Chapter 1
Many great minds of our time, and times gone by, have theories about our evolution. One of those theories is that Earth, as we know it, is but a mere speck of dust in the cosmos and we’ve only been here less time than it takes to blink your eye. Every species on Earth is merely a cell with its own special DNA and its own purpose and each place on Earth has its own community of living cells dwelling here. Cells? Living on a speck of dust in communities? Hmmm! In the big picture we’re kind of insignificant, aren’t we? If that’s so, then how does the IRS find us every time they want more money?
Since the dawn of time, the inhabitants on this third rock from the sun have evolved to great heights as far as single cells are concerned. Along the way, some cells became more evolved while some became extinct because Earth evolved into a process of self-consumption. The added stress on Earth is that human cells consume and waste at a rate that is impossible to replenish because human cells are prolific breeders with insatiable appetites for anything and everything, especially SUV’s and RV’s. Big ones!
Everything on the great planet Earth has the same trait of setting itself against itself. Human cells have a cute phrase for it…checks and balances. Pretty heady stuff, huh?
Tony Costa was a nomadic type of ‘cell’ who’d traveled extensively over his fifty some odd years and now found himself cradled in a place known as ‘The Home of the Newly Wed and Nearly Dead’…‘God’s Waiting Room’…St. Petersburg, Florida. It got its reputation because old and dying cells used to come to the warm climate of Florida to create traffic jams, get even older, and then die. Young cells in this community would produce newborn cells. The newborns would grow up and go to school there. However, when they were mature enough and finished with their schooling, they’d leave the community to explore the world and meet cells in places that offered them more cells their own age to replicate themselves. Oh, all right! So what if they simply wanted to engage in meaningless quasi-replication with ‘strange’ cells while they evolved into greater beings. When you’re young and hormones are racing, why not? Before AIDS came along it was believed a one-night stand or a quickie couldn’t kill you. Those were ‘growing experiences’ and those were the good ‘ol days!
What happened to St. Petersburg was there were very few twenty-five to forty-five year old cells living there and if there was it was usually a younger cell that had hooked up with a very old cell that was horny and rich. There certainly was no shortage of horny and rich old cells in St. Petersburg. To see these younger cells mated to older cells brought to mind the thought of trying to charcoal broil a steak over a pilot light!
The other strange phenomenon with this place was usually the young ones, who’d left for thirty or forty years, would eventually return to retire and thaw out from living in colder climates like New England, New York, Michigan and Canada.
These cells were not the nicest cells, either. They were rude, opinionated, didn’t drive well or courteously, and thought they were better than the native Floridian cells. They were probably banished and had no place else to go except Florida and because Florida accepts everything and anything, these great hoards began to accumulate in the Sunshine State. The rest is history!
They had made their fortunes and were now seeking treatment for their geriatric cell diseases and psychiatric treatment for their complete lack of inter-personal skills and deep depressions. They would then attempt to live out their years with a suitable mate, basking in the warmth of the Florida sun and creating traffic jams, just as their predecessors had done.
If a two-million-year old skull is ever found, it will most likely be discovered in St. Petersburg, Florida, and in all likelihood, she’ll be behind the wheel of a Lincoln Town Car on US19 during rush hour traffic or possibly at the I4-I275 junction, commonly referred to as Malfunction Junction. A place no elderly cell should be allowed to drive.
These older cells had favorite ‘watering holes’, as they called them, scattered throughout the community where they could gather and meet socially and recharge themselves. One of Costa’s favorites was a place known as the Ringside Café…Home of the Blues…Live Music Seven Nights a Week! In the unreal world of discos and karaoke bars, this was Mecca!
The Ringside was to St. Petersburg, as Cheers was to Boston. On any given night one could find the true ‘grass roots’ of this community living in perfect harmony. It may even be deeper than ‘grass’. It could actually be the mud. Bikers, business people, old hippies, young hippies, a myriad of ethnic races of all different ages mixed together having fun, and a wealth of men looking to get ‘lucky’ for the night and more than enough women to provide the ‘luck.’
Costa had been bestowed his share of luck by some of the older as well as younger female inhabitants of the Ringside Café. The younger ones usually saw the older ones differently in the scant illumination of the space provided by the Ringside staff.
The bluish smoky haze that hung in the room didn’t hurt either. Along with the effects of the ‘brain fuel’ the Ringside sold, it created this ‘I-don’t-give-a-shit-how-old-you-are-tonight-you’re-mine’ kind of attitude. Obviously, the ‘brain fuel’ recharged those tiny little micro libido cells, also. However, too much brain fuel made one’s mind make dates the whole cell couldn’t keep.
Tony Costa was always careful not to get too ‘recharged’. It was bad enough he was getting older at a rate he was having trouble dealing with, but getting Chronic Limp Wick was something he’d rather get from the natural aging process and not from some fermented berry or legume juices. So, being of sound mind and semi-sobriety, Tony Costa came to think of the Ringside Café as his ‘Geriatric cookie jar.’
Because there are male and female cells, each has its own ego and set of distinguishable traits. The male, mostly of his own huffing and puffing over the ions, had developed this sense of self-image that he was stronger, wiser, and more competent than his female counterpart. Hard to believe, I know, but it’s true ! He even penned a cute little term for her commonly known as ‘the weaker sex.’ He’s lived to regret that term ever since females were allowed to vote. His demise has not been quick, or merciful.
Costa was a little different than most of his male counterparts. He readily acknowledged the female was the superior cell.
During his years of accumulating vast amounts of experience with the ‘she cells,’ he’d found them to be the better provider, more emotionally equipped to deal with upheaval, bears the children and raises them while the male goes happily through life believing he is the one who does it all.
The female allows the male all this ‘who-haw’ and carrying on because she is more evolved and she has a strange ‘power.’ She is also the consummate huntress. No place is her ‘huntress’ attributes more noticeable than to watch her in action at The Ringside Café.
Someday this female is going to evolve to the heights of the female Praying Mantis. She’s going to give the male everything he wants, especially sexually, because he thinks with this cute little package referred to as ‘genitals’ and while he’s going at it he’s never going to notice being eaten alive by his ‘lover.’
The huntress, being the resourceful individual she is and loving the sexual gratification and procreation, will save the best for last, eating his penis as if it was some fancy desert like Bananas Foster at Brennan’s in New Orleans…but not until he’s gotten his rocks off.
Procreating and snacking at the same time! Wow! What a concept! Costa never wanted to be around for this part of the evolutionary process although he’d experienced in a small way some of the ‘powers’ the huntress possessed in this ‘oral’ manner over his years and…he was still alive. His position was, let the insect cells develop it first then, we can copy it! However, he thought it was fine just the way it was and far less fatal.
The reality of things was, Tony Costa had tired of this kind of life and wanted something different. Being a more evolved ‘male cell’ he turned to a highly technical way of choosing a well-balanced, compatible mate and he was relentless in his pursuit of ‘perfection.’
* * *
Scrolling through the personal ads online one evening, one of those Nymphs of the Net caught Costa’s eye. Starring, he chuckled to himself. ‘Smart Blonde’ was on the screen of his computer. She’d posted a picture…a cute little Doris Day look-alike.
“Now there’s an oxymoron,” Costa said aloud. “I shouldn’t do stuff like this after a bottle of wine and watching a full moon,” which he’d been doing before boredom overtook him and he turned his computer on.
Why was he bored? One of the reasons was because he’d just ended a relationship with someone and was alone with his thoughts and other parts of his unsatisfied body. However, the upside was, he wasn’t being nagged or ignored or suffering the aftermath of a woman with full-moon-post-menopausal tendencies or anything that comes in relationships after that old familiarity-breeds-contempt syndrome sets in. That in its self, should have kept Costa out of the personal ads online because that’s where he’d met his ‘ex-soul-mate’. Yahoo! And…what a rodeo that was!
If you believe some of the theories of this Cosmic Evolution thing, you would think the chances of hooking up with a non-compatible cell are pretty slim, especially if you are as smart as Tony Costa considered himself to be. Doing it repeatedly was a tremendous long shot. However, Costa was a ‘relationship’ expert with lots of ‘ex’s’ in his ‘pert’ little life and had tried to be a compatible mate with dozens of female ‘cells’ over his lifetime. Tony Costa was not afraid of commitment!
What Costa kept forgetting was these theories stated everything on earth was genetically disposed to setting itself against itself. He also lost sight of the fact that the ‘female’ was better at almost everything in its current state of evolution. She was the huntress of the species and damned good at it. She controlled ninety eight percent of all the money in the world and all of the sex! Some call it ‘Pussy Power’ but Costa knew it went further than that. She wanted all of everything and…on her terms…and the male would finally be paid for that ‘weaker sex’ title he’d lavished on her in such a cavalier manner a few short centuries ago!
Costa was a true male and realized being alone was not an option. Being the unflagging optimist he was, he truly believed that sooner or later he’d find ‘someone’ to pass his twilight years with, or some of them anyway. This belief kept him ever vigilant while on his quest for the ‘perfect woman’. However, every time he did this he lost sight of the evolutionary theories and the dangers of confronting the ‘huntress’ and her extraordinary ‘power’ over the male. He may have thought he was unique but he was really no different than all the other males of his specie, or any specie for that matter.
One of the best reminders of this ‘power’ females possess is a story about this bear researcher in New England who rescued a female bear cub. Its mother had abandoned it or had been killed and this little creature was all alone in the world. She was just a few days old and he raised it up to a full-grown adult, teaching it the ways of the wild. Because she was free to roam the woods where he lived she began socializing with other bears. After she was a year old she had a cub and raised it up over the next two years. The guy was always welcomed as a ‘mother’ because the bear had known no other mother. In her third or fourth season she came into heat and disappeared. The guy went looking for her and after three months of searching everywhere, he finally found her. As they were rekindling their friendship this huge male bear came onto the scene and was really pissed because the guy was there. Picture the Jerry Springer Show here, with the guests of varying sizes ranging from ‘extra pudgette’ to gargantuan, dressed in fur. It started to get very ‘testy’ when slowly the female stepped between the man and the huge, horny male bear. The male bear stopped and growled, pawing the ground viscously. The man was petrified and was sure he was about be killed and eaten by this angry bear. The female looked at the man as if to say, “Watch this. Look what I’ve learned since being on my own.” She then turned quickly and ran down the gentle slope to her right, directly in front of the big male bear. The male bear, dumfounded, had a choice to make…fight or fornicate? He looked at the man and then looked to where the female ran. He looked back and forth a few times, very rapidly while his nose pointed in the air catching the scent of ‘the power’ and…it was alluring and all consuming. No-brainer here! It only took him about two seconds to make his decision and off he charged towards where the female had run. The guy then beat a path back to the safety of his pickup truck. That is Pussy Power! And, it controls the world. ‘Weaker sex,’ my ass!
Unfortunately, Costa wasn’t thinking about the bear story on this fine day or about theories of Cosmic Evolution. Tony Costa’s mind was somewhere else and thinking with the wrong ‘head’ again!
Tony wasn’t really ‘all there’ in his concept of what the perfect woman really was. Years ago…many years ago, he’d set out on one of his ‘vision quests’ for the perfect woman. Armed with his two pages of notes, each line numbered with what he thought was, an attribute, he got on the interstate and headed west. He got off at the first rest area about twenty miles from where he’d started and read his notes over. It was clear; after twenty minutes of intense study he realized he couldn’t have lived up to three of the attributes let alone the thirty-eight he had listed. It was a quick trip back home and back to the drawing board.
Sure enough, after thinking for another lengthy two and a half seconds, Costa was looking through the personal ad of ‘Smart Blonde.’
“I am an outgoing, honest (to a fault), fun-loving Aquarian. I am a professional nurse, working in the pharmaceutical industry. I enjoy dancing, dining, theater, and occasional trips to Vegas. I moved to Florida to fulfill a dream of living by the water. I enjoy walks on the beach, sunrises (I know I made it another day!), and sunsets. My interests are varied. I like to write, enjoy sports, I’m spontaneous, and I’m a great cook. If your interests are purely sex, you need not respond.
“I am looking for someone who is honest with a great sense of humor. It’s a must! I want someone who is outgoing and can carry on a conversation. I like men who make me think and make me emote. Sensitivity is gravy.”
Well, dancing was out. Costa hated to dance, especially after spending twelve years of his life playing music on stage in funky bars and nightclubs to a usually bunch of falling down drunks and stoners and wondered what the hell people saw in that ‘sport’, anyway. They’re all ‘honest’ until they need an easy way out. They all like ‘walks on the beach’. Gee, what a surprise! They all like ‘sunsets’ until the evening hatch of skeeters and other critters come out. They’re all ‘great cooks’ until you get hungry. They’re all ‘spontaneous’ until you mention something spontaneous and then you find out they don’t have enough time to be ‘spontaneous’ or they have other ‘plans tonight’, which is just another way of saying, “I’m going to get ‘boinked’ tonight and it ain’t with you, baby!”
As far as her description of an ideal match was concerned, Costa felt he fairly well measured up. He was fairly honest, had a great sense of humor, albeit a little cynical and laced with biting sarcasm at times. He could definitely carry on a conversation. The hard thing to do was to get him to shut up once he got started. He knew he could make her think and probably think twice about ever placing another ad like this again. Emote? What the hell is that all about? They make Depends for that, don’t they? Tony Costa believed he was very sensitive. Of course some people thought he had a heart the size of a marble and it was just about as warm.
The liking of sports, gambling, and no sex piqued Costa’s interest. The liking of sports was good. This was truly the mark of a, ‘Smart Blonde’ especially if she was a Red Sox or Florida State Seminole fan. The ‘Vegas’ thing was okay, too…as long as she wasn’t an off-the-wagon-card-carryin’ member of Gambler’s Annonymous. Being a full-fledged card carrying erotomaniac, the ‘no sex’ thing he’d have to find out for himself. That was a little far fetched, he thought. How does one curb the second strongest human biological drive without a vow of celibacy and the surgical elimination of reproductive parts? Even then, priests and nuns tend to ‘wander’ at times. Or, maybe, she had a video library and a mechanical means of satisfying her libido, in which case a live guy was always optional.
Disgusting, you say! Well, why do adult stores keep opening up at a rate that the Christian Right can’t even keep up with? Is it because the owners of these places just love to lose money? I don’t think so! Have you ever asked yourself why the most accessed subject on the vast worldwide web is, sex? Every kind of sex imaginable can be accessed! Plying the fine arts of porn has risen to new heights since the Internet came to the world and there are hundreds, if not thousands, of new stars born every day. Hell, it’s an um-teen billion dollar a year business that everybody claims they never watch!
Like their male counterparts, females love to ‘practice.’ Practice, practice, practice, practice! Practice is just another word for ‘preparation’ and females understand the Six ‘P’ Theory…Proper Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance!
‘Smart Blonde’ was the right age, height, hair color, eyes, lived close, seemed educated, smoked (that was good as Costa was a pack-a-day-plus kind of guy and maybe they could spend their twilight years changing each others oxygen bottles), divorced, and didn’t want kids.
Being of ‘average body type’ gave Costa cause to ponder. ‘Average’ compared to what? Costa spent his whole life suspicious of ‘average weight’ or ‘average body type’ descriptions. The only blind date he’d ever been on was when he was sixteen and a friend had described the blind date he was pitching to Tony as ‘average’, had a nice personality, and loved to dance. Oh, brother! His friend never told him he wanted to date the ‘average one’s’ best friend who was the fox of the high school and wouldn’t go anywhere without her ‘average’ friend. The reality, of course, was much different and by the end of the ‘date’ the girl, who resembled a small white whale, attempted to jump Tony’s bones. Not moving fast enough in the back of his buddy’s ’56 Chevy, he was landed on by this two hundred pound fin-less thing. Costa had been ‘Shamooed’! To add insult to injury, the pudgy one’s big brother, Joey, a two hundred fifty pound knuckle dragging Neanderthal, kicked Tony’s ass the next day for making his sister cry. Tony had nightmares for months. The thought never left him and he vowed never to blind date anyone and certainly not if she was heavier than himself, and he was only a slight one hundred twenty pounds at five foot eight inches. Downright narrow, Tony was. Psycho big brothers became another contingency in Tony’s dating taboos, also.
The optimum score computed by Costa’s Fox-E-Meter System was 1.9 or lower. The score was derived by the woman’s weight (or estimated weight), then dividing it by the total inches in height. For instance, if someone were five feet five inches tall and weighed one hundred and eighteen pounds, her score would be 1.82. A fox-e-lady!
Costa carefully studied the ‘Smart Blonde’ photo once more and determined her head size was way too small to sit on a two or three hundred pound body. Well, he was reasonably sure, anyway. She stated she was one hundred thirty pounds and at the five foot four inch height she had given, she was a 2.03 on Costa’s Fox-E-Meter Scale…or maybe a 2.11 at the outside if she weighed one thirty five. Actually, not bad for a granny-aged woman, and probably just ‘supple’ enough to enjoy…but she’d have to have one hell of a great personality.
He read through the whole ‘Smart Blonde’ ad once more and determined she was the right age, height, weight, ‘body type’ (Average…he loved that term!), and ‘income level’ (Anything!). That was great because Costa was working in a convenience store on the four to midnight shifts trying to pay off his bills from his last misguided journey through the love section of the information highway and was making hardly ‘anything’. ‘Smart Blonde’ looked like a ‘go’.
For the next two hours Tony Costa prepared his response, bio, directions to his web page, and recent picture of himself (of course she had requested that, too, with the added comment, ‘no recent pic…no response!’). Costa wondered how ‘recent’ her picture really was…the cute (maybe) little Doris Day look alike that she was. Costa was sure she had an unlisted phone and wasn’t afraid of anyone stalking her as she had also provided her name in her online ad. Tony perused his stack of stuff to send and started his letter of response…
Dear Kiki Swift…a.k.a. Smart Blonde…
