“That’s it,” Fiona FitzGerald said aloud. She rose on an elbow and looked at the red digital numbers on the bedtable clock, a reflex, as if the moment of revelation needed a marker.

“What’s ‘it’?” Harrison mumbled, stirring. She felt the warmth of his naked flank where it touched hers. She had duly noted, dating from their third or fourth all-night coupling, that the man slept on his back.

Her occasional bed partners usually slept in a semi-fetal position, fitted against her back like a spoon or vice versa where she was the outside spoon. These were the cuddlers, her special preference. But, there were also the non-touchers who needed their space to effect an untroubled slumber. Whatever their choice, Fiona respected their preference.

Her own view was that if you were making such an intimate trusting commitment as an all-night sexual encounter, you owed it to your partner to maximize fleshly contact throughout all the cycles of activity from arousal to satiation. Harrison Greenwald faltered only at the cycle’s end when he slipped into slumber on his back. Thankfully, his breathing passages were not constricted and he did not snore.

“He is beleaguered by females.”

“Who is?” Harrison said, lifting his head to view the red digital numbers. Like her, he was programmed to the tyranny of time. “At three in the morning.”

He made way for her in the crook of his arm, where she lay her head, and she slipped her arm around his far rib cage. In her normal single state, which was most of the time, this was the part she missed the most, the nocturnal tête-à-tête.

“My boss.”

“The Eggplant?”

“A term of affection used only by his underlings.”

“So how is he beleaguered?”

“His mother is a black matriarch, a boss more exacting than Simon Legree in any incarnation. His wife is a demanding, dissatisfied, pushy, ambitious bitch who daily laments the Eggplant’s lack of upward mobility in the most class-ridden black society in America.”

“These traits in women are not exclusive to blacks,” Harrison said. “May I remind you that I am Jewish.”

“Not necessary. I have observed close-up the result of that ancient barbaric Hebrew ritual to maim the male child.”

“Merely an identification process, like branding. I’m told it does not affect performance.”

He grew silent, awaiting a response.

“If you’re waiting for a comparative opinion, forget it.”

“We were on the subject of the Eggplant’s being beleaguered,” Harrison said. “It apparently had a gender context.”

“Harassment,” she said. “He is being harassed by females. Reaches to the core of the psychology of male domination. The new legal reality of sexual harassment is driving the poor bastard up the wall. He’s got two sticky cases in his bailiwick. Two women cops claiming that they have been verbally abused and sexually intimidated and threatened.”

“Which is illegal . . . and wrong,” Harrison said. A negligence lawyer, he was a bleeding-heart kneejerk liberal in the old mode, a man whose compassion, real or contrived, was a weapon in his cause, which was to help empty the coffers of insurance companies.

“In principle, I agree. On the other hand . . .”

“There is no other hand. The victimization of women is unacceptable.”

“In general victimization is unacceptable. But sometimes what passes for victimization is a double-edged sword. In my world, the macho male cups his crotch for reassurance, to be sure it’s still there. The perception that he is somehow oppressing women is sometimes like a nervous giggle. His whole life is centered around receiving applause from women. ‘Man, did that earth move,’ she mimicked. ‘You are the best.’ That’s both the act and the metaphor. If a man says to me: ‘I’d love you to suck my Johnson.’ Is it victimization? Of me? Or of him? I can castrate his career, destroy him with the stigma of sexual harassment. The stigma is the castrating knife. Or should I give it back to him in kind, say something like: ‘Not today, Jack, I left my magnifying glass home.’ He’d laugh. I’d laugh. End of story. We’ve harassed each other. Only he won’t even think of taking me to court.”

“Not bad,” Harrison said.

“They changed the rules in midstream. Especially for the guys. Hell, they may have taken the fun out of the flirt, the double entendre byplay. I can understand that and I feel sorry as hell for them. They’ve got wives, mothers and daughters and we’ve got fathers, brothers and, speaking for myself . . . lovers.”

“What is that plural ‘s’ doing there?”

The sexual harassment discussion surrendered to the sudden detour. Harrison had a sensitive, possessive streak and was a highly alert listener.

“I was being generic.”

Of course, loving partners all wanted to feel that she’d given them exclusive rights to her body. In fact, she had. Aside from the health considerations that were a given, she considered it a breach of faith to be unfaithful. Trust was the highest priority in her life. And she expected it to be returned in kind.

Unfortunately, trust had not been given the same priority by some of those who peopled her past. Betrayal had made her wary, defensive. Protecting her vulnerability was an obsession. Sometimes, like now, when she was in the full flush of trust, she gave herself permission to believe that she had, at last, found fealty, knowing it could be a false premise, but wanting it badly enough to let her guard down.

“I’d rather you used the singular,” Harrison said, turning his body to face her frontally, pressing her close to him.

“There are no plurals, Harrison. Not in the present.”

“My fantasy is that you had no past, no baggage, no previous . . . experiences. That I’m the first.”

“The first was awful.”

“Until you, all were awful.”

Like a good Jewish boy, Harrison Greenwald had confessed not only his many sins, but the many sins, real or imagined, that were perpetrated against him. His fear of involvement, despite his longing for it, was a mirror image of her own, which did not make for a very permanent arrangement. Under these conditions, love or attraction, even their rutting, frenetic couplings could not, they both were certain, be sustained.

Like a good Catholic girl, she was hopelessly indocrinated despite years of denial and severance and lived in perpetual fear of being chosen for the pit of hell, which did not necessarily mean the hell depicted by the great Michelangelo on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Mostly, she worried about the hell of her vulnerability, the hell of being betrayed, the hell of broken trust. It was an idea that lay in her subconscious with the tenacity of a maggot in the flesh of a corpse.

“Tell me, counselor, what is the defense against sexual harassment, however defined?” she asked, the detour ended.

“That again?”

“Indulge me.”

“The defense?” he sighed. “His word against hers. Whatever gender makes the accusation.”

“Doesn’t the victim’s word have more credence to a jury in those circumstances?”

“In most circumstances there is a bias toward the powerless,” Harrison admitted. “That’s how I make my living.” His arms insinuated themselves under her until he held her in a reclining bear hug.

Finally, she was ready to get at the heart of her motive in raising the subject.

“Which is why the Eggplant assigned a woman to be my partner, thereby lowering the risk of more sexual harassment problems. It is not uncommon in the cops for a male senior partner to harass a woman junior and vice versa. It’s more like a rite of passage than a vicious power game. Under the guise of being a born-again feminist, the Eggplant is playing the evasion game.”

“And that bothers you?”

“Yes, it does. Especially since I understand his real motive. This way, he avoids the hassle.”

“It’s a perfectly logical strategy.”

“For him. Not for me. I don’t like being pigeonholed.”

“Have you confronted him with your theory?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“From his perspective he’s got a point. As a representative of my gender, I don’t want to create a full-blown misogynist. In my opinion he’s already halfway there. Besides, I like to leave people with their illusions.”

“And what are his?”

“He has many. But the one I want to leave him with is that he’s capable of manipulating people. He’s a fabulous interrogator. I wouldn’t want him to lose confidence in his ability to do that.”

“But you’re always telling me that a badge has no gender.”

“It hasn’t. But the person who wears it has a gender.”

“And you’d prefer a male partner?”

“In my heart of hearts?”

“Where else?”

“Yes. I’ll miss the byplay, the innuendo, the flirting, the double entendre, the fun of confrontation. And yes, the dirty talk. I love casting joking aspersions on their dick power. It’s all part of the culture.”

“You also like the feeling of superiority. You’re better educated, better—sorry about the snobbery—bred, and a lot prettier. You’re also financially secure and, of course, you’ve had all the advantages. You’re a white princess lost in a blue-collar world.”

“You are a snob. And I’m not lost. Besides, some of them are a hell of a lot smarter than you nose-in-the-air lawyer types. And most of them are prettier.”

“And what happens when they hit on you?”

“In their mind, it’s obligatory. Actually, it’s only theater. I usually threaten dire physical consequences, mostly in the crotch area. That, too, is obligatory for the girl cops.”

“You’re confusing me,” Harrison said, kissing her neck, caressing the back of her head, then moving downward until both hands were squeezing her buttocks.

“He’s assigned this black amazon to be my partner and has indicated that he’s putting us into investigating female homicides.”

“Exclusively.”

“That’s his implication. It’s also his cover story. He has concocted this crackpot theory that women must know more about their gender than males and therefore would be more effective in busting cases where the female is the victim.”

“What does your new partner say about that?”

“Oh, we haven’t met yet. I’ve been told about her. Her name is Gail Prentiss. She worked LA homicide and is transferring over, no small achievement. She’s from DC, her father’s a prominent surgeon, she’s highly educated and is supposed to be a knockout.”

“One would think that a woman detective would be more effective if the woman was the perpetrator. You know, they’d-be-able-to-get-into-her-mind sort of thing.”

“Not enough female perps to go around, I’m afraid. Murder is primarily a male avocation.”

“And this just occurred to you”—he turned slightly to see the digital clock again—”at three-thirty A.M.”

“Moment-of-truth time,” she said. “That’s when you have it out with yourself and/or your partner.”

“Here’s one,” Harrison said. “Why the cops?”

“For me or for them?”

“Both.”

“You try first.”

“I say it’s for people who like enforcing. A sense of control for people who do not ordinarily control anything.”

“Now explain me?” she asked, feeling suddenly younger, girlish, asking Daddy a question. In the FitzGerald home Daddy, the senator, the man, was everything, her mother merely a saintly supporter, bearing silent witness to his many betrayals.

“Being in the cops?” he asked, obviously stretching the time to find an appropriate answer, letting it cook in his mind.

“Go on, let’s hear it,” she said, reaching down, caressing. He did not need the special attention, she noted. His breathing grew deeper, the intakes shortening. “From my smartass Jewish lover.”

“Shiksa whore,” he said, reaching down in a mutual caress.

“Tell me then, before I forget the subject matter,” she said, reveling in the exquisite softness of his touch.

“You are deep into guilt,” he whispered. “You love guilt. Catholics and Jews love guilt. It is their reason for being. You like to be around guilt, playing with guilt, exposing guilt. How’s that?”

“Do you feel guilty, Harrison?” she said, feeling the accelerating moisture of desire begin to work its way into her cells.

“Always,” he whispered. “Especially now.”

“About what?”

“Betraying my forefathers. Eating treif.”

“Treif?”

“That which is not kosher.”

“Me, too,” she said, moving on top, feeling him inside of her as she leaned backward, her hands supporting her on either side of his thighs as she rotated her body. Their eyes, accustomed to the darkness now, locked together in an ecstatic mutuality. “Fucking Christ killer.”

“Treif.”

“Christ killer.”

She felt it begin, at first the distant rumble, then the approaching waves, moving with the accelerating tide, a mysterious pounding force of nature.

“Wait for me,” she heard him say.

“I won’t,” she cried.

“Oh yes, you will.”

He thrust upward, meeting her movements, his hands grasping the corners of the mattress.

“Jew bastard.”

“Shiksa cunt.”

The waves crested, engulfing her, releasing long spasms of pleasure.

Spent, she folded over him, her lips close to his ear.

“Man, that earth sure moved,” she whispered.

“Let’s hear it for my earth-moving equipment,” he replied.

“Seems to do the job, but I’m still testing for durability.”

Harrison groaned a fake response of frustration and kissed her hair.

Later, she held him, watching his face and feeling the steady rise and fall of his chest as he slept.