material curved delicately around shapely hips and buttocks like a second skin. Ending — rather abruptly, he noticed — midway down milky-white, smooth-as-silk thighs. Since she was standing directly in front of the room's only lit lamp, the bright light was filtered through her thin kimono from behind, clearly outlining the precise juncture of legs and…

Obviously, she wasn't wearing underwear. Earl thought he could count pubic hairs, if he felt like trying.

He felt like trying, all right. But he didn't dare.

'I'm Helen,' she said, subtly shifting her weight so Earl could get a better look. 'Like what you see?'

Earl attempted to swallow, but his throat was far too dry. His tongue wouldn't work either, and his voice got lost as his heavy breathing accelerated to a fevered pitch.

He could hear his heart pounding in his head.

'Want to see more?' she asked, fingering the belt at her waist.

He licked his lips.

Is the Pope Polish? he wanted to say.

She slid the kimono from her shoulders and let it drop silently to the floor by her feet. Her nipples stuck straight out like twin spikes aimed at Earl's eyes.

'Helen,' Ralph's voice croaked from the bed. 'Don't…'

'I want you,' she whispered. 'I want you to fu —»

'Helen!' Ralph said again, louder. 'You promised.'

'I can't help it,' she sighed. 'I need…'

'I know what you did today,' Ralph said, his voice strained. 'You went out again, didn't you?'

'Yes. I went to the track.'

'I know, goddammit. I know where you went. I saw what happened.'

'It just… happened,' she said. 'I got carried away.'

'And now,' Ralph said, 'you want more, don't you? When will it stop?'

'I'm never satisfied,' she said. 'Can I help it if I'm never satisfied?'

'Fight it, Helen. Fight the urge. You can do it. I know you can.'

'I can't.'

'Earl, listen to me. You must leave here. Now. Get away. Go home. Go to a bar. I don't care where you go, just get the hell outta here….'

'Earl doesn't want to leave,' Helen said, licking her lips. 'Do you, Earl?'

Earl shook his head.

'Helen's on fire,' she whispered in Earl's ear. 'Touch my pussy. Feel how hot I am.'

Earl did.

Ralph closed his eyes. He didn't want to watch.

He couldn't help hearing, however.

He'd seen and heard it a thousand times before, but he was still powerless to put a stop to it.

Marrying Helen had been his one and only way of controlling her, of protecting her. Hopefully, of changing her.

But it hadn't helped.

Helen's appetite was voracious. He realized now that nothing he could say or do would ever change her.

Nor change the way he felt about her.

Eyes closed, he groped with his fingers for the handle of his service revolver.

They were doing it on the floor at the foot of the bed. Earl was on top. His breath came in tiny gasps as his buttocks rose and fell, rose and fell.

Ralph could tell that it was time.

'Now, Ralph!' Helen screamed as Earl pumped his seed inside her. 'Do it now!'

Ralph didn't want to open his eyes, but he had to. His eyelids snapped open as he leveled the gun.

At this range, he couldn't miss.

Blood and brains splattered the walls.

Half a second later the sound of a shot assaulted Ralph's ears. He closed his eyes and tried — unsuccessfully — to block all further sight and sound from his tortured mind.

But he'd seen it too often before, and his mind — like a video recorder — insisted on replaying the entire scene, complete with all its gory details, in living color.

Helen, her naked body covered by what was left of the corpse, experienced pure ecstasy as multiple orgasms, triggered by Earl's death throes, vibrated her beautiful body like some kind of uncontrollable palsy. Rich red blood flowed from the hole where Earl's head used to be, and Helen's face and hair were thoroughly soaked and matted with slime; bits of bone, and spongy gray stuff that had to be parts of Earl's brains, obscured half her forehead.

Her eyes sparkled. She seemed to be smiling.

This, after all, was what she lived for, wasn't it? Her entire raison d'etre.

Nothing else mattered.

Ralph felt suddenly sick to his stomach, but there was precious little inside him he could still vomit out.

'I love you,' she said after a time. 'No one else can satisfy me the way you do. You know that, don't you? You're the best, Ralph. The absolute best.'

'Are you sure?'

'I'm sure,' she said.

'You won't go out again tomorrow, will you?' he asked.

'No,' she answered. 'Not tomorrow.'

He wanted to believe her.

'Maybe the next day, though,' she said, her voice already sounding emptier.

SOMETHING EXTRA

J. N. Williamson and James Kisner

My wife said she didn't really mind if I thought about someone else when we made love,' I told her on impulse. 'So I thought of you.'

Monica's response was instant. She slapped me across the face, stingingly, and then walked off in a huff. Her hips were fighting her natural impulse to wiggle and I was glad I'd said it on the premises of Rollins Advertising Agency. If it had been a less public place, she might have torn my head off. If Monica's husband had been around, he would have. Larry still has a tattoo of an eagle on the back of his right hand, and I've heard that bird takes wing when he gets good and pissed.

Sighing, I poured myself a cup of coffee and took it back to my desk.

I hadn't meant to blurt that out to Monica Patterson, but what I'd said was true. When I'd seen her standing next to me in the kitchenette, where the agency always has two pots of coffee brewing, the words had just tumbled out of my mouth. Maybe it was her perfume or merely the fact that Monica looks like such a naturally sexual woman — not sexy, sexual. She has long black hair that tucks in at the ends and a figure that's more like seventeen than early thirties, so I had to say something.

No, it was none of that. It was her dark brown eyes that seem to be far away and fixed on something far more interesting than writing ad copy, and how she said «Hi» as she accidentally brushed against me. She'd reached for a Styrofoam cup and her left breast had touched my shoulder as it rose, she had let it stay there for a second, and…

No, I admitted as I returned to my little cubicle, it wasn't those things either. I'd wanted her to know. Out of perversity, maybe — just to see what she would do, perhaps.

I worried that one of our co-workers might notice how my face was red from Monica's slap, but nobody paid much attention to me. Everyone was busy at their word processors, banging out copy. Which was my job, too. Banging out copy. I sat down and stared at the word processor screen. I was banging away about sleeve bearings

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