synthetic carpet. Nevertheless, she could hear Norman coming nearer. His shoes made a faint scritch sound. Magdalena told herself to be very calm and cool. So she sat there like someone waiting to be executed… scritch… scritch… scritch… he was getting closer. ::::::I can’t just sit here like this, like he’s got my wrists strapped to the arms of the chair and I’m resigned to my fate.:::::: She stood up and went over to the pale beigey-gray cabinet—everything was pale beigey-gray in this office—where the syringes and doses of anti-libido serum were kept and pushed them around on a shelf in order to sound busy… scritch… scritch… SCRITCH… Uhohhhh… no more scritch. He must have been right in the doorway, but she wasn’t going to turn around to see. A few seconds went by… and nothing. It seemed like an eternity…
“Well… good morning,” said the voice, neither friendly nor unfriendly… Room temperature was all it was.
She turned about, as if surprised—and immediately regretted that. Why would she be surprised? “Good morning!” she said… ::::::Damn! That was slightly above room temperature.:::::: She didn’t want to sound warm and friendly.
Norman looked huge to her. He wore a tan gabardine suit she hadn’t seen before, a white shirt, and a brown necktie with an unfortunately picturesque print of goblins—must have been a dozen of them—skiing down a steep brown slope. He smiled without saying anything. It was the sort of smile in which the upper lip is lifted so that you can see the two pointed eyeteeth. She got a good eyeful of the teeth before he said, with a slight smile that she searched for irony:
“I wasn’t sure whether you’d be here this morning.”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” She meant it to sound offhand and immediately realized it sounded combative.
“Oh, you don’t remember? You stood me up last night. Rather unceremoniously.”
“Unceremoniously?” said Magdalena. “What does that mean?” It was actually a relief of an odd sort to come right out and admit she didn’t know what these people were talking about.
“You could have at least told me yesterday before you skipped out.”
“Skipped out!” said Magdalena. “I sent you a text!”
“Yeah, about ten o’clock at night. You sent me one miserable little text.” Norman was beginning to get a bit heated. “Why didn’t you call me? Afraid I might answer? And when I called you, you had the phone turned off.”
“Amélia went to bed early, and I didn’t want to wake her up. So I shut off the phone.”
“Eminently thoughtful,” said Norman, “eminently thoughtful. Oh, eminently means the same as highly in this case, okay? Does highly help? No? Too big a word? Then make it ‘very.’ Okay? ‘very’ thoughtful. Okay?”
“No use being… that way about it, Norman.”
“What time did you go to bed, sweetheart? And where? Or is it no use being that way, either?”
“I’ve already told you—”
“You’ve already told me absolutely nothing that makes sense. So why don’t you try being honest and tell me what the fuck’s going on?”
“Don’t use those words if you want to talk to me, okay? But since you’ve asked, I will mention something I haven’t brought up with you before. Do you know that you have a way of filling up a room until there’s no air left?”
“Oh hohhh. ‘Filling up a room until there’s no air left’! How literary we are all of a sudden. What’s that metaphor supposed to mean?”
“What’s a met—”
“What’s a meta… for, right? I thought we were in the literary mode this morning. What’s a ‘mode’? Okay, let’s make it ‘mood’ instead. You know ‘mood’?”
His lip was lifted still higher to show his upper teeth. He looked like a snarling animal. It frightened Magdalena, but she was even more afraid of the pissing monkey overcoming her and subjecting her to God knew what, because now he had a whole head full of anger. She glanced about the office. It was not yet eight o’clock in the morning. Was there anybody else in this building who would hear a thing? ::::::Don’t be so frightened! Just do it—::::::
—and she heard herself saying, “You said to be honest and tell you what’s going on. Okay, what’s going on is… you. You fill up a room… and me, up to here”—she put the edge of her flat palm against her throat—“with sex, and I don’t mean the joy of sex, either. I mean perverted sex. I can’t believe you took poor Maurice to those pornographic art shows at Art Basel and then stood by and