‘I would have let you, you know. I would have enjoyed it.’ She flushed, catching his embarrassment. They maintained an embarrassed silence, until...Todd finally asked: ‘What other things was I thinking?’ ‘Well, for one thing, you were really relieved when my mouth worked the way it should.’ She laughed. ‘More or less, anyway. I have a more difficult time now, than I did before, giving head. You were also relieved that I could kiss normally.’ Todd laughed now. ‘Boy you can kiss. You kiss like two. It was my guess that they were waiting for a special occasion, but I didn't know what it was. The presidential election was scheduled for next year, and maybe that was when they would hit us. That was a good time for a lot of reasons, so we might have that long to counteract the terrorists. I hoped so, but I was not going to bet on it.The weapons were cached in an abandoned building in the Bronx. That was good and bad from our viewpoint. An abandoned building could be destroyed without too much. “…we’re naked.”Candy was shocked.“What’s wrong?” I asked. “Are you afraid?”This resulted in an outburst of laughter from the rest of my friends.Candy considered my proposition for a moment before answering.“All right,” she agreed, “but for this to be fair, you have to be in your underwear too.”I struggled not to smile. She was playing right into my hand.“All right,” I agreed. I stood up and removed my clothes, leaving nothing but my underwear—thank god I had altered my usual behavior and chosen. Now, as she forced herself to swallow a small portion of canned peas, she wondered if she should just go with Jason and Stacy when they left. Why not? If they could talk Paul into giving them a couple of guns and few days worth of food, maybe they could live for a while. Maybe they could make their way to Auburn eventually and see what life held for them down there.A figure approaching her in the nearly empty gym distracted her from these thoughts. She looked up and at first couldn't credit.