She was weeping. Ben stared at her in surprise. This was her secret then? She wanted to paint? He suppressed an urge to smile at her, as if she were a child pleading for what was already hers.

She read his expression and sat down and put her head back against the cloak. She closed her eyes. "Miriam understands, and so do my sisters," she said tiredly, and now the high color in her cheeks faded and she looked very young and weary. "They won't let me do it."

"Why not? What's wrong with painting?"

"I… they don't like the way the pictures make them feel. They think it's dangerous. Miriam thinks so. The others will too."

Ben looked at the tiny boat in the endless ocean. "But you don't have to paint this one, do you? Can't you do something else?"

She shook her head. Her eyes were still closed. "If someone had a bad heart, would you treat his ear because it was easier?" Now she looked at him, and there was no mockery at all in her face.

"Have you talked to Miriam?"

"She took some drawings I did of the brothers on the trip. She didn't like them. She kept them. I don't have to talk to her, or the others. I know what they will say. I bring them only pain anymore." She thought of them with the Clark brothers on the mat, laughing, sipping the amber wine, caressing the smooth boy/man bodies. It wasn't group sex, she thought suddenly. It was male and female broken up into parts, just as the moon broke on the smooth river. The sisters made one organism, female; the Clark brothers made up one organism, male, and when they embraced, the female organism would not be completely satisfied because it was not whole that night. One part of its body was missing, had been missing for a long time. And the missing part, like an amputated limb, caused phantom pain.

"Molly." Ben's voice was gentle. He touched her arm and she started. "Come to my room with me. It is very late. Soon it will be dawn."

"You don't have to," she said. "I thought I wouldn't tell you, that's why I turned around before I got to your office today. Then tonight, I thought I had to tell you because I needed help. You don'thave to."

Almost reluctantly Ben said, "Come with me, Molly. To my room. I want you to."

Chapter 16