on to do
so yet.

For the first minute it made me feel like an old man, a real dodderer,
but by now the attraction this girl had for me was getting irrational. I
carefully laid the two plates on top of my knapsack.

In return, as a sort of reward you might say, she opened her mouth wide
and showed me what was left of her own teeth--about two-thirds of them,
a patchwork of tartar and gold.

We took off our boots, pants and shirts, she watching very
suspiciously--I knew she'd been skeptical of my carrying only one knife.

Oddly perhaps, considering how touchy I am about my baldness, I felt no
sensitivity about revealing the lack of hair on my chest and in fact a
sort of pride in displaying the slanting radiation scars that have
replaced it, though they are crawling keloids of the ugliest, bumpiest
sort. I guess to me such scars are tribal insignia--one-man and
one-woman tribes of course. No question but that the scar on the girl's
forehead had been the first focus of my desire for her and it still
added to my interest.

By now we weren't staying as perfectly on guard or watching each other's
clothing for concealed weapons as carefully as we should--I know I
wasn't. It was getting dark fast, there wasn't much time left, and the
other interest was simply becoming too great.

* * * * *

We were still automatically careful about how we did things. For
instance the way we took off our pants was like ballet, simultaneously
crouching a little on the left foot and whipping the right leg out of
its sheath in one movement, all ready to jump without tripping
ourselves if the other person did anything funny, and then skinning down
the left pants-leg with a movement almost as swift.

But as I say it was getting too late for perfect watchfulness, in fact
for any kind of effective watchfulness at all. The complexion of the
whole situation was changing in a rush. The possibilities of dealing or
receiving death--along with the chance of the minor indignity of
cannibalism, which some of us practice--were suddenly gone, all gone. It
was going to be all right this time, I was telling myself. This was the
time it would be different, this was the time love would last, this was
the time lust would be the firm foundation for understanding and trust,
this time there would be really safe sleeping. This girl's body would be
home for me, a beautiful tender inexhaustibly exciting home, and mine
for her, for al