Always it was the refugees with her husband. He lived in a nice safe upper-middleclass environment and he was constantly obsessing over, even romanticizing, peasants. Trips abroad, late night emergencies, long phone calls and secret meetings that kept him away from her. Now he was bringing one into the house! It was too much. Too much until she saw him.

He was so short that her eyes were level with his chest, not his stomach like with most men. He was wonderfully smooth and an almost reddish brown, and that chest she was eye level with was so muscular! His arms were huge, hard, and strong, and when she twinkled her eyes at him his eyes burned back into her. She wanted him to touch her. She wanted to touch him. She wanted to feel his chest. She wanted to feel his arms, to feel the strength, the arms that could lift her up and down over him, or pull her back and forth into him, or bear his own weight tirelessly over her as his hips pounded against hers.

Her husband and another activist (young, blond, tall, curvaceous, was her husband fucking her?) and the refugee were sitting around the table, speaking Spanish, which she could not understand, and English which she ignored. She had too much esoteric technical knowledge in her head to be filling it up with international political trivia or another foreign language, and her husband was activist enough for three people. Instead she concentrated on the hostessing skills she had learned as a young girl in the South. Domesticity was her spiritual and mental refuge from a contentious decades-long professional life.

She could feel the refugee's eyes as she cooked dinner, even with her back to them. She could feel his eyes as she put a little extra swing into her hips, and a little extra oomph into her step, and a little extra stretch as she reached to get something on a high shelf, willing him to jump over the counter in one fluid motion and lift her up with those arms.

She leaned way over to put his plate in front of him with a smile, and a subtle twinkle, but he just burned back, and dug into the food. She sat across from him, pecking at her own meal, watching him ravish his while her husband and the young blond slut chatted on, watched the way the muscles in his arms flexed as he shoveled and stabbed with his fork, cut with his knife, and ripped chunks of bread with his bare hands. She watched the way he picked up a glass, the way he chugged down liquid, the way his neck moved when he swallowed.

After dinner she cleaned up, putting on more of a show, and this time she got a reaction, a nod and a hint of a smile. She was ecstatic. The doorbell rang. She answered. More people arrived. More and more. Refreshments were needed. The refugee, Samuel, they were all calling him, must be important.

Preparing food in the kitchen she watched Samuel talking to all the people. He looked vaguely uncomfortable, glad for the attention but really wishing he was home. She imagined him at home, plowing the fields with those gorgeous arms in the unbearable heat, removing his shirt, revealing his chest, drinking water out of an earthen jug, his muscles rippling in the sun, calling for a refill. She pictured herself traipsing out across the fields to retrieve the jug, dressed in a dark suit and high heels. She laughed at the image as she arranged food on the plates. Nobody noticed. They were all looking at him. Actually, he had noticed. He was staring at her again. She didn't blush. She didn't do that. Blushing had long since been removed from her repertoire.

She returned to the food, and to the fantasy. She could make and serve a party tray on autopilot. This time in the fantasy she dressed herself appropriately, a simple peasant dress and bare feet, though there was nothing she could do to hide the fact that except for height she looked out of place among the villagers. Her face was thin with bird-like features, her hair light brown and curly, her skin pale, her body lithe. Still, the dress helped. Out she went into the fields, bearing a party tray. This time she suppressed the giggle and decided to go with the mistake.

She approached him. His eyes burned into her. His muscles bulged. She wanted him. She wanted him to take her right there, recreating an ancient fertility rite, making her come against the dark earth. She smiled, she reached out, and suddenly realized that she was standing in the middle of her own crowded living room, one hand holding a party tray, the other lightly stroking Samuel's bulging arm with her fingertips.