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mutuality, especially not after the first few years. Before Jane,
other women had offered quick pit-stops. But this was different.
    "Who?" she responded, confused.
    He let it pass.
    "What do you want?" he said suddenly. It had been
there all along, the quintessential question. It bothered him to want to know.
    "Want?"
    She was alert, not drowsing. During their lovemaking, a rim
of perspiration had burst on her skin. It had cooled now, a delicious cool.
Against his flesh, hers was like a compress to a bruise.
    "I mean what do you want to do with your life?"
    "Gosh."
    "You always say that," he teased. It was not
meant to hurt, nor did it. She seemed awed by life. Was she a true innocent or
an outstanding dissimulator? This wasn't just a woman. She was like a dream
materialized.
    "Dress up. Look pretty. Be happy. Make other people
happy," she said. She was silent for awhile, then lovingly patted his sex
again. Why was he asking "big" questions, expecting "big"
answers. She was just a pretty wildflower growing in the slag heaps. Why was he
romanticizing her?
    "All in white," she said. "I want everything
to be white. Clean." He could understand that.
    "And money," she whispered. The stereotyped dream
injected a slice of reality he didn't appreciate and he tried to ignore it.
    "You live with ... what was his name?"
    "You mean Jim? Yeah."
    "Why don't you marry him?" It was, he realized, a
ridiculous question. Pay your money and take your pleasure. Stop trying to give
this toy a life.
    "Marry Jim? He got a wife. Five kids."
    "Why do you stay with him?"
    "He's good to me. That's the most important
thing."
    "You don't have a family?"
    "Over in Hiram. An aunt. My parents died. Three
brothers in the Navy. I never see them." She sighed, thinking of the early
misery.
    "That it?"
    She shrugged her body against his. That's a history? he
thought. So dry and empty.
    "What do you do with your days?" He supported
himself on one elbow, looking down at her face, a perfect oval, her hair mussed
as if by design.
    "I used to work in a store. Then a beauty
parlor." She thought about it some more. "Do up my hair. Watch TV.
Jim and me. We both work nights." She looked up at him and smiled.
"We do this a lot."
    "Just like this?" It was a deliberate injection
of reality. He had begun to believe the illusion of her caring.
    "I'm going to buy him a birthday present with the
money."
    His money! Used for another man. The idea destroyed the
illusion completely.
    "Would you have done it without that?" he asked
stupidly.
    She looked up at him, her eyes shining, like great saucers.
    "Might," she said, stroking his cheek. "But
Jim takes care of me, and I make him happy."
    Her convoluted reason defied logic.
    "Well, I'm getting my money's worth," he said,
kissing her deeply, sucking her soft smooth tongue. Reaching out, she caressed
him and he hardened swiftly. She moved under him until he was inside her again,
her eyes closed in concentrated pleasure. She lifted her knees, digging her
insteps into his sides, grasping his buttocks, pushing him deeper. She emitted
a low moan, like a kitten meowing. Soon his body erupted in excruciating joy.
This, he knew, was ecstasy.
    "You happy?" she whispered later.
    Beyond imagination! But he said nothing, afraid he was only
dreaming.
    When he awoke, he was surprised to discover that he had
drowsed and was still connected to her. Her breathing was so shallow, he had
put his ear against her mouth to hear it, reassured by the tiny cool wafts. In
the darkness, the air-conditioner purred. Something, he knew, had awakened him
and he listened for a break in the night sounds. Slivers of light had begun to
poke through the drawn blinds.
    It was too late when he realized what it was. The door
crashed open and grimy rough hands were pummeling him. Fighting off the
attacker, he jumped and tripped. Then he felt an overbearing pressure, a sweaty
malignant human form, pinning him to the floor, heavy blows sinking into his
face and