She feels like she’s been hypnotized, and she knows that even if she needs to, she won’t be able to make herself throw him. He has a power over her she hasn’t felt since she was a child. Obediently, she walks around the front of the van and gets in, landing on a padded velvet seat identical to his. He pushes a lever with his big toe to shut the door. She feels disarmed, and finds this intoxicating, as though she’s just smoked a joint. She listens to herself breathe as she rubs her arms across the armrests. He puts one foot on the seat of his chair moving it rapidly back and forth to brush the velvet. The moon hangs frozen in the van’s windshield.

“We don’t have to go anywhere,” he says, turning on a light that dimly illuminates the windowless interior of the van. There are two bunks built into each side, covered with velvet spreads to match the front seats. On one of the bunks is a fur rug. The ceiling is glued with squares of mirror; a reflection of the light glows in each one. When he swivels his seat around to face the bunks, so does she.

“Do you live here?” she asks.

“No, but I could if I had to.”

He stands up and moves, half stooped in the low van, to the bunk with the fur rug, where he lies down. She kneels on the carpeted floor beside him.

In Sacred Grounds we look at each other, at her, at our cups.

She laughs at us. “You don’t believe me! But his legs were so much like arms it seemed like there was nothing missing.”

She tells us how he wraps a leg around her waist with a grip so firm she feels she can’t escape, pulling her down on top of him. Her hands slide across the thick fur rug. With his foot he strokes her back, then with one deft motion pulls off her skirt, which has elastic at the waist, and her underpants. His foot slides up her legs, and those toes, she tells us, her mouth slightly open, those toes know just what to do. As they lie side by side, one of the toes—the big toe, she thinks, but she’s not quite sure—penetrates her while two or three of the others move around faster than anything she’s ever felt before, faster than her own fingers. This can’t be a human foot, she thinks, and listens for the hum of a vibrator, or maybe some sort of electric arm or mechanical hand, but she hears nothing. One leg holds her while the other plays until she comes with a rushing sensation she’s never felt before.

“I wet the fur,” she whispers to us. “I came like a man. Can you imagine?”

We stare at her, and then I start to giggle.