"Steve."

He came quickly across to her and, when she stood up, he hugged her.

"It was my fault, Robin. Come on, I'm gonna fix some coffee and then we'll get something to take with us to eat and drive the jeep out to Three Hills. You can drive when we get out of the city."

"Yeah… Okay…" Robin wiped tears with the back of her hand. Steve kissed her hair, patted her shoulder and went back into the tiny kitchenette.

She stood there in the middle of the room, feeling his cum drying on her legs, thinking that she'd never had a boy hug her as tightly as Steve had on the bed that morning. The day was different now. It would always be different from now on. Things would never be the same. Never, never, never.

Marcia sat fingering her gold watch. The one Sam Philbert had given her the week before. She thought of it as a reminder of payments yet to be made. A girl didn't get anything free nowadays. And though Sam could afford it, afford as easily as he had afforded the white Lincoln and his fancy clothes and the big house he'd showed her pictures of… thought he could afford to give away a gold watch, Marcia knew what was coming. She'd known when she'd let him put the soft, glittery band around her thin wrist and fasten it.

She stood up and walked nervously to the window. Her silky dress clung around her waist, crackling with static electricity. She smelled her soapy fresh body and the tinge of fragrant musk she'd applied at her wrists, behind her ears.

Sam was late. Marcia sat down on the couch and lit her second cigarette of the hour.

"Sam not here yet?" her mother said, swishing happily into the room.

"He'll be here soon."

"Oh, I'm sure he will." Her mother sat down across from her. "He's such a nice young man. I wish that your sister would start acting her age, start dating a few boys. She worries me to death."

"Robin's not the type."