Julia Fiveash seduced Ben Kamen. No, she consumed him.

She took him inside three days of her arrival in Princeton from England. He couldn't have stopped her if he'd tried. He wasn't a virgin, with men or women, but after she pushed him to the carpet of his room and wrapped him in her long English limbs he felt as if he had been, before.

The second time they made love it was actually in the study of his mentor, Kurt Godel. And Ben started to fret about her motives.

He lay on Godel's sofa, his jacket pulled over his crotch for modesty. Julia, boldly unclothed, stalked around Godel's room, flicking through the papers on his desk, running her delicate fingertip over the books on the shelves. Many of the books were still in their boxes, for Godel had not been here long; reluctant to leave his beloved Vienna, he had hesitated until the last possible minute, when the Nazis had already started to roll up Europe like a giant carpet.

Julia's golden hair shone in a shaft of dusty sunlight. She was tall, her limbs long and muscular, her belly flat, her breasts small; she walked like an animal, balanced, confident. Her body was the product of a lifetime of English privilege, Ben thought, a life of horse-riding and tennis, her sexuality mapped by one healthy Englishman after another. She had conquered Ben as easily as the English had conquered much of the planet.

He longed for a cigarette, but he knew he dare not light up in Godel's own room.