“Thanks.” He took a gulp and put it back on the shelf. “So how do you feel?”

“How am I supposed to feel? You know what he talked to me about?”

“That’s not what I meant.” He put his hand on mine. “I mean how do you feel?” I slept with John last night, was what he meant.

“Like a shuttlecock, sometimes, if you want to know the truth. How do you feel?”

“Well, I put us in for a fuckhut, just in case.” Nobody calls them zero-gee saunas except the Entertainment Director.

“Thanks for asking me.”

“Just in case.”

“I’m not in the mood, Dan. I’m in a mood, but not the mood.”

“Okay, okay.” He found his clothes and stepped into his pants. “So what did you and your favorite professor talk about?”

“Can’t say.” I finished undressing. Funny that I didn’t want to take my pants off until he had his on. With fifty other men I wasn’t married to in the same room.

“Oh. I think I see.”

“You probably do.” I tried to keep the frost out of my voice. If our positions had been reversed, I would have kept it secret from him. “I’m not supposed to discuss it with anyone until I talk to him again Thursday. Presumably that’s when I’ll get the secret handshake.”

He smiled and gave me a neutral pat on the small of the back. “I’ll be up in the room.”

“I’ll be up after a few laps. Take the wine.” Maybe he’d be asleep when I got there.

It’s interesting to watch eye movements as you approach the pool. Most women look directly at your face, and so do some men—the shy, the gentlemanly, and presumably those more interested in males. Most men’s eyes do a little dance: crotch, then past the knees to about shin-level, then back up past the center to pause at the breast-and-shoulder level, and then a concentrated stare at the face. I noticed other people staring before I realized I did it, too. Otherwise you can walk right by somebody you work with every day and not recognize him or her. Faces look different on top of a pile of clothes.