in a safety deposit box at the bank. He wondered idly what the boxes contained, but she wouldn’t tell him, and he suspected it was some sort of medicine which she didn’t want to mention. The question nagged at him, though. It bothered persistently. He didn’t care about her earlier life, for that was beyond her now. But he wanted to know everything about her as she was now, wanted to share all of her life.
Inevitably, one evening he brought home a package and she was not home. He sat waiting for her, the package in his lap. He stared at the package, turning it over and over in his hands, as though he were trying to burn a hole in the wrapping paper with his eyes. Five, ten minutes passed, and he couldn’t stand it any longer. He untied the string, removed the wrapping paper, and opened the box.
The box was filled with a white powder. He looked at it, smelled it, and tasted a flake of it. It was nothing that he could recognize. He was wondering what the devil it could be when he heard a key in the lock, and he began guiltily to rewrap the package. Sara entered the room while he was still fussing with the string.
“Andy!” she cried. “What are you doing?”
“The package came undone,” he said lamely. “I was rewrapping it for you.”
She looked at him accusingly. “Did you see what was inside?”
“Yes,” he said. “What was it, Sara?”
She took the box from him. “Never mind,” she said. “Just some powder.”
But this time he would not be put off. He had to know. “What is it? I’ll find out anyway.”
She let out a sigh. “I guess you had to find out. I…”
He waited.
“It’s…horse, Andy.”
“What!”
“Horse. Heroin.”
“I know what ‘horse’ is,” he said. “But what are you doing with it? You’re not an addict, are you?” He couldn’t believe what she had told him, but he knew from the expression on her face that she was telling the truth. Still, it was hard to believe, and he did not want to believe it.
“No,” she said. “I’m not an addict. I’m what they call a pusher, Andy. I sell the heroin to addicts.”
For a moment he could not speak. Finally he managed to say, “Why?”
She hesitated. “Money,” she said. “I make lots of money. And it costs money for an apartment like this, and for good clothes and steak for dinner.”
“You’ll stop. I’m making enough money for us both, and you’ll stop before you get caught. We’ll get a smaller place somewhere and…”
“No,” she cut in. “I won’t get caught, Andy. And I want to keep on like this. I like steak, Andy. I like this place.”
He stared at her. His mouth dropped open and he shook his head from side to side. “No! Sara, I won’t let you!”
“I’m going to.”
“I…I can’t pick up any more packages for you.”
She smiled. “Yes, you can. And you will, because you need me.” She threw back her shoulders so that her breasts strained against the front of her dress. “We need each other, don’t we?”
He stood up, and the package fell to the floor. He reached for her and lifted her in his arms, carrying her to the bedroom. And they came together fitfully and fiercely, as though the force of their bodies could erase everything else.
Later, when he was lying still beside her, she said, “In a way, it’s better that you know. I’ll need help with the business, and you can quit your job and help me. I guess it’s better this way.”
At that moment Andy began to distrust her. His love slowly dissolved, eventually to be replaced by an ever-increasing hatred.
The following morning he quit his job. It had never been an especially exciting job, but he had liked it. He liked the office and the people he worked with. He hadn’t wanted to quit.
But he could never give up Sara. He couldn’t live without her, couldn’t sleep again in an empty bed. She had become a habit, a part of his routine, and he had to have her no matter what.
The days that followed were hell for him. Sara taught him the business step by step, from pickups and deliveries to actual sales. He learned how to contact an addict and take his money from him. He watched feverish men cook the heroin on a spoon and shoot it into a vein. And he watched Sara refuse a shot to an addict without money,