We sat under a shady umbrella sipping and talking, and it was nice to hear a male voice on the premises again. He clucked sympathetically when I gave him an abridged account of Mom and Daddy's marital troubles, ending with the divorce and Daddy's abrupt removal to Australia, and he was full of questions about Mom and how she was taking it. It was no dummy – I could see that he was quite interested in my mother, and I wondered just how close they'd been in the past. As I chatted with him, I found myself very curious. Had he ever fucked Mom? Three to one he had. Daddy had implied as much during the last big fights, but Mom had never dignified the accusations with answers.

What kind of a lay was he? I wondered about that, too. Didn't his age put him over the hill, sexually speaking? I mean, how could a forty-year-old man compete with a horny young boy? Of course, Uncle Roy didn't look over the hill in any sense.

"Are you going to school here?"

"School's out," I reminded him. "I was going to a girls' school in Kentucky but I got kicked out." For having a boy in my dorm room. Thank God the proctor didn't catch us screwing. We were fully dressed, and getting into some preliminary petting when she nabbed us. Otherwise they'd probably have branded me with a scarlet A as well as kicked my ass out.

"Some schools have absolutely archaic regulations. Just like the Dark Ages or something."

His glass was empty, so I poured him a refill. It was mostly vodka, the way I like vodka and tonic.

My glass was empty, too, but the first drink had set my tummy fluttering and I didn't need a second right now. Instead I stood up, stretching like a lithe young cat, which is a good description of me. I'm almost five feet six, honey blonde above and below, with long legs and arms that know how to stretch and wrap. Mom keeps telling her friends that I'm going to be a real fox when I grow up, but at almost-fifteen I think I'm doing pretty Goddamned good.