Got More

By Shotzette

Rated R

 

 

This is only a work of fan fiction, and was written for grins and giggles not dollars and cents.  It is not intended to infringe upon anyone’s copyrights or intellectual properties.

 

 

Sequel to Missy’s “With Words”, which was a sequel to my “True Colors”.  Confused yet?

 

 

From her vantage point in the alleyway, the white clapboard structure of Saint Anne’s underneath the bright blue sky looked like something from a storybook to Laverne DeFazio’s eyes.  Not that a lot of people had read stories to her as child, she reflected as the gray utilitarian structure that had been Our Lady of Mercy Orphanage superimposed itself over the pristine vision in front of her.  “Lady of Mercy” her ass.  She guessed “Lady of We Hate Little Bastards” wouldn’t fly with the Pope.  To this day, Laverne couldn’t stand the smell of oatmeal, or the feel of rough wool scratching against her skin.  Her earliest memories were of being cold, hungry, and alone; second only to the nuns telling her that she wasn’t pretty enough, or sweet enough to get adopted.  She’d tried to ignore them, but as each first Sunday of the month slipped by, and the lucky children who were chosen by the childless couples in search of instant families happily skipped out and left to go to the loving homes that they had been promised; the voices had become louder and more insistent.

 

As the last car left the orphanage with a lucky no-longer-orphan-but-someone’s-real- kid, without fail, the angry and un-chosen children had always ganged up on the smaller ones and vented their frustration and disappointment.  Laverne had hated it when she was a small child, and had only hated a fraction less when she became big enough to be one of the ones who had done the venting.  Laverne had learned to hate Sundays with a passion.

 

Her last Sunday at the orphanage had been the cruelest of all.  A lady had come by; pale, with dark circles under her eyes, but there had been a kindness to her.  She had smiled at Laverne, and Laverne actually had smiled back, instead of favoring the woman with her usual “I hate you” scowl.  The lady, Mrs. DeFazio, had spent the afternoon talking with Laverne, and had brushed out her tangled hair and neatly braided it.    Laverne had allowed herself to relax after the few tense minutes; Mrs. DeFazio hadn’t yanked at the snarls with the comb the way the sisters did, and hadn’t scolded her for being a dirty, ungodly, little girl.  She had only laughed softly and told Laverne that she had just moved to Milwaukee from Brooklyn, and she had her husband hadn’t yet been blessed with children.

 

A blessing?  Laverne had only heard a few words to describe the children in the orphanage in her few years-- a curse, the wages of sin, God’s vengeance-- but the word blessing had never been among them.

 

She had then made her first mistake; she had allowed herself to hope.

 

She’d been all smiles as Mrs. DeFazio—Mama, she corrected herself—had told the astonished nuns that she wanted to adopt little Laverne Lorenzo; the awful little girl who had scrawled an “L” on each of her few possessions with pens and crayons so that the other children wouldn’t steal them.  A few papers had been signed, and a modest donation had been made to the orphanage, and Laverne had gleefully run back to the room that she had shared with five other girls and had gathered her things together in moments.

 

She’d been surprised when Mrs. DeFazio—Mama—had led her past the rows of shining rows of Fords and Chryslers, and down the street to the bus stop, but she hadn’t cared. She was going to her new home, with her new Mama to meet her new Papa, she had told herself.  They probably lived in a big house, where she would have her very own room-- maybe they even had a dog!

 

The apartment on Knapp Street didn’t look too bad from the outside, Laverne had later rationalized.  The building had been shabby, but it was clean.  Who needed a house with a dog anyhow?  She was finally going to have parents.

 

The gruff man, angrily re-arranging the cleaning products in his sales case, shattered her dreams.  He had looked her up and down with the face of an angry walrus before he’d asked his wife, “Whattaya mean they didn’t have any boys?”

 

Laverne had cried herself to sleep that night-- painful tears that she’d never shed with such vehemence since.  She didn’t cry that hard a year later when Mama had died trying to birth their “real” baby, Frank Jr., or when she was thirteen, and her Pop had tried to…

 

Laverne shook off the ugliness of that memory and neatly tucked it away deep inside of her as she saw the object of her quest walk out the church doors.

 

Amy Pfister was smiling and laughing with her friend Joyce Perkins as they carried boxes of leftover tulle and carnations from the church; the church that they had just finished decorating for Amy’s wedding to Lenny tomorrow morning.

 

Laverne bitterly stubbed out her cigarette against the brick wall of the alley, and dropped it to the ground to be laid to rest with its six brothers.  She scowled as she watched the two young women happily chatting and giggling as if they didn’t have a care in the world.  Her scowl was replaced with a smirk as her eyes contemptuously raked over Joyce’s form.  She and Joyce had been in the same graduating class, with Amy a few years behind them.  Her ears still burned when she remembered the night of the Spring Formal; her first real date with Lenny, or with anyone, thanks to her Pop’s outward appearances of being overprotective.  She’d had a wonderful night hanging out with Lenny and the more popular kids, until Joyce had loudly announced to one and all that Laverne’s dress was the same one that her older sister Beatrice had given to the Salvation Army; and then proved it by lifting up the hem and showing Beatrice’s telltale fruit punch stain to one and all.

 

She’d taken grim satisfaction in “persuading” Paul Baumgartner, Joyce’s steady to ditch Joyce and take her to the class Commencement party instead two months later.  It wasn’t until that night in the backseat of Paul’s father’s Dodge that Laverne had realized what true power was, and how she could use it to her advantage.

 

The two women she was watching parted ways at the corner of Knapp and Third; Joyce heading south on Third and Amy heading north, to her family’s home.  Seizing her opportunity, Laverne dashed across the street and caught up to her quarry in a few quick strides.  “Amy, wait up!”

 

Amy turned around, and Laverne saw the look of unease that flickered across the younger woman’s face before her usual, well-mannered smile took hold.  “Laverne.  How are you?”

 

“Fine,” Laverne lied.  “I just wanted to offer my congratulations and all.”

 

“Thank you,” Amy replied, before turning to walk away.

 

“So,” Laverne continued, “I guess my invite got lost in the mail, huh?”

 

“Well,” Amy hedged, looking clearly uncomfortable; “Lenny and I decided to keep the wedding small, you understand…”

 

“Of course, I do.  Lenny’s always preferred small and intimate get-togethers rather than anything involving a crowd.”

 

“Exactly,” Amy replied with a nervous smile, as she turned away again.

 

“I’m sure the church must look beautiful though, even though you put the entire shindig together in just three weeks.  Any reason for such a quick wedding date, Amy?” Laverne asked as she looked pointedly at the other woman’s flat stomach.

 

Amy stiffened almost imperceptibly.  “I really think a question like that is in poor taste, don’t you, Laverne?  I hate to be rude, but I need to go get ready for the rehearsal dinner now.  I’m sure you understand.”

 

“I didn’t mean no offense by the question, Amy.  I’m just surprised that it’s so fast and all.  I mean, Lenny just proposed to you after the ‘Salute to the Braves’ party at the Pizza Bowl, and here it is, just three weeks later, and you have everything arranged and ready to go.  I’m impressed.  Really.”

 

“Well, thank…How did you know when Lenny proposed to me?”

 

Laverne smiled like a cat that had just popped the canary between its jaws.  “He told me the very next night.  When we were up at Inspiration Point.” 

 

Amy’s lips pursed together in a way that reminded Laverne of old Miss Weitzler, the school librarian, the day that she caught Laverne giving Lenny a hand job in the stacks.  “I don’t believe you.”

 

Laverne shrugged.  “I don’t know why you shouldn’t.  Inspiration Point on a Friday night has been a tradition with me and Lenny since high school.  That Friday night was something special, though,“ Laverne said as her voice sharpened, “Lenny actually took me to dinner at Arnold’s and out dancing at Tango! Tango! Tango! before…”

 

“You’re lying!” Amy nearly spat the words at Laverne, as her cheeks flushed in anger.  “Lenny has to work late every Friday night. “

 

Laverne smirked and rolled her eyes dramatically.  “Really?  Is that what he’s been telling you?”

 

“He’s been telling me that since it’s the truth.  He’s been working overtime to earn more money.”

 

“I’m sure he has, Amy.  So I guess he’s been spending all of this overtime dough on you, hasn’t he?”  Laverne shook her head in mock pity.  “You really don’t know the guy you’re marrying, do you Amy?”

 

“I know Lenny well enough to know that he’s not cheating on me with a dirty tramp like you, Laverne DeFazio!”  Amy took a step towards Laverne as her voice rose shrilly on the empty street.  “I know that you two dated in high school, and I suppose that a man has a right to sow his wild oats, but if you think for one moment that you are going to ruin my wedding day with your lies, you’ve got another thing coming!”

 

“Have you found any little brown pearl buttons in his truck, Amy?”  The startled blink in the other woman’s eyes emboldened Laverne further, knowing that she had struck a nerve.  “You know, little brown buttons that may have come off of a sweater like this,” she said as she gestured to the sans button brown cardigan that she wore over her green blouse, “that was ripped open in a moment of oh, let’s just call it lust?”

 

Amy’s mouth opened and closed, but no words came out of it.

 

“I guess you really don’t know what Lenny’s like if your garments haven’t been ripped to shreds over the years like mine have.  Then again, he did say he’d buy me something pretty for Christmas to make up for it.”  Laverne snapped her fingers as if thunderstruck by an idea.  “Maybe that’s why he’s earning all that overtime on Friday nights!”

 

“You’re lying,” Amy repeated through clenched teeth, although her words came out as more of a plea than a statement.  “You’re jealous because you don’t have a man of your own, well,”-- she sniffed haughtily-- “for more than an hour or two anyways.” 

 

Laverne ignored the barb; she’d been called worse names by the other snotty girls in high school to let Amy’s words pierce her thick hide.  “I have a man of my own, Amy.  You just happen to be marrying him tomorrow.”

 

Amy’s jaw dropped and her eyes began to redden and fill with tears.  “What are you going to do, Laverne?  Crash my wedding and spread your filthy lies to the congregation?”

 

Laverne shook her head.  “No. I won’t show up at a wedding I ain’t invited to.  I’m just putting you on notice that I ain’t going nowhere.”

 

“Lenny is marrying me tomorrow, Laverne!  Whatever you two may have –have had in the past—is over.  Lenny chose me, not you.  That just kills you inside, doesn’t it?”

 

Laverne checked an impulse to give the blushing bride-to-be two black eyes as a wedding present.  “All I’m saying is that I ain’t got a problem sharing Lenny.  Do you?”

 

“Lenny is through with you!”

 

Laverne smiled.  “Through with me?  Two minutes ago, you said that you didn’t believe me at all, now he’s through with me?  Let me just clue you in on something, Princess, Lenny and I ain’t over, not by a long shot.”  She looked the other woman up and down dismissively.  “You’re pretty, I can see why he likes you, but do you think you can keep a man like Lenny interested for long?  I mean, once he pops your cherry—“

 

The slap startled Laverne with its suddenness and the strength behind it.  The stinging sensation caused tears to well up in her eyes, but she pressed forward, knowing that her words were wounding her rival in ways that her fists never could.  “Do you think you can keep a man like Lenny interested for long?” she repeated, “Do you think he’s going to want to come home to the same, boring, little woman night after night?  Have the same boring chitchat about housework and children night after night after night?  Do you think that he ain’t going to see me at the brewery every day?  Do you think that there ain’t a bunch of quiet little corners at Shotz where he and I can be alone together?  Places that we already have?”

 

Amy’s face paled and for a brief moment, Laverne thought the other woman would throw up right there on the street corner.  “Marry him tomorrow, Amy.  See if I care.  Like I said, I ain’t going anyplace, and as you’ve probably figured out by now, Lenny ain’t exactly the strongest man in the world when it comes to stuff like this.  Enjoy your honeymoon while it lasts,” Laverne offered as a final parting shot as she turned to walk away.

 

Amy’s cracking voice stopped her in her tracks.  “Why?  Why won’t you let him go?  You’re obviously not hurting for whatever it is people like you crave, why won’t you walk away?”

 

Laverne turned to her.  “’Cause I know him better than anyone, and he knows me better than anyone.  And,” she said with a bitter laugh, “despite that we still can’t stay away from each other.”

 

Amy’s sobs fading into the background reminded Laverne once again of unpleasant Sundays.

 

 

Her familiar concoction of milk and Pepsi for once tasted horrible to Laverne.  She poured her glass down the sink before sighing and opening the Frigidaire one more time, as if the meager combination of her half eaten can of tuna and Shirley’s orange Nehi had somehow become more appealing than they had been ten minutes earlier.  No such luck.

 

Well, she could have gone out tonight.  Barry on the loading dock had made it quite clear that a dinner at the steak joint out by the interstate was an option as long as dessert included Inspiration Point.

 

Inspiration Point, more like Heartbreak Ridge, or Flush My Heart Down the Toilet Mountain, these days.  Damn Lenny anyhow.  She and Lenny had been fine; enjoyable company at lunch at Shotz and a quick, yet satisfying fuck every Friday night.  Then he had to go propose to Amy out of the blue.  She’d never been naïve enough to think that she and Lenny could be anything more until that awful night.  Big, dumb, Polack, she thought. 

 

As if on cue, Lenny burst through her front door and stormed towards her.  Laverne opened her mouth, but he yanked her by the arm and threw her down on the couch before she could say anything.  He was atop her a moment later, painfully pinning her arms to her side.  “Why?” he croaked in a voice filled with rage, “Why did you have to go tell Amy about the two of us, you bitch?”

 

The consequences of her current vulnerability made Laverne’s scalp prickle in fear, but her hurt and anger allowed her to pushed past it.  “Are you hurting like I was the other night, Len?  If you are, that’s your answer!  Get off of me!” she hollered as she struggled to wriggle free of him.

 

His eyes took on a deadly sheen as he squeezed her upper arms and seemingly enjoyed her squeak of pain, “Do you know what she did Laverne?” he yelled in her face.  “Five minutes before I’m ready to leave for our rehearsal dinner, she calls at home and tells me that the wedding’s off!  She told both of her brothers that I screwed around on her and now they’re both ready to break both of my legs, all because of you!” he finished as he began to shake her violently.

 

“Let go of me!”  Laverne twisted under him and was finally able to free her right leg.  His grunt of pain as her kneecap collided with his nuts was disturbingly satisfying.  As he doubled over in agony, she gave him a hard shove, the scurried out from beneath him as he rolled off of the couch.

 

Breathlessly, she dashed to the other side of the couch; out of his reach, but still close enough to draw blood.  “Who fucked me at Inspiration Point knowing that he’d just proposed to another girl the night before, huh, Len?  This is your fault more than mine!”

 

“I didn’t mean to!” he whined, his sore sack causing his voice to raise an octave higher, and absurdly reminding of Laverne of him as he had been back at the orphanage; adoring, but not ruled by his glands.  “Like I told you that night, I just wanted us to have one nice night together, with dinner and dancing and stuff.”

 

His waffling made her gut roil in disgust.  “Yeah, like the stuff we usually did at Inspiration Point?  Come on, Lenny,” she goaded, “You just wanted one last piece of ass before you settled down with Boring Betty Crocker for the rest of your rotten life.”

 

“Don’t make fun of her!”

 

His defense of Amy cut her to the quick.  “Oh yeah, God forbid I say anything about Saint Amy,” Laverne retorted in sarcastic tone, more to mask her own pain than anything else.  “Little Miss I-can-wear-white-because-my-fiancé-is-getting-his-rocks-off-with-someone-else.  She’s a real prize, Len.”

 

“Amy is a nice girl, Laverne.  I’m in love with her!”  His last sentence was shrieked in an animalistic tone that made Laverne’s skin crawl.

 

“So much in love with her that you saw me every week?” Laverne asked in a singsong, mocking voice.  “That don’t sound like love to me.”

 

Lenny glared at her balefully from the other side of the couch. “How the hell would you even know what love is, Laverne?”

 

“Trust me, I know.”

 

He rolled his eyes.  “Oh yeah, I guess you’re just head over heels for Fonzie like every other dumb broad in this town.”

 

“I don’t love Fonzie, I love to fuck Fonzie.  There’s a difference, you idiot!” she snapped.

 

“Oh, okay.  It must be one of sailors, or the firemen, or the guys on the loading docks, or the…” Lenny recited as he counted off her various lovers and time fillers on his fingers.

 

The last shred of Laverne’s patience was gone.  “Get out, you big moron.”

 

“Fine!” Lenny shouted, as he strode back towards the open door, his loud voice ruining the subterfuge of their relationship for anyone within earshot.  “I’m going, and I hope I never see you again.”

 

Laverne felt tears well up in her eyes at his words, and resisted the urge to throw every cheap knick-knack that she and Shirley owned at his big, grease covered head.  “Fine, go away you big coward.  I did you a favor tonight, but you’re too stupid to see it!”

 

He was back at her side in a second, looking down at her and quivering with barely controlled violence.  “What favor?  You got my fiancée to dump me the night before our wedding, her brothers are ready to kill me, and on top of that I’ve got non-refundable honeymoon reservations for a cabin at Lake Bitefish.  Don’t do me no more favors, DeFazio!  Ever!”

 

Anger rose up in Laverne.  “I saved you from marrying a stranger, Len.  She didn’t know you at all.”

 

“That ain’t for you to decide.” he replied, ice in his tone.

 

Laverne’s eyes widened in disbelief.  “You decided!  You told me that night at Inspiration Point that if you thought I’d have said yes, you would have asked me instead.” 

 

“That was a mistake,” he replied, ice in his tone.

 

Laverne gasped, and flinched back as if struck.  “Don’t say that.”

 

He sneered and looked down on her in a way that reminded her of all the popular boys in high school who thought she was beneath them, until she proved them wrong in garage-fulls of back seats.  “I was trying to let you down easy, Laverne.  You know, toss the dog a bone.”

 

Her jaw quivered, and the harsh tears of three weeks ago threatened to reappear.  “I don’t believe you.”

 

“You should.  Why would I ever want to marry you, Laverne?”

 

“Because I’m pregnant.”  The words tumbled out of her mouth so quickly that Laverne could barely understand them herself.  Lenny’s face going from pale contempt to ashen disbelief told her that he understood every syllable.

 

He shook his head.  “It ain’t mine.”

 

“It is.”

 

He looked away from her briefly, and when he turned back, there was a hint of fear under the anger in his blue eyes.  “Why should I believe you?  How many other guys have you been out with in the last month?”

 

“A lot,” she admitted, and then, looking him straight in the eye, added, “but head can’t knock you up.”

 

“It ain’t mine,” he repeated stubbornly.

 

“Quit saying that because it is.”  His look of disdain infuriated her.  “If it wasn’t yours, I wouldn’t be having it at all.”

 

“Huh?  Laverne…”

 

“There’s a guy on the corner of Third and Main on Tuesdays who could take care of it for me for sixty bucks.” 

 

“Yeah, right,” he sneered.

 

She shook her head.  “It’s the truth.”  At his shocked look, she continued, feeling a small flicker of triumph that she’d gotten past his feigned indifference “It was last January.  It was either Fonzie’s or this guy that I met at Max Shotz’s birthday party.  It don’t matter no more.” She shrugged as she once again tucked away another unpleasant memory.

 

He sat down on the edge of the couch, his blue eyes staring unfocusedly.  “This isn’t happening.”

 

“It is, Len.”  She snapped, and then added softly, “The rabbit died earlier this week.”

 

Lenny buried his face in his hands.  “Oh my god...”

 

“Well?”  She prompted.

 

He looked at her like she’d lost her mind.  “Well what?’

 

“Aren’t you gonna propose?”

 

He blinked at her in disbelief.  “You got one helluva nerve.”

 

Laverne smirked.  “Yeah, tell me something I don’t know.”

 

Lenny looked around the room, like he was still trying to make sense of the events of the day.  “So you were…y’know, when we was at Inspiration Point?””

 

She gulped and nodded.  “The word is ‘pregnant’, Len.  Yeah.  I figure it must have happened that time in the break room, when everyone else was at that assembly about workplace hygiene…”

 

A quick grin flashed across Lenny’s pale face.  “Yeah, you wanted to help me with a busted zipper…

 

Laverne smiled and drew closer to him.  “Well, it was busted by the time I was finished with it, wasn’t it?”

 

The smile faded from his face.  “I hate you for what you did to Amy,” he said in a flat, disapproving tone.

 

Laverne shook her head.  “That’s okay.“  And, oddly it was.  She was in trouble and the father-to-be looked more likely to give her a shiner than an engagement ring.  She should be running for the hills, or at least the corner of Third and Main with the emergency bills that Shirley kept in the Bible she’d swiped from the Hidey-Ho Motel, but she wasn’t.  The world was topsy-turvy, her future was spiraling the drain, but it didn’t matter.  Not as long as he stayed, she thought as she felt her body starting to react to the energy from his anger, his passion.

 

“You’re crazy,” Lenny said, but didn’t move on iota away from her.

 

“Do you really think you would have stayed away from me, Len,” she purred, knowing deep down what his answer would be, no matter what his words would tell her.

 

“I was getting married,” he protested.

 

“You’re you.”  The statement hung flatly in the tiny, cluttered apartment.

 

He drew back from her and his thick lips twisted into a frown.  “That ain’t nice.”

 

“And I’m me,” Laverne quickly replied.  “I don’t expect you to be perfect; just don’t expect me to be perfect either.”

 

He grabbed her wrist quickly, in a grip that always left her bruised, and his eyes narrowed.  “Stepping out on me already, DeFazio?”

 

The rough sensation of his grabbing her made Laverne inhale sharply.  With a dirty smile, she moved even closer to him, pressing up against him until she could feel his heat through her heavy chenille bathrobe.  “Not if I don’t got a reason,” she whispered huskily against his neck, punctuating her sentence with a sharper love bite than usual.

 

Lenny grunted and then abruptly shoved her forcefully back into the wall of the hallway outside of her bedroom.  “How about I don’t give you reasons, and you don’t give me reasons,” he asked, as his hand slipped through the opening of her robe and began to touch her in a rude way that would have earned him a slap across the face from any other woman.

 

Laverne groaned as she clamped her thighs around his and began to move in a rhythm that was unmistakable.

 

Lenny drew his head back away from her, blue eyes manic with a thousand warring emotions.  “I loved her.”

 

Laverne smiled, his words no longer able to hurt her as she pushed her body against his hands, hungry for more sensation.  “Who needs love?  We got more,” she breathed as her robe hit the floor.

 

FIN