Our food arrived and I paid for it and then we talked, ate, and bowled. Before we knew it we were on our second pitcher, and the food was gone. I had ...ost the first game 198 to 125 and while I did not blame the beer, I did blame those wonderfully tight shorts, but I did not give a damn. My consolation prize was this lovely young lady draping herself across my lap, kissing me madly. When we passed each other moving off of and onto the lane for each of our turns, any touch, however slight was. I don't know how late into the night it was when I heard my mother stirring. I wasn't sure if she had called for me or not, but when I pushed her bedroom door open I saw her crying softly in bed. I brought her a glass of water and she thankfully sipped it.When I went to leave her she said, "No, don't. I don't want to be alone tonight." She rolled onto her side and I held her from behind, each of us comforting the other through warmth and love.We fell asleep that way. I awoke with a burning,. And I did: I’d loved her for two years, then, but never as much as that day.“I love you, too,” she said. But she looked relieved to be walking away.I put gas in my dad’s car and drove it back to the station where he parked it. Luckily, there was an empty space not far down from where he’d left it that morning. When I got back home, I emptied my wastebasket and took a shower.We had to sneak around for the next four years, although sneaking became easier as each of us got older. The University of. Her mam spent all one Thursday down Hexam market and still only got five bob for the bairn, "Don't thee get any more bairns else thee might have to keep and feed them now think on, the ass hole 'ent just for sitting on, make them squirt thee up there if the wont tek em int gob" was her mother's helpful advice, but that Monday her big sister Fanny came back with tales of London, how she was working as a courtesan in a bordello and how men would pay two and sixpence for a single fornication if.