That should be blunt and unambiguous enough to satisfy him, nothing to echo back to her as a verbal trap. It was the truth, too. They had left. So why did she feel so hollow and defeated right now, so magnificently frustrated? She could see her plan for telling all slipping out of her grasp. Not that she intended to go into detail. Some people claimed to give their shrinks the whole hard-core, X-rated version of their lives, fantasies included, but that was mostly bragging and flaunting of conquests. It would take some doing to make the episode on the chaise longue pornographic; she’d been fully clothed throughout, a detail that mattered very much to her at the time and mattered more, as a point of pride, now. But clothed or not, she’d been so undone, physically and emotionally, by the way Dale had touched her—kept touching her, refusing to stop—and by the smell of his body and the hot sting of his breath, she’d been unable to move for half an hour after he straightened himself out and left the room. And when she finally did get up, she felt bruised and raw, still tender from the release of all that pent-up passion, still wet. Two hours later, she had to sit at the dinner table having polite conversation with Caroline and Thomas, with Gerald sitting there scowling at her as if he’d witnessed everything. When Dale stood behind Caroline and put his arms around her and kissed the back of her neck, she’d felt a wave of jealousy and relief that was so confusing, she went out to the porch and smoked one of Caroline’s cigarettes.

Thinking about what had happened that afternoon, she felt a miserable trickle of arousal. With the sun shining in her eyes, she felt needled and panicked. Berman wasn’t going to help her sort all this out, she could see it clearly now, and she wanted out of this room. Either that or to collapse against Berman’s big, soft stomach and make a full confession. She was so desperate, the thought of his plump hands smoothing down her hair struck her as appealing. And yet, she could see the distance between what she wanted and what she knew she was going to get opening up in front of her. “The sun,” she said, way too loudly, “is right in my eyes!”

“Would you like me to close the blinds?” Berman asked.

“No,” she said. “I’d like you to dim the sun. Of course I’d like you to close the blinds.”