We started to go through our spanking scene and for some reason, neither of us were into it. My dick shriveled up and I could tell she was distracted.

“Why don’t we take a bath?” she said.

I agreed, although I was hesitant to step out of our scripted roles.

Her bathroom was naked compared to mine. I wanted to press my cheek against the coolness of the black-and-white-tiled floor. She took off her schoolgirl skirt in front of me, and I unclasped her bra. Even though I fucked her in the ass all the time, I felt shy watching her slip off her underwear. I sat on the toilet, clothed, as she ran the water and dropped in bath pods that curled into little jasmine-releasing flowers. We got in together and she leaned against my chest. For once we were completely still.

I woke up in R’s bed, confused. I’d only slept over once before. We had both gotten wasted, and the next morning her assistant had given me a coconut water and a coupon for a restorative IV.

I padded down the hallway. R was already in the living room, working out. I was not at all turned on by her leaning over an exercise ball in a sports bra and yoga pants, but I enjoyed watching.

“Hi, do you want breakfast?”

“Sure.”

She made eggs and toast and orange juice, and we sat out on the balcony, looking over the water where ships used to sail.

“Next time, maybe you could come to my real apartment,” she said.

I set down my fork. I knew what it looked like from her PR Gram account. She had a giant oil portrait of a black horse hanging in the entranceway.

“Really?”

“Yeah. I mean when we first met, I think we were in very different places. Hell, I was still with my beard, and you seemed uncomfortable when we weren’t in the middle of a sex game, you know?”

She brushed my hand with hers.

“You mean like me ‘forcing you’ to suck my dick?”

“Yeah,” she said, and got down on her knees and unbuttoned my pants. Below, the waves played as well.

When she was done, she kissed my cheek and went back to her chair. Wiped her face on a linen napkin.

“Wait, now I feel like we just switched back into our sex games,” I said. “Tell me something about you. Something I wouldn’t know from the tabloids.”

“My family is really messed up,” she said, and let her sadness touch the air.

On the way out, the doorman tipped his hat to me. “Good day, sir.”

Outside, the cobblestones clicked under my feet and the city pulsed with possibility. Wow, R could go from a disaffected actress to a warm lover—it was positively Proustian!