“Six years. And how old are you now?”
“Thirty-one.”
“That would have made you twenty-five when you were married?”
“That’s right,” Megan said. She felt a sense of foreboding in the pit of her stomach. Savannah had warned her what to expect; still, it was hard.
“Very few women nowadays reach the age of twenty-five without having taken a lover or two. Or three or four or more. Was that the case with you?”
“Objection!” Savannah called. “The question is irrelevant.”
“Not so,” Woodward told the judge. “I’m trying to determine something about the character of this witness.”
“Her sexual history has nothing to do with this case,” Savannah argued, though she was neither surprised nor worried when the judge simply told Woodward to rephrase his question.
“Was William Vandermeer your first lover?”
“No.”
“Then you had had others.”
“One.”
Blatantly skeptical, Woodward stared at her. “Only one lover up to the age of twenty-five?”
“That’s right,” Megan said. She was never more grateful for Savannah’s coaching than at that minute. Without it, she’d have been totally unsure of what to say. With it, she spoke in a quiet, confident voice. “We were together for three years during college. He went home to graduate school in San Francisco. I stayed east.”
Woodward mulled that over. “Have you been faithful to your husband?”
“Yes.”
“You haven’t taken any lovers since you’ve been married?”
“No. I love my husband.”
“I’m not talking about love. I’m talking about sex. Have you ever taken a lover?”
“No.”
“Have you ever wanted to take a lover?”
“No.”
“Your eye hasn’t ever wandered, even the slightest bit?”
“No.”
He let the space of several breaths pass undisturbed, then scratched the side of his head and said, “Frankly, I find that hard to believe. You’re an attractive woman. You run in circles that allow for a certain amount of freedom—”
“Objection!”
“Sustained.”
“You see free sex all around you—”
“Objection!”
“Sustained.”
