I said her name, the first time I had ever said it to her. She was facing the table, and she turned and looked me over, something in the sound of my voice made her curious. I watched her face, her smirk, and she watched my eyes taking her in and my eyes made her more curious.

"I ran into your husband at a restaurant."

"He didn鈥檛 tell me."

"He didn鈥檛 see me."

"You didn鈥檛 say hello?"

"I didn鈥檛 say hello because he was busy."

"What was he busy doing?"

"He was busy drinking martinis with another woman. He didn鈥檛 look impotent when I saw him so I didn鈥檛 think I should interrupt."

The smirk broadened, her mouth opened. Her color heightened and my heart thrust against my chest. Her eye teeth were long and pointed, and her eyes were all over my face. I had the feeling that her clothes would fall off her onto the floor, and my mind filled with images of her body winding around me, her arms raised above her head. She moved close to me, and I heard her tongue move inside her mouth.

"He can respond if the situation is just right," she said. "I know what he does. He tells me and I want to hear it. Did you think I鈥檇 be surprised? I am surprised you told me. I鈥檓 interested in that."

I kept looking at her mouth, her eye teeth, the darkness down her throat.

"If you want to tell me more about it, we can leave the room," she said and laughed. "Do you want to leave the room with me? You want to touch me? But if it鈥檚 not okay for him why should it be okay for you? I don鈥檛 mean I care if you鈥檙e a hypocrite, I鈥檓 just worried about you. You may be in over your head, can鈥檛 let the animal loose. On the other hand, you can鈥檛 stop looking at me. Can I do anything to help you relax? My blood won鈥檛 be racing in ten minutes unless you strike."

I said nothing, denied nothing.

"Let me know," she said. "I enjoyed our chat."

I didn鈥檛 watch her walk away. I leaned on the food table with both hands and closed my eyes for a moment. I heard for the first time how noisy it was in the room, the noise roared inside me though a minute before I had hardly noticed it. I gathered myself and turned, hoping my wife would not be watching, hoping I鈥檇 been shielded by the other guests. But she was watching, and standing next to her was the martini-drinker鈥檚 wife herself, the two of them talking and looking right at me. I couldn鈥檛 find the nerve to go toward them and couldn鈥檛 let myself think what they might be talking about. Was she telling my wife what I鈥檇 said to her and how we鈥檇 both reacted? Was she proposing that my wife leave the room with us? Trying not to seem in too big a hurry, I made my way toward a pair of open French doors that led out into a garden. Outside I breathed in the air and tried to clear my head, but my head would not clear, and I imagined her husband approaching me and warning me to be careful with his wife, she鈥檇 put me between two pieces of bread and that would be the end of me. Then I felt a hand on my shoulder and I started.