Pretty Paper
Part Six
By Missy

SERIES: Pretty Paper
PART: 6 of About 12
RATING: R (Adult themes and materials, violent material)
PAIRING(s): Rhonda/Squiggy; Lenny/Laverne; Eddie Izzard/Shirley (Hold the questions a bit, just hold onto them ;-)
DISTRIBUTION: To LW, Kai, Myself and FG so far; any other archives are welcome to ask, but disclaimers must be included, my email left intact. send a URL, and provide full disclaimers as well as credit me fully. Please inform me if you are going to submit my work to any sort of search engine. Please do not submit my work to a search engine that picks out random sets of words and uses them as key words, such as "Google"

Please contact me in order for this story to be placed on an archive, or if you want know of a friend who would enjoy my works, please email me their address and I will mail them the stories, expressly for the purpose of link trading. MiSTiers are welcomed! Please do inform me that you'd like to do the MiSTing, however, and send me a copy of the finished product. I'd also love to archive any MiSTings that are made of my work!
CATEGORY: Drama
FEEDBACK: PLEASE?!
SETTING IN TIMELINE: Post-Playing The Roxie. AU cannon after that.
SPOILLER/SUMMARY: Squiggy's Lodge gives him a birthday gift that he'll never forget, while Laverne and Lenny meet a man whose unusual behavior makes an impression on Shirley.
NOTES: Started a week before Chesyre's birthday. Squiggy as a hero is so rarely done.

The idea of strippers being raffled off to members of a lodge or fraternity is possibly an urban legend, but I got it from the painfully antiquated "Things You Always Wanted To Know About Sex But Were Afraid to Ask". Be happy I edited out the part about the donkey ;-)


Eddie Izzard is a cross-dressing British comedian. I am not transporting him to the '50's through some magical timewarp, nor is the overtly AU or Magicfic. Instead I've composited a lot of Eddie's RL behavior and attitudes and stuff from his routines and placed him within the '50's backdrop of repressive Milwaukee. So it's sort of RP AU fic. No snideness. Send me questions if you have them. In the words of Mister Izzard: "Good, I hope you're coming along with this".

This fic was beta-tested by Ande, for your protection!

***

For Cheshyre,
On the occasion of her birthday,
For forgiving me for starting that whole Matt/Jeff Hardy incest ball rolling.

****

Squiggy tilted away from Rhonda's lips, his eyes a dazed mask of shock. "Wow."

She smiled, leaning away from him and placing a slice of the pizza between her lips. "I'm practiced."

"Ain't that." He said, reaching for his beer. "No girl ever kissed me like that before."

She shrugged. "I guess I'm grateful to you."

"Oh." He said quietly. He looked as though someone had slapped him across the face. But conviction suddenly overtook him. "No. I'm tellin' ya; it wasn't like with other girls."

Irritation expressed itself. "Just how many other girls have you been with, Squiggy?"

Squiggy huffed, sitting up straight in his chair. "Howda you know anything, Miss Rhonda Lee? It just so happens that I was a stud before I met ya! A sheik!"

"That why you almost came in your pants at the party?"

"WOMAN!"

His tone made her shrink backward, regret coming to him at the stricken expression she wore.

"I didn't wanna scare ya. There are some things ya don't ask a guy..."

"Oh, I know too well what to ask and what not to ask a guy." She sniffed. "My break is over."

She ditched him at the table, but he did not move.

***

Shirley stared at the face in the mirror. Frowning, she brushed the edges of the crepe mustache; it tickled, and it certainly didn't make her look like a man, at least in her opinion.

Eddie's suit added to the illusion, if only to cover up her bust and petite figure. It ended up giving her more of a boxy appearance, his old-fashioned bowler hat covering her pixieish hair. She straightened his vest.

"I look like my father." She laughed to herself. "No...I look like Eddie's father."

A knock at the door disrupted her self-mocking. Standing there was Eddie, in an impeccable black cocktail dress, flawless makeup.

They looked at one another and just smirked.

"You look like my dad."

"You look like a friend of my mother's." She admitted. He seemed a little insulted.

"Tosh. The salesman told me I looked like Mia Farrow."

"The girl from Payton Place?"

"The same!" He gently pushed past her and into the living room. "Perhaps I should carry the money tonight. It wouldn't do for you to carry a purse."

She shrugged. "I could carry the money in my pocket..." She found her purse on the counter and began to rifle through it, two passes with increasing alarm. "Oh no!" She ran behind the counter and searched for her phone book. She pulled out a slip of white paper. "IO Shirl one dollar." She slammed the book closed. "Laverne DeFazio is dead meat!"

"Well, our goose is cooked; I'm out of cash as of today." Shirley let out a tearful sob. "Now, now; I'm sure we could eat here comfortably."

"All I have is frozen fishsticks and Shotz." Shirley sounded truly distraught.

"A fine meal. You put the fishsticks in and I'll light some candles."

***

Laverne watched Lenny's expression carefully as their lips parted. He blinked back at her, clearly as stunned as she was.

"I thought ya didn't want this." He said, trying to keep his voice even.

"I thought I didn't." She admitted. She had kissed him simply to make him feel better.

He closed his eyes, turned from her. "I just want someone ta hear."

"Hear?"

"Hear me. No one ever listens to me. You, Squiggy, no one. Ever."

"Okay, Len. What do ya want?"

He reached forward, pulling himself closer to her and kissing him. This one seemed as natural as the last; she fought less. When it ended, he turned his head, somewhat ashamed of himself. "I ask ya ta listen and I stick my tongue in yer mouth."

"I'm used ta it from ya." His face showed a quiet sense of repose. "I don't wanna be alone, Laverne."

"Yer never alone."

"I'm always alone."

She took his hand in his. "Want me to show you how?"

How not to be alone? He didn't understand what she meant. He'd always been the Lone Wolf, ever since his mom walked out on him and his sister moved out. From the age of seven, he'd been the one to take care of his dad. Even as much as he had depended on Squiggy, there had been a lonely otherness inside of himself that he hadn't been able to excise.

He felt her tug him to his feet. "What're you doin'?"

"Takin' you to your place." He gave her a strange look. "Shirley and Eddie're gonna be in ours."

"How'dya know?"

"Cause of this." She snapped a one-dollar bill out of her pocket.

***

While the fishsticks cooked, Shirley and Eddie had broken into the Shotz. By the first bottle, Shirley had such a buzz that Eddie had judiciously switched her to water...at least until his buzz matched her own.

The fishticks were soon consumed with a side of frozen French fries and ketchup. With candles melting down the side of old Chianti bottles that came from Laverne's pop - only fair, Shirley had decided since Laverne had taken her last dollar - they went in search of suitable music for the night.

Eddie discovered a pile of girl group 45's that Shirley had saved for only her most romantic dates. The Shirelles began to sing, and Eddie held his arms out.

"Dance with me."

It was an unusually commanding request for a guy like him. Shirley found she fit snugly into his embrace. The dance wasn't anything more than the gentle sway of their bodies brushing.

He pushed a palm between their chests. "This is heading somewhere."

"Of course."

"You're ready for that?"

Her eyes were starry. "This has been one of the nicest evenings of my life. It wouldn't be bad to extend it."

"I have a feeling you've never done this before."

She frowned. "You're spoiling the mood."

"Ahah. Do you really want your first time to be with a sailor on shore leave?"

"Eddie, if you don't know that I'm nuts about you by now, you're blind."

That confession certainly took him by surprise. "Oh dear."

"And if you don't feel the same way, we should stop right now."

He didn't stop.

"Okay." She kissed him, earnestly. When they parted, both wore expressions molded of pure emotion.

"I would be honored to be your first, Madame."

It was precisely the sort of romantic thing Shirley wanted to hear. It almost made up for the lack of a rose-spattered bed and a warm crackling fire.

"One more thing." She slurred.

"Oh, yes." He reached across and peeled the mustache from her upper lip.

"Not that." She gently rubbed the shadow lining his eyelids, the coral red tinting his mouth, until her fingers were loaded with makeup but his face was nude of all gilding.

"Fair enough." He smirked.

And tossed her over his shoulder, carrying her to the bedroom.

***

"Last Round!"

The sailors yelled their disappointment, but they were shepherded out of the Pizza Bowl and to the curb. That was good enough for Frank DeFazio. He huffed a relieved breath, upturning every chair in the place.

Except for the one Squiggy filled.

"Come on, Squiggy, get up."

"I ain't goin' til Rhonda comes back."

"Rhonda went home three hours ago!"

Squiggy frowned. "Huh?"

"She went out the back for a cigarette." Panic crossed Frank's face. "She didn't come back."

"Call the cops, Mister DeFazio." Squiggy darted out the kitchen entrance.

And in the alley, he found a sight that would make any thoughtful human being gag.

Rhonda, lying bloody on the ground, her stockings torn, her right breast exposed.

And a trenchcoated, swarthy-faced man lying on top of her, his fedora soaking in a pool of cauterizing blood.

One of them was breathing but the other, quite clearly, was not.


TBC

Chapter 5
Chapter 7