When I returned she was stretching out on the sofa. She’d taken off her suit jacket, but was otherwise still in her office outfit. I poured the drin...ks and managed to squeeze on beside her feet. We sipped and engaged in small talk for a while. She was most interested to learn of my task for Jennifer.“That must have been embarrassing for you Peter – handing those frilly things to the charity shop ladies!” I must have blushed a little as she continued: “Perhaps they think you’re a cross-dresser!”. ’ ‘Shit.’ The mirth had to sober up eventually. There was a pause where he stared at the door, then looked back to me. ‘What happened, Dave?’ I didn’t know where to begin. My mind was full of images, and trying to put those into words felt impossible. Wesley only knew half the story, and so did I. One of us had to explain our side first, to piece it all together. ‘How much do you know?’ I asked. At that point, it felt like everybody but me knew what was going on. ‘Violet turned up in the middle. Of course, that’s precisely why I ordered a defense in depth, in layers like this. Anyway, we’ve already lost several dozen towns, albeit none of great size yet, to this offensive of theirs. May God help whoever lived in those places!” I deliberately used the past tense.Nobody in those towns who failed to make the cut would survive if they didn’t evacuate in time. The Nazis were utterly ruthless about slaughtering those who didn’t qualify for the “master race” these days. Forget forced labor.. "How did it happen?"The day after I had told her about my bad day at work I had a dentist's appointment and didn't go to work. Louise also works downtown in a building that is only two blocks from the one I work in. During the morning she left her job, went to my place of employment and barged into my boss's office. She then proceeded to give him hell over the way he had been treating me; overloading me with projects with unreasonable deadlines, etc, etc, etc. Melvin got up from his desk,.