Chapter 4

The first thing Annabelle had to do was get naked in front of her sisters. She was clearly uncomfortable, but bravely took off her street clothes, which consisted of a modest skirt made of wool plaid, a blue turtleneck sweater, white socks and black flats.

She was not wearing either panties or a bra.

“You’ll do fine,” said Tiffany. “If you can run around commando with your father you can shake your ass at strangers.”

Jane was actually excited to be the narrator and came up with a lot of what she’d say herself, furiously taking notes. Heather said, “You have to have on underwear to be able to take it off, so let’s go find you something to wear.”

Heather had a clean G-string. It was red satin and while it wasn’t in the package, she’d never worn it. They couldn’t find a matching bra, but lots of women wore mismatched underwear. While Linda applied powders and dyes to Annabelle’s face, Heather told her how she was going to need to act. They just put her hair in a ponytail. Then it was time and they couldn’t prepare further. Heather was shocked to hear Bob’s voice announcing the act.

“You all know and love Hot Teacher, but you’ve never seen any of her students. Tonight you will. Let’s hear it for Teacher helps her student find a man.”

“He could have come up with something better than that,” muttered Heather. “You ready?”

“No,” came Annabelle’s tremulous voice.

“Do it for your daddy,” said Heather. “I know he’ll love it.”

Annabelle looked scared but then they were on the stage. They had put Annabelle’s outer clothing back on her so now it was Heather, fully clothed, with her glasses, standing with the girl nobody had ever seen before.

Jane’s amplified voice came out of the speakers and it sounded sultry. She told of how Misty’s boyfriend had dumped her and told her she was ugly. The truth was easier for Annabelle to work with.

“How do I find a man If I’m ugly?” came Jane’s plaintive voice as Annabelle gesticulated to Hot Teacher.

“I think your boyfriend is mistaken. Let’s see what we have to work with.”

The clothes began falling off, with Teacher demonstrating how to be sexy while you undress. The crowd loved poor little Annabelle’s very sexy underwear and they loved it even more when she used the pole, always asking, “Like this?”

When both were completely nude the culmination of the amateur production came to the apex. The women went down the edge of the stage, posing before each man or table, while Jane timed her question to match.

“Would you want me? Do you think I’m pretty?”

One of the tables they stopped at was occupied by only two men. One was Daddy. Bob was with him. When Annabelle, stark naked with copper colored pubes barely concealing her feminine center, stopped in front of that table, she jutted her hips forward and cupped her modest breasts. She pinched nipples they had tinted with cherry colored lipstick and Annabelle verbally said, “Do you want me? Will you make love to me?”

The front of Daddy’s pants answered for him as he stood and reached to stuff money into the garter that was the only thing his daughter was wearing.

Annabelle was sobbing when they left the stage, but it was because of relief, instead of anguish. Heather helped her get dressed again.

“You sure you want to go out there to him?” she asked.

“Oh yes,” said Annabelle. “I wanted to kill myself, but he convinced me I was beautiful. Tonight only convinced me more. I don’t have to wonder if he loves me. I can be a bitch and he’ll still love me. This was so much fun. Thank you.”

“Before you take up this line of work, just know that other men besides your father will think you’re beautiful and they’ll want to make babies with you. If you’re not careful you can get into a situation where you won’t have the option to say no.”

“No way!” gasped Annabelle.

“I’m pregnant right now and it’s not my husband’s,” said Heather.

She shrugged her naked shoulders.

“Now go have fun with your father. He loves you all the time, but right now he’s just acting like a man.”

“Is it that obvious?” moaned Annabelle.

“That boner he was sporting when he put that twenty in your garter wasn’t because of me,” said Heather, grinning.

Annabelle and her still un-named father left the club with an offer from Bob to train her and give her a job. He said he could teach her the moves, but the atmosphere would have to be her responsibility.

“Just because she goes on stage and does a set doesn’t mean she’ll be successful.”

“I’ll be worried that men will hit on her,” said the man with an erection in his pants.

“In my club the woman makes those decisions. There are some special circumstances where a girl might end up in debt to me, but that’s rare.”

“She’ll be living with me for the foreseeable future,” said Daddy. “I’ll be keeping a close eye on her.”

“I wouldn’t expect anything different,” said Bob.

After they left Bob had Tony bring Heather to his office. For once he didn’t strip her and fuck her on the couch. They sat side by side, inches apart, and faced each other.

“I’m so happy I’m going to be a father,” he said.

“I’m glad you’re happy. I hope you don’t become the kind of father Annabelle just left with, though.”

“Do we need to call somebody?” asked Bob. It was the first time he’d seemed to care what happened to a woman.

“No. She’s fully into it,” said Heather.

“I want to celebrate but you can’t have champagne.”

“I can drink a Coke.”

“Alas, I have an important meeting to go to in Chicago. I’ll be gone a week. Maybe you shouldn’t dance while I’m gone.”

“I have to make money to pay you back,” she reminded him.

“You already owe me only half of what you did,” he said.

“Let’s wait and make sure the baby looks like you,” she said. “Jerry has fucked me a few times over the last months, too.”

“I heard he’s shacking up with some bimbo he met at the bar,” said Bob. “You okay?”

“Considering his wife is probably pregnant with another man’s baby, I can’t really complain.”

“I worry about you being in your house alone. You should move in with me.”

“Look, Bob. I will pay you back for what my stupid husband did. I will have your baby, twice if that will even my debt. But I’m not going to become your girlfriend. I’m a teacher. Yes, I do this from necessity, but when we are even, I’ll continue teaching and never dance again. I’ll also probably never let you in my panties again. Capisce? So don’t go trying to make this a long term commitment.”

“Okay, okay. At least let me have somebody keep an eye on you. I know you don’t like Chuck, but you get along with Tony, don’t you?”

“He doesn’t ogle me like Chuck does,” she said, trying to control the sudden increase in her heartbeat. “How intrusive would he have to be? I have to get up and get ready for school and grade papers in the evening. I don’t want him making that more difficult.”

“I’ll tell him to be a ghost,” said Bob. “You’ll only know he’s there when you want to know he’s there. He can sleep in his car and pee in a bottle.”

“Good grief, Bob, he’s not a guard dog. He can stay in the spare room. I just want my work week to be normal.”

“Okay. I’ll tell him not to bother you and stay out of your way.”

“He’ll have to cook for himself,” she said.

“You wanted me to give him a break. Now it’s your turn to give him a break. He’ll be there making sure you’re safe. The least you can do is share your breakfast cereal with him.”

“Okay, okay. I guess he’s always been polite to me. I’ll try to get along with him until you get back.”

Tony was no fool. When Bob called him in and laid out what his duties would be for the next week he resisted.

“Come on, Boss,” he groaned. “I don’t want to play wet nurse to Hot Teacher.”

“When you’re at her house she’s not a stripper. She’s just Heather Mercer, science teacher at Hoisington Junior High School.”

“Yeah, but she’ll still be the good looking woman she is here,” said Tony. “I’m a guy, Boss.”

“Tell you what, Tony,” said Bob, brashly. “If you can get her into bed, then more power to you. She’s already pregnant with my child and there is nobody else in the world I’d let touch her except you. That said, I do not want you harassing her. In her case, no means no. She’s got class and the chances of her looking at you like you wish she would are slim to none. If you want I can send one of the girls to stay there with you and you can bang her every night.”

“No. I’m not going to act like a tom cat in front of her. You’re right. She is a lady and I know it would never happen. Still I appreciate you making the offer. That means a lot to me.”

“You’ve been my most loyal man since I brought you on,” said Bob. “Don’t worry. We’ll find you a woman.”

“Whatever. Have you told her, yet? She may not want me there.”

“I told her I wanted her to do this and that it’s not up for a vote. Now, I have things to do to get ready. You’ll be taking her home tonight. Go get whatever you’ll need to spend a week there.”

“Got it, Boss,” said Tony. “I promise to take care of her as good as you would.”

Heather was fired up for all her sets that night. She did Hot Teacher once, and then did a normal routine, using two different costumes for her other two sets. The regulars just wanted to see her naked. So did the drop-ins. For one of her sets she did a form of gymnastics, where her legs were spread wide for much of the routine. For the other one she took a piece of typing paper and drew a set of big, red lips on the middle of it. She started by kissing it with her lips while Jane, who had been recruited to narrate more routines, told of how her man was far away and she was lonely for him. He had sent her a kiss, which she touched to her face, and then to her breasts, and to her stomach. Then she put the paper on the floor and did the splits until her pussy lips pressed into the paper. She was juicy enough that the paper stuck and the crowd went wild. Audrey said she was close to the line, but since she hadn’t actually touched herself, they could argue against censure.

Then it was time to go home and Heather waited with her bag for Tony to bring the car around. She tossed the bag in the back seat and got in up front. Tony was staring straight ahead.

“It won’t be that bad,” she said.

“It will be very, very bad,” he replied.

“It could be yours, you know,” she said, patting her stomach.

“Fuuuck, Heather,” he groaned. “Don’t do that to me.”

“Why not? You got a pound of your lovely, warm semen in me and that pound had probably a billion little sperm cells, all wiggling around trying to find my poor, helpless egg. Just like I was helpless when you bent me in half and spurted in me, my egg was helpless when whoever’s sperm cell cozied up to it and then fertilized it. Your sperm cells were in there while my egg was floating around.”

He turned his head.

“You will be the death of me.”

“Watch the road. I do not want to get in an accident and have them take you away to some hospital where I will not have access to your sperm delivery system.”

“It’s going to be a long week,” he sighed.

But when they got out and he took her bag, her hand found he was rock hard in his pants.

That first night they only made love once, but it lasted two hours. Afterwards, as they rested, she told him she had let him in her when she was her peak of fertility and that it was quite likely that he got more sperm in her when she was ripe that month than Bob had. She also told him she would not be the slightest bit unhappy if he turned out to be the father. Then they slept. She got up and went to school while he went and did some errands. He had his own life, too. He was there when she got home from school, though. When she came in she saw her stripper glasses on the counter and put them on.

“Were you a good boy today, Tony?”

“Yes Ma’am,” he said.

“Do you deserve a treat today?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“Nobody brought me an apple today,” she sighed, “so I cannot offer you an apple.”

She pulled up her skirt to reveal she had on a garter belt and that was all.

“I have a split peach you can eat,” she said.

He lifted her onto the counter and sucked her pussy until she pounded on his head to make him stop. Then he took her to bed and fucked her for two more hours before he whimpered and his big, black cock erupted.

“Good boy,” she cooed. “Give Mama all your good stuff.”

She wanted to go out after that, but Tony said she’d have to go alone and that was against the rules. Having a giant black guy with her would make Mrs. Mercer, the teacher, look distinctly odd. So they stayed in and watched a movie together. Halfway through the movie she got up, took her clothes off, and sat down on his lap, leaning back against his broad chest and pulling his hands around her to fondle her breasts. She fidgeted, moving her ass on his erection until he dumped her off and got naked, himself. Then he sat back down and pulled her back onto his lap. As she settled in she reached under her and pushed the tip of his cock into her channel. He moved her and she felt it push up inside her.

“Now sit still,” he growled. “I’m trying to watch the movie.”

She did sit still, just luxuriating in the sensation of being so full. She could feel him breathe and she could even feel the fur on his chest pressing into her back.

Slowly, she started using her milkmaid muscles on him. He knew instantly what she was doing.

“If you don’t want to watch the movie then fine,” he grumbled. “What do you want to do?”

“This,” she said, working her muscles furiously.

“You want me to cum in you?”

“Desperately,” she gushed. “I’m on fire and you have a hose.”

He pushed her off and she complained until he put her back on the couch and put her ankles on his broad shoulders.

“Ohhhh, yes,” she groaned. “Breed me big man.”

“You’ve already been bred,” he said.

“Then practice for breeding me next time.”

“This won’t hurt the baby, will it?”

“The baby is about the size of a pea right now. You won’t hurt the baby.”

He bent her in half and rose and fell, driving his cock almost straight down, which meant his whole weight was on it. She gurgled and her hands did the funky chicken, flapping by her head.

“Are you okay?” he asked, pausing.

“As long as you promise to do this to me more often I will be,” she wheezed.

She tightened her sheath, making the friction extreme for both of them. He groaned and she felt the hot, wet jets of his passion. Her own orgasm hovered nearby, but she didn’t try for it. She just enjoyed the feel of the ball of heat he deposited at the end of her vagina.

The movie was half over.

“Did you do your homework?” he asked, as he stood and held her in his arms like she weighed ten pounds, instead of a hundred and ten.

“No. As soon as I got home you molested me,” she complained.

“That’s not how I remember it,” he said.

He took her to the dining room table, where she did most of her work, and deposited her, still naked, on the chair there.

“It’s cold on my tushy,” she complained.

“Then you shouldn’t have taken your clothes off,” he said. “I promised Bob I would not get in the way of your school work.”

He left and went to take a shower. When he returned he brought her a robe, which she put on. She finished grading the pop quiz she’d given that day and arranged all her materials so they’d be easy to pack up in the morning. She went looking for Tony and found him, naked, lying on her bed, slowly masturbating.

“Don’t you dare waste anything on a towel!” she barked.

“I’m not actually trying to cum,” he said. “I knew you’d want it hard when you got finished so all I’m doing is keeping it hard.”

She went and sat on the edge of the bed.

“We have a problem,” she said.

“What’s that?”

“I’m feeling things with you that I haven’t felt with a man in a long time.” She reached to touch his knee. “I’m afraid I’m falling in love with you.”

“Well that’s nonsense,” he snorted. “Yes, I love you. I shouldn’t say that but I will because I only got to say that one other time. But she was married, like you, and we both knew it wouldn’t work out. So she quit stripping and I never saw her again. I think they moved to Hill City. And I’ll say it now because it’s true, but this is like that other time. There is no way in the world I can be your boyfriend. Bob said I could have sex with you, but he did not say I could make it a habit.”

“Wait. What did you say?”

“I said it wouldn’t work.”

“No. My ears might have flapped but I swear you just said Bob told you it was okay for you to have sex with me.”

“He did. I told him if he made me stay with you that I would probably react like any other man. First he said he’d just let me pick a girl to bring with us. I told him it was going to be disruptive enough if I was here and you didn’t need any beds knocking the wall while you were trying to work or sleep. So then he said that was fine, but there was no way me and you would ever happen, but if I could get you to agree to sleep with me, that was okay by him. He said I’m the only other person he would let you do that with because he trusts me so much.”

“Well, gee, big fella. You could have led with that when we got here. I’ve been feeling mildly guilty because all I can think about is you and that monster between your legs. And all this time I had permission to love you?”

“That’s not how he put it,” said Tony. “He just said I had permission to touch you if I could talk you into it.”

“Are you trying to talk me into it? Because you’re definitely not my type. For starters, I have a master’s degree and you have a seventh grade education. For another you’re black and I’m white. I don’t care about that but other people would give us grief. Thirdly, if you ever got on top of me you’d squash me like a bug. And then there’s the problem of maybe getting pregnant if I fool around with you. So no, you have zero chance of getting me in bed, but thank you for trying.” She batted her eyelashes at him. “I’m flattered.”

“Is that what you do to your kids all week?” he asked. “Do you just turn things around and lie?”

“How did I lie?”

“You said I’m not your type, but you also told me one time you love me. How can you love me and me not be your type? And I don’t remember us ever having any difficulty communicating, so how much school I have seems unimportant. And you must be getting Alzheimer’s or something because I have laid on top of you a whole bunch of times and you’re not at all squished. And you can’t get pregnant because you’re already pregnant. Even I know that. So all your reasons for saying I can’t touch you are garbage.”

“Oh. Well, then, I suppose I have to let you touch me,” she sighed. She cocked her head and looked at him. “Wanna touch me now?”

“Okay, look. I should have told you sooner, but you’ve been acting froggy since the first time you wanted me to touch you. I need some reality here, cause I don’t want my imagination to run away with me. I can’t be your boyfriend, but I want to keep loving you as long as you’ll let me.”

“Hmmm. You bring up some good points. But, we have all week to think about all this so stop worrying. For a week you’ll be my practice boyfriend. I haven’t had a boyfriend for the last ten years, if you don’t count my husband and a professor in college. So I’m a little out of practice. Let’s try being boy and girlfriend for a week and see how it goes. And, by the way, since you’re now my boyfriend, you get to touch me as much as you want.”

“What about Jerry? What if he comes home?”

“Jerry has said exactly two sentences to me in the last two weeks. He is living with his girlfriend. I suspect there’s an equitable divorce in our future. He’s not asking for it because I’m the one paying down his debt, and if we get divorced I can tell Bob to shove it up his ass.”

“Not if the baby is his, and he thinks it is.”

“Okay. You’re right. But he said I could stay married and keep teaching. If I get divorced then I could marry a different man.”

They looked at each other.

“No,” he said. “Don’t even joke about that.”

“I’m not. I haven’t felt this way about another man since I met Jerry. You haven’t felt like this since you and your married lady gave up. I’m not going to give up. I’ve given too much to Bob and his fucking criminal empire to come out of this with nothing.”

“But I am nothing,” he groaned. “I’m just some punk kid Bob lets hang around. If I need money he gives it to me. But if we did what you were talking about he wouldn’t have to give me anything anymore because I’d be dead.”

“Bob Alveezo knows I don’t love him and he certainly doesn’t love me. If he loved me he wouldn’t give me away to other men and let them fuck me. All he wants is to use my womb to give him a child. I don’t know why he chose me, but he did. And I’ll do that, but that’s all I’ll do. Yeah, I’ll do some dancing, but my life is my own and who I want to spend it with is my business.”

“You’re talking crazy,” said Tony. “Think about it. You teachers have parties where people drink wine and tea and shit. What would they think if you brought me to one of those as your date?”

“Two things,” she said. She held up one finger. “One, you’d be my husband, not my date, and two,” she held up another finger, “I don’t give a flying fuck what those people think. I used to, before I met Bob, but things are different now. The world changed and I’ve changed with it. I’m not sweet Mrs. Mercer, junior high school teacher. I’m a stripper who is pregnant by a big black man, though which one I’m not sure, and I owe a hundred grand to a gangster who traffics in women he brands, and probably drugs and guns and who knows what else. Does that sound like sweet Mrs. Mercer the school teacher?”

He took her hand and pulled her backwards, onto the bed. Her robe fell loose and her breasts were exposed. She wiggled around so she’d end up face to face with him and relaxed against him.

“You can still be Mrs. Mercer, who everybody likes and respects,” he said. “One time the daughter of the mayor danced for Bob for three months because the Mayor did something to piss him off. Bob fucked her and tattooed her, too, and nobody knows about that. You’ve done fine so far. Just hang on to that iron I know is in you. It’s why you’ve been able to survive this.”

She kissed his shoulder.

“In seven months I’m going to deliver a little brown baby. Everybody in town will know that isn’t Jerry’s baby, and that I was unfaithful to him. Nobody will respect me, then.”

“We’ll figure something out,” he said. “Please don’t get sad. One of the reasons I survive is because I watch you do it. I was impressed with you the same night Bob abdicated you.”

“He didn’t abdicate me,” she said. “He abducted me.”

“See? I can’t even use the big words I try to learn right.”

“I would tutor you and send you to college,” she said. “There’s nothing wrong with your brain. Your heart makes me melt. You’re everything I didn’t even know I wanted and I have Bob Alveezo to thank for that. If not for him I’d never have met you.”

“You just won’t give up,” he groaned. “Heather, I’m not a good man. I’ve done very bad things.”

“I know that,” she said. “Chuck and Bob enjoy doing bad things. I don’t think you do. And even the nicest cave man on the block killed something now and then.”

Tony closed his eyes.

“Let’s talk about something else, please?” he asked.

“Can we talk about how many orgasms I can get if you’re trying to cum but don’t want to because you don’t want it to be over?”

“Why would I try to cum if I don’t want to?” he asked.

“Tony. I want you to touch me, and bed me and fuck me and pretend to breed me. I love the feel of your skin and your hairy chest. I love the way you smell. I want to have more orgasms because the ones I have with you are like fireworks. I want to use that thing you call a penis to pleasure me for hours. And I’ll let you spurt, but only after two hours because I don’t want you to go soft and then I have to wait an hour before it’s hard again.”

“Heather, I can get hard again in ten minutes. I’ve cum in you before and didn’t even get soft. I don’t think you understand what you do to me.”

“Well, I understand what you do to me and what I’m going to want you to do to me in the future. So please don’t do something stupid like getting a girlfriend or even worse, getting married, because if you do any of those things I’ll be heartbroken and lose the will to live.”

“You know, sometimes you can be as full of shit as Bob,” he said. “Roll over and I’ll shove my cock in you so hard it will come out of your mouth.”

“You talk big,” she said. She got on all fours and straddled him, with her ass in his face. She sucked his knob for maybe ten seconds and then crawled down to his feet. She looked over her shoulder and said, “Arf, arf!”

When his hands gripped her slim waist, she felt like she’d been fastened to a rock. And when he pushed his cock in and pulled her back at the same time, she groaned as she was suddenly full to the very end of her canal.

He basically used her and they both knew it. She was a woman, but she was also the thing in his hands he was jerking off with. She let her head drop to the bed and reached with her right hand to diddle her clit. Her hand fell flat on her abdomen and she could actually feel her skin rise and fall in a column as he went in and out because it was pressing her abdomen out.

“Get one, Baby,” she yipped. “Cum in teacher.”

He stopped, suddenly. He lifted her and she squawked as he turned her in the air. He was on his knees and he brought her down with her legs on either side of him. She looked down and saw his prick jutting upwards. She got it instantly and reached to guide him as he let her weight down on his spike. She groaned again, but this time because her clit was now fully involved. Her feet were on the bed, but they couldn’t do anything. He was on his knees with her suspended on his cock and he hugged her to him.

He kissed her and then said, “Bob said when I was watching you this week you weren’t Hot Teacher and I had to think of you as just Heather Mercer, teacher at the junior high school. I’d rather do this with Heather Mercer, every day teacher, than the woman I see having to dance every weekend.”

“Aww, you’re so sweet,” she said. “I want to be the normal teacher who woke up one day and saw you and said, ‘Hmmmm, he’s a big one. I wonder what he’d be like in bed,’ and then went a little wild to find out. And when I did find out, I realized I married the wrong man and should be with the big guy. I know what my peers will think if I ever introduce you as my new boyfriend. They’ll think aliens have landed and fucked with their brains. Or maybe mine. The point is I can’t wait to push out that little brown baby, who I hope is yours, but who I’ll love even if he’s Bob’s. Some day I’ll be able to ask you if you’ll be my boyfriend and you’ll be able to say yes. That’s what I’m hoping you’ll say.”

He kissed her and said, “Do that thing where you make me cum, even if I’m trying not to.”

“Mmm,” she said. “Kiss me again while I do it.”

And so, with their lips welded together in a lover’s kiss, she milked him until his balls jumped and she felt his warm spunk suffusing her belly.

In that instant, she knew she had to figure out a way to have this forever.

Heather lay there, awake. She was thinking, trying to figure out how her life had gotten to where it was, and what the fuck she was going to do. Tony’s big, warm bulk was beside her and she could hear him breathing slowly. For such a big man, he didn’t snore.

Tony was a big part of what she was thinking about. Tony was “where her life had gotten to.” Thinking about her old life was easy, but it was like thinking about a book she’d read. It had been finished, closed, and put down. Now the pages of a new book were turning. The first chapter of that book had been wild, full of fear, anger and unhappiness. She thought of herself as a lioness, back then, but only because she felt like a lioness, now. If she wanted to be honest, she had been a wild lioness, caught and caged. The lion tamer had been Bob. She still had her claws and fangs, but she knew to bow to the ringmaster when he came into the room.

Her taming had been brutal, and yet there had been moments of stark pleasure and happiness. The whip Bob had used to tame her was between his legs. He had been liberal with its application, until she was weak and could not resist further. Each time she saw him there had been twin feelings, one of disgust and the other of impatience for him to use the whip again.

Along the way there had been other characters in the new book. They were characters the heroine of the first book would never have befriended or hung out with, back in the first book. The old heroine would never have even tried to enter the new book. Now, though, those characters were her friends. There was Amanda, who had two kids and looked like a teenager. She wanted to go to medical school and was trying to earn enough money to make that dream come true. Jane was elated with her new role as screenplay writer and narrator at the club. Tawny worried that one of her breasts was bigger than the other and she looked lopsided. Tiffany imagined herself as being in a fairy tale when she danced. Rhonda hated men, but they were her source of income. She was the hottest, sexiest lap dancer in the club, and it was all just to torture the John and give him blue balls. There were seventeen more characters in the dressing room – eighteen if Annabelle actually showed up. Several of the girls had seen Daddy and all of them had felt the vibrations in the force that said he liked to slide his dripping old boner up into Annabelle’s hot, little pussy. That might have been the real reason for the divorce. It didn’t matter whose prick made her happy at home. She was in the sisterhood and she was welcome, if she wanted to come.