The heat is on

'Well, here we are,' Samantha said, nudging me hard in the ribs. It hurt, but I pretended it didn't. As I was striving to maintain this husk of toughness, she leaned in and kissed me on the mouth, right in front of the chaperones stationed at the entrance.

'Stop it, Samantha!' protested I. 'Cut it out!'

'Ah, if you knew half the things I'd like to do to you,' she said, shooting me a flirtatious look that almost made up for her pimples, but not quite.

As we entered the dance hall, the buoyant rhythms of Glenn Frey's "The Heat is On" pumped through the darkened room. Samantha and I slipped our way into the thick crowd, fighting through the mass of writhing bodies, saxophone riffs, and the flashing lights that pulsed through the surrounding darkness.

Finally, we found a pocket of empty space amid the chaos. In this strangely intimate setting, Sam suddenly drew me forcefully toward her, breathing hot breath against my neck as she pulled me to her bosom. At this point, an impassioned kiss was inevitable.

At the end of the song, the room grew lighter for an instant; and, as I pulled away from Sam's kiss, I glanced across the room, only to set eyes on an utterly dumbfounded Sharon. Her green eyes were pulled as wide as I'd ever seen them; she stood there, drop-jawed, as if she had completely forgotten Claude Reeves's arm around her waist.