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dreams he had seen her too sometimes, Charis, on the path ahead, turning to look back, with just those eyes. Or maybe it wasn't her, or Rose either, or anyone.
    "But listen,” she said, cross-legged now on her divan, a little idol. “Weren't you afraid you might go too far with her? That's what I always wonder. Like how were you supposed to know if she. You know. Didn't want to."
    "Oh she could tell me,” Pierce said, and ground his hands together. “Even if I wouldn't listen when she said no. Wasn't supposed to listen."
    "Then how did she tell you?"
    "She could say: I tell you three times."
    "'I tell you three times.’ That's it?"
    He lowered his head, bare and ashamed.
    "Okay,” Charis said cautiously but not judgmentally, calm counselor or therapist. “So go on."
    So go on. Iter in antiquam silvam, stabula alta ferarum . They had gone on, into the forest primeval, where the beasts den in the deep dark. How far in did they go? Only halfway: then, of course, they began to come out again, though he at least didn't know that. He told about the cutting of her hair, how deeply that got her too, another set of wires crossed; how he had been able to overmaster her simply by showing her the scissors ( territio realis ) and taking her hair in handfuls, gentle but firm, and not to be refused. And other things.
    "So let me see if I get this,” Charis said. Her black brows knitted. “You've got this woman who likes stuff. Needs stuff. She has to have stuff, but she can't say she wants it. So you get her somehow so that she can't get away, strap her up real good, and then while she's that way you do the stuff to her she wants you to do. The stuff she needs. While she says, No no, please no, and you don't listen."
    He nodded.
    "You figured out what she wants, and you gave it to her. Without her asking. Or even admitting. Which she couldn't do."
    He nodded still.
    "Well. Jeez. A person can't ask for more than that, Pierce. Isn't that just love? To do that for somebody? Isn't that what it means?"
    Could it be that her eyes regarding him were soft? He turned away, feeling a great heaving in his chest as though the hurt heart there were making a break for it; clapped a hand over his mouth to keep it in. It had only been a month or so since he had broken for good with Rose. Not long, not long at all. Real love: if it was, would Charis know, someone like her? Maybe she alone.
    "So where is she now?” Charis asked softly. “Are you still...?"
    "No. No no. She's gone."
    "Gone? Like vanished?"
    "To Peru.” He searched his coat pockets for something he didn't find. “Last I heard."
    "Peru."
    "She became a Christian,” Pierce said. “A sort of Christian. She joined a cult, actually."
    "A Peruvian cult?"
    "They have some sort of connection there,” he said. “A mission."
    "Like converting people?"
    "Bringing them the message. The Word. They're a tiny group, but they pretend to be international. The Powerhouse International."
    "The what house?"
    "Powerhouse. The Bible is the powerhouse.” To say anything about them, to use the fraught words they used, was to him like touching dead flesh, or being spat on by strangers, why? For how long?
    Charis shook her head in wonderment. “So when she got converted, that was the end of that stuff, huh? You and her. The things you did."
    "Well,” he said. “No. Not right away."
    "Oh no?” she said. “No?” She laughed greatly, as though some simple truth about humanity, or women, or life on earth had been confirmed. “Uh-huh. So then how did it end? Between you?"
    "Well, her faith,” he said. “So-called. After a while it just got insupportable."
    "Really."
    "Really.” Insupportable, that was the word, he couldn't support it, for our support is reason, and what our reason will not support we let fall, we walk away from it, everybody does, except those people; it was all he had done, all that he needed to admit he had done. Insupportable. “God,” he said. “Old Nobadaddy. Guy in the