Thugs and Kisses by Sue Ann Jaffarian

planned.”
    He chuckled. “Did that change your relationship any?”
    “We had sex a lot the rest of that week and through the end of the summer. In a way we became a couple, but in my mind we were still just friends. I broke it off right before school started. Donny wasn’t happy about it. But I knew he had no intention of making me his public girlfriend, and I wasn’t about to be hidden away like a teenage mistress while he escorted cheerleaders to the dances. Besides, while our summer fling was fun, I had to pick up my regular routine of studying and getting ready for college.”
    I took a drink and adjusted my legs. “He was mad at first, but soon he had a regular girlfriend and forgot about me. Then, a couple of months after school started, rumors circulated that I was a slut. For a while, a lot of boys, especially those from the football team, were asking me out, but I turned them all down. I knew that most rumors die if there’s no fuel to feed them, and soon the rumors about me did stop, especially after Mary Josephs got pregnant and accused one of the math teachers of being the father. Everyone forgot about me after that.”
    “I can imagine.” Dev paused. “Was it the rumors about you that ruined the prom?”
    I took a deep breath and counted to five. We were getting into the ugly territory of my past, the part I had tried to suppress for three decades.
    “No, but they did have something to do with it.”
    I paused again, wondering if I was ready to say what had to be said and knowing it had to come out. Others at the reunion might have already told the police.
    “I went to the prom with Tommy Bledsoe, another nerd and loner. We were lab partners our senior year in biology. Johnette’s date was a shy boy named Curtis, Curtis Johnson, who was killed a few years later in a car accident.”
    “I remember Oliver mentioning Bledsoe’s name last night.” He wrote the name down in his book, then underlined it twice and stared at it. “Is that Thomas W. Bledsoe, the owner of Amazing Games Software?”
    “Yes, that’s Tommy. He was one of the first of the video game pioneers—made a fortune.”
    “Wasn’t his wife killed a few years back? A botched carjacking, I believe.”
    I nodded. “Yes, very tragic. I didn’t know his wife and had lost touch with him. But after that happened, I sent a condolence card to his office and later received a lovely note from him with an e-mail address. We still correspond once or twice a year, just catch-up stuff.”
    “He didn’t attend the reunion, did he?”
    “No. About a month ago, he sent me an e-mail saying he was going to be in Japan on business and was sorry he was going to miss seeing me.”
    Dev leaned forward in his chair, his notebook forgotten. “So, Odelia, tell me what happened at the prom.”
    I got off the sofa and started pacing while I spoke. “A few months before the prom, Donny approached me, saying he really missed me and our special friendship.” I paused and rolled my eyes. “Said he wanted to get together before we graduated.”
    I stopped dead in my tracks, stung by the sudden remembrance that Greg and I had graduated from the same college, just several years apart.
    “What’s wrong, Odelia?” Dev asked with great concern.
    I shook it off. “Nothing worth mentioning.” I started pacing again.
    “Anyway, I stupidly figured, why not? I missed having sex with him and wasn’t interested in having a boyfriend at that time. All I thought about was going to college and working so I could move out of my dad’s house as soon as school ended in June. A little fling was in order.”
    “You were definitely sophisticated for your age, Odelia.”
    “Maybe I was just old for my age. Or maybe I was merely a teenage slut.” I stopped and looked at him. “Looking back, I probably should have found myself an older and experienced lover. It just never occurred to me then that anyone would really want me in that way, except for a horny