A Small Indiscretion by Jan Ellison

you like.”
    “Thank you for your permission.”
    “You are very welcome, so you are. An odd pair, our Mr. and Mrs. Church. You’d have to feel a bit sorry for them, wouldn’t you? For Louise, at least. Beneath all her fierceness she’s a timid bird.”
    I said nothing. I was trying to work things out in my mind, to understand whether Patrick’s sentiment was sincere or condescending, and, more important, whether he was available to me or not. He was watching me closely, and for a moment it seemed he might lean in and kiss me. I felt that would be the right thing, for us to fall upon each other immediately.
    “Stand up a minute,” he said.
    “Why?”
    “Stand up and let me look at you.”
    Did I hesitate? I don’t know. Probably I didn’t. I simply stood and presented myself to Patrick.
    “You are attractive, aren’t you?” he said, as I sat down again. He spoke as if my appearance were a difficult but unavoidable burden. I imagine it was a line he used with women, a line he’d perfected over the years. But I didn’t suspect that then, and it made an impression.
    H E SHOWED ME his photographs hanging on the gallery walls. They were black-and-white images with blurred backgrounds, each with a single swipe of color painted by hand. He told me the series made use of an effect called solarization, which was the process of reexposing photographic paper in the darkroom. Areas that had been exposed the least in the original print were affected the most duringreexposure. Silver outlines emerged, and light and dark were reversed.
    “I’ve seen a photograph like this,” I said. “At the office. On Malcolm’s desk.”
    He smiled. “I took that years ago, when I was an art student.”
    He described each image for me, speaking with authority, pointing out how the foreground was transposed against the background, and how solarization, along with the swipe of color, called the subject’s integrity into question, creating what he called dissonance. I didn’t really understand what he meant, and I’m not sure he did, either. If I met him for the first time now, I’d challenge him. I’d think him pretentious. But I didn’t do either then.
    Late in the night, he sat down at the piano. I don’t remember what song he played, but I remember Louise watching him, how bright her eyes were and how flushed her cheeks as she smiled. She looked across the room at me, still smiling, and I felt as if I had seen into her soul. I did not know what I was seeing then, but I imagine I do now. Not dashed hopes so much as helpless want. Want like a small dirty creature, waiting all the years of her marriage for a sign. Patrick was not the sign; she herself was, her own blue dress, her tiny waist, her small, round breasts. And her want was not for dogged faithfulness—and not even for love—but for unfamiliar flesh, for bone against her own bone.
    T HE END OF the evening at the gallery was like my dream of the library cards last summer. I could borrow Patrick for a little while, but I would not be the one to keep him. He was waylaid by Louise, and I by Malcolm, who’d made an elegant toast to Louise early in the evening, then proceeded to get so drunk he shed his usual restraint. Each time he approached me, he was more demonstrative.He took my hand. He whispered in my ear. He once slipped his arm around my waist and tried to embrace me. I was embarrassed. I was afraid Louise would see us, and I would be blamed.
    When the evening ended, I found myself outside with Louise and Malcolm under a city sky lit by a bright round moon. Patrick appeared in their car. Louise insisted on dropping me at Victoria on the way home. Patrick drove, since Malcolm was too drunk. Louise sat up front with Patrick and I sat in back with Malcolm. He had to be laid down, so that his head was nearly in my lap and one of his arms was draped over my legs. I was terrified Louise would look back and see us in this position. Or worse, Patrick would. But neither