She wasn't the essence of evil, even though she may well have hankered after naughty things, and I told Trollope so. Right to his face. I told him he had a puritan view of morality, particularly as pertains to women, and that made him angry. He's prone to outbursts, (he's like his father that way, but don't let him catch you saying that), even though he says he's not, and he's protective and sensitive about his body of work, which is why comments like mine can elicit such defensiveness in him. He said I was too attached to her. I said, "Okay, with that, I will agree."

She wore thick black eyeliner and asked me if I wanted to touch her down there. I did, and I told her so. She let me. I asked her if she wanted to touch me down there, too, and she said, "Not yet."

I wondered how long, and then she told me she didn't like the way I was touching her. I asked her what I could do to make it better. She said I'd have to figure it out. I tried, and I asked her again if she'd touch me, and she said, "No. It's time for you to leave."

I asked if I could see her again, and she said, "Tomorrow."

That was the first night, and I went home and talked it over with Trollope. I told him I turned to him due to his expertise with women—you know, flattered him in that which he flattered himself, which is always the most successful flattery.

Perhaps it wasn't all flattery, because, after all, I did turn to him. Why was that?

He listened to my story, stroked his ZZ Top beard, and told me something about 'make her to know she's beautiful and a temple and you're powerful and in charge'—that kind of puritan thing—and all I could think was, Lord, how I wanted to go downtown on a bit more of that pretty pink tush of hers, and I wasn't thinking about the rounded bottom side, either.

Next day I told her I wanted to try again, and she spread her milky white thighs and showed me where the sun don't shine, and I touched her, and she moved under my fingers, and I asked her if she wanted to touch me, and she said, again, "Not yet."

I told her, "You're beautiful and special." Yeah, well, I was desperate, and Trollope was supposed to be the woman genius. She looked down at me with her lips all fat and round and naughty red, and she laughed. That's right, she laughed. She said, "Go away."

I said, "Give me another chance."

She said, "Tomorrow."

I didn't consult Trollope that night, he'd have just pissed me off, and I'd have just pissed him off, too. So I went to a club, had some drinks, danced with some women, had one on the ropes, then I looked out to the dance floor, and there she was, dressed in some black leather thing—a ripped up black leather thing—like strips of black leather just barely covering her nipples, and showing her sides, and her nails were red and I untied the rope from whomever she was I had already roped and went instead out to the dance floor. She saw me. Her eyebrows arched, and her eyes flickered wide, then narrow, and she turned away from me without a word.

I said, "Hey."

She walked away.

Trollope's an ass. That's all I could think all the way home, and when I got there, I told him, "You're an ass," but he sat there with his chin tucked tight to his chest, and his eyes closed under the circles of glass, contentedly ignorant.

I couldn't sleep. By now, she'd won. I waited for tomorrow, I waited for morning to pass, then afternoon, then evening. I went to her. I touched her. She moved and squirmed. She rolled her head back and closed her eyes. Her mouth parted, and she breathed in sharp, hot pants. I put myself to her hand, but she didn't take me. I put myself to her breasts, mounted them, rode them, until she told me, "Stop."

"I can't stop," I told her.

She shoved me off.

"I can't stop," I said. Did I whine? I hope I didn't whine.

"Go away."

"What? Why? No!" I don't remember what I said, exactly, but it was monosyllabic nonsense like that, and I don't remember what she said, except I know I left.

"I won't be back tomorrow," I told her.

She fingered herself, said, "Yes you will."

"I know I will, damn it!" I told Trollope. "She's right! I will!" I paced as I spoke, and he tried to soothe me with the idea of her being the essence of evil and of my need to escape her immediately, and I defended her—no, it wasn't a defense of her, it was an indictment of him—told him he was too puritan, and that her naughty deeds were so very welcome, and that's when he said I was too attached to her, and I was, I am, God help me, I'm trapped.

I made my decision. I would say to her, "Me first, this time," that's what I'd do.

She met me at the door wearing—what was it? Streams of long, thin, silvery tassels, flowing from her shoulders to her thighs, flowing around her breasts like a sun dazzled river around twin islands, gushing into the delta between her thighs, wrapping her like tinsel on a Christmas tree, and it was done. She first, not me.

Not me.

Not me, not me, not me.

"She's the essence of evil," I told Trollope that night, and when his lips twitched, ever so slightly, ever so smugly, I wanted to bury my fist in his hairy mask.

"Where will you go tomorrow?" he asked.

"Goodnight," I said.