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itself free of all thoughts.
    A long time passed, and the only sounds were of her breath and the puffs he seemed to be taking on a cigarette. Then he spoke, calmly, reassuringly.
    'You see what can happen just over the telephone. Imagine if we really work together; think how far you can go. Admit it now, haven't you just experienced things you never have before?'
    She pulled herself together. 'Yes,' she said.
    'You owe it to yourself to see me,' he added. 'I'm very reasonable.'
    'You sound like a psychologist,' she said.
    'In fact, I used to be. Now I'm a therapist.'
    'You call this therapy?' she said, shaking her head to clear it.
    'Why not?' he countered. 'The biggest problem in the country is sex. People are either puritans or pigs. When I fuck somebody, they learn something about themselves. And what is therapy if it isn't a means to self-knowledge?'
    The thought struck her like a clap across the back of the neck. 'You don't by any chance charge money for this?'
    He laughed. Tm too experienced to be giving it away any more,' he said. Tucking a woman the way she needs to be fucked, usually against her resistance, is hard work.'
    'Christ,' she said. 'What do you do for pleasure?'
    He didn't answer. 'It doesn't sound to me like you're going to come and meet me tonight,' he said.
    'I'm sorry,' she replied.
    'Me too,' he said. 'I'll just have to put you on my long list of kook calls,' and then hung up, leaving her hanging, feeling as though he had stuck a long rusty pin into her as his final gesture, his act of revenge.
    'It was delicious,' said Aaron. 'I take back all the unkind things I've said about food fanatics.'
    Cynthia regarded the man she had been living with for three years. Her stomach was full and she felt the sweet contentment of sexual satiation coupled with physical well-being. She was intensely aware of Conrad's eyes, and his look which never rested from seizing her body. He was looking at her nipples, while not staring. There was a lack of focus in his face, and she marvelled that he appeared so soft, almost like a girl, his long blond hair a glimmering waterfall, his expression as peaceful as a child's sleep. Aaron, as usual of late, was looking at nothing. The drama in his mind held all his attention, and his face was vacant, also peaceful, but like that of someone massively dosed with a strong tranquilizer, or of someone recently lobotomised. And co-existing with this emptiness was a scintillating vibration of animal energy. Even sitting still he exuded the air of a football player who has just crossed into the goal after a ninety-yard run. When she examined herself honestly, as she was coming more and more to do, especially after her long talks with Conrad, she admitted that it was Aaron's primitive force which kept her glued to him. Her knees still grew weak when she just thought of him on top of her and in her. She would have let him fuck her in the middle of University Avenue on a Saturday afternoon if he wanted to. She knew she could leave him, but while with him had no desire to be able to resist him.
    She understood that some basic decency would keep him from ever attaining a position of power or wealth, and after their move to Berkeley had made peace with her fate. Aaron would make a career in the ghetto schools, and she would make a baby or two, and they would age quietly. A distant voice within her cried out against the decision, shouting something about a greater fullness possible for a woman than as the attachment that went with the man. But no viable alternative seemed possible, and she did not even have the vocabulary to think about the question in a vigorous manner. She dismissed all her vague misgivings, and wrote her mother a letter telling her about the move, talking in terms of 'wanting to be a little closer to playgrounds and parks,' and hinting very strongly that she and Aaron would soon be giving their relationship legal status. She judged that they were on their way to becoming a