That bolt on their bedroom door. Doesn’t know what its original purpose could have been. The elderly couple they bought the house from and whom they’d never met were the only previous owners, so they had to have put it on. Maybe they feared burglars — they might even have been burglarized before they got the bolt — and used it when they went to bed. They had no children, the real-estate agent said. The kids’ bedrooms had been this couple’s studies and Gwen’s study had been their TV room. Gwen and he only used the bolt when they were about to make love, or knew sometime beforehand they were going to make love, and the kids were home. Didn’t want one of them suddenly opening the door on them in bed, which Maureen did once and saw Gwen on top of him. She was seven or eight, and she said “Oh,” and ran out. “What was that?” Gwen said, still on top of him but no longer moving, and he said “Maureen; she’s gone.” “Good God,” she said, getting off, “what she must have thought,” and he said “That’s what I was thinking. We can tell her you were massaging me for something that aches…a sore muscle,” and she said “Massaging the front?” “The shoulders, or you’d fallen asleep reading on my side of the bed and were climbing over me to get to yours. That’s why the light was on,” and she said “But why would I have no clothes on? Do you think she was sick? That’s why she came in? One of us should check. And no, we’ll say nothing about what happened, unless she asks. If she does, we’ll say…we’ll come up with something by morning. If she saw your erection, then I don’t know what, but it makes it even worse. I don’t want her not only confused but frightened.” “She didn’t. I was inside you the two seconds she was in the room,” and she said “Not all the time. All the way in, half out; that’s how it works,” and he said “I think this time I was all the way in when I saw her. And your hair was spread out and covering a lot of me, so she might not have seen anything.” “From now on,” she said, “we should use the door bolt every time we go to bed, or when we know there’s a good chance we’re going to make love. And if we don’t know, but start to make love, one of us will get up and very quietly slide the bolt in.” He was going to say, but didn’t. Too stupid a joke. “Should I bolt it now?” and she said “Her seeing us has taken whatever there was out of me.” “I’ll be extremely quiet and go on top; make it as easy for you as can be,” and she said “Tomorrow. Will you see if she’s all right?” and he put on his bathrobe and went into Maureen’s room and she was sleeping or pretending to.
