"Stop being so crude, Tim," she snapped waspishly at him. "I ought to say goodnight to the Anderssons. It's only polite."

"Well, make it snappy, unless you want to be raped here in the lobby."

Melanie was shocked and dismayed by the way her husband was acting, afraid that it was because of the liquor and the stimulation of the movie. The very way Tim was behaving was reason enough for the young wife to believe such films are wrong and should be censored, if not banned entirely. Rigidly, she crossed towards the refreshment stand which was against the back wall between the two sets of aisle doors, self-pity and anger boiling through her. Oh God, no telling what Tim would be like in bed considering the mood he was in now! If only…

"Hello, Mrs. Cartwright," a warm, throaty voice said, "Are you leaving?" It was Amos Andersson who was speaking to her.

She blushed, stammering in reply: "Why… why yes, we are. Tim has to get up early in the morning to catch his plane, and…"

Andersson chuckled appreciatively. "I understand. You two want to be alone, with more important things to do than just seeing my old movie."

"Oh no, Mr. Andersson, we enjoyed it very much!"

"I'm glad you did," Andersson smiled, stroking one end of his small, clipped mustache. "But please, call me Amos. After all, we're working together now… Melanie."

"All… All right, Mr. – I mean, Amos." She dimpled prettily at the big man who was her new boss. She guessed him to be about six-two, and around two hundred pounds. His thick brown hair, lovingly rippled into waves, was long over his ears and at the base of his neck. He had a wide, handsome face, with a short nose above a heavy-lipped mouth, a firm chin cut by a deep cleft and thick eyebrows over small, pale brown eyes. To Melanie, the slightly older man was awesomely masculine, so… well, she hadn't been able to put her finger on it, other than he had seemed to her from the first moment they'd met to be overwhelmingly magnetic.