I’d gone there to fuck the Big Man, of course, and though neither of us had made any pretense of it in the flurry of emails establishing the when and where, the reality of his presence embarrassed me. As we made the requisite tour, I scanned each room for some subject for comment, something to avert the focus, to expunge my obvious perfume of insecurity. I ran my fingers over every surface I could reach. He stood inconsiderately still and only smiled as I roamed.

The rooms were small, almost comically so, and shared with two cats who resented my presence. I stooped to pet one, but the Big Man advised against it.

And then my eyes found the lemons.

They weren’t special lemons -- not the preternaturally robust Ponderosa lemons that I’d sliced and eaten with salt during one childhood vacation in Florida -- just lemons in a bowl on a coffee table. Fresh lemons, though, in a glamorous yellow. Emissaries from summer on a drizzly November night. I reached for one and held it to my nose. The scent was pungent, exciting. The Big Man produced a paring knife and salt.

The apartment itself smelled at once old and fresh, like mass, a wine cellar or maybe catacombs. Having what an old beau termed a "Spanish libido," I’ve drawn a link between sex and the myth of the Mediterranean. I like to feel like I’m doing something wrong and Catholic.

In truth, though, that Spanish libido had always been an ill fit on my awkward, white girl frame. What little romantic truth there had been to it left me with my twenties. Sex in my thirties had become as erotic as static cling, consisting of rare weekend trysts with "up and coming" young nobodies sporting sizeable egos and less impressive cocks, the occasional inappropriate advance lofted toward my lesbian gynecologist (politely ignored) and evenings of perfunctory masturbation with Nancy Friday. Inadvertently, I’d inured myself to a muted existence by swathing my clit in the cotton batting of routine. Up at six thirty, to the office by eight. Meetings, clients, phone calls.

Flirting was part of that routine, a tool in the box. Had the Big Man’s proposition been vaguely subtle, I’m sure to have missed it but the Big Man is mercifully direct. The message in its entirety read, "You talk too much," followed by an address in Queens and "Bring your toothbrush."