

By Tiber
My friend, Ryan, lost his job too so the two of us were working out in the gym here at the house when my sister, the too-beautiful Vanessa, came in. Ryan loves Vanessa. Ryan has always loved Vanessa. This has not gone well. I think Vanessa views Ryan the way she would a fire extinguisher. It has a legal right to be here and it might come in handy someday but the rest of the time you can pretty much ignore it.
When Ryan sees Vanessa, like a lot of other men, he cannot stop the stupid.
“Vanessa! Hey! Hi! Hi, ho, ho, ho, hi, hello! Come on in and join us!!!”
“Some other time.”
“That time could be now!”
“I’ll come back later.”
“No, no, we’ll leave.”
“Don’t be silly. Stay and go on with your workout. I‘m going to my bedroom.”
“Or Tiber can stay. And you and I can work out in your bedroom!”
I don’t think that’s really what Ryan meant. Well, no actually, that’s probably exactly what he meant. He just didn’t mean to say it.
Vanessa has this way of lowering her chin and then very, very slowly rotating her head, until her upturned eyes laser lock on yours. I don’t think I’m alone here in saying that, frankly, it makes you want to cry, or pee or pass out cold, just to protect yourself. I’ve seen her do this to actual demons and they start trying to strangle themselves with their pointy little tails. It’s not pretty.
But as usual, Ryan babbled on.
“I didn’t mean with both of us in your bedroom! Just you! Not me. No male would be in there. I mean, lots of men would want to be in there! Hold on. Did I say ‘lots?’ No, no! You probably don’t have one of those ‘Now Serving’ number machines! Not that I think you’d let men jump the line! You’re way too polite for that! Wait, no, did I say ‘line?!?'”
I try to wing-man Ryan but he makes it so hard. I created a distraction by dropping one of the weights. Of course, I hit my foot and Vanessa rolled her eyes and left.
“Oh, thanks a lot, Tiber! You scared her away!”
Yeah, that’s it. I scared Vanessa, that fragile flower, that sparrow, that quaking woodland creature who, one day, is going to pull Ryan’s lip back over his head until he looks like a very large pencil eraser.