Mr. Sandman spoke distractedly. Perhaps I had slept too long.

He had freshly shaved, his skin exuded an air of heat. His thinning gray hair too was damp, brushed back from his creased forehead. Had Mr. Sandman changed into a fresh-laundered white shirt?

A panicked thought came to me—He is naked, below.

But no: Mr. Sandman was fully clothed. White shirt, dark trousers. At school he wore a white shirt, dark trousers, tweed coat. No necktie.

I was very confused. Sitting up, foolishly clutching the silk robe around me. It was shocking to me, to see my bare feet.

You can’t run away. Can’t run far. He would catch you.

He could kill you if he wished. Strangle you.

The man was waiting for me to realize. To scream. To become hysterical.

His fingers were poised. It was up to me.

Lying very still trying to summon my strength. Like water, that falls through outstretched fingers. Despair filled me, yet the calm of reason—silly bare feet, I could not run far.

“Your clothes are here, Violet. I had to launder them—they were soiled . . .”

Mr. Sandman spoke briskly, disapprovingly. Indicating, at the foot of the bed, clothes neatly folded. Strange to see, how neatly folded.

So grateful to see my clothes! I’d been clutching the silk robe around me, in terror that Mr. Sandman would snatch it away.

But he was a gentleman, you could see. The cobblestone house on Craigmont Avenue. So many books.

Could have wept, suffused with gratitude. For he would allow me to live, and he would forgive me the fear and repugnance in my face.

“Our secret, Violet. Do you understand, my dear?”

Yes. I understood. Understood something.

Understood that I’d been allowed to live. To continue.

Discreetly now Mr. Sandman retreated. Allowed me some privacy.

(A bedroom, dimly lighted. At the windows, darkness. The floor was covered in a thin carpet, against a farther wall a tall vertical mirror reflecting pale-shimmering light.)

Hurriedly I dressed. Underwear, jeans. Shirt and sweater. (It did seem as if my panties had been laundered, and had not quite dried in the dryer, the synthetic white fabric somewhat damp, at the same time somewhat warm.)

In his car driving me to my aunt and uncle’s house on Erie Street Mr. Sandman explained that, after school that day, there’d been an emergency meeting of the Math Club. As the Math Club secretary, I had had an obligation to attend.

“You understand, dear, that if you tell anyone about our friendship it will hurt you most. Your family in South Niagara, who have disowned you, will never wish to ‘own’ you again. Your relatives here in Port Oriskany will expel you from their home. And I, too, might be shuttled to—an inferior—school . . .”

At this Mr. Sandman chuckled. As if it were so unlikely, the last of these possibilities might occur.

BATHED ME. HELD ME DOWN. LICKED ME WITH HIS SANDPAPER tongue. Until I squealed, shrieked.