Generally, I’m enthusiastic enough about tree climbing, but the way I was dressed I didn’t think it was really an option. I did however think that...I might be able to jump high enough to grab it. That was also a risk, obviously, but it seemed the lesser one. I strolled back to the path and looked both ways before running to the tree trunk and leaping for the envelope. I got it on the third try, but only just, knocking the corner of the envelope with a finger. The brown package wobbled to the. "There's nobody around Padma, you go to bed. Don't worry," he said. But the maid clung on to his hand whispering, "Sir don't leave me, I'm frightened." As Rajan tried to gently disentangle her fingers she clung on to him even more fiercely saying, "Sir please, please stay here." By then the closeness of contact with the woman, plain though she might have been, started getting him aroused. He suddenly realised that Padma obviously wanted to have sex. Much later he learnt from her that she had. I could feel her body trembling as we held each other. “I love you,” she whispered in my ear as she cried softly.Pulling back from our embrace, our eyes met and I declared “I love you, too, Susan.” Then I asked, “Will you still have me?” “Oh, yes! Yes!” she smiled through her tears. “Will you still have me?”We cuddled up on the sofa under a blanket, her stocking covered legs wrapped around mine, and talked openly. We agreed that we both wanted to stay married. I acknowledged that I knew I. Wasn’t the word lunacy is derived from the moon? My guts churned as I got into the back of Justin’s dull blue Honda and the skin on the back of my neck tingled as the car started forward. We passed an accident on the side of the highway on the BQE, another sign. The highways of New York looked and felt surreal at night. There was none of that noisy din of engines and horns as during the day, all I could hear were the road and other cars occasionally passing by and when you don’t try to focus on.