Two.

Anne closed her eyes and shivered. Frances had let in a draft, along with the potential end of the world.

The younger man laid his cheek on her upper thigh and smiled ruefully up at her.

“Uh . . . I’m going out on a limb here and guessing you didn’t want that person to see me.”

Anne shook her head, shifting her weight and pulling her legs out from under him, drawing them up, covering herself. “No. Although of all the people who could have walked through that door, she was the least disastrous.”

“Your friend, not his?”

She shrugged. “She’s both of our friend, but she won’t say anything to him, she might not even say anything to me.” She noticed he still had an erection, bless his youthful stamina. If she’d been young herself, she would have felt an obligation to blow him—but those days were long gone.

“Are you sure she saw me?” Richard was still hoping this session could get back on track, and tried kissing her knee. Maybe he could get a consolation blow job.

She frowned at him. Stood, turned, reached for the dressing gown she’d been wearing when he had walked in. They hadn’t made it any farther than the living room floor; it had been a long time apart. If they’d gone upstairs their secret would still be safe, Anne thought, but she felt queasy about fucking this guy in her marital bed. Not that the marital bed saw much fucking, but still.

Richard, watching her face, now that her body was covered, wondered for the thousandth time what this woman was thinking. She confused and worried him; he was so drawn to her, even though he knew what they were doing was total karma suicide. The one female friend he’d told, a woman he used to date in college, but who’d turned into a much better friend than girlfriend, lost her temper with him for the first time in years.

“She has children?” Richard clearly remembered the look of disgust on her face.

He’d tried to laugh it off. “I’m not asking her to leave them. It’s just an affair.”

His friend knew better, and wasn’t appeased. “It will end in disaster, it can’t possibly end any other way. I can’t believe you’re being so selfish. For sex! You’re not seventeen, for fuck’s sake, can’t you keep it in your pants?”

Richard looked at Anne now, or her back at least, as she left the room. She had twisted her dark brown hair into a knot, literally tying it within its own length. It was magical to him, watching her do things like that. He had wanted this woman from the moment he’d met her, in the fevered way he remembered from high school, when just proximity to a girl was enough to make him hard. He had thought he was long past that phase. He was an adult, he paid taxes, he had a job. He had lived with a woman for three years, bought her tampons, talked to her through the bathroom door while she took a crap, watched her dress and undress morning and night. He was getting ready for marriage, he could tell. God knew his mother was starting to bug him for grandchildren. But then that relationship had ended, almost by accident, as if they’d dropped a baton somewhere and run farther and farther apart before they noticed. The lack of emotion when she moved out was embarrassing.

But then he’d met Anne at an art store, where both of them wanted the last piece of a special handmade paper. They’d started friendly, both offering the piece to the other, then he’d prevailed and made her take it and they’d stood outside the store and talked about art . . . And when she’d smiled at him he was aroused. He was good with women, he was handsome and artistic and somewhat remote; he’d rarely been turned down. But when he’d asked for her number, she had laughed, blushed, and refused. She was married, she had kids, she’d even mocked him gently for asking out a woman who could have been his mother . . . though that was far from true; less than a decade separated them. He’d persisted and, suddenly possessed by a madness he’d never suspected in himself, told her the truth: that he wanted to take her to bed and drive her mad with pleasure, that he’d never seen a woman so beautiful before, that his apartment was four blocks away and no one would know. No one would ever know, Anne, come with me now and give in, let me tangle my hands in your hair and make you gasp and shudder.

And Anne, so used to being sad that she didn’t even see beyond the end of each day, said yes. Walking into his small apartment had been like pushing her way through fur coats in a closet and coming out in Narnia. She left herself behind, and Richard saw an Anne no one else ever had.

For him this whole affair was unreal, a liminal period like a hangover, or the days between Christmas and New Year’s. Intense sex, interspersed with long silences and days where Anne took her kids to Disneyland, bickered with her husband, made meals that everyone took for granted, tried on clothes that suddenly fit her again, decided to end the affair and then picked up the phone to call him one more time. All he knew were the sex and the silences, of course, though he wondered about the rest.

He could hear her now, in the kitchen. He reached for his clothes, scattered on the floor, and started to dress himself. Maybe Anne was making coffee, her slender fingers efficient. Maybe she was splitting open a brioche with just one twist, and getting out the jam. Or maybe she was slitting her wrists with one of those fancy ceramic knives she liked. His throat tightened, and he hopped slightly, tugging on his jeans.

In the kitchen Anne reached for the coffee and wondered what Richard was doing in the other room. Getting dressed, hopefully. Seeing Frances had thrown her so badly, all she wanted was for him to leave. She opened the coffee bag, cursing when the little wire- and-paper thing that held it shut fell off. Why do they even make that kind of bag, where the wire and paper thing was glued on? She much preferred the other kind, where the wire was part of the bag. Integrated, integral, whatever. This kind, the thing inevitably fell off, and then you couldn’t close the bag. Eventually when you opened the cupboard one morning, when things didn’t seem able to get much worse, the bag would tip onto the counter, flipping in mid-descent, dumping the coffee grounds onto the counter, onto the floor, where you would track them all over the house and they would work their way into the carpet like poppy seeds in your teeth. She tossed the broken bag, three-quarters full, in the trash. Let’s just avoid that disaster, she thought to herself, her mouth turning up a little, despite the tightness with which she was holding it closed.

Richard came up behind her, his hands smoothing the silk dressing gown over her hips, his fingertips folding around her hip bones possessively. She felt different from the younger women he’d slept with. She wasn’t perfect. She had broader hips, despite her narrow waist, and her butt wasn’t firm from the gym. But he craved her. Dreamt about her every night, wanted right then and there to bend her over the counter and finish what they’d started in the living room.

Anne twisted away from him, gently. Pouring half-and-half into her coffee she raised an eyebrow to ask if he wanted some. He shook his head. “I guess I should be going, right? I’m getting that sense.”

Anne wondered how she would explain him to Frances. Clearly, Richard was gorgeous and young and sexy, that part clichéd and obvious. But that wasn’t what drew her to him, although it might have been easier to explain it that way. She liked how he talked, the different vocabulary, the occasional pop-culture reference she missed, the otherness. He was interested in what she had to say, found her novel and wise, valued her experience. It didn’t hurt that he constantly wanted her, that when she ran out of things to say she could lose herself in sex.

Charlie, her husband, loved her dearly, but in the way one loves a sibling, with all the wrinkles and scabs those relationships have. If she made a joke, he’d heard it, if she wore something new, he noticed but wondered if it had been on sale. Richard thought she was fascinating. Charlie thought she was competent and strong. Richard wanted to go down on her, to immerse himself in her body, to put his fingers inside her and then suck on them, grinning. Charlie was fine to wait until another night, no problem, babe, no, I understand, let’s snuggle.

“I think you should go now, yeah. I’ll text you or something.” She held her mug of coffee tightly: WORLD’S BEST MOM.

He left by the back door, and she’d turned away before he was even out of the garden.