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"Are you sure you closed the door? There's a terrible draft suddenly. There's not much privacy in this house, is there?"
                "Well Jesus how much privacy do you think I owe you?"
                "Well you don't have to stand there staring, you've seen me take a bath before."
                "Well I haven't seen you with your clothes off since I don't know when. You're O.K."
                "I'm just a cunt, Harry. There are billions of us now."
                A few years ago she would never have said "cunt." It excites him, touches him like a breath on his cock. The ankle she is reaching to shave starts to bleed, suddenly, brightly, shockingly. "God," he tells her, "you are clumsy."
                "Your standing there staring makes me nervous."
                "Why're you taking a bath right now anyway?"
                "We're going out to supper, remember? If we're going to make the movie at eight o'clock we ought to leave here at six. You should wash off your ink. Want to use my water?"
                "It's all full of blood and little hairs."
                "Harry, really. You've gotten so uptight in your old age."
                Again, "uptight." Not her voice, another voice, another voice in hers.
                Janice goes on, "The tank hasn't had time to heat enough for a fresh tub."
                "O.K. I'll use yours."
                His wife gets out, water spilling on the bathmat, her feet and buttocks steamed rosy. Her breasts sympathetically lift as she lifts her hair from the nape of her neck. "Want to dry my back?"
                He can't remember the last time she asked him to do this. As he rubs, her smallness mixes with the absolute bigness naked women have. The curve that sways out from her waist to be swelled by the fat of her flank. Rabbit squats to dry her bottom, goosebumpy red. The backs ofher thighs, the stray black hairs, the moss moist between. "O.K.," she says, and steps off. He stands to pat dry the down beneath the sweep of her upheld hair: Nature is full of nests. She asks, "Where do you want to eat?"
                "Oh, anywhere. The kid likes the Burger Bliss over on West Weiser."
                "I was wondering, there's a new Greek restaurant just across the bridge I'd love to try. Charlie Stavros was talking about it the other day."
                "Yeah. Speaking of the other day -"
                "He says they have marvellous grape leaf things and shish kebab Nelson would like. If we don't make him do something new he'll be eating at Burger Bliss the rest of his life."
                "The movie starts at seven-thirty, you know."
                "I know," she says, "that's why I took a bath now," and, a new Janice, still standing with her back to him, nestles her bottom against his fly, lifting herself on tiptoe and arching her back to make a delicate double damp spreading contact. His mind softens; his prick hardens. "Besides," Janice is going on, edging herself on tiptoes up and down like a child gently chanting to Banbury Cross, "the movie isn't just for Nelson, it's for me, for working so hard all week."
                There was a question he was about to ask, but her caress erased it. She straightens, saying, "Hurry, Harry. The water will get cold." Two damp spots are left on the front of his suntans. The muggy bathroom has drugged him; when she opens the door to their bedroom, the contrast of cold air cakes him; he sneezes. Yet he leaves the door open while he undresses so he can watch her dress. She is practiced, quick; rapidly as a snake shrugs forward over the sand she has tugged her black pantyhose up over her legs. She nips to the closet for her skirt, to the bureau for her blouse, the frilly silvery one, that he thought was reserved for parties. Testing the tub with his foot (too