It is as if they have been doing this forever, the three of them. It is as if the movie formerly titled 
has been given an expanded budget and cast and retitled 
, starring the inimitable threesome that brought you...
But, no, the stars here are neither the Andrews Sisters nor the Three Stooges nor the Nairobi Trio nor even Athos, Portos and Aramis, however dexterous and accomplished they may seem, however well they work together in triplicate. For despite the fact that Gloria has her head buried between Kate’s spread legs, and despite the fact that David has mounted Gloria and is plunging repeatedly into her from behind, it is Kate who is the conduit here, Kate through whom their separate energies and passions flow. The true star here, the only star here, the ringmaster who urges and cajoles this inverted Oreo performance is Kate alone, encouraging, commanding, and finally deciding upon the exact moment of their concerted release, screaming “Oh Jesus, I’m coming!” just as Gloria shouts, “Oh Jesus, me too!” and David closes his eyes and silently, seemingly, empties himself into both women quaking beneath him.
As they lie side by side afterward, sweaty and spent on tangled sheets and sodden pillows stained red by the bedside lamp, David between them, Gloria and Kate holding hands across his wet belly, Kate sighs contentedly and whispers, “When you marry me, we can do this all the time.”
“Let’s do it again now,” Gloria suggests.
He has set the alarm for seven A.M.
He showers and shaves and then goes back to where the two women are sleeping side by side in each other’s arms. He gently nudges Gloria awake.
“What time is it?” she asks at once.
“Seven-thirty.”
“Okay,” she says, and swings her long legs over the side of the bed and rushes into the bathroom. He hears her showering as he dresses in the early morning light sifting around the edges of the blinds. Kate is still dead asleep.
Gloria comes out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel.
“What time is your plane?” she whispers.
“I don’t go till this afternoon. But I have patients to see first.”
“Where do you fly from?”
“Newark this time.”
She goes to the dresser, picks up her watch, squints at it in the light spilling through the open bathroom door.
“Malik’s supposed to be here at eight,” she says, and straps on the watch.
David does not know who Malik is. Nor does he ask. He does not know where Gloria and this man might be going at seven in the morning. He does not ask that, either. He recognizes all at once that he knows virtually nothing about her. She stubs her toe on something in the dim light. “Shit,” she says. She sits on the edge of the bed, pulls on a pair of panties, stands, leans into a bra, cups herself, clasps herself. He watches her dress. Skirt and blouse. Sandals. She is beginning to look like a person. I don’t even know her, he thinks. She goes back into the bathroom, begins applying lipstick. He watches her, fascinated. He doesn’t even know her. She catches him in the mirror, winks.
“That was good last night, wasn’t it?” she whispers.
“Yes.”
“When are you coming down again?”
“On the fifteenth.”
This is the Tuesday night he and Stanley have chosen for the start of the imaginary lectures.
“Will I see you?” Gloria asks.
“Oh sure.”
“Good,” she says.
He is wondering if he will ever see her again.
“Would you like some orange juice?” he asks.
“Mmm, yes,” she says, and turns from the mirror. “How do I look?”
“Good,” he says.
“Only good?”
“Beautiful,” he says.
“Better,” she says, and snaps out the bathroom light.
In the kitchen, they stand at the kitchen counter together, drinking orange juice. The sun is up. Light spills around the drawn shade over the air-shaft window.
“Malik drives a Jag,” Gloria says, “he’ll be downstairs at eight sharp.” She looks at her watch again. “What time will you be leaving?”
“Little after that.”
“For your office?”
“Yes.”
“I’d better get out of here,” she says, and goes into the bedroom for her bag. When she comes back, she says, “I kissed her goodbye, but she’s asleep.” She raises one eyebrow. “How about you?” she asks. “You asleep, baby?”
She steps up close to him. Tilts her crotch gently into him. Touches her glossy lips to his, lightly.
“Again later,” she says, and moves away from him.
He hears the apartment door opening and then closing behind her. The apartment is utterly still.
He looks at his watch.
Three minutes to eight.
In the bedroom, Kate is still asleep. He touches her shoulder. She stirs beneath his hand.
“Kate?” he says.
“Mmmm?”
“Kate, I have to go now.”
“Are you leaving?”
“In a few minutes. Sleep, honey.”
“Honey, yes,” she says.
She closes her eyes. He sits on the edge of the bed, watching her.
Her eyes open again.
She looks up into his face.
“You know, don’t you?” she says.
“Know what?”
“You know.”
“I don’t.”
“A shrink,” she says, “you probably know,” and closes her eyes again. She is silent for a moment. Then, in a very small voice, she asks, “Are you leaving me?”
“Yes, I...”
“I mean leaving me,” she says.
“No. I’m not leaving you.”
“Come back, David.”
“I will.”
“Do you love me, David?”
“I love you, Kate.”
“I know you do.”
“Goodbye, Kate,” he says, and kisses her.
“I’ll see you on the fifteenth,” she says.
He kisses her again.
Her mouth is so goddamn sweet.
Susan M has come to her last session with a list of clothing changes that will take her through Labor Day. As she explains to David in great detail, the problem is she doesn’t have enough clothes to accommodate a change every day for thirty-nine days, which is exactly how many days it will be between today and September fifth when she’ll see him again.
“That is when I’ll see you again, right?” she asks. “September fifth?”
“Yes,” David says.
“Same time, right?”
“Same time,” he says.
“Let me tell you how I’ve figured this out,” she says, and takes from her tote bag her Month-At-A-Glance calendar. “Tomorrow’s Saturday,” she says, flipping rapidly to the facing pages for July, “so I’ll be wearing something simple but sexy, you remember we went over that two weeks ago. The white A-line mini and a cropped mesh top, but I’ll be wearing it with a white bra, the top, because otherwise hoo boy! Strapless, though. And white sandals and panties, of course. On Sunday, I’m having brunch with my friend from Omaha when I used to live out there, she’s here in town and we’ll be going to the Plaza, so I thought I’d wear... I know I told you I’d be wearing the boxy wheat jacket and cream-colored pants with the white suspenders, remember? But that was before I knew Marcy was flying in, so I thought for the Plaza the shaped jacket and pleated skirt in the windowpane plaid, with the white tank and black shoes and that little black hat with the gray feather. White panties and bra. Then on Monday...”