Greek lad; and Monk, built out of proportion and hairy all over. And there was also Tim whom they called Pancho Villa because he regularly received pale-blue letters from Mexico.

Some of the August heat had spilled over into the September nights, and the trainees lounged around the barracks, some in white undershorts and "tee" shirts; others only in shorts, their torsos bare. They had all taken off their "whites," carefully folded them, and slipped them under their mattresses, ready to "sleep in" the creases during the night.

As Tim wrote, and his pen began to fill up the page, the sounds and smells from the other fellows in the room piled up in layers toward the cigarette smoke that hung in tatters around the bare bulbs burning overhead the rattle of dice and the riffle and snap of cards from the interminable games of rummy and aceyducey at adjacent tables . . . and everywhere the smell of cigarette smoke and sweat, of shoe polish and soap.

He wrote in Spanish: Querida mia... Your letter came this morning and you shall never be able to imagine the pleasure it gave me. How I wish I were able to tell you these words which I carry in my heart tonight, instead of having to write them out on paper

He was only a lad, playing at another of the dangerous games of men-the one called Love. But his was a love that existed solely on paper. The letters he wrote were enchantingly romantic and were a source of delight and pleasure for the girl to whom they were written.

how I wish this night I could hold your dear face between my hands and tell you all those things which are spoken only between those who love...

His letters were strangely beautiful, and because he was a dreamer, and young, and inexperienced, he couldn't have known that the letters he wrote to her, were, in effect, written to his other self. The longing, the affection, and the tenderness he expressed in his letters were but the outpourings of all that he himself unknowingly hungered for.

Engrossed by what he was writing, he had shut out of consciousness the murmur of voices around him, the slap and rattle of cards and dice, and was only pleasantly half-aware of the dark-as-molasses voice which cooed through the radio's speaker, "What a diff'rence a day made . . . twenty four little hours..."

The door from the shower room slammed shut with a bang, and he looked up from his writing to see Krowalsky standing mother-naked in the hallway, shaking the water from his head like some beautiful golden animal.

Tim picked up the pages from the table before him, and, as if he were re-reading what he'd already written, surreptitiously studied, over the top edge of the pages, every detail of the beautifully naked body advancing into the room. . . the way a drop of water winked like a sequin where it clung to a hard, brown nipple, while other drops of water ran down the golden chest and gathered the hairs there into a moist finger which pointed down to the navel, recessed like a sliver of new moon into its flat sky of flesh.

He watched the advancing Krowalsky as long as he dared before he dropped his gaze, picked up his pen and returned to his now unravelled thoughts. Krowalsky dropped down on the bench beside Tim.

"Hey, Pancho, be a good buddy and dry my back for me, will you?"

He took the towel from Krowalsky and began to dry the other's back, trying not to let his trembling fingers betray the ecstasy they found in moving over

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