But the sting of alienation was outweighed by the ecstasy of performance, its unrelenting command of attention. What I enjoyed most about spinning records was the feeling of being in control, of being responsible for everyone’s good time. Me, and alcohol. I loved keeping the crowd on the verge: fading the bass in and out, speeding up the rhythm and then slowing down just before the crescendo, saving the explosive tracks until the very end. Sometimes, I would catch eyes with someone—woman, man, I was open to either—and we would chat after the set, before heading to the back room for a hurried and furtive encounter that was at once empowering and exhilarating. In the time that each lasted, which varied in proportion to the amount of liquor consumed, my mind would have respite from both Anna and from the professor, or whomever it was that particular season. I’d emerge afterward and return to the booth feeling pleased with myself, prideful if not actually confident, and at the very least soothed, the obsessive thoughts momentarily suppressed, with a sneaking suspicion that there was more to me than this.

I tried to keep these sessions minimally invasive, so that I could emerge from them unruffled and return home undetected. But there were occasional slips. “You smell like sex,” Anna said one night when I crept into bed at four a.m., too tired to shower. My stomach flipped. I laughed off her comment and blamed it on an especially packed and sweaty night at the club. She appeared convinced at the time, or at least temporarily placated.

“Want to meet for lunch?” Anna asked.

We met at a diner near our apartment, a well-lit place that was always empty yet managed to stay in business. We sat across from each other in sea-foam vinyl seats. “You seem off,” she said. Melted cheese dripped from her panini. “Is something going on?”

I looked up at the ceiling lamp suspended above us. I wanted to tell her the truth, so she would know what I was feeling, in the hope that she would comfort me, or berate me, or leave me. That way I could at least transfer my pain onto something that made sense, something real. After all, the professor did seem fabricated. Perhaps, to the extent that I’d cobbled together the pieces I had, she was. Though like the “Orient,” I chose to believe she was an idea with some corresponding reality; she was more than simulacra.

I rushed to think of a response that wouldn’t betray my heartache. “I looked up flights,” I said. “Visiting next year is going to get pricey.”