“Lord, no. Suppose one of my children came home. Besides …”

“I know. No desecrating the conjugal sheets. Okay, where else?”

“There must be motels between here and Montauk. Or even better, between here and Orient Point.”

“Fair enough. Even if there’s not, there’s always the car.”

“In broad daylight? You do have wild fantasies.”

“In fantasies, anything is possible.”

“All right. That’s settled. So what would you do?”

“I think we should proceed chronologically. First of all, we’d leave here in one car. Probably mine, because it’s least known. And we’d come back later to pick up yours.”

“Okay.”

“Then while we were driving along … no, even before that, before we left here, I’d send you into the ladies’ room and tell you to take off your panties.”

“Why?”

“So I could … explore you while we’re on the road. Just to keep the motors running.”

“I see,” she said, trying to seem matter-of-fact. She felt hot, flushed, and sensed that her mind was floating somewhere apart from her body. She was a third person listening to the conversation. She had to fight to keep from shifting on the Leatherette bench. She wanted to squirm back and forth, to move her thighs up and down. But she was afraid of leaving a stain on the seat.

“Then,” said Hooper, “while we were driving along, you might be sitting on my right hand and I’d be giving you a massage. Maybe I’d have my fly open. Maybe not, though, because you might get ideas, which would undoubtedly cause me to lose control, and that would probably cause a massive accident that would leave us both dead.”

Ellen started to giggle again, imagining the sight of Hooper lying by the side of the road, stiff as a flagpole, and herself lying next to him, her dress bunched up around her waist and her vagina yawning open, glistening wet, for the world to see.

“We’d try to find a motel,” said Hooper, “where the rooms are either in separate cabins or at least not butted right up against each other, wall to wall.”

“Why?”

“Noise. The walls are usually made of Kleenex and spit, and we wouldn’t want to be inhibited by the thought of a shoe salesman in the next room pressing his ear to the wall and getting his kicks listening to us.”

“Suppose you couldn’t find a motel like that.”

“We would,” said Hooper. “As I said, in a fantasy anything is possible.”

Why does he keep saying that? Ellen thought. He can’t really be playing a word game, working up a fantasy he has no intention of fulfilling. Her mind scrambled for a question to keep the conversation alive. “What name would you register us under?”

“Ah yes. I’d forgotten. These days I can’t conceive of anyone getting uptight about something like this, but you’re right: we should have a name, just in case we ran into an old-fashioned innkeeper. How about Mr. and Mrs. Al Kinsey. We could say we were on an extended field trip for research.”