Yours squiggle pretty good.”“I know. Way it is; you play what you’re dealt. Good hand.”“You’re new, right? How do you like our school?”�...�OK, what’s the phrase, run of the mill? I got here late last winter, early March, last marking period I guess.”“Really, didn’t see you? School’s top rated you know, best around.”“Can’t always be sure of what rises to the top.” She offered me an Oreo.“Plans, long range I mean, not this weekend? Where are you headed? Do you know? College?” I mentally put the. ”With the plans made, Cari and Rick left. Erica turned to me and said, “That’s okay with you isn’t it, Tom?”I said, “Sure it is. I noticed it didn’t take Rick long to take you up on the offer. I wonder if your attire had anything to do with it?”“What do you mean?” asked Erica.“Look at your shirt. I can see your nipples poking through it, and when they first walked up you were leaning over the seat. I saw that your shirt was gaping open. I’m pretty sure they got a great peek of your boobs.”“No. That felt good, he gasped, then dismissed the sensation as being foolish but was surprised that such a tiny touch had awakened something deep in him, somehow reminding him what it felt like to be near a woman.“I know I’m probably upsetting your life by suddenly showing up like this,” Allison said as she added the cinnamon to her coffee but no honey. “But well, you write a lot about following your dreams and passions, that’s one of the themes in your poems that I loved, and I wrote a lot about. I had a lot to think about on the way home. How many guys had she been fucking? Christ! She had just done two in less than an hour. How many did she do before I got there? How many would she do before she came home? How long had this been going on? She had shown no signs of being disenchanted with our marriage or with me. In bed I stared up at the ceiling and thought about our relationship and wondered if it could survive. I fell asleep with visions of Helen and other men dancing in my head.I.