He saw her every evening, and they never fought. This amazed him. He hadn't thought it would be possible to spend so much time with another person without finding just cause to paste that person's brains on the wall. However, despite what his childhood had trained him to expect, his relationship with Dolores was euphoriant.

Blackburn was happy. That in itself was a new and strange experience. It made him stupid.

He reveled in it.

The Taco Tommy's evening supervisor quit in late June, and the manager offered the job to Blackburn. It meant a dollar-an-hour raise, but it also meant working 3:00 P.M. to 12:00 A.M. every day except Sundays. Blackburn hesitated to take the job at first, because it would spoil his evenings with Dolores. Then it occurred to him that the extra money might make marriage possible right away. He accepted the promotion, then went to Dolores's apartment and waited for her to return from her own job. When she arrived, he explained that his earnings would now be great enough that she could stop working if she liked. All she had to do was marry him.

Dolores said she wanted to think about it. They went out to eat, and over fried shrimp, she said yes. Then they rushed to Blackburn's apartment and screwed like mad.

"Oh, Ed," Dolores said. "You're the best."

Blackburn felt like Jimi Hendrix: He could kiss the sky.

Dolores quit her job and moved in with Blackburn the following week, right after they opened their joint checking account. Blackburn put his clothes in the dresser, and Dolores took the closet. They spent the Fourth of July in bed. The week after that, on Thursday, July 10, they were married at noon by a judge. They had celebratory sex at home, and then Blackburn went to work. There, he had an inspiration and made a pile of over a hundred sanchos.

But the Jews for Jesus didn't return. The sanchos cooled. It was the slowest night since Blackburn had started. He figured he was allowed one mistake.

The newlyweds planned a honeymoon trip to Marin County for the first Sunday after the wedding, but then a Taco Tommy employee fell ill, and Blackburn had to work. He pointed out to Dolores that he would be paid time-and-a-half for the extra hours, so they could take an even better trip later. Dolores said that was fine, as long as the trip wasn't the next weekend. That was when her parents were coming up from Los Angeles to meet her new husband. Blackburn was not looking forward to the meeting, and he wished that Dolores had given him the same wedding gift he had given her: He had told her that his parents were dead.

When the visitation weekend arrived, Dolores and her mother spent all day Saturday shopping while Dolores's father watched baseball games on Blackburn's TV. He only spoke once, to compliment Blackburn on the Old Milwaukee beer in the refrigerator. When Blackburn left for work, Dolores's father was still in front of the TV.

There was another employee shortage at the Taco Tommy the next day, so Blackburn only saw his in-laws for a few minutes in the morning when they came over from the motel. Then he had to go to work again. Dolores's father complimented him on his initiative, and her mother said that he certainly was a catch. They were gone when he returned that night, and Dolores locked herself in the bedroom and cried. Blackburn drank Old Milwaukee and watched TV until she emerged and ravished him on the couch.

Blackburn was glad to be Eddie Reese. He was glad to have a horny wife and a steady job. He was glad that he no longer had to survive on the run. He hadn't killed anyone since Philadelphia, almost a year ago, so there was no reason to leave San Francisco. Most people here were polite, and the dirtballs, if they existed, weren't running into him. Or maybe he just didn't mind them so much now that he had Dolores. Thank goodness for Dolores. Thank goodness his old life was over.

Things didn't start to go wrong until he had been married almost a month.

The rent came due on Friday, August 1, and Blackburn wrote a check for it. A week later his landlord telephoned him at work to tell him that the bank had returned the check for insufficient funds. Blackburn didn't understand it. He promised his landlord that he would clear up the problem.

When Blackburn came home that night, Dolores was asleep. He didn't wake her to make love, as was his habit, but instead sat at the kitchen table and went through his checkbook register. He triple-checked the math and then looked at the pad of checks themselves. There were three missing that weren't accounted for in the register. He remembered the shopping trip that Dolores and her mother had taken. He hadn't been home when they had returned, so he hadn't seen what, if anything, Dolores had bought.

He went into the bedroom and turned on the light. Dolores mumbled and stuck her head under her pillow. Blackburn opened the closet and found three empty shopping bags on the floor. The attached receipts were dated July 19 and added up to over four hundred dollars. The checking account was overdrawn even without counting the rent.

Blackburn went to the bed and knelt on the floor beside Dolores. "Sweet love," he said, taking the pillow from her head, "our checkbook is overdrawn. The rent is past due. You spent too much shopping and didn't record the checks."

Dolores's eyes opened. "Sorry," she said.

"Can you take any of the merchandise back?" he asked.

Dolores stretched, twisting onto her back. The sheet slid down from her breasts. Blackburn started to have an erection.

"Don't think so," Dolores said.

Blackburn couldn't help staring at her rib cage, her breasts, her throat. He wanted to hold her and force his molecules in between hers. "That's all right," he said. "We have enough in savings to cover the deficit, but that's all. So we'll have to be careful for a few months. There won't be any money to spare. We'll have to skip movies and eat lots of Rice-a-Roni." His cock ached for her. It was like a grenade with the pin pulled. "But only until we can save a little again."

"Do I have to go back to work?" Dolores asked. She seemed to be waking up.

"Not if you don't want to."

Blackburn didn't know how it was possible, but their lovemaking that night was better than ever. He really did believe that his molecules mingled with hers and engaged in a million microscopic copulations with simultaneous orgasms.

Money was meaningless.

Blackburn depleted their savings account, paid the August rent, and then worked his ass off, logging as many overtime hours as his boss would allow. He wanted to be sure that he and Dolores would have enough money to get by in September. Most days he worked double shifts, leaving home by eight-thirty in the morning and returning more than sixteen hours later. He worried that Dolores would feel neglected, but she assured him that was not the case. She was proud of him. However, she did get bored sitting at home, so would it be all right if she went out with her girlfriends now and then?

He felt guilty that she should even ask such a question. He had been too harsh about the checkbook error. So he held her shoulders, looked into her eyes, and told her that marriage was not slavery. She could do whatever she liked. He only asked that she take care of herself.

They made love, and Blackburn went to work. When he came home at 1:00 A.M., Dolores was gone. He sat up in bed and waited for her. She came in a little before four, wearing a belted leather jacket that Blackburn had not seen before. Dolores noticed him looking at it and remarked that she had it on loan from one of her girlfriends. She took it off, then stripped naked and leaped on him.

Blackburn went to work four hours later and had trouble keeping his eyes open and making his fingers coordinate. His burritos and tacos fell apart. In the afternoon, he fell asleep in the walk-in refrigerator and woke up shivering. His head ached for the rest of the shift. Dolores was waiting for him when he went home, but for the first time, he didn't want to do anything but sleep. Dolores called him "poor baby" and cuddled his head between her breasts. He dreamed of cotton candy.