"No, you never did."

"If you don't want to talk about it, just tell me to shut my yap. But I'm curious. Why the hell did you and what's-his-name break up?"

"Kenneth."

"Whatever. I thought you two had the greatest love affair since Hitler and Eva Braun. That's the way your letters sounded. What happened?"

"Well… ah…" Zoe Kohler said, picking at her salad, "we just drifted apart."

"Bullshit," Madeline Kurnitz said, forking veal into her mouth. "Can I guess?"

"Can I stop you?" Zoe said.

"No way. My guess is that it was the sex thing. Am I right?"

"Well… maybe," Zoe said in a low voice.

Maddie stopped eating. She sat there, fork poised, staring at the other woman.

"He wanted you to gobble ze goo?" she asked.

"What?"

"Chew on his schlong," Maddie said impatiently.

Zoe looked about nervously, fearing nearby diners were tuned in to this discomfiting conversation. No one appeared to be listening.

"That was one of the things," she said quietly. "There were other things."

Maddie resumed eating, apparently sobered and solemn. She kept her eyes on her food.

"Sweetie," she said, "were you cherry when you got married?"

"Yes."

"After all I told you at school?" Maddie said, looking up angrily. "I tried to educate you, for God's sake. Stupid, stupid, stupid! Well, how was it?"

"How was what?"

"The wedding night, you idiot. The first bang. How was it?"

"It wasn't the greatest adventure I've ever had," Zoe Kohler said dryly.

"Did you make it?"

"He did. I didn't, no."

Maddie stared long and thoughtfully at her.

"Have you ever made it?"

"No. I haven't."

"What? Speak up. I didn't hear that."

"No, I haven't," Zoe repeated.

They finished their food in silence. Maddie pushed her plate away, belched, relighted the butt of her cigarillo. She looked at Zoe with narrowed eyes through a plume of smoke.

"Poor little scut," she said. "Sweetie, I know this wonderful woman who treats women like-"

"There's nothing wrong with me," Zoe Kohler said hotly.

"Of course there isn't, luv," Maddie said soothingly. "But it's just a shame that you're missing out on one of the greatest pleasures of this miserable life. This woman I know holds classes. Small classes. Five or six women like you. She explains things. You have discussions about what's holding you back. She gives you exercises and things to do by yourself at home. She's got a good track record for helping women like you."

"It's not me," Zoe Kohler burst out. "It's the men."

"Uh-huh," Maddie said, squashing the cigarillo butt in an ashtray. "Let me give you this woman's name."

"No," Zoe said.

Maddie Kurnitz shrugged. "Then let's have some coffee," she suggested. "And some rich, thick, fattening dessert."

She was conscious of other things happening to her. Not only the acceleration of time, and the increasing intrusion of the past into the present so that memories of ten or twenty years ago had the sharp vividness of the now. She was also beginning to see reality in magnified close-ups, intimate and revealing.

She had seen the pores in Maddie's nose, the nubby twist of Mr. Pinckney's tweed suit, the fine grain of the paper money in her purse. But not only the visual images. All her senses seemed more alert, tender and receptive. She heard new sounds, smelled new odors, felt textures that were strange and wonderful.

All of her was becoming more perceptive, open and responsive to stimuli. It seemed to her that she could hear the sounds of colors and taste the flavor of a scent. She twanged with this new sensitivity. She saw herself as raw, touched by life in marvelous and sometimes frightening ways.

She wondered that if this growing awareness increased, she might not develop X-ray vision and the ability to communicate with the dead. A universe was opening up to her, unfolding and spreading like a bloom. It had never happened to anyone before, she knew. She was unique.

It had all started with her first adventure, a night of fear, anguish and resolve. Then, when it was over, she was flooded with a warm peace, an almost drunken exaltation. When she had returned home, she had stared at herself in a mirror and was pleased with what she saw.

It seemed to her that, for self-preservation, she could not, should not stop. She was rational enough to recognize the dangers, to plan coldly and logically. But logic was limited. It was not an end in itself, a way of life. It was a means to an end, to a transfigured life.

The gratification was not sexual. Oh no, it was not that, although she loved those men for what they had given her. But she did not experience an orgasm or even a thrill when she- when those men went. But she felt a thawing of her hurts. The adventures were a sweet justification. Of what, she could not have said.

"It's God's will," her mother was fond of remarking.

If a friend sickened, a coffee cup was broken, or a million foreigners died in a famine-"It's God's will," her mother said.

Zoe Kohler felt much the same way about what she was doing. It was God's will, and her newfound sensibility was her reward. She was being allowed to enter a fresh world, reborn.

Dr. Oscar Stark, an internist, had his offices on the first floor of his home, a converted brownstone on 35th Street just east of Park Avenue. It was a handsome five-story structure with bow windows and a fanlight over the front door said to have been designed by Louis Tiffany.

The suite of offices consisted of a reception room, the doctor's office, two examination rooms, a clinic, lavatories, storage cubicles, and a "resting room."

All these chambers had the high, ornate ceilings, wood paneling, and parquet floors installed when the home was built in 1909. The waiting room and the doctor's office were equipped with elaborate, marble-manteled fireplaces. There were window seats, wall niches, and sliding oak doors.

Dr. Stark and his wife of forty-three years had found it impossible to reconcile this Edwardian splendor with the needs of a physician's office: white enameled furniture, stainless steel equipment, glass cabinets, and plastic plants. Regretfully, they had surrendered to the demands of his profession and moved their heavy antiques and gloomy paintings upstairs to the living quarters.

Dr. Stark employed a receptionist and two nurses, both RNs. His waiting room was invariably occupied, and usually crowded, from 9:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. These hours were not strictly adhered to; the doctor sometimes saw patients early in the morning, late in the evening, and on weekends.

Zoe Kohler had a standing appointment for 6:00 p.m. on the first Tuesday of every month. Dr. Stark had tried to convince her that these monthly visits were not necessary.

"Your illness doesn't require it," he had explained with his gentle smile. "As long as you keep on the medication faithfully, every day. Otherwise, you're in excellent health. I'd like to see you twice a year."

"I'd really prefer to get a checkup every month," she said. "You never can tell."

He shrugged his meaty shoulders, brushed cigar ashes from the lapels of his white cotton jacket.

"If it makes you feel better," he said. "What is it, exactly, you'd like me to do for you every month?"

"Oh…" she said, "the usual."

"And what do you consider the usual?"

"Weight and blood pressure. The lungs. Urine and blood tests. Breast examination. A pelvic exam. A Pap test."

"A Pap smear every month?" he cried. "Zoe, in your case it's absolutely unnecessary. Once or twice a year is sufficient, I assure you."

"I want it," she said stubbornly, and he had yielded.

He was a short, blunt teddy bear of a man in his middle sixties. An enormous shock of white hair crowned his bullet head like a raggedy halo. And below, ruddy, pendulous features hung in bags, dewlaps, jowls, and wattles. All of his thick face sagged. It waggled when he moved.