Mood:
crushed outTopic: "Leslie" (4)
It was Freshman Orientation at the College of the Shire, and Frodo had acne. Frodo's clothes seemed to be about six months behind what everyone else was wearing. Classes hadn't even started yet, and everyone else seemed to have picked a "major." Frodo's roommate was cool; he was having sex regularly. Perhaps Frodo had made a mistake by not enlisting in the Army?" And then he saw Leslie.
The first time he saw Leslie, Frodo wanted to do what Garth and Wayne would proffer years later, to fall on his knees and to bow with arms outstretched repeating the phrase "I'm Not Worthy," over and over again. There was a goddess among the Freshman Class, and her name was Leslie.
To describe her, it is best, says Frodo, to simply imagine yourself in Las Vegas, and to watch the dancing girls in all their plumage as they strut their stuff before the commoners. Not in a thousand years could a mere Hobbit win more than a curious smile from that which is constructed in Heaven, or in Silicon Valley. The gifts are available only to the Martins and the Sinatras; the Hobbits head for the blackjack table and a glass of watered-down scotch.
First-year students are always overwhelmed, no matter where they are, or what their lineage. Frodo always had his arms full of books, and one seemed always to prefer the ground outside Frodo's grasp. Walking to class in the same building as was Leslie, Frodo could not help but notice that she was wearing the Paisley full-length tights under her skirt that were the source of his almost daily fantasies. Twisting like pythons from her shoes into the hidden areas above her thighs, the design presented Frodo with a rather unique perspective on a place where he would much rather be, than, in this case, a class having to do with Chaucer.
While waiting in the hallway for the changing of the hour, Frodo was in conversation with someone long-forgotten. Leslie was nearby, equally engaged with someone Frodo knew not. When the bell rang, signalling the change of subject, Leslie bent from the waist in order to pick up her course books (note that this was the era preceding the backpack). Frodo, concomitantly, terminated his anonymous conversation, and turned toward the open classroom door. Chance, alone, then placed Frodo's open palm directly into the waiting crotch of the goddess (rear entry).
Frodo stood, motionless, hesitant to draw back in horror, or to take any other potential course of action. Eventually, Leslie straightened, turned to Frodo, and smiled. Frodo began to apologize, at least he thinks he did, because he had never felt such a rush of blood to any one part of his non-genital anatomy as he experienced in those seconds of his life. He yet blushes when he thinks of his dorkiest of moments.
It would take Frodo two years to ever raise the courage to again speak in the presence of the goddess. It was on that occasion when he would ask the goddess to accompany him to a movie, a milkshake, and wanton sexual activity upon the reclining seats of his 1960 Rambler Station Wagon. She declined, noting to Frodo that she had just accepted a date with a guy named Don, but suggested that Frodo try again later.
Leslie later married the guy named Don.
Frodo learned recently that Leslie died of breast cancer less than a year ago.
Damn. Double damn.
When Frodo again walks the cobblestones of the College of the Shire, he will have one more memory, now shared with you dear reader, why he tries to go in directions anew; afraid that ghosts walk enmasse in his footsteps.
