“Have you been lifting weights, Bankston?” I asked in some amazement. I might have been more interested if he’d shown that much initiative when I’d dated him.

He looked embarrassed but pleased. “Yeah, can you tell a difference?”

“I certainly can,” I said with genuine admiration. It was hard to credit Melanie Clark with being the motivation for such a revolutionary change in Bankston’s sedentary life, but undoubtedly she was. Perhaps her absorption in him could be all the more complete since she had no family to claim her devotion. Her parents, both ‘only’ children, had been dead for years-her mother from cancer, her father hit by a drunk driver.

Right now Melanie the motivator was looking miffed.

“What do you think about all this, Melanie?” I asked hastily.

Melanie visibly relaxed when I acknowledged her proprietorship. I made a mental note to speak carefully around her, since Bankston lived in one of “my” townhouses. Melanie must surely know Bankston and I had gone out together and it would be too easy for her to build something incorrect out of a landlady-tenant relationship.

“Working out’s done wonders for Bankston,” she said neutrally. But there was an unmistakable cast to her words. Melanie wanted me to get a specific message, that she and Bankston were having sex. I was a little shocked at her wanting me to know that. There was a gleam in her eyes that made me realize Melanie had banked fires under her sedate exterior. Under the straight dark hair conservatively cut, under the plain dress, Melanie was definitely feeling her oats. Her hips and bosom were heavy, but suddenly I saw them as Bankston must, as fertility symbols instead of liabilities. And I had a further revelation; not only were Bankston and Melanie having sex, they were having it often and exotically.

I looked at Melanie with more respect. Anyone who could pull the wool over the collective eye of Lawrenceton as effectively as Melanie had earned it.