At the motel she felt strange not like a dream, but like she was watching somebody else getting out of a car and walking up a noisy steel stairway to an outside corridor, and going into a motel room. It had even been unreal when she looked around the room, saw that there was an open canvas suitcase on the other double bed, saw him locking the door, saw him coming toward her and putting his arms around her again.

There had been a moment's panic when she felt his hand under her skirt and his fingers under her underpants, the very first time anyone except Dr. Gladys Eisenberg had ever touched her there. But she was by then too far gone, and the next thing she knew, she was on the bed with her skirt and slip and panties off and he was putting it in her.

She still had her sweater on. And her brassiere. He was still wearing his shirt and undershirt and socks.

He woke up. His eyes opened and he looked up at her.

"Jesus!" he said.

She averted her eyes.

Now she felt shamed and humiliated. She wanted to cry.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

She nodded her head, averting it from him. Her eyes were closed.

"Why did you do it with me?" Tom Ellis asked. "The first time, I mean?"

He had to ask the one question that was absolutely the worst question he could possibly ask. She shook her head.

"Jesus!" he said.

She wished the floor would suddenly open up and swallow the entire damned motel room.

He put his hand on her back. She squirmed away from the contact.

"If I had known," Tom announced, half apologetically, half righteously, "I wouldn't have done it." He is letting me know that I seduced him, Dianne thought, and then realized that was ridiculous. Virgins don't go around seducing men. Except she had.

His hand touched her again, lower down. She stiffened but did not jump away.

The telephone rang.

"Oh, my God!" Dianne said.

He chuckled, and she turned and glowered at him. "Jesus Christ," he said, wonderingly, "you're beautiful!"

"Yeah," she said bitterly.

The telephone rang again.

"Answer it, for God's sake!" Dianne said.

With a sudden movement, and with such strength that she could not resist, he reached up and pulled her down against him. Her face was against his chest, and she could feel his heart beating as he stretched out and picked up the telephone.

"Lieutenant Ellis," he said.

She felt his hand move under her sweater and the balls of his fingers cares singly possessively, run over her backbone.

He laughed. "I'm very glad to hear that, sir," he said to the telephone. She relaxed her torso against his, marveling again at how hard his chest was.

"Yes, sir, I'd love to see it," he said. "I'll leave right away, sir. Thank you for calling."

If he was leaving, that meant she would have to get up. Dianne didn't like that. She wanted to stay right where she was forever.

He stretched again as he replaced the telephone in its cradle, and then he lay down again. She felt him tugging at her sweater. What he was doing, she realized, was pulling it and her bra up, so that her breast would be naked where it pressed against him.

"Oh, my!" he said, when they had finished what they wanted.

"You went to sleep," she accused.

"Did I?" He sounded surprised.

"You did," she said.

"I'm awake now," he said, and then he chuckled. "All over."

He took her hand and pushed it to his crotch. She balled her fist. The nerve of him! How dare he do that!

But she let it touch her hand. It was hard again. She opened her eyes and raised her head just enough to look down there. It was standing up, sort of curving in her direction. Her balled fist opened and closed around it.

"You must think I'm a slut," she said.

"I think maybe I'm in love with you," Tom said.

"Oh, you shouldn't have said that!" she said.

"Probably not," he agreed.

Why did you have to say that?

"I have to go," he said.

"Where? Who was that?"

"We have blown up the water tower," he said.

"You said that before," she said, with one part of her mind. "What are you talking about?"

The other part was thinking that if she just rolled over a little on him, she could stick it in her. There had been a dirty movie at the house, and there had been a scene of a girl sitting on a man. It was the first time Dianne had ever considered it possible to do it that way.

"My A Team is destroying your campus," he said, laughing.

She really didn't hear what he had to say.

She rolled over on him and put him in.

"Jesus!" he said.

"You like that?"

"Oh, God, yes!"

She moved up and down on him. It was wild. She was sore, but that didn't seem to matter.

"Take your sweater off," he said. "I want to look."

She pulled her sweater off, and the brassiere. She looked down at him and at her breasts, and then glanced and saw her reflection in the mirror over the washbasin in the bathroom.

She felt the trembling, and the tremors, and the shortness of breath starting all over again.

She heard him saying something and forced herself to pay attention.

"I love you," he said.

"Me too... me too... me too," she said and then the convulsions came over her and she collapsed on him, and she thought that would be the end of it, but he gently turned her over and kept at it, and as if from a distance, far off, she heard her voice calling his name over and over.

(Five) The Delta Delta Delta House Duke University Durham, North Carolina 082S Hours, 12 December 1961 Dianne saw the Jaguar pull up in front of the house, but she could not force herself to go down to face him.

It was daylight now, and a new day, and the craziness had left her. Last night it seemed like a splendid idea to have breakfast with Tom. Now it seemed like a lousy one. She wished that she would never have to see him again in her life ever.

"The army is here for you," one of her sisters said. Dianne looked at her but said nothing. "Some guy from ROTC. He's on the porch."

"Thank you," Dianne said. She picked up her books and went into the foyer.

He was dressed in work clothes. Last night he had worn a regular uniform. She had thought he looked very nice in his uniform. She thought he looked very nice now.

"Sorry to keep you waiting," she said.

She had planned to say that something had come up, and she just couldn't have breakfast with him. He would go away, and she could avoid, somehow, seeing him again.

"It's okay," he said, and he pulled the storm door outward and held it open for her. If he tries to kiss me, I don't know what I'll do.

He didn't try to kiss her, or even to touch her. He just walked beside her to the car. He didn't even hold the door for her.

He drove off the campus.

"Where are we going?" she asked in alarm. "I meant the cafeteria!" "There's a steak place down here a little ways," he said. "The team is there." "Steak. At eight o'clock in the morning?" "They serve breakfast," he said. "You can have eggs or whatever."

"Oh," she said. There was nothing she could do but go. Inside Western Sizzling Family Steak House nine soldiers were eating breakfast around three tables pushed together. Each of the soldiers was eating a very rare steak.

Two of the soldiers were officers; one was a captain. "These are the guys who blew up the campus last night," Tom introduced her. "This is Dianne Eaglebury."

They politely shook her hand.

"How did a nice girl like you wind up knowing a disreputable character like this one?" the captain asked as soon as she sat down.

"My brother was a Green Beret," she said. "Or the next thing to one."

The reply had come without her thinking about it. "The next thing to one'?" he asked, politely curious. "He was in the navy, but he trained with Tom," she said. Screw her sisters, she thought angrily. Screw what people at Duke thought. Screw what anybody thought.

"He bought it in Cuba," Tom said levelly.

"I'm sorry..." the captain said.

"It's all right," Dianne said. "It explains how come I know this disreputable character."

She reached over and caught Tom's hand and squeezed it.

They heard the fluckata-fluckata-fluckata sound of a helicopter ten minutes later. "Our transportation has arrived," the captain said.

The "A" Team had an army truck, on the door of which was taped an ROTC recruiting poster, and they drove it back to the football stadium. Dianne was supposed to be in class, but that didn't seem to matter. She hadn't used all her cuts, and she didn't want to leave Tom.

Tom parked the Jaguar outside the stadium. The truck drove inside. Cadets were being shown the helicopter as the "A" Team loaded its gear aboard when she and Tom walked up to it. He knew the pilot.

"The general's compliments, Lieutenant Ellis," the pilot said. "And would you present yourself at your earliest opportunity?"

"What general?"

"Brigadier General Paul T. Hanrahan," the pilot said.

"No shit? They made him a general?"

"And you will notice the berets," the pilot said. "We got those back too."

"Jesus, that's great," Tom said. And then he asked, "He really sent for me?"

"Yeah. Taylor called and said I was to bring you back."

"I drove up here," Ellis said.

"Let one of these guys drive the jeep back," the pilot said.

"My Jaguar?" Ellis asked incredulously. "No way." He thought of something else. "I haven't checked out of the motel. I wasn't going back until tomorrow."

"My heart bleeds for you," the pilot said.

Tom turned to Dianne. He put the Jaguar keys in her hand, reached in his pocket, and came up with money.

"Check me out of the motel, will you?" he asked. "And I'll call when I know what's up."

"Sure," she said. He did that very possessively, she thought. As if I belong to him, and he has the right to expect me to take care of him.

"Anytime you're ready, driver," the "A" Team captain called from the helicopter door, "we are."

Tom kissed her. The kiss, to applause from the "A" Team, was possessive. He stood in the door of the helicopter as it rose from the football field, not waving, not even smiling, just looking at her.

And then the helicopter was gone, soaring over the end of the stadium, and she was standing there with his keys and three twenty-dollar bills in her hand, while the guys in ROTC looked at her.