This is the second and final excerpt from a trashy romance novel by Antonio Winnebago. We continue the story of Lilah and her boyfriend Joss. Here’s what happened in last month’s steamy episode:

Lilah admires the thick pelt of virile black fur on Joss’ chest, but when Joss starts shedding chest hair all over the house, Lilah wonders if it’s worth all the trouble.

Joss, suffering from performance anxiety, buys Lilah a bag full of adult toys.

Lilah moves in with Joss, and Joss develops a nervous twitch.

Joss and Lilah’s relationship suffers a setback when Lilah questions why Joss’ white teeth are so beautiful, except for the two crooked ones on the bottom.

Now, Part II:

Touching Joss’ beautiful, dark skin was intoxicating – it was a bronze color, honed by years of dedication – endless hours spent in tanning booths. But Lilah had recently noticed that his beautiful, dark skin was beginning to take on the feel of dried leather.

It was obvious that Joss had pushed tanning technology to its very limits. Maybe it was time to back off the tanning booths for a while. His face was beginning to take on a strong resemblance to Clint Eastwood.

But Joss was a man of extremes – never satisfied, always pushing himself to the limits. His dentist – who by this time had taken to wearing protective, polarized safety glasses to cut the glare from Joss’ teeth – had warned Joss that the repeated and prolonged whitening treatments were beginning to wear his teeth dangerously thin.

Joss didn’t know the meaning of the word “fear” when it came to his looks – it was always: “I know you can make them whiter, Doc! We’re not there yet! I can feel it! Crank it up another notch!”

Lilah often wondered if Joss’ brash, often cocky manner came naturally – because of his good looks – or whether he was just overcompensating for his “birth defect.”

For better or for worse, that brashness and cockiness had slowly disappeared since the day they met. His confident manner had been replaced by a sullen melancholy. And it was all Lilah’s fault!

Her first mistake was when she had inquired about his name, “Joss.”

“It’s short for Jocelyn,” Joss admitted.

Lilah let out a burst of laughter. “Jocelyn! That sounds like a girl’s name, Joss!”

“Well, the gynecologist, uh, misinterpreted the sonogram, that’s all, and my Mom already had a name picked out.”

Lilah tried to dig herself out of the hole. “It doesn’t matter if it’s a girl’s name or a boy’s name, Joss! The important thing is … uh … it’s your name!”

Lilah later found out, in her first attempt at intimacy with Joss, why the gynecologist had misinterpreted the sonogram.

Oh, why had Lilah laughed when she first discovered Joss’ birth defect! It was going to be their first time! It was really more out of nervousness than anything else! She had told Joss that time and time again.

But it was no use. It seemed that the spark that once flared between them was like the bottle rocket that Lilah bought for the 4th of July: She tried time and time again to light that bottle rocket, but it was a dud; it just wouldn’t light. No matter how many times she tried to generate a spark, the fuse just got shorter and shorter, until there was no fuse left at all, and it ended up exploding in her face.

Was that to be the fate of their romance? Was it going to blow up in both of their faces?

Those two outbursts of laughter, totaling only a few seconds in length, had altered the course of their lives forever! Laughter! What a two-edged sword it could be! The sound of laughter can bring joy to a person’s heart or really put him in a sh–tty mood!

Why was she so attracted to this quirky man? Why did her heart race when Joss walked in the room? Just standing there now, talking to Joss, she could feel a tingling sensation coming over every fiber of her body!

Eventually, she realized that the tingling sensation was coming from one of the toys that Joss had bought for her, which she had put in her pocket and accidentally switched on.

That night, Lilah decided to attempt, once again, to get Joss to satisfy her most basic needs. When Joss went to bed, Lilah crawled in with him.

“I hope you don’t mind me getting into bed with you,” Lilah whispered as she snuggled up against Joss’ body. “I was cold.”

“Maybe if you put some clothes on and quit parading around half-naked all the time, you wouldn’t be so cold,” Joss snapped back.

“Well, I was hot a minute ago, so I decided to take my clothes off to cool down, but now I suddenly feel chilled!” Lilah wrapped her body tighter around Joss. She was obviously in an acute state of arousal.

She could tell that Joss was frightened: His body hairs were standing on end!

Joss could feel her warm breath against his neck. Her breath was so hot, it was burning a hole right through him.

“Good God, girl! Did you have the chili rellenos for dinner?” Joss asked.

“Why yes, Joss; how did you know?”

Was Lilah just pretending to be naive? Or was she really too innocent to know how dangerous, how volatile, this could be? To mix a man, a woman, and chili rellenos together? She was playing with fire! Did she have any idea what she was inviting? Did she know what unquenchable lust she was about to unleash?

Lilah was now on top of Joss. His furred belly felt soft and comforting. The mat of hair on his chest was like a thick black carpet. Lilah’s loins began to ache.

If only she would gird those loins, Joss thought, before our primordial instincts send shocking and exhilarating flares of fire over every fiber of our bodies!

“Joss, call me that naughty word – you know, the one that begins with an ‘S’ and ends with a ‘T’!”

“You seductress!” Joss responded hoarsely.

“No, the one that begins with an ‘S’ and ends with a ‘T’! The word ‘seductress’ begins and ends with an ‘S.’”

Joss was exasperated. Why was she playing word games at a time like this? He was in no state of mind for a round of Scrabble!

Lilah began to feel a tiny protuberance – something poking up at her – infantile in size, to be sure, but as swollen and hard as it could possibly make its little self. It reminded her of that book she read as a child – The Little Engine That Could!

Lilah was now thrusting her tongue deep in Joss’ mouth. A hot shaft of fire flared through Joss’ muscled body – a passion so hot, he soon felt a wave of perspiration begin to gush out of every pore in his body.

“My God, Joss, do you want me to turn up the air conditioner?”

“No, please!” Joss pleaded as he wiped the sweat off his forehead. “Don’t stop!”

Lilah began exploring Joss’ body with her mouth and tongue, starting with his hairy neck, then to his furry shoulders, down to the thick pelt on his chest.

His body was like a steamy, tropical jungle. She was pushing her way through the thick undergrowth, working her way in the direction of his furred belly, like Lewis and Clark must have felt as they worked their way through uncharted territory toward the Pacific.

Her adventure came to an abrupt halt when she came up for air and realized she couldn’t breathe.

When Joss opened his eyes and saw Lilah’s face turning blue, he sensed something was wrong. “Lilah, what’s the matter? Are you choking on something?”

Joss quickly sprang into action, jumping behind Lilah and performing the Heimlich maneuver. A few upward thrusts of Joss’ strong hands into Lilah’s abdomen popped a nasty hairball from Lilah’s mouth.

Lilah frantically gasped a lungful of air. Lilah was saved, but the moment she had been waiting for to consummate her love for Joss was ruined!

The hairball episode sent Joss back into his shell. For the next several weeks, he would spend hours upon hours looking at himself in the mirror, with nothing on but his boxer shorts.

“Lilah, do you think I have too much body hair? Should I trim it with my beard trimmer or shave it off altogether?”

He finally made his decision: He would shave all his body hair and oil his body like the bodybuilders do.