Anyone who thinks Halloween is just for kids is kidding himself. Halloween was invented so adults could terrify children. In the absence of children, they dance about ghoulishly with each other and hold random acts of nonverbal communications. Adults feel far more abandonment in a mask than children do, because children are always on a fantasy island. Their anonymity makes them feel powerful, whereas children find the power in their imaginations.

Adults need Halloween, children not so much. For them, it’s simply the candy rush. For adults, it was a chance to revert back to animals, or monsters or sirens. You don’t see princesses and super heroes at an adult’s Halloween party. You see pirates and villains, and predatory creatures.

Our Halloween party contained a special exuberance. A few blocks over, one of the oldest residents had died, and the house was bought by a thirty-year old couple who had not yet started having children. The neighborhood was slowly drawing in more young people. “But with more young people,” said Melanie, when everybody had exhausted each other with their masquerades and settled down to basic beer drinking. “Will come babies and children.”

Everybody cheered, believing that to be a fine idea. “It will mean we have to change our ways,” she said above the noise. “We can no longer be running around naked or getting drunk on the front lawn. We’ve got to quit being groupies. We may even have to stop holding adult Halloween parties.”

“Oh, why is that?” Groaned Jack Jones. “We just won’t invite the kids.”

“No. We have to wait until they’ve all gone to bed, because they’ll be coming to our houses trick or treating. And we don’t give them no tricks! Only treats!”

“But we can scare them, can’t we?” Asked Liz anxiously. “That would make it fun.”

“Of course we can scare them.”

Their worries over a tot-patrol take-over relieved by the possibility of having someone they could actually scare on that supernatural night, they all begin to drift into more interesting topics, such as how Lu Ellen Carter had a boob job and a face lift done at age fifty-five, and wondering just how she had managed to pay for it. And how Earnest Hunt was growing Oriental poppies and kept insisting they were Ornamental poppies. How anybody could tell what Ernest Hunt kept in his enclosed garden and green house was a mystery, as the most you could ever see was a tangle of leaves, vines and occasional spots of color.

I listened until I started to nod, then decided I needed a little livelier company. I wandered first to the kitchen, which had turned into the designated make-out station for several young and not so young couples, including Briana and the mechanic, then out to the yard where a boom box was spilling out music. A metal, portable, outside fire stove chattered with the sound of popping wood, while the flames shot into the air as neatly as a tapered haircut.

The crowd outside was looser. They swayed to the music or stared hypnotized at the fire. A few old guys staggered about until they were directed toward the house and the safety of a warm room to crash in. I accepted a glass of beer in a plastic cup, then searched through the crowd.

As usual, he needed rescuing. Dr. Andrews was caught between an old guy who kept showing him some kind of lump on his butt and a short, squat woman who clasped her hands under her stomach to demonstrate the source of her pain.

“I’m coming to take you away, ha ha, ho ho, hee hee,” I said in my sexy police girl costume, with an extra short, flared skirt, wide open bodice, and you’ve got it; a pair of handcuffs. I grabbed him by the elbow. He was wearing a silly Dracula outfit of the classic version, but with his silvering temples, it did appear right.

“To the funny farm where life is beautiful all the time,” added the doctor. “You know the song.”

“Southern girl raised on grand pappy’s memories. Of course I do.”

“I had an uncle who was quirky like that.” He chuckled and also accepted a plastic cup from a tray that was floating by. “Seattle boys.”

“You were raised in Seattle?”

“Tacoma. Just a skip and a jump away. Closer to the heartland. Closer to lumberjack country.”

“Is that where the country boys around here go? To become lumberjacks?”

“Or fishermen. If they’re not in the forest, they’re on the water.”

“Hardy little devils.”

“Have you ever seen a lumberjack? Little is a gross understatement. They like women like you, strong, strapping women.” His hand brushed unconsciously over my arm.

“You seem to know a lot about them.”

“My cousins on my father’s side are lumberjacks. Big guys. Live close to the Idaho border. They got their size from their mama. I’m at the smaller end of the gene pool.”

“You’re not that small,” I said, my mind vividly recalling the hot summer days when he’d remove his tee shirt. His body made a pretty nice wedge, with a solid six pack bracing his middle and glistening biceps. He wasn’t Vin Diesel size, but he was a good candidate for a martial arts movie. All they would have to do was show off his bod and let a stunt man perform all the tricks.

“That’s just because you haven’t seen a lumberjack yet. Maybe I should take you up north sometime so you can see some of our wild mountain men.”

“Don’t make any promises you don’t intend to keep, and that includes ‘maybe’ ones. Maybe if you don’t come right out and say what’s on your mind, I won’t be around.”

He laughed. “You are so feisty. It makes me want to show you everything, but I don’t even know where to start. You’ve seen nothing at all really. You dance to the same music they danced to fifty years ago; schedule your recreational life around house parties with a bunch of old people and trips to the farmer’s market.”

“I go to night clubs.”

“You go to night clubs! Lord, bless her, she goes to night clubs!” The doctor was getting drunk, which felt rather surprising.

“You don’t need to make fun of me,” I said, pushing at him.

“I’m not. I’m sorry.” He staggered forward and backed me up against the fence. “I’m cruel. I don’t mean to be cruel. It’s just that I don’t know how to talk to girls like you. What do you talk about, Jenna?”

“The Space Needle. I’ve never been to the top of the Space Needle.”

“That’s what you talk about?”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure, and about ferrets. How they don’t have to do anything at all and they’re still funny.”

“You see,” he said, his face close to me, the alcohol spilling from his breath. “The women I know talk about the books they read; all of it very fine literature. So much of it chick lit.” He unzipped my jacket, pulling it away from my shoulders. I felt my own alcoholic fumes mingling with his.

“The women I know talk about the big three; politics, psychology, and philosophy. They discuss social reform. They are polished; another ‘p’. They talk so well, they make men feel small and humbled.” He pulled at the loose neck of my sweater and tasted my neck.

“The men I know talk about their favorite football team and their favorite cars. Is that so significant?”

“It could be. It puts you more in the moment, doesn’t it? Events you can follow quickly, physical rewards.” One hand crept up under my bra while the other remained braced against the fence. His middle finger poked at the nipple.

“Immediate pleasures?” I asked in a weak, muffled voice.

His lips crushed down on mine. “Cherries,” he murmured. “I knew they would taste like cherries.”

His other hand reached down to unsnap the bra, then slid around until he was squeezing both of my tits. His mouth remained firmly fixed on mine, his tongue probing between my teeth. I sucked his wild tongue in while my arms wrapped around his back, my fingers pressing, kneading and gliding over the smooth muscles.

Under the taste of beer, his tongue still tasted sweet. It was like drinking in nectar. I craved the inside of his mouth. My tongue darted in, touching and exploring along the gum line and deep into the corners, sliding over the top of his tongue.

His body was crushed tightly against mine. He lifted himself a little to allow his hand room for creeping under the waist band of my stretch jeans. His middle finger touched down on target, plowing deeply, while the rest of his hand gripped up around the crease in my thighs, framing in the softly curling patch. I groaned and began unbuckling his belt.

“No,” he said, backing off. “We can’t do this. Not here. Not now. It’s wrong.”

I squirmed as I fastened back together my clothes, not at all comfortable with this surge of unrequited passion. Cripe. I was going to have to take a shower, or find Zeke, or something. I twitched, straightening out my panties as I walked beside him. “What was that all about?”

“Nothing.” He squeezed the space between his eyebrows together with his fingers. “I’m really going to be sick. I’ve got to go.”

He really did look sick. He staggered across the space from my lawn to his and threw up just before reaching his door. The man with the cane hobbled up to me. “The doctor can’t take his liquor,” he said gleefully.

“Did you put something in his drink?”

“I’m not the kind of guy that does that, but he had a couple of whiskeys before drinking beer. That’s pretty rough, even for a drinker.”

“I’ve never seen him behave that way.”

“You’ve been here five months. What do you know? Most of us have known him since he first moved in, ten years ago. He was a young know-it-all then, and he’s a middling know-it-all now. If he didn’t think he knew everything he might actually learn something new. That’s always been his mistake. His arrogance.”

Billy walked back to the house with me, his head bobbing to one side than the other as he limped along. “You’d do better to find another young guy. These Washington hills are full of fellows who appreciate your qualities. And you’ve got a skill. You’ve got your own business. You can take a pick of any type of guy you like.”

“I think Dr. Andrews is a sad and lonely man.”

“But so am I. Very sad and lonely.”

“I’m not saying that it makes me attracted to him but it doesn’t seem right that a man like that should waste away his years on study and research and work, work, work without ever taking the time to enjoy life.”

“I worked my whole life,” said Billy soulfully, bending over his cane. “I never got to enjoy it for a minute.”

“Oh, I doubt that very seriously. I have never seen an old codger get more zest out of life than I’ve seen in you.”

“I’m making up for lost time.”

“For a beginner, you seem to have had a great deal of practice.”

“I’m a quick study.”

I shook my head. For the old folk, the evening was winding down. Billy limped off to join the last of the barely awake, whose voices murmured, rose up and fell away in disjointed conversations. Some of the necking session had retired to more private areas, while others had flopped in the living room to cool off. I found Zeke. “Wanna fuck?”

“Hell, no. I’ve had two hits of acid and I think I saw God.”

“Oh, great. Then how about sharing a bag of chips?”

“Yeah. I can do that.”

I spent Halloween night not satisfying an itch. I had been given a trick when I expected a treat. When the doctor came in for coffee, I decided to confront him. “I think we need to talk about what happened last night.”

He groaned. “I have a headache. Nothing happened, Jenna. We were drunk. I realized at the last minute we were making spectacles of ourselves in public. It was unpleasant. I went home.”

“It wasn’t pleasant? Groping me wasn’t pleasant?”

“That part was, but not like that. You deserve better. You deserve more respect.”

I bit my lower lip, not really knowing how to respond. “Don’t do that to me again. Don’t make promises you don’t intend to keep, not even unspoken ones.”

“You’re making a lot of rules regarding promises.”

“It’s like this, Dr. Andrews. No. After last night, I’m calling you Lee. I can cut through a guy’s bullshit in ten seconds. I’ve heard it all, the hearts and flowers, the songs, the silver lining in the clouds. The only thing I want to hear is honesty. And you’re not being honest.”

“In all honesty, Jenna, I think you’re a very fine young girl, but you are just a girl. I love your determination. I love your spunk, but Jenna. We are two very different people.”

He was talking down to me, like a school girl. “How are we different, Lee? Because you study the internal organs and I study what to put into them? Because you go to the theater and I go to concerts?”

“It’s more than that. Trust me, Jenna, let’s keep this at a friendship level. We’ll both be happier for it.”

I didn’t get to brood over Dr. Andrews’ retreat from establishing a rapport with a willing, buxom blonde for very long. A few days after our conversation, Liz had a crisis that only Linda, with her enormous cosmetic skills, could resolve.

Liz had tried one home color kit too many. The results were a disaster. Her hair had turned a strange, muddy purple, except at the frizzled ends that exploded in neon colors. It was three days before Thanksgiving and she was in hysterics. All of her family; her children, grandchildren, in-laws and significant others would be there, and here she would be; the star of the show – with purple hair. Her tears overflowed like a water spout.

Linda put both hands on her face and clucked like a mother hen. “Oh, my dear. Oh my poor, poor dear,” she said, sweeping the distressed woman into her parlor. She sat Liz down on the magnificent chair that magically transformed the dull into gleaming and the mediocre into spectacular. It would be the most critical, hair life preserving act of her career.

Her fingers rifled through the damage. They probed deeply into her scalp. “This is going to take a long time. Do you trust me?”

Liz huddled her pudgy shoulders together. “What choice do I have? How can I explain this to anybody? Can you cover this?”

“I can but I won’t. It will further damage your hair. I’m going to strip the color out and I’m going to cut it.”

“You’re going to cut it?” Asked Liz weakly, touching her frizz.

“Do you want to look like a 1979 grandma or a modern day woman?”

“I want to be modern. Very modern.”

“Then let me do it.”

She rinsed, cleaned, stripped, steamed and nurtured Liz’s hair with protein solutions. She gave the most incredible oil infusion therapy I’d ever seen. She rubbed. She fluffed. She moisturized her hair again from a spray bottle. Then she got out the scissors and began to snip, just below the line where her hair began to frizzle out. Snip. Snip went the scissors, and with each dropping strand of color faded, frizzy hair, Liz’s eyes grew wider with terror.

When it was over, Liz was almost too terrified to look at herself in the mirror. She felt at the sides of her head and on top. Her hair was short. Really short. She touched the spiky ends. She peeked at the mirror, trembling, then a wide smile spread over her face. Her hair had been stripped back to its nearly all-white color, except for the ends, which were a very lovely color of lavender. “I look radical!”

Liz enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving as the most radical grandma ever, while we celebrated with Jack Jones, Billy, and Zeke. The doctor didn’t come over and I told myself firmly I didn’t care.

I had a business to run, and during the holiday season, it was hopping. As the orders came in, the house filled heavily with the scent of cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, mint, and chocolate. I was at the stove all day, every day, mixing and measuring, patting and cutting and really didn’t have time for idle conversation.

Briana did. Briana had completely forgiven the doctor for calling her fat. She made a beeline for the table every morning when he appeared for breakfast. She always managed to say something that would make him laugh, and it was usually with no effort. Briana just can’t help saying silly things. “I heard old man Miller had a coronary bypass,” she breezed, as I set down a full coffee cup and a Danish. “My uncle had a coronary bypass.” She set her bare foot on her chair, and pointed between her toes. “The coronary was right here. The cut all around it and it came right out.”

“Briana,” I said, slapping at her as I passed by. “It was a corn. Not a coronary.”

“It was too! Coronary is the medical term for corns.”

“Coronaries are the main arteries around your heart,” explained Dr. Andrews.

“So when you do a bypass, it’s like the way they removed the arteries in my grandmother’s legs?”

“Those weren’t arteries. They were busted blood vessels.”

“Same thing.”

I left her in Dr. Andrews’ hands. Let him take the time to teach her definitions. It’s what he really wanted – someone to teach things to. Someone he can instruct and raise up like a child. I mumbled bitterly to myself as I set about my daily tasks.

Maybe I would have been more careful if I had remembered it was just two days before Christmas and the clinic had been shut down for a week, responding only to emergencies. Dr. Andrews had the time off and instead of shutting himself inside his home, he had staked out that far end of the dining table that drew an imaginary border between the dining room and the living area.

I had refused to notice. I wrapped up breakfast, filled the lunch trays and glanced out into the dining area. Briana had not come in to help the entire time. I picked up the Bronco keys and thudded over to the table. I can be light footed. I can be so delicate, you scarcely notice I’m coming or going at all, but right now, I didn’t feel like it. I let the floor board’s quiver. I let the little glass flower vases titter as the table absorbed the shock wave. “You make deliveries,” I told Briana. “I’ve still got cherry jubilee to make for Melanie’s party tonight.”

“Okay,” she said, worrying her eyebrows together. “You don’t have to get in a huff about it. I was going to help.”

I sniffed and returned to the kitchen. I really wasn’t in the mood for arguments. Briana put on her winter clothing, looking just like a Seattle girl in a fleece lined ski jacket, high-topped boots, and knitted gloves. She waved cheerfully to the doctor, who waved back, then went out the door.

I thought he would leave, but he helped himself to another cup of coffee, sat back in his chair and stared at his laptop. Strange fellow. He really wasn’t worth so much of my time and I had no idea why I allowed him to occupy it. I set out the ingredients for my special dish, which included a bottle of cognac. I poured a little of the cognac in a glass with some vermouth and sipped it down. Not bad. I poured a little more and my task began to look cheerier.

Cherries jubilee is a simple recipe, but a delicate process. Your cherries and your liqueur must be just the right temperature. When you put in the warmed liqueur, you must flame the pan to burn off the alcohol. Unfortunately, with two shots under my belt, my judgment was a little off. The syrup began popping as soon as I added the liqueur, and when I flamed it, an explosion of cherries shot for the ceiling on the wave of a very triumphant flame.

The sauce torpedoed in every direction, splattering the stove and the counter-tops. It dripped from the refrigerator, the ceilings and the walls. Some of it stuck to my hair spotted my apron. Several scolding drops hit the back of my hand and I yelped out instinctively.

Dr. Andrews was inside the kitchen faster than a jack rabbit can cross the road. He was stunned for just a moment. “What the hell?” Then he rushed to my side. “Are you alright?”

“Flash burn.” I waved my burned hand around to the accompaniment of the good one that was giving it full support, holding it just a little tight because it really did hurt. “The cherries exploded.”

“So I see. They were rather exuberant cherries. Let me have a look at this.”

“It’s not that bad,” I lied. Blisters were already starting to pop up.

“It’s bad enough. Where’s your first aid kit?”

“In the upstairs bathroom.”

“You’re supposed to keep one in the kitchen at all times.”

“It gets moved around a lot.”

“Hmm.”

I don’t know why he thought it was necessary to help me up the stairs. It wasn’t like my leg had been fried, or anything like that. Still, it felt nice, and maybe I pretended to be a little weaker and more shaken than I really was. I showed him our medical kit and he plowed through it, satisfied I had an appropriate burn medication. He ran my hand under Luke warm water until the fiery bite began to ease. “You know you should never use cold water, right?” He asked, drying each finger gently with a towel.

“Yeah, I know.”

He brought out the ointment, then glanced sideways, nodding at the half open door across from the bathroom. “Whose room is that?”

“Mine.”

“Messy.”

“I know that too.”

He had healing hands. As he spread the ointment over my hand, I felt him making the pain go away. He drew it out while the gel spread over the burns coolly. As he covered the last blister, his lips brushed close to mine. I pursed my lips without thinking, a light kiss landing against the side of his face. He turned back and kissed me more fully, cupping my jaw and chin with one hand. “In there?” He asked, nodding at my room.

“We won’t get interrupted.”

“Sounds good.” He kept his arms around my waist, kissing me, while we transferred from the bathroom to my bedroom, as though he was afraid I might change my mind. As he had observed, the room was messy. The blankets were still bunched and tossed from the night before. Several discarded items of clothing lay on the bed, and several others were strewn across the floor. An impressive pile of outfits hung over the single dressing room chair. It only meant if we stumbled a few times, there would be something to cushion the fall.

We fell across the bed breathlessly, still clinging to each other. He stopped a moment to pull the hair away from my face and trace the outline of my jaw. The trace continued down my neck where it stopped at the collar of my blouse. He pulled my head up to kiss me again, his other arm wrapping around my back and pressing my body close to his.

I wrapped my arms around his neck, gripping the back of the head with one hand, feeling the soft, impeccably barbered hair slip between my fingers, inhaling the strange mixture of sanitized skin and aftershave. Under the scrubbed surface was a thick, manly scent that made me feel hungry. I wanted to lick, taste and nuzzle every inch of his body.

He began unbuttoning my blouse, while my hands tugged at his shirt, undoing the bare minimum necessary for pulling it over his head. Oh! That golden, well-defined body! My hands roved over each row of muscles, then glided up to pull him down on top of me again. I didn’t even notice when he worked the blouse loose, and our upper bodies were squirming nakedly together.

He loosened his belt himself, then slipped his hands down into the loose band of my cargo pants, squeezing me close. I moaned, my hands working frantically to pull away the last of the clothing.

I found his spine, then his firm, well-shaped buttocks, and pushed his pants down further. His mouth marched down from my neck, across my bosom, and buried itself in my belly, while his fingers unsnapped my jeans and pulled them below my hips. He was going to kiss me there, I’m sure, but I couldn’t take pussy teasing any longer. I pulled up his head, grasped his dick and inserted it into my ready and dripping cunt.

He crashed down on me. We were both powerless to resist the pounding rhythm coursing through our veins. He felt so hard, so unbreakable pushing through my slit. His cock was so thick and yet moved so effortlessly, taking advantage of my wetness and slipping in and out…in and out, so relentless, so smooth….and yet firing up all the nerves in my body.

I began spasming as a majestic beat forced us to crash together again and again. Our bodies were so close and so entangled. I had never felt a cock go so deep as if scraping my mind, soul, and body. We were straining to merge together, fucking each other’s brains out but still wanting more closeness.

“Yes…like that! Oh God!” I bellowed, my tits crashing into his face, my whole body writhing in forbidden passion. I wanted to completely dissolve into one with this man, take everything he had and give him everything I was. I needed more.

I bucked, my body arching, my ankles firmly wrapped around his legs, fell back as he thundered down on top of me and arched again.

“Oh fuck! Fuck me harder, goddammit!” I screamed, sexually frustrated that he wasn’t breaking just yet. He was going to keep ramming my pussy until I could take no more—until I screamed and begged him to stop.

“Talk to me,” I said, taking his cock all the way in and grabbing his ass cheeks for good measure.

“Take it,” he sighed, grabbing me by the hair to make sure I felt every inch—and didn’t try to squirm. “Take it…mmm…” he said, breathing into my face, giving me a whiff of his essence. His real self, his whole being. He was fucking me with everything he could muster inside. Steadily pounding my snatch until I went from whimpers to mouth-dropping silence. I writhed and wiggled along with him, hoping he could last just a little bit longer…just enough for me to lose all control.

I felt my urge to come, and come harder than ever before, growing stronger. I could feel this one…the wetness, the internal rage bubbling forth. Something hot and throbbing was exploding inside me and I knew it was just me. He hadn’t come yet and wasn’t even close to it. But I was ready to lose my mind.

I shrieked loudly, feeling the orgasm slowly inch out of my pussy until it rendered me motionless, pangs of quivering ecstasy oozing out.

“Ohhhh I’m cumming!” I screamed grabbing him by the hair and smothering him into my tits. Even while I was violently cumming all over his cock he still sucked my nipples, so eager to taste and feel every part of me he could.

I nodded and squinted, begging with my eyes, to please cum inside of me and hold nothing back.

He joined me in a second mutual scream as he shot his sperm forth, mingling with my pussy juices. Our bodies were shivering, soaked with each other’s juices, still rubbing up and down on the sweat we created.

I had never had anyone make love to me this way before. We were swimming in complete ecstasy, our bodies moving in synchrony, falling into each other’s sweat and pheromones. I fucked him and he fucked me and goddammit, he didn’t even stop the hard pounding until both of us had already orgasmed and emptied our genitals of everything single drop.

“Ohhh, ohhhh fuck, fuck!” I groaned, feeling quite insatiable and ravenous for more, even though my well-beaten pussy was begging for a break.

When it was over, he still held me tight until our breathing slowed. “I guess I’m not the only one,” I said.

He laid his head between my breasts. “This is when I feel the most vulnerable.”

I played with his hair, smoothing it away from his brow. “You can’t blame the alcohol this time.”

“No, I can’t. The holidays are the loneliest time, you know.”

“You have yourself to blame. You didn’t come over for Thanksgiving.”

“I despise Thanksgiving. It marks the beginning of a season of total gluttony. Blood pressure flies off the scale. Diabetics have sky rocketing blood sugar. People who struggled all year to lose fifty pounds gain half of it back by the end of the holiday season.”

“You sound like a bah-humbug.”

“No. I just require more sensibility in life. One of the greatest traditions surrounding Thanksgiving was the turkey. A nice, healthy bird. Lots of good, lean meat when you roast it. So what do people decide to do? They decide, oh! A roasted turkey is too healthy to eat. Let’s deep fat fry a turkey instead. All I ask is sensibility. All I get is rebellion against something that’s nothing more than the pure science of cause and effect.”

“Well, that’s just the way people are. They find something they like and they want more and more of it. Sensibility has never had anything to do with it.”

“You do a lot of non-sensible things, yet in some ways, you’re one of the most sensible women I’ve ever known. Why is that?”

“Good old-fashioned Southern reasoning,” I said, tapping my head.

He checked his watch, then rolled out of bed reluctantly. “I’m supposed to attend a celebration at the Senior Center. I’ve got one hour to freshen up.”

“Should I be jealous?”

“What? No. Fruit punch and sugar-free cookies, balloons, party hats and cheap gifts. Your parties are far more entertaining.”

“I thought you didn’t approve.”

“I don’t. But they’re still entertaining.”

We walked down the stairs arm in arm. “Your cherries exploded,” he remarked when we got to the kitchen.

“They certainly did.”

“I guess Melanie is out of luck.”

“I was getting tired of doing so much holiday baking anyway. Now I have an excuse to sit back and wait for presents. I suppose you think gift giving is bad as well?”

“No, I think it’s fun.”

I watched him leave, then started cleaning the kitchen, using rubber gloves to keep the detergents from irritating the burns. Briana came back before I was half way done. “Oh, no! Oh, no!” She said, looking around. “Your cherries popped.”

“You could say that.”

“Sheesh! Are you hurt? Did you get hurt?”

I showed her my hand. Dr. Andrews had taped light gauze bandaging over the burns to keep the raw skin protected. “Oh my! We’ll have to take over for you. You go straight to the living room, lie back on the couch, and just relax. Watch television.”

I only protested as much as was required for good taste before plopping among the giant couch pillows. I flicked through the channels with the remote, feeling completely satiated and of the opinion that Christmas had come to me three days early.