"Oh, the army wasn't all that happy about my taking off. They're out there looking for me even as we lie here, sharing secrets."

"Aren't you afraid they'll catch you?"

"I'm afraid of all sorts of things."

She drew a long sympathetic sigh and said, "Gosh."

"Gosh, indeed. While I was in the army, I sort of went wild this one night. I ended up sobbing and screaming and beating up this Coke machine. I might have gotten away with it if it had been a Pepsi machine, but Cola-Cola isAmerica, and beating one up is a matter for the UnAmerican Activities Committee, so they put me in the hospital. The loony bin. This doctor told me..." He slipped into his Groucho Marx voice. "...Your problem isn't physical, son. It's psychological. That'll be ten million dollars. Cash. We don't take checks. For that matter, we don't take Poles or Yugoslavs either."

"And now you can't feel any pleasure? Like the kind you made me feel?"

"Yes, I can feel pleasure. And, sometimes I need it very badly. But it's not easy for me to get pleasure. It's difficult and... sort of complicated."

"Is there anything I can do? To help you, I mean?" Her voice was thin, and so sincere.

"Do you really want to help me?"

"I do. Honest and truly, I do."

"Cross your heart and hope to die?" He sighed and closed his eyes. "All right." He sat up on the edge of the bed. "You scoot over here and turn your back to me. And I'll bring myself pleasure. Is that all right?"

She slid over to the edge of the bed, awkward and uncertain. "Will it hurt me?"

"Yes," he told her softly. "But not for long."

She was silent.

"Is that all right? The hurt and all?" he asked. "I won't do it, if you don't want me to."

She swallowed and answered in a small voice. "No, it's all right."

He reached down and trickled his fingers up her spine to the nape of her neck and up into her hair. She hummed, and he felt her skin get goose-bumpy with thrill. His hands slipped under her hair and he stroked the sides of her neck up to the ears, then he reached around and gently cradled her throat between his hands. She swallowed, and he felt the cartilage of her windpipe ripple beneath his fingers. He bared his teeth and he closed his eyes and squeezed and let the up-welling of pleasure sweep him towards...

She gagged and struggled. Her arms flayed about wildly, but his hands were too strong. Her desperately clutching fingers clawed at the rungs of her iron bedstead, then grasped the edge of her pillow, then her snow-

She crouches in the far corner of her bed, trapped. One of her shoulders is pressed against the cool iron bedstead, the other against the gritty wall. She hugs a snatched-up pillow to her naked chest, unable to move because she's afraid of touching the thing that sprawls diagonally across the bed, split down the spine by a shadow that leaves one shoulder, one buttock, and one dangling leg in the bright light.

When she swallows, her bruised throat hurts. After hitting him... and again... and again... she scuttled into the dark corner and stared at the paperweight lying next to him until the swirling snowstorm ebbed and settled to one side of the sphere. There was stuff from his head on it.

She stares at it still, her insides fluttery and cold. Her hip feels slimy. He squirted while they were struggling. She wipes it off with the hem of the sheet, shuddering.

The faucet drip-drip-drips into the sink.

Suddenly the streetlight goes off, and the ceiling is dark. A thin metallic dawn seeps into the room and she whispers to herself that she has to find help... has to tell somebody what happened.

But first she has to get past him.

Down in the street beneath her window, the air is almost cool. Milky tints began to stretch the morning sky, and already the air is stale and dusty in the nostrils.

It's going to be another scorcher.

Trevanian has previously published several of these tales under various pseudonyms. He gratefully acknowledges: The Yale Literary Magazine; B. B. Uitgerversmastschappij,Amsterdam; The Antioch Review; Harper'smagazine; Playboymagazine; Clarkson N. Potter, Inc.; Redbook;and The Editors' Choice (The Best Short Fiction for 1985),published by Bantam Books.

Copyright (c) 2000 by Trevanian.

ISBN: 0-312-97882-0