"Oh Jeezus."

Now she was becoming a little frightened. She said, "I'm done with all that. Why go through the motions?"

"Do as you like."

"I like to be with you."

But she had no real excuse to refuse a date. Her evenings and weekends were free. She was healthy, and there was nothing about dictaphone typing to keep her in the office after five o'clock. Doug knew she wasn't caught up in any whirl or social activity. She wasn't writing a book, or painting a picture, or like Erika's friend Marishka, putting in hours at the barre in hope of being the next Markova. There was absolutely no reason she could give this kind, pleasant, decent young man for refusing to go to the movies or out for a pizza.

She wondered idly what would happen if she told the truth. I don't want to go with you because men have no appeal to me at all. I happen to be in love with a woman. This woman, sitting across the room from me with her lovely head bent over a book. We love each other, we sleep together, she is a volcano of love such as you can never know, you nice young man.

Even if one colleague of Erika's knew the truth, it was too risky. In the area of private morality it's not necessary to have proof. Charges were never brought. Suspicion is enough.

She couldn't do that to Erika, just to avoid being bored. And she couldn't tell him she was going with someone else. He would know she was lying.

She simply said, "Okay, I'll go if he asks me again."

"He only wants you to go to the movies with him and maybe have something to eat later. He doesn't want to marry you."

"Of course. I'm being silly."

But she panicked when he showed up the following Sunday evening loaded with delicatessen and (Erika's warning) a carry-carton of Coke. "Say if you've made plans," he said cheerfully. "I can't stay long, got a date—I thought maybe I could invite myself to supper."

"Of course, we're glad to have you. Hang up your coat."

He asked Kate, "Don't you ever stay home? I've been trying and trying to see you—never saw a girl so hard to catch at home."

"Oh?"

"Thought maybe you'd like to go a movie."

"Why not?"

"Swell. Tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow would be fine."

She forced herself to eat and talk, feeling Erika there like a sheltering wall. And when he left she clung to Erika, first in terror and then in passion, so that the evening ended in bed and it was good, better than it had ever been before. As though the threat of his touch made her love Erika more.

But in the morning she got up heavily, weighed down by a feeling of dread. She spilled coffee on the tablecloth, dropped a lighted cigarette on her good skirt. She even bumped into a small boy downstairs. Red with shame, she stopped to look into the hall mirror and saw that she was blotchy, untidy and tired. This is going to be one hell of a day, she thought miserably.