Oh please dont let it hurt, she said in a low, trembling voice. If Im going to die, God, please dont let it hurt. Im such a baby about pain. Thinking about dying at this point is probably a really bad idea, toots. Ruths voice paused, then added On second thought, strike the probably. Okay, no argumentthinking about dying was a bad idea. So what did that leave? Living. Ruth and Goodwife Burlingame said it at the same time. All right, living. Which brought her around full circle to her arms again. Theyre asleep because Ive been hanging on them all night. Im still hanging on them. Getting the weight off is step one. She tried to push herself backward and upward with her feet again, and felt a sudden weight of black panic when they at first also refused to move. She lost herself for a few moments then, and when she came back she was pistoning her legs rapidly up and down, pushing the coverlet, the sheets, and the mattresspad down to the foot of the bed. She was gasping for breath like a bicycleracer topping the last steep hill in a marathon race. Her butt, which had also gone to sleep, sang and zipped with wakeup needles. Fear had gotten her fully awake, but it took the halfassed aerobics which accompanied her panic to kick her heart all the way up into passing gear. At last she began to feel tingles of sensationbonedeep and as ominous as distant thunderin her arms. If nothing else works, toots, keep your mind on those last two or three sips of water. Keep reminding yourself that youre never going to get hold of that glass again unless your hands and arms are in good working order, let alone drink from it. Jessie continued to push with her feet as the morning brightened. Sweat plastered her hair against her temples and streamed down her cheeks. She was awarevaguelythat she was deepening her waterdebt every moment she persisted in this strenuous activity, but she saw no choice. Because there is none, tootsnone at all. Toots this and toots that, she thought distractedly. Would you please put a sock in it, you mouthy bitch? At last her bottom began to slide up toward the head of the bed. Each time it moved, Jessie tensed her stomach muscles and did a mini situp. The angle made by her upper and lower body slowly began to approach ninety degrees. Her elbows began to bend, and as the drag of her weight began to leave her arms and shoulders, the tingles racing through her flesh increased. She didnt stop moving her legs when she was finally sitting up but continued to pedal, wanting to keep her heartrate up. A drop of stinging sweat ran into her left eye. She flicked it away with an impatient shake of her head and went on pedaling. The tingles continued to increase, darting upward and downward from her elbows, and about five minutes after shed reached her current slumped position (she looked like a gawky teenager draped over a movie theater seat), the first cramp struck. It felt like a blow from the dull side of a meatcleaver. Jessie threw her head back, sending a fine mist of perspiration flying from her head and hair, and shrieked. As she was drawing breath to repeat the cry, the second cramp struck. This one was much worse. It felt as if someone had dropped a glassencrusted noose of cable around her left shoulder and then yanked it tight. She howled, her hands snapping shut into fists with such sudden savagery that two of her fingernails splintered away from the quick and began to bleed. Her eyes, sunk into brown hollows of puffy flesh, were squeezed tightly shut, but tears escaped nevertheless and went trickling down her cheeks, mixing with the runnels of sweat from her hairline. Keep pedaling, tootsdont stop now. Dont you call me toots! Jessie screamed. The stray dog had crept back to the rear stoop just before first light, and at the sound of her voice, its head jerked up. There was an almost comical expression of surprise on its face. Dont you call me that, you bitch! You hateful bi Another cramp, this one as sharp and sudden as a thunderbolt coronary, punched through her left triceps all the way to the armpit, and her words dissolved into a long, wavering scream of agony. Yet she kept on pedaling. Somehow she kept on pedaling. 20 When the worst of the cramps had passedat least she hoped the worst of them hadshe took a breather, leaning back against the slatted mahogany crossboards which formed the head of the bed, her eyes closed and her breath gradually slowing downfirst to a lope, then a trot, and finally to a walk. Thirst or no thirst, she felt surprisingly good. She supposed part of the reason lay in that old joke, the one with the punchline that went It feels so good when I stop. But she had been an athletic girl and an athletic woman until five years ago (well, all right, maybe it was closer to ten), and she could still recognize an endorphin rush when she was having one. Absurd, given the circumstances, but also very nice. Maybe not so absurd, Jess. Maybe useful. Those endorphins clear the mind, which is one reason why people work better after theyve taken some exercise. And her mind was clear. The worst of her panic had blown away like industrial smogs before a strong wind, and she felt more than rational; she felt wholly sane again. She never would have believed it possible, and she found this evidence of the minds tireless adaptability and almost insectile determination to survive a little spooky. All of this and I havent even had my morning coffee, she thought. The image of coffeeblack, and in her favorite cup with the blue flowers around its middlemade her lick her lips. It also made her think of the Today program. If her interior clock was right, Today would be coming on just about now. Men and women all over America unhandcuffed, for the most partwere sitting at kitchen tables, drinking juice and coffee, eating bagels and scrambled eggs (or maybe one of those cereals that are supposed to simultaneously soothe your heart and excite your bowels). They were watching Bryant Gumbel and Katie Couric yuck it up with Joe Garagiola. A little later they would watch Willard Scott wish a couple of centenarians a happy day. There would be guestsone who would talk about something called the prime rate and something else called the Fed, one who would show viewers how they could keep their pet Chows from chewing up their slippers, and one who would plug his latest movieand none of them would realize that over in western Maine there was an accident in progress; that one of their moreorlessloyal viewers was unable to tune in this morning because she was handcuffed to a bed less than twenty feet from her naked, dogchewed, flyblown husband. She turned her head to the right and looked up at the glass Gerald had set down carelessly on his side of the shelf shortly before the festivities had commenced. Five years ago, she reflected, that glass probably wouldnt have been there, but as Geralds nightly Scotch consumption increased, so had his daily intake of all other liquidsmostly water, but he also drank tons of diet soda and iced tea. For Gerald, at least, the phrase drinking problem seemed to have been no euphemism but the literal truth. Well, she thought drearily, if he did have a drinking problem, its certainly cured now, isnt it? The glass was exactly where she had left it, of course; if her visitor of the previous night had not been a dream (Dont be silly, of course it was a dream, the Goodwife said nervously), it must not have been thirsty. Im going to get that glass, Jessie thought. Im also going to be extremely careful, in case there are more musclecramps. Any questions? There werent, and this time getting the glass turned out to be a cakewalk, because it was a lot easier to reach; there was no need for the balancing act. She discovered an added bonus when she picked up her makeshift straw. As it dried, the blowin card had curled up along the folds she had made. This strange geometrical construct looked like freeform origami and worked much more efficiently than it had the previous night. Getting the last of the water was even easier than getting the glass, and as Jessie listened to the Malt Shoppe crackle from the bottom of the glass as her weird straw tried to suck up the last couple of drops, it occurred to her that she would have lost a lot less water to the coverlet if she had known she could cure the straw. Too late now, though, and no use crying over spilled water. The few sips did little more than wake up her thirst, but she would have to live with that. She put the glass back on the shelf, then laughed at herself. Habit was a tough little beast. Even under bizarre circumstances such as these, it was a tough little beast. She had risked cramping up all over again to return the empty glass to the shelf instead of just bombing it over the side of the bed to shatter on the floor. And why? Because Neatness Counts, that was why. That was one of the things Sally Mahout had taught her tootsie, her little squeaky wheel who never got quite enough grease and who was never able to let well enough aloneher little tootsie who had been willing to go to any lengths, including seducing her own father, to make sure that things would continue to go the way she wanted them to go. In the eye of her memory, Jessie saw the Sally Mahout she had seen so often back then cheeks flushed with exasperation, lips pressed tightly together, hands rolled into fists and planted on her hips. And you would have believed it, too, Jessie said softly. Wouldnt you, you bitch? Not fair, part of her mind responded uneasily. Not fair, Jessie! Except it was fair, and she knew it. Sally had been a long way from the ideal mother, especially during those years when her marriage to Tom had been laboring along like an old car with dirt in the transmission. Her behavior during those years had often been paranoid, and sometimes irrational. Will had for some reason been almost completely spared her tirades and suspicions, but she had sometimes frightened both of her daughters badly. That dark side was gone now. The letters Jessie got from Arizona were the banal, boring notes of an old lady who lived for Thursday Night Bingo and saw her childrearing years as a peaceful, happy time. She apparently did not remember screaming at the top of her lungs that the next time Maddy forgot to wrap her used tampons in toilet paper before throwing them in the trash she would kill her, or the Sunday morning when she had for no reason Jessie had ever been able to understandstormed into Jessies bedroom, thrown a pair of highheeled shoes at her, and then stormed out again. Sometimes when she got her mothers notes and postcardsAll well here, sweetheart, heard from Maddy, she writes so faithfully, my appetites a little better since it cooled offJessie felt an urge to snatch up the telephone and call her mother and scream Did you forget everything, Mom? Did you forget the day you threw the shoes at me and broke my favorite vase and I cried because I thought you must know, that he must have finally broken down and told you, even though it had been three years since the day of the eclipse by then? Did you forget how often you scared us with your screams and your tears? Thats unfair, Jessie. Unfair and disloyal. Unfair it might be, but that did not make it untrue. If she had known what happened that day The image of the woman in stocks recurred to Jessie again, there and gone almost too fast to be recognized, like subliminal advertising the pinned hands, the hair covering the face like a penitents shroud, the little knot of pointing, contemptuous people. Mostly women. Her mother might not have come right out and said so, but yesshe would have believed it was Jessies fault, and she really might have thought it was a conscious seduction. It wasnt that much of a stretch from squeaky wheel to Lolita, was it? And the knowledge that something sexual had happened between her husband and her daughter very likely would have caused her to stop thinking about leaving and actually do it. Believed it? You bet she would have believed it. This time the voice of propriety didnt bother with even a token protest, and a sudden insight came to Jessie her father had grasped instantly what it had taken her almost thirty years to figure out. He had known the true facts just as he had known about the odd acoustics of the living roomdining room in the lake house. Her father had used her in more ways than one on that day. Jessie expected a flood of negative emotions at this sorry realization; she had, after all, been played for a sucker by the man whose primary jobs had been to love and protect her. No such flood came. Perhaps this was partly because she was still flying on endorphins, but she had an idea it had more to do with relief no matter how rotten that business had been, she had finally been able to get outside it. Her chief emotions were amazement that she had held onto the secret for as long as she had, and a kind of uneasy perplexity. How many of the choices she had made since that day had been directly or indirectly influenced by what had happened during the final minute or so she had spent on her Daddys lap, looking at a vast round mole in the sky through two or three pieces of smoked glass? And was her current situation a result of what had happened during the eclipse? Oh, thats too much, she thought. If hed raped me, maybe it would be different. But what happened on the deck that day was really just another accident, and not a very serious one, at thatif you want to know what a serious accident is, Jess, look at the situation youre in here. I might as well blame old Mrs. Gilette for slapping my hand at that lawnparty, the summer I was four. Or a thought I had coming down the birthcanal. Or sins from some past life that still needed expiation. Besides, what he did to me on the deck wasnt anything compared to what he did to me in the bedroom. And there was no need to dream that part of it; it was right there, perfectly clear and perfectly accessible. 21 When she looked up and saw her father standing in the bedroom doorway, her first, instinctive gesture had been to cross her arms over her breasts. Then she saw the sad and guilty look on his face and dropped them again, although she felt heat rising in her cheeks and knew that her own face was turning the unlovely, patchy red that was her version of a maidenly blush. She had nothing to show up there (well, almost nothing), but she still felt more naked than naked, and so embarrassed she could almost swear she felt her skin sizzling. She thought Suppose the others come back early? Suppose she walked in right now and saw me like this, with my shirt off? Embarrassment became shame, shame became terror, and still, as she shrugged into the blouse and began to button it, she felt another emotion underlying these. That feeling was anger, and it was not much different from the drilling anger she would feel years later when she realized that Gerald knew she meant what she was saying but was pretending he didnt. She was angry because she didnt deserve to feel ashamed and terrified. After all, he was the grownup, he was the one who had left that funnysmelling crud on the back of her underpants, he was the one who was supposed to be ashamed, and that wasnt the way it was working. That wasnt the way it was working at all. By the time her blouse was buttoned and tucked into her shorts, the anger was gone, orsame differencebanished back to its cave. And what she kept seeing in her mind was her mother coming back early. It wouldnt matter that she was fully dressed again. The fact that something bad had happened was on their faces, just hanging out there, big as life and twice as ugly. She could see it on his face and feel it on her own. Are you all right, Jessie? he asked quietly. Not feeling faint, or anything? No. She tried to smile, but this time she couldnt quite manage it. She felt a tear slip down one cheek and wiped it away quickly, guiltily, with the heel of her hand. Im sorry. His voice was trembling, and she was horrified to see tears standing in his eyesoh, this just got worse and worse and worse. Im so sorry. He turned abruptly, ducked into the bathroom, grabbed a towel off the rack, and wiped his face with it. While he did this, Jessie thought fast and hard. Daddy? He looked at her over the towel. The tears in his eyes were gone. If she hadnt known better, she would have sworn they had never been there at all. The question almost stuck in her throat, but it had to be asked. Had to be. Do we ... do we have to tell Mom about it? He took a long, sighing, trembling breath. She waited, her heart in her mouth, and when he said I think we have to, dont you? it sank all the way to her feet. She crossed the room to him, staggering a littleher legs seemed to have no feeling in them at alland wrapped her arms around him. Please, Daddy. Dont. Please dont tell. Please dont. Please ... Her voice blurred, collapsed into sobs, and she pressed her face against his bare chest. After a moment he slipped his arms around her, this time in his old, fatherly way. I hate to, he said, because things have been pretty tense between the two of us just lately, hon. Id be surprised if you didnt know that, actually. A thing like this could make them a lot worse. She hasnt been very ... well, very affectionate lately, and that was most of the problem today. A man has ... certain needs. Youll understand about that somed But if she finds out, shell say it was my fault! Oh, noI dont think so, Tom said, but his tone was surprised, considering... and, to Jessie, as dreadful as a deathsentence. Noooo ... Im surewell, fairly surethat she... She looked up at him, her eyes streaming and red. Please dont tell her, Daddy! Please dont! Please dont! He kissed her brow. But Jessie ... I have to. We have to. Why? Why, Daddy? Because 22 Jessie shifted a little. The chains jingled; the cuffs themselves rattled on the bedposts. The light was now streaming in through the east windows.  Because you couldnt keep it a secret,  she said dully.  Because if its going to come out, Jessie, its better for both of us that it should come out now, rather than a week from now, or a month from now, or a year from now. Even ten years from now.  How well he had manipulated herfirst the apology, then the tears, and finally the hattrick turning his problem into her problem. Brer Fox, Brer Fox, whatever else yall do, dont thow me in dat briar patch! Until, finally, she had been swearing to him that she would keep the secret forever, that torturers couldnt drag it out of her with tongs and hot coals. She could in fact remember promising him something just like that through a rain of hot, frightened tears. Finally he had stopped shaking his head and had only looked across the room with his eyes narrowed and his lips pressed tightly togetherthis she saw in the mirror, as he almost surely knew she would. You could never tell anyone, hed said at last, and Jessie remembered the swooning relief shed felt at those words. What he was saying was less important than the tone in which he was saying it. Jessie had heard that tone a good many times before, and knew it drove her mother crazy that she, Jessie, could cause him to speak that way more often than Sally herself. Im changing my mind, it said. Im doing it against my better judgment, but I am changing it; Im swinging around to your side. No, she had agreed. Her voice was wavery, and she had to keep gulping back tears. I wouldnt tell, Daddynot ever. Not just your mother, he said, but anyone. Ever. Thats a big responsibility for a little girl, Punkin. You might be tempted. For instance, if you were studying with Caroline Cline or Tammy Hough after school, and one of them told you a secret of hers, you might want to tell Them? NeverNeverNever! And he must have seen the truth of it on her face the thought of either Caroline or Tammy finding out that her father had touched her had filled Jessie with horror. Satisfied on that score, he had pushed on to what she now guessed must have been his chief concern. Or your sister. He pushed her back from him and looked sternly down into her face for a long moment. There could come a time, you see, when you wanted to tell her Daddy, no, Id never He gave her a gentle shake. Keep quiet and let me finish, Punkin. You two are close, I know that, and I know that girls sometimes feel an urge to share things they ordinarily wouldnt tell. If you felt that way with Maddy, could you still manage to keep quiet? Yes! In her desperate need to convince him, she had begun to cry once more. Of course it was more likely that she would tell Maddyif there was anyone in the world to whom she might one day confide such a desperate secret, it would be her big sister ... except for one thing. Maddy and Sally shared the same sort of closeness Jessie and Tom had shared, and if Jessie ever told her sister about what had happened on the deck, the chances that their mother would know before the day was out were very good. Given that insight, Jessie thought she could quite easily withstand the temptation to tell Maddy. Are you really sure? he had asked doubtfully. Yes! Really! Hed begun to shake his head again in a regretful way that terrified her all over again. I just think, Punkin, that it might be better to get it out in the open right away. Take our medicine. I mean, she cant kill us Jessie, however, had heard her anger when Daddy had asked that she be excused from the trip to Mount Washington ... and anger wasnt all. She didnt like to think of it, but at this point she could not afford the luxury of denial. There had been jealousy and something very close to hatred in her mothers voice, as well. A vision, momentary but of paralyzing clarity, had come to Jessie as she stood with her father in the bedroom doorway, trying to persuade him to hold his peace the two of them cast out on the road like Hansel and Gretel, homeless, tramping back and forth across America ... ... and sleeping together, of course. Sleeping together at night. She had broken down utterly then, weeping hysterically, begging him not to tell, promising him she would be a good girl forever and ever if he just wouldnt tell. He had let her cry until he must have felt the moment was exactly right, and then he had said gravely You know, youve got an awful lot of power for a little girl, Punkin. She had looked up at him, cheeks wet and eyes full of fresh hope. He nodded slowly, then began to dry her tears with the towel he had used on his own face. Ive never been able to refuse you anything that you really wanted, and I cant this time, either. Well try it your way. She threw herself into his arms and began covering his face with kisses. Somewhere far back in her mind she had been afraid this might (get him going) start trouble again, but her gratitude had completely overwhelmed such caution, and there had been no trouble. Thank you! Thank you, Daddy! Thank you! He had taken her by the shoulders and held her at arms length again, smiling instead of grave this time. But that sadness had still been on his face, and now, almost thirty years later, Jessie didnt think that expression had been part of the show. The sadness had been real, and that somehow made the terrible thing he had done worse instead of better. I guess we have a bargain, he said. I say nothing, you say nothing. Right? Right! Not to anyone else, not even to each other. Forever and ever, amen. When we walk out of this room, Jess, it never happened. Okay? She had agreed at once, but at the same time the memory of that smell had recurred to her, and she had known there was at least one question she had to ask him before it never happened. And theres something I need to say once more. I need to say Im sorry, Jess. I did a shabby, shameful thing.  He had looked away when he said that, she remembered. All the time he had been deliberately driving her into hysterics of guilt and fear and impending doom, all the time he had been making sure she would never say anything by threatening to tell everything, he had looked right at her. When he offered that last apology, however, his gaze had shifted to the crayon designs on the sheets which divided the room. This memory filled her with something that felt simultaneously like grief and rage. He had been able to face her with his lies; it was the truth which had finally caused him to look away. She remembered opening her mouth to tell him he didnt have to say that, then closing it againpartly because she was afraid anything she said might cause him to change his mind back again, but mostly because, even at ten, she had realized she had a right to an apology. Sallys been coldits the truth, but as an excuse its pretty sad shit. I dont have the slightest idea what came over me. He had laughed a little, still not looking at her. Maybe it was the eclipse. If it was, thank God well never see another one. Then, as if speaking to himself Christ, if we keep our mouths shut and she finds out anyway, later on Jessie had put her head against his chest and said, She wont. Ill never tell, Daddy. She paused, then added, What could I tell, anyway? Thats right. He smiled. Because nothing happened. And Im not . . . I mean, I couldnt be . . . She had looked up, hoping he might tell her what she needed to know without her asking, but he only looked back at her, eyebrows raised in a silent interrogative. The smile had been replaced by a wary, waiting expression. I couldnt be pregnant, then? she blurted. He winced, and then his face had tensed as he worked to suppress some strong emotion. Horror or grief, shed thought then; it was only all these years later that it occurred to her that what he might actually have been trying to control was a burst of wild, relieved laughter. At last he had gotten himself under control and kissed the tip of her nose. No, honey, of course not. The thing that makes women pregnant didnt happen. Nothing like that happened. I was wrestling with you a little, thats ait And you goosed me. She remembered saying that very clearly now. You goosed me, thats what you did. He had smiled. Yep. Thats close enough. Youre just as fine as ever, Punkin. Now, what do you think? Does that close the subject? She had nodded. Nothing like this is ever going to happen againyou know that, dont you? She nodded again, but her own smile had faltered. What he was saying should have relieved her, and it did, a little, but something in the gravity of his words and the sorrow on his face had almost sparked her panic again. She remembered taking his hands and squeezing them as hard as she could. You love me, though, dont you, Daddy? You still love me, right? He had nodded and told her he loved her more than ever. Then hug me! Hug me hard! And he did, but now Jessie could remember something else his lower body had not touched hers. Not then and never again, Jessie thought. Not that I remember, anyway. Even when I graduated from college, the only other time I saw him cry over me, he gave me one of those funny oldmaid hugs, the kind you do with your ass poaching out so there isnt even a chance you can bump crotches with the person youre hugging. Poor, poor man. I wonder if any of the people he did business with over the years ever saw him as rattled as I saw him on the day of the eclipse. All that pain, and over what? A sexual accident about as serious as a stubbed toe. Jesus, what a life it is. What a fucking life. She began to pump her arms slowly up and down again almost without being aware of it, only wanting to keep the blood flowing into her hands, wrists, and forearms. She guessed it was probably eight oclock by now, or almost. She had been chained to this bed for eighteen hours. Incredible but true. Ruth Nearys voice spoke up so suddenly that it made her jump. It was filled with disgusted wonder. Youre still making excuses for him, arent you? Still letting him off the hook and blaming yourself, after all these years. Even now. Amazing. Quit it, she said hoarsely. None of that has the slightest goddam thing to do with the mess Im in now What a piece of work you are, Jessie! and even if it did, she went on, raising her voice slightly, even if it did, it doesnt have the slightest goddam thing to do with getting out of the mess Im in now. so just give it a rest! You werent Lolita, Jessie, no matter what he might have made you think. You were about nine country miles from Lolita. Jessie refused to reply. Ruth went one better; she refused to shut up. If you still think your dear old Daddy was a parfit gentle knight who spent most of his time shielding you from the firebreathing mommydragon, you better think again. Shut up. Jessie began to pump her arms up and down faster. The chains jingled; the cuffs rattled. Shut up, youre horrible. He planned it, Jessie. Dont you understand? It wasnt just some spurofthemoment thing, a sexstarved father copping a quick feel; he planned it. You lie, Jessie snarled. Sweat rolled down from her temples in large clear droplets. Do I? Well, ask yourself thiswhose idea was it for you to wear the sundress? The one that was both too small and too tight? Who knew youd be listeningand admiringwhile he maneuvered around your mother? Who had his hands on your tits the night before, and who was wearing gymshorts and nothing else on the day of? Suddenly she imagined Bryant Gumbel in the room with her, natty in a threepiece suit and gold wristchain, standing here by the bed while a guy with a Minicam stood beside him, panning slowly up her almost naked body before focusing on her sweaty, blotchy face. Bryant Gumbel doing a live remote with The Incredible Handcuffed Woman, leaning forward with a microphone to ask her, When did you first realize your father might have had the hots for you, Jessie? Jessie stopped pumping her arms and closed her eyes. There was a closed, stubborn look on her face. No more, she thought. I guess I can live with the voices of Ruth and the Goodwife if I have to ... even with the assorted UFOs who chip in their two cents worth every once in awhile ... but I draw the line at doing a live interview with Bryant Gumbel while dressed in nothing but a pair of peestained panties. Even in my imagination I draw the line at that. Just tell me one thing, Jessie, another voice said. No UFO here; it was the voice of Nora Callighan. One thing and well consider the subject closed, at least for now and probably forever. Okay? Jessie was silent, waiting, wary. When you finally lost your temper yesterday afternoonwhen you finally kicked outwho were you kicking at? Was it Gerald? Of course it was Ger she began, and then broke off as a single image, perfectly clear, filled her mind. It was the white string of drool which had been hanging from Geralds chin. She saw it elongate, saw it fall to her midriff just above the navel. Only a little spit, that was all, no big deal after all the years and all the passionate kisses with their mouths open and their tongues duelling; she and Gerald had swapped a fair amount of lubrication, and the only price theyd ever paid was a few shared colds. No big deal, that was, until yesterday, when hed refused to let her go when she wanted, needed, to be let go. No big deal until shed smelled that flat sad mineral smell, the one she associated with the wellwater at Dark Score, and with the lake itself on hot summer days . . . days like July 20th, 1963, for instance. She had seen spit; she had thought spunk. No, thats not true, she thought, but she didnt need to summon Ruth to play devils advocate this time; she knew it was true. Its his goddam spunkthat had been her exact thought, and after that she had ceased thinking altogether, at least for awhile. Instead of thinking she had launched that reflexive countering movement, driving one foot into his stomach and the other into his balls.


Not spit but spunk; not some new revulsion at Geralds game but that old stinking horror suddenly surfacing like a seamonster. Jessie glanced at the huddled, mutilated body of her husband. Tears pricked her eyes for a moment, and then the sensation passed. She had an idea that the Survival Department had decided tears were a luxury she could not afford, at least for the time being. Still, she was sorrysorry Gerald was dead, yes, of course, but even sorrier she was here, in this situation. Her eyes shifted to thin air a little above Gerald, and Jessie produced a shabby, pained smile. I guess thats all Ive got to say right now, Bryant. Give my best to Willard and Katie, and by the waywould you mind unlocking these handcuffs before you go? Id really appreciate it. Bryant didnt answer. Jessie wasnt all that surprised. 23 If youre going to live through this experience, Jess, I suggest you stop rehashing the past and start deciding what youre going to do with the future . . . starting with the next ten minutes or so. I dont think that dying of thirst on this bed would be very pleasant, do you? No, not very pleasant . . . and she thought that thirst would be far from the worst of it. Crucifixion had been in the back of her mind almost since shed awakened, floating up and down like some nasty drowned thing which is just a little too waterlogged to come all the way to the surface. She had read an article about this charming old method of torture and execution for a college history class, and had been surprised to learn that the old nailsthroughthehandsandfeet trick was only the beginning. Like magazine subscriptions and pocket calculators, crucifixion was the gift that kept on giving. The real hardships began with cramps and musclespasms. Jessie reluctantly recognized that the pains she had suffered so far, even the paralyzing Charley horse which had put an end to her first panicattack, were only tweaks compared to the ones which were waiting. They would rack her arms, diaphragm, and abdomen, growing steadily worse, more frequent, and more widespread as the day passed. Numbness would eventually begin to creep into her extremities no matter how hard she worked to keep the blood flowing, but numbness would bring no relief; by then she would almost certainly have begun suffering excruciating chest and stomach cramps. There were no nails in her hands and feet and she was lying down instead of hanging from a cross at the side of the road like one of the defeated gladiators in Spartacus, but those variations might only draw out her agony. So what are you going to do right now, while youre still pretty much free of pain and able to think? Whatever I can, she croaked, so why dont you just shut up and let me think about it for a minute? Go aheadbe my guest. She would start with the most obvious solution and work her way down from there . . . if she had to. And what was the most obvious solution? The keys, of course. They were still lying on top of the bureau, where he had left them. Two keys, but both exactly the same. Gerald, who could be almost endearingly corny, had often referred to them as the Primary and the Backup (Jessie had clearly heard those capital letters in her husbands voice). Suppose, just for the sake of argument, she could somehow slide the bed across the room to the bureau. Would she be able to actually get hold of one of those keys and put it to use? Jessie reluctantly realized that there were two questions there, not one. She supposed she might be able to pick up one of the keys in her teeth, but then what? She still wouldnt be able to get it into the lock; her experience with the waterglass suggested there was going to be a gap no matter how much she stretched. Okay; scratch the keys. Descend to the next rung on the ladder of probability. What might that be? She thought about it for almost five minutes without success, turning it around and around in her mind like the sides of a Rubiks Cube, pumping her arms up and down as she did so. At some point during her ruminations, her eyes wandered to the phone sitting on the low table by the east window. She had dismissed it earlier as being in another universe, but perhaps she had been too hasty. The table, after all, was closer than the bureau, and the phone was a lot bigger than a handcuff key. If she could move the bed over to the telephone table, might she not be able to lift the receiver off the cradle with her foot? And if she could do that, maybe she could use her big toe to push the Operator button at the bottom, between the keys marked  and . It sounded like some crazy sort of vaudeville act, but Push the button, wait, then start screaming my head off. Yes, and half an hour later either the big blue Medcu van from Norway or the big orange one marked Castle County Rescue would turn up and trundle her off to safety. A crazy idea, all right, but so was turning a magazine subscription card into a straw. It could work, crazy or notthat was the point. It certainly had more potential than somehow pushing the bed all the way across the room and then trying to find a way to get one of the keys into one of the handcuff locks. There was one big problem with the idea, however she would somehow have to find a way to move the bed to the right, and that was a heavy proposition. She guessed that, with its mahogany head and footboards, it had to weigh at least three hundred pounds, and that estimate might be conservative. But you can at least try it, babe, and you might get a big surprisethe floors been waxed since Labor Day, remember. If a stray dog with its ribs sticking out can move your husband, maybe you can move this bed. You havent got anything to lose by trying, do you? A good point. Jessie worked her legs toward the left side of the bed, shifting her back and shoulders patiently to the right as she did so. When she got as far as she was going to using that method, she pivoted on her left hip. Her feet went over the side . . . and suddenly her legs and torso were not just moving to the left but sliding to the left, like an avalanche trying to happen. A horrible cramp jigjagged up her left side as her body stretched in ways it hadnt been meant to even under the best of conditions. It felt as if someone had given her a fast, harsh scrape with a hot poker. The short chain between the righthand set of cuffs yanked taut, and for a moment the news from her left side was blotted out by fresh agony pulsing out of her right arm and shoulder. It felt as if someone were trying to twist that arm completely off. Now I know what a turkey drumstick feels like, she thought. Her left heel thumped onto the floor; her right hung three inches above it. Her body was twisted unnaturally to the left with her right arm cast strenuously back behind her in a kind of frozen wave. The taut chain gleamed heartlessly above its rubber sleeve in the earlymorning sun. Jessie was suddenly sure she was going to die in this position, with her left side and right arm screaming. She would have to lie here, gradually growing numb as her flagging heart lost the battle to pump blood to all parts of her stretched and twisted body. Panic overtook her again and she howled for help, forgetting there was no one in the neighborhood but one raggedyass stray with a bellyful of lawyer. She flailed frantically for the bedpost with her right hand, but she had slid just a little too far; the darkstained mahogany was half an inch beyond the tips of her straining fingers. Help! Please! Help! Help! No answer. The only sounds in this silent sunny bedroom were her sounds hoarse, screaming voice, rasping breath, pounding heart. No one here but her, and unless she was able to get back onto the bed, she was going to die like a woman hung on a meathook. Nor was the situation done getting worse her butt was still sliding toward the edge of the bed, pulling her right arm steadily backward at an angle which was becoming more and more extreme. Without thinking about it or planning it (unless the body, goaded by pain, sometimes thinks for itself), Jessie braced her bare left heel on the floor and shoved backward with all her might. It was the only bracepoint remaining to her painfully slued body, and the maneuver worked. Her lower body arched, the chain between the cuffs binding her right hand grew slack, and she seized the bedpost with the panicky zeal of a drowning woman seizing a lifering. She used it to yank herself backward, ignoring the scream of her back and biceps. When her feet were up again, she paddled frantically back from the edge, as if she had dipped into a swimming pool filled with baby sharks and had noticed just in time to save her toes. At last she regained her former slumped sitting position against the crossboards, arms outstretched, the small of her back resting on the sweatsoaked pillow in its badly wrinkled cotton case. She let her head loll back against the mahogany slats, breathing rapidly, her bare breasts oiled with sweat she couldnt afford to lose. She closed her eyes and laughed weakly. Say, that was pretty exciting, wasnt it, Jessie? I tkink its the fastest and hardest your heart has beat since 1985, when you came within a Christmas party kiss or so of going to bed with Tommy Delguidace. Nothing to lose by trying, isnt that what you thought? Well now you know better. Yes. And she knew something else, as well. Oh? And whats that, toots? I know that fucking phone is out of reach, she said. Yes indeed. When she had pushed off with her left heel just now, she had shoved with all the enthusiasm of total, assfreezing panic. The bed hadnt moved an iota, and now that she had a chance to think about it, she was glad it hadnt. If it had jigged to the right, she would still be hanging off it. And even if she had been able to push it all the way across to the telephone table that way, why . . . Idve been hanging over the wrong fucking side, she said, halflaughing and halfsobbing. Jesus, somebody shoot me. Doesnt look good, one of the UFO voicesone she definitely could have done withouttold her. In fact, it sort of looks like the Jessie Burlingame Show just got its cancellation notice. Pick another choice, she said huskily. I dont like that one. There arent any others. There werent that many to begin with, and youve researched them all. She closed her eyes again and for the second time since this nightmare began, she saw the playground behind the old Falmouth Grammar School on Central Avenue. Only this time it wasnt the image of two little girls balancing on a seesaw that filled her mind; instead she saw one little boyher brother Willskinning the cat on the monkeybars. She opened her eyes, slumped down, and bent her head to look more closely at the headboard. Skinning the cat meant hanging from a bar, then curling your legs up and over your own shoulders. You finished with a quick little pivot which enabled you to land on your feet again. Will had been so adept at this neat and economical movement that it had looked to Jessie as if he were turning somersaults inside his own hands. Suppose I could do that? Just skin the cat right over the top of this goddam headboard. Swing over the top and ... And land on my feet, she whispered. For several moments this seemed dangerous but feasible. She would have to move the bed out from the wall, of courseyou couldnt skin the cat if you didnt have a place to landbut she had an idea she could manage that. Once the bedshelf was removed (and it would be easy to knock it off its support brackets, unanchored as it was), she would do a backover roll and plant her bare feet against the wall above the top of the headboard. She hadnt been able to move the bed sideways, but with the wall to push against Same weight, ten times the leverage, she muttered. Modern physics at its finest. She was reaching for the shelf with her left hand, meaning to tip it up and off the Lbrackets, when she took another good look at Geralds goddam police handcuffs with their suicidally short chains. If he had clipped them onto the bedposts a little higherbetween the first and second crossboards, sayshe might have chanced it; the maneuver would probably have resulted in a pair of broken wrists, but she had reached a point where a pair of broken wrists seemed an entirely acceptable price to pay for escape . . . after all, they would heal, wouldnt they? Instead of between the first and second crossboards, however, the cuffs were attached between the second and third, and that was just a little too far down. Any attempt to skin the cat over the headboard would do more than break her wrists; it would result in a pair of shoulders not just dislocated but actually ripped out of their sockets by her descending weight. And try moving this goddam bed anywhere with a pair of broken wrists and two dislocated shoulders. Sound like fun? No, she said huskily. Not too much. Lets cut through it, Jessyoure stuck here. You can call me the voice of despair if it makes you feel better, or if it helps you to hold onto your sanity for a little while longerGod knows Im all for sanitybut what I really am is the voice of truth, and the truth of this situation is that youre stuck here. Jessie turned her head sharply to one side, not wanting to hear this selfstyled voice of truth, and found she was no more able to shut it out than she had been able to shut out the other ones. Those are real handcuffs youre wearing, not the cute little bondage numbers with the padding inside the wristlets and a hidden escapelever you can push if someone gets carried away and starts going a little too far. Youre forreal locked up, and you dont happen to be either a fakir from the Mysterious East, capable of twisting your body. up like a pretzel, or an escape artist like Harry Houdini or David Copperfield. Im just telling it the way I see it, okay? And the way I see it, youre toast. She suddenly remembered what had happened after her father had left her bedroom on the day of the eclipsehow she had thrown herself on her bed and cried until it had seemed her heart would either break or melt or maybe just seize up for good. And now, as her mouth began to tremble, she looked remarkably as she had then tired, confused, frightened, and lost. That last most of all. Jessie began to cry, but after the first few tears, her eyes would produce no more; stricter rationing measures had apparently gone into effect. She cried anyway, tearlessly, her sobs as dry as sandpaper in her throat. 24 In New York City, the regulars of the Today program had signed off for another day. On the NBC affiliate which served southern and western Maine, they were replaced first by a local chatshow (a large, motherly woman in a gingham apron showed how easy it was to slowcook beans in your Crockpot), then by a gameshow where celebrities cracked jokes and contestants uttered loud, orgasmic screams when they won cars and boats and bright red Dirt Devil vacuum cleaners. In the Burlingame home on scenic Kashwakamak Lake, the new widow dozed uneasily in her restraints, and then began to dream once more. It was a nightmare, one made more vivid and somehow more persuasive by the very shallowness of the dreamers sleep. In it Jessie was lying in the dark again, and a man or a manlike thingwas once more standing across from her in the corner of the room. The man wasnt her father; the man wasnt her husband; the man was a stranger, the stranger, the one who haunts all our sickest, most paranoid imaginings and deepest fears. It was the face of a creature Nora Callighan, with her good advice and sweet, practical nature, had never taken into account. This black being could not be conjured away by anything with an ology suffix. It was a cosmic wildcard. But you do know me, the stranger with the long white face said. It bent down and grasped the handle of its bag. Jessie noted, with no surprise at all, that the handle was a jawbone and the bag itself was made of human skin. The stranger picked it up, flicked the clasps, and opened the lid. Again she saw the bones and the jewels; again it reached its hand into the tangle and began to move it in slow circles, producing those ghastly clickings and clackings and rappings and tappings. No I dont, she said. I dont know who you are, I dont, I dont, I dont! Im Death, of course, and Ill be back tonight. Only tonight I think Ill do a little more than just stand in the corner; tonight I think Ill jump out at you, just . . . like . . . this! It leaped forward, dropping the case (bones and pendants and rings and necklaces spilled out toward where Gerald lay sprawled with his mutilated arm pointing toward the hallway door) and shooting out its hands. She saw its fingers ended in dark filthy nails so long they were really claws, and then she shook herself awake with a gasp and a jerk, the handcuff chains swinging and jingling as she made wardingoff gestures with her hands. She was whispering the word No over and over again in aslurry monotone. It was a dream! Stop it, Jessie, it was just a dream! She slowly lowered her hands, letting them dangle limply inside the cuffs once more. Of course it had beenjust a variation of the bad dream shed had last night. It had been realistic, thoughJesus, yes. Far worse, when you got right down to it, than the one of the croquet party, or even the one in which she had recalled the furtive and unhappy interlude with her father during the eclipse. It was passing strange that she had spent so much time this morning thinking about those dreams and so little thinking about the far scarier one. In fact, she really hadnt thought of the creature with the weirdly long arms and the gruesome souvenir case at all until shed dozed off and dreamed of him just now. A snatch of song occurred to her, something from the Latter Psychedelic Age Some people call me the space cowboy . . . yeah . . . some call me the gangster of love ... Jessie shuddered. The space cowboy. That was somehow just right. An outsider, someone who had nothing to do with anything, a wildcard, a A stranger, Jessie whispered, and suddenly remembered the way its cheeks had wrinkled when it began to grin. And once that detail had fallen into place, others began falling into place around it. The gold teeth twinkling far back in the grinning mouth. The pouty, poochy lips. The livid brow and the blade of nose. And there was the case, of course, like something you might expect to see banging against a travelling salesmans leg as he ran to catch his train Stop it, Jessiestop giving yourself the horrors. Dont you have enough problems without worrying about the boogeyman? She most certainly did, but she found that, now that she had begun thinking about the dream, she couldnt seem to stop. Worse than that was the fact that the more she thought about it, the less dreamlike it became. What if I was awake? she thought suddenly, and once the idea was articulated, she was horrified to discover some part of her had believed just that all along. It had only been waiting for the rest of her to catch up. No, oh no, it was just a dream, thats all But what if it wasnt? What if it wasnt? Death, the whitefaced stranger agreed. It was Death you saw. Ill be back tonight, Jessie. And tomorrow night Ill have your rings in my case with the rest of my pretty things . . . my souvenirs. Jessie realized she was shivering violently, as if she had caught a chill. Her wide eyes looked helplessly into the empty corner where the (space cowboy gangster of love) had stood, the corner which was now bright with morning sunshine but would be dark with tangles of shadow tonight. Knots of gooseflesh had begun to pop up on her skin. The inescapable truth came again she was probably going to die here. Eventually someone will find you, Jessie, but it might take a long time. The first assumption will be that the two of you are off on some wild romantic fling, Why not? Didnt you and Gerald give every outward appearance of seconddecade wedded bliss? It was only the two of you who knew that, at the end, Gerald could get it up with any reliability only if you were handcuffed to the bed. Sort of makes you wonder if someone played a few little games with him on the day of the eclipse, doesnt it? Stop talking, she muttered. All of you, stop talking. But sooner or later people will get nervous and start hunting for you. Itll probably be Geralds colleagues who actually get the wheels turning, dont you think? I mean, there are a couple of women in Portland you call friends, but youve never really let them inside your life, have you? Acquaintances is really all they are, ladies to have tea with and swap catalogues with. None of them are going to worry much if you drop out of sight for a week or ten days. But Gerald will have appointments, and when he doesnt show up by Friday noon, I think some of his bullpen buddies will start making phone calls and asking questions. Yes, thats the way it will probably start, but I think itll probably be the caretaker who actually discovers the bodies, dont you? I bet hell turn his face away while hes throwing the spare blanket from the closet shelf over you, Jessie. He wont want to see the way your fingers stick out of the handcuffs, as stiff as pencils and as white as candles. He wont want to look at your frozen mouth, or the foam long since dried to scales on your lips. Most of all he wont want to look at the expression of horror in your eyes, so hell shift his own eyes to the side while he covers you up. Jessie moved her head from side to side in a slow, hopeless gesture of negation. Bill will call the police and theyll show up with the forensics unit and the County Coroner. Theyll all stand around the bed smoking cigars (Doug Rowe, undoubtedly wearing his awful white trenchcoat, will be standing outside with his filmcrew, of course), and when the coroner pulls off the blanket, theyll wince. YesI think even the most hardened of them are going to wince a little, and some of them may actually leave the room. Their buddies will razz them about it later. And the ones who stay will nod and tell each other that the person on the bed died hard. You only have to look at her to see that, theyll say. But they wont know the half of it. They wont know that the real reason your eyes are staring and your mouth is frozen in a scream is because of what you saw at the end. What you saw coming out of the dark. Your father may have been your first lover, Jessie, but your last is going to be the stranger with the long white face and the travelling bag made out of human skin. Oh please, cant you quit? Jessie moaned. No more voices, please, no more voices. But this voice wouldnt stop; wouldnt even acknowledge her. It just went on and on, whispering directly into her mind from someplace far down on her brainstem. Listening to it was like having a mudslimed piece of silk drawn lightly back and forth across her face. Theyll take you to Augusta and the State Medical Examiner will cut you open so he can inventory your guts. Thats the rule in cases of unattended or questionable death, and yours is going to be both. Hell have a peek at whats left ofyour last mealthe salamiandcheese sub from Amatos in Gorhamand take a little section of brain to look at under his microscope, and in the end hell call it death by misadventure. The lady and gentleman were playing an ordinarily harmless game, hell say, only the gentleman had the bad taste to have a heart attack at a critical moment and the woman was left to ... well, its best not to go into it. Best not to even think about it any more than is strictly necessary. Suffice it to say that the lady died hardyou only have to look at her to see that. Thats how its going to shake out, Jess. Maybe someone will notice your wedding ring is gone, but they wont hunt for it long, if at all. Nor will the ME notice that one of your bonesan unimportant one, the third phalange in your right foot, lets sayis gone. But well know, wont we, Jessie? In fact, we know already. Well know that it took them. The cosmic stranger; the space cowboy. Well know Jessie drove her head back against the headboard hard enough to send a school of big white fish exploding across her field of vision. It hurtit hurt a lotbut the mindvoice cut out like a radio in a powerfailure, and that made it worth it. There, she said. And if you start up again, Ill do that again. Im not kidding, either. Im tired of listening to Now it was her own voice, speaking unselfconsciously aloud in the empty room, that cut out like a radio in a powerfailure. As the spots before her eyes began to fade, she saw the morning sunlight glinting off something which lay about eighteen inches beyond Geralds outstretched hand. It was a small white object with a narrow thread of gold twisting up through the center, making it look like the yinyang symbol. At first Jessie thought it was a fingerring, but it was really too small for that. Not a fingerring but a pearl earring. It had dropped to the floor while her visitor had been stirring the contents of its case around, showing them off to her. No, she whispered. No, not possible. But it was there, glinting in the morning sunshine and every bit as real as the dead man who seemed almost to be pointing at it a pearl earring spliced with a delicate glint of gold. Its one of mine! It spilled out of my jewelry box, its been there since the summer, and Im just noticing it now! Except that she only owned one set of pearl earrings, they had no gold highlights, and they were back in Portland, anyway. Except that the men from Skips had been in to wax the floors the week after Labor Day, and if there had been an earring left on the floor, one of them would have picked it up and put it either on the dresser or in his own pocket. Except there was something else, too. No theres not. Theres not, and dont you dare say there is. It was just beyond the orphan earring. Even if there was, I wouldnt look at it. Except she couldnt not look at it. Her eyes moved past the earring of their own accord and fixed on the floor just inside the door to the front hall. There was a little spot of dried blood there, but it wasnt the blood which had caught her attention. The blood belonged to Gerald. The blood was all right. It was the footprint beside it that worried her. If there was a track there, it was there before! Much as Jessie wished she could believe that, the track had not been there before. Yesterday there hadnt been a single scuff on this floor, let alone a foottrack. Nor had she or Gerald left the one she was looking at. That was a shoeshaped ring of dried mud, probably from the overgrown path that meandered along the shore of the lake for a mile or so before cutting back into the woods and heading south, toward Motton. Someone had been in the bedroom with her last night after all, it seemed. As this thought settled inexorably into Jessies overstrained mind, she began to scream. Outside, on the back stoop, the stray lifted its scuffed, scratched muzzle from its paws for a moment. It cocked its good ear. Then it lost interest and lowered its head again. It wasnt as if the noise were being made by anything dangerous, after all; it was only the bitchmaster. Besides, the smell of the dark thing which had come in the night was on her now. It was one the stray was very familiar with. It was the smell of death. The former Prince closed its eyes and went back to sleep. 25 At last she began to get herself under some kind of control again. She did this, absurdly enough, by reciting Nora Callighans little mantra. One is for feet, she said, her dry voice cracking and wavering in the empty bedroom, ten little toes, cute little piggies, all in a row. Two is for legs, lovely and long, three is my sex, where everythings wrong. She pushed steadily on, reciting the couplets she could remember, skipping the ones she couldnt, keeping her eyes closed. She went through the whole thing half a dozen times. She was aware that her heartbeat was slowing down and the worst of her terror was once more draining away, but she had no conscious awareness of the radical change she had made in at least one of Noras jangly little couplets. After the sixth repetition she opened her eyes and looked about the room like a woman who has just awakened from a short, restful nap. She avoided the corner by the bureau, however. She didnt want to look at the earring again, and she most certainly didnt want to look at the footprint. Jessie? The voice was very soft, very tentative. Jessie thought it was the voice of the Goodwife, now drained of both its shrill ardor and its feverish denial. Jessie, can I say something? No, she responded immediately in her harsh dustinthecracks voice. Take a hike. I want to be done with all you bitches. Please, Jessie. Please listen to me. She closed her eyes and found she could actually see that part of her personality she had come to call Goody Burlingame. Goody was still in the stocks, but now she raised her headan act that couldnt have been easy with the cruel wooden restraint pressing into the back of her neck. Her hair fell away from her face momentarily, and Jessie was surprised to see not the Goodwife but a young girl. Yeah, but shes still me, Jessie thought, and almost laughed. If this wasnt a case of comicbook psychology, she didnt know what was. She had just been thinking about Nora, and one of Noras favorite hobbyhorses was about how people had to care for the child inside. Nora claimed that the most common reason for unhappiness was failure to feed and nurture that interior child. Jessie had nodded solemnly at all this, keeping her belief that the idea was mostly sentimental Aquarian New Age slop to herself. She had liked Nora, after all, and although she thought Nora had held onto a few too many sets of mental lovebeads from the late sixties and early seventies, she was clearly seeing Noras child inside now, and that seemed perfectly all right. Jessie supposed that the concept might even have some symbolic validity, and under the circumstances, the stocks made a hell of an apt image, didnt they? The person in them was the Goodwifeinwaiting, the Ruthinwaiting, the Jessieinwaiting. She was the little girl her father had called Punkin. So talk, Jessie said. Her eyes were still closed, and a combination of stress, hunger, and thirst had combined to make the vision of the girl in the stocks almost exquisitely real. Now she could see the words FOR SEXUAL ENTICEMENT written on a sheet of vellum nailed above the girls head. The words were written in candypink Peppermint YumYum lipstick, of course. Nor was her imagination done yet. Next to Punkin was another set of stocks, with another girl in them. This one was perhaps seventeen, and fat. Her complexion was blotched with pimples. Behind the prisoners, a town common appeared, and after a moment Jessie could see a few cows grazing on it. Someone was ringing a bellover the next hill, it sounded likewith monotonous regularity, as if the ringer intended to keep it up all day . . . or at least until the cows came home. Youre losing your mind, Jess, she thought faintly, and she supposed this was true but unimportant. She might even count it among her blessings before much longer. She pushed the thought away and turned her attention back to the girl in the stocks. As she did, she found her exasperation had been replaced by tenderness and anger. This version of Jessie Mahout was older than the one who had been molested during the eclipse, but not much oldertwelve, perhaps, fourteen at the outside. At her age she had no business being in stocks on the town common for any crime, but sexual enticement? Sexual enticement, for heavens sake? What kind of bad joke was that? How could people be so cruel? So willfully blind? What do you want to tell me, Punkin? Only that its real, the girl in the stocks said.


Her face was pale with pain, but her eyes were grave and concerned and lucid. Its real, you know it is, and it will be back tonight. I think that this time it will do more than just look. You have to get out of the handcuffs before the sun goes down, Jessie. You have to be out of this house before it comes back. Once again she wanted to cry, but there were no tears; there was nothing but that dry, sandpapery sting. I cant! she cried. Ive tried everything! I cant get out on my own! You forgot one thing, the girl in the stocks told her. I dont know if its important or not, but it might be. What? The girl turned her hands over inside the holes which held them, exposing her clean pink palms. He said there were two kinds, remember? M17 and F23. You almost remembered yesterday, I think. He wanted F23s, but they dont make many and theyre hard to get, so he had to settle for two pairs of M17s. You do remember, dont you? He told you all about it on the day he brought the handcuffs home. She opened her eyes and looked at the cuff which enclosed her right wrist. Yes, he certainly had told her all about it; had, in fact, babbled like a coke addict on a twopipe high, beginning with a latemorning call from the office. Hed wanted to know if the house was emptyhe could never remember which days the housekeeper had offand when she assured him it was, he had asked her to slip into something comfortable. Something thats almost there was the way hed put it. She remembered being intrigued. Even over the phone, Gerald had sounded ready to blow a fuse, and she had suspected he was thinking kinky. That was all right with her; they were closing in on their forties, and if Gerald wanted to experiment a little, she was willing enough to accommodate him. He had arrived in record time (he must have left all three miles of the 295 city bypass smoking behind him, she thought), and what Jessie remembered best about that day was how he had gone bustling about the bedroom, cheeks flushed and eyes sparkling. Sex wasnt the first thing that came to her mind when she thought of Gerald (in a wordassociation test, security would probably have popped out first), but that day the two things had been all but interchangeable. Certainly sex had been the only thing on his mind; Jessie believed his usually polite attorneys pecker would have ripped the fly out of his natty pinstripe trousers if hed been any slower getting them off. Once they and the shorts beneath had been discarded, he had slowed down a little, ceremoniously opening the Adidas sneaker box hed brought upstairs with him. He brought out the two sets of handcuffs which had been inside and held them up for her inspection. A pulse had been fluttering in his throat, a flickery little movement almost as fast as a hummingbirds wing. She remembered that, too. Even then his heart must have been under a strain. You would have done me a big favor, Gerald, if youd popped your cork right then and there. She wanted to be horrified at this unkind thought about the man with whom she had shared so much of her life, and found the most she could manage was an almost clinical selfdisgust. And when her thoughts returned to how hed looked that daythose flushed cheeks and sparkling eyesher hands curled quietly into hard little fists. Why couldnt you leave me alone? she asked him now. Why did you have to be such a prick about it? Such a bully? Never mind. Dont think about Gerald; think about the cuffs. Two sets of Kreig Security Hand Restraints, size M17. The M designation for Male; the 17 for the number of notches on the latchlocks. A sensation of bright heat bloomed in her stomach and chest. Dont feel that, she told herself, and if you absolutely have to feel it, pretend its indigestion. That was impossible, however. It was hope she felt, and it wouldnt be denied. The best she could do was balance it with reality, keep reminding herself of her first failed attempt to squeeze out of the cuffs. Yet in spite of her efforts to remember the pain and the failure, what she found herself thinking about was how close how fucking closeshe had come to escape. Another quarter of an inch might have been enough to turn the trick, she had thought then, and a half would have done it for sure. The bony outcrops below her thumbs were a problem, yes, but was she actually going to die on this bed because she was unable to bridge a gap not much wider than her upper lip? Surely not. Jessie made a strong effort to set these thoughts aside and return her mind to the day Gerald had brought the cuffs home. To how he had held them up with the wordless awe of a jeweler displaying the finest diamond necklace to ever pass through his hands. She had been fairly impressed with them herself, come to that. She remembered how shiny they had been, and how the light from the window had pricked gleams of light off the blued steel of the cuffs and the notched curves of the latchlocks which allowed one to adjust the handcuffs to wrists of various sizes. Shed wanted to know where he had gotten them it was a matter of simple curiosity, not accusationbut all he would tell her was that one of the courthouse sharpies had helped him out. He dropped her a hazy little halfwink when he said it, as if there were dozens of these shifty fellows drifting through the various halls and antechambers of the Cumberland County Courthouse, and he knew them all. In fact, hed behaved that afternoon as if it had been a couple of Scud missiles hed scored instead of two pairs of handcuffs. She had been lying on the bed, dressed in a white lace teddy and matching silk hose, an ensemble which was most definitely almost there, watching him with a mixture of amusement, curiosity, and excitement . . . but amusement had held the pole position that day, hadnt it? Yes. Seeing Gerald, who always tried so hard to be Mr. Cool, go striding around the room like a horse in heat had struck her as very amusing indeed. His hair had been frizzed up in the wild corkscrews Jessies kid brother used to call chickens, and hed still been wearing his black nylon dressforsuccess socks. She remembered biting the insides of her cheeksand quite hard, tooto keep her smile from showing. Mr. Cool had been talking .faster than an auctioneer at a bankruptcy sale that afternoon. Then, all at once, he had stopped in midspiel. An expression of comic surprise had overspread his face. Gerald, whats wrong? she had asked. I just realized that I dont know if you even want to consider this, he had replied. Ive been prattling on and on, Im just about frothing at the youknowwhat, as you can plainly see, and I never once asked you if She had smiled then, partially because shed gotten very bored with the scarves and hadnt known how to tell him, but mostly just because it was good to see him excited about sex again. All right, it was maybe a little weird to get turned on by the idea of locking your wife up in handcuffs before going deepsea diving with the long white pole. So what? It was just between the two of them, wasnt it, and it was all in funreally no more than an Xrated comic opera. Gilbert and Sullivan Do Bondage, Im just a handcuffed laydee in the Kings Nayvee. Besides, there were weirder kinks; Frieda Soames from across the street had once confessed to Jessie (after two drinks before lunch and half a bottle of wine during) that her exhusband had enjoyed being powdered and diapered. Biting the insides of her cheeks hadnt worked the second time, and she had burst out laughing. Gerald had looked at her with his head cocked slightly to the right and a little smile tilting up the left corner of his mouth. It was an expression she had come to know well over the last seventeen yearsit meant he was either preparing to be angry or to laugh along with her. It was usually impossible to tell which way he would tip. Want to share? hed asked. She hadnt replied immediately. She stopped laughing instead and fixed him with what she hoped was an expression worthy of the meanest Nazi bitchgoddess ever to grace the cover of a Mans Adventure magazine. When she felt she had achieved the right degree of icy hauteur, she raised her arms and said five uncalculated words which had brought him leaping across to the bed, obviously dizzy with excitement Get over here, you bastard. In no time at all he had been fumbling the cuffs onto her wrists and then attaching them to the bedposts. There were no slats on the headboard in the master bedroom of the Portland house; if he had suffered his heart attack there, she could have slipped the cuffs right off the tops of the posts. As he panted and fussed over the cuffs, one knee rubbing delightfully against her down below while he did it, he talked. And one of the things he had told her was about M and F, and how the latchlocks worked. He had wanted Fs, he told her, because the female cuffs had latchlocks with twentythree notches instead of seventeen, the number most male cuffs had. More notches meant the female cuffs would close smaller. They were hard to come by, though, and when his courthouse friend had told Gerald he could get him two sets of mens hand restraints at a very reasonable price, Gerald had jumped at the chance. Some women can pull right out of mens cuffs, hed told her, but youre fairly bigboned. Besides, I didnt want to wait. Now ... lets just see . . . He had snapped the cuff on her right wrist, pushing the latchlock in fast at first but slowing down as he approached the end, asking her if he was hurting her as each notch clicked past. It was fine all the way to the last notch, but when he had asked her to try and get out, she hadnt been able to do so. Her wrist had slipped most of the way through the cuff, all right, and Gerald had told her later that not even that was supposed to happen, but when it bound up along the back of her hand and at the base of her thumb, his comical expression of anxiety had faded. I think theyre going to do just fine, he had said. She remembered that very well, and she remembered what hed said next even more clearly Were going to have a lot of fun with these. With the memory of that day still vivid in the front of her mind, Jessie once again began to apply downward pressure, trying to somehow shrink her hands enough so she could yank them through the cuffs. The pain struck sooner this time, starting not in her hands but in the overtaxed muscles of her shoulders and arms. Jessie squeezed her eyes shut, bore down harder, and tried to shut out the hurt. Now her hands joined the chorus of outrage, and as she once more approached the outer limit of her muscular leverage and the cuffs began to dig into the scant flesh which covered the backs of her hands, they began to scream. Posterior ligament, she thought, head cocked, lips drawn back in a wide, spitless grin of pain. Posterior ligament, posterior ligament, motherfucking posterior ligament! Nothing. No give. And she began to suspectto strongly suspectthat there was more involved than ligaments. There were bones there as well, a couple of pukey little bones running along the outsides of her hands below the lower thumbjoint, a couple of pukey little bones that were probably going to get her killed. With a final shriek of mingled pain and disappointment, Jessie let her hands go limp once more. Her shoulders and upper arms quivered with exhaustion. So much for sliding out of the cuffs because they were M17s instead of F23s. The disappointment was almost worse than the physical pain; it stung like poisoned nettles. Shit and fuck! she cried at the empty room. Shit and fuck, shitandfuck, shittenfuck! Somewhere along the lakefarther off today, by the soundthe chainsaw started up, and that made her even angrier. The guy from yesterday, back for more. Just some swinging dick in a redandblackchecked flannel shirt from L. L. Beans, out there playing Paul KissMyAss Bunyan, roaring away with his Stihl and dreaming about crawling into bed with his little honey at the end of the day ... or maybe it was football he was dreaming of, or just a few frosty cold ones down at the marina bar. Jessie saw the dork in the checked flannel shirt as clearly as she had seen the young girl in the stocks, and if thoughts alone could have killed him, his head would have exploded out through his asshole at that very moment. Its not fair! she screamed. Its just not f A kind of dry cramp seized her throat and she fell silent, grimacing and afraid. She had felt the hard splinters of bone which barred her escapeoh God, had shebut she had been close, just the same. That was the real wellspring of her bitternessnot the pain, and certainly not the unseen woodcutter with his blatting chainsaw. It was knowing that she had gotten close, but nowhere near close enough. She could continue to grit her teeth and endure the pain, but she no longer believed it would do her the slightest bit of good. That last quarter to half an inch was going to remain mockingly out of her reach. The only thing she would manage to do if she kept on pulling was to cause edema and swelling in her wrists, worsening her situation instead of bettering it. And dont you tell me Im toast, dont you dare, she said in a whispery, scolding voice. I dont want to hear that. You have to get out of them somehow, the young girls voice whispered back. Because heitreally is going to come again. Tonight. After the sun goes down. I dont believe it, she croaked. I dont believe that man was real. I dont care about the footprint and the earring. I just dont believe it. Yes, you do. No, I dont! Yes, you do. Jessie let her head droop to one side, hair hanging almost down to the mattress, mouth quivering abjectly. Yes, she did. 26 She started to doze off again in spite of her worsening thirst and throbbing arms. She knew it was dangerous to sleepthat her strength would continue to ebb while she was out of itbut what difference did it really make? She had explored all her options and she was still Americas Handcuffed Sweetheart. Besides, she wanted that lovely oblivioncraved it, in fact, the way a hophead craves his drug. Then, just before she drifted off, a thought which was both simple and shockingly direct lit up her confused, drifting mind like a flare. The face cream. The jar of face cream on the shelf above the bed. Dont get your hopes up, Jessiethat would be a bad mistake. If it didnt fall right off onto the floor when you tipped the shelf up, it probably slid to a place.where you havent got a snowballs chance in hell of getting hold of it. So dont get your hopes up. The thing was, she couldnt not get them up, because if the face cream was still there and still in a place. where she could get hold of it, it might provide just enough slip to free one hand. Maybe both, although she didnt think that would be necessary. If she could pull out of one cuff, she would be able to get off the bed, and if she could get off the bed, she thought she would have it made. It was just one of those small plastic sample jars they send through the mail, Jessie. It must have slid off onto the floor. It hadnt, though. When Jessie had turned her head as far to the left as it would go without popping her neck out of joint, she was able to see a dark blue blob at the farthest edge of her vision. Its not really there, the hateful, doommongering part of her whispered. You think its there, perfectly understandable, but its really not. Its just a hallucination, Jessie, just you seeing what most of your mind wants you to see, orders you to see. Not me, though; Im a realist. She looked again, straining a tiny bit farther to the left in spite of the pain. Instead of disappearing, the blue blob grew momentarily clearer. It was the sample jar, all right. There was a readinglamp on Jessies side of the bed, and this hadnt slid off onto the floor when she tilted the shelf because the base was fastened to the wood. A paperback copy of The Valley of Horses which had been lying on the shelf since midJuly had slid against the base of the lamp, and the jar of Nivea cream had slid against the book. Jessie realized it was possible that her life was going to be saved by a readinglamp and a bunch of fictional cavepeople with names like Ayla and Oda and Uba and Thonolan. It was more than amazing; it was surreal. Even if its there, youll never be able to reach it, the doommonger told her, but Jessie barely heard it. The thing was, she thought she could reach the jar. She was almost sure of it. She turned her left hand within its restraint and reached slowly up to the shelf, moving with infinite care. It would not do to make a mistake now, to nudge the jar of Nivea cream out of reach along the shelf, or knock it backward against the wall. For all she knew, there might now be a gap between the shelf and the wall, a gap a small samplesized jar could easily drop through. And if that happened, she was quite sure her mind would break. Yes. She would hear the jar hit the floor down there, landing among the mouseturds and dust bunnies, and then her mind would just ... well, break. So she had to be careful. And if she was, everything might yet be all right. Because ... Because maybe there is a God, she thought, and He doesnt want me to die here on this bed like an animal in a leghold trap. It makes sense, when you stop to think about it. I picked that jar up off the shelf when the dog started chewing on Gerald, and then I saw it was too small and too light to do any damage even if I managed to hit the dog with it. Under those circumstancesrevolted, confused, and scared out of my mindthe most natural thing in the world would have been to drop it before feeling around on the shelf for something heavier. Instead of doing that, I put it back on the shelf. Why would I or anyone else do such an illogical thing? God, thats why. Thats the only answer I can think of, the only one that fits. God saved it for me because He knew Id need it. She whispered her cuffed hand gently along the wood, trying to turn her splayed fingers into a radar dish. There must be no slipups. She understood that, questions of God or fate or providence aside, this was almost certainly going to be both her best chance and her last one. And as her fingers touched the smooth, curved surface of the jar, a snatch of talking blues occurred to her, a little dustbowl ditty probably composed by Woody Guthrie. She had first heard it sung by Tom Rush, back in her college days If you want to go to heaven Let me tell you how to do it, You gotta grease your feet With a little mutton suet. You just slide out of the devils hand And ooze on over to the Promised Land; Take it easy, Go greasy. She slipped her fingers around the jar, ignoring the rusty pull of her shoulder muscles, moving with a slow, caressing care, and hooked the jar gently toward her. Now she knew how safecrackers felt when they were using nitro. Take it easy, she thought, go greasy. Had truer words ever been spoken in the whole history of the world? I dont theeenk so, my deah, she said in her snottiest Elizabeth Taylor Cat on a Hot Tin Roof voice. She did not hear herself do this, did not even realize she had spoken. Already she could feel the blessed balm of relief stealing over her; it was as sweet as that first drink of fresh, cool water was going to be when she poured it over the rusty razorwire embedded in her throat. She was going to slide out of the devils hand and ooze on over to the Promised Land; absolutely no doubt about it. As long as she oozed carefully, that was. She had been tested; she had been tempered in the fire; now she would reap her reward. She had been a fool to ever doubt. I think you better stop thinking that way, the Goodwife said in a worried tone. It will make you careless, and I have an idea that very few careless people ever manage to slide out of the devils hand. Probably true, but she hadnt the slightest intention of being careless. She had spent the last twentyone hours in hell, and no one knew any better than she did how much was riding on this one. No one could know, not ever. Ill be careful, Jessie crooned. Ill think out every step. I promise I will. And then I ... Ill ... She would what? Why, she would go greasy, of course. Not just until she got out of the handcuffs, but from now on. Jessie suddenly heard herself talking to God again, and this time she did it with an easy fluency. I want to make You a promise, she told God. I promise to go right on oozing. Im going to start by having a big spring cleaning inside my head and throwing out all the broken stuff and the toys I outgrew a long time agoall the stuff that isnt doing anything but taking up space and contributing to the firehazard, in other words. I might call Nora Callighan and ask her if she wants to help. I think I might call Carol Symonds, too . . . Carol Rittenhouse these days, of course. If theres anyone in our old bunch who still knows where Ruth Neary is, itll be Carol. Listen to me, LordI dont know if anyone ever gets to the Promised Land or not, but I promise to stay greasy and keep trying. Okay? And she saw (almost as though it were an approving answer to her prayer) exactly how it was supposed to go. Getting the top off the jar would be the toughest part; it would require patience and great care, but she would be helped by its unusually small size. Plant the jars base on the palm of her left hand; brace the top with her fingers; use her thumb to do the actual unscrewing. It would help if the cap was loose, but she was pretty sure she would be able to get it off in any case. Youre damn right IIl get it off, toots, Jessie thought grimly. The most dangerous moment would probably come when the cap actually started to turn. If it happened all at once and she wasnt ready for it, the jar might shoot right out of her hand. Jessie voiced a croaky little laugh. Fat chance, she told the empty room. Fat fucking chance, my deah. Jessie held the jar up, looking at it fixedly. It was hard to see through the translucent blue plastic, but the container appeared to be at least half full, maybe a little more. Once the cap was off, she would simply turn the jar over in her hand and let the goo seep out onto her palm. When shed gotten as much as she could, she would tilt her hand up to the vertical, letting the cream slide down to her wrist. Most of it would pool between her flesh and the cuff. She would spread it by rotating her hand back and forth. She already knew where the vital spot was, anyway the area just below the thumb. And when she was as greasy as she could get, shed give one last pull, hard and steady. She would block out all pain and keep pulling until her hand slid through the cuff and she was free at last, free at last, Great God Almighty, free at last. She could do it. She knew she could. But carefully, she murmured, letting the base of the jar settle onto her palm and spacing the pads of her fingers and her thumb at intervals around the cap. And Its loose! she cried in a hoarse, trembling voice. Oh my and pumpkin pie, it really is! She could hardly believe itand the doommonger buried somewhere deep inside refused tobut it was true. She could feel the cap rock a little on its spiral groove when she pressed the tips of her fingers gently up and down against it. Carefully, Jessoh so carefully. Just the way you saw it. Yes. In her mind she now saw something elsesaw herself, sitting at her desk in Portland, wearing her best black dress, the fashionably short one she had bought herself last spring as a present for sticking to her diet and losing ten pounds. Her hair, freshly washed and smelling of some sweet herbal shampoo instead of old sour sweat, was held in a simple gold clip. The top of the desk was flooded with friendly afternoon sunshine from the bow windows. She saw herself writing to The Nivea Corporation of America, or whoever it was that made Nivea face cream. Dear Sirs, she would write, I just had to let you know what a lifesaver your product really is ... When she applied pressure to the jars cap with her thumb, it began to turn smoothly, without a single jerk. All according to plan. Like a dream, she thought. Thank You, God. Thank You. Thank You so very, very, very m Sudden movement snagged the corner of her eye and her first thought was not that someone had found her and she was saved but that the space cowboy had come back to take her for itself before she could get away. Jessie voiced a shrill, startled cry. Her gaze leaped up from its intent focuspoint on the jar. Her fingers clutched it in an involuntary spasm of fright and surprise. It was the dog. The dog had returned for a latemorning snack and was standing in the doorway, checking out the bedroom before coming in. At the same instant Jessie realized this, she also realized that she had squeezed the small blue jar much too hard. It was squirting through her fingers like a freshly peeled grape. No! She clutched for it and almost reinstated her grip. Then it tumbled out of her hand, struck her hip, and bounced off the bed. There was a mild and stupid clacking sound as the jar struck the wooden floor. This was the very sound which she had believed, less than three minutes ago, would drive her mad. It did not, and now she discovered a newer, deeper terror in spite of everything which had happened to her, she was still a very long way from insanity. It seemed to her that, no matter what horrors might lie ahead for her now that this last door to escape had been barred, she must face them sane. Why do you have to come in now, you bastard? she asked the former Prince, and something in her grating, deadly voice made it pause and look at her with a caution all her screams and threats had not been able to inspire. Why now, God damn you? Why now? The stray decided the bitchmaster was probably still harmless in spite of the sharp edges which now glinted in her voice, but it still kept a wary eye on her as it trotted over to its supply of meat. It was better to be safe. It had suffered greatly in the course of learning that simple lesson, and it wasnt one it would forget easily, or soonit was always better to be safe. It gave her one final look with its bright and desperate eyes before dipping its head, seizing one of Geralds lovehandles, and tearing a large portion of it away. Seeing this was bad, but for Jessie it was not the worst. The worst was the cloud of flies which rose from their feeding and nestingground when the stray locked its teeth and yanked. Their somnolent buzz finished the job of demolishing some vital, survivaloriented part of her, some part that had to do with both hope and heart. The dog stepped back as delicately as a dancer in a movie musical, its good ear cocked, the meat dangling from its jaws. Then it turned and trotted quickly from the room. The flies were beginning resettlement operations even before it was out of sight. Jessie leaned her head back against the mahogany crossboards and closed her eyes. She began praying again, but this time it was not escape she prayed for. This time she prayed that God would take her quickly and mercifully, before the sun went down and the whitefaced stranger came back. 27 The next four hours were the worst of Jessie Burlingames life. The cramps in her muscles grew steadily more frequent and more intense, but it wasnt intramuscular pain that made the hours between eleven and three so terrible; it was her minds stubborn, gruesome refusal to relinquish its hold on lucidity and go into the dark. She had read Poes The TellTale Heart in junior high school, but not until now had she grasped the real horror of its opening lines Nervous! True, very nervous I am and have been, but why will you say I am mad? Madness would be a relief, but madness would not come. Neither would sleep. Death might beat them both, and dark certainly would. She could only lie on the bed, existing in a dull olivedrab reality shot through with occasional gaudy blasts of pain as her muscles cramped up. The cramps mattered, and so did her horrible, tiresome sanity, but little else seemed tocertainly the world outside this room had ceased to hold any real meaning for her. In fact, she came strongly to believe that there was no world outside this room, that all the people who had once filled it had gone back to some existential Central Casting office, and all the scenery had been packed away like stageflats after one of Ruths beloved college drama society productions. Time was a cold sea through which her consciousness forged like a waddling, graceless icebreaker. Voices came and went like phantoms. Most spoke inside her head, but for awhile Nora Callighan talked to her from the bathroom, and at another point Jessie had a conversation with her mother, who seemed to be lurking in the hall. Her mother had come to tell her that Jessie never would have gotten into a mess like this if she had been better about picking up her clothes. If I had a nickel for every slip I ever fished out of the corner and turned rightsideout, her mother said, I could buy the Cleveland Gas Works. This had been a favorite saying of her mothers, and Jessie realized now that none of them had ever asked her why she would want the Cleveland Gas Works. She continued to exercise weakly, pedaling with her feet and pumping her arms up and down as far as the handcuffsand her own flagging strengthwould allow. She no longer did this to keep her body ready for escape when the right option finally occurred to her, because she had finally come to understand, in her heart and in her head, that there were no options left. The jar of face cream had been the last. She was exercising now only because the movement seemed to alleviate the cramps a little. In spite of the exercise, she could feel coldness creeping into her feet and hands, settling onto her skin like a skim of ice and then working its way in. This was nothing like the gonetosleep feeling with which she had awakened this morning; it was more like the frostbite she had suffered during a long afternoon of crosscountry skiing as a teenagersinister gray spots on the back of one hand and on the flesh of her calf where her legging hadnt quite covered, dead spots that seemed impervious to even the baking heat of the fireplace. She supposed this numbness would finally overwhelm the cramps and that, in the end, her death might turn out to be quite merciful after alllike going to sleep in a snowbankbut it was moving much too slowly. Time passed but it wasnt time; it was just a relentless, unchanging flow of information passing from her sleepless senses to her eerily lucid mind. There was only the bedroom, the scenery outside (the last few stageflats, yet to be packed away by the propmaster in charge of this shitty little production), the buzz of flies turning Gerald into a lateseason incubator, and the slow movement of the shadows along the floor as the sun made its way across a painted autumn sky. Every now and then a cramp would stab into one of her armpits like an icepick or pound a thick steel nail into her right side. As the afternoon wore endlessly along, the first cramps began to strike into her belly, where all hunger pangs had now ceased, and into the overstressed tendons of her diaphragm. These latter were the worst, freezing the sheath of muscles in her chest and locking down her lungs. She stared up at the reflected waterripples on the ceiling with agonized, bulging eyes as each one struck, arms and legs trembling with effort as she tried to continue breathing until the cramp eased. It was like being buried up to the neck in cold wet cement. Hunger passed but thirst did not, and as that endless day turned about her, she came to realize that simple thirst (only that and nothing more) might accomplish what the increasing levels of pain and even the fact of her own oncoming death hadnt been able to it might drive her mad. It wasnt just her throat and. mouth now; every part of her body cried out for water.