He smiled. “I know what impresses girls now. I’ve learned from my mistakes.” That last sentence hung there and I was tempted to probe—what other mistakes have you learned from? How have you learned, exactly? But I kept quiet. I was actually enjoying myself and part of me didn’t want to ruin it.

“What was your collegial trope?” he asked. “You went to Brown, right?”

I nodded as I swallowed slowly, gifting myself some more time. I was an inexperienced, prudish, naive, questioning Christian, who finally escaped her parents’ overbearing arms and considered her college experience an opportunity to course-correct everything that was so fucked-up about her childhood. I became someone else entirely. And I never went back.

“What do you think I was?” I asked.

He studied me carefully, as if anything about my current self would hint to who I was back then. I was too well trained to let any of that come out. Even if it did, that wouldn’t matter. His answer was just a reflection of what he wanted to see, regardless of who I was. Helpful for my research.

His eyes slimmed and one side of his mouth curled up with wry amusement. “You look more innocent than you really are,” he said. “I bet you could get away with anything in college.” He paused, like he was deciding whether or not to say the rest. “And now, too, probably,” he added, his smile morphing into something else, something that turned him on. “Am I right?”

I pretended to think about it for a moment. I learned early on that the most convincing lies are cloaked with half-truths, sprinkled with things to help you remember so you’re never caught in your own mistake. “You’re not far off,” I replied. Though, with his family and his background, I’d argue he’d know how to get away with things best.

My entire four-story walk-up (arbitrarily named The Theodore so whoever lives there can pretend to be pretentious) could fit into Graham’s apartment. Entering the lit hallway, I felt both like I was faking it—like I didn’t belong, and I would never belong—and also like it was working, whatever I was doing was working. Graham held my hand, leading me in, and I wondered how often he did this; how often he brought a woman home to make her horny with hope for their future. That one day she could be roasting a chicken in that signature Wolf stove. That she could replace the god-awful abstract acrylic in the living room with something that didn’t look like it belonged in a hotel elevator bank. That she could gossip and drink martinis with her jealous friends on that terrace. The easiest way to get into a woman’s pants is with an apartment like this.