I didn’t say any of it. It was probably because I knew she hurt feelings wherever she got. She had broken so many hearts, had disappointed so many women, that I didn’t feel too guilty about maybe disappointing her a little. After all, the disappointment, like the sex itself, would be for one night and for one night only. And she had something I wanted to have. The very fact that I wanted to have, after two years of not having and more and more months of not wanting, made me forget all my principles and good character. So I didn’t warn her, I didn’t get too serious; I just told her about my week, my day. In the middle of a sentence, she took my hand and looked at my fingernails. She laughed.

“So are you gay at all or am I just wasting my time here?” she asked.

That was a line, of course; she knew too well that she was never wasting her time.

“Well, I haven’t found the right label yet, but you’re not wasting your time,” I replied. I would have winked if I had known how to do that. I just smiled, and she smiled back.

“What about that label?”

I sighed with the smile still on my face.

“Well, I just don’t know. I like women, I like men, but I don’t like them equally, so the term ‘bisexual’ doesn’t seem to fit.”

“Not equally? You mean you like the one kind better than the other?”

I shook my head. “No. I mean that the kind of feelings I have for women are incomparable with my feelings for men – and vice versa. It’s just so different.”

“So you date both?”

She made me talk about my dating record, my past relationships, all the while watching my mouth. The conversation might have become a little deeper, but this, still, was foreplay. She was probably listening just well enough to ask meaningful questions. But it was about my lips moving, I knew. I had just finished telling her about my last boyfriend.

“And after that?” Anything to keep my lips moving, apparently. For someone who doesn’t care about anything but sex, she made quite an effort.

“After that was my first serious girlfriend. Lasted two years. We lived together, too.”