Iris

She was thick-waisted, not fat but muscular-seeming. She had a mannish stride; 'Walks like a farmer,' someone had said; and had considerable strength in her shoulders and arms. For some reason a lot of men were excited by her appearance and masculine habits. He grinned at her. 'Who knows? I can't imagine what it must be like to get that old.'

'Who would want to?' The elevator let them off on the ground floor and they were standing in the foyer, beneath its famous caveman poster.

'Want to go out to dinner with me?'

She looked at him with a narrow, sidelong glance, smiling crookedly. 'I got a date tonight.' Sealock shrugged haphazardly. 'Oh. OK, maybe some other time.'

'Sure.' They were walking down the street together, long strides matched, arms swinging in unison.

'Who is it, anybody I know?'

'Mike Torr .'

'The snuff-dipper? You got to be kidding!'

'No, really!' She was giggling at him, almost blushing at his laughter. 'He's a lot of fun.' Sealock shook his head in mock dismay. 'Boy, oh, boy,' hesaid, 'I will never understand why women make the choices that they do!'

'Now, now. Just because I didn't choose you is no reason to get bitter.' They were still smiling, still in a teasing social mode.

'Yeah. I've heard all that before. How can you take that cud-chewer in preference to a Celtic god like me?' He posed before her in the street, flexing his muscles into a buckling chaos of flesh.

'My, my!' she exclaimed, running a hand over one stiffened bicep. 'I just don't know. I must be mentally ill!'

'You must be.' The charade fell apart as laughter overcame them.

'Look, I gotta run now. See ya later.' She punched him in the arm and was gone. Sealock walked slowly back to his apartment, still grinning. She was fun to work with.

Later that night Brendan was standing in one of the little street parks so common in modern New York, watching the passing scene with a mild disinterest. There seemed to be a lot of bums out tonight. Probably most of them were just posing as bums, for it was a fun role that many people enjoyed playing. Some of them might be real bums, he supposed, people far gone in volitional alcoholism.

'Hi!' He turned about and saw one of the young girls from the Intro to QTD course that he was teaching. Cathy, um . . . no, Lori something-or-other. The rest of her name escaped him.

'Hello. Having a nice night?' She was slim and had lots of bushy red hair framing a cute, bland little face, with a light dusting of freckles. She was, he knew, something like eighteen years old. She shrugged. 'OK, I guess. I'm getting a little bored.'

'Tired of studying?'

She nodded. 'Your class is a little hard for me.'

A glinting supposition appeared in his mind. 'Tell you what,' he said, 'come on up to my apartment and I'll give you a nice body rub. Fix you right up.'

She seemed startled and stared at him, hands on her hips. 'What is this, some kind of come-on?' He held his hands up before him, palms outward, grinning broadly. 'Perish the thought! Look, I'm trying to do something nice for one of my students for a change. This'll be the ultimate in refreshing experiences. I promise not to fuck you.'

She still seemed doubtful but went with him. Once there, she stood quietly while he spread a soft blanket on the floor of his living room, watching him closely. He turned to face her, and she said, 'What do I do now?'

'Stand still.' He began to undress her, unbuttoning her blouse, pulling off her tattered, cut-down shorts. He slid her out of a pair of green silk underpants and she stood naked before him, obviously uneasy. He looked her over and shook his head, smiling. Youth held its own special beauty, something he had not noticed when he had been that age. She blushed before his gaze, redness suffusing down onto her chest.

'OK, now lie face down on the blanket.' She did his bidding.