BUBBLES

If she noticed his entrance into the bathroom, she gave no indication.

"Need some help?" he asked, as he kneeled beside the tub.

"No thanks," she replied, continuing to wash herself without the customary protests and histrionics he was so used to from her. This was not only a surprise to him, but also a bit of a disappointment as he had planned a devastating retort for her antics to put an end to them once and for all. If they were still just friends he could understand a certain degree of modesty, but it was positively ludicrous for a woman to make love to him for three months and still shriek when he walked in on her in her underwear the way she still did. But there was no shrieking in this instance, and there should not have been he quickly realized; they were at his apartment now.

"Like the bath?"

"Oh, yes," she said emphatically. "Thanks for dragging me over here. I'd forgotten what a nice hot bath felt like. Having only a shower sucks." As she spoke, she scooped up a handful of bubbles and blew them into the air.

"The bubbles are the actual cleansing agent," he said, relaying the Mr. Bubble label. "So you really don't need the soap."

She shook her head. "Not for me. To be that practical takes all the fun out of it, you know? Soap is for washing. Bubbles are for fun."

"Well, you're welcome to come over her anytime and have some fun, Elaine."

"I know," she said softly.

"Well, you sure don't act like it. Getting you over here is like pulling teeth."

Elaine sighed. "It's not that I don't want to come over, Alan, it's just that it's so.... inconvenient."

"' Inconvenient?' Jesus, anything that isn't within three blocks of a train station is 'inconvenient' to you," Alan said with a bitter laugh. "I mean, it's just the Lower EastSide. Besides, I'd like to think I was worth it."

"You are," Elaine said tenderly, hoping to put an end to this conversation. She could sense where it was heading and hoped to placate him before it got there. "But it's so much easier for you to come over to my place after you get off from work. It takes up too much time and energy for me to come all the way over here from Chelsea---time and energy best spent in other ways," she said in her best bedroom voice. "Know what I mean?" She then giggled and blew bubbles at him.

"It's not simply a matter of 'time and energy' to me anymore, Elaine," Alan said, quickly brushing the bubbles from his shirt, his lack of amusement obvious. This was a conversation he had wanted to have for a long time now, and he wasn't about to let her dismiss it with a joke and sexual innuendo. "I would really---just once---like to see you make some sort of effort purely on my behalf. Just once in awhile to show me that the time we spend together actually means something to you." He sighed as he moved off his knees and into a sitting position, his back against the wall. "Besides, it's getting a little tiring having to go home at three in the morning after being with you."

"Is that what this is really about, Alan?" Elaine sat up abruptly and turned to him. "Your not being able to stay the night with me!?!"

His eyes momentarily darted to her naked breasts, glistening with the soap and water, before he caught himself, embarrassed at his lack of self-control. Sometimes he hated that he wanted her so much.

"Well, I'm sorry," she continued, "but you know why you can't, you knew you couldn't when we started, and you know it's not because I don't want you to." They locked eyes for long moments before Elaine felt that her point been made. She then returned to her bath, the bubbles slowly fading away.

Alan was silent for a few moments afterwards, stung not only by the anger in her voice, but also the truth in her words. She had laid down the ground rules on their first night together, but flushed with the opportunity at finally having her, he had pretty much dismissed them, confident that, in time, he would change her mind and the situation. Now, much later, when he was discovering that he could not, he was becoming angry and frustrated.

Tightening his rationale like a muscle, he forced his anger down and tried to continue the conversation, albeit on a less belligerent key.

"Still, that doesn't mean I have to like it," he said dejectedly, "or not to try and change your mind."

"Don't Alan," she said with an urgent tenderness," Please?"

He knew exactly what she was trying to say: that he could be her friend, her confidant, even her lover, but in each case, he would only do so as an alternate. Alan felt as though death could come easier than this reality.

"But you don't love him, Elaine."

She could hear the pain and anger in his voice. Elaine sighed silently. He was such a child in these matters, she thought, and like a child he was very easily bruised, but she had no choice. If he could handle it, fine; if not, she'd miss him.

"I don't love you either, Alan," she said in a gentle, soothing tone. "It's not about that. It never was."

As she spoke, Alan could feel his stomach tighten so fiercely he thought it would collapse in on itself and suck him in, like a black hole in space. Part of him wished it would, as he no longer at a place there.