The narrator describes following a young woman from the train station, deliberately frightening her to excite himself. He returns home aroused and has sex with his wife, performing tenderness while secretly objectifying the stranger he followed. When his wife asks what prompted the intimacy, he offers a flattering lie.

Over dinner, he carefully stage-manages the atmosphere—helping cook, pouring wine, and charming his wife—before announcing that he must miss their upcoming drinks party for a supposed work trip to Edinburgh. His wife is upset, having already ordered canapés, but he deploys emotional manipulation: feigned sorrow, talk of a brighter future, and the need for a plan to improve their life. She relents and agrees to cancel the event.

He reflects on their marriage: they wed three years prior after six months of dating, with minimal family support. He notes his wife’s adult children, Emma and an unnamed son, dislike him, and he does not care. He emphasizes how completely his wife trusts him, sharing passwords and access, while he withholds parts of his life, insisting secrecy is necessary to “give women what they want.”

Leaving his wife to cancel the party, he goes upstairs, retrieves a hidden second phone from a compartment in his late father’s doctor’s bag, and messages his lover. He confirms availability for the upcoming weekend and soon receives an eager reply from “M,” identified as Martha, who says she will meet him Thursday at their usual place and that her children will be with her ex until Sunday.

He luxuriates in his control over Martha, contrasting her attractiveness, independence, and lifestyle with his wife’s. He interprets Martha’s quick responses, grooming, and nervousness around him as signs of need and addiction to his attention. He believes he has awakened a dependency in her through gifts, style, and intense focus. He ends by sending a rose emoji and thinking, with anticipation, of seeing “beautiful Martha” on Thursday.