American Sextet by Warren Adler

table.
    "What have you done to me?" she whispered.
"I'm not even in control of myself anymore."
    "Hey," he said. "You're not exactly an
innocent. I'm as hooked as you are."
    "That doesn't change anything."
    She watched as a confused frown etched itself on his
forehead.
    "What set it off? Things were wonderful this
morning."
    The memory of the broken, doll-like figure at the bottom of
the ravine popped into her mind like a photographic slide. Lowering her eyes,
she looked at her pâté, her stomach lurching.
    "I just can't go on, Clint. Not this way."
    "Inevitable, I guess. It all boils down to a tacky
little scene."
    It was not that he was being deliberately cruel. She had
noted it before, the journalist's objectively trained mind, looking from the
outside in. She knew his pain was as acute as her own. "Forget it,
Fi," he added quickly as if editing his copy. "I don't know how to
react. I've never been through this before."
    "Marry me. Divorce her," she blurted. The words
had come out in a whoosh, almost taking her breath away. Marriage? In the end
that's what they all wanted.
    "Haven't we been through that?" he said, standing
up, pacing now.
    "No," she said, her eyes brimming. "You've
been through it. Not me."
    "I'm just not ready." In the candlelight, his
eyes had misted as well. "Not yet."
    "Well, I am. Overdone."
    "Breaking up a family is a tough step," he said.
His pacing had brought him closer to her.
    "I know," she nodded, thinking suddenly of her
own family. In that cabbage-smelling Irish Catholic nest, such things were
unthinkable.
    "I need time," he said softly. She had expected
the retort, searching her mind for an apt response. Take all the time you need,
she wanted to say. It was the way she dealt with suspected murderers when she
had whipped them down to the edge of confession. To deliver what had to be said
next would take all the courage she could muster.
    "You've had time."
    He paced away again, shoulders drooping. She fought her
compassion, bludgeoned herself to reason.
    "I just can't live this way, Clint. It hurts too
much." How could this have happened to her? Fiona FitzGerald,
self-reliant, controlled, wary, street-smart Fiona. She had learned to deal
with almost anything.
    Suddenly the steak was burning, sending waves of smoke from
the broiler. She ran to the kitchen, and without thinking grabbed the glowing
metal, screaming in pain. Clint rushed in, grabbed a dishcloth and threw the
charred meat, pan and all, into the sink. A douse of cold water made it sizzle
and smoke. Reaching for her burnt hand, he put it under the tap.
    When it cooled, he brought her fingers to his lips and
kissed them. She made a half-hearted effort to remove them from his grasp, but
her resolution had dissolved and she fell against him, embracing him tightly.
    "Give me more time," he pleaded, leading her out
of the kitchen. She went, docile, and expectant. Defeated. Trapped. Like the jumper? Like Dorothy?
    Later, in the calm of his arms, wedged against his cool
flesh, she tried vainly to put the scene in perspective. The room was pitch
black, but she refused to look at the radial dial of her bedside clock. That
was his problem, she told herself defiantly, dreading the moment when he would
rise and squint toward it. His stomach growled and she fingered the line of
hair on his belly.
    "You're hungry," she whispered.
    "Not any more."
    The memory of their encounter made her smile and she dug
her knuckles into his belly.
    "It must have been the jumper that set me off,"
she said.
    "Blue Monday," he said. She felt for his eyes
which were open. "Jumper?"
    "A suicide. At least, that's what it looks like. A
beautiful young woman. Good for maybe a half century more of living."
Saying it aloud sparked her caution. She wondered if she was deliberately
inserting the equation, injecting fear like a threat. She could only hear his
soft breathing in the long silence that followed.
    "I'm going to tell her, Fi. Tell Ann."
    The thump in her chest