Laura and Margaret exchanged knowing glances as they crossed the polished granite floor of the Abernethy Building. On Laura’s shoulder, Margaret spied her muscular little husband, both fists wrapped up in her platinum blonde hair. He grinned up at Margaret.

“I thought that was you two parking, when I pulled up.” Margaret’s tone was almost musical in the foyer.

“Where’s your little guy?” asked Laura.

Margaret’s grin dimpled as she looked down. Today she wore a black blazer with a low-cut black chemise, and Lionel clung to the neckline like a brooch. From what Laura could see, he appeared to be wearing a fairly well tailored white dress shirt with teeny-tiny little black suspenders and a narrow tie. “Looking very sharp today, Lionel,” Laura commented, grinning. Before he could respond, Margaret hummed a musical note and grabbed the dining room door.

Within, Barbara was already perched in her rolling throne. “Welcome, you four! I presume you brought your little men with you? Good, excellent. You’ll pardon me for not getting up: yesterday was leg day for me at the gym.” She grinned at the two women resuming their usual seats. Margaret and Laura were taken aback to see this Mediterranean goddess wearing an awkward smile for once. “Ibuprofen all day, red wine all night, that’s my therapy. How was your week?”

As they exchanged small talk, a loud huffing and puffing and swearing echoed quietly in the foyer. Margaret’s brow furrowed as she craned around to watch the door swing open, wide: Miriam’s red face puffed and grimaced as though she were an ogress breaking into the room. “You two,” she gasped, hauling her prodigious bulk into the vintage dining chamber, “didn’t wait… for me!”

Laura blinked rapidly, confused, but Barbara picked out a feline smirk on Margaret’s face. “I’m sorry, I guess I don’t know what your car looks like,” she said.

With great effort Miriam dragged herself into the room, heavy feet plodding across the vintage floor. “We take… the bus… saw you… three blocks ahead…” Her breathing was so ragged, Barbara wondered whether it would be necessary to call the paramedics soon. The broad and flabby woman threw herself into her loveseat, rocking it on its back legs and seriously threatening the thick wooden planks in its frame. “Not… funny…” She threw the huge slabs of her arms upon the back of the couch, and soon her piquant musk diffused throughout the little group. Margaret’s smirk twisted into an unguarded scowl and Laura’s expression brightened with alarm. She waved a blade-like hand in front of her face to disperse the invisible gases. For her part, Barbara remained unflappable and pleasant, grinning prettily at the beached whale who lay heaving for breath and swearing under it.

“I can only imagine where you’ve stashed your little man,” said the counselor, “if he’s joined us today.” Her eyes flicked oh-so-briefly to the other women, who perked up with morbid curiosity.

“Oh yeah,” panted Miriam, spreading her enormous thighs obscenely wide. Today she wore a tight dress composed of a black velvet bodice that admirably supported her ridiculous bosom, connected to a spreading and artfully rumpled skirt of a black-and-white design like barren walnut branches against a snowy field. Had she not been a sweaty mess shuddering gracelessly for gulps of air, she would not have been out of place at an elegant cocktail party. Now, however, she thrust one meaty hand between her thighs, and Laura and Margaret flinched with revulsion. “Got him here somewhere,” Miriam muttered, envisioning the landscape of adipose material and perspiration, if not vasocongestive fluid or even anal seepage. It was a long minute of slurping and grunting from both of Miriam’s ends before she produced a crinkled and foggy plastic bag containing her husband, thrusting him upward as though having landed a particularly elusive fish. Carelessly she tossed Brent to the coffee table in the center of the seating. He fell with a wet plop and lay still for a moment.

“That’s quite a spectacle, Mrs. Little,” said Barbara, biting her lip. “Is he still alive?”

Miriam laughed. “Oh yeah, he’s fine. He likes to play ’possum for a while, but he always comes around. Couldn’t kill that li’l guy with an ax.”

“Even in a plastic bag?”

The large woman blinked as though this were news to her. “Oh, right. Forgot.” She rolled her tremendous belly over her thighs and reached out to flick a corner of the bag open, to allow fresh air to enter. As the other women watched, partially horrified, the contents slowly began to stir and struggle against the enveloping plastic. Out crawled the tiny little nebbish, already wound up. “She nearly suffocated me!” he bawled at the giant women peering at him. “And you’re fine with it! You saw what she does to me, and you’re gawking at me like a baby bird that fell out of its nest, covered in ants, getting eaten alive as it writhes in agony! What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Thank you for that… evocative imagery,” said Barbara, snorting briefly before grinning at the other women. “And with that, I think we’ll get this session started.” Margaret and Laura sat up straighter in their seats. Laura left Rodney perched upon her shoulder, and Margaret tugged her academic little husband out from within her shallow bosom. “Before you set him down, Mrs. Kelley, I’d like to ask that the both of you place your partners upon the coffee table, with Mr. Little.”

Margaret glanced at the enigmatic group leader briefly, muttering “so formal,” but nonetheless reaching out to gently set Lionel upon the glass platform. Without so much as a look at anyone else, Laura had brushed her muscular little man into her thin palms, brought him up for a brief kiss, and then transferred him to the low table in the center of the seating as well.

Brent shrieked when Miriam growled, “Hold on, I wanna kiss mine too,” reaching for the disheveled tiny man with writhing sausage fingers, but Barbara snapped her chin up. “Leave him, Miriam,” she said sharply, “please. Let’s begin the session without so much pageantry, if we may.” Frowning, Miriam nonetheless retracted and piled herself upon the overburdened couch.

Thanking Miriam curtly, Barbara turned her attention to the group in general. Margaret and Laura sat prim and alert in their seats, while Miriam reclined and caught her breath. The three men on the coffee table approached each other with diplomatic briskness, shaking hands and making introductions. “I’ve only seen you from across the room,” said Rodney, sizing Brent up. Lionel agreed it was “good to finally meet the other two husbands in this counseling group.” Brent smoothed back his hair and tugged at his shirt, apologizing for his appearance. He shrugged haplessly and nodded his head back at the corpulent mountainside of his wife, and the other two men nodded sympathetically. Far beyond them, their wives watched on with a gently surprised demeanor.

“You charming little men,” Barbara said, eyes twinkling. “I’m sorry we didn’t arrange this sooner.” They laughed nervously and bowed to the therapist, turning attentive. “The reason I needed you fine little gentlemen on your own here is because we’re going to try a new style of therapy today. Do you think you’re up for that?”

“Do we have a choice?” Rodney’s tone was joking, and the other little men nodded and laughed, but their wives shook their heads and looked sympathetically at Barbara.

“None at all,” she said. She let that statement hang in the air for a while. The tiny men shifted from foot to foot and fell silent, and the women’s smiles slowly melted as the seconds ticked on. Barbara, however, wore a fixed grin and stared unblinking at the diminutive figures on her coffee table. “Any time you’re ready.”

Rodney flinched and raised his hands in supplication.

“Thank you,” she said with emphasis, then raised her eyes to the women. “Today we’re going to try a new technique to explore the issues that concern us. I’m going to ask you to talk about your problems and struggles, but we’re going to frame this in a different perspective.” She leaned forward, resting her elbows upon her knees and tenting her long fingers. “It’s a technique called narrative therapy. As the name suggests, you’re going to relate your personal story like it’s any other kind of story. You can even start with ‘once upon a time,’ if you like.” She smirked. “To answer your next question, Rodney.”

The large women looked down at the muscular little man. “I wasn’t going to−” he started, gaping at the towering women, then immediately gave up.

Glancing at Laura, Margaret spoke up. “I’m sorry if this is a dumb question, but I was wondering the same thing, actually. How do we talk about our problems in a story format?”

Barbara’s carved-in-stone expression softened. “Not a dumb question at all, Margaret! Please feel free to speak up whenever I haven’t been clear about something.” She shifted in her seat, clenching her thighs. “All this is, is literally discussing our internal conflict as though we were telling a story. For example, I might say: Once upon a time there was a therapist named Barbara. She was tall and beautiful, but this only masked her own insecurities. Every day, she was worried that people might discover she was a fraud, or worse, that her own incompetence might cause harm to someone else.” She raised a hand against the women’s protest of her self-evaluation. “It’s only an example. Now, let’s say the problem I’m dealing with in insecurity, yes? For this narrative technique, we’re going to externalize our problems for our stories. We’re going to give them their own life and own identity. If I were going to talk about depression, I might use Winston Churchill’s analogy and say ‘The big, black dog has entered the room’.”

“Did he say that?” asked Rodney. Lionel and Brent assured him he had.

“For my insecurity…” Barbara assumed an expression of thoughtfulness. “Let’s call it Harvey. Okay? So, to resume: Barbara woke up this morning, made her breakfast, showered and dressed, and drove to work. But as soon as she opened her office, she found Harvey waiting for her inside. He never went with her on grocery shopping trips, and he never followed her to the gym, but Harvey’s was the first face she saw when she started her work day, and his was the last voice she heard when she went to bed.”

“I’m still not getting it,” said Miriam, balancing her bulbous upper body upon her abundant hips. “Why don’t you just shoot Harvey in the head or something, if he’s just gonna be an asshole to you?”

Barbara smiled gently at her. “Because he’s my insecurity. I can’t get rid of my insecurity with a gun. He’s always there, waiting to trip me up when I’m trying to do my job. Do you know what that’s like,” she asked, gesticulating gently, “having that sense of negativity around you? Like a bad aroma, but made of self-doubt and self-sabotage.”

Laura and Margaret nodded, as though on cue, but Miriam’s blank expression suggested she wasn’t on the same page. “Perhaps if one of the other women could demonstrate this, it’ll come clearer,” Barbara said, looking at the other two.

“I guess we don’t have problems to be discussed,” murmured Brent. Lionel nodded and Rodney said, “Right?” but Barbara kept her gaze well above the low table.

“Well, sure, I’ll go first,” said Laura slowly. Margaret quickly made a gesture as though she were about to speak, if only Laura hadn’t pounced on the opportunity. She shrugged amiably and rested in her seat as Laura composed herself and Miriam stared on earnestly.

“There was a woman named Laura, who cared about her health. She was very good at exercise and very smart with nutrition, unlike her mother, who never turned down a dessert and died at an early age of untreated diabetes.” Laura’s eyes drifted to the side for a moment, and Margaret gently placed her hand upon the smaller woman’s shoulder. “Good health was very important to Laura, and that’s why she pursued a career in nursing and attained certification in nutrition. She even studied other world philosophies of exercise and diet, even though her coworkers found this ridiculous. They worshipped science, you see, but only the Western kind, and not even science as a practice, but Science as an intellectual fortress. They clung to tradition and rejected new ideas, all while congratulating themselves on their intellect. They made Laura feel stupid and useless, laughing at her alternative practices, which had actually been backed up by legitimate research, but they dismissed this updated information.”

Rodney stared at her intently from the table, his tiny hands twitching as though to reach out for her, caress her huge hands, or partially hug her neck as only he could.

“But her little man supported her,” she said, grinning at him. “He believed in her and encouraged her studies, even when he wasn’t sure about them. He exercised with her, and he ate her foods, even when they didn’t taste very good.”

“Baby,” he said. Barbara hushed him, but Laura shared a crumpled grin with him and nodded.

“But as much as he supported her, he was only a tiny man, with a tiny man’s needs.” She slowly pulled back from the table, resting against the hard back of her chair. “He couldn’t drive and do errands, and he couldn’t lift heavy objects or reach things on tall shelves. This was all up to Laura. The irony was that even though she was doing all the hard work and eating all the right things, her body got smaller while his got larger.” She looked up at the therapist. “He wasn’t growing, of course, but his muscles were well developed and he became very handsome, while Laura grew thinner and paler and weaker. She didn’t understand why: she followed all the recipes and did all the workouts, but her little man was the only one who benefited from them.

“And maybe he couldn’t drive, and maybe he couldn’t walk safely around the neighborhood on his own, but Laura knew that he could leave anyway. She knew, as surely as her hips and chest had slimmed to a boyish figure, that all it would take was for any woman with bigger tits—” she glanced at Miriam “—or a better education, a more worldly experience—” she looked at Margaret “—to simply step up and sweep him off his feet, and away he’d go.”

“No, baby, I would never,” Rodney said.

“Mr. Payne, please!” A storm brewed in Barbara’s eyes, and Rodney flinched.

Undisturbed, Laura went on. “Because what did Laura have to offer? She had a career where her coworkers didn’t respect her. She studied far-out, exotic philosophies that came down to eating weeds and dirt. She had the body of a hungry preteen boy, and she knew her little man wanted more. No, he needed more, to be fair.” Deep lines drew around her mouth and her chin dimpled. “He deserved more. He was a good and loyal man, and Laura had been mean to him during sex.”

“Laura,” said Barbara.

“He was so strong and beautiful,” she continued as though she hadn’t heard, “but he couldn’t even overpower this thin, wasting little woman. So she would step on him, gently at first, then harder and harder, until he began to cry out. That’s what made her dried-up pussy turn wet, it seemed. As soon as he cried out and started pleading for his life, when she could feel his tiny body quiver with effort and finally give out, that gave her the best orgasm.” She looked past the group, through the far wall, and into the interminable distance. “Because he looked so great, but ultimately he was weak. And Laura looked weak and frail, but ultimately she could defeat him without any effort. What was the meaning of that? How was that fair?” She laughed, then focused upon the people in the room. “Oh, my Goddess, I’m so sorry,” she started.

“No, Laura, that was excellent.” Barbara was loud and emphatic, and Margaret backed her up.

“That was fucking fascinating,” said Miriam, wearing a half-smile. “Is that what we’re supposed to do? Because I don’t know if I can come up with anything as good as that.” She leaned forward in her seat, her immense boobs flooding her porky, rounded knees. “What did Laura do next?”

Barbara stared at the sexual monstrosity, her jaw hanging for a rare moment before she collected herself. “Take a moment for yourself, Laura. Take a deep breath. Here, do it with me.” She uncrossed her legs but kept her knees primly together, sitting straight up in her stuffed-leather throne, and scooped her palms toward her chest with a theatrical inhale. She closed her eyes, held her breath, and then pushed it out with a sweeping gesture. To her surprise, Miriam also puffed out her breath, imitating her as though hypnotized. “You did some very important work, Laura. That was courageous of you, not just to explore that but to share it with the group.” She nodded at Margaret, who babbled encouraging noises to the slighter woman.

“I don’t know where that came from. I’m so sorry,” Laura whispered. “I would never…” She covered her mouth with both hands and stared at her little husband on the table. Rodney reached out to her but Barbara shook her head with a stern expression.

Rodney turned fully toward the gigantic therapist, stepping in front of the other two little figures. “Come on! She needs me! She was just all vulnerable and stuff. Why won’t you let me comfort her?” His voice was surprisingly harsh: the other two little men flinched and stepped back from him. Miriam watched him, eyes wide, mouth open, as though anticipating a traffic accident in an online video. Margaret, for her part, stared at the back of his shaved head with an intense expression. The tip of her tongue peeked briefly between slightly parted lips as she drew a long, slow breath that filled her blazer.

Slowly, Barbara’s leg raised and hooked over her knee, and her fingers laced around the upper knee securely. “Your chivalrous instinct is admirable, Rodney, but this isn’t the place for it. What we’re going to do instead is let your poor wife get a breather while you tell your narrative.”

The little muscleman froze, confusing creasing his brow. “My narrative? Aren’t we going to deal with what she just said? There’s a lot just hanging−”

Barbara sat up, still holding her knee, and pushed out her chest, nodding her head regally. “Rodney. Who’s in charge of these sessions?”

He frowned. “Well, you, of course.”

“Thank you. Now, are you trying to suggest that I’m incapable of doing my job properly? Or have you come here to tell me how to do my job?” Her thick, sable mane hissed over her shoulders as she tilted her head and fixed her gaze upon him. “You wouldn’t be the first. It seems that any time a woman pursues higher education and receives a degree in any specialty, the one thing she’s guaranteed to encounter is a man with the irresistible compulsion to inform her of the rudiments of her study.” She squirmed in her seat and pressed her lips together momentarily.

“Hey, now, I wasn’t−”

“It’s clear that you have a lot on your mind, Rodney, so why don’t you vent that restless energy in a useful direction? Tell us your story.”

Rodney looked over at his wife: Laura sat back in her seat, hugging herself. Her head hung, setting long, thin strands of baby-fine platinum hair to hang in a fringe that hid her expression. He looked back at the other two men on the table with him. Lionel looked baffled and only shrugged; Brent looked away and scratched incessantly at the back of his head.

Taking a deep breath, Rodney turned himself away from the gigantic therapist and opened himself up to the rest of the room. Beyond the tiny cowards before him loomed their enormous wives, regarding them with rapt expressions. Rodney couldn’t tell whether his insecurity made him perceive mockery in their faces. “Fine, you wanna hear my story? Let’s go.” He clapped his hands and rolled his shoulders.

“Once upon a time, there was a tiny man named Rodney. He was a good kid, never done anything wrong, but his folks didn’t like him. His mother was ashamed of what their friends thought, and his father wanted someone bigger and stronger. Rodney couldn’t do nothing about getting bigger, but stronger he could do. He worked out his whole life, picking up anything he could find and fighting with it until he could overcome it. That became his philosophy.

“One day, he’s working at the gym, and this beautiful woman starts chatting with him. She sees what he’s drinking, a little veggie smoothie, and she’s got all these opinions, right, on what goes into a smoothie. But he knows all the answers, too, because he’s had to. He’s not good at math, and he doesn’t like reading, but he studied what a little body needs to develop and get stronger.

“He sees her again the next week, and then she comes over and finds him the week after that, and then they go out and share a steak. He’s all into her, see, because she knows all the stuff that he’s been studying his whole life, and she knows more. It’s like her job? She starts filling in all the gaps he didn’t even know he was missing, and he starts falling for her. They go out a couple more times, and then she lets him fill her own gap.” He grinned broadly at the other little men. “Not to put too fine a point on it, you know. Nature takes its course.” He shrugged and continued for Margaret and Miriam.

“But then, uh, something changes somewhere. Rodney doesn’t know why, but, uh…” He paused and folded his arms over his chest. “Like Dr. Moon was saying, let’s give it a name.”

“I’m not a doctor,” Barbara said quickly, glancing at the other women.

“Call her Penelope. Penelope’s this little lady, right, and she’s living inside Laura’s head.”

Laura looked up, her hands falling to her lap like snowflakes.

“She ain’t around most of the time, Penelope isn’t. When Laura’s being sweet to Rodney, it’s just them. They cuddle, they joke around. But then Penelope shows up. It’s like she climbs a ladder up Laura’s spine and crawls into her head, like a cockpit. Like she’s flying a bomber or maybe one of those giant Japanese space-robots, you know? Suddenly Penelope’s there, and Penelope’s a little person like Rodney is. But Penelope doesn’t got anything to make her feel powerful. She’s weak, she’s thin, maybe she’s shy, but when she’s hiding inside Laura’s head, she feels like she’s got some power now. And she could never face off against Rodney face to face, you know, but with a gigantic woman to control, yeah, now she can do some damage.”

Margaret and Barbara looked over at Laura, who was leaning forward as though she were having a hard time seeing or hearing Rodney. Miriam said, “This is fucking fascinating! Then what did Laura do?”

Surprised, Rodney rolled with the interruption. “I’m glad you asked, big lady. I’ll tell you what she did. When Rodney and Laura used to be all lovey-dovey in bed, now Penelope’s there and making Laura do mean things. Penelope’s small and wretched, see, so even the sight of Rodney pisses her off. Here’s another little tiny person, she figures, but he’s got muscles. He didn’t just roll over and expose his belly to life. He took charge, he did the best he could with what he had, and he came out on top. That pissed Penelope off, so she grabs the controls and presses Laura’s body down on top of him. Just makes her crawl over and plop her chest down on top of him so he can’t even breathe. She laughs inside Laura’s head, feeling how Rodney struggles, hearing how he’s in pain. Or sometimes she makes the giant woman pin the little man against the wall with her foot, and she masturbates, making him watch. Stomping on him a little bit, crushing his chest, kicking his head around with one toe. Laughing at him.

“And he can’t do nothing about that. Laura’s huge, Rodney’s tiny. He can’t fight her, no way, no how. Laura knows that and she’d never hurt him for all the money in the world. But Penelope’s inside her now, and she’s scared and angry. She uses Laura to make herself feel powerful, and she loves seeing Rodney suffer. Worse,” he said, gulping, “she loves listening to him suffer.”

Barbara stroked her chin. “And what does that look like, Rodney.”

“When he begs for mercy, Penelope just laughs at him. She gets off on it, feeling powerful for once. And when he complains about it, she loves that too.” Rodney turned toward his wife. “Penelope said so. She said it turns her on to hear the little man complaining, begging his wife to be kind to him.” He looked up at Barbara. “She said it arouses her when he talks about his problems in therapy.”

“Goddess,” whispered Lionel. Brent looked up at Laura and saw her cheeks were flushed. He noted that her pupils were huge, too, and her breathing had grown heavier.

“Penelope even said that if Rodney tried to ask the group for help or called the police−” Abruptly Rodney’s throat dried up and he coughed harshly for a few seconds. “I’m sorry, Barbara, I can’t. This is too much.”

“You did very well, Rodney.” Barbara uncrossed her legs and lined her glossy nails upon her kneecaps, pressing her thighs together. “That was very well done. You really pushed yourself and shared some important, deep truths. How do you feel right now?”

“I feel like shit, honestly. I feel like I betrayed my wife for your entertainment.”

“That’s not what happened here, today.”

“No? Then why’re you squirming in your seat like you gotta go to the bathroom? Why you been staring at me like a dog hoping for a chunk of raw meat?” Rodney walked across the table to the edge nearest the therapist. “Why you been picking on both of us tonight? You’re acting really strangely, Dr. Moon.”

“I’m not a doctor,” she said, “and I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about. Don’t deflect. Sometimes a stubborn client just needs a little push to reach a revelation.” She raised her head imperiously. “What is it you gym-monkeys like to say? The real workout begins after you’re exhausted. Isn’t that right?”

Rodney frowned at her but had nothing to say to that. He walked over to the edge by Laura and nodded at her. The frail woman glanced at Barbara for a moment before reaching out for her husband, until her arms froze. Her hands hovered in the empty space between her lap and the coffee table, trembling, until they pulled back. “Laura!” he called to her, but she retreated to the back of her chair and hugged herself tightly. “Fucking Goddess, Barbara, what did you make us do?” He stretched his own arms out toward her, pleading. His wife only shook her head and gasped in hitching breaths.

Barbara briefly pressed her balled fists into her skirt, into her own crotch, before catching herself and digging her nails into her thighs. “I truly believe some significant work has been done today. Would anyone like to share their impressions? Brent?”

“Not for all the silver in Argentina.” He stepped back and turned slightly, as though to shield himself from the heat of her gaze.

“I’ll go ahead,” said Margaret, earning a shocked expression from her husband. “I also feel these two made some significant leaps and bounds. We’re kind of at a disadvantage, since we know the most about Rodney than anyone else.”

Rodney withered slightly, recalling the previous sessions.

Margaret placed one comforting hand upon her edge of the table. “But no, no, that’s good! Rodney’s been terribly brave and incredibly honest with us! Isn’t that right?” She looked over to Miriam for backup, but the large woman was caught in the middle of palming her large breasts and leering at her own little man. “Anyway, I have nothing but admiration for Rodney. It’s hard enough for any of us who can physically defend ourselves from each other, or even walk out of the room when it gets too much. He can’t do any of that, but instead of withdrawing, he’s faced us all down with candor and honesty.” She turned her head toward the little man, staring back at her slack-jawed. “You’re an incredibly brave little man, and I admire you for that.” With her face at such an angle that Barbara and Laura couldn’t see (and Miriam wasn’t paying attention), she winked at Rodney.

Brent was distracted by his wife, swearing and waving his arms to get her to knock off her advances in front of everyone. The only third party to notice this pointed gesture, then, was Lionel, who couldn’t tear his eyes away from his wife’s transformed expression. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d heard that tone in her voice, and it almost seemed as though her hand nearly overshot the edge of the table, wanting to reach out and snatch the musclebound miniature man up in her fist.

Lionel looked over at Laura, a shuddering wreck, then at Miriam’s tasteless overtures toward her own little man. Everyone seemed wrapped up in their own worlds, missing everything going on. Everyone, that is, except Barbara. Yes, the ringleader, the agent provocateur. This session was unlike any of the previous meetings, and if Lionel could permit himself to be a little paranoid, for the time being, it felt as though this session were the first step in an unsavory, unimaginable direction. True, it had been his idea to seek marriage counseling, but he thought he’d vetted Barbara Moon sufficiently and had had confidence in her credentials. What game was she playing now?

Her expression gave little away: the sultry woman in the clingy dress only sat upright in her leathern throne, one quizzical eyebrow raised and shared with the room in general. Her calves, he noted, bulged and relaxed as she raised and lowered her heels in steady flexes, and her fingers looked as though she were about to gouge large chunks out of her powerful, toned thighs. All session long, she’d kept her thighs clamped firmly together, in one position or another, and now she seemed almost antsy.

“Mr. Kelley,” she called out brightly. “You look as though you have something you’d like to say. Shall it be your turn next?”