Episode One

LESLEE ROSE MYLES

IN

“TIME AFTER TIME”

Nearly a million millennia later …

         …Counselor Leslee R. Myles was pleading a major intellectual property case before the nine robed figures seated on the bench of the United States Supreme Court. The legal action concerned the patent rights to a revolutionary, nano-tech, medical device known as the Cardio Event Monitor. Though worn on the wrist like a watch, the CEM had the capability of providing far more than the time of day. It could detect the onset of a heart-attack by sensing any irregular cardiac contractions or erratic electrical impulses and, with remarkable accuracy, was even able to identify and evaluate the minutest changes in the blood chemistry and vascular system. The invention had the potential of saving millions of lives by recognizing an imminent cardiac crisis, alerting the victim, and automatically contacting the appropriate Emergency Responders within the medical golden hour of maximum survivability. The CEM was also capable of activating a companion, subcutaneous, micro-miniature defibrillator to restart cardiac function if necessary. Unfortunately, the breakthrough mechanism was being withheld from the public pending the outcome of the legal proceedings and as a result, thousands of people who could have been saved had already died, and more would die needlessly. The Medibotics Corporation, a major medical supplier, initially filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the District of Central California against Roberta Seymour, the small business inventor of the CEM. The suit was based on the plaintiff’s argument that the defendant was in the company’s employ when she came up with the notion for the invention, and that she had filed fraudulently to receive the patent. The District Court found for the defendant as did the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. However, the team of Medibotics attorneys, seeking a reversal of the appeal ruling, was somehow able to convince the Supreme Court to hear the case.

Counselor Myles was confident despite the fact that the present court had been markedly unsympathetic to individual creative and discovery rights. In spite of this, even the most conservative of the justices was being swayed by her concise, restrained and unavoidably logical arguments. She asserted that though the defendant was indeed employed by the plaintiff as an accountant, her job description had nothing whatsoever to do with creating new products and that there was no contract, implied or otherwise to the contrary. She also claimed that the litigation was frivolous and should never have been heard by the highest court in the land. The justices of the Court advised that they would render a decision in due course.

It was hard to imagine that a formidable and self-assured woman like Leslee Myles had been, less than a decade earlier, a woefully insecure college student to whom mediocrity represented an upgrade. One who barely was earning a Bachelor of Anything degree and who dreaded the idea of pursuing a legal education. Her first Law School Admissions Test scores were a disaster. The sole chance she had for acceptance into law school after her fourth year at The University of Southern California was as a legacy when she graduated, hopefully, after her fifth year. However, senior year—part two, was still ahead of her, and it was at this juncture that her improbable journey began with rickety and uncertain steps.

A black SUV sat with a balcony view of the glimmering San Fernando Valley lights neatly spread out under a star-dusted Southern California sky. The gas-guzzling vehicle with the familiar cardinal and gold USC decal displayed prominently on the lower right corner of the rear window seemed out of place with the other, more environmentally-friendly hybrid and electric smooch-wagons parked at one of the highly picturesque make-out perches sprinkled along Mulholland Drive. There were a dozen or so motor chassis rockin’ and rollin’ to the strains of their teenaged occupants’ passages through the various progressions of contact amore. Though most were still chugging for first base, a daring few were digging breathlessly for the apex of home.

Inside the cargo area of the charcoal sport-utility vehicle, at least one of the entwined was whizzing around the keystone sack and heading for third. The young man, Georgie Weiss, had already succeeded in unzipping and peeling open the frilly evening gown worn by his would-be pincushion, Leslee R. Myles. Tonight Georgie had a sure thing. It was the previously negotiated quid for his quo. He agreed to be Leslee’s date for the Spring Formal if she agreed to come up here and let him get down there. Four years earlier when Leslee was a senior in high school she came to this very spot on one occasion to neck. That was limited to some light petting which didn’t do much for her hormones or her self-image. It struck her that this was an odd memory to conjure, but as Georgie boorishly pawed at her breasts she was jarred into the realization that this was not at all how, where, and with whom her first ‘go all the way’ sexual experience should take place. She expected a more conducive atmosphere; at least a three-star hotel room and a bed. However, as far as Georgie was concerned, the only atmosphere he desired would be provided by the heavy breathing which would generate a sufficient volume of score-fog to condense on and thereby obscure the outside view through the non-tinted windows.

Undeniably, things seemed to be going well from the male perspective. The auto glass was indeed beginning to steam up, although it was mainly due to Georgie panting like a Siberian snow dog in a Native American sweat lodge. On the other side of the pending penetration, Leslee was getting no joy from either the chest mauling or Georgie’s “Frenching” skills. His tongue darting in and out of her mouth reminded her of a rattlesnake she saw on a National Geographic cable show. It all came to a head the moment Georgie’s roving hand slipped under her somewhat north of sized-sixteen custom-made frock. That’s when Leslee’s second thoughts about the price she was about to pay for a little male companionship began meandering to—I don’t think so. “Uh-uh,” she murmured, but Georgie was much too aroused to notice. His libido raging in maximum seduction mode and operating exclusively on orgasmic-overdrive, he slid his hand up past Leslee’s knee and began kneading her upper leg as if he were some Food Channel Chef kneading a piece of dough. With Georgie’s tongue jabbing at her teeth and gums and his hand creeping up her inner thigh, Leslee decided it was definitely time to bail—and so she turned up the volume. “Please, no.” Once again Georgie missed the signal. By this point, Leslee’s dissatisfaction was bubbling over and so to eliminate any uncertainty her oblivious suitor might have had she blurted out, “No!” as though she were reprimanding an untrained puppy that kept failing to hit the newspaper. Georgie hesitated and then continued on with his quest for her fire.

Recognizing that a more physical approach was needed, she grabbed his hand and forcefully bent his fingers back. “Yeow!” Georgie shrieked as Leslee removed his unwanted mitt from her reception area and leveraged it out from under her gown.

Wincing, Georgie pulled his over-torqued paw from his uncooperative date’s grasp and began to shake, rub, and open and close his smarting digits in an attempt to relieve the pain. Leslee quickly took the opportunity to scramble to her knees, open the back hatch of the SUV and bolt out into the night air. Georgie continued to flex his throbbing fingers to make sure they were still functioning and then he jumped down from the tailgate behind his suddenly rebellious sex object.

“No? What do you mean no? That was our deal. Besides,” he chided, “you’ll only wind up hating yourself in the morning.”

“Don’t talk to me about hating myself. I’ve spent most of my life down that road.”

Leslee put her left arm through the corresponding shoulder strap to keep the dress from sliding down too far. “Look, I’m sorry,” she ventured, not that any apology was really warranted. “You’re acting like some love-hungry teenager following his di… his libido and you … you just can’t be the first.”

“First!” Georgie cried. His eyes lit up at the prospect. “You mean you’re still a virgin?”

“That’s not the issue,” Leslee shot back. “Maybe I don’t know how it’s supposed to be but I do know that this, she swept her hand in a wide arc to emphasize the point, “a quickie in a car with a self-absorbed asshole … is definitely not it. And besides, I thought the fluid-swapping part comes after the dance, not before.”

“Why not on both ends?” Georgie posed. “I figured we’d go to the frat house later.”

The increasing volume of Georgie and Leslee’s verbal skirmish prompted some of the other aspiring young lovers to roll down their windows and check out the source of the commotion. Noticing this, Leslee defiantly thrust her right arm through the other shoulder strap, and indignantly marched away. There would be no legends made on this night, at least not with her name attached. As she high-heeled it past the other shake-and-bake chariots, Leslee turned her undone evening gown slightly to one side to make the zipper easier to reach. “I don’t even like you,” she tossed back over her shoulder and then refocused her attention on the balky zipper which was now caught on some frill or other.

“I don’t like you either,” Georgie Weiss yapped and stepped around the rear of the vehicle in pursuit of his runaway tryst-ticket. “So what?”

In the interim, additional members of the Mulholland Climax Corps popped out of their autos to eyeball the spontaneous floor show. Leslee, now feeling embarrassment as well as humiliation, glared at Georgie.

“Actually, I think you really are a snake.” She illustrated her point by blinking her eyes and poking holes in the evening air with a rapid in and out movement of her tongue. The lipstick- smeared crowd howled in approval.

Georgie’s reaction to the obvious ridicule was predictable.“This is bullshit,” he shouted in disgust then he opened the driver’s side door, vaulted into the seat, slammed the door behind him, cranked the ignition key, jammed the stick into R and tromped down on the accelerator. The spinning wheels raised a swirl of dust as he backed up and then screeched to a stop. Next he popped the gearshift lever into 1st and peeled away in a cloud of burning rubber and floating grime.

Left flat in a billow of spewed-up road filth, surrounded by the applause, laughter and hoots from the mean-spirited onlookers, Leslee stood there mortified and wanted to crawl into a hole. She couldn’t contain herself any longer and began sobbing as she continued to tug on the uncooperative zipper, eventually managing to get it halfway up before it quit again. Finally she started trudging down the hill in a tousled, coral-pink collection of chiffon and satin. Through her tears she dug into her bag, pulled out her cell phone and pressed the voice recognition key. “Home,” she whimpered. “No, dammit, cancel.” Then she forced herself to say, “Beverly Hills Cab.” It hadn’t yet occurred to her that for the first time in her doormat life Leslee drew a line in the sand and actually stood up for herself.

Sanford Myles, a high-priced corporate attorney and senior partner in Myles, Hornwood and Rubin, was waiting in his dark-oak, wainscoted study when Leslee arrived home. The instant she came through the door of the ten-thousand-square-foot estate in the north-side flats of Beverly Hills, she was summoned over the intercom to meet her father in his lair.

Sanford was seated at his large mahogany desk in an oversized leather chair, and Leslee’s mother, Pinkie, was standing beside him when their daughter shuffled in and stopped near the doorway.

“Georgie Weiss called to see if you got home all right,” Sanford announced.

“He was afraid that your father would have him arrested if anything happened to you,” Pinkie added, then noticed the damage to the evening gown and rushed over to Leslee.

“Oh my, this is a Ms. Suzi Bren original! I thought you could wear it to your Cousin Rebecca’s wedding.” She tried to put one of the more severely out of place ruffles of fabric back where it belonged but it uncooperatively fluttered down to its previous dislocated position. Pinkie shook her head disapprovingly and sighed. “Now it’s a wreck.”

”I’m glad you’re home early,” Sanford said, not giving much thought to the fact that Leslee would have preferred not to be home so early. “I have good news. Your Uncle Mal got you a space on that Israel trip. You leave in two weeks. Oh, and by the way, I need some documents on the Lipman case proofread for tomorrow.” He slid a bulky file toward the front edge of his desk, “Neither one of your brothers can do it. Jason isn’t available and I don’t know where Elliot is.” He never knew where Elliot was—no one did. Not even Elliot.

Leslee, deflated, slumped against the hand-carved molding around the entrance to her father’s sacred sanctum. Her body language was projecting the unmistakable signs of defeat and disappointment. It wasn‘t new, she thought. Sanford and Pinkie should have seen that she’d been crying. They should have seen the distress and tried to comfort their only daughter. They didn’t—and worse, they never had. “Sure, dad, I’ll proof the work. Let me clean up and get into something less scruffy,” Leslee whispered softly, then looked back expectantly at Pinkie.

“Be careful when you take the dress off,” Pinkie cautioned. “I’ll drop it by Ms. Suzi’s in the morning. Maybe she can save it.”

Leslee opened her mouth as if to say something but instead sighed in resignation, bent her head down and with her shoulders drooping, moped away.

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