Chapter 1

Tuesday was the last day of summer for some of the group; many were already in sports, however, and the upcoming start of classes just meant that they would have to mix academics with the activities they'd already been participating in. Martin throttled back on football, releasing the boys at noon so they could get in a little something in the way of a last hurrah before the grind began.

Fernando went to work as usual and was unmolested as he investigated his accounts on bank time, trying to figure out what had been hit and what hadn't. The results were more and more disturbing -- several of his lesser-known cash accounts had apparently been discovered. Clearly, the group was more sophisticated than he'd hoped. He examined his transactions of the previous night -- had he been that sloppy? Instead of two separate wire transfers for under ten thousand dollars to his account in the Caymans, there was a consolidation from one account to the other, then one large transfer! He was going to have to be more careful -- such things showed up on the bank's radar, not to mention that of several Federal agencies...

What he DIDN'T see was three more transfers from his ghost accounts that were made from his home machine, carefully timed for the period after he went home for the day at three-thirty but still during banking hours -- AFTER those accounts had sucked money through his carefully created holes in the bank's security system in amounts large enough to make them suddenly visible -- transfers that left big, fat fingerprints identifying him -- ironically using methods that he himself had used to frame other bank employees in the past. Toby had learned quite a bit about Fernando's various methods of manipulation over the past forty-eight hours from his journals and other records and was putting it to good use. Marta called him as soon as Fernando arrived home, and Toby ran the carefully-crafted scripts while Fernando was cleaning up and changing clothes, and they finished in the background while Fernando surfed the Net for travel reservations for his planned departure on Friday. As soon as Toby had some evidence that the bank and the FBI and other agencies were watching, he would add the big bang -- the transaction flow that would clearly incriminate Fernando while emptying his accounts, shifting funds through intermediary accounts created by Fernando that Toby had gained access to and back out to oblivion -- said oblivion being accounts created using anonymous credentials that Fernando had carefully created but never used associated with a couple of fictitious holding companies. From there, the money would dance through a couple of other offshore accounts, then it was going to sit -- and, after a decent interval, it would slowly leak into yet to be created accounts for Marta and her family and the group. Marta had no problem with this; considering the source of the money -- which was clearly illegal -- and that fact that Toby had already allocated funds to her from relatively safe accounts with legally straightforward transaction histories that were twenty times the amount she had believed Fernando was worth, she was happy to give the group their cut for assuming the risks involved in the transactions and the rescue of herself and her family.

Tabitha was the houseguest at the Reyes home that evening, Louise having scripted it the day before. Terence, caught in the middle, had to pretend he was calling around and give Fred status reports several times during the day designed to make Fred uncomfortable -- especially when added to Tabitha's calls imploring him to find her a place to sleep! By the end of the day, Terence had told his mother in no uncertain terms that he was done playing; Louise merely told him to relay that position to Fred, putting the burden further on his father's shoulders. Fred was pretty much beside himself by the end of the day.

Both Randy and Lon put in appearances at the Reyes home that evening -- largely to keep Fernando from doing any in-depth analysis of his finances. They postured and made threats, but took no sex from either Marta or Fernando, merely leaving him agitated and obedient for another night.

Wednesday morning the grind began for just about everyone in the younger generation, with the usual first-day-back confusion. New classes, new teachers, the inevitable scheduling foul-ups -- not to mention the teachers' unpredictable lists of required school supplies -- led to stress levels being at near peak. For Toby, though, there was an unexpected wrinkle...

Amaryllis Theodora Winston -- Amy, for short. That was the name of the new girl. Toby sat on his high stool at the lab table in Physics, his eyes locked with hers, his mind picking at the amazing blankness that was her undetectable thought process. Over the summer, he'd gotten used to being able to obtain a gestalt of whatever was going on in the head of any female, and, with a bit of probing, view, or even change specifics. The girls in the room were a background buzz in his mind -- but Amy represented a dead spot. He directed more and more effort at determining why...

...Until Mr. Carstairs, the Physics teacher, cleared his throat and announced, "Given your achievements, I thought the pair of you might be good lab partners -- but now I'm not so sure..."

"Oh, no, it's fine, Mr. Carstairs. I just thought I'd seen Toby before..." Amy replied.

"Yeah," Toby agreed, taking the cue. "It was just déjà vu or something..."

"All right, then." Carstairs turned away to do further matchmaking, leaving Toby and Amy again examining one another. Physically, Amy was a mixed bag -- dark red hair done up too frizzy, bright green eyes behind thick glasses which rode low on her slightly greasy, upturned nose. The lips were full, the teeth a little rabbity. She had that puffy look to her that freckled redheads sometimes exhibited; Toby knew she would be soft to the touch. Breasts were tough to get a feel for; they were there, but well-covered. She was a little hippy, but had decent calves -- the thighs were hidden, but obviously had to handle the differential... Toby took a run at things, "There's something ..."

"What?"

"I'm not sure -- odd, I guess."

Amy cocked her head. "No kidding. There is something up with you, too."

"Want to talk about it?"

"No."

Mr. Carstairs' bright idea hadn't been all his. Amy had nudged him -- pretty hard, actually -- when she discovered Toby. Toby wasn't there; there were fourteen boys in the room and Mr. Carstairs -- and a hole where Toby was. The fact that his eyes met hers from across the room within seconds of her discovery of him -- and stayed there -- said he knew why...

Clearly, he had no plans to talk about it right away -- but then, Amy didn't plan to talk about her little gift, either. It was something you kept under wraps, as she'd learned more or less the hard way...

Amy's family had occupied a nice suburban place in the Midwest, and she'd gone to a nice, BIG school -- so big that, aside from her academic attainments, she was absolutely invisible. The way she reconstructed it, she'd been sitting in a local hangout with several other girls, discussing boys in general and the football team in particular, when she'd made an unguarded remark about dropping her panties for the quarterback on demand. One of the defensive line was sitting with his current squeeze in the next booth and overheard the remark -- which got back to the quarterback pretty quickly.

The guy was a sleaze -- he had a public girlfriend among the cheerleaders, but got a kick out of seeing what he could get out of the desperate and the also-rans. The usual procedure involved collecting the girl quietly and taking her somewhere private and working her out of her panties with slick lies about her beauty, etc., and how fickle the cheerleader was and how much more worthy she was... Smooth moves, experience, and notoriety usually led to a quick conquest; he would pluck the girl's virginity from her and, more often than not, hand her off right then and there to someone else on the team -- or several someones, if the tryst was on a Friday night after a game. Some of the girls were so desperate for affection that the treatment didn't dissuade them and they came back for more, moving down the team hierarchy, usually ending up with some other team member as a public or private piece of ass -- and a couple ended up with positions as general sluts, to be pronged on the team bus on the ride home by anyone who felt like it. The whole thing had been more or less tradition for a couple of decades, so the athletic department looked the other way, generally. Amy made herself a target by her remark, and moved rapidly to the top of the list.

"Hey, Amy!" Reid Michaels, the quarterback, caught her in the school parking lot. "What's up?"

"N--nothing..." Amy, taken by surprise, was totally bowled over.

"I hear you like me," Reid said, closing the distance on her and catching her between two cars.

"W--who...?"

"Does it matter? It's true, isn't it?" Reid grinned.

"I--I..." He was in close, taking her by the hip. Her mind went totally blank!

"So, how about we go out and get to know one another a little? There's a party at Ronnie's tomorrow night after the game..." Reid smiled winningly.

"S--sure!"

"Okay." Reid glanced around, and said conspiratorially, "Let's keep it a secret, okay? Melissa can be a real bitch if she thinks someone is moving in on her territory. Things aren't what she thinks they are -- she doesn't own me -- but she could make things nasty for you if she heard something, you know?"

"Yeah, okay..." Amy babbled.

"Great!" Reid stepped away. "See you then!"

Amy was SO naïve; Reid didn't even offer to pick her up. Instead, Ronnie Smithson caught her between classes the next day, "Hey, do you know where my place is?"

"Well, no..."

"Reid says you're coming, right?"

"Uh huh." Amy nodded. Just going to one of these bashes was a major step up.

"Okay." Ronnie proceeded to give her complete directions, ending with, "Park around the corner -- the driveway and stuff are gonna be swamped and the neighbors will freak. Got that?"

"Uh huh. Sure."

"Okay, see you there!"

So Amy drove herself to the neighboring town to see the game, following the team bus in the convoy there and back, and screamed her head off as the team stomped their rivals, then was part of another convoy to the Smithson's. Parking around the corner led to quite a walk, as the Smithsons lived in an upscale neighborhood with big lots where the houses sat back from the road. Few other people seemed to be concerned...

Despite -- or maybe because of -- the fact that she'd turned out in some of the more daring items in her wardrobe, Amy got some looks. Ronnie, who got her past the door guard explained it away with, "Reid is looking into brainier girls -- don't tell Melissa!" Everybody winked conspiratorially -- and Amy was in, so she let it slide. There was beer and Amy could smell the pot, even if she couldn't see anyone smoking. There were pills going around, too, which she steered clear of -- not that it did her any good. Somebody shoved a beer in her hand and three or four of the girls clustered around her and teased and dared her until she finished it, which left her oddly disconnected -- and she hadn't even SEEN Reid yet.

Eventually, though, he swooped in and drew her away from the crowd. He got pretty familiar right away, but she was excited and feeling this strange exhilaration and it all felt right, so she let his hands roam while they kissed. Later, she would discover that the beer had been adulterated with Ecstasy to make her more tractable.

At the time, though, it was a fairy tale; Reid kissed her and told her how hot she was and raised goose-bumps on her with his hands and his lips and when he pulled her into an even more secluded bedroom, she followed willingly. Her clothing disappeared, item by item -- but she didn't care; it was in the way of Reid's magic hands. Then Reid's cock was out and he put it in her hands and it was amazing and when he asked her to lick it, she displayed her ignorance and ineptitude -- but Reid chuckled and told her it was all right -- she would learn.

Suddenly, she was on her back with her knees up, and Reid was sucking one of her nipples while he positioned his cock at her wet, ready opening. In a moment of fleeting clarity, she asked, "Are you using a rubber?"

"You wouldn't like it," Reid had replied, "I don't. If you want to be my girl, you'll have to go on the Pill. This isn't the time to be dealing with a rubber, anyway -- not the first time."

And that had been good enough; Amy had relaxed and Reid had opened her. It hurt, initially, but it quickly shifted from painful to wonderful and she orgasmed, hugely, just before he flooded her with his cum. And then...

And then, everything changed. Amy lay in post-orgasmic bliss, her mind drifting while she looked into Reid's eyes -- and Reid said, "I've had better, but I've had worse. Time for the next contestant."

Amy frowned and said, "What?" and Reid cocked his head and said, "I didn't say anything." Then he got up and Amy was watching his face, so she realized that he wasn't speaking when he said, "Ronnie's turn..." Then he DID speak, saying, "I'm sorry, Babe, but you're not really my type. I'm going to introduce you around some, though, and give you a good recommendation; someone on the team is sure to like you! Just do for them what you did for me..." And his mind said, "Spread yourself and bounce on everybody's dick..." Then he got up and popped open the door and leaned out, yelling, "Ronnie! Amy wants to meet you!" And there was laughter downstairs and suddenly a half-dozen boys' minds opened to her -- all of them anticipating getting a fuck from her, and laughing at her stupidity!

And then Ronnie was next to her, saying, "Do you suck, Honey? You've got nice lips..." And the whole nasty scene washed over her. Everybody knew why she was there -- and every boy knew that she was tonight's sacrificial virgin, to be passed from boy to boy to supplement the efforts of the regular sluts present. The girls she couldn't hear -- but the boys all had their track records, right there in their heads; they were in on it, too. She discovered the drugs -- everything! -- and her brain exploded and she screamed, "Go away! Both of you! I don't ever want to see you again!" And Reid looked at her with this weird look on his face and turned to leave like an automaton. Ronnie didn't even pack his dick back in his jeans as he turned to follow. The next guy in line -- she'd have known him, if she wasn't preoccupied being furious -- stuck his head in the door, and she yelled, "Don't touch me! Don't you EVER touch me!" and he flew back against the hallway wall as if pushed, turned and ran out of there. Crying, she collected her clothing and staggered out of the bedroom and down the hall, yelling, "Stay away! All of you, just stay away from me!" Somehow, she got to her car and managed to get home.

They found Reid on Saturday, a good seven miles away, cross-country. He'd walked out of the house and kept going on more or less a direct line, headed God knew where. He didn't know how and he didn't know why -- he didn't know much of anything, actually. They hospitalized him and gave him MRIs looking for brain damage. Ronnie was no better off, having done basically the same thing. Kids got scared and told their parents things, and the authorities started looking into the affair -- and Amy got questioned at home -- and while she had a lot to say about her treatment, she wasn't any more clear about why Reid and Ronnie did what they did than anyone else.

Monday, however, more anomalies surfaced. Several boys found themselves physically unable to seat themselves near Amy in classrooms -- which led others to wonder why and still others to fear. Amy discovered why herself, looking at one particular boy who was caught between a rock and a hard place in that their English teacher dictated the seating arrangement. While he was fighting himself, she looked at the conflict in his mind -- and saw a mark -- a mark that SHE had placed there on Friday night. Staring at him fixedly, she worked on it -- and managed to remove the compulsion -- but she had damaged him; she had damaged a couple of dozen boys that night.

To a certain extent, they deserved it -- but it pointed back at her too thoroughly. Amy spent the next three days trying to fix the damage -- and learned a lot about boys, the mind, and her powers in the process. Then she visited the hospital to see Reid and Ronnie.

The inside of their heads was a mess; she had blasted them with her anger. They were broken things, barely hanging on to some semblance of sanity -- and she couldn't fix it. Oh, she could pull out the major dents, and remove the compulsion to stay out of her sight and its deeper underlying effects -- but she had smashed at the evil that they had done to her, and in the process there had been considerable collateral damage. While rooting out the evil, she took other things -- drive, tenacity, confidence, will... They would recover, but they would never be the same, she realized, and the fickle finger of fate STILL pointed at HER!

She never entered their rooms on that first visit, for fear that her repairs wouldn't take and one of them would jump out a window or something upon seeing her. After that, she returned several times, making little repairs and adjustments, and hoping that no one connected them with her visits.

At school, she went from being invisible to being notorious to being a total pariah -- no one wanted anything to do with her. There were charges filed -- and dropped, in her case, but others were sucked into the maelstrom as the whole ugly thing came out retroactively, touching people who had departed and gone to colleges and professional sports and other activities.

Having learned subtlety the hard way, Amy kept her head down, looking for a way to get away from the whole mess. Her Dad's boss turned out to be a fruitful source of information and assistance; Amy worked things from both ends, working subtly on Dad so that he met the man's expectations and upon the man himself in order to improve her father's position. When that fat promotion that unfortunately required them to pull up roots and move to another town came along, Amy pushed and pulled and Dad came home and made the announcement -- and nothing Mom could do would dissuade him, because Amy wouldn't let him back down. Her brother Allen added to the pressure, and Amy let her wishes be known and Mom backed down, unhappy, but outvoted, and closed her little shop so they could move.

So here they were -- and here she was, face to face with the first boy since that ugly night whose mind she could not read. Was this a good thing, or bad? What was his story? Could he do what she did, or was he just able to keep her out? She would have more mysteries to solve with Toby than the ones in Physics class, obviously.

Toby had similar concerns -- what was up with this girl? Why was she the one chick in the universe that he couldn't hear wondering if her hair color was too fake and her bra wasn't too visible and her panty line was showing? Amy gave off nothing -- nothing at all -- but she was in there, all right, behind those bright green eyes...

It was hard to concentrate on Physics -- the ether seemed to boil between them. Teams would occupy the tables next to them, get headaches, and move away -- male AND female!

Toby noticed it first. Teams moved in, drawn by empty tables next to their prime, back of the room location -- then the girls would get headaches; he could sense their pain. But the BOYS got headaches, too, they said... "We need to stop," he told Amy.

"Stop what?" Amy replied, not all that innocently.

"What we're doing," Toby replied. "Look around -- we're giving people headaches."

Amy's eyebrows flew up. "Oh!" Once it was pointed out to her, she could see it.

"Truce? Until later, sometime?" Toby suggested.

"I'll... try," Amy promised. Since she didn't know what either of them was doing, exactly, it was hard to make promises, but she let up on him -- and nothing seemed to happen except mental sighs of relief all over the room. "We need to talk."

"Yes." Toby nodded.

But it wouldn't be all that easy. Toby had other distractions, including football practice. Pete Phifer wanted to know when they were going to throw another big party -- or even a small one -- "anything to get a load off." Toby hadn't made any promises, but something was certainly due; Fernando had tied up an incredible amount of resources.

And then there was the incident with Little Nicky. School was in session, and he was back -- and that meant that he was back trying to scope the locker rooms, it turned out. Toby nearly locked him in the equipment cage by accident. "Nicky! Dammit, you're not on a sports team! What are you doing here? Never mind, I know -- you don't have to tell me."

"It's not like that!" Nicky protested.

"It isn't?" Toby replied. "Look, I know you're here to look at dicks -- someone who knows told me. But if the guys catch you in there..."

Nicky looked excited by the whole idea. "Yeah..."

"Some of them would beat the shit out of you," Toby brought him on track.

"But some of them wouldn't?" Clearly, Nicky was looking for fuel for the fire.

Toby shook his head. "What do you want? Fucked?"

"I..." Nicky's gaze grew distant. "Yeah."

"Have you ever...?"

"No."

"You don't want to start here," Toby told him. "Tell you what -- maybe I can come up with something. What is it you think you want, in particular?"

Nicky was still out there. "Someone big, hard -- but... easy."

"Is age an issue? Color?"

"No. Older might be... better."

Toby sighed. Why was HE always the pimp? "No promises. Give me a couple of days. Don't pester me about it. And stay out of here!"

"Okay!" Nicky left, pouting.

Fernando had a full day at work -- people seemed edgy, but he couldn't figure out why -- followed by a stressful evening. Madeleine's new boyfriend spent the evening and made things very uncomfortable for Fernando. The boy barely spoke to Fernando, and emanated anger and disapproval, although he did nothing overt. Fernando waited for him to go home -- and he didn't. Instead, he retired to Madeleine's room with her. Fernando attempted to brace Marta about it, and was told, haughtily, "The deed is done - they are lovers. We can pretend otherwise and attempt to obstruct them -- that is, I can -- but that will just drive them elsewhere. She is safer with him than she is with you! Go to bed and get out of my sight!" That left Fernando unable to do anything in his office -- and left the door open for Toby to fire off the sequence of incriminating transfers that would close the barred door on Fernando, forever.

Thursday morning, Fernando was up early, arranging things for Friday. He bustled around his office, boxing and packing things and checking on this and that -- without using his computer. The physical moves were more important than the electronic ones, at this point. Toby thanked God that he'd advised Marta to move Fernando's old journals back to his safe, because he emptied the safe and boxed the journals. Tonight, he would initiate the transfers to his accounts, after the bank closed, taking his parting gift -- and he would stop at FEDEX on the way to the airport before the bank opened to ship his mementos. Marta didn't care what he did in his office, the little idiot -- but that just eased the road, after all, didn't it? Between now and then, he would do what he had to in order to allay suspicions; if he had to give fellatio to a football team, he would do it meekly. Nothing would stand in the way of his departure -- nothing!

For the younger set, it was the second day of school. After the usual dance -- this time with Damian pretending to orchestrate -- Tabitha had spent the night before at Horner's -- where she was welcome to stay, after the game was over, Phyllis told her. In the meantime, though, Louise was calling the shots. Trish and Tabitha were therefore standing together when Pete Phifer and Bobby Beckwith cruised the usual cluster of black girls. Pete, of course, was a known quantity, and considered a catch, so the girls played up, in general -- but Bobby raised a little consternation. "What the fuck?" Bernice Higgins muttered as they moved on, "When did Beckwith decide he was black?"

"Maybe he likes black girls, Bernice," Tabitha retorted. "It happens, you know. You ain't never gonna get a second glance from Pete -- maybe you ought to try out for white?"

"He isn't gonna give YOU a second glance, either, Tabitha!" Bernice sneered.

"He won't have to LOOK," Tabitha retorted. "After I fuck his brains out a couple of times, he won't care what I LOOK like!"

That drew gasps, but Bernice answered, "Yeah, right -- like you can get ANYBODY to fuck you!"

"You might be surprised!" Tabitha retorted. "You might be surprised." Tabitha being Tabitha, the look on her face gave her away; everyone present knew instantly that she was fucking SOMEBODY -- which shut Bernice down, but just jacked up the whispers of surprise...

Elsewhere, Amy was finding a group to fit in with. Standing with three or four of the girls that she obviously fitted in with, she watched the crowd and listened to the conversation.

"Something weird is going on," Miriam Fleiss asserted. "Something REAL weird."

"I'll say!" Misha Lezynski agreed.

Drawn by their tone, Amy interjected, "I'm new. What's going on?"

Miriam eyed her truculently for a moment -- and that could be daunting. Miriam was best described as thick; she was heavily built, everywhere, even if she wasn't seriously fat. She had big calves and big thighs, wide hips and a stocky body -- a German housefrau in the making. In thirty years, she would undoubtedly have a HUGE ass -- it wasn't small now, but it was proportionate. She had washed out blue eyes, and similarly washed out brown hair that you expected to be in a bun at the back of her head (as it was now) or in pigtails, curled and pinned around the top of her head. Permanently pink cheeks, slightly buck teeth, and a snub nose finished the whole husky milkmaid look. She was cute in the face when she smiled, but that wasn't a whole lot of the time. After a moment, she fished out a photograph. "This is the group, last year..." The photo showed her, Misha, another big girl, and a tiny Goth girl smiling and waving at the camera in party dresses. "This was the Prom -- we all went together, because nobody had a date. Now..." She pointed to a spot a few feet away where a girl who was still dressed somewhat in Goth style -- but the edges were clearly a lot less sharp than in the photo -- was leaning against a dark-haired boy, rubbing the arm he had wrapped around her, obviously discussing the crowd with him and laughing. "That's Teela," Miriam grunted. "I didn't even think she LIKED boys! How did she get her hooks into Rick Flanders -- over the summer, no less?"

Amy shrugged. "It happens."

"Lightning doesn't strike twice. That's Sally next to her, with Lon Carpenter -- the captain of the swim team!" Miriam disagreed.

Amy discovered the other big girl in the picture, standing next to a blond, muscular god, blushing at the regard of several people while he very publicly rubbed her ass. "There's sex going on there," she opined.

"Duh!" Misha carped. "But how? Sally couldn't even TALK to Lon, let alone..."

Amy shrugged. "SOMETHING happened."

"Yeah, well, whatever the magic potion is, I want a quart of it!" Miriam declared.

A tall, spindly, VERY black girl joined them. "Why the look?" she asked Miriam.

"Look around," Miriam replied. "Something is up -- something weird. Sally is over there with Lon Carpenter, and Teela is with Rick Flanders -- and they both look like they've been dating guys forever..."

"Well, it's been a couple of months," the black girl muttered -- but it seemed to Amy that she was suddenly awkward. "Hey, I'm Brenda."

"Brenda is like the star of the track team," Miriam related. "Guys hate her. Girls, do, too, when she shows them up on the field..." Then her eyebrows shot up and she went, "Urk?"

Clint Reed came up behind Brenda and wrapped an arm around her waist, "Hi, Sweaty."

"Hi, Stinky." Brenda smiled and rubbed the arm. "What's up?"

"Terence and Bonita just got here."

"Cool! See you later!" Brenda waved gaily and followed Clint off, leaving Miriam and Misha slack-jawed.

"This isn't happening!" Misha gasped. "I'm having a nightmare! Everybody is hooked up but me -- to hot guys!"

Miriam pointed. "L--look! B--Bonita... Alyssa..."

"No way! The Carter brothers?" Misha gasped. "Something is VERY WRONG here!"

"Can you clue me in?" Amy asked.

"See the little Hispanic girl with the BIG black guy?" Misha asked. That's Bonita Vasquez. She and Brenda used to be, well, a couple. Neither of them had guys. Rumor has it they were well, with each other, if you know what I mean. The guy is Terence Carter. He got in trouble for fucking some girl last year or the year before and getting her pregnant. Nobody was real sure whether the girl just dropped a dime on him to save her reputation or what, but there WAS an abortion, and basically everybody figures he's, well, you know, a black guy -- love 'em and leave 'em. The couple next to them is Terence's brother Damian, who's a Junior, and has a rep for being too smooth with women, and Alyssa Hayes, who everybody KNOWS is a lesbian..."

"Apparently he doesn't..." Amy mused.

"Um, yeah," Miriam agreed. "This is SOOO strange..."

Amy had to agree. Three girls who were at the very least unlovable, and probably lesbians -- make that a half-dozen -- and every one of them had a guy... Amy reached out mentally to the Carter boys, finding two very different males. Damian was clearly aggressive and dominant and was apparently in his element. Terence, on the other hand, was totally at odds with his rough exterior. But both of them were absolutely certain of their women, and at least one of them was definitely in love; Bonita's very public displays of affection were openly returned -- although there was something else there...

"Amy?"

"Mmm?" Amy blinked. "Sorry, did you say something?"

"I was just wondering if you wanted to do lunch with us," Miriam sighed. "It looks like the group has shrunk a lot. I've GOT to talk to some of them..."

"Maybe you ought to talk to the guys," Amy suggested.

Misha rolled her eyes, "Yeah, like THAT's gonna happen!"

"Well, I bet THEY did, at some point," Amy pointed out.

"Ummm." Miriam looked thoughtful. "Maybe." The three of them parted company.