His eyes swept up and down, from the widow’s peak on my forehead all the way to my black pumps, the ones I had started wearing to work instead of my more comfy loafers. “Neither am I,” he said. “But first I’ve got a surprise for you.”

I did like Lorenzo’s surprises. I still do.

While I floated down from my kissing high, he pushed files and journal articles aside on the desk until he landed on whatever he was looking for. “Here. Check the numbers for me.”

The stats looked good. Fine p values showed significance; solid chi-squares and experimental design told me he knew his statistics shit. I took in the data as if they were water and manna sent to a deserted Robinson Crusoe.

“You’re sure?” I said, checking over the data.

“Positive.” He stood behind me, his arms circled around my waist, creeping up like five-legged spiders to my breasts. “Of a few things.”

We hadn’t done it on campus, not the big It, not the holy grail of physical intimacy, only kissed and run our hands over each other’s bodies behind the locked door of Lorenzo’s office. Or mine. Once, he followed me into the faculty washroom and—I’m ashamed to say it—made me orgasm with nothing but a finger. After seventeen years of marriage and four kids, it didn’t take long.

He must have felt the heat growing in me, because he let go, let me read through the reports.

“Holy shit,” I said. “You isolated the protein?”

We had been searching for that one last piece, the biochemical substance we knew was present in some people and absent in others. Lorenzo had run the numbers on more than two thousand subjects, searching for an indicator that might predict lexical proficiency. He called it the Kissinger Project, and his background in both biochem and semantics made him exactly the right person to find the link between meta-eloquence and brain chemistry.

“You’ve got the map, and I’ve got the key, love,” he said while his hand snaked into the waistband of my skirt.

“How about we do a little practice unlocking?” I said. Lorenzo brought out my inner coquette. “Later?”

“Later. Same place.”

We had a small cottage—the Crab Shack, as we called it—over in Anne Arundel County by the Chesapeake Bay, far enough from the suburban Maryland bungalow I share with Patrick and the kids to be discreet. The lease was still in Lorenzo’s name two months ago.

Better not to go there right now. Besides, he’ll have already given the place up.