Slow motion. Her lashes fold over one eye and her lips blow a kiss. He blinks, feels his guts ricochet down to his feet and back up again. *She winked at me!*

He's dumbfounded. Glued to the spot as she turns on one heel and walks away. And as she completes that simple action with the utmost grace, her skirt swirls out around her shapely legs, drawing his traitorous gaze down to the curve of her ass beneath the stretchy material.

*Stop that, Jim. Don't look.*

But his eyes aren't his ears...they can't hear, can't listen. They watch her until she is at the door of the CrashDown...and her delicate hand reaches for the door handle. He imagines that he can hear the little bell jingle as she floats inside and is, at last, rescued from his pornographic fascination.

He swallows the lump in his throat, shoving his hands into the pockets of his suddenly too-tight jeans. He turns towards the Sheriff's station, forcing his feet to thaw and move him forward. His imagination makes it elongate before him like some foreboding monolith...the little building becomes something big and black and menacing like in "2001: A Space Odyssey." His father's presence radiates outward from this place. Like a cold front sweeping back the waves of oppressive, seductive heat. There's no better cure for a raging hard-on, he thinks, ruefully.

*Easy, Boy. Easy.*

Paper scrapes his palm as he pushes into the station house, as he nods greetings at the deputies who are slouching, indolently, in their chairs. He looks down at the receipt crumpled in his numb left hand, thinks of the name and phone number scribbled within. He can see, clearly, in his mind, the lower case 'i' with the neat little heart above it. His own neat little heart is pounding. His mouth is dry. His body is thrumming with physical memory...lips, fingers, illicit touches up against a brick wall as the skirt slides up her hips...as her perfect lipstick is smeared beyond repair and her 'delicate' fingers dig into his shoulders.

"Jim," she moans. "Oh, God, Jim..."

*I spy with my little "i"...*

He steadies himself against a desk, takes two deep breaths and struggles for his composure. The sticky-sweet haze of erotic promise has yet to lift from his hungry body. It is choking him, blinding him, deafening him to everything...even to his father's authoritative voice calling him into the back.

And before he rights himself and drags a shaking hand through his tousled blond hair, he says her name. Tests out the syllables that surround a glorious little piece of punctuation.

Slow motion. Her lashes fold over one eye and her lips blow a kiss.

"Michelle..."