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In Mrs. Ralph's bedroom Garp looks immediately at the sprawled black Labrador retriever on Mrs. Ralph's undulating water bed. The dog rolls listlessly on his side and thumps his tail. Mrs. Ralph mates with her dog, Garp thinks, and she can't get him out of her bed. "Come on, boy," Garp says. "Get out of here." The dog thumps his tail harder and pees a little.

"Not him," Mrs. Ralph says, giving Garp a terrific shove; he catches his balance on the bed, which sloshes. The great dog licks his face. Mrs. Ralph is pointing to an easy chair at the foot of the bed, but Garp first sees the young man reflected in Mrs. Ralph's dressing-table mirror. Sitting naked in the chair, he is combing out the blond end of his thin ponytail, which he holds over his shoulder and sprays with one of Mrs. Ralph's aerosol cans. His belly and thighs have the same slick buttered look that Garp saw on the flesh and fur of Mrs. Ralph, and his young cock is as lean and arched as the backbone of a whippet.

"Hey, how you doing?" the kid says to Garp.

"Fine, thank you," Garp says.

"Get rid of him," says Mrs. Ralph.

"I've been trying to get her to just relax, you know?" the kid asks Garp. "I'm trying to get her to just sort of go with it, you know?"

"Don't let him talk to you," Mrs. Ralph says. "He'll bore the shit out of you."

"Everyone's so tense," the kid tells Garp; he turns in the chair, leans back, and puts his feet on the water bed; the dog licks his long toes. Mrs. Ralph kicks his legs off the bed. "You see what I mean?" the kid asks Garp.

"She wants you to leave," Garp says.

"You her husband?" the kid asks.

"That's right," says Mrs. Ralph, "and he'll pull your scrawny little prick off if you don't get out of here."

"You better go," Garp te

lls him. "I'll help you find your clothes."

The kid shuts his eyes, appears to meditate. "He's really great at that shit," Mrs. Ralph tells Garp. "All this kid's good for is shutting his damn eyes."

"Where are your clothes?" Garp asks the boy. Perhaps he's seventeen or eighteen, Garp thinks. Maybe he's old enough for college, or a war. The boy dreams on and Garp gently shakes him by the shoulder.

"Don't touch me, man," the boy says, eyes still closed. There is something foolishly threatening in his voice that makes Garp draw back and look at Mrs. Ralph. She shrugs.

"That's what he said to me, too," she says. Like her smiles, Garp notices, Mrs. Ralph's shrugs are instinctual and sincere. Garp grabs the boy's ponytail and tugs it across his throat and around to the back of his neck; he snaps the boy's head into the cradle of his arm and holds him tightly there. The kid's eyes open.

"Get your clothes, okay?" Garp tells him.

"Don't touch me," the boy repeats.

"I am touching you," Garp says.

"Okay, okay," says the boy. Garp lets him get up. The boy is several inches taller than Garp, but easily ten pounds lighter. He looks for his clothes but Mrs. Ralph has already found the long purple caftan, absurdly heavy with brocade. The boy climbs into it like armor.

"It was nice balling you," he tells Mrs. Ralph, "but you should learn to relax more." Mrs. Ralph laughs so harshly that the dog stops wagging his tail.

"You should go back to day one," she tells the kid, "and learn everything all over again, from the beginning." She stretches out on the water bed beside the Labrador, who lolls his head across her stomach. "Oh, cut it out, Bill!" she tells the dog crossly.

"She's very unrelaxed," the kid informs Garp.

"You don't know shit about how to relax anybody," Mrs. Ralph says.

Garp steers the young man out of the room and down the treacherous back staircase, through the kitchen to the open front door.

"You know, she asked me in," the boy explains. "It was her idea."

"She asked you to leave, too," Garp says.

"You know, you're as unrelaxed as she is," the boy tells him.

"Did the children know what was up?" Garp asks him. "Were they asleep when you two went upstairs?"