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He'd stood it for five years. Then he dumped them. Three months later he found Annie sitting on a barstool at the Allstate. You could do that if you were in control. Make your life over on a dime.

He was living proof.

That was two months ago now and he'd managed to talk Annie into moving in with him and everything was fine.

But now this…

…indignity.

Snoring.

He tried everything. Special pillows from The Sharper Image. Sleeping on his back. On his left side, on his right, on his belly. Finally Annie bought earplugs too.

And mornings he'd wake up angry. Because he knew what he'd done the night before. There were nights lately he even woke himself up. It was that loud.

Snoring. Like an old man. He was starting to look lousy in the morning. Like an old sick man who was failing, losing control. Tired. Slack. There was too much hair coming out in his comb.

Next I'll be wetting the bed, he thought.

He went to work with a tic in his upper lip that just wouldn't quit. His eyes red-rimmed and swollen.

"Bill? You okay?" asked his partner, R.J., another less-than-reputable broker.

"Uh, why do you ask?"

"You look like shit."

All right. That about said it all. R.J. was a forthright man. They were very forthright with one another about which clients they were going to sink in favor of their own till and which they'd swim along with. So in spite of the blow to his vanity he wasn't put off by the observation.

"You're not back into the coke again, are you?"

"No I am not back into the coke again. I haven't been sleeping right. Wake up feeling rotten. Annie says I snore so loud sometimes the windows rattle."

"You got to get yourself squared away, man. We gotta be on the mark. How can we beat the SEC if you're all wrung out and strung out?" As if that weren't clear enough he made it clearer. "Your work's been slipping, Bill, you're fucking up. Unfuck yourself."

Bill got the message. He could guess the reason for all this. Job stress, pure and simple. Bill was not only proverbially tall, dark, and handsome — he was also the proverbial workaholic. It was starting to wear him out. To be on the mark for his job he needed to be rested, but the snoring and sleep talking were taking their toll on his rest. They, in turn, were caused by the stress. The snake was eating its goddamn tail here. He needed some leisure, needed to blow off some steam, so he figured he'd do just that.

Annie never got home from her job until seven, so by five Bill was blowing off some serious steam — if seminal fluid could be referred to as steam. He had Millie bent over the kitchen sink, her dollar-store skirt pushed up to her bra, his Armani slacks pooled at his ankles. Millie was short, so Bill was lifting her up by the hips, banging away. At one point, as the crisis neared, it might have looked like he was trying to stuff her down the drain — an appropriate symbol, since that's where her life had gone years ago. When he was done he nearly collapsed.

"Wow," Millie said through a mouthful of chipped teeth. There was also a sharkfin nose. He wasn't that discriminating — at fifty bucks a pop the price was right. She seemed winded.

"You've never given it to me like that. Bad day at work or something?"

Bill was offended. How dare this bitch make some personal judgment about him? She was a whore, period. Not some buddy of his. He pulled up his pants, frowning.

"And if you don't mind my saying so," she went on, "you look like…"

"I look like what?"

She pulled her skirt back down, sheepish now.

"You were going to say I look like shit, weren't you?"

"No," she said. "But I mean… I mean, look at yourself. Your face is all red, you've got veins sticking out. Are you okay?"

Annie had a little mirror encircled by sea shells hanging above the stove. Bill about wailed when he looked into it.

She's right, and so's R.J. His eyes were sunken and bloodshot. Veins pulsed fat as earthworms at his forehead. I do look like shit…

What the hell was happening? In the course of a week or so, all this had come down on him. All of a sudden, Bill Dumont was tall, dark, and not terribly handsome anymore.

He supposed he appreciated Millie's honesty, at least to some extent. "Here," he handed her some money. "Get out."

"Are you mad at me?"

"No, I'm tickled fucking pink."

"I'm just concerned for your health! You don't look good. You look sick!"

I look like shit. "Get out." He spun her around, shoved her toward the door.

"Hey, this is only thirty dollars!"

"I'm a little short today. With that nose on you, you're lucky to get ten."

"I got a kid!"

"Your trick-baby's not my problem. Use rubbers. Get out. And let the door hit you in the ass on the way."

He could hear her blubbering in the hallway. Whores shouldn't be allowed to have kids anyway. She's probably on welfare, sapping honest taxpayers like me. The state should make 'em all get abortions.

"Bill," Annie said when she got home, "you look like shit."

Bill's shoulders slumped as he sat on the couch with his beer. If one more person tells me that, I'm gonna go on a killing spree. Starting with her.

"And I've been thinking about that," she continued. She walked to the couch with a white paper bag in her hand and pulled out a box.

"I can't believe I didn't think of it sooner. The snoring, the tossing and turning at night, the narcolalia…"

"The what!"

"The talking in your sleep, Bill. These are all signs of a progressive sleep disorder. And sleep disorders can lead to serious health problems. Like hypertension."

She ought to know. Annie was an LPN for a hypertension clinic.

"Dr. Seymour let me bring this home." She was unwinding a long black rubber tube from a plastic box with a little LCD screen on it. It was a blood pressure monitor.

"I don't have high blood pressure," he said.

"Well, let's see. They call it 'The Silent Killer,' Bill. You can have it for years and not know it. And sleep disorders, especially those with snoring as a symptom, can drastically raise your blood pressure. When you snore, you're not getting enough oxygen, see, so your vascular system constricts, to speed blood flow."

She wrapped the cuff around his arm. "Don't move." Then she began pumping a rubber squeeze ball. The machine started beeping.

He hadn't had his blood pressure taken in years. Why the hell should he? Only old people got high blood pressure.

"Look, Annie, I don't have high blood pressure."

The beeping stopped. "Bill, you do have high blood pressure. It's 180/110. That's way too high."

"It could kill you, for godsakes. You could have a CVA."

"What's that? Like an SUV?"

"Cerebral vascular accident — a stroke, Bill. It could cause an MI, too.”

“What's that? Military intelligence?"

"Myocardial infarction. A heart attack."

Fuck this shit, he thought. She was spooking him.

But why would she exaggerate?

"I care about you, Bill," she said. She bent over to meet his eyes and he could read the concern on her face. "I love you."

Jesus. He hated the L Word.

"I want you to go see the doctor," she said.

He was looking down at her impressive cleavage and it occurred to him that if he really did croak from high blood pressure he'd never have his hands on those beauties again. Some other guy would.

"I'll see the doctor."

Which he did, in spite of his reluctance.

Dr. Seymour was Annie's boss. The guy looked hungover but Bill didn't care. Annie trusted him. The doctor wrote him two scripts.

"One's a diuretic, a water pill. It reduces total blood volume, very reliable for hypertension. But for off-the-roof blood pressure like yours, you need something else too."