I said, “Yeah, what does he think?”

“Nope, wrong girl,” she told me. “I decided not to have one of those for a while, after my sophomore year at Illinois. That was the last time I had one. And everything was, ‘Where ya’ goin’ now, and how long are you gonna be there, and who you goin’ with, and I don’t know about this, and I don’t know about that.’ In the meantime, I’m like, ‘Wait a minute, this is my career, and my life, and my time, and my place to, you know, get out there and do things.’ And all he wanted to do was hang out at the frat houses, drinking, and watching football and goofing off. And I can’t do what I want to do because you want me here doing this?

“So that was it for me,” she explained. “And it’s like, I have girlfriends who are always, ‘Well, I know this guy who would be just perfect for you, and I met this other guy,’ and I’m like, ‘Come on, there’re always gonna be guys around.’ Guys approach me all the time, and everywhere, so I’m not impressed with any of that. I mean, I’m twenty-four years old; it’s not like I’m forty. So I just wanna go out and be me for right now.”

I said, “So, the last time you’ve been in the sack was in your sophomore year of college?”

“Ahh, well, I…”

I knew I would catch her off-guard with that one. We started laughing together, which was a good thing. But she was still fumbling with an answer.

“Well, you know, you don’t really…I mean.”

I let her off the hook and said, “You don’t talk about it.”

“Yeah, you don’t.” She said, “But I can tell you this, it hasn’t been that many, because I don’t really, you know, like a lot of people like that.”

I asked, “Are we getting too personal here?” I just wanted to back up a minute.

She said, “Why, you’re not gonna tell me about your escapades? You already got it out of me.”

She was right. She was dealing with a pro who had slipped sex in on the conversation. I even think she was embarrassed by it, which was another good thing. Embarrassing a woman always brought her down to earth.

I said, “You’re very attractive. A guy could definitely get distracted by you.”

“Umm, thank you, but does that mean you’re going to ignore my question?”

I chuckled and told her, “I make a living by taking pictures in front of a camera. Some of the pictures are sexy, some of them are not. But with most of them, women get a chance to stare at me. And if a woman is constantly staring at a guy…”

I left it open for her to fill in the blanks, and that got her laughing again. I made her feel guilty on purpose. We both realized that she was staring me down at the airport, so the ice was already broken.