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any man to ever touch me again.”
    I got a glass of water from the bathroom. She drank it, gagging and coughing, spitting it all over me. Then she began to rock again.
    I knelt beside her. “You mean someone—?”
    She nodded, her mouth twisted in a bitter crimson smear. “Jerry. That awful barman from the Beachcomber. Where I met you. I thought it was Wally coming back. I — I unlocked the door and let him in. Then he — he — he—”
    I didn’t recognize my voice. “He what?”
    Corliss, got to her feet. She shouted the words in a whisper. “What do you think? He did it to me twice.” She sank back in the chair and began to sob again. “In my own bed.”
    I staggered away from her into the head and was sick. When I came out I’d never been more sober.
    “Why didn’t you scream for me?”
    She made a hopeless gesture with one hand. “What good would that have done? You were drunk.”
    “For Wally, then?”
    “He had a gun. He said he’d kill me if I screamed.” Corliss stopped sobbing and looked at me, through tears. “Do you know what it’s like? Do you know what it means to a woman to be forced against her will? Do you know what she goes through mentally and physically?”
    I said, “For God’s sake, Corliss. Please.”
    She continued to whip at me. “No. You’re a man. You can’t know. You can’t realize the shame, the utter degradation.” Corliss struck out blindly. “You’re beasts. All of you.”
    I wrapped my arms around her. “Where is he now?”
    She kicked at my shins. “What do you care? You’re just another man.”
    I slapped her, harder this time. “Where is he?”
    She sobbed, “On my bed. Passed out. With his gun under my pillow.”
    I yanked the screen door open and padded barefooted across the grass to her cottage, Corliss running beside me, trying to cover herself. “What are you going to do, Swede?”
    “Kill the sonofabitch,” I told her.
    The light in her cabin was on. I could see the barman from the Beachcomber through the screen door. He was the same lad I had seen in the bar. He was lying on Corliss’ bed, snoring, his clothes piled neatly on a chair, is if they had a right to be there.
    I yanked him off the bed, then knocked him to the floor with a hard smash to his mouth that made blood spurt. “This is it, you bastard. Get up and take what’s coming to you.”
    He knelt on all fours, shaking his head like a dog. Then he got to his feet. He was drunk, but not sodden. He acted more as if he was drugged; as if he’d mixed goof balls with his drinks or maybe smoked a few reefers to get up the courage to do what he had done.
    He was thinking and moving in slow motion. He looked from me to Corliss. And spat blood in her face. “You bitch,” he said thickly. “You would.” It was an effort for him to speak coherently. Three of his front teeth were loose, bobbling in bloody froth when he talked.
    He sat back on the bed. His right hand slid under the pillow and came out with a .45 Colt automatic. It was an effort for him to lift it. He pointed it at me, while time stood still. “And as for you, you big Swede—”
    From behind me, her voice throaty and strained with passion, Corliss said, “Hit him. Hit him, Swede. Hit him as hard as you can.”
    I hit him. Before he could pull the trigger. Making a hammer of my right hand. Putting all my hate and revulsion behind it. The blow caught him on his left temple. His head plopped like an overripe melon, and the whole left side of his face caved in.
    The blow knocked him off the bed to the floor.
    Corliss opened her mouth as if she were going to scream, then closed it. A peculiar look came into her face. Her upper lip curled away from her teeth.
    “You’ve killed him, Swede.”
    I stood breathing as if I’d run a long way, sweat beading in the hair on my chest, trickling down. I rubbed my right hand with my left. One of my knuckles was broken. “Yeah. I’ve killed him.”
    Corliss opened the screen door and