"Because I like it here."

"You like East Hampton,'' I pointed out.

"It's a nice place to spend part of the summer."

"Why don't we sail around the world?"

"Why don't you you sail around the world?" sail around the world?"

"Good question.'' Bitchy, but good. Time to promote insecurity. "I may do that."

Susan stood. "Better yet, John, why don't you ask yourself what you're running from?"

"Don't get analytical on me, Susan."

"Then let me tell you what's bothering you. Your children aren't home for Easter, your wife is a bitch, your friends are idiots, your job is boring, you dislike my father, you hate Stanhope Hall, the Allards are getting on your nerves, you're not rich enough to control events and not poor enough to stop trying. Should I go on?"

"Sure."

"You're alienated from your parents or vice versa, you've had one too many dinners at the club, attractive young women don't take your flirting seriously anymore, life is without challenge, maybe without meaning, and possibly without hope. And nothing is certain but death and taxes. Well, welcome to American upper-middle-class middle age, John Sutter."

"Thank you."

"Oh, and lest I forget, a Mafia don has just moved in next door."

"That might be the only bright spot in the picture."

"It might well be."

Susan and I looked at each other, but neither of us explained what we meant by that last exchange. I stood. "I feel better now."

"Good. You just needed a mental enema."

I smiled. Actually, I did feel better, maybe because I was happy to discover that Susan and I were still in touch.

Susan threw her arm around my shoulders, which I find very tomboyish, yet somehow more intimate than an embrace. She said, "I wish it were were another woman. I could take care of that damned quickly." another woman. I could take care of that damned quickly."

I smiled. "Some attractive young women take me seriously." attractive young women take me seriously."

"Oh, I'm sure of that."

"Right."

We left the gazebo and walked on a path that led into a treed hollow that lay south of the mansion. I said, "You're not always a bitch. And I don't dislike your father. I hate his guts."

"Good for you. He feels the same way about you."

"Excellent."

We continued our walk into the wooded hollow, Susan's arm still thrown over my shoulders. I'm not usually into self-pity or self-analysis, but sometimes you have to stop and think about things. Not only for yourself, but also so you don't hurt other people.

I said, "By the way, the Bishop stopped by last Saturday. George told him I wasn't receiving."

"George said that to Bishop Eberly?"

"No, to Bishop Frank."

"Oh....'' She laughed. "That Bishop.'' She thought a moment. "He'll be back." Bishop.'' She thought a moment. "He'll be back."

"You think so?'' I added, "I wonder what he wanted."

Susan replied, "You'll find out."

"Don't sound so ominous, Susan. I think he just wants to be a friendly neighbor."

"For your information, I've called the Eltons and the DePauws, and they haven't heard from him or seen him."

The Eltons own Windham, the estate that borders Alhambra to the north, and the DePauws have a big colonial and ten acres, not actually an estate, directly across from Alhambra's gates. I said, "Then it appears as if Mr. Bellarosa has singled us out for neighborly attention."

"Well, you met him. Maybe you said something encouraging."

"Hardly.'' And I still wondered how he knew who I was and what I looked like. That was upsetting.

We came out of the trees at a place where there was a small footpath, paved with moss-covered stone. I steered Susan toward the path and felt her resist for a moment, then yield. We walked up the stone path, which was covered by an old rose trellis, and at the end of the path was the charred ruin of the gingerbread playhouse. The remaining beams and rafters supported climbing ivy that had crept up from the stone fireplace chimney. The fireplace itself was intact with a mantel and a large black kettle still hanging from a wrought-iron arm. In true fairy-tale fashion, there was, and had been as I recalled before the fire, something sinister about the cute little cottage.

Susan asked, "Why did you want to walk here?"

"I thought since you were analyzing my my head, head, I'd I'd like to know why you never come here." like to know why you never come here."

"How do you know I don't?"

"Because I've never seen you walk here, and I've never seen a hoofprint near this place."

"It's sad to see it this way."

"But we never came here before before the fire, never played our games here." the fire, never played our games here."

She didn't reply.

"I suppose I can understand not wanting to have sex in a playhouse with childhood memories."

Susan said nothing.

I walked up to what had been the front door, but Susan didn't follow. I could make out a flower box that had fallen from a window ledge, pieces of stained glass and melted lead, and the burned skeleton of a bed and mattress that had fallen through from the second floor. I asked, "Well, are the memories good or bad?"

"Both."

"Tell me the good ones."

She took a few steps toward the house, knelt, and picked up a shard of pottery. She said, "I had sleepovers here in the summer. A dozen girls, up all night, giggling, laughing, singing, and deliciously terrified at every noise outside."

I smiled.

She approached the house and surveyed the blackened timbers, which still emitted an odor ten years after the fire. "Lots of good memories."

"I'm glad. Let's go.'' I took her arm.

"Do you want to know about the bad things?"

"Not really."

"The servants used to come here sometimes and have parties. And sex.'' She added, "I realized it was sex when I was about thirteen. They used to lock the door. I wouldn't sleep in that bed again."

I didn't respond.

"I mean, it was my my house. A place that I thought belonged to me." house. A place that I thought belonged to me."

"I understand."

"And ... one day ... I was about fifteen, I came here and the door wasn't locked and I went inside and up the stairs to get something I'd left in the bedroom ... and this couple was lying there, naked, asleep ...'' She glanced at me. "I guess I was traumatized.'' She forced a smile. "Today, I don't know if a fifteen-year-old girl would be traumatized by that. I mean, how could they be? You see naked people on TV doing it."

"True.'' But I couldn't believe that still bothered her. There was more to it, and I sensed she was going to tell me what it was.

She stayed silent awhile before saying, "My mother used to come here with someone."

"I see.'' I wondered if it was her mother that she'd seen in bed, and with whom.

She walked across the littered floorboards and stopped beside the burned bed. "And I lost my virginity here."

I didn't respond.

She turned toward me and smiled sadly. "Some playhouse."

"Let's go."

She walked past me, onto the path between the rose bushes. I came up beside her. I said, "Was it you who burned the place down?"

"Yes."

I didn't know what to say, so I said, "Sorry."

"It's all right."

I put my arm around her and said in a lighter tone, "Did I ever tell you about that Good Friday when I was a kid and the sky suddenly darkened?"

"Several times. Tell me how you lost your virginity."

"I told you."

"You told me three different versions. I'll bet I was your first lay."

"Maybe. But not my last."

She punched me in the ribs. "Wise guy."

We walked in silence back through the hollow, and when I ran my fingers over her cheek, I discovered she was crying.

"Everything's going to be all right,'' I assured her.

"I'm too old for fairy tales,'' she informed me.

At Susan's suggestion we turned toward the plum orchard, the so-called sacred grove, and made our way toward the Roman love temple. More than half the plum trees were dead or dying, and each spring there were fewer blossoms, but still, the air was perfumed with their scent.

We came into the clearing where the round marble temple stood, and without speaking we mounted the steps and I swung open the big brass door.

The sun was low on the horizon and shone in on a slant through the opening in the domed roof, illuminating a section of the erotic carvings on the lintels. Susan walked across the marble floor and stood before the naked statues of Venus and the big Roman male. The statues of pink marble were seated side by side on an uncarved slab of black stone, and though they were in a partial embrace, about to kiss, the view from the waist down was of full frontal nudity. The man had forgotten his fig leaf, and his penis was in an excited state. As I said, this was all pretty risque for 1906, and even today an erect penis in art is considered by some to be pornographic.

Anyway, it is possible for a woman to sit in the lap of this virile male and achieve penetration. In fact, in Roman times during the Saturnalia festival, virgins actually deflowered themselves in this way, using, I believe, the statue of Priapus, whose member is always at the ready.

You must keep in mind that these statues and this love temple were commissioned by Susan's great-grandfather, Cyrus Stanhope, and I believe that randiness runs in some families. Certainly Susan has inherited an as yet unidentified gene for an overactive libido from both sides of her family, who, by most accounts, couldn't seem to keep their pants up or their skirts down.

I told you, too, that Susan and I engage in some interesting sexual practices in this love temple, though not the aforementioned Roman practice of statuary rape, if you'll pardon my pun. I should also tell you that the two statues are slightly larger than life, and consequently the Roman gentleman's equipment is perhaps slightly larger than mine, but not by so much as to make me jealous.

Well, anyway, there we were in this pagan temple on a Good Friday, recently returned from church, and from a moment of truth at the gazebo and an emotional episode at the playhouse. And to be honest, this confluence of events left me with the uncomfortable feeling that this might not be the time or place for romance.

Susan, on the other hand, seemed more sure of what she wanted. She said, "Make love to me, John."

That request in that form means we are not going to playact, but are going to make love as husband and wife. This also means that Susan is feeling insecure, or perhaps melancholy.

So I took her in my arms, and we kissed and, still kissing, sat on the wide ledge at the base of the statues in unconscious imitation of their pose. We kicked off our shoes and, still kissing, removed our clothes, helping each other undress until we were naked. I lay down on my back on the cool marble, and Susan straddled me with her knees, then rose up and came down on me. She worked her pelvis up and down and rocked back and forth, her eyes closed, her mouth open, moaning softly.

I reached up and pulled her down to me and kissed her. She straightened her legs and stretched her body out over mine. We embraced and continued to kiss as her hips rose and fell.

Susan's body went tense, then relaxed, and she continued to move her hips until she went rigid again, then went limp again. She did this three or four times until her breathing began to sound labored, but she continued on until she had yet another orgasm. She might have gone on until she passed out, which actually happened once, but I let myself come, and this brought on her final climax.

She lay with her head buried in my chest, her long red hair draped over my shoulders. I heard her whisper between deep breaths, "Thank you, John."

It was pleasant lying there, Susan on top of me, our groins all warm and wet. I played with her hair, rubbed her back and buttocks, and we rubbed our feet together.

I could see from the open dome that the sunlight was fading outside, and in fact the temple was darker now. But directly above me I could see the marble statues still locked in their eternal embrace, and from this perspective, their expressions and their whole demeanor looked more lustful and heated, as if their nine decades of frustration were about to explode into an act of sexual frenzy.

We must have fallen asleep, because when I opened my eyes, it was dark in the temple and I was cold. Susan stirred, and I felt her warm lips on my neck.

I said, "That's nice."

"Feel better?"

"Yes,'' I replied. "You?"