Then she gave him a wink and his heart danced.

The tongue is the gateway to the world, and the world is a woman. How to cross that threshold without stumbling? The sentries would see through him as soon as the first two syllables were out, before he’d even managed to utter his name.

But there he was at the appointed time, standing dumbstruck before the fantastically proportioned building. It seemed to reach the sky. About to step inside, he hesitated, remembering that he had to show his ID to the guard. The guard glanced at it and let him pass.

The thirty-second floor.

Lost in the palatial elevator. His first thought as he’d stepped inside was that it must be the lobby. He declined to sit on a vast sofa and gave the fully uniformed attendant the floor number. The attendant pushed the button without acknowledging he’d heard.

That’s the floor, but what’s the apartment number? He kept the thought to himself, and when the lift stopped and the doors opened, he realized how foolish he’d been: a hallway lined with clipped shrubbery and a single lofty doorway at the far end. He approached the door and had raised his hand to knock when it opened. A beautiful Asian woman looked out from behind the door.

Still tucked behind the door, the maid gestured for him to step inside. He did so, and was immediately swallowed by sheer space; he felt as if he were foundering in the carpet. The maid went ahead and he followed. He had imagined that they would be going to the living room but was led instead into a maze of corridors. He knew they must be corridors, because they were inside an apartment after all, but he’d known alleyways, streets in fact, that had been narrower.

They came at last to a door. A bedroom door, to his surprise. The room was vast, and Sherine was sitting up in bed, smiling and calling to him.

“Over here, Salaam!”

The maid withdrew, and he stood there, awestruck.

Was this how it was going to be?

It suddenly occurred to him just how little experience he had, and he told himself that he would fail, and felt afraid. Only when Sherine called his name a second time did he realize that he’d been drifting.

Tentatively he approached the bed.

Was that surprise on Sherine’s face? She was wearing a shirt and very short shorts, and when eventually he reached her she gestured to the sofa by the bed and said, “Sit.” He tottered to the sofa and sat down, all at sea and soaked in sweat.