I went on: “Boys got into the picture when I was sixteen. But the ones my age always seemed woefully insecure and only into getting themselves off and not really enjoying each other in sex the way I and my girlfriends had learned. I liked being fucked a lot. And using my mouth and hands to get guys off was a seductive kind of power trip. Smart girls learn that being good at that made them putty in my hands, so to say. That was also when I started developing my secret interest in erotic spanking. This happened thanks to running across my parents’ secret porno stash and discovering The Story of O among their dirty books. I masturbated like mad to that book. In fact I actually bought my own copy on the sly and kept it under my mattress to pull out when I wanted to play with myself. When I was seventeen, I finally wised up and got a much older boyfriend. He was a guy in his twenties who really liked sex and treated my body as a banquet. I think he enjoyed getting me off more than himself. Some nights I would stop counting the number of times he would make me come before he did. Then I came to college, and the whole casual hookup scene took me over. Initially I was happy to get laid by a different guy or girl almost every night. But that has gradually waned in its appeal for me since freshman year. Since the beginning of junior year I just sleep with a few girlfriends, especially my roommate who is a real sweetheart. There is one guy with whom I am ‘friends with benefits’. He is a gorgeous drama major who is way too histrionic to be a boyfriend but is a great piece of ass every week or two. So that’s the entire story of the sex life of Abby, such as it is.”

Rafe looked at me with interest and warmth throughout this narrative. He sipped his latte and took in my sordid past with no apparent judgment or obvious titillation. When I finished he said: “Well, my dear, it sounds like you are very experienced and at peace with your sexuality in some ways. But you remain quite a novice when it comes to actually making love in a profound sense of forming the deepest imaginable connection to someone you care about. I am not interested in just having sex with you. But I would very much like for us to make love together. And given how attracted I am to you, the sooner the better. Shall we walk on over to my condo and see how that plays out for us?”