nd paused. He pushed back from his desk, swiveled
completely around and back to his original position, cracked two
knuckles, tried to force some saliva into a suddenly dry mouth, and
started to speak again. "Mimi, it's not unusual for a patient to develop
a feeling of affection for her psychoanalyst. In fact, it's the usual--"

"It's not like that with us, though, is it?" she asked, more quietly,
more softly and deeply, than before.

After a long pause he said, "No. No, it's not."

And so they sat there while the daylight faded outside them and the
twilight crawled up sixty-three floors to encircle their window and
continue unhesitatingly upward.

* * * * *

"What are we going to do?" she asked.

"We're not going to do anything, Mimi," he finally said. "When I'm with
you, it's all so light and fantastic and funny, that I forget. But it
would be unforgivable to fall in love with a patient, and the wife of a
patient. I can't do it. We'll have to stop right away. I'm no good as an
analyst to you anymore, anyway. I'm sorry, I'll send you to someone
else. And now you'd better go."

She stood up, walked around his desk, and put her hands lightly on his
neck. "You're such a dear," she said. "I'll always love you. I've never
seen you so serious before. We always laugh and talk and giggle when
we're together, and I loved you then. But now that you're sad and
serious and oh so pitiably tragic I love you more than I could ever tell
you. But please don't worry, don't worry about a thing, darling. You'll
see, it will all work out."

"It can't work out, Mimi, there's absolutely no way on earth for it to
work out. There's no solution at all."

"Please don't worry, darling," she said, picking up her gloves. "I can't
bear to see you looking so tragic. Life isn't so serious, especially as
you're loved." She walked out and closed the door behind her. Victor sat
quite still. He could barely hear her saying "Margaret, wake up,
Margaret, it's time to go home," through the thick wooden door.

* * * * *

The phone rang in his office three days later. He was alone at the time,
going over some notes he had just taken with another patient. Margaret
was out, presumably peering through the floor of the ladies' lounge down
the hall, and he picked up the receiver himself.

"Victor, come quick," Mimi screamed through the wires. "He's trying to
kill me!"

She said more, but h