Trick or treat, she thought, biting her lower lip in a straining smile. Yes, yes. . . . Miriam moved a forefinger to her clit and began to serenade her nervous system with gentle strokes. The droplet of come fell onto a thigh and she licked her lips in reflex, then slid three fingers up inside herself, very gently, her other forefinger moving to her clit. The viscid musculature enveloped her fingers, her mind filmed over, her cunt becoming radiant, buttocks beginning to oscillate, finger dabbling her clit as a flow of whelming sensation began. Her mind became an art gallery of nonobjective paintings, sparks skipping across shimmering blue water, fountains of light erupting, colored stars imploding, storms of confetti and twisting collops of iridescent light glowing, pulsing. She brought her fingers out of her cunt, saw them ornamented with turbid swirls of come, and almost swooned, then impulsively marked her cheeks with the alabastrine stuff, like war paint, white paths on the black. She closed her eyes and her mind reeled with images of black cats and bats careening, and she was coming, coming, rising into the coming, the other three fingers restored to the interior of her cunt to circle round and round the soggy lining. The orgasm carried her in waves, mounting, cresting, coming, coming, heat of cunt, nerves sparkling, her mind spinning until she was forced, finally, to her knees, still coming, moaning, fading, turning slowly, then sprawling on the floor, the redolent fetor of her marvelous cunt enlivening her nostrils as the residual thrills in her brain and body eased, faded, fading. . . . Miriam licked her delicious fingers in the aftermath, grinning lewdly.

Time to begin Halloween!

When Miriam left her apartment a full moon as lucid as a chunk of candy shone in the sky. Darkness had blanketed the horizon and was absorbing the last of the sky's twilight lavender. She drove toward Westwood, along Santa Monica Boulevard. At Century City, stopping for a light, she watched a boisterous trio, mummy, pirate and Bedouin caper across the street, obviously on their way to revelry, and their merry mood charged her with anticipation. She arrived at Vale's as the last of the light was vanishing. Vale lived in an old-fashioned building of sky blue stucco. On the second floor her windows were open, an undertone of eerie Halloween music filtering out—Miriam recognized it as the Warhol party sequence music from Midnight Cowboy.

Vale met her at the door, a tall slim woman with swarthy

Mediterranean beauty, costumed as a toy soldier: she wore blue pants, a red tunic festooned with gold epaulets, her cheeks highlighted with balls of pink greasepaint, a silver shako tilted at an angle in her waves of black hair. They exchanged greetings, a quick mimicry of the obligatory show biz hug, and Miriam followed Vale inside where the rooms were lit with candles set in carved grimacing pumpkins. A dozen or so guests circulated.

"See if you can recognize anybody," Vale said, and with a touch launched her toward the party. A haute couture ghost in an opulent violet satin sheet caught her eye, staring at her intensely through the two eyeholes in the sheet. Was it someone she knew? Miriam turned away and found herself confronting someone inside a paper-maché tree reminiscent of those that threw their apples at Dorothy on the road to Oz. Reaching up with a gnarly hand, the tree plucked a plastic apple from one of its leafy branches, and offered it to Miriam, who took it with a smile.

"Enjoy this, Eve, it's forbidden fruit," the tree said in a male voice.

Carrying the apple held against a thigh, Miriam headed toward a table across the room where someone in a white rabbit suit was pouring a glass of azure punch. She poured herself a glass of punch and sampled it, giving her head a little shake as the strong alcoholic impact of it jolted her. With her apple and glass of punch, she wandered into another room. Someone in a policewoman's uniform and a real .38 holstered on her hip passed her. Miriam, who had grown up with guns and done a lot of shooting, including killing dozens of birds and even a bear before deciding that hunting didn't really interest her, wondered if the woman knew how to use the gun. Looking around the room, she noted a fortyish woman incarnated as a Forties teenager in baggy, rolled-up jeans, white blouse, saddle shoes and white socks, Dick Tracy in a butter-yellow suit, and someone in a penguin costume smoking a Kool, but she didn't see anyone she knew. Of course, it was still early.