Well, Jack was selling himself, at the moment.

“I sell security,” I said. “Now that I’m not a detective.”

I don’t know why I told the truth, except “security” could be so many things.

“That’s my business, too,” Jack said. “In a way. Not the way you mean, though.”

“How do you know what I mean?” A little irritated. He’d sounded dismissive. And the more I looked at Jack, the more I saw the imperfections. A hint of a belly. The way his features resembled those of a local weatherman. How he might be a bit older than me, but had worked carefully to conceal that.

“No offense,” Jack said. “I guess I think everyone sells security in some way. You’re selling this idea that you’re dependable, honest. Trustworthy. But most of us aren’t. It’s just a matter of whether it manifests in the job or not.”

Manifests. Trustworthy. A strange kind of hitting on. In that moment, Jack didn’t look like he much cared for the task at hand. He was sitting sideways—the better to see me, I’d thought. But also that way he could survey the entire length of the bar. Some other women had come in, were sitting at the far end.

Then the moment passed, and Jack said something witty about bars and bartenders, and I laughed and I described my frustration with conferences in general and I had my second drink, which was my limit. And we both kept the conversation going, as if it was necessary for whatever might come after. But we didn’t particularly care about the conversation. It existed there, in the air, between us. All those words. A cloud of them. Maybe I sounded risky or exotic or eccentric. Maybe I didn’t care what I sounded like.

At some point, conference-goers kept bursting into the bar in groups that made it hard to hear yourself talk. The music rose in volume until it wasn’t just a mumble under the carpet. Someone spilled a drink, broke a glass.

At some point, Jack leaned over and whispered a room number in my ear, his arm around my shoulders. And then he was gone, as if a ghost torn apart. Too delicate, under the gaze of all those people. As if he’d never had a thing to do with them.

I didn’t usually go up to a man’s room. I was happy enough with my bar ritual. How it got me out of myself. How playing a role helped me somehow. I didn’t want to. I wanted to. The drug of the unknown. That was simple. Aftermath wasn’t simple. I’d been good for three years. Why now?

I made Jack wait. I had a third drink, downed some bar snacks, ravenous. I went to the elevator, to the seventh floor. Wandered, confused, down dim-lit corridors, lost in the maze of a dark fairy tale. I didn’t mind—that was part of the story. This difficulty, this disruption. Which heightened the intensity and the risk.