Chapter 1

But, howsoever love be blind,
the world at large hath eyes.

A Code of Morals
Joseph Rudyard Kipling

“Now, remember,” Cheryl Benson told Lori. “If Mom calls, say I’m in the bathroom. Call me immediately. I’ll call her right back.”

“I just hope you’re protected.”

Cheryl took the cell from her ear and gave it a look of disbelief. Well, the phone wouldn’t convey looks. She’d try to express reality in words. “It’s not like that,” she said when it was back in place.

“Sure, Cheryl. You’re going to spend all night with this guy, Dale, and nothing’s going to happen. I’ve stopped believing in the Easter Bunny, too.”

“And you’ve never made out with a guy?”

“I never said that.”

“It’s just that Dale has his own place, and cars are so cramped, and Mom and Dad would never let us have privacy here. I’m a college graduate, for God’s sake.”

“Look,” Lori said, “I’ll back you because I’m your friend. Still, Dale’s a guy and guys don’t have an off button.”

Cheryl remembered this when she got to Dale’s place. “Look. We’re only going to go so far,” she said.

“Of course, Doll. Don’t you trust me?” And, really, she did. She felt a little guilty towards Dale. He was the first guy who had asked her out after she got back from college. He was a nice guy, but she suspected that he felt much closer to love for her than she felt for him. She had been mourning her break-up with Ted, and her ardent welcome for Dale’s advances was more a response to the sign that she was over Ted than to Dale himself. Now, if Ted had had his own apartment, then she might not have wanted to stop.

Then, too, at 5’ 11”, she didn’t have all that great a choice of men. Lots of short guys were attracted to her, but she wasn’t attracted to them. Dale was 6’ 1”, and the two inches made her feel that the couple they made was respectable. She liked him; she liked being with him. She just didn’t think that the liking was going to turn into love.

They shopped at a grocery store near his place. She selected the stuff, and he paid for it. At his apartment, she cooked him a meal. It wasn’t fancy: chicken breasts, scalloped potatoes, broccoli, and a tossed salad. Dale set the table and cleaned up.

Then he put on some soft music in the living room. The only light there was from the kitchen. He brought them each a glass of rum and Coke, and they sat next to each other on the sofa to kiss.

“Drink up,” he said some time later. He drained his glass, and she did, too, though the drink seemed awfully heavy on the rum.

“Now,” she said later. She pulled his hands away from her belt, “you have to stop.”

“But you are so pretty. I want to see all of you.” He’d done more than see her breasts; he’d been stroking them and kissing them all night. She didn’t believe that he would stop at looking if she bared more.

“That is the limit. You said that you would respect limits.”

“I’m feeling thirsty,” he said. “Want another rum and Coke?”

“I’ve reached my limit.” Indeed, she was feeling a bit tipsy. One drink didn’t usually do that to her. He must have mixed those with a heavy hand. “Go right ahead.”

“Well, I don’t want to drink alone. Why don’t we both cut out the booze? I have some tomato juice in the ‘fridge. Want some?”

“I’ll get it.”

“Nah! You cooked, and we said that was all you’d do.” He was on his feet, and she took the break to visit his bathroom.

When he brought the tomato juice in, he brought new, larger glasses with ice cubes in them. The juice tasted different, perhaps because of the ice. The more she drank, the thirstier she got. Anyway, she wanted to finish the glass before too much ice melted. His kisses now were all for her breasts and none for her mouth. She could drink any time she wanted. There wasn’t even much to do with her hands except stroke his hair.

Before she was done with the glass, though, she began to feel queasy in her stomach. She was dizzy, too. It couldn’t be the single glass of rum and Coke. Her reactions to the dizziness and queasiness took all her attention away from Dale’s hands and lips on her breasts. Could she break off now? Well, that would be awfully mean to Dale, and she couldn’t go home, anyway. She was going to finish the night on the couch. Having him take her home because she felt sick would be one thing. Banishing him to his bedroom so she could go to sleep early on his couch would be quite another.

While she was thinking this, and having a hard time getting through those thoughts, she felt his hand on her belt buckle again.

“No, Dale.” She pushed his hand away, and he resisted. When his hand slipped out of her grip, it shoved into her stomach. It wasn’t a hard punch, but it tipped the balance in her stomach. “Oh!” she said. Then all the tomato juice came back up.

Jake Warren glanced at the time as he got up from his terminal. It was 10:14. Even at the height of summer, the windows were dark as he walked toward the break room. He still had another hour of writing code, maybe even two, in him. He needed a break before he went back to the program, though. When he wandered into the break room, Larry the team supervisor and Greg -- younger than Jake, but another guy just starting his second year -- were there drinking coffee. One of the pizza boxes was shoved into the trash. There were three pieces of pepperoni left, but only one piece of the vegetarian special.

“Are you going to want that?” He asked Greg. He preferred the taste, but Greg was an actual vegetarian.

“No way! My stomach is getting cramps already. I spent the last twenty minutes staring at the monitor without typing a thing.” Jake had been in that situation.

“Go home while you’re still safe behind the wheel. You’re not going to get anything productive done tonight.”

“I just might. What do you think, Larry?”

“Going home is right.” Larry watched Greg head out the door, and Jake started gnawing on his pizza. “You, however,” Larry said to Jake, “were wrong.”

“Huh?”

“Look I’m his supervisor -- yours, too. If he decides to go home after hours, that’s his business. He should, maybe, tell me when I’m available. If he asked your opinion, I wouldn’t mind your giving it. It sounded, though, a good deal like you were taking my place.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to cut you down.” Jake knew that Larry was right. He wasn’t a platoon sergeant any more, and he should quit acting like one. His job was taking care of programs, not men -- not even that. Larry’s job was taking care of the program they were writing, and Jake’s job was taking care of one single module of that program. He just missed taking care of people after five years away.

“No sweat. It’s not like you contradicted something I said. You write good code. The hardest thing I ever learned was moving up from writing code to supervising people. In a couple more years, you’ll make that transition. I’ll bet you make it more easily than I did.”

Driving home later, though, he thought about it. He’d been a platoon sergeant, taking care of the men while the lieutenant gave the orders. He’d gone from physical therapy straight to school. After a while, the students worked together on projects, and his fellows had often let him mother-hen them. Now, it wasn’t on his job description.

Larry had been great about it, and Jake had been careful to work until he didn’t trust his results. Then he drove home.

He felt lucky that he could park only two blocks away from his parents’ building at this time of night. The neighborhood definitely needed more parking. He was striding along and getting close to home when a car stopped ahead of him. Someone got out of the passenger side. He saw the car drive off and the passenger weave up the walk towards his parents’ building. The guy seemed to have difficulty getting the key in the lock.

He’d grown up being the landlord’s son. He was just another of his parents’ tenants, now, but the years of military service and college hadn’t damped his feeling of being responsible for the building. Was this a tenant who’d had too much too drink, or was it a drunk trying to get in the wrong building? It was, he saw now, a woman.

Then he knew who it must be, Eve’s younger sister. Cheryl had been a nice kid, and she’d grown up. She had turned into a looker, too. She didn’t appear to be behaving well, though.

“Cheryl?” he asked.

“Oh, Jake. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m sick.”

“You’re drunk as a skunk.” That wasn’t her only resemblance to a skunk. She smelled like she’d thrown up.

“I can’t let Mom and Dad see me like this,” she said. He sympathized. His parents had wanted him to move back after college the year before. He’d wanted a little privacy -- not that he’d got much use for privacy recently with the hours he was working. Still, he could bring girls back to his own apartment. They had compromised on his renting one of the small apartments that they’d cut out of the third-floor ones.

“Come on. I’ll get you cleaned up.” He unlocked the door expecting to carry her up. He rethought making that offer. Back when he’d been going with Eve, he’d carried her little sister up to her apartment several times. Still, two and a half flights was more effort than a half flight, and she was a woman now instead of a junior-high girl -- a big, tall woman, too. The real problem was that his left leg hadn’t -- even five years out of the hospital -- regained all its strength.

It seemed that Cheryl, however, was able to navigate the stairs with a little help. He had one hand on her upper arm and pulled her straight every time she stumbled. When she did, she shushed him -- or maybe herself. The noise wasn’t that great, and nobody came out of an apartment to see what was happening.

Upstairs, he got her into the bathroom and out of the blouse, which had only one button buttoned, and the rest of her clothes. The belt, which had a trick buckle, gave him some problems. Somehow, she had been sick inside her bra. He got her into the tub with the shower on her. Then he rinsed her clothes in the toilet before storing them in the washbasin. When he flushed, she yelped. He reached around the shower curtain to move her around under the water. Soap was too much to ask. When she was as clean as she was going to get, he turned off the hot water.

“Hey!” She was a little more awake. He turned off the cold water, pushed back the shower curtain, and started drying her where she stood. Cleaned up, Cheryl was a remarkably attractive woman. He’d sort of known that. He’d seen her once in a while in the past year, and not always bundled into a coat in winter. Still, she looked better in her skin with her breasts unbound and only the gold hair shielding her femininity. She looked, in fact, delectable. Well, he wasn’t going to get this woman into his bed this night. Really, he was, but not in an enjoyable way.

“Do you think you could step out of the tub?” he asked. She took the hand he held out, and he helped her keep her balance. When she was standing there, and quite close to him, he put the seat down on the toilet. “Sit there. I’m going out, and you should use it.” That wasn’t the sort of decision you made for another adult, but he didn’t trust her judgment right then.

He closed the door and went into the bedroom. He straightened his bed a bit, grabbed an extra sheet and a blanket. The apartment held three rooms, bedroom, kitchen, and bathroom. If Cheryl were going to sleep in the bedroom, he’d sleep in the kitchen. When he heard the toilet flush, he went in and led her to the bedroom. He let her down in the bed, and regretfully covered that beauty.

He emptied her pockets and draped her clothes over the shower curtain. He opened the bathroom window and closed the door. Then he folded the blanket on the kitchen floor for a pad and tossed the sheet on it. He undressed, turned off the light, and covered himself. He took a bit of time getting to sleep, reflecting how soft he’d got in civilian life.

Eve’s kid sister sure had grown up. When the Bensons had moved into the building, he’d been a sophomore in high school, which would have made Eve a sophomore, too. Cheryl had been a scrawny kid. Even then, she’d been nice. Even though Eve had referred to her as “the brat,” there had been less ill feeling between them than between some sisters. Then, in the summer after his junior year, he and Eve had become a couple. Cheryl seemed to be in favor of that, so long as he treated her decently when they were all together. Once, Cheryl had caught them kissing up against the wall near the back door. “Mom’s coming,” she had said. Eve had enough time to get her blouse buttoned and tucked into her jeans before Mrs. Benson came out.

Eve had found another guy before the end of senior year, but the break-up left them friends. When he went off to basic, Eve had kissed him good bye. Even Cheryl had. He hadn’t been home much after that, between the army and college. The second hospitalization had delayed starting college until the second semester, which had kept him making up courses for two summers. Well, enough memories. He lay flat and stared at the ceiling until he fell asleep.

When the morning light woke him, he lay perfectly still until he remembered how he’d got into this predicament. He was running late, but nobody would bitch about his getting in late considering when he’d left the night before. He was sleeping naked, as always. It might be an embarrassment if Cheryl woke up. Well, she was sleeping naked, too, and would be more embarrassed about that. He got up and went into the john. With the open window, it didn’t smell too bad in there. He hung the clothes back on the shower-curtain rod after he was finished showering.

He put his trousers and yesterday’s shirt on to go into the bedroom for his clothes, though. He needn’t have bothered. Cheryl was dead asleep. She’d curled up on her side. That had pulled the sheet partly off her, leaving her tush exposed. It was a very nice tush, too. He got his shirt and underwear without waking her. Then he selected another -- heavier -- shirt and a pair of shorts to leave for her to wear home. He didn’t think she would want to put her jeans or blouse on before putting them through the wash.

Was he being generous and looking so often at the bed just to check that he wasn’t waking his guest, or was he just enjoying the sight of that tush? Her hair wasn’t bad, either, and that was almost the only other thing he could see. That thought reminded him of the other hair he had seen the night before, which convinced him that he was being a voyeur. He went back to the kitchen to dress and to make himself coffee and breakfast.

Between stripping and dressing, he did his pushups. He skimped exercise when work was hectic, but he always got his pushups in. After nearly five years, his left side was still weaker than his right.

He left a note telling her about the clothes he had left on a kitchen chair, the OJ in the refrigerator, and about nuking the coffee. He left that under the aspirin bottle on the kitchen table. He’d nursed hangovers, and he’d seen others with them. He had a little sympathy.

He drove to work thinking about the dreamboat he’d left in his bed. He was definitely getting old if he was driving away from that girl with that tush. Well, work called. Besides, he’d had hangovers. She would be neither interested in him nor good company when she woke up. By the time he got to work, he was ready to concentrate on the program they were writing this week.

Cheryl woke up with a serious headache. She was also naked in a strange bed. She needed to go badly and got to the bathroom just in time. She sat on the commode facing her blouse and jeans on the shower rod. Slowly, she remembered some of the details from the night before.

She was in Jake’s apartment! He’d seen her plastered. He must have been the one to undress her. She could remember, now that she was facing the tub, his putting her in the shower. And she could still smell her vomit from the clothes.

This was absolutely horrible. What had she been thinking the night before? Sure, Mom would kill her. She’d lied to Mom, gone out intending to spend the night with a guy. Mom would never believe that she hadn’t intended to have sex with him. She’d gotten drunk, and come home pie-eyed. Mom would kill her. Still, Mom would find out, anyhow. And Mom would forgive her. That’s what family did; they forgave but never forgot.

Jake, on the other hand, had seen her at her worst. She had had a crush on him for most of her life. She had been the kid sister of his girlfriend, and a quite little kid, too. She might have been able to overcome that; he had to know that little kids grew up. Now, he’d seen her as an adult, but not as a sexy adult, not even as a serious adult. He’d seen her as a drunken woman covered by her own vomit. He’d never speak to her again.

Staggering out of the bathroom, she saw the aspirin bottle. It was on a sheet of paper. She took two aspirin. Jake had been smart enough to leave a glass on the table, too. She didn’t feel up to looking through his cabinets. Carrying the glass to the sink to fill it had been a major effort. The note was quite explicit. First it mentioned the shorts and shirt he’d left on the kitchen chair.

While the aspirin were taking effect, she dressed. The shorts were big on her, but he’d taken her belt out of her jeans, and that cinched them to her waist. The shirt was tight across her breasts, but not too tight. The tails fell low across the shorts, and she had to roll up the sleeves. That just reminded her how big a guy Jake was.

As directed, she poured herself a cup of coffee and nuked it in the microwave. She got the orange juice out of the ‘fridge and poured herself a glass. He’d emphasized that she was dehydrated. There was no pretending that she hadn’t tied one on; he was full of directions about dealing with it. He offered her toast, recommending that she eat it without butter. He even told her to help herself to the eggs, but she couldn’t face eggs this morning. The juice and toast were all her stomach could take. After drinking the coffee, she nuked another cup.

He’d left his number, and asked that she call. She sat there a long time staring at the paper before she went in search of her cell. He’d left it on the tank of the commode. She took it back to the kitchen to make the call.

“Just a second,” he said when he took the call. There was a pause. “Okay. I can talk at work, but the other guys would rather I go out into the hall.”

“This is Cheryl. Look, I don’t know how to thank you.”

“Hey, I’ve tied one on, too. Who left you off, anyway? Driving off when you’re in that state wasn’t kosher. Was he as bad off as you?”

“It was Dale. I’d just thrown up on his couch. When I said I wanted to go home, he didn’t object. I only had one rum and Coke. I get drunk easily, but not usually that easily. I must have been sick already.”

“You don’t sound sick. You sound remarkably good for a hangover. Did you have anything else to drink?”

“No ... Well, to drink, but not alcohol. He gave me a huge glass of tomato juice.”

“A Bloody Mary?”

“No. Just tomato juice ... I think it was just tomato juice.” On the other hand, she had gotten drunker as she drank it. “I’m not sure.”

“Maybe not vodka. Maybe Everclear.”

“What’s that?”

“Almost pure grain alcohol. For when you want to get drunk without the interference of all the other liquids. That’s fine. Giving it to an unsuspecting girl isn’t fine. Look, do you want to introduce me to that guy as your honorary brother? He needs to understand some things.”

“Couldn’t you get in trouble? You’re not in high school any more. Fist fights are police matters now.”

“Well, I wasn’t planning to use my fists, but you’re right. Anyway, if you’re going to go out with him again, you don’t want me to rearrange his features.” She wondered what rearranging Dale’s features involved it Jake wasn’t planning to use his fists. He sounded dangerous, not angry, but his tone was low.

“Well, I don’t want either. I’m not going out with him again. If I never see him it will be too soon. Still, I don’t want you fighting my battles. You’ve done more than enough for me.”

“Hardly anything. I was just being a good neighbor.”

“‘Hardly anything?’ I’m sitting in your kitchen wearing your clothes after having eaten your food and swallowed your aspirin. For that matter, I slept in your bed last night. Where did you sleep?”

“On the floor. Don’t worry. I’ve slept in worse places and been damned grateful that I got sleep. You were quite welcome to the bed, though you make it sound much better than it was.”

“Much better?”

“You slept in my bed last night -- really this morning. That sounds wonderful, but, unfortunately, the reality was that you slept there alone.”