He was here, and sitting in her home, and giving her a present. She said those words in her mind because she wanted to remind herself how happy she was.

The gift wasn’t wrapped in white paper as she had first thought but plastic, two enormous sheets of it. Painters’ drop cloths or clear shower curtains. As he unwound them, he took out roll after roll of packing tape, the superstrong kind with fibers all through it.

“Are we building something?” she asked. The tape and the plastic were giving her a bad feeling. Nobody wrapped gifts in plastic and tape you had to cut with a knife.

“Sort of,” he replied. “A box for a friend of mine.” He smiled more to himself than to her. The bad feeling didn’t go away. She poured bourbon on it to quiet it down.

At last, the plastic and the tape had been set aside in a neat pile, and all that remained was the gift loosely wrapped in brown paper.

No long-stem roses for her. What it was she couldn’t guess.

“Before I give this to you I want to tell you a story,” he said and, looking her in the eyes, his gloved hands resting on his knees, he began: “Once upon a time there was an ugly duckling… ”

“Does she turn into a beautiful swan?” Her hand flew to her mouth. She had interrupted him. He hated it when she interrupted him. Before she could say she was sorry, he went on.

“No. This is a true story. In real life, ugly ducklings, at least the ones that aren’t savaged by dogs or eaten by cats, grow up to be big ugly ducks. Big fat ugly quackers,” he said. Relieved he’d not gotten angry at her interruption, she scarcely noticed the hard edge his words took on.

“This ugly duckling was a nosey little bird, a spying little bird. She had very sharp eyes, and she saw things that she wasn’t supposed to see.”

The set of his mouth, the mocking way he was telling the story, cut through the alcohol, and she realized he was talking about the Woman in Red, about her. She knew this the way she knew things, the way the tarot had unlocked for her.

She was the spying little bird.

She tried to think of what she could have seen that she wasn’t supposed to. He knew she’d been watching the office, but even so he hadn’t done anything interesting. He’d gone over to Polly Whatsername on the bench that day. Anybody could have seen that. That was about the most interesting thing he’d done. Other than that, it was clients and business.

“What did she see?” she asked. Bourbon slurred her words and she was ashamed. He didn’t get mad though.

“You know what she saw.”

She didn’t, but she was afraid if she said it he would think she was stupid or being contrary. Then he really would get mad, so she nodded.

“The prince-every story has to have a prince,” he said, and there was genuine warmth when he looked into her eyes and smiled.

I would die for an hour of his love. The thought floated like a bubble on the bourbon and the fear. He was so beautiful.

“The prince paid the ugly spying duckling to keep what she had seen a secret. Oh, they never talked about it; a prince doesn’t share things with fat ugly birds, but he paid. He paid so much that the ugly duckling came to owe him.

“One night the prince came to the duck’s nest to collect the debt.” At this point in the story, he reached down and meticulously loosened the masking tape holding the wrapper in place and folded the brown paper back.

“An axe,” she said stupidly.

“Melodramatic, isn’t it? A child’s weapon, but I need historic continuity so an axe it has to be.” He didn’t move to pick it up or touch it but kept looking at her, smiling warmly

She couldn’t take her eyes off the blade, blunt on one end, sharp and shiny sharp on the other.

“Yore gimmin me nax?”

What she had meant to ask was, Are you giving me an axe? Usually, she didn’t get to the point her lips numbed and her words slurred until she was alone.

“Sort of. See all this plastic? I’m going to spread it out over the floor-assuming there is a floor under all this dross-and you’re going to stand in the middle of it. Sit in the middle; I doubt you are in any shape to stand. That’s okay. Bourbon is a good anesthetic. I don’t wish to hurt you, so I will make the first blow count. If you don’t move, you shouldn’t even feel it.”

The smile was still cozy and comforting on his face. Smile and words were at such odds, it took a moment for the meaning of the latter to sink in. “You are going to kill me.” A jolt of adrenaline sobered her for a minute. “Why?” she wailed and tried to stand. He leaned forward, put a gloved hand on her chest, and pushed her back. Forgotten, the caftan gaped open, her left breast exposed. “Why?” she repeated, the wail degenerating into a confused whimper. “I love you.”

“I know. It will be better if you don’t think about it as me killing you. Think about it as you giving me the thing I need right now. I’m not mad at you. This isn’t punishment. I know you didn’t mean to be a spying, prying little duck. That’s the least part of it, really. It’s something I need you to do so I can make right a wrong. It’s the way you can show me you really do love me.”

While he talked in a nice reasonable voice, he shook out the plastic sheets and spread them over the detritus of the room, careful to overlap them several feet. Together, they covered nearly the entire space.

Watching him, she did not know what to feel. He would kill her; she knew that. Part of her thought to get up and run for the door, but she knew she’d never make it. Screaming crossed her mind, but she didn’t do it. The fear was there, so intense she tingled with it, but it wasn’t the bowel-loosening fear she suffered when she crossed him.

“What do you have to live for anyway? Look at yourself. You are middle-aged and pathologically obese; you live in a sty that any self-respecting pig would be ashamed of. The people you know laugh at you. The people you don’t know laugh at you. The greatest emotion you inspire in others is disgust. You’re a drunk. Liver disease will probably kill you in the not-too-distant future. This is your chance to make your pathetic miserable life end with some spark of meaning. You don’t want to keep on living do you? Not a drunken slut selling blow jobs for five dollars a pop? Yes, I know about your little side business. You have made yourself a whore, and a cheap one at that. Let me take you out of this mess.”

He’d come back to her chair and now held out his hand to her. Tears were pouring down her face; she knew this because she felt the warm drops hitting her bare chest.

“Could you take off your glove?” she pleaded, her voice small and sweet, the way it had been when she was little, before she’d become a lump, then a lard, then a whore, and a cheap one at that. “Please? For just a second?”

If she could feel his flesh, hold his hand, it would be okay.

For a moment she thought he would refuse her but, in the end, he did care for her; he took his glove off and helped her to her feet. She staggered and would have fallen, but he steadied her with an arm around her waist.

We could be dancing, she thought. Her hand in his, moving gracefully around the floor, candlelight turning the world to gold, and him smiling down at her, holding her as if she were the most precious thing on earth.

When they stood in the middle of the plastic he’d spread, he looked around. “This should do it,” he said matter-of-factly. “There will be some spatter, but I think we’ve got it covered. I’ll do you with the blunt end of the axe and let you lay for a minute. If your blood isn’t circulating it will be neater.”

He wasn’t talking to her; he was talking to himself, so there was no need for her to listen, no need at all. She concentrated on not plopping as he helped her to sit on the floor.

Like a lady.

“I’m giving you a present,” she said and was proud that her words were clear.