Everything Changes

stomach.
    “Hope,” she says, extending her hand, and for the briefest instant you don’t realize it’s her name, but imagine that she’s wisely identified the defining motivation that brought everyone in the place out tonight.
    “There’s no easy way to break this to you,” you say, “so I’m just going to come right out with it. I’m here to hit on you.”
    Hope laughs, and it’s a rich, musical laugh, unguarded and comfortable, like you’re old friends. Not at all what you expected. “Well,” she says. “I appreciate your candor.”
    “May I begin?”
    “Go for it.”
    And what follows is two hours of perfect conversation, the kind you couldn’t have scripted if you wanted to, the kind where it becomes instantly apparent that your sensibilities and wits jibe, and when the conversation turns to banter, it’s easy and fun and never veers away from the substance of the discussion. And she quickly becomes familiar, touching your wrist when she laughs, leaning in to you easily when the crowd jostles her. And after a while, you realize your friends have left, and her girlfriend is long gone, and it’s with mixed feelings that you realize that they’re ringing last call at the bar, because on the one hand, when was the last time you made it to last call, but on the other, what the hell do you do now? You’ve long ago determined that tonight will not be about sex (as if it were up to you anyway), not because you don’t want it, God knows you do, but because you don’t want to ruin this one with a crude one-night stand. But you don’t want the night to end, either, even though it already has. So you offer to walk her home and she acquiesces, and that works out well because it’s bitterly cold outside and she doesn’t so much hold your arm as wrap herself around it, and the wind blows her hair into your face, drawing tears as it whips at your eyes, and there’s intimacy in this, so much more so than with casual sex. Her building is one of those posh monoliths on Fifth Avenue, and you start to say good night, your voice hoarse from hours of shouting above the jukebox, but she pulls you past the doormen—
“Hi, Nick. Hi, Santos”
—and into the elevator. And before you can work up the nerve for a good-night kiss, she does it first, kissing you deeply, hungrily, backing you up against the elevator wall, the full length of her body pressed against you, making you wish to God you weren’t both wearing thick coats. And this goes on for fifteen flights, and then a little bit more, since she doesn’t stop when the door slides open on her floor. And then she steps back, breathless and windswept, deliciously disheveled, and says, “That was lovely.” She pulls out a silver Cross pen from her bag and writes her name and number down on your hand, and under that she writes
To Be Continued,
and then she turns serious and says, “Listen, Zack. I’m not into games and I don’t like players. If you like me, call me, okay? There’s no appropriate waiting period. If I don’t hear from you tomorrow, I’ll assume you’re not interested.”
    “I passed interested about three hours ago,” you say.
    She smiles and kisses your nose. “Then I’ll speak to you tomorrow.” And then she ducks out and the door slides shut, and you fall to your knees, savoring the sweet pain of the unfulfilled erection shrinking in your pants, and offer a short prayer of thanksgiving as the elevator car slowly brings you back down to earth.

    We began dating after that, intensely and exclusively, and I kept waiting for the bubble to burst, for Hope to look across the table at me and realize that somewhere, an error had been made, that she’d mistaken me for somebody else. But her smile always seemed utterly sincere, and she laughed at my jokes and returned my kisses with unchecked ardor, and when we walked, she always reached for my hand while I was still considering the implications of reaching for hers. That was pretty much how it went, Hope leading the way while I refrained from making any moves, terrified of calling any undue attention to myself that might cause her to reconsider my general worthiness. But it never happened, and three weeks into it, as we climbed into a cab after a late Friday-night movie, she interrupted me as I started to give the driver her address, and gave mine instead, smiling out the window as I trembled silently beside her. When we got home, I unwrapped her like a gift and we fell into bed,