People meet me and they never suspect I'm a murderer. I've been hiding the fact for forty years, but sometimes people find out, and--now that I'm old--I tell them.

  Lately, I've surprised myself at how readily I talk about what I've done. Even to strangers. My need to `disclose', as my friend Eleanor calls it, started when I was diagnosed with lung cancer. Ever since the doctor laid that bit of information on me, I've been scrambling to make sense of my life. Would I do it all again?

  Last week, at one of those `Let's get to know one another' socials choreographed by my church, I exposed myself as an ex-con and a murderer.

  Six of us sat at an elegant table in a grand Victorian house making polite rational conversation that we Unitarians are so good at, when the topic turned to prisons. At first I tried to ignore the talk. I was enjoying the flan and didn't want to spoil it by recalling thirteen years of slammer slop that passed for food. This meal had been stuffed grape leaves, sour and soft, washed down with cold wine; grilled salmon, yellow peppers and fresh asparagus with hollandaise sauce. Then finally this flan with dark caramel pooling on the plate.

  Beverly across from me had not touched her food. She just talked. She was a sharp, curious woman I'd worked with on the social justice committee. She was telling us about a study she'd just read. " Women who kill their husbands get sentences twice as long as what men get who kill their wives or girlfriends." I knew about the study, but tried to concentrate on my food instead of Bev's indignation. In fact I was just starting to compliment the hostess on the flan when this Dr. Rodman character cut me off.

  'Gender biased feminists', `shoddy research', criminal coddling', `the abuse excuse', he trotted out all the buzz words. His silver goatee flopped up and down as he talked. In seconds the flan went flat in my mouth.

  I swallowed hard and reached for my Chardonnay.

  Dr Rodman--he'd made sure we knew he was Dr. Rodman during the introduction--lectured us about `the criminal element' men and women. He wasn't biased after all. He talked as if criminals were barely human, and nothing like we good Unitarians gathered around the table. One of the tenets of Unitarianism is the worth and dignity of every person, so I wondered how this joker had gotten a seat at the table.

  He kept on until the bile in my stomach crawled toward my throat. Finally, I put down my wine and said, "I was in prison for thirteen years, and I'm telling you most of the people there were victims long before they broke any laws. But not all of them. Not me anyway. I never considered myself a victim."

  Everyone looked at me and I could see them struggling to fit their image of a criminal with the sixtyish white female who sat before them. I went on. "Crime's not simple, like some good people want to believe. I say `good people' sarcastically because I'm not sure any of us are good people. I'm not sure any of us under certain circumstances wouldn't become killers. Even a `cold-blooded killer' as the newspapers called me."

  That was a show stopper. Even the goatee stopped moving. Some people stared, but two looked away. I felt naked, the sinner among the redeemed. Never mind that Unitarians shy away from sin and redemption as a model for anything.

  Beverly, God bless her, broke the silence. "Gloria," she said, then hesitated. "Well, speaking for myself, I'd like to hear the whole story."

  I muttered an apology for saying too much already, and stood up to leave. The hostess stood and thanked me for coming. I thanked her too. We were the height of politeness. She saw me to the door and Beverly walked me down the driveway. I was so glad to be outside, even the hot muggy air made me feel free.

  "Really," Beverly said, when we reached my old Plymouth, "If you ever want a sympathetic ear..."

  I squeezed her arm. "Maybe another night," I said, opening my car door.

  In my sparse half-house I drank more wine and scratched the head of my old mutt, Pilot. Before long I was on the phone to Eleanor, confessing I'd made an ass of myself and lamenting the fact I'd never be able to show my face at church again.

  "Always punishing yourself," Eleanor said. "Don't cut out the one place you've found a little solace."

  Ellie was the only person I didn't have to hide from. We met while I was in the Missouri House of Corrections for Women in Jefferson City. She taught sociology to the inmates and that class and her friendship became my lifeline. With her help, I studied to stay sane and graduated from college while I was on the inside.

  All these years later she was still my lifeline.

  Right before we hung up, I said, "Jesus, Ellie, now this church woman wants to hear the whole gory story."

  The long distance lines crackled. "Have you ever told anyone the whole story? Even yourself?"

  I stayed up half the night, sitting on the back porch with Pilot, smoking cigarettes and telling myself I'd have to quit.

  It all started with Helen's monkeys. Really they were Teddy's monkeys. Teddy was Helen's brother, and he was a doctor, and he had monkeys shipped in from Belize for his experiments. He worked on burn research at the Kansas University Medical Center. And when Helen told me what Teddy was planning to do with these little monkeys, it made me hate medical science, even though I didn't think of myself as an animal lover. This was 1956 before most people had ever heard of animal rights, when anybody in a white coat could do pretty much whatever he wanted to man or beast.

  It was a sweet summer night and I was working the twilight shift at the Pan Am air freight office. I was a tracing agent, really a glorified clerk, who kept track of what came in and what went out and searched for what was lost. The pay was paltry, but enough for me to rent a studio apartment and get away from my father. Daddy was a mean drunk, which meant he was mean most of the time, because he was drunk most of the time. He was a salesmen who'd start out a star and end up a failure because he couldn't lay off the booze. He had a nasty habit of always backhanding me for something: the house wasn't clean enough, dinner wasn't good enough, I wasn't good enough. Now I was twenty with a real job, thank God, and I'd never put up with that kind of grief again.

  On my break I walked along the river and lit up a Tareyton. The runway lights flashed in the distance. I watched a Super G glide toward the airport, smooth and beautiful against the night sky. What I wouldn't give to walk the aisles of those splendid silver birds! Not that I thought I was pretty enough or poised enough to land a stewardess job, but it didn't cost anything to dream. I was full of dreams.

  I tossed my cigarette aside and decided to cut through the hangar to get to my office. The second I stepped through the door I heard a ramp-rat (that's what we called the men who unloaded the shipments) hollering, "Great Christ! Grab him!" Three guys chased a little brown creature not much bigger than a teddy bear. In the corner a huge empty cage had toppled over. Forty monkeys, maybe more, screeched and cried and hung from the rafters and did somersaults like trapeze artists. I put my hands to my ears to block the noise. Other monkeys, on the ground, leapt over boxes trying to reach the rafter, while cussing men tried to snag them. It looked like something out of Keystone Cops.

  "Son of a bitch," one the ramp rats yelled as he tackled a monkey right in front of me. The captured chimp looked up at me with pleading eyes as I stepped out of the way.

  At the other end of hangar, my boss, a tall rangy guy with a long neck and a worried expression, signaled me to get a move on. I dodged men and monkeys and made my way toward him.

  "Damn things!" he yelled, ushering me into the office. "Get the consignee down here! We don't need this kind of liability."

  I'd never seen him so upset, usually he was a soft-spoken easy-going guy. He snapped the venetian blinds closed with an angry flick of his wrist, walked back to his own office, and slammed the door.

  I wanted to keep watching the show, but pleasing the boss was more important. So I sat at my desk and shuffled through the bills of lading. Just as I had picked up the phone to dial the number of Dr. Theodore Riser III, a woman opened the door from the parking lot and stepped up to the counter.

  "Have the chimps arrived?" She was a gorgeous green-eyed, fair-skinned brunette.

  "The monkeys going to Dr. Riser?"

  "My brother," she said looping strands of short hair behind her ear. "He sent me to sign for them."

  She wore an emerald ring that had to be at least a carat.

  "He needs the chimps right away," she said.

  "Oh, they're here."

  "May I use your phone? I'll have my brother send the truck."

  Instead of answering, I got up, opened the hatch in the counter, and motioned her toward the window that faced the hangar. When she was in position, I opened the blinds. The circus was still going on, but I didn't care about that anymore. What intrigued me was our reflection.

  She was taller than me and slender, dressed in black Capri pants and a green long-sleeved blouse. Everything about her spelled grace and refinement, her delicate features, the way she moved, her voice. I felt like a floozy beside her, a five-foot-three busty, curly headed blonde, who might pass for pretty in a circle of peasants.

  She let out a long deep breath at the sight. "Teddy will be furious," she whispered, as if Teddy might hear.

  "I'm sorry," I said. "Nobody knows how this happened."

  "Look, there they go."

  Sure enough, three monkeys were high-tailing it out of the hangar and into the June night.

  "I'm glad they're getting away," she said. "They scald them. Tie their little hands and feet and dip them in boiling water, then just leave them to see what happens."

  I stared at her.

  "They call it research." Her eyes turned glassy. I thought she was going to cry.

  "Is there a bathroom in here?" She blinked and looked around.

  "I'd better show you."

  As we walked through the hangar, her face drained of color.

  "I wish they'd all escape," she said, leaning close and grabbing my arm.

  That happened, the look and her touch, just as we approached the circuit breaker box. I glanced at the gray box, then back to her. Her eyes grew wide and encouraging. That was all I needed. I opened the box and tripped the circuit breaker. Black.

  We held each other and it was being close to her that caused my heart to pound not the dark or the danger we'd get caught.

  When someone snapped a lighter at the far end of the hangar, I turned the lights back on. Seconds later we made our getaway into the nearby bathroom.

  "For that," she said, on the way back to the office, "I'm going to fix you breakfast."

  My boss drummed his fingers on my desk. "Where have you been?" Obviously, he was still in a snit.

  I introduced them and he nearly tripped over himself, apologizing to Helen and offering to call Dr. Riser to clear things up. Helen said that would be wonderful and left.

  That would be wonderful, I kept hearing Helen's voice and, in her absence, felt as trapped and downhearted an any captured chimp.

  At midnight when I got off work and stepped into the parking lot, she was sitting behind the wheel of a maroon MGB convertible.

  "You look astonished, " she said, smiling and holding out her hand. "Helen Riser always keeps her promises."

  "I'm the astonished Gloria Delany," I said, shaking her hand.

  "Follow me?"

  "My car's in the shop," I lied. The truth was I schlepped everywhere by bus. But I didn't want her to know I was too poor to afford a car.

  We drove onto the wide boulevards of the Plaza and into Mission Hills, the richest area in Kansas City. Mansions dotted both sides of the street. Each place a palace with lush green grounds and manicured gardens.

  Helen turned onto a side street and at the end of the block, angled the convertible onto a circular driveway. I was awed by the house, which I know now was a gracious Georgian, but then could only describe as big and white and magnificent. It had pillars and porches and tall handsome windows. Helen parked at the front door and scolded herself for forgetting to leave a light on.

  She opened the door and said, "I should remember to leave the lights on since I snipped the alarm. But I was forever tripping the thing and having to explain to the police."

  I trailed after Helen through the kind of regal rooms I'd seen only in the movies.

  "I hope Teddy never finds about the alarm," she said. "He worries about me because he works all night."

  "Who?"

  "Theodore. Doctor Riser. My brother."

  "Oh right. You two live here alone?"

  She nodded.

  We wound our way through rooms with gleaming heavy furniture and fresh flowers and yellow satin sofas and fireplaces and chandeliers--each wall decorated with real paintings, each floor covered with real oriental carpets.

  We arrived at the kitchen and Helen unloaded an armful of food from the refrigerator.

  "Omelets are my specialty," she said.

  "I'm putting you through a lot of trouble."

  She stood still and looked at me. "You want to leave?"

  "Are you kidding? I never want to leave."

  She smiled and began to cook and wouldn't let me help.

  When everything was ready, she carried a silver tray through what she called `the breakfast nook'. We passed through two sets of French doors leading to a flagstone patio and beyond the patio to a terrace and beyond the terrace to a dazzling kidney shaped swimming pool. Outside we ate at a glass top table with just the lights from the pool and one flickering candle. The smell of gardenias drifted through the air and the tinkling of silver against fine china mixed with the hum of crickets. Helen looked into my eyes as she lifted her coffee cup to her lips. And I thought, now it's not just a joke, I am the astonished Gloria Delany.

  "I never expected to see a girl working in an airplane hangar," she said.

  "It's not like I drive a forklift."

  "Don't be offended. I think it's wonderful. I wish I had a job."

  "It doesn't look like you need one."

  "What we need and what we want can mean the difference between happiness and survival."

  "Is that what you do, survive?"

  She frowned and changed the subject. "Do you like your job?"

  "It pays the bills."

  "There's no one to help you? no husband, no parents?"

  "Just me."

  She started to ask another question, but I cut her off. "I really hate talking about myself," I said, which was the truth for once.

  "I don't mean to pry," she said in that gracious way of hers. "It's just that I'm so jealous of your independence."

  I laughed. "So, what do you do?"

  "Mostly, I look after Teddy. He's brilliant. But forgetful. I lay out his clothes and see that he eats and remind him of his appointments." She put down her cup. "And I'll go back to Avila in the fall. A Catholic girls college." She made a face that said she didn't like Avila.

  "What do you study?"

  "Art."

  Practical, I thought. That will land you a job.

  "I wanted to study in Paris. But Teddy thought it would be too dangerous. He's so protective. But we did spend a month in a little flat off the Champs-Elysées. It was heaven."

  I imagined Paris. I had to imagine it. The farthest I'd been from Kansas City was St. Louis. Then I thought of my brother, a wild, rambunctious kid I missed having around. I guess he was protective, too. He'd given me his switchblade when I moved out on my own

  "What's funny?" Helen asked.

  "Nothing," I said. "I was just thinking how different we are."

  "Maybe, maybe not," she said, pouring us more coffee.

  I wanted to do a little prying of my own and ask about her parents, when she said, "I've noticed you've been eyeing that pool a lot. Do you like to swim?"

  "I don't get much of a chance to do it, but I love it."

  "Then you should absolutely swim and swim. I hate the water. Terrified of it. But you go in, and I'll sit in a lounge chair and admire your bravery."

  I looked down at my uniform: a white blouse, navy blue skirt and a tailored jacket with brass buttons that I'd hung over the back of the chair. I hated the getup, it made me feel like a WAC or an elevator operator but at least it saved me from having to spend money on clothes.

  Helen anticipated my objections. "Skinny dip," she said. "Nobody can see in. And it's just us girls."

  I did feel brave as I stripped out of my clothes and dove into the pool. Helen had discreetly turned her back and cleared the table until I had gotten into the water.

  "I'll do those dishes as soon as I'm out of here," I called to Helen when I came up for air.

  "I won't hear of it. Ruby will do them."

  Stupidly, I almost said, who's Ruby?

  It made me mad that Helen had a maid. It reminded me of my junior high days when I had worked in the school cafeteria cleaning up after my classmates who dumped their trays into my greasy hands.

  But what the hell, that all was in the past. This was the beginning of my new life--a life with maid service, a beautiful companion, and midnight swims.

  I swam hard. I swam for a long time. And I swam all summer.

  Every night when I got off work Helen would be waiting for me in her convertible. The routine was always the same and the routine became a ritual, a ritual I longed for, then lived for.

  Helen would drive me to her mansion (she called it her house) where soft jazz played on the radio. In her kitchen she'd mix us Bloody Marys and make her specialty and we'd eat outside, always with one candle and the pool lights casting an aqua hue into the night. Then I'd swim, the water caressing my skin, every pore, every part of me uncovered and alive. It wasn't long before I got used to leaving the dishes for a woman named Ruby whom I never saw. It wasn't long before I got used to the good life.

  I'd swim every night, even in the rain, and come out of the pool relaxed and exhilarated at the same time. Helen always had a white terrycloth robe for me draped over the lounge chair next to hers. And a `little tray of treats', as she called it, something succulent, mangos, apricots, Bing cherries, kiwi fruit, white chocolate, tastes I never even knew I craved.

  One night when the air smelled of rain and Billie Holiday sang, "Ain't Nobody's Business" on the stereo, Helen told me a little about her family. "My parents always summered in Rhode Island," she said, looking toward the pool. "The summer I was twelve they went out on their yacht, Sea Breeze. Usually Teddy and I went along, but that day Teddy said it was time I learned to sail and he took me out for my first lesson." She was quiet and I heard a new record drop and Ella start singing, "You're So Nice To Come Home To."

  "Teddy and I weren't on the water long before a storm came up. He got us back to shore and we spent the rest of the day and night in the cottage waiting and waiting. But they never came back. The next day the coast guard found the Sea Breeze busted up on the rocks. Momma and Daddy were lost."

  I looked at Helen's hand resting in her lap and wanted to reach for it, but I held back. "That must've been awful."

  "It was," she agreed. "I don't know what would've happened to me without Teddy. Something out of Oliver Twist."

  "Your brother was old enough to take care of you then?"

  "He was already in medical school, but he did everything for me. He didn't even hire a nanny."

  I told her I was an orphan, too, another lie. Half a lie anyway. My mother had died giving birth to my brother when I was four. But my father was still alive. If you call living in a bottle a life. I thought about seeing Daddy last month on his birthday. Big mistake. At first it was okay, but as the day wore on and he belted back more vodka, things turned ugly. What was I trying to prove, spending money on an apartment when I could live at home? What was I doing working with all men, all night? What kind of slut was I? One day I'd come crawling back, just you wait.

  I walked out. Man, that was heaven to just get up, walk out, and come home.

  I wanted to tell Helen there were worse things than being an orphan. But I was content to know we had something in common, the bond of two shipwrecked, motherless girls. Still, I was never fully at home with Helen. I felt too outclassed for that.

  I never invited her to my apartment. I was ashamed of the same studio I'd been so proud of a couple of months before. When it was time to go home, I'd make her drop me at the corner of my street and I'd thank her and hurry away. In my room I'd kill a few scurrying cockroaches that always scattered when the lights came on. Then I'd pull my bed out of the wall, lie down, and think of Helen.

  I thought of her almost constantly, not so much thoughts as images, the light in her eyes, the shape of her jaw, her sad smile, the tilt of her head as she listened to a melancholy saxophone.

  I had a recurring dream of her that summer: we were in a small boat and I was rowing in a river of filth. I was naked and she was fully clothed, leaning back with her legs crossed watching me. As I rowed into the light, I saw half of her face was missing, her beautiful face burned off. At that moment the boat would sink, and we would sink with it.

  In real life, I came alive and fully awake during my nights with Helen. There was one night in particular. The night we had our first fight.

  Just after Labor Day the mechanics went on strike and the ramp rats walked off in sympathy. I wasn't a union member, but I wanted to be and I refused to cross the picket lines.

  "Nobody's making a scab out of me," I told Helen after I'd had my swim and downed my third Bloody Mary.

  "Scab. My God what a word," she said. "I'm appalled."

  Then she went on this tirade about the evil of labor unions. I listened with a hard heart and a rising rage. When she'd finished I laid into her with the vengeance of a street fighter. An intellectual argument was something I knew nothing about. I mocked her and called her `little miss priss' and the `protected princess.' I ranted about the privileged class, people like her, who had others do their dirty work, wash their toilets, their dishes, pick up all their shit and don't forget to smile when you does it, Mizz Helen.

  She sobbed. And at the first sound of her hurt I felt as if I had turned into a scab, an oozing, foul-mouthed piece of flesh.

  I took her in my arms. I patted her and stroked her hair. After a while she looked up at me, pulled me close, and kissed me, her salty tears smearing across my mouth.

  I kissed her back and that was the beginning.

  "Let's go the pool house," she said in a husky voice. "I want to be where it's dark."

  I didn't. I wanted to have her right there under the stars, in the blue/green glow of the pool lights. But she took my hand and I followed her to a little place at the far end of the property that was more like a shed than anything else. It was dark inside except for the shafts of moonlight that had penetrated the cracked old shutters.

  I could make out silhouettes, but little else. There was an old day bed and we sat together and kissed. Her tender mouth aroused feelings of ecstasy in me and something very close to panic. After a few minutes, I took off the white robe and laid it over the bare mattress. She undressed and I helped her. When she laid down on the robe she said, "Do whatever you want with me."

  Trying to sound lighthearted I said, "Jesus, Helen. That's not what it's about."

  She began to cry again.

  "I just meant, love's give and take," I said, comforting her all over again.

  After she'd quieted I leaned over and kissed her and she eased her tongue into my mouth. She stroked my shoulder, then slid her hand down my arm, placing my hand on her perfect round breast. I cupped her flesh and squeezed and brought my mouth to her nipple and sucked and nibbled and ached with the feel of her. I slipped my hands down her sleek body and felt her move under my touch. She was wet and receiving and moved with a rhythm I played.

  Suddenly I stopped and there was the suck of her breath as she held on. I smiled down at her, wishing I could see her in sunshine or at least by our one flickering candle.

  "Ask me for what you want," I told her. "Beg me."

  A sound came from her, but no words. A moment later she relented. "Please," she whispered. "Kiss me, lick me...there."

  She moved her hands down her body. I lifted my head and watched her ease her fingers between her legs. She spread herself taut, making it easy for me to do what we both wanted.

  I stayed still teasing her a little. But I couldn't resist for long devouring something so fine, so willing, so mine.

  The lovemaking was natural. Natural and yet forbidden and the taboo only made her sweeter, only made me want her more. I'd never been with a woman before, but I knew everything. I knew from the depths of my own soul how my body should be guided to hers.

  And, even though I had chastised her for saying it, I did end up doing whatever I wanted with her and it was pretty damned incredible. But the sex wasn't reciprocal. I wouldn't let her do to me what I had done to her.

  Was I in love? Absolutely. I'd been in love all along, been in love before I'd ever touched her, been in love with every move she made, every inflection in her voice, everything, just like all those romantic songs on the radio, just like all the love stories I'd ever seen, only with one difference?we were the same sex. but did that matter? During our lovemaking it didn't matter in the least, but the minute I was away from her it mattered horribly. It mattered when I came home that night, laid on my bed, and gave birth to a twisted ugly perverse sense of shame. What had I done? What had I become?

  The next night I was formal with her, even bitchy. I stayed in the pool until my skin was numb, until my heart was a rock of insensitive ice.

  She tried to get close, but I stayed cold and aloof. The look of puzzled sorrow in her eyes made no difference. For the moment I was redeemed.

  The weekend passed. I never saw her on weekends. Monday she was at her usual spot in the parking lot, but everything else was different. She wore a tight long-sleeved scooped-necked black dress and red leather high-heels. I'd never seen her in anything except slacks and flats before, and the sight of her firm calf as her foot pressed the accelerator made my heart go fast. I was glad I'd changed out of my uniform into a pair of white pants and a blue blouse, but I still felt dowdy beside her. `Tutti-frutti! All rootie! Tutti-frutti! All rootie Awopbopaloobop?alopbamboom!' blasted on the radio as we barreled down Troost Avenue into the seedy section of Kansas City, stopping just short of colored-town.

  "What's this?" I asked, when she parked in a back alley lot.

  "A surprise."

  We walked to the door of what looked like an abandoned warehouse.

  "Don't be scared," she said as I hung back.

  She knocked and a piece of wood was pulled aside, speakeasy style. A pair of gray unfriendly eyes gave us the once-over.

  "We want to see Sly," Helen said, suppressing a giggle. Giggling was something I'd never known her to do. The door opened and we stepped into a dim foyer where a short, strange looking man sat on a barstool beside a wooden table. On the table was an open cigar box chuck full of money. Helen dropped a couple of bills into the box and took my hand. She led me down a long hallway and into a big L-shaped room. The place looked like a converted basement that hadn't been all that converted. Along one wall was a pretty good size bar and at the L a pool table and Wurlitzer.

  A few feet from the jukebox three couples swayed to Elvis singing, `Love me tender, love me true, never let me go.' The women were in high heels and dresses, the men in blue jeans and T-shirts.

  The room wasn't much brighter than the foyer, but as I looked closer I noticed something odd about the couples. Then I realized I was in a room with all women, only some of the women looked more like men than women.

  I was amazed. I was too amazed to say anything.

  Helen took me to the bar and ordered.

  A gray-haired bartender, who looked normal enough, served our Bloody Marys. I drank.

  "Let's dance."

  I shook my head and snatched my hand away from Helen's touch.

  "Perverts," I hissed into her ear. She pulled back as if I'd slapped her.

  A minute later some freak wearing jeans and a man's shirt swaggered up to Helen and held out its hand.

  "No, thank you," she said, sweetly. "I'm with someone."

  "You didn't want to dance with that?" I said, drilling a dirty look at back of the freak's bright yellow shirt.

  Helen bolted off the barstool and rushed toward the door.

  I practically ran after her, afraid I'd be alone in the place.

  When we were safely speeding away from the joint, I said, "How do you know about that place? Who took you there?"

  "A friend."

  "Don't be coy? Who? How many times have you been there?"

  "You're jealous," she said. "I love that. I'm so flattered."

  "Flattered for what. Hanging out with sicko's."

  "Hate them. Hate yourself," she said, so casually I wanted to hit her.

  "Just drop me at my house," I said, and she did.

  Before I got out of the car she handed me a key. "In case you want to surprise me later."

  In my room I chain-smoked, drank vodka, and cried hot tears of self-pity and rage.

  The following night I was so worthless my boss offered to let me leave early. I suffered through thinking I'd see Helen after work.

  From midnight to one I waited in the parking lot praying she'd show up and rehearsing my `forgive me speech.' I pictured just how I would hold her, just how I would kiss her fine soft mouth, just how I would peel her panties from her narrow hips. Only she didn't show. And I realized, as I walked along the dark river, I'd missed the last bus downtown and probably any chance of love with Helen.

  I was grateful when my boss pulled up in his red Edsel.

  "What are you doing out here, Gloria?" he asked, pitching toys off the front seat. "Thought you left an hour ago."

  "I did," was all I said, climbing into his car.

  "Car's a mess." He laughed and apologized. "Kids. Don't ever have kids. Fact is I'm buying a new Merc. A convertible."

  He went on yakking, but I didn't pay much attention.

  He parked on the edge of a grassy slope just off the runway. Usually a lot of people parked there to watch the planes, but tonight we were the only ones.

  "You mind? I always watch the red-eye coming in from LA," he explained and killed the engine. "I love planes. Have ever since I was a boy."

  I watched the sky. He kept talking, but I barely listened. I was too busy wondering where Helen was and what she was up to.

  "You don't think you are, but you're a very pretty girl," he was saying. "And I have a weakness for brown-eyed blondes."

  The next thing I knew his arms were around me. His mouth, reeking of cigars, pressed hard against my mouth. I turned my head away and the stubble from his beard raked against my face. His hand, heavy and rough, groped my breast. I wanted to make him quit, but I worried about offending him. He was my boss. Then, when he forced his tongue into my mouth, I shoved him back hard.

  "Stop!" I said, barely having the breath to say it.

  "I've been good to you," he whispered, panting in my ear. "You aren't a tease, are you."

  I scratched his face.

  He let go, touched the blood on his cheek and yelled, "Ignorant bitch!"

  I was out of the car and running. Then I heard his car start and forced myself to look around. The Edsel was still there idling with its light off. I kept running. My shoes rubbed blisters on my heels.

  I caught a cab at the airport and felt sick all the way home. The cabby chewed on his cigar and every once in a while peered at me through the rearview mirror.

  At home I gargled for a long time trying to get the nasty taste out of my mouth. Then I showered under water so hot I was nearly scalded.

  I dressed and called Helen. I must've let the phone ring forty times before she picked up.

  "Helen," I said. "Helen, forgive me. Don't..."

  "I can't see you anymore," she said, cutting short my apology.

  "Don't say that."

  "I can't," she repeated sounding teary.

  "I'm coming over." I hung up, dug through my savings and called another cab. My nest egg was exactly twenty-two dollars.

  "You look awful," I said to Helen when she opened the front door.

  "So do you."

  I followed her through the dark silent house. "I'm going to kill my boss," I said.

  "What happened? You said you liked him."

  "I want to talk about us," I said, sitting opposite her at the brightly lit table in the breakfast nook. The glare was so bright I couldn't see the patio much less the pool. And tonight there was no music, no drinks, no food, nothing but a grating atmosphere of anxiety.

  "I know I've been awful. I've been terrible," I began, desperate to explain. "This is all new to me. I..."

  She was shaking her head and looking down at her lap. "It's not you. It's me. I'm the reason I can't see you anymore."

  "Why do you keep saying that?"

  She was silent. She wouldn't look at me.

  "I can't be without you," I said. "I love you."

  Still, she didn't say anything and I felt my throat close and my eyes burn.

  Then she said, "I'm pregnant."

  I studied her profile for some sign, a sign she was kidding, or I had misunderstood or anything ?anything other than the crushing news she'd been fucked by a man.

  "You see men? You have a boyfriend?"

  "I don't."

  "Well, hell." I tried to laugh. "I don't think this baby could me mine."

  That got her to look at me, but just for a second.

  I thought of my boss and what had just happened. "Oh, honey. You were raped."

  She shook her head. "No. No, not exactly."

  "Jesus Christ, Helen, either it's rape or it isn't."

  "No!" she cried. "I wouldn't call it that."

  "What in God's name would you call it? Who did this to you? Who's the father?"

  I was relentless. I wouldn't stop asking until she finally yelled, "Teddy! It's Teddy's baby."

  "Your brother? You let your brother!"

  "Yes!" she screamed angry and defiant. "I love you! But I need Teddy!"

  I stood up and slapped her hard across the face again and again. Out of breath with fury I finally stopped and stared at her. The way she looked, with my red handprints on her beautiful face, and her eyes full of suffering would haunt me for years to come. That was the look I'd see all the years I was in prison and after I got out of prison. That was the look I feared seeing on my deathbed. But in the moment I was unmoved, blind to everything except my own self-righteous rage. Before I left I hurled a teapot and a whole set of cups against the wall. Helen covered her head with her arms.

  "Don't worry," I said, looking at the chunks of china on the floor. "Ruby will clean it up."

  At home I drank myself into a stupor so deep I woke in my own vomit.

  The next day I was hung-over and terrified at the thought of going to work. What choice did I have? To crawl back to Daddy's like he said I would? Without my job I might as well hang it up.

  I fought to pull myself together and thought of something that might help. In the back of my underwear drawer I fished out my brother's switchblade and tucked the knife inside the breast pocket of my jacket. If my boss came after me again I'd be ready. I pictured hacking off his probing fingers. That cheered me up.

  The minute I showed the boss called me into his office.

  "Close the door," he said, from behind his desk. The three jagged scratches on his right cheek made quite an impression. On the shelf behind him, I was faced with a picture of his wife and three little daughters.

  "We have a situation here," he said, all cold and professional.

  "Forget it," I answered, thinking I knew what he was going to say.

  "Can't do that. I've got my orders from on high."

  He handed me a piece of paper. I read: `This is to inform you of your dismissal as of...' I looked up.

  "This has been in the works a long time. Cutbacks all over the line."

  "Please don't do this," I begged, hating myself as I said it.

  "Trust me. There's not a thing I can do about it." His face remained passive, his voice matter-of-fact. "You'll be paid for the week. Clear out your desk and we'll send you home in a cab."

  Before he'd even finished his sentence he attacked the stack of papers on his desk. He was done with me. He wanted to get onto something important. Bastard.

  I didn't clean out my desk. I stood in the same spot where I had first seen Helen smiling at me in her convertible.

  When the taxi came I gave the driver her address.

  I'd never seen the house in daylight. God, it was beautiful,? beautiful and serene, just the way I wanted my life to be. Everything I wanted for my life was in that house; that's what I thought as I walked to the front door.

  I didn't ring the bell because I was afraid Helen wouldn't let me in. But I convinced myself if I could just tell her how sorry I was. Tell her we could run away. Go to Paris. Raise the baby.

  I used the key she'd given me and walked through the hallway toward the kitchen. I'd make it up to her. Everything would be all right.

  A sound stopped me. A faint moaning, then heavy breathing, then nothing. I wasn't sure what it was or who it was coming from. I had to find out even though part of me screamed for a retreat. Run! Get away from here while you still can! I couldn't. I had to know. I followed the sound through the kitchen and into the breakfast nook.

  Sunshine poured through the French doors illuminating a sight so grotesque that everything took on a surreal quality, like a slow motion scene from a violent movie.

  I learned first hand what it meant to be `beside ones' self'. I watched myself watching the scene.

  Helen was lying naked on the table. Her knees up, her legs spread. Her face turned toward the window, was contorted in pain and fear. A man stood between her legs. A tall man in a white coat, whose back was to me, worked on her. His arm thrusting in and out of her, as if he were sawing a tree or cleaning out a filthy bottle. At his elbow, a teacart held a tray of long gleaming silver instruments. The instruments were lined up in ascending order like a set of socket wrenches increasing in size, increasing in torture. The smaller instruments were glommed with blood.

  The man drilled into Helen's body. Bright red drops dripped from her and onto the white shining floor. Her thighs and arms were bruised, some old yellow bruises, others new, bright and purple. No wonder she'd kept herself covered and insisted we stay in the dark. So this was what the good doctor had done to her. The researcher. The torturer in the name of science. The protective brother who hadn't neglected her since she was twelve. No, he'd probably been fucking her since then. And likely this wasn't the first baby, only the most recent evidence he needed to destroy.

  All of these things occurred to me in a matter of one vile minute as I stood paralyzed by the horror of the scene. Who knows the way things might have turned out had I not been jarred into action by a terrifying screech. A racket so loud and scary I instinctively reached for the knife and flicked it open.

  I looked to see what had made the sound, just as the man in the white coat turned and Helen lifted her head.

  Two chimps in red bow ties were perched in the corner. They jumped up and down and kept screaming!

  I looked from the chimps to see the man coming at me. He carried the bloody probe and lunged toward me. His eyes, the same color green as Helen's, were wide and furious.

  When he was close enough I stuck the knife into his belly the same way he'd been sticking his instrument into my beloved. Pure surprise crossed his face before he dropped to the floor.

  Helen climbed off the table holding her stomach. She leaned over the man then looked at me.

  "Call somebody! You've killed Teddy!"

  I didn't move. I watched her cover her face and cry.

  Then I ran. I wish I could say I turned myself in or went back to see about Helen. But I didn't. The police found me in the bushes not far from where I had fallen and twisted my ankle, not far from the shed where Helen and I had made love.

  Wrapped in a white tablecloth, she identified me when the police brought me to the squad car. She was still crying.

  "Don't hurt her!" she called to the cop when he jerked on my arm and led me away. That was last thing I heard her say. That was the last time I saw her. Twelve hours later she hemorrhaged to death from the abortion.

  Had I helped kill her, too? killed her with my blame and anger? I had used her the way Teddy had used her. I had used her for sex. I had hit her, and hurt her. I wanted to own her, posses her, make her and keep her mine. I thought then Teddy and I were a lot alike.

  These are the things I've had to think about for forty years. But now I know I've been asking the wrong question. Would I do it all again? I did it. I cannot undo the deed. Will I die a peaceful death? I don't know. But I'll be finding out. Maybe soon. It is this thought that drives me back to church.

  I sit in a pew beside two women who I know are lovers. They smile at me and make room. They look so happy, so content.

  Beverly comes in late, gives me a little smile and sits across the aisle. At the end of service, along with the congregation, we recite the Benediction:

  May the Love which overcomes all differences,
  which heals all wounds,
  which puts to flight all fears,
  which reconciles all who are separated,
  be in us and among us
  now and always.

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