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the only time of the year when such flimsy apparel was a comfortable bet in New England. Her Salvador Dali clock—a melting dial—read two minutes to seven in the morning. She grabbed her bags and rushed out of the off-campus apartment; she’d scarcely set foot in the parking lot when Sonia beeped and pulled up in her brand-new silver Prius.
    “Hi, Hazel,” said the pretty, near-black-haired woman in the driver’s window. “You’re right on time, as always.”
    I love you, Hazel thought, staring with her bags hanging off her arms. She could’ve wept.
    “Get out,” Hazel directed. “Let me drive.”
    “Oh, I can drive—”
    “You should just relax and enjoy the scenery. The doctor told you to relax.” Hazel threw her bags in the back, then opened the driver’s door.
    “Hazel, you don’t need to pamper me. I’m perfectly capable of driving–”
    Hazel giggled. “You’ll be uncomfortable. Come on, look. Your stomach barely fits behind the wheel.”
    Sonia looked down at her gravidity, then raised her brows. Only an inch of space existed between the bottom of the wheel and her belly. “Well...”
    “Women who’re nine months pregnant shouldn’t be driving on six-hour road trips.”
    “I’m eight months pregnant, Hazel, and it’s only a three- hour drive.”
    “Come on. Out.”
    Sonia, with more than a little difficulty, swiveled her legs out of the footwell, then let Hazel take her hand and help her to her feet. Ashton says I’m more like a guy visually, Hazel mused. And I guess he’s right. When Sonia leaned over to rise, her thinly bra’d breasts slid half out of the v-cut of her summer dress. Hazel’s eyes targeted the fleshy, white valley without forethought. She wanted to plunge her face into the warm abundance of mammarian flesh. She wanted to lick the valley...
    “Up you go,” she said when Sonia got fully to her feet.
    Sonia stood five-eight—six inches taller than Hazel—and impeccably postured for a woman late in term. Even before she’d become pregnant, she’d always been robust-bodied, not overweight: exorbitant curves; wide hips; strong, well-toned legs; and a high, full bosom. A “brick shit-house” men would call her, whereas they called Hazel a “spinner.” Luxurious was the word Hazel would use to best describe her friend’s physique. Even in her pregnancy, she’d not gained undue weight. The mere sight of Sonia’s body made Hazel want to melt. I’m like a teenaged boy looking at a centerfold of Pam Anderson.
    The angles of Sonia’s face would make a model jealous, and there was something about her creamy, white-white skin that just seemed flawless. It glowed in the healthiest luster, while the thick, straight hair put a black frame around the beaming face.
    Ice-blue eyes blinked over a beaming smile. “What’s wrong?”
    “Wrong?” Hazel snapped out of it. “Nothing, I was...”
    A scolding half-smile. “Never mind! Just help me in.”
    Hazel knew that Sonia knew...
    Once they were belted in, Hazel got on the road, happy to be taking a break from the college and the hot summer session.
    “It’s sweet of you to drive,” Sonia said. “But when you get tired, just say so, and I’ll take over.”
    “Forget it.” The university’s main gate shrank in the rearview. “This’ll be a lot of fun. I need a long drive to clear my head.”
    “Oh, yeah?”
    “Sure. I just graded forty term papers on the elements of Naturalism in Henrik Ibsen’s The Master-Builder. ”
    “You’re the one who wants to be an English professor. The Wild Duck’s better, anyway.” Sonia eyed her. “But that’s not really what you want to clear your head of. Hazel, I can always tell.”
    I’ll bet you can. “Guy Stuff, then. Ashton thinks I’m a perv. It’s starting to bother me.”
    “Like they say, ‘Can’t live with ‘em, can’t put ‘em out with the garbage.’ If he truly loves you, he’ll view your kinkiness not as perversity but as sexual diversity, as