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had. Even after their confrontation, she wasn’t rushing away from him. Maybe that was a good sign.
    “Maybe I’ve lost the last marble I ever had,” he muttered, turning back to the house.
    This place, a refuge that asked nothing of him emotionally, now seemed small and squalid with its rusting fencing and drunken rows of worn-out appliances. He wondered what she’d thought of it. He wondered why he should even care.
    The dogs started barking again, this time just to bark. Paul ignored them. He went into the empty house, and even the wonderful scent of fried abalone couldn’t lift his spirits. He found himself wishing he could see his daughter, a need he’d walled off out of necessity a long time ago. He wouldn’t bring more pain to a child. He loved her too much for that. He was a monster. She’d been only six years old when that epithet, and many others, had been flung at him. She must not remember them, for otherwise why would she ask him to her Communion?
    It must be Judith’s fault, he thought, making him wish for a more structured life again. She was upsetting, this woman who wore expressive T-shirts with more pleasure than expensive silks.
    Very upsetting.
    Gingerly, Judith stepped into the corrugated tin shed and pulled the door that didn’t quite close behind her. She tied the rope handle as tightly as she could, but that half-inch door gap that came thigh-high refused to shrink.
    She supposed it was just as well. The only light in the shower was a tiny window high on the wall, illuminating little more than an old bird’s nest in the ceiling rafter. At least she could see by the gap if the shower had any floor visitors.
    She set her clothes, both those she stripped off and those she would eventually wear, on the small bench, then got a stream of water started from the showerhead. The water pressure was nonexistent and the temperature was never more or less than tepid. Right now she could use a cold shower with a pounding spray. Her libido desperately needed a cooling off and drumming back into normal shape after that encounter with Paul the other evening. It occurred to her that she could have thrown herself into the ocean, but it was too late. She was here now with her thoughts of Paul.
    He’d kissed her senseless, a condition she couldn’t remember happening before. Most kisses she’d experienced had been dutiful or sweet or nice. His had been explosive. He’d thrown her emotional equilibrium into a tizzy, then he had seen right through her to her true self, scaring her badly—so badly in fact that she’d actually stood up to him.
    It had felt good, she admitted, still surprised by her actions. If only she could be like that all the time. But Paul did things to her, made her feel like she’d never felt before.
    But no, she thought, that wasn’t exactly true. It was almost like the way she’d felt when she’d been a diver with Olympic team aspirations. A swimming teacher had encouraged her to pursue diving, and she had loved every minute of it. She had loved the walk along the board or platform; standing poised, completely motionless, at the edge, seeing the dive in her mind, aware of only the spot in the water below where she would enter it. Then the leap into the air, the moment of flying, then her body taut and powerful as she twisted and turned, till she kicked her legs out and plunged into the water in a perfectly straight line. Yes, Paul made her feel something like that exhilaration, though what she felt with him was even better, for rather than flying through the air alone, someone else—Paul—was with her.
    Her body grew warmer in a way that had nothing to do with the water. Her hands, for some odd reason, slowed the course of the wet washcloth along her belly. She took a deep breath at the feel of the rough terry against her sensitive skin. It was almost as if Paul were touching her, his hands guiding the cloth across the most intimate parts of her body.…
    A shadow passed across