"You mean, something to keep you up until two in the morning?" she led.

Deb reached out and touched Willa's arm quickly. "How can I tell you?" she whispered. "Willa. he's a brute. He won't let me alone. He drinks, and... God, are all men like that? Is your husband like that?" Her unshed tears glistened in the dark.

Willa thought of Roger, so far away. No, Roger was not a drunken brute. Whatever was wrong between them wasn't his fault. He didn't even know there was anything wrong. He could never understand. in a million years, what was happening to her. At first she used to wait, tremulously, for his returnings

full of the desire accumulated through the enforced frustrations. But there had been too many goodbyes. Loneliness had built itself a shell of numbness. Out of selfdefense it hardened and hardened

.. until now, even his homecomings could not break through. She had grown to live within her woman-body... chaste and inviolate... and how could Roger know that when he came to her now, in love... that she felt sickened and revolted?

"No. Roger's not like that. But I understand, Deb. I don't know why, but I had an idea something was bothering you."

"I've never told anyone. I didn't even plan to tell you . . ." She laughed, shakily. "It must be the atmosphere."

"Oh," Willa said, pretending injury. "And I thought it was my sympathetic face!"

"Darling, no!" Deb exclaimed, not comprehending the jest. "I didn't mean that like it sounded!" Again

she leaned forward and touched Willa's arm, this time her thin hand sliding from elbow to wrist, and not leaving.

With a sensation of unreality, Willa withdrew her arm until her hand found Deb's. Then, as if they had simultaneously encountered a high-voltage wire, they separated. Their eyes ate into each other in the darkness.

Going through the ritual of Tommy's bath and bedding, Willa tried not to think of what had happened. She left the child's darkened room and went automatically about the task of mopping up, picking up toys and towels.

Downstairs again, she turned on the radio and tried to read. She put down her book and wandered through the rooms, restlessly. In the kitchen, she fixed herself a highball, altho she almost never drank alone. Then, suddenly, she had to face it. Something had brought her alive again. Real blood was pounding in her veins, and forgotten manifestations possessed her body.

Back in the livingroom, she stared at the telephone. "I could call her!" But what could she say? It could be a withering mistake. Suppose Deb were to be horrified, indignant?

The front door was open to the summer night. Willa arose and looked through the screening at her neighbors across the street, laughing on their patio and tinkling ice in tall glasses. She would run there, for a few minutes. She went back to pick up her cigarettes, and when she turned again. Deb was at the door.

"Hello," Deb said. "I came down to do my ironing." But her arms were empty until she stepped into the room.

"The greatest tyranny of man's mind is fear fear to be oneself among one's neighbors."

the

Paul Hoffman

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