e in South Portland. I
used to go over there sometimes on weekends--nice place, garden out
back, blueberries, the high bush kind. I pruned them. We'd have a glass
of wine, get into it . . . Now, nothing. And the hell of it is: I
don't feel like seeing anyone else."

"Used to take me 18 months to get over a relationship," Mark said. "Now
it's 18 weeks and dropping. You know what they say about falling off a
horse."

"Climb back on--right." Oliver said. "All very well for you. I'm not,
like, in demand. I got lucky, was all."

"Come on! Just cuz you're four feet, two . . ."

"Five feet, two," Oliver said. "Don't you forget it."

"Ork. It doesn't mean shit," Mark said. "Do I look like Mr. Studley?"

"How _do_ you do it, anyway?"

"Fabric, man. They're helpless for fabric. You got to buy stuff they
want to touch. The ladies have _no_ imagination; if they can't touch
it, it doesn't count." Mark drank and smiled. "I spend a fortune on
shirts and sweaters. 'Oooh,' they say. I hold out my arm for the feel.
'Yeah, nice--silk and cashmere,' I say. 'Alpaca,' or whatever the hell
it is. Next day, I mail it to them. Would look better on you, I tell
them."

"I don't have a fortune," Oliver said.

"Shop around," Mark said. "Linen. You got to start somewhere."

"Yeah," Oliver said.

For the hell of it, he checked out Filene's Basement, but he couldn't
find anything that didn't have the executive leisurewear look. The next
day he was in Freeport and stopped at the Ralph Lauren factory outlet
store. He bought a linen bush jacket that was radically marked down. It
was dyed a dark sandy color and looked as though it would last. The
traditional cut made it seem less trendy. Maybe that was why it had
been marked down.

Oliver was lonely, but he continued to feel as though a weight had been
lifted from him. The crying fit at Jacky's had liberated him. He
wondered why. Why had it felt right, somehow, to be punished by her? He
missed the sex, ached for it, but he didn't miss the beatings. He just
didn't feel guilty any more.

Guilty. As soon as he thought the word, Oliver knew that he was onto
something. He realized that he had felt guilty for as long as he could
remember--so long, in fact, that he didn't register it as guilt; it was
just the way he was. Why should he feel this way? He couldn't be
sure--this was murky territory--but he suspected that it had to do with
his mother. She seemed to hover around the edges when he t