He watched Vera circle the gallery, her movements so delicate, but purposeful. Like with every step, she knew exactly where she was going. Her deliberateness, he knew about that, had expected it, based on his perusal of her online presence. But in person, it almost took his breath away, a punch in the gut.

He wasn’t used to being with someone who met him where he was at, whose sheer presence almost made him second-guess himself, to quake like he was ten years old again, picked last for softball. It wasn’t just her beauty, though that was certainly part of it. She was so deliciously assembled, her facial features absolutely aligned, her skin lush and warm. But her power rested in her certainty, the decisive way she talked, walked, ate. She knew what she wanted and grabbed it, no matter what it took, no matter whom she walked over along the way.

The idea was to begin dating Vera, to use the charm he hadn’t oiled in years to entice her, make her fall for him, and then show off the conquest to his wife. Look at my power. Look who I was able to steal right from under your nose. You think you can bring Peri back into the mix without a second thought? Look what I can do to you. What happened to Vera herself after his little game was over? Well, he hadn’t thought that far.

But now all of that seemed so petty, such a clearly childish reaction to a marriage that was already built on the backs of something shaky and disturbed. Vera here, in the flesh, was intoxicating. He understood his wife’s obsession now, the desperate way she wanted to emulate her. Now, now he wasn’t sure he wanted to let her go at all. And he’d trapped himself, too, in the lies he was telling her about his morals, his ethics. Initially, he had been acting as the man he believed she would fall for. And now he wanted to be that man for her, the kind, gentle one who was a little unsteady on his feet, a little awkward, powerful but powerless.

He wanted to impress her; that was part of the issue. He felt an urgent need to make her see the good in him, to convince her that he wasn’t a bad guy. He’d known the tickets to the art gallery show were a bit too flashy for her taste, an obvious try-hard move. But he wanted her to experience something different, something only a person like him could provide. That was the crux of it, the difference. Her feelings, her thoughts, mattered.