Excerpt of Talking about Sex... by Vicki Lewis Thompson

JESS HARKINS WAS TOO OLD for fix-ups. But he'd forgotten that fact in a moment of insanity and now was stuck with the woman sitting in the passenger seat of his Jag. Suzanne Dougherty, friend of a friend, billed as lots of fun and just your type…wasn't.

They'd struggled to make conversation over a very expensive dinner at Anthony's and were currently en route to the Flying V for dancing because it would be an insult to take her home at nine on a Friday night. God. Why hadn't he nipped this idea in the bud?

Gabe should have known better than to set him up with somebody like Suzanne. The guy had been Jess's construction foreman for five years. Plus they'd hung out watching sports and had spent a bunch of Sunday afternoons hiking their favorite mountain trails. Gabe should know by now what kind of woman Jess would like.

Maybe Gabe wasn't a great judge of character. Or maybe his girlfriend had pushed him into setting up the blind date. In any case, it wasn't working.

Suzanne reached for the power button on his sound system. "Let's listen to the radio."

"Good idea." Anything to fill the awkward silences. She punched the button. The minute she did, he remembered where he'd last set the dial…and what came on after the nine-o'clock news Monday through Friday nights.

"Hi, there! Crazy Katie for KRZE, "crazy' talk radio in Tucson, home of that marvelous phallic symbol, the saguaro cactus! It's Friday, October seventh, and we're Talking About Sex!"

Suzanne's shrill laugh bounced around inside the airconditioned Jag. "Hey, I totally forgot it was nine o'clock."

"Maybe we should go with some music." Jess reached for the channel switch.

"No, leave it." Suzanne caught his hand. "I like her show. Haven't heard it in a while."

Jess used to like it, too. He'd made a habit of switching it on weeknights wherever he happened to be — in his foothills home or driving around town. Her sassy voice took him down memory lane and her topic interested him more than a little.

He'd even thought about stopping by the station to ask her out for old time's sake. It certainly wasn't out of his way now that he was building a high-rise right next to KRZE's studio, located in a quaint little adobe dating back to the forties.

He'd considered leaving her a note on his way home from the job site. Wouldn't she be surprised to hear from him, a blast from the past? She might be seeing someone, of course, but it was worth a shot.

Then, as he'd been about to make his move with a clever little note referencing days gone by, she'd started lobbing grenades at his project. She'd been doing it for a couple of weeks now, egging on the handful of Value Our Roots picketers he continued to deal with. The project had attracted dissenters from the start, with VOR being the most vocal. But once the zoning board had ruled in favor of the highrise, the protests had mostly died down. Except for Katie's.

Okay, maybe construction caused a few traffic problems for KRZE's employees. But soon that wouldn't matter because the station would have to relocate anyway. Livingston Development Corporation was negotiating with the station's owners to buy the property.

KRZE was sitting on land that could be put to better use, simple as that. The rest of the properties in that block were already in escrow, and plans had been approved for a shopping mall several stories high. Jess expected to get that contract, too. This development was the most high- profile project he'd ever landed. When it was finished, Harkins Construction would be the big-deal company in Tucson. Jess wanted that kind of job security.

Plus he was having fun. The new buildings would bring more business downtown and add an interesting silhouette to the skyline. They would not be the eyesore devoid of all redemption that Katie had called them on Wednesday night or a testimony to human greed and excess, which was the phrase she'd used last night. They would look nice. Impressive. Worthy of Harkins Construction.

He should have stopped listening after the first time she'd dinged him, but he'd had some perverse need to know what she was ranting about. Still, he didn't relish being insulted in front of Suzanne. No help for it, though. If he insisted on changing the station he'd look defensive.

"On this show, we're all sex, all the time," Katie said.

"And here's your nightly tip from the Kama Sutra. Tired of the same ol', same ol' with the woman on top? Ladies, try this — squat down, settle yourself on that bad boy of his, close your legs and use a churning motion. Let me know if it works for you, okay?"

Jess coughed to hide a groan of dismay. Suzanne had been giving him sexual signals all night. This should throw her into high gear.

"Interesting idea," Suzanne said. "Ever had a woman try that?"

"Not exactly."

"I think it sounds like a lot of —"

"Work," Jess said. "It sounds like a lot of work."

"Wait a minute. I wasn't going to say that. I think —"

"Tonight we welcome Dr. Janice Astorbrooke." Katie's voice drowned out whatever Suzanne might have said.

"Dr. Astorbrooke is the author of Thrusting Skyward: Sexual Symbolism in Architecture."

Jess ground a millimeter off his back molars as he gunned the Jag through an amber light. As if the Kama Sutra tip hadn't caused enough trouble, now he had to listen to a discussion of high-rise buildings as phallic symbols. He could smell it coming. Katie must have combed the Internet looking for this crackpot.

"Let's get right to it, Dr. Astorbrooke. Surely on your way here you noticed what's happening next to our charming little studio. A pit that large means a foundation for a very tall building. Forty stories, to be exact."

Dr. Astorbrooke had the deep voice of a heavy smoker. "Katie, as long as we allow men to design buildings, we'll see structures climbing ever higher. At forty stories, this one is modest."

"Well, we are in Tucson, not Manhattan," Katie said.

"I've noticed you have precious few tall buildings, but you have some, and the motivation is definitely the same, whatever the size."

Jess braced himself. He wasn't going to like this. "And what would that motivation be, Dr. Astorbrooke?" Katie sounded so sweet. So deadly.

"Compensation for sexual inadequacies."

"Watch out!" Suzanne yelled.

Jess slammed on his brakes and barely missed hitting the car in front of him. "Sorry." The apology came automatically as his brain continued to deal with what he'd heard. Sexual inadequacies? Shitfire. He was making damn good money building a viable office complex. He sure as hell wasn't compensating for a goddamn thing.

"Absolutely fascinating," Katie said. "So it's a bit like driving powerful cars?"

Katie couldn't know he had a Jag. But he winced all the same.

"Like that, but even more revealing, Katie."

Suzanne laughed again, an eardrum-piercing sound. "I just realized something. That's your building she's talking about, isn't it?"