Prey for the Hunted

**Continued from "The Lady Killer"**

It always starts out the same way. It’s the weekend, we made it through another week without terrorizing the office with small arms fire, and it’s time to do the usual “guy thing” and blow off a little steam. As I assume is the case for most male children of the 1970s, the ritual involves a short session in a well-ventilated room away from the front of the house, followed by the wheel-spin beers that sticky up the tires and get us ready for a night of heavy debauchery.

That’s how it always starts . . . for us.

Other people not in our position, say those of a higher income bracket whose earnings allow them the luxury of time that allows them to improve their overall attractiveness through shopping, surgery, or fucking much younger people, must have a more random approach to selecting their methods of implementing voluntary alcohol-induced temporary amnesia.

I assume that, every so often, one of them momentarily realizes that she has been spending far too much time hanging around people whose sole purpose is to draw attention and admiration, and she needs a night of low-level celebrity status wherein commoners throw themselves at her feet for the privilege of buying her first drink . . . which she can so obviously afford.

They go slumming.

Jimmy, Pete, Brett and I live for these nights, to be perfectly honest. Those skinny, rich, plastic cunts come to our part of town, give out fake cell phone numbers, take very real ones from every unsuspecting schmuck with dreams of marrying up, then share their collections at work on Monday like 12 year old boys with new sets of baseball cards. We never fall for it, usually. Jimmy’s our weak link.

I call him No Nuts because, when he was a kid, he got this bright idea on setting a new neighborhood record for jumping a bike off a wooden ramp placed on three cinder blocks. The crux of this stroke of genius - a ten-speed bicycle is light and faster than a rugged dirt bike, so if one were to hit the ramp at top speed on a lighter, faster bike, one might jump the neighbor’s brand new Buick Skylark.

Apparently, he hit the ramp at top speed as planned. What Jimmy didn’t account for were the ten-speeds thinner wheels and weaker rims, so it did surprise him when the front wheel folded in half upon hitting the rear bumper of the Buick, the forks embedding into the trunk. Jimmy, meanwhile, slid straight down the cross bar, nuts first into the hard plastic gear shift levers.

The doctors gave his parents a choice. They could leave his testicle in place - risking an infection or worse - or they could simply have it removed.

No Nuts hasn’t forgiven his parents, since, and it has had a detrimental effect on his ability to articulate his thoughts to women in a bar, especially women who would sooner hire Jimmy to blow the pool boy than seriously consider taking him home.

But these are the women I love to talk to in places like these and at times like this. These women came here to feel better about themselves, and I prod mercilessly at their hidden self-esteem issues. She comes here expecting me to drool, I tell her that the men on the other side of town must have very good eyesight not to waste their time with her. It’s a war of attrition, and they’ve already taken Jimmy.

“Lesbians,” Jimmy reports after his mercifully quick dismissal.

“They’re all lesbians until one of them fucks the other’s boyfriend.” It’s the only consolation I could think of. He should have known better. It’s not that No Nuts is an ogre of any sort. He’s just the kind of guy women go see to have their cervix inspected. Can’t get much more clinical looking than Jimmy. (Not that No Nuts had the hands on experience required even to consider the field. I don't suspect that he handles himself well in the presence of a nude woman. Jimmy strikes me as a premature ejaculater.)

Plus he only has one testicle, a fact that I’m sure comes into play when trying to pick up a woman in a bar in front of three drunk friends yelling over the music, “She’s all yours, No Nuts ” Imagine having to explain that on the first date. Jimmy tends to be a little shy, but when he makes his move, it’s always the one most likely to laugh before he has a chance to turn around.

I’d feel bad for him if he weren’t my friend. Still, this is a sport, and we are now down one man. Pete and Brett are too busy trading tequila shots and right crosses, a game they picked up in Tijuana. The rules are fairly simple. Take a shot, give a shot. It's pretty gruesome at first, as both men have full control over both their aim and force. The hilarity tends to start about eight shots in, when they no longer have control over either. This usually ends in one man swinging extremely hard at the other, with such foul aim that his fist glances of the other's cheek and pulls the pugilist off the stool, and onto the pool of beer and blood on the floor beneath them. That man is the loser.

Those two being otherwise occupied, it’s me against three.

Women who do not intend to get laid tend to go out in groups of three or more. The number three is important for two purposes. First, strength in numbers. If one friend has been taken captive by one of the leery-eyed locals, the other two can easily split up, cover the entire bar in roughly three minutes, then rescue their friend from certain text message hell. Second, if two women have been captured, they can use the guilt of leaving the third friend behind as a means of escape.

No matter the number, though, there will always be a dominant female who serves as the barometer for the other women’s chances of scoring. This is usually the most beautiful, intelligent, and successful member of the female pack, thus the most coveted by all men. The problem is, she’s Alcatraz. The only way in is to cheat the government, and the only way out is by pain of death. If she’s not serviced, then no one gets serviced.

Men must travel in packs of four or more at all times. We must ensure the strongest likelihood of outnumbering our opponent by at least one, the man whom we call “the fall guy”. This is the gentleman who sacrifices his own libido for the good of the pack. Often times he will end up the most drunk, an essential condition that allows him to act like such an ass that his friends look like Sir Galahad. A good man is hard to find, and the female pack is divided and conquered.

The fall guy usually ends up on someone’s couch as payment for his services, but occasionally finds himself waking up to a woman who, in the light of morning, does not seem as attractive as she did at four A.M. in the darkness of a smoky bar. On even rarer occasions, the fall guy finds himself the object of admiration for the women of the party, as his indifferent attitude towards them sparks their natural hunting instinct. His supposed lack of interest on behalf of the pack is often interpreted as a challenge by the female, and a particularly saucy one will make it her mission to conquer that involuntary hold-out. It is much like playing the "gay routine", searching for that Holy Grail of one night stands - the chick who wants to convert the queer.

Male packs do not generally have a dominant member, as all men perceive themselves as Alpha dogs. By contrast to the women, men have the subservient member, commonly known as “the whipping boy”. The whipping boy is rarely the fall guy, however, as he tends to fuck up the job on a regular basis. Some theorize that this behavior is by design, but members of the pack assume that the whipping boy does not have sufficient intelligence to premeditate such mindful incompetence.

No Nuts is our whipping boy, and he just went down in flames.

I see it coming a mile away, but as a good friend, I have to let it happen. She is the queen goddess, the mother whore, the devil in black stilettos. Her confidence radiates through the smoke, and I can see that she has been toying with No Nuts since she beckoned him with her untenable aura. Her glowing dark hair falls in waves across her shoulders, like theater curtains opened to expose the eighth and ninth wonders of the mammal world. Her collar bones glance across the top of her chest, flowing gracefully upward like a fountain of smooth white skin. Yes, she has the breasts that stood as proof of a divine creator’s masculine perspective.

I watch her stand and move to the bar, as Jimmy's eyes sullenly follow her movements over the top of his fading mug of beer. She moves like a dancer, every step and shift of her hips a choreographed waltz of symphonic seduction. She sips a martini, her smooth pink lips caressing the rim of the glass, and her eyes glance sideways, catching my obsessively unwavering stare. She lowers her glass, and I stare right through her indifferent heart. She wants to play.


**To Be Continued**