“I’m not any different now!” Amara protests, unnerved by where the conversation is leading, by her lover’s use of the past tense.

“But you’re tainted by it,” Rufus says. “It’s tainted you. All the lies you learned there, all the wheedling, all the tricks.” He sets down the harp. “Come here.”

It’s something in the way he places the instrument so carefully on the floor. Amara has experienced too much violence not to see how it sits in the tension of his shoulders, the slow deliberation of his movements. For a wild moment, she imagines disobeying him, pictures herself escaping, tearing out of the house into the night. But to where? Back to Felix? She has nowhere to go. She tells herself she is imagining things, reassures herself that this is Rufus. He would never hurt her; it’s impossible. She forces herself to walk over. His fingers are careful as he takes the pin from her shoulder, removing the silk, undressing her. But even though his hands are gentle, her sense of physical danger is now so great she can hardly breathe. He turns her around, so she is facing away from him.

“You almost never let me have you like this,” Rufus says softly. “Do you know that’s how a man is meant to lie with his wife? Not all those brothel tricks you learned.” Rufus’s hand is resting on her neck. He is not applying any pressure, his touch is still gentle, but when she tries to turn around to face him, he holds her more tightly.

“Please,” Amara says, putting her hand over his, trying to loosen his fingers, to appeal to the kindness she is so certain he possesses. “I don’t like it.”

“Why not?” Rufus asks.

Amara wants to tell him. She wants to explain that if she cannot see his face, if he is behind her, he will become Felix; he will become any of the men from the brothel, the past and the present will slide into each other, and the panic will blind her. But she knows that if she tells Rufus this, all he will hear is how many men she has slept with. All he will hear is that when she lies with him, she thinks of other lovers. Amara looks at the frieze of musical nymphs painted on the wall, and their figures blur into one another as her eyes fill with tears. “I just don’t like it,” she says. “Isn’t that enough?”

Rufus does not release his grip. He kisses her lightly on the shoulder. “I’m just trying to help you be who you once were,” he murmurs.