Publishers had never forgiven him their miscalculation.

Bird shorts. Simone swam unhurried laps. Each of her muscles felt strong and engaged. She was an athlete. She hadn’t always been, but she was one now.

His novel had been a dream come true because Simone had read it,

have indicated sexual devotion but was not uncommon in the type of person by whom Ethan found himself daily surrounded.

Simone aspired to meditate but always fell extremely short of thoughtlessness.

About Simone, Ethan had often wondered the same thing. As the most acclaimed scholar in their department, Simone could have opted out of silk shirts, skintight jeans, those little heeled boots. She could have let her muscles go slack, her waistline soft with middle age. Her face could have sagged into Arendt levels of androgyny and no one would

Ethan recognized the thought as a version of what all adulterers told themselves: the affair was predestined, inevitable. Had essentially already happened. What they were doing was not an affair because Ethan had never laid a hand on Abigail. But it also was, because leaving a department potluck to buy cigarettes was better than sex.

Simone said, “Putting aside all that, is it possible for a self-respecting woman to stay with a man who stuck his penis in someone else?” “A self-respecting woman?” The elderly professor’s lip curled with disdain. Simone wondered if she could retroactively fail her dissertation defense. “A self-respecting woman does what she wants.”

loved it, and loved him a little bit more for writing it.