Love is not LOVE

A story by JODY SHOTWELL

Myra lay silent in the darkness, simulating the long-drawn breaths of sleep until Lee was quiet in her own bed an arm's length away. Some of these nights, when Lee had been out late, Myra didn't pretend, but would speak. Then Lee, always chiding her for not going to sleep, would ta lk to her for awhile, tell her some thing of the evening, until her voice died away to a murmur. And of ten Myra would lie awake long after Lee was deep in slumber, thinking, and envying Lee for her youthful capacity for easy sleep.

And tonight, restless again, Myra was aware of a diffusene ss within her, of being taken by an old emotion, rather than any direct kind of thought. In the thin layers of moonlight filtering through the blinds, she could see the slender mound of Lee's body beneath the light sheet, and suddenly she know that she wanted to be close to Lee, for just a moment. But, remembering the humiliation that followed her last such gesture, she knew she could not and would not.

Nearly a year ago, oboying a similar impulse, she had gone from her bed and pressed a kiss to Lee's forehead, put out her hand and smoothed the rumpled curls. Then, not being quite asleep, Leo had reached out, misinterpreting the geoture, and pulled Myra down beside her.

It was a mistake The first ten years of their lives together as lovers had long ago settled it self into a more quiescent kind of relationship. In the beginning, when Lee was only twenty and Myra thirty-six, the difference rad not been so marked. Only as the ye ars went on did it show it self in the gradual cossati on of passion. But by then their mutual need was firmly rooted in the things they had built together. The rest was scarcely missed.

So, that night a year ago recapture what was lost.

was a mistake, a vain attempt to Thinking about it now, Myra's

faoo burned again with the mortification of her failure. Sighing, she turned toward the window and closed her eyes.

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