Henry rolled off his client and onto the comforter that covered the remainder of the enormous bed situated in the chamber just off the dining room. “What gave you that idea?” he asked with a tremor in his voice. Valerie was sitting up in a slip with the strap nearest her partner dangling down onto her arm, and with her hands splayed out on the satin behind her. “It’s okay, Dick. Just please tell me if it’s your first time.” Henry was staring at the two of them in the mirror on the ceiling. “That depends on your first definition of ‘first’.” Valerie sighed in exasperation and stared at a wall. “Has your dick ever been in a woman’s vagina, Dick?” “That’s not a very ladylike way to put it.” Valerie was up and marching to the dress that had been thrown across the back of a chair. “You forced me to put it that way.” She lifted the dress off the chair. “I’m not going to sleep with a boy who’s going to play games with me, no matter how desperate I am to get pregnant.” A tear was in one of the woman’s eyes, and then Henry’s hand was on one of her arms. “I’m sorry. I suppose the first definition of ‘first’ would apply here.” Valerie turned around and wiped away her tear. “I’ll take that as a ‘yes’.” ----------------------------------------Henry stared at the blank screen of the laptop he had borrowed from Calvin that morning, stared at the blank Word document as the late afternoon sun began to penetrate the Venetian blinds directly before him. He squinted his eyes against both the sun and his writer’s block and then, with the slowness of one who had sat motionless before a computer all afternoon, typed out the words
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