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Love without Sentiment

By: ClodiaP



In the entrance way of the Biomedical Sciences Building, just beyond the reach of an intruding tongue of sunlight, a graduate student leaned against the wall and gazed out at Dr. Verna Noyes. She sat on a concrete bench at the far side of the building's little plaza. On this first, perfect spring evening, the student noticed, Dr. Noyes looked as though she were smelling sulfur dioxide. For one minute, then another, the student procrastinated as though time might bring a better moment to approach his professor.

Verna Noyes was a handsome woman in her mid-thirties, with a large, strong face and heavy black hair that was thickly parted on the right and fell below her shoulders. Her skin was white, without a trace of tan, although over her big, heavy-lidded eyes, the skin looked almost blue. Her nose was a too thick and too long, and, combined with the length of her face, gave an appearance of assertiveness and strength. To this her downcast eyes lent sadness. It was not a beautiful face, but the long nose, the high cheekbones, and the heavy lidded eyes gave it depth and dignity. A full, square-set mouth gave it unmistakable sensuality. Or so it seemed to the graduate student, studying the face for some indication of a more propitious moment to approach.

Noyes sat a stiffly, one arm straight at her side, braced on the hard bench, the other resting on a dark brown briefcase. She was gazing straight ahead and, because Dr. Noyes never lingered around the Biomedical Sciences Building after 5:00 o'clock, unless shut up in her laboratory, the graduate student thought she might be waiting for someone. That he might interrupt a special moment.

But several more minutes passed during which Dr. Noyes did not move, no one approached, and it became slightly darker, so the student shrugged and walked out of the entrance way. She noticed him only when his long shadow slid beneath her feet. She raised her chin a little and asked, "Yes?" before her had spoken.

He stated his business quickly, without greeting or comment on the delightful spring weather. Could he use the older electron microscope in the pathology laboratory, instead of the new ones on the fifth floor? The new ones, as she probably knew, had been improperly installed and were subject to vibrations that resulted in poor resolution. Until Serva-levl platforms were rigged, the new scopes were useless. Unless he could have an hour on the older microscope, he would have to postpone his work for tomorrow.

Even before his question was complete, Dr. Noyes was shaking her head. No. They would stick to the existing sign-up schedule, which was tight already without alterations. Furthermore, he should take several more days to prepare before microscope work. Did he think all research could be completed in two weeks? He was always running to the electron microscope before his specimens were adequately prepared. See her Monday if there were problems.

The student was one of her best and his respect for her, his admiration, surprised even him. It was like some corny story of admiration for your old professor, except this was not an old professor and the spring evening, with its first, warm breezes, was...stimulating as well as gorgeous. Ragged strips of white cloud, their undersides glowing pink with the sinking sun, drifting like crocodiles in the pale blue sky.

So, as Dr. Noyes spoke, rapidly, without catching his eye, the student's glance slipped down to where the jacket of her light baize business suit hung open. Beneath the thin, white sweater, her breasts were held high and tight in the bra. But if they were released, he thought, they would subside into a heavy roundness, pulling gently outward from her armpits, the nipples forced to fullness by the weight of the flesh.

And then what would the severe, brilliant, decidedly cold Dr. Verna Noyes be like? In a moment, he caught himself and hastily looked up into her face, staring hard, giving her his full attention. She looked back with an expression more unsettling than usual and he wondered, with a jolt of embarrassment, if she had sensed what he had been imagining. When she finished speaking, he thanked her with excessive formality and hurried away. Her eyes again gazed at nothing, her chin slightly raised, face expressionless.

She had sensed the young man's uneasiness and his guilty, shifting stare, but did not dwell upon it; instead, her mind skipped directly to the thought, once again, that she disliked teaching—even graduate teaching, which was least-bad if you had to teach. She had methodically packed her teaching chores into the smallest possible niche of her life, where they would interfere least with her research, which dealt with the effects of enzyme reactions on schizophrenia.

The other burden of her professional life, she reflected, was counseling students. Her training in the clinical side of psychology, before and while she earned her M.D. degree, made her a natural candidate for service as a psychotherapist in the University's health service. And that involved counseling undergraduate women who came with difficulties beyond the academic. This was worse, even, than teaching, but scarce funds for biomedical research, and the difficulty of retaining research posts at medical schools, made it impossible for a junior researcher to refuse to 'participate in the wider university community and its needs,' as the chairman of her department had put it.

She did her counseling well, as she did everything well, but with uneasiness, even occasional revulsion, at what seemed the frenzy and obsessiveness of the...frankly, 'girls,' not women...who came to see her, week after week, with the same histrionic stories of romantic comedies and tragedies. They seemed to Verna Noyes to pursue sex in a hormonal rage that degenerated, year after year, into plain promiscuity. And the candidness and intensity with which these girls, only 18, 19, 20, spilled forth their sexual cravings and described their wretchedly tangled sex lives, made her hate the seven hours a week (including weekend duty) that she spent in the small, comfortable office of the Health Services building. But such reactions could not be confessed by a psychiatrist, much less offered as a reason to be relieved of the chore.

She had continued to stare across the plaza, down Angell Street toward the Student Union. Now, she thought that the tall, slender man walking up Angell Street was her husband, but he was still too far away for her to be sure. The man walked slowly, his shoulders bent, eyes lowered; in his stride was no briskness, no lightness, only a dignity that denied any hint of the physicalistic.

Yes, it was her husband's briefcase and, over his arm, the tan raincoat made pointless by the warm evening. Verna stood up, intending to meet him half way, when she saw a student catch up with him. The two talked for a moment, then her husband put down the briefcase and settled his weight on one foot, as though resigned to a long conversation. Verna sank back onto the bench and watched them without interest.

She had married Daniel Spellman Noyes 10 years ago. At 37, he had been a brilliant historian with a rapidly rising reputation. She had been a psychiatric resident trying, even then, to steal time from ward rounds and other chores for her research. She had pursued Daniel Noyes with the determination and decisiveness she brought to every aspect of life. Had she not pursued him, he would not be married today, she was sure. He had suppressed all concerns but the scholarship that had, by then, produced three volumes on the literary and cultural history of Europe and North America. She had admired his intensity, his contempt for the gossipy and clubish university life, and, above all, his dedication and sense of mission in his career and research.

She hoped his meeting today had gone well. Again she rose and started toward him. For three years, he had been trying to convince the history department that it should offer an undergraduate major in cultural history—indeed, make the field a specialty of the department. It made sense, at least as he described it: no department could excel in all areas. Cultural history could be a badge of distinction, a niche in which to achieve excellence. Today, the department had held a plenary session, attended by the provost and chairmen of American and European literature as well as the whole history faculty, to decide the question. Daniel would be the head of the program, if authorized, and so, if the decision had been 'yes," they would have a good summer.

Daniel would prepare the courses for the fall semester; he would be busy, content. If the decision were 'no'...

When she saw he had spotted her coming toward him, she smiled and raised a thumb, her eyebrows hiked up, questioning. His expression gave no indication of an answer; his pace did not quicken; he did not smile or wave. She broke into a little run, and, when they met, she opened her arms and asked, brightly, "Success?"

He nodded. "One-hundred percent success," his voice toneless.

She threw her arms around him and hugged him. He returned her pressure, ever so slightly, and immediately lifted her arms away. They were in public, after all. He started to walk and she fell in beside him, her hand seeking his, her head leaning slightly to rest on his shoulder as they walked. "No hitches?"

"No, I'm head of it all. They think it's the right choice. And it will begin with four special courses, not three."

"Oh, Daniel!" she said. She had stopped and turned to smile into his eyes.

He nodded and continued walking. She would not be subdued. She swung her briefcase high and skipped a little. This was the best of all, the very best. This they could share: his work, his research, the recognition that he won...

Now, she must think of a celebration he could accept. Again, she noticed the extravagant tender warmth of the early April evening. "Should we have Michael and Cindy over for dinner?" she asked.

"Could."

"Or just us, with champagne?"

"Just us would be okay," he said. He squeezed her arm and smiled.

She laughed aloud. "No vacation for us, this summer! Work! Can you have everything ready for September? Are all the books here?"

"Oh, I believe so, yes. Two courses for September, then two for spring. The European Influences course, or whatever we call it, will be mostly the one I already give, so I'll have time. And John Sforza will collaborate on the 'Twentieth Century Developments' seminar. We'll make it all right."

Thank God they had an excuse to skip a vacation this year. Each summer, Daniel had selected some intriguing destination—islands in the Aegean, the Balkans, Portugal. And each year they had returned home subdued and weary from the effort to assure each other the trip had been marvelous. What did other couples do on vacation? To return home refreshed, excited, full of new energy? Some couples went in groups, of course, and afterward there were winks and smiles about...hanky-panky, Verna thought. Maybe something like that. Daniel always seemed to listen with special interest. Not that he encouraged conversation in that direction, or laughed; probably only Verna could tell that he was curious. She was not a psychiatrist for nothing...

And yet, that would be so unlike Daniel, the man she had married. And could she do anything like that? Impossible. And with whom, anyway? How did people even suggest that sort of thing? How did they get through the year afterward, when they returned to the university? 

Daniel had not had a woman before they married; she was sure of that. Even so, it was better, then, at the beginning. Clumsy, but better. And the clumsiness hadn't mattered at all. As long as you had the passion, the interest.

They must stop to pick up the champagne. Daniel would want it dry, very dry...

It was all right, not having a vacation, this year. It was a relief. Daniel would be busy for the next couple years. Still, though, if couldn't enjoy this day, this moment of recognition by the whole university, what could he enjoy? You had to want something. Verna wished very, very much that he could enjoy it. If you didn't enjoy your triumphs, then, eventually, you just ran out of gas.

Daniel had stopped. The tennis courts were not open, yet. A heavy chain still wound through the mesh of the gate and was padlocked. But, perhaps driven by the warmth of the day, two students, a young man and woman, had climbed the high fence and were playing a fast, almost violent game, burning the ball at each other, laughing, shouting and scolding at one another in mock ferocity. Daniel pressed his face to the fence, hooking his fingers through the diamond links. 

"Already playing tennis," he said. "It really is spring..."

Verna pressed against him, holding his arm tighter, and followed his gaze. The young woman was short, very fair, with straight, rich red hair down her shoulders. Her legs were too strong to be slender, but they were not heavy, and down one thigh, from beneath her brief white shorts, ran one of those childish, light-blue tattoos in the shape of a Freudian arrow. It was brazen and immature, but, somehow, down the very pale thigh, it spoke of the spread-eagled, wanton woman at branding time.

Beneath her white tennis jersey were good-sized breasts that moved only with stubborn jolts, even as she dived wildly for an impossible return, holding her tennis racket like a cleaver, bending and jumping, swatting hard. Against the sweat-soaked t-shirt, her nipples were prominent, their points against the cloth as big as dimes.

In a relaxed moment, when the ball sped by her opponent and sent him racing after it, the girl glanced over at them. She smiled, and, after a moment, idly arched her back, stretching her arms. Her thrusting breasts under the damp jersey might as well have been naked.

Why, you little whore, thought Verna idly. It did not surprise or anger her. She expected it. She glanced at Daniel's face. It was tense; his gaze fixed. She tugged his arm a little, but he moved away only reluctantly, glancing back once. 

"Wish I had the energy to run around the court like that fellow," he said. "He hits a mean ball."

Verna nodded. She had dropped his arm. She walked by herself, now, gazing down at the sidewalk. She didn't mind, of course; middle-aged men naturally looked at girls. Professors admired their attractive students—and girls admired their professors. She had heard of that so often in counseling. Incredibly, girls would come right out and tell her their fantasies about a particular professor—and sometimes more than fantasies.

She realized she was trembling. As though on command, she stopped it. One couldn't be angry. That was naïve. And certainly there was nothing wrong with men, even married men, getting a little excited about an obviously sexy girl. But it did seem unexpected for Daniel. If one—her inner voice automatically shifted into the third-person--were lively and vital, after all, embracing life, athletic, concerned with youthfulness, then admiring brazen co-eds was part of that. But one couldn't help but think it a little hypocritical in Daniel's case, where everything was supposed to be about work, research, scholarship. It didn't matter, but it made one wonder...

"What a girl!" she said, as they walked.

Daniel was silent.

"Well, wasn't she?"

"Back at the tennis court?"

Verna closed her eyes, for a moment, and walked faster. Where else, for Christ's sake?

"Well, she had a tough match."

"I can't understand those absurd tattoos the kids are wearing, now. It's like the body-painting craze awhile back. Why do they want to decorate their bodies like barbarians?"

"All peoples decorate their bodies," said Daniel judiciously. "Make-up, jewelry, hair styling. It's simply a matter of the particular culture. What is our mania for tanning the body but a form of body decoration?"

Some men in Daniel's position would take a mistress, Verna thought. They would be honest with themselves about what they wanted. But Daniel never would. He scarcely chatted with his students in the Blue Room. So dignified. So above the wink, the off-color joke.

Suddenly she thought, with a clarity that startled her: I wish that he would find a mistress. It isn't right, wanting something the way he does, for years on end, and being too dignified—too ridiculously dignified—to admit it. Once admitted into her consciousness, the idea nudged a dozen unconnected thoughts into place: Daniel's dying fire, year after year. He seemed to have no passionate desires anymore, not even for scholarship. What was there for Daniel—or her—to lose? Should a man clutch some pretense to honor while his heart burned out? Without joy. With not even a struggle. Without even, for God's sake, any real pain?

Daniel's voice from somewhere to her left sounded startled and a little worried. "Verna," he said gently, and then, more loudly, "Verna! What are you doing? " She turned to him, slightly confused, until she realized that her fists were clenched and that she had walked so fast that she was a yard ahead of him.

She smiled and shrugged, looking bewildered and a little embarrassed. "Oh," she said with a wave that dismissed it before it was even said, "I'm way off with electron microscopes and enzymes."

He nodded, but, as they walked on, she glanced over and saw that he was frowning, watching her.

It began only with the desire to know something about the girl on the tennis court. As she had walked home beside Daniel, carrying the champagne that neither really wanted, Verna had wheedled from him the information that the girl had been his student the year before. But Verna had been more surprised to hear the girl's name and had realized suddenly that she did know the girl—in a way.

One weird aspect of counseling was that she heard, from girls who came to her, a great deal about other students: their names, their problems, their aspirations, their pettinesses and—inevitably—their sex lives. But until some casual introduction in the Blue Room or at a 'reception,' she would have no idea that one of the life histories she carried around with her attached to some student she had seen on campus perhaps a dozen times. This was the case when Daniel said the name of the girl on the tennis court was Darlene Sullivan. Verna knew immediately how she could find out more about the girl.

She sat behind her desk in the slightly darkened, book-lined consulting office that the university Health Service had set aside for its psychiatrists. The books were irrelevant to psychiatry, and unread, but the tradition of such offices called for an aura of just barely imaginable erudition. Perhaps to reassure the patient that she was in the hands of one who knew more than did she herself.

The girl in the blue easy chair had the hefty limbs of the eternal peasant, fleshy and solid, and made childishly delicate, shy gestures. Her voice was a maddening whisper: the soul of a sparrow lost in the body of a chicken. It seemed to Verna, at times, that there simply was not enough animus for the substance. But she liked the girl's modesty and reticence.

Now, the girl leaned forward and rested three pudgy fingers on the edge of the desk, as though to close a circuit with Verna before trying to communicate. Verna acknowledged the contact with a nod and the girl lowered her eyes slightly. The soft voice spoke, as always, about 'boys.'

Verna looked down at notes she had made of the previous sessions. She was never less than totally attentive, but it was not helpful to lock onto a patient's gaze, as some psychiatrists did; it only increased the tension. Now, as the girl hesitated, Verna looked up and said, "Cynthia, you've mentioned your roommate a few times..." She unnecessarily glanced down at her notes. "Darlene Sullivan. Might I be right in saying that you see her as the kind of woman you would like to be—at least when it comes to the romantic and sexual side of things?"


Love without Sentiment



Cynthia nodded a few times, as though pumping up the energy needed to speak. Her gentle, sad mouth set itself for a kind of grim honesty, and she said, "I guess, yeah." She breathed the words softly.

Verna leaned forward, elbows on the desk. Her hair was pulled back from her face and caught in a thick black ponytail. Her large face, with its wide, dark eyes, seemed open, candid. "In what ways?" she asked.

Cynthia shrugged. Her hands wrestled in her lap. "Even just her figure, I guess. You should see what happens when she sits at lunch in the cafeteria. Boys go crazy."

"And you would like that?"

"I don't know," whispered Cynthia, "I guess..."

"Why do you say, 'boys'?" asked Verna.

Cynthia giggled and glanced up. Verna smiled.

"Just from high school, I guess."

"Don't the women here usually say 'guys'?"

Cynthia nodded. "I guess."

"So Darlene has a lot of men friends?"

"No," said Cynthia, "not really. She isn't like that. She's got...one, I think. She spends weekends at his apartment. He comes to the room, too."

Verna recalled the young man with whom Darlene had been playing tennis. "Are you attracted to him?"

"Carl?"

"Is that her friend?"

Cynthia nodded. "Carl. He's a graduate student. Well, he's tall... He's on the ice hockey team. Very well built. But's he's scary."

"How is that?"

"I don't know. He's quiet, he looks at you. And he's one of those people when you say something he doesn't answer, sometimes. He just looks at you. I always start giggling. I'm such a fool!"

"But is that scary?"

"He's cold, sort of. He's very sure about everything. He asks you questions..."

"You mean he seems very grown up? A man?"

Cynthia caught the drift and tried to be cooperative. "Yes, you may be right. I'm scared maybe because I see him as a man. And I call everyone 'boys'..."

"So let's get back. Darlene has one man friend. But he scares you, a little. So what is enviable about her social life—as you suggested earlier?"

"She could have almost any boy--I mean 'guy'--if she was like that. You should see the guys she ignores! Our telephone rings like I don't what. Sometimes I have to say she isn't in when she really is."

"You would like all that attention, then? Why do you think she ignores so many men?"

Cynthia looked down, frowning, but said nothing. 

Finally, Verna said, "She's a sophomore, like you? Has she had many men friends?"

Cynthia shook her head. "No, she's friendly with...guys, and everyone likes her, but I think she had only one guy before Carl. Last year, when she was a freshman. Eliot, I think. Eliot Ames, and that was very bad. She cried once, when she told me about it."

Verna straightened up. "What happened?"

"It was creepy. Really creepy. She was a freshman. Not my dorm. I didn't meet her until second semester, spring...last year..."

"Okay," said Verna. The girl was unconsciously avoiding this, steering away as though on automatic pilot. "What happened?"

Cynthia drew in her breath as she spoke, her body swelling, "Well..." She gave a long sigh. "I think that Eliot was her lover. He was a sophomore. Maybe a junior. He had access to an apartment off campus—not his own--and I guess he brought her there and they made love one afternoon." Now, she was hurrying on. "Two of his friends, Eliot's friends, were watching from the kitchen or the closet or somewhere hidden and seeing them make love, I guess."

Verna sat silent for a moment and let herself feel very guilty and unprofessional. Did any of this really relate to Cynthia's problem? She shrugged. It might. She nodded her head. "I see."

"Yeah." Cynthia pursed her lips and puffed out her cheeks, her eyes unfocused and sad.

"How did Darlene find out?"

"Well, that's just it," said Cynthia. "They took some photographs, horrible photographs of Darlene with no clothes and then, eventually, it was like every guy on campus had seen prints." She vigorously shook her head. "It was horrible!" Tears came to her eyes and her wide, gentle face seemed strangely dignified. She whispered, "And in one, she looked so happy! I mean so open and not shy or scared. She was standing up and her arms were spread out wide—pushing herself forward, you know... Very proud. And she was smiling. Just...a strange smile. I could never look like that! Not naked or anyway! But the boys, the guys...laughed at that one the most. People are so mean, I guess..."

Verna did not have another appointment that day, but she sat at the desk for many minutes after Cynthia had left. The story settled in her mind like a heavy gravy—inert, cold, ugly. She stared down at her desk as though at a plate of food that sickens one. But she had made a kind of hobby of noting the myriad marvelous ways in which people fooled themselves, and it was by the strength of her feeling, now, that she knew what was her real intention. And she knew, suddenly, that her feeling of guilt and pity would not deter her—not in the end.

She pulled a few sheets of paper from her briefcase and wrote, at the top of one of them:

"Darlene S."

Then slowly, thoughtful, in the very small, clear handwriting in which she made notes about patients, she wrote:

"Eliot A. Boyfriend freshman year. Nude photographs circulated around campus. Cries when tells the story.

"Carl. Current boyfriend. Also older. Quiet, deliberate. Apartment off campus. She goes weekends. Rejects other men. But popular.

"Now seeks older men? Mature? 'Safe'? Also 'serious.' Desire for status from older men?

"But competition with men (e.g., performance at tennis?)

"Overt sexuality. Defies reputation and refuses to withdraw as a result of bad experience? Sees sex as crude, now (e.g., tattoo)? Also sexual exhibitionism when D. was watching her at tennis.

"Serious student according to Cynthia. Sociology. Political science. Quiet when alone. Can be sarcastic with men (resentment?). Excessive profanity. Gutter language (equal of men? Emphasize only physical? Render experience with photos unimportant? Show not hurt? Defiance?)

"Talks about profs, friendly with them. (Again, identifies with older men, serious men.) Superior to students (incl. boys who humiliated her?)

"Works some nights at Thayer St. Record Mart. Scholarship. Always short of $."

It seemed reasonably straightforward. But then, it always seemed clearer when information was scanty, before the masses of details, the contradictions, began to suggest complexities. 

The girl had few friends, very few—that Cynthia made clear. But there was one ready source of information that required only a strong stomach to tap. For a long while, Verna sat staring at her notes as one stares at egg and catsup smeared on a plate after breakfast...

Eliot Ames was in his second semester in the Medical Sciences program, which the university permitted undergraduates to pass into after their junior year as undergraduates. Long before Verna had heard Cynthia's story, she had wondered whether Eliot Ames would make a great doctor—or a frightening one. He was a bright, sharp-witted student who cared only for the sciences, at which he excelled. As far as Verna could ascertain, he was insensitive to anyone's feelings about anything—unless they were feelings of pain or fear or humiliation. In which case, he seemed amused. She had heard from several sources that he was the stereotype of the guy who became the leader of a little dormitory gang that tormented and harassed the shyer, more awkward students until they broke, or moved, or went into a berserk rage. Ames apparently completed his own studies effortlessly, despite the racket involved in keeping his dormitory hall in a state of turmoil.

Ames had a rather small, tough body and the unself-conscious smile and persuasive, fluent way of talking that attracted followers. Around him always floated the feeling that something amusing, and probably outrageous, would happen. 

Because Verna knew the type so well, from dozens of counseling sessions with agonized students who would said they could not live in their dormitories one more day, she had spotted Ames the first week he had attended lab sessions in biochemistry.

Despite everything, she might have liked Ames well enough. His precise, disciplined execution of experiments and his almost needlessly laconic laboratory reports were a blessed relief from the pitiful confusion of many first-year students in the lab. But Ames also had an easygoing, sarcastic way of asking questions and a habit of sitting in his seat, utterly sprawled and boneless, watching intently as she moved about the room. Three days ago, when she had heard of Darlene's humiliation at his hands, she had experienced it in an intensely personal, almost physical way. Had she not spent years of her career denying herself any indulgence of her emotions, she might have dropped her plan rather than do what she was about to do.

When the laboratory recessed for lunch, she left walking more or less beside Ames, her head slightly lifted, her eyes straight ahead. Even so, she could sense his glances at her. At the initial cluster of students strung out in the direction of the dining hall, local restaurants, and the coffee shop, he started a conversation with one of his polite remarks. He actually said, "I think that introducing some elements of microbiology into the biochemistry course this year has been an excellent improvement, don't you?"

Verna slowed a little to keep pace with him. She nodded, fighting her annoyance. "First rate," she said. "I'm impressed that you noticed."

"Oh, I certainly did," said Ames.

"I hope eventually that we can eliminate a semester by combining elements of microbiology with other courses," said Verna. "It would give the students a little breathing room. Don't you find it difficult to keep up? Most first-year students do."

Ames seemed almost startled at her interest. For once, he seemed to search for words, and, as he did, he studied her profile intently. "Well," he said, "I could use the time myself."

"And it's probably worse for students coming to the Medical School from other places. You've been here all along, haven't you? So you've met friends, I imagine, met women."

They had reached the Blue Room in the Student Union building and had gotten into line together. Now, Ames seemed eager to continue. He grabbed a wrapped sandwich quite randomly and scooped an orange and a package of potato chips onto his tray to keep up with Verna as she whizzed her tray along the aluminum counter and paused only at the end to take a cottage cheese and fruit plate covered with plastic wrap.

"Most of my friends will graduate this year," said Ames.

"Oh, but how about younger students you know?" asked Verna. Upperclassmen usually date the younger girls anyway, don't they? Don't you know girls who are still undergraduates, now?"

She almost could see Ames's mind scrambling to find the import of her question. She stood, deliberately eying a single seat left at the table where three professors of anatomy sat smiling up at her. But Ames had found a table toward the corner of the room and quickly called out, "This one is cleared, Dr. Noyes."

When she had sat down, he said, "Undergraduate girls are okay. but after three years of that, you say: Enough! You start seeing that women aren't just girls who had gotten older. They're something very different..."

Verna unwrapped her plate in silent disgust, without answering. What had she expected? She had known this would happen and intended to deal with it. It wasn't important, a peripheral irritation. He's never getting closer to her than he was right now. She nodded. "I'm glad that you've graduated to women. I've heard some horrendous reports about your exploits with the poor girls."

He froze. He quickly glanced up at her, but she was eating her lunch as though merely engaged in a little gossip. Ames asked slowly, "What did you hear, Dr. Noyes? I would be curious." The words did not come easily.

"It was awhile back, Mr. Ames." She put down her fork and looked right into his face. "Someone was showing me photographs he had gotten hold of. Your name came up. It bothered me a great deal at the time. Of course, I didn't know you, then. But I remembered the name because I told this individual to tell you, whomever you were, that you were trying very hard to get kicked out of the university. I never imagined you would decide to become a doctor." 

"Do you remember who it was?"

"I know very well who he is."

Ames nodded heavily. He said slowly, "This is what you wanted to talk with me about today."

"You are an excellent preclinical student, so I have wondered what to do. Who was the girl?"

He hesitated. Verna said, "I have seen her around campus, you know. Very embarrassing, just the idea that she has been exposed as you exposed her..."

"Her name is Darlene Sullivan."

"She was a freshman."

"She had just entered the university. Everybody was interested in her. She was one of those girls that the guys notice and start speculating about as soon as the booklet of photographs of freshman girls circulates. When I got a date with her, and things began to happen, everyone wanted to know all the details."

Ames was literally squirming in his seat, as though he couldn't wait another moment to head for the men's room. Verna asked, "Details?"

"Oh, stuff," said Ames. "Stuff guys talk about. They would listen to anything."

Verna rested her chin on her clasped hands, elbows on the table, and her heavy-lidded eyes gazed at him, waiting. Ames shrugged and cocked his head in an exaggerated, 'What can I tell you?' gesture. When Verna did not respond, he said, "It would embarrass you if I told you."

"Physicians don't embarrass each other," she said. "Besides, I saw the photographs you circulated."

"Oh, you know," said Ames, looking down at the table. "What her breasts are like. What she says..." He trailed off and glanced up at Verna, then back down to his plate. "And they want to know if she likes it when you suck her nipples, whether or not she'll do it with her mouth..." He waved away the subject and sought asylum in his tuna fish sandwich.

"What was the report?" asked Verna. "You told them all about it? Before you let them come and watch and take the pictures?"

It was almost too much. "God," said Ames, smacking his sandwich down on his plate, speaking in almost a whine through a mouthful of food. "What is this about? Why do you want to know?"

"Why? It could have to do with whether or not this school ever allows you to become a physician. Needless to say, none of this came out in your entrance interview. They do ask about character, you know."

"So what can I do? What can I say? What does it all depend on, now?" asked Ames bitterly. "What are you..." He stopped.

"Do you know that every faculty member in the Medical Program is responsible for assessing each student's suitability to practice medicine?"

"I'm sorry," said Ames slowly. "I'm very sorry. I hate myself for what I did to Darlene. Probably that goes without saying."

"Not at all. As far as I know, I'm the only one in the program who knows of this incident in your recent past."

He nodded, but did not look at her.

"Did you ever worry enough to find out what happened to the girl?"

Ames nodded vigorously. "Yes, I do know. In fact, do you know something? Once in awhile we still date." He kept nodding, watching her expression. "It's true. We date. We don't do anything. She has a guy, and all. But we do see each other."

She was shocked almost beyond concealment. "She's friendly?"

"Yes. Very friendly. Very natural and cordial...and..."

She was watching him, her expression unchanged. He said, "Look, it was very bad. But it was a crazy undergraduate thing. It's all forgotten. Really."

Verna recalled, 'she cries when she talks about it...' Cynthia had said that. But Ames was too sharp to tell a lie so easy to check. "What was she like, Darlene? How did you meet her?"

"Well," said Ames, frowning, "it started fast, so I'm not sure about how she was before... I know she was serious about the books. That I know. And shy. We all looked up her background, whatever the blue booklet on freshman girls tells you. She attended a Catholic high school in St. Louis. And when we started, she was slow. You know, 'please don't,' 'I love you but we can't...' He stopped suddenly and looked at her, as though he might be saying the wrong thing.

Verna nodded.

"So, she was a virgin." He nodded as though to himself. "Very modest. Strictly lights off and under the covers for the first few times. Then... well, it didn't take very long. She really took to it."

Verna recalled Cynthia's description of the photograph: 'And in one she looked so happy. I mean so open, not shy or scared...standing with her arms spread...pushing herself out...proud...'"

"And now?" asked Verna.

"Oh, liberated, now," said Ames definitely. "Not hung up or anything. A little wild, really."

"That's your idea of 'not hung up'?"

"But open," he insisted. "She has a boyfriend. Carl Bauman."

"And they're close?"

"Yes," said Ames, "yes, definitely close."

Verna's eyes narrowed, heavy-lidded and intense in their scrutiny. "But not really close, like some couples? Not inseparable?"

He shrugged. "Darlene is very definite that she doesn't want to cling. Is that a good thing? I don't know."

"It can be."

"She hates any kind of possessiveness. Doesn't want it. She told me once she was going to leave Carl because he warned off another guy who showed interest in her. She didn't leave him, but she can't stand that sort of thing."

Verna let a silence gather before she said: "You acted like a moron. Worse, because there's nothing cruel in stupidity. It isn't something undergraduates do for kicks, you know? You knew what you were doing because you're smart. And you knew how cruel it was."

"So I'm in trouble with the Program?"

"Is that all that matters?"

Sitting in her office, Verna wrote:

"Catholic high school, St. Louis.

"Virgin when she met Eliot A. Still sees him after all that he did to her. (Obsession with pretending it wasn't important? Not acting as though it should be taken seriously?)

"Affair with Carl B. Won't permit herself to become exclusive. Dislikes possessiveness. Denies and reject real love? Fear of hurt? Thinks men aren't worth depending on? Rejects idea of being possessed by a partner, wants to be the equal of men? (Competitive.)

"Does she really like sex?

"Studious."

Then, she assembled and sifted through these and other sheets from her briefcase and wrote, more slowly:

"Darlene S. came to the university from a Catholic high school background. Fairly typical. Studious and serious about college, shy but friendly and trusting. Modest and determined (not very?) to avoid premarital sex. Meets Eliot A., upperclassman, good-looking, persuasive, with a following of male admirers. After a little resistance, she sleeps with him, modestly at first. Quickly opens herself, proud of her body, positive toward sex? Then a calamity. Shock and disappointment destroys her trust, innocent openness, and beginnings of fearless attitude toward sex.

"Since then, she has acted consistently to deny incident was as important as she feels it is. Convinces herself sex is physical, as with obscene tattoo and seductive gestures. Does overt sexuality reflect her attempt to believe she still enjoys sex? That the incident hasn't changed her?

"To complete this self-image, she requires the co-fiction that there is no spiritual or emotional side of sex. So jealousy and possessiveness to her are stupid, naïve. Sex is a physical desire without dangerous emotional commitments. (Why isn't she promiscuous?)

"Competitiveness with men. Frantic display at the tennis court. Contempt for men? Is this her assertion that of course she can beat men in all things because they are contemptible? Of course, her profanity and obscenity, per Cynthia, indicates a desire to assert her equality with men in viewing sex as crudely physical, without emotional baggage.




Love without Sentiment



"Attraction to older men is less clear. Desire to be accepted on equal terms with faculty? Desire for a more significant group of peers than undergraduates who humiliated her, let her down? Does she seek in older men a more mature, caring, responsible lover?

"Affair with a handsome, distinguished middle-aged professor?"

Verna wore a black dress, her hair pulled back—plain and austere—and no make up. In all, she looked much older, more tired, than she was. Over her hair and close around her face she wore a black scarf that flattened and whipped in the chill night breeze as she walked along Thayer Street. Spring had postponed its permanent arrival for awhile.

There was no way to make a meeting occur by accident. Cynthia had skipped her counseling session to depart early on a weekend trip to visit her parents. If Darlene was in her room, she might well be alone. On this late Friday night, most of the girls would be at parties, on dates, or hanging out together at restaurants, the movies. Some, like Cynthia, had left for the weekend. It wasn't perfect, but there was no safer way.

No one passed her as she climbed the three flights of dormitory stairs and walked along the bare corridor. At room 307, she stopped and listened. There was no sound. She stooped. There was a light under the door. Verna was not a woman who went somewhere hoping that a definite decision would materialize before she arrived. She did not inflate her courage with a deep breath or square her shoulders—no ritual of reminding herself to be brave. She did not require that.

She turned the knob. The door was not locked, so she opened it a few inches, knocked quickly, and stepped in. At the same time, she said, "May I come in?"

"Hey!" said Darlene. She had risen abruptly from her chair at the desk.

"I must look a little spookish, all in black, thought Verna. Darlene was staring at her, one hand clutching together the open neck of an old, faded men's shirt. Now, Verna stepped into the room and asked, "May I lock your door?" and did so as she spoke. 

Then she turned and stood quietly. She was taller than Darlene, but no heavier. The slenderness of her body, and her height, with the strong press of her breasts as the only feminine feature of the black dress, made her seem distinctly authoritarian and commanding. At the same time, Darlene's very tight, faded blue jeans, and mostly buttonless shirt worn without a bra, revealing the fair skin of her neck and chest, made her seem very girlish, by contrast.

"I'm Verna," she said. "I am Daniel's wife..." She deliberately used the first names. It never was too soon to start. When the girl frowned, Verna said, "Daniel teaches history. I believe you took his course last semester."

"Oh!" Darlene laughed in relief, smiling. "Oh, sure! Yes!"

It was a good start. After this, everything would seem a relief, friendly. "I came right in and locked the door because I want us to talk and it would be better if no one saw us together." 

After a long moment, as tension mounted, she smiled gently, and asked, "Is that all right, Darlene?"

"Oh, yes," said Darlene, but she frowned. She could have no idea to what she was saying 'yes,' Verna realized. Verna moved quickly to the bed and sat down on its edge, delicately, her knees together and to the side. She faced Darlene, looking up, waiting. 

Darlene came and sat down beside her. This was a young woman who could handle herself, Verna thought. In Darlene's eyes were a dozen swirling questions that another girl would have mumbled out, tripping half a dozen times. Darlene merely waited.

"First," asked Verna, "do you know me?"

Darlene nodded. "I knew Professor Noyes had a wife in the Biochemistry Department. And then, my roommate...she sees you on Fridays, I think. She thinks you're terrific."

Verna smiled. "I knew Cynthia was leaving for the weekend. That's why I came tonight." She paused. It was almost astonishing that this young woman asked nothing, demanded no explanation. Verna said, "Before I say anything, I want to tell you that you're not in any trouble of any kind. I am, if anyone is. After what I say, you could have me fired from my job, probably. So there's no question of your being in trouble, all right?"

Darlene put one bare foot on the edge of the bed and wriggled herself back on the bed to lean against the wall. One hand still held together the buttonless lapels of her shirt. Verna gazed at the small, bare foot for a moment. It was very white and a little stubby, but cute. 

Darlene's red hair was held back with a band, revealing the outline of a quite beautiful faced, more square than oval, with the perfect white skin of the redhead. Her eyes were a faded grey-green, clear and steady. The high ridge of her cheekbones seemed defined almost back to her ear, giving her face a look of austerity and uplift and her eyes a peculiar slant. Her lips were turned out, sharply define, a little too full. She looked directly at Verna, now, but her body had relaxed a little. She said, "I'm really wondering what this is all about, Dr. Noyes." 

She added, with a short laugh. "And I'm a little freaked out."

"Just over a week ago, you were playing tennis down at the Thayer Street courts. It was around dinner time. That first beautiful spring day we had. You remember?"

"Un-huh." Darlene nodded too many times. She looked uneasy, again. "You and Prof. Noyes watched for a few minutes."

"You were very good," said Verna. "You play a savage game. But where did you get that tattoo that comes out of your shorts and down your leg?"

"Oh, that? That's gone, now," said Darlene quickly. "It wasn't a real tattoo. It washes off."

"I'm thinking of what you did when you saw my husband," said Verna. "No," she said quickly, "wait. You will see it has nothing to do with my being upset. Nothing like that. Tell me why you did that and I will tell you why I want to know."

"But what?" asked Darlene. "I don't remember anything at all."

Verna gazed at her without speaking, her lips pursued. Then, she looked down at her hands in her lap, as though disappointed.

"What?" asked Darlene. "Tell me what." But it was a denial, not a question.

Verna shook her head. "No, Darlene. If there was nothing, then I'm wrong." She looked at Darlene, her face calm, a little sad. Then, she said, "I can go."

"No, wait," said Darlene. "There must have been something. I mean, you're here." She hesitated; it was a pause for effect, Verna thought. And then, Darlene said, "Did you think I was provocative in some way? Is that it?"

Verna turned her body, now, to face Darlene. She said, "Maybe it was my imagination. If so, then I'm rather sorry—and I should go." After a moment, she said, "I didn't come to blame you, Darlene. It was very much something else, something very important to me. But if there is nothing to it, I don't know what to say, next."

As Verna gathered herself, as though to leave, Darlene heaved herself up to kneel on the bed. "But what? That I was provocative? My breasts..."

"I just thought if what it seemed to be had something to it, you could help me with something very important to Daniel."

"Listen," said Darlene. She leaned toward Verna, reaching out with her hand. She stopped herself just before she touched Verna. "I was in a very wild mood that day. I don't go around with tattoos, you know. It was spring, so warm and delicious... I might have done something wrong or crazy..."

"Such as what?"

"You know," said Darlene softly, "I might have smiled. Or showed off my figure or something. I might have."

Verna took the hand that was extended toward her, the hand that halted in mid course. She took it and brought it to her lap. Darlene did not resist, but she stared at though the thing that Verna held was somehow alien.

"I'll tell you why," said Verna. She waited until the silence between them had matured, until Darlene gazed at her intently. "I'll tell you why. I think that Daniel is in love with you, and I am very glad he is..." She smiled gently and, at that moment, her expression had the understanding, the strength, that girls despair of finding in their mothers.

"Oh, no!" said Darlene. "There isn't anything at all! We barely spoke last year. I mean, except in class. There's just nothing..."

Verna squeezed the hand. "I'm sure you meant nothing, Darlene. Not to hurt anyone. But Daniel is a very quiet man, you see."

Darlene nodded, her eyes wide, "But..."

"A very, very quiet man. Do you know how old he was when he published his first book? Just 20. His senior year at Harvard. Do you know what that requires?"

Darlene shook her head very slowly, watching Verna.

"No, I mean, do you know? Not that I wanted to tell you."

"Oh," said Darlene, "I thought that you... Well, I guess that had to be pretty much all he did, right?"

"Yes. I don't think he ever dated. Not in graduate school, either. I'm sure I was his first woman. And he was 35 when he married me. That was 10 years ago."

"But how can you say that your husband...I mean, Daniel, is in love with me? Did he say anything or what?"

She shook her head. "He never would, Darlene. You don't think a wife can tell? That's my problem. Some men, if they loved a girl, would do something about it. But not Daniel. He's much too formal and dignified and rigid. He would let himself be unhappy for the rest of his life and never say a word."

Darlene had not tried to pull away her hand. She moved a little closer to Verna, but still kneeling, as though in a posture of flight. She asked, staring at Verna's face, "Aren't you honestly upset, Dr. Noyes?"

Verna said slowly, reluctantly, "I suppose that if I am going to talk with you about this, you have to know everything."

"No," said Darlene urgently, "no, don't tell me if you don't want to..."

"You don't know what I'll say."

"You want me to leave the university or something?"

Impulsively, Verna squeezed her hand. "Oh, no!" Darlene fidgeted a little, but still Verna held the hand. It was small and short, with very white nails, cut close. It seemed childish when enclosed in Verna's long, dark fingers, with their slightly prominent knuckles that revealed strength, work done.

"You see, I pursued Daniel. It was the only way. And when he does know you, trust you, he is so strong and gentle and protective. You can tell that, can't you?"

Darlene nodded.

"Did a man ever really hurt you?"

Suddenly, Darlene looked as though she might 

cry. Verna said, "It's all right. Don't tell me. But what you know is that Daniel could never, ever do that. He would protect you..."

She added, "You can tell that, can't you?"

"Oh, yes, yes, I can!"

Verna nodded. "All I can say is that in bed I'm just not very exciting. I know that I'm not. I'm never comfortable...I'm tell you everything now, Darlene, so you'll understand. It doesn't really bother me. I was attracted to Daniel for other things... Do you know?"

Darlene's nod was almost imperceptible. Verna went on: "But how do you think I feel, now? It has been 10 years, and this is the thing missing from Daniel's life. On our vacations, when he wants to celebrate all he has done. In the spring, when it's so beautiful and exciting... And I know that it's just destroying him, because he's so faithful. So trustworthy." She looked at Darlene. "You're probably not old enough to know how important it is for a man to be absolutely honest, so you know you can trust him..."

She looked into Darlene's eyes. There were tears there that had started and swam, but did not fall. A direct hit...

She continued, "But now this man, who is so absolutely strong and honest... it's killing him, and he would rather die than hurt me, do you see?"

Darlene had lowered her face, hiding it. She let herself fall back against the wall and lifted her hand to her eyes. As she did so, the red shirt gently parted and Verna saw the startlingly deep cleft between her white breasts that thrust outward to the sides, dimpling the soft cloth of the shirt. For a moment, Verna felt the old, strange sense of disgust and anger at the open sexuality, the looseness, implied by this casual and flaunting way that Darlene—so many of the girls—displayed themselves.

"Darlene, I love Daniel, but when it comes to bed..." she shrugged. "It doesn't matter. It really never has. And I could go on, knowing that he's becoming unhappier, year after year, and that he's letting his desire and his love of life die to be faithful to me..."

Then she said, almost coldly: "Of course, it you think that there is one man for every woman and that woman has to be the one and only and has to hate all other women her husband desires..."

"No!" said Darlene, shaking her head. "No, not that. I'm not at all like that! I wish you knew how much not like that."

"I believe you, Darlene," said Verna.

"But...I mean, are you going to say that you wish that Professor Noyes was sleeping with me?"

Verna bowed her head; her voice was deep and husky, as though with unshed tears: "I only hoped that what you did at the tennis court meant something..."

"I do find him attractive, of course," said Darlene. "I do. He seems like a wonderful man. But I couldn't possibly..."

"You're still trying not to hurt me," said Verna slowly. "You haven't really believed what I said."

"But what would you do?" asked Darlene. The question burst from her.

'Got you!' thought Verna. Now, we work out the practical details. But she said, "Exactly what I'm doing now, except that Daniel would be happy and I would not look at him every day, and think to myself: I'm a woman who would rather see her husband's life drain out of him than think of him with another woman."

Darlene nodded slowly. She took her strong lower lip in her teeth and her eyes became a little distant. At last, she said, "I just couldn't conceive of doing it, Dr. Noyes. It seems crazy."

Verna stood up. She said, "It's crazy because you think of an affair starting the was a miracle occurs. You meet a freshman in the coffee shop, something clicks, he woos you until you feel like getting in bed with him. Well, you'll never meet a man like Daniel in the local ice cream parlor."

She walk walking toward the door. Now, Darlene had risen from the bed and was following her, tentatively, step by step. Verna turned and said, "I can't even ask you not to say anything about this.

"And I am sorry," she added quickly. "I see that you are much, much more of a woman than I could have imagined. You belong with a man—if not Daniel, then someone. Not with boys who hurt people all the time with their insensitivity and cruelty. You're too mature for that."

Darlene came forward, shaking her head, trying to protest. But Verna said, "Goodbye. Please don't try to say anything, now. I have simply failed to make you understand."

Verna slammed the door to her office and fell back against it. She stood with her body pressed to it, palms flat, as though holding it against an invader. "That incredible little monster!" she said, as though awestruck. "What a bastard!"

Yesterday and today, Eliot Ames had managed to share her table at lunch, efforts she did not actively resist, since she still sought clues to Darlene Sullivan's personality. Today, as they had finished their coffee, he had said, "About our discussion of Darlene Sullivan—the pictures?"

Verna nodded.

"I thought you might want to see one. I wouldn't do this, as an ordinary thing, but I remembered what you said about doctors not embarrassing one another. He slipped a picture from an inner pocket of his jacket and, glancing around, slipped it in front of her.

Verna turned it toward her, moving it with one finger, not picking it up. It showed a sunlit room with a Persian carpet and bold posters on the wall along with clippings of newspaper photographs, and, in one corner, a yellow 'yield' traffic sign—the paraphernalia of the student off-campus apartment. In the foreground, remarkably close to where the photographer must have hidden, was Darlene Sullivan walking forward. What must have been bright morning sunlight made one side of her light-skinned body almost paper white; heavy shadows ran down her neck, between her breasts, and along the insides of her legs. The hair on her head was rumpled, unruly; above her thighs the triangle was a soft orange in the sunlight. She held herself straight and on her face was an expression of gaiety that matched the morning. It was the face of a young bride, up early, tiptoeing to the kitchen to make breakfast, with the secret smile of planning a surprise for a loved one.

Behind her, his face unidentifiable in heavy shadow, a well-built man sat on the edge of the bed. The lower half of his body was in sunlight. Apparently he was watching the girl and his state of intense excitement was unmistakable. Verna noted in a coldly medical way that he was well-endowed to do something about his excitement.

Now, she looked up at Ames, her expression giving him nothing. Her mouth moved as though trying to swallow a sour taste. She knew exactly why this...object...had shown her the photograph. With revulsion, she thought: He really thinks—it is incredible, but he really does think—that this will get me interested in him. She loathed him then with a loathing that contained the desire to squash, to exterminate, to kick him and go on kicking until he stopped moving. Her stomach quavered a little and her face burned. She stood up and carefully, deliberately tore the photograph in half, and then again, and plopped the pieces onto the remains of his lunch.

"Hey!" he said, reaching for the scraps.

"Shut up," said Verna. "You're not out of trouble over this. I can see your attitude right here, in this incident."

She sat down at her desk, now, and her mind turned slowly, ponderously, to what she had to do. But she did not reach for her papers. She smoked a cigarette, then another, and another, rocking slowly in the chair, and still she could not start. At least she had finished with Ames, she thought. But he had insulted her. He had presumed to believe that she ever could be aroused or titillated by the ugly sight of his sex. He would not leave this medical school without regretting that.

When she had decided that, she felt better and was able to turn to her work. At that moment, the telephone rang.

"Dr. Noyes?"

Verna recognized the voice and became intent. She reached over and stubbed out her cigarette. "It's Darlene, isn't it?" she asked. "It's all right, I'm not busy. I thought I knew you well enough to know you would call..." Not too much, she told herself; people didn't like to be told that they were predictable.

"Well, yes," said Darlene. "I have gone over what we discussed. I feel as though I reacted to something very important just on the basis of very conventional feelings. Do you know what I mean?"

"Yes," said Verna simply, "I do."

"Then could we meet, do you think? Instead of talking on the telephone—or would you rather?"

"No, let's meet. I'm just leaving my office. Can you be at Prospect Park in 10 minutes? It's a nasty day. No one will be around. At the statue, all right?"

Prospect Park was a smidgeon of land overlooking the city. At its edge, a statue of Roger Williams, ensconced in a high arch of marble, towered over the city atop a 25-foot granite retaining wall that dropped to the first streets below. Today, when the almost winter chill had rushed back to postpone spring, the Park was deserted.

Verna and Darlene leaned side by side on the wrought-iron railing that held children back from the edge of the retaining wall. Darlene turned to look at Verna and Verna saw that her face was pale, but fixed and adult in its determination. She was going to be a very beautiful woman and their conversation promised to be easy and businesslike if Verna was any judge of psychology. She had laid the groundwork well by understanding and analyzing the girl before approaching her; this was the payoff for that preparation.




Love without Sentiment



"It's my turn to confess to you," said Darlene. She glanced down at her hands, which clutched the iron uprights of the fence. "Of course, I was making eyes at Prof. Noyes the other day. I was flaunting myself. You knew that, of course, because that's why you came to my room. So I'm embarrassed and I admit that, now. All right?"

Verna put her arm around the girl's shoulders and squeezed her. "It's very all right. I think you might even, at some not entirely conscious level, have sensed what was happening in Daniel's life."

"Maybe," said Darlene slowly. "I was attracted very much to Prof. Noyes last year. I mean, I still am, really. " She laughed. "I just dreamed and dreamed of him last year." She added quickly, "Oh, I don't mean to... that was very unlike me, but I was lonely and I really couldn't face any of the guys, here..."

"I told you I knew that when we talked," said Verna. She said it gently, but at the same time chastising. "I wouldn't have talked to you if you weren't that way. You can see the chance I took."

"So," said Darlene, and paused. She looked up at Verna, "if you want your husband and me to have an affair..."

"Come," said Verna softly. "Let's walk." She put her arm around Darlene. "It won't be difficult or scary, but it will depend on you...and on me, of course. Daniel does want you—that's certain, you have to know that. I understand my husband--and I'm a psychiatrist. I would not make a mistake about a thing like that."

Darlene nodded.

"But you have to make very obvious to Daniel that you want him and you understand how terribly serious that is. That you are both driven to it, that it is almost...well that it is fated. Nothing casual, do you understand? Because so much is at stake..."

"You mean a passion that must be consummated against all odds? That sort of thing?"

Verna stopped and turned to her. "Not 'sort of'—exactly! How do you...?"

"From studying Othello, this semester. And thinking, you know, of Romeo and Juliet. I love Shakespeare."

"Can you keep thinking exactly that way—minus the doom that hangs over both those love affairs?"

"But what about you, Dr. Noyes? I'm sure he loves you."

"Don't be concerned. You can see that I've made a choice. And I will let him know that I don't mind."

"But how can you possibly do that?" They were walking again, but Darlene was turned to her.

"I can. But it is you who must convince him that you would die before letting anything about your affair become known, before destroying his career."

"That's true," said Darlene simply. "You know it is."

"But Daniel must be sure. Nothing like the tattoo or showing off your breasts is going to seduce him."

Darlene waved it away, embarrassed. "Oh, I know that, Dr. Noyes. That isn't the way I really am. But how does all this get started?"

Verna had been waiting. "I'm going to hire you as a sort of part-time housekeeper. Just a couple mornings that you have no classes, and maybe Saturdays. I'll pay you enough so you don't have to work at the Record Mart."

"I'm not sure I can get by."

"You can. I want you to tell me how much money you need. I know you will be completely honest. And I know this has nothing to do with money for you. You have to believe that I trust you."

A week-and-a-half later, they sat on a bench far from the statue, where visitors tended to cluster. Darlene said, with a hint of accusation, "What more can I do? Okay, I'm not aggressive, I'm not provocative. Of course you were right—I shouldn't be. But still, what more can I do?"

"But you must see that Daniel is intensely interested?"

Darlene nodded, but did not look at Verna. "He seems like it, yes. He watches me when I'm working, and all, and he smiles." She half-turned to Verna. She wore a very short, light grey shirt and a tailored green blouse; her hair was clean and thick and shiny. She placed three fingertips on the back of the bench and frowned. Her very light, straight eyebrows came together in a frown. "So what do I do?" She added, abruptly, "And I feel guilty. I can't help it, Dr. Noyes."

Verna put her arm around the girl's shoulder. "If you didn't feel that, you wouldn't be right for this." She paused and stared out over the city, her gaze on the hazy hills at the horizon. She nodded to herself. "You just keep coming, as you have been. I'm going to facilitate things. I won't be there at all, next week. I'll be out of town.

"And I want to tell you something. Daniel almost always goes into his office Saturday mornings. But last week, when you were there, he didn't. He stayed home until you left, and then he walked out without even having his lunch."

"I didn't know that," said Darlene almost in a whisper. "It must be very, very hard for him. A conflict."

"He has to settle it in his own mind. He has been faithful to me for 10 years. And he never, ever approached women before we met. We met because of me. Do you see what kind of man he is? When he finally does something, you will know he cares about you very, very deeply, Darlene."

That evening, she told Daniel she wanted to take a week's vacation by herself. To think things over. It was the first time that they would be separated for more than a day or two. He had questioned her, but mildly, and with remarkable 'understanding.' When she said she intended to go to Chicago, he asked: "Isn't that where that fellow lives you dated when you were in graduate school? He writes to you."

Daniel had looked at her and she at him. There was in his eyes an imperious expectation that she make some explanation, offer some denial. She stared back at him and said nothing. Finally, she said, "Listen, the trip is arranged. I have the ticket. I'm going to pack."

He had nodded, then stood and walked into his study, closed the door. In the morning, when she called him for breakfast, and asked him please to hurry, since her taxi would arrive at 8:30, he called back, "Leave it. I'm going to sleep awhile. The girl will heat it up, for me, when she arrives."

After a moment, he called, "Have a wonderful trip, darling. Don't worry about anything. I'll be fine."

She had walked into the bedroom, gone to the side of the bed. She leaned over and kissed him. She murmured, "Don't worry and let's not be suspicious of each other, all right? We never have been, and I'm not going to start."

Back in the kitchen, she had covered the bacon and eggs with aluminum foil, pinching it firmly around the edge of the plate, and put the plate in the still-warm oven. The grapefruit she covered in a bowl and left in the refrigerator. Then, on the table, she wrote a note:

"Darlene, Daniel is sleeping a little late, this morning. His breakfast is keeping warm in the stove. There's also a grapefruit in the fridge. I'm going to be gone about a week, so ask him when he needs you, all right? Anything you arrange is fine. I'll settle up with you when I get back. Thanks so much for everything. Verna.

She sat alone in the park, now, waiting for Darlene. She heard the impatient, skipping sound of a woman trying to run in high heels and looked up. Darlene was coming down the little flight of granite steps by the statue. She wore a simple white dress against which her hair was deep red and fell luxuriantly around her young face. Her arms were bare and pink with sunburn and her legs were womanish in the high heels. She was breathless, laughing.

"Oh, my gosh," she gasped as she came up and plopped down beside Verna. "Sorry I'm late! I ran all the way from an appointment with Prof. Reeves."

Verna smiled, but said nothing, waiting. She had not seen Darlene for more than a week. She had returned from Chicago just yesterday.

Now, Darlene straightened herself and held her legs together, her hands on her bare thighs just above the knees. In the open neck of her dress, her breasts were forced upward, full and pale, and Verna watched the soft white cleft parting and closing ever so gently with the rise and fall of Darlene's breath. She felt depressed and vaguely sick; her head seemed heavy, less clear than usual. Most of all, she wished this girl would not wear such foolishly extravagant, revealing clothes. Her own body sweated in the mid-May heat, her arms sticky beneath the business suit. But she said, "Darlene, you look lovely. You are a very beautiful woman."

Darlene seemed to sense Verna's cheerlessness. On her face was a smile of happiness that she tried to subdue, but without success. To Verna, she seemed to glow. But when she spoke, her tone was serious, as though reporting to a superior and trying to recreate the businesslike atmosphere of previous meetings. "We haven't had a chance to meet since you got back, so I thought you would want to know. How everything is coming, I mean."

"Yes," said Verna. She gave the girl her attention, willing herself to focus on Darlene's face.

"Well," said Darlene, shrugging her shoulders, then breaking into a smile, "It happened, of course. Like you said. You were right."

Verna nodded. "He made love to you?" Her expression was sympathetic, but it was the expression of a psychiatrist, not a wife.

Darlene nodded. "The very morning I got there, after you left for the plane. I read the note." 

She said suddenly, "I hope you aren't sorry about this, Dr. Noyes..." In her tone was a hint of exasperation.

Verna shook her head. "Darlene, my only desire was to step out of the way. This is your life, now, and no one has the right to pry. This isn't an assignment you are doing for me. This is what I knew could happen between you and Daniel. No woman, most of all a young woman in love, wants to talk about her love-making."

Darlene nodded and for a while longer they talked, but talked about things that people discuss during the first five minutes of a party. Before they parted, Verna gave Darlene an envelope and said, 'Let me know if this covers it, all right?' and Darlene did not protest.

When Verna stood up, she said, "We should meet here once a week, for awhile, because of the money. But this is the only thing we have to do with each other, all right? As soon as possible, we'll stop seeing each other outside the house. When it has been long enough, we'll let you go as our housekeeper, but I'll keep helping you with school expenses and help you get a good part-time job."

Darlene nodded, listening. Verna said, "Now you're Daniel's lover and it only can make you uncomfortable to meet with me."

And then she drew closer to Darlene, kissed her cheek, and said, "Goodbye, Darlene."

It was what Daniel had needed. The past month had proved that, Verna thought. After years of pretending to himself and to everyone else that he was above every day desires and temptations, and all the while ogling sophomore girls, he had done what he longed to do. She wondered what it was like, for them—in bed. Daniel was many things, but not a great lover. In fact, Verna had imagined she might have to encourage Darlene to stick with it, to see Daniel's passion for ideas and learning, to put up with the inadequacies in bed. But Darlene said nothing of that. To Verna, it seemed odd; perhaps the girl was a bit of a fish, for all her frantic exhibitionism. One certainly discovered, as one learned more about people, that most of this stuff about romantic passion and sexual ecstasy was a myth.

When Daniel announced, toward the end of June, that he wanted to take a vacation alone, Verna encouraged it. Of course, Darlene disappeared, as if on schedule, and they showed up two weeks later with sunburns that might have been applied with the same brush. It was very nice that Daniel finally had the kind of vacation he had expected during all those years of travel with Verna to the world's romantic spots. She responded by redoubling her commit to her research, taking advantage of the empty laboratory while most students were away. She told herself that this was what she had wanted. Daniel simply had not turned out to be the man she expected; he had his lusts and deceptions like anyone else. Perhaps now he would drop the suffocating pretense at being some kind of aristocrat of scholarship. She hoped so—for his sake.

Today, like every day of the summer vacation, she worked in her laboratory until 6:30, long after other faculty members and students had left and the maintenance men began their late shift. She removed her white smock and washed, enjoying the weariness that she expected to experience at the end of a day. Then, she opened the connecting door to her office. 

Sitting in her chair, his feet on the desk, was a young man who seemed familiar to her in a distant way. He was tall, lanky, perhaps half-a-head taller than Verna, who herself was a tall woman. He was thin in a way she imagined Spanish dancers, with slender hips and long straight legs. His face was strong, with an aggressive, somewhat pointed nose and a grenadier's mustache over a square mouth. He had eyes that were deep-set, brown, and perfectly straight hair swept straight back from his forehead. The power of his face made her think of a hunter or soldier, as though he should be standing stock still, his face alert and dangerous, beneath some great, silent tree. His legs on her desk were stretched out, long and comfortable, as though he had been waiting patiently.

Verna stood in the doorway, shocked in momentary silence, staring in anger at the upturned soles of his boots. He merely stared back at her, and, before she could speak, he said: "On the tennis court? With Darlene? About six weeks ago?"

She slammed the door behind her. "Oh, yes, I remember! Get your feet off the desk and get out!"

He didn't move or speak. She was about to rush to the door, when she stopped suddenly. A deep blush swept over her face. She said slowly: "If you didn't have something to say to me, you wouldn't be here, like this." She added, "So say it."

He heaved his legs off the desk, gathered himself, and stood up. He said, "I'm Carl Bauman."

Verna nodded. "Darlene Sullivan's friend."

He stood staring at her as though she were a concubine brought to the tent of a conquering general. Verna boiled. He was openly examining her breasts, her hips, her legs. She had a sudden sickening sense of foreknowledge, her mind racing ahead to the implications as rapidly, as penetratingly, as she dealt with new laboratory evidence. He had reason to believe he could get away with this.

Slowly, she crossed her arms over her breasts, hugging herself. "What have you got to say? Say it, please, and leave. I have had a very long day. I can call security, you know; you have no business in this office."

"I can see you know what nice tits you have."

She walked to the door, opened it, and turned to look at him. She glared at him, waiting, but she knew, in sudden fear, that this was not what would happen. Bauman walked to the door and turned to her with a melodramatic air that froze Verna's body in anticipation of some blow. He touched a finger. "I know that Darlene is sleeping with your husband." He touched another finger. "I know you talked her into it and that you pay her." He touched another finger, "And I have photographs of you meeting with her in the park and handing her the envelope of money."

He walked from the room, then turned. "And I have photographs of them together."

"Come back," said Verna. Her voice had gone dead, all emotion crushed from it. She imagined, for a moment, attacking him, hitting the handsome face with something. And she imagined herself crying and told herself that she must not--ever.

But he turned and said, "It's over. I'm sending the photographs to your husband tomorrow. With a note. It's over."

She said only, "Please come back in here and close the door, so no one will hear you."

With maddening slowness, he gazed at her, examining her, and then walked back into the office. He closed the door behind him. Verna stepped over immediately and locked it. When she turned, he was standing so close behind her that she backed into him. She gasped and pulled away. Then she glanced up at him, her eyes filled with unshed tears of frustration and fear. Her head would not stop pounding and her faced burned right down to her neck.

He looked down at her high, tightly held breasts under the thin green sweater. She tried to back away, but she was against the door. "Get away," she said hoarsely. "Don't be crazy. Please! People talk about things. Talk about it to me--please." Her hands, palms outward, fingers half-curled as though with claws, were raised between them at the level of her breasts. Her face was stiff with fear, but her dark eyes flashed with anger.

"Why talk? Remember whose girlfriend you paid to fuck your husband."

Verna stared at him.

He said, "Get your hands down, Verna." He said it so loudly that she jumped. "Quiet!" she said. "There are people in the building." But she lowered her hands by her sides, standing very straight, looking at him.

"I'm going to play with your breasts while we talk," he said.

"No!" It was a whispered scream. She tried to shrink back into the door, but did not lift her hands. She said, "I'll kill you!" But immediately she felt herself ridiculous as she looked at his broad shoulders.

"Okay, then. Get out of the way. I'll leave."

"No," she whispered. It was barely audible. She was staring down, not at him. Then his hands were cupping her breasts through the sweater, rolling them and squeezing them together, pushing them back against her body. Verna's hands came up and closed on his wrists, but she did not try to pull him away. Her eyes were closed, her head against the door behind her. Tears ran down her face.

"Talk," said Carl, "I'll listen, now." His strong hands kneaded her heavy breasts, lifting them, so folds of the sweater touched her chin.

Verna shook her head, rolling it back and forth against the door. In a choked voice, she said, "What do you want?"

When he did not answer, her hands tore his wrists away from her. She lurched to the side and pushed past him into the room, gasping for breath. With a quick movement, Bauman turned the lock, swept open the door, stepped out, and closed it.

Verna flung herself against the closed door with a cry of anger that was actually only a whisper. She put her palms flat against the door, resting her forehead against it. For several moments, she did not reach down to straighten her sweater, to pull it down to cover her bare midriff. She just leaned against the door, panting as though at the end of a run. At last, she straightened up and her hands came down, pausing a moment on her breasts, which still heaved with her breathing. 

In her eyes were tears of outrage. She would call Daniel—no , the police. But she could not do that, of course; she would have him out of the university tomorrow. But would that stop him? She wiped her hands down over her face, the wetness; then she pushed her hair back and her hands paused over her temples, as though to contain the waves of throbbing.

She sat at home listlessly for hours at time, after which she would rush around, but accomplish nothing. A dozen times, in her mind, she told Daniel everything, confessed, explained, sought his understanding. And then the police were called and the...the predator, was arrested. But each time, she saw in her mind's eye Daniel's face, unmoving, but with a slightly strained expression, as though he were hard of hearing, and his lips were raised slightly in an expression of disbelief and disgust. She heard his question: 'And you asked her to? To seduce me? You...you paid her? So all of this has been because of what? Because you told Darlene that your husband was too weak and ineffectual to do anything about his desires? You told her...You fixed me up with a girl, like a 14-year-old boy?'

The words varied a little, each time, but always Verna ended the imagined dialogue by closing her eyes, shaking her head, and sometimes silent tears ran down the sides of her nose, giving her long, bony face an expression of drawn torment.




Love without Sentiment



But for two days there had been hours of waiting, when she sat on the college green, opposite the history department building, and waited for the mail truck to pull up. Then, staring in the front door, she watched while the department secretary walked from her office to stuff the mail into the faculty pigeonholes. It was not difficult, today. She stood scrutinizing each envelope in Daniel's box. The secretary knew her well; Verna could have taken the mail, as though she had come to pick it up for Daniel. But she had done so only rarely, and Daniel would wonder—why today? And if Darlene happened to be in the habit of writing him notes and putting them in his box, he would panic, sure that Verna was spying.

A large grey envelope with no return address, post-marked from the city, addressed in a masculine hand... She slipped it out of the box and very gently, her hands trembling, bent it back and forth. Were there photographs inside? It was impossible to tell. She took the envelope and left. In her laboratory, 10 minutes later, she steamed it open and slowly withdrew its contents. One photograph had been taken on a sunny day—which one? Which Tuesday? It was enlarged to eight-by-ten inches and apparently the photographer had used a telephoto lens. 

Verna was sitting very close to Darlene, leaning toward her, holding out the envelope. Darlene was reaching for it. On Verna's face was a tight smile—on Darlene's, embarrassment. It was a very good shot and the note attached to it, hand written very clearly, said: "You may never have heard of me. My name is Carl Bauman. Until April, I was Darlene Sullivan's lover. Now, thanks to your wife, an intolerable situation has developed, which I wish to present to you before going to the dean of the college..."

Verna burned it carefully, efficiently, and went home. As she walked, the imaginary conversation played out, again, between Daniel and herself. It ran as though automatically, and she ignored it.

When she walked into the living room, Daniel was sitting on the couch, half-watching the news, half boxing with Kipper, their Alsatian pup. He looked up at her. "Hello, Daniel," she said wearily... And then she froze, staring. On the coffee table, in the loose pile of today's mail, was a grey envelope with the same masculine handwriting. It had not been opened. On the couch, the puppy bounded and frisked, raising its forepaws to jab back at Daniel. The news commentator spoke urgently in words that Verna did not comprehend. Daniel look up. "Yes?"

Verna walked over and scooped up the mail. She said, unnecessarily, "It's the mail." Then, she walked out of the room to the kitchen and put a pan of water on the stove. She could not destroy the envelope. It was by far the largest in the batch; Daniel would have noticed it. She held it over the steam that rose from the pan and felt the wetness coat her fingers, burning them a little, but she did not move.

The same thing. Barely glancing at the contents, she stuffed them into the silverware drawer, beneath the silverware tray. Then, she took an advertising booklet that had come as in insert in the newspaper, stuffed it into the enveloped, and resealed it. She took it with the rest of Daniel's mail to his study and left it on his desk. Then, she returned to the silverware draw, removed the material, and took it to the basement recreation room. She burned it in the fireplace there.

Carl Bauman's telephone number was in the phone book. She noted it and began to prepare dinner. When things were started, she poured chardonnay into two glasses and walked into the living room, handing one to Daniel. He took it with a smile, held it up to her in a brief toast, and took a drink. Verna did not sit down; she stood holding the wine glass, looking down at him, experiencing an immense exhaustion. Finally, he said, "How was your day?"

"Busy," she said. She noted that he looked relaxed, at ease. She thought that he looked younger, lately; he stood straighter. Something about the way he held his shoulders, perhaps; and his step had a spring to it. Exactly what she had hoped. She said, "So busy that I didn't even write up my lab results. I have to go back for an hour or so."

"You really have to? You look tired."

"Not too bad," she said. She drank off most of the wine, put the glass on the table in front of him, and went back to the kitchen.

No old-fashioned melodrama could have prepared her for the uncomplicated heartlessness of what Carl Bauman had done. There had been no sly smiles, no drawn-out dialogue with pleas and threats and adamant replies. No threats made and withdrawn. Just one statement: 'It's finished,' and in the next possible mail the envelopes sent simultaneously to home and office, almost guaranteeing discovery.

Verna walked as though in a trance. She was dealing with a brute: a blunted, unsubtle mind to whom her pleas, Daniel's feelings, their careers, their lives were nothing. Nothing. As soon as she had cleaned up after dinner, she had left the house, saying only, "I'm going, now, Daniel." Although she wore only light slacks and a blouse, buttoned up to the neck, she was soaked with sweat before she reached the address.

It was a three-section graduate-student housing complex on Bowen Street, the doors to the connected segments of the building hooked open. She ignored the soiled row of black buzzers and, noting the name and number of his apartment on the fourth floor, she climbed the stairs. She climbed steadily, not hurrying, but her black hair clung to her face in wettish strands and in the tight crotch of her slacks the wet cloth chafed. Though she deliberately took controlled breaths as she climbed, her heart pounded.

The fourth was the top floor, with a tiny landing at the head of the stairs. Doors faced her from three sides. It was darkish in the summer evening; no one had switched on the lights. The smell was of dusty wood cracks and friend meat. His was the door directly in front of her. She knocked.

"Who?"

She lowered her voice, "Verna Noyes. We have to talk. Please."

No lock turned, no knob moved, the door did not open. She knocked again, harder. There was no reply.

"Please!" she said in a loud, hoarse whisper. For a few more moments, she kept knocking, waiting, listening. This wasn't possible. People made deals, tricked each other, but they did not do this. They talked. She thought desperately that she would have to leave, to return to wait for more envelopes. Or telephone calls. An envelope slipped under the door of Daniel's office. She couldn't.

She thumped hard on the door. From behind the door to the right, a girl's voice shouted: "Cut it out! He's not home! Can't you see that?"

Verna froze, hesitated for a few moments. Then, she leaned very close to the door and moved her lips to speak. She realized she had been about to shout. She said, softly, "Carl! Please! Open the door!" After a moment, she added, "What do you want? What do I have to do?"

Suddenly, there was a normal voice behind the door. She leaned close, straining to hear. The voice said: "I will say this once. Nothing more. Take it or leave it. If you leave it, you can stand there until morning."

"All right," she whispered. She heard the eagerness in her voice the relief.

"Take off all your clothes. Everything. Then you can come in and we'll talk."

"I can't! Carl! Just let me in—first!"

"Quiet, for Christ's sake, or I'm coming out," said the woman's voice from behind the door on her right.

She pressed her face to the door. She realized that she was crying. "All right," she whispered suddenly. Then, with a sudden frightening image of him in the bedroom, the bathroom, the door already closed to her for good, she added, more loudly, "Can you hear me?"

She heard the dry rasp of brass as the peephole in the door screwed open. She started at it, seeing nothing, but she knew he was watching. Her fingers moved dexterously from button to button down the front of the blouse, and she shrugged it off. She reached behind her and unhooked her bra; she paused only a moment, lifted it off. Then she reached for the belt of her pants...

If the girl opened the door over there, now... She felt her long, bare legs tremble. This was the worse moment to procrastinate. She hooked her thumbs in her panties and pushed them all the way down, bending far over, so that she felt her breasts separate, their thick tips nosing toward the closed door. The slice of her buttocks felt damp and chill, now, felt thrust out ridiculously to the stairs behind her.

She stood up straight and took a step back. She felt almost as though she might lose her balance, tumble backward down the stairs, because she was short of breath and in her mind was a sensation of swirling. Not thoughts, just movement, chaotic... Now she was trembling all over, aware of her belly, her long thighs, even her arms, her face... Her face! How must she look?

The door swung open and he stood there. She reached down for the pile of clothes at her feet, but he said, "No. Come."

She almost leaped forward, shoving past him, and was aware that behind her he bent, picked up the clothes, then stepped back and closed the door. 

When he turned to her, she was several steps away from him in the room. Her arms were wrapped around herself, but below her breasts, not concealing them. She was enormously aware of her naked belly; she did not believe in trimming and shaping the hair, in fussing with it. She knew that the curly black hair was thick and spread up toward her navel. She felt the pressure of a rush of words, cursing him for his cruelty, for endangering her career, Daniel's—and for this evil game that he played as she stood outside his door. But the few seconds standing outside that door, naked, had convinced her that with this man, her indignation, her rage, was impotent.

He wore only blue jeans, his chest bare, flat and deeply grooved down the center. Dark hair clustered in the center of his chest and circled each of his dark nipples. Below, it ran down his stomach, disappeared into his blue jeans just below his navel. He stepped toward her, a slight frown on his face, watching her expression. 

Verna lifted her chin a little defiantly, but her lips were trembling. Now he would take her, she thought. It would all right. It was nothing to her, nothing! He would use her body as he wished because he was an animal; he would find out that he got only a body. She would treat it as though it were an unpleasant medical examination, tugging at her flesh, probing, penetrating.

She was terrified. All that remained in her mind was the thought: once I can talk with him, once I can work on him, I can deal with this. 

As though responding to a magnetic field, her tension soared as his half-naked body approached her. But he reached her and walked past her without touching her. He entered the living room and let himself fall back into a chair. Then, he let her little bundle of clothes fall from his hand to the floor beside the chair. His body seemed to relax utterly and Verna released her breath.

Starting at the door she had entered, the room ran, long and rather narrow, to two tall windows that overlooked Bowen Street. The furniture was vintage undergraduate, spare and makeshift—an old couch, a single new easy chair in which Carl sat, and a very large, beat-up leather bag of the kind that are stuffed with pellets and take the body's shape. The rug was rubbed away to straggling fibers in many places, but still a rich red. On the walls were unframed posters and cheap art prints: Carl seem to favor the classical when it came to art. On the windows were shades, but no curtains. Off to Verna's left, as she stood facing Carl and the windows beyond, there were doorways that led to a kitchen and a hallway—presumably with a bedroom and bathroom at its end.

Verna was standing near the center of the room, not looking at Carl, but gazing around her, chin slightly raised, as though disdaining to speak to him. When he said nothing, she glanced at him, a look of faint distaste on her face. He smiled at her. "You are very much more beautiful naked than the way you dress most days, you know, Verna," he said. "You are so much a woman. I admit that before this I never realized what a woman would look like. Up close, I mean."

She said nothing, but she became intensely aware of her body. She knew she was trembling—her legs, her belly. She hoped it wasn't obvious. This ridiculous person before whom she stood, stripped naked, awaiting a command, was a graduate student! And she was a psychiatrist and an associate professor of biochemistry.

He said, "There is paper over there on the desk. It's for my Russian Lit. seminar. It needs to be retyped. I think I caught all the typos, but if you see any, correct them. When you've done that, you can leave."

For many moments, she didn't move, staring at him. He said the desk is there, just snap on the light."

"What about my clothes?"

"When you leave. You aren't cold, are you?"

She said slowly, "No."

"Before you start, though, get me a Diet Pepsi. The kitchen's down there. Take one yourself, if you want. There's an open bottle of Chianti, too."

She turned and walked toward the kitchen, aware that he was watching her full, rather heavy buttocks—well, her ass—as she walked. In a few moments, when she came back to hand him the Pepsi, she stood back from him, holding it out at arm's length.

He laughed at her in a way that made her blush. He heaved forward, reaching out for the bottle. He said, "I like that you don't shave. It makes me want to just run my fingers through your hair."

A shiver ran across her belly. She turned away quickly, because she felt fullness in her nipples that portended stiffening.

It took her almost an hour to type the paper. She had to go slowly; he made many interlineations. Once, he came up behind her and stood watching. It took all her will power not to turn around when she felt the fabric of his blue jeans against her bare back. He stood, silent, watching her work. And then he put his hands on her shoulders and began to massage them; it was very strong, but very gentle. And now, she was helpless; she could not control her body, could not. Her nipples stiffened, and, the longer he touched her, the more they wide, dark-brown aureoles crinkled. She felt her neck burning with embarrassment. He must have seen it, his fingers moved up and down her neck in long strokes, caressing her. She had no idea, later, how she had managed to finish typing the paper, proofreading the last page, rising and walking to her clothes as he watched her.

When she had dressed, he said. "Tomorrow at the same time. It would make sense to wear something you can remove more quickly, wouldn't it?"

"I guess so, yes." The huskiness of her voice startled Verna.

After a moment, she said, "Tomorrow, then," walked to the door, and let herself out. She was never sure, afterward, exactly where during her walk home she admitted to herself—fully, explicitly. Admitted that what she felt was frustration, and more—crushing disappointment.

It was just a day at the lab, the familiar routine as she monitored, measured, and recorded changes in her cell cultures. She checked over the lab reports of the few students who were working over the summer. But nothing would make the day end. She took longer for lunch than usual, walking across the College Green, then down through the Wriston Quadrangle, then along Thayer Street. She stopped at the window of the one store that sold fancy lingerie. One black brassiere tempted her; it was at once ridiculously small and designed to hold the breasts high, pushed together. But she could not go into that store and buy such a thing; it was out of the question.

When she returned to the lab, the maddening day still stretched before her. She sat at her desk for more than an hour. She told herself that she was thinking through the situation, dealing with the crisis, but at last she admitted that not thoughts but fantasies flitted across the screen of her mind.

What was Daniel doing at this moment? And Darlene? But it had nothing to do with Daniel, did it? It had to do with her own denied libido. It had exploded, blasting away every careful calculation she had brought to her career, every standard she had brought to her professional life. The primal woman in her no longer could bear the life she had made with Daniel. She only imagined that she had been saving his soul...

She stood before his door. Somehow, the interminable day, stretching the minutes like victims on the rack, had reached this moment. She did not knock. She had worn blue jeans without panties under them, a sleeveless jersey with a bra. She dropped them at her feet and rapped twice on the door. She expected to see the peephole grind open and had stepped back for her audition. But the door swung open and Carl said, "No more stripping on the landing. That game is over."

Verna walked into the room, walked very slowly, aware of the movement of her hips, that he breasts passed within inches of him. Tonight, again, he wore only blue jeans. Again, he walked past her, into the living room, and sat in the easy chair. She followed him, slowly, stopping in the middle of the room, facing him, obedient.

He said, "You are very different tonight, Verna."

She reached up and with a very deliberate motion, passed her finger through the thick wave of hair, pushing it away from her face. She had put on her make-up, carefully, in a way she had not in years. She had opened for the first time a bottle of perfume that Daniel had given her years ago. And she was scared to death.

"Come here, then," said Carl. For a moment she didn't move. He cocked his head to the side, watching her. She had no choice. She walked over and stopped a couple feet from him.

"Closer," he said. She stepped toward him, not looking down, her shoulders held back, head raised, as though ordered into the presence of prince. Suddenly, she started. He hand had reached out and very, very softly his fingers moved through her the thickly curling black hair of her belly; their touch tickled her. She began to tremble uncontrollably.

He said, looking up at her, "Look how you tremble. Are you so frightened of being touched?"

She did not answer. He said, "Well, you aren't upset because you're a married woman. We know that. You went to a lot of trouble to get Darlene in bed with your husband."

He had not stopped touching her. His fingers traced over her whole belly, her thighs, and deep down where the thighs met, but the touch was so light that her skin quivered. Inside, she felt herself contract, her most sensitive flesh tingling. She said, "That is what I have to talk about...please..." Her own voice sounded strange to her.

His fingers had slid down between now, stroking the lips themselves, the crisp fur softly parting. "Oh, God, no," she whispered.

"Your husband made love to you, didn't he?"

She had closed her eyes.

He said, "You are required to answer, Verna."

"Yes, of course, he did. I'm a married woman."

"And you like it, making love?"

He would not stop the insidious, maddening stroking.

"I loved him." It was whisper.

She felt him rise, standing very close. She opened her eyes; they felt heavy-lidded, drowsy; they felt like closing, closing on everything and surrendering. His hand moved up to her bare breasts and his fingers sought the full, wide nipples with their points now rigid. When his fingers touched them with the same gliding, skimming, tickling movement, she knew that he realized that she was aroused. Intensely aroused. And she could do nothing, absolutely nothing about it.

"I think you do love him, Verna. I think you love him so much that you gave him Darlene. Made a gift of her. Bought her..."

She was shaking her head. "No," she said. "No. It is what Darlene wants, too." She opened her eyes. He seemed to look at her with a intensity she could not understand because it seemed focused on her words, what she was trying to say.