They didn’t finish the next round. They were destroyed. But Henry had the feeling they were all, like himself, acutely alert, focused on the same obscure object. They had come to this point deliberately. Max moved behind Clara and held her—she was cold, she said—and eventually he was kissing her shoulder and running his hand over her stomach, and after a while, he slipped it into her underwear. Effie found this funny. Henry couldn’t take his eyes away. He saw the feathered edges of her pubic hair, which was light as wool. Clara hoped they weren’t embarrassing them—they were just fooling around. Effie said it was a free country, they could do what they wanted. Henry didn’t mind, either. They spoke softly. It was just a little fooling around. It was exciting. They could watch. They could watch each other. They were flickering shades, bare skin in the firelight, half illuminated. The dark made it all right. Max leaned back on his elbows and Clara pulled his briefs off. He had a large, thick penis, bronze in the light, an upward curve to it that struck Henry as diabolical. The balls of a horse. Clara stroked it. Henry and Effie watched. Effie opened her legs, and Henry pushed her underwear aside at the groin. He hadn’t felt her in so long. Her prodigious hair, her plump labia. She was soaked. He rubbed her where Alma had liked it, and she sighed, closed her eyes, clutched the cup of her bra, opened her eyes again to see. Clara’s head was down in Max’s lap, and he was kneading her back, concentrating, silent. They were all silent now. She’d freed her breasts, and they hung heavily from her. She was on her knees, her hips and thighs within Henry’s reach, and Henry longed to touch her but held back. He wouldn’t cross that line by himself. Effie was closer to Clara’s head, and while Henry rubbed her she looked down on it as if in pain—until she reached her hand out and pulled Clara’s hair away from her face, so she could see, and a tormented look came into her face, and she sighed deeply. That was the line. There was no turning back. It was the look on her face, so transfixed and free of self-consciousness. Henry took his hand away from Effie and reached for Clara, her great expanse of skin, to touch her soft thighs and hips, to feel if her underwear was damp like Effie’s, and in the next instant, it seemed, she was facing him, up on her knees and surrounding him. She reached down and drew his cock out from his boxers and stroked him. Effie, beside him, was oblivious, her head thrown back. Max was behind her, kissing her neck, pulling the straps off her shoulders, moving his hands down to cup her breasts. Henry, Clara said. Her breath was hot in his ear. Henry. Do you mind this? He didn’t mind it. He wanted it. Her breasts filled all the space in the room. He gripped them. He sucked her nipples. He reached between her legs, into her underwear, and felt a vast, dense carpet there, felt her open, wet, on his fingers. He breathed in the scent of Chanel—and suddenly came, and looked down to see a glaze over her fingers. She whispered, Oh, baby, stroking him still, oh, you came, I made you come, and she smiled, and kissed his lips. Just don’t stop. I’m not through with you yet. He wasn’t going to stop, he said. She drew away from him and pulled his boxers down, he freed himself from them, and she bent down and enveloped him with her mouth. He was stunned, and in ecstasy. Effie’s underwear was stretched tight between her knees and Max’s hand was down below, lost in shadow. One of her feet was pressed against Henry’s hip, and he felt her toes grip his skin. Henry saw them as if from afar, as if they had nothing to do with him. He felt a dull ache, like longing, when he saw her reach back and put her little hand around Max’s cock. And then Clara nudged him onto his back and got on top of him, sat up and straddled him, her breasts looming, and covered his stomach. She was warm and slick. She brought her groin to him and he filled his mouth with it. She was tart from the long day. He turned her over and sank in, buried from nose to chin. She was bottomless. She couldn’t hold still. She rolled him over again, lay on him, wanted to feel his skin all over her. Straddled him again, and reached behind her to feel him. His erection was indestructible. She slid back onto it. Oh. Oh, Henry. There you are, finally. She moved her hips back and forth and in circles. He pushed up into her. Oh, she tilted her head back, oh, oh. And he closed his eyes, lost in her, imagining he could float forever up into her generous body, until after a time he heard Effie softly crying, and brought himself up to his elbows to see. She lay under Max a few feet away, her neck arched back so her face was almost upside down—eyes closed, lips parted—and she drew her knees up as Max’s hips slowly undulated between her legs. His face was buried in the crook of her neck, his hand ran up her side and over her breast, and he seemed to smother and overwhelm her. They were half-moons and lighted curves. They were a riddle Henry couldn’t work out. He was mesmerized. Effie dug her fingers into Max’s back. He wished she would look at him, but she was nowhere near him. Clara pulled his attention back to herself—Oh, Henry, you feel so good, baby—and he gripped her savagely. She fell forward and put her weight on her hands, and between her breasts he watched his silhouetted cock pump up into her groin. She got down to her elbows and breathed into him, Oh—oh, you’re going to make me come, and he sank his teeth into her shoulder, trying to concentrate on the feel of her all around him. But all he could hear was Effie’s breath, her whimpering and panting, noises he’d never heard her make before. And he couldn’t keep himself from looking. Max held the backs of her knees. She clawed the rug. If only she would look at him—to say, I’m here, I’m with you. But all the world, including Henry, seemed to have fallen away from her, and there was only her body, and Max’s. Clara, breathing heavily into his ear, asked if he was okay, and he said he was fine, he only needed a minute, and she sighed and slumped beside him. And he watched as Max turned Effie over and brought her up to her knees. Saw the thick, bronze cock slide into her from behind. Heard her bellowing into the crook of her arm. Watched until, at last, he groaned and pushed forward, bent her spine and then flattened her onto her stomach, lay heavy on her back, groaning still, moving his hips as if to burrow himself entirely inside of her, and when he rolled off, finally—withdrew his curved, evil-looking cock—she was splayed out on her stomach, and the insides of her thighs shone wet in the firelight.