"The Kiss" won the short-story prize in The European, 5 November 1992.

 An exceptionally beautiful woman was riding on a Spanish train, alone in her compartment, eating an apple.  Her barely visible reflection in the window raced along past the landscape.
 When she finished the apple she got up and went into the bathroom to dispose of the core and, glancing into the mirror, saw her face hideously disfigured by scars, as if the flesh had been sewn to the bones in patches.  She touched it, found it smooth and, holding the sink to steady herself, leaned forward to peer at the reflection.
 A jar no more remarkable than one of the rhythmic bumps of the train wheels suddenly floated her loose from the world, the wall pitched at her and she plunged into the glass.
 As soon as she could be moved she was flown to New York, where she lay in a hospital bed with bandages on her face.
 Her friend came to visit her.  "Dolores?"
 "I'm here."
 "You're all right."
 "I know."
 "Do you?"
 "I can move everything.  Unless it's the drugs."
 "It's all livid around your eyes.  And your lips.  I can't see anything else.  When are they taking the bandages off?"
 "I don't know."
 "You'll be blue with bruises.  Don't be shocked."
 "I don't think I will be."
 "You look like a mummy."
 Her friend came every day.
 The doctor said, "You were lucky."
 "Was I?"
 "Your skull wasn't fractured.  Your teeth are OK.  The cheekbone's healing nicely."
 "It's been a lot of work for you."
 "I feel I know you."
 "It's a lot of operations in a short time," said her friend.
 "We'll see what you look like soon," said the doctor.
 "I know what I look like."
 When her friend was gone the doctor came in again.  "You may not be exactly like you were before."
 "How could I?"
 He smiled.  "Yes.  You were beautiful."
 "Aren't I beautiful any more?"
 "No.  You're not beautiful any more.  Think you can live with that?"
 "I wish I could say I liked you.  I wish I could congratulate you on your honesty.  But you're suppressing the truth."
 "Am I?  I thought I was being blunt."
 "You said I wasn't beautiful.  What you didn't say is that I am now positively ugly.  And ugliness is a force too, isn't it?  It's sort of the same.  I will never walk into a room again without people looking up and trying not to stare."
 "You mustn't think that.  There are still things we can do."
 "But you can't grow new flesh.  Can you."
 "You'll want to look better than you do, certainly, but that's how it is for most people.  At least the ones who come to me.  Beauty is like money.  There's never enough."
 "There was for me."  She turned her head aside.
 He sat on the bed.  "I've watched you go through a lot.  I know something about what you are.  No, that's not what I mean.  I'm not standing back and studying you.  I know that's how it must seem but I'm not.  I'm with you."
 When her friend came back she said, "It's going to be hard, Dolores.  You were totally absorbed by the way you look.  I don't mean in a bad way.  You expressed yourself with it.  You were--beautiful.  It was like poetry is for me.  An instant ally.  I love you, Dolores."
 The doctor removed the bandages with a nurse present and then sent her away.  "It's all swelling and sutures," he said.  "You don't want to see it."
 "It hurts."
 "I'm going to put you on a mild pain-reliever and some anti-inflammatory until it goes down."
 She smiled tightly.  "How do I look?"
 "Cynical."
 The next day she felt her face with her hands.
 "Here's a mirror," said the doctor.
 "No thanks."
 "Didn't you look when you brushed your teeth?"
 "They took it away."
 "You might want to try a little make-up."
 She looked at him.
 The mirror stood on a base on the bed table.  He pulled it closer.  "I think you should."
 She turned the mirror and tilted it toward her.  "My God.  It's worse than I thought."
 "It'll get better."
 She watched herself changing the angle of her head.
 "You're well," he said.  "You'll be leaving tomorrow."
 "Can I have my bandages back?"
 "I told you," he smiled.  "Make-up."
 He bent toward her and kissed her.  A soft questioning kiss at first but when she let him he pulled her to him by the small of the back and lay her down with it.
 She was still sitting up.  He was pushing the table away.  When he did try she turned her face and left him nuzzling the scar tissue by her ear.
 "That was a disgusting thing to do," she said.
 He straightened up.
 "You work too hard."
 He smiled.  "I was going to test your lips."
 Her friend came to visit her at home.  "You've got to get out of this apartment," she said.  "See some people."
 "I'm in disguise.  I don't belong anywhere."
 When the doctor came to see her he said, "I love you."
 "That's nice."
 "Is it?"
 "You love a photograph.  What I used to be.  That's gone."
 "Your cynicism is a little too comfortable."
 "Were you going to make love to me right there in the hospital?"
 "It happens.  Usually it's nurses.  Where's Vivian?"
 "Who knows.  Vivian's a journalist.  The world exists as a kind of blur for Vivian."
 "How does it exist for you?"
 "As a closed door."
 "The glamor of suffering."
 "Stop looking at me.  It's like seeing myself in the mirror.  You give me the creeps."
 "We had a patient once at the hospital who lost everything."
 "Don't most of them?"
 "His job.  His wife.  He was living in poverty when he contracted cancer.  They took his leg off, and then his other one, but it moved into his abdomen and they had to remove some of his organs.  They couldn't catch it all.  They put him on glucose and life-support systems and kept operating.  After a while there was nothing left but his brain.  It was in an aquarium of temperature-controlled oxygenated plasma and there was a computer to monitor his impulses.  He learned to signal it and we could do a read-out and answer him.  Do you want to die, we said.  He said no, life is liveable if you can manage to simplify."
 She smiled.
 "Aha!"
 "Don't get excited."
 "Too late."
 "Why?  Because you think I'm your creature?  You should have done a better job."
 "Women's standards of beauty are higher than ours."
 "It can't have anything to do with beauty."
 "I need sleep.  I don't get away from the hospital much.  Is there a bed I can use?"
 "At least I've still got my body," she said as she got in with him.
 "It's white," he said.  "Smooth."
 "I feel like I'm wearing a mask."
 "You move with the dignity of an animal."
 While they were making love she said, "Did you see my skull?"
 "Do you love him?" said Vivian.
 "What does that mean?"
 "You know what it means."
 "He's all I've got."
 "You're getting afraid.  It's boring."
 "Maybe you shouldn't come here any more," she told the doctor.
 He sat up in bed.  "It wouldn't do any good to tell you I love you?"
 "It's nice to hear."
 "I do."
 "I'm not your patient any more."
 "You think I'm--treating you?"
 "I can tell when you're looking at me as a lover and when you're looking at me as a plastic surgeon."
 "I deal with these structural things.  It's not so bad.  Some movie stars marry their plastic surgeons."
 "They do better work."
 "I made you this way so I could have you to myself.  I hope I didn't overdo it."
 "I think you may actually believe that.  You're here because you feel--responsible."
 "What do the motives matter?  It's what you do."
 "I don't need you any more."
 "Of course not.  But haven't you noticed how much you enjoy talking with me?"
 She smiled and sat on the bed.  "I don't have any doors left to close on you.  I'll be defenseless.  I'll be yours.  One shouldn't be anyone's."
 "What's he like in bed?" said Vivian.
 "I don't know."
 "What do you mean, you don't know?  You sleep with him, don't you?"
 "I mean I just--"  She smiled and shook her head.  "I don't know."
 "Oh dear."
 She went to Vivian's apartment one day and let herself in.  In the kitchen she filled a jug and watered the plants by the window.  Then she went into the living room and did the other plants.
 The bedroom door was closed.  She paused before it and saw them in bed.  Vivian lay on her back with her head to one side, thinking about something.  He kissed her breasts and her sadness became sorrow, though she held his head and looked down at him tenderly.
 Dolores put the jug in the kitchen and left quietly.