He rose and put the tray on the desk before turning back to face her, hands on hip. He waited, eyebrows raised. Finally she asked curiously ‘is some...hing the matter?’ ‘There is the matter of my kiss.’ ‘Oh. Oh!’ Why the scoundrel. Slipping from the bed, she strode to stand before him and drew his face down to hers in a fit of pique. The rasp of his whiskers teased her fingers. She intended pressing her lips against his cheek, but his face turned. Her lips pressed against his nose for a fleeting. Jerry suddenly realized that he may not be the one in control here sohe decided it might be a good idea to change his tactic. Jerry thenfaced the women and said to her, "You know what babe, maybe you and meare not quite right for each other, let me just step out for a secondand I will be right back." At that moment Jerry, a former tack star,set his personal record at running and jumping back up the cellarstairs slamming the cellar door shut behind him and putting the steelbars back in, all done. The roaring in his ears softened and he realized Rhys was speaking to him. “How do you know Derek?” He wanted to know. “Oh, we used to live beside each other when we were kids. My family moved away, but I’m back. I ran into Derek the other day and he told me about your art show, so I thought I would come check it out.” Rhys nodded, taking two glasses of champagne from a passing waitress, handing one to Matt. “I live beside Derek now. Maybe it’s your old house. You are welcome to come by and see. Was I simply a means to an end? Not as a friend, but as a sexual partner. I shook my head. I’d tie myself up in knots trying to figure out the actions of a confused, sexually frustrated teenager.I recoiled in horror when I remembered the violent sex that we’d had after one of our major fights. I’d called it Jennifer’s rape fantasy and she hadn’t objected to that classification. Was having me take her that way an attempt to erase what Ted Dixon had done to her? Was it some sort of penance? Or.