Venneman dropped the coffee carafe in the sink as he was filling it with cold water. It smashed into flying slivers. One sliver hit him on the knuckle. He sensed as much as saw one fly past his eye, just missing him.

"Damn!"

His knuckle was bleeding. He held his hand under the stream of cold water, washing the cut until the blood stopped flowing. It stung deeply, but he kept his hand there. He deserved some pain for such carelessness.

It was a small cut, but Venneman was worried that the piece of glass might still be in there. Years ago, his mother had warned him that cuts from broken glass were the worst kind, because often one could not feel the glass in the wound. Unlike a splinter of wood, glass didn't always give its presence away. The image of a glass splinter under the skin, cleanly slicing away the very nerve endings whenever the wound was touched and thus preventing telltale feelings of pain, had stayed with Venneman ever since.

He shivered and told himself not to fret about such things. Surely the fact that the cut had already stopped bleeding was a good sign. He should expend more energy worrying about the invisible pieces of glass he had just scattered all over the kitchen.

Venneman spent the next quarter-hour sweeping the floor carefully and wiping off all the counters. Then he stepped outside and wiped his shoes on the wet grass just in case there were some slivers in the soles. It was still dark outside, and cold and drizzling, a prelude to the snow predicted for the day. Venneman took his time anyway and did a thorough job before going back inside. Finally he was ready to get the spare carafe from the cupboard and start the coffee-making process all over again. Once the coffee had started dripping, he took the shopping list off the refrigerator door and added to it Coffee Carafe -- 12 Cups.

Jill came into the kitchen as he was pinning the list back on the refrigerator door with a magnet. She was wearing only her bra and panties, and she was toweling her hair. "Did you yell, Richie?"

"Yeah, I yelled." He held up his hand, knuckle toward her, and told her what had happened. "Better not walk around in here until you get your shoes on."

"Right. Bring me a cup when it's ready, will you?"

He watched her as she left the kitchen, still rubbing the towel over her hair. The wetness made her hair look dark, but when it was dry, it was a light brown, almost blonde, shining and healthy. It reached almost to her shoulders, turning under at the end. It was naturally fairly straight hair, with only a slight, soft wave. Jill had always avoided permanents, preferring her hair's natural beauty. It complemented the aristocratic beauty of her face -- high cheekbones, firm jaw, straight, slender nose, pale skin. Her eyes were brown and her eyebrows almost black, a startling contrast to her hair and skin color. She stared at people fixedly, sometimes; it was an unconscious habit. Venneman had seen its effect: uneasiness followed by fascination.

Jill was tall for a woman, only a couple of inches shorter than Venneman. She was slender and firm, despite a sedentary job and lifestyle and a large appetite. She had always seemed unaware how blessed she was by heredity.

Venneman knew that Jill Kennedy in her underwear would have excited most other men, but she no longer had that effect on him. Living together, he thought. It's as good as marriage for suppressing libido.

Not that he had found her as arousing even in the beginning as he was sure other men would have. Their lovemaking was certainly pleasant, though, and Venneman would rather make love to Jill than not do so, most times.

In the early days of their living together, he remembered, Jill had always taken care not to appear in front of him naked, or even so nearly naked as she had just done. He had always assumed that that was due to her shyness about nudity and her uneasiness with her own body. For the first time, it occurred to him now that she might have been afraid of exciting him too much. She had had as many unpleasant experiences with the libidos of others as he had, and she must have feared his. For a moment, the idea amused him.

Later, they had breakfast, drank the last of the coffee, and went to church. Then they came back and read the newspaper, did their various housekeeping chores, and went out on a brief shopping trip. After all of which, it was time for Jill to prepare their lunches for the next day, for Venneman to make sure that all the non-food items he wanted to have in his lunchpail were in there, and for both of them to go to bed.

They were both very tired. They gave each other a quick kiss, said goodnight, lay down back to back, and fell asleep quickly. Despite his fear that it would wake him, the cut in Venneman's hand didn't bother him at all during the night, and by the next morning, he had forgotten about it.

The young woman at the front of the bus kept watching him. Venneman tried to keep his eyes glued to his newspaper, but he could not avoid looking up now and then. Whenever he did, his eyes met hers and she smiled warmly at him. Even Jill's presence in the seat beside him was no deterrence to the young woman.

Predators, Venneman thought. The world's full of them. He had always hated being stared at, especially when the look had in it that element of sexual interest that he had learned to recognize and fear even as a child.

The bus went all the way downtown, but Venneman and Jill normally got off at an earlier point, at one edge of the university where both worked, Venneman in the basement of Currigan Hall, the building housing the physics department, and Jill as the receptionist for the history department. Today, Jill had an appointment at a doctor's office along the way.

"Here's my stop," Jill said. "'Bye."

Venneman offered his cheek, and she gave him a peck on it. Then she hurried from the bus into the grey light of a winter morning.

Quickly, Venneman slid his lunchpail from his lap onto the seat Jill had just vacated. He tried to watch the young woman at the front of the bus without actually looking at her. She had half risen from her seat as Jill headed for the exit. Now, seeing what Venneman had done with his lunchpail, she sat down again. She was watching him, though, still trying to catch his eye. Venneman stared at his newspaper again, pretending to read it.

The bus reached the university, and the young woman stood up. This was Venneman's normal stop, but he decided to stay on the bus for a while this morning. After a long look at Venneman, the young woman shrugged and got off. Venneman relaxed for the first time since boarding the bus and managed to finish the main section of the newspaper before the bus reached its next stop, which was downtown. Venneman left the bus and began the trek back toward the campus.

Walking carefully along the wet, slippery sidewalk, Venneman wondered when it would end. Age would do it, he supposed. At some point, he'd be old and wrinkled enough that women would no longer want him. He had once decided to take up smoking in order to hasten that day, but Jill had objected strenuously. Possibly he would one day get used to the unwanted invitations and learn to ignore them, but he doubted it.

He got to work five minutes late instead of his usual ten minutes early. Not that it mattered all that much. The first supercilious Ph.D. wouldn't show up until ten or eleven o' clock. Of course everything had better be ready by then, and both lab technicians must pretend to be eager to jump to the lordly one's commands.

He and Dale did all the work, but the faculty members got all the credit. No doubt a really good Christian would be able to accept that and even be content with the way things were, Venneman thought. He had never pretended to be a particularly good Christian, though, much as he thought he ought to be. Instead, he was sure he was one of the most sinful ones.

Faculty members and students were already roaming about in the hallways, but none of them paid any attention to Venneman. He was beneath the notice of the faculty members except when they needed his help in the lab, and the students ignored him because they knew he was of no use to their academic careers.

Oh, ease up, Venneman told himself. Less bitterness and more understanding, please.

He went down the main stairway, down to the basement level of Currigan Hall, trying to put a spring in his step, as if doing so would in turn affect his mood and make him feel happy and carefree.

At the bottom of the stairs, the way was blocked by double glass doors. A box was attached to the wall beside the right-hand door. A small light on the box glowed red. Venneman unclipped from his shirt pocket the badge which functioned as a cardkey. He inserted it into the slot in the box and pulled it out again. The red light changed to green, and Venneman heard the faint click as the door was unlocked. He reclipped the badge to his shirt and pushed the door open. "Home again," he muttered.

In fact, though, he had always liked the cleanliness and order of the lab.

Upstairs, there were other labs, the ones where first-and second-year physics students did what were grandly called experiments as part of their course work. No matter how often the students were preached to about the importance of neatness in a lab, those rooms were always a mess -- in Venneman's opinion, anyway. He had started out up there, setting things up for the kids beforehand and then cleaning up after them. It had seemed a hopeless and endless task. At least he had done it, unlike his successor, who was really little more than a glorified janitor, and not a very good one.

Down here, matters were different. This was Dale and Venneman's domain. Oh, not in the view of the physics faculty, but in the view of the two lab technicians, who knew the truth of the matter far better than the part-time visitors with doctorates did.

Although the truth of the matter, Venneman knew, was that he was still little more than a glorified janitor. And this was Dale's domain if it was anyone's.

Dale was there already, seated at her desk, bending forward to concentrate on the screen of her computer. Venneman could see that she had on her usual Serious Graduate Student expression, but the blue light from the screen made her look like The Graduate Student from Another World.

Venneman was not surprised that Dale had arrived before him. She was as punctual as he, and frequently worked even later.

She had a future to work for, which could not be said for him. She had chosen this way to pay her way through graduate school, preferring it to teaching undergraduate courses or grading papers for one of the faculty members. From what Venneman had heard, Dale was highly respected in the department and was doing very well. She'd be gone all too soon, off to her no-doubt brilliant career. At which time, Venneman was sure, she would be replaced by someone considerably less pleasant to work with.

He called out across the room to her. "Hi, Dale! How's Dr. Dirtbag's little darling today?"

Dale looked up from her console, gave him a quick smile, and returned her attention to the panel in front of her. "Humming right along. All the little dials keep spelling out 'Nobel Prize.'"

Could Harold Dinsmuir with a Nobel Prize to his credit be any more insufferable than he already was? Venneman doubted it.

He put his lunchpail on his desk, hung his coat on the rack beside the desk, and walked over to Dale's desk. He stood behind her and looked over her shoulder. He realized that he was halfway hoping Dale had found a glitch, some sign that Dinsmuir's project wasn't working. Venneman felt guilty immediately. Don't think about Dinsmuir getting glory out of this, he told himself. Think of the university and the department getting the glory. Think of your job security.

If Dinsmuir succeeded, Venneman was sure, money would start flowing into the department, this lab would expand, and maybe Venneman could even swing a raise for himself. Such a raise would be even more likely if he could bring himself to stay in Dinsmuir's favor, since much of the money flowing into the department would flow to Dinsmuir, whom other universities would be trying to recruit. Should Dinsmuir choose to stay, he would have more money, more prestige, and more power. A pay raise was important to Venneman and Jill. If it were large enough, they could get on with serious planning for the future.

He realized that he had rarely stood this close to Dale before. For the first time, he noticed a few grey hairs in her short, thick cap of black hair.

Poor Dale, he thought. It's a good thing for her she's so good at physics and will be able to support herself. She'll never get a man.

Immediately, Venneman felt guilty for those thoughts. Dale was a wonderful young woman, he told himself sternly, and the man who won her heart would be lucky, indeed.

"What does he have you doing for the presentation?" Dale asked him.

She was twenty-five, the same age as Jill, but that was the only similarity between the two women. Dale was taller than Venneman, her face was plain, and her body was slender, shapeless, and sexless. "I'm the kind of woman every man expects to find in a physics lab," she had once told Venneman. But her face was pleasant and open, and Venneman had always found that looking at her relaxed him inside, made him feel calm and peaceful. Perhaps that was largely due to her being one of the few woman who didn't openly want him sexually.

He said, "I copied and collated all the handouts for Dirtbag. He also told me to double check all the tables and graphs against the original readings. You know, he's terrified that his positive results will turn out to be an artifact of the instruments, and he'll look like an idiot."

"Even more of an idiot, you mean. I bet there are lots of physicists who would be happy to disprove his results. In fact, a lot of them are on the faculty right here."

"Yeah, well, they might dream of undermining him, but they're also happy enough to hold onto his coattails as long as he's a rising star."

Dale laughed. "You're mixing your metaphors."

"Dale, I don't even know what a metaphor is, let alone how to mix one. Anyway, now I have to put the stuff into those glossy binders he bought. Oh, and give the place a once over, make it neat and shiny. I'd better get to it. Dr. Dirtbag'll probably be along in an hour or two."

Dale widened her eyes at him and said loudly, "Why, here's Dr. Dinsmuir now. Hi, Dr. Dinsmuir! Everything's swimming along swimmingly."

Venneman pasted a smile on his face and turned toward the door.

"Good girl," Dinsmuir said. The tone of his voice dismissed her. His gaze slid over her and came to rest on Venneman, and his face lit up. Harold Dinsmuir was a tall, athletic man, darkly handsome. Venneman knew that he was past forty, but he looked no more than thirty, and the quantity and quality of his research were those of a young scientist. The current project, the complex of machinery which occupied all of the west end of the lab, was Dinsmuir's most ambitious research yet. It was also his ticket to worldwide fame. Today, Dinsmuir would be showing a group of money men and policy makers what he had accomplished. It would be the first step toward cashing in that ticket.

"Richard," Dinsmuir said. He had the voice of an orator even when he wasn't trying, and now he was trying. His voice grew deeper, richer, more commanding. "Let's go up to my office, Richard. We need to talk about what you'll be doing today."

Venneman stood his ground. "We discussed it yesterday afternoon, Doctor. I know what to do, and all the handouts are ready. I've got them stacked over there on my desk."

Dinsmuir's glance flicked back to Dale and away again, back to Venneman. "Hm. I see. Okay, carry on, both of you. I'll check in later today."

After Dinsmuir had left, Dale said, "I wish I knew your secret, Richie."

"I wish I knew, so I could get rid of it."

Dale shook her head. "I don't think it's something you can get rid of. Or transfer to someone else, which is what I really wish you could do. You're more than handsome, you know. In an earlier age, you'd have been called beautiful."

"No," Venneman said quickly. "Jill's beautiful. Men are just handsome. But I'm not even that."

Dale said, "Jill is beautiful, but so are you. Or handsome, if you prefer. Very handsome. You're about six feet tall, aren't you?"

Venneman shook his head. "Five ten."

Dale laughed. "Okay, let's compromise. Say five eleven. And in good shape. And you've got that gorgeous hair -- I don't even know what color to call it."

"Let's call it brown and change the subject. Please."

But Dale persisted. "No, it's not really brown. More like auburn -- such a dark red that it's almost brown, but it's much more interesting than brown. It's a color women want to touch, to see if it feels as beautiful and sexy as it looks."

"It feels like hair," Venneman said.

"Of course it does. But you're avoiding my point. And then there are your eyes. They're even larger and darker than Jill's, and hers are killers. But you don't look at people the way she does. You're always looking at the ground, instead of the person you're talking to."

"That's not true!" Venneman said. "I'm looking at you right now." He forced himself to keep his eyes on her face.

"With an effort," Dale said. "I can tell. Anyway, it's more than just your looks. I think you'd have that amazing sexual attraction, that sexual magnetism, even if you were ordinary looking. Maybe it's pheromones. Every woman wants you. And a lot of men, too, obviously."

"Not every woman, thank God." He smiled at Dale, feeling safe doing so.

"Most men probably envy you."

"They don't know what it's like. Anyway, I'd better get on with making Dr. Dirtbag look good."

Venneman put the handouts for the presentation into the new binders that had "Harold Dinsmuir" prominently printed on their covers. Then he scoured the lab. He found a few stray pieces of equipment and put them back on the appropriate shelves in the appropriate cabinets or in the supply closet, as appropriate. He noticed a couple of crumpled-up pieces of paper on the floor, and he picked them up and threw them away. He dusted surfaces and washed and dried the coffee mug with DINSMUIR stenciled on it. He worked mechanically. He was thorough, but his conscious mind was elsewhere.

He, too, wished that he could transfer whatever it was to someone else -- to one of those men who supposedly envied him, perhaps, or to Dale, who obviously also envied him. Whatever it was, in Venneman's opinion it was a curse.

It had been with him for as long as he could remember. It predated puberty, the awakening of his own very mild interest in sex. As far back as he could remember anything, he could remember adults of every age and both sexes stroking him, hugging him, kissing him, and all those memories filled him with disgust. In school, teachers and other children had done the same thing to him.

God, how he hated being pursued! Pursued, desired, the protagonist in others' fantasies . . . He would sell his soul, he sometimes thought, to be free of all that.

Thank God for Jill Kennedy. She too was beautiful, desirable in the eyes of others. And she too wanted to be free of others' eyes on her body, wanted to be liberated from other people's needs. She and Venneman had found each other with vast relief. Each had become the other's shield against the world's lust.

They had been living together for more than a year. True, they slept together, but the physical side of their relationship was so subdued, so almost chaste, that Venneman was sure God would forgive them for it, especially since it protected them from the temptations of others and since they fully intended to marry very soon -- as soon as money permitted, as soon as their financial future seemed secure enough.

Much of that depended on Dinsmuir, unchaste Dinsmuir, lust-filled Dinsmuir.

Campus rumor had it that no attractive student in Dinsmuir's classes -- male or female -- was safe from him. A man of lesser professional ability would have destroyed his career with even half of the escapades that were attributed to him, but Dinsmuir -- Dirty Harold, Dirty Dinsmuir, Dr. Dirtbag -- had so high a record of achievement in his field that a university administration desperate for national recognition had chosen to hold its breath and ignore his trespasses and hope that Dinsmuir had the sense to know how far was too far.

Sometimes Venneman felt dirty working in the man's lab. He also had no options. He was lucky to have this job. Were he to lose it, he would have a hard time finding another like it.

He was only here because of Dinsmuir, in the first place. There seemed no end to Venneman's dependence on the vile man.

Venneman's parents had died when he was a senior in high school. He had spent the small insurance settlement on college tuition, books, and room and board. In retrospect, it had been a foolish gamble, and he might have been better off spending the money at the racetrack.

He had reached the first semester of his junior year before admitting that his intellectual abilities weren't equal to his ambitions: he would never be a physicist. He had signed up for a course in Electricity and Magnetism and one in Optics, both required for physics majors, both taught by Dinsmuir, and both acknowledged as killers. They had certainly killed Richard Venneman's academic career.

There was nothing else Venneman had ever dreamt of being, nothing but a physicist. But it had become clear to him that it wouldn't matter if there were anything else, for he was talentless, as inadequate for everything else as he was for physics.

Of all people, Dinsmuir had come to his rescue. Dinsmuir, so vile in Venneman's eyes, had exerted his influence and persuaded the university to create a permanent lab-assistant position and hire Venneman to fill it.

Ten years later, Venneman was still there.

Even in his own eyes, he was just a glorified janitor. He made up for his lack of intellectual ability, his lack of any qualification for advancement, by an obsessive attention to detail. In any lab that was his responsibility, every surface would be spotlessly clean and every item would be in its proper place.

He would be here, he knew, doing this kind of work, until he was an old man. The years that should have constituted his career in science, he would instead spend in this lab or one like it, cleaning up after those with real ability, surrounded by science he could not hope to understand.