THIRTEEN
A brightly painted carousel with prancing horses and cockerels.
After Joe had left, Ethel lay there quietly, eyes closed, thinking of him, head on her forearm, listening to the buzz and hum of insects, still naked from the hips down, skirts hiked up around her waist. She seemed to have forgotten her earlier suspicions that there had been someone around. If there had been someone around, he would have had a fine view of Ethel as she lay there, legs asprawl, exposed and luxuriant, and it was not until some insect—a midge, a horsefly or mosquito—bit or stung her on the thighs that she had actually pulled her clothing down, no doubt trapping there-in whatever it was that had been lunching on her flesh.
She had been thinking of Joe and everything else tended to pale into insignifica
