Aria moved like a torch song, as if her body were all one, fluid continuum of sinew and flesh. She was hanging wet laundry on the line between the rear corner of the villa and the date palm at the edge of the cobbled driveway. She was wearing the kind of bikini that rode her curves like it was constantly trying to catch up with the motion of her body. Today it was a turquoise string bikini that stood out in stark relief a...

He waited in the front courtyard near the car. The laundry Aria had hung earlier was gone now. He wore light, charcoal linen pants she’d washed and carefully ironed, with a loose, button down short sleeve shirt. There was a huge streak of guilt in him for tolerating her doing things like that. Things that made him feel too valuable. Whenever he looked at the depth of her being he just felt wan and inadequate. She was noth...