about the little things. Beads of condensation stood out on the glass like sweat.
Looking at these, Jessie felt her first, pang of real thirst. It made her lick her lips. She slid to the right as far as the chain on the left handcuff would allow. This was only six inches, but it brought her onto Gerald's side of the bed. The movement also exposed several dark spots on the left side of the coverlet. She stared at these vacantly for several moments before remembering how Gerald had voided his bladder in his last agony. Then she quickly turned her eyes back to the glass of water, sitting up there on a round of cardboard which probably advertised some brand of yuppie suds, Beck's or Heineken being the most likely.
She reached out and up, doing it slowly, willing her reach to be long enough. It wasn't. The tips of her fingers stopped three inches short of the glass. The pang of thirst-a slight tightening in the throat, a slight prickle on the tongue-came and went again.
If no one comes or I can't think of a way to wiggle free by tomorrowmorning, I won't even be able to look at that glass.
This idea had about it a cold reasonableness that was terrifying in and of itself. But she wouldn't still be here tomorrow morning, that was the thing. The idea was totally ridiculous. Insane. Loopy. Not worth thinking about. It-
Stop, the no-bullshit voice said. Just stop. And so she did.
The thing she had to face was that the idea wasn't totally ridiculous. She refused to accept or even entertain the possibility that she could die here-that was loopy, of course-but she could be in for some long, uncomfortable hours if she didn't dust away the cobwebs on the old thinking machine and get it running.
Long, uncomfortable...and maybe painful, the Goodwife said nervously. But the pain would be an act of atonement, wouldn't it? After all, you brought this on yourself. I hope. I'm not being tiresome, butif you'd just let him shoot his squirt-
"You are being tiresome, Goody," Jessie said. She couldn't remember if she had ever spoken out loud to one of the interior voices before. She wondered if she was going mad. She decided she didn't give much of a shit one way or the other, at least for the time being.
Jessie closed her eyes again.
CHAPTER FOUR
This time it wasn't her body she visualized in the darkness behind her lids but this whole room. Of course she was still the centerpiece, gosh, yes-Jessie Mahout Burlingame, still a shade under forty, still fairly trim at five-seven and a hundred and twenty-five pounds, gray eyes, brownish-red hair (she covered the gray that had begun to show up about five years ago with a glossy rinse and was fairly sure Gerald had never known). Jessie Mahout Burlingame, who had gotten herself into this mess without quite knowing how or why. Jessie Mahout Burlingame, now presumably the widow of Gerald, still mother of no one, and tethered to this goddamned bed by two sets of police handcuffs.
She made the imaging part of her mind zoom in on these last. A furrow of concentration appeared between her closed eyes.
Four cuffs in all, each pair separated by six inches of rubbersleeved steel chain, each with M- 17-a serial number, she assumed-stamped into the steel of the lock-plate. She remembered Gerald's telling her, back when the game was new, that each cuff had a notched take-up arm, which made the cuff adjustable. It was also possible to shorten the chains until a prisoner's hands were jammed painfully together, wrist to wrist, but Gerald had allowed her the maximum length of chain.
And why the hell not? she thought now. After all, it was only agame...right, Gerald? Yet now her earlier question occurred to her, and she wondered again if it had ever really been just a game for Gerald.
What's a woman? some other voice-a UFO voice-whispered softly from a well of darkness deep inside her. A life-support systemfor a cunt.
Go away, Jessie thought. Go away, you're not helping.
But the UFO voice declined the order. Why does a woman havea mouth and a cunt? it asked instead. So she can piss and moan at thesame time. Any other questions, little lady?
No. Given the unsettlingly surreal quality of the answers, she had no other questions. She rotated her hands inside the cuffs. The scant flesh of her wrists dragged against the steel, making her wince, but the pain was