No cause for concern

'I don't know, Victoria. I mean, are we talking about separate beds here?'

Victoria laughed. 'Oh, don't worry, Alfie. There's only one, of course. You don't have to be concerned about that.'

'What do you think I was concerned about?'

She laughed again: a pleasing cascade of giggly femininity.

'I'm on the pill,' said she. 'And I'm a virgin. . .you can even check.'

I eyed her skeptically. 'An attractive virgin, on the pill, who proposes sleeping with me (of all people) on the night we meet?'

'That's right,' she said.

'Are you sure you're not just a figment of my imagination?' said I.

A fire seemed to come into Victoria's previously calm brown eyes. 'Would a figment of your imagination kiss you like this?'

After the kiss, I said weakly:

'Why would a virgin have to be on the pill, anyway?'

Then I dropped to the floor.

Imagine that

'I propose,' she crooned--and I could feel her warm breath against my face--'that you stay with me in my room, tonight.'

I don't know, I thought to myself. This seems a bit promiscuous. Is she 'of loose morals'? Might she have a disease? Is she desperate?

. . .Am I?

I gently pried her fingers from my collar, tucked her hair back behind her ears, and tapped my fingers against the desk.