She laughed. "I love your sense of humor." She wrapped her arm around his neck and kissed his mouth hard as if to suck the breath out of him.

So they made love and even tried soixante-neuf in the way shown in Gary 's copy of Penthouse. Nan didn't like it, though he made her come, crying ecstatically as if in pain. He was glad he still could have sex with a woman like a normal man. How relieved he was after he came. Soon he fell into postcoital slumber.

The next morning he went to work without disturbing her, and left her breakfast in the kitchen-a blueberry bagel and two fried eggs, sunny side up on a white plate. When he came back in the evening, she was gone without leaving a word, though she had finished the breakfast and washed the dish. For days he was worried, fearing she might have gotten pregnant since they hadn't used a condom. On the other hand, he felt she might have been on the pill. She would have herself ready for Maurice before coming to see him, wouldn't she?

Then the thought began to disturb him that he could have caught some venereal disease. A few years earlier he had read in a Chinese newspaper that more than a third of Americans and Canadians had gonorrhea, herpes, syphilis. The previous winter his mother had written to warn him not to have sexual contact with foreign women, saying that if he got syphilis, his nose would rot, he'd go bald and blind, and he would pass the virus on to his wife and children and grandchildren. She had told him that in the old China, every day people had to boil chopsticks and bowls used by syphilitics so that their families wouldn't be infected. The more Nan thought about the one-night stand, the more he regretted it. If only he had observed Heather's body carefully before having sex with her. She couldn't have fled without a reason, could she? When he ran into Maurice, Nan couldn't help but observe the whiteheads on his thin neck, wondering if they were herpes blisters.

For three weeks he felt agitated and miserable, and even thought of going to the infirmary for a checkup, but he decided not to. Then right before school started, a letter from Heather arrived. She wrote in a scraggy hand that leaned slightly to one side:

August 26, 1986

Dear Nan,

I hope this will reach you and find you well. I don't have your address, so I'm sending this letter to your department. Thank you so much for accommodating me when I was in Boston. Without your help, I couldn't have survived the crisis. I'm sorry to have dragged you into my personal trouble when I was there. You are a sweet man. That night you made me feel great, as if I became a woman again. But to tell the truth, afterward I felt guilty, so I left in the morning without saying good-bye.

Don't be angry with me, Nan. We both sinned, though I am the one who made you commit fornication. Last weekend I confessed everything at the church, and it lightened my mind considerably. God is large-hearted and has forgiven me. Perhaps you need to go to confession too. Try it. It really helps.

Please don't think ill of me. I know you're a kind, generous man. I will remember you fondly.

Yours,

Heather

Her letter bewildered him. Nobody had ever called him "a sweet man." Neither did he know what "a sweet man" was like. Weren't men supposed to be strong and fierce, full of spunk? How could he be sweet? He was baffled.

He had never considered that, similar to himself, eager to prove the adequacy of his manhood with the one-night stand, Heather had been desperate to restore her womanhood. How could a woman have the kind of crippled feeling like a man's fear of having lost his potency? Perhaps for Heather this was more psychological than physical, since she didn't have to depend on an erection to perform in bed. She must have wanted to convince herself of being desired by a man or of her ability to make love to a man.

Rather than feeling guilty, Nan was fearful and somewhat upset.

He had promised his wife that he wouldn't have another woman in America. But Heather was a different case. He wasn't really fond of her. The yearlong celibacy had tormented him and made him feel he might not be adequate between the sheets anymore. The idea of sin hadn't entered his mind until he read Heather's letter. He couldn't imagine kneeling in a box and exposing himself to a priest, though he had gone to a church in Waltham on two Sundays. He consulted his Webster's Collegiate Dictionary to see the difference between "fornication" and "copulation." Being a one-night fornicator didn't bother him that much. What worried him most was whether Heather had carried any disease. Her letter sounded calm, with no trace of anxiety. Did this mean she was a clean and healthy woman?

For the whole fall he was troubled by that question. He examined his genitals carefully whenever he took a shower, but noticed nothing abnormal. His body was still fine and vigorous; his vision and hearing were as clear as before. Everything was normal. Not until it snowed did he manage to put the worry out of his mind.

AT HAMPDEN PARK, Ivan often talked to Nan about women, complaining that it was too expensive to have a date here. In Russia, he said, women would take care of the expenses when they went out with him. Nan doubted whether that was true. Ivan claimed that he had been a junior officer in the Red Army in the late 1970s and that Russian women were always enamored of uniforms and epaulets. Nan wondered why the cost of dating a woman would nettle Ivan so much if he was a successful businessman. Didn't he own real estate on Lake Geneva? He must already be a millionaire. One night, when Ivan talked about American women again, Nan asked him, "Are you not afraid of catching AIDS?"

Ivan let out a bray of laughter. "I've known lots of girls and can take care of diseases."

"So you like American women?"

"Not particularly. I need female company sometimes."

"How about your wife?"

"She lives in Paris. I don't need to pay attention to her." "You mean you two are separated?"

"No. She's bossing a business there. She's Frenchwoman by birth, you know."

"So she let you have anozzer woman when she is away?"

Ivan smiled without answering. The expression on his face seemed to indicate that he was good at handling women. It reminded Nan of the saying "A brazen face is a man's great leverage with ladies." He then noticed that Ivan's laptop wasn't there. "Where's your computer?" he asked.

"Its hard disk busted dead. I left it home."

"You do oil exports still?" "Well, I changed my profession." "Doing what now?"

"That's top secret." Ivan laughed again. "By the way, don't you like Maria? She talked very much about you."

"Maria is all right, but I'm too tired to sink about women."

"You're smart. Maria goes nutty sometimes. What an appetite she possesses. She ate two rib-eye steaks when we dined together last time."

"And she drinks a lawt too." "Like a cow whale." "So you're dating her?"

"Not really. We visited a restaurant last weekend. God, I won't do that again. It's just too much."

By now Nan saw that Ivan wasn't very different from himself, a mere nighttime drudge, though this man from Vladivostok appeared to be confident and thriving here. Unlike him, Ivan must still believe in the dream of becoming a man of means.

A few days later Sandy called Nan into his office and told him not to carry his dictionary to work again. He insisted that personally he wouldn't have minded as long as Nan did his job well. But someone at the recent residents' meeting voiced the complaint in front of others, so he had no choice but to stop Nan from reading anything at work. "No hard feelings, Nan," said Sandy. "As the manager here, I have to let you know."