Hope and Joy - Act 01 Scene 02

Author's note -- To Hopeless Romantic, I loved your note and your ideas -- And yes I think I can work your ideas in as a crisis further down the road. If you are not an editor, you should consider becoming one. Continuity Checkers are hard to find and given my writing is come back theory for a stroke jumbled mind, I could use someone of your ilk. Thanks.

Oh and ALL the actors in this play are of consensual age and consenting to the events herein described.

RECAP: Feeling lost and alone, Jessie finds himself staring into the face of a Vietnamese American who is the splitting image of a Saigon street walker who introduced him to the joys of sex. Coincidentally Hope, his look alike visitor, is looking to get laid, but neither he nor she knows how to make the first move. Scene 2 opens up with Joy, Hope's best buddy reviewing the situation.

== bff's forever ==

Joy looked over the sprawl of books littering her bed. She could do better things atop a bed than organize her school work, but as yet a guy man enough to do it was wanting. Picking up her Tarot cards she idly shuffled them. She considered laying out a spread, but knew it was bad form to read your own future. She knew the shuffling was a nervous habit, but it kept her from lighting up a cool one. A cig, a doobie, a shot glass, no diff -- something tangible to cool her racing mind. She hated it all and herself for it. Needy people were weak. "Fuck," she snarled at the textbooks. Why were women forever destined to hold lesser positions under men. It taken everything her mom had to work up to floor nurse. "Fuck!"

She looked to the other bed and wondered how Hope and Harry were progressing. Can collecting of all things. What with the crashed economy the CEOs were using the opportunity to ask more and pay less of their employees. And the banks, well they were too frightened to lend out money. At the top millionaires were now billionaires and the young were out begging for ten cent cans. Ten years of schooling and twenty years of nursing her mother was about to take her second pay cut. Joy knew it was bad because she heard the crying through the walls. She also knew of the handouts her mother took from the men who shared her bed.

She shuffled the cards again before fanning them face up. There they were - the Magician and the Hermit. Joy wanted to believe this man was out there because he would help her best friend escape this trap. He had to be out there, the cards said so and the cards never lied.

There was of course the big lie, just as Mom used her body to entice handouts from her men, Joy would use her body to enslave this man for Hope. But what was there to ensure Joy's future once she completed this task the cards would not say. "Fuck!, she repeated.

Two garage bags full of cans, who'd of guessed it. Not Harry and certainly not Hope. The driver allowed them and the bags on the bus only after Hope laid their storied lie about a School Band. "Okay," the driver gruffly answered.

Once seated Hope went back to thinking about the old guy in the red brick house. Was she really thinking to return? What if she misread him? What if all he really wanted was a housekeeper, not a bed bunny? And what if he was too old to get it up -- what then? Those and a hundred other questions were plaguing her mind.

But for they were sitting on a crowded bus, Hope would have plunged a hand in deep between her thighs for five finger relief. Checking the time once more she calculated it would be another twenty before Joy left the lecture hall and twenty more before the two could talk. Patience, Hope counseled herself.

Back at the brick house Jessie was pacing the floor and quietly cursing. He couldn't believe he didn't get her name or number, or schedule a time for their next meet. "What an idiot you are," he grumphed. "You let her get away." Jessie paced faster as the self doubts continued piling up. 'What do you know about love,' he asked himself, 'or young girls? .... Nothing, you're an idiot.' With that he sagged tiredly into his reading chair, closed his eyes and passed out.

"Don't wait up, Mom," Joy called out to her mother. She and Hope had spent a solid hour talking it out. They decided it was now or never. "We've got to close the deal while the deal's still hot," Joy explained. "And you my dear are hot to trot. I can see it in your eyes."

"Where to," her mother called back.

"Dancing," Joy lied. "Not to worry, I'm taking Hope along. Safety in numbers and all that."

"Well give me a holler if you're delayed and be good."

"Always mom," Joy shivered. From what she heard through the apartment walls made it obvious her mother was marvelous lover. A sexual novice, Joy was banking on her body to pull her through. What man wouldn't want a babe like her in his bed.

Two blocks down, eight to go, Joy pulled a doobie loose from her low cut bra. "This should get us in the mood." Digging out a lighter she sheltered the doobie from the wind, flicked her Bic and took a toke, then two more before passing it on. Hope in turn took two tokes and passed it back. The next thing they knew they were standing before the infamous red brick house.

"Looks awful dark," Hope whispered. "What if he called it a night."

"Works for me," Joy giggled. "Let's join him."

"How stoned are you?"

"A lot," Joy giggled again. Always the lightweight, Hope let Joy solo the last third of the joint.

"Ta, ta, da Dah." Jessie eyes flicked open at the unexpected sound of door chimes. The second ring brought him to his feet and the third stumbling toward the door.

"Can I help you," he asked of the dark girl standing on his porch. Even half asleep Jessie could tell this ebony hued female was a looker. The question being, was she a hooker. Every now and then guys would strand the girls after they were done. Dumbing them off instead of paying them off. They'd knock, asking where they were and if they could use the phone. Now and then Jessie had used them, setting them on their way come the dawn.

"It's me," Hope announced, pushing past her stoned out friend. I brought Joy with me, as we discussed."

Jessie smiled warmly. This wasn't want he expected. The girl arriving after dark with an ebony beauty in tow. "Come in," he said, buzzing open the security screen.

"Can I get you something," Jessie asked once the three of them were settled.

"Tequila," Joy blurted out.

"A rum and coke would be nice," Hope added.

"Are you legal," Jessie asked, still thinking like a teacher.

"Sure thing, honey," Joy gave him a toothy smile only a black could pull off.

Hope's smile was more forced. MJ and Tequilla, Joy was going to eat this guy alive.

"So are you both attending the college," Jessie asked, making small talk.

"Yes," Hope jumped in. "We're filling our electives on the cheap. What we really want is the RN program up at State."

"I used to teach there," Jessie muttered loading the drinks atop a tray.

Joy took hers down in one quick gulp while Hope sipped hers more sedately. Getting up, Joy strolled over to the wet bar, refilled her glass and likewise downed it. Fucking hell, Jessie groaned at the sight of her long strong legs. He had an admitted weak spot for long legged ladies. Jessie guessed Joy to be six foot tall. Her heels put her half a head taller than him.

"Do you have boyfriends," he asked, not sure what to ask. With the hookers the only question needed was, How much for how long?

"Just dating, what with school work and all," Hope answered.

"Are you straight," Jessie blurted out, instantly regretting his lack of tact.

"As an arrow," Joy smiled. "How about you," she asked in turn, "do you like girls -- young girls?"

Game on, Jessie thought. "I liked them well enough when I was young. Kind of fell out the habit when I got married."

"Fuck this shit," Joy snorted strolling forcefully back across the room. "We are three consenting adults and at least two of us are thinking to get laid. How about you, mister Jessie, are you thinking to get laid?"

Hope was flabbergasted, "What happened to the soft seduction," she asked her friend.

"No need, honey, mister Jessie is seriously fixated on you. He's not into big breasted babes? You can see it in his eyes." Hope continued staring at her friend. "Mister Jessie, would you like to take Hope out for test ride? Say twice around the bed and once through the shower? She may be small, but she corners well."

Elbow on his knee, he cupped his chin in the raised -- a variation on the Thinker statue. When he finally spoke it was Joy he addressed. "You know, you really are a piece of work. You've got a gorgeous body and wicked tongue -- both of which I find appealing. But you're right, it is your friend I want to fuck." Standing up he walked over to Hope's side. "Hope, I am glad you came back because I want to make love to you every day and every night for the next hundred years."