Chapter 264

Mavis was delicious, Tamara and Dawn were exquisitely thrilling, but Laura in her heart longed for Sara. It had only been a week since they had christened Laura's new condo with a night of deep love-fucking that seemed to have changed their relationship forever. Or at least Laura felt that way, when she allowed herself to feel the full significance of it. Of course, in the meantime she had been her usual promiscuous self, fucking like a cat in heat with the other three. But that didn't for a second alter the way she felt about Sara.

She wondered if Sara felt it too, and also wondered, idly, jealously, if she too had been busily fucking anybody else during this week, as if to stave off her possible feelings for Laura. This was the kind of speculation that could nearly kill Laura with gut-lacerating emotional pain, and she ended up doing almost anything to avoid thinking of it.

Finally, she called Sara at work, unable to stop thinking of her.

"Hi, kiddo," Sara said, very upbeat and natural, as if days had not gone by without them speaking. "I was just getting ready to call you. Been kind of thinking of you a lot, you know?"

"I can't get you out of my mind," Laura confessed softly, as usual wondering if she was being too blunt, too forward.

Sara's voice changed, lowered, became instantly more intimate. She whispered into the phone. "I can't forget about you either, Laura," she said seriously. "Want to meet at my place after work?"

"Oh god, I wish it were five right now."

Sara laughed softly, letting Laura hear her obvious pleasure at being so desired. "Better be careful, girl, or you'll have me sliding off this chair."

Laura knew exactly what she was talking about, having felt a happy warm ooze herself between her thighs just at the sound of Sara's voice. "I'll be there as quickly as I can get there," she breathed into the phone.

After work she drove to Ocean View and spent twenty minutes trying to find a place to park. Encircling a three block radius, she wondered why she did not notice Sara driving in circles too, with the same intent. Good old San Francisco, Laura grumbled. Why do we live here?

At last she snapped up a parking space that someone was leaving, only about a block and a half from Sara's apartment. She was a little out of breath, still in a hurry, when she got there and took a few seconds to regain her breath before ringing the downstairs bell. She heard the door open upstairs, then watched through the gauzy white curtain that veiled the inside of the glass door while Sara came down the stairs to open it for her.

Only it wasn't Sara. A young woman who had little resemblance to Sara opened the door. She was several years younger, very black, much darker than Sara, very pretty, though with a disturbingly vacant stare as she looked at Laura. Then she smiled, but it wasn't a particularly warm smile, just a tight little smirk.

"You must be the famous Laura."

Laura tittered nervously. "Guilty... I guess."

The young woman tilted her head in the direction of the stairs behind her. "Come on up."

Laura followed her. She could hardly take her eyes off the girl's ass, which was in the Hall of Fame category, encased in tight gray pants, full hard moons, swaying ever so slightly as the girl went up step by step. Oh god, I can't be staring at her ass like this when I came to see Sara! Laura chastised herself.

Inside Sara's apartment, the girl shut the door and turned, smirking at Laura again.

"Where's Sara?" Laura asked, looking around.

"She tried to reach you at work, but you were in a meeting. She had to fly out quickly to Jackson, Mississippi. Her father's dying. She was afraid to leave a phone message... said it was too impersonal."

"Who're you?"

The girl's dark brown hair was done in an elaborate shoulder-length cascade of wavy rivulets that she shook coltishly away from her neck, looking momentarily regal and haughty and, Laura had to confess to herself, infinitely desirable.

"I'm Demetra, her sister. She asked me to meet you here... to tell you."

A light went on in Laura's head. "Oh... Dee Dee."

Dee Dee smiled more warmly now, and nodded silently. "She must've told you some nasty shit about me, right?"

"Oh no," Laura lied, turning her face away to hide a brief blush she knew was coming. "Nothing, really. I was just startled because... you don't look very much like her."

Dee Dee pointed to the sofa. Laura sat, but only on the edge of it. She was very nervous and figured she must be going immediately.

"That's why I said her father," Dee Dee explained. "We have different fathers." She paused, looking at Laura. "We're both short, though. I think our mama's genes came through in the short department."

"Was he... ill?" Laura asked, nervously making conversation.

Poor Sara! she thought.

Dee Dee nodded. (Laura found herself wondering if she should think of her as 'Dee Dee' since she had called herself Demetra.) "He's been slowly dying for about a year. I guess he finally reached the finish line."

"Poor Sara," Laura said out loud.

Dee Dee was sitting in a chair across from Laura. She lowered her face, looking out dourly from under her eyebrows at Laura. "You sure she didn't tell you all kinds of shit about me? I know you're special. You and her are... how should I say it, special friends? She gets all blushy and bubbly when she talks about you. Laura this. Laura that. I spent the night over at Laura's. Laura is just so sweet. See? Now what did she tell you about me?"

Laura shook her head. "Not a thing. Really."

Dee Dee frowned skeptically. "Right."

"I guess I'd better go. If you talk to her on the phone, tell her how sorry I am."

Dee Dee's eyes flashed mischievously. "Sorry he's dying, or sorry she isn't here?"

Laura ignored the question and started to get up.

"Sit down, I'll get you a drink," Dee Dee said, softer and more conciliatory now, rising too, gesturing for Laura to sit back down. "You want a drink? I can make us martinis. Or maybe you'd rather have weed."

Laura sat back down. Now she was feeling increasingly uncomfortable, because the knowledge that Sara was halfway across the country was allowing her to experience in full the fact that Dee Dee was sensationally attractive. The more Laura looked at her, the more she allowed herself to see that the girl was gorgeous. She was very black, always a physical turn-on for Laura, and her body was tightly compact and curvaceous, not as fleshy as Sara's, harder, younger, more athletic. Under any other circumstances, Laura knew, she would be dying to sleep with Dee Dee, whether or not she was truly a drug addict, alcoholic, and 'equal opportunity fuckup, ' as Sara put it.

She also was finding it hard to come to terms with the mental image she had formed of Dee Dee, influenced by Sara's descriptions of her sister, and the actual person. This was not some ill-kempt, slatternly tramp and skanky crackhead, who spent her days and nights snorting coke and slutting around for kicks. It was even hard to imagine she had had a succession of abortions and venereal diseases.

She looked so clean, intelligent, and well-mannered. She might be a little sharp and skeptical, her black eyes a little vacant and glassy now and then, but she seemed educated and well-spoken. Dee Dee could see Laura thinking.

Laura shook her head. "I'd better leave."

Clearly eager to have her stay, and not embarrassed about showing it, Dee Dee went hurriedly over to her own purse, which was lying on the dining table.

"Maybe you'd rather have some candy cane." She opened the clasp and rummaged around in the purse. "Believe it or not, I think I've still got crackers in here too."

"I... I'm not hungry," Laura smiled, demurely, nervously, squirming, wanting to leave.

Dee Dee turned her head and laughed out loud. She was really quite vivacious and beautiful when she laughed. "I don't mean those kind of crackers," she said.

But then she realized that Laura did not have a clue about what she was saying. Slowly, she refastened the clasp. She came back over and sat down across from Laura.

"How stupid of me," she said, genuinely chagrined. "I know you're Sara's friend. She doesn't touch that stuff either. My bad. Please forgive me."

Laura found her embarrassment touching. "Look, I'm very confused about whether to call you Dee Dee or Demetra. Which is it?"

Dee Dee looked at her dourly again, even frowning a little this time. "Sure you won't have a drink with me? I hate drinking alone."

Laura looked at her watch. "Maybe one. Not a martini, though. I think you shouldn't have a martini unless you're within walking distance of your bed." She giggled nervously again.

"Sara's got a bed," Dee Dee said, grinning, nodding her head in the direction of the bedroom, as if she knew Laura had spent some time in that bed, and in fact had been planning on spending some more time there this evening.

Laura looked down at her twisting fingers, trying mightily to suppress another blush. "I'm not talking about that one."

Again Dee Dee got to her feet. This time she reached down and touched Laura's nervously twisting hands with one of her own, her fingers cool and very black and tapered, salmon-pink on the undersides. It was just a passing touch, but almost tender and meaningful, somehow conveying that she was sympathetic to Laura's anxiety.

"You call me Dee Dee," she said softly. "I hate Demetra. It's just my... real name, but I hate it."

Laura looked up and smiled at her. "I think it's kind of pretty. But I'll call you Dee Dee."

"How about a little vodka and soda water with a twist of lemon? I also brought a bottle of rum for myself, the kind with the lemon already in it."

"Vodka is okay," Laura smiled. "Not too strong. I've got to drive home."

Dee Dee went into Sara's small kitchen and returned a minute later with a vodka for Laura and a tall glass filled with ice and rum for herself. For the next hour she rambled on about herself, while Laura sipped her vodka and listened, trying to be attentive.

Dee Dee had got a masters degree in sociology from UC Davis. This was something Sara had never mentioned.

"I wrote my thesis on Theodore Adorno's Dialectic of Enlightenment," she said, almost primly. "You ever read that?"

Laura shook her head. This was a whole new side of Dee Dee that had not yet appeared. While it was stupefyingly dull to Laura, she nodded patiently, trying to follow Dee Dee's train of thought.

"'The fully enlightened earth radiates disaster triumphant, '" Dee Dee intoned, somewhat pretentiously. "That's a direct quote. The total effect of the culture industry is one of anti-enlightenment, in which, as Horkeimer and Adorno pointed out, enlightenment, meaning the progressive technical domination of nature, becomes mass deception and is turned into a means for fettering consciousness. You know?"

Laura nodded.

"'It impedes the development of autonomous, independent individuals who judge and decide consciously for themselves.' Also a direct quote."

Laura smiled. "From you, or from him?"

"Oh, from him." Dee Dee took a deep drink from her glass of rum. "I'm so eager to get back there, to graduate school, I mean, because those shits and assholes are stealing all my ideas. I know they are. I saw one of my ideas published the other day in a journal I get."

Laura's head was swimming. This stunning girl, though a crushing bore with all her pretentious allusions and glib intellectual jargon, was nevertheless very bright, articulate, and sharp. She also seemed capable of putting almost any intoxicant known to man into her body. And a delicious body it was, too. Laura could not take her eyes off it. No wonder so many guys had been willing to sit through this waterfall of gibberish to get to her pussy.

"Why did you drop out?" Laura asked, calmly.

Dee Dee's eyes briefly clouded over, and Laura wondered if she had made a terrible gaffe, bringing up something that was off limits, or desperately painful. Probably the latter, she soon realized.

"Ran out of money," Dee Dee sniffed. "And... I got pregnant. Had to... oh, you know..." She took another stiff drink of rum.

Laura nodded. "That's really too bad."

"Let's not talk about that," Dee Dee said abruptly, sniffing, brushing away whatever wetness might have been there in her eyes with her wrist.

Laura, who had only drank about a third of her drink, which had been about half the size of Dee Dee's in the first place, noticed that Dee Dee was nearly finished with hers. Dee Dee was getting a little twinkly and giddy, now that she had veered away from her intellectual and her maudlin moods. Her eyes were still watering a little when she looked back up, betraying a vulnerability that touched Laura.

"You know," she said, almost flippantly, "you don't look a thing like I thought you'd look."

"Really."

Dee Dee shook her head. "You look like a model or something. Really gorgeous. Where'd you ever get all that hair?"

Laura fluffed her hair self-consciously with the fingers of one hand. "Just grew, I guess."

Dee Dee frowned. "I think mine's falling out."

Laura could not believe this, since Dee Dee's hair rippled in luxurious, curly, dark coppery cascades around her head to her shoulders. But Dee Dee plucked at it with two fingers, coming away with a few hairs, which she threw to the floor.

"Too much frying and boiling and twisting and scalding it," she said. "I'll be bald before I'm thirty."

"Oh no!" Laura said, concerned. "It's so beautiful."

Dee Dee ignored her.

"You really don't look like I thought you would," she repeated. "I mean... I know you and Sara are... you know, getting jiggy. And I don't really have a problem with that. I want you to know that. But I just didn't think you'd look like some super model. I thought you'd look-"

"Dykey?"

Caught, Dee Dee squirmed uncomfortably and took a long drink of rum, finished off her glass. "I guess," she said, very softly, almost inaudibly. She stood up. "I'm going to get another drink. Want one?"

Laura held up her glass, still half full, so that Dee Dee could see it, and shook her head. You shouldn't have one either, darling, her eyes said to Dee Dee. You're getting slightly crocked, my dear.

When Dee Dee returned with a fresh glass of rum and ice, Laura stood up. "I guess I'd better be going... while I can still drive."

Dee Dee's face looked briefly panicked, an expression that surprised Laura. "Oh... don't," she said. "Don't go... please."

Slowly, Laura sat back down. "I really have to go home. I'm tired," she explained. "I've been working all day."

Dee Dee's eyes suddenly became vacant and abstracted, as Laura had seen them now and then since she had been there. But then her focus quickly came back.

"You know, I've never had a lesbian experience," she said, staring directly into Laura's eyes. "I think maybe-"

Laura abruptly stood up again, setting her glass down on the side table firmly. "I've got to go. Don't say it."

But she didn't move. She couldn't move. Dee Dee's eyes held her. There was total silence in Sara's apartment, and they could hear one another breathing. Laura wanted to leave and wanted to stay at the same instant. This is Sara's sister, she kept telling herself, over and over. This is Sara's sister. Not some beautiful stranger. Sara's sister.

"You know, lots of guys find me pretty attractive," Dee Dee murmured, looking up at Laura.

"I'm sure they do. You are." Laura could feel the pulse beating in her throat.

"Oh?" Dee Dee gave her a slow half-smile. "Am I attractive to you?"

Laura said nothing and did not move.

"Maybe you need a little encouragement?"

Dee Dee wore a thin white sweater with a cable-knit pattern in it. She slowly lifted it up from the bottom, pulling it over her head, slipping it off her wrists. She wore a stark white bra, which was fantastically alluring as a contrast to her deeply black and very smooth skin. Laura was paralyzed with lust.

Dee Dee could see it. Her black eyes flickered. "It opens in the front," she whispered, looking down, as Laura was, at her bra. "Want me to open it?"

Now Laura did tear herself away. She turned her head. She stumbled a few steps away from the sofa, toward the front door, snatching up her purse almost as an afterthought.

"I... really do... have to go," she stammered.

Dee Dee was right behind her, lurching a little, having had too much to drink. She grabbed Laura's elbow.

"Laura... look... stay. Please stay. Look, here, feel this..."

She took one of Laura's hands and placed it on her naked flesh, on her back, just below the line of her bra. She had caught Laura next to the door and pushed Laura away from it, backing her into the wall. Laura could smell the rum on Dee Dee's breath, but the warmth and incredible smooth resilience of her taut flesh under Laura's fingers was nearly fatal. Laura couldn't take her hand away.

"I want you to do it with me," Dee Dee breathed, her breath soaked in rum. "I want to know what Sara knows. I want you to make me as happy as you make her."

"Oh Dee Dee... we can't," Laura gasped, desperate now to escape.

"I have a nice body," Dee Dee purred, half-drunkenly. "Want to see it? Here, I'll let you see my boobs. They're smaller than Sara's but they're really nice. Here... let me-"

"No," Laura almost wailed, slapping Dee Dee's hand away from her bra clasp, between the cups. "Let me go, Dee Dee," she pleaded. "I... I love Sara. I... can't do this."

Dee Dee looked half-hypnotized, either by sex or drink, or both. "She won't know. I won't tell her." She lifted one eyebrow sexily. "I know you won't tell her."

"There won't be anything to tell," Laura panted, not knowing whether she was breathing hard out of sexual excitement or desperation. Probably both, she realized. "Now, please let me go."

Dee Dee eased up and stepped back, as if chastened, sobered even, by Laura's refusal. Then Laura could see an odd glint of madness, mixed with a remote, ambiguous pain, pass briefly through the girl's eyes as Dee Dee again raised her fingers to her bra, between the cups, and quickly released the catch. The cups fell away.

Laura didn't let her eyes leave Dee Dee's, even though the bra now sagged around Dee Dee's arms, her breasts completely naked. Then, as if yielding to the inevitable, she glanced down at them. When a beautiful woman bared her breasts and asked you to look, there was not a force in the universe that could make you not look.

Dee Dee was right. Her breasts were beautiful. They were as unlike Sara's as possible, small and pert, upswept, with large but not huge nipples, not the mammoth, soft, puffy areolas that Sara had, but much blacker, coal black, like April's. Laura looked up again, quickly.

"Let me go, Dee Dee," she pleaded, alarmed to hear the desperate, imploring tone of her voice. "I have to go."

Dee Dee looked at her in disbelief. Clearly she could not believe that anyone, male or female, would turn down her delicious, half-naked, sleek black body. Laura couldn't believe it either but was biting down as hard as she could on her determination, clenching her teeth, making fists, trying to summon up the last ounce of her strength and loyalty.

Slowly, agonizingly disconsolate, Dee Dee pulled the bra cups back over her naked breasts and fastened the clasp between them. Her lovely face was blank, desolate. She was also, as Laura knew, not a little drunk, and appeared woozy and confused.

Laura put a hand on her arm. "I hope you'll understand."

Dee Dee gave her a semblance of a nod, her eyes now (or am I wrong? Laura wondered) showing a stricken look, a horrible wound of rejection, which made Laura feel doubly bad.

"It's okay..." Dee Dee said in a soft voice, moving back so that Laura could get to the door.

"I think you're so beautiful," Laura stammered awkwardly. "Really. I just... can't. You know? Sara-"

"I know," Dee Dee cut her off. "Sara always has all the luck."

Oh no! Laura thought. Oh god. How can I leave her like this? "Are you going to be okay?"

Dee Dee sniffed and looked away. "I'm okay."

Still Laura did not leave, feeling incapable of taking the last step out the door. "It was so nice meeting you."

Dee Dee said nothing, looking out the window, which was about twenty-five feet away from them.

"Dee Dee... don't you want to come downstairs and lock up the door after me?" Laura prompted.

Dee Dee nodded. "You go ahead. I'll lock it in a minute."

Laura put her hand on the knob. "Okay. Please... call me if you need to talk. I'm sure Sara has my number in her book."

Dee Dee smiled ruefully, her eyes reflecting so much ambiguous emotional pain that Laura could scarcely bear to look into them. "Oh yeah... she has a whole page just for you. With little hearts and shit scrawled all around the edges."

Laura felt her blood leap up with joy at this unsolicited news, but it was wholly inappropriate to show it. She gulped. "That's nice," she said, lamely. "Okay, I'll be going."

"Bye, Laura."

"Goodbye. Please get some sleep. Don't go out like... this."

"I won't."

Laura left her staring blankly out the window and let herself out down below.

+ + + + + + +

Unable to drive straight home because of her own emotional turmoil, Laura drove to Baker Beach instead and sat in her car, looking at the surf and at a huge rolling bank of fog steaming in over the Golden Gate Bridge. She had not been part of such a painful scene for a long time. She and Shontay had clashed and abraded one another emotionally, of course, but it was not because Laura refused to sleep with her. And anyway, Shontay was an outward success in life, at least. But Dee Dee appeared to be a wreck, in spite of Laura's first impression of her as a smart, attractive, articulate girl.

She had not seen anyone hurting so much for a long time. Dee Dee was glib and even charming, but below the surface there was a constant undercurrent of pain. Some people could handle it and others couldn't, Laura reflected. God, she drank almost two tall glasses of rum just while I was there. No wonder Sara is always nervous about what will become of her.

On the other hand, Laura was proud of herself. Just a little. Sara's sister might be completely out of control when it came to alcohol or other drugs-Laura, even though naïve, clearly realized that several illegal substances had been offered to her in the space of only a few minutes-but she was also shockingly gorgeous, much more beautiful in any conventional sense than Sara herself, delectably black and alluring, and sexually receptive. I could have fucked her in a minute, Laura realized. She almost begged me to.

But I was strong. Sara's own sister... the very thought of it makes me shudder. What if she found out. God, it would be over. I'd lose her. Laura recalled what Dee Dee had said, almost with a sneer, about Sara having devoted an entire page to Laura in her phone book, embroidered with hearts. This made her feel warm all over, tingly with happiness, and yet the moment by the door as she was leaving kept coming back to her. She couldn't get the image of Dee Dee's delectable half-naked body out of her mind either.

I did want her, she thought. Who wouldn't want her? That's why she was so hurt when I turned her down. Oh god, I hope she's all right! She was getting so drunk. What if she went out somewhere? No wonder Sara is always tracking her down.

Still suffering from this confused welter of feelings, Laura finally, reluctantly, drove home. She took a shower, pulled on a thin nylon housecoat, and fixed herself a small broiled steak, then sat down to watch a little TV, thinking warmly of Sara and purposely staving off any unwelcome thoughts of Dee Dee.

She dozed and was awakened by her doorbell twenty minutes later. Since hardly anyone knew she now lived here, she approached the door warily, peeking through the security peephole, then turning on the porch light. Dee Dee was there, still weaving, apparently still drunk but not looking much worse than she had earlier.

"Oh shit," Laura cursed under her breath. She quickly opened the door. "Dee Dee... how did you get here?"

Dee Dee giggled, acting a little ashamed. "I've got Sara's car. She left me the keys."

"You didn't drive over here."

Dee Dee grinned mawkishly. "I've got a drunk driver's license."

Laura was determined not to invite her in. What am I going to do? she asked herself. Of course Dee Dee was not fall-down drunk. She was tipsy, not completely wasted. Maybe I can drive her home or something, Laura figured.

"I came over to see if you changed your mind," Dee Dee said, now fixing Laura's gaze with her eyes, which were pulsing and smoking.

"How did you find this place?"

"Sara has your address written down in her book. You know, on that 'I Love Laura' page I told you about." She frowned. "I have to pee."

Exasperated, Laura felt herself weakening. She couldn't just leave her out there. "But if I let you in, you have to promise me we can have a cup of coffee together and sober you up a little," she lectured, feeling smarmy and righteous, hating herself for feeling that way.

Now Dee Dee began to wince and shift back and forth on her feet. "I'm not kidding. I really have to go bad." She was half-squealing now, looking desperate. "It just all came on me at once. Please."

Laura knew how it felt. You could be holding it off, holding it off, then it came on in a rush.

"I'm gonna wet my pants, Laura!"

"Yes... yes!" Laura quickly threw open the door. "Down the hall on the left," she pointed.

Dee Dee raced to the bathroom, leaving Laura standing, totally shocked and befuddled, by the open door. Slowly, she closed it.

When Dee Dee emerged from the bathroom, Laura was already in the kitchen making coffee. Dee Dee found her there.

"It'll keep me awake," she said. "I never drink coffee. I don't like the taste."

"You're drinking some now. Go in and sit down and I'll bring it to you."

"I'd rather stay here. With you."

Laura acted as if she were ignoring Dee Dee's words, but she heard every one. When the coffee was ready, she poured her a cup and handed it to her. "Nothing's going to happen, Dee Dee," she said firmly. "I already told you that."

For the first time, Dee Dee flirted overtly with Laura, smiling coyly, her black eyes flashing. But she said nothing. Laura had to swallow. Dee Dee, in spite of her affectations and self-destructiveness, was infinitely desirable.

God, she's making it so hard on me! Laura thought, unable to take her eyes off the girl's firm, impossibly beautiful bottom as Dee Dee walked out of the kitchen, carefully holding her cup of hot coffee. It was an ass every bit as beautiful as Chanitra's or Jane's. Black women as a rule seemed to have beautiful asses, but some were a cut above the rest. This one was near the top. And I'll never be able to touch it, Laura thought, almost mournfully.

She had poured herself a half cup too and sat down across from Dee Dee on the famous white sofa, while Dee Dee sat in the easy chair. Actually, Dee Dee looked fresher now, not as drunk as she had looked on the front steps. She had washed her face in the bathroom. Her eyes were clearer.

"So..." Laura said, not wanting the conversation to veer back to Dee Dee's reasons for 'dropping in'. "Tell me more about Theodoro... whatever his name was."

Dee Dee looked momentarily cross, then smiled, raising her eyebrows in an 'oh brother!' expression. "Theodore Adorno," she said in measured tones. "He was a very important thinker. Adorno is central to any discussion of postmodernity, because he has had a formative influence on the philosophical assumptions of postmodern thought."

"No kidding. How come I never heard of him? I mean, I'm not exactly an intellectual, but I know about Freud... and Sartre... and, you know, Marx... and..."

Dee Dee made a face. It was not an uproariously funny face, not the kind Sara often made, but it was droll and indulgent. "Maybe we should talk about something else. I'm kind of out of practice anyway since I've been away from it so long."

"How long?"

Dee Dee sighed. "Almost a year." She looked away. "I guess I don't really want to talk about that either. It depresses me." She sat her coffee mug down on the side table. "Why don't you show me around? Didn't you just move in here? Sara said it was a new place. I really dig all the trees and the fog outside. It's cozy and warm. Show me the rest of it."

"It's nothing special. Just like an apartment."

But Dee Dee stood up, looking around the room. "Come on... show me. I was just a graduate student, living in a hovel. I like to see how other people live. Show me the bedrooms. Do you have another bathroom back there?"

She wandered off toward the hallway, and Laura stood up to follow her. This time she disciplined herself not to look down at Dee Dee's spectacular ass. Nothing is going to happen, she repeated to herself, as she had told Dee Dee. You are Sara's sister. Sara has a whole page devoted just to me in her phone book. She cares about me after all... the same way I care about her. I am not going to do anything-anything!-to endanger that.