“Those are called the Skimmerhorns.” Her eyes flicked up to the west-facing ridge and then back to her cup of java. She wrapped her both hands around the warm cardboard tumbler but the steep scarps juxtaposed as an icon of her career and her voice cooled. “People find it not surmountable from this side.”

“Some say the world will end in fire, 
some say in ice.” Romero sensed pessimism and presumed it harkened from the dirty tactic of a boss using her for a client perquisite. People find poetry is conducive to hypnotic seduction. “From what I’ve tasted of desire, 
I hold with those who favor fire.
”

“Did you just make that up?” Jessica’s eyes broke from her idle focus, as if under hypnosis, and widened as she looked up. Tasted desire fit with a cagey coxswain’s using poetry to topple a woman’s resolve and seduce her but the world ending clashed with a seduction pattern.

“But if it had to perish twice, 
I think I know enough of hate
. To say that for destruction ice, 
is also great, 
and would suffice.” The hypnotic reciting made Romero recall when he heard it first. “Robert Frost.”

“What’s so funny?” The girl had seen a hidden smile. She had also just taken several stimulating strikes. His masculine timbre had been melodic and seductively hypnotic. Even the content of the verse was oddly soothing and mesmerizing.

“I was at a teenage stage,” he paused briefly but decided this true anecdote was safe to tell, “and I thought I should always seem manly but I found a poetry book.” He looked at the entrancing woman with bedroom lidded eyes. She had him ensnared with a power stronger than hypnotism. “I was reading it in bed when my dad walked in unexpectedly: I quickly shoved it under the blankets.”

“Like it was your mom catching you with a smut magazine.” Jessica’s eyes twinkled seductively and she giggled at the turnabout humor. She could have been a poster girl for seduce weekly magazine.

“My dad’s keen perception caught my ruse and I showed my shameful doings.” Romero recalled how sheepish he’d felt. “After a glance at the cover, he smiled and recited that poem from memory.”

“Your father’s acceptance,” the young woman found the moral but was rattled by the rapid flurry of sensitivity, poignancy, hypnotic seduction and even some vulnerability with humor—she chose her wording carelessly, “had the effect of strengthening your manhood.”

“Those girlie pictures would’ve also bolstered it more.” He pounced at the opening and enjoyed her resulting seductive titter along with her attractive blush.