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walked to where he sat with the other two, the man and the girl, and stood over him naked so he had to look up at everything she had and she asked him for a light. And he was impressed all right, she could see that, but all the same he moved with a control that she liked-he was no child, no boy, and it didn’t matter that it was the oldest trick in the book because he lit her cigarette and smiled politely and she didn’t try to take it any further than that, though she knew he was watching as she walked away. And she wondered if he’d find some pretext to come and join her but she did not look back at him again, it was up to him now and when he did come over it was without any pretext at all. He simply said May I join you? and she said of course and that was that.
        If he’d asked her she’d have fucked him right there on the beach.
        But he didn’t.
        He wasn’t shy. It wasn’t that. He was not a man who was shy with women. She looked at his face and read pain and a reluctance to face more of it or even to bother-a kind of weariness there and knew that even though he was interested he was basically just going through the motions with her so that she would have to sink the hook fast and deep, and she did not wonder how or why he had come to be in pain but only how she could escape its consequences in him and have him now, because he was a beautiful thing and halfway hers already-and he did not even know what pain was. Not really.
        

DODGSON
        
        The taverna overlooking the bay was operating on Greek time so the food was late. The first bottle of wine was gone by the time they ordered. The second disappeared with dinner and half the third as well. When that was gone they ordered a fourth out of sheer bravado and nursed the stuff.
        The night was young.
        From Danny’s and Michelle’s comer there was laughter and maneuverings under the table. From theirs a quiet heat. The wine augmented both. It was a rule of thumb in Greece that the wine did not depress. It elevated. Why that should be so nobody knew. Dodgson had heard it attributed to the heat, the food, the light, even to bouzouki music. His own theory was that if any place was depression-proof it was Greece. Even his own had relented-somewhat.
        When finally ten o’clock rolled around the town’s sole surviving disco was open so they walked there and ordered cognac. Dodgson and Lelia watched and talked while the others danced. He thought Danny was a lousy dancer. When the cognacs were gone she squeezed his hand and they quietly slipped away.
        They walked to the beach.
        The night was warm, the moon waning but very nearly full. They were both a little drunk. It was impossible to fall in step together.
        The beach at Matala was shaped like a horseshoe and on the left prong of the shoe was town, on the right the limestone caves high up in the cliffs that had been crypts in ancient times and then during the sixties makeshift homes for globe-trotting hippies. Behind them lay the campground. They could still hear music from town so they walked away toward the cliffs. They took off their shoes and followed the tideline.
        When they were far enough away from the noise and town he turned and kissed her.
        Her mouth was wonderful.
        There was art there and fire in something like equal measure and even as he felt himself rising he knew that they had this in common- that neither would wholly let go just yet. That was why the art was there. It banked the fires with illusion. It teased, promised much, intimated what full abandon would be like between them. He opened his eyes and saw that hers were open too, staring not at him but at the caves, shadowed holes in the blonde moonlit rock.
        Their bodies ground together. He tasted cognac. He didn't mind.
        She stepped away. The heavy lips smiled.
        “Do you swim?”
        She walked a few steps up the