They brings wimmen here sometimes, sad creatures." Shall we visit?" I asked the girl.She smiled up at me. "Let's." You wait here with Bill." I handed ...he girl my pistol and put it on full-cock. "Hold it with both hands and aim low." The young man picked up his pitchfork and looked determined.She nodded and tried not to look frightened. He said, "We'll stop 'em if they come this way."I walked right through the front door with my musket in my hands, bayonet fixed and ready. The four men, coats. The way Martha behaved among adults her own age was again evident, as it was when I met her coworkers in the coffee shop and her acquaintances at the Carreras party; she had class, Martha did, and plenty of it. Her easy, bantering laughter was a world away from our own, more subdued behavior together. Again, Martha was right: I still had a lot to learn.During the few minutes before the rehearsal got started, Martha set up an easy rapport with the two women and the guy seated behind us. She. I simply never made a place for anybody else in my life ... until Shirley came along.There is a Joni Mitchell song called, "Big Yellow Taxi" that asks the question, "Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got till its gone?" I fucking paved my own paradise and put up a parking lot.Great work, Jim.At noon, there was a knock on my door. Despite my hopes that it was Shirley, I saw that it was Wendy's car in the driveway.I took a few deep breaths before I opened the front door.. ”“And why do I do it then?”“To punish me ma’am, for my untidiness and for not knowing my place.”“Exactly.”The whip flashed across my back once more, stinging as it left a thin red mark in it’s place. She stepped away from me for a moment, returning to standing behind me.“And where is your place?”“Below you ma’am, and my place is wherever you wish it to be.”She moved in front of me, sitting on the edge of the bed with her legs slightly stretched, watching me intently as I dared to raise my eyes.