Max set the deck of cards at the center of the table and they started. Henry’s reflexes were terrible. If someone drew a four, they all had to put their thumbs to the edge of the table, and the last one had to drink. Henry took tiny sips, but the gin went down so easily. Fives were high—everyone raised their hands—and this time it was Clara who was distracted. “Fuck,” she said, and drank. Max drew a joker, which meant he could make up a rule on the spot. Until the next joker was drawn, he said, they all had to speak with a British accent, and anyone who slipped had to drink. For Henry this was easy, he’d always been good with voices, but Effie’s entire understanding of the English way of speaking seemed to rest on beginning every sentence with the words “I say”—“I say, dear Max, could you spare a girl a cigarette?”—and the rest of them, Henry included, could barely contain themselves. Max ordered Effie to drink, and drink again. “I’m just going to shut my mouth, dammit,” she said, which forced another drink.

Henry drew the first ace—“Bingo!” Clara cried (in a British accent, impressively)—and groaning, as though he dreaded it, he removed his oxford shirt and trousers, tossed the bundle behind him, and sat Indian-style in his thin, baby-blue boxers. Effie laughed, leaned into him, and kissed him. He was in no danger of an erection, his nerves kept it down, but no matter what he did with it, the slit at the front of his boxers gaped open in Clara’s direction. She wasn’t looking, she was concentrating on the rounds. He missed the five-up-high and had to drink.

He drew the second ace as well, and was forced to choose. They all looked at him. “Who’s it gonna be?” Clara said. Effie to his left, Clara to his right, but both were fraught, and so he chose Max across from him.

“Hank,” he said. “I had no idea.” He pulled his T-shirt and khaki shorts off, complained jokingly of a draft, and got up to put another log on the fire. He wore tight white briefs, and his bulge was indecent. Henry saw anew his thick athlete’s build, which didn’t square with all the loafing and gorging they’d been doing the past two weeks, and supposed he lived a different life in New York. While he stoked the fire Effie stared openly at him and laughed, her cheeks bright pink, but Henry didn’t care. The gin made everything fluid. He leaned back on his hands and stretched his legs out in front of him, let anyone who cared see the open gap in his boxers.