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move on by. It was heading north, rapidly, she could hear the current lapping shore, dragging little sticks into it, moving dirt and leaves and fish along.
    The night was peaceful, and a few steady lights shone just across on the other shore, enough to see a few feet ahead. Annoyed to hear voices, footsteps, Delphine slipped into the tall brush just beside the bench. She wanted her bench back, and not to have to talk to anybody. Soon, two men walked into the clearing. Once they got to the bench they shut up and then one sat down and the other knelt before him. Delphine was hidden slightly behind the bench off to one side. Although she was immediately intrigued, she couldn’t see what was taking place. Later, when she put it all together in her mind, she realized it was probably good she hadn’t seen it all at once. It would have been too much of a shock. She hadn’t known that men could get together like that.
    “Oh my dear fucking God,” groaned the man on the bench. He put a period stop between each word and moaned the last one. His handsflopped out and his legs sprawled. The man on his knees was utterly silent. There was some movement. The man who spoke was wearing a suit, Delphine saw, because now he turned and held the backrest of the bench as he bent over. The kneeling man then stood behind him, white shirt glowing. There was something about that white blaze of shirt. Delphine peered into the smudge of air. The shirt was suddenly gone, the men were half naked, one was moving across the other with a fluid eagerness.
    The men kept changing and dissolving. They rolled over each other like fish. Sometimes they were frantic with a small animal’s alacrity, then they slowed into a tenderer pulse. There was no way, now, that Delphine could leave her hiding place, not that she really wanted to. She could not see exactly how the sex was taking place, but she was curious. She put the mechanics together and nodded when she made each discovery. Suddenly she understood that Cyprian was the man who had thrown off the blaze of shirt, and then she did one of those things she often did that surprised her. She walked out of the bushes and cheerfully said hello.
    Panicked, the men rolled away from each other. Her numb shock made her wicked. She sat down on the bench, began to talk.
    “I was just out looking for you, honey,” she said.
    “Delphine, I don’t know what—”
    “Christ almighty,” said the other man, scrambling for his clothes.
    Delphine crossed her legs, lighted a cigarette, and blew the smoke out gently. As she continued to speak, to elicit polite answers and draw up neutral topics of conversation, a dreamlike hilarity took hold of her. She made a small joke and when the two men laughed reality skewed. No questions made sense, her mind was operating on too many levels. Layers of dark curiosity. Still, she did not acknowledge what she’d interrupted but, wielding an amused power, continued to make irresistible small talk. The three bantered back and forth as they walked away from the side of the river. The men shook hands and went their separate ways. Side by side and gravely thoughtful, Delphine and Cyprian walked back to their own room.
    I wonder what will happen once we’re inside, thought Delphine. She had the willful naïveté to imagine that now that this was out in the open she and Cyprian could at last be true lovers. She also had the wit to know this was simpleminded. Nothing at all happened once they got back into the room. It all seemed too exhausting to contemplate. They stripped down to their underwear, got under the covers, and held hands like two mourners, alert and lost, unable to speak.
    IN THE NIGHT , deep in the dark, Delphine’s brain flickered on and her thoughts woke her. She let the roil of feelings wash over her and then shook Cyprian until he groaned. She meant to say something cutting about his betrayal, to ask didn’t he remember how they’d looked into each other’s eyes? She