"I said, "Luce?" She looked at me. I opened my mouth but did not speak. My mouth felt dry and there was a kind of faraway ringing and my fingers and legs suddenly went cold. There are those times when intellect fails us. There are those moments when the modern man fades to a shadow and something from the brain stem reasserts itself, and in that moment the joking is gone and we frighten ourselves with our dark potential. I said, quite normally, quite conversationally, "What do you mean, abusive? Did he touch you?" She shook her head, and then she placed both palms on my chest. "Oh, no. No, Elvis. And if he had I promise you fully that I would've had him arrested so fast he would've had whiplash."