She wanted Dietz. Since that first night she had seen him, she had wanted him, his passion, his perception. His eyes had penetrated into her deepest depths and she liked it. She wanted Dietz. She looked at the empty platform where he had been standing and singing so recently, pouring, it seemed, his heart out, freely and completely. He had so much.

She knew her prospects with him were nil, but also knew how much she wanted him. And while she was involved with the Professor she knew she wasn't qualified to even try. She wanted to be able to offer him herself, all of herself, unconditionally and completely. With the Professor in her life this was impossible. With the Professor in her life all she could offer was an illusion.

She sat at her table until everyone had left, then she stood up and took off her sweater. She smoothed the silk of her blouse and folded her sweater over her arm, then she picked up her purse and looked behind her. She walked over to the platform and stood for a moment, then walked to her right and ran her index finger along the top edge of Dietz's amplifier. It was still warm and she stopped for a moment with her finger touching the very corner, feeling the heat of it flowing into her. There was a distant smile on her lips, a smile of knowing, a smile of anticipation. She was glad, glad that she had jettisoned the Professor, glad that she was now a free agent. The sadness of the loss of the familiar patterns of her life was there, somewhere in that smile, but those memories were ashes now, ashes that would be windblown and gone in the morning.

She stepped up on the platform and walked over to the stage door. To her surprise, the knob turned in her fingers, and she pushed the door open into a musty hallway lit with a small blue light hanging over the landing at the end. There were three doors, each painted flat black, in the wall to the right. Her heart was pounding in her chest and she could feel the throbbing of her pulse in the hollow of her elbows as she walked down the hall toward the doors. The first door was shut tight, no light came from below it. She passed on to the second door which was closed. Again, no light came from beneath it. She opened it and saw a shabby bathroom, empty, the mirror over the sink cracked, the wastebasket under it overflowing with wadded paper towels.

Gently, she closed the door and moved on to the third door. A dim light shone from its edges. It stood open about the width of her hand. Her breath caught in her throat and she stopped still, standing straight square to the door. She could hear movement within, breathing. Her nostrils flared, her heart kept up its marching rhythm. pound. pound. pound. She leaned towards the gap in the door. pound. pound. pound. Her throat was tight, very tight. She put her right eye to the crack in the door. pound. pound. The room was dim, lit by a candle on a small table against one wall, duplicated by a mirror behind it. Dietz was there, standing with his back to her, leaning slightly forward. Nestled in the crook of his neck and his shoulder was Carolina Cox's face, turned sideways, her nose buried in the nest of hair behind his ear. Her eyes were closed and her mouth was open and she was licking Dietz's neck, her tongue reaching out to it's full length. Memo saw that there could be only one place where Dietz's right hand could be, and she saw that Carolina Cox's tongue seemed to stop it's motion in time with the flexing of his arm.

Memo stood back. Pound. Pound. Pound. Her heart was still pounding, but now there was a turbulence in her blood that had not been there before, a turbulence and a coldness like the mixing of the waters, fresh and salt, at the changing of the tide.



She turned and walked back out the door to the platform, down and away, past the tables, past the bar, past the wooden bouncer's station, through the door and out into darkness, into the streetlights.



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