What happened next, exactly, it’s hard to describe. I remember lying on my back, with Sara straddled over me. My grip was easy one instant, my hands gentle on her shoulders, then my grip tightened. I felt her resist, I saw her panic. My muscles were paralyzed, locked, and I could not open my hands to let her loose. I felt the convulsion. I lifted my head, looking into her eyes, trying to speak her name, but then she pulled away. I tugged back. I was clumsy and our heads butted, one against the other. Then I must've gone into a full fit. I went black. For how long, I’m not sure. I came back slowly, still in darkness. I could sense her movement in the room, hear her talking, but I could not move, and then the spell was broken and I was up, sitting on the edge of the bed. (I closed my eyes and saw a shadow inside myself, a little man moving within the shadow of another little man moving along the edge of a dark plane.) Sara stood across the room, bare-chested, holding the phone in her hands. She still wore her gray office skirt, hiked and rumpled. Her lip was bruised, badly, and my nose was bleeding.

“What happened?” She kept her distance, but her look was as much puzzlement as fear.

I tried to speak, but I couldn’t. After such incidents, it takes a while to get back your tongue.

“Are you all right?”

I nodded.

“You really scared me.”

Outside I heard a siren. An ambulance on its way up the hill.

“I called emergency,” she said.

In another minute, the paramedics stood at the door, knocking. My voice returned, audible but faint. A kind of croaking. “I guess you better let them in,” I said.

Sara grabbed a robe, something silk with a lace fringe. Held it close at the collar. I grabbed my pants from the floor.

She let the paramedics in. The first was tall and earnest, a bit breathless from the stairs. The second was a skinny little brute who looked as if he belonged on morgue detail. They took the scene in, glancing from one of us to the other.

The skinny one regarded me suspiciously. He turned to Sara. “Is this some kind of domestic squabble,” he said. “Do we need a cop out here?”

“No,” I insisted.