Horses

by Lewis Shiner

The woman on the other side of the coffee table had a blond crewcut and wire-rimmed glasses. She was around forty. No makeup, a man's gray sportcoat over a white T-shirt, loose drawstring pants. Dyke, had been Veronica's first impression, and so far nothing had changed her mind. "Things are just a little out of control right now," Veronica said. "It's not my fault. I need a little time."

The woman's name was Hannah Jorde. She sighed and said, "I'm so sick of hearing the same old shit." She put her glasses on the table and rubbed her eyes. "You're an addict, Veronica. I would have known that in two seconds, even if Ichiko hadn't told me. You've got every symptom in the book." She put her glasses back on. "I'm going to get you in a program. Methadone. It'll make you feel better, and keep you alive, but you'll still be an addict. Only you'll be addicted to methadone instead of heroin."

Veronica said, "I can quit-"

"Please," Hannah said. "Don't say it. Don't make me listen to it. I just want to tell you a couple of things, and I want you to think about them. That's all we can get done this first time anyway."

"Fine," Veronica said. She put her hands under her thighs because they had started to shake a little.

"You're an addict because you don't want to deal with what's going on inside you. You're not just killing yourself, you're already dead." She let the words hang for a second and then said, "What is it you do for Ichiko?"

"I'm a-" She stopped herself before she could say "geisha," Fortunato's approved term. "I'm a prostitute." Suddenly Hannah smiled. She could be pretty, Veronica thought, if she made a little effort. The right clothes, makeup. A wig for that awful haircut. What a waste. "Good," Hannah said. "The truth, for once. Thank you for that." She filled out a slip of paper and handed it across. "Start your methadone and I'll see you tomorrow"

A van with a loudspeaker passed her on Seventh Avenue. The recorded message reminded her that it was Election Day and she should exercise her constitutional freedom. Doubtless paid for by the Democrats. Everyone expected a landslide for Bush after the Democrats' disaster in Atlanta.

A man leaned out of the van and said, "Hey, baby, did you vote today?" She showed him the manicure on her right middle finger. That went for the American political system, too. What kind of freedom was it when the only people you could vote for were politicians?

She got in line outside the methadone clinic, pulling her coat tighter around her. It was embarrassment as much as cold. She didn't know which was worse, to be surrounded by so many junkies or to be taken for one of them. They mostly seemed to be black women and white boys with long greasy hair.

At least, she thought, she was still on the street. Ichiko had given her three choices: check into a detox center, see Hannah, or look for another job.

Her turn came and the woman at the window handed her a paper cup. The methadone was mixed in a sweet orange-flavored drink. Veronica drank it down and crumpled the cup. The black hooker behind her teetered up to the window on impossibly high heels and said, "Weeee, law, give me that jesus jizz."

Veronica threw the cup on the street and looked at her watch. Time enough to get uptown to Bergdorf s before her dinner date.

She should have guessed from the name he'd used to make the dinner reservation: Herman Gregg. But she didn't figure it out till she got to the table.

"Holy shit," Veronica said. The subdued light of the restaurant was enough, even for Veronica, to know the face. "Senator Hartmann," she said.

He smiled weakly. "Not senator anymore. I'm just an ordinary citizen again. But you can see why I didn't want to be alone tonight. You know what they say about politics and strange bedfellows."

"No," Veronica said. "What do they say?"

Hartmann shrugged and put the menu down. "How hungry are you?"

"I don't care. If you just want to go upstairs, that's fine." He'd already told her he had a room upstairs at the Hyatt. "Don't feel like you have to buy me dinner, like this is a real date or anything."

"Somehow this isn't quite what I expected. I'd heard so much about Fortunato and his extraordinary women."

"Yeah, well, Fortunato's gone. Things have fallen off a bit. If you're not happy, you don't have to go through with it."

"I'm not complaining. I guess you're more human than I expected. I kind of like that."

Veronica stood up. "Shall we?"

He was very quiet in the elevator, didn't touch her or anything. Just one hand on the elbow as they got out, to point her toward the room. Once inside, he locked the door and turned the TV on.

"We don't need that, do we?" Veronica asked.

"I have to know," Hartmann said. He took his jacket off and folded it over a chair, then untied his shoes and put them neatly underneath. He loosened his tie and sat on the end of the bed, his tiredness visible in the curve of his spine. "I have to know just how bad it is."

When Veronica came out of the bathroom in her bra and panties, he was in the same position. Bush was running almost two to one ahead of Dukakis and Jackson. Concession speeches were expected momentarily. She helped Hartmann off with the rest of his clothes, put a condom on him, and got him under the covers.

He didn't want anything fancy, just got right down to business. As he rocked against her, the election returns continued in a steady stream: "Texas now shows Bush with a staggering fifty-eight percent of the vote, and that's with thirty-seven percent of the precincts reporting." Hartmann's spasm happened quickly and left him on the edge of tears. Veronica stroked the small of his back, where the sweat had just broken, and made soothing noises. Just as he rolled off her, one of the TV reporters said his name and he sat up guiltily.

"Many of us must be asking ourselves the same question tonight," the reporter went on. "Could Gregg Hartmann have beaten Vice-President Bush? It was just two and a half months ago that Hartmann withdrew from the race after his loss of composure at the Democratic National Convention in Atlanta. That convention will long be remembered, not only for its bloodshed, but as a turning point in the nation's attitude toward victims of the wild-card virus."

She carried the used condom into the bathroom, knotted it, wrapped it in toilet paper, and threw it away. The odor of sperm almost gagged her. She sat on the edge of the tub and washed herself and then brushed her teeth, over and over, telling herself she didn't need a shot, not yet.

It was after two when Hartmann turned the TV off. Bush was a joke, Hartmann told her. His campaigning against drugs was sheerest hypocrisy, given what his CIA had done in Central America. His cabinet officers would never live up to his claims of ethics, and his "kinder, gentler" America would have no room for aces or jokers.

The wild-card issue meant little to Veronica. Fortunato, the man who had brought her in off the streets, was an ace. Her mother had been one of Fortunato's geishas and had meant for Veronica to have a college education and a real career. But Veronica had turned tricks anyway. The money was easy and it was easy as well to think of herself that way, as a whore. Together Miranda and Fortunato had decided that if she was going to sell her body, she might as well do it right. Fortunato had brought her back to his apartment and tried, unsuccessfully, to make her into one of his ideal women. She loved him in the way that people loved something sweet and not entirely of this world.

Because of Fortunato she'd met and had sex withother aces and jokers. None of them had seemed quite real to her either. There weren't even that many of them, not compared to unwed mothers or the homeless or old people, not enough to deserve all the attention they got. And it wasn't like it was a disease that other people could catch, like AIDS or something.

That thought gave her a chill. For a while the wild card had been contagious, and her sometime boyfriend Croyd Crenson had been spreading it. She'd been exposed to him but fortunately nothing had happened. She didn't want to think about it.

Eventually Hartmann fell asleep, the soft flesh of his stomach shaking with muffled snores. Veronica lay awake, counting all the many, many things she didn't want to think about.

She didn't sleep even when she got back to Ichiko's, around dawn. This time it was the idea of seeing Hannah again that kept her turning from side to side, chills moving up through her from her stomach.

She got up around noon and made a breakfast she couldn't eat. Ichiko walked her out to the cab or she might not have made it. Even then she tried to tell the cabby to stop, to let her out, but she couldn't find her voice. It was like being back in convent school, being sent to the principal, the oldest, scariest nun in the world.

She walked up the stairs and into Hannah's office. She couldn't feel her legs. She sat in the middle of Hannah's square, gray couch. Today Hannah wore jeans and a man's dress shirt and a cardigan with interwoven gold thread. Veronica couldn't take her eyes off the sparkles of gold.

"Did you have a chance to think?" Hannah asked her.

Veronica shrugged. "I've been busy. I don't spend a lot of time thinking."

"Okay, let's start with that. Tell me about the things you do."

Without meaning to, Veronica found herself talking about Hartmann. Hannah kept asking for details. What did he look like naked? What exactly was the taste in her mouth afterward? She sounded like she was only mildly curious. What was it like when his penis was inside her? "I don't know," Veronica said. "It didn't feel like anything."

"What do you mean? He was inside you, but you couldn't feel it? Did you have to ask him if he was in yet?" Veronica started to laugh, and then she was crying. She didn't know how it happened. It seemed to be somebody else. "I didn't want him there," she said. Who was that talking? "I didn't want him in me. I wanted him to leave me alone." Her whole body shook with sobs. "This is ridiculous," she said. "Why am I crying? What's happening to me?"

Hannah moved over next to her and wrapped her arms around her. She smelled like Dial soap. Veronica buried her head in the golden fibers of her sweater, felt the softness of the breast underneath. Everything gave way then and she cried until she ran out of tears, until she felt like a wrung-out sponge.

Standing in line, Veronica tapped her foot nervously on the sidewalk. One of the long-haired boys behind her sang a song about shooting up in a low, monotonous voice. "You know I couldn't find my mainline," he sang. He didn't seem aware he was doing it.

Veronica wanted the methadone, wanted it badly. What do they put in that stuff? she thought, and stopped herself before the laughter turned into the other thing again.

She put her hand into her purse and held on to a folded piece of paper with Hannah's phone number on it.

Veronica came in on a blast of cold air and stood for a second, rubbing her hands together.

"Flowers for you," Melanie said. She had a Russianlanguage textbook open while she watched the phones. Melanie was new. She still believed in Fortunato's program, that they were geishas not hookers, that men actually cared how many languages they spoke and whether or not they could discuss postmodernist critical theory. When she finished her telephone shift, she would be off to cooking class or elocution lessons. Then, that night, she would spread her legs for a man who only cared that she had lots of red-blond hair and big boobs.

"Jerry again?" Veronica asked. She threw her coat on the couch and collapsed.

"I don't see what you have against him. He's sweet."

"I don't have anything against him. I just don't have anything for him either. He's a nobody."

"A nobody with a ton of money, who thinks the sun rises and sets on you. Anyway, I've got him down for you tonight, from ten o'clock on."

"Tonight?" The walls seemed to close in around her. She couldn't breathe. "I can't."

"You have a date you didn't put on the computer?" Ichiko had bought a Macintosh over the summer and had computerized everything. The girls were responsible for keeping their own schedules current, and if one of them screwed up they all got yelled at.

"No, I... I'm sick."

"He's already paid and everything."

"Call him back. Will you? I have to go upstairs." She staggered up to her room and got in bed with her clothes on, doubled up, clutching a pillow to her stomach. From there she watched the street outside turn dark and the headlights of the cars sweep past. Liz, her chubby gray cat, climbed onto the' peak of her hip and began to knead the covers, purring loudly. "Please shut up," Veronica said.

Liz was another reminder of Fortunato. She had been Veronica's to start with, though she hadn't cared that much about her. Then Fortunato had formed some kind of bond with the cat. Liz used to follow him around his apartment, crying, and would get into his lap whenever he sat down.

When Fortunato left for Japan, it seemed like the cat was all Veronica had left of him.

Finally the cat settled down and started to snore softly. Veronica couldn't relax, and soon she was trembling. It wasn't like the shaking that came when she needed a shot. That part of her was quiet. This was something else. She wondered if it was the methadone, some bizarre allergy. The longer it went on, the more out of touch she became. She couldn't stop shaking. Was she dying?

She fumbled the phone off the hook and dialed Hannah's number. "It's Veronica," she said. "Something's wrong."

"I know that," Hannah said. "Why don't you come over?"

"Come over?"

"To my apartment."

"I don't know if I can make it. I feel so weird."

"Of course you can. Stand up."

Veronica stood up. Somehow it was all right. "Are you standing?"

"Yes," Veronica said.

"Good. Write down this address."

A few minutes later Veronica was in a cab. She looked down at her legs, saw her wool-knit A-line skirt wrinkled beyond hope. She got a mirror out of her purse and looked at her smudged eyeliner and bloodshot eyes. "I can't help it," she said out loud, and the words almost started the flood of tears again.

She knew she was on the edge of something. She didn't have the strength to keep herself from being pulled into it, but she could feel the depth of the chasm in the pit of her stomach.

Hannah lived on the third floor of a building on Park Avenue South that had escaped remodeling. The varnish was worn off the center of the stairs and the landings were raw concrete. Hannah met her at the door of her apartment. "You made it," she said. She seemed relieved and happy to see her.

Veronica could only nod. The apartment was two rooms and a kitchen. There was almost no furniture, only tatami mats and pillows, and an expensive stereo with huge speakers that sat in the middle of the floor. Japanese pen-and-ink drawings hung in cheap Plexiglas frames on the wall. The Oriental simplicity of it reminded her of the apartment she'd shared with Fortunato.

"Settle down anywhere," Hannah said. "I'll bring you some tea."

The music on the stereo was instrumental, one of those New Age things. It was an acoustic guitar in a weird tuning over lots of percussion. Like the rest of the room, like Hannah herself, it suggested a serenity that Veronica couldn't feel. Hannah brought her tea in a small, thick cup with no handle. The tea was green and vaguely sweet.

Hannah sat cross-legged on the couch next to her. "You look like you haven't been sleeping."

"I'm all knotted up inside. Maybe it's the methadone."

"It's not the methadone. It's three years of feelings trying to get out."

"Is it cold in here?"

Hannah touched her hand. The shaking got worse. "No," Hannah said. "It's not the methadone and it's not the temperature. It's just you." And then she leaned forward slowly and kissed Veronica on the lips.

It was gentle but not sisterly, warm but not demanding. Veronica shivered and held herself, feeling like she was fighting to keep from drowning. "You're confusing me...."

"You were already confused. When was the last time you enjoyed making love? When was the last time you lay next to somebody and got comfort out of it? When was the last time you thought you deserved to be happy? You don't have to answer me. I already know"

She stood up and took Veronica's hand. Veronica followed her, not to the bedroom, like she expected, but to the bath. Hannah started the water running and undressed her, carefully, not touching her more than she had to. The room began to fill with steam. "Get in," Hannah said, and Veronica got in the tub. The hot water stung her, made her face flush. "Your body is still very beautiful," Hannah said. "You've been careful with the needle." Veronica nodded. The hot water stopped her shaking and helped her relax. She felt drugged. Had there been something in the tea?

Hannah took her own clothes off and put her glasses on the edge of the sink. She was a little heavy in the waist, and her stomach curved without jeans to hold it in. Her underclothes left red lines around her waist and under her breasts. Still, she seemed beautiful to Veronica, her pale nipples, the discreet tangle of hair between her legs. Veronica found herself about to reach one hand out to touch Hannah's body, then stopped herself, ashamed and confused.

Hannah poured oil into the tub. It foamed and colored the air with the heavy green smell of wildflowers. Then she knelt beside the tub and kissed Veronica again. Veronica's mouth opened, against her will, and she tasted the mint tea on Hannah's breath. "What are you doing to me?" she whispered.

"Seducing you," Hannah said. "If I do anything that scares you or you don't feel comfortable with, just say so." She put her hands on Veronica's cheeks, then slowly ran them down her neck and shoulders. Veronica leaned back against the tub, eyes closed, her breathing coming raggedly. Hannah's small, soft hands moved to her breasts. "Oh," Veronica said. She was melting. Her entire body was liquid. She couldn't tell where it ended and the bathwater began.

This time when Hannah kissed her she leaned into it and put both arms around her.

By the time Hannah helped her into bed Veronica had no will of her own. She had no strength, no intelligence, only sensation. Hannah was slow and gentle and unafraid. She knew where to touch her and how much pressure to use. The first climax was the most intense Veronica had ever felt. It had been so long she barely recognized the feeling. There were others. They blurred into a continuum of pleasure.

And at the end of it came sleep.

Sunlight woke her. Her eyes opened and saw dark green sheets. The rest of it came back and she sat up quickly, holding the sheet against her. Hannah lay on her side, watching.

"What did you do to me? What was in that tea?"

"Nothing," Hannah said. "What happened was that we made love."

"This is too weird. I have to get out of here." She looked around the room for her clothes, reluctant to get out of bed naked with Hannah there.

"Wait," Hannah said. There was a stillness about her that Veronica found inescapable. "I know what's wrong with you. I'm an alcoholic. I was drunk for ten years and now I've been sober for six. I was married to a man that I hated, and I hated him just because I didn't want to have sex with him. It wasn't his fault, it was the way I am. Only nobody could tell me that was the reason."

"What's that got to do with me? Are you saying I'm queer?" There was a towel on the floor next to her. She wrapped herself in it and looked in the bathroom. Her clothes were folded neatly on the floor.

"Maybe you're not gay." Hannah raised her voice just enough for Veronica to hear her. "Though I believe you are. That doesn't matter. You hate yourself for what you're doing with your body. It makes you feel helpless. And helplessness is what addiction is all about."

Veronica buttoned her rumpled silk blouse and brushed at the creases in her skirt. "I got to go."

"I've got three o'clock set aside for you. If you want to talk some more."

"Just talk? Or do you fuck all your patients?"

There was a short, hurt silence. "You're the first. I suppose I should feel like I've pissed away all my ethics, but I don't."

Veronica opened the door. "I'll think about it," she said. Then she belted on her coat and ran down the stairs.

Jerry was waiting for her when she got back to the brownstone.

"Melanie said you were sick," he said. "I wanted to see if I could help."

"No, Jerry. It's sweet of you and all, but no."

"Where were you? Did you go out on another date?"

Veronica shook her head. "I've been to the doctor, that's all."

Jerry looked her up and down. obviously made the decision not to call her out. He sat on the sofa and looked at the flowers he'd sent her the day before, still on the desk by the phone, the card unopened. "I'm wasting my time, aren't I?"

"Jerry. What do you want me to say? You shouldn't have fallen in love with a hooker. I mean, what were you thinking about? Did you think I was available on a Rentto-Own plan?" She sat down next to him, touched his face. "You're a sweet kid, Jerry. Women should go nuts for you. Real women. That's what you deserve. Not some half-breed Puerto Rican junkie hooker."

Junkie, she thought. She'd actually said it.

"You're the one I want," Jerry said, looking at the floor.

"You don't even know me. You've got no idea. You're trying to catch up on twenty years overnight, and you see me as some kind of shortcut. Nothing happens that fast. Give yourself some time."

"Can I see you tonight?"

"No. Not tonight." She paused, got up her nerve. "Not ever. Not anymore."

"Why? I love you."

"You don't know what love is. You don't know what you're talking about. You've got some kind of stupid romantic ideas from all those movies you watch and they don't have anything to do with real life. I can't stand it. I don't want to be the only thing propping up this makebelieve world of yours. I'm not strong enough."

She stood up. "Veronica, please!"

She couldn't look at him. His face was all twisted, like he was trying not to cry. "I'm sorry, Jerry" she said. "You'll find somebody. You'll see." She ran upstairs.

It wasn't even noon, but she was wide-awake, her head clear. It made her nervous to feel as good as she did. She showered and put on jeans and a sweater and went downtown for her methadone. Okay, she thought, standing in line, feeling the November sun warm her hair. You can admit you're a junkie. You can admit you're tired of iturning tricks. What does that leave you?

All the girls had savings accounts in Ichiko's name. Half their earnings went into the fund every month, carefully monitored by the new computer. If Veronica gave up the Life, she could collect the money. It would keep her alive for at least a couple of years. Then what? Find some poor sap like Jerry and settle down to have kids?

She got to the head of the line. A boy in a white lab coat behind the window glanced at her card and gave her the dose. She drank it and threw the cup at an overflowing trash can. It wasn't enough. It wasn't enough not to hurt, not to have the need. Heroin was more than that, more than an end to pain. It was the rush, the joy, the way the cool fire went through her like God's love.

She took a battered list of phone numbers out of her purse and started dialing. Twice she left messages on phone machines and the third time she got lucky. "Croyd?" she said.

"Himself. Where are you, darlin'?" His words ended with muffled clicks. She hadn't seen him in three months. He'd obviously slept, and woken in a distorted body. That was okay. Veronica could see past the surface.

"Chelsea," she said. "Want to get high?"

He was near the East River, in the waterfront apartment where she'd first spent the night with him, two years before. That was Wild Card Day, when the Astronomer had killed Caroline, and Fortunato had left for Japan.

When she was high, those memories never bothered her.

Croyd answered the door and Veronica stood and stared at him for a long moment. "I'd kiss you," Croyd said, "but I'm afraid I might hurt you."

"That's okay, I'll pass." The clicking she'd heard on the phone came when he shut his beak at the end of a word. He was over seven feet tall and covered with feathers. A thin membrane linked his arms to his sides. "Can you fly?"

He shook his head. "Too heavy. Shame, isn't it? I can glide a little, dive out of a second-story window. So it's not a complete loss."

His eyes were shiny black and the wrinkled feathers above them gave him a look of fierce intelligence. "I may be wasting my time," she said.

The beak opened into a smile. "The wings may not be functional, but the rest of me is."

Veronica shook her head. "I'm in trouble, Croyd. Have you got any coke?"

They sat at his kitchen table, a slab of pine with cigarette burns and peeling varnish. Veronica did two lines then passed the straw to Croyd. He snorted his into the small black holes at the base of his beak. Veronica wiped the mirror down with her index finger and rubbed it into her gums. "Better," she said.

"You sure you don't want to finish this conversation in bed?"

She shook her head. "I need a friend right now. Weird shit is happening to me. I can't get a handle." She told him about Hannah, about nearly throwing up after her last "date."

Croyd listened intently. At least he looked intent. When she finished he said, "It's probably stupid for me to say this. I mean, this is not in my best interest. But you can't go against what you feel. You need to see this woman again, in the light of day, and make up your mind about her. Maybe you are gay. So what? Do you really care what a bunch of square assholes think about your sex life?"

"I feel like I'm fourteen," Veronica said. "All these emotional roller coasters. I can't keep up."

"You want my advice, don't even try. Let it happen. And if you get in trouble, you can call me." It sounded like they were finished, but Croyd hesitated, like there was something else he had to say. "There's nothing else happened, right? I mean, no ... no symptoms."

He was talking about that whole Typhoid Croyd business. She shook her head. "No. No sudden ace powers, no flippers on the ends of my legs. I don't think it did anything to me at all."

"It's just-I feel responsible, that's all."

"Don't worry about it."

He walked her to the door and she hugged him tight, despite the peculiar acid smell of his feathers. His hands rested flat against her back. "I have to be careful," he said.

"If I bend my fingers too much, these claws come out." He showed her the claws. There was a light of pleasure in his eyes when he looked at them.

"So long, Croyd," she said. "Thanks for everything."

She got to Hannah's office just before four. "I'm late," she said.

Hannah held the door for her. "It doesn't matter. There's nobody else scheduled for this afternoon." Then she said, "I'm glad you came."

Veronica was giddy from cocaine and nerves and couldn't sit down. Hannah took her usual position, in the chair across the table from the couch.

"How's the methadone working out?" Hannah asked. "Fine," Veronica said. "It's great." She walked behind the couch, turned around, leaned into the back of it. "No, it's not great. It's not enough. I still want to get high. I need it."

"Why?"

"Why? What a stupid fucking question. Because I like to feel good. Because when you're high, you don't care about wading through all the world's shit--"

"What shit?" Hannah said. "What shit are you living in that you didn't put yourself into? You've got everything backward. You think you can control your drug habit and you can't control your life. It's the other way around, you just don't know it. You have no control over heroin. It owns you. They call it horse, but it's really riding you. That's step one of what they call the Twelve-Step Plan. You have to admit you are powerless to control your addiction. And then, later on, you can learn to take responsibility for the rest of your life. As in 'the ability to respond.' Not blame, not control, but responsibility. Something you can live with."

Veronica shook her head. "That's all easy for you to say. But I don't have any kind of life. My mother is a washed-up whore who's pimping me now. I never knew who my father was, and I don't think my mother did either. I got no brothers or sisters to turn to. I learned all that shit Fortunato taught us, but it's not a college diploma. It's not going to get me _a soft job someplace. Look at the odds. I'm going to end up like the kids I went to school with. Fat and old, either divorced or married to a husband that beats me up on weekends." It was hard to believe. She'd actually talked herself right out of her cocaine high.

"So what is it you want?"

"Escape. I want a good-looking man with a fast car and a lot of money to come and take me away someplace."

"And then what?"

"Then we live happily ever after."

"That's bullshit, Veronica. You know better than that. If all you want is some man, you could have had plenty. What's the difference whether you're dependent on a drug or dependent on a man? There isn't any, and you know it." Veronica thought of Jerry, who would take her away if she would only let him. "Why do you care what happens to me?"

Hannah walked over to the window and looked out at the street. "When you walked in here I saw myself, six years ago. There's a fire in you. A heat. Sexual, emotional, spiritual. It's been too much for you, all your life. You had to use heroin to keep it from eating you up." She turned and looked Veronica in the eyes. "I want that fire. I want all you have. The two of us, together, burning until we burn each other up."

Veronica could not get her breath. She stood up, feeling the fabric of her sweater move against her tight, aching nipples. She walked to the door and locked it. The pressure of her jeans between her legs was maddening. She kicked off her shoes and pulled the sweater over her head.

"Show me," she said.

At fifteen she'd been in love with an eighteen-yearold pachuco, had fucked him at every possible opportunity, in the backseat of his car, in the park, once in the stairwell of her high school. It was always quick and brutal, and afterward she went home to her empty room.

There she could think about the boy and make herself come with her fingers, the way she could never come when he was inside her.

Since then she'd had sex with hundreds of men. None of them had made her come either, not even Fortunato, and as for love, she'd convinced herself it was just another he.

Hannah changed all of that. They made love five or six times a day. It was all so equal. For everything of Hannah's there was something of Veronica's. Afterward they slept in each other's arms. Under Hannah's gentle hands and tongue, Veronica found a responsiveness she didn't think was possible, not for anyone.

"Women don't come from having men inside them," Hannah told her. "I've read in books that we're supposed to, I've heard there are women who do. But I've never talked to one of them. Every woman I've ever talked to needs something more."

"More," Veronica said. "I want more."

She only left Hannah's apartment long enough to score her daily methadone. She wore Hannah's clothes, when she bothered to wear clothes at all. She did what Croyd had told her to. She stopped fighting and immersed herself in sensation: the smell and feel and taste of Hannah's body, the exotic foods and teas that Hannah prepared for her, the long nights of physical and emotional intimacy where nothing was forbidden.

Almost nothing, anyway. Veronica found herself talking for hours about her childhood, the terrors of Catholic school, the tangled genealogy of her aunts and uncles and cousins, the hypocrisy of Catholic sexuality in which teenaged girls routinely gave blow jobs but recoiled in horror from the thought of losing their sacred virginity.

It was Hannah that held back. She talked about her childhood, her ex-husband, her parents. She was an imaginative and enthusiastic lover, afraid of nothing. She had Veronica reading about addiction and feminism and Marxism and vegetarianism and everything else that was a part of her life. But she never explained the transition, the years between her drunken marriage and her sober counseling job.

There were hints. She had been part of some kind of radical feminist group. She never mentioned the name. "They believed in a lot of things I wasn't comfortable with," was all she would say.

"What sort of things?"

"Things that might appeal to somebody who was still full of anger and bitterness. Things you have to outgrow if you're going to get anywhere."

Veronica assumed she was talking about violence. Bombing or assassination or something else illegal. And because Hannah didn't want to talk about it, Veronica left it alone.

Veronica was the first to say "I love you."

It was dawn. They lay side by side, their hands between each other's legs, lips just touching. The pleasure was so strong that the words came out without her quite meaning them to. Hannah held her tightly and said, "It scares me when you say that. People use the word 'love' on each other like a weapon. I don't want that to happen to us."

"I love you anyway. Whatever you say. Whether you like it or not."

Hannah pulled far enough away to look into her eyes. "I love you, too."

"I want to kick the methadone. I want to get clean."

"Okay."

"I mean now. Starting today."

"It'll be ugly. I can get you drugs to help, but it's going to tear you apart. Are you sure you're ready for that?"

"It's what I want."

"Give it one more week. We need to get out a little, get you back into the world. If you still want to do it next week, then we'll try it."

"I guess that's what I'm saying."

"I think I would like to do that," Veronica said. She dabbed at her eyes with her napkin. They both pretended not to see the tears. "What do I tell Ichiko?"

"I don't know. What do you think?"

"You're going into counselor mode again." Hannah shrugged.

"I guess I tell her I'm moving out. That I'm through. I think she's probably figured that out already."

In fact Ichiko had. "I hope you will be very happy," she said. She hugged Veronica. "I can see already that you are. Here's a little money to make things easier." The amount on the check was larger than Veronica had any reason to expect. "Your trust fund, plus a little extra from me."

"I don't know...."

"Take it," Ichiko said. "Times are changing. I don't feel so good about this business, the way I used to. I look around, I see all this hatred. They hate jokers and aces. When I first came to this country, they hated me for being Japanese. Fortunato's father had to hide us during the Pacific War so they wouldn't put us into camps. People afraid of each other, hurting each other. My geishas don't help that anymore. When a man uses a woman, it doesn't make him a better man. Any more than having black people for slaves made white people better. In the end they only come to hate each other."

"What are you saying? Are you going to close down the business?"

Ichiko shrugged. "It's something I think about, more and more. There is all this pressure on me, these gangsters and big-money men wanting to take over the business. If I close down, they will go away and leave me alone. I have enough money. Who cares about money anyway?" She pushed the check toward Veronica again, and this time Veronica took it. "You go and be happy and find love where you can."

Veronica went upstairs and finished packing. Eventually she knew she couldn't put it off any longer and knocked on the door of her mother's room.

That afternoon they went to a movie together. They held hands like teenagers. At dinner afterward, over Chinese food, Hannah said, "I think you should bring some of your things over. Clothes and things. You know. And your cat."

"You mean move in."

Miranda had heard most of it from Ichiko, and what she hadn't heard she'd figured out for herself. She took Veronica's hands and held them both for a long time without saying anything. Finally she said, "You know I don't care that you're in love with a woman and not a man. You know I'm happy you're giving up ... the Life. I never wanted that for you in the first place." She sighed. "Just be careful, darling, please. You've only known this woman for what, not even two weeks?"

Veronica pulled her hands away and stood up. "Mother, for God's sake."

"I'm not trying to rain on your parade-"

"Yes, you are. That's exactly what you're trying to do."

"I'm just saying you don't know her very well. I want this to work out for you, really I do, but it may not, and-"

"Save it," Veronica said. "I don't want to hear it. Just once, be happy that I'm happy. And if you can't, then keep your mouth shut about it." She walked out and slammed the door and took her things down to the cab where Hannah waited.

On the ride home, with Liz huddled nervously on her lap, Veronica started to shake.

"Are you okay?" Hannah asked her. "Did you get your methadone today?"

"I took it," Veronica said. "It's not that." Though the symptoms were much the same. She felt clammy and her bowels were knotted up. "I'm scared, that's all."

Hannah put her arms around her. "Scared? What are you afraid of?"

"I have my whole life in front of me. It's just out there, waiting. I don't know what to do with it."

"You live it," Hannah said. "That's all. One day at a time."

The next afternoon they walked down Fifth Avenue, looking in the windows. Veronica stopped in front of a blue-sequined strapless gown in the window of Sak's. "God," she said. "How gorgeous."

Hannah took her arm and led her away, smiling. "And how politically incorrect. That's just a harness men put you in. Come on. Let's get this money of yours in the bank before it turns to fairy dust or something."

They walked down to the Chase Manhattan and went in. There was a single line, marked off with red velvet ropes, far the Paying and Receiving tellers. Veronica stepped up to the back of the line, already six people long, and two more moved in behind her.

"I'm going to walk around," Hannah said. "I hate lines. They make me claustrophobic."

There was a nervousness in Hannah's eyes Veronica had never seen before. She remembered what her mother had said, realized how little, in fact, she knew this woman she was in love with. "You're not kidding, are you?"

"No," she said, her smile flickering like a bad fluorescent bulb. "I'm not." She stepped over the velvet rope and wandered off into the open part of the lobby. Veronica couldn't help noticing a good-looking blond kid a few feet away from her, filling out some kind of form at the service counter. Hannah saw him, too, and turned for a second look.

Veronica felt a stab of jealousy. The kid was in his late teens, dressed in expensive khaki pants, loafers, and a V -necked sweater with nothing underneath. He had a long black coat draped casually over one arm. His hair fell over his ears and collar and he had the start of a five-o'clock shadow. There was an effortless sexuality about him that was obvious to everyone around him.

Hannah smiled and shook her head. It looked like she was smiling at herself rather than the kid. She started to walk away. The man in line behind Veronica cleared his throat noisily. Veronica looked up, saw the line had moved, took up the slack. She looked back at Hannah just in time to see her stagger.

"Hannah ... ?" Veronica said.

Hannah caught her balance and took a couple of hesitant steps. It was like her shoes had heels that were too high for her. But Hannah never wore high heels. She turned and looked at Veronica.

Her eyes were wrong. There was something crazy in them, and in the way she smiled. Veronica looked at the long line that stretched out behind her. She didn't want to lose her place, but if something was really wrong... Suddenly Hannah began to run.

It was clumsy and slow, but it took the security guard by surprise. Hannah had the gun out of his holster and pointed at his head before he knew what was happening. "Hannah!" Veronica screamed.

The gun kicked in Hannah's hand. The shot boomed off the marble walls and the room went silent for a long second afterward. The bullet threw the guard against the wall, his face collapsed around the black hole in his cheek. He left a long red smear against pale stone of the wall as he slumped to the floor.

Veronica tried to jump the velvet rope and caught her foot. Hannah turned toward her as she fell and fired again, the bullet howling over Veronica's head. The silence gave way to screams and shouts of panic. An alarm went off, barely audible over the rest of the noise. The customers, most of them men in dark suits, ran for the doors. Hannah spun around to watch, a hideous joy on her face.

Veronica got her legs under her and ran at Hannah. Guards converged from all over the building, guns out. One of them shouted at Veronica, something like, "Hey, lady, stay down!" Another guard fired a shot over Hannah's head and Hannah fired back at him, twice.

By then Veronica was in the air.

She tackled Hannah around the waist and they slid across the polished floor. The gun came loose and skittered away. With the strength of absolute fear she pinned Hannah's arms above her head. "It's me, goddammit!" Veronica yelled. "What's wrong with you?"

Across the lobby a body hit the floor.

It was the blond kid in the sweater. He seemed stunned, paralyzed, as if he'd had a stroke. His face was distorted with terror and something else, some kind of alien presence. He started to raise one hand to his face, then jerked forward like a fumbled puppet.

And then, just as the guards swarmed over them, Veronica saw the light come back into Hannah's eyes. Her mouth moved, but no sound came out. Two pairs of hands pulled Veronica away. Two more bank guards and an NYPD cop shoved gun barrels into Hannah's face, screaming at her not to move. In seconds they had her in handcuffs and out the door.

Veronica tried to get loose and the guards tightened their hold. She strained to find the blond kid in the crowd. He was gone.

They took her to the precinct station in a squad car. At first they just wanted her story, over and over. Veronica told them she and Hannah were roommates, told them about the heroin, about the check she'd been taking to the bank. When they asked her what happened there, she told them she didn't know. "It wasn't Hannah," she said. "We've got a dozen witnesses that say it was."

" I mean, it wasn't her inside her body. It was like she was ... I don't know. Possessed."

"Possessed? The devil made her do it?"

" I don't know."

She told the story again and again, until the words lost all meaning.

Then a cop in a suit came out of the darkness and said, "What do you know about a bunch that calls itself WORSE!"

" I never heard of them. Can I have a glass of water?"

"In a minute. Can you tell me what the initials stand for?"

"I told you, I never-"

"Women's Organization to Reach Sexual Equality. Now does it ring a bell?"

"No, I--"

"Last year there was a riot outside an abortion clinic. These people from WORSE sent five protesters and a cop to the hospital."

"Good for them," Veronica said.

"The cop died. Now do you think it's funny? There's at least seven incidents in the last year where these women have provoked violence in the streets. One of the people they've got it in for is your old employer. Fortunato."

"What's that got to do with Hannah?"

"Not much. She's only the president."

"What? That's impossible."

"I guess you know everything about her, right? How long did you say you've known her? Ten days?"

"She said she had nothing to do with those people anymore."

"You just said you'd never heard of WORSE."

"She never mentioned the name. She said she used to be part of some radical organization, but she didn't agree with their methods. She said it was over a long time ago."

A little man with pattern baldness and glasses said, "She's clean, Lou. She's telling the truth." The man was a low-grade ace, the weakest sort of telepath. The cops had ten or fifteen on staff to use as lie detectors.

"To hell with it then," the man in the suit said. "We're cutting you loose. But I don't want you away from a phone where I can find you for more than an hour at a time. You got that?"

"I want to see her," Veronica said.

"Forget it. Her lawyer's there. That's all she gets."

"Who's her lawyer?"

The man in the suit sighed. "Bud?"

One of the cops looked through the file. "Lawyer's name is Mundy." He whistled. "From Latham, Strauss. Hot stuff."

"Now get out of here," the man in the suit said. Two uniformed cops gave her a ride home, then followed her inside. They had a warrant, signed and sealed. She sat on the floor and watched them as they took the apartment apart. One of them found the sexual toys in the drawer by the bed. He held up the wooden ben wa balls for his partner to see, then looked over at Veronica. "Fuck you," Veronica said, blushing, close to tears. "Leave that stuff alone."

The cop shrugged and put the balls away. Finally they left. Veronica had watched them carefully. There was nothing in the apartment, not a single piece of evidence, to connect Hannah to WORSE.

As soon as they were gone, she called Latham, Strauss. The answering service took her number. She hung up and moved restlessly through the house, putting the Plexiglas framed drawings back on the walls, refolding clothes and putting them in the drawers, wiping down the cabinets. The phone rang.

"Veronica? This is Dyan Mundy."

"Thank God."

"I was about to call you when I got your message. Hannah asked me to. She wanted you to know she's okay, they haven't hurt her." The woman's voice exuded confidence, control, a kind of artificial warmth. Veronica visualized chin-length blond hair, gold rings, three strands of pearls. "There's no way I can get you in to see her just now. She understands that, and sends you her love."

Tears ran down Veronica's cheeks. "What happened? Did she say what happened?"

"She tried to explain, but frankly, her story doesn't make much sense. She apparently had some kind of out-of-body experience. She felt this shock and disorientation and then she was suddenly off to the side somewhere. Watched herself shoot the guard as if from a great distance. I don't know how well that's going to play in court. Do you know if she's ever been treated for an emotional disturbance? Is there any history of it in her family?"

"There's nothing the matter with Hannah," Veronica said. "Somebody else was in her body when the guard was killed. It wasn't Hannah."

"That's what she said."

"What about the blond kid?"

"What blond kid?"

"When Hannah got... taken over, or whatever it was, there was this blond kid. He just keeled over, like a zombie. Then at the end Hannah was back in her own body and I couldn't find the kid anywhere."

"I don't understand. What are you trying to make out of this?"

"I don't know. But I think that kid was involved somehow"

A long pause. "Veronica, I know you're upset. But you have to trust me. She's in the hands of the best law firm in the city. If anybody can save her, we can."

She couldn't sleep. She thought of Hannah alone in a damp and stinking cell, claustrophobic, terrified out of her mind. Nothing Veronica could do would convince the police-or even Hannah's lawyer-of what she knew to be the truth. Something that wasn't Hannah had pulled the trigger.

She called all of Croyd's numbers, with no luck. Jerry would gladly help, but what could he do? His brother's law firm was already on the case. And what good were lawyers against an entire bank lobby full of eyewitnesses? Hannah's smell was still in the sheets. It made Veronica crazy with longing. It was like a heroin habit, tearing up her guts. She couldn't lie there any longer. She put on running shoes and went out onto the street.

It was nine o'clock on a Friday night. The life of the city went on without her, as it always did. She drifted toward the light and noise of Broadway, hating the faces she saw around her, wanting to throw herself into the river of yellow cabs and pound on them and scream until the world stopped what it was doing and came to help. New York was the best city in the world to be happy in, and the worst if you were desperate. It towered over the helpless, sped by them in clouds of monoxide. It shoved past them on the street without apology, and left its garbage all around them to wade through.

Life meant nothing without Hannah. Without Hannah she would end up back on the needle, would find herself giving blow jobs on car seats for ten dollars a pop. Anything would be better.

That was when she saw the gun.

It was inside the glass display case of a pawnshop, just visible behind the guitars and stereos in the window. It was chrome-plated and heavy and spoke the word "power" to her.

She went inside. The man behind the counter was fifty going on twenty-two. Veronica had had too many tricks just like him. His hairpiece wasn't even the same color as the fringe around his ears. His polyester shirt was green, with horses on it, ten years out of fashion. It was unbuttoned to show his chest hair and gold chains.

"How much is that pistol?" Veronica asked him. "Now, what would a sweet little number such as yourself want with a big, nasty Smith and Wesson .38?" He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the wall behind the counter. On the TV over his shoulder, two football teams smashed into each other.

"I'm not in the mood for bullshit, pal. How much is the gun?"

The man shook his head, smiling. " I see it all the time. Sweet little thing gets a little upset with her sugar daddy, maybe catches him with his hand in the wrong cookie jar, and suddenly she's got to blow him away. This is what television has done to modern society. Everybody wants to blow everybody else away."

"Look, pal-"

The man leaned forward. "No, you look. The law says I'm responsible for what I sell. I don't like your looks, I don't have to sell you shit." He straightened up and his voice softened. "So why don't you be a good little girl and run along home to Papa?"

In that moment Veronica saw her entire life as one humiliation after another, all at the hands of men, all of whom felt they were privileged to decide her destiny.

From the father who never acknowledged her, to Fortunato who told her how to dress and how to smile, to Jerry who expected her to love him just because he loved her, to the countless men who'd used her and walked away. She was sick of it. For once she wished she had Fortunato's power, could reach out with her mind and crush this pompous, ugly little man to jelly.

The fluorescent lights overhead flickered. It should have distracted her, but instead she felt connected. The lights flashed with the rhythm of her breathing and she knew she was the cause. She felt the power flowing through the wires, flowing out of the grid and into her mind. The wild card. Croyd. It was happening. The picture on the TV rolled, then turned to snow. The second hand on the big electric clock next to it stopped, then swung back and forth like a pendulum, keeping time with the flashing lights. The man started to turn toward the TV and then went pale. He sat down slowly, his arms crossing tighter, as if he were cold. Sweat beaded his face.

"Are you hurt?" she asked him.

" I don't know" His voice was weak, and higher than it had been.

She hadn't crippled him, apparently. Beyond that she didn't care. "Give me the gun."

"I ... I don't know if I can."

"Do it!"

He got onto his hands and knees, fumbled a key into the lock, slid the back of the display case open. He had to use both hands to lift the gun onto the counter. Veronica reached for it, then realized what she'd done. Why did she need a gun?

She ran into the street, waving for a cab.

She got as far as the holding tank on nerve alone. The beefy, red-haired guard outside the lockup refused to let her any farther and Veronica tried to do to him what she'd done in the pawnshop. Nothing happened.

She felt a surge of panic. She had no idea what the power was or how it worked. What if she couldn't use it again right away? What if she needed something that had been in the pawnshop as a catalyst?

"Lady, I told you, this is a restricted area. Now, are you going to get out of here or do I got to call somebody?" Panic turned to helplessness, helplessness to anger. What good was this power if she couldn't use it to help Hannah? And with the anger it came. The lights flickered and the music from a TV inside the lockup dissolved in static. Suddenly she could hear the prisoners screaming. The man staggered, leaned forward to support himself on his desk. "Jesus Christ," the man said. "Jesus Christ."

"Where's the keys?"

"What'd you do to me, lady? I can't lift my fuckin' arms."

"The keys."

The man slumped into his chair, unsnapped the keys from his belt, and slid them across the desk. Behind Veronica a man's voice said, "Charlie?"

Veronica concentrated on the voice without turning around and heard the man slump to the floor. The third key she tried fit a control panel next to the steel lockup door. A motor wheezed and the door bucked but didn't open. She realized she was still disrupting the electricity and forced herself to relax.

The door slid back. There were four cells inside. Three of them held drunks and addicts and derelicts. In the fourth were four black prostitutes, and Hannah. All of them but Hannah were screaming for help.

Hannah hung from a pipe in the ceiling by her trousers. Her face was swollen and purple and her tongue stuck straight out of her slack mouth. Her eyes bulged. A patch of hair had been ripped out by the zipper in her pants and a drop of dried blood still clung to her scalp. Veronica threw herself at the bars, her screams lost in the voices around her. She felt the keys tugged out of her hand and one of the hookers opened the cell from inside. Veronica ran to Hannah and held her with one arm around her waist, the other hand tugging at the knotted pant leg around her neck.

She refused to think. Not yet. Not while there was still something left to try. She laid Hannah's body out on the sticky gray floor of the cell. She pushed the swollen tongue aside and dug vomit out of Hannah's throat with her fingers. She blew air into her lungs until she lost all breath herself.

One of the prostitutes had stayed behind. She looked at Veronica and said, "She a wild woman before she die. Bitch went completely crazy. Never saw anything like it. We couldn't get near to her."

Veronica nodded.

"I tried to stop her, but there weren't no way. Girl was crazy, that's all."

"Thank you," Veronica said.

Then the cell was full of police, guns drawn, and there was nothing she could do but raise her hands and go along with them.

She waited until she was alone with two detectives before she used her power again. She left the two of them barely conscious on the floor of the interrogation room and walked out into the night.

The street was headlights and horns honking, blaring jam boxes and shouting voices, all of it too bright, too loud, too overwhelming. Inside her it was the same. Her mind would not shut up. Hannah was her life, the only thing that mattered. If Hannah was dead, how could she still be alive?

The thought was white-hot, too painful to touch. Better, she thought, to just think of herself as already dead. She watched a bus roar past her and wondered what it would feel like to go under its wheels.

Then she remembered the look on Hannah's face as she lay on the floor of the bank, as her consciousness came back into her. She remembered the prostitute in the cell. Crazy, wild woman, the prostitute had said.

Someone had done this to Hannah. Somewhere in the city there was someone who knew what had happened, and why.

Not dead, Veronica thought. Hannah is dead, and I'm not. Someone knows why.

It turned into a refrain, a mantra. It brought her back to Hannah's apartment, took her inside. She lay down in Hannah's bed and held one of Hannah's shirts to her face and breathed the smell. Liz crawled up onto the bed next to her and started to purr. Together they lay there and waited to, see if the sun would ever rise.