Whitney recalled hearing about a Sunday evening party that she’d been bummed they hadn’t had the opportunity to attend. Something that had been recommended to her by a TV writer she’d met through work. It was a dinner, hosted by an American artist who’d lived in Barcelona since his flying days in France, that had taken place almost every Sunday—rain or shine or ash—for forty-five years. There was a website and everything. All you had to do was send him an email RSVPing, and bring twenty euros a head to cover the cost of the booze and the home-cooked meal. Guests apparently came from all over. It was a deliberate gathering of strangers, Whitney had heard, and the whole thing was to mingle with new people. The artist was some kind of functionary of the sexual revolution in Europe, she recounted to Will at the bar. He’d started porno mags in Amsterdam and Edinburgh. If you go, Whitney had been warned, show up on time and head out early; it gets weird when the regulars reach the witching hour.
“So, what do you think?” Whitney said.
“Sounds like a lot of talking to people we don’t know,” Will said.
“Yes, that’s the point.”
“And they don’t care that we won’t know anyone at all?”
“I can’t tell if you’re being deliberately thick. That’s what it’s about. All these travelers from all over. A few locals. Some expats—if they still call them that. It’s a couple hours, nothing crazy.”
“If you want to go,” Will said.
“But do you want to go?” Whitney said.
“I’m sure it’ll be great. These are the things I’m always suspicious of but never regret having gone to. Just to be super clear, though: You want to spend a whole night making small talk with strangers?”
“You didn’t seem to have trouble making small talk with strangers when they were first-year associates in pencil skirts.”
“That is true, yes.”
“…when they were all paralegals buzzing hot in the cheeks, on X and Y and Z.”
“Are those your names for party drugs?”
“…on E and F and G.”
“You’re right,” Will said. “No problem then, no problem now.”
“…ready to walk right up and put their sticky little mitts on your arms and chest, presuming without a doubt in the world that a guy like you’s not hanging around unless he’s ready to get down right then and there.”
“Desperate times called for desperate blah blah. Though you realize this is a little different. This is talking to people just because.…No best-sex-of-my-life at the end.”
“No bloody noses,” she said. “No tits in armpits.”
“What makes people get up in the morning if at least the possibility’s not there at the end of the night, right?”
“Maybe this is the same sort of idea,” Whitney said. “I hear all the old people are there to fuck each other anyway. All those aging free-love swingers.”
“Good, then,” Will said. “I’ll get to see you in action. Now that I know you’ve got a taste for vintage.”
She could’ve smiled, and she may have tried, but it faded in the same instant. Last night was important for them. They’d survived it. But it was raw still. It wasn’t quite all the way to lightness. At least not like it had been at times the night before, and not like it might be down the road. There was serious trauma still. But they were okay. They’d survived the dinner. And then they’d gone home, and taken it out on each other.
He’d been rough with her. He’d wrapped his fingers around her throat and held on longer than he knew he should, reminding himself at the critical moment to slacken his grip: easy.…He made sure to mark her up. Surfaces. Cupped palms, smacks that stung. He stuck his hand in her mouth and hooked her teeth and lips, unhinged her jaw. He pulled, he pressed. She’d done the same to him. Used him like she’d used her pair, let herself be used like they’d used her. They brought strength into it. Made sure there was a hairline fracture of uncertainty about whether they maybe hated one another. Pressed and pulled. Over the line. To the point of stop. To the point of not so hard. The windows were open and it was warm out. The ash had created a vacuum seal, a sheet over the city. But they hadn’t known it yet—the ashcloud had slipped in under cover of darkness. Their bodies were wet when they were through. There was heat in their hair. Dampness at the neck and forehead. Sweat sliding down the pane of her stomach, around the well of her belly button and the risers of her hip bones. Her pubic hair was dewy. Her crack was damp. They grew slicker as they lay there. He’d finished inside her. Not the way they normally did. But she’d fastened him in with her legs and practically made it end on command. She could make him do what she wanted when she
