When we broke up with the girls we kind of drifted.Diane was the girl I had dated. We got engaged when we were in our first year of college, but we br...ke it off later.Anyway, I called Bruce up because I had to go to a wedding in Bumfuck Egypt, and wanted some company. Plus we hadn't seen each other in quite awhile.I picked him up, he lived about an hour away and we drove to the wedding. On the way there he filled me in on what had happened to Diane after the break-up. She'd gone off the deep. As he stepped towards her, however, he didn't bring the knife towards her bikini line. Instead he steadied her with his left hand against her lower ribs and placed the tip of the knife high against her abdomen. Jen watched in horror, too shocked to move at first, as he sliced into her skin, cutting a long line through the muscles of her abdomen clear to her pubic bone. The anesthetic worked perfectly, she didn't feel a thing, but the blood welling up from the wound told Jen that what she had. " By loving me." I do." More." I can't." Oh, my darling Gerry, and I couldn't love you more."Gerry sobered up. "Do you know, my Isobel, as time goes on that could well happen to both of us."Her eyes searched his. "Oh God! Oh Gerry!" Her lips found his again.Almost too soon dinner was ready. Isobel had slow cooked an oxtail stew which only needed potatoes. It was swimming with vegetables."Whee!" said Gerry. "I didn't know I was marrying a cordon bleu chef."Isobel smiled at him. She did not dare. As the ale and wine flowed, the more the tears would flow.The war had been dreadful for everyone, and sometimes tales of honor and courage weren't an adequate replacement for their feelings of pain and loss, even long decades later.War, or the rumors of war, seemed to be everywhere. Caestor, emboldened by the weakening of its old rival the Aldarian Blessed Sapphire Empire, constantly threatened Oswein, and all of its other neighbors, and its legions grew. Further to the east from Caestor,.