to convince you? Do you need a picture? You’re not welcome here! Go be God’s gift to some other woman!”
“You cheap, cockteasing little bitch,” he said. His voice was sullen, his face ugly. He didn’t let go of her arm.
“And take the bureau with you. Pitch it in the dump.”
She pulled free of him and got the washrag from its place, hung over the sink faucet. Her hands were trembling, her stomach was upset, and she was starting to get a headache. She thought that soon she would vomit.
She got down on her hands and knees and began wiping up the spilt milk.
“Yeah, you think you’re something,” he said. “When did your crotch turn to gold? You loved it. You screamed for more.”
“You’ve got the right tense, anyway, champ,” she said, not looking up. Her hair hung in her face and she liked it that way just fine. She didn’t want him to see how pale and sick her face was. She felt as if someone had pushed her into a nightmare. She felt that if she looked at herself in a mirror at this moment she would see an ugly, capering witch. “Get out, Steve. I’m not going to tell you again.”
“And what if I don’t? You going to call Sheriff Bannerman? Sure. Just say, ‘Hi, there, George, this is Mr. Businessman’s wife, and the guy I’ve been screwing on the side won’t leave. Would you please come on up here and roust him?’ That what you’re going to say?”
The fright went deep now. Before marrying Vic, she had been a librarian in the Westchester school system, and her own private nightmare had always been telling the kids for the third time—in her loudest speaking voice—to quiet down at once, please. When she did that, they always had—enough for her to get through the period, at least—but what if they wouldn’t? That was her nightmare. What if they absolutely wouldn’t? What did that leave? The question scared her. It scared her that such a question should ever have to be asked, even to oneself, in the dark of night. She had been afraid to use her loudest voice, and had done so only when it became absolutely necessary. Because that was where civilization came to an abrupt, screeching halt. That was the place where the tar turned to dirt. If they wouldn’t listen when you used your very loudest voice, a scream became your only recourse.
This was the same sort of fear. The only answer to the man’s question, of course, was that she would scream if he came near her. But would she?
“Go,” she said in a lower voice. “Please. It’s over.”
“What if I decide it isn’t? What if I decide to just rape you there on the floor in that damned spilt milk?”
She looked up at him through the tangle of hair. Her face was still pale, and her eyes were too big, ringed with white flesh. “Then you’ll have a fight on your hands. And if I get a chance to tear your balls off or put one of your eyes out, I won’t hesitate.”
For just a moment, before his face closed up, she thought he looked uncertain. He knew she was quick, in pretty good shape. He could beat her at tennis, but she made him sweat to do it. His balls and his eyes were probably safe, but she might very well put some furrows in his face. It was a question of how far he wanted to go. She smelled something thick and unpleasant in the air of her kitchen, some whiff of the jungle, and realized with dismay that it was a mixture of her fear and his rage. It was coming out of their pores.
“I’ll take the bureau back to my shop,” he said. “Why don’t you send your handsome hubby down for it, Donna? He and I can have a nice talk. About stripping.”
He left then, pulling the door which communicated between the living room and the porch to behind him almost hard enough to break the glass. A moment later the engine of his van roared, settled into a ragged idle, and then dropped to a working pitch as he threw it in gear. He screeched his tires as he left.
Donna finished wiping the milk up slowly, rising from time to time to wring out her rag in the stainless steel sink. She watched the threads of milk run down the drain. She was trembling all over, partly from