After we got our coats, mine made of shiny white plastic to contrast with my black dress, Alex led us to the door as his friend drove to the club entrance and picked us up in a black SUV. Lenora sat in front as we drove through the winding streets of East Cambridge toward South Boston to her loft, where we planned to drop her off before going to my place. Alex put his hand on top of mine on the car’s leather back seat, and I felt a twinge of what it would be like to be just a woman with a handsome, med-school-student boyfriend, away from the complications of who I was.

As a gas station came within sight, Alex asked his friend to stop because he was thirsty and wanted to grab something to drink. His friend parked in a dark spot at the side of the station, and Alex asked me to come with him to keep him company. Lenora turned around in her seat, and our eyes met. We were in the middle of nowhere late at night, and as I looked out onto the bright fluorescent lights of the gas station convenience store, I wondered if Alex suspected something.

But I had learned that acting out of the ordinary aroused even more suspicion, and not wanting to get out of the car when I had been so friendly just a moment before would certainly do that, so I allowed Alex to take my hand as we walked from the unlit parking lot toward the station’s store. As I trailed slightly behind him, I saw the substance of his body as an outlined shadow against light and wondered about everything he was capable of, pleasure and violence. I imagined everything he might see under the glare of those store fluorescents, the protrusion of my Adam’s apple, the prominence of my brow, the flatness of my chest. I imagined the expression that would dawn on his face and the thought of it was almost as painful as the possibility of a fist or the bottom of a shoe.

When we rounded the corner and out of our companions’ sight, Alex stopped walking and turned to me, as light from the deserted gas pumps behind him haloed his dark hair. “I just want to be alone with you,” he said, raspy and low. “Do you want to take me home?”

“Not tonight,” I replied breezily to mask every fear, an important skill I had learned in my struggle for life.