His name was Steve and he was a medical resident. Great, I assumed, he’s older than I thought. Then he told me he’d done a five-year program, meaning he went straight from high school to anatomy and pharmacology without wasting four years on the Great Books and music appreciation. He was a first-year resident now, an intern, with a long haul until he’s certified by the American Board of Emergency Medicine.

He said he lived close to the bar. Alone. In one room with a sleeper sofa. Don’t expect too much, he told me, not wanting me to be disappointed. We opened the bed together, backs to opposite walls of the tiny room. The sheets didn’t match and there was only one pillow. The blanket was rough as sandpaper. The first few moments were awkward and the night seemed destined to end in frustration and failure as he resisted the only plays I knew how to execute-quick rough jabs, poking his asshole with my fingers, grinding, pushing, racing to a quick, fierce conclusion.

“Slow down, we have all night.” He laughed.

All night…with no eye cocked to the bedside clock or wristwatch, no ear pricked for the sound of a creaking door announcing the arrival of an intruder looking to empty a full bladder, no mind distracted by the need to compose an excuse for being late, again, or a reason for being called out of town on short notice, again.

“I really like your body,” he said. “I want to get to know it.”

How long had it been since I’d last heard a few simple words of affection? My restless, frantic assignations were always accompanied by a soundtrack of guttural grunts punctuated with harsh commands, suck it, fuck me, yes, god, yes. I flipped him on his back and pinned his wrists above his head, a clear message that he was my prisoner now and that it was useless to try to escape. He smiled and opened his mouth, his wagging tongue inviting, no, begging, me to kiss him. I slapped my hand over his lips when he tried to speak, expecting dreaded words like daddy, sir. But he shook my fingers away easily, insisting I hear what he wanted to tell me.

“You have a really nice face. Your eyes are incredible.”

I’d never felt so completely possessed by another person before, never clung to anyone so greedily. Even the briefest bathroom break seemed like an eternity. There were no barriers, nothing I wasn’t willing to do, even allowing him to go where no one had been since the long red snake many years ago.

In the morning he asked me to wait so we could leave together. He wore his scrubs proudly, certain that they gave him an air of authority, but, to me, he looked like a happy toddler in a comfy playsuit. We exchanged phone numbers. He gave me his home number, but told me to try the cell first. He’s a busy guy, he said, on the move. He was young and having a romance with the commitments of grown-up life. The phone was his sweetheart. He wouldn’t have believed me if I had told him the day would come when he would be exhausted by its demands.

I waited a respectable three days, calling his home number from a different time zone, in midday, when I knew I’d reach his machine and avoid any possibility of awkward pauses, flimsy excuses, maybe even hostility. I couldn’t blame him. He wouldn’t remember anything about my face except the lines in my forehead and the bags under around my eyes.

Hi. It’s Andy. Just wanted to let you know I had a great time the other night. Hope you’re doing well. Stay in touch.

That’s it, I thought, I’ll never hear from him again. C’est la vie. He was a nice kid. I really liked him. I felt a kick to the stomach. My cell phone rang two hours later. I was finishing a sales call and let it roll into voice mail.

Hi. It’s Steve. Nice to hear your voice. Where are you? Texas? Right? When do you get back? Call me. I’ll be home tonight doing some reading. Bye.

He answered on the second ring. I told him about my late flight; he told me about the broken bone he’d set on a little boy. The dreaded awkward pauses never came. He asked when I would be home. We made a date for hamburgers and beer later in the week.

I was a few minutes early; he was right on time. He was still wearing his scrubs. His forehead was peppered with beads of perspiration. He’d rushed, afraid of being late. I extended my right palm for a handshake. He leaned forward and kissed me, not on the cheek, but smack on the lips. The hostess was too startled to ask smoking or nonsmoking.

The beer settled the butterflies in my belly. The hamburgers were eaten, the last fry dredged through the ketchup. We split the check. I only had a twenty and he had to make change for me. He had a question to ask before he handed over the ones. Did I bring my own toothbrush? No, I lied, not wanting to sound presumptuous. He laughed and handed over the bills. Good, he said, now I know I didn’t waste three bucks when I picked one up for you this afternoon. He slept in my arms that night; I lay awake, enchanted by his snoring. Don’t forget me this week, he said in the morning, kissing me good-bye at the door.

He called me in Salt Lake City and said he wanted to make me dinner in his tiny bed-sitter when I got home from my trip. Four nights later, I sat on the bed in my underwear, listening to him chatter as he chopped and minced. He was eager to share his history, insisting I know him, or at least his romanticized view of himself.

I like you. I like you. I like you so much.

He kept repeating the words as we made love that night.

Why couldn’t I respond? Didn’t I like him too? No. I realized my feelings ran deeper than that. I couldn’t explain them without sounding crazy, obsessive. He couldn’t know the impact of his words; he wouldn’t understand I’d waited my entire life to hear another man speak them but had made conscious, deliberate choices to ensure I never would. And all that careful planning-compartmentalizing, rationalizing, justifying, avoiding, excusing, lying-where had it gotten me in the end? Locked in a fucking jail cell and kicked out on the street. But somehow I’d survived to make it here, at long last, to this tiny apartment, at the brink of an auspicious beginning. But my fear of the risks of intimacy, the possibility of rejection, still held me back. The only thing more terrifying than losing my home, my job, my good name, was the very real possibility of losing my heart.

I felt him squirming in his sleep. He rolled on his side, turning his back to me. I finally fell into a light sleep as the sun was coming up. He threw his arm across my chest, reaching for the alarm, then flopped on his back. I waited for him to touch me, to stroke my chest, to dawdle a few minutes, reluctant to leave the warm bed. He scratched his armpit and yawned. I rolled toward him, pretending to be asleep. He slipped out from under my arm. Then I heard the water running.

He seemed to spend an hour in the shower, but it couldn’t have been more than ten minutes. I hoped he would crawl back into the bed, all warm and damp. But he went directly to his closet and pulled on his scrubs. I opened my eyes and yawned. He noticed I was awake and smiled.

“Rise and shine,” he said, sounding like my mother.

He offered me a bowl of Cheerios. I declined and ducked into the bathroom for a long piss. I came out and dressed without speaking.

“Last chance for oats,” he said, tipping the bowl to his mouth. He wiped the milk from his chin with his sleeve.

“Where do ya live?” he asked, maybe realizing that last night he’d shared deep, dark family secrets and I’d volunteered nothing.

“Far suburbs, Gastonia actually.”

He looked puzzled. Local geography meant nothing to him.

“You married?” he asked.

“No. No.” I laughed, nervous. “Why?”

“I dunno. Sometimes you seem married.”

“I was once,” I admitted.

I broke down and told him the truth. At least part of the truth. That I lived with my mother, quickly qualifying it with the explanation that she had cancer. Someone needed to be with her, I said, afraid of sounding like a boastful knight.