title: Women in Their Beds: New and Selected Stories
author:  Gina Berriault 
description: Gina Berriault has been publishing short stories and novels for more than 30 years. For most of this time, she's suffered the mixed blessing of being a "writer's writer"--somebody with a fanatic following within the literary community and near invisibility outside of it. With <i>Women in Their Beds</i>, however, Berriault seems finally to be receiving the recognition she's always deserved. The book--a greatest hits collection that includes nine new stories--has already won the National Book Critics Circle Award, the PEN/Faulkner Award, and the Rea Foundation Prize. Lyrical, concise, and stubbornly resistant to secondhand wisdom, these stories are (in the words of <a href="/exec/obidos/Author=Ford%2C%20Richard/${0}">Richard Ford</a>) "nonpareil [and] just simply wonderful."
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  * * *
  
  **SURVIVING DEMON ISLAND**
  
  When he stepped into the bedroom, he sucked in a breath of shock.
  
  Gina was there, leaning casually against the partially open front door. Her
  hair was unbound, still damp from her own shower and hugging her shoulders and
  breasts. She wore a skimpy little orange-flowered sundress that clung to her
  curves.
  
  I didnt hear you knock.
  
  Thats because I didnt. She shut the door behind her and advanced into the
  room.
  
  Unless youre here to throw me down on the bed and have your way with me, get
  out.
  
  She paused for a second and looked at his bed. Was she considering it? And
  what would he do if she was?
  
  Believe me, thats the last thing Id want to do with you.
  
  Too bad. And here I am all clean and almost naked.
  
  She took a quick glance at his crotch before returning to his face. Okay,
  maybe not such a quick glance. More of a lingering one.
  
  Derek, Ive worked my butt off since the day I got here, but for some reason