fect, he thought. The setting is perfect.

"You're so wonderful, darling," the man was saying, "and I get so lonely
without you. I always see your face, hear your voice, no matter how long
you're away."

"Do you? Do you?"

"Always. Your hair so red, so dark it seems black in certain lights.
Your eyes so slanted, so dark a green they seem black usually too. Your
nose so straight, the nostrils flaring slightly, the least bit too much
sometimes. Your mouth so red and full. Your skin so smooth and dark. And
you're ageless, darling. Being married to you five years, it's one
exciting adventure."

"I love you so," she said. "You're everything any woman could want in a
husband. Simply everything, yet you're so modest with it all. I still
remember how it used to be. Back there ... with the other men I mean?"

"You should forget about _them_, my dear."

"I'm forgetting, slowly though. It may take a long time to forget
completely. Oh, he was such an unpleasant person, so uninteresting after
a while. So inconsiderate, so self-centered. He wasn't romantic at all.
He never said he loved me, and when he kissed me it was mere routine. He
never thought about anything but his work, and when he did come home at
night, he would yell at me about not having ordered the right dinner
from the cafelator. He didn't care whether he used hair remover on his
face in the mornings or not. He was surly and sullen and selfish. But I
could have forgiven everything else if he had only told me every day
that he loved me, that he could never love anyone else. The things that
you do and say, darling."

"I love you," he said. "I love you, I love you. But please, let's not
talk about _him_ anymore. It simply horrifies me!"

Bowren felt the sudden sickening throbbing of his stomach. The
description. Now the slight familiarity of voice. And then he heard the
man say, murmuring, "Lois ... darling Lois...."

Lois! LOIS!

Bowren shivered. His jowls darkened, his mouth pressed thin by the
powerful clamp of his jaws. His body seemed to loosen all over and he
fell into a crouch. Tiredness and torn nerves and long-suppressed
emotion throbbed in him, and all the rage and suppression and
frustration came back in a wave. He yelled. It was more of a sound, a
harsh prolonged animal roar of pain and rage and humiliation.

"Lois ..." He ran forward.

She gasped, sank away as Bowren hit the man, hard. The man sighed and
gyrated swinging his arms, teetering and