I’m in the habit of removing my pants the moment I enter his room. While he gets me a glass of water, I hop up on the window sill and lean back against the glass in my shirt and cheap cotton underpants. He places the cup of water beside me and then takes a flying leap onto the big white bed. Everything he does makes me want to kiss him.

He rolls onto his side and tells me about the hooker who came and went this afternoon. He asks me about my day, and I tell him, and I tell him about the site, and he walks through his material and asks for my opinion.

I lean to one side to block the sunlight from his eyes. “I love this city,” I say. He tells me he’s thinking of buying a place here, and I tell him that he should. I’d love that. I’d rather he be here than L.A.

Then he sees someone in an adjacent building and tells me to close the blinds. “I doubt they saw us,” I say, assuming that nobody knows he’s here, but then he tells me about a member of the press who spotted him in the lobby. When he says this, the force of it hits me all at once, and I drop from the window and flatten against the floor. “I can’t get photographed with you,” I say.

He laughs at me, or with me, but most likely at me, and drops the blinds. He says something about us being mutually fucked if we’re caught together, and then he turns up the music.

I jump up and take my own flying leap onto the bed. He settles in beside me and slides his hand into my drawers.

I’m on my period but Paul is never fazed by my womanly cunt. He loves my body so completely, and I love him loving my body, even when I’m like this, premenstrual and unpleasant in ugly cotton underwear.