As a couple who have been married for over twenty years but never found time to socialize much, Janie and I didn't know quite what to expect when we were invited to a housewarming party by the new neighbors down the street and told to bring only "a large cardboard packing box." Not to disappoint our hosts—the wife is a co-worker of Janie's—I found one at a moving company. Unfolded, it was big enough to hold a grand piano.
Nan and Clint, our new neighbors and hosts for the evening, greeted us at the door. It was difficult to ignore Nan's tight slacks and filmy, see-through top. She was not wearing a bra, and her breasts, while rather small for my taste, were there for all to see. I think Janie began having second thoughts at that point, but she took pains not to show it.
After the introductions, Clint seemed disappointed that I appeared to have come empty-handed. He brightened considerably when I told him the box was folded up in the back of the SUV. He graciously consented to help me carry it in. To my puzzlement, he unfolded it in the living room, leaving the ends unfastened for what looked like a makeshift door. He worked eagerly, like a kid building a play fort on a rainy day.
Several guests had already arrived. Drinks had flown liberally by that point, I could tell; many singles and couples were mingling already, standing too close to one another, voices a bit louder than you might encounter in a cold-sober group, and yet for all the frivolity everyone seemed to me a bit nervous.
A well-built man of about thirty-five, dressed in a blue suit and with a swarthy look about him the color of his jacket, approached us before we had hardly entered the living room. He touched Janie's elbow with intimacy and said in a foreign accent I couldn't quite place, "You are the loveliest woman here." He said it without preamble, with me standing there, and added, "I hope we will meet when we once again become strangers to one another." I pondered that one.
Janie didn't jerk her elbow away, although she is quite conservative and not at all physically demonstrative as a rule. She even took his hand and held it for a count of five while she looked into his eyes and said awkwardly, "Charmed, I'm sure." I noticed she was studiously ignoring the hard-core porn playing on the big-screen LCD TV.
