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today.”
    “How did it go?”
    “Quite well.” Roger took a sip from his glass, a sip that became a long drink. Silence. Then: “Do you know the word
putz
?”
    “Yiddish for
prick
.”
    His eyes glazed at the word, or maybe the word coming from her mouth. What was going on? He touched her hand. “Let’s go to bed.”
    That would have been her last guess. The perfect reply, the honest reply, came to her immediately:
I’m a one-man woman, Roger. I don’t sleep around
.
    “Is something funny?” Roger said. His hand was still touching hers, not holding it, just touching the back. An odd gesture—not friendly, not warm, not erotic.
    “No.”
    “Sit down, Francie.”
    “Why?”
    “Is that a lot to ask?”
    She sat down. His hand covered hers, stroked slowly up her arm: a hard, horny hand, like that of a manual laborer, which Roger was not.
    “Have you been drinking?” she said.
    “That’s not a very nice suggestion,” said Roger. “And inaccurate. I’m feeling uxorious, if you must know.”
    His hand reached her shoulder, jerked quickly down, took possession of her breast. Francie recoiled, but he hung on to her nipple, manipulating it in various ways, as though hoping to stumble on some combination that would change her mood, like a safecracker fiddling with a lock.
    “Roger, for God’s sake.” She tried to push him away. He fell on her—was much bigger and stronger—and as he did she noticed for the first time that although there wasn’t a single white hair on his head, his nostrils were full of them. His Harvard robe fell open, his penis pressed against her, and at that moment—unbidden, ill-timed, insane—the image of Ned’s penis appeared in her mind.
    Roger’s, almost a schematic in contrast, butted against her rigid body.
    “Stop it now,” she said. And then his mouth was on hers, his tongue probing. This wasn’t him at all. She twisted her head, tried to roll away, but Roger got his hand under her ass, pulled her close, forcing his penis against her. At the same time, she felt his finger moving behind her.
    “What the hell are you doing?”
    “Spicing up our marriage. You are my wife.”
    “You’re sick.” Francie struck out at him, barely aware of what she was doing.
    He stopped moving, stopped pressing, raised himself. Four scratches ran across his cheek, blood welling in the deepest. Their eyes met. Roger’s eyes: but behind them could have been anybody, and the face was the face of a man who resembled Roger. It reddened under her gaze; at the same time, his penis dwindled, as though all the blood had drained to his head. He got off her, rose, straightened his robe; his tie remained perfectly knotted. He went to the door, opened it, turned.
    “You may fool other people,
dear,
but you don’t fool me. Never have. And now you’re a dried-up cunt as well, no matter what anyone else thinks.” He went out, closing the door softly, never touching the wound she had made.
    Francie didn’t start crying until she was in the shower, hot as she could stand, scrubbing and scrubbing, bathroom door locked. Crying: from not being able to stop, to realizing it wasn’t doing any good, to stopping. Getting out of the shower, she saw her wretched face, fogged in the mirror, and turned away. She dried herself, brushed her teeth, brushed her hair, but stopped abruptly in mid-stroke:
no matter what anyone else thinks.
What did that mean? She thought back, searching for some mistake in her spycraft, found none. Then who was
anyone else
? Sandy Cronin? Was his behavior tonight some form of sexual competition? With a noncompetitor, of course, and still he had lost. Clear in her mind theoretically, the disconnection between sex and rape had now been demonstrated as well.
    Francie put on a fresh nightie—flannel, to her ankles—and went to bed, curled up in a ball. She tried to keep her mind from doing anything, but failed. It went right to her most vulnerable spot. Why wouldn’t it, after what had