I lay in rapture all night, my body held tightly against Sarah’s, my face buried in her hair. When the music turned to the call of dawn, I pulled her from the bed and into the closet, bringing with us the soiled bedding. I dug the shoes from the corner and leaned her coquettishly against the wall, then I wrapped her, swathed her in all the beautiful fabrics I could find.

As morning encroached upon my strength, I hollowed out a nest among the fabrics, then curled up in Sarah’s lap and closed the closet door behind us.

COLIN W. SHERWOOD, M.D.: “I came back the next day to check on the girl, but no one answered the door. I really wanted to do some tests on her. She had no right to be alive, I mean it. I peeked in through the bedroom window, and the bed was stripped, so I figured Sarah was off doing laundry, or at work or something, and the girl had gone on her own way.

“Jesus, you don’t think they were both . . . in the . . . while I was . . .

“Jesus.”

30

30

I cannot believe that any mortal man or woman could ever experience the likes of the honeymoon that She and I had that night. I opened myself to Her so completely, so totally, that I felt filleted, exposed, with no secrets, nothing withheld. She touched portions of me that no man ever could, vulnerable spots no other person could ever even know that I had. Her intimate touches were probing but tender, letting me understand that my vow to Her was all-encompassing. Eternal life included stark honesty, and I held still for Her examination, and I enjoyed Her pleasure as She found me acceptable.

We rode the music together as I bared my soul to Her. She tested, tasted, approved, and returned it to me, altered, marked, stamped with Her authority as judge. And when She was finished, I was joyous at Her final acceptance, and we flew to the heights, sweeping the stars with our love and our laughter, until I realized that I had given everything and She had given nothing.

The music turned sour the very moment that sad thought entered my mind. She tickled me, cajoled me, tried to take my mind from it, but I insisted. The marriage was not equal unless She opened as willingly as had I.

A minor chord strummed through the ether. What right have you to demand equality in this marriage, She asked.

Dark clouds of deep notes echoed in the well that surrounded us. The stars closed the lid on my prison. She was not willing, and I was bereft.

“Angelina,” She teased me, whispering across my ear, but I pulled away, the match unequal, unfair. The fun was lost, the joy had fled. Sadness flushed through me, the granite disappointment a huge, looming monolith.

“Please,” She said. “You don’t know what you ask.”

“I do know.”