I Get No Kick from Champagne

GETTING READY (7)

The next morning we all had serious hangovers. I thought that expensive wine didn’t give one hangovers. I thought rich people didn’t have to suffer anything as plebeian as a sick headache. I thought only cask wine gave you hangovers. Well, I was wrong.

Again, I woke up with a male elf pressed up against me, his arms over my torso, his knees up against mine, his calves tangled with mine. And a giant hard-on pressed against my bum. I leapt out of bed so fast, I was nearly sick, as the mild pounding in my head turned into an earth-shattering thunderous thumping.

But Tiltheus was fast asleep. He obviously just needed to attend to an urgent natural function after all that wine. My virtue was safe. Just as well. I shook my head at myself, and then regretted it.

I dragged on my jeans and sweater, and hobbled through to the kitchen. Damo was still asleep in front of the fireplace. But there was the smell of coffee, and it smelled so fantastic I almost went on my knees to thank the Lord. Almost. As it happened, it was Jack was making it, not some divine being. He was, in point of fact, reassuringly human.

“Want some?” He grinned when I reached out wordlessly for the mug. “That bad? Toast?”

I nodded my head very slowly.

As I sat at the table cradling my head, he put a plate of wholemeal toast in front of me, with a tub of butter and some marmalade. As I spread the toast, a second cup of fragrant nectar was slipped under my nose.

“Thank you,” I said. I turned my head slowly to look at him. “How come you’re so chirpy?”

“One of the advantages of being the husband of a vampire.” Husband? So he took the male role? No, I decided, I so didn’t want to go there. Jack was still speaking. “Something about the feeding lengthens life, makes you healthier.”

“Feeding?”

“He’s a vampire,” said Jack tranquilly. “He feeds off me.”

“You know,” I muttered, cradling my head, “two days ago I was just a regular bloke. I didn’t believe in vampires or elves or gateways between the worlds or wizards. Or . . . . ” – and I stopped, just in time. I’d been about to add, “ . . . . . . wondered, after twenty-three years of being straight, whether I had become a screaming queen.” Even I wasn’t that tactless. I sincerely hoped that the thought hadn’t shown on my face.

Clearly it hadn’t, because Jack just smiled at me. “Yes, I felt a bit like that when I met Sam. But it’s amazing how quickly you get used to things.”

I just shook my head, mournfully, and very slowly. “Where’s Sam?”

“He sleeps during the day. He gets very torpid, especially in the morning. Usually, he starts to perk up in the afternoon, and really comes alive in the evening.”

“Isn’t it hard, with your different time cycles?” I asked, curious, and starting to feel a bit better. The heavy artillery in my head had reduced to mere hammer blows.

“We have the evenings together, and I’ve gotten used to sleeping late.”

Damian’s mobile phone started to ring. I knew who it was. We were in deep shit. I rushed over to the phone to pick it up before Damo woke up and blew everything, and handed it to Jack. It said ‘Sonya’ on the mobile’s screen. “It’s Damo’s girlfriend. I’m not here, OK?”

He grinned. “Hello!” he said, as unctuous as an undertaker. “No, I’m afraid Damo is still asleep. Poor lad. He was really shaken up after the accident. No, it’s not serious. Luckily. He should still be able to see out of the one eye. No, you can’t speak to him. Who am I? I, madam, am his personal friend, and I don’t know who you are, but I don’t allow anyone to speak to me like that.” And he disconnected and then switched off the phone. “Poor bugger,” he said, obviously referring to Damo.

“She’s after his money,” I said.

He nodded, man to man. “Love’s a bitch.”

“You seem to be all right,” I pointed out.

He smiled happily. “Yes,” he said reflectively. “But I was married, to a woman, for twenty years, and then in the end, the marriage went sour¹. That wasn’t such a good time.” Talk about understatement. His face was sad and reflective when he said this. “It was pretty good at the beginning, though.” Married. Bugger – that meant that it could happen to me too.

“Well, I’ve just been kicked out of my relationship,” I said dolefully. “Not that I blame her. I still miss her though.”

“Yeah. We all want someone to cuddle, someone to love us and care for us and hold our heads when we feel down and listen to our shit, not to mention, give us good hot sex and all that stuff. So I’m really lucky, because I get all that. And with him being a vampire, it’s a bonus.”

“Why?”

“The feeding is very, um, erotic.”

I could feel myself getting hard. Damn thing has a life of its own. I shifted uncomfortably in the chair, hoping Jack wouldn’t see it. Things were much simpler two days ago, before Jane threw me out. Say something to change the subject, I begged myself. But my brain had died. Probably the few remaining brain cells had been polished off by the alcohol.

Ken came into the kitchen, looking tousled and half-dead. “Never again!” he said, clutching his head.

Jack poured him some coffee. “That’s what you said last time,” he pointed out, quite reasonably, I thought.

“I can easily turn you into a frog, or, even better, an old man. That will test Sam’s passion for you – hard enough to understand in the first place.” He glared dyspeptically at Jack. Jack stared back equably.

“Don’t be tiresome, Ken. Just drink your coffee, there’s a good boy, and get some food down you, and you’ll feel a lot better.”

“Anyway, you did say it last time,” said a golden voice. Ken glared.

Jack said, “Hi, Pauline, how are you?”

“Good,” came the answer. “Ken, take me out of this horrid bag, and put me on the table where I can see everyone.”

Ken took the object that he’d let me use to send my email out of his Gladstone bag, and sweeping a piece of the table clear of crumbs and blobs of marmalade, he put it – her – down. “Pauline, this is Steven. Steve, Pauline.”

I’d read an SF story about AI’s so I knew what it – she – was. She sounded brainy and witty. If she’d been a person, no, let me say that better, if she’d had a body, she would have been one of those gorgeous women I never seemed to be able to connect with, never mind keep. She just seemed as if she would be a totally special woman, sexy, beautiful, warm, humane, all that stuff. Instead she was a matt machine, with the power of hundreds of Earth mega-computers, and some incredibly clever software that made her seem human. But I thought of her as a person, and so did everyone who came in touch with her. She was kinda special. I don’t know how she saw – I saw no eyes, or ears, or mouth. But she could see and hear and speak. There was no obvious power source either. I marvelled at the technology that had created her.

“Nice to meet you, Steve,” she said. “You have lovely eyes. I like that colour. Like emeralds. Cat’s eyes. And your hair – those curls and that chestnut shade. Lovely. You’re very handsome.”

I muttered something, my face scarlet. But how can you not have a soft spot for anyone – any thing – that flatters you so outrageously?

“I’ll go and wake up Tiltheus,” I said, pouring a cup of coffee for Til, and fleeing the room in embarrassment. Til liked it ridiculously sweet, with three spoons of sugar. I didn’t stop to think that I knew how much sugar he took in his coffee, though I could never remember how much sugar Jane took in hers.

I took the mug through to the bedroom. Tiltheus was still asleep, his body now spread out across the whole bed, at an angle. I looked down at him feeling an unexpected rush of tenderness. I resisted the urge to tousle his hair, and patted him on the shoulder instead.

“Coffee,” I said, brightly.

He started to mutter stuff in Greek. I answered in the same language and suddenly his eyes opened, and he yawned. He looked like a cat. Despite it being morning, and far too much wine the night before, he looked fine. I sighed. I always looked like a rat’s arse in the morning.

“I don’t know how I will live without this stuff when I go back,” he said.

“You’re a being of the light. Can’t you make it?”

“We cannot use our power for our own benefit.”

“Even if you’re dying?”

“Well, yes, in that case. But if you are just sick, or in pain, you must endure it, so that you get to feel what it is like for those who do not have this power. It keeps us humble.” Yes, I thought, for a prince and an angel, you are, well, not humble, but certainly not up yourself. Hmm. Perhaps I should rephrase that last bit.

“Pull on your pants and come to the kitchen.” I went back, leaving him to his own devices. There was the sound of the toilet flushing, and he came through a moment or two later, tying up the thongs on his leather trousers, and accepted a second cup of coffee. Good, I thought, that’s taken care of that offending object. It had been on my mind a bit.

“We’ll need a few provisions”, said Jack in a business-like way. “Backpacks, decent boots, and clothes which fit in with the customs of your world, but can be made here.”

Tiltheus was enthusiastically pouring himself his second cup of coffee, and vigorously buttering toast, so for a moment he didn’t reply. “I’ve seen your technology. It’s awesome, almost as good as our magic. Does that apply to backpacks and boots?” I thanked the stars that Dr Wang had magically taught us each other’s language. I would not have relished acting as translator. Which reminded me – Sam and Jack would have to learn Rhistênika too.

“Yeah, and sleeping bags. But the question is, would that make us stand out too much? We don’t want to raise suspicions, and we emphatically do not want anyone from ‘across’ to suspect that there is a portal. That would be disastrous. And making things by magic leaves an aura on them for a while, which another wizard or magic adept can pick up. There’s that to consider, too.” Ken was thoughtful, his grumpiness forgotten.

Just then Damian groaned and sat up. Jack poured him some coffee and I took the mug over to him.

While he was drinking it I asked, all innocence, “Did you tell Sonya where you were last night?”

He spluttered into his coffee. “Oh, shit!” I didn’t tell him she’d phoned – after all I wasn’t even supposed to know. He got up in a hurry, and was all ready to leave without breakfast, but we all strongly advised him to eat something before he faced his angry better half.

“You’ll have enough problems without going hungry,” said Ken. “I know – I’ve been there.” I later learned that he was a hopeless romantic, always falling for the wrong sort of woman, who used and abused him and then hung him out to dry. Poor Ken, he was so tough and ruthless on the outside and would turn to instant squidge at the sight of a nice cleavage.

So Damo stayed for toast and vegemite, and then raced off, cursing the fact that we’d taken the tram there, so his car was still at my flat.

“I doubt he’ll be coming with us,” said Tiltheus peacefully. I nodded. I knew Damo and I knew Sonya, and short of nuclear war, Damian would do what he was told. I very much suspected that he wouldn’t get leave of absence.

“If you want to shower, there are towels in the linen cupboard at the end of the passage,” said Jack. I went off to shower, and Tiltheus came and joined me.

“Til,” I said, embarrassed, “ in this world, we don’t shower together unless we are lovers.”

“Why not?” he asked, surprised, and discomfited.

“It’s very, um, intimate.”

“Your world is afraid of intimacy. It’s not the same thing as sex, you know.”

“I know,” I said, very uncomfortable with this conversation. “But we are worried that intimacy will lead to sex. So it is a no-no.”

“Stupid,” was all he said, shaking his head in disgust. And he was right. But I knew that if we showered together, and I brushed against him or he brushed against me, I would get a boner and then intimacy would become sex. And I was frightened by that. Not, and I had to be honest with myself, not that I didn’t want sex, maybe even with a strange alien male elf, a frigging prince and an angel. But because I couldn’t handle the knowledge about myself that that would reveal. I had been taught, not by what grandpa said, but by what he didn’t say, that male-on-male romance and sex were beyond the pale. And that had been reinforced by all the crude sexist comments of a typical state school. I remembered to my shame being cruel to a guy we suspected of being gay – just because he was a bit queeny. I knew beyond any doubt that Tiltheus would think badly of me for having done something like that. And I wanted him to think well of me. I wanted Jack and Sam to respect me too, to make music with me, not to feel uncomfortable because they were with a redneck homophobe. I wished that I could be as relaxed about it all as Tiltheus and Ken and Sam and Jack were, though I got the strongest feeling that in Tiltheus’s world, it really didn’t matter, whereas Jack and Sam had had to fight themselves and those around them to get where they were.

I tried to make amends. “Til, it’s not you, it’s just . . . . . .”

“Yes?” he said, a bit grim, and I quailed.

“Oh, Til,” I almost wailed, “I like you so much, but I just, well, I’ve never . . . .”

“What?” he growled impatiently.

“I’ve never, um, slept with another man.”

“You slept with me last night,” he said, staring at me as if I’d gone batty.

“I mean,” and I blushed furiously. I could barely say it. “I mean, made love to.” I was staring determinedly at the ground.

“Your world has some good things, Steve, but jeez, you are so stupid. What the hell difference does it make?”

“None,” I muttered, totally freaked out. “With my intellect, I know it’s irrational, but emotionally, I can’t get round it. It would be easy if I didn’t like you so damn much. If you were just beautiful, it wouldn’t matter. But it’s like having a really good friend who is also incredibly sexy all rolled up into one.”

A slow smile built on his face. “You dill. What does it matter? Liking is what matters – sex is just a, I don’t know, a bonus. Yeah, sex is great, earth shattering, all that stuff. I don’t mind that you guys are all tight-arsed narrow-minded cretins.” (Tight-arsed! Damn, this guy had a way with words!) “But I do mind that you’re afraid to be friends because you think I’m good-looking. Which by the way, I don’t think is at all true. Get over it, Stevie-babe! And,” he said with an evil grin, “now I know why you didn’t want to shower with me!” He ruffled my hair, and said, “Me first in the shower.”

“Why?” I said, glad that was over, but determined to make a fuss just for the show of it.

“’Cos I’m the prince, and you,” he flicked me on the chin, “ are the pauper. But you can shower with me, if you’re not too chicken.”

I gave him a reluctant smile, and passed over one of the towels.

“Prince, angel or queen,” I said threateningly, enjoying the double entendre, “if you use all the water, you’ll be so dead, Tilly me darlin’ ”

“Don’t call me Tilly.”

“Never would I do such a thing, Tilly,” I said with a mad urge to giggle. I went away, singing, loud with relief, “Tilly is me darlin’, me darlin’, me darlin’, Tilly is me darlin’, and so say all of us.”

Sam was still in bed when we left for the shopping expedition, but he was awake when we returned towards five o’clock, laden with hi-tech backpacks and sleeping bags. We had decided to dress like the locals and Dr Wang was going to make us some temporary clothes until we could buy some that fitted (and would last) from the natives. Sam opened the door before we got there – it turned out that a vampire has extra-normal hearing, sight, and also the power to compel people to do things if he wanted to. Jack assured me that he seldom used compulsion because he felt that it distorted his relationships with the humans around him, and he thought that there were enough problems with that as it was.

I rang Damo’s mobile from mine. “Well, what was the damage?”

Damo groaned. “She’s not speakin’ to me.”

“Are you still coming with us?”

“Yeah.” But he sounded doubtful.

“Well,” I said, “we’ve just got to get the money and then we’re off. We’ll travel by night, some of the time, because of Sam, and if we go by day, he’ll have to be fully covered so that he’s protected from the sun’s rays. So we may as well leave tonight. Damo,” I paused, “I’d really like you to come.”

“What about Mr beautiful fucking angel-prince?”

I couldn’t believe it. Damian O’Malley was jealous – of Tiltheus!

“How long have I known him and how long have I known you, Damian?”

“Exactly. But you’re all over him . . . .”

“OK, Damo. Who was there for you when you when Andrea dumped you in front of the whole class, and called you a fat, dildo loser with dog-breath? Who coached you through French so that you actually passed? Who fought at your side when the Sullivan gang beat the living shit out of you?”

“Weren’t much help, were you?” he grunted.

“Yeah, well, they were big buggers. But I was there wasn’t I?”

“Well, you and he are so chummy. . . . . .”

“I don’t have any other friends any more, Dame,” I said very quietly. “Are you telling me you mind if I get one?”

“Well, no, but what if . . . . .”

“Nothing is going to happen, Damian.” I immediately spoilt the certainty of this by adding, “But if it does, you’ll still be my best friend. You’ll always be my best friend. For fuck’s sake, Damo, you’ve been my best friend since grade five. What is wrong with you?”

Damo sighed. “Yeah, I know, I’m such a dill. But I was worried.”

I was touched. I’d always thought of Damian as so self-sufficient, self-reliant, as if I was the one who needed the friendship, whereas he could go out and find anybody.

“Damo, you are my closest friend. And no one is going to take that away.” I couldn’t tell him that I loved him. That went against everything that I’d learnt consciously and unconsciously, but that’s what I meant, and he knew that that was what I was saying.

“When are you leavin’?” he asked, back to normal.

“Dunno,” I said. “I’ll ring you when we’ve got the coins.”

I discovered afterwards that Sam wasn’t the only one with good hearing. Elves have much better hearing than humans, and better sight, too. Those two slimy buggers had heard everything I’d said. In fact, Til had heard Damo and me talking at Damo’s house. Both of them knew exactly what was going on. I could tell when I went through to the sitting room, and they both looked at me ostentatiously unperturbed, but also (while trying not to show it) concerned.

It suddenly came to me that they knew. Bugger it. “Can’t a bloke have a conversation with his friend without all you bloody old women listening?”

Jack grinned at me. “I have to take my phone to the end of the street when I phone my lovers,” he said, smirking at Sam. Sam just rolled his eyes. I was a bit pissed off, to tell the truth, so I went through to the bedroom. Til followed me through.

“Sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have.”

“No,” I said.

“I won’t try and take you away from your best friend,” he said, very quietly.

“What makes you think you could?” I replied, truculently.

“I’m just telling you. I value the bonds of friendship more than anything. I know how much he means to you.”

“Yes. We’ve been best friends since . . . .”

“ . . . . grade five. Whatever that is. I know. I heard, remember!” He paused for a moment. “And thank you for being my friend. I don’t have many, except for some former lovers, and even then it’s difficult, because I’m a prince and people always want things from me. You’re the first friend I’ve had who doesn’t want anything, not even . . . . .” He gave me a sly grin. I couldn’t help grinning back. Damn the man. Elf. Whatever.

Sam shouted through from the sitting room, “If you two lovebirds have finished, perhaps we could go and get some coins.”

“OK, coming,” I yelled back.

“Glad to hear it,” said Sam, very dryly. I was in a house of perverted sex-craved madmen. Why didn’t it bug me more?

The goldsmith we went to see lived in Mt Macedon. Sam phoned, and he invited us all to supper and if we wanted, to spend the night. It’s about an hour’s drive from Lygon St to Macedon, but we guessed that we would not be in a fit state to drive back, so we accepted the offer with alacrity, and took the new hi-tech sleeping bags.

The goldsmith lived in small stone house, overhung with huge, ancient oaks and lindens and elms. There was deep, loud barking when we arrived, but there were no signs of a dog when the door was opened. Standing there was a tall man, with a thick beard and wiry, bushy hair, in a mass of different colours, almost like a dog, the hair one colour at its base, and another at its tip. His eyes were a watchful brown, but as soon as he saw Sam and Ken, his face lit up and he hugged them fiercely. If he’d had a tail, he would have wagged it. His name was Jeremy. Of course, in that crowd of misfits and freaks, I should have guessed. But Sam had to tell me. He said that he had had to ask Jeremy’s permission first – he was a werewolf. And so was his wife, Fiona, who had darker hair, almost like a black Alsatian, and darker eyes, just as watchful. When Sam and Jack and Ken all said that we could be trusted, they both relaxed.

It came to me then how hard it must be to be an outsider, always watchful for danger and hostility. Starting with gays, whom I’d teased at school, and mocked behind their backs since then, moving on to the other mysterious creatures of the shadow world. Yet they were all good ‘people’, sensible, friendly, and seemingly kind and loyal. I wondered why we had to be frightened of these differences when they were such fun. I wished Damo were here to share the experience. I’d decided Damo needed to have his mind broadened and his outlook expanded. He was getting stuffy. Either that, or I was being liberated.

I grinned at Til. “How’re ya doin’, Til the dill?” This is masculine for, ‘you’re my mate, and I like you’. He understood perfectly.

“My piles . . . .” he began straight-faced, before he began to grin.

I gave him the finger. “You should steer clear of arse-bandits,” I said, teasing. He started to laugh. He had a very infectious deep laugh, and the others wanted to know what we were talking about, but Til just shook his head. Afterward we kept on catching each others’ eyes and smiling.

The goldsmith worked only for those who belonged to the underground community, like him and his wife – werewolves, werebears, wizards, witches, elves, vampires and such. All the outsiders that I’d been thinking of. Ken and he discussed the transaction, and Ken took Til’s coins from him and gave them to Jeremy. Sam gave Jeremy a cheque. Then Fiona poured us some homemade elderberry wine. I expected it to be disgusting, and it wasn’t – it was delicious and sharp, like a cool spring morning when the sun is shining and you know it will be warm later. Apparently, the early settlers, longing for Blighty, had planted elderberries, hawthorn, oaks, beeches and other British trees, so that they could feel at home. And Fiona liked making homemade wines.

“There’s some homemade peach brandy for afterwards, if you want,” she said, pleased with our compliments. Then we all had some more drinks, and later on she served delicious meat pies and, surprisingly, vegetables.

When Fiona went through to do the washing up, I went through too, and Til followed me. We chatted and laughed together as I washed, Til dried and she put away. It could have the aftermath of any suburban dinner party, except that Jack and I were the only humans in the house. It was absurdly pleasing and satisfying to relax into the strangeness. I wondered whether Tiltheus thought that this was normal for our world, and because it was all new, wasn’t bothered, or whether he realised how deliciously strange it all was. I suppose our whole world was odd, to him, yet he seemed completely unfazed by anything. I wondered if I would have been so calm if I had fallen through into his world. Probably not, I decided.

Sam went out to the car, and brought in the sax and the guitar case. “Time to sing for our supper,” he said as he went past me.

“Me?” I squeaked in terror. He just looked at me. So I went back into the kitchen, which was warm and private, and started doing my warm-up exercises.

“Me, ma, me, ma, me, ma, me, ma,” several times, up and down one and a half octaves. And “mmm-ma, mmm-ma, mmm-ma” as far up and down as I could reach. And “rrrr-ru, rrrr-ru, rrrr-ru.” From the sitting room, I heard the sound of the guitar being tuned to the saxophone, and then after ten minutes or so of exercises, I went back into the sitting-room.

“Well, bard, what shall we sing?” Sam cast me an ironic glance.

“ ‘I get no kick from champagne’.”

The guitar started, and the sax came in, with perfect harmony. The advantage of being lovers – like Simon and Garfunkel. It was as if they were in each other’s minds.

“I get no kick from champagne

Mere alcohol doesn’t thrill me at all

So tell me why should it be true

That I get a kick out of you?”

As I sang ‘you’ I caught Tiltheus’s eye, without meaning to, and almost lost the thread of the song at the look on his face.

We did several old Glenn Miller and Tommy Dorsey pieces, then some busker favourites, and then, fuelled by peach brandy, everybody joined in and we had a real sing-along. It was one of the best evenings I ever experienced. I wondered why I hadn’t done this sort of thing before.

It was late when all the men went outside for a communal piss. I hadn’t done that since the school camp in the mountains in year ten. It was nice. The air was bitterly cold – we were high up, and the sky was cloudless. Winter came earlier here in the mountains than it did in Melbourne. Six streams of warm piss steamed in the frosty air.

Inside, we spread our sleeping bags out in front of the fire, while Sam and Jeremy went off to make the coins. Sam wouldn’t be able to sleep for a while, and Ken seemed to have told Jeremy that it was urgent that we set off on our journey. The metalworking tool shop was out the back of the cottage, and as we lay down to sleep we could hear the muted clang of metal hitting metal and smell the acrid odour of hot metal. It was oddly lonely not to be sleeping with Tiltheus, even though we were side by side in our bags.

In the morning when we woke it was chilly indoors, and outside there was a hoar frost on the grass. But the sky was a perfect baby blue, made just a little hazy with the smoke from all the fires in the houses and cottages spread through the eucalyptus forest round us. There were three reasonably large sacks of coins, one of gold coins and the other two of silver. They were surprisingly heavy. We lugged them out to the boot of the car. Then we said our goodbyes and thankyous and set off back to the city. Once again Tiltheus sat in the middle, and once again he put his arm across my shoulders. This time, I leaned into it a little, and enjoyed the feel of his firmly knit ribcage and the lean muscles of his shoulder and arm against my body.

Jack was driving, with Sam completely hidden under sweaters, long trousers and boots and a large floppy hat. He also put some stuff on his face, which I assumed to be sunscreen or its vampire equivalent, and was wearing dark glasses. He sat in the back (we were driving toward the sun) on the right (southern) side of the car. Jack was a little worried about him, and asked him softly whether he would be all right. Their mutual love and affection was so strong it was almost palpable. It made me feel warm inside. But I began to worry about how Sam would cope in Tiltheus’s world. There might be advantages in being a vampire, not the least of which was the, um, erotic feeding. But there were some pretty obvious disadvantages, too. And I didn’t think that a long life was such a big deal. You would lose all your friends, and everybody that you loved would die before you. Then I began to wonder how long elves lived, and remembered Tiltheus saying that he was nearly thirty, while he looked nineteen. For the first time, it became real to me. I was seriously considering a relationship with a creature that might live three times as long as me, that was from another world, from this universe or another, and was of the wrong gender. It was all too much. So I went to sleep, and when we got to my flat, found to my dismay and embarrassment that I had dribbled all down Tiltheus’s neck.

I don’t know why I didn’t head straight for the Shady Acres Retirement Home right then.

<<Chapter 6            Chapter 8>>