“I fed you intravenously,” she said. “Through tubes. That's what those marks on your arms are.” She looked at him with eyes that were suddenly flat and considering. “You owe me your life, Paul. I hope you'll remember that. I hope you'll keep that in mind.” Then she left.

7

The hour passed. Somehow and finally, the hour passed.

He lay in bed, sweating and shivering at the same time. From the other room came first the sounds of Hawkeye and Hot Lips and then the disc jockeys on WKRP, that wild and crazy Cincinnati radio station. An announcer's voice came on, extolled Ginsu knives, gave an 800 number, and informed those Colorado watchers who had simply been panting for a good set of Ginsu knives that Operators Were Standing By.

Paul Sheldon was also Standing By.

She reappeared promptly when the clock in the other room struck eight, with two capsules and a glass of water.

He hoisted himself eagerly on his elbows as she sat on the bed.

“I finally got your new book two days ago,” she told him. Ice tinkled in the glass. It was a maddening sound. “Misery's Child. I love it… It's as good as all the rest. Better! The best!”

“Thank you,” he managed. He could feel the sweat standing out on his forehead. “Please my legs very painful… “

“I knew she would marry Ian,” she said, smiling dreamily, and I believe Geoffrey and Ian will become friends again, eventually. Do they?” But immediately she said: “No, don't tell! I want to find out for myself. I'm making it last. It always seems so long before there is another one.” The pain throbbed in his legs and made a deep steel circlet around his crotch. He had touched himself down there, and he thought his pelvis was intact, but it felt twisted and weird. Below his knees it felt as if nothing was intact. He didn't want to look. He could see the twisted, lumpy shapes outlined in the bedclothes, and that was enough.

“Please? Miss Wilkes? The pain - “

“Call me Annie. All my friends do.” She gave him the glass. It was cool and beaded with moisture. She kept the capsules. The capsules in her hand were the tide. She was the moon, and she had brought the tide which would cover the pilings. She brought them toward his mouth, which he immediately dropped open… and then she withdrew them.

“I took the liberty of looking in your little bag. You don't mind, do you?”

“No. No, of course not. The medicine - “ The beads of sweat on his forehead felt alternately hot and cold. Was he going to scream? He thought perhaps he was.

“I see there is a manuscript in there,” she said. She held the capsules in her right hand, which she now slowly tilted. They fell into her left hand. His eyes followed them. “It's called Fast Cars. Not a Misery novel, I know that.” She looked at him with faint disapproval - but, as before, it was mixed with love. It was a maternal look. “No cars in the nineteenth century, fast or otherwise!” She tittered at this small joke. “I also took the liberty of glancing through it… You don't mind, do you?”

“Please,” he moaned. “No, but please - “ Her left hand tilted. The capsules rolled, hesitated, and then fell back into her right hand with a minute clicking sound.

“And if I read it? You wouldn't mind if I read it?”

“No - “ His bones were shattered, his legs filled with festering shards of broken glass. “No…”He made something he hoped was a smile. “No, of course not.”

“Because I would never presume to do such a thing without your permission,” she said earnestly. “I respect you too much. In fact, Paul, I love you.” She crimsoned suddenly and alarmingly. One of the capsules dropped from her hand to the coverlet. Paul snatched at it, but she was quicker. He moaned, but she did not notice; after grabbing the capsule she went vague again, looking toward the window. “Your mind,” she said, “Your creativity, That is all I meant” In desperation, because it was the only thing he could think of, he said: “I know. You're my number-one fan.” She did not just warm up this time; she lit up. “That's it!” she cried. “That's it exactly! And you wouldn't mind if I read it in that spirit, would you? That spirit of… of fan-love? Even though I don't like your other books as well as the Misery stories?”

“No,” he said, and closed his eyes. No, tum the pages of the manuscript into paper hats if you want, just… please… I'm dying in here…

“You're good, she said gently. “I knew you would be. Just reading your books, I knew you would be. A man who could think of Misery Chastain, first think of her and then breathe life into her, could be nothing else.” Her fingers were in his mouth suddenly, shockingly intimate, dirtily welcome. He sucked the capsules from between them and swallowed even before he could fumble the spilling glass of water to his mouth.

“Just like a baby,” she said, but he couldn't see her because his eyes were still closed and now he felt the sting of tears. “But good. There is so much I want to ask you… so much I want to know.” The springs creaked as she got up.

“We are going to be very happy here,” she said, and although a bolt of horror ripped into his heart, Paul still did not open his eyes.

8

He drifted. The tide came in and he drifted. The TV played in the other room for awhile and then didn't. Sometimes the clock chimed and he tried to count the chimes but he kept getting lost between. IV. Through tubes. That's what those marks on your arms are.

He got up on one elbow and pawed for the lamp and finally got it turned on. He looked at his arms and in the folds of his elbows he saw fading, overlapped shades of purple and ocher, a hole filled with black blood at the center of each bruise.

He lay back, looking at the ceiling, listening to the wind. He was near the top of the Great Divide in the heart of winter, he was with a woman who was not right in her head, a woman who had fed him with IV drips when he was unconscious, a woman who had an apparently never-ending supply of dope, a woman who had told no one he was here.

These things were important, but he began to realize that something else was more important: the tide was going out again. He began to wait for the sound of her alarm clock upstairs. It would not go off for some long while yet, but it was time for him to start waiting for it to be time.

She was crazy but he needed her.

Oh I am in so much trouble he thought, and stared blindly up at the ceiling as the droplets of sweat began to gather on his forehead again.

9

The next morning she brought him more soup and told him she had read forty pages of what she called his “manuscript-book”. She told him she didn't think it was as good as his others.

“It's hard to follow. It keeps jumping back and forth in time.”

“Technique,” he said. He was somewhere between hurting and not hurting, and so was able to think a little better about what she was saying. “Technique, that's all it is. The subject… the subject dictates the form.” In some vague way he supposed that such tricks of the trade might interest, even fascinate her. God knew they had fascinated the attendees of the writers” workshops to whom he had sometimes lectured when he was younger. “The boy's mind, you see, is confused, and so - “

“Yes! He's very confused, and that makes him less interesting. Not uninteresting - I'm sure you couldn't create an uninteresting character - but less interesting. And the profanity! Every other word is that effword! It has - “ She ruminated, feeding him the soup automatically, wiping his mouth when he dribbled almost without looking, the way an experienced typist rarely looks at the keys; so he came to understand, effortlessly, that she had been a nurse. Not a doctor, oh no; doctors would not know when the dribble would come, or be able to forecast the course of each with such a nice exactitude.