He was an excellent guard dog, a cross breed with an English sheep dog and a variety of others. He was getting on in years. She fussed him and he snuf...ed her crotch, she patted him more and suffered his invasion of her privacy. I growled at him. ‘Enough of that! Behave, go lie down.’ He gave a little woof of approval at Michelle’s smell and wagging his bushy tail returned to his favorite spot before the picture window and flopped down. I showed Michelle to the spare room, a tiny after thought. The staff, known as coup stick, was used in fighting to touch an enemy, and such a deed was considered the ultimate bravery. The man was as tall as Jim and held himself upright. He was a leader if Jim had ever seen one. On his head, he wore a war bonnet of feathers and buffalo horns.Jim was fairly fluent in sign language, and he greeted the brave with the sign of peace. The warrior, a well built man of Jim's age, raised his own hand in greeting."I greet you, warrior of the Human Beings," Jim. For the past few weeks Cynthia and I have gotten along well. Not great, not wonderfully, just alright. We had gotten to the point in our relationship where we found a place where we were both secure and didn’t experiment or take things further. She had become much quieter, even moody while I just accepted it. Work and responsibilities had taken up much of my time and I know I was to blame for the neglect she surely felt. Usually she’d turn in early, not even asking if I would join her. By the. ."From her handbag, she took a small jar filled with brown powder."Oh, Brigitte! You did it again!" said Angela excited.Lindsay came close to me and explained that Brigitte was using part ofthe chemicals she was buying for the clinic to produce her own blend ofMDMA. "It makes you love the world, and doesn't knock you out!" she thengrabbed a supermarket fidelity card that we kept next to the fridge andstarted making neat looking lines of the powder on the chopping board."Angela, is this... ok?".