.." I began."Romantic?" Mave finished for me."Yes" I answered with a smile."Good," she smiled back at me, "Then it's working." I didn't know if I was ...upposed to be playing hard to get or trying to seduce her. I certainly wanted the latter but since she was being more forward, I found myself being more coy. As we began to eat, I asked her to tell me more about her art work. I loved listening to Mave talk about the things she had a passion for.After dinner I helped Mave clear the table and load. ..” The realization that someone likes you is, unless you are used to it, a very gradual thing. As we remarked earlier, Lola was not so self-aware, and it was therefore only at this point that she began to believe that the palpable sexual tension in the room was not only constricting her. Snip. Snip. Stop.Stop!It appeared that the trim had reached a point of climax, though Lola had not. Max, the young barber, reached for the small hand mirror, which in reflection from the larger would show Lola. "You might not care much for his music, but millions of other people do. I'm excited to have him recording one of my songs. I'll be even more excited when the first royalty checks get here. My Uncle Darryl told me we were sitting on a gold mine, with him recording our song." He's going to pay you for using your song?" The recording company pays us. We get a check every quarter, for as long as people keep buying the album and the radio keeps playing that song over the airwaves." I never thought. She blamed me for our poverty, that I was always costing her money. She often took out her frustrations on me with beatings. When she had me alone, for the slightest infraction, she would strip me naked and with my father's leather belt she would go into a rage, beating me. After the beating, she would dress me in long pants and a long sleeve shirt to hide the black and blue welts covering my body.I once ran away from home but my father caught me. He gave me a beating like he was fighting.