Liv laughed shrilly. Wim put out his hand. Not to her, not to take hers, but to beckon to her. He was smiling no longer. His long forefinger stretched out and curled up and he raised his eyebrows just a little. Liv stared at him, drops of perspiration forming on her upper lip and her forehead. She didn’t look at all attractive then, all her rather ordinary prettiness was gone, disappeared under swollen features and the sudden smell of her sweat. But perhaps that is attraction, the real attraction of the female, not cleanness and sweetness and pretty clothes. She wasn’t smiling then and nor was he. She yearned for him and he received her without moving, the beckoning hand still by then, only his neck extending a little as Liv fastened her mouth on his.

He was in perfect control of himself—when was he not?—and well aware of our presence, if unembarrassed by it, but Liv was lost, careless of whether anyone else was there or not. You couldn’t call it kissing, what she was doing to Wim, it was more like the guzzling of a sea anemone first sucking in, then devouring, its prey. But Wim was no one’s prey, more a passive but willing partner who suffered or enjoyed all this—it was hard to tell which—for just as long as it suited him. I think people of my age are less promiscuous than our parents’ generation but also less inhibited. I wasn’t very old but I had already encountered several couples who were indifferent to the presence of others in the room while they made love. It would hardly have suited me or Silver but we saw it as a phenomenon of our time. And now, for a few moments, it looked as if this was going to happen between Liv and Wim, or as if Liv, pushing him back against the sofa cushions and crouching above him, was going to make it happen. She pulled off her T-shirt and let her rather long full breasts hang udderlike and brush against his hands, which he held clasped against his chest.

Then Silver spoke. His voice was cold. “Please will you go and do what you’re doing somewhere else.”

Liv would have taken no notice, she would scarcely have heard him, but Wim heard and obeyed. If he cared for anyone, if he cared about anyone, that person was Silver. It shocked me a bit that they didn’t go into Wim’s room but into Jonny’s. The door closed. Silver put out his arms to me. “Is it me?” he said, “or are things getting out of hand?”

“Jonny won’t be back for hours, will he?”

“I don’t know. Ask me another. No, don’t ask me anything but don’t go home either. Stay here with me tonight.”