So, you’re married, I said.
Yeah, it looks like it. Do you want a drink?
I accepted a small bottle of beer, though only because I wanted something to hold in my hand. I felt restless, the way you feel when you’ve already done the wrong thing and you’re anxious about what the outcome is going to be. I told him I didn’t want to be a homewrecker or whatever. He laughed at that.
That’s funny, he said. What does that mean?
I mean, you’ve never had an affair before. I don’t want to wreck your marriage.
Oh, well, the marriage has actually survived several affairs, I just haven’t been involved in any of them.
He said this amusingly, and it made me laugh, though it also had the effect, which I guess was intended, of making me relax about the morality side of things. I hadn’t really wanted to feel sympathetic to Melissa, and now I felt her moving outside my frame of sympathy entirely, as if she belonged to a different story with different characters.
When we went upstairs I told Nick I had never had sex with a man before. He asked if that was a big deal and I said I didn’t think it was, but it might be weird if he only found out later. While we undressed I tried to seem casual by keeping my limbs still and not trembling violently. I was afraid of undressing in front of him, but I didn’t know how to shield my body in a way that wouldn’t look awkward and unattractive. He had a very imposing upper body, like a piece of statuary. I missed the distance between us when he’d watched me being applauded, which now seemed protective, even necessary. But when he asked me if I was sure I wanted to do all this, I heard myself say: I didn’t really come over just to talk, you know.
In bed he asked me what felt good a lot. I said everything felt good. I felt very flushed and I could hear myself making a lot of noise, but only syllables, no real words. I closed my eyes. The inside of my body was hot like oil. I was possessed by an overwhelming and intense energy which seemed to threaten me. Please, I was saying. Please, please. Eventually Nick sat up to take a box of condoms from his bedside locker and I thought: I might never be able to speak again after this. But I surrendered without struggle. Nick murmured the word ‘sorry’， as if the several seconds I had been lying there waiting constituted a minor wrong on his part.
When it was over I lay on my back shivering. I had been so terribly noisy and theatrical all the way through that it was impossible now to act indifferent like I did in the emails.
That felt kind of okay, I said.
Did it?
I think I liked it more than you did.
Nick laughed and lifted his arm to place a hand behind his head.
No, he said, you really didn’t.
You were very nice to me.
Was I?
Seriously, I really do appreciate how nice you were, I said.
Wait. Hey. Are you all right?
Little tears had started slipping out of my eyes and down onto the pillow. I wasn’t sad, I didn’t know why I was crying. I’d had this problem before, with Bobbi, who believed it was an expression of my repressed feelings. I couldn’t stop the tears so I just laughed self-effacingly instead, to show that I wasn’t invested in the crying. I knew I was embarrassing myself badly, but there was nothing I could do about it.
This happens, I said. It wasn’t anything you did.
Nick touched his hand to my body then, just under my breast. I felt soothed like I was an animal, and I cried harder.
Are you sure? he said.
Yeah. You can ask Bobbi. I mean, don’t.
He smiled and said: yeah, I won’t. He was stroking me with the tips of his fingers, like the way he petted his dog. I wiped at my face roughly.
You’re really handsome, you know, I said.
He laughed then.
Is that all I get? he said. I thought you liked my personality.
Do you have one?
He turned over on his back, looking up at the ceiling with a bemused expression. I can’t believe we did this, he said. I knew then that the crying was over. I felt good about everything I could think of. I touched the inside of his wrist and said: yes, you can.
I woke up late the next morning. Nick made French toast for breakfast and I got the bus back into town. I sat at the back, near a window, where the sun bore down on my face like a drill and the cloth of the seat felt sensationally tactile against my bare skin.
*
That evening Bobbi said she needed somewhere to stay to get away from the ‘domestic situation’。 Apparently Eleanor had thrown away some of Jerry’s possessions over the weekend, and at the height of the ensuing argument Lydia had locked herself in the bathroom and screamed that she wanted to die.