He caught her wandering hand and leaned forward to kiss her mouth, her impossible mouth, her swollen mouth. She liked to kiss as much as she liked fucking.

“Maybe so,” he said. “You know any exorcism rites?”

In the first weeks they had had many conversations about words, the ones she liked and didn’t like, the different associations he had for “tit” and “boob,” “cock” and “dick.” Mostly these talks led them to bed, or to an abruptly cleared table or to a chair—she had a particular affection for fucking face-to-face sitting up—or on one memorable occasion, to the stairs outside his apartment door. She was the most sexually curious person he had ever run into, exhausting, intriguing. Other women had discovery fantasies, rape fantasies, multiple-partner fantasies, but Angie liked the sound of his voice and plain talk.

At first he considered himself fortunate to have found a woman he liked in bed and out of it who wasn’t in a hurry to talk love, commitment, what was going to happen next week, next year, forever and ever. Angie knew he was leaving Manhattan at the end of August, but if she ever thought about the fact that the office she was setting up in Hoboken with Rivera was within easy driving distance of Princeton, she never raised the topic, and really, what more could a man ask for? A smart, funny, sexually curious, challenging, attractive woman who was capable of living in the moment. She was eight years younger than he was and ten years younger than the last woman he had dated for any period of time, but in some things—in most things—she seemed older.

It was midsummer before he realized that the very words he would have withheld had she been looking for them were pushing themselves more and more often into the front of his mind. That tingling of nerves in the solar plexus, the flush of blood when he came around a corner and saw Angie—such extreme reactions were outside of his experience, and unsettling.

John called his brother to confess. He said, I’m in love with a woman who doesn’t want to talk about love.

Reverse psychology, Rob had said. I can’t believe you fell for that one.

The only response to that was a weak laugh; he couldn’t even work up any hurt pride, much less anger. He was too busy, suddenly, wondering where he fit into Angie’s view of the world. For once John was the one with the questions, and he could appreciate the irony, if not the discomfort.