“It’s a nature center. You have to be Nature Girl,” she said. “And that way you can’t run.”So I lined my shoes up neatly side by side, pee...ed my socks off, and tucked them inside. The shorts and panties, which were already around my ankles, came off together and went into the helmet.“Da da!” I said, hopping off the wall, nude from head to toe.“On your way. Slow. No running.”I turned my back on her and began my journey. It was the most awesome feeling — the air on my body, the cool, packed dirt. But, she’d found it a kindness.There was no kindness in Simon Anderson. Shelby had met him for the first time sophomore year when she’d been struggling to keep up with her math class. Everyone said Simon was a math genius and, as well as Shelby could judge such things, he was. But he was also a simmering cauldron of barely-contained, omnidirectional rage. He would have tutored her just for the pleasure of lording his obvious superiority over her and doing his best to make her feel worthless.. Caitlin awoke that morning, struggling to rise from her exertion of the night before. 'It must have been one bad dream, ' she thought. But would a dream leave her bed a wreck, or her body a wreck for that matter? The warmth which penetrated her body just hours ago had been replaced with an achy feeling this morning. An aching for the heat to return and somehow ... Finish the job? No, Caitlin was not going to consider that this morning. There was too much work to do, and so she pushed those. Those damned Italians, she thought. The nerve of them, giving me orders!"Have you seen Giacomo?" I said, you must accompany me." But have you seen him?" Follow me, now!", he barked, and the forcefulness of his voice caught her off guard. She found herself, despite her own better judgment, following, even shivering at the chills his new tone gave her.He led her to a hotel, not far from the house, where he sat down on a bed, and then gestured for her to do the same. Just then, the door opened.