Let's start with lunch.

Ellen asks you, "What do you want to do next?"

"How about lunch?" you reply.

"Okay," she says. "We can go to Amelia's in the student union. It's pretty good."

"Gawd, Goldilocks," Amy says, "Aren't you tired of Amelia Bloomer's by now?" She wrinkles her nose, making the freckles dance. "You must eat there every day." Amy puts a hand up and runs it through her wavy red hair. You watch as her half-tee slides up her pale pink side.

"I like their chicken salad sandwich," Ellen says. "They don't goop on the mayonnaise." She sticks out her lower lip a little and runs a hand through her straw-blonde hair, unconsciously mirroring Amy. Ellen's extra cute when she pouts. You feel a stirring inside your pants.

"How 'bout The Reservoir?" Sherah asks.

"Yeah," Amy says. "You get a good view of Widley from up there." She looks at you and explains. "It's a coffeehouse in an old brick water tank. Up till last year it was just an empty shell. People would go up and sing or just howl 'cause it had a good echo."

"Okay," Ellen says.

"Did you ever go to try out the echo?" you ask Amy.

"Indirectly," Amy says. She tries to hold a poker face but the corners of her mouth curl up in a little smirk.

Sherah says, "You're bad, Amy," and smiles.

Ellen says, "Well, if we're going to climb a hill, let me change my shoes." She goes casually to the foot of her bed and hangs onto the frame while she works off her high-heeled sandals. You watch her butt wiggle as she changes into a set of black leather high-tops with yellow stitching round the bottom of the upper.

"Hey!" Amy says, "Doc 'n Doc!" She laughs, pointing to Sherah and Ellen, who are now wearing identical pairs of Doc Martens. You take another look at Sherah's slim golden legs, which are bare from calf almost to crotch below her cut-offs. "Maybe you should be going with Sherah to the movies."

"No thanks!" Ellen says. "I hate horror movies. The last one I went to, I got stomach cramps. What's playing on the other screen?"

Sherah says, "It just says To Be Announced." She chews absently on a fingernail which doesn't need to be any shorter.

Ellen gets her purse and heads toward the door, and you take the opportunity to watch her dress swish around her curves.

Amy pokes you in the ribs. "Saddle up, cowpoke! You can daydream in class, it's lunchtime."

You pile down the stairs after blonde Ellen, redhead Amy, and dark-haired Sherah. You're last, of course, for the scenic view. The four of you head across Widley College toward Reservoir Hill. Amy points at the various campus buildings and tells you why This Hall is great and That Hall is always drafty and how everybody hates The Other Hall. They all look the same to you, ivy-covered brick churchy-looking things.

The Reservoir is on a broad spot in a low ridge overlooking Widley. Down the hill on one side is a street that curves past some city buildings toward a river park. On the other side are terraced streets with the bookstores, boutiques, and brew pubs that seem to be attracted to college campuses.

It's a nice day, so you get a table outside, looking out over the campus. They bring your drinks -- Coke for you, diet 7-Up for Ellen, Dr. Pepper for Amy. Sherah's double mocha is still on its way. Amy has a sketch book with her and opens it up, trying out quick little ink sketches of you and the other girls. She seems to have a pretty good eye, though you're not sure you would have recognized Ellen from the sketch.

"Can I see your sketchbook?" you ask Amy.

"Maybe later," she says.

You chat for a while and look out over the college. Ellen points out some things you couldn't see from below, and talks about how it really took a while to get oriented. "I don't know what it is," Ellen says, "but even with a map, I kept getting turned around. All those quadrangles sort of look alike."

Amy laughs. "You sure you just don't need glasses?" she asks.

The food's a little while coming, and the conversation drags a little.

Sherah excuses herself. "I have to have a smoke," she says. "They're pretty harsh about that here even on the terrace. Be right back." She goes out the gate and across the street to sit on the stairs that go down toward Widley.

"I think she's just embarrassed to smoke around people," Amy says. "She's down to about three a day, but she can't quite quit." Amy excuses herself to go to the bathroom, and Ellen goes too.

You can't resist. With the girls in the washroom, you open up Amy's beat-up notebook. The first few pages are phone numbers, class schedules, and notes about events at Widley (what's "Hoop Day" that she's triple-underlined it?), but past the midway divider, you see her sketches.

There are a bunch of interior scenes, a few outside, and a number of quick face portraits. A good likeness of Amy herself, down to the sprinkling of freckles on her nose and cheeks. Heads of Sherah and Ellen, some other women who look like students, and an older woman, maybe a professor. Some figure studies, rough sketches of standing and lying nudes. In the margins, you notice little cartoon doodles of girls cutting capers. One's jumping off a swing, another's hanging by her knees from a tree, another's skinny-dipping in a coffee cup. You chuckle.

Then you turn a page and catch your breath. Your face feels warm. The page on the left is a very explicit sketch of . . .