I slouched down on the couch, casually, not caring anymore about Lonnie’s dress gaping at the chest. I inched my leg over until it was touching his, just a little. He didn’t pull it away; he didn’t act as if he noticed at all.

Leg rubbing up against leg—it was nothing out of the ordinary, it happened with strange men on the subway all the time, but here, the bare skin of my thigh against Lonnie’s lover’s pant leg, the contact was charged.

After some minutes I reached over and put my hand on his thigh, rubbing.

I didn’t look at him.

It was such an excellent move; I commended myself on it. We could both just sit there and watch the screen and pretend nothing was happening.

What I was thinking was, He started it. And also, It’s easy: you put a hand on his thigh.

I could hear his breathing next to me.

For a moment he pressed his leg into mine a little more, and I thought it was going to work. Then, in one swift motion, he lifted my hand off his thigh, squeezed it in his own, and, a beat later, let it go.

12

THAT WAS THE FIRST AND ONLY TIME I THOUGHT ABOUT QUITTING. I told myself it was guilt. I shouldn’t have been trying to steal her lover in the first place, even if she deserved it simply for having everything. She’d been nothing but lovely to me, there was no reason to try to take anything from her. But despite these thoughts I knew it wasn’t guilt at all, it was the acute sting of failure, the embarrassment of it, and the thought that I’d have to face her and Carlow again.

However, when I returned to Crown Heights at the end of the weekend I found our apartment empty and in disarray. Sam was scrupulous about organization but her room was in upheaval—her clothes scattered everywhere, books strewn across the bed, the lamp from her nightstand on the floor, the bulb shattered. At first I thought she’d been home, and then went somewhere in a hurry, packing up some things and leaving me to deal with the mess, but since that was so out of character, I managed to work out what had actually happened—we’d been robbed. I checked the jewelry stand inside her wardrobe—empty. They’d cleared away her little TV, her turntable, and her speakers, as well as the one expensive thing I owned—my laptop.

I checked under the futon mattress that had come with the room, where I kept my cash. All the money Lonnie had given me so far—even though I’d hidden it inside an envelope so it looked like a thick letter—was gone. I kicked the damn futon mattress, tears pooling in my eyes. Quitting was obviously not an option anymore.