With little ceremony Kechel parted her legs, her beautiful, slender legs, scarcely was he aware of Juliana now as he labored to summon hardness from some netherworld of the soul that he might ram himself into her. His grunting came more quickly. Perspiration from his straining face fell upon Juliana’s face. And there was Juliana’s head being pushed against the headboard of the bed. Oh!—oh … This was too raw, she could not bear such rawness without a drink. Drinks.

A vision came to her of someone listening in the adjacent room. A middle-aged woman, an embittered woman. Mrs. Kechel, Gordon’s mother, forced to hear the mechanical rhythmic thudding, the panting of the male, impersonal, brainless …

Kechel groaned, falling on Juliana. His tensed muscles softened, collapsed. After a dazed moment he muttered something Juliana could not interpret, perhaps not meant for her ear.

Heaving himself, panting, from the damp, tangled sheets, staggering to the sideboard to pour drinks: straight whiskey. Juliana had no intention of drinking straight whiskey at this hour of the day. Juliana had no intention of drinking straight whiskey at this hour of the day in a hotel room with the (naked) father of her fiancé.

Somehow Juliana had become naked. She’d allowed the man to reduce her to himself—naked.

They were drinkers together. He’d seemed to know. The previous night, he’d known. But she could not acknowledge it, she would not.

The fat, hard slug had hurt her, she hadn’t been prepared for its force. Misjudging the man because he was decades older than she and wheezed so piteously. But harder and rougher than she’d anticipated. Kechel was sitting on the edge of the bed now, still breathing heavily, stroking her thigh. There appeared to be a kind of delirium in his face, a flushed, dazed expression.

Wanting to ease away from the weight of the man’s hand but not wishing to risk insulting him. Juliana knew from past experience that an affable man is likely to be the most easily insulted. No, you did not want to arouse the enmity of the affable man.

The fat, hard slug at his groin was soft and flaccid now, harmless. A sort of oily-milky secretion had been released from it. Taking the whiskey glass from Kechel’s fingers, Juliana considered striking the ugly slug with something. Kicking with her foot. But Juliana’s foot was bare, the bare sole of her foot would not seriously injure the fat, thick thing. Better not try to injure it if you could not destroy it altogether. Juliana laughed, for this is the wisdom of the ages.

Not intending even to taste the whiskey, Juliana found herself sipping it. She wasn’t an expert in hard liquor, but she guessed that this was good, expensive whiskey. Out of the minibar, double the usual price.

Kechel was saying how beautiful Juliana was, how beautiful her body, her eyes, her hair—“Yes, but you know that, dear, don’t you? Of course you do.”