From the Corner of His Eye

you?"
        Cherished her, Junior tried to say, but emotion me, clotted like a great gob of mucus in his throat. His face contorted with a misery that he did not have to fake, and he was astonished to feel tears spring to his eyes.
        Alarmed, concerned that his patient's emotional reaction would lead to racking sobs, which in turn might stimulate abdominal spasms and renewed vomiting, Parkhurst called for a nurse and prescribed the immediate administration of diazepam.
        As the nurse gave Junior the injection, Parkhurst said, "You're an exceptionally sensitive man, Enoch. That's a quality to be much admired in an often unfeeling world. But in your current condition, your sensitivity is your worst enemy."
        While the doctor proceeded with his evening rounds, the nurse remained with Junior until it was clear that the tranquilizer had calmed him and that he was no longer in danger of succumbing to another bout of hemorrhagic vomiting.
        Her name was Victoria Bressler, and she was an attractive blonde. She would never have been serious competition For Naomi, because Naomi had been singularly stunning, but Naomi, after all, was gone.
        When Junior complained of severe thirst, Victoria explained that he was to have nothing by mouth until morning. He would be put on a liquid diet for breakfast and lunch. Soft foods might be allowable by dinnertime tomorrow.
        Meanwhile, she could offer him only a few pieces of ice, which he was forbidden to chew. "Let them melt in your mouth."
        Victoria scooped the small clear ovals-not cubes, but discs-one at a time, from the carafe on the nightstand. She spooned the ice into Junior's mouth not with the businesslike efficiency of a nurse, but as a courtesan might perform the task: smiling enticingly, a flirtatious glimmer in her blue eyes, slowly easing the spoon between his lips with such sensuous deliberation that he was reminded of the eating scene in Tom Jones.
        Junior was accustomed to having women seduce him. His good looks were a blessing of nature. His commitment to improving his mind made him interesting. Most important, from the books of Caesar Zedd, he had learned how to be irresistibly charming.
        And although he was not a braggart in these matters, never one to participate in locker-room boasting, he was confident that he always gave the ladies more satisfactory service than they had ever receive from other men. Perhaps word of his physical gifts and his prowess had reached Victoria; women talked about such things among themselves, perhaps even more than men did.
        Considering his various pains and his exhaustion, Junior was some what surprised that this lovely nurse, with her seductive spoon tech nique, was able to arouse him. Though currently in no condition for romance, he was definitely interested in a future liaison.
        Ile wondered about the etiquette of just a little reciprocal flirtation when his dead wife was not yet even in the ground. He didn't wish to appear to be a lout. He wanted Victoria to think well of him. There must be a charming and civilized approach that would be proper, even elegant, but would leave no doubt in her mind that she made him hot.
        Careful.
        Vanadium would find out. Regardless of the subtlety and dignity with which Junior responded to Victoria, Thomas Vanadium would learn of his erotic interest. Somehow. Some way. Victoria would not wish to testify as to the immediate and electrifying erotic attraction be tween her and Junior, would not want to help the authorities put him in prison, where her passion for him would go unfulfilled, but Vanadium would smell out her secret and compel her to take the witness stand.
        Junior must say nothing that could be quoted to a jury. He must not even allow himself as much as a lascivious wink or a quick caress of Victoria's hand.
        The nurse gave him another loving spoonful.
        Without a word, without daring to meet her eyes and exchange a meaningful look, Junior accepted the oval of ice in the same spirit with which this lovely woman offered it. He trapped the bowl of the spoon in his mouth for a long moment, so she could not easily remove it, and closing his eyes, he groaned with pleasure, as if the ice were a morsel of ambrosia, the food of the gods, as if it were a spoonful of the nurse her self that he was savoring. When at last he released the spoon, he did so with an encircling and