Summary

Serena’s affair with Canning lasted several months. For part of that time, she was still seeing Jeremy. Then, Jeremy left for Edinburgh to pursue his PhD. Just a few weeks later, he wrote that he’d fallen in love with a male violinist named Manfred which explained his sexual dysfunction with Serena. There were no hard feelings over the break-up. She saw Canning every weekend. His wife, Frieda, was an art dealer who traveled all the time and didn’t like the weather at home.

Serena was only twenty-one and Canning was in his fifties. Sometimes she would steal a look at his flabby stomach and underarms with distaste. She couldn’t help but notice his scars and yellowish skin and compare it to her perfect twenty-year old skin. Beyond his physical flaws, she found him self-centered and overly obsessed with her body...