In a way, I was seeing the apartment for the first time, because now I could allow myself to indulge in my dream. I believed it was only a matter of time before the apartment belonged to me. “It’s stunning.”

“Get some sleep,” Fritz said. His gaze traveled from my eyes, slowly downward. I sensed that he wanted to stay with me. The opportunity was before us. Amelia was so drunk that, invariably, she would have fallen asleep immediately. She wasn’t going to notice what time Fritz returned. Any minute he was going to step toward me and unbutton my blouse. I would have liked to tell him it was OK. I wanted him too.

At no time did my desire for Fritz eclipse my love for Amelia. The two things coexisted and fed off each other. I hoped to be the center of their worlds.

“Good night.” Once he made the decision to leave, his face drooped down and his shoulders rounded. He turned and walked out the front door. His departure was mildly disappointing, but I couldn’t dwell on it, given all that I’d accomplished in the last twelve hours.

Now I had unlimited time to admire every aspect of the apartment anew, with the knowledge that I was going to spend the entire night there. The design, the materials, and the workmanship were on par with the main house. The reclaimed elm wood floor, high-end appliances, marble countertops, plumbing fixtures, hardware, tile backsplash, recessed lighting, the windows, and the cabinetry.

A number of years earlier I’d been involved with a highly skilled cabinetmaker, so I knew about the time and expense involved in bookshelves like these. The attention to detail. The cabinetmaker and his wife had occupied an apartment down the hall from me when I lived in Queens. I was close friends with his wife, but eventually she found out that he and I were having sex in my kitchen in exchange for my cabinets.

Amelia had lent me a pair of her pajamas. The faint smell of her lemon-and-bergamot perfume still lingered on them. I knew she would never wear them again after I did. She would either give them away or throw them out. She assumed that I’d love wearing her pajamas. She was right.

That night, I dreamed that I was trying to escape from a dragon. I found a temporary refuge—a small cardboard house, the size of a child’s playhouse. I stepped inside the playhouse and closed the door. I could hear the dragon outside. When it started to rain, the playhouse collapsed into a pile of mush, and then the dragon saw me with the crumbled playhouse all around me and he realized how vulnerable I was. Only then did he go in for the kill.