“I’ve already called the police,” I lie.

He shakes his head and points to a cordless phone on the coffee table. “No. You did not. But I did.” He checks his watch. “I’ve got about six minutes until they get here.”

Knowing him, he did.

Damian Knight, the world’s only known instance of serial personality disorder—a clinical designation a friend of mine studying psychology made up when I explained his case to her.

I FIRST MET him at a magic convention when I was seventeen. He was polite and charming and said none of the creepy or suggestive things the creepy men who go to magic conventions like to say to the few women who stray into their domain. We spent a few hours sitting in the hotel lobby. He showed me a few sleights with card tricks I’d never seen before or since then. Mostly he asked why I wanted to do magic, where I thought I was going with it and about my philosophy of life.

I was a teenager trying to impress someone older and did my best to sound as intelligent as I could. At the end of the conversation he said good-bye, and I didn’t see him again until I was twenty-one and majoring in criminal justice at the University of Miami. He was working on a graduate degree in biology, or at least that’s what he told me when he sat next to me in the library. He looked almost the same as when we met at that magic convention four years prior. In fact, the conversation started where we left off as he leaned over and asked me if my philosophy on life had changed.

We ended up dating for several months. He was funny, charming and always knew how to say the right thing. He was the first man I had sex with that I more than just liked. He was perfect. Because that’s what he does, he tries to be perfect at anything he tries. He’s the type of man that surprises you by speaking Thai at a Thai restaurant or sits down at a piano when nobody is looking and plays something as beautiful as anything you would hear in a concert hall. He could remind you of your friend’s birthdays and would pick out a flower arrangement you couldn’t imagine doing. Perfection was a kind of game for him. Or the illusion of perfection. The relationship ended when I found out that he wasn’t enrolled in the university and his entire story was a fabrication. I confronted him about the lie and he just nodded his head and walked out of the restaurant.

I thought that was the end of things. I was heartbroken. I hated myself for being a fool. I hated myself for ending it.

Three years later I was at a bookstore and met a man with dark hair, a bit of an unkempt hipster beard and a Radiohead T-shirt. He invited me to coffee and we had a fascinating conversation. He asked me for my phone number. As he leaned in to watch me write it down, I noticed a mannerism that seemed familiar. You can change your voice, your hair, even your face. But it’s the little things we overlook. His habit of scooting back while straightening his back, like someone sitting down to the piano. You pick up a lot of things when you love someone.