Hide and Seek

moved softly into the kitchen. And I remembered from my childhood how

hard it was to follow the sound of footfalls through the drone of your

own voice counting, echoing inside you.

Twenty-nine. Thirty.

All at once I had the maddening urge to giggle. I resisted it.

Forty. Forty-one.

I felt a tightening in my bladder that wasn't entirely beer.

Upstairs I heard shifting, scraping.

I remembered the softness of the kiss, the playful biting.

I kept counting.

' I