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restaurant. The speech at the university had gone well enough. Winter had been right about a demonstration. Somewhat larger than anticipated, though not all that well organized. As Dorian watched the students mill about with their signs—”End Corporate Greed,” “Tax the Rich,” “Redistribution or Revelution,” “GMOs Have Got to Go”—he had had the inexplicable urge to push his way into the protestors and counsel them on how to organize an effective rally. Focus, he would have told them. Organize around a single theme. Send the scruffy folk to the back where the television cameras couldn’t find them, put some money into more professional-looking placards, and for God’s sake, learn to spell.
    THE restaurant was surprisingly full, but Fernando was able to find him a quiet table in a corner.
    “Is Mrs. Asher joining us tonight?”
    Until Fernando had asked the question, Dorian had forgotten that Olivia was in Florida. How had he not remembered that?
    “No,” he said. “She’s in Orlando. With friends.”
    “And will you be joining
her
?”
    DORIAN had been to Orlando once. Olivia had talked him into the trip.
    “You need to relax.”
    “Going to Orlando doesn’t sound relaxing.”
    They had booked a suite at the Waldorf Astoria, worked their way through the better restaurants and nightclubs in the area, and had finished off several evenings with inordinately good sex.
    Dorian’s libido had been missing in action. He wasn’t sure if his poor performance and general malaise were the result of the drugs he had been taking or the onset of impotency, so, without telling Olivia, he had had a word with the hotel concierge and came away with a discreet supply of blue pills that were purportedly the first choice of considerate lovers and professional athletes.
    They had worked.
    Or to be exact, the pills had allowed him to maintain an erection through the course of lovemaking. While Dorian’s potency and stamina had been a pleasant surprise for the both of them, he found the overall experience mixed. The drugs had kept him hard, but they had also made his penis feel like a wooden dowel he had strapped on for the occasion. And whatever was in the pills gave him a headache. It was, he supposed, a small price to pay for a resilient boner, and Olivia had been impressed.
    “My God,” she said, giving it a squeeze. “Orlando certainly seems to agree with you.”
    The second day, they had gone to Pura Vida Plantations to see a house that Olivia had found. It was large with vaulted ceilings, a grand staircase, marble and granite countertops, designer appliances, a movie theatre in the basement, an enormous master with separate bathrooms and his-and-her walk-in closets.
    With views of the lake.
    “The owner is motivated,” the real estate agent had told them.
    Dorian was surprised how little $4.5 million bought. It was waterfront property, but the lake was too shallow for a dock or a boat. The kitchen had a climate-controlled wine cabinet, but there was no wine cellar. The deck was ample enough, but it was already beginning to fray at the edges, and there was no hot tub or built-in barbecue. The house did come with a three-car garage, but one of the bays was half the depth of the other two.
    “The short stall is for your golf cart,” the agent told them.
    More than anything, the house felt sticky and tired, as though it had just come home from a bad date.
    “The Orlando area is a wonderful place to raise a family,” the agent had assured them. “All the amenities are within easy driving distance. Disney World, SeaWorld, Universal Studios, Wet ‘n Wild.”
    “We don’t have children.”
    The agent gave them her card along with coupons for Gatorland and Ripley’s Believe It or Not. “I can write an offer today,” she said. “This property won’t last long.”
    “No tennis court,” Dorian reminded Olivia.
    “These days,” said the agent, “everyone plays golf.”
    In the end, Dorian concluded, once