DR. SCOTT SANDERSON played with the swizzle stick in his drink.

He was sitting at the bar with his friend, Richard, waiting for a table in the busy restaurant. It was Friday night and the place was packed with doctors, nurses and technicians seeking R and R before heading home, or back to shift. Scott had met Richard Jones, a radiation oncologist, at a medical conference in San Francisco ten years earlier. He thought of him as his best friend, although he occasionally wondered why. While Scott was an introvert and conservative by nature, Richard was a wild and wacky guy who attracted people to him like ants to a picnic.

"So how's the new marriage?" Scott asked. Richard had married for the third time just before Christmas.

"Hot. Amy sucks and swallows if you know what I mean."

He winked. "She seems to like it. I know I do."

Scott just shook his head. He was used to Richard's crassness, but he wondered now why it didn't occur to his friend that the next time Scott met Amy, it might embarrass her, or him.

Richard added, "I hear there's talk about me dumping number two for an older version."

"Well, it is a little unusual."

Richard had divorced his first wife and married a girl half his age, and then had divorced her and taken up with a fortyyearold social worker, his new wife, Amy.