On the way to work I meditated on the sunrise, which I watch every morning through my bedroom window, and then when I got to work, the barn doors weren’t completely closed, which meant someone had arrived at the stables before me, which was unusual, so I was quiet as I approached the gap between the sliding doors and then I stepped back out of sight when I saw Sweet. She was in her stall, eating out of her colt’s feed bucket with a white plastic spoon. The galvanized steel bucket looked huge next to her small body, looked as though she might as well swim in it as eat out of it. She had on work boots and faded jeans and a yellow halter top that caught slices of morning sunlight shooting through the bars of her stall’s high window. Behind her, His Majesty watched as she leaned over his mix of oats and molasses. His head was lowered, as if he were thinking of using it as a battering ram, but he appeared more confused than angry at the sight of his groom eating his mash. I waited a minute and then made a big production out of opening the barn doors, and when I walked onto the floor of the stable, His Majesty was at his feed and Sweet had her tack box open and a curry comb in her hand.
     "Sweet!" I said, pretending to be startled. "What are you doing here so early?"
     She answered, without looking up from her tack box, "Do I need your fucking permission asshole? I’m here early. What do you care?" She went back into her stall and began brushing out the tangles in His Majesty’s tail.
     I ambled over to my stall and looked in on Miss Payday. She was lying peacefully in a bed of straw, head up and alert. When she saw me, she whinnied. "And good morning to you too, Sister Payday," I said, loudly. I settled myself down on my tack box, using it as a bench, and slowly went about unwrapping a pair of chocolate croissants that I bought at the French bakery by my apartment. I like to eat my breakfast at the stables and say hello to the other grooms as they stumble in to work. Most grooms, they’re a sorry lot: drunks, gamblers, illiterates, fools. Mostly drunks and gamblers. Myself, I guess I fit into the fool category because I’ve always liked grooming horses, ever since I started doing it as a kid, more than thirty years ago, and I’ve never tried to make anything better of myself though I know I could.
     When I finished unwrapping the croissants, I arranged them attractively on a pewter plate from out of my tack box, and I poured myself a steaming cup of coffee from my thermos. Across the stable floor, Sweet was getting His Majesty ready to jog. Sweet was such a tiny, frail girl, probably no taller than five-three, five-four at the most, maybe a hundred pounds. When she first showed up at the stables-- during the season, about two years ago, at the Meadowlands in New Jersey--everyone knew she was a runaway. She couldn’t have been older than fourteen. She had short blond hair and bright dark eyes and a fresh-scrubbed look, and she was wearing good clothes, khaki shorts and a nicely-fitted blouse and high-quality sandals, like a child of some upscale, uptown couple. When she told Victor she was seventeen, he laughed, but he hired her anyway, which no one could figure out because she didn’t know shit about horses. He arranged for her to work on his farm in Orlando for the rest of the meet, and then when we all came back to Florida for the winter, she was already here, at the stables, grooming. Some of us were thinking he had helped her out, that he might have had a spark of decency he had been keeping hidden--but then it turned out he was screwing her. We shouldn’t have been surprised. We all know Victor. But she was so tiny then, it didn’t hardly seem possible.
     "Sweet," I called across the stable. "I’ve got some coffee and an extra croissant, if you’re interested." She didn’t answer, but I could see she had heard me. She was brushing His Majesty’s mane.
     I liked watching Sweet as she worked. I had lately discovered in myself a spiritual bent. A while back, I found a book by Kahil Gibran in a New Age bookstore in town. I was attracted to the store by crystals hanging in the window. Several large crystals were positioned to catch the late evening light and break it into rainbows. I wandered around through the store, enjoying the thick scent of incense, checking out the books, and fingering small vials of brightly colored aroma therapies. I found the Gibran book next to a genuine Crystal ball that cost several hundred dollars, and I bought the book after reading only a handful of pages and being impressed.
     Though I never actually read the whole book cover to cover, Gibran’s words affected a deep change in me. His observations awakened a place within me that had long been sleeping. Suddenly I began seeing all the ordinary things of the world in a new light. The sunrise is a good example: what used to be just part of every morning--watching the sunrise from my bed, through my bedroom window--became something spiritual, as if the light were like God’s love, His love washing over the world. But also other simple, everyday things, like the way light reflected off stalks of straw in Miss Payday’s stall, turning the straw gold and casting a golden tone throughout the stables; and the horses, the beauty of working muscles under sleek hides glistening with sweat; and Sweet, too, her beauty. Sometimes I used to just quit what was I doing and lean against the bars of my stall to watch Sweet as she put down a bed of straw or bathed her colt. I liked especially the lean muscles of her legs as she stood on her toes and stretched for something; and the way her breasts moved and shifted as she worked. Watching Sweet used to be about the favorite part of my day until Paul, who was going out with Sweet at the time, told me he’d put my fat ass in the hospital if he caught me staring at her again. And I knew he would. He told me that Sweet had asked him to tell me, but Sweet never said anything to me herself about it, and I’m sure she would have if I were really bothering her--which I’d never want to do.
     Paul was the real beginning of Sweet’s problems. She took up with him after Victor dumped her. Paul was the stable manager and Second Trainer, and it was him that got Sweet into crank. Now she was living with Robbie, another groom, and she made the stuff herself, getting the ingredients she needed, somehow, from Wal-Mart of all places.
     I finished my first croissant, and had my hand on the second one. "Sweet," I called again. "Last chance. This extra delicious French chocolate croissant is tempting me sorely."
     Sweet stopped working on her colt and turned around to give me a look.
     "You’d be doing me a favor," I said, and I patted my gut, which extended way out over my belt and sort of rested on my thighs. I’ve always had a problem with weight.
    "You bet your fat ass, I’d be doing you a favor," she said. "You have a cup for me?"
     "Hell, yes!" I shouted. "For you, Sweet, I’d run out and scramble up some eggs, just say the word!" I folded my hands over my belly and laughed.
     Sweet mumbled, "Oh, For Christ’s Sake," and tossed her curry comb down into the dirt outside her stall.
     I pulled a cup out of my tack box, and had her coffee and croissant waiting for her by the time she crossed the stable.
     "Jesus," she said, holding the steaming cup of coffee to her face, "this smells fucking great."
     "Should!" I said, my voice that high-pitched, fat man’s whine that I hated and tried hard--with no success--to suppress. "It’s only Colombian Supreme," I said. "Fresh ground last night, ten bucks a pound over at Starbucks!"
     Sweet sipped the coffee and nodded appreciatively. "It’s good," she said. "What kind of coffee maker you got?"
     "Brüne," I said. "What’s Robbie got, Mr. Coffee?" Sweet was living with Robbie, in his apartment.
     Sweet snorted, making a kind of half amused, half disgusted sound that came from way down deep in her chest. "The cocksucker," she said. "The asshole. . . "
     I smiled but looked away, out through the stable doors to the training track, where a couple of grooms already had their horses out jogging. I didn’t like to hear Sweet curse. She didn’t used to curse at all. In fact, when she first started, she didn’t used to say hardly anything at all. She was a sweet thing. That’s what we started calling her, Sweet Thing--and then it just worked its way down to Sweet.
    "What’s the matter, Fats?" Sweet sat down next to me on the tack box. "My language offend you?" She held the croissant to her nose, inhaling its chocolate fragrance, and then took a small bite which she chewed with her eyes closed.
     I said, friendly as could be, "Please don’t call me Fats. I’ve asked everyone here not to call me that."
     "I don’t even know what your real name is." She looked me in the eyes, curious, as if I were about to reveal something of interest to her.
     "It’s Winston," I said. "I prefer to be called Win."
     "Son-of-a-bitch," she said. "I never heard anybody call you anything but Fats."
     "That’s because they’re no-class fools around here. You know I tell the truth!"
     "Got that right," Sweet said, looking back toward her stall and His Majesty, who was looking back at her.
     "You mad at Robbie?" I asked. "I thought he was your old man?"
     "Was," Sweet said, with her mouth full. "The prick threw me out last night. I had to sleep in the goddamn stall."
     "Threw you out?" I said, my voice doing its high-pitched squeal again. "Just threw you out on the street? Just left you with no place to spend the night?"
     "That’s what I said," Sweet answered. She covered her face with her hands and rested her elbows on her knees and massaged her temples with her fingertips. "Jesus Christ," she whispered, almost as if she were talking to herself. Then she sounded angry. "I’m strung out on speed, I’ve got no place to stay, I don’t have a fucking cent to my name . . . . I’m such a fucking mess."
     I surprised myself and put my arm around her shoulder and then kind of moved back a little when I realized what I’d done, expecting her to haul off and punch me. She didn’t though. She just kind of stiffened a bit and swallowed hard.
     "Sweet," I said, "You’re welcome to stay at my place till you get yourself straightened out."
     "I can’t stay at your place," she said, dismissing the idea as if it were totally absurd.
     "Why not? I got an extra room with a fold-out bed. It’s not like I’d expect anything from you. There’s no strings attached or anything. Nothing at all."
     "Right," Sweet said. She pulled away from me, out from under my arm, and went back to her stall without saying another word.
     "Just remember," I called after her. "No strings!"
     Back in her stall, His Majesty nipped Sweet’s shoulder and she slapped him hard on the muzzle and cursed him out a blue streak, and then went about putting him in harness. I watched her awhile, until I heard another groom’s car pull up to the stable, and then I got to work on Miss Payday. Rest of the day, I kept thinking back to when I put my arm around Sweet, a natural thing, wanting to console her, and how she didn’t resist me at all, and I knew there was bound to be something between us. I felt it in my heart, and I thought she felt it too, and then that night when she showed up at my apartment lugging two big cardboard boxes full of her things, I felt my feelings were being confirmed.
     "Sweet!" I said. "I’m overjoyed!" And I was. Honestly. It was a little after ten at night, and I had been thinking about her constantly since that morning.
     "I’m sure you are," Sweet said. She crossed her arms under her breasts and gave me a hard look. She seemed tired, and she was bedraggled, as if she hadn’t showered or cleaned up or slept well in a long time. Her eyes were red and puffy, from crying it was obvious. "Look," she said. "Before I come in, let’s get it straight. You said no strings, right?"
     "Of course," I said, my voice shooting up high. "Sweet," I said, sincerely, "you don’t know me at all if you think I’m wanting anything other than to help you out when you need it."
     "Right," Sweet said, and she shook her head and whispered "motherfucker." She picked up her boxes and toted them into the apartment.
     I closed and latched the door behind her, and when I turned around I saw her standing in the center of my living room, checking the place out. She had a ferocious look about her, like a cat ready to tear something up, and I had to remind myself what a kid she was, still only sixteen at the oldest, and that underneath that mean-looking exterior there was a scared girl who needed someone to help her get straightened out. "Put ‘em down, put ‘em down," I said. She was clutching her boxes, holding them to her chest, her arms wrapped around them. I pointed to the floor next to the Lazy Boy recliner that was against the wall.
     Sweet wouldn’t let loose the boxes. "Where’s the extra room?" she said. "Where’s the extra room you said you had?"
     I folded my hands over my belly and leaned back against the door. "You’re standing in it," I said. I opened my arms. "This is it."
     Sweet looked around the room: at the Lazy Boy and the 19 inch TV positioned on a stand a dozen feet in front of it; and at the table and two chairs by the room’s only window. "Fats," she said. "This is your living room."
     "You can have it," I said. "You can move right in here long as you need--"
     "Fats--"
     "Win. Please."
     "Win. You said you had an extra room."
     "Well, this is an extra room!" I said, my voice soaring.
     "The living room isn’t an extra room, Fats! It’s the fucking living room!"
     "Well, this is the room I meant, Sweet. My bedroom’s over there." I pointed to the red bead curtain that separated my bedroom from the living room.
     "Son-of-a-bitch . . . ." She dropped the boxes. "And you said you had a fold-out bed." She looked around. "All I see is a table and a recliner."
     "That Lazy Boy’s better n’ a bed! That’s where I sleep most nights!"
     Sweet covered her face with her hands. She rubbed her temples. After several long moments, she took her hands away from her face and looked at me. "I’m supposed to sleep in the recliner and make myself at home in your living room?"
     "Sweet," I said. I was quiet awhile. I gave her a paternal, loving look, trying to communicate to her that I cared and was concerned and was just trying to do a good deed, to help her out.
     She sighed. "Fats," she said. "Win . . . Win, do you have a shower?" She ran her fingers through her hair and rubbed at a spot on the back of her neck, looking away from me. "I need a damn shower," she said. "I smell like a fucking horse." Her voice trailed off, getting softer, almost inaudible. "I haven’t had a fucking shower in days . . . ."
    "Do I have a shower?" I yelled. I laughed loudly. "Of course I have a shower!" I opened the door to the bathroom and flipped on the light. "Tell you what," I said. "You take a shower and I’ll whip us up a late-night breakfast: eggs, bacon, toast, and juice. The works. What do think?"
     She nodded and gave me the slightest smile, and I could see that her eyes were watery. She picked up her boxes and carried them into the bathroom, and after she closed the door, I heard her slide the lock closed and then it was quiet. I listened awhile, just looking at the door, and I couldn’t help imagining her getting undressed, taking off her clothes only an arm’s length away from me.
     "Win!" Sweet’s voice boomed from behind the door. "Are you just standing out there or what? I haven’t heard you move."
     I tiptoed quickly to the kitchen and then called back: "What was that, Sweet? I had my head in the refrigerator."
     She didn’t answer. A moment later I heard the shower going, and I started cooking up the bacon. By the time she turned off the water and pulled back the shower curtain, I had set two places at the table and dropped three slices of bacon apiece on each plate. Next to each plate was a glass of orange juice, and in the center of the table a stack of toast rose up off a white, ceramic Lazy Susan that pictured a standard-bred race horse trotting across a finish line. When everything was ready but the eggs, which I planned on cooking up once Sweet was at the table, I hurried to my bedroom and brought out my leather-bound blank book, which I had been writing the best of my sayings down in for the past year. I put it on the far end of the table, away from the plates, hoping it would look like I just happened to lay it there.
     Sweet came out of the bathroom wearing light-weight, silk-like pajamas that hung loosely from her body, but clung to all the right places. I almost fainted.
     "Win," she said, "Do you have a robe?" She gestured to her pajamas, showing she was aware of how sexy they were. "These are the only PJs I’ve got," she said, "and I don’t want to sleep in my clothes again."
     I shook my head.
     "Great," she said. She looked at me a moment, and then added, "Well at least you could quit fucking staring at me, all right?"
     "Oh," I said, startled. "I didn’t realize. I’m sorry." I looked away from her, toward the kitchen, and then I remembered what I was doing. "I’ll whip up the eggs!" I yelled. "You sit down, Sweet! Make yourself comfortable!"
     In the kitchen, I cracked two eggs into a bowl and dropped a fat slice of butter in my biggest cast-iron frying pan. "Scrambled okay?"
     "Scrambled’s fine," Sweet answered, softly, as if distracted.
 When I glanced back at her and saw that she had my book opened and was reading in it, my heart did one of its flutter things that scares me sometimes.
     "Did you write this stuff?" Sweet said.
     "What stuff?" I said. I didn’t turn around.
     "This stuff," Sweet said. "The heart is like a broken furnace. The heat of its love is squandered."
     "Oh, that," I said. I carried the frying pan to the table and portioned out the scrambled eggs. "That’s just my notebook where I write down my thoughts."
     Sweet put the book down alongside her and dove into the eggs and toast. "Jesus," she said. "I’m starving. This is the first thing I’ve eaten today since that croissant."
     "That’s terrible, Sweet," I said. I brought the frying pan back into the kitchen and by the time I sat down to my eggs, Sweet had finished.
     She propped her head up on her hands and smiled at me, and I think that may have been the very first time she ever gave me a genuine smile. The food obviously had a good effect on her mood. "What’s it mean," she said. "The heart is like a broken furnace . . . ?"
     "Well," I said. "That’s hard to explain, Sweet. You have to think about it."
     She nodded and made a cute face, as if she found me entertaining, and then she opened up the book again. "How about this one," she said. "The life of a wounded soul is a Ferris Wheel that spins wildly out of control. What’s that mean?"
     "Well," I said. "There again, you know. Same thing. Got to think about it."
     "Got to think about it," she echoed. Her appearance seemed to shift as she watched me, as if she might be seeing me differently, as if it might be occurring to her that I was a deeper person than I might look to be. She folded her hands in front of her on the table. She said, "Are you sure you know what you mean?"
     "Well," I said, "Sweet. It’s not that simple." I clasped my hands over my stomach and leaned toward her slightly. "Sometime you have to let your thoughts lead you into deeper waters, if you know what I mean. You have to be willing to ponder things. A deep thought’s always going to be a little mysterious, at least at first."
     "Oh," she said. She nodded, her eyes fixed on me. "You mean, something like this: ‘The stupidity of the good is unfathomably wise.’"
     "What?"
     "‘The stupidity of the good is unfathomably wise.’ Friedrich Nietzsche."
     "Who?"
     "Nietzsche. German philosopher."
     When I didn’t say anything more, Sweet offered me another smile. "My father read me Nietzsche at night. He was obsessed with Nietzsche. He’d read to me from Nietzsche’s books, and he’d give me sayings to memorize, like that stupidity one. This is from the time I was five or six. My mother thought he was reading me Winnie the Pooh." She laughed.
     I couldn’t figure out anything to say. Sweet fiddled with her plate and looked a little antsy. I repeated the name, "Nietzsche," and the sound of it felt strange. "Do you remember any other sayings?
     "Lots," she said. "You don’t want to hear."
     "I do," I said. "I’ve been reading Kahil Gibran myself lately."
     "Never heard of him," Sweet said.
     "He’s a philosopher too," I said. "Eastern."
     Sweet looked away, out my window, which overlooked a junk-strewn alley. "‘Woman was God’s second blunder.’ That’s one that stuck in mind."
     "Nietzsche said that?"
     "So sayeth my father."
     "Lord," I said. "What kind of thing is that to say to a little girl? What was His first blunder?"
     Sweet shrugged. "How about this: ‘Morality is the herd-instinct in the individual.’"
     "What?"
     "Enough," Sweet said. She twisted around in her chair to look at the recliner, and then looked back at me. "Fats," she said. "Let’s work this out." She crossed her arms in front of her on the table, very business-like. "I’m desperate for money and a place to stay, but I’m not going to fuck you, so you can just forget that."
     "Sweet!" I said. I grasped the table with both hands. "I can’t believe that you’d--"
     "Oh, cut the shit, Fats. You’ve been jerking off over me for two years. Tell me it’s not true."
     I could feel my face turn bright red. "It’s-- It’s not--"
     "Oh, please . . . ." She stared at me a moment, and then sighed dramatically. "Listen," she said. "How about this? I’ll share your bed with you at night and walk around naked and stuff, and we can even cuddle some. You can even touch if you want," she said. "I don’t mind being touched. But that’s it," she said. "No penetration, no bodily fluids. Period. Nothing except nakedness and light touch." She smiled and winked at me. "It’ll be fun," she said.
     "Sweet," I said. I was shocked. I tried to make my face express my sadness and disbelief.  "If you think for a moment that I was offering you a place to stay because--"
    "Right," Sweet said.
     "I was trying to--"
     "Do a good deed," she said. "Right."
     "Honestly, Sweet. I swear."
     "I believe you," she said. "I know." She rubbed her temples, and then sat back in her chair with her eyes closed as if she were doing a meditation exercise meant to calm her. When she finally opened her eyes and spoke, her tone was friendlier, less business-like. "Win," she said. "I’d appreciate it if you’d let me share your bed with you tonight, because I’d really rather sleep in a bed than a recliner."
     "Well," I said. "I mean . . . It’s a big bed. If you really want to . . ."
     "I do. I’d appreciate it." She propped her head up on her hand, cutely, and smiled. "And, listen, I know this is a big thing to ask, but if you could let me have some money, just, like, a hundred bucks maybe, to hold me over, I’d be in your debt. Can you do that?"
     "You mean," I said. "Like a loan?" When she didn’t answer, I said, "Well, sure, Sweet. For you, I’d do that."
     "Thanks," she said. "And if you could take me shopping tomorrow, after work, I’d appreciate that too."
     "That wouldn’t be Wal-Mart where you want to go shopping, would it Sweet?"
     "Yes. Wal-Mart," she said.
      "I don’t know about that, Sweet."
 When I said that, her face hardened and she swiveled around in her seat, turning to look at the recliner.
     "But," I said. "Okay. If you really feel you need to."
     "I do," she said. "I need you to help me out there, Win."
     I nodded. "Okay, then," I said. "I will. I’ll help you out."
     "Good." She slid her chair back and patted me on the knee. "Why don’t we get to bed then, all right?"
    "Okay," I said. I gestured toward the dishes. "I’ll clean this up and you go ahead."
     She winked at me and then got up and went to the bathroom, and when she closed the door behind her, I noted that she didn’t bother to pull the latch. I cleared the table and scraped the dishes and when I turned on the water to wash the plates, I heard Sweet leave the bathroom and get into bed, and then this wonderful, intense moment happened. I had my hands under the running water, which was warm and soothing, and I was running a sponge over the surface of the plate, and I realized--it just sort of hit me--that Sweet was actually getting into my bed. Sweet. She was getting into my bed. We were going to sleep together, me and Sweet, and when that dawned on me, I was just, suddenly, like, miraculously happy. It was a transporting feeling. It was like God was placing this gift in my hands, putting Sweet into my care--delicate, beautiful Sweet. In my bed. I almost couldn’t believe it. I almost thought it was all going to turn out to be a dream.
     I finished up the dishes, and turned off the lights, and when I got into bed, it wasn’t a dream. Sweet was there, her back turned toward me, the covers pulled up to her neck, her head snuggled into the pillows. I pulled back the covers to get into bed and saw that she was naked, and my heart fluttered so wildly I was frightened for a second that I was going to die right there, before I ever had a chance to get into bed with her. I had to just stand there a long moment, holding up the covers, waiting for my heart to quit jumping, and it occurred to me then that she might already be asleep, since she didn’t turn around to see what I was doing.
     When I finally got into bed, I was careful not to touch her, I don’t know why, but after awhile I regretted it, because I was just dying to put my hands on her body, just to feel her skin. Then I did something that I had no idea I was going to do. I turned on my side and put my arm around her, touching her forearm first, letting the palm of my hand follow the length of her arm, and I touched her breasts and whispered my great secret to her, something I hadn’t told a soul: that I had never been with a woman in my whole life. Not one. Not one single time, and I could feel the heavy tears splashing down onto my chest as I told her. She reached back to pat my thigh. "It’s okay," she said. "But that’s enough touching for now, all right? Let’s go to sleep." She took my hand gently by the wrist and pulled it away from her. "Okay," I said, and I settled onto my back with my arms crossed over my chest. I was breathing hard, kind of choked up. It took awhile for me to get calm again, and then I wasn’t at all sleepy. After I lay there for several minutes, I realized that the blinds were pulled closed, and we wouldn’t be able to see the sunrise in the morning. I got out of bed and went to the window to open the blinds.
     Sweet said, "What are you doing, Fats?" Before I had a chance to explain, she added, "You are going to be a gentleman, aren’t you Fats, and not tell anyone about this arrangement?"
    "What arrangement?"
    "My sharing your bed. Others don’t have to know about that. You can just tell them you’re doing me a favor, giving me a place to stay."
     "Well, that’s the truth," I said. "That is what I’m doing."
     "Okay," Sweet said. "Good then." She was quiet a moment, and I thought she was going to say something else, but she just said "Goodnight."
     "Goodnight," I answered, and I got back into bed. For a long time I lay there quietly, listening to Sweet breathe, and thinking about what I might be able to do to help her. I’d buy her stuff for her tomorrow, because I didn’t think I could stop her. But maybe over time I could help, maybe even get her into some kind of program. I lay there thinking about that for a long time before my thoughts shifted to the morning, and I fell asleep imagining the sight of the two of us in bed, imagining what we’d look like with morning sunlight coming through the window, with God’s light washing over both of us, golden and brilliant and clear, the way His light is, always.