The Sender of Letters

"All right!" She said. "Feel better tonight. I'll try to do the same."

"We'll both try," her husband said dryly, and she stood holding the door open for him. Within herself Sheila felt the quarrel reaching the point of fire again, anguish and hatred, then pure bright contempt, simply because his hasty unhappy breakfast had left a smudge of soft-boiled egg in the corner of his mouth; but of course she said nothing; she was sorry, he was sorry; and as the screen door fell to, she leaned, frowned, watched his sagging retreating shoulders out to the car, the cotton sack suit pulled shapeless at the pockets.

She wished that he would learn not to stuff things in his pockets -- it gave him fat hips -- but nevertheless she was sorry for him. He had arranged a transfer to the Miami laboratories of G. S. Perry, Inc., just because she loved the sun; now he suffered the daily rush-hour trip through heat into town from Fort Lauderdale, leaving her behind to consider how tropical clothes robbed his rapidly aging body of the dignity which bulky northern tweeds had allowed it. She was sorry they quarreled. She was sorry they had no children, sorry she looked so much younger than Fred, sorry they fed on a diet of senseless cruelty and quarrels whose origin she could often not even remember; sorry, sorry, sorry.

Most of all she was sorry for herself.

But she would do the best she could for both of them.

The nights of tears and chill tense huddling on separate countries of their double bed usually ended with an abrupt desperate spasm of lovemaking, engorging and unsatisfying, and then perhaps they slept an hour or two, and then the alarm clock sounded -- nothing settled, nothing changed, nothing helped. There would be the weary clop-clop bumping about, breakfast, and then -- as on this morning -- he left her in peace.

Peace and loneliness, not friends but her most intimate parents.

But abruptly Sheila smiled; her mood changed; luxuriously she stretched, shook her hair, and shed her clothes. She took a quick comfort, like an extra cup of coffee, in the reminder that she still looked young enough to wear her sun-lightened hair long to her shoulders, or in thick plaits, or any way she chose. Naked but for her hair, she walked about the house, strolling idly, enjoying her body alone as she never did under her husband's clasp. She felt the early heat of the Florida summer day seeping in under the roof and through the window against which the slats of Venetian blinds rustled in an occasional sea breeze. No living person could see her, but the white of sky and the flash of sun were eyes. And she could glimpse her own body in the mirror, although in her innermost northern heart she felt it immoral to stand and stare. She merely walked slowly, casually peeking, back and forth before the glass.

It was still fine, high, lithe. She stood stretching on the chill tiles. Yes, why should foolish childhood prohibitions deprive her of pleasure in her own body? There was a poet who said, "The lust of the goat is the bounty of God." In an unhappy world, Sheila argued, don't we all deserve what little joy we can find? And did not poor Sheila's flesh -- her work of art -- deserve the same rapt contemplation which the sculptor gives his statue?

Yes. She stopped and found new slopes and valleys, the marvelous shifting geography of a lovely woman's body. At 30, Sheila still possessed that faintly adolescent grace, gawky and unused, for which the pretty woman who will never bear children is sometimes the envy of her friends. Self-love seems to replace love of family, and at its highest skill molds an adorable creature barely betrayed by line at nose and dip at mouth. The tan too served Sheila well, and in the half-light of sunny yellows and browns, the marks of straps and the line of her swimsuit framed the delicious forbidden areas.

With an angry pout she turned from the mirror. She had come too close without realizing it. Dreams are no one's fault.

Hastily now she seized swimsuit, extravagant sail of towel, terrycloth robe, sunglasses and notebook. The notebook was in case she wanted to write a poem, although she never did. She thought thoughts, however, and it was nice to know that she could write them down if she only cared to. She put her beach equipment into the woven souvenir basket that Fred had bought her on their trip to Puerto Rico and set it on the back seat of her red Renault convertible in the carport, its top already folded down and ready. The little French runabout was an anniversary gift from Fred, paid for out of his bonus for solving a troublesome detail at the lab; it had brought a truce between them which lasted for weeks; it was a putt-putt darling and a marvel for her little trips to the beach. She loved the way she looked in it bouncing down the sand road, her long blonde hair flying (its color changed by the sun, not by anything artificial), her intense little chin lifted to the breeze and her eyes secretive behind sunglasses.

The move to Fort Lauderdale was justified by such fine moments. After their quarrels and furtive reconciliations, Fred could sometimes sleep a little, but Sheila got none of the good of these bitter nights. Insomnia had been a menace to her skin, her hair, her health itself up north. It steals the gloss. Now, however, she could hurry off to the beach and lie quivering, easing under the sun in the gentle urging of sun. The salt smell of ocean and the everlasting fierce probing light burned her to sleep; she could return home later and make dinner for Fred and perhaps life would go on. He would be exhausted from his day at the laboratory after the terrible nights of unhappy marriage. Sometimes she returned from the beach rested, at peace, and willing to forgive. It was as if the occasional flies, like imperative lovers, headlong and undeterred by either slap or passivity, sucked the anger from her body which yielded only under the sun.

Fred was a nice guy, one of the world's slender store of nice guys, and also inward-looking, gifted, and pleased with his gift. This is not enough for happiness. Sandy, pale, thin-chested, with softly folding pout of a middle-aged belly despite his boyish legs and arms, he had, it seemed, been born with a passion for chemistry; and when it turned out that Sheila could never have children, he directed all his creative lust into his work, except for that forever new, forever crushed adoration of Sheila that made each argument a torment and made him then go touching her at night, tentatively, imploringly, like that first time years before when they parked in his father's prewar Hudson. He wore glasses and held the newspaper nearly at arm's length; he needed bifocals, but would not get them because he did not want Sheila to be reminded that age catches up with everyone, even those who love their youth too much, as she did. Despite his sandy receding hair and narrow, peaked face, he had a firm, determined and realistic mouth. He was a good organic chemist and an intelligent man. If his choice of Sheila to love was foolish, he did not fool himself about her. The most logical minds have the most irrational ambitions. He accepted the fact that he loved her and he could not bear the thought of losing her. He would fight, he would plead, he would wait patiently through all her moods of childish petulance.

Both weak men and strong men would long since have given her up -- the weak because of weakness, the strong because of strength. The weak man would despair of her; the strong one would learn to go his way without her. Fred knew himself to be neither of these final cases. He simply loved her and was determined not to be broken by her. And not to lose her.

He had a rare consolation and nourishment -- a deep love of his research -- and this absorption in work helped him to survive and even to grow while in thrall to an angry woman. He could turn outside himself; Sheila could only turn within, to that girlish dream of the cavalier lover, her first and last recourse.

She knew it of herself.

Why now did the dream return with such stifling intensity? Sun-battered flecks of green and yellow spun slowly, revolved to a stop behind her eyelids. The deserted weekday beach had altered. Someone was watching. She could not see him, but her body responded, yearning toward admiration. It was odd how this happened; the black dead fall of the beach nap which remedied her nighttime insomnia depended on the study of strolling men -- they were her silent protecting chamber -- and usually she awoke suddenly, with a lively pleasure, when a man stopped and stared and she felt his desire penetrate her dreamless sun-drenched dozing.

She opened her eyes. "What -- what?"

"I'm sorry, Miss -- ah, M'am," he said, elaborately taking notice of her wedding ring when she moved. "I thought maybe you were asleep and maybe I should wake you up." He grinned and showed a coarse, healthy row of thickly tobacco-stained teeth. "Reason is, M'am, I once had a friend fell asleep face up like that in the sun, and she -- I mean he -- was wearing sunglasses but she really burned her eyes bad. Dangerous business. Maybe you're not used to the sun down here."

She stretched, pushing sand, and then sat up and held her knees. "No, I'm from up north until this year, but you get the tan fast."

"Yes, yes," he said, eying her deliberately, all over, his excuse a scholarly concern with her color. "Yes, Ma'm, but eyelids are another story, and the tender eye... Well, my friend, she, I mean he...."

While he talked to her, standing with his shadow stretched out in the morning sun on the deserted beach, she studied the stranger. He was wearing a tee-shirt and denim pants and white tennis shoes without socks, almost a college-boy carwashing uniform; the tee-shirt was cut at the neck, and then drawn together with a shoelace in an odd affectation; he was no college boy -- he was at an indeterminate slender healthy age, with a salt-weathered, deeply tanned face, small, prying black eyes, and a graceful, very youthful stance as he grinned and chattered at her so fast that it took her a time to understand that what he said made no difference to him or to her; it was just his clever and experienced way of putting them at their ease with each other.

"Engineer on Captain Sam Olliver's boat... The engineer gets a share and a quarter on shrimp, you know, and we had ourselves a real good trip -- thirty-five days and twenty-eight hundred dollars was my share... Happens sometimes, Ma'm."

She was interested and, still standing, he grinned and told her. "The captain gets a share and a half, plus two percent--oh it's complicated. The cook and me, we get a share and a quarter. Mess time is important to men out like that. The crew, well, a share each. When you have a good catch, you're rich for a while. Then you wait till it's time to go out again."

"Sounds like a good life."

He did not answer. Instead he stretched, still grinning, and finally said, "Yes, but out on a small ship like that, just pulling in nets and seeing to the engine for thirty, thirty-five days... Well, Ma'm, you get to missing things."

Sheila gasped. Abruptly he had reached for his belt and was unloosening it and unsnapping the pants and down they fell.

"My Lord, honey, I mean Ma'm, you're jumpy, aren't you? What do you think a sailor is made of?"

Of course he was wearing something underneath, a black bikini swimsuit which did not at all match the rough beach-strolling clothes. He was an engineer, (continued on page 86)Sender(continued from page 34) not a mere sailor. "I'm sorry," Sheila said, feeling the flush rise to her face and relieved that the glare of sun would hide her embarrassed color. In voluntarily, instinctively, like the flies which sometimes attacked her in the high grass between her car and the beach, she gazed at his body, an agile, wiry and powerful one, of middle height, with just slightly bowed legs as he stood in the sand, his pants dropped to his ankles and the tee-shirt now pulled over his head. During that quick moment when he could not see her, her eyes fled to the brief clothed part of his body. He looked much stronger, more wiry, bunched and thicker than Fred... And the hectic flush rose again to her face. She wanted to jump up, kicking sand, and run for the surf.

"Reason we do this to our tee-shirts, Ma'm, it's a mariner trick, is you know it gets hot, sticky, and you get that salt spray. Hard to get them off unless you can loosen at the neck."

He handed her the tee-shirt to let her admire his sailor's skill at piercing the cloth and threading in a shoelace. It was as if he had read her mind at wondering about it. She could smell him in the cloth as she held it. She let it fall near his pants and the tennis shoes. Abruptly, without warning, just as he had dropped his pants, he now dropped himself in the sand beside her, again talking rapidly to get over the moment of shyness at a new step in this pickup dance which must have been ritual with him. He was too good at it. Sheila resented and admired his boldness, his skill, and especially the way he would mention his friends, saying, "She -- I mean he," in a cunning correction which somehow made the whole question of sex very important.

With this recognition of jealousy -- she did not even know his name! -- she became angry. "I'm going in," she said, jumping up in an imitation of his brusqueness and running toward the sea.

"Me too! Wait up!"

Of course! But she ran, laughing, to be first in the boiling white and blue surf, and for an instant felt his hand pursuing her as she slipped away, diving into a rolling wave and grateful for its cooling touch to her fever. It did not count in the water, she decided. She could not be expected to know his touch from that of the sea.

They came out together, ostentatiously separated. But had they really touched? Why this shyness? she thought. Why guilt already for nothing at all?

Perhaps because she did not like his laughter. It had a shrill, almost feminine note in it. It was unlike him.

"What's your name?"

"Larry, didn't I tell you? Engineer Larry Fortiner, the shrimper's friend, changes kerosine to Cuba rum!" And again that shrill insistent laughter.

She lay back, closed her eyes, and drowsily they talked. The morning sun rose; the stretch of beach was deserted except for an occasional stroller, picking shells -- most people went to the guarded beaches. Perhaps she slept for a time; perhaps he slept, too. At least there was a silence of deep consideration between them. She could never recall the act of falling asleep on the beach, but she slept often, because she would return home refreshed, the tumult within stilled for a time, and perhaps ready to help poor Fred feel better after the hurt night and the long hurt exhausted day at the laboratory. Like the days without Larry, this morning passed mostly in dream, and she might then go home to admire the fresh reddish glow of her skin and the newly lightened hair. She would brush and brush her hair until all the sand was out, but she knew it still smelled of sun. The thought made her feel desired; she knew she was. While she dozed, she sensed through her pores the stares of other strange men passing by. Without opening her eyes, she raised one knee, slowly, languidly, giving them the sight in motion of the inside of her thigh against the inside of her thigh. She always wore her black swimsuit for these silent lonely outings.

Silent and lonely! And yet when she moved her legs now she knew the name of an important watcher: Larry. And Larry loved watching. Sheila felt the sun and his hot black gaze pouring over her, probing and pleasing her, so that she lay for a moment spreading in the golden light, and it seemed to her that the invisible secret organs of pleasure were swelling, replying; and then with abrupt shame she thrust her hand between her legs, just as if she were a man, to hide herself; and then remembered that she was a woman and nothing could be seen and the hand fluttered away.

She opened her eyes, smiled, shook her head, sat up, and said, "My Lord. The sun must be ... I've got to get home, Larry."

And burned fiercely inside.

And went on, staring at him with a sun-dazzled boldness. "You must be, on that shrimp boat of yours -- you seem to be tan all over -- do you ---- ?"

"Say it. Spit it out, Sheila."

When had she told him her name? When had he begun using her name so casually?

"Do you work on shipboard without clothes? Without clothes at all?"

He threw back his head to laugh, the sun glinting on the oily black hair, his thick eyebrows gleaming, and the hair of his body and the slightly bowed legs glittering with salt slick; and somehow now she did not mind the high note of his laughter.

The rest happened very rapidly, but Sheila did not object either to being a classic case. He asked her to go with him now to his hotel in town. She lowered her eyes and shook her head. He seemed to expect this, and was willing to allow her to shower, to make preparations. He paused a moment. He asked her to meet him later in the afternoon, in about three hours -- at his hotel, in room 318, just go straight up. She did not need to run the risk of being seen with him.

"No," she whispered.

"Let's say two o'clock. I'm an impatient man."

"Oh no, please Larry, don't!" she said, shaking her head violently.

"Why not? We understand each other pretty well already, in fact we agree." He showed his teeth in a smile without humor. "I know we agree. So why not, Sheila?"

"Well... Well...." Head lowered, face hot. "I have a jealous husband."

And again his high infuriating laughter. Sheila, who was mobilized for communication with him, knew the reason for his amusement. Her words were a seal to the agreement, and they both knew it, for she had said, "I have a jealous husband"; not I'm married, I won't, but simply, "I have a jealous husband...."

But if I could!

And so quickly he made plans for her. She was to take the Renault in for a change of oil, leave it, go down Front Street to the Tides Hotel; he lived on the third floor, she could walk up the alley stairway -- "Agreed?"

Swept along, it seemed inevitable. She nodded yes. She got up and gathered her towel, sunglasses, slippers. She felt a congested adrenaline pout filling her lips. Larry's nasal voice and angry eyes altered her blood as the weight of Fred's body could only rarely do.

"One thing more before you go," he said. He was looking at her solemnly, standing with his hands on his hips, rocking slightly in the sand on those dark, strong, slightly bowed legs. "I've been at sea a long time, Sheila. I'm rough, but that's OK. You want that. But it means something, honey: Do not disappoint me, hear?"

"I'll be there, Larry."

"Hear me now?"

"I said so, Larry."

"Don't change heads on me when you're safe at home."

"Don't threaten me!" she cried, shaken and near tears with excitement, and turned toward the high grass where her car was parked. Then she faced around to where Larry stood, watching her thoughtfully and pulling his jeans back on. "I do what I want," she said quietly. "I haven't wanted this before, but now I do. So I'll do exactly what I want."

The last thing she saw was his casual grin and wave as she slipped onto the scorched seat of the little 4-CV. The motor barked as she spun in a half-circle and fled up the dirt road to the highway. While in town she could also have the tailpipe replaced.

• • •

Home after this long morning in the sun, Sheila found it past lunchtime already. She had a headache compounded of sun, hunger, excitement. She made herself a salad with bits of cheese and long slices of cucumber, and ate even the rye cracker with relish (a gesture toward protecting her weight), and then, for pure high spirits, allowed herself a slice of the lemon pie she had bought for Fred the day before. As if a curtain had been dropped, her headache was blocked away. She felt merely drowsy and satiated in the pleasure of return to the familiar rooms, filled with the comforts of her 10-year marriage, after a tricky and dangerous adventure. The best part of this strange morning was that nothing had been altered.

Not yet.

She showered, considering this yet. With the relief of lunch and a shower, she thought back on the morning as if it were pleasant ancient history. It seemed complete already. Afterwards, wrapped in a robe and ready for a nap, she took an aspirin, not because she had the headache again, but just in case.

No, she thought, of course she would not meet him.

What nonsense!

What foolishness!

No, she did not like his laughter. And though his legs were powerful and rippled tautly, she found the slight bow obscene to contemplate now in her cool shaded cottage. And the hairs all over his body. And his nasty yellow teeth. And that laugh again! Deliciously she shivered with the fright of what she almost did, might have done, perhaps even someday would do.

And with this renewal of her sense of daring pride, her head turned on the pillow and she slept.

A long time she slept. She slept right through the time when she was supposed to meet Larry. Well, too bad. Awakening, she lay slugabed, rubbing her scalp with the pads of fingers, as you are supposed to do, especially when you've had too much sun. Too bad about Larry. Too bad about his waiting for her. Men are such pigs, so eager and greedy for the great struggle, and then so sure of themselves, complete, silent and insufferable afterwards. Let him be sorry! It would be a lesson for his huge male conceit. Next time he would be careful when he preyed on a woman's loneliness.

So she got up to prepare dinner, making the small housewifely gestures of straightening the house, pulling the blind against the late afternoon sun, emptying the ashtrays, setting the table. Then she put a stack of Frank Sinatra records on the machine and sat down to do her nails. She used colorless polish; she was proud of her taste. (She also preferred late Sinatra and early Anita O'Day.) Just as she heard Fred's car pulling onto the gravel -- she kept her Renault in the carport, he left the other car outside -- the telephone rang. She knew, she knew, and she ran to get it.

"Please, you're late. What happened? I've been waiting and waiting." His voice had a hurt urgency that made it very different from the drawling nasal one on the beach.

"No," she hissed, watching the door for Fred, "no, no, I've decided no -- don't call here again."

"Please, honey."

"No!"

"You promised me, Sheila."

"It was a mistake. Now don't bother me again, it was just a terrible mistake. I'm sorry if I -- oh, why should I have to apologize to you? Just don't bother me again."

There was an instant of silence. In this silence she could feel his arrogance flowing back, and now abruptly she saw him again on the beach, shocking her by ripping at the snaps and dropping his pants. And over the telephone came that shrill laughter, almost like a woman's, and she was abruptly grateful for her narrow escape, that prudence which had protected her from the sun-twisted, fleeting desires of the beach. A bow-legged sailor with oily hair all over his body and a womanish giggle! She hung up on him while he was still laughing.

Putting away the garden tools, puttering outside, admiring his little property before going in to the risks of troubled marriage, Fred gave her a moment to gather her calm like black netting about her, revealing and not revealing, ready. She was impatient to see him, and finally ran outside. "Darling, whatever are you doing? Don't worry about the plants, I'm waiting for you!" She wrapped her arms lightly about his shoulders and kissed him, mouth and tongue, and then, smiling, pulled away the upper part of her body. "Why don't you take a shower, darling? Of course I like your big bad male smell, but it's been a long day. While you wash up I'll have a drink out for the both of us, OK?"

"What a rush!" He grinned, rising at once to the unexpected boon of her good spirits. "What have you been doing? I see a fresh sunburn under your tan ----"

"Just waiting for you, darling. Hurry now," and she got behind him and put both hands on his rump and playfully pushed him, talking train, "Choo! choo! choo! We're heading in to clean up the great scientist!"

Fred's wanness passed over to good cheer and gratitude under her happy welcoming mood. Oddly enough, his jacket pockets did not seem to sag when he smiled, was joshing and gallant, clinked glasses. She did not resent his pale, untanned face, because when he took off his glasses she could see that he had managed to get some sun anyway: the browned cheeks contrasted with the pale, bluish pouches under his eyes. "Honey," he said, "you're full of vinegar, you even spilled your bottle of nail polish. Want to go into town for a movie?"

"Let's just stay home," she murmured, "and... and...."

"I'll help you clean up the polish," he said.

And she was touching, touching, touching him, and they were slipping down. They made love on the cold tiles of the inside patio floor in the heat of the Florida summer evening. With fierce gratitude Sheila clutched the dear straining face looming over her, and feeling the icy smoothness of tile against her sunburned back and against the flesh of her buttocks, an unprecedented marvel of desire came to dwell in her; she believed that she loved Fred, had always loved Fred, only only Fred. Breathless and gasping, she asked him to carry her to bed afterwards. He smiled and was strong enough to do it. Dreamily she kissed him, many light sleepy kisses now, grateful and dreaming, and then turned to sleep.

Lucky Fred, lucky Sheila.

Poor Larry, poor boy, she thought. Hunting on the endless beach. Tanned sailor with sly tobacco smile and powerful bowlegs. No, engineer on the shrimper, not sailor, and his jeans full of lazy money. Tribute of his hurt voice on the telephone. A history of hurt desire in that hard calculating face. He couldn't take his eyes from the inside of her thighs. That black suit looked swell on her--no, charming, not swell. Vulgar word. Piquant. Pee-kwunt. Adorable. Those are words for thighs rising to grip Fred's shoulders. Larry's mean laughter. Oily hair all over him. Why, he even dared to touch her in the boiling surf.

Maybe that's what a wife needs to be loyal to her husband and content with him -- the ardent, angry, dangerous tribute of a pickup on the beach.

Foreplay, she believed it was called.

• • •

They, Sheila thought bitterly, They won't let you be happy. You have to pay and pay and pay in this hard life. It was as if the decision had been made on some fiery beach in the underworld.

But the devil was not They. It was simply He.

The next morning, shortly alter a tender silent breakfast -- Sheila had got up to squeeze the juice for Fred

-- just a few minutes after Fred left for work, the first special delivery letter came.... For God's sake, after what we. have meant to each other, you can't just break it off now. You came into my life like a gift I did not deserve, but you just tear yourself away. You can't. I know you don't really want to break with me.... And on like that. Ever yours as always, Larry. She recognized the game at once. Blackmail. But the question was: when would he stop? Was he crazy or merely malicious? Did it make any difference which?

Impulsively she ran to the telephone and dialed his hotel. Breathlessly she shouted at him over the telephone, "I know your trick! Don't! You have no rights on me! How can you take advantage of a woman without defense?" And then, struggling to master herself, "Please, Larry, I beg you. It was fine to meet you like that, you were handsome -- " She tried cunning to match his. She purred in a voice she recognized as her last-night's voice on the tile. "You were so attractive I didn't know what I was saying. I was tempted. You're so -- but please now, Larry, my self-respect... You know I'm a married woman."

He answered. "I'm waiting for you. I'll stay in this hotel. I want you, I must have you, Sheila. You promised. For God's sake, for my sake and your sake ----"

"Oh please!"

"Even for your husband's sake----" And the steady ardent courting voice suddenly broke to shrill laughter. It was no use. She hung up.

Was it her imagination, or did the postman have a nasty little grin on his face when he came with the second special delivery letter? It was very short this time.

Deep within my loneliness I kiss again in memory the little mole on the highest tender part of your left thigh. Darling I need you.

She did not go out all day. She locked the doors and pulled the blinds, though she believed that he would not approach the house. She stared into space and jumped at each creak, and she pulled the plug of the electric clock because she could not stand to watch the second hand turning, turning, going noplace, and finally Fred came home, and then it was worse because she had to pretend for Fred while she felt the black bile of anxiety welling up within her at every sound. Was it the postman again? Would the telephone ring? How could she explain to Fred if Larry took it into his head to report about the mole which must have showed just at the elastic line of her swimsuit?

Shouldn't she just tell Fred the truth? The truth wasn't so bad. He should be able to forgive a momentary weakness that came to nothing. But after their quarrels, his suspicions, her habit of running to the beach when there was trouble between them...

In his dry way Fred would ask for an explanation of her passionate demand for him yesterday evening. It would spoil everything; it would sink them.

She was not a brave woman, she would admit it to anyone. She was a coward. All right. Perhaps she should tell Fred, and maybe Larry would tire of his tormenting of her and just go back to his shrimp boat. Eventually he would have to go. Perhaps he would have mercy. At least the early evening passed without another letter, without a telephone call.

Before 10 o'clock, before Fred had even finished his newspaper, Sheila could stand it no longer and threw herself into his arms. "Oh love me. love me, love me," she wept.

"I do, darling. But what's the matter?"

"Nothing."

"What is it?"

She could not speak. She would protect Fred: He would go away. "Nothing," she said, "just love me and take care of me, darling, hurry, please ----"

When she awakened next morning, she was convinced that she had done the right thing. Larry wanted to frighten her, but not to destroy her. He knew very well how to send a letter so that it would arrive in the evening, or to telephone in the evening and arouse Fred's suspicions... She felt almost grateful to Larry, as the prisoner is said to be flooded with love when his tormentor stops hurting him. Oh she would be good to Fred now! Oh she would be kind! He deserved it; he had been sweet, loving, understanding during these last terrible days.

Understanding. She smiled wryly. Men don't need to understand very much to be ardent, understanding.

And then the postman rang again. And the day passed. And the evening.

And the next day again. Another letter. Sheila thought that she would break, but she found strength in herself that she did not suspect. She did not crack. She spent the entire day indoors, waiting, wondering if Larry would go to the trouble of getting Fred's address at the laboratories and writing directly to him. She wondered if he would dare to call Fred there. She figured out things to say to Fred, speeches of justification; she imagined scenes of confession and reconciliation. But she did not dare.

She had come to need Fred's love and trust as she never suspected she could. Her self-love, her control of Fred, her dreams of better men and better fates for pretty little Sheila had disappeared under this threat to the entire structure of her life. One morning she labored and panted and struggled to turn the big mirror to the wall. She did not want to look at herself. She had strange belly weaknesses and pains. Perhaps it had really happened at last and she was pregnant. She ran to the mirror to see if her silhouette had altered, but someone had turned the big mirror to the wall.

And still the letters kept coming.

Each night she studied Fred's face. It was bland and peaceful. Surely he knew nothing. But he was deep, he had quietnesses within him that she only now suspected. It seemed curious to her that he never discussed his work at the laboratory. When she asked him, he said, "Why, I just didn't know you were interested. You haven't asked me in years."

"Tell me! Tell me everything that's on your mind!"

He smiled and stroked her hair. "Kitten," he said, "you're a ruffled little kitten these days. What's on your mind?"

If she were only pregnant, that might explain everything -- or it might make it horribly worse.

And still the letters kept coming.

When the resolution to her problem occurred to her, it seemed so easy and inevitable that she could not understand why she had balked at it for so long. She telephoned the hotel. "All right, you win," she said. "I'll be there at two this afternoon."

"Thank you, thank you, darling," said his now grave voice, and then with the nasal imperative note that was the next thing to his fierce laughter: "For God's sake don't disappoint me this time." And then the hilarity: "You are overdue!" And finally the churning high laughter.

She went. She remembered that oddly pleasant, oddly unpleasant kiss of adrenaline at her lips, and with her anticipation both the swelling pout returned and her bewilderment at it. She was 10 minutes early, but he was waiting. She parked her red Renault down the street and walked a block in the heavy midday heat, dazzled, blinking back tears behind her dark glasses. With a little shock she discovered that it was easy to blink back the tears. There was relief. There was a purpose and hope. Anything to drain him, diminish him, shut him up!

His room was unlocked. She opened the door, closed it behind her, turned, and said calmly, "All right, Larry." It was as if the events of the last week had made them old friends.

He was lying on the bed in the same clothes he had worn when they first met on the beach. He turned on his side without getting up. "Take off your clothes slowly," he said, "and then come here and help me undress."

With an unwinding shiver of release and gratification, she understood that she would now do anything, anything he wanted, and that this passive and brutal control of her was something that, deep within her angry heart, she had always sought and no man had given her before Larry. That night on the tiles with Fred, she had been in fear of herself and what she might do; now she was in fear of Larry, but this dread was a strange sweet excitement that said, Fear nothing, obey!

Silent urging, clenched teeth, throbbing heat, very hot ... It was over very quickly. He rolled away from her without a word. He got up, dressed, and went out. She understood that he wanted her to be gone when he returned.

She hurried, feeling soiled, and left without washing. But now at last she could return to the beach. She would swim in the salt and cleanse herself. She would take the sun again.

Downstairs in the lobby, she found to her surprise that she could look in the mirror. No, she was not soiled. No, she was not pregnant either; that had been morbid fantasy. In the mirror on the elevator door stood a lovely young woman with a hectic flush on her face and her shoulder-bobbed blonde hair tousled. The way a light cotton dress clings to the hips is significantly different among women, and Sheila could see even in this rumpled state that hers clung nicely, sweetly, clingingly. It has something to do with the hips. It even has something to do with the quality of the dress. But mostly, Sheila decided, it is the walk, the way a girl carries herself, her pride in her ability to seize and draw a man so that he can never never never forget her or make do with anyone else, never, no matter where he goes after they pay him his share of the load of shrimp.

She listened to the clack of her heels smarting down the pavement toward the little red Renault. She swam that afternoon; she came home tired and content and at peace. At last it was over, and Fred did not know.

Such innocence! While they were having dinner, the telephone rang and Sheila seized it and heard a tumult of compliments, of wonderful flattery and recollections of the afternoon. "I don't want any! Leave me alone!" she shouted, and hung up.

"What is it, Sheila?" Fred asked.

"Oh nothing, nothing. Telephone salesman wants to know...."

"What, Sheila?"

"If we want to buy something! What difference does it make?" she almost screamed. "I'm sorry, Fred, I have the jitters and when you pester me with questions ----"

A long slow puzzled look was passed across the table from Fred to her. She felt it like an almost physical transaction. "I wasn't pestering you." he said mildly, and bent to his plate.

Sheila tried to eat. but the diced carrots kept falling off her fork. She had to pierce them like little hearts, and still they fumbled, fell. She looked up and caught Fred staring at her, but he said nothing and she was afraid to ask what he was thinking.

The next day there were no telephone calls or letters, but that evening, after dinner, the postman came with a special delivery letter. She managed to intercept it and tell Fred it was the drugstore with some pills she had ordered. He seemed to accept this.

"But why don't you let me bring them home from the laboratories?" he asked. "If it's sleeping pills, well, I know the fellows working on that project -- it's big business, you know. They're constantly being improved. New compounds. I know one of the boys on ----"

She believed that Larry would never finish with her. One letter came the next morning. And then the next evening. And the next. And they kept coming in the evening. Sheila tried getting Fred to go out every night, and then while he parked in the carport -- she now gave up the space to his sedan -- she would run to the front door and intercept the notice at the mailbox, "A Special Delivery Letter has been placed under your door," and open the door and get the letter before Fred caught up with her.

... You can't change your mind like this. We mean too much to each other. You must not stop now. You must make arrangements, you must....

Must, must, must! She wanted to scream. He was torturing her, and although she was always on the edge of confessing to Fred and pleading for his mercy, she never could. She would plan, resolve, make a little speech, weep... But she never delivered the speech. Once in the middle of the night she woke up with a suspicion. The reason she had gone to Larry, the reason she could not ever tell Fred, was that she wanted to go. Her new dependence on Fred was a gift from Larry, and this was why she could never confess it to Fred and ask his forgiveness. It was Larry who had moved her to Fred with love at last.

... Dearest darling, it won't hurt if once more, once more in a life time of missing each other, we feel again what we mean for each other, what we do for each other. I've never known a woman like you, and you know you told me (I hear your voice again and again through the sleepless nights) how no other man has been able to stir you as I have. What is the right of a husband compared with the rights of desire?

Oh he was clever! He must have spent his days with pen and paper, writing and rewriting and copying these crazy lovenotes. She called him once more. She tried pleading, sarcasm, threats. "It's filthy of you! I could tell the police ----" All she received in answer was his wild gift of laughter. But she would not go to him now, no more! She knew him. Merciless he was.

Exactly when Fred began to suspect, she was not certain. Perhaps it happened when she had looked up to find him staring at her after the first evening telephone call. (Now, when the calls came, she would say, "Wrong number. This is the Frederick Wayne residence.") Perhaps he had intercepted one of the letters and simply lacked the courage to say anything. That would be like Fred, she thought. Maybe it was just his dour, depressed suspiciousness in operation. An odd change had taken place. He began to make love more fre quently. She never thought that Fred would react this way to jealousy. He in sisted greedily, pursued, rose over her with a fevered will. But she knew it was sick. His lovemaking had a quality, enraged and furtive, that she had never felt in him -- not love, but a thin sick fury.

"Are you all right? Do you feel well?" she asked.

"Yes, yes," he muttered, and turned over. He admitted nothing, no matter how she probed. She would almost have welcomed an accusation, and then perhaps she could confess. He turned back and peered into her face in the darkness. "Yes, I feel fine. You, darling? You? Something on your mind?"

She said nothing. The unbearable suspense somehow was borne. The telephone calls kept coming. The letters. At different times. Sometimes a day would pass without a letter or a call, and then she had to wonder if Fred had received it instead.

One evening she lay sleepless, panting and crushed beneath Fred's now ferocious insistence. He had exhausted himself in a sick transport of sex, rising again and again, like a tormented boy, and now he lay breathing shallowly by her side. Then he got up. He put on the lamp. "Ohh!" he said, and touched himself with both hands.

"What's the matter, Fred?"

"Just an ache." He had a wry, wan smile on his face. "Very frequent phenomenon. A pain from excess of ... too much of ... Happens very often."

"Are you getting an aspirin?"

"No, no, it's the best kind of pain. Goes away with rest. Many men would be proud... No, I feel fine, darling, I'm just getting up to find you a sleeping tablet. I notice you have trouble sleeping these days, and we've been working on this new compound ----"

"I don't want it!"

He took two pale green pills, wrapped in tissue paper, out of his briefcase. He said, "It's not habit-forming. It hasn't been released to the general public yet."

"No, no, I don't want any!"

"Take them!" he commanded.

"There's something I've got to tell you first, Fred. I can explain it if you'll only let me ----"

"Tomorrow, tomorrow. There's all the time in the world for explaining. Here, open your mouth now."

And in some deep dim way she knew that Fred had become strong enough to take control of her life. She accepted the tablets from his fingers. Yes, at last she was willing. He had a glass of water ready by the bed. Yes, let Fred decide. She was tired. Yes, willingly she now gave Fred the right. She felt his fingers place the capsules on her tongue, caress her lips, and then, as if to press the wakefulness away, brush across her eyes to close them. She knew how lovely she would look to him, stretched out at peace on their bed.

The letters kept coming; the telephone jangled. The last note said:

I haven't heard from you in a week now, darling. What has happened? Why don't you answer the telephone? Where have you been?

This letter was sent back to Larry Fortiner at the Tides Hotel with a routine stamp on the envelope: Return to Sender. Addressee Deceased.