Of course, if this were the case, then B would doubtless be aware of what he was doing. At every step, the psychodynamics would be transparent to him. No component of the process (the guilt, the atonement, the reconciliatory spectacle of the caricature) would operate unconsciously. And if the psychodynamics were transparent to B, then he had to know that they would be transparent to A. Which left her with the same question, at the same impasse: why had he included the description in the first place? Either to make her jealous, to let her know that he was attracted to women there; or to reassure her, to demonstrate his fidelity by repenting for that attraction.

Each time A rereads the email, B’s remarks about the woman seem less and less straightforward. Toward the end of his description of her, he makes a comment that consistently mystifies A: he had found the woman so deeply annoying, he wrote, that he began to imagine how awful it would be to be married to her. He fantasized about the passive-aggressive punishments he would have to concoct for her, whenever they were driving home from Scrabble games like this one. Za?, he would ask her, laughing bitterly to himself at the steering wheel, B wrote: You can’t get over za?

A cannot stop returning to this section of the email. Why bring up marriage? What was he trying to imply? For whatever reason, B wanted A to imagine him married to this woman: driving her home, climbing into bed. Or else he wanted A to imagine him imagining himself married to this woman. It amounts to the same, either way: he is letting A know that he finds this woman, not only attractive, but marriageable. Marriage had entered his mind. Were it not for her Scrabble comportment, B might have made her his bride. That is what B wants A to be thinking—what he designed his email to make A think—A thinks.

Unless—and this is also a possibility—A is misreading that comment. Unless the marriage that B was hinting at is, not with this woman, but rather with A. Then the comment would have an utterly different subtext: B would be preparing A for the kind of lover he is, for when he returns home. If you ever behave this petulantly in public, he would be warning her, you can expect passive-aggressiveness in return.

A has to think. A has to think this through. But all that A can think about is B in bed with this woman. B is betraying A with this woman, and out of guilt he has embedded a confession in his email. Or maybe he feels no guilt, because there is no betrayal. A gave him, after all, her permission. Or maybe B is not sleeping with the woman, but still wants A to think he is. Maybe he saw straight through A’s so-called permission—recognizing it for the ploy that it was—and is punishing her for it. Who is to say that he hasn’t fabricated this entire email, concocting the Scrabble game out of whole cloth, simply to make A jealous? Perhaps this is just the kind of passive-aggressive punishment B had in mind. Now A begins to doubt that there ever was a Scrabble game, or else—if there had in fact been a Scrabble game—that this woman really existed, or else—if this woman indeed existed—that she had behaved so flirtatiously, challenging all of B’s words, or else—if she did happen to challenge all or some of B’s words—that these were the words. The words were too apposite to be real words. Clearly B was winking at her with these words: it was all a joke (a jape), A was still his sweetheart (his jo), he was just casting a spell over her, a little bit of witchcraft (obi) to make her jealous.