Cheating. Cheating on my wife. He tried to get this through his head, but it seemed both real and unreal at the same time. What seemed strongest was an unhappy sense of homesickness: an old – fashioned feeling of falling away. Audra would be up by now, making coffee, sitting at the kitchen table in her robe, perhaps studying lines, perhaps reading a Dick Francis novel.

His key rattled in the lock of room 311. If they had gone to Beverly's room on the fifth floor, they would have seen the message-light on her phone blinking; the TV-watching desk clerk would have given her a message to call her friend Kay in Chicago (after Kay's third frantic call, he had finally remembered to post the message), things might have taken a different course: the five of them might not have been fugitives from the Derry police when that day's light finally broke. But they went to his — as things had perhaps, been arranged.

The door opened. They were inside. She looked at him, eyes bright, cheeks flushed, her breast rising and falling rapidly. He took her in his arms and was overwhelmed by the feeling of rightness — the feeling of the circle between past and present closing with a triumphant seamlessness. He kicked the door shut clumsily with one foot and she laughed her warm breath into his mouth.

'My heart — ' She said, and put his hand on her left breast. He could feel it below that firm, almost maddening softness, racing like an engine.

'Your h-h-heart — '

'My heart.'

They were on the bed, still dressed, kissing. Her hand slipped inside his shirt, then out again. She traced a finger down the row of buttons, paused at his waist . . . and then that same finger slipped lower, tracing down the stony thickness of his cock. Muscles he hadn't been aware of jumped and fluttered in his groin. He broke the kiss and moved his body away from hers on the bed.

'Bill?'

'Got to stuh-stuh-stop for a m-m-minute,' he said. 'Or else I'm going to shoot in my p-p-pants like a k-kid.'

She laughed again, softly, and looked at him. 'Is it that? Or are you having second thoughts?'

'Second thoughts,' Bill said. 'I a-a-always have those.'

'I don't. I hate him,' she said.

He looked at her, the smile fading.

'I didn't know it all the way to the top of my mind until tonight,' she said. 'Oh, I knew it — somewhere — all along, I guess. He hits and he hurts. I married him because . . . because my father always worried about me, I guess. No matter how hard I tried, he worried. And I guess I knew he'd approve of Tom. Because Tom would worry, too. He worried a lot. And as long as someone was worrying about me, I'd be safe. More than safe. Real.' She looked at him solemnly. Her blouse had pulled out of the waistband of her slacks, revealing a white stripe of stomach. He wanted to kiss it. 'But it wasn't real. It was a nightmare. Being married to Tom was like going back into the nightmare. Why would a person do that, Bill? Why would a person go back into the nightmare of her own accord?'

Bill said, 'The o-o-only reason I can f-figure is that p-people go back to f-f-find thems –s-selves.'

'The nightmare's here,' Bev said. 'The nightmare is Derry. Tom looks small compared to that. I can see him better now. I loathe myself for the years I spent with him . . . You don't know . . . the things he made me do, and oh, I was happy enough to do them, you know, because he worried about me. I'd cry . . . but sometimes there's too much shame. You know?'

'Don't,' he said quietly, and put his hand over hers. She held it tightly. Her eyes were overbright, but the tears didn't fall. E' verybody g-g-goofs it. But it's not an eh-eh-exam. You just go through it the b-b-best you can.'

"What I mean,' she said, 'is that I'm not cheating on Tom, or trying to use you to get my own back on him, or anything like that. For me, it would be like something . . . sane and normal and sweet. But I don't want to hurt you, Bill. Or trick you into something you'll be sorry for later.'

He thought about this, thought about it with a real and deep seriousness. But the odd little mnemonic — he thrusts hi s fists, and so on — had begun to circle back, breaking into his thoughts. It had been a long day. Mike's call and the invitation to lunch at Jade of the Orient seemed a hundred years ago. So many stories since then. So many memories, like photographs from George's album.

'Friends don't t-t-trick each o-other,' he said, and leaned toward her on the bed. Their lips touched and he began to unbutton her blouse. One of her hands went to the back of his neck and held him closer while the other first unzipped her slacks and then pushed them down. For a moment his hand was on her stomach, warm; then her panties were gone in a whisper; then he nudged and she guided.

As he entered her, she arched her back gently toward the thrust of his sex and muttered, 'Be my friend . . . I love you, Bill.'

'I love you too,' he said, smiling against her bare shoulder. They began slowly and he felt sweat begin to flow out of his skin as she quickened beneath him. His consciousness began to drain downward, becoming focused more and more strongly on their connection. Her pores had opened, releasing a lovely musky odor.

Beverly felt her climax coming. She moved toward it, working for it, never doubting that it would come. Her body suddenly stuttered and seemed to leap upward, not orgasming but reaching a plateau far above any she had reached with Tom or the other two lovers she had had before Tom. She became aware that this wasn't going to be just a come; it was going to

be a tactical nuke. She became a little afraid . . . but her body picked up the rhythm again. She felt Bill's long length stiffen against her, his whole body suddenly becoming as hard as the part of him inside herself, and at that same moment she climaxed — began to climax; pleasure so great it was nearly agony spilled out of unsuspected floodgates, and she bit down on his shoulder to stifle her cries.

'Oh my God,' Bill gasped, and although she was never sure later, she believed he was crying. He pulled back and she thought he was going to withdraw from her — she tried to prepare for that moment, which always brought a fleeting, inexplicable sense of loss and emptiness, something like a footprint — and then he thrust forward strongly again. Right away she had a second orgasm, something she hadn't known wa s possible for her, and the window of memory opened again and she saw birds, thousands of birds, descending onto every roofpeak and telephone line and RFD mailbox in Derry, spring birds against a white April sky, and there was pain mixed with pleasure — but mostly it was low, as a white spring sky seems low. Low physical pain mixed with low physical pleasure and sense of affirmation. She had bled . . . she had . . . had . . .

'All of you?' she cried suddenly, her eyes widening, stunned.

He did pull back and out of her this time, but in the sudden shock of the revelation, she barely felt him go.

'What? Beverly? A-Are you all r — '

'All of you? I made love to all of you?'

She saw shocked surprise on Bill's face, the drop of his jaw . . . and sudden understanding. But it was not her revelation; even in her own shock she saw that. It was his own.

'We — '

'Bill? What is it?'

'That was y-y-your way to get us out,' he said, and now his eyes blazed so brightly they frightened her. 'Beverly, duh– d u h –don't you uh-understand? That was y-y-your way to get usout! We all . . . but we were . . . ' Suddenly he looked frightened, unsure.

'Do you remember the rest now?' she asked.

He shook his head slowly. 'Not the spuh-spuh-specifics. But . . . ' He looked at her, and she saw he was badly frightened. 'What it really c-c-came down to was we wuh-wuh-wished our way out. And I'm not s-sure . . . Beverly, I'm not sure that grownups can do that.'