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We talked about mutual friends and acquaintances until the kickoff, after which the game was the sole topic of conversation. The Game, broadly, because every game for the past fifty years lay in the collective memory of Bon Temps, and this game was compared to all other games, these players to all others. I could actually enjoy this occasion a little, since I had developed my mental shielding to such an extent. I could pretend people were exactly what they said, since I was absolutely not listening in.

JB snuggled closer and closer, after a shower of compliments on my hair and my figure. JB’s mother had taught him early on that appreciated women are happy women, and it was a simple philosophy that had kept JB’s head above water for some time.

“You remember that doctor at that hospital, Sookie?” he asked me suddenly, during the second quarter.

“Yes. Dr. Sonntag. Widow.” She’d been young to be a widow, and younger to be a doctor. I’d introduced her to JB.

“We dated for a while. Me and a doctor,” he said wonderingly.

“Hey, that’s great.” I’d hoped as much. It had seemed to me that Dr. Sonntag could sure use what JB had to offer, and JB needed . . . well, he needed someone to take care of him.

“But then she got rotated back to Baton Rouge,” he told me. He looked a little stricken. “I guess I miss her.” A health care system had bought our little hospital, and the emergency room doctors were brought in for four months at a stretch. His arm tightened around my shoulders. “But it’s awful good to see you,” he reassured me.

Bless his heart. “JB, you could go to Baton Rouge to see her,” I suggested. “Why don’t you?”

“She’s a doctor. She doesn’t have much time off.”

“She’d make time off for you.”

“Do you think so?”

“Unless she’s an absolute idiot,” I told him.

“I might do that. I did talk to her on the phone the other night. She did say she wished I was there.”

“That was a pretty big hint, JB.”

“You think?”

“I sure do.”

He looked perkier. “Then I’m fixing to drive to Baton Rouge tomorrow,” he said again. He kissed my cheek. “You make me feel good, Sookie.”

“Well, JB, right back at you.” I gave him a peck on the lips, just a quick one.

Then I saw Bill staring a hole in me.

He and Portia were in the next section of seats, close to the bottom. He had twisted around and was looking up at me.

If I’d planned it, it couldn’t have worked out better. This was a magnificent Screw-him moment.

And it was ruined.

I just wanted him.

I turned my eyes away and smiled at JB, and all the time what I wanted was to meet with Bill under the stands and have sex with him right then and there. I wanted him to pull down my pants and get behind me. I wanted him to make me moan.

I was so shocked at myself I didn’t know what to do. I could feel my face turning a dull red. I could not even pretend to smile.

After a minute, I could appreciate that this was almost funny. I had been brought up as conventionally as possible, given my unusual disability. Naturally, I’d learned the facts of life pretty early since I could read minds (and, as a child, had no control over what I absorbed). And I’d always thought the idea of sex was pretty interesting, though the same disability that had led to me learning so much about it theoretically had kept me from putting that theory into practice. After all, it’s hard to get really involved in sex when you know your partner is wishing you were Tara Thornton instead (for example), or when he’s hoping you remembered to bring a condom, or when he’s criticizing your body parts. For successful sex, you have to keep your concentration fixed on what your partner’s doing, so you can’t get distracted by what he’s thinking.

With Bill, I couldn’t hear a single thing. And he was so experienced, so smooth, so absolutely dedicated to getting it right. It appeared I was as much a junkie as Hugo.

I sat through the rest of the game, smiling and nodding when it seemed indicated, trying not to look down and to my left, and finding after the halftime show was over