It's been what - eight years now since my husband died in Korea. I suppose that's the first thing which comes to mind as I begin this journal, though it is most certainly not the reason why, at forty years of age, I have suddenly decided to keep a journal.

I was standing this morning in the back yard feeding the chickens, tossing grain toward several dozen from a rusty old bucket. Cathy was sitting on a stool next to the back porch watching me. Cathy is very beautiful, knows it, even if she hesitates to admit it. Cathy will, I suppose, readily admit that she's very pretty, cannot deny that she has an incredibly beautiful figure. She's thirty, though I in the right light can still see a twenty two year old girl who befriended a relatively young widow. But in light hearted humor, Cathy will often walk up to me, stare me in the eyes with a pouting expression of jealousy on her face and say, "Eleanor, I hate you." Even if Cathy seems loathe to admit it, I honestly think that she is every bit as beautiful as anyone I have ever known, though I'm also quite aware that I was thought by most to be exceptionally beautiful, and still, in a favorable light, do not look anything close to my forty years. I'm painfully aware of it. I will, dear journal, explain later.

I'm forty, though to indulge another moment in a vanity to which I am in the odd moment still wont, I suppose I could discard ten or so years in that favorable light. It was only after I had married John that my appearance was ever of any real importance to me. Those amateur beauty contests had raised in me a new and undenied awareness of a propensity toward vanity, though any sense of same I might have possessed at the time had always been fleeting, never of any real or overriding importance to me. And now my Cathy is the only person in the world who with gentle warmth in her smile will compliment me on my appearance. It pleases me, I suppose, to hear her do so. I still give myself up to the occasional little fantasy whenever I walk downtown and some young man who does not know who I am gazes a moment's obvious, sometimes blatant attention toward me, though my Cathy and I are both quite aware that no one will ever again show any real interest in either of us, particular after they have found out who we are. Those who do know who we are leer at us, but they avoid any reason to talk to us. All Cathy and I will ever have for the rest of our lives is each other, though we've come to accept the fact. We feel, I suppose, emotionally comfortable with the fact. If no one else will talk to us and tell us we're beautiful, then we'll just hide together on our farm and say it to each other, sometimes with amusement in our features, sometimes with very real emotion.

I would like to call my love for my Cathy spiritual, will argue that it is, though it's certainly an emotional love at well. We love each other as I believe any two people might who have no one else, can never again expect to have anyone else. But still, Cathy tells me that I'm beautiful. She has ever since we've known each other, and oh yes, in a very earthy way it has come to please me hearing her say so. We've been friends for a very long time, emotionally intimate friends, feel very little need for restraint whenever we seek to express the depths of our concerns to each other. And now for two years, ever since the first time the police came for us (explanations, dear journal, to follow) we're all each other has had. We guard each other very carefully, search each other for the least hint of emotional distress, will pass entire days hovering at each other's sides should either of us suspect the other in need of some small gesture of comforting warmth.

And finally, dear journal - the rest, the supremely personal and intimate. I sometimes wonder if Cathy and I haven't, in very real ways, been lovers from the start, no other word seeming enough. I sometimes wonder if we saw in each other's eyes, even - before, even when we were two very different people, something just a bit sensual lurking beneath the surface, felt it whenever we touched our lips to each other's cheeks in kisses we decided were displays of gentle affection toward each other. Both Cathy and I had for quite some time supposed that any genuine and arduous sensuality was something for us which had vanished in the long buried past, had died with the people who had inhabited that past, people forever lost to Cathy and me. And I sit now over this journal immersed in some strange little wonder that there still exists for me another person to whom I can speak every last secret. I can meet my Cathy's eyes and whisper the most personal little intimacies. We've admitted, perhaps even become comfortable with our feelings toward each, a thousand risqué little intimacies whispered into each other's ears she and I declaring the other "adorable." We'll quite as often choose words which are even more blatant, knowing mischief in our eyes as we finally speak wicked little fantasies to each other, quite aware that we are doing just that. I suppose we take our mischief a bit far, however, when noticing the other's attention, our stance becomes an exotic little dance of writhing display, as often as not an exceptionally lascivious pose. We then break into mirthful laughter for our foolish mischief - and sometimes meet each other's eyes another moment and another timeless little eternity, wonder what it would be like. After all, we're both human. Neither Cathy nor I are really - abnormal, would you call it? I suppose we're just trying to cope with the inescapable fact that we are both on our little farm in the middle of nowhere going to grow old by ourselves, and trying to cope with the fact that we are both still human. Our blatant and undisguised mischief is just a means of doing so.

This morning, a gentle spring breeze in the air, Cathy sat at the back steps idle amusement in her features as she watched me feed the chickens. She tells me with a glance the intimacies of her heart. I hear her quite as though she speaks the words aloud. She tells me, first and always, that she cares for me, our love for each other grown during the course of all manner of trial and personal devastation the nature of which I might or might not bother with in the pages of this journal. I stood my bucket in hand tossing grain to the chickens the past, I suppose, there. And I stood as quickly immersed in that same mood of gentle wonder just for the fact that I hadn't ended on this farm entirely alone, that I stood a few paces away from a young woman who I love with a passion I will never, I suspect, comprehend in its entirety - and she with a half moment's glance speaking volumes. I stood immersed in a reeling little wonder for subtle little nuances, doubt between Cathy and me simply and forever meaningless. I stood knowing that another person's love for me was passion which I can only call finished, a love which resides in the honest depths of my Cathy's heart, that which is some bizarre mix of pain and otherworldly, inexplicable joy.

And I stood tossing grain to the chickens the moment become as quickly that which neither Cathy nor I now bother to deny it. It's another glance, little less than sultry mischief in her eyes. She tells me I'm beautiful, sees my mood in another quick, silent instant, guesses that irreverent amusement on her part will be well received.

I sit over this journal this evening in the quiet of my room attempting, I suppose, a moment's introspective pause. And I can't for a single instant take refuge in pretense or denial, just, in the end, don't want to. Ultimately, I just don't think there any real reason to do so. I stood in the yards this morning tossing grain to the chickens, glancing toward my Cathy sitting on her stool next to the house, sultry mischief, I suspect, in my features for the same awash in her eyes. We spoke the genuine depths of our love for each other over a five yard distance, made then at least a passing effort "to behave," though not with any real measure of success. She told me again that I was beautiful - and my stance as I tossed grain to the chickens little less than writhing eroticism. I probably laughed once or twice in easy amusement. Cathy tells me that I have a soft, quiet laugh. She then, however, just can't help but take another step "over the line," calls my laugh alluring and seductive.

And so I reached again into my bucket and tossed another handful of crushed corn to the chickens - my dance a timeless moment's lascivious abandon. Am I beautiful, Cathy, a flash of my eyes toward hers. I danced for her long, coal black hair flying in the breeze, saw the gentle entrancement in her eyes I had seen so often she gazing rapt, unabashed fascination, commenting on my appearance her words everything from poetry to uninhibited mischief.

My Cathy is looking at me, I told myself, my Cathy who thinks her friend beautiful. She loves me, deeply and sincerely, but she also thinks me beautiful - and who but Cathy will ever again tell Eleanor Arly that she is beautiful? Do you think your Eleanor beautiful, I asked Cathy again, an unabashed smile in her direction though I suppose I'm not meeting her eyes any longer. I've wandered a bit further into sensual fantasy than I should have, sigh frustration with myself as I force my attention toward several dozen chickens pecking seed at my feet.

But is it really so wrong that I share a brief moment of knowing intrigue with my Cathy? And Cathy knows exactly what I am doing, enjoys wicked little moments of the sort quite as intensely. She and I have no one but each other. Whatever we wish to share, we must turn to each other in order to do so. Is it wrong for one woman to ask another if she is beautiful? No one else will ever want either of us again, two people most others in the village of Cholry would be quite happy to see in prison - or worse (something else which must eventually be explained - maybe).

Perhaps, had I never been married, or my marriage had not been happy, I would be more reluctant to admit the depth of my feelings for Cathy. I can still not claim to entirely understand them. The reason for this is obvious - I am a woman, and Cathy is a woman. But I know what love is, at least to some extent, both close, emotional love in which one feels the smallest bit of pain residing in the other's heart, and earthy, human love in which one finds oneself entranced with every little thing about the other, feels enrapturing delight that the other feels exactly the same. Cathy is my life. She has told me many times over the past two years that she couldn't go on living without me, has also in easier moods told me that I am the most beautiful and alluring creature who has ever lived. And so I stood in the yards this morning tossing grain to the chickens never for an instant doubting my Cathy's love for me emotional violence from the honest depths of her heart - and I danced for her, her love for me fondling, caressing, another half instant's glance enough. I danced for my Cathy this morning immersed finally in as helpless an abandon as any I have ever known.

"I'm - I'm in love with her," I confessed to Father Alderson about a year ago. Oh how frightened I was doing so. I remember trembling, desperately searching for the words. I felt quite at though I was a novice in the convent once again, twenty years of a life bizarre by any standards imaginable vanished in an instant. As usual, Father Alderson had been ahead of me. He'd been so kind to me twenty years ago when I had a short time before final vows discovered that I wasn't really meant to be a nun (Father Alderson twenty years readily admitting that he as well was given to the occasional moment of wickedly vain delight, a handsome young man seeing in my eyes that which I just couldn't hide from him). He'd been just as kind a year ago when I had tried to confess the feelings I had begun to experience for another woman, I searching desperately to discover if those feelings passed beyond the bounds of that which I might previously have considered proper.

"Eleanor," Father Alderson answered, "I do believe you know yourself almost as well as I do." I remember breaking into a soft, nervous laugh, my tremble subsiding. "Eleanor, you gave Cathy your heart, then your soul, then your arms when she desperately needed them, and only then, I suspect, did you find the rest of your body coming along for the ride. You and Cathy have been through horror no two people should have to live through, Eleanor, but I still think your love for each other is something a great deal more than - a passing fancy, shall we say. As for the rest -" something very like amusement creasing the lines of my old spiritual director's features, "well, let's just say there's nothing new under the sun, and very little in most people's experience which is really unique. You'll know when it's time to say a quick little prayer whenever the fantasies become a bit too intense. And Eleanor, don't run back to the convent if you happen to step a crack over the line every once and awhile. You're a beautiful person, my dear, but you were never really a nun."

For a time, Cathy and I could once more settle into each other's arms as we have for the past eight years now ever since the death of my husband. We still kissed each other on the lips, we always have, an affectionate touch of a sort Cathy had always shared with her family when they were alive, for Cathy and me a touch perhaps a bit more intimate, a kiss between two friends who have decided over the years to discard the least hint of secrecy between themselves. I suppose, in the end, we simply decided to live with that which we just couldn't hide from each other - that which just this morning once more seemed love making in every sense of the word.

I've known Cathy ever since she was a child. I've known her well for the past eight years now. If anyone knows the meaning of pain, it is Cathy Richards, nee Crane. She was a clerk at Thompson's Feed and Grain in town when I first became well aquatinted with her, newly wed to a young village policeman. There's much more history to it all, so many bitter memories for both of us. But I must confine myself for the moment to matters of immediate consequence.

Suffice it to say that I sometimes wonder if either of us is entirely sane after everything we've been through. Just a little of it now. For a year after I received the news of my husband's death in Korea, it seemed I could not get through another day unless Cathy Richards, an exceptionally pretty accounts clerk from the feed store who had taken a liking to me, came out to the farm and hugged me once or twice. I was a widow at thirty two, and felt very little reason to go on living. Cathy, so warm, so gentle, would kiss me right on the lips, everything from mischief to buoyant delight in her eyes as she did so, she giving me at least the hint of a reason to go on living. Harry Richards, Cathy's husband and also a veteran from Korea, sometimes drove Cathy out to the farm in his police car over the next few years before he went off to work.

Four years ago, I was close to loosing the farm once again, unable to pay the taxes. It wasn't that I didn't have enough money with John's pension and the small income I made from the farm. I just didn't know anything about handling money, and the small town of Cholry in rural New York is not, I suppose, a great deal different than anywhere else. People found it easy to steal from a thirty two year old widow who didn't know very much about money. Cathy and Harry were looking for a new apartment at the time, so I offered to share the house with them. Cathy was ecstatic, Harry acquiesced. By that time, Cathy had discovered that she and Harry had fallen out of love with each other. Cathy had hoped that Harry would pay her more attention living on the farm instead of in town. Harry, however, was soon back passing his time in the bars, his evenings in other women's beds. I remember feeling so heartbroken for Cathy - until the day I edged consoling eyes toward hers and realized that she couldn't have cared less about where Harry passed his time.

"Eleanor - I'm content. Let's go feed your chickens," she and I walking hand in hand from the house to do so, passing another morning puttering about the farm together, perhaps passing an afternoon down by the river pretending we were teenage girls without a care in the world.

"Come on, Eleanor -" giddy delight in Cathy's eyes as she stripped her clothing away, intrigued delight in her eyes as I sighed, gave up, pushed my own clothing away - and lay some afternoons at Cathy's side on our secluded beach wondering if she knew how much more than juvenile mischief it all suddenly seemed to me. It had then seemed but another bizarre moment or two, Cathy and I one afternoon wandering back to the house, she touching her lips to mine the same amused mischief in her eyes - and for another timeless moment something a world more.

I'll always wonder what our lives might have been had things just continued on as they were. Harry if at home lounged in a chair beer in hand ignoring Cathy and me. Cathy and I were eminently content to be ignored, were more than content with each other's company. Things did not, however, continue as they were. I suppose I'll never forget the terror I felt when standing at the stove one morning I waited in annoyance for the usual groping caress from Harry - and Harry that morning just not stopping. I'll never forget the hopeless despair I felt afterwards, laying in my bedroom trembling in paralyzed terror as Cathy came to me - and the thing some otherworldly, abandoned release of that terror as my Cathy wrapped me into her arms, crushed me to her heart, her cries of painful anguish for me rather than for any loss or affront to herself. It was then ongoing horror I just can't imagine either of us could have survived without each other, the district attorney listening to my complaint, sighing his sympathy - smirking as broadly as everyone else. Village policemen who were Harry's friends brought Cathy and me back to the farm, then smirked as Harry boasted of "his two wives." Two years ago, Harry was shot and killed on the narrow dirt road a short distance from our house. The other policemen in town shot Cathy's father and brother, then came out to the farm and took Cathy and me to jail. They have taken us to jail a dozen more times over the past two years. I suppose they think Cathy and I were involved in Harry's death, conspired with Cathy's father and brother. They still, as I say, harass Cathy and me from time to time. It is no secret in Cholry that Cathy and I are very close. Perhaps they think that we will eventually incriminate each other. We never have, never will, because neither of us had anything to do with Harry's death, not, at least, in any way which could by a sane and rational person be interpreted as criminal.

Is there any way that Cathy and I, both of us now widows, "black widows" according to village whispering, can survive without fleeing to each other's arms at least once a day? What exactly is the love which exists between us? Would I be better off by myself? I asked myself questions of the sort this morning as I stood in the yards feeding the chickens, stealing one glance after another toward the young woman sitting next to the house. Are we absolutely, irrevocably dependant on each other? Would I stop breathing were Cathy to do so? Oh dear God, I hope so.

As usual, I urged myself into an easier humor this morning as I carried the empty feed bucket to the shed, lowered it to the ground - and stood my dancing for Cathy culminating, frenzied abandon, writhing eroticism to lascivious extremes. I edged my eyes to the little cotton shirt I wore, to cutoff shorts which I would never have dared in town, the moment an exercise in licentious vanity to every possible extreme.

"Were I not so in love with you," Cathy will still from time to time declare, "I would absolutely hate you, Eleanor." I suppose it's true, my figure - that which it is. Twenty year old men in town, those who of course don't know who I am, ask me for dates. When the police interrogate me, they usually call me "beauty queen" once or twice, sarcasm in their voices, something which frightens me in their eyes.

I glanced again toward Cathy sitting on her stool next to the back porch just to make sure that she was still looking at me. Oh yes, I sighed, it's quite true. I glanced toward my Cathy who I love with an emotional ferocity I'll never entirely understand, and I glanced toward a young woman as she was, couldn't help seeing her as she was, dressed in cutoff shorts and a light cotton shirt. We are both the same size, both tall. We don't even bother separating our clothes any more, just snatch up whatever's there. I don't see just the person I love sitting on that stool beside the back porch, the one person I have left to love. I see my Cathy, my own Cathy, so absolutely stunning, and I find myself enjoying her eyes on me, every second of it.

I yet again turned away, realized that I had once more gone too far. Sighing, struggling with my thought, I urged myself toward something gentler, certainly something a bit less licentious. I'm sorry, God, I pray, allow the sensual frenzy into which I've worked myself to settle. It does, though not entirely. It never does entirely, not any more. I'm so damned in love with Cathy - madly in love with her. But it settles to an extent. It did this morning, and I finally turned my eyes back to Cathy who I love with all my heart and soul, smiling with idle warmth as I walked toward the porch.

"Well, that's the chickens," I sighed in fatigued tones, wiping the perspiration from my forehead as I glanced toward the rails of another pen across the yards. "The hogs next, I guess."

"I'll help you, Eleanor."

"Thank you, Cathy," perhaps an edge mischief in my smile as I lowered myself onto the grass beside her stool, then my head onto her lap. I edged my eyes up toward hers, urged myself toward restraint - and it's the same resigned abandon it always is.

"What -?" Cathy chuckled, tensing, expecting anything.

"I was going to do the hogs right after the chickens, Cathy -"

"But -?"

"Your lascivious little eyes - all over my body -"

"Stop -" a mirthful chuckle.

"You have such - lascivious eyes, Cathy - drives me wild -"

"Will you stop, Eleanor -"

I'd lain a hand to her leg, my touch a half moment's blatantly teasing caress.

"No - I won't stop. Besides, you started it - those lascivious eyes of yours -"

It's a moment or two - yet it's a timeless little eternity, secret between the two of us long since gone. She sighed the requisite protest for my caressing touch to her leg - and she and I meeting each other's eyes again, the thing something I can only call consummating. It's the ultimate in knowing intimacy, my Cathy and I simply knowing that our love for each other is a violent passion of every possible sort, that which resides in the honest depths of our hearts - yet that which is something a world more. And we tease each other incessantly because we do in fact know it, my touch to her leg a moment's blatant, caressing intimacy, little less, I suspect, than wicked, mischievous delight in my eyes - and for one fleeting yet impossibly timeless moment Cathy and I hiding absolutely nothing from each other.

As passionately as we love each other, as admittedly sensual as our love for each other can seem in any odd moment, I still believe that it is our friendship which sustains us, which provides us a reason to just go on. The rest is there, always there, just below the surface, has certainly been there ever since our troubles with the police began and we retreated to our farm, retreated to each other's arms to live the rest our lives in social isolation. But we were intimate friends long before all that began.

I'm not quite certain, for that matter, exactly when it all did begin. I sat in my Cathy's arms this morning edging my eyes again toward hers, she and I two people who with a glance see every last intimacy. And still, I found myself even in the moment wondering if it had been any different from the start. I was a young widow, living by myself on this farm - felt for a time some strange little despair for a returning warmth which I had thought, at thirty two years of age, something forever a part of my past. I'd struggled with supremely personal intimacies for a short time, and with little more than sighing resignation had just given up, had admitted my physical wants - that which they were. It had seemed but another bizarre instant, I sitting with a young woman over tea in the kitchen perhaps discussing the weather, and Cathy with sudden, unabashed mischief in her features intimating that I was still a young woman, intimating a great deal more - mentioning the names of a few unattached men in town. "Perhaps - someday," I sighed and chuckled, met an exceptionally perceptive young woman's eyes she glancing little less than knowing, wicked mischief. Cathy by then wandered unannounced out to the farm at any odd moment, wandered upstairs if she couldn't find me downstairs, flung herself down on my bed watching me dress - declared that I on the walkways in town along which we were to stroll would be an object of a great deal of attention on the part of any number of unattached young men. "Maybe - someday," I just sighed and chuckled, sometimes saw pouting annoyance in Cathy's features for a pronouncement on my part which never changed.

I hadn't at the time, I suppose, had any interest whatsoever in romance, and wandered into my bedroom one afternoon yet again giving myself up to a nature which seemed almost - insatiable. It had seemed but one more bizarre moment, a young woman who by then had become the joy of my life dashing into my bedroom quite as she had any number of times, she that particular afternoon, however, doing so at a supremely inopportune and - culminating moment. "Oh -" she gasped - and finally flung her eyes to mine. I'd flung my eyes to hers - lay on my bed another incomprehensible eternity in reeling paralysis - will never know why it wasn't in another moment the sheer terror I might previously have thought it must be. "Cathy -" I'd gasped, and I suppose it had been another timeless moment's paralysis for both of us - and as quickly just some resigned, knowing amusement. "Eleanor - I'll - I'll be downstairs -"

I'd walked down the staircase several minutes later searching for any available bit of settling ease, told myself that she'd probably known all along anyway. Hadn't, after all, she and I sometimes with wicked, knowing delight in our eyes intimated all manner of supremely personal intimacies over the past year or so? I'd found her leaning over the stove in the kitchen, had walked through the door pretending that nothing out of the ordinary had happened - had as she'd glanced up from the tea kettle toward me yet again lain entirely naked on my bed writhing in the throes of the ultimately personal pleasure. It was yet again a timeless moment, perhaps a moment of fright for both of us - and as quickly a moment I'll never forget. A young woman who for the past year or so had seen welcoming delight awash in my eyes whenever she walked through the door just raised her hands, crushed them to my arms, the touch of her lips to my own the same buoyant affection - and all of the wicked delight I had seen so often already yet again awash in her eyes. "Eleanor - I still do it too - sometimes twice a day, particularly if Harry's - disappeared again."

I sat this morning with Cathy at the back steps, edged my eyes again toward hers. So much has happened since then, so much devastating pain and sorrow, she and I in some ways very different people today. And still, I buried my eyes to hers a moment and some bizarre, timeless eternity some things between us as they were from the start - and she and I meeting each other's eyes the thing knowing, finished intimacy between us.

It was however, I decided, time to settle into moods something a bit more down to earth.

"All right?" I whispered.

"I'm all right," Cathy's features gentle, contented ease even as she held me in close embrace. It's an embrace in which she gave, as well as sought belonging and security.

I edged my eyes again toward hers, rested in her arms seeing searching solemnity in her features. I rested in her arms knowing it was going to be any bizarre thought rambling into her mind.

"Sometimes - sometimes, Eleanor, it still all feels like - like death. It's - lonely, I guess. It's as if you come outside and you can smell death everywhere, no matter where you are, as if the air had an odor, even back in the woods."

"Maybe -" I sighed, chuckled, saw little more than idle musing in her eyes. "Sometimes it just feels like - things ending to me. I ask myself why things ever began in the first place. It just feels like everything coming to an end. It's like there's a wall, a barrier, and we just can't find a way through. Sometimes I wonder why God lets things happen the way they do."

"You, Eleanor? But you're a saint. I mean, everyone says -"

"Cathy -" I groaned. She just sighed. Maybe some people, at least in the past, had thought me possessed of some lofty and detached moral quality associated in their minds with saintliness. I know the truth, however, and so does Cathy. "I'm not going to argue that point this morning anyway. All I can say, Cathy, is that I'm as frightened as anyone else at times. I cry as passionately as anyone else. Oh, I've spoiled my beautiful darling's mood, haven't I?"

"It needed spoiling."

"No it didn't, Cathy," I laughed.

"Eleanor, you know - I find myself feeling very happy at times -" Cathy burying her eyes to mine in finished, pleading intimacy. "Before - before it was just - all hell. Now I'm happy - happier than I've ever been in my life. And you know exactly why I'm happy, Eleanor. Is it - wrong that I am?"

I raised my arm, lay a caressing finger to my Cathy's lips a long, quiet moment, waited until it was yet again easy amusement in her eyes.

"First, my baby Cathy, I love you - with all of my heart. And second, I do not in any way feel guilty over the fact that I can pass hours every day feeling ecstatically happy myself. My Cathy loves me and I love her. We feed the chickens and then the hogs and sometimes we do nothing all afternoon but walk hand in hand together through the woods. We hold each other's hands and we feel the pain in each other's hearts. Sometimes we stop, maybe a quiet, secret grove along our path through the woods, look around to make certain we're alone. We have to be. It is, after all, our own secret little grove in the forest. Then my Cathy kisses me, usually right on the lips - oh - it's awful -"

Her chuckle is mirthful amusement. It still sometimes amazes me that that I can lead her along and snap her into a different mood in nothing more than a moment.

"Well -?" I continued, demand in my voice.

"I'm happy," she pled with a gentle laugh, continued in thoughtful quiet. "Eleanor - do you ever think about marrying again - I mean, really? It seems - such a waste -"

It's the same vain little delight for me. I settled as quickly, however, into searching quiet.

"Seriously - very seriously, Cathy, before John came home from France or Germany or wherever his unit was and swept me into his arms, I'd lost all hope of ever marrying. I was twenty five, a teacher, just released from the convent, and I felt absolutely ancient. I suppose my father was as frightening as any - you may look at George Lang's daughter but you may not touch, and no one did."

"I remember looking at you when you graduated, Eleanor. I was eight and Bobby was ten. I was old enough to know that I wanted to look like you someday, to win all those beauty contests you did. I remember going home that night and looking at your picture in the yearbook. Bobby and I sat in my room, and I asked him what valedictorian meant, but he didn't know at the time either. Then when I was in high school, Bobby came to me pointing at the newspapers saying 'look' your idol just got married.' Was it hard for you, Eleanor, before you married John?"

"I don't know if I was ever really happy. I was content, I suppose. I'd walk downtown, usually wearing dresses a bit tighter than comfortable, and people would speak to me, but no one would really say anything. My father - the convent and all - I suppose people didn't know how to take me. They would look at me, undress me - some people would be very surprised to hear who some of the people were who did that - but no one ever talked to me. Not until John came home to Cholry. My father called him a barbarian, which did nothing but spur John on. And Mother Assumpta was right about me, I guess. I was just a bit too - worldly for the convent, wore even tighter dresses when John began to take an interest in me. But John was seeing something more, and it came as something of a shock to me when I realized that he was. He was so kind, so gentle, and he talked to me, Cathy, and I was in love. It couldn't have been more than a day after I had met him. I suppose that's why I just don't - think about marrying again, even - if it were possible. If my marriage to John hadn't been happy - who knows? I might feel differently. But I will always love John, even if just in memory. It's enough for me. It always will be."

And I edged my eyes again toward hers, a familiar pain for her coursing into my heart. Cathy's marriage, almost from the beginning, hadn't been a happy one.

"I loved Harry - at least at the start. At least I thought I did, that first year -"

"You're still very young, Cathy, and - quite as absolutely stunning -"

Cathy sensed the nuances with a glance. I want her to be happy, but she won't hear what I want to say. She leaned in order to silence me, she eminently aware that a half moment's mischief would be enough. She touched her lips to my cheek, her kiss nothing more than a half moment's teasing caress - and the thing timeless in ways I've never before known in quite the same way.

"Cathy - you're absolutely - wicked -"

"Yes - I know, Eleanor. Anyway - what were you saying -?"

I sighed, chuckled, rested my head on her lap, dared another glance. It's every sort of emotion coursing into my heart for the crush of her arms about my shoulders. It's some rapturous little joy my Cathy holding me in owning, possessing embrace. And yet it's a moment of knowing abandon between us, yet again something I can only call consummating. And it's been a long time now since I've felt any real guilt for moments of the sort - I edging my eyes toward hers telling her supreme little intimacies.

"Eleanor -" her voice a quiet yet frantic whisper, "Eleanor - I love you. I love you so much -"

"Cathy -" I tried, "I love you -"

It's in so many ways every doubt between us long since gone. It's pleading emotion choking my voice, my Cathy for another timeless eternity resting in little less than ecstatic delight knowing my love for her is some finished violence from the depths of my heart - and she, as usual, hearing the nuances, an edge of passion in my voice and as quickly a subtle little note of denial. At times I can rest easily in her arms. And at times her warmth in close and intimate embrace is still a struggle. And Cathy, of course, penetrates into the secret depths of my mind with another half instant's glance, is quite aware that I'm struggling with the ferocity of my love for her. At times, just the tone of my voice sends her into a moment's reeling panic. And oh the pained, frightened expression in her features this morning - her embrace sudden, new violence. Oh Eleanor, she cries from wide, piercing eyes - stop it. We've done nothing wrong. All we've ever done is kiss each other - even after we fell in love with each other.

"Eleanor -" she finally pronounced in commanding vehemence, "you are never leaving me. Never, Eleanor. I'll never let you -"

"Cathy - I wouldn't -"

"Yes you would, Eleanor. You'd stand next to me but let your heart drift away, maybe not at first, maybe not intentionally, but even a little would hurt me, Eleanor. Oh Eleanor - oh God, how could I live without you? What would I have? And I'm not an evil person, Eleanor. I'm not a saint, but I try. And you are a saint, Eleanor. I know one when I see one."

"Cathy - why are you so frightened?" I pled. "You've misunderstood -"

"Eleanor - you're all I've got. Who else would ever want to have anything to do with me now - even if I wanted -"

"Cathy - you're seeing something which just isn't there. Yes, sometimes I'm frightened by my love for you, but I know myself - better than you think I do, and I'm stronger than you think I am. Have you ever once, ever for an instant, really believed you aren't my entire life, my heart -"

"No, Eleanor - no -"

"But you've heard fear in my voice. Cathy, I love you - and I'm madly in love with you, every little thing about you, my darling, your voice, your beauty, your shy and gentle smile. And sometimes I don't know when one sort of love stops and another begins, and sometimes that does frighten me. But even so, I just can't imagine waking up tomorrow without you, not while either of us is still alive. It's just as simple as that, Cathy. It's not good or bad. It just is. Whatever else happens - no matter what feelings I have to work through, I have decided to spend the rest of my life with my darling, and that's all there is to it. I'm never going to give you up. And I can wander a little over the line without feeling it necessary to whip myself into repentance afterwards. We both discovered just how human we both are a very long time ago, and we discovered it together. Remember? We both have the same little fantasies, and we've certainly never hidden anything from each other. Sometimes, after a particularly - vivid exercise in vain little fantasy, I will say a prayer when I've caught myself. Sometimes I just let it all go. It depends on how far I've gone. When we're down by the river and I've walked up to you and flung you down onto the sand -"

She broke into a long moment's easy laughter.

"I usually catch myself before that. Sometimes I don't. Just a couple minutes ago, Cathy, I was feeding the chickens as my darling was looking at me -"

The embrace of her arms about my shoulders was fierce, emotional strength. She knows exactly what I'm saying - and knew that I was flinging myself on.

"Cathy -" I whispered this morning as we sat in each other's arms at the back steps, she burying her eyes to mine knowing I was going to take her where I would never have dared had not a bond of complete and finished intimacy existed between the two of us, secret, any sort of distance whatsoever entirely meaningless. "Cathy, I was tossing feed to the chickens - and oh how I danced as my darling beauty watched me, those absolutely lascivious eyes -"

She chuckled in gentle mirth - her arms around me in frantic embrace.

"I danced for my darling Cathy. Am I beautiful, I asked her over and over again as I danced for her - danced ever more exotically trying to get my darling to watch me a bit more closely. Stop it, I had to tell myself. You're just teasing her and you're teasing yourself a you're being wicked. A quick prayer and I promised myself that I would try harder. But Cathy - we loved each other long before we fell in love with each other. Remember -?"

She nodded, the depths of emotion clouding her eyes. I'm not yet certain if I will in the pages of this journal detail the horror through which Cathy and I lived when Harry, Cathy's policeman husband, was still alive, the beatings, the - humiliation we both suffered at his hands, the nightmare ordeal which drove Cathy and me into each other's arms.

"We loved each other long before we fell in love with each other," I repeated. "We hid together here on the farm and loved each other and kissed each other long before we discovered ourselves capable of falling in love with another woman. My Cathy loves me. She loves her Eleanor, not a dancer who in unguarded, wicked little moments parades before her in erotic little twists just to see if she still thinks I'm beautiful. Cathy - don't be afraid if you hear a little edge of fright in my voice. I'm deeply in love with you. I think you the most ravishing beauty who has ever lived. And all that, my sweet, beautiful darling, is absolutely nothing, rubbish, compared to how I really feel about you. You took me into your heart a long time ago, Cathy. Now just try to get me out. Try to leave me. I'll chain you up naked in the basement -"

From tears, Cathy broke into mirthful laughter on the instant. It thrills me that I can do that for her. Anyone else who has been through that which Cathy Richards has would never be able to laugh with such abandon.

"I guess you've said all these things to me about a thousand times, haven't you, Eleanor?"

"Yes I have. When are you going to believe me?"

"Eleanor, do you think we are - different? I mean - we don't hide anything from each other. There's nothing we don't talk about with each other. I don't know - maybe we shouldn't be talking about this -"

"I hardly think two people who love each other and also happen to find themselves - attracted to each other can avoid the topic for very long."

"No," Cathy chuckled. "No, I guess not."

"It isn't something I would feel particularly comfortable talking to anyone else about. It's - private. I believe it should be. I'm still thinking about keeping a journal, Cathy. It would include everything we've been through over the past four years - Harry and all, but I suppose it would also be a very - intense little love story, if you will. I hope, if someone reads our tragic little love story fifty or so years from now, they will do so in a certain - mood of privacy."

"Eleanor - that doesn't make sense."

"No," I laughed, "I suppose it doesn't," and I pushed myself to my feet, gazing across the yard toward the hog pens. Two of the largest are ready for slaughter.

"The Nolan Brothers are sending a truck next week."

Cathy nodded, gazed toward the pen herself. I think Cathy supposes that she is beginning to understand farm life. After all, she's lived with me on the farm four years now. Since she lost her job at the feed store after her husbands death, she rarely leaves the farm. Still, Cathy readily admits that she will never understand farm life as I do. After all, I took my first steps as a child in this same yard.

"How," Cathy asked, "can you so devote yourself to the hogs, and then just stand there with a look of stone as they're hauled away?"

"Because, my darling, we have to pay the taxes," Cathy aiming a glance of annoyance toward me.

"I wasn't -"

"Yes you were," I chuckled. "You were almost ready to start crying for them again. Come on, stop being lazy," and I reached for Cathy's arm, pulled her from the stool.

"Oh Eleanor, I just get in the way. I'm more a nuisance to you than a help outside -"

"Yes, you certainly are. Come on anyway," and I dragged her across the yard toward the storage shed, sighing easy amusement for her sigh of groaning resignation. Cathy enjoys working at my side, however. Since the horror we had endured a few months ago the last time the police came for us, she will rarely leave my side. She hadn't for a month been able to sleep in her own room, crawled into bed with me, clinging to me with trembling arms throughout the night. I suppose we'd both, after a month, just decided to resume as close to a normal life as possible.

I led Cathy into the shed, walked to the opposite wall and reached for a heavy sack of feed, then for a knife in order to rip the top of the sack open - Cathy and I even in the midst of the eminently mundane playing our sensual little games. She gazes unabashed fascination toward a tall, voluptuously proportioned amazon warrior who wrestles a fifty pound sack of grain about with fluid, athletic dexterity, a swift, deft slash of the knife to complete the task. Behave, I might have told myself walking into the shed - and will never know why I bother. I'm entirely naked now as I dance for Cathy, have given myself up to every manner of licentious imagining, am reveling in vain, abandoned delight knowing that my figure is still that which it has always been. I can, I suppose, readily admit that in a less than favorable light something of my forty years can be seen in my facial features. Standing some mornings in front of the mirror, I gaze a moment's sighing frustration toward more strands of gray so inescapably obvious in otherwise coal black hair. And yet - I stole another glance toward my Cathy as I wrestled a sack of feed about in the grain shed, hadn't the least doubt that her love for me was emotional passion residing in the honest depths of her heart - and as lascivious a creature who has ever lived stripping my clothing away, gazing blatant, devouring scrutiny as I danced for her in culminating, abandoned delight. My figure certainly couldn't be called anything other than mature, yet was indeed, I decided in culminating, vain delight, still that which could easily be called an hourglass ideal to every to every mature and voluptuous extreme.

Lord, I sighed, daring at the moment little more as I wrestled a sack of grain about in the storage shed - and yet again lived a moment which I can only call - awakening. I'd wandered into my bedroom that afternoon a year or two after Cathy and I had become close, emotionally intimate friends my mood one of sighing resignation, I a relatively young widow - and certainly, I decided, the most sexually ravenous creature who had ever lived. It helped, I suppose, that I had just that morning leafed through a copy of D H Lawrence (yes, That one, and certainly the only copy of it in Cholry) which John with a smile of wicked delight had given me shortly after we were married (I'm not certain, the book still at the time banned in Britain, where John got it). I'd settled onto my bed, however, needing nothing more than vague and ill defined fantasies, the act little more than mechanical, perhaps some element of licentious vanity to it as I gazed the length of my body as some vague and ill defined lover might, I reveling in some resigned yet vain delight that my vague and ill defined lover would see that which most will describe as hourglass feminine beauty to every voluptuous and alluring extreme. It was finally, I suppose, auto eroticism to every frantic and writhing extreme, D H Lawrence at it's most culminating. "Fuck me -" I'd gasped, I for my vague and ill defined lover finally gasping in the throes of an eminently furious and satisfying release.

And the next moment was something I'll never forget, Cathy as she had so often for at least the past year dashing through the door. It had for moments been that which either of us might previously have supposed it would be, startled paralysis, a desperate search for retreat from circumstances as awkward as any imaginable. And yet - it had for a fleeting moment and some bizarre, impossibly timeless eternity been something I could never quite have imagined it would be. A young woman for whom I felt by then as passionate a love as any I had ever known stood little more than a pace away from me, her eyes for that paralyzed moment flung as though helplessly toward the supremely personal intimacies of my body, I engaged in a supremely personal act - and that for some bizarre, timeless little eternity which I can only call wild, abandoned lightning yet again pounding the length of my body. I'll never entirely understand why, though I suppose now that I might indeed have anticipated the moment to be that which it was. Cathy and I had been emotionally intimate friends for at least a year - friends who by then seeing knowing mischief in each other's eyes could whisper intimacies using language straight out of D H Lawrence. And Cathy, her marriage by then everything from boredom to violence and pain, could with wicked mischief in her eyes declare to me that she didn't really care whether she "got it" from Harry or not, Harry, she'd suspected even it the time, unfaithful almost from the start. Cathy by then could walk into my bedroom on a whim, decide which dress I was to wear for a stroll into town, I her breathing doll to be stripped, fussed over and attired according to her lascivious mood. I by then could stand naked for Cathy reveling in vain delight for everything from pouting envy to blatant, scrutinizing intrigue in her eyes - could after she had dressed me touch my lips to hers immersed in some joyous little rapture that I had someone to love, that my Cathy standing hands crushed to my waist might touch her lips again to mine her love for me that which I no longer doubted had become the passion of her life - and Cathy with wicked mischief in her eyes backing me to a mirror, gazing a final moment's devouring scrutiny toward "my ass" in order to be certain that the dress in which she had attired me was fit in as outrageously revealing a manner as possible.

It had been a moment's startled paralysis, Cathy stumbling through the door, I laying naked on my bed arching and writhing in that which must have appeared a maniacal frenzy. We'd finally gasped each other's names, Cathy declaring that she'd wait for me downstairs. I think I had nodded, had dared her eyes one fleeting instant - and it yet again seeming some bizarre, timeless eternity. I'd lain entirely naked on my bed, Cathy standing little more than a pace away - and that in her eyes which had simply seemed a world different than I could ever have imagined - Cathy for that fleeting moment and that impossibly timeless eternity caressing me, the love which we knew existed between us become in one sudden moment physical and leapt in that sudden instant to some culminating intensity. It might for a half moment have been the usual amusement in her eyes - and yet had seemed for that final timeless eternity something a world more. I hadn't for at least a year prior to that afternoon had the least doubt that a beautiful young woman's physical wants were every bit as ravenous as my own, Cathy with wicked mischief in her features finding ways to tell me exactly that, perhaps amusement in her eyes she stumbling into my bedroom at a supremely inopportune moment - and for that culminating moment something a world more in her eyes.

She'd finally turned, edged her way through the door. I'd lain another moment in dazed, reeling oblivion not quite certain what was happening - until in yet another blinding instant I'd lain immersed in that which I finally realized was nothing less than a bizarre wash of disappointment. Oh God, I'd gasped as I pushed myself from the bed, thrown clothing on - and stood for yet another dazed, reeling eternity a supremely intimate truth inescapable. I'd seen that in another woman's eyes which had seemed nothing less than want, want for me - and that which I could yet again only call lightning pounding the length of my body, my own want become in that same instant as raw and maddening an ache as any I had ever known. It had seemed that Cathy declaring that she would wait for me downstairs had hesitated a moment before turning for the door - and I, I'd finally realized and admitted - waiting, waiting for her to fling herself into my bed, slam my body into her arms, ravish me with her kisses and caresses.

Oh Lord, I'd gasped again as I pushed myself down the stairs deciding that I had mistaken everything - and the rest of the afternoon something I'll never forget. It was mischief, Cathy declaring that she "did it too." It was as well, however, culminating, knowing intimacy, she and I meeting each other's eyes the obvious inescapable, she and I both woman, and yet - she and I after a kiss of emotional affection meeting each other's eyes again, the moment rather than amusement yet again become the ultimate in knowing intimacy. It was something I just can't get out of my mind, standing that afternoon my hands wrapped to a beautiful young woman's waist, my eyes buried to hers - and my body fallen into an aroused want I can only call as maddening and painful an ache as any I had ever known. And in yet another instant it was all something incomparably more, my Cathy's hands crushed to my own waist, her eyes buried unabashedly to mine - and the thing yet again some culminating wash of primal warmth a beautiful young woman standing her want all of the aching ferocity my own had become.

And with that, I suppose we had both decided that retreat was now eminently necessary, both Cathy and I searching for the way to do so - and sudden, characteristic mischief in the eyes of a self assured young woman her means of extricating us from a moment of supremely personal intimacy that which I might have expected.

"Eleanor -" and I waited, suspecting it would be something entirely outrageous, "Eleanor - wanna have sex -?"

"Cathy -" I'd gasped, never for another reeling moment certain why. I finally decided that I had done so in feigned astonishment, pretended everything from annoyance to amusement for another moment - and yet for one fleeting, knowing moment answered her question probably as blatantly and unabashedly as it had been asked. Yes - I'd cried - will never deny that I had.

"Well - lemme get home, get Harry's diner on," Cathy had sighed that afternoon. I'd walked with her as usual to the door, touched my lips to hers - had after she had gone settled onto the couch the evening for me bizarre, timeless oblivion. I waited, felt something of the lonely pain I always felt whenever Cathy left me - and in another moment sat my cries primal, choking anguish wrenched from the depths of my lungs. I struggled, sat in reeling confusion - and sat in another startled, awakening instant the truth inescapable. Oh God, I whispered that evening - that evening I knew that I had fallen desperately, painfully in love with another woman, wanted her with me, near me, not quite certain how I was to survive that evening alone - and the thing just not ending, the thing seeming some preordained fate. The telephone rang, rang when I so desperately needed it to, the sound of her voice some immersing abandoned joy for me as she told me that Harry wasn't home, that she and I could talk as long as we wanted to - I perhaps an hour or two later allowing myself a moment's pause, she and I chuckling together, realizing together that our conversation for the past hour or two had been that of two lovers. And as usual, Cathy had allowed herself mischief to every blatant extreme. "Know that old book I was looking at a couple weeks ago -? that one about two women -?" another which a young English teacher dabbling in the obscure and the bizarre had found, John with the usual mischief in his eyes stating that the literature of the Victorians wasn't always "as Victorian" as it was generally supposed. "Oh God, Cathy -" I'd sighed and chuckled into the phone - glancing toward a shelf and wondering why I hadn't done something about a dozen or so volumes predating D H Lawrence, the volume to which Cathy referred eminently explicit.

And so I had settled myself into bed that evening immersed in some rapturous little joy rather than pain, immersed as quickly in some novel, amused wonder. It wasn't, I'd decided, anything more than a moment's mischief, both Cathy and I "normal." It wasn't to be anything more than another half moment's mischief, I perhaps her breathing doll again, she with the same wicked delight in her eyes gazing a moment's blatant, devouring scrutiny, she and I meeting each other's eyes another half moment - and the thing something I could never quite have imagined. The touch of her hands run up and down my body is maddening, an excruciating pleasure to extremes I had never before known in quite the same way. Stop, I'd whispered one timeless moment, attempted denial, pretense - had just given up. It's Cathy laying at my side, her body entwined about my own, my lover not a vague and ill defined fantasy, my lover suddenly become my sweet, beautiful Cathy - and the thing yet again something I could never have imagined. It just doesn't stop, is pounding, exploding pleasure of a ferocity I'd never before known.

I'd dragged her into the grain shed this morning - I her tall, voluptuously alluring amazon warrior tossing a sack of grain about, Cathy standing several paces away imagining intrigue awash in her eyes. I played along another moment, I naked for her, perhaps a darting glance - the whole thing so much more blatant and obvious than it might have been years ago when Cathy and I in some ways had very different people.

Stop, I finally demanded of myself, directed my attention back toward a sack of feed - and still watched Cathy from a cautious corner of my eye. My Cathy, until several years ago far more at ease behind the counter of the feed store dressed in a secretary's clothing and pushing buttons on an adding machine, can make an absolute disaster of the simplest task on a farm. Cathy had turned toward buckets stacked near the door, mumbled annoyed frustration until she managed to free two of the buckets from the stack. By then I was engaged in my own struggle, desperately attempting to restrain my laughter.

"You're a dead woman -" Cathy scowled and snarled. "Just one snicker -" and she pounded the buckets to the floor at my feet, this final demonstration of annoyance wrenching a helpless gasp of mirth from my throat.

"Oh Eleanor -"

"Oh Cathy -" I sighed, breaking into another soft laugh for her distress. "At least this time you remained on your feet pulling the buckets apart. I was anticipating your ending on your ass again entirely mystified as to how you got there," this drawing a relenting sigh of amused mirth from her.

But then - oh God, we both heard the sound of tires speeding along the gravel road leading up to the farm, Cathy and I standing in rigid terror. Our farm lay at the end of the road. No one other than the police and Thompson's Feed ever drove down this road, and Thompson's had no reason to do so today. It's been five months now since the police had last done so. The bag of feed falling from my hands, Cathy and I drew our arms about each other's waists. We drew each other's bodies into frantic, clawing embrace, clung desperately for each other's warmth as we collapsed onto the floor, peered through cracks in the shed's walls toward the approaching police car. It was, of course, Keller and Williams, they pretending very little of anything, malevolent threat on their faces as they glared toward the house, toward the barn, toward the shed in which Cathy and I lay hidden.

I crushed Cathy frantically to my heart, every manner of panicked thought racing through my mind. It just seemed so obvious, our farm well outside of Cholry's village limits, Keller and Williams thugs any notion that they were conducting themselves within the bounds of the law ludicrous - a police chief and a district attorney sighing anything from skepticism to annoyance for complaints on the part of "two women of eminently questionable character who had been perfectly content to share a husband."

Keller and Williams five months ago had come at midnight, breaking into the back of the house. They had dragged Cathy and me to the back of their car, stuffing Cathy's body through the door like to much garbage. I'll never quite know why I had bothered with protest and threat, had struggled to maintain a demeanor of affronted dignity. Keller, rage on his face, had slammed a fist into my head. Keller and Williams had then tossed another body into the trunk of their car. They'd taken us into town, to the police station - the interrogation for Cathy and me everything from a ludicrous facade to brutal, primal terror.

This morning, however - they turned their car around where the road dead ends just beyond the house, then just drove off.

Cathy and I listened to the sound of tires fading on the gravel surface of the road a final long moment. It all yet again seemed so entirely ludicrous, all of this happening in the middle of the twentieth century on a farm in upstate New York. I finally turned my eyes back to Cathy, the crush of her breasts to my own and the pounding of her heart my entire existence.

I just couldn't help but live it all again. The last time they came for us, five months ago, had been the must terrible and humiliating of all. I remember sitting by myself in a small concrete room, wearing nothing but underwear, shuddering in terrified violence for every sound. Keller and Williams had prior to then always interrogated us during the daytime when chief Collins and one or two other of Cholry's policemen might be in the building. That night five months ago, no one else had been there. I suppose Keller and Williams were hoping that Cathy and I would finally turn on each other if they tormented us alone in the middle of the night.

I had been sitting in this small room for some time by myself, crying in primal, despairing abandon when Keller and Williams finally returned for me. I'll never know why I yet again bothered with a struggling effort toward some last vestige of dignity.

"You won't get away with this, Jack," I snarled. "I'll have you in prison -"

"Won't I, your majesty," Jack Keller growled, an obvious reference to the fact that I had been chosen prom queen or some such thing in high school.

I remember sitting in new, reeling terror yet flinging myself on.

"This is criminal, Jack. You both know it -"

"This is police interrogating -"

I couldn't restrain a gasp of maniacal laughter - and the thing sickening, dizzying horror for the fist driven into my head. I lay on the floor, struggled for little more than a half moment as they ripped the underwear from my body. I remember gasping in new horror, crying in helpless desperation and shame. I lay naked in front of them on the floor, two men I had known in passing from high school. I couldn't even control my own body, heard for a timeless eternity nothing but the sound of my own water spreading across the floor - knew it was gaping delight in their eyes as the gazed down at me.

"A tramp - a whore," Keller's voice mocking disgust. "Didn't I know it all along -"

"Yeah - that's right -" Mason Williams voice mocking laughter, perhaps an edge of forced bravado.

I lay in dizzying horror not quite daring to believe this was all real. Keller and Williams had been harassing Cathy and me for the past year and a half, ever since Harry's death. This, however, was the first time they had stepped blatantly beyond the law in order to do so.

I remember hands crushed onto my arms, remember stumbling along a corridor - civilization seeming an absolutely meaningless concept as I was thrust toward another door.

"Go on," Jack Keller barked, nodding toward the door. "Collect your garbage so we can get you out of here."

I stumbled through the door into another small concrete room, gasping, my hands covering my mouth. I pushed myself to the wall against which Cathy lay - her eyes awash with blind. reeling terror. I collapsed to my knees at Cathy's side, flung my eyes back toward Keller and Williams.

"We didn't have anything to do with Harry's death," I screamed in angry fury.

"You might just as well have pulled the trigger yourselves. Get her up, get or out of here or we'll both have another turn at her."

I turned back to Cathy, my hands trembling in spasming violence as I reached for her shoulders. Her shriek was primal terror, her arms flung forward, her hands pounding blows to my chest sending me sprawling to the floor - Keller and Williams gasping in mirthful laughter.

"Eleanor -" Cathy cried out, lucidity settling into her eyes, she flinging herself forward, wrenching me into her arms.

Keller and Williams herded us to one of the building's back doors. I gasped again in pain for Keller's hand dug into my hair, my head snapped about with merciless ferocity, Keller leaning at my ear.

"No one kills a cop and gets away with it," Keller growled. "Walk away from her, beauty queen, and your problems end. Don't, and you'll start getting what she got."

Cathy has been leaning at my shoulder for the past few minutes this evening, her arms locked about my shoulders as I write this. Were I not certain that she had at least to an extent recovered from the horror she had endured five months ago, I would have written the last few paragraphs later. I did hesitate for a brief moment, but Cathy lay her lips to my cheeks, then to my ear as she whispered.

"Go ahead, Eleanor. I love you, baby. Maybe - maybe it'll do us both good."

Cathy is sleeping on my bed now, though her hand is still resting on my leg.

Keller and Williams did not just rape Cathy. They tormented her. They left no marks on her body, of course. They are both cunning enough to know that they could never get away with that, not even in Cholry. But Cathy told me how they raped her, how they held her while they did it, the absolute humiliation she felt. I won't bother further with any of that.

My journal, I suppose, is a prayer. For three hours this afternoon I went down to the river and lay on the beach, curled myself into my own body as I cried for what they did to Cathy, to an extent for what they did to me. The crying didn't do me a great deal of good. So I must pray, and my prayer is this. I want to kill Keller and Williams. I must. They didn't break into the house again this morning, but they could very easily have done so. Cholry's mayor, the D A, the police chief will not help me. The D A has told me that he is becoming annoyed with my "unfounded accusations against two highly respected policemen with impeccable records." Do Keller and Williams really have a right to go on living after what they did to Cathy? I'll argue, after all, that Hitler and Mussolini were highly respected individuals within their own domains less than a generation ago. Would not their execution have been justified even if condemned by society at large? I'll argue further in the pages of this journal, I suppose, that a little microcosm of fascism can indeed hide within the bounds of our own country even today, Cholry - where criminals holding positions of authority feel perfectly free to perpetrate every sort of vile and atrocious crime while others choose to disbelieve or ignore the evidence rather than inconvenience themselves. I suppose I must formulate more of an argument than that in the pages of this journal before I kill Keller and Williams. I am certain, however, that God will allow me to do so.

No, I'm not insane, am just rambling on in anger. But I am, I suppose, going to continue to do so.

I've been crying again for twenty minutes. They hurt my Cathy. They know Cathy didn't have anything to do with Harry's death. Why won't they just leave us alone? Is today's visit to our farm the prelude to another exercise in terror?

Before Cathy crawled into my bed, I told her what I'm going to write next. She smiled a brief moment, kissed me again, turned my head toward her this time as she did so. She will touch her lips to my own in a kiss of blatant sexual intimacy in order to tell me that she is just not afraid to do so.

"Eleanor," she whispered, "I still want to sleep with you tonight. They frightened me today, Eleanor. Maybe tomorrow I'll be all right."

Cathy might sleep with me another month. How, even if I wanted to, could I possibly turn her away? I will hold Cathy in my arms in a few minutes. I will pray for her and I will pray for myself. Perhaps I will even tell myself that she and I are not lovers in every sense of the word.

I tell myself so much more as I glance toward a beautiful young woman sleeping on my bed, the crush of her hand onto my leg even as she sleeps frantic desperation. Perhaps I'm deluding myself, telling myself the night won't be that which the grain shed had been this morning for Cathy and me. But I must stay with her tonight. She's terrified, and I'm just as terrified. If can't make it through the night without yielding again to the passionate ferocity of my feelings for Cathy, then I'll just get on with life, try again in the morning to search for some sense of balance. I must stay with Cathy tonight.

The police car drove away this morning. Cathy and I rested in each other's arms on the floor of the grain shed listening to the pounding of each other's hearts. I glanced another frantic moment toward the knife with which I had ripped open a bag of feed - shuddered with some reeling, draining relief. I simply hadn't had any doubt, would have drawn the knife into my hand had Keller and Williams stepped from their car.

And with that, a young woman who with a glance saw the secrets of my soul yet again slammed her body into my arms, Cathy and I holding each other as though our lives depended on our doing so.

"Eleanor -" Cathy whispered, "would you have -?"

I buried my eyes to hers.

"Yes - of course I would have -" and I whispered on allowing myself little less than abandoned bravado. "And - this time -"

She gazed the wondering intrigue she had any number of times over the past five months. I had five months ago flung myself through the door of Cathy's bedroom, had seeing Keller's and William's hands on her found myself immersed in a blinding rage I could never have imagined. And for moments it had all seemed absolutely effortless, Mason Williams screaming in pain for the blow I landed, falling immediately. I'd turned toward Jack Keller, clawing, biting, hadn't had the least doubt that I would prevail - until it was dizzying agony for a lamp swung with merciless ferocity toward my head.

I crushed Cathy again to my heart as we sat in each other's arms in the grain shed.

"Yes -" I whispered again and with abandoned violence. "Oh God, Cathy - they'll never - never touch you - they'll die - I swear -"

I stopped, struggled for at least a measure of lucid calm - finally opened my eyes to hers as I sat clawing frantic, possessing hands onto her arms. It will never fail to amaze me that it happens between us in a single timeless instant, she and I even in the midst of our lonely fright playing our sensual little games. I, in a single instant, was yet again her tall, barbarous amazon from some untamed, ancient forest declaring that my helpless little secretary is mine, that I'll slay rather than let anyone else ever touch her again - and she flinging her eyes to mine all but shouting the words aloud. Have me - she cries - and we sat together on the floor of the grain shed doubt long since gone between us. We saw in each other's eyes the frantic passions of each other's heart, knew that we were two people whose love for each other was simply everything which was possible, love which suffuses every corner of that which we call our hearts - and we sat in each other's arms our breasts rising and falling in a breathless fury, sat in each other's arms the ultimate intimacy spoken. It's want in some ways more than I have ever before known, a flooding, throbbing ache of my body for hers - and in yet another moment something so much more, my Cathy with whom I am so desperately, painfully in love hiding absolutely nothing from me, her physical want all of the maddening, aching ferocity my own was.

I struggled even then for another moment's rational calm.

"Okay?" I whispered.

"Yes, Eleanor," Cathy's smile gentle emotion. It will never fail to amaze me how strong she is.

"I love you, Cathy," I whispered, a soft, pleading cry. That's all I really wanted to tell her. I suppose my embrace, however, spoke all of the rest.

"I know you do, baby. Only you do. Don't let me go, Eleanor. Oh God, don't let me go."

"Cathy - I never will -"

It's pleading in her voice, her hands wrapped to my arms with urging passion.

"You see, don't you, Eleanor? Only you love me. I want only you near me, Eleanor, no one else - no one else ever -"

I suppose we both awoke for fleeting moments, knew that we rested at some precarious edge. I crushed owning hands onto my Cathy's arms, hadn't even in that moment the least doubt that my love for her was emotional violence from the honest depths of my heart. And still, she's mine, no one else's, the words crashing into every corner of my mind. She's mine to hold, to love - and it's something more than it's ever before been for me, the thing in a timeless moment a raw, maddening want built to a suffusing, immersing ferocity, my body, my entire being wanting her.

I can't, and won't, I suppose, offer excuses for what happened in the grain shed this morning. It wasn't for moments entirely different than it had been so often in the past. Cathy and I gazed without pretense into each other's eyes. Eleanor - the words in a sudden, culminating moment there in my Cathy's eyes - Eleanor why not? It's quiet though frantic pleading. It wasn't even then entirely different than it had been so often in the past, she and I locked frantically in each other's arms resting at some knowing edge - and the thing as quickly something ultimately more than it's ever before been.

I simply and finally, I suppose, flung myself on, flung myself past every barrier. It was, even then, a knowing, supremely intimate dance between us, the thing that which Cathy and I had both known it would be. It might almost have been the mirthful amusement it had been so often in the past, I readily admitting my wants ludicrously ravenous, my Cathy resting a helpless captive in my arms, perhaps even some subtle little dance of demurring retreat - and I this morning in the grain shed finally denying her that retreat, crushing my hands onto her arms with capturing fury.

I'll never be certain if I ever really hesitated. I buried my eyes to hers a final, timeless moment - simply hadn't had any doubts. I'd crushed wanting, frantic hands to her arms, had simply decided - and my captive flinging her eyes to mine, her breath explosive gasps. I leaned, touched my lips to hers. I wanted the warmth of my Cathy's lips to my own for a very long moment. I wanted something more than a single moment's affection - and it seemed again simply that which it had to be, Cathy's hands wrapped to my arms with frantic violence, the touch of her lips to mine everything I could ever have wanted. We allowed ourselves, I suppose, another half moment's pretense, and as quickly knew we rested in each other's arms in swooning ecstasy. We knew exactly what we were doing, the warmth of our kiss the emotional violence we'd felt so many times before, the sensuality threatening, tugging, lingering just beneath the surface. We'd countless times over the past few years kissed each other an instant longer than we both knew to be a limit, had seen amused mischief in each other's eyes, had admitted wicked little intimacies without hesitation or pretense. It was this morning, however, something a world more than amusement between us. It was everything I had ever wanted, she and I touching our lips to each other's our kiss to be a moment's unfeigned, knowing intimacy - and she and I sitting in each other's arms on the floor of the grain shed immersed in a wild, reeling abandon, she and I just not stopping, flinging ourselves past every barrier - the thing a strange, wondering ecstasy. There simply wasn't the least doubt, she and I knowing for so long now that there wouldn't be - my Cathy and I touching our lips to each other's knowing it was the other's every fond and secret want.

It was yet again some culminating, knowing intimacy between us, my Cathy waiting for me, she and I always knowing that I would be the aggressor. And it was every pretense gone, my kiss frantic, burying passion. I wrenched her body to my own in finished embrace, she and I knowing it an embrace of unpretended lovemaking. And I just flung myself on, fell with her in my arms to the grain shed's floor - my kisses and caresses abandoned passion every limit gone. I just couldn't stop, the word floating in some dazed, clouded corner of my mind. But how could I stop? If Cathy wanted love in the arms of someone who loved her, I was simply going to allow it until she wanted to stop. And with that I slammed her body to my own with culminating violence, my kisses writhing, devouring intimacy - the thing always some strange knowing between us. It might even in that moment almost have been some reeling mirth between us. I was never going to stop now, was pleading with my kisses and caresses - and the thing for me a falling ecstasy I had never before known in quite the same way. She's burying her mouth onto mine her kisses writhing, frenzied - as though nothing is enough.

We lay on the floor of the grain shed entwined in each other's arms. We raised our eyes to each other's, our breath gasping fury. It was that in some ways which it had been in the past when it had seemed foolish, juvenile nonsense. And it was this morning something a world more. We knew this morning exactly what we were doing, pretended and denied absolutely nothing. We lay in each other's arms this morning an embrace of our eyes knowing, lucid intimacy - and I simply leaned again, met her lips with my own all over again. I suspect we both, for dizzying instants, might have wondered if this kiss was to be gentle emotion rather than abandoned passion. It was yet again something I could never quite have imagined, she and I in a bizarre, timeless instant simply knowing that it was love making between us, our kisses and caresses this time deliberate and unfeigned. I was kissing my sweet Cathy every pretense gone, caressing her, heard helpless, gasping cries wrenched from my throat for her hands touching me, exploring me - she and I yet again just knowing that it was finished, assenting abandon between us.

I kissed her with devouring want even as I pushed the clothing from her body, pushed my own away, that as close as we ever came to pretense. It was yet again and always something I could never quite have imagined. The obvious was now and ultimately inescapable - and she and I finally opening our eyes to each other every doubt yet again just flung aside. It was maddening, unrelenting ecstasy, my Cathy's body finally mine entirely, her naked warmth my entire existence. It was, even in that moment, our licentious dance finally played to its conclusion, Cathy and I all but twins and yet she and I reveling for subtle vagaries of perception. I've just stepped from some ancient forest, I the tall, ferocious barbarian noticing a delicate little secretary her attire restricting, form fitting, alluring - I the frantic aggressor flinging my helpless captive to the floor, stripping her clothing away - crushing violent, capturing hands to my helpless little beauty's waist.

We saw, if never any doubt or hesitation, a moment's pause in each other's eyes, the obvious yet again and ultimately inescapable. And it's violence pounding into every corner of my heart even as it's the want of my body become a throbbing, maddening ache. It's wanting desperation in my sweet Cathy's eyes, a half instant's pause she as eminently aware of the inescapably obvious, she and I both women now laying naked in each other's arms - and she and just giving up together, flinging ourselves on, she and I seeing resigned abandon in each other's eyes, seeing as quickly wild, assenting delight.

It was simply and finally everything I could ever have imagined it to be - more than I might ever have dared believe possible. I flung my eyes again to hers, hadn't even in the midst of our lovemaking the least doubt that our love for each other was emotional violence from that which we call every corner of our hearts. As well, however - we're two women who like each other, have enjoyed each other's company from the start, have always enjoyed being close to each other, my Cathy and I knowing it from the start a personal liking for each other in which distance just isn't necessary - and she and I this morning abandoning ourselves to our every intimate want. We're both women - and her body mine, my Cathy with wild, wanting desperation in her eyes slamming her body into my arms. Mine is hers as frantically, to kiss and caress, to play with, to devour.

It was in the end all of the raw oblivion I had known it would be. My existence was nothing but the sound of my Cathy's voice, she crying out my name over and over again as we lay on the floor of the grain shed entwined in that which I suddenly couldn't deny was consummating intimacy in every sense of the word. It was in the end, I just can't deny, a satisfying ecstasy to every possible extreme. We'd know for years that each other's touch was something ultimate, was if we were in a mood nothing less than arousing, intensely so. And still - we'd prior to this morning never quite imagined what the ultimate would be like. Nothing, I suppose I can now admit, has ever felt like that before in my entire life.

Perhaps that is why I found myself lying back in exhaustion, entirely oblivious to my surroundings for some timeless little eternity. I finally opened my eyes - saw sorrowing remorse in Cathy's.

"Oh God, Eleanor -" she whispered, an edge of fright in her voice. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean -"

I recovered in another quick instant, feared that I might loose a part of my Cathy forever if I did not. A thousand tortuous pangs of guilt coursed through my mind - the ultimate yet again inescapable. I had just made love to another woman. Leave it all until later, I told myself - and something which I suspect must have been nothing less than amused mischief settling into my eyes, something like wonder in Cathy's.

"Be sorry later," I whispered - I the uncivilized, abandoned barbarian holding my helpless little beauty in capturing embrace.

"Eleanor -" she chuckled, gentle, settling warmth in her eyes. "Eleanor - I really didn't mean to -"

"Cathy -" I tried.

"Eleanor - you know I'm - the instigator, always have been. Eleanor -"

"All right, my darling," and I waited another long moment, waited for nothing more than my breath to settle, allowed myself another moment's confused and searching thought. Damn it, wait until later - and I found escape in nothing more yet nothing less than the circumstances of the moment. We lay yet our bodies entwined in frantic, clinging embrace, have just given ourselves up to unfeigned lovemaking which had ended in ways I had never really supposed I was ever again to know. And yet again, it was just some strange spark of amusement coursing through my mind. I broke into a soft laugh this time, something which must have sounded juvenile and foolish. I edged my eyes again toward Cathy's, the wonder in her features giving way to a gentle smile.

"Well -" I protested, "what did you expect? I enjoyed it. Were you expecting me to shrink away from you into the bushes out back?"

"No -"

"Of course you were."

"Maybe," Cathy chuckled, something close to setting ease in her eyes.

I finally dared a glance of genuine intimacy - finally spoke the emotional violence of my heart.

"Cathy - I love you. I love you, my darling baby. And - it happened. Haven't we both known that it might? Haven't I told you a hundred times that I am, one of these days, going fling you to the ground - ravish you -"

She broke into a soft chuckle - wrapped her body frantically to my own.

"Cathy -" I whispered on, "we both knew - we might, sooner or later. I'm not at the moment proud or scared or ashamed or much of anything at all. We'll work it all out later. It happened - and Cathy -"

It's the same knowing intimacy between us, wicked mischief in her eyes, urging violence in the strength of her arms about me.

"Cathy - I enjoyed it. I'm probably laying here with a foolish grin on my face. I - enjoyed it."

She chuckled with easy delight, continued in pleading intimacy.

"I just wanted to be in your arms, Eleanor. Oh God, Eleanor, I feel so safe in your arms. I love you - love you and no one else. And - yes - maybe I did mean it. Why not? I wanted your love - just you. I wanted you to touch me - and you did. I wanted you to touch me and no one else, and I want you to keep on touching me. Damn it, if I don't, then they've won. The bastards have won and they've driven us apart. Maybe they'll come again - who knows what they'll do to us? But before that happens - I wanted - just once -"

"I know, Cathy," I whispered, struggling now, searching for something meaningful. "Maybe - maybe it's not so different than it's been all along. Remember all the little jokes between us? We've been teasing each other for years now. And - well, neither of us are - innocent -"

"Yeah -" Cathy chuckled. "I was eighteen the first time. And I haven't been eighteen for a very long time now."

"Yes," I agreed, a soft chuckle, pleading emotion in my voice as I continued. "But I'm never going to stop loving you, Cathy. Never. Oh Cathy - my sweet darling baby -" and I decided this was all I wanted to say, "I'm never going to let you go. I'm never going to stop loving you. You can love me or not love me or do whatever you want with me, but I want you with me, forever."

My Cathy, with some innate sense of the thing, sees into the secret corners of my heart. I sometimes think she's always a step ahead of me. She buried herself frantically into my arms, the same pleading in her eyes.

"You do understand me, don't you, Cathy?" I whispered. "You and I don't have to make love to each other, even - even if we want to. I mean - yes, I enjoyed it - because it was you, my own sweet darling making love to me. No one else could make me feel the way you just did, Cathy. It wouldn't even come close. It wouldn't be the same thing at all. I don't ever want anyone but you to ever touch me again. But - we don't have to - not to keep on loving each other -"

She nodded, the same contented ease in her eyes, a radiant joy she as well knowing there just aren't any doubts between us. We're simply two people who know themselves passionately, violently in love with each other.

And we lay naked on the floor of the grain shed our limbs entwined about each other's bodies with abandoned strength. We simply couldn't allow ourselves the least pretense or denial, confusion and fright the consequence if we did. And it's yet one more bizarre and timeless instant, my Cathy with whom I am so honestly yet passionately in love hiding absolutely nothing from me, speaking with a glance every last intimacy - and it's all yet again something so much more than I could ever have imagined, my body immersed again in a wash of raw sensation which is that endless fall from a cliff. It is, I suppose, the essence of wanton, unabashed vanity. I'm forty, appear so in an honest light. And still, my Cathy is now gazing toward hourglass feminine allure which she sees as a voluptuous ideal, something more than just the numbers - and she hiding nothing from me, my sweet Cathy who as often as not with wicked delight in her eyes admits herself every bit as sexually ravenous a creature as I am. It's yet again our licentious little exercise in abandoned imagining, my Cathy now, however, shuddering in trembling violence she laying naked in her tall, voluptuously alluring barbarian's arms - and knowing my want for my breathtaking little secretary is yet again a maddening ache I've never before felt with quite the same ferocity.

It was yet again bizarre, timeless instants, a confused ambivalence, Cathy and I seeing in each other's eyes something like struggling despair - and as quickly wild, assenting fury. We rested one final instant our hands clawing violence to each other's arms - and our love making yet again something more than I could ever quite have imagined. It was supremely personal intimacy, she and I abandoning ourselves to fond little secrets we might in the past have guarded as closely as anyone else. I saw my Cathy for a timeless moment as I had seen her years before walking into Thompson's Feed in order pay my bill, Cathy standing at an adding machine her dress the form fitting, eminently restricting attire any young secretary might have worn. She and I from the start seeing in each other's smiles little more than honest, uncomplicated warmth, we'd felt no more than a moment's requisite loathing for each other, seething envy in our eyes for each other's appearance. "You're very attractive, my dear - how dare you -" we'd both demanded of each other. I from start, I suppose, had noticed that which was simply obvious, a young accounts clerk in the feed store a tall, hourglass beauty who saw notice in my eyes almost from the start. I'm not really certain why it was never any real envy between Cathy and me - and was, almost from the start the occasional moment of blatant, knowing mischief, Cathy as she turned away from me and reached for receipts or the like on a nearby shelf knowing that I was gazing toward a young woman I saw as stunning, hourglass beauty, Cathy's stance a fleeting moment's blatant calculation - and the thing never a great deal more than amused mischief as I met her eyes wondering if she heard my "yes, my dear, you have a gorgeous little ass." And in another seeming moment or two, a young accounts clerk from Thompson's was strolling through my door at any odd moment, she and I seeing ecstatic delight in each other's eyes for nothing more than a stroll into town with each other. She'd finally settled onto the farm with her husband, she and I touching our lips to each other's every doubt gone, she and I knowing our love for each other everything from conspiratorial mischief to a finished, violent passion - she and I in another seeming moment or two standing on such as our secret little beach down by the river. "Oh God - no -" I'd protested the first few times, I approaching forty and feeling ludicrous for just the thought of juvenile mischief of the sort. I'd given in to challenging mischief in her eyes, however, had tossed the last of my clothing onto a nearby bush, had stood naked with her on our secret little beach the thing always something so much more than I'd anticipated, the thing for me a reeling little ecstasy for that in Cathy's eyes which was gaping and devouring to every blatant extreme. And our private little beach down by the river was finally moments of licentious imagining between us all but spoken aloud, Cathy I and spending entire afternoons laying at each other's sides, escaping Harry and Cholry, Cathy and I perhaps escaping with each other to some ancient forest wilds. "Oh yes - that's it exactly -" Cathy might muse on her voice quiet entrancement, "you and me together, Eleanor - our forest which goes on forever. Let's see - my Eleanor - a beautiful barbarian queen standing next to the campfire, a spear in her hands. She just takes what she wants -"

It was this morning in the grain shed, I suppose, the culmination of a hundred such fantasies Cathy and I have lived with each other over the past few years, she and I finally giving ourselves up to our most intimate wants and desires. I crushed my hands onto her waste another timeless moment, the thing even then some violent slam of emotion into every corner of my heart, she my darling Cathy with whom I'm madly, painfully in love - and my Cathy naked, gasping in breathless fury, she and I flinging every last pretense aside. She's my sweet Cathy even as I search her, devour her with my kisses and caresses, devour her body entirely. It's nothing less than some licentious, bawdy abandon between us, she my sweet, darling Cathy - and yet her breasts mine to fondle, the broad, feminine curves of her ass mine to delight in, to touch and explore as I please. It's yet again the ultimate in knowing intimacy between my Cathy and me, my body as entirely hers, she gasping in wild, frenzied want her caresses the devouring intimacy my own were - she and I crying out together in raw, primal ecstasy knowing our lovemaking nothing less.

It was this time pretense and denial flung aside entirely, she and I meeting each other's eyes, gasping - burying our mouths onto each other's in writhing, frantic intimacy. I found myself another timeless moment once more allowing myself the obvious and the ultimate - and it's yet again just some reeling, finished abandon I could never have imagined. I'm never less than eminently aware that I'm burying my mouth onto another woman's, our kiss unfeigned sexual intimacy - and my Cathy and I just gasping again, flinging ourselves on.

We yet again gave ourselves up to the ultimate human intimacy, she and I even then meeting each other's eyes, flinging our eyes to each other's touch yet again pressed to consummating intimacy - she and I flinging our eyes together again even as we cried out for our bodies awash in agonizing ecstasy. It was this time every caution and restraint flung aside, my Cathy yet again flinging her eyes to mine, her voice a gasp of primal fury. "Eleanor - fuck me -"

It was yet again something which before this morning I could never quite have imagined. It was in part exactly that for which my Cathy cried, she and I even in the midst of our lovemaking seeing wild, wanting fury in each other's eyes, our lovemaking in the end frantic writhing to every ultimate extreme. It was, even in the midst of that, bizarre moments of despairing pause, the obvious yet again inescapable - and was in another timeless instant just some finished, knowing intimacy between my Cathy and me. We never denied or pretended a thing, were two women - and our bodies given to each other in the ultimate act of intimacy. We'd known all along that a moment of the sort might come. And Cathy and I, even living by and large in social isolation on our small farm were quite aware that we were by no means entirely unique, had even if in passing amusement heard all manner of rumor and supposition. My aunt Catherine who has long since abandoned backwood Cholry for the city wears wicked delight in her features whenever she returns for a visit and expounds on something new and bizarre which she has found in the city, perhaps an underground club she's stumbled onto were women of - "eccentric character dance with each other one as likely as not to be attired in coat and tails." Cathy on our secret beach down by the river leading me through our ancient fantasy forest has more than once worn wicked delight in her features declaring our forest to lie on an island in the eastern Aegean. Cathy and I had countless times prior to this morning caught each other in moments of idle imagining - and finally buried our eyes to each other's knowing it was the same for both of us, all of our fond little imaging suddenly realized - and the thing abandoned physical ecstasy to every possible extreme.

We rested yet again in each other's arms listening to the pounding of each other's hearts, our breath still a gasping fury. It was for another timeless moment everything from wonder to some knowing wicked amusement. I crushed my Cathy again to my heart, our love for each other simply a given, a certainty, Cathy and I meeting each other's eyes knowing we're simply two people who love each other with a violent, emotional ferocity of every possible sort - and it's as quickly some bizarre, resigned amusement between us, wicked, knowing delight in our eyes. I crushed her again to my heart, rested in an immersing wash of ecstasy for the frantic strength of her arms around me - and rested again in dazed, reeling wonder. I'd known all along, I'd supposed even in the moment, that it wouldn't from the start be more than a moment's trembling fright for Cathy and me. We've in a great many ways been lovers for years now, have countless times met each other's eyes knowing it was the same question in the air between us - why not? We've known each other all along to be creatures of like and ravenous physical wants, and yet - it was in ways more than I could ever have imagined. I'd flung my eyes to hers even in the midst of our lovemaking - and it had seemed impossible that we hadn't been lovers for years. I'd flung my eyes to my body, to her touch of finished caressing intimacy - and had flung my eyes back to hers the words gasped out without the least hesitation. "Cathy - fuck me -" I'd cried in primal fury - and the thing yet again something I could never quite have imagined, a building pleasure of a ferocity something incomparably more than it would have been were it not my sweet Cathy's touch - and a final, exploding pleasure which I just can't deny I had never before known with anything close to the same pounding, engulfing intensity.

I crushed her again to my heart as we rested in each other's arms on the floor of the grain shed - and finally turned my eyes to hers.

"Eleanor -?" she whispered, struggling question in her voice.

"I - I don't know," I sighed, chuckled for the challenge I had seen so often in the past in her eyes.

"Eleanor - oh God - Eleanor -" Cathy finally speaking the words. "Eleanor - how on earth can it be so wrong? Why - why do you think -"

"Cathy - I don't know, not exactly. Maybe - just for the obvious reasons. At least that's what I've always believed - and you as well, Cathy, at least in part. After all, we could have - a hundred times before, and we never did. Cathy - let's just leave it all for now," though again I broke into a soft chuckle, rested in her arms yet again immersed in little more than a mood of swooning entrancement. "We'll just leave it for now - at least until the next to I'm in the mood to drag you onto the ground- ravish you -"

It's mirthful delight in her eyes, sighing question in another moment.

"But Eleanor - it's my fault. We both know -"

"Do we -?" lascivious delight, I suspect, awash in my eyes as I gazed toward the maddening little hourglass beauty I held in my arms.

"All right, Eleanor -" her laughter settling ease. "Maybe - it's both our fault -"

"Exactly," I sighed and chuckled, and decided that for the moment enough, told myself that it must be. I rested in my Cathy's arms telling myself that our love might now settle into something gentler, our love for each other the close, intimate affection it's always been. I tell myself the same this evening as I write this - and gaze toward her asleep on my bed, her hand resting on my leg.

Glancing again toward my Cathy, a tranquil expression of ease in her features, my feeling for has indeed become something gentler. Cathy and I are both, I've decided, just sweet and innocent children who only want to be left alone, to live quietly on our farm - to escape the horror we've both lived through. In a minute or two, I will take Cathy into my arms quite as I have countless times in the past, will just try to forget it all.

I suppose the horror came to a head two years ago, two years after Harry and Cathy had moved from Cholry out to the farm. Harry had been beating Cathy viciously for a year. When Cathy was at work, Harry would come back to the house in his police car, usually for a quick cup of coffee. I made Harry his coffee - and sometimes stood at the stove immersed in everything from annoyance to seething anger, anger directed as vehemently toward myself as it was toward Harry. A handsome young man sat at the table staring that which I knew was blatant, devouring scrutiny - and I stood at the stove some mornings in nothing less than an aching aroused want, stood some mornings in some in tumultuous despair knowing that as soon as he stole up behind me stealing a caress of groping intimacy I would give up entirely. Oh God - why, I sometimes cried in despairing anguish as I waited for him to slide an arm around my waist - and then when he had sighed some frantic prayer of relief and gratitude as I turned and without the least doubt or difficulty delivered my protest, sometimes with a sigh of annoyance, sometimes in barking anger. "Come on, Eleanor, you know you want to," and Harry stood as quickly in seething anger for my gasp of mirthful hilarity as I pushed his hands away. I don't think he ever suspected the truth.

Moments of the sort might be some reeling confusion for me, Cathy and me by then wandering through fantasy forests in the eastern Aegean, knowing, wicked delight in our eyes our fantasy wandering leading us without the least pretense onto Lesbos. And yet, if I was a lesbian, I certainly wasn't one in every strict and physical sense of the word. I felt at the least a vain little delight that a man ten years my junior gawked with devouring blatancy, and yet again sighed annoyance and frustration for everything else I felt.

I hadn't really anticipated anything more than another moment's annoyance that morning I couldn't escape the arm Harry had flung about my waist. "Harry -" I'd gasped in startled fright as he slammed my body to his, he as frantically declaring that he loved me. I'd attempted everything from sighing protest to threatening anger - and had finally fought, will never doubt that I fought to the limits of my strength as Harry pushed me down onto the floor - raped me with brutal violence.

I remember the walk into town as lonely, dazed anguish, remember the D A listening patiently - remember the sudden sting of absolute shame and horror I had felt the D A genuinely believing that I had, at least to an extent, resisted. He'd assured me that he would prosecute if I insisted - and had intimated even if not explicitly, exactly why a prosecution was futile. Harry was a war veteran, a respected policemen. I was a farmer's daughter, a failed nun who used to wear tight dresses into town in order to entrap a husband. I was a young widow of "exceptionally attractive" appearance - who had enticed another man into my house.

I'd walked home, stumbled into my bedroom, lay on my bed curled in despairing agony, had finally trembled in reeling terror hearing Cathy as usual climbing the stairs - and the next few minutes something I will remember forever. She needed little more than a glance - and slammed my body maniacally into her arms, her cries all of the agony my own were - and Cathy crying for me.

And so began a year of unending horror, Cathy and I finding moments of respite from it only in each other's arms. We tried to run away several times, stole through the shadows into town. Keller and Williams driving up to the bus stop in their police car wore smirking amusement in their features deciding that one or the other of us had had "a little spat with Harry. Harry'd be pissed if his women weren't at home waiting for him." Cholry watched with smirking amusement as Harry came to collect his "two wives." I remember walking past chief Collin's house on several occasions, frantically sought new ways to make him understand that I was little more than a prisoner in my own house - and gave up as chief Collins nodded another moment's distracted attention before turning an angry gaze back toward his rose bushes. "Look at 'em, Eleanor - dead and dyin and it's them sputmunks the Russians shot off inta outer space, I tell ya." I stood at the stove two or three mornings a week making Harry a cup of coffee - am still not quite certain why within another week or two I had just given up entirely. "Eleanor - you're mine. I love you. You know I do. Oh Eleanor - please don't make me hit you again -" I seldom did, knew that Harry would vent juvenile rage toward Cathy rather than me.

Cathy would come home after work and we would hold each other. At first we just pretended ignorance of each other's plight. We told each other everything, however, in the strength of our embrace. Two different people, I suppose, might have given way to insane jealousy in similar circumstances. I'll never be entirely certain why Cathy and I just fell always more deeply in love with each other.

And then one day it all changed. Harry had been drinking more heavily than usual, was beating Cathy viciously that morning now two years ago. I ran into the kitchen, pulled Cathy's body away from Harry, pushed her toward the door. I turned back toward Harry, fought again, fought with a maniacal passion. I'd lost, was conscious for a few more moments - remember it as rage still in Harry's eyes even as he raped me.

Harry must have left that morning as I lay unconscious on the kitchen floor. Cathy ran to her father's house several miles away. Harry had never before bruised her quite so viciously. Cathy's father and brother must have driven their truck down the road toward the farm just as Harry was leaving the house, forced Harry's police car into the ditch where it was found. Cathy's father and brother always carried hunting rifles in their truck, but Harry had a two way radio in his car, must have called Keller and Williams for help. When it all ended, Harry, Cathy's husband was dead. Cathy's father and brother were also dead. I remember awakening on the kitchen floor with handcuffs on my wrists, remember seeing rage on Keller's and William's faces - remember crying out in searing agony as they once more swung their clubs.

They took Cathy and me to jail. They wouldn't let either of us go to the hospital. They released us a week later - rage on Keller's and William's faces as Cathy and I stumbled in each other's arms from the county jail. Keller and Williams have interrogated Cathy and me a dozen times over the past two years, but we've never said anything which would incriminate each other in planning Harry's death. It should be clear by now to any sane and rational person that there wasn't any planning to it. Keller and Williams, however, just won't stop, the matter become a personal vendetta for them.

I was hurt far more badly than Cathy was when they finally released us from jail two years ago. Cathy brought me home, she and I stumbling through the shadows along back roads as best we could. Even so, several dozen of Cholry's locals found us, tossing eggs and such at us, shouting "cop killers, whores." We finally stumbled back onto our farm, fell into the house. Cathy nursed me back to health. By that time the doctor's wouldn't even come to help us.

Enough for now. I suppose I must stop and collect my thoughts, decide where I am going to go with this journal. Very likely, it is going to be a very strange love story. I just can't help it. I love Cathy. I do, however, hope that my poor musings remain private, at least for another century or so. I doubt they would be well received today anyway. Our country and such as chief Collins have quite enough problems trying to blast something into outer space before the Russians blast anything else up there.

My little journal will also, I suspect, be an account of two person's efforts to survive on the fringes of a small town society which seems, at least to me, remarkably similar to that which engulfed Europe two decades ago, a society dominated and guided by criminals. Perhaps, by the time I have completed this journal, I will have decided if violence can be justified ridding our little society of those criminals who seem so intent on ridding that same society of us. Perhaps God will provide me with an answer.

But I'm very tired now, so I'm going to sleep with Cathy. I love her so much. I love her with all of my heart. She's all in the world that I have. And I suppose there's not a great deal of sense denying it to myself anymore. She's all I want.