Once my companion had decided that I was not in imminent danger her concern gave way to laughter."Only just managed to avoid joining you myself," was ...he comment as I swam to the edge. "At least the picnic didn't join you - shall we have it here?" The last as I was now wading out at the lowest part of the bank, part of the ford where the water was quite shallow."Suppose so," I grunted, still winded a bit, "I'll need to try and dry out a bit anyway - I don't have a change of clothing, hadn't. She was aware of someone else talking but didn't understand those words either. Who was that? Yes, it was her mom but she didn't know what she was saying. It really didn't matter because she was slowly drifting back to reality like a maple leaf drifting to earth on vagrant breezes. She felt Bill's mouth return to her breast and that breeze strengthened, lifted her again, refusing to allow her to settle to earth. Her breath quickened slightly but the mouth left her breast again and she groaned. Both of them came up with yearly figures that were far more than the towns thought they could handle. It was decided to host a town meeting to talk about a tax to raise money for maintaining the computers.I was as shocked as anyone else when Dave stood up at the meeting and told the assembly which included the Mayors and city councils of both towns that he'd do it for free. He'd also do upgrades for only the cost of the software. I couldn't believe he'd thrown that amount of money away. But. As usual a guard and a gate protected the bigshots' privacy by fencing off the rear two carriages. This she negotiated by presenting her ID to the bored man.On the offside of the platform, several black sedans waited to whisk off the Officers to their various meetings, offices, quarters or whorehouses. All was spit and polish as aides strutted around as if on parade.And there was John, in dress uniform but open at the neck. She laughed because she knew he didn't like anything tight around his.