How happy how very happy she was to be home, and how very happy they were to see her: except, on the second day, Monica’s mother ventured the opinion that she looked “just a little tired,” “a little pale,” and wondered if perhaps she was working too hard; and Monica said, hurt, annoyed, that she wasn’t at all tired, she was feeling exceptionally well, she was so happy to be home how could she possibly look tired!

“Only about the eyes, dear,” Monica’s mother said.

A six-day visit, and five days to go.

A sweaty disagreeable sleep, a body pressed upon hers, the sensation in her loins as sharply acute as if a man were entering her—penetrating her—an erect penis jamming itself into her body.

But they were not in Monica’s girlhood room, in her bed, they were (suddenly) dancing: grinding their bodies against each other: trying to kiss with bared teeth.

Angry. Greedy.

And what shame: for people were watching, it was in a public place, a ring of strangers formed to stare.

Monica woke and the sensation in her loins vanished at once.

She could have wept, she wanted it to remain; wanted it to flower into something yet more keen, more powerful. Her heart was racing unpleasantly, a trickle of perspiration ran down her side. No, she didn’t want sexual excitation, she didn’t want even to think of it, not now. She didn’t want the memory of her husband or of any other man, defiling her now.

You see I am happy here, Monica thought, in this place where you have never been, and where no one knows your name.