She had a weirdly shaped head, long in the back, which haunted him. He’d tried to add her strangeness to that well of all women’s mysteries.

She had a long, slightly crooked nose, really good perfume. The fact that she wasn’t Gynnie, the wrongness of it—she existed apart from the feminine regime that disoriented him. She was someone else. She could die tomorrow, he didn’t care.

There was nobody in the building but them, and they’d been talking about the structural column that would go where they stood to support a staircase that wasn’t in yet. Nora stomped on his foot. He pushed her. She laughed. They went from that to, like, silence. He was looking at her big lips, so nervous he had flulike symptoms. He knew it was there for the taking. God, he deserved a little makeout session.

There’d been some months of lead-up to this moment, and their bodies came together and their arms went around each other with such excitement and relief that a sobbing noise or a grunt got stuck in her throat. He measured her in terms of his fiancée—he thought she was a few multiples in width. Nora fell into the category of women who are not fat, whose hair is bigger, who know how to dress themselves with wide belts, nail polish, jewelry. The kiss was quick, she tasted like cosmetic powder, he felt relieved and wanted to finish the walk-through and get out of there. He felt a pressure from her mouth, broad and forceful, her tongue pressing forward, and he tried to meet her tongue but it pushed his out of the way and came deeper into his mouth. In the very delicate balance between what is sexy or risky, her tongue was difficult to make room for.

He stood back, tried to smile, to breathe, to change the rhythm of the tongue thing she just did. She had a curious look on her face, one of vacancy and desire.

She moved closer, opening her mouth wide; tiny white strings of opaque spit had formed, like webs, in the corners of her mouth. She licked her lower lip, which had become dry and pitted. Some of her lipstick had come off. She grabbed the back of his head and jacked it toward her. Her own head moved forward steadily—like a shark’s head, like a prosthetic limb, some football wrapped in bologna. She threw her tongue down his throat like a waterlogged sneaker.

He maintained his footing, jaw open, impaled.

She leaned back and said things like, “OOHHH fuck!” and “Finally.”

Kissing her was so terrible he stopped and thought of what to do next.

This was his only client, and if he offended her or did something ugly—she owned the building.

You idiot, idiot, idiot.

This was supposed to be some dreamy diversion, but it was turning out not so good.