He raised his arms to protect his face reflexively, exposing the unarmored areas of his forearms. The alien’s claws tore through the padded fabric a...d the Kevlar weave beneath, biting into his flesh and drawing red blood.The alien drew a plasma pistol from its belt with the speed of a gunslinger and activated the point-defense gauntlet on its wrist, the Rookie reaching for his handgun in kind. He fired off a shot, but the round simply bounced off the glowing barrier of wavering plasma that the. Bella slapped at him, but said nothing else. Finally she finished and leaned back."Don't wear pants for the rest of the night. They'll just irritate the skin."Frank was smart enough to think of the obvious."What about Becky?" he asked."We'll cover you with a blanket," said his mother.That would have been the end of it, had it stopped there. Frank was told to just lie there and let the salve work. The rest of them went on about the evening tasks. But, when it was bedtime, and Bella went to put. His touch was electric. He kneadedmy shoulders, and I gave in completely. After a few minutes he stopped andsaid he would come back after his shower. True to his word, about a half hour later Jimmy was at my door again.He came in and closed and locked the door. He was wearing only abathrobe. He came over to me and pulled me up from my chair and made me liedown on the bed. He took my shirt off, against my protests, since I wasn'ttoo proud of my body. But he didn't care. So there I. "Are you going to make him wear a dress over theretoday? By the way where is he?" Better than that," said Sally, "come and see." Look who's here," said Sally as she and Megan walked into the den. Sallylaughed in delight at seeing John drinking from the baby bottle."Stand up," Sally commanded, "and say hi to Megan the same way you learnedto say thank you yesterday."John reluctantly stood up and did a curtsey the way he had been taught andsaid a very contrite "Hello Megan." John's right hand.