Ian had placed thick Egyptian cotton towels on a chair. I dried off, wrapped a towel around me, and gave Rosemary a vigorous rub. His short fur was shiny and smooth, the color of semisweet chocolate, and he had a snowy white chest. We’d found each other on a city street and been together ever since.

I left my Rosemary lolling in the sun and went inside to the not-so-great room. The orangey brick floor and brick oven of the kitchen carried on the misguided Tuscan theme. On the other side of the room, a mirror ball hung over a varnished parquet dance floor. Oversized turquoise leather furniture had come with the house.

Ian was in the master bedroom, which had beige “texturized” walls, ridiculous white marble columns, and an ostentatious stone fireplace. I perched on the king-sized bed and watched Ian unpack his accessories from an overnight case.

“I am still baffled that you actually bought this house,” I said. “It’s beyond hideous.”

“You like the disco ball.”

“Well, that is fabulous. Who wouldn’t want a disco ball in their house? No one worth knowing. However, one could easily buy a disco ball and install it in a less hideous house, or even in an attractive house.”

“The location suited me. There’s room enough for you to live here.”

“I am happy, ensconced as I am in the City.”

“My invitation is open.” Ian took out a small brown cardboard box. “This is for you.”

My mother Regina had ignored my birthday every year except my eighteenth, when she told me she had fulfilled her legal duties to me, and I was still excited by gifts. I opened the box and lifted a bit of crumpled tissue to see small plastic mirrored globes dangling on silver-tone chains.

“Disco ball earrings, how fabulous! Thank you.” I put them on and looked up to catch my reflection in the ornate mirror on the ceiling.

“I saw them at a market stall and thought of you.”

“A market stall in Marrakesh, Paris, Florence, New York, Shanghai?”

“Yes,” he answered with a grin.

“I can never find presents for you. I can’t give you anything that you can’t buy for yourself, and better.”

“Yes, you can, querida,” Ian said, and in a moment he was on me, pressing me back against the bed, and I could smell his cologne, spice and leather and wood smoke. His warm mouth was on mine and all my wariness vanished because his touch was enough to bring out the instincts that I kept hidden from the rest of the world.

He was strong and I was strong.

Ian’s well-tailored clothes hid a powerfully built body. I couldn’t remember the moment when I’d begun to see him as beautiful, but now he was beautiful to me. I loved his broad chest and muscled legs, his jawline, his strong hands, the curve of his ass.