He slid his hands under Russell’s T-shirt and up along the taut damp skin of his back. Russell was thirty-six, and although the skin around his eyes had started to wrinkle, his body still had the compact tightness of a man who hadn’t yet bumped into the crisis of midlife. Aside from wearing his dark hair almost to his shoulders, Russell never displayed any vanity, which was, as far as Desmond was concerned, an indication of self-confidence about his looks that was the same thing as vanity. He had large brown eyes that were beautiful but nearsighted and made him look a good deal more vulnerable than he really was, and a narrow, dimpled chin. Desmond had his assets and he knew it, but he’d always felt awkwardly tall and skinny. Earlier in the summer when he and Russell were in a Wal-Mart in New Jersey looking for an air conditioner, someone had stopped him and said: “Excuse me, do you work here?” a comment that continued to echo in his brain like a reproach for a lack of physical grace and intellectual authority.

“I hope you’re not trying to get something amorous going here,” Russell said. He held his arm behind Desmond’s head so he could read his watch. “We have to be at the party—at your party—in an hour.”

“All the better.” After living together for five years, having limited time to fuck was an aphrodisiac, while long, uninterrupted hours lying naked in bed tended to produce conversations about Madeleine Albright. He moved his body against Russell’s. “We don’t live here,” he fantasized. “We’re guests in someone’s apartment, sleeping on their sofa, and they’ll be home in ten minutes.”

Russell closed his eyes, a sign he was beginning to respond. A faint smile came to his lips as he adjusted the scenario to suit himself. “You’d better hurry up,” he said. “Your wife’s my best friend, and I don’t want her coming in and catching us.”

Desmond kicked off his shoes and unbuckled his pants, feeling a mixture of relief, excitement, and jealousy at the thought that he was being written out of the movie now playing in Russell’s head.

2.