A Punishing Breed

A Punishing Breed

Copyright © 2024 by DC Frost

All Rights Reserved

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the prior written permission of both the publisher and the copyright owner.

Book design by Mark E. Cull

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Frost, DC, 1956– author.

Title: A punishing breed: a novel / DC Frost.

Description: First edition. | Pasadena, CA: Canis Major Books, 2024.

Identifiers: LCCN 2023047260 | ISBN 9781939096173 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9781939096180 (ebook)

Subjects: LCGFT: Detective and mystery fiction. | Novels.

Classification: LCC PS3606.R644 P86 2024 | DDC 813/.6—dc23/eng/20231010

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023047260

The National Endowment for the Arts, the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, the Ahmanson Foundation, the Dwight Stuart Youth Fund, the Max Factor Family Foundation, the Pasadena Tournament of Roses Foundation, the Pasadena Arts & Culture Commission and the City of Pasadena Cultural Affairs Division, the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, the Audrey & Sydney Irmas Charitable Foundation, the Meta & George Rosenberg Foundation, the Albert and Elaine Borchard Foundation, the Adams Family Foundation, the Riordan Foundation, Amazon Literary Partnership, the Sam Francis Foundation, and the Mara W. Breech Foundation partially support Red Hen Press.

First Edition

Published by Canis Major Books

An imprint of Red Hen Press

Pasadena, CA

www.redhen.org

Dedicated to my husband and son.

Great companions in the City of Angels.

And to Marian.

Contents

PART ONE The Watcher

CHAPTER 1 The Man Who Wasn’t There

CHAPTER 2 Age Is Just a Number

CHAPTER 3 Ladies of the Canyon

CHAPTER 4 Buzzsaw

CHAPTER 5 Fern

CHAPTER 6 The Poet’s Wife

CHAPTER 7 Cold in California

PART TWO Hurt

CHAPTER 8 Away from Him

CHAPTER 9 Romeo/Juliet

CHAPTER 10 Cash for Gold

CHAPTER 11 Circus of Smoke

CHAPTER 12 Witness

CHAPTER 13 Person of Interest

CHAPTER 14 Truth Is Not My Friend

CHAPTER 15 Dollar Socks

CHAPTER 16 Campus Politics

CHAPTER 17 Penance

CHAPTER 18 Ladies-In-Waiting

CHAPTER 19 Blue Orange

CHAPTER 20 Evidence

CHAPTER 21 Mindfulness

CHAPTER 22 God Bless the Child

CHAPTER 23 Roller Bag

PART THREE Cape

CHAPTER 24 Beast

CHAPTER 25 Ghost Dog

CHAPTER 26 Flower

CHAPTER 27 Chance Encounter

CHAPTER 28 Thorn

CHAPTER 29 Lau ’N Dry

CHAPTER 30 To Take A Life

CHAPTER 31 Chiclet

CHAPTER 32 Wake Up!

CHAPTER 33 Hedda

CHAPTER 34 Other People’s Happiness

CHAPTER 35 A Little Adventure

CHAPTER 36 Mulholland

CHAPTER 37 Van Nuys Station

CHAPTER 38 Up All Night

PART FOUR Filament

CHAPTER 39 A Better Man

CHAPTER 40 Coyote

CHAPTER 41 Dead Campus

CHAPTER 42 Star Crossed

CHAPTER 43 Boo

CHAPTER 44 Doppler Effect

CHAPTER 45 The Haunted Hole

CHAPTER 46 Azrael

CHAPTER 47 Meeting with the President

CHAPTER 48 Breaker Panel

CHAPTER 49 Delores

CHAPTER 50 Strange Angels

CHAPTER 51 Precipice Drive

CHAPTER 52 Missing

CHAPTER 53 Passage

CHAPTER 54 Search Party

CHAPTER 55 Sacrament

CHAPTER 56 Chiller

CHAPTER 57 Wings

EPILOGUE

CHAPTER 58 The Unforgiven

CHAPTER 59 Danny

Biographical Note

PART ONE

The Watcher

Footsteps. Eyes open. Night.

A girl walked by the house, propelled forward by the Santa Ana wind. Her long hair funneled into the air like black cotton candy.

The Watcher spied her from his second-story window. Suddenly, the girl jackknifed forward as if gut punched and retched on the sidewalk. Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, she straightened up, looked at his house. Ivy invaded the yard, a riot of scarlet bougainvillea climbed up the wood and brick wall obscuring three black windows.

The wind had calmed. The girl’s hair fell around her shoulders as she stared at the spot where he hid in the dark. Her cheekbones, nose, and lips caught light, her eyes still in shadow. Her right hand reached up and clutched at the edge of a gold oval that gleamed at her throat.

The Watcher bent forward, studying the girl.

He leaned right, her head bent left, a mirror image.

She sees me.

The Watcher’s hand covered his mouth. His fingers smelled of sour apple candy and musk. He breathed in and closed his eyes. The inside-out world played across his eyelids in random order; night, wind, moon, pale neck. A prick of desire and something deeper, an ancient longing, burrowed into his core.

Eyes open.

The wind gusted, carried the girl forward. No one lingered on his sidewalk. Not elementary school brats, goth teens, or college coeds. They all ran from the haunted hole. That’s what they screamed as they hurried past. The haunted hole. His black hole. His house.

I. See. You, he said in his high singsong voice.

His reflection stared back from the glass; a white asymmetrical face, eyes askew, a gaping mouth.

He stretched his good arm, pushed himself up, muscles popped, tendons loosened. Goose pimples rose on the flesh down his back. Hard veins surfaced on the side of his body—a thousand pricks, a hull of scars.

As he stood, the pain of bone on sinew grounded him.

His eyes bore past the walls of his room into the night.

The girl was young, frightened, ill.

Her beauty struck deep inside his charred heart.

An ember embedded in his entrails. I am here, pretty one. I’ll protect you.

She was leaving.

He would follow.

CHAPTER 1

The Man Who Wasn’t There

Danny Mendoza woke one morning at 3:00 a.m. from horticulture dreams dredging up the names of plants: Petalonyx thurberi, Wyethia mollis, Erodium texanum, a list he compiled to say aloud in the dead of night to shut out other noises. He drifted off to sleep and the memory rumbled into his dream like an oilcan bouncing down a rutted road; the screech of brakes, the dull thud of a body hitting the hood of his car. The end of two lives: the beginning of this one.

The radio alarm sputtered on at four. Danny heard its whistling static, followed by a man’s voice reading the news at the top of the hour. His wake-up call to a wonderful world; the casualties of war fought on foreign soil, a tornado that tore through a Midwestern town upending mobile homes, splitting the timbers of old farmhouses like a monster on a bender.

Swish, swish, swish. Outside, the sprinklers sprang into action; the rat-tat-tat of water against the bedroom window greeted him as he turned on the lamp. Light spilled onto the scuffed floor and his cot covered by an old army blanket. He shut off the radio on his bedside table, a repository of despised self-help books.

Danny made a mental note to adjust the sprinkler. He kept a tally of projects that needed attention on a to-do list in his head.

Stepping outside onto the porch that ran across the front of his house, Danny lit the first of two daily self-allotted cigarettes. The inhaled heat warded off the chill of morning. He saw a flash of white stripe from a fat skunk waddling down the sidewalk.

"Good morning, compadre, said Danny. Buenos días."

The skunk disappeared behind a hedge at the end of his property. That’s okay. I’ll catch you tomorrow. Cigarette smoke formed an unholy halo above his head.

Back inside the house, Danny wrestled his six-foot body under the showerhead and washed away the nightmares. As he shaved in the mirror, the green eyes of his late mother, Isabella, restless and worried, stared back at him. The imprint of the one person who had loved him. They had planned to leave Eagle Rock and start over; a new life. But six months ago, she gave up her heroic, losing battle to breast cancer. She never lost her faith—not during his trial or prison sentence. For that, he’d never forgive God or himself.

Danny checked out his reflection. He was muscular from the hours spent pumping iron in prison, a practice he continued. Putting on his work uniform of khaki shirt, dark green work pants, boots, and baseball cap, he walked two blocks to Hesperia College.

He didn’t begin work until six. But he arrived early Friday morning to pick his assignments for the day. Otherwise, he might get stuck digging holes with chatty Charlie Janes or sharing a tree saw with Benny Martinez, who laughed at his own jokes and farted at each punch line.

Inside the Facilities office, Danny perused the tasks on an old-school bulletin board. He chose a two-day requisition to clean up the walled cactus garden inside the Sliming Administrative Center. Lionel T. Sliming was the ninth president of Hesperia College. Some genius decided to name a building in his honor.

Danny pocketed the requisition card and opened the cabinet with the pegboard of various keys. There were two for Sliming, an exterior door override key and an access key to the interior courtyard. He signed them out, noting the date and time.

Most of the campus was built in the Spanish Revival–style of the early twentieth century, with stately white walls and slanting red tile roofs. The Sliming Administration Center, constructed in the early 1960s, was designed in the International style. The large glass and concrete cube perched on the high point of campus, looming like a metaphoric thumb in the eye to the surrounding architecture. The building had aged badly inside and out. Officially, it was called the SAC, but everyone called it Sliming.

Danny brewed a strong pot of coffee for the office. He bought fresh coffee beans and prepared them with his own grinder. He worked a lot of overtime and didn’t have many ways to spend his paychecks. He poured the dark brew into his travel mug and left the rest for his colleagues. Danny avoided any conversation beyond Morning and See you later. Making gourmet coffee was the smallest balance of his penance to the world.

Danny, said Rita Clay, the Facilities secretary, on the rare occasion she caught him in the office, one day you are going to make some girl very happy.

Danny tried to avoid the relentlessly cheerful Rita. She was brunette with bright caramel streaks and double-D breasts displayed in low-cut blouses. He blushed in her company.

If a girl can ever get your attention, she said.

A small gold crucifix dangled along a trail of red freckles into the deep cleavage that led to Rita Clay’s heart. Danny ducked out of the office before she could engage him in conversation. Alone at night he remembered the trail of heartache and imagined double-D delights, as he twisted in his sheets, burning and hollow in equal measure.

He loaded an electric cart with gardening tools, trash bags, and gravel. As Danny left the Facilities yard, he passed the Chiller, a modern concrete and glass structure that cooled campus buildings along an infrastructure of tunnels and pipes.

Jerome Blight, the Facilities director and Danny’s boss, passed by in his black Dodge truck.

Morning, Danny called out. Jerome nodded, eyes hidden behind black wraparound sunglasses. Danny always suspected his boss had an unrequited crush on his mother, Isabella Mendoza. It was probably the reason he had a job in Jerome’s department.

A few fingers of light streaked the sky as Danny drove the cart up Tillman Road, past the graceful columns of Robinson Auditorium and through the stand of jacaranda trees that bloomed purple each May before graduation. The old ache formed in the center of Danny’s chest.

Ten years ago, Danny had strutted his stuff as an eighteen-year-old freshman; eager, sure of himself. On the first day of college, a new world unfurled at his feet, a seductive red carpet welcoming him aboard. Long-legged girls in tight shorts with thick curtains of hair turned to smile at him. Danny was going to own this place.

He shut down these memories with hard-earned practice. The ache in his belly curdled into something stronger, deeper and harder to contain. At sunrise when the grass and roses glittered with dew, and dark transgressions faded, his old feelings of invincibility surged. Before reality sank back into Danny’s bones and frustration bloomed like smoke from a doused, steaming fire. Bitterness eating him alive.

Danny stopped the cart and pulled to the curb to steady his breath. His shoulders slumped into submission as he once again became the faceless man who pruned shrubs, dug holes, and picked up the trash for a new crop of students. He was invisible and faceless as the trees, rocks, and columns of Hesperia College. A fix-it man who could not repair his own mistake.

CHAPTER 2

Age Is Just a Number

Will Bloom’s final day on earth, a Thursday, began the same as most. He spiraled down into a black nightmare, first jerked left, then pulled right, now spinning freestyle. He emerged awake.

Will squinted, gingerly opened his eyes. The sandpaper light scraped his eyeballs.

Goddamn, he said.

The aroma of coffee bloomed from the kitchen. An automatic coffee maker was a marvel of the modern world.

Will tried to stand; instead, he swayed. He was bare-chested and wore his jockeys. His clothes draped the chair beside his bed.

Thank God. He was grateful. Nothing worse than sleeping in your Jos Bank suit.

A surge of last night’s scotch mixed with a liquefied filet mignon shot up his esophagus. Will held his ground and the dinner retreated.

Slinging on his sunglasses from the bedside table, he lurched toward the kitchen. He opened the cabinet door above the coffee maker and emptied four aspirin into his mouth. The powdery bite of pills stung his tongue. Will liked it.

He poured a half cup of coffee as his hand shook. Unscrewing the Jameson Irish whiskey that stood discreetly behind the aspirin bottle, he filled his cup to the brim. The aspirin and coffee went down like velvet, followed by a tall chaser of tap water. Will stood up straight and held out his hands.

Steady as a rock, he said.

Today he woke up by himself. His lover, Hoa Phan, was out of town at a conference, and though Will had an impressive list of ladies-in-waiting to take her place, he had gone to bed alone.

Thirty-nine years, Will said. He wore the boyish smile that only a well-maintained man of sixty-four could muster. It was the number of years between Hoa Phan, age twenty-five, and himself. He savored their age difference at odd moments of the day. It was a lifetime.

He visualized her stretching across his bed; the graceful frame of her shoulder, the flat belly, the firm line of her jaw as she turned to look at him. Her dark eyes always seemed to know a secret. His secret.

Goddamn, he whispered.

Hoa meant flower in Vietnamese.

Will Bloom screeched into a fire lane and illegally parked his car. He was the vice president of Development at Hesperia College, and he was late for a meeting with the president. No one in Campus Safety would dare issue him a parking ticket. But President Bill Reese was pissed when he was late, which was always for their 9:00 a.m. Thursday morning meeting. It was Reese’s own fault. It was an ungodly hour to meet.

Will strolled into his office at 9:05 a.m., pausing at Trish Ballentine’s desk.

Morning, Trish, Will said to his executive assistant. The big man looking for me? Trish had peacock-blue eyeshadow. She sported a blonde shag hairdo that was popular in the eighties. Though ten years younger, she was decades past hot to Will.

Oh, didn’t I tell you? Trish said in a weary Southern drawl. She didn’t bother to smile, The president’s office is moving your Thursday standing meeting to nine thirty.

Now that, said Will, is a good idea. You should have told me that yesterday!

Um-hmm, said Trish. She turned away to tend to a ringing phone and muttered to herself, But then you would have arrived at nine thirty-five.

What was that? Will asked.

Nothing, Trish grunted.

Will hummed as he walked down the hallway. Now he had time for another coffee. Things were looking up! Hoa Phan would be home tonight. And yesterday he had closed a three-million-dollar gift from a fat cat alum to fund one of President Reese’s special initiatives. Will felt invincible! The dirty little secret of a small liberal arts college was its voracious appetite for cash. Tuition didn’t begin to cover the day-to-day expenses of Hesperia College, the small class size, ten-to-one ratio of faculty to students, the ivory of the towers, the feeding of students’ hearts and minds. And the pet projects of the president. They needed a crackerjack fundraiser like him. Damn, he was good!

Will worked in an office of women; the majority of fundraisers were female. That suited him fine. There wasn’t one type of woman Will preferred; all females were catnip to him. He loved the pursuit of women as much as the money. But lately the chase was getting old. Maybe, after all these years, he was finally tiring of it.

He tiptoed past the office of his associate vice president of Fundraising Operations, Serena Rigby, and stopped at another office, the director of the Annual Fund. He touched the nameplate on the door, Hoa Phan. In a few hours she would be flying back from her conference in Arizona. He had big plans for her tonight, beginning with a gift. Will imagined her on his bed, blouse unbuttoned and her short skirt riding above the swell of her thighs. He was getting hard just thinking about her.

Will slipped into Hoa’s office and sat down in the chair facing her desk. The sharpened pencils all pointed skyward in a porcelain cup. He came to a decision and made a quick phone call. Lazily pulling at a slip of paper, a receipt, tucked beneath the desk pad, he wrote himself a note on the back. Tonight would mark a new beginning. It was time—after all the other women, all the years, he was finally ready to settle down. He stared at what he had written and smiled. Standing up, he stuffed the paper into his pocket and headed up to the president’s office. Damn it, he’d be early for his meeting. He didn’t need more coffee!

The receipt, a slip of thermal paper, would lead to Will Bloom’s undoing. Will whistled as he strode down the hallway, filled with anticipation.

CHAPTER 3

Ladies of the Canyon

Trish Ballentine performed her late afternoon ritual. She straightened, then cleaned her desk with a tissue dipped in alcohol, collected her belongings into her Vera Bradley tote bag, getting ready to head home. It was Thursday at 5:00 p.m., one more day before she could sleep in for the weekend, dream of an early retirement in Florida if her husband could get their finances together.

Will Bloom’s office sat to her left. She looked down the hallway that ran perpendicular to her work area. The worn blue patterned carpet resembled a muddy river. Trish was a Joni Mitchell fan. In her mind she called the corridor the ladies of the canyon. She’d read a book about women musicians in the sixties who lived in Laurel Canyon. None of their ilk resided here.

Everyone who wanted to see Will Bloom had to pass by Trish’s desk. Dolly Ruiz loitered at the end of the hallway. Trish called her Little Red. Her office was directly across the patio courtyard from Will’s. Dolly was young, ambitious, and already the associate director of Office Management. Trish snorted at the thought.

Dolly Ruiz was at the beck and call of Will Bloom. He’d flash his lights across the courtyard or he’d shout for her through his open door. He never remembered anyone’s name—so Trish became Tish or Tess. Sometimes he called Dolly Dilly Dally, which Trish thought appropriate. And once Mads, as in Dolly Madison.

Dilly, Will Bloom bellowed, get in here. Dolly came running, Trish rolled her eyes. Dolly pretended not to notice. A Hesperia blanket was draped across her shoulders to ward off the late afternoon chill.

Oh, Dolly said. Are you leaving already?

Yes, ma’am, Trish answered in her Southern drawl. I have a husband to get home to.

Dolly forced a smile. Must be nice.

It is, Trish said. You should try one of your own.

Big Red, Serena Rigby, the associate vice president, bustled into the office suite from the lobby like thunder before a storm. Everything about Serena was oversize. A thick spew of ginger hair, a flat voice that penetrated walls, and a zaftig body ensconced in revealing bodices and wide swishing skirts. Will Bloom’s door closed with a decisive bang.

Oh, Trish, said Serena. Is Will in with somebody?

Trish closed her tote bag. She looked at the shut door and back at Serena.

Yes, ma’am, she said.

Oh, said Serena. She stood before Trish’s desk, staring at the closed door. Do you know how long he’ll be with . . . ?

Trish could have told Serena that Will was with Dolly Ruiz, but it was really none of her business. Besides, Trish liked Serena even less than Dolly.

No idea, dear.

Stymied, Serena didn’t bother to say goodnight. She bustled off to her office down the hallway. At the end of the corridor on the opposite side was Hoa Phan’s office. For the last few months, Trish had observed it was the one office Will could never pass by without poking in his head. Hoa Phan was Vietnamese, a slim, dark-haired beauty who seemed mature beyond her years. She was one cool customer, and nothing like Little and Big Red.

The other members of the fundraising team, gift officers and back-office worker bees, were shipwrecked on the far side of the building.

Trish stuffed one last item, a blue steno notebook, into an outside pocket of her tote bag. It was her practice to jot down the names of the numerous women who called Will Bloom, crestfallen if he was unavailable. She also taped in copies of incriminating receipts of alcohol-fueled lunches, dinners, and overnight business trips. Trish considered herself the chronicler of a Casanova. It might come in useful one day.

Her paisley tote slung over one shoulder, Trish flicked off her overhead light and headed toward the lobby. Director of Campus Safety Hedy Scacht was roaming the hallways in one of her pastel pantsuits, her ring of keys jingle-jangling.

Trish watched as Hedy tried several office doors to make sure all was secure. Trish thought she could lock all the doors in the building, but that wouldn’t contain Will Bloom or his antics.

Poor thing, she muttered under her breath. Good ni-ight, Trish called out.

The other woman gave her quick wave.

As Trish sat in her Volkswagen Bug gearing up for the freeway ride home to the Valley, she had a premonition of disaster, the same way she had felt before the death of Princess Diana. Trish shook it off. She’d had little empathy for anyone after Diana died. The late princess was the last of the unicorns and now Trish lived in a world of donkeys.

In her office, Serena Rigby concentrated on a spreadsheet. The department was behind on its fundraising goals, over their budget. That meant trouble for Serena, and worse trouble for her staff. Serena was known for her organization and data skills. The tangibles. For Serena, numbers told a story—the only story she believed in.

Serena was five-foot-eight inches, a generous size sixteen, with red hair and flinty brown eyes that bored through the strongest man’s confidence. Serena considered herself womanly, and there were enough men in her life to affirm her belief.

Today, she mused that her allure might be a curse. A recent encounter had rocked her sense of order and decorum. She didn’t like surprises. They led to chaos.

But there was that note. Not a love note, more an admiration of her attributes. The writer had described her as a burnished copper Venus. She doubted the usual men she dated could muster that phrase. Serena might have written it about herself.

Hi, Serena. Dolly Ruiz stood at her office door.

Dolly always showed up without forewarning like that pop-goes-theweasel game. Tonight, she looked pale, a little under the weather.

You said you wanted to meet with me before I headed home? Dolly’s cloud of strawberry-blonde hair surrounded her artfully construed how can I be helpful expression. She resembled Little Red Riding Hood, though Serena knew she was more the wolf in disguise. Serena saw her as a younger version of herself, except for her eyes. Dolly’s were ice-blue.

I’m just finishing up something, Serena said. Can you give me five minutes?

Of course, said Dolly. I’ll go back to my office.

Something was wrong with Dolly, thought Serena. She was giving up without a fight or even a snarky comment.

No, Serena said. She felt the fine grip of control returning, her world clicking into place, one gear at a time.

I’ll be just a few minutes—if you would wait outside? I’ll call you when I’m ready.

Of course, Dolly said. She stepped backward, closing the door with deference. Dolly would sit in the corridor in a metal chair waiting for her. Serena felt a flush of superiority. Let the younger woman wonder why Serena called the meeting. Though in her experience, Dolly knew exactly what everyone in the office wanted or needed.

Dolly was close to Will Bloom. They had some connection that Serena didn’t understand. Was she his confidant?

Serena put down her pen. She hoped not. Serena pressed the fingers of her left hand across her forehead and then down over her face, lingering on her lips. This was what he had done; three days ago. She had been annoyed. What was he doing? His fingers on her face, gently moving from her forehead to her mouth. She had been working on the departmental budget. Trying to make everything balance—which wasn’t easy, given Will’s penchant for taking out his women friends on the college’s dime. She felt her full lips, now a bit chapped, and the wet inside of her mouth. His fingers had then moved downward between her ample breasts, her nipples suddenly standing at attention. His fingers had lingered there and he looked her in the eye, not with expectation but pleading and something else. Was it need, hunger, anguish? Sleeping with Will Bloom wasn’t anything she had ever considered, but at that moment, he wanted her more than anything or anyone else. Even with his terrible reputation, Will had an animal magnetism that was palpable and a strange vulnerability that caught her off guard.

Did you get my note? he said. I wouldn’t blame you for turning me away.

Then he fucked her like his life depended on it.

After the encounter earlier this week, not one word from Will acknowledging what happened between them. Serena almost thought it was all a dream except for the copper Venus note she kept in her wallet.

Serena heard a muffled sound and imagined Dolly Ruiz, ear against the door, reading her thoughts through the wood.

Dolly, she called out.

Serena knew it wasn’t true—but she said it anyway. I’m ready for you.

CHAPTER 4

Buzzsaw

That Thursday night went sideways for Will Bloom.

A power outage left Will standing in the dark.

Hoa Phan, Will said. How could she do it?

Saying her name tore a hole in his armor. He loved her and she had betrayed him. Betrayal; an ancient word.

Will had other women to take her place. Plenty. He didn’t need her. He was waiting for her replacement right now. A repeat performance; an old flame.

Old flame. Words that made him feel ancient. He didn’t like the direction this was heading.

Where the hell was the woman anyway? And how long until the power came back on? The building was old, the wiring shot. He hated waiting. His own power on the wane. She better get the hell in here or he would have an outage. Viagra was all about timing. He didn’t have four-hour erections anymore like the commercials promised. The old buzzsaw winding down.

He gulped down a waiting shot and felt the sting in this throat.

Whiskey and memories hit him like a sledgehammer.

He was twenty-one years old, standing before Katy Simpson in his dorm room at Notre Dame. She was wearing white cotton panties and a Playtex bra. No thongs in those days, but it wasn’t the underwear he was after. He had played her for months. The perfect gentleman, opening the door, closing the door, asking if he could hold her hand, kiss her cheek, her lips—a soft sweetheart kiss. Goodnight, Katy. I’ll see you in my dreams.

The whole time, he was doing the groupies who hung out at the local football pub after he said his innocent goodnights to Katy. Getting them juiced up on alcohol to lose their reluctance or inhibitions. Some were ready to jump in the back seat of his car with no prelude. The Fighting Irish men were gods, and the town girls were kneeling angels ready to provide succor—or anything else he wanted.

Man, those were the days of kiss and don’t tell, good girls and bad girls. Will liked the bad girls, but he yearned for the good ones. He loved the thrill of the chase, the slow tease, the build of desire and expectation. The tuck in your side when the girl smiled at you—innocent of your intentions. The girls he had to coo and coax into submission, the cool and steady chase, the warming up, the brush of skin against skin. Oh, I’m sorry Katy, I didn’t mean to . . . But after weeks of chaste kisses and accidental brushes against each other— Katy was breathing harder now, pulling at the collar of her sweater. Pulling at the collar of his shirt. What was up with him? Was he gay? Was it her? She made the first move. Her mother had warned her about football players—but this one was six feet tall, the best-looking hunk on campus. Rumors swirled around him, but she knew him best, his intentions, his heart. He was shy. Sorry, Mama, but I’m not passing this experience