“Hello we’re representatives…” I couldn’t even really process what I was saying. Partly cause I was saying it in a foreign tongue and partly cause she was looking at me with those eyes, blinking windows into a world of hedonism. I looked back to Harmsworth for moral support but got none.

He’d gone selectively mute in the face of a lovely woman once again.

She invited us in. Her friend peered around bronze legs twirling idling over the leg of the couch to nod her agreement. For all its cobwebs the cabin glistened like a Babylonian paradise.

“We’re actually just here to talk about…” I was telling a fib. I was desperate to do more than talk. A few more minutes and I might have left Harmsworth on the porch. Her voice was musical, a dangerous tune that repeated the invite to enter with a wicked assurance we wouldn’t be talking.

Say something, Harmy! Anything, you twit. I screamed inside.

On the outside, “No thank you, miss…”

Internally and for years to come, You fool! You damned fool!