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"DC," I said Maybe I shouldn't have Maybe I should have just laughed and said I was tired and let's go to sleep now, but I closed my eyes and let myself drift into the fiction like soh a dark corridor, trying one door of escape and then another and finding them all locked, all except this one that let me out onto a cloud

"DC? I was there once Didn't like it, but if I knew you were there, I would have stayed longer," he said He kissedan electric warh my stomach and into my heart

Then he peeled away the blanket and gracefullywith his lips until he was ateach nipple with the tip of his tongue

"I'm Roy," he whispered "Roy Arnold Pleased to meet you, Rain," he said

When he kissed s between htto a raft When he enteredin a swirl of unleashed, wild passion I was a wild ani itself, about to break free I heaved myself in one direction and then another until he touched so inside me that shut down all my resistance

I traveled over that sweet, soft pathway, out of the darkness, out of the fear, out of the loneliness When it ended, I was like a kite that had lost all the wind and was drifting slowly back to earth, riding the warreen, cool lawn

Roy moaned his own contentment and then he lifted hi on to my hand I didn't move I didn't speak I kept my eyes closed

"You're a beautiful girl, Rain Arnold," he said "I'ood-bye to you No, ma'am"

He still held on to my hand

"You all right?" he finally asked

"I don't know," I said

"Just like two people who never knew each other before," he preached "That's all it is Two people, two strangers, getting to know each other and falling in love Happens every day someplace," he told me

Pretend, I thought

Iine

Drive away the truth, shoo it out and slam the door on it