"All too soon we were packing up the remnants of our picnic and folding up the rug. It was all safely stored back in the car when Mom said, out of the...blue,"I think I might like a paddle. It will cool me down a bit and also wash most of the gunk of my legs. Will you join me and maybe hold me steady?" she smiled at me as she asked so how could I say no?Mom was outside me and was holding her dress above water level and I was in slightly shallower water and holding her shoulder to steady her. We. It saddened me to realize that Humans had committed self-inflicted genocide; the Flame Lord merely allowed it to happen.The sun was sinking into the mountains on that tenth day and a cool wind was coming down off the towering peaks rearing over me as I entered the foothills. I don't know when I began feeling the presence of some ... one else, someone similar to Apocrita, but when I stopped on the crest of the third line of hills I saw a figure on the crest of the next hill some distance away.. " She handed me a small wrapped box. "It's your own perfume. Every girl needs her own signature scent. This is called White Shoulders. I know you like it. I wore it on our first date and it seemed to drive you crazy. Boys find it very sexy. Wear this on a date and they are guaranteed to try to get into your panties. Put it on for me OK? Behind your knees, ears and the inside of your wrist."I thanked her for the present and put it on as directed. "Are you hungry?" I asked. Linda took my hand and. ‘They say you’re not above using your personal charm to convince designers to come work for you.’ Joanne knew as well as Natalya did what she was implying, and she tried very hard to avoid making even a word of it sound anything less than squeaky clean. ‘They say that people wind up forming very rapid attachments to you. Sometimes unhealthy ones.’ ‘That I wrap them around my little finger?’ Natalya asked, running her little finger around one of her milky, lustrous pearls. ‘Use my feminine wiles.