The lover of Lisa

pointed out, I had yet to pick up any of the stuff that was sitting at
my home. So Lisa proposed that we go out shopping. Out? Like this? Was
she insane? She started to get ready before I had a chance to get a word
out. She found a pair of flats that were almost enough to fit me and
said, “Shoes first.” And then we were walking out the door and into her car.

I won’t go into the horrors I experienced shopping that first time out
with her as Joan. Shopping is tedious, and discussing it is even worse.
Let’s just leave it at the simple fact that after spending about $10,000
on outfits that Lisa picked out for Joan there was no time left to spend
any more. I will say that I noticed one thing that happened while we
were out at about dinnertime. We had stopped in one of those
not-quite-fast-food joints in one of the malls and we had a sit down
meal. Throughout the meal I had noticed that there were two guys at the
next table that kept on looking at us. I had thought that I was dead,
caught out. Imagine my surprise when one of them came over and asked if
we “ladies” were alone. Lisa said that we were and both of the men came
over to our table and joined us for dessert and coffee. Not trusting my
voice I made sure that I said as little as possible. I don’t think the
guys noticed. What I did notice was that they had seemed to pair off.
Larry, a well built guy who was in his late 30′s with brown hair and a
quick smile had paired with Lisa. I was paired with Joe.

Now when you are sitting on the inside seat of a booth and there is a
guy sitting next to you, you don’t have a great deal of choice but to
listen to whatever he chooses to talk about. Joe was 39 years old, a
stockbroker, a tad over 6 feet 3 inches and just starting to show the
signs of age that happen at 39. His washboard abs had given way to a bit
of the sitting in the office spread, and his idea of active sports was
golf. I really tried to be attentive, but since I didn’t want to talk