times better."

My face blanched. The idea of replacing body parts from Banks didn't nauseate me. If a man is in an automobile accident and loses an arm, and that arm can be replaced, I think that's marvelous. What sickened me were the people who actually enjoyed having a part of their body replaced with a part from a criminal or corpse.

"No." I sat down. My knees were weak. I felt short of breath. "George didn't tell me. I—"

She interrupted with details of the operation. The details and list of her other ailments lasted half an hour, during which George drank steadily and I waited for a lull so I could glance at my watch and say something about being late for an appointment.

I saw George several times during the next few weeks. Never at his house. I didn't visit him on my own initiative because Helen, as I had seen during my last visit, had passed from the stage of being unpleasant and reached the stage of being unbearable. I didn't want to be around her or listen to her, and George must have realized my feelings because he didn't invite me to his house for some time.

But both of us had a habit of stopping at a club on the outskirts of town and we met there often. Each time we met, George complained. Each time, he seemed to drink more and complain more.

I worried about his job. He was a surgeon—one of the best—and a surgeon needs good nerves and steady hands when he performs delicate operations.

I urged him to get a divorce, but he said he didn't want one. "I love Helen," he said one time. "Well, I don't exactly love Helen, but I love her body. It's like the old saying about marrying a girl because she's pretty is like picking a rose by looking at the stem. We're all different, you know, and we all have different tastes. When I first saw Helen— Well, she's just right for me. To me, she looks as good as Marilyn Monroe looks to the average man. I like having her around. I'd be lost without her, but at the same time, she's changed so damned much, she makes me sick."

And there it was. He still wanted Helen but she had changed into a personality that he hated. Over a period of years, she had changed into a morbid hypochondriac, an unpleasant woman who enjoyed—more than anything else—such things as having one of her legs replaced and sampling the latest pills and drugs. George said he had tried to get her to see a psychiatrist but she refused. And you can't have a person 

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