he slipped quietly out the front door and Bruce and Abigail were alone. She started to laugh. “You didn’t say it came with a butler.”
“Get used to it, babe,” he said.
“I don’t know if I can, but this place is beautiful. I just want to live inside this bunk for the entire week.”
“You can do whatever you want.”
After unpacking their things, Abigail and Bruce took a bath together in the deep freestanding tub surrounded by candles. Bruce told her that the tub was made from sandstone. “You could just be making that up,” Abigail said, “but I believe you.”
She slipped through the water and into his arms. They kissed, Abigail aware of the sound of the bathwater lightly hitting the edge of the tub. “It’s so quiet in here,” she said. “I think I forget how much noise we’re constantly hearing.”
“If it becomes too much for you,” Bruce said, “we could add some ambient noise to the place. There’s actually a hidden sound system that we can utilize.”
“Of course there is. I think you lied about the no-electricity thing. It’s just hidden electricity.”
“Yes, that’s kind of true.”
When they got out of the bath together Bruce dried Abigail off with a massive towel, taking his time, studying her naked skin. Though they’d never talked about it, Abigail could tell just how important visual stimulation was to him. The first night they’d had sex he’d asked her to undress in front of him and watched her with such fascination that it bordered on uncomfortable. She’d made some joke, she was sure, at the time, and it was really the only slightly strange aspect of their sex life. She wondered if it had something to do with the fact that men today, women, too, had grown up watching so much pornography. Maybe the sight of an actual naked woman in front of them was akin to finally seeing the Grand Canyon in reality after years of only seeing pictures. It was both familiar and completely new. She didn’t mind, exactly, and when they had sex, he would become more physically engaged, less visually so. It was totally common, she realized, and the only part of it that bothered her was wondering if he’d lose interest in her as the years passed, as her body changed.
Abigail left the bathroom first and sat naked on the edge of the bed, assuming that Bruce was going to want to have sex. She felt ambivalent, as she always did up until the moment his hands started to touch her. As she waited for him while he dried off, her eyes instinctually scanned her immediate vicinity for her cell phone before she realized she’d already stowed it away in the drawer where she’d put her underwear. It was going to be strange not having a phone. How did one fill those little gaps in time? Bruce emerged from the bathroom, the towel wrapped around his waist. She watched him walk across the room. He had a trim, athletic body—he never went more than two days without going to the gym—but he wasn’t graceful, and when he walked Abigail could always visualize the awkward teen he’d probably been, skinny and perpetually at his computer. It made her love him more, not less.
He dropped his towel on the floor and was pulling up his boxer briefs when Abigail realized he wasn’t going to try to initiate anything. She was surprisingly disappointed and said his name to get his attention. He turned, and something in his face—a distraction in his eyes—made her decide not to call him over to the bed.
“Nothing,” she said, then got up herself and walked to the bureau she’d claimed when they’d unpacked.
CHAPTER 11
The main hall of the lodge felt more like a castle than an old summer camp. The fireplace could easily fit an entire basketball team inside it, and the room’s ceiling rose three stories. An enormous chandelier made of brass and candles hung above the center of the hall, and Abigail wondered how it was possibly lit. Did one of the butlers run out here with a huge stepladder when no one was looking?
There were only about a dozen people mingling in the hall, most standing near the fireplace or sitting in overstuffed chairs.
“Bar?” Bruce said, and together they walked across the stone floor, covered here and there by expensive-looking rugs, toward a fully stocked bar made from dark wood carved to look like vines growing up columns. The bartender was middle-aged, with a