Even so, he couldn't help but feel out of place in this tacky little hotel room, with this particular woman who just happened to be one of the key staff members of his new Jokertown mission. Not that he was inexperienced. He had done it many times before, with many kinds of women, in rooms like this one. The women had done it because he was famous, or had felt good listening to his sermons, or wanted to feel closer to God. Occasionally, when he himself was having a little difficulty feeling close to God, they'd done it for money, the payments having been arranged by a trustworthy member of his most intimate circle. A few women had foolishly believed they were in love with him, a delusion he generally shattered without much trouble, but only after satiating their carnal desires.

But nothing in the young preacher's experience had quite prepared him for a woman such as Belinda May, who apparently was here for the sheer joy of it. He wondered if Belinda May's attitude was typical of unmarried big-city Christian women. Where in the world is Jesus going to come from, he thought, when the time arrives for him to return again? He opened the door to the bedroom and, before he had taken a single step outside, received the shock of his life. Belinda May sat cross-legged on the bed, smoking a cigarette, as pretty as you please but as naked as a jaybird. He'd expected to see her naked, of course, but not right away. And even then, he'd thought she'd be discreetly under the sheets. "About time you showed up," she said. She stubbed out her cigarette and stepped into his arms before he could take a breath. Now he knew how a frying pan felt on a hot stove. She clung to him as if she wanted to pull herself into his body. He was unbelievably aroused by the sensation of her breasts pressed against his chest, and by the way she had mounted his thigh rubbing against it as if she were trying to sit on the bone. Her tongue was like an eel exploring his mouth. One hand was under his T-shirt, the other down his shorts, caressing his buttocks.

"Hmmm, you taste good," Belinda May whispered in his ear after what seemed like an eternity in a place that was an eerie combination of the stratospheres of heaven and the lower levels of hell. No doubt about it, Belinda May was more sexually aggressive than the kind of woman he was used to. "Come on, let's go to bed," she whispered, taking him by the hands and pulling him along. She climbed on the bed, got on her knees, and directing him to stand beside the bed, gently placed his right hand smack onto her pussy.

Though the young preacher experienced a deep and abiding satisfaction every time his foreplay brought her to orgasm, he felt strangely disjointed from the entire affair, as if he was watching the scene through a one-way mirror in the wall. Very self-consciously he wondered anew what he was doing in this dive, with its paint peeling off its badly plastered walls, those tacky lamps, the bed with creaky springs, and that television set staring at him with an unsleeping eye. He regretted going along with Belinda May's request that they pick a room here, at the Edge, to engage in their encounter. It disturbed him to think that in some part of his soul he so closely resembled the people who routinely came to the Edge in search of a safe chance to take. The young preacher wanted to believe God had already filled the important voids in his heart.

However, Belinda May's accessible beauty disturbed him on a deeper level than did his instrusive self-doubts. Gently he pushed her down, and with a strange thrill, not unlike the one he had experienced as a youth the first time he'd knelt alone before an altar, he noted how her blond hair was spread out over the pillow like the wings of an angel. She squirmed beguilingly as he kissed her ear and moved down to lick her neck. He moved down further to kiss her breasts and felt a renewed surge of heat in his scalp as she signaled the measure of her passion by running her hands through his hair and groaning softly. Then he was down at her stomach; running his tongue around the edges of her belly button-an outie-with what he hoped was a delicate, masterful touch. He was gratified beyond his capacity to understand when she at last spread her legs wide apart, an invitation he accepted almost instantly, burying his face and licking her with pagan ferocity. Never had he known a woman to taste so good. Never had he desired so fervently to serve another, instead of being served. Never had he worshiped so humbly, so eagerly at the altar of love. Never had he so gladly debased himself, or so wantonly…

"Leo?" said Belinda May, moving back on her elbows. "Is something the matter?"

The young preacher rose onto his elbows and looked down between his legs, where his male member hung as limp as a man on a noose. O Lord, why have you forsaken me? He thought forlornly, reining in a childish urge to panic. He smiled sheepishly, looked past the altar with its still wideopen invitation, past her sweat-drenched body and those glistening breasts, to her sweetly smiling face. "I don't know. I guess I'm just not with it tonight."

Belinda May pouted and stretched as innocenty and as naturally as if she'd been alone. "Too bad. Is there anything I can do to help?"

For the next few seconds the young preacher weighed several factors in his mind, most of them having to do with the proper balance between frankness and delicate diplomacy. In the end he decided she would respond well to frankness, but he wasn't sure how much he could get away with. He smiled wolfishly. "Think you'd like to something to eat?"

His life passed before his eyes as she swung her left leg over his head, climbed off the bed, and exclaimed, "What a great idea! There's a sushi bar across the street! You can buy me dinner!" Her buttocks bounced enticingly as she disappeared into the bathroom, closing the door behind her. She turned on the water faucet and then, apparently before commencing her business, opened the door and stuck out her head just long enough to say,

"Then we can come back here and try again."

The young preacher was speechless. He rolled over and stared at the ceiling, the random pattern of the intersecting cracks there enigmatically symbolic of his entire existence at this juncture. He sighed heavily. At least the possibility that the roving news team outside would discover his tryst was no longer the worst thing that could happen to him.

Now, the worst thing would be if they discovered he hadn't been able to get it up.

In that case, the damage done to his political ambitions would be incalculable. The American people were willing to forgive any number of sins in a presidential candidate, but at the very least they expected their sinners to be good at it.

"You really have a good pair of hands, you know that?" called out Belinda May from the bathroom.

Terrific, thought Leo Barnett, clinging to the precipice of despair with progressively weaker force. Bye-bye, White House; hello, Heaven.