" Isn't that supposed to be the life of Riley?" she asked automatically."Riley lives high on the hog," said Bob, smiling. "Sluggo lives in a trailer s...omewhere but has enough to eat and can afford a case of beer now and then." He looked around. "Speaking of which, you want a beer or something?"Having Mr. Hawkins, her history teacher, offer her a beer seemed so bizarre that the only framework of understanding she could fit it into was that, like the fraternity boys in college, he was trying to. There aren't many around where I live and I had to drive to another suburb to find one. It was a pleasant surprise – it was clean, loads of machines, a TV showing news stories, a decent coffee machine; all good.Unfortunately I imagined someone would be there to do it for me but the door at the back of the place was locked and a sign said that service washes were only available on certain days and at certain times.The first day was a bit of a chore. It took around 2 hours to wash and dry and. “Hello, Gabriel. My name is Lacy and this is my lover, Freja.” Lacy tried to sound as pleasant as she could, but because she sensed Gabriel’s dominant nature she didn’t dare make eye contact as she spoke. Not only did Lacy fail to make eye contact when speaking, she also dipped her head in deference to Gabriel when she finished. Gabriel took note of this immediately and smiled at Lacy. “Now I think there’s a term which better defines your relationship, Lacy, am I right?” Gabriel’s eyes. I hated my ex-girlfriend sometimes. Like, really. She had just gotten up in front of the whole class and embarrassed the fuck out of me with some over-emotional poem. God, the silence in the classroom was excruciating. Luella walked back to her seat slowly, while the awkward atmosphere bit into me. The teacher was staring at me somewhat accusingly, and then shook her head and continued with the class. I hated english for this very reason - creativeness led to our personal, hormone-filled.