“And her. Come on—what do you see?”

“I see Leone, too.”

I felt my fear rising and also that I was coming, and I was breathing slowly, on the bed now with both knees, pushing harder, my weight forward.

“Leone’s there with the two of us and this girl.” The girl in the video chat, who was trembling with a vibrator inside her, operated via internet by paying viewers.

“And Leone, what’s he doing?” I asked.

“He’s leaning against the doorjamb. He’s watching us fuck.”

“Oh, yeah? Is he naked?”

“No, I wouldn’t let him.”

“You told him he wasn’t allowed?”

“Yeah. He asked and I told him: ‘No, you only get to watch.’”

“And does he feel bad?”

“Yeah, a little, but he also likes that it hurts.”

“He’s hurting?”

“Yeah, and I’m staring right at him.”

“You want to fuck him?”

“I’m staring right at him so he understands I’d like to, but I’m shaking my head, to make him understand he can’t.”

I’m listening and scooting her forward, a meter, toward the nightstand, and I get a condom from the drawer, tear off the wrapper, still listening to her elaborate, then I’m pulling away from her, slipping the rubber on, and I enter her again.

“And is he obeying your command?”

“Yes, he’s obeying my command, but he’s too excited now and he starts touching himself while we’re fucking, and he’s staring at me, he wants me so bad … But he can’t have me and I’m coming and staring at him and you’re fucking me.”

My sister turned up the volume on the TV, then I was coming, heart in my throat; I moved to my side of the bed, breathing hard. I was calming down, then falling asleep.

We went back to Rome a number of times, and we always hated going to check on the house and our renters, a couple, some friends of friends. One morning, still wintertime, unforgettable, cold, the fog not yet lifted; the Virginia creeper had dropped most of its leaves, but a few curls remained, strawberry-red, blazing against green, like streaked hair, and in our home, another couple, a caricature of us, him with his beard styled like mine, her with her fashionable clothes.

But the time I wish to recall occurred in May. We showed up one morning, parked the car by the blooming Virginia creeper, the green wisteria; the jasmine had flowered, the planters were bursting with flowers in purple, indigo, red, yellow, orange.