“I know just what you mean,” he said. “For years I went to hookers, because, let’s face it, I’m a very successful producer and writer, and I’m thinking of directing—Columbia really wants me to do a picture for them and direct it, and I feel it’s the right time. I mean, I’m certainly developing films I feel I could direct. There’s this one about high school that—Anyway, I’ve been doing this for a while now, and people might like me for my money. So I figured, if someone’s gonna like me for my money, it might as well be a hooker, who’s gonna like me for my money anyway. There was this girl, though. I don’t know that we were in a committed relationship, but we went out for a while. But, you know, I saw other people. It’s hard for me to . . . I don’t know why, I think . . . When you grow up the way I did, maybe . . .”

“You have an intimacy problem,” she said.

“It’s not that I have an intimacy problem,” he said. “I just don’t want to be intimate. I don’t see the point. I mean, I’m very involved in my career and . . . It’s not really that I don’t want to be intimate. I don’t want to be committed. I don’t know, I suppose that’s finally just an excuse. My lawyer says I am afraid of any real involvement. He lives with a girl, and it just looks like, what’s the point? I don’t really know what the point is. I love sex, don’t get me wrong. One could even go so far as to say I’m compulsive about sex. I mean, I hope you don’t think I’m blunt—I’m sort of known for my bluntness—but, you know, I’d like to have sex with you. I mean, you seem like someone who’d be great to have sex with.”

“How romantic,” she said.

“You’re right,” he said. “I’m cold. I’ve recently noticed a coldness about myself that scares me. It scares me that I don’t really care about much but my work. I guess you could say I’m a workaholic. If I wasn’t a producer I’d be a football coach, ’cause it’s so intense. I need intensity, I thrive on it, I am it. So I love environments that complement me. I can relax at a Bruce Springsteen concert. In the middle of that kind of energy, I can relax. I would have been great in the army, I think, as long as . . . Well, I wouldn’t have liked being wounded, I don’t like pain. Which I know doesn’t make me unusual.”

“But you thought you might mention it,” she said, “in case I was thinking of stabbing you with my fork.”