, wholeheartedly, with a passion that could make Catherine's ardor for Heathcliff look like adolescent puppy love. She just wasn't sure she wanted her offspring sharing his genetic material.
There was that unholy love of football, for a start. More troublingly, what did it say about one's intellectual prowess when one's few analytical moments were devoted to hashing over the actions of millionaires grappling with a ball? There was also John's tendency to overindulge in drink, and his lack of any athletic talent despite his admiration for it in others. And his temper. And his eyes -- a very nondescript pale brown, like his hair. Surely she wanted better for her child. Was that so wrong?
"Oh, Sue. Whatever are you going to do?" Mandy whispered.
Sue briefly considered her options -- and envisioned John's response to learning the truth about her baby. Overwhelmed, she opted for the path of least resistance. Ignoring her earlier reservations, Sue fainted.
--
Will John become even more confused about his sexuality now that he's found out his man was a woman?
Will Sue tell John the painful truth about her child??
Will Bob be sober enough to remember which direction first base is???
These questions, and one or two shamelessly ripped from Straight Dope, will be answered in the next bone crunching episode of... CLIFFHANGER.