Driving away, Dallas found himself weighing the question, as if he really had a choice. Admitting that there had never been, not since he let the girl fondle his cock in the dark of the party, he moved the bug through light traffic and pointed it to the hamburger stand where he, often had dinner.

Parked there, he gave the kid his order and watched her ripe hips swing away, wondering if he’d turned into an ass freak. He had been turned on, that was for sure; his entire body felt more alive than it had been since he left Nam, and that in itself had been a second birth. Only the marriage he’d had with Wanda didn’t get reborn, and it wasn’t that she had been shacking with some other guy while he was dodging Cong bullets.

Dallas could have accepted that; he’d swung with Viet whores whenever he got a chance, any time the outfit pulled back to a rest area. Which wasn’t all that often, he recalled, being a grunt Marine had its drawbacks, the main one seeming to be staying where the shit was flying until you got a sack of it in the head.

“Your goodies, Mr. Bradburn,” the carhop purred, intimating that her own goodies were much, much richer. He didn’t doubt that, and returned her grin, but no more. When she hesitated at the car door, he bit into his sandwich and busied himself until she turned away. He had enough girl troubles.

His ex-wife just didn’t dig hanging around until he completed his master’s on the GI bill. She wanted fun and kicks and whatever else the other guy could give her, so Wanda simply split. She didn’t even leave a note saying she was sorry.

And that, he conceded as he wolfed clown the hamburger and chased it with milk, was enough to give any man a solid kick in the balls. It had taken him damned near six months to reach out and try again with a chick. Mostly, that had been because he was tired of wet dreams and not all that eager to prove he was a stud again.