Free Kindle Nation Shorts - April 1, 2010 - An Excerpt from Faking It by Elisa Lorello

By Stephen Windwalker
Editor of Kindle Nation Daily

Elisa Lorello is one indie author who seems to have it figured out.
We've been saying for a long time here at Kindle Nation that authors and publishers of distinction can often do a lot better by pricing their books reasonably than by trying to make a million bucks on every sale, and Lorello has hit the sweet spot both in terms of attractive pricing and of book sales.

She has published two novels about the romantic and other escapades of a very contemporary thirty-something writing professor by the name of Andi Cutrone: Faking It and Ordinary World. Both novels are priced, for now at least, at 99 cents in the Kindle Store. Both titles are in the top 1,000 out of about half a million titles on the Kindle Store bestseller list, which means that there are thousands of copies flying off the virtual shelves of the Kindle Bookstore.

And, every bit as important, you can tell by the reviews that she's building a following among Kindle owners who love to read. (Yes, I know, that's just about all of us.) Of 130 reviews when I checked in today, about 100 were in the 5-star or 4-star category.

So Elisa Lorello may not need the exposure that comes with a Free Kindle Nation Short feature, but we are happy to have her! She's been good enough to share a bountiful seven-chapter excerpt from Faking It as this week's short feature.

Scroll down to start reading the Free Kindle Nation Short excerpt

or

Click here to download the full Kindle edition of Faking It for 99 cents

Click here to download the full Kindle edition of Ordinary World, the sequel to Faking It, for 99 cents

Faking It
by Elisa Lorello
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Amazon Price: $15.26 Buy Now

Ordinary World
by Elisa Lorello

Kindle Price: $0.99 Buy Now
to Read on Your Kindle, Kindle for PC, Kindle for Mac, Kindle for BlackBerry, or Kindle for iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch
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Originally posted April 1, 2010 to Kindle Nation Daily ©Kindle Nation Daily 2010

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an excerpt from
Faking It

a novel by

Elisa Lorello

This book is a work of fiction. Any similarity to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

Unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this work is strictly prohibited.

Copyright © 2008, 2010 by Elisa Lorello and reprinted here with her permission.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

 This book could not have been born without the following people:

 First and foremost, thank you to Stacey Cochran, who introduced me to and mentored me through the community of published writing and writers.

 Thanks also to Neil Coleman, the very first person to read the manuscript in its first incarnation, and to subsequent readers, including (in alphabetical order) Evelyn Audi, Tracy Branco Medeiros, Celeste Girrell, Mary Gonzalez, John Griffin, Linda Licata, Ariel Lorello, Katie Marciano, Crystal Medeiros, Susan Miller-Cochran, Kelly Sutphin, Bruce W. Tench II, Marisa Von Beeden, and all of my students and others who were kind enough to listen to excerpts and tell me what they thought.

 Thanks to Elisa DiLeo, who helped me find my way around Manhattan, and Richard Romero, owner of Mirasol's café in North Dartmouth, MA, where most of this book was written and discussed over countless cups of vanilla chai latte.

 Thanks to Dr. John Caruso, who advised me in college that sport psychology was not the way to go, and to Drs. W. Keith Duffy and Mary Hallet, who took me under their wings in grad school and married me to rhetoric and composition.

 Thank you always to my mother, Eda, my father, Michael, my grandmother, Mary Mottola, my brothers, sister, and extended family for their unending support, especially my twin brother, Paul, who is a much better writer than I am and constantly raises the bar.

 To all those well-established writers who inspire me and make me laugh on a regular basis, especially Aaron Sorkin and Nora Ephron, and to writer/scholar Peter Elbow and the late Donald Murray, I bow to you.

 Finally, a special thank you to Sarah Girrell Paquette, whom I adore. Without her insight, feedback, knowledge of art, and love for this book, Devin and Andi never would have stood a chance.

For Ru

Prostitution is the oldest profession in the world.

Rhetoric is the second oldest.

Chapter One

        February         

                        

I GATHERED MY BOOKS, PENS, STUDENT ESSAYS, water bottle, coat, and purse as the students sauntered out five minutes early, leaving behind muddy sneaker-prints and lackluster enthusiasm. It happens to the best of us at one time or another: we have a bad class, we bomb, we put our students to sleep. Today one of them actually snored.

            With a briefcase and a tote bag slung over one shoulder apiece, I exited the musty room as the next class of students-poli-sci, I think-began filing in. My day was done; at least the teaching part was. Three stacks of essays awaited my zealous reading and feedback. "Zealous" is an overstatement; at best, I can get about five essays done per hour, three hours max. And I need breaks in between. If only our brains had scanning machines. If only mind melds really worked. It's my dirty little secret that I'd rather be looking at The Simpsons than Shakespeare. I know I'm inches from being found out, about everything...

I moved back to Long Island because Maggie, my best friend and former colleague from South Coast Community College in Massachusetts, was now director of the writing program at Brooklyn University and offered me a position assisting her and teaching full-time. Maggie and I had collaborated on a number of projects and articles at SCCC (my favorite being the one we never submitted for publication but wrote to blow off steam: "Fuck the Modes: We Want Artifacts!"). We'd spend hours in her office, discussing composition theory and pedagogy and Wendy Bishop articles and what it was really like to work with Lad Tobin ("the Woody Allen of rhetoric and composition," I call him). She always knew when I was approaching her office by the rhythm and sound my shoes made on the carpet. We were allies, colleagues, and friends all at the same time. I couldn't resist the chance to work with her again.

So, that was the reason. (Oh yeah, and I also broke up with my fiancé...)

***

            I'd been back on the Island for only six months, and frankly, I was surprised at how long it was taking me to adjust. I'd been away for ten years, living in a small town in southeastern Massachusetts (small by Long Island's standards, at least). Fairhaven echoed faint similarities to the Northport of my youth and young adulthood: split-level housing developments on cul-de-sacs, nearby shopping centers and malls, minutes from the parkway (although in Massachusetts they call it the "highway") and a reasonable driving distance to and from both the city and the ocean. The familiarity felt comfortable.

I used to think the Island was life-affirming. Perhaps because it was home. Or maybe it was the "Mini-Me" of Manhattan. Whatever it was, I had spent the last ten years writing about and romancing Long Island from my Massachusetts digs. I wrote about the roads, the beaches, the shopping, the people, the accents, the sports teams, the Hamptons, you name it. But now that I was back and paying a thousand dollars more in rent for a thousand less square feet of space, I couldn't for the life of me figure out what was so energizing about this strap-on to the Big Apple and its wannabe inhabitants. Nevertheless, I took the job at Brooklyn U and a residential apartment in East Meadow, about fifteen minutes away from the Long Island Railroad, and the cost of commuting was killing me each month. Some days I would drive all the way to Brooklyn; other days I'd drive to the train station, take the train to Queens, and switch to the subway. I'd forgotten how everything on Long Island was high-maintenance. When you put a high-maintenance woman in a low-maintenance town, the woman just stands out as having it altogether. Put that same woman back into the town that made her high-maintenance to begin with, and you've simply got another stressed out New Yorker, no different from anyone else. Now I found myself missing-and writing about-the small shores of West Island beach, the slow service of Pop's Coffeehouse, and the shrill sounds of New England accents.

But that was all I had, it seemed. Memories.

It's not that I didn't look for anything else. I kept an eye out for single professors when I attended seminars or campus workshops on writing across the curriculum, or evenings spent at poetry readings in coffeeshops. No matter where I went though, unavailability was everywhere. Men were married, involved, divorced with children, too old, too young, or gay. They were Republican, unemployed, or mama's boys. They were atheists and Giants fans. And I couldn't help but wonder if I was projecting an unavailability of my own. Because none of them was Andrew.

***

Nothing to watch tonight, nowhere to go, nothing in the fridge, nothing in my wallet. Essays to read, laundry to do, bills to pay, rooms to clean, and the dust is forming its own kind of woven fabric on the furniture. No calls, emails, letters.

            My God, there has to be something better than this. This is not enough. Not anymore.

I thought that as I walked through the hallways, down the icy sidewalks, and to the train.

            And that's when it all began.

 

Chapter Two

March

WESTFORD-LANGLEY PUBLISHING COMPANY WAS hostinga seminar and textbook fair in the city. This one focused on the latest applications of electronic portfolios in the composition classroom. Maggie and I loved these kinds of seminars-they gave us a chance to talk about theory, meet and reunite with some of our favorite people in academia, check out the new textbooks on the market, and socialize. She and Jayce, our colleague and friend, sat in my office on the matching high-back chairs that I'd picked up at a Salvation Army rummage sale for twenty dollars apiece. Maggie was tall-almost five foot ten-and broad shouldered with a long torso and long legs. She wore her hair straight and bottle-blonde, with wire-framed glasses and flawless MAC makeup. Her appearance was intimidating and her voice was deep and full, yet her personality was kitten-like. Jayce, on the other hand, was paper-thin petite with smooth, dark skin, and very, very chic. A lifelong Brooklynite, one would take her for a fashion magazine editor than a writing professor.

            "Andi, come with us to the cocktail party after the seminar," Jayce said.

            "I don't know; cocktail parties aren't my thing," I replied.

            "She doesn't drink," Maggie explained.

            "So what?"

            "So, I don't want to be the only sober one. Come on, you know those things. They're meet-markets and show-off fests and the more imbibed you are the more likely you'll get hit on by Joe Doolittle and not mind it."

            "Might be worth it if he has tenure," Jayce said.

            "I won't drink either," Maggie offered. Mags was the type of person who would give you a hundred dollars if you casually mentioned you needed to buy a hundred lottery tickets to increase your chances of winning.

            "Just come," Jayce said again. "You don't have to drink. People-watch. It's a great time to network."

            You can always convince me to network.

***

           

The cocktail party followed the seminar two hours later at the National Arts Club in Gramercy Park. Most of the seminar attendees stuck around, making a weekend of it. Maggie, Jayce, and I found a small Thai place for a quick dinner before returning to the Club to freshen up. We entered fashionably late, of course. Jayce immediately began to mingle, a cosmopolitan already in her hand. Maggie ordered a wine spritzer. I slowly sipped a ginger ale. We found a high-legged table that was not too centered in the room yet not too removed from the crowd. We sat for awhile, invited people to join us and talk teaching for a bit, then people-watched.

            "You know, John Kirkland is not as tall as he looks when he's at the podium," I remarked, watching him yukking it up with two professors from NYU.

            "You're right. And did you notice the snorting noise he makes when he's about to begin a new thought?"

            I tried to stifle my laugh but it came just as I sipped my drink, and thus I began both a laughing and coughing fit while the carbonation pinched my nostrils. Just then, as I smeared ginger ale from the front of my shirt, I saw him enter the room with one of the textbook reps: Tall. Six feet, maybe a few inches to spare. Mid to late thirties, possibly. He wore a taupe-colored suit-Versace, I think-with a finely woven shirt underneath. Alluring, to say the least. His dark hair fell forward in wispy layers yet stayed close to the nape of his neck. Perfect for running my fingers through, I thought. Olive skinned, yet could also be booth tanned-hard to tell in the lighting. When another rep greeted the couple, he flashed a smile that sent sparks from his-what were they, brown eyes? Regardless of color, they had transfixed me in the split second of that smile.

            "Who is that guy with Allison?" I asked. "I didn't see him at the seminar."

            "I don't know," Maggie replied, "but he's gorgeous, isn't he. Maybe he's her husband?"  

            "Let's mingle," I said, and got up to walk around. I chimed in on conversations about Trimbur's newest article and the memorial for the late Donald Murray and what's going on at Brooklyn U and had I heard any good gossip about SCCC lately. All the while I tracked Versace with my peripheral vision, like a hidden camera. I watched him schmooze with professors, sip his drink, and turn every woman's head in the room. What's more, I watched some of the women exchange knowing glances with each other, almost like a secret handshake, behind his back.

            I had to find out who he was.

            I approached another rep.

            "Great job today, Carol."

            "Thanks, Andi."

            Carol stood about five foot five and had audacious, red-orange hair that fell past her shoulders. She was pale and thin, in her forties, and wore silk scarves with every combination of business pinstripe pant or skirt suit. 

I leaned in to her, underneath the chatter. "So who's the guy with Allison?" Her saleswoman smile turned into a sly grin, like the cat that not only ate the canary, but also had a smoke afterwards. "Is he her husband?" I asked.

            She guffawed, "Good gracious, no!"

            "Then who is he?"

            "Let me put it to you this way: he's her 'cocktail-party companion'."

             "So then, he's not with a university?"

Now she was laughing at my expense, and I felt my face get hot.

            "No. But he's probably been with almost every female professor in this room."

I choked on my ginger ale for the second time.

            "Excuse me?" I sputtered.

            "He's Allison's cocktail party date, but he's also Wanda's New Year's Eve date, Joanne's every-third-Saturday-of-the-month date, and Sadie's 'I-need-a-good-lay' date." I still looked at her blankly, and she finally cut to the chase: "He's an escort."

While Carol moved on to the next conversation, I searched for and found Maggie with a small group of post modernists from Long Island College and pulled her aside when the lull in the chat appeared.

            I leaned in and whispered, "He's an escort, Mags! Can you believe that?"

            "You're kidding!"

            "Nope, Carol just told me. Do you think maybe she's putting me on?"

            "I don't know. How do we find out?"

            "Well, according to Carol, apparently he gets around the lecture circuit more than we do."

            "He's been watching you, you know," Maggie said.

I looked at her, agog. "Are you kidding me?"

"I saw him take notice of you before, and then a few minutes ago when you crossed the room to talk to me. He actually looked up from whoever-whomever-no, whoever-"

            "Whatever..."

"-he was talking to."

            "Why?"

            "What do you mean, why?"

            I didn't answer her. Instead, I went to the bar to get another ginger ale, when I heard a sonorous, baritone voice behind me.

            "Enjoying the party?"

I whipped around, and there was Versace, flashing another smile. I practically had to crane my neck to look him in the eye, he was so tall. God, his eyes were incredible. Not brown. Sienna.

            "Yeah, it's been a long time since I've been to one of these," I said.

            "Are you driving tonight?"

I looked at him, perplexed. "I'm sorry?"

            "You've been nursing that ginger ale all night. I was wondering if you were a designated driver."

            "No, I took the train in from the Island, but I'm staying with a colleague in Brooklyn tonight."

Why did I call her a colleague and not a friend? Did I want to sound more like a professional and less like a schoolgirl at a dance?

            "I'm Devin," he said, extending his hand.

What the hell kind of name is Devin?

            "Andrea," I replied. His shake was sturdy, without squeezing. I quickly scanned his hand: he manicures his nails.

            "What university do you teach at?"

            "I just came to Brooklyn U about six months ago."

            "And you live on the Island?"

            "Yeah, just moved back after ten years in New England."

            "Wow," he said. "I'd like to see the foliage up there in the fall."

            "Yeah," I replied, indulging his small talk, "It's really beautiful."

Geez, how long does it take to get a ginger ale? 

            "So," I said, "I saw you with Allison? She's the rep who invited us here. My colleague and I are putting together a deal to write a textbook for her company-"

            "Just a friend," he interrupted. As the words came out of his mouth, Allison approached, a younger carbon copy of Carol minus the silk scarves, looking at the both of us with daggers. Just a friend, my ass...

            "Well, I didn't ask. But now that you mention it, I think your friend wants your attention."

            He looked at her and signaled that he was getting her a drink. Then he winked at her. What a player, I thought. Gorgeous, yes. But way too into himself.

            Allison then practically stood between us. "Honey, I'd like to get going soon, okay?"

            "Sure, Ali," he said before he kissed her on the cheek and put his arm around her. I couldn't be sure from the angle I was standing, but I thought I saw her give his rear left cheek a squeeze, like Charmin.

            "It was nice to meet you, Andrea. Welcome back to New York." He shook my hand again.

In the six months since I'd been home, no one-not even my mother-had welcomed me back.

            "You too," I replied as he and Allison walked away arm-in-arm. I saw Maggie grinning at me.

            "What did he say to you?" she asked when I walked back to her.

            "He's a jerk," I replied. "He just wanted to pick me up."

            "How do you know?"

I didn't know. I'd just assumed.

            "He insisted that he and Allison were 'just friends.' Give me a break. He's a charmer."

            "Well, he must be good at it."

            "Yeah, well, everyone needs a skill."

            "I did some research and apparently he does really get around. And you're right-he is an escort. 'Bout a year ago, one of the reps bragged about him to a professor, and the next thing you know, he's the hot commodity. Even Jayce knew of him. She never, you know, used him, or anything like that. But she's seen him with the others. I just wanna know how we stayed out of the loop for so long," she said, pointing between the two of us.

            "What does he do? I mean, does he just go on dates? Or does he do more?"

            "Judging by the look of these women's faces, I'd say he does everything."

            For sure, this guy would never get past my front door.

Maggie lived in a one-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn, about six blocks away from the university, and I often crashed at her place whenever we attended an event in the city. Later that evening, as I snuggled under the faded, folk-style quilt on her couch, I thought about Devin and his smile. Those sparks that flickered in the specks of his pupils. That Versace suit and finely-woven mock-neck. I thought about our brief conversation, replayed it in my mind. Wondered what I could've or should've said to him. Coulda-woulda-shoulda. Moments later, as I drifted off to sleep, Devin visited me in a dream. And he disappeared almost as quickly as he did earlier at the bar.

Chapter Three

April

            SPRING BREAK CAME AND WENT, AND I DID NOTHING more exciting than a day trip to East Hampton for window shopping with Maggie (we couldn't really afford to do much else), while Jayce went on a Bahaman cruise. I'd pretty much stayed away from the city and shacked up in my apartment, cleaning and de-cluttering it. I could cover the walls of an East End mansion just out of the paper I'd accumulated that seemingly reproduced like bunnies. At one point, while on my knees scrubbing a stain out of the livingroom carpet, I felt the urge to sing, Some day my prince will come... God, how pathetic.

Spring weather came early this year, and I started taking my classes outside to the courtyard, a landscaped blanket of grass and benches and little trees with a fountain at its nucleus, all encircled by concrete walkways leading to every building that took up about a five-block radius of the city (Brooklyn, I mean. We New Yorkers call every inch of land covered in the five boroughs "the city"; we call Long Island "New York"; and everything else is "Upstate"). Surprisingly, the students remained attentive and even productive. Some wrote furiously, freewriting about places they'd like to visit, places they'd never seen, and places they never wanted to see again. And I joined them, getting lost in my own prose, remembering long walks on Rocky Beach with Andrew. I was missing him lately, re-tracing his hazel eyes that slit in sunlight, his blondish brown, wavy hair that fell past his shoulders, and his soft hands. He had the softest hands of any man I'd ever known. How I loved holding those hands. How I loved when those hands strummed his twelve-string guitar and serenaded me with James Taylor and Cat Stevens and Paul Simon, even though I didn't particularly care for James Taylor or Cat Stevens or Paul Simon. How I loved when those hands glided down my cheek and across my bare back and along my thigh...

            "Professor Cutrone?"

I looked up. Steven, a student from Maine and still wearing a wool cap from winter that fell past his ears, interrupted my fantasy, as well as my freewrite.

            "Yes?"

            He lowered his raised hand. "Are we going to read these aloud?"

I paused and looked down at the ode to Andrew I was scribbling and felt a quick hot flash.

            "Nope."

***

             Allison, the Westford-Langley rep, had just come out of Maggie's office, juggling textbooks, when I nearly bumped into her in the hallway, both of us gasping a "Whoops!" followed by apologies.

            "Walk with me, Andi. I've got a new edition to show you." She held out the updated edition of a writing-across-the-curriculum book and explained its added features while I flipped through the text and half-listened to her, imagining her with Devin, wondering what they did together after the cocktail party and how far they had gotten. When an image of the two of them naked in a shower stall permeated the picture, I spoke up and handed the book back to her.

            "So tell me about that guy Devin you were with at the seminar a couple of months ago. I was just wondering if the rumors are true."

She shot me a glance, and I was afraid that I'd struck a nerve, forgetting how jealous she'd looked when she saw us talking at the bar in the National Arts Club that night.

            "What have you heard?" she asked.

            "I heard he's an escort."

            "Yes, and a damn good one, too. You want his number?"

I turned sharply to look at her. "You don't mind?"

            "Of course not. He's not my fiancé or anything like that."

            "You seemed a little miffed when you saw us talking that night."

            "I did? Well, that's just because I pay him plenty to talk to me. I can't help but get possessive when he's mine for the night."

            "Where'd you meet him?" I asked.

            "Delia gave me his card."

            "Delia Howard? The dean?"

            "Yeah, that was nice of her, wasn't it? She met him through the rep from Ashton Press and then went out with him the following week to a Broadway premiere and the rest is history."

            "Are all his clients in academia?"

            "Well, word's gotten around to a lot of us. But he's got 'em all over the city in all kinds of jobs, mostly high end. You know, corporate women, lawyers... We have a great time together, and he's a-ma-zing, if you know what I mean," she said the second part in a hushed voice. I didn't know how to respond to that, so I simply said, "I'll bet."

I braced myself for my next question: "Um, what does he do?"

            "You want a list?" she laughed.

            "How much does he charge?"

She leaned in close and whispered the amount in my ear. My mouth dropped open.

            "Did I hear you right?"

            "If you have to ask, you did." I looked at Allison in disbelief-not because of the amount she had just quoted but because I had no idea textbook reps made that much money. The dean, yes. And what about my colleagues? Were they partners in some stock deal?

            "How often do you use him-I mean, see him?" I asked

            "Not enough. Face it: he is pricey. He's also really busy, getting busier all the time. Sometimes he works straight through the week. I had to make my date with him for the seminar a month in advance."

            "Not even off on Sundays for a day of rest?"

            "Andi, this guy is good."

            "He seemed kinda arrogant when I met him."

            "He is definitely a charmer. But give him a chance. He's actually quite intelligent and holds a good conversation. Here..." She stopped in her tracks, reached into her over-the-shoulder briefcase, pulled out a pouch bursting with business cards, sifted through the deck, and found the one she was looking for. She handed it to me. STRAWBERRIES AND CHAMPAGNE blazed in fire-engine-red letters, with a phone number in Century Gothic type underneath. "It's a message service. Leave your name and number and someone will call you back-usually Devin's partner. There are five guys total. Be sure to specify that you want Devin."

            "He owns the business?"

            "Yeah. Self-starter."

I stared at the card some more. She said, "Trust me. It's like finding a good therapist."

            "Or a good mechanic," I added.

            "You'll never want to go back to conventional dating, for one thing. Who needs the aggravation? He's safe, he's respectful, and he's sexy. What more could you want? And you don't have to nag him to take out the garbage or mow the lawn or any of that crap."

I never had to do that; then again, with the exception of Andrew, I was never with a man long enough to get to that stage. Besides, Andrew lived in a condo, and we broke up just as we decided to move in together and started house-hunting... What am I thinking?

            "Don't you need this?" I asked, holding the card out to her.

She shook her head. "Keep it. I've got him on speed-dial on my cell."

Later that evening, in my apartment, I tacked Devin's card on my bulletin board above my computer and stared at it. There is no way you are going to call this guy. You can't afford him. And besides, you don't do stuff like that.  I then resumed my rapid typing, but the hot red letters burned right through the screen. I did my best to avert my eyes and focus on the monitor; but I didn't get much work done.

***

Dating in New York is more like an anthropological study of mating rituals of a certain cultural species. There's no excuse for sitting home any night of the week other than being in traction. I'd been to more cocktail parties in the first three months since I'd returned than in the ten years I lived in Massachusetts. Granted, I was no longer a poor graduate student, or worse, an adjunct treated like a second-class citizen, so I could afford nights out. But still. Despite the fact that I had lived thirty minutes from Providence and an hour from Boston, a night out in New England consisted of a movie at the Fairhaven Bijou with Andrew or dinner at the Bayside restaurant in Westport, followed by walks on the beach. Come winter, everyone holed up in their propane-heated nests and hosted their own dinner parties so they wouldn't have to go out in the cold to someone else's.

New York City, however, was the quintessential cornucopia of places to go and people to meet, a vortex. Relationships progressed from ten minutes at a bar to a quickie in a cab to a week in the Hamptons to the bridal registry at Bergdorf's, or Macy's if you had to slum it. In Massachusetts, school, friends, and online match sites were the way to meet people. In New York, all you had to do was ride the train, for starters.

But I was never that kind of casual dater; I never trusted anyone. I avoided eye contact with everyone on the train, and whenever someone wanted to set me up with a friend or colleague, I insisted on enforcing the Patriot Act and getting hold of his library reading list, Netflix orders, dental records, prior convictions, you name it. Most of my exes had started as friends I'd either met through coworkers or classmates. Andrew was part of the SCCC faculty, an adjunct like me, and we'd met at an orientation meeting a week before my second semester began. I'd watched him from the other side of the classroom, sitting quietly but listening intently to one of the tenure-track professors drone on about academic integrity of the faculty, and I wondered, What's his story? One week later, as I whisked into the English department's main office to check my mail, he was standing at the mailboxes, saw me, and smiled as his eyes brightened.

"Hi! You were at the meeting, weren't you?"

"Yeah, I was."

"I really liked your ideas about peer review."

"Thanks," I said, half listening, finding an empty mailbox and turning to leave. I was halfway down the hall when a voice in my head said, Pay attention! He followed me out.

"I'm Andrew."

"Andi."

"I prefer Andrew."

"No, I mean, my name is Andrea; people call me Andi."

"Oh," he said, furrowing his brows (probably thinking, this is going to make for some dumb jokes down the road). "Maybe we can get together for coffee sometime and brainstorm ideas for assignments?"

I looked at him. He was lanky and wore jeans with dress shirts and ties. Normally, I thought most guys looked dorky in such attire, but on him it looked cute.

"Sure," I said. My stomach had fluttered the moment I'd said it, and I smiled back at him.

When I found out that he played the guitar, I knew I was doomed.

And that's how our fourteen-month relationship began. I moved back to New York less than six months after we broke up; just passing him in the hallway was too much for me to bear.

Since then, I'd gone out with Maggie and Jayce and met lots of guys; yet, most of those times my friends had to coax me out with promises of dessert or payment of my subway fare (which, they almost never did). But dating was a whole other story. Dating was a jungle too scary for me to safari through. Being a stay-at-home, single woman had devolved from a New England comfort to a New York refuge.

***

One month later, the semester ended in its usual hustle of week-long student conferences followed by week-long portfolio reading and grading sessions followed by week-long meetings on program assessment and reflection and projections. Along with the end of the semester came the end-of-semester party that was usually held at the Heartland Brewery in Union Square. Apparently a couple of professors who lived nearby had started the tradition of meeting there so that they wouldn't have far to go after they'd gotten plastered. Once again, Maggie and I took the train in together and joined our colleagues. Immediately I spotted Devin at the bar, this time wearing black (Versace again), and my insides tightened as I stiffened my lower back. I hadn't seen him since the seminar. I was dressed in my favorite blue jeans, a black t-shirt with a fraying, thrift store-bought, men's velvet blazer, and black leather boots. My hair was straight and shiny and fell in wispy flips. I glanced towards his direction, trying to be as subtle as possible, nudging Maggie on the arm.

            "Look who's here," I said under my breath.

            "Ooh, is that the male hooker?" Maggie asked. "Wonder who he's with." Before I had a chance to investigate, he caught my eye, smiled, and started to walk toward me. As Maggie nudged me back, my abdominal muscles pulled even tighter as I began to tremble. Even the hellos from my female colleagues and their attempts to block his path to steal a free moment with him didn't slow him down. The male professors looked at him resentfully, and no wonder. He was perfection. Michelangelo would've dropped his chisel and cut off his hands if he saw Devin.

            "Hi!" he said jubilantly. "Remember me? We met at a cocktail party a few months ago." He sounded a lot like Andrew did that day in the department main office.

            "Yeah, I remember you. It was back in February at the National Arts Club. I can't remember your name, though," I lied.

            "Devin." He extended his hand for a new handshake. "You are..." he paused for a minute and closed his eyes as his memory performed a quick search. "Andrea?"

My eyes widened. "Wow, I'm surprised you remembered!"

"I have a good memory for names. It's good for business. So, Andrea..."

 "Most people call me Andi."

"What brings you here this evening?"

"End-of-semester party. And you?"

"I was meeting a client for drinks, but I think I've been stood up. Can I get you a ginger ale while you're waiting for the rest of your party to come in?"

Geez, he even remembered the ginger ale. I turned to Maggie with a get-me-out-of-this expression and grew self-conscious as my colleagues watched me talking to Devin, eyebrows raised, certain they were thinking I'd hired him for the night, or previous nights.

"Listen," I said, moving away from the crowd and pulling him with me. "I know what you do for a living. And if you're trying to recruit me as a client, well, I'm not interested. First of all, I couldn't afford you. And second of all, I don't do-I'm not that kind of... I'm not interested, okay?"

You know that voice in your head, the one that screams at you like your third grade soccer coach as you've just kicked the ball into your own goal by mistake: What kind of shmuck are you? Devin confirmed my shmuckness with his twisted grin. He stood there and let me ramble. When I finally stopped, he spoke.

"For the record, I don't recruit-I have more than enough business. You look like an interesting person to talk to, that's all."

"Isn't that a conflict of interest?"

He started laughing as I felt my face turn a shade of burgundy that matched the glass of wine in his hand.

"That's cute," he said. "I'm sorry; I don't mean to embarrass you-are you uncomfortable with me?"

"Well, yeah."

"Look, Andi. I just wanted to say hello. Sorry if I made you uncomfortable. I'll let you get back to your colleagues."

He waved to them. They all waved back, with flirty, white-toothed smiles and their chests sticking out.

I stood there, my feet cemented to the floor.

"Okay."

Neither of us moved.

"It was nice to see you again. I like your hair like that, by the way," he said.

"You too."

Dear Lord, kill me now. Please. 

"See ya."

Devin finally walked away, and I unstuck my feet and headed for the ladies' room, shaking as I looked into the mirror. Get a grip. I took several deep breaths and a tissue from my purse; my nose was shiny. When I regained my composure, I took one last look in the mirror and looked at my hair: not a strand of my neo-shag was out of place. Chestnut brown and landing slightly past the bottom of my neck, it looked as if I'd just come out of the stylist's chair. He liked it like this. A smile escaped me as I exited the ladies' room.

 

Chapter Four

June

            FOR THE LAST FIVE YEARS IN MASSACHUSETTS, I HAD taught summer school English at a public high school. A year after Andrew and I started dating, he had signed up to teach as well. He always stuck to the high school curriculum; during the last summer we were together, he had tried to motivate his students to read The Canterbury Tales by converting it into a musical, while I invited my students to write argumentative essays about why the high school's mission statement was a crock. Andrew's class fanned themselves with rolled up Spark Notes booklets, while my class conducted peer reviews not unlike those I supervised at the college level. I'd refrained from telling him that his students were cutting his class to sit in on mine.

"I don't get it, Cutch," he said one afternoon in Pop's Coffeehouse, sweaty and deflated. "I'm not getting anywhere with them. I thought taking a fresh approach would help."

"It's summer, Hon," I said, sipping my iced vanilla chai. "Without air conditioning in the classrooms, you couldn't even get them excited about American Idol."

By the time I de-toxed from the academic year, then prepped for summer school, then de-toxed from that, then prepped for the upcoming semester, I hardly had time to sit down and write anything. But here in New York, I looked forward to my first full summer vacation stretched out ahead of me just like my students did. Except rather than go to the beach and work on future melanomas, I had excitedly planned to catch up on writing a collection of creative nonfiction essays and reading journal articles, not to mention Maggie's and my textbook project.

At the moment, however, I sat in front of my computer in my apartment surfing the Internet, with a floor-stand fan whirring loudly and rotating from left to right and left again. I was bored, tired, and lonely, and hadn't written a damn thing-heck, I might as well have been sitting in Andrew's summer English class, sweating and listening to him ramble on about A Midsummer Night's Dream and extol the virtues of the mandolin, trying not to pass out from dehydration.

I started looking through personal ads and match sites:

·         Smart is sexy! Intelligent WF seeks educated WM for long conversations into the night.

·         Trim SJM seeks slim, SJF for good times.

·         Books, beaches, and basketball are what this woman likes. No unemployed men, please.

·         I love women with curves! Come meet this lonely, 40-year-old male. No kids or smoking.

Oy.

I looked up at the bulletin board cluttered with post-it notes for essay and memoir ideas; phone numbers and email addresses of friends and textbook editors; photos of my two brothers, Joey and Tony; Maggie and me at the Language Arts Conference in Chicago two years ago; and one of Andrew and me, with Andrew's face scratched out. (I had kept it up as a reminder whenever I started to miss him.) Devin's card was still tacked up.

My phone sat in its cradle next to the computer. My eyes shifted back and forth from the phone to the card. Finally, I picked it up and dialed. After two rings, a voice mail answered, just as I was told. When it beeped, I began:

            "Hi, uh, this message is for Devin? Uh, this is Doctor Andi Cutrone. From Brooklyn University? We, uh, met a few times? I was wondering if I could, uh, talk to you? Uh, please call me at this number..."

            Oh, that was smooth...and why the hell did I use "Doctor."? Three years to get a PhD, and this is what I reserve my title for-leaving messages for escorts on hot June days?

            Two hours later, Devin returned the call.

            "A colleague gave me your number," I said with a wavering voice. "I hope that's okay."

            "Sure, it's fine. What can I do for you?"

            "Well, I'd like to meet with you, but not as a business meeting."

            "What do you mean?"

            "I mean I just want a consultation."

After what seemed like a long pause, he laughed.

"That's cute," he said. "Okay." I could hear his smile over the phone. "Why don't we meet at the W Hotel?"

            "I live on the Island, remember? Is there something a little more in the middle? How 'bout Junior's in Brooklyn?" I wasn't too keen on taking the drive, but it was fair. Besides, it'd been awhile since I'd had a slice of cheesecake.

            "Okay. When?"

            "What's good for you?" I asked.

            "Weekdays between one and four work for me."

            "Let's make it two o'clock on Tuesday."

            "I'm entering you in my palm pilot," he said.

"Me too," I said, scribbling on a napkin.

            "Thanks. See you then." I hung up the phone. My heart was racing.

What the hell are you smiling at?

***

I'd spent the days leading up to Tuesday trying to keep myself distracted-shopping at the Roosevelt Field Mall, trying on outfit after outfit (nothing, and I mean nothing looked good on me-I did not have a body for summer clothes), going to Jones Beach and drenching myself in sunblock for fear of getting a blistery sunburn and showing up to Junior's with a face akin to bubble wrap, and even going out to lunch with my mother one day, which goes to show how anxious I really was, although I said nothing to her about it-even Maggie didn't know about this meeting.

The smell of baked goods and coffee wafted through my nostrils as I flung open the door to Junior's. Located two blocks down and around the corner from the Brooklyn U campus, Junior's Restaurant was a New York icon, as familiar to Brooklynites as the Brooklyn Bridge, or Ebbet's Field once upon a time. Its autumn colored décor offset by black and white photos of the city was inviting enough, but the cheesecake-oh, the cheesecake! When restaurants in Massachusetts touted their "New York cheesecake," I knew they were hoping, praying that it might be worthy enough to be as tasty as a Junior's cheesecake left on someone's fork (and how there could be any trace of leftover Junior's cheesecake on someone's fork was beyond my comprehension). They served regular food, too, although I couldn't for the life of me remember anything on the menu. When I had first stumbled across Junior's website from which one could order a cheesecake to be shipped to just about anywhere in the country, I almost resented it, like a kid reluctant to let her friends play with her Barbie Townhouse and Corvette. Some things were meant to be coveted, savored, shared with as few people as possible. (Just so long as I was one of the included, I guessed.) Some things shouldn't be so available-you had to work for it. That way, you could appreciate it even more.

Even in the middle of the day, the place bustled with busboys, waitstaff, and patrons of all nations. As I waited to be seated and took a swig of water from the plastic bottle I always carried with me, I felt a light tap on my shoulder. I whisked around and instantly contracted the muscles of my mouth to refrain from a full-blown smile, but it was too late. The water dribbled from the side of my mouth and onto my shirt.

"Hey," I said, knowing I had already blown playing it cool. I capped and shoved the bottle into my Westford-Langley tote bag.

"Hi." He wore vintage Gap jeans and a faded midnight blue t-shirt, and his hair was tousled with pomade (and clearly Versace wasn't the only thing he looked good in). I, on the other hand, felt frumpy in light cream capris and a brown scoop-neck t-shirt, and was having a bad hair day thanks to the morning humidity.

We were seated at a booth, and without looking at a menu, I ordered a slice of plain cheesecake, my mouth already salivating for it, while he ordered coffee and rugelach. At first we made small talk.

            "So, how long have you been back to New York?" he asked me.

            "It'll be a year on August first," I answered. "I grew up in Northport, though."

            "No kidding! I should've known you were a North Shore Girl. I'm from Massapequa."

            "I should've known you were a South Shore Guy."

            "I'll bet we went to the same dance clubs in Hempstead back in the early nineties."

            God, I hoped not.

"What made you move back here?" he asked. "Certainly it wasn't a better cost of living."

"No, but it was a better job offer. I got my PhD and needed full-time, and my good friend Maggie-"

"-the one you were hanging out with at the Club and the Heartland Brewery..." he interjected.

Freakish memory.

"-yeah, well, she's the director of the first-year writing program at Brooklyn U and needed an assistant, and managed to convince the dean to appoint me without doing a search, being that it was a non-tenure-track position."

"Do you like your job?" he asked.

"A lot."

"Are you good at what you do?"

He asked the question in a way that made me think he already knew the answer, and agreed with me.

"I think so." I paused for a beat and answered more affirmatively, "Yes, I am." On the inside, I smiled; this admission anchored me in a way I hadn't expected.

I mustered up the courage to ask him about his line of work, taking a sip of water from his glass instead of my own by mistake. He was polite enough not to point it out to me, although he looked at the glass and I noticed quickly enough as I felt my face go hot.

"So, how'd you get into the escort business?" I asked, ignoring my blunder.

"Like you, I wanted to do something I was both good at and enjoyed. I enjoy being with women, pleasing women, and I'm good at it. Besides, the money is great."

"What do you do with them?"

"Same thing other couples do. We go to parties, plays-I've seen just about every fucking musical on Broadway-the opera, gallery openings, even a movie once in awhile. Then, sometimes I'll give them massages or shampoo their hair..."

"-you shampoo their hair?" I asked in disbelief.

"Have you ever had your hair shampooed?"

"Of course."

"At eleven o'clock at night in a bubble bath with candles?"

I paused to let my imagination soak in the visual, and felt a sensation not unlike a striking match run up my spine.

"Are you in the bathtub with them?" I asked.

"Not usually. It's more about indulging their pleasure."

"I think they'd be pleased to have you in the tub with them."

Devin shook his head. "Most women just want to be attended to, without worrying about having to give something back. They feel like they're constantly giving so much of themselves, trying to please everyone under the sun." He then leaned in toward me. "What's your pleasure, Andi?"

I stiffened and went on the defense. "Are you trying to come on to me?"

He leaned back against the cushioned backrest of the booth seat.

"Man, you are the most uptight person I've ever met, and I barely know you. I've never seen anyone so guarded. Were you raised in a religious household or something?"

"Yes."

"No kidding. What else happened to you?"

I averted my eyes just as the waiter returned with our order.

"Like you said, you barely know me," I said. "And by the way, I think I'm entitled to a little reservation."

I took a bite of cheesecake and chewed very slowly. Sweet mother of...

"You're avoiding the question," he said.

"Which question?"

"What's your pleasure?"

"Why do you want to know?"

"It's not something I plan to use against you, if that's what you're worried about. It's a valid question, right up there with what are your dreams in life and where do you see yourself living in five years."

"It may be a valid question, but it's also a personal question. Why should I share my sexual pleasures with you?"

"Who said they had to be sexual? Reading a book can be pleasurable. Riding in a convertible with the top down, every bite of that cheesecake-and I can tell you're enjoying that cheesecake; that cheesecake is absolutely sensual to you, isn't it."

I hate this guy.

"So?" he said. "What're your pleasures?"

I stared at him for a moment, the fork lingering in my mouth.

"Okay. You're right about the cheesecake. As far as my other pleasures go, well, I like chocolate, the sound of a really good acoustic guitar, a brisk walk on a warm, breezy day like today, and foot massages. How's that?"

            He finished chewing his rugelach. "It's a start. Now, imagine someone feeding you that chocolate, playing your favorite song on that guitar, taking that walk with you-although the walk is a bit cliché, isn't it?-and giving you that foot massage."

            Once again I let the image soak in, and once again I felt the striking match. But I kept my guard up.

            "I can get that in a serious relationship-why should I have to pay for it?"

            "For some women, it's worth paying for. For some women, it's the only way they'll get it. And when was the last time you got it? When was the last time you were in a serious relationship?"

            I thought of Andrew and realized that I was the one who gave him the massages, dragged him out for walks, and coaxed him to play me a song.

            "So, you're their savior. How nice of you. And all for a price."

            "I'm providing a service using my talents; same as you."

            "Yeah, but my service is legal."

            "My service is completely legal. I'm a companion for the night. The contract states explicitly that I don't-how shall I say this?-go beyond certain boundaries."

            "That's not what I heard. I heard you're pretty fucking amazing. And I've seen the looks on these women's faces. Don't tell me that's all from a kiss on the cheek at the end of the night."

            "I provide other sorts of pleasure, but you're assuming the rest."

            I sat and stared at him for a moment. He both annoyed and intrigued the hell out of me. I didn't know what to say next.

Devin resumed the conversation. "So. Andi. You wanted to consult with me. Now that you've done that, what do you think?"

            "I'm not interested."

            I lied. The fact is, I was really interested, but how could I tell him what I really wanted? How could I face my colleagues and friends-hell, face myself? And how could I afford it?

            "You sure?"

            My back stiffened. Does he know?

            "Yeah. Sorry to waste your time."

            "Not at all. I already knew you weren't going to be a client. But you are a very interesting person to talk to."

Didn't he say that the last time we met?

            "What makes you say that?" I asked.

"You're not the type."

            "What type is that?" I asked, defensive yet again.

            "You care too much about what other people think. You're too self-conscious."

            "No-I mean, what makes you say I'm an interesting person to talk to?"

            "I don't know-there's something about you, Andi. I noticed you the minute I entered the room, and I just knew I had to talk to you."

            He noticed me. By God, he noticed me from the moment he saw me.

My stomach fluttered, and I looked at my watch.

            "I should go before traffic gets bad," I said. He looked at me for a moment, as if he were studying me. We stood up, and when we got outside, Devin thanked me and shook my hand yet again, his hand warm. As we parted and walked in opposite directions, something inside tugged at me. Don't let him leave, I heard myself say. What makes you think you've got it so good? For God's sake, do something different!

            I turned and quickly walked, almost breaking into a jog, until I caught up with him and called out his name, somewhat startling him. We stopped in the middle of the sidewalk in front of a Laundromat.

            "Suppose I wanted you to teach me a few things."

His eyes widened as he smiled slyly. "Like what?"

My insides churned and my heart pounded and I opened my mouth and nothing came out. And yet, somehow I knew he already knew what I was going to say.

            "I'm kind of inexperienced," I blurted.

"Huh?"

"I mean...I'd like to learn how to please a man, and how to be more relaxed, I guess, and I was wondering if you'd be willing to teach me."

Oh God, I wanted to die, disappear, just completely fade into oblivion. He stared at me for a moment; the look was one of delight rather than disbelief.

"You wanna be a better lover, is that it?"

"Yeah, I guess so."

"What makes you think you can't or don't please men already?"

I didn't answer him, because, quite frankly, I didn't know where to begin.

Devin scratched his head. "Hmm." I waited for his reply. He was still smiling. "No one's ever made this kind of request to me before. You want me to teach you some things, is that it?"

"Yeah, whatever there is to teach. The problem is, I can't afford to pay you. I was thinking that maybe we could do some kind of barter system, and I don't mean sex."

"I didn't think you meant that. So, what have you got to trade?"

 I looked down at the cracks in the pavement, at the shade of royal purple polish that was chipping off my toenails, at the ant dragging a crumb to his condo in the concrete.

"Not much." I then looked at the used bookshop across the street, and it came to me: "I can teach you about writing. I'm very good at that."

Devin scratched his head again and let out another "Hmm."

"Why would I wanna learn how to write? It's not something I use in my career."

"Look, I can stand here all day and lecture you on the benefits of being well-versed. And it's not just writing I can teach. I know all about rhetoric, theories of writing and reading, non-fiction prose... by the time we finish, I'll be a better lover and you'll be fucking Aristotle-well, not literally, of course. Look at it this way: you'll impress all your clients in academia. In fact, I'm surprised you don't know this stuff already."

"My clients don't really talk shop with me."

"Maybe they'll want to after I get through with you."

"I'm not so sure that's a selling point. The last thing my clients want to do is talk or think about work."

I was getting frustrated.

"Look, Devin. That's all I can offer you. If you're not interested, then we'll forget the whole thing. But if this is something you want to do, then this is all I know, all I'm good at."

He bent his knees slightly to meet my eye level as he leaned in, peered into my eyes, and winked. "I find that hard to believe." His tone was so sincere that I actually took a step back, as if it swung at me. His eyes brightened. "Okay, you got a deal."

I was surprised. "Good," I said coolly, "and thanks."

"I'll call you next week and we'll iron out the details of the deal. But I'm going to tell you the one stipulation that I have with all my clients: You absolutely cannot fall in love with me."

"Don't flatter yourself."

With that, we parted ways once again. In my car on the way home, I compulsively tapped my ring on the steering wheel, inching along, wondering what I'd just gotten myself into with this guy who, as far as I knew, had all the morals of a tomato.

The Belt Parkway was backed up for five miles, followed by bumper-to-bumper traffic on the Expressway. When I finally got home, dinnertime was nearly over. I picked from leftovers in the fridge, watched summer reruns on TV, and went to bed.

The ceiling stared back at me nearly the entire night.

Chapter Five

July

Week One of the Arrangement

             WE BEGAN OUR ARRANGEMENT TWO WEEKS AFTER Independence Day, agreeing to have all of our meetings at Devin's apartment in the city because he had a less flexible schedule than I did. The arrangement was as follows: We meet once a week for seven weeks. Each meeting lasts for approximately two hours. The first hour would consist of me giving him a survey course in writing and reading nonfiction prose, much like the freshman composition course I taught at Brooklyn U; he would have weekly assignments to complete and would submit both a journal and portfolio at the final meeting. The second hour would be Devin's turn to teach me lessons in foreplay, sexual positions, methods, and orgasms. (The very words lay on the contract page like exhibitionists, flaunting prudishness at my face.) I too was going to have homework and complete a sort of test on our final meeting (or "a climax," as Devin cleverly dubbed it). The contract stipulated that if either of us developed "inappropriate" feelings for the other (infatuation, falling in love, or obsession), or engaged in behavior characterized as harassment, blackmail, or stalking, the contract would not only be nullified, but also a fine would be issued equivalent to the sum of total services rendered in either profession for that time period. One more thing: we were prohibited from personally socializing with each other.

We each signed our names and Devin gave it to Christian, his partner, for notarizing and safekeeping.

            The weeks leading up to the arrangement had passed in a blur. I arrived early to our first meeting filled with anticipation at the prospect of seeing Devin again, mixed with a hint of sheer terror. Devin's apartment was in West Village, a sweeping loft space with hardwood floors and a looming ceiling and soft, neutral painted walls displaying an eclectic art collection not unlike the many galleries that lined the streets of Soho. I circled the room as if I were in one of those galleries, pausing for a few moments to look at each picture. He handed me a cold bottle of Dasani water with one hand, a bottle of beer in his other. The day was hot, although the loft was air-conditioned without feeling like a freezer.

            "This is quite an apartment," I remarked.

            He looked around. "I like it. I got a good deal on it, right before the market went through the roof."

            "You own this place?"

            "Yeah."

            "Do you get benefits with this job, too?"

            He laughed. "That's cute. Shall we get started?"

            For the first thirty minutes, I assigned Devin to write a narrative depicting his history of reading and writing. He sat at his laptop and poked at the keys with his index fingers while I patiently finished viewing the artwork, admiring a Warhol behind him (holy crap, a real Warhol!), drinking from the sweating bottle and wiping its moisture with my hand onto my leg. I then moved next to him on his suede sofa and read what was visible on the screen while he continued to type:

When he was younger my father read all kinds of books about the history of World war I and II. He would tell me the stories when I was a kid but I wasn't interested. He also read the newspaper and liked to read the obituaries for some reason. My mother used to read to me at night before I went to bed. She read me the Cat in the Hat books and I memorized a few, like Green eggs and ham. I didn't take an interest in reading until I was older,, between 13 and 18. I read book after book and didn't stop until I got out of high school. I liked who-done-its and museum capers. I also remember learning about the beat writers and liking them a lot. I don't know hwy I stopped. The only writing I did was for school and occasionally I wrote a poem for my girlfriend.

What was his girlfriend like? I wondered. A strange kind of envy hit me like a crested wave and receded just as quickly.

When he finished, I asked him to read the entire narrative to me out loud, and he did so, fixing his typing errors along the way. We talked about the significance of the narrative and his current relationship with writing and reading.

            "What do you read today?" I asked.

            "The Art and Leisure section of the Times, mostly. I don't have time for much else."

            "And what do you write?"

            "Checks."

            I then gave him a short piece to read called "Amid Onions and Oranges, a Boy Becomes a Man," by Donald Murray. After he finished reading it, we talked about Murray's style and use of sensory description, and the concept of writing our own story as we read someone else's. In turn, I asked him to write a response to Murray's story. Devin wrote about his first sexual encounter when he was fifteen years old. Just as he finished reading it aloud, I had turned away and took a swig of water, some of it slipping from the side of my mouth and down my chin. My cheeks were flushed, and he noticed when he looked up from the screen.

            "Sorry, didn't mean to embarrass you."

            "I can see you've already picked up on sensory description," I said. "That's an interesting word you chose to describe the encounter: lascivious. Where'd you get that word?"

            "I read some sex books when I got into the business."

            "You didn't mention that in your narrative."

            "Didn't think that counted."

            "Everything counts."

            I made a mental note to look up lascivious when I got home.

            Devin's watch beeped; the first hour was up.  He then stood up and took a final swig of his beer.

            "Okay, Andi. Take off your shirt."

A look of horror possessed my face. "What?"

            "You heard me." He picked up a remote and pressed a button, pointing it at his stereo. Club music blared from all four corners of the room. He kept pressing, and each time the speakers responded with snippets of songs, some of which I could make out the melody. My silent game of Name That Tune continued. "What kind of music do you like?" he asked, still station-surfing.

            "Beatles, Hendrix, Clapton, Nat King Cole, Diana Krall, Norah Jones, John Mayer..."

He glared at me and cocked an eyebrow.

"I like guitars and pianos."

 "What kind of music makes you feel sexy?" he asked.

I paused. "I'm not sure. I never thought about it."

"That's your first homework assignment: listen to every CD you own and make a list of songs that make you feel sexy or put you in the mood."

He walked over to the tower next to the stereo that housed his CD collection and ran his finger down the vertical façade, pulled out a case, and when he opened it, the disc slipped out and bounced and spun on the floor like an oversized coin. He picked it up like a Frisbee, and his fingerprints glossing the surface bothered me; I always hold my CDs supine and by the edges. Seconds later, Etta James began to belt out "I Just Wanna Make Love to You." Devin programmed the stereo with the remote to repeat the song. He then led me to a full-length mirror.

            "The first thing I want you to do is to get comfortable showing off your body in daylight. Nothing makes a guy more anxious than a woman who is constantly uptight about her body."

            "Why?"

            "It's like stepping into an alligator pit. If we try to say something to make the woman feel better, we ultimately say something stupid and make her feel worse; if we say nothing, that's even worse because then the woman wonders what we're thinking and fills in the answer for us, which, of course, is always the wrong one."

            "What are you thinking?"

            "Please don't fucking ask me if you look fat."

            "What if she is, though? I mean, what if she's got layers of it and triple chins? Surely you must have clients who are both obese and insecure. What do you say to them?"

            "I empower them by giving them the option to talk about it or not, or I simply start touching them and they forget about it. All they really want is to be touched, to be validated. And I've seen enough art depicting figures of every shape and size that all bodies are beautiful to me."

            "You're really into art, huh," I said, hearing the stupidity of the sentence seconds later and regretting it.

            "Don't change the subject," he reprimanded. "Take off your shirt."

I stood between him and the mirror, frozen.

"Look, Andi. You agreed to trust me. I'm not going to harm you in any way, I promise. And if something is so uncomfortable that you have to stop, you can. I'll never force you to do anything you don't want to do. But if you can't even dip your feet into the water, then you might as well go home and we'll tear up the contract."

            He was right; I had to start somewhere, and I had to trust him. I was wearing a heather-gray SCCC t-shirt and denim cut-offs. The straps of my white Body by Victoria bra slid off my shoulders as I tentatively pulled the tee over my head, careful not to rub it against my face and smear my makeup, most of which had gotten gooey during the stuffy subway ride. Oddly enough, a repressed memory reared its ugly head:

Fifth grade, elementary school nurse's office. Four girls and I are told to strip to our underwear for a physical. A strange, pale man with gray hair is examining us, accompanied by a nurse (also a stranger); he makes us lift our undershirts and pulls down our underpants. (Why did he do that? I can't remember.) They weigh and measure each of us and announce our numbers. I am the heaviest, and the girls make fun of me, because I am also the shortest.

            Devin broke the flashback. "Nice bra. Body by Victoria. Are you wearing the matching panties?"

            "No," I responded, slightly dazed. "They're blue cotton." He told me to look up at him, but I couldn't make eye contact with him. I felt his eyes looking me up and down, and I wanted to crawl out of my skin. I scanned the room for an exit.

            "Tell me what you're thinking and feeling, Andi."

            "I'm feeling massively uncomfortable, and thinking that I've made a huge fucking mistake to do this since I hardly know you."

            "Understandable. But you had enough fucking guts to ask me in the first place. And I commend you for that. Really, I do. That's not something an inhibited woman does. Something in you wants to get past this fear and discomfort, otherwise you wouldn't be here."

My muscles relaxed slightly after he said that.

"Just listen to the music," he said. His voice lowered to a soothing pitch. He continued, "It's just you and me. No one else is in the room, no one can hurt you, and you can leave any time you want. But before you do, I want you to look in the mirror."

            I turned and stood before the full-length mirror, fixated on my half-exposed body. My belly protruded from under my breasts, lifted and held by the bra. My breasts were big and saggy. My body stocky and short. Shoulders narrow. Back broad. Legs stunted. Arms wiggly.

"What do you see?" he asked.

"Flab everywhere," I replied. "What do you see?"

            "I'll bet if you stood here, completely naked and posed, you'd have a Reubenesque body. Really, Andi. You're voluptuous. You've got this fleshy belly, you're curvy, you've got ample breasts, your legs are great, and everything's in proportion."

            Were we looking at the same body? I suspiciously eyed Devin's reflection in the mirror.

            "Oh, you're a smooth tawlkuh-you are, you are," I said in my best Marisa Tomei, My Cousin Vinnie impersonation. I could tell he was getting a little annoyed.

            "Do I say what women want or need to hear? Yes. Is it bullshit? I don't think so. All women are beautiful, Andi. And I didn't get my reputation by bullshitting my clients. Women come back to me because I tell them the truth."

            "All women? Oh, come on! Qualifier aside, you're a modern-day sophist! You tell them the truth, but it's a truth swaddled in words like 'voluptuous' and 'Reubenesque' and 'curvy.' Like putting Sweet'N Low in your ultra-caffeinated coffee after downing a greasy cheeseburger and fries-what difference does it make?"

            "First of all, I have no idea what a sophist is. Second of all, which would you rather hear, that you're curvy and voluptuous, or that you're not as fat but your breasts are bigger than some women I've met? Truth is relative, is it not? And you just told me in my first lesson that word choice goes a long way when persuading an audience to keep reading."

            My mouth hung open as I stood there. Quick fucking learner.

            "It's perception. Look..." He lifted the lid on a leather ottoman next to a chair, pulled out a coffeetable book and opened it to a Reubens painting. "Do you see a fat woman? I don't. These painters regarded the female body as the essence of human life. Her flesh was life-giving, her curves life-affirming. And painters captured that and all its beauty."

I flipped through the book slowly, studying each earthly, heavenly figure, looking in particular at bodies that seemed to resemble my own. Why did I see these as stunning and mine as stunting?

            "Go back to the mirror and look again, and tell me one thing you like about your body-any part."

            I went back to the mirror and stood skeptically, staring at my reflection, feeling the rhythm of the song that was on its second playing. I looked at every part of my body.

            "I like my eyes."

            "I do too. What else?" he asked, standing behind me. I paused and looked again. "Look at your body."

            "I like that my body seems to be flabby in proportion. It's not as if I have these little boobs and an excessive belly, or a butt that is three times the width of my waist."

He nodded while I looked some more. "I like my legs, too," I added. "They're muscular."

I looked even more and remembered how Andrew used to compliment me on my legs. My legs and my face-everything else in between was nonexistent, I guessed. Then again, I'd pretty much covered up everything else.

My observation was jarred by the touch of Devin's moist hands on my hips and waist in an attempt to move them to the music. I jumped. "WHOA! I forgot to tell you that I am massively ticklish."

He stepped back. "That's cute. That's really cute. We'll make that work to your advantage. In the meantime, start dancing."

            Devin made me dance in front of the mirror, moving and swaying to the rhythm of the music. "Feel the words," he kept saying. "Don't just see yourself as half-dressed and dancing. See yourself as sumptuous."

My bra straps kept sliding off my shoulders and my bare feet squeaked and stuck to the wood floor, knocking me off balance a couple of times. But by the fifth round of "I Just Wanna Make Love to You," I forgot that he was in the room, watching me, and instead I watched myself sway my hips and bend my knees and stick out my chest and raise my arms over my head and seductively motion to my reflection as if motioning to my lover. It had never occurred to me to wonder if he had been turned on while watching me.

Finally, he stopped the CD.

"Good. Your homework this week is to fall in love with your body. Actually be attracted to it. Also, practice dancing, because next week you're gonna dance for me-not the mirror-and I'm gonna have you strip further."

I made a second mental note to wear matching underwear that day.

Devin's homework was to write the first draft of a memoir, read a Patricia Hampl essay, and make a list of twenty of his favorite words. My homework was to make a list of sexy songs and dance naked in front of my mirror. I wondered who had it easier. Sitting on the hot, stuffy train packed with gray-skinned, faceless commuters, I closed my eyes and listened to Etta James in my head all the way home.

Chapter Six

Week Two of the Arrangement

 I DANCED ALL WEEK. I DANCED TO EARLY Duran Duran and Janet Jackson and Robert Palmer. I danced to Etta James and Ella Fitzgerald and Ray Charles. I danced to Jimi Hendrix and Joe Satriani and Stevie Ray Vaughn. I danced in my cut-offs and a bra, in bra and panties, in a bathing suit, topless, and finally, naked. I danced in daylight and in darkness. I always danced in front of the full-length mirror in my bedroom (although one early evening I caught myself checking out my reflection in a shop window). I watched the way my breasts moved, the way my arms formed shapes in the air, the way my legs jutted out, round and muscular. I watched my feet tap in rhythm. I watched my hips sway and thrust. I watched my neck turn, and strands of my hair fall in my face. I watched every curve, every curl, every roll, every muscle. And Devin was right: I fell in love with my body.

She was exquisite. I'd never seen such fullness, so much fertility in this five-foot-four-inch frame. I began to trace her, line by line, in my mind's eye: a combination of controlled contoured lines and sketchy, gestured strokes. I shadowed in the crevices where her thighs met, where the cleavage of her breast began and ended, like a waterfall. I highlighted the roundness of her shoulders, the delicateness of her fingertips, the softness of her cheekbones. I posed for these portraits everyday, as traces of ugliness and self-judgment melted away and beauty blossomed.

This was a far cry from the hate-hate relationship I'd had with my body ever since I was about nine and embarrassed myself one summer afternoon. Dressed in cut-off denim shorts, a child's bikini top, and Dr. Scholl's sandals, my skin a lustrous bronze from carefree play and summer vacation-swimming, I had entered the livingroom where my brother Joey was playing his guitar.

"Does this look sexy?" I asked, in reference to my outfit, wishing open-toed Candies shoes came in kids' sizes (for all I know, they did; but there was no way in hell my mother would have ever bought a pair for me).

He laughed. My brother laughed at me, and I figured I must have looked as ridiculous as I felt at that moment.

By eleven years old, I'd stopped playing outside and started reading inside-mostly novels about shy high school girl heroines winning the hearts of captains of the football team. I secretly wrote similar storylines as well. By fifteen years old, I'd discovered Drake's Ring Dings. By eighteen, I'd surrendered in defeat to the enemy that was my fat body. Even when I Slim-Fasted myself down twenty-five pounds, it didn't matter-the psychological collateral damage had already been inflicted. Since then, I'd yo-yoed the same twenty-five pounds every three or four years; I was on the upswing since I'd broken up with Andrew, plus another five pounds since my once-a-week jaunts with Maggie to the Krispy Kreme kiosk in the Brooklyn U Student Center.

***

When Devin and I met again for our second meeting, he instantly noticed a difference in me.

"Wow!" he exclaimed. "You've been practicing!"

"How can you tell?"

"Your walk. You entered upright, confident. As if you own this room."

I couldn't help but reveal my enthusiasm. "It was incredible, Devin. I've never been so accepting of my body. It's such a good feeling to look in a mirror and like what I see, even if Cosmo is telling me I'm too many sizes too big."

"Fuck Cosmo-those models are all airbrushed anyway. You're real. Besides, you look gorgeous." I blushed and turned away for a second in an attempt to hide a smile from him; I hadn't been called "gorgeous" in a long time.

"How'd you make out this week?" I asked. He raised his eyebrows and handed me three pages, typed and double-spaced, as required. One of them was the list of his twenty favorite words:

kiss

watercolor

tarantula

shadow

stroke

pet

cadmium

caress

lake

ostentatious

pedantic

shaft

lecherous

cookie

tarp

canvas

bunny

didactic

turpentine

cochlea

I read the list silently, smiling at every other word, with the exception of "tarantula".

"What made you pick that word?" I asked, pointing to tarantula.

"It's just a cool-sounding word."

"And the others?"

"Mostly I either like what they are or the way they sound when they're said. The words that end in 's,' for example, can sound really sexy depending on what kind of voice you use." In a low and softened tone, almost Barry-White-ish, he cooed, "Lecherous." I laughed and imitated him.

"Carresssss," I exaggerated. He looked at me flirtatiously.

"Oooooo," he moaned with a wink.

 Next, we talked about the Hampl essay, and the fine line between memory and imagination. What's the difference between a lie and fiction? I asked. Voice, Devin replied. Interesting answer, I thought, not to mention impressive. Finally, I read the draft of his memoir:

My fifth grade class took a field trip to the Museum of Modern Art when I was eleven years old. I didn't know anything about art, my only experiences consisted of whatever we had to do for art class in school, which was mostly paper mache projects or painting with poster paints or working with tissue paper and that sort of thing. I remember liking to finger-paint as a child, though. My mother bought me a set and for hours I set my dirty little hands into the colors and made all kinds of patterns in the newsprint.

The class went to see a Picasso exhibit. We spent a week in class learning about Picasso and all I got out of it was that he was a weird Spanish guy who was supposed to be a genius. The museum was huge. A castle of marble. Gigantic wall after gigantic wall of paintings, sculptures, drawings, and tapestries.

The class listened to the old tour guide talk about Picasso and explain the paintings, when he painted them, but I wasn't listening, and I wasn't interested in Picasso. We had passed another room that had caught my attention, and that's what I wanted to see. So I snuck away from my group and my class buddy (we always had to have a buddy when we took a field trip so as not to get lost) and went into the room. It was not as big as the other rooms, but just as well lit and quiet as the rest. I must have been a curious sight: an eleven-year-old boy dressed in Levi's jeans and a Rolling Stones glitter t-shirt and Addidas sneakers so fascinated with these pictures on the wall.

The first painting spanned almost the whole wall. It almost looked like a finger-painting, and perhaps that's what caught my attention. It had lots of blues, greens, whites, and yellows in it from far away. But when I looked up more closely, I could see just about every color you could think of in these tiny, quick brushstrokes. It was as if my eyes had suddenly become blurry and I could not make out shape or image. I circled the room and looked at other paintings and was fascinated the same way by their use of color, light, brushstrokes, and form. The dancer was my favorite. She almost looked as if she would pop right out of the painting and start twirling, just for me. She was absolutely beautiful.

I don't remember how long I was in that room, it seemed like an eternity. I don't even remember other people walking around the room. It was as if I was the only kid alive. The next thing I know, I hear someone calling my name, and it's one of my classmate's mothers who was chaperoning the field trip. She didn't yell at me but she seemed to have both a mixture of relief of having found me and anger at me for having run off. My teacher, however, had no problem yelling at me. I didn't care, though. I discovered the beauty of art that day, even though it wasn't through Picasso. I did, however, develop an appreciation for Picasso much later on, but to this day it's still the Impressionists that blow me away. I came home from the museum and announced to my parents that I was going to be an artist. My mom said, "that's nice." My dad, however, told me that the only thing that men paint is houses, and if I wanted to be an artist the first thing I should paint was a pair of fairy wings for myself. I never could stand his closemindedness.

"I didn't really know how to end it," he said, almost apologetically.

I read through the draft once, and then a second time, taking out my felt-tip blue pen and making notes in the margins, underlining some phrases and circling certain words. Devin watched me do all this, and with my peripheral vision I saw his apprehension. The writing was choppy and repetitive in style and structure, as well as laced with comma splices and fragments, with dabblings in metaphor and description; much like my freshman students' first drafts. And yet, I saw something else here, something more complex bubbling underneath the surface. I see that with all student writing-the possibility that lives within the flaws.

"What do you like about this draft?" I asked him, breaking the silence. Puzzled by the question, he studied the words as if they were cryptic markings, as if the idea of liking his writing was something foreign to him.

"Actually, what I like is what I didn't really write about. It wasn't just that I fell in love with those paintings, but that I also found them on my own. No tour guides, no teachers. It was the solitude of the moment-I was in my own world, and it could've lasted ten minutes or two hours, I really don't know. And maybe there was a little excitement at having escaped from the herd, so to speak."

"That's what I see," I responded. "There's so much in this memoir that's not on the page yet. So much you can do with it."

We discussed figures of speech and adding description and letting the moment of revelation-the discovery of beauty, both in art and solitude, and the rejection of his father-show itself without him having to tell his readers. As time ran out, Devin looked at me with admiration.

"Wow. You're really good at this."

"Thanks."

I must have sounded unconvinced by his sincerity, because he continued. "No, I mean it. You really know how to see what's going on while giving constructive criticism at the same time. I think I was expecting you to tell me it was crap. If I had a teacher like you the first time around, I might have remembered more about writing. Hell, I might even not have been so bad at it."

"Well, you're not a bad writer; actually, I think this is quite good. You're inexperienced, that's all."

"Same as you."

"Huh?"

"There's a ravenous, sexy lover in you, and we're gonna bring her out just like you're gonna help me with my writing. You'll see."

He was so corny that I gagged in the process of laughing and swallowing at the same time. I took a sip of water. Devin looked un-phased.

"Okay," he said, standing up. "Your turn. Strip."

My eyes widened and I coughed again as I looked at him.

"Geez, you could be a little more tactful. Whatever happened to foreplay?"

"First of all, foreplay is next week. Second of all, I don't wanna be tactful. Tactful is: Now take off all your clothes, piece by piece, and don't worry, your body is beautiful," he said in a condescending voice. "We did that last week. You're beyond that now. Let it out."

"How much am I letting out?"

"As much as you can."

"Would you at least lower the blinds so I'm not giving the rest of the city a free show?"

He rolled his eyes and closed the blinds, shutting out the streams of sunlight that cascaded onto the walls and floor and sofa. I noticed the color of the sofa had changed from a slightly off-white to taupe once the rays were extinguished. He likes neutrals.

This time I wore a matching pink bra and panties, again by Victoria's Secret. Beads of sweat formed at my temples and rolled down my flushed face. He took a step towards me, and I backed away. "What are you gonna do?" I asked.

"Relax. Geez, Andi. You gotta trust me."

I remember:

I am twenty years old and in one of the co-ed fitting rooms at the Gap. An eighteen-year-old employee accidentally unlocks my room for another customer and gets an eyeful of me in bra and panties and one leg in a pair of size twelve jeans that are too tight. I recoil in both surprise and horror and don't know what to cover first. He promptly but disingenuously apologizes and slams the door, and I am mortified. When I finish changing, I bring the tight jeans and other rejects to the entrance of the fitting rooms and hand him the stuff without making eye contact. As I walk away, the tow-headed kid mutters under his breath but loud enough for me to hear, "Get over yourself, bitch; there was nothing worth looking at."

"Fuck you, Devin." The words fired out of my mouth like a bullet. "You take your clothes off. You think this is easy? I don't even know you." I recalled saying that to him once before.

Devin didn't even flinch at my words; instead, he did as I commanded and started to remove his t-shirt and jeans, revealing a chiseled body and navy blue silk boxer shorts. The hair on his chest was dark and short and drew a line from his breastbone to his navel. His skin was tan and firm, his muscles toned and trimmed without bulging or looking like an abs infomercial. His legs were powerful and sturdy and tall. I was viewing a replica of Michelangelo's David. He stood before me, completely uninhibited, and stretched his arms out, almost in a Christ-like way. My mouth hung open like a thirsty dog.

"See how easy it can be?" he said.

I had to catch my breath before I spoke again. "Of course it's easy for you-look at you! Who wouldn't wanna show off a body like that?"

"Andi, you just got through telling me that you fell in love with your body."

"Yeah, well, that moment's over."

"Why?"

I didn't answer him.

Devin looked at me with compassion, then closed the rest of the shades in the room. Next, he turned on the stereo and went through his CD collection. "We've had enough of Etta James," he said, more to himself than me. He finally settled on a Latin album.  The syncopated drums were no match for the rhythm or the rate my heart was beating at. He padded back towards me, his bare feet making light thumping sounds on the hardwood floor, and stood right in front of me, invading my space. I felt myself lean back slightly. His eyes locked into mine and overpowered me in such a way that my insecurities were stopped in their tracks by stun rays shooting out of his pupils. And yet, his sienna irises radiated firm gentleness, as if to protect the rest of me from freezing in fear.

"Okay. It's just you and me and the music. No one can see us, and no one else is here. Pretend you're fully dressed. Do you like the music?"

I nodded.

"Good," he said. Let's dance."

The sweaty soles of my feet stuck to the floor. Devin tried again, patiently, without coaxing. "You can't please a man until you please yourself. Men like women who like their bodies, who feel comfortable in their own skin."

"I never met such a man. I've only met men who like women with bodies that would make Barbie wanna throw on a pair of sweats."

"Then you've been meeting the wrong men. Close your eyes. Pretend you're in your bedroom." He leaned closer and whispered, "No one can judge you, Andi, and no one will."

How did he know?

I began to sway to the music, and when I opened my eyes, I looked up and met his smile. I smiled back and moved even more. He began dancing too, and within minutes we were bathing in the bossa-nova beats, twirling and twisting and tapping. The two of us-an escort and a writing professor-dancing in our underwear in broad daylight on a hardwood floor in a loft on the West Side. All fear flew away; I felt free and light. When the music slowed down to a ballad, Devin extended his hand to me. "Wanna?" He asked. I took his hands and pressed myself close to him, anxiety creeping back in.

"I haven't done this in awhile," I confessed. Not since Andrew and I danced at our friend Marcy's wedding two years ago, when he held me close and blew in my ear and looked into my eyes and told me he loved me, told me that the next time we danced it'd be at our own wedding...

"I mean, slow danced with a guy-not danced in my underwear in broad daylight. I've never done that."

 He noted, "You're going to be doing a lot of 'firsts' from now on."

Hell, yeah.

We circled the floor awkwardly a few times, and then fell into rhythm. Devin held my hand as if it were porcelain, while resting his other hand on my back in the same gingerly manner. His skin was surprisingly smooth, and his scent was overpowering-no manufactured cologne could ever smell as good, I thought. I imagined someone trying, though: "Introducing Giorgio Armani's Devin..." My sweat turned to chills running from my feet up the backs of my legs and converging up my spine to my neck. I bravely decided to make eye contact-God, his eyes were so compassionate, so nonjudgmental, so honest. The chills turned into tingling, and I completely forgot we were both stripped down.

I wanted to kiss him.

The music stopped, and I could tell that he sensed my impulse. He let go of me and took a step back.

"You're gonna have to beat the men off with a stick," he said.

I said nothing, motionless.

"You can put your clothes back on now."

He snapped one of the shades open and it flapped wildly as the sun burst in and blinded me out of my daze. I put my knee-length denim skirt on first, followed by a soft red blouse. He also dressed.

"You know, you really do have a nice body. You should show it off more. And you look really good in red."

This time, I believed him.

That was my homework assignment: show off my body. His was to start keeping a journal, choose three paragraphs of his memoir to revise, and read an article called "Closing My Eyes as I Speak: An Argument for Ignoring Audience" by Peter Elbow ("the Paul McCartney of rhetoric and composition," I call him) in addition to two memoirs: one by Annie Dillard and the other by Stephen King.

That evening, I went clothes shopping at the Roosevelt Field Mall and purchased two low-cut, scoop-necked tees with cami-sleeves (a 2-for-$10-sale), one red and one periwinkle; and a short, sleek, linen skirt that flattened my tummy without straightening out my hips. I also bought a pair of espadrilles (another sale) with a 2½-inch heel. As I passed the Gap on my way out, I spied a teenage boy with red hair folding shirts in front of a display table, who looked up at me for a moment and then resumed his folding, and I strutted all the way back to my car.

Chapter Seven

Week Three of the Arrangement

 

ON THE DAY OF OUR THIRD VISIT, I TOOK OFF MY sandals and curled up on Devin's sofa as if I lived there myself, surprised by my sudden gesture of comfort and familiarity. Devin didn't seem to mind, however.

"So," I began, "tell me about your weekend."

He eyed me suspiciously. "You don't wanna look at my memoir? I revised more than three paragraphs."

"We'll get to that. First, tell me about your weekend. Rather, read to me."

He opened his laptop and read bits and pieces from his journal, mostly about the dates he was on, describing the women-he was quite descriptive of the women-and where they went.

"Okay. Now I want you to rewrite what you just read to me, only I want you to pretend you are writing a letter to your mother."

It was his turn to look at me with wide eyes and a dropped jaw. He stared at the screen for a few seconds, then started and stopped several times, feverishly backspacing or deleting. Meanwhile, I read his revised memoir, making notes in the margins. Finally, out of frustration, he stopped and revealed a look of surrender, diverting my attention from his draft to him.

"What," I said like a statement more than a question.

"Why am I writing my mother a letter about what I did over the weekend?"

"Because she lives across the country and you haven't written or spoken to her in awhile. You want to give her an idea of how you're living your life."

"First of all, my mother lives in Massapequa. Second of all, she wants to know nothing of my life-at least not this part of my life. Third of all, for what purpose would I-"

"A-ha!" I interrupted. "You said the magic word: purpose. Audience and purpose are inextricably linked. You write a cover letter with the purpose of getting an interview. You write a shopping list with the purpose of remembering what you need to buy, or giving the list to whomever's doing the shopping. You write a memoir for the purpose of recreating a memory or event to convey a new meaning for the reader, even if that reader is you. And each of these things takes place in a different context, be it the personal, daily life, the workplace, etcetera. If you are uncertain about your purpose, then your audience is ambiguous. If you are uncertain about your audience, then your writing is ambiguous."

"Makes sense."

"For example, what's the purpose of your journal?"

"I wrote it because you told me to."

"And the audience?"

He paused and thought for a second.

"You know, I just realized, I knew you were going to read it, so I had you in mind most of the time."

"How did that influence what you wrote?"

"Not so much what I wrote, but the way I wrote it. I thought a lot about the description and imagery. There were even times I felt as if I was talking to you."

"And if you were writing for a magazine... say, a profile piece: A Day in the Life of an Escort-how would you write that?"

"Depends on the magazine: Reader's Digest, or Cosmo?"

"You get the gist," I said, smiling and pointing at him.

He grinned proudly.

"I liked what Peter Elbow said about the idea that sometimes you've got to ignore your audience, and doing so can lead to better writing," he said as he flipped a page of the photocopied article until he found a passage that he underlined, and then read directly from it: "As writers, then, we need to learn when to think about audience and when to put readers out of mind."

"Yes," I concurred.

"I had a hard time with the section in which he defended the claim that sometimes the audience is an audience of one: the self."

"Actually, I think he's responding to the claim that there's no such thing as private discourse, or no audience at all. And yet, I think both claims hold some truth. For example, in the film Imagine, John Lennon is trying to talk an obsessed fan back to reality. He basically tells the kid that the songs he wrote were for himself and no one else."

"Wow. I never thought of that."

"The kid had a hard time with it too. When he asked Lennon what he meant by 'you're gonna carry that weight,' Lennon wryly answered, 'That was Paul's tune. You'll have to ask him.'"

Devin grinned again, and I continued, "The Simpsons writers, the writers for the classic Bugs Bunny cartoons, all confessed to writing for themselves. That's why they're so damn funny. In such cases, you can tell when a writer stops writing for him or herself and starts trying to meet the expectations of an audience, especially when some executive asshole claims to know better. The show tanks as a result."

"So did McCartney," he added.

"But what if Lennon wrote songs that he didn't play for anyone or put on tape? What about the scripts that went into the fire without anyone's viewing? That's what Elbow means by private discourse. In those cases, you ignore all conventions of audience awareness, including the audience of self."

"Cool."

We then moved on to the other memoirs. "Why these two?" he asked. "What do they have in common?"

I responded, "Annie Dillard and Stephen King couldn't be more far apart in terms of genre and style. In those aspects, it's as if they come from different worlds. And yet, they speak the same language-that is to say, they know language so well, and use it the way a good painter uses light and color and form."

His eyes brightened at my art analogy. As we analyzed each memoir's content and language, we talked about ways Devin could use language to convey his meaning in his own memoir.

"I could use words that keep a reader interested. Not just for the sake of being smart or literary, but to make them feel like they're in that museum gallery with me."

"Very good," I said. "Make them feel what you want them to feel. You have absolute power, Devin. Other writers or teachers or readers can guide you, give you feedback, tell you what they like or don't like; but ultimately, it's your story and your truth."

"Wow," he said. "I had no idea."

"No idea what?"

"That I could do such a thing. I mean, I know writing has power. I guess I never thought of myself having access to it."

"Why wouldn't you?" I asked. He pondered this.

"I don't know." He grinned. "But I'm glad that I do."

Devin closed his laptop. Time was up.

"So," he began, "tell me about your weekend. I see you went shopping. Nice espadrilles, by the way." He winked.

I stuck out my ankle and proudly showed off my shoe, my toenails painted a deep red. He then switched the conversation. "Now it's your turn to do some freewriting."

I looked at him and raised my eyebrows.

"Make a list of what gets you in the mood," he instructed.

My back stiffened and my stomach tightened. He noticed this and rolled his eyes. "Here we go again," he said.

"Didn't we already cover this?" I said.

"When?"

"That day at Junior's."

"Andi, if you can't talk about good sex, how can you have good sex?"

I could've debated this point, but I kept my mouth shut and stared at my notepad instead. Like Devin, I struggled with what should have been a relatively easy assignment. After about five minutes, I only had three things on my list:

·         having my neck (and pulse points) kissed

·         having my feet rubbed

·         Nat King Cole ballads

He made me read the list aloud and I felt the spark of his eyes burning through the page and stinging my skin.

"Cute," he said.

"Cute?" I asked, insulted.

"Yeah. That's it?"

I looked at him sheepishly. "Actually Devin, I never gave it much thought."

"How come?"

"I don't know. I guess I was always so self-conscious about whether I was doing it right or wrong that I never considered what I liked or disliked."

"Okay. Then tell me what you do to get the guy in the mood."

Again, I paused. "I don't know," I said after some thought.

He stood up and took off his shirt and, like last time, a flash of heat ran up my spine. "Pretend I'm your lover," he said.

Pretend? Woof.

"Touch me the way you'd touch him. Come on to me the way you'd come on to him. Do everything but kiss me."

"But what if kissing is one of the things I do?"

"I just don't want you to get carried away."

I looked at the floor in an attempt to hide my disappointment. "Okay."

I hesitated.

"Don't you think you should teach me how to kiss?" I asked.

He cracked a grin that mixed modesty with mischief. "You don't need to learn how to kiss."

"How do you know? You've never kissed me."

"I don't need to kiss you to know that kissing's not your problem."

"What is my problem?"

"Your problem is that you think you're a bad kisser; you think you're a bad lover. You think too much. Just do it, Andi. Be a good kisser. Be a good lover."

"Ha. Easy for you to say."

"Easy to do, too."

"Then what do I need you for?" I asked. Sarcasm aside, it was a good question, I thought. And I wanted him to answer it.

"You're so good at avoidance," he said. "You're supposed to be showing me how you get your guy in the mood."

I frowned, irked by his assertion. But rather than fuel his claim and further avoid the task by arguing the point with him, I stood and slowly approached him, feeling silly in this role-playing mode. He was six-foot-two, and the 2 ½ inches on my shoes helped me reach up and run my fingers through his hair. It was short and full and silky and layered, and I moved even closer. He followed my hand as it moved through his hair by putting his own hand on my arm.

"I used to do this with Andrew," I said softly, in almost a whisper.

"Who's Andrew?" he replied in the same quiet tone. It suddenly occurred to me that I'd never mentioned him.

"My ex-fiancé."

"No kidding. I didn't know you had a fiancé."

"Well, I did."

"And his name was Andrew?"

"Yep."

"Did people ever call you Andy and Andi?"

"You think you're the first jackass to think that's funny or original?"

"Well, did they?"

"He's always 'Andrew'."

"Not Drew?"

"Good God, no. I picture guys named Drew wearing argyle sweaters and Dockers and loafers."

"When'd you break up?"

"About a year and a half ago."

"Is that why you moved back to New York?"

I didn't answer. Instead, I caressed his face, now cupping it with both hands, and then followed my fingers along his neck and down his bare chest. His skin was firm, his muscles tight, his arms full and massive. God, I wanted to kiss him. As I moved my hands back up to his shoulders and massaged them almost like kneading bread, my nails slightly digging into his skin, he grabbed me by the wrists.

"Okay, that's good enough," he said. I looked in his eyes, but quickly looked turned my attention to his hands, which now took hold of my own and squeezed them-I couldn't tell which of us was trembling. He took a breath, as if to compose himself.

"Wanna know what I think?"

"What." My breathing slowed down.

"I think you're doing what you want a man to do to you, and you don't even realize it. I think you'd like someone to, for instance, touch your hair..." he tucked a strand of my hair behind my left ear, "to run his fingers along your neck..." the back of his hand glided over my left carotid, along the edge of my chin, and down the center of my neck, stopping at my cleavage, like a melting ice cube, "to just completely saturate you with touch..." he whispered in my ear.

I closed my eyes and my breathing deepened. When his index finger barely grazed my left breast, I let out a soft sigh that turned into a moan, and fell into him. He caught me just as I snapped out of his sexual trance. Once again, his eyes burned into me.

"Can I have some ice water?" I asked foggily, still staring at him. He commanded me to sit on the sofa and got me a bottle of Dasani and a glass of wine for himself. He then sat next to me. After a few sips, he began talking.

"It's all about communication," he said. "You wanna let him know what you like, and find out what he likes. And like readers, each one is different. What one does well, another may suck at-forgive the pun. One guy may like when you run your fingers through his hair, while another may want you to run them someplace else. Lovers aren't mind-readers, Andi. Never assume he knows what you want-you gotta tell him. And trust me: he'll want to know. He'll feel good knowing he's making you feel good. Men feel a sense of satisfaction when they can make a woman come, 'cause they don't know what the hell's goin' on in there. And he'll be more willing to tell you what he likes."

"But what if I don't like to do what he wants me to do, or what he likes? Or what if I don't like what he likes to do?"

"Well, then, he might not be the right guy for you."

I looked at him, confused. "Just because we don't agree on foreplay?"

"Depends on how important it is to him, or to you."

I pondered this and sipped my water.

"Isn't it true that most men would rather skip the foreplay?" I asked.

"Not if it's the best part of the sex."

"I thought the other part was supposed to be the best part. You know, the 'biggie'."

He leaned in close, and I could still feel the heat coming off his body from our role-playing before. "Let me tell you a little secret, Andi."

"I was hoping you'd kiss me instead."

"Everything they told you about sex is wrong," he practically whispered.

"Who is 'they'?" I whispered back.

"Whoever told you what you think you know." He then leaned back on the sofa, and looked at me more quizzically. "How did you learn about sex?"

            No one had ever asked me this, and I'd never really given it much thought. I grew up in an Italian, patriarchal household on the North Shore of Long Island, the youngest of three. My two brothers, Joseph and Anthony, were handsome, popular, and extremely talented musicians, both playing professionally by the time they were adolescents. Joey was a jazz pianist, Tony a rock guitarist. They were quite protective of me until they moved out and went on the road with their respective bands. They would beat up bullies and each would walk on the other side of me, like bodyguards, regardless of whether we went to the mall or the movies. I certainly didn't turn to them for sex education. Whenever I went to one of the seamier dives where they performed, they would actually announce to the audience that I was their little sister and "off limits", much to my embarrassment. In sixth grade, when Gary Whitmore sent me a Valentine along with his phone number and a picture of himself, Tony called Gary and warned him to "stay the hell away" from me. The next day, Gary stopped speaking to me; the week after that, he gave my friend Rosie a little stuffed bear.

            I don't remember much about my father; he died from a heart attack shortly after my thirteenth birthday. He worked a lot and played golf and guitar on Saturdays and attended church on Sundays with the rest of the family. He forbade me to watch soap operas ("those things are disgusting"), wear two-piece bathing suits ("you're not a woman; you're just a girl"), and swearing was absolutely forbidden in the house, dammit. After my father died, my mother was too consumed with grief to usher her daughter through any pubescent curiosities. And the older I got, the more she seemed to resent me for my youth and vitality and figure. She criticized every accessory I wore, and the sound of my laugh was "too suggestive." She bought me baggy sweaters and spandex leggings. By the junior prom, I had gained thirty pounds and the boys reviled me and gawked at the Heather Locklear-types instead.

            Public school treated the matter of sex education like something as rote and sterile as the SATs, and I was simply too scared to ask my friends, one of whom called me a prude after I refused to look at the Playgirl magazine she had managed to get her hands on.

I babbled all this to Devin, barely pausing for a breath. So then, how did I learn about sex?

"Judy Blume books, I guess," I finally answered.

"Trust me, there are better sources."

My head sunk; God, how pathetic. I'd felt this feeling before. Shame penetrates every internal organ like bile, churning and eating away from the inside out.

Despite telling me that lovers aren't mind-readers, Devin responded to my thoughts as if I'd spoken them out loud.

"What are you so ashamed of?"

My head stayed tilted toward the floor and I took a few seconds to find a voice with which to answer him. "My inexperience."

"I don't think that's anything to be ashamed of. At least you're learning something now. You're willing to own your experience. And besides, it's not like you had much encouragement growing up."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, you were told that you were off limits, and that sex was some big taboo, a secret, and you were not worthy to know about it."

I had never realized that. Suddenly I saw my childhood through new lenses.

"And that's a bum wrap," he continued. "It's bad enough that society teaches us that a woman's body is supposed to be a thing of service. You had a double-edged sword. Your brothers, although well meaning, sent a message that you were to serve no one. And both notions are dead wrong. They punished you for being who you were, for being attractive to and pursued by others. They probably thought you were too good for the average guy, but you took it to mean that you were the one who wasn't good enough. I'll bet you were vivacious and even sexy as a girl, and your family snuffed that right out of you."

He reached out, gently touched my chin with his hand, and lifted it, to find tears streaming down my cheek. He moved his hand from my chin and smudged the wet line across my face. I tried to look at him, but couldn't.

"You're a very sexy woman, do you know that?"

I shook my head.

"You wanna know something else?" he asked.

I felt like a little girl, and he was soothing away a scrape on my knee or exonerating me from the vase I broke. "What," I nearly whimpered.

"You turned me on before."

I sat up a bit.

"Really?"

"Hell yeah."

"How? What did you like?"

"I liked the way you stroked my hair. It's been a while since a woman's done that to me." He took my hand and held it, touching each finger. "I like the feel of your hands. You've got these delicate fingers. I'll bet men like your gentleness."

If they did, they never told me.

I looked at his hand, and moved my own so that his was now in mine.

"I like hair that I can run my fingers through," I said, looking at his dark brown layers. "I like your hair."

Womanhood rushed back in and took over, and my voice lowered to a soft, round tone. "And I loved the way your hands felt on my neck," I added. 

He smiled and looked down-I could swear he was blushing. I moved close enough so that our legs were touching, and leaned in to him. "Do you want more?" I asked. He laughed lightly and very slightly moved back, and I recoiled in secret mortification when I assumed that he thought I was kidding.

"So," I began, sitting straight up, recomposing myself and resuming a scholarly voice, "is the purpose of foreplay to have better intercourse?"

"Depends on your audience," he said with a wink. "Actually, I think the purpose of foreplay should be pleasure, plain and simple. Stop worrying about it so much and the intercourse stuff will take care of itself."

"Again with the pleasure-you're a hedonist, you know that?"

"It's my job," he said earnestly.

"Are you saying that your clients enjoy the foreplay more than the actual sex?"

"That is the sex."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't go all the way with my clients, Andi."

If I had a dollar for every jaw-dropping moment with Devin, I could've bought his friggin' loft.

"You don't?"

"Nope."

"But you're an escort! What are they paying you all that money for?"

"To please them."

"And you do that without actually..."

"Inserting my penis?"

The words made me wince.

"There are lots of ways to get laid, Andi. In fact, most female orgasms don't happen during intercourse."

"Actually, that I knew."

"Have you ever had an orgasm?"

"Yes and no." Despite my hope that the conversation would end there, he was clearly waiting for me to continue. "I never had one with a man. I mean-"

"You mean, you did it yourself?"

"Yeah," I said squeamishly.

"That's pretty common. So, how did the men you were with react when you didn't have one with them?"

"Well, my first boyfriend took it personally that he couldn't get me to have one, so after that I started faking it."

"You faked all your orgasms?"

"Yeah-that I've got experience in."

"How'd you learn to do it?"

"Movies."

"Porn or regular?"

"Geez, are you kidding me? Regular."

He laughed. "I know, I just wanted to mess with you. So what kind of orgasm do you give yourself? I mean, how do you do it?"

My face burned a bright red. "I can't."

"You can't what."

"I can't tell you."

"Okay. Last question on the subject: Clitoral or vaginal?"

Oh good God. My face buried in my hands, I had to reach deep to find the guts to answer, "The first one." Finally, I detoured the questioning. "So then, what do you do?"

"I do lots of things with my clients, except, you know..." Rather than use words, he made a fist and moved it back and forth in a push-pull motion. "...and none have walked away dissatisfied. Well, few...I mean, they know ahead of time what they will or won't get from me, and they keep coming-forgive the pun-to see me, that is, so obviously it's enough for them. They love it, actually. For once, they don't have to work so hard, don't have to literally bend over backwards to please the guy, after which he rolls over and goes to sleep, leaving her feeling all alone. I told you: it's not about me; it's about them."

"Are all the escorts you employ like that?"

"Not all. Christian used to be, but he stopped servicing his clients altogether. He manages the business now."

"How come? I mean, how come he stopped?"

"He wanted a serious relationship."

"And?"

"And women are much more tolerant when they find out you're not actually doin' it." He continued, "James stopped, except with a few regular clients, and Simon still does even after we told him not to. Both of them charge extra and pocket the cash-that way, if they get arrested, Christian and I can say that we had no knowledge and can produce their contracts, which state that they're not supposed to."

"Smart thinking. And you?"

"What about me?"

"You don't?"

"Nope."

"Never did?"

"I told you-in my experience, that's not what my clients need."

"It's what I need," I blurted in frustration, surprised I'd said the words out loud.

"Oh, you definitely need to get laid," he agreed. "When was the last time you did?"

Again, I pondered. How could I answer that question truthfully? I thought about the last time Andrew and I were together, in a bed-&-breakfast inn on the Cape, the night he told me about Tanya...

...It is supposed to be the night we finally "do it..." Flowers, candles, and expectations in abundance. We've been engaged for four months. We undress each other, and he lowers me on the bed, soft acoustic guitar music playing in the background. He touches me in all the places I love to be touched: up my thigh, inside my elbow, behind my earlobe. I run my fingers through his long hair and feel my body tremble. We're both naked. Just as he's about to go inside, I sit up, overly apologetic. He stares at me coldly for a long second, and then proclaims, "That's it."

"Please," I plead. "I just need more time. I can do this. I want to. I'm just not ready yet." I slip my robe on and quickly cover up.

"When, Cutch? When will you be ready? It's been almost a year."

"I don't know," I cry.

"What is wrong with you?"

"I don't know...I just can't. It doesn't feel right. Maybe if we wait 'til we're married. Maybe it would be more special then."

"Then what? You'll freeze up on our wedding night? No, Honey. I'm sorry. I know I said I'd wait for you, but I can't anymore. In fact..." he hesitates. "I wasn't going to tell you this, but there's someone else. A friend of mine named Tanya from the writer's group."

I feel the life force energy drain from my body.

"I was with her once, but told her I was in love with you. But now, she's fallen in love with me, and I told her I would let her know how things went this weekend."

"Are you telling me that you're TESTING me this weekend to see if I'll be a good enough lover so you can break up with your other lover?"

"Cutch, you have to understand. She doesn't have any issues, and she's more than ready. You can't ask me to wait for you anymore."

"I never asked you; you promised me on your own. Are you in love with her?"

 He waits for a moment; then looks me in the eye. "I think so. Look, I would've been content to stay with you-"

"CONTENT??"

"-but this sex thing is really a problem for me. You just don't satisfy me, and your company isn't enough. I'm sorry. I don't mean to hurt your feelings."

I am too numb to be angry. I feel as if I've shrunken to the size of a stain on the carpet. "You can take me home, now," I say. I robotically walk to the bathroom, change, and hastily pack my bags...

"At least a year and a half ago, when Andrew and I were still together. Maybe longer," I lied.

"No kidding. So why'd you break up?"

"He decided to marry someone else." I looked down at the floor, avoiding Devin's eyes.

"I'm sorry to hear that," he replied, the tone of his voice softening. He took a sip of wine. "That's it?"

"What do you mean, 'that's it'? Isn't that enough?"

"Didn't he give you a reason as to why he chose this other woman?"

"Are you implying that it was my fault?"

He held up his hands as if to deflect a punch. "Whoa-chill out! I wasn't impl-I was just asking a question."

"Why?"

"Look, I'm just trying to get to know you, that's all. You asked me to be your teacher. I need to find out what you need to learn. Don't you do the same thing with your students-assess their needs?"

This guy was really starting to piss me off by throwing everything back into my face. I stood up and took the water bottle with me.

"Maybe we should forget this whole deal," I said, standing. Devin stood up too.

"I don't think we should. I think you really need it. And besides," he said, pointing to the laptop, "I'm liking this. I'm actually learning something."

I looked at the laptop on the cedar coffeetable. Somehow, it just didn't feel like an even trade. He was getting off way too easy, in more ways than one.

"Is this what you do?" he asked, moving in close to me. "Do you quit when it gets hard?"

"Do you?" I retorted, looking down at his crotch and then back into his eyes, nodding my head in the direction of where we were standing during our contrived foreplay session. Frankly, my boldness surprised me, and him too, because his back stiffened and he looked away from me.

"Time's up," he said coldly.

 

*     *     *     *     *

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