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destined for his death by suicide, whilst the rest of the world, unknowing and uncaring, passed him by, driving straight on across — Ah, yes! That was the point of geradezu, surely? He pencilled a note in the margin and closed the slim, orange volume, a cheap white envelope (its brief note still inside) serving to mark the notes at the back of the text. He put the book down on the table beside him, pressed the light-switch off, lay on his back, and allowed his thoughts to hover in the magic circle of the night…
    It was Anne Scott who dominated and monopolised those thoughts. His elder brother, Michael, had told him one or two stories about her, but surely he'd been exaggerating and romanticising everything? It was often difficult to believe what Michael said, and in this particular case quite out of the question until — until last week, that was. And for the hundredth encore Edward Murdoch re-enacted in his mind those few erotic moments...
    The door had been locked the previous Wednesday afternoon, and that was most unusual. With no bell to ring, he had at first tapped gently in a pusillanimous attempt to make her hear. Then he had rapped more sharply with his knuckles against the upper panel and, with a child-like surge of relief, he was aware of a stirring of activity within. A minute later he heard the scrape of the key in the lock and the noisy twang as the key was turned — and then he saw her there.
    'Edward! Come in! Oh dear, I must have overslept for hours.' Her hair, usually piled up high on the top of her head, was resting on her shoulders, and she wore a long, loose-fitting dressing-gown, its alternating stripes of black, beige, brown, and white reminding Edward vaguely of the dress of some Egyptian queen. But it was her face that he noticed: radiant, smiling — and somehow almost expectant, as if she was so pleased to see him. Him! She fussed for a further second or two with her hair before standing back to let him in.
    'Come upstairs, Edward. I shan't be a minute.' She laid her hand lightly on his arm and shepherdessed him up the stairs and into the back bedroom (the 'study', as she called it) where side by side they invariably sat at the roll-top desk while Edward ploughed his wobbling furrows through the fields of German literature. She came into the study with him now and, as she bent forward to turn on the electric fire, the front of her dressing-gown gaped wantonly open awhile, and he could see that she was naked beneath it. His thoughts clambered over one another in erotic confusion and the back of his mouth was like the desert as she left him there and walked across the little landing to the front bedroom.
    She had been gone for two or three minutes when he heard her.
    'Edward? Edward?'
    Her bedroom door was half open, and the boy stood beside it, hesitant and gauche, until she spoke again.
    'Come in! I'm not going to bite you, am I?'
    She was standing, with her back towards him, at the foot of a large double-bed, folding a light-grey skirt round her waist, and for some inconsequential reason Edward was always to remember the inordinately large safety-pin fixed vertically at its hem. With her hands at her waist, tucking, fastening, buckling, he was also to remember her, in those few moments, for a far more obvious cause: above the skirt her body was completely bare, and as she turned her head towards him, he could see the swelling of her breast.
    'Be a darling and nip down to the kitchen, will you, Edward? You'll find a bra on the clothes-rack — I washed it out last night. Bring it up, will you?'
    As he walked down the stairs like some somnambulant zombie, Edward heard her voice again. 'The black one!' And when he returned to her room she turned fully towards him still naked above the waist, and smiled gratefully at him as he stood there, his eyes seemingly mesmerised as he stared at her.
    'Haven't you seen a woman's body before? Now you be a good boy and run along — I'll join you when I've done