He slapped my face so hard it jolted me. I could feel the awful pain and hurt in his mind as he stared at me, and I sensed the stinging in his palm that matched the burning in my cheek. And then something fell away in his mind, and I saw something I had never seen before. He loved me, that man. Incredible, isn't it? He _loved_ me. Me, who couldn't call him anything but Lambertson, who couldn't imagine calling him Michael, to say nothing of Mike--just Lambertson, who did this, or Lambertson who thought that. But he could never tell me. He had decided that. I was too helpless. I needed him too much. I needed love, but not the kind of love Lambertson wanted to give, so that kind of love had to be hidden, concealed, _suppressed_. I needed the deepest imaginable understanding, but it had to be utterly unselfish understanding, anything else would be taking advantage of me, so a barrier had to be built--a barrier that I should never penetrate and that he should never be tempted to break down. Lambertson had done that. For me. It was all there, suddenly, so overwhelming it made me gasp from the impact. I wanted to throw my arms around him; instead I sat down in the chair, shaking my head helplessly. I hated myself then. I had hated myself before, but never like this. "If I could only go somewhere," I said. "Someplace where nobody knew me, where I could just live by myself for a while, and shut the doors, and shut out the thoughts, and _pretend_ for a while, just pretend that I'm perfectly normal." "I wish you could," Lambertson said. "But you can't. You know that. Not unless Custer can really help." We sat there for a while. Then I said, "Let Aarons come down. Let him bring anybody he wants with him. I'll do what he wants. Until I see Custer." That hurt, too, but it was different. It hurt both of us together, not separately any more. And somehow it didn't hurt so much that way. * * * * * _Monday, 22 May._ Aarons drove down from Boston this morning with a girl named Mary Bolton, and we went to work. I think I'm beginning to understand how a dog can tell when someone wants to kick him and doesn't quite dare. I could feel the back of my neck prickle when that man walked into the conference room. I was hoping he might have changed since the last time I saw him. He hadn't, but I had. I wasn't afraid of him any more, just awfully tired of him after he'd been here about ten minutes. But that girl! I wonder what sort of story he'd told her? She couldn't have been more than sixteen, and she was terrorized. At first I thought it was _Aarons_ she was afraid of, but that wasn't so. It was _me_.