Chapter 4: Lesson Two

"Nothing," I said. "I didn't do anything to him."

Bernie looked at me over her glasses for a long moment.

"Mm," she said, and handed me a dish towel.

That was Sunday.

By Thursday I had checked my phone constantly and answered four emails.

His text came at six.

"Eight o'clock. Wear what you want me to take off."

I wore the green dress.

When he opened the door he looked at it, and then at me, and the corner of his mouth moved.

"You listened."

"I'm a quick study."

"Show me."

He took my coat and hung it on the iron hook by the door.

Then he stood very still in front of me and waited, the way he had the first night.

I had been practicing in the shower.

"Kiss me," I said. "Then take me to bed."

"Where do you want my hands?"

"On my hips."

They went there.

"Higher."

"Here?"

"My breasts."

He cupped them through the green silk, his thumbs finding my nipples, and I felt my knees go.

He kissed me against the brick wall until the sounds I was making stopped embarrassing me.

When he finally carried me across the room I had lost the thread of every plan.

He laid me down on the bed and undressed me with a slowness that bordered on cruel.

Dress, bra, underwear.

He folded each piece over the chair.

I lay there naked under the lamp, and he took off his shirt.

He was lean and strong, with a long pale scar up the left side of his ribs, and I stared at it.

"Bike," he said. "I was fourteen."

"It's nice."

"It's ugly."

"Come here."

He came down over me, braced on his forearms, and the heat of his skin against mine nearly undid me.

He kissed my throat, my collarbone, the tops of my breasts.

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