Adele would approve his choice. He preferred fair and slender, she dark and large. Of Egyptian background with a touch of the Nubian in his height and muscularity, Anwar met every criteria. A happy disposition combined with economic necessity rendered him open to temptation. The last boy Shahram, an amateur bodybuilder, was of Irani extraction, her Persian prince, Adele called him, and a most eager and satisfying worker.

The unpleasantness at the end had surprised them both, for they had believed that he understood and had not suspected him of such jealousy and rage. It would hardly have helped matters to call the police. Fortunately his anger over Adele’s farewell gift, a bottle of expensive men’s cologne which he had heaved at the mirror over the fireplace, subsided, and he departed without lasting harm done. The mirror had cracked.

“Are you looking for a summer job, Anwar?”

“Yes, sir, it’s hard this year, what with the downturn.”

“My wife and I need someone to cut the grass and help with various projects and maintenance around the house, cleaning the pool. We’re always renovating something. Nothing onerous, but regular, say three or four days a week at ten dollars an hour, meals included. Plus other benefits.”

Anwar didn’t inquire as to specifics, but accepted on the spot. Admiring the wavy black hair and curve of his buttocks under jeans as he left the office, David congratulated himself. Little Max had already been hired. Initially shy and academically challenged, Max became dependent upon David’s tutorial services and allowed himself to be taken out for lunch and to accept money from his teacher when he couldn’t afford books. There was that slight tremor about the mouth and a misting of his blue eyes when he talked about his divorced parents and how his mother tried to make ends meet.

“I am always here for you, Max,” David had embraced the slender lad who reminded him of Pierre three years ago. Pierre had served him well for two summers before his eighteenth birthday and graduation. Little Max objected neither to the familiarity nor to the proposal of a job, same terms as offered to Anwar, with benefits.

Rather than lounge about the patio in a bikini while the boys went about their work, Adele dressed in sheaths or pastel skirts, sheer blouses and sandals. She walked about the property, humming under her straw hat as she snipped flowers, or pulled weeds from the perennial beds, always keeping herself within their line of vision. It had taken a fierce and breathless heat wave one week after Anwar first cut their grass for him to remove his T-shirt, and work in cut-off jeans.

“Cool yourself off in the pool, Anwar, whenever you want. Don’t be shy.”

He accepted her glass of lemonade and maintained his stance while she watched him drink, counting each movement of his lovely Adam’s apple in that strong neck. What gorgeous lips, what a beautiful brown Egyptian torso, damp with sweat. Because she seemed to be waiting for the glass, he drank all the lemonade in three gulps, and smiled such an earth-shattering smile, her knees weakened, almost grasping him for support. Taller than her Persian prince, less aggressive but equally adventurous.

She thought it wiser not to inform David that Ram, their pet name for Shahram, had phoned and emailed several times, and that she had in fact, quite contrary to her stated principles, seen him this past month to resume relations. She had forgotten how beautiful he was and how vigorous a lover, if given half the chance. Well, she gave him all. If he pouted and lamented and demanded again that she love only him, she reminded the boy that he should enjoy his youth which was fleeting, not torture himself with romantic fantasies of commitment, passion was free, and he would soon find himself a lovely young girl to wed. Straddling his powerful thighs in that hotel room bed just last week, she admitted there was another boy, there would always be another boy, he knew that, which didn’t mean she loved her Persian prince any the less. Had she not treated him well?

Seize the moment and don’t yearn for a mythical future together. She had to return to the dental office soon where she worked part time as a receptionist/clerk, so let them not argue. As she bent down for a kiss, her long auburn hair tickled his cheeks. He responded as she knew he would, twenty not much beyond her range of desire. Engulfed in his demanding passion for a woman in her prime who had not yet seen forty and didn’t look forward to her birthday next year, deliciously imprisoned by his dark, muscular limbs, she chose to forget his rages last summer.

On the hottest day of the season, Little Max removed books from the shelves in David’s study to dust. He seemed not to mind David placing an arm around his shoulder or tousling his hair, but he knew that Adele wanted Anwar to touch her first, after she had sent sufficient signals and produced the right circumstances and mood. She had stood closer than necessary while he drank, and he did not shift ground. A good sign.

“I’ll just stack those books in the corner here, Max, if you could reach them.”

Little Max stood several rungs high on a ladder, enabling him to reach the top shelf. He also wore shorts, the kind with several pockets, his feet encased in athletic shoes, no socks; legs smooth and warm to the touch, although David had refrained thus far. He handed books down two at a time. Now and then David stopped working and casually drummed his fingers on Max’s shoe while he read a book spine. Max hadn’t really flinched over any physical contact, as far as David could judge, so he began to linger over the boy’s body. He wondered if Max were not as naïve as he first thought. Or was his hunger for fatherly love such that he responded to David’s hugs and warmed to a fatherly caress over his neck.

When Max handed down a photo album designed to look like a book, David blushed, but didn’t think the boy noticed. The album contained pictures of his favourite boys over the last fifteen years or so, many in the nude, from Jeremy, the first, who had since married, fathered three children, and lived in another city, to Pierre last year, now in university. Max would soon join them. He placed it on the table next to his wing back reading chair.

The pictures in Adele’s album, kept in their bedroom closet, were different in that she appeared in every shot with her boys, some in provocative situations, pictures he himself had taken. David preferred the single pose of his beloved youths, fixed in his gaze for all time. Ram had ripped several photos of Adele and him taken on the terrace, in the bed, over the dining table where she fed him spoonfuls of tiramisu.

Outside the window he saw Anwar skimming the pool and Adele sitting on the diving board, gauzy skirt raised above her knees, hat by her side, talking on her cell phone and looking, hard to say from this distance, troubled, if not distraught. It could be any number of things, not least of which was her continuing battle with the cable company. Anwar kept glancing in her direction with evident admiration, David was pleased to see, just as Little Max smiled down at him as he gave his teacher another book. David unconsciously caressed the boy’s ankle. The leg jolted as if struck by a muscle spasm.

“Are you tired, Max? Want a break? How about a swim?”

“Nah, later. After lunch maybe.”

“As you wish, my boy.”

Working for another half hour, occasionally catching a glimpse of Adele who paced around the pool, chatted with Anwar, or wiped the sweat off his brow, David was getting impatient. Max had been in his house all week and aside from a caress or embrace which the boy clearly perceived as paternal, although David didn’t like to think himself as old enough to be the boy’s father, he had made little progress. This afternoon, however, once he got Max in the pool with Anwar and the two emerged for drinks and snacks, he would make a more suggestive move which he didn’t believe Max would reject. Nothing blatant, nothing disruptive: he would judge by Max’s reflexes and facial expressions.

The sun was harsh through the window and highlighted both the dust and shabbiness of his den furniture, so David, breaking the patterns of dust motes streaming in the sun, decided to draw the draperies. Max stepped down from the ladder and stood beside him, his head reaching David’s shoulder.

“I guess I could use a break now, sir.”

David gently grabbed the back of Max’s head.

“Of course you can. How about a drink? I won’t tell your mother.”

Max laughed in a rather forced tone, David thought, but quickly stopped when they both heard shouting outside. Anwar was pushing Shahram away from Adele. At first David couldn’t think understand. Where on earth had Ram come from? And why? Max moved closer to the window. David put his arm around his shoulder and pressed him closer so they stood thigh to thigh. Now if Max would only wrap his arm around David’s waist, but that didn’t seem likely at the moment. Still, he wasn’t putting distance between him and his teacher, David noted, he was simply easing his weight from one leg to the other.

“What’s going on, sir? Are they fighting? Who’s the other guy?”

Ram swung the skimmer net against Anwar’s head and knocked him off balance into the pool. Adele shouted and grabbed Ram’s arm, who in visible fury, grabbed hold of her and kissed his wife.

“Jesus, look at that, sir. He’s kissing your wife.”

Because she struggled to push him away, David didn’t feel the need to explain or excuse himself, but it would look odd if he remained in the den while his wife was being accosted by a stranger. Hoisting himself out of the water, Anwar hurled his strong body in a full frontal tackle at Ram, forcing him backwards onto the deck, and began pummelling his face. Adele screamed, but didn’t attempt to separate her former lover from her lover to be.

David remembered his gun. The situation called for it. He kept it in his bedroom night table and had only ever taken it out once when the hot water tank had exploded in the basement. He believed a burglar had broken into the house. Now he didn’t even remember if it was loaded, or where the hell he had hidden the bullets. Releasing his opponent, Anwar stepped back to allow a bleeding Ram to rise to his feet and begin pointing and cursing, screeching at Adele like some kind of desert-deranged harpy. The youth deliberately kicked over a white plastic table as he ran out of the yard. Adele collapsed on a chaise and sobbed. Anwar gathered her in his arms and she leaned into his hard torso for comfort.

“I better go out and see what that was about,” David said, just as Max edged out of his grip.

“There’s beer in the fridge and cold wine. Bring them out with glasses, would you my boy? We could all use a drink.”

“Sure.”

‘By the way, Max, do you have a bathing suit with you?”

“No, I don’t.”

“That’s okay, we swim in the nude around here anyway.”

Then, letting a startled-looking Max absorb the significance of that bit of information, David left his den, but paused on the threshold to check Max’s reaction. Despite his working often enough in the sun outside, the boy looked distinctly pale, albeit flushed, in the white sunlight still glaring through the windows, for he had not during the brouhaha drawn the draperies. Fair and slender had always been his preference.

“See you by the pool in a minute?”

“Sure, I’ll get the beer.”

“Good.”

David went out the dining room patio doors. The thick heat forced him to pause. Disporting themselves naked in the pool, followed by icy drinks, would achieve desired results. Anwar was kissing Adele and she was fondling his groin. He didn’t think it conducive to prolonging the moment if he interrupted and talked about the fracas, or stared too long. Removing his clothes, he dove into the pool, which distracted Anwar. Adele quickly reanimated his interest the moment her husband surfaced. The swift sensation prickling his spine of being spied upon by a less than friendly eye made David twirl around like a swimmer in a synchronized team. The neighbours could not see into the back yard and he momentarily imagined that Ram had returned to cause more trouble, but the feeling passed quickly.

From the middle of the deep end, David waved to Anwar who obviously needed reassurance, then did a perfect duck dive to the bottom while Adele brought the boy’s attention back to her lips. Ah, he was smitten, David noticed, when he again emerged from the depths like a sea creature, the lad was smitten, not minding her husband’s presence at all. If he had looked, Max could have seen everything through the kitchen window. Where was the boy?

Not wishing to provoke him, David wrapped himself in a towel and went searching for his student in the kitchen. Beer, cold wine and glasses stood on the table. He also saw his photo album of naked boys.

“Max? You in the washroom? Come out and join us.”

Through the window he saw Anwar cover his wife’s body and caress her legs. If he knew Adele, she’d be purring, then growling satisfaction, this very instant. Well, he wasn’t going anywhere soon. Then David remembered that Max had deposited his back pack in the den. He didn’t see it there. Outside in the narrow, sunless laneway between his house and his neighbours where Max locked his bicycle, he didn’t see that either.

“Damn!”

A black sports car pulled up in front. From his position David saw Ram get out and sit on the hood, staring at the house. Now what? He wondered again about retrieving the gun. Max had seen too much, too soon. Adele had not properly cut ties with Shahram. Such confusion had never happened before. He had thought he could trust Max, had gauged the boy’s interest and responses accurately. Ram lit a cigarette. He didn’t know the youth smoked, a habit David despised. Ram couldn’t see him. The teacher receded into the dark like a paunchy old cat pensive in the shade.