Like a welcome but unreliable companion, the full moon rode Mary Beth's right shoulder, bathing the landscape and the roadway ahead in milky iridescence. Just as fast, however, before she could break into a loping run, the light evaporated again, the moon swallowed behind scud clouds driven on a strong, southeasterly wind. If she weren't so afraid of falling, she'd run anyway. But with nothing on but panties and her shoes, a headlong plunge would be disastrous.

She keeps away from the shoulder, afraid of another twisted ankle. A quarter mile behind is the overpass for I-270, still very much within earshot. A heavy truck rolls across and the sound reaches Mary Beth seconds later; she snaps fearfully around. She hates that bridge, especially what lurks beneath. To get away, Mary Beth propels her feet quickly along, sneakers whispering on the dark pavement. She prays no one will come along, but if someone does, she also prays to distinguish that sound from the highway noise behind.

Dunk set a deadline of 3:00 a.m. and there is still a mile and a half to go. He allowed two hours to the rendezvous; no more, no less. Arrive before, he said, or after, and he would leave.

It's in the mid-seventies, humid, but Mary Beth clamps her arms across her chest like a frozen refugee. She has joked about stripping nude in weather like this; the damp, turgid air turns clothing into slippery containers, underwear to sodden traps. Tonight she'd pay for the privilege of cling. Mosquitoes have a field day with her blood.

Her nightmare began one hour before, in Black Hill Regional Park. The official closing time was sundown, but Dunk--never without a friend in need--had long ago obtained a key to the front gate. In return, a lucky park employee got steered to some really good dope. Dunk was a Montgomery County policeman.

Secluded in the woods and the quiet night, Mary Beth often found herself treated to hi-grade cocaine, plied with her favorite wine, and then made love to on a blanket beneath the stars. She loved this, loved falling asleep in Dunk's arms, to awaken hours later to the drone of insects and the brilliant stars overhead. Sometimes they slept until dawn, awakening to approaching daylight and the sound of trucks. A most romantic way to start your morning.

Tonight they had parked in the secluded, so-called Back Picnic area (so-called because there wasn't a picnic table in sight.) The park itself was secluded, the sixty acres tucked neatly between Boyds to the north, Germantown to the south, and Route 28 to the west. The only entrance was on Old Baltimore Road. A twenty-acre lake was the park's centerpiece, where sometimes she and Dunk canoed and occasionally went fishing.

There was fishing of a sort tonight.

"God damn it!" Dunk threw his left arm outward, across the empty lot. "I won't let you toss away five years, just like that."

Straight-backed on the seat, arms folded, Mary Beth was determined not to let violence erupt again. They had been on the outs for weeks, their relationship deteriorating further each day. Dunk had twice lost control in the past week. She now sported a bruise over her right ear; finger marks about both biceps, and her neck ached from a slap, which rocked her head around.

Keeping her voice low and controlled, she said, "Don't make me out as the bad guy, Dunk. I didn't ask for this."

"Bull shit," he said. "You like it as much as me." He cut her off. "You like it a hell of a lot more than me. Fucking dyke!"

Her mouth fell open. "Suddenly you're calling me names? Like I wanted a bisexual affair? I never even suggested it! Not once! You cooked up the whole thing without any concern for either of our feelings. Now it's out of control and you want to shift the blame. Well I got news for you, asshole! Next time ask!"

Dunk tightened with anger. His eyes became slits, and when his hands clenched, Mary Beth moved away.

Derisively, he said, "Like you would have ever said yes! Just like you said yes to my other idea!"

"Wait a minute!" Mary Beth dropped her arms. Let a girl make one mistake and she pays for it forever. "We talked about this a hundred times. I gave you my reasons, and you agreed."

A year before, Dunk and Mary Beth double-dated with another couple, David Ray and Pattie Kensington. Both were police officers. They spent Saturday night downtown, hopping bars, drinking and dancing until 2:00 a.m. Because it was closer and no one was sober, they went back to David's place in Adelphi. There the partying resumed, this time with everyone but Mary Beth cooking on cocaine. She stuck to wine and marijuana. By three-thirty a.m., when the trouble began, the four were wasted.

"I'll be right back," Pattie slurred, wobbling into the bedroom. She returned in cutoff jeans and a cropped tee-shirt. Her breasts, though small, held the t-shirt away far enough to show the bottom portion of her bare breasts. Her nipples made points in the material. When she joined them on the floor, leaning back against the couch, she might as well have worn nothing at all.

Using her Visa card, Mary Beth diced the remaining powder into semi-straight lines. This time everyone partook. They continued their ribald game of strip truth-or-dare.

The first wrong answer saw Pattie flashing her breasts; the next and she removed her top. Titillated by her own bravado, she dared Mary Beth right back, even though Dunk had posed the question. Mary Beth found herself without a shirt and, moments later, without pants. The guys, pop-eyed and inflamed, egged the girls on until Mary Beth caught fire. They quickly dared each out of their clothing.

Naked on the floor, Mary Beth rocked first with Pattie, then with the two guys, a very smashed Pattie cheering from the sidelines. It was Mary Beth's only encounter with multiple partners--or another girl. Dunk wanted more.

For a time, neither spoke. Dunk's cigarette burned nearly to his knuckles before he flicked it out. Ten feet away, the butt exploded in a fountain of sparks. He reached for another, offered the pack to Mary Beth first, who shook her head. Smoke billowed and joined the fog already lining the truck's roof.

Opting for a less hostile approach, Dunk said, "Holly seems to really love you. How you handling that?"

Mary Beth was uncomfortable even considering Holly and Dunk in the same thought. The dome light was on, and while she formulated an answer, a small black moth fluttered in past her nose and beat itself against the fixture. She batted it out the window, where the moth fluttered undecidedly before flying away. The moon continued to play hide-and-seek with the landscape. She shrugged.

"Ask me something else."

Suddenly, a noise impinged on Mary Beth's awareness. Jerked back to the present, she whipped around, cursing. She had done the one thing she could not-- ignored the road behind. Growing brighter by the second, a fluorescing glow reflected eerily on the overhead lines and the thick air above the hill. Heart trip-hammering, Mary Beth searched desperately for cover. In a stroke of luck, the moon chose that moment to escape the clouds and she spotted a driveway ahead. Her joy was short-lived. Fifty feet distant, it was too far to reach, even if she ran.

On her right was a fifteen-foot embankment, a thin line of brush and runt trees lining the top. The other side was a solid tangle of growth, impenetrable--suicide with her bare skin. She sprang for the hill, started climbing.

The vehicle was closer.

Clambering up the wet slope, grabbing tufts of grass, she lost an inch for every two she gained. Twice she lost her footing entirely, the second time smacking down on her bare chest and emitting a mortified howl. With the vehicle just seconds away, Mary Beth made herself slow down; find toeholds and protrusions that held, then scaled the remaining ten feet without falling. She dove headlong for a low bush, threw herself flat to the ground, scrambling behind it for better protection.

Headlights crested the hill.

For an eternity, an impossibly bright glare spotlighted Mary Beth. Her skin and every follicle on it shown. Flattening into the damp, she keened lowly and covered her head, praying. She had to be seen--she could not imagine not.

The vehicle passed.

It was a full sized custom van, radiating a high whine of country music, the engine a thumping bass. Randy Travis lamented his lost girlfriend. It climbed the next hill and disappeared over it, still loud, still trailing music, reappearing a quarter mile further on. The tail lights grew dim, disappeared entirely around a long turn in the road. Mary Beth shuddered and gasped, tried to catch her breath.

After a time she rose onto her hands and knees, discovered a cricket pinching her left breast. Somehow she fought the impulse to scream. Knocking the cricket off, she collapsed back to the ground, cradled her head on her forearms and began to cry. She was going nowhere.

Dunk, Holly, and Approaching Bad Times

Although Holly was Dunk's niece and Mary Beth his girlfriend, the two had little in common; they shared no friends. Despite working at Lakeforest Mall, the girls knew each other only is passing.

A recent high school graduate, Holly cashiered at the J.C.Penny, part-time since tenth grade, now considered casual full time; she wanted permanent full time status and full company benefits. A short, thin brunette with shoulder length hair, Holly was attractive, though not enough to merit undo attention. She was the youngest of four children, and shared with her three brothers and one sister the same dark hair and pallid complexion of her father.

Unlike the beautiful and lithesome Mary Beth, Holly had struggled all her life: with her weight, her complexion, with a traumatic lack of confidence. Her middle and high school years were a misery; friendless with boys, alternating between pudgy and razor thin, she either binge-ate or suffered bouts of anorexia. Dieting was a career.

Things changed late in her senior year. Recently transferred from Prince George's County, Louis Dell was a good looking, athletically built, honor's student. He took both advanced placement calculus and computer programming, carried the fourth highest grade point average in the state. He was also black.

One morning Louis offered to help the struggling Holly with an overdue assignment. She haltingly agreed, then kept her eyes everywhere but on his eyes, at one point nearly retching from anxiety.

The assignment got a B+, her best mark of the semester.

For Louis, seeing beyond the fragile, acne-plagued teenager, to the fresh-faced girl beneath was elementary. His patience and unexpected determination set Holly free, for the first time replacing mindless depression with sudden hope, loneliness with a measure of acceptance. They became an item, then a couple. Louis was her first love, the recipient of her virginity, and though he moved away to Los Angeles at the end of the summer, Holly's life remained in equilibrium.

Even her bra size stabilized.

Set apart from the common by a bizarre mixture of Scandinavian blond, Polish Jew, and certified demonic bitch (her own words), the blue-eyed Mary Beth bore sharp features and a provocative mouth, a long graceful neck, breasts that erupted from her chest like miniature volcanoes. (Often to her chagrin and embarrassment.) Spun silver hair hung to the middle of her back. And as she liked to say, the sharpness of her tongue was matched only by the meanness of her spirit.

Mary Beth was twenty-one, an assistant manager at Victoria's Secret. It was the only job she had ever held. She loved the work--and the image of working at "VS"--but the driving force in her life was hunger for advancement, not narcissism. Her dream since childhood was becoming a freelance fashion photographer. Toward this goal she had completed two photography courses at Montgomery College. A third was planned for the fall. Both her instructors advised Mary Beth that a background in women's lingerie certainly couldn't hurt.

Dunk to his friends since high school, where his exploits on the varsity basketball team were legend, Tom McDonald had four older brothers and an older sister, Elaine. Three of the four brothers were county policemen, the other a Deputy State's Attorney. Eleven years separated Dunk from his next oldest brother, Frank McDonald, Holly's father. Words between them often erupted into violence.

The trouble had its genesis in Dunk's teenage years, centering on Holly's mother, Kathleen. Separated from Holly's dad for nearly a year, lonely and dejected, Kathleen took Dunk as a lover. Thirteen at the time, at the mercy of his uncontrollable hormonal rush and terrible judgment, Dunk let himself fall in love. They slept together twelve times over the summer, often in Frank's own bed and never with protection. Kathleen became pregnant. She aborted the child before the third month.

Hostility between Frank and Dunk McDonald became a predatory monster.

For Mary Beth, the trouble began on Holly's eighteenth birthday. It was over the Memorial Day weekend, and Mary Beth, doubtful of Dunk's plan to have Holly out for a night on the town, considered the beach and a badly needed tan more important. But as Dunk so eloquently put it, drinking yourself to death could be hellish fun. Especially for Holly, dumped just two weeks before. Mary Beth gave in.

A police officer, Dunk had access to some of the best fake ID's on the market. A week before her eighteenth birthday, Holly came home to discover she was now twenty-one, not seventeen as she had previously thought. Holly was thrilled. Among her and her friends, even a bad ID was priceless.

On Friday night, Holly arrived up at Dunk's place at seven o'clock sharp--accompanied by a new Louis. He was a white boy this time, a year older than Holly, less attractive than her previous two boyfriends, but with some of the charisma of Louis Bell. Obviously intelligent and charming, Louis still suffered the characteristic stagger-step and frozen tongue of meeting Mary Beth the first time. His eyes could not leave her chest.

Mary Beth wore a clingy satin dress with a plunging back and scoop neckline, meant to be worn braless, which she did. Purchased the week before at DKNY, she now seriously regretted her choice. The lack of a brasierre, and any support it offered, was glaringly obvious to anyone who looked.

Outmatched in figure but not in taste, Holly wore a sequined blue dress, thin straps holding the front loosely over her small breasts. Stiletto heels made her nearly as tall as Mary Beth. Like Mary Beth, she was also braless. Between the two men, Louis verged on apoplexy and not even Dunk could look away.

They dined in Georgetown, Dunk having reservations at a French restaurant on M Street. Mary Beth indulged in steak and lobster tail, afterward feeling straight- jacketed in her tight dress. Holly and Louis both chose Filet Mignon, Dunk a T-bone steak. They ordered two bottles of Chianti with dinner--no one asked Holly or Louis for ID.

At Club Outrageous, Holly and Louis danced for two solid hours, leaving Mary Beth to wonder at their energy. The new couple obviously clicked; Louis didn't object to Holly grinding against his crotch, nor Holly the hand on her rear end while dancing slow. Neither seemed in need of alcohol; the relationship boiled on its own.

Given the benefits of speed, Mary Beth grew quite energetic herself, Dunk doing his best to increase its effects. During slow numbers his attentions made Mary Beth not only aroused, but carnal. He slid the straps off her shoulders, Mary Beth made no attempt to put them back. Only her close contact with Dunk's chest kept the dress in place, and then not always. Twice she covered a bare breast.

At eleven o'clock they deserted Club Outrageous in search of new action. Mary Beth was so desperately aroused by then, had it not been for Holly and Louis, she would have mounted Dunk the instant he closed his door. For a time she actually hated Holly and her friend.

Before leaving the parking lot, Dunk produced a quarter-ounce of cocaine, and Mary Beth a compact. Cleaning the mirror, she poured two lines and straightened them with her Visa card, taking the first hit herself. Louis was shocked; Holly excited. Neither had done cocaine before. Passing her the compact, Mary Beth showed Holly how to partake. Their fingertips momentarily brushed, and when their eyes met over the mirror, a spark of attraction flew. Both girls flinched away, suddenly embarrassed.

After making sure everyone was high, Mary Beth cleaned the remaining coke with her fingertip, rubbed it into Dunk's gums. The rest went back into a secret compartment under the dash.

Driving cross-town to Foggy Bottom, they hit Club Heaven & Hell, danced to rocking 80's music, grinding until last call by which time Mary Beth was ready to drop. This was her first serious bar-hopping in over a year and Mary Beth was amazed how much stamina it took- -and how little she now had. Only the cocaine and the constant arousal kept her awake.

Twice in the last hour, Dunk had brought her to orgasm. Their last slow dance together, his cocaine-fueled erection invaded the front of her dress; Mary Beth rode it with her groin. Back at the table, while Holly and Louis performed their own foreplay on the floor, his finger inside her caused Mary Beth near panic. Her hair was a wreck across her forehead, her chest ached, her eyes cocaine glazed. A treacherous spin commandeered her head. All she wanted was to melt into her seat and die.

When they arrived back at the apartment at three a.m., Mary Beth didn't care what Holly and Louis did--she was going to bed. With the assistance of Dunk's arm, she made it upstairs to the front door and inside the apartment, after which Dunk left to chauffeur Holly and Louis home. This seemingly innocent act set in motion a chain of events, which in the end, left Mary Beth fighting for her life.

Old Baltimore Road. Two-Fifteen a.m.

Mary Beth made herself get up. She shook terribly; her knees were Jello. Her heart beat against her chest wall like a deep bass drum. It was difficult to breath.

She discovered grass and small twigs covered her from collar bone to toe, making her itch fiercely. She wiped her breasts, then her stomach and legs, then her skinned knees. She rubbed the stiffness and ache from her shriveled nipples, covered her chest with folded arms. Shivering, she cursed Dunk for the ten-thousandth time. Then she looked at her watch. It was 2:20 A.M.

Her first two steps on the slick hillside broke free, and Mary Beth quickly backed. Instead, she elected to walk along the edge, toward the driveway, a deviant part of her mind conjuring images she'd rather not see.

Had she been seen, would the driver attempt to help, as the naive part of her insisted? Or use the opportunity to knock off a great piece of ass? Remembering the blare of country music, the thundering redneck exhaust, she rather thought the latter.

The hill shallowed to five feet at the driveway, a safe climb down. Ever so briefly, Mary Beth considered approaching the farmhouse, just visible in the moonlight at the top of the drive. A grouping of rundown, ramshackle buildings, this was a scarier option than continuing. She moved back to the center of the road, and hurried on.

After a hundred feet, the road bridged a small steam, starting a gradual climb up the other side. Corn fields bordered either side. Mary Beth hated corn. Not only because of her deadly allergy to corn silk, but those stupid Children of the Corn movies turned the rustling stalks and leaves into a thousand stalking rapists.

There was a soft cawing and gooseflesh erupted across her shoulders and arms. Her nipples hardened and shriveled simultaneously, making her clutch at herself desperately. This only added to her chill, however, and soon her chattering teeth echoed back unnervingly from the corn. She squeezed closed her eyes and concentrating on revenge, navigated the road by sense of touch.

You want me to do What?

It took a full year for the results of their night on the town to manifest themselves. To her credit, Mary Beth sensed something wrong the next morning, but her hangover and general surliness made observation difficult. She let it pass.

Dunk had not come home.

This in itself was unusual; Dunk recovered fast from impairment, even faster from bad judgment. Mary Beth accepted it at face value, however, when he claimed that driving back was too much. He had crashed on his father's couch. The McDonald home was less than a mile from Holly's.

But, there were other signs as well. His moodiness she put down to the unseasonable heat and humidity, which Dunk detested, and problems on the job. He was up for promotion to corporal, a promotion that politics was threatening to torpedo. This left him constantly on edge. Harder to deal with was the sudden inattention, totally out of character for Dunk, an inattentiveness bordering on latitude when they made love. He was somewhere else entirely. This, more than anything else, brought Mary Beth and Holly together.

Properly introduced and aware of their underlying sexual tension, Mary Beth and Holly quickly became friends. They lunched together at work, went shopping, caught the occasional movie, conspired on the phone. They fought and made up. Holly gained some much needed confidence--easy, accompanied by a stunning Scandinavian blond--and Mary Beth insight into other people's woes.

Just before her nineteenth birthday, Holly dumped the too possessive Louis for a stretch of casual dating, moved out on her own. This was something her father did everything to discourage--short of shackling Holly to her bed. She also became hopelessly inflamed with Mary Beth, something which Mary Beth was not immune too herself. She navigated this underlying sexual current, letting it steer her into uncharted but exciting new territory. Mary Beth discovered herself observing Holly; her small round breasts; the way her rear end blended effortlessly into the small waist; the way she sometimes looked up from beneath her hair as though shocked to find herself not alone. Sitting beside her in the car or from across the table, Mary Beth often wanted to reach out and touch Holly's hand. She never did.

Their relationship changed disastrously on Wednesday, June 3rd.

The day was unseasonably warm for June and Dunk, needing a break from the monotony, phoned Mary Beth at work and suggested dinner and movie. Mary Beth was both elated and distraught. If there were one serious weakness Mary Beth suffered, it was this insatiable craving for sex one time a month. Hormonally rushed, plagued by the need all day, she felt haunted by everything that might trip her up, keep her from being seduced. And Mary Beth needed seriously to be seduced.

"How about a drink?" Dunk suggested. They had just left the theater.

Undecided, Mary Beth fastened her seat belt. She looked at her reflection in the glass, at the slow rise and fall of her chest, the tick of a vein in her neck. Her insides quaked and she clasped her hands in her lap to keep them from shaking. She wanted only to go home.

"I want to show you something," she said. Sliding his hand beneath her pink top, she placed it on her left breast. Dunk's eyes widened.

"Mary Beth--"

"I have something on you'll really like," she said.

Dunk fought back a grin. "I believe you." He squeezed her breast gently. "You're not desperate, are you?"

"A little." She joined his hand with her own, then unlatched her brasierre.

"Mary Beth." It was ten o'clock; arc-sodium lights bathed the parking lot in amber sunlight. "I appreciate the intent," he said, "but you can't wait 'till we get home?"

Mary Beth guided his hand onto her bare breast. The nipple turned hard beneath his palm. . "Take it off for me?"

Dunk blinked. "Your bra?" Mary Beth nodded. Dunk said, "I'll take everything off if you like."

Mary Beth smiled. "The bra will do for now."

Leaning forward, she raised both arms enough for Dunk to effect the removal. This was foreplay for them, a ritual first practiced in her mother's Buick when Mary Beth was sixteen years old. Dunk had perfected it in the intervening years. They had not practiced it in a long time, however, one more sign of their cooling relationship.

"I think Mary Beth's impassioned tonight," Dunk said. He slipped the strap off her left shoulder, out the arm of her shirt. To free herself, Mary Beth drew the arm inside.

"I am very impassioned," she agreed.

Dunk slipped the bra strap back inside, kissed Mary Beth, removed the strap from her right shoulder. "I can't remember the last time we did this," he said. He was becoming excited.

"I can."

It was almost a year ago to the day, returning from Ocean City. Mary Beth had let Dunk undress her while they drove, not only her brassiere, but her top as well. Refusing to give in, she cruised the twenty five- mile stretch between Georgetown and Denton, Delaware, the windows down and the sun roof open, hair flying free and wild. Oncoming lights showed hard on her bare chest. Even in the dark, Mary Beth knew dozens of people saw. Only at Denton, when they passed a Delaware State Trooper and his brake lights flashed on, had Mary Beth relented. Her brasierre was later used tying Mary Beth to the headboard.

Dunk fingered one of the silky cups. "This is new," he said.

Mary Beth grinned. "Very."

"And sexy." Holding the brasierre by the straps, he placed the cups over Mary Beth's breasts. "Very sexy."

"I will," she said, slowly.

"Will what? Wear it outside?"

"Let you put it back on."

Dunk considered. Nothing was beyond Mary Beth during her time. He was about to suggest they head home when Mary Beth crossed her arms and without hesitation, raised the top over her head. Lips quivering with suppressed laughter, she sat there, bare-chested.

Dunk muttered, "Jesus Christ."

Despite her show of bravado, Mary Beth rapidly blushed. Her nipples, hard and very large, stood out like fingertips. "Anytime," she whispered, offering her bare arms. "Unless you want people staring all night."

And people were staring. The couple in the next car were twisted in their seats, straining to see. The girl's eyes were big around as silver dollars. Beyond them two boys in a black Camaro had, like sexual radar, instantly detected Mary Beth's bare breasts. Both were staring open-mouthed.

Dunk was momentarily speechless.

"Dunk?"

Hurriedly, Dunk fumbled the bra into place. "You are such a--"

"Tease?" She said, struggling to re-snap the catch. Her heart rate had soared, breathing was labored. The catch refused to close.

"Tart came to mind." Pushing away her fingers, Dunk got the snap closed, then assisted her into the top. His own face was a cherry red. "Satisfied?"

"They're all looking, aren't they?" She dared not turn around.

"Every one of them."

From the roots of her hair to the center of her chest, color blazed. "Can we go now?" she said.

Dunk twisted the ignition and put the shifter in gear. "Wouldn't like to, maybe pose for some candid shots?"

Staring straight ahead, Mary Beth began to laugh. "I am so embarrassed!"

Dunk pointed the Bronco toward the exit, and their audience, turning to watch, began to cheer and wave. The two boys in the black Camaro spontaneously broke out clapping. Mary Beth listened to their ribald shouts as they turned into the street.

"Hurry up!" she insisted.

Dunk accelerated quickly to sixty miles an hour and together they laughed, all the way home.

Just before ten o'clock, Mary Beth was in the kitchen alone, a platter of cheese and crackers half made, selecting a wine. Her tummy was fretful, the way it got before sex. Gooseflesh fled up and down both arms. She had difficulty removing the cork.

"Let me show you how that's done." Arms encircled Mary Beth's waist. "The trick is never to force it," he said, impinging his erection between Mary Beth's buttocks. Placing one hand over the bottle's neck, the other over her hand, Dunk guided the tip into the cork, twisted it slowly in. Mary Beth shivered. "Usually the cork is tight, so you need to slowly work it back and forth."

Blood pounded her temples and rang in her ears. "I know how to remove a cork!" Mary Beth croaked. Releasing the bottle, she turned within his embrace, snaked her arms around his neck and kissed him fiercely. A small intense disturbance swirled in her gut, grew swiftly, threatened to become a tropical storm. Lifting both legs, she clamped them about his middle; Dunk set her on the counter.

"You have no chance of salvaging your underwear," he said. Her top came off, dropped to the floor. He tore apart her brassiere. Attacking her bare breasts, Dunk sucked a nipple into his mouth and bit down, made Mary Beth jump. Then his mouth found the curvature of her neck, the notch between her collar bones, her shoulders. Mary Beth experienced a first small orgasm, barely in the kiloton range.

"I want you in the bedroom," she whispered. "Now!"

He picked her up and, riding his hips, carried Mary Beth through the apartment. Crossing the living room, a wink of lost memory flashed by and Mary Beth saw herself the morning of Holly's party. Exhausted, burned out on coke, she staggered from the front door and out of her heels, out of her dress. "Go!" she had yelled, banging closed the door as Dunk left to take Holly and Louis home.

Have me all you want in the morning. Just leave me alone tonight!

She crossed in front of the open patio curtains, wearing nothing but fatigue and her panties. Louis, outside leaning against the car, catch her movement and looked up. She remembered his shocked expression, quickly darting eyes, her whorish grin. She first flipped back her hair, then removed her panties and let them drop. Twiddling her fingers salaciously, she then sailed away into her bedroom, collapsed on the bed and masturbated for an hour with lust. She finally fell asleep at four o'clock, hand between her thighs, a finger inside.

She awoke that way in the morning.

"I didn't finish removing the cork," Dunk said.

"Fuck the cork!" Gluing her mouth to his, caring not about the open patio curtains, or the two skateboarders outside, she extended her right arm and middle finger in greeting and rode Dunk into the bedroom.

The seduction went very well.

It was sometime after one o'clock. On her stomach, the air cool and dry on her skin, Mary Beth felt movement and raised her head. Dunk was on her left, awake and staring past her. Confused, she followed his gaze--and nearly suffered heart-stroke.

"Jesus!"

Holly, nude also except for her panties, was at the foot of the bed. One knee on the mattress, eyes wide, holding the covers aloft, she seemed caught in freeze- frame.

Mary Beth bolted away, pulling the covers around her, running hard up against Dunk. They would have gone off the bed had Dunk not grabbed the headboard.

"Calm down!" He put both arms around her chest.

"Calm down! Are you crazy?"

Holly remained frozen, hand clutching the bed sheets, eyes startled like a frightened doe. She slid her knee down. "Dunk?"

Mary Beth got herself covered. Her head darted back and forth. "What is she doing here?"

"Getting in bed with you," Dunk said.

"Are you crazy?" Then idiotically, "What for?"

Dunk almost laughed. "She wants to make love to you."

Mary Beth jerked. "The hell she does!"

Sensing the true level of disaster, Holly backed away, dropping the covers and covering her small breasts. On one elbow, Dunk motioned her to come back. Holly shook her head.

"Come on. You can't stop now."

Holly backed away farther. Her voice cracked. "I can't," she said. "This is wrong."

Dumbfounded, Mary Beth lay and stared.

"You knew she'd freak out," Dunk said. "It's to be expected. Now come back here and let's make this work"

Holly was becoming unhinged. "No," she whimpered, looking back at the door.

Angrily, Mary Beth sat up and struck Dunk violently in the ribs. "You asshole! Tell her to get out before I break her goddamned neck!"

"Mary Beth!" Holly was in tears, voice breaking completely. "Please!"

"Get the fuck out!"

Holly spun and crashed into the right doorjamb. Bounding off, she stumbled back to grab her clothes, then ran down the hallway. "I'm sorry!" she called back, sobbing

"Jesus godammit!" Dunk threw back the sheets. Mary Beth grabbed his arm.

"Where are you going!"

He tore his arm away. "To get her back."

"The fuck you are!" Mary Beth leaped out of the bed. Blocking his path, she hissed, "I want that tramp out of this house right now. You even think--"

Dunk exploded: "Damn it, Mary Beth! Shut up!" He flung her aside. "This wasn't her idea!" He stormed out the door, chased down the hallway after the retreating girl.

Mary Beth, flustered, confounded and angry, rubbed her bruised arms. "Fuck you!" She went to the bedroom door, heard Holly sobbing.

"Please let me go."

Dunk pleaded angrily back. "We talked about this. You said you could handle it."

"I can't! All right! Now leave me alone!"

Mary Beth cursed again.

"I can't believe you talked me into this!" Holly appeared momentarily at the end of the hall, hopping on one foot, pants tangled about the other. Tears poured down both cheeks. "I must be fucking crazy! I must be out of my mind!" She fell heavily against a dining room chair. "Owww!"

Mary Beth had had enough. Grabbing her robe, she flung it about herself and cinched the belt, went to confront them both. Holly looked ready to run.

"Please, Mary Beth! Just let me go." Her chest, splattered by falling teardrops, heaved. She hiccupped loudly. Wiping her nose, she fumbled into her blue brassiere.

Some part of Mary Beth's mind registered that Holly's breasts were tipped by dime-sized, mahogany colored aureoles. "I don't know which one of you is worse," she said, hotly. She crossed her arms, mouth in a deep scowl. "Dunk I'd expect. You I never would."

Holly yanked on her shirt, tucked it halfway in. "Please. Just let me go."

Mary Beth leaned forward and, unable to stop herself, mind screaming at full volume to say nothing else, said very clearly: "You are a fucking cunt."

There was a silence. Then, a thoroughly devastated Holly fled the room, loosing both shoes in the small foyer trying to open the door. She did not stop to retrieve them.

Hating herself, knowing she had just destroyed the best friend--maybe the only friend--she had ever had, Mary Beth stared savagely at her boyfriend, then turned and went back to the bedroom

With wall-shattering strength, the door slammed shut.

Old Baltimore Road. Two-twenty A.M.

Her skinned knees burned, and the grass-itch made Mary Beth want to climb right out of her skin. She looked back continually. The road was narrower than it had been, unevenly paved, offering less concealment. The dank smell of corn, growing right up against the sides of the road, made her nose and eyes water; her skin crawled.

In the ninth grade, during her third period gym class, someone snuck into the girl's locker room and sprinkled Mary Beth's brassiere and panties with fiberglass dust, shaken most of it back out to conceal the act. Five minutes into her next class, Mary Beth began to itch. First it was beneath her brassiere, which she discreetly scratched through the front of her blouse, then her crotch, which she could not. The reaction grew devastatingly severe. To the amazement of teacher and classmates alike (save perhaps one), the fourteen-year old bolted from her desk and out the door, dashing to the nearest bathroom. Before of a startled Mrs. Chambers, her math teacher, and two other students, Mary Beth tore off her blouse and brassiere and doused her breasts with cold water. Seconds later it was her crotch area. Her misery lasted for weeks. No one was ever caught.

This was what corn silk did to her.

If she inadvertently touched the fine tassels and did not immediately wash, the welts came up within minutes. Even a few strands left on a boiled ear of corn created mouth-sores. Obviously, she wanted to avoid the corn.

She had covered roughly half the distance to Route 355. Though not physically demanding, the trek wore on her mentally. She worried Dunk might or might not be ahead, and how she would deal with it in either case. This was beyond the bounds of forgivable behavior; her fury at seeing him might send Mary Beth over the edge. If he weren't there--well that was a whole different thing to worry about.

If only she hadn't--

Mary Beth stopped dead in her tracks.

"Don't you think that," she said. "Don't you even let it into your mind."

The day after her fax paus, Holly missed work. She missed the following day also. She didn't answer her pages nor did she answer the phone. Finally, Mary Beth went to her apartment and pounded on the door. There was neither an answer, nor a brown Toyota Celica in the parking lot.

Friday morning, Mary Beth planted herself outside Holly's father's house in Gaithersburg. When Holly came out just before ten, she followed her to work.

She confronted Holly getting out of the car.

"Oh, God." Holly backed up, holding the Toyota's door before her like a shield. "Please--I don't want to fight." She looked around the parking lot for escape.

Mary Beth shook her head. "I'm not here to fight. I want to apologize."

Holly blinked, uncomprehending. Her voice was cautious. "What?"

Mary Beth said, "I had no right calling you what I did. It was cruel. And not true. I wanted to rip out my tongue afterwards."

Holly shifted uncomfortably.

"I know Dunk put you up to it, the son of a bitch. I'm just surprised it took so long." Mary Beth forced herself to say the next: "You're screwing him, aren't you?"

Holly slowly nodded. Her eyes teared.

"Godammit."

Holly whispered, "Please don't hate me, Mary Beth. I hate myself enough." She wiped her eyes, though her tears out paced any attempt to wipe them away. "You have no idea what doing that was like. I said no so often I finally said yes just to shut him up." She coughed, began to sob. "I didn't think I'd go through with it. I am such a fool."

Mary Beth gave in. Stepping forward, she placed a hand over Holly's. "I'm not blaming you," she said. "No. I am blaming you. You could have told me what was going on, warned me, instead of letting me wake up to an ambush. That was low. Not to mention screwing my boyfriend behind my back for God knows how long!" She was angering again. She stepped back.

"I'm sorry!" Holly cried. "I really am!" The misery in her voice doused Mary Beth's anger. "I don't know what to do."

Mary Beth vacillated. Finally, she asked: "How long?"

Holly said nothing, only shook her head.

Mary Beth took a guess. "Your birthday, wasn't it. The night we went downtown."

"I'm sorry."

Mary Beth compressed her lips. "Over a year."

A Jeep Wrangler containing three guys passed behind them and honked. Mary Beth unthinkingly threw up her middle finger, not turning to look. The guys howled back in appreciation. She said, "I don't want to stand here airing our laundry. Let's go inside."

Holly wiped her eyes. The sobbing had lessened. "I have to work," she said.

Mary Beth looked at her watch. "Lunch then. What time do you go?"

Holly tried to think through her confusion. "Two o'clock, probably. I'll call."

Mary Beth nodded. Adjusting her purse with an air of finality, she left Holly alone. Holly, still crying, looked distractedly around the lot, hiccupped taking a breath, then got her purse from the front seat and went inside.

They ate at Ruby Tuesday's on the second floor. Mary Beth had a salad, Holly as well. They said little before the meal, each wrestling with her own thoughts. When they did converse, their words remained carefully neutral. Sipping a fresh coffee afterward, Mary Beth finally broached the subject.

"How did it start?"

Holly stopped in mid-sip. Her hand trembled. She put down the cup. "That night. When he took me home. Us home, I mean."

Mary Beth had forgotten the striptease across the living room, and falling asleep naked on the bed. "I was wrecked," she said. "Passed out. Dunk never home." She swirled her coffee, added more cream. "He told me he slept on his father's couch."

Holly shook her head. The waiter approached, and she placed her hand over the cup. Her stomach was a minefield, waiting only a careless step. "It was totally unexpected, I can tell you that. I never for a minute imagined."

Mary Beth sighed. "Most things with Dunk are unimagined."

Holly said, "I've learned that. The hard way."

Mary Beth put down her cup, folded her hands in a chin rest. "Was it spontaneous? Or a seduction?"

Holly turned red. "It's all so stupid, Mary Beth. Dad wasn't home, and Mom was sound asleep. We were down in the rec-room. I had on that stupid blue dress, and like I really needed it, Dunk gave me more dope. If Louis were there it wouldn't have happened." Gloomily, she swirled her coffee. "Dunk took him home first and of course, I thought nothing of inviting Dunk in. Which I shouldn't have, because I was already wasted. We were at the coffee table, sniffing coke, and I let him do one thing, then another, and then it all just came apart."

Mary Beth cursed silently. "He should never have done that. Not to his niece." She braced herself for what she had to say. "It was no accident, Holly. Dunk never does anything by accident. If he had any thought about screwing you at all, it was a full blown plan. He doesn't jump at opportunities. And he doesn't leave anything to chance." She leaned forward. "He's had more opportunity to cheat on me than sesame seeds on a Big Mac. He revels in it. Tells me when he's been hit on, what he did or didn't say, how he brushed them off." She paused. "Also when he scores."

Holly's eyes widened.

Mary Beth looked at her coffee. "There's nothing in it for him, that's the only reason I put up with it. He doesn't see them again. I don't think he even has fun." She looked around for the waiter. "It's the challenge, I guess. Stalking us like game."

Holly took a shuddering breath. "That's exactly how I feel. Game."

Mary Beth momentarily touched Holly's hand. "Beat yourself up all you want. You had no more choice than a package of ground beef being picked over in a store."

Holly laughed. "Gee, that's flattering." She held herself in a loose clutch. "It wasn't--you know-- completely one-sided." She looked carefully at her coffee. "I was drunk and high on the coke--I'd never really had such a good time." She shrugged. "When Dunk started his move, either I didn't believe it, or I told myself it was just tease. Then his hand was inside my dress, and my dress came down--" She sat quietly a moment. "Then I couldn't stop."

Both girls were quiet. The waiter returned and refilled their cups and Mary Beth stirred in cream and a packet of Sweet 'N Low. She raised the cup to her lips. "Why did you go on?"

Holly shifted uncomfortably. In a low voice, she said, "I tried not to. Honest I did. The first month I was okay. He called a lot, and tried to see me, but Dad I think helped keep him away. Then there was Louis." Her words tailed off. "I feel like Linda Tripp."

Mary Beth smiled. "You should. What about your father? He doesn't suspect?"

Holly turned white. "God, no!" White showed around her pupils. "He'd kill me if he did. He'd kill us both!"

Mary Beth said, "It's hard keeping it a secret forever. It takes only one angry phone call or a jealous friend."

Holly misunderstood. "I never meant to betray you, Mary Beth. Honestly. I only said yes because my resolve finally gave out." She listlessly stirred the coffee. "I know how stupid this sounds, but I spent the last ten years hiding from my acne and the way I looked, and suddenly I was born into another person. At least that's how it felt." She sighed. "This is no excuse, but I couldn't say no. No meant going back to the way I was, and I couldn't do that." Her voice was barely audible. "I don't expect you to understand."

The waiter, sensing his tip depended upon discretion, determined neither wanted more coffee, laid the check between the two women and slipped away.

"I was so embarrassed," Mary Beth said, finally. "Especially after making love and realizing what he planned. I wanted to cry. No! I wanted to throw him out a window!"

Holly laughed. "I'd like to do that myself!" She made a swooshing motion with her hands.

"I wanted to pay someone to take naked photo's of you and put them all over the web."

Holly's grin turned crooked. "You could ask my brother. I'm sure he'd share."

It was Mary Beth's turn to laugh. "I might do that. He home?"

Holly began to relax. "Looking at them right now, I'm sure. Or sharing them with his friends."

Mary Beth laughed, forgot her anger. The girl across the table was the same Holly she had known before: loving, compassionate, funny. Her sense of betrayal eased.

"I want to ask you something."

Holly waited.

"Have you ever been with another woman?"

Holly's eyes grew wide. "No. Of course not."

Mary Beth inclined her head. "We should do it, just to get even."

Holly covered her mouth. "Mary Beth!" Then: "You're not serious?"

"I am."

"But--"

"You were willing last night."

Holly stared. "That's different. I--"

Mary Beth finished her words. "--was acting under duress?"

Holly wrung her napkin.

Mary Beth suddenly realized it was the opposite answer Holly feared. "Say yes, Holly."

Air seemed to rush into Holly's lungs. She started to laugh. "I don't know whether to be happy or terrified. I'd never have the courage to ask myself." A telltale shudder ran through her. "Thank you."

Feeling rather a bully, Mary Beth replied: "You're welcome."

"When?"

"Tonight?"

"Tonight?"

"Um."

"What about Dunk?"

"What about him?"

"You don't--"

Mary Beth shook her head.

"What if he wants to be there?" Holly said.

"Sorry. Men not allowed."

Holly looked dubious.

Mary Beth leaned close. "He started this Holly, not us. If things don't go quite the way he expected, he has nothing to say."

Holly nodded, though still looked unconvinced. "What time?"

Mary Beth said, "Right after work. We'll do dinner, maybe a movie. There's a new Harrison Ford movie I'd really love to see." Holly nodded, and Mary Beth said, "Your place? Six? That gives me time to shower and change."

Mary Beth paid the check and as they prepared to leave, had an impulsive--and very real--desire to kiss Holly right there. They exchanged a hug outside the restaurant. Holly walked quickly away. Watching her, Mary Beth was aware that anyone looking could guess the truth. She didn't care. Thinking of Holly later that night brought a silly grin to her face. Squashing it, she turned and headed away.

Black Hill Park. Sometime after Midnight.

Their conversation, once it resumed talking, deteriorated quickly. Most of his questions Mary Beth deflected either with a shrug or a grunt, but Dunk was nothing if not persistent. She was just as determined not to be bullied.

"You can't pretend not to love her," Dunk said. "I feel it every time we kiss. You might as well be New York."

Mary Beth remembered having that feeling herself. She said, "This isn't about Holly. It's about you and me." She made a slicing gesture with her hand. "You and me here; Holly over there. You treat her like shit anyway, so why do you care?"

"Jesus. How can you say that?" He shifted to face her. "I've given Holly everything she wanted. A new car, freedom from her father--"

"A baby."

Dunk stiffened. "That's off limits," he said, hotly. "I won't take blame for her pregnancy."

Mary Beth laughed contemptuously. "You fucked her! If that's not to blame, I don't know what is!"

Measuring his words, Dunk said, "She was supposed to be on the pill. I took her at her word. How was I supposed to know she was lying?"

Mary Beth spun and poked him in the chest. "Godammit! She was not lying! She showed me the pack, and it was up-to-date. Every day used!" She sat back against the door. "Birth control pills are not flawless, Dunk. Especially the low dose ones. You should have used a condom."

Dunk threw up his hands. "Everyone has unprotected sex!" he exclaimed. "We do it all the time."

"That's exactly my point!" she yelled. "I've only been on the pill for five months! Five fucking months! Five years I went through constant fear I'd get pregnant! And you--you selfish bastard--think you'd use a condom! Hell no! Leave it up to me. Well I got news for you. Diaphragms suck! Shields suck! Everything else sucks!"

Dunk lit another cigarette. He blew smoke, looked out the window. His right forefinger tapped the wheel.

In a more reasonable tone, Mary Beth said: "Dunk, she's a kid. A sheltered kid. She's been under her dad's thumb so long she has a dent in her backside. Once you put your hands on her, she might as well have sold herself to the devil." She touched his forearm. "She worships the ground you walk on and you just don't care."

He gave her a weary look. "I offered to pay for an abortion, Mary Beth. What else can I do?"

"She doesn't want an abortion, Dunk. She wants your support."

"I'm her uncle, Mary Beth," he said, anger returning. "If the department found out, I'd get canned. Worse, I'd get prosecuted. Incest is a felony in Maryland, you know? Think I don't want to go to jail?" He shook his head. "Abortion is the only option."

Mary Beth said, "She's a devout Catholic. With or without you, she's having the baby." She laughed derisively. "She thinks it's her punishment. Why, God only knows. It wasn't her that spit in God's face."

Dunk's right hand fisted, and Mary Beth sat back, braced against the seat. Nothing happened. He let out a slow breath, let the hand settle back in his lap, said, "Then she raises the kid herself."

"She doesn't have the money," Mary Beth rejoined. "She barely makes the rent."

"Get a roommate."

"She has a roommate."

"Get another one."

Exhausted, Mary Beth looked out the window. She still loved Dunk--though she hated him as well--and wanted very much to resolve their dilemma. Before Holly, Dunk was the only person she had ever wanted or really cared about. Now it was threatened. And despite their current problems, breaking off the relationship was the last thing Mary Beth wanted.

Suddenly Dunk said: "I want to make love. Can we do that?"

It had been two weeks since their last sex. It had not been good. To her surprise, Mary Beth said, "I would love to."

Spreading the blanket across a small island of grass, they removed their shoes and Mary Beth flexed her toes in the wet grass. Dunk held her from behind, slowly kissed the nape of her neck, her shoulders, bringing Mary Beth to arousal. He lifted the front of her shirt and unsnapped her brassiere, took her breasts in his hands. He caressed her nipples into erection.

"You still love me, right?" Mary Beth asked, needing assurance.

"You know I do. I just hope it goes both ways."

He removed her shirt and brassiere, let them drop to the blanket. Mary Beth turned in his arms, placed her arms around his neck.

"I love you. You know I love you." She kissed him, raised onto her toes and let him unbuckle her shorts. She stepped out of them as they fell. "I have to know we can work this out," she said. "Holly included."

Dunk placed his forehead against hers. "Can we leave this till morning?"

"We can. But, I need to know you'll be with me in the morning."

Encircling her waist, drawing her close, he whispered, "Our problems can be worked out, Mary Beth. Holly included."

Dunk removed her panties and lowered her to the ground. He was almost brutal in his entry; his lovemaking intense. Mary Beth, desperately in need of affection, responded in kind, struggling beneath him like an overmatched wrestling partner, legs struggling but never finding purchase. Finally, she planted her feet and fought him with hips alone, thrusting, lips and tongue in a feverish dance. They exploded together, a fury of sound that startled nearby activity into submission. Gasping air and emitting muffled shrieks, her orgasm roared along like a steam locomotive. Mary Beth rode it until her energy was spent, finally collapsed like a bridge failing under too much weight. Only then, like inhabitants of an air-raid shelter emerging after the all-clear, did the night-sounds resume.

Dunk covered them both with the blanket and, as Mary Beth slipped away to exhausted sleep, convinced things would work out, stared into the lowering clouds.

Mary Beth could never have guessed what Dunk planned.

Dinner--and Something More--at Eight

At seven o'clock sharp, the doorbell rang. Holly was still dressing and threw on her robe, cinching it as she crossed the living room. Her whole body trembled, though invisibly, and her teeth begged to chatter. Checking the peep-hole, she unlatched the bolt and let Mary Beth in.

"Hi." Terrific greeting, said her wistful smile.

Mary Beth smiled. She wore a simple denim shorts- overall outfit over a white top, with open-toe white sandals and a hip purse. Her hair, back in a long ponytail, brushed lightly across her shoulder blades. Holly closed and locked the door.

For the briefest of seconds the friends just stood, looking embarrassed, then Holly led Mary Beth back into the apartment. They stood quiet again in the living room and, seeking diversion, Mary Beth focused on a mahogany china cabinet with crystal-paned doors.

"This is new," she said, running her fingers along the burnished wood. It sat behind the dining room set and table service she had helped Holly pick out. (She had also lent five hundred dollars toward their purchase.) The cabinet was much finer quality than the other furniture, and old.

"It's my mom's. Or was my mom's. My grandmother's, actually."

Mary Beth looked around. "Your dad must be in a trance," she said, remembering his obdurate attitude toward Holly moving out.

"He's coming around." Holly put thumb and forefinger together and shook her hand. "A little," she said, smiling. Both girls laughed. The gesture was from the last movie they had watched together, Starman, where a spaced out alien in the guise of Jeff Bridges had charmed them both into tears. "Want something to drink?"

Mary Beth nodded. "Thanks."

While Holly went to fix iced tea, Mary Beth found something soft for them to listen to. Fingering the small collection of CD's, she settled on Luther Van Dross. An odd choice, Dunk might have said, but one she and Holly both liked. She inserted the disk and went to the kitchen.

In the doorway she stopped.

Holly was at the counter, slicing a lemon, back to Mary Beth. Mary Beth watched, struggling with her emotions. Her sexual North Pole had always pointed up, wandering no more than a few degrees off center, certainly never enough to consider sex with another girl. Even after Pattie Kensington. Now it had flip-flopped one hundred and eighty degrees and all she could think about was sex with another girl. Holly.

"Can I ask you something?" she said.

Holly turned around.

"How long have you had feelings for me?"

Holly flushed. "Sexual feelings?"

"Yes."

Holly fiddled with the knife. "Almost forever." She blushed harder. "It started right after my eighteenth birthday party, I guess. We began lunching and seeing each other--" she rolled a cut-in-half lemon between her fingertips "--and before I knew it, I was hooked. That was before I had strong feelings for Dunk." She looked away. "If I ever really did."

Mary Beth moved to the counter, a few steps away. "I lied when I said I had never been with another girl," she said.

Holly looked at the lemon. "Dunk told me."

"You also know I'm not a lesbian."

Holly looked up from beneath her hair. "You're saying I am?"

Mary Beth moved immediately forward. "No! God, no." She placed her hands on Holly's forearms, spoke softly. "I'm afraid you think this is just a sex thing, or a payback to Dunk."

"Isn't it?"

Mary Beth flinched. "Not for me." A vacuum threatened to collapse her chest. "If that's what you think..." She stepped away, but Holly caught her hand.

"I don't! Not even a little bit." She was breathing hard, eyes liquid. "I was afraid you thought that." She shivered once, and her voice was husky. "I want it to be about you and me."

Mary Beth touched Holly's cheek and the girl's drew closer together, silence a buffer between them. They both wanted the kiss, understood the other knew it, but the moment passed. Awkwardly, Holly backed away. "I should get dressed."

Mary Beth followed her to the bedroom door, where she waited.

The room was small and airily decorated in pastels. Two walls were covered in wallpaper; the others painted. The furnishings were few: a small, double-size bed brought from home and covered in a pink and yellow comforter, an end table holding a yellow-shaded lamp. There was also a rocking chair, a bureau, and a full length mirror hanging opposite the vanity. The one decoration, a small floral arrangement they had found together at a flea market, hung over the bed.

"I told Dunk I'd be late tonight." Mary Beth said.

Holly had removed her robe, picked up a blue satin top off the bed, and undecidedly begun to dress. She paused. "What did he say to that?"

"How late is late?"

Holly laughed, quickly sobered. "Does he know?" she asked.

Mary Beth shrugged. "I alluded to it. Let him sit and stew."

Holly fastened the upper three buttons on her top. Mary Beth thought Holly adorable--pixyish even--in her new underwear and outfit. Her hair, freshly cut and styled that afternoon, added to the palpable sense of embarrassment between them. Then her eyes fixed on the bed and Mary Beth got a jolt of reality.

Oh my! Am I really doing this?

Holly caught both her eye and her reaction. Taking a deep breath, she said: "I'd feel a whole lot better if you'd just kiss me, Mary Beth." Her eyes were silver dollars, and she trembled lightly. The sides of her half-buttoned shirt, clutched to her chest in an effort to stop shaking, fluttered like butterfly wings. "That sounds stupid, I know, but--"

Mary Beth stepped away from the door. "No it doesn't. Not at all."

"Louis--the first Louis--always said to get the kiss over with first. If you liked the person. That way you don't worry about it all night long."

Mary Beth moved to her side. "I can't tell you how often my tongue tied on a first date. Boy's act like they're having a brain hemorrhage. Me too, sometimes."

Holly leaned forward, and Mary Beth kissed her gently.

"Yes," Mary Beth said, pulling back. They both laughed. "That I definitely like."

They kissed again, this time moving closer, Mary Beth spreading the partly unbuttoned blouse and touching Holly's waist. Their mouths opened to find each other's tongue, letting them dance together. Haltingly and awkward, they gravitated like a pair of misaligned magnets, unsure whether to join or to fall apart. After a moment, they parted.

Holly grinned. Her teeth chattered lightly, and her face was a cardinal red. Mary Beth's left hand touched her forearm, the other was inside her shirt, touching lightly beneath her breast. Her heart thundered like a stampede of cattle. "Wow."

For a time they just stared, eyes locked, feeling the thump of their beating hearts. Then Mary Beth said, "Would you like to--" indicating the bed.

"Oh, God, yes!" Holly leaped forward, arms wrapping around Mary Beth's neck. They locked together, falling backwards onto the bed, mouths never parting though both girls laughed. Holly straddled Mary Beth's waist, sat lightly upon her as they kissed.

"My God!" Holly laughed.

"I know, I know."

Fumbling with Mary Beth's shoulder straps, Holly found her blouse undone and pushed back over her shoulders. She struggled out of it and then fought Mary Beth for control of her straps.

"No fair! " She smacked Mary Beth's hands away. "I want to do that!"

They struggled more, broke into giggles, then Mary Beth commandeered Holly's mouth and the struggle was forgotten.

"Mary Beth--"

"I know. It's okay."

Kissing lightly along Holly's jaw, Mary Beth followed it back to her ear, where she gently began to suck. Holly shuddered. Then her fingers ran lightly along Holly's side to her right breast, folded around it, and Holly shuddered again. The fit was perfect.

"I like that," Holly sighed. Then, as her nipple turned between two fingers, becoming erect, "I like that even more."

Suddenly, Mary Beth's hand rose and came down with a resounding slap.

"Ow!" Holly rubbed her stinging cheek. "What was that for?"

"This bra is from VS!" Mary Beth accused, fingering the strap. "Where'd you get it?"

With a grimace, Holly said: "Montgomery Mall. Last weekend."

"You bought it from someone else?"

Holly laughed and said, "It's the same pair I had on the other night." Mary Beth had in fact, noticed. "You were in for a surprise as it was. Besides, I was scared."

"It's not like I would have known."

"I would have."

Mary Beth kissed her again, hard, inserting her tongue deeply. "You're forgiven," she said, kissed the curve of Holly's neck. She lowered the brassierre's straps, then the cups, exposing small brown nipples and aureole. A moment later, Holly's left nipple was in her mouth.

"Mary Beth!"

Mary Beth drew as much of Holly in as she could, making Holly shudder, unsnapped the brassiere and removed it.

Holly momentarily stiffened, relaxed when Mary Beth encircled her neck with the bra and laughingly drew her close.

Holly pushed back her hair. "This is so strange."

Mary Beth kissed her again. "It's gonna get stranger."

"Was it like this before?"

"With Pattie? Not at all." She gave a brief narrative of her experience.

"You were okay afterward?"

"Not like this."

Holly sat up, placed Mary Beth's hands over her breasts, squeezed them tightly. Her chest rose and fell with slow, deep breaths. Both felt a low burning. From the way Holly's flush reached low into her chest, ignition was very close.

Mary Beth said, "If we don't stop, we'll never get off this bed."

Holly placed her hands over Mary Beth's breasts, squeezed them gently. "What's so bad about that?"

"Nothing. Except I'm starving, and I have to pee. And I want a little girl-talk before I rip you apart!"

They degenerated into helpless laughter.

Holly reluctantly stood, replaced her brassiere. Mary Beth refastened the one strap Holly had gotten loose and, putting her arms about Holly's neck, said: "We'll resume this when we get home."

"One condition," Holly said.

"What's that?"

"I get to stay on top!"

Black Hill Park. One A.M.

Mary Beth awoke to find Dunk up and dressed. At the truck, he appeared to be folding and placing her clothes on the back seat. He motioned her to get up.

Mary Beth wrapped the blanket around herself instead and sat, crooking her finger suggestively.

"No," Dunk said, walking over and taking her hand. "Time to go."

He drew her erect, and Mary Beth released the blanket and let it fall away. Clasping her hands behind her back, she said: "We don't have to, you know. You can make love to me again, and I won't tell."

He grinned, and Mary Beth felt a sudden chill. Was that malice in his grin, a low glee? Or just a trick of the milky light? She looked again at the Bronco. Why had he folded her clothes?

Alarm bells began to sound.

"What's going on?" she demanded.

Dunk picked up the blanket, folded and placed it atop her clothes.

"Dunk?"

He said, "Know what I think?"

Mary Beth tried to edge around him but he shut the door.

"I think you and Holly are two halves of the same coin."

She crossed her arms, suddenly aware of the oppressive dark and eerie stillness. "What are you talking about?"

"Remember we talked about what I'd do if you left me?"

"Dunk, this isn't funny. Give me back my clothes."

"What did I say?"

"Dunk--"

"I said, if you ever tried to break it off, I'd make you walk out of here naked. Didn't I?"

Mary Beth became very still. "Stop this and give me--"

"You agreed," he said, cutting her off.

A moth fluttered against her nose and Mary Beth slapped it away with fright. "You can't be serious!"

He said, lightly, "I never said it had to be another guy."

Mary Beth was truly angered now. And frightened. She stepped forward, pointed at the recently covered grass. "Did I miss something? What was that we just did?"

The grin reappeared. "Last dinner for the condemned." He bounced the car keys in his hand, backed against the door. "You and Holl are this close to being a matched pair, leaving me a third party." He opened the door. "Know what happens to third parties in a romance?"

"If you don't stop this and give me my clothes--"

Suddenly, he placed a hand against Mary Beth's chest and pushed. "Hey!" Startled, she tumbled backwards, tripping over her own feet, landing flat on her back, legs akimbo.

Dunk got in the Bronco, shut the door.

"Dunk!"

Struggling back to a sitting position, Mary Beth jumped up, promptly lost her footing and did a one-eighty. Regaining her balance, she ran to the passenger side door. It was too late. Dunk had already pressed the lock. He grinned at her in triumph.

"Bye Mary Beth."

She stood there in shock, panting, pounding the glass. Dunk only laughed. Running around the other side--again losing her footing--she smacked the driver's window with both hands.

"What the fuck are you doing!"

"I told you," he said through the glass. "Coming in last."

He started the engine, and Mary Beth's heart went right to her throat. She jumped around to the Bronco's front end and planted her hands on the hood.

"Oh, no! You're not leaving me this way!"

Dunk threw the Bronco in reverse, shot backward over the curb. Skidding up the small incline sideways, he ran over the bordering shrubs, coming up against a small pine. Mary Beth plunged to the ground, slapping both hands to the pavement. Skinning knuckles on both hands, she cried out in pain. Then the truck was by her and accelerating across the lot.

"Dunk!"

She kneeled in disbelief, showered by clogs of earth and small stones thrown off by the tires. Then she took off after him at a run. Where the parking lot hooked to the left, the Bronco slowed; Rolling down the window, Dunk held something aloft, something white; waved it tauntingly. In the weak moonlight Mary Beth saw it was her panties. He began to move slowly forward, but when Mary Beth reached the bumper, he jumped the gas and the Bronco leapt forward again.

"Give me back my clothes!"

"Three-fifteen!" he yelled, giving her the rendezvous point.

Mary Beth yelled: "You bastard! You can't do this!"

"No?" He gunned the car forward again. "Who's standing there naked?"

Mary Beth ran, but no sooner had she reached the Bronco's rear end than Dunk floored it again. The Bronco shot forward, slowing at the top of the lot, where again it made a left-hand turn. He tossed out her panties, followed by her shoes and socks. Honking merrily, he floored the accelerator and the Bronco was gone.

Nearly hysterical with rage, Mary Beth ran to where her panties and shoes lay and past them, taking the ninety- degree turn at full speed. Her feet, already battered by stones and broken glass, slipped on a patch of loose scree and she almost fell. The tip of her small left toe skinned raw. (Although she wouldn't know this until later). Cutting across an island, she nearly fell again, finally slowed. She arrived just in time to see the Bronco disappear onto the park road. Huffing, she stood a minute, then jogged to the end of the lot, watched the Bronco's tail lights flashed once brightly, then disappear behind an intervening hill.

Mary Beth was alone.

Bubbly and a Little Talk

The drive to Zio's restaurant was anticlimactic. They chatted about nothing material, staying instead with simple girl-talk. Despite Mary Beth's earlier claim, she was not hungry. Her stomach was a golf ball-size knot, pitted just as badly with holes. Once there; however, the almost carnal smell of Italian cooking turned both girls ravenously hungry. They ordered a deluxe, deep dish pizza.

"I've been on a diet longer than I've been alive," Mary Beth laughed, breaking a bread stick in half. Butter basted and covered with seasoning, it was more calories than she had consumed in two days. "I was conceived on a diet."

Holly showed her fake ID, and the waitress opened the bottle of Chianti, filled their glasses, and placed the bottle in an ice-filled tub.

Holly took a sip. "What in the world for? You have, maybe, half a gram of fat on your entire body."

Mary Beth held up five fingers, pinched her middle. "This is what I need to loose, minimum. I've gained ten in the last two months, and I can't stand it. Ever since he discovered cooking, Dunk feeds me constantly."

Holly interleaved her fingers, rested her chin on them, said, "Has anyone ever mentioned the word perfect to you?"

Mary Beth cheesed. "That's the sweetest thing anyone's said all day." She attacked another bread stick. "If I don't stop, I'll look like my mother."

Holly fiddled with her blouse. "I already look like my mother."

Mary Beth snorted. "Well, I'm not kissing her."

The pizza came, and both girls stared, more in horror than wonder. Twenty inches across, chunk-cut tomatoes and peppers lay under the bubbling skin, while huge chunks of sliced pepperoni and salami sank through the sauce like foundering ships. The waitress laughed and deftly sliced the pizza into eight equal slices, then sixteen when Mary Beth looked at her with doubt.

"Jesus Christ," Holly said, rubbing her lips.

"I can't even eat one, much less half this!" Mary Beth barked laughter. "My diet!"

Holly touched the edge of the pan. "Ow!"

"It's hot," the waitress warned, unnecessarily. "Watch out." She laid a stack of napkins beside each plate, refilled their water glasses, then slipped away.

The girls dug in.

"Fuck my diet!" Mary Beth skewered two slices, pulled them onto her plate. Thick tentacles clung back to the circular monster like chains. "Fuck your diet too."

Holly tried to sever a piece, attacked it with her knife. "I'm on a diet?"

"You are now."

Holly sawed cheese unsuccessfully, said, "Then I might as well enjoy it."

After a few mouthfuls, Holly swirled her Chianti and said, "Sometimes I think Dunk is insane. No, I mean really insane." Mary Beth gave her a you just discovered that? look. "This drug thing, for instance." She glanced around, lowered her voice. "He makes fifty something a year, Mary Beth, what's he doing selling drugs? He knows it's not worth, it seems to make it more fun."

"He's a thrill freak," Mary Beth said. "Always has been."

"I know, but he's gonna get caught. They always get caught. And cops don't do well in jail."

Mary Beth toyed with her fork, winding and unwinding whorls of cheese. She said, "Last winter two cops at his station got busted on a drug sting. Two more from the main precinct in Rockville. They tried to sell it out of state, which is a federal crime. Dunk wasn't involved in this one directly--they lifted it from the Police Properties room in Rockville--but he did hold it as a favor. For one of his buddies, quote-unquote. Three kilos." Mary Beth shook her head.

"The night after he gave it back, his buddy and one of the Rockville cops drove down to Manassas, tried to sell it to an FBI agent. It could have led right back to him." She looked up, sighed. "Know what he said? He should have sold it himself. Had a buyer lined up in Baltimore, only needed to cut himself in. The reason he didn't was because the Rockville cops were sloppy. He was more pissed about losing the sale than almost getting caught." She pointed her fork. "Now that's Dunk!"

Holly shook her head.

"I stopped doing it. You should too."

Holly's stopped in mid-bite. "What?"

"Coke."

Holly's eyes widened slightly; she looked away. "I have"

"Good."

Changing the subject, Holly said, "He always gets what he wants. How can you stand that?"

Mary Beth drained half her glass of wine. "Trick with Dunk is to be just as bull-headed as he is. Or just as crazy. Which I wasn't until lately, but now I am. Bull- headed, I mean. Letting a man set the rules goes against to my nature--the original cast-iron bitch, remember?" She laughed. "With Dunk it's a struggle just keeping my identity. He takes a pick here and a pinch there, until you feel like a purple bruise."

"Or a punching bag."

"That too." Mary Beth refilled her glass, topped off Holly's, which she had barely touched. "Come on! We're supposed to be enjoying ourselves!"

Holly grinned wryly. "I'm already enjoying myself."

Mary Beth observed her over the rim of her glass. "Are you?"

Holly briefly touched her hand. "Almost as much as earlier."

Color crept into Mary Beth's face, a healthy, radiant color that made Holly smile.

"What are you going to do?"

The slight widening returned to Holly's eyes. "About what?"

"Dunk."

"I'm gonna stop seeing him, of course. You had to ask?"

Mary Beth cupped the glass in her hands, looked at her friend thoughtfully. "Is there something else?"

Holly twiddled her fork. "No. Why?"

"You seem bothered. By something other than Dunk."

"Other than us?"

"That shouldn't bother you at all."

Holly continued to twirl the fork. "I'm fine."

Mary Beth let it go. "Okay then!" She tore loose another wedge of pizza, dismembered the clinging tendrils, and said, "Let's finish this feast and make like a tree and bark!" They laughed, and Mary Beth leaned forward. "I want to show you my underwear," she whispered.

Holly could only grin foolishly and blush.

Black Hill Park. One-thirty A.M.

Mary Beth sat down. Pebbles dug her rear end, but she hardly noticed. Her anger was an unlanced boil, suppurating, gradually giving way to fear in the darkness. For a time she just sat and shook her head, cursing Dunk. She cursed the darkness. She cursed the peek-a-boo moon. Thinking it a cold, dispassionate eye, she wonders what any intelligence behind it thought of her situation.

She had been through scrapes, but never like this. Crouching on the floorboard of his truck in rush hour traffic, giving Dunk head, or stripping to her skin at Seneca Valley High School the night of her five-year reunion, posing before of her old locker while Dunk snapped photographs was a Sunday school lesson compared to this. She considers this an episode of madness, as far beyond those things as a dented fender is to a head-on collision between trains.

It was insanity.

It was also the end of their relationship, even if he came back.

Which he would not.

She spent a further minute catching her breath, then got up. Her tail was a pin cushion, peppered with stones. She carefully brushed it off. Her skinned toes ached and when she lifted her left foot, Mary Beth was not surprised to find blood. Disgusted, she hobbled back to her clothing.

What if he had left me nothing? she asked.

He very nearly did.

She picked up her panties, shook them out and carefully slid them on. The socks were probably an afterthought; one for which she was extremely thankful. Getting the canvas and leather of her Nike's past her injured toes would be hell. Just tying the shoelaces made her wince.

She crossed her arms, shivered a bit, and watched the light-starved parking lot disappear entirely. She could not even see the road. The moon, her second tormentor, was a splotch on the overcast. She looked around.

Woods enclosed her on three sides, dangerously close. Night's sounds, usually a comfort, were now spooky and unnatural, too often seeming to come from all directions at once. Something screeched in the darkness to her left, making Mary Beth jump. It took flight and emerged from the tree line, skimming silently over the parking lot, a huge owl with a five-foot wingspan. She could just make out its shape against the trees.

She forced herself to calm. Consider the options, Mary Beth. The park had telephones located throughout: at all the larger buildings and restrooms, from any of which she could place a call. The closest, she guessed, was at the main parking lot, down by the lake, but this was in the opposite direction, and besides, it was the lake and Mary Beth would not go near the lake. Another hung on the restroom in the next picnic area over and that was the direction she needed to go.

Make the call how?

"Shit!"

She had no purse and no change! She tried to remember if dialing locally were possible without change, then decided "O" got the operator regardless. Worse came to worse, she'd dial 911. She started walking.

Reaching the park road, Mary Beth checked her watch. One-fifteen. The road wound down and to her left, disappearing into a low gap behind a stand of trees. The moon was out, sneaking between clouds, and illuminated the gap just enough to reinforce its spookiness. Shivering, she walked out to the middle of the road, and descended, keeping a sharp ear and a sharper eye.

Halfway down, the moon disappeared again. Mary Beth was plunged into darkness. Movements, stealthily soft, sounded from her right and Mary Beth slowed and then froze. She looked straight ahead, petrified, until a branch sounded a low snap, cracked again louder, and then she jumped and nearly ran. Only the sudden emergence of a doe with two fawns at the edge of the road--themselves startled--kept Mary Beth from screaming.

She went down and through the low area, started up the next hill. Fifty yards further on was the outline of another parking lot--the picnic area. She left the park road and cut through the grass, climbed a small hill, avoiding the dense, towering pine trees like monstrous Christmas trees inhabiting the park. Even this slight of a rise was treacherous. Twice she lost her footing, both times barely catching herself on her fingertips. At the top, she stumbled in a depression and nearly fell again, realizing with alarm it was the opening of some animal's den. Angry scratching sent her scurrying away.

At the restrooms she stopped. A tall wooden fence surrounded the entrance, and Mary Beth gave it a wide berth, fearing the darkness behind. She circled the building to the front, saw the telephone huddled between two huge dark shapes. It nearly set her running until she recognized them as soda machines.

Her relief was short lived.

Picking up the receiver and placing it against one ear, she was distraught to hear no dial tone, only dead silence. She tried the operator, but nothing happened, and pushing buttons at random drew the same response.

No! she pleaded. This can't be! It had to work!

She looked then at the metallic cord, dangling loose from the handset, found it cut at the box. Screaming, she fired the handset against the wall, only to have it bounce back and strike her on the chest. She screamed a second time, snatched up the phone and hurled it back against the wall. This time she dodged barely in time. The tip of the severed cord flicked her right ear in passing

"Son of a bitch!"

Then it became ugly. Venting her rage against the coin box, Mary Beth beat it mercilessly with the receiver with both hands, until the end shattered and she was peppered with broken plastic and wire. She threw the remains into the woods and stomped angrily away.

Further Bad News

On the way back to Holly's apartment, Mary Beth learned more of the story.

"The morning after, I was completely freaked out. Not only had I slept with my uncle, but I hadn't used protection."

Mary Beth nodded. That feeling she understood.

"I'd been on the pill for about a year, the year before," Holly said, "but that was more to control my cycle than anything else. I'm so irregular, sometimes I skip three months at a time. But, it caused too many problems. Sometimes I'd bleed between, sometimes I'd have irregular heartbeats and stomach problems."

"What about now?"

"Now it's okay. I take the low dosage pill." She turned to Mary Beth, looking uncertain. "I don't entirely trust them."

"And Dunk doesn't like condoms," Mary Beth warned, before realizing this was unnecessary. "I guess that's kind of late."

"Kinda." Holly looked straight ahead. "I might be pregnant."

Mary Beth wrenched the wheel. "What?"

Holly just looked straight ahead.

"Are you sure?"

"Not completely. I haven't bought a test kit. But...pretty much."

Mary Beth was confounded. And jealous. She concentrated on the road.

"I counted back, and I was ovulating the last time we did it," Holly said. "I'm more than two weeks late."

"Oh, Holly."

Holly's voice cracked. "I don't know what to do."

Mary Beth was silent. It started to rain, tiny buck shots of water peppering the windshield and quickly expanding to a flood. She turned on the wipers. "I wondered why you didn't drink any wine." She looked sideways at Holly, at her reflection in the window. Tear's shown in Holly's eyes. "I've used the test myself," she admitted. "and this is too early, I think. The instructions say fourteen days or more. Better three weeks."

"I'm almost that now."

Mary Beth said, "Does Dunk know?"

Holly shook her head. "No, and I don't think he's going to like it."

Mary Beth agreed, though she didn't say. "It may be nothing more than stress, Holl. Stress whacks you worse than anything else." She laughed, bitterly. "I can vouch for that. I've sweated a late period lots of times."

Holly looked over, bit her lip. "I'm scared."

"I guess so. I'm not suggesting one, but have you--"

"No!" Holly said, quickly, looking again out the windshield. She relented. "It's not like I haven't thought about it. I've thought it a lot."

The downpour had worsened, almost to the point of rendering vision impossible. Mary Beth cursed softly and turned the wipers on high.

"Have you ever--" Holly let the question dangle.

"Once. I was eighteen."

Holly blinked at the revelation. She turned away. "Sorry. I shouldn't have asked."

Mary Beth shook her head. "It's okay, really. I just wish I'd had someone I could confide in."

Holly touched Mary Beth's hand. "Dunk wasn't--"

"Supportive?" Mary Beth laughed derisively. "Like a total stranger. Shit, I got more support from my father's rabbi than I got from him."

Holly placed her hand over Mary Beth's, inter linking their fingers. Mary Beth gripped it tightly.

"Are you going to tell him?"

"I don't know."

"Are you seriously considering having it?"

"I don't know."

Mary Beth felt the misery behind Holly's words, remembered her own. You never forgot the horror.

"Bastard. Sometimes I really hate him."

Holly's offered a lopsided grin. "Me too."

They were almost back to the apartment when Mary Beth pulled over. "I want you to promise me something," she said, taking Holly's hand and gripping it between her own. "If you make the decision, I don't want you to tell Dunk."

"Why?"

"Because he's a coward. It was my fault when I got pregnant, he said; no responsibility at all. Left me alone in the decision. Twisted that to his advantage when he wanted, saying I was weak. As far as I'm concerned, he doesn't deserve to know."

Holly nodded slowly, eyes wet. Softly, she said, "That's the hardest thing. Knowing he won't care." Tears tracked down her cheeks. "I was raised Catholic, Mary Beth, and even though I'm not a very good one, I still believe in the sanctity of life. I feel condemned even thinking about an abortion." She broke down sobbing, collapsed into Mary Beth's arms. "What am I going to do?"

Mary Beth held her tightly, stroking her hair, trying to find the proper words. She cried as well. Passing vehicles threw sheets of water against the car, and a light membrane of fog developing over the windows gave them privacy. "Whatever decision you make," she said, swallowing hard, "I'll support you." Holly continued to sob. "I could even move in, go to class with you. Be your birth partner." She laughed, clearing her throat. "You don't have to go it alone."

Holly hiccupped loudly, laughed also. She drew back, looked into Mary Beth's eyes, and a moment later they kissed. Their intense need shocked both.

"Did you mean that?" Holly asked.

Mary Beth kissed her again. "Every word."

"Then let's go home."

Black Hill Park. One forty-five A.M.

Tramping away from the restroom and its destroyed phone, Mary Beth found herself in another parking lot. It was something of a shortcut, she discovered, putting her nearer the park road than had she backtracked.

The lake was ahead, shimmering softly under a slight breeze, newly constructed houses beyond the opposite shore silhouetted against the night sky. All the windows were dark; the houses coldly deserted.

Mary Beth's fear of lake sides--any body of water at night--was well earned. On a warm summer night at her parent's lakeside cabin in the Catskill's, three local boys, all in their early teens--one of whom Mary Beth thought she knew well and liked--convinced her to take a stroll along the lakefront. Once alone and out of earshot, however, they forced her into the woods to a small clearing, where a pair of blankets was spread. They stripped her naked, then had rough and unaccomplished sex with Mary Beth for two hours. Afterward, showing forethought, the boys lead Mary Beth, nude and shivering, to the lakeside, made her wade into the cold water and wash off. Any evidence was destroyed. She was even force to perform a makeshift douche, using a discarded plastic soda bottle.

Mary Beth never told of the rape, but she never recovered from it either.

To her left was the two-tiered main parking lot, the length of two football fields, below her the boathouse and docks. The metal pier groaned softly in the still air; she heard the clank of one aluminum canoe bumping another. Something swift and silent darted through the air above her, racing out over the water to swoop and soar, then darting back just as quickly. Bats, Mary Beth thought, and shivered.

Pay phones were at the boathouse below and at the restrooms just visible in the moonlight at the end on the main parking lot. Mary Beth had not the patience to walk two hundred yards to a phone she knew seldom worked; neither would she approach the lake. Merely seeing the shimmering water was enough. She cursed softly and continued along the parking lot to the main road.

It amazed Mary Beth how much energy she expended in a mindless rage. She ached throughout her entire upper body, wrists and shoulders the worst. Climbing the grade, she rubbed them distractedly. At the top of the hill was the residence/office of the Park Superintendent, which Dunk had pointed out on a number of occasions, saying how lucky it was they no longer stayed overnight, due to budget cutbacks. She wondered if she'd have the courage to knock if someone were there.

The house and small office were as dark and deserted as everything else in the park.

Fifty feet ahead, the park road looped back on itself, where Mary Beth would have arrived had she followed it instead of detouring to the restroom. She passed the intersection and followed the road down a long shallow hill, passing the maintenance yards. For a moment she went to stand before the gate, looking for anything of use, specifically a park vehicle that might have keys. But the gate was shackled with a huge padlock and chain, shaking it, the gate barely moved. Worse, the top was strung with three lines of barbed wire, canted outward. Mary Beth walked away.

The moon graced her with ten seconds of unprecedented company, and ahead, Mary Beth saw the gate house. Manned during the first two seasons by volunteers and occasionally a park ranger, it fell victim to budget cuts also, standing empty and boarded up ever since. Planted at the top of the hill on a long island, no bigger than a shed, it was still a welcome sight. She was halfway out.

Mary Beth quickened her stride, quickened it more when movement sounded on her left. Something small and lumbering--she guessed a groundhog--flickered in her peripheral vision, but darting a look in that direction revealed nothing at all. The shape had vanished.

Like armor plating, gooseflesh rose on her shoulders and arms.

She passed the cutoff leading to the lake's shallow, swampy east end. A ranger station was along this road, at the dead end, a restored barn complete with twin silos and fenced pastures for the park's horses. She considered it, but had no guarantee anyone was at the station overnight. Besides, it meant crossing the lake over an earthen dam, and that she would not do. She hurried past.

The gate house was boarded up, the only door padlocked, window covered inside with a plywood sheet. She walked around the side, banged on the cashier's window, struggled with the padlock holding it down. It was hopeless. If there were a working phone inside, it might as well be in Russia.

It was 1:50 a.m. She was wasting time.

Starting away from the house, Mary Beth suddenly froze. One hundred feet ahead was a dark shape (another person?), still as herself, standing on the end of the island. Her heart gave a solid flip.

A ranger? Dunk? Some fool jogging through the park?

How about someone ready to rape her?

"Hello?" she called.

There was no answer, no movement. She was ready to run.

"Dunk, is that you?"

The moon suddenly peeked, and Mary Beth saw the shape was a telephone stand, what she had mistaken for a man's chest the distinctive winged enclosure. A metallic cord looped out the front.

Please God! Please let it work! She ran the fifty feet to the stand.

Someone had shattered both the mouthpiece and the speaker, leaving the innards of thin wires and plastic looking like viscera.

Dunk. It had to have been Dunk.

The bastard.

"Great! Just fucking great!"

A boiling mix of despair and rage welled up, which Mary Beth fought off. "Not again," she said, letting the receiver drop. She walked away, the spiral metal cord creaking slowly behind her as the handset pendulumed to a stop.

Other than a commotion high in the treetops halfway there, the half-mile distance from gate house to park entrance was uneventful. She stuck to the middle of the road, was incredibly grateful to see the gate. An elongated X, formed from tubular steel frames joined in the middle, it hung from posts either side of the road. She climbed the middle, where it was lowest, both hands on the coupling holding herself aloft as she stepped carefully down on the other. She went past the big wooden sign to the edge of Old Baltimore Road, where Mary Beth's relief changed to apprehension.

At the bottom of the hill Mary Beth saw the great dark mass of a structure, lost in a darker pool of blackness: The I-270 overpass. Old Baltimore Road disappeared beneath it the same way light sucked down a Black Hole. She unconsciously took a step backward.

I'm not going down there, she thought. Not in a million years. She looked back at the park, at the wooden park sign, thought, I'd rather sit here until morning and take my chances.

A vehicle crossed the bridge, a lengthy eighteen wheeler, light from its headlights defining the side rails. It was the only light visible. No overhead lamps were mounted on the bridge at all. Mary Beth walked to the middle of the road, looked down the hill in the opposite direction, found a well of darkness equaling that under the bridge. Houses lay up the road, she knew, maybe half a mile, but she considered braving that unknown as scary as the one under the bridge.

"Mother fucker," she whispered.

Halfway down, darkness gave way to a heavy gloom as a section of the moon snuck through. It revealed the deck and heavy concrete pilings, so many legs of an enormous beast. Where the pilings met the ground, the embankment rose at a steep angle merging into absolute blackness beneath the bridge. She stopped dead.

Jesus, Mary Beth. There could be homeless under there.

She had seen this on the news, witnessed it herself. Just last year someone had committed a double murder under the Connecticut Avenue bridge downtown, a homicide over pocket change. And that was a homeless person killing other homeless. For Mary Beth, walking under that bridge in her present condition--any condition at all--was signing her own death warrant.

They could be watching you now.

Mary Beth scrambled to the side of the road.

The moon appeared for several moments, proposing a solution. On her right was a hopeless screen of brambles and trees, but the hillside opposite, though steep, was relatively clear of brush. As far as Mary Beth could see, there was no fence or other obstruction separating her from the bridge.

She would cross the bridge, rather than go under.

Just to be cautious, she walked twenty feet back along the shoulder, choosing a spot on the opposite hillside with promising handholds. She crossed the road and, picking her way carefully, started up the hill. The loose scree made noise enough in her own ears to rouse lurkers under the next bridge. She lost her footing only once, gained the top and discovered what she had missed from below--luckily, or she may not have attempted the climb at all.

There was a fence.

Set fifteen feet back from the edge of the hill, hidden from the road, the fence ran along the bottom of the second embankment to the bridge. She walked up to it and looked up the twelve-foot height, at the triple run of barbed wire along the top. Her heart sank. The fence disappeared into the underbrush at the other end. There was no telling how deep it went.

Mary Beth felt despair.

She felt hatred for Dunk.

She felt rage.

Grasping the fence with both hands, Mary Beth yanked to test it, then stuck the toe of her right shoe into one of the diamond shaped links. She stopped. Something had rattled. Walking the fence to the side of the bridge, she discovered someone had formed a gate, a triangular opening four feet high and three wide--and gone to lengths to hide it. It attached to the steel post and along the narrow strip of metal at the bottom via a series of twisted steel ties. The gate was probably not even visible from above.

Her friends from under the bridge.

Mary Beth looked down at the road with new fear.

Twisting one of the ties experimentally, Mary Beth snapped back her hand. Snipped by heavy cutters, the severed tips were razor sharp. She stuck two fingertips in her mouth, then, with great care, undid the twist at the bottom of the pole, spread the ends and removed it. She undid the one above, then the remaining half dozen, then the eight along the bottom. With greater care, she pulled the flap open and, curling it back, used two of the ties to secure it to the fence. Then she froze.

Pebbles skittered down the face of the hill below. She heard a scraping footstep.

Mary Beth ducked through the opening, managing to catch only a swatch of hair, which she yanked loose, and hurriedly undid the two twists and pulled the fence closed. She secured it in place in just two places before scrambling madly the rest of the way up the embankment. Grabbing the top of barrier wall, she clambered atop it, skinning both knees, and lay panting against the cold steel railing.

Then she heard a voice.

"I'm tellin ya, someone's up dare."

Muddled from too much booze and too few teeth, the voice was barely understandable. Mary Beth became absolutely rigid.

"You're crazy," someone answered. This voice was younger but just as rough. It sounded as though he spoke through a mouthful of tobacco.

Someone rattled the fence.

"I jest fixed this yesterday," the older voice said. Mary Beth felt the speaker staring upward, searching the hill. "Someone's been true."

The younger man cursed. "Of course someone's been through! That's what it's there for."

Wire scraped against concrete.

"What are you doing?"

"Tyin' it back."

The younger man grunted. "Why?"

"I'm goin up to see."

Mary Beth looked frantically around: Other than the jersey wall, fifty feet away in the bridge's center, there was no shelter.

The younger man complained. "Come on godammit! I want to go to bed!"

The first man grunted unintelligibly, and Mary Beth slid sideways on the rough concrete, straddled the steel rail, dropped down on the other side. No traffic approached from her left, but headlights were visible on the other side of the highway, heading north. They were distant, more than a mile away, but just as she prepared to bolt across the road, a rumble arose, growing in volume alarmingly fast; within seconds a big-rig eighteen wheeler thundered past, throwing her back on her tail and almost making her scream.

Jesus Christ! She'd nearly been run down!

Right past the bridge trees grew up to the very shoulder, spilling halfway to the roadway's edge; oncoming traffic was blocked until the last moment. Running in a crouch, Mary Beth searched for a break, found the hillside treacherous and falling precipitously away wherever she looked. Finally, there was a small break that was not a death wish in waiting. Mary Beth ducked between two trees, clambered sideways down the hill and wrapped her arms around one of the trunks as though it were a lifesaver.

"See anything?" It was the younger man

"Nuh."

Mary Beth heard a low grunt, heavy feet thudding down onto the bridge, then another low grunt and a string of curses.

"Shut up!"

"Godammit, I fell!"

"I know ya fell. Shut up." Shuffling footsteps came nearer. "Who da hell's out dare?" the old man called.

Mary Beth held her breath.

"Natan? Dat you?"

No! It is not Natan!

The footsteps grew closer, and Mary Beth released her hold on the trunk, slid further down, clutched a small bush with terrified hands

"I know you out dare," the man said. "I warned you 'bout cummin round here at night." He was less than ten feet away, shaking the limbs and moving in and out of the brush. Mary Beth prepared to let go. She prepared to beg for mercy. She prepared to die.

"I fine one-a you fuckers out here and I gonna--"

The man was suddenly visible, illuminated, cast into darkness on the opposite side, like a quarter moon. Tires roared on pavement and Mary Beth heard the drum of a diesel engine. Then an air horn ripped the air: "BLANNNNNT! BLANNNNNT--BLANNNNNT!" Shaking the ground and everything else as it thundered past, the truck blasted its horn continuously. The man stumbled sideways, fell into a crouch, then tumbled onto his side. He rolled into the bushes.

The truck rumbled on south, its rear array of lights angrily flashing. The driver honked one last time.

"Jesus Christ, Edmund!" The second man came running up. Bushy haired and bearded--they both were bushy-haired and bearded--he dropped to one knee and grabbed the fallen man's shoulder. "You all right?"

The old man shook him angrily off. He tried to sit up, fell in a loose bundle onto his other side. The younger man helped him sit, retrieved the old man's dilapidated cap.

"You fucking moron. That truck had your name written all over it." He helped the old man to his feet. "What's the matter with you?"

"Get off me," the old man barked. He brushed himself off. "I saw da fuckin' thing."

The second man snickered. "Yeah! And he saw you too!" He brushed off the old man's back. "Fuckin' moron."

Grumbling, and with a noticeable limp, the old man walked away. He looked back one last time at the bridge railing, eyes glinting through the thick facial growth; Mary Beth ducked back. He climbed carefully onto the abutment, over the railing, and lowered himself down the other side. The second man never looked back. Once Mary Beth could no longer heard their movements or the heated complaints of the old man, she released her breath and began to sob.

Partnering

Back at the apartment, Holly completed the iced tea she had earlier begun, while Mary Beth looked for a new CD. This time she chose Jane Monehite's Never-Neverland. Setting the volume to low, she went and stood at the kitchen door while Monehite's deep-throated soprano filled the room behind her. The words left her mouth before she could think to stop them.

"I want you to stop seeing Dunk, one way or the other."

Holly turned around. She nodded slowly. "I had already decided that."

Mary Beth touched her fingertips to her mouth. Her emotions were all over the place. "It's not just for the reason's I said earlier, either. I don't want to share you."

Holly eyes were liquid. "I have to share you."

"I know," Mary Beth said. "I don't know what to do about that."

A tear spilled from Holly's right eye. "I'm not asking you to break up," she said. "Three days ago you and Dunk were happy. Well, you were happy. Then comes along Holly and an A-bomb goes off in everyone's life. I can't understand why you don't hate me."

Mary Beth went in and took Holly in an embrace; Holly clung to her like an orphaned child. "I need you more than I can believe," Mary Beth said. "I don't know if it's love--" she laughed and wiped away tears "--or if I'm having an emotional breakdown. I want to hold you and touch you and tear off your clothes." She kissed the bridge of Holly's nose. "I want to make love to you like tomorrow is the Rapture."

Holly sobbed uncontrollably, for the baby, for the decision she had to make, for the confusion Mary Beth knew plagued her mind. She poured out the end-story of her seduction.

Following that first night, she had neither seen nor talked to Dunk for a week. Except for work, she never left the house. She felt terrified. Someone else answered the phone. If it were for Holly, unless it was another girl, she refused to talk. Conversation with her parents was torture.

They would find out.

Her father would find out.

She would get killed.

She went so far as to call a cousin in Ohio and arrange to come visit her should things go terribly wrong. But Dunk was not to be denied. The following Saturday night he convinced Holly to talk, then to go out to dinner, then for drink. Two hours later they were in bed.

"This went on for a year," Holly said, blowing her nose on a paper towel. "Every chance he got." She looked at Mary Beth, miserably. "We got. I was no innocent partner. About a month ago I let slip how I felt about you--it wasn't even intentional, he caught me doodling your name on a pad--and right away I was in trouble."

Mary Beth guided Holly out of the kitchen to the living room. They sat on the couch, Holly's legs over Mary Beth's and holding her hands.

"After that it was every time we talked, every time we made love. Finally, just to shut him up, I said yes." She touched Mary Beth's face. "I wanted to be with, Mary Beth, but not like that. Not for him."

They held each other tightly, neither wanting to speak.

Finally, Holly said, "I wish you would stay."

Mary Beth stroked her hair. "I wish I could too."

"What am I going to do?" Holly sat up. "I can't afford a baby. I can't afford the rent!" Teardrops blazed a new path down either cheek. "Dunk helps pay it, and once I tell him he'll stop."

Mary Beth gripped and massaged Holly's hands. "It's okay. I'll help."

Holly took a stuttering breath. "Am I making the right choice? About the baby?"

Mary Beth's stomach tightened. Like she was qualified to offer advice. "You decide what you have to, Holl. I'll help you either way." She wiped tears from Holly's glistening cheeks. "I'd be a great step-mom, though. We can pick out furniture, paint the den; I'll even help you try on clothes."

Holly brightened, grinned bravely. "You will?"

"Absolutely." She kissed the tip of Holly's nose. "You're gonna be cute pregnant. A regular little blimp."

Holly laughed, encircled herself with her arms, inflated her cheeks.

"I meant that in a nice way," Mary Beth said.

"You won't mind me fat?"

"Not my little girl."

Holly rubbed her nose. "I won't have an abortion, Mary Beth. I can't."

"I know."

"No matter what."

"I know."

"I don't want money from Dunk, either. Nothing."

Mary Beth lifted Holly's face and kissed her. "You're a trooper, kid. You really are."

"You knew it all along, didn't you."

Solemnly, Mary Beth smiled.

Holly placed her hands protectively over the suspected new life, said, "I think it's a girl."

"It better be."

"Why?"

"Because we don't want another Tom McDonald."

Sometime after midnight, Mary Beth allowed herself a stretch. Holly lay asleep beside her, angelic looking with dark hair masking half her face. Toothache, the Tabby cat, lay camped out atop Holly's bureau on a folded towel, limbs tucked beneath, watching. Mary Beth extended her hand, and the cat jumped down, sprang onto the bed and offered her face to be scratched. Holly didn't stir.

"I think I love your owner," Mary Beth whispered. She looked at her recumbent partner, smoothed her hair. "What do you think about that?"

The cat purred.

Mary Beth touched Holly's cheek, brushed aside a lock of hair, tucked it behind Holly's ear. There was a small scar on the lobe and another just below the cleft of Holly's jaw; Mary Beth touched them both, tentatively. There were four piercings in her left ear. Only the lowermost was filled, however--a tiny diamond stud, simple and sweet, which Mary Beth had given Holly on her nineteenth birthday.

"I really want you," she whispered. "Child. Dunk. Whatever."

Holly moaned, crossed her arms loosely over her chest, not enough to hide her breasts. Tiny hairs sprouted along the edges of the small aureole and Mary Beth touched one with her fingertip, let her finger glide down to Holly's stomach, bulging slightly from her position. If there was a new life growing there, it was much too soon to see. She smoothed Holly's hair and covered her with the blanket.

Their fingers had explored and discovered each other tonight, lifting them into mutual ecstasy. Performing oral sex on Pattie Kensington left Mary Beth feeling vulgar and corrupted, even as she performed it. Holly made her feel like a queen. She kissed Holly's cheek.

"Please stay," Holly murmured.

Again, Mary Beth kissed her cheek. "Did I wake you?"

Holly stirred and moaned softly; Mary Beth realized she was still asleep.

"I'll stay if you wake up and make love to me one more time."

Holly stirred, brushed away hair. "Please."

Mary Beth blew softly in her ear.

"What?" Holly opened her eyes.

It was all the encouragement Mary Beth required.

Taking Holly into her arms, she performed an oral ballet with her tongue. She sought Holly's right breast with her mouth, sucked the nipple; Holly turned them both on their sides. Running her fingertips along the curvature of Holly's spine, she played over the vertebrae peaks and valleys, slid a leg between Holly's legs and caressed her genitals with her thigh. Holly stiffened and moaned.

"So soon?"

Holly jumped, grasped Mary Beth's arms. "What are you doing to me?" she gasped. Then she moved within Mary Beth's arms, fluid, a living wave, fingers seeking the private spot between Mary Beth's legs and entering it. Her touch was answered in kind. Mary Beth kissed the hollow of her throat, bestowed Holly with kisses. Soon they experienced a simultaneous orgasm, rode it like a mounting breaker, cresting and rolling down the other side. Their bodies surfed.

Faces buried against one another's necks, the girls cried out convulsively, clinging together as though letting go was suicide. They made no intelligible words, only sounds--lover's sounds, the sound of union.

Exhaustion overtook the lovers and they slept.

Mary Beth did not go home.

Old Baltimore Road. Two oh-five A.M.

Getting herself under control, Mary Beth climbed carefully to the roadway. She remained in a crouch, listening for the two men or any approaching vehicle. After a full two minutes she rose and ventured to the highway's edge, far enough to see past the overhanging trees. No lights approached. The opposite lanes were empty as well, the closest approaching vehicle miles away. She had to go now.

Darting onto the roadway, praying not to trip over her own feet, Mary Beth raced to the concrete barrier. It was higher than it had appeared, chest height. It took three tries to struggle over. She dropped to the other side.

The approaching vehicle was coming much faster than Mary Beth had thought. It was close enough now to perceive the periphery of yellow lights--another big rig. And more lights followed behind. Rushing to the far side of the bridge, Mary Beth looked over the railing, saw below a culvert, five feet deep. She vaulted the rail, dropped to the bottom with a thud, landing on her feet but falling immediately back onto her rear end and palms. She felt her panties rip. Wasting no time to recover her breath, she ran down the culvert's sloped bottom, away from the bridge, away from Baltimore Road. Twenty feet ahead it ended at a drainage grate.

The sides were packed rock, held in place by wire screen. Finding what handholds she could, Mary Beth scrambled halfway up the side. She slid pell-mell back down again just as the eighteen-wheeler thundered by overhead, the bridge groaning beneath its weight.

"Jesus Christ, Mary Beth!"

She had nearly climbed into the driver's line of sight.

"Be stupid why don't you."

A rush of vehicles went by, followed by a lone straggler, then silence. Mary Beth heard and saw nothing. She ascended the slope, more carefully this time, stopping just below the edge to peek out. She was fifteen feet below road level.

Still she heard nothing.

Climbing out, she followed the culvert back toward the bridge, then descended the hillside, blocked at the bottom by another fence. She followed it parallel to the road and fifty feet further on the fence died out against a hill. The partial web of fencing between the last pole and the hillside was missing entirely, and Mary Beth slid effortlessly through.

Making her way carefully down the remaining twenty feet of embankment to the side of the road, Mary Beth walked hurriedly away, looking constantly back. She could still be seen. A minute later, twisting her ankle, she nearly went into a panic before walking it off. She then switched to the pavement's center and remained there.

She hoped Dunk was waiting ahead.

Old Baltimore Road. Two twenty-five A.M.

Mary Beth saw lights ahead, perhaps a quarter-mile distant. It was the housing development, which continued nearly all the way to Route 355. Relief swept through her like a cleansing breath. She was almost home

Then Mary Beth stopped.

Another vehicle was coming.

Cursing, she looked around. No lights were yet visible, but Mary Beth heard the sound of tread on pavement, knew it came from ahead. The fields had thinned somewhat. On her left was a semi-circular recess twenty feet deep and she hurried to the shoulder, climbed the slight incline into the open space, and made her way across. She turned sideways at the corn, passed between two of the rows, cringed when leaves tickled her skin. Each touch was a potential disaster. She covered her breasts.

But there was another problem. The corn barely reached her head.

Squatting, she turned parallel to the rows, discovered not even this was enough. In the approaching light she was a perfect reflector. She backed further away, duck- walking, until backing any more meant certain contact with the silk. She held her breath and waited for the car to pass. It blew by at high speed, waving the closer rows of corn with its blow back.

She waited a full two minutes, then carefully stood up. It had been a passenger car this time, a sedan, possible blue, possibly a Buick. The tire roar ebbed, becoming just a whisper, then fading entirely. She moved sideways out of the corn, checking herself as she stood in the open half-circle. She thought it just possible that none of the silk had touched her. She'd find out soon find out.

The first house was on the right, a two story split level. A pickup truck sat in the driveway, also a police cruiser, and seeing it, Mary Beth hurried on past to the next house. Here the road, illuminated by bright orange arc-sodium lamps, punctuating the darkness like intermittent circular oasis, widened. Mary Beth stood within one now, and it seemed like daylight. Dangerously exposed, she stepped off the pavement entirely and into the front yard.

The first two blocks were uneventful. Crossing the second intersection, however, Mary Beth froze as a dog began to howl. She tried to locate the direction but could not. Barking seemed to come from everywhere. Panicked nearly to the point of running, she forced close her eyes and remained still, listening more intently.

Did it come from the front? To her right? The backyard of the next house?

She hoped it was locked up, for if not, Mary Beth was in big trouble.

Hurrying into the shadows beneath a tree, she huddled down and waited for the barking to subside. The barking continued, however, though erratically, and Mary Beth went on.

A chain link fence enclosed the next property, also the yard after, and Mary Beth run along it for fifty feet, darting beneath the nearest tree, a pine. She clutched the trunk, panting. The dog, excited by her flight, barked ferociously, an invitation for other dogs to join in. The cacophony became an echoing chorus.

A door opened across the street

"Whoever the fuck's out there," an angry voice called, "I called the cops and this time I'll make sure they lock your asses up! Got that, you fucking kids!"

Mary Beth shrank against the trunk. Just what she needed: A shit-load of cops!

Ten feet behind her was a pair of oaks, big ones, affording better protection than the small pine. She crept backward, keeping the pine between herself and the road, unable to tell where exactly the bellower was, other than across the street. She reached the closer tree, slid behind it and peeked out. The man was now visible, standing on his front stoop, screen door in hand. The light above showed him dressed in pajamas beneath a white robe. As Mary Beth watched, the man returned inside, arguing loudly with someone unseen. The screen door slammed shut and there was more arguing, then a woman in appeared in a yellow robe, arms crossed and angry, closed the front door. The porch light went out.

"Thank God for you, missus," Mary Beth whispered. She looked upward, nodded in thanks again. "And you. Thank you so very much." She offered a silent prayer.

The dog had calmed somewhat, was now barking only sporadically. The other dogs had stooped. Tiptoeing away from the oak, she entered the next intersection, stole across it to the opposite side. She took cover behind another big three. The dog remained silent.

The next two yards were fenced and again Mary Beth walked the road. She hurried along, putting distance between herself and these latest antagonists. She left the newer, more densely populated part of the development for another, older section. The street lights here came farther apart, so did the houses. She was just approaching a construction site on the right side of the road when suddenly there were tires.

"Fuck!"

She was in trouble.

There were no trees within fifty feet big enough to hide her, not even a bush; she had run out of cover a hundred feet back. The only shelter lay across the road, in the construction site, where high mounds of earth lay before long, cylindrical concrete sewer pipes. Fear gripped her as headlights rounded a turn several hundred feet ahead, and she realized this was her only out. Mary Beth ran diagonally across the street toward the closest pile of dirt, scrambled behind it and was immediately ankle deep in muck.

"Oh, Christ!"

The ground here was a mire. Between the pile of dirt and the trench for the sewer pipes were dozens of boot- prints, some deep as half a foot. A large diameter PVC pipe protruded from the trench, coupled to a gasoline engine pump. In typically male fashion, water was drained from the cut directly onto the ground, away from the concrete tubes but destroying the ground between the trench and the piles of dirt. Cursing, Mary Beth leaned against the mound and pulled one, then the other foot free, loosing her left shoe to suction. There was no choice but to sit on the pile's loose side and pry out her shoe.

When the vehicle was less than a hundred feet away, Mary Beth realized her position offered only partial concealment--the mound was exactly parallel to the road, possibly even canted slightly on the other end.

She was in their line of sight.

Scrambling halfway up the hill, Mary Beth sidestepped along the pile to the far end, sneaking around the corner. The width here was sufficient to protect her, as long as she stayed hugged to the side. She grit her teeth and pressed herself against the dirt, releasing a small avalanche of pebbles and dirt. A moment later the car whizzed by and Mary Beth scrambled back around the corner.

Had they seen?

The answer was a screech of burning rubber as the car slammed to a halt. Mary Beth lost her footing and slid back into the mud, looked around in a panic. The car's back end projected from behind the next mound, smoke drifting about it in a cloud, straddling the centerline. It looked as though it were dropped there. Then she heard voices.

"Man, you're nuts. I didn't see anything."

"I'm telling you," yelled a younger, more excited voice. "I saw a girl!"

Mary Beth froze solid. Without knowing it she had dropped flat to the pile of dirt, grinding her bare skin into its face. She didn't move, didn't even breathe. Both car doors opened.

"This is the stupidest thing I ever heard. She was naked?"

"I don't know," said the younger man. "I saw a bare leg and a foot and part of her ass. It looked bare. Right there at the side of the hill. See! She could be behind it!"

The older man scoffed. "It was a deer for Christ sakes. We see 'em all the time."

"You think I don't know a deer when I see one? I'm telling you, it was a chick"

The voices grew louder, and Mary Beth, with no conscious thought, began moving along the pile. The trench behind her, five feet across, cut off flight in that direction. Even then there was nowhere to go. The small field beyond the trench ended abruptly in woods, fifty feet away.

They were almost at the mound. Their footsteps left pavement and crunched on broken earth just as Mary Beth slipped around the opposite end.

"And just what," asked the older voice, "are you planning to do if we do find a girl?"

The second man laughed. "Are you kidding? I'm gonna fuck 'er, of course."

Every square inch of Mary Beth's skin went cold. Moving with panic-driven stealth, she edged around to the mound's far side and got down.

Scornfully, the older man laughed. "Right! You gonna skin her and dress her afterwards?"

"Fuck no," the other man answered. In a terrifyingly level voice, one that petrified Mary Beth's to the core, he said: "I'll bury her in the fucking trench."

Only a savage biting down on her tongue kept Mary Beth from crying out.

"Jesus Christ!" It was the older man. "What the fuck is this?"

Mary Beth heard the squelch of mud.

"Godammit, Mark! Look at this shit!" There was a loud sucking pop as the man withdrew a foot. "These are fucking brand-new!"

Mark cursed, and next came the sound of a small avalanche as one of the two men scaled the mound's side. "Look!" Mark yelled, excitedly. "Look there!" He had found Mary Beth's footprints.

Mary Beth looked frantically for escape. The road from this point on was unbroken until around the next curve, and she had no idea if there were any more houses. She thought not. The other side was a semi-open field, littered with trees, wild bushes and high weeds. Could she hide? Running was a trap. It had to be the field.

"I find a girl back here," raged the older man, "I'm gonna kill her just to get even! Before you fuck her."

There was more loosely falling earth and then: "Look at this. All these others are boot-prints. These here? Tennis shoes. They go right up the side."

"What's that prove. It coulda been a kid."

Mark cursed. "It weren't no kid."

"Then where is she, huh?"

Mary Beth was two feet into the road and ready for a dash to the other side, when more lights appeared in the distance. Another car! Panicked, she momentarily froze, head shooting back and forth between the mound and the approaching lights. The vehicle was still beyond the curve, headlights flicking off and on behind the trees, but not for long. She whimpered helplessly, then did the one thing she could least afford. Twisting to run, she stumbled over her left ankle and fell.

"Oof!"

"Shit!" It was the older man. "A car's coming!"

"But what was that? I heard a noise."

"You heard squat."

Rolling onto her stomach, Mary Beth pushed off in a handspring, jumping upright. Half limping, half- hopping, she scuttled back to the end of the mound, ducked behind it. An instant later she heard a scuffling from the mound's other end and then the slap of shoes on pavement.

"There it is! Fuck!"

"So what?"

"So what! So my car's fuckin out in the middle of the road and you don't think someone will remember that?" Mary Beth heard running feet. "Get behind the mound!"

This was it. She was trapped. The vehicle approaching had her right in its lights, and neither side of the mound was safe. She looked desperately at the open trench, desperation telling her it was a grave--panic screaming it was her only chance. The man called Mark cursed loudly, kicked loose a foot-full of dirt, and came around the mound.

"The keys! Where's the fucking keys?"

Mark cursed again, and Mary Beth heard him pounding his pockets, turning them out.

"I don't know!"

"Jesus fucking Christ, man! You gotta have them!"

"I don't!"

There's was the scuffle of shoes of pavement, then Mark's angry cry: "Here!"

Mary Beth heard him throw, heard the keys hit the road.

"Fuck!"

She took off.

The trench was cordoned off with two loops of yellow tape on wooden stakes, and Mary Beth ducked under them, scooting her butt to the edge and hanging over her legs. She pivoted over the edge, supporting herself on her hands, lowered onto her forearms. The wall was smooth and slick, straight up down to the bottom. There was no purchase for her toes. Whispering a miserable, "Fuck!" she lowered herself until her feet hit water, then went in when she extended fully.

The trench was flooded, and she did not reach the bottom.

She almost screamed--then saw the gray-black outline of the PVC pipe to her left, knew she could climb out. She let go, dropping into water up to her knees.

"Fuck-fuck-fuck!"

The older man had started the car, and Mary Beth heard it roll away. Mark scuffled behind the mound, then evidently scaled it as Mary Beth had done earlier, dislodging earth. He was hiding at the mound's end. Looking at the pitch black water, Mary Beth put down one hand and felt the bottom--sickeningly thick mud. She took an experimental step; suction threatened to dislodge her shoe. She cursed silently.

Headlights from the approaching vehicle suddenly flickered and danced on the trench's upper lip, strengthened, then walked from one end to the other as the vehicle passed. Tires sang on pavement. Over its passing, Mary Beth heard Mark scuttle to the backside of the mound and she sat down, heart beating a staccato tattoo. She scooped two handfuls of the gloppy bottom and began smearing it over her upper body. She held her breath, but the putrid smell got no easier to bear. Tears streaming down her cheeks, she lumped the muck onto her hair and worked it in, plastering it against here neck and shoulders. Then she covered her face. She sobbed silently.

Mark was down off the mound. "Bring the flashlight!" he called in a hushed shout.

Mary Beth's head shook back and forth.

She was not getting out of this alive. They would rape and kill her.

From some distance away the older man called back. "Hold on." The was a muffled thud as the trunk opened. "I'm not sure I got one."

Mary Beth moved cautiously through the water, toward the drain pipe, raising and lowering herself on her hands.

"I saw it yesterday!" Mark called.

"Where?"

"In the fucking trunk!"

After a moment's silence, the older man answered, voice low and disgusted and dangerously angry: "We took your car yesterday, Mark."

"Oh, shit. Well look anyway."

A moment later the trunk slammed closed. "It ain't here."

Mark cursed in frustration. "She's not here, she must be in the trench." Footsteps echoed on pavement as the older man crossed the road.

"What are you doing now?"

Mark stood just above her, silhouetted against the sky.

"What about--"

"Forget it! I'm not getting stuck in this mud!"

"But--"

Feet approached the far end of the trench.

"She wouldn't go in there, anyway."

"Why not?"

Mary Beth, submerged in the filthy water up to her nose, slid behind the pipe.

The older man didn't answer.

"How deep is this fucker?" Mark said.

Mark was drunk. They were both drunk.

"How the fuck should I know?"

"They have to get below the freeze line. What's that? Three feet?"

"You fucking moron. Whydn't ya just jump down and see for yourself."

Mark cursed. "There's a footprint here," he said, squatting where Mary Beth had gone in. He moved the tape. "Look at this." Dirt fell beside and on Mary Beth's head.

The older man was thoroughly disgusted. He suddenly rushed to where Mark stooped. There was a loud scuffle. Mark yelled, "What the--" and a shower of stone and dirt pounded down on Mary Beth's head. Holding her breath, she slid all the way under.

When she resurfaced thirty seconds later, the men were gone.

Old Baltimore Road. Two fifty-five A.M.

Somewhere above was an airplane. The sound of its engine grew steadily louder, and the sound, impinging on her consciousness, brought Mary Beth around. She looked up and saw its lights overhead, remaining in sight for a few seconds before disappearing on the lip of the trench. Not wanting to loose this one piece of hard reality, Mary Beth sat up, strained to listen. The engine grew dim, eventually faded, leaving Mary Beth again alone. It didn't matter. She was back in control.

She had not heard the two men leave, nor was there evidence they actually had. They could be sitting patiently on the mound of dirt. Mary Beth didn't care. She doubted either would show much interest in raping her now. Not the way she looked.

Dunking her hair, Mary Beth washed out the bulk of the muck. Not all of it came out; leaving her hair sickeningly slicked. Cupping handfuls of water, she then carefully doused her face, washed clean her neck, shoulders and chest. She made no effort to keep quiet. Raising up, she went onto her knees first, then, using the wall as support, staggered erect. She dripped mud and muddy water. Her shoes were instantly moored.

Shaking like someone with palsy, Mary Beth tried to disengage her right foot; it came free from the shoe. Bending down, she pried the Nike loose, repeated the action with her left foot, then tied the laces together and hung the shoes over her neck.

She could not stop crying.

The moon was out, casting light enough to more closely inspect the pipe. Three inches in diameter, it came down the wall in three separate lengths, sleeved end to end. One joint was at chest level, the second four feet up. At the top was a ninety-degree elbow where the pipe left the trench and connected to the pump. Inspecting the lower joint, she found a quarter inch ledge of plastic on which to grasp.

"Here goes nothing," she said.

Clasping it with both hands, she gave the pipe a tug. Then a harder tug. Rigid, it barely moved. Finally, a stroke of luck! Sobbing with hope now as well as despair, Mary Beth tried to climb. On her fifth try she was angry enough to call the pipe names: "Bitch! I am going to rip your fucking heart out when I get out!" She smacked the pipe open-palmed, then tried strangling it. She started to laugh.

"Dunk!" She began splashing around in a circle, the way Jennifer Love-Hewitt did in I Know What You Did Last Summer. "I am going to kill you, you fucker!"

She screamed this at the top of her lungs.

Wrapping her entire body around the pipe, Mary Beth snaked far enough up to clasp the lower joint with her knees. It hurt terribly. Panting, remaining still for a moment, she released her right hand and made a grab for the upper joint. She was a foot shy. "Shit!" she screamed as she nearly lost her hold. She raised up from her knees, got enough distance to grab the joint and shouted first in triumph--then terror--as her fingers came loose and her entire body swung right into the trench wall. Only a severed root sticking out of the side, which she somehow caught with her toes, kept Mary Beth from plunging back to the bottom. She clung to the pipe as though it went right to hell.

After a time, she tried again. Stabilizing herself on the root, she got a thumb and forefinger around the upper joint, forced herself up. She let go of the pipe with her right hand and threw it over the elbow, then hauled herself up, getting her forearm over the side of the trench. She hung there a moment, panting, then let go of her toehold, swung her knee up and over the edge. She clung there, exhausted, unable to move.

The drain pipe shifted.

"Noooo!"

Grabbing the nearest stake, she released the pipe just as it disconnected from the pump. It went over the edge, nearly taking her with it. Clinging by the slimmest hold by her right knee and the wobbly stake, she hissed, "No-no-no-no-no!" and with panic-driven strength hauled herself over the edge. She collapsed onto her side against the stakes, scooting her hips away from the edge lest she loose balance. Her head swirled, and lights popped in her eyes with flashbulb frenzy; she nearly passed out.

She had lost her shoes.

Old Baltimore Road. Three Ten A.M.

The mud made walking hell.

She went alongside the mound, in her stocking feet and stepped onto the tarmac--right onto a pointed stone.

"Ouch!"

Fucking Dunk!

Fucking shoes!

Fucking deadline!

She was not hurrying.

Hair beating against the nape of her neck and hanging in tendrils over her forehead, Mary Beth trudged to the middle of the road, walking bowlegged. Her arms ached, and her knees ached. Every muscle and skin cell on her body ached. Everything else ached too. She stank like an open sewer. Mud ground between her butt cheeks like sandpaper and her eyes burned like twin yellow flames. She swallowed, and it hurt. She felt the start of a yeast infection.

"Fuck!"

She passed beneath a street lamp and ignored the glaring orange light. Anyone saw her--tough. The moon rode a suddenly empty sky, directing its milk white luminescence onto Mary Beth' skin, turning the caked mud and slime into leprous sores.

I feel like a leper.

Ahead, woods closed to within a dozen feet of the road on either side, and Mary Beth realized she had less than a quarter mile to go. Somehow, she convinced her legs to go faster.

Then she heard a noise.

"What?"

The words came out of her unbidden, like water through a cracked pipe.

She turned completely around, heard the rustle again. Something in the woods.

Mary Beth broke into a run, heart jumping to panic speed. A crashing came from behind and to her right and sent her darting to the opposite side of the road.

"DUNK!"

She ran flat out, every muscle pumping. A light pole appeared ahead, impossibly far, and Mary Beth screamed again.

"DUNK! DUNK HELP! DUUUUUNK!"

A car was beneath the pole, facing toward her, not Dunk's white Bronco but a dark compact.

Was it brown? A Toyota? Could it be?

"HOLLYYYY! HOLLY HELP!" She waived once frantically then stopped when it threw her off balance. Sprinting for everything she was worth, Mary Beth darted back to the other side of the road, ignoring the sudden clatter of hooves on the tarmac behind as something big and dark and loping with giant strides disappeared into the opposite woods. More hooves clattered and Mary Beth knew it was deer but could not stop her panic.

"HOOOLLYYYYY!"

Fifty feet from the car, the driver's door opened, and a head popped up.

"Mary Beth?"

"HOOOLLYYYYY HELP!"

Suddenly headlights erupted, throwing Mary Beth into brutal relief; she heard Holly gasp.

"Mary Beth!"

Then she was twenty feet away and then ten, and then Holly was around the front of the car and just beginning to run when Mary Beth slammed into her arms.

"Mary Beth! Oh-my-God! Oh-my-God, Mary Beth!"

Mary Beth collapsed to her knees, Holly barely able to keep her off the road. "Oh thank God! Oh thank God it's you!"

Holly looked frantically around. "What in the name of God happened?" She jerked at a sudden noise from the woods, and half dragged, half carried Mary Beth around the side of the car. Mary Beth could barely breath.

"I--I--" Mary Beth erupted in a spasm of coughing.

"Get in!" She shoved Mary Beth through the driver's side door and across to the other seat, more on her chest and stomach than hands and knees. Mary Beth disintegrated into the seat.

Holly slammed the door and locked it. "Where is Dunk?"

Mary Beth shook her head. "Don't know," she panted. "Don't care." She flung herself into Holly's arms. "Oh, God. Oh, my God, Holly!"

Holly held Mary Beth away, inspected her with bulging eyes. "Are you all right?"

Mary Beth swung her head. "Yes. No." She bear-hugged Holly again. "Can we get out of here? Please!"

Holly twisted the key in the ignition and jammed the lever into drive. She floored the accelerator, expelling twin rockets of dirt from the back end. The Toyota grabbed pavement and staggered around in a half circle, Holly only righting it at the last instant. They shot through the stop sign and onto the main road.

"Drive!" Mary Beth screamed, seeing lights suddenly behind. "Faster! Please!"

Holly floored the accelerator. "Where are we going?"

"Anywhere! Just away from here!"

Holly banked left at the first intersection, bottoming out on a depression in the road, cried when the driver behind blared his horn. The other car kept going.

Mary Beth turned around and collapsed into her seat. "Thank God!"

Holly continued at breakneck speed up the narrow road, slowed approaching the light at Route 27. She ran it on red, turned left toward home. Her eyes were huge and her mouth agape.

"What did he tell you?" Mary Beth said. She banged the door lock down.

"Only that I was to wait for you there at three o'clock. I thought--Jesus God, Mary Beth. Are you okay?"

Mary Beth sighed painfully. "I am now." Leaning across the console, she hugged Holly and dug her face into her neck. She began to sob. "Take me home. Please take me home, okay?"

Holly nodded.

Mary Beth raised her head, whispered, "I will never leave you, not as long as I fucking live."

Holly looked at the film of sweat and mud caking Mary Beth's face, the slime matting her hair like grease on a rolled cable, and slowly smiled. She kissed Mary Beth deeply. Then, pregnant, shaken and elated, she took Mary Beth home.

The End