When I got away to UC Boulder, it was like moving to Sodom and Gomorrah. I had a ball for a long time, really got into grass and pussy. But when I set...tled down, as it were..." Weren't you out of state for a while?" Sheldon asked. He had already taken off his clothes."Yes, I was in Chicago and then in a town in western Massachusetts. Very different. I met a lot of people there I liked; I keep in touch with some of them. And I got to know some girls that made the homegrown variety seem pretty. From the pillow, to the sheets, to the nightgown, to the bed, to the room itself—none of it was hers. What was the absolute worst, though, was that her brother, Tory, was gone. Her nightmares must have been right. She was all alone now. Utterly despondent, she began to weep."Oh, there, there, sweetie. There's no need for tears."Miri never heard her come in, but there kneeling by her bedside was a beautiful older woman with gray hair and kind blue eyes, gently rubbing one of her hands. It was so. They felt so warm and firm. She reached down to gain her balance but found another surprise quivering beneath the water. She must not have realized for a few seconds but then I saw her eyes flinch and she processed what she was touching. It seems these moments of awkwardness are the points where I am bravest. I told her how I had felt about her and that I had loved her since I first met her in grade 9. To my surprise she said she felt the same way and had only not acted on it because Tara said. More hadcheered for him then grains of wheat in the empire's granaries. Butthose days were passing quick, and an old gladiator either retired fromthe arena or died in it. He had won a hundred fortunes under thepatronage of his liege, and yet it wasn't money that drove him to stallFather Chronos, but glory. The ring had been his life since he haddefeated his mentor in the arts of battle with the shaft of a brokenspear.That's what drove him here. On the advice of a woman of the court, theold.