clean the oven.

"I've got to see it," said Stern, grabbing her again. "Just for a second."

"I'm not going to do anything like that. I told you to forget it."

"I'm not fooling around," he said, and, taking her around the waist, he threw her to the kitchen floor, her jumper flying back above her knees.

[Pg 48]

[Pg 48]

"You crazy bastard," she said, flicking a strip of skin from his nose in a quick swipe and getting to her feet.

"All right, then—me," said Stern, getting on the floor. "My topcoat's your dress. Tell me when I'm right." He drew the coat slightly above his knees and said, "This way?"

"I'm not doing this," his wife said. "I don't know what you want me to do."

"Were you this way?" he asked. "Just tell me that."

"No," she said.

He drew the coat up higher. "This?"

"Uh-uh," she said.

He flung the overcoat back over his hips, his legs sprawling, and said, "This way?"

"Yes," she said.

Stern said, "Jesus," and ran upstairs to sink in agony upon the bed. But he felt excited, too.

On the weekend, several days later, as Stern unloaded cans of chow mein from the supermarket, his wife said, "He has big arms."

"Who?" Stern asked, knowing full well who she meant

"The man," she said. "The man who said that thing."

"Oh," Stern said. "What do arms mean?"

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