The Dangerous Couple

I didn鈥檛 like her. We saw her and her husband at parties given by some people we knew who entertained a lot, and at one of the parties, while my wife was off talking to someone in the next room, she told me that her husband was impotent. It wasn鈥檛 that I鈥檇 asked her or that we were engaged in some deep conversation or that she knew me well enough to tell me such things. She happened to be standing next to me and was watching him across the room and she came out with it. There were other reasons I didn鈥檛 like her. She had a smirk that never let up, and she rarely showed any interest in what anyone said.

I didn鈥檛 like her husband either. An overbearing one-upper, knew a better vodka than you were drinking, a better car than you were driving, knew more than you did about any subject that came up. Too much domination in his voice, wanted to be the only voice in the room, talked over you if you tried to get a word in, gobbled you up like food.

I didn鈥檛 like them separately, and I liked them even less together. When they were together she would eel herself against his body, her hands moving over his torso, her eyes searching her surroundings for other visceral stimulation. He held a martini in one hand while his other hand wandered over her from behind, and his eyes roamed hungrily around the room as if somehow connected to the tour of his hand. They were like two people masturbating publicly and in unison.

I wouldn鈥檛 mention either one of them, but something happened that I can鈥檛 put to rest. My wife and I were at a restaurant one night, a small restaurant, dark and romantic, secluded booths, lots of angles, known for its wine list and its veal, and we saw him there with another woman. I could see them clearly and my wife could too if she looked back, though there were tables and booths between our booth and theirs. He would have had to turn and look over his shoulder to see us. The woman had a view of us but did not know us, and I could watch everything without drawing their attention, only my wife had to turn her head to watch. But there was no need for her to turn her head because I filled her in on what was going on. I told her they were drinking martinis, made with the greatest vodka in the world, no doubt, I could imagine him ordering it for her, the only way to drink a martini, the exact number of olives, the exact amount of vermouth. I told her about his hand winding around the mystery guest鈥檚 hand, how they leaned in and whispered and gazed into each other鈥檚 faces, his other hand dropping under the table for field trips up and down her legs. Finally my wife told me to shut up, she couldn鈥檛 stand to listen to me anymore, it was none of our business. I shut up but kept watching, thinking that we already had an invitation to the people鈥檚 house where we usually saw him, and I looked forward to finding out if he and his wife would be there again together.

When we arrived at the party I saw them at once, he with his martini in hand, she with him in hand, he talking with another couple, keeping them informed on some important topic, she showing no interest in whatever that topic was, her eyes casting about the room greedily for something to light on. Her eyes passed over us as if we were invisible, no sense of familiarity at all, and as we moved into the room and began greeting people she split away from her husband and wound through the guests toward a food table. It was then that I went toward her, no conscious plan, moving on impulse, but an impulse that had been gathering wind, I could remember seeing myself go toward her in the back of my mind.