The sex part did not improve. After the first time there was no pain, but there was no pleasure either. Tom would take her-at ever less frequent intervals-and he would move around on top of her like a stallion, while she lay beneath him, the joyless recipient of his passion. Sometimes she could make herself believe that it was his fault, that his ineptitude as a lover was responsible for her failure to enjoy lovemaking. Other times she could not escape the conclusion that the fault was her own. She was a cold woman, a woman incapable of passion, and that sort of woman should have the sense to remain unmarried.

And yet she was not sexless. Sometimes she would be sitting home during the afternoon, sitting alone with a book, sitting listening to music, sitting perched in front of the television set while the monotony of a game show or soap opera went on in front of her. And a wave of desire would pass through her body, a rush of warmth that could only be the beginnings of lust.

This never lasted, nor was it ever directed toward her husband. It lacked direction, this flow of passion-it was anonymous, aimed at nothing and no one, quickly over and done with. She could never feel desire for Tom or for any other man, but these occasional spasms of desire made her aware that she was a sexual being, somehow.

“We never had much of a chance,” she told Megan. “Tom was a normal man. Maybe some men can live with a cold wife without caring. He wasn’t that kind of man. We bad fights, pretty horrible fights. He wanted me to go to a psychiatrist. I-I wanted to, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.”

Megan squeezed her hand.

“I knew he was seeing other women. There was no reason why he shouldn’t. I was almost glad, after awhile, because that meant he wouldn’t bother me that way. We settled into this flat dead life. Sometimes he came home for dinner and stayed home, and we would watch television together or go to a movie. Sometimes he stayed downtown and didn’t get home until three or four in the morning. He would come home smelling of some other woman.”