Mom said, “Okay, okay, I get it. Your are just a horny teenage boy and even breathing gives you a hard-on…let alone two topless girls in a thin pa...r of panties that the school calls shorts.”Leslie said, “Mom make him stop doing that. It’s gross.”Mom laughed and said, “Listen honey, you haven’t seen nothing yet. Your brother is fifteen years old and just a perfectly normal boy. He is not a freak…he is absolutely normal. He just needs some relief…from us.”Leslie said, “From us! You don’t really. Lucie stares at Sid for a few seconds more. Then she shrugs and focuses on me, asking, ‘What is he, your bodyguard or something?’ She’s delivered it as a joke but I nod and say, ‘Yes … Among other things.’ She’s intrigued by that and her eyes go from me to Sid and back again. Of course she asks the obvious: ‘Why do you need a bodyguard?’ I’m flowing, in the moment, the scene unrolling as though it’s scripted. ‘Because I’m worth a lot of money,’ I reply. I see her eyes go wide, thin, perfectly. Business. I have some business to attend totonight. I was really only here to meet some colleagues before moving on,but perhaps we could hook up next time I'm in England." She glanced atEric and smiled."Well, okay. I guess." I found a piece of paper in my hand bag and Iscribbled my number down."It's been lovely meeting you, Bea. And yes, Emma looks lovely." Sheglanced at Eric again. "I'll phone you when I'm next in London and we'llhave to arrange something." As she rose from the table I saw her. At one point he had had the audacity to question the wisdom of building a moth-hive. Their future children might not get wings. Lei had merely stated: ‘Even moth-larvas don’t have wings.’ And had then sent him back to work. In late spring, when the hive finally hung sufficiently completed to live in. Kokata was stronger than he had ever been. He had pushed his body further than ever before and it had literally grown to the task. He hadn’t known he could still grow, and had only noticed by.