She was up on a footstool in the living room, looking at a row of ivory figures on a high shelf: a devil, a big-breasted woman, a tiger. She didn’t acknowledge him when he entered. “Alma—God, Alma, finally. I couldn’t get away. It was torture.” He ran his hands up her legs and pressed his face to the back of her shorts. “I got here as soon as I could.” He reached around to unbutton and unzip them but she stopped him, stepped down from the footstool, and turned to him.

“You were with her tonight, weren’t you?” she said.

He’d been too late this time—he knew it. “I was with all of them,” he said. “We were playing a stupid card game.”

“I mean her—Effie. You were with her before you came here.”

It was the first time she’d spoken her name. She didn’t wait for him to answer. She crossed over to the bar, where, unlike her, she had poured herself a glass of scotch. “Alma,” he said, going to her. “Alma, what’s wrong?”

“Do you do it every night?”

“No,” he said, reaching for her, but she backed away. “No, I swear. Tonight was the first. I couldn’t—”

“I knew it.” She laughed and turned away from him, set her glass down and went toward the sofa. “No wonder you’re so late. You fucked her. And now you expect to fuck me. Two girls in one night. You’re drowning in pussy, aren’t you?”

“What am I supposed to do? She’s my wife, for Christ’s sake. I can’t turn her away.”

“Yes, you can.” She laughed again. “Did you even wash yourself before you came over here?”

He didn’t know what to say. Why was she being this way? He went to her and grabbed her arms. “I came here as fast as I could. I only want you. You’re all I can think about. I love you.”

“What do you want?” she asked.

“What? I want you. Only you.”

“I mean,” she said, “what are you going to do? What is this? Are you going to leave her?”

The question floored him. He let her go, stepped back. Of course he wasn’t going to leave her. The thought had never entered his mind. But no other thought had entered his mind either, except to be alone with Alma, to touch her, to have her. The future had not been a consideration. That she was thinking about it astounded him. “I don’t know,” he said.

She stood looking at him with her arms crossed, waiting for him to say more.

“I don’t know anything,” he said. “I only know I want you.”

“You can’t have everything. You can’t have this for free. You have to give me something.”