From Mmtwassel@aol.com Fri Feb 4 16:29:39 EST 2000 Article: 8598 of alt.sex.stories.moderated Message-ID: <22628asstr$949691401@assm.asstr.org> From: Mmtwassel@aol.com X-Original-Message-ID: Subject: {ASSM} Mat Twassel: Buffalo Gals X-No-Archive: yes Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2000 14:10:01 -0500 Path: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!howland.erols.net!newsfeed.berkeley.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!assm.asstr.org!not-for-mail Approved: Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.moderated,alt.sex.stories Followup-To: alt.sex.stories.d X-Moderator-Contact: ASSTR ASSM moderation X-Story-Submission: X-Moderator-ID: assm-admin Lines: 1633 Xref: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu alt.sex.stories.moderated:8598 alt.sex.stories:366671 <1st attachment, "Buffalo Gals.txt" begin> {ASSM} Mat Twassel: Buffalo Gals Note: This story is copyright by the author. It is intended solely for the private use of the readers of alt.sex.stories.moderated. It is not to be reposted, archived or distributed beyond the explicit distribution within alt.sex.stories.moderated. It is not to be used for any commercial purpose nor is it to appear in any commercial setting. Buffalo Gals by Mat Twassel ============ Three hundred miles separated Laura from me--that was the distance between our schools, but every weekend that I could manage it, every weekend that she wasn't seeing Tom, her high school sweetheart, I'd make the trip in my old car, setting off with the day's first sunlight brushing the back of my shoulders, driving west with little in my head but thoughts of my love, my dear sweet honey--and only a few more hours, miles, minutes, until she was in my arms again. Maybe this time we'd actually make love. It was early spring, and the Indiana meadows to the sides of the Interstate were just turning green. Traffic flowed smoothly, the tires of trucks hummed their strange long- distance song, and I relaxed as much as I could while trying to remember what kissing Laura was like. It was hard: kissing was most of what we'd do together, but remembered kisses are not as good as real kisses. Anticipated kisses are not as good as real kisses. Nothing is as good as real kisses. The quiet stretch of early morning highway let me think back to our first kiss. We were sitting near the top of a seldom used side stairway outside the Performing Arts Building watching the pale blue twilight settle over the campus. A quiet, peaceful evening. "It's nice here, isn't it?" Laura said, and she took my hand. I wondered if Laura had shared this spot with Tom. A pair of fat red fire trucks ploughed rapidly along the main avenue and then the wail of their sirens ebbed into the distance. The world grew quiet again, and I leaned closer to Laura. She had a wistful look, at one with the soft blue evening. We sat side by side, and when it was almost but not quite dark, I dared touch my lips to hers. I didn't know what to expect. The softness surprised me--the perfection of our fit, as if we were nothing but each other's breath. "You're a good kisser," Laura told me over the telephone some months later. She laughed her pleasant little laugh. "You must have had a lot of practice." "Only with you," I said. "And not nearly enough practice. Oh, I wish ...." "Only with me?" Laura interrupted. "I'll never believe that." "It's true," I protested. "You are the only one I've ever kissed. The only one I'll ever kiss." There was silence on the phone. I could tell she was both a little puzzled and a little pleased. "Maybe you should kiss some others," she suggested. "Just to see." "I don't want to," I replied. "I only want your kisses. I only want you." "Okay," she said, "But it's your funeral." "Why, are you a vampire or something?" We both laughed. "Can I see you this weekend?" I dared to ask. There was a moment of silence. "Um, I don't know," she said at last. "I might be going down to visit Tom. Or he might be coming up. I don't know." "Oh," I said. "Well, let me know when you know, okay?" "Okay," she promised. I was thinking about how nice Laura's laugh was, how sometimes she laughed as she kissed, how sometimes she was so serious, how sometimes she was so excited, so eager and aggressive, how sometimes she teased, taking quickly, giving grudgingly, playfully, pretending to be demure before yielding the full juicy heart of her kiss. It could be casual, innocent, a game; it could be unquenchable passion; it could be anything. I was into Illinois. Laura less than an hour away. As a reward I let myself think of her clitoris. Such a pretty clit it was, so small and plump, bold and shy, supple and slippery--perfect under the press of my tongue. In the last few months she'd permitted me those kinds of kisses, too. It took hours of my wordless entreaties, questions asked only with eyes and fingertips and lips, but eventually she'd lie back on the threadbare rug of her little living room and shyly let me open her legs, let me feast upon her flower, feast first with my eyes, then with my fingers, last with my lips and tongue and nose and mouth; she'd let me kiss those snug little lips until they parted and curled and tiny droplets of gleaming honey welled up in the small tender cove. So sweet she was to suck. So shy of sex, it seemed. The quivering took a long time to come, but when finally she gave herself up, when she clamped her thighs around my face and pressed her head back and thrust the full softness of her middle hard against my mouth, her climax, the glorious wash of it, claimed me completely. Afterwards I'd help her to her feet. Unsteady as a newborn calf she'd cling to me. I'd hold her and pet her and kiss her and at first she was shy of herself, of her taste, but when I insisted, when I forced my sex-flavored tongue to touch the tip of hers, she'd grow curious, then greedy, then she'd fuck her tongue into my mouth, and moan, and press her middle against me, and soon she'd start coming again, a series of sharp coursing spasms which made her whole body snap and jolt. Just as one orgasm ebbed the next would coast in behind it. Again and again she'd crest, seemingly endless waves of coming, until finally she couldn't stand it, her knees would waver and weaken, and I couldn't hold her up anymore--we'd puddle together to the floor. We'd lie there on our backs looking up at the off- white ceiling of her apartment, afternoon light drenching the air with golden dust, and it was as if we were floating there, floating in heaven. "I can't move, can you?" she'd say some minutes later, and I'd feel the back of her hand resting against me, and I'd marvel at the miracle of her words, of her body, of her being. "I'm paralyzed for ever," she'd sigh. "For ever and ever." I'd turn my head a fraction of an inch, just enough so that I could see her body stretched out next to mine, so that my eyes could graze the gentle curve her belly made, the drop and then the rise to the swell of her pubic mound, the shy nest of soft dark hair topping her there, and I'd think of the secret furrow just beyond my view, and I'd need to touch her again, to hold that impossible, ineffable sweetness, to taste it one last time. Gracefully she'd catch my hand away. "No, boy, that's enough... don't you ever get enough?" "Never," I'd answer, and she'd laugh, and I'd clamor over her, cover her with my body and try to kiss her laughter, try to capture it with my mouth, but her laughter was too nimble. "Oh, oh you're so naughty," she'd say as she evaded my kisses. "So very naughty, my naughty, naughty boy." Then somehow she'd slip out from underneath me and roll on top, a fresh gleam of "now you're going to get it" in her eyes, a perky sway to her hair, an impish fullness to her lips. She'd mime a kiss. A couple of kisses. Straddling me now, she'd slip her hand inside my trousers and feel how hard I was, how about to burst. "So naughty," she'd repeat, circling her fingers, miming more impish kisses, beginning to work the circle of her fingers up and down, up and down with a frisky, steady rhythm, bringing me off in a jiffy, all the while looking into my eyes and grinning at my helpless pleasure. The blare of an air-horn shook me. The whoosh of an 18- wheel semi-trailer truck shoved my car sideways. I had to hold the wheel hard to keep it steady, to keep from veering right off the highway, as the truck rushed past. Carefully I steered my car to the shoulder. Up ahead was the gray shadow of a bridge crossing the highway. I pulled my car up under the bridge, deep into the shadows. I shivered. It's strange how memories can get buried. Almost as if they'd been obliterated, as if the substance behind them never was. In grade school Annie Richards was my best friend. We were friendly rivals in the classroom. Every Thursday right before the end of day, our third grade class would have arithmetic races, and without half trying I'd always be able to work a few more problems than anyone else. Most of the time Annie came in second. Then on Fridays we'd have speed reading, and no matter how fast I'd force my eyes along the page, Annie would always read a few extra words, a few more sentences. More than a few--she was usually finished before Miss Parks called time, and Annie would smile her pretty smile at me as Miss Parks came around collecting the workbooks. It was a teasing smile, friendly but smug, not that I knew the word "smug" back then. "Everybody knows math is more important than reading," I'd whisper earnestly in Annie's ear after losing yet another reading contest. "So you say," Annie allowed, her small bright voice musical in its glee, "But we both know how to work those silly multiplication problems, and I know how the story ends--you don't. You won't know 'til next week, if then." After school we were pals. We always sat on the same seat on the school bus going home. We both lived up on the hill overlooking the university where our parents taught -- the barracks apartments for faculty and married students -- and often, instead of going straight home, we'd stroll over to the meadows on the other side of the hill. On this day, this school bus ride home, Annie sat next to me as usual, but she didn't say anything. She just looked out the window. I'd beat her in reading for the first time. "A new champion!" Miss Parks had proclaimed. I was pleased, also surprised. I hadn't felt like I had been reading any faster. But the words just flowed into me. It was inexplicable--one of our vocabulary words for that week. What was even more inexplicable was that Annie hadn't even finished second. When I'd looked over at her I thought I saw the beginnings of tears in her eyes. "Don't say anything," her eyes told me, so I didn't say anything. I didn't say anything all the way to our bus stop. "Aren't you getting out?" I asked her. "It's our stop." Annie shrugged, and then she got up and followed me off the bright orange bus. The school year was almost over. We'd only watch that bus pull away two or three more times, and then we'd have a whole summer of freedom. "Want to walk over to the meadow?" I asked Annie. "The grass is probably dry by now." Annie didn't say anything, but she walked with me. One of our favorite things to do was lie on the ground, on the soft meadow grass, and stare up at the sky. The ground sloped in such a way that our heads were above our feet, and it was a pleasant angle to watch the sky, the deep endless blue of it, and the few puffy white clouds which moved with excruciating slowness. "I'm sorry about the reading," I told Annie. "It doesn't matter," Annie said. "Reading doesn't matter." "Sure it matters," I said. "Reading is ... important." Annie didn't say anything. I tried to think about the story we'd read in the speed reading contest; I tried to think about something important about it, but I couldn't. "I have a new book," I said. "My mom got it for me. It has a lot of information in it. Good information. There are 106 countries in the world," I said, "and they all have flags. Every country has its own flag, and this book I have has a picture of every single flag." "Probably not every flag," Annie said glumly. "Yup," I said. "All of them. Even countries that don't exist anymore, where all the people got killed off in wars and stuff." "I don't see how it could have all the flags," Annie said. "Well it does. It's got every single one. Some of them are really neat. Some of them have snakes on them." Sometimes we'd teased each other about snakes in the meadow. Sometimes we'd played a tickling game called snakes and ants. It didn't seem like Annie was interested in playing snakes and ants today. An airplane crept out of one of the clouds. We could hear the drone of it as it inched across the sky, progressing slowly but steadily towards the next cloud. "Have you ever been in an airplane?" Annie asked. "Yes," I lied. "One time. Everyone looked like tiny ants." "Were you afraid?" "It wasn't too bad," I said. "Planes hardly ever crash. And anyway, they give you parachutes." "But what if it did?" Annie said. I understood her to be talking about the airplane directly above us. "What if the plane exploded into a big orange ball." "Yeah," I agreed. "That would be something. But it would be horrible if you were in the plane." "I wouldn't mind," Annie said. The plane had almost reached the next cloud. "You wouldn't mind if you were falling through the air, burning?" "At least then it would be over." "What would be over?" "Everything. Everything would be over." "I don't want everything to be over. I think I'll probably live forever. The scientists are making advances all the time. Soon people will live forever." Annie didn't say anything. We watched the plane until it disappeared. "Why would you want to die?" I asked her. "To get to heaven?" "Do you think there's a heaven?" Annie asked. "I don't know," I said. "I hope so." "But if you're going to live for ever, what difference would it make?" "Well, the people who are already dead... I'd want them to be in heaven. Wouldn't you want your dad and mom to be in heaven? In case they're too old for the scientists to save them?" "One thing for sure, my dad's not going to heaven." "Why not?" I asked. "How do you know?" "I just know," Annie said. "I can't really talk about it." "Why can't you talk about it?" "It's too... " She left off. I waited. I turned. She was looking at me. "You can tell me," I said. "I won't tell anyone." She was quiet for a long time. "If I tell you, you better not tell anyone." "I won't. Cross my heart." "You promise?" "Cross my heart and hope to die." "You'd better not tell anyone. You'd better not tell anyone ever." "I won't." "Sometimes he... sometimes...." There was a long pause. "Sometimes he what? Sometimes he spanks you?" "I'd rather he spanked me," Annie said. "Then what is it?" I asked. "I get spanked all the time. And yelled at. Even when it isn't my fault, sometimes I get yelled at." "Sometimes he touches me," Annie whispered. "He touches you?" "You'd better not tell." "What's so bad about him touching you?" "It's bad," Annie said. "It's really bad. I ...." She started crying. Not loud crying, but her eyes were filled with tears." "I don't see what could be so bad about touching. Where does he... what does he...?" Before I could properly formulate my question, Annie was up, running across the meadow. "Wait," I shouted, but she didn't wait, she just kept running, and in a moment she'd disappeared over the crest of the hill. I didn't try to follow her, didn't try to catch her. Instead I lay back down on the soft meadow grass and looked up at the sky and tried to understand what it was she'd told me. But it didn't make sense to me; how could being touched by your own father be bad? It was a mystery, a little like the mystery of the naughty song we'd had in music earlier that year, a song called Buffalo Girls. With a smile the music teacher, Mr. Wedman, warned us that this song might be a little naughty. Afterwards I couldn't understand quite what was naughty about it. It must have been something about dancing in the light of the moon with holes in your stockings, but what was so naughty about that? On the walk home from the bus that afternoon I'd asked Annie if she thought the song was naughty. "Very naughty," she'd told me with a little laugh. "But what was naughty about it?" "Ha," she exclaimed. "That's for me to know and you to find out." Then she ran on ahead. There was a happiness to the way she ran. She led me up over the hill and down into our little meadow where she let me catch her, and soon we'd wrestled each other to the soft spring earth and rolled over and over in the new green grass. In the end I had her pinned beneath me. "Now are you going to tell me?" I demanded. "Never," she said. "Never, never, never." So of course I tickled her mercilessly, and she laughed so hard she was gasping for breath, but she wouldn't tell me. "I don't think you even know," I said finally. She smiled. "If you say so." Buffalo Girls must not have been the same -- the difference was in the way Annie ran. Then there had been something nimble to her step, something light and airy; now it was with utter urgency, anger, despair. I did understand that something was deeply wrong, something tickling couldn't cure, but I didn't know what it was or what to do. I stayed in the meadow for a long time, doing nothing, just looking up at the sky. I thought maybe another airplane would come. None did. The next day Annie was not in school. The morning after that Miss Parks let us all get settled. Again Annie had not been on the morning bus. "I have a very sad announcement," Miss Parks said. "Annie Richards has been killed in an automobile accident. Tomorrow would have been our last day of school, our end of the year picnic party, but there is instead going to be a service for Annie. I am passing out a mimeographed sheet which has all the information. Bring this home to your parents. For the rest of today we are going to have quiet time. You may read or work on your artwork. Some of you may wish to say a little prayer for Annie. Some of you may wish to talk to me or to Principal Hopper about this. I know it is hard to understand how something so... so horribly dreadful, so completely inexplicable can happen. Principal Hopper and I are available to help you, so please if at any time today, if you need, if any of you want to ... please raise your hand, or just come up, if you, if you..." At that point Miss Parks turned away from us. We saw the jerk of her shoulders, the quiver of her back, the sobs catching hold of her body. She left the room. "Did you know?" the girl who sat next to me asked. I did not give my parents the mimeographed sheet of paper with the details of Annie's service, but of course they knew about it, everyone in the barracks apartments knew about it. My mother hugged me. "I know she was your special friend," she said. "It's so sad. We will all miss her so much. So very very much. I hope your suit still fits for the funeral." "It's not a funeral," I snapped. "It's a service. They already cremated her." "I know, honey," my mother said. "I meant to say 'service.'" I shook free of my mother. "Anyway, I'm not going," I said. "Of course you're going," she answered. "What do you mean you're not going?" "I'm not going." "I can understand that you are upset. Deeply deeply upset. But you have to go. It's the right thing to do. To pay your final respects to Annie." "I'm not going." "Why not, honey? Why won't you go? Even if you don't want to go for yourself, would you go for me? Would you go for Annie, and for her parents? It would mean a lot to..." "I'm not going, and that's final." "We'll talk about this more when your father gets home." I went to my room. I sat on my bed. I took down my new book, the one with all the flags, and I looked at the flags. I studied the one with the snake on it. "Don't tread on me," it said. It seemed silly. Stupid. I shut the book. I sat on my bed for a long time with the closed book in my hands. I was still sitting on the bed when my father came home. "What's this about your not wanting to go to Annie's service?" he said. I could tell he was angry. I was probably going to get a spanking. "I won't go," I said. "You can't make me." "Annie was your friend," my dad said. "It's the least you can do, the very least. All your friends from school will be there." "They're not my friends," I answered. "Anyway, I don't care." "Well, I care," my dad said. "Mr. Richards is a friend of mine. A colleague and a friend, and we'll not let him down this way. He ..." "He killed Annie," I blurted out. "What are you talking about?" my dad yelled. "He killed her," I said. "He lost control of the car. It could happen to anybody. The roads may have been bad. He was hurrying with her to the hospital because she was sick, very sick, with a high fever, a dangerously high fever, and he lost control, hit the railroad bridge. And now he's got a concussion, busted ribs, a punctured lung for Christ's sake. And he lost his little girl. Nothing will ever bring her back. Nothing. Think how he must feel. Think!" I started to cry. "He killed her," I repeated. "He touched her and he killed her. He made her die." "What do you mean 'he touched her and made her die'? What the hell are you talking about? You're talking nonsense. Utter nonsense." I could tell my father was on the verge of spanking me. I hadn't meant to say anything. I really hadn't. It just came out. It wasn't because he was about to spank me. "He touched her," I whispered. "Bad touching." "You don't know what you're talking about," my father said. "You don't know." "I know," I said. "I know because Annie never lied. She never never lied. And if you make me go I'll tell everyone. I scream it out right in front of everybody, right in the middle of everything. I'll scream and scream and scream. So don't make me go. Please don't make me go." My mother took my father aside. I could hear them talking in the next room. Hushed talking. I wasn't really paying attention. Sometimes I couldn't help hearing the words, the ones my father said too loudly. "Utter nonsense. Delirious." Then my father shouted, "There is no way, no way in hell!" and I closed my eyes. If only Annie and I could be back in that meadow, laughing and rolling over each other in the soft grass. I will tell everyone, I said to myself. I will. I will. And then I remembered that I'd promised Annie I wouldn't tell anyone. That I'd never never tell. I'd already broken my promise. I sobbed miserably. I decided that if my parents insisted I go to the service, I would go, and I wouldn't say anything. I'd never say anything to anyone as long as I lived. In the end I didn't have to go. My mother came in to talk to me. "We know how much Annie meant to you," she said. "We understand how truly distraught you are. We still think it would be best if you went to the service, but we won't force you. It needs to be your decision." She didn't say anything about the touching. No one ever said anything about the touching. I didn't go to Annie's service. My mother asked me one more time, the next morning, just as she and my father were about to set off, and I shook my head. "Very well," my mother said. "If anybody asks why you're not there, we will tell them that you are grief-stricken and that you are mourning Annie in your own private and personal way." She smiled at me, a sad smile, and kissed me on the forehead, and then she left. In a way I wanted to go, I wanted to see Annie's father, I wanted to kill him with my eyes. I thought if I could concentrate my inner forces enough that might be possible. That he would catch fire right there before everybody. Or if not that, that at least he would know, he would know how much I hated him, he would know that I knew. But what did I know? I wasn't really sure. I knew that somehow he had killed Annie. I sat down at the little table in my bedroom and looked out the window. It was a bright sunny morning, and nothing was happening. On the windowsill was a worn green crayon. Lime green. It was Annie's crayon, I remembered. We'd used it only a few weeks ago. It had been rainy that day. Much too wet to go to the meadow. "We'll color in your room," Annie had said as we got off the school bus. "I even brought my new box of crayons. See how I think ahead?" "What will we color?" I asked. "Whatever we feel like." "I don't know what I feel like," I said. Annie pinched my arm. "You feel like a boy," she told me. I pinched her back. "You feel like a boy, too," I said. "Boys and girls feel the same." "Ha," she said. "Shows what you know." I knew that boys had a penis and girls didn't. I wasn't sure what they had. I was wondering if there was a way to ask Annie about it without seeming too foolish, but she was already busy with her coloring. I listened to the rain rattling on my window. I listened to the thump and thrum of music coming up through the floor boards from the apartment below. The same song seemed to be playing over and over and it seemed to blend with the slow strong rain. "The purpose of a man is to love a woman, the purpose of a woman is to love a man, la la la love" the song went. "Don't use up all the green," I told Annie. "I'm drawing a baseball field and I'll need lots of green." "You always draw baseball fields," Annie chided me. "I love baseball." "Maybe you should try something else sometime." "Why?" "Just for fun." "What could be more fun than baseball?" Annie laughed, but she tossed me a green crayon. Then she settled down to work. After a while she borrowed the green back. I watched her draw. She worked quickly, using edges and points of the crayon I didn't know existed, and she was finished with her first picture before I'd even colored in my outfield grass. "What are you drawing now?" I asked. "I'll tell you when I'm done," she said, "Work on your baseball field." "I'm going to draw something else," I told her. "Something beautiful." "Okay," Annie said, so caught up in her art she wasn't paying any attention to me. When she was finished, Annie showed me her pictures. The first one was of a pale green field. Way off in the distance was a red barn and a silo and what might have been purple bushes or trees and there was a single jagged streak of lightning coming out of the mild blue sky, striking the earth. "I wanted it to be the moment the rain starts," Annie said. "Can you feel it, how still it is?" "You're a good artist," I told Annie. "Do you think the rain will be hot or cold?" Annie asked. "Hot," I guessed. "How hot?" Annie asked. I gave her a puzzled look. "So hot you'd just have to take your clothes off?" Annie asked. "Just so you could feel the hot rain on your bare skin, and the barn way off in the distance, almost miles away?" "You're weird," I said. Annie's other picture was of a smokestack, a tall smooth smokestack with smoke the color of purple clover flooding upward into a deep blue sky. "The smoke looks pretty," I told Annie. "It's poisonous," Annie said. "That's why the smokestack is so high. If you breathed even one breath of this smoke you would die. You wouldn't even have time to cough." "I like the rain field better," I said. "Me too," Annie agreed. "Now show me yours." I showed her. "A baseball field! You said you were going to do something different." "I was," I said. "I was going to draw the most beautiful thing, but I didn't know how to make it beautiful enough, so I stuck with baseball." "What were you going to draw?" Annie asked. "A basketball court?" "I was going to draw you," I said. "You think I'm beautiful?" "Sure," I said. "Very beautiful." "Okay," Annie said. "Now tell me about the baseball field." "What do you mean?" "Tell me about the game. Tell me about what you were thinking about while you were coloring the picture." "I was thinking about hitting homeruns," I said. "Four homeruns, and one double." "A double?" Annie said. "How come not five homeruns?" "The last one was almost a homerun. It hit the top of the wall. Just two feet more and it would have been over. But it bounced off the wall and I had to settle for a double." "Too bad," Annie said. "No, I wanted a double," I said. "Why?" she asked. "Would five homeruns have been too greedy?" "No, I just wanted to stand out on second base," I said. "Right out in the middle of the field." "Do you really think I'm beautiful?" Annie asked. I nodded. "Can I have your baseball field?" Annie asked. "It's not really very good." "I want it anyway." "How come?" "Maybe I'll draw you standing on second base. You'll be wearing a bright white uniform and a bright blue baseball cap. And you'll be looking down at the ground because all the people will be cheering. They'll be cheering so loud, louder than they cheered for your homeruns, and you'll be looking down out of pride and embarrassment. And I'll draw me on second base, too, sharing it with you. And ..." "You can't have two people on second base, not at the same time." "But I won't really be on second base. I'll be sort of ghost-like, so you can tell it's just that you're thinking about me, that I'm not really there. And all the people in the stands, all those people cheering and clapping, they'll all be me, too. They'll be clapping and cheering so loud-- you won't be able to hear anything." "You're so weird." "So can I have your baseball drawing? You can have my field and my smokestack." We'd traded pictures. I don't know if Annie ever drew me standing on second base. I'd put the pictures of the smokestack and the field with the lightning bolt on the top of my bookshelf where they'd be safe. On the morning of Annie's service, still holding that worn-down lime-green crayon, I reached up to get the pictures. I brought them over to my table by the window and set them down. I looked at them. I noticed that in the front part of the field the grass was raggedy, and there were tiny white flowers which I hadn't noticed before. I also noticed the way the sunlight held the smooth curve of the smokestack, but dripping down the shaded side was a tarry black stain. I stared into the puffs of purple fume and wondered what it would be like to breathe it in, what it would be like in the instant of dying. "Annie," I whispered. It didn't make any sense to me that she was no longer alive. That she was dead. That I would never see her again. I closed my eyes tight as I could. I tried not to breathe. Now, in the shade of the highway bridge, I wondered how was it possible that Annie's death, that Annie herself, had so completely vanished from my consciousness. In the last ten years I hadn't thought of her at all. Not once. The middle of that summer we'd moved. My dad took a job with industry because we needed more money because my baby brother was about to be born. We lived in a real house too far out in the country for me to have any close friends, and once a week my dad would drive me into town for swimming lessons which I'd hated. School started up. I made friends, but not many. We moved again. I had another baby brother. I listened to the radio and read books and did well at school and sports. I went to college where I studied chemistry, physics and modern mythology, had few friends, fell in love with classical music, and graduated in three years. It was at school I met Laura, a pretty junior, after her piano recital only a month before the end of my last term. I would have to tell Laura about Annie. Exactly what I wanted to say I wasn't sure, but I knew I wanted to say something. I started up my old car and drove out from under the bridge. About an hour later I pulled up in front of Laura's Indiana Avenue apartment. For the last part of my journey I'd been trying to figure out what to say to her, what to say about Annie. Maybe it would be best to say nothing. Maybe it would be best just to . . . but no, I didn't want to forget Annie again. It occurred to me that I might be the only one in the whole world who remembered her. Laura's living room window looked out onto the street, and for a moment I sat in the car gazing up at it, hoping to catch a glimpse of Laura, but window was empty, no sign of Laura, no sign of the houseplant I'd given her on my last visit about a month ago. Maybe it had died. Maybe she'd moved it to another window for better light. Suddenly a hollow feeling filled my tummy. I had a strange premonition that Laura wasn't there, that she'd moved, vanished. I got out of the car. I walked briskly up the sidewalk, through the entryway, up the old wooden steps. The sound of my footfalls hammered my ears, made it hard to breathe. I rapped on the door. Oh, so pretty she was, my Laura. She was wearing a short spring dress, and her feet were bare, and her breasts pressed softly against me as we hugged. Her hair smelled fresh like spring winds blowing off a wild sea, and her eyes were wide and deep and full of yearning, her mouth a babble of quick hot kisses. We held each other, and she let her head rest against my shoulder, and we stood there in her doorway for a long time. "I missed you," I whispered. "I missed you so much." She buried her head against my chest and wrapped her arms tighter around me, and we swayed slowly. I began stroking her back, rubbing up and down and back and forth and then the small circular motions I knew she liked, and I took comfort in the feel of her breathing. After a while I let my hand stray down, my fingertips smoothed the bottom of her spine through her light spring dress, and I could feel her breath catch. I caressed her there until she began to tremble, and then I let my hands move lower, I cupped the firm flesh of her lithe little bottom, and I pulled her to my middle. After awhile I realized she was crying. "What is it?" I said. "What's the matter?" She freed herself from me, backed away into her apartment. "There's something I have to tell you," she said. I waited. She didn't seem inclined to start. "Is it bad news?" I asked. "Did the plant die?" "Oh no," she said. A small smile crossed her lips. "No... I just moved it to the bedroom. So I could look at it first thing when I woke up. So I'd think of you then. The plant is okay." "Well then what is it?" Laura started playing with her hair. She did that when she was nervous. She held a few strands near her collarbone, rubbed the hair between her thumb and forefinger. "You know how I still see Tom sometimes?" I nodded. "Well, I... I visited him last week. I took the bus down. We ..." I was still nodding my head. A mindless sort of nodding. "We ... That is, he and I... we..." "You and he," I said. "Right," she said. "Tom and I . . ." There was a long pause. I watched Laura's fingers worrying her hair. "Tom and I . . ." The phone rang. Laura smiled, an embarrassed little smile. "This always happens," she said. "I mean that's probably Tom now. He's been calling a lot lately. I'm sorry, I'll ..." "Should I wait outside?" I asked, backing slowly towards her door. "Or should I just go?" "No," Laura said. "Don't go. You can wait outside. Or wait, just wait here and I'll tell him, I'll tell him I'll call him back. I'll ..." She picked up the telephone, turned away from me. "Hello," she said in a small nervous voice. I didn't want to hear her talking to Tom. I didn't want to hear her tell him she'd call him back. I had my hand on the doorknob. I was almost too weak to turn it. "Dad!" Laura said brightly. "Dad, I'm so glad to ..." And then she was silent. Just a few affirmative mumbles. "Okay," she said. "Okay. Okay. Yes. Okay. Probably. Yes. I love you, Dad. I love you." She hung up. She turned to me. She burst into tears. We met each other in the middle of the room. She had her arms around me and she was sobbing. "My grandmother," Laura choked. It took her a long time to get the words out. "My grandmother died. This morning. A heart... a heart... a heart attack. I have to go. To the farm. To... to... to..." And then the sobs took over her body completely. She cried and cried, great gulping cries one after the other, and I held her as the concusive whimpers coursed through her body. She cried for twenty minute, maybe more. I held her the whole time. I held her tightly but gently, trying to take the whimpers from her. There were always more. At last she grew quiet, only a small snuffling, a wet sniffle. She wiped her finger under her nose and looked up at me. "It hurts," she moaned. "It hurts me here." She put her hand on her belly. "It hurts so much. I can't cry anymore. Don't let me cry anymore." And then she began crying again. Not as fiercely as before, but a gentle rain of crying, a thorough soaking rain. She had her arms around me, around my neck, and her body quivered with grief, and I held her. Then she stopped. "I have to go," she said. "I have to catch a bus. I think there's one this afternoon. I have to hurry. I'm sorry. I have to go." She kissed me, a peck of a kiss, and I tasted the edge of tears at the corner of her lips. "You've been so good," she said. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." And she kissed me again. Fierce and deep, forcing her tongue into my mouth, and then when I responded, she sucked my tongue into her mouth, but only for an instant, and then the kiss was done. "I'll take you," I said. "To the bus station? Would you? Thank you. I've really got to hurry." "Hush," I said. "I'll take you to your grandmother's. To wherever you have to go. I'll take you." "You will?" she said brightly. "No," she said right away. "It's too far. It's maybe five hundred miles. You've just come all this way. Oh, god... I'm so sorry. I can't let you do that." "It's okay," I said. "I'll take you. I want to take you. If you'll let me." "You're sure?" she said. "Okay, just let me get some things together, and then we'll go. You really don't mind? You'll really do this?" A short time later I'd filled my car's gas tank and we were headed west. It was early afternoon. Laura rested her head against my shoulder as we drove. She told me about her grandmother, what a nice woman she was, how everyone loved her, and how good she was with kids, and how good she always was to Laura, making ordinary things seem like special secrets just between the two of them, making bad things seem just ordinary and inconsequential. "Bad things?" I asked. "Like the time I burnt the cookies," Laura said, and she giggled. "The whole house was filled with smoke. My grandmother was so good." I was afraid Laura was going to cry again. "What kind of cookies were they?" I asked. "Chocolate chip," Laura said. "Burnt chocolate chip. But after we cleaned everything up, Grandma helped me make some more. They were so good. The best cookies I ever made. I can almost taste them." She bent down and touched her lips to my arm as I drove. "I can almost taste them," she said. And she talked about her grandparents' farm, about following Parson's Creek down to the swimming hole and the secret hiding places, about gathering eggs and discovering newly born kittens in the barn. "Always lots of cats," Laura said. "The male kittens had to be weeded out or they'd fight. My grandmother showed me how to tell the girls from the boys." "What do you mean weeded out?" "Gathered into a gunny sack and drowned." "That sounds mean." "I've heard that in China they kill girl babies that way." "I don't believe that." "I read it somewhere--I think it's true." "Maybe that's why I stopped reading stuff. Too much truth." We took in the quiet miles. Sometimes Laura slept. Sometimes she cried. A couple of times I thought about telling her about Annie, but I couldn't figure out how to begin. A couple of times I thought about asking Laura to finish telling me about her and Tom, but I didn't. I just drove. We stopped a few times to pee, to get fuel and food. Butterfingers for Laura, Snickers for me. We sat on a picnic table outside the rest stop munching our candybars and holding hands and letting the late afternoon sun warm our arms. "Share?" Laura said after I'd taken a bite of my Snickers, and before I could say anything she was kissing me, tasting the Snickers on my tongue. Instantly I got an erection, which Laura noticed with her eyes and with the back of her hand. "Want me to drive?" she said, getting up. I murmured that I'd be okay. Back in the car I studied the road map some more. Laura knew the name of the nearest town, but not exactly how to get there. "I'll know it when we get close," she told me. "Even in the dark?" I asked. "Even in the dark." I folded up the map. "You do that good," Laura said. "Somehow I never learned to fold up maps. Maybe it's because my grandmother never drove. So she had no need of maps." "She never drove?" "Except a tractor. She could drive a tractor better than my grandpa. Sometimes she'd take me along. Everyone said it was dangerous, having a little kid on a tractor, but I never felt safer than when I was in her lap, with the big tractor churning through the fields. So slowly it moved, but so powerfully. And the earth would come up on the tire, matted with grass and manure, and then it'd fall off, and we'd keep moving, and the seat would bounce, and my grandmother would hold me to her, and whisper things in my ear, snatches of songs and little stories and stuff about birds and clouds and what it feels like when your babies are born. As far as that goes I know more about my daddy than he does himself." "Did your daddy watch you being born?" "No, he was in the navy at the time. Overseas. 'A navy boy >from Kansas' my daddy would tell people. 'Ain't that sumptin?' You'll meet him, and he'll tell you that, you'll see. It was my grandmother taught him to play the piano. She gave him his first lessons. She taught me to play, too." "You play really well." "Not as good as my dad. You'll have to hear him. Sometimes my dad and Grandma would do duets, naughty jazz duets. It was a riot. One time, this was when I was real little, just starting to learn how to play, one time they had me sit between them. And we were all playing, and as they played they kept moving closer and closer together, squeezing me between them as they played, playing more and more furiously and wiggling as they squeezed me, and even though I could barely breathe I started laughing, I started laughing so hard; god, I don't think I've ever laughed so hard." "Do you know the song 'Buffalo Girls'? Did your grandmother ever sing that to you?" "'Buffalo Girls'?" Laura said. "You've never heard of it?" Laura smiled. Then she sang the song. "As I was a lumbering down the street, Down the street, down the street, The prettiest girl I chanced to meet Oh she was fair to see!" "That's it," I said. "You do know it." "I think it's called 'Buffalo Gals," Laura said. "Gals not girls." "What's the difference?" Instead of answering, Laura sang. "I stopped her and we had a talk, Had a talk, had a talk. Her feet took up the whole sidewalk And left no room for me." Laura stretched. "Mm, big feet, huh? Wonder why this guy had a thing for big feet." "Sing some more," I said. "I'd like to make that gal my wife, Gal my wife, gal my wife, Then I'd be happy all my life If I had her here with me. "Oh Buffalo Gals won't you come out tonight, Come out tonight, come out tonight, Buffalo Gals won't you come out to night And dance by the light of the moon?" I waited for Laura to continue. "Isn't there another verse?" I asked finally. "A verse about a hole in her stockings?" "Oh, yeah," Laura said. And then she sang it. "I danced with a girl 'til a hole took her stocking But her heels kept a rocking And her toes kept a knocking. I danced with a gal with a hole in her stocking, And we danced by the light of the moon." "It's a silly song," Laura said. "Do you think it's the same girl?" I asked her. "I mean 'gal.' The one he wants to marry and the one he dances with?" "Why wouldn't it be?" Laura asked. "I don't know. I think maybe the Buffalo Gals were someone else." "It's just a silly song," Laura said. "Sometimes you're just too serious." She smiled but it was a glum smile. I switched on my headlights. If there was a moon out there, I couldn't spot it. Laura had turned away from me; she was resting with her forehead against the passenger door. I reached over and touched her shoulder. She stiffened slightly. I let her rest. It was night and we were in Kansas. Laura was asleep. We'd have to go a quite a ways past Topeka before I'd need to wake her for final directions. I needed to look for Highway 99. I wondered what she was dreaming. I wondered if I was ever in her dreams. Now and then I'd hear small snuffling noises. Maybe she was crying in her sleep. Sometimes the noise she made was almost like purring, and I thought of the little barn cats, all the boy cats gathered up into a bag and taken to the creek to be drowned. I wondered if Laura had been along while the cats were drowned, if they'd go swimming in the swimming hole the same time as they took the cats. I tried not to think about the cats. I tried to think about Laura swimming. Maybe she was skinny-dipping on a moonlit night. I thought of midnight black water slipping along her body as she swam. I could almost hear the fluidity. And then my mind would return to the cats, little kittens, and Laura picking them up one and at time, caressing their fur before lowering them gently into the open sack, and then that bag full of boy cats being lowered into the cold dark water. When I finally turned onto 99 she awoke. "Where are we?" she asked. "Highway 99," I said. "Oh," she said. "It won't be long now." "Are you nervous?" I asked. "No," she said. "Why should I be nervous?" "I don't know. I just thought... You seem a little... something. Anyway, I am," I said. "A little nervous." "Don't be," she said. "It'll be fine." "I'm just a little nervous that after this--that I might not see you again." I looked over at Laura. She was biting her bottom lip. Twisting her hair. "Watch out for the trucks, okay?" she said. "Sometimes they go too fast along here. Sometimes they've been drinking." "Okay," I said. "I'm sorry," Laura said. "Maybe I am a little nervous. I really appreciate your driving me. It was unbelievably nice of you. You probably wish I had taken the bus." "No," I said. "Do you wish you had taken the bus?" "Oh come on," she said. "Please! Maybe I should have taken the bus. Maybe that would have been better." I didn't know what to say. I stared out at the road. "I didn't mean to upset you," I said a mile or so later. "I know how distraught you must be." Laura didn't reply. I started humming "Buffalo Gals." I'm not a very good hummer, but I hummed anyway. I thought maybe it would help me keep my eyes open. After a time Laura hummed along with me. And then she started singing, singing softly along with my hum. We just did the refrain. "Buffalo gals won't you come out tonight, come out tonight, come out tonight? Buffalo gals won't you come out tonight, and dance by the light of the moon?" We did it over and over. And then Laura stopped. "You know, at one time this whole place was filled with buffalo? Thousands and thousands of buffalo. Buffalo as far as you could see." "I'll try to keep a watch out for them," I said. "Them and the drunken truckers." "We do have drunken truckers," Laura said. "And deer. A friend of mine hit one once. Totaled his car. And it was just a fawn. If it had been a full-sized deer we might have been killed." "You were in the car?" "Yes," said Laura, "I was in the car." "That must have been ...." "It was," she said. "It was." I pulled over to the side of the road. "What is it?" Laura asked. "Do you have to pee?" "I'm just kind of tired," I said. "Would you mind driving for awhile? It can't be too much further." I curled up against the passenger door, closed my eyes thinking I might get some sleep. But sleep wouldn't come. Through squinted eyes I watched Laura drive. It was hard to tell whether she was feeling serene or worried. She concentrated on the road and never once looked at me. Maybe she was pretending I wasn't there. Maybe she was thinking about her grandmother. "What are you thinking about?" I asked her. "Nothing," she said. "I'm just driving. Now go back to sleep. We'll be there soon. You sleep now." I closed my eyes. I felt so heavy. And then I felt light, like thin swirls of smoke drifting upwards. Maybe it was a dream. When I opened my eyes we were stopped. "We're here," Laura whispered. "Why don't you just rest here a minute while I go in and check some things." She touched her fingertips to my eyebrows. Cold fingertips. She closed my eyes. "I'll be right back." I heard the car door close, and I opened my eyes and watched her trot off towards the dark farmhouse. I could hear her steps on the wrap-around porch, and then the swing of a screen door opening on the other side, and then I saw a light go on. Maybe it was only a few minutes, but it seemed like a long time. I watched the house. Nothing seemed to be happening. At last the light went off and Laura came back. "Okay," Laura said, "We're going to my Aunt Jenny's. It's just down the road a couple of miles. My grandpa's there, but he's sleeping. My mom and dad are there. Everyone's there. I talked to them on the phone and they said we should come there. They sound pretty drained." "Maybe I should just stay here," I suggested. Laura looked at me as if she were considering it, and then she said, "Don't be silly." At Aunt Jenny's I kept in the background while Laura hugged her relatives. A scraggly gray cat found me and rubbed itself against my ankles. "Dad's taking it really hard," Aunt Jenny was telling Laura, "But I think he's going to be all right. He didn't want to come over here. We practically had to drag him. Your mom and dad are upstairs now getting him to bed. I put him in Dale and Bobbie's room since they're staying over at Josh's. I figure I can stay on the top bunk, keep an eye on him, and Henry can take the back couch, and your parents will be in our room. Little Margaret gets her own bed, the lucky dog, and you, dear Laura, you can share with your cousin Lizzie, all the way in >from New York City, New York, okay? And that just leaves ..." She smiled at me, a tired but friendly smile. "Mat," I said. "A friend of Laura's. But I could be on my way. I'll just ...." "Oh, nonsense," Aunt Jenny said. "We've plenty of room. This big front room couch is super comfy. I've slept here more than a time or two myself. You just have to be willing to share with Old Tom, but I see you and he have already made friends. If it's okay with you, it looks like it's okay with him." "Okay," I said. "I'll bring you some blankets. It still gets plenty cold at night. And now I think it's time for everyone to turn in. It's been a long hard day. I, for one, am beat." Not long later I was alone in the dark on the front room couch, one of Aunt Jenny's heavy quilts covering me. Old Tom, the cat, was apparently elsewhere. I closed my eyes and listened to the sounds of the old house. I may have fallen asleep. I awoke to find Laura kneeling next to the couch kissing my eyelids. "Such a tired boy," she said gently. "I didn't mean to wake you. I just wanted to say good night. And to say thank you. Thank you." Before I could I reply she bent close again. "I love you so much," she said. Then she kissed me once, quickly, on the lips, and hurried upstairs to bed. I lay awake a long time thinking about her words. "I love you so much," she'd said. "I love you so much." I drifted off. I awoke again who knows how much later. The quilt was too heavy and it was snoring. Old Tom, the cat, had curled himself up upon my chest, and he was apparently quite comfortable, but making a lot of noise, and not smelling too good. It would be rude to brush him off, I thought, but I was never going to fall back to sleep with him there. Carefully as I could, I eased myself out from under cat and quilt, took a bolster for a pillow, and found a quiet, furniture-free spot along one of the inside walls not more than a foot or two from the furnace grating. I'd have some warmth, I thought. I settled down. Then the furnace switched off, and I heard voices coming through the grate. Laura's voice, quiet but clear. "I'm glad I did it," I heard her say. "It hurt, but it was sort of a good hurt. And it hurt the next time, too, but not as much, and then things turned delirious. Utterly delirious." Then Lizzie's voice. "It's one of those things that keeps getting better. Better and better." "I hope so." "It will, take it from me." There were some giggles. "But what about... what about this Mat fellow?" "He's nice," Laura said. "A really nice boy. I don't want to hurt him. I don't know what he sees in me anyway. Sometimes he's just too nice. I almost feel like I can't really be me." "And you say Tom doesn't know anything about him?" "No." "So what are you going to do? Tom will be here sometime late morning, probably." "I don't know. I don't know what I'm going to do. The thing is..." But I didn't get to hear what the thing was. The furnace switched itself back on and I couldn't hear voices over the rumble. The furnace stayed on a long time. When it finally switched off again, the voices were quiet. I listened as hard as I could. I thought maybe I could hear breathing, but probably it was my imagination. In the early morning I heard some stirrings in the kitchen. It was Aunt Jenny fixing coffee and heating up sweet rolls. I said hello and then I found a bathroom where I washed myself as best I could. I joined Jenny in the kitchen. "Henry's been up for most of an hour doing chores," she told me. "Ah, life on the farm." "It seems to agree with you," I said. She chuckled. "Well, I do like it," she said. "Of course there are plenty of bad parts to it, plenty of hard times, but I wouldn't want to do anything else. It's a good life, even if it's hard. Sometimes I think it's the hardness that makes it good. Now I'm probably repeating myself. I'm prone to babble, in case you haven't noticed." "No, what you say makes sense, at least to me," I said. "I don't think I could be a farmer, though." "You never know," Jenny said. We sat there sipping coffee. "These rolls are really good," I said. "Of course I haven't had anything but a candy bar since I don't know when. But the rolls are really very good." "Well, you just wait. We'll have a big breakfast, and people are prone to bring things by after funerals. You'll be good and stuffed before nightfall." "I probably won't be staying," I said. "I mean I have to be getting back." "Don't be too quick to leave," Jenny said. "At least stay for breakfast." I said I would think about it. She started clearing away the plates. "So you're sweet on our Laura?" she said. "Yes," I answered. "I like her a lot. I love her." It was the first time I'd ever said this to anyone but Laura. "I can see that you do," Laura's aunt said. "Just by the way that you look at her. And you know what? I see the same thing in the way she looks at you." She put her hand on my head and ruffled my hair. Then she poured me another cup of coffee and pulled on some oversized boots and went out to help her husband with the chores. I took my coffee out to the living room and folded up the quilt and sat on the couch stroking Old Tom and not thinking much about anything. A hour or so later Cousin Lizzie came down the stairs. "Hiya," she said. "Good coffee, huh?" I said that it was. "You better not have drinken it all up," she said, and she came over to me. "We've been up talking all night," she whispered. Then she gave me a hug. Then she set off for coffee. "You still here?" Lizzie said when she came back. "Why don't you go on upstairs and say good morning to her?" I felt a little uneasy going up that staircase. I was afraid all the doors would be closed, and then what? I started walking down the hallway. The door at the end was open. But before I could get there, another door opened. It was Laura. She took my hand and pulled me in. The sun was streaming through the east window, the rumpled coverlets were ablaze with light, and I could see Laura's lovely body clearly through her nightgown. But I wasn't thinking about that, I didn't have a chance, really, because Laura pulled me to her and kissed me, a desperately hungry kiss. Then she drew back, looked at me a moment, and then she kissed me again. "I wish we could do it," she whispered. "I really feel like doing it." And then she put her head against the front of my shoulder and began to sob. I hugged her hard. After a few moments I put my hands on her face. I tilted her face to mine and I kissed her eyes and then I kissed her lips. "Do you love me?" she asked. I nodded. "I'd better get dressed," she said. "Wait downstairs." She grinned mischievously, and suddenly her nightgown was a puddle at her feet. She stood there perfectly still letting me make love to her with my eyes. A few seconds later her pretend kiss pushed me out into the hall. I had to wait there a minute or so for my erection to subside. "Should I stay for the funeral?" I asked Laura when she'd come downstairs. "I'd like to be here with you." "Maybe you should be heading on home," she told me. "It's such a long drive; you should get an early start. You have a class tomorrow, don't you? All those pretty coeds wanting to know about quarks and quatrains." "But what about you?" I asked. "Won't you need a ride back to school? I'd be happy to stay. To wait for you and to take you back." "I'll be all right," she said. "I'm thinking of staying around here for a few days--Grandpa can use some cheering up. And Lizzie and I will need time to go through some things, and just to visit." "Right," I said. "So then ... " "So then I'll give you a call, okay? You'll drive careful, right? Watch out for buffalo." "And Buffalo Gals." "Yeah, and Buffalo Gals." We did kiss good-bye. I think we were both about to cry. When the kiss ended I couldn't think what to say. "I'm sorry about your grandma. She must have been a very special woman." Laura nodded. I stepped into my car. She watched me drive off. She waved. I drove along the little dirt road which fronted her aunt and uncle's farm. Off in the distance I saw what must have been Laura's grandparents' farm. The big red barn. The silo. A few trees way in the distance. And fields of the palest green under a pale blue sky. It could have been Annie's painting, but then I suppose a lot of farms look a lot alike. There was no lightning. It was a long drive home, and I had to stop often for coffee and rest. As I traveled north and then east the weather turned bad, an icy rain. I wasn't thinking much about it, just watching the way the spatters of rain would seize into little ice flecks almost as soon as they hit my windshield, when an old white station wagon with a bunch of little kids in the back surged past me and then lost control on a wide sweeping curve, shot across the shallow embankment, and ploughed nearly a hundred yards into a field of mud and corn stubble. I slowed down, saw people getting out of the station wagon. It didn't look like anyone was hurt. I probably should have stopped, but other cars were stopping, and already people were hurrying into the field, so I figured there wasn't much I could do, and I kept on. I didn't really feel like going home, exactly, but I couldn't think of anyplace else to go, and it was dark, and I was tired. The telephone was ringing when I got in. It rang about twenty times, and I was pretty sure it was Laura. I didn't answer because I figured if I didn't talk to her she couldn't tell me that we couldn't see each other any more. That way there would be at least some hope. ============ Buffalo Gals by Mat Twassel If you enjoyed this story, you may wish to read other Mat Twassel stories at: http://members.aol.com/Mmtwassel/index.html You may also be interested in my attempts to reproduce the two pictures by Annie Richards mentioned in this story. These can be seen at: http://members.aol.com/Mmtwassel/storm.htm and http://members.aol.com/Mmtwassel/stack.htm Finally, comments of any kind are welcome. Write to Mmtwassel@aol.com *** <1st attachment end> ----- ASSM Moderation System Notice------ Notice: This post has been modified from its original format. 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