"Jesus Christ," McCoy said.

"Yes," Ellen said wryly. "Jesus Christ."

She pushed herself off the chest of drawers and walked to the bed. Then she leaned over him and ran the balls of her fingers over his chest.

"So I passed through my high school years convinced that when I had nice thoughts about boys, it was Satan at work trying to get my soul.".

"I was a Catholic," McCoy said. "They tried to tell us the same thing."

"Did you believe it?" she asked.

"I wasn't sure," he said.

"I was," she said. "And I went through college that way. It wasn't hard. I was surrounded with them. Whenever anyone confessed any doubts, the others closed ranks around her. Or him. We prayed a lot, and avoided temptation. No drinking, no dancing, no smoking. No touching."

She moved her hand to his groin and repeated, "No touching."

"So how come you married him? Where did you meet him?"

"I was a senior in college," she said. "The Christian Missionary Alliance is, as you can imagine, big on missionaries; and he came looking for missionary recruits. Came from here, I mean. With slides of China and ail the souls the Alliance was saving for Jesus. He told us all about the heathens and how they hungered for the Lord. Very impressive stuff.

"And then that summer, right after I graduated, he came to our church in Baltimore… I'm from Baltimore… to give his report to our church. My father is a pillar of our church, and he was important to my husband, because my father is pretty well off. He stayed with us while he was in Baltimore."

"And made a play for you," McCoy said. "Jesus, that feels good!"

She chuckled deep in her throat and bent over him and nipped his nipple with her teeth. He put his hand on her breast and dragged her down on top of him.

"Do you want to hear this, or not?" she asked.

"Yeah," he said.

"It's all right with me if you don't," she said.

"Finish it," he said.

"What I thought I was getting was a life toiling in the Lord's Vineyard," Ellen went on. "With a man of God. Saving the heathen Chinese from eternal damnation. What he knew he was getting was a wife, and a wife who would not only put to rest unpleasant suspicions that had begun to crop up, but a wife whose father would more than likely be very generous to his mission… he had the mission in Wang-Tua, then… but probably to him personally."

"When did you find out he was a faggot?" McCoy asked. "We were married at nine o'clock in the morning," she said. "At noon, we took the train to New York. And then from New York, we took the train to San Francisco. I decided that it was wrong of me to think that anything would happen on a railroad train. And we boarded the President Jefferson for Tientsin the same day we arrived in San Francisco." "And nothing happened on the ship?" "Something happened on the ship," Ellen said. "I was not surprised that I didn't like it very much, and that it didn't happen very often."

"Then he can get it up?" McCoy asked. "Not like this," she said, squeezing him so hard that he yelped. "But he can, yes. I suspect he closes his eyes and pretends I'm a boy."

"So why the hell did you stay married to him?" "You just don't understand. I just didn't know. I was innocent. Ignorant." He snorted.

"Meaning I'm not innocent now?" she asked. "No complaints," McCoy said. "There was somebody else, obviously." "Who?"

"None of your business," she said, but then she told him: A newly ordained bachelor missionary with whom she'd been left alone a good deal when the Reverend Feller had been promoted to Assistant District Superintendent. They had been caught together. They had begged forgiveness. After prayerful consideration, the Reverend Feller had decided the way to handle the situation was to send the young missionary home, as "unsuited for missionary service," which happened often. A church would be found for him at home. As a guarantee of impeccable Christian behavior in the future, there was a written confession of his sinful misbehavior left behind in the Reverend Feller's safe.

McCoy was sure there'd been more than one "somebody else." She had done things to him he hadn't thought American women even knew about. Things that one missionary minister wouldn't have taught her. But he could hardly expect her to provide him with a list of the guys she had screwed. She wasn't like that. He was somewhat surprised to realize that he had come to like Ellen Feller.

"After that," Ellen went on, "he never came near me. I thought he was either disgusted with me or was punishing me."

"You still didn't know he was queer?"

"I didn't find out about that, believe it or not, until just before the Alliance called him home for consultation. That was the reason I didn't go home with him."

"How'd you find out?"

"I walked in on him," she said, matter-of-factly.

He was aware that she'd stopped manipulating him and he had gone down. She still had her hand on him, though, possessively, and he liked that.

"What did he say?" McCoy asked.

"Nothing," she said. "He didn't even stop. So I just closed the door and left. Very civilized."

"Why didn't you leave him?" McCoy asked.

"It's not that simple, my darling," Ellen said.

McCoy liked when she called him "my darling," even though it embarrassed him a little. He couldn't remember anyone ever saying that to him before. It was a lot different from a whore calling him "honey" or "sweetheart" or "big boy."

"Why not?" he asked.

"Well, there's Jerry's detailed, written confession, for one thing," she said, as if explaining something that should have been self-evident.

"So what?"

"He would show it to my father."

"So what? Tell your father he's queer."

"I wouldn't be believed," she said. "He's a man of God. My father is very impressed with him. He would think I made the accusation in desperation, to excuse my own behavior."

"Then fuck your father," McCoy said.

Her eyebrows went up. "I know how you meant that," she said.

"Jesus!" he said.

"I'm thirty years old," she said. "I have no money. I can play every hymn in the hymnal from memory on the piano. I speak Chinese. Unless I could find a job as a Chinese-speaking piano player, I don't know how I could support myself."

Thirty years old? At first I thought she was older than that. Then I thought she was younger. Thirty is too old for me. What the hell am I thinking about? In a week, she'll get on a ship, and that will be the last I'll ever see her.

"Can you type?" McCoy asked. She nodded. "Then get a job as a typist, for Christ's sake."

"For my own sake, you mean," she said. Then she added, mysteriously, "I have something else that might turn out. I won't know until I get to the States."

"Like a couple of thousand-year-old vases, for example?" McCoy asked. "Or some jade?"

Her face clouded, and she took her hand from his crotch and covered her mouth with it. "What did you do, look in the crates?"

"No. A stab in the dark," McCoy said.

"My God, does anybody else know?"

"My officer thinks that's the real reason your husband came back to China," McCoy said. "He doesn't believe the selfless patriot business."

"I have three Ming dynasty vases and some jade my husband doesn't know about," Ellen said. "I thought I could sell them and use the money to get a start."

"You probably can, if you can get them through customs," McCoy said.

"Your… officer… isn't going to say anything?"

"It's none of his business," he said.

"And the other officers? Do they know?"

"You've just seen how smart they are," McCoy said.

"It left us alone, my darling," she said.

"I like it when you say that," McCoy said. She looked into his eyes and it made him uncomfortable. "And I like it when you put your hand on my balls."