“Michael . . please. . .” Fingers groping blindly to complete the work on the fly of his jeans she had earlier begun. And suddenly Michael stopped.

“Maria,” he said, “we can’t do this.”

“What? Why?” The hurt and confusion in her eyes was evident.

“We talked about this, remember? About what we’d do with certain - um - urges.”

Urges. What an understatement for a moment like this, Maria thought. Sounded like something Max would say. Her entire being was on fire, and Michael calls it an “urge”? But he was right. That was the one thing they had talked about, way back during that heatwave, in one of their eraser room sessions. It seemed so long ago, Maria had forgotten. So much had happened since then. They had decided that they weren’t going to go all the way because they knew nothing about his alien physiology. After all, if he had the power to alter molecular structure who’s to say a thin sheath of latex would able to hold its own against his - um - foreign invaders?