Not that I was planning to visit the houses of ill repute or drink myself silly before noon. I had more a nice plate of pasta and some regular old red...house wine to wash it down on my mind or at least that was what I did my best to convince my conscience of my sincerity in the matter.I did my best to imagine Naples on a wartime footing with civilians running as fast as they possibly could to get inside a bunker when the shells started falling all around them. It would rather like jumping from. How hard would eachblow be."Do you want to know the pain number," she asked, "or would you rathernot suffer until the first blows?"Shit, I thought. See, knowing the pain number was tricky. She did notalways start the punishment right away. Especially when I was told of ahigh pain number. She might just leave me here waiting for the whippingto begin for hell who knew how long. It could be an hour. An hour ofpunishing anticipation before she began the actual whipping."You are quiet. Tell you. He smiled and asked me to leave.Hmmmm?Katie let Jenn drive home, using a different route to help her get used to driving. I got up behind Katie and said, “Have you met your replacement, yet?”“What are you talking about, Michael?”“A woman named Jennifer Robinson is being interviewed as your replacement.”“Wow ... I didn’t realize that Richard would be so quick to do that,” Katie remarked. “What do you know about her, Michael?”“I don’t want to distract you or Jennifer. It can wait until we get. He's also reasonably wealthy in his own right, he's not given to just accepting anyone who wanders into his home... and then you'd have to explain to him why you chose to visit him, he'd not be top of many people's lists." We could keep you out of it." Caerys assured him, and he smiled."I don't think you could — I've had a great deal of experience at hiding who I am, and I wasn't trying to tell half the story and keep the other half secret, and I didn't have to co-ordinate what I was saying.