“Come on,” he whispered, and began to chivvy the tongue gently back and forth. It went in perhaps a sixteenth of an inch each time and then stopped. He could hear the goddam bobby-pin rattling inside there. “Come on… come on… come on… “ He was crying again and unaware of it, sweat and tears mingling freely on his cheeks; he was vaguely aware that he was still in great pain despite all the dope he had swallowed, that he was going to pay a high price for this little piece of work.

Not so high as the one she'll make you pay if you can't get this goddam door closed again, Paulie.

He heard her crunching, cautious footsteps as she made her way up the path. The rattle of bags… and now the rattle of her housekeys as she took them from her purse.

“Come on… come on… come on… “ This time when he pushed the tongue there was a flat click from inside the lock and the jut of metal slid a quarter of an inch into the door. Not enough to clear the jamb… but almost.

“Please… come on… “ He began to chivvy the tongue faster, diddling it, listening as she opened the kitchen door. Then, like a hideous flashback to that day when his mother had caught him smoking, Annie called cheerily: “Paul? It's me! I've got your paper!” Caught! I'm caught! Please God, no God, don't let her hurt me God - His thumb pressed convulsively tight against the tongue of the lock, and there was a muffled snap as the bobby-pin broke. The tongue slid all the way into the door. In the kitchen he heard a zipper-rasp as she opened her parka.

He closed the bedroom door. The click of the latch (did she hear that? must have must have heard that!) sounded as loud as a track-starter's gun.

He backed the wheelchair up toward the window. He was still backing and filling as her footsteps began to come down the hallway.

“I've got your paper, Paul! Are you awake?” Never… never in time… She'll hear…

He gave the guide-lever a final wrench and rolled the wheelchair into place beside the window just as her key rattled in the lock.

It won't work… the bobby-pin… and she'll be suspicious…

But the piece of alien metal must have fallen all the way to the bottom of the lock, because her key worked perfectly. He sat in his chair, eyes half-closed, hoping madly that he had gotten the chair back where it had been (or at least close enough to it so she wouldn't notice), hoping that she would take his sweat-drenched face and quivering body simply as reactions to missing his medication, hoping most of all that he hadn't left a track - It was as the door swung open that he looked, down and saw that by looking for individual tracks with such agonized concentration, he had ignored a whole buffalo run: the boxes of Novril were still in his lap.

35

She had two packages of paper, and she held one up in each hand, smiling. “Just what you asked for, isn't it? Triad Modem. Two reams here, and I have two more in the kitchen, just in case. So you see - “ She broke off, frowning, looking at him.

“You're dripping with sweat… and your color is very hectic.” She paused. “What have you been doing?” And although that set the panicky little voice of his lesser self to squealing again that he was caught and might as well give it up, might as well confess and hope for her mercy, he managed to meet her suspicious gaze with an ironic weariness.

“I think you know what I've been doing,” he said. “I've been suffering.” From the pocket of her skirt she took a Kleenex and wiped his brow. The Kleenex came away wet. She smiled at him with that terrible bogus maternity.

“Has it been very bad?”

“Yes. Yes, it has. Now can I - “

“I told you about making me mad. Live and learn, isn't that what they say? Well, if you live, I guess you'll learn.”

“Can I have my pills now?”

“In a minute,” she said. Her eyes never left his sweaty face, its waxy pallor and red rashlike blotches. “First I want to make sure there's nothing else you want. Nothing else stupid old Annie Wilkes forgot because she doesn't know how a Mister Smart Guy goes about writing a book. I want to make sure you don't want me to go back to town and get you a tape recorder, or maybe a special pair of writing slippers, or something like that. Because if you want me to, I'll go. Your wish is my command. I won't even wait to give you your pills. I'll hop right into Old Bessie again and go. So what do you say, Mister Smart Guy? You all set?”

“I'm all set,” he said. “Annie, please - “

“And you won't make me mad anymore?”

“No. I won't make you mad anymore.”

“Because when I get mad I'm not really myself.” Her eyes dropped. She was looking down to where his hands were cupped tightly together over the sample boxes of Novril. She looked for a very long time.

“Paul?” she asked softly. “Paul, why are you holding your hands like that?” He began to cry. It was guilt he cried from, and he hated that most of all: in addition to everything else that this monstrous woman had done to him, she had made him feel guilty as well. So he cried from guilt… but also from simple childish weariness.

He looked up at her, tears flowing down his cheeks, and played the absolute last card in his hand.

“I want my pills,” he said, “and I want the urinal. I held it all the time you were gone, Annie, but I can't hold it much longer, and I don't want to wet myself again.” She smiled softly, radiantly, and pushed his tumbled hair off his brow. “You poor dear. Annie has put you through a lot, hasn't she? Too much! Mean old Annie! I'll get it right away.”

36

He wouldn't have dared put the pills under the rug even if he thought he had time to do so before she came back - the packages were small, but the bulges would still be all too obvious. As he heard her go into the downstairs bathroom, he took them, reached painfully around his body, and stuffed them into the back of his underpants. Sharp cardboard corners poked into the cleft of his buttocks.

She came back with the urinal, an old-fashioned tin device that looked absurdly like a blow-dryer, in one hand. She had two Novril capsules and a glass of water in the other.

Two more of those on top of the ones you took half an hour ago may drop you into a coma and then kill you, he thought, and a second voice answered at once: Fine with me.

He took the pills and swallowed them with water.

She held out the urinal. “Do you need help?”

“I can do it,” he said.

She turned considerately away while he fumbled his penis into the cold tube and urinated. He happened to he looking at her when the hollow splashing sounds commenced, and he saw that she was smiling.

“All done?” she asked a few moments later.

“Yes.” He actually had needed to urinate quite badly - in all the excitement he hadn't had time to think of such things.

She took the urinal away from him and set it carefully on the floor. “Now let's get you back in bed,” she said. “You must be exhausted… and your legs must be singing grand opera.” He nodded, although the truth was that he could not feel anything - this medication on top of what he'd already given himself was rolling him toward unconsciousness at an alarming rate, and he was beginning to see the room through gauzy layers of gray. He held onto one thought - she was going to lift him into bed, and when she did that she would have to be blind as well as numb not to notice that the back of his underwear happened to be stuffed with little boxes.

She got him over to the side of the bed.

“Just a minute longer, Paul, and you can take a snooze.”

“Annie, could you wait five minutes?” he managed. She looked at him, gaze narrowing slightly. “I thought you were in a lot of pain, buster.”

“I am,” he said. “It hurts… too much. My knee, mostly. Where you… uh, where you lost your temper. I'm not ready to be picked up. Could I have five minutes to… to… “ He knew what he wanted to say but it was drifting away from him. Drifting away and into the gray. He looked at her helplessly, knowing he was going to be caught after all.