Raylene and I had been married for eleven years; they had been incredibly good years. We were very social, on the town two or three times a week. We had family events, a lot of functions at our tennis club, and several other groups of friends we frequently met up with. One group we saw a lot was Raylene’s netball friends and their husbands. We met with them at least twice a month and had a lot of holidays together, both i...

I first saw Dave at my girlfriend Diane’s party. I was twenty-eight and still a virgin. That night, he didn’t even know that I existed. I watched him navigate the floor, chatting with every girl in the place, and many of them were keen to make his acquaintance. But near midnight, when I was plucking up the courage to join a circle at which he was the main attraction, the husband of another woman took umbrage with Dave abo...