-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Tuck Another Piece Of Pie -*- Copyright 2007 by Ellen Hayes. Any resemblance between the writings in this work, and any actual persons or places, living or dead, are purely coincidental, except when used for satirical purposes. This work contains adult situations, adult language, adult concepts, and possibly sex. If you are legally not allowed to read materials containing such things, then you will be breaking the law by reading this. I am not responsible. Continuing to read this document, or storing it or reproducing it in any format means that you explicitly affirm that you are legally allowed to possess and read such materials in your city, county/parish, state, and country. All rights reserved. See the bottom for distribution rights. Tuck Another Piece Of Pie *** 23:41 15 Nov "What I was thinking," Julia said as we waited to get our cars back, "was going and getting a snack, at that- you know, Val," she said to me. "Wh- Oh, yeah. 'The Gay Cafe'," I told Pam. "Um..." "The what?" Pam asked. *** 23:44 15 Nov Before I got talked into yet another event that did not involve me sleeping, I inserted, "Yeah, but I really think I ought to go home and get some sleep, is the problem. And I've got to change..." I was really wishing I'd brought the makeup remover stuff, except I was getting low on that too and I hadn't remembered to get more. I HAD gotten the nail polish solvent and cotton balls... But I'd left my male clothes at Rachel's, so I had to go back there anyway. "Oh, Val, come on," Julia coaxed. "Uh-uh. Mike's already on my ass about me not resting, and doing too much, and I need to go home and sleep. Wanna come?" I joked lamely. "Are you serious?" she asked. "Yeah." I knew she was asking about the sleep thing, and not about the 'wanna come' part. "I was gonna skip breakfast tomorrow, and... I have to get ready for therapy about eleven or something, but I was gonna try to sleep until then, if I could." "Do you still want me to come?" Pam asked me. "Huh? Yeah... I mean, if you want to go out with Julia, that's cool; it's just, I'm going to Rachel's to change and then home and then to bed, so..." She made kind of a face. "I really hate to make you choose," I sighed, "but I GOTTA get some sleep. Soon." "Are you gonna be okay to drive home?" Julia asked. "Yeah... I think so. Think I've got an hour or so before I really crash. If things really fuck up, I'll call my folks and sleep at Rachel's or something." "Wow, okay, if you're that serious, maybe you SHOULD go home and sleep," Julia decided. *Well, fucking duh,* I thought, since I'd told HER that a minute ago. "Um..." Pam said, indecisive, as she looked back and forth between the two of us. "I was sort of hoping you'd come tonight," accidentally came out of my mouth, and then I had to explain the rest of the way. "Someone, like a friend, in bed with me, just sleeping, seems to keep my nightmares away." If I hadn't done it voluntarily, they'd have tortured me with questions until I explained anyway. Pam looked surprised, and then more surprised when Julia started to chuckle. "Good lord, Val, didn't you and Jill break up last weekend or so?" "It's not that!" I protested to Julia before turning to Pam. "I'm not trying to hustle you or anything! It just helps! And YOU asked ME remember? She asked me," I explained to Julia. "Val, go home, sleep. Pam?" Pam and Julia did something silent at each other, maybe IrDA - and if that's what it was I was horribly jealous - and then they both nodded. "Go with Val, make sure she drives safe okay? Can you drive her car?" "No, it's a stick shift," Pam complained. "I dunno how to drive one of those yet." "I'll be-" "Take her home, put her to bed... Are you still doing that pie thing tomorrow?" Julia asked me. "Wh- Oh, yeah," I agreed. I had to get some practice in, and the more cleaning we did now, or THEY did now in exchange for pie, the less _I_ would have to do later. "Is two-thirty good?" "Yeah," I nodded. "No, make it three." I had to go shopping for pie stuff. "I'd probably be done shopping by two-thirty, but I KNOW I'll be done by three." I found myself nodding along in pleasant agreement with myself. "Come on Val," Pam said as she put a hand on my shoulder and turned me towards my car, which had appeared when I wasn't paying attention. "No, wait," I protested, and opened my arms for Julia and we hugged for quite a while. I knew I was getting dangerously tired because all I wanted to do was convince her to find a couch to sit on, so I could sit on her lap. She finally pushed me out of the hug, and I managed to say, "Thanks for tonight," before Pam, exchanging a much quicker hug, took me away. "Drive careful, you two," Julia admonished, getting in the last word. *** 00:03 16 Nov Pam had made use of the earplugs in my regular purse - and that was another thing I was going to have to get more of, probably tomorrow - and so I could turn the stereo almost up to 'Awaken'. Icy roads were not a good place to have the sleepies; you had to stay present and paranoid and looking for problems. Apparently a lot of people had figured that out the hard way tonight, judging by the SUVs and pickups, and one Audi, parked in ditches and guardrails. "Ow!" Pam commented as she thumped my shoulder with one hand and pointed with the other. I let off the gas before I looked. "Ow!" Some big SUV had fucked up his physics or Driving roll bad enough to tip over, and it seemed to have rolled more than one side. "Don't do that, Tuck," she yelled over Ministry. I shook my head. *** 00:11 16 Nov "Just pull it off and stuff. You can- Oh, thanks for cleaning my dress, by the way," Pam said. "I really appreciate it." "Oh, uh, sure," I said. "I dunno if you have to clean this one, though. I'll ask. Here, let me hang it up for you, and you take your makeup off and take off your nails. I mean the polish," she giggled, but I forgave her, because she was helping me out of the dress. *** 00:22 16 Nov When Pam had offered me a back rub, ostensibly (SAT word) to wake me up, I'd been suspicious, but the last one hadn't exactly turned out BADLY, so I turned my back on her... and Pam had energetically rubbed and massaged and generally beaten some tension and tiredness out of my body, temporarily at least, and now I felt a lot better about going home. It was the best three minutes I'd had all day, considering it was past midnight and now Sunday. *** 00:31 16 Nov "Aw man!" I complained as it caught me again. "How long does it take before the stench wears off?" "Wh- Of the polish remover? Um... Not that long, I think..." In my opinion it had already passed 'not that long' and it still stank. "You sure?" The stuff we used in class didn't stink this much. *Maybe she got the wrong kind?* "Oh, pretty sure. Besides, we could always say it was me and not you, right?" "Oh." And Pam had a perfect excuse to have nail polish OR remover, being a girl and all. "Yeah okay." Then I remembered talking to my dad before I went out; it wasn't going to do me any good to claim anything, Pam or not. *** 00:48 16 Nov The drive home had crawled, it seemed; but some of that was from me being tired, and some of that was from me driving very cautiously, because it was icy and I was tired. I found it irritating that driving with safety in mind when I was tired, made getting to my bed take longer and therefore made me more tired and thence less safe. There was probably a lesson in that, but I was too tired to care at the moment. But we'd finally made it. "I think sleep sounds like," Pam said before she yawned so hard she had to stop walking, and even fell back gently against my car. "I think that sounds more like 'going to sleep'," I said, and smiled at my own humor. When I realized how lame I was, though, I stopped. *** 00:50 16 Nov "Did you go out afterwards?" Dad asked. "No... but the ballet took like three hours," I told him. "I thought it would be more like two." "Oh no," Pam said, "not Swan Lake! It's got four acts and a prologue." I had to count mentally, but I thought she was right. "Go to bed, kid," Dad ordered. "Pam, get anything you'll need for the rest of the night out of the car; I'm going to set the alarms when you get back." "That means nobody on the ground floor," I reminded her. She nodded, and said, "I remember Mike and you explaining that." Dad's eyebrows went up. "G'night Dad!" I suggested to Pam. *** 00:58 16 Nov I'd pulled sheets and pillowcases, and had just put on the fitted sheet when someone tapped gently at my door. "C'min!" I said without really stopping. "Fresh sheets, just for you," I said as I snapped the top sheet out. "Want some help?" she asked as she dropped a tote bag on the floor and a garment bag over my chair. "Sure." *** 01:03 16 Nov Pam was hesitating about something, I couldn't figure out what, until she giggled, "Um, could you like go somewhere else for a minute?" "Why?" More giggles, then, "I need to change!" Pause, as I tried to figure this out. "You helped me change at Rachel's, and I was walking around in my underwear there... and at sleepovers you'd- I've SEEN you almost naked!" I remembered. "It's different!" she protested. "Why?!" "Be-because, because..." I tried very hard not to yell at her. "Because what?" "Ummm..." She'd stopped giggling, at least. But that also seemed like a potentially bad omen; now she looked mildly distressed. "Is it because I'm dressed, and you don't want to get undressed if I'm dressed?" I guessed. I needed to change for bed anyway, so I started pulling my own clothes off. "Um, no- I don- Well..." I sighed, and continued. This was not going as easily as I'd hoped. *** 01:05 16 Nov Getting down to my skivvies hadn't helped, but I had a flash. "Wait..." I went to my dresser, and dug in it, until I found the nightgown Amy had left from summer. *I need to wash this and give it back to her Thanksgiving,* I realized, and then slid the gown over my head before going to the computer to write a private reminder, because there was no way I was going to remember something as un-crucial as this without external aids. I also took the opportunity to unpack my med bag, check levels on the drugs I carried, plug the cellphone into its charger, plug in the laptop power and data cables, tie the laptop down, and start the nightly sync. My oxy bottle refill would have to wait, but I really had to do it tomorrow. When I turned around, Pam was just pulling her dress off, and then she was standing there in black lingerie and her heels. "I feel so stupid," she said. I'd have thought 'cold' but that was me, I guess. "I guess it was, like, the clothes, or, or something..." I shrugged; it had been sort of an off chance anyway, and I didn't have a reason why it would work, even though it seemingly had. "But it's okay now?" She sat on the bed before she nodded. "Yeah, I mean..." She untabbed the front of a stocking and the strap poinged upwards, then leaned sideways and untabbed one of the side straps and it poinged upwards. "Hey, while you're like that, how DO you attach the stockings to a garter belt? I always end up wrestling the damn back ones and wishing I had pantyhose instead." Stockings were far far better for bathroom usage, and there was the economy thing, but they had their problems. *** 01:12 16 Nov Doing the back tab with one hand between my legs, while bent over, Amy's nightgown hiked up to my waist, and wearing a spare pair of Pam's underwear because trying to wear my boxers under the garter belt had nearly given Pam an asthma attack... All together it seemed vaguely obscene, but it did work better than what I'd been doing. "I still don't know if pantyhose are better," I mentioned before I undid the tab for the last time and carefully slid Pam's stocking off. At least I didn't have any ragged bits on my hands to snag the hose; apparently every-other-day manicures took care of that, haha. "Well, I don't know. Sometimes... It's good to have the option, though," she said, as I undid the garter belt - those were easy - and slid the skirt end of Amy's nightgown back down. "Yeah, I guess... I mean, yeah. Options are good." Pam giggled, and I had to think before I realized I sounded extremely pretentious. "I think I'm getting really tired," I told her. *** 01:17 16 Nov "Mmmm," Pam mentioned as she writhed against me. I didn't mind too much, but I did wish she'd stop soon so I could go to sleep; I couldn't quite relax enough with her wriggling in the bed like she was doing. And wriggling on me, for that matter. Finally, she settled in, with just a few twitches, with one of her arms over my girl-waist - the high one I used for female clothing, not the nominal lower one for male-compatible pants - and breathing warmly on my neck. I hoped she wouldn't snore. *** 08:36 16 Nov Someone mumbled nasty things at me, like questions, and I mumbled back, until someone pushed me sideways on the bed. *Oh,* I thought, and wriggled until I was over to the side, and then all the nastiness stopped. *Good. Shut up.* *** 11:00 16 Nov "Bedoop!" "What is that?" "Wh? Unh." It was Pam. I had to pee. "Bedoop!" I had to get up. "Val, what is that?" "Nnnnh." I had to get up and piss. I had to shut the alarm off. I had to open my eyes again. It was very blurry in my room. "Bedoop!" I really had to shut the alarm off. *** 11:04 16 Nov "What was that?" "Uh?" Pam was in my room. Pam had, I thought, slept in my bed last night; I remembered her wiggling a lot. She was sitting on it now as she pointed at the MacinClock. "What- Oh, the alarm? 'Cause I need to get up and get ready for therapy. Twelve-thirty." "You made an alarm clock out of a computer?" "Yeah? That thing's almost as old as you are; it's not good for much else. Um." She had a tray of plates with styrofoam heat-retainers over some of them. "What is THAT?" I pointed. She giggled, which I did not find pleasing at this time of day. "Um, I went downstairs 'cause I was smelling coffee," which could get pretty odoriferous, "and your mom said she'd already fixed something for you and something for me, and then it was already fixed..." She looked kind of sad at that, I thought, maybe. "And she asked if I could take a tray up for you?" "Um. You what?" I asked, to gain some time. She explained it again, while I wondered just what my mom was thinking. *I DID say Pam would be here tonight... last night. Looks like Pam liked it, though,* because there was an uncovered plate with food scrapings on it, next to two that were covered. *Eggs,* I identified. "I had some of the stuff your mom had been saving for you; I hope that was alright?" she asked. "Uh?" Why was she asking me? "Oh. Yeah, that's fine. Did you like it? Mom's better than I am at cooking," I said as Pam nodded. "Did you eat enough?" "Oh yeah, I'm fine. I just wondered if you were going to wake up in time to eat any of it," she said, and giggled a bit. "Um." I had time, if I started on it right away. "Your mom said to let you sleep, though," Pam commented. "Uh, oh, good." "Are you awake yet?" "Not yet. Sit over here, so I can put the tray there... Why I am I wearing a nightgown?" I realized, as my chest itched and I started to scratch it and it ached and I found something unexpectedly soft under my fingers. Pam giggled, as I tried to remember why I was wearing one. And if I had gone out of my room wearing it. *** 11:16 16 Nov Pam had woken up LONG before I did - I could barely believe I'd slept almost ten hours - but had brought a book to amuse herself, and she'd figured that once she heard people going past and downstairs, she could do the same thing herself and not set off alarms. Which was true. I felt vaguely like a bad host, for not being up and taking care of her and stuff; but she'd done fine without me, apparently. She even seemed happy about it. "That's not what you were wearing last night, though," I mentioned when it occurred to me. It had been sitting in front of my face, so to speak, for the last ten minutes, but apparently not waking up in a panic left me groggy. "I brought a bag!" she protested, and got up to show me. "Oh. Yeah you did. Excuse me, maybe more food will help my brain." She giggled, as I forked and chewed and swallowed. Two different kinds of stir-fry, plus fresh-cooked - compared to days-old leftovers - eggs and bacon, seemed to really hit the spot taste-wise this morning. Luckily, much stir-fry wasn't too degraded by refrigerator storage, if it was covered. "I also got you a coke," she said, and even opened it for me. "Oh god, marry me," I sighed as I took the coke, and drowned my sluggishness with half of it. "Urghhh," I said, because Coke bit back. *** 11:56 16 Nov "Well," I told Pam as she stuffed Amy's nightgown and her panties, that I'd worn all night, into a plastic sack and into her overnight bag. She'd offered to wash the nightgown for me, in exchange for borrowing a trilogy I had. "You can come, which would basically be you sitting around the waiting room, or I can call Mike and see if he'll pick you up or something." I had to start planning this part of my weekend better, if I was going to have girls here on a regular basis. Or ever again. "Um-" "Do you want me to come with you? Like to therapy?" "Um, not really, no." I DEFINITELY did not want her to come into Sheila's office with me. "And I can't really see a reason for you to sit around the waiting room, and then come- 'cause I gotta go grocery shopping right afterwards. Sorry, I didn't think about this before," I admitted. She sighed and looked upset, which made me feel bad until she explained, "I hate not having my car! That jerk!" "He's a fucker," I agreed, or amplified. At least that wasn't my fault. *** 12:02 16 Nov She gave me a long hug, and I asked, very delicately since I was right next to her ear, "But you're gonna be here for pies and stuff, right?" It wasn't hard to remember to ask; the house already smelled like cooking pumpkin. The good kind, not the crap for-carving kind. "You're cooking regular Sunday stuff too, though, right?" she confirmed as she let go of me. "Oh yeah." I wasn't quite sure what yet, but I knew it was going to be asian. Bad influence from this morning, no doubt. Or a good one. Also relatively fast to actually cook, if someone else chopped and things. And I SHOULD have several someone-else's. She kissed my cheek and said, "Remember to drive carefully. Last night was really bad." "It w- Oh, right, first ice of the season." How people could forget how to drive on it in less than a year, I had to wonder. Maybe people really were that stupid. I had not been fast last night, but I also had not been wrecked. Seemed like a good trade-off to me. "I will, I promise," I said, and kissed her cheek back. She giggled, which made me smile. *** 12:34 16 Nov "Oh, no, I forgot to bring it," I told Sheila. "I slept late today, so I didn't get a chance to print it." And I hadn't had any nightmares to remind me to print the log. "Oh you did? Do you normally sleep late on the weekends?" "Um, well, sort of... That girl I was with, when you saw me last night?" She nodded. "She slept over last night. I think having a friend in my room helps me sleep. I slept like ten hours, instead of, um... six or something," I 'improved'. I didn't want to get in some kind of trouble for not sleeping more, like more pills or something. I had too many pills as it was already. "Wow, that sounds like a lot. How do you feel? I mean," she said, "do you feel rested?" *** 12:36 16 Nov We'd exhausted that topic, and I didn't have anything I wanted to talk about, haha, so I was waiting for her to come up with whatever it was she wanted to interrogate me about today. I had to stay alert, though; I didn't want to emit something accidentally. *** 12:38 16 Nov I'd just figured out that I hadn't been checking all my voicemail, just the 'Tuck' one; there was a 'Valerie' mailbox that existed, that I hadn't done anything with in months, I thought, and I was wondering what was in it, when Sheila asked, "Well, is there anything you want to talk about?" "Huh?" *Damnit.* She'd caught me off guard. "No." I softened that with, "Not really," because I didn't want to get in a fight with her. I didn't want to follow that with, "Is there something you wanted to talk to me about?" but I couldn't resist the compulsion. *Damned politeness.* She smiled a little at me. "I'm really here to talk about... whatever you want to talk about." "Oh." Riiiight. "Well, maybe I could just go home?" I tried. "Okay," she said, and made a note, and stood up, before I managed to figure out what she'd said. "What?! No, wait, I take it back," I said hurriedly. She looked a little confused. "Do you want to go?" She sounded a little confused too. "I-" *What the fuck?* "I don't want to get in trouble." She still looked confused. Then she said, "In trouble?" "My parents told me to come here, remember? If I don't show up for appointments I get in trouble." "Oh," she said, like that hadn't occurred to her. "Well, though, if you don't want to talk about anything... Would you rather go home? I'm sure it would be okay with them if I said you could go home." "But don't you have to report to them?" "No?" Then she said, "I don't tell them anything unless you ask me to tell them, remember?" I did not remember that. Or, I didn't believe it. *** 12:41 16 Nov "Bill Tucker." "Eugene, urgent, radiophone." 'Urgent' was not as imperative as 'emergency' or 'flash'. 'Superflash' was sort of theoretical, as it was more likely we'd find out about nukes flying by the effects than by some sort of commo. "Ur- Go ahead." "What..." Fuck, I hated losing my thoughts during transmission. "You sent me to a therapist, back last April. Why?" "What? Why?!" "Yeah, why?" "Because you-" a bit of noise on the channel, "-away, that's why. That's not normal behavior for you." I realized the noise was him kicking his office door shut. "And you left a note. That note indicated a problem, kid." "So..." "That wasn't a physical problem, it was a ment- emotional problem," he corrected himself, "not a mental one; it's not like you got stupid or something. So we sent you to an emotion doctor. Dana recommended one. The one you're supposed to be at right now, in f-" "That's where I am," I told him. Short pause. "So why are you asking me this?" he asked me. "I- What has she told you?" "About what?" "About... anything." "You... Is this a privacy issue?" "Yeah." "We tell her things, Tuck; she doesn't tell us anything except for appointment and billing info. Exception, when we've been there physically at the office with you." "Yah okay." That was obvious, that she'd talked to them and vice versa. "That's it. We haven't been there without you, to talk to her." "But... you always ask! I mean, with Dana you even made it so she could email you her notes and things!" "That was your physical stuff, Tuck. We needed to know that, in case we had to do it ourselves, or do something with it when we couldn't get to Dana or some other doctor. As bad as emotions hurt, they don't directly kill you, not like asthma does. Right?" I had to admit, "Yeah." "Your emotional stuff... That's between you and her. I knew, even your mother admitted, that it'd have to be completely private for it to do you any good, so it's private. Totally. Exception, subpoenas," he added, "but that's not us, and we may not be able to stop those." "MAY not?" "We'd try, but..." Whatever he said after that, I lost, because I was trying to assimilate that they would actually spend lawyer's fees on trying to fight a subpoena of psych records. MY psych records. *** 12:45 16 Nov Sheila summarized, "So if you're not here on a court order, which you aren't; and if I don't think, in my professional judgement, that you are a danger to yourself or other people, which I don't; then it's up to you whether or not you want to come. And how often. Obviously, I think it's... that it's better if you talk, when you come, but you don't even have to do that if you don't want to. You can just sit here and think, if you want. But if you don't want to come every week, you really don't have to. And I can tell your parents that," she finished. Pause. "But..." I started, and then stopped, because I didn't have anything to say. Not even something stupid. Pause. I still couldn't think of anything. Except that I couldn't stop coming here, no matter what Sheila said. "Do you want to think about it for a while?" she asked gently. "Yeah, I guess..." I wasn't sure it was going to help, though. *** 13:02 16 Nov "Sheila?" "Yes?" she asked as she looked up from her notes. She'd closed one folder, that I thought was mine, and opened another and she was doing paper things in it. It sort of hurt, in some semi-professional way, to see someone doing that with such archaic pieces as paper and pencils, but not that much. "What... Do other... I mean... You said you work with adolescents a lot, right?" She nodded. "Do they just... come in, and talk about things?" "Often, yes. I can't make anyone talk, of course, so... sometimes they will just sit and, whatever... But often we end up talking." "About what?" "Whatever is bothering them in their lives," she said. "I try to help them deal with those things." "Like?" She took a breath and looked off. "Um... I can't be specific," she stated. "Privacy, I know." I hoped. "But, like, a hypothetical example?" "Oh..." She took a deep breath. "Whether being homosexual is inherently wrong, in the moral sense. Being unsure about what to do- oh, like what classes to take in high school, when they have a choice. What to do if someone breaks up with them. HOW to break up with someone. Um..." "And you just talk about it? I mean, what good does that do?" "Well, for one, just being able to talk about things helps somewhat. And, I'm not judgmental about most things, just about personal safety. That's part of being a therapist," she said, "being non-judgmental." "Even about suicide?" She nodded. "What about illegal things?" "I don't have to report anything except if I really think that a client is a direct danger to themselves or other people," she said. "So, for instance, if a client was... using heroin, I... I'd suggest that they stop, and I could help them get treatment, and we could discuss treatment options; but I wouldn't report them to the police." "Would you tell their parents?" "No," she said, like that would be obvious. "Not unless the client wanted me to tell them instead of the client doing it." "For real?" "It wouldn't do any good to lie to you and tell you this was a safe place to talk and then turn right around and tell someone else everything you said!" she snapped, showing the first human emotion I'd seen in a long time out of her. "I'm sorry," she reverted, "I apologize for getting loud." "It's okay, I mean, you're not supposed to be a saint," I said. "I wouldn't talk to one anyway." She smiled a bit. "They're all narks for Yahweh anyway." That almost made her laugh. "So what do you think I should talk about?" She looked at me and I knew what she was going to start on, but I managed to get out, "I KNOW you're not me and that my opinion about what my problems are is more important than yours and all that. But... you know a lot about my life," and I couldn't help thinking, *Too much.* "So what, I mean, in a hypothetical average me, what would the hypothetical average me be talking about?" "What do you think he'd be talking about?" I was about to yell at her but she said, "No, really. If someone you knew was in your life situation, what do you think they would want to talk about?" "Uh?" "You can think logically and objectively," she told me. "What would- Oh, tell me what they might want to talk about, and then you could tell me why you don't need to or don't want to." "Oh... The attack, I guess... But I already know how that's going. I mean, I read 'Combat Psychology' and stuff, back..." Back a damned long time ago, come to think of it. "'Combat Psychology'?" "It's... I think it's a chapter in an FM, that- US Army Field Manual," I explained, because she wasn't getting that. "Dad made us read a section about combat psych, what we could expect... So I'm like right along with that, I think. I need to reread it," I admitted. "Mike probably already did." *** 13:08 16 Nov "What about if one of your friends was, was dressing and going out as a girl?" "Wh- A lot of them do, you-" "I meant, one of the male ones," she smiled. The image that came to mind was of George, dressed and made up like a drag queen, which is to say badly and very overdone, and somehow managing to behave like an hour of George in about half a second. "BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" *** 13:11 16 Nov The inhalers weren't working by themselves; I needed the O2 kit, which was in the car. And I couldn't walk. I took my keys out and jangled them until she grabbed them, then wrote my license plate on the carpet. *** 13:16 16 Nov "Laughter kills," I told her, through the mask. "I would think you'd stop laughing once you started having symptoms of asthma, I mean I don't know..." "After that, it's too late." I looked at the clock. "Oh, 'bout time to go," I said. "Are you sure? Do you need me to call someone?" "No no, I'll be okay," I said as I powered up and took the O2 kit with me. "I can do it. Thanks for the help, getting the bottle and stuff..." I was fairly sure I could make it into the bathroom and lock the door. "I MEANT a friend of yours, or your parents, or someone like that," she said forcefully as I went past her. "What? Oh. I thought you meant..." I told her as I dropped back to the floor, and when I could I finished, "...like an ambulance." "You said you don't like them," she told me, which was true - I didn't - but I didn't remember telling her that. Until I remembered the nightmare log, where ambulances had shown up as a Sign Of Doom a couple of times. "You remember?" She just nodded. *** 13:32 16 Nov "Jeezus." What a pain in the ass. I still didn't know why I was doing this every week. *Because I get in trouble if I don't go.* But other than- *No, wait...* Sheila said I wouldn't get in trouble, if I arranged it instead of just skipping. But I wasn't sure my parents, or Mom especially, would listen to her if she said I didn't need help. They hadn't listened to me, of course, but they never did. "And now I need to go shopping... Oh sh-" I had no money, because I hadn't seen Kim this morning. Much thought and plotting followed, as I made my way out to my car. *** 15:03 16 Nov I was pulling into our driveway when I noticed Julia's car sitting there, and at least two people in the front waving at me. "Yeah yeah yeah I fucking KNOW I'm late okay?!" *And I gotta unload, cook, do pies...* *** 15:06 16 Nov There were an awful lot of people here already, though. "Eugene!" Dad crowed. "Dad! Gimme money!" I said, half serious and half to get him to stop smiling. He logged out of the conversation he was in, with some adults I sort of recognized, and motioned me outside, but then stopped and ordered George, "Get two more people and bring in groceries from Tuck's car." I liked that, but that meant we'd have to go further into the back yard, where it had to be colder than near the house. *Ah well...* I flung keys towards George; the jerk managed to leap and catch them, and then recover before doing something rude like putting an arm through a car window. *Jerk,* I thought as George hooted in triumph, and turned and walked off a few steps. Dad stopped and turned and asked me, "Why do you need money?" "I didn't get my week's babysitting pay before therapy, like I usually do; so I had to get cash out of my savings account. And I still didn't get enough out, and I need gas." "Did you..." I pulled the receipt out of my pants pocket. "Twenty enough?" "Yeah I guess..." I wanted it all now, but there wasn't any rational reason for that; and the usual direct deposit into my account would work fine. He dug in his wallet and found a twenty, which he handed to me, which I stuffed into my own wallet. "Your mother informed everyone that showed up that supper would be a little later than usual," he told me as we went back inside, dodging Book and George. "Because of the pies and all." It was already much warmer in here. "We get pie right?" Julia asked me. "We better be getting some pie," Kathy told me. "And I have some pie crusts done," Mom said. "Oh god thank you," I said to Mom. "I bought ten of the premade kind, it was all they had..." "Which brand?" I leaned closer to Mom's ear and said, "Pet-Ritz?" That name made people all hinky when they heard it, for some reason. *** 15:29 16 Nov "Man..." With all the chopping going on, I might actually make eighteen hundred for mealtime. I wasn't sure about the pies, though. Pies were harder than I thought, especially the handmade ones. And I was making four different kinds. The premade-crust ones were already mostly done, though. "I think, if we got some more knives and other tools," Mom idly mentioned, "that this could go even faster." She'd pulled a stool out and was sitting in between the kitchen and the dining room, which was now the food prep room. "Maybe we should start charging admission," I said. Mike managed to overhear that and stated, "You start doing that and I am LEAVING." I sighed. It would kind of suck, a little, if we started charging and everyone stopped coming; but then it would also get rid of all the people and free up several hours on my weekend. I wasn't actually having the delusion that anyone would come and pay to eat here. *** 15:37 16 Nov "Hey Tuck, go look," Mike told me. "Huh? At-" Jill was there. Wearing a new and thick leather jacket, black with red accents around the shoulder, and black leather pants, and - tellingly - carrying a helmet, which sort of matched the jacket. And she was grinning like George really shouldn't do around other people. Neither, I decided, should Jill. "You got it?" "I got it!" she squealed, just like a little girl with a new Barbie. At least, she sounded exactly like my sister had the Christmas when my aunts had gone against Mom's orders and gotten her a Barbie collection. *** 15:39 16 Nov "Man, that is a bad-assed machine," I commented. I wasn't actually sure; I had a feeling that a truly bad-assed machine wouldn't be painted in such coordinating colors - or maybe at all - and would have fairings over the engine. But it looked pretty consumer-grade bad-assed. "It's nice," Mom commented appreciatively, from behind me. "Yah, it's a Seca too," Jill said to anyone listening. I thought that's what she said, anyway, until I caught the large artistically- ragged 'II' on the tank. I thought it was the gas tank. "Turn around, Jill!" Sabrina commanded, and Jill looked pained for as long as I could see her face, which wasn't long as she was turning around. "God, that looks really good on you!" Pam enthused, and the chorus mumbled happily in agreement. Kim mumbled something to someone, which I didn't catch; Jill did, though, I guess, because she yelled, "It wasn't my idea, okay?! Debbie made me get it!" "So what-" Jill turned on George, who missed her nasty look because he was staring at the cycle. "-kind of engine does it have?" "I- it's got a six hundred cc four-cylinder, dual cams-" I guess she missed Sabrina snorting, "Well duh." Probably for the best. George continued, "Four stroke?" She nodded. "Doesn't look like a V." "Inline four." "Ah. What's the redline?" "Ninety-five hundred," Jill stated with relish. I moved away, because I would have half-expected Jill to be like this, but George could get obsessive about things with small - non- nuclear, under a megawatt - real-life engines. *** 15:44 16 Nov "I think I'm going to commit seppuku," I told Mike. "Why? Where's the cycle?" he asked as he started looking around very sharply. Mom rode past, sedately this pass, on the street. No helmet, no jacket - winter clothing did NOT count, as she'd told us - and Jill on the back wearing HER gear. "Oh..." Mike said, but he couldn't finish. I sort of wanted to break out in sobs. *** 15:47 16 Nov "Kathy! NO!" But she managed to fend me off, drop me relatively gently, and kneel on my back so she could take a picture of my mom riding Jill's cycle. *I hate my life...* I noticed, and should've appreciated, the fact that she was kneeling only on my LEFT side, but I didn't. Appreciate it. "Aren't you supposed to be baking?" she mentioned, over the clicks. "Get the fuck off me!" "And then you'll get back to making pies, right?" Apparently she didn't hear what I said, because Mom revved the cycle up really high and long, and Kathy didn't punch me in the head before she let me up. I thought about tackling the camera and running, but luckily I remembered she could outrun me before it ended with me getting the crap beaten out of me just before I got hit with Germany- sized reparations by Mom. *** 16:01 16 Nov "Don't get obsessive about it," Mom warned me. "Fold the flour into the butter and stop as soon as it turns into dough. Don't knead it like bread. You want it light and airy, and there's nothing in it to make it rise, so do it fast." I wanted to beat the hell out of it. I wanted to put my head on the marble slab, so it would soak all the heat out of my brain, but that might affect the pie crust. Actually I wanted to grab Pam or Jill or somebody and go back to bed. I massaged that out of my head and said, "Right, light and airy. How's the pumpkin coming?" "Pretty well," she told me. You were supposed to pre-cook the pumpkin beforehand, but she was showing me how to do it now anyway, sort of, off to the side. *** 16:38 16 Nov The problem with having two ovens- well, there were two. One was, twice as much heat energy dumped into the same space I was working hard within; but I wasn't sure how much worse that was than just one. And we had the windows open and the fans running at low. The other problem was, there was a great deal of pie-cooking capacity, and it seemed like every other time I looked around there was someone else peeking into the kitchen, and I wasn't sure who they all were. *** 17:21 16 Nov "DAD!" I yelled, because I was really starting to want claymores or a final-protective-fire or a flamethrower or something, REALLY bad. "HELP GUARD THE PIES! Mike!" Him I could whack with a spoon, or try to, because he REALLY should've known better. "Stop being part of the problem!" "Git away from them pies, ya varmints!" Dad drawled loudly as he made it into the kitchen, finally. "Out out OUT!" Mom ordered as she came from the other direction. I really hoped the mob wouldn't realize they were trapped and overrun me. *** 18:04 16 Nov I'd been outvoted on whether pie or supper should come first; Kathy had taken the point that since they'd been working for pie, they ought to get the pie first as their wages, while they still had room. I was not happy with this, but my parents had thrown me to the wolves, figuratively speaking, and agreed with them. _I_ was sick of food, but mostly I was sick of pie, so I was having a normal meal, and wishing I could get the hell away from the pie smells, because I'd been immersed in them for hours. *I wish Mom would let me go outside to eat...* *** 18:21 16 Nov Most people had taken two decent-sized twelfth-slices of different flavors to start, even Pam. Kathy, Mike and most of the young guys including my brother's coterie, had gone for three - they'd tried for four and five, but there were too many people here and we only had the two ovens. And Mom did not have time-vs-temperature graphs on pie-baking, nor would she let me get a thermocouple and start collecting data, so we had to do them in batches and make some kind of half-assed adjustment for the extra mass and IR absorption from multiple pies. That wasn't how Mom had put it, of course; she said you could smell when it was done. Which seemed amazingly imprecise to me. But she did know how to do it well enough that everything had come out okay. So far. And, darnit, I COULD smell the difference when Mom pointed it out. And after all that damned work, and pie-guarding, and even the shopping, it was over in fifteen minutes. "I think you can handle the pies for Thanksgiving," Mom told me as she scraped her plate for the last crumbs. "Gee, thanks," I sighed, because while there wouldn't be quite as many people here then, they wouldn't be as appreciative either. Nor would I get as much of my chores done via subcontracting. "So, like, what's for supper?" George asked. "George you are such an asshole," I sighed. Mom switched from glaring at him to glaring at me, but when I dared her to say something she just gave up. "TAKE YOUR PLATES BACK AND RINSE THEM OFF IN THE SINK OR YOU WILL DIE!" I announced. "Tuck, go supervise," Dad ordered, so I sighed and got up and went into the kitchen to make sure they didn't eat the plates or throw them in the trash or, grossest of all, put a dirty plate back in a cabinet. *** 18:46 16 Nov "How did you cut them into twelves?" Miz Paula, a friend of my mom, asked me, so I showed her the compass board, made of thick aluminum, with the concentric rings to center whatever-it-was. Dad had made it for Mom after he'd complained that Mom couldn't cut twelfths and she'd dared him to do better. He'd cut it out of this huge industrial baking sheet and then assaulted and mutilated it further with the garage tools; and now you could cut almost arbitrary angles using it. 30 degree pieces seemed to satisfy the weight conscious better than 45 degrees - experimentally confirmed on my mom's relatives - more than it should have since they often went and got a second piece anyway, but people were stupid. "Just make little guide cuts at the edge, like this," I demonstrated with an enpty pie pan, "and then connect the cuts across the pie." "Oh okay," she nodded. "Also, if you make the vent holes line up before you bake, it's really easy." Twelfths, when the whole thing was sitting on top of the compass board, were easy. It was not easy to do an Elder Sign in pinpricks across the top; I'd ruined one top crust trying. I'd thought Mike would like the idea, but I hadn't counted on his stomach's influence; he just bitched at me for botching it and thus requiring more time. *** 19:11 16 Nov "And are you gonna do pies next weekend?" Mike asked. "What? Aren't you full YET?" I shrieked. He'd managed to swipe a pie of the third batch, and he and George and Dan had assassinated it quickly. After eating a meal. After eating a quarter pie apiece before THAT. "I'm full NOW," he 'explained', "but I won't be by next week. And don't scream like that." "BITE MY-" Jill put a hand over my mouth. *** 19:17 16 Nov Pam was nodding at me as I said, "Yeah, and like in Act Three, when she-" Mike interrupted, "What are you talking about?" "Go away Mike," I sighed. He was gonna find out I went out last night, and then he was gonna bitch at me for doing it. *** 19:19 16 Nov "Tuck!" I KNEW he was going to do this. *** 19:37 16 Nov "Yeah, in case- I mean," Jill said, "they said the only way I could guarantee not having to lie the bike down was not to ride one. So, like, WHEN I do, this should protect my back." She grinned at me. "Better than yours!" "Yeah, but mine stops bullets," I countered. "And Dad added some impact protection, over the ribs here?" I rubbed my arm, where Mike had hit me. "What is that, steel?" "Yeah, some sheet steel." "How you..." Sally started to ask, then couldn't find the word she wanted and made a face, and then made a bending motion with both hands. "Uh... Big hammer," I told her, and mimed beating something with a sledge. "Uh..." She pulled out her dictionary, which I noticed she was now carrying in a small bag slung like a purse, and flipped through it until she found, "Forg?" "Forge?" I asked, involuntarily. She glared at the page, then nodded. "Thank you." I nodded back. "Not forged. Cold hammer." "Show you?" Dad offered, and she thought about it, then nodded. *** 19:42 16 Nov Jill was now wearing my armor, Jill's T-shirt, Jill's back armor, and Jill's red and black leather jacket - which really did look good on her, though she turned pink if anyone mentioned that, which almost color-coordinated, which made her mad if anyone mentioned THAT. "So," she asked me, "does it like bulge or someth-" "Hnt-HAI!" Mike grunted and yelled as he spun up and then roundhouse-kicked her in the kidney, as planned. I pushed Sally out of the way as soon as I saw Mike start spinning up and George got rid of the rest of the freshthings on his side, so Jill didn't run into anyone as she spun and fell down. I was a little disappointed to find out that she didn't know how to fall well, but apparently she was uninjured as she got up quickly enough and indicated she wanted to kick Mike's ass. Apparently, though, those of us in on the plot who were yelling variations of 'But how did it WORK?' confused her enough to where she stopped. "You ought to be screaming in pain with that kick," Mike nodded, sounding satisfied. "Layered armor, definitely the way to go." "Can you touch your toes?" I asked her. That was always the problem in games with layering armor; it reduced your maneuverability. We suspected that was a game balance issue, though, but we hadn't been able to test our theory out with realistic armor pieces, before now. Jill, looking confused, uttered, "What the-" "How did it work?" Dad asked her from the other side of the room. "Any pain back there?" "And how much did it cost?" Mom asked. "I do NOT need more armor!" I announced as a precautionary measure. *** 19:49 16 Nov "No, it's really neat," I assured Jill, as we looked at her cycle. Again. Jill did a little happy dance. Again. "I think she likes it," Pam giggled. I was a little tired of it already, except when I saw Jill being so happy about it. *** 20:02 16 Nov "Yah, I said I'd take her home," Mike told me. We'd gotten rid of most everyone at this point, except for him, Pam, the cat, and my brother and parents. Unfortunately, the dearly departed - I wished - had remembered the comments about bringing Tupperware, and so the astonishing total of EIGHTEEN pies were now gone; we'd just managed to save about two for ourselves. "Jill's talking about doing like Debbie did, again, and like seeing if she can get a spare set of leather and a spare helmet, so she can give rides to people," Pam said. "I can see that," Mike nodded. I could see it too, and the guys had ponied up for my opinion of their share for her stuff - which Kim had taken for Debbie, after giving everyone receipts - but I didn't want to spend it again. And it was EXPENSIVE. Brian came into the room, and he looked so happy I wanted to kick him. "Man, did you see what we got DONE?" I changed my mind about kicking him, at least momentarily. "No? I was busy cooking." The ovens had FINALLY been shut off. "EV-rything," he stated, nodding slowly. I asked skeptically, "Is that what Mom-" "Oh yeah," he interrupted, nodding normally this time. "All the bathrooms, the- everything except the bedrooms and the kitchen." And my bedroom wouldn't take that long to clean up, because I'd been cleaning it more - and not spending time in it like I used to - and the kitchen was best cleaned again just before everyone got here anyway. "Even the laundry. And Dad refilled your oxy bottle. The BATHROOMS got cleaned." "Dude." Brian and Mike nodded solemnly. I think we were all in awe. "HOW MUCH?" Mom shrieked from elsewhere. "Oh hell, I think she just saw the grocery bill," I deduced. Brian left. Mike, momentarily stupid or something, asked, "How much was it?" *** 02:17 17 Nov "No no, I love waking up like this; it gives me a chance to do all my homework," I said quietly to myself. I was lying. Though I was going to do my homework. *Except there was something I was going to do... something with voicemail...* *** 02:20 17 Nov "Oh, right." Set up a cron job to check the Valerie voicemailbox and tell me one way or another if there were new messages in it. *** 02:26 17 Nov Jack had called several times, over the months. I really ought to call him back, I decided... but then I checked the clock, and decided that I should wait for a while instead of doing it now. *** 06:53 17 Nov "Dude," I grinned to myself, as I pulled up next to Jill's motorcycle. She was still grinning and dancing a little - since last night, I bet - as I shut the car off and got out. Days like this, it almost didn't seem worth it to run the heater. "Val..." she said, smiling so much I couldn't bear to correct her. "Yah," I nodded. "But aren't you cold?" She waved her heavy-leather-gloved hands at me. "I think I'm warmer like this than I am in most cars!" I could believe that. There ought to be a way to bank the car's heat you had after you'd run it for a while, and then just dump it into the passenger area when you needed it, like after sitting many hours in the cold, instead of uselessly radiating away; but I couldn't think of a way. *** 06:57 17 Nov "We weren't sure if you were gonna make it," I said to Kim as she got out. We'd saved the spot next to Jill's cycle, on the other side, so we could bracket it with our cars and maybe protect it somewhat from assholes. McAllen did not, I found out, have dedicated motorcycle parking; I couldn't figure if that was deliberate asshole-ishness or merely stupidity. Or, possibly, cleverness. We hadn't actually discussed the protection idea with Kim, of course, since she hadn't been here yet, but she'd taken the spot we were standing in like we HAD planned it. And not run over us, which was also very good. "Nuhhhhh," Kim complained, and sucked some more coffee. *** 07:02 17 Nov "And a scarf?" I confirmed. "Dude, I NEED it," Jill told me as she took it off. Apparently she didn't need it in here. It was not, however, white silk. "Back armor?" Kim gargled. "Got it!" Jill confirmed cheerfully. *** 07:52 17 Nov "Oh hey," Nicole called at me as we were leaving. "How did," and she wriggled her fingers at me. "Oh," I said when I figured it out, "it went okay. Tell ya later." *** 07:58 17 Nov "Tuck, man, those were good pies!" George told me, which made me cringe and wonder what he was doing, until I realized the obvious - he was trying to ensure I'd bake more pies, that he could then eat. "Yeah," I said. "Guys, I can't do this all the time. Mom had a FIT last night over the grocery bill." And if she had a fit over that last night, she might have a fit over me next week. There were protests, but George got my attention by not doing anything. Until he said, "So, like, what if we did chores and things, maybe every couple of weeks, to like trade for it." "Uh." That might work. Then again, it might not. "Lemme ask, and I'll tell you what they said." *** 08:15 17 Nov What I really wanted to do, was walk around for a while and stretch and things, to wake up better. Or go back to bed. Preferably with Pam or Jill or somebody. Alas, I could do neither; this was 'study hall', not 'any sort of practical thing hall'. I could, however, finish the homework I hadn't managed to finish earlier. *** 10:43 17 Nov "Hey, yesterday was really neat," Amanda told me as I caught up with her. "Oh yeah?" "Oh god yes," Sabrina agreed. "See why you should hang around geeks?" Mike said. "Can you cook like that?" Sabrina challenged. Mike replied, calmly but confidently, "Not yet." That seemed to stop her. "Yeah," I said to Mike, "but remember Ensign James T.? Baking makes you homosexual, remember?" We laughed until we had to explain it to Amanda and Sabrina. *** 11:37 17 Nov "Did you think about it?" George asked me before I could sit down. "Did I think about WHAT?!" "Chores for pies, man!" he complained, like I was the dumb one. "And lessons," Mike said. "Like cooking lessons?" Dan said, half amazed and half disgusted. "Chicks, I have found, dig guys that can cook. Especially desserts," Mike informed us. I had to laugh, which hurt; eventually I had to pull out an inhaler and take a precautionary hit. *** 11:39 17 Nov "Are we gonna play or are we-" George got cut off by the play bell, which had to be a good thing. I was tired of 'discussing' this and I couldn't make any decisions about what to do without consulting Mom and Dad, which I couldn't do from here. Except, I realized belatedly, I COULD, but it would cost money, and this absolutely did not qualify as an emergency. "Okay, so you're in the office building. You found one vampire," Mike pointed at Kelly, "in a closet, shortly before three more vampires," he pointed at James and Jill and Matt in sequence, "arrived to rescue the one in the closet. Your totem suggested that allying with them was a good idea, or something like that," he pointed at Book, apparently to remind us who was the shamanistic one who could be expected to take care of things like that. "Oh this is heinous, most irregular," Dan complained in his pseudo- Pakistani character voice. "And," Mike reminded us as he kept Dan from going into one of his character's rants, "you're in an office building, which George," he pointed at George in case we didn't know which George he was referencing, "has identified as having old traces of Wyrm. At night. It IS night, I mean." "Uhhh..." Me and George and Book and Jill all sort of looked at each other and decided, without real words, to get the fuck out of there immediately and continue the discussion later. Dan didn't argue. "Do we set fire to the place?" George asked. He'd brought a jerry can of kerosene to help that along. Kerosene, he had assured us repeatedly, had shown in summer testing to be less susceptible to bullet-impact-based ignition than other things, and he'd had videotape to show this. Of course, he couldn't prove that the container had had kerosene in it when he shot it and it didn't blow up like the gasoline had, and we hadn't been there to check, but I think he was hoping that Mike didn't remember that part. "No, let's just leave," I suggested. "Clean up behind you!" There was more than one reason to carry duct tape and wear gloves, and I didn't care how stupid it looked. "Closet too, where she was." "Lemme set fire to the closet," George insisted, as he - in real life - pulled out a container and opened it. Said container had two slices of MY pie in it. "Man!" I had no pie myself. "You bitch! NO! No fires!" *** 12:17 17 Nov He'd set fire to the closet anyway, and then acted all surprised when a fire alarm went off, though at least he didn't complain too much when 'weird things' started phasing in from the Umbra and trying to rip off our heads. Unfortunately for us, the vampires were not proving as resilient as we were, and they didn't have automatic weapons with them for some reason, so we were sort of having to improvise, when Mike rang the play bell. "Tomorrow or Wednesday?" Mike asked. "Do we play tomorrow or Wednesday?" "Tomorrow!" George shot back like it was obvious, which I guess it was. *** 12:19 17 Nov "Hey Tuck?" Kathy said. "Yesterday was like really neat." "Yeah? Thanks," I said, and she smiled at me and gave me a hug. When she let go, Kelly was there, with sort of a look on her face. "See?" I said to Kelly. "THIS is why you should learn to cook. Kathy hugs you." "This is true," Kathy said, apparently running with my joke, which was fine with me; she'd make it funnier. "Invite some cute girl over for cookies or pie or something, and then..." Kathy shrugged, and I looked over my shoulder at her to see her sort of grinning at Kelly in an amazingly seductive manner considering how she was dressed - comfy and warm - and finished, "Who knows?" "Kath?" Jill warned from the side. "Doh, I date guys," Kathy complained like she'd forgotten as she smacked herself in the forehead. "What would you do if _I_ made you apple pie?" I teased Kathy. "Maybe, two?" and ran a finger up her arm. "Get off me you disgusting pervert," she said casually, though not shoving me or hitting me or anything, or even moving away or shaking her arm. "Why-" "Anything YOU want to bribe me with TWO pies for, is disgusting and perverted," she informed me. Kelly snorted. "And don't you have class?" "Oh no," I said, hardly believing she'd dropped that one right in front of me. "None at ALL, not after hanging around George all these years." And before either of them had stopped laughing, George appeared and asked, "Did I hear 'pie'?" *** "The dog wags his tail, not for you, but for your bread." -- Portugese proverb Distribution: No part of this work may be distributed as an original work by another person or group. Permission is given to redistribute this by electronic means, as long as the entirety of the work (from the BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE header to the END PGP SIGNATURE footer) is distributed, and credit is given to the original author, me. And no fee may be charged. Archiving is permitted provided no fee is charged for access. All rights reserved. + @>--,--'----- Ellen Hayes o===[-------- __ vicki .sig + -=[1990]=- \/ virus 13.4 + http://www.barkingduck.net/ehayes PGP key: EFC9 5D55 (1996) + -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBR27ZpHYDebnvyV1VAQF4bgP/YnObNi1tTJ2tGUPw4jVYrzFhC4PbNIY2 jPOOeLieWdj+5Aau3IcR2DXn/QZw7swYxqgw+jit9X9rSWLVnCbVBLl4pN2Cowe7 NoXQnVqbkLRmu0InTaE7DKfPXDI4x6e4Cugj4QNznTa1b2YuZR0kD+bKaNN4eOkG pBNNYaZkMqU= =6kyp -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----