She was so brightly beautiful that she hurt his eyes, and Dallas didn’t see the girl as trouble, but as someone highly desirable. Just now, she wasn’t the daughter of the loudest and most influential redneck on the school board; Kathy Collins was a girl with this slim, sensuous body and the challenging breasts.

She was the girl he had practically been forced to screw, and there was no way Dallas could be made to feel sorry for that.

Kathy stared at him for a long, intriguing moment, then dropped the purple fascination of her eyes and moved about his small apartment, looking about herself as he went to check the back window and door.

She said, “Your pad is like you, teacher darling, solid and very mannish, but groovy, too. You know, I must have been blind not to see what a guy you are, until you grew your hair and moustache. But it was kind of like you were in the uniform of the establishment, right? I mean, you were trying to look just like the rest of them. But when you turned individual and I really saw you the first time-wow!”

He moved uncertainly to his mini-bar. “I don’t know what to offer you, Kathy.

I’ve been programmed to see you as a child, and I know damned well you’re not, but I still feel funny about offering you liquor.”

She smiled over to him and lay the soft delicacy of one hand upon his arm. “A little wine, if you have any. I’ve been drinking wine for years, but I don’t need it to turn on, Dallas. Now if you had some good grass…“

“Sorry,” he said, “no grass, but here’s some Chianti.” Splashing the dark wine into a glass, he handed it to her, and felt a tremble in his fingers. “Does your dad know you do pot?”