Hideo watched for a month, mentally holding his breath, as Mara seemed to him by sheer will to drag herself out of the depression she'd fallen into when Ibushi had cast her off. He knew her well enough now to know there were two parts of it she had to wade through: She'd held out hopes for a relationship that in hindsight she shouldn't; and she felt she'd failed in her work with him. As far as he could tell, she hadn't failed, though. The addict had chosen to go back to his drug, and that was beyond anyone to change. Telling her that hadn't helped much, but he'd done it anyway.

Relationships, he didn't dare broach, and he knew it. He'd raised it too many times in other ways; it had nearly cost him any relationship he had at all with her. You don't have to be alone. You could have a life with Hana and me. How many times? And always the same answer: She couldn't lead that kind of life, a normal one. They were better off without her, she insisted. It wasn't time to talk to her about what happened yet, not that part. And it definitely wasn't time to try again himself. She'd thrown herself utterly into her work, though in the face of Atsuo's refusal to participate in another session like the one that had nearly sent him out the door, she had at least tempered the degree of violence she was doing herself. She stayed up too long, usually came down frustrated, angry, and sometimes in tears, but she wasn't trying to rip her body to pieces any more.

It looked like more of the same tonight. She surprised him by coming out and sitting at the bar. She usually avoided any possibility of contact with customers. She also rarely drank, but she asked for a beer.

He put it in front of her. "Nothing?"

"And nothing and nothing and nothing." She drank a little, but mostly toyed with the glass. "Maybe I need to take some time off. Find some woods to go off into and see if they're even still speaking to me out there. Maybe I finally screwed up too much even for them to put up with."

"Maybe you are trying too hard. Pushing."

"Also possible. Which would make going out there and looking for them even harder a bad idea."

"You could just take a vacation. It would be good for you."

"If I'm not accomplishing anything, I might as well not accomplish anything somewhere pretty, right? Any suggestions?"

"What do you want?"

"Nature and no people."

"I suggest anywhere other than Japan."

She laughed. He was happy to see it. "Yeah, being alone is kind of not a thing here, isn't it? I wish I knew what to do with a boat."

In the end, she called up a map when she got home and sat staring at it until she realized the answer was right there looking her in the face. You want to be alone? There it the hell is, and lots of nature, too. She booked a ticket for the next afternoon.

36 hours from cringing and clicking Pay, she was behind the wheel of a rented and profoundly beat up Land Rover on her way into the very natural and very empty middle of Australia, with a map and guide book on the seat beside her and an enormous amount of food and water in back. The tourist bureau the rental agent had directed her to had been a huge help. She had an itinerary; a list of places carefully marked on the map where she could get fuel, supplies, and a night's sleep; and four days to spend wandering from one to the next with time to stop and be alone in nature and keep telling herself she wasn't waiting for a message from out there.

What she was seeing pushed that out of her mind before long. Her home turf was the desert part of the US, so she felt simultaneously at home and displaced. It was desert, to be sure, but most assuredly and visibly not her desert. She thought she must have pulled over about 400 times the first hour just to stand on the seat and look around.

She hadn't driven or even ridden this kind of distance for a long time; after four hours, she was ready to get out and stretch a little. She knew the rules without even having to think about them: Carry water, pick a landmark and walk straight toward it, go no further than you could crawl back if you broke your leg, no hills or other large things between you and the sightline back to the car. Even with all that, she was able to go quite a way before she started thinking about turning back. She stopped for one more good look around first.

The shout was somewhere between OY and HEY, being repeated, and accompanied by a madly waving man running toward her. She could see a car pulled up behind the Rover, passenger door flung open.

I have a flat. Two flats. The gas tank ruptured. I got rented the only haunted Land Rover in Australia. He thinks I came out here to pee and comes bearing toilet paper.

"Hullo." Nice smile, eyes so astonishingly pretty that she noticed in the midst of all this, not breathing much at all like he'd just finished sprinting through the desert. "Are you all right?"

"What? Oh! I'm fine. I just walked out a little to have a look around and stretch my legs. No issues."

"You're certain?"

"Yes, really." He didn't look convinced or happy, though. "Okay, I'm missing something, big time. What's up? There's like 50 million poisonous snakes out here, aren't there? That's what they do on Saturday night, come out here and wait for a dumb person to bite."

He laughed; it was as nice as his smile. "It's Tuesday."

"What, then?"

"Two or three people a year walk out here and don't come back."

"I wasn't going to walk any further than this alone. I grew up in desert country."

He shook his head. "I mean they, ah...walk out and don't plan to come back."

"Oh! Oh, no. Just a tourist, I swear."

He didn't say any more about it. He also didn't leave.

"And it's wonderful that I'm a tourist, and you'd feel a whole lot better if I'd go back to my car now."

"Yes."

"Okay, I've got a town to get to, anyway."

"Which?"

"Uhm."

He laughed again. "You can't say it. Show me on your map. Please say you have a map."

"And a guidebook, both carefully marked so I don't end up a pile of bleached bones on the side of the road if I pay any attention at all."

He walked back with her and they spread the map on the hood of the Rover. "There. That one."

"Tibooburra. But you do realize you're here right now?" He stabbed a finger about the length of it back on the map.

"21 kilometers. I can do that in my - oh, fuck me running."

He leaned on the hood and roared laughter. She'd spotted the other 2, almost lost under the circle around the town. 221.

"Listen, I'm from here." He pointed at the nearest town to where they were. "You can follow me in. There's a hotel, or so it claims to be. And my mum puts on enough to feed the masses, for three of us."

"The hotel, yes. But your mother will not appreciate having a stranger dropped on her right before dinnertime."

"I've known her longer than you have, so you'll just have to take my word. Truly, she'll be happy to see another mouth to feed."

"If she isn't, do I get to kick you under the table the whole meal?"

"Sounds fair. What do I get to do if she is?"

"Have seconds on dessert. Just so I don't have to say 'Hi, your son Whatever invited me to dinner,' what's your name?"

"Robbie. And so I don't have to say 'Pass the bread to whoever that woman is, Mum,' what's yours?"

"Mara. And apparently I agreed to all this at some point. Lead on."

Once they turned off the highway, the road immediately converted to a pounded dirt track. For the first time, she was entirely glad for the sturdy chunk of metal she'd rented. The town at the end was about what she was expecting to find at the end of that kind of road, too - tiny, sleepy, and somehow looking older than time.

The three of them Robbie had mentioned were his mother, his brother, and him. To her enormous and relieved surprise, his mother really did seem to be delighted with having a surprise guest. Robbie wasn't joking about how much food she put on, either. She was asked a lot of questions - What part of the US do you come from? What's it like there? What are you planning to see while you're here? - but nothing personal enough to make her feel uncomfortable. It took her a while to figure out the occasional tapping on her ankle; Robbie had passed on the second dessert and decided on very gently kicking her under the table instead. When she finally caught his gaze, he managed to look extraordinarily innocent.

Everyone moved outside when the evening cool arrived. Robbie stayed near her - not uncomfortably so, but enough that she stayed constantly aware of him there. It created a small pocket of tension that she rather enjoyed.

It turned out his mother might have noticed it, too, and maybe not enjoyed it so much. She flatly dismissed Mara going to the hotel, but she also organized sleeping arrangements like a general. "There's the spare bedroom. The bath's across the hall, linens in the closet behind the door. Give my son who I know I taught better manners your keys and he'll go get your things. And then he'll go bunk at his brother's."

"I can sleep on the sofa."

"Only if I chain you to it. Go on. You can come back in the morning. I'll see to it your discovery stays to breakfast."

Long flight, long drive, sun, dust, an enormous meal, and a hot shower. Mara was ready for bed by the time she'd dried her hair enough to put her head on a pillow. She was asleep almost the moment she did.

She woke, she had no idea at what time, to something tapping on the window. She peered out, wondering vaguely if dingoes knocked.

"It would have been easier if you'd gone to the hotel, honestly." It was Robbie. For a few seconds she was so confused that all she could do was stare. "Come out. You wanted to see sights. I know where there is one."

She couldn't even remember how old she was the last time she used a window at night so someone's mother wouldn't wake up. Fifteen? Maybe sixteen? She was just grateful not to fall out right on her ass. She added completely mystified to grateful when their sneaking away amounted to about 30 feet, and he started climbing. "There's a sight on top of your mother's garden shed?"

"There is." His hand appeared out of the dark. "Up is this way."

He pulled her up to the roof without seeming to strain much. She wasn't even all the way up when she realized why she was there. The dark was dark out here - or it would have been if not for what it allowed the stars to be. She was fairly certain that if she'd brought a book, she could have read it by them. "Holy shit."

"The middle of fucking nowhere doesn't have a lot. But what it does have is really good."

She sat on the flat tar-paper roof of the shed and just stared straight up, jawdropped. "I grew up pretty far out in the sticks, but there was light pollution even out there. This is..."

"Unless you're planning to drive with your head like that tomorrow, you might want to lie down."

A good point. She did. There was something under her head when she stretched out. It took a few seconds to identify it as his arm. Maybe the sky isn't the only thing you were thinking about showing me up here? What the hell, I'm on vacation.

For a while, he didn't do anything other than look. Eventually he shifted, his arm moving a bit under her as he did.

"Did I put it to sleep yet?" She started to sit up enough for him to reclaim it.

"Don't, it's fine."

She wasn't exactly surprised when he shifted more toward her and kissed her. "You know, I don't think I'm the first girl you've brought up here."

He laughed. "No. But you're the first since I was sixteen or seventeen."

So, three years ago? It was strange: She thought he was really about her age, but he seemed like someone much younger. There was an ease with things that had been worn off her over time, but he seemed like he'd held on to.

It's called happiness, dummy. This is what a happy person looks like. Fuck knows it's been long enough since you last saw one. Let alone slept with one. Which you're definitely about to do.

Things were definitely progressing that direction. He was exploring with his free hand as he went on kissing her, and things were coming all undone and getting pushed out of the way. Some of the other things he was doing along the way felt very good.

"Do you want it?"

She nodded, hoping he could see it, or would know what she was doing by the feel of it. "Uhm, guess what I didn't put in my suitcase when I packed for this trip."

He laughed softly. "I'm an optimist. Or just a wishful thinker." She heard an unmistakable tiny crinkling sound. "You first, though. I've been thinking about this all day, and impatience and endurance don't mix."

No, you're definitely not 19.

He took his arm back, then peeled off his shirt and bundled it into a makeshift pillow for her. For a few seconds, she was fighting back tears that completely blindsided her. She was relieved he couldn't see it. How the hell could she explain?

She'd gone for simple and comfortable for sleeping - light cotton pajama pants and an oversized tee. He rid her of the pants promptly and efficiently; the shirt he simply pushed up out of his way.

"I hope you packed about a 5000 sunscreen."

"I...wasn't expecting any of this to see the sun."

"You are made more for starlight, aren't you?" He bent and, without any teasing beforehand, drew a nipple into his mouth, sucking hard at it.

Her whole body slammed upward, completely beyond her control. She had to jam the side of her hand into her mouth to keep from shrieking; she nearly clouted him on the side of the head with her arm along the way.

He looked thoroughly surprised, and maybe a bit amused. "Is there someone back home not giving you proper attention?"

She laughed; it came out as a choked sound she wished he hadn't heard. "There's no one giving me any attention these days."

"No wonder you needed a holiday." He went back to the business of giving her body one from the waist up, mostly with his tongue. By the time he got started on waist-down, she had two handfuls of his hair and was drumming her heels on the tar-paper under them.

"That's going to tear your feet up if you don't stop." He paused long enough to hook her legs over his shoulders, which meant no more kicking, since she wasn't into breaking ribs. She'd also lost her grip on his hair, which turned out to be for the best; she needed both hands to clamp over her mouth.

Between tongue, fingers, and teeth, he got three top-to-toes orgasms out of her in about 20 minutes. She was pretty sure it was a record; about 90% of the sex she'd ever had involved her doing a lot of acting.

He came up smiling. "See now, I think they should put that at the end of the tourism ads. 'Oh yeah, and...Australian men, ladies!'."

"Why eat at Outback? They'll...uhm, cancel that thought."

It was his turn to slap a hand over his mouth to trap a howl of laughter.

She closed her eyes and waited. The crinkle of foil tearing. Muttered cursing at the dark. Bearing his weight as he shifted, adjusted, then slipped into her, all at once, no gradual advance. Stereotypes are bullshit. But it's been a long time since I was with a gaijin man. I...forgot about this. She gritted her teeth and waited for the shock and panic of being utterly filled to finish racing through her.

"All right, sweetheart?"

"Oh god, yes." The part of her mind that was waiting for him to start hitting or biting or choking her was being drowned out by a slow realization: This is all he needs from me. Not to hurt me until he feels better about himself. Not to do things to me he used to do to someone else. Just this. She didn't even know when the last time was that it wasn't work. I really am on vacation. All of me. It wasn't easy; it was as if she had to push herself before she could fall all the way into it. But she did.

She came again, partly aware as she did of him lifting her into his last few thrusts, pinning her tight against him as he came. A wave of frustration washed over her at not being able to have what instinct wanted, but the energy of it dissipated under knowing that he wanted it, too, and that she'd made him want it. Why can't it be like this all the time?

"Are you expected anywhere? Hotel reservations, something that would make them go out searching for the lost tourist?"

"No."

"I've got to go back to work soon, but I've got one more day. Stay here. Spend it with me. Would a day matter so much if all you're doing is wandering?"

"No, it wouldn't." One more. I get one more day of feeling like a normal person. "I think I'd better check into that hotel, though."

"I have a feeling my mum's not entirely clueless that I planned to come back tonight."

"Facing her at breakfast should be interesting."

"I'll be here. She said to come back in the morning. She never said how early."