Paper Money

held the bedroom door open for her, and her heart missed a beat. This had once been a ritual: a sign between them, a lovers' code. It had started when they were young. She had noticed that he became almost embarrassingly courteous to her when he felt lustful, and she said as a joke: "You only open doors for me when you want to make love." Then, of course, they thought of sex every time he opened a door for her, and it became his way of letting her know he wanted it.

Their love was a sensual, self-indulgent, hedonistic thing, quite different from the eternal devotion of the Book of Common Prayer.

The mornings are fun, the afternoons are work."

. In a civilized society, he thought, when there was no news there would be no newspapers.