Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2006 19:38:28 -0800
From: qwb <qwb@san.rr.com>
Subject: Stonegate Stables ch 29

Wednesday TJ stopped me in the barn aisle outside Ginger's
stall and asked me if it was okay that he took Friday off.

"Sure.  We'll live without you for a couple days.  Doin'
something special?"

He started to give me a nod, but broke into a foolish grin
instead.  "Yeah... Fuck, I might as well tell you."  He
glanced away for a minute, then back at me.  "I'm going to
see Del."

I stared at him for a second.  "Del?  Amarillo Del?"

TJ nodded.  "We've kept in touch, and he's only about three
hours away this weekend, so I'm gonna go see him."

I'd begun to smile as he spoke.  "No kidding. Well.  What
about Gabriel?"

"What about him?  I don't know what's going on with him.  I
think he likes me, but so far we're just pals.  He hasn't so
much as grabbed my ass yet."

"Huh.  Well, give Del my regards, and drive safe."  I hugged
him close for a minute, enjoying the feel of his long, lean
body.  I'm not sure I'll ever get over my thing for TJ.
Actually I'm not real sure I wanna get over my thing for TJ.

When I spotted him Monday afternoon he was leaning against
Barney, one elbow draped across his back, the other hand
holding a stethoscope to Barney's now invisible ribs.  He
had the same dreamy smile on his face that he'd had that
next morning in the hotel in Amarillo, and I thought Gabriel
better get with the program, or TJ would be moving to
Looosiana.

I strolled over to him.  "So, fucking Del put a smile on
your face, huh?"

His eyebrows shot up.  "I didn't fuck Del - he fucked me."

It was my turn for the eyebrows.  "He topped you?"

"Yeah.  Why?  What'd he do to you?"

"He didn't do anything to me, but he bottomed for Vincent."

"He did?  We're talking about the same guy, right?  Big guy,
fat dick, black Stetson?  I figured him for a total top."

"Yeah, yeah, that's him.  I thought he would be
too, but not that night he was with us. He was in fuck-me
mode from the minute he hit the bed." I gave him a
suggestive look.  "You're just so fuckable he couldn't
resist."

He chuckled, but I could see him mentally adjusting his take
on Del.

When I got home a few nights later, both Vincent and Matt
were subdued as they greeted me.  In response to my
questioning look, Vincent nodded at the little desk in the
corner of the kitchen. On top of the pile of bills and
catalogs was a notice from the district attorney's office
informing Vincent and Matt that their presence was required
at the trial of Raymond Mitchell a month from now.  I blew
out a breath.  We'd known this was coming, but in the five
months since Ray's arrest we'd managed to keep it at the
back of our minds.


Matt and Vincent had been questioned extensively in Dallas
before being released, but the trial would mean coming face
to face with Ray, and answering endless questions of a very
personal nature in front of a courtroom of strangers.

Matt was chopping potatoes with a great big knife that I
knew Vincent kept sharpened to a razor's edge, but his eyes
were staring unfocused at the countertop just beyond the
cutting board.  I walked to him and put my hand gently on
his shoulder.  When he stopped slicing to look at me, I took
the knife from his hand, set it on the counter, and wrapped
my arms around him.  He slumped against me with a sigh so
deep it was almost a moan.

"It'll be okay, Matty.  Vincent and I'll be right there with
you the whole time.  You'll be safe."

He nodded against my shoulder, and when he spoke, his breath
was warm on my neck.  "I know. It's just that it's been so
good here and I'm kinda scared.  They can't . . . they can't
take me away, can they?"

I hugged him tighter for a second, and then gripped his arms
as I held him away from me so that I could look into his
face.  His frightened, apprehensive expression reminded me
so much of the first time I'd seen him that it almost made
me sick.  "No, honey.  You just have to answer their
questions.  That's all, I promise you."

He stared at me for a moment before swallowing hard and
exhaling.  I gave him a kiss, which he returned, and I let
him go back to the potatoes, making sure he was actually
looking at them before I turned away.  Vincent had been
listening from the stove and gave me a little smile when I
came to him.  He didn't look as bad as Matt, but he
certainly didn't look happy.

"You okay, baby?" I asked him softly as I cupped his cheek.
He nodded glumly and kissed my palm before turning back to
the skillet of pork chops he was browning.  We ate a mostly
silent meal, cleaned up, and went into the den.  Matt sat
down, stood up, changed chairs, looked out the window, and
finally left the room.  I could hear the murmur of his voice
just before he came back in to tell us he was going over to
Adam's for a while.

After he left, we flipped through the channels a couple
times before turning the TV off.  Vincent lay back and let
his eyes wander over the ceiling as I watched him, wondering
what I could do to make it easier.  When he reached for me a
little bit later, I went to him eagerly, needing comfort
myself by then.  I hated that this was intruding on our
lives again, and I knew the next month would be hard on all
of us.

We lay there for a long time, just holding each other and
listening to the sounds of the house settling for the night.
Matt came home around midnight and went straight up to his
room. Hopefully, Adam had been able to provide whatever Matt
had needed this evening.

Things were a little better in the morning as we got used to
the idea.  I knew we could get through this - it just sucked
to have to relive the hurt all over again.


The following Thursday I was saddling Barney for a trail
ride when TJ called my cell.  His voice was strained as he
spoke curtly to me.

"I need Gabriel.  Have him bring two kill shots."

'Kill shots' are what we called a hypodermic loaded with
enough barbiturate to euthanize a horse.  Only a vet can
purchase the drugs, and we used them very infrequently, but
a stable the size of ours always had a few on hand for
emergencies.

I didn't bother to ask what he'd found - it had to be really
bad if he needed to put two horses down.

"Where are you?"

"Out Twin Oaks off 28.  He'll see the rig from the road.
Tell him to hurry."

Gabriel locked onto my eyes as I told him about TJ's call,
and he was out of the yard three minutes later in a cloud of
dust.  I went back to work, but my mind was on the two of
them dealing with God knows what in some cesspool of a
stable.

I'd been watching for the rig, and when it pulled in a
couple hours later, I walked out to meet them.  TJ was
whitefaced with a tight jaw and haunted eyes, and he was
breathing shallowly like he was trying not to cry.  Gabriel
silently helped him unload two horses that were in pretty
bad shape.  I had a couple stable boys take them away with
instructions to have Sam inspect them immediately.

TJ closed the door on the trailer, turned his back on us,
and walked away toward the hay barn. As I started to follow
him, Gabriel laid his hand on my arm.  "Let me.  Please."

We looked at each other for a long moment.  I almost pushed
him aside, but then I remembered them sitting on that bale
of hay reading together a couple weeks ago, sharing the
lunch Gabriel had made for the two of them.  "Okay, but you
take good care of him, you hear me?"

He nodded and hurried after TJ, who had disappeared into the
big barn.  I watched him go with a heavy heart.  It's bad
enough to see suffering, mistreated animals, but it's even
worse to have to kill them yourself.  Knowing you're putting
them out of their misery is small comfort as you depress the
plunger on the syringe and watch the light go out of their
eyes.

I gave them a few minutes before walking quietly into the
barn.  As I came around the corner of a big stack of orchard
grass bales, I saw TJ silhouetted in the open back door. His
hands were braced against the door frame on either side, and
his head was hanging down on his chest.  Gabriel was
standing behind him and slightly to the side, talking softly
as TJ shook his head slowly back and forth.

When Gabriel reached a hand out to TJ's shoulder and TJ
shrugged it off, I almost went to them.
I just wasn't sure that Gabriel was able to give what TJ
needed right now, but then Gabriel grasped TJ by the arm and
turned him around. Their eyes met for a moment, Gabriel lay
his other hand along TJ's cheek, TJ's face crumbled, and
they came together in a rough embrace.  TJ began to cry -
long, keening sobs that raised the hair on my arms - and I
turned away.  About an hour later, I noticed that Gabriel's
truck was gone.

On the way home, I stopped by their place. Gabriel answered
the door in sweats and a tshirt - the first time I'd seen
him in something other than jeans - and he looked good.  I
hugged him briefly and asked about TJ.

"I don't know.  He went to his room when we got home."

"And you didn't go after him?"

He looked a little uncomfortable.  "No . . .
figured he might need to be alone."

"Goddamnit, what he needs is a warm body wrapped around him.
He needs comfort, Gabriel, not solitude."  I pushed past him
and walked down the hall until I could see into TJ's room.
He was lying on the bed on his side with his knees pulled up
and his arms wrapped around his chest like he was cold.  As
I watched a tremor moved through him.

I yanked Gabriel a few feet down the hall.  "One of us is
gonna get naked, strip him, and climb into that bed.  You or
me?"  I asked him angrily.

He stared at me for a moment.  "God, Sean, all I've ever
done is trade blow jobs a few times.
I don't know what the hell to do with him."

"I'm not asking you to fuck him, for Christ's sake!  He
needs to be held.  You can figure that out, can't you?"

When he just stared at me, I pulled my shirt loose from my
pants and started thumbing buttons open as I went back to
TJ's door.  As I was about to walk in, I glanced back at
Gabriel.  He was looking past me at TJ with an expression I
thought I recognized, so I turned and tugged his t-shirt
over his head.  He didn't resist, and as soon as his arms
were free, he dragged his sweats off, stepping out of them
as he walked to the bed in just his socks.  He hesitated for
a moment, and then reached for TJ, rolling him onto his back
as he undressed him.

I came into the room and pulled the covers back as Gabriel
climbed in and pulled an unresisting TJ to him.  As I pulled
the sheet up over them, TJ looked up at me with red eyes.

"I didn't have any choice, Sean, I had to put them down."
His voice cracked in anguish, and I felt an answering wrench
in my chest.

"I know you didn't, baby.  It's okay.  Gabriel's here, it'll
be okay."

I kissed his forehead as his eyes closed, and watched as he
turned in Gabriel's arms to bury his face against Gabriel's
chest.  When I left them Gabriel was murmuring softly as he
ran his hand the length of TJ's back in slow sweeps.

I phoned Vincent from the kitchen, and he showed up an hour
later with Matt and dinner from Corleone's.  I told them
what I knew about this afternoon, and then went down the
hall to TJ's room.  Gabriel was sitting up against the
headboard with TJ leaning against him and they were talking.

"Hey," I said, stepping into the room.  "Vincent brought
lasagna.  You hungry?"

They both nodded, and I left the room to give them a little
privacy while they got dressed. When TJ came into the
kitchen, he looked a lot better when I'd last seen him,
smiling when Matt and Vincent greeted him with warm hugs.  I
walked over to Gabriel and pulled him to me.  He heaved a
big sigh and hugged me tightly before leaning back so he
could look at me.

"Thanks.  I don't know what the fuck was the matter with me
in the hall there.  I just froze when you said I had to get
in bed with him.  I know you didn't mean for sex, but it
just caught me by surprise, I guess."

"It's okay.  He looks a lot better, so you did good."

"Yeah, we talked about it and he knows it was the only thing
to do."

"Doesn't make it any easier."

Matt had gotten plates and forks out while we were talking,
so we loaded up and went into the big family room at the
back of the house.  The entire back wall was windows that
looked out over the meadows of Stonegate.  It was almost
dark, and the lights of the pool lit the backyard with a
soft blue glow.  We ate while TJ told us what he'd found.

He'd been unable to get two of the four horses to their feet
- always a bad sign - and he'd done the right thing in
euthanizing them.  His voice was steady as he talked, and I
knew he'd be all right.  The first one is always really
hard.  Not that you ever get used to killing a defenseless
animal, but the first one can be a career breaker.

After supper, we cleaned up the kitchen, and left them
together on the couch with coffee and chocolate ‚clairs,
Vincent's Italian cure-all.

The next day I was unsaddling Maddie's latest acquisition, a
flighty Arabian she'd picked up at the Scottsdale sale a few
weeks ago, when TJ found me.  "Got a minute?"

"Sure.  Just let me get done here."  After I got the horse
put away, TJ and I wandered to my office.  "You okay?"

He nodded.  "Yeah.  I've never had to kill something before.
It just really . . .  Well, anyway, I'm sorry."

I looked at him.  "What the hell're you sorry for?  I'd
think you were weird if it didn't mess you up a little."

He nodded again.  "Yeah, I guess.  Was it your idea for
Gabriel to . . .?"  His voice trailed away.

"No, his."  I watched as he processed this. "Why?" I
asked him.

"Just curious."  He shrugged it off.  "What I really
wanted to talk to you about is the shoeing.  I can't
keep up with all the horses you have now and still have
enough time to study."

"No problem, I'll give Danny a call."

TJ went back to work and I dialed Danny's cell. I
hadn't spoken to him in the few weeks since our little
rendezvous in the pantry, and found that my heartbeat
had picked up a little as I waited for him to answer.

"Danny here."

"Hey, bud, can you fit us back into your rounds?"

"Sean?  Somethin' happen to TJ?"

"Nah, he's just too busy with school."

"Yeah, sure.  When you want me to start?"

"Next week?"

"You got it.  See you Tuesday."

After we hung up, I let myself think about the feel
of his fat cock in my hand.  I was smiling stupidly
and about to stick my hand down my jeans when the
phone rang.  Katie's exuberant voice bubbled into my
ear.

"Sean!"  She reminded me of a younger, less foul
mouthed Amanda, all irrepressible enthusiasm.

"Katie!"  I replied.  She laughed.

"I'm coming over for the weekend, and just called to
let you know."

"Okay, come ahead.  We're as ready as we're gonna
get."

This was the first weekend she'd be staying with us
since she'd signed up as Adam's student, and the timing
couldn't have been better.  She'd
keep our minds off the trial if anything could.

She showed up the next afternoon, pulling into the
yard in a whirl of music and dust.  I was riding
Calvin from the arena to the stallion barn, and he
flung a foot at her car when she cut it too close for
his liking.  By the time I slid off him, she was right
there.

"God, what a gorgeous horse.  Is he the one you rode
in the GPs?  He can really jump, huh?  Is he hard to
ride?"

I laughed and ignored all but the last question. "He
can be a handful, yeah, but he's an amazing jumper."

She helped me untack Calvin, and put his blanket and
hood on.  Matt showed up then and they went for a
trail ride on Zena and Chex.  Katie knew how to pony
a horse, so I put Ginger on a long lead, and they set
off at a jog.  Ginger was just about up to a weight
Sam was comfortable with before we started riding
her, and had turned into a bright, flashy chestnut.
Those four white stockings and wide blaze down her
face made her a real beauty.  I really wanted to own
her, but hadn't been able to talk TJ into selling.

That evening after dinner, we adjourned to the den
with coffee and desert.  Vincent and I had decided
that gym shorts and t-shirts constituted acceptable
evening wear when Katie was in residence, and we were
sitting at either end of the couch with our feet in
each other's crotches when she and Matt came in.
They settled on the floor in front of the fireplace
with Matt's laptop and a bowl of popcorn.

It was all very domestic, and I smiled at Vincent
when he wiggled his toes under my balls. We spent a
pleasant evening just hanging out. Vincent and I read
for a while, but I finally put my book down after
smacking myself in the nose with it when I nodded
off.

I awoke a couple hours later to the feel of Vincent's
tongue lapping at my balls. He'd tugged them out the
leg of my shorts, and was on his belly between my
legs with my dick in his hand and my nuts in his
mouth.  I guess the ban on fucking in the den when
Katie was in the house had been called off for the
evening. I closed my eyes again and let him suck me
off, jerking silently into his throat as I came.

When he was sure I was finished, he hauled my
shorts down, kicked off his own, and began to hump
my thigh as I worked his nipples.  When his strokes
shortened, I pulled him down to kiss me, shoving my
tongue into his mouth as he ground his cock into my
leg.  I slid one hand around to his ass, just
pressing a fingertip into his hole as he began to
shoot.  He broke the kiss and grunted into my neck
as he drained his balls onto my belly.

"You know," he said conversationally when his
breathing had evened out, "I get hard ten times a
day just thinking about you."

I smiled.  "I know - me, too.  Do
you suppose it'll still be like that
when we're sixty?"

"Sixty," he repeated despondently.  "Fuck.  Are we
really gonna get that old?"

"Jesus, I hope so.  Don't you wanna grow old
with me?"

He snorted.  "You know the answer to that."  He was
silent for a moment as he rested his head on my
shoulder before continuing.  "Getting the trial notice
shook me up more than I thought it would.  That day .
. . I stayed sane knowing you'd be home soon.  That if
I could hang on just a little longer, you'd be there
to hold me. I've never wanted anything more in my
entire life than to feel your arms around me."

Vincent had never spoken like this about the attack,
and I barely breathed while I held him tight to me,
waiting for him to continue.

"At first I was afraid you'd come home while they were
still here.  I would have lost my mind if they'd hurt
you."  He closed his eyes and huffed out a breath.  "But
when I realized they'd left, I just concentrated on you.
I thought about the way you kissed me goodbye that
morning.  I don't know if you remember, but you were
being silly and I finally had to grab you to get a kiss;
then I thought you were gonna suck my tongue out.  It
took the entire drive to work for my dick to go down."

I had forgotten that entirely.  Funny what your mind
hangs onto.

"Then, when I heard you come into the room, I got
scared.  I didn't know . . .  Sometimes when a woman
is raped, her husband or boyfriend can't stand to
touch her again.  It's like she's dirty or something,
even though it wasn't her fault.
I didn't know if maybe you'd feel that way about me."

I couldn't take any more.  I rolled him off me and
pushed my way to a sitting position, struggling to get
where I could look him in the face.

"Jesus, Vincent, I can't believe you thought that!  My
god, all I could think was to get you loose and cover
up those horrible burns.  I was desperate to hold you,
but I didn't know how badly you were hurt.  I never
felt like that. Never."

I had his face in my hands by this time, staring into
his eyes so that he could see the truth in mine.  "I
wished that I'd called you to come have dinner with
me, or that we had plans that night - anything so that
you weren't home by yourself.  It wouldn't have
happened if I had . . ."

"Don't you dare blame yourself," he interrupted me.
"I did enough of that for both of us.  That was part
of my problem afterwards.  I got the idea in my head
that if I hadn't moved in here, it wouldn't have
happened, and I wouldn't have put you through all
that shit.  But I finally decided that nothing would
have changed it.  Ray still would have found me
somehow, and I'm not sure I would have made it
through without you."

He reached up to hold my wrists loosely as we looked
at each other for a few moments. Finally, he leaned
forward to kiss me.  "Ready for bed, babe?"

I nodded, and we went upstairs.  I watched him as we
brushed our teeth and peed.  He glanced at me now and
then, and we smiled at each other each time.  A
relationship turns on moments like those, and I held
Vincent extra close that night, more aware than ever
how important he was to me.

Katie spent Saturday riding an increasingly
difficult selection of horses, learning to cope with
their quirks and physical differences.  One needed
encouragement over big fences; the next required a
firm grip on the reins.  Turned out she was better
on the strong horses, not unlike Adam and I.

We had a scary moment when one of Maddy's jumpers
ducked out at the last minute, sending Katie flying
into the rails. Luckily, the whole thing came down in
a jumble, and she was just banged up.  I got to her
first, kneeling down next to her as she struggled to
her knees.

"Fuck!" she exclaimed.  "That hurt!"  Maybe she was
more like Amanda than I'd thought.

She had a big knot on her arm and a couple scrapes,
but she was unharmed otherwise, and demanded to get
back on the horse.  Adam tossed her into the saddle,
and she gathered up the reins with a do or die
expression on her face as we rebuilt the jump.  After
circling once, she aimed the horse at the fence using
her spurs and whip, and cleared it with no problem,
grinning as she cantered up to us.

"Girl's got balls," Adam muttered to me.

That evening before dinner, I noticed her grimacing
as she raised her arm to get plates out of the
cupboard.  "You okay?"

"Yeah, just bruised, I think.  I didn't look yet."
With that, she hauled her t-shirt over her head and
turned around.  The upper left side of her small back
was purple and blue with little red sunbursts of
broken blood vessels here and there.  I was still
goggling at it when Matt, Vincent, and Adam walked in
from the patio.  Katie didn't seem at all bothered
standing there in her lacy pink bra with four men
staring at her.

"Jesus Christ!"  Matt said.

"Is it bad?" she asked, twisting her head to try and
see it. Adam went to her and probed gently at her
shoulder blade and ribs.  Katie frowned, but kept
quiet until he was finished. She walked over to the
mirror and examined it for a moment, then shrugged.

"Not as bad as the time I came off into the arena
fence at home.  I thought my leg was broken."  She
tugged her t-shirt back on, and we all got to work
making dinner.

Adam went home after supper, and later that evening I
went up to our room to change.  As I walked by Matt's
open door, I glanced in to see him and Katie sitting
cross legged on the bed kissing.  Matt had boxer
briefs on, and Katie was in her usual oversized t-
shirt and panties.

I watched for a moment, trying to decide what to do.
I sure as hell didn't want Katie seduced on my watch,
but I was pretty sure Matt wouldn't do that.  Then I
suddenly remembered what my hormones were like at
eighteen and stepped in to the room.  They broke the
kiss and looked at me. Matt looked faintly
embarrassed, and I could see his half-hard cock lying
along his leg, nicely outlined by the snug fabric of
his underwear.

My own dick gave an answering lurch as Katie gave me
a sunny smile.

"What are you guys doing?" I asked.

"Practicing," Katie replied.  "There's a guy at
school I like, and I wanna be able to kiss good when
he kisses me for the first time."

"So you're practicing on Matt?" I asked skeptically.
Matt kissed pretty good as far as I was concerned,
and I wondered idly what Katie thought of him.

"Yeah.  I figure if I can get him hard, a straight
boy'll be a piece of cake."  She glanced at his lap and
giggled.  "I'm making progress."

Matt hung his head in defeat at her explanation, and
then started to laugh.  I bit the inside of my cheek
hard, and throttled back an urge to tear at my hair and
lock her in her room until her mother could come get
her.  I was so out of my comfort zone talking to a
teenaged girl I barely knew about hard dicks, that
words failed me.  I could feel a hot flush working its
way up my neck, and struggled to suppress it as Katie
looked closely at me.

"Sean, are you blushing?  I'm seventeen, for God's
sake, not seven.  I know all about dicks and how they
work.  I've never actually seen one in person, but my
girlfriends and I look at them all the time on the
internet, and anyway, I turn eighteen next week.
Then I'll be legal!"

At that point, I just held up my hand to silence her
and left the room.  I figured by the time the summer
was over, Katie would have talked
Matt into showing her his dick hard or otherwise - but
I really didn't want to think about it just then.  I
changed my clothes and went back downstairs.

Vincent took one look at my face and demanded to know
what happened.  I told him the whole story, and then
asked him if he thought we should forbid Matt and
Katie to be alone together, but even as I uttered the
words I knew it was a stupid idea.  Vincent pointed
out that having Katie experiment upstairs with
(mostly) gay Matt was a hell of a lot safer for her
than turning her loose in the back seat of some horny
straight kid's car to figure it out.  I agreed with
that, although what Paula might think about the whole
thing made me somewhat uncomfortable.

Sunday morning everyone was lazy, and it was almost
ten before we all made it down to the kitchen.
Vincent was buried in the newspaper while he nursed a
cup of coffee, and I was leaning on his shoulder
yawning and scratching my chest.  We were wearing
sweat pants and tshirts, and I was eyeing the
unrestrained mound in Vincent's lap and trying to
decide if I should drag him back upstairs when Matt
and Katie wandered in.

They were still in their sleepwear as they poured
juice and started breakfast.  The sight of Katie's
nipples poking into the fabric of her t-shirt caught
my attention.  Matt didn't seem to notice at all, or
else he'd seen them often enough that the novelty had
worn off.  Vincent, after a long up and down when she
first came into the kitchen, hadn't looked up from the
funnies.

I watched the sway of her breasts as she moved around
the room and tried to decide if I was attracted to her
even a little.  She was very cute and had a great
little body, but try as I might, I couldn't get so
much as a twitch out of my dick.  Vincent shifted
under my arm just then, and I glanced down in time to
see him root around in his crotch.  As he tugged the
heavy shape of his soft cock into a more comfortable
position, my body responded almost immediately. I
chuckled to myself and kissed the back of his neck
before going to help the kids get breakfast on the
table.

We all went to the stable for a while in the early
afternoon.  Matt and Katie rode for a couple hours
while Vincent helped me set up a computer in the
smaller office next to mine.  TJ and Gabriel needed a
place to work on Foundation business, so we moved some
furniture around and got them ready to go Monday
morning.

We ate a late lunch across the street at the deli, and
then Katie headed home.  She kissed Matt goodbye on the
mouth, and I thought she was going to do the same to
me, but she planted it on my cheek instead.  She hugged
Vincent, but
didn't kiss him, and then she was gone.  Matt watched
until she was out of sight, and then turned to me with
a smile.

"I really like Katie.  I told her all about my life
before I came here, stuff I never even told you."

"And what did she think?"

"That they oughta hang Ray up by his balls and leave
him for the crows."

"Jesus.  Her words or yours?"

"Hers."

I revised my impression of sweet, virginal Katie
another few degrees, and we went home.