and turned over in bed to tell his wife about the dream before it dissipated, reached for her across the empty bedclothes to find her gone and this vacancy another dream but one from which he would never wake. The thick stick of his erection pushed into the melange of sheets that held him like something caught, suspended, and he groaned and pushed against the mattress with the remembrance of her. A joy stick! The term had tripped her laughter on one of those first nights -- someplace like Buffalo and one of those dumb places where they had carelessly landed to make a disaster scene around the bed with their clothes. She had always hung his service jacket on a chair and sometimes the silver wings on the breast of his tunic would catch the light of the neon sign outside the window. Ho -- tel. Ho -- tel. Going from blue to red to blue and back again. But it's a French name. I bet