The sight of that slow-motion, self-loving dance was agonizing. I wanted to feel that rough, prolonged friction, too, all along the velvet canal that started between my breasts and ended between my ankles. I wanted to arch backward like her, arms fully extended to hold my weight, head flung back, eyelids flickering under the dust that trickled down from the eaves.

Who was the woman? On my few trips into town, I had never seen her. Even if I had, she might have been disguised as a shy country wife, or an overpainted cocktail waitress. I watched her face flush, her muscles tighten. As she reached the orgasm she thought was private, her body quivered all along its length like a bow after the arrow leaves. Ashamed as I was for watching, I could hardly stand the excitement of it. I wanted rope between my thighs-anything between my thighs but my own fingers, which were no substitute for the shock of strange contact. I closed my eyes, wondering if the rope dancer were a sign of pure craziness, but the vision was still as tangible as my own flesh when I looked again.

The woman's shoulders sank, her entire body trembling from her come. My trance ended. I scrambled to my feet and raced back to the house. In the kitchen I collided with my landlady, who had been lingering over a sink full of dishes while I watched the spectacle.

"There's someone outside," I panted. "Someone in the barn." My face went hot, as if I'd participated in that intimate dance.

The landlady stared. In her eyes I saw myself being measured.

"No one has been in that barn for nine years."

"But I saw a woman. A woman about my age, with long blond hair. She was hanging on a rope-"

The landlady's face crumpled. A moan leaked from her mouth. The glass mixing bowl she had been drying fell to the floor, bounced once, and cracked.