want to go to bed too.â
Later, he felt bad about the whole thing. Worse than bad. He didnât know how it happened exactly, but there was some resentment there, he guessed, and it just snuck up on himâplus he was drunk, if that was any excuse. Which it wasnât. Anyway, he hadnât meant to get physical, and by the time sheâd stopped fighting him and he got her shorts down he hadnât even really wanted to go through with it. This wasnât making love, this wasnât what he wanted. She just lay there beneath him like she was dead, like some sort of zombie, and it made him sick, so sick he couldnât even begin to apologize or excuse himself. He felt her eyes on him as he was zipping up, hard eyes, accusatory eyes, eyes like claws, and he had to stagger into the bathroom and cover himself with the noise of both taps and the toilet to keep from breaking down. Heâd gone too far. He knew it. He was ashamed of himself, deeply ashamed, and there really wasnât anything left to say. He just slumped his shoulders and slouched out the door.
And now here he was, contrite and hungover, mooning around on Ledbetter Beach in the cool hush of 7:00 A.M., waiting with all the rest of the guppies for the race to start. Paula wouldnât even look at him. Her mouth was set, clamped shut, a tiny little line of nothing beneath her nose, and her eyes looked no farther than herequipmentâher spidery ultra-lightweight bike with the triathlon bars and her little skullcap of a helmet and water bottles and whatnot. She was wearing a two-piece swimsuit, and sheâd already had her numberâ23âpainted on her upper arms and the long burnished muscles of her thighs. He shook out a cigarette and stared off past her, wondering what they used for the numbers: Magic Marker? Greasepaint? Something that wouldnât come off in the surf, anywayâor with all the sweat. He remembered the way she looked in Houston, pounding through the muggy haze in a sheen of sweat, her face sunk in a mask of suffering, her legs and buttocks taut, her breasts flattened to her chest in the grip of the clinging top. He thought about that, watching her from behind the police line as she bent to fool with her bike, not an ounce of fat on her, nothing, not even a stray hair, and he got hard just looking at her.
But that was short-lived, because he felt bad about last night and knew heâd have to really put himself through the wringer to make it up to her. Plus, just watching the rest of the four hundred and six fleshless masochists parade by with their Gore-Tex T-shirts and Lycra shorts and all the rest of their paraphernalia was enough to make him go cold all over. His stomach felt like a fried egg left out on the counter too long, and his hands shook when he lit the cigarette. He should be in bed, thatâs where he should beâenough of this seven oâclock in the morning. They were crazy, these people, purely crazy, getting up at dawn to put themselves through something like thisâone mile in the water, thirty-four on the bike, and a ten-mile run to wrap it up, and this was a walk compared to the Ironman. They were all bone and long, lean muscle, like whippet dogs or something, the women indistinguishable from the men, stringy and titless. Except for Paula. She was all right in that department, and that was geneticâshe referred to her breasts as her fat reserves. He was wondering if they shrank at all during the race, what with all that stress and water loss, when a woman with big hair and too much makeup asked him for a light.
She was milling around with maybe a couple hundred otherspectatorsâor sadists, he guessed youâd have to call themâwaiting to watch the crazies do their thing. âThanks,â she breathed, after heâd leaned in close to touch the tip of his smoke to hers. Her eyes were big wet pools, and she was no freak, no bone woman. Her lips were wet too, or
Later, he felt bad about the whole thing. Worse than bad. He didnât know how it happened exactly, but there was some resentment there, he guessed, and it just snuck up on himâplus he was drunk, if that was any excuse. Which it wasnât. Anyway, he hadnât meant to get physical, and by the time sheâd stopped fighting him and he got her shorts down he hadnât even really wanted to go through with it. This wasnât making love, this wasnât what he wanted. She just lay there beneath him like she was dead, like some sort of zombie, and it made him sick, so sick he couldnât even begin to apologize or excuse himself. He felt her eyes on him as he was zipping up, hard eyes, accusatory eyes, eyes like claws, and he had to stagger into the bathroom and cover himself with the noise of both taps and the toilet to keep from breaking down. Heâd gone too far. He knew it. He was ashamed of himself, deeply ashamed, and there really wasnât anything left to say. He just slumped his shoulders and slouched out the door.
And now here he was, contrite and hungover, mooning around on Ledbetter Beach in the cool hush of 7:00 A.M., waiting with all the rest of the guppies for the race to start. Paula wouldnât even look at him. Her mouth was set, clamped shut, a tiny little line of nothing beneath her nose, and her eyes looked no farther than herequipmentâher spidery ultra-lightweight bike with the triathlon bars and her little skullcap of a helmet and water bottles and whatnot. She was wearing a two-piece swimsuit, and sheâd already had her numberâ23âpainted on her upper arms and the long burnished muscles of her thighs. He shook out a cigarette and stared off past her, wondering what they used for the numbers: Magic Marker? Greasepaint? Something that wouldnât come off in the surf, anywayâor with all the sweat. He remembered the way she looked in Houston, pounding through the muggy haze in a sheen of sweat, her face sunk in a mask of suffering, her legs and buttocks taut, her breasts flattened to her chest in the grip of the clinging top. He thought about that, watching her from behind the police line as she bent to fool with her bike, not an ounce of fat on her, nothing, not even a stray hair, and he got hard just looking at her.
But that was short-lived, because he felt bad about last night and knew heâd have to really put himself through the wringer to make it up to her. Plus, just watching the rest of the four hundred and six fleshless masochists parade by with their Gore-Tex T-shirts and Lycra shorts and all the rest of their paraphernalia was enough to make him go cold all over. His stomach felt like a fried egg left out on the counter too long, and his hands shook when he lit the cigarette. He should be in bed, thatâs where he should beâenough of this seven oâclock in the morning. They were crazy, these people, purely crazy, getting up at dawn to put themselves through something like thisâone mile in the water, thirty-four on the bike, and a ten-mile run to wrap it up, and this was a walk compared to the Ironman. They were all bone and long, lean muscle, like whippet dogs or something, the women indistinguishable from the men, stringy and titless. Except for Paula. She was all right in that department, and that was geneticâshe referred to her breasts as her fat reserves. He was wondering if they shrank at all during the race, what with all that stress and water loss, when a woman with big hair and too much makeup asked him for a light.
She was milling around with maybe a couple hundred otherspectatorsâor sadists, he guessed youâd have to call themâwaiting to watch the crazies do their thing. âThanks,â she breathed, after heâd leaned in close to touch the tip of his smoke to hers. Her eyes were big wet pools, and she was no freak, no bone woman. Her lips were wet too, or
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