Barbara said something about strings, or superstrings.Barbara said something about strings, or superstrings. Me? I'm just a programmer. Or rather, a Senior Software Systems Engineer, at NASA. Paul was hiking fast. He should with that light pack! Bill began humming some Balkanish songs, while I looked for butterflies. And compared Barbara's beauty ahead of me to theirs. With her fluid motion she was moving up the trail quickly, without seeming effort. Miles went by as my attention flitted back and forth among the butterflies, daddy longlegs, strange mushrooms, and Barbara's hypnotic legs. Barbara was slight, but she was surprisingly strong, as I had discovered during some roughhousing in college. I put on a spurt and caught up with her. I wondered if she was still happy with just one man. She had never let any man date her exclusively. "Hi. So is Bill it for you?" "Ummm." She glanced at my face. "What do you mean?" She looked around to see that Bill was out of earshot. Paul was well ahead. "Well, I mean you were never with just one man before. Does that change with marriage? I was pretty much one guy at a time, so marriage isn't such a big change for me." "Who's happy all the time?" She paused for a moment. "Remember Kevin?" "Sure," I said, "he was the jealous one." "Possessive, not jealous. Once, he almost got me to get rid of the others. We kept in touch even after I met Bill. About a year ago Bill was totally absorbed in a research problem, always logged into the supercomputer center, and I was ravenous, so I gave Kevin a call." "Oh, oh. Did Bill find out?" "I told him. He said it was OK. He knows he can't be all things to me all the time. And I can't to him. Anyway, Kevin liked it so much..." "Didn't he always!" ". |