He startled me. It was my English teacher. He grabbed my arm to stop me falling and for an instant I could have sworn his fingers had grazed my nipple....Instantly my face reddened. I could feel the heat right down to my toes. I wrangled from his grasp and ran back into school feeling stupider than ever. What would he think of my reaction to his help? He couldn’t have realised his blunder with his fingers, besides he was my teacher! And as my nipples hardened in reaction to his gentle graze I knew. She persisted, asking if he had no wife, or girlfriend, which blushing he said he had not!“Did he not want one then or was he gay?” Mary, quickly scolded her for asking such a question, but Sadie unrepentantly said, “for all she knew he was a queer hermit and she just wanted to see how the land lay!” Micky laughed then retaliated by asking if either of them were married or were they perhaps a lesbian couple…” that they both strenuously denied, saying “they were just friends since school! And. They were content to watch from the windows, so long as no one tried to slip away and get frisky. We had some snacks and sodas, danced and chatted. I danced a few times with girl named Kellie. She was short and slender; sort of plain, but cute. We chatted a little while we danced, but nothing serious. She never even asked my name. I noticed she sort of floated around, chatting with different folks, but never stayed in one place for long. Eventually she floated back to me, and we started dancing. ‘What am I asking you to do?’ Vadya looked at his father, waited. His father sat in silence, biting his lip and frowning to one side, turning the small bowl of whisky in his hands, shaking his head and forming words with his lips only to reject them. ‘So … Tashka may not,’ Vadya began but his father interrupted him, saying: ‘L-let us talk of your betrothal.’ They looked at each other in the grey bright light that fell through the big square windows of the office. Lord Esha’s face was troubled.