When she was finished, there was a silence thick as fur between them. Under her breath, she mumbled something about its not being a very original fantasy.

"Don't say that! Don't degrade it! What do you care, so long as it excites you? What difference does it make how original it is? I bet – quarters of most people's sexual fantasies are either about taking or being taken.

"What's his name?"

"Who, the man? I have no idea. We don't talk. He never tells me."

"What do you want his name to be?"

"I never thought about it. What a funny question."

He went into the kitchen for some wine. When he returned, the light on her side of the bed was on and she was sitting with her arms wrapped around her knees.

"Peter Copeland." She smiled at him and shrugged as if a little embarrassed.

"Peter Copeland? Sounds like a Yalie."

She shrugged. "I don't know. It's just the kind of name he would have."

"Okay. Is it always the same fantasy? Do you ever make up others about him?"

She took a sip of wine and thought about it. She no longer seemed uncomfortable talking about Peter Copeland now that the fact of him was out in the open and he had a name.

"Usually the same – the subway, what he wears, how he follows me. It's enough."

That last phrase hit him hard. He'd had so many different fantasies with so many different predictable faces and settings. "It's enough." He knew then he was jealous of her and her Peter Copeland, content with each other and their silent mutual fever.

The next day, walking to work, he stopped in the middle of the street and started to smirk. At a florist, he bought ten tulips, her favorite flower, and arranged to have them sent over to their apartment. On the enclosed card he wrote, I hope you like tulips. They're my favorite. Thanks for putting the comet over last night's sky. Peter.

And in bed that night, he changed everything. He became an entirely different person in the dark. She couldn't see him so he could have been anyone. He wanted to be Peter Copeland but didn't know how.

Usually they spoke, but in this half hour when they owned each other, he said nothing. From the beginning she understood and responded eagerly. Whenever they sailed toward something familiar, their own from their years together, he steered them away. Then she took over and was strong or passive when he least expected it.

It was all better than he had imagined, and once again he grew so jealous of Peter Copeland. No stranger, however wonderful, deserved what she offered now. The only things he had ever given his dream lovers were both anonymous and forgettable.

At the end, when she again said, "You shouldn't!" he was thrilled she was saying it both to him and to someone else. A moment later he wished it were only him.

The next day he bought the book he knew she had been wanting to read. Inside he wrote, I think you'll like this. Peter. She discovered it under her pillow. Sitting down on the bed, she held it on her lap, both hands on top of it and very still. What was he doing? Did she like it?

Their electricity and willingness to go in so many new directions both awed and scared them a little. Both wondered who they were doing this for – themselves or the other?

That week their nights were long exhausting experiments. He couldn't ask her what she liked because it all had to remain silent, spoken only through touch and movement. By eight every night they were excited and looking at the clock. Whatever they'd been used to doing before was unimportant and forgotten. Now they would slip into their new second skins, and whatever was left of the day would hide because it did not know them.

On Thursday she was out walking and decided to buy him a present. In a store, a salesman spread beautiful cashmere sweaters over a glass counter: lilac, taupe, black. She couldn't decide. Only after leaving the store did she realize she'd chosen one that would look better on Peter Copeland than her husband. That startled her, but she made no move to return it. She simply wouldn't tell him.

At work he realized he'd written the name Peter Copeland – times on a pad of paper in front of him. He didn't even know he was doing it. Each time the script was completely different, as if he were trying to forge rather than invent the other man's signature.

"What's for dinner?"

"Your favorite – chili."

He didn't like chili.

There was no chili – her little joke – but the tulips he sent were in a new black and yellow vase on the dining table between them. They were like a third person in the room. He wanted to tell her about writing Copeland's name, but the vivid flowers were enough of the other's presence for the moment.

He looked at them again and realized he was not looking at the same ones he'd bought. Those were pink, these were deep red. Where did she put his?

"It's tulip season again, huh?"

She smiled and nodded.

"I saw some great pink ones the other day. I knew I should have gotten them for you. Somebody beat me to it, huh?"

Her smile remained. It said nothing different from a moment ago. Or was it the slightest bit pitying?

He liked to shave before going to bed – a personal quirk. Standing in front of the bathroom mirror scraping off the last bits of snowy foam, he suddenly pointed his razor at the mirror.

"I heard what you two are doing. Don't think I don't know, you bastard!"

"Are you talking to me?" She called from the bedroom.

"No, Peter Copeland."

He smiled his own weird smile when she didn't say anything to that.

Her fingers were moving lightly across his face when he saw how to break it. Pushing her hand away, he took over and started touching her much too hard, hurting her. To his surprise, she jerked and twisted but remained silent. It was always silent now. Somewhere in these recent days they had both accepted that. But why wasn't she protesting? Why didn't she tell him to stop? Did she like it? How could she? She had said a million times she couldn't understand how people could like hurting each other in bed. Or was Peter Copeland allowed everything? Worse, was the pain he gave pleasant to her now? That was insane! It meant he knew nothing about his wife. It made him breathe too fast. What parts of her did he know, for sure? What else had she held back from him over the years?

He started saying brutal, dirty things to her. It was something they both disliked. Their sexy words to each other were always funny and flattering, loving.

"Don't!" It was the first time she had spoken. She was looking straight at him, real alarm on her face.

"Why? I'll do what I want."

He continued talking, touching her too hard, talking, ruining everything. He told her where he worked, how much money he made, what his hobbies were. He told her where he'd gone to college, where he grew up, how he liked his eggs done.

Soon she was crying and stopped moving altogether. He was in the middle of explaining to her that he wore white sneakers because he had this bad foot infection. . . .

Sasha wouldn't tell me specifically which parts of Phil's short story were true (or why he'd even written it), and I didn't ask. She wanted to know how I knew about it so I lied, saying Phil had told Danny James about it in New York. She said the events of "A Quarter Past You" were only part of the problem and the reason why they'd separated. Since the middle of filming Midnight Kills, he'd become bizarrely temperamental and awful to live with.