”“Stephanie, it’s not like he’s not getting any!” Jennifer smirked.“True,” my sister agreed, “but it’s not like him.”“Squirt, it...��s too hard to balance that many relationships. I have to keep Joyce and Jennifer front and center. The occasional dalliance and random deflowering is fine.”“What am I?” Stephanie asked quietly.“A beautiful deflowering, definitely not a random one! And certainly not a dalliance!” I said softly.“Stephanie,” Jennifer whispered, “OK to ask a question?”“Sure.”“With your. You. Did. Not. Start. This. You. Are. Not. Responsible."She said the last, poking me in the chest.We stood there and stared at each other for a moment. It occurred to me I should say something."Ok then." What, that's it? I bare my soul and you just say 'Ok then'?" Megan, I don't know what to say. You came into my life like a force of nature. I'm here in California, not knee deep in shit ... I find myself, well, totally out of my depth. There are people chasing us who want to hurt us and I. .." Shut up whore! Now finish your supper and get to bed. I've got some thinking to do." Yes, Daddy." And with that Marianne excused herself and retired to the small bedroom she had called her own for fifteen years before becoming Mrs. Cornelius Welby.Her father sat in his well-worn favorite chair in the small living room, drinking. Two plans congealed with which he was inwardly pleased. Both involved his daughter -- one personal, the other financial.Several hours later Marianne awakened when. Chapter Two -Jasper woke up, unshure of where he was. He looked around, and saw that hewas still inside the crater - the crater from the bolide. There wasn'tany blackness, or anything like that anymore. Richard was nowhere to beseen.Jasper started walking out of the crater, heading back to his camp."Hunger" hit his mind, and he thought that was strange, because he wasn'thungry. He walked back to the ruined camp. The tents were blown away -he saw them about forty or fifty meters away.Jasper.