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Show Z(o monogamy seems to work OK-in small doses. With the right girl, even I am ready to try it. Big deal. You'd have to get tenure and settle down, you know. Never. I want a woman to love, not a jailer. Joan shrugged to dismiss his words, but pondered them. And despite herself she began to ponder sleeping with him: she felt that she should, that she owed it to him for using him as she did, but she was prejudiced against adultery and he didn't seem to think she owed him anything. True, once in a while, tight, they would both get a little amorous and he would kiss her and put those black bony hands on her and she would tremble, but still she did not fear. Her blood told her there was a decision to make all right, but remembering Bill and chastity, she knew so clearly how to decide that she felt no anxiety about it at all. But one night arrived more summery than usual, them both feeling more amorous than usual, he kissing her more often than usual- and he really scared her. Or rather, as she admitted to herself the next day, her grey eyes cloudy, she had scared herself. And in that mood of honesty she recognized not only that she had a decision to make but also that she didn't know how to make it, and she trembled in fear. Bill saved her from making a decision by completing his hi-fi. Clearly now it would be only a matter of days until his interest re-focused on its proper sphere, on her, and to hurry the refocusing she planned a dinner, the first one she ever cooked in that kitchen, and invited Roland to it. Bill made cocktails for the first time in nine months, she wore a sexy dress, and they all got a bit tight and laughed, and the dinner was elegant and very good, with candles and champagne, and she flirted with Roland, praising Roland, laughing with Roland, allowing Roland to take her arm in an intimate way which could easily to an inflamed mind suggest more about their relationship than existed. But Bill didn't tell a single joke, a bad sign, and didn't seem even slightly jealous, a worse one. Still, he would remember another day, he couldn't help but remember, she would make him remember. They ate with the table almost in the center of the large room. The only other furniture was a couch, a coffee table, and two chairs looking lost up at the front end. The back wall between that room hi-fi 173 |