There's a Shark in My Hockey Pool by Dave Belisle Page A

closer to him. They
kissed. As Derek locked lips with her, he closed his eyes while his
hands quickly embarked on a double flank maneuver against her bra
strap. The bra. Brassiere. Titty bag.
Over-the-shoulder-boulder-holder. The final bastion of femininity.
It was one of those every day devices that few cultures studied
closely. The French had mastered the double-hook clasp. The
Italians fathered the famous "push & pull" mechanism. North
Americans however, had entered the game late. As teenagers they
wore blindfolds and practised the delicate art by removing their
mothers' pilfered bras from her mannequin's bust. Once mastered,
they spent the remainder of their lives in search of women who
compared favorably with the mannequin.
    Marcotte was well versed in the various signs
to watch for when attempting "the removal". A girl was playing hard
to get when she had to wheel her own bra around her body to get it
off. If she couldn't get it undone from behind, what chance did any
horny, red-blooded male have? Most men questioned the scruples of a
girl who wore a bra with the hook in the front. Too easy. Like
shooting fish in a barrel.
    Derek desperately needed one of those front
and center howitzer-hitches at this point. The Pack o' Spaniels
reminded him he couldn't master this particular bra strap. Derek
longed for Marcy ... his mother's mannequin. Marcy didn't mind when
his knuckles dug into her back when he was in the middle of an
"attempt." Marcy didn't yelp when the strap snapped back.
    Derek had been going at it for a War and
Peace-like twenty seconds. Sylvie's shoulders shifted, signaling
her hands would soon arrive as allies.
    "No, no. I can do it," he said mentally.
    Now the whole world was watching. He bit his
lip, wondering if neurosurgeons had off days like this. Perhaps ...
if they were suffering from third degree frostbite. It was a single
hook. It had to be. No, wait. Was that another hook or merely a
metal wire thrown into this tricky maze? The theme song from Final
Jeopardy had long since ended and Derek knew Sylvie would sound the
buzzer of humiliation any second. There had been a couple of
teenage dates with his mother's mannequin worthy of the Gong
Show.
    As a last resort he tried his famous
up-down-all-around, in-out-don't you-pout maneuver. It was tricky,
but dangerous. There was a fifty-fifty chance the bra would never
see the light of another cotton blouse. He wondered if it was
possible to accidentally crack a rib. Just as Sylvie uttered a sigh
... the clasp unhooked.
    Derek backed away so she could slip out of
it. He smiled at her triumphantly.
    She lowered her eyes graciously.
    "Gotta admit ... it put up one helluva
fight," he said.
    He took it from her and inspected it closely,
stopping short of taking a whiff.
    "Wow. Triple hook. I thought these went out
in the last referendum."
    They hugged and rolled off the sofa onto the
floor.
    It was 2:00 a.m. Derek lay awake, staring at
the flickers the fake fireplace cast off the ceiling. Sylvie slept
beside him, facing away. Her horizontal figure cut an
innocent-enough looking terrain. Only an hour before it had been
peaking at seven on the Richter erotic scale. It was his first
affair since he started playing house with Helen. It's not that he
didn't look at other women. If he was going to burn any bridges
however, it would be with the hottest thing around. The torch he
carried for Helen couldn't turn a marshmallow brown. The second he
buried himself in Sylvie's pair of opulent orbs, Helen became about
as significant as Jupiter's ninth moon.
    The difference between a one-night stand and
the one-to-take-home-to-Mom was that you had to get out of bed
sometime. Helen preferred him in bed -- but for all the wrong
reasons. In soda shoppe parlance, Sylvie was a double scoop of
bodacious beauty smothered in chic-intellect sauce and sprinkled
with nutty humor. Helen was the root beer float that often went
begging for a tall, dark, second straw.
    Derek struggled with it.