“You told me you were unemployed,” Todd reminds her, crossing his arms over his waist and lifting his T-shirt above his ribs, where it bunches up level with his collarbone for a moment, then slips off his head, resetting the mop of his hair. His torso is pale and smooth, just slightly meaty. “You didn’t say what it was you used to do.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Sure it does. For my book.” He unbuttons his jeans. They drop to his ankles. He steps out of them, kicks them aside, and, using his toes, pulls off his socks and tosses them on top of the jeans. He stands before her on display: smiling, with his arms held wide and his erection pulling the waistband of his shorts away from his stomach. Then he moves as if to step toward her.

She lifts the hand that’s been resting on her knee. “That’s good.”

“You think?” the boy asks, glancing down. “I’ve never had any complaints.”

“I mean, that’s good, right there. Stop.” He’s as close to her now as when they were sitting at the table. His arms drift down to his sides. “You like to talk,” she tells him.

“I guess.”

“But you don’t swear, do you?”

“Mmm, not around ladies. I try not to. Hey, are you going to get naked?”

“You can swear around me.”

He shrugs. “Okay.”

“I’m telling you to.” She feels a jurisdiction over him in a way that is almost parental. “In fact, Todd, I don’t want to hear you say anything else unless you’re swearing.”

“Wow,” he says. And then, “Damn.”

She motions for him to lower his shorts, and he shucks them halfway down his thighs. His cock stands out of proportion to his skinny body like a bowsprit on a canoe. When he tries to move forward again, she shakes her head no. With one hand, she suggests that he take hold of himself; with the other, she unzips her skirt.

“Wow,” he says excitedly, “you just never know, do you?”

She cuts him a glance.

“Damn,” he says.

An hour later, the sun just starting to set beyond the curtains and the boy asleep in the wingback chair in the corner, she opens the door and steps out of the room. Mr. Jessup stands in the hall, sideways to a wall sconce that has failed to illuminate. He wiggles its stem and taps its glass shell with a fingernail. When he looks over, he squints as if half-recognizing her through a haze of elapsed time. “Ms. Smith.” He sounds mildly shocked. His focus shifts, then shifts again, until he is looking past her into the room, where a bare shoulder is visible in the chair. “You depraved soul,” he says calmly, and though his lips try to close around a nugget of disapproval, he grins. “You’re old enough to be that boy’s lover.”