Better to think about that television job, the idea of dedicating ourselves to earning money that we still get for entertaining a mass audience. Someday, we’ll write exclusive TV programs for a public of two thousand, just the very rich, at least, according to essays I’ve read and at times reviewed for cultural magazines. But what a dream to work and get paid: in the office, the first meeting, always a light meal delivered by a South American kid on a bicycle. White light through the window, the silent courtyard. The writing room, a part of a multipurpose complex not far from the apartment my sister owns, the place I’d love to move to eventually, if Barbara and I can fully reconcile.

I was the one doing the guest interviews, I was good, even if the other writers had to keep reminding me to include questions about family or the interviewee’s passions; if it were up to me, I would have only discussed work, that uncommon world, headed for extinction.

When my mind wandered, I’d relax by writing out lines from the website of the architects who’d designed this multipurpose complex: this poetry, the architects’ and Milan’s, transported me into the future, even while my job didn’t matter to me.

Five white buildings around a courtyard

combining functions

(diminishing mobility)

new iconic form

Six conceived levels, double-width structural units

Each unit designed with an open floor plan, a mezzanine

loft, studios, stores, restaurants, and offices.

A hanging, rooftop garden

interior piazzas

geothermal utilization of underground water

radiant floor heating

ventilation

glass, wood, and vegetation

self-cleaning concrete to reduce smog

A flat strip of solid forms and spaces

white mesh screening

that rolls down and engulfs

the transparency of glass

One night I wrote down: “Love is the afterlife of plot—if the plot is too effective, how will we see the love shine through?”

Was I jealous of Barbara and my sister? I had to respect them, not ask too many explicit questions, avoid putting them in the position of feeling that they mustn’t contradict each other. Sooner or later, Barbara and I would get to that other apartment and reestablish that sense of ownership that’s practical for the life of the couple, but we weren’t ready just yet.

One night, we were in our bed making love while Irene and Francesca watched a movie in their room, and after a bit, I asked if we were making love because we could hear them nearby. She said, “Yup,” and I laughed.

Barbara remained physically distant, we weren’t united, it was more like sex between strangers, and in the midst of this lack of involvement, I’d tell her my fantasies, a gesture which she reciprocated only rarely.

I was standing over her and I’d opened an erotic video chat on my laptop, so now I saw Barbara below me and there beside her, on the screen, was another woman, on livestream, unaware of us and the fact that she was lying there with her legs dangling just like Barbara and touching herself while I stood by the bed, one knee on the mattress, penetrating Barbara: “It’s like I’m fucking you to get her off.”