But McKay’s drinking became worse. He was expending more and more of himself, first on the bandstand, then in bed. He needed the drinks to steady him. But his temper was not steady. He quarreled with customers, quarreled with his band, quarreled with Terry. After a while the Lafayette replaced him. He got a booking at a less flossy place. But now he was on the skids. He no longer talked about marriage. Some nights he just never came home. When he did, he was drunk.

Terry dismally watched her love affair turning to ashes in front of her eyes. For months she had given everything to McKay, neglected the furthering of her own career, spent every moment with him—and now it was all coming to nothing. The way down was fast.

One night he came home completely drunk and wanted to make love. He groped clumsily for her, but he smelled so badly of gin and sweat that he repulsed her. She was wearing nothing but a housecoat, and he pulled her to him, his hand diving past the lapel to grip her breasts, and he said thickly, “C’mon, baby, let’s make it. Get down on the bed and cooperate.”

She pushed him away, but he came back again, seizing the housecoat and ripping it off her, and she huddled with her arms across her breasts, ashamed of her nakedness in front of him for the first time, because tonight he was a stranger to her. He forced her down on the bed and she locked her ankles together, determined not to give in to him, hating him. He seized her thighs, bruising the tender flesh, but she resisted him, and in his drunkenness he could not separate her legs. Then he began to twist her feet, and the pain was unbearable. She drew one foot back and kicked him in the chest, pushing him away. He sat down hard on the floor, looking surprised. Then he rose, coming menacingly toward her. He slapped her face and gripped her breasts tightly and when she rolled into a defensive ball he slapped her side, her neck, her back. Suddenly the liquor became too much for him and he slipped to the floor, weeping and mouthing obscenities and threatening to rape her when he recovered control of his body.

That night she broke up with him. She threw him out into the street, and he lay there sobbing till morning, and then he went away.

The golden hours were over. Terry had his photo and her memories, and nothing else.

Regretfully she tried to pick up the pieces of her life as it had been before the McKay episode. She had given him her virginity, and when she stared at herself in the mirror she wondered if she looked any different now, looser, coarser.