"Oh, yes," returned Kai, still splayed on the sofa. "Knights in shining armor, that's us."

"Besides, he doesn't give me drinks," Larissa continued. "Every once in a while he says one of our drinks is on the house."

"This isn't worth our time. I'm wiped out. Let's regroup tomorrow. I'll go out, find work. The ski lodge in Perisher or Charlotte may be looking for loaders to help with the ski lifts. I'll check there tomorrow."

"Yes, but while you're checking, how am I going to check if the ski shop on Wagner is hiring? I heard they might be."

He paused. "I can take you there. But, Larissa, if you get a job in town how are you going to get there day in and day out? We saw what happened when you rode a pushbike."

"It's too cold for a pushbike anyway." They didn't mention the irony of it not being too cold for his Sportcla.s.sic motorcycle that rode a lot faster than a pushbike. "Maybe we can get me a cheap used car?"

"With what? We'd have to sell our tour bus to do it."

"No, no, we can't sell that."

"That's right, we can't even p.a.w.n it," said Kai. "Because we don't have the money to get it out of hock."

"Did I say anything about hocking it?"

"You talked about selling it! Sell it and do what? It's our only means of making money."

"Well, where is this money?" she shouted. "We're supposed to save during the summer so that when winter comes we have enough to live on. What's happened to our money?"

"What's happened to our money? Larissa, where do you live? Who do you think you are? You're not some housewife anymore where the rich husband takes care of all the expenses while all you do is go food-shopping and f.u.c.k him!"

"And not just him!" Larissa yelled.

"No, that's right," Kai said smoothly and scathingly. "Are you still keeping up with that little double charade?"

She would have slapped him if she were closer. But she wasn't so she didn't. All she did was exhale and fall mute, twisting her fingers into knots.

"Look, you know where the money is? We spent it," Kai said, much quieter. "We lived on it. We didn't make any extra and couldn't save any. You used to work some winters, but last winter you didn't. Or this one."

"You're gone from the house from seven to seven! How am I supposed to get anywhere? I've looked for work. No one will hire me."

"I'm not complaining. I understand. But why are you giving me s.h.i.t? I'm not accusing you, am I? I'm not demanding to know from you where the money is!"

Her hands went up. His anger was distressing. It made her weak and uncomfortable. Kai didn't raise his voice. He didn't fight. He was the peacemaker, the tranquil diplomat, who made things better by quiet, not worse by shouting.

"I'm sorry," she said. "But what are we going to do? Are we going to continue to live like this?"

A heavy breathing pause from Kai. "As opposed to what?" he said, his voice measured and slow. This is what he did during their infrequent arguments: to infuriate her he became deliberate, soft-spoken, and the more agitated she became, the calmer he became. He would tell her afterward that it was his way of dealing with conflict, which he hated, but she took it personally.

"Kai, stop speaking to me like this," she said, the fight getting hot, inflaming the back of her neck.

"Like what?" he said in a conversational voice while she panted. "It's a serious question. What do you propose we do?"

Why did his question frighten her? She backed away. He saw it, even in the dark. Especially in the dark. And she knew he saw it, that she had no power, no leverage, and no solutions.

"This is stupid," she said.

"That's what I've been saying."

"You're in no mood to fight."

"I'm never in a mood to fight, Larissa, you know that."

"Right. So let's not."

"Absolutely. Let's not."

They were naked and entwined in seconds on the couch, and then falling off, on the floor, in twisted knots like her hands, broken needy coupling, fractured crying from her, no sound from him but panting, eyes closed, mouth parted, single-mindedly focused on the eternal thrust. Was it real, or was it a showy burlesque? His hands gripping her head, her legs, her hips, it was a carnival of souls, on the floor sandwiched between the coffee table and the sofa, boundless groaning wretched lovers.

After they were in bed, he lay down behind her. She waited for his hands. For a few minutes there weren't any, as if perhaps he'd fallen asleep. But then, here they were, on her hips, on her ribs, on her back, between her thighs. She felt his lips on the back of her neck. "Come on, Larissaa" Kai whispered, once again, using the three syllables of her ident.i.ty as a mating call. Using herself against herself. She moaned lightly; he turned her to him.

"I don't want to fight," he whispered. "I never want to."

"I know," she whispered back.

He caressed her face. "It's going to be okay. You'll see. I'll get work. I'll work the stables. Billy-O says he might be able to help me. We'll muddle through. And for next Christmas we'll advertise in the Sydney Morning Herald. We'll get the Americans to come here."

"Americans like us?"

"No one is like us," he said, his hands freely roaming, softening her, appeasing. But she was afraid of just the opposite. She was afraid they were like everyone else.

She lay in his arms while he stroked her back in sleepy caresses; she thought he was drifting off, but his fingers were strangely insistent on her spine, between her shoulder blades.

"Are you hungry?" she asked him. "I can warm up the burgers I made for you."

"I'm not hungry for burger," he said. "I'm a little hungry again for you." He continued to stroke her. "I'm needy tonight. Don't know why." There was a protracted pause. "I think Cleo found you attractive."

"What?"

"Hmm."

"What are you talking about?" Larissa was befuddled. "What does she have to do with me? It's not me she found attractive."

"It is."

"How do you know?"

"She told me. She said, your goil is hawt."

"She said this to you? Seems rather forward. And what did you say?"

"I said, I know." He fondled Larissa's b.r.e.a.s.t.s, pressed his stubble against them.

"Oh, is that what you said. You and Cleo, Billy-O's girl, talked about me being hot. Where is Billy-O during this conversation?"

"In the loo."

"Where am I?"

"In the loo."

"I really don't know why you would tell me this," Larissa said. "Who is she? I don't know why you would talk to her about me."

"I thought it would please you."

"Discussing my physical appeal with a twelve-year-old with t.i.ts you just met in a bara"you think that would please me?"

His body was over her, his legs pinning her, his arms holding her, his mouth deep at her throat, on her lips. He was breathing heavily, hotly, the alcohol continued to fan his desire. "Come on, admit it, you found her a little bit attractivea"

"No! Did you?"

"It's not about me."

"Isn't it?"

"Not at all. I just wondered if you thought she was s.e.xy."

"Kai, tonight these thoughts did not enter my head. You know what I was busy thinking about? What are we going to do when the money runs out?"

"Runs out? We're out, baby." His hand was between her legs. "So what about her?"

Larissa didn't push him away. Opening her legs for him, arching her back, she let him caress her, her moans, his whispers, the tap dripping. Drip, drip. "Come on, what do you think? Do you ever think about it, even for a second? In the abstract. Like you did back in college?"

"Think about what? You? Yes." Her moaning got louder as his fingers became more insistent.

His put his lips on her nipples, still whispering. "You're so f.u.c.king s.e.xy. You got twenty-year-old b.r.e.a.s.t.s, an amazing body. Come on, you want to get it on with a girl?"

If Larissa hadn't been so indisposed at that moment to think clearly, she might have opened her eyes, might have heard him better. But she was pulsing and panting to the tune of a different master. She thought they were fantasizing, speaking in arousing hypotheticals, as they occasionally did, using erotic language as an aphrodisiac. "Sometimes," she replied. "I told you. Out of curiosity. But the time for all that came and went when I was in the first bloom of youth."

"Ah, except I'm still in bloom, baby," he whispered. "And I think Cleo might be amenable to being asked, if you're interested."

That's when Larissa opened her eyes. "Asked what?" She moved away from him on the bed.

He didn't reply, just gazed at her from his pillow with his seductive look of l.u.s.ty existentialism, as in: I know I'm going to catch s.h.i.t for it, but I don't care while I pretend I don't know what all the fuss is about.

"Are you kidding me?"

He reached for her. "A little spice. Just for fun. Nothing serious."

"Well, that's good to know. As opposed to what?"

"We don't have to if you don't want to."

"I don't want to."

"Okay." But he said okay in that way people do when not only is it not okay, but in one minute they're going to pick a fight over it. This was definitely not a fight Larissa wanted to have.

"Kai, why would you think for a second I'd want to?" She wanted to pull the blankets over her naked body, but they were too far down on the bed.

"It's a turn-on, it's not a life-change."

Larissa could tell he wanted to say something else about it, but either wouldn't, or was saving it. The other thing, the love thing, remained in the bed unfulfilled.

"I can't believe you would ask me."

"I can't believe you're making such a fuss about it."

"Am I? Am I really?"

"I think so."

"Well, how about if I asked you if you wanted to invite Bart into this bed, how would you feel about that?" Bart was a good-looking, built-up guy who, though he was married to Bianca, flirted shamelessly with Larissa all in the name of harmless fun.

"Bart?" Kai snorted. Shrugging, he lay on his back. "If you want to, I'd be okay with it."

"I don't believe you."

"I would, Larissa. It's all good." Climbing on top of her, he pressed his damp body against her, into her. "You know why I'm not worried?"

She moaned, shook her head, upset at herself, incensed by her desire for him, by her inability to push him away even at times like these. "It's all good," he continued, while she groaned and clutched him, trying to listen, but hopelessly, "because I know"a"he broke off while waiting, almost calmly, for her to begin gliding against him in her imminent flaming panica""that you have never been f.u.c.ked like thisa"

Larissa vehemently shook her head, crying and coming, and whispering, no, stop, don't say this.

"aand you never will be again."

He said this to her once before. Except then, an elephant's lifetime ago, it meant one thing and now, in an unprotected universe where families and children and laws and husbands, and pet.i.tions for clemency and forgiveness faded, it meant another, a shuddering awful injustice she could not and would not face. Don't say that, she whispered again, trying hard not to shiver, not to cry. It's not nice.

"It is nice. Oh, it's so nicea" His hands were squeezing her thighs open. "A little excitement, nothing more. Nothing wrong with that. It's not like you're going to go off with Bart, is it?"

"He's with Bianca."

"So what?" Kai shrugged, rolling off her. "Let's just say Bianca doesn't care who comes over to swim in her pool."

"What?"

"You didn't know? Yeah. She's quite a libertine, that Bianca." Kai faced her, saying these outrageous things in the tone he might say, yeah, whatever you cook, chicken or fish, will be fine with me. "What do you think? You want to?" He scooted closer, embracing her, rubbing his rough chin between her shoulder blades. "Because if we ask Bart, I'm thinking we can then ask Cleo."

"Kai!" Shoving him away, she sat up. "Is that what we want? To ask Bart?" She paused, fell mute, couldn't find the words. "Or do we want to askaCleo?"

He said nothing.

"Would Cleo make you happy?"

His answer didn't come fast enough for Larissa. What answer could? With a suggestive smile playing at his lips, he said, "Just to see the two of you together. It's a male fantasy. It's so hot. That's all."