Chapter 1: Chemo
"The both of them?" exclaimed Ghost, incredulously.
"Yup." Chemo sank back in the chair and put his feet up on the coffee table. He grinned back at Ghost with the smug smile of the sexually satisfied.
In the lounge of the Task Force's housing, a vital post-mortem was in progress. The night before had been Roach's thirtieth birthday, and this had been marked with a night of raucous celebration. Roach now lay on the sofa beside them, in pretty much the same position as Ghost had deposited him, comatose, the night before when they had staggered home. He was covered in a blanket and the only reason that they knew he was still alive were the intermittent groans of apparent ultimate suffering.
Ghost had last seen Chemo perched on a bar stool, sandwiched between two gorgeous students who had been lucky or unlucky enough to have been sitting at the bar when the team burst through its doors, singing loudly and incoherently. He remembered that they had been tall, black and mostly made of lithe, toned legs, which should have, in Ghost's opinion put them out of the league of the ugly bastards on the Task Force, especially Chemo.
"How do you do it?" he asked, exasperated. According to Chemo, the girls had shared a hotel room and had keenly extended this arrangement to include him.
"What can I say, man? The ladies love me. Good looks-"
"My arse!"
"Charm."
"Charm?" Ghost spluttered. "Give over! Getting hit on the head with a brick's more charming than you." He scowled jealously into his tea.
"What are you two chatting about?" MacTavish appeared behind them. He was halfway through a bacon roll. When he spoke, crumbs erupted.
"How women find me irresistible." Replied Chemo.
"And I think it's bollocks!" snapped Ghost.
"You are not wrong." Replied MacTavish. He lifted the blanket and watched Roach curl away from the light, groaning. He laughed.
"What?" said Ghost.
"It's my balls." Replied Chemo.
"What the bloody hell are you talking about?"
"Oh? You've not heard this story?" MacTavish dropped the blanket back over Roach and sat down on the edge of the table.
"No. What story?" Ghost looked between them, confused.
"I had cancer." Said Chemo.
"Really? When?"
"Oh. When I was younger. One day, I was just whacking it off and then I noticed this big-ass lump on one of my boys."
Ghost hooted with laughter. Chemo gave him a look. "Sorry." He stopped.
"Anyway, it turned out to be cancer. So they had to chop it out."
"So you've only got one bollock?" said Ghost.
"Not quite. In order to balance things back out, they put in a prosthetic."
"A fake bollock?" Ghost's brow furrowed as he tried to imagine what this would look like.
"In less eloquent terms: yes."
"And this gets you women how?"
"Oh, you know. They love a sob story. So I just work it into the conversation. Tell them all about the emotional agony and when they're hooked I just drop in about the prosthetic and then -this is the kicker- they ask if you can tell which one is which and I merely offer them the chance to find out."
"You're joking." Ghost stared, open mouthed, at this revelation.
"True story, bro. Every damn time. Always curious, always want to prove to you that they're smart."
"And they go for it?"
"Most times. Some of them even pop the question straight off; ask if they can get a feel." Chemo took a sip of coffee.
"You sly bastard!" Ghost thumped the table with his fist and laughed. A thought struck him. "Do they get it right?"
Chemo rocked his head from side to side. "Sometimes."
"How hard can it be?" Ghost shrugged.
"You want to find out?"
Ghost snorted. "In your dreams."