Lila didn’t know he washere. She was sound asleep, apparently in some fearful dream. In the darknesshe heard a grating sound of her teeth and felt her body suddenly turn as shestruggled against some menace only she could see.

The light from the openhatch above was so dim it concealed whatever lines of cosmetics and age werethere and now she looked softly cherubic, like a small girl with blond hair,wide cheekbones, a small turned-up nose, and a common child’s face that seemedso familiar it attracted a certain natural affection. He got the feeling thatwhen morning came she should pop open her sky-blue eyes and they should sparklewith excitement at the prospect of a new day of sunlight and parents smilingand maybe bacon cooking on the stove and happiness everywhere.

But that wasn’t how itwould be. When Lila’s eyes opened in a hung-over daze she’d look into thefeatures of a gray-haired man she wouldn’t even remember — someone she met in abar the previous night. Her nausea and headache might produce some remorse andself-contempt but not much, he thought — she’d been through this many times — and she’d slowly try to figure out how to return to whatever life she’d beenleading before she met this one.

Her voice murmuredsomething like Look out! Then she said something unintelligible and turnedaway, then pulled the blanket up around her head, perhaps against the coldbreeze that came down through the open hatch. The berth of the sailboat was sonarrow that this turn of her body brought her up against him again and he feltthe whole length of her and then her warmth. An earlier lust came back and hisarm went over her so that his hand held her breast — full there but too soft,like something over-ripe that would soon go bad.