The girl we'd never seen before was on top of Tim when we all walked in the bedroom. It seemed like an accident, though obviously, in retrospect, for whatever reason, Traci had decided to offer us all a tour of the new house because she saw them sneak up the stairs together. Were we there for moral support, physical restraint, maximum embarrassment, or witnesses in a future trial? Whatever Traci was thinking, I somehow suspected that my reactions were not within the intended range.

My first reaction was purely erotically visual. The girl was small and trim with short dark hair, a white blouse and a plaid skirt. She was stretched out along Tim's chest, her knees on the bed on either side of him, sliding slowly back and forth. They were both mostly dressed and barely moving but his pants were undone and her skirt was up just high enough that we could see where his cock entered her.

My second reaction was a smile at the audacity of fucking on the bed fully clothed in the middle of a party. I wondered if this was her first time in his new bed, and how long and how often he'd been cheating on Traci.

And my third reaction was to ponder it out, and to think back. Not right then. Right then there were too many polite people fumbling around the room pretending that either a) they hadn't just been engaged in an incredibly sensuous screw, or b) they hadn't been watching. No, I sat there pondering after everybody, including my wife, had left the room again. All but Traci that is. She was staring out the window, so I sat and stared out the window too. I watched her out of the corner of one eye, comparing her soft blond curves to the hard edges of the tiny lithe dark-haired girl we'd all just witnessed. She wasn't saying anything. Just staring. So I just sat and thought, trying to figure out the emotional story behind the erotic image, the narrative that someone once called the "personal psychosexual drama." Every erotic image has one.

Years before, when all the people at that party except the small dark girl had been at school together, Tim had rescued Traci. Or so it seemed to all of us. Traci was jokingly referred to as promiscuous, but the really promiscuous girls were sluts from a position of power, using their sexuality, experimenting with their sexuality, and generally wreaking havoc and excitement wherever they went. Traci, on the other hand, had been property. She had been the property of a group of five guys, all from the same neighborhood, all from the same high school, all going to college together, all sharing the same girl. They dated the kinds of girls their parents would approve of, the kinds of girls they would marry. For sex, they had Traci. Glancing at her now it was kind of hard to believe. It's kind of hard to believe that kind of thing goes on at all. And now, in the fading light from the window, brushing her golden hair with her hand, she looked so angelic, so innocent, that I just wanted to hug her, and if I hadn't been married already I would have proposed right there myself.

One night at a finals party Traci got drunk. No, that's not quite the right way to put that; Traci got drunk at every party, perhaps because she didn't want to be sober for what followed. I've never been sure exactly what did follow the parties after they all left to go home, whether they rolled dice, or took turns, whether she ended up with one a night or all of them. It's an odd cultural phenomenon, one that I've since come to realize is way too common.

But I'm digressing. Traci was staring out the window and playing with her golden hair and fidgeting a little bit like she might want to say something, and I was thinking the story through. Where was I? Oh yes. Traci was drunk. Not unconscious drunk, more like horney drunk. At least it looked that way at the time, though maybe it was desperate drunk. The five were just getting up to leave the party, expecting Traci to follow, when she turned to Tim, who'd been sitting next to her, and stuck her tongue in his mouth. That got his attention. It got everybody's attention. They were kissing hard very fast, and his hands were inside her blouse and her hands were on his crotch, when one of the five turned from the door and yelled "Traci, let's go!" But Traci didn't. Traci was much too engrossed with Tim and Tim with her. One of the five came back in to get her, reached for her to grab her, reached for Tim to pull him off, when Tim stood up. Tim is not a small guy, and Tim was angry drunk. Tim was enraged drunk. Tim was "get your hands off us and get the hell out of here she's not going with you" drunk. The guy left. They all left. Tim and Traci went back to making out, and the rest of us went back to watching. I wonder how many of the people watching that girl riding Tim were thinking back to that drunken night when Tim and Traci fucked for an audience. Maybe the rest of them were too polite to remember. Maybe at the time they were too drunk to remember.

I looked over at Traci, sitting next to me, staring out the window. A different girl now for sure; a more confident girl, a more powerful girl. A woman. A woman who would hopefully laugh this off. I sure hoped so anyway. I gave her a raised eyebrow. She raised an eyebrow back, and went back to staring. Not yet ready to talk, but the facial tic was encouraging.

The day after the party, the altercation, and the show, Tim and Traci were together. They were together every day after that. She clung to him. She clung to him between classes and after classes, and if they'd had classes together she'd probably have clung to him during class as well. Eventually they'd gotten an apartment together, and now the house. They were everybody's golden couple.

"That was pretty hot, wasn't it?"

That seemed like an odd comment, so I ran it back and forth a couple of times in my mind before turning my head. She was leaning back in the chair, her head tilted back, her legs apart, still staring out the window but now with a funny little smile.

"Yes but."

She turned her head to look at me, still smiling. "But what?"

I smiled back and looked out the window, weighing my options. Then decided what the hell. "I've seen hotter."

I looked back. She was still smiling. "When?" she asked.

"You and Tim."

She made a face and looked out the window again, but she seemed pleased. More silence passed between us.

"Traci?"

"Yes?"

"Who the hell was that?"

"Who?"

"You know who."

"The dark little bitch?"

I looked at her again. She was still smiling.

"Yes."

"That's Irene"

"And Irene is..."

"Tim's girlfriend"

"Since when?"

"Since forever."

"How did that happen?"

There was more silence, and then it came out in a soft rush. "I just assumed. He was so gallant, and so sexy, and so willing and able to well, you saw. It never occurred to me he was just drunk. Afterwards he felt so protective, and obligated, and unwilling to hurt me again, and everybody was so into us being a couple, that he just went along without ever saying anything. Plus he's an idiot."

I laughed at that. I couldn't help myself. "How did he ever explain it to Irene?"

"I have no idea. She may be an idiot too." Now she was trying not to laugh.

"And when did you find all this out?"

"About a year ago. He kept disappearing. I followed him. I asked around."

"But you're still with him."

"Yeah, we keep up appearances and maintain the fiction both to everybody else and to ourselves"

I thought about pointing out that fucking in the bedroom in the middle of the party wasn't exactly keeping up appearances, but that seemed too obvious, it was probably the reason she'd used the word "bitch," and it would distract us from the main point of the conversation. Instead I simply asked "Why?"

"He feels obligated. I feel grateful. He did save me."

"Traci..."

She looked at me again. "It's OK. I'm a big girl now. I take care of myself."

I looked at her. We looked at each other for awhile. "OK" I finally answered.

"Thanks for staying" she said.

"Well..."

She laughed. "You meant what you said, didn't you?"

"About what?"

"You know what! About how hot I was. Which is the only fucking reason you've been sitting here with me."

"Well..." I answered again. She didn't really look angry, so I went with it. "You know me too well."

"I know men too well." She stood up. She walked towards me. She leaned over. She kissed me on the forehead. "Thank you for staying" she said again, still leaning over.

We stared at each other. She was tantalizingly close. I could smell her golden hair. I admired the curve of her hip. Her breasts were right there, under her shirt.

I reached out.

She kissed me again.

On the mouth.

With tongue.