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wonderland look good.
    They stopped, eased up their goggles, and smiled down the hill when they saw me. One of them waved.
    In a heated tone Toyomi asked, “And who is that?”
    “Who?”
    “That bitch who waved at you?”
    That was the side of her I hated. Her eyes darkened. I smelled insanity on her breath. I asked, “Why does she have to be a bitch?”
    “Because the bitch waited until she thought I wasn’t looking to wave at you. Why couldn’t she wave at
us
? That’s what makes that bitch a bitch. Who is she?”
    “I have no idea. Just black people waving at black people.”
    “That was more than a wave.”
    I asked, “How would you know?”
    “I’m a woman and I know women.”
    Toyomi maneuvered down the hill and stopped close enough to me so she could take off her sunglasses and get a kiss.
    She whispered, “Happy Valentine’s Day.”
    I told her the same. Told her the same thing that I had told Samantha last night. The only way I had slipped out
    of Samantha’s arms was by telling her I had to work. Last night she went all out: strawberries and champagne being licked off every part of me. That’s why I was so damn sluggish. Five hours of sleep and three hours of driving can slow a man down big time, no matter how much orange juice, ginseng, and yo’himbe he’s ingested.
    I tongued Toyomi down and told her happy Valentine’s Day.
    The same thing I might tell Brittany later on tonight.
    Out of the three women I spent time with, Toyomi was the main one. The one, relative to the other two I entertained, whom I really cared about. We’d been seeing each other a little over a year. Thirteen months and some change, to be exact.
    Underneath her black ski suit, mittens, and earmuffs. Toyomi’s a small-waisted, perky-breasted, healthy-butted, half-Black, half-Japanese sister I met on-line in a Net Noir chat room. After e-mailing and sending each other photos, we met face-to-face at a scanty club in Redland called Whiskey Creek. Shot eight ball and nine ball half the night in that honky-tonk atmosphere. Ended up gambling for kisses. She’s a fresh twenty-four. Just got her first white-collar job two years back. She’d had two lovers since she turned nineteen. Inexperienced in sin, but a quick study and a perfectionist who aimed to please her man in any and every way possible. Her plus was her minus too, because she was too intense and clinging.
    Toyomi had brought her best friend, Shar, along. Shar didn’t have a date. Her purple bib and red jacket appeared in the distance, swooshing side to side, maneuvering around a few fools who had fallen. She caught up a minute later.
    Toyomi dropped her pole, and as she bent to pick it up, Shar stopped near me. Right up on me. She touched the butt of my bib with her pole and smiled. She always gave me this wanton gleam when Toyomi wasn’t watching. Shar’s tall and always pleasant to talk to and more than a fantasy to behold from any angle—front, back, side to side.
    By the time Toyomi raised her head, Shar was gazing off in another direction. Acting like she’d never noticed I was there.
    I asked Shar, “What happened to your date?”
    She shrugged. “We broke up last week.”
    I already knew that. Part of me just wanted to hear her voice. I told them that Jake and Charlotte were ahead of us.
    Shar said, “Which way we going, good people?”
    I yanked out my map of the mountain, checked out the trails, and suggested, “Let’s cut over to Sepps’s this time. We haven’t done that run. It’s long and not too steep.”
    They took off before me, carved their trails in the snow. I took it easy and followed their snow-powdered scents.
    Toyomi was in front, kept her skis parallel, planted her poles before she turned, dipped those hips as she moved with a passion. Always moving with a passion.
    Shar’s tall frame moved with equal hunger.
    Toyomi’s a bona fide, bodacious, fine-ass woman, but I couldn’t keep my eyes from wandering to Shar. Couldn’t stop