Joseph Epstein in Standpoint:
Does his friend Larry Goodman know that Feldman knows he slept with his wife? Feldman himself knows because his wife Elaine told him. In words Feldman shall never forget this side of dementia, the day they decided on a divorce, Elaine, in their kitchen, announced: “You aren't doing me any good, either in bed or out of it. And by the way, you should know that I slept with your great pal Larry Goodman.” On which triumphal words-triumphal to her, devastating to Feldman-she departed the room and drove off in her red Mazda convertible from the house on Lake Street in Wilmette. At first Feldman wondered if Elaine made up the story about sleeping with Larry. He didn't, though, wonder too long. Not that Elaine was always truthful. She was full of little deceits; these helped to bring their marriage down. But the pleasure she took in saying she slept with Larry didn't allow much room for doubt. For Elaine the announcement struck a double wound. Not only did it make Feldman aware that he was a cuckold, a figure of humiliation every man wishes to avoid becoming, but she had brought this about through the agency of his oldest and dearest friend. Where they had done it, how frequently, with how much pleasure were details Elaine spared him, though this only added to the torture.
Elaine was home most nights, so she and Larry must have met during the day. Since the Feldmans had children in school, with kids coming in and out of the house through the day, they must have met at his apartment at Sandburg Village, though they could have ducked into motels. Did they do the same things in bed that in better days Elaine and Feldman did? Did Larry have a few new tricks into which he initiated Elaine? Is it possible she offered Larry favours she never bestowed upon Feldman? Like a man unable to keep his tongue from probing an aching tooth, Feldman played and replayed various pornographic scenes his wife and best friend might have enacted together. This hideous, unending little home movie played in his mind for more than a year after Elaine and he divorced. Sheer mental masochism, all this, of course — but what's a cuckold to do, if Feldman was in fact a cuckold?
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