"That means two daily consultations with Dr. Freeberg. And two detailed reports for him after the sessions. Then other things, like pulling this house together. Right now I'm on my way to Los Angeles to take the MAT, which goes with my application to UCLA. Anyway-"

"Anyway, where does that leave me, Gayle?" Brandon insisted. "I can tell you. It leaves me alone, and very lonely."

"I want to see you," she answered, then with emphasis, "very much. I'll call you later this afternoon. Are you working tonight?"

"Not tonight. I'll be through with my patient by six. After that, I suppose, I'll be dining alone."

"No, you won't," Gayle said impulsively. "You're going to have company. A real flashy date. Me. How'd you like to have a home-cooked meal at my place? Do you like pasta?"

"I love pasta if you go along with it. What time do you want me to be there? Eight?"

"Closer to nine would be better."

"Nine it is. I'll dude myself up and come calling."

"Can't wait," she said, and hung up.

Dashing for the door, she remembered her dream. She knew the outcome of the dream.

Paul would catch her.

She hoped.

Gayle's morning had been taken up by her MAT in Westwood, and then she had driven back to Hillsdale for two successive conferences, the first with Freeberg and Demski, the second with Freeberg and Hunter.

The afternoon was to be strenuous also. An exercise with Adam Demski at two o'clock. A second exercise at five o'clock, this one with what she hoped was a chastened Chet Hunter. After that, there would be just time enough to dictate her reports at the clinic and barely time to get home to prepare dinner for Paul Brandon as a prelude to what she hoped would be a long and delicious evening. She was sure that Paul would be wonderful, and she deserved some of the action. A busman's holiday, she knew, but not really, not actually. Tonight would be play without pay. Tonight would be from the heart. She flushed, thinking ahead to it.

At the moment, right now, she tried to hold her immediate thoughts on business.

It was two o'clock and Adam Demski arrived promptly, exuding more confidence than she had seen before.

Gayle was wearing a pale silk robe, chastely wrapped, but with nothing underneath.

After greeting Demski warmly, helping him off with his suit jacket, chatting with him about his day in Hillsdale, Gayle announced that she was ready if he was. Automatically, Demski started for the hallway and the therapy room in the rear. She followed him, aware that today's exercise was even more crucial than the last. If it worked, it would be a big step toward making him secure about his body and ultimately enabling him to achieve an erection.

In the familiar therapy room. Gayle had already spread her thick soft mat on the floor between the couch and the full-length mirror. There was a white sheet covering the mat, and on top of it two fresh beach towels and two down pillows. For the moment, Gayle ignored the mat, sat back on the couch, and watched Demski undress, pleased at the ease with which he was taking off his clothes.

Once he was naked, she stood up, pulled off her silk robe and was naked also.

She dropped down to the mat on the floor, patting one of the beach towels beside her. Demski lowered himself next to her.

"You want to know what we're going to do today?" Gayle asked him.

"Yes, what is it?"

"Something we have an option to use. I like to do this exercise. I've always found it pleasurable and effective. It's called The Clock."

"The Clock?" repeated Demski. "I don't remember being told about it. What is it?"

"There is no clock," said Gayle. "It's an imaginary timepiece set in my vagina."

Demski's eyebrows went up. "An imaginary clock in your vagina? How?" Then he asked, "What for?"

She explained the entire clock exercise to him in detail.

"Now that you understand it, shall we begin, Adam?" Gayle said. "Let's lie down and let me stroke your thighs and stomach and chest. Then we'll proceed."

Using a feathery touch, she stroked him very slowly and encouraged him to touch her just as slowly between the outer labia of her vagina and the clitoris.

After a little while, she helped him to a sitting posture as she also sat up. "Okay, now to The Clock," she said. "Let me lie down again, supine, bring my knees up, and spread my legs. You settle yourself between them, sit Indian-style, and gently slide your forefinger gradually into my opening, an inch, then an inch and a half, then two inches. I'll direct you around the imaginary clock inside and do a running commentary."

"That's all?"

Gayle smiled wryly. "There may be more, much more. There may be some fireworks."

He looked puzzled. "Meaning what?"

"Meaning I may react to this exercise. It may excite me. I could have an orgasm."

"What-what do I do?"

"Nothing, Adam, except wait until I've finished before withdrawing. Just sit and enjoy what you can do to me."

"How much of my finger did you say?"

"Just part of it. All right, put it in, your finger . . . Slide it in . . ."

Hesitantly, using the forefinger of his right hand, he approached her vaginal opening as she moved her thighs wider apart.

"Go ahead," she encouraged him.

She pushed his finger inside her. This would demonstrate to him that a man didn't have to have a large penis to give a woman pleasure.

"That's enough," she said. "How does it feel, Adam?"

"Soft, warm . . ."

"And tight, I hope, all around your finger."

"It sure is."

"Yes, because the vaginal barrel is actually folded down on itself, so that it totally surrounds and wraps whatever is inside it. Rather like an elastic pouch. No matter what the size of anything inside it, the vagina contracts or expands, closes up, encompasses whatever is there, short, narrow, long, wide, to offer a perfect fit."

This was finally dawning on him, she could see.

"Now, as to what I feel . . ." Gayle continued. "There are some nerve endings at the entrance to the vagina but very few down inside. Let me contract my pelvic muscles, and while you're inside you'll feel the contraction. There. Do you?"

"Yes," he gulped, "I sure do."

"All right, let's do The Clock. Lift your finger high to the upper center. Twelve o'clock. Then come down and around, pressing it against my vaginal walls. Lower, lower. Hey"-she contracted tightly-"six o'clock is terrific. See, I really react to that. Adam, Adam . . ."

"What, Gayle?"

"Go back to six o'clock. Rub the wall-press harder."

"Like this?"

"Adam, for God's sake, don't stop." Her eyes were shut tightly, her lower lip under her front teeth. "I-I'm coming apart."

Her orgasm was at its height, and it was a prolonged one. "Adam, look what you're doing to me," she managed to choke out.

When it was over, and she slumped back against the pillow, he withdrew his finger.

"You did that to me with your finger."

He stood up with almost military bearing and pointed down to his penis. "And look what you did to me," he announced.

She looked. It was there, all right. Wonder of wonders for an impotent man. It was elevated, all of four inches.

"Wonderful, how wonderful!" she exclaimed. "Better than a B, I'd say. But next time, or the time after, we're going for a big B plus."

"You think so?"

"I know so!"

"I-I hope you're right."

When the doorbell sounded at ten minutes after five instead of five o'clock sharp, and Gayle admitted Chet Hunter, she realized that for the first time he was late.

During previous visits, he had arrived a little early. It had been part of his anxiety to get going, to get on with it. Arriving late indicated either that he was reluctant to rush things after his last failure or that he had slowed down. Welcoming him, Gayle decided that he wasn't reluctant. He simply was too driven to succeed and to normalize his life with his girlfriend. So his lateness most likely indicated that he was making a conscious effort to follow his surrogate's advice. Not to rush things.

As long as this was his mood, she decided to maintain and extend it. She would keep him slowed down.

"Chet," she said, "I was just brewing some tea. Would you like to join me?"

"Whatever you say." He was definitely chastened and appeared ready to oblige her every wish.

"Get yourself relaxed in here. I'll bring the tea, and we can talk a few minutes."

Hunter was slumped in an easy chair when she returned with the two cups of tea. Casually, she began to inquire about his work as a writer. He was evasive about his writing but ready to talk at length about the variety of research he was engaged in.

"What about your girlfriend?" Gayle asked. "Does she help you with your work?"

"She's interested, but she has a job of her own."

"Want to talk about her?"

"No," he said firmly. "Let's keep this strictly between us."

"Of course."

"And you?" he asked unexpectedly. "Do you have a boyfriend on the side?"

She hesitated. Did she?

She tried to be honest. "Maybe. Almost. We'll see."

"What if he turns out to be a premature ejaculator?"

Thinking of Paul Brandon, she tried to keep a straight face. "Why, I'd treat him the way I'm treating you."

"You think it would work?"

"I'd hope so."

Hunter drained his tea and set his cup aside. "Okay. Here I am. What's next?"

"We're going to do precisely what we did yesterday. I talked it over with Dr. Freeberg, and that was his suggestion. We'll undress and do non-demand body caressing including genitals all over again. But with a difference."

"What's that?"

"This time, when you touch me you've got to keep in mind you're touching me for your own pleasure in doing so, not for performance. You pleasure me, but you will be doing it not for me but for yourself. This is really what intercourse should mean. Once you have your penis in my vagina, or anyone's, you should be enjoying it for yourself.

"And I should be into my own feelings and be enjoying it, too. We should both be getting pleasure from each other."

"What if you feel passive?"

"That can happen, and that's to be considered, too. Anyway, today we'll caress each other, and we'll each get pleasure from it. But the one difference from yesterday is that this time no more nonsense about your insisting on jumping into the hay with me and wanting to make love. I won't let you do it-not yet."

"Okay. Whatever you say, that's the way it'll be."

"But I will pleasure you in another way. I think we've come to that."

"To what?"

"Toward the end of the exercise," said Gayle earnestly, "I'm going to take your penis in hand and bring you close to orgasm."

"You mean a hand job?" He showed his surprise.

"Call it what you will. I'm going to bring you close to orgasm and instruct you on how to retard it."

"You think you can retard it?"

"I think so," said Gayle, standing. "Let's find out."

Presently, both nude in her therapy room, Hunter was stretched out on her mat and she was on her knees beside him, going through the non-demand frontal caress. Throughout, she had avoided his penis, which was stiffening steadily.

Briefly, Gayle considered his penis.