The title of this chapter comes from the season 10 premiere, in which Phoebe finds out that Mike has a girlfriend. Phoebe herself admits that Mike is a "wank", yet she stays with him anyway! It infuriated me that he had gone from being merely a boring guy to being an outright liar and cheater, but she didn't care. That incident sealed my hatred for Mike and my loss of respect for Phoebe.

If you don't remember, in chapters 5-6 of this story, I had David stay an extra couple of nights in Barbados and Mike argued with Phoebe about that. Thus, Mike never told Phoebe about his girlfriend on the plane ride home, as in the episode. So now, let's resolve the cliffhanger from chapter 9...

Phoebe shook Mike awake and demanded an explanation. "Your girlfriend just called your cell phone! What girlfriend?"

"What?" Mike was shocked, but then he sat up and realized who she meant. "Oh no!"

"You're damn right, 'Oh no!' Who is this girl?" She threw his cell phone at him.

He ducked the phone, then rushed to apologize. "N-nobody, Phoebe. Nobody! It's all a big mistake. That's just my ex-girlfriend. My ex, I swear! I can't believe she's still calling me and claiming that we're still together. I'm sorry. I'm really sorry."

"Oh. I see." Phoebe calmed down at last. She could certainly understand how hard it was to let go of an ex, especially with her feelings of jealousy about David. "Well, um, all right. So why didn't you tell me about this before, Mike? It's not exactly reassuring to get a call like that out of the blue."

"I know, and I'm sorry. I just thought it wasn't worth mentioning. I've been trying to get my cell phone number changed, but it hasn't gone through yet, and I was also kind of hoping that by now Precious would just accept things and move on--"

"Precious?" She wrinkled her nose in disbelief.

Mike nodded and looked slightly embarrassed. "Yeah, that's her name."

Phoebe didn't know whether to laugh or comment on the cruelty of parents who would name their child Precious. She shrugged and said, "Okay, fine. But what are you gonna do about her then?"

"Um, I guess I'll try to dump her again, but if she still won't leave me alone, I may have to get a restraining order against her."

Phoebe chuckled and patted his head patronizingly. "Oh Mike! Thinking just like a lawyer."

"Why? What would you do?"

"Well I'd go to a psychic and put a curse on her. Yeah, maybe some kind of amnesia spell so that she'll forget your name and phone number."

Mike laughed at her amusingly quirky beliefs. "Better include the names and phone numbers of my siblings and parents too. They've told me that she's been harassing them lately too."

"Oh, she knows your family too?"

He nodded. "Yeah, um, I actually met her through my sister, and I've brought her to dinner with my parents a couple of times. Kinda hard not to, when we were dating for three months."

"Three months?" Phoebe asked. "Whoa, that's a long rebound relationship. Hey, wait a minute! You and me were broken up from, like, February to May. Did you start dating her, like, the day after we broke up? Or even the day after we had bonus sex?"

"No, no, it wasn't like that, Phoebe. You see, my parents were really pressuring me to go out with some rich socialite girls that they knew, and I was trying to dodge them by going on a blind date that my sister set up for me. Going out with Precious was just convenient for a while, and I wasn't really over you." He squeezed Phoebe's hand and smiled. "She's blond, just like you, and she was so cute and quirky too. It was like having a Phoebe-patch."

Apparently he thought that this was some kind of flattery, so she dismissed the creepiness and put a positive spin on it. "So, um, it's like when I was an Ursula-patch for Joey, and for Ursula's stalker Malcolm."

"Sure. Only I didn't get over you after all. That's why I came to Barbados when Monica called me."

"I see. Well, did this girlfriend of yours know that she was just a Phoebe-patch? And for three months?" It still seemed like a long time to Phoebe. After all, she had been dating Mike for five months before their breakup, and at that point, they were going to move in together.

Mike said, "Well, I did warn Precious that you were the love of my life, and I was on the rebound, but she seemed okay with it. She said that everybody has baggage, and at least it wasn't as scary as what I had with my ex-wife."

"Huh, that actually sounds rather sensible and healthy," Phoebe mused. "I guess this girl only turned crazy and stalkery after you dumped her."

Mike nodded and sighed. "Yeah, she thought by that time that we were getting serious, and it came as a shock when I broke up with her." He shook his head with regret. "Precious just took it really hard, especially since it was her birthday."

"Her birthday? You should have waited until a better time to dump her. Maybe then she wouldn't have gone nuts."

"Normally I would have waited, Phoebe, but I thought I better end it right then, before my date with you."

Phoebe stared at him. "What?"

"You know, that was the night after we came back from Barbados."

"Wait, wait! After Barbados? You broke up with her AFTER Barbados? You mean you were still seeing her up to and including that Barbados trip?"

Mike could sense that she was getting upset, so he explained, "I didn't know before I got to Barbados whether you'd take me back or stay with David. And then when you did take me back, I couldn't exactly dump Precious over the phone from Barbados. That would be just as bad as dumping her on her birthday."

"I know!" Phoebe kept glaring at him. "I get that. But why didn't you tell me that you had a girlfriend back then? How come you didn't let me know that, technically, you were cheating on her with me?"

He shrugged, not seeing her point. "I don't know. I just forgot about her, Phoebe. I was just so happy that you picked me and weren't gonna marry that scientist guy. Everything was crazy then, you know? I went to Barbados without thinking, without a ring or a plan or anything."

"But you should have told me, Mike! You could have told me at dinner when we first got back together, or in bed that night, or the next day during the ping-pong tournament, or the next night, or any time since then. But no, you don't tell me about this until almost two weeks later when she's stalking you by phone!"

"I'm sorry! I-I thought it would spoil the mood in Barbados, and I wanted to enjoy our romantic weekend."

"The romantic weekend was already spoiled when I let David stay in our room instead of sending him to bunk with Ross. You complained about that, too. 'It's not healthy to let an ex linger around like this,' you said. 'It should be a clean break,' you said. You hypocrite!"

"I'm not a hypocrite! Precious wasn't my ex yet. Come on, it's not like I lied to you, Phoebe. I just didn't tell you because it wasn't important; it was a moot point. I was going to break up with Precious as soon as I got home from Barbados, and I did that."

She remained furious. "You--you lawyers with your smooth talk and your legal terms! If you don't tell me something, it's just as bad as lying to me. And you did worse to that poor Precious girl, who--who probably flipped her lid because you used her, cheated on her, and dumped her on her birthday."

"Phoebe!"

"Shut up! You're just a lying bastard and a cheater! No wonder your ex-wife divorced you and got all freaky too! I never wanna see you again! How's that for a clean break?"

She then ran out the front door and slammed it, intending to go find David and apologize to him. As for Mike, maybe she would ask her friend Silvie how to curse a guy and "turn his thingy green."

Mike just sat there stunned and rejected, wondering how everything had unraveled so quickly and suddenly. He looked around the apartment sadly, then he muttered to himself, "So I guess I'm moving out again."