“Wasn’t ‘Ms.’ an honorific for females back in pre-rubicon days?” asked Frome. “Some sort of honorary degree for not getting married or something?”

“Women are all female impersonators to some degree.”

“Are you my daddy?”Ricky Lee Reed, originally of Smithtown, Tennessee, and only replanted to New York City a few years back, gawked at the child who’d asked him the question for a mere moment before he turned his attention to the adult female who held the child.He’d admit it wasn’t a question he expected to get, you know, ever. For a bunch of reasons, too, but mostly because he didn’t know this woman. He wasn’t one of those guys who nailed so many females he forgot their faces or names. So then . . . why was this child asking him this question? And even stranger, why was the female raising her brows and suddenly asking, “Well . . . are you?”Wait. Wouldn’t she know? Shouldn’t she? Good Lord, this city.”

“The potential, for anything, was overwhelming to a degree that bothered him. It wasn’t, he thought, the idea of power. It certainly wasn’t that nervous feeling T.C. would get in the pit of his stomach when he knew he had an incredible opportunity in front of him, that amazing brief pause before an act of creation. This was something else. Something to fear and respect.”

“So hey, once Joshua heals your brother, you want to go do something, get some pomegranate juice, a falafel,or get married or something?”

“Was he a good kisser, Ms. Lane?” Barrons asked, watching me carefully.I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand at the memory. “It was like being owned.”Some women like that.”Not me.”Perhaps it depends on the man doing the owning.”I doubt it. I couldn’t breathe with him kissing me.”One day you may kiss a man you can’t breathe without, and find breath is of little consequence.”Right, and one day my prince might come.”I doubt he’ll be a prince, Ms. Lane. Men rarely are.”