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apparently intimate distance from her mouth was eerie, voyeuristic; he covered his embarrassment with sarcasm. 'What's up in the world of bust enhancement these days?'

The smile disappeared. 'You don't expect me to read anything worthwhile with you glowering at me, do you?'

'I didn't expect you could read at all.' Flecks of topaz light glimmered in her irises; a scatter of fine dark hairs rose from her eyebrow and merged with the hairline. 'But if you could I assumed it would be crap like that. Makeup Secrets of the Stars.'

'I suffer no sense of devaluation by using makeup,' she said crisply. 'It cheers me up to look nice, and God knows it's hard enough to be cheerful around you.'

He turned, blinking away the patch of clear sight, considering the blurs of distant foliage. It was becoming increasingly difficult for him to maintain anger against her. Almost without his notice, as subtly as the spinning of a web, threads of his anger had been drawn loose and woven into another emotion. Its significance escaped him, but he thought that if he attempted to understand it, he would become more deeply ensnared.

'I have a confession,' she said. 'I read through your notebook this morning. Some of the fragments were lovely...'

'Why don't you just look in the toilet after I go...'

'... and I think you should finish them!'

'... and see if my shit's spelling out secret messages!'

'I'm not trying to pry out your secrets!' She threw down her magazine. 'I thought if you had some encouragement, some criticism, you might finish them.'

Halting footsteps scraped on the path behind him, and a scruffy, gassed voice asked, 'What's happenin', man?'

'Good morning, Mr Richmond,' said Jocundra with professional sweetness. 'Donnell? Have you met Mr Richmond?'

Richmond's head and torso swam into bleared focus. He had a hard-bitten, emaciated face framed in shoulder-length brown hair. Prominent cheekbones, a missing lower tooth. He was leaning on a cane, grinning; his pupils showed against his irises like planets eclipsing green suns.

'That's Jack to you, man,' he said, extending his hand.

The hair's on Donnell's neck prickled, and he was tongue-tied, unable to tear his eyes off Richmond. A chill articulated his spine.

'Another hopeless burn-out,' said Richmond, his grin growing toothier. 'What's the matter, squeeze? You wet yourself?'

A busty, brown-haired woman came up beside him and murmured, 'Jack,' but he continued to glare at Donnell, whose apprehension was turning into panic. His muscles had gone flaccid, and unable to run, he shrank within himself.

The brown-haired woman touched Richmond's arm. 'Why don't we finish our walk, Jack?'

Richmond mimicked her in a quavery falsetto. ' "Why don't we finish our walk, Jack!" Shit! Here they go and stock this place with these fine bitches, and they won't do nothin' for you 'cept be polite!' He bent down, his left eye inches from Donnell's face, and winked; even when closed, a hint of luminous green penetrated his eyelid. 'Or don't you go for the ladies, squeeze? Maybe I'm makin' you all squirmy inside.' He hobbled off, laughing, and called back over his shoulder. 'Keep your fingers crossed, sweetheart. Maybe I'll come over some night and let you make my eagle big!'

As Richmond receded, his therapist in tow, Donnell's tension eased. He flicked his eyes to Jocundra who looked quickly away and thumbed through her magazine. He found her lack of comment on his behaviour peculiar and asked her about it.

'I assumed you were put off by his manner,' she said.

'Who the hell is he?'

'A patient. He belongs to some motorcycle club.' Her brow knitted. 'The Hellhounds, I think.'

'Didn't you feel...' He broke off, not wanting to admit the extent of his fright.

'Feel what?'

'Nothing.'

Richmond's voice drifted back from the porch, outraged, and he slashed his cane through the air. The rose-colored bricks shimmered in the background, the faceted dome atop the roof flashed as if its energies were building to the discharge of a lethal ray, and Donnell had a resurgence of crawly animal fear.

After the encounter with Richmond, Donnell stayed closeted in his room for nearly two weeks. Jocundra lambasted him, comparing him to a child who had pulled a sheet over his head, but nothing she said would sway him. His reaction to Richmond must have been due, he decided to a side effect of the bacterial process, but side effect or not, he wanted no repetition of that stricken and helpless feeling: like a rabbit frozen by oncoming headlights. He lay around so much he developed a bedsore, and at this Jocundra threw up