"Betty lost her job. The dog had been run over and killed. She got a job as a waitress, then lost that when they tore down the cafe to erect an office building. Now she lived in a small room in a loser's hotel. She changed the sheets there and cleaned the bathrooms. She was on wine. She suggested that we might get together again. I suggested that we might wait awhile. I was getting over a bad one.
".............we drank a little longer and then we went to bed, but it wasn't the same, it never is - there was space between us, things had happened. I watched her walk to the bathroom, saw the wrinkles and folds under the cheeks of her ass. Poor thing. Poor poor thing. Joyce had been firm and hard - you grabbed a handful and it felt good. Betty didn't feel so good. It was sad, it was sad. When Betty came back we didn't sing or laugh, or even argue. We sat drinking in the dark, smoking cigarettes, and when we went to sleep, I didn't put my feet on her body or she on mine like we used to. We slept without touching.
"We had been robbed."
