Hot Tub Love Machine
By Redsliver
Chapter 10
* * *It only took one lap pacing the living room to finish off my cupcake. They were now over 24 hours old, having long transitioned to be more crumbly than creamy inside. Still good. The chocolate icing was hard. It wasn’t enough to keep me distracted.
I had closed the heavy glass patio doors, not just the netting one. I could’ve been listening. I could’ve been not-freaking-out by eavesdropping and figuring out what was going on. Or I’d have heard something that made me really panic.
The lights of a car going down the street washed across the living room and I looked down at my naked cock. Limp, but he had fired twice tonight. But I was naked. Out of my bedroom! Out of the washroom! Mom’s not coming home! Cool down, Lucas.
I yanked the front room curtains closed. I stepped back from the windows. I took a deep breath.
Rap! Rap! Rap!
Emi made me jump when she knocked on the patio door. I twisted, letting my heart come down out of my throat. She smiled, licked the window, and had her tits pressed flat and hard against the glass. I’m amazed that I saw Iggy giggling and Dawn eye-rolling behind Emi’s shoulders.
“For fuck’s sake, crazy…” Anna pushed the door opened and I saw her face flush red when she met my eyes. She scratched her belly, preventing herself from covering her tits.
“Can you go get us towels so we don’t drip all over your floor?!” Ray shouted from behind everyone.
“Oh!” Emi stepped back and out of the doorway. Dawn and Iggy piled up into Emi’s shoulders.
“I’ll be right back!” I shouted and ran down to the hall closet. I grabbed the beach towels, bright colors and lots of silhouettes of sharks and jellyfish. Everything dangerous we got at the beach… What was wrong with Mom? I asked, thinking about the Pure Love Potion. I was smiling when I walked back to the patio doors.
“Thank you!” Emi said, picking the first one from my arms. A parade of thank yous followed, the girls immediately started rubbing down their skin and patting out their hair. Dawn, who seemed happiest with the wettest hair, wrapped her pink, orange, and gold towel around herself first.
“No way!” Emi laughed, reached over, grabbed the towel fold with her hand dipping between Dawn’s tits, and yanked the towel to the ground.
“There’s no escape,” Ray sighed. She folded her towel and set it on the kitchen table.
“Do you have a hair dryer? What am I asking. Of course you don’t. Your mom’s probably got like eighty though,” Anna said and threw her towel messily atop of Ray’s and jogged down to my mom’s room and the master bathroom.
“Wait for me!” Iggy hurried after Anna. Iggy’s towel fluttered behind her like a flag in her left hand.
Emi swaggered past me and shoved her towel to my chest. “Don’t worry, I’ll go after them and…” she stepped beyond me and tapped Ray on the tip of her nose, “lesbian stuff.”
“Oh my god!” Ray dropped her face into her hands.
“Should I come and see?” I asked, smiling brightly.
“No!” Iggy shouted from down the hall. “If Emi gets weird, I’ll bring her out so you can have her!”
“You know what it means to have a girl?” Anna asked, not shouting, but loud enough that I would hear too.
“Oh, fuck off!” Iggy laughed. “He knows better.”
I inferred those last three words. Her voice didn’t quite carry from Mom’s room.
“You guys are OK with wet hair?” I asked. I turned to Dawn and Ray, the only two remaining out with me. Dawn looked at Ray and dragged her fingers through Ray’s black hair.
“Your hair gets really curly, doesn’t it?”
“I wish I had my straightener…” Ray stepped back.
“Really?” Dawn lifted her hair. “I wish I could even have curls.”
“Well, if you didn’t shave down there,” Ray said, frowning and insinuating. She stepped back from Dawn. She gestured from bare vagina to half-mast cock. Four eyes on my dick and he twitched.
“Gross,” Dawn scrunched her nose. My cock lost a little of his oomph! “At least he’s big enough.” Dawn tilted her head and just eyed my cock with an intensity that frightened me, but just helped my cock to shine in the spotlight. “No hair in our teeth. I don’t know how boy’s would even want to…” she licked the air twice, “if we didn’t shave, you know?”
Ray looked down at her own pussy hair. She frowned at Dawn.
“I mean—” Dawn finally looked up at me and her eyes went wide and her lips shivered. “Uh… Shit…”
“It doesn’t get in the way of shitting,” I said, trying to joke. Ray glared at me.
The sound of hair dryers, plural, started from down in Mom’s room.
“You wanna go to the couch and—”
“Bedroom!” Dawn crossed her arms. She scratched her chin. “If we’re going to flirt and cuddle and stuff. That couch lets too many others get in on it.”
“Let’s go to the couch, please?” Ray said. “If you want to take someone to your bedroom, I can high five you and stay out here. OK?”
“OK!” I said. I wrapped my arms around Dawn and Ray’s hips and led them to the living room. Dawn snatched the towels from the table and then snuggled back under my arm. Dawn and Ray blanketed down the couch with towels so we wouldn’t get it wet. I dropped down in the middle. Dawn dropped down on my left side. She snuggled in, her fingers running circles in my chest hair. Ray watched.
“Plenty of chairs if you want to watch and that’s it…” I assured her.
“Well, I maybe, don’t, only, want to watch,” Ray said, stammering. She turned her head and looked down the hallway.
I say living room, kitchen, dining room, hall, and porch, but the whole area was one open room with differing patches of carpet or tiles or hardwood separating each. Anna was bounding down the hall as Ray was making her decision. Anna wasn’t quiet, I looked over the back of the couch to see her. She hopped, cartwheeled forward, and did a handspring to pivot over the back of the couch and land hard on my lap, balls, and half the couch.
“Oh, so sorry!” Anna squealed as she slid off of me and hovered not touching anything.
“I’m…” I took a long and unsteady breath. There had been a small spike of pain but I was fine.
“I’ll grab you a glass of water!” Ray ran off.
“What happened?” Iggy said, coming down the hall.
“Anna leg-dropped Lucas’s dick!” Dawn explained through a laugh.
“Oh my god, is my date OK?”
“Ice cream and movies are still a go,” Dawn said, reaching down and lifting my dick. I flinched in her hand and she immediately dropped me. “The second half of your date seems fine.”
“Dawn!” Iggy flushed red and puffed out her cheeks.
“What?” Dawn asked.
“I—Uh, it’s not about sex! It’s about… Love…” Iggy muttered and looked away from everyone. I almost was able to get up and hug her.
“I’m so-oo sorry!” Anna pythoned me again. “Want me to kiss it and make it better?”
“I don’t think Iggy would like that…” I answered, politically.
“It’s just a kiss!” Iggy said. “I let them hug you.”
“Really?” Anna beamed. “Sweet!”
“What’s everyone’s favorite cheerleader so happy about?” Emi asked. She swaggered out to join us. Her hair was swooshing beautifully around her gorgeous smile.
“She wanted a kiss from—Oh holy shit!” Iggy squealed as she turned and saw Anna face down in my crotch. I put my hands back over the back of the couch. I wasn’t going to push her off, and I’m sure pushing her down would’ve been a recipe for disaster.
“Mwah!” Anna over acted as her warm wet lips smacked the tip of my cock. I missed a breath. Dawn pinched me and I exhaled.
“What the hell was that?” Iggy fumed.
“She asked if she could kiss it and make it better,” Ray said. “If you’re not OK with all of this you need to start paying better attention.”
“Right, I—” Iggy blinked a few times. “I’m not ready for that, but it’s cool that Anna is. Woo!”
I just looked at Iggy who punched two fists near vertically. Her breasts bounced with her heels coming off the carpet. She slapped her hands down on her hips, elbows stabbed out Supergirl style. “Well birthday boy, what’s next?”
“Orgy?” Ray huffed.
“I don’t think so,” Emi said, quietly, laughing next to Ray. I heard Emi, but that’s surprising because…
“No! I don’t think so!” Dawn shot off the couch and out from under my arm.
“I’m way not ready for something like that,” Iggy shook her head madly. “Besides, I mean, none of us are gay and I’d be the only one with Lucas…”
“Of course, sweetheart,” Anna cuddled in on my side. “Are you going to keep his other side warm or is Dawn coming back?”
“I think... I may have played a little hard,” Dawn said. “I’m going to take a breather.”
“Emi, you sit down next to Lucas,” Iggy said, flumping backwards into the armchair.
“Sold!” Emi rushed me, hopped over my knees and landed ass out off the sofa. She squatted her ass down on her ankles. “Hey!”
“Hi!”
“Um, yeah,” Ray chuckled and looked around. Dawn was on the loveseat, ankles pressed against her butt and her knees on the cushion. Dawn was the only one not advertising their genitals to the room. Ray sat primly down next to Dawn. She rubbed her knees together, trying to decide whether to keep her knees shut or cross her legs.
“So!” Iggy slapped the armrests. “It’s still your birthday weekend—”
“His birthday week,” Anna beamed.
“His birthday month!” Emi said. Anna blushed as she looked around.
“I don’t think we’re giving him a whole month of what’s-happening-tonight decisions,” Iggy laughed.
“You don’t want a birthday month for yourself?” I asked.
“Well, it’s not really fair, right? Dawn and Anna share September and Ray and Emi share May. They wouldn’t get one,” Iggy said.
“I just need a week,” Anna said. I looked at her and she blushed. “15 days?”
I laughed. “Alright, I think, being naked is making us all really silly.”
“I dunno,” Dawn said. “Besides Anna flipping over the couch and Emi going weird on my boobs and stuff, it seems like every other Saturday, but nakeder.”
“More naked,” Ray corrected.
“Much more,” Iggy laughed. “Oh my god, I’m naked!”
“Congrats,” Emi said, flicking a look over her shoulder. She then turned back to me. Emi’s fingers settled on my shoulder and she had cut off the rest of the room from me and her. Though Anna snuggled in.
“So what are we going to do tonight?” Dawn said. “I don’t mind hot tubbing again later, but… Games?”
“Spin the bottle?” Anna suggested.
“Yeah, but when the bottle points at me, you better aim for these lips,” Iggy pointed at her mouth. Anna flushed red.
“No, that’s juvenile,” Dawn said. “Just because we’re naked, doesn’t mean we’re only going to do sex stuff from now on, right? We’re still friends. Boring movie watching friends.”
“What movie do you want to watch Dawn?” Emi said.
“It’s Lucas’s birthday and he doesn’t like horror the same way I do and—”
“Yeah, because he doesn’t want hot naked girls scare-jumping all over him? Maybe he can cum on someone else’s tits,” Ray grumbled.
“Are you alright?” I asked. “We can tone it down.”
“No,” Ray said. “But, don’t tone it down. It’s cool you guys are way ahead of me. I don’t mind catching up a few weeks later or something. I’ll just stay over here with Dawn.”
“Dawn jumps and squeezes you more than anyone else,” Iggy said. “Why did you cum when I put your di—on Anna’s shoulders?”
“You kidding?” Emi answered. She twisted hard and fell bodily across my lap and Anna’s. She rubbed her shoulder blades against my cock. “He’s a boy. You and Dawn were the first girls to ever play with his pecker.”
“Wait! Dawn?” Iggy said.
“With my foot,” Dawn said, letting her bangs fall forward. “When I was sitting on Emi’s lap in the tub.”
“Really?” Iggy grumbled. “You see Anna’s vagina first. Dawn gets you off…”
“He couldn’t help it!” Emi declared. “Boys need a lot of practice and love to not go off immediately.”
“Theo didn’t,” Anna and Ray said. Anna continued. “He kinda... panicked, and went at it for a while before giving up. He was nervous.”
“Yeah…” Ray frowned. She made sure not to risk eye contact with Anna.
Anna was red, but from hurt and anger. I grabbed her head and kissed her hair. She turned at me and smiled.
“She’s forgiven,” Anna said. “Really forgiven. Just because it still hurts a little doesn’t mean I’m going to half-ass anything that important for you.”
“OK...” I said.
“How much practice?” Iggy said.
“A-a-a-and we’re not watching a movie,” Dawn collapsed back into the loveseat.
“What do you mean?” Ray said.
“A bunch of practice,” Emi said. “It’s different with every boy.” She wiggled herself. “He’s doing OK right now, but he already went twice pretty recently.”
“I’m right here,” I said. “I think—”
“Sh…” Anna put a finger on my lips. She put hers on my ear. “Let Iggy wind herself up. She won’t hurt herself and you’ll love it.”
“But…” Emi tapped her lips and rolled her back against my cock. “He’s got another quickfire in him, I’m sure of it.”
“So…” Iggy said. “Wow… Does that mean? No, that’s stupid…”
“It’s not stupid,” Emi said, with a shark’s smile. “You don’t know, either. You wouldn’t be surprised if Dawn had questions! I went to Anna before I lost mine, you know! Iggy, whatever you were thinking: say it.”
“That tomorrow, our first time’s gonna suck?” Iggy said. My shoulders slumped. Her eyes went wide and she leaned forward waving her hands back and forth in apology. “Not suck! Not suck!”
“Sucking would get that awkward quick first time out of him so you could take your time after,” Ray suggested with a shrug.
“She says from experience,” Anna sniped. I looked at the blonde with impatience. “It’s good to have experience. Hire her for blowjob specialist.”
“I’m not doing anything for money!” Ray huffed. Dawn rubbed Ray’s back with her left hand.
“OK, wrong diversion,” I said. “Iggy, tomorrow will be amazing, I will do everything in my power to make certain that we—”
“I know!” Iggy shouted with balled fists on her knees. “I know what you’ll do Lucas! I love you for it. But I’m not doing everything! You might hate me if I don’t do everything for you!”
“No, never.” I said.
“Wrapped around her finger,” Dawn sighed under her breath as she slumped deeper in the loveseat.
“Look, it seems, I don’t know much about dicks,” Iggy said. “I’m gonna learn.”
“I’ll teach you,” Emi said.
I looked down at the girl splayed across my lap. Anna, red as a tomato, threw her hand in the air like a schoolgirl ready to answer a question. She pressed her lips together and moaned in excitement.
“Yes, Anna, I know you’ll help too,” Iggy said. She turned to Ray.
“I’m not whatever Emi is nor a cheerleader,” Ray said, declining a tutor role.
“The cheerleaders aren’t sluts,” Anna countered. “We don’t have naked slumber parties.”
“I can name a cheerleader that does,” Dawn grinned. Anna deepened her red cheeks.
“OK, out of the chair, Iggy,” Emi said. “Anna, help me move the coffee table out of the way of the couch.”
“Who put it back after we laid out our sleeping bags last night?” Iggy asked.
Dawn and I looked at each other, but neither of us answered that we did it together between video games. She was good to help me clean up. I smiled. Dawn dropped our eye contact. I lost some of my smile, turned back to Iggy as she, Anna, Ray, and Emi eached grabbed a corner of the eight pound coffee table and hurried it out of the way, next to the kitchen table. I drummed my hands on my lap and looked at Dawn.
“They didn’t need my help,” she said. She was slumped back, her butt nearly off the cushion and her knees almost wide enough to look down her thighs to her pussy. She instinctively closed her legs. She looked up, as I felt Iggy’s hand on my shoulder. Before I could look up, Dawn’s heels slid across the carpet opening her thighs to show off her pink pussy. So much paler than her arms and face. Where the sun doesn’t shine.
“Quit smirking and looking up my best friend’s vagina,” Iggy pinched my cheek.
“Lucas is your best friend,” Dawn said. Frowning, crossing her arms over her boobs and sitting up.
“And Lucas owns that puss-eh!” Emi clapped loudly over her head and slapped Iggy’s ass as she walked up next to her.
“You’re awesome,” Iggy smiled at Emi, but Iggy rubbed her reddened ass. “Never change.”
“A little change never hurt anybody,” Ray said. She sat down in the lotus position in Iggy’s abandoned recliner.
“So, you’re first taste of dick,” Anna came up on Iggy’s other side. “I’ve never been so proud as a mom. Our little girl is growing slutty!”
“A complete deviant!” Emi giggled and jumped. “We raised her so well.”
“Gah! I already have enough moms!” Iggy rolled her eyes. She looked down and stuck out her tongue at me, crossing her eyes.
I was sitting unmoving on the couch. I aggressively slouched, making more room for the cock I had pointed at the ceiling. My fingers bit into the couch cushion until my knuckles turned white. I was in shock. Dawn’s foot, Iggy’s gag, the two orgasms I already had today had been teases, this one coming was going to be an act of sex. An act of sex from Iggy. I bit the inside of my lip.
If Dawn hadn’t used her heel and I hadn’t cum over Anna’s shoulders. I’d have started breathing again with a warm pool on my stomach.
“So… Uh…”
“You can sit down next to him,” Anna suggested.
“She’s not in a fucking movie theatre! Kneel in between his feet,” Emi grabbed Iggy’s shoulder and pointed. “That way you can look each other in the eyes.”
“He looks crazy,” Iggy said. She blew a raspberry at me. “Plus, won’t he, I dunno, get me?” Iggy gestured with her right fist exploding into ropey finger-strings in front of her face.
“Oh yeah,” Anna grinned. She blushed. “He’ll like that.”
“And if you’re worried about your hair, aim at your boobs,” Ray said.
“You can come up here and help,” Anna said over her shoulder. Ray didn’t move. Anna put her hand on the small of Iggy’s back and pushed her forward.
Iggy’s breasts were jiggling from the pounding of her heart, or so I imagined. She was Anna-red-faced as she knelt down on the carpet before me. My hand shook as I reached forward and stroked her brown bangs from her face. She leaned her cheek into my palm.
“Hi!” she bubbled. “Oh my god!” Her eyes went down. “I sound like a bimbo!”
“Guys like bimbos! Shake your tits!” Emi shouted and suggested.
“I don’t,” I said. Iggy gasped. “I like Iggy. You sound like that girl, Iggy, right now. It’s super hot.”
“Oh, he likes one bimbo,” Dawn said, with a bright smile.
“I also like you,” I snarked back at her. She uncovered her tits and shook her shoulders. Iggy grabbed my nose and turned my face back to her.
“Oh shit!” she murmured.
“What?” I asked but she was staring madly at my cock. I almost wanted to look around for advice from the girls watching. I wasn’t going to take my eyes off Iggy for a second.
She stared me in the twitching cock. She brought up her slender right nose-grabbing hand in front of her face. She rocked her head back on her neck and spat loudly into her palm.
“Ew!” Dawn twisted. “Gross!”
“Why did you do that?” Anna frowned. “You don’t like porn.”
“They do that in porn?” Iggy squeaked as she turned and looked back at Anna. She ratcheted her face forward and smiled at me. “I was doing it for Lucas. I, uh, didn’t, uh, want to, uh, chafe him with my dry hand!” Her last six words came out of her mouth on a single breakneck breath.
“Dry hands?” Dawn scoffed. “You’re probably nervous-sweating so hard that—”
“Maybe I didn’t want him to know how bad my hands were sweating Dawn!” Iggy twisted and snapped.
“Oh…” Anna said. “You’re terrible at keeping secrets, Ig.”
“If it helps,” I said, surprised my voice wasn’t rasping and breaking. “I thought it was hot!”
“Oh my god,” Dawn rolled her eyes. “Boys!”
“I thought it was hot, too,” Emi announced.
“Gah! Boys!” Dawn reiterated.
“I’m a boy now?” Emi stuck her tongue out at Dawn. “Hey, Lucas, you wanna have gay sex?”
Iggy’s face twisted in jealousy at the question. I scrambled for a thought and then smiled, confidently. “I’d love to, dude. But, I’d have to take you out on a date first and all.”
“Shit, that sucks,” Emi sighed.
“Please be quiet!” Iggy put her spit drenched fist on my lap next to my balls. “I’m trying to give Lucas a handjob!”
“Don’t be quiet,” Anna said. “You’re not in the school library.”
“Who’d you jack off in the school library!” Emi twisted. Anna frowned.
“No one good enough to talk about,” Anna answered. “Sorry, Iggy. We’re proud of you.” She lifted her foot and toed Iggy deeper between my open knees with a foot on Iggy’s spine.
“OK,” Iggy looked at me. “Tell me to stop if it hurts, K?”
“Safe word is: Iggy-I’m-Breaking-Up-With-You!” Emi smirked.
“No!” Iggy growled.
“I’d never say that,” I said, in tandem.
“I know,” Emi smirked evilly. “Less stalling, more balling.”
“You’re lucky your sluttiness rhymes...” Iggy shook her head and looked down at my dick. She raised her shoulders with a deep breath. “Here we go.”
Iggy’s fingers were cool as they wetly closed one by one, pinky to thumb, around my cock. She was biting the inside of her cheek and shaking her head left and right. Her body was bouncing with nervous energy. I reached down and took her wrist in my hand.
“Oh right!” She squealed and started jacking me off with lightning speed. I fell back into the cushions. Shocked. She had been so timid, I figured I was going to have to say “more, harder, it’s OK, I like it.” Iggy was trying to start a friction fire. Thankfully, she had a lot of spit.
“Oh, my god! Iggy!” I croaked.
“He’s gonna cum!” Iggy squealed, let go of my dick, and slapped her hands on the carpet behind her butt dragging herself away.
I folded, swallowing a breath, arresting a spasm, not cumming.
“Dude!” Emi kicked Iggy in the upper arm, lightly but loudly. “You don’t just blue-ball him.”
“I can’t!” Iggy said. “I promised. The date and everything. You do it!”
“What?” Emi asked, her face lighting up brighter than I’d seen it in a long time.
“Just get in there before I start thinking about it!” Iggy squealed, grabbed Emi’s thigh and made Emi take a big step forward. Emi looked over at Dawn.
“Dawn, would you like to learn?”
“No,” Dawn said. “I’m happy watching and not really getting a broken heart.”
“If you’re going to pass,” Anna said, grabbing Emi’s shoulder. “I’m not going to look a gift horse-dick in the mouth.”
“In the mouth’s OK,” Iggy said. “I don’t wanna have to clean a carpet.”
“Sold!” Anna pushed past Emi and rushed down to scamper between my knees. I looked over the gold hair into Emi’s eyes. She was misty eyed, but smiling like I hadn’t seen her in forever.
“Are you—” I lost my question in an “Ow!”
“Sorry,” Anna pulled her thumbnail out of the side of my prick. “Look down here. At me. Please.”
“Do it!” Emi said. Her voice hitched. She was reaching down and petting Iggy’s hair sweetly. I didn’t pull my eyes away from Anna’s blues. She was a light pink, not overly blushed, and licking her wide open lips.
I gasped as my cock entered its first mouth. I punched the couch cushion. She rolled my balls up in her fingers and lifted everything to her mouth. I gasped. I felt like a loser. I couldn’t make it last.
Anna was making greedy swallowing sounds even before my cum oozed over her teeth and under her tongue. I wasn’t deep in her mouth but there was a lot going on in there. I gasped, sighed.
“Look at his face!” Iggy was chirping happily. “He looks so stupid! It’s adorable!”
“I am looking…” Dawn said.
“Wow,” Emi said. “So three for Lucas and none for us, huh?”
Anna lifted her mouth off of my collapsing cock. She licked between her teeth and lips and swallowed again. She opened her mouth and wiggled her tongue so I could see it was all gone.
“What’s she doing?” Iggy asked.
“Showing she swallowed,” Emi explained. “That way he knows he’s not gross to her. That she didn’t reject him.”
“Oh!” Iggy said. “That’s why? Swallowing makes so much sense! No wonder those cheerleader bitches talk of spitting.”
“It’s slimy and weird,” Ray crossed her arms. “Spitting’s OK.”
“I, uh…” I let my eyes roll back forward. I leaned in and took Anna in a hug.
“Now he’s doing the same to her,” Iggy nodded. “Quit being such a sweetie! I’ll fall in love with you! I’m already in love with that Lucas boy!”
“Don’t be a brat,” Emi said. “Oh my god, I’m horny. Lucas, would you like to see what you have to do for Iggy tomorrow? I’d really love to cum, and I think you’d like to see what gets girls off.”
“See?” Ray asked.
“Look at him,” Anna said as she broke our hug. I fell back into the couch, she sat primly on her heels. “He can help but—”
“No he can’t,” Iggy said. “No way. Tomorrow.”
“But he can watch and learn,” Emi said, stroking Iggy’s hair.
“You want us to what?” Dawn asked. “Finger ourselves like a bunch of cheerleaders?”
“Girls, we’re naked,” Anna said. “Every cheerleader sleepover party I went to had pajamas all night long. Just saying.”
“I don’t really want to…” Ray said.
“Lucas, you haven’t answered,” Emi said. She lifted her hand and spat on it. “Would you like me to show you how to get a girl off? Anna, Emi, Iggy, or Ray? Anyone?”
“I’d like that a lot,” I said, slowly, hedging. Dawn was crossing her arms over her boobs again. Her knees were closed. Anna was covering her eyes and blushed to hell and back. Iggy was pulling Emi’s fingers from her hair. I almost said, “But, I don’t think that’s the read of the room, Emi.”
I almost said that.
“Hi, mom,” Ray said, into a phone I didn’t know she had taken to her chair, “Can you come pick me up?”
* * *