Math 183

          Coral changed subjects, brought up her failed attempts to duplicate the healing exercise in her apartment with her boyfriend.

       This called for a tool. I reached for my fork, held it like a man who has something to fix. "Coral! Don't tell me you told Trent about the healing exercise."

       "Of course I did."

       I let my fork go limp. "Oh, man. Don't tell me you told him I taught it to you in my shack--in the dark."

        "I didn't tell him that. I told him the exercise came to me in a dream. A lot of things come to me in dreams, so he's used to hearing it."

       "Well, OK--just so you go on lying."

       "Yes, Anton, I'll go on lying. Like I say; you sure can hand out enlightened advice."

        "OK, so it isn't lying, exactly. But, still, we got to be careful--careful because we're walking a thin rope here. Like, just the other day, I opened up, told Trent he had nothing to worry about. That I wasn't going to lay a finger on you. Now, not only have I laid a finger on you, but, because of it, you up and had an orgasm on me. See, Coral?" I used my fork to draw a thin rope across the rain on the horizon. "See what a thin rope we're walking here? See why I need you to keep me and my shack out of Trent's ear?"

       "No," Coral said, hiding her mouth. "Why?"

       "Because I'd like to get through this chapter of my life without getting shot." I threw my fork up in the air. It bounced off the patio, settled into the pile of leaves at my feet.

       Coral laughed.

       "So," I said, "the exercise didn't work for you two."

       "I got my ball lightning up and moving, but when I sent it into Trent I couldn't get it back."

       "Well, maybe if you two would have gone for healing instead of orgasms, you might have met with more success."

       "No," Coral said, all heavy again, "I have orgasms with Trent every day--the usual way--so that's not what I was going for. I wanted to feel that ball lightning again. I really think it's cool how I can move it with my eyes. I've been thinking about it. A healer moves that ball into their patients to heal, right?"

       "That's what Rachel says. But I've just goofed around with the exercise; never tried to heal."

       Coral laughed.

       "What?"

       "You; saying 'goofed.' My dad says old fart things like that."      

       How cruel and unusual, making me out to be as old as her dad. Thank God I'd done the math. No, that's why the schoolboy needs to pay attention in math class; so he can put two-and-two together as an adult. No, math is a man's best friend when it comes to some young thing accusing him of being as old as her dad.

       "Say," Coral said, "I still have time before class. Want to go to your shack, goof around?" Coral laughed.

       This got me so angry I bent over, picked up my fork so I could pose all serious again. "There will be no more going to the shack, young lady."

       Which, of course, got Coral laughing all the harder.

       I let my fork go limp. I couldn't believe I'd called her 'young lady.' That's what my dad used to call my sister when she started in with the back-sass.

       Coral sobered up. "Anton, you're not serious; we can still go to the shack, right?"
       Oh, how the kid-in-me wanted to go to the shack, indulge. And, oh, how the adult-in-me knew better than to go to the shack and indulge. Boy, it was hard striking a balance where ones manliness was concerned. No, you girls, you don't know what a picnic life has handed you; not having to find the gentlemanly gray area between your black and white balls.

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