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       The night I met HIM …

       And I do lift my aching arms to you,

       And I do lift my anguished, avid breast

       And I do weep for very pain of you,

       And fling myself at the doors of sleep, for rest,

      D. H. Lawrence, ‘A Love Song’

      This is what I know: I took a short cut to the real thing. I slept with a man I’d known for less than an hour. It wouldn’t have been the first time nor the last. Before you make a value judgment, it’s just who I am. It’s not an everyday thing. Hell, months can go by, but I have gone down the road of indiscriminate sex before. Who hasn’t, really? It’s part of the rite of passage of being a young woman. I’d had the requisite long-term relationship before. But no one had come even close to being LTR material since then until HIM. HIM.

      So how did I meet HIM? I remember perfectly. I’d gone to a reading of my sophomore Community College students’ work at the Downtown Library. It was a big deal for them and we’d all dressed up for the occasion. I was wearing a flowery vintage lacy dress that showed off all my curves. I’m ordinarily a jeans and T-shirt kind of gal, but the occasion gave me an excuse to wear something pretty. It made me feel alive and sexy.

      I was sitting next to THE BOY during the reading. Our shoulders were touching. I’d always had a thing for him since the day he walked into my class when he was a freshman. He’d been taking my classes every semester and acted like he had the hots for me. During the readings, I tried to listen to the students read but mainly I was thinking about how nice it would be to have sex with THE BOY. He was on the swim team. He was dark and sleek and had a swimmer’s body.

      After the reading, my students asked me to go with them to some diner down the street but I begged off. I’d been a community college instructor for too long. Hanging out with the students had lost much of its charm.

      I bid them adieu. There was a new high-rise hotel across the