Then Tad had been scratchy about going off to the daycamp, complaining that a bigger boy had pushed him down last Friday.

The bigger boy's name was Stanley Dobson, and Tad was afraid that Stanley Dobson might push him down again today. He had cried and clutched onto her when she got him to the American Legion field where the camp was held, and she'd had to pry his fingers loose from her blouse finger by finger, making her feel more like a Nazi than a mom: You vill go to daykemp, ja? ja, mein Mamma! Sometimes Tad seemed so young for his age, so vulnerable. Weren't only children supposed to be precocious and resourceful? His fingers had been chocolatey and had left fingerprints on her blouse. They reminded her of the bloodstained handprints you sometimes saw in cheap detective magazines.

To add to the fun, her Pinto had started to act funny on the way home from the market, jerking and hitching, as if it had an automotive case of the hiccups. It had smoothed out after a bit, but what could happen once could happen again, and

- and, just to put a little icing on the cake, here was Steve Kemp.

'Well, no bullshit' she muttered, grabbed her bag of groceries, and got out, a pretty, dark-haired woman of twenty-nine, tall, gray-eyed. She somehow managed to look tolerably fresh in spite of the relentless heat, her Tad-printed blouse, and academy-gray shorts that felt pasted to her hips and fanny.

She went up the steps quickly and into the house by the porch door. Steve was sitting in Vic's living-room chair. He was drinking one of Vic's beers. He was smoking a cigarette -presumably one of his own. The TV was on, and the agonies of General Hospital played out there, in living color.

'Tlhe princess arrives,' Steve said with the lopsided grin she had once found so charming and interestingly dangerous. 'I thought you were never going to -'

'I want you out of here, you son of a bitch,' she said tonelessly, and went through into the kitchen. She put the grocery bag down on the counter and started putting things away. She could not remember when she had last been so angry, so furious that her stomach had tied itself in a gripping, groaning knot. One of the endless arguments with her mother, maybe. One of the real horrorshows before she had gone away to school. When Steve came up behind her and slipped his tanned arms around her bare midriff, she acted with no thought at all; she brought her elbow back into his lower chest. Her temper was not cooled by the obvious fact that he had anticipated her. He played a lot of tennis, and her elbow felt as if it had struck a stone wall coated with a layer of hard rubber.

She turned around and looked into his grinning, bearded face. She stood five-eleven and was an inch taller than Vic when she wore heels, but Steve was nearly six-five.

'Didn't you hear me? I want you out of here!'

'Now, what for?' he asked. 'The little one is off making beaded loincloths or shooting apples off the heads of counselors with his little bow and arrow ... or whatever they do ... and hubby is busting heavies at the office... and now is the time for Castle Rock's prettiest hausfrau and Castle Rock's resident poet and tennis bum to make all the bells of sexual congress chime in lovely harmony.'

'I see you parked out in the driveway,' Donna said. 'Why not just tape a big sign to the side of your van? I'M FUCKING DONNA TRENTON, or something witty like that?'

'I've got every reason to park in the driveway,' Steve said, still grinning. 'I've got that dresser in the back. Stripped clean. Even as I wish you were yourself, my dear.'

'You can put it on the porch. I'll take care of it. While you're doing that, I'll write you a check.'

His smile faded a little. For the first time since she had come in, the surface charm slipped a little and she could see the real person underneath. It was a person she didn't like at all, a person that dismayed her when she thought of him in connection with herself.

She had lied to Vic, gone behind his back, in order to go to bed with Steve Kemp. She wished that what she felt now could be something as simple as rediscovering herself, as after a nasty bout of fever. Or rediscovering herself as Vic's mate. But when you took the bark off it, the simple fact was that Steve Kemp -

publishing poet, itinerant furniture stripper and refinisher, chair caner, fair amateur tennis player, excellent afternoon lover - was a turd.

'Be serious,' he said.

'Yeah, no one could reject handsome, sensitive Steven Kemp,' she said. iesgot to be a joke. Only it's not. So what you do, handsome, sensitive Steven Kemp, is put the dresser on the porch, get your check, and blow.'

'Don't talk to me like that, Donna.' His hand moved to her breast and squeezed. It hurt. She began to feel a little scared as well as angry. [But hadn't she been a little scared all along? Hadn't that been part of the nasty, scuzzy little thrill of W]

She slapped his hand away.

'Don't you get on my case, Donna.' He wasn't smiling now. 'It's too goddam hot.'

'Me? On your case? You were here when I came in.' Being frightened of him had made her angrier than ever. He wore a heavy black beard that climbed high on his cheekbones, and it occurred to her suddenly that although she had seen his penis close up - had had it in her mouth - she had never really seen what his face looked like.

'What you mean,' he said, 'is that you had a little itch and now it's scratched, so fuck off. Right? Who gives a crap about how I feel?'

'You're breathing on me,' she said, and pushed him away to take the milk to the refrigerator.

He was not expecting it this time. Her shove caught him off balance, and he actually stumbled back a step. His forehead was suddenly divided by lines, and a dark flush flared high on his cheekbones. She had seen him look this way on the tennis courts behind the Bridgton Academy buildings, sometimes. When he blew an easy point. She had watched him play several times -

including two sets during which he had mopped up her panting, puffing husband with ease - and on the few occasions she had seen him lose, his reaction had made her extremely uneasy about what she had gotten into with him. He had published poems in over two dozen little magazines, and a book, Chasing Sundown, had been published by an outfit in Baton Rouge called The Press over the Garage. He had graduated from Drew, in New jersey; he held strong opinions on modem art, the upcoming nuclear referendum question in Maine, the films of Andy Warhol, and he took a double fault the way Tad took the news it was bedtime.

Now he came after her, grabbed her shoulder, and spun her around to face him. The carton of milk fell from her hand and split open on the floor.

'There, look at that,' Donna said. 'Nice going, hotshot.'

'Listen, I'm not going to be pushed around. Do you -'

'You get out of here!' she screamed into his face. Her spittle sprayed his cheeks and his forehead. 'What do I have to do to convince you? Do you need a picture? You're not welcome here!

Go be God's gift to some other woman!'

'You cheap, cockteasing little bitch,' he said. His voice was sullen, his face ugly. He didn't let go of her arm.

'And take the bureau with you. Pitch it in the dump.

She pulled free of him and got the washrag from its place, hung over the sink faucet. Her hands were trembling, her stomach was upset, and she was starting to get a headache. She thought that soon she would vomit.

She got down on her hands and knees and began wiping up the spilt milk.

'Yeah, you think you're something,' he said. 'When did your crotch turn to gold? You loved it. You screamed for more.'

'You've got the right tense, anyway, champ,' she said, not looking up. Her hair hung in her face and she liked it that way Just fine.

She didn't want him to see how pale and sick her face was. She felt as if someone had pushed her into a nightmare. She felt that if she looked at herself in a mirror at this moment she would see an ugly, capering witch. 'Get out, Steve. I'm not going to tell you again.'

'And what if I don't? You going to call Sheriff Bannerman? Sure.

just say, "Hi, there George, this is Mr. Businessman's wife, and the guy I've been screwing on the side won't leave. Would you please come on up here and roust him?" That what you're going to say?'

The fright went deep now. Before marrying Vic, she had been a librarian in the Westchester school system, and her own private

nightmare had always been telling the kids for the third time - in her loudest speaking voice - to quiet down at once, please. When she did that, they always had - enough for her to get through the period, at least - but what if they wouldn't? That was her nightmare. What if they absolutely wouldn't? What did that leave?

The question scared her. It scared her that such a question should ever have to be asked, even to oneself, in the dark of night. She had been afraid to use her loudest voice, and had done so only when it became absolutely necessary. Because that was where civilization came to an abrupt, screeching halt. That was the place where the tar turned to dirt. If they wouldn't listen when you used your very loudest voice, a scream became your only recourse.

This was the same sort of fear. The only answer to the man's question, of course, was that she would scream if he came near her.

But would she?

'Go,' she said in a lower voice. 'Please. It's over.'

'What if I decide it isn't? What if I decide to just rape you there on the floor in that damned spilt milk?'

She looked up at him through the tangle of hair. Her face was still pale, and her eyes were too big, ringed with white flesh. 'Then you'll have a fight on your hands. And if I get a chance to tear your balls off or put one of your eyes out, I won't hesitate.'

For just a moment, before his face closed up, she thought he looked uncertain. He knew she was quick, in pretty good shape. He could beat her at tennis, but she -Made him sweat to do it. His balls and his eyes were probably safe, but she might very well put some furrows in his face. It was a question of how far he wanted to go.