She hadn’t noticed his arm on the back of her chair, how his hair brushed her shoulder when he filled her glass. Without any self-consciousness, without any consciousness at all, she had eased into the man’s presence. In the vestibules between cars he took her arm to steady her, drew her in to him when a mozo passed with luggage. She didn’t react to such intimacies, as she would have with any other man. She was simply enveloped.

This would never happen to her again. When she grew older she would always be in control, even when being submissive. This would be the first and last time anyone took over herself.