Rees’S Gate

By Ms. Tory

For countless year civilizations have perplexed over what lies just beyond the veil of death. There is no greater mystery in life than that which happens when life ends. What if you are simply given a second chance? What if you have already reached your second chance but just dont realize it yet? If youve ever met Rees, the Gatekeeper of Greed in Purgatory, you are already dead. You have already failed your first attempt at salvation. The good news is you no longer have to be worried about paying your taxes. The bad news is no one ever has the opportunity to better themselves or their current situation in this Purgatory. This is mostly due to the fact that no one ever realizes they are dead, and Purgatory is run by those corrupted by absolute power.

At least this is what Rees believes since he has been at the same dead-end job forever. This is what he would be willing to bet his afterlife on until he meets someone worthy of a fate much better than this. One thing becomes perfectly clear to Rees after he meets Olivia Bowman. That is, he will do anything to save her. Or is it she who will end up saving him?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 27, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524502546

Ms. Tory

Ms. Tory lives with her husband and three children in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains in Southeastern Kentucky. Her inspiration for Rees’s Gate came after a near-death experience when she was twenty-one. After a devastating automobile accident, her young life was turned upside down. Because of this, she possesses a profound understanding regarding the fragility of life and unique perspective when it comes to concepts of an afterlife. Although her genre is purely fiction, she is sure you will find elements of her story relatable. Her character-driven story is based around a profound understanding of the flaws in human nature and the inability to escape that which binds us all to the inevitability of death. Ms. Tory guarantees you will be able to relate to the beautifully tragic melody of this spellbinding tale.

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Copyright © 2016 by Ms. Tory.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2016908225

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-5245-0256-0

                Softcover        978-1-5245-0255-3

                eBook             978-1-5245-0254-6

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 05/19/2016

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Contents

Preface

Chapter 1 Day Number 1

Chapter 2 Night Number 1

Chapter 3 Day Number 2

Chapter 4 Night Number 2

Chapter 5 Day Number 3

Chapter 6 Night Number 3

Chapter 7 Day Number 4

Chapter 8 Night Number 4

Chapter 9 Day Number 5

Chapter 10 Night Number 5

Chapter 11 Day and Night Number 6

Chapter 12 Day and Night Number 7

Chapter 13 Day Number 1

Preface

Most people think three strikes and you're out, but there are indisputably only two chances given in the game of death and judgment we all must play. I should know. I am the mediator of the second and final testing. My name is Rees, and I am the Gatekeeper of Greed here in Purgatory.

We don't refer to it as Purgatory here, though. To all the readily deceived and easily manipulated temporary occupants of this illusory place, it is just an unbroken continuation of the lives they have always lived. The lives they have always squandered and will continue to do so until their final tests are inevitably failed. Make no mistake about it, they all inevitably fail. I have been here for as long as I can remember, and I have yet to see one person pass.

I am running death's special education version of woodshop. Except for rather than my mentally and psychologically challenged students running the risk of merely losing a few fingers, if they fail (which they all fail), my utterly clueless students run the risk of a fate much worse. Like most woodshop teachers, I am not allowed to teach, merely to hone the skills of the unskilled as each predictable stroke of their poor judgment causes them to move closer to the treacherous circular blade, which grazes the very fabric of their pseudo-lives and eventually metallically bids them farewell.

After all, they did not arrive to me because of the cautious and steady worthwhile decision-making skills their testimonial lives have screamed but rather from the hasty, irrational choices of a group ignorant to any moral or ethical guidelines.

But my opinion on such matters is indifference. So I don't even so much as bat an eyelash when my role call dwindles in numbers with those around me dropping like day-old houseflies until eventually more newcomers are added to my list. I have gotten so used to the routine it is like old hat to me.

They always arrive to me the same way. It is as though they are waking from the dream of a nearly fatal event, which almost claimed their pointless lives, thankful for having survived. What they truly don't understand is luck had nothing to do with it, and they didn't actually survive. The minds of the deceased were simply moved to me while their hopeful souls wait patiently in the balance for what is next to come.

Believe it or not, there is a filter designed to catch the pond scum in life's undeserving gene pools. Once those who are expendable have been garnered, they are then brought to me. I am the piranha disguised as a goldfish in the inescapable holding tank of death's deceptive aquarium. I am the babysitting fox keeping watch over death's henhouse of freshly hatched newborn fowls. I am, in essence, Purgatory's eyes and ears that masquerade as prey when predator I am. I know it seems unfair, but lies are all that's left when one has squandered the right to any truths.

So it is my job to make sure the transition from life to death of those arriving to me seems as real as possible. All their predictable blunders are reported to my bosses, and my identity is never discovered. Because without eyes upon those in this land of testing, there wouldn't be a reason for this place. Plus, it would be much too easy for some of the savvier ones to pass if the truth were to become common knowledge.

My introduction as a new acquaintance into each new occupant's afterlife is flawless. I immediately befriend them, as if I am not a traitor waiting to turn on them at the first opportunity, reassuring myself the whole time consciences are not afforded to my kind. After all, without Gatekeepers in the valley of those new to death, there would be no second chances.

I tell myself I must be here for some reason. There must be some conceivable logic as to why I would be the teacher of an un-passable class. Truth be known, I have been here so long I have forgotten why or even if I interviewed for this job. I don't even remember any more if it was a conscious choice. All I know is I am good at what I do, and it is because of my accomplishments I would like to believe I was never offered a choice. I mean, selecting a career of professional snitch for the seedy and oblivious seems a bit extreme, don't you think? Who would sign up for a gig like this anyway? My contract doesn't even include paid vacations or retirement benefits. Mostly because time off is as foreign an aspiration here as being a Gatekeeper to any student capable of a little well-deserved amnesty. Also, the prospect of retirement to me seems more farfetched than the notion of absolvable redemption for anyone here without a job.

Regardless of the day, my door is always open when my deceased patrons come to call. It only stands to reason since death never takes a day off, then neither should I. Like it or not, I'll be at this dead-end place forever or at least until death runs out of fools for me to test.

Imagine the loneliest life possible where you are surrounded by people whose faults are worn in their soulless eyes like massive cataracts. Where every blinding error of their past lives leave them bumbling around in the dark, looking for unseen answers in this one. Imagine having to report everything to the authorities in a place where broken people are never given the clues to help heal themselves and failure is inevitable. Imagine if caring ever did enter the picture in a world where each new occupant only offers a fleeting glimmer of hope until the initial test is inevitably failed. If you can imagine all of this, then you can have my job.

Chapter 1

DAY NUMBER 1

I stare out of the discolored display window of my electronic boutique as two new faces turn to look at the enticing merchandise beckoning them to me. Then they immediately change direction to head my way. Not that these two criminals are unknown to me. Their lives are as transparent as the material I am looking through to watch their approach, and now their business is now considered my business even though until today their appearance was indeed a mystery to me.

My mind invades their mental jurisdiction as quickly as my eyes focus in on them. I see their crimes flipping by in chronological order like demented still-life photos of pictures never taken with the intent to hide deeds that were never hidden in the first place. I see each squalid endeavor that has brought these two new wicked patrons straight on the path to my front door.

Under my breath, I mumble New arrivals as I pretend to look busy in a store vacant of customers. Today is definitely going to be a long day. All my newcomers are grouped not only by the greed that drives them but also by the sins that now define them. I know from the get-go I am about to receive a class of thieves. To say I am not too thrilled about the direction in which my day is headed is a major understatement.

Mr. and Mrs. Clemons, a heavyset well-dressed couple, enter through the front door as I hear the door sensor notifying me of their arrival. Mr. Clemons is one of the prominent bankers from the most profitable financial institution in the town from which he arrives. Not that he realizes he is in a different town, mind you. My town looks identical to his town right down to the bank. However, now there is one major exception with this town resembling the place from which the Clemons couple arrives---there is a new electronics boutique in town this materialistic couple simply must checkout.

They are fresh from the hospital, wearing bandages and other medical garb, where they awoke only hours before to find minimal injuries in what they believed to be a minor fender bender rather than the actual accident that claimed both of their money-hording lives.

Mrs. Clemons has her short yellow- blonde bangs strategically placed over the butterfly bandages on her forehead in an attempt to conceal any sign of damage. Despite the emotional rollercoaster ride she has endured today, she still looks polished around all her bandaging and bracing with no hair out of place. She is wearing a pink cashmere sweater and matching silk skirt. A dark-blue sling cradles her left arm.

As they approach the counter, Mrs. Clemons straightens her husband's pink-and-gray-striped tie and fingers his thinning silver hairline with the hand of her good arm.

I turn to greet them, forcing a smile, as their blackening greedy eyes focus in on all the expensive merchandise surrounding me. I mumble to myself, You have got to be kidding me! Trained chimpanzees would have a better chance of passing than these two!

They immediately begin bickering back and forth about where they are going to display the curved eighty-eight-inch Series 9 LED 4K Ultra HD television they seek, and I wonder whose pocket this banking embezzler has picked in order to purchase such an expensive television set.

In his first failed life, Mr. Clemens was about as crooked as an unsupervised politician. His wife, totally aware of all of his money-laundering business transactions, spent her days decorating their beautiful mansion with trinkets purchased through the acquisition of other people's money.

I move them toward the largest television currently in my showroom while Mrs. Clemons continues to push her side of the argument, interrupting me and her husband every chance she gets.

Why shouldn't we use it as a showpiece over the mantle? I say, 'if you're going to have something that screams grandeur, why not show it off?'

Her face immediately drops when she looks up to find the curved seventy-eight-inch 4K Ultra HD LED television I am pushing in order to judge both of their reactions. There are no surprises with the outcome. Because Mrs. Clemons is greatly displeased, Mr. Clemons feels some bizarre sense of greed-induced chivalry and butts in and demands I special order the television his wife has just requested.

I back off immediately, knowing not to waste my breath. Obviously, this couple will only settle for the finer things in this totally erroneous and thankfully ephemeral second life.

I mumble under my breath with clamped-teeth frustration while I head for the phone to make the necessary call, If only you could take it with you.

Before I can finish placing the order, I hear the door sensor beep again, indicating the one cup of coffee I allotted myself earlier in the morning was not nearly generous enough.

Incriminating photos of yet another new arrival flash before my weary eyes. I watch both perpetrator and perpetration in disgust as a young teenage boy approaches the counter, wearing stonewashed jeans, which look as though they could wardrobe three of him. Tommy D is wearing his long black hair gelled into an orderly row of Mohican spikes. As I look into the eyes of the boy rapidly approaching, I realize his hair is the sharpest thing about him. Around his neck, a black bandana rides at the ready. The thickest part of this accessory's fold is located directly under his chin for hasty concealment if anything unaffordable should catch his wondering eyes. It is, in fact, the exact same one Tommy used to mask his identity while holding up the convenient store on the corner of Maple and Second Street only days before.

And what possible reason could a juvenile (no more than seventeen years of age) have for putting terror into the hearts of all of the unfortunate convenient store employees working that night over the almighty dollar? Tommy D's love of video gaming obviously far exceeds any inkling of human decency he may be toting around with him in those oversized jeans of his. Tommy D held three people at gunpoint over his desire to purchase a new gaming system. The exact same one he is now hoping to acquire from my store.

For you see, Tommy was new to a life of organized crime and hadn't quite got the organized part down yet. His mounting paranoia over the misconception of time had gotten the better of him that night. The sound of rapidly approaching sirens in the distance had forced him to ditch his spoils and seek shelter in a local shopping mall dumpster.

He only escaped with two things that night---his provisional freedom and his delusional belief in a life of crime devoid of any consequences.

In Tommy's defense, judging from his incriminating photos, the only time anyone had ever looked at him or spoken with him was when he held something lethal in his hands. However, in my line of work, inexcusable behavior does not render pardon for even more inexcusable behaviors---it just merely results in a draw.

Tommy is from the same town as my other two customers, even though I seriously doubt they have ever met. Their differing appearances suggest they ran in separate circles, although their career choices, while varying in levels of reputation, are almost identical.

Tommy died only yesterday after he ran his four-wheeler into the nearby river, knocking himself unconscious. Eventually, he drowned, facedown, in the mercilessly unrelenting dirty water. He recalls everything but the drowning part.

I watch Tommy's blackening greedy eyes shifting back and forth while he mentally lifts Mrs. Clemons's gold chain and Mr. Clemons's wristwatch. Tommy has obviously developed a taste for stealing, and my store is surely viewed an all-you-can-eat buffet by this lamentably malnourished lad.

Mrs. Clemons places the hand of her good arm over her necklace while she eyes the strange, underprivileged youth with daggers. To her, stealing is only considered tastefully done when and only when trust is first obtained.

I look down at the counter, wondering if this day could possibly get any worse. To anyone else watching this hypocritical faceoff between the youth gone awry and the poster woman for ADT home security systems, some level of bizarre morose humor may have presented itself. However, to the guy stuck living it, to the poor drudge witnessing it day in and day out, despondency for all humanity---at least for all I see---fills my tired mind.

At the same time Tommy and Mrs. Clemons are making each other acquaintances, I hear one more beep. Tommy is now obstructing my view, so I peek around him in order to see how much worse today's nightmare is going to get.

They enter the store together, hand in hand. They are the picture-perfect couple, preparing to make their first purchase for the new apartment they are renting, which is located directly above mine. The nauseating sight of the doting woman, Olivia Bowman, on Mark Hadley's arm makes me appreciative of skipping breakfast.

Mark was such a thug in his first failed life all other thugs felt more ethically sound in his company. Even his appearance screams hoodlumism, with his densely tattooed body displaying more inked weaponry than a copy of NRA Magazine and his jaw-line and chin sporting a scraggly beard, which only suggests the lack of proper grooming rather than intentional facial framing.

I focus in on Mark and can easily guess his criminal history even if it wasn't now common knowledge from the incriminating photos that just keep coming. By the end of his pathetic slideshow, placing my mind in the gutter would have been an improvement from where it had been forced to journey. Mark Hadley was apparently incapable of acquiring money through any legal means. The only scratch (undoubtedly his term for money) he ever laid his kleptomaniacal hands on came from both the distribution of street and prescription drugs and random acts of thievery.

His other hobbies, when not pawning his grandmother's toaster or selling drugs to local teenagers, included destroying public and private property just for sport and convincing troubled young girls into giving away any of their remaining virtue.

As if this wasn't bad enough, the final straw that, in Mark's case, broke the Winston Camel's back was when he persuaded Olivia Bowman, the hopelessly clueless girlfriend riding alongside his tatted muscular arm into stealing from her rich, dying mother in order to afford their new apartment, which is now located directly above mine.

Until Mark had teamed up with Olivia, he had never before embarked on such a grand scale of premeditated larceny and had somehow flown under death's radar. That is, until now.

Being thankfully finished with Mark's pornographic portfolio, I set my sights on Olivia.

Sadly enough, judging from the family photos that blanket the walls of her parent's home from which she stole, Olivia Bowman is now the spitting image of her mother when her mother was of the same age. Standing next to Mark, everything about Olivia Bowman seems commonly pious. She is a petite, well-proportioned girl with an ordinariness about her that suggests nature has given her the unfortunate gift of blending in with the crowd. She is wearing her shoulder-length mousy-brown hair curled underneath in a way that frames her circular face, giving the illusion of more definition to a canvass, which may have otherwise been deemed uninspiring. All of her features, at first glance, seem common and typical---with one major exception.

When Olivia finally turns to face me, I am unable to look away. Her big brown eyes are untouched by the greed, which has brought her to me. Everyone in this place carries some level of damage in the windows of their eyes, which hides nothing from the Gatekeeper of that particular sin. I have spent an afterlife time it seems, staring into different faces with the same incriminating eyes. Purgatory has almost a comical consistency to it in that way. It is Olivia Bowman's inconsistency that leaves me absolutely floored.

Hiding greed from me, in layman's terms, would be the equivalent of an elephant trying to play hide-and-seek in a shoebox. Yet her eyes meet mine with such clarity. It is as if no one has let them in on the secret that they are supposed to be any different than the way they truly are. Even with the expensive merchandise all around us, they are not the glazed over-blackened mess of a person consumed by the desire to own everything around them.

She smiles at me, and her face alights with such beauty I am now forced to recant all my previous insults.

I realize I'm staring and immediately look down, shaking off my foreign fascination with something so trivial here in Purgatory.

There could be several reasons for this discrepancy. Maybe electronics are not really Olivia's thing, or maybe Mark carries around enough greed for the two of them. Regardless, I need more answers, and I know exactly where to look.

I focus in on Olivia, determined to review every last detail of the crimes that brought her directly to my front door. Since this is Olivia's first offense, there are only a few incriminating photos, implicating her in the heinous crime that landed her in my graceless company. However, they prove her irrefutably guilty of a perfidious transgression. For while all my other current customers chose to target strangers, with the exception of an occasional petty theft, this bright-eyed young serpent in the suburban grass chose to target her own dying mother. Olivia Bowmen arrives to me through Greed's Gate because her desire for money outweighed any inkling of family loyalty she may have once possessed. She arrives here without any chance of redemption because she took from her terminally ill mother the means necessary to abandon the very home from which she stole. I can see Olivia Bowman plotting to steal from her mother's safe located in the guest bedroom of her parent's home. I can see the embrace her and Mark share after they had determined the logistics of this felonious act. I can see the way Olivia dies and the mode by which she comes to stand before me.

The cops had caught up with the ill-fated couple the night before last. The officer on duty, unaware that one of the burglars was, in fact, Mrs. Bowman's daughter, fired shots blindly into the night. Even though Olivia Bowman and Mark Hadley heard stray bullets ricocheting off the asphalt all around them that night, no harm was done as far as their recollection of the evening serves. Their memories possess nothing beyond the sound of wasted gunfire and their own fleeing feet.

Yet they enter my store, just the same---two new residents in the town of hopeless, destined to fail like everyone else who currently resides here.

In actuality, Mark died instantly from a gunshot wound to the head, and Olivia Bowman suffered a gunshot wound to the abdomen. She died a few hours later from severe blood loss in the hospital.

It is all there in black and white. I'm about to dismiss the disturbing images from their fateful night when one in particular emerges that catches my attention. Olivia is standing before someone in a dimly lit room, with tears streaming down her cheeks. Her eyes are pleading, but her body remains motionless. My eyes focus in on hers and, for one brief moment, I cannot look away. The pity I feel for this poor creature, statuesquely preserved for this one moment in time, is enough to unlock compassion in this historically uncompassionate man.

Then just as quickly as the image had come, it is gone.

I immediately shake off any curiosity, knowing I would have seen more if it pertained to the job I am required to do. I mentally focus on the truth and the task at hand.

Olivia Bowman is a criminal just like all the others. She is destined to fail, just like all the others. I refuse to waste any more time on her besides what is necessary to test and eventually fail her. I know Mark's days are numbered, and I refuse to entertain the farfetched possibility his sheep of a girlfriend may pass even though she is dripping with sinful mediocrity when it comes to the sheer volume of her criminal record. Mark and Olivia are the reverse couple of Adam and Eve. Her apple is only as good as he says it is. It matters not to me she has sinned so few times to deserve being here. The look in Olivia Bowman's doting brown eyes regarding Mark Hadley is enough for me to cross her off the nonexistent list of hopefuls. Her poor judge of character is sure to drag her down with him, kicking and screaming just the same.

This new group of misfits offers little hope. So I focus back on Tommy.

Do you have a new Xbox in stock? His voice is raspy from the recent water damage to his throat and lungs---an ailment Tommy simply relates to catching a cold from the cold water, after his four-wheeler accident.

I know there is a shipment coming in---I type on my computer, bringing up the shipment date---day after tomorrow.

Tommy almost appears to be frothing at the mouth. Well, can you hold one back for me.

This is where Tommy's initial test begins.

I require at least 25 percent down to reserve one. I know Tommy is flat broke.

He bites down on his lower lip while his eyes take on the appearance of that of a mole's resurfacing to find daylight.

I don't have that much on me right now, but I'm sure I can get it.

I look down at my keyboard while I whisper, I bet you can.

Tommy hesitates in my company for a moment longer. I watch his easily taxed mental components spinning at an alarmingly sluggish rate. There appears to be something happening behind the blank and awkward silence produced by this tediously painstaking process. Though how any verdict is reached with this out-to-lunch jury is beyond my comprehension.

A dim light finally illuminates behind Tommy's usually dark and vacant eyes, and I equate this to mean he has found the solution to his financial dilemma.

I'll be back in with the money tomorrow. Don't sell them all before I get back.

Well, to be sure I don't, let's get your name on my reserve list. Shall we?

Tommy flashes me a surprised and grateful expression, which I pretend to ignore. I pull out my clipboard and jot down a name I already know, but Tommy feels the need to provide me. Then he quickly turns to leave.

I step out from behind the counter to tell Mr. and Mrs. Clemons their new television will be arriving tomorrow.

As I glance around the room again, I see a young teenage girl approaching from the front of my store. I did not hear the beep of my door sensor, and I can only assume this must be the beginning of Mark and Olivia's initial test.

In Purgatory, all sins are offered here, not just the ones that bring them through my Gate. If a new arrival shows an inclination toward another sin, they are opportunistically tested with hopes of an expedited failure. Purgatory, like most any other prisons, has a problem with overcrowding. Mark carries lustful tendencies even an earthworm could clearly see, and Olivia's past suggests an inclination toward pride. So an initial test cleverly bundling these transgressions together is now introduced in the form of beautiful vixen, totally lacking inhibitions.

The flawlessly designed girl looks to be barely of age, which is the optimal category for the always-prowling, wolf standing next to Olivia---the seasoned, veteran girlfriend who has long passed her prime wearing a ripe old age of nineteen and a half like last year's dress.

No one else but me notices this girl requires no portal for entrance into my store while both men and women alike turn to stare at this vision of beauty. However, she is intended for only Mark and Olivia's unbeneficial benefit and makes no misleading qualms about where she is headed. I stop in my tracks, refusing to miss the show while the girl moves with calculated seduction toward her prey, like she is now the wolf pack of one and Mark is the bleating lamb recently separated from his protective herd.

Tommy, who passes the young girl on his left, is now undoubtedly carrying a cocked and loaded weapon behind the zipper of his baggy jeans---serving as some sort of perverted suspension system for his oversized ensemble.

I chuckle to myself as the gamer, for once, seems to have something else on his mind besides gaming.

Tommy stops to tie his already-tied shoe, hoping to get one last look at the girl who is, unfortunately, intended to be someone else's test. He gives up when, as usual, he goes unnoticed. Wearing a visible level of dejection over his shoulders like a lead apron, Tommy exits my store through the front door. I know as soon as Tommy leaves my sight, he is on to search for the criminal means necessary to acquire the 25 percent deposit, which is due immediately. Tommy doesn't stand a chance, and I fervently wish the girl with her current sights set on Mark could have at least smiled at the poor, neglected boy.

Mark undresses the girl mentally with his sleazy eyes. At the same time, Olivia notices her boyfriend's reaction to this young girl's presence. Without so much as a moment's thought, he moves away from Olivia, discarding her in the wakes of his newly found prospect as easily as if she is last month's Playboy magazine, and this month's just arrived. Olivia now stands alone, discarded and neglected, while Mark leaves her side to stand beside another. I inhale a deep breath and wait for the expected outcome.

Then Olivia does something I would have never thought possible until witnessing it for myself. In this place, in time designed for only her heartache and pain, she smiles. It is not a vengeful smile of a woman plotting the demise of all involved but a beautifully sincere smile. It is a breathtaking smile.

I continue to stare now with curious disbelief while Mark's girlfriend greets the youthful threat with only legitimate kindness. This is the first time I do not witness the wrathful vindictiveness of a woman's scorn when faced with her accompanying male's sexual intrigue. Despite the obvious connection between Mark and this foreign female, Olivia smiles at the girl graciously as if her beauty is as acceptable as a fine painting displayed on a museum wall in front of them.

Although Mark continues to ogle the girl openly, Olivia proceeds on with only true benevolence being toted around in those enormous brown eyes of hers.

Either Olivia recognizes what it's like to feel true contentment inside or she puts on a show worthy of ticket purchase.

The only questionable movement Olivia makes, which suggests the slightest inkling of inferiority toward this vision of virtual beauty she faces, is to secure the lower buttons of her lightweight trench coat in an effort to conceal the lower half of her body. From this, I can only assume Olivia is not wishing to compete with the well-chiseled frame of this make-believe female Adonis standing before her and her loin-inflamed boyfriend.

The young girl's climactic target is reached. She cleverly places herself between the lightweight girlfriend who has been recently been thrown back and the boyfriend equivalent of prize catch to activate one of the stereo systems on the display wall located directly behind the no-longer-coupled couple. The protrusion of Mark's eyeballs from their sockets