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perhaps no longer full consent.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œOh, it’s a definition. Of sin.”
    â€œMy wife … my first wife, was a Catholic. I remember now. Grave matter. Full knowledge. And full consent.”
    â€œExactly.”
    â€œBut you’re not Catholic, Ruth.”
    â€œNo. But religion has always fascinated me.”
    â€œOh.”
    â€œI surprise you?”
    â€œIn every way, my dear.”
    Ah … “my dear.”
    â€œI assume you want some form of absolution.”
    â€œNo. No, I want to tell you …”
    Tell me nothing, Charles. Tell me nothing. I am familiar with sin …
    â€œLet’s see. I assume you’ve come to tell me that ‘this will never happen again,’ and to warn me.”
    â€œYou insult us both.”
    I might win.
    â€œWe have a choice. This will sound very cold. Very calculating. Forgive me. Our choice is order or chaos.”
    â€œWell, define ‘order’ for me, Charles.”
    â€œThe order of denial. Or the order of … deceit.”
    â€œAnd chaos? What about chaos?”
    â€œChaos of discovery. And the destruction of our families.”
    â€œAnd?”
    â€œAnd you, Ruth, as I have observed, are built for ordered deceit.”
    â€œAnd you?”
    â€œI don’t know. On the surface, perhaps. Even more than you. But I don’t know.”
    â€œElizabeth?” I ventured.
    â€œThe first rule, Ruth, is that you will never mention Elizabeth when we are together … like this.”
    â€œRules?” The rules of engagement.
    â€œYes. You see, Ruth, we match each other.”
    â€œPerhaps.”
    Children alone in the dark who have never been happy or good.

TWENTY-ONE
----
    I, who believed myself a master in most things, now began my apprenticeship to Charles Harding.
    I had believed him to be my victim. But he had been more willing than I knew. I had sought to trap. And was trapped, in a world of my own making. Which he came to dominate.
    Nothing prepared me for my hungers, which, if not assuaged, would surely devour me.
    Charles was not untouched by me—he had needs, too. But he could place limits on his desire. Whereas I had none. So I learned fear. But I never told my fear to Charles. Why arm one’s master? He was already strong enough.
    Charles was the stronger. And the stronger is always feared. “Better to be feared than loved”? Best to be feared and loved. Can they exist together? They almost always do.
    Why does the child love? Fear of abandonment, when sustenance is still needed. Is it the same with “love”? But that is not the correct word. What is the word—when one body feeds another? I had been worshipped by Dominick. I had seen his fear. Of abandonment.
    Now it was my turn. It always comes around. Your turn, for pain, for knowledge. The knowledge you wish you had not attained. But it comes. For no one can do your knowing for you.
    Elizabeth’s studio moved into the pattern of my lusts. Once, just once, I led a trapped Charles past blank, upstanding canvasses, and the blind blue skies she had painted were mocked by me—by my actions. In silence, though with sighs. And Elizabeth’s … things … moved deeper into the pattern of my needs.
    Over years, the lie became a habit. We wore it well. My lifetime of small deceits had made me a skilled exponent of a dubious art.
    Had Charles learned his capacity for treachery early? Or had it suddenly blossomed in that short, fatal relationship of long ago? In the year of Felicity’s death.
    Perhaps his was just a natural talent. I feared him too much to delve too deeply.
    And I sometimes wondered, did he not fear another tragedy? Or were Elizabeth’s innocence and goodness his great protection?
    Our times together, easily arranged—we had “privileged information”—were compulsive, fierce and never satisfying. They became a spiral staircase into rooms the