"I can never get over how clear the sky is out here at night. They must have filtered out all of the impurities."

"Ninety-nine and forty-four one-hundredths pure Missouri sky."

"Exactly."

"Let's go. It is cold out here."

The station wagon smelled of apples. I turned around and saw two bushel baskets filled with them on the backseat.

"Can I have an apple?"

"Yes, but watch out for worms."

I decided not to have an apple. She smiled. In the car's blue darkness, her teeth were as white as the stripe on the road.

"What's a 'midnight picnic'?"

"You aren't allowed to ask any questions. Sit back and enjoy the ride. You'll see everything when we get there."

I did what I was told. I let my head fall back on the seat and looked down my nose to the night road moving by.

"You have to be careful out here at night. There are always cows or dogs or raccoons on it. I once hit a female opossum. I got out of the car and ran back, but it was already dead. What was worse was that all of these little baby possums came crawling out of her stomach pouch as soon as I got there. Their eyes were still closed."

"Nice."

"It was ghastly. I felt like such a murderer."

"Uh, how's old Petals? Nails sends her his love."

"She's in heat, so I have to keep her locked away for two weeks now."

The road snaked up and down and around. I was tired, and the heat blowing up from the floor made my eyelids feel like heavy velvet curtains.

"Thomas, can I ask you a question?"

"Sure. Can I turn down the heat?"

"Yes, press the middle button. Do you mind if it's personal?"

I pressed the wrong middle button, and the blower huffed into high gear. She reached down, and going over my hand, pressed the right one. The huff died away, and I could hear the sound of the engine and the wheels for the first time.

"What's your personal question?"

"What is your relationship with Saxony?"

Here we are – Saxony safely ensconced in the hospital, my little black night commando at the wheel right beside me… I could have answered her question so many different ways. What did I want her to think – that I was a happily unmarried man? That I was just passing time with Sax until the right someone came along? That I wanted Anna to be the right someone, even if that was taking the whole thing too far?

"My relationship? Do you mean do I love her?"

All alone. If something happened out there between the two of us that night, no one would ever know. There was no way Saxony would be hurt if I told a small lie about what went on in that darkness. Impossible. It was eleven o'clock at night, Anna was there and I was there and Saxony wasn't there… and what I ended up saying was, "Yes, Anna, I love her." Then I sighed. What the hell else could I do? Lie? Yes, I know I could have, but I didn't. Aren't I wonderful?

"Does she love you?" She kept her hands on the top of the steering wheel and her head facing forward.

"Yes, I guess so. She says she does." With that, I felt something in my body let go and deflate. It made me feel calmer and less on edge. As if the jig was up and my main energy center could shut down for the rest of the night because I wouldn't be needing it anymore.

"Why are you asking, Anna?"

"Because I'm interested in you. Is that so surprising?"

"That depends. Professionally interested or personally?"

"Personally." That was all. That was all she said in this Lauren Bacall-deep "if-you-need-anything-just-whistle" voice. "Personally." I didn't dare turn to her. I closed my eyes and felt my heart beat throughout the upper part of my body. I wondered if I would die someday of a heart attack. I wondered if I was about to have a heart attack. Two seconds before, I had been about to fall asleep.

"Uh, what am I supposed to say to that?"

"Nothing. You don't have to say a word. I was only answering your question."

"Oh." I took a deep breath and tried to find a comfortable position on the plastic seat for both me and my eleven-foot-long erection.

I am pretty inept at seducing women. For years I thought that the best way to do it was to have three-hour-long heart-to-heart talks where you ended up saying right out front that you wanted to go to bed with her. That way wasn't completely successful, however, especially when I was in college and the girls that I liked were mostly "intellectuals" who carried around copies of Nausea or Kate Millett and used a Renoir postcard to mark their place. The great problem that arose then was that I would have drunk so much image-building black coffee or poisonous espresso that if the magic moment ever did arise, I would have to keep slipping off to the toilet to piss it all out. I'm sure that I also bored any number of them to tears, because one day a girl said, "Why don't you stop talking so much bullshit and just take me?" It was a good lesson at the time, although I often tried it later and was pushed away more often than I was welcomed. As a result, even at this late date I never knew if (1) a woman wanted me or not, (2) if she did, how I was supposed to "take her," (3)… It's not necessary, because I think the picture is pretty clear. Luckily, with Saxony it had been mutual – and, God, I was thankful for that. But Anna? Anna France, sweet-mama daughter of my hero? Was she saying here that she wanted me, or was she flirting and trying to see how far she could go before I made my move and she would have to shoot me down?

"Anna?"

"Thomas?"

"I don't know what you want me to do. I don't know if you're saying what I think I'm hearing. Do you know what I mean?"

"Yes, I think so."

My hand was shaking when I lifted it toward her. It was my left hand. I chose it because if she didn't want me to touch her she could push it away and I'd have it back on my side of the seat quicker. Then I didn't know where it should go when it reached her, now that it was halfway there. Her knee, breast, arm? But it knew that it had to go to her face. Slowly, still shaking, I touched her cheek and found it hot. She took my hand in hers, and bringing it around to her lips, kissed it. She squeezed it tightly and brought it down to rest on her right knee. I felt as if my head was about to explode. We rode the rest of the way to her "picnic" like that.

The best description would be to say that Anna totally gave herself to me. Not that she was into any kind of bondage or kinky stuff, but when I made love with her I instantly got the feeling that she would let me do anything I wanted to her, or that she would do anything I asked her to. She didn't leap around or set fire to the ceiling, but she was so there that sometimes I felt I had gone all the way through her and would have to work all the way back before either of us was done, much less satisfied. Later, when I asked her if this had been the real purpose of the picnic from the beginning, she said yes.

I even got her to talk a little about herself that night. Making love brought down some of the barriers, and by the time the sun began to come up (we had adjourned to her double sleeping bag, which we put near the car on a high hill that overlooked meadows and cows), I knew that she'd gone through much of the same famous-father crap that I had. She kept repeating that her experiences were nothing compared to mine, but her stories about playmates, high school, special treatment from others, etc., rang so many bells that my head almost fell off from nodding so much.

I told her about myself and didn't feel strange or uncomfortable doing it.

We went to a diner out on the highway, and both of us had a "Trucker's Special" for breakfast – eggs and pancakes, sausages, toast, and all the coffee you could drink. I was famished and ate everything. When I'd finished and looked her way, she had swept her plate clean too, back to its original red and white stripes. She put her hand on my knee and asked Millie, the waitress, for more coffee for both of us. I wanted the other people in the diner to know that Anna France was with me and that only a few hours before we had made love again and again on top of a hill two miles away from there. I was exhausted and happy and I wasn't thinking about Saxony.