These Kisses, Part 1
By Missy SERIES: These Kisses
PARTS: Two of Three or perhaps four
RATING: R (Character death and gruesome description thereof, possible language, mature themes, heavy angst)
DISTRIBUTION: To Squeaky, LW, Kai 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. Â 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: L&L/Randy Triangle; Comfort/Tragedy
FEEDBACK: PLEASE?!
SPOILLER/SUMMARY: Laverne must make the most important decision of her life...after she passes away..
NOTES: This might be a wee bit gruesome at times, but I'm ultimately searching for a sense of beauty underneath it all.
****

"Is your place in heaven
worth giving up these kisses?"
-Tori Amos,
"Cooling"

They called Lenny to identify the body.

Carmine hadn't believed it; but it stood in black in white; after Mr. DeFazio had passed earlier in the year, Laverne had named Lenny as her next-of-kin. Carmine immediately had offered to take his place, but Lenny knew Laverne would have wanted it this way. If Shirley couldn't be there to take her home, he would.

Isolated in a barren room, its walls lined with handles, he tried to shrink down, make himself an impersonal fixture in an alien world. A door at the opposite end of the room slammed open, a sympathetic but sour face loomed before him.

"Jane Doe Number 455," The coroner said, rather than asked, as he flipped through his files, "Ah; the gang-rape victim." Lenny winced beneath the weight of the man's words. "Son, this might turn your stomach. If you can't take it, just let me know; all we need to find out is if this is your friend."

Lenny swallowed hard, nodding his head. The coroner pulled out the gray, gunmetal drawer, revealing a stiff, still, prone human form. Lenny thought to himself that it looked like a mannequin ..He had a horrible flashback to Squiggy's old magic act as the coroner drew a green blanket away from the corpse's face.

The figure beneath the sheet was no dummy. He had to hold back bile as it tried to make its way up his throat.

His beautiful Laverne lay there, her skin turning violet.

Her throat slashed from ear to ear.

"Yeah," His voice was husky, "Yeah, that's Laverne." He closed his eyes, tears flooding his face. The coroner shook his head, betraying a bit of sympathy as he covered the girl's face, walking to her foot and, changing the information on the former Jane Doe's toe tag.

"I'm sorry for your loss," said the coroner tiredly, "Though I can't say she went very peacefully, she must be in a better place now." He handed Lenny a form, ripped free from his clipboard, "You'll need these to claim her personal effects.." He droned on and on, but Lenny could only think that it was Laverne he'd just seen; Laverne, the only woman he'd ever known love for.

Now lost. Now gone.

***

Heaven wasn't what she had expected.

Years of Catholicism had informed Laverne that there would be angels to greet her when she died; a white light, clouds floating beneath her feet. Wings.

But she walked down flat, cobblestone pavement; a skirt swung about her knees. Knowing not pain, hunger, or fear, Laverne could only roam across the most beautiful beach she'd ever seen in her life.

"Ciao, Bella," She heard, in the whisper of the waves at her ankles, "Mia Bella, Bella Bambina.." Some primeval part of her brain tingled; how familiar the voice sounded, though she remained fairly certain that no woman she'd been aquatinted with ever had such a voice.

Then she saw her.

Once a day, every day, she took down her picture from whatever had served as her mantle throughout the years; the green eyes she'd inherited and the nose that marked the other half of her genetic makeup. Arms outstretched to comfort her. Softness she hadn't known, or dared to remember...

"Mamma?" She asked, trembling, as the grip held her gently.

"My little Laverne," Lipsticked mouth caressed her brow. Perfume enveloped her; only her mamma had smelled this way. "My beautiful girl," She continued softly. "Frank! Frank, our bambina's here!"

Pizza and aftershave tickled Laverne's nose and, from thin air, her Pop materialized, to stand beside her mother.

Now her tears overflowed; how the heart of her existence had been torn apart by his death two years prior... She could only smile and hold the two people who had given her life close.

"Muffin," Her father crooned, "Muffin, didja have a good life? Did you get along OK without me?"

She tried to think about her existence after her father's death. She could only remember weeks of self-destructive emptiness, culminating in a drunken night at a bar: everything after her first drink that night was a blank. She'd woken up here, on these mysterious cobbled streets, knowing for certain that she was dead.

There were no cobblestones in Calfornia.

"D'ja get married? D'ja gimmie some grandchildren?!"

"Oh, Frank, enough with the grandchildren...always, he talks about the grandchildren..." Her mother laughed, softly, "But really, bambina; how many do we have?"

Laverne laughed nervously, "Uh...I didn't live that much longer than Pop..."

Frank's eyes darkened, "I work and slave for over fifty years ta give ya life an' you go an' DIE, Muffin?!"

Laverne's mother shook her head, sighing, "You're breakin' my heart, sweetheart; breakin' it."

"But I couldn't help dyin'...I..." The blank wall came up to confront her, robbing her of speech.

"Frank, go get the Carpenter Boy..."

"Carpenter...Ah, Randy..."

"Randy's here?!" Laverne's eyes perked up instantly, all of the regret fleeing her body. It would all be worth it just to spend eternity with Randy...

She felt his presence clearly; all around her, as if she'd conjured him up. And suddenly his dear face appeared before her, and she cried out his name, feeling a long-ago embrace.

Randy stiffened beneath her touch; even now, she felt the duty in him, a steely sense of commitment lurking under the love he showed.

"Ya don't look happy to see me," She frowned.

"I'm happy, Laverne," He sighed deeply, "Mr. and Mrs. DeFazio, could you give us some time alone?"

The trepadacion on Josephine DeFazio's face disappeared with her husband's touch. Within a blink of an eye, they were gone.

"We need to talk, Laverne."

"What?" She asked, confused; "I'm dead, an' we're gonna be together now..."

"It's not that simple, Laverne..."

"But..."

He sighed deeply, "It's not that simple at all."

"What are you saying, Randy?"

"I'm saying that there are some repercussions from your dying...life-altering ones for your friends...And one in particular..."

***

Life had no meaning for him now, and, therefore, he saw no reason to change into his good shirt and meet with the press swarming all over Laurel Vista.

They hadn't found her killer, a fact that he bitterly resented; they could be anywhere. It was Fleet Week. He swallowed another mouthful of beer, feeling his head swim. A flashbulb went off above him.

"Mr. Kos.." The reporter never got to finish his name; Lenny's hands viciously constricted his windpipe, throwing him out of his apartment by the neck. Ashamed of himself, he sank to his knees in the midst of the refuse of his life. Lenny had forgotten how vicious he could be when he drank.

Tears came; bitterly, childishly, he cried, his face buried in the red jacket she'd once kindly adorned with her trademark initial. For the loss gaping within him; for her own selfishness in refusing to love him, one that would keep her safe.

If she'd married him, she would still be alive today.

To Part 2