Menage by Alix Kates Shulman

just make it up as you go along.”
    â€œBut that is precisely what I do, make up as I go along.” He looked at Heather.
    Heather didn’t know what to say either. She was certain that Zoltan’s story contained a hidden message to her, though she could not yet discern its meaning. She picked up a tangerine from the bowl and began to peel it.
    â€œHeather is awfully quiet,” said Zoltan.
    Heather passed around the sectioned tangerine. Finally she said, “I’m overwhelmed. I don’t know what else to say. But I’m not sure I understand the ending—is it complete?”
    Leaning against the mantel Zoltan ignored the fruit to pierce Heather with his eyes. “Exactly how it will end is one thing I try not to know in advance.” Then he cracked half a smile and added ironically, “This may be my first lesson for you: endings leave to chance.”
    Was he trying to tell her that everything was still open between them, that she hadn’t misread his desire that morning after all? His secret meanings seemed easier to decipher when his eyes were locked on hers.
    â€œFor my money,” said Mack, “the less one leaves to chance, the better. I’d prefer a sound investment to speculation any time. Though I’ll grant you, you can never know for sure what’s chancy until the venture is complete or you’ve gotten out. I’ll bet those editors agree with me. Let me know when you’ve got something down on paper, Z, and we’ll plan a strategy.”
    But Zoltan, playing eyesies with the lovely Heather, was unaware that Mack’s talk of investments and speculations might in any way apply to him.

 
    13         SO THE FIRST ABSORBING weeks went by. Zoltan cast his spell each night after dinner, when the three gathered around the hearth with their brandy or wine to improvise upon their roles in their odd ménage à trois: Mack the impresario directing Zoltan the guru playing to Heather’s acolyte. Maja Stern was never mentioned.
    In the evenings, with the McKays seated on the sofa side by side, the flirtation between Zoltan and Heather seemed innocent enough, despite its occasional hot eruptions like the sparks exploding in the fireplace. But in the daytime, when Mack was away, Zoltan was forced to hide behind the closed door of his sanctuary until the children, those perfect chaperones, came shouting and tumbling home. As he paced before the window waiting for words andimages that wouldn’t come, acutely aware that his host was waiting too, his sanctuary sometimes felt like a cage, and he an animal doomed to sicken and die if he remained inside but be shot if he tried to escape. Two equally depressing prospects: the agonies of writer’s block or the dangers of adultery. The tortures he suffered with the former made the distractions of the latter more enticing—and more necessary to resist. For both, the temptress Heather was to blame.
    Heather, whose solitary morning hours had so recently been tranquil working interludes in her child-ruffled days, also found it impossible to concentrate, knowing Zoltan was ensconced upstairs. The sting of his kiss remained on her hand, each double meaning rang in her ears, as she was repeatedly jolted off balance by his alternate giving and withholding, his sybaritic nights and celibate days.
    It wasn’t simply his distracting presence that interfered with her work. A writer of his renown creating literature overhead made her own ambitions seem foolish. Admittedly, sometimes his writing left her puzzled (which might be attributable to bad translation), but his celebrity was indisputable. His work was invariably mentioned in articles about dissident or persecuted writers living in theStates, and his name appeared on announcements of prestigious conferences. After two readings of his last novel published in English, with its intrigue and multilayered convolutions, she suspected