“I knew Miss Carlyle and my penis had something going on. I knew that.”

“Well, my penis didn’t have anything going on with anyone until I was twenty-three.”

“That is just not true. You had girlfriends.”

“They were friends I made out with.”

“You never slept with any of them?”

“No. And I never pretended to.”

“I just assumed.”

“I wasn’t like you.”

And now I figure out why I’m scared. I’m scared he’s going to ask me if I wanted to sleep with him back then. And I know I won’t lie. And I know that will truly be the end for us.

“And now you sleep only with men?”

“Yes. One man at a time.”

“You never had a ménage?”

Why do straight men love to ask this? “Not really.”

“Not really?”

“Well, Steve and I once invited this guy up. We really thought we were going to do it with him, but then he took off his pants and he had this really flabby bum. He was a pretty slender guy with this white jelly bum and Steve and I could not stop laughing and he got mad—understandably—and left.” Steve called it the big flabby fanny fiasco. We still could get laughing until our stomachs ached about it.

If Steve were here he could tell the story of that night so well no one would be able to breathe. But Paul didn’t think my version was funny. “Is it better, sex with men?”

I laughed. “It is for me.”

“I mean, sex is kind of athletic. I’m just wondering. I’ve kind of been thinking about this for a while. I mean. Women are always complaining about getting hurt, you know?”

“You mean emotionally?”

“No, physically. I mean sex hurts them.”

“Really?”

“I mean, just when you get really into it they tell you it hurts.”

“Really?” I didn’t think there was much about any kind of sex that I didn’t know about by now, but this news surprised me.

“I don’t think I’ve ever had sex with Gail without her saying ouch like fifty times. I just wonder if with men it’s different.”

“Maybe it is. Some people are rougher than others.”

“Are you rough?”

I realized he was leaning halfway across the table; his knuckles were touching my plate and his eyes, his watery, drunk green eyes, were all over me.

“Yes, kind of.” It was the martinis talking.

“I already know what your penis looks like.”

“And I yours,” I said, trying for lightness and missing. The penis he’d mentioned was suddenly rock hard.

“I want to.”

“Paul,” I said.