, garment by garment, until he, too, was
naked.

His body was not perfect, yet it had an individual perfection of its own
in Rhoda's eyes. The skin was smooth and white, the legs and hips firm
and masculine. The chest was broad and Rhoda wanted to put her hands on
it and feel John Dennis' hands on her own body.

He stood looking at her, a little like a child, she thought tenderly; a
child waiting to be told what to do. She did not account this as
strange--only as a shyness in him. She held out her arms.

He lowered himself onto the bed beside her. She put her arms around him
and pressed her lips to his. She waited. Nothing happened.

He was neither cold nor passionate. He was neither hostile nor friendly.
He was nothing.

"You wanted to make love," Rhoda whispered. "Here I am. Take me. Take
me."

Instead, he disengaged himself, raised himself up on his elbows and
looked down at her. "You are quite different."

She did not know whether to be complimented or offended. "I'm about the
same as every other woman."

"You are different than I am."

"Of course I'm different." Was he joking? He didn't seem to be. He was
deadly serious as he began examining her breasts.

_This is mad. This is insane. Why can't I cry?_

But the other part of her mind quivered with her body as John Dennis
went over it, inch by inch. He appeared to be trying to memorize it. She
moved and turned as his hands directed, a new kind of fire rising within
her. She waited. He touched her and waited for a response. There was
none; nor any feeling within her at that moment except the strange fire
inside and the ache of her taut groin tendons.

John Dennis touched her again and noted the sudden jerk and quiver of
her response. He became grotesquely, academically interested. He touched
the same nerve surface again and studied her face for the response.

Her eyes were closed and her lower lip was gripped in her teeth. "No,"
she gasped. "Not that way. Not that way--please."

She could have been pleading with a brick wall. John Dennis
continued--her natural reactions interested him. He frowned and seemed
puzzled by the excitement he generated within her.

Then she cried out and rolled away from him and lay sobbing, her face
buried in the pillow. But they were dry sobs; strange, tense sounds
filling a questionable and dubious ecstasy.

"You are cruel," she whimpered.

"Cruel?"

"You make love so brutally."

He considered this and then got o