The Lovers Read Online Free

bright plum top, and ran a comb through her hair. A week before the trip, she had been to a hairdresser who, after an hour of snipping and brushing and blow-drying, pronounced Yvonne’s cut “youthful.” For an hour after leaving the salon, she felt lighter, walking on the balls of her feet until she noticed the heads of every other fifty-something-year-old in Burlington, and even some sixty-year-olds, were similarly coiffed. Now she pulled her hair up behind her head, securing as much of it as would stay into a short ponytail.
    She carried her purse with her downstairs to the living room and lay on her back on the blue couch, her hands joined over her chest, her ankles crossed on the armrest. She looked, she thought, like a parody of someone in a psychiatrist’s office. But here she could fall asleep and still be able to hear the doorbell when Mr. Çelik arrived.
    A thump. Yvonne awoke and leaped up, but no one was at the door. She returned to the couch and saw her unzipped purse had fallen to the floor and some of the contents had spilled. She knelt down on the zebra-skin rug, the coarse hair scratching her shins. Beneath the couch, she saw her tin of lip balm, the squashed orange earplugs she had used on the flight, and the small bottle of evening primrose oil she kept with her when she traveled. The capsules had helped her through menopause, and now she was afraid to be without them.
    She slid her arm beneath the couch and swept it left and right, checking to make sure she had found everything. Herwrist brushed against a small tube of toothpaste, also from the plane, and then her hand hit something hard and smooth. She pulled out a large picture frame and turned it over.
    Mr. Çelik’s wife—Yvonne recognized her from the photos on the refrigerator—was naked, her legs spread, her pubic hair shaved. A large red ribbon had been tied around her breasts, the bow dangling between her nipples. She was holding a sign printed with seven Turkish words. Yvonne couldn’t decipher their meaning, but knew from the punctuation that a question was being posed.
    Yvonne put the photo back and sat up on the couch. She unscrewed the tin of lip balm and applied it to her mouth with her index finger. A minute later, she applied it again. The night before, a thought had wafted into her mind as she tried to sleep, and she remembered it now. She climbed the stairs to the master bedroom and stood up on the mattress. The ceiling hook was toward the foot of the bed, and she placed a finger through its eye and tugged. It was sturdy enough to hold a few hundred pounds.
    She neatened the blanket and climbed to the bedroom on the top floor. Spread out on the bed was the contraption. There had been a scandal at Burlington High two years before involving the girls soccer coach, the captain of the boys lacrosse team, and a sex swing, and though Yvonne had never seen one before, she knew a sex swing was what lay before her now. Why hadn’t it been stored away with the naked photo and who knew what else? Why had it been carried upstairs to this room?
    A chime echoed dimly: the doorbell. She ran down the spiral staircase, and when she arrived at the front door she was dizzy, almost panting. She unbolted and unchained and turned the three locks, took a breath, and opened the door.
    Mr. Çelik had Mediterranean skin, a small, childlike nose, and thick black hair that had been swept back, as though by a brush or a strong breeze. In front of the house a convertible was parked, its top down. He was young for someone so wealthy.
    “You are Yvonne,” he said, as if he himself had just christened her.
    She smiled. “Yes.”
    “Welcome to Datça.” He extended his arms in the living room, to the kitchen. “You like my house?”
    “Very much. It’s lovely. How long have you had it?”
    “Two years.”
    “Where do you live?”
    “I have another home not too far from here, a home with vineyards. You should come for dinner one night.”
    She noticed