She began to fan out her excuses like a tired old poker-hand (Yes, but now I have a headache; Yes, but I’m having these really shittypre-menstrual cramps; Yes, but I’m a woman and therefore entitled tochange my mind; Yes, but now that we’re actually out here in the BigLonely you frighten me, you had beautiful brute of a man, you), the lies that fed either his misconceptions or his ego (the two were frequently interchangeable), but before she could pick a card, any card, the new voice spoke up. It was the first time it had spoken out loud, and Jessie was fascinated to find that it sounded the same in the air as it did inside her head: strong, dry, decisive, in control.

It also sounded curiously familiar.

“You’re right-I guess I did say that, but what really sounded like fun was breaking away with you the way we used to before you got your name up on the door with the rest of the type-A’s. I thought maybe we could bounce the bedsprings a little, then sit on the deck and dig the quiet. Maybe play some Scrabble after the sun went down. Is that an actionable offense, Gerald? What do you think? Tell me, because I really want to know.” “But you said-”

For the last five minutes she had been telling him in various ways that she wanted out of these goddam handcuffs, and he still hadn’t let her out of them. Her impatience boiled over into fury. “My God, Gerald, this stopped being fun for me almost as soon as we started, and if you weren’t as thick as a brick, you would have realized it!”

“Your mouth. Your smart, sarcastic mouth. Sometimes I get so tired of-”

“Gerald, when you get your head really set on something, sweet and low doesn’t come close to reaching you. And whose fault is that?”

“I don’t like you when you’re like this, Jessie. When you’re like this I don’t like you a bit.”