Like a Weed (A Tetsuko Fanfic) — Completed!

LIKE A WEED
A Tetsuko Fanfic

"Where are you going?" Dr. Eaton Green demanded.  "We still have to fill out the reports on these samples."

"Stepping out for some fresh air, sir," replied his intern.

The doctor peered at Les over his glasses.  "There's plenty of fresh air here, Mr. Safer.  Tons of it.  Plants pumping it out by the kilolitre.  It's only pure carbon monoxide if you step out." 

"Well, also, there's sunshine, too."

The doctor sneered.  "Ah yes, got to feed that melanoma.  Be silly to stay in here where it's just as sunlit with all that UV radiation filtered out."

"I'll be only an hour, sir.  If that."

Dr. Green narrowed his eyes.  "If you absolutely MUST step out, you might as well make yourself useful.  Go down to Staples and get me a pack of DVD+RWs."

"Yes, sir."

"DOCTOR.  I didn't spend five years of graduate study just to be called 'sir.'"

"Yes, doctor." 

"And I want the 25-pack.  SPINDLE pack. No jewel cases."

"Yes, doctor." Les turned to go.

"And they'd better be manufactured by an eco-friendly company in a country with proper labor and environmental laws!"

"Yes, doctor."  He got outside.

"Go STRAIGHT to Staples, and back!  I need these reports done and the guest suite ready by tonight!"

"Yes, doctor." Les opened the door to his hatchback.

Dr. Green yelled out after him, "And you take the electro-ped, not your gasburner.  And if I find convenience mart or fast food ANYTHING, it WILL hurt your final grade!  I WILL check the recycling bins!"

Breathing through his teeth, Les shut his car's door and mounted the electric moped.  But not before he sneaked out his personal stack of fresh DVDs.

****

Popping his last forkful of hash browns into his mouth, Les Safer checked his watch.  4:40 PM.  Just enough time. He hit the washroom and brushed his teeth.  Organic food was fine and all, but his body was jonesing for some cholesterol and white sugars, and Dr. Green's soy breakfast patties just weren't cutting it. 

He grimaced.  He thought ecologists and planet savers were supposed to be hang-loose, mellow-out, peacenik-1960s hippie types. Sure, Les was eco-friendly, and wanted to save the planet as much as anyone else with a conscience, but the uptight Dr. Green wasn't making organic agronomy any fun.  Shoot, just say the words "McDonald's" or "Burger King," and Les could count the veins in the doc's neck. 

Ah well.  He looked at his own pack of disks.  He'd just give them to the doc, pick up a pack later on his own time later on the lab's account, and voila.  The perfect crime.  After scrubbing away the last bit of scattered, smothered, covered, chunked, topped and capped from his mouth, he exited, paid the bill and headed out the door.  Just then a white SUV pulled into the convenience mart next door.  A head popped out the driver-side window… a cute college-age blonde with big green eyes.  "Excuse me," she asked, "Would you know where I can find Highway 25?"

"Oh, sure," Les said.  He blushed a little, she sure was pretty.  "Just pull out, turn left, and keep going until you see the four-lane going across it.  You'll see the train tracks run parallel to it."

"Great!  And Weddle Street, that's not too far on it, is it?"

"Not at all.  Just turn right onto 25, and follow it down to the Sav-Big supermarket on the corner to the right.  There'll also be a sewage treatment plant across from it, too." He pinched his nostrils shut.  "Just follow your nose."

She giggled.  "All right, thanks a lot, sweetie!"  And she rolled up the window and pulled off.

Les smiled.  Then he snapped out of it.  "Dang!  Didn't ask for her phone number!" he hissed at himself.

Then he heard murmured chuckling and guffawing.  Right near the electro-ped.  And it didn't sound up to any good. 

He spun around.  Three big local galoots were examining it.  One of them, the biggest, fattest one in a black, dirty Harley Davidson T-shirt, was bouncing up and down on the seat.  "Wonder how fast it can get to 60?" he wondered out loud.

"Wonder IF it could get to 60?" asked the short one in grey camoflauge pants.

"With your double wide butt," said the tall lanky one in bib overalls, "wonder if it could get to ONE!"

Les dashed up.  "Hey, stop!  You'll ruin the shocks!"

The three looked up.  "Hey boy!" said Fatso. "Don't you know it ain't legal to take kids' toys out on the road?"

"It's an electric moped," Les protested.  "It's street legal."

"What, you a DUI or something?" asked Shorty.

"An environmentalist." 

"Oh, one of 'em faggy tree-huggers," scoffed Lanky.  "That explains it."

Fatso folded his arms over his monstrous gut.  "You actually RODE this P.O.S. out here?  From where?"

"Industrial zone."

"Pfft.  Sh'yeah, right."

"When yew gonna get a REAL ride?" demanded Lanky. "Something that has, oh, an ENGINE?"

Les glowered.  "You guys won't have to look at it if you'll get off it and let me get outta here."

Fatso kept seated, arms folded.  Les walked up to him, not backing down.  Finally after a minute. Lanky tapped Fatso's upper arm, and jerked his head away.  Fatso shrugged… and finally stood up, swung his leg around, and spread his arm and hand out to it as if to say, "all yours." 

With that, Les sat down, put in the key, cranked up, and put it in gear.  Pressing down on the throttle, he rolled forward, and it stopped.  Squinting befuddledly, he pressed harder… and it went forward an inch… and that was it.  The motors strained.  He relaxed his grip, unconsciously shifted to neutral, and looked around and back…

…and he saw the hook on his back wheel's strut, with a rope leading back to an old rusty pickup truck's trailer hitch.  And looking back at him from the cab with a nasty grin was Shorty.  He cranked up.

"Gun it, Clyde!" Fatso shouted.

Screeeech! went the truck tires.  Before Les could unhook, the truck dragged the moped off, and him with it!  And somehow he still heard the other two's hooting, hollering, and braying laughter.  Clyde dragged him off for 4 blocks, swung a left turn to try to flick him off.  Les hung on for dear life as Clyde weaved and swerved, shaking him off the road, and letting the bike run off the shoulder and bang against some mailboxes.  Les then worked up the nerve to reach back and detatch the hook. 

While veering around, Clyde finally shook him into a busier street, and Les barely dodged getting steamrolled by an oncoming 18-wheeler.  After Les and the moped spun out and landed on their side, the black pickup sped off, with Clyde's finger pointed right at him and his guffawing echoing across the neighborhood.

****

Dr. Green stood in the doorway as a bruised Les trundled back to the lab.  "You're late," the doctor huffed.  He stared down at the scuffed-up bike.  "And what did you do to the moped?!  It looks like it's been through Iraq and back!"

"Three rednecks fiddled around with it and dragged it off when I tried to leave the … parking lot."

Dr. Green drew close and examined the back wheel.  "Did you try to run over a cinder block?!  The rim's all dented!  It's a miracle the tire didn't burst!"

"Sorry, sir, but that's not my fau–."

"That's DOCTOR to you!" He looked up at Les.  "So, do you have the disks?"

Les blinked.  "The disks?"

"You know, from Staples?"

Les cringed.  "Oh, crap!  I left them in Waffl–"  And he stopped short.

Dr. Green leaned in.  "You left them where?"

Les propped up his head with his hand.  "Waffle House.  I stopped there for a snack."

Unsmiling, the doctor turned back to walk into the lab.  "Hope you enjoyed it.  Because that's going to be one expensive treat.  The price of those disks is coming out of your living stipend."

"What?!"

"If you'd gone there and back like you were supposed to do, this wouldn't have happened."

"But those disks were from my car!  My own stash!  I never got them at Staples!" 

"No difference."

Now Les was truly angry.  "You're going to take out of my allowance something I never bought and lost in the first place!?"

Dr. Green glowered at him.  "Do you want your internship to end as an incomplete failing mark?" he said icily.

Les stared at him in incredulity.  Just then, they heard a vehicle's tires pull onto gravel.  The doctor didn't wait for his answer.  "Our guests are here.  Ready the suite, and finish the reports.  And neaten yourself up.  You look like you've been in a fistfight."

***

After taking off his shredded slacks for neater ones, cleaning the asphalt out of his lacerated calves, and putting on hydrogen peroxide and some bandages, Les finally got the readings from the plants, marked them down on the computer, and recorded the data on flash keys.  He also prepared the cots and some pillows, and the solar-powered shower.  And he set the dining table for four.  Then he went down to the doctor's office, where he heard a female talking with his boss. 

He rounded the corner.  It was a fairly young looking woman with brown wavy hair down to her shoulders, a pink, tight blouse, light blue cotton slacks.  He remembered what he was told… the best help was invisible help.  He stepped up behind the two, and simply said, "Sir, uh, Doctor, here are today's results."

They both turned around.  And at last he saw how big the woman's chest really was.  Each breast was about as big as her head.

Dr. Green cleared his throat.  On that, Les stopped staring and looked up to her face.  "Thank you, Mr. Safer, that'll be all for now," Dr. Green said patiently.

"Oh, wait, wait, wait, who's this?" the woman asked. 

Eyes on face, thought Les.  And he zeroed in on her brown eyes.  Behind those big round glasses, and with that little heart-shaped beauty mark on her right cheek, she looked quite cute.  Must be the visiting doc's assistant, he mused.

"This is my intern and assistant, Les Safer," Dr. Green said.  "Les, this is my colleague, Dr. Sonya Gannon."

Les' eyebrows shot up.  "Doctor?!" he exclaimed.

Dr. Gannon peered at him with a look.  "Surprised?"

"Well, it's just that you're so… erm… um, you look so… young."  He flushed red.  Open mouth, insert foot, he thought.  This day was getting worse and worse.

But instead of verbally gutting him, Dr. Gannon smiled. And she seemed to giggle.  "Oh, you're very kind.  I'm really a thirty-something.  Got my sheepskin in medicine and biology a while back." 

"Oh." Les felt considerably relieved.  "You do botany?"

"Skirted a little bit for pharmacy.  I was picking up some stuff from Eaton here, while testing out his prototype electric/bio-fuel hybrid SUV.  Just made the drive from Orlando all the way up here."

"Wow.  You must be tired."

"Not so bad.  I got to nap.  My girl Friday did most of the driving."

Dr. Green cleared his throat.  "They also brought some things for us to work on here, too, Les.  She's unloading it, and she's probably exhausted.  I think you should go help her."

"Oh, yes sir, I mean doctor.  I'll go do that now.  Good to meet you, Dr. Gannon."

"Please.  Call me Sonya."  She stuck out her hand, and Les gratefully shook.  And he excused himself, and ducked on out to the parking lot.

***

Les didn't like the neighborhood outdoors much.  Sure, the sewage treatment plant gave off CO2 and nitrogen, which was essential for plants, and a big help to the greenhouse, and was part of the low property value game that the industries played at tax-time.

But the smell…

He hurried over to the front of the SUV.  He saw a few boxes already out from the back, on the far side from him.

"Hi," he called out.  "I'm Les, Dr. Green's assistant.  He said you needed… help… unloading…."

And why did he trail off?  Around the corner peeked the face of the cute blonde from the convenience mart.

"Hey!" she said cheerily.  "You're the cutie from the Waffle House!  We'd've never found this place without your help!"

He looked heavenward.  "Thank You for second chances," he whispered.  Then he grinned big and went around to her.  "Glad to help out.  My name's Les and–"

And he stopped short.

The blonde was BIG.  Not fat, mind you.  But very tall.  The top of Les' head barely made it to her mouth.  She had enormous muscles.  Very broad shoulders.  Biceps the size of NFL footballs.  A bulging bodice threatening to burst her strained magenta T-shirt.  An enormous torso swooping down to a fairly narrow waist, like a goblet.  And pleasantly round, wide hips encased in blue jean cut-offs that sprouted gracefully curved, tree-thick thighs and calves.

Les was boggled.  She was 100% power and strength and 100% curved, full-figured female beauty in one enormous package.

And all that might and loveliness was smiling happily at him.

Les was enraptured, infatuated, and terrified all at the same time.

"Thank YOU," she chirped.  "My name's Tetsuko!"

To Be Continued…