“That must have been profitable.”

“Not as much as you’d think,” Hooper said with a laugh. “From what I hear, he liked to collect his rent in trade.”

That might be a gambit, Ellen thought. What should she say? “That’s supposed to be every schoolgirl’s fantasy,” she ventured playfully.

“What is?”

“To be a … you know, a prostitute. To sleep with a whole lot of different men.”

“Was it yours?”

Ellen laughed, hoping to cover her blush. “I don’t remember if it was exactly that,” she said. “But I guess we all have fantasies of one kind or another.”

Hooper smiled and leaned back in his chair. He called the waitress over and said, “Bring us a bottle of cold chablis, would you please?”

Something’s happened, Ellen thought. She wondered if he could sense—smell? like an animal?—the invitation she had extended. Whatever it was, he had taken the offensive. All she had to do was avoid discouraging him.

The food came, followed a moment later by the wine. Hooper’s scallops were the size of marshmallows. “Flounder,” he said after the waitress had left. “I should have known.”

“How can you tell?” Ellen asked. Immediately she wished she hadn’t said anything. She didn’t want to let the conversation drift.

“They’re too big, for one thing. And the edges are too perfect. They were obviously cut.”

“I suppose you could send them back.” She hoped he wouldn’t; a quarrel with the waitress could spoil their mood.

“I might,” said Hooper, and he grinned at Ellen. “Under different circumstances.” He poured Ellen a glass of wine, then filled his own and raised it for a toast. “To fantasies,” he said. “Tell me about yours.” His eyes were a bright, liquid blue, and his lips were parted in a half smile.

Ellen laughed. “Oh, mine aren’t very interesting. I imagine they’re just your old run-of-the-mill fantasies.”

“There’s no such thing,” said Hooper. “Tell me.” He was asking, not demanding, but Ellen felt that the game she had started demanded that she answer.

“Oh, you know,” she said. Her stomach felt warm, and the back of her neck was hot. “Just the standard things. Rape, I guess, is one.”

“How does it happen?”

She tried to think, and she remembered the times, when, alone, she would let her mind wander and conjure the carnal images. Usually she was in bed, often with her husband asleep beside her. Sometimes she found that, without knowing it, she had been rubbing her hand over her vagina, caressing herself.

“Different ways,” she said.

“Name one.”

“Sometimes I’m in the kitchen in the morning, after everybody has left, and a workman from one of the houses next door comes to my back door. He wants to use the phone or have a glass of water.” She stopped.

“And then?”

“I let him in the door and he threatens to kill me if I don’t do what he wants.”

“Does he hurt you?”

“Oh no. I mean, he doesn’t stab me or anything.”