I came seven times just thinking about you two together."Renee shook her head. "Seven?" She shook her head a second time."What's the matter? Dan not g...od enough for you?" Ah, shit, girl. Don't go there. Nothing to do with that. Dan is fine." Her eyes unfocused, she paused, thinking. "Really fine." A bottle of wine tone clouded her voice. Snapping back: "But it would be bad, on so many levels and in so many ways. Bad, bad, bad." This image … you and Dan." You ain't gonna be happy in the end.". For the last sixteen years he had down graded my mother to the point that, she was thinking of killing herself.It was nothing for him to look at her and say things like, " Damn you’re a fat fucking pig," or " I wish you would learn to fuck so I didn’t have to go out and find pussy." The one that really hurt Mom was, " I guess I could fuck you in the ass so, I don’t have to see your face."Many night I sat up, holding Mom, rocking her and telling her he was wrong. That she was a pretty lady and. There were days she regretted starting to work with Chorale. Not that she didn’t love them – she did – but the waters were deep and there were a lot of people swimming in them, trying to avoid the sharks that were circling.The analogy was a little suspect, but nonetheless valid.There was a quick knock at the door, and before she had time to answer one way or the other, Otter was in her cabin.“You look good enough to eat, Susan,” Otter said. “And I have enough time to make a good job of. They grew up in a very conservative, religious family, that didn't even have a television, and that didn't do much outgoing things at all, like going on holidays abroad, or even go to the nearby beach, the first because they didn't have a lot of money, and the second because their entire lives were focused on ‘living properly’, with no ‘distractions’ from worldly things, like beaches. Alex had been with me for a while already, and was slowly but very definitely becoming more streetwise, most.