“I’ve heard of that happening,” says Lynne.

The others shake their heads.

“No,” says Janice, who’s organizing a library of feminist writing for the Women’s Center. “That couldn’t be possible.”

Lynne glares at us until we’re quiet.

Ilka shrugs and says, “It happened.”

He rubs the wet spot with his foot and kisses her again. She’s still embarrassed, but he finds nothing odd about this wetness; if anything, it seems to arouse him further.

“I don’t meet many women like you,” he whispers in her ear. “Take your blouse off.”

While she sits up to unbutton her blouse, he lifts a toe to his crotch, ripping his fly apart to expose his erect penis. Where a zipper should be she sees strips of blue Velcro. He slides out of his pants like a snake shedding its skin, but leaves his shirt on. She’s fascinated by his short military haircut.

His leg is around her waist; he pulls her down to his penis, which she takes in her mouth and sucks until she feels he’s about to come, then pushes his leg down and sits herself on top, riding while he writhes beneath.

After he comes, she comes again, but she can’t tell if the wetness is hers or his. She rolls onto her back beside him and feels with her hand, then sniffs and licks her fingers, but it all tastes and smells like sperm.

She sits up. “I’ve got to leave,” she says, and is disappointed when he slithers back into his pants without comment, passing a toe over the Velcro closure. She wants those legs to grip her again so tight she can’t move.

Ilka puts on her blouse, fumbling with the buttons. She imagines him reaching under a bunk with his foot and pulling out a gun, but she knows she can unbalance him easily with a kick. She feels let down.

He sits on the bunk smiling at her while she binds her hair in her brown silk scarf, then crawls to the front of the van and opens the door. In her mind he jumps on her, pulling her to the floor with his powerful legs while she struggles to break free, but when she looks back, he just sits, smiling.

She jumps out of the van and runs to her car, wanting him behind her as she roars out of the parking lot in a sputter of gravel. She keeps checking the rearview mirror all the way home, but he’s not there.