**Crash-course in the history of the Siryn-Proudstar-Risque triangle (read: mess) for those who are unfamiliar with X-Force and decided to read this story anyway.
James first met Gloria aka Risque in X-Force #51, when he got a call asking him to meet someone at a junkyard on the outskirts of NYC. No one appeared until a pile of collapsed vehicles next to him exploded. He responded by picking up two tons of rubble and throwing it in the direction of the explosion. After Risque imploded the rubble and dropped it to the ground, she popped out of the shadows, briefly introduced herself to James, kissed him, and jumped back into the darkness.
She stayed out of the picture until issues #53-55. When James was KO’d by Selene in a battle with the Externals, Risque somehow got into the building, left with James’s unconscious body, and shriveled up the top of the building they were in, all without getting attacked by Selene herself. (We don’t see exactly how she manages this, because it’s told through Siryn’s perspective in issue #54.) Later on, while Siryn was wringing her hands over James’ disappearance and Domino was telling her she’d waited too long to start wringing her hands (hence the "You can pull that jack with someone else, Terry."), a fully-recovered James was making out with Risque in her sunny Florida flat.
Despite the wonderfully fun thing he had going on with Risque, James decided he had to go back to X-Force during the Onslaught crossover, so the two of them motorcycled on up to Westchester and jumped into the fray while X-Force was dealing with Sinister. They all got knocked out by a telepathic attack from Sinister, and when they woke up, Risque was gone.
X-Force didn’t see any more of her until issue #65, when she bubbled out of the depths of the lake while James was swimming. Siryn walked in on them getting ready to make out in James’s room, and did not look the least bit amused at what was going on. (Meanwhile, Risque finally told James her real name was Gloria Muñoz.) James and Gloria went out for a night of clubbing in the East Village, where they had a good time until the Blob and Mimic showed up, looking to finish the job Gloria had failed to do. There was a brief battle, and once the Blob and Mimic were subdued, Risque took James into her friend’s apartment in Tribeca, where she promptly fed him a glass of wine full of tranquilizers, and told him the real reason why she met him as he lost consciousness. (Famous last words: "I...thought...you...cared.")
After James didn’t come home, X-Force tracked Risque down to an amusement park in Florida called Wackyworld (where Siryn screamed her up against a wall) and demanded to know where James was. Meanwhile, he woke up in a junkhouse in Detroit, presided over by a big funny-looking guy on crutches, who introduced himself as Sledge and made James an offer he couldn’t refuse. X-Force burst in through the wall, made sure James wasn’t injured or under mind control, and he left with them. "The look on his face...in that motel room in Ohio" is from a few issues later, when Siryn brought up Risque’s coming between them, and James, looking very let down to be reminded of her, asked not to hear that name anymore.
***The "trip to Ireland," refers to issue #31, when Theresa took James with her to Cassidy Keep for two weeks so she could straighten out her problems. As it turned out, James was the one who put most of the work into fixing her family troubles and persuading her to quit drinking, since she spent most of the trip hammered out of her gourd.
*This is a case of the pot calling the kettle black. While Siryn has not, to my knowledge, been spotted in cleavage-baring skintight pleather, her dress code during the Arizona Era could be summed up as, "Let’s see how much skin I can expose!" So she really has no right to talk.
I understand it all now! Let me read the story again now that I know what's going on!