At this point, Marcus and I have been together for almost a year. By together, I mean he slips away every other week, and we go someplace we won’t be recognized. Typically, it’s late afternoon, and we ride the subway separately, all the way downtown to the Financial District. Then we meet in the back of a diner. Never the same one, naturally. We sit across from each other, order Diet Cokes and fries, and grind out my homework assignments. This is when I feel most like a couple. Two people in love, solving problems, flirting, showing off. Together, we tackle eye imagery in King Lear, algebra of polynomials, militarism of Mesopotamian city-states, the impact force of falling objects. “You know,” he says, “it wasn’t so long ago that I did all this.” But Marcus is older. It was ages ago, a whole different century. “Back then,” I tease him, “the world wasn’t even in color. It was still black-and-white.” Neither of us care about his age. Lots of times, I’m more mature.

And yet, despite our closeness, my dissatisfaction deepens and spreads. Marcus will kiss me and touch my breasts. That’s it. Full stop. I’m a virgin, which he knows, but I like to pretend otherwise. I flirt with older men when my parents entertain, especially when Marcus is there and can see me doing it. Older men, I quickly learn, are as hungry for my attention as I am for theirs. “Boys must fall all over you. They must follow you around like puppies.” Once, a very drunk man told me that at his age, seventy-two, an erection was a sacred event. “I view each one with awe.” I pretended to laugh. The man was repulsive. But Marcus is different. He keeps me at arm’s length. When he watches me, I feel indestructible, invincible. Then he turns the tables, which used to delight me. Now it frustrates me. He insists we can’t sleep together until I’m of age, which is seventeen in New York, even if the sex is consensual.

“What if I get parental approval? What if we go before a judge?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Cassie.”

I counter with sixteen and two months.

“Seventeen,” he tells me.

Sixteen and a half.

“Seventeen.”

I let Marcus say what he wants; we both know it’s just a matter of time. Like me, he’s a tease. “You picked me, Cassandra,” he whispers. “You picked me, groomed me, and broke me down. If we do have sex, it’s only because I have no choice.”

The tension is unbearable.

“No,” I whisper back. “You won’t have a choice.”