? I proclaimed with all sincerity. She regarded me intently, as if for the first time. After many long seconds she reached over and picked up ...y full glass of wine. ?May I?? she asked. I nodded, my mouth dry but not from lack of drink. She took a large swallow. ?Why not.? she finally concluded. ?You’ve been fairly forthcoming with me Mr. Post, I guess I owe you some of the same. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.? She took another sip, glanced down at her lap and then. Just a moment.” A pause, then, “Good morning. Paula Smith. Who am I speaking to?”“Oh, good morning. My name is Pete Davies. I live in Broomhall. Last night I found a young woman sleeping rough on my property. I took her in, gave her soup and dry clothes and she’s with me now. She’s claiming her mother’s partner, or husband, has been making inappropriate advances to her and she ran away. She’s been sleeping rough, as I say.”“Can you bring her in so we can talk to her?”“I can try to persuade her.. As he looked over the choices, he saw her leave from thecinema, she was incredibly good looking and he had some rather nastythoughts of how much he would like to tear into her, she turned to seehim staring at her, he had been busted!She came over to him and said, "Do you like what you see?"He was still eyeballing her, and he said, "Yes, I could not help myself,you are by far the best-looking woman I have seen in a long time." Really," she said, "that is old and tired, not a good pick-up. Luckily for me his feet didn’t smell nearly as bad as they had yesterday but after being inside his work boots for even an hour or two this morning had definitely left a strong odor. I quickly removed his boots and his socks and without even looking at me Jake said, “Lick them clean boy” before grabbing the remote and turning on the tv. He tuned to the sports channel and began watching the commentators discuss last night’s baseball game but it was all just white noise to me.I was in a trance.