"Well… yes."

"How much chance do you think you're going to have for fucking while you stay with your brother? This is a large apartment by New York City standards, but when it comes to sneaking someone into bed with you, it's tiny."

Amy understood. "Ouch! I almost forgot about that. But maybe I'll at least be able to meet boys, and maybe some of them will have a place where we can…" She stopped.

Roberta was shaking her head. "No way. You're going to be chaperoned every minute. If Les can't be playing guardian angel, I will be."

Amy giggled. "But I think you and I can reach sort of an understanding, can't we?"

"Maybe," Roberta said thoughtfully. "But Les is taking vacation days after tomorrow so he can spend more time with his 'kid sister'. Once that starts, it's going to be awfully tough."

"Great," Amy said sarcastically. She sat heavily on the couch that was to be her bed for the next ten days.

"There's only one way to change that," Roberta continued. "But unless I can figure out how to make that change, you might just as well resign yourself to ten very undersexed days."

"How can we change it?" Amy asked, desperate to hear Roberta's idea.

"We've got to convince your brother that you can take care of yourself."

"You mean, convince him that I'm old enough to fuck," Amy asserted.

Roberta nodded somberly. "And unless you know something about your brother that I don't – and believe me, I know an awful lot about him – nothing short of a frontal lobotomy is going to cause that kind of change in him."

The two were quiet for a minute. Then Amy brightened. "Oh, well, if nothing else, I've still got a city to see. And who knows? Maybe we can figure something out!"

She didn't know that Roberta already had.

CHAPTER THREE