fact that I loved her first means nothing. That she loved me first means nothing. They exchanged marital vows, and in this moment, in the eyes of the law and of the world, she belongs to him. As I ponder this, a black semiautomatic pistol swings into view, dangling from his right hand. He could kill me now with a reasonable expectation of being acquitted.
“Do not speak,” he orders Jet. “Not unless I ask you a question. You’ve forfeited that right.”
While she gapes at him, he turns his attention to me. “What should I do with you, Marshall? My good friend. Yesterday you denied you were fucking my wife. Today . . .” He waves his gun hand. “Today everybody’s going to tell the truth. Is that understood?”
When no one answers, he looks at Jet. “I know it was you who hit Pop last night. Not Marshall. Correct?”
“Yes.”
Paul takes a step toward the table, then digs a cell phone from his pocket. “To spare us any awkward denials, I want to play a little video short.”
The floor shifts beneath my feet. He holds his phone out toward us.
“Paul, don’t,” Jet pleads.
“Why not? I’ve watched it all the way from Jackson. A forty-minute loop. I could have whacked off a couple of times if I hadn’t had to drive. Noticed something new every time.”
The sound of forest insects comes from the phone. Then the screen lights up with the green sweep of my backyard. Even from the kitchen counter, I can see Jet’s naked body sitting astride mine on the patio steamer chair.
“That didn’t come off Pornhub,” Paul says. “That’s the real deal.”
Jet is looking at the floor.
“Watch it, goddamn it!” Paul roars, walking around the extended phone so that he can watch it with her. “At least have the guts to face up to what you did.”
Jet looks at the screen. Both their backs are to me now, but I’m not stupid enough to think Paul isn’t aware of every move I make.
The geometry of the kitchen suddenly seems important. There’s ten feet of floor space between the table and the back wall. Jet and Paul occupy that rectangle. The table is six feet long and three feet wide and runs parallel to the back wall. There’s eight feet of space between the table and the island, which is tucked into the U of cabinets and appliances. I’m standing between the table and the island. And Nadine’s pistol—
“Here we go!” Paul says with false excitement. “First orgasm coming up!”
“Christ, please stop this,” Jet pleads.
“Aaaaaand . . . boom!” Paul cries. “Good one!”
Jet gives him nothing.
“By my count,” Paul says, “we’ll have thirty-three seconds of rest, then the lady will start again, going for her second pop. Anybody want to wager on how long it takes her to get there? No?”
“Stop,” Jet implores. “This is pathetic.”
“Then how could you do it?” he shouts, so loudly that Jet draws back from him. “Huh? I’m waiting!”
Instead of yielding more ground, Jet stands straight and says, “You ask me that? Like you haven’t screwed a dozen waitresses and assistants since you married me?”
I knew that Paul had cheated on her, but this revelation shocks me.
Paul doesn’t blink. “Not like this! I never loved anybody else.”
Jet shakes her head and looks at him with what must be painful frankness. “You’ve never loved anybody, Paul. Not really. Certainly not me.”
This stops him for a few seconds. “That’s a lie,” he says finally. “I loved you.”
“No. You wanted me to love you. There’s a difference.”
“You don’t know what I feel!” he yells, trying to recapture his initial fury. In this moment Paul looks like a little boy trying to understand a painful world.
“But I do,” Jet says. “Better than anyone alive. And you know it.”
Paul waves his gun at her. “Here’s what I know. You never loved me. You lied to me from the beginning.”
“What tells you that?” She points at his cell phone. “That stupid video? What does that show? Sex. That’s all.”
A nasty grin stretches his lips. “You think I’m stupid?” He digs in his back pocket again, removes a folded piece of paper, then shakes it open and tosses it on the table. I lean far enough forward to see what it is. When I do, my stomach flips. Not only because of what it is, but because it means Paul has been in my house before today.
“Is that ‘just sex’?” he asks.
He’s pointing at an intricately embellished piece of calligraphy, one by someone