"Valentino?"

"And he was queer."

"Rudolph Valentino?"

"Yes. You didn't know he was that way?"

"No, it's just ... he's been dead a long time."

"Yes, it was sad to lose him so quickly," she said.

She obviously had no difficulty agreeing with him about how long the Great Lover had been deceased, even though it made nonsense of her story.

"We had a great party for him, out on the lawn, two weeks after he'd been taken from us." She turned away from him and laid the switch back on the mantelpiece. "I know you don't believe a word of what I've told you. You've done the mathematics, and none of it's remotely possible." She leaned on the mantelpiece, her chin on the heel of her hand. "What have you decided? That I'm some kind of trespasser? A little sexually deranged but essentially harmless?"

"I suppose something like that."

"Hmm." She mused on this for a moment. Then she said: "You'll change your mind, eventually. But there's no hurry. I've waited a long time for this."

"This?"

"You. Us."

She left the thought there to puzzle him a moment, then she turned, the dusting of melancholy that had crept into her voice over the course of the last few exchanges brushed away. She was bright again; gleaming with harmless trouble-making.

"Have you ever done it with a man?"

"Oh, Jesus."

"So you have!"

He was caught. There was no use denying it.

"Only ... twice. Or three times."

"You can't remember."

"Okay, three times."

"Was it good?"

"I'll never do it again, so I guess that's your answer."

"Why are you so sure?"

"There's some things you can be that sure of," he said. Then, a little less confidently, "Aren't there?"

"Even men who aren't queer imagine other men sometimes. Yes?"

"Well ... "

"Perhaps you're the exception to the rule. Perhaps you're the one the Canyon isn't going to touch." She started to walk back towards him. "But don't be too certain. It takes the pleasure out of things. Maybe you should let a woman take charge for a while."

"Are we talking about sex?"

"Valentino swore he only liked men, but as soon as I took charge ... "

"Don't tell me. He was like a naughty schoolboy."

"No. Like a baby." Her hand went to her breast, and she squeezed it, catching the nipple in the groove between her thumb and forefinger, as though to proffer it for Todd to suckle.

He knew it wasn't smart to show too much emotion to the woman. If there was some genuine streak of derangement in her, it would only empower her more. But he couldn't help himself. He took half a step backwards, aware that the trenches of his mouth were suddenly running with spit at the thought of her nipple in his mouth.

"You shouldn't let your mind get between you and what your body wants," she said. She took her hand from her breast. The nipple stood hard beneath the light fabric.

"I know what my body wants."

"Really?" she said, sounding genuinely surprised at the claim. "You know what it wants deep down? All the way down to the very darkest place?"

He didn't reply.

She reached out and took gentle hold of his hand. Her fingers were cold and dry; his were clammy.

"What are you afraid of?" she said. "Not me, surely."

"I'm not afraid," he said.

"Then come to me," she told him, softly. "I'll find out what you want." He let her draw him closer to her; let her hands move up over his chest towards his face.

"You're a big man," she murmured.

Her fingers were at his neck now. Whatever she was promising about discovering his desires, he knew what she wanted; she wanted to see his face. And though there was a part of his mind that resisted the idea, there was a greater part that wanted her to see him, for better or worse. He let her hands go up to his jawline; let her fingers rest on the adhesive tape that held the mask of gauze against his wound.

"May I ... ?" she asked him.

"Is this what you came here to do?"

She made a small, totally ambiguous smile. Then she pulled at the tape. It came away with a gentle tug. He felt the gauze loosen. He stared down into her face, wondering -- in this long moment before it was done and beyond saving -- if she would reject him when she saw the scars and the swelling. A scene from that same silent horror movie he'd seen in his mind's eye many times since Burrows had done his brutal work, flickered in his head: Katya as the appalled heroine, reeling away in disgust at what her curiosity had uncovered. He the monster, enraged at her revulsion and murderous in his self-contempt.

It was too late to stop it now. She was pulling at the gauze, coaxing it away from the hurts it concealed.

He felt the cool air upon his wounds, and cooler still, her scrutiny. The gauze dropped to the floor between them. He stood there before her, more naked than he'd ever been in his life -- even in nightmares of nakedness, more naked -- awaiting judgment.

She wasn't horrified. She wasn't screaming, wasn't flinching. She simply looked at him, without any interpretable expression on her face.

"Well?" he said.

"He made a mess of you, no doubt about that. But it's healing. And if my opinion is worth anything to you, I'd say you're going to be fine. Better than fine."

She took a moment to assess him further. To trace the line of his jaw, the curve of his temple.

"But it's never going to be perfect," she said.

His stomach lurched. Here was the heart of it: the bitter part nobody had wanted to admit to him; not even himself. He was spoiled. Perhaps just a little, but a little was all it would take to shake him from his high perch. His precious face, his golden face, the beauty that had made him the idol of millions, had been irreparably damaged.

"I know," Katya said, "you're thinking your life won't be worth living. "But that's just not true."

"How the hell do you know?" he said, smarting from the truth, angered by her honesty.

"Because I knew all the great stars, in the silent days. And believe me, the smart ones -- when they weren't making the money any longer -- just shrugged and said okay, I've had my time."

"What did they do then?"

"Listen to yourself! There's life after fame. Sure it'll take some getting used to, but people have perfectly good lives -- "

"I don't want a perfectly good life. I want the life I had."

"Well you can't have it," she said, very simply.

It was a long time since somebody had told Todd Pickett that he couldn't have something, and he didn't like it. He took hold of her wrists and pulled her hands away from his face. A quick fury had risen in him. He wanted to strike at her, knock her stupid words out of her mouth.

"You know, you are crazy," he said.

"Didn't I tell you?" she said, making no attempt to touch him again. "Some nights I'm so crazy I'm ready to hang myself. But I don't. You know why? I made this hell for myself, so it's up to me to live in it, isn't it?"

He didn't respond to her; he was still in a filthy rage about what she'd said.

"Do you understand what I'm saying?"

"I think I've had it with your advice for the night," he said, "so why don't you just go back wherever you came from -- " In mid-sentence he heard Marco calling. "Boss? Are you okay? Where the hell are you?"

He looked towards the door, half expecting to see Marco already standing there. He wasn't. Todd then looked back at Katya, or whoever the hell she was. The woman was retreating from him, shaking her head as if to say: don't tell.

"It's okay!" he yelled to Marco.

"Where are you?"

"I'm fine. Go make me a drink. I'll meet you in the kitchen!"

Katya had already retreated to the far end of the room, where the shadows from which she had originally emerged were enclosing her.

"Wait!" Todd said, his fury not yet completely abated.