The dinner

Sam had barely had time to change when the doorbell rang. His t-shirt was wrinkled and his pants still bore the evidence of his compulsive activity from that morning.

Stacy opened the door before he could even move.

“Hi! Come in, Uncle Victor. We were impatient for your visit,” she said cheerfully.

Victor entered carrying a bottle of reserve wine and that calm presence that always seemed to take up more space than it should.

“How’s my favorite nephew?” he murmured to Sam with a firm handshake, while Stacy eagerly took his jacket, clearly eager to please, and then gestured toward the seat at the table that happened to be Sam’s usual place.

They sat down. Victor next to Stacy, Sam across from them.

“Smells wonderful,” Victor said as he took his seat, with Stacy staying close beside him.

“Thank you!!” Stacy replied proudly. “Back in the village it was my obsession. Cooking was a big part of my daily life. Lately, with work, I’ve had to put it aside…” she added with a touch of disdain, “Sam takes care of all that now, right Sam?” She finished by looking into Sam’s eyes for the first time that evening.

The night went on in a pleasant enough way at first, with the usual topics of a family dinner, giving Sam a brief moment of relief.

“You must already be noticing the change,” Victor said while Stacy poured him wine. “The city has a different speed. Different rules.”

Stacy nodded, smiling.

“It’s different. But I think we’re handling it well.”

Victor rested his hand on Stacy’s thigh naturally. From where Sam was sitting, he could tell his uncle’s hand was resting on his wife’s leg. In that position, Victor began speaking while looking at Sam, as if the gesture meant nothing at all.

“That’s good. Adapting isn’t just about finding a job or an apartment. It’s about understanding that things no longer work the same way they did in the village. That you have to know when to stay in the background… and let others take the initiative when it’s their turn.”

While he spoke, his arm moved slowly over Stacy’s thigh, up and down a little, without any hurry. She bit her lip and didn’t pull away. She just stared at Victor, listening to every word as if it were universal law, and when he finished his statement she looked back at Sam and nodded with a happy expression.

Sam clenched the napkin between his fingers.

“Sam is trying very hard,” Stacy said, almost in a tone of justification. “He’s… learning.”

Victor smiled kindly and squeezed her thigh a little harder, a faintly sadistic smile appearing on his face.

“It shows,” Victor affirmed. “He has patience. That’s important. Not everyone would know how to stay in their place while their wife starts moving in a new world. It speaks well of you, Sam.”

His arm continued moving under the table. From time to time Stacy pressed herself a little closer to Victor and closed her eyes in a somewhat distracted way. Victor acted as if nothing at all was happening, always with that authoritative calm. Stacy kept her legs still. She neither opened nor closed them. She simply allowed it.

Lila spoke very softly:

“Your uncle is a very generous man. He’s given you a home and a hopeful future for you and Stacy.”

“The important thing is to adapt, not to resist the change,” Victor said at one point, looking directly at Sam. “When someone insists on keeping things the way they used to be, they usually suffer more. On the other hand, when you accept the new situation… everything flows better.”

Stacy nodded slowly. Victor’s hand remained on her leg; the movement now seemed rhythmic.

Sam barely spoke for the rest of the dinner.

When they finished, Victor placed his napkin on the table and looked at Sam calmly.

“I’ve enjoyed this dinner,” he said. “These gatherings bring us together. They make us feel more… like family. I think we should do them more often.”

Stacy reacted immediately, with an overly wide smile and an almost euphoric voice:

“Yes! Of course, whenever you want. We’d love to. Right, Sam?”

Sam took a second to answer.

“Yes… of course.”

Victor smiled, satisfied, and stood up. Stacy walked him to the door.

From the dining area, Sam couldn’t see them clearly. The hallway was in a blind spot; he could only make out shadows. But he could hear.

First there was a wet sound and a somewhat aggressive rhythmic movement. He couldn’t see exactly what was happening, but Stacy’s voice was weak and whimpering, almost as if she were crying. Then a silence that lasted too long. After that came a brief wet sound. A moment later a low, muffled moan. Another wet sound, slower this time. A ragged breath. And Victor’s voice, very low, saying something Sam couldn’t make out.

Stacy answered with a whisper that broke at the end, almost a contained moan.

Sam remained motionless in his chair, listening.

When the door finally closed for real, the silence that followed was worse.

Stacy returned to the dining area a few seconds later. Her cheeks were a little more flushed and her lips slightly swollen. She walked past Sam and said:

“Can you clear the table, honey? I’m a bit tired and I’m going straight to bed.”

She said it while Sam could only watch her back as she entered the bedroom and closed the door.

Sam stayed at the table among the leftovers and dirty plates, staring at a fixed point for what felt like an eternity before he finally reacted and obeyed Stacy’s order with a sigh of resignation.