You got to the uptown bar after work. She was dressed in a short dress, bright blue, all dolled up. It barely reached midthigh. She was talking to a couple of guys, and you hustled over. Feeling out of place in jeans and a sweater, even a nice sweater. She curled right around you, and the yuppie guys with their expensive watches and banker haircuts got the picture and wandered off.

You were sipping your first beer (somehow you weren’t drinking so fast or so much anymore), and she nestled up against you and pulled your hand under her skirt and you felt bush. No panties, in that fucking miniskirt. You got hard. She put your hand back on the counter, and she talked to the bartender and finished her drink.

Then she took you into the alley out back and fished your cock out.

“Jill—” you said.

“Ssh,” she said, and straddled you. She was already wet. You went into her, and it hurt, it hurt.

She took you. She rode you as long as she needed.

She came and the white light was there.

“So you said you’ve popped other guy’s cherries.”

She slurped up a noodle. Chinese takeout. Her living room nook. Her breasts bare in the moonlight. “Mmm-hmm…”

“So what, uh—”

“Hey!” she said sharply. “I don’t want to talk about past relationships. What a fucking buzz-killer that is.”

“All right,” you said.

She put down her noodles. “Come over here.”

You had to work late one night, fuckup with a delivery, not your fault but you were the one who had to dig up the archival paperwork and go figure it out. You called Jill, and she went out with the girls from her study group. Some nights she wanted to go out with them alone, dish about guys. Maybe compare notes, which made your blood run a little cold. But, you know, fourth week of the relationship, that was all right, loosen up a little. Don’t be so fucking clingy.

You missed her.

Eleven o’clock and the place was empty, you still weren’t done, and your e-mail dinged. It was from Rhonda the HR lady, saying to come to her office. She had an office at the edge of the cube farm, not a cube. The blinds were down.

You felt like maybe you shouldn’t go in, but that was kind of silly.

Rhonda got up from her chair. You’d always thought she was good-looking—she had these perfect put-together outfits, and her face was smooth and young despite a streak of gray in her hair. But shit, she didn’t compare to Jill. Maybe she was going to come on to you and you could turn her down, serve her right for laughing at you behind your back. Subscribe to this, baby. On the other hand, maybe you’d somehow gotten in shit with HR. Though you couldn’t imagine how.