Roger takes the opportunity to get up and pour us a second drink. He's ready for another Manhattan, gets me another G&T. As he pours I ask, "What kind of club?"
"Well, I guess you'd call it...kind of...it's more or less a couple's club."
"Couples like husband and wife?"
Roger puts the drink in front of me and sits down. He nods appreciatively at my ready comprehension. "Yeah, like that kind of couple. There are a few unmarrieds as well, like Ted and Sarah aren't married, planning for it, I think they're saying October, who does a fall wedding? But not yet. Still, most of us are married."
"Good for you, good for Ted and Sarah too. But what exactly is a couples club? What do you get together for books or music or parcheesi or something?"
"Oh, nothing of that sort."
"What on earth does any of this have to do with my problem?"
"Well, I'm getting to that."
"Couples...," now the word hits me. "Couples? Jesus, if you tell me this is some sort of swingers thing. Is that how she got involved with Farrell?"
"Oh, no, not that at all. Pas de tout. Let me explain."
"Then get moving."
"You're right Bill, And when you're right you're right. I told Claire this morning I'd lay it on the line and talk turkey with you, give it to you straight up, mano a mano, like what we're doing right now. You deserve that after what you've..."
"Bill! Fuck. Get to it."
"Oh. Yes. Right. So this couples club, that's what it is, was founded, I think it was maybe 10 years ago, by this group of six friends. See these guys already belonged to this executive, very exclusive kind of club. They were the up-and-comers, kind of next generation of leadership, the young Turks someone called them, although I'm pretty sure none of them is actually Turkish. It's just an expression. The kind gets invited to these clubs, lucky bastards, pardon my francais. Most of the other guys in the club were stuffy, rich old goofballs who only used the club for, you know, like lunches and sipping brandy and networking and maybe a little racket ball."
"Bill, so help me..."
"But these new guys, the guys who founded our club, they were younger and they had different, I guess it's fair to say, different, really quite different, if you think about it, interests. I mean they still were in the big club and still used it for networking and such but then they broke off a kind of offshoot club, very, very reclusive..."
"Exclusive."
"...thank you... and hush-hush, one that was a better match for what they were interested in."
"For their interests." That was Anna again inside of me.
"Yes, exactly." He beams at me, pleased again that I'm following the story line. He follows that with a pained smile and another pat of the forehead.
"Listen to me Roger, I don't see where you're going with any of this. But I'll play along to see if you ever get to the point."
"I will. I'm working on it. It's not that easy to explain."
"Let me help. What were their interests?"
Roger perks up. All he ever needed was this one prompt. "Their interests? Oh, easy. Sexual relations with women," he says, somehow with a tone of reverence. "Specifically sexual intercourse with attractive women."
"Sexu...?"
"And even more specifically fucking attractive white women who are in a relationship, like they're married or at least living together with some sort of commitment,..."
"Wait! Did you...?" It threw me off balance, this 'fucking' thing. I don't think I'd ever heard Roger use a curse word before. And I know I'd never heard him say anything so bizarre before.
"... like my cousin Elizabeth, she does that cohabitation thing. It's not for me, not for me or for Claire, thank God, but it seems to work for her, Elizabeth. You might have met her two Christmases ago when she visited. Of course that was before she started cohabitating with this guy, I think his name is Quigley, weird huh? But her mother, that's my Aunt Judith, just about went off the deep end when...."
Time froze. I didn't mind the babble since I wasn't listening. Finally I looked at him. "Fucking? Did you just say, fucking?"
